The day in posts: 04/29/2010

Having trouble understanding or producing humor? Microsoft is here to help.
posted by lifeless at 11:50 PM PST - 70 comments

The Rosetta Project is an online collection of mostly children's books from the late 19th and early 20th centuries complete with illustrations (previously). [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete at 11:33 PM PST - 4 comments

This is what soldiers get up to when they get bored.
posted by divabat at 11:22 PM PST - 46 comments

Einstein on the Beast. Evening High. Lil' Tut. Highlights from a dj BC album, Glassbreaks, that samples Philip Glass's opera Einstein on the Beach. (Previously.)
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:55 PM PST - 35 comments

are you a fan of single-serving sites and vulgarity who can't decide what to eat tonight? What The Fuck Should I Make For Dinner (nsfw, swearing in large text) is here for you. [more inside]
posted by heeeraldo at 9:51 PM PST - 25 comments

"As a public service to those of you who may someday find yourself in the exhilarating-slash-nerve-racking position of having a meal with Bill Murray, here is a guide so that you may avoid our mistakes."
posted by dhammond at 9:46 PM PST - 69 comments

George, the heart-warming story of one man and his battle against himself. (SLYT)
posted by blue_beetle at 8:29 PM PST - 16 comments

Growing Up Heroes featuring; The Hulk: She Ra: Captain Aces : Dr. Zeus: Princess Leia: The Masked Avenger: Supergirls: Batman: Doctor Doom
posted by puny human at 8:04 PM PST - 9 comments

The European map is outdated and illogical. Here's how it should look.
posted by armage at 6:27 PM PST - 45 comments

Juliet, Ophelia, Desdemona: All three met an untimely fate. This could have been avoided if they had a sassy gay friend. [MYTL] [more inside]
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:05 PM PST - 34 comments

Given the seeming homogeneity of many hit songs, it might come as a surprise that some very strange and unconventional songs have found their way to the top of the pop charts in the past. Some are novelty songs, some are just weird... [more inside]
posted by LSK at 6:02 PM PST - 55 comments

The Worst Of Perth showcases the worst in public art, architecture, design, fashion, car culture, graffiti and suburban landscape in and around Perth in Western Australia, with the occasional public victory over bad art. Substantially NSFW.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:22 PM PST - 16 comments

The Copenhagen Wheel project transforms ordinary bicycles into hybrid electric bikes that also function as mobile environmental sensing units. [via digital urban] [more inside]
posted by gruchall at 5:09 PM PST - 15 comments

Songs From the Black Hole is a sci-fi rock opera written by weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo and originally intended to be the followup to their self-titled debut. Never officially released, the album has become known as a one of rock's "mythical lost masterpieces," akin to the Beach Boys' SMiLE. [more inside]
posted by ludwig_van at 4:19 PM PST - 26 comments

R is powerful, but tricky. RKWard is an UI that make R user friendly or, at least, make it more similar to SPSS or Stata. Screenshots!
posted by - at 4:07 PM PST - 25 comments

If you hire illegal aliens at your business, the federal government can seize your property. In a rare move, the U.S. government is seeking to confiscate the property of an iconic San Diego restaurant that allegedly had a practice of knowingly hiring illegal aliens.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 2:27 PM PST - 115 comments

It's been estimated that the average UK adult is now registered on more than 700 databases and is caught many times each day by nearly five million CCTV cameras. So how hard would it be for an average citizen to disappear completely? That’s the subject of a new documentary film: Erasing David, (Trailer: YouTube, Vimeo) which premieres this evening in the UK on More4. It's also now available worldwide online at the iTunes store and through several Video On Demand services, as well as through Good Screenings. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 2:15 PM PST - 17 comments

The free box is a webseries about eccentric housemates in portland. It has three 10-episode seasons, and a fourth in preproduction.
posted by djduckie at 1:40 PM PST - 16 comments

Jani, a hindu man in western India, claims not to have taken in any food or water for 70 years. He has been under 24 hour surveillance since April 22 by a hospital team. This video goes into a little more detail.
posted by mdn at 1:37 PM PST - 82 comments

Slate has introduced a tool to analyze the news sites you read online. The tool is based on a paper that studied ideological isolation in news consumption online and off. It analyzes your history to determine which sites you read and looks at readership data to determine how much of an echo chamber, if any, your choice of news sources creates. [more inside]
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:42 AM PST - 74 comments

Purvis Young, the street artist who adorned neighborhoods in Miami with his vibrant, expressionistic depictions of urban life, has died at the age of 67.
posted by cross_impact at 11:24 AM PST - 6 comments

In honor of the museum's 50th anniversary, the Anne Frank House has created a virtual tour of the Secret Annex and the rest of the house. The complete manuscript of Anne's diary has also gone on display at the museum for the first time.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:14 AM PST - 18 comments

This guy makes mashups of American pop music, Korean pop music, and Japanese pop music. (MLYT) [more inside]
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:40 AM PST - 9 comments

Past Thinking about Earth-Like Planets and Life [pdf], presenting a brief history of thought on finding extraterrestrial life-like phenomena, is the first chapter of James Kasting's new book, How to Find a Habitable Planet. He participated in a discussion on BBC's The Forum.
posted by jjray at 9:30 AM PST - 27 comments

Yesterday, in a highly split decision with six separate opinions, the United States Supreme Court overturned a Ninth Circuit ruling in Salazar v. Buono. The issue at hand? Whether the location of the Mojave Memorial Cross represented an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The Ninth Circuit decided that it did, but its ruling has been called into question by the high court on several levels. [more inside]
posted by Riki tiki at 9:09 AM PST - 114 comments

HP buys Palm for $1.2 Billion.
posted by Michael Pemulis at 8:54 AM PST - 99 comments

How I Met Your Motherboard
posted by gwint at 8:07 AM PST - 16 comments

Here's Why We Don't Allow Flash On The iPhone And iPad. An open letter by Steve Jobs. Some previous discussion here, here.
posted by mazola at 7:12 AM PST - 976 comments

Bali's "Kuta Cowboys" get unwanted attention. Bali draws plenty of older women seeking romance (see: Elizabeth Gilbert), and more often than not, they end up in the arms of "Kuta Cowboys" - tanned, muscled, swaggering local men who offer no-strings-attached intimacy to female tourists. [more inside]
posted by micketymoc at 4:55 AM PST - 48 comments