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Wikimania begins on wednesday (in Germany). Unless you're there, you won't be able to hear the presentations on getting wikipedia into africa, a timeline with all of human history on it, or the intersect of art and science, but the media competion nominees are online. Check out the animations.
posted by Tlogmer at 10:43 PM PST - 9 comments

Ghost Cycle is a group in Seattle raising awareness for bike safety by displaying whited-out old bikes in places where cars have hit cyclists. They've also got an ingenious use of Google Maps to show you all the spots where accidents have been reported and where they've placed a ghost cycle, like this one. They also compile statistics on their reports ("1 in 5 accidents were hit and runs").
posted by mathowie at 10:00 PM PST - 58 comments

Mr. Fastfinger cuts heads with the devil (whos on accordian) and allows you to take part in the fun. Practice with the master for some serious keyboard riffage.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:08 PM PST - 11 comments

The Williamson Tunnels "The explanation most commonly offered [for the construction of the tunnels] is that having risen from humble beginnings, the rich retired merchant was touched by the poverty which pervaded the Edge Hill district and offered construction labour to the unemployed as a gesture of generosity"
posted by dhruva at 7:21 PM PST - 10 comments

mooncruise a photography magazine that doubles as a style publication.
posted by Thayer-P at 5:24 PM PST - 12 comments

One Square Inch of Silence. Gordon Hempton wants to preserve the natural quiet of the Olympic National Park.
posted by homunculus at 5:21 PM PST - 20 comments

Wireless bluetooth headset. Now you can listen to your tunes wireless and with oddly colored teeth! Bonuses including pushing your ears to change songs, like that guy in Empire Strikes Back.
posted by Bugbread at 4:58 PM PST - 14 comments

This is why we're a fat country
posted by thisisdrew at 2:11 PM PST - 145 comments

Newsweek delivers a chilling tale of non-rural, non-gays -- affluent suburbia (the horrors!) doing methamphetamine. Not as sexy, or yuppie, as its cocaine counterpart, it leads to poor oral hygiene and super-AIDS myths. Some surprisingly good Wikipedia articles appeared (Crystal and Sex and Meth). Even the more drug liberal Viceland sums up the sentiment about meth, "Speed is the bastard child of the drug family, cocaine’s ugly retarded stepbrother."
posted by geoff. at 1:53 PM PST - 122 comments

Passenger plane on fire at Toronto airport. About 200 people on board.
posted by ori at 1:43 PM PST - 56 comments

Is Mac OS X Becoming Crufty? I definitely think so.
posted by nthdegx at 11:05 AM PST - 55 comments

The main reason it was classified was...because of the horror, the devastation. US military crews and Japanese newsreel teams shot color and black & white footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs were dropped. The newsreel footage was suppressed for 25 years; the US military footage was hidden until the early 1980s, and has never been fully aired. Some of the newsreel footage "might have disappeared forever if the Japanese filmmakers had not hidden one print from the Americans in a ceiling." This August 6 and 7 the Sundance channel is showing Original Child Bomb (review, QuickTime trailer), a documentary that combines the newsreel and military footage. The title is inspired by Thomas Merton's poem. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 11:04 AM PST - 54 comments

White plastic chairs - Jens Thiel blogs his research of the ubiquitous chair we all love to hate for an upcoming monobloc monograph and museum exhibition. The first chair emerged midcentury, devil spawn of a noble heritage. Today, some fear the monobloc population rivals or exceeds that of humans. Some view the chair as art, others see their place in history, but I agree with the wag who dubs them tupperware containers for lard butts.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:18 AM PST - 20 comments

Bush comes out in favor of teaching "intelligent design" alongside evolution in American schools. Is this the latest evidence of the White House willing to champion worthy but controversial ideas that have been sidelined by liberal bias, or strictly from Paul Krugman's theoretical headline, "Shape of Earth: Views Differ"? [Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Lone Star State, Texas educators ignite brouhaha by adding Bible study to the public-school curriculum].
posted by digaman at 10:15 AM PST - 344 comments

The Guaman Poma Website. Felipe Guaman Poma's El primer nueva coronica y buen gobierno (New Chronicle and Good Government) is one of the most remarkable manuscripts of the seventeenth century. Written by a native Peruvian, in the form of a 1200-page 'letter' to King Philip III of Spain, it provides a richly detailed account of Inca society before and after the Spanish conquest. Forgotten for three centuries, it was rediscovered in 1908 in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, which has now published a full digital facsimile online. The illustrations are extraordinary: glimpses of the abuse of colonial power ('Recite the doctrine, Indian troublemaker! Right now!') alongside gentler scenes of agriculture and everyday life ('Chew this coca, sister'). Scholarly articles help to set the manuscript in context. Browse and enjoy.
posted by verstegan at 9:39 AM PST - 7 comments

Microsoft Start (version 3) is the Web 2.0 application we've all been waiting for. Obviously, it was created by Microsoft. Search Engine and Syndication from one easily configurable screen. In the future, everyone will have this as their home page.
posted by seanyboy at 8:23 AM PST - 78 comments

Sheikh Khalid Yasin grew up as a Christian in the United States but converted to Islam under the influence of Malcolm X. Last week he was interviewed (Video) by Australia's 60 Minutes. Yasin's claims—Muslims should not attend university because it's a "gateway for deviation", homosexuality is punishable by death, and Muslims cannot truly befriend non-Muslims—have caused controversy among LGBT groups & moderate Muslims, yet despite his naysayers, Yasin does not lack for a following in Australia, and is frequently honored as a guest speaker & VIP around the world. The LA Times has more on US-born extremists.
posted by jenleigh at 8:20 AM PST - 17 comments

Mouse? Trackball? One button? Two? Now, thanks to Apple, you can have all four.
posted by Mwongozi at 7:21 AM PST - 141 comments

"I've never believed, for a moment, that atheists have all the answers. Just that they pose better questions." This attack (read the response), by the Australian Atheist society on Phillip Adams, is a good introduction to the Australian writer and broadcaster who presents probably the best, most thoughtful hour of radio on the planet. Now ABC National's "Late Night Live" is online, and podcast to the world. Give it a try, you absolutely don't have to be Australian to find it worthwhile.
posted by grahamwell at 7:17 AM PST - 33 comments

Time commenting could be time coding. Day in, day out, you pull off star moves: gnarly algorithms, wicked refactorings, stunning optimizations. Why should you stop and explain? Yes, you've got plodders on your team, but hey — youAreAStar and yourTimeIsExpensive. Time spent explaining, documenting, commenting — dude! — that's time you could be using to crank out yet more mind-altering code. Welcome The Commentator.
posted by Lectrick at 7:05 AM PST - 24 comments

Phutball (Rules, Java Applet), aka Philosophers' Football or ConwayGo is a deceptively simple 2-player game you can play on a Go board, or any rectangular grid. (It may be simple, but finding the right move is [PDF] NP Complete.)
posted by Wolfdog at 5:39 AM PST - 7 comments

ChessRogue = Chess + Rogue. (Open source, versions available for Linux and Windows.)

This console-based game takes the pieces of chess and puts them into a Roguelike environment. You start out with a weakened King who can only move and capture horizontally and vertically, in a randomized board full of multi-directional Pawns. As you capture more pieces, the king slowly gains additional powers, like diagonal capture and movement, Knight jumping, and eventually even Rook movement, among others. The opposition gets tougher too, until eventually the entire selection of pieces is out to get you.
Originally created for a three-day programming challenge on rec.games.roguelike.development, it's surprisingly cool, and works rather better than you might expect. It's useful as a break between Nethack fatalities.
posted by JHarris at 4:43 AM PST - 19 comments

The Gaydar test is simple. We'll show you pairs of guys and girls. See if you can recognize who's gay.
posted by three blind mice at 3:32 AM PST - 95 comments

The Art of Fuko Ueda From bighorn sheep to pet turtles to musical instruments, these paintings depict a bizarre and beautiful world filled with strange creatures.
posted by mayfly wake at 12:07 AM PST - 11 comments