MetaFilter

Newsfilter? [via] Former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage admits to spilling the Plame beans. This comes on the heels of an article in Newsweek outing Armitage as Novak's primary source. Wind up the echo chamber.... [more inside]
posted by Mr Stickfigure at 11:48 PM PST - 28 comments

“Of course brothers hafta be, you know, protective. [ZIP] Except for mine. I gotta be protective of him. Ugh, yeah. He’s married, three kids, but his wife is just a control freak.”
posted by delmoi at 10:46 PM PST - 26 comments

Write your name in Tengwar, the Elvish language/alphabet created by JRR Tolkien. You can work with Tengwar fonts based on Middle Earth languages and runes and see many examples of the script via a Google Image search. According to Tolkien, "there is quite a bit of linguistic wisdom in it." There are certainly websites devoted to his languages and thier history. And It took some thought and work to make the speech sound right in the movies.
posted by persona non grata at 10:18 PM PST - 27 comments

Inspired by a convention in 1999, First Day covers, and his grandfather's autograph collection, Jeremy Adolphson sends off 4x6 index cards to various artists with return postage, hoping for a doodle. 5 years on, he has sixty-five galleries (some NSFW) worth of art to share.
posted by divabat at 10:10 PM PST - 9 comments

Colour Player: at last, you can organize your music by its color.
posted by signal at 9:43 PM PST - 12 comments

Starship Dimensions: A Museum of Speculative Fiction inspired Spaceships - Click in the different zoom levels to compare starships.
posted by bob sarabia at 9:42 PM PST - 30 comments

Google is now offering PDFs of public domain books. Okay, this is a direct lift from Boing Boing but I figured it was too juicy for Metafilter to miss. On my first search I found An Historical Account of the Discovery and Education of a Savage Man, E. M. Itard's account (translated) of his experiences with Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron. What else is there, MeFiers?
posted by unSane at 9:40 PM PST - 55 comments

We've all got one... Almost everyone's got a song with a story - a song that's been ruined by something awful associated with it. This site is the place to share your story...
posted by blaneyphoto at 9:12 PM PST - 43 comments

"A Hydrogen Atom is only about a ten millionth of a millimeter in diameter, but the proton in the middle is a hundred thousand times smaller, and the electron whizzing around the outside is a thousand times smaller than THAT. The rest of the atom is empty. I tried to picture it, and I couldn't. So I put together this page - and I still can't picture it." Awesome illustration on perspective and particles - *warning* very wide page, may be dangerous to your browser. Also, the relative size of planets (via the always interesting 37signals blog.)
posted by rsanheim at 8:52 PM PST - 26 comments

Grigory Perelman, awarded the Fields Medal for his work on the Poincare Conjecture, talks to the New Yorker.
posted by Gyan at 8:36 PM PST - 17 comments

Ancient walls built as a defence against marauders provide a rich source of pickings for relic hunters (a photo essay).
posted by tellurian at 6:19 PM PST - 11 comments

Youtubefilter: William Shatner gets roasted by the likes of Betty White, George "Sulu" Takei, Jeffrey Ross, and Lisa Lampanelli. Not to be outdone, Kirk responds.
posted by bardic at 6:12 PM PST - 37 comments

Most wanted polygamist captured. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints^ split from the mainstream Mormon church when the latter banned polygamy early last century. Their leader has been on the FBI top ten most wanted list for alleged sexual conduct with a minor, and has been captured outside of Sin City. On Meta previously the whole thing never the less makes for some interesting reading.
posted by bystander at 5:53 PM PST - 57 comments

JuggleThis.net. Soooo many video clips of people juggling. My favorite so far: lots and lots of footage of casual backstage juggling from some convention (45Mb .mpg file).
posted by staggernation at 5:25 PM PST - 8 comments

If you love gourds but can't stand their gourdly shapes, then Dan Ladd is the artist for you. By snatching young gourds from their parents & stuffing them into unyielding molds, Dan ends up with remarkable natural shapes, organically grown sculptures that bear amazing details.
posted by jonson at 3:44 PM PST - 27 comments

What Would Jerry Do? German neighborhood evicts family for praying too loud. The U.S. State Department is critical of the level of religious freedom in Germany. But would a land nearly free of Scientologists and intolerant of overt displays really be so bad?
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:02 PM PST - 40 comments

The New York Times doesn't want people in Britain to read this article (try to access it from a British IP address and you'll get an error message). Of course, this is the web, stupid (scroll down to read it).
posted by reklaw at 2:02 PM PST - 42 comments

In less than a month the cabaret, which at first had welcomed all modern tendencies in the arts and hoped to entertain and educate the customer, had turned into a theater of the absurd. That was the intention. "What we are celebrating," Ball wrote in his diary, "is both buffoonery and a requiem mass."The scandal spread. Lenin, who played chess with Tzara, wanted to know what Dada was all about. (Previously 1, 2, 3)
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Leonard Nimoy ...photographer. (Many images may not be safe for work.)
posted by loquacious at 12:48 PM PST - 43 comments

1,100 Apple II games you can play online. If you are too overwhelmed by your memories to know what to play, some playable classics: Oregon Trail*, Ultima IV*, Archon*, Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear*, Drol*, Wings of Fury*, Choplifter *, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?* and Taipan*. Or you can play the first game mod in history: Castle Smurfenstein, a modification of the 1983 original Castle Wolfenstein. What did I miss? [Young whippersnappers can click the asterisks to find out why the game was important. Use the left and right alt keys for joystick buttons, the other instructions are on the site. Emulator only works with IE, sorry. See also this.]
posted by blahblahblah at 12:17 PM PST - 98 comments

Keep your distance. Avoid eye contact. And even if it looks cute, never hug a Swiss cow. With helpful warning poster (PDF).
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:47 AM PST - 41 comments

MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL has completed their 1000th radio show. Part 1. Part 2. Some of the early 80s shows.
posted by sohcahtoa at 11:45 AM PST - 6 comments

Don Nelson, the second-winningest coach in NBA history, is back to coach the Golden State Warriors again. Excecutive VP, Chris Mullen who played under Nelson at Golden State re-hired him after parting ways with former Stanford coach, Mike Montgomery who was their ninth coach in the past 12 seasons since Nelson's departure.
posted by pwb503 at 11:43 AM PST - 16 comments

How Much is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations. A paper from a doctoral student at the Harvard Business School, and an employee of the National Bureau of Economic Research has found a correlation between serving on the United Nations Security Council, and the amount of aid received from the United States and the UN. The paper will be printed in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Political Economy. From the abstract: "Ten of the fifteen seats on the U.N. Security Council are held by rotating members serving two-year terms. We find that a country’s U.S. aid increases by 59 percent and its U.N. aid by 8 percent when it rotates onto the council. This effect increases during years in which key diplomatic events take place (when members’ votes should be especially valuable) and the timing of the effect closely tracks a country’s election to, and exit from, the council. Finally, the U.N. results appear to be driven by UNICEF, an organization over which the United States has historically exerted great control." The Harvard Business School working paper can be found here. Commentary from Steven Levitt (the co-author of Freakonomics) can be found here.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 10:24 AM PST - 20 comments

Did he laugh?
posted by dov3 at 10:08 AM PST - 56 comments

The Ecology of Magic is the abbreviated first chapter of David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous. Abram explores the intersection of phenomenology, synesthesia and linguistics to discover the magic of the alphabet, the sacred winds, and ultimately, the root of animism. Abram finds the locus of these superstitions not in an imagined metaphysical sphere, but rooted in our sensuous experience of the world around us. He attributes much of our cavalier attitude towards our environment to our separation from our own experience, and ultimately, our loss of magic. "The fate of the earth depends on a return to our senses."
posted by jefgodesky at 9:44 AM PST - 21 comments

Oh God, please never let the NYT review of my latest novel never start like this: Every few years, as a reviewer, one encounters a novel whose ineptitudes are so many in number, and so thoroughgoing, that to explain them fully would produce a text that exceeded the novel itself in both length and interest. Lately it seems the book reviewers at the NYT--including Michiko Kakutani, on Jonathan Franzen's latest ("Just why anyone would be interested in pages and pages about this unhappy relationship or the self-important and self-promoting contents of Mr. Franzen’s mind remains something of a mystery")--have been pulling out all the stops. Poor Irvine Welsh (?).
posted by gottabefunky at 9:21 AM PST - 61 comments

However interesting your life is, it probably pales in comparison to Moondog. A homeless, blind composer who transcribed in braille, he went from a career as a street corner musician in New York, to sitting in Carnegie Hall for rehersals at the invitation of Artur Rodzinski, he was invited to Germany and wrote a symphony for four conductors: "The Overtone Tree", he was covered by Janis Joplin and worked with Julie Andrews. (mi)
posted by 1f2frfbf at 9:14 AM PST - 13 comments

Warren Ellis quoting someone else's blog: "What with the Washington State Supreme Court handing down its anti-gay-marriage decision several weeks ago and the ever-hearing more about attacks on reproductive rights down south, I’m feeling that the States is tripping a bit too merrily down the Handmaid’s path. This week, I found a way to strike back".
posted by Shanachie at 8:08 AM PST - 132 comments

Whistleblower uses YouTube to out key coup co-conspirator, Lockheed Martin, contracted to prepare coast a guard fleet to be easily compromised by...who knows? Terrorists? Is this glaring, bumbling private-sector incompetance, or very competant, efficient planning for a fall back to such an explanation should something occur? Either way, pretty clear who's in cahoots and not a ringing endorsement for the virtues of the private sector. Let's see if some government oversight can do something about it (not holding my breath) now that the whistleblower's statement is on you tube. Washington Post:On YouTube, Charges of Security Flaws
posted by Unregistered User at 7:36 AM PST - 59 comments

Design Times Square: The Urban Forest Project "brings 185 banners created by the world’s most celebrated designers, artists, photographers and illustrators to New York’s Times Square. Each banner uses the form of the tree, or a metaphor for the tree, to make a powerful visual statement. Together they create a forest of thought-provoking images at one of the world’s busiest, most energetic, and emphatically urban intersections." Including work by Milton Glaser, the Walker Art Center, and many, many others. Via Speak Up.
posted by tpl1212 at 5:58 AM PST - 9 comments

Scientology nearly ready to unveil "super power."
posted by tranquileye at 5:31 AM PST - 95 comments

Hey, Chinabounder ... There's 14,608,512 guys outside wanna have a chat with you! A self-described Western scoundrel in Shanghai [racey text] seems to be creating the biggest backlash against foreign devils since the Boxer Rebellion. Said to be an expat English tutor, he's been seducing women and writing up lurid accounts on his blog and shocking the indignant and conservative populace. Now there's a growing effort to track him down as the drama unfolds.
posted by RavinDave at 5:04 AM PST - 53 comments

Oops: Impostor scams Louisiana officials Burned by the yes men. A prankster poses as a HUD honcho and promises NOT to destroy perfectly good housing projects slated for demolition. later, the prankster explained: The New Orleans projects are sturdily constructed brick buildings that, nevertheless, are slated for demolition, he said. "Basically, the real reason, of course, is they want to develop New Orleans into something pleasing to tourists -- even more pleasing." Video here. Wikipedia has info on more of their exploits. My favorite was the bhopal fiasco.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 4:39 AM PST - 19 comments