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July 2007 Archives
July 31
Rethink.
The.
Shark.
[YouTube] The
Save Our Seas Foundation [small Flash], a Swiss-based non-profit, joins the growing ranks of a world-wide movement to undo the damage caused by
popular reports and
gross misrepresentation by Hollywood of sharks as human-savoring sea monsters/killing machines. The fact of the matter is that the opposite is true: Current estimates give between 65 million to 165 million sharks being killed worldwide annually via unregulated catch - including
38 million to
70 million [PDF] for their fin alone, with untold numbers of butchered and bleeding-to-death sharks being cast back into the oceans to die slow and gruesome deaths.
[more inside]posted by humannaire at 10:33 PM PST - 38 comments
Rorschach and Awe. "America's coercive interrogation methods were reverse-engineered by two C.I.A. psychologists who had spent their careers training U.S. soldiers to endure Communist-style torture techniques. The spread of these tactics was fueled by a myth about a critical 'black site' operation."
posted by homunculus at 1:05 PM PST - 57 comments
What are you doing? Stop it! Stop it! Give me those pictures. You can't photograph people like that.
Who says I can't? I'm only doing my job. Some people are bullfighters, some people are politicians. I'm a photographer.
Michelangelo Antonioni, 1912 -
2007.
posted by feelinglistless at 6:10 AM PST - 52 comments
July 30
Were you psychologically damaged at a petting zoo?.
The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation was created in 1982 by a small group that originally came together as an informal support group for problems that were the result of traumatic experiences at petting zoos as children. This group realized that there were many others out there who were afraid to come forward with their horrific stories and wanted to find some way to help as many people as they could. The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation is the result of their dream.posted by amyms at 11:58 PM PST - 130 comments
What happens when you put marshmallows, footballs, eggs, gum, Christmas lights, or ketchup packets in the microwave? The
results of 21 products cooked to a soggy mess.
(Flash, music, Kraft Blue)posted by daninnj at 9:28 PM PST - 30 comments
Plotbot is a web-based collaborative screenwriting application where you can write a screenplay with as many or as few people as you like. Adopting the wiki approach to screenwriting, each element is editable by any member of a project. You can also comment on, delete or restore any element.
For all of the "filmic storytellers" on MeFi. posted by ColdChef at 8:11 PM PST - 18 comments
Else Marie Pade (b. 1924) is a phenomenon in the history of Danish music. As a child she was often ill and bedridden. She would listen to the sounds around her... on the stairs, from the yard and the room next to hers. This is where her audio universe began. During the Second World War, she was arrested by the Gestapo and placed in solitary confinement. Rather than despair, she began composing music on the bare prison walls, where she scratched the notes with the fasteners on her garters. After the war and her discovery of the concrete music of Pierre Schaeffer and the French avant-garde, she realized that the sounds resembled those she had heard in childhood, and that this was the music she really wanted to compose.
Read a long interview with Else Marie Pade here and
listen to her collected works here.
(Last link in Danish. Left column is production year, middle column is title. Click the bit rates on the right to listen to each work.)posted by sveskemus at 3:59 PM PST - 8 comments
N.C. A&T food scientist develops process for allergen-free peanuts. An agricultural researcher at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has developed a simple process to make allergen-free peanuts. The new process – believed to be a first for food science – could provide relief to millions of peanut allergy sufferers, and be an enormous boon to the entire peanut industry.The inventor, Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna, is optimizing the process further to remove allergens from other foods.posted by billysumday at 1:29 PM PST - 34 comments
Cracked Pepper by ccc and ill chemist is a mash-up of The Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and an amazing array of songs you know. While not quite on par with the focus and sheer audacity of DangerMouse's
Grey Album, Cracked Pepper is a smart, rich, and rewarding listen. Available track by track or as a torrent.
See inside for tracks sampled.posted by saguaro at 9:24 AM PST - 35 comments
July 29
Anybody remember
Slow Bob In The Lower Dimensions? Turns out the short video, once a mainstay of early 90s late-night MTV, was created by one
Henry Selick, director of, oh,
The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Monkeybone, and the forthcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman's
Coraline. A lot more on Selick; also, higher quality, alternate format (but slower loading) versions are available
here.posted by kimota at 5:40 PM PST - 13 comments
Hillary Clinton as Lisa Simpson!? Not sure if I put my finger on it, but that's my impression reading some excerpts from letters Hillary Clinton wrote to a high school friend whilst in college. I've been entertaining Barack Obama as Lincoln --
an impression he's
actively cultivated (so,
another Simpsons tie-in :) -- and I welcome
uncanned glimpses into candidates' formative years to get a better idea of their 'character' (as if they're running on character and 'bio') so it was great to read her reminisce on her childhood: "I'd play out in the patch of sunlight that broke the density of the elms in front of our house and pretend there were
heavenly movie cameras watching my every move."
posted by kliuless at 12:49 PM PST - 42 comments
Tired after wandering the aisles all day? Want to get a head start on all those shoppers the next morning? An IKEA near Oslo has opened a free, 30-bed in-store dorm. The company says it's also equipped with "a bridal suite, a luxury suite, as well as family and tourist rooms". A company spokesman claimed that "guests stayed awake to watch the night workers refill the shelves", then went on to point out that many of them also stayed awake through sunrise, unsure whether the sun would come up otherwise.
posted by mkultra at 12:18 PM PST - 24 comments
Iraq wins! When everything that could go wrong goes wrong, it is awesome to see that something like this happened.
posted by dov3 at 12:09 PM PST - 46 comments
Tina Alberts, a dental assistant, raises pot bellied pigs. Knowing this, her wacky boss Dr. Woo decided to play a practical joke on her. When she was under anesthesia he temporarily gave her two
boar teeth, leaving them in just long enough to stage a wacky unconscious photo. Later, he gave her the photo as a fun present. She freaked out. Everybody hired lawyers.
Alberts got $250,000.
Woo got $1,000,000. Yes, you read that right.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:35 AM PST - 101 comments
"
The model of economic development that we are currently pursuing is unsustainable. Our energy consumption per unit of GDP is seven times that of Japan, six times that of America, and even 2.8 times that of India. China’s labour productivity is less than 10 per cent of the world total, and yet our emissions are over 10 times higher than the global average." ~ Pan Yue - deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Part of a new generation of outspoken Chinese senior officials, Pan has given rise to a tide of environmental debate, attracting enormous attention and controversy.
Read his articles here : -
China: economic powerhouse, environmentally unsustainable -
part one and
part twoposted by infini at 2:24 AM PST - 34 comments
July 28
You're the star today! In 1976, ABC's Record and Tape Division came up with the Captain Zoom Personalized Birthday Record. A two-minute song with 8 instances of the birthday boy or girl's name was recorded and mastered for a paper-thin flexible 7" record. It was sent in an envelope along with the lyrics to the song, a mini-coloring book, and an order form. In 1978, the Record and Tape Division was disbanded. Robert Stiller, a sales consultant who was involved with the project at ABC, bought the rights to the project and began distributing the record with his own company. Captain Zoom left a
lasting impact on those who heard his little jingle.
And there's a wedding version too. How sweet.posted by mkb at 5:10 PM PST - 22 comments
Slaughterhouse. A brutally honest look behind the scenes. Loads of blood, dead pigs and people inbetween. Recommended for the whole family for sunday dinner - if you like your sausages! [Google Video, NSFW, Not safe for veggies or PETA]
posted by homodigitalis at 3:39 PM PST - 76 comments
Garth Marenghi (
previously), horror writer, director, and actor. Star of the popular 80's series
Darkplace which chronicles the trials a hospital staff must endure when working on the gates of Hell, now available for your viewing pleasure. Or pain. Gripping. Terrifying. Bloody. With bits of sick. (See more episodes on
Google )
posted by kindle at 1:27 PM PST - 25 comments
bouncing ideas: “an infographically inspired, 1 take, top shot videoclip with professional trampoline gymnasts simulating typical video editing effects.” They had me at the spinning umbrella. (via
crabwalk)
posted by whatnot at 11:25 AM PST - 11 comments
The
United States and the
European Union have agreed to expand a security program that shares personal data about millions of U.S.-bound airline passengers a year. Information that potentially can be used includes "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership" and data about an individual's health, traveling partners and sexual orientation. "Even a request for a king-size bed at a hotel could be noted in the database." "E.U.'s privacy supervisor expressed '
grave concern' over whether the rules 'will be fully compatible with European fundamental rights,' calling the arrangement 'without legal precedent.'"
posted by ericb at 9:39 AM PST - 71 comments
Can't ever find what you are looking for at the bookstore? Tired of seeing pseudoscience or pop psychology books in the science section? Join a grassroots effort to re-shelve books to the appropriate section of the store:
Biologists Helping Bookstores.
posted by corpse at 8:02 AM PST - 31 comments
Following
this 2005 post, this documentary on Osaka "Host Clubs",
"The Great Happiness Space" [Google vid 1:15; misleading preview
here] is like nothing I've ever seen. Dark and light and wrenching and weird and funny. And dark. Kafka comes to mind for a lot of viewers, but this would fail as fiction. A midpoint shift forces you to confront a reality that is staggeringly complex. It's a kaleidescope of self-awareness and -delusion; compassion and manipulation; candor and deception. Layered, nuanced, and self-referential. The chief host's
blog translated somewhat idiosyncratically by google, gives you another perspective [note: not included in the spirit of "LOL Engrish"].
This insider's account of a hostess club, written by a Duke University sociologist, is a lot more predictable and straightforward.
posted by Phred182 at 7:13 AM PST - 24 comments
I am going to be a storm-a flame
I need to fight whole armies alone;
I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms;
I feel too strong to war with mortals-
BRING ME GIANTS!
Lynn Hill's free climb of 'The Nose' route on El Capitan (GoogleVid 19:40).
"What stunned the climbing world (although if anyone could do it, Hill could) was her success in freeing The Nose in 1993 over the course of four days, finishing a project no one else had managed in 30 years. To "free" a route you must climb only the rock, and only with your hands and feet. Although Hill could rest at belay stations and had a climbing partner to catch her when she fell, she led every pitch and managed to climb sections that previously had been ascended only with "aid"--that is, by hanging and climbing on equipment placed in the rock. She went back in '94 and did the same route, free, in 23 hours."[
from her bio] Always wanted to try climbing? Have Lynn
teach you.[
image gallery][
terminology]
posted by sluglicker at 2:28 AM PST - 21 comments
July 27
Chocolate Rain. From Bach to Tupac, you can always expect the unexpected from
Tay Zonday. Mr. Zonday has experienced some fame as of late, thanks to shock jocks
Opie & Anthony. Tay is quite the original artist and is, shockingly, unsigned. So, if you know any A&R guys that are looking for new talent, please let them know! My personal favorite is his karaoke cover of Rick Astley's
"Never Gonna Give You Up". Although, the
Darth Vader remix of Chocolate Rain is pretty friggin' sweet, too.
posted by digiFramph at 2:43 PM PST - 58 comments
Imogen Heap at her best, recording Just for Now on the spot using a
sampler. Not exactly a recent video, but I couldn't help listening to it over, and over, and over again.
single-link youtube post, but it's so worth it.posted by limon at 2:33 PM PST - 63 comments
"Thanks to tremendous progress achieved by the General Packet Radio System (GPRS), the wireless communication protocol, it is now possible for Africans to send articles and images (still and moving) about events taking place in their countries without using a computer and without having internet connection. Under those circumstances, the bigger the number of people expressing their opinions through that technology, the stronger becomes democracy, and the more valuable is the contribution to good governance efforts in Africa" -
Voices of Africa, Mobile stories and videos from Africa. Quote above from article
Mobile Reporters in Africa.
posted by infini at 11:37 AM PST - 11 comments
Mutatoes is a photographic collection by artist
Uli Westphal of non-standard fruits and vegetables found at Berlin groceries and farmers' markets. The distorted, the discolored, the bumpy, the stumpy, the coiled and the conjoined all get star treatment. (Flash site)
posted by hydrophonic at 11:24 AM PST - 21 comments
[Friday Flash Fun]
Gravity Pods, a physics-based shooter/puzzle where you use special gravity pods and repellers to alter the course of a projectile and avoid barriers to hit a target.
posted by aerotive at 10:41 AM PST - 25 comments
"Van Lingle Mungo" written in 1969 by the nostalgic, baseball-loving jazz composer David Frishberg
[wiki].
[Rhapsody link to the whole song.]
Frishberg on meeting the ex-Dodgers hurler after whom he named his tune:
“Backstage, Mungo asked me when he would see some remuneration for the song. When he heard my explanation about how there was unlikely to be any remuneration for anyone connected with the song, least of all him, he was genuinely downcast. ‘But it’s my name,’ he said. I told him, ‘The only way you can get even is to go home and write a song called Dave Frishberg.’" Further elaboration:
The Baseball Analysts on "Van Lingle Mungo."posted by kosem at 9:48 AM PST - 11 comments
Jumping spiders use their legs to communicate courtship interests to potential mates. The minuscule impacts of spider legs tapping against the ground surface are detected by nearby spiders. This "drumming" cadence signals the spider's reproductive interests. The female detects the low frequency vibrations through her legs. She responds by allowing the male to mount her.
Absolutely amazing video here. The sound is the best part, so make sure it's on.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:02 AM PST - 53 comments
So you finally broke down bought that fancy 60" HDTV. Now, you need a fancy HDMI cable for the finest quality picture. BestBuy (et al) promote
Monster almost exclusively. But they can cost up to $250. Meanwhile,
Monoprice (
and others) can be had for about 1/10th the price.
Gizmodo just finished their detailed
three part breakdown (including using test machines at Monster's own HQ) and comes to the conclusion that
"The only people who should buy Monster cable are people who light cigars with Benjamins."posted by revmitcz at 3:04 AM PST - 29 comments
July 26
On October 26, 1965, a sixteen-year-old girl named
Sylvia Marie Likens was reported dead to Indianapolis police. It was soon discovered that
her death was the culmination of weeks of torture at the hands of an adult caretaker and several neighborhood children; when the case went to trial, the prosecutor declared it
"the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana." In 2007, not one but two films inspired by the case make their debut:
The Girl Next Door (
trailer), based on a
fictionalized version of the events, and the docudrama
An American Crime (
trailer). One person, at least, will probably be skipping both -- the victim's sister, who says of the latter film,
"No one ever even asked us about it. It's their gain, our pain."posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:32 PM PST - 118 comments
It's All Because. Have you ever had those days where you're wondering just why everything about your life is feeling like it's going down the toilet bowl?
Oded Gross knows, and he will tell you all about it. In a
song.
posted by brownpau at 6:54 PM PST - 17 comments
Art Crimes is a fascinating site about the history of vandalism in the fine arts, recently revived by a Frenchwoman who left a
lipstick imprint on a 2 million dollar painting by
Cy Twombly. Other examples include a
British suffragist attacking a Velazquez with a knife, an
installation vandalized by the Israeli ambassador to Sweden,
two Chinese performance artists who urinated into Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, and a
Canadian art student who vomited blue gelatin on a Mondrian. Oddly enough, the artwork that has weathered the most attacks is Rembrandt's
The Night Watch, which has survived two knife attacks (one by an unemployed teacher with a butter knife) and an attack by a mental patient who had a compulsion to fling sulfuric acid at fine artworks. Other art vandalism methods, including glass cutters, hammers, scissors, guns, and ink, are discussed
here.
posted by jonp72 at 3:48 PM PST - 38 comments
As it
builds a presence and
invests in virtual worlds, IBM is hoping to avoid potentially embarrassing incidents
by establishing official guidelines for its more than 5,000 employees who inhabit "
Second Life,"
Entropia Universe," "
Forterra," "
There" and other virtual worlds. "IBM, whose 20th century employees were parodied as corporate cogs in matching navy suits, doesn't have an avatar dress code. But guidelines suggest being 'especially sensitive to the appropriateness of your avatar or persona's appearance when you are meeting with IBM clients or conducting IBM business.'" Other directives: "Don't discuss intellectual property with unauthorized people." "Don't discriminate or harass" and by all means, "Be a good 3D Netizen."
posted by ericb at 2:23 PM PST - 9 comments
Four endangered gorillas
were found shot dead in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a conservation group announced today.
For all the evil bastards that do this, there are many, many more
good people fighting the good fight to help keep gorillas healthy.
One, even has a
blog.
posted by james_cpi at 9:21 AM PST - 41 comments
Ever wondered what it is like to have your portrait painted? How would you pose ... "sidelong glance, coy grin, gazing into the distance, serious and stylish"? Here's an
interesting perspective on the subject, describing the process start to finish, written by a sitter, but published on
the website of the painter, together with his added commentary on the process. And how did the subject like his finished portrait?
"In a word, the painting makes me uncomfortable. ... It must be a terrific portrait." (
via)
posted by woodblock100 at 7:54 AM PST - 11 comments
Other Women's Voices: "Below are links that will take you to passages from over 125 women writers. The entries are on women who produced a substantial amount of work before 1700, some or all of which has been translated into modern English. Each entry will tell you about the print sources from which the translated passages are taken; it will also tell you of useful secondary sources and Internet sites, when those are available." An amazing resource. (Via
wood s lot.)
posted by languagehat at 6:49 AM PST - 20 comments
What did
XTC,
The Cramps,
Echo and the Bunnymen,
Dead Kennedys,
Klaus Nomi,
The Go Gos,
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark,
Alley Cats,
Oingo Boingo,
Pere Ubu,
The Au Pairs,
Gang of Four,
The Members,
UB40,
Steel Pulse,
DEVO,
X,
The Fleshtones,
The Police,
Wall of Voodoo ,
Gary Numan,
Skafish,
Joan Jett,
Chelsea,
John Cooper Clarke,
Invisible Sex, and many more
have in common?
URGH A MUSIC WAR.
posted by mattoxic at 6:37 AM PST - 65 comments
Learn to navigate using the stars in 15 minutes! OK, well maybe not navigate, but you'll know exactly where Orion, Betelgeuse, Polaris (the North Star), Cassiopeia, and Jupiter are.
posted by Mave_80 at 5:51 AM PST - 36 comments
It is just over 10 years since
Billy Mackenzie committed suicide. As frontman of The Associates, Mackenzie was, even by rock star standards, an eccentric individual. There is a great
fansite with many articles on Mackenzie and his music which gives further info for those who want to know more. A Scottish TV documentary on Mackenzie and the Associates is here:
Part 1;
Part 2;
Part 3;
Part 4.
For those who want to get straight to the songs and that wonderful voice, many Top of the Pops performances are on youtube:
Party Fears Two;
Club Country;
18 Carat Love Affair (featuring Alan Rankine playing a chocolate guitar).
posted by ClanvidHorse at 4:36 AM PST - 9 comments
July 25
The author of the excellent (and
previously mentioned) 60s/70s soul music blog Funky 16 Corners has put together an awesome compilation album
available for free download, called Rubber Souled, featuring soul covers of Beatles classics; the results are intriguing, from Stevie Wonder's funked out version of We Can Work It Out to a nightmare inducing Bill Cosby cover of Sgt Peppers.
posted by jonson at 8:21 PM PST - 31 comments
It puts the lotion in the basket. [nsfw] You know how in that movie,
The Silence of the Lambs, the serial killer they're trying to catch is skinning women because he wants to make a suit out of
real girls? If this product was around, perhaps we could have saved the lives of a lot of fictional victims.
posted by Sully at 8:09 PM PST - 81 comments
American Sign Language Flash Video Dictionary is a high quality, free dictionary with a huge number of signs. It includes specialized dictionaries of religious signs, conversational phrases, and ASL for babies. Unfortunately it's not possible to link to specific signs, but if you look inside you'll find words from "Abbreviate" to "Zoom" and phrases such as "I cannot fasten my belt," "has he been neutered?" "I already took a bath," "are you married?" and "I need a better firewall."
posted by alms at 7:11 PM PST - 17 comments
OH! DANGO! JAM Incredible little Japanese game, Tamagotchi + Pokemon + awesome music = great happy fun time. Z is attack, X is magic, C is defend, and spacebar is special move. Don't forget to save often using end -> data regist. [
via]
posted by knowles at 5:36 PM PST - 13 comments
"Japanese Relocation" - A short propaganda film created by the US government & the "Office of War Information - Bureau of Motion Pictures."
The subject has been much discussed previously on MetaFilter.
Here and
here, among other threads.
posted by The Deej at 4:19 PM PST - 21 comments
Picnicmob would like to invite you to a picnic and seat you precisely with those most like you.
posted by sudama at 1:37 PM PST - 46 comments
Korla Pandit is considered by many to be the godfather of exotica music. His live show "Adventures in Music" on KTLA in Hollywood was the first all music television show ever broadcast and featured Korla wordlessly sitting behind his Hammond organ, playing and staring wistfully into the camera. His
trademark turban and gemstone complimented his exotic image and even up until his death,
he maintained that he was raised in New Delhi by his Indian father and French mother. Korla Pandit was actually born John Roland Redd in St. Louis, MO, to Ernest Redd, pastor of the Second Baptist Church, the largest black church in Columbia, MO, and Doshia O'Nina Redd, who was of Creole lineage. You can read all about the
transformation of John Redd into Korla Pandit at the great
Korla Pandit web site.posted by Otis at 12:42 PM PST - 9 comments
Because of booming economies in China, India and elsewhere the price of metals, such as copper and aluminum, have reached all time highs. Empty beer kegs for example can be sold for up to $27.
Washington DC is experiencing a crime wave of metal thieves who are stripping everything from lamp posts, gutters, catalytic converters and bleacher seats.
posted by stbalbach at 7:58 AM PST - 49 comments
Lindsay Lohan,
America's Dream Girl*, has been a potent
pop culture event ever since her rise to fame in
Disney's 1998 remake of
Parent Trap. As the first red haired child ever hired by
Ford Modeling Agency at the
age of 3, Lohan clearly had her young eye aimed at Hollywood. Her breakout role came with the 2004 release of
Mean Girls. Skyrocketed into the public consciousness, Lohan quickly released two
pop albums and pumped out classic films such as
Herbie: Fully Loaded and
Georgia Rule. With Britney Spears's
descent into oblivion and
Paris Hilton's problems with the law, Lohan appeared ready to supplant Britney as
The It Girl. But with her rocky personal life and her love of
night clubs,
the party scene,
strawberry quick, and after
problems with her studio, and
running low on cash, people wondered, could Lohan turn her life around? Sadly, that
appears to be a no. After being charged with a
DUI on Thursday for an
accident in May, Lohan
was charged with
another DUI (and cocaine possession) Monday morning after
chasing another car. A story is quickly unfolding involving a
fired assistant,
bad damage control,
a bar at a rehab center,
prison chic,
more bad parenting and a
request for privacy / denial of drug possession.
Mugshots were also released. Is she the next
Pete Doherty?
posted by Stynxno at 7:42 AM PST - 188 comments
Steadicam operators! Are you tired of simply
walking with your camera rig to achieve that special wobble-free shot? Or maybe you're making a movie on the cheap and can't afford all that heavy equipment? Behold! The future of filmmaking has arrived! Presenting:
Steadicam on a
Segway!
(Warning: Obnoxious, awful Flash interface on second link)posted by 40 Watt at 6:46 AM PST - 28 comments
July 24
Anybody out there remember
The Left Banke? They were a kinda Beatle-y 60's pop/rock outfit out of New York City. Critics labeled them "baroque-pop", apparently due to the "classical" influences in their music. They're surely best known for their catchy little harmony vocals hit from 1966,
Walk Away Renée. And in a reversal of the more common trend of white artists covering Motown hits, a rather unexpected version by
The Four Tops turned up. Arguably, the song wasn't
exactly a perfect fit for the soul vocal quartet at the time they first recorded it, but more
recent performances show that they've grown comfortable with it over the years: maybe it's the slower tempo. Here's the
lyrics. And the
story behind the song. And what the hell, the
Wikipedia page. And
Songfacts. They all have something of interest to offer concerning this durable little number, originally written by a 16-year-old!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:39 PM PST - 51 comments
"The [textbook] industry charges outrageous prices for new textbooks while simultaneously doing everything it can to make older versions unusable or obsolete. There is simply no reason that a new calulus textbook should cost $157. The study of calculus, at least the type of calculus that most of us need to study in high school or undergraduate programs, has not changed significantly in decades." -
Textbook Revolution.posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:00 PM PST - 77 comments
Faceoff -- the three founders of college social networking site
ConnectU have accused
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
of stealing their business plan and code. Tomorrow they face-off in a Boston courtroom. "It's a mélange of gossip about upper-crust Silicon Valley, allegations of old-school Ivy League skulduggery and an oddball cast of characters that ranges from precocious dot-com millionaires to aspiring Olympic athletes. In what other intellectual-property lawsuit are two of the plaintiffs a set of Harvard University-educated
twins from Greenwich, Conn., with several international rowing championship medals under their belts? ...Despite the backstory's semblance to screenplay fodder, the outcome is anything but scripted, at least for now."
posted by ericb at 2:31 PM PST - 31 comments
DieKus. Haikus made out of pictures of gravestones, being plastered around New York City by a mysterious artist named Nick Beef. (whose name has some mysterious
origins of its own)
posted by fungible at 1:56 PM PST - 18 comments
"
This site brings together just a few of the hundreds and hundreds of new species discovered since the year 2000.
Hopefully, it will inspire us to see the world as a place still being explored, and give us the courage to conserve and protect the fragile, shrinking areas of habitat left on Earth...
areas which, as we see here, contain creatures we haven't even yet Imagined... " That, of course, makes
living in a low impact woodland home even more appealing or scary (you choose). Although I will admit that even the best of intentions can lead to perile, as in the case of
Timothy Treadwell (as previously discussed). He too wanted to be 'one with nature'.
posted by NotInTheBox at 7:35 AM PST - 18 comments
July 23
Sumo Volleyball - online competition at its finest. Yep, Friday flash fun on Tuesday. For those of you who used to have ICQ, this game will be very familiar. Four different variates of play are offered. 1 on 1 is by far the favorite and the most fun, IMHO. One tiny downside, activeX based, and thus, pretty much IE only. There are also other games via
the home page, of which Kung-fu chess is also very popular.
posted by killThisKid at 10:19 PM PST - 8 comments
On executives and their libraries, "C.E.O.’s are starting to collect books on climate change and global warming, not Al Gore’s tomes but books from the 15th century about the weather, Egyptian droughts, even replicas of Sumerian tablets recording extraordinary changes in climate."
posted by geoff. at 10:43 AM PST - 41 comments
In January 2006, small amounts of genetically engineered rice turned up in a shipment that was tested ... by a French customer of Riceland Foods, a big rice mill based in Stuttgart, Ark. Testing revealed that the genetically modified rice contained a strain of Liberty Link that had not been approved for human consumption. What's more, trace amounts of the Liberty Link had mysteriously made their way into the commercial rice supply in all five of the Southern states where long-grain rice is grown. Aventis Crop Science had contracted with a handful of farmers to grow the rice, which was known as Liberty Link because its genes had been altered to resist a weed killer called Liberty, also made by Aventis. Then, the French pharmaceutical giant that owned Aventis Crop Science decided to sell the U.S. biotech unit and abandon the very emotional business of reengineering the foods we eat. "We didn't want to take any chances," says a former Aventis executive. "We burned and buried enough rice to feed 20 million people." Last November, the USDA retroactively approved the Liberty Link rice for human consumption.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:58 AM PST - 92 comments
Made in China. A look inside the world’s manufacturing center. Flash video slideshow of the port of Shenzhen (7:00 minutes with sound)
posted by srboisvert at 7:49 AM PST - 26 comments
A never-before-seen look inside a hospital in the Middle East. Yemen is a country where women have an average of 7.9 children compared to 2.7 in the rest of the world. This disparity might have something to do with a culture that censures contraception and allows marriages to be consummated when the bride is as young as nine years old. VICE gains exclusive access to a Yemeni hospital maternity unit...
posted by domdom at 3:38 AM PST - 73 comments
"Americans need to educate themselves, from elementary school onward, about what their country has done abroad. And they need to play a more active role in ensuring that what the United States does abroad is not merely in keeping with a foreign policy elite's sense of realpolitik but also with the American public's own sense of American values.
Because at their core, those values are sound. That is why, even in places where you'll find virulent anti-Americanism, you'll also find enormous affection for things American."
An
article by
Mohsin Hamid, author of
The Reluctant Fundamentalistposted by A189Nut at 2:41 AM PST - 53 comments
July 22
Wired presents an extraordinary look at "
one of the most ambitious search-and-rescue missions in history," after one of Microsoft's researchers,
Jim Gray, and his boat, the
Tenacious, went
missing in the Pacific Ocean outside San Francisco in January 2007. Cartography meets law meets
2.0 technology. "First the Coast Guard scoured 132,000 square miles of ocean. Then a team of scientists and Silicon Valley power players turned the eyes of the global network onto the Pacific." Eventually, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, the US Navy, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium jumped in – "as did astronomers from leading universities." To this day, Jim Gray has
never been found, and his disappearance
cannot be explained. Read
Wired for more.
posted by BLDGBLOG at 10:37 PM PST - 35 comments
...The U.S. has probably not yet fully woken up to the appalling fact that, after a long period in which the first motto of its military was "no more Vietnams," it faces another Vietnam. There are many important differences, but the basic result is similar: The mightiest military in the world fails to achieve its strategic goals and is, in the end, politically defeated by an economically and technologically inferior adversary. Even if there are no scenes of helicopters evacuating Americans from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, there will surely be some totemic photographic image of national humiliation as the U.S. struggles to extract its troops. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have done terrible damage to the U.S. reputation for being humane; this defeat will convince more people around the world that it is not even that powerful. And Bin Laden, still alive, will claim another victory over the death-fearing weaklings of the West.
Iraq hasn't even begun (more within)posted by y2karl at 12:02 PM PST - 148 comments
British actor
Jim Dale is
greeted as a "star" by children and adults when he appears in public and at readings. He has narrated the U.S. audiobooks for the "Harry Potter" series. For the series
he worked six-and-a-half-hour days, recording about 18 to 20 pages. Over eight years he has crafted over
200 distinctive voices for the books' characters. He takes into account the aging of the main characters, who started out as 10 and 11 in “Sorcerer’s Stone” and are now 17 and 18 in “Deathly Hallows.” Like the books, the tapes and CDs have been a publishing phenomenon selling more than 5.7 million copies. For his work on the “Harry Potter” series, Mr. Dale has won a Grammy Award, a record 9
Audie Awards (the Oscars for audiobooks) and holds the record for creating the most voices in an audiobook in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Audio clips and
video interview.
posted by ericb at 10:27 AM PST - 39 comments
Simplify Media has made my Sunday morning, and if you have pals with good taste in music it will probably make your day, too. It's a small download (4 MB) that allows you to stream the iTunes libraries of up to 30 friends as long as they're online.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 7:32 AM PST - 28 comments
The Once and Future Prince [NYTimes link] Although Prince declined to be interviewed about “Planet Earth,” he has been highly visible lately. His career is heading into its third decade, and he could have long since become a nostalgia act. Instead he figured out early how to do what he wants in a 21st-century music business, and clearly what he wants is to make more music. Here's a YouTube celebration of some of man's hits over the years:
Black Sweat,
Let's Go Crazy,
When Doves Cry,
Purple Rain,
Little Red Corvette,
Nothing Compares 2 U (ok, the Sinead version), and finally,
Prince's basketball showdown with Charlie Murphy.
posted by psmealey at 7:14 AM PST - 29 comments
After 15 years, Schickele Mix is no more - "Dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal" - That's the tag line of
Schickele Mix, the best, broadest, funniest, and most interesting music education program ever heard. Created and hosted by Peter Schickele (best known for his other entertaining music education creation -
P.D.Q. Bach - a fictional composer son of Johannes) Schickele Mix juxtaposed Bach with the Beatles, Elgar with Duke Ellington and the Everly Brothers, Tuvan throat singing with twanging Texas Swing, or Schubert with Spike Jones in "suites" demonstrating the universality of musical techniques and themes. Checkout the
playlists and you'll see what I mean. After 15 years of broadcasts and re-broadcasts, Schickele Mix is no more. This is a shame, since three and a half years of educational weekly programs could be repeated for new audiences, if not continuously, then with a gap of a couple years until something better comes along. These programs have such rich content, it's a shame future audiences can't be created. I've got to wonder whether it's not just the 5 cycles of repeated playings (which, by the way, I've never gotten tired of) that's the whole reason for its disappearance from the airways. The program depends on a wide range of recorded music. Perhaps the new proposed
performance royalties, or even
merely their threat, have managed to claim Schickele Mix as a victim. As Peter Schickele said at the end of each program,
"It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that certain je ne sais quoi. And with the apparent demise of Schickele Mix, we've lost a serious source of that important "je ne sais quoi."
posted by fpatrick at 5:14 AM PST - 34 comments
July 21
This short film begins on a somber note...railing against the dangers of pornographic magazines in the 1960's, but as it progresses, the images it shares with the viewer are more and more tantalizing...from nudity, to promotion on sodomy, to bestiality (really, just a farmgirl pic with a goat in the far background), to hardcore S&M and B&D...all displayed for the soon-not-innocent eyes of the film's target market.
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:38 PM PST - 51 comments
Game developer/ perfume critic Theresa Duncan has died, and longtime companion Jeremy Blake is missing. The art world is
buzzing about the seeming suicide-by-water of video installation artist Jeremy Blake. The
perfume blogs are fizzing with sadness over the death of Theresa Duncan, whose suicide preceded Blake's. The cops are not releasing the notes left by the late,
pretty people, but a clue might be found in the
paranoiac screed Duncan posted on her blog in May, in which Blake's ex-girlfriend, the CIA, FBI, Church of Scientology, Jeff Gannon, bloated plutocrats and many other bugbears of the
psy-ops crowd were put on Duncan's mental merry-go-round and given a real strong spin.
posted by Scram at 9:37 AM PST - 37 comments
The Young Ones [TV-Links. Previously 1, 2] "
A mad,
helter-skelter,
rude,
awesomely violent,
unpredictable,
swaggering,
staggering,
joyously infantile,
exhilarating steamroller of a
sitcom,
The Young Ones provided the breakthrough for the new generation of aggressive and forthright
'alternative' comedians." (I recommend
Summer Holiday and
Bambi.) Lots of great and soon-to-be-great
guests. Look for Emma Thompson in
Bambi as one of "the posh kids."
posted by McLir at 1:38 AM PST - 87 comments
July 20
"Something woke her in the night." Genre fiction is rising from the dead to terrorize serious literature!
In response to Michael Chabon’s (
previously) new book,
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,
Ruth Franklin wrote a
review
in Slate beginning with the line “Michael Chabon has spent considerable energy trying to drag the decaying corpse of genre fiction out of the shallow grave where writers of serious literature abandoned it.”
Well, that didn’t go over too well with Ursula K. Le Guin, who bent her considerable
imagination and skill to the task of envisioning the zombie corpse of genre fiction and wrote an entertaining
response,
which was then given a suitable
cover.
The whole thing is also available as a
pdf linked to from Le Guin’s
website.
viaposted by gingerbeer at 3:58 PM PST - 65 comments
Bill O'Reilly got word that Jet Blue was sponsoring the
YearlyKos convention. He sent a camera crew to
confront the CEO of JetBlue, asking why they were
supporting radicals.
He has spent the week
comparing DailyKos to the KKK and Nazi websites. He spent the majority of his radio and TV shows discussing this "hate" site. He said the right-wing equivalent of Kos was Fred Phelps.
Jetblue caved and apologized. Has someone ever misunderstood a website this bad?
posted by DougieZero1982 at 11:46 AM PST - 90 comments
Swedish Woman Gets Superfast Internet. She is a latecomer to the information superhighway, but 75-year-old Sigbritt Lothberg is now cruising the Internet with a dizzying speed. Lothberg's 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection in Karlstad is believed to be the fastest residential uplink in the world, Karlstad city officials said. She's already received
one offer of marriage.
posted by three blind mice at 10:35 AM PST - 29 comments
Despite a sharp national decline in crime, American criminal justice has become crueler and less caring than it has been at any other time in our modern history.
Why? Former conservative economist
Glenn C. Loury on incarceration in America.
[via]posted by Sonny Jim at 2:55 AM PST - 64 comments
Rose and Camellia. Flash Friday. It's in Japanese, so I don't know which girl is Rose and which is Camellia. But I do know this -- they resolve their problems by slapping each other. Instructions are in Japanese as well, but it's pretty simple: Click "attack" and run your mouse over your opponent's face to slap, click "evasion" and run your mouse over yourself to dodge a slap.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:56 AM PST - 16 comments
July 19
The Climate Engineers.
"Efforts to manipulate the climate and weather have a long history of exaggerated claims and beliefs, and a dangerous tendency to become militarized. Even if they succeed, who will control the global thermostat?" Public policy scholar James R. Fleming explores the issues in a Wilson Quarterly article.
posted by amyms at 8:06 PM PST - 11 comments
These days, you don't have to be rich to have all the
right stuff, at least for the
night. Going
deep or flying
high, these days you don't have to be rich, to pretend. Just a good credit card, and no thought for the future.
posted by nomisxid at 7:33 PM PST - 8 comments
For nearly two decades, fifty computers have been running day and night on an extremely complex problem. Today, scientists from the University of Alberta announced the result of all that work - they have
solved the game of checkers. Chinook, the computer program they developed, can never be beaten -
try for yourself. While checkers is the most complicated game to be solved so far, it is
not the only one. You can play a
perfect game of tic-tac-toe, of course, but also
connect four, and a 6x6 board of the game
othello. Chess players are already
thinking ahead to when their game is solved, with
Advanced Chess being Gary Kasparov's answer. The hardest game to completely solve might be Go, which
may not be solved until 2100.
posted by blahblahblah at 7:02 PM PST - 76 comments
The Mesoamerican Ballgame was central to the culture of pre-Columbian Central America, with Mayan kings using
ah pitzlaw (he the ballplayer) as one of their royal titles. It is played with a rubber ball, which sometimes had human skulls for cores. The object of the game was to get the ball through a vertical hoop. Called many names throughout history, pitz, ulama and juego de pelota, this game has been played for 3000 years. Though usually a form of recreation, sometimes it would be played for ritual purposes, with the players of the losing side being sacrificed.
[more inside]posted by Kattullus at 5:52 PM PST - 21 comments
The Green Leap Forward "Environmentalism is China’s fastest-growing citizen movement. Beijing isn’t cracking down on these new activists—it’s empowering them."posted by delmoi at 3:51 PM PST - 22 comments
Buy Sudafed, have a chat with Officer Friendly. Detective Brian Lewis returns to his desk after lunch, scanning e-mails he missed.
One catches his eye: It says a suspected member of a methamphetamine ring bought a box of Sudafed at 1:34 p.m. at a CVS pharmacy.
Minutes later, Lewis is in his truck, circling the parking lot, searching for the woman.
MethCheck is one of the new computerized tracking systems that will notify police of your decongestant purchases. Buy too much, or buy if you're already a suspect, and you'll be getting a visit from the law. Uncomfortable? Better hold your nose - the next version of the software will match you against everyone on your street to see if your aggregate buying warrants investigation.
We've discussed the
Sudafed
problem before, but this level of tracking opens up a new can of worms. It seems a small step before you get this tautology:
Why do you care that she bought Sudafed?
Because she's a suspected meth ring member.
Why do you think she's in a meth ring?
Because she bought Sudafed, silly!
posted by bitmage at 11:27 AM PST - 143 comments
"It seems like a really original and interesting read." It is a truth universally acknowledged that the first line of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" is one of literature's most famous, wittily kicking off one of the most beloved of all classics. And yet, 17 British publishers failed to recognize it and rejected the manuscript when Jane's name and the title were changed. What happens when the gatekeepers of literature are illiterate?
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:35 AM PST - 124 comments
The Dreaded Half Worcester warning: music is just one of the possible vexing configurations
players encounter in
candlepin bowling, a regional variation on traditional bowling that's unique to northern New England and maritime Canada.
Developed in Worcester, MA, around 1880 (warning: more music), the
game is played in
gorgeous antique alleys dotted around New England and Nova Scotia, and features a
4 1/2" wooden or rubber ball, three rolls per frame or "box," and 15 and 3/4" narrow, cylinder-shaped pins that are the devil to knock down -- even though you can use the
dead wood to knock other pins down, a score over 200 is extremely rare.
Find some lanes and
play or just
take the quiz - like so many regional quirks, this one's undergoing
a bit of a revival.
posted by Miko at 7:43 AM PST - 55 comments
If it's highly virulent earworms you're looking for, you will probably want to check out
"Spanish Flea," an
irrepressibly cheerful song written by Julius Wechter and recorded by
Herb Alpert and
The Tijuana Brass. This slight, two-minute instrumental from 1965 (originally with
lyrics by Cissy Wechter) has become so popular as 'waiting room music' and 'hold music' that it's become a cliche of the genre, and it's quite likely that you've heard at least a snippet of it at some point in your life. (Perhaps repeatedly, late at night, at your local supermarket?) It's been used for several film soundtracks (
American Pie 2,
Ocean's Eleven,
Striptease, etc.) and, perhaps most famously, as one of the theme songs for the show
"The Dating Game." Of course, in the most striking gauge of its cultural ubiquity, The Simpsons has referenced it not one but four times (
only two are available on youtube). The song's infectious melody has spawned innumerable homages, ranging from
interesting to
amusing to
thought-provoking to
imbecilic to
bizarre.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 4:02 AM PST - 49 comments
July 18
Ian Crossland says YouTube has become a zoo. There is no irony or sarcasm in his voice when he says it. Bare witness to the plight of a man who is too busy to
finish his webpage and he's too busy to
be famous like he believes everyone else wants to be, because Ian Crossland wants to save humanity with
YouTube. You heard me. Why does this deserve mention in The Blue? Because of
all the responses to him. The YouTube community is not taking his opinion very well, or very lightly. You may find it very amusing, or agravating, or you may think he's got a point; you may wanna join in the fun.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:54 PM PST - 61 comments
Just when you thought virtual reality couldn't get any worse, it's
3D Email! "Immerse yourself in 3-D as you read and write your mail. Hang with your mail poolside, or feed your spam to the sharks! Deleting spam is so much fun, you may wish you had more! ...It's an email metaverse!"posted by verb at 12:41 PM PST - 46 comments
The Iraq war is lost. Of course, neither the president nor the
war's intellectual architects are prepared to admit this. Nonetheless, the
specter of defeat shapes their thinking in telling ways. The case for the
war is no longer defined by the benefits of winning -- a stable Iraq,
democracy on the march in the Middle East, the collapse of the evil
Iranian and Syrian regimes -- but by the consequences of defeat. As
President Bush put it, "The consequences of failure in Iraq would be death
and destruction in the Middle East and here in America." Tellingly, the
Iraq war's intellectual boosters, while insisting the surge is working,
are moving to assign the blame for defeat. And they have already picked
their target: the American people...
The Iraq War Is Lost by Peter Galbraith July 18, 2007
See also
Imperial Overreach: Washington’s Dubious Strategy to Overthrow Saddam Hussein by David Isenberg November 17, 1999 (
PDF)
posted by y2karl at 9:12 AM PST - 143 comments
Presidential candidate
Ron Paul (previously) introduced
H.R.2755 on June 15, 2007, a bill "To abolish the Board of Governors of the
Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and for other purposes." None of the major news sources have thus far reported it (CNN, BBC, Reuters, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, AP) which presumably means it's not newsworthy, perhaps because it doesn't have the slightest chance of passing. Nonetheless, it doesn't mean it's a bad idea. But then, that's the problem with many of his positions such as abolishing the IRS, personal income taxes, and ending the War On Drugs.
When asked why he wants to be president, he said, "I want to restore the original intent of the constitution, which maximizes individual liberty and restrains the government from doing the things they shouldn't be doing." And as was said on
The Colbert Report, he was one of the few who voted against the Patriot Act and the Iraq war. LOL!
posted by sluglicker at 9:02 AM PST - 225 comments
australianscreen launched today. You can view clips from Australian feature films, documentaries, TV programs, shorts, home movies, newsreels, advertisements, other historical footage, and sponsored films produced over the last 100 years, with curators’ notes and other information about each title.
[via Margaret and David]posted by tellurian at 8:17 AM PST - 8 comments
Sean Bonney's translations of Baudelaire are unconventional. Instead of following the form of the French originals they are semi-concrete typewriter poetry. In a
review of the book,
everyone's cup of tea, onedit magazine says that they are "certainly the best translations of Baudelaire in English ever written." Which might explain why they published 35 of them in their latest issue. You can listen to Bonney read his translations
here [mp3]posted by Kattullus at 4:37 AM PST - 61 comments
Claybourne was a unique and well produced radio drama set in New Zealand. It was science fiction, a thriller, a soap opera. It aired in 96 five minute episodes, but
died mid-storyline when it's creative team- like so many creative teams- couldn't get it together.
posted by jiiota at 2:44 AM PST - 7 comments
July 17
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows
recently leaked on a few torrent sites... or did it?
Security measures taken included pallets of books protected by alarms, baited lawyers, and even delivery trucks with satellite tracking, which seems at odds with this
UPS delivery truck stacked with loose boxes 5 days before they are to be delivered.
A spokeswoman at Scholastic, the book's US publisher, said "she was aware of at least three different versions of the file 'that look very convincing' with what she described as 'conflicting content.'" So what's real and what's fake? We'll just have to
wait and see.
posted by jwells at 6:02 PM PST - 124 comments
Dear Friend,
I am a Swiss Banker currently in possession of over $ 1 Billion in funds stashed away by the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo. Our Swiss Confederation President Micheline Calmy-Rey said her government is holding just $6.6m frozen in accounts.
"We discussed the question of Mobutu's funds and my government is prepared to restore the money to the DR Congo as soon as possible," Ms Rey
told reporters in the DR Congo capital, Kinshasa, after talks with Mr Kabila.
But we can help you get the rest of the 92.4 million dollars if you will just send us your bank account number and call to confirm your ID and pin number.
posted by infini at 1:29 PM PST - 65 comments
I am Murloc. Cool World of Warcraft music video. (Note: Impressed me, but I've never played WoW. Might not impress WoW players, I dunno. Won't change your mind if you already hate WoW. Horrible vocals.)
posted by Bugbread at 10:02 AM PST - 51 comments
"I like to think that baseball players are a pretty imaginitive bunch. I mean, these are guys who, when asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, said something nuts like 'baseball player' —
and then didn’t change their answer."
Bunt Cake: a webcomic for those of us who like baseball cards recontextualized and our humor depantsed and set on fire. Or something like that. [via
mefi projects]
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 9:35 AM PST - 37 comments
Profile of Phil Hansen - "Strokes of a Genius" - [Hansen] gives pointillism a modern twist. You might call it "kinetic fragmentism" — pointillism in motion.
For instance, Hansen completed an on-camera piece of paint-dipped karate chops to reveal a portrait of martial arts legend Bruce Lee. Preferring to post videos of the process of his work on the internet instead of showing the finished product in galleries, Hansen shows the madness in the method in his amazing art.
posted by spec80 at 8:32 AM PST - 8 comments
July 16
Ever wondered how gay men signal each other with colored hankies? Ask
Meathook. (warning: the photo section is not suitable for anyone, anywhere.)
posted by metasonix at 11:12 PM PST - 81 comments
Tough talk about impeachment. A
public opinion poll from the American Research Group recently reported that more than four in ten Americans — 45% — favor impeachment hearings for President Bush and more than half — 54% — favored impeachment for Vice President Cheney.
In the video segment linked to here (available via javascript pop-up window from the main linked page), Bill Moyers gets perspective on the role of impeachment in American political life from Constitutional scholar
Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION's
John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT. Transcript is available
here.
posted by psmealey at 7:37 AM PST - 179 comments
There is a remote part of the Congolese jungle, called the Bili forest, where local legend has long told of a breed of giant apes that eat lions, catch fish and howl at the moon. To his surprise Dutch researcher Cleve Hicks
found them. In fact they are large chimps but they appear to have a number of behavioural differences from other groups seen in the wild. (
More information from Wikipedia).
posted by rongorongo at 4:39 AM PST - 33 comments
July 15
I contend
this house-swaying performace at the Apollo Theater earlier this year, purporting to feature soulful everyman
Brad Prowley ("real life homeless man . . . who makes a living singing classic R&B songs on the streets of major cities not just to get by, but out of a true, life-long passion for music"), actually showcases
this man in disguise. You be the judge.
posted by azaner at 11:58 PM PST - 71 comments
Recently on Metafilter, we pondered whether we would kiss ourselves if we could.
Kelli Connell's Double Life series (nsfw) takes the idea to its conclusion, and presents snapshots from the ensuing relationship. Readers of the earlier thread will be relieved to find that the results are more poignant than creepy.
posted by Ian A.T. at 7:01 PM PST - 38 comments
This site explains the link, apparently via Mesopotamia, between the ancient Roman and modern Japanese calendrical systems.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 6:33 PM PST - 8 comments
"'Doc' Lipes Commandeers a Submarine Officers' Wardroom." On the USS
Seadragon 120 feet beneath the South China Sea, with Japanese ships patrolling above, submariner Dean Rector was stricken by acute appendicitis. In this
Chicago Daily News article that later won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Reporting,
George Weller (whose reportage was also discussed
here) recounts the story of Wheeler "Johnny" Lipes who, pressed into service, used bent spoons and torpedo alcohol to save a man's life.
posted by John of Michigan at 5:53 PM PST - 14 comments
Roller pigeons also known as Birmingham Rollers are pigeons that are noted for their mid-air somersaults. These acrobatics also make the birds irresistible to hawks, falcons and other birds of prey, and some roller pigeon enthusiasts are
fighting back. Investigators are estimating that local enthusiast clubs are responsible for the deaths of 1000-2000 raptors in the Los Angeles area
annually. One man bragged about capturing
30 hawks in 45 days. The National Birmingham Rollers Club has issued a
press release distancing themselves from the men under investigation but requests Fish and Wildlife Services to provide aid under laws protecting livestock predated by endangered species.
posted by hindmost at 1:06 PM PST - 29 comments
Kurt Weill's Opera by and for Beggars.
Charlie Haden and Kurt Weill,
Teresa Stratas accordions,
William S Burroughs,
Betty Carter, PJ Harvey, Lou Reed,
Stan Ridgeway,
The Persuasions,
Ghettoriginal Dance Company,Teresa Stratas,
David Johansenposted by hortense at 6:06 AM PST - 19 comments
July 14
"What we have here is a
Cabinet of Wonders, a place where things of interest are set out, in possibly bizarre, possibly fetishistic presentation, for perusal by the discerning, who understand that presentation, and scientific interest, are all a form of magic."
[via Neil Gaiman]posted by Kattullus at 10:43 PM PST - 15 comments
The Ayn Rand Institute held their
yearly confab in Telluride, CO, near the purported location of the fiction Gault's Gulch of
Atlas Shrugged, celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of the most turgid novels of all time. Part of the program included a panel of academics discussing their experiences "as objectivists." The
Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the state of objectivism in academe.
Rand Grants are up,
tenure is tendentious, and a for-profit
Founders Institute appears to be foundering. (more inside)
posted by beelzbubba at 7:39 PM PST - 111 comments
Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by Stan Chin at 12:43 AM PST - 111 comments
In honor of the 8th Anniversary of MetaFilter, here are 8 YouTube links to...
CAT SCANS
Oh, what heck, here are 8 more...
LOL SCANSposted by wendell at 12:00 AM PST - 23 comments
July 13
Songs You Didn't Know Were Cover Versions: Good Lovin',
Mambo No. 5,
The City of New Orleans,
Fernando,
The First Cut Is the Deepest,
I Love Rock 'n' Roll,
Just A Gigolo,
Without You,
Don't Turn Around,
Let's Live for Today,
Dazed and Confused,
Seasons in the Sun,
Pass the Dutchie,
There's Always Something There to Remind Me,
Gloria,
Respect,
Turn Turn Turn,
When the Levee Breaks,
Do You Wanna Touch Me,
Cum on Feel the Noize,
Hanging on the Telephone,
I Go Blind,
I Will Always Love You,
Take Me to the River,
Louie Louie,
The Twist etc. etc.
posted by jonp72 at 6:17 PM PST - 111 comments
Able Seacat
Simon was the ship's cat serving with HMS Amethyst during the
Yangtze Incident in
1949. Despite the Captain's dislike of Simon (he would often leave "tributes" of dead rats in the Captain's bed and went to sleep in his hat) he served for over a year until the HMS Amethyst was
attacked. The ship ran aground and during this time Communist-trained* rats infiltrated the ship. Despite being wounded in action by the shelling, Simon continued to carry out his duties, ridding the ship of all Communist insurgent rodents and
boosting morale amongst the wounded sailors.
*
probably not but it sounded good.posted by longbaugh at 12:59 PM PST - 20 comments
July 12
Completely amazing graph of every NBA player for every season in which he played at least five minutes since 1979. Points Per Game are on the Y-Axis, sum total of every other stat on the X-axis, with the data points colored with RGB depending on the player's statistical tendencies during that season. Full explanation of methodology
here. Gigantic monitor recommended. Via the always excellent
TrueHoop.
posted by Kwine at 9:28 PM PST - 20 comments
Toto are marketing the
Washlet in America. A nicely designed site without any scatological references. Possibly NSFW intro.
[flash]posted by tellurian at 5:39 PM PST - 50 comments
Fuck Yuo I Am a Robot are offering their album Compensator for the Accelerator for free download from their site. Infectious ass-shakin' Estonian electro-pop. Lyrics to track 2 NSFW, likewise sleeve art jpgs if you opt for the .zip download. You can sample one of the tracks,
Hydraulic, on YouTube if you don't know them and would like to check them out first, though personally I can't get enough of
Zukunft (direct mp3 link).
posted by nthdegx at 4:33 PM PST - 18 comments
Clones, Robots and Second-Life... Having solved all other crimes, the Australian Federal Police Commissioner gave us a trifecta of the scary earlier this week. I'd have posted it before but I was waiting for some statement that it was all a fake.
Boingboing has it so it must be true! (Caution: lolcats).
posted by ninazer0 at 4:07 PM PST - 24 comments
The Manual (How To Have a Number One - The Easy Way). Both light-hearted and thorough, the Timelords, aka the KLF, wrote this tongue-in-cheek manual in 1988 following their own novelty pop No. 1 "
Doctorin' the Tardis". "If you are already a musician stop playing your instrument. Even better, sell the junk. It will become clearer later on but just take our word for it for the time being." Oh and apparently have lots of tea on hand.
posted by yeti at 2:19 PM PST - 35 comments
In the grand tradition of
Killer comes
Humans Vs. Zombies, a campus game that's growing in popularity. From its origins at
Goucher, it's spread to a reported two dozen colleges. An interview with the game's moderator is
here, and you can watch the 45-minute documentary from one of the games on
Google Videoposted by Pope Guilty at 1:21 PM PST - 18 comments
In January 2005 , someone using the name "Rahodeb" went online to a Yahoo stock-market forum and posted this opinion: "No company would want to buy Wild Oats Markets Inc., a natural-foods grocer, at its price then of about $8 a share." Who was that random fool? Why, none other than John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods. Whole Foods
purchased Wild Oats earlier this year for approximately $18.50 a share, but
the FTC has an issue with Whole Foods buying out their competitor. Mackey had responded to the FTC's complaint on his
blog, but has not posted since some of his
other online comments became publicly attached to his name.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:01 AM PST - 80 comments
Star Trek as you’ve never seen it. In a clever, terribly NSFW voice-over parody of
Star Trek,
Star Hood Trek takes the crew of the
Enterprise to . . . well, it's NSFW. But Spock falls in love, Kirk shows himself to be an insufferable martinet, and Bones, well, Bones just wants the tang. Eight part series:
Part 2,
Part 3,
Part 4,
Part 5,
Part 6,
Part 7, and
Part 8.
Also, you'd think in the 24th century, they'd have a cure for mono . . . .
posted by John of Michigan at 9:08 AM PST - 40 comments
How do you do: since 1950,
Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, Illinois has produced dramatized salvation stories which are now
syndicated around the world. 2,950 weekly one hour stories have been produced so far, and the variety of wayward paths these poor sinners have taken is astonishing, running the gamut from "
Gambling, Lying, Fear", to "
Country Music, Bigamy, Pride" to "
Jewish, Seeking, Piano(
part 2)." Whatever their false beliefs, all these fortunate folks have one thing in common (well, besides being voiced by the
same few people): their hearts and minds and lives have all been
UNSHACKLED! With impressive production values and sound effects created onstage during the live taping, it may be the last true radio drama.
Sadly, PGM does not evangelize open audio formats; Real or WMP only.posted by contraption at 2:26 AM PST - 11 comments
July 11
Tony Blair's ex-Master of Spin and closest adviser is on a media whirlwind promoting his diary. Campbell's apparently straight talking nature gives the prospects of some tantalizing insight into the inner workings of number 10 for the majority of Blair's premiership. He's not getting it all his own way, though. BBC Radio 4's John Humphrey's on the
Today Programme (
Real audio) (
MP3) was more interested in the failings of a government and political movement for which he was an architect and key player, and particularly Campbell's legacy of elevating the role of spin in British politics, even in the inner working of government, allegedly sexing up an intelligence dossier in order to make a more compelling case for war in Iraq (
See 10 ways to sex up a dossier). The Guardian, in an article titled
Did he mean me?, invited some of those named in his diaries to give feedback, or should that be biteback?
posted by nthdegx at 3:24 PM PST - 7 comments
"Why should candidates, or issue groups, spend millions on traditional advertising when they can generate hundreds of thousands of hits from simply uploading a video? Take, for example, the Hillary Clinton campaign's use of a
Soprano’s spoof to unveil a campaign theme song....she generated a stunning amount of favorable press and television coverage (not to mention millions of dollars worth of free advertising)."
* A well produced video distributed on the Web can have great impact. For example, in a
dispute last year a United Steelworkers union video forced Goodyear back to the bargaining table. A
new video produced by the International Association of Firefighters
may have impact on Rudy Guiliani's campaign for President. "...[The video's] release on the Internet hints at a broadening effort to spread [the union's] dim assessment of the Mayor and has already drawn comparisons with the campaign by the
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry in 2004."
*posted by ericb at 2:40 PM PST - 52 comments
People pictures; Or, Photographs by Mole and Thomas, E.O. Goldbeck, and Others, Taken Between the years 1915 – 1920, and Consisting of Many People Lined Up and Posed in Such a Way that they Resemble Human Heads, the Statue of Liberty, Eagles, and Other Great Patriotic Symbols of This Nation.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:53 PM PST - 16 comments
Rob Rummel-Hudson is a likeable smartass, who's been blogging
forever. He and Julie have a
cute daughter,
Schuyler. One day, she was
diagnosed with a rare, serious neurological condition:
Bilateral Perisylvian Polymicrogyria or, as they have come to call it,
Schuyler's Monster. Rob continued his candid, passionate diary - at one point stirring the growing
group of
loyals to raise more than $10,000 dollars (in less than a
month!), endowing Schuyler with a
speech device (a.k.a.
Big Box of Words).
Slated for
publication in 2008, as
blogs-become-books go, this
father/
daughter story deserves a
closer look.
posted by progosk at 12:18 PM PST - 17 comments
Imagine being the mayor of Los Angeles, and after months (years, really) of rumored infidelity with an unknown woman, you finally decide to go public with news that you and your wife are officially separating. So you might ask yourself, as mayor, "How can I spin this story so as to minimize the damage to my reputation?" And it seems a good start would be to allow only one television network to cover your press conference live - hopefully, a network that is sympathetic to your political causes, and has a strong voice that will speak to your voting base as favorably as possible. So all was good in mid-June, when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asked Telemundo to exclusively air the somewhat disastrous, but fairly well-contained, announcement of separation - which included a request for privacy, and a plea to respect the line that separates personal from political life. And that's when the proverbial shit hits the fan. A month later, Villaraigosa admits that
the woman that anchors the 6 o'clock news on Telemundo - and announced the break-up to a national audience - is the woman he's being cheating with. Fox News also reports, and in keeping up with tradition,
fucks up the pronunciation of his last name.posted by phaedon at 12:02 PM PST - 57 comments
July 10
The Indoor Yield-O-Rama is a scientific look at how much marijuana people can expect to grow under certain conditions. No matter you think about marijuana or your country's drug laws, the level of sophistication in this statistical analysis may surprise you.
posted by mistermoore at 7:58 PM PST - 56 comments
Burroughs A 1983 documentary by Howard Brookner on William S. Burroughs.
89 mins, G-vid, a bit more inside...posted by carsonb at 4:47 PM PST - 13 comments
Read a Book. Drink some water. Buy some land (not rims). Brush your teeth. Wear deodorant (it's not expensive). Some say it's a parody, some say it's an important urban social statement set to a phat beat. The artist is
Bomanni "D'Mite" Armah and it was originally
aired at the NY Comic Con and a few times on BET.
posted by revmitcz at 3:54 PM PST - 46 comments
You wake up, walk out into the early morning air, kiss your wife goodbye, pet the Chihuahua, and
sink into your lawn chair for another breathtaking flight. On Saturday Kent Couch set off to recreate, for the second time, the
famous flight of
Larry Walters, balloon-lawn-chair-aviator and
Darwin Award Honorable Mention. Kent flew some 193 miles using 105 helium balloons, and unlike
some previous fliers, his event was not only successful, it was photographed by a chase plane.
posted by Muddler at 11:22 AM PST - 27 comments
True Cost to Own. The Edmunds Inc. True Cost to Own pricing system calculates the additional costs you may not have included when considering your next vehicle purchase. These extra costs include: depreciation, interest on your loan, taxes and fees, insurance premiums, fuel costs, maintenance, and repairs. Search below to view the TCO of any vehicle.posted by srboisvert at 8:25 AM PST - 35 comments
The Censored Eleven [
IMDB] is a
group of Warner Brothers cartoons that have been withheld from syndication because of their racial stereotypes:
Hittin' the Trail to Hallelujah Land (1931;
info),
Sunday Go to Meetin' Time (1936;
info),
Clean Pastures (1937;
info),
Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937),
Jungle Jitters (1938),
The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938),
All This and Rabbit Stew (1941;
info),
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943;
info),
Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943;
info),
Angel Puss (1944), and
Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears (1944).
[more inside]posted by kirkaracha at 7:01 AM PST - 65 comments
The Prime Game is not really much of a game, but it
is a neat & little-known fact about the decimal representation of prime numbers.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:34 AM PST - 24 comments
July 9
The Centennial Project. During the
100th Anniversary of Oklahoma's statehood, MeFi'er
Brittanie is serializing two personal first-person accounts of her family's journey into the Sooner State, including both her
great-great-grandfather's efforts to make the 1891 Land Run and
another relative's meticulous biographical history which extends as far back as the Civil War. [via
mefi projects]
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:00 PM PST - 10 comments
single link newsfilter FPP: (hopefully not a DP!)
She did it! (
cache) Deborah Jean Palfrey (aka the DC Madam) has released the phone records. Get them before they disappear!
posted by krash2fast at 6:40 PM PST - 217 comments
A Pale Blue Dot - An Unauthorized view. Some time before he died in 1996, Carl Sagan recorded a partial audio version of his 1994 book "Pale Blue Dot". Often described as the "sequel" to Cosmos, the audio version of Pale Blue Dot is, at this moment, regrettably out of print.
This video is "episode one" of an unauthorized attempt at producing a series of videos based on Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" audio book combined with a soundtrack and appropriate video and still images intended to recall the feel of the classic documentary series "Ascent of Man" and "Cosmos"
posted by empath at 4:43 PM PST - 8 comments
The Paisley Underground. From about 1982 to 1985, the Los Angeles club scene featured a bunch of guitar bands on the verge of being the next big thing, including
The Dream Syndicate,
Green on Red, The Long Ryders,
The Rain Parade,
Game Theory (later known as
The Loud Family) and, of course,
The Bangles (the only ones who managed to actually become a big thing).
Michael Quercio of
The Three O'Clock and
Salvation Army inadvertently named the scene "
Paisley underground" when he made an off handed joke during a radio interview. Most of the bands are now, to borrow a phrase from
Game Theory leader
Scott Miller, languishing in national obscurity, as opposed to local obscurity.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:28 PM PST - 30 comments
Jessica Dimmock: I was approached by a cocaine dealer who made it clear that he was a dealer. Over the course of the conversation he made it clear that if I wanted to follow him and photograph him I could. He took me to a variety of places - parties, people's apartments, the owner of an escort service. The last place he ever took me was the apartment where the project starts.
Jessica Dimmock is the 2006 recipient of the
Inge Morath Award to encourage young female photojournalists. Her series, The Ninth Floor is epic in its savage and true depiction of the reality of drugs in New York City. NSFW.
posted by parmanparman at 7:57 AM PST - 160 comments
Remember the old 8-bit Nintendo glory days, when you'd save your allowances to buy an overpriced cartridge for $49.99 only to discover that it was a piece of crap? If you've been nursing hatred and remorse in your soul all these years, then
The Angry Nintendo Nerd has got your back. I find his profanity-laced rants on such turds as
Simon's Quest and
The Karate Kid to be strangely cathartic. Best of all is his two-part nostalgia trip that sums up what everyone our age thought of the ill-fated original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie trilogy.
Part I,
Part II.
posted by ELF Radio at 1:03 AM PST - 49 comments
July 8
Musekeweya ("new dawn") is a phenomenally popular radio drama broadcast out of
Kigali, Rwanda. The soap, funded by Dutch NGO
La Benevolencija, follows the story of two star-crossed lovers who come from opposing villages involved in an increasingly violent struggle. Thought Rwandan law makes it difficult to discuss the genocide in the media, the show aims to open a dialog using the fictional villages of Bumanzi and Muhumuro as a proxy for Hutus and Tutsis.
A soap opera may seem like an unlikely vehicle to tackle a topic of such national importance, but it's actually
not uncommon. And, certainly, Rwanda is a country that knows all too well about the
power of radioposted by meta_eli at 8:36 PM PST - 8 comments
Real Dolls and the men who love them - this 46 minute documentary explores the lives of four men and the relationships they have established with alternative partners in life. NSFW - doll nudity alert.
posted by 
