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The Hobbit's Brain. Recent analysis of the Homo floresiensis skull (previous discussion) gives clues about its brain structure and ancestry. The technical paper is here [Science subscription required].
posted by painquale at 10:39 PM PST - 7 comments

The Institute for Backup Trauma. Yes, it's a virulent viral ad, but it's also funny, geeky, techie and Cleesey! Certainly the finest John-Cleese-based institution since The Ministry of Silly Walks. What a Twain Weck!
posted by wendell at 10:27 PM PST - 15 comments

Somehow I don't see this selling very well. A virtual keyboard?
posted by bluedaniel at 9:46 PM PST - 26 comments

The Coming Crackdown on Political Blogging. "In just a few months... bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list...could be punished by fines." CNet's engrossing interview with an FEC commissioner who predicts major turmoil ahead as the government tries to decide if a blog link is a donation. A Brookings paper (pdf) suggest "Radical changes in modes of communication and forms of political campaigning lie not too distant on the horizon." This guy says it's all an attempt to undermine campaign finance laws by freaking out bloggers.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:12 PM PST - 20 comments

Break out your tinfoil hats for the conspiracy du jour: It seems just before Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide, he was working on a piece about the WTC attack. It also seems he hinted that the Bush administration was somehow involved . He was talking to his wife on the phone when he died, yet she heard no gunshot. Was it suicide, or murder?
posted by zardoz at 6:49 PM PST - 51 comments

Sounds Like Radio "casting you the best in new music; transcending oppressive style and genre restrictions; unleashing the world's musical underground". Sort of a music blog, presented as radio shows. There's all kinds of interesting music here, from all kinds of genres, most-all from unsigned acts. Surprisingly varied, and good.
posted by biscotti at 4:37 PM PST - 13 comments

Dear Condi, -- Lloyd Axworthy was Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs for five years (1995-2000). Now that he's no longer in government, he doesn't need to be so diplomatic.
posted by winston at 4:24 PM PST - 80 comments

"You people can't order a cheese sandwich without mentioning the Holocaust," the Defense Attorney says. The Defendant complains: "I hired a goy lawyer. It's like going to a straight hairdresser."
In his new play "Romance", David Mamet takes on the possibility to finally bring peace to the Middle East by realigning Israeli and Palestinian spines, and discusses the alleged homosexuality of Wiiliam Shakespeare. Some critics didn't like Mamet's "take-no-prisoners", politically incorrect approach -- nor his use of ethnic and sexual stereotypes. As Mamet has said in the past, "I didn't realise it was my job to be politically acceptable".
posted by matteo at 3:49 PM PST - 31 comments

Homosexuality in 18th Century England :: an amazing compilation of primary source material from newspaper reports and other sources.
posted by anastasiav at 3:45 PM PST - 13 comments

Notepad Invaders Remember, columns first.
Flash game. With swearing.
posted by Mwongozi at 3:15 PM PST - 17 comments

What You Are. I'm a slam-dancing sausage link who loves to suck toilets. What are you?
posted by joedan at 2:16 PM PST - 54 comments

Buy a celebrity's soul! For the demon that has everything.
posted by Man O' Straw at 1:19 PM PST - 14 comments

Why has nobody on earth (except Saheli) heard of this Indeterminacy guy?
posted by cgc373 at 12:47 PM PST - 3 comments

Want to know the hardware behind Echelon? The other day I posted a book (Chatter) review about NSA. In this follow-up, the equipment used. "Aside from using the system for industrial espionage and bypassing international and national laws to listen in on people, it is also used to listen out for people like Osama bin Laden and assorted terrorists in the hope of preventing attacks."
posted by Postroad at 12:46 PM PST - 7 comments

The Way We See It is a fairly new photo site where each week a group of photographers visit and capture a different part of London in their own style, with frequently impressive results. (via)
posted by chill at 12:34 PM PST - 7 comments

David Lanham's online portfolio. Chock full of goodness, and well-designed to boot, check out sketches, artwork, and animation. He's even got wallpaper and icons for you.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:45 AM PST - 19 comments

Will mobile phone porn be banned before reaching the mainstream? Startup Companies as well as established veterans alike have been itching to make a buck from the mobile market. Will they ever get the chance? Not in Israel.
posted by analogue at 10:44 AM PST - 30 comments

27-year-old professional recorder player can not only see colours when hearing music but can taste musical notes (see chart for details). More on synaesthesia, which has appeared here, here and here. [courtesy of CBC]
posted by boost ventilator at 9:42 AM PST - 36 comments

The Chickens Have Come Home To Roost. We are all "Good Germans" now.
posted by orthogonality at 9:34 AM PST - 86 comments

Online papers on consciousness from androids to zombies, compiled by David Chalmers. Need a primer before you jump into the heavy stuff? See his Guide to the Philosophy of Mind. [via The Curvature of the Earth is Overwhelmed by Local Noise]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:28 AM PST - 7 comments

Frank Luntz GOP Playbook Now Online: No Downloads, Searchable Text I can't stress enough the importance of reading this document. It is absolutely amazing how politicos co-opted so much of our language and led us down the path to THEIR agenda.

Unfortunately, the monstrous PDF file previously available for download made that a 'challenging' endeavor. Thus, I thought it was very important to bring to everybody's attention the existence of an online, readable, searchable, text version of Frank Luntz’s Playbook. It is a masterpiece of manipulation and an historic political document.
posted by jb_thms at 8:47 AM PST - 86 comments

www. don't be jealous that i've been chatting online with babes all day .com This Napoleon Dynamite obsession is getting out of hand. I can't remember the last time everyone I know at work was walking around quoting lines from a movie. And In spite of the entertainment establishment slamming this movie’s head into its locker, since it left theaters for DVD on December 21, it has earned an additional, like, whole lot of money and has consistently been on Billboard’s top ten movie rentals and top ten in Amazon's DVD Sales ..Tina, you fat lard, come get some DINNER!
posted by thisisdrew at 8:40 AM PST - 102 comments

The Sukiyaki Song [mp3] Depending on your age, you may have heard your parents humming this, or even hummed it yourself. Sung by Kyu Sakamoto, the Sukiyaki Song was the only number 1 hit by a Japanese artist in the US, in 1963. It remains the biggest international hit by a Japanese popular singer. The song has nothing to do with the popular Japanese beef dish; the Japanese title was "Ue o Muite Aruko" (I Look Up When I Walk), but was changed because it was thought that western DJs would be unable to pronounce it. The song spawned many covers, and Maddmansrealm has collected over 60 of these, including French and German versions, bossa nova versions, a short accordion version by Styx, and a live instrumental version by Bob Dylan and Tom Petty [mp3s]. Kyu Sakamoto died in 1985 in the crash of JAL 123.
posted by carter at 8:37 AM PST - 20 comments

The lion shall lay down with the lamb. But first, it shall lay down with the tiger, the leopard, and the jaguar. And then smaller cats will lay down with different smaller cats, and then there are those gazelles and bears that were always hard enough to tell apart anyway, well, now we can't seem to keep them apart. Long live the anomalous felids!
posted by breezeway at 8:04 AM PST - 18 comments

Kamikaze. 'American and Japanese images of kamikaze pilots differ greatly. This web site explores diverse portrayals and perceptions of the young men who carried out suicide attacks near the end of World War II.'
'When Japanese kamikaze pilots carried out their attacks between October 1944 and October 1945, Japanese and American people had opposite perspectives. Japanese people saw young smiling pilots as they waved goodbye. In contrast, American soldiers viewed death and destruction when the pilots' planes exploded upon crashing into their ships. These very different points of view continue to influence Japanese and American perceptions of kamikaze pilots even until today.'
posted by plep at 7:51 AM PST - 16 comments

New York Public Library Digital Gallery now online. The NYPL has put online a huge gallery of photos, paintings and graphics. (via the New York Times)
posted by caddis at 7:08 AM PST - 13 comments

Write about zombies, go to jail. I'd be really pissed at the grandparents, if I were this kid.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:42 AM PST - 90 comments

The King County Bar Association of Washington state, has released a resolution as part of their Drug Policy Project calling for a non-commercialized & state-supported regulated distribution of currently illicit drugs. Their FAQ addresses the inevitable concerns over such an approach. Another document provides a tour of the historical and cultural contexts of drug laws. The Association also outlines how the regulated approach might be workable, considering the purview of the federal Controlled Substances Act. [via DrugWarRant]
posted by daksya at 5:20 AM PST - 13 comments

Yahoo! retrospective inspired by 10x10, an online artwork by Jonathan Harris. We thought Yahoo! Inc.'s 10th birthday would be a great excuse to take a look back and think about how the Internet has developed over the last ten years, becoming an essential part of all of our daily lives. We've created a special site, Yahoo! Netrospective: 10 years, which celebrates the web's history over the last decade. We hope the Yahoo! Netrospective will take you on a trip down memory lane, in a format we think is really cool.--Jerry & David
posted by airguitar at 4:37 AM PST - 12 comments

Breaking News: Pop-up ads suck. Wired has a little op-ed piece about the netizens' extreme dislike of pop-up and pop-under ads. Using such choice quotes as, "A study conducted last year by Dynamic Logic found that almost 80 percent of those surveyed had a 'very negative' opinion of pop-up ads," the author goes on to chastise mainstream sites that still make use of them. Of course, his advice would be taken a great deal more seriously if his column didn't sport a massive pop-up ad for Blockbuster Online.
posted by LondonYank at 3:02 AM PST - 30 comments

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them on Craigslist, maybe you can hire the A-Team.
posted by seanyboy at 2:06 AM PST - 13 comments

Little Timmy's fallen off the parking garage? Forget Lassie, call the lawyers! He didn't choose to jump between the eight-story buildings. The inanimate object made him.
posted by Anonymous at 1:59 AM PST - 54 comments

The Spaghetti Book Club offers book reviews by kids for kids, searchable in a variety of ways. (And most of the reviews are also illustrated by the kid-authors!). One of my favorites begins: "Do you like bad ideas or thinking about them? Well, if you like bad ideas then you should read The Book of Bad Ideas. The Book of Bad Ideas is a book that has bad ideas you really shouldn't try at home. If you try them you'll be soooorrrrryyyyy! If you want to learn more about it, I'll suggest a website but I don't know any. Maybe you should read the book."
posted by taz at 1:20 AM PST - 6 comments

The Genomic Dub Collective "aim to create a new musical genre, Genomic Dub, that celebrates recent successes in the field of genomics and evolutionary biology." Samples, lyrics.
posted by dhruva at 1:12 AM PST - 7 comments

Somebody has some serious issues with foreign policy
posted by growabrain at 12:50 AM PST - 85 comments