November 10

Sunday night 60 Minutes aired a segment on the state of cyber crime & cyber terror which included the extraordinary claim that unknown hackers were behind massive power outages in Brazil in 2005 & 2007. Now Wired Magazine's Threat Level blog says that's just not true. According to two studies (PDF, Portuguese) by the Brazilian government it was buildup of soot on insulators that caused the blackouts, not super-hackers demonstrating their abilities. Is the US Intelligence Community passing around false information to justify its relevance?
posted by scalefree at 7:02 AM - 3 comments

Music video for Snake featuring giant stompy robots invading Uruguay. Short film sans band. Behind the scenes.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:28 AM - 1 comment

Armin Gessert, the creator of the classic Giana Sisters game and more recently a remake on Nintendo DS no less, passed away (German) on Sunday Nov 9, 2009. Giana has quite the fan following, and has been ported to pc, 32k among others. Also, previously 1. [more inside]
posted by lundman at 3:03 AM - 10 comments

Re-inhabited Circle Ks - an exhibit of identical storefronts abandoned by a national chain of convenience stores and re-purposed by new businesses. [more inside]
posted by mullacc at 2:46 AM - 26 comments

November 9

Homeopathy has been discussed on the Blue before, but you've never heard it explained so well as this. You'll learn lessmore about physics than you've ever believed possible, and see how Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity ties in to homeopathic medicine, and Stephen Hawking's String Theory makes it all happen. [more inside]
posted by Vamier at 10:45 PM - 82 comments

In [a recent] essay titled Heil Heidegger! Carlin Romano, a critic for The Chronicle Review, called Heidegger a “Black Forest babbler” and fraud who was “overrated in his prime” and “bizarrely venerated by acolytes even now.” As the NYT noted yesterday, the publication in English of a recent French book on the by now familiar controversy about Heidegger's Nazism is re-igniting an old debate about the influential philosopher's politics.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 7:58 PM - 52 comments

The jobless rate for people like you.
posted by Afroblanco at 6:33 PM - 82 comments

Confessions of an Independent Film Maker is the video log about a Filipino guy who wants to make a feature film. After a year and a half, he's finally in production. Watch out for this guy.
posted by Taft at 6:16 PM - 10 comments

What's After the Credits? is a handy website which tells you if a movie, television show or video game has any extra or special scenes during the credits or post credits, known 'in the biz' as a Stinger. And if after checking out those websites you're tired of just reading about these post-credit scenes, check out a whole bunch of them by following this link to Youtube.
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:54 PM - 51 comments

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the appeal of two "math geeks" who were denied a patent for a business method they developed for utility companies. This is one of the most watched cases of the Supreme Court term, drawing some 67 briefs. Although the patent office has recognized that business methods can be patented, it is not clear whether patents, developed to protect innovations like machines and transformative processes, are available for 21st century inventions such as software.
posted by bearwife at 2:30 PM - 48 comments

The Beatles never broke up.
posted by klangklangston at 2:26 PM - 87 comments

When it comes to roleplaying games, there are your run-of-the-mill CRPGs and then there are Bioware CRPGs. Last week saw the release of the next Bioware CRPG, Dragon Age: Origins. The game has received the expected universal acclaim. [more inside]
posted by WinnipegDragon at 1:38 PM - 106 comments

Roomba Pac-Man! We've already discussed modding Roombas and Roomba art, but now these guys have made a fully playable real-life Pac-Man game using everyone's favorite robotic vacuum cleaner.
posted by dnesan at 1:27 PM - 14 comments

"I don't mean to be rude, but I try everything out on Sylvia, and if she can do it, anybody can." Fortunately, Sylvia is in the kitchen making another cup of tea. In sleepy Sussex is a group of dedicated cryonicists who believe they hold the secret to eternal life. Simon Hattenstone joins them for a demonstration – but first they need to make sure the hosepipe isn't too leaky.
posted by veedubya at 12:44 PM - 50 comments

It appears that the Lost Army of Cambyses has been found. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:25 PM - 64 comments

Do you like maps? How about historical maps? Oodles of links to even more maps? Then the PCL Map Collection hosted by the University of Texas might be for you. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 12:14 PM - 10 comments

Futurama Writer Saves Tiny Presidents. Beginning in the 1950's, toymaker Louis Marx released a line of figurines of U.S. Presidents (accompanied by a model White House). Sold as sets and given away as grocery store premiums the figures are still popular collectibles today. The series ended when Richard M. Nixon was president. Patric M. Verrone, writer for Futurama and The Simpsons has carried on the tradition, using appropriate torsos from the old Marx figures and sculpting new heads, he has continued the line up to President Obama. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 12:06 PM - 26 comments

Brynn Metheny is a freelance illustrator based in Oakland, California who loves to draw imaginary creatures. Metheny has taken this fascination with made-up animals and extended it to the point of conjuring up an entire continent, Orcura, through which flows The Morae River. The river basin has a bestiary and a Classification of Species to describe the animals that inhabit it. (via) (speculative zoology previously)
posted by HumanComplex at 11:18 AM - 9 comments

Few men can reach the notes, and few women have the lung capacity to manipulate them. Most of these arias have not been heard since the deaths of the castrati for whom they were written. Mezzosoprano Cecilia Bartoli has released an album entitled Sacrificium. The album is a compilation of 17th-century arias written for castrati--male singers who were castrated in order to sing in a higher register. Commentaries on the work are favorable; commentaries on the history of castrati and Bartoli herself are just as interesting.
posted by jefficator at 11:13 AM - 40 comments

Hacking is a Baltimore phenomenon that allows citizens to get cheap "illegal" rides across town. A hack indicates they want a ride by motioning their pointer finger towards the ground as they walk along the street. Inevitably a driver will stop, the two parties will negotiate a price and a ride will be given. It is both a dangerous and necessary part of the blighted Baltimore economy.
posted by cloeburner at 11:10 AM - 77 comments

MarineTraffic is a live map recording ship traffic based on AIS data. The site mainly covers European and North American coasts and includes info on vessels and ports, plus a gallery with some cool ship photos. Similar: see ShipAIS for live vessel movements from around the UK.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:27 AM - 8 comments

Hacking Perl in nightclubs
posted by yegga at 10:08 AM - 19 comments

The Polar Discovery team has documented science in action from pole to pole during the historic 2007-2009 International Polar Year, and covered five scientific expeditions. The science projects explored a range of topics from climate change and glaciers, to Earth’s geology, biology, ocean chemistry, circulation, and technology at the icy ends of the earth. Through photo essays and other multimedia, they explain how scientists collected data and what they discovered about the rapidly changing polar regions. From the awesome folks at WHOI.
posted by netbros at 10:01 AM - 3 comments

Carl Ballantine passed away at age 92. [more inside]
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 9:53 AM - 13 comments

In the late 1890s, a wooden "cycle-way" was built between Pasadena and Los Angeles for bicycle travel before freeways existed. It ran along the Arroyo Seco and though it was planned for the full ten mile distance, only two miles were completed by 1900 as the popularity of the bicycle waned. In 1983 a bike path was built along the stream basin but is both riddled with glass and debris and dangerous to impassible during a rainstorm. For the last 15 years, a group in Pasadena has been leading the effort to restore a bike path between Pasadena and Los Angeles.
posted by mathowie at 9:51 AM - 15 comments

Apple has rejected an iPhone app for making contact with your Congressperson. Why? Because it identifies each US Representative/Senator with a 'bobblehead' caricature by MAD magazine artist Tom Richmond (who, having done 540 not-terribly-disrespectful caricatures, is justifiably pissed). “Obscene, pornographic, or defamatory”?!? Well, maybe the Nancy Pelosi is gratuitously goofy...
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:37 AM - 116 comments

Your cafefully separated recycling heads to the dump. Reporters in D.C. follow some of the trucks around town and watch them dump the trash and the recycling together into the same truck. (previously)
posted by caddis at 8:57 AM - 63 comments

Video discussion on being a man with, and The Seven P's of Men's Violence by, Michael Kaufman, International Director of the White Ribbon Campaign. [more inside]
posted by catchingsignals at 7:24 AM - 75 comments

40 years ago today, The Rolling Stones played two concerts at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. In the darkness of the audience was a man known to history only as "Dub"... [audio auto-plays] [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 6:59 AM - 13 comments

The Open Road London pioneering colour footage from 1927 (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:16 AM - 14 comments

The strength of post-Soviet math stems from decades of lonely productivity. Russian math.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:36 AM - 17 comments

It's been posted before, but on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the stunning photography of Brian Rose is certainly worth revisiting. It's amazing that something like this existed. [more inside]
posted by jedro at 2:47 AM - 21 comments

Is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world? Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry debate the question with Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Anne Widdencombe. Parts 2, 3, 4, 5
posted by empath at 12:04 AM - 235 comments

November 8

Mefi's own Jason Scott (jscott) wants to raise $25,000 using waxy's Kickstarter to work full-time on computer history. He made BBS documentary (previously), founded the Archive Team, and owns textfiles.com (previously) and, yes, sockington. So far, 237 people have pledged $20,340. On Nov. 4, Jason did a 5-hours, non-stop Scottathon. Apparently, fundraising ain't easy. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 11:51 PM - 35 comments

Biblioburro is a library that schoolteacher Luis Soriano Bohorquez of La Gloria, a small town in northern Colombia, carries around on his donkeys Alfa and Beto. Another video of Biblioburro by Al Jazeera English. Here's some further footage in Spanish. [Biblioburro previously]
posted by Kattullus at 10:04 PM - 12 comments

Simon Mann, freed dog of war, is demanding justice. After more than five years in jail, the British mercenary is seeking vengeance on others he says were part of the failed 'Wonga Coup' – including Mark Thatcher. [previously] [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 9:44 PM - 23 comments

Cuban players have long been a mainstay in baseball. After Fidel Castro made it impossible for people to leave the island, the flow of players stopped to a drip. That changed with the defection of Rene Arocha in 1991. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 9:08 PM - 4 comments

Aardvark is a Q&A chat service that tries find people to answer your questions among your friends, friends of friends and people who know something about your subject. In practice it's a bit like AskOmegle. [more inside]
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:49 PM - 37 comments

"Golb the Son has taken up his father’s cause with all the vigor permitted by multiple Gmail accounts." A tale of sock puppets and ancient scrolls.
posted by tractorfeed at 3:56 PM - 80 comments

Michelle Khine makes high tech out of children's toys. Doing medical nanotech with Shrinky Dinks and a toaster oven.
posted by idiopath at 3:52 PM - 9 comments

Desiree Jennings is a 25-year old marketing manager (and Redskins "Ambassador cheerleader") who claims that in August she received a seasonal flu vaccine at a grocery store that caused a never-before-seen dystonia. While saturating media outlets and drawing the support of celebrity anti-vaccinationists, she shunned the doctors who treated her at Johns Hopkins University who (along with other neurologists who have seen footage of her) judged that she was suffering from a psychogenic disorder. [more inside]
posted by inoculatedcities at 3:50 PM - 98 comments

Name That Movie The illustrator, Paul Rogers, description of his project: I started a series of drawings in my sketchbook, it's a kind of visual quiz of great movies. Each series is a sequence of six drawings of shots from classic films (in the order they appear on screen.) No portraits of movie stars, just iconic images from the film.
posted by TimTypeZed at 3:26 PM - 20 comments

Gerhardt 'Jerry' Fuchs, drummer for the bands Maserati (video) and The Juan MacLean died last night of injuries sustained while trying to jump of a disabled elevator in Brooklyn following an event for The Uniform Project (previously).
posted by setanor at 2:39 PM - 30 comments

"What's the deal with cat ladies?" asks an article. Maybe you saw the TV show, which could be "the grossest footage" on TV. Gross indeed, but read the studies from the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium, or watch the documentary, and maybe you'll want to visit the little old lady that lives down the street and see if she's OK.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:44 PM - 45 comments

Past Tense is a publishing project exploring London radical history. Their website has texts telling us about William Cuffay, the black Chartist tried and transported for levying war against Queen Victoria; an account of an early instance of women's organised labour struggle during the 1908 Corruganza box-makers strike; the drunken uproar of the 18th-century elections for the spurious Mayor of Garratt, really putting the 'mock' into 'mock election'; a yeoman farmer in Kett's Great Rebellion of 1549; the burning of the Albion Mills; and much more, including some walking tours to locations linked to radical history in various parts of the metropolis.
posted by Abiezer at 6:42 AM - 7 comments

The Kalinin K-7 was a giant flying fortress that might have redefined aerial combat in the 1930s. The hugely expensive and trouble-prone prototype was scrapped by Stalin and its designer was later executed. Here are some renderings of the planes that might have been, with spacious lounges, battleship-sized cannons, and the ability to defend us from UFOs.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:58 AM - 67 comments

Elona Shooter - a fantastic castle-defence-shooter-RPG in Flash. Warning: insanely hard.
posted by catchingsignals at 12:00 AM - 18 comments

November 7

If there's one thing that MeFites are absolutely universal in loving, it's the TV show Mad Men. Right? Right? Well, here's something that even the haters will enjoy : Milk Men - A Mad Men Parody
posted by Afroblanco at 9:31 PM - 61 comments

The House of Representatives just passed the health reform bill in a vote of 220-215.
posted by reenum at 9:01 PM - 398 comments

cosmolearning has a ton of college courses and documentaries aggregated in one place. And it was started by a couple of teenagers. I'm impressed.
posted by pahool at 7:45 PM - 8 comments

« Older posts