MetaFilter

"But the technique that all of us in Aden listened to agape was a method that had been developed allegedly very recently, which was to suspend the prisoner in a tank of liquid gelatine which was at 94.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Naked. With your arms and legs tied and your head encased in a sort of diver’s helmet, through which you were breathing. You were hung into this tank, so all you could hear was the [breathing noise] of your own breath. And in theory you would go bonkers. Because you didn’t know which way was up, you had no sense." -Interview with British Interrogator #1 [more inside]
posted by univac at 10:05 PM PST - 57 comments

OCTOBER 22 IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!! EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!!
posted by Apropos of Something at 9:41 PM PST - 287 comments

Looking for a break from horse-race coverage of the 2012 election? The New York Review of Books has thirteen short essays on the election and its consequences. Michael Tomasky. Elizabeth Drew. Cass Sunstein. Frank Rich. David Cole. Richard Dworkin. Russell Baker. Darryl Pinckney. David Bromwich. Kwame Anthony Appiah. Steven Weinberg. Garry Wills. Jeffrey Sachs. Plus a blog post by Christopher Benfey: The Empty Chair That Keeps Me Awake at Night.
posted by russilwvong at 9:20 PM PST - 11 comments

While at college I yearned to feel connected, to be a part of something larger, something that involved more than bricks and mortarboards. I never managed it. Now, two decades later, I felt a familiar ambivalence. Those bright college years are so influential, so much a part of who we become, that revisiting them brings up a host of conflicting, tumultuous emotions. Going back stirs the pot. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Author and columnist Rachel Toor on mixed feelings about going to a class reunion when you haven't exactly become successful in the traditional sense. (This essay also appeared in a 2004 issue of the Chronicle Review, the essays and opinions insert of the trade periodical The Chronicle of Higher Education.)
posted by Nomyte at 7:47 PM PST - 67 comments

Here’re some photographs of outstanding structures & buildings:
The Salk Institute in San Diego
400 Monte Vista Avenue, Mill Valley CA
Light Cathedral, Ghent Belgium
The Buzludzha monument ... [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 7:31 PM PST - 35 comments

Artist Dusty Abell has created a massive poster featuring "at least one, sometimes more, character, entity, starship or structure from every episode of [Star Trek: The Original] series." Via io9, who ask: How many characters can you name? Stumped? Here's a key of all 123! [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:29 PM PST - 25 comments

The long wait is ending! On February 5, 2013, Animaniacs Volume 4 will finally be released on DVD. This set will contain the final 24 episodes from the 1993-1998 cartoon, including the remaining thus-far unreleased episodes from Season 3 and all the episodes from the truncated 4th and 5th seasons. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:24 PM PST - 51 comments

Photographs by William Vandivert of London during World War II, presented by Life Magazine.
posted by maxwelton at 5:47 PM PST - 12 comments

USF's collection of maps of America. Includes killing frost dates from 1911, Hog production circa 1860, 1900, Paths of Western Exploration and many more.
posted by Grandysaur at 4:16 PM PST - 7 comments

Bond 50 - SFX Magazine has been recapping all 22 "official" Bond films, from Dr. No to Quantum of Solace in the run up to Skyfall (critical reation, trailer).
posted by Artw at 3:50 PM PST - 84 comments

Rod Serling discusses writing. A conversation.
posted by timsteil at 1:24 PM PST - 13 comments

In the 1952 presidential race, The Crimson decided neither General Dwight D. Eisenhower nor Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson were good enough to endorse, so the paper went for a certain possum from Okefenokee Swamp: Pogo. Buttons were made, campaign was waged and Pogo's creator, Walt Kelly was invited to give a speech. When he was delayed coming in to Harvard from the airport, riots broke out. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 1:14 PM PST - 22 comments

This Is Why I'm Broke: not just jet packs and flying cars - you could locomote in a hot-tub boat, a killer-whale submarine, or a light-up monowheel; exercise on a rock-climbing treadmill; sleep on a convertible futon bunk bed; set the world on fire; or hold a zero-gravity wedding. Only in your dreams? Well, you can still fritter away your money on a flying radio-control shark, a turntable for your wall or for your cat, geeky iPhone cases (cassette tape - han solo in carbonite - ordisguise it as a leather book), a Batman snuggie or a pizza-wheel + fork or a flying fuck. All this and much more collected & curated for browsing, updated daily. Default sort is by popularity: can change to price or newest updates first. [more inside]
posted by flex at 12:47 PM PST - 32 comments

Aurora is an 4X simulation game in which you start from a civilization barely on edge of the Space Age, and guide them to galactic domination---or possibly crushing, painful defeat at the hands of your equally-ambitious neighbors or grumpy elder civilizations. It is the labor of love of a single dedicated designer (Steve Walmsley), and its depth and attention to detail rival that of the perennial Mefi favorite Dwarf Fortress. (Also much like Dwarf Fortress, the UI has a learning curve, being primarily based around what appears to be a series of spreadsheets.) The main game, and most recent patch, can downloaded from the Aurora forums here and here respectively. [more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good at 10:40 AM PST - 40 comments

Music video for Young Rival's 'Two Reasons' featuring face paint artist James Kuhn
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:21 AM PST - 6 comments

Holt’s philosophers belong to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Compared with the giants of the past, they are a sorry bunch of dwarfs. They are thinking deep thoughts and giving scholarly lectures to academic audiences, but hardly anybody in the world outside is listening. They are historically insignificant. At some time toward the end of the nineteenth century, philosophers faded from public life. Like the snark in Lewis Carroll’s poem, they suddenly and silently vanished. So far as the general public was concerned, philosophers became invisible. [more inside]
posted by jason's_planet at 9:50 AM PST - 137 comments

The Adventures of Shirley Holmes is available online in its entirety. Filmed in Winnipeg and set in the fictional Canadian town of Redington, The Adventures of Shirley Holmes followed the work of Sherlock's teenage great grand-niece and her friend Bo Sawchuk, with classmate Molly Hardy (Moriarty) serving as a recurring antagonist. Known for its intelligent characters, the show's original 52 episode run has been translated into nine additional languages and aired in over 80 countries. [more inside]
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 9:38 AM PST - 16 comments

In March of 1969, Apollo 9 was launched into low earth orbit as critical test for future lunar landings. The Duet of Spider & Gumdrop is a half hour film, set to music from The Yellow Submarine, that publicized highlights of the mission.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:28 AM PST - 6 comments

Over the course of the next two months, each participating ISP [*AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon] expects to begin rolling out its version of the [Copyright Alert System] – a system through which ISPs will pass on to their subscribers notices sent by content owners alleging copyright infringement over peer-to-peer networks. Educational alerts will come first, followed by acknowledgement alerts that require the recipients to let their ISP know they have received the notices. For accounts where alleged infringing activity continues, enhanced alerts that contain “mitigation measures” will follow. - Jill Lesser, Executive Director, Center for Copyright Information [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 8:15 AM PST - 137 comments

A Fat Mustachioed Orphan Finds a Home. (NYT, MLWP, video within*) [more inside]
posted by spitbull at 6:17 AM PST - 27 comments

YouTube user ultramanvszetton makes oddly compelling Ultraman movies using action figures, stop-motion animation, and sound effects, such as The Return of Ultraman and Ultra Seven Vs. Bado Alien. YouTube user Goji73 has created an entire series of web videos using action figures called Godzilla and his Amazing Friends (there is some crossover between Godzilla and an Ultraman spinoff called Daikaiju Battle).
posted by KokuRyu at 5:51 AM PST - 11 comments

"Why do parasites harm their hosts? Conventional wisdom holds that because parasites depend on their hosts for survival and transmission, they should evolve to become benign, yet many parasites cause harm. Theory predicts that parasites could evolve virulence (i.e., parasite-induced reductions in host fitness) by balancing the transmission benefits of parasite replication with the costs of host death. This idea has led researchers to predict how human interventions—such as vaccines—may alter virulence evolution, yet empirical support is critically lacking." Two papers demonstrate empirical evidence for related models predicting the origin of virulence: [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 4:35 AM PST - 23 comments

"As a result, it creates a mediated reality environment, or what we call a visual filter, which is a proper superset of augmented reality." Realtime High Dynamic Range Imaging adapted for TIG Welding (video) [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:25 AM PST - 28 comments