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The website of ethnomusicologist Robert Garfias is a treasure trove of mp3 sound recordings and short realplayer film clips of traditional music from all over the world, including Japan, India, Mexico, Turkey, Albania, Okinawa, Spain, Burma, Alaska, Sudan, Venezuela, Spain and many more. Garfias' field recordings are illustrated with his photographs.
posted by Kattullus at 11:26 PM PST - 14 comments

Ghostbusters: The Video Game [Flash-based site] is coming soon to a console near you. Featuring the original cast doing voices and motion capture, it looks to be very impressive graphically [video], but will it be better, gameplay-wise, than the previous attempts at a Ghostbusters game? [More videos, NSFW]
posted by SansPoint at 11:10 PM PST - 26 comments

Like a YouTube for soldiers in the Middle East, this site boasts lots of large explosions, night vision footage, dawn raids, night-time firefights, desert shootouts, and convoy ambushes. There is one film of a failed IED that is breathtaking. Astonishing movies, whether you're for or against the war. [more inside]
posted by Sully at 9:49 PM PST - 38 comments

Smile - a very creepy short student film.
posted by loquacious at 8:08 PM PST - 40 comments

Excellent post over at BLDBLOG on the history of Bannerman's Arsenal, a ruined island castle in the middle of the Hudson river, created by a war profiteer who was at one time the world's largest arms dealer. Bonus points for the amazing accompanying photos by Shaun O'Boyle, whose site Modern Ruins has been featured on the blue previously.
posted by jonson at 7:17 PM PST - 14 comments

Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same motion picture soundtrack, reverse engineered. [more inside]
posted by melorama at 6:28 PM PST - 58 comments

ADMIX COCKADE SIGNATION EXPERTS SEPTUAGINT [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:04 PM PST - 21 comments

The American military finds new allies, but at what cost? One afternoon, sitting with Captain Brooks in Thrasher’s rooftop gym, I asked if he felt that what he was doing in Iraq was appreciated by the people back home. “Oh, yeah,” he said. Turning to one of his N.C.O.s, who was seated nearby, smoking a cigar, he asked, “What do you think, Sergeant Cochran?” Lowering his voice, Cochran replied, “When that bullet goes by my head, all the politics goes right out the window. My only thought is to get my men out of there alive.” “Thanks for quoting ‘Black Hawk Down,’ Sergeant Cochran,” Brooks drawled. Turning back to me, he said, “When I went home the last time, we went skiing in Colorado. Everywhere we went, people thanked me. One man said, ‘I don’t support the war but I support the soldiers.’ I can accept that. We have a system that allows freedom of speech. Hell, I put on the uniform to defend that.”
posted by caddis at 5:57 PM PST - 34 comments

Klutzo...is...dead! Klutzo had been talked about before. He is gone now (video link has short crappy commercial). Prior context.
posted by zerobyproxy at 4:59 PM PST - 73 comments

Got some spare time? Then let's learn origami! Check out this large collection of origami designs (suitable for beginners too), and here's some instructional origami videos to help you along.
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:27 PM PST - 6 comments

The Skeleton Coast, so called for the whale skeletons that littered its shores when the whaling industry was at its peak, is now well known for the skeletons of shipwrecks. More. And a a bit of description here. Still, the coast is full of life. Each year hundreds of thousands of Fur Seals come ashore. (Video on this site of baby Fur Seal vs. a jackal.) (wp)
posted by serazin at 3:19 PM PST - 4 comments

Her quiet depravity has netted her many fans (even some outside her immediate family.) Here's what you need to see to catch up with Sarah Silverman, the funniest person on television: Date with God, The Aristocrats, I Love You, Jury Duty, A Very Convenient Truth, My Boyfriend is Catholic, Writer's Strike, Comic Relief, The Sarah Silverman Program.
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:27 PM PST - 127 comments

Remember that X-files episode? The one with the robot cockroaches from outer space? Well, scientists in Belgium have created robots that act like cockroaches, and are accepted by the real cockroaches because they smell sexy to them. Better yet, the scientists were able to use the robots to change how the cockroaches behaved. [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer at 2:00 PM PST - 17 comments

"The ‘Ndrangheta cannot be beheaded.” Organized crime is Italy's biggest industry. Most people are more familiar with the Sicilian Mafia or maybe even the Neopolitan Camorra, but it's the Calabrian 'Ndranghta (very in-depth article) that has police around the world worried now, especially after they were blamed for a six-person murder in Germany this summer. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse at 12:40 PM PST - 24 comments

There really are no accidents [NSFW] Talking corpses who had been electrocuted, impaled by steel rods or lacerated by broken glass didn't get the message across. Now, an even more graphic series of ads is spotlighting workplace safety in Ontario and grabbing attention well beyond the province's borders. Ontario's Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) has launched a new (and graphic) campaign to help improve workplace safety. Family Man gets blown off side of building; Forklift driver gets impaled by metal rod; A shop clerk topples off a ladder; An electrocuted corpse speaks at his own funeral [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 11:54 AM PST - 113 comments

Popular Science has named Nanosolar the #1 innovative product of the year. Finally, cheap and ubiquitous solar power has arrived, “You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” The only problem is demand, so they're building the world’s largest solar-panel manufacturing facility in San Jose. See 96 other innovations in PopSci's Best of 2007.
posted by stbalbach at 11:53 AM PST - 25 comments

Even if Lou Reed had dropped out of music after the break-up of the Velvet Underground, his name would still be forever etched in the history of rock music. Yet his solo career, filled with eccentric detours and radio-ready rockers in equal measure, remains one of the most fascinating canons in all of rock music. Metal Machine Music, however, is a unique entity in itself, proudly pushing at the very boundaries of what pop music is capable of. Zeitkratzer’s performance not only makes the original album ripe for critical re-evaluation, but it’s a performance that stands on its own ground...

Why Does the Music Have to End?: An Interview with Lou Reed regarding how he came to play Metal Machine Music live in 2002.
posted by y2karl at 10:53 AM PST - 47 comments

Marc Cinq-Mars. Collages: Deux enfants. La femme en blanc.
posted by klangklangston at 10:47 AM PST - 3 comments

City of Sound as it describes itself, is a blog about cities, design, architecture, media, music, etc. But calling it a blog really does it a disservice. City of Sound is a category-killer; amazingly dense, thoughtful, erudite, and compelling, it begins to catalog our urban identity. A bit of reminiscent of Metropolis magazine, if it was edited by Robert Rauschenberg. If you've not visited, do yourself a favor. It is a treasure trove. [more inside]
posted by spacely_sprocket at 8:13 AM PST - 13 comments

Empty Cathedrals. Tenement closes. Glasgow artist Frank McNab documents the communal entrances sans nostalgia or sentimentality. Gets it just so damn right! His 'Thoughts' and 'Projects' need a little more work however.
posted by Wrick at 5:07 AM PST - 11 comments

Wu-Tang Clan's RZA Breaks Down His Kung Fu Samples by Film and Song. Kung-fu's influence on hip hop has been around since the '70s, when B-boys busted Bruce Lee moves while break-dancing. But in 1993, gritty rap supergroup the Wu-Tang Clan released Enter the Wu-Tang (36-Chambers), the first chart-topping album to kick up raw rhymes with dialog sampled from underground Hong Kong flicks. [more inside]
posted by psmealey at 4:34 AM PST - 56 comments

Meet The Crazy Robertson. The newest sensation at the center of Hollywood's fashion scene isn't a famous designer or starlet. It's a 56-year-old homeless man who spends his days dancing on roller skates. Check out his website, Myspace, and some of his sweet dance moves. There are some that find this not so cool.
posted by rooftop secrets at 2:02 AM PST - 26 comments

The Imagined Village [promoting an album too but plenty of interesting free stuff] Several luminaries of a now more globalised British music scene reinterpret the folk heritage and pose questions about a modern English identity. There's Benjamin Zephaniah's version of Tam Lyn and a retelling of Hard Times in Old England; even our American cousins get in on the act, for instance remixes like Doghouse Riley's doo-wop Cold Hailey Rainy Night. There's also a few thinky pieces explaining what it's all about.
posted by Abiezer at 1:02 AM PST - 5 comments