February 21, 2013

Not suitable for ebooks

Flooded? A hurricane hit your house? Somebody left a cake book out in the rain and you'll never see that recipe again? Courtesy of Heritage Preservation: how to save wet books.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:54 PM PST - 9 comments

How “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid” Ruled The Internet

Chris Stokel-Walker of BuzzFeed explains the motivation and technology behind last year's “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid” viral video sensation. [Previously]
Four Canadian film students were assigned a project: Create a YouTube hoax video that gets 100,000 views. They got nearly 42 million instead. Here’s the definitive behind-the-meme look at how—and why—their homework snowballed into one of the most popular and rapidly spread videos ever.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:17 PM PST - 32 comments

There is need to fear! Underdog is no longer here!

W. Watts "Buck" Biggers, co-creator, producer and writer of Underdog has died at the age of 85. [more inside]
posted by plastic_animals at 8:13 PM PST - 51 comments

Matmos + rat cage = pretty sounds.

A nice documentary video of live electronic music sampling and improvisation featuring Matmos with a rat cage.
posted by loquacious at 8:06 PM PST - 15 comments

Pope Madness 2013

And now, one of the greatest sporting events of our time: Pope Madness 2013! Place your bets...
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:20 PM PST - 68 comments

Because those giant turbine blades aren't gonna clean themselves

"Companies like Rope Partner exist because rope access is the cheapest way to maintain the surfaces of wind turbines." [more inside]
posted by Quietgal at 7:05 PM PST - 19 comments

Corollary to Wheaton's Law.

How not to be a dick to your fat friends. (SLXOJ) Thought-provoking reading for anyone who is fat, or is friends with someone who is fat.
posted by shiu mai baby at 7:03 PM PST - 193 comments

Horns vs. Wings

"Am I shitting? It feels like I'm shitting!" Thus, with expletives and the birth of a child, begins Saga, a newish comic written by Brian K. Vaughan (previously, also author of Y: The Last Man) and illustrated by Fiona Staples. It's a sci-fi epic about two soldiers from opposing sides who fell in love, defected, had a kid, and are on the run from the armies they abandoned. To date, there have been 10 issues, well received by many (including some MeFites). A four-page preview can be found here. [more inside]
posted by Maecenas at 6:46 PM PST - 28 comments

The Last Man Up

"Like a lot of things in Alaska, the annual Mount Marathon Race in Seward is famously brutal, even dangerous. Which is precisely why Michael LeMaitre ran it--the last day he was seen alive."
posted by vidur at 6:13 PM PST - 32 comments

Keep Your Fancy Food Out of Our Neighbourhood!

PiDGiN Restaurant is a lovely new restaurant in Vancouver. Located across the street one of the most challenged parks (Pigeon Park) in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside. For some, it's a welcome addtion to the local dining scene. To others, it's a poke in the eye of the poor and disadvantaged living in possibly the worst neighbourhood in Canada and they want to put a stop to it. . [more inside]
posted by helmutdog at 6:10 PM PST - 85 comments

Scienc-y people do useful stuff, again.

This might change things. It might also really annoy people who have been putting scads of money into carbon capture.
posted by qinn at 5:50 PM PST - 38 comments

Robohub: Throwing and Catching an Inverted Pendulum with Quadrocopters

Throwing and Catching an Inverted Pendulum with Quadrocopters. From Robohub, a website about all things robotic.
posted by milquetoast at 3:55 PM PST - 40 comments

Durango Unchained

The Australian Raid On SuperDaE And How A Prank Over The Next Xbox Ended In Corporate Espionage
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 2:52 PM PST - 43 comments

Your dog is stupid

No, really, your dog is stupid. But THIS dog, this dog is pretty smart.
posted by HuronBob at 2:26 PM PST - 86 comments

A manned fly-by of Mars in 2018?

Space tourist Dennis Tito wants to send a 2-man crew to Mars in 5 years. The Inspiration Mars Foundation has sent out a media advisory for a press conference planned for next Wednesday, February 27. [more inside]
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 1:18 PM PST - 105 comments

Archaeology on the Information Superhighway

Websites from the 90s and early 2000s that are alive, but unupdated. [more inside]
posted by frimble at 12:39 PM PST - 59 comments

The basket is a particularly nice touch

Bicycle Jumping Mercury Morgan [more inside]
posted by unSane at 12:14 PM PST - 9 comments

Another Day, Another Press Conference Without Women

Another Day, Another Press Conference. Yesterday's Playstation 4 announcement was perhaps most notable in what it didn't include: any female presenters. Also discussed by Kotaku and The Verge. (The Verge also notes similar trends in press events from Nintendo, EA, HTC, and Apple.)
posted by kmz at 12:07 PM PST - 89 comments

"The vigilante myth at its most naked and vicious"

"In its original form, Double Dragon is, if nothing else, a game in which Lynyrd Skynyrd fights to rescue America from The Ramones, The Village People, and Grandmaster Flash." - Dan Whitehead of the Gameological Society on Double Dragon and how gaming reflects a culture's changing relationship with the urban landscape.
posted by EatTheWeek at 11:36 AM PST - 56 comments

"We are the walking dead!"

The zombie apocalypse. Threads. Pandemic. Doomsday Preppers. Post-apocalyptic pop-culture fiction of doom. What's it about? A Stanford scholar explains.
posted by stbalbach at 11:05 AM PST - 57 comments

Noisey British Masters

Noisey's feature British Masters features interviews by John Doran with Bryan Ferry, Luke Haines, Gary Newman, and Johnny Marr, thus far.
posted by juiceCake at 10:52 AM PST - 9 comments

Recursive Fury

"A theory quickly emerged: that believers in climate science had been the main people taking Dr. Lewandowsky’s survey, but instead of answering honestly, had decided en masse to impersonate climate contrarians, giving the craziest possible answers so as to make the contrarians look like whack jobs. So, a paper about a tendency among this group to believe in conspiracy theories was met by … a conspiracy theory." - Unlocking the Conspiracy Mind-Set [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 10:48 AM PST - 61 comments

More beholden to magnetism than gravity

Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun (via badastronomy and NASA's SDO)
posted by IvoShandor at 10:48 AM PST - 17 comments

Split decision

Is your wallet being gouged by the high price of medications? Cut that price in half. (pdf) [more inside]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:49 AM PST - 37 comments

TRY NOT TO THINK ABOUT CATS

The latest of Thomas Ridgewell's (aka TomSka) animated short-humor videos has hit youtube: asdfmovie6. (link in video to previous videos)
posted by The Whelk at 9:43 AM PST - 16 comments

Challah.

Daniel's Bar Mitzvah Save the Date (SLYT)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:02 AM PST - 59 comments

Born this way

Ethics of preemptive incarceration for deviant sexuality, specifically pedophila (Trigger warning)...recognizing as a society that certain individuals are intrinsically attracted to children need not and does not imply that we condone acting upon these desires. [Previously] Found via the excellent PsyDoctor8 [tumblr link].
posted by lonefrontranger at 8:30 AM PST - 49 comments

Leftover at 27?

BBC/NRI reports that women in China are being labeled "sheng nu" or "leftover women" after the age of 27. Beyond the traditional family pressure to get married, the Chinese government is applying pressure on single women to get married, fearful that a growing population of single men could cause civil unrest. [more inside]
posted by arcticseal at 8:17 AM PST - 57 comments

We are powerless buyers in a sellers’ market

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us. Summary: Inside the Cover Story. Related video: The Exorbitant Prices of Health Care [more inside]
posted by zarq at 8:12 AM PST - 85 comments

Coming to Canadian military ration packs: poutine in a pouch?

Included in this Canadian government call for alternate bids for "boil in a bag" rations is a request for +60,000 servings of poutine in a pouch - for those who don't know, that's french fries, gravy and cheese curds. Wonder how that'll hold up in a boil-in-a-bag pouch?
posted by MILNEWSca at 7:45 AM PST - 91 comments

It Happened On Brick Avenue

Dustincropsboy's first (and hopefully not last) stop-motion animated Lego film is a charming story of romance. He also made a poster for it.
posted by Legomancer at 5:39 AM PST - 8 comments

"Now, watch this drive."

Obama, DC Press Corps Locked In Mutual Loathing Pact. Mike Allen, of Politico, in his article Obama, The Puppet Master, said that Obama " has shut down interviews with many of the White House reporters who know the most and ask the toughest questions." John Cook (Gawker) replies: I will now tweet every question Politico's Mike Allen asked President George W. Bush during a May 2008 interview" (Screenshot) [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:38 AM PST - 90 comments

Lord of the Miserables

Listen to Gollum sing "I Dreamed a Dream". (SLYT, via)
posted by crossoverman at 4:36 AM PST - 19 comments

This Sunday, see the Dandy Fish take on the Prancy Horsies!

David Rappoccio has redesigned all the NFL logos to be British.
posted by JDHarper at 4:35 AM PST - 73 comments

What's It Like to Wake Up From a Tea Party Binge?

Mother Jones reports on the damage done to Florida by two years of tea party governance, and on the difficulty of repairing it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:41 AM PST - 76 comments

"There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet!"

Daily Telegraph: Why the world isn't running out of oil: "Moreover, as well as bountiful oilfields in North America, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other producers in the Middle East, there are massive, barely tapped reserves in South America, Africa and the Arctic: not billions of barrels’ worth, but trillions. So the planet is not about to run out of oil. On the contrary, according to a Harvard University report published last year, we are heading for a glut. The 75-page study, by oil executive Leonardo Maugeri, was based on a field-by-field analysis of most of the major oil exploration and development projects in the world, and it predicted a 20 per cent increase in global oil production by 2020." [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 2:09 AM PST - 69 comments

Why Gender Equality Stalled

When family and work obligations collide, mothers remain much more likely than fathers to cut back or drop out of work. But unlike the situation in the 1960s, this is not because most people believe this is the preferable order of things. Rather, it is often a reasonable response to the fact that our political and economic institutions lag way behind our personal ideals. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 1:32 AM PST - 25 comments

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