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The Writings on the Stall :: a new compendium of bathroom graffiti
posted by anastasiav at 10:38 PM PST - 17 comments

nosepilot's Al Sacui, master artist of vector and spectra, has a new online graphic novel for your visual feasting. note: intuitive navigation
posted by elphTeq at 9:41 PM PST - 6 comments

The low-impact living initiative produces information sheets on a range of low-impact topics. Don't believe the hype.
posted by sudama at 8:31 PM PST - 12 comments

The dial in the base comes to you!. The Ericofon.
posted by pieoverdone at 6:56 PM PST - 12 comments

Harvard's Institute of Politics has created a short test to measure where your political beliefs fit with college students across the country. You better sit down for this one: I am a Traditonal Liberal !   From Secular Centrist Matthew Yglesias. Take the test and see where you fall on the brightly colored chart.
posted by y2karl at 6:56 PM PST - 66 comments

Cicadas best served sauteed in butter and parsley apparently, or if you want to go more upscale: "The soft-shelled cicada, it's done just like a soft-shelled crab," says executive chef Frank Belosic, describing how freshly molted cicadas should be rolled in flour, pan-fried in olive oil, and finished with a sauce of white wine, butter and shallots.
posted by meehawl at 5:56 PM PST - 23 comments

Analogia - You upload your face and complex recognition software returns three celebrities you most resemble. Which are you? The software is surprisingly accurate! (Marginally NSFW: thumb nailed obscenity)
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 5:02 PM PST - 39 comments

HR 3077 - "unprecedented federally mandated intrusion into the content and conduct of university-based area studies programmes."

"There is a great deal at stake for American higher education and academic freedom. If HR 3077 becomes law - the Senate will review the bill next - it will create a board that monitors how closely universities reflect government policy. Since the legislation assumes that any flaw lies 'with the experts, not the policy', the government could be given the power to introduce politically sympathetic voices into the academic mainstream and to reshape the boundaries of academic inquiry. Institutional resistance would presumably be punished by the withdrawal of funds, which would be extremely damaging to Middle East centres especially."

you didn't have reason to call your congressperson tomorrow? you do now. frightening.

via the excellent openbrackets.com
posted by specialk420 at 5:02 PM PST - 67 comments

I've run a marathon and it was hard. Then I learned about ultra marathoners doing 50 and 100 mile runs in one day. Then there are the marathons and ultra marathons in rough places, like Death Valley. Then there's the grand daddy of difficulty: The Marathon Des Sables. It's 6 days and 6 marathons long, run in a desert with temps topping 110F, you have to carry your week's gear and food, and you are limited to 9 liters of water a day. Here are some photos and blogger Ben Hammersley's current results are here. The event finishes tomorrow. [via jay allen]
posted by mathowie at 4:19 PM PST - 18 comments

Conflict Archive on the Internet: history, images, and more from Northern Ireland, 1968 to the present.
posted by armage at 3:01 PM PST - 3 comments

Wilco -- A Ghost is Born Forget SoulSeek or Limewire, stream the new Wilco longplayer right from the source. [Previously discussed here]
posted by Old Man Wilson at 2:10 PM PST - 16 comments

Two HIV Cases Put a Scare Into P9rn (LATimes) Several major adult movie companies — including the industry's largest, Vivid — have decided to stop filming for 60 days after two stars tested positive for HIV. But other companies dismissed the plea for a moratorium, calling it "paranoid" and "knee-jerk," and vowed to keep their cameras rolling. The industry, they said, was perfectly safe."I'm against any stop in production," said a producer "It will put a lot of people out of business. You'll have people who will start losing their apartments. It's just not fair." When do adult movies (a hugely profitable business where unprotected sex is often performed) end being sexy and start being "Russian Roulette on dvd" scary? The two actors who have tested positive for the HIV virus are identified as Darren James and Lara Roxx. Roxx (who's 18 or 19) had only been in the adult industry for three months. 45 actors and actresses who subsequently either worked with James or the women he had sex with after contracting the virus, which is believed to have occurred in Brazil (where, incidentally, star and director John Stagliano -- not completely work-safe link -- says he caught AIDS in 1997), have been identified, too. warning: except the Stagliano link, all the others are work-safe. (more inside)
posted by matteo at 2:01 PM PST - 72 comments

The McGurk Effect
posted by knutmo at 11:00 AM PST - 38 comments

The 'nightmare' fall of Svend Robinson: Canada's first openly gay MP threw his career into doubt yesterday with a shocking revelation that he had stolen a piece of jewellery last weekend.
posted by timeistight at 10:56 AM PST - 79 comments

The Art Renewal Center is Very Upset. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) has decided to sell a painting by artist William Bouguereau so they can acquire a painting by Albert Joseph Moore. The painting, Bohémienne was originally purchased for $3,500 by the MIA back in the early 1970's for the purpose of reselling it at some future date for a better work of art. Christie's expects it to sell for between $700,000 and $900,000. The sale of this painting has angered some who feel that a museum's role is to protect important artwork not risk losing it to private collection for a questionable gain. Does a museum have an ethical responsibility to prevent art from disappearing from public view?
posted by Tenuki at 10:41 AM PST - 22 comments

Mr. Nobody is worth exploring.
posted by stonerose at 10:29 AM PST - 10 comments

And the apprentice is: Kwame Jackson! Trump fired Bill for how he ran a tournament at Trump National Golf Club and hired Kwame for the way he put together a Jessica Simpson concert at the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. USA Today makes an ooopsie.
posted by riffola at 9:41 AM PST - 39 comments

Geek Prom Has been going on for a handful of years now, here is an older news story 'bout it. That is all, nothing earth shattering. Cheers
posted by edgeways at 9:36 AM PST - 6 comments

I have seen the future of Metal and it's name is Norselaw and their anthem "Sweet Home Scandinavia". Let the Berzerking Begin!
posted by jonmc at 8:29 AM PST - 27 comments

the sphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP. Taking the known concept of three-dimensional desktops to its own level. It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop such a icons and applications.
posted by crunchland at 8:04 AM PST - 33 comments

What do you do after you climb Mt. Everest? Climb it again from the other side, of course. The first woman to accomplish that feat. And then what? Cathy O’Dowd calls it the E to E Challenge. Everest to Everyday.

So let’s round up a couple of friends, hitch up the dogs and mush from Styggedalen to Nordkapp across 650 km of Arctic wilderness to support the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. And why not blog it daily with a website run from the back of a sled? Today, the sled fell in a river. Sure makes my life seem dull.
posted by Geo at 7:51 AM PST - 3 comments

Oldest Jewelry Discovered In African Cave At least 75,000 years old, the find suggests that early humans had a complex sense of symbolism.
posted by mcgraw at 7:40 AM PST - 8 comments

A viilage to reinvent the world : Gaviotas "In 1965 Paulo Lugari was flying over the impoverished Llanos Orientales, the “eastern plains” that border Venezuela. The soil of the Llanos is tough and acidic, some of the worst in Colombia. Lugari mused that if people could live here they could live anywhere.....The following year Lugari and a group of scientists, artists, agronomists and engineers took the 15-hour journey along a tortuous route from Bogota to the Llanos Orientales to settle."

"...they would need to be very resourceful. So they invented wind turbines that convert mild breezes into energy, super-efficient pumps that tap previously inaccessible sources of water [powered by a child's playground seesaw!], and solar kettles that sterilize drinking water using the furious heat of the tropical sun....They even invented a rain forest!" (from "Gaviotas - A village to reinvent the World", by Tim Weisman) Amidst the strife of war torn Columbia, Gaviotas persists and even flourishes. " "When we import solutions from the US or Europe," said Lugari, founder of Gaviotas, "we also import their problems."....Over the years Gaviotas technicians have installed thousands of the windmills across Colombia....Since Gaviotas refuses to patent inventions, preferring to share them freely, the design has been copied from Central America to Chile."

Gaviotas is real, yes, but it is also a state of mind - as if Ben Franklin, Frank Lloyd Wright, Leonardo Da Vinci - all of the great those giants who reinvisioned the possible - were reincarnated : as a small Columbian village on a once-desolate plain. "Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez has called Paolo Lugari the "inventor of the world." "
posted by troutfishing at 7:39 AM PST - 12 comments

CIA Warned of Attack 6 Years Before 9-11 Six years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA warned in a classified report that Islamic extremists likely would strike on U.S. soil at landmarks in Washington or New York, or through the airline industry, according to intelligence officials.
posted by Postroad at 5:01 AM PST - 41 comments

Derelict London. A gently melancholy collection of photographs of abandoned shops, hospitals, housing estates, public lavatories, and much more. See also Britannia Moribundia, on the national obsession with dinginess and decay. This is where England most truly excels: in all the characterful shabbiness of its drizzled parks, soiled launderettes, frayed tailors, abject chemists .. and cowed solitary cafes.
posted by verstegan at 4:13 AM PST - 13 comments

The Intel IT Manager Game lets you manage an IT department (flash, reg. required, you don't have to enter a valid e-mail address). Here is another attempt (click "Simulation" at the top). For those who rather calculate than point-and-click, try the Ipas TCO simulation. [via Flex-MX Blog]
posted by tcp at 1:44 AM PST - 3 comments

What is The Athenaeum? The Athenaeum is a humanities collection, mostly late 19th century European paintings.
posted by four panels at 12:37 AM PST - 4 comments