Simon Dyson was the winner at the Dunhill Links Championship, but Manuel de los Santos may have made the biggest impression at the pro-am event, which was played on St. Andrews, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie. De los Santos, 25, is a former baseball player who lost a leg in a car accident and picked up golf in 2004, after moving from his native Dominican Republic to France. He plays to a 3-handicap without the aid of a prosthesis.
posted by netbros on Oct 12, 2009 - 4 comments

Challenge Your Senses
posted by blue_beetle on Jul 31, 2009 - 24 comments

Monologuist Mike Daisey has a beef with the way theater is made in the United States: . He's made that beef the substance of one of his monologues, How Theater Failed America. Now, Todd Olson, Producing Artistic Director (scroll down for bio) at the American Stage Theatre Company in St. Petersburg, Florida, has beef with Daisey, too. Olson says: balance my budget, wretched actor miscreant; Daisey says: bring it. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco on Apr 20, 2009 - 50 comments

Illustration Friday is a weekly illustration challenge. A topic is posted every Friday and then participants have all week to come up with their own interpretation. Check out the illustrator interviews. Here you'll find motivations, processes and styles, with links to the fine contemporary artists. From MeFi's own annathea. [via mefi projects]
posted by netbros on Mar 14, 2009 - 4 comments

Top Gear Challenges: Some highlights include Bugatti Veyron vs. Eurofighter, Range Rover vs Challenger 2, and Nissan GTR vs. Bullet train (part 2) [more inside]
posted by jourman2 on Feb 16, 2009 - 41 comments

Showcase of finalist designs from the 2009 Michelin Challenge Design (not Design Challenge, for some reason). Among the expected uber-cool entries by big automakers, several interesting concepts from independent designers, including a stackable "metro cell" vehicle (Korea), solar-cell semi (Hungary), and a luxury-cruising buggy (USA).
posted by adamms222 on Feb 12, 2009 - 10 comments

"The safest most dangerous taste of physical and mental endurance pain in the world"
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Feb 4, 2009 - 51 comments

"Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems."

Started in 2001 as a sub-section of Maths Challenge, it has since grown large enough to become its own entity. It now boasts over 200 problems, many of them insanely difficult. [more inside]
posted by mystyk on Oct 13, 2008 - 31 comments

The Colbert/McCain Green Screen Challenge
posted by Xurando on Jun 28, 2008 - 43 comments

The Great Tantra Challenge - "On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India’s most “powerful” tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. That was the beginning of an unprecedented experiment."
posted by Burhanistan on Mar 25, 2008 - 64 comments

Straight 8 challenges anyone to make a 3 minute film on one cartridge of super 8 film, editing only in-camera, with a separate original soundtrack. The best of each year is shown at Cannes Film Festival. [Some NSFW videos] [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Dec 22, 2007 - 14 comments

The Most Expensive Drink at Starbucks.
posted by dhammond on Dec 21, 2007 - 65 comments

It's Saturday night. You're here browsing on the internet. Why not do something intellectual for a change? [more inside]
posted by flatluigi on Dec 1, 2007 - 27 comments

Start Your Own News Web Site The Knight News Challenge is awarding up to $5 million for innovative news web site ideas that "transform community news." The contest is sponsored by the Knight Foundation, the folks originally behind Knight Ridder news.
posted by CameraObscura on Sep 1, 2007 - 15 comments

The Buckminster Fuller Institute is now accepting submissions for it's new, annual design challenge contest. Submissions must be applicable with real-world technology, solving real-world problems with a minimum of ecological impact. The offered prize is $100,000, on par with some of NASA's challenges. ( Buckminster Fuller on Wikipedia, and E2 )
posted by loquacious on Jul 20, 2007 - 9 comments

Here are a few simple but challenging games: Ladybug, Boomshine, & Tama
posted by jake3456 on May 19, 2007 - 20 comments

The Penitent Yanks are a team of Americans driving a school bus 3, 600 miles from Plymouth, England to the Gambia. They're part of the 2007 Plymouth-Banjul Challenge, an annual road rally to benefit charities in Gambia. Their bus has broken down in the Sahara, and they need help.
posted by chinese_fashion on Feb 14, 2007 - 2 comments

Perhaps you'll recall DARPA's Grand Challenge where autonomous vehicles competed in a off-road race for $1,000,000 but most barely made it off the starting blocks? Yeah, well, they are doing it again this year for $2 million this time. Just one thing: Don't bet on Princeton. [last two links .MOV]
posted by Ogre Lawless on Oct 8, 2005 - 18 comments

Project Euler is a running contest of programming challenges to hone your algorithm skills. "Each problem is designed according to a 'one-minute rule', which means that although it may take several hours to design a successful algorithm with more difficult problems, an efficient implementation will allow a solution to be obtained on a modestly powered computer in less than one minute."
posted by Wolfdog on Aug 20, 2005 - 11 comments

Ohio Poll Challengers Blocked Okayed. Keep track of all the other last-minute fraud here.
posted by mwhybark on Nov 2, 2004 - 56 comments

Un-Fold. (quicktime clip) City Magazine asked 9 designers, from 9 cities across the world to design a chair in 90 days. Oh, and it had to fit in a FedEx box. Pics and more about the designers and the project.
posted by madamjujujive on Jun 18, 2004 - 26 comments

What makes for a great champagne chair? Design Within Reach sponsored a holiday contest to design a chair constructed from the cork and wire cages of champagne bottle. Judges had a difficult time deciding from the 400 entries that poured in. (via Buzz.)
posted by madamjujujive on Jan 19, 2004 - 7 comments

Album Cover Challenge. The challenge is this: there are sixty album covers - some better known than others, but none willfully obscure - from which the artist and title information has been removed. Can you identify all the albums and provide the missing information? [via Travelers Diagram]
posted by soundofsuburbia on Oct 12, 2003 - 60 comments

The challenge was to take the top 3 most emailed photos on yahoo and create a hopefully amusing story about the sequence. I reserve the right to refuse a disturbing picture, this includes any pictures of celine dion.
posted by magullo on Jul 10, 2003 - 12 comments

Grand Challenge The research arm of the US Department of Defense, DARPA, is sponsoring a $1 million winner take all contest to build a completely autonomous vehicle which can navigate a roughly 250 mile course in the desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in under 10 hours. Teams from Caltech and Carnegie Mellon have formed, though anyone is allowed to enter.
posted by split atom on May 13, 2003 - 8 comments

Oubapo America is a project to identify and explore constraints in Comics. It is the American cousin of the French Oubapo project which shares the same goals. Example: "Draw a comic that is 26 panels long where each panel features in some way the corresponding letter of the alphabet". If this sounds familiar, you may be thinking of Oulipo.
posted by vacapinta on Aug 3, 2002 - 6 comments