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Like em or Hate em, Something Awful asks and answers the question: Do guitar solos make non-guitar solo songs better? A-HA, Beach Boys, Britney, Backstreet Boys. Rest of the thread.
posted by Lord_Pall at 11:43 PM PST - 75 comments

Newsfilter: Someone is clearly nostalgic for the good old days of the Iron Curtain.
posted by Krrrlson at 11:13 PM PST - 22 comments

How do you fit Fred "Rerun" Berry, Shaun Cassidy, Howard Cosell, Kate Jackson, Hal Linden, Penny Marhsall, Kristy McNichol, Donny & Marie, Parker Stevenson, Dick Van Patten, Adam Rich, Abe Vigoda, and Cindy Williams all into a single 48 minute TV show? It would take a magician like David Copperfield, in his first television special in 1977.
posted by The Deej at 9:23 PM PST - 42 comments

The Quinta de Regaleira, completed in 1910, was the dream palace of the Portuguese millionaire Antonio Agusto de Carvalho Monteiro who was a devotee of mysticism and lost arts. The enormous gardens include a Templar initiation well,underground labyrinths, hidden doorways, fantastic grottos, lookout towers, and of course the palace itself (hunting room, outside detail, gargoyles) More photos here and here.
posted by vacapinta at 9:05 PM PST - 21 comments

Internet Commenter Business Meeting (NSFW flash video)
posted by aerotive at 8:32 PM PST - 29 comments

"How I Became A Programmer" veers between linear biography and brain dump. The piece meanders through its theme, stopping along the way to flirt with word origins, family politics, the senior prom, Japan, airlines and military recruitment. Reading it, I felt trapped inside inside an extremely quirky -- yet recognizable (in a too-close-for-comfort way) -- mind. About half the time I yearned to tell him that he needs an editor; the other half, I was grateful that he didn't have one. Mostly, I'm amazed he HAD a date to the senior prom!
posted by grumblebee at 7:45 PM PST - 52 comments

People really do love their space beds!

On the otherhand....
posted by atomicmedia at 5:43 PM PST - 20 comments

The antidote to the controlled, indoor world of modern kids might be Adventure Playgrounds. Messy, chaotic, but counter-intuitively, safer than traditional playgrounds, there are only two in the US: Listen to Berkeley's Adventure Playground on NPR, or check out some flickr shots. In Europe, where they originated from the rubble of WWII, and in Japan where they are also popular, the importance of play that involves risks is better understood. There are hundreds of Adventure Playgrounds outside of North America.
posted by serazin at 3:53 PM PST - 38 comments

Learn To Draw Animals.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:47 PM PST - 15 comments

In the world of conversation killers, talking about Excel to the average person ranks up there with the best. At the same time, there is always a chance that you wish you could have that conversation at work when it gets down to the wire. Even as a pro, you might need that brush up on Array Functions, calculation tricks, VBA examples or some examples from one of the well known authors on Excel. There is also no shortage of people who dedicate their working lives to this arcane program and are more than willing to assist others for free by posting solved issues on their websites. People like David McRitchie, OzGrid, Rob Bovey, Ron de Bruin, John Walkenbach, Dick Kusleika, Joseph Rubin and Chip Pearson.

Or if you just want to be a Debbie Downer at the next party, just take page from any of the following, memorize it. and recite it when faced with that nudge you don't want to talk to: Excel Support, Jon Peltier, Colo's Junk Room, Scriptorium, Andrew's Excel Tips, Andy Pope, Anthony's VBA Page, Rodney Powell, Array Formulas, Erlandsen Data Consulting, Excel-it, ExcelUser, JKP's Excel Page, John Lacher, McGimpsey, Bill Jelen, Stephen Bullen, Tushar Mehta, VBusers.com, The Excel Nexus, The Excel Logic Page, and Anthoney Does Excel. It’s a fast and easy way to ward off lounge lizards.
posted by lampshade at 2:13 PM PST - 43 comments

Down The Mine. An essay on coal mining as seen by George Orwell in 1937. [Via The Huffington Post.]
posted by homunculus at 1:50 PM PST - 20 comments

Geek tattoos. Gamer tattoos. Science tattoos. Medical tattoos. Assorted nerdiness. More. Not ready to commit? Get bar coded, sans ouch. (Previously)
posted by desjardins at 12:39 PM PST - 29 comments

The British documentary Britain's Youngest Brides follows five teen girls on their paths to the altar. My personal favorite is Catrina and her 308 pound wedding dress.
posted by miss lynnster at 10:49 AM PST - 66 comments

The "Bootlegs" section over at The Rawking Refuses To Stop has a ton of great stuff, from a stripped down live acoustic Jeff Tweedy & Jay Bennet set (right before YHF was released) to a mock-up version of the unreleased new Radiohead album using the best available live tracks from the most recent tour to a rare Paul McCartney, John Lennon & Stevie Wonder jam session to all sorts of smaller gems.
posted by jonson at 10:38 AM PST - 12 comments

Pop-Up Puppetry
posted by carsonb at 8:12 AM PST - 18 comments

space war - a little animated clip by Christy Karacas.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:00 AM PST - 26 comments

Let's send a knowledge Ark to the Moon, says a French University. The founders of the group Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC) agree: "extending the Internet from the Earth to the moon could help avert a technological dark age following "nuclear war, acts of terrorism, plague, or asteroid collisions." Better than sending 1679 binary digits, into space? The French are no strangers to CETI , inventor Charles Cros petitioned the French Government for years for funding to construct a giant mirror to burn giant lines of communication into the deserts of other planets. [previously]
posted by takeyourmedicine at 4:30 AM PST - 45 comments

Urban Scarecrows! A fundraising project of the Great Torrington Cavaliers, encouraging private households and businesses to make and display scarecrows. The entries include Spiderman, Spongebob Squarepants, an elderly Superman, pirates, and much more. Proceeds from the project will go toward the annual Great Torrington Bonfire in November. Via.
posted by amyms at 2:27 AM PST - 12 comments

Slacklining is like tightrope walking on crack. There's even instructional sites dedicated to it. I'd never heard of it until running across this pretty unbelivable video, which led to the discovery of keywords and what is apparently an entire culture. Some of the basic tricks include surfing, the 360, various acts of balance reminiscent of breakdancing or olympic balance beam and even a front flip. Oh, and of course then there's complete insanity...
posted by twiggy at 1:05 AM PST - 38 comments