A titanium engagement ring that lights up via magnetic induction.
posted by GuyZero at 10:09 PM - 20 comments

Like father, like cubs: After watching Papa Wei Shand play with his food, Pallas Cat kittens try and do the same. [more inside]
posted by maryr at 8:08 PM - 18 comments

Jane's Jihad: the new face of terrorism. A Reuters series in four parts.

The case was so serious, authorities said, that they charged the woman, Colleen LaRose, with crimes that could keep her in prison for the rest of her life. Now, as she awaits sentencing, a months-long Reuters review of confidential documents and interviews with sources in Europe and the United States -- including the first and only interview with Jihad Jane herself -- reveals a far less menacing and, in some ways, more preposterous undertaking than what the U.S. government asserted.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:42 PM - 5 comments

Meet the Iranian Parkour Girls, the Gaza Parkour Team (while bombs fall) and the first Iraqi Parkour team.
posted by elgilito at 2:32 PM - 16 comments

"The comedian and actor lives with his wife, Jeannie Noth Gaffigan, and five children — that's not a typo — in a two-bedroom apartment in lower Manhattan." An NPR interview with Jim Gaffigan on kids, comedy, and apartment living. [more inside]
posted by SpacemanStix at 1:39 PM - 124 comments

"That a woman of color on a major network show should have a character this focal and active without any romantic angle is a rare bird. It's also deliberate." --- But -- "Remember the time Sherlock and Watson looked up a clue on a sponsored computer product while he sat on the toilet? I sure do! Bing me!" -- However -- "We have, at last, a true partnership for Holmes and Watson, couched in that particular soulmate simpatico of 221-b, and moving distinctly forward without losing sight of the canon." -- Why Elementary is the bestest if flawed modern Holmes television adaptation, according to sf/fantasy author Genevieve Valentine. Some spoilers.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:37 PM - 121 comments

People have long been interested in the architectural endeavors of animals. The internal structure of bee hives, the hexagonal combs of wax, have been amongst these ponderings, going back to Marcus Terentius Varro's Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres, a volume on Roman farm management. He wrote, "The geometricians prove that this hexagon inscribed in a circular figure encloses the greatest amount of space," and over the years, mathematicians have studied the hexagonal structures made by bees, and in 1998, Thomas Hales produced a mathematical proof for the classical hexagonal honeycomb conjecture, which "asserts that the most efficient partition of the plane into equal areas is the regular hexagonal tiling." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:42 PM - 22 comments

Microsoft has unveiled their new console, and it wants to dominate your living room. How Xbox One plans to fight Sony, Steam, and everything else.
posted by Artw at 12:05 PM - 267 comments

From the innocents at the New York Times: how to attend a Premier League match.
posted by shothotbot at 11:36 AM - 34 comments

Private Ceremonies. "Most women don’t talk about their abortions and miscarriages. Virtually none go through the experience with a loved one at their side. The greatest gift an abortion counselor can give is to bear witness, to be with a woman as she goes through this private journey, to witness her strength and weakness, her grief, her relief, her pain." A first person essay from a former abortion counselor.
posted by zarq at 10:45 AM - 34 comments

Every parent wants his or her kid to be great at something. That's only natural. But it's also natural to read Word Freak and hear John Williams talk about the assorted cast of rogues who populate the grownup tournament and worry that your kid will love Scrabble TOO much, that they'll end up consumed by a game, one day fleeing to Iceland and writing anti-Semitic screeds on rolls of toilet paper. Inside the 2013 National School Scrabble Championship.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:42 AM - 25 comments

How to Convince People WiFi Is Making Them Sick [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:19 AM - 122 comments

In the wake of the impending loss of google reader on July 1 (Previously) it was perhaps inevitable that someone would come up with a suitible and bloat free replacement, meet CommaFeed [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 8:14 AM - 117 comments

In 2011, the CIA reportedly hired a doctor in Pakistan to conduct espionage while giving vaccinations to children. In response, Pakistan expelled Save the Children from the country. The New England Journal of Medicine comments on military operations masquerading as humanitarian relief. [more inside]
posted by painquale at 7:47 AM - 36 comments

Back in 1994, Mimi Haist was a volunteer at the BEST laundromat in Santa Monica. The then-struggling young comic Zach Galifianakis was a patron of that laundromat, and he and Mimi became friends. Flash-forward to 2011 when the now-successful Galifianakis learns that Mimi has become homeless. What does he do? Pays for her apartment and makes her his date at his movie premieres.
posted by jbickers at 7:34 AM - 43 comments

Brave Chihuahua protects Kittens from Evil Puppy. [slyt | cute]
posted by quin at 7:32 AM - 53 comments

Voodoo, also titled Mini-Me, is a stop animation short created by Wonky Films featuring two knitted characters named Knit and Purl. Wonky Films has also produced two more films featuring the same knitted characters: Stuffing Up and Tickle. These knitted little guys have won the Bablegum film festival's Jury Runner Up Award and appeared on BBC Big Screens across the U.K. to help promote Children in Need.
posted by orange swan at 6:39 AM - 2 comments

How Apple Used Shell Companies to Save $44 Billion in Taxes [more inside]
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:25 AM - 185 comments

A&W is paying to put mini ads in men's beards [more inside]
posted by dubold at 5:11 AM - 48 comments

Bail is Busted - How Jail Really Works
posted by lalochezia at 4:08 AM - 22 comments

A few handwritten pages with poems and photographs from The road is wider than long
During July and August 1938, as Europe prepared for war, Roland Penrose and Lee Miller (slideshow) drove from Greece through the Balkans.
This was his record of the journey and declaration of love for her.
LEAVE YOUR TONGUE STUCK TO THE BARK
This will avoid all danger
of not meeting next year.
(Previous Lee Miller).
posted by adamvasco at 3:23 AM - 6 comments

io9: "After making a mere $84 million at the U.S. box office, Star Trek Into Darkness is considered by some to be a disappointment. Perhaps the problem is that it was a touch confusing. To help our readers better understand it, we've compiled and answered these Frequently Asked Questions about the movie." (Maximum Possible Spoiler Warning)
posted by davidjmcgee at 12:27 AM - 306 comments

I know how much can be at stake when a man takes a four-hour walk: Everything. The incomparable Gary Smith relates the tragic tale of 2004 Olympic hopeful Albert Heppner. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 10:52 PM - 7 comments

For the past three months, the Art Institute of Chicago has been putting their Launchpad videos, designed to provide more context of museum-goers at the Institutes, on YouTube. The short videos include modern artists recreating art using ancient, medieval, and newer techniques in mosaics, glassblowing, pottery, painting, silversmithing, marquetry, and coin production plus conservation of art. There are also a few videos focusing on individual pieces in the collection.
posted by julen at 10:05 PM - 4 comments

The (odd and funny) drawings of Will Laren.
posted by zardoz at 9:51 PM - 12 comments

"Every teenager out there feels invincible. And they'll never admit it. It's not the kind of invincible like Superman. It's the kind of invincible like - I'll see you in five months." [20-minute YouTube documentary by SoulPancake.]

At age 14, Zach Sobiech (previously) was diagnosed with bone cancer. Given months to live, he turned to music to say goodbye. Zach's song "Clouds" received 3 million hits, and inspired a celebrity cover video featuring dozens of actors and musicians. Zach died today at his home in Minnesota. He was 18.
posted by Sfving at 9:18 PM - 13 comments

"Everyone Only Wants Temps" - My stint doing "on demand" grunt work for one of America's hottest growth industries

It's not a pretty formula, but it works. With 600 offices and a workforce of 400,000—more employees than Target or Home Depot—Labor Ready is the undisputed king of the blue-collar temp industry. Specializing in "tough-to-fill, high-turnover positions," the company dispatches people to dig ditches, demolish buildings, remove debris, stock giant fulfillment warehouses—jobs that take their toll on a body.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:47 PM - 116 comments

Dance Of Reality is the first film in twenty-three years by Alejandro Jodorosky, visionary director of surreal masterpieces El Topo and The Holy Mountain, writer of the never-directed Dune film that is the subject of a new new documentary, and comics like Metabarons. Both Dance of Reality and Jodrowosky's Dune have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. If that's too much, check out Everything Is Terrible's Holy Mountain remake made with dogs.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:44 PM - 16 comments

Polyamory as noisy iterated prisoner's dilemma. [more inside]
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 5:59 PM - 35 comments

Several Hours ago a massive tornado hit the town of Moore Oklahoma. The tornado is now being estimated by some sources to be to be an EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. This means winds at or over 200 mph as well as a damage area of close to 30 square miles. [more inside]
posted by Podkayne of Pasadena at 4:52 PM - 336 comments

How Far Did PBS Go To Avoid Offending David H. Koch?
posted by indubitable at 4:23 PM - 50 comments

Flickr announces 1TB free for all users.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:00 PM - 201 comments

Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for The Doors, has died at the age of 74. Not a lot of links. Just a place to share your thoughts, your faves... and to remember.
posted by markkraft at 3:58 PM - 95 comments

Anthony Moore, known as Romanthony, has died at age 46. [more inside]
posted by Taft at 2:53 PM - 19 comments

59 marvelous photographs taken between 1903 and 1920 by Frédéric Boissonnas (1858-1946), a franco-Swiss photographer who loved Greece. This is him being hauled up to the Meteora monastery in a net. Boissonnas was also a mountaineer and was the first to scale Mt. Olympus successfully in 1913. During the first 30 years of the 20th century he became the most influential photographer in Greece, between the two World Wars. Traveling extensively, landscapes, everyday people and life in Greece were photographed in detail for the first time. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 2:21 PM - 12 comments

"In the past inequality in South Africa was largely defined along race lines. It has become increasingly defined by inequality within population groups as the gap between rich and poor within each group has increased substantially." Is this what's led the BBC to report a growing sense of insecurity among poor (chiefly Afrikaans-speaking) whites? Or are they just blatantly misreading the statistics? [more inside]
posted by theweasel at 2:02 PM - 21 comments

How to ensure food and drink water safety during a flood or other natural disaster, courtesy of the FDA and the USDA.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:12 PM - 12 comments

A judgmental survey of America's state birds, with suggestions for improvements.
posted by Iridic at 11:59 AM - 171 comments

"YOU SOLD ME OUT AND SHATTERED MY DREAMS TONIGHT; ALL I WAS LOOKING FOR WAS 75 MINUTES OF ONE OF YOUR PEERS' TIME" It started when Tim Heidecker (previously) tried to set up a creative meeting between an old friend—Tom Scharpling (previously)—and an unnamed "high profile player" at the Adult Swim TV upfronts. But then the meeting fell through. [more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:33 AM - 79 comments

George RR Martin created the series, then let it hang around for decades without resolution. In the last couple of years however, there's been renewed interest, new novels and a screen adaption in the works. No, not Game of Thrones: Wild Cards! [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:22 AM - 27 comments

The Royal Horticultural Society has temporarily lifted a ban on garden gnomes - normally deemed too "tacky" - at the Chelsea Flower Show. Garden historian Twigs Way charts the public's long love-hate relationship with these figurines.
posted by marienbad at 11:01 AM - 24 comments

Rebound. A simple physics game with 2 controls. How far to the right can you go? [more inside]
posted by garlic at 10:06 AM - 30 comments

Tumblr's $1.1 Billion price-tag instinctively seems very high to most of us, but without context, numbers this huge are often literally unfathomable to the masses. To help readers gain perspective on the huge numbers commonly tossed around by the media, researcher Glen Chiacchieri has created Dictionary of Numbers, a Google Chrome extension that automatically adds context to huge numbers printed in the web pages that you read. [more inside]
posted by schmod at 7:57 AM - 51 comments

Guitar Warfare. Because sometimes a guitar bandit needs to be flattened. [slyt | via]
posted by quin at 7:27 AM - 19 comments

Late Friday night, a young man named Mark Carson was killed, shot point blank, in Greenwich Village. Carson's death was the 22nd anti-gay hate crime in New York so far this year, and the fifth this month. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:59 AM - 98 comments

Finnegans Wake, Joyce's famously unreadable masterpiece (read it online here), was considerably more readable in one of its earlier drafts. Watch Joyce cross out decipherable words and replace them with less decipherable ones! Watch him end, not with a whimper, but with a slightly less impressive whimper! Sadly, Shem's schoolbook, which in the finished version is a House of Leaves-esque compendium of side columns and footnotes, was not written until much later (according to the footnotes of that section). The introduction to this draft by David Hayman, who assembled it, is worth a read.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:39 AM - 54 comments

Since February of this year, Autostraddle ("News, Entertainment, Opinion and Girl-On-Girl Culture") has been running a very interesting series of articles about trans experience (primarily focused on trans women) called Trans*Scribe. [more inside]
posted by jiawen at 10:43 PM - 38 comments

Structural Archaeology

Geoff Carter's radical view of building in the ancient world, especially the archaeology of the lost timber built environment of Southern England. It is new research into of prehistory of architecture

With the ultimate conclusion that Stonehenge is the remains of a roofed shelter. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 10:14 PM - 76 comments

"That was sort of a triumphant, 'fuck you,' to build a bike with no seat and keep riding." The experience of custom bike-builder Ezra Caldwell is chronicled in a 12 minute documentary by the folks at This Is Made By Hand, and also on Ezra's own blog, teaching cancer to cry. This Is Made By Hand, previously. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 9:40 PM - 14 comments

The Long Swath is a satellite image by NASA's Landsat Data Continuity Mission that captures, in a single continuous image, a strip of land 120 by 6,000 miles stretching from South Africa to Russia. The image can be explored in Gigapan, Google Earth, and fly-over videos and high resolution images.
posted by carter at 7:35 PM - 7 comments