MetaFilter posts tagged with big

A-trickling down the rocks

GavinR — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:59:11 -0800

Big Rock Candy Mountain is just a wonderful little song. I don't know many hobo tunes, but this one gets stuck in my head from time to time. It has been covered by Burl Ives, a drunken Tom Waits, and then was reworked as the theme song to the amazingly awesome animated TV show that is The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.

"What exactly is 70s Big?"

ludwig_van — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:52:21 -0800

"It's big, like people were back in the 70s... Big when you get that way because you're just real damn strong." Brought to you from the Wichita Falls Athletic Club, 70sbig.com will teach you how to eat, how to train, and how to style your moustache so that you can get 70s big. Not interested in becoming 70s big? Then stop by and observe the amazing feats of those who were, like weightlifter Anatoly Pisarenko, who cleaned and jerked 583 pounds, or powerlifter Doug Young, who deadlifted 711 pounds in competition despite three broken ribs. The site also feature a series of cheeky interviews with Mark Rippetoe, owner of WFAC and author of books like Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training and Practical Programming for Strength Training.

WHILE YOU WERE READING THIS ... I FARTED

Optimus Chyme — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:30:02 -0800

If you're tired of boring twee t-shirts with birds and swirly stuff and junk on them, maybe it's time you started running with the Big Dogs. From "Fart Now Loading" to "Talk Slower - I don't speak STUPID", Big Dogs brand graphic tees are a great way to communicate your hip, in-your-face, modern attitude. But they're not just for middle school anymore - the Big Dogs empire now stretches from Moms to Dads to Grandmas and even Bass Fishermen! Sadly, some juvenile losers think Big Dogs is some kind of joke. Looks like you CAN'T FIX STUPID!

Ay ay ay, ay ay ay...

LSK — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:33:59 -0800

Everybody's hugging up the big monkey man. Seriously, everybody.

Now a Major Motion Picture, Starring Ernie Hudson

piratebowling — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:26:53 -0800

The "I Can Read Movies" Series is a set of fake film novelizations, done in 1950's and 1960's illustration style. [via]

What to do with cities like Flint?

billysumday — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:40:07 -0800

Politicians and citizens alike are struggling with the decision to bail out the under-performing American automakers. But what will happen to the cities and towns of the Midwest if the automakers fail? Flint, Michigan provides an interesting template. In the 1960s and 70s, Flint had a population of 200,000 and was home to some 80,000 autoworkers. Today, after many plant closures, relocations, and worker buyouts, only 8,000 autoworkers remain. So, what are we to do with cities like Flint? There have been lots of ideas, like demolishing dilapidated houses, renovating brownfield sites like Chevy-in-the-Hole [pdf], downtown business renovation, and increasing community participation by giving ownership of vacant lots to local homeowners. Some progress has been made through the efforts of the Genesee County Land Bank, an organization that, "provides six services: demolition, foreclosure prevention, rental management, housing renovation, property maintenance and a side lot program, through which empty lots are sold to adjacent homeowners. It also has developed a Web site to provide quick access to real estate listings and maps, and to allow visitors to communicate with staff through e-mail." However, not everybody likes what the Land Bank is doing in Flint, including its mayor, who threatened to sue the organization for, "driving the price of real estate down dramatically. They're creating places for rats and prostitutes." The central question for those interested in the future of Flint seems to be best posed by the authors of the Chevy-in-the-Hole proposal: should developers try to renovate old buildings and build new ones in order to attract new residents and business? Or should developers realize that the people aren't coming back, and in turn tear down abandoned commercial spaces and houses, rid the ground of pollutants, and turn brown sites into greenspace and municipal/state parks, thereby creating a less dense but more appealing city in which to live? Reimagining Chevy-in-the-Hole blog and more proposals [pdf] for renovating the Flint River District.

Think big!

Tobu — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:38:48 -0800

What would you do with eternity and a bunch of rocks? Now you're done, why not go for a stroll to the land of transfinite ordinals, then doze off at the the Babel library.

The Big Sort

wittgenstein — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:21:22 -0800

"Bishop contends that as Americans have moved over the past three decades, they have clustered in communities of sameness, among people with similar ways of life, beliefs, and in the end, politics. There are endless variations of this clustering—what Bishop dubs the Big Sort—as like-minded Americans self-segregate in states, cities—even neighborhoods. Consequences of the Big Sort are dire: balkanized communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible; a growing intolerance for political differences that has made national consensus impossible; and politics so polarized that Congress is stymied and elections are no longer just contests over policies, but bitter choices between ways of life. " Article about the book from the Economist. Book's Website. A review.

Will Rigby recounts meeting some pre-indie rock heroes.

celerystick — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:31:52 -0800

A founding father of DIY indie rock, Will Rigby recounts the pilgrimages to locate underground rock legends Alex Chilton, (during his wry Americana deconstructo anarchy phase), and the 'McCartney' to Chilton's Big Star 'Lennon', the Brydsian Chris Bell. Blogs on bands may not seem to rate but cats with these sensibilities, unlike today, seemed incredibly uncommon then . Also mentioned, the Dbs, Little Diesel, and Mitch Easter. Free Mp3s of the rare 45s included.

NECs new biometric security cam will guess your age, gender, (and it would be nice if it could size you up according to how you dress).

celerystick — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:46:52 -0800

NEC plans to market a system later this year that can derive someone's gender and age from images captured with a camera "The system compares the photo against a database of several thousand faces to figure gender and age based on such factors as facial shape and wrinkles. " According to Nikkei Weekly 01/28/2008 Edition. Link goes to Ubergizmo. "It's called FieldAnalyst and it's from NEC. The system homes in on faces of people who pass by the video camera. It then rapidly compares the image against samples in a database. It then spits out what it believes is your approximate age is and your gender." .."NEC scientists may next try to add clothing as a characteristic and classify people by whether they wear a suit or a T-shirt." more here

Earle of the land of Imagination

Ambrosia Voyeur — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:35:15 -0800

4 Artists Paint 1 Tree, a segment from Disneyland included on the recent DVD release of Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty, features the artistic process of one of my favorite painters and cartoon modernists, Eyvind Earle. If you've seen Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, Paul Bunyan or Peter Pan, you're familiar with the fantastical and brilliant landscapes he produces. His paintings show a particular fondness for Big Sur and Central Cali fornia.

everything big is small again

jessamyn — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:51:12 -0800

World's Largest Things including the world's largest collection of the world's smallest versions of the world's largest things, in a mobile museum. Seen previously, but much expanded -- now on Flickr, blogspot, lomohome, and friendable on MySpace. I found it while trying to look up this ball of postage stamps.

Is that a comically big thing in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

cortex — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 12:21:48 -0800

Comically Large Things is a blog about things that are so dang big you could fit everything at Smallist [previously] in any given entry. For example: nose! [via Projects and our own jbickers]

Big Country

sgt.serenity — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:18:17 -0800

B I G C O U N T R Y

The Big 8

Oriole Adams — Thu, 10 May 2007 21:44:52 -0800

When it came to Boss Radio, no station was more in charge than The Big 8 - CKLW. Thanks to a 50,000 watt transmitter, the Windsor, Ontario, station could be heard in four Canadian provinces and 28 U.S. states. CKLW had one of the first female program directors in the business. And even though Cancon requirements were blamed for the station's demise, it was that law that introduced many Americans to Canadian musicians that might otherwise not have gotten such U.S. exposure.

Pith

Kwantsar — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:39:07 -0800

Why we should not make mean log of wealth big though years to act are long (.pdf) by Paul Samuelson. (via)

I'm So Cold...So So Cold

Gnostic Novelist — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:16:50 -0800

China is taking steps to curb Internet addiction. This isn't the first time they have moved to regulate use. Are you addicted?

Web 2.0

bobbyelliott — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 09:44:05 -0800

What is Web 2.0? [PDF] The best description of Web 2.0 that I have read. The six big ideas... 1 Individual production and User Generated Content 2 Harness the power of the crowd 3 Data on an epic scale 4 Architecture of Participation 5 Network Effects 6 Openness

Smokin!

joelf — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 21:20:19 -0800

According to this site

More than 700 Trillion BEEDIES or BIRI are smoked annually
Indians smoke more than one trillion bidis every year.
An experienced worker can roll 2,000 a day.

Step inside and learn more about these unrealistic stats!

Little Superstar

SeizeTheDay — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:55:21 -0800

Little Superstar. YouTube, but also Bollywood. So it's got an international appeal. Via: First Rule.

Bechtel strikes again.

baylink — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:47:08 -0800

Lots of people are not happy with Bechtel Engineering, the giant-sized general contractor and designer of The Big Dig, who are also in trouble for problems with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal plant. How many nuclear generating stations did Bechtel build?

Imagining the Tenth Dimension

Jimbob — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 05:38:15 -0800

Imagining the Tenth Dimension (Flash). 10th dimensional physics and string theory don't get any easier than this.

That's 8.1 nonillion pixels!

boo_radley — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:41:42 -0800

This page is 9 quadrillion pixels wide by 9 quadrillion pixels tall.

Freedom of the Seas

thirteenkiller — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 09:43:11 -0800

Supertankers are so cool. Click previous sentence for more information.

Big in a New Light

adrober — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 23:29:45 -0800

Remember that Shining trailer from a few weeks back? Now they've done it with Big. (embedded WMV)