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UFO-filter: Odd spine-y and asymmetrical craft spotted over Lake Tahoe, then two days later over Capitola, California.
posted by tomharpel at 11:09 PM PST - 98 comments

Uncle Chuck had his eye removed (graphic)
posted by puke & cry at 10:32 PM PST - 41 comments

10 Animals That May Go Extinct in the Next 10 Years.
posted by homunculus at 10:21 PM PST - 42 comments

Former members of Luna, Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, make lovely videos together. Dean also fronted Galaxie 500 and Britta was the singing voice of 80's cartoon character, Jem.
posted by vronsky at 7:17 PM PST - 38 comments

Are You Living In A Computer Simulation? The Simulation Argument is a regularly-updated site, organized by Nick Bostrom, examining the hypothesis that we are currently living in an "ancestor simulation" run by a future "post-human" society.
posted by amyms at 3:53 PM PST - 165 comments

The RIAA wants the radio performance royalties exemption repealed. For decades, radio stations have gotten a free pass for spins of records due to the fact such play sells records. While decreasing in importance, and taking note of the myriad payola scandals in the past, terrestrial radio is still the single largest factor in promotions for the record industry and one of the few remaining things in the industry that still seems to work.
posted by Captaintripps at 3:16 PM PST - 58 comments

The Supreme Court issued its opinion Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly [pdf] today. Although superficially an antitrust case, the Court examined the standard of review under 12(b)(6) and concluded that the old "no set of facts" standard should be officially retired.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 3:15 PM PST - 35 comments

Helix — a 1D skyscraper with a single corridor. The principle is a cylindrical building with a helical shape for the floor. The slope of the floor is 1.5% (it rises by 1.5 cm every meter), thus hardly noticeable. The height of each ’storey’ is 3 meters, so that when you walk 200 meters along the corridor, you have walked a full circle, but you end up one ’storey’ above or below your starting point.
posted by psmealey at 2:30 PM PST - 50 comments

Chinese crime stories, staged, and photographed. (NSFW)
posted by Dave Faris at 2:15 PM PST - 16 comments

Lolcat Buildr.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:57 PM PST - 83 comments

The US pays Pakistan $1 billion a year to fight al Qaeda, but Pakistan doesn't do much fighting. Iraq is a "a big moneymaker" for al Qaeda, and al Qaeda's leadership may be stronger than ever.
[more War on Terror inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 12:02 PM PST - 76 comments

The current edition of Words Without Borders features a striking array of current and historical writing by prisoners held in such countries as Albania, Syria, Finland, Spain, and Argentina. previously on mefi
posted by Rumple at 10:32 AM PST - 5 comments

Finalists in the 4th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest.
posted by nickyskye at 9:53 AM PST - 27 comments

A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn't Its Copyright? (NYT) In this op-ed, novelist Mark Helprin argues that copyrights should be extended indefinitely. On his blog, Lawrence Lessig suggests using a wiki page to craft a collective rebuttal. More discussion here and here.
posted by Prospero at 9:29 AM PST - 106 comments

"Not everybody's a critic." Richard Schickel bitchslaps the blogosphere (in response to this) and not for the first time. The blogosphere slaps back. (via)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:57 AM PST - 49 comments

Death by Veganism. "I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.

Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run."
posted by four panels at 8:34 AM PST - 314 comments

Joe Is Japanese So far all there is are some Myspace profiles and a nifty teaser but I'll be darned if this doesn't look five shades of awesome. Desperate for more information? DeviantArt account of one of the animators.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:04 AM PST - 15 comments

Van Halen's Eruption on Violin | Elton John's Rocket Man on Banjo | Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody for solo classical guitar | Foggy Mountain Breakdown arranged for electric slap bass | Toto's Africa for Acoustic Guitar | The Postal Service's Such Great Heights for Voice
posted by jonson at 7:10 AM PST - 51 comments

Sharpest manmade object This site _via has a huge collection of wonderful images, some CG, some actual. Black hole merger. Solid state microrefrigerator. Helium nanodroplets used to chill Nitrogen Oxide. Playing a nanoguitar.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:02 AM PST - 29 comments

The U.S. Civil War in four minutes. Simple yet enlightening animation showing the shifting battle lines of the war. (This is a one-link YouTube post. Thank you.)
posted by zardoz at 2:39 AM PST - 83 comments

It's possibly the most popular (est. 300M participants) individual sport in the world. The 2007 World Championships starts today in Zagreb. (Sports nerds- there's also a scientific conference affiliated with the tournament.) Ma Lin and Wang Liqin and Wang Hao of China are ranked #1 #2 and #4, but #3 Timo Boll of Germany beat all three in a row to win the 2005 World Cup. How do you get to be as good as Timo? Start young, work on fundamentals, and persevere.
posted by MtDewd at 1:25 AM PST - 17 comments

How I Failed the Turing Test.
posted by Citizen Premier at 12:10 AM PST - 53 comments