October 10, 2012

The society here is very bad.

First Draft of the Revolution is a browser-based, interactive, epistolary story, where the process of letter writing is used to explore aspects of character and plot that might otherwise remain hidden. Plus, lashings of classism and magical references.
posted by Sparx at 10:30 PM PST - 3 comments

Alcohol yesterday, drugs today

"Based in Brisbane, Australia, Stuart uses the medium of comics to explore serious issues with a unique perspective and a sense of fun." - War on Drugs and more, and even more. [Previously]
posted by vidur at 7:47 PM PST - 6 comments

'I Cani' apparently means 'Dogs'!

"Wes Anderson" by I Cani This is the video (SLYT WHOOO!!) for a wonderful song in Italian about wanting to live in Wes Anderson's films. And, of course, the video is a proper homage (and a half). [more inside]
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 7:42 PM PST - 17 comments

Always wondered if Tom went on to work in banking.

John D. Fitzgerald had written three fictionalized memoirs of his family's life in the late 19th-century Utah west before the night he happened to regale a group of friends with childhood stories of his money-crazed brother, Tom. At their urging, he crafted a funny and clever series of children's books chronicling the adventures of The Great Brain. Like countless other readers, the blogger and researcher behind Finding Fitzgerald (and its companion blog and Facebook page) has been fascinated with discovering the real settings and stories behind the books. And the truly committed can even watch Jimmy Osmond in the 1978 film adaptation.
posted by Miko at 7:10 PM PST - 40 comments

The other death sentence

I am 75, so we share a camaraderie of sorts as we compare notes on our aches and pains and medication regimens. They know I understand what it's like to be getting old and facing illness and death. They also know I have no idea what it's like to deal with these things behind bars. Their letters tell of lives filled with daily indignities—trying to heave an aging body into the top bunk, struggling to move fast enough to get a food tray filled or get a book at the library, fighting off younger troublemakers. But worst of all is the pervasive nothingness and isolation. photos.
posted by latkes at 6:56 PM PST - 78 comments

Vamo Lo Pibe!

A writer for outside magazine investigates first hand the world of the Argentinian Barra bravas. Argentina's most popular football team Boca Juniors is supported by La Doce, who are known as football's most passionate fans, and also run the underground economy of the stadium. (Boca's players aren't known for being saints either...) In spite of the violence, drugs, poverty, exploitation, and extortion - if you can get a chance to go to La Bombonera, eat a choripan and dare to stand in the populares with La Doce - it can be life changing.
posted by youthenrage at 4:49 PM PST - 9 comments

Smoothlife

SmoothLife is a continuous version of John Conway's Game of Life. When you tire of watching the hypnotic video you can read a technical description of SmoothLife on the arXiv. Then you can watch more videos of SmoothLife.
posted by escabeche at 4:29 PM PST - 30 comments

Nokia MeeGon tarina

The Story of Nokia MeeGo
posted by Ad hominem at 4:25 PM PST - 34 comments

Chicken Noodle Soup

The broth is just chicken and onions, with a confetti of vegetables added at the end where their flavor remains bright. The noodles are wide and winding... But, for me, the real triumph was giving the chicken parts and onion a saute... before adding water to make the soup. This deepened flavor base makes for magical soup, with a bronzed color, more robust flavor and significantly reduced prep time. ... With all of the blustery, cold days to go this winter, everyone... deserves to have a homemade, from-scratch chicken noodle soup that can be pulled off in just about an hour in their back pocket. [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 3:57 PM PST - 57 comments

The Dirty Details of the Lance Armstrong Conspiracy

The USADA published its "Reasoned Decision" in the case against Lance Armstrong. It reads, as The Inner Ring said, like "a crime novel" and has a cast of the who's who of American cycling: Hincapie, Zabriski, Andreu, Vande Velde, Hamilton (YT), Landis, Swart, Barry, Leipheimer, Vaughters, Danielson. 200+ pages. It's all there.
posted by thomsplace at 3:18 PM PST - 139 comments

United States of Clusterfuck

What if the Presidential election is a tie?
posted by desjardins at 3:02 PM PST - 66 comments

thinking logarithmically

What number is halfway between 1 and 9? New research lends credence to the Weber-Fechner law.
posted by aniola at 12:58 PM PST - 138 comments

Nightmare fuel for wasps

Researchers at Oregon State University have uncovered a unprecedented find: a spider attacking a wasp, both captured in amber (larger image here). The story, published in the journal Historical Biology, details that the attack occurred some 100 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous, in what is now Myanmar. Both the spider and the wasp belong to now-extinct species. The amber fragment also contained the body of another spider in the same web, which may be the oldest evidence yet for social behaviour in spiders.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:14 PM PST - 41 comments

Introvert Fairy Tales

Introvert Fairy Tales Once upon a time there was a woman who never lived in a castle, never married a prince, and always did all her own housework. She also never had paparazzi following her while she was on holidays so they could take topless pictures of her with a telephoto lens and distribute them for public consumption. So there was that.
posted by modernnomad at 12:11 PM PST - 66 comments

Birds

Studio photographs of birds. [more inside]
posted by OmieWise at 11:58 AM PST - 24 comments

Humble eBook Bundle

The new Humble Bundle (multipreviously) has been released. This time it's not games or music on pay-what-you-will offer, but DRM-free eBooks (in multiple formats including PDF, MOBI, and ePub). Featuring work by Kelly Link, Mercedes Lackey, Lauren Beukes, Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, and bonus works by MeFi's Own John Scalzi, and Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean should you pay more than the average. Books, hooray!
posted by davidjmcgee at 11:55 AM PST - 63 comments

Protean Adaptability

A brief history of plastic: "Having crossed that material Rubicon, comb makers never went back." [more inside]
posted by Snarl Furillo at 11:43 AM PST - 11 comments

Monster's University Website

Monsters University now has a website spoofing a real university. [more inside]
posted by busillis at 11:23 AM PST - 53 comments

White History Month

Why America needs a White History Month
posted by Artw at 10:49 AM PST - 123 comments

"This is a job for a stupid man . . . "

Twenty years ago today: "I'm calm now / I've calmed down / but I'm shaking . . ." [more inside]
posted by chaff at 10:35 AM PST - 31 comments

Is your brain feeling good today?

Did you know? Today is World Mental Health Day. World Mental Health Day was started by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1992 to raise awareness about mental health issues around the world. The World Federation for Mental Health has more information about this year's theme, Depression: A Global Crisis. Meanwhile, the Alternatives conference also starts today in Portland, Oregon. Now in its 26th year, this conference is the U.S.'s oldest national mental health conference organized and run for mental health consumers, offering tons of workshops on peer-delivered services and self-help/recovery methods. How will you celebrate World Mental Health Day? [more inside]
posted by docjohn at 9:57 AM PST - 35 comments

SUBMACHINE

Submachine 8: The Plan is the latest installment in Mateusz Skutnik's iconic point-and-click game series. [previously 1, 2, 3]
posted by Anonymous at 9:55 AM PST - 12 comments

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Alex Karras, N.F.L. Lineman and Actor, Dies at 77 [NYTimes] "Alex Karras was one of the National Football League‘s most feared defensive tackles throughout the 1960s, a player who hounded quarterbacks and bulled past opposing linemen. And yet, to many people he will always be known as an actor — the lovable father from the 1980s sitcom “Webster” or the big cowboy named Mongo who famously punched out a horse in “Blazing Saddles.”
posted by Fizz at 9:05 AM PST - 59 comments

I lost my heart to a ...

Sarah Brightman, multi-million selling singer, actress and songwriter, has taken her medical and will soon start training to become the 7th or 8th 'Space Tourist', visiting the ISS in 2015. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 9:03 AM PST - 51 comments

Damn, I wish I thought of that.

The Jealous Curator is 'a collection of art that inspires & depresses' its proprietor, who has been updating the site almost daily since February 2009 with series of paintings, sculpture and mixed media, furniture, and always with light-hearted commentary about what's posted.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:35 AM PST - 8 comments

HWÆT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

Hail and well-met, ye good townsfolk! 'Forsooth, what ho is this? Why, 'tis thee Medieval Shark, sallying forth to rend asunder thy countryside!
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:28 AM PST - 24 comments

A gallery of litigations that could have been

Imagine you're a game producer in the late 1980s, a week before the deadline and you still haven't got a cover for your game. Exhausted from crunchtime, you tell your illustrator to just rip off some Schwarzenegger action movie to get the job done. Careful, your subordinate might take the order all too literally!
Hardcore Gaming 101 present Tracing the Influence - Stolen Images in Games: Schwarzenegger and Stallone, Illustrators and Painters, Other Boxart and Ads, Ingame Graphics pt. I, Ingame Graphics pt. II.
posted by griphus at 8:13 AM PST - 24 comments

The Estonian Carry

Training for the National Wife-Carrying Championships.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:01 AM PST - 30 comments

Launching and catching Dragons

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday morning, after a slightly problematic launch on Sunday. Following on the successful test flight in May, this mission marks the first official supply run to the ISS by a private company. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:40 AM PST - 98 comments

From an axe to Auerbach

The story of British art From the earliest evocative stone structures at Skara Brae and Stonehenge to the disturbing 20th-century portraits by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, the art inspired by the British isles tells a truly spectacular story. Through painting, sculpture, architecture and much more, immerse yourself in the best of critic Jonathan Jones's epic survey of the artworks that have made us who we are interactive, intro
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:01 AM PST - 2 comments

Sodium memorial

Return to the Sea: Saltworks by Motoi Yamamoto
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:23 AM PST - 15 comments

What if money was no object?

What if money was no object? [SLYT] A brief talk by the philosopher Alan Watts. Previously
posted by MuffinMan at 5:23 AM PST - 62 comments

Unga Rev

Kenya has another election coming next year, the first under their new constitution, and since the last one in 2007 was followed by violence that left hundreds dead, and hundreds of thousands displaced (many of whom remain so today). [more inside]
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:41 AM PST - 5 comments

Malala Yousafzai and Pakistani Feminism

The 14 year old Pakistani diarist and feminist activist Malala Yousafzai (ملاله یوسفزۍ) has been shot in the head in a targeted attack by the Taliban [NewsPakistan] [AFP]. She is presently in hospital, and in a stable condition. The attack was in apparent reprisal for passing her diaries regarding the Taliban's ban on female education to the BBC in 2009 [original BBC diary story], but also her continued activism and pressure for women and girls' rights. The attempted killing is part of a wider conflict over women's rights within Pakistan, and Pakistani feminism in general tends to be bound up with religion and the shifting boundaries of having to argue against both the patriarchal government and the Taliban itself.
posted by jaduncan at 2:54 AM PST - 66 comments

How is corkky formed?

How cork is made - An illustrated guide to the cork production process
posted by nevercalm at 1:29 AM PST - 45 comments

If you only have time to pay attention to one Metafilter post about opera, it could be this one

Intense opera singer
posted by twoleftfeet at 12:36 AM PST - 54 comments

The Devil Soldier

In 1859 an American named Frederick Townsend Ward arrived in Shanghai. A sailor, mercenary, smuggler and filibuster, he created a force of Europeans to protect the city from, and engage directly in, the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing Dynasty, to avoid the complications of Western powers getting directly involved. After a severe defeat at Sungkiang/Songjiang, he decided to recruit from the local Chinese population instead, arming and training them in the Western fashion. This force was dubbed the 'Ever-Victorious Army.' [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:22 AM PST - 10 comments

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