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David Lynch - Peace through Yogic "Flying" : Communication departments and film schools throughout the Midwest are currently being approached by representatives of David Lynch and the Marharishi School of Fairfield, Iowa. On the surface, they're out to publicize a seminar about filmmaking and the creative process. In actuality, it's part of an ongoing effort to (according to IMDb) raise $1 billion to build a world wide network of Transcendental Meditation "peace palaces". . . including head-quarters in India which will be capable of housing 40,000 followers - in the hope of bringing peace to the world through the practice of mass "yogic flying". The cost per student? $45. Related MeFi posts: 1, 2, 3
posted by aladfar at 11:26 PM PST - 25 comments

Please ensure that you have your copybook at hand. Calcium, you may know it as Jinny, or Ninny, or Peter's Peck, but whatever you call it, Calcium, valency 1, atomic weight 44 is one of the most important elements known to mankind.
posted by nile_red at 10:40 PM PST - 32 comments

Fleischfilm Films by Thorsten Fleisch, experimental filmmaker. Fleisch "became recognized as one of the world's leading innovators of experimental film with the release of his 16mm film, Blutrausch, a film made entirely from his own blood." "Fleisch feels a compulsive need to attack everyone's eyes and ears... challenging the eyes and mind with wickedly clever films that combine mathematical systems of editing with reflexive commentary." Check out some interviews or Fleisch's stimulating article, Animating the 4th Dimension.
posted by MetaMonkey at 10:35 PM PST - 5 comments

Dude Corp is a new 3D animated series of shorts. Right now there are only three, plus the "Copier Game" (which gets sort of ...squishy), but they are clever. Also available in podcast format for your iPod.
posted by ArsncHeart at 10:27 PM PST - 2 comments

"Drove my Chevy to the levee..."? That's a lawsuit. "Pass the Courvoisier"? Yup. Lawsuit too. Artwork using Barbie Dolls? Lawsuit again... It's all part of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act, which would eliminate the non-commercial "fair use" protections of trademarks in art, literature, and speech-- To amend the Trademark Act of 1946 with respect to dilution by blurring or tarnishment. It goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the 16th, and there's a large roster of groups fighting it, including the American Library Association, EFF, and more, saying that consumers as well as artists would be preventing from exercising their free speech rights unless it's amended.
posted by amberglow at 10:08 PM PST - 35 comments

The Six String Sonics are about reinventing the guitar. The conventional guitar has many limitations. For example, it binds the player to chords that one can hold with one hand, or melodies that can easily be reached with one hand. As a result, guitar compositions have come to sound very similar to each other. We created Six String Sonics to rid the guitar of these limitations, and make room for more possibilities in composition. A video of their debut perfomance. [embedded MOV file]
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:37 PM PST - 43 comments

Mix your own version of John Lennon's "Revolution 9" (warning: embedded sound), read the transcription of its spoken parts, and listen to it backwards.
posted by feathermeat at 9:25 PM PST - 4 comments

A game theoretic approach to the toilet seat problem. Because people are really passionate about their toilets.
posted by dhruva at 9:17 PM PST - 54 comments

Kyla Brettle makes radio documentaries. 000 Ambulance and Trauma are both particularly moving. You can listen to them here.
posted by d-no at 9:17 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Dave Chappelle Comes Clean On 'Oprah' "Chappelle said he left the show, months after signing a $50 million deal for its third and fourth seasons, because he felt manipulated by the people around him."
posted by jne1813 at 8:41 PM PST - 50 comments

In the spirt of Caver Ted, lost digital cameras in the woods and other "blogs as meta-fiction": Who Is Benjamin Stove?
posted by bonefish at 3:44 PM PST - 7 comments

PILLOW FIGHT! comes to the US. Already a success in Toronto, Tel Aviv, Madrid and London. Pillow Fight! now makes it's US debut in San Francisco, Feb 14th. On Valentine's Day feel like smacking down the ones you love? [oh I'd hit that...with a pillow]
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:09 PM PST - 18 comments

The Day the Music Died. Everyone knows 47 years ago Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper were all killed in a plane crash after thier last concert in Clear Lake, Iowa. But it seems as if not everybody agrees about the date of rock-and-roll's demise.
posted by ozomatli at 3:02 PM PST - 19 comments

Suitsat is ready to launch. Know it (wmv). Watch it. Track it. (previously)
posted by pantsrobot at 2:25 PM PST - 15 comments

Would somebody please think of the radish? Well, the Japanese certainly do. (More news stories in Japanese.)
posted by of strange foe at 1:28 PM PST - 16 comments

What would happen if you tried to play out RPG cliches in real life? You certainly couldn't do all of them, but there are a few you can try. Not quite as funny as Summoner Geeks, but quite entertaining. "And if one thing should be taken from this experience, above anything else, should the fate of the universe ever be in your hands, only bother to seek the aid of girls under the age of 30."
posted by smith186 at 1:22 PM PST - 21 comments

So you want to know sexual averages.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:03 PM PST - 49 comments

“Wouldn’t you know, the kid they pick to play tramps is the only good girl in Hollywood.”
Before Myrna Loy rose to stardom with Manhattan Melodrama and The Thin Man (both 1934), she was often relegated to playing vamps, mistresses, and other assorted flavors of wicked women. Then, after 80 movies playing mostly bad girls, Montana native Loy became “the perfect wife.” “Men Must Marry Myrna Loy” clubs were formed around the country. She and Clark Gable, in a poll conducted by Ed Sullivan, were voted by 20 million of the nation’s moviegoers as The King and Queen of Hollywood. She was FDR's favorite actress, and John Dillinger died just to see her new movie. A staunch anti-Nazi since the mid-Thirties (to MGM's dismay, Hitler promptly banned her films from the lucrative German market), wondered aloud in the press why blacks were always given servants' roles, and was the first major star to buck the studios in a contract dispute (the issue: equal pay for equal work. She was making half what William Powell was, didn't like it and quit work for nearly a year until MGM capitulated). When WWII broke out she quit Hollywood and worked full time for the Red Cross, and helped run a Naval Auxilary Canteen. More inside.
posted by matteo at 12:37 PM PST - 27 comments

Rumsfeld likens Chavez to Hitler - expels diplomat in tit for tat
meanwhile the American Family Association calls for a boycott of Venezuelan owned Citgo (obviously encouraging more support for gulf arab regimes). The Venezuelan grandmother I recently spent a Sunday with was very happy with Chavez - and proud of him despite his faults and corruption in the country. What's with Rummy and friends?
posted by specialk420 at 12:00 PM PST - 123 comments

Is Google the new Netscape? With GOOG having taken a tumble Wednesday and falling more than $12 so far today, it's not unreasonable to ask... also why is Gmail still in beta when I've been using it for over a year now?
posted by clevershark at 11:55 AM PST - 53 comments

So I'm watching this cute little movie trailer . . . and I'm stunned by a quote in the middle of it: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." — Nelson Mandela. Or was it Marianne Williamson? Or does it really matter?
posted by spock at 11:34 AM PST - 12 comments

Super Mario Brothers sound effects. Boing! Boing! CRUNCH! Ding! Ding! Ding! Whoop! Boing!
posted by Robot Johnny at 10:52 AM PST - 23 comments

Let's Play Genocide MTV's Darfur Digital Activist online game contest has posted the four finalist teams' prototypes for voting. In Fetching Water, "you are a Darfurian trying to to make it the well to get water without becoming a victim of the Janjaweed." When do social impact games cross the line from raising awareness into trivializing?
posted by Cassford at 10:39 AM PST - 15 comments

Then: Q - Mr. Secretary, on Iraq, how much money do you think the Department of Defense would need to pay for a war with Iraq? Rumsfeld - Well, the Office of Management and Budget, has come up come up with a number that's something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question. And now: The estimated cost to US taxpayers of the Iraq war to date is $250 billion and rising, or $100,000 per minute. Total cost of the Bush doctrine of spreading "democracy" since September 11th -- half a trillion dollars, or nearly the cost of the 13 years of the Vietnam War, adjusted for inflation. What else could we have done with that kind of money? Also see here.
posted by digaman at 9:59 AM PST - 112 comments

The Obakemono Project - a Gaijin's guide to the fantastic folk monsters of Japan. (via oink)
posted by madamjujujive at 9:28 AM PST - 27 comments

Jack Bauer isn't afraid to cut the eyes out of any (deliberative) body; or, Rupert Murdoch demonstrates the 17th Amendment's fatal flaw.
posted by orthogonality at 8:39 AM PST - 37 comments

Abandoned Memories is short on text but thick with photos. Even without captions for every picture, contextual clues can give us a disturbing idea of what life might have been like in the Wayne County Child Development Center (before it was abandoned, razed, and turned into a golf course). The rather-less-easy-to-navigate Northville-Tunnels.com also has photos and information.
posted by Gator at 7:12 AM PST - 27 comments

Rainbow parties were the big parent panic of 2005. Commentators have questioned the reality behind these representations, but a recent article in New York magazine describes the sex lives of a group of teenagers that seems consistent with the moral panic.
(More inside...)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:59 AM PST - 123 comments

Congress has extended the Patriot Act another five weeks. I swear it's like putting a Hyena down. You keep shooting it but it keep slaughing in your face.
posted by Doorstop at 6:36 AM PST - 50 comments

Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches "Ampulex compressa is a wasp that has evolved to tackle roaches, insert a stinger into their brains and disable their escape reflexes. This lets the wasp use the roach's antennae to steer the roach to its lair, where it can lay its egg in it. ... Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative. " Via Boing Boing
posted by badlydubbedboy at 4:26 AM PST - 49 comments