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Each month, the Notices of the American Math Society runs a column called "What is...." which aims to explain an advanced mathematical concept in two pages, at a level accessible to a good undergrad math major. Armin Straub, a postdoc at Illinois, has collected them all in one place. [more inside]
posted by escabeche at 7:15 PM PST - 33 comments

The first sentences of notable novels. Diagrammed. From Pop Chart Lab (previously).
posted by davidjmcgee at 6:08 PM PST - 50 comments

How Johnny Cash was nearly killed by an ostrich in 1981. Surprise toy in the bottom of the box: "Folsom Prison Blues" covered by a band called Ostriches.
posted by NedKoppel at 5:58 PM PST - 20 comments

"You've had me in a luge. You've had me on a Brahma bull, that thing with a big, big hump. Then you had me zipline on the world's fastest zipline. Then you had me walk on the lovely CN Tower." This week, Rick Mercer and Jann Arden's big date involves harnesses and winches and also donkeys, but not at the same time.
posted by maudlin at 5:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Yo La Tengo are once again playing requests for pledges beginning at 9pm US EST TONIGHT on WFMU. Every year, Yo La Tengo perform requests live on-air in exchange for pledges, to help keep freeform noncommercial radio station WFMU (91.1 FM in Jersey City, NJ) on the air. This year is no exception. They will begin playing at 9pm US EST tonight, and will be playing listener requests for several more hours.
posted by trashflow at 5:48 PM PST - 22 comments

The comic strip documentary STRIPPED not only landed the first ever on-camera interview with Bill Watterson, but he liked the film so much he drew the poster. This is his second piece of art for public consumption and his first cartoon since December 31st, 1995.
posted by griphus at 5:39 PM PST - 24 comments

HBO's controversial new True Detective series has sparked a renewed interest in an unlikely subject: an 1895 book called The King In Yellow. Praised by H. P. Lovecraft, the book is a collection of short stories in which a play called The King In Yellow is somehow involved. A play, which, in an alternate world, "could not be judged by any known standard" but in which it was "acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck" leaves its readers changed, and perhaps insane. It's inspired other authors (and the occasional imitator) ever since, and you can read it for yourself in your browser or, still free, on your e-reader. True Detective's bleak world view and story of lives tinged with madness fits right in, whether the mythology eventually pans out in the series or not.
posted by tyllwin at 4:26 PM PST - 499 comments

Timeholes is a 2 minute film that introduces a concept (time travel is happening!), the problem with it (a lot of assholes are using it!), and executes a perfectly short story around those two things.
posted by mediocre at 4:11 PM PST - 15 comments

The Asylum gets all the attention (and the lucrative gig filling time for "SyFy") but they're far from the only company out there making "mockbusters," those ultra low budget, direct-to-DVD movies named similar to big Hollywood blockbusters, in the hopes that an inattentive purchaser will buy their movie in the hopes they're getting something better. But The Asylum's not the only ones making them, and a prominent mockbuster subgenre is that of companies making really poor CG movies that resemble Pixar and Dreamworks hits only to the extent that they can maintain plausible, legal deniability, their profit margins relying on clueless grandparents getting something nice for the little ones.

Two of these companies are Video Brinquedo (trailer for their Little & Big Monsters and some clips from its sequel) and Spark Plug Entertainment (trailer for An Ant's Life). Far more of their output, including whole movies, awaits you than you could ever hope to stomach.... [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 4:06 PM PST - 35 comments

Nat King Cole. Eartha Kitt. Mahalia Jackson. Pearl Bailey. Cab Calloway. Ella Fitzgerald. Billy Preston. All assembled for a single musical: the 1958 W.C. Handy biopic St. Louis Blues. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 3:41 PM PST - 6 comments

The Problem With Little White Girls (and Boys): Why I Stopped Being a Voluntourist

It turns out that I, a little white girl, am good at a lot of things. I am good at raising money, training volunteers, collecting items, coordinating programs, and telling stories. I am flexible, creative, and able to think on my feet. On paper I am, by most people’s standards, highly qualified to do international aid. But I shouldn’t be.

[...] I don’t want a little girl in Ghana, or Sri Lanka, or Indonesia to think of me when she wakes up each morning. I don’t want her to thank me for her education or medical care or new clothes. Even if I am providing the funds to get the ball rolling, I want her to think about her teacher, community leader, or mother. I want her to have a hero who she can relate to – who looks like her, is part of her culture, speaks her language, and who she might bump into on the way to school one morning.

posted by spiderskull at 2:34 PM PST - 108 comments

This cartoon by graphic designer and cartoonist 阿塗 (Ah To) contains 81 Cantonese proverbs and idioms in one image. It was originally published on the Hong Kong website Passion Times, and was inspired by a 1559 oil painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder called Netherlandish Proverbs. [more inside]
posted by Corinth at 2:09 PM PST - 17 comments

SXSW Interactive At 20
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:44 PM PST - 11 comments

Jeremy Lewis ... calls normcore “one facet of a growing anti-fashion sentiment.” His personal style is ... “exhaustingly plain”—this winter, that’s meant a North Face fleece, khakis, and New Balances. Lewis says his “look of nothing” is about absolving oneself from fashion, “lest it mark you as a mindless sheep.”

posted by rebent at 12:13 PM PST - 222 comments

Taco Bell's latest food experiment: waffle-based breakfast tacos.
posted by The Whelk at 12:12 PM PST - 147 comments

In 1931, at a time when the American comic book barely existed, Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama wrote and drew the semi-autobiographical Manga Yonin Shosei, possibly not just the first graphic novel, but certainly the first manga published in the US, written in a mixture of Japanese and English. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:09 PM PST - 3 comments

David Byrne covers Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" (slyt)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:04 PM PST - 34 comments

Life After Pi : How Rythm & Hues declared bankruptcy and 11 days later won an Oscar for their work on 'Life of Pi' (SLYT). [more inside]
posted by PenDevil at 12:03 PM PST - 23 comments

"Q: What is the story behind Lunchbox Doodles and how long have you been doing it? A: It really started as a result of the fond memories I have of opening my lunch at school and reading notes my mother would place inside. While I can't remember specifically what they said, they had an impact on me. They served as a reminder that my parents were thinking of me even when I wasn't with them."
posted by ColdChef at 12:03 PM PST - 9 comments

In March 1993 Bikini Kill toured the UK. "It Changed My Life" is a film about that tour, with openers Huggy Bear, & contributions by the Raincoats, Sister George, and Skinned Teen. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:52 AM PST - 14 comments

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia has ruled that Texas' ban on the recognition of marriage equality is unconstitutional. The ruling comes days after the launch of Freedom To Marry's Southern Campaign, and almost a week after a judge in Illinois ruled that gay and lesbian couples there had the right to marry immediately, rather than June 1, as the legislature had previously passed. The Texas ruling has been stayed pending appeal.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:46 AM PST - 82 comments

"What you’re about to see are hundreds of men across two sports not merely tolerating a gay player because he’s a peer in their league, but actually accepting him because he’s their friend." Former NFL linebacker, current sports analyst, and long-time equal rights proponent Scott Fujita writes about 'Michael Sam, Jason Collins paving the way for a better workplace, world'.
posted by komara at 10:45 AM PST - 12 comments

Ibragim was a womanizer. He was kind to children. He had a sweet tooth, and a temper. Who killed three men in Waltham, Massachusetts, on September 11 2011? And could solving that case have prevented the Boston Bombings? The answers may never be clear, because the chief surviving suspect, Ibragim Todashev, was shot by the FBI while allegedly on the brink of confessing. Journalist Susan Zalkind's investigation turned up many more questions about the Bureau's handling of the case than it answered. It's also been featured on This American Life. Warning: the first link contains photos of Todashev's dead body.
posted by daisyk at 10:32 AM PST - 19 comments

How much my novel cost me: "It’s hard to write about being broke because brokeness is so relative; “broke” people run the gamut from the trust-funded jerk whose drinks you buy because she’s “so broke right now” to the people who sleep outside the bar where she’s whining. But by summer 2012 I was broke, and in debt, and it was no one’s fault but mine." (Previously)
posted by Memo at 9:58 AM PST - 121 comments

The Internet is Fucked
posted by garlic at 9:48 AM PST - 64 comments

Writer and sports personality Brittney Cason thought she had been recruited for what seemed like a legitimate network job covering the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Only days before she left, flags started going up.
posted by dry white toast at 9:42 AM PST - 95 comments

Perhaps you would like many pictures of mutant vegetables, or a look back on how animals have been perceived or a short guide to the museum of supernatural history. If so, Uli Westphal has you covered.
posted by frimble at 9:18 AM PST - 7 comments

The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia. As part of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's investigation, NASA devised a plan to save Columbia's crew had they known that the foam strike damaged the shuttle. Previously.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 9:13 AM PST - 29 comments

Science journalist and NOVA correspondent extraordinaire Miles O'Brien was working on a story in Japan and the Philippines when a piece of luggage fell on his arm causing minor swelling. The next day his arm was amputated due to Acute Compartment Syndrome. He recounts his experience with as much humor and grace as one can muster.
posted by ghostpony at 8:48 AM PST - 41 comments

Music Machinery presents a map of each U.S. state's most distinct favorite band or recording artist, as well as an app for playing with the data.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:29 AM PST - 75 comments

Steve Jobs Memorial Statue Has Been Unveiled And... It's Hideous
posted by Evilspork at 6:56 AM PST - 153 comments

Our Comrade the Electron. Maciej Cegłowski (previously) delivered a talk at Webstock in Wellington, New Zealand on theremin inventor Lev Termen (previously), futurism, the Dutch Golden Age, and the modern surveillance state.
posted by Cash4Lead at 6:39 AM PST - 14 comments

Paco de Lucia (1947 - 2014) legendary flamenco guitarist and composer has died aged 66.
His death is an ‘irreparable loss’ to world of culture.
Entre dos Aguas and his YouTube page and a brief biography.
posted by adamvasco at 5:45 AM PST - 36 comments

The Long, Slow Surrender of American Liberals "The left has no particular place it wants to go. And, to rehash an old quip, if you have no destination, any direction can seem as good as any other." (Originally in Harpers)
posted by mecran01 at 2:43 AM PST - 136 comments

Judith Butler explained with cats. See also Foucault explained with hipsters. Via Binarythis
posted by Chairboy at 2:25 AM PST - 25 comments

2CELLOS (Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser) have released a new music video. The period audience are...Thunderstruck. [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 12:08 AM PST - 35 comments