April 30, 2015

What is it about so many reds on that market that makes them pink?

"I came up with a formula for devising your lips’ undertones, but it will take a little bit of computer know how." I Tried 36 Lipsticks to Find a True Red, by Danielle Guercio [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:01 PM PST - 70 comments

Whisk Me Away!

Ever wanted one of those Elizabethan wing-looking collars? If so, the Very Merry Seamstress has you covered.
posted by Peregrine Pickle at 6:57 PM PST - 8 comments

Viv

Siri talked only to a few limited functions, like the map, the datebook, and Google. All the imitators, from the outright copies like Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana to a host of more-focused applications with names like Amazon Echo, Samsung S Voice, Evi, and Maluuba, followed the same principle. The problem was you had to code everything. You had to tell the computer what to think. Linking a single function to Siri took months of expensive computer science. You had to anticipate all the possibilities and account for nearly infinite outcomes. If you tried to open that up to the world, other people would just come along and write new rules and everything would get snarled in the inevitable conflicts of competing agendas—just like life. Even the famous supercomputers that beat Kasparov and won Jeopardy! follow those principles. That was the "pain point," the place where everything stops: There were too many rules.
So what if they just wrote rules on how to solve rules?
The idea was audacious. They would be creating a DNA, not a biology, forcing the program to think for itself.
John H. Richardson for Esquire
posted by p3on at 5:59 PM PST - 70 comments

Nepal, Anthropology, and Earthquakes

"Many of the places and peoples most severely hit were the poorest, those in villages close to the epicenter where homes are made from mud and wood. Homes that collapsed in the earthquake. Homes in regions where there are no vehicular roads, where already weak communication infrastructure is now not operative, where rescue and relief operations are struggling to reach. Some of these villages are known to anthropology students around the world. For better or worse, Nepal has a deep ethnographic literature, much of it centered on the sort of mountain villages so devastated by the earthquake... Some of these villages are gone.
[more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 5:30 PM PST - 6 comments

"For $154, I'll take the Ceramic Dalmatian!"

As a contrast to this thread, here's an article on what it's like to be a contestant on Wheel of Fortune.
posted by DRoll at 5:09 PM PST - 14 comments

All the news that's fit to cat

nytimes.cat is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their newspaper, or why.
posted by emelenjr at 4:57 PM PST - 17 comments

How Old Do I Look?

How old do I look? Upload a photo and this site tries to determine age and gender.
posted by pravit at 4:51 PM PST - 108 comments

Putting pins in a map is something I've loved doing for many years

Printing a wall-sized world map and what I've learned from it : One man's epic journey to possess a wall-sized world map, which he loves.
posted by swift at 3:12 PM PST - 59 comments

Space, time, and microwave ovens

Previously on MetaFilter, we discussed a strange new form of propulsion that NASA was investigating. There are variants to the EM Drive, but the basic principle is the same: put lots of microwaves into the right shaped chamber, and thrust appears. Electricity to motion in free space? Much skepticism. But nearly a year and much more testing later - the story is getting weirder.
posted by Devonian at 1:49 PM PST - 162 comments

Can You Find The Mole In This Spy Organization?

London, 1971. You sit at your typewriter, typing up a report while reflecting on your mysterious and troubling past. Your hands glide over the keys, but they are no normal hands and no normal keys. They are spy hands and spy keys.
posted by rorgy at 1:45 PM PST - 33 comments

Tip: War isn't fair

Mud and Blood 2 (flash) from MudandBlood.net, a profoundly unfair sandbox war game based loosely on Operation Lüttich (aka Mortain counter-offensive). You play the Allies and you will lose, screaming. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston at 1:39 PM PST - 12 comments

"You're gonna turn my baby into Iron Man!"

A Little Girl Riding an Avengers: Age of Ultron Hulkbuster High Chair Is the Childhood Everyone Dreams Of
posted by Lexica at 11:41 AM PST - 7 comments

Proof that cats are, indeed, liquid

The dilemma gets figured out at 1m50s. [SLYT]
posted by hippybear at 11:35 AM PST - 42 comments

Perfect Polly, just like a real bird! Just like a real friend!

Real animals have wants and needs -- this chattering hunk of plastic is WAY better! Tired of having to feed and care for a bird? STOP RIGHT THERE, this late-night commercial has you covered -- Perfect Polly will be your plastic pal who's fun to be with! And if the ad is accurate, it's got Never Shuts Up Action until you turn it off! It can sit on your finger! It can even confuse a real bird! (via, of all places, The Dissolve)
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 11:24 AM PST - 35 comments

“Detroit turned out to be heaven, but it also turned out to be hell.”

1967 NBC News Special Report: "Summer of '67"[YouTube]
The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a violent public disorder that turned into a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan. It began on a Saturday night in the early morning hours of July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount streets on the city's Near West Side. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in United States history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit's 1943 race riot. [Wiki]
posted by Fizz at 10:42 AM PST - 17 comments

Clowes Encounter - A conversation with cartoonist Daniel Clowes

Clowes Encounter: an extended interview with Ghost World and Eightball writer/illustrator Daniel Clowes. [more inside]
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:51 AM PST - 5 comments

filterMeta

[EXIF] Metadata: MetaUseful & MetaCreepy [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:26 AM PST - 20 comments

"... a kind of purgatory-themed amusement park"

"ICP's intense work ethic and preparation have been essential to their ascension from a second-tier Detroit rap group into the leaders of their own subculture—a feat accomplished by virtually no other group in popular American music, save for maybe the Grateful Dead." Tears of a clown [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 9:13 AM PST - 55 comments

Pow!Pow!Pow!Pow!Pow!

In the late seventies and early eighties TV stations embraced the video game craze by granting lucky viewers the chance to play them on the air by shouting POW! into their phone. [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:16 AM PST - 38 comments

How Baltimore became Baltimore

The Washington Post sheds some much needed, highly relevant historical context on "[t]he long, painful and repetitive history of how Baltimore became Baltimore". [more inside]
posted by ourt at 7:59 AM PST - 38 comments

This is just cover up after Hamburg got caught building a vampire train

Having trouble getting off the train? Crowds can get in the way, or sometimes an extremely bored bricklayer just seals you in the car.
posted by selfnoise at 6:57 AM PST - 48 comments

Sex Simply Wouldn't Be the Same Without These 11 Kickass Women

Women haven't always gotten to play a big role in the scientific advancements, studies and cultural conversations concerning sexuality. […] But numerous powerful women have elbowed their way in, taking control over female sexuality and introducing innovations that actually what women want and need.
[more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 3:48 AM PST - 15 comments

Best days of my life

In the same Nashville auditorium that he once ejected an audience member for repeatedly requesting it, Ryan Adams sings Summer of '69.
posted by pjenks at 3:12 AM PST - 80 comments

consume, grow, divide, consume again

agar.io. You are a cell. Move with your mouse, eat things to get bigger, don't get eaten. Press space to split.
Warnings: Requires flash or something. Involves other people and has free-form name entry, with predictable results. [more inside]
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:59 AM PST - 59 comments

Very Important Pedia

The Open Wikipedia Ranking lets you browse Wikipedia pages "by importance". Their primary ranking system is called "Harmonic Centrality", but you can select other methods, including PageRank and raw Page Views. Type an inquiry into the search box or choose from one of the rather whimsically selected front page categories. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:38 AM PST - 9 comments

Ambitious Designs: NZ Australia Renovation Nation

Episode 1 - In the toughest renovation show to ever hit our screens, New Zealand couple Marwyn and Jess have purchased Australia to turn it into the home of their dreams. Episode 2 - In this episode, our couple finally get a contractor to help them fix the national identity. Episode 3 - In this episode, our couple tackle the climate--and a big air con is beyond their budget. [more inside]
posted by unliteral at 12:10 AM PST - 12 comments

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