November 22, 2012

Streets Ahead

Chevy Chase exits "Community" with two fourth-season episodes to spare.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:01 PM PST - 156 comments

People line up to legally make untraceable guns

SAN DIEGO - A long line of people snaked out of a North County machine shop on a recent Sunday. The customers were there to build a gun. (embedded video) [more inside]
posted by 445supermag at 7:37 PM PST - 50 comments

The Confused Notes of a Twilight Newbie Forced to Watch Breaking Dawn – Part 2

Is his face always like that? It's like he washed it with a powdered doughnut. The Confused Notes of a Twilight Newbie Forced to Watch Breaking Dawn – Part 2
posted by Egg Shen at 4:53 PM PST - 239 comments

Meet the Cheatles

In February 1964, when the Beatles played the Ed Sullivan Show, record executives in America were faced with the question of how to get a piece of the Beatlemania action. The result was an explosion of knockoff Beatles records, promising things like “The Beetle Beat”, “Beat-A-Mania” and “The Original Liverpool Sound”, credited (often in type far smaller than the famous song titles) to bands with names like The Bearcuts, The Manchesters, The Moptops and the Liverpool Kids, and featuring cover models with varyingly plausible approximations of the Beatles' haircuts, as detailed by WFMU's Gaylord Fields (SLVimeo).
posted by acb at 4:43 PM PST - 34 comments

Ibrahim Maalouf, jazz trumpeter and composer

"Before playing he explained the story behind the song, which was a journey – it was in 1993 as a 12 year old that he was able to return to Beirut alone for the first time (his parents having fled to Paris during the war) and he wandered the streets with his walkman, earphones plugged but playing no music, instead composing music in his mind and looking at the bullet marks in the walls of homes which had been rebuilt so many times over during the war that not much of the devastation was actually visible.. but after walking for a while, he sat and rested for some time.. and then suddenly when he got up again he noticed a street in front of him completely devastated and abandoned – something that he had actually been looking to see – but in that moment he was listening to (having just discovered) Led Zepplin and the combination of seeing the devastation and the music actually scared him and he ran away. And so this song tells that journey." The song is Beirut, and he is Ibrahim Maalouf. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 3:06 PM PST - 14 comments

Nothing much happens, until it does.

This is a very very boring indoor climbing video, until 1'24" anyway.
posted by unSane at 12:12 PM PST - 22 comments

To Dunk or Not, that is the question.

Does bouncing your tea bag substantially improve your cup of tea? Finally, science is brought to bear on this important question.
posted by Freen at 11:34 AM PST - 98 comments

Gay kids told to stop looking so gay in order to avoid being bullied

The Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) has rejected a policy proposal that called for the protection of gay students and staff from bullying and discrimination. The policy was proposed by the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB), which adopted a similar policy in 2011. [more inside]
posted by asnider at 11:23 AM PST - 49 comments

DJ Focus

DJ Focus couldn't wait to get back to Sierra Leone. AKA Kelvin Doe, this young man makes beautiful, functional and very useful electronic devices out of trash found in his native Sierra Leone. It's not clear whether he or M.I.T. was more impressed after his visit there.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 11:06 AM PST - 6 comments

Are MeFiites......?

Google and Bing autocomplete what they think they know what you're thinking. Sometimes they get it wrong. "People who study online behavior also say the autocomplete feature reveals broader patterns, including indications that the questions people ask of search engines often veer into the sensitive and politically incorrect." previously
posted by Xurando at 10:47 AM PST - 29 comments

Re-Awakenings

Anna Sumner’s craving for sleep began when she was an 18-year-old high school senior. She thought nothing of it. When it followed her to college, she blamed it on stress. She was working so hard, she told herself, her body just needed the extra rest. But it was more than that. She would chose naps over eating lunch, working out, or being with friends. Every night after dinner, she came back to her dorm room to sleep. If her parents called on those evenings, her roommate would cover for her, telling them she had gone to the library.
posted by latkes at 10:38 AM PST - 20 comments

RIP Austin Peralta

Jazz prodigy Austin Peralta has died. Announcement and links to his music at Brainfeeder. Peralta contributed to Flying Lotus' recent album Until the Quiet comes; on Twitter this morning Flying Lotus wrote "it kills me to type that we lost a member of our family, Austin Peralta. I don't really have the right words right now." From Fact: "In his tragically short life, the California native had proved himself to be a fearsome and precocious talent. At 15 years old, Peralta was already touring the world with his own trio, and performing alongside legends like Chick Corea and Omar Hakim. Whilst still at high school, Peralta headed up ensembles featuring luminaries like Ron Carter and Buster Williams. He also released two LPs (2006′s Maiden Voyage and Mantra) in Japan before the age of 16." His entry on Wikipedia. Tribute from Frank Ocean.
posted by jokeefe at 10:10 AM PST - 12 comments

Potatoes and Math

Maximum gravy: Vi hart, daughter of George & mathemusician at The Khan Academy, cooks mathematical potatoes to go along with a symmetrical Turduckenen. Have a delicious Thanksgiving. [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 9:09 AM PST - 21 comments

The best kind of fall

Go jump in a pile of leaves.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:16 AM PST - 42 comments

Dashing and Daring

Alicia Keys covers The Gummi Bears theme.
posted by nadawi at 7:52 AM PST - 36 comments

"I loved that the Rancor had a friend"

"Hello, my name is Allison, and I have never seen Star Wars.  Nope, not any of them. " - confessions of a Star Wars virgin as she watches Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
posted by Artw at 7:39 AM PST - 126 comments

Undiscovery

Sandy Island is in the Coral Sea, between New Calendonia and Australia, and is visible on Google maps. The only problem is it doesn't exist.
posted by notme at 7:20 AM PST - 38 comments

The Season That Isn't

With the NHL locked out for the foreseeable future, the Montreal Gazette has decided to cover Canadiens games simulated on EA Sports NHL '13 as if they were real games.
posted by reenum at 6:37 AM PST - 49 comments

Jitney?

Heyride, an Austin startup that is revolutionizing the way you get around town, received a cease-and-desist from the City of Austin. This follows Uber's forced NYC shutdown last month, along with California sending cease-and-desists to Lyft, Sidecar, and Tickengo. Paul Carr links these disruptive technologies to Metafilter fave author Ayn Rand (previous thread); it's not the first time he's taken on the nerds. Wharton and Wired weigh in.
posted by jkolko at 6:07 AM PST - 69 comments

What ever happened to Alice?

During the Thanksgiving time of year, our thoughts often turn to Alice, after all, it was her meal that may have inspired a movement. Sometimes our thoughts are 16 minutes long, sometimes we get all 22 minutes of wonderfulness. What happened after that? [more inside]
posted by HuronBob at 5:32 AM PST - 28 comments

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