December 18, 2009

"face-tattooed, duel-scarred, razor-brandishing inmates"

Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate
Reason.com review focusing on "Tattoos, dueling scars, and other rational acquisitions"
Insider Higher Ed on "Criminal Incompetence"
Marginal Revolution on rates of violence between men and women in prison
Interviews with the author: Written ... Audio
posted by andoatnp at 9:56 PM PST - 23 comments

A New York Minik

Minik Wallace (ca. 1890 – October 29, 1918) was an Inuit who was brought to the United States of America from Greenland along with five other Inuit in 1897 by explorer Robert Peary. Orphaned in America around age six when his father died from tuberculosis, Minik was raised for a time by William Wallace, who worked for the American Museum of Natural History, and who was complicit in arranging for the bones of Minik's father to be displayed there with the label "Polar Eskimo." It would be more than a decade before he would again see his native Greenland [more inside]
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:49 PM PST - 11 comments

Vintage SF Magazine Covers Wish You a Weird Christmas

Have a Weird Christmas courtesy of this set of vintage SF magazine covers.
posted by jjray at 9:36 PM PST - 18 comments

Benny Hill Riddim

We've had posts about Yakety Sax (a.k.a. the Benny Hill music) and we've had posts about the Jamaican backing tracks known as riddims. But we've never had a post about Benny Hill riddim. In roughly decreasing order of how much Yakety Sax you can still hear: Elephant Man, "No Ticcle." Leftside, "Cowboy." Sample, "Kotch." Timberlee feat. Tosh, "Heels."
posted by escabeche at 8:44 PM PST - 17 comments

Pomplamoose!

Pomplamoose are Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn and they make music. You might have seen their cover of Single Ladies (previously), but they do so much more than pop covers.

Just released for Christmas is this wonderful original track entitled "Always in the Season." Other originals include "Hail Mary" and "Beat The Horse;" the rest of their catalogue is linked inside. [more inside]
posted by flatluigi at 8:35 PM PST - 47 comments

Baking the Cherpumple

Renound "Histo-Tainer" Charles Phoenix, who gives slide shows of found 35mm slides, bakes a Cherpumple. (think turducken, but with cake.)
posted by gyusan at 7:06 PM PST - 18 comments

Industry's down think I've died and I've flown away

Shareese Renée Ballard, or Res, put out an album in 2001 titled How I Do. Santi White, a.k.a. Santigold (formerly Santogold) helped out with the lyrics. A mix of R&B and rock, How I Do scored one hit single, "They Say Vision". Label politics stalled the release of her second album, so Res was let go from her contract. After touring with Gnarls Barkley and forming Idle Warship with Talib Kweli, Res continued to write and record. Putting together new songs with material from her unreleased album, she posted Black.Girls.Rock! on her website for free. (MP3 ZIP, PDF Booklet.) [more inside]
posted by NemesisVex at 6:46 PM PST - 7 comments

Needs smaller paddles.

Browser-based Pong. Stupid Javascript tricks!
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 6:15 PM PST - 30 comments

Retro Housewife

Retro Housewife
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:13 PM PST - 97 comments

Last Minutes with Oden

Last Minutes with Oden, A beautiful but heart-wrenching short documentary about an ex-convict saying goodby to his best friend
posted by Lord_Pall at 5:38 PM PST - 15 comments

Elephants are known to be obedient game players

OBEY! The Game! [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 5:01 PM PST - 12 comments

Puppet Joe Lieberman that is.

Joe Lieberman has a pony request.
posted by tylerfulltilt at 4:58 PM PST - 66 comments

Merry F***ing Gristlemas

This Gristlemas, why not give a Gristleism, the gift that keeps gristling. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 4:51 PM PST - 14 comments

Meet the Man Who Could End Global Warming

Meet the Man Who Could End Global Warming The miracle solution goes by different names: the sodium fast reactor, the integral fast reactor, the liquid-metal-cooled reactor. It burns nuclear waste, emits no CO2, and shuts itself down in an accident. We have enough fuel to power the whole world for tens of thousands of years. It will end global warming, and even if global warming is just another paranoid Armageddon fantasy, it will save us from the dying oceans and starvation and resource wars that are inevitable as the world's energy supply dwindles. It will unleash new industries and revitalize America's manufacturing industry.
posted by vronsky at 3:40 PM PST - 186 comments

Terre de Personne

Pierre Gonnord is a French photographer who specializes in arresting portraiture.His subjects have been described as quasi biblical (Fr). He lives in Madrid, where he currently has an exhibition on called "Terre de Personne." via
posted by Lezzles at 2:30 PM PST - 12 comments

The Gauntlet Has Been Dropped.

Last week students of Shorecrest High School (Shoreline, WA) posted a video of their 'one-take' lip dub of Outkast's hit "Hey Ya" and then challenged their crosstown rival, Shorewood High School, to beat their video. Shorewood accepted the challenge and posted their 'one take' lip dub -- filmed in reverse -- to the Hall and Oates hit "You Make My Dreams Come True" (recently highlighted as a dance sequence in this past summer film '500 Days of Summer [autoplay muisc]. ' Debate is raging online about whose video came out on top, but there's no doubt: Shorewood rose to the challenge."
posted by ericb at 1:03 PM PST - 161 comments

Modal Phenomena

Cymatics is the study of visible sound and vibration, typically on the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane. Directly visualizing vibrations involves using sound to excite media often in the form of particles, pastes, and liquids. The apparatus employed can be simple, such as a Chladni Plate or advanced such as the CymaScope, a laboratory instrument that makes visible the inherent geometries within sound and music. Hans Jenny (1904-1972) is considered the father of cymatics. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 12:22 PM PST - 8 comments

"Arbeit Macht Frei" Sign Stolen

Poland has declared a state of emergency, after the infamous bronze sign reading "Arbeit Macht Frei" at former Konzentrationslager (concentration camp) Auschwitz was stolen yesterday. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:14 PM PST - 171 comments

Un chiengora andalou

Do you love your dog? So much that you want to make a sweater out of her fur? Know first that this may be illegal in New Jersey. Also, take into account that Chiengora is 80% warmer than wool... so you'd better make it a bikini instead. Need to accessorize? There's always the cat! [ previously | Beware the Sweater Curse! ]
posted by not_on_display at 11:55 AM PST - 46 comments

Music That Changed The World

20 Pieces Of Music That Changed The World [more inside]
posted by blue shadows at 11:41 AM PST - 65 comments

Visit Scenic Titan!

Kraken Mare lake on Saturn's largest moon Titan was finally located and photographed. It's the first photo of a lake of liquid on another planetary body.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:27 AM PST - 41 comments

Oil be damned

Peter Maass is a journalist who writes about the oil business. Are petro-execs intrinsically more corrupt than other businessmen?
and Scenes from the violent twilight of oil.
He now has a new book: Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil. In september Harpers asked him Six Questions.
posted by adamvasco at 11:17 AM PST - 11 comments

21st Century Jet: The Building of the 777

21st Century Jet: The Building of the 777 (part 1 of 5) In the early 90's, Boeing decided to build a new airplane, the 777. They also decided to allow KCTS Television and Channel Four London to film the design, construction, and testing of the new airliner. This 5-hour documentary, first aired in 1996, is no longer shown on TV, and out of print on VHS, but you can now watch it on Google Videos. [more inside]
posted by FishBike at 10:49 AM PST - 20 comments

Keynes vs. Hayek hip hop

For economics nerds: fun Keynes vs. Hayek hip hop song on PBS Newshour.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:57 AM PST - 12 comments

Perfect Prime Rib

How to cook a perfect prime rib. [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 9:43 AM PST - 61 comments

“Tiger free to a good home. Good with children.”

Tiger at Oyster Creek? It's possible there's a tiger skulking around Brazoria County. Of course, it might be a cougar...although they're pretty scarce around here. You'd probably have a better chance of seeing a tiger in Texas than a cougar. Heck, these days there are more tigers in the state of Texas than there are in India.
posted by Neofelis at 9:37 AM PST - 17 comments

poke. poke. poke. ....?

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine This machine lets you delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alterego.
posted by special-k at 9:21 AM PST - 44 comments

Haggling For Hot Dogs

Haggling For Hot Dogs: Where Tom Chiarella of Esquire decides to try and negotiate the price of everything he wants for 3 months.
posted by reenum at 8:14 AM PST - 60 comments

The Sailor Man In New York by Steven Thrasher

Long before Chelsea Piers was a sporting complex and the South Street Seaport a mall, the city was lined with active piers. The city's residents were amply employed by the shipping trade, but containerization needed more land than would ever be available in the city: Massive ports sprouted in Elizabeth and Newark, and ships disappeared from the city. Efficient cranes replaced longshoremen, and the time in port for ships shrank from about a week to about a day. "The technology changed the geography," says William Fensterer, a chaplain who has been with SIH almost since its new building opened in 1964. "It doesn't look like On the Waterfront anymore," he adds. When he started out, he says, he would wander on foot from pier to pier in Manhattan and Brooklyn and board ships, with nary a guard in site. But those piers have largely vanished. And along with them, the seafarer, once ubiquitous in New York, has become invisible.
posted by jason's_planet at 7:21 AM PST - 14 comments

Ali's Missing Opponent

Shadow Boxing: Muhammad Ali fought fifty men. Only one disappeared. [via]
posted by Malor at 6:52 AM PST - 34 comments

The Villa Vals

The Villa Vals, from Christian Muller Architects, is an innovative (and totally cool) house dug into the side of a Swiss alp. More pictures from Iwan Baan.
posted by OmieWise at 6:32 AM PST - 12 comments

In Russia, corruption gets you

As a result of epic fraud, lawyer Sergey Magnitsky was falsely imprisoned and died in jail. An incredible story of doing business in a corrupt country.
posted by procrastination at 5:39 AM PST - 13 comments

Zoom in on the X-Axis!

Let's Enhance - a montage of 'image enhancement' scenes from TV shows by Mefi's own dunk. [more inside]
posted by adrianhon at 4:49 AM PST - 50 comments

Dan O'Bannon, gone to the great outerspace oil refinery in the sky

Screenwriter Dan O'Bannon, probably best known for his work on Alien, as well numerous other science fiction films, has passed away age 63.
posted by Artw at 1:26 AM PST - 70 comments

Rage Against the Machine up for Christmas No.1 in the UK

Rage Again against the Machine's Killing in the name is up for Christmas No.1 chart song in the UK due to a Facebook Campaign In a campaign against the usual reality show X-Factor Christmas No.1, a group on Facebook has managed to persuade people in the UK to buy Killing in the Name by Rage against the Machine this week. So far they have managed to hold onto the the top spot.
posted by amil at 1:14 AM PST - 122 comments

Seriously, I'll pay you back.

The easiest billion dollars you'll ever make.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:36 AM PST - 34 comments

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