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A Tail By Any Other Name : Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert thinks it would be awfully handy to have an extra appendage. A Providence handyman sees things a little differently.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:49 PM PST - 22 comments

Roman Coppola (Youtube warning) battles Nokia in extreme slow-motion, reminding me of a previous post.
posted by tighttrousers at 8:27 PM PST - 15 comments

send a hammer is a site that popped up recently to offer something to send a congressman(or woman) to break down the wall that the send a brick folk want made with their bricks. What a strange conversation the nation is having about immigration! It's all the talk from the churches to the white supremacists but ---won't someone think of the kids!! How bad is this an issue to tackle in an election year - don't forget how much madness can get legislated in the shadow of a heated election
posted by donabean at 8:21 PM PST - 26 comments

Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook (PDF)
If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete. - Sun Tzu

In 2005 Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies & West Point's Combating Terrorism Center worked together to translate what appears to be one of the most important works defining al Qaeda's strategic goals & methods, Management of Savagery (PDF) by al Qaeda strategist Abu Bakr Naji. Then they analyzed it along with three other al Qaeda works: Knights Under The Banner of The Prophet by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Between Two Methods by Abu Qatada and Observations Concerning the Jihadi Experience in Syria by Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. The result is Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook (PDF) (also Google cached HTML). If you want to understand more of al Qaeda than the simplistic cant that "they're evil", these two books are the place to start.
posted by scalefree at 8:14 PM PST - 26 comments

Saving Corporal Shalit: "I think the only danger to the soldier's life is if there is an actual incursion by Israel into the Gaza Strip."
posted by kliuless at 7:04 PM PST - 42 comments

Dreamies. It's 1972, and affable salaryman and good husband Bill Holt quits his good job at 3M to become a musical pioneer from the comfort of his own basement. The resulting album, Dreamies, is notable for its generous and ahead-of-its-time use of sampling/plunderphonics and became a highly sought-after lost classic until its re-release this year. Bill now has his own website, also called Dreamies, where he releases Eye Candy and Politics in liberal doses. Some are hypnotic, some are, for want of a better term, 'relaxing', others are anything but. And all of them are subtly infused with the slightly unsettling taste of Huh?
posted by nylon at 6:38 PM PST - 8 comments

The Plank started it, using a NY Times piece on MyDD.com founder Jerome Armstrong's recent settlement with the SEC to impune Daily Kos's integrety with accusations of graft and extortion, revealing a secret liberal-blog mailing list. Kos counterattacks. TNR expands their assault. David Brooks piles on. Kos's allies respond. TNR retracts (somewhat), and brings up another skeleton in Jerome's closet. Finally, the adults weigh in.
posted by empath at 6:26 PM PST - 76 comments

While many in the world are glued to the outcomes of the World Cup there is another high-profile international sporting event toiling itself away in the Utah deserts. Primal Quest, a 417 mile expedition adventure race consisting of desert trekking, mountain biking, wilderness navigation, kayaking, and canyoneering, has a prize-purse of $100,000 and many professional, international, and amateur teams have arrived to compete to be the best endurance athletes in the world. Considered by many to be the successor of Mark Burnett's Eco-Challenge the Primal Quest has an expected finishing time of 4 days for the winners and 10 days for the slower teams. Along with the Raid series, Primal Quest continues to give competitive adventurers a grand outlet at the international level but it is to be noted the sport of adventure racing has not been without its problems in the past.
posted by rlef98 at 5:16 PM PST - 9 comments

How to use a cellphone without looking like an asshole. Or maybe you need a primer on ordering wine instead. Once again, Waiter has you covered.
posted by kyleg at 3:44 PM PST - 123 comments

Mish Mash Mush A series of mixes from Providence eclectic label Fort Thunder, home of Ninja Versus Wrestler and Forcefield. As part of an aplty amorphous and chaotic "noise" scene, the mixes contain otherwise unreleased music from bands like Lightning Bolt, Mindflayer, 25 Suave, and a bevy of other bands from labels like Load, Animal Disguise and Bulb. Good music with a dirt-simple interface.
posted by klangklangston at 2:38 PM PST - 15 comments

Collective global wireless network mapping via high-traffic automobile networks
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:14 PM PST - 9 comments

Sleater-Kinney will be going on "indefinite hiatus." Simply put, they're breaking up.
posted by keswick at 1:52 PM PST - 105 comments

Arif Mardin passed away Sunday. Yes, the first is a NYTimes link, but here's an obit from the Independent newspaper, and here's a BBC obit as well. It would be unseemly not to note the passing of the arranger or producer (or both, or co- ) behind the Art Farmer Quartet's Live at the Half-Note, Sonny Stitt's Stitt Plays Bird, Max Roach's Drums Unlimited, the Rascals' "Good Lovin'" and "Groovin'," Aretha Franklin's I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You and Aretha Now, Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis, Donny Hathaway's Extension of a Man, the Stones' Black and Blue, Chaka Khan's first several solo albums, and hundreds of others all the way down to Norah Jones ... a list almost too long to compile. NPR interview here, lengthier article from Sound on Sound here, his discogs.com list here.
posted by blucevalo at 1:45 PM PST - 11 comments

An Inconvenient Truth, but an unavoidable one, too. In a recent AP poll, the nation's top climate scientists are giving Al Gore's documentary on global warming five stars for accuracy. This comes on the heels of an intensifying effort to trash the science of the movie by The Wall Street Journal and The National Review. However, the overwhelming consensus of over a thousand climate scientists in 120 countries, as well as the US' own National Academy of Sciences, is firmly in Gore's camp. With an undeniable agreement among the world's scientists and oil industry hackishness coming to light, is the US about to turn the corner on it's conventional wisdom about man-made global warming?
posted by darkstar at 12:56 PM PST - 129 comments

Coming soon to a crowded sidewalk near you: the Excuse Me Belt. (Flash. First link is video.) via
posted by hydrophonic at 12:35 PM PST - 34 comments

The Dewey Donation System is site that helps re-stock libraries devastated by Katrina, by posting wishlists of Louisiana and Mississippi libraries and letting anyone buy books for them. Cool looking site, to boot. [via mefi projects]
posted by mathowie at 11:42 AM PST - 20 comments

Brazilian striker Ronaldo is now "the most prolific scorer in World Cup history." Controversy surrounded him, literally, regarding his weight in the run-up to 2006 (not to mention a bit of competition from an heir apparent named Ronaldinho). But today is Ronaldo's day, and Brasilia's as well as they try to repeat 2002 and add a sixth star to their jerseys. (The list, updated to include Muller in 2nd, Juste Fontaine in 3rd, and fellow countryman Pele in 4th.)
posted by bardic at 10:35 AM PST - 69 comments

"So, like many of you, I’m sure, I have this huge styrofoam version of my head sitting in the garage." -- Ken Jennings, former unstoppable Jeopardy! killing machine, blogs. [Who?]
posted by Gator at 9:20 AM PST - 32 comments

i began cataloging the colors, and put the color list on the web. over time, the paint catalog turned into a web site.
posted by ijoshua at 9:14 AM PST - 7 comments

Those Clever Conservatives... The outrage from the right hemisphere of the internet over the latest domestic spying on financial records "leak" seems centered on "treasonous" activity by the NYTimes, even advocating violence against reporters. The dominant theory is that "leaks are bad" except when the President or Vice-President does it, an artifact of the Nixonian Era. This has spurred the creative genius of some to create photoshopped propaganda, although the quality is lacking as compared to others (see posts tagged with propaganda on Mefi). In light of the satirical guidelines described here (MeFi), perhaps it's time to remix this poster.
posted by rzklkng at 8:45 AM PST - 117 comments

Color theory is demonstrated before your very eyes, inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Itten, Joseph Albers, Marcel Duchamp and George Jetson. yes it's the COLORBOT© Color Harmonizer-Discorder. via dataisnature
posted by signal at 7:33 AM PST - 26 comments

The Klondike Gold Rush, the last great gold rush of the 19th century.
On August 16, 1896 huge quantities of gold was found in the remote Yukon region of Canada. Word spread slowly, until eleven months later, the steamship Portland arrived in Seattle from Dawson with "more than a ton of gold". Within six months, approximately 100,000 gold-seekers set off on the perilous journey north to the Yukon. Only 30,000 completed the trip.
Resources: Eric A. Hegg's photograph's of the gold rush, stories from the gold rush, women of the gold rush, Klondike Gold Rush Historical Database, info and teaching resources (warning: annoying frames), links, Librarians' Internet Index.
posted by MetaMonkey at 7:16 AM PST - 11 comments

It is difficult to describe how it feels to gaze at living human beings whom you’ve seen perform in hard-core porn. To shake the hand of a man whose precise erectile size, angle, and vasculature are known to you. That strange I-think-we’ve-met-before sensation one feels upon seeing any celebrity in the flesh is here both intensified and twisted. It feels intensely twisted to see reigning industry queen Jenna Jameson chilling out at the Vivid booth in Jordaches and a latex bustier and to know already that she has a tattoo of a sundered valentine with the tagline HEART BREAKER on her right buttock and a tiny hairless mole just left of her anus. To watch Peter North try to get a cigar lit and to have that sight backlit by memories of his artilleryesque ejaculations.

David Foster Wallace on the adult film industry
posted by PenguinBukkake at 6:19 AM PST - 121 comments

Are they music? Unusual ideas about musical notation.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:56 AM PST - 18 comments

Part One of the Channel4 program where Richard Dawkins challenges faith calling it 'a process of non-thinking'. [~48 mins] Part Two: The Virus of Faith. [~48 mins]
posted by econous at 1:14 AM PST - 96 comments

Be my echo. (Be my echo)

Sing what I sing. (Sing what I sing)

Follow the leader and sing after me. (Sing after me) [YoutubeFilter]
posted by StopMakingSense at 1:11 AM PST - 8 comments