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The Attention Deficit Designer, by Jon Winebrenner
posted by infini at 10:21 PM PST - 25 comments

Allegations have surfaced that a Wikipedia trustee and a Wikipedian In Residence have been editing the online encyclopedia on behalf of PR clients, while running an SEO business on the side. Response. Trigger warning: Violet Blue content.
posted by unSane at 9:42 PM PST - 78 comments

Mentos + Coke + Condom. SLYT. Safe for work, unless you're against balloons.
posted by Apropos of Something at 7:31 PM PST - 33 comments

Randy Newman released a new song today. Though he's best known for his film scores these days, he's done social commentary through song for decades. He's sung about the foreign policy, immigration, the environment, race, history, and predjudice. This isn't his first song about the president.
posted by fzx101 at 6:54 PM PST - 62 comments

In 2003, the BBC reported that a population explosion of Great Gerbils had destroyed more than 4 million hectares of grasslands in China's north-western Xinjiang region -- an area about the size of Switzerland. By 2005 the damage covered 5 million hectares, and the Xinjuang Regional Headquarters for Controlling Locusts and Rodents were reported to be breeding and attracting pairs of golden eagles to curb the gerbil population. So McSweeney's Joshuah Bearman was assigned to the story. His report: An Investigation Into Xinjiang's Growing Swarm of Great Gerbils, Which May or May Not be Locked in a Death-Struggle With the Golden Eagle, With Important Parallels and/or Implications Regarding Koala Bears, The Pied Piper, Spongmonkeys, Cane Toads, Black Death, [and] Text-Messaging..
posted by zarq at 6:28 PM PST - 38 comments

"Revolution" seems a little too much like "Powerless." Indie television proof-of-concept pilot "Powerless" is "about a trio who are in the woods when an unexplained and unexpected event causes electricity the world over to suddenly disappear." The pilot is submitted to a 2011 television festival where it is seen by studio executives. Then, "come February 2012, NBC picks up [a] mystery high concept pilot and reveals it's called 'Revolution' and the high concept is: An adventure series in a world suddenly and inexplicably without power." [more inside]
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:06 PM PST - 151 comments

From Martha Kemper at RH Reality Check, Vaginas Are Sperm Depositories and Other Scary Things About the State of New York's Sex Ed Curricula, a commentary on the New York Civil Liberties Union's recent report on the state of health education and sex ed in schools in New York state. [more inside]
posted by not that girl at 4:59 PM PST - 29 comments

A festival of indie creativity in Portland, Oregon, XOXO was Kickstartered into existence as an alternative to SXSW and sold out in just over two days. Its speakers spoke of a new kind of individual creative entrepreneurship enabled by technology, and included Dan Harmon, Adam Savage, MakerBot's Bre Prettis (previously) and MeFi's own mathowie, while its attendees were a kind of who's-who of the Internet. Anil Dash wrote up every session, and you can pre-order videos on the main site.
posted by bwerdmuller at 4:58 PM PST - 15 comments

Yesterday, a cello was stolen from the San Francisco conservatory. Today, the musician's dad is trying to use surveillance pics and a Reddit post to find the thieves. The Huffington Post has since picked up the photos as well. Will crowd-sourced crime solving work?
posted by kellybird at 4:47 PM PST - 32 comments

"Hey, isn't this where they shot that scene from..."
posted by griphus at 3:36 PM PST - 60 comments

"A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: 'Jesus said to them, "My wife ... '" [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 3:21 PM PST - 93 comments

What is the smallest prime? "It seems that the number two should be the obvious answer, and today it is, but it was not always so. There were times when and mathematicians for whom the numbers one and three were acceptable answers. To find the first prime, we must also know what the first positive integer is. Surprisingly, with the definitions used at various times throughout history, one was often not the first positive integer (some started with two, and a few with three). In this article, we survey the history of the primality of one, from the ancient Greeks to modern times. We will discuss some of the reasons definitions changed, and provide several examples. We will also discuss the last significant mathematicians to list the number one as prime."
posted by escabeche at 1:42 PM PST - 63 comments

What do you do when you can't get enough of a television show that doesn't exist, yet has an extraordinary 50 years of backstory and history? If you're Travis Richey, the answer is, you create: UNTITLED WEB SERIES ABOUT A SPACE TRAVELER WHO CAN ALSO TRAVEL THROUGH TIME. Episodes 1 and 2 are now showing, as well as a behind-the-scenes "confidential" episode.
posted by jbickers at 12:51 PM PST - 38 comments

... a new EPUB export feature has been enabled on English Wikipedia. You can use it to collate your personal collection of Wikipedia articles and generate free ebooks. These can be read on a broad range of devices, like mobile phones, tablets and e-ink based e-book readers. ... Collections can be exported in a variety of formats like PDF, EPUB, or OpenOffice.
posted by Egg Shen at 12:40 PM PST - 24 comments

Internet Poetry publishes poetry as gifs, screenshots, image macros, and other internet-based forms!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:55 AM PST - 9 comments

"Meet Your Creator" is a stage show involving mirrors and light and quadrotors.
posted by brundlefly at 11:44 AM PST - 9 comments

"The coach [of the University of Arkansas Cheerleaders] would offer "no special consideration" here. Beard would have to do all the stunts, and do them perfectly. There would be no charity for Patience." Patience Beard, an amputee since the age of 9 months, a fresh graduate of a Texarkana high school, refused to be dissuaded. Instead, she went out and did what she did best, and made the team. [more inside]
posted by Atreides at 11:34 AM PST - 22 comments

Filmmaker, football ambassador, part-time poet, creator of a music video genre and NFL films president Steve Sabol has passed away at the age of 69. The winner of 40 Emmys, Sabol made arguably the single biggest impact on the mythology of American football, completely changing the way the sport was covered and photographed.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:16 AM PST - 33 comments

When it came time to make Aimee Mann's new video for the song Labrador, director Tom Scharpling dragged a reluctant Aimee Mann into making a shot-for-shot remake of the 1985 video for 'til tuesday's Voices Carry. The results are even funnier if you watch the original video immediately afterwards.
posted by jonp72 at 11:05 AM PST - 74 comments

Jeans. Jeans. Jeans. JEANS! (via)
posted by mrgrimm at 10:30 AM PST - 18 comments

Stealing magic has become a commonplace crime. Teller, a man of infinite delicacy and deceit, decided to do something about it. Putative thief, Gerard Bakardy, tells the story differently.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:26 AM PST - 83 comments

Once upon a time, there was a wizard who knew what Heaven and Hell looked like.

On Joseph Michael Gandy (1771 – 1843), the architect's assistant who painted palaces that never were and ruins that had yet to be. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 9:57 AM PST - 14 comments

Well-known and quintessentially American poet Louis Simpson has died at the age of 89.
posted by aught at 9:46 AM PST - 12 comments

A gallery of ghost signs.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:44 AM PST - 23 comments

While the 2007 IPCC report showed Arctic sea-ice still present in 2100, it is now an unfolding "global disaster" according to Cambridge Professor Peter Wadhams. Climate Code Red summarizes the science, saying the sea-ice is "in a 'death spiral' and likely to be gone in summer within a few years" ... "The sea-ice volume is now down to just one-fifth of what it was in 1979", and paints a newly emerging, rapidly worsening climate picture, urging climate scientists to sound the alarm on new data showing a world on the brink of dramatic tipping points, far sooner than anyone anticipated
posted by crayz at 9:05 AM PST - 222 comments

Beautiful images from the USSR. Someone has scanned over 10,000 photos from the Soviet Union. Sources seem to be mainly the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Soviet Life magazine and catalogs and magazines. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 8:37 AM PST - 13 comments

35 years ago today, Voyager 1 transmitted three images which NASA processed into a single frame of Earth and its moon. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 6:48 AM PST - 49 comments

A data visualization reveals the gender bias in thousands of Wikipedia articles. [more inside]
posted by dontjumplarry at 6:26 AM PST - 52 comments

The working week of a commercial pilot as seen from the cockpit A timelapse video showing takeoffs and landings from the pilot's perspective. Complete with squashed insects on the windscreen.
posted by jontyjago at 5:33 AM PST - 33 comments

The McAllen, TX Public Library won a 'Best-Of-Category' award in Interior Design for its new layout. It's in an abandoned Wal-Mart. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:27 AM PST - 39 comments

When worker honeybees change jobs their DNA changes. The DNA change seems reversible and epigenetic in nature.
posted by aleph at 2:14 AM PST - 28 comments

Depth of Speed is a web series of videos that try to capture the essence of what it means to love cars. while there are so many corners of the internet dedicated to one brand, type, or model of car, Josh Clason sought out a diversity of machinery. from british sports cars to bikes, both human and gasoline powered. even a 1957 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. with cinematography at times stunning, visceral, emotional, and raw, these short films go right into the heart of what motivates people to turn wrenches and burn endless hours in pursuit of a true passion. [more inside]
posted by ninjew at 1:23 AM PST - 25 comments