July 11, 2010

Extreme caving. Amazing tales of the supercave.

An interview with caving researcher James M. Tabor. I haven't recently come across a finer link for pure imagination fuel than this brief interview with caver and caving researcher and writer James M. Tabor, author of Blind Descent. [more inside]
posted by nanojath at 11:19 PM PST - 16 comments

Hulu for the world!

How to access Hulu from outside the U.S. without a proxy server.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:09 PM PST - 70 comments

""Motorcyclist fired me--because Arai and Shoei didn't like a helmet-standards piece I wrote for the New York Times"

Last year long-time motorcycle journalist Dexter Ford wrote this article for the NYT about helmet safety standards, a followup to his 2005 article "Blowing the Lid Off". Leaked emails (pdf) reveal that helmet manufacturers/advertisers were none too pleased, ultimately resulting in Ford being fired. (via hellforleather) [more inside]
posted by aerotive at 9:01 PM PST - 36 comments

"Collectively, we lose more than 10,300 hours per year retrieving lost passwords."

LastPass is the last password manager you'll ever need. Available on almost all common platforms, its easy to use, and free. [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 8:55 PM PST - 73 comments

Born In The Sky

Born In the Sky: Upsetter at the Controls With Susan Cadogan - Do It Baby (Nice 'n Easy) and The Upsetters - All Combine.
posted by puny human at 8:38 PM PST - 8 comments

Hans Rosling on global population growth

Hans Rosling, who helped usher in TED talks way back when using stunning visuals, envisions how the world will look in 50 years as global population grows to 9 billion. To check further population growth, which might have disastrous consequences, he exhorts us to raise the living standards of the poorest. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:11 PM PST - 14 comments

How do you say VROOOM! in Chinese?

China's enigmatic car industry. Did you know that China is the biggest car manufacturer in the world? 'Last year China overtook Japan as the world's biggest carmaker'. Did you know that China is the biggest car market in the world? 'This year it overtook America as the biggest car market'. Can you name any Chinese car brands? What constitutes a Chinese car brand? Volvo started out Swedish, was bought by Ford, and then sold to a Chinese company. But are Chinese brands merely copy cats? Not at all. 'In technology, one Chinese company is already ahead. With triumphant music, billowing smoke and a troupe of flamboyant dancers in white quasi-military uniforms, BYD launched its latest car, powered by a battery design so revolutionary that Warren Buffet, America's most famous investor, has put $250m (£170m) into the company.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 5:53 PM PST - 36 comments

Cryonics and marriage

Until Cryonics Do Us Part: The men who want to be cryonically preserved, and the women who sometimes find it hard to be married to them.
posted by homunculus at 5:10 PM PST - 137 comments

The day that color didn't exist / El día que no tuvimos color

"The Day That Color Didn't Exist: What Hurricane Alex Left Behind" — Photos by Diego Huerta. Via PetaPixel
posted by brundlefly at 1:24 PM PST - 7 comments

The Porn Game

"An Interview with [Gay Porn Company] Bel Ami's George Duroy" [Warning: Pictures of shirtless gay porn actors.]
posted by andoatnp at 1:16 PM PST - 64 comments

O my God! I was wrong! It was earth, all along!

Marvel Comics' Planet of the Apes magazine (1974-1977) , now forgotten by all but a few comics readers and genre film buffs, was canceled abruptly, leaving in mid-stream a story intended to go on for years. Now writer Doug Moench has allowed the original manuscripts of his unused scripts to be published for the first time, providing (some) closure to longtime readers and a fascinating look at how comics scripting happened way back when. [more inside]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:25 PM PST - 8 comments

Over in the Gloryland

Lewis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones was one heck of a banjo player and storyteller best known for his role on Hee Haw. Those Delmore Boys? Lord can they sang,sang,sang. Merle? Hell he invented a whole new way to pick. Want to learn how? Drawn together by their love of traditional gospel music, they became country music's first supergroup. The Brown's Ferry Four. Their complete recordings.
posted by timsteil at 10:52 AM PST - 9 comments

BP in talks to sell Alaska interests

BP is reportedly in talks to sell its Prudhoe Bay assets. [more inside]
posted by Nabubrush at 10:32 AM PST - 35 comments

Know Your Meme feat. Weird Al

Know Your Meme (feat. Weird Al) reviews the history of Auto Tune. (SLYT; via 3qd)
posted by jjray at 10:02 AM PST - 24 comments

You spoony bard!

Through clever manipulation of Final Fantasy V's ROM ... Shadow and his gang replaced the game's Japanese text with their own fully-translated English script, marking the first time this title would be playable in English -- and beating Square's own efforts by two years. - 1up on ROM translation.
posted by griphus at 9:48 AM PST - 29 comments

People of the Stony Shore

The Shinnecocks have been a fixture in New York State for centuries — their beads became the wampum Dutch settlers used as money in the colonies — but the US Department of Interior never included them on its official list of Native American tribes. That all changed on June 14th. Almost four centuries since their first contact with Europeans and after a 32-year court battle, the 1,300 member impoverished Shinnecock Native American Nation was formally recognised by the US federal government. The tribe's tiny, 750-acre reservation in the middle of the Hamptons (home and summer playground to some the country's wealthiest Americans,) is now a semi-sovereign nation, allowing them to apply for Federal funding to help them build schools, health centers and to set up their own police force, as well as the right to open a casino. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 8:23 AM PST - 77 comments

Beer me! It's for science!

After reaching several milestones in their Personal Robot 2 project over the last 2 years, Willow Garage, a robotics research startup located in Menlo Park, CA., gave eleven of their PR2 units to research institutions around the world for 24 months of beta projects and further development.
Some of the current abilities of the PR2 include bringing beer to thirsty engineers, navigating an office to find power outlets to recharge, playing pool, partying like it's 1983 and cleaning up leftovers. [more inside]
posted by starzero at 8:06 AM PST - 24 comments

Take a Little Trip and See

American Ethnography Quasi-Weekly is a somewhat gonzo cabinet of curiosities -- a mix of photography, academic essay, archival materials, and bloggy postings on "outlaw aethetics" and outsider culture, presenting glimpses of American subcultures past and present, from Califormia low-riders to "hoochy-coochy" dancers to blackface tambourine jugglers, and plenty more. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 7:51 AM PST - 8 comments

Scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history.

Srebrenica: Genocide Reconstructed
In July 1995 Srebrenica was shelled and occupied by the Army of Republic of Srpska,VRS, despite being declared a protected area by the United Nations. More than 7,000 people were killed, the victims of genocide. Recently a wealth of data has been found in the home of the fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic, who is still assumed alive by the Hague Chief Prosecutor in spite of his family petitioning for him to be declared dead.
15 years on Srebrenica buries its dead.
Amid a hurricane of killing, rape and 'ethnic cleansing', a movement striving in the opposite direction responded in the most powerful way they knew: with rock'n'roll. Fifteen years since War Child's Help LP, key figures reflect on the war – and music. [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 7:15 AM PST - 17 comments

caught...

The "Barefoot Bandit" (previously), crashed an airplane in the Bahamas this month. The FBI and other law enforcment have been searching for him for over two years. His Facebook page has nearly 60 thousand friends. After eluding US authorities, he has been caught in the Bahamas. In other news, his mother is shopping for a book deal. Carry on.
posted by shockingbluamp at 7:00 AM PST - 136 comments

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