"Living under capitalism, I like learning to feel comfortable with activity that does not result in success — since non-success is the norm. Trying your best and making it is not the norm — it’s propaganda. Of course I play with notions of hype, too... The entire Comatonse website is a sarcastic hype-engine, sprawling forever, overwhelming the viewer with nothingness." - Terre Thaemlitz, AKA DJ Sprinkles [more inside]
posted by koeselitz at 11:34 PM PST - 27 comments

Year On Earth breaks it down, explaining the complicated mechanics involved in trying to determine how long a year really is, why seasons and ice ages happen, and how not all years are created equal.
posted by loquacious at 10:16 PM PST - 22 comments

San Francisco-based DJ Earworm is best known for his end-of-year "United State of Pop" Billboard top 25 mashups: 2007, 2008, 2009. But in the "off season" he continues to mash popular songs into fun concotions. His latest, "Like, OMG Baby" is a reinvention of Justin Bieber's "Baby," and was shown at Wembley Stadium in London for Capital FM’s 2010 Summertime Ball , where all fifteen of the artists featured on the track performed on June 6th. His official website has videos and free, downloadable MP3's. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:57 PM PST - 27 comments

Is it possible to have too many books? Legendary Sci-Fi Author and Crankypants Harlan Ellison thinks so (or maybe his wife) so it's time for the Third Harlan Ellison Book Purge Sale! 289 items of varying levels of collectability, ranging in price from US$4 to US$1200. The eBay-averse Ellisons are only accepting mail orders (mailing deadline already past, sorry) or phone orders via a dedicated phone number at specified times, starting July 6th (today for most of you) at 9:00AM Pacific Time, your timezone will vary. All the offerings and instructions are in this pdf (also in semi-readable webpage form here). Mrs. Ellison is standing by!
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:11 PM PST - 61 comments

With their no-frills, earnestly deadpan delivery, excellent pitch and diction, crisp guitar work, impeccable rhythm and sweet harmonies, Fiona and Emily are sure to become your favorite classic rock cover band. Honky Tonk Woman, Pinball Wizard, Ticket To Ride, Surfin' USA, House of the Rising Sun, Help, Johnny B. Goode, and last but certainly not least, I Am the Walrus. Woooooooooo!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:14 PM PST - 55 comments

"My web site will encourage kindness among those who support it, and creative punishment for those who do not." Mefi's own Shepherd "got a little carried away" creating his blog's under construction placeholder page. The result is a terrifying dystopic epic. [via mefi projects]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:59 PM PST - 40 comments

The people of 4chan are at it again. They are now trying to hijack the voting for Justin Bieber's next touring destination. Their goal: to send him to North Korea. There are now almost half a million votes to send Bieber to the secretive communist nation.
posted by reenum at 7:54 PM PST - 84 comments

“I was thinking about those cow paths while watching Wimbledon this year.” —What the grass begins to tell us about how the game of tennis has changed in the past 30 years.
posted by kipmanley at 7:47 PM PST - 24 comments

"The Great Housing Bubble cultivated a gentility of entitlement, a sordid societal residue, a system of reliance, a conviction among people that they may possess anything they wish just because; deserving without earning; Grace." The Irvine Housing Blog has been documenting the housing bubble in Southern California since 2006. Highlights include an analysis of why "the California economy is dependent upon Ponzi borrowers." Now, as the term "strategic default" (discussed previously here and here) continues to trend upward , the stars of Bravo Network's reality television series The Real Housewives of Orange County are confronting realities of a different sort including bankruptcy, short sales and loan modifications. Discussion boards are filling up with legal talk concerning recourse vs. non-recourse loans, 2nd and 3rd lien holders and the prospects of settling 2nd lien debt at 4 cents on the dollar. Given the decreasing societal stigma associated with the issue of strategic default, many are speculating that this trend is in fact acting as an economic stimulus of a different kind
posted by FuturisticDragon at 7:45 PM PST - 20 comments

Listen to some great contemporary orchestrated classical Persian tunes. [more inside]
posted by clueless22 at 7:42 PM PST - 12 comments

Planck telescope reveals ancient cosmic light. "The picture is the first full-sky image from Europe's Planck telescope which was sent into space last year to survey the oldest light in the cosmos. It took the 600m-euro observatory just over six months to assemble the map. It shows what is visible beyond the Earth to instruments that are sensitive to light at very long wavelengths - much longer than what we can sense with our eyes." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 5:09 PM PST - 30 comments

On comedienne Whitney Cummings new blog Princess Complex, she contemplates such topics as poorly designed wedding dresses, her eerie resemblance to Doug Henning, camelflage, and cookies that increase your breast size..
posted by puny human at 4:10 PM PST - 28 comments

Big Bang, Big Boom, by Blu. A beautiful, extremely impressive stop motion depiction of evolution brought to life on walls, streets, beaches, and everything in between. (Previously, and other films Fantoche, and MUTO.) [more inside]
posted by wander at 2:49 PM PST - 19 comments

In a narrow plot next to the Los Angeles River, Charles Ray Walker, 59, has created a refuge of terraced slopes from toys and trash discarded by Angelenos.

It's his home away from homelessness.
posted by gman at 2:43 PM PST - 25 comments

Ninja Say What?! (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by fuse theorem at 2:05 PM PST - 51 comments

How Goldman Sachs gambled on starving the world's poor - and won This was hinted at last August and in 2008
Merrill Lynch's spokesman said: "Huh. I didn't know about that." He later emailed to say: "I am going to decline comment." Deutsche Bank also refused to comment. Goldman Sachs were a little more detailed in their response: they said "serious analyses... have concluded index funds did not cause a bubble in commodity futures prices", offering as evidence a single statement by the OECD.
World Hunger Facts 2010
posted by adamvasco at 1:58 PM PST - 99 comments

Argentina has been eliminated from The World Cup, but that doesn't mean we aren't free to enjoy some quotes from the always quotable Diego Maradona. For example, after Argentina qualified for the finals in South Africa, after looking like they would not make it, he said "To those who did not believe: now suck my d**k - I'm sorry ladies for my words - and keep on sucking it. I am either white or black. I will never be grey in my life. You treated me as you did. Now keep on sucking d**ks. I am grateful to my players and to the Argentinian people. I thank no one but them. The rest, keep on sucking d**ks."
posted by Keith Talent at 12:53 PM PST - 87 comments

Research by an international team led by staff at the ORAU has mapped out an accurate chronology of the kings of ancient Egypt using radiocarbon analysis of short-lived plant remains from the region. The research has now been published in the journal Science (18 June, 2010). [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 12:03 PM PST - 8 comments

Large Hadron Collider as pop-up book. Voyage to the Heart of Matter by Anton Radevsky and Emma Sanders uses cutting-edge pop-up-book technology to explicate the Large Hadron Collider. (At Ars Technica; at Wired.)
posted by joeclark at 11:33 AM PST - 4 comments

"Scream" a video by aspiring DIY pop-star (and ostensible straight person) Sky Smith. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:18 AM PST - 30 comments

"Young Bert Stern was already one of the leading fashion photographers of the 1950's when he resolved to shoot his first film before he was thirty. He made it, with two years to spare. The result, Jazz on a Summer's Day, is a luminously breezy film that brings the rich color palette of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar of those years into the world of the documentary cinema." [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 11:00 AM PST - 19 comments

Pioneer One is an original series from the writer and director of The Lionshare. In one sense, it is an experiment in crowdfunded "television", beginning with a $6000 KickStarter budget. In another sense, it is an experiment in using a peer-to-peer distribution model (i.e., VODO's "DISCO"). The show's pilot, released two weeks ago, which can be downloaded or streamed, has been a huge success; is currently the best-seeded show on BitTorrent, and already has had well over 1 million downloads. [more inside]
posted by tybeet at 9:07 AM PST - 32 comments

An AWESOME collection of sci-fi illustrations by the prolific Shigeru Komatsuzaki (1915-2001), whose fantastic work appeared on plastic model kit boxes and in magazines and picture books in the 1960s to 1970s. via [more inside]
posted by Monkeymoo at 8:48 AM PST - 18 comments

The fairy tales of robots... Tarboy, an extremely appealing little animation, brought to you from Down Under by James and Hania Lee. With quite a nice soundtrack available for free download. [more inside]
posted by Samizdata at 8:13 AM PST - 12 comments

Le Patineur Grotesque: Victorian rollerskating in Australia [more inside]
posted by dumdidumdum at 8:08 AM PST - 5 comments

An unusual lip sync performance. (SLYT)
posted by josher71 at 7:32 AM PST - 71 comments

Photographers Dominic Nahr and Moises Saman have both beeninvited to join the prestigious photo agency Magnum (as nominees).
posted by chunking express at 6:46 AM PST - 26 comments

Should you ever find yourself and the victim in your underwear when tragedy strikes—Super Sexy CPR & Super Sexy Abdominal Thrusts.
posted by Toekneesan at 6:37 AM PST - 34 comments

How to Access the Internet (A Guide from 2025)
posted by knz at 4:53 AM PST - 55 comments

"Free Repair" is a project by Swiss artist Roland Roos, who traveled through Europe for over two years to repair broken, displaced or damaged things in the public space - without an assignment, but also without asking for permission. He documented his endeavor with photographs. (Coral Cached Link)
posted by starzero at 4:28 AM PST - 25 comments

“I like to think that at best the interview becomes something like the unaccountable experience of talking to oneself in a mirror.” - Michael Silverblatt, Host of Bookworm on KCRW interviewed by Sarah Fay for The Believer. All twenty years of Bookworm archives can be heard here
posted by minifigs at 3:18 AM PST - 6 comments