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The Savage Young Beatles. Photos of the boys from the 1950s and early 1960s. An early color photo. The first photo as the Beatles. All from The Beatle Source, a collection of photos, music and acetates. via the Presurfer.
posted by caddis at 8:05 PM PST - 44 comments

CronyJobs.com
"Apply" now to secure a lucrative career both decrying and luxuriating in the spoils of Big Government! No experience necessary! Don't miss your chance to suckle greedily at America's soon-to-be-bankrupt bureaucracy teat!
posted by fenriq at 4:26 PM PST - 38 comments

CribCandy.com is a thumbnail blog of cool stuff for your house, like Uncrate, but just for house related purchases.
posted by jonson at 4:12 PM PST - 29 comments

Today in the Netherlands, public broadcaster BNN aired the first episode of sex- and drug-themed television show "Spuiten en Slikken"; the punning title translates to either "Shoot Up & Pop (Pills)" or "Squirt & Swallow". [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:39 PM PST - 21 comments

Who is the Real JT LeRoy? A search for the true identity of a great literary hustler.
posted by mr.marx at 2:35 PM PST - 28 comments

Does dark matter exist? Dark matter has been suggested as a solution to the galaxy rotation problem where individual stars don't seem to rotate the way Newton's laws would predict. Now, some scientists are saying that observations fit with Einstein's general relativity, without any dark matter needed. I just find it amazing that no one has tried this yet.
posted by delmoi at 1:48 PM PST - 45 comments

It was a dark and stormy night on some distant planet. Thog's Masterclass collects only the finest, most well-honed clunky sentences and mixed metaphors the science fiction community produces. Eat yer heart out, Bulwer-Lytton. [via the website at the end of the universe]
posted by arto at 12:58 PM PST - 19 comments

The most interesting pieces of pop music trivia (that you know are 100% false.) For example,

With the exception of 1990's Fourth of July, every Galaxie 500 song released has the exact same opening five seconds.

"American Pie" songster Don McLean is ironically both Canadian, and allergic to pastry.

Rapper 50 Cent Blasts Colonel Oliver North for role in Iran Contra Affair

posted by The Jesse Helms at 11:27 AM PST - 68 comments

Staten Island Ship Graveyard. A fascinating gallery of photographs of abandoned and decaying ships.
posted by dersins at 10:26 AM PST - 20 comments

Fred and Ethel resurrected as corporate shills "Through the magic of Hollywood, famously tightfisted Fred (William Frawley) and his irascible wife, Ethel (Vivian Vance), are brought back to life in a series of entertaining vignettes," California-based PacifiCare said in a release about its new television advertising campaign. Using body doubles, voice impersonators and computer-generated imagery, the national TV ads that will premiere in mid October will enable the two long-dead actors to "speak" once more. And, oddly enough, they'll be talking about PacifiCare's new drug plan.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:54 AM PST - 40 comments

Global warming -- the upside: the entrepreneurs poised to make millions from new ports and shipping lanes in the formerly ice-bound Arctic circle. A fascinating New York Times article on the international land-grab following the news (reported here, discussed here, whitewashed here, et. al.) that the polar ice caps and Siberian permafrost are melting. Goodbye Gulf Stream, hello Club Med Santa-style -- first SUV to the North Pole wins!
posted by digaman at 9:24 AM PST - 53 comments

Hardcore Faith. Actor Stephen Baldwin on his skateboarding ministry and why it's OK to call the Lord 'dude.'
posted by matteo at 8:39 AM PST - 125 comments

The 2005 Nobel Prize for economics goes to Robert J. Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling. Marginal Revolution has a wonderful set of posts that link to various related resources, like a summary of Aumann's work or Schelling's views on global warming.
posted by daksya at 7:53 AM PST - 17 comments

Warning: Geek Hype Alert! Artima.com has just launched a new on-line magazine, Ruby Code & Style. They already host Web `zines for two long-time, corporate powerhouse languages, C++ and Java. For their next subject one might have expected them to go with Python or perhaps Perl, but instead they picked Ruby.

Need more proof Ruby's time has come? The Fifth International Ruby Conference, to be held this week in San Diego, CA, is sold out. The attendance is triple what is was last year. Any readers of Slashdot here likely do not need yet another mention of Ruby on Rails, which has spread like wildfire. But Agile Web Development with Rails is currently in the top 500 over-all sales rank on Amazon, and currently #2 in the Computers and Internet Programming section.

While MeFi tends to focus on more socially-broad topics, I know there is a cadre of geeks here. So, tell me: Is this it for Perl, Python, and PHP? Are the P* languages to be sent packing? Or is this swell of Rubymania just a passing fad, the results of overblown blog hype? And what other programming languuages might be lurking to become The Next Big Geek Thing? (I'm still waiting for Lisp to assume return triumphant.)
posted by Ayn Marx at 6:36 AM PST - 87 comments

Gem sweater / missed connections.
posted by swift at 6:27 AM PST - 16 comments

The Times Higher Education Supplement's World University Rankings [link to PDF]
posted by Gyan at 6:20 AM PST - 15 comments