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Dave's Garden is a website where roughly a quarter of a million gardeners and farmers exchange plants and seeds, horticultural tips, photos of produce, and garden diaries. It also offers PlantFiles (an online plant database), Garden Watchdog (a merchant list that aggregates site members' ratings), Garden Bookworm (members rate books), BugFiles (about bugs) and PlantScout (helps you find a nursery that has the plant you want). Dave apparently likes to coin words, as there's also a Gardenology (glossary) and a Botanary.
posted by owhydididoit at 10:47 PM PST - 11 comments

Politcal cartoons... not quite ready for prime time.
posted by Huplescat at 9:24 PM PST - 39 comments

Bridging the digital divide - The ubiquitious cellphone has been recognized as a key tool for the social and economic development for many at the bottom of the pyramid - Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr Yunus' GrameenPhone received an award in a category that didn't exist last year - "Best Use of Mobile for Social & Economic Development" for their Healthline project at the recently concluded 3GSM Congress in Barcelona last week. Another winner was the ultra low cost Motofone which was designed after two years of research into the needs of the rural and urban poor in India. We need many more such applications available for the "other 4 billion" if this bridge is to be built across the divide.
posted by infini at 9:05 PM PST - 37 comments

A somber video with music purporting to show the downing of a US helicopter surfaces on the New York Times and YouTube. Some background here.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:08 PM PST - 61 comments

Watch BBC's documentary: Iran, the least understood country (Google video | Torrent) Rageh Omaar discovers that Iran is a country that bans women from riding motorcycles but where 60 per cent of the student population is female. There are stories of taxi drivers, wrestlers, business women, people working with drug addicts and the country's leading pop star and his manager - the 'Simon Cowell' of Iran. Read his article in the Sunday Times.
posted by hoder at 7:15 PM PST - 30 comments

Hamster-ific! If you're tired of blowing up aliens or your roommates in Unreal Tournament 2004, you can switch gears and play a game in which you're the hamster, complete with your very own hamster ball.
posted by drstein at 6:29 PM PST - 7 comments

The Prisoners of YouTube is a pretty good longish article on all the reluctant internet video celebs, including Star Wars Kid, Afroninja, the Numa Numa Kid, and more. It's an interesting look at the downside of unwarranted attention and how a few people have turned these embarrassing moments in the sun to their advantage.
posted by mathowie at 6:05 PM PST - 51 comments

This site is very strange and very lovely.
posted by leahwrenn at 5:08 PM PST - 38 comments

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda believes he is the Apostle Paul. Or Jesus. Or maybe the antichrist. Many disagree, but he and his purported thousands of followers continue to present their case.
posted by saraswati at 4:30 PM PST - 37 comments

Haka is a type of ritual performance native to Aotearoa. Occurring before battles or peacetime ceremonies, it is less of a "war chant" than a way of fiercely asserting group solidarity while referring to a specific ancestry or significant event. The best known haka are probably the versions practiced by the New Zealand All Blacks: Ka Mate and, more recently, Kapa O Pango. More than just a traditional dance, haka has been an important element of the Maori Renaissance- the revival of language, culture and arts that has occurred since the re-affirmation of the Treaty of Waitangi (and has recently come under attack). For the All Blacks, haka now connects both Maori and Pakeha (outsider) players through a shared history and physical discipline, although this was not always the case. Nevertheless, the haka can make a powerful impression, particularly when someone answers in kind.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:21 PM PST - 65 comments

The Hamster Ball for Gamers
The VirtuSphere is a fully immersive virtual reality sphere that enables free movement in any direction for military and first-responder training (gaming), tourism (gaming), education (gaming), real estate walk-throughs (gaming), the possibilities are only limited by your imagination (gaming). You can run, jump, walk or otherwise locomote (i.e. roll a wheelchair) through an endless virtual world. And look like a total dork doing it but who cares? The videos make it look totally badass and fun and great exercise too! Though I do wonder what happens if/when you trip and biff.
posted by fenriq at 3:12 PM PST - 15 comments

An Estimate of the Number of Shakespeare's Atoms in a Living Human Being
posted by mrbula at 3:12 PM PST - 32 comments

Fat MRI shows the difference between subcutaneous and deep body fat, and makes some distinctions beyond just apple/pear. Here's another article, same site. I originally found this strange image searching for info on health effects of fat/red meat depending on whether it's mainly pastured as frequently discussed here or mainly unnaturally fed (as per Omnivore's Dilemma.)
posted by Listener at 3:02 PM PST - 12 comments

New York's Quiet Library Sketch Comedy Group calls UCB Theatre their home, and they offer their videos online as well as a podcast - my favorite clips are Marcel the French Rapper, Perfectly Aligned and Roofie Roulette. [last link NSFW]
posted by phaedon at 3:01 PM PST - 8 comments

Researchers have discovered men with an unusual form of dementia have a higher rate of vasectomy than men the same age who are cognitively normal. Okay, so maybe it should be that men think with their cojones? But will this be enough of a risk to outweigh the declared benefits of this procedure?
posted by jeanmari at 2:31 PM PST - 31 comments

The Hands of God. Alyson Levy visited a Christian puppetry camp and made a short documentary out of it (direct links to parts 1, 2, 3, and 4).
posted by hypocritical ross at 1:21 PM PST - 37 comments

Very odd illustrations from caricaturist J.J. Grandville's 1868 book L'Exposition de l'Avenir. More oddities from 1829's Les Métamorphoses Du Jour (some in color here), and lots of delightful garden scenes from his 1847 classic Les Fleurs Animees (vol 1, vol 2). Some consider Grandville one of the earliest proto-surrealists. [more Grandville links in this great post at BibliOdyssey]
posted by mediareport at 1:08 PM PST - 15 comments

"A Naked-Eye Nova in Scorpius" - Scorpius, the constellation home to M4, has a nova visible to the naked eye. Skytonight.com has a cool javascript almanac for you to see when it will be most visible for where you live.
posted by frecklefaerie at 12:45 PM PST - 7 comments

Sweet Meats are the perfect stuffed meat to decorate your home.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:52 AM PST - 26 comments

Artificial reef off Fort Lauderdale coast now an ecological disaster. Then: A 1972 Goodyear news release proclaimed the reef would "provide a haven for fish and other aquatic species,' and noted the "excellent properties of scrap tires as reef material.' Now: "They're a constantly killing coral destruction machine."
posted by nevercalm at 9:50 AM PST - 44 comments

Beware of the flying guillotine! supposedly created for the emperor Yung Cheng of the Qing dynasty, the flying guillotine was featured in some of the strangest martial arts movies of the 70s and even challenged the not-so-legendary one armed boxer (not to be confused with the really legendary one armed swordsman).
posted by darkripper at 9:02 AM PST - 36 comments

A beginner's guide to faking your death on the internet - a post without an omg is a post incomplete. (YouTube alert - via Borklog)
posted by madamjujujive at 8:44 AM PST - 44 comments

Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas. The "tipping point" will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power.
posted by stbalbach at 7:42 AM PST - 88 comments

McCain: I would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade, Back then our hero said keep abortiion rights. Now, though, with the gift of a more mature perspective (and a hankering for power), he says: McCain: Roe V. Wade Should Be Overturned
posted by Postroad at 7:21 AM PST - 101 comments

Jazztube.com has hundreds of great jazz performances in one place
posted by petsounds at 7:12 AM PST - 9 comments

We could wait for NASA to build that permanent moon base they keep promising. Or we could just turn our apartments on earth into our own moon bases, space ships, or spy pads.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:49 AM PST - 12 comments

Hailed as the first major development in bicycle design for 150 years, ladies and gentlemen, it's the Sideways Bike.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:05 AM PST - 41 comments

Iridology may be bogus science, but it appears that the eyes really could windows to the soul as Swedish researchers reveal it may be possible to read a person's personality from their irises.
posted by electricinca at 5:56 AM PST - 14 comments

The word “scrotum” does not often appear in polite conversation. Yet there it is on the first page of “The Higher Power of Lucky,” by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. Apparently this is a problem for some librarians and parents.
posted by three blind mice at 1:15 AM PST - 86 comments

Iraq: The Hidden Story is a very interesting 48 minute Channel 4 report on the news you see and the news you don't. Not for the squeamish. via
posted by sergeant sandwich at 12:52 AM PST - 20 comments

The Vija Celmins of scrotal art (NSFW).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:10 AM PST - 45 comments