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"Video Game Character Wrestling is a Twitch channel run by a guy named Bazza. He said earlier how when he first ran it like a month ago, he 'was happy he got 50 viewers, maybe he could get 50 the next time too', and it just fucking exploded, with an average of 2000-3000 viewers in recent matches," (Via this Something Awful thread). Video Game Character Wrestling is an improbable live-action machinima spectacle which pits AI controlled versions of major game characters (and some real-ish personalities) against one another in a brawl for it all. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 8:45 PM PST - 12 comments

The intro scene to 'Midnight in Paris' (2011. SLYT)
posted by growabrain at 8:40 PM PST - 70 comments

Lapham's Quarterly, Winter 2013 - Intoxication - essays and notes on drug-taking, from across eras.
posted by daksya at 8:30 PM PST - 9 comments

Pull My Daisy Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie - 1959. Written and narrated by Jack Kerouac. Featuring Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Larry Rivers. An account of the making of: The Making (and Unmaking) of Pull My Daisy by Blaine Allan.
posted by unliteral at 7:01 PM PST - 13 comments

00:49 Cut to footage from inside of a Ms. Pac Man Arcade game factory. We watch as employees assemble the video game in mass production. [via] [more inside]
posted by griphus at 6:15 PM PST - 20 comments

The Guardian, the 191-year-old British daily newspaper whose name is synonymous with broadly left-leaning values, is reported to be planning to open an Australian online-only news operation. The venture (which has not been confirmed) is said to be headed by current Saturday Guardian editor Katherine Viner, and to be a joint venture with Australian philanthropist Graeme Wood, who already runs a not-for-profit media site). The Guardian already runs a US online news operation (previously) with local reportage and commentary. [more inside]
posted by acb at 4:52 PM PST - 57 comments

Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat and senior senator from Hawaii, has died at the age of 88 from respiratory problems. [more inside]
posted by Rangeboy at 3:54 PM PST - 109 comments

The Glitch [slyt]
posted by cthuljew at 3:54 PM PST - 17 comments

Oswald Iten has a keen eye for the color design of animated films. You probably shouldn't be suprised by the fact that Hayao Miyazaki's animated features have extremely well thought-out color design. But did you know that the colors of Dumbo's 70th anniversary home video release are very different from from the earlier one? And have you ever thought about how animation background paintings would look like on their own? Also: puppet animation is included, too.
posted by dst at 2:44 PM PST - 12 comments

"Just as Christianity was offered as an alternative to the pagan ways of ancient people, so was the McRib offered as an alternative to the chicken nugget." Yes, the McRib is back ("and front, and other parts probably best not to mention"), hitting stores today. A product of "restructured meat technology," the meat in the McRib is manufactured at a processing plant at McDonald's HQ in Illinois. Not sure if there's a McRib near you available for purchase and consumption? The McRib Locator is here to help. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 2:23 PM PST - 114 comments

Six and a half hours of surgery later, he and his colleagues had dug out small chunks of bone from the woman's eyelid and tissue surrounding her eye, which was scratched but largely intact. The clicks she heard were the bone fragments grinding against one another.
posted by latkes at 1:25 PM PST - 52 comments

Brian Lam quit Gizmodo after feeling burnt out from a frantic digital existence. “I was tired of doing posts that were obsolete three hours after I wrote them,” Mr. Lam said. “I wanted evergreen content that didn’t have to be updated constantly in order to hunt traffic. I wanted to publish things that were useful.”
posted by winecork at 12:52 PM PST - 53 comments

A biography of Trigger, Willie Nelson's guitar. [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 12:50 PM PST - 33 comments

"I have a confession to make. I think I'm in friend-love with you. I don't want to date you or even make out with you. Because that would be weird. I just so desperately want for you to think that I am this super-awesome person because I think you are a super-awesome person" -- A single link webcomic by Yumi Sakugawa.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:42 PM PST - 82 comments

109 years ago today, on December 17th 1903, Orville Wright lay down and flew 120 feet at 10 feet per second on the Wright Flyer. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 12:04 PM PST - 25 comments

From the comedic duo Key & Peele, mentioned twice before on MetaFilter, comes Pizza Order, the funniest sketch I've seen in years. Their new season has had some terrific moments – Dubstep, I said "Bitch", Slow Brotion, and School Bully, amongst others – but Pizza Order is something special.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:49 AM PST - 98 comments

Cards Against Humanity is a card game for horrible people. Often described as an x-rated version of the more widely available Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity has picked up a following since a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2011. For months, the game was out of print (but no worries as you could always roll your own since 2009), but luckily a new printing was made available in time for the holidays. As part of the celebration, the Cards Against Humanity folks also released a bonus holiday pack following the "pay what you want" model. But would admittedly horrible people be willing to pay for something that was free? Let's find out. [more inside]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:27 AM PST - 104 comments

An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented [more inside]
posted by boygeorge at 11:24 AM PST - 49 comments

Are you ready for a stare down? (SLYT)
posted by notme at 10:31 AM PST - 35 comments

The Toronto Star has recently published a three-part story (1, 2, 3) on the life and death of toddler Stella Joy, who was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) at age 2. As this disease is considered 100% fatal, Stella's mothers (link to blog) chose not to have Stella undergo radiation treatment in order to preserve as much quality of life as possible. The love of Stella's family and community as they support her and each other through her death is truly inspiring. [more inside]
posted by fiercecupcake at 10:26 AM PST - 13 comments

The Woes of an American Drone Operator
posted by empath at 10:04 AM PST - 72 comments

A big tree.
posted by curious nu at 9:49 AM PST - 56 comments

Founded over beers in the summer of 2007, Caught by the River aims to document three friends' (and their friends') obsessions with British angling, waterways, books, records, movies, and pubs. [more inside]
posted by ryanshepard at 9:21 AM PST - 2 comments

Slow motion video from the 2011 Czech Flyball Championship: Athleticism, speed, caught balls, missed balls, clean passes, misjudged passes, and really astonishing streamers of drool. If you're wondering "What is flyball?", the short documentary What Is Flyball? might address that question. [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog at 9:02 AM PST - 12 comments

Van Life See also: Van Life; Van Life; My Van Life; Lives in a Van; V, W, Bus. Not to be confused with the also excellent The Lady In The Van. [more inside]
posted by OmieWise at 9:01 AM PST - 21 comments

Singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked "used to be a poet." Who would "write, late into the night, by candlelight." But now, according to a statement [PDF] solicited by the US Copyright office about the current state of royalty payments for songwriters "I work in a candle factory. I scrape flesh from skins of carcasses and process rendered fat into lumpy bars with wicks." [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:56 AM PST - 39 comments

The Scanadu Scout (as part of the X-Prize) is aspiring to be a mobile medical device that can help you keep track of your physical stats on a day to day basis, as well as providing urinalysis and influenza testing to your smartphone along with a host of other features. And with an estimated $150 price-tag, it could be put into the hands of nearly everyone. [video with developer]. [via][previously]
posted by quin at 8:45 AM PST - 13 comments

Some sports are better seen in person. Some are better seen on TV.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:41 AM PST - 47 comments

James Lipton interviews Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle interviews James Lipton. And while we're at it.... [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:59 AM PST - 48 comments

Cheetahs off-leash at a racetrack. (Spoiler: the cheetahs catch the lure.)
posted by asperity at 7:33 AM PST - 36 comments

Writers No One Reads
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:45 AM PST - 34 comments

Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of the original Mega Man, a series-spawning platformer-shooter starring a blue robot with a gun for a hand who traverses dangerous levels and defeats robot bosses, gaining a new weapon with each boss he defeats. In celebration, Capcom has officially released a fan game, Street Fighter x Mega Man, with the Street Fighter cast (who made their own debut twenty five years ago in August) taking the role of the bosses. Watch the trailer or download it from Capcom's website!
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:24 AM PST - 27 comments

"A lifelong fan of The Lord of the Rings, for the last 50 years [Vince Donovan] has been amassing an enormous collection of all things J.R.R. Tolkien. So much so, he hired an architect to design a house to contain it."
posted by gladly at 6:18 AM PST - 18 comments

• I did not know the incense storing temple,
• I walked a few miles into the clouded peaks.
• No man on the path between the ancient trees,
• A bell rang somewhere deep among the hills.
• A spring sounded choked, running down steep rocks,
• The green pines chilled the sunlight's coloured rays.
• Come dusk, at the bend of a deserted pool,
• Through meditation I controlled passion's dragon.

Stopping at Incense Storing Temple, Wang Wei (699-759)
posted by lemuring at 5:48 AM PST - 13 comments

Why 256 bit keys are long enough. A nice graphic explanation by Schneier why brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space. [more inside]
posted by Twang at 4:29 AM PST - 34 comments

Apollo 40 years on: how the moon missions changed the world for ever
posted by Artw at 12:03 AM PST - 29 comments