The Weirdest Band in the World is a blog devoted to singers, musicians, and bands that are crazy, silly, improbable, eccentric, grotesque, idiosyncratic, inexplicable, insane, or otherwise unusual. Bloggers Andy and Jake write about bands both successful and obscure, whether metal, jazz, hip-hop, or whatever other genre, always with an unflagging appreciation for what makes these bands unique, and with none of the snark and jeering that often laces articles elsewhere about people doing weird things. [more inside]
posted by narain at 6:08 PM - 21 comments

Turing Drawings is a simple web app that uses Turing Machines to draw randomly generated compositions on a digital canvas. The results vary from stuff like striking static designs, organic forms that slowly devolve in to chaos, repeating animations, and systems with complex interactions. If you find a combination that you like, you can copy and paste the URL in the lower right hand corner of the site to share it. The creator, Darius Bacon, has some other cool stuff that mixes computer science with the humanities on his blog.
posted by codacorolla at 6:02 PM - 69 comments

A picture of you plus name, age, SS# in a National Database ACLU of Northern CA call to action. via [more inside]
posted by snaparapans at 6:01 PM - 75 comments

Literature and Form is a series of four lectures by Oxford literature academic Dr. Catherine Brown. The lectures are on the themes of unreliable narrators, chapters, multiple plotting and what comparative literature is. You can listen to it as a podcast or through iTunes U. In this lecture series Brown primarily looks at some central structures of the novel as well as examining what the study of literature entails. Brown weaves in examples from world literature, especially English and Russian literature of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries.
posted by Kattullus at 5:12 PM - 6 comments

The Post-Punk / New Wave Super Friends by Butcher Billy. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 4:55 PM - 32 comments

Many languages have "high" and "low" layers of vocabulary. But in most other languages, the two sets are drawn from the same source. By contrast, contact between Old English and French, Dravidian languages and Sanskrit, Japanese and Chinese, Persian and Arabic, and other pairings around the world have created fascinatingly hybrid languages. These mixed lexicons are, for linguistic and social historians, akin to the layers of fossils that teach paleontologists and archaeologists so much about eras gone by. Some people even think English is descended from Latin, or Kannada from Sanskrit. That’s frustrating not only because it’s wrong, but also because the reality is far more interesting. - The Economist, Unlikely parallels (via)
posted by beisny at 4:55 PM - 31 comments

Why Are Barns Red?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:16 PM - 27 comments

Use "Metatalk" skill to discuss communication problems.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:55 PM - 46 comments

"It was one of those things that was a gift to humanity... We’re all going to lose for sure." Kepler's career is over, but not before answering one of mankind's most profound questions.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 2:28 PM - 28 comments

Speed up Imagine, slow down Band on The Run. WTF?
posted by timsteil at 2:23 PM - 49 comments

Science fiction novels for economists [via Paul Krugman]
posted by brundlefly at 12:50 PM - 51 comments

The longest-delayed reveal in television history has been unveiled: I give to you: the mother from How I Met Your Mother. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:32 PM - 198 comments

Ever wondered what the view at the very top of the Washington Monument is like? Construction workers erecting scaffolding (for repairs needed after the 2011 earthquake) donned helmet cams on the day they reached the tip of the monument, so you need wonder no longer.
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:03 PM - 42 comments

The Seth McFarlane reboot of "Cosmos" will air on Fox in 2014. The host will be Neil DeGrasse Tyson. [more inside]
posted by scrump at 11:48 AM - 99 comments

SLYT KTLA 5 News Los Angeles invited the actors of the Mortal Kombat: Live Tour to the station to promote their tour in 1996.
posted by jcterminal at 11:47 AM - 8 comments

Slate's Matthew Yglesias 'Boldly Went Where Every Star Trek Movie and TV Show Has Gone Before,' by watching every Star Trek movie and television series,* and offers his position on why Star Trek is great. [more inside]
posted by Atreides at 11:31 AM - 475 comments

A confluence of factors has pushed me to post the following missive from one Benjamin Franklin–a noted American humorist who also did some other stuff. If from an overindulgence in rich and fatty foods on Fat Tuesday, you find yourself surfeit with internal pressure, follow the advice of a founding father…
posted by Blasdelb at 10:29 AM - 26 comments

How America Commie-Baited A Baseball Hero [more inside]
posted by Elementary Penguin at 10:17 AM - 9 comments

Dystopia 2.0 "...while spending millions bending the political process to pad their bottom lines, they’ve remained far more popular than past plutocrats, with 72 percent of Americans expressing positive feelings for the industry, compared to 30 percent for banking and 20 percent for oil and gas." by Joel Kotkin (wiki) referred to previously as "America’s leading cheerleader for suburban sprawl" has taken the "creative class" to task before.
posted by victors at 8:47 AM - 45 comments

Today The New Yorker unveiled Strongbox, a service that allows sources to share information with TNY journalists securely and anonymously. As explained in this infographic, Strongbox relies on the Tor network, a dedicated server, PGP encryption, VPNs, and multiple laptops and thumb drives to prevent files from being intercepted or traced. The codebase, which is open source, was designed by the late Aaron Swartz (Previously). Kevin Poulsen, one of the organizers of the project, chronicles how Swartz developed the code and how the project managed to carry on after his death. TNY hopes that Strongbox will help the magazine continue its long tradition of investigative journalism.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:46 AM - 34 comments

Six science projects that kids and adults will love! (and you can do at home).
posted by quin at 7:24 AM - 17 comments

Neither a borrower nor a lender be. 198 movies and shows cut together to reform, Voltron-like, as Hamlet
posted by yerfatma at 7:14 AM - 32 comments

Take a slippery, wooded floor, two stoic lizards and a somewhat too energetic for its own good kitten and you have all the makings of a successful cat video.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:29 AM - 53 comments

Snooky and the metronome
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:29 AM - 30 comments

Joseph Tomaras reflects on the Mauna Loa data and concludes that the main tasks of the moment are neither political nor economic, but ethical or moral. [more inside]
posted by Gilgongo at 5:44 AM - 38 comments

A female data scientist working on HAWKEN (a videogame) takes issue with the poster of a scantily clad comic character her CEO displays on his wall, and while he is away, replaces it with something else... [more inside]
posted by xdvesper at 4:39 AM - 164 comments

For the first time in Kitchen Nightmares history, British chef Gordon Ramsay walks off his own show. In the segment that aired this week, the difficult owners of Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, AZ - Samy and Amy Bouzaglo - are shown stealing tips from their waitstaff, admitting to firing more than 100 employees over a one year period, firing a waitress for asking a question, telling a customer who had been waiting over an hour for his food to go fuck himself (yes, the police were called during filming), and passing off frozen, pre-made raviolis and desserts as if they were homemade. The couple was so resistant to criticism that even the typically steadfast Ramsay decided he couldn’t help them and shut the show down before beginning the rehab phase. [more inside]
posted by phaedon at 3:20 AM - 433 comments

Two lengthy appreciations of Jacques Barzun's influence: Barzun's grandson remembers the letters of his well-known grandfather, and Helen Hazen reminisces about Barzun's unexpected effort to help her write her first book.
posted by cgc373 at 3:13 AM - 2 comments

The Talkhouse gets musicians to review albums, so you get articles like Hunter Hurt-Hendrix on Death Grips, Laura Jane Grace on Savages and Matthew Friedberger (Fiery Furnaces) on Vampire Weekend.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 2:10 AM - 13 comments

The Department of Homeland Security has apparently seized Mt.Gox's Dwolla account, a key US mobile payments account associated with the largest Bitcoin exchange. Mt.Gox has confirmed that their Dwolla account is disabled, but have not been party to the court order themselves. [more inside]
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:54 AM - 124 comments

Not to make you feel old or anything, but The Breeder's Last Splash just turned 20. Time for a deluxe reissue and a tour! [more inside]
posted by bardic at 12:31 AM - 31 comments

The Queen of Snakes is a point and click flash game featuring the intricate artwork of JO99 (via JayIsGames) [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 9:45 PM - 15 comments

Kings and Sharks Dance Offs started when both teams first met in the playoffs. It took over the series talk thread and Game Day Threads until it got it's own thread. Since then, it has become a tradition.
posted by blob at 9:19 PM - 18 comments

For more than 50 years, Linear B was an ancient language that hadn't given up its secret. Professor Bennett spent much of the 1940s hammering out a list of about 80 characters, and in 1951 he published the first definitive list of the signs of Linear B. The next year, archaeologist and Linear B enthusiast Michael Ventris finished "breaking" the code, with some hope from the research of Bennett, and another scholar named Alice Kober, but apparently she was rather hard to get on with and they went their separate ways. Except the magnitude of Doctor Kober's painstaking and self-sacrificing work is still largely unacknowledged. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:34 PM - 20 comments

One man's attempt to rebrand Abercrombie & Fitch as "The World's Number One Brand of Homeless Apparel". SLYT
posted by dobbs at 7:11 PM - 46 comments

Researchers at Humboldt State University have mapped hateful tweets. Dr. Monica Stephens, at Humboldt State, has teamed up with undergraduate research assistants to study the geographical distribution of hate speech in tweets. The graphical map breaks down by "genre" of hate (homophobia, racism, disability) as well as by individual words flagged. Far more details are available on floatingsheep.org; the data was provided by the DOLLY Project at the University of Kentucky.
posted by obliquicity at 5:20 PM - 113 comments

MOOOOOOM, WE'RE BOOOORED Didn't I buy you that Mario Kart game for your Wii, like, two years ago? Five? YEAH, BUT WE'RE BOOOOOORED But kids, didn't it include something like thirty tracks? YEAH, BUT WE'RE TIIIIIRED OF THOOOOOSE Well, I didn't want to do this so early in the year, but I've got a Christmas present for you that I've been holding on to. You know how you've been saying how you wanted 184 new tracks for Mario Kart Wii? YEAH! WE WERE REALLY SPECIFIC ABOUT THAT NUMBER Well, bust out that Mario Kart Wii disc and an SD card, because Merry Christmas, kids!
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:10 PM - 30 comments

In 1985, Houston was preparing for a party: 1986 marked the city's 150th birthday, the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Texas, and 25 years since the opening of NASA's Johnson Space Center, the hub around which the city's aerospace industry blossomed. In comes French synthesizer pioneer Jean Michel Jarre, the "composer of the future", known for his spectacular 1979 Bastille Day show that attracted a million people to Place de la Concorde, and for being the first Western musician to play China in 1981. With the Space Shuttle Challenger due to take off on mission STS-51-L in January, Jarre penned a piece for Mission Specialist and saxophonist Ron McNair to record in space. The nation watched as McNair and his crewmates prepared for their journey and waved goodbye, only to perish in a haunting and iconic explosion. As Houston mourned the loss of the seven crew, who called the city home during their preparation for spaceflight, Jarre wasn't sure if the upcoming festivities should be held, but was convinced by astronaut Bruce McCandless that the show must go on. On April 5, 1986, 1.5 million people gathered downtown to witness Rendez-vous Houston, a massive tribute to America's pioneering spirit that used the city as its backdrop. [more inside]
posted by avocet at 4:29 PM - 19 comments

Sarah Polley, previously, is a Canadian actress and director whose new documentary Stories We Tell is about her own family's story. Or stories. And how storytelling shapes us. Sarah Polley's Meta Masterpiece [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:06 PM - 17 comments

Recurring Developments: An interactive visualization of running jokes in Arrested Development
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:38 PM - 49 comments

Contractors Raked in $385 Billion on Overseas Bases in 12 Years "I began with publicly available government contract data and followed a methodology for tracking funds used by the Commission on Wartime Contracting. This allowed me to compile a list of every Pentagon contract with a "place of performance.... There were 1.7 million of them."
posted by HuronBob at 2:10 PM - 53 comments

How do you solicit freelance scripts for a science fiction television series that breaks the mold? You create a comprehensive guide to writing an episode of Star Trek. [more inside]
posted by Sara C. at 1:38 PM - 189 comments

To complement the rapid political climate change of the past few days, here in Minnesota we have freak ice destruction followed by a gorgeous day of 90 degree temperatures. I've seen the ice out on Mille Lacs Lake many times, but this YouTube video is pretty incredible, and features commentary in authentic Minnesotan.
posted by finnegans at 12:51 PM - 81 comments

Modern Manele is a deliciously vulgar, cheesy-fun, bouncy Eastern European pop music. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 12:07 PM - 19 comments

Skylab, NASA's budget space station, launched 40 years ago today. Designed as an orbiting optical laboratory, she served as a cold war weapon, underwent an historic salvage job, and was the site of America's first space mutiny before landing hard in Australia while waiting for the Space Shuttle to be invented.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 12:03 PM - 37 comments

The Boston easy listening station WJIB has developed a cult following among senior citizens, children, and young artsy types. Before local radio legend Bob Bittner revived the call letters and format of the beloved beautiful music station, the 740 frequency had an unusual and eccentric history. [more inside]
posted by pxe2000 at 11:53 AM - 16 comments

Suspended in Void - a lovely collection of Italian ex votos depicting people who survived falls under the watchful eye of the Virgin Mary. Previously: a larger collection of ex votos from various cultures. (Via Heading East)
posted by madamjujujive at 11:02 AM - 9 comments

"The Sound of Stigma: An essay by Mark S. King—an AIDS advocate, an author and a blogger living with HIV since 1985—on why HIV stigma among gay men persists."
posted by andoatnp at 9:50 AM - 145 comments

"'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.' So goes the old saying. Yet conditions in some American facilities are so obscene that they amount to a form of extrajudicial punishment." Mother Jones is profiling "America's 10 Worst Prisons." Facilities were chosen for the list based on "...three years of research, correspondence with prisoners, and interviews with reform advocates." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:15 AM - 86 comments

Jason Richwine has resigned from the Heritage Foundation. Richwine is the author of a the Heritage report, "The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer." In 2009, Richwine earned his doctorate from Harvard University, and his dissertation was titled "IQ and Immigration Policy", which argued that Hispanic immigrants have lower IQ than white native immigrants. [more inside]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:46 AM - 136 comments