MetaFilter

Merry Christmas, Metafilter! In the spirit of the holiday, my gift for the Radiohead fans among you is this entire Radiohead concert (Google Vid), a non-bootleg produced for MTV originally recording from the OK Computer tour back in 1997. For the non-Radiohead fans, my gift is that I forgive you your imperfections. And finally, for those who don't celebrate Christmas, my gift is that I made you a cookie... but then I eated it.
posted by jonson at 11:59 PM PST - 39 comments

Paul Westerberg Puts Screwdriver Through Hand. Could be sidelined for up to a year, says friend Jim Walsh, who originally reported the accident.
posted by Liosliath at 11:46 PM PST - 31 comments

OH DEAR LORD! BEES! BEES! BEES!! BEES!!! mmm, honey! HUMANS ARE STUPID!! BEES ARE ANGRY! BEES! BEES!!
posted by loquacious at 11:43 PM PST - 37 comments

Religious popular music from Upper Egypt Munshidin sing devotional songs, Tartil (a melodic recitation of the Qur'an), and Tawashih, which uses call-and-response . One of a number of interesting music resources at bolingo.
posted by Abiezer at 8:47 PM PST - 12 comments

people aren't happy about Google canceling it's API and replacing it with an AJAX search widget you're supposed to put on your page (and one that's deliberately obfuscated and difficult to extract data from). Google's obsession with secrecy isn't going unnoticed, and some employees are starting to feel like the magic is gone and they're being treated like children. Oh, and just to keep things in perspective Microsoft just filed a patent on RSS
posted by delmoi at 7:44 PM PST - 35 comments

Wikiasari search engine. Wikipedia founder plans to offer a new search engine using "the same network of followers" for the process. “Essentially, if you consider one of the basic tasks of a search engine, it is to make a decision: ‘this page is good, this page sucks’,” Mr Wales said. “Computers are notoriously bad at making such judgments, so algorithmic search has to go about it in a roundabout way. But we have a really great method for doing that ourselves,” he added. “We just look at the page. It usually only takes a second to figure out if the page is good, so the key here is building a community of trust that can do that.”
posted by Brian B. at 3:44 PM PST - 29 comments

The end of mad cow disease? Scientists announce a filter that can remove the prions that cause vCJD - blocking the spread of the disease, at least via blood transfusions.
posted by Artw at 12:54 PM PST - 16 comments

La Jetée. Following the postapocalyptic bleakness of the Threads posting, you may wish to watch La Jetée,, a 28-minute film told nearly entirely in stark black-and-white photos (and, in this version, with an English narration). This has quite a following, especially since Terry Gilliam's eerily similar 12 Monkeys.
posted by John of Michigan at 10:57 AM PST - 50 comments

Gorgeous - a spoken word poem by Rives. {via TED Talks}
posted by dobbs at 10:17 AM PST - 5 comments

Dead Plagiarists Society. Using Google Books to uncover old (and recent) literary crimes. "Given the popularity of plagiarism-seeking software services for academics, it may be only a matter of time before some enterprising scholar yokes Google Book Search and plagiarism-detection software together into a massive literary dragnet, scooping out hundreds of years' worth of plagiarists—giants and forgotten hacks alike—who have all escaped detection until now."
posted by stbalbach at 9:59 AM PST - 43 comments

Peter Watts on Vampire Domestication (embedded Flash video, must click to start). The mythical corporation FizerPharm ("Trust. Profit. Deniability.") share their detailed research into the evolution and possible commercial applications of Homo sapiens whedonum. You will learn: How and why the "crucifix glitch" came about. Why you should run from a blushing vampire. How many kilograms of human are needed to make one kilogram of vampire. How vampires resemble two year old humans, domestic shorthaired cats, and lungfish. And why "survival of the fittest" should be reconceptualized as "survival of the least inadequate". [more inside]
posted by maudlin at 9:20 AM PST - 19 comments

Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas - a Harvey Danger song for all those who keep the wheels turning. (YouTube alert)
posted by madamjujujive at 6:06 AM PST - 22 comments

ThreatDown! Scientists and other liberals reporting BEARS no longer hibernating in Spain! Global warming deniers, however, determined to continue their hibernation.
posted by orthogonality at 2:52 AM PST - 45 comments