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Around the Coast Mountains The first part of my trip in 2010 was a kayak journey up the Inside Passage from Richmond, BC to Prince Rupert, BC... I only made it halfway in 2010, which was still quite a trip though! Next summer I plan to continue the kayak expedition and maybe start the bike ride back down the other side. MarkBC started his trip in Vancouver, British Columbia in June 2010, and ended his trip that August at Port Hardy, on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, after traveling along the Inside Passage. He traveled by inflatable kayak, and took plenty of interesting photos of wildlife along the way. He camped on the beach most of the way. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 9:37 PM PST - 16 comments

Nice Jewish Girl is an unmarried orthodox Jew. She started a blog six years ago. She wrote about being Shomer Negiah (not allowing herself physical contact with men other than relatives or a husband) and being a woman in her mid-thirties that has never kissed a man. Over the run of the blog, she decided to stop being Shomer Negiah while still looking for an Orthodox husband, kissed a man, and then broke up with him. For the last three years, she has been silent. Recently, she has returned to discuss the effect of Jewish law on her view of sex.
posted by ignignokt at 8:03 PM PST - 167 comments

Mutually exclusive exclusive realms. Until now. The hipsterscience hashtag on twitter is trending with abundant hipster science wankery. Two great tastes that taste blucky together for you! You disdainful hipster scientist you. A compilation of exclusivity here. [more inside]
posted by Cold Lurkey at 7:52 PM PST - 26 comments

For me, this was a first experience of seeing India play at home, and of Sachin Tendulkar playing in front of his own people. I chose a good game with which to start. I can think of few, if any, experiences in sport to match watching Tendulkar succeed in a home game. Roger Federer may occupy a similar status of universally-acknowledged greatness within tennis, but I think it is fair to say that Switzerland is not quite as passionate about tennis as India is about cricket. If Federer were to simultaneously play tennis whilst hoarding gold and providing banking facilities for dubious dictators, perhaps the fervour of his support would match that for Sachin. But the Swiss population is unlikely ever to top the one billion mark.

Don't know a thing about cricket? Wouldn't know a wicket from a googly? Don't worry, you won't have to know a thing to enjoy Andy Zaltzman's World Cup Blog. He is traveling around Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka attending various games. Zaltzman is best known to the world for the fabulous podcast The Bugle which he does with John Oliver. Therefore it should come as no surprise that he also does a cricket podcast. And he tweets about cricket too.
posted by Kattullus at 7:34 PM PST - 19 comments

Squatters on the Skyline: "Facing a mounting housing shortage, squatters have transformed an abandoned skyscraper in downtown Caracas into a makeshift home for more than 2,500 people." [SLNYTVP]
posted by bayani at 7:07 PM PST - 27 comments

Humans, Version 3.0. "The next giant leap in human evolution may not come from new fields like genetic engineering or artificial intelligence, but rather from appreciating our ancient brains." [Via] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 6:56 PM PST - 15 comments

On Friday night in Porto Alegre, Brazil, a banker named Ricardo Neis was driving behind a group of about 150 Critical Mass cyclist/activists who were riding en masse to promote inner-city cycling. Neis claims he felt threatened: his response to this feeling was to literally plow through the cyclists at full speed (incident begins at about 50 seconds into video). Miraculously, none of the cyclists were killed. Witnesses to the incident were shocked. Neis eventually abandoned his VW Golf before his involvement was discovered. Local cyclists doubt he will be charged with a crime.
posted by mightygodking at 6:49 PM PST - 206 comments

England cricketer Steven Davies has come out in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, having come out to the England squad prior to the Ashes, making him the first openly gay professional cricketer. The Guardian tries to work out what this says about cricket
posted by hoyland at 6:23 PM PST - 55 comments

A short film about that moment when you emerge from the subway and find yourself in a new and sometimes unexpected world. [SLVimeo]
posted by Rickalicioso at 5:46 PM PST - 28 comments

Jane Russell, Sex Symbol of the 1940's and 50's has passed on today; the stars shine a little dimmer today. Here she is in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
posted by Jaymzifer at 5:34 PM PST - 46 comments

"Sixty years ago this month, a musical icon was born. If you've listened to any kind of popular music from the past 60 years, you've heard a Telecaster." [more inside]
posted by Maaik at 5:24 PM PST - 58 comments

"Adbusters invites economics students around the world... to join the fight to revamp Econ 101 curriculums and challenge the endemic myopia of their tenured neoclassical profs." The gist of the Kick It Over Manifesto is largely environmental.
posted by gusandrews at 4:44 PM PST - 68 comments

"Completed in 1954, the 33 11-story buildings of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development was built as an attempt to address the housing crisis the poor faced in St Louis, Missouri. Only twenty years later, at 3pm on the 16th of March, 1972, the buildings were leveled, declared unfit for habitation because of unsafe and unsanitary conditions, coupled with rampant crime. The story of Pruitt-Igoe is a tragic urban fable, a complicated and loaded story of ambition, hubris and failure." (src)

"The Pruitt-Igoe Myth" is a documentary directed by Chad Freidrichs that dives into the complex history of the famed housing project (YouTube or Vimeo trailer). RustWire has an interesting interview with the documentary's creator. More information from Architizer, Homo Ludens, and Magical Urbanism. Be sure to check out the collection of pictures from the area and from the documentary in the creators' Flickr stream. [via Archinect and Mefi Projects] [more inside]
posted by spiderskull at 3:47 PM PST - 29 comments

Famous Objects from Classic Movies, the game. [via smissmiss]
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 3:40 PM PST - 61 comments

The new album from The Mountain Goats, All Eternals Deck, is streaming on NPR.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:06 PM PST - 78 comments

Will shareholders want to invest in companies that don't have a laser-like focus on profit?" "In one US state, they've just brought in a new law which protects companies who put social responsibility before making money [companies referred to as "benefit corporations"]. . . . Shareholders can't [sue] if the company takes decisions to, for example, protect the environment or buy locally, even if that hurts the bottom line" [7:30 BBC audio report]. One way for entrepreneurs to walk the socially responsible walk is to get certification from B Lab, a non-profit that issues trust marks [the "B Corporation" label] for entire companies, not just individual products: "The B Corporation legal framework bakes your values into the DNA of the company so they can better survive new management, new investors or even new ownership." [more inside]
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 2:58 PM PST - 37 comments

UK respite and foster parents may no longer be homophobic, even when it is due to religious belief. An English Christian couple acting as foster parents have been banned from further placements due to their statement that they could not tell children that homosexual relationships were of equal value, with judges stating that their claims that adoption should still be allowed as a "a travesty of reality". Reaction from the UK religious right (such as it is) is venomous. [more inside]
posted by jaduncan at 2:48 PM PST - 59 comments

The U.S. governmental Commission on Wartime Contracting held hearings today regarding the corruption, mismanagement, massive financial waste and lack of oversight among private defense contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. [more inside]
posted by The Emperor of Ice Cream at 1:30 PM PST - 47 comments

Revealing the man behind @MayorEmanuel. The Atlantic talks to Dan Sinker, who just outed himself as the voice of the brilliant @MayorEmanuel twitter feed (RIP).
posted by shiu mai baby at 1:14 PM PST - 46 comments

Google Demo Slam is a knockout competition between 84 different demonstrations of Google Tech. The "Slampionship" is down to the last four entries, but if you haven't seen them, you can check out all previous demos. My favourites : Rushmore and Chubby Bunny. (previously on metafilter)
posted by seanyboy at 1:00 PM PST - 17 comments

"The Australian Lyre-bird (Menura superba), the Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) and the Sky Lark (Alauda arvensis) remain among the most inventive song birds in the natural fauna. The former is known to perform a ritual in which it clears a small circle in the forest and mimics all the other song birds in its’ region. Furthermore, it also interpolates imitations of human-related activities such as snapping photo-apparatuses, growling chain-saws and falling trees. In many respects, the Lyre bird resembles the famous CASIO SK-1 6 bit sampler, but it is not as circuit-bendable." -- this is the introduction to one of the adventures in field research by Hemmelig Tempo. The Norwegian group may be considered to be an experimental musical improvisation trio, but they prefer the title of "research group." If this all sounds a bit chaotic, check out an earlier sound from 1/3 of the trio: DJ Barabass (more noise inside). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:53 PM PST - 14 comments

The manager of Girardi's Frozen Yogurt wants to make sure his employees understand what the corkboard in the back is for...in a monologue entitled: Girardi's Frozen Yogurt ( via ) [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:39 AM PST - 52 comments

'Poets don’t draw,' Jean Cocteau said. 'They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.' An ode to the Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:59 AM PST - 68 comments

BRUCE ROSENBAUM and his wife, Melanie, cook their food on what looks like a cast-iron Victorian stove. But the stove, like many items in the Rosenbaums' kitchen, has been gutted and repurposed. There's a modern appliance inside that antique shell, a theme that repeats itself from the fridge to their water heater. "We created this romantic Victorian feel to it," Bruce Rosenbaum said. "But everything works." The Massachusetts couple have steampunked their kitchen. [more inside]
posted by fixedgear at 10:08 AM PST - 113 comments

Talented musician Lady Gaga releases music video (1st of 2) for her single Born This Way. [more inside]
posted by rodmandirect at 9:56 AM PST - 223 comments

Adorable amigurumi toys look on as a new friend crochets itself. [SLYT]
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 9:54 AM PST - 14 comments

Smithsonian Wild is a collection of over 200,000 pictures of animals taken by "camera traps", automated cameras with motion sensors. Each species is linked to its article in the Encyclopedia of Life, and the entire set of photos is also available on Flickr.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:54 AM PST - 13 comments

Don't worry, writing a thesis [pdf] on the virtues of civil society and democratization won't disqualify you from threatening your own people with genocide and murder. [more inside]
posted by quodlibet at 9:53 AM PST - 11 comments

The Madoff Tapes "One evening, my home phone rang. “You have a collect call from Bernard Madoff, an inmate at a federal prison,” a recording announced. And there he was." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:43 AM PST - 30 comments

Via Secrecy News:

Millions of feet of film of historical imagery from intelligence satellites may be declassified this year, the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) said. "The NGA is anticipating the potential declassification of significant amounts of film-based imagery... in 2011," according to an NGA announcement that solicited contractor interest in converting the declassified film into digital format. It was published in Federal Business Opportunities on February 14, 2011. A copy is posted here (pdf).

[more inside]
posted by HLD at 9:15 AM PST - 13 comments

Rapper 50 Cent stashes $2,000,000 in the front trunk of his Lamborghini. (SLYT)
posted by growabrain at 8:57 AM PST - 110 comments

"Measuring quality is difficult; measuring quantity is as easy as counting. The more apps a college receives, and rejects, the more impressive it seems." Eric Hoover in the Chronicle of Higher Ed takes on the arms race in college admissions offices. Hoover blogs about admissions issues at Head Count. Sadly, not everyone can write an essay like Hugh Gallagher.
posted by escabeche at 8:17 AM PST - 20 comments

Security-in-a-Box. A complete guide to digital security for advocates and human rights defenders (and for you too!). It includes all the info and tools you'll need for anything related to personal digital security.
Mobiles in-a-box: Tools and tactics for mobile advocacy.
Message in-a-box: Everything you need to make and distribute your own media.
NGO-in-a-box: Set up you NGO using free and open-source software.
[more inside]
posted by lemuring at 7:59 AM PST - 14 comments

Trust, Coordination Technology* & The Experience Economy - "It could be that the nature of technological change isn't causing the slowdown** but a shift in values.*** It could be that in an industrial economy people develop a materialist mind-set and believe that improving their income is the same thing as improving their quality of life. But in an affluent information-driven world, people embrace the postmaterialist mind-set. They realize they can improve their quality of life without actually producing more wealth." (via mr) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:28 AM PST - 46 comments

Fifth Wheel Driving! [SLYT]
posted by Fizz at 6:07 AM PST - 20 comments

Harold is the keeper of local dump. Most days will find Harold with a tie on, helping those who have a problem getting their garbage into the dumpsters, or their recyclables into the bin. He often has a guitar strung across his back.
posted by SuzySmith at 2:33 AM PST - 17 comments

Can you speak Scots? As part of this year's census people in Scotland will be asked to say if they can understand speak, read and / or write Scots. [more inside]
posted by Lezzles at 1:58 AM PST - 102 comments

When the sun goes down, it's time to hit the streets. Dusty is a cat burglar.
posted by XhaustedProphet at 1:27 AM PST - 28 comments

R.I.P., Frank Buckles, last American World War I veteran, who just passed away at 110 years old. Previously.
posted by bwg at 12:21 AM PST - 51 comments