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Is there a Mogan Dovid in the Great in the Great Seal of the United States? It may simply be a pleasing arrangement, but some insist that it's George Washington's tribute to Haym Solomon(Salomon), the man who fueled the first American war machine.
posted by Citizen Premier at 11:03 PM PST - 18 comments

200 amazing secrets! Well, maybe not so secret to some but there are some darn helpful tips here! seen at presurfer
posted by Lynsey at 10:58 PM PST - 45 comments

What happened to the black power movement? Has it turned it's attention to such pressing matters as teaching the black man how to claim, tame and train the blackwoman, rescue her from lesbian feminist witchcraft and mocking her for dying her hair piss yellow?

Let the gender war begin! (via Memepool.)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:36 PM PST - 22 comments

Program For Escaped Extra People :: internet art and storytelling, using popcicle sticks...
posted by anastasiav at 9:17 PM PST - 7 comments

The Rainmaker
After three long years of drought, a desperate San Diego City council, sought out a man who had been creating rain from Central America to the Yukon, a rainmaker who could bring clouds, fill dams and douse fires. For $10,000, Charles Hatfield agreed to make rain. Soon after, on January 5, 1916, it started raining and raining...and raining. So much water fell from the sky that two dams overflowed. One dam broke, unleashing floods and devastation. Instead of gratitude, the city council threatened to sue Hatfield who in the end was saved by a court ruling that deemed rain to be "an act of God."
Hatfield claimed to have invented a chemical formula to summon clouds and was credited with over 500 successes. He took his rain-making secrets to the grave. Hollywood, of course, produced a movie.
posted by vacapinta at 8:56 PM PST - 13 comments

Some preserved animals. The Museum Adolphi Friderici has a catalogue in progress of the King Adolf Fredrik and Queen Lovisa collections. The collections apparently formed the basis for Carl Linnaeus's knowledge of animals.
posted by tellurian at 8:48 PM PST - 2 comments

Re: Take Back Mefi. Together for the very first time: 500 BC - First joke. 868 AD - First printed (dated) book. 1024 - First paper bank note. 1781 - First comic book. 1817 - First bike. 1840 - First stamp. 1876 - First novel ever written on a typewriter. 1880 - First Hello. 1895 - First X-ray. 1893 - First license plate. 1929 - First Oscar winners. 1936 - First true TV Dinner. 1946 - First Bikini. (More)
posted by growabrain at 8:44 PM PST - 20 comments

As you're reading this, Grand Master Susan Polgar is on her way to breaking the Guinness World Record for playing simultaneous games of chess. She began at 10 a.m. today playing over 300 opponents. Going from board to board, by 5 p.m. she had already walked 5 miles. Polgar, with a fascinating backstory, broke the glass ceiling of male-dominated international chess in 1990 and cleared the way for her sister Judit, an even stronger player. As of early tonight, Susan had yet to lose a single game (she must win at lest 80% of them), but acknowledged that some players might get lucky: "At least I will make their day."
posted by soyjoy at 8:16 PM PST - 20 comments

Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library's online collection of digital images - over 90,000 of them. A vast labyrinth of high resolution digital images and photo negatives from thousands of rare books and manuscripts. Search by keyword to access scans sorted by category. Find one you like and click on the call number to bring up all images from that title. Searching for "illustrations" brings up 31 pages of scans from hundreds of titles. Examine 16th century mechanical illustrations by Georg Agricola, two full pages of photo negatives from William Blake's Jerusalem, a collection of artwork demonstrating knightly protocol ("medieval" is another keyword search yielding a bonanza of good stuff), and so much more. The interface leaves something to be desired but the sheer amount of works available for viewing makes it all worth it.
posted by LeeJay at 8:08 PM PST - 12 comments

Artists on science; scientists on art
posted by Gyan at 7:13 PM PST - 6 comments

Bush Flips Out. Or does he? Debate is raging throughout the various interweb cliques over whether or not Bush gave reporters the finger. Even Jay Leno did a monolouge on it. But did Bush really flip reporters the bird? Possibly. After all, it's not the first time he's done it. Or was whatever it was he was doing with his hand simply some sort of innocuous gesture? Metafilter decides, inside.
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:08 PM PST - 55 comments

Hu is the new leader of China. George: That's what I want to know. Condi: That's what I'm telling you. George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
posted by caddis at 6:47 PM PST - 18 comments

Infinite Flickr--The Movie I find Flickr frighteningly fascinating; for fun, for friends, for fireworks, forever! Okay, enough alliteration, time for some caveats. Most movies made .mp4's _{dammit, what's wrong with me?} for which you might need Quicktime 7 (preview version for Windows users found here). The primary link site is Geocities. via Videocrab I couldn't resist.
posted by WolfDaddy at 6:27 PM PST - 10 comments

The Grande Vista Sanitarium (also known as the Belgum Sanitarium after its founder) has been in ruins for decades, Dr. Belgum having himself become a recluse after working so long in that isolated location. The East Bay Regional Park District, the site's owner since the 1970's, fails to mention the sanitarium in its online park history. InfoWorld columnist and mountain biker Chad Dickerson was the first to document these ruins on the web, and his #1 Google ranking turned him into a de facto authority. He uses the experience to kick off a meditation on how "citizen-journalists" might also become citizen-historians.
posted by expialidocious at 6:12 PM PST - 9 comments

Portable parking spaces are the mind-bending Atomic-age outcome of centuries of humankind's best technology: they enable a bike to occupy the same perimeter as a car. They're arts and crafts, they're couture, they're vehicles of dissent [Flash, contains photos, project info, instructions on building your own PPS]. See the movie [11MB QuickTime]. A different take on the concept.
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:05 PM PST - 52 comments

Gematria! Mentioned in this post in the context of a "good or evil" algorithm, gematria (גימטריה) is actually Jewish numerology, assigning values to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and establishing mystical correspondences. It's basic to kabbalistic works like the Zohar, and you can get detailed analysis here. But we both know what you really want to do is plug words into a text box and get the result instantly, right? Here you go. And to start you off, METAFILTER = 299 [מטאילטר] according to the traditional system; according to The Gematria of Nothing, it's 31. Take your pick.
posted by languagehat at 5:57 PM PST - 13 comments

Leave it To Bush, Episode 3 - also, Episode 1 and Episode 2 [via]
posted by aiko at 5:40 PM PST - 22 comments

Still searching for the best of the web?
Looking for that killer site to win a mini-contest?
"Mangle is the only random link finder that I know of that uses the Google Web API."
There's even a Firefox browser extension.
posted by jaronson at 5:32 PM PST - 7 comments

Virtual Reality tour of Hull - Because It's never Dull In Hull !
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:30 PM PST - 33 comments

Useful Reference for the Gardener or those who just want to learn more about the plants around them: for example, calendula, which yellow flower is seeding all over my yard. Once you've learned how to grow it, you can visit Mrs. Grieve's Modern Herbal, which will tell you what to do with your harvest. Don't forget to check the handy Index of Poisons before you move on to the recipes.
posted by mygothlaundry at 3:14 PM PST - 5 comments

"Just about anything goes in contemporary cinema and no one bothers too much with what actually took place in the past." The World Socialist Web Site's movie review archive provides a different take on film, both Hollywood and international.
posted by goatdog at 3:10 PM PST - 27 comments

Cambridge in Colour... long exposures during twilight or moonlit conditions can produce other-worldly images. Be sure to check out the digital photo tutorials, too.
posted by crunchland at 3:07 PM PST - 35 comments

Gary Skoien terminated for putting a bounty on Da Mayor's head Skoien was fired from his high powered day job at Prime Group by his boss - a Daley democrat apparently - for putting a $10K bounty on Mayor Daley for information leading to his arrest. Doug Ibendahl, founder and coordinator of the Republican Young Professionals, said the bounty is unprofessional and Skoien should be removed as heaqd of the GOP in Cook County. Yeah, but fired? Prime Group CEO Michael Reschke said Friday that Skoien fatally blunted his effectiveness in the company and that the Daley administration did not influence his firing. "Gary positioned himself where he can no longer be an effective executive officer of our company," said Reschke, who has made political contributions mostly to Democrats, including at least $2,000 to Daley, but also to a few Republicans, including at least $250 to Skoien. Truly, Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:03 PM PST - 38 comments

The New Alchemy Institute spent about 30 years studying how living systems can be designed in order to help preserve the environment. They studied agriculture, aquaculture, and built bioshelters, called arks, that integrated greenhouses and living spaces. A hallmark of the NAI approach was to use and trap energy produced by nature, rather than building greenhouses that required electricity, hence, compost heated greenhouses. Here's an article from 1978 about the NAI at the Alicia Patterson Foundation, and one from a 1989 Whole Earth Review. In 1981 John Todd, one of the principles in NAI, founded Ocean Arks International in order to explore the issue of ecological water treatment. His concept of water treatment, a constructed wetland, or living machine, developed directly from work on the arks at NAI. Here is more on John Todd and NAI, and here is an interview with his wife, Nancy Jack Todd, and him. Here's a link to a recent CS Monitor review of the new Nancy Jack Todd book. Post inspired by my love of NAI and my current reading of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.
posted by OmieWise at 1:56 PM PST - 7 comments

"I am still / The black swan of trespass on alien waters." Ernest Lalor Malley (1918-1943). With the posthumous publication of such poems as "Dürer: Innsbruck, 1495" and "Petit Testament" in the journal Angry Penguins, Ern Malley was championed as the new voice of modern Australian poetry. The resulting scandal and obscenity trial would change poetry and literary theory forever. Plus, the ABC's documentary, The Ern Malley Story (listen).
posted by steef at 1:11 PM PST - 6 comments

Below Code. Comatonse Records has been around for a little over 10 years, and to celebrate, the owner, Terre Thaemlitz, put out a free best-of CD. The physical copies are all long-gone, but it's available for download (along with a bonus track that didn't fit on the original disc). Most of the stuff is relatively noisy (and some found sound stuff), but there's some cool electronic type pieces, rock and pop songs and solo piano pieces as well. Also of note is his own personal site, which has links to a lot of cool essays, typically about gender issues and music. (There's also links to images of graphical scores to some of his music.) [Poking around these sites are pretty much NSFW -- the only explicitly NSFW links are on "his own personal site" and "music", but there's quite a few naked people and suchlike around, including on one of the postcards that make up the main link, so, yeah -- take care!]
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 1:08 PM PST - 4 comments

Netlag [15mb Quicktime]
posted by event at 1:04 PM PST - 10 comments

King Fahd, Saudi Arabia's ruler since 1982, has died at the age of 84.
posted by Livewire Confusion at 12:25 PM PST - 26 comments

"Bay Area photographer Larry Sultan's The Valley series focuses on the San Fernando Valley, where he grew up, and addresses the use of ordinary homes as sets for pornographic films." [most links, particularly the last four, are NSFW]
posted by the_bone at 12:23 PM PST - 6 comments

Australian scientist Cameron Jones puts nanocrystals on the bottom of his CDs. And prints fractals on them. And grows bacteria, yeasts, and fungi on them. What's perhaps the most surprising about this is that when these CDs are actually played, they sound pretty cool. More details can be found here and here. [Last four links are MP3, MP3, PDF, and PDF, respectively.]
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:45 AM PST - 4 comments

Build your own brick oven.
posted by 김치 at 11:45 AM PST - 16 comments

OpenTable, a free online restaurant reservation system in use at over 3,300 restaurants throughout the US and UK. [via / mentioned]
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 11:39 AM PST - 11 comments

Office guns. At last, a good use for a laser pointer.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:08 AM PST - 12 comments

2005 Bulwer-Lytton winners announced! As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed...

Thus begins the winner of the 2005 Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest. The winning entry was written by Dan McKay, a Microsoft analyst from Fargo, ND.

One of my personal favorites received The Grand Panjandrum's Special Award: India, which hangs like a wet washcloth from the towel rack of Asia, presented itself to Tex as he landed in Delhi (or was it Bombay?), as if it mattered because Tex finally had an idea to make his mark and fortune and that idea was a chain of steak houses to serve the millions and he wondered, as he deplaned down the steep, shiny, steel steps, why no one had thought of it before.
Previous year's winners MF linked here, here, here, here, and, of course, here. Is this a record? A sextuple post?
posted by jasper411 at 10:54 AM PST - 17 comments

Rafael Palmeiro suspended for steroid use by Major League Baseball The first big name MLB player to be suspended for violating the leagues steriod policy testified to Congress about use of the drug in baseball after being named a user in Jose Canseco's book. "Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Rafael Palmeiro and I am a professional baseball player. I'll be brief in my remarks today. Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids. Period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never. The reference to me in Mr. Canseco's book is absolutely false. I am against the use of steroids. I don't think athletes should use steroids and I don't think our kids should use them. That point of view is one, unfortunately, that is not shared by our former colleague, Jose Canseco. Mr. Canseco is an unashamed advocate for increased steroid use by all athletes."
posted by batou_ at 10:53 AM PST - 61 comments

Dead Games Tell No Tales Not every video game makes it to the store. Sometimes it's because a company is wary of unleashing a new character property on the world, but other times it's because the publisher overworked the game's development staff to the point of exhaustion. Occasionally a game heavily infringes on a more popular game, leading to a lawsuit. Worst of all is when company politics kills a promising project. Failing hardware never helped anybody either. On the other hand, sometimes there is no reason at all why finished video games are sent to the wastebasket instead of the retail shelf.
posted by Servo5678 at 10:28 AM PST - 15 comments

The London Necropolis Railway During the first half of the 19th century, London's population more than doubled and the number of London corpses requiring disposal was growing almost as fast. Cemetery space in the city had failed to keep pace with this growth, and so the vast new Brookwood Cemetery - the London Necropolis - was built in Surrey. Brookwood was the largest burial ground in the world when it was opened in 1854 by the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company. To get there, the deceased and their mourners - segregated by class - could catch a train from Westminster. The Necropolis Railway survived until World War 2, when it was heavily damaged. The railway was subsequently closed as motorised hearses became more popular. See also: Also: a six part Fortean Times article extracted from Google's cache [1 2 3 4 5 6]
posted by carter at 9:20 AM PST - 14 comments

Urban Dead is a browser-based, grid-mapped multi-player game where you play the survivor or victim of a zombie outbreak in a quarantined city centre. Tired of playing a pseudo-hero in a fantasy Kingdom of Loathing? Play a scientist, soldier, or ordinary civilian in a modern city, and try to avoid being infected. Or skip the "avoid" phase, and just play a zombie.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:15 AM PST - 33 comments

It is the dead of winter at the bottom of the Earth.
Therefore, it's a great day for some lucky intrepid foolhardy souls to join The 300 Club! Those wishing to join in the future are advised to hurry, though.
posted by yhbc at 8:45 AM PST - 7 comments

Zombie flash mob in San Fransisco. Related blog entry and appropriate domain. [more inside]
posted by fatllama at 8:42 AM PST - 93 comments

Find the Landmark: A Google Maps Game
posted by Vidiot at 8:28 AM PST - 9 comments

Bush to Senate: Go to Hell. As expected, President Bush bypassed the confirmation process and made a recess appointment to elevate John Bolton to the post of US ambassador to the United Nations, brushing off what he calls "partisan delaying tactics by a handful of senators." Bolton was previously discussed on MeFi here.
posted by digaman at 8:19 AM PST - 216 comments

On mission along the border of Chad and Darfur, Human Rights Watch researchers gave children notebooks and crayons to keep them occupied while they spoke with the children's parents. Without any instruction or guidance, the children drew scenes from their experiences of the war in Darfur. Here are those drawings.
posted by ewagoner at 8:18 AM PST - 16 comments

Aurora (Northern/Southern Lights) are one of the most beautiful phenomena of nature. They are normally reserved for those who live nearer the polar latitudes. But occasionally, a massive solar X-Flare (animated) occurs when the "gun barrel" is pointed directly at earth. When that occurs, incredible aurora can be visible as far south as the the Arizona (N. Hemisphere) or as far north as New Zealand and Southern Australia (S. Hemisphere). (Another excellent gallery from May 1, 2005.) We have a good chance for such an event in coming days: Sunspot group 792 has a complicated magnetic field that harbors energy for powerful X-class solar flares. The chance of an Earth-directed explosion is increasing as the sun's rotation turns the active region more and more to face our planet. Stay tuned to spaceweather.com and monitor auroral activity or the latest solar events. See also: How to Find a Photograph Aurora.
posted by spock at 7:49 AM PST - 14 comments

So bad it's good, the Governator's 1985 film Commando was not going to win any Oscars® that's for sure. But at least it spawned a page of tortuous songs written by fans. Coral cached in case it dies, obligatory YTMD link.
posted by bdave at 7:12 AM PST - 19 comments

The Future Is Just Like You Imagined. Somewhere in California, director Richard Kelly is filming his next movie.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:46 AM PST - 35 comments

The pancake sizzles
And aromas permeate.
Have some tea, my friend.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 6:34 AM PST - 10 comments

Do it fast or do it slow, but the lips must touch the toe.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 5:33 AM PST - 12 comments

Ever wonder what your browser is really like? Does it lurk in the shadows of the local pub or pool hall? Does it give too many 404s then it gives really cool websites? Look no further, introducing BrowserSpy, all the scoop you need to know but were afraid to ask.
posted by wheelieman at 5:25 AM PST - 2 comments

Watching Grass Grow is an appropriate activity now that the Dog Days of summer are upon us. For those who are watching their grass lawns wilt and turn brown in the hot weather, there's hope that it will recover as pictorially documented on this site.
posted by RonZ at 5:24 AM PST - 4 comments

Don Justo's self built Cathedral This is no "model" cathedral and he is neither a qualified architect, nor engineer, nor bricklayer -- he is a farmer, ex monk and his vision. "metaphoric learnings for contemporary alternative initiatives"
posted by adamvasco at 5:07 AM PST - 10 comments

Mingering Mike is the soul superstar you've never heard of.
posted by dodgygeezer at 4:29 AM PST - 10 comments

The Maunsell Sea Forts: During the Second World War, three anti-aircraft forts were built in 1941-42 to protect the Thames Estuary, designed by Mr. G. A. Maunsell.
posted by dhruva at 3:21 AM PST - 11 comments

"Ping-Pong Remix is the project in which Gastón Caba offers his Ping Pong characters in order to be recreated by some of his favourites illustrators." {via Art Dorks}
posted by dobbs at 12:49 AM PST - 3 comments

Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft is the 3 volume culmination of author Peter Levenda's 25 years of research into the strange and bizarre undercurrents of American political, cultural and religious history. In his previous effort, Levinda focused on the occult roots of Nazism in an utterly fascinating and unerving book called Unholy Alliance which is discussed in this interview. A radio interview with Levinda is available here.
posted by thedailygrowl at 12:46 AM PST - 15 comments

Next to last words from Columbia reentry, at 9 seconds into this -- wma (windows media audio) file at the first link -- very brief. listen to the audio link, first -- just twelve or so seconds long -- and give your brain the chance to hear what it hears. then, see what nasa made of it in the transcript. this and much more can be found at chris valentine's website. the particular page which he discusses this audio file is here but don't miss the movies at his home page. I can agree with Chris Valentine (whose movies are at the same site and much worth watching) that NASA may honestly not hear what he heard -- and I hear -- in this bit of audio. But, as I listen to and watch NASA TV live right now, I notice that every time we start to hear anything at all revealing of plain old humor, or comments about having to reboot Windows again or power cycle when shutdown won't work, or much else, Houston intervenes with "hot mike" and the sound goes away for a while. They micromanage what we get to hear. Valentine's movies have far better video than we see live from NASA too.
posted by hank at 12:11 AM PST - 44 comments

Cornershop's "Brimful of Asha" and Panjabi MC's collaboration with Jay-Z don't mark Desi's lone inroads into mainstream European and North American culture. The creative hybridizaton might not be widespread, but the impact is felt well beyond pop music, from examples that often range from the comedic to the dramatic to the controversial, giving a glimpse into the ongoing conversation between widely disparate cultures and traditions, going beyond convenient media stereotypes.
posted by Rothko at 12:08 AM PST - 5 comments