April 10, 2010

Octo-nom

Octopus versus Sea Lion
posted by Artw at 9:52 PM PST - 47 comments

And I was left only to pick up an abandoned handkerchief and savor the perfumed shadows of these women... these southern women.

Dixie Carter, probably best known for her role as the fearlessly opinionated Southern belle Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women, has died. She was 70 years old.
posted by booksherpa at 9:05 PM PST - 55 comments

Son of Arathorn and Gilraen

Born Of Hope is a 71 minute fan-made prequel film available for online viewing. In the spirit of The Hunt For Gollum (previously), it fleshes out the Lord Of The Rings universe written about by J.R.R. Tolkien and depicted in the Peter Jackson films. The story here is that of the meeting of Aragorn's parents and his birth and early childhood, many decades before the events involving Frodo and the Fellowship.
posted by hippybear at 8:02 PM PST - 36 comments

Beyond Multitasking

Do you have SRED? Sleep related eating disorder. There is help.
posted by Xurando at 7:16 PM PST - 30 comments

Metafilter Comments Already Included

Beaker's Ballad SLYT Muppet Post... one minute and 17 seconds of your time. It's been a rough day... this might help...
posted by HuronBob at 6:56 PM PST - 27 comments

Bambino, rocking the guitar, Tuareg style

The other day someone asked me "who's the most deeply grooving and truly exciting electric guitar player you've heard lately?" and I said "this guy".
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:45 PM PST - 83 comments

Touchless Automatic Wonder

Touchless Automatic Wonder is a web-based series of photographs by Lewis Koch, emphasizing found text.
posted by klangklangston at 5:34 PM PST - 6 comments

Quix, the super bookmarklet

Quix is the everything-bookmarklet. Opening it creates a text box to put in commands, which range from url shorteners to whois checks. A lot of useful commands are available by default, and you can make your own using quix syntax.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:28 PM PST - 23 comments

The Cuilest Encyclopedia

Previously discussed search engine Cuil has a reputation for absurd search results. Now the Cuil team is building on their success with cpedia, the new automated encyclopedia. [more inside]
posted by JDHarper at 3:48 PM PST - 61 comments

Welcome Sophophora melanogaster

You may not recognize the difference between Sophophora melanogaster and the common fruit fly. That's because there isn't. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature is proposing a name change from Drosophila melanogaster on scientific grounds, but it's ruffling the antennae of some scientists.
posted by jjray at 3:47 PM PST - 31 comments

You know who else liked lightening bolts?

Hey children of the 90s! Remember back when all you had to worry about was corruption by Pokemon and Harry Potter? [DLYT?]
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:24 PM PST - 34 comments

Don't let the cabinet door hit your ass on the way out.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ejected cabinet minister Helena Guergis from the Tory caucus following allegations of impropriety. The RCMP is investigating claims that her husband, former MP Rahim Jaffer, was conducting his private business through her office. In her resignation letter, she calls the rumours "baseless allegations and unfounded assertions." [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:50 PM PST - 52 comments

tertium non data

Gülnur Özdağlar makes some amazing bowls and other artwork out of a surprising material... [more inside]
posted by klausness at 1:27 PM PST - 12 comments

Number of cats I own: 2

Infographics2010's Animated GIF
posted by defenestration at 1:09 PM PST - 48 comments

In February, it is good to know a plow guy

Granite State of Mind - an ode to New Hampshire by SuperSecretProject, copping the blueprint from Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind
posted by not_on_display at 1:09 PM PST - 16 comments

AHHH THAT LOOKS PAINFUL

HEALTH - "We Are Water". Directed by Eric Wareheim. NSFW. [more inside]
posted by threetoed at 12:42 PM PST - 51 comments

Witness the early evolution of a god, Shai-Hulud is real

Earthworms are social animals after all, and now they're communicating. Time to run for the hills!
posted by Juicy Avenger at 12:11 PM PST - 28 comments

"[The customers] come in here, by my grabbing them and touching them and screaming at them they become human beings."

Jerry's Deli (starts at 1:02) by Tom Palazzolo, 1976. A short documentary on deli owner Jerry Meyers, who's been screaming abuse at his loyal customers for 30 years. (Clipstream/Java video. Click on lower right corner of the video to enlarge. Or here's a Youtube with out-of-synch audio.) [more inside]
posted by hydrophonic at 11:58 AM PST - 7 comments

The cause of, and solution to, all life's problems

Copyright turns 300: An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, also known as the Statute of Anne, became law on April 10, 1710.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:18 AM PST - 19 comments

"Yes, it was a dump. But people are desperate to have a home anywhere."

Floods and mudslides in Rio de Janeiro have killed over 250 people, mostly in favelas, poverty-stricken shanty-towns built on hillsides above major cities. [more inside]
posted by xowie at 10:58 AM PST - 14 comments

colours of passion

Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), considered “the greatest painter of India,” “the father of modern Indian art,” and a “prince among painters and a painter among princes.” Varma became renowned both for his portraiture and his paintings of Indian mythology. The painter's life and times played a major role in the shaping of the women he painted and controversy over the way he painted them. Varma's images have not just survived, but due to his vision of making them accessible to the common man, they have thrived over a century and influence movies, television, the world's most expensive sari, theatre and everyday calender art.
posted by infini at 10:02 AM PST - 7 comments

David Eagleman's afterlife - a possibilist position

So we're stuck in a position where we know too little to commit to atheism and we know too much to commit to religion. That put me somewhere in the middle. I don't prefer the term agnostic because agnosticism is often used as a weak term that means I'm not sure if the guy with the beard on the cloud exists or doesn't exist. So I call myself a possibilian. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 9:16 AM PST - 229 comments

Beginner Cat Yodeling is a prerequisite for this course.

Happy Caturday! How about some Advanced Cat Yodeling? [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:12 AM PST - 18 comments

Pick your poison..

A 34 year old man took some pills from his roommate, thinking they were Valium®. Turns out they were diabetes medication; the patient is now comatose and having seizures because his blood sugar is so low. A grandparent called because she gave her grandson his heart medication approximately 90 minutes too soon. He is supposed to get it every 12 hours.A caller ate a sandwich with lunchmeat and only after eating it, realized the meat expired 7 months ago.A mom called because she accidentally gave her 2 year old 5ml of liquid methadone, having mistaken it for ibuprofen suspension.
All this in a day in the life of the Illinois Poison Center [more inside]
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 2:47 AM PST - 169 comments

Poland reels

The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, his wife and 130 others, including a huge proportion of the elite of Polish politics, have died in a plane crash. [more inside]
posted by Busy Old Fool at 2:37 AM PST - 164 comments

The Left must find its voice again

Poverty is an abstraction, even for the poor. But the symptoms of collective impoverishment are all about us. Broken highways, bankrupt cities, collapsing bridges, failed schools, the unemployed, the underpaid, and the uninsured: all suggest a collective failure of will. These shortcomings are so endemic that we no longer know how to talk about what is wrong, much less set about repairing it. And yet something is seriously amiss.
Historian Tony Judt, dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, makes a passionate call for a new New Left. [Previously]
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:59 AM PST - 65 comments

Pebbles from outer space

Most North Americans slept through the morning of January 13, 2010 as near-Earth object (NEO) 2010 AL30 silently moved across the night sky. Most of the time small asteroids zip past Earth harmlessly. We may not meet the goal of detecting and tracking potentially hazardous near-Earth objects . (Previously)
posted by twoleftfeet at 12:51 AM PST - 27 comments

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