"Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.... At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and, at current rates, about one-third will have had an abortion." Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures in the U.S., but it can be very difficult to get unbiased information about the procedure. From Jezebel: The Girl's Guide to Having an Abortion.
posted by jokeefe at 10:39 PM PST - 107 comments

If you brave the flash interface, there is so much to find. Critical Dictionary has photography, ideas, and very strange music. [more inside]
posted by idiopath at 9:44 PM PST - 7 comments

Chris Colfer of Glee accepts his Golden Globe and speaks out against bullying.
posted by kmz at 9:39 PM PST - 69 comments

Jurrassic Park Theme Slowed Down 1,000%.
posted by pwally at 8:42 PM PST - 96 comments

You've met AZO, the videogame animator that can actually do the stunts he animates. Now meet MrOldMana, one of AZO's (former) game developer colleagues, who has his own particular eye-popping talent that makes Bruce Lee look like a punk.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:05 PM PST - 49 comments

The Rise of the New Global Elite The new global elite are fabulously wealthy, cosmopolitan, philanthrocapitalist, entrepreneurial, highly driven, frequently self-made, and confident they deserve their success. They are also often unsympathetic to the middle classes of the developed world. Said one senior executive: "...if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty [and] one American drops out of the middle class...that's not such a bad trade."
posted by shivohum at 4:49 PM PST - 70 comments

America by TV Shows. America by movies.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 4:20 PM PST - 48 comments

The photography of John Divola Divola's website can be a bit overwhelming, containing four decades worth of photographs, but it is well worth the effort. From his landmark Zuma series from the seventies, to his more recent shots of the X Files and Brady Bunch sets, there is not a dull image in the lot. I would also recommend Five Prints from the '80s, Isolated Houses in the '90s, and Artificial Nature and Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert from the '00s.
posted by puny human at 3:37 PM PST - 3 comments

Rule 34 expands once again. Real life Simpsons sex tape (nsfw) coming to a screen near you. Trust me you can not unsee this so watch at your own risk... [more inside]
posted by troll on a pony at 2:58 PM PST - 135 comments

The 10:23 challenge is an international protest over the weekend of February 5-6 2011, to make the simple statement: "Homeopathy - There's Nothing In It". Protesters will ingest significantly more than the recommended dosage of homeopathic remedies, to demonstrate the lack of efficacy. Here you can watch legendary sceptic James Randi take a lethal dose of homeopathic sleeping pills. (more at Science-Based Medicine)
posted by ivey at 11:32 AM PST - 223 comments

Video footage of an experimental LSD session from the 1950s, which concludes with a short discussion with philosopher Gerald Heard.
posted by gman at 10:35 AM PST - 139 comments

Das Racist's (Previously) video for Who's That? Brooown! is an homage to Sierra On-Line's early adventure games. Liked the video? Play the game!
posted by griphus at 10:05 AM PST - 30 comments

The "Brown Stabilizer" - better known as a Steadicam - had its first commercial use 35 years ago in Bound for Glory, Hal Ashby's biopic of Woody Guthrie. Later that year, it was used to film the iconic shot of Rocky Balboa running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But it was this shot in The Shining - which even Kubrick-hater Pauline Kael deemed "spectacular" - that showed the technology's full potential. (previously)
posted by Joe Beese at 10:04 AM PST - 41 comments

Em Maria Smedstad's cartoons. Blog: Grow Your Own Cows: Green evening. [more inside]
posted by Segundus at 9:53 AM PST - 5 comments

Is gun liability insurance on the horizon? The idea that gun owners should have liability insurance for their firearms is rarely a political issue, but can no-fault insurance for certain guns stay clear of the second amendment?
posted by Brian B. at 9:36 AM PST - 127 comments

Prog Rock! --- Prog Rock! --- Prog Rock! --- Prog Rock! --- Prog Rock! --- Prog Rock! --- Prog Rock! --- Prog Rock! --- ... prog rock? [more inside]
posted by spoobnooble at 9:23 AM PST - 89 comments

Before the rise in popularity of the bench press as the de facto test of upper body strength, the overhead press was king. However, the press began to fall out of favor in the 1970s. Legendary strength coach Bill Starr provides a history of the lift and offers a number of suggestions for strengthening it. Until 1972, the clean and press was one of the three contested lifts in Olympic weightlifting. It was dropped from competition in part because of the dynamic style some lifters developed for the press, which was said to make judging the lift difficult. Bill Starr explains how to perform the technical Olympic-style press, and veteran lifter Tommy Suggs coaches it in a three-part video series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).
posted by Anatoly Pisarenko at 8:56 AM PST - 46 comments

Watch a swarm of flying robotic drones construct a tiny building. In the future, construction workers will be a buzzing, mildly disturbing haze of mechanical diligence.
posted by Tom-B at 7:26 AM PST - 54 comments

Notch added music blocks to minecraft last week. Predictably, people have been making awesome stuff with it: Minecraft Rave., Deadmau5's I Remember in minecraft. (original, also, Deadmau5 playing Minecraft with fans), Billie Jean, Tetris, The Theme from The Office [more inside]
posted by empath at 6:45 AM PST - 44 comments

Extreme violence with a vapid smile Some NSFW for tiny Barbie sized adult toys and situations. It was really the attention to detail in these dioramas that caught my eye. After the subject matter, of course...
posted by Redhush at 6:36 AM PST - 39 comments

How (crowd) curation is making a comeback in search and how Facebook is using it to "remake whole industries."
posted by kliuless at 6:00 AM PST - 27 comments

Lead Pencil Studio is an architecture+art collaboration between Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo, based in Seattle. Featured last month in FastCoDesign: Billboard advertising clean air. Lots of Google links to their work. [Main site = mildly annoying interface YMMV]
posted by yoga at 5:11 AM PST - 3 comments

It's possible that Galileo arrived at basic laws of physics by studying Dante's Inferno. In 1588, Galileo gave two lectures questioning the scalability of Dante's Hell. A paper questions its importance.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:04 AM PST - 24 comments