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dancing trancends all languages [Windows Media]
posted by pedantic at 1:28 PM PST - 25 comments

"Sam Loyd's 'Trick Donkeys' is one of the most elegant puzzles ever invented... print out the page and cut the figure into three parts along the solid lines. Now, position the strip onto the other two pieces so that it looks like each jockey is riding a donkey. Folding is not allowed. Don't give up -- the solution is really quite simple!"
posted by limitedpie at 12:13 PM PST - 47 comments

Get Ready For WW4 : FOIA document details SSS preparations for a widespread draft to start with a callup of 36,000 doctors and nurses : an in depth analysis with a detailed timeline : "...the SSS is in fact preparing for the real possibility of a Skills, Medical and Combat Draft for 2005. Congress of course must still pass a 1-page trigger resolution reauthorizing current conscription law, but the Selective Service will by early 2005 have geared up the entire draft system and be prepared to register more than 40 million Americans for a new Skills Draft and the Medical Draft....The NY Times on Oct. 19 published a long article on a subcontractor, Widemeyer Communications, that over the summer consulted the SSS on how a Medical Draft could be started up with minimal attention. The SSS said 36,000 doctors and nurses would be taken in the first batch of draftees. Why would Bush need so many? 36,000 is a huge number....Wesley Clark charges in his book Winning Modern Wars, that a senior Pentagon official told him in 2001 that there was a 5-year plan to topple 7 countries" Here's the Seattle PI's take : "Administration's own actions fuel rumors of draft" Here's a Feb. 2003 document (~500k pdf) obtained under the FOIA, on the SSS plans for a widespread draft. (more inside)
posted by troutfishing at 11:20 AM PST - 63 comments

The United States has lost Iraq. "Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former general who stays in touch with the Joint Chiefs, has acknowledged [the insurgents winning] privately to friends in recent weeks. The insurgents have effectively created a reign of terror throughout the country, killing thousands, driving Iraqi elites and technocrats into exile and scaring foreigners out."
posted by four panels at 10:44 AM PST - 29 comments

Special Delivery [Mission Accomplished remix] - partisan rappery
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:44 AM PST - 1 comments

Viewropa - OK, maybe there's some agreement not to post this here, but I wasn't part of the development, and it's already got some good links (especially the evolution of writing one). So here's Viewropa - a community site started by members of MetaFilter who are attempting an experiment in multi-lingual, collaborative and Euro-focussed blogging. All are welcome here, no matter where you're from [...] (beware the impossible Portuguese kill-the-snowman game) (and I get the impression a non-English link would be more than welcome).
posted by andrew cooke at 10:18 AM PST - 17 comments

Beware the death screw. Watch for flying debris. Is it a dream? No, it's the stick figure warning sign gallery.
posted by sharpener at 10:12 AM PST - 4 comments

Linus Pauling and the Twentieth Century ; a centenary exhibit; and interviewed.
posted by plep at 6:04 AM PST - 3 comments

So the banner ad turned 10 a few days ago, according to dabitch, but what I find more fascinating is that its first use was in connection with all those AT&T "You Will" television commercials from the early '90s. Here, collected on one page, for your consideration, are those ads. As Frau Farbissina would screech: "Lies. ALL LIES!" Well, perhaps AT&T didn't lie to us about all their predictions, but I'm still waiting for my "intelligent assistant" who'll work on those playoff tickets for me. How many predictions did they make that came true can you find here?
posted by WolfDaddy at 5:20 AM PST - 21 comments

Jugglezine. An e-zine about balancing work and life.
posted by iffley at 5:01 AM PST - 2 comments

More on arithmetic in the Amazon The 10/15 issue of Science has the official publication of Peter Gordon's work on numerical cognition among the Pirahã, and a companion article by Pierre Pica et al. on similar research among another Amazonian tribe, the Mundurukú. What with the U.S. election and the discovery of H. Floresiensis, this is not getting nearly as a much play as the pre-publication back in August of Peter Gordon's work. Brian Butterworth has an piece in the Guardian about both articles, and I've put some links, quotes and diagrams here. Compared to the reports on the Pirahã, the Mundurukú people, language, and experiments are all somewhat different, although the conclusions are broadly similar.
posted by myl at 3:37 AM PST - 19 comments

Something ear-y for Halloween: Oddio Overplay gives you Ghouls With Attitude 2-CD compilation by Otisfodder, plus (from Martinibomb and Coconut Monkeyrocket), the Munster Beat mp3 (click below the image to listen).
posted by taz at 2:51 AM PST - 8 comments