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Hanover Historical Texts Project is a collection of primary source texts from ancient times to the modern era in English translation. There is a great number of interesting texts, for instance accounts of Zeno, he of the paradoxes, the diary of Lady Sarashina, a lady-in-waiting in Heian era Japan, a letter from Count Stephen of Blois and Chartres, a crusader writing to his wife, Arthur Young's travels in France before and during the Revolution, a report by the American ambassador in St. Petersburg on March 20th, 1917, immediately after the February Revolution, and finally Petrarch's letter about his graphomania. That last one is from what is perhaps my favorite part of the website, a trove of Petrarch's Familiar Letters. But there's much more in the Hanover Historical Texts Projects besides what I've mentioned.
posted by Kattullus at 9:53 PM PST - 6 comments

How Valve experiments with the economics of video games
posted by Artw at 9:48 PM PST - 80 comments

Last month, The Atlantic reported that since 1980s, the price of a metallic NYC taxi license has grown four-times faster than the average home or a brick of gold, claiming it to be a wonderful "inflation hedge." This report proved prescient; on Friday two such medallions (which merely represent the taxi's license) just sold for $1 million apiece — a 42% increase just since August. Also on Friday, mere hours after reading the newsstand headlines, Midtown Manhattan resident Tom Poteat looked down to see a medallion, unattached to its taxi, lying on the sidewalk.
posted by obscurator at 9:33 PM PST - 50 comments

Bacon Roses
posted by grouse at 9:28 PM PST - 30 comments

BlizzCon, the monumental annual event that Blizzard Entertainment puts on every year, just wrapped up this weekend. It concluded with a massive party and concert, during which George Fisher was at one point invited on stage. Mr. Fisher is also known by his stage name "Corpsegrinder" and is the singer for heavy metal band Cannibal Corpse. In order to introduce him to the audience, this snippet of an interview with him was played (YT link). In case it's not totally clear what's getting beeped out, here's the unedited version (YT link, NSFW language). [more inside]
posted by kavasa at 9:16 PM PST - 61 comments

Halloween light show complete with grinning pumpkins. Warning: LMFAO.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:21 PM PST - 39 comments

Criminal penguin behaviour [SLYT from BBC's Frozen Planet]
posted by wilful at 8:04 PM PST - 37 comments

Meet the contraption that wants to replace Central Park horses. NYCLASS and Ban HDC are two groups pushing for the change; the many unfortunate incidents involving carriage horses over the years (including one just today) have inspired a bill that would end the practice, and also a documentary about the treatment of the horses.
posted by hermitosis at 5:34 PM PST - 121 comments

What's better than 90 pictures of Corgis? 90 pictures of Corgis in costume.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 3:51 PM PST - 64 comments

"Long ago Occidental man acquired a definite preference for raised bread instead of cooked cereals and flat breads. Bread reigned over the ancient world; no food before or after exerted such mastery over man. The Egyptians, who invented it, based their entire administrative system on it; the Jews made bread the starting point of their religious and social laws. The Greeks created profound and solemn legends for their Bread Church of Eleusis. And the Romans converted bread into a political factor. They ruled by it, conquered an entire world by it, and lost the world again through it. At last the day came when Jesus Christ made consummate all the spiritual significance that had become attached to it, saying, 'Eat! I am the bread.'" (Reinhart, Six Thousand Years of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History). (Google Books) The Romans ruled through bread and circuses; "bread" (and "dough") are money, and the "bread-winner" is the head of the household. The next big invention is always "the greatest thing since sliced bread" Wheat, Rye, Brioche, Challah, Matzo, Limpa--a look inside the long and fascinating history of bread. [more inside]
posted by kittenmarlowe at 2:51 PM PST - 55 comments

How Dropbox said "No" to Steve Jobs and lived happily ever after. (So far.)
posted by Trurl at 2:39 PM PST - 118 comments

With almost 2,000 posts, I Heart My Art has a deep archive of contemporary art, vintage photography and creative videos.
posted by netbros at 2:21 PM PST - 1 comments

Tarzan and Arab are budding filmmakers from the Gaza strip. The identical twins (who studied fine art and photography) have never seen in a movie in a theater, or been in a gallery. In fact, until last month, they had never left Gaza. Inviting them to the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas proved to be a "colourful journey", which is also the title of their short movie (trailer) about Palestinian infighting. Short interview with the brothers (includes tips about filming in Gaza). Longer interview (about inspiration and hopes, includes the full short). Via AintItCool, where additional info can be found about their current stay in the US.
posted by elgilito at 2:17 PM PST - 2 comments

Kanye West Lyrics + Saved by the Bell.
posted by chunking express at 2:05 PM PST - 18 comments

The "South Park" creators get the "South Park" treatment OBVIOUSLY NSFW 27-minute SLYT
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:33 PM PST - 45 comments

Bryan Hollon, better known by his musical handle Boom Bip, is probably recognized for two drastically different sounds: abstract hip-hop from his early Mush Records days, and his Mercury Prize-nominated Neon Neon collaboration with Gruff Rhys. Add to that a new inspiration: black magic from the turn of the 19th century. What does that sound like? Let Boom Bip walk you through his new album, Zig Zaj. Step behind the deep red velvet curtains for a peek at the history of Boom Bip. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:31 PM PST - 12 comments

John McCarthy, AI pioneer, ACM Turning Award winner, National Medal of Science winner, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Stanford University and inventor of the Lisp programming language passed away suddenly last night at the age of 84.
posted by eriko at 1:21 PM PST - 84 comments

Pakistan's pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulam-i-Islam Party (JUI) has denounced the armed struggle by Islamist militants. "It is a unified decision of all the religious parties in Pakistan enshrined in this document that we call for an unarmed struggle within legal and constitutional limits," (via RFERL)
posted by czytm at 1:18 PM PST - 12 comments

Vancouver aims to "end homelessness by 2015". Officials have been working over the years to reduce the city’s homelessness, and in July passed an ambitious plan that targets eliminating street homelessness by 2015 and creating nearly 40,000 new units of social, rental, and condo housing by 2021. The plan is aimed at building multiple types of housing to address shortages, but the first three years focus mainly on supportive and social housing. It calls for 3,650 units of such housing, 1,700 of which are already funded and in either the planning or construction phase. According to city councilor Kerry Jang, the need for this type of supportive housing has skyrocketed in recent years.
posted by modernnomad at 12:39 PM PST - 96 comments

In anticipation of the upcoming 20th anniversary re-release (and gargantuan money sink opportunities) of U2's Achtung Baby!, Q Magazine (UK) is issuing their December issue with a bundled CD of covers of every track by big name stars. You can find a couple of them now for listening online -- Damien Rice doing One, Garbage doing Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, and Jack White doing Love Is Blindness. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 11:56 AM PST - 68 comments

Michele Norris is temporarily stepping down from All Things Considered until her husband's new role as Senior Adviser to the Obama Campaign is complete in 2012. [more inside]
posted by glaucon at 11:26 AM PST - 101 comments

Citing "an arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade" that "has destroyed 95 percent of our revenue," WikiLeaks has announced that it is suspending publishing operations and may have to close.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 10:43 AM PST - 270 comments

"Bellwether Pictures is proud to announce (PDF) the completion of principal photography: Much Ado About Nothing. A film by Joss Whedon, based on a play." Announced by near simultaneous tweets from various members of the cast and crew, it seems Whedon used his 2-week vacation from some other small film to shoot an adaptation of the Bard's play at his house. One of the more amazing details is how this was all kept under wraps, and pretty much all mainstream coverage is based on fan sites and Twitter. Based on the press release, the movie will be hitting festival circuits next year, which means 2012 will have 3 Whedon releases: this, The Avengers, and The Cabin in the Woods. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 10:36 AM PST - 42 comments

Daily Racing Form: from nags to doping! Horse racing is one of the oldest pastimes, with wagering on the nags following closely after. Betting intelligently requires either a good eye or an available record of past performance. Originally a Chicago newspaper, this periodical gives the tout the inside scoop on past performances. The monumental digitization of this paper brings a new light on racing sport. And they're off and running...
posted by mfoight at 10:27 AM PST - 19 comments

So Google recently announced that changes are coming to Google Reader. One of the upcoming changes is that Reader is losing its own, loved by many, social sharing in favor of Google+: "They're also removing the ability to consume shared items in Reader, so you'll have to go to G+ to read them. I'm fine with G+ being the plumbing for all of Reader's social features, but to force you to go to G+ to comment and read shared items seems shortsighted."

This news has not fared well with many of Reader's users. [more inside]
posted by omegar at 9:28 AM PST - 120 comments

The Mexican Mafia has significant operational control only within prisons, yet manages to tax street gangs at rates of 10-30% of revenues. It has become a kind of government. A PDF of the corresponding journal article exists here.
posted by exogenous at 9:22 AM PST - 30 comments

Here is a nice wee video that visualises special relativity; not by imagining the viewer to be travelling very fast, but rather by imagining the speed of light to be very slow. The creators of the code used to generate the images in the video have a rather accessible paper explaining the physics behind it here, and a page full of other lovely relativistic odds and sods here.
posted by Dim Siawns at 9:13 AM PST - 15 comments

The forthcoming film Anonymous, which posits the Earl of Oxford as the true author of Shakespeare's plays, has scholars bemoaning the immense effort wasted over the years (NYT) pursuing bogus theories of Shakespearean authorship. On the other hand, one of the 20th century's greatest cryptographers got his start searching for secret messages from Francis Bacon in Shakespeare's plays.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:08 AM PST - 123 comments

Aquaculturalist creates observation tower for fish. Fish enjoy the view. SLYT Who knew that fish liked to get high? [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet at 8:47 AM PST - 52 comments

A High-Profile Executive Job as Defense Against Mental Ills. “I feel my brain is damaged; I don’t know any other way to say it,” Ms. Myrick said. “I don’t know if it’s from the illness, the medications, all those side effects or what. I only know that I do need certain things in my life, and for a long time — well, I had to get to know myself first.” (Nytimes link). Keris Myrick is also on the board of NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness.
posted by sweetkid at 8:04 AM PST - 73 comments

A Coconut Cake From Emily Dickinson: Reclusive Poet, Passionate Baker. [NPR.org] Poet Emily Dickinson withdrew from society for most of her adult life. And yet, she was known to lower a basket full of cakes from the window of the home she rarely left to crowds of expectant children on the street below. The Poet's House in New York City put on exhibit an original manuscript of a Dickinson cake recipe that contained coconut. That recipe calls for the following ingredients. 1 cup coconut, 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup milk, 2 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon soda, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar.
posted by Fizz at 7:31 AM PST - 25 comments

Walter Isaacson, author of a just-released authorized biography of Steve Jobs, talks to Steve Croft of 60 Minutes [single-page view] about his brilliant, mercurial, often difficult subject.
posted by killdevil at 7:16 AM PST - 99 comments

Pot meet kettle: Conrad Black describes Rupert Murdoch.
posted by ecourbanist at 7:10 AM PST - 21 comments

Jeff Atwood, co-founder of StackOverflow/StackExchange (previously) is also fairly well known for blogging about programming and human factors. Today he wrote a post about Parenthood.
posted by memebake at 6:28 AM PST - 84 comments

Looking back on the past, Haaretz interviews Salman Rushdie, who discusses the upcoming film adaptation of Midnight's Children, analyzes the Arab Spring, and reflects on the controversy caused by the publication of The Satanic Verses: "British Airways refused to accept Rushdie as a passenger, fearing the plane would be blown up in midair. A Pakistani film portrayed the writer as a pro-Israel alcoholic who murders Muslims. British censorship prevented the film's screening, but Rushdie, always a fierce advocate of freedom of expression, demanded that it be shown." Previously on MeFi: Rushdie (2, 3); Haaretz.
posted by reductiondesign at 6:26 AM PST - 27 comments