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A Damned Good Dam Site. The Fort Peck Dam in Montana, authorized by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 and completed in 1940, is the largest hydraulically filled dam in the United States. The website is a wonderful compendium of history, technology, tragedy, personal stories, photographs, a webcam and much more. The dam also has the distinction of being featured on the very first Life Magazine cover, photographed by Margaret Bourke-White.
posted by amyms at 10:04 PM PST - 18 comments

Somewhere deep inside a fractal.... Bizarre, nonlogical, glitchy cartoons that are "not ashamed of coming out of a computer." Satire? Or serious attempt to point animators away from "cushioned, balletic movements" and traditional stories, and towards "an aesthetic which adopts the native idiosyncrasies and flaws of the software in which it was born"? (Note: the 'PLEASE DO NOT WATCH THESE CARTOONS IF YOU SUFFER FROM PHOTOSENSITIVE EPILEPSY' applies mainly to the flashing intros, forward through the first 25 seconds in each cartoon and there's other stuff.) [via]
posted by mediareport at 8:59 PM PST - 22 comments

The Eurovision song contest season has just begun, and already there is controversy. The Israeli entrant, the Teapacks' "Push the Button" [warnings: Windows Media video, strange-looking accordian player], has English, French, and Hebrew lyrics that talk about certain "crazy rulers" who are "gonna blow us up to kingdom come" concluding that "I don't wanna die, I wanna see the flowers bloom, don't wanna go kaput-kaboom." These lyrics are apparently too political for Eurovision, which is likely to ban the song.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:55 PM PST - 28 comments

"We, due to our experience in riding chopper bicycles, tallbikes, and the like, will finally find ourselves at the top of the food chain, and it is we who will lead humanity out of the rubble Welcome to the world of mutant and freak bikes. While just fun for many some folks see the freak bike movement as something political but as often happens politics can bring controversy. It's a worldwide phenomina with roots going back to the 19th century. Mutant and freak bikes at flickr. A previous related post.
posted by arse_hat at 8:52 PM PST - 16 comments

Pretending not to notice is a treasure of a blog I found this evening. While searching for images of currency suitable for incorporating into a bar chart, I stumbled upon this, and was sucked right into a world of h8r cows, purloined existential art, found poetry, Cat Power, this fax, and....WTF? There's lots of great photos, too. Oh yeah, there's also an easter egg and his archives autoplay music!
posted by figment of my conation at 8:41 PM PST - 6 comments

zoom over the ice planet hoth in your x wing
posted by vronsky at 6:51 PM PST - 39 comments

Propaganda. The death of Horst-Wessel . A clip from a documentary about the rise of the Third Riche and how it used Horst-Wessel's song "The flag on high" and his death as a tool of propaganda. Then ending with a clip about propaganda from the film Network.
posted by nola at 6:01 PM PST - 11 comments

Don Marco, The Master Crayon Artist.
posted by Wet Spot at 4:37 PM PST - 16 comments

Always wanted to wake up with Stephen Fry? Now you can, with the - in itself quite interesting - VOCO Clock.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:28 PM PST - 21 comments

The Departed: Edited Version [language NSFW, slightly]
posted by psmealey at 3:27 PM PST - 74 comments

The Next Attack. "Terrorists in Iraq are becoming proficient at blowing up oil refineries. Similar plants in a handful of American cities represent our greatest vulnerability. We could easily be making them less dangerous. But we’re not." And one of the key players in keeping things that way happens to be Dick Cheney’s son-in-law.
posted by homunculus at 1:43 PM PST - 38 comments

Steampunk Star Wars. An ongoing series of drawings by Eric Poulton of Star Wars characters redone in the style of Jules Verne era sci-fi. Sadly only three have been done, so far, but hopefully more to come. Via
posted by jonson at 1:24 PM PST - 47 comments

"Molecular scientists . . . have developed a new procedure for the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, with which they have created the first transplantable source of lung epithelial cells."
posted by jason's_planet at 12:25 PM PST - 30 comments

In this corner: John "Mack Daddy" Mackey. In this corner: Michael "The Pollanator" Pollan. Mackey. Pollan. Mackey. Pollan. Mackey vs. Pollan!! (.rm file via)
posted by ericbop at 12:07 PM PST - 5 comments

"A man who was found dressed in latex and handcuffs brought a donkey to his room in a Galway city centre hotel, because he was advised “to get out and meet people,” the local court heard last week...." (Via)
posted by mosk at 11:36 AM PST - 52 comments

"You're a goddamn cheat Chris!"* were a string of words shouted at most of my childhood family reunions. For decades the males of my extend family have vented their most masculine, primordial, and often intoxicated angst around this small board. Today we find ourselves dispersed - DC, Florida, Rwanda, Los Angeles, etc - unable to throw temper tantrums over the loss Irkutsk. That is, until we discovered: THE CONQUER CLUB

_{* I have no relation to these people}
posted by Dr.James.Orin.Incandenza at 11:12 AM PST - 37 comments

AestheticallyUnappealingBedfellowsFilter: "George Soros initiated holdings in Oil Equipment & Services company Halliburton Co.. His purchase prices were between $27.62 and $33.53, with an estimated average price of $31.3. The impact to his portfolio due to this purchase was 2.02%. His holdings was 1,999,450 shares as of 12/31/2006. Halliburton Co. closed today at $30.05." Maybe he's 'culture jamming'? Might raise some amusing ethical conundra in any case.
posted by waxbanks at 9:29 AM PST - 53 comments

A Google Map mash-up shows how hospital closures in NYC disproportionately effect the poor and people of colour. It's a pretty slick presentation of the data.
posted by chunking express at 9:10 AM PST - 36 comments

Digg has been gamed. Wired writer Annalee Newitz used the User/Submitter service to buy votes on news site/social aggregatordigg. Hours after she hired the service, her fake blog site, now popular through treachery, was on digg's front page.
posted by four panels at 8:56 AM PST - 66 comments

Are you delusional? Synopsis of author Francis Wheen's new book How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions provides an interesting outlook on the modern condition.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 8:27 AM PST - 51 comments

What does one wear to Ride the Valkyries? A silk dress? Something with "richness of the material, width, ruches, flounces, bustles, ribbons ..."? Apparently Richard Wagner, the neckbearded, anti-Semetic, hero to Adolph Hitler may have had a little skin problem. Or maybe a fetish. Or both. Either way, he did so like the feel of satin against his skin. Perhaps Wagner should have gone with thevelvet. In any case, this news will make Fritz Freleng appear even more brilliant for having cross-dressed Bugs Bunny in the 1945 cartoon Herr Meets Hare (where Bugs appears as a Wagnerian heroine dancing with Hermann Goering).
posted by scblackman at 7:18 AM PST - 23 comments

Ink-stained wretches need not apply. "This is probably terribly unfair, but I just never quite trusted a writer whose letterhead described him or her as a "wordsmith," a "scrivener," "écrivain" (with or without the diacritical), or an "ink-stained wretch." Nor was I favorably impressed by printed citations of honors received ("James Beard Award-Winner Biff Bartleby, Scrivener"). And kids, please, no personal logos: Above all, avoid cute drawings of kitty cats at laptops, or manly fists grasping ostrich-plume pens." And other things freelance writers should avoid. (From Mediabistro; registration may be required.)
posted by Man-Thing at 6:41 AM PST - 61 comments

You've read about him, seen the show, browsed the forum, consulted the wiki, heard the remixes, seen video1, video2 and even it's storyboard. Now please meet: Ray (29mb mov).
posted by progosk at 5:22 AM PST - 19 comments

The Envisat ENVIronmental SATellite is on its fifth year in orbit. To celebrate, ESA has assembled four galleries with selected images from the 500 tearabytes of data that has been collected to date. The pictures are of very different types, covering a wide variety of information, for example clorophyll concentration, global wave height, and an interferogram of the Bam earthquake. I personally think the ‘maximum water vapour mean’, in the atmosphere gallery is beautiful. Unfortunately the galleries are in flash so you cannot save the pics directly.
posted by Catfry at 5:10 AM PST - 12 comments

Creationwiki is an online encyclopedia concerning creation science in the spirit of Conservapedia (previously discussed here) and that serves as a sort of counterpart to Evowiki (previously mentioned in this thread). According to the article on Creationwiki found on Evowiki, "All contributing editors must believe the universe and life on earth were created by God. Non-creationists are prohibited from editing articles, except for spelling and grammar corrections." Of course, Creationwiki has their own article on Evowiki. It's entertaining to read their discussions about one another.
posted by inconsequentialist at 4:40 AM PST - 36 comments

Why I hate race baiting. SF Chroonicle columnist Debra J. Saunders wonders how did the "Why I hate blacks" column by Kenneth Eng that ran in AsianWeek Feb. 23 ever make it by the paper's editors? Previous columns by Kenneth Eng such as "Proof That Whites Inherently Hate Us" and "Why I hate Asians" sparked no Chronicle story and no City Hall resolution against AsianWeek. Both of these columns remain on the Asianweek website. But Eng's rant against blacks got him fired and resulted in an apology from the magazine's editors. Eng's final column has also been pulled from Asianweek's website.
posted by three blind mice at 2:30 AM PST - 103 comments

The Fonz & Henry Winkler teach us about sexual abuse. Yes, you read correctly.
Special appearances by John Ritter, Fred Flintstone, and a creepy singing guy in overalls.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:44 AM PST - 51 comments

The Peabody Symphony Orchestra and the Peabody Concert Orchestra have a wealth of classical recordings freely available for download - Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Mahler, Borodin, Schumann, Stravinksy...
posted by algreer at 1:34 AM PST - 11 comments