August 18, 2012

US windpower milestone, 50GW powers 13M homes

While you'd never know from the US media, the US wind energy industry has breezed past a 50GW milestone. That's enough to power 13 million homes, according to the American Wind Energy Association. [more inside]
posted by Twang at 10:16 PM PST - 136 comments

Look to the skies. The flying saucers will always be there.

In the mid-1950s, Dickie Goodman was a struggling song writer working with song publisher Bill Buchanan, when the two men came up with the idea of a fake radio program interrupted by a UFO attack (similar to the hoax Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds), except in this case, the aliens spoke the language of rock 'n' roll. The result was Flying Saucer, Parts 1 and 2 on Luniverse Records, the first novelty break-in record and a forerunner to the modern mashup. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 at 7:10 PM PST - 14 comments

Capturing a scene at trillion frames per second

Imaging at a Trillion Frames Per Second.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:58 PM PST - 29 comments

Top 10 Hardest Adventure Games

Until We Win's LordKat, who sounds like Anthony Bourdain, looks back in anger (and fondness) on the Top 10 Hardest Adventure Games. [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 3:08 PM PST - 106 comments

Otzi was More Neanderthal than You

Ötzi the Iceman died around 3,300 B.C., yet his body was preserved frozen in the Alps until 1991. DNA sequencing of Neandertals (who died out about 35,000 years ago) suggests modern humans with ancestry outside of Africa carry a few percent of Neandertal genes due to interbreeding. Now (in a blog post knocking down a re-interpretation of the Neandertal DNA evidence) paleontologist John Hawks previews an upcoming publication of his examining Ötzi's DNA::
If we took as a baseline that Europeans have an average of 3.5 percent Neandertal, Ötzi would have around 5.5 percent (again, the actual percentage would be highly model-dependent). He has substantially greater sharing with Neandertals than any other recent person we have ever examined.
Previously (Ötzi), Previously (Neandertals)
posted by Schmucko at 1:59 PM PST - 51 comments

a ball of fire

Bob Kyp invented the flicker bulb. Kyp-Go Inc, his company was a garage start-up. [more inside]
posted by warbaby at 1:36 PM PST - 11 comments

Mars: Adrift on the Hourglass Sea

Mars: Adrift on the Hourglass Sea. Desolation and the Sublime on a Distant Planet. Mars-inspired artwork, commisioned by NASA, by Kahn & Selesnick (previously). [Via]
posted by homunculus at 12:30 PM PST - 11 comments

WE’RE YOUR BEST GIRLFRIEND AND YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE

Right now Baltimore, MD plays host to FemmeCon, a biannual gathering for those who "seek to explore, discuss, dissect, and support Queer Femme as a transgressive, gender-queer, stand-alone, and empowered identity and provide a space for organizing and activism within Queer communities". Some of the issues faced by queer femme culture include femme invisibility in larger queer culture, the lack of non-stereotypical role models, being classed 'femme' by default, dismissal as "too much", as well as intersectional issues of femme with race, gender, and disability. In the meantime, femme subcultures such as tomboy femme, hard femme, and FEMME SHARKS as well as femmes in specific regions come together for inspiration, expression, power, creativity and support from each other - as well as from appreciative butches.
posted by divabat at 12:02 PM PST - 116 comments

Reverse Cameo Effect

Not-Yet-Famous People And Whether They Lived Or Died On "The X-Files"
posted by griphus at 11:52 AM PST - 93 comments

Dispruting the Squishy

Got the homepage blues? Rebel Mouse is here to save the day. Former Huffington Post CTO, Paul Berry, has launched what looks like a digital newspaper of your on-line social life. While the website only allows for Facebook and Twitter integration at launch, Instagram and Tumblr will be integrated. Personalized aggregation of your content presented in way that makes it easy for others to subconsciously consume multi-dimensional social networking.
posted by vozworth at 11:25 AM PST - 36 comments

How about that youngster?

New Star Soccer lets you create a football player, choose his nationality and lead him to glory from the age of 16 until he retires. You can play it on your computer (Kongregate), on Android or on iOS. Critics love it and half a million downloads have drawn further attention to the game and the reasons for its success. (Eurogamer, Edge) [more inside]
posted by ersatz at 11:25 AM PST - 41 comments

No longer in the game?

Electronic Arts allegedly in talks to sell to private equity; would "do a deal for $20 a share". [NYP] [Int. Business Times]. The markets appear to think there's at least some substance to the rumour, as EA shares jumped more than 7% to $14 in early trades on Thursday morning and have remained at around $13.75. [Google Finance chart]
posted by jaduncan at 11:09 AM PST - 40 comments

RT if you're the big kahuna

Twiplomacy is the first-ever global study of world leaders on Twitter. The governments of almost two-thirds of the 193 UN member countries have a presence on Twitter: 45% of the 264 accounts analysed are personal accounts of heads of state and government, but just 30 world leaders tweet themselves and very few on a regular basis. This study shows that while the social network invites direct interaction between users, few world leaders take advantage of this opportunity to develop connections.
posted by infini at 10:09 AM PST - 16 comments

Bank of Canada bans image of Asian-looking woman from new $100 bills over ethnicity criticism

The Bank of Canada has changed the design of its new $100 bill after receiving numerous comments from focus groups that the woman pictured looked like she was of Asian descent. [more inside]
posted by asnider at 8:02 AM PST - 151 comments

"Nature means necessity."

First Evidence Found for Photosynthesis in Insects: [nature.com] "The biology of aphids is bizarre: they can be born pregnant and males sometimes lack mouths, causing them to die not long after mating. In an addition to their list of anomalies, work published this week indicates that they may also capture sunlight and use the energy for metabolic purposes."
posted by Fizz at 7:36 AM PST - 26 comments

hulk go hole

"Now that the Hulk has closed his eyes, shoved wax down his ears and is holding his nose, he is immune to the attacks of the space-ants. No, really. Just picture that scene for a moment and be glad that it didn't find its way into any of the Hulk movies." VGJunk takes a look at the baffling Incredible Hulk text adventure game. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 7:12 AM PST - 22 comments

Just For The Fun Of It

Collector's Weekly offers us a history of the condom in the United States.
posted by gman at 6:30 AM PST - 23 comments

(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang

"Reagan's president elect...." 30+ years ago Heaven 17 released their first single, (WE DON'T NEED THIS) FASCIST GROOVE THANG. Stop your good time dancing, 'cause here they are three decades later (still) performing it at Abbey Road studio and sounding pretty fine. Turn volume up before playing.
posted by Dean358 at 5:58 AM PST - 22 comments

Look At How Many Fake Followers The Most Popular People On Twitter Have

We decided to have a little fun with the app and see how many fake followers vocal celebrities on Twitter have. "Earlier this week we discovered Status Group's new app that allows users to find out how many fake Twitter followers you and your friends have. We decided to have a little fun with the app and see how many fake followers vocal celebrities on Twitter have."
posted by adrianspiegel at 5:36 AM PST - 41 comments

This gun's bullets will only pierce the flesh of your TRUE LOVE!

The webcomic A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible published a total of 41 strips over the course of two years – but each strip was a masterpiece, visually stunning and weirdly hilarious. It hasn't been updated since 2006 (author Dale Beran writes a new comic with similarly methodical updates), but recently its creators confirmed a new strip is on the way. Artist David Hellman (also known for his work on gorgeous video game Braid) has been sharing sketches of the new strip, and last week shared a video on Facebook showing the process of developing the new strip's layout. [more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:28 AM PST - 14 comments

'Catch Me If You Can'

"When Robert Wood Jr. disappeared in a densely forested Virginia park, searchers faced the challenge of a lifetime. The eight-year-old boy was autistic and nonverbal, and from his perspective the largest manhunt in state history probably looked like something else: the ultimate game of hide-and-seek." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:47 AM PST - 44 comments

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