October 27, 2006

The flying Ford Pinto

Henry Smolinski and Hal Blake had a great idea: bolt the wings and engine of a Cessna to the body of 1971 Ford Pinto. Fly the Pinto to an airport near your destination, unlatch it from the wings, and drive it where you want to go. No need for rental cars...

It worked. Until the day it failed. Sometime late in 1973, Smolinski and Blake climbed aboard the "Mitzar" and rolled down the runway. During takeoff, the peculiar marriage of wheels and wings divorced, and the Advanced Vehicle Engineers found themselves sailing through the California sky in a very un-advanced vehicle, a wingless Pinto.
Pics here: 1, 2, 3
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:27 PM PST - 36 comments

Diggity down with the A to the Pizzi

Campaign remix From the Associated Press who are apparently in the music business now. Via wonkette.
posted by delmoi at 9:18 PM PST - 8 comments

Dumpster Turf Wars

Garbage In/Gold Out Which is more important: recycling or the garbage collector's bottom line? Some Oregon cities are backing up the garbage collectors over recyclers. Too bad. First time I've ever seen a dumpster diving company who has a web page with testimonials from police officers.
posted by leftcoastbob at 8:24 PM PST - 24 comments

Meat is Neat: Cellular biophysics video

Meat is Neat. We are but tiny machines. Remember the YouTube video of a funky animation of cellular activity? Here it is with a voice explanation of what's going on. Absolutely mindblowing. some sort of embedded video, dsl-quality with sound. see here for other forms
posted by five fresh fish at 8:19 PM PST - 35 comments

Lakoff 1, Pinker 0

George Lakoff responds to Steven Pinker’s review of Whose Freedom?. Highlights include charges of deception and incompetence on both sides.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:09 PM PST - 27 comments

Thanks, lawyers!

It's over. YouTube is taking down Daily Show and Colbert Report clips.
posted by mullingitover at 5:32 PM PST - 86 comments

When Scientists Go Bad

When Scientists Go Bad
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:19 PM PST - 26 comments

Right and left and center...

Camille Paglia opines on how the Foley story coverage hurts not only gays but Democrats; on how women have a stake In Conoleeeza Rice's success; talk radio in general; and how the Democrats have to play the religion card well to win, not only now, but in 2008.
posted by nj_subgenius at 4:40 PM PST - 70 comments

DoubleJeu X Y Z!

DoubleJeu is a simple French flash game; balance a ball on one axis while playing pong on a reversed axis. Easier to understand if you just visit the link.
posted by jonson at 3:09 PM PST - 40 comments

Your very own treehouse

Make your own Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Trailer. Sure, its an ad for the Simpsons, but with a neat interface and clips like Homer chanting "must eat, then poop," there is Friday Fun to be had. Can you put together something fun for the hivemind? [To share a video, you can email a persistant link to yourself, and then post that link in the thread]
posted by blahblahblah at 2:14 PM PST - 11 comments

Best of teh Web, and by best, I mean worst.

K-Fed drops a heater. New album streaming in full. It is really bad. Whether or not he ruined Britnety Spear's career or not is disputable, but if listening to this is any clue it seems likely. Featuring genius lyrics like : "Girls say I'm cocky, I think I'm humble, Basically ya'll just talk like Bryant Gumbel". Gumbel ryhmes wit' humble, basically, yo. You are in for a listening treat.(warning: steaming aol music site)
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 2:08 PM PST - 62 comments

Swerve on a Country Road

Red America is shading purplish blue. A new poll shows rural voters in 41 highly competitive districts have swerved Democratic since September. Now 52/39 for the Dems.
posted by Julie at 1:49 PM PST - 33 comments

Haw! Haw!

Haw! Haw! Try and get this Levi's song out of your head. This and the Nesbitt's Orange spot were two of my favorite TV commercials as a kid. I hope they brighten up your Friday a bit. (YouTube alert)
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:14 PM PST - 15 comments

A whole new world...

I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid...
posted by reklaw at 11:54 AM PST - 23 comments

The Champagne of Coffees

Starbucks, Ethiopia and Intellectual Property. It was only a matter of time before Starbucks went up against a nation-state. Starbucks responds that they just want to help and that Ethiopia's position is based on unsound advice. Do their advisors know better than Oxfam? [oxfam response]. Maybe. Starbucks is breaking into the entertainment business quite effectively. Can corporate interest and social responsibility go hand in hand? Either way, the Pumpkin Spice Latte is yummy.
posted by cal71 at 10:39 AM PST - 24 comments

Babbling Bobster Beatnik Poetry

His fog, his amphetamines and his pearls
Lofi shot off the monitor at the recent EMP exhibit, the entire footage of an Eat The Document outtake recently edited by Martin Scorcese for No Direction Home.

I don't entirely get the Chaplinesque--To paraphrase crunchland, Hey, Skeezix--it's a talkie...
posted by y2karl at 10:36 AM PST - 31 comments

Holiday Road!

Did you know that the Vacation series of movies were inspired by a story in the September 1979 edition of the National Lampoon entitled Vacation '58? The writer then was little known, but would go on to create some of the seminal jems of the 80s teen film genre and then devolve into poor commercial crap, but what career doesn't?
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:25 AM PST - 27 comments

The Internet Sucks

Teh Intarweb suXXors! Macleans, the venerable Canadian magazine of declining circulation, declares the Internet a failure. But they're not bitter.
posted by GuyZero at 10:08 AM PST - 95 comments

Tottenham Hotspur Postponed

Mark E Smith reads the football results.
posted by johnny novak at 9:57 AM PST - 30 comments

Raw Denim

Start with "The Crazyest Denim Experiments Of Superfuture History." And then make sure you read the rest of this forum for people seriously obsessed with denim.
posted by chunking express at 9:27 AM PST - 17 comments

Light on the soy, heavy on the caramel...

Perfectly Aligned [yes, youtube] A short film with comics from NYC's Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.
posted by Stauf at 9:23 AM PST - 5 comments

Keeping up with the pulse of the country (or, Which Way is the Wind Blowing)

Smart marketing or shameless pandering? Country music star Darryl Worley played to the largely conservative county music fanbase (and post-9/11 ultra-patriotic sentiment prevalent in the country at the time) in 2003 with his hit Have You Forgotten which strongly supported the impending war in Iraq. Today, with support for the war in Iraq dwindling, Worley has now released, “I Just Came Back”, which depicts a more ”somber light on (the) war”.
posted by The Gooch at 8:55 AM PST - 119 comments

Pynchon Paper Dolls

Thomas Pynchon Paper Dolls Something light because, yes, it's the run-up to the November 21st release of Against the Day, the new 1000 page doorstop from Thomas Pynchon. The Modern Word is using the time to update their already vast Pynchon site. Good luck. (A whole lot of other paper dolls previously.)
posted by OmieWise at 8:26 AM PST - 37 comments

Harry Potter and Lord Wal-d-mart

Harry Potter and Lord Wal-d-mart: The Late Night Players entertain us this friday: Harry Potter combats the low low prices of Wal-Mart.
posted by cjoh at 7:42 AM PST - 8 comments

Visual Scratch

Got crabs? Well, if you're going to scratch, then do it with flare. But everyone has to start with baby steps.

Jesse Kriss has created an engaging visualization, synchronized with video of DJ Axel Foley, to illuminate the mechanics of cutting and scratching. J to the motherfucking K, homeboy.
posted by e.e. coli at 7:20 AM PST - 12 comments

How do you Kent State in Chinese?

Chinese students riot in Jiangxi province after being told that their diplomas would not be recognized by the government. Riot police and soldiers had to be brought in to stop the riots, reportedly under the pretext that Ethnic Muslim Uighurs were causing the riot.
posted by afu at 6:10 AM PST - 16 comments

Black Humor

"Three dollars a minute for technical assistance for my computer? If I'm going to spend that kind of F--KING money, I'd just as soon have phone sex." Lewis Black on customer service.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:22 AM PST - 25 comments

Street Use

Street Use: Somewhere on a continuum shared with Umdenken and Chindogu we find Kevin Kelly's Street Use.
posted by econous at 4:04 AM PST - 14 comments

More of a Babel facehugger than a Babel fish

You whisper "Je t'aime", the machine says "I love you". Carnegie Mellon offer the prospect of a real-time automatic face-mounted translation device.
posted by imperium at 2:01 AM PST - 21 comments

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning..

Cockroach Dream - Knock out 100 cockroaches before the sleeping man goes mad! When you get tired of that, try the other Flash Friday games on this delightful site. Dice Wars and Ladies' Tournament Tennis are particularly good. And take a moment to ponder your good fortune, for we are truly in the midst of a Flash gaming renaissance.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:34 AM PST - 18 comments

Tetris Documentary

Tetris - From Russia with Love (Google Video) A BBC documentary about Tetris and its creator Alexey Pajitnov.
posted by loquacious at 12:03 AM PST - 23 comments

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