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Here is a Photoshop filter that can make Kirby dots.
posted by JHarris at 9:24 PM PST - 20 comments

I work in Wall Street and work in hedge fund analysis. I'm the only person in my office who supports OWS.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:57 PM PST - 66 comments

Linda Ronstadt plans to publish her autobiography (aptly titled “Heart Like a Wheel”). “Linda Ronstadt is one of the most versatile and commercially successful female singers in U.S. history, recognized for her many public stages of self-reinvention and incarnations.” [more inside]
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:39 PM PST - 39 comments

Reading Blaise Cendrars is like stepping into another universe. His fiction is unlike anything else I've ever read. His poetry influenced the mighty Guillaume Apollinaire and helped shape the face of modernism. But it is his mockery of biographical detail and the very notion of literature that fascinates me the most. If, like me, you're not a fan of autobiography, then Blaise Cendrars is the memoirist for you.
posted by Trurl at 6:51 PM PST - 10 comments

The world's largest smallest airport has finally joined the world's largest model railway [YouTube, has some discreet miniature people nudity]. As discussed previously, after six years of work Miniatur Wonderland has the airport its 10,000 train cars and 200,000 inhabitants require. Though Miniatur Wonderland has little close competition for size, it is far from the most important model railroad. That honor goes to the ugly tracks of the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT. Rather than focusing on beautiful railroads, the TMRC fixated on building the best control systems for their model trains. As a result of playing with ever more complicated programming challenges, from the TMRC came some of the first important hackers and hacker culture, and the seeds of the modern video game industry.
posted by blahblahblah at 6:03 PM PST - 29 comments

Safety Warning Signs
Sprout From NYC Street Poles
It's Curbside Haiku!
[more inside]
posted by zarq at 3:42 PM PST - 43 comments

The Great Shift in Japanese Pop Culture: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. [more inside]
posted by subdee at 3:12 PM PST - 36 comments

"When I said in the beginning that absolutely everything that’s represented in this document is in response to stuff that has actually occurred at conventions, that is not hyperbole..." Author Peter David has posted his Fan/Pro Bill of Rights for sci-fi conventions and convention-goers. [more inside]
posted by magstheaxe at 3:03 PM PST - 79 comments

Ravel's Bolero in Copenhagan train station. that is all
posted by eggtooth at 2:44 PM PST - 59 comments

The University of Florida Book of Insect Records (UFBIR) names insect champions and documents their achievements. [more inside]
posted by zamboni at 2:14 PM PST - 9 comments

Turns out you can up learning rate with a small current across brain Scientific American: Amping Up Brain Function: Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning Electrical stimulation of subjects' brains is found to accelerate learning in military and civilian subjects, although researchers are yet wary of drawing larger conclusions about the mechanism.... I believe I've also seen some posts on external (strong) magnetic fields being able to hinder or help learning as well. Strange times we live in.
posted by aleph at 1:58 PM PST - 37 comments

Studies have shown that chimps are capable of insightful reasoning and nuanced communication. Apparently, the individuals that are the smartest are also the most adept at slinging their own poo.
posted by Laminda at 1:10 PM PST - 34 comments

Mr. Data Converter takes CSV, Excel, or tab-delimited data and coverts it into web-friendly formats, including HTML tables, PHP arrays, JSON properties and MySQL tables. via
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 1:02 PM PST - 29 comments

Morrissey gets a job. [more inside]
posted by EvaDestruction at 1:02 PM PST - 78 comments

Zdeněk Miler, the animator of the beloved Krtek ("Little Mole") animations died today. Conceived in 1954 after stumbling on a mole's burrow on his evening walk, Krtek appeared in about fifty films all drawn by Miler. The first Krtek film ("How Krtek Got His Pants"), originally an educational video about the manufacture of linen, won first prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1957. The Krtek films have been aired in about eighty countries. Miler's young daughters did the uber-cute vocalizations for Krtek, and were the films' test audience as Miler tweaked the films per their suggestions. Here are some perennial favorites: Krtek and the Radio, Krtek and the Green Star, Krtek at Christmas, Krtek and the Robot. Miler, like most film buffs, was surprised that Krtek had remained largely unknown in the United States. "Pretty much the whole world knows Krtek," Mr. Miler said. "America, which is usually first in everything, is last in this. I always look at American history," he said, "and it is a very hard one. People came. They conquered a continent. They suffered hardships, and that hardship is reflected in its movies. I look at children there and think what they are watching is a reflection of that hardness. If you look at America, it is epic. Whereas here, it is more poetic. I feel here there is more lyricism."
posted by Atrahasis at 12:04 PM PST - 23 comments

Daniel Ellsberg on the Limits of Knowledge He recounts a story in which he advised Kissinger about the mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.
posted by Weeping_angel at 11:58 AM PST - 88 comments

The Netanyahu government has paid for US TV ads saying US Israelis will never understand what it means to be Israeli, and American Jews will lose their religion
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:56 AM PST - 189 comments

ThinkUp is a free, open source PHP/MySQL app that you install on your web server to collect and store all of your activity on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+. It can be used to search and backup your own social nework activities, create a time capsule of online activity, analyze social media discussions, or create a more interactive discussion. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:43 AM PST - 19 comments

Generic sales of Lipitor, the world’s number 1 selling pharmaceutical drug, start today. (via) [more inside]
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 9:56 AM PST - 37 comments

Locked up in the bowels of the medical faculty building here and accessible to only a handful of scientists lies a man-made flu virus that could change world history if it were ever set free.
posted by pashdown at 9:50 AM PST - 89 comments

For a band that doesn't exist, Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes's song "Mad About Me" -- more widely known as "Cantina Band" or "Mos Eisley Cantina Theme" -- has received a fair share of interesting covers. Like a ragtime piano duet. Or on harp. Or the Chapman Stick. (The what?)
posted by griphus at 8:26 AM PST - 26 comments

id Software have released the source code to Doom 3 under the terms of the General Public License. [more inside]
posted by smcg at 8:26 AM PST - 24 comments

Critics of the Occupy Wall Street movement have complained that the protestors have no clear goals, so WE DON'T MAKE DEMANDS composed a list of 12 concrete, specific suggestions focusing on economic reform, stronger regulation, and closing loopholes.
posted by The Whelk at 8:01 AM PST - 193 comments

The UK is experiencing some of its worst disruption to services in decades as more than 2 million public sector workers stage a nationwide strike, closing schools and bringing councils and hospitals to a virtual standstill. [more inside]
posted by Jakey at 6:25 AM PST - 79 comments

「こくせん　―　黒板戦争」(Blackboard War) is a homemade stop motion video created by some students (out of more than 2500 still photos) for their school's culture festival. There is also a sequel (made from more than 3000 photos this time).
posted by emmling at 5:46 AM PST - 14 comments

The ruins of Gede are the remains of a mysterious lost city on the Swahili Coast of Kenya, located deep within the Arabuko Sokoke forest. The mystery of Gede (Gedi) is that it does not appear in any Swahili, Portuguese, or Arab written records and present day research has not yet been able to fully account for what actually happened to the city. The inhabitants were of the Swahili, an ancient trading civilization that emerged along the eastern coasts of Africa ranging from Somalia to Mozambique. Archaeological excavations carried out between 1948 and 1958 have uncovered porcelain from China, an Indian lamp, Venetian beads, Spanish scissors, and other artefacts from all over the world, demonstrating the occupants were engaged in extensive and sophisticated international trade. Questions still remain as to what caused the downfall of Gede, but by the 17th century, the city was completely abandoned to the forest and forgotten until the 1920s. Today, a National Museum, Gede's sister cities from the period are part of the ethnography based archeological work of Dr Chapurukha M. Kusimba of Chicago's Field Museum, whose lifework has thrown light on the precolonial heritage of the Swahili peoples.
posted by infini at 5:35 AM PST - 23 comments

Science writer Angela Saini on the joys of avoiding tech upgrades and being a late adopter. Some of us haven't adopted at all. Perhaps there are some less resistant to peer influence? Or just more into making stuff? Or perhaps it's anotherway to be cool?
posted by mippy at 5:32 AM PST - 42 comments

Otome games - a subgenre of visual novel where a female protagonist romances one of a selection of male characters. (Make your own!)

Hatoful Boyfriend (TV Tropes) - a visual novel (download, English patch), where a female protagonist attends high school with, and romances, one of a selection of giant talking pigeons and one partridge. Also she lives in a cave and forages for food. [more inside]
posted by emmtee at 3:14 AM PST - 25 comments

What if anyone in need of blood could find it anywhere? Based on this question, Hospital Albert Einstein created an innovative way to make people aware of the need for blood donations. They placed blood bags in refrigerators of several convenience stores throughout São Paulo. The customers were amazed to find them beside sodas and sandwiches. Their reactions were filmed.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:03 AM PST - 51 comments

Music From Other Minds is a radio program of art music by living composers from the folks behind the other minds festival.
posted by idiopath at 1:39 AM PST - 3 comments