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Finally we can have our flying cars!
posted by Jimbob at 9:20 PM PST - 48 comments

Nabokov in Berlin. 'Vladimir Nabokov was starting his career as a writer when he found himself in Berlin. "It is clear, for one thing, that while a man is writing, he is situated in some definite place; he is not simply a kind of spirit, hovering over the page...Something or other is going on around him." The short 1934 novel Despair from which this quote comes is already heavily self-ironising compared with the stories of the previous decade. But like them it is studded with incidental Berlin experiences, from the shape of the city's S-Bahn train line on the map to the comedy of a German misspeaking English. "I suppose only the pest. The chief thing by me is optimismus." If Nabokov's Berlin was in his head, it was nevertheless not invented.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 9:09 PM PST - 6 comments

"At this point, his 16-year-old son Joseph Kane comes out shooting with an AK-47." A dashcam video from a police SUV shows a teenager opening fire on two West Memphis police officers before taking off in a van with his father. Subsequent helicopter footage reveals a third occupant of the van escaping unharmed. The Game and Fish Officer who rammed his truck into the van most likely saved the lives of two wounded officers. Full Text. [more inside]
posted by thisisdrew at 9:06 PM PST - 71 comments

Campus A Low Hum is an independent, 3-day, DIY music festival, held in a disused agricultural college in New Zealand. Conceived as a "campaign against crap festivals", Campus performances are intimate, stages are multiple, parties erupt spontaneously, school-like group activities are participated in with gusto – and it's happening again next year! [more inside]
posted by Rumpled at 8:23 PM PST - 12 comments

"It's a barbecue area." "They call this: Babakiueria!"
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:00 PM PST - 11 comments

Dr. Jay Kennedy, a philosopher from Manchester University, claims to have uncovered a series of secret messages hidden in some of the most influential and celebrating writings of the Ancient World,"--that is, in the dialogs of Plato. His findings have been published in the most recent issue of Apeiron, a well-respected journal of philosophy. [more inside]
posted by resiny at 6:52 PM PST - 44 comments

The Impossible Music Sessions are evenings of an American band covering the music of foreign band which is cannot appear for political reasons - they are not allowed to travel by their government for example. The first band to be covered is Iran's The Plastic Wave (their website is down, but for reference it is here. Myspace. You Tube.) The second band is Guinea Bissau's Baloberos Crew which Impossible Music describes as "a group of hip hop artists who have faced intimidation by the military police because their lyrics are critical of the government." (limited information on the Impossible Music site here) Via All Things Considered.
posted by shothotbot at 6:49 PM PST - 3 comments

Pizza song. [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 6:43 PM PST - 17 comments

An attempt at a collaborative translation of Plato’s Protagoras. Every day for a few months, Dhananjay Jagannathan will post roughly a page of the dialogue, side by side in Greek, in his own translation, and in Jowett’s classic 1871 translation. He's invited readers to comment and offer suggestions to improve the translation. Jagannathan's goal is to communicate Plato in English the way readers of his would have interpreted his Greek.
posted by unliteral at 6:20 PM PST - 11 comments

NeighborGoods just launched nationally. It's sorta Freecycle meets Craigslist, without the sketchy.
posted by mikoroshi at 4:51 PM PST - 30 comments

Is Rupert Grint the new Leonardo DiCaprio? Martin Scorsese thinks that Rupert Grint is the real star of the Harry Potter films and would like to direct him in a 'badass' role. Is he right? Growing up has been eventful for the Harry Potter stars. Daniel Radcliffe has trod the boards naked. Only this weekend the paparazzi chased Emma Watson around the Glastonbury festival. Yet, according to Martin Scorsese, public attention has been focused on the wrong actor – for the celebrated auteur, it's all about Rupert Grint. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:49 PM PST - 74 comments

First, there was colossal miscalculation. Something so bad it could make parable a four-letter word. Didn't faze him. His next was "bizarrely compelling... Slower than watching a train wreck," but yet invoking, "that same level of disbelief." It was also like swallowing spiky clusters of manure. Maybe he had lost his mind? But yet he rose again... Or should we say he blew? No really, it was the wind this time . A feeble gust of an environmental horror story. "You feel like you're not watching the end of the world but the end of a career." Alas, like the undead, you cannot stop him. His latest, sitting at a paltry 0%* on the Tomatometer, is whitewashed, and offers an experience that's a headache-inducing, joyless, soulless, husk that Roger Ebert called "agonizing... in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented." It enchantingly makes, "Jake Lloyd’s performance in The Phantom Menace look studied." And, "the Golden Compass... look like a four-star classic." With $150 million spent on production, and $130 million on marketing alone, has this "auteur" finally created his masterpiece? Or will it be the Last Straw® (in 3d!)? [more inside]
posted by PBR at 4:23 PM PST - 256 comments

The 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Winners. That is all.
posted by nj_subgenius at 3:50 PM PST - 31 comments

Long lost Bongwater video makes its internet debut! NSFW! [more inside]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 3:42 PM PST - 20 comments

Today's woot: Woot.
posted by jayCampbell at 3:27 PM PST - 38 comments

“Gender-related behaviors, namely childhood play, peer association, career and leisure time preferences in adolescence and adulthood, maternalism, aggression, and sexual orientation become masculinized in 46,XX girls and women with 21OHD deficiency [CAH]. These abnormalities have been attributed to the effects of excessive prenatal androgen levels on the sexual differentiation of the brain and later on behavior.” Nimkarn and New continue: “We anticipate that prenatal dexamethasone therapy will reduce the well-documented behavioral masculinization…” [more inside]
posted by kipmanley at 3:00 PM PST - 53 comments

In 1978, "Bruce Wayne" (probably not his real name) worked as a set dresser on The Muppet Movie. Here are some photos he took on the set. (via Muppet Central)
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:53 PM PST - 16 comments

Prior to the G20 last weekend in Toronto, the Government of Ontario met in a closed session. Police Chief Bill Blair announced on Friday June 25th that, in this session, a law was passed giving police new powers to demand identification from -- and conduct unwarranted searches of -- anyone approaching within 5 metres of the security fence that had been erected around the downtown core. This law was enforced all weekend; there were more than 900 arrests. Now that the G20 has passed and the proceedings of the closed government session are coming to light, it's become apparent that the law never existed at all. Bill Blair has now acknowledged that he made the whole thing up to "keep the criminals out." [more inside]
posted by 256 at 12:32 PM PST - 90 comments

The 100 Cheesiest Movie Quotes of All Time. The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time. [more inside]
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:26 PM PST - 64 comments

In a fundamental re-think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a research team lead by Arizona State University's Doug Kenrick has replaced the personal need to achieve status and respect, culminating in self-actualization, with the biological imperative to find a mate and reproduce, culminating in parenting. Kenrick also replaces Maslow's strict design, in which needs replace one another, with a design in which needs overlap over the course of a lifetime. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:37 AM PST - 125 comments

A cartoon about the internet, as recommened by Alan Moore on Infinite Monkey Cage.
posted by Artw at 10:26 AM PST - 53 comments

Vuvuzela Chorale from Brahm's First Symphony. [single link vuvuzela]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:50 AM PST - 41 comments

Klout.com attempts to measure influence on Twitter. Recognizing that follower count does not measure influence, Klout considers 25 factors to determine how engaged you are with your network, how widely your tweets are read, and how likely your tweets are to drive action (retweets, replies, clicks). [more inside]
posted by Faust Gray at 9:44 AM PST - 48 comments

Motorcycle modification means something entirely different across the developing world. You can deliver cold drinks, cargo, one person, three or even more with a special sidecar. You can cook hot food and sell it. Or critically, you can quickly transport someone in need of emergency medical care when roads are bad and facilities remote. They're supported by roadside repair shops, tyre shacks, petrol pumps and more. Bonus FTW
posted by infini at 8:55 AM PST - 13 comments

Theatre composer Jason Robert Brown (bio) tries to explain to a young fan why it’s wrong to download sheet music from the Internet for free. Via.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:13 AM PST - 415 comments

A Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature. 1967 Oscar winning animated short by John & Faith Hubley. (SLYT)
posted by .kobayashi. at 7:55 AM PST - 4 comments

After America Speaks gave 3500 people the opportunity to address the budget deficit, the CEPR has invented its own play-at-home version, the Deficit Calculator. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:28 AM PST - 27 comments

"Sixteen-year-old Sabera, with a pretty yellow head scarf, frets that she is missing school. 'I was about to get engaged, and the boy came to ask me himself, before sending his parents. A lady in our neighbourhood saw us, and called the police,' she explains. She was sentenced to three years but, in an act of mercy, it was shortened to 18 months . . ." The BBC reports from an Afghan women's prison. [more inside]
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:29 AM PST - 47 comments

Following the goal that wasn't a goal in the England vs Germany match and the illegal offsides goal in the Argentina vs Mexico match, FIFA President Sepp Blatter has apologized to the eliminated teams and said that goal line detection technology will be considered for future matches. [more inside]
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:29 AM PST - 176 comments

Wonder Woman has had many costumes over the years, but starting today her outfit will be a little more ... practical.
posted by thecjm at 9:40 PM PST - 178 comments

Louis CK is a pretty funny guy. While the Boston comic hasn't fared well in scripted formats -- projects like The Dana Carvey Show, Pootie Tang, and Lucky Louie were all commercial flops -- his stand-up is quite popular, and his new series Louie (premiering tonight on FX) looks like a winner -- and just in time, too. But that's something you'd need a TV to know about. Luckily, the guy's a big hit on YouTube, and has even added some of his own homemade content to the mix. Click inside for a collection of some of his best (and most NSFW) routines. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 9:40 PM PST - 85 comments

The King Is NOT Dead, he's just retiring from his nightly show you didn't realize was still on in order to spend more time with his family and less with Hannity and Maddow. The NYT's David Carr wins the prize for perfectly-timed speculation. So what will happen to Kevin Pollak's "Larry King Game" now?!? [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:19 PM PST - 32 comments

Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff was released from prison this month and quickly found himself a new job as the head of marketing for a Baltimore kosher pizza shop. [more inside]
posted by youcancallmeal at 7:57 PM PST - 42 comments

Why Some Countries Drive on the Right and Some Countries Drive on the Left. Primarily throughout history people used the “keep-left” rule. It has only been very recently that the world has predominately switched to the “keep-right” rule.
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:40 PM PST - 76 comments

The days of the legendary late-night FM DJ are pretty much behind us...with one notable exception. Vin Scelsa, whose radio career spans 43 years on six different New York City FM stations, has developed a uniquely passionate following through his free-form show Idiot's Delight, which blends an idiosyncratic array of music new and old, commentary, and book recommendations. For decades, Vin has used his on-air time to read entire chapters of books, wax philosophical, and add to his remarkable roster of guests. Faithful fans chronicle every aspect of the show, archive past playlists and articles, and even create works like this very homemade but very informative and worthwhile Unofficial Documentary: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 6:22 PM PST - 11 comments

ACLU launches "Spyfiles" to track domestic surveillance. "The American Civil Liberties Union launched a new website Tuesday to track incidents of domestic political surveillance by the government along with a report (PDF) claiming such incidents have increased steadily since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. According to the report there have been 111 incidents of illegal domestic political surveillance since 9/11 in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The website, Spyfiles, will serve as the ACLU's online home for all news and reports of domestic spying."
posted by homunculus at 6:02 PM PST - 12 comments

Mark Bittman's 101 Fast Recipes for Grilling. [more inside]
posted by Anonymous at 5:49 PM PST - 38 comments

Let's say that you're Lenny Kravitz and you're relaxing on a balcony in New Orleans when you hear someone singing one of your songs. What do you do? Well, you could always join in. (SLYT)
posted by ColdChef at 3:44 PM PST - 93 comments

How do you survey a billion people? Since April 1, India has been conducting its 15th decennial census. Unlike in some countries, in India, the data for the census is still entirely collected by enumerators—2.7 million of them—who visit every residence in the country to count the people living there. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 3:42 PM PST - 19 comments

How top officials at Arlington National Cemetery violated Army guidelines -- and may have broken the law.^{Via. Salon.com} Officials at Arlington National Cemetery have been quietly reserving particularly desirable parts of the burial grounds for VIPs. This violates Army regulations and federal law, which bar special burial arrangements for the powerful and well-connected and require that service members be buried in the next available plot at Arlington, regardless of rank or other factors.
posted by Fizz at 2:06 PM PST - 45 comments

The Karzai government is crumbling before our eyes, and if we delude ourselves that this is not the case, we could yet face a replay of 1842. Why the Taliban is winning in Afghanistan - William Dalrymple. (1)
A long in- depth article with historical overtones, which leads to the question: Why Are We in Afghanistan? (2006);(2008); (2010)
posted by adamvasco at 1:52 PM PST - 83 comments

William Wegman, most widely known for his photographs including his Weimaraners, has a body of past works that includes work for Sesame Street. If you're looking for muppets, you will be disappointed. But if you want people with dog heads and human hands, you're in luck! The clips include a haircut and styling for dogs, Rub-a-dub dub, Ten O'Clock Scholar, dogs making the letter A, L and K as in King, dogs demonstrate 2 and 3, a performance of "Jack Sprat" and dogs baking bread (inspired by a post on MetaChat by Obscure Reference). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:46 PM PST - 27 comments

Popular internet streaming service, Hulu has announced its long-anticipated premium offering, which will allow users to stream shows to their TVs and iOS devices. The catch? You still have to watch the ads.
posted by schmod at 12:58 PM PST - 93 comments

For the past year and a half, Daily Kos has been running weekly polls from the respected polling firm, Research 2000. Earlier this month, former Daily Kos diarist Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight published a rating of pollsters that placed R2k near the bottom, leading Markos to fire R2K. Today, Markos alleges that R2K committed fraud, publishing a study of their results by independent statisticians. He promises to sue.
posted by empath at 12:03 PM PST - 88 comments

In the months preceding the release of The Empire Strikes Back, a telephone hotline was set up to allow callers to dial in and hear teasers for the movie. In the years since the Bantha Tracks story, fans savvy to the existence of the "Empire Hotline" have sought out recordings of the messages, performed exclusively for the hotline by actors Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), and James Earl Jones (voice of Darth Vader). Thanks to Craig Miller, Lucasfilm's first director of fan relations, these long-lost recordings can now be heard and enjoyed for the first time in 30 years. [more inside]
posted by albrecht at 11:17 AM PST - 49 comments

"For many riders, a Ninja 250 is the bottom rung of a sport bike ladder, a necessary first step in pursuit of high horsepower race replicas. I can’t begin to recount the myriad times I’ve been asked about getting a bigger bike, generally with the suggestion, express or implied, that I’m ready for a 600cc super sport. With over 17,000 miles behind the bars of my mighty 250, I’ve no apprehensions about moving up." - A blog documenting and occasionally rhapsodizing about day to day living with a bike that is usually looked down on as a underpowered, beginner's bike.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 9:58 AM PST - 93 comments

Say you're a Chinese company wishing to appear more global and well-to-do without all the messy hubbub of hiring a foreigner. What do you do? Drop $44 and rent a white guy.
posted by griphus at 8:59 AM PST - 87 comments

Paul, an octopus in Germany, has made international headlines with his perfect record predicting the outcome of Germany's World Cup matches. On Tuesday, the cephalopod chose the national squad to defeat Argentina on Saturday. But it could be a tight game.
posted by orrnyereg at 8:49 AM PST - 55 comments

Imagine this: 'This evening we are going to hear the 2nd Symphony by Claude Debussy, the Austrian première of Insect Life by the Finnish opera composer Kalevi Aho, and the 2nd Symphony by Bela Bartók.’ What is a symphony? What does the concept mean nowadays? And what does it mean, to compose symphonically?
posted by Wolfdog at 5:58 AM PST - 45 comments

Historypin uses Google Maps and Street View technology and hopes to become the largest user-generated archive of the world's historical images and stories. Historypin lets you layer old images onto modern Street View scenes, giving a series of peaks into the past. Upload and pin your own old photos, as well as the stories behind them, onto the map.
posted by dobbs at 5:46 AM PST - 20 comments

Country hip hop dancing (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:41 AM PST - 56 comments

Excercise a little abstract for you? Unable to see the point of going to the gym? Try ZombieFit and get in shape for the end of the world.
posted by The Whelk at 4:19 AM PST - 53 comments

Window to Dell Decline: The "Dell Model" became synonymous with efficiency, outsourcing and tight inventories, and was taught at the Harvard Business School and other top-notch management schools as a paragon of business smarts and outthinking the competition. For the last seven years, the company has been plagued by serious problems, including misreading the desires of its customers, poor customer service, suspect product quality and improper accounting. Documents recently unsealed in a three-year-old lawsuit And Reported In The NYTimes show Dell employees went out of their way to conceal serious hardware problems. "They were fixing bad computers with bad computers and were misleading customers at the same time..."
posted by Blake at 4:17 AM PST - 266 comments

Last Wednesday, a series of thunderstorms rolled through downtown Chicago. At least once, the John Hancock Building, Trump International Hotel and Tower, and the Willis Sears Tower got struck simultaneously (vimeo). [more inside]
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:55 PM PST - 39 comments

Matthias Heiderich takes colorful pictures of Berlin, among other things. I think this one is my favorite. [via] [more inside]
posted by malapropist at 7:13 PM PST - 15 comments

Three months from today, Gaile [Part I] Owens [Part 2] will be dead in Tennessee after 25 years on death row. The mother of two boys went to the rough side of Nashville to find a hitman to kill her abusive and cheating husband. Due to a series of events, the jury never heard of or believed the abuse. She pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence, but will die on September 28. [more inside]
posted by daninnj at 6:41 PM PST - 37 comments

Time has released their list of the best blogs of 2010. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 6:26 PM PST - 69 comments

One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot
posted by andoatnp at 6:21 PM PST - 95 comments

It took a few decades, but today a federal jury has found former Chicago police commander Jon Burge guilty on all counts of perjury and obstruction of justice in covering up his knowledge of and participation in the systematic torture of suspects in the 1980s. (Previously.) [more inside]
posted by scody at 5:52 PM PST - 26 comments

There is a before and an after André Markowicz. In the early 1990s the translator, born to a Russian mother and French father, began translating the complete works of Dostoyevsky for Babel / Actes Sud. By the time he finished the mammoth undertaking in 2002 he had proved something: what people had been reading by Dostoyevsky wasn’t Dostoyevsky. - an interview with André Marcowicz, writer and translator. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 5:32 PM PST - 12 comments

Ever wanted to mix your own tunes? Soundation Studio is "a powerful online sequencer with 11 real time effects, 3 synthesizers, a drum machine and a fully integrated Sound Shop." Want more? "Use Aviary's music creator to simulate dozens of musical instruments including piano, guitars and drums. Create music loops and patterns for use in Aviary's audio editor (Myna) or as ring tones."
posted by Hildegarde at 4:39 PM PST - 16 comments

The US Department of Justice has announced arrests in four states of ten alleged members of a “deep-cover” Russian spy ring whose ultimate goal was apparently to infiltrate U.S. policy-making circles. So much for burger diplomacy? [more inside]
posted by zarq at 4:01 PM PST - 69 comments

Russell Kirsch says he’s sorry.
posted by rosswald at 3:25 PM PST - 16 comments

If William Wesley says LeBron James is going to play for the Chicago Bulls next year, it is probably true. Known as World Wide Wes, insiders call him the most powerful man in the NBA. And nobody really knows what he does. “I don’t have any clue what he does or how financially he benefits from this. I don’t know. But he’s just there. He’s around. He knows all the pro guys, their agents, the sneaker people, the coaches, general managers, media people. There’s no one he doesn’t know." [more inside]
posted by swellingitchingbrain at 3:13 PM PST - 48 comments

Conan the Barbarian: The Musical (via)
posted by kmz at 3:11 PM PST - 16 comments

An Agnostic Manifesto.
posted by homunculus at 2:48 PM PST - 350 comments

Jeffrey believed that with couponing, he could live on $1 a day for food and have plenty to eat. [more inside]
posted by gman at 2:37 PM PST - 174 comments

The history of lucha libre in Mexico is hard to pin down, some citing the French invasion of 1863 as a origin of modern wrestling in Mexico, with two Italian business men making it commercial in the 1930s, while others take it back to the ancient Mayan and Aztec cultures and credit the modern rebirth with a retired revolutionary army colonel from the United States. But no matter who gets credit as the father of the Mexican sport, El Santo was it's hero for decades, in the ring, in comics, in the movies, and in life. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:41 PM PST - 21 comments

Neil Gaiman has been busy lately, winning the Carnegie Medal, defending libraries, fighting Todd MacFarlane in court again, and admiting that his first book was about Duran Duran. He's also taken time to ask the question: Shouldn't good writing tell a story too?
posted by Artw at 1:41 PM PST - 63 comments

"Wow, what a long engagement that was!" During a chance second encounter in Baltimore in 1945, Henry Schalizki, now 88, and Bob Davis, now 89, met and fell in love. More than six decades later, the couple finally legalized their union.
posted by a.steele at 12:56 PM PST - 59 comments

Infographics of the organic food processing industry. Infographics of the organic food retail and distribution industry. Infographics of the organic farming industry. Infographics of the seed industry structure. A QuickTime animation of the consolidation of the organic food industry. A QuickTime animation of the seed industry consolidation.
posted by slogger at 12:52 PM PST - 13 comments

Chris Henry, the Cincinnati Bengals player who died last December, was found to have suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), almost certainly as a result of his football career. Many other deceased NFL players are known to have suffered from CTE, but Henry was the youngest diagnosed thus far. Henry was infamous while alive for his repeated legal troubles and erratic behavior, and other notable NFL concussion victims, such as Ben Roethlisberger, may also be exhibiting symptoms of CTE. This news will only increase scrutiny of the NFL's much-criticized concussion policy, although the problem is not limited to football players. (Previously)
posted by Copronymus at 12:40 PM PST - 31 comments

Happy Tau Day!
posted by scalefree at 12:36 PM PST - 43 comments

Nicholas Hayek, the founder of the Swatch Group, has died, age 82. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:41 AM PST - 15 comments

Rodolfo Torre Cantu, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate for the governorship of the border state of Tamaulipas, was assassinated in an ambush yesterday. He was presumed to be the virtual winner of next sundays election (no opposition candidate has ever governed the state).
posted by Omon Ra at 10:50 AM PST - 28 comments

The new documentary about their career won a Tribeca audience award, and now, the little power trio from the Great White North has a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 10:43 AM PST - 75 comments

Rithmomachia: the Philosophers' Game. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 10:40 AM PST - 14 comments

...and you have my BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!! Taking the Hobbits to South Africa. (SLYT)
posted by daHIFI at 10:05 AM PST - 34 comments

Sebastian Pruiti offers the sort of analysis many of us like to see from the sports media. Instead of manufacturing controversy, his blog teaches us have a fuller appreciation of the game on the court. For example, instead of obsessing on Cousins' personality, we get a look at his sophisticated post game. [more inside]
posted by Jagz-Mario at 9:46 AM PST - 2 comments

Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? Check. Guest appearance on Sesame Street? Check. Big-deal awards for her work? Check. Sibling even more famous than she? Check! But what do people remember Crystal Gayle for? [more inside]
posted by Stewriffic at 9:27 AM PST - 42 comments

The State of the Internet Operating System by Tim O'Reilly
posted by chunking express at 7:55 AM PST - 103 comments

Today, June 28, 2010, marks the last day of the 2009-10 session of the Supreme Court of the United States. This day will mark a number of historical events, not only in terms of the cases to be handed down. [more inside]
posted by valkyryn at 7:33 AM PST - 186 comments

“There is one line in ‘Zero Hour!’ where a stewardess says, completely seriously, ‘The life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing: finding someone back there who can not only fly this plane, but who didn’t have fish for dinner,’ ” Mr. Abrahams said. “That was the essence of the movie. We just repeated the line. We didn’t have to change a thing.”

Airplane! (known in Australia as Flying High!) turns 30 [more inside]
posted by crossoverman at 4:24 AM PST - 184 comments

Robert Byrd, Respected Voice of the Senate, Dies at 92 Robert C. Byrd, who used his record tenure as a United States senator to fight for the primacy of the legislative branch of government and to build a modern West Virginia with vast amounts of federal money, died early on Monday. He was 92. He was the longest-serving Senator as well as the longest-serving member in congressional history. In his younger days he joined the Ku Klux Klan when he was 24 in 1942.
posted by Blake at 3:30 AM PST - 132 comments

Keith Gessen of n+1 Magazine interviewed an anonymous hedge fund manager. [Previously]. HFM provided many more insights than were published back in 2008. [more inside]
posted by ob1quixote at 12:37 AM PST - 11 comments

A Minute and 100 Metres Down the Road. The soldier outside the station had one hand on the barrel and the other on the butt of his shotgun. There were two military trucks by the bus stop and two soldiers in the back-right seats of every bus leaving Urumqi station... I arrived via long-haul train, 40 hours and just under 4000km in a hard-seat, from Beijing, where rumours were circulating about the extent of the military presence, needle attacks, Uighur and Han street gangs, and the validity of the reports coming out of Xinjiang. After four days I left with more doubts about why ethnic tensions in Urumqi arose and how they could be resolved. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 9:31 PM PST - 2 comments

Did Jesus die on a cross? A Christian scholar says crucifixion was not an execution method in the time of the New Testament.
posted by empath at 8:31 PM PST - 295 comments

Whether we first saw their works as parents, as children, as animation buffs, or just soft-hearted grownup viewers, Mefites have been quick to view, love, praise, analyze, criticize and follow the output of our favorite animation studio, a little company that started in the early '90s and came from behind to revitalize American animation. I am of course referring to the company behind Tiny Robots, What's Up: Balloon to the Rescue, The Frog Prince, Little Princess School, and The Little Panda Fighter -- Video Brinquendo. (Via. Previously.) [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 3:34 PM PST - 16 comments

What counts as sex? A group of researchers at the University of Kentucky-Lexington, thinks that Bill Clinton’s famous assertion that he “did not have sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky may be the reason so many young people today don’t consider oral sex to count as doing the deed. The study "Sex Redefined: The Reclassification Of Oral-Genital Contact"^PDF which was conducted in 2007 and published this month in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, surveyed 477 students enrolled in a human sexuality course at a large state university about their views on sex. What they found was that only 20 percent of those students considered oral-genital contact to be sex, compared with nearly 40 percent of a similar group of students surveyed in 1991.
posted by Fizz at 3:23 PM PST - 90 comments

AT-AT Day Afternoon SLYTvia reddit
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 2:27 PM PST - 25 comments

I'm A Mac and I've got a dirty little secret. Consumers are funding warlords in the Congo who rape and pillage, through their demand for high tech items. The Enough Project and Raise Hope For Congo are trying to change this. Conflict minerals 101.
posted by Xurando at 1:36 PM PST - 82 comments

Given it is Sunday, feel free to get your Jesus on with The Mighty Clouds of Joy. Somebody say Amen.
posted by timsteil at 12:50 PM PST - 16 comments

Experts are little help in the constant struggle in this conversation to separate myth from reality, because they have the same difficulty, and routinely demonstrate it by talking past each other. Respected scientists warn of imminent energy shortages as geologic fuel supplies run out. Wall Street executives dismiss their predictions as myths and call for more drilling. Environmentalists describe the destruction to the earth from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Economists ignore them and describe the danger to the earth of failing to burn coal, oil, and natural gas. Geology researchers report fresh findings about what the earth was like millions of years ago. Creationist researchers report fresh findings that the earth didn’t exist millions of years ago. The only way not to get lost in this awful swamp is to review the basics and decide for yourself what you believe and what you don’t. [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 11:48 AM PST - 31 comments

At the Webby Arwards, the drummer from OK GO got into a staring contest.
posted by The Whelk at 11:06 AM PST - 54 comments

Holy nostalgia fetish, it's Ward Sutton's bat porn.
posted by Artw at 10:30 AM PST - 34 comments

Jarretta Hamilton, a teacher at a Christian school in Orlando, was fired after it was discovered that her baby was conceived before she was married.
posted by reenum at 8:57 AM PST - 151 comments

As translation contretemps go, the one surrounding French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) and her foundational work of modern feminism, Le Deuxième Sexe, first published in two volumes in French in 1949, remains one of the most tempestuous and fascinating. For decades, Beauvoir scholars in the English-speaking world bemoaned, attacked, and sought to replace the widely used 1953 translation by H.M. Parshley (1884-1953), a zoologist at Smith College who knew little philosophy or existentialism, had never translated a book from French, and relied mainly on his undergraduate grasp of the language. A few years back, they succeeded in getting the rights holders [...] to commission a new translation. [... But] Norwegian Beauvoir scholar Toril Moi, a professor at Duke and one of the foremost critics of Parshley's translation, savaged the new version in the London Review of Books. [...] How everyone involved got from vituperative discontent to hopeful triumph and back to discontent makes an instructive tale in itself and offers some lessons for what matters and doesn't in the evolution of a classic.
posted by No-sword at 12:35 AM PST - 38 comments

Editors of the pop-culture magazine Wired provided the title "iPhone 4’s ‘Retina’ Display Claims Are False Marketing" to a highly critical article about the new iPhone's high-resolution "Retina" display, so-called as the human eye cannot resolve individual pixels when viewing it. A technician who worked on the Hubble telescope disagreed with the Wired editors' choice of rhetoric in very strong technical terms and issued less stringent disagreement with Raymond Soneira, the writer of the piece. Neuroscientist and photographer Bryan Jones published his own highly readable technical analysis of the display's pixel arrangement, that helped him decide whether Apple's claims were truthful or not.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:36 PM PST - 61 comments

For the original 1963 airing of Doctor Who, composer Ron Grainer worked up an early electronica experiment for the main title sequence which remains entrancing to this day. With the 2005 reincarnation, composer Murray Gold remained thankfully faithful to Grainer's composition, but the rest of his score has been highly character specific. See: Rose, Martha, Donna, The Ninth/Tenth Doctors, Amy, and finally the sweeping, epic theme for the Eleventh Doctor.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:53 PM PST - 259 comments

Steve Martin's Tour Rider Leaked!
posted by dobbs at 9:27 PM PST - 77 comments

Parties haven't changed since the '70's when Phil Ochs recorded this. If you're sitting home, reading Metafilter, with no place to go... here's a party for you...you'll recognize all the guests...
posted by HuronBob at 9:11 PM PST - 22 comments

Nobody Scores (previously) presents three comics about nerds and how everybody is one now.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 8:58 PM PST - 26 comments

The whole of Mars' surface was shaped by liquid water around four billion years ago, say scientists. Scientists with the best names possible for the job. [more inside]
posted by cthuljew at 7:25 PM PST - 19 comments

Fred Anderson was a monster on the tenor sax. Fred Anderson was one of the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and his "home court," the Velvet Lounge, remains a place for Chicago creative musicians to find welcoming audience. Fred died June 24 in Chicago. A wake will take place from 5 to 6 PM this Tuesday (June 29) at Leak and Sons Funeral Chapel, 7838 S. Cottage Grove, followed immediately by Anderson’s Going Home service. [more inside]
posted by beelzbubba at 7:14 PM PST - 14 comments

The National Pork Board believes in unicorns. Or, at least, its lawyers seem to think that canned unicorn meat is a real product. [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 4:59 PM PST - 49 comments

The Neistat Brothers move from online to primetime on HBO. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:41 PM PST - 8 comments

New photos of the moon have revealed the most detailed views yet of a rare hole in the lunar surface — a pit large enough to swallow an entire football field whole. "High-resolution cameras aboard the Japanese Kaguya spacecraft first spotted the irregularly shaped chasm, located in Mare Ingenii on the moon's southern hemisphere. Now, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken a new, up-close photo of the moon pit from lunar orbit."
posted by Fizz at 3:14 PM PST - 48 comments

Nearly 122 years ago, The first field recording was made. In the Crystal Palace, London, 4000 voices were recorded singing Handel's Israel In Egypt. [more inside]
posted by idiopath at 1:21 PM PST - 44 comments

Live Blog of the G20 Protest in Toronto [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 1:05 PM PST - 395 comments

The New England Jazz History Database is an active and growing library of materials focused on the preservation and education of the History of Jazz in New England. [more inside]
posted by gman at 12:24 PM PST - 5 comments

In 1969 Boz Scaggs released a self-titled album featuring a performance of "Loan Me A Dime". The only problem was the song credited as Scaggs' was writen by blues man Fenton Robinson, resulting in legal battles. The nationwide distribution of Robinson's own version of the song was aborted by a freak snow storm hitting Chicago "It became a big hit for Boz, but Fenton was being robbed of his moment of fame, as well as the dollars that should have gone along with it. It resulted in a big legal battle, which Fenton eventually won." [more inside]
posted by nola at 8:57 AM PST - 13 comments

The secrets of "Psycho's" shower scene. "In the course of my research, I read one allegation about the weeklong filming of the scene that both troubled and intrigued me, but none of the reference books I consulted elaborated on the assertion."
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:46 AM PST - 89 comments

"Trying to do something he knows he really can't do for no good reason tells you a lot about Peter Van Loan" MeFI's own mightygodking snagged an official accredited journalist title via Torontoist in order to post reports and interviews from the controversial G20 Conference.
posted by The Whelk at 8:41 AM PST - 12 comments

TV idents provide a bridge between programmes, remind the viewer of the channel they're watching and give the announcer something to talk over about what's on next and later. YouTube is a veritable treasure trove of idents, especially British ones, including
Classic BBC2 idents of the 90's, [more inside]
posted by Electric Dragon at 6:11 AM PST - 15 comments

Pornography will have its own top-level domain, dot-XXX, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided Friday. This decision angered both foes of pornography and friends of internet porn. (SFW)
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:57 AM PST - 75 comments

Who's that writing? [MLYT] [more inside]
posted by chaff at 12:09 AM PST - 10 comments

Cellist Zoë Keating describes her music as "the fusion of information architecture and classical music," and uses a traditional French cello and a foot-controlled MacBook to create lush, multi-layered cello music. From 2002 to 2006 she was a member of Rasputina, and more recently she played with Amanda Palmer. Keating has prospered online through iTunes and her website; her new album, Into the Trees, is streaming free and can be purchased on her website, and you can watch her perform some older pieces on her Youtube channel. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 11:22 PM PST - 22 comments

Swiss graffiti artist to get three whacks of the cane in Singapore. Hasn’t this happened before? Yes and no. Unlike American teenager Michael Fay, Swiss national Oliver Fricker and British citizen Lloyd Dane Alexander planned their graffiti raid very carefully – they broke into an SMRT train depot and tagged several SMRT train carriages. Graffiti of this scale is so unheard-of in Singapore, commuters thought the graffiti was part of a marketing campaign. Last month, Fricker was apprehended. This week, Fricker was sentenced to five months’ jail and three strokes of the cane.
posted by micketymoc at 9:23 PM PST - 123 comments

Stephen Doyle's Dollar Bill Illustrations (Interview)
posted by dobbs at 8:46 PM PST - 6 comments

Parasomnia Pseudo-Suicide? Family and friends of designer Tobias Wong speculate that his suicide may have been linked to a severe sleepwalking disorder. Parasomnias can result in weight gain, severe injury or criminal charges*. The theorized phenomenon of parasomnia pseudo-suicide adds new terror to an old myth. *previously
posted by availablelight at 6:02 PM PST - 36 comments

Java 4-Ever (safe for work apart from that one bit) - an amusing language centric film trailer made to promote the Scandinavian JavaZone conference.
posted by Artw at 5:59 PM PST - 25 comments

SLYT - shows old early nineties AT&T ad in accurate future prediction SHOCK !
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:48 PM PST - 129 comments

Postcards From Hell — For the last half-decade, the Fund for Peace, working with Foreign Policy, has been putting together the Failed States Index (the 2010 version is out), using a battery of indicators to determine how stable—or unstable—a country is. But as the photos here demonstrate, sometimes the best test is the simplest one: You'll only know a failed state when you see it. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 2:18 PM PST - 16 comments

Welcome to Friday afternoon. Time to stand up, drop trou, and air out your junk. [more inside]
posted by hat at 2:14 PM PST - 25 comments

Eighteen years ago, 11 year old Randy Neuenfeldt raced Henry the Puffy Taco mascot of the San Antonio Missions minor league baseball team in the usual 7th inning race. Through a series of unfortunate events, the taco won. On June 24, 2010, Randy Neuenfeldt got his revenge. Also, here
posted by Leezie at 1:58 PM PST - 36 comments

Cheats may or may not prosper, but they despise themselves for cheating. At least according to an intriguing piece of research published in Psychological Science by Francesca Gino of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Research suggests wearing fake goods makes you feel a fake yourself, and causes you to be more dishonest in other matters than you would otherwise be.
posted by Fizz at 1:17 PM PST - 62 comments

Nichibunken Databases isn't a link that sounds promising, but oh, what a treasure trove of old Japanese art it is. Among the many lovely collections is the Japanese folktales in foreign languages, another has maps, which is probably easiest to browse by decade, then there's the picture scrolls (some nsfw), and also illustrations from an 1870s world tour. That's just a small taste of what's there. If, like me, you don't read Japanese, often you'll be going in with scant information of what will be on offer, but even random stumblings will reveal beauty and wonder. Just to get you started, here are nearly 800 pictures of demons and over 2500 floating world woodprints. [Note: Blue dots mean the material is accessible to the public, red dots mean you have to have a login to see it]
posted by Kattullus at 12:30 PM PST - 10 comments

A video review by Nostalgia Girl of the movie Labyrinth and of David Bowie. Particularly a review of David Bowie's Area. Areaology has been discussed a couple of times previously.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:12 PM PST - 45 comments

In the beginning, there was text. The early users of the internet looked upon it and saw that it was good. They used e-mail and also communicated with each other via Usenet, a series of bulletin/discussion boards shared across various networks and the internet. But that was the old way, and open databases are the new way. The best known movie database, IMDB, will turn 20 on October 17, 2010, but for some enthusiasts, it's not detailed enough. Were you wondering exactly what weaponry was shown in that episode of Mail Call? Check the page on IMFDb, a wiki catalog of guns in movies. Having debates over what was said in the Book of Eli? There's a Database for that. Perhaps you're a fan of vespas or Hudsons? The Internet Movie Car Database can satisfy your interests. And don't forget to check the Internet Game Car Database, or the other sites linked from IMCDb, including the database for movie car chases (mentioned previously, twice). Soundtrack Collector, Soundtrack Info, and Sounds Familiar have (you guessed it) information on soundtracks. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:49 AM PST - 30 comments

Meet Messer Chups, whose main influences seem to be B-movies, sci fi, theremin, surf rock and Vincent Price. [more inside]
posted by puny human at 11:48 AM PST - 17 comments

Let the best fruit win, and when it does, we'll know how to ask for it. 'The European Community requires that grapes, oranges, apples and pears be identified by variety at the point of sale, and the practice is common there for other fruits too.' 'Until 2006, the California Tree Fruit Agreement, the organization that sets standards for the state's shippers of peaches, nectarines and plums, required the specific variety to be identified on the carton. But some growers and shippers found that they could not readily market certain varieties perceived by buyers as inferior, and so the CTFA now allows fruit to be shipped under generic designations such as "yellow peach."''When inferior varieties are marketed generically, producers of inferior varieties piggyback on producers of better varieties. In a pomological version of Gresham's law, bad fruit drives out good.''All too often today, new varieties are bred to appeal to the lowest common denominator, to be inoffensive to the greatest number of people, so it suits the industrial distribution system when fruit is marketed anonymously. When fruit quality is homogenized, variety is less significant; in turn, anonymity deprives consumers of their main weapon to resist homogenization.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 10:28 AM PST - 137 comments

Urban knitting, guerilla knitting, textile street art, yarn bombing. Whatever you choose to call it, this artform takes everyday objects of the city — such as trees, lampposts, street signs, bike racks — and wraps them up in colorful knit cozies. You'll find these wonderful oddities all over the world, from Manhattan to Sydney to Edinburgh to Philadelphia to Oakland to Chicago to Bisbane and back to Manhattan again. People have written books about it. It has inspired an Irish cellphone commercial. Metafilter's own ErikaB made a tree sweater that was featured on Metafilter and on the front cover of Seattle's The Stranger. Magda Sayeg's blog Knitta Please is a showcase for some of her delightful projects, including a Smart car, coffee shop sign, and crutches. (Also, previously.) [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:04 AM PST - 37 comments

A wryly humorous take on the "...exciting lives of the people who live in your catalogs." If your life isn't quite perfect enough, fear not - the secret lives of Catalog People are revealed here!
posted by dbmcd at 9:37 AM PST - 55 comments

Wade Boggs is known to like his beer. Well, now a Tapper-style game where Boggs drinks beers, throws away girlie drinks, and eats burgers to sober up has been created. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 9:16 AM PST - 11 comments

Is it really raining oil in Lousiana? A YouTube video captured by someone claiming to be a resident of River Ridge, Lousiana, roughly 45 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, purports to show evidence of just that. The EPA and other experts remain unconvinced, citing the seemingly obvious fact that oil does not evaporate. The local press characterizes the claims as "exaggerations and hysterical falsehoods." But at least one previous study has been offered to argue that oil broken down with dispersants can in fact evaporate under the right conditions. [more inside]
posted by saulgoodman at 8:36 AM PST - 78 comments

"That stainless steel band that runs around is the primary structural element of the phone. And there are these three slits in it. It turns out, this is part of some brilliant engineering which actually uses the stainless steel band as part of the antenna system... it's never been done before. And it's really cool engineering!"

Less than three weeks after Steve Jobs announced the iPhone 4's (previously) revolutionary signal-boosting design, the internet discovers a fatal flaw that causes calls to drop when the bottom-left corner is touched. Jobs personally offered one customer a solution via email: "Just avoid holding it in that way." Apple's marketing department apparently didn't get the memo. [more inside]
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:31 AM PST - 227 comments

Hygiene. Flexibility. Safety (SLYT) Another spoof on the Jobs presentation, but with a real company, product and serious effort behind it. It's odd because it's super-real, injokey and the viral ambition is ambiguous. Moneyshot at 7m40s.

As a sidenote, would Apple be able to stomp on this if they wanted to? I mean, this is so tongue in cheek I can't really see the tongue.
posted by monocultured at 8:29 AM PST - 10 comments

The Whisperer in Darkness, the new film by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (and the follow-up to their 2005 adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu), finally has a release date: October 1st. [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 8:13 AM PST - 20 comments

2010 International Space Station Tour - (ISS Tags)
posted by MechEng at 8:00 AM PST - 10 comments

FFF - Navigate the numbers in Blockade. Can you clear the entire board?
posted by greatgefilte at 7:45 AM PST - 12 comments

Color Silurian Overlay: How the Doctor Who Restoration Team brought the Third Doctor serial from a telerecording to its original video glory. Here's the Guardian article, or if you're video production-literate, a lengthy technical explanation of the restoration method and technology.
posted by griphus at 7:17 AM PST - 29 comments

Like many fans of Terry Pratchett, I've heard him lecture several times. He toured regularly, so most of us got to hear him before he fell ill. I remember him waxing cynical about the people who optioned his early works for film, and I remember the elation that I felt when his works finally made it onto the screen. The animated adaptations of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music were fan fodder, but the later live action version of Hogfarther was popularly successful and was soon followed by another, The Colour of Magic. The latest film based on his work, Going Postal, ends with a cameo by Pratchett and the final words "well, that's a bit of an embuggerance".
posted by teppic at 7:14 AM PST - 35 comments

Entrance Romance (It Felt Like A Kiss). A short film by Ryan McGinley. It's strange. [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 7:03 AM PST - 16 comments

One of the least edifying aspects of professional football [soccer] is the dive. Is it just part of the game, or something that, ahem, foreigners do? In 2006 FIFA rejected the use of video evidence to punish cheaters and although "simulation" is punished, when spotted by the referee, the problem remains. In the wake of (among others) a dodgy red card to Brazilian star Kaka in the 2010 World Cup, here's a handy guide to some of the best/worst dives about (inside) and how to tell when a player is faking it. [more inside]
posted by MuffinMan at 6:21 AM PST - 91 comments

Bionic feet for amputee cat [more inside]
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 5:28 AM PST - 53 comments

Bounce bounce bounce bounce/ thwackety wackety zingety ping/ hittety backety pingety zang/ wack, thwok, thwack, pok. There's an official tennis poet.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:52 AM PST - 16 comments

Peter Quaife , original bassist for The Kinks, has passed away. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete at 12:21 AM PST - 31 comments

"Do you find yourself pining for the days of gaming yore? ...for simple sprites and chiptuney soundtracks? Is your computer a bit crap and does 11,000 frames per second sound like something you might enjoy?" A Guide To Some Early FPS Games, Mods, and Source Ports. [via mefi projects]
posted by killdevil at 11:32 PM PST - 48 comments

The Exterminator’s Want-Ad, a short story by Bruce Sterling, is a twisted first-person missive by a former K-Street lobbyist making his way in a post-collapse socialist regime of sharing. It's part of the Shareable Futures series of short stories and speculative essays at Shareable.net. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 11:11 PM PST - 41 comments

Critical Past Claiming 57k historic videos and 7MM photos free to browse (pay to download). Single-link-dig-through-it-yourself-and-let-us-know-if-you-find-anything-great, okay?
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:52 PM PST - 24 comments

The whistle has blown in Port Elizabeth. Stoppage time in Pretoria, and three men run into the box. Altidore flicks the ball across, but Dempsey walks it straight into the goalkeeper. On the rebound, Donovan puts it in the net. The world reacts. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:52 PM PST - 189 comments

My wife of 12 years packed up her belongings last year and moved out of our home. After her car was loaded I couldn't help but notice that a single item remained in her section of our closet, her wedding dress. "You forgot something" I told her. She replied "And what's that?". "Your wedding dress", I said. "Yeah, I am not taking that" was her response. "What do you expect me to do with it?" I asked. And to that she replied, "Whatever the $%^@# you want". And this is what I did.....
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:19 PM PST - 104 comments

Have you ennui? Then watch as: Excited dog plays with baby
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:09 PM PST - 57 comments

People make maps in Team Fortress 2 specifically for grinding achievements. Bleak, joyless rooms of endlessly spawning bots and resupply crates, where people don’t play the game, they game it. But in one of these, achievement_all_v4, the author’s added a surprise. A violent, horrific, hilarious surprise of biblical proportions.
posted by Artw at 4:58 PM PST - 77 comments

The world's fourth-smallest country, Tuvalu, is famous for selling its sexy-looking internet domain, .tv, and for the threat of sinking (or not). Now it has joined the World Bank, becoming its 187th member. Anyway, if it needs help, bailing it out would only cost $12m.
posted by chavenet at 4:36 PM PST - 10 comments

Russian President Medvedev is tweeting his trip to the US (English, Russian). So far, no comment on Putin belittling him to the French press. [more inside]
posted by grobstein at 4:21 PM PST - 25 comments

The consensus godawful Brad Garrett sitcom Til' Death apparently turned into a surrealist masterpiece in its final season. [more inside]
posted by eugenen at 4:16 PM PST - 66 comments

Scientists uncover UK's oldest working television! [more inside]
posted by jessamyn at 4:11 PM PST - 28 comments

"I don't see any future for whale species except extinction." A report (pdf) released Thursday by Ocean Alliance noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. Concentrations of chromium found in some whales was several times higher than the level required to kill healthy cells in a Petri dish. Mercury in some whales was 16 times higher than a typical shark or swordfish, both known for their high mercury levels. Beyond whales, "You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species."
posted by stbalbach at 2:57 PM PST - 62 comments

Clint Webb for Senate. Brought to you by the Whitest Kids U'Know.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:16 PM PST - 19 comments

Disturbing in so many ways, Tonetta, Toronto's perverse, scatological, current-affairs commentating, drug-loving answer to Buffalo Bill (with a mild side order of Iggy Pop) has finally released his debut LP. Limited to 500 copies, so don't delay! [more inside]
posted by robself at 2:01 PM PST - 3 comments

Last year's unprecedented election protests in Iran, would never have been possible if it hadn't been for the pioneering efforts of their country's "Blogfather," (Metafilter's own) Hossein "hoder" Derakhshan. Hoder literally founded the Persian blogging movement in 2001 ("Weblogistan") that gave Iranians a way to speak out about their government on the internet and eventually would provide a global voice to the protesters. But for the last 600 days, Hoder has been imprisoned, interrogated and tortured by the Iranian government, ostensibly on charges he was spying for Israel. In reality his arrest was probably retaliation for "remarks he allegedly made on his blog about a key Shiite cleric and the third infallible Imam of Shiism." Yesterday, he had his first trial. But his plight is not unique. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:54 PM PST - 29 comments

Vuvuzela of D O O M ! [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 1:46 PM PST - 17 comments

Return of the Ewok: A mockumentary starring Warwick Davis that was made during lunch breaks on the set of Return of the Jedi. The original 16mm print has been lost, but the 25 minute VHS dub has made it's way online. Parts one, two, and three.
posted by twintone at 1:40 PM PST - 7 comments

Login is not a verb.com (via) [more inside]
posted by blue_beetle at 12:15 PM PST - 121 comments

In 2006, Kai Hibbard was a contestant on weight-loss reality show "The Biggest Loser", where she was a runner-up. Now she's speaking out about her experiences on the show in an interview with blogger Golda Poretsky. The interview is in three pieces: Part I, Part II, Part III.
posted by rmd1023 at 11:32 AM PST - 85 comments

Comedian Dan Telfer wants to know what dinosaur you think is best.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:41 AM PST - 66 comments

It's kinda trippy, and you might need to own a television to understand it. The music video for Blockhead's 'The Music Scene;' an animated mind melt into a post human New York where TV and animals rule.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 10:39 AM PST - 15 comments

The Supreme Court has affirmed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Doe v. Reed (R-71 case) but don't celebrate yet. The Court rejected (.pdf format) the general claim that release of initiative petitions violates petition signer's First Amendment rights. But the Court's 8-1 ruling did not reach the petitioner's specific assertions that they will be harassed or harmed if their signatures are released in this case. That claim returns to the federal district judge who first issued the injunction against releasing names. Hence, the names of signers remain unrevealed at this time.
posted by bearwife at 9:44 AM PST - 85 comments

Michael T Klare (previously here and here) has been writing for some time about the coming age of America's oil wars. Recently with the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Storms Mexico, he's been writing about the coming about of what he calls "The Era of Xtreme Energy" and the extreme length we're going to have to go to secure it. [more inside]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:38 AM PST - 50 comments

'They blow each other up by mistake. They bungle even simple schemes. They get intimate with cows and donkeys. Our terrorist enemies trade on the perception that they’re well trained and religiously devout, but in fact, many are fools and perverts who are far less organized and sophisticated than we imagine. Can being more realistic about who our foes actually are help us stop the truly dangerous ones?' The Case for Calling Them Nitwits.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:46 AM PST - 94 comments

The Thriller Diaries: Michael Jackson’s 1983 “Thriller” remains the most popular music video of all time: a 14-minute horror spoof that changed the business. Behind the scenes it gave its star a temporary home with director John Landis, sparked a near romance with actress Ola Ray, and revealed how damaged the young pop idol already was.
posted by reenum at 7:42 AM PST - 33 comments

Inspired by a talk by Dr. Robert W. Bussard, Mark Suppes, a web developer by day, has built his own nuclear fusion reactor. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:52 AM PST - 23 comments

Wine kiosks open for business in PA. Some folks think it's a dumb idea. [more inside]
posted by fixedgear at 5:46 AM PST - 125 comments

" I was wondering if you are not to busy you could make a poster for me." Simon (of 7 legged spider fame) responds to a request from his secretary.
posted by empath at 5:21 AM PST - 180 comments

VD is for Everybody. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 4:52 AM PST - 25 comments

An XTC Fan named Todd Bernhardt has somehow managed to gain access to the band and associates, and has been conducting lengthy interviews for the past few years and posting them to his fan page on myspace. (via) Session Drummer Pat Mastelotto on recording Oranges and Lemons. Andy looks at guitar playing and players: Part I Part II Part III Part IV. Colin Moulding Discusses King for a Day. Prairie Prince on recording Skylarking.
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:27 AM PST - 25 comments

The International Conservation Photography Awards is the creation of Seattle, Washington-based photographer Art Wolfe: "We wanted to provide a platform from which photographers both amateur and professional alike could showcase their work in a very prestigious way. We love the idea of championing the cause of preservation and nature through the medium of photography." Winning imagery from the 2010 awards can be viewed in person at the Burke Museum in Seattle, or online here, which includes excellent slideshows of wildlife, underwater life and distinguished photographs (requires Flash support).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:16 AM PST - 3 comments

Looking back one year later Silent Bob Speaks: Selling Out Carnegie Hall [more inside]
posted by will wait 4 tanjents at 12:29 AM PST - 83 comments

"Puncture Kit was brought to life after sitting in London's Green Park with my new bicycle not long after arriving from Australia in June 2008... no car, no drums, and a need to create beats. With my bike turned upside down, a sketchbook and no desire to be tubing a drum kit around underground, I started dreaming of ways to use my bike as my transport and drum kit ."

[more inside]
posted by SyntacticSugar at 12:25 AM PST - 9 comments

Doodle God is a unique Flash game. Start with just earth, air, fire, and water. Combine them to create the universe.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 10:47 PM PST - 63 comments

Harlem Yodel. The Dandridge Sisters and the Cats and the Fiddle teach us how the yodel is done above 110th Street. [more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:51 PM PST - 13 comments

Judge Stanton has granted Youtube's motion for a summary judgement in Youtube's favor in Viacom's copyright infringement lawsuit against Youtube. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:42 PM PST - 21 comments

Byron Sonne, a respected computer security specialist, has been arrested on G20-related charges.. [more inside]
posted by dustyasymptotes at 6:57 PM PST - 70 comments

The Sunshine Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to government transparency & accountability, has obtained Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's emails from her time in the Clinton White House & made them available in a handy web application. Browse, read, search & mark those you find interesting for others to read.
posted by scalefree at 6:50 PM PST - 24 comments

Internet Explorer 9 will support the CANVAS tag, making support for the tag ubiquitous across major browsers.
posted by Artw at 4:55 PM PST - 71 comments

Julia Gillard has become Australia's first female Prime Minister in stunning fashion, after toppling Kevin Rudd as leader of the ruling Labor Party. [more inside]
posted by puffl at 4:41 PM PST - 149 comments

Gary Faulkner, an unemployed construction worker from Colorado, has been deported from Pakistan after attempting a Rambo-style mission to assassinate Osama bin Laden. [more inside]
posted by Despondent_Monkey at 4:28 PM PST - 71 comments

"Having vaulted from the fringes of pop culture into the mainstream after a newly atomic America became obsessed with films about mutants and aliens, SF literature matured and flowered throughout the '60s and beyond, just as rock 'n' roll did the same. It was inevitable that the two would mix."
posted by gman at 3:17 PM PST - 43 comments

Seventh graders describe and draw pictures of scientists before and after their visit to a physics lab. [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 3:11 PM PST - 77 comments

Alex, I'll take "Kickass Text Analysis Algorithms" for a thousand, please. "Over the rest of the day [at IBM labs] Watson went on a tear, winning four of six games. It displayed remarkable facility with cultural trivia (“This action flick starring Roy Scheider in a high-tech police helicopter was also briefly a TV series” — “What is ‘Blue Thunder’?”), science (“The greyhound originated more than 5,000 years ago in this African country, where it was used to hunt gazelles” — “What is Egypt?”) and sophisticated wordplay (“Classic candy bar that’s a female Supreme Court justice” — “What is Baby Ruth Ginsburg?”)." Next up, a live match up against human winners of Jeopardy. But of course the real question is how good are you? Can you beat Watson?
posted by storybored at 2:26 PM PST - 82 comments

After checking the USGS map for the earthquake that happened on the Ontario-Quebec border region today, I bet you were wondering the same as me: What is the deal with Moose Factory? It's the island off the coast of Moosonee, the ancestral home of the Swamp Cree, the home of the Hudson's Bay Company, the site of the first English settlement in the Province of Ontario (1673) and is the home of the Moose Cree First Nation. Here are recent and historical photos of the region. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn at 2:11 PM PST - 28 comments

Nine Inch Niles - The Seattleward Spiral -- MeFi's Own™ cortex recreates NIN's The Downward Spiral album using only soundclips from TV's Frasier. Includes bonus video. [via mefi projects]
posted by not_on_display at 2:01 PM PST - 87 comments

'BP And The Axis of Evil': Adam Curtis provides some historic information on the Anglo-Perisan Oil Company, later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, later BP. [more inside]
posted by robself at 11:52 AM PST - 15 comments

Paris Metro's cheaters say solidarity is the ticket. Scofflaws who jump the turnstiles or enter through the exits of the Paris public transit system have formed mutuelles des fraudeurs — insurance funds that pay the fine if they get caught.
posted by hat at 11:41 AM PST - 66 comments

My Four-Year-Old Son Plays Grand Theft Auto
posted by minifigs at 11:31 AM PST - 162 comments

Futurama returns as a series Thursday night on Comedy Central. Review (with very inconsequential spoilers). Interview with Phil LaMarr (Hermes). Matt Groening and David X. Cohen answer your questions (video). The first 90 seconds of the new season (video) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:54 AM PST - 117 comments

American philosopher John Haugeland has died. In dramatic fashion, he suffered a massive heart attack in the middle of a conference dedicated to his work on the occasion of his retirement. He made enormous contributions to the philosophy of mind and introduced many undergraduates to the very idea of artificial intelligence. [more inside]
posted by el_lupino at 10:29 AM PST - 42 comments

Right now, John Isner of the USA and Nicolas Mahut of France are engaged in the longest professional tennis match of all-time [live blog]. As of this posting, they are into the fifth set of their first round match at Wimbledon, where the score is knotted 37-37. The match has been going for more than seven hours and has broken all previous records of tennis match length.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:23 AM PST - 764 comments

Beloved Toronto independent bookstore This Ain't the Rosedale Library is at risk of closing. A rallying of the community might stay the execution, but what happens next? [more inside]
posted by Felicity Rilke at 8:40 AM PST - 68 comments

News from the world of ultramarathon cycling: 1. Peter Heal recently rode the ~15,000-km perimeter of Australia in 48 days, 23 hours, 37 minutes; 2. The 3005-mile Race Across America recently concluded, with veteran Jure Robic winning the men's solo in 9 days, 1 hour, 1 minute, and Barbara Buatois winning the women's solo in 11 days, 19 hours, 48 minutes. [more inside]
posted by adamrice at 8:30 AM PST - 15 comments

URLesque interviews the star of a viral video: Jessica's Daily Affirmation
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:08 AM PST - 12 comments

The Needle Drop with Anthony Fantano (self-described as "the internet's busiest music nerd") featuring new music from The Books - “A Cold Freezin’ Night” , Laurie Anderson -- stream Laurie's new album, Homeland, here -- Ariel Pink and lots more. Youtube channel.
posted by puny human at 7:50 AM PST - 10 comments

"'Jewish people don't own the Holocaust." ...at least according to Yann Martel. ^{via the Guardian.} "The inescapable fact about the book, Martel's long-awaited follow-up to Life of Pi, is that it has not been very well received. In the US the reviews were what one politely calls "mixed"; in the UK they have been uniformly hostile. The general view is that pretty well all fictional treatments of the Holocaust are doomed, and that this one – about a blocked writer who meets a taxidermist writing a play about "the horrors" who is probably a former Nazi seeking some sort of catharsis – is more doomed than most."
posted by Fizz at 7:05 AM PST - 129 comments

As reported a few hours ago in The Australian, the right wing faction of the Australian Labor Party rolls on Rudd and a caucus meeting is scheduled for 9 tomorrow morning, where it's predicted that he'll lose the ballot. One senior party source said: "This crypto-facist made no effort to build a base within the party and now his only faction - Newspoll - has deserted him. He is gone."
posted by unliteral at 6:09 AM PST - 59 comments

The balloon was launched at 5:37pm (PST) from Oxnard, CA and reached an altitude of 125,000 feet snapping photos and recording video along the way.
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:37 AM PST - 43 comments

Tracy Wright, a wonderful gem of the Toronto theatre and film scene, has died.
posted by Alex404 at 3:03 AM PST - 23 comments

Pac-Man's creator, Toru Iwatani shares some of the original concept art and Pac-Man Design Sketches from 1979.
posted by ShawnStruck at 12:33 AM PST - 20 comments

Court Affirms Ban on Aiding Groups Tied to Terror. "In a case pitting free speech against national security, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal law (PDF) that makes it a crime to provide 'material support' to foreign terrorist organizations, even if the help takes the form of training for peacefully resolving conflicts."
posted by homunculus at 11:05 PM PST - 55 comments

What do you do when your 40 year old, 1 of 377 351 343 ~350, vintage Japanese sports car's original body is too far gone to repair? If you are Shin Yoshikawa, the man who wrote the book on the 2000GT, you hand fabricate a new body (and some trim) completely from scratch in aluminum. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 10:07 PM PST - 31 comments

Goodnight moon;

In the dawn of the Space Age, NASA undertook to find and assemble the very best images of the Moon it could find. In a project led by the late Gerard Kuiper of the University of Chicago (later of the University of Arizona), the best telescopic plates from observatories around the world were assembled into one compilation, the Photographic Lunar Atlas (Kuiper et al., 1960, University of Chicago Press). This atlas consisted of loose-leaf, printed (lithographed) sheets of telescopic plates of the Moon, showing the surface at a variety of illumination conditions. Widely distributed, this atlas served as the basis for many early photographic studies of the Moon.

[more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 10:00 PM PST - 12 comments

High above the earth, Astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock is tweeting from his new six month position on the International Space Station. His latest twitpics include the Southern Lights from space. Another photograph of this phenomenon is credited to the expedition. [more inside]
posted by NoraCharles at 9:18 PM PST - 13 comments

Ari Ne'eman, best known as the founder of Autistic Self Advocacy Network, will be the first person with Autism to serve on the National Council on Disability. [more inside]
posted by lexicakes at 9:11 PM PST - 4 comments

At last, the moment has arrived. At this writing, the trial of Carol Burdick, who says she was evicted from her apartment for putting a Peeps display over her door to celebrate Easter 2009, is underway. [more inside]
posted by zennie at 4:31 PM PST - 88 comments

Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow? Or wake up ready to write down the Next Great Idea, and get blinded by your computer screen? During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun. F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better. [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 3:38 PM PST - 60 comments

The City of Oakland, California, is preparing to fire more than one quarter of it's entire police force. [more inside]
posted by Avenger at 3:08 PM PST - 100 comments

'As the business matures in India, companies are setting up offices in rural areas.' 'In the process, they're bringing middle-class values and modern aspirations to the tradition-bound heartland.' While we are all familiar with the arguments over the impact of outsourcing on Western countries, the impact of outsourcing on Indian society has also long been debated, and there is no doubt that it 'is spurring profound economic and social change, bringing middle-class values and modern aspirations to the tradition-bound heartland.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 2:50 PM PST - 26 comments

Over the last few months, a YouTube user has been uploading individual tracks from a 1998 Elf Power/Neutral Milk Hotel concert at NYC's Knitting Factory. [more inside]
posted by griphus at 1:45 PM PST - 59 comments

A row has broken out over Sharon Dogar's fictionalisation of Anne Frank's relationship with neighbour Peter van Pels, told through his eyes. According to the Sunday Times, the diaries include graphic accounts of Peter’s desire for Anne and intimate scenes between the two. Her surviving cousin, Buddy Elias, is not happy. [more inside]
posted by MuffinMan at 1:23 PM PST - 157 comments

Rudy Rucker's Ware Tetralogy is now available online under a Creative Commons license. [via Futurismic]
posted by brundlefly at 11:53 AM PST - 12 comments

Obama ban on deepwater drilling overturned. While many critics on the left have complained all along that the six month moratorium announced by the Obama Administration doesn't go far enough, and while polls still show nearly 60% of Americans supporting the temporary ban, the industry and its supporters meanwhile have gone into full-time spin mode, saturating all available bandwidth with opinions denouncing the moratorium, and now the courts have chosen to side with the industry.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:47 AM PST - 170 comments

Re-introducing the work of George Condo. "George Condo is a man possessed by visions. A successful Soho artist, he paints what he sees: the "antipodal beings" that dominate his imagination ... They look like nothing so much as muppets or troll dolls as painted by Walter Keane." Featured recently at the Whitney Museum, Condo's work is finding a new audience as the cover art for Kanye West's latest single, "Power." [more inside]
posted by grabbingsand at 11:47 AM PST - 4 comments

rialtoscuro n. disorientation when you step outside a movie theater into unexpected darkness, a twinge of jet lag from two hours of escapist fun which only diverts you from making the sequel to your youth—an old cult classic with wild shifts in tone, dropped subplots, major characters that appear out of nowhere only to vanish without explanation, and an ambiguous ending—but this time, it’s personal. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
posted by xod at 11:24 AM PST - 25 comments

After polishing off a piece of this amazing AT-AT wedding cake, you may need to use a toothpick or two.
posted by ericbop at 11:01 AM PST - 35 comments

Censored Beetle Bailey. [somewhat NSFW]
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 10:59 AM PST - 25 comments

Not Safe For Work writings by Chelesa G. Summers are below the fold. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:48 AM PST - 10 comments

Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" feat. Glenn Danzig. (Or, more accurately: "Glenn Danzig".)
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:05 AM PST - 60 comments

The Bowler "Meet Rocky Salemmo. He’s a ramblin’ gamblin’ man. For the majority of his adult life Rocky has hustled bowling for a living." A short documentary by Sean Dunne. (NSFW language) [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:00 AM PST - 6 comments

Dancing Robots
posted by interrobang at 10:00 AM PST - 25 comments

What happens when you strap one of those new Canon 7D SLR cameras that do HD video to a remote controlled helicopter? You get amazing video, on the cheap. [via]
posted by mathowie at 9:29 AM PST - 65 comments

To promote their upcoming Charlie Chaplin releases, Janus Films asked Kate Beaton (of Hark! A Vagrant fame) to produce a poster. In her LiveJournal thread announcing the job, a commenter linked to this story about the discovery of an unknown Chaplin film called "Zepped." [hat tip to Rosie Shuster]
posted by cgc373 at 8:43 AM PST - 18 comments

Neko Case will fucking fight you
posted by The Devil Tesla at 8:36 AM PST - 91 comments

General Stanley McChrystal is in hot water over a Rolling Stone article (pdf) where he and his staff are quoted criticizing Obama, Biden, and senior administration officials. (Previously on McChrystal's appointment.)
posted by Forktine at 8:07 AM PST - 331 comments

The actors and writers of Nightmare on Elm Street 2 discuss the movie's gay subtext, which had not gone unnoticed by fans. Further discussion on AfterElton.
posted by desjardins at 8:04 AM PST - 50 comments

Neil Cicierega may be responsible for the seizure-inducing style known as Animutation, but his little sister Emmy makes comic-strip gems like this delightful short about a mermaid who just wants to make some friends.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 7:41 AM PST - 14 comments

Why Johnny can't code - David Brin asks how to get kids hooked on programming.
posted by Artw at 7:31 AM PST - 112 comments

Sci-Fi Airshow - Take the guided tour. [more inside]
posted by BeerFilter at 7:18 AM PST - 14 comments

There are several conventional explanations for why so much corporate money has flooded into Washington over the last three or four decades. Large corporations have much more market power, which translates into more political power. Politicians have become more corrupt or rapacious. The Republican Party has been ever more effective at raising money. The increasing size and scope of the federal government have required that corporations spend more in order to protect themselves. Corporations have greater need to confront the countervailing power of unions. All of these explanations are wrong. Everyday Corruption by Robert Reich.
posted by wittgenstein at 7:06 AM PST - 25 comments

Ever since the famed Lucy skeleton was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, there have been some unanswered questions. She was very tiny, and some researchers claimed it was unlikely that she (and, by extension, Australopithecus afarensis) could walk. Although other specimens were found throughout the 70s, none were more than bone fragments. Recently, researchers announced that they found another partial skeleton, and they believe it proves that afarensis was bipedal.
posted by Plutor at 6:43 AM PST - 7 comments

Five members of the Quinnipiac University women's volleyball team, and the team's coach, have sued the school for dismantling the team to use the money for a cheerleading squad. More on the legal background of the case. Quinnipiac has been also been accused of cooking the roster books--triple counting track/field athletes--to inflate the number of female athletes. [more inside]
posted by availablelight at 6:37 AM PST - 125 comments

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Deus Ex, a revolutionary blend of first-person shooter and roleplaying game which debuted to universal critical acclaim and which has inspired much devotion among gamers. Its intro video has been reworked for the sake of comedy, it's been modded not only to "take the suck out" (and to improve the biomods) and for the plain sake of weirdness, but also to create entirely new games. Walkthroughs exist, from the helpful to the amusing to the simply insane, and even its music (such as its theme song) has inspired tributes and covers. [more inside]
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:37 AM PST - 74 comments

In a Michelangelo Fresco, Visions of a Brain Stem. "It has been hiding in plain sight for the past 500 years, and now two Johns Hopkins professors believe they have found it: one of Michelangelo’s rare anatomical drawings in a panel high on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo was a conscientious student of human anatomy and enthusiastically dissected corpses throughout his life, but few of his anatomical drawings survive. This one, a depiction of the human brain and brain stem, appears to be drawn on the neck of God, but not all art historians can see it there."
posted by homunculus at 10:16 PM PST - 58 comments

Mark "Dr. Bugs" Moffett is a Harvard educated entomologist, author and ecologist. He's also one hell of a nature photographer, mainly studying Frogs and Ants (slideshow with audio). Galleries from Frank Pictures, The Smithsonian, and a slideshow and recent interview from NPR's Fresh Air.
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:34 PM PST - 10 comments

The 2010 Glastonbury Festival begins on the 23rd June at Worthy Farm in the village of Pilton, Somerset. [more inside]
posted by jontyjago at 8:22 PM PST - 24 comments

The United States Social Forum (USSF) is being held in Detroit, MI, starting tomorrow, June 22nd-26th. Organizers are expecting as many as 20,000 people to attend. Could this meeting make Detroit a model for growth that can be propagated elsewhere?
posted by one teak forest at 6:15 PM PST - 23 comments

Toon Hertz: digital creations or mixed illustrations of children and films of monsters, dark culture and surrealism. Toon Hertz was born in 1967 in Liege in Belgium. These remind me of The Corpse Bride and a little of Edward Scissorhands.
posted by bwg at 5:44 PM PST - 3 comments

Billy Ray Bates, in his words, was "an average player who can do fantastic things. After flaming out in the NBA, he became a legend in Phillippine Basketball Association. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 2:58 PM PST - 11 comments

In 20 Years ... Upload a photo of yourself and the site produces a predictive illustration of what you'll look like in 20 or 30 years. And as an added bonus, you can toggle whether you're a drug addict or not. [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 2:52 PM PST - 112 comments

Lake Street Creamery is an ice cream truck in LA. Not in the traditional sense of "ice cream truck," though - they make fresh ice cream from scratch on the truck, then sell it. Oh, did I mention that their home page currently features Kitten Wearing a Tiny Hat Eats a Tiny Ice-Cream Cone? [more inside]
posted by yiftach at 2:21 PM PST - 63 comments

In search of the Dunning-Kruger effect: filmmaker and New York Times opinionator Errol Morris talks with Ig Nobel Prize-winning psychology professor David Dunning about, variously, lemon juice-wearing bank robber McArthur Wheeler, the concept of "unknown unknowns" popularized by former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Scrabble greatness, anosognosic paralysis, and how "our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence". (first of a five-part series) (previously)
posted by Doktor Zed at 1:17 PM PST - 51 comments

All’s Fair in Love and Soccer Cheating and working the refs are part of what make the beautiful game fun to watch.
posted by horsemuth at 12:56 PM PST - 366 comments

The silver fox, domesticated over 40 generations by the late Siberian scientist Dmitri Belayev. Belayev and his students started this experiment in 1959 by selecting specifically for human-friendly behaviors. More on the observed differences between domesticated and wild foxes in the original paper that appeared in American Scientist Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment (pdf). [more inside]
posted by jessamyn at 12:44 PM PST - 63 comments

Should we start doing medical research on pregnant women? In the wake of the H1N1 epidemic, in which pregnant women had a disproportionately higher risk of death, the question of including pregnant women in clinical trials has begun to be tentatively breached. [more inside]
posted by KathrynT at 12:37 PM PST - 22 comments

In honor of the first day of summer, one of the most covered "summer" songs of all time - "Summer Breeze." The original - Seals & Crofts. Inside for more: [more inside]
posted by waitingtoderail at 12:31 PM PST - 49 comments

Today is the first day of summer, and for many Americans that means taking a road trip with the family. For Barry Stiefer, it means visiting all 50 states (48 by car), while only taking one week of vacation time. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 12:21 PM PST - 69 comments

Newsweek was put up for sale in May due to multi-year losses. Last week, China’s Southern Daily Group made an unsuccessful bid to buy it. It was the first Chinese bid for a Western publication, and the Group expects to make similar purchases in the future. "It is like dating… it doesn't matter if one date does not like you. You grow from it." [more inside]
posted by mondaygreens at 10:32 AM PST - 33 comments

Saneman: In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Michael Cera is the ultimate Canadian superhero. The article begins, "Before we talk about Michael Cera, or Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, or Seth Rogen, or Loverboy, let’s talk about Alpha Flight."
posted by chunking express at 10:28 AM PST - 97 comments

RIP Chris Sievey aka Frank Sidebottom. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:38 AM PST - 32 comments

Ethanol Industry Takes Advantage of Gulf oil spill. The blowout of BP's Macondo well has given the corn-ethanol industry yet another opportunity to push its fuel adulterant on the American consumer. And unfortunately, the Obama administration appears ready and willing to foist yet more of the corrosive, environmentally destructive, low-heat-energy fuel on motorists. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 9:36 AM PST - 49 comments

I have psoriasis. I am among the 2-3% of the world population has it. It is a skin condition with a genetic component (thanks mom and dad). It means that I have white plaques on my skin that itch and shed flakes. I shed so much that I have to sweep my floors daily. I have plaques mainly on my arms and legs, but they can appear anywhere (some locations linked from this page are NSFW. I'm lucky, I don't have psoriatic arthritis which affects about a third of all people with psoriasis. People stare at me or pretend not to stare at me in public. I wish they would just ask me what it is. It isn't contagious. Sometimes people ask if I have a bad sunburn or a regular burn. Little kids ask about my boo boos. Dogs lick my legs. There are several different ways to treat psoriasis including steroids, light treatment, injectable antibodies, and shampoos but it is a chronic condition. One treatment was recently withdrawn from the market because of lethal side effects. There are groups for people who have psoriasis. As with many medical conditions, you sometimes get unwelcome suggestions on how to cure it. When I used to work in a hospital environment, the pathologists showed me what it looks like under a microscope.
posted by sciencegeek at 8:29 AM PST - 108 comments

A History of the Typewriter recited by Michael Winslow via
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Vanessa Mae Nicholson is one of Britain’s most successful young musicians. A classical violinist and former child prodigy who self-describes her crossover style as "violin techno-acoustic fusion," her fans praise her modern creativity and frenetic, lightning-fast riffs. But is her talent learned or genetic? Documentary from BBC1 in 2008: Vanessa Mae - The Making of Me: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:51 AM PST - 18 comments

Doctor Sparkle is in the midst of a noble endeavor: he's playing every single Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom and Famicom Disk System game in chronological order. Not only that, he's recording himself doing it for hour-long episodes of gameplay and genuinely enlightened and erudite commentary. You can start with his recent re-recording of Episode 1 (Donkey Kong through Hogan's Alley) or the latest, Episode 30 (Battle of Olympus through Fuuun Shaolin Kyo - Ankoku no Maou). Want to find his review of your (least) favorite game? Here's a convenient episode guide (WIP). Doctor Sparkle isn't done yet, though. He's also chronicling the Sega Master System and PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 as well in his parallel projects Chronsega and Chronturbo, respectively.
posted by griphus at 7:46 AM PST - 25 comments

These photos of trees in infrared demonstrate the Wood effect, a surreal glow named for its named for its discoverer, the aptly named Robert W. Wood
posted by Obscure Reference at 7:44 AM PST - 18 comments

Last week, before Jack McDonald died, he told his son, Toronto Blue Jays utility infielder John McDonald (14 home runs in a 12 year professional career), to hit a home run for him when he went back to the team. "They're not that easy to hit," John said.

John rejoined his team and got his first at-bat in the ninth inning this past Sunday. Father's Day.
posted by dirtdirt at 7:24 AM PST - 25 comments

Live Google map of trains running on the London Underground, created using the Transport for London API. From the makers of the highly-useful accessible, bookmarkable UK train timetables.
posted by grouse at 6:42 AM PST - 32 comments

When did BP stop being BP and start becoming British Petroleum? How the Gulf crisis made BP British again. Also: How oil and accents made Britain a figure of hate in US halls of power.
posted by Fizz at 6:31 AM PST - 79 comments

What US Health Care Needs Medical doctor and writer Atul Gawande gave the commencement address recently at Stanford's School of Medicine. In it he lays out very precisely and in a nonpartisan way what is wrong with the institution of medical care in the US — why it is both so expensive and so ineffective at delivering quality care uniformly across the board. (via)
posted by kliuless at 6:00 AM PST - 43 comments

Could any of you in the US please check your attics?
posted by Leon at 4:53 AM PST - 38 comments

Wendell Logan, founder of the Jazz Studies program at the Oberlin Conservatory, has passed away. [more inside]
posted by bardophile at 2:29 AM PST - 8 comments

Vintage Vanguard is a Japanese web site featuring the cover art for every Blue Note album ever released. Other labels are featured as well.
posted by dobbs at 9:59 PM PST - 18 comments

Transformice is described as a game where you try to get the cheese. Please refrain from cursing at the other mice.
posted by fizzzzzzzzzzzy at 9:42 PM PST - 32 comments

This Rammstein box set is a kinda different. (NSFW)
posted by davebush at 8:02 PM PST - 49 comments

A disturbing comic that re-imagines the classic Simpsons episode "Lisa the Vegetarian" [via: reddit]
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 7:58 PM PST - 117 comments

Beard Portraits by David Mead. [more inside]
posted by sciurus at 6:46 PM PST - 23 comments

Tristan Perich has released a new 'album'. Tristan Perich is a recording artist that doesn't sell recordings. (Previously.)
posted by mhjb at 5:57 PM PST - 38 comments

The president of Penguin Canada has been fired and is facing a sexual harrassment suit. Oh, and a second woman has alleged harrassment as well. There's some criticism of Penguin also for trying to cover up the facts at first. And there's a portrait of the "artist" as a young man. Sounds like it would make a good book ...
posted by anothermug at 5:42 PM PST - 12 comments

He might've placed a couple of chips into your Mac, Dell or Hewlett-Packard. Meet Yuan Yandong.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:18 PM PST - 24 comments

The New Yorker discusses Duke Ellington’s music and race in America, via Harvey G. Cohen's new book, Duke Ellington's America (excerpt). Music clips to accompany the articles inside the fold. (via Follow Me Here) [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 5:15 PM PST - 15 comments

Recent work in London's Notting Hill station uncovered original advertising posters untouched since the late 1950's (via).
posted by jontyjago at 5:08 PM PST - 17 comments

Stephen Ladkin's contemporary paintings have a cheery yet distorted perspective. His traditional works are more down-to-earth.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 4:39 PM PST - 7 comments

"There aren't 13 episodes of Doctor Who this year, there are 17 - four of which are interactive." The first episode of Doctor Who: The Adventure, at the moment only available in the UK, has been downloaded 500,000 times in 12 days. Users outside of the UK can expect to see a paid for version in the next month, in the meantime why not try to track down one of the previous Doctor Who videogames such as Dalek Attack or Doctor Who Top Trumps.
posted by Artw at 4:04 PM PST - 108 comments

Time's comprehensive archives allow us to see how the magazine's discussions of homosexuality have evolved from pathologizing and stereotyping . . . to awkward attempts to view gays humanely while continuing to refer to their sexual orientation as a disease . . . to a gradual acceptance of gays as upstanding members of society who are struggling for equal rights. Articles from 1956, 1966, 1969, 1975, and 1979 inside. [more inside]
posted by Jaltcoh at 3:41 PM PST - 27 comments

"Born in Denmark 1978. I write and direct television shows for kids. I have a set of twins and not much time for anything. But when i have time i draw monsterdrawings on post-it notes... it is a little window into a different world, made on office supplies." [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 2:57 PM PST - 22 comments

Wajahat Ali, a solo practitioner from California, takes on Wells Fargo in an attempt to get his clients' home loan modified. Lots of ball dropping and passing of the buck ensues. He describes the Kafka-esque nature of the experience.
posted by reenum at 2:48 PM PST - 41 comments

David Friedman, the guy behind sundaymagazing.org, has created a fascinating series of short docs and photos he calls Inventor Portraits. I particularly like the installment on life long inventor Brent Farley, and the man behind the Wilcraft.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 1:50 PM PST - 5 comments

Richard Barnes: Animal Logic
posted by puny human at 1:34 PM PST - 2 comments

What Broke My Father’s Heart: How putting in a pacemaker wrecked a family’s life.
posted by homunculus at 12:49 PM PST - 76 comments

"Scenes from a Multiverse"* is a brand new webcomic from Jon Rosenberg, the Lonely Goatherd, developed when he recently realized that when his absurd magnum-opus reaches its pre-destined conclusion (on the Mayan-designated Dec. 21, 2012), the impressive bound volumes of the story were not going to pay for his kid's college education. So here are daily visits to random levels of existence (if you assume all those levels of existence contain strange beings a lot like people you find annoying) without the bothersome story arc. PLUS the opportunity to vote for the alternate universe you'd like to revisit! (bonus previ-eewww content) [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:41 PM PST - 7 comments

DAD! GOD! Not FUNNY. **sigh**cross arms**roll eyes**
posted by Countess Elena at 11:47 AM PST - 94 comments

Lessons In Fatherhood, From the Dads of YouTube: "Home movies have evolved since the days of Panama hat-wearing patriarchs milling about the backyard, holding a Super 8 or shoulder-mounted camcorder, shouting at the children to "wave to the camera!" (only to have those images disappear into a closet to gather dust for decades). Now, with the help of YouTube, these moments can go from minivan to majorly viral in 30 minutes or less." [more inside]
posted by ericb at 11:18 AM PST - 21 comments

In January, the remains of Queen Eadgyth, wife of Otto I, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, and granddaughter of King Alfred the Great of England, were discovered in the cathedral of Magdeburg in Germany. The remains were sent to England for identification, which was confirmed last week. [more inside]
posted by Atreides at 9:02 AM PST - 16 comments

Easy Paper Toy of Endless Fascination [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 8:40 AM PST - 23 comments

The sleeve was printed on blotter paper. The liner notes were written in Dutch. The recording artist had had a sort of breakdown, and sometimes wore a Richard Nixon mask.

Tonight's The Night is officially released on June 20, 1975, two years after it was recorded at Studio Instrument Rentals, Hollywood ("Can we bash a hole in your wall?"). The centerpiece of Neil Young's moody, alienated Ditch Trilogy, it met with poor commercial sales, but enduring cult interest. [more inside]
posted by ovvl at 8:38 AM PST - 18 comments

Dude. Articles on the failed musical Dude by Hair cocreator Gerome Ragni. Where to start? Well, there is this summary of the disaster by the New York Times, which is just mind-boggling: "He also made demands, phoning Adela Holzer at 2 A.M. to say he wanted a hundred butterflies let loose into the audience before each performance. No? Well then what about having a couple of oinking pigs and chickens run down the aisle at intermission?" [more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:30 AM PST - 27 comments

The Cosmic Muffin is a boat that was once a 1939 Boeing 307 Stratoliner airplane that belonged to Howard Hughes. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 8:29 AM PST - 10 comments

Performances [MLYT] from the 2010 Old-Time Piano Championship in Peoria. Featuring early March, Cakewalk, Ragtime, Boogie, Stride, Blues, Novelty, Jazz, Classical, and popular song styles from before 1930.
posted by gman at 8:28 AM PST - 13 comments

Mickey and Goofy sell speed in Africa.
posted by pollex at 7:17 AM PST - 33 comments

"...Arctic sea ice – frozen seawater that floats on the ocean surface – is now at its lowest physical extent ever recorded for the time of year, suggesting that it is on course to break the previous record low set in 2007.
...
Earth has been 0.65C warmer over the past 12 months than during the 1951 to 1980 mean, and that the global temperature for 2010 will exceed the 2005 record."

2010 set to be the warmest year on record.
posted by p3on at 1:24 AM PST - 305 comments

Former NBA player and humanitarian Manute Bol has died. [more inside]
posted by emd3737 at 6:33 PM PST - 74 comments

You Can't Catch Me, Music and Lyrics by Chuck Berry. The Stones covered it. John Lennon was sued (twice!) for covering it and appropriating the lyrics. If Iggy Pop and the Stooges were never sued for doing the same thing as "Come Together" in 1970, perhaps it's because nobody could understand what exactly he was saying, not even the bands that took their names from the adapted lyrics. Perhaps JJ Cale was thinking of the chorus when he wrote Call Me The Breeze in 1971. Finally, though Jonothan Richman's "Roadrunner" clearly took inspiration from the Velvet Underground's Sister Ray and Bo Diddley's "Road Runner"(among other things), but, as a Berry fan, you can hear Richman echoing the lyrics in the Spirit of 1956 going Faster Miles an Hour, with the radio on, tuned to Rock And Roll. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:22 PM PST - 43 comments

The linguistic shortcomings of Otis Mathis has been mentioned in this space before. The now (possibly) former president of the Detroit Board of Education has rescinded his original letter of resignation after school superintendent Teresa Gueyser accused him of fondling himself during one-on-one meetings. [more inside]
posted by Oriole Adams at 2:10 PM PST - 34 comments

A 24-hour website-in-a-day competition with national honours on the line, FullCodePress is currently underway. This is the third competition, and the first with a team from the United States. The competition chooses non-profit organisations, and the teams have 24 hours to build a fully-functioning site. Catch up with the overnight highlights, or see the sites being built by the Codaroos, Code Blacks, or Team USA as they develop. For those not allergic to twitter, cheering and trashtalking here.
posted by szechuan at 1:53 PM PST - 19 comments

Typography of World Cup jerseys: In general, or just Italy’s. Or read an interview with Paul Barnes, who designed the faces for – yes – Italy and several other Puma-sponsored countries (Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Switzerland, Uruguay).
posted by joeclark at 1:38 PM PST - 7 comments

Full Week: nothing but pure, list pulverizing accomplishment in six easy phases.* With interactive calendar! (Revolving Floor previously.) [more inside]
posted by jjray at 1:08 PM PST - 12 comments

Something Left, Something Taken - A dark but humorous animated short about forensic science and the Zodiac Killer. [more inside]
posted by Sibrax at 11:17 AM PST - 6 comments

An "Unreal" look at 25,000 barrels. (Previously)
posted by pashdown at 11:00 AM PST - 35 comments

We're going to the moon now to find a suitable site to play three-sided football.
posted by ennui.bz at 9:06 AM PST - 27 comments

"If these people can't predict an earthquake, then what's the point of them?" Italian seismologists accused of manslaughter. (via simon singh)
posted by lucia__is__dada at 7:35 AM PST - 31 comments

Utah Attorney General Announces Execution on Twitter. Today marked an evolution of sorts for Twitter. It’s no longer just for following your favorite celebrity rants or for informing your followers you’re having a ham sandwich or just took a shower. And self-promotion on Twitter seems so yesterday. Consider Friday’s tweets from Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. Around midnight, he tweeted that he’d given “the go ahead” to execute condemned inmate Ronnie Gardner.
posted by Fizz at 7:16 AM PST - 81 comments

Something to think about. (slyt) Nick Vujicic's website.
posted by infini at 5:31 AM PST - 12 comments

Alex Cox, director of Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, and one-time presenter of Moviedrome, which was a cult movie education for an entire generation of British people, has posted a ton of free stuff on his site: 10000 ways to die (pdf) - his book on Spaghetti Westerns, the Moviedrome guide parts 1 and 2 (pdf), a video defence of Walker (quicktime), and much much more.
posted by Artw at 10:21 PM PST - 50 comments

The Bassoforte is made from a broken bass guitar and a dismantled piano. The end result is awesome.
posted by fizzzzzzzzzzzy at 8:26 PM PST - 52 comments

The terrifying tale of the Tea Party Movement from an insider [more inside]
posted by mathowie at 8:06 PM PST - 155 comments

JJ Cromer is a self-taught painter, whose dense, liney work reminds me of Howard Finster and Basil Wolverton.
posted by klangklangston at 7:22 PM PST - 12 comments

(Late) Friday Flash Fun: Faultline is a clever platformer where you can fold parts of the level to advance.
posted by spiderskull at 6:31 PM PST - 6 comments

What if our beloved modern devices had been invented in the past? Say around 1977? Introducing the Pocket Hi-Fi, The Laptron 64, MobileVoxx, and the Microcode 3000!
posted by The Whelk at 3:28 PM PST - 63 comments

Although people have been worried about correct speech for thousands of years, it's apparently the status anxieties of modern societies that create the market for usage advice in which artificial "rules" can spring up and spread, independent of the genuine norms of speaking and writing. [via]
posted by rebent at 3:08 PM PST - 78 comments

Near the Egress. "Over 800 modern dryplate tintypes were made from b&w film to produce this experimental stop-motion video of a circus. Antonio Martinez created this video to serve as a desired childhood memory of the circus, but through the mind of an adult." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 2:44 PM PST - 9 comments

Alluvial porn (SFW) [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 1:37 PM PST - 29 comments

If you listen close enough you'll hear police sirens in the distance, water pipes humming, Chinese sweatshop workers listening to Chinese language radio programs and singing traditional Chinese sweatshop songs. And yes, even a barking dog somewhere in the distance. This is the sound that surrounds the sound of Man Man, a cast of characters who rotate around one Ryan Kattner (a.k.a. Honus Honus), a grown fellow who was once a military brat who missed the 1980s pop music of the United States. Based in Philadelphia, but not part of the scene, the band mixes a lot of influences. Though (too) often likened to Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, and Captain Beefheart, Honus said "It's beyond flattering... but I just don't possess the same kinds of things those guys do." Their sound has also been likened to circus music, Viking vaudeville and manic Gypsy jazz, but the band has always insisted that what it plays is pop music. "Pop music has something catchy about it, whether it's a vocal or a rhythm or a keyboard line, whatever it is," said Pow Pow (real name Christopher Powell). Whatever their sound, they gained enough notoriety to tour with Modest Mouse (who they called "a gateway drug to better music"), and they're still at it. But enough with the words, time for some music videos! 10lb Moustache and Rabbit Habits are the two official videos, though Engrish Bwudd has inspired a number of fan-made vids, and even a belly dancing number. (More words and music inside) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:32 PM PST - 23 comments

“People talk a little more of the war, but very little. As always hitherto, it is impossible to overhear any comments on it in the pubs, etc. Last night, E[ileen] and I went to the pub to hear the 9 o’c news. The barmaid was not going to have it on if we had not asked her, and to all appearances nobody listened.”

On May 28, 1940, George Orwell began keeping a war time diary. Printed in “full and in chronological order” by the Orwell Trust, 70 years after he wrote them, with selected historian’s notes. Pre-war entries are a little duller, focusing on topics like recipes (macon!), the weather, gardening and farming. (Previously)
posted by stratastar at 1:11 PM PST - 20 comments

An excerpt from Portrait of the Addict As a Young Man: A Memoir by Bill Clegg.
posted by puny human at 12:24 PM PST - 49 comments

Shodo 'Arabi. "An appreciation of calligraphy is a lifelong interest for many Japanese, and for some, acquiring proficiency at it is a lifelong study. Yet, over the past two decades, a few have quietly put down their fude and picked up a bamboo qalam to try their hand at calligraphy in Arabic, which, they often find, is not as alien as they had thought."
posted by chunking express at 11:55 AM PST - 5 comments

Adventure Playground: John V. Lindsay and the Transformation of Modern New York . [more inside]
posted by enn at 10:32 AM PST - 4 comments

The long awaited Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened this morning at Universal's Islands of Adventure to much fanfare, including appearances by many of the movies' stars. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:22 AM PST - 109 comments

Bushmeat stew: complexities of a shadowy trade. Illegal bushmeat (estimated 270 tons a year) 'rife in Europe' Bushmeat, or wild-animal meat, has been part of the traditional diet of many forest-dwelling African people. It is found to introduce disease and might well be more common than you think. (wiki; related)
posted by adamvasco at 9:25 AM PST - 20 comments

"Tone-Quester" is generally a musician (more than likely a guitarist) who purchases/modifies amps/pedals/cabinets in search of a certain sound. They fiercely pride themselves on being able to distinquish the differences between pickups, tube amps vs. transistor amps. With this in mind, Wolfe McCloud, a pickup designer, decided to challenge My Les Paul forum members. [more inside]
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:35 AM PST - 31 comments

Girls suck at video games (vimeo)
posted by desjardins at 8:30 AM PST - 73 comments

Toy Story 3 hits theaters today, and it's already winning universal acclaim as an enchanting and heartbreaking wonderwork, employing understated 3D and a "real-time" perspective that deftly capitalizes on the nostalgia and can't-go-home-again angst of a generation that grew up with the series. It has a strong pedigree, with 11-year-old predecessor Toy Story 2 the rare sequel to equal its forebear, 1995's Toy Story (itself the first CGI feature in history). And it joins a lofty stable of films: over the last 15 years, Pixar has put out an unbroken chain of ten commercial and critical successes that have grossed over $5 billion worldwide and collected 24 Academy Awards (including the second-ever Best Picture nom for animation with Up), a legacy that rivals some of the greatest franchises in film history. But there's rumbling on the horizon. Although the studio has been hailed for its originality (of the 50 top-grossing movies in history, only nine were original stories -- and five of them were by Pixar), two of their upcoming projects are sequels, both of them based some of their least-acclaimed films (Cars 2 in 2011 and Monsters, Inc. 2 in 2012). And while 2012 will also bring The Bear and the Bow Brave, the first Pixar flick to feature a female protagonist [previously], fellow newcomer Newt has been canceled. With WALL-E/Up/Toy Story 3 guru Andrew Stanton focusing on his 2012 adaptation of John Carter of Mars and with forays into live-action already in development, does this mark the end of the golden age of Pixar? Or is this latest entry lasting proof that even the toughest case of sequelitis can be raised to the level of masterpiece? [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 8:15 AM PST - 226 comments

On subtitles.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:14 AM PST - 65 comments

Vince Neil does it. Mike Ditka does it. Jeff Gordon does it. Even Madonna does it (with her dad). Now glam band rockers Whitesnake are doing it too, with Whitesnake Zinfandel.
posted by slogger at 8:08 AM PST - 25 comments

The High Budgetary Cost of Incaceration (Full pdf) "The United States currently incarcerates a higher share of its population than any other country in the world. We calculate that a reduction in incarceration rates just to the level we had in 1993 (which was already high by historical standards) would lower correctional expenditures by $16.9 billion per year, with the large majority of these savings accruing to financially squeezed state and local governments. As a group, state governments could save $7.6 billion, while local governments could save $7.2 billion."
posted by OmieWise at 7:40 AM PST - 64 comments

My Playground is a Danish documentary film by Kaspar Astrup Schröder about movement in urban space. The film explores the way Parkour and Freerunning is changing the perception of urban space and how the space is changing the traceurs and freerunners. [more inside]
posted by Lezzles at 7:01 AM PST - 4 comments

Prosopagnosia, or face blindness, is an impairment which limits one's ability to recognize faces (previously). As part of the World Science Festival, Robert Krulwich interviews two famous suffers of this little known disease: the portrait artist Chuck Close and the neuroscientist and writer Oliver Sacks. [more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf at 6:27 AM PST - 77 comments

Portuguese writer and 1998's Nobel Prize for Literature recipient José Saramago has died, age 87. [News link in Portuguese] He died in Lanzarote, Spain, where he had lived since a bust-up in the early 1990s with Portugal's government over his controversial book, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. Saramago wrote nearly 30 books, and was cited for the Nobel as a writer "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality." No holiday for death, after all.
posted by chavenet at 5:35 AM PST - 44 comments

Babies, swimming.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:59 AM PST - 37 comments

The Bollywood film "Dear Friend Hitler" has lost its Hitler, Anupam Kher, due to protests from India's Jewish Community. The film was to focus on "Hitler's love for India and how he indirectly contributed to Indian independence...to capture the personality of Adolf Hitler and his insecurities, his charisma and his paranoia during the last few days of his life." Westerners may be puzzled by the project's flippancy towards its subject, but knowledge of the Holocaust is relatively slim in India, where Mein Kampf is a best-seller supposedly lumped in with Who Moved My Cheese. While Hitler may have lent some wispy nominal support to India's independence movement, the fact is most of the people who tried to draw a connection between Hitler's fortunes and that of India were just plain loons. [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:59 AM PST - 51 comments

10 Exotic Wooden Bathtubs: if I had the space and the money I would definitely get one of these gorgeous tubs; I particularly like the Maax Viaggi, Sasso Ocean and Adagio. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 4:07 AM PST - 31 comments

From 1979 to the end of the '80s, Sam Hurt produced a strange and wonderful little comic called Eyebeam. I'm very happy that the entire archives are up, as well as later additions. About the drab but sometimes very weird life of the eponymous character, the comic addressed a wide range of topics, including the decor of Chinese restaurants, wearing the wrong clothes to work, beach gidgets, job security, male answer syndrome, not-quite-vegetarianism and time travel. It managed to be pretty wise while still being funny. Just don't take it too literally.
posted by jiawen at 2:17 AM PST - 20 comments

The "Laser Inertial Fusion Engine" (LIFE) is being developed at the National Ignition Facility. Stewart Brand blogs about its potential here and this video (.mov 128MB) is stunning. How LIFE works. Successful early test shots suggest that the NIF will achieve first nuclear fusion ignition within the next few months (+10 years to commercial).
posted by stbalbach at 11:20 PM PST - 44 comments

She's been called "the greatest posthumous success story in music history." But when she died of melanoma at age 33, few people outside of the Washington DC-area had heard of Eva Marie Cassidy. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:55 PM PST - 62 comments

I don't usually learn strange and disturbing things from the mouth of dinosaurs, but there's always a first time for everything. The fact that it's true makes it even worse. [more inside]
posted by Cobalt at 9:24 PM PST - 58 comments

A history of well-done meat in America. "I prefer my meat cooked through, gray, no trace of pink. Shoe leather? To me that signifies 'food safety.' Mine is the hockey-puck, the charcoal, the hunk of tuna that is still on the grill. Gourmands consider well-done timid, even cranky. It's the gradation of people who don't really like to eat."
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 8:19 PM PST - 162 comments

DISGRASIAN OF THE WEAK! Liveblogging The Karate Kid Remake. Also, the Disgrasian Dictionary.
posted by crossoverman at 8:11 PM PST - 13 comments

The final report of the bombing of Air India flight 182 from Canada in 1985 has been released. Turns out the Mounties, and others, are to blame.
posted by anothermug at 7:37 PM PST - 21 comments

A doctor at Cornell and his research team have been performing clitoroplasties on female infants and little girls who show "gender ambiguity." This involves cutting away the shaft of the clitoris on girls whose clitorises are deemed too large . [more inside]
posted by ms.codex at 6:53 PM PST - 213 comments

The Dance of Doom! From this motherlode of comics goodness, found by Robot 6.
posted by Artw at 5:38 PM PST - 16 comments

Using eye tracking software, text can respond to your gaze.
posted by phrontist at 4:55 PM PST - 18 comments

Good afternoon, my name is Julio and I’m a diver in the sewage here in Mexico City.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:49 PM PST - 23 comments

Ricky Jay's legendary book, "Cards As Weapons," is out of print. Used copies are expensive. Luckily, you can read it here. (The book contains some NSFW content.) I've you're new to Ricky Jay, start here.
posted by grumblebee at 4:41 PM PST - 37 comments

It's well-known at this point that Valve Software hired the team of Digipen students who made Narbacular Drop to turn their student project into Portal. But even people who drooled over the new mechanics in the Portal 2 E3 videos may not be aware that Valve has hired another team out of Digipen for that. If you're looking for a preview, you should probably download and play Tag, the game the new mechanics are based on, in which you explore a grey, cell-shaded world by spraying paint on it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:39 PM PST - 28 comments

Sit back and enjoy the many Italian recipes Great Chicago Italian Recipes.com has to offer. This site will provide you with a culinary adventure into the world of Italian food and wine. Choose from poultry, beef, vegetables, pasta, and sooo much more. Looking to finish off that perfect meal? Try Adriana's Italian Gourmet Cookies. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 2:25 PM PST - 15 comments

Stuff no one told me (but I learned anyways) [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 1:34 PM PST - 54 comments

At 9am on Monday the 21st June, 60 pianos will be distributed and then unveiled across New York City by Sing for Hope. Located in public parks, streets and plazas the pianos will be available until 5th July for any member of the public to play and engage with.

“Play Me, I’m Yours” is an artwork by British artist Luke Jerram. [Previously] You can get piano locations as well as upload videos, photos and stories of you and your friends tickling the public ivories on the official site. The project will be concurrently mounted in London.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:24 PM PST - 23 comments

Andrew Shane Huang is a 35 year old hardware hacker, known to some as bunnie, and others as that guy who hacked the Xbox and went on to write a book about it. Finding the hidden key to the Xbox was an enjoyable distraction while he worked on getting his PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT as part of Project Aries. Since then, he has written for (and been written about) in Make Magazine, has giving talks on the strategy of hardware openness and manufacturing practices in China, as experienced with the development of the opensource ambient "internet-based TV" called Chumby. When he's not busy on such excursions, bunnie writes about hacking (and more specifically, Chumby hacking), technology in China, and even biology in exquisite detail on the bunnie studios blog (previously). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:11 PM PST - 36 comments

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously against a fourth amendment claim of a right against an employer search of texts on a work pager. The decision, City of Ontario v. Quon, rejected the claims, by the officer and by others who texted him on the device, that the employer city and the city's service provider violated their rights by reviewing transcripts of the text messages. Justice Kennedy's decision assumed the officer had a reasonable expectation of privacy. However, he said, the city’s search was not unduly intrusive. There was a “legitimate work-related purpose” for the audit, Justice Kennedy wrote. The city “had a legitimate interest in ensuring that employees were not being forced to pay out of their own pockets for work-related expenses, or on the other hand that the city was not paying for extensive personal communications.” Interestingly, the officer's direct supervisor had told him that he could use the pager for personal messages, as long as he paid their cost. Kennedy nonetheless opined for the Court that he likely only had a "limited privacy interest." The Court did not reach the question of whether there is an employee privacy interest in email on work servers, or conversations on work telephones.
posted by bearwife at 12:45 PM PST - 58 comments

Olivia Bouler is making 500 original drawings of birds to send to donors who help save oil-soaked birds. AOL donated 25,000 and is hosting the 11 year-old's portfolio. [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia at 12:42 PM PST - 7 comments

This is Why I'll Never be an Adult.
posted by homunculus at 12:40 PM PST - 119 comments

Wordpress.org launches Wordpress 3.0. The popular blogging platform and open source CMS continues to evolve with 3.0, “Thelonious” (wordpress versions are named after jazz musicians). The official Wordpress.org announcement has an excellent video tour and overview. Tune into some Monk and catch up on the new features (sixrevisions.com has a great overview). [more inside]
posted by oulipian at 12:31 PM PST - 32 comments

Rosecrans Baldwin considers the literary place of the distant barking dog.
posted by Iridic at 12:19 PM PST - 32 comments

Underworld dandy: Sebastian Horsley dies, aged 47, of suspected overdose. Sebastian Horsley, the dandy, writer and artist who found fame by being nailed to a cross in the Philippines, has died at the age of 47. The colourful self-publicist was found dead at his flat in central London this morning, days after a play adapted from his memoirs – Dandy in the Underworld – opened at the Soho theatre.
posted by Fizz at 12:00 PM PST - 12 comments

Do the perils and vagaries of the modern world leave you bewildered? Do you miss elementary school, where short black and white films made it all easier to understand? Turn to Mister Sharp, whose animated shorts explain life concepts, such as The Magic of the Mobile Phone, Politics: The Global Language, and The Perils of Lesbianity.
posted by cereselle at 10:11 AM PST - 16 comments

"The most complete and up-to-date illustrated Candy Teacher that is out on the market, with complete instructions in the manufacture of all the different classes of candy made for the wholesale and retail trade." (Charles Apell, 1921) [more inside]
posted by gman at 9:25 AM PST - 18 comments

Vuvuzela time! View any web site like you're at the South Africa World Cup!
posted by GuyZero at 9:07 AM PST - 109 comments

Hillary Clinton has asked the Organization of America States to re-admit post coup Honduras, but many people with long memories are against it and wondering why this president, in particular, is doing it.
posted by history is a weapon at 7:21 AM PST - 15 comments

Hojun Song wants to show you how to make a satellite. And then he'll help you build a robo-guitar. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:08 AM PST - 2 comments

The Atlas of True Names reveals the etymological roots, or original meanings, of the familiar terms on today's maps of the World, Europe, the British Isles and the United States. For example, Britain = Great Land of the Tattooed, New Jersey = New Island of Spears, and Chicago = Stink Onion. There's now an iPhone app. However, at least one linguistic historian takes issue with some of their methodology. Mefi's own languagehat responds.
posted by desjardins at 6:35 AM PST - 67 comments

Our hula hooping friend (previously) is back and throwing an Octopus. What have musicians got against Octopii?
posted by RegMcF at 6:21 AM PST - 9 comments

New CGI-live action movie about the Smurfs to be released in the summer of 2011. [more inside]
posted by rodmandirect at 6:20 AM PST - 156 comments

Coal Ash: the other energy spill. A five-part investigative series from the Institute for Southern Studies about the toxic residue left after coal is burned.
1. Coal's Dirty Secret Coal ash is "the second-largest industrial waste stream in the U.S." but is not regulated by the federal government
2. Disaster in East Tennessee Effects of the December 2008 rupture of a dike releasing "a billion gallons of muddy, gray coal ash loaded with arsenic, lead and other contaminants" are still being felt
3. Power Politics Coal ash was given a special exemption from hazardous waste regulation in 1980; attempts since then to tighten the exemption have failed
4. Dumpsites in Disguise Toxic coal ash is increasingly being recycled into building materials and other uses, again largely unregulated
5. What's Next for Coal Ash? The EPA has offered two proposals; one treats coal ash like hazardous waste, the other like "ordinary solid waste."
posted by mediareport at 5:20 AM PST - 29 comments

Her name is Shawnee Jenkins... A brief fairy tale about a little girl and her parents. Who live in the basement... [more inside]
posted by Samizdata at 4:46 AM PST - 9 comments

235 Free Indie Games In 10 Minutes, plus 190 195 Free Indie Games currently in development. Watch the pretty colors, then look up the ones that look awesome.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:23 AM PST - 16 comments

On Saturday the crown princess Victoria of Sweden will be married, and her father King Gustav of Sweden will walk her down the aisle. This goes against the Swedish church tradition, where the couple walk together. The arch bishop Anders Wejryd has issued a public statement expressing his disapproval , and some are calling it a sexist wedding. If you're going to break with tradition, why not add a new twist to the aisle-walk, or maybe the groom can pull some moves, perhaps bop down the aisle to Love Shack? P.S. don't forget to update your facebook status while you're at it.
posted by dabitch at 2:47 AM PST - 39 comments

The Basics:
  Metallica Likes Death.
  Megadeth Likes to Kill!
  Slayer Likes Satan and Hell...
  ...and AC/DC Likes Rock 'N' Roll!
posted by not_on_display at 9:58 PM PST - 48 comments

Dandy's Story: The Yankees' Long-Forgotten Mascot. [more inside]
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:55 PM PST - 21 comments

Not satisfied with merely screwing up their kids, helicopter parents are swooping in, kicking ass and taking names. Having defeated such scourges as stickball, skipping, treehouses and the dreaded interwebz, they have turned their sights elsewhere. The next front in the War on Childhood? The Best Friend
posted by Chipmazing at 9:35 PM PST - 155 comments

Garry Shider, singer, guitarist and musical director of George Clinton's P-Funk All-Stars for much of their history, has passed on at age 56. Shider (the man in the diaper for so many P-Funk performances) was co-author of One Nation Under a Groove and many other masterpieces of the funk. RIP, Garry Shider.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:59 PM PST - 37 comments

The Quran says to eat what is good and wholesome (tayyib), and what is halâl. Therefore, if any food is not tayyib, the Qur'ân does not encourage us to eat it. The world of Muslim vegetarians.
posted by Xurando at 8:31 PM PST - 37 comments

Animator OrinCreed said I Dream In Retro is "based heavily on a dream I had that was caused by a long day of playing NES, SNES, and Genesis. In the dream I was moving through different levels from many games. In each level the music was wrong and my sprite (while fitting the bit style) didn't quite work with the game. During the dream I was abusing a cheat ability to use different weapons from pretty much any game I wanted at any time. The game itself behaved as it should, with my actions being the only aberration." The result was this loving tribute and mash-up of video game titles.
posted by ShawnStruck at 8:25 PM PST - 21 comments

Wax On, F*ck Off with Ralph Macchio. NSFW [more inside]
posted by bwg at 6:11 PM PST - 54 comments

Enter Zerotracer, the fully-enclosed electric motorcycle. SLYT
(via)
posted by Taft at 6:09 PM PST - 45 comments

End Love, the latest music video endeavor from rock group OK Go, was choreographed and filmed at widely-varying framerates, producing a hypnotic viewing experience. [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by knave at 4:52 PM PST - 89 comments

"Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett are asking the nation's billionaires to pledge ... at least half their net worth to charity, in their lifetimes or at death."
posted by grumblebee at 4:28 PM PST - 144 comments

The Abandoned Palace at 15 Beekman Street [via mefi projects] (I think it's actually 5 Beekman street, but whatever. The photos are amazing.)
posted by Nothing... and like it at 4:25 PM PST - 51 comments

Taking Liberties: a Deus Ex story - on the enduring appeal of the 2000 Cyberpunk RPG/FPS. The Making of Deus Ex. Behind the scenes.
posted by Artw at 3:55 PM PST - 62 comments

North Korea played in the World Cup in 1966 [BBC Documentary on YouTube]. The 1966 World Cup was the subject of bitter disagreement before a ball was ever kicked. Sixteen African nations boycotted the tournament in protest of a 1964 FIFA ruling that required the champion team from the African zone to enter a playoff round against the winners of either the Asian or the Oceania zone in order to win a place in the Cup. [more inside]
posted by vectr at 2:26 PM PST - 22 comments

'Why Pakistan's Ahmadi community is officially detested. When a Pakistani Muslim applies for a passport or national ID card, they are asked to sign an oath that no Muslim anywhere in the world is asked to sign. The oath goes like this: "I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad an impostor prophet. And also consider his followers, whether belonging to the Lahori or Qadiani group, to be non-Muslims."'Last month" "more than 90 Ahmadis were massacred in two mosques in Lahore". But Ahmadis are persecuted in many other countries. In Bangladesh 'Ahmadiyyas have become a persecuted group, targeted via protests and acts of violence.' Even in Indonesia, "religious conservatives put pressure on the government to monitor, and harass the Ahmadiyya community". [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 2:16 PM PST - 19 comments

I stopped there, in a sort of awe. here's the new Choir teacher, (way too flamboyant for a small town in the 70's and fired the next year), sitting in his office with an ES175 and a small amp just wailing some kind of jazz I had never heard, I played guitar, but was still on a CSNY diet. He just sits up, looks at me, and says... "What!? You telling me never heard of Joe Pass?" [more inside]
posted by timsteil at 1:59 PM PST - 16 comments

John Jannuzzi of Textbook pulls together fresh-off-the-runway, high-fashion looks for fictional characters and historical figures, answering that eternal question: What Would Holden Caulfield Wear? Or Eleanor of Aquitaine? Or Zelda? Or Rasputin? Or an assortment of Pokemon?
posted by oinopaponton at 1:27 PM PST - 21 comments

In preparation for the upcoming G8/G20 summit in Toronto, security forces (who have already removed mailboxes, bus shelters and garbage bins, as well as shutting down cell-phone towers) are removing saplings from the streets on the theory that they can be uprooted and used as weapons by protesters. RCMP Constable Wendy Drummond explains that it is "like child-proofing your home." [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:01 PM PST - 100 comments

"EIZO High End Monitors Medical Imaging" presents: Pin-Up 2010, an x-ray pinup calendar. (Possibly NSFW)
posted by zarq at 12:37 PM PST - 45 comments

BP agrees to set aside $20 billion for spill claims. In a much anticipated deal brokered with the heads of the disgraced oil industry giant following on the heels of last night's speech from the Oval Office, President Obama has received a commitment from BP to establish a $20 billion dollar escrow account to pay for economic damages related to the Deepwater Horizon's now estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrel a day oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico (also previously here, here, and here on the blue). Does this development render moot the politically perilous issue of retroactively lifting the $75 million dollar cap on oil company liabilities, which the DOJ recently declared legal? Some are asking for more details. NY Times asks: How much will BP really pay? Darling of the far-right fringe Michelle Balkin cautions BP: "Don't be chumps! This is redistribution of wealth." And fellow right-of-centrist Sarah Palin wants to call in the Dutch.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:42 AM PST - 211 comments

On Saturday, in her second start as a professional baseball player for the Chico (CA) Outlaws, 18-year-old "Knuckle Princess" Eri Yoshida received her first strikeout as a player in the US. [Yoshida previously on Metafilter.] [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 11:33 AM PST - 19 comments

You have all the best information and you have your personal breastfeeding goals, but somehow it just doesn't work out for you. You've been booby trapped! [more inside]
posted by zorrine at 11:25 AM PST - 83 comments

Joe Janes is a writer, director and teacher for the Second City Training Center and Columbia College Chicago. While in the classroom, Janes always had advice for what his students should avoid. His best advice on how to be a better writer? Write. Every. Day. And that's what he decided to do starting January 19, 2010, for 365 days. [more inside]
posted by twintone at 11:22 AM PST - 24 comments

An article in the June issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society of the Biological Sciences finds that "differences in reproductive strategies are driving individuals' different views on recreational drugs": namely, that views on sexual promiscuity are more closely related to views on recreational drug use than religion, political affiliation or other predictors. The study suggests attitudes against recreational drug use are an evolutionary attempt to promote reproductive stability.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 11:21 AM PST - 21 comments

Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) are registered nurses who have special training and experience in forensic evidence collection (conducting “rape kits”) and survivor-centered care. They also increasingly conduct forensic examinations on suspects accused of sexual assault(PDF). There is evidence that, through this work, SANE programs increase the prosecution rates of sexual assault cases. However, as a result of a recent Supreme Court Case, Crawford v. Washington, the role of SANEs is being increasingly curtailed(behind a pay wall). [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 10:53 AM PST - 57 comments

Home dentistry meets model rocketry. (SLYT)
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:52 AM PST - 36 comments

Wikipedia too credible for your liking? You need to spend some time in Fictopedia, the fictional encyclopedia. Learn about the totally fake adventure game Schmaxilla, the nonexistent Norswedish beat poet Arnis Radis, and the entirely fabricated but still controversial Spirit Displacement Device! Then create a free account and add your own plausible untruths to the canon. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 9:29 AM PST - 45 comments

A federal judge in California will hear closing arguments today in the landmark legal case that will determine the constitutionality of California's same-sex marriage ban , first approved by voters as Proposition 8 in November 2008. Previously. also Previously. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 8:58 AM PST - 153 comments

Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Sage Publications are suing four librarians at Georgia State University for making portions of electronic copies of articles available to students when the text is places on reserve in the library, which is likely protected under fair use. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 8:35 AM PST - 29 comments

Pachimon (knock-off monsters) at landmarks; postcards.
posted by klangklangston at 7:51 AM PST - 8 comments

Teaching Korean ESL students how to swear. (NSFW SLYT)
posted by gman at 7:42 AM PST - 45 comments

L'Illusionniste is a new animated film by Sylvian Chomet, director of Belleville Rendezvous (Les Triplettes de Belleville). It opens in France today (16th), and hopefully around the world later this year. Ebert enjoyed it when he saw it at Cannes. It's based on a story origianlly written by Jacques Tati, and it looks very good. You can see the trailer on the original site, or here, on YouTube.
posted by DanCall at 6:38 AM PST - 42 comments

Last week the playwright Alan Bennett was "relieved" of £1,500 by one of the simplest scams about - the distraction scam. The BBC provides a helpful guide to how not to get scammed while MSN outlines the 13 scams of the summer. For a more in-depth examination of the world of scams, The Real Hustle is an invaluable resource. [more inside]
posted by MuffinMan at 4:51 AM PST - 88 comments

"So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover they've ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace they've ever had, with challenging work, rewards for talent, initiative, and professional development, an excellent work/life balance, and good pay. But both of those options demand a lot from you. Besides, your lover (or employee) will stay only as long as she wants to under those systems, and you want to keep her even when she doesn't want to stay. How do you pin her to your side, irrevocably, permanently, and perfectly legally?

"You create a sick system."
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:08 AM PST - 160 comments

Fans of Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear please take note: they are designing some kind of iPhone App. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:15 AM PST - 35 comments

Eleven weeks after Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was found murdered near the U.S.-Mexico border, a group of illegal entrants have reported to police that they were shot at by two men in camouflage with high powered rifles near Rio Rico, Arizona. [more inside]
posted by nestor_makhno at 9:56 PM PST - 64 comments

Green Eggs and Ham: music by Dylan Hears a Who [previously previouslier], animation from Dr. Seuss on the Loose (1973). [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 9:49 PM PST - 5 comments

Ask Gertrude
posted by Hypocrite_Lecteur at 9:19 PM PST - 10 comments

Introducing...Colored Bacon. (via the treasure trove that is Bacon Today.) [more inside]
posted by StrikeTheViol at 8:28 PM PST - 40 comments

Your Open Book (NSFW language) lets you search Facebook's publicly accessible status updates. While the site exists ostensibly to protest Facebook's problematic privacy settings, perhaps its even greater achievement is to let us peer into the lives of our fellow Facebook users. (NSFW language)
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:11 PM PST - 49 comments

Cyber security consultant & self-styled “innovator, leader & visionary” Greg Evans has just written & self-published a book titled How To Become The Worlds No. 1 Hacker. Or did he? His company, LIGATT Security International, counts Philips Arena, the NBA Atlanta Hawks and the NHL Atlanta Thrashers among its clients. Or does it?
posted by scalefree at 7:03 PM PST - 15 comments

After suspending all asylum applications from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, the Australian Government has made a series of confronting youtube videos showing the dangers of the sea, and the arrest and detention of asylum seekers. [more inside]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:34 PM PST - 56 comments

Jimmy Dean (Aug. 28, 1928 - June 13, 2010) is best known to Mefites for his brand of sausage, although he sold the company in the '80s, and was dropped as its spokesman in 2003; its current owner is Sara Lee*. But his musical legacy is sealed by his 'country rap*' classic "Big Bad John" (performed live in 2008), often imitated, but never parodied better than with "Big Bruce"** (info). But to me, he was the guy with the variety show where he spent several minutes every week bantering with the muppet Rowlf****. Here's Jimmy in Esquire Magazine's "What I've Learned". His final resting place is music-themed, NOT sausage themed. "Here lies one hell of a man." [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:47 PM PST - 47 comments

Is there facebook after death? Also, here's how to send emails from beyond the grave.
posted by DZack at 4:17 PM PST - 19 comments

Vic Rawl has filed a protest against the man who beat him in the South Carolina Democratic primary for the US Senate. The official reason is election irregularities, however at the core of the protest is the fact that the winner Alvin Greene is a complete unknown with no prior experience. He won the primary despite the fact that he has no campaign headquarters or material and in fact did not seem to campaign at all. Also curious is the pending criminal case in which he is accused of showing a pornographic website to a college student. Mr. Greene does not come across particularly well in interviews and CNN interviewer Don Lemon even went so far as to question his mental health and called it one of the most bizarre interviews he's ever had. So is this Republican tampering as many observers are accusing? (FiveThirtyEight weighs in) Did South Carolina voters give him the (59%-41%) victory because they thought he was Al Green, soul music's most insinuating singer? Or perhaps these are the wrong questions and we should be focusing on Alvin Greene's platform: jobs, better education for children and justice.
posted by jeremias at 3:26 PM PST - 115 comments

KITTEHS AND CONEHATS!!! In order to celebrate "Something for Everybody", their first album in 20 years, Devo is streaming their new album live, right now... with appropriate feline accompaniment!
posted by markkraft at 1:40 PM PST - 46 comments

Sure, knot theory is an interesting subject with a storied past, and self-avoiding walk theory takes it a bit further in describing real-world ropes, lines and wires, but can it be usefully applied to the knotty problem of spontaneously forming tangles? Robert Matthews of Aston University has suggested that there's a simple solution to avoiding tangles in all our computer cables, headphone cords and Vectran cored double braid halyard lines: make them into loops [pdf]. It's plausible, but not proven. Enter The Great British Knot Experiment which aims to provide "compelling empirical evidence to support the Loop Conjecture – and thus for its role in solving one of life's little irritations." [more inside]
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 1:32 PM PST - 36 comments

The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom presents "What Psychology Professionals Should Know About Polyamory". [PDF] [more inside]
posted by Faust Gray at 1:06 PM PST - 121 comments

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity." Dr. Richard Fisher and other sun-gazing scientists recently discussed the upcoming peak in the 11-year sunspot cycle. Due to the ever-increasing humans' reliance on electrical systems, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and "potentially devastating" problems for governments. Constant improvements in satellite designs have assisted in bracing for a solar superstorm, an effort that comes in part by studying the impacts records of activity from past peaks in solar storms. System limits are set based on significant solar storm-triggered events in the past, though the largest magnetic storm on record was before the modern understanding of solar events. The solar storm of 1859, also known as The Carrington Event, when "telegraphs ran on electric air," was experienced around the world. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:46 PM PST - 51 comments

Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera is an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London which examines voyeurism through the medium of photography. In addition to works from professionals such as Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lee Miller, Shizuka Yokomizo, Guy Bourdin, Nan Goldin and Robert Mapplethorpe, it includes amateur and CCTV "stolen" images taken both with and without the knowledge of their subjects -- all intended to "explore the uneasy relationship between making and viewing images that deliberately cross lines of privacy and propriety." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:14 PM PST - 7 comments

OKCupid prides itself on being a free (though ad-supported) dating site that (supposedly) doesn't use underhanded methods to make money. But The Consumerist is reporting that some members are receiving notice that, as Beautiful People, "You will now see more attractive people in your match results."
posted by waraw at 11:30 AM PST - 204 comments

After 12 years, the enquiry is over. And the report on the Bloody Sunday massacre is published. [more inside]
posted by MessageInABottle at 10:28 AM PST - 60 comments

Topographical Representation of Crime in San Francisco
posted by terrirodriguez at 10:14 AM PST - 36 comments

I'M COMIC SANS, ASSHOLE
posted by The Devil Tesla at 10:13 AM PST - 141 comments

Nestled amid endless Budweiser ads, The AV Club is putting together some great modern covers of ’70s and ‘80s classics. My personal favorites: The Antlers take on Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and Cursive’s cover of Starship’s We Built This City.
posted by rtimmel at 9:46 AM PST - 52 comments

Get your hands off me, you damn, dirty macaco!
posted by grumblebee at 7:52 AM PST - 6 comments

The Day the Gaming Industry Died: David Wong, editor of Cracked, attends E3 2010 and finds it wanting: "For whatever reason gamers won't keep playing games unless given a completely new format every half decade."
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:47 AM PST - 163 comments

Where are Americans Moving? An interactive map of county-to-county migration within the US in 2008.
posted by jefficator at 7:16 AM PST - 81 comments

Rod Humble, lead designer for The Sims, and creator of seminal art-game The Marriage -- discourses on free will at E3. [via]
posted by empath at 7:10 AM PST - 4 comments

Information is beautiful : 30 examples of creative infography
posted by Gyan at 6:59 AM PST - 38 comments

The Carnegie Institution for Science reports "a much higher water content in the Moon’s interior than previous studies." For decades, the moon's water content was estimated at less than 1 part per billion; the new estimates range from 64 ppb to 5 parts per million. A scientist at Washington University said, "We can now finally begin to consider the implications—and the origin—of water in the interior of the Moon.” There's more at NASA and the BBC, and the full paper is available at PNAS (PDF).
posted by Stan Carey at 5:39 AM PST - 21 comments

Update to this. Last night, Big Butter Jesus burnt down. Apparently, it was an act of God.
posted by tizzie at 3:48 AM PST - 110 comments

Loved is a flash platform game about choice by Alexander Ocias that features multiple endings. (via/mini writeup: RPS)
posted by juv3nal at 2:44 AM PST - 21 comments

Finding Nighthawks: Nearly seventy years after Edward Hopper finished what would become one of the icons of American art, Jeremiah Moss went in search of the diner that inspired it.
posted by scody at 12:16 AM PST - 21 comments

A yellow Cactus 45 of I Man Bitter by Pluto plays on a turntable...
May I2karl present I Man Bitter, Ram Goat Liver, Your Honour and Dat
by Pluto aka Pluto Shervington, a minor planet in Jah Universe.
But not without his moments, of which these are four.
I Man Bitter I favor the most.
posted by y2karl at 11:02 PM PST - 7 comments

A new project called CitID is attempting to collect logos and/or typefaces representing every city in the world. So far, they have over 150 submissions, including Berlin, Kiev, Portland, Bogota, Tokyo, and Cape Town. [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 8:23 PM PST - 24 comments

The backstory to The Beulah Show. "After Beulah was cancelled, the three networks and independent television producers, fearful of being accused of perpetuating racial stereotypes, stopped casting Blacks in their shows almost entirely for the next fifteen years."
posted by unliteral at 8:11 PM PST - 15 comments

One of the modern world's favorite stories of ancient Egypt is the religious upheaval and family drama of Akhenaten, the "Heretic Pharaoh," and his queen Nefertiti. (Previously.) Since the regime's history was deliberately obliterated by later pharaohs, archaeologists have had to reconstruct the whole story, leaving many open questions. No one has even been able to say how exactly the members of the royal family were related, particularly whether Akhenaten was the father of Tutankhamun, everyone's favorite boy-king (previously). This February, leading scientists published an article in JAMA [abstract with paywall] regarding the results of the King Tutankhamun Family Project -- DNA analysis on the mummies of royal family members, some never identified. It may be that the question of the pharaoh's descent and relations has been answered at last, and that we now can identify an unnamed skeleton, hidden in a woman's tomb, to be the remains of Akhenaten. However, the data is not definitive, and since "leading scientists," in Egypt, are always led by the colorful and dictatorial Dr. Zahi Hawass, there is bound to be some argument. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 7:31 PM PST - 15 comments

Marcella Polini Hazan, Cavaliere della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana, has Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She's also got one of those "cooking every recipe in her book" blogs.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:01 PM PST - 16 comments

Comics great Al Williamson has died.
posted by Scoo at 5:46 PM PST - 16 comments

Artist Henning Lederer has adapted Fritz Kahn's illustration "Man As Industrial Palace" [previously] as an interactive installation. [via SciencePunk]
posted by brundlefly at 5:13 PM PST - 2 comments

Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame, and also an Eagle Scout) offers this advice to newly minted Eagle Scouts: Don't Be A Human Form Letter. He expands on it as he explains to the Scouts in a letter why earning the Eagle Scout rank isn't quite the ticket to success that they may think it is, and why they can't sit on their past achievements while they wait for the world to recognize their greatness. He follows up with an email exchange with a Scout who was offended by Mike's attitude about the Eagle Scout badge. Don’t be that guy. Don’t wait for the world to acknowledge your accomplishments. By all means, take pride in what you’ve done, but don’t let it go to your head. When you’re finished with Scouting, donate your uniform to The Salvation Army. Fold up your sash and stow it away somewhere private, with all the other tokens of what you’ve done so far. Then, roll up your sleeves, get out in the world, and put what you’ve learned to use. Given that we are in the high season of high schools and colleges pumping out newly minted graduates that may have an over-inflated sense of the value of their accomplishments, this seemed interesting, and something that might strike a chord.
posted by COD at 4:20 PM PST - 72 comments

An investigation into the startling fraud accusations that have upended the fine wine world. "Daniel Oliveros and Jeff Sokolin were known as the "sexy boys" because they often described the wines they sold as "sexy juice." Oliveros and Sokolin ran Royal Wine Merchants, a Manhattan retailer that was, until a few years ago, one of the biggest players in the fine wine market. They lived as lavishly as their wealthy customers—staying in swank hotels, often hiring limousines, and routinely opening thousands of dollars' worth of rare wines." [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 4:08 PM PST - 96 comments

Sexual Congress is the cleverly titled site which tries to find the most attractive members of the U.S. Congress by having you choose between two official portraits, in the proud tradition (and methodology) of KittenWar * (and PuppyWar *) and Randall Munroe's late lamented Best, Fairest and Funniest Ever sites. For non-USians, there's a similar, more subtle, British site.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:33 PM PST - 47 comments

The Arizona Clemency Board says that William Macumber, convicted of murder in 1975, is the victim of a "miscarriage of justice." But Arizona's governor, Jan Brewer, declined to follow the Board's unanimous recommendation that Macumber be freed. She also declines to explain why. Another man confessed to the murders, but although Macumber has been tried twice, neither jury was told of the confession.
posted by bearwife at 1:29 PM PST - 50 comments

Some kind soul recently uploaded, in five parts, a 1991 BBC Omnibus television documentary about Peter Greenaway, who never ceases to inspire me in his dedication to push film into new, richly interesting places, to liberate it from its addiction to stale 19th-century psychological narrative and to open it up to accept and incorporate all manner of artistic information it's usually denied. Cleverly titled Anatomy of a Filmmaker — Greenaway is an enthusiast of the nude human figure, which he sees as the single constant of art — it covers the filmmaker's career from his earliest shorts up through Prospero's Books. There are bits about the time he spent honing his skills cutting together British propaganda, his experience with painting and his longtime collaboration with Sacha Vierny. It also presents subsections on Greenaway's own inspirational creators, including John Cage and the increasingly-intriguing-to-me R.B. Kitaj.
posted by colinmarshall at 12:53 PM PST - 16 comments

Fake Eyes "To small tropical birds foraging on the rainforest floor, those two scowling eyes peering back at them from between the leaves could be a predator. But they also could belong to one of the hundreds of caterpillar species that have evolved eyelike spots and patterns to trick feasting birds."
posted by dhruva at 12:35 PM PST - 33 comments

Got a tough software project, but can't afford to pay for domestic talent? India, China, and Russia too expensive? Why not outsource to sunny North Korea? [more inside]
posted by Afroblanco at 12:26 PM PST - 42 comments

The Real Science Gap:

“There is no scientist shortage,” declares Harvard economics professor Richard Freeman, a pre-eminent authority on the scientific work force. Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a leading demographer who is also a national authority on science training, cites the “profound irony” of crying shortage — as have many business leaders, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates — while scores of thousands of young Ph.D.s labor in the nation’s university labs as low-paid, temporary workers, ostensibly training for permanent faculty positions that will never exist.

posted by ennui.bz at 12:26 PM PST - 80 comments

The FBI has released their extensive files on US Senator Edward M. Kennedy to the public, covering their relationship with him between 1961 and 1985. The seven files, totaling more than 2,200 pages of documents reveal (among other things,) the perhaps unsurprising news that the late Senator received "scores" of death threats from radical groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, “Minutemen” organizations, and the National Socialist White People’s Party. The release was initiated by a Freedom of Information Act Request from Judicial Watch on May 3, 2010, (Complaint pdf) but the FBI gave the Senator's family the "rare opportunity" to raise objections before releasing the file.
posted by zarq at 12:06 PM PST - 19 comments

The G20 summit is fast approaching (June 26-27), and already it's shaping up to be a very expensive pain in the ass. For anyone living in or coming to Toronto during the summit, a guide to How the G20 Will Affect Everyone, from Cyclists to Tourists.
posted by sayitwithpie at 11:56 AM PST - 56 comments

The structure functions as a living and working environment, solar powered, and able to support 3 people for up to 40 days. Avowedly utopian in its objectives, the insulation/isolation strategy aims to achieve total independence from social conditions in order to create a reflective space. [more inside]
posted by circular at 11:48 AM PST - 3 comments

Some people really do have too much time on their hands: Lego Football [more inside]
posted by idiomatika at 10:24 AM PST - 30 comments

Another oil spill took place this weekend. 21,000 gallons from a Chevron pipeline leaked into the Red Butte River, which runs through the center of Salt Lake City and feeds the ponds in its largest city park, Liberty Park. Also affected was Tracy Aviary.
posted by pashdown at 10:07 AM PST - 37 comments

The best iPad accessory ever.
posted by Artw at 9:59 AM PST - 44 comments

RBox: A $3 DIY video game console. [more inside]
posted by twirlip at 9:36 AM PST - 21 comments

Australian angel at The Gap. (no, not *that* Gap) [more inside]
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:21 AM PST - 19 comments

Feds under pressure to open US skies to drones. Last week, the FAA released a fact sheet, which states in part that "one of the most promising potential uses for small UASs is in law enforcement." They've already allowed the Border Patrol to use Predator drones as a "key force multiplier" along the Mexican border. Local law enforcement wants in on the game. Britons, you're next - or first? [more inside]
posted by desjardins at 8:27 AM PST - 117 comments

Have you heard of Washington Phillips? He was possessed of a wonderful voice, and delivered his simple but gorgeous gospel tunes in an easy and utterly unprepossessing style. He accompanied himself not on guitar or piano, as might be expected, but rather on a chiming, delicately ethereal zither, lending a curiously timeless air to his recordings from the 1920s. An altogether unique performer, his music is a real treat for the soul: Take Your Burden To the Lord, What Are They Doing in Heaven Today, Denomination Blues, I Had a Good Father and Mother, Lift Him Up, Paul and Silas in Jail, Mother's Last Word To Her Son and Train Your Children. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:25 AM PST - 23 comments

The Singularity University is here. Founded by Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis, Singularity University aims to pave the way to our posthuman future. Can't afford the $15,000-$25,000 "tuition"? Buy a singularitee, instead!
posted by adamdschneider at 8:11 AM PST - 88 comments

Bret Easton Ellis's new novel, Imperial Bedrooms, a follow-up to his 1985 debut Less Than Zero, will be released tomorrow. In the anticipatory run-up, Ellis reviews have been popping up everywhere: Vice, Movieline, The Times, New York Magazine, The LA Times. In each interview, Ellis answers the door barefoot, offers the interviewer a Coke, and shows them his kitchen. LA Times writer Carolyn Kellogg noticed that Ellis is giving the same interview every time.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:58 AM PST - 84 comments

Mamie "Peanut" Johnson is one of three women to play in the Negro Leagues, and as of yet, the only woman to pitch at the major level in the United States. [more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf at 7:44 AM PST - 7 comments

"It began six hours after he arrived — 'I iced a friend at lunch,' he said — but really took off at a barbecue around the family pool in Belmar the next day. 'There have been over 20 icings so far'", [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 7:43 AM PST - 174 comments

What journalists who blog think “blogging” is. Lizzie Skurnick (pseudonymous author of the literary blog the Old Hag) almost got called up to the Show – the New York Times actually asked her to write. But under their terms. And that’s the problem:

[T]he media who, after constantly treating me as an amusing quantity who, despite the zillions of print articles I have written, is still a blogger, while they, who are now blogging, because they crashed their whole goddamn field, are somehow not bloggers except for how maybe they are running blogs, want to tell me what to do.... You link wrong. You’re not funny.... You think posts are something you “pitch.” [...] You think other bloggers should respond to other bloggers, preferably in chin-stroking ways like “I appreciate your thoughts, Gwendolyn, yet I….” You want headlines maximized for SEO.... Worse, you seem to take blogging as some amusing shift you’ve been asked to do that is entirely within your powers. You are a fancy important journalist! You are an actual writer. OK, maybe you are. But you are sure as hell not a blogger any more than that dude with the novel in the drawer is a novelist.

(Via)
posted by joeclark at 6:44 AM PST - 95 comments

Re-tweeting the Tea Party's hot air. [more inside]
posted by gman at 4:27 AM PST - 67 comments

Carla's final video blog from heaven - shown publicly for the first time at Carla Zilbersmith's funeral after her death from ALS. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 3:24 AM PST - 25 comments

Meet the radical homemakers. Shannon Hayes tells the stories of men and women with ecological and feminist sensibilities who leave behind the world of academia and careers in favor of simple living and "reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture."
posted by velvet winter at 12:20 AM PST - 56 comments

"Aplodontia are mysterious animals, full of biological peculiarities. They have primitive thermoregulation and kidneys, they serve as hosts to world's largest fleas, they live in dense colonies but appear to have no social structure to speak of. We are lucky to have these creatures still with us, lone survivors of times long past." [more inside]
posted by maxwelton at 12:10 AM PST - 19 comments

Zenyatta, a six-year-old mare, won her seventeenth consecutive race (out of seventeen starts) to take the record from Cigar, Citation and Mr. Frisky. [more inside]
posted by annathea at 10:10 PM PST - 19 comments

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan.

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
posted by scalefree at 8:17 PM PST - 153 comments

Can't pay your debts in 2010? You may be arrested and thrown into a debtors prison.
posted by Xurando at 7:37 PM PST - 63 comments

First came love, then came marriage, then came a ridiculously long and complicated endeavor to get pregnant after a diagnosis of oligoastenoteratozoospermia requiring in vitro fertilization to conceive. This birthed the blog that attacked infertility with humor and snark. And, when she finally got pregnant, then came four unbelievable days of labor and a spectacular failure of pretty much everyone who was supposed to help. Don't worry, it all worked out just fine.
posted by Leezie at 7:30 PM PST - 69 comments

Sxip Shirey makes beautiful music out of marbles, toy whistles, music boxes held together with duct tape, antique kitchen utensils, industrial flutes and other people’s mouths. Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer made him an instrument called the Sxipenspiel. He does things to harmonicas that you might not expect to happen to harmonicas. He lives in New York City. Sometimes he stays up very, very late.
posted by jennyjenny at 7:15 PM PST - 14 comments

Originally the lead singer of Morcheeba, Skye Edwards has released two solo albums: Mind How You Go in 2006, and Keeping Secrets in 2009. [more inside]
posted by hopeless romantique at 4:18 PM PST - 15 comments

1172 vintage NASA photos and illustrations.
posted by hippybear at 2:22 PM PST - 29 comments

1973: Marlena Shaw.
1997:Blue Boy.
2009: Tame Impala.
posted by hermitosis at 12:31 PM PST - 34 comments

Of all the many heirs to Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crown (previously) , Josh Way's FUN WITH SHORTS is maybe the best at capturing the show's unique voice via short social hygiene films.. Learn all about Coffee! Being Popular! Food! Congress! And of course the complex, harrowing world of personal grooming.
posted by The Whelk at 12:15 PM PST - 30 comments

Mass wedding for former Tamil fighters Fifty-three couples of former Tamil Tiger rebels were married Sunday ... at a rehabilitation camp near the northern town of Vavuniya. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:42 AM PST - 7 comments

Boemerang! Boemerang was a fictional TV Chat Show hosted by Erik Hartman. It comes from Flemish sketch show In De Gloria.
posted by Biru at 11:24 AM PST - 6 comments

The newly-formed American Third Position aspires to be the United States' premier white nationalist party. [more inside]
posted by edguardo at 9:58 AM PST - 133 comments

Last week, this postcard appeared on the popular PostSecret^[1st][etc], a blog in which people anonymously share their secrets via postcard. [more inside]
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:29 AM PST - 91 comments

Some people use farm tractors for work. Others use them for play. Olle Hemmingson uses his as a musical accompaniment. [via; Previously.]
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:18 AM PST - 6 comments

Behind the Surface: Underwater Ballet Photography by Nadia Moro.
posted by bwg at 6:39 AM PST - 7 comments

The New York Times has compiled a list of the 50 words which are most frequently queried in their stories. Mirabile dictu (no. 19) that it's redoutable (no. 17)!
posted by anothermug at 5:54 AM PST - 45 comments

Jack Ryan was a rocket scientist who invented Barbie^TM, Hot Wheels^TM, and a thousand other things but is often remembered for having a a manic need for sexual gratification that included a pleasure mansion and a marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:19 AM PST - 36 comments

"And This Is Where We Leave Our Annie: For Now" After 86 years, several artists and a major makeover, "Little Orphan Annie" the comic strip has ended... in mid-story. Leaving a hole in the comics page of less than 20 newspapers, the 'Princess of Pluck' already has a comeback planned with a revival of the "Annie" Broadway musical. So, once more, let's all sing that wonderful song... no, not THAT one... this one:
"Who's that little chatterbox
With the pretty auburn locks..." [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:18 AM PST - 28 comments

Probably the best audition I've ever seen -- "Wheelchair-bound lady magnet Zach, discusses his many talents and idea for a TV show designed to inspire people who never thought they could travel." .
posted by spiderskull at 2:06 AM PST - 35 comments

American Nut Job Capatalist, Visionary, Rense fancy, or Space Pioneer? Robert Bigelow
posted by wallstreet1929 at 1:18 AM PST - 7 comments

La Maison en Petits Cubes
posted by HuronBob at 10:28 PM PST - 14 comments

Here's the perfect gift for the 4 year old in your life: A Pedobear Plush.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:12 PM PST - 57 comments

Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (NSFW) [more inside]
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:08 PM PST - 41 comments

Cairo, Illinois is mostly abandoned. It was once a thriving city of 15,000, but the Mississippi barges don't stop there anymore, and racial turmoil, including a three-year boycott of white-owned businesses that refused to hire black workers, killed the town's economy. The Cairo Project, from Southern Illinois University, is a good overview of Cairo's history and its current situation. Can punk label Plan-it-X start a rebirth by moving to Cairo and opening a coffeeshop? If it helps, there's still good barbecue.
posted by escabeche at 8:31 PM PST - 54 comments

It's nice to remember -- the ethereally angelic voice of Nana Mouskouri, here in red, with Harry Belafonte, doing a sizzling, personal, tremulous Au Coeur de Septembre, looking for all the world like a 1960's version Tina Fey. Here singing a spine-tingling version of Les Jours Meilleurs "Aspri Mera" 1972, and here, Puisque Tu M'aimes.
posted by puny human at 7:46 PM PST - 20 comments

Offering up a bass track, a guitar track, and a drum track as the common fodder, Wired.com invites remixes from its readers and runs a crowdsourced music experiment. Note for those producing solo in their hovels/studies/caves/garrets/cubicles, and those looking for new sports through which to sell concert tickets and t-shirts: the artists of the future are inclined to organize into teams.
posted by darth_tedious at 6:16 PM PST - 11 comments

A gallery of scanned German children's books from the 18th and 19th centuries. Sounds dry, but the plates are high-resolution and gorgeous. Fans of old-school engraving, illustration, and Bibliodyssey-esque curiosities will not be disappointed. Highly extensive and bandwidth-intensive.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 5:59 PM PST - 18 comments

Sometimes called the "Miracle on Grass", the USA's 1-0 victory over England in the 1950 World Cup is arguably the biggest upset in the history of the cup; when a team of school teachers, dishwashers, and postmen beat the "Kings of Football". It was the Game of Their Lives. Today, they had the chance to do it again.
posted by daniel striped tiger at 1:30 PM PST - 235 comments

Standards editor Philip Corbett at the New York Times (allegedly) issues memo officially discouraging use of the word "tweet." [more inside]
posted by hat at 10:53 AM PST - 104 comments

"Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors" by Scott Carrell and James West is the title of an interesting new study in this month's Journal of Political Economy, a leading journal in economics. (For a summary of the paper, see this review. An ungated version, too). The authors are interested in determining the role of "professor quality" in student learning. They do this by exploiting an unusual institutional feature of the Air Force Academy whereby all undergraduates are randomly assigned their professors, and all professors use the same syllabus. The authors also have the professor's student evaluations, as well each student's subsequent performance in the follow-up classes. To keep it simple, they focus only on Calculus I and the follow-up courses in Calculus (which are mandatory), though they note that an earlier study that looked at Chemistry and Physics found similar things. [more inside]
posted by scunning at 8:58 AM PST - 44 comments

... on June 12, 1982, approximately a million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear arms and for an end to the arms race of the cold war. Nothing like it had ever happened before. It was not only the largest antinuclear demonstration but the largest political demonstration of any description in American history. Nothing like it has happened again, either. The tide of protest was at its high-water mark, and thereafter receded steadily. - Jonathan Schell, 2007. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 8:52 AM PST - 27 comments

Conflict-blogger Michael Yon with a fascinating piece about Nepal, Afghanistan, the Gurkhas and the incredible technology of "Gobar Gas". [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave at 7:23 AM PST - 19 comments

Famous Buildings and Monuments: in Lego ®. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 6:11 AM PST - 13 comments

Restoring Journalism Maureen Tkacik talks about her life as a journalist, the nothing-based economy, and the future of journalism. She suggests abandoning authority and productively channeling narcissism. (via 2p & dd) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 5:55 AM PST - 18 comments

Disney World photo captures couple together 15 years before they met.
posted by crossoverman at 5:32 AM PST - 50 comments

USA ! USA ! USA ! USA ! USA ! USA ! USA ! USA !
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:00 AM PST - 206 comments

M-Pesa, the mobile platform based money transfer system launched by Safaricom in Kenya, is changing the landscape of money in Africa, and around the world. Competition is heating up even while the service expands internationally allowing transactions to occur between Africa, UK and Asia. Bankers, regulators, startups and operators all want a piece of the pie as even the phone manufacturers themselves get into this potentially lucrative business.
posted by infini at 1:34 AM PST - 12 comments

Facebook is advertising for beta answerers for their new Q and A site/product.
posted by jacalata at 9:25 PM PST - 67 comments

Mendeley is a cross-platform research management tool which features article databasing, PDF annotation, online backup, private, shared and public collections, metadata lookup on Google Scholar, direct exporting of multiple citation styles to Word, OpenOffice and BibTex, the ability to add documents directly from a web browser, and social networking with other members in your field of study. Like Zotero (previously), but out of the browser and with note-taking abilities. For Windows, Mac and Linux.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 8:30 PM PST - 27 comments

What the hex? Pick the correct color based on the hex code. [more inside]
posted by BeerFilter at 6:56 PM PST - 21 comments

Aaron Fotheringham practices Hardcore Sitting. Indestructible wheelchair by Colours in Motion. Previously, previously (after a manner of speaking).
posted by toodleydoodley at 6:45 PM PST - 13 comments

Massive Justice Through the Ages mural is in need of a new home. Outdoor mural by the late renowned Central City artist Angelo di Benedetto, has graced the ceiling of the open-air first floor of the building since 1978. One of my personal favorites in a city filled with outdoor art. The smartest guys in the room have found a solution.
posted by shockingbluamp at 5:29 PM PST - 7 comments

AVP:Redemption a fan made Aliens vs Predator short by Alex A. Popov
posted by Tenuki at 5:24 PM PST - 28 comments

How to Permanently Delete Your Account on Popular Websites Also: Delete Your Account. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 5:10 PM PST - 24 comments

The last days of the Lusty Lady (nsfw image) (previously)
posted by Artw at 5:05 PM PST - 29 comments

Are you man enough? Man enough for D'URBAN, Japanese men's wear commercials from the seventies, and eighties, 2::3::4::5::6::7::8... 11::12:: with easy listening soundtracks to die for. Think Paul Mauriat and Francis Lai. And while we are on the subject of things awesome, and things Japanese, please do look at 00000piopio's criminally good youtube channel of a-ma-zing Japanese first pressings of such songs as -- Do You Know The Way To San Jose by Bossa Rio::Sugar Sugar from The Archies::Que Sera Sera by Mary Hopkin::Another Day／Paul McCartney::Sealed With A Kiss／Lettermen::Love Me Tonight ／Tom Jones::In the Ghetto／Elvis Presley::An Old Fashioned Love Song／Three Dog Night::In The Year 2525／Zager & Evans::Knock Three Times／Dawn::and I've barely scratched the surface.
posted by puny human at 5:04 PM PST - 8 comments

Photograms are photographs achieved without cameras; shadow-pictures made by placing objects upon or in front of photo-sensitive surfaces, and then exposing them to light. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 3:32 PM PST - 20 comments

The great[pdf] Russian mathematican Vladimir Igorevich Arnol'd, foremost modern practitioner of classical mechanics, influential teacher, namesake of a minor planet, and semi-nude cross-country skier has died.
posted by ennui.bz at 3:27 PM PST - 10 comments

Strummerville is a new documentary by Don Letts. [more inside]
posted by Crane Shot at 3:17 PM PST - 11 comments

CNN.com's 'Home and Away' initiative honors the lives of U.S. and coalition troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. The extensive data visualization project tells the story of where and how the lives of these troops began and ended. The project is a sobering look at the human cost of two wars in the Middle East, and as such is restrained with a sober palette of blacks, whites and greys. [via] [more inside]
posted by netbros at 2:52 PM PST - 32 comments

In 1796, members of the largely black Portsmouth-Norfolk Baptist Church in Virginia decided that they wanted to participate in the Portsmouth Association conference, which oversaw Baptist churches in their region of the state. Soon after, however, they changed their minds. “The black people…soon repented and came and told the Deacons they were afraid that matters might turn up disagreeably to them and dishonoring to God, and said they would be subordinate to the white brethren.” [more inside]
posted by pecknpah at 2:33 PM PST - 12 comments

The unaired pilot of The Big Bang Theory has surfaced on YouTube. Coming off like an episode of the series from an alternate universe, this first stab at the show gives us a more inept Leonard, a sexual Sheldon, and two female leads that wouldn't carry over to the finished product: Katie (a wild party girl who makes stupid choices) and Gilda (a fellow nerd who has her analytical eyes on Leonard). [Part 2 | Part 3] [more inside]
posted by Servo5678 at 2:21 PM PST - 69 comments

Sigmar Polke, an artist of infinite, often ravishing pictorial jest, whose sarcastic and vibrant layering of found images and maverick, chaos-provoking painting processes left an indelible mark on the last four decades of contemporary painting, died yesterday in Cologne, Germany.
posted by R. Mutt at 2:18 PM PST - 16 comments

Twirdie allows you to play golf via twitter. Type a word and swing: the strength of your shot is proportional to the number of times the word has been tweeted in the last 20 seconds. A project of Twitter game outfit Local No. 12, whose SXSW presentation "Playing with 140 characters" is available here. (Via the just-concluded 2010 Games, Learning and Society conference here in Madison.)
posted by escabeche at 1:48 PM PST - 20 comments

Last week, a photo of Keanu Reeves looking dejected appeared on Reddit. Predictably, the image inspired a variety of photoshops. Somewhat less predictably, as various details about Keanu's past hardships came to light, many began sharing their personal stories about what a damn nice guy he is. In the interest of raising his spirits, June 15 has been declared Cheer Up Keanu Day. Let's all take a moment to say "Thank you, Keanu."
posted by almostmanda at 12:09 PM PST - 134 comments

Hour-Long Raw Footage of the Israeli Defense Forces' Boarding of the Mavi Marmara. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by griphus at 11:46 AM PST - 137 comments

"I went and saw Iron Man 2 today, pretty good, I read Anathem too, yeah, not bad, I think, and I finally managed to work though those last two seasons of The Wire": few personal cultural blogs are interesting. with hidden noise is different. The blog of Dan Visel of the Institute for the Future of the Book, it covers, regularly and in depth, reading material that's genuinely fascinating and often surprising — and he actually cares, seriously, about culture. Some of the books covered include Nicholson Baker's U and I, Aeschylus' The Oresteia, Jean-Philippe Toussaint's Self-Portrait Abroad and Donald Barthelme's Paradise. (Also, his immortal review of ulillillia's The Legend of the Ten Elemental Masters, though it's not on this particular blog cannot be missed.)
posted by colinmarshall at 11:43 AM PST - 22 comments

"HULK FALL ASLEEP AFTER DINNER, DREAM OF POST-HEGEMONIC GREEN UTOPIAS." Feminist Hulk uses Twitter to smash the dominant gender paradigm. Ms. Magazine recently interviewed him. See also Cross-Dressing Hulk, Real Hulk and Drunk Hulk.
posted by NoraReed at 11:28 AM PST - 51 comments

"Now, I'm willing to admit the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job. But it's the essence of our society that the policeman's job should be hard. He's there to protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals—that's an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman than the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal." Orson Welles' musings on privacy and its erosion, police harassment, and the need for an International Association for the Protection of the Individual Against Officialdom. (part 2) [more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:05 AM PST - 14 comments

One of the most dangerous places on Earth, Lake Nyos in northwestern Cameroon sits atop a volcanic source. Early evening Aug. 21, 1986, a cloud of deadly CO2 erupted from the lake surface, killing an estimated 1,700 people and 3,000 cattle.. Now people are trying to tame it (Via NucleophilicAttack via Metachat)
posted by The Whelk at 9:43 AM PST - 28 comments

Despite the most prestigious law firms in the country laying off almost 6,000 attorneys and 9,000 staff since the beginning of 2008, century-old law firms dissolving almost overnight, and law school tuition rising everywhere, law school applications are at an all time high. Even the number of law schools is rising.

But with the century-old Cravath system being "misapplied" by big firms over the last decade, historical income distributions have been disrupted.

For good or ill, things may be coming to a head. [more inside]
posted by valkyryn at 8:18 AM PST - 188 comments

"I am the enemy. I never realized this until your election to governor. In a few short weeks, you have made this fact explicitly clear to me." Steven Derion, a 2007 nominee for the Governor's Teacher of the Year Award, writes New Jersey governor Chris Christie a letter.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:20 AM PST - 197 comments

Paper Art by Alexei Lyapunov and Lena Ehrlich, Russian artists who make detailed and fun paper crafts. Site is in Russian, but navigation is simple. Check out the brilliance of Young Michael, The King, and We Are the Champions, among numerous others. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 5:41 AM PST - 5 comments

A short film about Malcolm Hardee's legendary Tunnel Club [more inside]
posted by Grangousier at 4:12 AM PST - 17 comments

Those wacky Muppets are like everywhere these days, right? (pre-vio-sly). But a part of the muppetty empire called Henson Alternative is working on 'more adult' concepts with unfamiliar felt, and hasn't seen too much success yet. Maybe that'll change with the puppet-celebrity game show that debuted last night: "Late Night Liars". Or maybe not. Here's a clip. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:59 AM PST - 30 comments

The best Batman comic ever made. [more inside]
posted by battlebison at 11:57 PM PST - 57 comments

This past Spring, Duke University hosted concurrent exhibits that featured curated images of satirical political cartoons. Fortunately, the exhibits are free to enjoy from the comfort of your bed/couch/desk chair. From the Nasher Museum of Art, there is Lines of Attack: Conflicts in Caricature, comparing pieces from as early as 19th Century France to post 9/11 US. From the Perkins Library, we get Abusing Power: Satirical Journals, an exhibit of 19th and early 20th Century pieces from around the world.
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:35 PM PST - 3 comments

Chester Arthur Burnett , better known as Howlin' Wolf, was born 100 years ago today. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:09 PM PST - 33 comments

Reggie Watts @ Google (NSFW for cursing) [more inside]
posted by yaymukund at 7:30 PM PST - 36 comments

The Works was a production of the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology, and (had it ever been finished) would have been the first all 3D CGI feature film. Here are some stills and here's a short clip. [via PopCrunch]
posted by brundlefly at 7:25 PM PST - 17 comments

The (lego) Lee Enfield sniper rifle (more)
posted by Artw at 5:01 PM PST - 38 comments

In 2006, gas developers offered Josh Fox a hundred thousand dollars for the rights to seek natural gas below his land via the process of hydrolic fractioning. Curious as to what this entailed, he checked out what had happened in places where it had been practiced before. It caused him to make the documentary Gasland. He's been talking it up since then here and there. [more inside]
posted by IndigoJones at 4:37 PM PST - 34 comments

"Reading 'Our tribute to a brave little boy,' you will also find 65 cents in nickels and dimes melded to the plaque." Some mismatched bricks on an unremarkable building in Park Slope and a plaque in a hospital are the clues to an astonishing story of two airplanes, a mid-air crash, and a little boy traveling alone. [more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:35 PM PST - 28 comments

The End of Men , in The Atlantic. An article about the rise of women (now over 50% of the U.S. workforce), and implications of the attendant changes for both women and men. [more inside]
posted by marble at 2:16 PM PST - 159 comments

Ephemera Magica: A Daily Offering of Vintage Magic: "I found some great and mysterious things in some old boxes my Mom passed on to me from my Father and Grandfather. I am scanning and posting a page, trick, letter, or booklet from a huge collection of vintage magic articles every day." Click on each of the pictures for larger versions, or check out the Ephemera Magica Flickr Feed. [via mefi projects]
posted by zarq at 2:03 PM PST - 13 comments

Greig Stewart, aka ThereminHero, began posting videos of video game song covers made on the theremin shortly after he started playing the theremin in 2008. That's small beans, as theremin covers (prev), even video game covers, are plentiful. OK, how about performing the vocals in Rock Band on the theremin (plus an OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator for overdrive and hand claps)? Still not impressed, or maybe you're wondering where his computer science background might fit in? Right then, try Theremin Hero Air Guitar! [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:26 PM PST - 10 comments

The Spill, The Scandal and the President continues the high-quality political reporting we've been getting recently from Rolling Stone magazine. [more inside]
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:11 PM PST - 157 comments

Healthy competition can advance technology, and motorsports is a good example of this. The Isle of Man TT has been a motorcycle proving ground since 1907, with a bike earning its mettle by doing ton-up on the 38 mile course. Enter Michael Czysz and his MotoCzysz E1pc. After disastrous failure at the Isle of Man TT the previous year, his company redesigned their electric sport bike from the ground up. The results could have wider implications for electric vehicles as a whole. Previously. [more inside]
posted by The Power Nap at 12:19 PM PST - 29 comments

How BP cleans up a coffee spill. (SLYT)
posted by jbickers at 11:55 AM PST - 53 comments

Chirstopher Uminga (previously) and Comics Alliance Present: Comic Book Heroes With a Severe Cute Condition.
posted by griphus at 11:28 AM PST - 45 comments

Libraries and commercial publishers have struggled with each other over the skyrocketing costs of academic journals for years. As costs have increased more rapidly than library budgets, the libraries have had to cut journal subscriptions and other acquisitions. The recent recession has necessitated further cuts. Against this backdrop, Nature Publishing Group told the University of California that next year subscription prices would increase 400 percent, with the average annual cost of a journal increasing to $17,479. UC Libraries fought back with a combative letter to UC faculty suggesting that faculty should consider boycotting the journals, and cease submitting or reviewing articles for these journals. NPG responds, saying that UC currently pays unfairly low rates, and that "individual scientists, both within and outside of California are already suffering as a result of [UC]'s unwarranted actions."
posted by grouse at 11:23 AM PST - 62 comments

Today is the 100th birthday of Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, inventor of the aqualung, noted conservationist, filmmaker and television documentarian, was born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France in 1910. He died at the age of 87 in 1997. [more inside]
posted by briank at 11:14 AM PST - 17 comments

Sad breaking news on a previously discussed topic as 16 year old Abby Sunderland is feared lost at sea. [more inside]
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:12 AM PST - 216 comments

Visualisation of Larry Niven's Ringworld (spoilers)
posted by Electrius at 10:51 AM PST - 58 comments

Improv partout? N'importe qui descends on an amateur football (soccer) match outside Montpelier, Improv Everywhere style. Allez, pantless dude in the sombrero! The force behind this is Rémi Gaillard, a shoe salesman turned French prankster. My favorite prank is Le Tour de N'Importe Qui, which turns unsuspecting casual cyclists into trophy-winning heroes. (videos contain brief images of male nudity from behind)
posted by desjardins at 10:32 AM PST - 18 comments

Our amazing planet. I could study this all day.
posted by Melismata at 9:44 AM PST - 70 comments

You might remember the intolerant Oklahoma State Representative, Sally Kern, who claimed that homosexuals are a bigger threat to our nation than terrorists. Well, she’s up for reelection this year and what has to be one of her biggest nightmares is happening – she is being challenged for her seat by a transgendered person. [more inside]
posted by thatothrgirl at 9:22 AM PST - 65 comments

Joyce’s Ulysses Banned Again—by Apple, Not the Government. According to Sarah Weinman at the Daily Finance; she says that a Webcomic adaptation of the book, Rob Berry and Josh Levitas' Ulysses Seen, (previously seen here on Mefi), has been banned from iPads and iPhones because of cartoon nudity. Here is the image that is causing all the controversy. Warning: Contains crudely illustrated male genitalia. via Slate.com. And this isn't the first time. Read about the original censorship and legal battles regarding Joyce's Ulysses..
posted by Fizz at 9:08 AM PST - 100 comments

A firm tied to Thomas Kinkade (previously, previously), the best-selling franchise artist and "Painter Of Light", has filed for bankruptcy
posted by The Whelk at 8:22 AM PST - 99 comments

Trouble started soon into Hayabusa's treacherous round-trip journey to Itokawa when she lost her companion, Minerva. On arrival, she stumbled and dropped the sample she was sent to retrieve, and we thought the worst when she stopped calling. One accident left her disoriented and unable to find her way, and another reduced her progress to a slow limp. But on Sunday, with unfailing help from home, Hayabusa returns, three years late and seven years after she departed.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 8:21 AM PST - 6 comments

"We caught up with the legendary Peter Hook to interview him about the good old days." Peter Hook's Extraordinary Stories. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) (MLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:35 AM PST - 14 comments

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty In the 1990s, Paul Romer revolutionized economics. In the Aughts, he became rich as a software entrepreneur. Now he's trying to help the poorest countries grow rich—by convincing them to establish foreign-run "charter cities" within their borders. Romer's idea is unconventional, even neo-colonial—the best analogy is Britain's historic lease of Hong Kong. And against all odds, he just might make it happen. (via cc) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:28 AM PST - 92 comments

A lawyer and her husband decide to get a divorce. Then, the lawyer loses her mind.
posted by reenum at 7:16 AM PST - 131 comments

Remember all the enthusiastic press coverage about the all-important role Twitter played in helping to organize Iranian activists on the ground during the protests that sparked the Green Movement after the last Iranian elections? (Discussed previously here, here and here on the blue.) Some in the press even dubbed this period "Iran's Twitter Revolution". Think again, Golnaz Esfandiari argues in Foreign Policy's latest installment in its "Misreading Tehran" series, because "Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran."
posted by saulgoodman at 7:08 AM PST - 31 comments

The fictional high school chorus at the center of Fox’s Glee has a huge problem — nearly a million dollars in potential legal liability.
posted by joshwa at 6:04 AM PST - 67 comments

The Mother of All 'Daily Show' Ambushes.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:03 AM PST - 54 comments

Enjoy a live webcam (with audio!) of a busy intersection in Amsterdam. [more inside]
posted by Harry at 5:29 AM PST - 64 comments

Seth Roland does amazing things with wood. From bookends to tables and more, he does remarkable things with wood and a band saw.. Fine Woodworking magazine's website has a video.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:56 AM PST - 7 comments

A great advance in computer engineering: introducing the "Doubleton"!!!!! A fascinating example of the intersection of uncritical thinking, mediocre implementation, and a solution in search of a problem resume padding. [more inside]
posted by orthogonality at 3:14 AM PST - 64 comments

Omar Rodríguez López of Mars Volta fame has released an album in collaboration with the wonderful John Frusciante which sounds exactly like you imagine it would. It's available as a name-your-price download (also for free) and any amount you pay will be donated to a good cause. Frusciante was also involved in López' latest production which is available under the same conditions.
posted by cronholio at 11:28 PM PST - 15 comments

Unbelievable Pencil Art by Paul Lung. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 11:04 PM PST - 52 comments

"Madonna’s sexuality could be scary because it was intimidating; Gaga’s sexuality is scary because we don’t quite know what it is." Lesley Kinzel of Fatshionista compares and contrasts Lady Gaga's new Alejandro video with Madonna's 1989 video for Express Yourself, making the argument that Gaga's take on female sexuality is less reliant than Madonna's on male perception. Choire Sicha of The Awl disagrees.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:39 PM PST - 251 comments

Escape Rescue Systems of New Jersey have built the most exciting evacuation pods for tall buildings. [more inside]
posted by artof.mulata at 9:25 PM PST - 35 comments

The Seventeen Magazine Project. Jamie Keiles, an 18-year-old high school senior, will live her life according to the dictates of Seventeen Magazine for a month and blog about whether or not it makes her cuter/hotter/thinner/fitter/healthier/more popular/etc.
posted by joannemerriam at 8:28 PM PST - 56 comments

"In this land of Viking lore, men are at the heart of the gender-equality debate." "From trendy central Stockholm to this village in the rugged forest south of the Arctic Circle, 85 percent of Swedish fathers take parental leave. Those who don’t face questions from family, friends and colleagues. As other countries still tinker with maternity leave and women’s rights, Sweden may be a glimpse of the future." "“Society is a mirror of the family,” Mr. Westerberg said. “The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve equality in the home. Getting fathers to share the parental leave is an essential part of that.”" [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 7:56 PM PST - 42 comments

[Martha] Argerich brings to bear qualities that are seldom contained in one person: she is a pianist of brainteasing technical agility; she is a charismatic woman with an enigmatic reputation; she is an unaffected interpreter whose native language is music. This last may be the quality that sets her apart. A lot of pianists play huge double octaves; a lot of pianists photograph well. But few have the unerring naturalness of phrasing that allows them to embody the music rather than interpret it. - Alex Ross, "Madame X". The New Yorker - November 12, 2001
posted by Joe Beese at 7:40 PM PST - 12 comments

Fake the Beatles : WFMU DJ Gaylord Fields delivers an entertaining presentation on the mid-1960s cottage industry in Beatles soundalike records. Other Beatlesque imitators to follow below the fold. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 at 6:56 PM PST - 31 comments

In 1964, a group of men were bored,in their dressing room waiting for several hours between the dress rehearsal and recording of "The Jack Paar Program". Noticing a collection of odd steam pipes, their leader suggested they decorate the pipes to pass the time. Painting them and attaching fur and googly eyes, they signed the piece "With Love, From the Muppets". [more inside]
posted by inturnaround at 6:38 PM PST - 33 comments

FloJuggler: Track periods of one or more girls. Seriously. The site's FAQ if you're wondering why you'd want to use such a service.
posted by GuyZero at 6:30 PM PST - 61 comments

How Battle.Net 2.0 is killing Starcraft 2. Alternative link, with kittens.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 6:03 PM PST - 100 comments

There are some unique finds that tell us about the early lives of people. But of course there are other ways...
posted by rosswald at 5:47 PM PST - 10 comments

Abortion Drugs Given in Iowa via Video Link. "The situation has played out hundreds of times. From his office here, a doctor asks a woman on the computer screen before him one final question: Are you ready to take your pill? Then, with a click of his mouse, a modified cash register drawer pops open in front of the woman seated next to a nurse in a clinic — perhaps 100 miles from this city — with mifepristone, the medicine formerly known as RU-486, that is meant to end her pregnancy." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:45 PM PST - 42 comments

"One of the most significant papers ever published in the annals of science appeared recently; it deals, for the first time ever, with one of the biggest scientific questions ever faced by the scientific community, and uses cutting-edge technology and awesome powers of deductive reasoning and logic to reach shocking, paradigm-shifting conclusions."
posted by brundlefly at 4:14 PM PST - 38 comments

16 year old Yonlu made music that ranged from bossa nova to 8-bit music from the sounds of desktop printers, never knowing that he would someday make the pages of Paste, eMusic, and Rolling Stone Brasil. He posted It's Not Another King Kong (later titled A Boy and the Tiger) to a gaming forum, where it was met with praise. More songs soon followed, which included English songs (I Know What It's Like, Humiliation), and also Portuguese songs (Estrela, Luana). Perhaps suffering from depression, Yonlu took his own life via carbon monoxide poisoning in 2006, just a few weeks before his 17th birthday. His parents only learnt of his songwriting from a CD he left behind for them, with a note telling them to listen to the CD "whenever they felt sad".
posted by Xere at 4:12 PM PST - 16 comments

England viewed the colonies as nothing more than a back-talking teenager that needed smacked. The Japanese were put in concentration camps, so we could concentrate on them. During this time, Lespians came out of their nests. [more inside]
posted by katemonster at 3:56 PM PST - 51 comments

Did you install a Windows patch Tuesday? Listen, and understand. That mystery update is in there. It can't be uninstalled. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are assimilated.
posted by pjern at 3:37 PM PST - 52 comments

A story of moose snouts, tenement animal husbandry and Crisco - the Lower East Side.
RAZ: Now, you describe the markets in this part of the Lower East Side, around the Bowery that Mr. Glockner's wife would often go to to find fresh produce, I was amazed to read about what you could get in New York City in the 1860s. I mean, there were a lot of choices.
Ms. ZIEGELMAN: You could buy bear. You could buy moose. And not only moose, you could buy moose snout. This was considered a particular delicacy.
RAZ: By whom?
Ms. ZIEGELMAN: That I don't know. [more inside]
posted by caddis at 2:14 PM PST - 11 comments

The A-Team film is filled with sex and violence. Mr T pities the fools.
posted by Artw at 2:05 PM PST - 127 comments

Michael Chabon's Tragic Magic: Reflections On Power Pop, featuring; Big Star - September Gurls: Todd Rundgren's Utopia - Couldn't I Just Tell You: The Records - Starry Eyes: Bram Tchaikovsky - Girl Of My Dreams: Baby Strange - T. Rex.
posted by puny human at 1:13 PM PST - 33 comments

Tomas Saraceno's architectural geometric installations. Some are eerily spider-like. Others are Buckminster-Fulleresque. My favorite is his Flying Garden, in which his geometrical inflatables are covered in grass and other living matter. Anyway, his Lighter Than Air exhibit was organized by the Walker Art Center and is in Houston at the Blaffer Gallery this month. Thanks, Minneapolis!.
posted by cross_impact at 12:26 PM PST - 13 comments

A Whole Bunch Of Shoes. [via mefi projects]
posted by chunking express at 12:09 PM PST - 23 comments

News, photos and video of the devastation has begun to appear online, as power is restored to the area: the storm that hit Leamington Ontario early Sunday morning was part of a system that killed 7 people in Ohio, but which incredibly caused no fatalities when it hit in the Canadian town of 20,000.
posted by HLD at 11:05 AM PST - 23 comments

One arm was bigger than the other in many remains—a suggestion that the men were gladiators who trained from a young age with a weapon in one hand. Archaeologists discover the world's best-preserved Roman gladiator cemetery in York, England. [more inside]
posted by zoomorphic at 10:32 AM PST - 42 comments

One Hen. One Hen, Two Ducks. One Hen, Two Ducks, Three Squawking Geese.
posted by usonian at 10:29 AM PST - 20 comments

The US Navy in 1915, a short film. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:03 AM PST - 14 comments

The 101 Best Sandwiches in New York City. Listed for your convenience on Google Maps. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:54 AM PST - 66 comments

Largely overshadowed by the Republican gubanatorial primary (relevant portion starts at the 4:25 mark), last night South Carolina Democrats chose a nominee to face incumbent Republican Senator Jim DeMint in November. On the ballot were former judge and state legislator Vic Rawl of Charleston and a 32-year-old unemployed black Army veteran named Alvin Greene. Mr. Greene first attempted to pay his filing fee by personal check, had no campaign funds, no signs, no website, never attended a South Carolina Democratic party meeting, never held a public event, never met his opponent, and has repeatedly been described as somewhat incoherent. Mr. Greene also just beat his opponent by a whopping 16-point margin to become Jim DeMint's dream opponent.
posted by ND¢ at 7:50 AM PST - 139 comments

"Google WiFi Snafu Likely Illegal." In May, Google admitted "inadvertently" collecting data from unsecured networks with its Streetview cars, resulting in investigations around the world and in the US. Activist Attorney General (and current US Senate candidate) Richard Blumenthal has lined up Google in his target sights (and recommended residents change their passwords), and six class action lawsuits have already been filed.
posted by availablelight at 7:22 AM PST - 129 comments

Everybody's heard about the "secret" launch of the military's newest spacedrone the X-37, and everybody's heard about the other "secret" launch on the same day. The military has launched another type of spacedrone. This one looks a lot less like this and more like this. Unfortunately they've hit a snag. (previously) It's all part of the the U.S. military's prompt global strike doctrine. Some people think this may be a bad idea. [more inside]
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:36 AM PST - 74 comments

Saudi Clerics Advocate Adult Breast Feeding to circumvent the hanbali law in Saudi Arabia enforcing strict segregation of the sexes. There is some confusion between the clerics regarding whether women should pump or allow adult men to suckle directly from the breast. Such fatwas emanating from Saudi Arabia provide insight into the mentality of the powerful clergy that has been instrumental in spreading Wahhabi thought, throughout the Muslim world.
posted by Azaadistani at 5:06 AM PST - 93 comments

For his graduation piece, Central Academy of Fine Arts sculpture student Bi Heng (毕横) made a 9.4 metre tall Transformer-like statue of apotheosised martial hero Guan Yu; the base vehicle Bi cannibalised was another icon of the Chinese battlefield, the Jiefang truck (more pics, video in Chinese)
posted by Abiezer at 4:48 AM PST - 20 comments

The science of cake. Also, the science of breadmaking, and the science of cheesemaking.
posted by jonnyploy at 4:15 AM PST - 15 comments

Google Street View has come to Africa. A lot of stadiums, notable landmarks so far. Little villages later.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:20 AM PST - 20 comments

You may not know who Israel "Brudda Iz" Kamakawiwoʻole was, but you're probably familiar with his medley of "Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World," which has been included on several movie soundtracks and used on television shows & commercials throughout the world.... [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:26 PM PST - 71 comments

Last Saturday in Pittsburgh, over 1800 canoes attempted to break the world record for the largest single raft of canoes and kayaks. This time lapse video shows how they did it in spite of the weather...
posted by tss at 10:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Gallery 1988's Twilight Zone Exhibit. The Twilight Zone was mostly well written, directed, and acted. It continues to inspire with a nice collection of art at Gallery 1988. It's also a record of whose who in television and cinema, with famously, William Shatner, Burgess Meredith, Carol Burnett, Buster Keaton, Dennis Hopper, Martin Landau, and many, many, more. Inspiration continues with repeats on television and a rumoured Blu-ray release in September 2010.
posted by juiceCake at 9:43 PM PST - 13 comments

The rumours are increasing that there will be a merger between the two left-leaning political parties in Canada, the hapless Liberals under the wooden Michael Ignatieff, and the perennial almost-show New Democrats under the magnificently mustached Jack Layton. Denials all 'round, of course, but as separate parties they have not managed to take down Stephen Harper and his wiley Conservatives.
posted by anothermug at 9:11 PM PST - 116 comments

The Silver Dream Machine: The synthesizer that accidentally changed the world.
posted by gman at 7:51 PM PST - 42 comments

London Lives 12 London archives – digitised, marked up and tagged – to "create a comprehensive electronic edition of primary sources on criminal justice and the provision of poor relief and medical care in eighteenth-century London". The Lives page is a good place to start browsing. [related]
posted by unliteral at 7:33 PM PST - 8 comments

Stadiums in South Africa are currently resounding with the riotous blare of the vuvuzela. And while most of the folks making their joyous noise in the stadiums will be doing so in a basically random fashion, this vuvuzela ensemble is demonstrating the funky hocketing technique that is a feature of certain strains of traditional African music, played for centuries on horns very much like these modern-day plastic versions. Well, anyway, like the shoe ads almost say, just blow it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:22 PM PST - 48 comments

In 1936 in the Jim Crow South, Robert F. Williams was an 11-year-old black boy in Monroe, North Carolina, who watched helplessly as Jesse Helms Sr. (father and namesake of the former senator) beat an African-American woman to the ground and "dragged her off to the nearby jailhouse, her dress up over her head, the same way that a cave man would club and drag his sexual prey." Years later, after a stint in the segregated military, Williams returned home to Monroe and worked as an NAACP organizer, where he brought international attention to the Kissing Case, a 1958 incident in which two black boys under the age of 10 were sentenced to a reformatory for kissing a white girl. By then, Williams had also attracted controversy for his advocacy of armed self-defense, a position he outlined in the book Negroes with Guns. But it would all change overnight in 1961, when Williams landed on FBI's Most Wanted list, after being charged with kidnapping a white couple that Williams claimed he was trying to save from an angry black crowd. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 at 6:03 PM PST - 36 comments

A perfectly cromulent new word: Collapsitarianism. Apparently coined by social critic James Howard Kunstler when he declared "I've never been a complete collapsitarian,*" comparing himself to Dmitri Orlov, who uses the term Collapse in his writings - a lot. It failed to be popularized by blogger Kevin Kelly in early 2009 (during the fifteen minutes after Obama's inauguration when optimism came back; bad timing), who defined it as an umbrella term for a diverse collection of dystopian groups, but specifically the ones looking forward to whatever Collapse they expect. Analyzed by Mother Jones (and semi-rebutted by Dmitri Orlov hmself), the term has even been used by such semi-forward-looking entities as The Tomorrow Museum. The word appears to be due for a comeback (if it has anything to come back to) as the New York Times used it in an article about Peak Oil. Finally, premillenialism for the non-religious! [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:17 PM PST - 53 comments

Misreading Tehran: Leading Iranian-American writers revisit a year of dreams and discouragement. "With a full 12 months now between us and the election, the time is ripe to start revisiting the hype and hope in a year of writing: which stories were overblown, what stories were missed entirely, and what can be gleaned about Iran's annus horribilis from a more thorough understanding. FP asked seven prominent Iranian-Americans, deeply immersed in both the English- and Persian-language media, to look through the fog of journalism at what actually happened in Tehran -- and why so many of us got it so wrong." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:00 PM PST - 29 comments

Compassion Fatigue. In addition to not being equipped to multitask or deal with information overload, we sometimes feel too much; sometimes by just watching the news. How to develop your empathic discernment.
posted by Brent Parker at 4:43 PM PST - 20 comments

""Hardcore" equals masculine. "Casual" equals feminine. It's just that simple, and all the marketing-speak about "core" gamers won't change that."
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:08 PM PST - 126 comments

4th Grader wins National Science Fair competition--judged by Al Gore-- with her entry "Disproving Global Warming" ...or did she ? [more inside]
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:08 PM PST - 52 comments