MetaFilter

Ritual Adornment of a communal habitat. Light and sound combine to impress other nearby members of the species. The counterpoint to a summer of tending carefully controlled foliage.
posted by somnambulist at 9:52 PM PST - 11 comments

Bike Kill 2004 - a 5 min QT clip documenting the Black Label Bike Club’s annual Bike Kill in Brooklyn, recently shown at Bicycle Film Festival 2005. These guys party hard. via in case of mishaps
posted by madamjujujive at 9:47 PM PST - 15 comments

Parkour is nothing new. It has been posted about before. However, what is new is this stunning example of the gymnastics in action. Watch, enjoy.
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:50 PM PST - 54 comments

Yet another part of childhood gone. Stan Berenstain passed away today. [MI]
posted by bluedaniel at 7:06 PM PST - 66 comments

"'We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears'.... [Police] officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats." While there have been no specific threats of terrorism against Miami, "'[t]his is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there,' [Deputy Police Chief Frank] Fernandez said."
posted by orthogonality at 5:25 PM PST - 71 comments

Computer Modeling of the large-scale tectonics associated with the Genesis flood...
posted by notsnot at 5:12 PM PST - 29 comments

Ignatieff for Canada. The Liberals just lost a non-confidence vote and elections are set for January. In Etobicoke, Ontario, Michael Ignatieff, Harvard Professor of Human Rights and Author is set to run. Will this be the opening moves of a new intellectual Prime Minister? How will his views on humanitarian intervention and the idea of a lesser evil play out?
posted by phyrewerx at 4:32 PM PST - 41 comments

GoogleFilter: Introducing Google Click-to-Call. "Here's how it works: When you click the phone icon [on a Google ad], you can enter your phone number. Once you click 'Connect For Free,' Google calls the number you provided. When you pick up, you hear ringing on the other end as Google connects you to the other party. Then, chat away on our dime" (emphasis added). Here are a few screenshots (scroll down), but I can't actually find live examples. The reason being that Google, some say, is "only testing this service in designated areas of the United States." In addition, the Slashdoters have beat us to an insightful convo. Then again, don't most snarky MeFites see Google posts as completely passe. Nonetheless however, I think it is ripe for discussion (especially considering the privacy policy (both big and little) state that a third party will have access to your phone number).
posted by JPowers at 4:17 PM PST - 36 comments

Vandals in suits and bow-ties burned down an Oakland liquor store last night, apparently the same vandals who smashed cases and displays last Wednesday. The police and store owners have suggested they have ties to a local community of Black Muslims. Both stores attacked belonged to the Yemini American Grocery Association and were targeted because they were selling alcohol. Said one store owner: "They asked us if we were Muslim. When we said 'yes,' one of them said that good Muslims shouldn't be poisoning the community with alcohol, or something like that."
posted by ScottMorris at 4:03 PM PST - 54 comments

“They weren’t ever intended to be sexual creatures. It’s simple, Daleks do not do porn.” (NSFW)
posted by Rothko at 3:39 PM PST - 28 comments

David Brin -- hoping to rescue modernity Quote: -- "... I have spoken before of the blatant -- and yet never-reported -- pattern shown by more than a hundred members of the United States Congress, appointing young cadets to the US Military Academies according to one criterion above all others -- their depth of religious zealotry. This infusion of young officers who believe in a coming apocalypse is discreetly worrisome at West Point and Annapolis, but it has already had newsworthy effects at the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs. A town that is also now known as a main locus and training center for fanatics bent on dominating American civilization. (see) This coincidence... one of many that simply cannot be coincidence... should be tallied and noted. See also this in recent -- 11/26 -- news "... Among the steps already taken by the Pentagon that enhanced its domestic capabilities was the establishment after 9/11 of Northern Command, or Northcom, in Colorado Springs, to provide military forces to help in reacting to terrorist threats in the continental United States. Today, Northcom's intelligence centers in Colorado and Texas fuse reports from CIFA, the FBI and other U.S. agencies, and are staffed by 290 intelligence analysts. That is more than the roughly 200 analysts working for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and far more than those at the Department of Homeland Security...."
posted by hank at 3:37 PM PST - 29 comments

The Proto-Men present a Mega-Man Rock Opera. There is nothing more to say. Ever. About anything.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:54 PM PST - 16 comments

Bush Approval Rating Map Plus various other Bush-related state by state analyses. Kos via Plastic, but it's just so pretty and blue...
posted by leapingsheep at 12:58 PM PST - 41 comments

I, Tongmaster. [embedded quicktime]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:32 AM PST - 19 comments

How to Draw a Straight Line - Until 1873, virtually all mathemeticians and engineers agreed that it was impossible to build a linkage that could convert circular motion to perfectly straight motion. In that year, Lipmann Lipkin rediscovered the Peaucellier cell which had been quietly created a decade earlier. Although much simpler to build, it was predated by Pierre-Frederic Sarrus' non-planar solution. Nowadays, though, linkages can do some extremely complex things. (via)
posted by Plutor at 10:49 AM PST - 25 comments

Government is a Brand, Whether You Like it or Not: Officials in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, likely with the knowledge of the central government, lied to the public about the toxic spill that forced Harbin to shut off its water. A chillingly illustrated real time account reveals how the coverup was exposed amid a panic in Harbin. A PR man in Beijing discusses how this could result is a serious loss of public trust in the government of China, and how behavior like it compromises China's transition to a market economy. This story lends credence to the theory that China is not being honest about H5N1, previously discussed here. Has China learned nothing from SARS?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 10:39 AM PST - 18 comments

Seymour Hersh's fact piece in the current New Yorker lays out current behind-the-scenes thinking about getting out of Iraq. One piece of the article talks about the problems created by the President's sense that he has a divine mandate to pursue his policies...

...the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said.

Most worrisome to some in the military are questions about reducing American troops and substituting air power for boots on the ground. Apparently the air war has been growing without much comment from the congress or media. Hersh cites a press release that the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing alone has dropped over 500,000 tons of ordinance. But if American troops are gone, who will provide targeting for the air strikes? The scenario of handing targeting over to the Iraqis apparently makes many military planners uncomfortable.
posted by jasper411 at 10:10 AM PST - 45 comments

How do you split up $11 billion? That's enough to evenly split $500,000 per Goldman Sachs employee. It's bonus season on Wall Street. Extensive interviews with current and former Goldman Sachs employees and a best guess of how all of the money gets disbursed.
posted by suprfli at 9:55 AM PST - 44 comments

"It doesn't even need a conductor, and there is not even any need for rehearsals together. Each instrumentalist receives sheet music and a disc with the sound track to which he will be linked during the concert, and that way he can practice at home, by himself; and then they come straight to the concert and play freely, whatever they want. A sound that is random as opposed to planned, a precise pitch for a note, as opposed to a false note, that's what leads the work. And here, toward the end, order gradually prevails".
Arik Shapira talks about his new concerto for piano and orchestra.
posted by matteo at 9:17 AM PST - 16 comments

Our desire for the freakshow is on the wane, or at least it seems that way based on some recent closings. Is it the difference in admission costs? If the EH's relative value calculator is to be believed, that 1841 dime museum should only cost about $2.10 to get into in 2003, not five bucks. Even for free on MetaFilter only about twenty people care to discuss freaks. Perhaps we've just gotten used to seeing this kind of thing on sponsored television and don't want to travel to see it. It's certainly not because our tastes have gotten so much more evolved. Perhaps our threshold for how whack something has to be before we consider it freakish has been raised somehow...
posted by phearlez at 8:57 AM PST - 12 comments

Talk To Action and Mother Jones mag team up for e-conference tomorrow: ...a day of thoughtful reflections on, and vigorous discussion of the role of religion and government -- as intended by the framers of the constitution, and the situation we face today. (MoJo's December issue is all about the role of religion and government, including this on Reconstructionists: A Nation Under God.) New and old media officially collaborating to highlight specific issues and futher debate--a first?
posted by amberglow at 8:03 AM PST - 15 comments

hypnotizing photo essay from Hungary about a couple's water birth @ home, with narration in English from the wife.
posted by jonson at 7:41 AM PST - 41 comments

The Butcher of Andijan. Uzbekistan Interior Minister Zakirjon Almatov is currently on an extended visit to Germany. Nothing strange or particularly newsworthy about that, you might think - until you realise that Almatov has been declared persona non grata by the EU as one of 12 Uzbek officials "directly responsible for the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force" in the massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters in the east Uzbekistan city of Andijan.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:10 AM PST - 8 comments

It turns out that last weeks' story about the Mercedes S class crashing during a safety demonstration on tv was a set-up, arranged by the television station in question. Whoops. via digg
posted by SharQ at 5:24 AM PST - 28 comments

A new book, Signs of Life (which I can't find on Amazon yet), features photographs of spoof signs.
See also
posted by Mwongozi at 4:49 AM PST - 16 comments

Mansions fit for a commoner "... moving into a bigger house was not something to be questioned, but something to be accepted, an axiom of American life."
posted by knave at 2:01 AM PST - 86 comments

A trophy film of what appears to be civilian defense contractors shooting innocent Iraqi civilians has appeared on the internet. Investigations are ongoing. (via Taegan Goddard's Political Wire)
posted by darkstar at 1:00 AM PST - 104 comments