May 30, 2011

Typography and the Kindle platform

Typography is about reading – and so are ebooks [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:52 PM PST - 67 comments

Learn to swim.

Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history, according to the latest estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA). After a dip in 2009 caused by the global financial crisis, emissions are estimated to have climbed to a record 30.6 Gigatonnes (Gt), a 5% jump from the previous record year in 2008, when levels reached 29.3 Gt. The likelihood of exceeeding 450 ppm CO2 and associated two degrees of warming has now receded greatly.
posted by wilful at 11:28 PM PST - 33 comments

"You can't fake a tape! Pictures don't lie! At least not until you've assembled them creatively. "

Newstweek: fixing the facts. Newstweek is a device that injects fake news into unsecured wireless connections. More info at hackaday.
posted by loquacious at 11:02 PM PST - 26 comments

Fat Mike of punk band NoFX creates punk rock rental property in Las Vegas

Welcome to Vegas Punk House. Don’t break shit! Frontman, Fat Mike, of the punk band NoFX recently opened a "Punk House" available for renting while staying in Vegas. Complete with a mini golf course, 3 bedrooms (one with six bunk beds), punk flyers all over the walls, beer vending machine, and a "paltry" museum, for $400 dollars per 3 day stay, you can maintain you're punk lifestyle, albeit in luxury. (VIDEO)
posted by Leisure_Muffin at 10:44 PM PST - 72 comments

Drunken Angel vs. Drunken Angel

I have seen the future of rock n roll + cinema and it is 4-minute mashups that span eras and genres and continents and cultures. Although it's hard to imagine any others can reach this level of awesome: Akira Kurosawa vs. Lucinda Williams. Drunken Angel vs. Drunken Angel. SLYT
posted by ecourbanist at 9:20 PM PST - 7 comments

Tupac the Kiwi

Over the weekend, PBS' website was hacked by a group calling itself "The Lulz Boat", or "LulzSec". The PBS site displayed a story claiming that rapper Tupac Shakur was alive and well in New Zealand. (He's not). The hack was apparently over the Frontline program that aired last week, 'Wikisecrets', which Julian Assange called "hostile". This follows a separate, unrelated breach at Lockheed Martin, also publicized over the weekend. (Previously)
posted by IvoShandor at 8:04 PM PST - 62 comments

Dog Day Afternoons

“I have to admit, I admired her style,” . . . “the most awesome robbery ever.” . . . “twisted, intellectually bright, dysfunctional individuals who outsmarted themselves” . . . "from threats to farce to violence" . . . "He smelled really good." . . . Slate and Longform.org team up to being you the tales of five remarkable bank heists.
posted by chaff at 7:16 PM PST - 21 comments

KKK vs. WBC

"Protesting members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church were met with an unlikely group of counter-protesters Monday at Arlington Cemetery...a branch of the Ku Klux Klan from Virginia called the Knights of the Southern Cross" [more inside]
posted by 445supermag at 5:28 PM PST - 125 comments

A girl is never too young to marry, really.

Because the wedding was illegal and a secret . . it was well into the afternoon before the three girl brides . . . began to prepare themselves for their sacred vows. "Two of the brides, the sisters Radha and Gora, were 15 and 13, old enough to understand what was happening. The third, their niece Rajani, was 5. . . " Previously on MetaFilter. If you can read a pdf document, here is more from the International Center for Research on Women.
posted by bearwife at 3:13 PM PST - 51 comments

In the grim, dark future of the 41st millennium, there is ONLY (gears of) WAR

Start with the over-sized armor and bodybuilder physiques of the marines. When you aim a gun in Space Marine, the target reticle is huge, just like the target reticle in Gears of War. The guns are huge and they feature a chainsaw blade that can be used to slice enemies in half, execution style, similar to the “chainsaw bayonet” of the Gears soldiers... The blood spatters are also quite similar. The guns shoot in a similar fashion and the Space Marines wield a big giant hammer that resembles the blasting hammers not from Gears of War but from Microsoft’s other sci-fi franchise, Halo... The bad guys are the green Ork enemies from the Warhammer world, and they bear no resemblance to the enemies in Gears of War, except that they make loud grunts. Of course, their very name does bear resemblance to the “orcs” in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, but we’ll ignore that for now. Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat, on how Warhammer 40K: Space Marine is a big rip off of Gears of War. That would be Warhammer 40k, the first rulebook for which was released in 1987, and Gears of War, the relentlessly brown X-Box game released in 2006 to an emo-tastic advertising campaign. Oops. Dean has since backed down and said that he was only talking about gameplay aspects (he wasn't) that are similar (not particularly). Previously he was forced to retract a bad review of Mass Effect when it emerged that he had no idea how to play it. Should videogame journalists be expected to vaguely know what they are talking about, or are we just petty and vindictive for expecting that? (via)
posted by Artw at 2:06 PM PST - 129 comments

Bletchley Park WWII Code-breaking Machines Rebuilt from Memories

Early 1940: British police listening for radio transmissions from German spies within the UK pick up weird signals, and pass them to Bletchley Park, the United Kingdom's main decryption establishment in WWII. The source of these German messages is an unknown machine, which the Brits dub Tunny (10 minute video with Tony Sale describing the Tunny). August 30, 1941: German operators send two very similar messages with the same key, providing insight into the encryption scheme. By January 1942, British cryptographers deduced the workings of the German code machines, sight unseen. The British were able to create their own Tunny emulators to decrypt messages sent by German High Command. After the war, these and other British code-breaking and emulating machines were demolished and/or recycled for parts and their blueprints destroyed, leaving a hole in the history of the British WWII code breaking. Efforts to rebuild the British Tunny emulator started in the 1990s, and quite recently a Tunny emulator replica was completed. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:55 PM PST - 12 comments

Courage under fire

A kindergarten teacher in La Estanzuela, a neighborhood in Monterrey Mexico, sings with her students as gunfire can be heard outside. [more inside]
posted by CrazyLemonade at 12:43 PM PST - 96 comments

An Experiment in Pixelated Alchemy

Artist Shawn Smith uses hand-cut wooden blocks and acrylic paint to transform images of nature into three-dimensional pixelated sculptures. [more inside]
posted by bayani at 12:07 PM PST - 9 comments

William Nolde (1929-1973)

Colonel William B. Nolde, 43, Bronze Star and Legion of Merit medal recipient, was killed by an artillery shell near An Lộc on January 27, 1973 - 11 hours before the truce that ended the Vietnam War.
posted by Trurl at 11:45 AM PST - 10 comments

The uncanny valley just got uncannier

Artist Landon Meier crafts realistic latex masks of babies.
posted by logicpunk at 11:45 AM PST - 29 comments

"There's nuts on both sides," he says. "I guess I'm one of 'em."

The life and times of Harvey Updyke: [espn.com] Harvey Updyke talks about life, death and the trees at Toomer's Corner. "Harvey Updyke walks into the famous catfish place down in the swamp, takes off his crimson houndstooth baseball cap and asks, right off the bat, if I know where he could get some cheap tickets to next year's Alabama-Ole Miss game. Provided, he makes sure to point out later, he's not in prison."
posted by Fizz at 9:17 AM PST - 13 comments

paradigm drift

Commodity Prices and Paradigm Shifts - "The real paradigm shift, or more like a paradigm drift, because it is slowly enveloping us, is that we are moving toward preferences and lifestyle where we will simply consume less. A lot less... [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 9:11 AM PST - 88 comments

Rocking Chair

Leslie Slape has been a professional storyteller for more than 20 years. This column will feature some of her favorite short folktales from around the world. Come on, snuggle up in the rocking chair, and get ready for a story. [more inside]
posted by infini at 8:53 AM PST - 8 comments

Toronto's own little war on an abstract noun.

Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto (previously, previouslier, and previousliest) is cracking down on graffiti in Hogtown with a Graffiti Abatement Program. However, with small business owners facing steep fines for failing to remove graffiti, independent removal services charging handsomely to remove it (with power washers which can damage building facings and which also sweep aerosol paint residue into the sewers and Lake Ontario) and taggers being regularly presented with fresh canvasses to work on, which starts the cycle once again, the system seems insupportable. [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:30 AM PST - 99 comments

A boy and his otter

A boy playing with an otter. via
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:26 AM PST - 19 comments

The Empire of the Nickel

"For five cents Coney Island will feed you, frighten you, cool you, toast you, flatter you, or destroy your inhibitions. And in this nickel empire boy meets girl." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 8:13 AM PST - 15 comments

There will, of course, be some 9-1-1 worthy mistakes in the beginning, such of those who think keeping a harem of hens is no more difficult than ranching gold fish.

"If a hen that appreciates Wagner and Rachmaninov can make me breakfast, she sounds like a pretty good companion to have around" - Toronto Standard reports on the pros and cons of a recent vote to determine if hens can be kept as pets.
posted by ameliaaah at 8:02 AM PST - 15 comments

Tressel Resigns

Jim Tressel, one of the most successful college football coaches in history, has resigned as coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. After several players were discovered to have traded Ohio State football memorabilia for tattoos (actions which represent NCAA violations), it was revealed that Tressel knew of the player's actions and attempted to conceal the information from investigators. Though Tressel often projected a squeaky clean, conservative image, detractors have often accused him of hypocrisy.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:58 AM PST - 44 comments

She is right here with me nowwwww

Electric Daisy Carnival Prompts Amber Alert For Missing Girl named Molly [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:24 AM PST - 88 comments

Katy & I

Katy & I. [Video] Jack Moore has an obsession with Katy Perry.
posted by nam3d at 5:25 AM PST - 26 comments

"Liking Is for Cowards, Go for What Hurts"

Jonathan Franzen's essay, excerpted from his commencement speech at Kenyon College says, among other things "To speak more generally, the ultimate goal of technology... is to replace a natural world that’s indifferent to our wishes ... with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self." [more inside]
posted by dubold at 4:44 AM PST - 71 comments

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