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Minds of their Own: Animals are smarter than you think.
posted by homunculus at 9:55 PM PST - 36 comments

E.J. Peiker, Nature Photgrapher There are a lot of nature photographers out there -- some better than Peiker and some worse -- but what fascinates me about Peiker's site is the number of photos available. A birdwatcher's dream, it features pages of photos of over 500 different species of birds, including an index devoted solely to wild waterfowl. Maybe animals are more your speed? How about nearly 150 pages of photos of wild animals (including my favorite - a quite handsome, flower-eating porcupine.) There's also a section for scenic photography featuring 23 states and 20 countries (or you can search by national park.) The photos are, unfortunately, not that big but there a ton of them, many of them quite pretty.
posted by LeeJay at 8:18 PM PST - 13 comments

Surf your music. Audio surfer is a new game that uses .mp3 files to create racetracks of musical goodness. If guitar hero and F-Zero had a love child, this would be it.
posted by JimmyJames at 6:58 PM PST - 48 comments

Kevin Ray Underwood found guilty of first degree murder in the April 2006 killing of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin. The jury only needed 20 minutes to decide on his guilt. Previously on Metafilter, because he linked here. How could a seemingly normal, albeit "single, bored and lonely", young man become a cannabalistic child rapist and murderer? Exhibits: The blog he kept for almost four years up until the day after the murder. A collection of misc information about Underwood, including (near the bottom) the text of an online chat he had with a friend after killing Bolin. An extremely disturbing transcript of his confession to the FBI. Video footage of the trial. Deliberations will begin Monday as to whether or not he will be sentenced to death.
posted by banishedimmortal at 6:53 PM PST - 154 comments

Hungry? Arteries not quite plugged enough? Behold, the Big MacChicken.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:04 PM PST - 59 comments

Flash Friday Fun: Experience the thrills of amateur surgery as you play Amateur Surgeon over at Adult Swim . You'll be performing transplants with a chainsaw, suturing wounds with staples and shocking patients back to life with a car battery. [more inside]
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 4:53 PM PST - 8 comments

I'm not into VU bootlegs really, but apparently this is a big deal. It's the ONLY available live stuff from 1967 and has only become available in literally the last two days. Recorded just after the release of The Velvet Underground And Nico and featuring the debut performance of Sister Ray (19 mins long) and the *previously unheard* song I'm Not A Young Man Any More. That's right, A NEW VELVET UNDERGROUND SONG. And it's fucking good too. This version of Sister Ray absolutely shreds and is what the Velvet Underground are all about.
posted by stinkycheese at 4:03 PM PST - 61 comments

They Think They're People Filter: Animal Combat Friday! [more inside]
posted by ignignokt at 3:46 PM PST - 15 comments

Rainwear in Films has a very narrow focus.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:48 PM PST - 17 comments

Erotic Falconry
posted by loquacious at 2:45 PM PST - 66 comments

Drummer Buddy Miles has died. Another wonderful musician - one who played with Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies - died far too young.
posted by dbiedny at 2:06 PM PST - 30 comments

Go way back into time with a deliciously analog collection of mastermixes from 1980s-era soul radio from London. [more inside]
posted by dhammond at 1:55 PM PST - 3 comments

Boston Mayor Tom Menino is running for president. Here's why he'd be a better president than Mitt Romney. And he's done vocals for a techno track.
posted by Mayor Curley at 1:15 PM PST - 13 comments

Riding the Waves of interest in MVC web frameworks such as Rails, Django, TurboGears, and Cake, comes the latest entrant: Ruby Waves. Interesting features include request lambdas, hot patchable, nestable templates, app reusability, and decoupled controller/view. Is the proliferation of MVC projects helping to push innovation forward? Or pointlessly reinventing the wheel? (via RubyInside)
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 1:14 PM PST - 39 comments

Tim Goeglein, director of the White House office of public liaison, is a plagiarist.
... and he actually admits it.

“It is true,” Tim Goeglein wrote to The Journal Gazette in an e-mail. “I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses."

Found by Blogger (and MeFi lurker) Nancy Nall.
posted by jpburns at 1:11 PM PST - 25 comments

Excuse me, Ms. Ono, Mr. Gehry, Sen. Wellstone—pardon me Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Castellanetta, Gov. Ventura—would you mind signing this paper?
Oh no, don't sign your name. Sign mine.
posted by Partial Law at 12:40 PM PST - 18 comments

The Mall Ninja is easily distinguished by an abundance of “tactical” gear, such as fatigues, a thigh holster (with, of course, a Glock), combat boots, bandolier and other accouterments. Read the collected stories of the the Rapid Tactical Force at one of America’s largest indoor retail shopping areas! Marvel at their cunning equipment selection (such as duct taped trauma plates) and learn from their battles with the dreaded mall gangs.
posted by clockworkjoe at 12:01 PM PST - 65 comments

It's official. The aliens are coming. In 2017. Turns out they might like The Beatles after all. The UN is on the case. The Hindus are going to be especially upset.
posted by monospace at 12:00 PM PST - 21 comments

Are Liberals and Conservatives Different Species? Get this: Everyone in our sample was an American, a teenager, and belonged to the same major religious tradition of Protestantism. In these respects they were culturally uniform. But some belonged to conservative denominations such as Pentecostal and others to liberal denominations such as Episcopalian. As Ingrid combed through the data, which involved tedious hours in front of the computer, the differences that began to emerge were astounding. It was as if these conservative and liberal religious youth were--different species. [via 3quarksdaily] [more inside]
posted by sisquoc15 at 11:23 AM PST - 89 comments

Need some barbarian repellent ? How about some leeches? You can get it all at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart. They travel time so you don't have to.
posted by Doohickie at 10:52 AM PST - 22 comments

Teaching to Testosterone. Dr. Leonard Sax is promoting his version of single-sex classrooms in public schools based on inherent biological differences between young boys and girls.
posted by easy_being_green at 10:47 AM PST - 34 comments

Once again, The Onion comes a little too close to the truth for comfort. Or in reality, are things working just fine? Security at Diebold is as tight as ever. Concerns (again) in Ohio. Also: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." (Bill Shakespeare)
posted by spock at 10:40 AM PST - 33 comments

The novel American Gods by Neil Gaiman is being offered for free in its entirety at the Harper Collins website (only viewable using HarperCollins' BrowseInside system). It was put up in celebration of the seventh birthday of Neil Gaiman's blog. Which is appropriate since Neil Gaiman started his blog to chronicle the process of turning the text of American Gods into a physical book. [via the man himself, natch]
posted by Kattullus at 10:25 AM PST - 25 comments

Turning Star Wars Japanese -- Manga Scenes Done Better: StarWars.com writer Pablo Hidalgo explores the differences between the American and Japanese comics adaptations of the original trilogy.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 10:02 AM PST - 28 comments

Leap For It! The 2008 Slingshot Organizer, a staple publication of the Slingshot Collective based out of Berkeley, urges mass participation in Leap Day Action Night.
posted by lunit at 9:35 AM PST - 8 comments

will.i.am is on a roll. It is hard to top his YES WE CAN video inspired by Barack Obama, but I think he comes pretty close in his just released WE ARE THE ONES video. [more inside]
posted by james_cpi at 9:25 AM PST - 95 comments

This is how we do it. [NSFW] Disturbing new photos from Abu Ghraib.
posted by plexi at 9:12 AM PST - 71 comments

If you thought phone phreaking was a dying art, you may be surprised to read the story of "Li'l Hacker", as told by old-school hack/phreaker Kevin Poulsen.
posted by Roach at 9:01 AM PST - 11 comments

The 10 Worst Celebrity Video Games Ever. Your favorite celebrity cash-in video game sucks. [more inside]
posted by Dr-Baa at 9:00 AM PST - 35 comments

Do you desire to achive artistic perfection? Can you tell both humorous and dramatic stories in the Jackson Publick Fashion? Are you titillated by a man dressed like a butterfly?! If so, follow me... For I am... the Character Board Supervisor^TM, and from my base on the moon, I can teach you to draw all things... Venture!!!* [more inside]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:54 AM PST - 18 comments

Shaun O'Boyle recently returned from Cape Canaveral where he photographed the artifacts of the early space program. They are part of the Modern Ruins site (previously, previously, and previously) which is a great place to waste an afternoon.
posted by Toekneesan at 8:37 AM PST - 8 comments

An exchange student spending the school year with a host family in Egypt claims he was starved by the family. Johnathan McCullum, as part of an AFS program, was placed with an Egyptian family who, as Coptic Christians, fast over 200 days a year. His weight went from 155 to 97 pounds during his stay. He says friends and teachers wanted him to change his host family, but he felt he had to "tough" out the year. Others in the exchange program feel that Johnathan and his family are simply out to make a buck.
posted by misha at 8:20 AM PST - 49 comments

The sub-prime mortgage crisis is giving way in some places to crime ridden McMansion ghettos, perhaps the beginning of a larger long term trend in demographics: "many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay."
posted by stbalbach at 8:02 AM PST - 81 comments

In Mongolia, overtone singing (or hoomei, as it's known locally) is mainly a guy thing, but there are exceptions to the rule, for example, the Hoomei Women's Group. More commonly though, women who want to sing do so in an exquisite, soaring style like this and this. Sometimes the men do the hoomei thing while the women do that soaring thing. Then there are those lovely choral arrangements. And then there are those rare moments when the YouTube poster's description of a clip just hits the nail square on the head, as with this one: amazing. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:26 AM PST - 23 comments

Song Chart Meme. A series of charts breaking down popular music.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:16 AM PST - 18 comments

Nothing To Do With Arbroath [more inside]
posted by jtron at 7:09 AM PST - 5 comments

The MeeK FM Typographic Synthesizer(tube.)
posted by geos at 5:45 AM PST - 17 comments

Why Leap Years are used. Leap Years in other calendars. About Leap Day itself. On this day in history. The Leap Year Capital, Anthony, Texas. February 30?! [via]
posted by not_on_display at 5:29 AM PST - 37 comments