If you were a child of the '90's, then Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dogg was probably your jam. Here is a critical analysis of the song by comedian Sean Keane. If only all gangsta rap had such deep meaning.
posted by reenum at 8:10 PM PST - 63 comments

Ukelele Beatles Fun!
posted by Miko at 7:58 PM PST - 51 comments

Late Thursday Flash Fun: Dropsum V2 is like a mix of sudoku and tetris and some other kind of block game. Much mindless fun to be had...
posted by schyler523 at 7:54 PM PST - 11 comments

M. Joseph Young does rather interesting, detailed temporal analyses of the different timelines created by the Terminator films, the Back To The Future trilogy, Millennium, those Trek films that dealt with time travel, 12 Monkeys, Flight Of The Navigator, Army of Darkness, Lost In Space, Peggy Sue Got Married, the Bill & Ted movies, Frequency, Planet of the Apes, Kate and Leopold, Somewhere In Time, The Time Machine, Minority Report, Happy Accidents, The Final Countdown, Donnie Darko, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Deja Vu.
posted by WCityMike at 6:44 PM PST - 56 comments

Michael Savage unplugged. Behind the scenes. "This year, Savage is celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of his radio career. On the air one day, he marked the occasion in typically perverse fashion: by thinking of all the listeners who stuck around, and all the ones who didn’t. “Some were fifteen, they’re now thirty,” he said. “Some were five, they’re now twenty. They grew up on me. Their fathers are dead; the guys who had it playing in the car are gone. They’re still here, they can’t believe it. I’m their voice of freedom. I’m the last hope. I’m the beacon. I’m the Statue of Liberty. I’m Michael Savage. I’ll be back."”
posted by Xurando at 6:08 PM PST - 94 comments

Improving the Density of Jammed Disordered Packings using Ellipsoids "We suggest that the higher density is directly related to the higher number of degrees of free- dom per particle and thus the larger number of particle contacts required to mechanically stabilize the packing... Our results have implications for a broad range of scientific disciplines, ranging from the properties of granular media and ceramics to glass formation and discrete geometry."
posted by ShadePlant at 6:01 PM PST - 17 comments

The Fungus Overlords
posted by Dumsnill at 5:51 PM PST - 30 comments

“With t.o.night, you too can remember the good old days, when Mom, Dad, Junior, Little Suzy, and Skip would all sit around the radio and listen to blogs on the Internet.” The solution to the decline of newspapers? Launch a new one, charge nothing for it, fill it with wire copy and stories from a city blog, publish it weekday afternoons, and hire kids to wear “poor-boy caps” and shout “Extra! Extra!” while handing it out.
posted by joeclark at 5:47 PM PST - 8 comments

Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch. Michael Pollan discusses the evolution of America's cooking culture, from Julia Child to Top Chef. [via]
posted by nasreddin at 3:41 PM PST - 70 comments

Poet and poetry/film/music/culture critic Joshua Clover has been posting excerpts from his upcoming book 1989: Bob Dylan Didn't Have This to Sing About over at his blog.
posted by sleevener at 2:55 PM PST - 8 comments

The Big Bad Wolf won't howl no more. Busch Gardens Williamsburg, the Virginia amusement park with a friendly Western European theme, announced on July 24 that it was officially retiring The Big Bad Wolf, its iconic suspended roller coaster. The Wolf, which opened in 1984, was primarily built by Arrow Dynamics, the firm which also designed the world's first corkscrew inversion and the first coaster to top 200 feet in height. While not the world's first suspended roller coaster, the Big Bad Wolf could proudly lay claim to the fact that it was the first successful suspended coaster. Charmed though it is, the circumstances around its sudden September 7th closure date may make the ride the newest entry in the Williamsburg park's strange history.
posted by Spatch at 2:18 PM PST - 48 comments

Under a Nuclear Cloud (Reportage by Gettyimages) The results of using villagers as human guinea pigs in "preparing" for nuclear war.
posted by spock at 2:15 PM PST - 25 comments

A nearly impossible logic puzzle. Other mindtwisting puzzles. More puzzles of varying difficulty (don't scroll down too far!). XKCD's take. (previously epic post Also: 1, 2)
posted by desjardins at 1:39 PM PST - 47 comments

Epic Mickey: a dystopian, steampunk version of the Disney world and characters we all know and love (we love them, right?) from Junction Point Studios.
posted by pixlboi at 11:55 AM PST - 51 comments

Hello, New York! New York, wake up you f*ckers! Free Music! Free Love! In 1968, two years before those other guys, Jefferson Airplane played their apocalyptic psychedelia from a NYC rooftop, before police shut them down. Filmed (staged?) by Jean-Luc Godard.
posted by msalt at 11:31 AM PST - 37 comments

Sometimes, bathroom graffiti can make you do more than grin/grimace. A short round-up of some of the more moving and/or thought-provoking bits of bathroom graffiti out there.
posted by jasonsmall at 11:15 AM PST - 91 comments

Hipsters (A Brief History)
posted by empath at 10:30 AM PST - 291 comments

Internet Mapping Project l slide-showl more about it here. Please draw a map of the internet, as you see it. Indicate your "home". You can download a blank PDF here and email it to [Kevin Kelly] when done.
posted by nickyskye at 9:55 AM PST - 7 comments

Need fabric? Not sure where to start? MoreCloth will help you out. Each colour bar will link you to swatches, then onto where to purchase on etsy.
posted by mippy at 9:24 AM PST - 13 comments

On August 12, President Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian honor -- to the late gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk. Lesbian tennis star Billy Jean King and Teddy Kennedy will also be honored that day. Previous recipients include Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi, Colin Powell (twice), Muhammad Ali, Mother Theresa, Elie Wiesel, Vint Cerf, George Tenet (Bush fail), Irving Kristol (WTF?) Dick Cheney, Walter Cronkite, Julia Child, and Lucille Ball. Now about that DOMA thing...
posted by digaman at 9:18 AM PST - 89 comments

Late blight, the fungal disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine may destroy this years tomato crop in the Northeast and Midatlantic United States.
posted by electroboy at 8:46 AM PST - 46 comments

Animals With Casts has everything from a wrinkly mutt with his hind legs supported by a homemade PVC pipe wheelchair, to an elephant with an enormous leg cast, to a turtle with two wheels attached to its shell, to a baby kangaroo with its hind legs wrapped up. But please don't go breaking your pet's leg just to get in the lineup.
posted by netbros at 7:53 AM PST - 19 comments

A New York Times article reports that one in three adults takes a nap each day. Perhaps the most utilitarian of the nap types is the power nap. Fortunately, the good folks at Lifehacker have provided tips on how to insure you're living up to your sleeping potential. Sweet dreams!
posted by elder18 at 7:52 AM PST - 59 comments

A recent study, commissioned by the UK Food Standards Agency, has found that there is no evidence that organically produced foods are nutritionally superior to conventionally produced foodstuffs. On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods. Who cares?
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 7:14 AM PST - 123 comments

Standing out in the crowd. Kirrily Robert's keynote from OSCON. She discusses diversity in opensource communities and projects.
posted by chunking express at 7:07 AM PST - 20 comments

Arthur C. Clarke presents a documentary on fractals
posted by mhjb at 6:56 AM PST - 25 comments

In two days, Forestle, the eco-friendly charity search engine, will celebrate its first birthday. In just one year, it has overcome the wag of the finger from Google only to return from the grave partnering with Yahoo instead, and this month's donation will have preserved just over 1,000,000m² (or 247 acres) of rainforest, all while leaving no carbon footprint.
posted by tybeet at 6:34 AM PST - 12 comments

Twilight of the Neandertals - "Some 28,000 years ago in what is now the British territory of Gibraltar, a group of Neandertals eked out a living along the rocky Mediterranean coast. They were quite possibly the last of their kind [meanwhile] around 30,000 years ago, the number of modern humans who lived to be old enough to be grandparents began to skyrocket." (via)
posted by kliuless at 5:54 AM PST - 46 comments