December 9, 2010

"...with God's help, we shall prevail."

A new movie, The King’s Speech, (official site / trailer / clips) depicts King George VI of England's struggle to overcome his problem with stuttering and find his voice, in time to deliver the historic radio speech that prepared London for WWII. The film is being hailed as a potential Oscar-contender, for its unique, sensitive portrayal of stuttering -- a sharp contrast to the way movies traditionally present those who suffer from the disorder.. Slate offers a slideshow of ten video clips: A History of Stuttering in the Movies [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:46 PM PST - 38 comments

The worst riots since...1990?

Protesters clashed with police and attacked Prince Charles's limousine as riots raged in the heart of London after MPs voted to triple university tuition fees. Video's here.
posted by QueerAngel28 at 11:15 PM PST - 194 comments

Locks of Love

"Love Padlocks" (SFW) - not what you might think they are. [more inside]
posted by HopperFan at 8:47 PM PST - 38 comments

My coconuts.

The woman you'd love your woman to be like. (SLthe sun: page 3YT)
posted by cthuljew at 7:48 PM PST - 87 comments

Pretty good for a bunch of plastic blocks

Lego Antikythera Mechanism [more inside]
posted by empath at 7:39 PM PST - 28 comments

Paging Commander Badass

Manly Guys Doing Manly Things. The title should explain itself.
posted by lauratheexplorer at 7:13 PM PST - 24 comments

Sight Lines

You can tell if a person is liberal or conservative by how a person responds to your "gaze cues". Look away at something while you're talking and a liberal will tend to look at it, too. Conservatives are "completely immune" to this effect. [more inside]
posted by MuadDib at 6:47 PM PST - 94 comments

Black & White Food Porn in Colors

Choosing Beef With Jack O'Shea, Making Pfannkuchen (a sweet yeast dough fried in oil) with Lars Siebert at the oldest bakery in Berlin, Mannfred Otte baking Apple strudel and 6 similar culinary videos from The Department of the 4th Dimension studio . Also, Making Espresso in Venice, (CA). Other tasty topics at 'Perfunkt' with support from Emil Rathenau
posted by growabrain at 4:50 PM PST - 11 comments

Don't mess with Texans.

Robert Rodriguez's Machete ( Previously) started out as a joke, and went on to be a rather successful film. However, Texas Governor Rick Perry feels the movie doesn't portray Texas positively and has revoked the productions tax breaks. possibly at the cost of Texas's film industry.
posted by djduckie at 4:28 PM PST - 83 comments

Blues Maker

I lost my little [noun]
I lost my [adjective] girl too
I [verb] just everything
So [adjective] I messed with you

Create your own song of sadness and regret with the Blues Maker.
posted by gottabefunky at 3:16 PM PST - 25 comments

Off-Track Betting (1971-2010)

After more threats of extinction than anyone could remember, the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation unexpectedly made good on a threat of its own and closed the doors to its parlors on Tuesday night. ... About 50 parlors around the city were shuttered. Some 1,000 employees lost their jobs. And a revenue stream that had funneled tens of millions of dollars a year to breeders, track owners and related businesses dried up. Another piece of gritty old New York had gone the way of the Automat and the Times Square peep show.
posted by Joe Beese at 2:21 PM PST - 35 comments

That's gonna leave a (trade) mark.

Comedy Central introduces its new logo! In the words of Jay Sherman (whose show used to be on CC) it sucks. Its simplicity and stupidity will get it compared to other classic logo disasters (previously on MeFi: Gap, SyFy, UK Space Agency, aol, 2008 GOP Convention, 2012 London Olympics twice, Quark, other logos to laugh at and not found on MeFi: Tropicana). But seriously, is the logo's similarity to a Copyright Symbol (©) part of an anti-piracy campaign? [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:08 PM PST - 86 comments

WE'RE LIVING IN THE FUTURE

When the Xbox Kinect (previously) was released a month ago, it promised a new era of controller-less gaming. The system is certainly selling well heading into the holidays, but reviews so far are mixed. The minor injuries are expected, but with some less than impressive early game releases, some think that the system is only partially living up to its pre-release hype. But what happens when open source software fanatics get their hands on this new technology? [more inside]
posted by auto-correct at 1:50 PM PST - 38 comments

A new genre making...waves!

Is Chillwave the Next Big Music Trend? - Wiki: Chillwave is a debated genre of music where artists are often characterized by their heavy use of effects processing, synthesizers, looping, sampling, and heavily filtered vocals with simple melodic lines. Its musical predecessors are diverse and include the synthpop of the 1980s, shoegaze, ambient, musique concrète and various types of music outside of the Western World. In this case, nostalgia of 80s synthpop is filtered through a distorted lens, re-envisioning the era in a more vague and lo-fi sense. Just don't call them that. You can always check in at the Hipster Runoff (the birthplace of the term) for news about the vaguely new subgenre. [more inside]
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 1:42 PM PST - 103 comments

We are already dead. We are Robot Jox!

Robot vs Robot, Human vs Alien, '90 vs '89, Robot Jox vs Arena... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:37 PM PST - 20 comments

His first name is Google.

Ron Paul, 11-term Republican Congressman for the 14th Congressional district of Texas, original Tea Partier (warning: YouTube), libertarian presidential candidate, and author of End the Fed (Bloomberg review) today announced that he is next in line to chair the United States House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology in charge of, among other things, oversight of the Federal Reserve. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:09 PM PST - 187 comments

The Future Gets Closer, Part IV: Mouse Edition

Some scientists have used stem cells to regenerate myelin in mice, paving the way for new MS treatments. Other scientists have created mice from two fathers. Meanwhile, using stem cells to treat paralysis advances from mice to monkeys.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 12:38 PM PST - 23 comments

Just hopping freights doesn't make one a Hobo. Tramps, bums, yeggs, criminals and some just plain no goods also ride the rails.

A Hobo is a person that travels to work. A tramp is a person that travels and won't work. A bum is a person that will neither travel or work. Folklore abounds with the irresistible pull or joys of the freight hopping lifestyle: "it'll get in your blood. You're not agoing anywhere. You don't care. You just ride.". The largest hobo population was probably during the Great Depression. There are fewer freight-hoppers and hobos today (around 20,000) than there were in its heyday (over 500,000), mostly because the high speed of trains today makes it dangerous to hop on and off the train. Still, there's no better way to see the world than from the top of a freight train. [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 12:08 PM PST - 38 comments

Burger myths

A Hamburger Today addresses the phenomenon of the undying McDonald's burger using SCIENCE!. As seen previously on Metafilter.
posted by Dim Siawns at 12:00 PM PST - 21 comments

The other side of the curtain

The Magician and the Crossword Puzzle [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:47 AM PST - 13 comments

top 10s of 2010

Top 10s of 2010. Each Saturday, we pore through our favorite tips and tricks to find 10 great hacks surrounding any subject, from food and thumb drives to browsers and Wi-Fi. Here are our most popular Top 10s of 2010.
posted by nickyskye at 11:27 AM PST - 17 comments

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue

Vintage British Argos 1985 Catalogue [more inside]
posted by chill at 11:14 AM PST - 39 comments

Connections

James Burke's popular television show Connections is available in its entirety online. Connections, which ran in 1978, was a unique take on the question of historical and scientific advancement. From wikipedia: "The series traced paths of invention and discovery through their interrelationships in history, with each episode chronicling a particular path, usually in chronological order. ... It was followed by the 20-part Connections2 (1994) and then the 10-part Connections3 (1997) series. Later, it was shown in more than 50 countries and appeared in about 350 university and college curricula. Additionally, the book that followed the series was also a best seller." [more inside]
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:59 AM PST - 76 comments

Toys & treats for Canada's military poochies

"Care packages" aren't JUST for troops in harm's way. Video transcript available here.
posted by MILNEWSca at 9:52 AM PST - 9 comments

Special Command Unit

"SonderKommando Revolt is a Wolf3D mod about real WWII revolt against the Nazis in the famous Auschwitz extermination camp." [more inside]
posted by griphus at 9:50 AM PST - 26 comments

Al Qaeda doesn't care who's in the White House

Five (sometime) novelists imagine what the Gore administration would have been.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:41 AM PST - 41 comments

If it bends, it’s funny.

Monday, December 6, 2010: WASHINGTON “Attorney General Eric Holder announced today the results of Operation Broken Trust, a nationwide operation organized by the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to target investment fraud. To date, the operation has involved enforcement actions against 343 criminal defendants and 189 civil defendants for fraud schemes that harmed more than 120,000 victims throughout the country. The operation’s criminal cases involved more than $8.3 billion in estimated losses and the civil cases involved estimated losses of more than $2.1 billion. Operation Broken Trust is the first national operation of its kind to target a broad array of investment fraud schemes that directly prey upon the investing public.” —Or, well, maybe, perhaps, not so much. [more inside]
posted by kipmanley at 9:10 AM PST - 24 comments

All the single digits

"A few weeks ago, my algebra class was assigned a project called “Mathematic Karaoke,” for which were told to pick a song, make it about numbers (and stuff), and record ourselves singing it. [....] Of course, Single Ladies was my tune of choice."
posted by borkencode at 8:10 AM PST - 47 comments

How Caviar Turned Out To Be Halal

A look at how fatwas are issued, and how Iranian authorities were able to change the classification of caviar from haram (forbidden for Muslims to eat) to halal (permissible for Muslims to eat) in order to retake the caviar industry from the Soviets. [PDF]
posted by reenum at 7:00 AM PST - 26 comments

Or like a computer. Or like an Egyptian computer.

Multiply like an Egyptian. (SLYT)
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:37 AM PST - 24 comments

Game On!

Game On! is a PSA by the Leicestershire Teenage Pregnancy Partnership that uses an 8-bit video game format to get across its message of safe sex.
posted by SkylitDrawl at 6:20 AM PST - 34 comments

"The brutal reality is Netflix’s bargain days for streaming movies and television is coming to an end."

Is Netflix Streaming Its Way Towards Disaster? In the wake of last month's price hike, Edward Epstein (author of The Big Picture and The Hollywood Economist) explores a few issues with Netflix's turn toward streaming video. The licensing deals Netflix cobbled together before studios fully grokked the value of streaming are expiring in the next year or two, outlets like Amazon and HBO are starting their own streaming services, and the right of first sale, which allows Netflix to buy DVDs and then rent them over and over, doesn't apply to streamed content. Via this post from Slashfilm, which adds more links and info. [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 5:45 AM PST - 126 comments

He liked that imagery. He liked the war. He liked the fight

How 2000AD artist and MS sufferer John Hicklenton chose to end his life: The Herald reports on the death of John Hinckleton - Pat Mills writes on his life. See some of his art here. [more inside]
posted by mippy at 4:02 AM PST - 17 comments

"For the Chaotic Good"

The radical human rights and subversive hacking group known only as Anonymous has struck again. In a retaliatory campaign dubbed Operation Avenge Assange, the group is conducting distributed denial-of-service attacks against perceived opponents of Wikileaks. PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, the Swedish prosecutor's office, and even Senator Joe Lieberman are among the targeted.

In the face of this onslaught PayPal has partially capitulated: agreeing to release funds from the Wikileaks account. [more inside]
posted by clarknova at 12:08 AM PST - 561 comments

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