January 27, 2007

The Merry Cemetery! It rhymes!.

In the county of Maramures in Romania is Sapanta or The Merry Cemetery. From 1935 Ioan Patras, carved oak crosses with a scene from a life or death like the death of a young girl or this questionable bit.
posted by arse_hat at 10:12 PM PST - 12 comments

"Management's job is to improve the system."

W. Edwards Deming: Noted consultant, and proponent of total quality management. The prevailing forces of destruction start early in life-grades in school from toddler on up through the university, gold stars for school athletics, merit system or annual appraisal on the job, incentive pay, work standards, MBO (rather, MBIR: Management by Imposition of Results), MBR (Management by Results). These forces of destruction must be replaced by leadership.... The transformation will restore the individual; will abolish grades in school on up through the university; will abolish the annual appraisal of people on the job, MBO, quotas for production, specified requirements that people work 57 minutes out of every hour, incentive pay, monthly or quarterly reports on business targets, competition between people, competition between divisions, and other forms of suboptimisation. Leadership will replace these bad practices, and will restore the individual.
posted by Brian B. at 9:53 PM PST - 51 comments

You, Sir (Or Madam), Are A Pontifical Nincompoop

Pompous Ass Words is a site dedicated to identifying words that shouldn't be used, on the grounds that doing so makes you sound like a pompous ass. With humorous citations and links to examples of pompous word usage by the media.
posted by amyms at 8:09 PM PST - 202 comments

Lobby card invasion

Lobby Card Invasion. A searchable collection of a wide variety of lobby cards for all kinds of interesting films. [via PCL LinkDump]
posted by mediareport at 5:45 PM PST - 13 comments

Hindi cinema

Bollywood Dreams. Bollywood in a nutshell: Bollywood is the name given to the Bombay (Mumbai)-based Hindi-language film industry in India. Bollywood films are colorful, crammed with singing, dancing, loads of costume changes. In the past there were often absurd and hilarious take-offs on Western films or superstars, such as the Beatles, Michael Jackson , Elvis,70's music and hair styles. Spectacular collection of Bollywood posters and vintage original poster art for sale and t-shirts. Stats and faqs. The history of Bollywood, brief chronology [pdf]. The main actors, images. The main actresses, images. Some of the renowned songs and the singers who sang them. Bollywood song lyrics and audio at the excellent Music India Online. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 1:13 PM PST - 74 comments

"my god. it's full of macs." - superpixel

Basement Mac collection via Cult of Mac. If you want to check out the tech specs on them Apples, go to The Macintosh Museum or the Low End Mac Museum. For more Mac history visit The Apple Museum or The Apple Museum.
posted by Kattullus at 12:10 PM PST - 34 comments

In the future will everything be open source?

Can you build an open source car? Or a three-dimensional printer? Or a new kind of handheld computer? Can open source ideas thrive in the physical world? Or is there something fundementally different? Are we seeing a new type of production or just a filip for hobbyists and dreamers?
posted by MrMerlot at 11:52 AM PST - 26 comments

People with lots of time have novel takes on Star Wars

Two new takes on the world of Star Wars: "The public choice economics of Star Wars: A Straussian reading"; and "A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope:Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III." Were the Jedi actually useless and powerhungry? Was R2-D2 the true hero of the rebellion? Most importantly, where do people find the time to come up with this stuff?
posted by nevercalm at 7:18 AM PST - 86 comments

A Grieving Father Speaks

"I've lost my heart."

Peace activist Bassam Aramin reacts to the murder of his daughter, Abir.
posted by felix betachat at 6:29 AM PST - 34 comments

Titans of Voice

Decades of cartoons and movie previews have desensitized us to the art of the voice-over. For decades, the movies, cartoons, and commercials we watch have been given life by a relatively small group of extremely talented and prolific voices.
posted by potch at 2:49 AM PST - 25 comments

How to drive a Humvee in traffic in Baghdad.

How not to drive a Humvee in traffic in Baghdad.
posted by loquacious at 1:10 AM PST - 159 comments

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