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Regia Anglorum, an English re-enactment society, maintains a wealth of information about life in medieval England using the virtual village of Wichamstow and its surroundings. They have in-depth articles on many of the crafts and trades that the villagers would have undertaken, and about the places they would live and work. (A full listing is here.) They are perhaps unique, however, in building a medieval village and estate with which to demonstrate medieval craftsmanship.
posted by Upton O'Good at 11:36 PM PST - 6 comments

The uncanny valley just got deeper. "Treat yourself to the perfect woman."
posted by loquacious at 9:40 PM PST - 100 comments

'Alice,' by Nick Bertke. [more inside]
posted by flatluigi at 9:16 PM PST - 14 comments

Ever wonder what music videos were popular the week Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband's penis and the Unabomber injured computer scientist David Gelernter at Yale University? Or what about the week The Simpsons first went on air? Grabb.it TV has the answer. It aggregates the top 20 music videos for each week of the 80s and 90s and mashes them up with wikipedia to make the ultimate virtual retro music video station.
posted by AtDuskGreg at 8:53 PM PST - 18 comments

Soulful, funky and blues-inflected jazz organist Jimmy McGriff passed away over the weekend. McGriff (wiki) belonged (along with Jimmy Smith, Charles Earland, Lonnie Smith, Melvin Rhyne, John Patton, and others) to that select group of Hammond B-3 players who defined that instrument for jazz and related music--he played in small soul jazz combos that owed their greasy, riff-based sound as much to R&B as to bebop. Here's a small taste of McGriff's music.
posted by ornate insect at 8:50 PM PST - 13 comments

"Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone ... This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior." Leon Kass, former chair of the President Bush's Council on Bioethics tells us what he really thinks of modern America. [more inside]
posted by arnicae at 7:38 PM PST - 101 comments

Claire and Merna Bagelman, better known as The Barry Sisters. Every Sunday from 1938 to 1955 on WHN in New York, they mashed Swing with Yiddish Folk as the main attraction on the radio program Yiddish Melodies in Swing.[via] "We take a tune that's sweet and low, and we rock it solid and make it gold." They are indeed a Hebrew National Kosher Classic. More Yiddish music webceptacles. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 6:52 PM PST - 8 comments

True Romance: 15 years later. Maxim article (hence slightly NSFW ads) with interviews with Christian Slater, Tony Scott, Quinten Tarantino, etc. If you're a fan of behind-the-scenes gossip, or the film -- or both -- it's an interesting read.
posted by zardoz at 6:27 PM PST - 46 comments

An interesting food web site - enter your ingredients, it tells you what you can make. Even suggests items you'll need for other dishes. Previously questioned in AskMe.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 4:59 PM PST - 25 comments

Before developing exotic space propulsion systems like the ion engines on deep space probes, he developed guidance systems for Nazi Germany's ballistic missile, the V2. As Dr. Werner von Braun's Chief Scientist, he was one of the brilliant minds that founded the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and sent astronauts to the moon atop MSFC's Saturn V rocket. Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, one of the last surviving rocket scientists extracted from Nazi Germany in Operation Paperclip, died today at 94.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 4:54 PM PST - 28 comments

Each year, people around the world spend billions of hours playing computer games. What if all this time and energy could be channeled into useful work? What if people playing computer games could, without consciously doing so, simultaneously solve large-scale problems?
GWAP is Luis van Ahn's answer [PDF, HTML cache] to these questions, a collection of easy and engaging games that make computers smarter.
posted by carsonb at 4:45 PM PST - 27 comments

Meet Joules the climate change-sceptic robot. Joules is employed to teach 8-14 year-old school children in the UK about energy use. Joules says: "oil and gas could be in short supply in about 50 years time. The earth is believed to be getting warmer and sea levels apper to be rising. Energy Chest is funded in part by the world's biggest oil company: ExxonMobil. [more inside]
posted by MrMerlot at 4:03 PM PST - 48 comments

One man's quest to photograph himself sporting every style of facial hair (give or take).
posted by Armitage Shanks at 3:22 PM PST - 47 comments

The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is infiltrating vegan potluck dinners (via the Harper's Weekly Review)
posted by punkbitch at 2:29 PM PST - 66 comments

The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism.
posted by homunculus at 12:15 PM PST - 55 comments

The day has a thousand eyes, as well.... (via)
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 11:54 AM PST - 10 comments

Looking for a song online? Use Muxfind to search Muxtape (previously) for tracks.
posted by Korou at 11:40 AM PST - 30 comments

24: Season Two: The Musical. (Language is perhaps NSFW.)
posted by Prospero at 11:36 AM PST - 14 comments

Auroville Funded by Governments all over the world, the city of Auroville is an ongoing experiment 'whose stated purpose is to realize human unity in diversity' through yoga. Unfortunately, it seems the 'rule free' society has attracted some of the least welcome of humanity's outliers, namely child sex tourists. [more inside]
posted by asok at 11:17 AM PST - 16 comments

City of the Future, Taiwan 1960s
posted by socalsamba at 10:56 AM PST - 13 comments

Kill people AND save the environment!
posted by gman at 9:55 AM PST - 55 comments

Waggish Reads Proust Reading In Search of Lost Time, or Remembrance of Things Past, is quite the daunting task. Whether you've read Proust, or are considering reading Proust for the first time, a helpful summary & guide, that examines significant passages for your own discussion.
posted by Fizz at 9:30 AM PST - 46 comments

The Man of Bronze. We've already thrilled to his magnificent covers, but pulp hero Doc Savage really existed in text. Therefore, The Groovy Age of Horror has done us the favor of working their way through the books of Doc Savage, providing in-depth reviews. Invaluable if you have ever considered purchasing The Sargasso Ogre or I Died Yesterday, but didn't know if it was worth it.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:27 AM PST - 19 comments

Did you know that the original Indiana Jones was an openly homosexual, Jewish, Nazi archeologist [more] and Obersturmführer in the party, hunting the Holy Grail? The documentary The Secret Glory chronicles his story (interview with the director: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). [more inside]
posted by msaleem at 9:08 AM PST - 23 comments

Erkin Koray's long career as a major rock star in his native Turkey has seen him cover all sorts of musical territory. His songs are often a curious (some might say bizarre) hodgepodge of musical influences, and one thing's for sure: you couldn't call the man unadventurous! Here's a sampling of some of his psych-Turk-rock from decades past: Krallar - Gel Bak Ne Söylicem - Cemalim - Allahaşkına - Aşka Inanmıyorum - Yanlizlar rihtimi - Gönül Salıncağı - Anma Arkadaş - Aşk Oyunu - Gün Doğmuyor - [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:54 AM PST - 16 comments

Planet Mechanics Dick Strawbridge and Jem Stansfield have been travelling Europe (for National Geographic UK) on a mission to lower energy consumption (and make interesting television). Air Propelled Sandwich | Cow Power | Lake District Dilemma | Solar Paella | Electric Water Taxi | Surf Power | Heavy Metal House | Tree Powered Truck
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:11 AM PST - 32 comments

Unusual penetrating brain injuries, via neurophilosophy. [more inside]
posted by farishta at 3:57 AM PST - 42 comments