June 2, 2010

Sometime El Toro he win.

WARNING: What follows is extremely graphic, read the description before clicking.
In the once widely popular and always widely hated sport of bullfighting everything is stacked against the bull. The matador doesn't even enter the ring until the bull is exhausted, badly wounded and near death. Last week however matador Julio Aparicio slipped and the bull took advantage. Aparicio was gored through the throat and the tip of the horn could be seen coming out of his mouth. [more inside]
posted by Bonzai at 9:22 PM PST - 125 comments

Cost of raising a kid to the age of 17? $286,050. USDA report

Got a lazy quarter million? Why not raise a kid to the age of 17. Average cost $286,050. [more inside]
posted by bystander at 9:05 PM PST - 53 comments

27 Up, 27 Dow ... Not So Fast There, Buddy

Blown call costs pitcher a perfect game. It should have been the third perfect game this season, and only the 21st in major league history. Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game, only to have it spoiled by what will likely be remembered as one of the worst calls in baseball history. "I just cost that kid a perfect game," said umpire Jim Joyce, a 22-year veteran. Can we go to the replay? Nope! [more inside]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:34 PM PST - 219 comments

Oscar Wilde's Voice

"What you are now going to hear is a recording of the actual voice of Oscar Wilde ..." [more inside]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:14 PM PST - 25 comments

entertainment for the impecunious

Julia Kotowski, otherwise known as entertainment for the braindead, has released several rather good albums under a Creative Commons licence: Hypersomnia, Hydrophobia, Seven (+1), Raw Timber and the banjo-heavy Roadkill.
posted by scruss at 7:53 PM PST - 3 comments

Snakes and sauropods

Can a snake prey on a dinosaur? The answer is yes. A plug of wet sediment captures a snake preying on a dinosaur hatchling.
posted by unliteral at 7:14 PM PST - 16 comments

Why Are Indian Kids So Good at Spelling?

Because they have their own minor-league spelling bee circuit. Having a qualifying spelling bee league that is, at times, tougher than the actual competition is what results in the extreme over-representation of Indian kids (1% in population, 11% in the spelling bee) at the national-level Scripps spelling bee. Where else have you seen such a phenomenon?
posted by vidur at 7:10 PM PST - 16 comments

Illustrated Encyclopedia

Wikipedia is famous for providing multimedia on any topic imaginable. Founder Jimmy Wales recently attempted a purge on pornography, but then partially reversed it due to community backlash. Wikipedia contributor Seedfeeder is a user who provides remarkably well-done Creative Commons illustrations to topics such as erotic lactation, bukkake, and pegging. Obviously NSFW, and some argue unsafe for Wikipedia as well.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:37 PM PST - 61 comments

New (proposed) copyright law in Canada

The Canadian government has introduced new copyright legislation, which is supposed to strike a balance between the rights of authors and the rights of users. Internet guru Michael Geist weighs in.
posted by anothermug at 5:45 PM PST - 28 comments

Sculptris wants you to make 3D models.

Dr. Petter has released Sculptris 1.0 for Windows at no charge. [more inside]
posted by boo_radley at 4:50 PM PST - 26 comments

Giant Sized Man Thing

DC Comics has scraped an upcoming Swamp Thing series by acclaimed writer China Miéville (previously), apparently so that Swamp Thing and other Vertigo characters such as Black Orchid and Shade The Changing Man can be reintegrated into the DC Universe. Vertigo started out as a darker, edgier imprint of comics, largely modeled on Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing, that absorbed many of DCs supernatural characters and largely took them out of DC's more superhero orientated universe, something that this would reverse. There is no word on whether John Constantine, star of Vertigos longest running comic Hellblazer would be affected.
posted by Artw at 3:56 PM PST - 78 comments

Gassy?

Alka-Seltzer added to a water bubble in an experiment on the International Space Station. "Alka-Seltzer added to spherical water drop in microgravity" via Reddit. (SLYT)
posted by zerobyproxy at 3:17 PM PST - 51 comments

All the News That's Fit to Search

Busk is a search engine dedicated to items which are in the news. It gathers the results from thousands of sites and many of them contain full content including pictures, videos, and podcasts. [more inside]
posted by gman at 2:50 PM PST - 15 comments

All I want is a Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me.

Make your own soda. Root beer. Seltzer. Cream. Ginger beer. Endless possibilities, maybe you'll be the next big thing at Galco's [more inside]
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:47 PM PST - 31 comments

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

The Saragossa Manuscript is an unusual movie based on a strange book by a remarkable man. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 2:27 PM PST - 15 comments

ZZT!

ZZT! The first Epic MegaGames release, back in 1991, was ZZT, an ascii-based top-down action game. [more inside]
posted by LSK at 1:56 PM PST - 30 comments

Find direction in your wardrobe

The North Skirt. You need never be fashionably lost in the woods again.
posted by ardgedee at 1:20 PM PST - 52 comments

A Shrew On the Edge of Existence

This species was around seventy-six million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the continents were splitting.  The impact of a colossal space rock wiped out the dinosaurs but did not finish them off, even though their habitat was close to 'ground zero'.  They survived the super-hot "greenhouse Earth" of the Eocene, major changes in global ecosystems, and the Ice Age (take that, Scrat).  They have grooved teeth which inject venom into their prey; very strong limbs which end in long sharp claws.  They have only three native predators.  However this 'living fossil' called the Solenodon could soon be wiped out by mongoose, people and wild dogs. [more inside]
posted by Hardcore Poser at 1:13 PM PST - 9 comments

t's not spoiling it, Sandy, it's only making it better.

There's a new sing-a-long version of Grease coming out... pity there's a few things missing from it.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:07 PM PST - 34 comments

It’s uncool to stay cool?

As summer arrives, a scientist writes (mostly negatively) about air conditioning
posted by LeLiLo at 1:04 PM PST - 125 comments

Rock you like a hurricane

Hurricane season began yesterday, and NOAA is predicting a banner year in the Atlantic. What does this mean for the oil spill? Obama's point man says it will be "touch and go." [more inside]
posted by troika at 11:40 AM PST - 58 comments

Writing on the Wall

Good 50x70 is an annual poster contest run by a worldwide partnership. Each year they ask seven charities to prepare briefs on major global issues, and then invite anyone to submit original posters that address the issue. The call for 2010 posters is now on; explore the archives from previous years to see posters on health care access, the War on Terror, women's rights, child mortality, water scarcity, global warming, and more.
posted by Miko at 10:59 AM PST - 22 comments

Peter Orlovsky, In Memoriam

Impossible Happiness, an elegy for Peter Orlovsky, 76, a writer best known as a longtime muse, inspiration and companion of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, [he] died May 30 of lung cancer at a respite care center in Williston, Vt.. Naropa co-founder poet, Anne Waldman on Peter's death. 4 poems l "It's never too late to do nothin' at all" l Ida Spaulding reads Peter's "Writing Poems is a Saintly Thing".
posted by nickyskye at 10:36 AM PST - 26 comments

Robots With Knives

Robots With Knives: A Study of Soft-Tissue Injury in Robotics or Dynamic Unconstrained Collision Impacts. Luckily, we may be approaching Asimov's 1st law... or not.
posted by ennui.bz at 8:43 AM PST - 37 comments

Lots of pretty houses and friends to be found

Vintage Polly Pockets forever! Maybe you had the old-school compact beach house or Polly's Cafe. Maybe you had an awesome Polly Pocket Locket. Maybe your parents were the best ever and you had a full set of f'in awesome Pollyville houses, complete with tiny cars and balloons and pets and other pieces designed to be lost the minute the package was opened. Thankfully, Only Polly Pocket is here to help you identify every Polly set you ever owned. [more inside]
posted by peachfuzz at 8:41 AM PST - 35 comments

Monsters I Have Known.

Impressions of D&D Monsters: Laughing Squid helps you penetrate the pencils/dice barrier in order to fully experience the horror of the Gelatinous Cube. (SLYT)
posted by darth_tedious at 8:25 AM PST - 62 comments

Itsy-bitsy teeny-weenie tiny everything

Look at This Little Thing! A tumblr collection of the perfectly tiny and miniature. [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 8:14 AM PST - 14 comments

If you watch this and say, "Someone has too much time on his hands," I hate you.

HELLO WORLD (SLYT) "Lego felt tip 110" printer connected to an Apple Mac. This is not a kit you can buy and does not use mindstorms. I designed/built/coded it all from scratch including analog motor electronics, sensors and printer driver, the USB interface uses a "wiring" board.
posted by grumblebee at 7:49 AM PST - 42 comments

I Am Sitting In A Video Room 1000

The 'photocopy effect' applied to YouTube What happens when you record a video, upload it to YouTube, download it, and re-upload it over and over and over. After a while, it starts to look like this [30x] and this [175] and this [240] and this [750]. Inspired by Alvin Lucier's experimental composition, I am Sitting in a Room discussed here and here.
posted by sswiller at 7:32 AM PST - 71 comments

Nimslo, Your Time has Come

Michael Fivis, Maximus Chatsky, and Krakenpoison are three photographers who shoot with a Nimslo, the four lens 35mm lenticular camera manufactured in the 1980's, and create animated autostereo "wobble 3D" images.

Warning: Lots of animated .gifs to load. [more inside]
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 7:31 AM PST - 18 comments

Would have been better as a half-pipe

We've seen lots of crazy skydiving, BASE jumping, wingsuit flying and so on. Now watch Taïg Khris jump from the Eiffel Tower wearing rollerblades. SLYT [turn speakers down if you don't like loud crowds].
posted by bwg at 4:55 AM PST - 60 comments

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