2 July 1863, second day of Gettysburg. Sickles has pulled his III Corps -- without orders -- off of Cemetery Ridge and positioned it a half mile in front of the rest of the Union lines. Longstreet smashes the hapless III Corps and its men are in full flight. Hancock rides back and forth inside the gaping hole left by Sickles. Below him, almost 2000 men of Wilcox's brigade are charging up the slope. They will gain a foothold on the ridge and be reinforced by Lee. As Longstreet pins down the Union left, Lee will roll up the center and right of the Northern army and chase them from the field. He will then march on and take Washington before turning north along the eastern seaboard. Lee will capture and burn Philadelphia and Boston in his March Along the Sea, chasing the Northern government from city to city until Lincoln finally sues for peace and the union is no more. Suddenly, a line of blue-coated soldiers comes into Hancock's view. "My God, is this all the men here? Who are you?" "1st Minnesota, sir." "See those colors?", says Hancock, pointing at the flags of the oncoming Confederates, "Take them."
posted to MetaFilter by forrest at 5:45 AM on July 2, 2008 (82 comments)

Keith Law's Ten Common Home Cooking Mistakes. Law, better known for his sports writing, lists ten pitfalls the home chef can fall into and how to avoid them.
posted to MetaFilter by robocop is bleeding at 9:17 AM on June 17, 2008 (75 comments)

A woman ovulates during surgery for a partial hysterectomy, and it's caught on film.
posted to MetaFilter by streetdreams at 1:48 PM on June 12, 2008 (82 comments)

Online Crayon Physics Flash version of stuff from here and here. No download needed (vs. prior posts) and totally addicting.
posted to MetaFilter by filmgeek at 7:41 PM on April 6, 2008 (38 comments)

Len Lye: New Zealander Len Lye was a restless maverick - a pioneer of films without cameras (drawing directly onto the celluloid) and kinetic art (CD available through Atoll, sound samples here and here), and he was also quite handy with poems and inks. More about his Windwand and recently installed Waterwhirler on Flickr. Coralised open directory of short Waterwhirler movies here.
posted to MetaFilter by nylon at 11:47 AM on May 30, 2006 (7 comments)

This Is Charley. Charley is a cat with cerebellar hypoplasia.
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 7:48 PM on March 19, 2008 (68 comments)

According to the latest biweekly numbers released last Thursday by the Federal Reserve, for the two weeks that ended January 16th American banks had negative $1.3 billion in non-borrowed reserves. This is, historically, extremely unusual; just two months ago they had $30 billion (positive, of course) in non-borrowed reserves. The only reason some banks haven't been shut due to insufficient -- negative! -- reserve requirements is that the Federal Reserve is currently loaning them enough money through the brand new TAF (Term Auction Facility) program (also running in Canada and Europe) to make up their shortfalls. Today's TAF press release says that 52 American banks or institutions are currently receiving loans totaling ~$40 billion -- but the Fed refuses to name who they are.
posted to MetaFilter by Asparagirl at 8:58 PM on January 29, 2008 (162 comments)

#!/usr/bin/perl
@d = localtime(time);
if ($d[4] == 11 && $d[3] == 18 ) {
 print "Happy ".($d[5]-87)."th Birthday, Perl!\n";
}
if( $ARGV[0] eq "love" || $ARGV[0] eq "hate" ) {
 print "$you can't deny its contribution to our culture\n"; 
} 

posted to MetaFilter by [@I][:+:][@I] at 11:46 AM on December 18, 2007 (136 comments)

Ever wondered if and where a specific set of numbers could be found in pi? Maybe you'd like to know where your birthday is? Or maybe just something funny. [prev. here, here]
posted to MetaFilter by TimeTravelSpeed at 7:20 PM on December 4, 2007 (68 comments)

Chain Factor - a disappearing-piece Flash puzzle game that may also cause your time to disappear. I am trying to treat my addiction by passing it onto you.
posted to MetaFilter by aaronetc at 8:54 PM on December 1, 2007 (24 comments)

Emma Clarke the voice of the London Underground has just been fired for recording and posting some spoofs on her own website. "Mind the gap" no more. (To spare Emma's server and in case she is forced to remove the files for some reason: External linkage to streaming mp3's of these spoofs are below)
posted to MetaFilter by Webbster at 10:17 AM on November 26, 2007 (97 comments)

Defying Demographics: A look at University Park Campus School, a 7-12th grade school located in the poorest neighborhood in blue-collar Worcester, MA. Approximately 73% of students hover at or below the poverty line and 61% are minorities, yet over 80% go on to college and 99% pass the Massachusetts graduation exams. The partnership between Clark University and Worcester Public Schools has created an environment so successful that a number of cities are looking to emulate it. Have they discovered the key to closing the achievement gap?
posted to MetaFilter by rollbiz at 8:06 PM on November 23, 2007 (32 comments)

31 hours, 4 minutes. Blowing the doors off the previous record of 32 hours, 7 minutes, Alex Roy of Team Polizei and co-pilot Dave Maher set a new transcontinental driving record in a modified BMW M5. Of course, to pull off such a feat today required a modest collection of equipment: thermal night-vision camera, binoculars, radar detector, radar jammer, CB and police scanners, oh, and a spotter airplane. As you might expect, not everyone is celebrating. Some photos.
posted to MetaFilter by knave at 12:29 AM on October 17, 2007 (70 comments)

"Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications" book is free for 60 days. Reader reviews give it 4-stars at Amazon. Like most first editions, there are a few typos to watch out for.
posted to MetaFilter by spock at 7:03 PM on October 3, 2007 (48 comments)

Pictures of white men and their adopted Chinese daughters by photographer O. Zhang
posted to MetaFilter by Jasper Friendly Bear at 9:14 PM on August 22, 2007 (213 comments)

Borderline personality disorder described firsthand. A very personal look at BPD - including the implications of sharing the news in a public setting - his blog.
posted to MetaFilter by 2shay at 11:17 AM on August 6, 2007 (155 comments)

Notessimo is a quick and easy flash music creator. Lots of different instruments to choose from. You can even share your ear-piercing horrors soulful tunes!
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:34 PM on August 2, 2007 (12 comments)

Web Analytics According to Captain Kirk: As the data shows, Captain Kirk "making contact" with alien women has an impact on the crew's survival. The red-shirt death rate is higher when a fight breaks out than when Kirk meets a woman and a fight breaks out.
posted to MetaFilter by Cool Papa Bell at 12:25 PM on July 31, 2007 (28 comments)

Get the hell off our Internet.
posted to MetaFilter by loquacious at 9:51 PM on July 16, 2007 (74 comments)

Someone puts a video camera on a Japanese sushi bar conveyor belt. You can tell it's in Japan because it doesn't get stolen as it travels around the bar. Via b3ta.
posted to MetaFilter by Mwongozi at 12:37 PM on May 25, 2007 (103 comments)

A rough structural demo of one of the songs I've written this month. Catchy, upbeat reflection on the simpler, softer times of my highschool musical upbringing. Imagine this with a dozen people clapping and singing along. And maybe an awesome guitar solo. I've still got three weeks, after all.
posted to MeFi Music by cortex at 8:00 AM on February 8, 2007 (35 comments)

Joseph Frank Keaton Jr. was born into vaudeville. He quickly became a popular and controversial part of his family's stage act; an act that had his father violently hurling the "disobedient" child across the stage into scenery, the orchestra pit, or even into the audience, only to see him emerge amazingly unharmed. After the boy took an unplanned and particularly clamorous fall down a hotel stairwell, an astonished Harry Houdini cried out to the parents, "What a buster your kid took!" And thus, as legend has it, did little Joseph Frank Keaton Jr. become Buster Keaton.

At 22, Keaton made his cinematic debut with mentor Fatty Arbuckle. Afterward, he immediately founded Buster Keaton Studios, releasing a series of brilliant short (and later longer) comedies. Dozens of these are freely available to stream or download at the Internet Archive, including Steamboat Bill Jr, Convict 13, The Electric House, and his seminal The General (alt), which, despite completely failing at the box office, would be later hailed by many as one of the greatest films of all time. [more inside]
posted to MetaFilter by churl at 7:54 PM on April 25, 2007 (59 comments)

How to make your writing simple, clear, and compelling. (And a little on getting published.)
posted to MetaFilter by serazin at 7:43 PM on January 10, 2007 (81 comments)

A POW takes a Rolex on credit: an amazing story told by the original documents.
posted to MetaFilter by exogenous at 8:18 PM on September 25, 2006 (61 comments)

How to make pizza. Jeff Varasano has finished his recipe, and his page now includes everything you need to know about making a real pizza.
posted to MetaFilter by rxrfrx at 3:12 PM on September 16, 2006 (69 comments)