Will Allen, the founder of Growing Power, an urban farm in Milwaukee, has won a MacArthur Genius grant. Growing Power uses aquaculture, vermiculture, and sustainable agriculture to raise food in an urban environment. Chefs of the region have taken notice, but that's not Growing Power's main purpose. Congratulations to only the second farmer to win a Genius Grant.
posted on Sep 25, 2008 - View this thread

2008 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grants announced. Probably the biggest name is the New Yorker's music critic Alex Ross.
posted on Sep 23, 2008 - View this thread

The legendary Ken Campbell has died. Interested in everything, apparantly. Just as excited to visit Damanhur as he was to go to CERN, just down the road. Fluent in Bislama, the creole of Vanuatu, into which he translated Macbeth. Founder of the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, which performed epic productions of The Warp, Illuminatus! and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not quite Doctor Who (he was beaten to the role by former protogé Sylvester McCoy). A fount of knowledge on the theatre, comedy, Fortean strangeness and science and anything else you care to mention, all of which he spun together with extensive flights of imagination into glorious, hilarious one-man shows. Totally irreplaceable, and devastating loss.
posted on Sep 1, 2008 - View this thread

Who is Alexander Grothendieck? [PDF] This lecture is concerned not with Grothendieck's mathematics but with his very unusual life on the fringes of human society. In particular, there is, on the one hand, the question of why at the age of forty-two Grothendieck first of all resigned his professorship at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES); then withdrew from mathematics completely; and finally broke off all connections to his colleagues, students, acquaintances, friends, as well as his own family, to live as a hermit in an unknown place. On the other hand, one would like to know what has occupied this restless and creative spirit since his withdrawal from mathematics.
posted on Aug 17, 2008 - View this thread

In the years after leaving MST, Joel Hodgson of Mystery Science Theater, and his "smarter brother" Jim Hodgson, worked on a new movie-repurposing concept for USA Networks. The introduction for the test clip read:
"The Jolly Filter segment is a proof of concept test for a new film process. You will first view 2 minutes of the original film 'Rollercoaster' and then the same 2 minutes utilizing the JollyFilter technique.
"Note: If you find yourself getting bored during the original 'Rollercoaster' footage, don't worry, this is normal."
(SLYT, but an awesome one.)
posted on Jul 27, 2008 - View this thread

5 Year Old Adopted South Korean Blind Piano Prodigy Yoo Ye-eun can play songs after hearing them once. Watch her perform with Britain's Got Talent's Connie Talbot in a South Korean TV show called "Star King".
posted on Jul 13, 2008 - View this thread

Madman or genius? Well... madman. But being confined to an asylum (with one of his symptoms described as "manic invention") didn't keep Karl Hans Janke from developing elaborate theories of atomic energy, flight, space travel and the history of humanity, creating over 4,000 complex drawings and even models over 40 years of incarceration for paranoid schizophrenia.
posted on Jun 2, 2008 - View this thread

10 minute documentary describing the cameras and directorial techniques Kubrick used to create his masterpiece.
posted on Mar 1, 2008 - View this thread

::Call me Ishmael::Don Quixote::A Lesson for all Actors::Father Mapple's Sermon::The Lost Films of Orson Welles::
posted on Feb 14, 2008 - View this thread

Some people like to text while driving(YT). Others think TWD is dangerous enough to be illegal.
At last there is a solution for literate(YT), bookish types (Googvid) to get in on the fun.
Sadly, as with everything good, reading-while-driving has its haters too.
posted on Feb 13, 2008 - View this thread

Darin Morgan wrote some of the most highly aclaimed TV scripts of the '90's. So the question is, "Where is he now?"
posted on Nov 10, 2007 - View this thread

Hailed as "The first comprehensive television history of the most influential art form of the present day", The Genius of Photography is a four-episode BBC series which is almost non-stop eye candy with opinions from various photo-historians woven between the iconic images.
posted on Nov 2, 2007 - View this thread

Dweller on the threshold.
posted on Oct 19, 2007 - View this thread

Richard P. Feynman { Information Junkie → PhD → Atomic Bomber → Professor/Lecturer on Physics + Mathematical Artist [DIY] + Nanotech Knowledgist → 33.3% Nobel laureate + QEDynamic Speaker + Tiny Machinist + Challenger of Conclusions + Best-Selling Writer –X– Busted [outside Tuva] → Star Trek TNG Shuttlecraft ↓ Pepsi Black/Blue ↑ U.S. Postage Stamp } ∞
posted on Sep 16, 2007 - View this thread

"Hello Youtubes, have you heard my SICK beats?" Ronald Jenkees started a youtube channel over a year ago where you can find him clucking about his roommate, giving tips for the unwashed masses, and producing some incredibly awesome beats. The internet agrees, his debut album is genius.
posted on Aug 28, 2007 - View this thread

The wonderful, horrible films of Leni Riefenstahl
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

Pablo Casals Bach Cello Suite No.1 - recorded in the Abbaye Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa in 1954.
posted on Jul 8, 2007 - View this thread

You folks out there in MeFi Town been keeping up with the water themed MeFi Music Challenge? There's been some mighty fine uploads for you to check out! But if there was ever a piece of music deserving the water tag, it's this drenching wet masterpiece by Brazil's brilliant, eccentric musical genius Hermeto Pascual, in which Hermeto and his band play bottles full of water, and flutes full of water, and, well, the lake. Música da Lagoa: water music at its very best. And its very wettest. [more inside]
posted on Jul 6, 2007 - View this thread

Three exceptionally beautiful videos featuring surreal genius architect Antoni Gaudi
posted on May 15, 2007 - View this thread

Lee Perry, Ornette, and Hilary, with love
posted on May 5, 2007 - View this thread

I like a good laugh, but this gave me stomach cramps. If you tend to pee when you laugh you might want to take care of that first. And in case that's not enough baby, just wait, there's more! hoooo. hah. warning: YouTube loving double whammy
posted on Apr 26, 2007 - View this thread

Yoshiro Nakamatsu aka Dr. NakaMats has invented everything, other than all the other stuff that the rest of us have invented. He has 3218 patents to his name. (Edison had 1093.) Among his many inventions? The compact disc, the compact disc player ('natch), the digital watch, a unique golf putter, the floppy disk (!), and a water-powered engine. Besides being the founder of the World Genius Convention (where the world first learned of ingenuity of ADR ceramic disks, for instance), Dr. NakaMats was voted by the US Science Academic Society as one of five greatest scientists in history - in the company of Archimedes, Michael Faraday, Marie Curie, and Nikola Tesla - and he plans to live until 144!
posted on Feb 23, 2007 - View this thread

This is NSFW. It's crass, crude, cheap, rude, nasty and vulgar. This is a one link 10 minute YouTube video that shows cannibalism, fire, nudity, nerds, fried sperm, rednecks, and perversion aplenty. It is certainly not to everyone's taste, but that's because it's the Butthole Surfers' BBQ.
posted on Feb 16, 2007 - View this thread

Resonance FM gives you an interview with writer Alan Moore in three parts. I,II & III [.mp3]
posted on Feb 16, 2007 - View this thread

Be your own video game hero! Troy Hurtubise, the undisputed master of the bear-proof suit (among other things) has failed to find a buyer for its latest incarnation, and is selling the prototype on eBay.
posted on Feb 6, 2007 - View this thread

Christopher Michael Langan is a bouncer by trade, a genius in his spare time (.pdf). Errol Morris documents the essence of a working class hero.
posted on Feb 5, 2007 - View this thread

Jorge Luis Borges "excerpts from two of the six Norton Lectures that Jorge Luis Borges delivered at Harvard University in the fall of 1967 and spring of 1968. The recordings of these six lectures, only lately discovered in the Harvard University Archives, uniquely capture the cadences, candor, wit, and remarkable erudition of one of the most extraordinary and enduring literary voices of our age. Through a twist of fate that the author of Labyrinths himself would have relished, these lost lectures return to us now--in Borges's own voice." In English - mp3
posted on Jan 10, 2007 - View this thread

Garbage of New York City - litter that is collected, packaged up in a neat plastic box, and then sold for $50 a pop.
posted on Sep 18, 2006 - View this thread

Louis Savain is the most coherent, articulate and ambitious Internet crank I've found. He's going to fix software, he's out to clean up physics, he's cracked the Da Vinci code, and he's got a discussion forum. Enjoy!
posted on Sep 7, 2006 - View this thread

The scientist whom history forgot: Emilie du Châtelet. Lover of Voltaire, genius without a beard, female scientist, mathematician and philosopher.
posted on Aug 3, 2006 - View this thread

FRANK R. PAUL: At a time when most Americans didn't even have a telephone, he was painting space stations, robots and aliens from other planets... he was the guest of honor at the first world science fiction convention, and he was the first person to ever make a living drawing spaceships. What could be cooler than that? via the one and only BLDBLOG, with an interesting take on the subject.
posted on May 17, 2006 - View this thread

In the latest salvo of the marketing wars, London ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi has taken the unique step of creating a new pop band that combines all the manufactured charm of the Spice Girls with all the serious musical chops of a female version of N'Sync (or, for the Brits out there, a female version of "Take That"). The band has yet to have a name, but they will be available to directly promote whatever item corporate sponsors pay Saatchi to have them promote.
posted on Apr 16, 2006 - View this thread

After a Noel Mewton-Wood performance of Hindemith's (.pdf) Ludus Tonalis, Dame Myra Hess exclaimed: ‘The boy is truly remarkable, and what shall he be like at 40-odd?’. Glowing testimonials to his ‘genius’ (Sir Malcolm Sargent) from Beecham, Schnabel, Bliss, Hindemith and Britten were countered by indifference from the major record labels and concert managements. In 1953, at the age of 31, the pianist, a shy young man susceptible to depression, committed suicide. Now, the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive of Middlesex University offers a scan of the The London Evening News page with the report of Mewton-Wood's death. And here is a mp3 page with some of his out-of-print work.
posted on Mar 24, 2006 - View this thread

William Schaff makes really good art... Perhaps you recognize his artwork from Songs:Ohia's Magnolia Electric Company release or maybe the beautiful artwork from Godspeed You Black Emperor's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven either way his site has a huge collection of his scratchboards, paintings, collages, and mail art.
posted on Dec 7, 2005 - View this thread

Collected works of Enrico Caruso. Approximately seven hours of vintage, public domain recordings of Il Maestro, courtesy of the Internet Archive's 78 rpm collections. Amongst my favourites: Del Tempio Al Limita, a duet with Mario Ancona from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, and Cantique de Noel. Sublime.
posted on Sep 14, 2005 - View this thread

real genius (not to be confused with reel genius) — or something a little like it — can be found in dusty corners of the web :: not all are evil :: one has a lego portfolio :: this homebrew pipe organ is amazing (this guy also builds marble machines and built a digital camera from a flatbed scanner) :: some teach the rudiments of wisdom :: i like the micronomicon :: i'm sure there are thousands of other shards of genius out there waiting to be discovered :: have a baby genius in your home? try the alphabet for geniuses! (just be careful...)
posted on Aug 17, 2005 - View this thread

Young + Brilliant, Blessed + Cursed
posted on Mar 9, 2005 - View this thread

Nobel Prize Winners Hate School. Not that it takes a genius to figure out that 'school is a lot like prison but worse' (George Bernard Shaw) or that it "smothers every truly scientific impulse" (Einstein)....
posted on Jan 14, 2004 - View this thread

Genius goes online. A new website of Albert Einstein's scientific and other never-published travel diaries, various humanitarian statements, and his frequent pleas for peace, will be unveiled on Monday (May 19). The new site is the result of a collaborative effort of the Einstein Papers Project at Caltech and the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The site, www.alberteinstein.info. is scheduled to go live Monday, May 19, after 3 PM EDT. It's really a moment to look forward to.
posted on May 17, 2003 - View this thread

International High IQ Society tests. The site gives the impression that these tests are a lot more accurate at judging intelligence (whatever that is) that most of the junk on the web. What do you think? Do we have any 'universal geniuses'?
posted on Nov 14, 2002 - View this thread

Magnificent Obscessions II. In the original post, we had a blast exploring odd sites in which people displayed eccentric talents. MOs walk a thin line between genius and madness. These are people with "too much time on their hands." How I envy their crackpot devotion, energy and perfectionism. These are the True Geeks! (Fresh examples inside...)
posted on Sep 19, 2002 - View this thread

On The Road... coming to a theater near you (scroll down in link). Francis Ford Coppola is working on a film adaptation of Kerouac's classic (?), starring Brad Pitt. Genius? Heresy? I can see the Barnes & Noble tie-ins now...
posted on Aug 29, 2002 - View this thread

Stanford links genius and manic depression... I feel SO much better now... (via FARK)
posted on May 23, 2002 - View this thread

Genius boy's mother admits faking his tests. We're coming to the end of a very sad story.
posted on Mar 2, 2002 - View this thread

Boy quits school at 7, becomes MIT professor at 20. Is alternative education a good idea? This article seems much more positive than another recent boy-genius post. It appears that most reporters assume that child prodigies are antisocial and that their parents are over-ambitious (they use negatively-connotated synonyms of those terms).
posted on Feb 17, 2002 - View this thread

Is Justin Chapman a misunderstood genius (at age 7) or just an average little boy pushed beyond reason by an abusive, mentally ill mother?
more thoughts inside...
...with thanks tocrabwalk.com
posted on Feb 13, 2002 - View this thread

Does genius exist?
According to commonplace descriptions, a genius creates artworks beyond the abilities of the merely talented. A genius's achievements are uninfluenced by vagaries of taste and marketplace; in fact, a genius may be shunned at first and only later acclaimed.
But genius has been far more flexible a concept than its critics recognize; it is less a reflection of a rigid ideology than an attempt to characterize an infinitely variable phenomenon. [NYTimes, registration required]
posted on Jan 6, 2002 - View this thread

The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.
posted on Oct 14, 2001 - View this thread

In the end, it's the Kool Aid that kills you.
Interesting article about the kool-aid effect in technology. The only difference between a genius and a fool is whether or not the consumer drinks the same brew.
posted on Mar 28, 2001 - View this thread

MC Hawking in da ho-use! Damn straight! You don't know Da Good Doctor till you get his phat beats in your ass. Or something. Check out the MP3s, yo, and move while you groove to the discography, news and pictures. Wicked science by day, masta gansta rapper by night. Byatch.
posted on Sep 8, 2000 - View this thread