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The Redemption of Michael K. Williams
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:38 PM PST - 21 comments

How to build a Solar Mobile Charger in 5 minutes. Full instructions here. [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 11:34 PM PST - 36 comments

Sudden death suddenly becomes a lot less pressing. A team of scientists at the Boston Children’s Hospital have designed a microparticle that can be injected into the bloodstream which rapidly oxygenates blood, capable of keeping a person alive for up to 30 minutes after respiratory failure. This will even work if the ability to breathe has been restricted, or cut off entirely. Here's how it works, in greater detail. This finding has the potential to save millions of lives every year, and can buy emergency medical personnel a significant amount of time to address what would otherwise be fatal emergencies. It also has numerous potential applications for the Defense Department, which is funding part of the research.
posted by markkraft at 11:04 PM PST - 83 comments

It wasn't a coat hanger. It was a wire. The theory was that by inserting the wire through the cervix, moving it around a bit and then removing it, an infection would result and the pregnancy would be aborted. It worked. It was March 1967.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:38 PM PST - 463 comments

For the first time since 1874, the Travers Stakes ended in a dead heat (tie) when Golden Ticket and Alpha finished together. Unlike 138 years ago, however, there was no run-off following the races, and both horses got a turn in the winner's circle this year. Video of the race (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by EJXD2 at 8:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Ebru, turkish for "marbeling", and is hypnotizing to watch. It is a process that puts colored paint on the surface of water, and then transferring it to paper. It is probably most common for us now in its use in bookbinding, showing as early as the 17th century in Europe, and it's still being done routinely today in the US Government Printing Office. The art is much older, dating back to 10th century Turkey. It had a resurgence in the 60's as a psychedelic hippie art form. It's easy to learn but can take years to master. [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 8:02 PM PST - 32 comments

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite PABLO FANQUE'S CIRCUS ROYAL TOWN-MEADOWS, ROCHDALE Grandest Night of the Season! AND POSITIVELY THE LAST NIGHT BUT THREE! BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR.KITE, (LATE OF WELLS'S CIRCUS) AND MR. J. HENDERSON, THE CELEBRATED SOMERSET THROWER! WIRE DANCER, VAULTER, RIDER, etc. On TUESDAY Evening, February 14, 1843. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 at 7:43 PM PST - 11 comments

Towns with number names: Six, Eight, Twenty, Fifty-six, Seventy-six, Eighty-four, Eighty-eight, Ninety-six, Hundred and 1770. Honorable mention for Wonowon.
posted by jessamyn at 6:17 PM PST - 41 comments

LA Weekly decides the Twenty Worst Hipster Bands, to go along with their past Twenty Worst Bands of All Time.
posted by Isadorady at 5:59 PM PST - 262 comments

The Beauty of Engraving is the name of a site that Neenah Paper has devoted to the ancient practice of engraved printing, with a focus on its CRANE Papers line. Check out the video to see modern engraving in action. While the site's history of engraving and also of CRANE are interesting, the highlight is a gallery of user-submitted engraved work.
posted by netbros at 5:43 PM PST - 6 comments

From director Jeff Feuerzeig, The Dude is a documentary short that follows Jeff Dowd to a Tampa Lebowski Fest. Dowd was a friend of the Coen Brothers and the real-life inspiration for the iconic film character in the Big Lebowski. (Previously: Jeff Dowd of the Seattle Seven is the model for The Dude in The Big Lebowski)
posted by madamjujujive at 5:29 PM PST - 13 comments

Perry Anderson's book length three part series on the history of India from the beginnings of its independence movement, through independence and partition into its recent history as a nation-state is the latest in a series of erudite, opinionated and wordy articles in The London Review of Books by the UCLA professor of history and sociology on the modern history of various countries, so far taking in Brazil, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus, the EU, Russia, Taiwan and France. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus at 4:15 PM PST - 6 comments

Once Upon A Time In America [auto-play audio] is the last of a string of films about the past and future of a country [Sergio Leone] knew first and best from the B-movies and yellowing paperbacks America sent abroad. For this 1984 swan song, Leone broke a directing hiatus that stretched back a decade, and turned away from Westerns toward another quintessentially American genre. His fantasia of gangland themes and images barely works by the standards of a gangster film, but succeeds brilliantly by those of epic poetry. - Keith Phipps [all links may contain spoilers] [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 4:03 PM PST - 19 comments

BEOWULF: A new translation Many modern Beowulf translations, while excellent in their own ways, suffer from what Kathleen Biddick might call “melancholy” for an oral and aural way of poetic making… The sense of loss or nostalgia for the old form seems a necessary and ever-present shadow over modern Beowulfs. What happens, however, when a contemporary poet, quite simply, doesn’t bother with any such nostalgia? Michael Davidson: "Tom Meyer’s Beowulf reenacts the dark grandeur of a poem that is as much a story of vengeance as it is of courage and loyalty. Meyer brings the poem’s alliterative, inflected line in concert with post-Poundian lineation to give the reader a vivid sense of our oldest poem’s modernity." Free download from independent publisher Punctum Books. [more inside]
posted by the mad poster! at 2:42 PM PST - 47 comments

For all your surrealist needs: Green Screen Test featuring music by Creed. [SLYTOddness] [via]
posted by quin at 2:16 PM PST - 12 comments

How to Speak Like a Maritimer and A Maritimer Speaks About Speaking Like a Maritimer. [more inside]
posted by joannemerriam at 1:57 PM PST - 36 comments

Google brings its Street View cameras into the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is their largest special Street View collection to date: 6000 panoramic images, including the Apollo 14 module, the Vehicle Assembly Building, Launch Firing Room #4 and Space Shuttle Orbiters Atlantis and Endeavour. Intro Video. (Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:09 PM PST - 11 comments

Visual effects artist Avi Salem reveals The CN Tower's secret messages. (via)
posted by yellowbinder at 12:42 PM PST - 13 comments

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has died.
posted by secretdark at 12:17 PM PST - 517 comments

STAR WARS DETOURS™ Trailer [SLYT] "Star Wars Detours™ is an animated comedy that explores what daily life is like in a galaxy far, far away. There are no Empires striking back or attacking clones here. Instead, Star Wars Detours focuses on the universe's regular folks and their everyday problems... which, to be fair, do frequently involve famous bounty hunters, crazed Ewoks, and even a Dark Lord of the Sith."
posted by Fizz at 10:44 AM PST - 85 comments

"I fear my story of a bullied nerd is not unique. This is the reason why I felt compelled to contribute my personal I Am Science. In the vein of an initiative I very much admire, It Gets Better, I hope this post lends itself to a struggling youth grappling with their own nerdom." Marine biologist Dr.Craig McClain, Assistant Director of Science for the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and Chief Editor of Deep Sea News, opens up about growing up as an isolated science nerd in rural America.
posted by Laminda at 9:35 AM PST - 64 comments

Goodbye Martine Franck.
My grandfather killed himself falling off the dike in Ostend while photographing my two cousins.
This can happen so easily when looking through a lens: for a split second nothing else exists outside the frame…
Here she explains her choice of an iconic photograph.
She followed the Theatre du Soleil from it's conception and sought out the Tibetan Tulkus.
Here is a Magnum slideshow and her Magnum Albums.
posted by adamvasco at 9:23 AM PST - 3 comments

It's 4:30AM on writing night, and SNL's Taran Killam really, really doesn't feel like hammering out another sketch. Time for some top-notch procrastination. [more inside]
posted by Narrative Priorities at 7:57 AM PST - 39 comments

"With Jan Nickman's skilled direction and exceptional cinematography by Gray Warriner of Camera One Productions, this 40-minute video album transforms the Grand Canyon into something magical." Canyon Dreams was recorded as an album by Tangerine Dream, though it was first released with the videos of the Grand Canyon that were recorded over 3 years. Audio and video inside. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:12 AM PST - 12 comments

RPG Maker 2000 did exactly what its name suggested: it allowed non-programmers to design turn-based RPGs. Translated to English by Don Miguel, who included his tutorial game Don's Adventures with the program, it and its subsequent versions are still available for download. While in recent years the engine has been used for a number of noteworthy titles, back in the day it resulted in a number of charmingly amateur titles — one of which was the legendary A Blurred Line, by Lysander86. Part of what made ABL special was its story, which was crude but compelling; partly it was the gameplay, which was impressively varied and offered a number of branching story paths based on player choice. A Blurred Line was never finished; there's a Windows download that includes the first chapters, A Blurred Line and The Line Narrows, but the finale, The Line's End, was never released. Lys86 has claimed he is still working on the game, most recently in 2010, but it's been over a decade since its original release, and hope for that final release is slim-to-nonexistent.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:51 AM PST - 9 comments

This is an hour long podcast about Planescape: Torment by creators Chris Avellone (lead designer), Colin McComb (second designer), Adam Heine (scripter), and Scott Warner (junior designer, lead designer of Halo 4). P:T was a groundbreaking, story-focused rpg with a loyal cult following. Previously. More previously. [more inside]
posted by ersatz at 6:02 AM PST - 57 comments

"Wanna buy a Penguin?" Very simple: kids tell a story, adults act out story (film it and upload to YouTube). Kids voices dubbed on top.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:51 AM PST - 29 comments

Clayton Cubitt's Hysterical Literature is a video project where women seem to reach orgasm simply by reading a favorite passage from a book. Session 1 features alt-porn star Stoya reading Supervert's "Necrophilia Variations", while session 2 features Alicia reading Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass". Stoya's thoughts on the project, and Supervert's thoughts. (all NSFW)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:47 AM PST - 33 comments