The Nedelin disaster remains the most fatal catastrophe in the history of rocketry. On October 26, 1960 an R-16 ICBM designed by Mikhail Yangel accidentally ignited killing over 100 within moments. The incident remained in strict secrecy for thirty years until it was unearthed by James Oberg. The true casualty rate remains a mystery and Kazakhstan still sees more than its fair share of rocket mishaps.
posted to MetaFilter by Alison at 10:53 AM on August 31, 2006 (16 comments)

Argh! Gmail image spam! I'm getting 20 of these a day. Since Google has failed to filter these messages, is there a workaround I can use? Also, would simply deleting these messages rather than marking them as spam reduce the possibility of false positives?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Saucy Intruder at 10:16 AM on August 30, 2006 (25 comments)

1,100 Apple II games you can play online. If you are too overwhelmed by your memories to know what to play, some playable classics: Oregon Trail*, Ultima IV*, Archon*, Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear*, Drol*, Wings of Fury*, Choplifter *, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?* and Taipan*. Or you can play the first game mod in history: Castle Smurfenstein, a modification of the 1983 original Castle Wolfenstein. What did I miss? [Young whippersnappers can click the asterisks to find out why the game was important. Use the left and right alt keys for joystick buttons, the other instructions are on the site. Emulator only works with IE, sorry. See also this.]
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah at 12:17 PM on August 29, 2006 (98 comments)

"It’s a cliché among hikers that there are as many ways to hike the trail as there are people who hike it. Most start at Springer Mountain in Georgia and end at Katahdin in Maine; a few start in Maine and head south. Purists walk every 2,167.1 miles of the trail marked by white rectangular blazes painted on the trees. Blue blazers take short cuts on side trails marked with blue. Yellow blazers hitchhike ahead along roads. And then there are the pink blazers. Pink blazers pursue women."
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 6:14 AM on August 28, 2006 (155 comments)

That's the Sound of the Man Working on the Chain Gang Among all genres of American folk music, prison songs may be the most viscerally compelling. They evolved from plantation songs and field hollers of slaves in the American South before the civil war (whose origins can in turn be traced to patterns found in the music of West Africa) but their tone and content is quite different. Limitless in length, bitter and pained, offering little hope of freedom or redemption, these songs were first heard during Reconstruction. Harsh and unevenly enforced laws incarcerated legions of black American men, consigning them to long sentences of labor for minor offenses like insult, fistfighting, and shoplifting. To shore up a tanking Southern economy, prisons leased convict labor to plantation owners as a low-cost replacement for slave labor. When reform efforts brought that to an end, state governments became the contractors. Sweetheart deals awarded lucrative contracts to prisons to provide labor for rebuilding the railroads and highways of the war-destroyed South. Slavery in all but name, these work conditions gave rise to a body of music that is one of the most significant antecedents of the blues. In hundreds of variants, cadenced to axe-fall, hoe stroke, or the drop of a maul, the songs set a working pace a man could sustain from dawn to dusk, while remaining fast enough to satisfy an armed 'Captain' on horseback.
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 11:21 AM on August 27, 2006 (33 comments)

One of the most famous characters on youtube is lonelygirl15 (this link being the most comprehensive summary of her story I've seen). Virginia Hefferton of the NY Times is one of the countless people trying to unravel the mystery of whether her video blogs are the ramblings of a cute homeschooled girl and her nerdy crush, or part of a larger marketing campaign.
posted to MetaFilter by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:20 PM on August 27, 2006 (90 comments)

Medical maggots are available only by prescription in the US and the UK. Eclipsed by the discovery of penicillin, maggots now may turn out to be effective when anitbiotics stop working. Although the FDA hasn't yet decided exactly how to classify maggots, they are generally considered to be medical devices. The BTER Foundation (BioTherapeutics Education and Research) offers maggot therapy workshops, but no special certification is currently required to use them. As beneficial as they are, their use is not always indicated. And when they showed up on their own in a subacute care facility in Chicago, the patient sued for "at least $50,000".
posted to MetaFilter by owhydididoit at 9:30 PM on August 27, 2006 (10 comments)

The Bushi-Nenge of French Guiana and Surinam (Bush Negroes or Maroons) are a unique, and little-known group of peoples (Boni or Aluku, Saramaca, Ndyuka) who escaped from Dutch plantations in the early 1700's, who battled for independence which was recognized through various treaties -- notably by the Treaty of Albina which France and the Netherlands signed in 1860 (I can't find any info on the net), and who still live an African-type life largely based around the Maroni River between French Guiana and Suriname, as citizens of either one country or the other. Their language is Sranan Tongo (a mixture of African Languages, English, Dutch, Portuguese and Hebrew -- also known as Taki-Taki -- click for a listen). Historical and scholarly works are scarce, but they exist (In English but mostly in Dutch or French). Some pictures of typical houses. Symbolic Woodwork. More art. Images of the people of French Guyana. Images of various canoes in French Guiana. More photos of the Maroni River. Amazonie Francaise.
posted to MetaFilter by pwedza at 9:16 PM on August 26, 2006 (11 comments)

Craig Mullins is a commercial photoshop artist & videogame fan. In the mid 90s, after a couple amateur pieces of fan art he created for the game Marathon made their way to the folks at Bungie, he was hired to create a series of Halo themed art for the company. His full portfolio of commercial & personal work is interesting.
posted to MetaFilter by jonson at 10:30 AM on August 24, 2006 (14 comments)

In the early 1900's, Sicilian immigrant Baldasare Forestiere moved from New York the San Joaquin valley, California. Working alone during his spare time and using only hand tools, he spent 40 years sculpting an underground home and garden [Real] that's a work of art and architectural engineering known today as the Forestiere Underground Gardens. [Gimages]
posted to MetaFilter by CodeBaloo at 5:36 PM on August 19, 2006 (11 comments)

George Orwell né Eric Arthur Blair is probably best known to readers for his eerily prescient novels 1984 and Animal Farm. This comprehensive Orwell site betrays an erudite, complex, fascinating personality who wrote about a variety of subjects, from an exposition on British class relations affecting the art and practice of murder, to the complex moral compromises of Gandhi's practice of non-violent resistance, to the doublespeak-laden corruption of the English language as a telling reflection of a corrupt, brutal, post-WWII culture — and much, much more. This site also includes Russian translations of much of Orwell's work.
posted to MetaFilter by Blazecock Pileon at 8:52 PM on August 21, 2006 (21 comments)

Buying a plane ticket? Farecast, which went nationwide today, can help (even though it's still in beta). Just tell it where and when you want to go and it'll try to predict the cheapest time to buy. "When looking across all airfare predictions in all markets, Farecast has on average around a 75% accuracy level. And, yes, the percentage of the time we are right continues to improve."
posted to MetaFilter by camcgee at 9:30 AM on August 21, 2006 (22 comments)

Mandolux - photographic desktop wallpapers. Just keep hittin' previous.
posted to MetaFilter by nthdegx at 3:04 AM on August 20, 2006 (22 comments)

Google Video + Google Maps + Rendezvous = Awesome Its been posted previously, but now with a map illustrating the route taken in real-time.
posted to MetaFilter by lemonfridge at 1:43 AM on August 18, 2006 (26 comments)

Anna and Laura Tirocchi ran a dressmaking shop for the elite of Providence, Rhode Island between 1915 and 1947. In 1989 the building, which had been shut for 42 years, was found to contain a time capsule of the development of early 20th century fashion - from fabric and dresses to photographs and sewing machines and associated ephemera. The A&L Tirocchi Dressmakers Project website showcases the collection (after 12 years of research by RISD) through: the 514 project (with an image archive), essays, databases and exhibition sections. [via Intute]
posted to MetaFilter by peacay at 4:04 AM on August 18, 2006 (12 comments)

200 liters of condensed liquid nitrogen (LN₂) were delivered to Berkeley’s Condensed Matter Lab this past Monday. Sent to retrieve the 400lb dewar from the loading dock but faced with a non-working elevator, an enterprising young lab student decided to carry it down the stairs. Gravity is a harsh mistress.

If things had turned out differently, they could have been scraping his remains off the walls with a spatula. At Texas A&M in January a lab was badly damaged when someone ignored the Ideal Gas Law, removed the pressure valve and rupture disk off an old (LN₂) tank and filled the remaining holes with metal plugs. "How to Tell a True Lab Story" talks about a similar incident. LN₂ is good for more than just blowing up a school (or, um a watermelon), though: Spanish Chef Ferran Adrià uses it to create dishes at his restaurant. Previously on MeFI: How to make LN₂ ice cream (careful!) and unwise science experiments.
posted to MetaFilter by zarq at 9:20 AM on August 18, 2006 (27 comments)

So, um, I bought a ukulele today. What should I do with it?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by borkingchikapa at 11:59 PM on August 16, 2006 (17 comments)

Dancing droplets begets Water figures. The full set.
posted to MetaFilter by tellurian at 10:16 PM on August 16, 2006 (8 comments)

An experiment recently performed by the AET RaDAL group shows that the gravitomagnetic field produced by a rapidly-spinning superconductor can cause a 1.117 times increase over the Earth's gravity. Gravitomagnetism, a phenomenon predicted by General Relativity, is a poorly understood but promising topic in modern physics. Speculation about harnessing the bizarre, space-warping and gravity-altering effects of gravitomagnetism has already begun. Reactionless space propulsion [PDF] is the most apparent use (previously discussed), with the potential applications far-reaching and nearly inconcievable. The earlier experiment by the European Space Agency involving another rapidly-spinning superconductor earlier this year found a massive increase in strength over the predicted values, but still miniscule by our standards. Things could become very interesting if the results from this latest experiment pan out.
posted to MetaFilter by nervestaple at 9:20 PM on August 15, 2006 (47 comments)

NPAA Best of 2006 Photojournalism from around the world: Escuintla Guatemala, Tahrir Baghdad, Odobesti, Naples Fla, New Orleans, Kashmir, Odessa, Immokalee Fla, Utica, Detroit
A project of the National Press Photographers Association.
posted to MetaFilter by Lanark at 11:27 AM on August 14, 2006 (14 comments)

The Stephen Colbert "On Notice Board" Generator
posted to MetaFilter by ColdChef at 4:30 PM on August 9, 2006 (59 comments)

Aerial Photography — Interiors — Air Conditioners of Philadelphia — Spaces and other beautiful and, the word I would use would be formal Photography on file magazine. A flash interface, but not too annoying.
posted to MetaFilter by delmoi at 6:57 PM on August 7, 2006 (5 comments)

Port Revel sits at the foot of the French Alps near Grenoble, France. Since 1967 [PDF], its landlocked harbor has been the place to go if you want to learn how to sail a fleet [PDF] of the world's largest ships.
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo at 10:29 PM on August 6, 2006 (6 comments)

"It is doubtful that the popular sport in Seattle can survive," wrote a Seattle sportswriter in 1966, after three of unlimited hydroplane racing's most popular drivers were killed in one horrific day in Washington, D.C. Forty years later, what was once the most popular sport in Seattle survives, if not thrives, and this weekend's Chevrolet Cup will feature boats with safety improvements that trace directly back to the events of "Black Sunday". But it's nothing like it used to be in the 60s and 70s, when "winning a hydro race was about the biggest thing a Seattle kid could do," and everyone in town, knew names like the boats Miss Bardahl, Miss Budweiser, and the drivers Bill Muncey, Chip Hanauer, and Dean Chenoweth -- and no one, but no one would miss the Seafair hydro races.
posted to MetaFilter by litlnemo at 3:00 AM on August 5, 2006 (18 comments)

Bikely makes use of the Google Maps API to make it easy to learn new bicycle paths. Select any path (example) and export its GPX path into your GPS tracker (e.g., cell phone or Palm) — or share your own favorite bike rides.
posted to MetaFilter by Blazecock Pileon at 9:59 PM on August 5, 2006 (15 comments)

The inside of Farmer John's hog rendering plant in Vernon, California, is among the worst places on Earth if you happen to be a hog, which is why the outside of the building is such a case study in mural based irony. In 1957, perhaps as a trap to lure in unsuspecting piglets who had come to Los Angeles to make it in the movies, the folks at Farmer John's hired Hollywood set designer Les Grimes to begin painting a mural on the outside of the factory, a job that he continued until his death 11 years later. The result, entitled "Hog Heaven", depicts a pastoral wonderland, clearly a prime destination for any visiting out of town porcine rube. Surely one of the world's largest murals, the work stretches around the entire square cityblock worth of slaughterhouse, and (legend has it) is so large that not unlike the Golden Gate bridge, no sooner is it done being painted than the painter must begin touching it up all over again.
posted to MetaFilter by jonson at 12:17 AM on August 6, 2006 (35 comments)

Don't worry. The painting understands. :)
posted to MetaFilter by Tlogmer at 5:27 AM on August 5, 2006 (8 comments)

Parts of Sweden are overrun by caterpillars. Interesting photos of a caterpillar swarm, with pictures of trees, buildings and bicycles completely cocooned-over with visually stunning (if icky) results. Swarms aren't that unusual, but the term is more habitually used with flying insects like bees and locusts. Soon enough humans might be joining in the fun too, albeit via surrogates.
posted to MetaFilter by clevershark at 10:25 AM on August 4, 2006 (45 comments)

The tromba marina, also known as the marine trumpet or nun’s fiddle, is an obsolete, 4-7 foot tall, single-stringed instrument in the viol family. Played with a bow, the tromba marina sounds strangely trumpet-like (for mp3's, scroll down to the bottom of the first link), hence the name . Buy one here or make your own. You can also see one up-close in the Musical Instrument Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but they don’t bother putting an image on their webpage, and the gallery’s carpet smells intensely of mildew.
posted to MetaFilter by unknowncommand at 11:24 AM on August 4, 2006 (5 comments)

If an English biscuit is an American cookie, what is an American biscuit called in England?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by footnote at 7:16 AM on August 3, 2006 (59 comments)

Ramsey Kearney was a teenage country music prodigy nicknamed the Dixie Farmboy, a rockabilly singer with the Jimmie Martin Combo, a songwriter for Brenda Lee, and a producer of the most cloying Elvis tribute single ever recorded. Kearney would have almost no connection to alternative music whatsoever until John Trubee, a notorious crank phone caller and sideman for Zoogz Rift, found an ad in the back of the Midnight Globe tabloid from Kearney's Nashco Records label, a song-poem company offering to put his words to music for a small fee. Trubee sent his own disturbing LSD-fueled lyrics to Nashco, but to his surprise, Nashco accepted the lyrics after taking a $79.95 fee from Trubee. Kearney tweaked the lyrics slightly in order to avoid a lawsuit from Stevie Wonder, but the end product was the cult classic novelty song, Blind Man's Penis. (more inside)
posted to MetaFilter by jonp72 at 8:25 AM on August 3, 2006 (12 comments)

Rock Band OK Go's new video is a single-take masterpiece of amusing treadmill-dance choreography that left me smiling & humming the tune. These guys really like dancing in their videos
posted to MetaFilter by lilbrudder at 10:52 AM on August 3, 2006 (38 comments)

TOO MUCH BLOOD IN MY STOOL! THIS COULD BE COLOGNE CANCER! (NSFW) Eddie Reedom's site, www.choppercarsfraud.com claims Josh "Chop" Towbin and Towbin Dodge (known for their silly infomercials and the A&E series King of Cars) defrauded him of $50m to $100m. Among the evidence is photos of his stool, and video of an unruly Australian Buddhist security guard who kicks Reedom's truck. While Reedom may seem a bit nuts, there are tens of millions of Americans with bad credit. If you're one of them, seek some good advice before signing up for any loan. Credit problems are enough to drive anyone insane.
posted to MetaFilter by b_thinky at 2:02 PM on August 3, 2006 (25 comments)

"Have entered industrial wasteland - unbelievable hell-hole. Clocked 4000miles! Border guards nicked our fizzy cola bottles! Gits! Roads r not good."

Two weeks ago 159 crap cars set off from London, England for Ulan Bataar, Mongolia. A journey spanning 8,000 miles, 2 deserts, 5 mountain ranges, on roads ranging from bad to non-existent. All this with no support crew and in a car you swapped for a bag of crisps. Stir in the odd party in far-flung parts of the globe, dodgy border crossings, and the occasional bribe and you have an inkling of the Mongol Rally.

Sound too safe for you? Maybe racing a rickshaw across the Indian subcontinent for a spot of tea is more your speed.
Two great charity events brought to you by the Institute of Adventure Research
posted to MetaFilter by woj at 10:12 PM on August 3, 2006 (38 comments)

An official comic book adaptation of the 9/11 commission report is due to hit bookstores this month. The U.S. Army seeks an Arabic-speaking comic book creator. Meanwhile, an Israeli blogger suspects a Kuwaiti company of misusing Marvel and DC comics. These are just the latest incidents in a long-running history of using comic books for propaganda purposes, ranging from Mussolini and Hitler to Captain America vs. the Nazi-affiliated Red Skull to anticommunist comics for Catholic parochial schools to a phony Black Panther comic book created by COINTELPRO to a comic book of the American invasion of Grenada. However, my favorite site of comic book propaganda tends to focus on more innocuous domestic issues such as bicycle safety, USDA nutrition standards, and fighting crack cocaine. (OK, that last issue isn't so innocuous, but comic book propaganda about health & safety issues still generally blows.)
posted to MetaFilter by jonp72 at 9:59 AM on August 4, 2006 (36 comments)

Manhattan Timeformations. Mapping Manhattan's skyscraper districts through time. [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nickyskye at 4:05 AM on August 2, 2006 (10 comments)

Get Rich Slowly, a personal finance web site (created by our jdroth), has been educational to someone who spent most of his life until now pretending financial matters don't exist. His blog is updated frequently, and contains insightful tips on living frugally, eliminating debt, saving and investing. Between his site, and another very educational site entitled I Will Teach You To Be Rich (start here), I've greatly expanded my knowledge about managing my money effectively. Perhaps most importantly, they're both consistently interesting and easy reads. [more inside]
posted to MetaFilter by knave at 10:35 AM on August 1, 2006 (73 comments)

One might think that in today's world of cell phones, text messaging and the Internet, you shouldn't write off ham radio just yet. Not only can Morse code be faster than text messaging, but when when you need it most, you can still communicate with the world [PDF]. If you're lucky, and the conditions are right, you might be able to chat with operators hundred of miles away thanks to tropospheric ducting. There's more to ham radio than just the old chatter, though: you can use the ham radio bands to operate radio-controlled planes, send and receive TV [PDF] (sort of), wirelessly connect to networks, or talk with astronauts.
posted to MetaFilter by Godbert at 9:34 AM on August 1, 2006 (44 comments)

96 Minutes... 40 years later. Texas Monthly has an article that, through eyewitness accounts, tells the tale of Charles Whitman. Forty years ago today--before 9/11, Columbine, Oklahoma City, "going postal"--Whitman perpetrated an act of public terror that impacted the national conscience. It all began when he killed his mother. Then he started typing a letter that, after he killed his wife, he finished hand-writing. Then he went to the Tower with a small arsenal and began the slaughter. Over 96 minutes he killed 13 more people and wounded 34 others until off-duty Officer Ray Martinez made it to the top of the tower and killed Whitman. (more inside)
posted to MetaFilter by dios at 9:34 AM on August 1, 2006 (71 comments)

Written and performed by my old band - Hooray For Everything. This was included in a Simpsons tribute album that sold a boatload of copies. We recorded this in 1997, I think. We began with the lyrics from the song used in the original "Flaming Moe" episode (http://www.snpp.com/episodes/8F08.html) and then made the song our own... When the weight of the world has got you down and you want to end your life. Bills to pay, a dead-end job, and problems with the wife. But don't throw in the tow'l, 'cuz there's a place right down the block... Where you can drink your misery away... At Flaming Moe's.... (Let's all go to Flaming Moe's...) When liquor in a mug (Let's all go to Flaming Moe's...) can warm you like a hug. (Flaming Moe's...) And happiness is just a Flaming Moe away... Happiness is just a Flaming Moe away...
posted to MeFi Music by blaneyphoto at 3:56 PM on July 18, 2006 (2 comments)

This is a stereo fold-down mix of a track written for a 5.1 surround sound setup. The idea was to show the evolution of blues/rock music in parallel with the evolution of musical space going from mono to stereo to surround. Still works fairly well in stereo though!
posted to MeFi Music by TwoWordReview at 4:01 PM on July 10, 2006 (5 comments)

The 10th day? A day of rest. Thank goodness for Caroline Yang's TdF photos. Ever wondered why McEwan rides so hard to stay in Green? What Ukrainian joy looks like? When you can wear socks with sandals? She's also got some decent shots of speed skating (oh, and real blood sports, like weddings).
posted to MetaFilter by OmieWise at 10:39 AM on July 10, 2006 (16 comments)

I stayed up way too late recording this song the night before my daughter's fifth birthday party last year. When all her friends came over for the party, we had them all sing the chorus part and then each of them got to sing the lead part solo. Then we feverishly burned a bunch of discs and each kid got a CD of their performance in their loot bag. Neighbourhood moms are still coming up to me and singing this, which I'm intitially flattered about but then notice the look on their faces which says that they've heard it over and over and over and over...
posted to MeFi Music by chococat at 8:57 PM on July 4, 2006 (17 comments)

In Toronto, around February/March, being at home with kids 24/7 can make an embittered ex-film student feel sorry for himself.
posted to MeFi Music by chococat at 5:47 PM on July 3, 2006 (4 comments)

I just returned from my second trip to Stockholm and have fallen in love (all over again) with Kronan bicycles. I don't ride my tricked out hybrid as much as I'd like - it's just too much bike - so I need to change. My plan is to sell the hybrid and buy a Kronan. But it doesn't look like they're available in the US anymore. The shop that used to sell them here in Chicago hasn't carried them for the last two years. Where can a guy find a Kronan?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by aladfar at 7:33 AM on July 3, 2006 (15 comments)

This is the opening song from my Comfort Stand EP, "mic in track," consisting of songs created from anonymous personal recordings that were (unwittingly) shared on p2p networks. You can hear many more examples on my homepage. I used FruityLoops (FL Studio) to make the music, GoldWave to make the samples, and AudioGnome (primarily) to find the original mic in tracks.
posted to MeFi Music by starkeffect at 1:14 PM on July 1, 2006 (13 comments)

Someone is reliable but grouchy. Something very bad might have happened. I got my neighbour to play the accordian.
posted to MeFi Music by chococat at 7:46 PM on June 30, 2006 (18 comments)

is my favorite song from my band's (The Scarring Party) first release. It's a sepia-toned song about the apocalypes
posted to MeFi Music by drezdn at 11:35 AM on June 30, 2006 (15 comments)

Awesome stuff, guys. I'll represent retro/chip music: I'm involved in the niche hobby of writing new music with old videogame hardware. The music you are hearing was programmed in notepad using a TurboGrafx 16 (PC Engine). It's meant to combine Capcom and Konami videogame soundtracks of the late 80s, hence the weird title. I perform this music live in NYC, with guitars and lasers. I got awesome advice on Ask MeFi about how to get my equipment to shows, and as thanks I'll share my stuff with whoever might enjoy it. More of it is at my site, and my friends who also do this share it also.
posted to MeFi Music by jake at 12:10 PM on June 30, 2006 (26 comments)

Jangly, wistful guitarpop as requested.
posted to MeFi Music by cortex at 8:03 AM on June 30, 2006 (30 comments)