"When you walk into a house that was sealed in the last couple of years of the plague, you can crack the door or window and it pops like a vacuum seal, and you walk in and there's surprisingly little dust..."

Among the quotes from "Ever Since the World Ended," a fake documentary about the 186 survivors left in SF following a slate-wiping pandemic. No idea if it's any good, but the documentary approach makes it creepy, because it doesn't feel far from home.
posted by cloudscratcher at 11:27 PM PST - 61 comments

Nerds Gone Wild
Bad movies. Bad TV. Bad actors. Bad blogs. LAN parties. High scores. Mixtapes. Role playing. Stalking. Pirating. We care. And we discuss.
posted by fenriq at 10:44 PM PST - 13 comments

The Spark Museum John Jenkins' collection of vintage wireless, radio, scientific and electrical equipment, including Crookes and Geissler tubes, Barlow wheels and other early electric motors, loudspeakers and many more oddball electrical devices. [via TeamDroid]
posted by mediareport at 8:35 PM PST - 9 comments

Skate Bording Girls. Disclaimers: flash clip, uncanny nudity.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:27 PM PST - 81 comments

How to regain control of a spooked camel. There really is a guide to everything on the internet, and it doesn't have to be computer-related either. How to get out of work. How to be a girl (for boys), and of course how to be a boy (for girls). How to disassemble a toilet. How to install a new toilet. How to display civic pride without sounding lame. How to set up a threesome (good luck with that one). How to kill your friend and steal his girlfriend. How to survive a long fall (presumably in case one of your friends throws you out of the window so he can get it on with your woman).
posted by clevershark at 6:42 PM PST - 27 comments

When the Earth passes through the remains of the comet Tempel-Tuttle this coming weekend, the peak of the Leonid meteor shower this year will be this coming Friday night. This year, however, "astronomers are predicting an unusual outburst of meteor activity" of 100-600 meteors per hour between 11:45 PM and 1:33 AM EST on the night of Saturday, November 18th and long before the moon rises. While not as exciting as past years, it should be a great night for a meteor shower.
posted by ztdavis at 6:00 PM PST - 49 comments

Australiafilter: The Australian High Court handed down its ruling today on the constitutionality of the Howard Government's new Industrial Relations laws, called 'Workchoices', deeming them constitutional by a vote of 5 to 2 (full text of the decision here). Two dissenters, Justices Michael Kirby and Ian Callinan, argued that upholding the laws changes the very nature of the Australian federal system and is "in contradiction of, what was intended and expressed in the constitution by the founders." Whilst bloggers and academics debate the nature of the laws and how fair or unfair they are, the simple fact now is that the laws are here to stay unless there is a change of Government at the 2007 federal election. Find out what it means for you as an employee from both the Howard Government's view and the Union's point of view so you can know your rights at work and decide for yourself.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:19 PM PST - 26 comments

Ben takes a photo of himself every day.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:50 PM PST - 46 comments

Time Magazine has released its picks for the best inventions of 2006. Youtube beat out a vaccine that cures a STD that causes cervical cancer. Not to mention this extremely lifelike robot, this magic mirror, a wine-tasting robot and a shirt that simulates a hug!
posted by eunoia at 4:17 PM PST - 25 comments

An Otter Family Album — for over 20 years, zoologist/educator J. Scott Shannon has been observing the "Clan", five generations of ocean-going river otters living in the bay [YouTube] below the historic town of Trinidad on California's northwest coast.
posted by cenoxo at 2:40 PM PST - 25 comments

Do you hate David Blaine as much as I do? (~NSFW, auto-start, loud Flash video).
posted by JPowers at 2:13 PM PST - 71 comments

Shanty Town. An installation at The Lab 101 Gallery.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 1:30 PM PST - 6 comments

The Broker's Athletic Typewriter. Short film from 1905 showing a secretary taking revenge on her sleazy cmployer.
posted by paduasoy at 11:28 AM PST - 7 comments

Just who wrote "A Whiter Shade of Pale" will be determined in court it seems. Procol Harum's Gary Booker and Keith Reid, credited composers, are sued by organist Matthew Fischer. Lennon loved it. Perhaps you want to sing or play it?
posted by aiq at 11:03 AM PST - 60 comments

R.I.P. Doris Self, the world's oldest video game competitor. In 1983, she achieved a world record score of 1,112,300 points on the arcade game Q*Bert. Two years later, her record fell, but she was encouraged to continue playing by Pac-Man record holder Billy Mitchell, who delivered a Q*Bert arcade machine to her door. Doris would play Q*Bert five nights per week from 1-3:00 AM in the morning as an alternative to taking pills for sleeping. She continued playing Q*Bert competitively well into 2006.
posted by Otis at 9:19 AM PST - 20 comments

NobodyHere
posted by hama7 at 9:02 AM PST - 15 comments

An official reviewing absentee ballots in Florida (where else?) noticed that it looked like someone had raided an old stamp collection for the postage on one envelope. One stamp was from 1936 and another stamp had an inverted biplane. An authentic "Inverted Jenny" could be worth $150,000, but the ballot and envelope are sealed in a ballot box, which by law, can not be opened for 22 months and then must be destroyed.
posted by 445supermag at 8:03 AM PST - 46 comments

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer live, at California Jam. (Google video, approx. 53 minutes)
posted by Eideteker at 7:33 AM PST - 55 comments

The Bio Mapping tool allows the wearer to record their Galvanic Skin Response, which is a simple indicator of emotional arousal, in conjunction with their geographical location. By sharing this data we can construct maps that visualise where we as a community feel stressed and excited.
posted by jack_mo at 6:42 AM PST - 16 comments

Get your nits sucked!
posted by thirteenkiller at 6:23 AM PST - 22 comments

You got chocolate in my Google! How do you make websites better? Simple. Like Peanut Butter Cups, you just take two things that rock and mash them together. It's cheap, effective...and really gaining steam. Here's one example, along with a list of a ton of others.
posted by PreacherTom at 4:49 AM PST - 11 comments

“How could this happen to someone so good, so competent?” he said. “This war made me doubt the past. Was I wrong all those years, or was he just better back then? The Donald Rumsfeld of today is not the Donald Rumsfeld I knew, but maybe I was wrong about the old Donald Rumsfeld. It’s a terrible way to end a career. It’s hard to remember, but he was once the future.”

And for comparison, How did so many smart guys make such a mess of Vietnam?
posted by orthogonality at 2:14 AM PST - 98 comments