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Extraordinary Hang Glider Murdered-- Sunday, August 20, 2006 Dan Murphy was just pulling up on his motorcycle at his favorite place to hang glide in San Francisco. Fort Funston, just south of the City, is known for having perfect conditions for the sport. But on this day a deranged man approached him in the parking lot, shooting him in the head at point-blank range. Before the man turned the gun on himself he also shot one of Dan's friends who was nearby. Dan died from his injuries, but he leaves behind a couple of short videos that reveal some of his amazing hang gliding feats, including an Icarus-like crash, and perhaps his moment of glory when he successfully made a pinpoint landing into a stationary wheelbarrow. Evidently Dan took great pleasure in twisting in the saddle on take-off. Here's his signature move. R.I.P.
posted by derangedlarid at 11:28 PM PST - 11 comments

... the eighth young man since 1997 was found dead in the Mississippi River in the La Crosse [Wisconsin] area on Monday.
posted by anjamu at 11:27 PM PST - 37 comments

The Imperial History of the Middle East is a flash based map of the Middle East, with a sliding timeline showing the various forces that have established dominance in the region over the last 5,000 years. Just one of many interesting interactive demonstrations over at Maps Of War.
posted by jonson at 10:57 PM PST - 33 comments

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths --No longer satisfied with “mere acceptance” by our society, heterosexual political pressure groups have launched a well-planned, well-financed campaign, which, if left unchecked, threatens to destroy the most fundamental structures of American society. (actual report itself is a pdf from there--a takeoff on this stuff, which is NSFHumans)
posted by amberglow at 8:40 PM PST - 24 comments

Some of you may have seen the feature film Brick; I thought it one of the best of the year and among the better debuts I've seen in a long time. Writer-Director Rian Johnson offers up the shooting script and original novella for free on his site. Fun for fans of noir, high school flicks, or MeFites gaggle of screenwriters.
posted by dobbs at 8:36 PM PST - 29 comments

A theatre group in NYC is putting on a "Hell House"- a dramatic representation of sin, judgement, heaven and hell typically performed around the country by evangelical churches in an attempt to win believers. The original "Hell House" script (to be used in NYC) was written by Pastor Keenan Rogers of New Destiny Christian Center. An interview with the director of Les Freres Corbusier reveals they're not out to make fun; rather, they look to examine the different experiences people who witness them have.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:28 PM PST - 36 comments

Carnets de voyage : illustrated notebooks of travel (french site)
posted by dhruva at 6:49 PM PST - 9 comments

Blood-painting the inside of your car has got to suck. Ever wonder what happens when you hit a moose? Hint: it appears worse to your car than hitting a kangaroo. (warning, if you can't stand the sight of dead animals [even when they look cute in deathly repose], stay away)
posted by Kickstart70 at 6:31 PM PST - 39 comments

DEFCON, based off the real alert levels (and Wargames), is a game about killing innocent civilians.
posted by pantsrobot at 5:46 PM PST - 60 comments

Destined for Destiny , a new appreciation of our president, is Destined for Destiny itself. There's a movie too!
posted by hexatron at 5:08 PM PST - 16 comments

Elvis: King of the Rock 'n' Roll Jews? Unlike George Allen, Elvis proudly embraced his Jewish heritage. Through his mother's side of the family, Elvis could trace his lineage back to his Jewish great-grandmother, Martha Tackett, which makes Elvis Jewish by matrilineal descent. A former shabbos goy who did chores on the Sabbath for a rabbi in Memphis, Elvis had his biggest-selling success with a #1 hit by a Jewish songwriting team. Known to wear a Hebrew Chai pendant and to donate to Jewish charities in Memphis, Elvis also put the Star of David on his Mom's gravestone.
posted by jonp72 at 4:58 PM PST - 49 comments

Neuroscience Gateway - "a comprehensive source for the latest research, news and events in neuroscience and genomics research"
posted by Gyan at 4:27 PM PST - 6 comments

Last week, a textbook example of irony occurred in Houston. Last week was also Banned Books Week.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:33 PM PST - 79 comments

Male Restroom Etiquette. For the public restroom inclined.
posted by four panels at 3:25 PM PST - 38 comments

Was that real manure? Biff wants you to stop asking him the question. (YouTube)
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:39 PM PST - 30 comments

"But right now, Bob is a human being in a rather painful fleshsuit, who needs our help. I refuse for the history books to say he died alone and destitute, for I want future generations to know we appreciated Robert Anton Wilson while he was alive."
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:27 PM PST - 103 comments

Modest Muse: Author J.G. Ballard’s influence on modern music. J.G. Ballard (needs no introduction, surely?) in an interview discussing his work's influence on popular music. From the CBC.
posted by jokeefe at 2:18 PM PST - 36 comments

FairPlay is turned about. "DVD" Jon Lech Johansen, of DeCSS fame, has reverse engineered Apple's FairPlay DRM technology, which has thus far prevented 3rd-party digital music players from playing music purchased from the iTunes Store. RealNetworks did something similar in 2004, but Johansen is licensing it to whomever wants it.
posted by mkultra at 1:41 PM PST - 41 comments

The NSA Bibliographies The NSA internally publishes thousands of papers every year, on every topic from spycraft to cryptography to physics & aliens (no, really!). Each year the titles of these papers gets indexed & those indexes are also published internally. The Memory Hole has made a successful FOIA request for a large number of these, spanning almost 50 years. We don't get to see the actual papers, but just the titles are fascinating - including such page turners as "Computer Virus Infections: Is NSA Vulnerable?", "KAL 007 Shootdown: A View from [redacted]", "NSA in the Cyberpunk Future", "Telephone Codes and Safe Combinations: A Deadly Duo", "Coupon Collecting and Cryptology", "Cranks, Nuts, and Screwballs" & my personal favorite, "Key to the Extraterrestrial Messages". When you're done browsing the titles, there's a sample form you can use to request some of the documents yourself!
posted by scalefree at 11:41 AM PST - 10 comments

Smilin' Savior not winning hearts and minds. Suprisingly, in a Muslim nation where the thumbs-up sign is considered obscene, "Buddy Jesus" fails to amuse after a woman and girl are left dead in a firefight.
posted by orthogonality at 11:29 AM PST - 69 comments

H.R. 4411: The Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act is a bill aimed at making online gambling illegal by blocking any US funds to foreign servers from American banks and credit cards. It passed the House on Saturday and sent British gambling stocks tumbling. I was kind of surprised at the swift passing of this bill, given that online poker is a pretty serious business, but one poker site says they'll be in the clear as poker is a game of skill and not just chance (good luck with that). Oh, and this is just one cog in the 10 tooth wheel of The American Values Agenda, the republican attempt to push socially conservative issues in time for the election.
posted by mathowie at 10:51 AM PST - 42 comments

See Vous Play -- Well, yesterday, as some of you may have heard was National Music Day, in Canada at the very least. In celebration of this CBC Radio 3 and it's French-Canadian hot cousin Bande A Part hosted the See Vous Play bilingual concert in Canada's centre of the universe, Toronto. On the bill were Les Breastfeeders, Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton, Les Trois Accordes, and the incomparable Joel Plaskett Emergency Band. If you missed last night's broadcast, you can hear everything that went down here.
posted by Old Man Wilson at 10:38 AM PST - 8 comments

The Libertarian Democrat. Kos makes the case for the Libertarian Democrat for the Cato Institute.
posted by empath at 10:01 AM PST - 79 comments

“The leader of the jury looked at his papers and said in the first round: ‘I know a disabled person is coming. I want the jury to close their eyes. I don’t want them to be touched in any way.’ ”
As if, of course, one needed to know about Thomas Quasthoff's Thalidomide-related severe physical handicaps to be moved by the sound of his voice. He goes seamlessly from pianissimo to fortissimo, in his recitals a single Lied becomes "a major, stunning drama playing out in a few minutes". He sang jazz to support himself in university and it remains a passion (he likes to sing Paul Robeson or even Frank Sinatra encores), but he's famously leery of crossover artists like Andrea Bocelli. Just don't cough during his recitals -- "because I love this music so much". He doesn't like to talk much about his nightmarish childhood and teenage years, plagued by surgeries and body casts -- "I have in my past time had very difficult years, very difficult years" is all he'll usually say -- so please try not to consider him a victim, because he doesn't see himself as such: "I don't think people are moved because I am disabled. I think it's because I have something to say." More inside.
posted by matteo at 8:17 AM PST - 21 comments

"Kip Hawley is an Idiot". Careful what you say about the Director of the TSA when you're waiting to pass airport security.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 7:14 AM PST - 208 comments

I'm My Own Grandpa ^(embedded audio) is a funny and head-scratching song about, well, being your own grandpa (hint: dad's to blame). There's a video using footage from The Sims, which includes a cover by Ray Stevens. Bonus points if you can figure it all out the first time you listen.
posted by zardoz at 5:40 AM PST - 22 comments

[MediFilter] The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to the discoverers of RNA interference (RNAi) [Note: Links to original 1998 Nature paper .pdf]. The finding that cells have an intricate mechanism for blocking viral RNA replication quickly spawned a new technology for investigating the role of different genes by allowing scientists to quickly, (relatively) cheaply and easily "knock down" their expression and measure the effects. When Kerry Mullis won in 1993 for the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), there was talk of whether or not the prize had gone to a technical advance and not a fundamental discovery. It will be interesting to see, in this case, which receives more focus: the discovery of a new technology or of a new cellular mechanism.
posted by scblackman at 4:16 AM PST - 18 comments

Drag the circles, have some fun.
posted by triv at 4:01 AM PST - 19 comments