A Million Penguins, the wiki novel mentioned previously on MeFi, is complete, and a research paper about it has been released. [more inside]
posted by whir at 11:28 PM PST - 15 comments

The incredible landscapes of game designer Daniel Dociu.
posted by dhruva at 11:19 PM PST - 21 comments

The 50 Greatest Commercial Parodies of All Time according to Nerve.com.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 9:53 PM PST - 55 comments

The thaw of political ice has freed up data from impressive Russian research projects documenting and analysing the accelerating thaw of real ice. A multi-generational study (Mikhail M. Kozhov, his daughter, her daughter...) of Lake Baikal has unexpectly demonstrated that the lake is warming....At higher latitudes, Sergei Zimov has not just documented the thaw of Siberian permafrost, he is attempting to mitigate it....
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 8:20 PM PST - 15 comments

A most legendary find. Alex Handy likes to collect old video games. A few weeks at ago at a flea market, he bought what he thought were some old ColecoVision EPROMs for $2 each, got them home, and realized that some of them could contain the never published Cabbage Patch Kids Atari 2600 game. If the data on the chips had survived, it would be an unprecedented discovery. A friend helped him dump the ROMs, which you can download for free from Alex. Identifying the other games was an adventure in itself. [more inside]
posted by bugmuncher at 7:38 PM PST - 38 comments

James Mundie is an artist and photographer whose work often includes sideshow themes. He recently returned from Europe having been allowed to photograph a number of anatomy museum exhibits. He has also contributed to a Flickr group entitled “Bottled Babies”, which , in a previous era, were known as “Pickled Punks”. (Probably NSFW)
posted by Tube at 6:47 PM PST - 5 comments

Martha Nussbaum reviews three recent books on Shakespeare and philosophy. The essay offers an excellent analysis of love in Antony and Cleopatra and Othello, and an excellent discussion of the interaction between philosophy and literature. [more inside]
posted by painquale at 6:38 PM PST - 17 comments

"Are ice cream trucks sacred like fresh apple pie and high school football or are they unwelcome nuisances we tolerate?" You can weigh in here.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:28 PM PST - 70 comments

Fuji got a new fin back in 2004 but after two years of plans and new materials Winter the dolphin is inspiring other prosthetic wearers and has a brand new tail.
posted by korej at 5:53 PM PST - 5 comments

Smashing Magazine has gone pixel mad with a celebration of the art form.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:28 PM PST - 21 comments

MetaFilter's own dirtdirt has been taking a polaroid photograph every day since July 14th, 2002. That's 2114 images as of today. He has other cool sets on his flickr page, my favorite being his pictures of school lunches.
posted by Kattullus at 4:53 PM PST - 42 comments

Give it up for The Cramps and The Gun Club. Two of the greatest bands to come out of the late 1970s/early 1980s punk scene, they (wikis here and here) shared a few things in common: guitarist Kid Congo Powers as well as a penchant for re-invigorating the raucous, carnal, primal spirit of American popular music--i.e. early garage rock and rockabilly (what the Cramps dubbed "psychobilly") and blues. Start with this screamer from The Cramps, and this blistering classic from the GC's first LP. [more inside]
posted by ornate insect at 4:10 PM PST - 48 comments

The Rise of the Rest. Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek article about a "post-American" world.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:37 PM PST - 42 comments

The Making of The Pentultimate - a beautifully obsessive documentation of modeling, casting, and assembling a "deep cut vertex turning icosahedron", or put another way, the path from 820 fiddly little bits to an elegant 32-piece mechanical puzzle.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:18 PM PST - 19 comments

"Palmetto Pathos is an examination of a Southern family, from their 1684 arrival in Pennsylvania to Southern Spartanburg County in the present..." It's more than an examination; one might call it a narrative of one Smith family, spanning the 18th century to the mid-20th century. There's a little of everything: a recipe, a mysterious family photo, financial matters, even a few cuties. I could just post links but the best way is to just dive in.
posted by zorro astor at 3:13 PM PST - 5 comments

17 Notorious Living, Working Cinematic Provocateurs. The Onion A/V Club strikes again.
posted by chuckdarwin at 2:56 PM PST - 33 comments

Mildred Loving of Loving v. Virginia (1967) has passed away.
posted by Morrigan at 1:42 PM PST - 51 comments

Burma: It Can't Wait is a month-long video campaign by the US Campaign for Burma to raise awareness of the plight of Burma (Myanmar) and Aung San Suu Kyi. There will be one video a day for 30 days from celebrities including Will Ferrel, Sarah Silverman and Eddie Izzard. [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 12:49 PM PST - 57 comments

Welcome to the world of pinball promo videos. Need more? Well, CaptainPinball has you covered...
posted by tittergrrl at 12:38 PM PST - 22 comments

Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican? is a documentary produced by Claire Andrade-Watkins about the gentrification of Providence's once-thriving Cape Verdean community of Fox Point.
posted by lunit at 12:26 PM PST - 7 comments

A chance meeting between actress Tippi Hedren and 20 Vietnamese refugees over 30 years ago, sparked a Vietnamese American domination of the manicure business (80% of manicurists in California; 43% nationwide)
posted by jaimev at 12:19 PM PST - 39 comments

The Robert L. Capp collection is a group of photographs of the aftermath of Hiroshima that are probably more graphic than any other photos of the tragedy that you have seen. Taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, they were found by Capp in a cave outside Hiroshima in 1945 and given to the Hoover Archives ten years ago, with the stipulation that they not be published until now. Warning, these are seriously, seriously not for the faint of heart, and probably NSFW.
posted by schroedinger at 12:07 PM PST - 57 comments

Fiscal Pressures Lead Some States to Free Inmates Early, says the Washington Post. Across the United States, a financial crisis is brewing in our nation's correctional systems. California, which has the largest prison system in the nation, (housing 170,000 inmates with a capacity of only 100,000), plans to increase the budget for new prison construction by 7 to 14 billion dollars, on top of releasing 22,000 nonviolent prisoners on unsupervised parole. Other states, especially Michigan, face an even more dire situation... [more inside]
posted by Avenger at 11:48 AM PST - 41 comments

In 2006 in the Fitzwilliam Museum three enormous porcelain vases from seventeenth or eighteenth century China were smashed by a museum visitor who fell down the stairs. This presentation "follows the vases' progress from scattered fragments to their redisplay in the Fitzwilliam Museum. The site includes slideshows, film clips of the conservation process and a timelapse of one of the vases under reconstruction". [more inside]
posted by paduasoy at 11:13 AM PST - 20 comments

Grant Achatz, chef and owner of Chicago's finest restaurant, Alinea, was diagnosed with tongue cancer last year. After aggressive chemo and radiation, his cancer is in full remission, and he is slowly regaining his palate.
posted by AceRock at 9:58 AM PST - 17 comments

I love twistori.
I hate twistori.
I think twistori is awesome.
I believe twistori is pointless.
I feel uncomfortable reading twistori.
I wish I could stop.
From twitter, inspired by wefeelfine [previously], using summize.
posted by carsonb at 9:51 AM PST - 101 comments

You're familiar with the grand-daddy of (overhyped) real estate AVMs, or even some lesser known, but more accurate competitors. In this market, it can be tough to get out from under your current home before buying new. But did you know that you can also swap your home?
posted by greensweater at 9:41 AM PST - 5 comments

money can't buy happiness? well, actually it might (NYT). [more inside]
posted by krautland at 9:37 AM PST - 20 comments

Barbie vs Bratz: Mattel sues MGA, claiming the Bratz designs were created by a Mattel employee and smuggled to its rival.
posted by Artw at 8:55 AM PST - 41 comments

Are you an older sibling? Did you feel unfairly treated compared to your brothers and sisters? Well, now you have science to back you up. According to Games Parents and Adolescents Play, a new sociology study published in The Economic Journal, the oldest kid in the family really does bear the brunt of parental strictness, while the younger brothers and sisters generally coast on through. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 8:23 AM PST - 67 comments

"Hard Numbers: The Economy is Worse than You Know" [full article for Harper's subscribers, a different abridged version] discusses how the Consumer Price Index and other US economic statistics have been manipulated over time. Among other things, the article claims, these changes make Social Security checks 70% lower than they would otherwise be. [more inside]
posted by salvia at 7:55 AM PST - 76 comments

Oil's got one. So does cocaine. There used to be one for light bulbs and another for uranium. While we know one currently exists for diamonds, some folks think the music industry has one. [more inside]
posted by Mutant at 6:55 AM PST - 21 comments

The video of German electrofunkmeister Michael Fakesch's On the Floor (via Daily Motion) might make getting to sleep difficult. But it's awesome, and the guy sounds like a younger, angrier Prince. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 6:10 AM PST - 9 comments

If you give Trent Reznor your email address, he'll give you a new 10-track, 43-minute long Nine Inch Nails album for free. The Slip is available in direct download in MP3 format and torrents are available for FLAC, Apple lossless, and WAV formats. The album is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 5:31 AM PST - 76 comments

Polcarstva. Art game [Flash].
posted by Sitegeist at 2:30 AM PST - 9 comments

The Ergenekon Affair: - The Killer Elite that fuels unrest in Turkey. On 22 January, Turkish police arrested 33 individuals, some connected with the military, in the largest concerted action against the "deep state" , which is heavily involved in Corporate Crime. This might resonate with some US observers.
posted by adamvasco at 2:00 AM PST - 8 comments