Why movies cost so much. (MLYT!) Let us pause, in our respective busy days, to celebrate the gag reel. Are you ready? House season 2 and 3 (and bonus valley girl take); Grey's Anatomy seasons 3 and4, Back to the Future, Star Trek (2009), Star Trek (1969), Star Trek (IV), Star Trek (TNG), Star Wars (original), Star Wars ("1"), Star Wars ("2"), Star Wars ("3"), Step Brothers, Men in Black, LOTR, POTC, POTC 2, POTC 3, Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Hot Fuzz, Yes Man, Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar, and many others.
posted by e.e. coli at 9:33 AM Nov 30 2009 - 64 comments [186 favorites]

TheSmartAss.info's suite of Java emulators allows smooth, in-browser playback of literally thousands of old-school video games: 517 Atari titles, 148 for DOS, 636 Game Boy games (and 410 for Game Boy Color), 2,019 (!) NES titles, 238 GameGear games, 802 Sega Genesis titles, and 284 for the Sega Master System. Highlights include Space Invaders, Frogger, Galaga, Pitfall!, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, SimCity, Zero Wing, Duke Nukem, Sonic the Hedgehog, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim, Pokemon, and Metal Gear Solid. Use the search function to find your favorites! You can also register an account to save games on emulators that support it. Make sure to check the purple bar below each game for control info and links to alternate emulators in case the default one is buggy or slow.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:12 AM Nov 30 2009 - 54 comments [182 favorites]

The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia. | 50 more of Wikipedia's most interesting articles.
posted by aldurtregi at 7:11 AM Nov 23 2009 - 57 comments [169 favorites]

"Fun To Imagine" is a BBC series from 1983 featuring theoretical physicist Richard Feynman thinking aloud. What is fire? How do rubber bands work? Why do mirrors flip left-right but not up-down? All is explained in his lovely meanderingly lucid manner.
posted by mhjb at 11:07 PM Dec 15 2009 - 25 comments [158 favorites]

I'm not one to obsess over music videos, but this one by one SUGIMOTO Kousuke may just be the most dense, action-packed chaotic adventure ever packed into 3 minutes 28 seconds. I've watched it a dozen times already; it's like popcorn. For added high-bandwidth goodness, see his other video, which seems to recapitulate all of human history and the downfall of the Beatles - while you do, I'm going to upgrade my brain. I need some higher clock speed if I'm going to watch these again.
posted by Michael Roberts at 8:56 PM Dec 6 2009 - 69 comments [133 favorites]

Optimizing Your Brain at Work is a pretty fascinating talk at Google by David Rock about managing your brain's internal states and attention, as well as threat responses with the goal of optimizing information processing. It is a Youtube link, and fairly long (~55min). He also mentions The Neuroscience of Mindfulness during the talk, so here is a convenient link to that.
posted by Vulpyne at 11:26 AM Dec 3 2009 - 28 comments [116 favorites]

Vim tutorial. Efficient Editing with Vim. Vim as IDE. Vim cookbook.
posted by kmz at 11:24 AM Dec 7 2009 - 120 comments [114 favorites]

The Muppets Cover Queen An all-new, original Muppet video. (SLYT)
posted by Optamystic at 8:50 AM Nov 24 2009 - 134 comments [100 favorites]

A treasure trove of gay and lesbian documentaries to watch online. Our course begins with a brief overview. (9m05s)
posted by hippybear at 1:42 PM Nov 23 2009 - 38 comments [97 favorites]

Everything you never wanted to know about the American prison-industrial complex. Part 2: Prison Nation.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:32 PM Nov 30 2009 - 92 comments [97 favorites]

How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic: "...a handy one-stop shop for all the material you should need to rebut the more common anti-global warming science arguments constantly echoed across the internet."
posted by Neilopolis at 12:55 PM Dec 5 2009 - 140 comments [97 favorites]

As a child, actor Patrick Stewart regularly saw his father hit his mother. Here he describes how the horrors of his childhood remained with him in his adult life.
posted by porn in the woods at 2:39 PM Nov 27 2009 - 87 comments [86 favorites]

Ninite is an incredibly nifty website/service that packages and lets you choose and install the correct versions of 59 of the best free Windows software packages in one click. It joins its mass-installing brethren: the venerable Google Pack (10 applications) and the Lifehacker Pack (22 applications), as well as a variety of specialized packages for Installpad, including those specializing in PC rescue or media.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:15 PM Dec 14 2009 - 32 comments [83 favorites]

Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free.
posted by ratita at 6:19 PM Nov 25 2009 - 84 comments [79 favorites]

"I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will explain how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was neither of these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I will show how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has improved my students' performance significantly." Physics professor Eric Mazur explains the development and use of the "ConcepTest".
posted by inkyroom at 4:15 PM Nov 20 2009 - 17 comments [76 favorites]

Looking for more comments with 20+ favourites? Try some of these.
posted by turgid dahlia at 1:21 AM Nov 25 2009 - 31 comments [73 favorites]

The best Star Wars: Episode 1 review ever (via techland, possibly NSFW, 7LYT, eponysterical)
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:16 AM Dec 16 2009 - 93 comments [69 favorites]

Abandoned in a hat in the middle of a snowdrift as a newborn, rescued by a woodsman and guarded by a lioness, stolen and raised by a wood nymph, instructed in the ways of all the languages of the animals as a child, on the threshold of manhood he visited medieval Europe, feudal Japan, and Arabian markets to learn the inherent evil of humanity. For his insistence on toymaking, he was terrorized and repeatedly captured by a race determined to corrupt young minds, until his immortal protector came out to defend him with a laser-shooting axe which eradicated the malevolent culture. But can that same protector defend his ward's life to the likes of the Commander of the Wind Demons? The Life and Adventures of Santa Clause, a Rankin/Bass production, Part [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
posted by Navelgazer at 8:12 PM Dec 7 2009 - 45 comments [67 favorites]

"Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. Historians, sociologists, philosophers and sometimes scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about how the institution of science is structured and how it knows what it knows." How to Think About Science is a 24-part series from CBC Radio's Ideas, featuring interviews with Steven Shapin, Ian Hacking, Bruno Latour, and others. The streaming audio links on the show's website seem to be out of commission, but direct links to all of the episodes can be found here.
posted by bewilderbeast at 7:35 PM Nov 27 2009 - 77 comments [66 favorites]

The 27 Best (Non-Super Bowl) Commercials of the 2000s: Balls [Bravia] - Birthday [Got Milk?] - Bubble Boy [Volkswagen] - Bus Station [Starburst] - Carousel [Phillips] - Cog [Honda] - Dangerously Low [Levi's] - Diorama [Halo 3] - Evolution [Dove] - Freestyle [Nike] - Gorilla [Cadbury] - Grrr [Honda] - Hello Tomorrow [Adidas] - Lamp [IKEA] - Like [Volkswagen] - Mountain [Playstation] - Noitulove [Guinness] - Odyssey [Levi's] - Rabbit [Comcast] - Sheet Metal [Saturn] - Stork [Monster] - Swear Jar [Bud Light] - Tag [Nike] - Tea Partay [Smirnoff] - Touch [Skittles] - Wedding Toast [Budweiser] - Yes We Can [Dipdive]. Part of Adweek's "Best of the 2000s" competition, which also includes rundowns of the 22 Best Super Bowl Spots and the 15 Best Print Campaigns of the last decade, among many other voting categories.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:38 PM Nov 23 2009 - 72 comments [65 favorites]