May 3, 2011

Vice in Libya, on Libya.

From Vice Magazine (NSFW photos in sidebar): The New Libyans: Knee-deep in the Shit with Benghazi's New Rebels, by Trevor Snapp. (warning: gory photo) More photos of the New Libyans from Trevor Snapp. Also from Vice, on Libya: Big Muammar's House. Also on Vice, on Libya: Notes from a Libyan Lurker, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:46 PM PST - 4 comments

piss off pussy peepee

How to stop cats pissing on your car [SYTL]
posted by the noob at 8:10 PM PST - 72 comments

Art by Paul Octavious

Same Hill, Different Day
Experiment with the Color Indigo
Book Collection
JFK → SFO | JFK → ORD
Lines
& lots more by Paul Octavious via
posted by carsonb at 7:56 PM PST - 2 comments

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

The Don Cherry Jacket Watch. Amazing, mind-blowing garishness.
posted by asperity at 7:52 PM PST - 62 comments

pet the sounds

Behind the Sounds is a sampling of images and recordings from the studio sessions of Pet Sounds, the 1966 Beach Boys album masterminded by Brian Wilson. [more inside]
posted by Brian B. at 7:46 PM PST - 18 comments

Secrets of the Sage of Baltimore

H.L. Mencken's Stein Collection is for sale on eBay. "A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank." -- H. L. Mencken
posted by whimsicalnymph at 7:21 PM PST - 12 comments

Into the woods...

Whitestone Motion Pictures presents Blood On My Name, a short musical film in the style of Americana folklore. [more inside]
posted by starvingartist at 7:21 PM PST - 2 comments

Windows music, whoda'thunk-it

Awesome music using only sounds from Windows XP and 98, just what it says on the tin
posted by Blasdelb at 6:49 PM PST - 21 comments

US DoD and alternative energy

Despite continuing inaction and perverse subsidies from the US Federal Government, one of their largest entities, the US Department of Defense, has done the analysis and considers both peak oil and climate change to be a significant threat. In partial response, they're pushing heavily into alternative fuels, with the Air Force aiming to get fully half of its domestic jet fuel from alternative sources by 2016.
posted by wilful at 6:35 PM PST - 50 comments

All Cannabis Use Is Medical

A 35 minute conversation on medical marijuana with Michael Backes.
posted by gman at 6:28 PM PST - 27 comments

Because It Gets Better

Google Chrome's commercial features Dan Savage's It Gets Better Project SYTL.
posted by jenlovesponies at 6:21 PM PST - 54 comments

This week in love

This week in love: the winning submission of the NYT's now-annual college Modern Love essay contest, the 2011 US pole dance champion (probably NSFW), and a Japanese kissing machine in development.
posted by wpenman at 6:05 PM PST - 16 comments

Ubiquitous nostalgia

Instagram is a hugely successful photo app for iPhone, currently skyrocketing in popularity. Free to download, it enables users to add characteristic filters to their photos and share them online easily. But a growing uneasiness seems to be developing about the software's raison d'être: does it serve to dilute creativity? Or perhaps the effects simply become nauseating when overused. Or is the sharing just too easy, leading us to end up drowning in our photos?
posted by stepheno at 5:25 PM PST - 93 comments

w o b b l e w o b b l e w o b b l e

And here is a video of Jell-O cubes bouncing, shot at 6200 frames per second.
posted by bayani at 4:40 PM PST - 81 comments

The Film-Lover's Check List

The Film-Lover's Check List This is a simple but neat website for marking off the movies you've watched based on "Best" movie lists. You can choose from a wide variety of lists at the site or you can create your own. [more inside]
posted by dgaicun at 2:41 PM PST - 28 comments

Gaby Dunn's 100 Interviews

100interviews: NYC writer and comedienne "No Fun" Gaby Dunn made a list of 100 types of people she knew existed but had never met. A transgendered person, someone who had been to prison, someone who had saved a life, a one-hit wonder, a psychic, someone from a third world country. She wanted to find out about all the stories she was missing out on, so she is interviewing every one of them. [more inside]
posted by milestogo at 2:21 PM PST - 121 comments

Serotonin! More than a neurotransmitter.

Serotonin is back in the news. Recent research shows that it plays an impressive number of roles throughout the body, both below the neck and above it. [more inside]
posted by exphysicist345 at 1:56 PM PST - 34 comments

By the sleepy lagoon

On the 29th January 1942 the first ever Desert Island Discs was broadcast. Surpassed only by the Grand Ole Opry it is the second longest running radio show in history. Beautiful in its simplicity - each castaway is asked to choose eight pieces of music, a book and a luxury item for their imaginary stay on the desert island. For those who have not come across it before aquaint yourself with its iconic theme tune 'By the Sleepy Lagoon' here. Then for newcomers and old hands aquaint yourself with the wonderful new BBC website with searchable archives of 2852 episodes detailing castaways choices, and now with more than 500 episodes available for free download.
posted by numberstation at 1:11 PM PST - 24 comments

If This, Then That

If This, Then That [beta] allows you to designate trigger actions in one corner of the cloud based on events in another. In addition to popular websites like Facebook, Craiglist, and Twitter, IfTTT links email, SMS, and telephone (full list of current services here) in any configuration.
posted by Rykey at 1:01 PM PST - 77 comments

Battle-field Interpretation

With the death of Osama Bin Laden having re-opened the debate over the intelligence value of "enhanced interrogation" techniques, it's worthwhile revisiting the wartime lessons of Sherwood Moran, missionary, Marine, and decorated POW interrogator (he preferred he term "interviewer"). Working on the front lines of battle - even under aerial bombing and artillery shelling - he combined "deep human sympathy" with a "ruthlessly persistent approach" to extracting information from a supposedly unbreakable captured enemy. [more inside]
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:54 PM PST - 56 comments

"Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it." — Emerson

‎"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." In the wake of bin Laden's killing, partially fabricated misquotations were circulated widely via Twitter and Facebook. [more inside]
posted by RogerB at 11:35 AM PST - 247 comments

Transparency and the rule of law

Could you give, please, your conclusions on questions 1 to 5 in turn?
The jury has reached a verdict in the Ian Tomlinson inquest. (previously) [more inside]
posted by orthogonality at 11:07 AM PST - 31 comments

“Aux enfants, je leur dis et je leur répète: ne faites pas la guerre."

The Last Two Veterans of WWI [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:01 AM PST - 38 comments

FACT: Corgis are the best.

Corgi in a swing don't give a shit. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 9:53 AM PST - 78 comments

A museum shows its favorites folder

The Corning Museum of Glass (previously), not to be confused with the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington (previously), has named 60 favorites of their own collection and campus. The choices range from ancient, like the glass "portrait" of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep II, to the scientific, like the initial 200-inch disk intended for the Hale telescope at the Mt. Palomar observatory, to modern sculpture, like Family Matter by Jill Reynolds.
[more inside]
posted by knile at 9:14 AM PST - 18 comments

As long as they're vertical, it's all right.

It's an odd thing that libraries – by tradition temples to the unfleshly – can sometimes seem such sexy places. The Secret life of libraries.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:26 AM PST - 37 comments

The Original Indoor Cycle Gymnastics. Since 1999

"The previous cycling was conducted by using the general cycle with two wheels, but JACKIE SPINNING ™ is the Group Exercise Program using specially designed stationary bikes." [more inside]
posted by KirkpatrickMac at 5:32 AM PST - 24 comments

Germany is never so happy as when she is pregnant with war.

"In the course of researching my book The Emotional Life of Nations, I discovered that just before and during wars the nation was regularly depicted as a Dangerous Woman. I collected thousands of magazine covers and political cartoons before wars to see if there were any visual patterns that could predict the moods that led to war, and routinely found images of dangerous, bloodthirsty women."

Sociologist, political psychologist, and founder of The Institute for Psychohistory (no not that one) Lloyd deMause has written eight books and 90 articles on the link between warfare and parenting practices. With thousands of references to psychological and anthropological studies, deMause makes the case that outbursts of nationalist violence are reenactments of childhood experiences common to large groups.

His book The Origins of War In Child Abuse is available as a ten-part, free audiobook; read by Stefan Molyneux. [more inside]
posted by clarknova at 5:08 AM PST - 151 comments

Copying is an act of love. Please copy and share.

Mimi & Eunice is a comic by artist Nina Paley (who you may remember as the artist behind Sita Sings the Blues). The comic touches on Free Culture, artistic struggles, internet drama and of course poop.
posted by DU at 4:44 AM PST - 21 comments

Better Never To Have Been

No Life Is Good, by David Benatar. From The Philosophers' Magazine, via New Shelton.
posted by hydatius at 4:15 AM PST - 162 comments

Down and out in Toronto and New York

Down and out in Toronto and New York: Freelance film critic Steven Boone recounts his experiences with the soup kitchens of Toronto and New York in First rate, second rate: In and out of the soup kitchens of Toronto and New York
posted by Harald74 at 4:06 AM PST - 7 comments

Remembering Emily

All Things Emily celebrates the life and work of American jazz guitarist Emily Remler. Influenced by Herb Ellis and Wes Montgomery in her early albums, her music was taking new directions before her untimely death, at just 32, while on tour in Australia in May 1990. [more inside]
posted by joannemullen at 3:55 AM PST - 9 comments

A Bottomless Silo

The Rusty Technoporn Of Nuclear Russia - The Base Of Human Exterminators , The Place That Stalkers Would Love To Visit, from English Russia via Warren Ellis
posted by Artw at 12:18 AM PST - 35 comments

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