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John Updike writes about bizarre dinosaurs for National Geographic. "How weird might a human body look to them? That thin and featherless skin, that dish-flat face, that flaccid erectitude, those feeble, clawless five digits at the end of each limb, that ghastly utter lack of a tail—ugh. Whatever did this creature do to earn its place in the sun, a well-armored, nicely specialized dino might ask. " Besides the Updike essay there's a image gallery, an interview with John Updike [audio starts automatically], a dino IQ test, an audio critique of the way dinosaurs have been depicted in the latter half of the 20th Century [audio starts automatically], a closer look at the odder features of some of the stranger dinosaurs, an examination of the nigersaurus (images) as well as dinosaur wallpapers and jigsaw puzzles. [via MeFi's Own ed]
posted by Kattullus at 8:54 PM PST - 26 comments

If yours is a winter beater, a rally beater, a diesel beater, your kid's beater[YT], or even a much sought after french beater, you don't need to be convinced of the value of disposable transportation (with color by Krylon). But if you need help choosing the next winning entry, worthy challenger, or judges victim[YT] for the 24 hours of LeMons, let the masters at Beater Review help.
posted by toxic at 7:06 PM PST - 31 comments

Austin Gutwein first became aware of the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS from a pen pal in Africa.“‘My pen pal [2006 video - 2:48]^*...was the first one to open my eyes to the world outside of my own backyard,’ Austin says. One of the harsh realities that struck a chord with Austin was the fact that many kids become orphaned as a result of a parent contracting HIV. ‘I started to think about what it would be like if I lost my parents,’ says Austin. ‘I just felt called to help.’...On World AIDS Day [December 1] 2004, at age 10, Austin shot 2,057 free throws to represent the number of children who would be orphaned because of AIDS during that school day....Austin approached individuals in his community to sponsor his endeavor. That year [he] raised $3,000, which he gave to World Vision to be used to help eight orphans in Africa.” Three years later his non-profit, Hoops of Hope, raised $100,000 [2007 video - 2:32] which was used to build a residential school in Zambia for those orphaned -- and many infected -- by HIV/AIDS. Next year's goal -- to build a hospital. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 6:42 PM PST - 18 comments

DIY activists have been using human hair mats to soak up the carcinogenic bunker oil that's been washing onto Bay Area beaches since the spill. Now they're inoculating the oil-soaked mats with mushrooms that will break down the oil into harmless compost. See also: fungi breaking down plastics, synthetic dyes and organopollutants generally. A bit more from mushroom guru Paul Stamets. (If you're so inclined, here's a link to donate to the non-profit that coordinated the hair mats.) [more inside]
posted by serazin at 2:37 PM PST - 45 comments

A newer, slightly more plausible flying car project. Some people take it more seriously than the king of vaporware skycars, whose designers are now working on a vaporware landspeeder(PDF). If you want something more available, keep your car and check out the Cessna SkyCatcher, no assembly required.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 2:23 PM PST - 29 comments

Fighters and Lovers is a Copenhagen based group that "is greatly in debt to the stylish classic coolness of Palestinian fighter Leyla Khaled and the funky outrageous style of Colombian guerrilla commander Jacobo Arenas. Our work is inspired by the style and principles of these legendary fighters." Their t- have landed them in some hot water with the law. They donated proceeds from their shirts to FARC and the PLFP. After the Santa Claus incident, one wonders if Urban Outfitters would have sold these or if they're more into positive message t-shirt expression nowadays? [more inside]
posted by cal71 at 2:15 PM PST - 26 comments

Mystery meat macrophotography by Mike Adams, not the one full of full of baloney. (via)
posted by Mblue at 2:14 PM PST - 39 comments

Evel is gone from the world Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. (October 17, 1938 - November 30, 2007) was a motorcycle daredevil who has been a household name since the late 1960s, and arguably the most iconic motorbike stuntman of all time. Evel Knievel's highly publicized motorcycle jumps, including his attempt to jump over the Snake River Canyon, claim four of the top 20 most-watched Wide World of Sports events of all time. He enjoyed a lengthy career in this extreme sport despite suffering a series of major injuries during stunts.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 1:48 PM PST - 116 comments

djb releases code to public domain, including qmail. [more inside]
posted by finite at 12:42 PM PST - 48 comments

HowItSucks.com rates products based on recent reviews from other users. The rating system is simple: the longer the red bar, the more it sucks. Just in time for Xmas. Also, comes free of charge with blog, which also sucks. [more inside]
posted by psmealey at 12:28 PM PST - 14 comments

The Key to Reserva Scorcese films a “lost” Hitchcock script. [more inside]
posted by breaks the guidelines? at 11:48 AM PST - 36 comments

How to draw a female in proportion. If you're a cartoonist. If you're a manga artist. If you're a traditional artist. Divine proportions (NSFW) Idealized Proportions (artistic nudity) Historic Proportions.
posted by desjardins at 11:32 AM PST - 45 comments

NBC is once again dipping its toe into the waters of liquor advertising. Although liquor ads have been running on cable since 1996 their presence on broadcast TV remains controversial, due to the presumed influence of alcohol ads on underage drinking . However, at least one expert disagrees. Previous discussion.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 11:27 AM PST - 15 comments

"The Pulp Gallery is a visual reference guide to the wonderful cover art of pulp and pin-up magazines." From the bizarre (Lovecraft!) to the breezy (NSFW?), the savage (Any relation to Adam?) to the spicy (Eel Trap!). And don't miss the gallery of recycled art.
posted by dersins at 11:09 AM PST - 7 comments

New York artist Rodney Allen Greenblat's new show starts tomorrow at BCB Art in Hudson, NY. His paintings and sculpture evokes Picasso and Calder while maintaining a whimsical charm.

But he's still best known for creating the floppy two dimensional characters and whimsical backgrounds of PaRappa the Rapper. Step on the gas, now turn to the left!
posted by rouftop at 11:08 AM PST - 13 comments

A very interesting commentary on The Catholic League's boycott of Phillip Pullman's fantasy childrens novel, The Golden Compass. Nicole Kidman disagrees that the story is anti-catholic. [more inside]
posted by butterstick at 10:29 AM PST - 93 comments

Remember NSFNet? If you had an email account in the U.S. before 1995, chances are most of your mail passed through an NSFNet node. The folks who ran it are having a reunion. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 10:27 AM PST - 4 comments

We've discussed Tom Harpur's The Pagan Christ before. Now, the CBC is going to air a documentary exploring the questions raised in Harpur's book. [more inside]
posted by never used baby shoes at 10:21 AM PST - 21 comments

You have been invited to the 2008 Presidential Inaugural Ball by The Light Party: a wholistic, proactive, educational, empowerment party is a synthesis of the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian and Green Parties. This cosmic Artainment of music and light should not be missed!
posted by ozomatli at 10:17 AM PST - 6 comments

The Avant Garde Project is a bunch of experimental outofprint music digitized from LPs. Free. Available in Flac and 192 kbps MP3. Start off at the Archive.
posted by sushiwiththejury at 9:44 AM PST - 14 comments

"There is not a bomb by the entrance of the museum" was the telephone message delivered to a museum employee at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum Wednesday evening. This, along with the posting of a video on YouTube entitled The fake bombing at the ROM, Toronto, 28.11.07 led to the cancellation of a gala AIDS fundraiser at the Museum and a massive police investigation. Today, Ontario College of Art and Design student Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson claimed responsibility for the "art project".
posted by rocket88 at 9:00 AM PST - 93 comments

A Big List of Sites That Teach You How To Do Stuff. That is what this is.
posted by brain_drain at 7:51 AM PST - 14 comments

"Free and Uneasy: The First Year Out." The story of wrongfully convicted Jeffrey Deskovic. And others.
posted by Soup at 7:32 AM PST - 11 comments

A few months ago, a British Schoolteacher in Sudan allowed a class of hers to vote on a name for a teddy bear. The class of seven year olds decided - with a majority of 20:3 - to name the stuffed toy Mohammad. Last week, she was arrested for this 'crime' after several of the parents complained, and has been sentenced to 15 days in prison and will be deported. However, that isn't good enough for the thousands of people that marched on martyrs square today and demanded that she instead be killed for this crime. [more inside]
posted by Brockles at 7:21 AM PST - 247 comments

"I would be remiss if I did not mention one of Liefeld’s more brilliant creations, Forearm! His power is that he has FOUR ARMS." The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 6:37 AM PST - 98 comments

With few cows, no ice, and lacking refrigeration the only dairy product reliably available to the Florida Keys in the late 18th century was condensed milk. Add a local plantation abundance of small, sour key limes (known to most as West Indian limes; not the more common Persian/Tahiti lime), and inevitably someone -- perhaps Aunt Sally -- put them together to create the quintessential Florida Keys confection known as key lime pie. [more inside]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:22 AM PST - 33 comments

Meatballs! Donuts! Banana splits! Chocolate mousse! Lobsters! Cake! Frog legs! Eggs! Turtle soup! Salad! Angry dough! Singing with Cleo Laine! Friday fun featuring the Swedish Chef.
posted by jbickers at 5:40 AM PST - 38 comments

In the wake of a highly sexified Ang Lee film, Chinese medical authorities have warned the public against "abnormal body positions". Links SFW.
posted by Geezum Crowe at 2:50 AM PST - 25 comments

thesixtyone. "If Guitar Hero is about shredding, thesixtyone is about scouting. Musicians upload music and listeners decide which songs go on the homepage." Social networking crossed with musical trend spotting.
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 12:55 AM PST - 19 comments

"DVD sales are in free fall. Audiences are flocking to pornographic knockoffs of YouTube [NSFW], especially a secretive site called YouPorn [NSFW]. And the amateurs [NSFW]are taking over. What’s happening to the adult-entertainment industry is exactly what’s happening to its Hollywood counterpart—only worse."
posted by bigmusic at 12:12 AM PST - 91 comments

Wael Abbas is an Egyptian blogger and anti-torture activist who recently won a journalism award for his documenting police brutality in Egypt, which led to the conviction of two police officers. In Egypt, blogging can get you arrested, and Abbas has taken enormous risks. But now YouTube has removed his videos and suspended his account after receiving complaints (possibly from the Egyptian government) about their graphic content, and Yahoo has disabled his email account. Evidently YouTube is not the ally human rights advocates had hoped it would be.
posted by homunculus at 11:40 PM PST - 16 comments

Shrinking Cities (virtual and real): Analysis and Interventions. [more inside]
posted by salvia at 10:56 PM PST - 11 comments

Rails of War is a terrific flash game, where you equip a train with ever-increasing combinations of weapons and guide it through various missions. It is a representative of the growing number of Defense-style flash strategy games started by Tower Defense and friends, which we discussed before. Now you can try Age of War, where you try to destroy an opponents base through five distinct eras; Invasion Tactical Defense where you must manage a nuclear missile plant and its anti-aircraft defenses; the inevitable and previously mentioned zombie defense games; StarCraft FA5, where you are the Zerg defending your base; and the lovely and abstract Red. These is a particularly addictive class of games, so be warned...
posted by blahblahblah at 10:53 PM PST - 19 comments

black men magazine ("for strong, positive, caring brothers") has published six issues this year. (all 2007 covers here) the number of black men on their cover: zero. (the same is true for their 2006, 2005 and 2004 covers.) (more inside...) [more inside]
posted by krautland at 10:47 PM PST - 51 comments

In these times of trouble, A New Hope.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:03 PM PST - 30 comments

The USNS Swift (HSV-2) looks like something a Bond villian would own, but it's actually one of the most advanced ships owned by the US Navy. Highly manueverable and having a top speed of 51mph, it's heavily automated, capable of handling helicopters, carrying cargo, and launching both manned and unmanned vehicles -- all with only 42 people. It's assisted with relief efforts in Indonesia, Lebanon, and after Hurricane Katrina. But the best thing about the ship? It can be remote controlled through a web browser.
posted by QuestionableSwami at 8:32 PM PST - 27 comments

Sean Taylor died on Tuesday after being shot by an intruder in his home. The police are probing, but nobody is sure what exactly happened. [more inside]
posted by Autarky at 8:26 PM PST - 17 comments

Skateboard Kings is a 1978 BBC documentary about the Dogtown skateboarding scene in late 70's Venice Beach and Santa Monica. Featuring a lot of footage of the skaters' daily life as well as an exploration of the business side of skateboarding, the documentary is a time capsule of late 70's Southern California. For more about Dogtown go to z-boys.com. [previously on MetaFilter]
posted by Kattullus at 7:36 PM PST - 10 comments

Thirsty Dragon at the Olympics Dai Qing on China's environmental crisis and the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
posted by Abiezer at 7:23 PM PST - 6 comments

A great quick read from the NYTimes. Why making mistakes is sometimes the best thing for us, and why we avoid it anyway.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 7:20 PM PST - 26 comments

McCain on Waterboarding. [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 6:53 PM PST - 44 comments

Here is an incredibly detailed history of Glasgow in pictures. The site map is probably the best place to start. [more inside]
posted by winna at 5:49 PM PST - 8 comments

Ellen Von Unwerth's Revenge, roughly 60 (out of 190) images from a louche, erotic book (Salon review), recalling the Golden Age of Hollywood and Betty Page.

Other works from the insanely comprehensive site include: Omahyra and Boyd, a glammy, androgynous romp through lite-fetish; and "Erin Fetherworth," a video starring Kristen Dunst.

Be aware that most of her work involves glossy nude photography.
posted by klangklangston at 4:58 PM PST - 30 comments

Before instant messaging, before chat groups, before IRC... there was Diversi-Dial. As the eighties became the nineties, the internet grew, and DDial died. Or did it? More than 20 years later--still at 300 baud and on an original Apple ][e--DDial lives on! [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 12:43 PM PST - 38 comments

Classic post-punk music videos from, strangely enough, post-punk.com (via largehearted boy) [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete at 11:54 AM PST - 119 comments

Lost in the Static Lost in the Static is a simple little game that uses some surprising aspects of the human perceptual system to create a visible world out of animating static.
Please note that this display is not suitable for everyone! Some people find they get headaches or nausea, or their eyes get "all woggly". If you do not find the experience pleasant, stop playing!

Downloadable .exe. Hello Waxy!
posted by boo_radley at 11:45 AM PST - 34 comments

Intimate in bed
Adoptive iterative
Develop in bed!

[refresh]

Hello my marbles
You have no chance to marble
Make your undoing!
posted by pedantic at 11:41 AM PST - 67 comments

Mid-century American decor's holy trinity of materials were steel, linoleum and plastic., all of which are on display in these galleries from Plan59, which also brings us cars, trucks, food and more. (Including a blog).
posted by dersins at 11:07 AM PST - 11 comments

The Golden Age of Couture is an exhitibion at London's Victoria and Albert Museum exploring high fashion of the 1950s, inspired by designer Christian Dior's pioneering "New Look" styles. Beautiful things!
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:11 AM PST - 24 comments

"Hello, and welcome to Mainly For Men (part 1, part 2). And, as the title implies, this is a programme, fellas, just for you." Yes, everything the BBC thought the red-blooded male back in the late 1960s would be interested in (ie women, cars and shark fishing). The result was so hideous it was never broadcast until a TV Hell themed night many years later. Possibly NSFW... some brief nudity ('artistic', naturally) and mild swearing. And rampant mind-blowing sexism.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:05 AM PST - 85 comments

Cosmopolitanism is as old as the Stoics, but it is being perpetually renewed: Ulrich Beck, Seyla Benhabib, Martha Nussbaum, and Kwame Anthony Appiah weigh in. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:47 AM PST - 13 comments

Not your average beadwork. Natasha St. Michael creates organic-inspired structures from beads. Lots and lots of beads. I mean, wow, that's a lotta beads.
posted by frykitty at 9:20 AM PST - 9 comments

19th Century Schoolbooks, over 140 examples online. Browse the collection and find digital images of such gems as: School melodies : containing a choice collection of popular airs (1852), The American drawing-book (1847), Slate and black board exercises (1857), and of course we got your McGuffey's. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 9:00 AM PST - 24 comments

“If you’re a prostate cancer survivor, one of the hardest things to question is whether your treatment was worth it.”
In 2003 Professor Alan Coates, then chief executive of the Cancer Council of Australia, caused a media storm, when he suggested that based on available evidence he personally would not undergo PSA screening for prostate cancer. This month's RSM journal analyses the Australian media response in detail.
posted by roofus at 8:45 AM PST - 43 comments

Pictures from hitchhiking across America. {via}
posted by dobbs at 8:31 AM PST - 29 comments

Humor so dry, at times you might not be entirely sure. The Long Johns mull over the sub-prime mortgage mess. [more inside]
posted by From Bklyn at 6:06 AM PST - 33 comments

"A detective does his job in the only possible way. He follows the requirements of the law to the letter -- or close enough so as not to jeopardize his case. Just as carefully, he ignores that law's spirit and intent. He becomes a salesman, a huckster as thieving and silver-tongued as any man who ever moved used cars or aluminum siding -- more so, in fact, when you consider that he's selling long prison terms to customers who have no genuine need for the product." [more inside]
posted by dhammond at 12:06 AM PST - 95 comments

It is not Christmas without tamales.
posted by bigmusic at 12:05 AM PST - 36 comments

Stumbling into chaos: Afghanistan on the brink. A report from the Senlis Council think tank claims that the Taliban has a permanent presence in more than half of Afghan territory and the country is in serious danger of falling back into their hands. The Canadian and British governments disagree.
posted by homunculus at 11:31 PM PST - 23 comments

A virtually unlimited supply of randomly-generated logic puzzles, in a variety of sizes and difficulties: Nonograms. Slither Link. Nurikabe. Bridges. Light Up.
posted by Upton O'Good at 9:52 PM PST - 18 comments

Massachusetts lawmakers are debating a bill that would ban parents from spanking their children. Meanwhile, Corpun (previously)would like to remind you that it's not just for kids, but hey, we already knew that.
posted by mullingitover at 8:54 PM PST - 151 comments

The new UN Human Development Report is out. Lots of interesting stuff on climate change. But for me, nothing beats the Human Development Index, a number that means different things to different people.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 7:26 PM PST - 8 comments

John Ashcroft stands up to prove waterboarding isn't torture, by offering to lie down for his own waterboarding. Well, that is, he offers he'd do it if it were necessary, and if he could survive the torture. Is that a brave offer, an admission that US has resulted in deaths, or both? Daniel Levin, one of Ashcroft's subordinates at the Department of Justice, went further, actually undergoing waterboarding himself. He survived it -- but his career didn't, after he he concluded torture was "abhorrent". [more inside]
posted by orthogonality at 7:09 PM PST - 43 comments

From 1999 to 2004, a slew of bands, either unknown, faintly famous, or about to go on to larger levels of exposure played in the clubs and houses of the Santa Cruz independent "rock" scene, and were recorded for anthropological purposes. [more inside]
posted by Minus215Cee at 6:55 PM PST - 23 comments

In 2008, China will fail to ride the Olympics wave and improve its worldwide image, the US will vote mainly on health (barring a terrorist attack or a recession), usher in a period of pragmatic caution and toast to it over a nice Merlot, the culture wars will go global, Israel may decide that it must act alone against Iran, African gangs will prosper, UK politics will be re-established as a spectator sport, we will finally quit oil - and want yet more of it, the potato will make a comeback, an island will be moved for the sake of the Euro, we will rush to give for free what others charge for, U will HAV CASH, robots will explore the seas of Earth, which is round, by the way, pigs will fly, and we will like totally love it (don't we?).

The Economist: The World in 2008. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:46 PM PST - 33 comments

Chromatron 1, 2, 3 and 4 just became freeware. In these little standalone puzzle games for PC and Mac, you align splitters, benders, and mirrors to direct colored laserbeams into like-colored targets. Enjoyably difficult, and an example of great game design. [more inside]
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:28 PM PST - 20 comments

Operation PLIERS. An internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a plan to destabilize Venezuela during the upcoming constitutional referendum. The plan, titled "OPERATION PLIERS" was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington. The full text of the memo will be released soon for verification purposes. Many previously.
posted by scalefree at 5:27 PM PST - 42 comments

So, whatcha readin? The John Ashcroft Alberto Gonzales Michael Mukasey Book Club wants to discuss your latest reads. Amazon thinks it's none of their business. So does your librarian. While it may seem that your reading list is safe, fact is you're actually just one National Security Letter or subpoena away from full disclosure. Want to change that? One step in the right direction would be to contact your Senator about getting S.2088 out of Committee and on to the floor. Oh, and tell them to vote for it. And then to override the veto.
posted by Toekneesan at 5:20 PM PST - 19 comments

How many HTML elements can you name in five minutes?
posted by divabat at 5:06 PM PST - 68 comments

Ladies, submit and enjoy! What does the 21st century biblical model for an adult daughter look like? Have you ever wondered about the damage feminism has visited upon our civilization? Prepare to be enlightened...
posted by zany pita at 4:56 PM PST - 77 comments

Cherry Chocolate Rain
posted by chrismear at 4:56 PM PST - 41 comments

Jason Whitlock again raises the specter of a "Black KKK", some take issue with his ideas, and Jason levels his response.
posted by mikoroshi at 4:40 PM PST - 29 comments

Exploring nature ("Trees" by Myoung Ho Lee) and structure (installations by Esther Stocker).
posted by klangklangston at 3:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Rudy Giuliani is no saint. It's no secret that his marital infidelity and his subsequent divorce were two factors in the scuttling of his 2000 Senate bid, but the image of strength he tries so hard to project has (for the most part) allowed people to overlook his moderate stances on social issues. However, as with his good friend Bernard Kerik, his real problem might not be his infidelity as much as the abuse of public funds that accompanied it.
posted by Bromius at 2:25 PM PST - 65 comments

"Chris Jupin never thought he'd create a firestorm when he wrote on his personal blog in September about a bogus $4.95 charge that appeared on his debit card. But traffic to his blog increased sharply, and hundreds of Web users chimed in saying, 'me too.' About half of them had something in common: They had recently purchased credit services from credit bureau Equifax." The charges -- mostly single ones for $10 or less -- are for "e-books" or other "online downloads." The Equifax connection -- coincidental and casual? Comments in response to yesterday's MSNBC "Red Tape Chronicle" post offer up experiences of others in the same boat.
posted by ericb at 2:24 PM PST - 25 comments

Urban Exploring. Recently: Sanatorio Popolare Cantonale di Piotta. Sinteranlage, Duisburg. Atomschutz Kurfürstendamm, Berlin (flash). (Previously.)
posted by Soup at 1:59 PM PST - 4 comments

A British government minister has promised to "consider" a redesign of the Union Jack Apparently, the Welsh aren't happy because their country isn't represented in the current design. So they want to put a dragon on it. Yep, a dragon.
posted by alexanderj at 1:53 PM PST - 86 comments

Trevor Paglen, the "underground geographer," documents the Black World, offering brief glimpses into the most secret programs and installations of the US military. He has uncovered the ominous and geeky patches used by classified projects, taken long-range photos of secret military installations, traced the mysterious Janet flights of unmarked aircraft that shuttle workers to hidden bases, as well as documenting many other fascinating and hidden things such as the secret rendition programs of the CIA, as discussed previously.
posted by blahblahblah at 12:23 PM PST - 37 comments

Halo 3: Easter eggs, including the excellent Red Vs Blue in-game dialog easter egg; the RvB Halo 3 beta initiation; 3D images and how-to (dig out your glasses); achievements, ranks, armor, skulls, and campaign scoring explained; Bungie's favorites (videos, pics, maps, game variants to download to your 360)... and that grenade stick.
posted by nthdegx at 11:55 AM PST - 22 comments

There are two-- two-- awesome flashlight museums on the web. One of them is on geocities; the other is not. One of them has a page of art deco purse lights and a page of interesting and unusual lights; the other has bullet flashlights and the Dukes of Hazzard signal flash. I love them both.
posted by dersins at 10:57 AM PST - 19 comments

First post, deep breath, here goes nuffin. Judith Bingham is a multitalented British born classical singer, composer and musician. Driving home in the dark on Halloween listening to Radio Three (I'll let someone else out there explain Radio Three to our overseas cousins), I was particularly taken by her atmospheric choral setting of 'Ghost towns of the American West' a poem by Vesta Pierce Crawford, a Mormon Utah poet associated with the University. Despite delving much further into Mormon websites than I would usually care to venture I have not been able to find the text of the poem, if anyone out there can give a hand I'd be grateful. Judith Bingham also wrote an opera based on the life of Errol Flynn! Now that I would like to see. [more inside]
posted by surfdad at 10:46 AM PST - 10 comments

"Officer, I don't know why you're doing what you're doing."
Refusing to sign a speeding citation in Vernal, Utah? That's a tasing. Requesting an investigation of the incident? That sounds like a job for YouTube. [more inside]
posted by mecran01 at 9:21 AM PST - 306 comments

Mister Splashy Pants needs your vote. Even though Mister Splashy Pants is enjoying a comfortable lead, we must continue working to get the vote out.

Oh, also, whaling is bad and Greenpeace is good.
posted by ba at 8:59 AM PST - 38 comments

Make your own attack ad. The Democratic party is uploading all its "tracker" videos of the top Republican candidates out on the campaign trail, for use by anyone for anything. "The party hopes that thousands of eyes might find something the mainstream media has missed, or that a new way of juxtaposing the video with something else will be revealing about the candidates," says the NYT. Gimmick or political sea change?
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:46 AM PST - 60 comments

If you see an unattended bag in New York this holiday shopping season, you better just leave it alone. If you pick it up and don't immediately report it, it could net you a class E felony. The NYPD is planting the bags themselves and this isn't the first time. Operation Lucky Bag first started in 2006, but now they're intentionally loading the bags with credit cards to increase the crime (or non-crime) from a misdemeanor to a felony.
posted by yeti at 7:39 AM PST - 110 comments

Walking the Dog "All photos in this gallery were taken within a radius of about 3 miles of our home in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, mostly one handed while hanging on to an impatient dog with the other hand."
posted by adamvasco at 7:15 AM PST - 20 comments

Visual Dictionary Online - diagrams of everyday objects (and ones not so ordinary) for the visual thinkers among us. (via)
posted by desjardins at 5:58 AM PST - 14 comments

Mass Effect has been released. So why should you give a damn? Developed by Bioware as the spiritual successor to KOTOR, Mass Effect has received many positive reviews, has a unique and widely touted conversation system, features omnipresent videogame voiceover actor and "that guy" Keith David, and was briefly banned in Singapore due to a human female/monogendered species sex scene.
posted by aerotive at 5:26 AM PST - 78 comments

Have you ever loved a woman? Compare and contrast. [more inside]
posted by landis at 3:39 AM PST - 49 comments

Charlie The Unicorn: 16 million hits, not ever on MeFi as far as I can tell, and UNICORNS! Don't we all LOVE THEM SO MUCH?! (Where's the interrobang when you really need it?) [more inside]
posted by exlotuseater at 3:27 AM PST - 52 comments

The Blind Boy Who Sees. After losing his eyes to cancer Ben Underwood discovered that he could "see" the physical world around him using the technique of human echolocation. He is not the only one.
posted by I-baLL at 12:58 AM PST - 17 comments

The Psychedelic 60's: Literary Tradition and Social Change
posted by mlis at 12:13 AM PST - 26 comments

It was a long day. You deserve a break and so does your kitty. So take a breather with the purrings of a virtual cat.
posted by dhammond at 11:59 PM PST - 30 comments

Here is Naomia Wise from The Max Hunter Folksong Collection. Folk songs, more or less, sung by real folks, collected in Arkansas by Max Hunter between 1956 and 1976. On a related tip, here is Historic Music--recorded popular music from the 1920s, with a large selection devoted to music from the First World War. And here, from Manufacturing Memory: American Popular Music in the 1930's, are the Popular Music Jukebox 1930-1934 and the Popular Music Jukebox 1935-1939 to complete this day's vintage musical Americana experience.
The Max Hunter songs are in RealAudio. Realplayer haters can use Real Alternative aka Media Player Classic.
posted by y2karl at 11:49 PM PST - 9 comments

NOTICE OF ARBITRATION AGREEMENT: [more inside]
posted by bigmusic at 11:49 PM PST - 98 comments

Need some help with holiday shopping? Me too. Here's a gift guide roundup: NY Mag * TimeOutNY * Wired * Engadget * CNET * Salon * Time * Newsweek * WaPo * Cool Hunting * DesignSponge under $25 and affordable art guide * Etsy * NOTCOT * Lucky * In Style * Style.com * Travel & Leisure * Treehugger * BoardGameGeek * Babes in Toyland (NSFW) * Babble
posted by Anonymous at 9:57 PM PST - 18 comments

Carrie Brownstein's new band, a. [more inside]
posted by Weebot at 8:16 PM PST - 38 comments

A recent post on Russian animation reminded me of the "Lift" series of short animations, created by the Pilot studio [link in Russian]. There are, count 'em, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 installments. Knowledge of Russian not required to watch.
posted by Krrrlson at 7:34 PM PST - 4 comments

If even most African-Americans believe the black poor are primarily responsible for their own plight, does that make it true?
posted by shotgunbooty at 7:31 PM PST - 78 comments

Chocolate Bunny. From artist Sander Plug.
posted by GuyZero at 7:12 PM PST - 23 comments

Over the past eight years, photographer Jus­tin Guariglia has slowly but surely won the trust of the notoriously secretive warrior monks of the Shaolin Temple. Shamelessly taken from kottke.org, because this is some amazing photography and video. [more inside]
posted by lazaruslong at 6:22 PM PST - 34 comments

BikeIcons isn't the best site, but it has the best bikes! [more inside]
posted by snsranch at 5:41 PM PST - 17 comments

"The Toyota Prius is much too powerful and luxurious a road car," thought Walter Mitty. "What I desire is a Zest Roadster. Pocketa-pocketa-pocketa."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:14 PM PST - 33 comments

The Peace Drug The Washington Post Magazine takes a look at MDMA as a cure for PTSD.
posted by empath at 4:53 PM PST - 75 comments

He was called "the Telemaster", "the Humbler", and " the greatest unknown guitarist in the world". Danny Gatton, revered by guitarists great and small, never achieved popular acclaim. His refusal to stick to any particular genre of music, and his reluctance to travel had much to do with that. But to those of us lucky enough to enjoy the Washington, DC music scene of the eighties and nineties got to see arguably the most talented electric guitar player this country has produced.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 4:26 PM PST - 26 comments

The times, they are a-changing? [pdf]: A Survey of Iowa State University Students' preferences in the presidential primaries. [spoilers inside] [more inside]
posted by orthogonality at 4:09 PM PST - 47 comments

IS IT CHRISTMAS?
posted by boo_radley at 3:27 PM PST - 125 comments

NYC's Museum of Modern Art hosts a Georges Seurat exhibition that focuses on sketchbooks kept by the master of pointillisme. Page through each sketchbook, which is not possible to do at the actual exhibition. Also featured are photos of conservation efforts, including microscopic views of Seurat's technique, and a discussion of his subject matter. Requires Flash, pages may load slowly. Different sections of site not directly linkable because of Flash format-- sorry!
posted by Rykey at 3:19 PM PST - 8 comments

Disappearing Car Door: Damn, this is cool. Everyone will want one. Until the inevitable car accident which renders it unopenable.
posted by bwg at 3:13 PM PST - 59 comments

Landsat Image Mosaic Of Antarctica UK and US researchers peice together the most detailed map of Antarctica yet, searching through years of data to find cloud free images.
posted by Artw at 2:13 PM PST - 16 comments

The official mascots of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics were unveiled today. There are three: a sasquatch, a mythical sea-bear, and a thunderbird-bear spirit, all first-nations inspired. Here's the design firm's website. Previous olympic mascots: Beijing 2008, others.
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:48 PM PST - 84 comments

Sucker Punch: The art, the poetry, the idiocy of YouTube street fights.
posted by chunking express at 1:16 PM PST - 55 comments

Mouneer Al-Shaarani's beautiful Syrian calligraphy. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston at 1:12 PM PST - 24 comments

Norman Mailer has posthumously won this year's Literary Review Bad Sex Award for his novel on the early life of Hitler, The Castle in the Forest. He was up against some stiff competition but Norman managed to rise to the occasion (sorry). Safe for work, but you might feel a bit dirty in the morning.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:04 PM PST - 24 comments

Darwin's Surprise. "There may be no biological process more complicated than the relationships that viruses have with their hosts. Could it be that their persistence made it possible for humans to thrive?" [Via Disinformation.]
posted by homunculus at 11:22 AM PST - 63 comments

"I want to hang you because you're gay." [nsfw audio]
"That's not very nice." But that is what player xxx GayBoy xxx heard on while playing Halo 3 on Xbox Live. Gaygamer.net explains that other than his provoking name, he did nothing to call for the prejudice attacks. As most gamers will tell you, this sort of language is common in game. [more nsfw audio] Thank god for the mute button. It's nice to know there are still heroes. [Previously: 1, 2, 3]
posted by patr1ck at 9:41 AM PST - 144 comments

A two-ton 21-mpg 8-passenger V8 Chevy Tahoe? America, meet your 2008 Green Car of the Year!
posted by dead_ at 9:25 AM PST - 91 comments

Professional Pilots Rumor Network is not recommended reading if you care to fly again. For example, you will discover that what was was initially described by the FAA as a "vibration in the No. 2 engine" was actually uncontained engine failure. Passengers who were on the flight could have told you that. Am I editorializing to say that I'm amazed that this forum is public?
posted by spock at 8:49 AM PST - 44 comments

Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives: Maybe you know e from eels. Most people (other than Sticherbeast) probably did not know his father was once a rock star physicist who first conceived of parallel universes (not that Neils Bohr was impressed). Last night, BBC4 aired a documentary on the trails both men followed.
posted by yerfatma at 8:48 AM PST - 26 comments

Either yesterday was April 1 in Sweden, or northern officials have just given the go ahead to build a 6.5 million dollar, handicapped accessible moose. There's even a walkthrough video. [more inside]
posted by tkolar at 8:43 AM PST - 27 comments

Odd creativity with sex toys - sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes pretty far-out, and sometimes just unbelievable (all links probably NSFW to varying degrees)
posted by janetplanet at 8:21 AM PST - 30 comments

Cerra Perdida (Lost Wax): What's better than free sculpture in the street? In Barcelona an artist is "losing" sculptures around town for every month of the year.
posted by jxn at 7:53 AM PST - 7 comments

How rich is rich? [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:25 AM PST - 52 comments

Astronomers find a giant hole a billion light years across & located 8 billion light years away from us. They believe it could be evidence of another Universe at the edge of ours.
posted by scalefree at 7:16 AM PST - 53 comments

Penn econ professor pleads guilty to killing wife. With last year's child porn and now murder, it looks like the Wharton professor felony hat trick is two-thirds complete. (It's there if we expand it to the whole University.)
posted by supercres at 7:13 AM PST - 27 comments

End of Empire : A collaboration of all areas of geopolitics affecting countries of the world in relation to the 'Empire' of the United States of America, and the 'sub-Empires', such as the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and any other country which seeks to exploit poorer nations and their people in the quest for domination.
posted by adamvasco at 6:15 AM PST - 11 comments

Kohei Nishiyama is the co-founder of a company and a website: Elephant Design and Cuusso.com. They solicit product ideas from individuals (like these modular electrical plug in stacks), realize the feasibility and desirability of those products (There are currently 28 votes for a bag that apparently sticks together without tape), and then manufacture and sell those things (Hey! A Portable Night Light!). It's a process called Design to Order.
posted by sleslie at 4:43 AM PST - 7 comments

Untergunther, a chapter of the Parisian cultural guerilla organisation UX (most memorably responsible for setting up a secret theatre in the catacombs under the Seine in 2004), unveil their latest project - a clock-restoration workshop hidden in the Pantheon dome! The group's own report and pictures here.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 3:27 AM PST - 25 comments

Wife thief - the Wodaabe of Nigeria are one of the world's few remaining Nomadic peoples, retaining age-old customs and ways. Physical beauty and charm are highly prized, qualities much in evidence at the annual Gerewol ceremonies. After donning elaborate makeup and clothing, men engage in stylized dance and preening to win the favor of a desired woman - often one who is already married. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 10:33 PM PST - 20 comments

Do you remember an old photo of a thunderbird/pterodactyl, nailed against a barn wall, with men standing in it for scale? So do many others (including myself). But since that photo has entirely disappeared, are we all victims of a form of mass hysteria? Or victims of a massive reality-altering conspiracy (ctrl-f for 'Birdzilla')?
posted by Kickstart70 at 9:26 PM PST - 102 comments

A window to the world by car or train. Passingby: Videos uploaded to Youtube, showing various parts of the world, from the vantage point of someone just passing by. (Flash, video, youtube link)
posted by zabuni at 9:26 PM PST - 7 comments

Almonds. Eat more almonds. They're good for you. The fall harvest is now in and you can get organic almonds online. Also, they're better than pecans. [more inside]
posted by five fresh fish at 8:51 PM PST - 59 comments

Mayor Ken Williams of Centerton, Arkansas, recently resigned over allegations of identity theft and other weirdness. He claims that a truth serum injection helped him to recognize that he was formerly The Rev. Don LaRose. He runs a website telling the "amazing story" (in 11 chapters) of his abduction by satan-worshippers three decades ago.
posted by amyms at 8:51 PM PST - 19 comments

Dear Rockers. Guilt ridden music lovers get to feel better about themselves.
posted by bowline at 8:32 PM PST - 29 comments

The Bugle is a topical comedic podcast by The Daily Show's John Oliver and fellow comedian Andy Saltzman. They style it an Audio Newspaper for a Visual World. Each weekly episode is about half an hour long.
posted by Kattullus at 8:23 PM PST - 13 comments

Kimberly Miner's award-winning short documentary reveals a fascinating way to negate the effects of gravity. A variant of this effect was first revealed to the world by the wise Internet Oracle over 15 years ago. Also of interest, a discussion of potential problems with this arrangement, and the obligatory 'pedia entry.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 7:16 PM PST - 10 comments

Trent Lott announced today that he will be resigning from the U.S. Senate at the end of the year. His swift and unexpected decision to retire just one year after a re-election that many saw as a comeback from his much disgraced comments at Strom Thurmond's birthday party in 2002 has puzzled many folks. Rumor is spreading that his resignation is due to an alleged scandal: his involvement with a gay escort. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 6:52 PM PST - 93 comments

Colombia's FARC rebels hold over 3000 current hostages, including soldiers, lawmakers, presidential candidates, Americans, Canadians, Japanese, a Turk, 291 children (including one born in captivity who is the youngest hostage in the world), and a disillusioned Dutch convert whose diary was recently discovered. Family members of the kidnapped can send messages to their loved ones on a popular radio show. More about Colombian kidnappings in Silvana Paternostro's captivating memoir My Colombian War.
posted by mert at 6:46 PM PST - 8 comments

"NATURMOBIL is about to pioneer in the state-of-the-art, first ever advertising promotion by means of traveling around the world with the vehicle that is nature-friendly that preserves the welfare of the beings and the environment. NATURMOBIL will soon to be the byword in every household globally." If Fleethorse, LLC meets their modest goals, the world's first advertising-funded horse-powered car will be followed by horse-powered buses and taxis.
posted by ardgedee at 6:34 PM PST - 10 comments

Viral marketing for The Dark Knight kicks it up a notch. The Gotham Times -- Joker's Take -- A Safer Gotham -- Gotham National Bank -- Gotham Police -- Gotham City Rail -- Victim of Crime -- Harvey Dent for DA -- Wanted: Henchman
posted by flarbuse at 6:19 PM PST - 25 comments

The media begins to awaken. Recently, Tom Curley, the President and CEO of Associated Press lashed out at the absurd conditions surrounding the detention of Bilal Hussein. After being detained for over 18 months, the US Military has finally decided to charge him, but nobody can say for what, or when, or why, or what evidence might be brought forth. Strangely, Mr. Curley writes this without a hint of the irony present in being caught in the net of lies, deception and constructed memory hole that the media has participated in the creation of. Playing patsy comes back to bite. AP hosts a timeline of articles.
posted by petrilli at 6:19 PM PST - 13 comments

This cheesy 1979 promo film from the group, Blackjack, offers a glimpse into the hard rock past of balladeer Michael Bolton, which also includes a co-writing credit for a Top 40 hit by Kiss. Similarly, Bill Joel disavows the days when he posed in medieval armor next to slabs of raw beef on the cover of the self-titled album by Joel's heavy metal duo, Attila, although Julian Cope is a fan of the album and its Deep Purplish vibes (check out Holy Moses and Wonder Woman). To round out the trifecta, we have Tori Amos who got marketed as the metal-chick frontwoman of Y Kant Tori Read (check out the video for The Big Picture). On the other hand, metalheads have the opposite problem of hiding their pop past. Examples include the industrial metal band Ministry's early days as a new wave synth act and Tommy Iommi's brief tenure as a member of Jethro Tull before becoming lead guitarist of Black Sabbath. Meanwhile, Bon Scott, the late lead singer of AC/DC, is probably spinning in his grave over the YouTube footage of him as an Australian teen idol and a bearded hippie with a recorder.
posted by jonp72 at 4:21 PM PST - 69 comments

Plane Crazy [Wikipedia] was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon produced; it debuted on May 15, 1928. It was followed by The Gallopin' Gaucho [Wikipedia], which had a sneak preview on August 28, 1928. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 4:09 PM PST - 11 comments

Is Ötzi the first known backpacker? Also mentioned: Faxian and Xuanzang.
posted by sushiwiththejury at 2:52 PM PST - 13 comments

Kevin DuBrow dead at 52. The lead singer of the 80's metal band Quiet Riot found dead at 52 in Las Vegas. Break out your leather and studs...and hockey masks?
posted by spish at 2:30 PM PST - 40 comments

Alain Robbe-Grillet's La Belle Captive, Andrzej Zulawski's 'comedy,' My Nights Are Better Than Your Days, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Seance, Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower, Seijun Suzuki's Tattooed Life and Kanto Wanderer, Lucio Fulci's House by the Cemetery, Kinji Fukasaku's Blackmail is my Life, If You Were Young: Rage and Legend of the Eight Samurai, five films by Takashi Miike, the entire Ring series, thirteen(!) Zatoichi sequels, and 500+ other movies, streaming, online, free and legal. (Some links, NSFW) [more inside]
posted by broodle at 2:15 PM PST - 19 comments

Could giant magnetically levitated windmills be the solution to the worlds energy problems? Chinese scientist have reported 20 percent increase in capacity over traditional wind turbines using maglev turbines, and now Arizona-based based Maglev Wind Turbine Technologies claims their turbines will have 1000 times the capacity of a traditional turbine. Not everybody is convinced.
posted by Artw at 2:04 PM PST - 83 comments

China's last cave dwellers.
posted by Soup at 12:13 PM PST - 26 comments

New Beef Eco-Report: Pound-for-Pound, Beef Produced with Grains and Growth Hormones Produces 40% Less Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Saves Two-Thirds More Land for Nature Compared to Organic Grass-Fed Beef. "Environmentally conscious consumers who have been told that grass-raised beef is more environmentally sensitive and sustainable should rethink their beef purchases in light of our findings," says lead author Alex Avery, author of The Truth About Organic Foods.
posted by parmanparman at 11:27 AM PST - 67 comments

God's Waiting Room is a British documentary about the daily struggles of Haji Taslim Funerals, the first European Muslim Funeral Directors, and how they work to honor the requirements of ancient faith while cutting through the red tape of modern death. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 10:48 AM PST - 6 comments

Emma Clarke the voice of the London Underground has just been fired for recording and posting some spoofs on her own website. "Mind the gap" no more. (To spare Emma's server and in case she is forced to remove the files for some reason: External linkage to streaming mp3's of these spoofs are below) [more inside]
posted by Webbster at 10:17 AM PST - 91 comments

Kent French is the world's fastest clapper.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 9:58 AM PST - 56 comments

"If the emergence of techno and the proliferation of its related genres thrust DJs and producers into the spotlight, it also spawned artists who, like Kraftwerk before them, chose to remain anonymous and distant. The Scottish duo Boards of Canada (Marcus Eoin and Michael Sandison) is a case in point, an even more enigmatic presence on the UK's electronic music landscape than Aphex Twin and Autechre. Eoin and Sandison have consistently minimized their role in the commercial side of music-making and have avoided its attendant lifestyle: They've shunned city life for the rural seclusion of their Hexagon Sun studio and its local collective of artists. They claim to record primarily for themselves and their friends. They have reportedly amassed an enormous archive of unreleased music dating back to the early '80s (numerous apocryphal BoC tracks make the rounds). They seldom give interviews or perform live." [more inside]
posted by bigmusic at 9:11 AM PST - 70 comments

Lucky Soul's 'Lips Are Unhappy' isn't the likliest of contenders for the UK's coveted Christmas number one, but this is the track (from a shortlist) selected by listeners of Last.fm to receive Last.fm's backing. Profits go to charity, as is the norm for Xmas No. 1 entries.
posted by nthdegx at 8:55 AM PST - 13 comments

Beginning with Slow Food in 1986, the idea of rejecting the "cult of speed" has gradually spread from a focus on food into other fields. In his book In Praise of Slow, Carl Honore explores the spread of the worldwide Slow movement, urging greater attention to all aspects of daily life, human relationships, and the quality of experience. Meanwhile, on the web, witness the spread of Slow. Slow down your stuff with Slow Home, Slow Travel, Slow Fashion, Slow Art, Slow Craft, Slow Design. Relax with some Slow Reading; check out a Slow Read from a Slow Library. Plan for Slow Cities governed by Slow Leadership. Use Slow Schooling, Slow Research, and the Slow University to explore Slow Science and Slow Math. Bank with Slow Money [PDF]. Explore the world with Slow Travel, using Slow Fuel for Slow Transportation. What's the rush? Come on. Take it easy.
posted by Miko at 7:42 AM PST - 60 comments

Definr is an incredibly fast online dictionary. It joins other cool Web 2.0ish word applications, such as Wordie [prev.] with its hot words and great blog (see also their glossary of glossaries); the collective Madlibs-like idea generator that is Seedy; the TagCrowd word cloud creator; and, most importantly, the blog devoted solely to the word literally [prev.].
posted by blahblahblah at 7:12 AM PST - 49 comments

Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap. [pdf] [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 6:59 AM PST - 22 comments

DrugPolicyCases.com - Yakov Spektor, a New York-based attorney, combed through two decades of US Supreme Court opinions "to discern certain trends in the Court's treatment of various issues" related to the War on Drugs. The collection of opinions are organized by case, author and topic.
posted by daksya at 6:04 AM PST - 8 comments

Whispering Jack Smith, an early crooner, sings - From 1929./ / Whistling Jack Smith, an imposter, lies - I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman [+da hool long]. / / At the bottom of the pool : : the perfect filmic appositeness of Maria Montez. / / Jack Smith, Blastitudinal Love & MORE.. . in their NEWEST pagan sensation! [more inside]
posted by j.henry at 3:40 AM PST - 15 comments

Crazy Rulers of the World: The Men Who Stare at Goats - A rather clear look at attempts to use the paranormal in the US military. (Part 2: Funny Torture, Part 3: Psychic Foot Soldiers)
posted by loquacious at 12:31 AM PST - 37 comments

Though not as commonly known, Alfred Hitchcock's late British period is nonetheless an intriguing look at what delights were to come from his later work.

Secret Agent (1936 | Wikipedia | Download)
Young and Innocent (1937 | Wikipedia | Download)
Jamaica Inn (1939 | Wikipedia | Download)

posted by dhammond at 11:21 PM PST - 13 comments

Soviet rock hero Viktor Tsoy kept his job in the boiler room of an apartment complex even as his band KINO grew wildly popular in the last years of the Soviet Union. At the height of the band's fame, he even made a few film appearances. He died in a car accident in 1990, but a tape of recordings survived the crash and became the "black album." Fans still leave messages for him on the "wall of Tsoy" on Arbat street.
posted by pravit at 8:37 PM PST - 15 comments

Ulysses - An Irish guy (in West Virginia) reads Ulysses and posts it to the web in 20 parts. It's a work best appreciated when read aloud and here is someone who has read it aloud just for you. (ultra-condensed version here ) [more inside]
posted by caddis at 7:44 PM PST - 21 comments

For whatever reason, this girl has uploaded over a hundred and fifty videos of Disney songs dubbed in Icelandic (as well as a few other languages). I just can't wait to be king, Strange Things, the Siamese cat song.
posted by borkingchikapa at 7:42 PM PST - 17 comments

Thanksgiving dinner with Brutus the Bear. (First link YT. Via Friday fish wrap)
posted by growabrain at 5:32 PM PST - 15 comments

"Okay, I work for GameStop, and in one of the local stores, someone returned Spanish for Everyone claiming it was exceedingly stereotypical." And it turns out it kinda was. It's a game for the Nintendo DS, where the framework involves an accidentally stolen DS which is taken by a kid whose father is in a limo, being chased by the police, going back across the border to Ensenada. Luckily, the kid's aunt (who apparently doesn't recognize him other than vaguely) is here to give him a ride as far as Tijuana, leaving him stranded in the middle of a foreign country where he doesn't speak the language! Fun, and it gets worse from there! Here's The Intro, Level 2's cut scene, level 3's cut scene and the ending, featuring a whole mess of cars, "fireworks" and, ahm, drug running? Of course, this'd just be a pile of YouTube links if it weren't for The lead designer of the game popping in to share his 2 cents on it. [via] [more inside]
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 5:27 PM PST - 44 comments

The Last Iceberg suffers, as many photography sites do, from a mildly irritating flash interface; but if you can get over that fact, you'll see some genuinely amazing polar photography of isolated icebergs & ice shelves.
posted by jonson at 5:01 PM PST - 17 comments

Ask 500 (or 100) people: Random participants answer each other's polls on prayer in school, the bible, philosophers, iraq, social habits, love & marriage, materialism, freedom of speech, or whatever topic of interest someone wants to open up for a very momentary spotlight, and reasonably accurate data. [more inside]
posted by mdn at 4:17 PM PST - 28 comments

Freud Is Widely Taught at Universities, Except in the Psychology Department.
posted by AceRock at 3:47 PM PST - 97 comments

Time for Black Friday again and people just losing it and going fucking insane.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:17 PM PST - 166 comments

Salsa in Kilts! I was not aware of them until seeing them in the (excellent) movie Driving Lessons. WOW! Meet Salsa Celtica.
posted by spock at 11:52 AM PST - 9 comments

Countdown to a Meltdown : long but fascinating speculative retrospective on the causes and impact of the 2009-2016 economic collapse. [via Marshall Brain]
posted by pheideaux at 10:24 AM PST - 73 comments

On public access TV in Seattle a preacher named Bruce Howard rambled each week for twenty five minutes about love and hope. He would then abruptly burst into song (some covers, some original) and lavish affection onto his pug, BUSTER LOVE! We watched at first to mock, and then grew to genuinely like him. But sometime between then and now he seems to have gone mad (last two links nsfw-ish).
posted by jiiota at 5:31 AM PST - 72 comments

Collectors of 78rpm records are a breed unto themselves. Obsessively scouring the flea markets of the world in search of sonic treasures from yesteryear, they are a big part of the reason we can today enjoy so much wonderful old music. One such collector who's bringing some of his finds to the internets, sharing with us his scratchy old audio ghosts from eras long gone, is Johnny Bitterman. Currently up on his audio player is You Gonna Look Like a Monkey When You Get Old, along with 3 other tunes for your listening/downloading pleasure. You'll also find there a fabulous gallery of photographs featuring lovely old labels from many of his discs. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:21 AM PST - 22 comments

What Makes Us Moral and The Morality Quiz. It's war time, and you're hiding in a basement with a group of other people. Enemy soldiers are approaching outside and will be drawn to any sound. If you're found, you'll all be killed immediately. A baby hiding with you starts to cry loudly and cannot be stopped. Smothering it to death is the only way to silence it, saving the lives of everyone in the room. Assume that the parents of the baby are unknown and not present and there will be no penalty for killing the child. Could you be the one who smothered it if no one else would?
posted by amyms at 1:02 AM PST - 145 comments

The Alexander Palace Time Machine. This deep site on pre-revolutionary Russia was not at all unearthed as a result of noting this bit of news today. The site was linked in passing previously this past August, in a post about the exact news the Times is reporting today.
posted by mwhybark at 11:51 PM PST - 5 comments

MANTAGE. Brought to you by these guys.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:14 PM PST - 28 comments

U.S. Public Service Academy : A proposal by two Teach for America alum to provide fully-funded top-notch undergraduate education in public service in the style of military academies, but with a mandatory 5-year local/state/federal service work requirement. A bill for this school was put into Congress by Senators Hillary Clinton and Arlen Specter.
posted by divabat at 10:38 PM PST - 54 comments

The Radio Kitchen is an mp3 blog dedicated to the late night wonder of listening to shortwave and AM radio, now and as it used to was. Brought to you by The Professor from WFMU's defunct AM and Shortwave Radio blog). [more inside]
posted by dhammond at 9:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Rants of the EvieMan. Imagine finding that on an unmarked cassette in your mailbox. Here's more for a little mellow evening listening.
posted by RenMan at 7:37 PM PST - 15 comments

Norman Bates and that oh, so famous shower scene... [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 7:31 PM PST - 46 comments

Fast Eddie Felsen's time has passed. Pool hustlers once traveled the U.S., a nomadic undercover elite who made their living by allowing local players to feel in control - until real money was at stake. Now, they are no more. The best players became famous on an ill-fated televised tournament series. They are too recognizable to hustle the locals. “Real hustling — driving to a pool room in another state, walking in, setting the trap, busting the local guy and then heading to a new town — is different. That’s what ain’t there any more.”
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:16 PM PST - 29 comments

Dear torrent seeder: I am the producer of a motion picture. This is not a case-and-desist order. I am writing to thank you. Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth succeeds through sharing. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 3:35 PM PST - 30 comments

Air Supply formed in Australia in 1975 and became an enormous chart success with groundbreaking ballads like All Out of Love, Even the Nights Are Better, and The One That You Love. [more inside]
posted by flarbuse at 1:40 PM PST - 89 comments

Atom. -- The Clash of the Titans -- The Key to the Cosmos -- The Illusion of Reality
posted by empath at 12:41 PM PST - 20 comments

Dick Cavett interviews Mae West (1976). Part two. (YouTube)
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:07 PM PST - 20 comments

“You’re Out Of The Computer” by Bingo Gazingo and My Robot Friend. Lyrics.
posted by jason's_planet at 10:39 AM PST - 11 comments

Money as Debt. Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple graphic terms what money is and how it is created.
posted by psmealey at 10:26 AM PST - 60 comments

Garry Kasparov, chess grandmaster, and presidential opponent to Putin, has just been detained on charges of organizing a protest and resisting arrest. [more inside]
posted by mrzarquon at 10:20 AM PST - 59 comments

"This is the story of when I re-wrote the Lotus Notes Formula Engine.... So here was I was, offered this position that I clearly wasn't qualified for. I had no experience with language runtimes or compilers, I knew very little about C and didn't know anything about C++, I had never dealt with platform byte ordering and packing and all the other issues associated with writing something for eight different operating systems, I had never even used proper version control. But none of that mattered to me. It seemed to me like an amazing opportunity and I would be doing exactly the kind of stuff I enjoy most..."
posted by grumblebee at 10:00 AM PST - 64 comments

Luxury items, once made by European artisans, fetched a high price due to the craft of making the items by hand in small workshops. But now, although the prices are even more astronomical, the products themselves are really cheaply produced in Chinese factories, similar to those that make Gap socks, or baseball caps. Despite this, they continue to be worn as badges bought on thinning credit.
posted by four panels at 8:54 AM PST - 64 comments

Singer/songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire Richard Thompson: songs of bittersweet longing, sublime eloquence, dark exuberance and ominous allusion. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:44 AM PST - 37 comments

Is it cool to work in your underwear - or is it not?
posted by janetplanet at 2:07 AM PST - 121 comments

To read or to write, that is the question! Ahmadinejad explains why he hasn’t been updating his blog. He ‎stated he would update it more often.‎
posted by persia at 1:40 AM PST - 12 comments

Does Denial Make The World Go 'Round? "In the modern vernacular, to say someone is 'in denial' is to deliver a savage combination punch: one shot to the belly for the cheating or drinking or bad behavior, and another slap to the head for the cowardly self-deception of pretending it's not a problem. Yet recent studies from fields as diverse as psychology and anthropology suggest that the ability to look the other way, while potentially destructive, is also critically important to forming and nourishing close relationships. The psychological tricks that people use to ignore a festering problem in their own households are the same ones that they need to live with everyday human dishonesty and betrayal, their own and others'. And it is these highly evolved abilities, research suggests, that provide the foundation for that most disarming of all human invitations, forgiveness."
posted by amyms at 12:53 AM PST - 12 comments

Australia Votes. Polls have been predicting a Labor win for the past few weeks, and it's beginning to look like it just might happen. But that's not the real sport. [more inside]
posted by Neale at 12:45 AM PST - 78 comments

Defying Demographics: A look at University Park Campus School, a 7-12th grade school located in the poorest neighborhood in blue-collar Worcester, MA. Approximately 73% of students hover at or below the poverty line and 61% are minorities, yet over 80% go on to college and 99% pass the Massachusetts graduation exams. The partnership between Clark University and Worcester Public Schools has created an environment so successful that a number of cities are looking to emulate it. Have they discovered the key to closing the achievement gap?
posted by rollbiz at 8:06 PM PST - 32 comments

Household Hacker offers a growing variety of bizarrely improbable or impossible "hacks" using household items. How many errors can you spot?
posted by loquacious at 7:19 PM PST - 35 comments

Saved By Jesus! Incrediable story out of the Arizona desert. I just feel really bad for the kid in all this. And wonder how both sides of the immigration debate will handle this.
posted by ShawnString at 6:56 PM PST - 80 comments

The Nocturnes Gallery [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 6:50 PM PST - 3 comments

In 1998, he pulled a woman from a burning car. When I first saw him I was going through multiple cycles at a red light in heavy traffic and he was navigating a push lawnmower with no hands, or arms. Via con dios Marty Ravellette.
posted by Huplescat at 4:31 PM PST - 12 comments

I pledge to buy handmade this holiday season, and request that others do the same for me. Why? Better gifting experience, better ethics, better for the environment.
posted by divabat at 3:53 PM PST - 94 comments

Green Team! NSFW language, Will Ferrell and Friends.
posted by lazaruslong at 2:27 PM PST - 45 comments

The Temples of Damanhur. Behold the Eighth Wonder of the World (according to the Italian government). [Via Boing Boing.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 2:20 PM PST - 22 comments

Raven and Jason live together in Vancouver's downtown East Side. A touching short documentary about life on the edge.
posted by Flashman at 1:24 PM PST - 71 comments

Verity Lambert dies. Verity was amongst other things the first producer of Doctor Who and essentially co-created the series along with writer Sydney Newman and the pilot director Waris Hussein. She would later have a hand in bringing everything from Minder to Jonathan Creek to the screen. [more inside]
posted by feelinglistless at 12:40 PM PST - 26 comments

David Lynch: Problem Solver [more inside]
posted by Glow Bucket at 10:58 AM PST - 25 comments

"Fascism", in its current hyphenated repackaging, gets bandied about quite a bit these days. So, it may surprise you to learn that the populist appeal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad depends in part on a Persian concept, "gharbzadegi" ("weststruckness" or "occidentosis") whose roots are located in an Iranian adaptation of Martin Heidegger's proto-fascist concept of "The Darkening of the World" by the intellectuals Ahmad Fardid and Jalal Ali Ahmad.
posted by felix betachat at 10:26 AM PST - 32 comments

Can you say that again? you gurgled it the first time... ...Or it's simply the language of the zombies via, often full of groans. Since death rattle is a fairly difficult language to understand by word, it is common to understand through body language, and volume. For example, a loud angry "Rahhr!" will usually mean "I'm going to kill you." A soft "Bhrr." with hands in front will usually mean "Please, don't hurt me, I didn't know she was your girlfriend."
But more commonly, over-used to describe movies or fading trends and Russian Death metal...Hear the Rattle!
...otherwise possibly boring FPP's on terminology.
posted by greenskpr at 10:22 AM PST - 12 comments

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw (previously), he of "Chzo mythos" and "Zero Punctuation" fame, has released a new game: The Art of Theft, a heist adventure in grand retro style.
posted by Iridic at 7:50 AM PST - 17 comments

The Japanese Narrow High Jump
posted by pyramid termite at 7:23 AM PST - 52 comments

The CBC's Stuart McLean (kind of Canada's Garrison Keillor) is obsessed with musicians' home recordings. He recently produced a show asking Canadian musicians to record songs in their own homes. The result is an enjoyable mix (direct link to MP3) of whimsical, occasionally experimental music.
posted by dbarefoot at 6:20 AM PST - 55 comments

unsubscribe-me.org is not what you might first think it is from the name. (SL-non-YTP)
posted by allkindsoftime at 5:37 AM PST - 50 comments

Doctors remove a ten-pound hairball from an 18-year-old girl's stomach. It's still not the world's largest - that one came from a cow and weighed 20 pounds. And this homemade one doesn't count.
posted by jbickers at 5:33 AM PST - 47 comments

On this day in 1889 the first jukebox was installed at the Palais Royale Salon in San Francisco. And the rest is history. Take a stroll through Wurlitzer's Jukebox Museum, and check out their 1950's promo film on jukebox manufacture: A Visit To Wurlitzer. Happy birthday, jukebox! [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:26 AM PST - 5 comments

Billions of jellyfish destroy a coastal fishery in Ireland. Next they will be attacking your children. Feel free to flee in terror...if you can.
posted by baphomet at 1:16 AM PST - 56 comments

Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause
posted by rxrfrx at 11:32 PM PST - 78 comments

During the 70s and 80s a new phenomenon appeared. Television Hijacking. It started in 1977 when a man in England hijacked the sound broadcast of a newscast. In 1986, a hijacker known as Captain Midnight hijacked HBO in response to their scrambling of television signals. The year after (20 years ago as of today), a character disguised as Max Headroom (a television character) infiltrated two Chicago television studios in one night. First the man infiltrated Channel 9 (WGN) for a few seconds with no sound, and then moved on to attack another Chicago station, this time with sound. After the Max Headroom incident, television hacking incidents were rare in the United States except for this one in Wyoming.
posted by ooklala at 6:05 PM PST - 38 comments

Let’s Do Lunch. (Previously and previously.)
posted by Soup at 5:12 PM PST - 26 comments

In addition to his work on the design of the 200-inch Hale telescope, amateur astronomer Russell W. Porter (1871-1949) designed and produced a remarkable, bronze-cast garden telescope in the 1920s. Fewer than 60 of these unusual Newtonian reflectors were ever made, and they're even harder to find now: earlier this year, one went for $18,000 at auction. But a reproduction of the Porter Garden Telescope is now available, for a mere $59,000 (it's cast bronze on a marble pedestal); a local cable station has a profile of the people behind it. Via Sky and Telescope.
posted by mcwetboy at 4:19 PM PST - 8 comments

Stupid people say stupid things. [more inside]
posted by flatluigi at 1:32 PM PST - 125 comments

Imagine you're a pilot trying to control a jet when your skull has been smashed with a hammer and your co-workers are trying to subdue a madman with a speargun. [more inside]
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:41 PM PST - 49 comments

The birth of a gadget. [Wired]
posted by WPW at 12:36 PM PST - 6 comments

Hopeless, hapless, helpless. [more inside]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:31 PM PST - 20 comments

Since the passing of Art Buchwald (previously on MeFi), we're looking for something to replace his traditional Thanksgiving Humor Piece (seen here), with varying success. MeFi's Own rstevens has a collection of LOLGRIMS, MeFi's own Lore offers some catering services for the 21st Century (featuring the next step in Turducken evolution). Formerly MeFi's Own Lileks has a cheap video on how to make a cheap Thanksgiving dinner. A faux-conservative blogger (who's no Colbert) suggests renaming the holiday. The "Creatures in My Head" guy has his own disturbing version of a turkey. A video game site has games that (kinda) fit the holiday. A semi-NSFW site for dudes has the Worst Thanksgiving Dishes (not sexist, but PETA-ist and NPR-ist) But the most obvious Thanksgiving tradition (via YouTube) is the WKRP Turkey Drop (and aftermath). [more inside]
posted by wendell at 11:38 AM PST - 6 comments

So one of the biggest musical acts in the world schedules a concert in your city, and the reception is not quite as enthusiastic as expected. One phony excuse and one real reason later, the lesson is learned. [more inside]
posted by GhostintheMachine at 10:56 AM PST - 44 comments

Unlocking America [pdf]: Why and How to Reduce America's Prison Population. From the JFA Institute: a criminal justice think tank.
posted by AceRock at 10:56 AM PST - 48 comments

Shame on him for saying it, and shame on us for tolerating it. In an article in Monday's Guardian, the writer Ronan Bennett argued that the lack of a popular outcry against Martin Amis' remarks about Islam (covered previously) represents a cultural failure that ought to shame us. Yesterday, Christopher Hitchens and Ian McEwan wrote attacking Bennett and defending Amis. Perhaps they ought to have deployed a slideshow.
posted by hydatius at 10:50 AM PST - 47 comments

Matt Stuart | Photographer | Shoots People [more inside]
posted by psmealey at 10:36 AM PST - 12 comments

Hello Chococat, Oh No! Doom, Sludge, Noise(warning: ewwtube): the music of Monarch (warning:murdochSpace); they're from Bayonne.
posted by geos at 9:27 AM PST - 11 comments

Happy Thanksgiving to all. (YT. Click on bottom corner for full screen)
posted by growabrain at 9:00 AM PST - 17 comments

A Thanksgiving Prayer.
posted by puddnhead at 8:41 AM PST - 36 comments

Chew On This. Take a deep breath, swallow hard, and follow the food you eat on its day-long journey through the digestive system.
posted by forallmankind at 7:50 AM PST - 13 comments

It's Turkey Time! (mp3) And this song is playing in my head, over and over... [more inside]
posted by ba at 5:08 AM PST - 20 comments

Trigger Happier "Trigger Happy is a book about the aesthetics of videogames — what they share with cinema, the history of painting, or literature; and what makes them different, in terms of form, psychology and semiotics. It’s offered under a CC license, for a limited time only. I’m not sure how limited that time will be, so grab it while it’s hot." [drm-free pdf]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:36 AM PST - 14 comments

On Nov 22, 1968, exactly 39 years ago, on a reasonably clear, uneventful day, a new JAL DC-8 descended toward the SFO airport. The landing was so well executed that no one was hurt when the pilot landed the plane into the San Francisco Bay, several miles from the airport. What explanation did 15 year veteran pilot Captain Kohei Asoh give for his botched landing? It was so unusual (especially in this day and age), so refreshingly honest, that it came to be known as the Asoh Defense. Amazingly, the plane was recovered, refurbished, and was in service for another 35 years.
posted by eye of newt at 12:04 AM PST - 50 comments

Blue Vertigo | Web Design Resource Links
posted by Gyan at 11:53 PM PST - 24 comments

Milo Radulovich, RIP --thrown out of the Air Force during the Red Scares, he fought back--Radulovich's case (and the new medium of TV) showed millions the impact McCarthy was having and the absurd lengths he was going to. He himself wasn't ever accused of being a Communist himself tho: [more inside]
posted by amberglow at 11:44 PM PST - 32 comments

Well, someone's gone and made a feature-length biopic on Bob Dylan. It was bound to happen, right? Didn't necessarily expect Cate Blanchett (along with 5 others) to be cast in the role of Bob, but, hey, she looks great with the flyaway hair and the cigarette. Here's a clip, wherein Cate as Bob meets Ginsberg in a golfcart. Here's a trailer and an IMDB page. Here director Todd Haynes talks about the film. He discusses his casting of Blanchett, and offers observations on other aspects of the movie here and here. And if you want to read reviews, there's plenty of 'em.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:29 PM PST - 27 comments

Traveling a lot this weekend? Long drive, plane or train ride? You can use that transit time to listen to the Dalai Lama talk for more than four hours with neuroscientists and Buddhist scholars on the topic of craving, suffering and choice. Part one. Part two. [iTunes links] If you're stuck at home, you can watch the video. The video link has the full list of participants.
posted by Kattullus at 9:57 PM PST - 11 comments

Covering The Mouse. An MP3 blog dedicated to cover versions of Disney songs. My favorite so far is Gene Simmons' cover of "When You Wish Upon A Star."
posted by amyms at 9:15 PM PST - 17 comments

I'm sure you'll agree that these Yolngu dancers offer a different interpretation of Zorba the Greek. The dancers have become a youtube 'hit' and are set to tour the Greece in '08.
posted by mattoxic at 8:57 PM PST - 18 comments

How to carve a turkey to get the most meat out: A butcher takes on a cooked turkey. (6.5 minute video, following a 15 second ad.)
posted by rouftop at 7:59 PM PST - 19 comments

David Lynch talks about invincible Germany in Berlin. Why Mr. Lynch should learn german.
posted by namagomi at 7:54 PM PST - 32 comments

Terminus. "After inadvertently offending a strange entity that accosts him on his way to work, a 1970s businessman quickly finds himself in the midst of a bizarre predicament." 205.2 MB Quicktime available here. [Via Neatorama.]
posted by homunculus at 6:20 PM PST - 16 comments

Imagine a world without lightsabers—where, instead, every big Star Wars finale consists of a 10-minute slap fight. Thank the maker we’ll never have to witness such a spectacle, because magical and impossibly high-tech weapons are staples of nearly all of our favorite entertainments! ToyFare Magazine presents the 50 Greatest Fictional Weapons of All Time.
posted by cmgonzalez at 6:17 PM PST - 57 comments

People's written reports of their psychedelic experiences based on the level of their trips after ingesting "magic" mushrooms. (level one, two, three, four, or five) The site includes a dosage calculator for anyone tempted to try them.
posted by augustweed at 5:38 PM PST - 132 comments

Discussion of the beauty and consequences of urban decay pops up here from time to time. In 1992 Lambert-St. Louis International Airport began its expansion program. The airport's website has a timeline and lots of photos. Since the planning began, there has been a fair amount of controversy of one form or another surrounding the expansion. Despite all the shininess of their press releases, things are progressing very slowly. The people who have been impacted most, however, are the people who lived in the communities on top of which the expansion is happening. They have all been displaced. [more inside]
posted by jeffamaphone at 3:56 PM PST - 10 comments

Park your carcass in front of the TV for the next six weeks. Here is the upcoming broadcast schedule for every show that has even the tiniest connection to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
posted by Kibbutz at 3:22 PM PST - 31 comments

Cook Thanksgiving Dinner with Beer-Based Recipes Oh, and don't forget to stock your fridge with the recommendations listed in "Beer Pairings for Thanksgiving Dinner". Happy Turkey Day!
posted by grateful at 12:45 PM PST - 19 comments

It's No Music Day again (previously), and this year, Bill Drummond has convinced BBC Radio Scotland to take part. His Guardian article discusses changes in his view of it since last year, as does his article on the BBC site. More on the fast from the New York Times.
posted by motty at 12:02 PM PST - 41 comments

The 30-Second Senate Session: In order to prevent President Bush from making recess appointments, the U.S. Senate will technically stay open over the Thanksgiving holiday. The result? A U.S. Senate session that lasts, gavel-to-gavel, exactly 30 seconds.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:38 AM PST - 79 comments

What do you call it when your insurance company takes your accident settlement to repay the medical costs you have incurred? If you said subrogation, you were close.
posted by butterstick at 11:14 AM PST - 97 comments

Midi plus Art plus Cleverness with video game nostalgia then put up on Youtube -- What does that equal? Beats me, but it sure looks and sounds cool. [more inside]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:16 AM PST - 11 comments

Talking back to Prozac. Review article in The New York Review of Books, covering some issues concerning the diagnosis and treatment of depression.
posted by hydatius at 10:11 AM PST - 57 comments

We've done anarchoprimitivism before (1, 2) with mixed results.

Some people have a different take. For my part, I don't think Daniel Quinn ever intended to inspire anything involving Segways.
posted by Arturus at 9:47 AM PST - 17 comments

Multinational food and pharmaceutical company Podrovka is cooking its books -- literally. Its latest annual report includes a section that must be baked in the oven before it can be read.
posted by brain_drain at 9:43 AM PST - 20 comments

The historically significant^* "4th IPCC report on global warming" was published in full last weekend to wide publicity. Part 1 "The Science". Part 2 "The Impacts" and Part 3 "The Solutions" - each about a 1000 page 6 pound brick, but summaries make it accessible. Beyond its gloomy dire warnings and calls for immediate action, observed global measurements of CO2 levels are already worse than the worse case scenarios and some say the report is overly conservative and already outdated. However there is a surprising idea for "solving" climate change (TED) that may be inevitable.
posted by stbalbach at 9:34 AM PST - 30 comments

"Teenage Stories." Award-winning photography by Julia Fullerton-Batten (flash). With interviews (pdf).
posted by Soup at 9:32 AM PST - 15 comments

Scientists discover fossilized claw of enormous ancient sea scorpion. They estimate this thing was 2.5 meters long. Sorry about the nightmares. [via]
posted by flotson at 9:26 AM PST - 49 comments

The changing role of the U.S. presidential science adviser. (PDF) [more inside]
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 9:15 AM PST - 4 comments

Worldwide helium shortage results in pricey Thanksgiving Day Parades. Was selling off the National Helium Reserve a mistake, or was PJ O'Rourke right in calling the reserve "Amazingly stupid, even by Government standards"?
posted by selfmedicating at 8:48 AM PST - 45 comments

Moveon.org has now joined the fight. Now you can join too. Previously.
posted by gman at 8:03 AM PST - 75 comments

Jeffrey Zeldman on what web design is and isn't.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:41 AM PST - 40 comments

Worried about government eavesdropping on your e-mails? Hushmail allows you to communicate securely with other Hush users. Unless the government is involved. The guy who created PGP said the company only undoes encryption when given a court order and is not turning over customer records wholesale to government agencies. But who needs a court order?
posted by Smedleyman at 5:52 AM PST - 33 comments

Joseph Stawinoga, tramp, hermit, holy man, Facebook celebrity and (alleged) former member of the SS, has died, aged 86.
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 5:05 AM PST - 11 comments

Ivan Maximov makes some lovely and strange animation. [more inside]
posted by louche mustachio at 2:48 AM PST - 17 comments

After recent promising results demonstrating the ability to change mouse skin cells into stem cells, researchers have replicated this change in human skin cells in papers published in Science and Cell (access to full articles requires subscription) . The White House, somehow, is trying to take credit for this. The potential of all this: huge.
posted by switchsonic at 2:41 AM PST - 55 comments

Richard Paey Speaks - An interview with the paraplegic man sentenced to 25 years in prison for treating his own pain, but now out after a full pardon by the Florida Governor. [more inside]
posted by daksya at 11:58 PM PST - 41 comments

Some nice photos. More on Flickr.
posted by serazin at 11:23 PM PST - 16 comments

Can you tell this photo was taken at 4:52pm, on either May 5^th or August 10^th? Forensic Genealogy uses historical records and small clues in pictures learn as much as they can about old photographs of unknown provenance. Want to try it yourself? Check out their weekly quiz. via GAMES [more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good at 9:10 PM PST - 43 comments

Chocolate and the Beer of the Ancients. New archaeological evidence suggests that primitive beer brewers were the first to discover the goodness of chocolate.
posted by amyms at 9:07 PM PST - 21 comments

The printing press lives on—in Akron, Alabama, at least, where computer programmer-turned-letterpress printer Amos Kennedy uses metal type to create lots and lots of posters. [Found here.]
posted by tepidmonkey at 7:54 PM PST - 12 comments

Ni Putes Ni Soumise (Neither Whores Nor Submissives) is a French organization started by Fadéla Amara to combat the growing misogyny in the banlieues, the housing project suburbs that ring the major cities. Her organization began to protest a rash of gang rapes, and now works on human rights issues in and around the experience of Arabs in France. Amara has joined Nicholas Sarkozy's conservative cabinet as the minister of urban policy. For some, she is a hero, for others a hypocrite, but everyone agrees that she's shaking things up. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:41 PM PST - 12 comments

Before 1969, the city of Zap was best known as the punch line of a joke about three towns in North Dakota that sounded like Rice Krispies—Zap, Gackle, and Mott. But when student body president Charles "Chuck" Stroup at North Dakota State University needed an alternative to Fort Lauderdale while stuck in North Dakota for spring break, he enlisted the help of some student journalists at the Spectrum newspaper to promote the "Zip to Zap," an event that became the only "official" riot in the history of North Dakota. The tiny coal mining town originally looked forward to the impromptu "Zip" festival, which had so much advance buzz that the Wham-O toy company created a toy called Zip Zap in honor of the imminent event. Unfortunately, after throngs of students descended on Zap, the only two bars in town quickly ran out of beer, and the North Dakota National Guard was called into extinguish the bonfire, beer brawls, and riot that ensued. For more info about about how the "Zip to Zap" fit in context with the 1960s zeitgeist, look here, here, and here.
posted by jonp72 at 7:38 PM PST - 10 comments

Dresden Codak is a webcomic about plagiarizing bears, nerds who play philosophical tabletop RPGs, your dream job, and other oddities. Also, check out the author's guest Dinosaur Comic.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 6:24 PM PST - 37 comments

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” (RealVideo) Al Bartlett, retired University of Colorado Professor of Physics, gives a stunning hour-long old-school lecture (overhead projector!) on exponential growth and its inevitable results. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 6:22 PM PST - 83 comments

The Inner Life of an Intelligently Designed Cell? Remember The Inner Life of a Cell animation (discussed here)? Apparently the Discovery Institute (recently discussed here) is showing it in presentations with a new title and narration, and without attribution.
posted by homunculus at 5:56 PM PST - 20 comments

Please enjoy vintage video propaganda:
Don't Be A Sucker
The Enemy Agent & You
Your Job in Germany
So They Tell Me and
Propaganda Techniques
[more inside]
posted by carsonb at 5:06 PM PST - 19 comments

Footloose in America: around the world in 20 years A husband-wife team left their home in June of 2001 to circumnavigate the world by foot, and they took their mule along with them. They haven't gotten very far but it sounds like they've had lots of adventures in the past six years, as they walk from town to town doing odd jobs. [via this flickr photo/story]
posted by mathowie at 4:52 PM PST - 9 comments

HR 1955 : The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens. While the United States must continue its vigilant efforts to combat international terrorism, it must also strengthen efforts to combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States.
posted by Huplescat at 4:34 PM PST - 45 comments

Sofa Portraits. Colin Pantall takes photographs, primarily of his daughter watching television. Lush imagery, sidelong comment, surprising intimacy.
posted by klangklangston at 4:30 PM PST - 51 comments

Offal Good is a blog dedicated to helping you get more dining experience out of your animal. Most people stop at the skeletal muscle cuts, but there's a world of tripey goodness, not to mention snouts, feet, etc. Videos, recipes, photogalleries & more.
posted by jonson at 4:24 PM PST - 24 comments

This mind-boggling index won an award from the American Society of Indexers. Last year's winner was slightly less hard-core. As indexing blogger Seth Maislin says: "Scholarly indexing is WAY hard." And, as author Mary Beard (who indexed her own book) says, it's "Not remotely fun."
posted by tombola at 4:18 PM PST - 19 comments

Know your world? [via and from]
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 3:24 PM PST - 37 comments

Human Calendar (See also: World Clock. Previously: Human Clock, Yugo's clock)
posted by gwint at 1:53 PM PST - 12 comments

Radiographs : a small and terrific flickr set. After you check out an exploded hand, maybe you will want to admire a Fasciolaria filamentosa.
posted by of strange foe at 12:50 PM PST - 27 comments

Ever wanted your own personal tank? Then the Rip Saw UGV might be just what you've been looking for. [more inside]
posted by quin at 12:46 PM PST - 29 comments

CBS News talks to John Fitzgerald Page. (sorry for the brief commercial first) His original callout on Gawker, with the body of the offending email read around the world. But he is more than just an angry member on Match.com: his impressive resume can be found on his site and he is a TV and film actor. [more inside]
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:40 PM PST - 112 comments

Why He Went Nuclear. Before he was the infamous father of the "Islamic bomb," A.Q. Khan was just another midlevel scientist working at a research job in Amsterdam. Here, the story of how he betrayed his employer and set out to create a worldwide bazaar in lethal weapons.
posted by chunking express at 12:25 PM PST - 19 comments

Les duos anglo-français. [more inside]
posted by rom1 at 12:23 PM PST - 4 comments

Sex and the College Girl, by Norah Johnson A view from an educated woman in the 1950s: "Two criticisms rise above the rest: people in college are promiscuous, for one thing, and, for another, they are getting married and having children too early. These are interesting observations because they contradict each other."
posted by shivohum at 12:21 PM PST - 24 comments

Theory of Humor. A scientific paper, written by Tom Veatch, describes his Theory of Humor. When is something funny? When is it not funny? When does it cross the line? Why are puns generally shitty? And the mysterious and magical powers elephant jokes have on children, revealed! A great data set to use for practice in applying the theories presented in the paper can be found here.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:48 AM PST - 55 comments

Thanksgiving is, among other things, cooking stock season. Chicken and fish stock are of course wonderful, but don't forget about veal stock, the wonderful base that led to the discovery of the fifth taste, umami. [previously].
posted by AceRock at 11:22 AM PST - 30 comments

Secret Service and FBI raid Liberty Mint, arguments of counterfeiting versus constitutional right to commerce ensue! I caught this on NPR this morning. It seems the US Mint doesn't like alternative currencies circulating within the US. The organization in question wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and the US mint and claims that both are the cause for the excessive inflation. [more inside]
posted by Sam.Burdick at 11:00 AM PST - 96 comments

Oops: UK tax collection agency loses discs containing personal details of 25 million Britons in the mail.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:55 AM PST - 50 comments

Ecoble, an environment design and living site includes some interesting stories and info: Man (Re)Builds Mexican Island Paradise on 250,000 Recycled Floating Bottles l Who Has the Oil? Geography of the World’s Most Contentious Resource l BituBlock - The Sustainable Building Block Built from Trash and Sewage [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 8:52 AM PST - 12 comments

The TSA wants you to know, dear American, that if you don't pack your bags neatly, the terrorists have already won. This busiest Thanksgiving travel week ever, why not Simplifly? [more inside]
posted by dw at 7:25 AM PST - 93 comments

Radiophonic Workshop - Alchemists of Sound.
posted by hama7 at 6:45 AM PST - 13 comments

What were you doing at 9 years old? At least he picks good music.
posted by dasheekeejones at 4:03 AM PST - 45 comments

You might have thought a six month hangover was bad enough but now in 'binge-drink Britain' there's a reported rise in 'exploding bladders'... safe for work but you might want to read it with your legs crossed. Or a least spend a penny first.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:12 AM PST - 24 comments

Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha. Aretha.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:08 AM PST - 37 comments

Free Stuff for Lazy Designers. Dezignus surf the web to give you the best design source links! Icons, brushes and shapes, tutorials and books, vectors and other stuff.
posted by psmealey at 3:06 AM PST - 17 comments

Lingro. Enter a website in the box to make all words on the page clickable. Available for English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Polish.
posted by Lezzles at 1:28 AM PST - 15 comments

Dickipedia. No doubt it will grow.
posted by metasonix at 1:05 AM PST - 59 comments

In research that may one day help restore mobility to the paralyzed and amputees, Dr. Charles Higgins of the University of Arizona has created a "robo-moth": a 6-inch tall wheeled robot guided by an electrode inserted into a single neuron responsible for vision stability during flight in the hawk moth (aka the Tobacco hornworm). [more inside]
posted by mayfly wake at 12:13 AM PST - 7 comments

Child-bearing machines, net café refugees and bottom-biting bugs: Top 60 Japanese buzzwords of 2007.
posted by mediareport at 9:47 PM PST - 16 comments

Facing an unprecedented series of sports victories, the typical Boston fan is faced with the cold realization that success ain't all it's cracked up to be.
posted by dhammond at 9:39 PM PST - 48 comments

Over the past couple of years, Facebook has become increasingly popular, until it seemed like everyone and their grandma was joining up. A new feature, called Facebook Beacon, lets corporations join the fray. Might this be cause for concern? [more inside]
posted by Reggie Digest at 9:27 PM PST - 49 comments

Scientific esthetics- Made With Molecules. Some classy, some trashy, and some just plain cute. [more inside]
posted by sunshinesky at 9:04 PM PST - 9 comments

It was once common to bury dangerous political tracts within pornography and then to bind them in an innocuously titled volume. This served as a double protection: the cover protected the book, and the porn protected the author from the political fallout of her opinions. The Marquis de Sade's classic Philosophy in the Bedroom plays with this trope. According to some, the screed against religion in its fifth dialogue justifies the sexual excesses that come before and after. According to others, the buried manifesto serves to hide the pornography in plain sight. (pdf, zipped)
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:23 PM PST - 29 comments

Pro-street Romania Auto Club [more inside]
posted by Doohickie at 5:36 PM PST - 18 comments

BBC/HBO to film all 37 of Shakespeare's plays Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes will produce the entire canon over 12 years.
posted by crossoverman at 5:27 PM PST - 51 comments

Recoil free "automatic shotgun" fires 300 rounds per minute.
posted by jonson at 3:45 PM PST - 118 comments

This is why we can't have nice things/people. Jade Raymond is a producer for Ubisoft's new video game Assassin's Creed. Being an attractive woman, Ubisoft decided to capitalize on this fact, leading to sad and pathetic video game coverage of said woman. Then the comic hit. [more inside]
posted by zabuni at 3:25 PM PST - 359 comments

I Am the Very Model of a Psychopharmacologist. [Via Omni Brain.]
posted by homunculus at 12:50 PM PST - 32 comments

Imaginary laptops, as designed by 8-year-olds. I'd suggest printing them out so you can try them at home. The designs lack dotted lines to fold across, but I'm sure you can figure it out. Scroll down for the interview, which is as charming as the pictures.
posted by nobody at 12:35 PM PST - 70 comments

In the same spirit as the Open Net Initiative and Committee to Protect Bloggers that both track global internet filtering, Sami ben Gharbia's Access Denied Map tries to track the blocking of sites like Blogger, Flickr, YouTube and others by governments, as well as efforts by activists to keep them accessible or to challenge their blockage.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Sandrine Pelletier. Coming from a background in illustrative line art, Pelletier also works extensively with thread. Many of her pieces explore a tension between traditionally feminine materials and aggressive, masculine subjects.
posted by klangklangston at 12:05 PM PST - 8 comments

Trackulous - Track Anything. There have to be ten dozen ways to track your weight online. MeFi users track thteir social athletic accomplishments at WeEndure and Runner+. But what if we wanted to track (and graph) Javelinas Sighted, Cookies Tossed, Fights with Boyfriend, or any other user-defined numerical quantity over time? And what if we wanted to share our statistics with our friends? For that, Trackulous - a simple, elegant, mobile-friendly web tool.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:54 AM PST - 19 comments

The Guardian discusses homeopathy: Jeannette Winterson supports it, Ben Goldacre opposes it.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:20 AM PST - 207 comments

Mr. Whipple is dead. Long live Mr. Whipple. Oh how we loved you. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 10:59 AM PST - 57 comments

"Over and over he scoops up a chick with his left hand, expels its droppings with a squeeze of his thumb, opens its vent with his fingers, peers through the magnifying lenses attached to his spectacles and determines its sex." It's a dirty job (YT). Sexing chicks early is important so that the cockerels can be separated and culled^ or fed to be broilers^. The obvious differences take weeks to develop, so when the vent sexing method was developed in Japan in the 1920s, professional chicken sexers became sought after. [more inside]
posted by parudox at 10:14 AM PST - 37 comments

How to dance at a rave. People dancing to house music. The Detroit Jit vs. Chicago Juke. The history of the Detroit Jit on popular dance show The Scene from the 80's. 80's legends the Funkateers doing their thing to Wordy Rappinghood. Compare them to the New York City Breakers. [more inside]
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:50 AM PST - 68 comments

Love in the Time of Dementia Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, has a romance with another woman, and the former justice is thrilled — even visits with the new couple while they hold hands on the porch swing — because it is a relief to see her husband of 55 years so content. (More on their story from AFP.) This is also the plot of the wonderful Alice Munro short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” which became the recent movie Away from Her. [more inside]
posted by GrammarMoses at 7:39 AM PST - 43 comments

Walter Wolfgang, 82, was ejected from the Labour Party conference and stopped by police under the Anti-terrorism Act, for heckling Jack Straw. But when he spoke in Oxford... a Barbershop Quintet struck a blow for freedom of speech.
posted by Jahaza at 5:54 AM PST - 17 comments

Pop Life Art and its associated blog focus on celebrity art, heavy on the rock stars. One of my happy discoveries is Martin Mull's collection of collages, but I bemoan the lack of any wildlife art from Radar O'Reilly. If you're a pop culture junkie, here's a little advice on celebrity art collecting from an expert.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:33 AM PST - 3 comments

Andy Strangeway decided to spend a night on each of the 162 Scottish islands. This is his story.
posted by triv at 4:49 AM PST - 22 comments

China is famed for its many inventions: gunpowder, paper, printing; some even claim golf and football. Who knew that the origins of hip-hop lie in the vast northern wastes of the Celestial Empire too?
posted by Abiezer at 4:42 AM PST - 18 comments

A sad story about Animal Crossing and a dying mother. [more inside]
posted by empath at 1:17 AM PST - 68 comments

How to win friends and influence people.
Or, how to earn two dollars, three balls at a time.
Or, why Lynn Swann was a wide receiver.
YouRUBEry? Step right up. That is, if your fat butts aren't stuck to your chairs from reading all the rest of this crap, heh heh heh heh, high and dry. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 10:06 PM PST - 30 comments

Who would the world elect for President of the United States?
posted by augustweed at 9:29 PM PST - 115 comments

Several students at William Byrd High School in Virginia have a mystery illness that causes twitching. Parents are concerned, students protest, Center for Disease Control checks things out- but it appears the twitching could be the result of a mass psychogenic illness.
posted by PHINC at 8:44 PM PST - 36 comments

Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos , a design critique of the 2008 presidential campaign logos. Via Daring Fireball
posted by nathan_teske at 8:35 PM PST - 18 comments

In honor of his 75th birthday, Michael Grbich tap danced across the Golden Gate Bridge followed by an entourage of confetti-tossing grandchildren, neighbors and a friend with an iPod boom box. He's also a local artist and survivor of the Oakland Hills Fire.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 8:23 PM PST - 11 comments

You have to make sure that St. Joseph is facing your house, if you face it out, the neighbor's house across the street will sell instead. "We buried our little gem under the for sale sign just like we were supposed to do. On October 4th, yes the 4th, just 24 hours after we buried him, we had a showing and after several counter-offers back and fourth, we finally signed a contract on October 19th!!!!! 7 months after the house was sitting and not getting any bites at all and after 1 day, its sold!!! I have complete and utter faith." America's desperate homesellers and realtors are turning to St. Joseph, Your Underground Real Estate Agent.
posted by quonsar at 7:01 PM PST - 80 comments

The 25 Most Baffling Toys From Around the World
posted by Stynxno at 6:07 PM PST - 65 comments

kkerins made a dozen charming and moving fan videos out of public domain film and music by John Fahey, The Rachel's and others. Two to start with are "Fight On Christians! Fight On!" and "Wally, Egon and the Models in the Studio".
posted by ardgedee at 3:49 PM PST - 5 comments

Collective Perception
posted by Soup at 3:08 PM PST - 38 comments

My fellow Americans, behold your next President.
posted by EarBucket at 2:49 PM PST - 78 comments

Amazon's Jeff Bezos wants to change the way we read. Amazon's new e-book reader, Kindle, is not just a device, it's a service. With EVDO wireless connectivity you can download content to your Kindle any time any place. "This is not your grandfather’s e-book," said one publishing executive to the New York Times. "If these guys can’t make it work, I see no hope."
posted by sveskemus at 12:47 PM PST - 132 comments

To celebrate the results of this year's IF Comp, why not check out the entries on the new Interactive Fiction Database? [more inside]
posted by flatluigi at 11:46 AM PST - 7 comments

Among white Americans, the average IQ, as of a decade or so ago, was 103. Among Asian-Americans, it was 106. Among Jewish Americans, it was 113. Among Latino Americans, it was 89. Among African-Americans, it was 85. Was Watson right?
posted by landis at 11:45 AM PST - 473 comments

Algorithms for dumb security questions
posted by nthdegx at 11:09 AM PST - 19 comments

Cradleboards are North American Indian baby carriers. [more inside]
posted by sushiwiththejury at 10:53 AM PST - 11 comments

Want to be a recording star? The Great World of Sound is looking for new talent!
posted by The Deej at 9:13 AM PST - 22 comments

WFMU's The Hound has been delighting record geeks for the past few decades with sets of some of the wildest, wooliest rockabilly, R&B, blues, gospel, garage rock, and punk that can be dug out of crates. His site offers full podcasts, and individual mp3's under the show links, and organized by artist, and title. Bo Diddley singing to Kruschev! Blues songs about the Kinsey report! The Cashmere's talking about the hop! Brownie McGee singing about baseball's integration! Roughly 4 million variations on 'The Twist!' And that;s just the tip of this glorious iceberg. [more inside]
posted by jonmc at 8:19 AM PST - 12 comments

"Satire with the Blessing of Lady Luck Herself" is a review of Black20, the comedy site that started when a couple of disenchanted NBC writers decided to go off on their own. Why were they lucky? They made their startup budget by gambling everything they had at roulette, and won. They have produced a number of shows and viral videos that you might enjoy, such as Wheels , Sheffield Quigley: Professional Myspace Photographer, Bathroom Adventure, (pt. 2), Phortal, and Percussion Eruption.
posted by farishta at 8:07 AM PST - 12 comments

Say No to Grandpa Joe. Exposing the "dark underbelly" of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: finally, in one place, a body of categorised analysis and evidence, footnoted and attributed, proving conclusively that Grandpa Joe is a "ratbag industrial spy bastard".
posted by chrismear at 5:10 AM PST - 31 comments

James Fenton writes in the Guardian that the entire "flat" collection of the British Museum is going into a searchable online index. Currently there are about 265,000 objects in the database with about 100,00 images. The article says that high quality images, suitable for print reproduction, and free to academic users, are coming soon. The search page is here. [more inside]
posted by shothotbot at 3:32 AM PST - 12 comments

Symmetry. Shakespeare. Islamic medicine. Creative writing challenges. Four podcast series from University of Warwick.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:28 AM PST - 2 comments

Randy Taylor is not happy about Jimmy Dean's change from 16 oz to 12 oz of sausage in a package.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:06 AM PST - 144 comments

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush. "The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup." [Via Firedoglake.]
posted by homunculus at 12:35 AM PST - 69 comments

The website of ethnomusicologist Robert Garfias is a treasure trove of mp3 sound recordings and short realplayer film clips of traditional music from all over the world, including Japan, India, Mexico, Turkey, Albania, Okinawa, Spain, Burma, Alaska, Sudan, Venezuela, Spain and many more. Garfias' field recordings are illustrated with his photographs.
posted by Kattullus at 11:26 PM PST - 14 comments

Ghostbusters: The Video Game [Flash-based site] is coming soon to a console near you. Featuring the original cast doing voices and motion capture, it looks to be very impressive graphically [video], but will it be better, gameplay-wise, than the previous attempts at a Ghostbusters game? [More videos, NSFW]
posted by SansPoint at 11:10 PM PST - 24 comments

Like a YouTube for soldiers in the Middle East, this site boasts lots of large explosions, night vision footage, dawn raids, night-time firefights, desert shootouts, and convoy ambushes. There is one film of a failed IED that is breathtaking. Astonishing movies, whether you're for or against the war. [more inside]
posted by Sully at 9:49 PM PST - 34 comments

Smile - a very creepy short student film.
posted by loquacious at 8:08 PM PST - 40 comments

Excellent post over at BLDBLOG on the history of Bannerman's Arsenal, a ruined island castle in the middle of the Hudson river, created by a war profiteer who was at one time the world's largest arms dealer. Bonus points for the amazing accompanying photos by Shaun O'Boyle, whose site Modern Ruins has been featured on the blue previously.
posted by jonson at 7:17 PM PST - 14 comments

Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same motion picture soundtrack, reverse engineered. [more inside]
posted by melorama at 6:28 PM PST - 58 comments

ADMIX COCKADE SIGNATION EXPERTS SEPTUAGINT [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:04 PM PST - 18 comments

The American military finds new allies, but at what cost? One afternoon, sitting with Captain Brooks in Thrasher’s rooftop gym, I asked if he felt that what he was doing in Iraq was appreciated by the people back home. “Oh, yeah,” he said. Turning to one of his N.C.O.s, who was seated nearby, smoking a cigar, he asked, “What do you think, Sergeant Cochran?” Lowering his voice, Cochran replied, “When that bullet goes by my head, all the politics goes right out the window. My only thought is to get my men out of there alive.” “Thanks for quoting ‘Black Hawk Down,’ Sergeant Cochran,” Brooks drawled. Turning back to me, he said, “When I went home the last time, we went skiing in Colorado. Everywhere we went, people thanked me. One man said, ‘I don’t support the war but I support the soldiers.’ I can accept that. We have a system that allows freedom of speech. Hell, I put on the uniform to defend that.”
posted by caddis at 5:57 PM PST - 34 comments

Klutzo...is...dead! Klutzo had been talked about before. He is gone now (video link has short crappy commercial). Prior context.
posted by zerobyproxy at 4:59 PM PST - 72 comments

Got some spare time? Then let's learn origami! Check out this large collection of origami designs (suitable for beginners too), and here's some instructional origami videos to help you along.
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:27 PM PST - 6 comments

The Skeleton Coast, so called for the whale skeletons that littered its shores when the whaling industry was at its peak, is now well known for the skeletons of shipwrecks. More. And a a bit of description here. Still, the coast is full of life. Each year hundreds of thousands of Fur Seals come ashore. (Video on this site of baby Fur Seal vs. a jackal.) (wp)
posted by serazin at 3:19 PM PST - 4 comments

Her quiet depravity has netted her many fans (even some outside her immediate family.) Here's what you need to see to catch up with Sarah Silverman, the funniest person on television: Date with God, The Aristocrats, I Love You, Jury Duty, A Very Convenient Truth, My Boyfriend is Catholic, Writer's Strike, Comic Relief, The Sarah Silverman Program.
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:27 PM PST - 125 comments

Remember that X-files episode? The one with the robot cockroaches from outer space? Well, scientists in Belgium have created robots that act like cockroaches, and are accepted by the real cockroaches because they smell sexy to them. Better yet, the scientists were able to use the robots to change how the cockroaches behaved. [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer at 2:00 PM PST - 16 comments

"The ‘Ndrangheta cannot be beheaded.” Organized crime is Italy's biggest industry. Most people are more familiar with the Sicilian Mafia or maybe even the Neopolitan Camorra, but it's the Calabrian 'Ndranghta (very in-depth article) that has police around the world worried now, especially after they were blamed for a six-person murder in Germany this summer. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse at 12:40 PM PST - 24 comments

There really are no accidents [NSFW] Talking corpses who had been electrocuted, impaled by steel rods or lacerated by broken glass didn't get the message across. Now, an even more graphic series of ads is spotlighting workplace safety in Ontario and grabbing attention well beyond the province's borders. Ontario's Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) has launched a new (and graphic) campaign to help improve workplace safety. Family Man gets blown off side of building; Forklift driver gets impaled by metal rod; A shop clerk topples off a ladder; An electrocuted corpse speaks at his own funeral [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 11:54 AM PST - 108 comments

Popular Science has named Nanosolar the #1 innovative product of the year. Finally, cheap and ubiquitous solar power has arrived, “You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” The only problem is demand, so they're building the world’s largest solar-panel manufacturing facility in San Jose. See 96 other innovations in PopSci's Best of 2007.
posted by stbalbach at 11:53 AM PST - 24 comments

Even if Lou Reed had dropped out of music after the break-up of the Velvet Underground, his name would still be forever etched in the history of rock music. Yet his solo career, filled with eccentric detours and radio-ready rockers in equal measure, remains one of the most fascinating canons in all of rock music. Metal Machine Music, however, is a unique entity in itself, proudly pushing at the very boundaries of what pop music is capable of. Zeitkratzer’s performance not only makes the original album ripe for critical re-evaluation, but it’s a performance that stands on its own ground...

Why Does the Music Have to End?: An Interview with Lou Reed regarding how he came to play Metal Machine Music live in 2002.
posted by y2karl at 10:53 AM PST - 47 comments

Marc Cinq-Mars. Collages: Deux enfants. La femme en blanc.
posted by klangklangston at 10:47 AM PST - 3 comments

City of Sound as it describes itself, is a blog about cities, design, architecture, media, music, etc. But calling it a blog really does it a disservice. City of Sound is a category-killer; amazingly dense, thoughtful, erudite, and compelling, it begins to catalog our urban identity. A bit of reminiscent of Metropolis magazine, if it was edited by Robert Rauschenberg. If you've not visited, do yourself a favor. It is a treasure trove. [more inside]
posted by spacely_sprocket at 8:13 AM PST - 11 comments

Empty Cathedrals. Tenement closes. Glasgow artist Frank McNab documents the communal entrances sans nostalgia or sentimentality. Gets it just so damn right! His 'Thoughts' and 'Projects' need a little more work however.
posted by Wrick at 5:07 AM PST - 11 comments

Wu-Tang Clan's RZA Breaks Down His Kung Fu Samples by Film and Song. Kung-fu's influence on hip hop has been around since the '70s, when B-boys busted Bruce Lee moves while break-dancing. But in 1993, gritty rap supergroup the Wu-Tang Clan released Enter the Wu-Tang (36-Chambers), the first chart-topping album to kick up raw rhymes with dialog sampled from underground Hong Kong flicks. [more inside]
posted by psmealey at 4:34 AM PST - 56 comments

Meet The Crazy Robertson. The newest sensation at the center of Hollywood's fashion scene isn't a famous designer or starlet. It's a 56-year-old homeless man who spends his days dancing on roller skates. Check out his website, Myspace, and some of his sweet dance moves. There are some that find this not so cool.
posted by rooftop secrets at 2:02 AM PST - 26 comments

The Imagined Village [promoting an album too but plenty of interesting free stuff] Several luminaries of a now more globalised British music scene reinterpret the folk heritage and pose questions about a modern English identity. There's Benjamin Zephaniah's version of Tam Lyn and a retelling of Hard Times in Old England; even our American cousins get in on the act, for instance remixes like Doghouse Riley's doo-wop Cold Hailey Rainy Night. There's also a few thinky pieces explaining what it's all about.
posted by Abiezer at 1:02 AM PST - 5 comments

Attention most ladies and certain gentlemen: Do you think your man has been cheating on you? Well, there are several ways to check up on him. But budding rap star Riskay has her own special method (warning: pretty much NSFW, and autoplay of a really wonderful song in the last link).
posted by Kibbutz at 10:06 PM PST - 35 comments

The Flaming Lotus Girls are a San Francisco-based fire art collective. Their recent works have included The Serpent Mother (pics | video); the Angel of the Apocalypse (pics ); and the Hand of God (pics | video). Another bay area fire arts group is Interpretive Arson, creators of Dance Dance Immolation (previously featured), and the interactive 2pir (video).
posted by pombe at 9:02 PM PST - 14 comments

Stone Age Feminism? Among Neanderthals, hunting big beasts was women's work as well as men's, so it's a safe bet that female hunters got stomped, gored, and worse with appalling frequency. And a high casualty rate among fertile women - the vital "reproductive core" of a tiny population - could well have meant demographic disaster for a species already struggling to survive among monster bears, yellow-fanged hyenas, and cunning Homo sapien newcomers. Via.
posted by amyms at 6:29 PM PST - 73 comments

Try to remember - Harry Belafonte - Stockholm 1966
posted by vronsky at 4:52 PM PST - 24 comments

Willis Alan Ramsey is to music as Harper Lee is to literature: he only made one album, and that's sad in it's own way, but it's such an overwhelmingly perfect album, you're okay with it. "Probably the most imitated singer/songwriter you’ve never heard," his legion of followers includes Lyle Lovett, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Waylon Jennings, and he is rightfully considered one of the fathers of progressive country. He will make his second record in his own good time, whenever the hell that is. Oh, and one of his songs was made famous by the Captain and Tennille, but please don't let that dissuade you from exploring further.
posted by jbickers at 4:51 PM PST - 12 comments

An arborist in a helicopter Arborist Todd Irvine gets a ride in a news chopper, photographing and annotating Toronto’s tree canopy – still largely in place and vibrantly colourful due to winter’s late arrival. [more inside]
posted by joeclark at 1:36 PM PST - 23 comments

All hail 70s-era Shatner! He began his career with some rather prestigious projects, appearing in The Brothers Karamazov and Judgment at Nuremberg, as well as some rather high profile appearance in Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But even then, there were hints of exploitation, such as 1961's The Explosive Generation, in which Shatner played a teacher whose job is endangered when she speaks candidly to kids about sex. And there was 1962's The Intruder, a Roger Corman film from 1963 in which Shatner played a carpetbagging racist inciting violence in a southern town. (Clip.) And, of course, there was Incubus from 1965, a horror film in Esperanto. (Clip.) But, after Star Trek, at the start of the 70s, something went haywire. [more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:09 PM PST - 62 comments

"[Game Center CX] is comedic, dramatic, even a bit mental, but altogether it’s an unforgettable show about what sounds like a forgettable concept: a guy trying to beat old Nintendo games." [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 12:56 PM PST - 12 comments

First cloning of monkey embryo raises hope of a great leap in medical science. A team at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (itself no stranger to controversy) cloned embryos from Semos — a nine-year-old rhesus macaque named after the ape overlord in Planet of the Apes — then extracted stem cells from the embryos. We've heard similar claims before and they turned out to be a hoax. But this time it looks like the real deal. [more inside]
posted by Camofrog at 11:04 AM PST - 52 comments

Freethought Multimedia contains dozens of interviews, conversations and lectures on a variety of topics with/by several contemporary skeptics and freethinkers, including Michael Shermer, James Randi, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins. (There's a great links section at the bottom of the page, as well. Particularly good are the University Lectures section and the Lectures Archive.)
posted by cog_nate at 10:57 AM PST - 21 comments

Oobject.com is a website that is "...like the Billboard Charts for Gadgets." Oobjects picks topics for lists of gadgets. People suggest items and others vote on which qualify for a given category: Giant Screens | Best Concept Cellphones | Crazy Bicycles. "The site also takes on other aspects of life, like politics and culture...:" Macy's Parade Ideas | Best Halloweenerd Costumes | Geek Hall of Fame Apple Users. [via]
posted by ericb at 10:32 AM PST - 13 comments

Sometimes called "The Ed Wood of Animation", director Sam Singer had an interesting career. He was responsible for some of the most godawful cartoons ever produced, and through his work on 1975's Tubby the Tuba, was present at the birth of Pixar. [more inside]
posted by maryh at 9:50 AM PST - 43 comments

Interactive, flashy, freaky flash Friday: Ice Flow Farm l Catamount Inn l Red Hawk Barn l Goosela Meadow l School House Grow l Octo October. Larry Carlson’s surreal North Vale Interactive Pictures. [mildly nsfw, embedded sound. Not for epileptics.] [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 8:50 AM PST - 20 comments

They claimed they would destroy all television with their business. $100 million and one cast member of First Kid later, all they had were massive amounts of failure, tremendous parties with Bryan Singer, and many, many, many allegations of sexual molestation. Now they hide in the Spanish Riviera and hire Chinese sweatshop workers to mine for World of Warcraft items. Check as well the original 2000 LA Times expose on the company, to say nothing of the "gay pedophile version of Silver Spoons" which remains their finest artistic achievement. via boingboing [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:43 AM PST - 47 comments

In classrooms nationwide, girls are pulling ahead of boys academically. Recent federal testing data show that what starts out as a modest gap in elementary-level reading scores turns into a yawning divide by high school. In 12th grade, 44% of girls rate as proficient readers on federal tests, compared with 28% of boys. And while boys still score slightly higher on federal math and science exams, their advantage is slipping.
posted by four panels at 8:38 AM PST - 75 comments

Preparing a turkey the MANLY way. Naturally, one of them involves a lot of bacon.
posted by spock at 7:00 AM PST - 86 comments

Miss Rockaway Armada. A photonarrative.
posted by loquacious at 5:30 AM PST - 21 comments

The Old Left-Hander's headed home. Joe Nuxhall was the youngest player in Major League Baseball when he stepped up to the plate at age 15, but his real contribution came later, in the Cincinnati Reds broadcast booth, alongside Marty Brennaman. "...the personification of everything that is good about baseball and, of course, the Redlegs," the Old Left-Hander is dead at age 79.
posted by tizzie at 5:20 AM PST - 9 comments

See For Yourself - Purves Lab's optical illusions web page with empirical explanations of familiar and unfamiliar illusions.
posted by nthdegx at 3:32 AM PST - 6 comments

A case against "starring*" and "looking-glassing^LG" in philosophy: G. Strawson on intentionality and experience. In a very engaging and stimulating paper, Galen Strawson takes contemporary philosophy of mind to task on certain supposed terminological subreptions and conceptual reductions (pdf). You, like others, may of course not find G. Strawson's views fully convincing. (G. Strawson previously on Metafilter here and here.) [more inside]
posted by rudster at 12:41 AM PST - 12 comments

Snacks about Perception. Via. [more inside]
posted by sushiwiththejury at 12:18 AM PST - 5 comments

The pleasant but hagiographical Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (production company website w/ trailer) is playing in New York and Los Angeles. The movie is entirely uncritical... prompting this response by Ron Radosh who is interviewed in the film, but whose critical comments were left out. But most interesting is this followup article by Radosh describing Seeger's response and a new song against Stalin. The filmmaker comes out worst in Radosh's account... [more inside]
posted by Jahaza at 12:13 AM PST - 21 comments

150 Python (Monty) sketches collected. via Open Culture. Also previously.
posted by Webbster at 11:10 PM PST - 30 comments

Exhibitionism can refer to a wide range of behaviours, ranging from fun with a willing partner, to a crime when done to the unsuspecting and unwilling. As a clinical matter exhibitionism is a sexual paraphilia in which a person (usually a man) obtains sexual pleasure from exposing his or her genitals to strangers, usually in a public place. Prevalence of the condition in the general population is not known, but approximately 30% of sex offenders have exhibitionistic tendencies and it is one of the most common sex offences. Some argue that for people with this paraphilia "it should be a possible to exist happily as an exhibitionist and still stay within the boundaries imposed by our legal systems." While often the belief is that they are harmless, research is indicating that they may progress to more serious crimes. Others note that "exhibitionism...is dangerous in that it can produce traumatic experiences within its victims."
posted by never used baby shoes at 10:01 PM PST - 34 comments

Rich/poor divides. The solution?
posted by klangklangston at 8:50 PM PST - 44 comments

Rare Exports, Inc. They deliver the impeccable, well-mannered, and extremely rare original Finnish Father Christmases to nearly 150 countries every Christmas. Exclusively. [YouTube, NSFW.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 8:45 PM PST - 15 comments

In 1954, the producers of the radio show Sergeant Preston of the Yukon needed a gimmick to make sure its radio audience would watch the TV version of the show. Meanwhile, the show's sponsor, Quaker Oats, needed a follow-up to their ad campaign about how Quaker Puffed Wheat is shot out of guns. So Chicago adman, Bruce Baker (later the creator of Captain Crunch), dreamt up a wildly successful PR stunt for both Sgt. Preston of the Yukon and Quaker Oats by buying up one-inch plots of land in the Yukon (with legal assistance from future British Columbia senator George van Roggen) and giving away deeds to the land for free in copies of Quaker Oats cereal. (For a picture of the deed, click here and here) [more inside]
posted by jonp72 at 7:40 PM PST - 14 comments

Would you like to read classic science fiction short story A Pail of Air? Or would you prefer to listen? [more inside]
posted by Eideteker at 7:30 PM PST - 19 comments

Teenage partiers typically know what to do when the police show up: run. It's so common that some enforcement agencies have developed a protocol to handle the situation. But some underage drinkers came up with a new way to deal with a potential bust: barricade yourselves (and your parents) inside for about five hours (and see if the courts rule in your favor?).
posted by Kibbutz at 7:20 PM PST - 43 comments

Fresh from the picket lines, it's Not The Daily Show!
posted by EarBucket at 6:38 PM PST - 53 comments

Torture didn't work in Renaissance Europe. And it doesn't work now. Real historic accounts of real people being tortured in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it composes a body of fact and experience that speaks directly to the present.
posted by JaySunSee at 6:33 PM PST - 42 comments

Warbears Mission 3 is finally ready, just in time for Flash Friday*. Previously. [more inside]
posted by kisch mokusch at 4:48 PM PST - 15 comments

The Green vs. the Brown Amazon. The future Amazon rain forest. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 4:27 PM PST - 11 comments

The Roma Journeys - contemporary photographs of Roma life in Hungary, India, Greece, Romania, France, Russia, and Finland by Joakim Eskildsen. For more photo essays and info on the Roma, see two superb prior posts by plep and taz.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:26 PM PST - 26 comments

Is the high end Art market finally tanking? A week or so ago, it sure looked like it. An important van Gogh piece did not sell, Sotheby's stock price went into shock. However, all is well this week as both Christie's and Sotheby's kicked it into high gear and set some new records. [more inside]
posted by psmealey at 4:07 PM PST - 13 comments

John Updike (yt) discusses A&P.
posted by vronsky at 3:42 PM PST - 10 comments

After nearly four years of investigation and grand jury deliberations, Barry Bonds, baseball's most controversial active player and poster boy for the steriod era, has been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.
posted by (bb|[^b]{2}) at 3:36 PM PST - 44 comments

Italian Spider-Man: homemade costume, cheesy 70's music, mafiosos in wrestling masks ... what more could you ask for?
posted by bwg at 3:17 PM PST - 6 comments

Not a Cough in a Carload: Images from the Tobacco Industry Campaign to Hide the Hazards of Smoking. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 2:47 PM PST - 27 comments

Senator On-Line (‘SOL’) is a truly democratic party which will allow everyone on the Australian Electoral roll who has access to the internet to vote on every Bill put to Parliament and have its Senators vote in accordance with a clear majority view. They will be running candidates for the upcoming federal Upper House (Senate) elections.
posted by finite at 1:19 PM PST - 28 comments

Two hedge funds that predicted sub-prime crisis see corporate debt as next casualty Two hedge fund firms that racked up huge gains betting on the subprime mortgage meltdown have begun winding down those trades and looking elsewhere. They're now betting against corporate debt using derivatives.
posted by janetplanet at 1:16 PM PST - 26 comments

Sick City - Maps and Mortality in the Time of Cholera [print version] reviews Stephen Johnson's "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic"*. Dr John Snow became the acknowledged modern father of epidemiology by identifying water as the transmission vehicle of a cholera outbreak in Victorian England. [more inside]
posted by peacay at 12:49 PM PST - 10 comments

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard
But you don't understand...

Jeffrey Owen Jones, a film professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and, inadvertently, the featured metaphor in Bob Dylan's Ballad of a Thin Man, has died.
posted by y2karl at 11:52 AM PST - 29 comments

What would you think if at the next family gathering your uncle came up to you and said: "Shot, I got a great idea for a magazine. People are sick to death of reading authors responding to the news, reacting to ideas in the zietgiest. People want old writing. We will get a bunch of writing from the past (if its out of copyright, so much the better) group it by concept and sell it for $15 bucks an issue." Would you think its a good idea? What if your uncle was Lewis Lapham? Welcome to Lapham's Quarterly. Perhaps the only non-zombie related journal that "enlists the counsel of the dead." [more inside]
posted by shothotbot at 11:51 AM PST - 13 comments

Did the clients [at the brothel] realize that they were in fact getting an orangutan? “Oh yeah, they would come in especially for it. You could choose a human if you preferred, but it was a novelty for many of the men to have sex with an orangutan.” Via.
posted by jonson at 11:49 AM PST - 110 comments

Fox News Porn NSFW...in case that wasn't obvious. [more inside]
posted by rooftop secrets at 11:38 AM PST - 34 comments

Battle-test your friends – in under four hours a week! Tim Ferriss, creator of the cold-fusion perpetual-motion machine that is the four-hour workweek (MetaFilter passim), gives you a list of stress tests you can apply to supplicants and other would-be “friends” – show up half an hour late or early, “forget” your wallet, induce them to “jostle” the lower classes. My kinda guy. (Gawker takedown.)
posted by joeclark at 11:27 AM PST - 36 comments

Bring earplugs: MBV are back in town. After fifteen years of near-inactivity, My Bloody Valentine have announced three reunion shows to take place next summer in England and Scotland. Previous MBV on the Blue
posted by porn in the woods at 10:10 AM PST - 34 comments

Ho Ho Ho? Hellz No Fat Man!
posted by Stynxno at 9:58 AM PST - 39 comments

Russian sect says world ends May 2008. And no, you can't borrow their cave. [more inside]
posted by Artw at 9:58 AM PST - 43 comments

This house at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn has been replicated around the world to odd architectural effect: Montreal, Sao Paulo, New Jersey, Buenos Aires, Milan, Tel Aviv, and seven other locations. Why? Because it was the home of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This sort of geographic dislocation is not unique to 770 Eastern Parkway, however, as photographers Andrea Robbins and Max Becher show: German buildings in Namibia, the Old West in Almeria Spain, the last French colony off Newfoundland, the town in Washington that was transformed into Bavaria, and others.
posted by blahblahblah at 7:00 AM PST - 28 comments

An exceptionally simple theory of everything has been released by a snow and surfboarding physicist. String theorists are grumpy feeling it doesn't have enough dimensions to be a proper theory. Others question and discuss. In it's favour - it's pretty! 10 Mb Quicktime
posted by Sparx at 6:42 AM PST - 113 comments

Caroline Bergvall writes poems(mp3) modulated by technology(nsfw) . She also gives radio interviews (with more readings).
posted by geos at 5:19 AM PST - 3 comments

Having served as a troop transport in WWII, a luxury liner, and a sea cadet training vessel, the Texas Clipper will come to her final resting place tomorrow as part of an artificial reef in the Texas Gulf. During preparations for sinking, a long lost mural (1 2 3 4) by Saul Steinberg, best known for his work at The New Yorker, was rediscovered hidden behind wallpaper and paint and saved from a watery grave.
posted by Orb at 5:15 AM PST - 4 comments

The Wizard of Oz [more inside]
posted by The Ultimate Olympian at 3:39 AM PST - 57 comments

Like a missing entry from Adam Pennyman's Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainments, the game Rez (previously on MeFi) combines abstract visuals with 21st century call-and-response musical theory (subscription site) for a synesthetic experience that changes through the player's on-screen interactions. Playing through four levels; Earth, Mars, Venus, Uranus, and Eden the player's avatar evolves within a sentient computer network as you attempt to free the core AI from suicidal depression. Woefully underpromoted upon release everywhere except Japan, and with few merchandise opportunities available to it, the game slipped into obscurity and attained cult status, retaining almost full value on the second-hand Dreamcast and PS2 markets. Unfortunately for the second-hand market, HD Rez has recently been announced for X-Box Live Arcade in early 2008 in glorious Hi-Def and 5.1 surround. Rejoice!
posted by Molesome at 2:14 AM PST - 25 comments

Meet Rob Pongi (sometimes known as Evil Pongi) an american, doing something different in Japan. Sometimes he's chillin with some sexy and beautiful Japanese women enjoy a very exciting Tokyo dance party! Other times he translates North Korean soap operas into english for our edification. He just finished his first Hollywood movie, and he's very proud of it. Join his fan club here. You can watch all of his videos here.
posted by bigmusic at 10:29 PM PST - 19 comments

New Stereotypes
posted by lalochezia at 9:43 PM PST - 44 comments

Badass motherfucking Richard Johnson has won the National Book Award for Tree of Smoke.
posted by four panels at 8:41 PM PST - 31 comments

Idiot Legal Arguments: A Casebook for Dealing with Extremist Legal Arguments: A minimal compendium of legal citations to frivolous arguments.
posted by Falconetti at 8:09 PM PST - 31 comments

Creative Destruction: The Best Case Against Universal Health Care. [Via The Mahablog.]
posted by homunculus at 7:05 PM PST - 82 comments

Almost 100 audio segments of David Greenberger's The Duplex Planet are available on PRX (site requires registration -- Bugmenot). More about The Duplex Planet and a lengthy audio clip are available here. Interviews with David Greenberger here (transcript only), here (second one down, click the headphones) and here (~10 MB mp3 file, 45 minutes long). The infrequently updated Duplex Planet blog is here. Previous Metafilter post on Duplex Planet here.
posted by cog_nate at 6:14 PM PST - 5 comments

In 1917, Dashiell Hammett, working as a Pinkerton detective in Butte, Montana, was offered $5000 to murder union organizer, Frank Little. Or was he? Maybe not. Anyway, Hammett quits being a detective and starts writing fiction. He draws on his Butte experiences to write Red Harvest about a lone detective who sets opposing factions in a corrupt city against one another and watchs the bodies pile up. Lots of people have wanted to make movies from Red Harvest. Akira Kurosawa did. Or did he? Maybe not. [more inside]
posted by CCBC at 6:04 PM PST - 25 comments

50 Ways to Take Notes. Brian Benzinger (previously) apparently often finds himself without paper and pencil, but with access to a computer. He's linked to dozens of places online where one can Get It Down (for free!), from public pages to note-taking software to voice recording.
posted by Rykey at 5:29 PM PST - 9 comments

Don't want the flu? Wash your hands! Washing your hands is not the only way to prevent the flu, but it's clearly important. [more inside]
posted by tarheelcoxn at 4:24 PM PST - 44 comments

CARMA, released today, is a map/database that shows the carbon emissions of more than 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies in every country on Earth, showing not only the worst but the best. Find out how much CO2 comes from electricity plants in a particular city, county, congressional district, company, town, ZIP code, or an individual plant.
posted by stbalbach at 4:19 PM PST - 13 comments

Have these fellows whetted your appetite for Southern Hemispherical comic singer-songwriters who care about The Issues? Barefoot Australian Tim Minchin ought to satisfy that hunger with an environmental anthem and a peace anthem. But aside from his social activism, he's also vulgar, poignant, dark, and of course, rock. [more inside]
posted by doift at 4:16 PM PST - 3 comments

With winter's cold touch around the corner, some of us may need a little something to keep us busy by the fireside on those chill winter evenings. With the abundance and variety of craft blogs to be found, everyone from the novice to the expert should be able to find inspiration (and even great tutorials!) for a fun and cute project. Enjoy!
posted by honeyx at 3:26 PM PST - 11 comments

Entoptic phenomenanotographs [via Flickr]. Entoptic phenomena are visual effects whose source is within the eye itself. This is a photo set of nothing but entoptic phenomena... as well as a few invisible men.
posted by psmealey at 3:25 PM PST - 18 comments

Woody Allen watches Shane
posted by vronsky at 1:05 PM PST - 32 comments

Jeff Lew, the lead animator on Matrix Reloaded, has after 4 long years of 14 hour days and 7 day work weeks finally completed his masterpiece: Killer Bean Forever. This is a momumental follow-up to the previous two short films, which were impressive projects on their own.
posted by ducksauce at 12:57 PM PST - 103 comments

A Look Back at Jon Stewart's Greatest Gay Moments. "There's a whole lotta gay going on in the brand-spanking-new archive of The Daily Show video clips."
posted by kirkaracha at 12:55 PM PST - 26 comments

Everybody has heard a story of someone being struck by lightning. People who survive such a strike can even join a support group. But if you do survive a strike, beware, as you will undoubtedly suffer adverse side effects!
posted by newfers at 12:14 PM PST - 21 comments

QI transcripts and annotations.
posted by Wolfdog at 12:06 PM PST - 31 comments

Turkish-German singer Muhabbet (Murat Ersen) is on the books as a veritable poster child of German immigration, what with singing integration-promoting songs with the German and French foreign ministers and all. [mp3, youtube]

Well until today, at least. Because according to journalist Kamil Taylan [in German; robot English], also a German of Turkish descent and co-author of a documentary investigating the death of Theo van Gogh, Ersen was quoted as saying: "Theo van Gogh was lucky he died as swiftly as he did - I would have locked him up in my basement and tortured him first", adding, "Ayaan Hirsi Ali deserves to die, as well". [in German; robot English]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:58 AM PST - 19 comments

Fear of Girls: Episode 2 returns with the aftermath of Episode 1.
posted by a47danger at 11:48 AM PST - 6 comments

The internet is killing the reporter, or at least the investigative journalist. So says David Leigh, the Guardian's esteemed dirty digger. But how right is he? Doesn't "the powerful global conversation", to quote the Cluetrain Manifesto, give investigative journalism new hope. Rather than be centred around the reporter, can communities of interest unite to share and uncover the sort of information that was once the sole property of reporters like Mr Leigh?
posted by MrMerlot at 11:44 AM PST - 45 comments

Vintage Images l Vintage Ephemera l Gallery of Geishas: Art eZine has some interesting visuals, great collection of resources and links to all kinds of cool collages using a variety of vintage ephemera, like Junkyard Dolls or All Wired Up. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 11:15 AM PST - 7 comments

Astronauts in Space, the music video.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:13 AM PST - 8 comments

As the WGA strike enters its second week, the writers have begun to flood the internet with brief videos explaining (and even making light of) their situation. A small collection after the jump. [more inside]
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 11:07 AM PST - 43 comments

Metafilter's many cat lovers know that many kitties like birds. But bird aficionados aren't so fond of the cats. James Stevenson, founder of the Galveston, TX ornithological society, is accused of using a .22-caliber rifle to kill cats that he claims were stalking endangered birds. He admits to shooting the cats. [more inside]
posted by bassjump at 10:49 AM PST - 124 comments

Nasty super-bug Clostridium difficile undone by poo transplant! C. difficle, the drug-resistant bum-spelunking organism that's currently the bane of health-care professionals around the world, has been cured. The probiotic treatment, however, has made some medical lab technicians squeamish as it involves liquifying donor faecal matter and then injecting it via enema into the suffering patient. [more inside]
posted by CheeseburgerBrown at 10:48 AM PST - 48 comments

Apocalyptic Manhattan (in An Apartment). More pictures when you scroll down.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:39 AM PST - 11 comments

The Chicago Women's Liberation (embedded video) Rock Band [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete at 10:32 AM PST - 17 comments

Planet Sydney. Planet Joshua Tree. Planet Kyoto. Sadly, you can't visit any of these worlds, but you can make your own.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 9:24 AM PST - 10 comments

The Garbage Game. What would you do with 64,000 tons of garbage every week? The Gotham Gazette is a not-for-profit newspaper that reports on New York City politics and policy. On their site is a highly informative game that puts you in the place of a resident and then the Sanitation Commissioner, shedding some light on NYC's garbage problem.
posted by brooklynexperiment at 9:03 AM PST - 14 comments

ukgraves.info has thousands of photographs of cemeteries and gravestones all over the UK, from City of London to the Kirk of Lammermuir, and random points in between.
posted by dersins at 8:49 AM PST - 11 comments

The BBC reports that new research ties ADHD to delayed cortical development.
posted by Fferret at 6:32 AM PST - 57 comments

Sometimes weird things happen. And sometimes there is snark.
posted by butterstick at 6:24 AM PST - 103 comments

A riveting ten-minute interview with playwright and former US Army interrogator Joshua Casteel. He discusses how a particular interrogation with an Iraqi prisoner--and an exchange of views on Islam and Christianity--motivated him to leave the armed forces and become a conscientious objector.
posted by dbarefoot at 4:58 AM PST - 42 comments

Consider Aaron Thibeaux Walker--if anyone ever deserved the title Godfather, King or Present at the Creation, it would be T-Bone Walker. Without T-Bone, there would be no B.B. King, Albert King, no Clarence Gatemouth Brown, no Pee Wee Crayton, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson ad infinitum to every blues guitarist whoever bent a tube amplified string thereafter. For rock and blues, electric lead guitar begins with him--he invented the language and then wrote the book and style manual, too. And he wrote the performance manual as well--dancing, doing splits, playing guitar behind his back while alternating betwen slow and smoky after hour blues and swinging combo and jazzy big band jumps. For examples of him at the height of his powers, give these Coralized mp3s--Cold Cold Feeling and Strollin' With Bones--a listen. [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 1:38 AM PST - 8 comments

Ever wonder how flaked stone tools such as the famous 12,000 year old Clovis spear points were made? A series of videos from youtube user flintknappingtips leads you through primary shaping, blank preparation, blank shaping, thinning, and fluting of a Clovis point. Total manufacturing time is about 40 minutes. Unscrupulous flintknappers have sold such replicas for tens of thousands of dollars (PDF), leading to a micro-business of stone tool authentication, after which, naturally, fake authentication papers started to appear came to light.
posted by Rumple at 12:19 AM PST - 23 comments

Owen Hatherley, has three blogs where he expounds on culture and architecture from an English Leftist perspective, sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy, The Measures Taken (which has longer essays than the previous blog) and the group film blog kino fist. To give you an idea of the range of subjects he covers, here's a sampling of his blogposts: Towards a Communist Couture? Sartorial Socialism from Huey P Newton to Honecker, Zuckendes Fleischer (on pre-WWII American cartoons), Industrial Island Machine - Vorticism and the absence of an English Avant-Garde, Hurrah for the Black Box Recorder (on songwriter Luke Haines and The Daily Mail), The Children’s Book as a Revolutionary Object (with a bunch of pictures from Soviet avant-garde children's books), Architectural Drawings of the 1960s, Art is a branch of Mathematics (Taylorism and Russian SF classic We), Brechtian Productivism in an age of Mechanical Stagnation and Notes towards an attempted refutation of the 'Associational Fallacy' (on architecture). All of the blogs are heavily adorned with pretty pictures, some not safe for work. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus at 9:38 PM PST - 7 comments

Scientists introduce "state-of-the-art robot" to a group of toddlers. By the time the experiment ended, the children were treating QRIO as a peer (Quicktime video of giggling, hugging, "displacement hugging,""night-night," and defiant assistance). Oh, and via.
posted by Kibbutz at 9:24 PM PST - 51 comments

A new U.S. Treasury Report (press release) reports that tax returns from 1996 to 2005 show that income mobility in the U.S. is "considerable," with rising earnings, and top earners who often stumble. The WSJ crows. Pew releases its own research (reports, press release) on income inequality today with a multi-decade outlook, but summarizes the findings as that American families' income mobility is still highly dependent on their parents' position. Forbes and a The New Republic blog try to reconcile the reports. Meanwhile, blacks appear to be downwardly mobile.
posted by shivohum at 8:22 PM PST - 45 comments

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 8:08 PM PST - 30 comments

From Dubai: Go around twice if you’re happy (YT): Vincent Fichard and Matthew Jones put up fake construction signs around town to test the response of passing motorists
posted by growabrain at 7:20 PM PST - 37 comments

From Ants to People, an Instinct to Swarm. Carl Zimmer looks at the work of Iain Couzin. [Via The Loom.]
posted by homunculus at 6:51 PM PST - 17 comments

William Rodriguez gave a captivating presentation in Seattle on 11/07/07. William is believed to be the "Last Man Out" of the north tower of the World Trade Center alive, but not before reentering three times with the master key after the first plane impacted the north tower to help rescue a countless number of people. Here is an interview with William after the presentation. His Ricky Ricardo impersonation at the end is pretty good.
posted by augustweed at 6:13 PM PST - 28 comments

You know what will help young people in Pennsylvania embrace a career in health care? A video featuring a rapping groundhog that cost $4157 in taxpayer money.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 6:12 PM PST - 49 comments

Crack Is Whack (nsfw)
posted by Xurando at 6:03 PM PST - 33 comments

"Why don't you shut up." Spanish King Juan Carlos on Saturday angrily told President Hugo Chavez to shut up as the Venezuelan leader was involved in a heated verbal exchange with the head of the Spanish government, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Youtube video
posted by semmi at 5:58 PM PST - 60 comments

Musical saw. Musical saw. Musical saw. Musical saw. Musical saw. Musical saw. Musical saw. Musical saw. Musical saw. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:31 PM PST - 17 comments

For those who enjoyed "DM of the Rings", there is now "Darths & Droids", by a team who eventually intend to process all six of the Star Wars films. [more inside]
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:29 PM PST - 14 comments

Respect speed limit, get free music from...asphalt ? When driving in Japan remember to respect the speed limits , you may be instantly rewarded by hearing a tune as played by...your car and the road.
posted by elpapacito at 5:11 PM PST - 25 comments

The 100,000th photograph has been scanned into the National Library of Australia's digital database. It is a picture of an oprhaned joey wearing a winter overcoat. But there's still 999,999 other photos for you to peruse. Check out a large selection of them here!
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:54 PM PST - 17 comments

Paper sculpture from Richard Sweeney. (More MeFi paper sculpture from Cooperman and Callesen)
posted by salishsea at 4:16 PM PST - 5 comments

The Predatory Lending Association takes a comic look at the dark practice of payday lending. Just when you thought charging 391% interest wasn't legal. This is from the same folks that created WalkScore.
posted by commonmedia at 4:16 PM PST - 40 comments

"The neighborhood of Bab al Sheik dates from a time, more than a thousand years ago, when Baghdad ruled the Islamic world... Ten centuries later, Bab al Sheik is less grand, but still extraordinary: it has been spared the sectarian killing that has gutted other neighborhoods, and Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Christians live together here with unusual ease." A NY Times story (by Sabrina Tavernise and Karim Hilmi) about interesting people in an interesting place. (Print version for them as wants one.)
posted by languagehat at 4:04 PM PST - 15 comments

The Ultimate Bootleg Experience is an ecclectic mp3 blog dedicated to live boots with a good number of posts up, and the links in the archives seem to stay live for quite a while.
posted by jonson at 3:51 PM PST - 18 comments

Bank Intern Busted by Facebook -- Kevin Colvin e-mailed his boss to say that he'd miss work due to what colleagues took to be a 'family emergency.' His boss turned to Facebook and found a photo of Colvin, dressed as a fairy at a Halloween party -- one which he apparently missed work to attend. The boss attached the image to his reply, copying the rest of the office as he did it. An Internet star/meme is born in this 'Age of Global Viral Embarrassment.'
posted by ericb at 1:59 PM PST - 89 comments

Is the hopocalypse upon us? Hops are an essential ingredient in beer (even dictated by law in Germany). But recent shortages and rising worldwide demand (pdf) have many craft brewers, hops dealers and homebrewers worried. How can you cope? Maybe it's time to try some gruit or mead.
posted by slogger at 1:18 PM PST - 64 comments

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. Tonight on NOVA, a documentary on the six-week trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover. [Full transcripts of trial] The court's decision [PDF] by Judge John E. Jones III, chastised the defense's dishonesty and the "breathtaking inanity" of the Dover School Board's policy. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education recounts the the trial here. According to Salon, the Discovery Institute is not quitting -- preferring now to "teach the controversy," as part of their ongoing attack on naturalism. [Previously 1 2]
posted by McLir at 11:15 AM PST - 193 comments

The forest preserve of Białowieza is considered to be the last primeval forest in lowland Europe. Because of its unique position on the border of the temperate and boreal climate zones, it contains a unique mixture of trees, such as Norway Spruce and oaks. It also contains an interesting mix of fauna, including the European Bison, beaver, wolves, and the Nazi re-creation of an extinct species. [more inside]
posted by never used baby shoes at 11:00 AM PST - 17 comments

Unlike their antiquated, manually operated predecessors, the toilets can flush at the slightest movement, and emit a high-pitched whine that, to some ears, sounds like a cat being strangled.

News that's fit to print: Childrens' fear of auto-flush toilets. (NYTimes)
posted by ericbop at 10:58 AM PST - 56 comments

"Reflections on White Privilege" by Tad Lawrence, dean of faculty, Cambridge School of Weston "That white Americans would send cards such as the ones I will show you for the most ordinary of purposes indicates the frightening extent to which they had internalized, accepted and condoned the presentation of African Americans that were the public face of the cards they sent." [more inside]
posted by exlotuseater at 10:54 AM PST - 56 comments

Serfs of the Turf. Michael Lewis on the racket that is college football and the myth of the "student-athlete" football player.
posted by AceRock at 10:14 AM PST - 72 comments

Men who look like old lesbians. They're men. But they look like lesbians. Old lesbians. [via]
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:04 AM PST - 85 comments

With about as much fanfare as last time, Greg Knauss has re-re-started An Entirely Other Day, this time in a slightly different location. Greg, we love you. Don't make us work this hard.
posted by whuppy at 9:42 AM PST - 15 comments

New York State goes after Amazon "affiliates." So if you, as a New Yorker, link to your book on Amazon, you are now an independent contractor and shall be taxed accordingly (PDF). [more inside]
posted by mattbucher at 9:28 AM PST - 32 comments

Striking Out by James Surowiecki. "As TV writers hit the picket lines, Surowiecki discusses the motivations and consequences of labor strikes. Historically, he argues, strikes have rarely ended up benefiting workers; the deals reached are usually similar to offers on the table before workers walk out. So why strike? For one thing, he writes, striking may clarify how serious your employer is about his stated position. And strikes are often about fairness, rather than economics -- people tend to reject deals they view as unfair, even when doing so leaves them worse off. A cogent analysis offering some interesting, timely tidbits of economic theory." [via]
posted by shotgunbooty at 9:28 AM PST - 12 comments

Remember when air travel was viewed as glamorous and exciting? Of course you don't. So check out this collection of vintage flight attendant photos: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
posted by brain_drain at 9:07 AM PST - 37 comments

The Quick Red Brown Fox. Tracking how Fox News's headlines change over time.
posted by scalefree at 9:07 AM PST - 24 comments

The 'Winners' of the Wired News Saddest-Cubicle Contest The winner -- if you can call it winning -- of the Wired News saddest-cubicles contest is David Gunnells, an IT guy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His desk is penned in by heavily used filing cabinets in a windowless conference room, near a poorly ventilated bathroom and a microwave. Here are some of the runners-up
posted by psmealey at 8:09 AM PST - 51 comments

An Indonesian fisherman who feared that he would be killed by tree-like growths covering his body has been given hope of recovery by an American doctor - and Vitamin A. Dede, now 35, baffled medical experts when warty "roots" began growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident.
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar at 7:59 AM PST - 50 comments

"Imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit." John Scalzi with everything you need to know about the $27 million Creation Museum.

"In the first room of the Creation Museum tour there’s a display of two paleontologists unearthing a raptor skeleton. One of them, a rather avuncular fellow, explains that he and the other paleontologist are both doing the same work, but that they start off from different premises: He starts off from the Bible and the other fellow (who does not get to comment, naturally) starts off from “man’s reason,” and really, that’s the only difference between them: “different starting points, same facts,” is the mantra for the first portion of the museum."

Don't forget the photo tour. [previously]
posted by secret about box at 7:36 AM PST - 75 comments

Prototype/Scriptaculous Version of Same Game, created on 10 Nov 2007, by Syndication.
posted by nickyskye at 7:26 AM PST - 22 comments

"Marvel has put the power in the hands of the fans by making thousands of comics—ranging from Golden Age classics to the most recent Marvel masterpieces—available online, including the first 100 issues of FANTASTIC FOUR and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN plus so much more." If Marvel's not your thing, you can always while away untold hours here.
posted by jbickers at 7:25 AM PST - 31 comments

The battle over Nandigram continues (after the massacres of March 14), as a fresh spate of atrocities have been reported.
posted by hadjiboy at 7:14 AM PST - 5 comments

Reagan at Neshoba. Some time ago, a blog post was authored at Mahablog which suggested that movement politics can best be understood when their rhetoric is viewed as a series of metaphors, with an allegory made to a spectacular episode of Stark Trek: The Next Generation featuring Paul Winfield titled "Darmok". Picard and crew stumble across an alien race that speaks only in metaphor. The alien captain, frustrated by the failure to communicate, transports Picard to the surface of a planet, where they must learn to communicate or die. The alien captain does finally reach Picard, but dies as a result of his injuries battling an invisible predator. By way of comparison, examine Candidate Ronald Reagan's speech at Neshoba [audio, 57MB, via, additional context here]. Some pundits are claiming that it is an example of the Southern Strategy codified as dog-whistle politics, whilst others view it as an honest mistake, and others still find an inconvenient long sequence of other "honest mistakes". [more inside]
posted by rzklkng at 6:14 AM PST - 127 comments

It's not just an apple. It's a power apple.
posted by klausness at 3:50 AM PST - 30 comments

Myfootballclub puts their money where their collective mouth is and buys Ebbsfleet United, who are currently in the Blue Square Premier. [more inside]
posted by triv at 3:23 AM PST - 19 comments

Ghost of Internet Past proves there's someone out there for everyone. [via waxy]
posted by terrortubby at 1:55 AM PST - 63 comments

The US Sentencing Commission has recommended that Federal sentencing guidelines be reduced for crimes involving crack cocaine -- and is now deliberating making the new guidelines retroactive for prisoners already incarcerated. [WaPo] If taken into effect, about 3,800 inmates could be released by this time next year. [more inside]
posted by Avenger at 11:31 PM PST - 26 comments

The inaugural New Yorker Conference, “2012: Stories From the Near Future,” took place on May 6 and 7, 2007. Here is an archive of videos from the event.
posted by parudox at 11:26 PM PST - 10 comments

Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis
posted by felix betachat at 10:48 PM PST - 27 comments

Zach Galifianakis Live at The Purple Onion His NSFW Magnum Opus
Google Video (scammed offa Netflix) 1 hour, 1 minute.
Hate his drunken belching voice? Try You Bring Me Joy, It's Not About Love, or Can't Tell Me Nothing. Hate him still? You may be a preschooler.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:30 PM PST - 25 comments

Thirty years of George Carlin specials. (Yep, NSFW. Duh.) [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 8:01 PM PST - 49 comments

The manga series "Death Note." The first volume. The adapted anime series, newly arrived on Adult Swim. The Japanese movie trailer. Spoilers: Possible origins. The early press. Interviews with writer Tsugumi Ohba and illustrator Takeshi Obata. The controversy. The collectibles. The online Death Note. The last volume, finally released in the US and reviewed.
posted by Soup at 7:55 PM PST - 13 comments

The Brooklyn Pigeon Serial Killer vs The Brooklyn Pigeon Advocate. Related to The Brooklyn Pigeon Blowdart Attacks of '98?
posted by R. Mutt at 5:57 PM PST - 24 comments

The Greater Internet F***wad theory is funny, right? Wrong.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:00 PM PST - 266 comments

Map Paintings by Paula Scher: “These are absolutely, one hundred percent inaccurate,” Paula Scher declares of her colossal map paintings. Then, after a pause: “But not on purpose.” Another pause: they’re actually “sort of right.” [via]
posted by dhruva at 4:58 PM PST - 10 comments

Lost? Why not consult a map? Because, according to a past exhibit at the British Library, the mapmaker might have a political agenda.
posted by Rykey at 4:36 PM PST - 13 comments

HEMA (Hollandse Eenheidsprijzen Maatschapij Amsterdam) is a quintessentially Dutch department store chain, specialised in selling unbranded no-nonsense goods at low prices. It is also known for its whimsical (previously) advertising and strong corporate identity. The art collective Mediamatic decided to have a few multicultural laughs by launching "El Hema", an Arabic/Muslim version of the Dutch classic. [more inside]
posted by Skeptic at 2:38 PM PST - 13 comments

In October, Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation to George Koval, who, using the code name Delmar, successfully penetrated the Manhattan Project as an agent for the Soviet Union. But, he wasn't the only one. Some think the award is just a disinformation campaign orchestrated by the Russians.
posted by Xurando at 2:31 PM PST - 14 comments

Elena Dorfman's photos of RealDolls have been mentioned in the blue before. In her latest project, Re-Anime: Photographs of Fandom, Dorfman explores the world of cosplay.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 2:15 PM PST - 42 comments

"I am on a near-daily treasure hunt of sorts. I scour our American past to help understand modern breastfeeding..." The Black Breastfeeding Blog, with photographs and history.
posted by kmennie at 1:03 PM PST - 43 comments

NASA proposes using a Stirling cooler (essentially a Stirling engine in reverse) to keep a probe cool on the surface of Venus, which has had a tendency to melt or smash previous probes. The cooler would maintain a 25cm sphere within the probe at 200°C -- 100°C above the boiling point of water but sufficiently cool for a high-temperature microcontroller to operate. The waste heat radiators on the exterior of the sphere would reach the temperature of 500°C, 40°C above the the normal Venusian surface temperature.
posted by Artw at 12:24 PM PST - 40 comments

It was the early 90s and the World Wildlife Federation was trying to save the rhino. They offered up Saiga horn as an alternative to rhino horns for use in Chinese apothecary shops, thinking that the millions-strong population of Saiga on the steppes of Central Asia would buffer the demand for rhinos. The result is one of the most devastating population crashes for a large mammal species in modern times. There is now a fear that the Saiga will become extinct in the next few years.
posted by hindmost at 10:09 AM PST - 42 comments

Cyclops! A fun little comic to make your Monday better.
From Flight Issue 4 and Israel Sanchez (another comic; some illustrations)
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:53 AM PST - 19 comments

Bleed for Public Safety.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 9:03 AM PST - 53 comments

The latest All-Bran commercial really pushes out the product's virtues, although not without making a stink. Personally, I still prefer a heaping bowl of Colon Blow.
posted by brain_drain at 9:02 AM PST - 52 comments

Munseys, formerly Blackmask, still my favorite free book site.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 8:04 AM PST - 7 comments

Think the Osmond Brothers didn't rock? Think again. "In spite of their squeaky clean image, the Osmonds had a soulful, sometimes raucous sound which was a precursor of the power pop of later years." Color my preconceived notions shattered.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:04 AM PST - 89 comments

Zigzag Zombie.

As part of the recent Dutch Design Week, students were instructed to produce an original typeset using thin, flat material (metal strips, tape, toilet paper, etc.) and then "pick one location, and create a large scale zigzag lettering and make passersby hallucinate."
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 6:56 AM PST - 14 comments

Clinton in planted questions row. The US presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has criticised her aides after she was accused of taking pre-arranged questions at a rally in Iowa. A case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss?
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 6:45 AM PST - 72 comments

One Laptop Per Child - Give 1, Get 1 Started by Nicholas Negroponte, the One Laptop Per Child project aims to put inexpensive durable laptops into the hands of millions of children in developing countries with the idea that the best weapon against poverty is education. For a limited time, people in the US can buy an OLPC laptop for themselves, and send one to a child in a developing country for $399 via the Give One, Get One program.
posted by Laen at 6:06 AM PST - 78 comments

Lost Places in Japan
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:31 AM PST - 27 comments

Photo-Essay on the Marlboro Marine and PTSD. An update on this story: 1, 2.
posted by salvia at 12:18 AM PST - 35 comments

The Pennsylvania government is worried that consumers will be “confused” by labels such as “pesticide free”, “antibiotic free”, and “contains no artificial hormones”. After all, doing so might seem to imply that products without such labels might be unsafe! PA Secretary of Agriculture Dennis Wolff is very concerned about that sort of “confusion”, which surely has nothing to do with the fact that he owns a 600-acre dairy farm. Oddly, while Mr. Wolff said his office had received many calls from confused consumers, his office was unable to come up with the name of even one consumer who had complained.
posted by kyrademon at 11:35 PM PST - 26 comments

Man comments on Flickr photos he discarded in an alley dumpster 30 years ago. Vietnam 1967-1968: Darrell Hill, Photographer
posted by thisisdrew at 10:36 PM PST - 28 comments

The poppy is bitterly ironic this Remembrance Day. Borrowed from John McRae's classic In Flanders' Fields, the poppy has shifted from a symbolic meaning to the central subject of an ongoing conflict. As international intervention in Afghanistan continues, opium production has reached record-breaking heights, with this single country now producing 90% of the world's total supply (utterly dwarfing global licit supply). Meanwhile, the world suffers a global opiate shortage(pdf), Canada's heroin maintenance project is threatened by politics, and the National Review of Medicine suggests that prescription opiates are far more dangerous than the "usual suspects".
posted by mek at 9:57 PM PST - 25 comments

Orphaned baby owls find a plushy mom.
posted by stbalbach at 9:51 PM PST - 30 comments

You'll feel like a fighter jet made of biceps!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:08 PM PST - 35 comments

Claude François was one of France's most successful popstars, a complete song-and-dance act who remained at the top of the charts for almost ten years before his career was tragically cut short when he tried to change a lightbulb while in the bath (youtube ahead). [more inside]
posted by jacalata at 8:45 PM PST - 19 comments

Fire Roasted Salsa. Chipotle Salsa. Pico De Gallo. Salsa Verde. Five Green Salsa. Orange Salsa. Apple Salsa. Cucumber Salsa. Yogurt Salsa. Rosemary Salsa. Bean Salsa. Conejo En Salsa De Chocolate. Roasted Poblano and Coconut Salsa. Monterey Jack Salsa. Salsa Negra. Mango Salsa. Holiday Salsa. Artichoke Salsa.
posted by bigmusic at 8:29 PM PST - 27 comments

"Trotsky lived on after Stalin, and to some extent is still alive today, not because young people want the world he wanted: a phantasm that not even he could define. What they want is to be him."
posted by Firas at 8:21 PM PST - 75 comments

38 unreprinted Jack Kirby monster stories. [more inside]
posted by freem at 7:44 PM PST - 11 comments

One hit wonders of the 1960's: Talk Talk. Dirty Water. Psychotic Reaction. Bend Me Shape Me. Hot Smoke and Sassafras. 96 Tears. Wipe Out. My Green Tambourine. Ballad of the Green Beret. San Francisco. Fire. Israelites. You Keep Me Hanging On. Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye. Eve of Destruction. Incense and Peppermints. Liar Liar. Judy In Disguise. Journey to the Center of the Mind. Sukiyaki. Come On Down To My Boat. Double Shot of My Baby's Love.You'll Lose a Good Thing. The Hippy Hippy Shake. They're Coming To Take Me Away. Tiptoe Through the Tulips. In the Year 2525.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:35 PM PST - 101 comments

Win a free MRI machine: An odd medical equipment distribution scheme, winanmri.com will give away a free MAGNETOM to the hospital that gets the most votes for their submitted video. (videos on right hand side).
posted by edgeways at 5:07 PM PST - 13 comments

The Australian Federal election is winding its desultory way towards resolution on 24 November. So far, it has failed to catch much of the electorate’s imagination, and the centrist Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, retains his comfortable lead in the polls, indicating a change in executive government after 11 years of John Howard’s big-government conservatism. Rudd’s “me too” strategy suggests that ideology is dead in Australia. (Previously) [more inside]
posted by wilful at 4:58 PM PST - 375 comments

In 1897, Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter Anne Fitzhugh Miller founded the Geneva Political Equality Club, an organization dedicated to fighting for women's suffrage in the United States. Between them, the two women kept several scrapbooks documenting their efforts through 1911. Via.
posted by Rykey at 2:44 PM PST - 7 comments

10 TED conference videos that may or may not be perspective changing…otherwise named, The Ten Videos to Change How You View the World...The Myth of Violence - Steven Pinker, 10 Ways the World Could End - Stephen Petranek, New Insights on Poverty and Life Around the World - Hans Rosling, Toys That Make Worlds - Will Wright, Technology’s Long Tail - Chris Anderson, Why Are We Happy? Or Not? - Daniel Gilbert, Universe is Queerer Than We Can Suppose - Richard Dawkins, Sliced Bread - Seth Godin, Redefining the Dictionary - Erin McKean, What’s So Funny About the Web? - Ze Frank [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 2:42 PM PST - 25 comments

Yue Minjun, a Chinese avant-garde artist, known for his depiction of toothy, smiling males. More at Asia's Hottest Modern Painters. Bonus: Goldfish
posted by growabrain at 2:11 PM PST - 22 comments

Cigarette? Cigarette? No disrespect to the seriousness of throat cancer, or to heavy smokers, but these devices may help the unlucky ones, and maybe you'll be more fun at parties. There's a few models to pick from. It was the precursor to the talkbox. Frampton and Stevie Wonder rocked it, But not before Pete Drake and his talking guitar rocked it first. Low on cash Make your own.
posted by greenskpr at 1:59 PM PST - 16 comments

Nuclear Facility in South Africa attacked by armed intruders. According to the Pretoria News, four armed men broke into the control room of the Pelindaba Nuclear Research Center, shooting "a senior emergency officer" in the process. The government nuclear agency Necsa has told the paper that publishing the story would be a violation of the National Keypoints Act. The facility seems to be part of South Africa's nuclear weapons program.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:44 PM PST - 18 comments

Coming Home - in honor of Veteran's Day, it might be fitting to check in on the recovery of J.R. Salzman, known here on mefi as Logboy.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:58 AM PST - 41 comments

For 11/11, soldiers' poems of MACV (and interstitial matter):
I can feel traces of my heart / leaving wet rivers / down my manly cheeks.
∞
Stunned now / angry / helpless / bits of torn paper beside / empty red mailbag.
∞
So / You averted looking directly / at their eyes / (That last graveyard / for their fears)
∞
It's getting hard to talk to you, / You don't seem to communicate; / You get upset too easily, / I only asked what it was really like.
∞ (Previously, previously) [more inside]
posted by orthogonality at 11:10 AM PST - 8 comments

Bilingual homophonic translations
posted by fermezporte at 11:05 AM PST - 33 comments

In many Commonwealth countries, today is Remembrance Day. From Wikipedia, it's "a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and civilians in times of war". Today it's worth reading a few famous wartime poems, and pausing in thanks to those who have fought for your country.
posted by dbarefoot at 9:03 AM PST - 83 comments

Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris, 1900. Approximately 200 antique photographs of Paris at the turn of the 19th century, mostly from the 1900 Paris World's Fair. French CG artist Laurent Antoine is reconstructing the Exposition in Maya 3D. Bienvenue!
posted by cenoxo at 8:03 AM PST - 13 comments

The Naga Jolokia is the hottest pepper in the world, at 1,000,000 Scoville Units. One seed from a Naga Jolokia can sustain intense pain sensations in the mouth for up to 30 minutes before subsiding. Imagine what eating an entire pepper will do? One intrepid ESPN reporter finds out.
posted by empath at 12:57 AM PST - 83 comments

201 Stories by Anton Chekhov translated by Constance Garnett presented in order of Russian publication.
posted by Kattullus at 12:39 AM PST - 23 comments

Seymour Hersh speaks at third Annual Amnesty International Lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, Oct 24/2007. YouTube links 1, 2, 3, 4.
posted by dougzilla at 12:34 AM PST - 19 comments

Skip this one if you're sick of posts about Iraq or comment threads containing the word "Heckuva", but what would happen if Mosul's "Saddam Dam" ("Sadd Saddam" in Arabic) collapsed?

it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet

Good, because the US Army Corps of Engineers rates chances of collapse "exceptionally high". Top that, God.
posted by paul_smatatoes at 11:18 PM PST - 86 comments

Mick Turner: The melodies stagger and dance and swing and fall like events, emotions and thoughts. For me this...is a celebration of life, all of it, good or bad, for me it's a way to understand things I can't say with words. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 10:47 PM PST - 9 comments

Disney doesn't have a stranglehold on jazz and animation. Michal Levy has, using geometric shapes, created animation to John Coltrane's Giant Steps. [more inside]
posted by ashbury at 9:13 PM PST - 22 comments

How do regional clusters of economic activity get started? For example, why is Dalton, a town in northern Georgia, the center of the American carpet industry? It started with a farm girl named Catherine Evans, who made a tufted bedspread as a wedding present in 1900. Via Paul Krugman.
posted by russilwvong at 8:44 PM PST - 9 comments

AEROTONE. | Hello!
posted by hama7 at 7:33 PM PST - 16 comments

As the Writer's Guild of America strike wears on into its second week, it seems appropriate to remember why they're striking in the first place. If you ask me, the terms seem almost too reasonable. But in the defense of the studios, I'm sure the businessmen involved have gotten used to spending those millions of dollars, and wouldn't want to see them go. Now that Broadway has shut down in allegiance to their Hollywood compatriots, things are looking grim for anything to be resolved without more financial bloodshed.
posted by GoodAaron at 7:10 PM PST - 89 comments

The only interactive Zelda overworld map you'll ever need. (Flash)
unless you're doing the second quest. Found at the ever-useful vgmaps.com
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 7:09 PM PST - 25 comments

"Together they panhandled with Nam Vet Needs Help signs at the highway entrance, converted their proceeds into Icehouse beer and Rich & Rare whiskey, and shared their nights in the perpetual dusk beneath the elevated highway, taking turns seeking the full sleep that never came, so loud was the traffic above, so naked were they below, in addled vulnerability.

Every Sunday Dan Barry writes about America in his This Land column for the New York Times.
posted by four panels at 6:47 PM PST - 12 comments

Find that going to work is a drag, and nothing seems to make you want to go? Well how about being deciding to refuse to sit around at home and keeping working just because you're 'bored'. I reckon that is an unusual reason to work your life away. Especially if it happens to be your birthday. Oh, and even more so if you just happen to be 100 years old.
posted by Brockles at 5:31 PM PST - 20 comments

The guys get shirts (NSFW).
posted by sy at 5:07 PM PST - 50 comments

On November 11, 1880, Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous bushranger, was hanged at the Melbourne Gaol with the last words "Such is life." And so today, on the anniversary of his death and as his gun is due to go under the hammer, now is an excellent time to look at the history of the man sometime referred to as Australia's answer to Robin Hood. Many more Ned Kelly resources are to be found inside. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:39 PM PST - 12 comments

More Cowbell
posted by y2karl at 1:24 PM PST - 52 comments

Flock 1.0 is finally out.
posted by chunking express at 11:49 AM PST - 47 comments

Vintage [album covers nsfw] and contemporary, Rashid Sales Co, music of the Middle East, packed with mp3s and links. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 11:27 AM PST - 16 comments

"As with any healthy relationship, the first thing the young couple must do is hide the body." Ran across the most entertaining description of a rather common beetle today. Enjoy!
posted by TeatimeGrommit at 10:13 AM PST - 19 comments

Supreme Master TV. As advertised on the very back page of this week's Economist Newspaper. It's great when spiritual leaders just come right out and say it. Check out the awesome paintings.
posted by parmanparman at 9:38 AM PST - 27 comments

When the town of Excelsior Springs, Mo. decided in the 1930's to create a shrine to its renowned mineral waters, they turned to the WPA, which built an Art Deco masterpiece, the Hall of Waters.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:32 AM PST - 17 comments

A 68 year old. 145 lb. man with a neurological condition was tasered by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers following a dispute over double parking. The man was picking up his wife, who was delivering newspapers. This happened less than a month after the RCMP tasered a Polish man who had spent 10 frustrating hours trying to find his mother in the Vancouver International Airport following 15 hours of travel. He died on the scene. [more inside]
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:11 AM PST - 313 comments

My favorite piece of music is Stravinsky's "Petrouchka." (Scroll down to the 2002-2003 Season for mp3s.) Today, I was blown away by this recording (CD for purchase, alas) of parts of the piece played on accordion. (If you're a Stravinsky fan, please do yourself a favor and acquire this CD!). I've always associated accordions with polkas (and Ennio Morricone music ... and, of course, the Doctor Who theme). I never knew they were rich enough to stand in for a whole orchestra! And I didn't know much about accordions used in classical music. Anyway, back to Petrouchka: here are videos of the ballet: bit, I II, III, IV.
posted by grumblebee at 7:41 AM PST - 14 comments

Darin Morgan wrote some of the most highly aclaimed TV scripts of the '90's. So the question is, "Where is he now?" [more inside]
posted by oh pollo! at 7:13 AM PST - 32 comments

Garry's Mod + Team Fortress 2. Obvious but brilliant.
posted by arnold at 6:36 AM PST - 15 comments

Mineral of the Day photos.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:58 AM PST - 16 comments

Norman Mailer Dies at 84
posted by muddylemon at 4:43 AM PST - 104 comments

Ninjatune podcasts including Coldcut and Big Dada podcasts, a Ninjacast which delves into the record crates of various ninja artists, and of course a Solid Steel podcast with 60-odd mixes available.
posted by nthdegx at 3:13 AM PST - 16 comments

Leonard Nimoy's new photography book is not what you'd expect. In this NPR interview, Nimoy discusses his new book, The Full Body Project. [more inside]
posted by SassHat at 11:52 PM PST - 42 comments

Presenting hip-hop live and weird from cLOUDDEAD. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse at 10:59 PM PST - 14 comments

Foetus may, or may not be, a band that once consisted of two Brazilian statistics collectors, their penpal Frank Want, and temperamental singer Phillip Toss. As it stands today, Clint Ruin, aka Frank Want, aka J. G. Thirlwell is the driving force behind the band known as Foetus. Expounding on the underlying themes of "aesthetic terrorism" and "positive negativism," the name has gone through many deviations, but the concept remains the same. [more inside]
posted by Zack_Replica at 9:50 PM PST - 36 comments

Arthur Bremer was released from prison today, after serving a 35 years of a 53-year sentence for the attempted assassination of George Wallace. After Harper's Magazine published Arthur Bremer's diary in 1973, the manuscript inspired both the character of Travis Bickle in the film Taxi Driver and the Peter Gabriel song "Family Snapshot". After Bremer shot Wallace, Nixon obsessed about the shooting on his audio tapes and pestered FBI agent Mark Felt for information, which Felt a.k.a. "Deep Throat" leaked to cub reporter, Bob Woodward. Woodward's relationship with Felt would later crack the Watergate scandal wide open, but Nixon's plan to portray Bremer as a George McGovern supporter remains less well-known.
posted by jonp72 at 8:52 PM PST - 18 comments

Did you hire Silly the Clown for your kid's upcoming birthday party? Well, he may not be able to make it. And it's probably just as well.
posted by Kibbutz at 7:37 PM PST - 40 comments

Growing Up Sexually: A world atlas and encyclopedia of cross-cultural practices in the sexual enculturation of children. The project overview gives context for the site, which is a subproject of the frighteningly comprehensive International Encyclopedia of Sexuality. Primary author of site is an M.D. No images, text may not be safe for work.
posted by Rumple at 7:33 PM PST - 31 comments

Rap represented in mathematical charts and graphs.
posted by 31d1 at 5:52 PM PST - 65 comments

Serein v3
posted by hama7 at 5:18 PM PST - 50 comments

Newsweek's "Packaging a Tragedy" After which, two Darfur experts, John Prendergast and Alex De Waal have a heated debate over the role of the Save Darfur Campaign, wondering whether its advocacy has helped or hurt the chances for peace in the region. De Waal has argued that the seduction of humanitarian intervention has impeded progress in Darfur, while Prendergast has urged more robust intervention. Both want the same thing, an end to the killing, but both get extremely heated in disagreeing about how.
posted by cal71 at 2:22 PM PST - 17 comments

Happy 40th Birthday Rolling Stone. On this day in 1967, the first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published, and it came with a roach clip. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J. Gleason It embraced and reported on the hippy counterculture during the late 1960s and 1970s, and its rise to fame was synchronous with such bands and artists as the Grateful Dead, Beatles, Doors, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. It is the magazine that trashed Eric Clapton, broke up Cream and ripped every album Led Zeppelin ever made!"
posted by psmealey at 1:51 PM PST - 53 comments

Ectype's End. A cute animation about 3C70, a worker in a clockwork world whose life is turned upside down by a strange flower. You can download the hi-res version from Rhubarb Zoo. [Via ectoplasmosis.]
posted by homunculus at 12:45 PM PST - 15 comments

Jonah Lehrer is becoming one of the most interesting science writers around. The 26-year-old Rhodes scholar and former Le Bernardin cook just published his first book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist [first chapter excerpt - NYT], an investigation of the ways poets, novelists, and artists accurately modeled the brain and memory before science did. This week he hilariously reenacted Escoffier's distillation of umami-rich veal stock [hit the audio link] with NPR's Robert Krulwich of Radio Lab. He also just published a very insightful profile of Oliver Sacks in SEED (addressing the pioneering neurologist's own recent struggles with an eye ailment) and writes a wide-ranging science blog. A new writer to watch.
posted by digaman at 12:16 PM PST - 46 comments

Diwali: the festival of light. Go ahead, light a diya (no, not that Diya) or something a bit more festive. Burn a few firecrackers, but be careful not to harm yourself. And be sure to have a taste of those mouth savouring sweets.
posted by hadjiboy at 11:20 AM PST - 25 comments

Ever felt like flying a missile down a tube filled with rotating obstacles? No? Well, here’s your chance.
posted by yhbc at 11:14 AM PST - 38 comments

While God was fooling around with his celestial SimCity control panel, he accidentally built a river right through the middle of a road. [more inside]
posted by brain_drain at 10:56 AM PST - 47 comments

Just a gentle little clip to make you smile on a Friday - a 30 sec spot for Oregon's Humane Society. [via]
posted by patricio at 9:27 AM PST - 69 comments

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the bed and banks under all rivers, lakes, and streams that are navigable, for title purposes, are owned by the states, held in trust for the public. Mineral extraction interests and other parties often challenge this 'public use' designation by using/abusing the navigabilty designation to keep out fisherman and other recreational users in order to exploit the rivers for private gain. The Upper Sacramento River and McCloud Rivers of Northern California are the latest battleground in recreational river access. In what has become all too common, an ugly fight pitting sportsmen and nature enthusiasts against private interests is unfolding. One blogger has led the good fight to keep the rivers public. He could use your help... but it doesn't look good, and there is not much time!
posted by james_cpi at 8:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Artistic renditions of spam subject lines — A Flickr photoset (of sorts)
posted by brett at 8:24 AM PST - 18 comments

What better way to evoke the Christmas spirit than with the picture of a vampiric serial killer?
posted by cerebus19 at 7:52 AM PST - 21 comments

Gallup: Bush 'strongly disapprove' 50% > Nixon 48% Gallup notes that the two ratings are statistically equivalent. A newspaper industry site noted it, and Raw Story, while Uruknet (which is not unbiased) felt the story was under-reported.
posted by dragonsi55 at 7:21 AM PST - 99 comments

Maths classes + radical left wing = Radical Maths
posted by jacalata at 5:42 AM PST - 47 comments