What life would look like if you lived inside a plastic water bottle. Details on this interesting panoramic QTVR here.
posted by jonson at 11:12 PM PST - 17 comments

Don't forget to save your receipts! Mark Thomas (creator of the Payphone Project, previously discussed on Metafilter here) has been saving his for years.
posted by dersins at 9:14 PM PST - 14 comments

Pixel Fest - "Here's the game: can a group of random people, each contributing a teensy weensy bit, make a coherent piece of art/design/garbage purely through the influence of the work itself?" A time-lapse video of the project so far can be seen here (heavy load time)
posted by hypersloth at 7:48 PM PST - 20 comments

Like top-10 lists? The fifteen most incompetent Bush administration appointments.
Newsfilter, and reg. required. But this article is a thing of utter transcendent beauty. You have not heard of most of these people.
posted by Tlogmer at 2:40 PM PST - 52 comments

Moon type, an embossed typeface invented by Englishman William Moon in the middle 1840s, seemed to have won the fight to bring reading to the blind. Online Moon type generator here. It was based on simplified Roman text, was easy to use by all, and once enjoyed the status as the most popular embossed typeface in the world (failed night writing system withstanding). Until Louis Braille developed his system, that is.
posted by luckypozzo at 2:12 PM PST - 21 comments

White House Tapes has audio files and transcripts of presidental conversations between 1940 and 1973, including FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:06 PM PST - 16 comments

A Happy Ending -- Days after Katrina struck and the levees broke an AP photographer took a photograph depicting a frail, elderly woman in a wheelchair -- her withered white hand clasping [a little girl's] tiny black hand," as they were being rescued from the New Orlean's convention center. The photo was "published on front pages around the nation, and the pair became a symbol of the disaster." The two are fine and living together -- along with the girl's grandmother -- as a new family in Houston.
posted by ericb at 12:38 PM PST - 22 comments

Since Sliced Bread: A union-sponsored contest to find and develop ideas to improve the U.S. economy - the winner will receive $100,000. Entries range from virally-spreading an anti-exploitation shame meme to increasing US world domination. Other greatest ideas since sliced bread include your own personal jesus toast, corporate logos on toast, and Liberty.
posted by Rumple at 12:12 PM PST - 6 comments

Cow beats the crap out of dogs. Cows are mean.
posted by bigmusic at 11:52 AM PST - 65 comments

Dobson vs. the miniature Dachshund : the musical ( subtitle : "The Will To Whip" ) OK, it's not really a musical. But it should be : in a slice 'o life piece of high camp from "Focus on the Family" head and author of numerous books on parenting, including "Dare to Discipline" and "The New Dare To Discipline", Dr. James Dobson recounts an epic battle, belt in hand, to dislodge his 12 lb Dachshund from atop a fuzzy toilet seat cover. Dobson also advocates the disciplinary beating of chidren, but not those younger than 15 months. The Dachshund has sinced passed away, ending "a fifteen-year-love affair between man and dog".
posted by troutfishing at 10:29 AM PST - 82 comments

Soviet Calculators
posted by anastasiav at 9:56 AM PST - 16 comments

Pickled jack-o-lantern - just in time for the hollidays
posted by growabrain at 9:24 AM PST - 14 comments

Wrestling with Diane Arbus "She set up no lights, just pulled out her Rolleiflex, which was half as big as she was, checked the aperture and the exposure, and tested the flash. Then she asked me to lie on the bed, flat on my back on the shabby counterpane. I did as I was told. Clutching the camera she climbed on to the bed and straddled me, moving up until she was kneeling with a knee on both sides of my chest. She held the Rolleiflex at waist height with the lens right in my face. She bent her head to look through the viewfinder on top of the camera, and waited".
posted by matteo at 9:11 AM PST - 25 comments

Godey's Lady's Book. A 19th century American ladies' magazine, which contained poetry, engravings and articles. "It was a novel enterprise at the time, and few thought it would outlive the first year of its nativity. It soon became apparent, however, that its management was in the hands of one who knew the want of the time, and had the tact and taste required for its supply."
More here.
Sarah Josepha Hale, the author of 'Mary had a little lamb', who petitioned President Lincoln for a national holiday known as Thanksgiving Day, was an editor of the magazine.
posted by plep at 7:06 AM PST - 14 comments

Perhaps you'll recall DARPA's Grand Challenge where autonomous vehicles competed in a off-road race for $1,000,000 but most barely made it off the starting blocks? Yeah, well, they are doing it again this year for $2 million this time. Just one thing: Don't bet on Princeton. [last two links .MOV]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:11 AM PST - 18 comments

Make Your Own Law Psst, Newsfilter
Assemblyman Jimmy Meng wants his Flushing, New York constituents to submit their best ideas for new legislation. The best proposal will be introduced as a bill in Albany.
posted by fenriq at 12:24 AM PST - 26 comments

The Human Flower Project "From the mourners of a Neanderthal man buried with flowers in 60,000 B.C.. to today’s megawatt floral designers on HGTV, people have turned to flowers out of anxiety, necessity and joy."
posted by dhruva at 12:07 AM PST - 2 comments