December 22, 2011

male/female/more than that

Gender: there's a lot more going on than just "male" or "female". [some links NSFW]
posted by divabat at 11:34 PM PST - 43 comments

LARGE MOUND FORMS OVER SIMONOV'S GRAVE BY CONSTANT TUMBLING OF HIS ANGRY CORPSE

Firearms Philosophy of Ivan Chesnokov (NSFW). Ivan Chesnokov is a (supposedly) Russian firearms enthusiast who voices his strong opinions on firearms on various web forums. This is a collection of his writings. He also attempts to explain everything worth knowing about firearms.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:22 PM PST - 21 comments

aerial surveillance

Surveillance from air is increasing from both military and DIY directions. Warsaw protester launches drone to spy on police [more inside]
posted by llc at 11:10 PM PST - 32 comments

"Because clouds are boundless, weather control is boundless."

Five regional weather control programs in northeastern China seek to increase precipitation by 10 percent. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 10:32 PM PST - 16 comments

I carve landscapes out of books.

"So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are." Biblios. The Great Wall.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:15 PM PST - 7 comments

Free! Cabin! Porn!

Free cabin porn! Inspiration for your quiet place somewhere.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:20 PM PST - 57 comments

Two Pints of Lager and a Bag of Crisps

The world's first flavoured potato chips were produced in the late 1950s by the Irish company Tayto Crisps. The flavour: Cheese and Onion. Salt and Vinegar, which is now perhaps the the worldwide archetype flavour, followed shortly thereafter. In one place or another and at one time or another, almost every flavour has been set to sliced and fried potato: In Canada, Ketchup and Dill Pickle are common varieties; In Bali, people snack on Blueberry or Lemon Tea chips; the Soy Sauce-flavoured Pringles in Japan are funky; In South Africa, Fruit Chutney and Flame-Grilled Steak are among the standards; and in the UK, Walkers crisps apparently had a go at finding the worst possible crisp flavour.
posted by 256 at 9:19 PM PST - 97 comments

Christmas? What's that? An Earth holiday?

Because Christmas wasn't painful enough: He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special, in five parts — 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
posted by Nomyte at 9:11 PM PST - 19 comments

The feat list hurts my brain

Here is Incursion: Halls of the Goblin King, a computer game that adapts the 3rd Edition rules of the Dungeons & Dragons game to roguelikes.
posted by JHarris at 8:24 PM PST - 25 comments

A link between Acetaminophen and Asthma

Studies Suggest an Acetaminophen-Asthma Link. When aspirin was linked to Reye's syndrome in children during the 1980s, the resulting increase in acetaminophen use may have had some negative effects. "...there is now a plausible explanation for how acetaminophen might provoke or worsen asthma, a chronic inflammatory condition of the lungs. Even a single dose of acetaminophen can reduce the body’s levels of glutathione, a peptide that helps repair oxidative damage that can drive inflammation in the airways, researchers have found."
posted by storybored at 8:11 PM PST - 27 comments

it came upon a Bb minor diminished 7th clear

Jazz does Christmas: Charlie Parker - Bill Evans - Chet Baker - Kenny Burrell - Dexter Gordon - Oscar Peterson and Louie Armstrong.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:20 PM PST - 24 comments

Giorgio Morandi

Aspirants to the role of painter-as-poet are many. Giorgio Morandi was the real thing. [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 7:13 PM PST - 5 comments

Pepperspray as school punishment

"Today’s lawsuit details how mace is used against children who are completely restrained and pose no threat to themselves or others in the school environment. These children are accused of engaging in normal but non-dangerous adolescent misbehavior – after which the adults taunt and celebrate their punishment." [more inside]
posted by 445supermag at 7:07 PM PST - 35 comments

Gingrich punk'd in perpetuity?

Shockingly, Newt Gingrich does not own newtgingrich.com. Instead, a group of pranksters called American Bridge 21st Century have used the domain to redirect visitors to various sites and stories that cast him in a negative light. For maximum entertainment, copy and paste the URL into your address bar. Lather, rinse, repeat. [more inside]
posted by gman at 6:53 PM PST - 53 comments

Anne Dudley's Veni Emmanuel

Veni Emmanuel (O Come O Come Emmanuel), arranged and produced by Anne Dudley (founding member of Art Of Noise, Academy Award Winner for her work on The Full Monty) from her 1995 album Ancient And Modern. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 5:54 PM PST - 10 comments

sorry we torched the world and now you have to live like saints and suffer

Now the future is a kind of attenuating peninsula; as we move out on it, one side drops off to catastrophe; the other side, nowhere near as steep, moves down into various kinds of utopian futures. In other words, we have come to a moment of utopia or catastrophe; there is no middle ground, mediocrity will no longer succeed. So utopia is no longer a nice idea, but a survival necessity. "Remarks on Utopia in the Age of Climate Change," from Kim Stanley Robinson. Previously.
posted by gerryblog at 5:38 PM PST - 15 comments

White Spaces

A new form of wireless network known as White Spaces will come online next month, the FCC announced today. White Spaces has been called "WiFi on steroids". White spaces are unused spectrum between broadcast television channels. It is faster than WiFi so it can handle more data. It can bring (nearly) free Internet access to the most remote areas of the country, places that can't get WiFi. Because it uses broadcast television signals, any place that can pick up a broadcast TV signal should be able to tap into White Spaces.
posted by cashman at 5:32 PM PST - 34 comments

Ride With GPS

"Ride With GPS is the best bike route mapping tool for cyclists, runners or anyone wanting an easy yet powerful fitness route planning experience. We offer tools to analyze cycling performance, including graphs of heart rate, cadence, watts (power output from a power meter), speed and elevation gain. Using all this data, we can offer training plans and other insight into your fitness. We work with all Garmin Edge bike computers, Forerunner fitness devices and any GPS unit that can export a TCX or GPX file."
posted by troll at 5:26 PM PST - 21 comments

The Christmas Card

Terry Gilliam - The Christmas Card. Gilliam made this in 1968 for the children's TV series Do Not Adjust Your Set. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:22 PM PST - 10 comments

list of lists

A little overwhelmed by all those end-of-the-year best-of lists? No worries. The Toronto Review of Books offers this list of lists, "a quick-and-dirty shortcut, a best-of the 'best-ofs' if you will, a recap of the recaps of the world-historically tumultuous and unpredictable year 2011 was."
posted by anothermug at 4:45 PM PST - 6 comments

"From the bottom of our hearts, we ask that you please accept our apology."

Senator Amy Koch, who campaigned this year to put a constitutional amendment on next year's ballot to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. has admitted that she had "a relationship with a Senate staffer" who is not her husband. She has stepped down as Majority Leader of the Minnesota Senate, announced she will not seek re-election, and issued an apology. In response, the gay and lesbian community of Minnesota has issued their own apology, for "ruining the institution of marriage and causing her to stray from her husband" [more inside]
posted by dubold at 4:27 PM PST - 70 comments

Counterparties

Counterparties is a nice little collection of curated and tagged economic news stories, 5-8 every day. It is edited in part by the admirable (and MetaFave) financial journalist Felix Salmon.
posted by shothotbot at 3:47 PM PST - 12 comments

Storm Thorgerson on A Foot in the Door

With the release of the Pink Floyd's remastered sampler collection A Foot in the Door, here is a new interview with album cover designer Storm Thorgerson. (Previously)
posted by The Deej at 2:55 PM PST - 69 comments

The U.S. and Pakistan

The Pakistanis Have A Point: Sure they can be infuriating, not to mention duplicitous, paranoid and self-pitying. But you try being a U.S. ally. -Bill Keller, NYTimes Magazine [more inside]
posted by beisny at 2:44 PM PST - 38 comments

Review with Myles Barlow

After leaving the warmth and comfort of ordinary humor and setting forth on the ship of outlandishness, Myles Barlow navigates the sea of dark comedy as he reviews life experiences, so his viewers don't have to. Come, let us raise our binoculars and view the great black whale of humanity after the jump. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:16 PM PST - 12 comments

Imagine an entire city district dedicated to nothing but ventilating the underworld!

The house Greek Revival subway ventilator on Joralemon Street.
posted by griphus at 2:12 PM PST - 19 comments

...somewhere becoming rain.

Arrows is a documentary by a genius, John Samson, whose flame burned briefly but brightly, about another genius, Eric Bristow, whose career followed a similar trajectory. The film reflects a twilight world of pub sports satirised by Martin Amis in his masterpiece London Fields. Last link may cause discomfort. [more inside]
posted by tigrefacile at 1:49 PM PST - 7 comments

Look to the stars.

Tom Bawcock's Eve. Down t' Mousehole. A tiny fishing village down the Cornish coast from Penzance, early to get the Atlantic storms, each December 23rd celebrates the saviour of the village, Tom Bawcock, who long ago put to sea in fierce weather to gather seven kinds of fish for the starving. [more inside]
posted by biffa at 1:27 PM PST - 6 comments

'Legends of the Cassette Underground'

When not terrorizing Mr Bond, from the late 1970s until 1994, Mike Mangino and Chris Shepard were in a basement full of musical toys, novelty space microphones, a TR-606, and a SH-09 in Piscataway, NJ recording cassettes as the band Smersh. In 1981 Smersh released their first cassette under their own label of Atlas King. They never rehearsed, they couldn't read music, and they never played live, and they contributed to far too many compilations throughout the known world. In the early eighties they established a unique sound that is known and loved, combining cheap electronics and wild guitar sounds with distorted vocals. By trading cassettes they garnered international acclaim leading to releases on dozens of other labels. [more inside]
posted by wcfields at 1:16 PM PST - 5 comments

I quite enjoy the steampunk aesthetic, but what I beheld there was rather pathetic.

Just Glue Some Gears On It (and Call It Steampunk)
posted by usonian at 1:15 PM PST - 43 comments

Swap your ounces for pounces!

Cats 4 Gold! 1. Request info 2. Mail your gold 3. Get some cats!
posted by desjardins at 1:12 PM PST - 28 comments

whitney music box - var. 0 - chromatic - 48 tines

whitney music box -- a fantastic animation
You may notice some interesting links between the visuals and the audio, especially if you are a musician. For example, when the pattern forms a 3-arm starfish, the chords you are hearing are diminished chords, which consist of minor thirds, an interval in which the notes are 3 chromatic steps apart. The chords you hear always bear this type of relationship to the pattern you are seeing, consisting of intervals which match the arrangement of arms.
Really, just look, and you'll get it. [more inside]
posted by MrMoonPie at 12:47 PM PST - 18 comments

Parlez-vous la langue du rondelle?

Last week, the NHL's Montreal Canadiens, struggling with numerous injuries, underperforming stars, and a 13-11-7 record, fired head coach Jacques Martin. They replaced him with Randy Cunneyworth, the head coach of their farm team in Hamilton, Ontario. Cunneyworth is a former NHL defenseman and a blue-chip coaching prospect, but there's one problem: he doesn't speak French. [more inside]
posted by downing street memo at 12:37 PM PST - 66 comments

Larry! Larry, you won't believe it!

When the town he loved could hardly sustain itself and he was struggling to make ends meet, Martin Brody needed a miracle. And he found one. SLVimeo
posted by TheDonF at 12:27 PM PST - 4 comments

Down But Not Out

With the recent news that unemployment applications are at their lowest levels since 2008, Congressional Republicans are attempting to curtail unemployment benefits. Democrats want to extend benefits for another year. This has led to an impasse. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 12:07 PM PST - 65 comments

The (First) Crime of the Century

June 25th 1906, was the opening night of the musical revue Mamzelle Champagne on the roof of Madison Square Garden. In attendance were Stanford White, renowned architect (Washington Square Arch, Judson Memorial Church, Madison Square Garden itself), and Harry Kendall Thaw, eccentric coal and railroad scion. During the performance of the song I Could Love a Million Girls, Thaw "left his seat near the stage, passed between a number of tables, and, in full view of the players and of scores of persons, shot White through the head." (pdf) Standing over White’s body, Thaw said “You’ll never go out with that woman again.” [more inside]
posted by davidjmcgee at 12:01 PM PST - 15 comments

You shall Hear things, Wonderful to tell

A decade on, the Coen brothers' woefully underrated O Brother, Where Art Thou? [alt] is remembered for a lot of things: its sun-drenched, sepia-rich cinematography (a pioneer of digital color grading), its whimsical humor, fluid vernacular, and many subtle references to Homer's Odyssey. But one part of its legacy truly stands out: the music. Assembled by T-Bone Burnett, the soundtrack is a cornucopia of American folk music, exhibiting everything from cheery ballads and angelic hymns to wistful blues and chain-gang anthems. Woven into the plot of the film through radio and live performances, the songs lent the story a heartfelt, homespun feel that echoed its cultural heritage, a paean and uchronia of the Old South. Though the multiplatinum album was recently reissued, the movie's medley is best heard via famed documentarian D. A. Pennebaker's Down from the Mountain, an extraordinary yet intimate concert film focused on a night of live music by the soundtrack's stars (among them Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, Chris Thomas King, bluegrass legend Dr. Ralph Stanley) and wryly hosted by John Hartford, an accomplished fiddler, riverboat captain, and raconteur whose struggle with terminal cancer made this his last major performance. The film is free in its entirety on Hulu and YouTube -- click inside for individual clips, song links, and breakdowns of the set list's fascinating history. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 11:35 AM PST - 107 comments

The Man Who Slipped on the Ice

During the big freeze of Europe's Winter 2009/2010, which brought us the stunning image of a frozen Great Britain, the tough conditions in Ireland were epitomized by the misfortune of the guy falling on RTE's Six-One News report , who shot to infamy through facebook and other social Media.

Now two years on a short film catches up with Brendan Adhere - The Man Who Slipped on the Ice
posted by TwoWordReview at 9:55 AM PST - 38 comments

King Billy 107 in '11

What disaster befell the Asch House? Where do a few surviving hedges keep alive our lost Elysium? Where is there a fully clothed life-sized wax effigy of Sarah? These questions and more in the One Hundred and Seventh Issue of the King William's College General Knowledge Paper! [PDF]
posted by Iridic at 8:30 AM PST - 154 comments

Dilatant Compound 3179

We went into the Doubleday bookshop at Fifth Avenue and Fifty Second Street the other day, intending, in our innocence, to buy a book, and found all the clerks busy selling Silly Putty, a gooey, pinkish, repellent-looking commodity that comes in plastic containers the size and shape of eggs.
How an item in the August 26th, 1950 New Yorker's Talk of the Town column turned a marketing consultant into a millionare by Christmas. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan at 8:00 AM PST - 31 comments

Legend of the One Platform Master

Ulillillia (previously, and previously) is an Internet celebrity who's famous for his writing, videos on Youtube, personal website, and game design. The Platform Master is a documentary that was filmed earlier this year about his life, and is scheduled to be released this coming summer.
posted by codacorolla at 7:53 AM PST - 25 comments

Woody Allen Jesus Banned from TV Show

Tim Minchin's performance of Woody Allen Jesus won't now be seen on the big Christmas edition of the Jonathon Ross TV Show after ITV's director of TV banned it. According to him it was enjoyed by fellow guests including Tom Cruise. Lucliky, Tim already had a copy of the performance.
posted by priorpark17 at 7:43 AM PST - 63 comments

"Okay, your checkbook."

I'm bored, what should I balance on my face?
posted by empath at 7:25 AM PST - 28 comments

The Mayan common class migrated to the southeast United States?

Massive 1,100+ year old Maya site discovered in Georgia's mountains The archaeological site would have been particularly attractive to Mayas because it contains an apparently dormant volcano fumarole that reaches down into the bowels of the earth. People of One Fire researchers have been aware since 2010 that when the English arrived in the Southeast, there were numerous Native American towns named Itsate in Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina and western North Carolina. They were also aware that both the Itza Mayas of Central America and the Hitchiti Creeks of the Southeast actually called themselves Itsate . . . and pronounced the word the same way. The Itsate Creeks used many Maya and Totonac words. Their architecture was identical to that of Maya commoners. The pottery at Ocmulgee National Monument (c 900 AD) in central Georgia is virtually identical to the Maya Plain Red pottery made by Maya Commoners.
posted by ewagoner at 7:02 AM PST - 112 comments

Tis the solstice and the season. Take it away Old Ones!

Carol of the Old Ones Warming cockles of your heart. To madness.
posted by tiedtiger at 6:22 AM PST - 29 comments

This Lowdown Bitchin Got My Poor Feet a Itchin.

Holiday blues? Cabin Fever? Simple solution. [more inside]
posted by timsteil at 6:17 AM PST - 5 comments

You can hear the whistle blow, across the Nile

When it comes to railways, the British are famous for their colonial legacy of one of the world's most extensive railway networks built across then British India but their lesser known and far grander vision was the Cape to Cairo railway network intended to stretch across the sea of colonial pink on the African continent. Left incomplete due to politics and geography, most of it is still almost as it was built in its day. [more inside]
posted by infini at 6:07 AM PST - 27 comments

"In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy." ~William Blake

Winter Reads: [Guardian.co.uk] a new series matching the story to the season. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:28 AM PST - 3 comments

Lives They Loved.

The Lives They Loved. The New York Times asked readers to send in a photo and short story of someone they lost this year.
posted by katinka-katinka at 5:20 AM PST - 26 comments

Your goose is cooked

Christmas dinners are here again, so most of you are wondering how to cook a goose. Some of you will spend 16 hours for your roasted Christmas goose. Others prefer the German Weihnachtsgans style, with apples. Sophisticated cooks do their Christmas goose sous vide.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:21 AM PST - 27 comments

Ridiculous musicianship.

"So at first, I thought it was a joke. NOPE... The singer sounds like freggin Stevie first of all, the bassist just SLAYS it, and the drummer is solid as a rock". So says a bass players' forum commenter about Sweden's DirtyLoops who's ferociously tight Baby has been spreading fast online in the last 24 hours. Bonus links: their Just Dance cover, and Youtube channel. [more inside]
posted by Hartham's Hugging Robots at 3:58 AM PST - 57 comments

How Computers Work

How Computers Work. Recently recovered & scanned in by the good folks at BoingBoing, this was an early textbook explaining the fundamental concepts & inner workings of modern computing systems. I believe a slightly different edition of this book was my own introduction to computers when I was in 6th grade or so, which explains a lot about my approach to using them.
posted by scalefree at 2:13 AM PST - 45 comments

All I Want Is For You To Give Me My Pizzareeee

We were kids...and songs would come on...and I would sing really loud...always the wrong lyrics. My little sister grew up thinking MY lyrics were the right ones. via
posted by Knappster at 1:44 AM PST - 28 comments

"In general we have this cultural attitude of, sleep is for the weak,"

"...nearly half of police officers from the U.S. and Canada suffer from sleep disorders..."
posted by seriousmoonlight at 12:33 AM PST - 27 comments

Mean Streets

Mean streets: Stark photos show behind-the-scenes life of police patrolling crime-ridden New York in the 1970s.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:15 AM PST - 23 comments

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