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Slick Ball (shockwave) — Fun little German Marble Madness-type game.
posted by Space Coyote at 8:57 PM PST - 16 comments

Peer to Peer Politics Here's an idea the RIAA can get behind: Thad Anderson, a second-year student at St. John's School of Law, has launched a peer-to-peer network that allows users to access and share government documents. More than 600 court and government documents, including memos, communications and reports, are available on his OutragedModerates.org site, and can be accessed through the Kazaa, LimeWire and Soulseek P2P networks. Among those documents available are the Abu Ghraib prison scandal memos and the Senate Intelligence Committee report on government intelligence leading up to the Iraq War. The concept of using a P2P network to share embarrassing documents is interesting ... considering some in Congress have proposed an outright ban on the P2P file sharing systems that are widely used to trade music, movies and porn. via Politics1.com
posted by Rastafari at 8:28 PM PST - 9 comments

You may not have heard of Jansenism. But on May 1, 1727 one of its more prominent members, Francois de Paris, died. He was a popular fellow for his charitable works and lots of people visited his tomb. That's when things got weird. At first it was just a bunch of people claiming to have been cured of things like "cancerous tumors, paralysis, deafness, arthritis, rheumatism, ulcerous sores, persistent fevers, prolonged hemorrhaging, and blindness." Then things started to get really weird.

...The mourners also started to experience strange involuntary spasms or convulsions...the 'convulsionaires,' as they came to be called, displayed...the ability to endure without harm an almost unimaginable variety of physical tortures....

These events lasted years and were witnessed by thousands as well as commented on by the likes of David Hume and Voltaire. Louis-Basile Carre de Montgeron investigated it for the Paris Parliment and published La Vérité des Miracles in three volumes detailing the events. The tortures were asked for by the convulsionaires. Montgeron details one time when while having an iron drill hammered into a convulsionaire's stomach he, "maintained an 'expression of perfect rapture,' crying, 'Oh, that does me good! Courage, brother; strike twice as hard, if you can!'"
posted by john at 6:38 PM PST - 11 comments

Tombstone Generator
posted by quonsar at 6:12 PM PST - 42 comments

The Day is Mine, Trebek. Who wants to punch Ken Jennings in the face?
posted by Stan Chin at 4:36 PM PST - 56 comments

Oh, You Mean Those Records The Pentagon released "newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard." The earlier statement that the records were inadvertently destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight." [Previously discussed here and here.]
posted by kirkaracha at 4:18 PM PST - 39 comments

IN AEDIBVS ALDI: The legacy of Aldus Manutius and his press.
posted by hama7 at 3:19 PM PST - 4 comments

Bottle Cap Tripod Travel lighter with it.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:06 PM PST - 14 comments

Air Marshals Say Passenger Overreacted. "The source said the air marshals on the flight were partially concerned (Annie) Jacobsen’s actions could have been an effort by terrorists or attackers to create a disturbance on the plane to force the agents to identify themselves." (Second story down, via atrios)
posted by solistrato at 2:32 PM PST - 37 comments

Creative misuse and abuse of musical tools with a lot of examples
posted by ronsens at 11:41 AM PST - 10 comments

Riding Giants. Stacy Peralta's new release, is a chronicle of big-wave surfing , from the pioneering men who ride mountains of the ‘60’s, to the humongous tow-in riders of today. To understand the enormity of their courage, read John Krakauer's epic account of Mark Foo's last ride. Check out the greatest photographed wipeout in surfing history. And read more about surfing's most evil wave and check out the waves at your favourite surfing break.
posted by F4B2 at 11:16 AM PST - 13 comments

"HEY MAN ... GREAT! I FEEL GOOFY, THE WAY MY OLD MAN LOOKS WHEN HE'S DRUNK!" - A famous word balloon from the Principia Discordia has recently been discovered to have its odd origins in an obscure comic book about heroin abuse from 1966.
posted by Peter H at 9:52 AM PST - 29 comments

America... through Europe's eyes Yes, there have been countless books and articles on this, but this is by far the best I've ever read. Part a review of the literature, part historical research, part personal reflection. it's a bit long though, so set some time aside. Hudson Review, via A&L Daily
posted by leotrotsky at 8:46 AM PST - 39 comments

In Fleep, a 44-page comic strip by Jason Shiga, the protagonist is trapped within a telephone booth sealed in concrete. Can he escape using what few resources are available to him?
posted by LinusMines at 8:19 AM PST - 38 comments

Composite images. The unsettling world of Viktor Koen.
posted by acrobat at 7:15 AM PST - 4 comments

Oxymorons
posted by anastasiav at 6:47 AM PST - 36 comments

The Velvet Underground's White Light White Heat played on banjo, bass guitar, ruler, music box, violin, toy piano, electric guitar, accordion, squeezebox, euphonium, ukulele, kazoo, xylophone, pixiphone, uumskither, mbira, pod, delay, turntable and percussion.
posted by ubueditor at 6:32 AM PST - 8 comments

According to multiple recent nationwide polls, the presidential race is a dead heat, with the spread within the margin of error. Some have Bush by a couple points, some say Kerry by a couple. But take a look at the way the race is represented by www.electoral-vote.com, which tracks polls state-by-state and takes electoral votes into account. Suddenly, the tally is Kerry 332, Bush 195.
posted by msacheson at 1:00 AM PST - 130 comments