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February 2007 Archives
February 28
Giant Crab, Enemy Crab After a Sony exec gave gave a really bad demo at E3 for an upcoming PS3 game, mean gamers re-edited the embarrassing footage to segue into a cool dancefloor remix.
posted by w0mbat at 11:08 PM PST - 39 comments
Whu? Bill O'Reilly does a respectably good interview with...
Marilyn Manson! This is surprising on so many levels. And the content, superb. Well worth the viewing.
[video link] via Cyberdork via Redditposted by five fresh fish at 7:50 PM PST - 63 comments
Daniel Tammet (
60 Minutes clips) is a highly functioning autistic savant able to learn Icelandic in a single week and recite PI to 22,500 places. "Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do. It just comes to them. Daniel can. He could be the ‘Rosetta Stone."
Previously on MeFi, he has a new
book and
movie (Google Video, 48m).
posted by stbalbach at 6:51 PM PST - 22 comments
Elyse Sewell (some language NSFW), the nerdy, smart-mouthed, pre-med athiest who lost the first season of Tyra Banks' America's Next Top Model ("ANTM") to
Adrianne Curry, has since
arguably achieved more success as a model than any actual ANTM winner. Her
blog is the only internet site I'm aware of that provides mordant commentary on
very strange modeling jobs, odd
local food variants,
ANTM, dating a Shin (
bus,
SNL,
Christmas,
album,
tour), and the
heretofore sadly underexplored existentialist moments of modeling.
(ANTM previously.)posted by onlyconnect at 5:04 PM PST - 51 comments
The Singular Image recognizes outstanding individual photographs in color and black and white.
Center, formerly known as the Santa Fe Center for Photography, was founded in 1994. Center is a nonprofit organization that honors, supports and provides opportunity for gifted and committed photographers. Our programs bring exposure to worthy photographic projects and series, and create fellowship among photographers and influential members of the photographic community. (some images NSFW)
posted by ColdChef at 12:08 PM PST - 4 comments
Geosense: an online world geography game. Play alone or with others using a guest account or your own unique ID.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:39 AM PST - 36 comments
Running The Numbers. This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. [via]posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:32 AM PST - 20 comments
Killered Bees. The NYTimes covers the mysterious collapse of commercial honeybee colonies over the last 5-months, covering
dozens of states. The disease,
Colony Collapse Disorder, does not have a determined cause. The
Canary Database indicates that
bees can serve as
"canaries in a coalmine" for human diseases, as many other animals do. Some of the suspected causative agents (as reported [
pdf] by
Penn State) include a immunodeficiency, the hive consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, nutritional stress, parasites, infectious diseases, stress due to colony splitting and relocation, insecticides, and antibiotic use. The die-offs are likely to adversely impact both
prices and crop yields.
posted by rzklkng at 7:04 AM PST - 45 comments
What a menu: White meat chicken florentine in a delicate sauce with garden greens. Shredded white meat chicken in a savory broth with garden greens. White meat chicken and whipped egg soufflé with garden greens. Sound tasty? It's the new "Elegant Medleys" line of cat food from Fancy Feast, being pimped by none other than Mr.
Restaurant himself,
Rocco DiSpirito. So: a new way to show those
kids in fur coats how much you love them, or just a bunch of
overpriced hooey?
posted by shiu mai baby at 4:58 AM PST - 70 comments
February 27
OpenCongress.org is a site that aggregates data about the United States Senate and House. Keep track of your senators or representatives through rss feeds, read bills on topics that are important to you, and find out what industries are behind the scenes providing money to your politicians in Washington among many other uses of this new resource.
posted by rfbjames at 10:55 PM PST - 18 comments
December 2006: carbon credit market to crash-land? One problem, most of the countries submitted emissions plans that allocated permits for more than is currently being emitted--in other words, instead of reductions, they proposed increases. Collectively, EU countries have allocated permits allowing emissions 15 percent higher than actual emissions. February 2007: Splat. The collapse in the price of a tonne of carbon dating back to May last year when it emerged that most countries in the scheme had set their carbon caps far too high, resulting in fewer firms than expected having to buy credits and causing the price of a tonne of carbon to plummet from over €30 to less than €10. SPLAT!:
A year ago, CO2 was changing hands in the ETS at 30 euros (33 dollars) a tonne, triple that at the market's launch in January 2005. Today, a tonne of CO2 can be bought for little more than one euro. I'm a good greenie, I'm buying enough credits to offset my coal-fired barbie and my Bradley Shopping Vehicle for the rest of eternity. That should cost me about fiddy cents. (Buy yours
here.)
posted by jfuller at 8:11 PM PST - 18 comments
From Human Rights Watch:
...He had spent a year and a half in captivity without even a glimpse of natural light. One day the Americans opened up a skylight in his building. “They brought me a chair and let me sit under the skylight,” he remembered. “I was so happy. I joked with them, pretending to call outside, ‘Help! Someone help me! Let me out!’” ...One photo that surprised Jabour was of a boy named Talha, who appeared to be nine or ten years old. His father was said to be Hamza al-Jofi, a militant leader in Waziristan. When Jabour saw the photo of Talha, who was apparently in custody, he expressed amazement that the United States was holding someone so young.
The Case of Marwan JabourUS: Secret CIA Prisoners Still Missing posted by y2karl at 8:28 AM PST - 70 comments
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, featuring "the largest collection of
Holmesian graphics online", a Scholars' Wing featuring
essays and articles,
pastiche and
parodies.
Arthur Conan Doyle's champion of logic and reason is the antithesis of the author's spiritualist beliefs. In
his will (5.B), Doyle left sums of money to the Spiritualist Alliance of London and the Psychic College stating "...these institutions represent the most important religious movement that this world now holds". His belief in the
occult and in particular
fairies is surprising, yet somewhat understandable considering the
era in which he lived.
posted by sluglicker at 2:37 AM PST - 8 comments
February 26
Was the Wealth of Nations Determined in 1000 B.C.? (pdf) We assemble a dataset on technology adoption in 1000 BC, 0 AD, and 1500 AD for the predecessors to today’s nation states. We find that this very old history of technology adoption is surprisingly significant for today’s national development outcomes. Although our strongest results are for 1500 A.D., we find that even technology as old as 1000 BC matters in some plausible specifications. (
via)
posted by Kwantsar at 10:57 PM PST - 53 comments
The Money Maker :"On the 1000 guilder note, it became a “sport” for me to put things in the notes that nobody wanted there! I was very proud to have my fingerprint in this note – and it’s my middle finger!"
posted by dhruva at 10:38 PM PST - 33 comments
You missed Caturday! but you'll be prepared for the next one.
"It's lolcats pix with tags! Does also peoples call it cat macros? You may also find non-lolcat pictures -- this is a treasure for you." This makes some happy. This makes others
cross. Not a cat person? How about a dog person?
Me either.
Yes I searcheds b4 I posteds. =Pposted by ZachsMind at 7:46 PM PST - 44 comments
US TaxFilter:
Your real tax rate: 40%."In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Boston University economists Laurence J. Kotlikoff and David Rapson have found that our all-in marginal tax rate is 40%, give or take a bit. Yes, you read that right: 40%." The table at the end is telling.
posted by knave at 5:41 PM PST - 88 comments
"In 1964, a computer - the IBM 1401 Data Processing System - arrived in Iceland, one of the very first computers to be imported into the country… The chief maintenance engineer for this machine was Jóhann Gunnarsson, my father. A keen musician, he learned of an obscure method of making music on this computer - a purpose for which this business machine was not at all designed… When the IBM 1401 was taken out of service in 1971, it wasn't simply thrown away like an old refrigerator, but was given a little farewell ceremony, almost a funeral, when its melodies were played for one last time. This "performance" was documented on tape along with recordings of the sound of the machine in operation." The whole story with samples, pictures and video at
Jóhann Jóhannsson's site.
[via]posted by tellurian at 5:21 PM PST - 15 comments
After two big Antarctic ice shelves
broke off several years ago, a
world of new species was found underneath.
Pictures and a press release came out yesterday, showing spindly orange starfish among other interesting creatures. Here is some more
information on the expedition.
The fact that the shelves melted when they did is most likely a result of global warming, but having them out of the way gave researchers a golden opportunity to study what lives beneath the ice.
Other occassions where a disaster has simultaneously been a great research opportunity include radioactive fallouts: at Chernobyl the evacuated area has been
monitored for the past decades to see which species move in and how they thrive (
previously on Metafilter)
posted by easternblot at 1:29 PM PST - 21 comments
Regularly marred by casualties, the two-day
Basant festival in Pakistan leaves 11 dead and more than 100 injured. Kite flyers often use strings made of wire or coated with ground glass to try to cross and cut a rival's string or damage the other kite, often after betting on the outcome.
Previously mentioned on mefi, the practice was banned in 2005 because the sport has become increasingly deadly. The ban on kite running was temporarily lifted for this year's festival.
In an obvious flip-side, the ban proved to be a huge loss to the kite-twine manufacturers.
posted by beta male at 11:46 AM PST - 11 comments
The Beer Launcher. From the starry eyed minds of the students of Duke University comes the next great innovation in humankind's continued struggle to stay sedentary.
posted by parmanparman at 7:03 AM PST - 69 comments
60 years ago today, an incident took place in Taipei, which led to the massive slaughter of thousands of Taiwanese at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese troops.
Many were imprisoned for torture and execution on
Green Island off Taiwan's eastern coast. More on Green Island
here, and an interesting-ish flickr photo set
hereposted by mattoxic at 6:12 AM PST - 8 comments
February 25
The Indie Band Survival Guide: A fantastic, free, 101 pages collection of useful information for musicians - covers topics such as recording, copyright, major label contracts, commercial radio, promoting your music, band websites, distribution, filesharing and live shows.
posted by Ira.metafilter at 6:34 PM PST - 9 comments
PicTaps: Make Your Drawings Dance! Draw yourself a character, and then watch him dance to a silly song. The music will begin to get on your nerves, but you won't be able to leave the page, the dancing is so hypnotic! Warning, flash is involved!
viaposted by LoopyG at 4:40 PM PST - 35 comments
An editor at
Outdoor Life for nearly 30 years and member of the NRA for 40,
Jim Zumbo is a lifelong advocate of outdoorsmanship, hunting and gun ownership in print and on television. Last week, Zumbo
left a comment on his Outdoor Life blog commenting on the rising popularity of assault rifles for hunting calling them "terrorist weapons" and suggesting they should be banned from hunting use.
Three days later, Zumbo's lifelong career is
all but over, having lost all his product sponsorships, was publicly disavowed by the NRA, and his show was canceled. With the 2008 election season starting and a Congress now controlled by the party supporting greater restrictions on assault weapons, Zumbo may be the first sign of a
zero-tolerance conservative constituency.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:59 PM PST - 124 comments
The Jules Verne Collecting Resource. If you're a Verne fan or a book collector at all, this site is an absolute treasure. There are pictures of almost every single edition of
his works,
major and
minor, as well as everything even slightly Verne-related, including:
movie posters,
matchbooks,
autographs,
playing cards,
cards for stereoscopes,
postcards he sent,
board games, Jules Hetzel's excellent
covers and
posters for his work (
more here, and
this one is amazing),
the man himself, and god knows what else - pretty much everything.
If it's not here, it's
somewhere else, like the
extraordinary maps which adorned some editions, or the
virtual library with links to all of his works, the
many, many incredible illustrations therein, and even one
scanned manuscript (in French, obviously). Hope this makes somebody's day as much as it made mine.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:04 PM PST - 16 comments
In 1971 Delancey Street began with four residents, a thousand dollar loan, and a dream to develop a new model to turn around the lives of substance abusers, former felons, and others who have hit bottom by empowering the people with the problems to become their own solution. With no professionals, no government funding, and at no charge to the clients, Delancey Street Foundation has rehabilitated and provided job skills to thousands of former drug addicts and criminals. They have a successful
moving company, a well loved (although not necessarily
critically acclaimed) restaurant, a thriving
Christmas tree business, and a
partnership with the local state university.
Founded in the heady radical days of the
early 70s, they've had a few bumps along the way,
(cofounder John Maher died of a drug overdose) but they are one of the most well respected models for rehabilitation in
the world. In recent news, San Francisco mayor
Gavin Newsom has been spending a lot of time there.
posted by serazin at 11:37 AM PST - 24 comments
R. Luke Dubois'
Billboard is a study in time-lapse phonography. Dubois digitally analyzed every #1
Billboard single from 1958 to 2005 and found a "spectral average" sound for each song. Every second of the piece represents one week in music history. The results are more interesting than you might think: compare the Beatles-dominated
1964 with the more processed, percussive sounds of
1997. Dubois has also created a time-lapse study of
Oscar-winning movies. See also:
"Chart Sweep" (scroll down to bottom of page). (
via)
posted by roll truck roll at 11:26 AM PST - 10 comments
The Redirection. "Is the Administration’s new policy aiding our enemies in the war on terrorism?" New article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker.
posted by homunculus at 9:22 AM PST - 40 comments
What Brazil tells us about torture today. A thoughtful discussion by Clive James of torture in the context of the movies in general and Terry Gilliam's
Brazil in particular. Warning: occasional descriptions of awful behavior, and the reader may have his opinion of humanity lowered. "The historical evidence suggests that on the rare occasions when a state begins again in what a fond humanitarian might think of as a condition of innocence, a supply of young torturers is the first thing it produces... In the Nazi and Soviet cellars and camps, people were regularly tortured for information they did not possess: i.e., they were tortured just for the hell of it."
posted by languagehat at 6:45 AM PST - 50 comments
Sasquatch!, the
indie music festival, returns to
The Gorge with an
impressive line-up headlined by
Bjork and the
Beastie Boys. As usual,
KEXP has a veritable cornucopia of
live performances from the artists. If you're wondering what might be in store, check out select songs from
The Arcade Fire,
M.I.A.,
Citizen Cope,
Neko Case,
The Thermals,
Viva Voce,
Interpol,
Michael Franti & Spearhead,
Spoon,
Ozomatli,
Bad Brains,
The Dandy Warhols,
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter,
Common Market,
Smoosh, and
Minus The Bear. Bring
sunscreen and an
umbrella on your
short drive from
Seattle to
George, Washingtonposted by 0xFCAF at 6:13 AM PST - 13 comments
The Navy's detention facility at Hanrahan has a created a secret prison-within-a-prison and, per the article, developed elaborate plans to dodge public scrutiny of its operations to detain enemy combatants. "In detaining American citizens, full constitutional rights are afforded except where curtailed by higher guidance or accepted prison practice,"
the report said.posted by Malor at 6:02 AM PST - 23 comments
Father Ted Festival: 9 years after
Father Ted aka
Dermot Morgan suddenly died, a weekend festival, based on the Father Ted series is taking place (will include such events as the Father Jack cocktail evening, Buckaroo speed dating, a cleaning fluid drinks reception, the Inis Mór lovely girls competition, and the drafting of the island’s Eurovision entry).
Two Aran Islands,
Mór and
Oirr, are
at loggerheads over the right to host it.
This will culminate in a five-a-side football match, and Paddy Power is taking more bets on this than on yesterday’s
England Ireland six-nations championship game (which Ireland won, just saying).
posted by Wilder at 3:17 AM PST - 32 comments
A thoughtful man named Maxwell Mouser had just produced a work of actinic philosophy. It took him seven minutes to write it. To write works of philosophy one used the flexible outlines and the idea indexes; one set the activator for such a wordage in each subsection; an adept would use the paradox feed-in, and the striking analogy blender; one calibrated the particular-slant and the personality-signature. It had to come out a good work, for excellence had become the automatic minimum for such productions. "I will scatter a few nuts on the frosting," said Maxwell, and he pushed the lever for that. This sifted handfuls of words like chthonic and heuristic and prozymeides through the thing so that nobody could doubt it was a work of philosophy.
Slow Tuesday Night by one
Rafael Aloyius Lafferty (more within)posted by y2karl at 1:48 AM PST - 15 comments
February 24
The Stupid Ring is 'Earth's largest Tolkien parody.' Given a taste of
The Lord of the Rings on
the big screen [warning: sound], some wacky Tolkien fans craved more. So they rewrote the entire book as a movie script. All sixty-plus chapters. Every scene, every song. And then some. Possibly while drunk.
posted by zennie at 8:41 PM PST - 14 comments
The World Lecture Hall is a compedium of links to open university materials. Some include lecture notes, text books and even video. The
OCW at MIT is probably the most well known but there are many universities that provide online access to course materials. Want to learn about
medicine? John Hopkin's kindly provides some popular courses (Cadaver not included).
Notre Dame provides a number of courses focused on the liberal arts. The University of Washington provides
Computer Science and Engineering courses. Tufts provides a potpourri of
courses, including dentistry.
posted by substrate at 4:39 PM PST - 13 comments
Sorority Evictions Raise Issue of Looks and Bias"Delta Zeta’s national officers....judged 23 of the [DePauw University] women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.
The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit."
Many at the university are
not happy.
posted by ericb at 2:59 PM PST - 119 comments
The major label machine sucks in and churns out young bands all the time, leaving plenty of good music unheard by the public. Boston's trip-hoppy
Splashdown were one of the acts brought low by this process, disbanding two years after Capitol decided not to release their major label debut LP. The late 90's were a commercially bad time for female-fronted electro-pop, of course, but the band found an outlet for their material by releasing it for free online -- their
whole catalog, including three LP's, two EP's and some double-secret-unreleased tracks, is available with the band's blessing. Members have since joined other bands --
Freezepop,
Universal Hall Pass -- which hopefully will avoid the trouble Splashdown had.
posted by aaronetc at 10:30 AM PST - 37 comments
"When you squeeze it, its golden brown crust should crackle and even sing. Its aroma should be a little bit sweet, a little bit toasty. There should be a good marriage between its crust and its interior crumb. When the crumb is pressed, it should spring back rapidly. Its color should be off-white and its cavities widely distributed and uneven in size. Its nutty, buttery taste should be both sweet and savory - like a good chardonnay.” Bread expert and Cornell prof
Steven Kaplan talks with Conan, to pretty hilarious effect, about his
latest book.
You may have to snoop around the NBC site - I couldn't find a direct link. The man is really into
baguettes. He's given a few entertaining
radio interviews as
well, and a New York magazine
profile of him features a list of his
six favorite NYC baguettes.
If you don't have a great bakery nearby, you can
try your
hand at
home.
Bonus Game:
Balance the Baguette! (from a previous post)posted by jtajta at 9:09 AM PST - 22 comments
Speedcluster , a frentic combination of Speed, Solitaire, and Tapper, is an extremely compelling virtual card game which is sucking up a lot of my casual time, so I might as well pass along the obsession.
posted by Durhey at 1:30 AM PST - 24 comments
Robert "Bobe" Cannon's 1951 Oscar-winning animated short
"Gerald McBoing Boing" (u2b), is an early example of a modernist animation style
(previously) experimented by UPA studios in an attempt to counteract the mounting realism of Disney cartoons. (The 2005
series it inspired is currently re-running on
Boomerang.)
On another note entirely, Theodor "Seuss" Geisel's character Gerald is considered one of a number of
celebrities with autism.
posted by progosk at 12:40 AM PST - 43 comments
February 23
Drive Thru Church Service?
Check. Drive Thru Wedding?
Check. Drive Thru Funeral?
Check. Drive Thru Strip Club?
Huh? If you're too lazy or too tired to get out of your car,
Fogonazos has a list of convenient drive-thrus for you.
posted by amyms at 11:33 PM PST - 28 comments
The First Freedom Project --new from the Dept of Justice,
announced at the Southern Baptist Convention along with a call for their help---specifically and only to protect the religious from discrimination against them. Many are not impressed:
The administration has often ignored the importance of the no establishment principle by supporting attempts of governments to endorse a religious message, using tax dollars to fund pervasively religious organizations, allowing religious discrimination in hiring for federally funded projects, ... Legal strategies and actions from groups like the
Alliance Defense Fund and
ACLJ are now official DOJ policy, it appears.
...In his statement, Gonzales mentioned several cases litigated by ADF and its allies ...posted by amberglow at 7:13 PM PST - 56 comments
I Am Babycakes , created by Creased Comics'
Brad Neely (who did that "
Washington" video seen
some time ago), is the good-natured, incredibly dark musings of a man-child who lives with his dad/wizard, roleplays ("I had described to my friends the most beautiful demon"), writes songs, and fills both his diary, and his days, with emptiness. Alternating funny, then sad, then cool as one turns it over in the mind. Or I think so anyway.
Part 1 -
Part 2 -
Part 3 (All links NSFW due to language.)
posted by JHarris at 5:31 PM PST - 15 comments
"Tired of the
LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears?" At
Conservapedia, a "conservative encyclopedia you can trust," you can learn that "faith" is
a concept "exclusive to Christianity," and about how Wikipedia is
biased in matters such as its description of the Bell Trade Act of 1946, its gossipy treatment of the private life of NPR reporter Nina Totenberg, and its seeming acceptance of evolution. The Wikipedia bias entry also complains of a "rant" against the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a group for which Conservapedia founder (and son of conservative gadfly
Phyllis Schafly)
Andrew Schlafly has worked. Signups are
here; its take on evolution is criticized
here.
posted by ibmcginty at 5:17 PM PST - 153 comments
Foolyoo is a flash game where you fight masked eyeball monsters, avoid disrobing village idiots, slice vegetables according to the ever-changing edicts of a mad old monk and learn
how to count in kanji.
posted by Kattullus at 4:30 PM PST - 9 comments
Yoshiro Nakamatsu aka Dr. NakaMats has invented everything, other than all the other stuff that the rest of us have invented. He has 3218 patents to his name. (Edison had
1093.) Among his many inventions? The compact disc, the compact disc player ('natch), the digital watch, a unique golf putter, the
floppy disk (!), and a water-powered engine. Besides being the founder of the
World Genius Convention (where the world first learned of ingenuity of
ADR ceramic disks, for instance),
Dr. NakaMats was voted by the US Science Academic Society as one of five greatest scientists in history - in the company of Archimedes, Michael Faraday, Marie Curie, and Nikola Tesla - and he plans to live until 144!
posted by humannaire at 3:09 PM PST - 27 comments
Born to War is a series of paintings of American women killed in Iraq. The combination of the increasing role of women in the American military and the blurring of lines between combat and non-combat roles in Iraq have made this the first war in which female US soldiers have died in direct combat. The focus on a smaller number of women provides a more approachable view of casualties than more general sites like
Iraq Body Count and raises some interesting questions about the role of women in the US military.
posted by scottreynen at 10:27 AM PST - 13 comments
"I think that the appetite for me is to make a movie that feels more like Taxi Driver than like Fantastic Four."
Zack Snyder
talks about his upcoming
Watchmen adaptation, which may start filming this summer.
But
some fans couldn't wait:
1,
2,
3 (youtube)
posted by empath at 6:03 AM PST - 109 comments
February 22
17 Dots is a new blog by employees of
emusic. Not much there yet but for MeFites who use the service, this looks like it could prove handy for keeping on top of what's worth checking out.
posted by dobbs at 9:47 PM PST - 9 comments
The three-decade decline in teenage and young-adult rape accompanies huge drops in all crimes -- murder, assault, drug abuse and property -- committed by youth... Women's rapidly rising status and economic independence in the larger society fostered new attitudes and laws that rejected violence against women. That younger people growing up in this environment of greater gender equality should show the biggest decreases in rape, while older generations lag behind, is consistent with this explanation... Over the last 30 years, rape arrest rates have fallen by 80% among Californians under age 15, much larger than the 25% drop among residents age 40 and older.
The decline of rapeSo, kids today
are different.
posted by y2karl at 2:36 PM PST - 93 comments
The cover of 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' symbolises the way anti-Iranian propaganda in the U.S. works: The original picture from which this cover is excised is lifted off a news report during the parliamentary election of February 2000 in Iran. In the original picture, the two young women are in fact reading the leading reformist newspaper Mosharekat. Azar Nafisi and her publisher may have thought that the world is not looking, and that they can distort the history of a people any way they wish. But the original picture from which this cover steals its idea speaks to the fact of this falsehood.
The cover of Reading Lolita in Tehran is an iconic burglary from the press, distorted and staged in a frame for an entirely different purpose than when it was taken. In its distorted form and framing, the picture is cropped so we no longer see the newspaper that the two young female students are holding in their hands, thus creating the illusion that they are "Reading Lolita"--with the scarves of the two teenagers doing the task of "in Tehran." In the original picture the two young students are obviously on a college campus, reading a newspaper that is reporting the latest results of a major parliamentary election in their country. Cropping the newspaper, their classmates behind them, and a perfectly visible photograph of President Khatami--the iconic representation of the reformist movement--out of the picture and suggesting that the two young women are reading "Lolita" strips them of their moral intelligence and their participation in the democratic aspirations of their homeland, ushering them into a colonial harem.
Read Hamid Dabashi's full essay '
Native informers and the making of the American empire.'
posted by hoder at 9:38 AM PST - 67 comments
Wake County, NC:
Solomon Kamil invited to speak at a public school in Raleigh
tells the students to shun Muslims "You may be excited that you found the 'tall, dark, and handsome man' you have been looking for. His sweet words and attention may blind you regarding the power, importance, and influence of his culture and Islamic faith."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:28 AM PST - 79 comments
February 21
Virus is a very simple, addictive flash game; using the colors available to you at the bottom of the screen, convert all the tiles on the board into a single color. Similar colored connecting tiles become part of the viral mass.
Via.
posted by jonson at 9:52 PM PST - 75 comments
music files is a neat site I found while looking for information on a classical piece I'm learning on guitar. It seems to predominantly cover classical music but also covers other genres. It has biographies, mp3s, sheet music and so on.
posted by substrate at 7:12 PM PST - 4 comments
What should we get Erich for his birthday? How about
a desk set with a radio, a thermometer disguised as a TV mast, a clock topped with a tank, a calendar, and four ballpoint pens disguised as missiles.
Iconographia socialistica from the GDR.
posted by tellurian at 2:09 PM PST - 16 comments
WANTED: The Limping Lady. The Gestapo's poster read
"She is one of the most valuable Allied agents in France and we must find and destroy her" but Virginia Hall, who used a prosthetic limb after losing a leg years before in a hunting accident, eluded them and saved countless Allied lives while working as a spy during WWII. Additional biographical information, as well as the biographies of other famous female spies, at
WWII Female Spies (which has many outgoing links to other great informational resources about female spies in WWII).
posted by amyms at 11:28 AM PST - 8 comments
iLike "provides a buddy-list for your iTunes - it helps you discover new artists based on what you're already listening to, and it helps you browse your friends' music libraries and share music suggestions with each other." Basically, there's an iTunes plugin (OSX only) that automatically sends your iTunes metadata to the iLike site to be shared with the community.
posted by Kwine at 10:53 AM PST - 19 comments
February 20
In an attempt to address reliability problems with the M-16/M4 rifles currently employed by the US military, German arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch developed the
H&K 416. Considered by many who have used it to be vastly more reliable than the current weapon systems, it seems like the Army would be interested in giving it a try.
Unfortunately they aren't.posted by quin at 5:40 PM PST - 59 comments
Matthew Yglesias:
Bill Richardson--former ambassador to the UN, former Energy Secretary, and current governor of New Mexico--is "clearly more qualified for the White House than anyone else in the race," so why isn't anyone paying attention to his candidacy? Includes link to a recent speech by Richardson on
foreign policy at CSIS.
posted by russilwvong at 2:01 PM PST - 54 comments
Greenpeace doesn't know it has a new ad campaign that asks "Who's f***ing Mother Earth," but their logo is on it. The copywriter admits he hasn't told the organization yet about the
ads he's
designed in their name. "It's probably not legal, but there's too much paperwork, meetings and phone calls involved to get the campaign approved in time for Earth Day," he explains. "I figure Greenpeace is too busy getting sued by conglomerates to bother suing a few people who are trying to promote the cause. They can always officially deny the vulgarity."
posted by jbickers at 2:00 PM PST - 36 comments
Youtube stars NSFW MC Mack, Little ***king Kev and Ginger Joe getting more fame then they could have possibly imagined. More inside...
posted by asok at 11:08 AM PST - 42 comments
Tighter restrictions on damage awards. The two questions presented to the U.S. Supreme Court centered on whether or not the highly reprehensible conduct of a defendant is analogous to a crime and can "override" the constitutional requirement that punitive damages be reasonably related to the plaintiffs harm.
The answer is no. (21 page pdf) Held: 1. A punitive damages award based in part on a jury’s desire to punish a defendant for harming nonparties amounts to a taking of property from the defendant without due process. The majority: Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Souter, and Breyer. Dissenting: Ginsburg, Scalia, Stevens, and Thomas.
posted by three blind mice at 11:03 AM PST - 37 comments
Ahh, the quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. The
classic stands as the benchmark: but are there better? Many think so:
Sherry Yard,
David Lebovitz,
the folks at Cooking Illustrated,
Martha Stewart,
Hillary Clinton,
beloved New York bakeries,
intrepid webloggers.
Alton Brown in an
episode of
Good Eats shows how to get them
thin,
puffy, or
chewy.
Cookbook after
cookbook and
competition after
competition try to ferret out the
best of this american icon. Web recipe sites
have their own favorites.
Some people swear by secret ingredients:
cornstarch,
pudding (which has cornstarch in it),
oats,
great chocolate.
Two thirds of Americans prefer their chocolate chip cookies "nutless."
Others find technique of greatest importance. Is there any end to this
quest for one of baking's
holy grails?
posted by shivohum at 9:46 AM PST - 53 comments
Royal Shrovetide Football is a traditional ball game played each year in Ashbourne, Derbyshire on a 'pitch' three miles long, lasting the two days of Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. It's been going since at least 1683 and likely much earlier.
After a ceremonial rendition of
Auld Lang Syne and
God Save The Queen, the cork-filled ball is thrown from the starting plinth into the crowd, and then it's the Up'ards versus the Down'ards, forming giant scrums (or 'hugs') of people moving up and down the River Henmore, with the aim of 'goaling the ball' at their
respective goal post.
posted by chrismear at 4:22 AM PST - 15 comments
Flame wars as psychopathology. What's behind those
flaming hot e-mails or UseNet
flame wars or
MetaFilter comments?. Perhaps, as
John Suler suggested, there are
a number of factors, including dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection (altered self-boundaries), dissociative imagination, and minimzation of authority, as he discussed in his fascinating
2004 paper (note: .pdf). Is there, as the NY Times piece asks, "a design flaw inherent in the interface between the brain’s social circuitry and the online world"?
Flaming previously covered by MeFi here, here, here, and of course, here.posted by scblackman at 2:11 AM PST - 39 comments
February 19
Haka is a type of ritual performance native to Aotearoa. Occurring before battles or peacetime ceremonies, it is less of a "war chant" than a way of fiercely asserting group solidarity while referring to a specific ancestry or
significant event. The best known haka are probably the versions practiced by the New Zealand All Blacks:
Ka Mate and, more recently,
Kapa O Pango. More than just a traditional dance, haka has been an important element of the
Maori Renaissance- the revival of language, culture and arts that has occurred since the re-affirmation of the Treaty of Waitangi (and has recently come under
attack).
For the All Blacks, haka now connects both Maori and Pakeha (outsider) players through a shared
history and physical discipline, although this was not always the
case. Nevertheless, the haka can make a powerful
impression, particularly when someone answers
in kind.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:21 PM PST - 65 comments
The Hamster Ball for Gamers The
VirtuSphere is a fully immersive virtual reality sphere that enables free movement in any direction for military and first-responder training (gaming), tourism (gaming), education (gaming), real estate walk-throughs (gaming), the possibilities are only limited by your imagination (gaming). You can run, jump, walk or otherwise locomote (i.e. roll a wheelchair) through an endless virtual world. And look like a
total dork doing it but who cares? The
videos make it look totally badass and fun and great exercise too! Though I do wonder what happens if/when you trip and biff.
posted by fenriq at 3:12 PM PST - 15 comments
February 18
Uncle Jay Explains the News. Sit down and let Uncle Jay explain the current news headlines to your kids. (Not really.) Yes, it's YouTube, and yes, it's a one-link post. Don't let that blind you to the fact this guy is really quite funny.
posted by WCityMike at 9:17 PM PST - 9 comments
Just Coffee is a vertically-integrated coffee cooperative with a mission to provide the training and resources to create a sustainable small-scale international coffee company fully owned and controlled by the coffee growers. Could they also provide a model
solution for the immigration problem?
posted by carsonb at 5:37 PM PST - 17 comments
Jack's Big Music Show features Nuttin' But Stringz , an extremely talented duo featuring
Damien and Tourie Escobar, Julliard-school violinists and brothers who kick out some amazing Hip-hop/R&B tracks. They're most recently featured as an interstitial musical performance on
Jack's Big Music Show, my daughter's favorite show on
Noggin, a cable channel from
Nickelodeon aimed specifically at preschoolers. N.B.S joins other Jack's favorites like
Laurie Berkner and the
Flaming Lips (who tear up the dance floor with guest singer-songwriter Steve Burns, who you may or may not remember as Steve from
Blue's Clues). You don't have to be a preschooler to enjoy the show or the music. N.B.S., in particular, were recently featured on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Ellen Show, as well as making an appearance at the Apollo Theater. Amazon has some
listen links if you want to check them out. The track featured on Noggin is "Thunder".
posted by thanotopsis at 4:59 PM PST - 12 comments
Everybody loves Zombies. Everybody loves killing Zombies. Nobody wants to suddenly wake up surrounded by Zombies. Not when you thought you were just playing a
video game.
posted by Elmore at 4:00 PM PST - 40 comments
Imagine you live in Portugal and you're moving into a lovely farm house on a large swath of land. The place has been empty for 15 years! While exploring your new property you find a large barn in the trees. The door is padlocked shut and its all rusted solid. so you
grind the padlock open... [more inside]
posted by MegoSteve at 3:53 PM PST - 70 comments
There's about to be an
election (pdf) in the British Parliament's second chamber, the House of
Lords. Not an election where the public can choose their lawmakers: that's
still a matter of debate. No, one of the 92 hereditary Lords has died, and those of his party colleagues that remain
get to choose another hereditary peer to take his place. So the election, in which only hereditary peers registered as Conservatives can stand, will be decided by the votes of the 47 Conservative hereditary peers still clinging to the twig. And just to make sure it's properly democratic - the vote is by proportional representation.
posted by athenian at 2:49 PM PST - 40 comments
White-o-glyphics. The idea: "If we took all the common graphic symbols floating around nowadays, would we have enough to make a viable hieroglyphic language? Would it be possible to translate Finnegan's Wake or Moby Dick entirely into dingbats, whim-whams and clip art?" Matthew White makes the effort to find out.
posted by Kattullus at 11:51 AM PST - 25 comments
Waffle House Family and other classics are now available for listening in the comfort of your own home via online jukebox. No longer must you drive the darkness of the American Highway seeking that 24-hour beacon of yellow squares; no longer suck your sweet tea from the straw as you seek out original Waffle House tunes while waiting for your hash browns (
scattered, smothered, and covered, of course) to arrive. Mary Welch Rogers, wife of House founder Joe Rogers, is one of several artists who recorded Waffle House-themed songs for the fast-food chain's jukeboxes. Most were penned by Buckner and Garcia of Pac Man Fever. While you're at it, visit the shrine, and enjoy David Wilcox's song about feel the peace that's cooked in grease.posted by Miko at 11:45 AM PST - 15 comments
Marjoe Gortner, world's youngest preacher kicked off his religious career by performing a marriage at the age of four and a half. Although he eventually left the evangelism gig and became a hippie, lack of cash led him to take it up again part time as an adult. That is, until a crisis of conscience precipitated a
documentary where he exposed
the business of evangelical ministry. "Marjoe" won the 1972 Oscar for "Best Documentary" and has been recently re-released.
An interview with Marjoe. You tubery inside.
posted by arcticwoman at 8:58 AM PST - 19 comments
Are Africans Black? The population of African immigrants in the United States is rapidly growing. Since 1990, about 50,000 Africans have come to the United States annually, more than in any of the peak years of the international slave trade, which was abolished in 1807. They add to the steady influx of black immigrants from other continents and the Caribbean, and those who have been in the United States for generations but who don't racially and culturally define themselves as African American. These blacks feel cramped by the narrowness of American racial politics, in which "blackness" has not just defined one's skin color but has served as a code word for African American.
Maybe Not. After all, Obama's mother is of white U.S. stock. His father is a black Kenyan. Other than color, Obama did not - does not - share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves.... when black Americans refer to Obama as "one of us," I do not know what they are talking about. In his new book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama makes it clear that, while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own - nor has he lived the life of a black American.posted by jfuller at 7:59 AM PST - 161 comments
Hot dog joint hit with foie gras fine. The City of Chicago Health Department has issued a citation to a Northwest Side eatery (Hot Doug's, all all places!) for serving foie gras in voilation of the city ban. “People are actually dying from the cold, and I’m getting hassled because of some sausage,” owner Doug Sohn said Friday afternoon...
posted by Durwood at 6:20 AM PST - 70 comments
Luigi Colani, Biomorphic Designer — This prolific
master of
plastic has been creating organically streamlined
planes,
trains,
automobiles,
trucks,
motorcycles,
ships,
cities,
homes,
computers,
cameras,
televisions,
furniture,
pianos,
ceramics,
shoes,
eyewearPDF,
pens,
airbrushes, and other wonderful
stuff (
including the
kitchen sink) for some
60 years. Wherever you need to
go, you can reach your
final destination in Colani style. More designs
here,
here,
here, and
here.
[Brits and touristas take note: London's Design Museum will host a Colani exhibition, Translating Nature, from March 3 to June 17, 2007. Bibliophiles can check out the book Colani: The Art of Shaping the Future.]posted by cenoxo at 1:04 AM PST - 14 comments
February 17
AutismTown? Autism is a puzzling and disastrous disorder which has recently spread to affect 1 in 150, according to new government data; now there is a new non-profit "pixel-based" site to organize the community and fund research and services. A bit of a "who's who" in the field...
posted by oberleit at 9:49 PM PST - 21 comments
Kids today. They have no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs, fame whores, pornographic little loons who post their diaries, their phone numbers, their stupid poetry—for God’s sake, their dirty photos!—online. They have virtual friends instead of real ones. They talk in illiterate instant messages. They are interested only in attention—and yet they have zero attention span, flitting like hummingbirds from one virtual stage to another.
So goes the common wisdom but things in fact are more complex.
Say Everythingposted by y2karl at 1:45 PM PST - 94 comments
I know you people like words and language, and I
know you like Google, so when I found a clip of Erin McKean giving a
talk about dictionaries at Google, I thought "Normally, I wouldn't watch a 54-minute video of someone giving a talk, but this one was really interesting, and maybe my fellow MeFites will think the same thing." (Be sure and stick around for the Q&A session at the end; Google people, as you might expect, ask really interesting questions.) Erin McKean is not only the editor of
The New Oxford American Dictionary, she's got a
dressmaking blog. And if you don't feel like watching a video right now,
here's a transcript of an hour-long online chat at Wordsmith.Org from a couple years ago. (Video link via
Taccuino di traduzione.)
posted by languagehat at 7:26 AM PST - 34 comments
Mr Fusion - coming soon. Startech Environmental Corporation's "Plasma Converter" works like "the big bang in reverse," creating nothing out of something. With the ability to break down any type of material (other than nuclear waste) into component molecules and and actually
generate energy in the process, we may be at the twilight of the landfill industry.
Via.posted by jonson at 7:22 AM PST - 54 comments
February 16
Feed Me Bubbe Why doesn't everyone do this with their grandmother? Avrom and his bubbe in a charming series about her great looking food. Learn a
little yiddish while you're at it. O, yeah, there's videos here people...
posted by dozo at 10:16 PM PST - 15 comments
The Hatto Hoax. Joyce Hatto has been described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of." Her performances of piano works by Liszt, Schubert, and Rachmaninov were
praised by classical afficionados for their "addictively beautiful sonority, cultured musicianship, and total instrumental mastery."
Since she died in June 2006, however, Hatto has been at the center of one of the stranger scandals to hit classical music in years. It's starting to look like some or all of her treasured, hard-to-find recordings made since 1990
are not her playing at all. [Via]posted by gottabefunky at 6:52 PM PST - 52 comments
The world is never as perfect as we wish it was. When injustice strikes, everyone wishes they had a
hero to turn to... so some people take the direct route and become a superhero
themselves. Meet
Captain Ozone,
Angle Grinder Man,
Super Hero Monkey,
Zora the Wonder Woman,
Superbarrio,
Polarman,
Terrifica The Anti-Cupid, and the team of
Tothian, Squeegee Man and Dark Guardian.
What superhero would you be? What would you fight against? What would your superpowers be? Can't decide? Well, here's a
quiz.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:09 PM PST - 53 comments
Remember today as the day that Blogging jumped into the shark's mouth. Spam blogs,
fake blogs,
celeblogs,
fake celeblogs,
moblogs, miliblogs,
lawblogs, catblogs,
dogblogs*, everybody's got a blog and if they use
WordPress, it came with a prepackaged post and comment from
"Mr. WordPress". Well, the inevitable has happened.
Mrs. WordPress has a blog.**
*because on the internet, no one knows you're a dog unless you tell them
**and based on the picture on the front page, Mr. WP's first name may be Waldoposted by wendell at 5:52 PM PST - 21 comments
This is NSFW. It's crass, crude, cheap, rude, nasty and vulgar. This is a one link 10 minute YouTube video that shows cannibalism, fire, nudity, nerds, fried sperm, rednecks, and perversion aplenty. It is certainly not to everyone's taste, but that's because it's the Butthole Surfers'
BBQ.
posted by Elmore at 2:45 PM PST - 49 comments
Paraglider survives 32,000ft fall. A German paragliding champion named
Ewa Wisnierska was "sucked into a storm that pulled her higher than Mount Everest." She "soared skywards," and was soon "covered in ice" as she "battled hailstones the size of oranges," becoming one with the weather. "I could see the Earth coming," she later said, "wow, like
Apollo 13 – I can see the Earth."
posted by BLDGBLOG at 2:15 PM PST - 57 comments
Before the Music Dies Documentary of the current state of the music industry now on DVD. Perhaps not much we don't know, but certainly some insight and perspective by those entrenched. And it's got a nice
marketing technique to it. Reminds me of the
Wilco doc screenings I attended in Brooklyn warehouses.
posted by adamms222 at 12:48 PM PST - 31 comments
Random Friday!
pictures,
confessions,
quotes,
wiki,
word,
kittens,
livejournal,
family circus,
flickr groups,
essay,
comic strip,
idea,
haiku,
howto,
bullshit,
inspirationposted by petsounds at 9:00 AM PST - 22 comments
'Films from the Homefront' is a (new) collection of amateur documentaries, newsreels, government films, and home movies documenting life for the ordinary people in Britain during World War II, with background text descriptions/explication.
Browse the themes. The films are QT and wmv format. I found it both poignant and funny, for instance, seeing kids don gasmasks during air raid drills then attempt to continue writing in their lessons.
[via Glasgow School of Art Library]posted by peacay at 7:03 AM PST - 4 comments
An interesting project from the latest Vectors Journal.
"Legend has it that Paglen, who has been called the Fox Mulder of cultural geography, was personally instrumental in provoking the military to extend the perimeter around Area 51 by several miles in an attempt to thwart one of his counter-surveillance efforts" [via]posted by tellurian at 6:31 AM PST - 5 comments
February 15
How does your country measure up as a place to raise kids? It turns out that
growing up in the UK is a bleaker experience than in any other wealthy country. UNICEF studied all the wealthiest nations (full
report PDF here), and the US and UK came in at the bottom on almost all indicators (material wellbeing, health and safety, education, family and peer relationships, behaviours and risks, and the subjective feelings of kids and teens themselves ). Doing best for kids were the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. It turns out that GDP and material wealth alone does not ensure healthier or happier or more well-educated kids--the Czech Republic scored very well despite being one of the poorest nations surveyed.
posted by amberglow at 7:48 PM PST - 113 comments
RIP Heather MacAllister. "Any time there is a fat person onstage as anything besides the butt of a joke, it’s political. Add physical movement, then dance, then sexuality and you have a revolutionary act.” Founder of
Big Burlesque and Venus Group, she died Feb 13 after a long fight with ovarian cancer. She was notably
photographed by
Leonard Nimoy. Multiple
memorial services are planned for her birthday, Feb 25.
[some links may be NSFW]posted by cubby at 6:21 PM PST - 15 comments
"It's quite frustrating the way this works, but the way we do things nowadays is combatant commanders brief their products in PowerPoint up in Washington to OSD and Secretary of Defense... In lieu of an order, or a frag [fragmentary] order, or plan, you get a set of PowerPoint slides... [T]hat is frustrating, because nobody wants to plan against PowerPoint slides."
Lt. Gen. McKiernan
Top Secret Polo Step: CentCom PowerPoint Slides Briefed to White House and Rumsfeld in 2002, Obtained by National Security Archive through Freedom of Information Act.
"
Desert Crossing" 1999 Assumed
400,000 Troops and Still a MessSee also
A Prewar Slide Show Cast Iraq in Rosy Hues
posted by y2karl at 8:50 AM PST - 13 comments
February 14
Kulning: "Kulning is an archaic style of
singing/cattle call, traditionally employed outdoors in the grazing pastures of Scandinavia from the Middle Ages to this day. It consists of shepherdess's tunes, calls and tones of enticement, mainly used to keep contact with, and to call the cattle, but also to communicate with other people over long distances". Examples:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7. (related
MeFi post)
posted by dhruva at 10:06 PM PST - 17 comments
Paglia's back. "I had certainly assumed the Web was surfeited with more than enough material, but evidently many others beside myself find the partisan polarization of the blogosphere numbingly predictable and its prose too often slapdash, fragmentary or drearily prolix." If you like that sentence, you'll love the
return of Camille Paglia to Salon.com.
posted by staggernation at 9:41 PM PST - 61 comments
Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet ...Scroll down and play the audio clip..."The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping."
Sez Wikipedia: Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet is a piece of music composed by Gavin Bryars in 1971. It is based around a recorded loop of an un-named tramp improvising a hymn. The track was rerecorded with Tom Waits in the 80's, and can be bought on
Amazon. Originally heard on CBC's (soon to end)
Northern Lights.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:27 PM PST - 27 comments
Hacking The Superbowl. John Hargrave spends $40,000 for an elaborate Superbowl prank -- duping the feds, cops, and stadium security in order to pass out thousands of lights to fans, who were told they would spell out "Prince" during the halftime show. Instead, they spell out, uh... well,
something. Just what they spell is unclear (though
some are having fun "
guessing") and Hargrave hasn't said yet (his write-up is up to
part 5, hopefully of 6).
Can you tell? And was it worth the effort, or is this just an expensive dud?
posted by notmydesk at 10:15 AM PST - 71 comments
February 13
The Fountain "No matter how good
CGI looks at first, it dates quickly...So I set the ridiculous goal of making a
film that would reinvent space without using CGI." Director Aronofsky tapped into the
microphotography work of Parks and Parks to bring a new look to
special effects in science fiction cinema.
posted by dhruva at 9:10 PM PST - 95 comments
Two men go skydiving with cameras on their helmets. For one of them, everything goes well. For the other... not so well: neither chute functions and he hits the ground at 80mph. Video footage and
post jump interview
here.
{via waxy}posted by dobbs at 3:45 PM PST - 70 comments
Cheatneutral. "When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere. Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience."
[Via Gristmill.]posted by homunculus at 1:03 PM PST - 39 comments
The Last Jews of Cairo As soon as we saw the guns, we knew we’d arrived at the synagogue. Egyptian policemen thronged behind barricades, white uniforms in the dusk, handguns at their hips. Above them, on stairs, Special Forces soldiers in black with red armbands held machine guns as easily as we did point-and-shoot cameras.
posted by MDA38 at 11:58 AM PST - 34 comments
Steve Carell may be hilarious in
the office, but how much would his jackass behavior
cost in real-life?
clips (youtube)
posted by tylerfulltilt at 8:42 AM PST - 47 comments
Are You Lonesome Tonight? Maybe your dream mate just hasn't gotten out of prison yet? Find them now and they'll be yours when they do get paroled in five to ten years. (somewhat NSFW). The bonus early 90's flaming gif and site design is just icing!
Be sure to read the
disclaimer. Here, I'll summarize, use a PO Box to correspond with the inmates, don't give your phone number unless you want to accept collect calls and don't sue the site if your dream man gets out and chops you into little pieces. Seems reasonable enough.
posted by fenriq at 7:45 AM PST - 29 comments
"You're really smart!" Psychologist
Carol Dweck says that praising a child for being smart only teaches the kid to avoid any effort that might fail. "When we praise children for their intelligence, we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don't risk making mistakes." Malcolm Gladwell chimes in with
his thoughts on the importance of being a smart kid, "What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement."
posted by revgeorge at 7:15 AM PST - 218 comments
dlog is a new document visualization system that attempts to show writing not as a static document but a progression of frames over time. I find the suspense of the process mesmerising/delightful. I'm surprised it hasn't been trashed.
posted by tellurian at 4:11 AM PST - 30 comments
February 12
Treasure Hunt Puzzle I've been nutting my way through some of these puzzles with some difficulty but with a great deal of fun. Thought I would share...
posted by gnomesb at 9:40 PM PST - 63 comments
Gizmoz : for those of you who want your own video blog but don't want to mess with the intricacies of a webcam.
posted by Dave Faris at 4:11 PM PST - 9 comments
Sixty-seven scenes of torture in five seasons. Is
24 responsible for an
increase in real-life torture? They at least feel guilty enough to
meet up with some actual interrogators encouraging them to make their torture scenes more authentic. But it's not just
24 - torture is becoming
more prevalent on all American television.
posted by meech at 1:40 PM PST - 107 comments
February 11
I Love You Kenisha. My dear sweet Kenisha,
If you find this page, please forgive me for my failure to be a the kind of leader in our marriage and our home that God has called me to be.
When ever you decide to come home, I'll be here waiting for you. If I'm 100 years old, and on my death bed, and you haven't come back yet, I'll still be waiting for you!!! I love you with all my heart!!!
posted by jonson at 11:35 PM PST - 125 comments
Human Rights Watch indepth report on male rape in US prisons. "I've been sentenced for a D.U.I. offense. My 3rd one. When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. "
posted by petsounds at 7:46 PM PST - 149 comments
One more time? It looks like the case against Iran has begun publicly. Unfortunately, this seems eerily familiar. Unnamed officials with unverified claims are holding press conferences - on a Sunday, no less. Is this an attempt to explain our difficulties in Iraq or a prelude to retaliation with Iran? Worrisome, or not?
posted by Benny Andajetz at 12:49 PM PST - 145 comments
When I was a kid, my dad, who grew up in London, during the Blitz, used to play this old record: a song called "The Laughing Policeman." It always put a smile on my face. According to
Wikipedia, it was written in 1922 by Charles Jolly, who wrote "numerous other laughing songs (The Laughing Major, Curate, Steeplechaser, Typist, Lover, etc)." If you want to hear the happiest policeman ever,
here's the mp3. The song has inspired
cartoonists,
mystery novelists (great series, by the way!),
filmmakers, a
more-recent recording (
mp3), and, inevitably, some
scary people on youtube. Speaking of youtube,
this is how I remember the song.
posted by grumblebee at 12:05 PM PST - 41 comments
Meet the Raven. Robert "Raven"
Kraft has run barefoot in the sand at least three miles a day everyday since 1/1/75.
He may seem a little obsessive, but he's only number
10 on the list. 1-9 are far
more obsessive.
posted by Xurando at 11:15 AM PST - 20 comments
On Friday,
Ian Richardson died in his sleep. He was probably best known in the UK for the BBC "
House of Cards" trilogy starring as the scheming politician Francis Urquhart with his now infamous "You might think that, but I couldn't possibly comment." Busy until his death, he recently featured in the TV series "Midsomer Murders" and played Death in the
Sky One adaptation of Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather". Sadly, to many he was just the guy who asked for Grey Poupon mustard.
posted by twine42 at 7:03 AM PST - 30 comments
February 10
Horses eat a lot / prances in the lovely field / They are beautiful.
Pandas eat bamboo / All pandas live in Japan / Pandas are harmless.
CAT'S sit and lay down / CAT's are big and fluffy / My cat is a Maine coon / I'm chasing my cat.
The
assorted haiku of Bloomfield Elementary School in
Skowhegan, Maine.
posted by four panels at 11:36 PM PST - 34 comments
Sally Wallace creates highly detailed miniature dollhouses, including several from the Harry Potter films (
Olivander's wand shop & Honeydukes,
Hogwarts,
The Stairs).
Via.
Warning, every single annoying web 0.9 trick in the book is employed somewhere on this site, including but not limited to: embedded midi files, that java fake reflecting water deal, virtual exploding fireworks, etc. ugh. posted by jonson at 11:33 PM PST - 4 comments
As the war in Iraq nears its fourth anniversary, and with no end in sight, Americans are owed explanations. The Senate Intelligence Committee has promised a report on whether the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence to justify the war against Iraq. An explanation is due also for how the U.S. press helped pave the way for war. An independent and thorough inquiry of pre-war press coverage would be a public service. Not least of the beneficiaries would be the press itself, which could be helped to understand its behavior and avoid a replay.
Cranberg wants a serious probe of why the press failed in its pre-war reportingposted by y2karl at 8:01 PM PST - 57 comments
Writers on America is a collection of essays by various American authors on different aspects of America. It was conceived in the direct aftermath of 9/11 as a way to introduce readers to a United States that is not prominent in American pop culture. It is published by the US State Department and distributed by embassies. Michael Chabon writes about
growing up in the utopian planned city of Columbia, Maryland. Bharati Mukherjee writes
On Being an American Writer rather than an Indo-American one. Charles Johnson writes about a
great uncle who started a milk company, and after that went belly-up in the Great Depression, founded a construction business. The other authors with essays in the volume are
Elmaz Abinader,
Julia Alvarez,
Sven Birkerts,
Robert Olen Butler,
Billy Collins,
Robert Creeley,
David Herbert Donald,
Richard Ford,
Linda Hogan,
Mark Jacobs,
Naomi Shihab Nye and
Robert Pinsky. On Voice of America Eric Felten
interviewed Mark Jacobs, George Clack, executive editor of the publication and Joseph Bottum, books and arts editor of the Weekly Standard. NPR
interviewed Clack and Elmaz Abinader [RealAudio] about the project and On the Media
interviewed Clack by himself.
posted by Kattullus at 6:17 PM PST - 34 comments
Is blood plasma salinity the same as seawater? No, but that proves evolution.
"The answer is most definitely NOT that oceans were 1/3 as salty back then. It most definitely IS that the earliest vertebrates did evolve in salt water and then moved into fresh water....They have devised an extremely clever trick in kidney structure to allow salt transport pumps which really take salt back INTO the body from the urine but still manage to use them to produce urine much more concentrated that their body fluids and so excrete salt FROM the body."posted by Brian B. at 11:06 AM PST - 67 comments
Great White Sharks feeding on a whale carcass. Ever wanted to see what a dead whale looks like? Find it here. How about multiple great white sharks feeding on said carcass? Find it here. How about a mad scientist who climbs on said carcass? And films said sharks with fricken' lazer beams feeding on stinking whale carcass?
posted by KokuRyu at 9:26 AM PST - 39 comments
February 9
Singer-songwriter
Margo Guryan takes the 16 words from George W. Bush's 2003 State Of The Union address and set them to music. Comes with great video, directed by James Reitano (
iFilm,
youtube). [more inside]
posted by Ira.metafilter at 7:03 PM PST - 8 comments
"I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values.
I will never forgive myself."
posted by empath at 10:25 AM PST - 58 comments
For Saddam Hussein, he is an oppressor, but the solution is not to kill every oppressor to smash a whole people, destroy civilizations, and kill children and women and deceit.
Signature:
Iraq Victims Teamposted by Meatbomb at 10:05 AM PST - 8 comments
The
premise of Marvel Comic's
Civil War storyline is that after a hero-related disaster, the government decides to force all superheroes to register, causing a split in the hero community. While heroes debate and decide which side to join, fans
debate whether or not the cross-over series is actually any good. Clearly,
Christopher Bird falls squarely on one side and has attempted to "improve" the story by starting a project to edit the dialogue of the series.
(1) (2) (3) (4)
(5) (6)posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:21 AM PST - 53 comments
The Reedy Creek Improvement District's goal "is to provide effective and efficient services to the public and our taxpayers." The taxpayer is Disney, and the taxes are used to provide services for Disney by
contracting the services to Disney. The
RCID is a county-like entity in Florida, composed of the cities of Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake, which are also controlled by Disney. The government of the RCID is elected by the landowners - Disney executives who own five-acre plots, the only non-corporate and non-government landowners. The governments of the cities are elected by the residents - about 40 Disney employees split between
Bay Lake and
Lake Buena Vista. The
Rotten Library (SFW article on a NSFW site) discusses the district, which is administered from a
SimCity 2000 construction site.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 3:37 AM PST - 17 comments
a Google Maps view of NYC, centered on Central Park Google Maps has started displaying subway stops (with the names of the lines that serve each each stop) in New York City. Clearly this is a work in progress (full building outlines are available only in some parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, and some subway stops currently list only one of the multiple trains that serve the stop). Still, this is excellent news not only for natives but also for tourists (whose only subway-map reference may be the significantly, sometimes radically "not to scale" version put out by the MTA).
posted by allterrainbrain at 1:49 AM PST - 46 comments
So.. who's ready for
Quantum Computing?British Colombia-based
D-Wave says they've got one and they're going to
demo that sucker in Mountain View, CA on Feb 13th and then at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver, Canada on February 15th.
Quoting from TechWorld :
"Multiple quantum states exist at the same time, so every quantum bit or "qubit" in such a machine is simultaneously 0 and 1. D-Wave's prototype has only 16 qubits, but systems with hundreds of qubits would be able to process more inputs than there are atoms in the universe."
Naturally, the
tech-savvy blogosphere is
skeptical. But what do
you think? (
previously,
previously)
posted by revmitcz at 1:01 AM PST - 54 comments
February 8
Road Closed for Tribal Council: Vunivutu Villagers Latest Beneficiaries of the Survivor Boomtown Effect
The hit "reality" TV show,
Survivor, premieres tonight on CBS
in the United States. Over the past year, a sleepy village on Vanua
Levu, the second largest island of Fiji has been hosting the
production crew—and reaping the benefits. 150 villagers have been employed by the crew to work about 10 hours a day, seven days a week, for USD 5.00 per hour (and double time on Sundays and holidays). For some it was their first experience in any form of paid employment. This
article from the Fiji Post, reposted by a Vanua Levu blogger, gives
some behind the scene details. Meanwhile the island's new eco-resort village is putting finishing touches on their community hall. Globe-trotting gap year students and reality TV junkies, look north. Vanua Levu is for lovers. [
Survivor Maps,
Vorovoro, the eco-resort with a difference,
Vorovoro's new bure (community hall),
Google's hires satellite image of the area]
posted by rschram at 3:02 PM PST - 3 comments
The
Black Light Theatre of
Prague ("?erné Divadlo" or simply Black Theatre) is a
Czech performance style characterised by the use of black box theatre augmented by black light trickery. Although this performance style can be found in many places around the world, nowhere is it more prolific or specialized than in Prague. Some sample images:
1 2 3 4. YouTube:
1 2 3.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:47 AM PST - 13 comments
Jamaican Label Art. J.L.A. is a website for those people who are obsessed with Caribbean music and the artwork and design of the labels on the vinyl reproductions of that music. It doesn't matter if those labels are on recordings of Jamaican music released in the U.S.A., or indeed Trini Calypso released in the U.K. It's all the same to us! posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:10 AM PST - 5 comments
February 7
While there have been many posts on Mefi of blogs written by those affected by the Iraq War, I have not seen this one posted. No matter your stance on the war, your opinion of American soldiers, or the amount of other Iraq war blogs you've read, all I ask is that you
at least read these few entries. I've used too many words already, when the journal does more than enough to speak for itself.
A Soldier's Thoughts. (via) [more inside]posted by wander at 9:52 PM PST - 13 comments
Joanna Newsom "a special treat from your friends at Moistworks: Three bootlegs from Joanna Newsom's performance in Greensboro, North Carolina, last November, unavailable anywhere else. You won't be disappointed (unless, to steal the best thing Dave Eggers ever said, you are the sort of person who is usually disappointed, in which case this will be yet another disappointment)."
posted by vronsky at 7:55 PM PST - 81 comments
Kotaku interviews Dez , the producer of
Whores of Warcraft (
NSFW)(
previously), as well as Mia Rose and Hannah Harper, 2 porn stars recently added to the rolls of addicted
World of Warcraft players. Apparently, Dez has at least 2 level 70 characters, and plays in a guild with Hannah's husband, where she's taken her Blood Elf Priest to level 26 already. Talking about Phat Lewt not getting you hot? How about some
Bare Maidens? (gee, NSFW, you think?). Dez also has a fascinating
MySpace page, mostly for his ...interesting mix of friends.
posted by thanotopsis at 5:31 PM PST - 22 comments
US Army clears itself of abuse in Gitmo An Army officer who investigated possible abuse at Guantanamo Bay after some guards purportedly bragged about beating detainees found no evidence they mistreated the prisoners — although he did not interview any of the alleged victims.
posted by CameraObscura at 12:12 PM PST - 43 comments
Venezuelan State TV aired a show yesterday in which they complained about a certain
videogame, in which the goal is to overthrow the "power-hungry tyrant who messes with Venezuela's oil supply." In Venezuela, people are a bit offended by the
images of Caracas being destroyed in the game, outside,
some people are offended because one of the owners of the
controversial company that created the game is
Bono, The
Defender of the
Poor, Bono, and they are trying to
stop it.
posted by micayetoca at 6:33 AM PST - 45 comments
February 6
Asininity? Not just for poets, asininepoetry.com, just in time for St. Valentine's Day. A great place to waste a lot of time. You may want to wax poetic yourownself.
posted by longsleeves at 6:30 PM PST - 2 comments
If you're lucky enough to own the Nintendo Wii and are of the left brain
variety, have a look at
MiiStation.com, where you can submit a photo and have an artist create your Mii - you know, Mr. Potato Head for the console generation. This is real people (in Japan!) sittin' in front of the tube (probably LCDs or plasmas, maybe even OLEDs?), lookin' at your photos and wavin' that Wii wand.
posted by gen at 5:27 PM PST - 7 comments
A Tranquil Star ...for a discussion of stars our language is inadequate and seems laughable, as if someone were trying to plow with a feather. (
via)
posted by grateful at 1:47 PM PST - 11 comments
The Belfry WebComics Index is a site that lists just about every webcomic in existence, and a few that no longer are. You can
add any that it's missing. Even better, if you tell it which ones you like, it'll compare that to other users' picks and make suggestions. The
top ten are
Better Days,
Sabrina Online,
Faux Pas,
Jack (NSFW),
Freefall,
VG Cats,
Kevin & Kell,
Peter is the Wolf (NSFW),
Ozy & Millie, and
Dan & Mab's Furry Adventures. If you dislike talking animals, you can
set the furry-bit to off, to highlight such webcomics as
Penny Arcade,
Girl Genius,
Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire,
Sluggy Freelance,
PvP,
MegaTokyo,
Misfile,
Schlock Mercenary,
Something Positive,
The Wotch and many more.
posted by DataPacRat at 1:19 PM PST - 46 comments
Thoughts on Music "...in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store." — Steve Jobs
posted by timeistight at 12:52 PM PST - 137 comments
Useless Account is the newest, hippest web 2.0 site, with gradient blends, large text, and bright colors. And right now, they're offering
free accounts with
unlimited account editing. Sign up quick before your username is taken!
posted by scottreynen at 12:01 PM PST - 29 comments
"Deus is an experimental, serialized online comic about myth, consciousness, death, and tomfoolery. Following a set of quasi-mythical gods and a poor fool named Cam, the styles and themes of Deus are constantly evolving." From the utterly talented Gareth Hinds, whose fully painted interpretation of
Beowulf is about to be issued in hardcover by Candlewick Press.
posted by jbickers at 10:28 AM PST - 4 comments
Unintelligent Design. The History Images of
Sze Tsung Leong.
"Then there's the other type of history that is recorded in the fabric of cities. This includes the houses that are being destroyed; it has to do with the history of quotidian things, really, the layers of history that have slowly accumulated. The loss of this fabric the spaces and histories particular to different cities means that the particular cultural value and artistic qualities they contain, are lost." also
here and
here.
posted by arse_hat at 10:13 AM PST - 8 comments
French Jewish writer Irène Némirovsky's claim to fame rests on Suite Française, a novel that she wrote about the German occupation of France while awaiting death in Auschwitz but which was not published until 2004. Irène may also provoke interest because her early fiction was steeped in anti-semitic stereotypes and serialized in right-wing newspapers. [More Inside]
posted by gregb1007 at 3:15 AM PST - 12 comments
February 5
There's a new motorcyle-like thingie called a
Spyder... However, it's got three wheels, and looks WAY hot. Oh, did I mention that two of the wheels are in
front?
Here's the manufacturer's website (warning: some flash stuffs). I want one.
posted by Vamier at 9:55 PM PST - 44 comments
Mind Games. "She speaks about her situation calmly, occasionally laughing at her own predicament and her struggle with what she originally thought was mental illness....Like Girard, Naylor describes what she calls "street theater" -- incidents that might be dismissed by others as coincidental, but which Naylor believes were set up. She noticed suspicious cars driving by her isolated vacation home. On an airplane, fellow passengers mimicked her every movement -- like mimes on a street."
Link goes to a Washington Post story - reg. may be required.posted by Sticherbeast at 6:23 PM PST - 63 comments
You will be thoroughly beaten. Zimbabwe, in economic decline for years, may be accelerating towards collapse. Its inflation rate recently hit
1281%, the highest in the world, and a strike by
public doctors that began six weeks ago has now spread to
nurses,
electrical workers and (today)
teachers. Those that aren't allowed to strike, like
police, are quitting. Last month, Zimbabwe's top judge
warned that underfunding had (possibly intentionally) left its judiciary largely unable to function, the nation's electricity provider recently
announced that it's broke, its
sewage plants started breaking down and polluting urban water supplies, and international observers warned (based on satellite photos, since the government won't allow them in)
that famine is looming. In the past, President Robert Mugabe's response to the growing destitution has been to
forcibly evict poor urban slum residents into the countryside and bulldoze their homes, to prevent them from organizing politically and to make it difficult for rights organizations to monitor them. Now, he's
canceling the 2008 presidential elections (for now, saying that they'll be held in 2010, in conjunction with parliamentary elections, to save money) and ordering security forces to
jail and torture political activists. The situation may be approaching a breaking point.
posted by gsteff at 2:21 PM PST - 48 comments
POEMS-FOR-ALL "Small poems in small booklets half the size of a business card. A project of the 24th street irregular press, which cranks them out to be taken by the handful and scattered like seeds by those who want to see poetry grow in a barren cultural landscape." (via
Ward 6)
posted by otio at 12:46 PM PST - 21 comments
Right Web , founded in 2003, is a program of the International Relations Center (IRC) that tracks the work of those, in and outside of government, who have been instrumental in shaping or supporting U.S. policies in the global war on terror, also has the archives of
Group watch (1985-1991), which profiled more than 125 private, quasi-governmental, and religious organizations that were closely associated with the implementation of U.S. foreign policy, especially in Central America.
Profiles of Right wing
individuals,
organisations,
corporate, and
government.
posted by adamvasco at 11:52 AM PST - 8 comments
The Black Youth Project, "will examine the attitudes, resources, and culture of African American youth ages 15 to 25, exploring how these factors and others influence their decision-making, norms, and behavior in critical domains such as sex, health, and politics." The project is run by University of Chicago professor
Cathy J. Cohen. The
sitemap may help you get a handle on what is a tremendous amount of information. Or you could read
the press release for a succint summary and links to
mentions in the media.
posted by The Straightener at 8:31 AM PST - 11 comments
February 4
TPM's David Kurtz: I've gone from being open to the idea of an Imperial Vice Presidency to being convinced that historians will debate whether something approaching a Cheney-led coup d'etat has occurred, in which some of the powers of the Executive were extra-constitutionally usurped by the Office of the Vice President.
More about the Vice President, Richard "Dick" Cheney.posted by nevercalm at 4:45 PM PST - 51 comments
Stand By For Crime! Archive.org presents the astonishing adventures of Chuck Morgan, intrepid radio muckracker and crimefighter, as he battles The Communist Menace, investigates The Wetback Murders, and solves The Marijuana Mystery. Circa 1953; twenty-six half-hour episodes in mp3 format, each approximately 9 MB.
posted by stammer at 10:46 AM PST - 8 comments
... "All the Shiites have to do is tell everyone to lay low, wait for the Americans to leave, then when they leave you have a target list and within a day they'll kill every Sunni leader in the country. It'll be called the `Day of Death' or something like that," said 1st Lt. Alain Etienne, 34, of Brooklyn, N.Y. "They say, `Wait, and we will be victorious.' That's what they preach. And it will be their victory." Quinn agreed. "Honestly, within six months of us leaving, the way Iranian clerics run the country behind the scenes, it'll be the same way here with Sadr," said Quinn, 25, of Cleveland. "He already runs our side of the river."
Mahdi Army gains strength through unwitting aid of U.S.Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates 1000 killed in one weekNorthern Iraq seen as next front in warposted by y2karl at 9:25 AM PST - 74 comments
Web 2.0 (2nd draft) A short film by Kansas State Cultural Anthropology Professor Mike Welsh. Find out what happens when content and structure finally break-up and structure gets a place of its own.
posted by Toekneesan at 8:51 AM PST - 37 comments
Washington Initiative Requires Proof of Procreation From Married Couples --
in response to a ruling made by the Washington Supreme Court last year stating gay and lesbian couples could be prevented from marrying by the state because Washington has a legitimate interest in preserving marriage for couples who can procreate. It's been accepted by their Secy of State, and only needs signatures now to get on the ballot.
Press release here, which adds:
The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine. If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who can not or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage.posted by amberglow at 5:50 AM PST - 152 comments
February 3
Here's $10,000! All you have to do is pick it up and it is yours. There it is, just staring at you. You are a global climate scientist or economist and the American Enterprise Institute,
"an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration" wants you to lend them some of your legitimacy, for which they will pay you ten grand.
posted by publius at 9:32 PM PST - 34 comments
Loaded, an essay that originally appeared in
Harper's, argues pro-gun rights from a liberal point of view.
Rob Williams the original
Negro with Guns, (and who probably won't be appearing in any feel-good Black History Month presentations, might agree.
posted by John of Michigan at 6:42 PM PST - 97 comments
Robert Krulwich tells the tale of Dr. Alan Rabinowitz and his friend...
"Dawi told Alan the terrible secret that explained why there were so few Taron (left in the world). And then Alan told Dawi a secret of his own..." (includes audio link)posted by ZachsMind at 4:19 PM PST - 12 comments
Since I was only a child,
Arnold Newman (gallery; another gallery) (obituary) has been my favorite photographer. He specialized in "environmental portraiture," carefully posing his subjects in surroundings that spoke to their personalities. He usually spent hours or days meticulously planning every aspect of the shot, and not always to make the
subject look good. Many of his photos became
the definitive photograph of the person. I hope one day to make even one photograph that comes close to what he was able to do.
posted by The Deej at 3:37 PM PST - 15 comments
Mountain Meadow Massacre When I left Los Angeles, the 23rd ultimo, General Clarke, commanding the Department of California, directed me to bury the bones of the victims of that terrible massacre which took place on this ground in September, 1857. The fact of this massacre of (in my opinion) at least 120 men, women and children, who were on their way from the State of Arkansas to California, has long been well known. I have endeavored to learn the circumstances attending it, and have the honor to submit the following as the result of my inquiries on this point:
posted by Falconetti at 9:43 AM PST - 21 comments
Tell, but don't ask. Dick's lesbian daughter is pregnant. Mary Cheney and her partner Heather Poe are having a baby. But she'd rather not talk about it. The future grandparents think any mention of their daughter's sexual preference is
out of line. Dan Savage thinks
otherwise.posted by Toekneesan at 8:43 AM PST - 60 comments
Ce n'est pas une cigarette France is the latest to ban smoking in public, joining Spain, Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the Ukraine, and the U.S. among others. This
short article from The Atlantic shows the long history of countries attempting to ban smoking, from Pope Urban VIII to Hitler. Somehow I think these bans are here to stay.
posted by papoon at 6:03 AM PST - 49 comments
I won't be happy until I lose my legs "I was six when I first became aware of my desire to lose my legs. I don't remember what started it - there was no specific trigger.
Most people want to change something about themselves, and the image I have of myself has always been one without legs"
This woman has
Apotemnophilia. She wants both her legs cut off, in fact she already had one. It's
victimless - would YOU be willing to amputate a perfectly healthy limb?
posted by Baldons at 1:37 AM PST - 97 comments
February 2
Gian Carlo Menotti was, until his death at 95, the most often-performed contemporary opera composer. Among his
works is the first opera composed for
radio, the most popular
Christmas opera, possibly the first opera in which a
telephone plays a principal role (
Poulenc's came more than a decade later), an opera about
aliens, and a
masterpiece about life under totalitarian rule (which was also the first time that suicide by gas oven made it to the stage). He ignored the fashion of atonality that held academia in thrall, and never veered from his lyrical style. He wrote his own libretti, which showed a mastery and love of language as deep as his musical talents. Some of his
works were Broadway successes. And he created one of the
finest music
festivals [includes embedded music video]. He will be
remembered.posted by QuietDesperation at 9:56 PM PST - 4 comments
Nobel Peace Prize nomination database 1901-1955: In general the Nobel Peace Prize Committee does not reveal the nominations for the prize, and they ask the nominators not to do so as well. However,
Rush Limbaugh continues the illustrious nomination of people with questionable merit, including Benito Mussolini(1935), Stalin (1945, '48), and you know who else was nominated? Yeah, that's right,
Hitler (1945).
posted by edgeways at 5:33 PM PST - 33 comments
Flash Friday tutorials. Want to know how to make a pre-loader? A cool image gallery, or sound driven animation? Learn how to do so here with some nice tutorials by Lee Brimelow, or visit his
flash blog.posted by localhuman at 4:12 PM PST - 3 comments
The Let's Play archive. Ever wanted to play a particular video game, but never got around to it? Let's Play features extensive walkthroughs of classic games like Silent Hill and Flashback complete with screenshots, videos, and commentary. Other games such as Darkseed and The Immortal are coming soon.
posted by clockworkjoe at 2:30 PM PST - 7 comments
Tales from the DEW Line. In the mid-50's, the Distant Early Warning, or
DEW Line, a series of radar stations along the 69th paralell, began scanning the arctic skies for signs of soviet bombers. Though cut off from direct contact with civilization, and often hoping that nothing would happen, staffers of these remote outposts still found plenty worth writing about or photographing (
1,
2,
3).
posted by Durhey at 1:19 PM PST - 36 comments
February 1
Get Hostile! - Inspired by the well-beloved Avalon Hill board game
Acquire, Get Hostile! is a free, web-based board game that has already sucked up hours of my time. Check out the quick tutorial to get up to speed, then play against live opponents or AI's, forming corporations, buying stock, and doing hostile takeovers!
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:34 PM PST - 11 comments
The old and the new Japan
in one frame. The delicate relationship of Oyako, parent and child. In 1982 American photographer
Bruce Osborn began what has become his lifelong work. For the last 25 years he took pictures of one parent with one child in a white studio setting.
posted by nickyskye at 9:19 PM PST - 28 comments
"I'm bleeding. You can check my underwear. I want to go to the hospital."
"How is that my problem?"
[MoralOutrageFilter] Despite Sofia Silva's
telling the officers that she was having a miscarriage [links to video], she was refused medical attention and arrested on traffic violations and outstanding warrants (
mistreatment of children and trespassing). The next day, the baby died after being born prematurely. Sofia is now
suing the Kansas City Police Department.
posted by eunoia at 4:16 PM PST - 74 comments
"A Million Penguins is an experiment in creative writing and community. Anyone can join in. Anyone can write. Anyone can edit. Let’s see if the crowds are not only wise, but creative. Or will too many cooks spoil the broth?"
posted by goo at 4:07 PM PST - 39 comments
You've heard of
ScummVM and
MAME, but harvest time is approaching in the field of reverse-engineered
open source re-implementations of other classic games too:
OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon),
LinCity (Sim City),
Advanced Strategic Command (Battle Isle),
Freeciv (Civilization),
Enigma (Oxyd),
Widelands (Settlers),
OpenArena (Quake 3),
Spring (Total Annihilation),
JJFFE (Frontier First Encounters),
Vega Strike and
Oolite (Elite),
FreeOrion (Master of Orion),
Pingus (Lemmings),
Stratagus (Warcraft II et al.),
CloneKeen (Commander Keen),
Exult (Ultima VII),
FreeCNC (Command & Conquer),
REminiscence (Flashback),
LGeneral (Panzer General),
Pioneers (Settlers of Catan), and
Freedoom (Doom).
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:27 PM PST - 43 comments
Unhappy with her hair style,
a bride flips out just hours before her wedding. Sobbing and screaming, she goes into the hotel washroom, rips apart her coiffure, and cuts her own hair. The episode is caught on video, posted to YouTube, and Farkalarity ensues. But the plot thickens. It turns out the bride is 22 year-old aspiring actress Jodi Behan, and the film was made by Toronto-based Ryerson University grad Ingrid Hass.
It's a hoax, designed to put
a lock on their film careers. We'll see more from these girls. Thursday on the Tonight Show, for a start.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:26 PM PST - 65 comments
In 1999, MTV aired 25 Lame, a show where retired 25 of their worst and most overplayed videos. Rob Van Winkle (aka Vanilla Ice) showed up to help them retire the video for "Ice Ice Baby." The result -
violence, hilarity, and broken mannequins (video, 30-second ad shows before video). Apparently unplanned,
nobody knows for sure if this outburst was the product of genuine anger, or if he was just playing around. An
unedited version (YouTube, lower quality) leads me to think that it was the former.
posted by Afroblanco at 12:27 PM PST - 33 comments
iConcertCal - The most awesomest iTunes plugin ever--tells you when bands you have MP3s for are playing your town.
{via an email from this dude.}posted by dobbs at 8:21 AM PST - 59 comments
Last week a video was posted to YouTube and linked to by the Iraqslogger site. The YouTube account ("Deathlyillington") is now defunct but the video survives and purports to show a former guard from Abu Ghraib talking about torture techniques employed at the American-run prison. The man recounts the gang rape of a female teenage detainee, in which one guard "pimped" the girl to others for $50 each. As he recalls, "I think at the end of the day he'd made like 500 bucks before she hung herself." The US Army's Criminal Investigation Department has now launched an investigation, but the question remains, is the video real, or is it a hoax along the lines of
Jesse Macbeth, the
Daily Mirror fake torture photos or the
fake beheading video. The
video contains few clues to the identity of the alleged soldier, who is shown in silhouette but seems potentially recognizable. A
transcript is available.
posted by unSane at 6:13 AM PST - 67 comments
Eel Pie Island: the early 1960s incubator and catalyst of the burgeoning R & B scene in Twickenham and Richmond, The young musicians who played there included members of The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Long John Baldry, the Small Faces, to name but a few. BBC Radio documentary on Radio 4
(30 minutes). Plus, from about 1964 (?): pre-Wheels on Fire Brian Augur and the Trinity with three-quarters of Steampacket (Long John Baldry, the delicious Julie Driscoll, and Rod "the Mod" Stewart) I guess what with Augur on keyboard, the Steampacket didn't need their pianist, Elton John.
youtuber posted by Mister Bijou at 3:33 AM PST - 10 comments
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