I'm not into VU bootlegs really, but apparently this is a big deal. It's the ONLY available live stuff from 1967 and has only become available in literally the last two days. Recorded just after the release of The Velvet Underground And Nico and featuring the debut performance of Sister Ray (19 mins long) and the *previously unheard* song I'm Not A Young Man Any More. That's right, A NEW VELVET UNDERGROUND SONG. And it's fucking good too. This version of Sister Ray absolutely shreds and is what the Velvet Underground are all about.
posted to MetaFilter by stinkycheese at 4:03 PM on February 29, 2008 (61 comments)

Last minute valentine idea: Chocolate Ganache Truffles. "You'd have to go a long way to screw it up." (video, expect an interstitial)
posted to MetaFilter by rouftop at 12:14 PM on February 13, 2008 (19 comments)

Mythbusting Canadian Health Care, Part I. Part II: Debunking the Free Marketeers. [Via Orcinus.]
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 11:11 AM on February 13, 2008 (227 comments)

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi.... Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities.... His code is not his own; it is that of his class–no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value–success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.... Mr. G is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy.... Mr. G will never be a Nazi,... [h]e will certainly be able, however, fully to explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along.

"Who goes Nazi?" via sott.net, with added context.
posted to MetaFilter by orthogonality at 12:43 AM on January 24, 2008 (76 comments)

Much of the Flying Rhino back catalogue is now available for free from their website, with more to come. In return, they're asking for donations to Children Walking Tall, a charity set up to help children living on the streets in Goa.
posted to MetaFilter by plant at 3:29 PM on January 14, 2008 (14 comments)

Many freeware games were released in 2007. How to seperate the crap from the good stuff? It can be a little hard admittedly but this thread on the Tigsource forums might help you. With around 30 categories (and a winner announced for each) ranging from 'Best Shooter' to 'Best Bosses,' there's probably something there to please just about anyone.
posted to MetaFilter by pancreas at 4:43 AM on January 4, 2008 (20 comments)

Is This Transparency? OP with very slim, one-year posting history asks a question about finding a good charity in AskMe, just prior to year-end tax-decision time. Newly registered responder posts a newly formed charity-aggregator/evaluator organization, without mentioning that he is, apparently, one of the two founders. Self-promotional setup leading to self-link? Or am I being too cynical?

[update, 1/3/08: a summary of events is being developed on the wiki. --cortex]
posted to MetaTalk by Miko at 10:44 AM on December 31, 2007 (1426 comments)

Why humans started huddling together in cities is still shrouded in mystery but if the question is ever settled the answer will probably be found in Çatalhöyük, a settlement of five to eight thousand located in what is now Turkey that came into existence around 7500 BC. The current head archaeologist of the Çatalhöyük Project is Ian Hodder, one of the leading lights in postprocessual archaeology, who summarized his finding in a recent article in Natural History Magazine. The Çatalhöyük Project website is a treasure trove of information about the ancient settlement.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:55 PM on December 29, 2007 (24 comments)

Straight 8 challenges anyone to make a 3 minute film on one cartridge of super 8 film, editing only in-camera, with a separate original soundtrack. The best of each year is shown at Cannes Film Festival. [Some NSFW videos]
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb at 2:10 AM on December 22, 2007 (14 comments)

Life-altering experiences. Can you point to a single experience in your life, as a child, which you can define as having contributed to the person you are today? (+)
posted to Ask Metafilter by jeremias at 4:41 AM on February 2, 2005 (216 comments)

I collected book related askMes on the wiki into readMe.
posted to MetaTalk by shothotbot at 8:26 PM on December 8, 2007 (77 comments)

50 million computers are after your passwords, your money, and your processor time (single PDF link). No wonder William Gibson's new novel is set in the present: the world is fully caught up with any future we could make up. The business of spamming, carding and phishing supports and runs off a peculiar distributed platform: a market-allocated collection of ad-hoc peer-to-peer content delivery networks running on hijacked browsing appliances' stolen processor cycles. [via BoingBoing comment, previously on Metafilter].
posted to MetaFilter by kandinski at 12:28 AM on September 9, 2007 (41 comments)

38 versions of Kurt Weill's hauntingly beautiful September Song.
posted to MetaFilter by vronsky at 6:40 PM on September 28, 2007 (24 comments)

National Library Of New Zealand.
posted to MetaFilter by hama7 at 5:57 PM on September 25, 2007 (8 comments)

NickCaveFilter: Fifty years ago this very day, Nicholas Edward Cave [previously] crawled from the womb and started to plot.  At 16 he formed his first band which evolved quickly into the Boys Next Door [Shivers].  This in turn mutated into the Birthday Party (1980) who terrorised the post-punk soundscape in Australia and the UK [Release the Bats | Nick the Stripper].  The Birthday Party relocated to England and in 1984 the band imploded in an orgy of drugs and booze.  Shortly after Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were born [The Ship Song - video & solo live | The Mercy Seat - video & live | Where the Wild Roses Grow], and 23 years and 11 studio albums later (not to mention a best selling book, a great screenplay, some acting and several soundtrack projects) he is still going strong.  But, instead of sitting on his musical laurels he decided to get back to basics and, in 2006, grew a huge moustache and formed Grinderman – a four piece with a primeval hybrid Birthday Party/Bad Seeds sound [No Pussy Blues | Honey Bee].  Fellow Mefites, I ask you to raise a glass to Mr. Cave… And, especially if you are not familiar to his work, don’t forget to “look inside” for my primer on the enigma that is Nick Cave, one of the finest song-writers on the face of this miserable planet.
posted to MetaFilter by the_very_hungry_caterpillar at 4:59 PM on September 22, 2007 (98 comments)

Derinkuyu wasn't discovered until 1965, when a resident cleaning the back wall of his cave house broke through a wall and discovered behind it a room that he'd never seen, which led to still another, and another. Eventually, spelunking archeologists found a maze of connecting chambers that descended at least 18 stories and 280 feet beneath the surface, ample enough to hold 30,000 people. [flickr]. [wiki].
posted to MetaFilter by dersins at 8:21 AM on August 31, 2007 (48 comments)

T.R.A.N.S.I.T. is, by a wide margin, my favorite animated short ever produced. Set in the art deco Europe of the 1920's and (and released in 1997) it tells the story of a journey throughout several major vacation destinations of a wealthy tycoon, his young wife with wandering eyes, and a murderous turn of events. The story is told in reverse, from the final stage of the "vacation" back through each prior stop, and the artwork for each segment is painted in the style of the luggage travel sticker for that stop.
posted to MetaFilter by jonson at 2:35 PM on September 2, 2007 (14 comments)

I've been wowing my colleagues by creating beautiful music from words from my head.
posted to MetaFilter by tellurian at 9:08 PM on June 28, 2007 (34 comments)

In the 1890s, an unknown woman was found drowned in the Seine. Known as the l'Inconnue de la Seine, her death mask became a fixture in the homes of artists and writers, and her look the ideal of the age. Many have speculated on her identity, and she has inspired a long list of artistic works by Nabokov, Rilke, Man Ray, and others. She has since become the "most kissed girl in the world" thanks to the Norwegian toymaker that used her mask to create Resusci Anne, the standard CPR doll.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah at 9:43 AM on August 21, 2007 (56 comments)

Making Sense of Marcel Duchamp - an animated timeline of the artist's life and works.
posted to MetaFilter by Burhanistan at 2:22 PM on August 7, 2007 (21 comments)

Animated shorts and trailers potpourri: Alexei Petrov's shiny 3D Cags, Aleksandr Petrov's jaw-dropping paint-on-glass Моя Любовь (more), Maximov's Wind Along The Coast, Bakhurin's The White, The Black, Géza Toth's Maestro, Blur's A Gentleman's Duel, Alireza Darvish's What If Spring Does Not Come?, Giersz's classic Koń, Dumala's Sciany, a little Sports et Divertissements (to music of Erik Satie), and a nod to Daniil Kharms (previously) in Herzen and Tolstoy.
posted to MetaFilter by Wolfdog at 11:30 AM on August 3, 2007 (13 comments)

Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.

Surrealist poet Charles Simic was named the Poet Laureate of the US this week. He also won the Wallace Stevens Award for "outstanding and proven mastery" of the art of poetry. [more inside]
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 6:51 PM on August 2, 2007 (91 comments)

Thoth has been the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary. He's appeared on "America's Got Talent. And he's one of the most mesmerizing street performers out there. [Previously]
posted to MetaFilter by dersins at 11:42 AM on August 2, 2007 (67 comments)

Burroughs
A 1983 documentary by Howard Brookner on William S. Burroughs. 89 mins, G-vid, a bit more inside...
posted to MetaFilter by carsonb at 4:47 PM on July 10, 2007 (13 comments)

How can I get my hands on a Vienna phonebook from circa 1938? I will be spending a weekend in Vienna next month, and I would love to see the apartment where my late grandfather lived before fleeing the Nazis. Unfortunately, nobody in the family knows the address, and there aren't any letters or other documents to provide it. Things are also complicated by the fact that I won't be visiting on a weekday, so any archives that might have this information will presumably be closed. Plus, I don't speak German. Am I out of luck, or is there any way to track this information down in the next few weeks?
posted to Ask Metafilter by yankeefog at 7:22 AM on October 18, 2005 (39 comments)

A young mother and her son's losing battle with cancer in twenty photographs. Renee C. Byer of the Sacramento Bee is the winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature and deservedly so. If you find these photgraphs as moving as I do, let me just go ahead and point you to the National Childhood Cancer Foundation and the Hospice Foundation of America.
posted to MetaFilter by Heminator at 4:11 PM on April 18, 2007 (82 comments)

The Bayeux Tapestry, animated (YouTube). Or, if you prefer, the tapestry served as old school, Web 1.0 embedded images, scene-by-scene with explanatory text (official site), and as a QuickTime VR panorama. (Previously, the Historic Tale Construction Kit.)
posted to MetaFilter by steef at 5:57 PM on April 12, 2007 (12 comments)

Mach 20- O Superman- PSA- Soho 1982
posted to MetaFilter by vronsky at 3:57 PM on February 27, 2007 (34 comments)

Before you do anything else, just listen to this. That's eefing, a 100-plus-year-old vocal technique from rural Tennessee that's, well, the original hillbilly beatboxing. The undisputed master of the art was Jimmie Riddle. His unique skill landed him recording* and TV (youtube) work. Want more weird sounds from the deep south? Try Hollerin & Whoopin and Ringing the Pig. *[warning: on the "Little Eefin Annie" page, avoid the "click here to hear Rolf Harris Eeefin'!" link: it's a pesky popup.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 5:16 AM on January 6, 2007 (51 comments)

How to get my artwork in a gallery?
posted to Ask Metafilter by frosty_hut at 3:29 PM on January 3, 2007 (10 comments)

Recommendations for a book to teach myself php and MySQL?
posted to Ask Metafilter by dripdripdrop at 12:10 PM on November 20, 2006 (8 comments)

Neanderthal Lovin’! New research from evolutionary scientist Bruce Lahn suggests that humans and the now extinct Neanderthal species mixed, and humans snatched up a valuable brain gene in the process. (The gene, MCPH1, and Lahn, discussed last year on MeFi) This comes on the tails of yet another new study providing morphological evidence that there was nontrivial interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals in Eurasia, despite the fact that Neanderthals may have been genetically closer to chimps than humans. Contrary to popular imagination, though, the Neanderthal species had bigger brains and sophisticated intellects, at least roughly on par with that of human beings. The gene regulates brain size during development, but its exact utility to humans is still unknown (and controversial). The origin of this gene and the question of Neanderthal mixing will soon be answered more definitively by the, just launched, 2 year project to map the Neanderthal genome, headed by Svante Pääbo (profiled in recent Smithsonian and Wired articles). Pääbo calls Lahn’s study "the most compelling case to date for a genetic contribution of Neandertals to modern humans."
posted to MetaFilter by Jason Malloy at 1:13 PM on November 8, 2006 (26 comments)

Pinhole Camera Filter.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Eekacat at 4:22 PM on October 29, 2006 (7 comments)

Read the last statements of executed Texas death row inmates. Texas now publishes the last statements online in a extremely well organised database. Search through offender name, offender information (scanned OCR with pics and crime description). If that's a bit too heavy, why not just browse through some last meals on death row?
posted to MetaFilter by Funmonkey1 at 2:02 AM on September 18, 2006 (135 comments)

However interesting your life is, it probably pales in comparison to Moondog. A homeless, blind composer who transcribed in braille, he went from a career as a street corner musician in New York, to sitting in Carnegie Hall for rehersals at the invitation of Artur Rodzinski, he was invited to Germany and wrote a symphony for four conductors: "The Overtone Tree", he was covered by Janis Joplin and worked with Julie Andrews. (mi)
posted to MetaFilter by 1f2frfbf at 9:14 AM on August 29, 2006 (13 comments)

Help me get my sister out of Lebanon!
posted to Ask Metafilter by onalark at 7:15 PM on July 13, 2006 (62 comments)

Help me find a series of fantasy books (NOT the Gor series) I read in the 1980s about an Earth man periodically teleported by mysterious god-like beings/aliens to dangerous situations on another planet, which had a swords-and-sorcery tech level. He spent years on this other planet, built a life there, etc. Over 30 books in the series, I think.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mistersix at 3:39 PM on May 29, 2006 (15 comments)

A televised snooker 147 is the big deal for snooker professionals. The first was by Canadian Cliff Thorburn. The fastest was by Ronnie O'Sullivan. The luckiest goes to John Higgins. Also by Kirk Stevens, Mark Williams, Stephen Hendry, and Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie.
posted to MetaFilter by parki at 9:24 PM on May 17, 2006 (49 comments)