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Turn up the good, turn down the suck. The 'bangers are back. Greenlighted in April, FUBAR II, the sequel to the 2002 Sundance film FUBAR began shooting Monday in the Tar Sands of Alberta. [more inside]
posted by Hardcore Poser at 11:13 PM PST - 16 comments

There must be something about cupcakes and the periodic table of the elements. Not sure who did it first, but now it is ubiquitous. Then of course there is The Periodic Table of Cupcakes, which is a whole other matter. [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 10:54 PM PST - 16 comments

Germany is, for the first time, trying a non-citizen for crimes committed as part of the Holocaust. John Demjanjuk, originally from Ukraine, is an 89-year-old man, retired US auto factory worker, and former US citizen who has been deported and charged with 27,900 murders for the part he may have played in World War II. This is the second time Demjanjuk has been tried. [more inside]
posted by brina at 10:53 PM PST - 110 comments

In Two Bits (full-book in html) , Christopher M. Kelty investigates the history and cultural significance of Free Software, revealing the people and practices that have transformed not only software, but also music, film, science, and education. The author encourage his readers to modulate the book. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 10:00 PM PST - 16 comments

Everything you never wanted to know about the American prison-industrial complex. Part 2: Prison Nation.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:32 PM PST - 84 comments

Lev Grossman (wiki) has picked the six greatest fantasy novels of all time to This Weeks "Best Books...chosen by" series. Grossman blogs that each one"absolute indisputable classic" that "completely changed the game." [more inside]
posted by shothotbot at 9:09 PM PST - 142 comments

SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 8:42 PM PST - 87 comments

The Moral Dimensions of Ditching a Mortgage: University of Arizona law professor Brent T. White has written a provocative new paper (pdf) that urges homeowners with "underwater" mortgages" to walk away by strategically defaulting on their mortgage debts. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 at 6:05 PM PST - 162 comments

WNYC's Radiolab took a look into Orson Welles' 1938 radio production of H.G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds, which caused mass panic in the United States when listeners mistook a radio drama for actual reporting. They then explored the question of whether such hysteria could be recreated in a similar way, recounting stories from Quito, Ecuador in 1949 and Buffalo, New York in 1968. (There was one other attempt in Santiago, Chile in 1944 which is not mentioned in the Radiolab synopsis.)
posted by ichthuz at 5:00 PM PST - 22 comments

Hillbilly Truffle "In France, they call them Périgords—and they’re known as the diamonds of the kitchen. You probably know them as black truffles, those baseball-sized fungi that are sniffed out of the earth by pigs or dogs, get sold for thousands of dollars, and transform any meal into a luxury item. So what happens when—sacrée merde!—an obsessed Yankee learns to grow them in the scrub woods of Davy Crockett’s Tennessee?"
posted by vronsky at 4:40 PM PST - 63 comments

Jeffrey Steingarten thought Gisele didn't like him and Susie Essman wasn't surprised. They gave Gisele her favorite part: crispy penis. Susie said, "Nothing like crispy penis."

According to Jeffrey, salad is a silent killer. He claims almost every plant has a chemical in it that helps defend itself from the outside world. If we eat too much of it, we're basically eating poison.

The general rule is you don't let the women at the table tell you there's enough food.
posted by Mike Buechel at 4:26 PM PST - 33 comments

Hollywood vs New York
posted by flatluigi at 4:11 PM PST - 13 comments

Make it so, number one. [more inside]
posted by Caduceus at 3:40 PM PST - 76 comments

The owners of Casa Saltshaker in Buenos Aires have compiled a list of venues in what they refer to as the Underground Dining Scene. [more inside]
posted by jontyjago at 3:17 PM PST - 14 comments

Lego Matrix Trinity Help. [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 11:43 AM PST - 66 comments

TheSmartAss.info's suite of Java emulators allows smooth, in-browser playback of literally thousands of old-school video games: 517 Atari titles, 148 for DOS, 636 Game Boy games (and 410 for Game Boy Color), 2,019 (!) NES titles, 238 GameGear games, 802 Sega Genesis titles, and 284 for the Sega Master System. Highlights include Space Invaders, Frogger, Galaga, Pitfall!, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, SimCity, Zero Wing, Duke Nukem, Sonic the Hedgehog, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim, Pokemon, and Metal Gear Solid. Use the search function to find your favorites! You can also register an account to save games on emulators that support it. Make sure to check the purple bar below each game for control info and links to alternate emulators in case the default one is buggy or slow.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:12 AM PST - 54 comments

The story starts in 1992 or so, when the 14 year old Brit, Dominic Stanton, bought turntables and started spinning early drum'n'bass. He transitioned from DJ to producer, made demo tracks, and got signed by age 17. He went on to produce broken beat* and jazzy downtempo*, even into the realm of disco edits. Then about two weeks ago, the 31 year old musician called it quits.

The point is that I am no longer Domu. He is a character, always has been, and as of Friday 13th November 2009, he no longer exists. Neither does Umod, Sonar Circle, Bakura, Yotoko, Rima, Zoltar, Blue Monkeys, Realside or any of the other names I put out music under. I am cancelling all my gigs and not taking any more. My hotmail is closed, my Twitter is closed and my Facebook is closed.

Furthermore, his website is closed and the original post of his farewell message is lost, though you can still view the cached version or find it copied elsewhere. Domu's website now simply states This really is The End . . . Step inside for an abbreviated journey. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:46 AM PST - 46 comments

Why movies cost so much. (MLYT!) Let us pause, in our respective busy days, to celebrate the gag reel. Are you ready? House season 2 and 3 (and bonus valley girl take); Grey's Anatomy seasons 3 and4, Back to the Future, Star Trek (2009), Star Trek (1969), Star Trek (IV), Star Trek (TNG), Star Wars (original), Star Wars ("1"), Star Wars ("2"), Star Wars ("3"), Step Brothers, Men in Black, LOTR, POTC, POTC 2, POTC 3, Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Hot Fuzz, Yes Man, Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar, and many others.
posted by e.e. coli at 9:33 AM PST - 63 comments

Tomorrow in Las Vegas, a mixed hotel/condominium called Vdara will open for business on the spot once occupied by the unlamented Boardwalk Hotel and Casino. It is the first stage of the CityCenter complex, the largest privately financed development in the United States, which has already cost $8.5 billion and six lives. Even before the recent debt-restructuring woes of 50% stakeholder Dubai World, there was concern over CityCenter's impact on the struggling local economy. (previously) [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 9:26 AM PST - 47 comments

"Armenia is a tiny, poor country in the Caucasus, with a population of just over 3m. It has a long history of bloodshed and oppression; when it appears in the news it is usually because of its entanglement in some labyrinthine regional feud. And it excels at the ancient, cerebral game of chess." (via)
posted by The Whelk at 9:08 AM PST - 14 comments

Starting her comics career as a colorist, Marie Severin was largely responsible for the distinctive color palette of EC Comics, where her brother Johnny Severin also worked. She later worked in the Marvel Bullpen, drawing just about everything, including many well loved staff caricatures. She turned 80 this year; here are a few of her Marvel covers from the 60s and 70s.
posted by interrobang at 8:31 AM PST - 18 comments

Western Sahara has the dubious distinction of being the subject of probably the most forgotten-about post-colonial conflict in the world. Until 1975, the Spanish government considered Western Sahara a Spanish province, just as much an integral part of its territory as any of its provinces in the Iberian peninsula. However, at the beginning of the 70s, a burgeoning pro-independence movement, and increasing appetites of its Northern and Southern neighbours, Marocco and Mauritania, led to a UN visiting mission in early 1975, which found that "there was an overwhelming consensus among Saharans within the Territory in favour of independence and opposing integration with any neighbouring country". This finding was given additional support by an opinion by the International Court of Justice supporting the Sahrawis right to self-determination against the claims of neighbouring nations. [more inside]
posted by Skeptic at 8:04 AM PST - 30 comments

RIP Robert Holdstock, writer of the Mythago Wood series and many other award winning fantasy novels.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:59 AM PST - 33 comments

To celebrate the start of its 350th year, the Royal Society has put online 60 of its most memorable scientific papers. [more inside]
posted by Electric Dragon at 3:05 AM PST - 27 comments

Tomokazu Matsuyama was born in Japan. He moved to the US when he was around ten years old, not speaking any English, and being overwhelmed by the culture shock of 1980s Los Angeles. His artistic work is a reflection of this upbringing. Matsuyama’s paintings envision traditional Japanese imagery through the lens of American pop art, creating a unique and beautiful hybrid. He strives to portray this global melee through a conscious “appropriation” of all of his influences: cultural, artistic, and personal. Matsuyama’s unconflicted and positively ebullient works do not ask, “What am I?,” but assert, “I am everybody.” (via) [more inside]
posted by netbros at 9:45 PM PST - 14 comments

Chairman Mao's Underground City is a pictorial travelogue of a small part of the tunnels that Chairman Mao had built under Beijing to serve as a nuclear fallout shelter. The intrepid urban explorers come across some surprising things. The complex, which was built by hand, could house three hundred thousand people for up to four months and had amenities such as restaurants, cinemas and roller rinks. Here's a short Travel Channel feature on the Underground City.
posted by Kattullus at 7:33 PM PST - 37 comments

Mike Penner, sportswriter at the Los Angeles Times, died on Friday in an apparent suicide. Penner was best known for his sports journalism until April 2007, when he publicly announced that he was transsexual and would begin writing as Christine Daniels (previously). He detransitioned in October 2008, returning to work under his original name, but without offering explanation. [more inside]
posted by Sova at 6:19 PM PST - 178 comments

A 47 year old NYC photographer says to hell with it. He takes his 10 thousand dollars or so and buys a spot of land. You are miles and miles from anywhere. John Wells wants to build something for himself and inspire others. John has built the Field Lab and invites all who are interested to explore the idea of living off the grid... that is to use only the power you produce and eat what you grow. He has gotten a little attention...but for the most part has stayed out of the spotlight. You can follow his day to day blog and live a little vicariously. Note: If you want a tour...show up with a six pack or something. Its a long drive to town and he will forever be your friend.
posted by shockingbluamp at 5:21 PM PST - 37 comments

Petoskey Stones are stones of fossilized coral (Hexagonaria percarinata ) that can be found along the shore of Lake Michigan near the town of Petoskey (Population 6,000). Once polished, they can be beautiful, and are often made into jewelry. It is the state stone of Michigan and is celebrated in an annual festival. The origin of the name of the stone, however, is under contention. [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 3:03 PM PST - 33 comments

Happy Bear's Day, a Saint Day on the Bulgarian Festival Calendar. [more inside]
posted by tellurian at 2:09 PM PST - 7 comments

Joe Howe (aka Gay Against You, Joemus, Germlin, Ben Butler and Mousepad) at Silkytooth. Mixtapes -- Long Live Summer::Playberlin::Best 2009 (Eno)::Mad Swing [v]
posted by vronsky at 1:58 PM PST - 4 comments

"The name Vanilla Ice evokes the sweet charm, the unknowing innocence of another time. In a world of school shootings, mass murders, endless wars, and economic despair, we miss that time." Catching up with Ice Man Robert Van Winkle after his career in music cooled down.
posted by porn in the woods at 12:47 PM PST - 94 comments

O Lutfisk, O Lutefisk!. Also known as lipeäkala, this dried white fish once saturated with lye is a traditional dish in both Nordic countries and in much of the upper Midwest of America and the plains region of Canada. Sounds tasty, right? Let this article describe the experience of countless kids faced with this dish each Christmas Eve before you sign up for a Lutefisk Eating Contest (scroll for video!) in Ballard, WA. [more inside]
posted by julen at 12:36 PM PST - 39 comments

San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter, together with the GLBT Historical Society, are making available all of the gay newspaper's AIDS obituaries in an on-line searchable database. The database, to be unveiled on December 1, 2009, World AIDS Day, contains the obituaries for about 10,000 people. [more inside]
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 12:06 PM PST - 17 comments

"I don't distinguish the difference between work and play," says Liz Diller. "My husband and I are very obsessed with our work, and it's contiguous with our personal lives." Liz Diller and Ric Scofidio aren't only some of the most visible architects of contemporary urban public space; they're also married to each other. Perhaps the most high profile couple in a profession that seems to be particularly conducive to this kind of working marriage, Diller and Scofidio (and, now, their partner/tie-breaker Charles Renfro) have in recent years collaborated on projects including heavy-use public structures like the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston (review), and Alice Tully Hall (review) and the High Line park (review) in New York, as well as more whimsical projects like the Blur building for Swiss Expo 2002 at Lake Neuchatel, and Arbores Laetae ("Joyful Trees") at the 2008 Liverpool Biennial. The architects talk to FLYP magazine about their marriage and to Charlie Rose about their work.
posted by ocherdraco at 11:09 AM PST - 6 comments

The best space shuttle launch video you will see today. As compiled and edited by NASA's SE&I imagery team at Johnson Space Center.
posted by pashdown at 10:38 AM PST - 65 comments

Swiss voters moonlight as architecture critics. The construction of minarets in Switzerland is now forbidden, with 57% in favor of the ban, freezing the number in the country at four, with one under construction. [more inside]
posted by Vetinari at 8:44 AM PST - 258 comments

Remember Paper is a blog with photos of interesting magazines, books, and other paper-based ephemera. NSFW.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:49 AM PST - 10 comments

Vadim Ponorovsky, owner of New York restaurant Paradou, wants his customers emails for his newsletter. When the waitstaff failed to collect them he fired off a nasty email to motivate them.

Somebody sent it Gawker.

Ponorovsky explains what he was thinking to Grubstreet and Black Book Magazine.

The Waiter over at Waiter Rant weighs in.
posted by Bonzai at 9:03 PM PST - 150 comments

Back to the Land — an illustrated essay about giving thanks and food and joy and life and things to ponder and such by Maira Kalman. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 9:01 PM PST - 16 comments

The 10 Most Horrific Sports Injuries Ever WARNINGS: Some of the videos/images are rough to look at (breaking limbs, one bloody hockey accident, nude Steve Yeager) and it's clearly US-centric (it doesn't mention that Rugby League dude who was jamming his finger in his opponents anuses).
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:47 PM PST - 83 comments

Viking love poems (not to be confused with Vogon poetry). 200 years before medieval troubadours "created" romantic poetry, skalds such as Gunnlaug Snaketongue, Hallfred the Troublesome Poet and Kormak Ogmundarson told of their hearts' ecstasies and despairs. [more inside]
posted by msalt at 4:14 PM PST - 46 comments

The best thing about those Marvel Comics cartoons from the 1960s? The theme music.
posted by the_bone at 3:32 PM PST - 26 comments

Four letters of complaint written to the Mayor of NYC. Excerpted from a book.
posted by prefpara at 2:19 PM PST - 33 comments

A Zimbabwean cargo aircraft crashed earlier today at Shanghai-Pudong airport, killing three and seriously injuring four. It is not yet known why the aircraft, an ex Varig MD-11F (pic) operated by an airline called Avient, failed to become airborne, but the airline itself has received quite some attention recently. Headquartered in Salisbury, Wiltshire, United Kingdom, they almost went bankrupt, leaving behind massive debts in France, only to almost out of nowhere get this MD-11F, which crashed within a week of being acquired. (pprune, reg req) But that's not the only shady thing about this airline... [more inside]
posted by krautland at 12:38 PM PST - 32 comments

A beautiful ad for the New Zealand Book Council. (SLYT, via)
posted by Anonymous at 12:10 PM PST - 27 comments

Please enjoy a video of a robot breakdancing. [more inside]
posted by empath at 10:05 AM PST - 38 comments

“The relativity of simultaneity in modern physics favors the philosophical view known as eternalism or four dimensionalism, in which physical objects are either temporally extended space-time worms, or space-time worm stages, and this view would be favored further by the possibility of time travel.” —from the Wikipedia article on time travel
posted by kipmanley at 8:03 AM PST - 45 comments

Roger Avary, Oscar-winning screenwriter for Pulp Fiction and many other films, pled guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving, following a crash that killed a passenger in his car in 2008. This September, he began to serve his sentence of one year in jail (followed by five years of probation). Naturally, he also began tweeting about it. The bleak literary quality of his tweets (in which he refers to himself only as "#34") caught the attention of Mark Millan at the LA Times -- and shortly thereafter, of the authorities. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 6:00 AM PST - 146 comments

Sure, the site around it is not in English but since Music is a language we can all appreciate, the Keyboard Piano is a ton of fun. (Requires Silverlight) [more inside]
posted by empatterson at 4:16 AM PST - 16 comments

I think that ten years from now, the thing that's going to be written about Seattle, is not what tear gas bomb went off on what street corner, but that the WTO in 1999 was the first of a global citizens movement for a democratic global economy (This is What Democracy Looks Like). Ten years ago tomorrow, diverse activist groups appeared in Seattle to protest perceived globalization/corporatization exemplified by the World Trade Organization. (Wiki) Some more anniversary stuff from KPLU in Seattle, Real Change, and maybe the Teabaggers. Previously: One year after.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:54 AM PST - 53 comments

Fifth Gear Loop the Loop. (SLYT, in the interest of science) prev 5th gear
posted by allkindsoftime at 3:09 AM PST - 39 comments

WANTED: EDITOR OF A SUCCESSFUL LIB-LEANING BLOG AND NEWS ORGANIZATION LOOKS TO HIRE A PUBLISHER. Say what you will about the relative merits of Talking Points Memo or whether or not it's the triumphant example of why we don't need "real" newspapers or journalists any longer (previously on Mefi [1] [2]), but it does seem we've turned a corner (or perhaps jumped the shark?) when editors hire publishers instead of the other way around.
posted by bardic at 12:34 AM PST - 36 comments

Bush and Blairline-dancing, The Queen on the loo, Marilyn wanking (nsfw). The phototgraphy of Alison Jackson blends the real and the irreal.
posted by Artw at 11:56 PM PST - 25 comments

"Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. Historians, sociologists, philosophers and sometimes scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about how the institution of science is structured and how it knows what it knows." How to Think About Science is a 24-part series from CBC Radio's Ideas, featuring interviews with Steven Shapin, Ian Hacking, Bruno Latour, and others. The streaming audio links on the show's website seem to be out of commission, but direct links to all of the episodes can be found here.
posted by bewilderbeast at 7:35 PM PST - 77 comments

Thanksgiving may be over, but you can still join The Beverly Hillbillies for Turkey Day (1963) and (the controversial) Calvin and the Colonel for Thanksgiving Dinner (1961). Both episodes are available on Archive.org, along with another 50 or so episodes of the 274 Beverly Hillbillies episodes, and three more episodes from the 26 episodes of Calvin and the Colonel. Bonus bits: Jerky Turkey [YT] (1945, directed by Tex Avery), and Tom Turkey and His Harmonica Humdingers (1940).
posted by filthy light thief at 6:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Autistics on LSD Elephants on LSD British Troops on LSD Spiders on LSD Cats on LSD Argentinians on LSD Childhood Schizophrenics on LSD
posted by jonp72 at 5:51 PM PST - 75 comments

CT Scan art - Radiologist Kai-hung Fung takes scans of our innards and makes them outwardly beautiful.
posted by Kickstart70 at 5:41 PM PST - 8 comments

The Donald Sterling Rule "Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling lives by his own rules. And the only one that matters, apparently, is this: all bad deeds go unpunished. Over the last six years, nearly two dozen L.A. residents have sued Sterling for engaging in racist housing practices and Jim Crow-style bigotry. In a 2003 deposition, the 76-year-old real estate mogul admitted to paying a former employee to have sex with him in an elevator. Three years ago, the U.S. government charged him with "willful" mistreatment of African-American and Latino tenants, and earlier this month, he agreed to pay the Dept. of Justice nearly $3 million to settle a federal racial-discrimination housing lawsuit, the largest award ever for a case of its kind." So why, asks California's Tenants Together, has the NBA said nothing about Sterling's less than sterling behavior? [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 5:28 PM PST - 27 comments

I was always taught that cats aren't possible to train; they do whatever they want. But everybody in Russia is used to it. It's just natural to see cats perform tricks. [more inside]
posted by Stewriffic at 4:33 PM PST - 62 comments

As a child, actor Patrick Stewart regularly saw his father hit his mother. Here he describes how the horrors of his childhood remained with him in his adult life.
posted by porn in the woods at 2:39 PM PST - 87 comments

Al Alberts, beloved Philadelphia broadcaster, singer and composer, has passed away. [more inside]
posted by sjuhawk31 at 1:13 PM PST - 15 comments

Please dismantling the Tea canister(?). You have only a screwdriver. Japanese skill is NO need to slove this puzzle. Good luck! (Previously)
posted by Taft at 1:11 PM PST - 58 comments

Montréal Mirabel Airport was opened in 1975 at the cost of $2 billion adjusted. Ultimately its tarmac and runway areas alone were to take up 70 km² (27 mi²) of space and would have made it the world's largest airport. The airport never got any busier than Boise Airport is today, and the passenger terminals are now abandoned shells (slideshow). A key factor in the failure was that for 22 years authorities banned all international flights from the much-closer, thriving Dorval Airport, heavily used by locals and business travellers. It didn't help that Montreal was already sliding into decline in the 1970s due to the growth of the Great Lakes and Toronto-based economies and uncertainties about Quebec's political climate. Montreal is no stranger to alleged boondoggles: Olympic Stadium, half-finished during the 1976 Summer Games, spiralled $1 billion over budget.
posted by crapmatic at 12:47 PM PST - 46 comments

The closing 4 pages are so cataclysmic and catastrophic as anything I've ever done — the harmony bites like nitric acid — the counterpoint grinds like the mills of God... [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 11:51 AM PST - 18 comments

Budd Boetticher, Randolph Scott, and the remarkable Ranown Cycle of Westerns. "Boetticher is one of the most fascinating unrecognized talents in the American cinema...Constructed partly as allegorical Odysseys and partly as floating poker games where every character took turns at bluffing about his hand until the final showdown, Boetticher's Westerns expressed a weary serenity and moral certitude that was contrary to the more neurotic approaches of other directors on this neglected level of the cinema." - Andrew Sarris. Hero to the French New wave and early subject of Cahiers du Cinema auteur theory, Boetticher's films are true treasures of American cinema. Martin Scorsese on Ride Lonesome and The Tall T: Clint Eastwood on Comanche Station: Taylor Hackford on Buchanan Rides Alone and Decision at Sundown. [more inside]
posted by vronsky at 11:28 AM PST - 14 comments

Hadji Muhiddin Piri Ibn Hadji Mehmed, ( 1465–1554/5) was an Ottoman-Turkish Admiral, Privateer, Geographer and Cartographer more commonly known as Piri Reis. In 1521 he finished his Kitab-I Bahriye or Book of Navigation This is an exquisite C17th - C18th revised and expanded version.
( scroll down and click the icons which can then be magnified. ) Marvel at the gold leaf and coloring of the map of the Bay of Salonica or the wonderful map of Rhodes. ( click addittional information button below map to get further information.)
However Piri Reis is more famously known for this map dated 1513 which is one of the oldest surviving maps to show the Americas. In the marginalia are the accounts of the pioneer seamen who have taken part in the discovery of the places shown on the map.
Piri Reis at The Map Room and wiki and related.
posted by adamvasco at 11:04 AM PST - 6 comments

The dark side of the internet. In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography. [more inside]
posted by jouke at 9:23 AM PST - 69 comments

'World's strongest' beer with 32% strength launched. [more inside]
posted by Neekee at 8:40 AM PST - 81 comments

Kitten Kong pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3 - The Goodies, Montreux 1972 Edition. Previously on Mefi: Goodie goodie yum yum! (via coisas do arco da velha - some images nsfw)
posted by madamjujujive at 7:55 AM PST - 13 comments

Just ease on into one of the most laid-back grooves to ever weave its way through a New Orleans junkyard, and join the procession as the estimable Dr. John is led through the rusting automobiles on a mule. After that, you'll be ready to enter the Inner Sanctum of Deep Mystic Hoodoo, with the good Doctor as your intoning, night tripping guide through the Zu Zu Mamou hallucinations. You won't be the same, afterwards...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:06 AM PST - 21 comments

"Real Meals": Will Self's (relatively) new fortnightly restaurant column reviewing high street food outlets for The New Statesman. Thus far: McDonald's, KFC, Indian Restaurant, Starbucks, Subway.
posted by hydatius at 6:54 AM PST - 72 comments

Last week on Bill Moyers Journal LBJ tapes were presented detailing Lyndon Johnson's decision to escalate American involvement in Vietnam. Moyers connected these tapes with the current U.S. administration's quest for a solution in the Afghan War. [more inside]
posted by IvoShandor at 3:57 AM PST - 88 comments

Dust Echoes is a series of twelve beautifully animated Aboriginal Australian dreamtime stories from Central Arnhem Land. The themes of these stories tell tales of love, loyalty, duty to country and aboriginal custom and law. Each story comes with descriptions on its history, what the story means and the text of the original story as told by local story tellers. Be sure to check out the downloads section for free desktop wallpapers and MP3 bonus tracks.
posted by Effigy2000 at 10:23 PM PST - 13 comments

A tribute to Kobe, the dog in FireDogLake.
posted by scalefree at 9:46 PM PST - 31 comments

Trials riding is a sport where someone takes a specialized motorcycle and make it do things that shouldn't be possible. [more inside]
posted by quin at 6:12 PM PST - 37 comments

Basic Sounds is a blog of art and technology blending. Lots of enhanced photos, art installations, modern sculpture, and A/V performance. Modern, abstract, hi-tech, and surreal. Lots of shiny pretty things to look at while you digest. Monthly archives go back to 2003. Nothing NSFW on the main link but I did come across a smattering of NSFW images in the archives.
posted by Babblesort at 4:50 PM PST - 6 comments

Australia's emissions trading scheme, the "Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme", is being debated in the Senate today. [more inside]
posted by wilful at 2:36 PM PST - 124 comments

Atrapa-sons, an amusing and educational television show from TV3 Catalonia in Spain, entertains you with musical numbers creatively composed using ordinary household objects, including rakes, potatoes, surgical gloves, forearm crutches, and brooms. Grab some pots and spoons and join in!
posted by jeanmari at 1:33 PM PST - 6 comments

American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert created some controversy at last Sunday's American Music Awards by simulating oral sex with one dancer and kissing another. Lambert's follow-up performance on ABC's Good Morning America was cancelled, but CBS welcomed him on The Early Show (where, refreshingly, he didn't apologize). CBS's treatment of his AMA performance, however, is creating some controversy of its own.
posted by brozek at 1:31 PM PST - 98 comments

This is what the cultural elite wants us to believe: if our writers don't make sense, or bore us to tears, that can only mean that we aren't worthy of them. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 10:33 AM PST - 140 comments

NPR fact-check of environmental protest group Plane Stupid's latest commercial featuring polar bears falling from the sky. [Warning: graphic.] This is not the only commercial that has people upset. Enter PeTA's "Grace" which several NBC affiliates predictably refused to air during Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:59 AM PST - 86 comments

Things stuffed inside other things: You've heard of turducken, but what if that isn't enough for you? The largest stuffed dish in terms of sheer bulk may be this recipe for stuffed camel, a dish so decadently large that Snopes had to verify its existence. But if the stuffed camel isn't enough layers for you, the most nested dish of all time may be the Roti Sans Pareil ("Roast without Equal"), a 19th century French dish requiring 17 birds that are now mostly endangered. Thanks to Google Books, we can now peruse some 19th century recipes of the dish (1, 2, 3) or, if you prefer, you can read the original French.
posted by jonp72 at 9:48 AM PST - 28 comments

Happy Thanksgiving, MetaFilter! If you have friends from different parts of the U.S., you might have wondered why they consider certain dishes to be an essential part of a Thanksgiving feast, when you've never even thought of them as remotely Thanksgiving-related. Now you can see what dishes were popular searches on allrecipes.com in various states thanks to a series of infographics in the New York Times.
posted by grouse at 8:53 AM PST - 70 comments

Les grands ballons de Macy's
posted by vronsky at 8:44 AM PST - 16 comments

Today is an important day in the history of Mininova. From now on, we are limiting Mininova.org to our Content Distribution service. In other words, kiss goodbye to the largest illegal content distribution site on the interwebs (until the next one, maybe).... [more inside]
posted by davehat at 8:20 AM PST - 84 comments

Transcending The same year Jackie Robinson started playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Wat Misaka became the first "person of color" to play in the NBA. Though he only played three games with the New York Knicks. [more inside]
posted by drezdn at 5:27 AM PST - 5 comments

Douglas Wolk's Ignite presentation of Kant's critique of aesthetic judgment. via Coilhouse
posted by cgc373 at 12:21 AM PST - 32 comments

Forty Thanksgivings ago Alcatraz Island was occupied by a number of Native American activists as a protest. The occupation lasted until June of 1971 The best place to learn about it is PBS's website for Alcatraz Is Not an Island, Jim Fortier's documentary about the Alcatraz Occupation. Besides an overview of the events it has video interviews with the people involved. [RealPlayer required] Here are photographs of the occupation, mostly from newspapers. For a flavor of how the local media covered the events, here's the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive's Occupation of Alcatraz Collection which has over 40 contemporary newsreports [MPEG4]
posted by Kattullus at 12:14 AM PST - 8 comments

"Meanwhile, down in Vaginaland, Mr Condom's beginning to feel a bit iffy. He's overheating. For some reason, the shagging seems to be twice as fast this evening, and he grimaces as he gets flung willy-nilly in and out of the pink tunnel. He starts getting friction burns, hanging onto Bobby's stiff penis for dear life, headbutting Georgie's cervix at 180 beats per minute. 'Help me!' he yells in the darkness, feeling himself melting."
This year's worst sex. [NSFW or post-turkey family reading] [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam at 11:40 PM PST - 44 comments

Black Friday is almost upon us and in less then a month it'll be Christmastime, and you're still wondering if you'll get your jetpack, hoverboard, or time machine? Well you're in luck, because you can get started with a new old DeLorean! It's the return of the DeLorean The DeLorean DMC-12 was the creation of John DeLorean:
John DeLorean never cared to fit the mold of a typical Detroit auto executive. He was a young, free-spirited maverick that revolutionized the auto industry as the major force behind America’s first muscle car– the Pontiac GTO.... As the young DeLorean’s star rose, he supposedly walked away from his $650,000 salary at GM and decided to go it on his own.

Although nowadays his car may be considered a modern marvel unfortunately his motor company was a huge failure. Delorean died in March of 2005 (prev) but not before he started plans for a new car. Also, you may need to ask some questions and keep up on all the news after you buy your 24k Gold DeLorean. [more inside]
posted by P.o.B. at 10:21 PM PST - 34 comments

The Life and Times of Major Jack Downing of Downingville, away down east in the state of Maine, written by himself. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston at 6:51 PM PST - 16 comments

Feast

Images of food—and the preparation of food—invariably have that effect on people. They unite viewers who might otherwise have nothing in common; they plug directly into the primal craving for transitory pleasure, the desire not just to admire and then consume inventively prepared food, but also to serve (and be served by) people who love us.

posted by device55 at 6:44 PM PST - 4 comments

A software engineer blogs about the inept and insecure way in which a bank asks customers to file a claim when they're the victim of fraudulent transactions. Dozens of customers chime in with similar experiences, over the course of months. The bank in question contributes nothing to the conversation, and the system remains both insecure and broken today [that last link is probably blocked by your browser or operating system, but don't worry - the form on the page doesn't work anyway].
posted by subpixel at 6:33 PM PST - 28 comments

Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free.
posted by ratita at 6:19 PM PST - 82 comments

"...$48 million of notes due in September, another $15 million in November, a whopping $100 million in December, plus $60 million in January 2009. All told, he would need almost $225 million to cover these redemptions. 'Obviously,' Dreier observes without a hint of irony, 'I had put myself in a ridiculous predicament.'" (Previously)
posted by shivohum at 4:19 PM PST - 45 comments

Centralia Pennsylvania : Since 1962 Centralia has stood on top of a coal mine fire, the origin of which was likely a trash fire started by firemen in an effort to clean up the local landfill. In 1962 over 1000 people lived there, in 2007 there where nine. Most residents accepted Pennsylvania's buyout and relocation offer initiated in 1985 and funded to the tune of $42 million dollars by the US Congress. Houses where bulldozed and today fields, cemeteries and new growth forrest are primarily what is left, a temporary bypass to Route 61 was made permanent when giant mounds of dirt where used to block either end from entering or leaving Centralia. It is estimated that these fires will burn for over 250 more years, although some speculate that it may spread and burn a lot longer eventually encompassing several more towns (such as Byrnesville, Pennsylvania already a casualty). Globally there are thousands of underground coal fires, some man made, some (Burning Mountain in Australia going for 5500 years) natural.
posted by edgeways at 2:52 PM PST - 27 comments

The Decline: The Geography of a Recession Flash animated map showing county unemployment rates from Jan 2007 until Sept 2009
posted by hippybear at 2:07 PM PST - 48 comments

California City is the 3rd largest city in California (geographically), home to California's largest open-pit boron mine, a privately-run Federal Prison, and only 8,835 residents. Originally planned as a "large master-planned leisure community" of up to 1 million people, such growth never materialized, and the remains of the undeveloped streets and cul-de-sacs presage images of the current housing crisis, and are a modern, uniquely American version of the Nazca Lines.
posted by joshwa at 1:44 PM PST - 40 comments

The Company of Myself is a poignant, puzzle-solving Flash platform-type game featuring some gameplay mechanics reminiscent of Braid. Each level furthers the game's tale of loneliness and alone-ness. [via JiG]
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:41 PM PST - 22 comments

Populist
Etymology: Latin populus the people
Date: 1892
1 : a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people; especially often capitalized : a member of a United States political party formed in 1891 primarily to represent agrarian interests and to advocate the free coinage of silver and government control of monopolies
2 : a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people (Previously on Metafilter) [more inside]
posted by lysdexic at 1:36 PM PST - 30 comments

More video dating awkwardness courtesy of the Found Footage Festival. What do you do when you finally meet the goddess? Seduce her with hypnosis, of course. Previously...
posted by hermitosis at 1:23 PM PST - 22 comments

Cloe. I am begging you honey. None of that Jello crap. No one eats it and the garbage stinks for a week after I throw it out. Margaret and Helen (mostly Helen) have a blog, thanks to Helen's grandson, and have a lot to say to America, about remembering an America where black men didn't grow up to be president, abortion, and the sorry state of the American media, among other topics.
posted by emjaybee at 10:56 AM PST - 140 comments

Many is a collective project exhibiting fine photography found by fine photographers.
posted by chunking express at 10:27 AM PST - 7 comments

Phil Agre, online pioneer that ran the Red Rock Eater News service (predating most blogs) has been missing for about a year. Former colleagues believe it could be a mental breakdown or a walkabout and they've begun a controlled search using social networks with a goal of simply finding out if he's ok.
posted by mathowie at 8:10 AM PST - 23 comments

Mike Krahulik (Gabe) and Jerry Holkins (Tycho) of Penny Arcade now have their own reality TV show. The first episode of PATV explores the unlikely rise of their video game media empire and covers the recent Penny Arcade Expo and the birth of Jerry's daughter. [more inside]
posted by Vectorcon Systems at 6:41 AM PST - 41 comments

Looking for more comments with 20+ favourites? Try some of these. [more inside]
posted by turgid dahlia at 1:21 AM PST - 31 comments

Fotomat 's tiny drive-up huts with the yellow roof were an icon of the 1970s suburban experience, with 4000 of them throughout the U.S. You drove up, gave your film to the girl inside, and got prints a couple of days later. But stores began closing en masse in the 1980s with the boom of in-store "prints in an hour". Most Fotomats have been torn down or are crumbling away (cool slideshow), a few being used for coffee or cigarettes. Former alumni are out there and share some memories stories on Facebook. Fotomat unbelievably is around and has a website but this September they threw in the towel on their Snapfish-like business model.
posted by crapmatic at 12:53 AM PST - 35 comments

Wikileaks to release over half a million pager intercepts from 9/11. "Messages in the archive range from Pentagon and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults to their operators as the World Trade Center collapsed." They're going to start posting them at 3am this morning.
posted by empath at 10:36 PM PST - 181 comments

Thanksgiving. you know what that means. But this year, Arlo's got some competition from The Band. Scorsese's film 'The Last Waltz' chronicled their final show at the Winterland (1976-11-25). We've discussed the movie, and the album before, but that wasn't the half of it! The whole show was more than 4 hours, and thanks once again to wonderful guys at Wolfgang's Vault we can now listen to the whole damn show!
posted by mikelieman at 8:36 PM PST - 28 comments

Amanda Marcotte on why atheism needs feminism. [more inside]
posted by Mngo at 5:20 PM PST - 149 comments

Although it's commonplace nowadays to assume that J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was the primary source of inspiration for Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax when they created the world's first tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, a careful examination of the game suggests otherwise... James Maliszewski on The Books That Founded D&D. Some disagreement.
posted by Artw at 4:13 PM PST - 108 comments

The Virtue of a Manager
posted by blasdelf at 3:28 PM PST - 31 comments

Modern construction materials. (via)
posted by klausness at 2:59 PM PST - 15 comments

"This week we will be confronting a fact that, by definition, haunts the average online dater: no matter how much time you spend polishing your profile, honing your IM banter, and perfecting your message introductions, it’s your picture that matters most." (Previously 1 2 3)
posted by gman at 2:24 PM PST - 122 comments

La Gioconda, Tristan und Isolde, The Pearl Fishers, Il Trovatore, and Rigoletto — enacted with 16-inch rod puppets. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 2:04 PM PST - 5 comments

“Some squirrel nibbled the continent of South America on one of my pumpkins. It’s freaking me out.” A collection of accidental geographies. The phenomenon is known as "cartocacoethes," and may explain why some old maps are not maps at all. via StrangeMaps [more inside]
posted by cubby at 1:25 PM PST - 29 comments

Cancer survivor, teacher, single father, and part-time U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead September 12, hanging from a tree with the word "FED" written on his chest. It was actually a suicide. (Previously)
posted by Slap Factory at 12:27 PM PST - 125 comments

In 20 years, according to one estimate, wild lions could be extinct in Kenya. [more inside]
posted by allkindsoftime at 10:11 AM PST - 38 comments

It may be the worst police sketch ever: "The head is shaped like a rugby ball, the lips slide to one side, the nose is phallic, the ears are missing and the hair is having a very bad day." But it led to two arrests, and one television station, in order to protect the identities of the arrested, seemed to think it was a good idea to superimpose the illustration on top of the faces of the suspects.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:37 AM PST - 45 comments

"I began bringing a camera along to work, photographing my surroundings. And as this project progressed and I slowly learned my craft, I became increasingly fascinated with other photographers who had been in a similar situation, those who had found themselves recording their own jobs: The Insiders [A tiny bit NSFW] ."
posted by chunking express at 9:08 AM PST - 22 comments

Rob Cockerham is no stranger to giant Halloween costume projects (and no stranger to MeFi). Every year he famously chronicles his costume builds (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) including everything from idea to final design. This year we not only get to see how his "Money you save with Geico" costume went together, he also published shots from other bay area halloween costume builders (now that's a sub-genre) including the awesome Tauntaun that beat him and the Transformers Bumblebee costume that took ten months to create and went all the way to win in Las Vegas costume contests.
posted by mathowie at 9:04 AM PST - 34 comments

The Muppets Cover Queen An all-new, original Muppet video. (SLYT)
posted by Optamystic at 8:50 AM PST - 131 comments

Chad Richard creates ground-breaking time-lapse photography with HDR techniques. For example, his recent compilation video Time-Lapse Favs. His weblog, Time Traveler, includes tutorials and samples. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 8:02 AM PST - 31 comments

Pollen, pollen everywhere. The article isn't bad, but it's the photo gallery that is truly fascinating.
posted by eleyna at 7:41 AM PST - 18 comments

A strange, cryptic compact disc was found while hiking in Joshua Tree National Park. [more inside]
posted by gcbv at 7:25 AM PST - 83 comments

Prelude On The Esplanade| Introductory Fanfare For The Hooper Heroes| Movement I: In The Countenance Of Kings| Movement II: Sleeping Invader| Interlude I—Dream Sequence in Subi Circumnavigation| Movement III: Linear Tableau with Intersecting Surprise| Movement IV: Traffic Shock| Movement V: Self-Organizing Emergent Patterns| Interlude II: Subi Power Waltz| Interlude III: Invisible Accidents| Movement VI: Isorhythmic Night Dance with Interchanges| Movement VII (Finale): The Emperor of Centrifuge| Postlude: Critical Mass | The Sleeping Red Wolves
posted by chuckdarwin at 2:49 AM PST - 29 comments

Scotland's National Collection of Aerial Photography includes a plethora of pictures of Scotland, notably Edinburgh and Glasgow, seen from above, many dating back to WWII. But there are also photographs of wartime European cities and images of elsewhere from the Aerial Reconnaissance Archives.
posted by Lezzles at 12:17 AM PST - 4 comments

Remember AOL Time Warner, the poster child of dotcom corporate hubris? It's still around, if only for a few more days. On December 9, the current media megacorp will fraction off former computer network behemoth AOL as a web portal firm and online brand. And what will that brand be? It will be a stock photo superimposed with a white Helvetica "Aol." And, well, that's it. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 6:56 PM PST - 144 comments

Jaap Blonk, Namesake of the blonkorgan, performer, sound poet. AaaaaAAAøøøøøøøøøAEEEeeeiiiIIIIIiiiüüüüüüüüüüieeeeooooOUUUUUooooooo. [more inside]
posted by idiopath at 5:00 PM PST - 26 comments

"We were concerned that the study would raise a lot of controversy and be misused," Pardo said. "We were right." Some practitioners treat autistic children with the anti-inflammatory intravenous immunoglobulin, citing a study by Carlos Pardo, et al. showing inflammation in the brains of deceased autistic patients. Pardo: "modulators of immune reactions (e.g. intravenous immunoglobulins, IVIG) WOULD NOT HAVE a significant effect." Others, following the work of Simon Baron-Cohen on autism and the male brain, treat autistic children with testosterone inhibitors, a prospect which Baron-Cohen says "fills me with horror." Another anti-inflammatory treatment, hyperbaric therapy, is supported by one recent clinical trial, but looks bad in another. Side effects include horrible death by fire. (via the Chicago Tribune)
posted by escabeche at 2:42 PM PST - 49 comments

The 27 Best (Non-Super Bowl) Commercials of the 2000s: Balls [Bravia] - Birthday [Got Milk?] - Bubble Boy [Volkswagen] - Bus Station [Starburst] - Carousel [Phillips] - Cog [Honda] - Dangerously Low [Levi's] - Diorama [Halo 3] - Evolution [Dove] - Freestyle [Nike] - Gorilla [Cadbury] - Grrr [Honda] - Hello Tomorrow [Adidas] - Lamp [IKEA] - Like [Volkswagen] - Mountain [Playstation] - Noitulove [Guinness] - Odyssey [Levi's] - Rabbit [Comcast] - Sheet Metal [Saturn] - Stork [Monster] - Swear Jar [Bud Light] - Tag [Nike] - Tea Partay [Smirnoff] - Touch [Skittles] - Wedding Toast [Budweiser] - Yes We Can [Dipdive]. Part of Adweek's "Best of the 2000s" competition, which also includes rundowns of the 22 Best Super Bowl Spots and the 15 Best Print Campaigns of the last decade, among many other voting categories.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:38 PM PST - 71 comments

The newly launched Atari.com includes the Atari Arcade, wherein you may play Adventure, Asteroids, Battlezone, Crystal Castles, Lunar Lander and Yars' Revenge in your browser.
posted by jbickers at 2:30 PM PST - 37 comments

What do you do if you're a fan of the Back to the Future films and you know how to make mods in the PC game Crysis? Why, you make an awesome Back to the Future mod, of course!
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:19 PM PST - 34 comments

It's been 35 years this month since the Arecibo message was sent from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, when the 1,679 digit message was sent once, towards Messier 13. More messages have been sent sky-wards since, in attempts for communication with extra terrestrial intelligence (CETI), with the (ill-fated) Team Encounter was instrumental in Cosmic Call 1999 and 2003 (more details: 58 page PDF). The more complex three-section Teen-Age Message was sent out in 2001, including a musical piece entitled 1st Theremin Concert for Aliens. In 2008 NASA sent the Beatles into space, transmitting "Across the Universe" for the 40th anniversary of the song's recording, the 45th anniversary of the Deep Space Network (DSN), and the 50th anniversary of NASA (prev). If you felt left out of the sending of signals, Talk To Aliens offered a "deep space e-mail service" and a certificate of interstellar broadcast (prev), but no more. Now Sent Forever offers a long-lasting alternative to traditional greeting cards, or simply the worst tie-in for Apollo 11. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:54 PM PST - 14 comments

A treasure trove of gay and lesbian documentaries to watch online. Our course begins with a brief overview. (9m05s) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:42 PM PST - 38 comments

A noted food contamination trial lawyer lobbies for legislation to enhance food safety with, among other things, a T-shirt encouraging Congress to put him out of business. William Marler, who has successfully litigated a number of food contamination cases involving children sickened by E. coli, salmonella and botulism, is supporting the passage of Senate legislation which would tighten food safety inspection procedures. Similar legislation passed the House earlier this year. Not everyone likes it -- and among the groups concerned are some local organic farmers and consumers.
posted by bearwife at 1:24 PM PST - 8 comments

ULTIMATE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL ON WHEELS | THE 1970’s VAN CUSTOMIZATION CRAZE
posted by dersins at 1:11 PM PST - 42 comments

Matthew Roberts, a 41-year-old DJ who lives in Los Angeles, said the shock of discovering his father sent him into depression.
posted by Balisong at 1:08 PM PST - 60 comments

36 Arguments for the Existence of God
posted by vronsky at 12:33 PM PST - 155 comments

Dr. E.L. Skip Knox teaches history at Boise State University. His online courses have dedicated websites with his lectures and plenty of supporting material. There are five, History of Western Civilization, covering the wide sweep of European history from ancient Athens to Copernicus, The Crusades, Europe in the Late Middle Ages, focusing on the the Renaissance, and Europe in the Age of Reformation. You can also go on a Virtual Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in medieval times. Dr. Knox has written extensively about online teaching including a lecture called The Rewards of Teaching On-Line where he explains his methods and shares his experiences.
posted by Kattullus at 12:20 PM PST - 7 comments

Just in time for your Black Friday wish list needs, MeFi's own mightygodking has written a guide on how to start reading comics. Perfect for total comics newbies or people* who have really only ever read webcomics and seen superhero movies, the guide is a list of twenty volumes of comics that would be good for introducing people to the medium, and why they are his choices. [more inside]
posted by Caduceus at 12:18 PM PST - 118 comments

Telling the Bees is a blog devoted to (obsessed with?) bees. Bee lore. Bees in 15th century art. Dogs who look like bees. Bee cakes. Bees and indie rock. Bees and comedy. Bees and Sylvia Plath. Bees and bees and bees. [more inside]
posted by naju at 11:50 AM PST - 24 comments

Joe Sacco is a political journalist. His medium is the comic. He gave a talk last march at the Walker Art Centre where he also answers questions. Talk starts 07.50 after introductions. (wiki previous 1, II ) [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 11:36 AM PST - 13 comments

Gimme that Christian Side Hug. That Christian Side Hug.
posted by billysumday at 11:36 AM PST - 241 comments

Ladies and gentlemen, It is my pleasure to present to you the Hyperedited Ronald McDonald Japanese Symphony Orchestra. (QLYT).
1. The Sabre Dance
2. Turkish March
3. The Marriage of Figaro
4. Beethoven's 5th Symphony
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 11:15 AM PST - 28 comments

FACE AHOY
posted by stresstwig at 8:59 AM PST - 42 comments

This has not been a good year for SCI, the worlds largest funeral services corporation. Now allegations have surfaced that groundskeepers for Eden Memorial Park were secretly instructed to desecrate graves (possibly in excess of 500 individual bodies) in order to make room. [more inside]
posted by es_de_bah at 8:35 AM PST - 74 comments

Dave Lamoureux’s kayak, named Fortitude, must be the only one in Massachusetts registered as a motor vessel. That’s because a powerboat registration is required to get a permit to fish for tuna here.... His most recent catch, on Nov. 5, was a 157-pound bluefin, a record tuna for an unassisted kayak fisherman, and a near record over all, topped only by a 183-pound halibut caught by Howard McKim, an Alaskan, in 2004.
posted by caddis at 8:11 AM PST - 46 comments

Turn a silver coin into a ring with a hammer, an anvil (or something similar), and a drill.
posted by quin at 7:52 AM PST - 39 comments

118 Days, 12 Hours, 54 Minutes — On June 21, reporter Maziar Bahari was rousted out of bed and taken to Tehran's notorious Evin prison—accused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6, Mossad…and Newsweek magazine. This is the story of his captivity. CBS 60 Minutes feature. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 7:43 AM PST - 22 comments

The 50 most interesting articles on Wikipedia. | 50 more of Wikipedia's most interesting articles.
posted by aldurtregi at 7:11 AM PST - 56 comments

"I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me – it was my second birth. Rom Houbens was simply paralysed and had no way to let doctors caring for him what he was suffering. Only the re-evaluation of his case at the University of Liege brought to light that Houben was only paralysed all these years. Hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.
posted by njbradburn at 4:33 AM PST - 94 comments

Jesus ate primarily natural foods in their natural states - lots of vegetables, especially beans and lentils. He would have eaten wheat bread, fruit, drunk a lot of water and also red wine. And he would only eat meat on special occasions, maybe once a month. The Jesus Diet [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:50 AM PST - 69 comments

This past week: in D.R. Congo, an MD-80 strikes a lava field at the end of a runway; earlier over Iran, a medical emergency diversion frightens a passenger; the day prior, an LA-Sydney flight diverts to Honolulu to drop off a new mother and her child born en route. Also medical emergencies, unruly passengers, and unruly medical emergencies. It's avherald.com, your daily source for pretty much every incident occurring on an airliner.
posted by tss at 11:15 PM PST - 33 comments

Contemporary Dance Video Database
posted by Joe Beese at 9:10 PM PST - 8 comments

Whole Tree Architecture - if you'd like a house built by pioneering architect Roald Gundersen, your first step might be to hike in your nearby woods to choose some young, wind-bent, and diseased "Charlie Brown" trees. Small diameter round trees have 150% the strength of milled lumber and twice the strength of steel in tension. Besides structural and environmental advantages, whole trees make for some beautiful and naturally sculptured environments. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 7:56 PM PST - 32 comments

Thanksgiving is a difficult time for some people to celebrate. The holiday that Lincoln gave us has been saddled with a wonderful mythology. The real story is a bit more problematic, and involves a vicious, genocidal war. Is it possible to reclaim the beauty of this holiday, or is it too tainted by its history? [more inside]
posted by cubby at 5:14 PM PST - 131 comments

The surprising motion of ski moguls: ski moguls migrate uphill, even though skiers and snow move downhill. Time lapse video (YouTube) [more inside]
posted by furtive at 4:43 PM PST - 33 comments

"Go up to him and start a conversation. Anything except feminism--which is like toxic waste to Good Men--is fair game." Spoiler: It's all about The Golden Rule.
posted by fantine at 3:20 PM PST - 129 comments

Calcio Fiorentino was an early form of football (YT) that originated in 16th century Italy (YT). The modern version (Foto Gallery) allows tactics such as head-butting, punching, elbowing, and choking, but forbids sucker-punching and kicks to the head.
posted by gman at 3:11 PM PST - 23 comments

The Quarter Shrinker as constructed by Rob Flickenger at Hackerbot Labs in conjunction with Intellectual Ventures Lab. flickr photo set of shrunken coins. The physics behind coin shrinking. Coin World May 2009 article (PDF). Another Shrunken Head Guy.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:44 PM PST - 22 comments

An automobile dealership in Wheat Ridge, Colorado made the decision last Friday to post a billboard which asks if President Obama is a terrorist and if he's really an American citizen by birth. Part of the sign also references the recent tragedy at Fort Hood. The brainchild of Phil Wolf, owner of Wolf Interstate Leasing and Sales, the sign depicts a Bamboozled-esque rendition of the PUSA, with and without a turban. Protestors have gathered to display their dislike of the billboard, which even the shop's proprieter admits "may be a little scattered. It says several things. It brings us several questions and I think they got to be answered (sic)."
posted by porn in the woods at 11:39 AM PST - 131 comments

Frank van der Salm Photography: Zone ll Cluster ll Control ll Sector ll Gate ll Descent
posted by vronsky at 10:32 AM PST - 16 comments

The American Imperialists have sent potato beetle by clouds and air to our Republic. He May Be a Communist.
posted by Gratishades at 10:18 AM PST - 23 comments

Crafting can be great. But beware: crafting can also go spectacularly wrong. Fortunately for the benefit of those of us who might become so proud of having made something, anything, all by ourselves, that we are oblivious that the result is an aesthetic travesty, there are websites making a valiant attempt to document the legion of ways in which crafting can get totally out of hand. Before you pick up those needles or scissors or fire up the kiln or soldering iron, check out: Glitter Gone Bad; Handmade Gone Wrong; What Not To Craft, Homemade Hilarity; and Kraftomatic. The sturdy souls at CraftFail (previously) deserve special credit for documenting their own crafting mishaps, and Regretsy (also previously) and Etsy WTF will help you choose wisely from among Etsy’s hand-crafted wares. [more inside]
posted by orange swan at 10:13 AM PST - 65 comments

Make your own solar cell out of powdered donuts, Everclear, Tazo Passion tea, and other common ingredients. (slyt) [more inside]
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:04 AM PST - 18 comments

The Senate votes to bring health care bill (text in an amendment) to floor, 60-39. Major concessions extracted by holdout senators. Other analysis here and here. Differences between this and the House bill.
posted by shivohum at 7:36 AM PST - 73 comments

Doug Rushkoff throws down the gauntlet in his “Radical Abundance” speech at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference. Some highlights of the speech: “The only real possible competition to Google and their economy of faux openness would be peer-to-peer exchange.” “As a result of all this freedom the abundance of genuine creative output is declining. We are actually getting the scarce market place demanded by our currency legacy system. The same way the early Renaissance got a scarcity by killing off half the people with the plague.” Some Alternatives: 1: The development of a digital culture that actually respects the labor of individuals. 2: The creation of new modes of currency based in abundance rather than scarcity.
posted by joetrip at 4:17 AM PST - 113 comments

Jan Fabre put 1.6 million irridescent beetles on the ceiling [via]
posted by mhjb at 2:07 AM PST - 37 comments

5bis rue du Verneuil is the home of Serge Gainsbourg in Paris. This short film peels off the layers of graffiti left on the wall there.
posted by creeky at 12:56 AM PST - 12 comments

You think you have a problem with baldness? Check out the bears in the Leipzig Zoo.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:16 AM PST - 26 comments

The development blog for the original Prince of Persia from Jordan Mechner.
posted by loquacious at 12:13 AM PST - 30 comments

"Seed" - an anthology of short fiction published on a USB flash drive shaped like a penis. Sample story. More on the concept without pictures of plastic penises. (Safe for workness may vary)
posted by Artw at 10:33 PM PST - 29 comments

Soros lectures
You can slog through the video, but I preferred the transcripts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:42 PM PST - 13 comments

Point:

At the end of October, National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, members of the men’s movement group RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting [2]) gathered on the steps of Congress to lobby against what they say are the suppressed truths about domestic violence: that false allegations are rampant, that a feminist-run court system fraudulently separates innocent fathers from children, that battered women’s shelters are running a racket that funnels federal dollars to feminists, that domestic-violence laws give cover to cagey mail-order brides seeking Green Cards, and finally, that men are victims of an unrecognized epidemic of violence at the hands of abusive wives."

[more inside]
posted by andoatnp at 7:28 PM PST - 123 comments

sc140: 22 minimal electronica tracks composed in Super Collider using 140 characters or less. Twitter user, computer scientist, and compilation curator Dan Stowell started the trend by tweeting his encoded field recordings of waves crashing on the beach. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 7:26 PM PST - 22 comments

Bus SLYT There isn't really much else to say... a game, a city bus simulator game. Peaceful and scary...
posted by HuronBob at 7:07 PM PST - 43 comments

Stunning pictures by Michael Yon show what happens when helicopters land in dust storms: The Kopp-Etchells Effect is thought to be the result of static electricity created by friction as materials of dissimilar material strike against each other, in this case titanium/nickel blades moving through the air and dust, but a precise definition is as of now not known. [more inside]
posted by krautland at 1:42 PM PST - 32 comments

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen For one week only on Pitchfork TV, "this 45-minute film from 1965 offers a candid glimpse of Cohen's pre-singer-songwriter days." Previously: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and let us never forget 7.
posted by FelliniBlank at 12:11 PM PST - 28 comments

The Ashley Madison agency: Adultery business now open for gays! [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:39 AM PST - 68 comments

The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English is a searchable collection of almost 2 million words of transcribed spoken English from the University of Michigan, including student study groups, office hours, dissertation defenses, and campus tours. Researchers use the Michigan corpus to investigate questions about usage, like "less or fewer?" (cf. this contentious Ask Meta thread) and more general topics, like "Vague Language in Academia." Browse or search MICASE yourself.
posted by escabeche at 10:14 AM PST - 20 comments

...the Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that has voided the warranty and they refuse to work on the machine, due to "health risks of second hand smoke".
posted by atomicmedia at 6:12 AM PST - 208 comments

Feminist critiques of the Twilight series aren't hard to find. Laura Miller's at Salon and and Christine Seifert's at Bitch Magazine are among the best. But as biting criticism of the Twilight's patriarchal gender roles, they fall well short of Buffy vs. Edward: Twilight Remixed. [more inside]
posted by brozek at 5:24 AM PST - 75 comments

New technology might let you implant LED tattoos which would turn your skin into a screen.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:17 AM PST - 41 comments

Self-healing bio-concrete.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:25 PM PST - 29 comments

Chris Foss concept art for Dune, with bonus Nostromo. The images were produced for Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1974 attempt at filming the story, with other artists involved including Moebius and HR Giger. Though the project failed Jodorowsky collaborated further with Moebius to lay the groundwork for his own Dune-like comicbook universe (and a trailer for an animated version of it was even created). More visions of Arrakis can be seen on this page of Dune cover artwork through the ages, with bonus midi Toto.
posted by Artw at 10:03 PM PST - 97 comments

Lexington’s Mayor, Jim Newberry, bristled at critical questions about The Dame block, “Nothing of consequence ever happened on that block.” Richie Wireman begs to differ. [more inside]
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:51 PM PST - 8 comments

You got typography in my cooking.
posted by idiopath at 7:48 PM PST - 19 comments

25 students at Lincoln University may not graduate, because they failed -- to lose weight. The students are members of "the first graduating class required to either have a BMI below 30 or to take 'Fitness for Life,' a one semester class that mixes exercise, nutritional instruction and discussion of the risks of obesity" in order to graduate from Lincoln. [more inside]
posted by Ouisch at 7:37 PM PST - 104 comments

Internet Vices: various Web 2.0 sites and services, recast as drugs and alcohol. [more inside]
posted by ShawnStruck at 6:57 PM PST - 27 comments

DIY Forges: not forgery, but making your own smithy. There are plenty of variations available, but there's something special when a teenage boy builds his own forge and teaches himself black smithing.
posted by plinth at 6:15 PM PST - 30 comments

A women's prayer group was expelled from the area of Jerusalem's Western Wall on Wednesday for wearing tallitot and reading from the Torah, in violation of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that restricts these activities to men in the area directly in front of the wall. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the majority of non-Orthodox rabbinical students are female, with the Reform movement being the most female-dominated, leaving some communities struggling to revitalize men's participation in the religion.
posted by albrecht at 4:59 PM PST - 48 comments

Luxirare is about killer clothes and fine cuisine. Recent features include: Thanksgiving Part I, creating a thanksgiving meal that is less about an abundance of leftovers and instead maximizing the visual appeal of “thanksgiving” symbols like the pumpkin, as a dessert; and Pie Pops, for those who want to eat pie, but don’t want a whole slice—who want to try multiple flavors, but for just a bite or two, then move onto another.
posted by netbros at 4:47 PM PST - 23 comments

From Matthias Wandel, the inventor of the wooden marble calculator and the non-wooden eyeballing game, now comes the wooden Jenga pistol and its successor, as well as the wooden geodesic cat storage device and wooden wasp sucker.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:42 PM PST - 18 comments

In case you haven't, please meet Ricky Williams. He has had one of the most fascinating careers of any professional athlete: he was a high school phenom in Football, Baseball, Track, and Wrestling. He played FOUR YEARS of minor league baseball with the Philadelphia Phillies organization. He was a two time all American at Texas and winner of the Heisman Trophy. He translated that success into a great early start in the NFL. He also grew up in an abusive home. He has tested extremely high in both IQ and diagnostic tests. He is incredibly shy and has been diagnosed social anxiety disorder. Hating the effects of medications, he opted for Marijuana claiming that it had a much better effect. [more inside]
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 4:17 PM PST - 36 comments

"I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will explain how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was neither of these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I will show how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has improved my students' performance significantly." Physics professor Eric Mazur explains the development and use of the "ConcepTest". [more inside]
posted by inkyroom at 4:15 PM PST - 17 comments

The University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit suffered a security breach this week. Hackers made off with thousands of email correspondences between some of the world's top climate scientists, and posted them to the Internet¹.

Tony Hake has posted an article at The Examiner, highlighting what he feels are the most egregious examples of scientists manipulating and hiding data to support the established theories about Climate Change. Some of the scientists involved counter that the quotes are taken out of context, and that "People are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way".

¹ I'm not going to link to them, but the Examiner article mentions where to get them.
posted by Who_Am_I at 4:14 PM PST - 146 comments

Photographer Matt Logue's empty L. A. shows the effect of the city being completely people-less.
posted by gman at 3:38 PM PST - 39 comments

CERN has successfully circulated beams in the Large Hadron Collider. This news was announced via Twitter, where they will be accepting questions for an upcoming press conference; in the meantime, check out explanatory videos on their YouTube channel, some lively podcasts, or an overview of particle physics on their website. The home of the Web has done a pretty good job keeping up with technology. (previously)
posted by shii at 2:59 PM PST - 68 comments

What should we do instead of the Obama health reform bill?
posted by reenum at 2:06 PM PST - 98 comments

Merriam-Webster's Ask the Editors blog is the centerpiece of the Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary site. It is an excellent source of sensible advice about English language and usage. Editor-at-large Peter Sokolowski also has a Twitter feed where he highlights various interesting things about words. Finally, Merriam-Webster has started producing Ask the Editor videos, four so far, where they've tackled the subjects of i before e, classical roots, affect vs. effect and how news stories affect what words people look up online, in this case focusing on the effect of the coverage of Michael Jackson's death. Incidentally, Merriam-Webster have released their top ten words of 2009 list, which is based on what words people looked up.
posted by Kattullus at 12:07 PM PST - 15 comments

In a soft voice, chuckling frequently and gazing intently with gray-green eyes, Mr. McCarthy talked about books vs. films, the apocalypse, fathers and sons, past and future projects, how he writes—and God. [more inside]
posted by jason's_planet at 11:35 AM PST - 47 comments

The Awl wants you to stop being a wuss and bake a pie crust. See also How To Barbecue A Turkey–The Super Easy Way For Morons and Fundamentalist Macaroni and Cheese. Or you can just cook a fucking steak.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 11:34 AM PST - 63 comments

50 Practical tips to save you half a lifetime. Such as the indispensible: "If you think you might be about to be sick, you are about to be sick: run to the loo."
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:53 AM PST - 141 comments

Shifting Blame Is Socially Contagious. Merely observing someone publicly blame an individual in an organization for a problem -- even when the target is innocent -- greatly increases the odds that the practice of blaming others will spread with the tenacity of the H1N1 flu, according to new research. "When we see others protecting their egos, we become defensive too," says Fast, the study's lead author. "We then try to protect our own self-image by blaming others for our mistakes, which may feel good in the moment." He adds that in the long run, such behavior could hurt one's reputation and be destructive to an organization and further to our society as a whole. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 10:50 AM PST - 29 comments

Google is rolling out free PowerMeter software that works with the TED 5000 smart meter to transmit near real time utility usage to Google servers. This data can then be securely displayed on your Android or iPhone. With stimulus money earmarked for smart meters they will eventually become ubiquitous as standards evolve from the current patchwork. [more inside]
posted by cedar at 10:19 AM PST - 28 comments

Dell Hymes, a giant of sociolinguistic theory, has died. "He didn't have much patience for wasting your time in academic endeavors that wouldn't have a direct relevance for the world and for righting some of the inequalities in the world," [Dr. Nancy] Hornberger said. Or as Dr. Hymes himself put it, describing his approach to anthropology: "I am always interested in combating elitism and narrowness. . . . The justification for the existence of anthropology is to find out about the world, not produce third-rate philosophers." [more inside]
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:49 AM PST - 13 comments

How would the Earth look if it had a ring system like Saturn?
posted by DU at 8:44 AM PST - 123 comments

With our modern fascination with "health" and "not dying of cancer" we've forgotten how cigarettes can "renew your flow of vim." Hey, would Lou Gehrig or "America's Aquatic Stars" steer you wrong? This Thanksgiving why not try smoking continously throughout the meal to help your digestion "run smoothly." For Digestion's Sake!
posted by BullaFoloney at 8:35 AM PST - 49 comments

Pootwattle the Virtual Academic(TM) says: The conceptual logic of millennial hedonism is often found in juxtaposition with, if not in direct opposition to, the sublimation of difference. [more inside]
posted by caddis at 8:27 AM PST - 12 comments

Ask Recipe Labs is a cooking-related question and answer site, based off of the Stack Overflow structure (prev). Ask Recipe Lab is the newest part of collection of recipe-based sites, which includes Recipe Puppy (an ingredient based recipe search engine, prev. from MeFi Projects), Cook Thing (how to cook anything, by picking a dish and the ingredients you wish to use), and Recipe Labs (social recipe repository, allowing quick tweaks to existing recipes). [via mefi projects]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:17 AM PST - 4 comments

Crafty driver tries to curb road rage. The result: the "Sorry" and "Thanks" blinkers.
posted by Taft at 6:54 AM PST - 103 comments

Mass: We Pray is an exciting new project from Boston based game developer Prayer Works Interactive. Watch the trailer for examples of the 24 different services you and your family can participate in. Don't listen to the sites that claim this is a hoax. Preordering begins today!
posted by scrutiny at 4:44 AM PST - 45 comments

Lawmakers attempt to target elective cosmetic surgery to pay for health reform in the United States. Simply an inviting target? The idea isn't that new, it was shelved once before. Now it's back. There is opposition as botox sales have already been dropping off.
posted by IvoShandor at 3:57 AM PST - 29 comments

"For a while now I've been dispatching for a legal messenger service in San Francisco. The following is recordings of a******s calling me at work." [more inside]
posted by vapidave at 2:37 AM PST - 119 comments

Europe finally has a president. And a foreign policy chief. [more inside]
posted by creeky at 12:34 AM PST - 91 comments

CoCoRaHS - "Volunteers working together to measure precipitation across the nation." Sponsored by NWS, NOAA, and more... Volunteers Wanted (pdf)
posted by MrBCID at 8:47 PM PST - 8 comments

Patrick Chovanec, associate professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, has written an interesting map of "The Nine Nations of China". It's a little bit "Libya is a land of contrasts", but nonetheless an interesting primer.
posted by smoke at 8:35 PM PST - 20 comments

We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die — Umberto Eco "like[s] lists for the same reason other people like football or pedophilia"
posted by blasdelf at 7:03 PM PST - 96 comments

The Apex Book of World SF gathers stories from around the globe, giving Science Fiction a global aspect not always seen. Charles Tan interviews the writers who contributed.
posted by Artw at 6:22 PM PST - 13 comments

Yeah, that guy back there on the left behind Buddy & Stacey is Jimi Hendrix. It's the earliest known footage of him performing. This other video of the same performance gets something terribly wrong. Embarrassingly wrong. Now get yourself over to TubeRadio.fm and add it to your playlist. (via Ed Cone. And no, I don't work for last.fm or TubeRadio, though I think the latter is pretty cool).
posted by malaprohibita at 6:08 PM PST - 35 comments

Expert Labs
[mefi's own] Anil Dash's new government 2.0 incubator project (via waxy) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 4:56 PM PST - 38 comments

Route from the 1969 Movie Easy Rider. Last April MrZip66 rode his motorcycle along the route Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper rode in Easy Rider. His blog entry has a map of the route and then-and-now photos. This week Slate's doing the same thing, except in a PT Cruiser (and flying over part of the route).
posted by kirkaracha at 4:48 PM PST - 32 comments

Gil Brewer is Back. [more inside]
posted by dortmunder at 4:25 PM PST - 5 comments

On The Path of the Elders is a site tells the story of Treaty Nine, or James Bay Agreement, through an online role playing game.
posted by Jughead at 3:57 PM PST - 5 comments

Jeanne-Claude, Christo's partner, is dead at 74. Christo will of course continue their work. [more inside]
posted by kozad at 3:17 PM PST - 55 comments

When Jonathan Coulton scheduled his October 10th show at Chicago's Park West, he didn't know that fellow nerd-rockers They Might Be Giants were playing on the same day, at the same time, in the nearby Vic Theater. Not only that, the Giants were performing their hit 1990 album Flood in its entirety. In a tongue-in-cheek effort to make sure somebody showed up for his performace, Coulton, along with Paul and Storm, decided to perform their own take on Flood. Hightlights included absolutely no accordion ("that's a selling point"). In nine parts on YouTube. Audio recorded directly from the venue's soundboard.
posted by indyz at 3:03 PM PST - 80 comments

The Christian Science Monitor asks: is the slogan "Pray for Obama - Psalm 109:8" an amusing inside joke or an offensive call for assassination? On the Rachel Maddow Show, Frank Schaeffer argues that it's pretty clearly the latter - or something close to it [yt]. When the text of Psalm 109:8 - "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." was brought to their attention, CafePress and Zazzle stopped allowing merchandise with the slogan to be sold. That decision was reversed today. [more inside]
posted by brozek at 2:25 PM PST - 376 comments

Ahh, Winter! I'm sure we're all looking forward to Christmas presents, heated car seats, and New Year's resolutions that last as long as our hangovers. But it can't be all fun and games - thus, we enter Cold Water Boot Camp, instructed by none other than Professor Popsicle (U of Manitoba's Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht), who was back in the news last week after he drove a Mercury Sable into Winnipeg's Red River.
posted by mannequito at 2:13 PM PST - 5 comments

Keith Schofield(previously)'s new video for Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck has ruffled a few feathers. [more inside]
posted by progosk at 2:05 PM PST - 32 comments

"By My Side": An award-winning short film by 15-year-old director Sam Ekren. PLYT
posted by pxe2000 at 1:22 PM PST - 4 comments

25 things the Academy did right in Zeroes [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 1:21 PM PST - 57 comments

Kyle Cassidy's In The Hive "As fine art photography increasingly at times adopts the tropes of snapshots I often find myself in galleries wondering if the artist didn't possess some sort of faulty camera whose shutter tripped randomly... I asked twenty-three people scattered around the U.S. to wear their cameras everywhere and over the next 48 hours I sent eleven text messages at random intervals asking everyone to take a photo of whatever was in front of them at that moment." [more inside]
posted by muddgirl at 1:03 PM PST - 13 comments

The Wire - 100 Greatest Quotes (SLYT) (NSFW)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:48 PM PST - 102 comments

Make Me Mighty!
posted by disclaimer at 12:21 PM PST - 44 comments

It has been nearly a year since the Mumbai terror attacks. Journalist Jason Motlagh has written a four part article about them for The Virginia Quarterly Review. The first part is about the initial attacks and the history of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist organization responsible. Part two continues describing the events of the first night as well as police and media responses. The third is about the events of the second day and includes intercepted phonecalls between the gunmen and their handlers as well as recounting the initial interrogation of the sole terrorist captured alive. The last part is about the last day of the attacks and the aftermath. The article has a large number of photographs and is a harrowing read.
posted by Kattullus at 12:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Playing with Fire and Water is a blog by a freelance chef who creates some of the most interesting and delicious looking food creations. The best part? The accompanying science behind it and recipes. Amateur chefs and food nerds, eat your heart out. [more inside]
posted by battlebison at 11:58 AM PST - 10 comments

The world of soccer has been rocked by a French player's game-defining handball in the much-anticipated qualifier match between France and Ireland. Thierry Henry has admitted to the offense, but said ultimately it is the duty of the linesman to make the call. His action and subsequent admission have drawn strong reactions, including attempts to vandalize his Wikipedia page. [more inside]
posted by lovermont at 11:49 AM PST - 110 comments

For each unique visitor it receives, Temporary.cc deletes part of itself. [more inside]
posted by flatluigi at 11:31 AM PST - 44 comments

Silicon Sweatshops is a five-part investigation of the supply chains that produce many of the world’s most popular technology products, from Apple iPhones, to Nokia cell phones, Dell keyboards and more. The series examines the scope of the problem, including its effects on workers from the Philippines, Taiwan and China. It also looks at a novel factory program that may be a blueprint for solving this perennial industry problem.
posted by Joe Beese at 11:10 AM PST - 9 comments

Today would have been Indira Gandhi's 92nd birthday, had she not been assassinated by members of her own guard in her own backyard on October 31st, 1984 (I was there in New Delhi in a cab when the driver suggested it might be safer if he turned around and took me straight home). Often confused as a relative of the more famous Gandhi, fashionable, stylish and well groomed Indira was actually the daughter of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and used her married name, although divorced from her Parsi exhusband. Daughter and mother of Prime Ministers of India, she herself held office with an iron fist, remembered for the "Emergency", a brief period of martial law often overlooked in the democratic vibrancy of Indian politics. Will Mrs Gandhi's legacy of dynasty be continued by her half Italian grandson?
posted by infini at 10:35 AM PST - 25 comments

Synth Britannia "Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage. In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including the Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Voltaire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard and dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain."
posted by vronsky at 10:27 AM PST - 14 comments

Out in the Sort is a 2005 New Yorker article that provides a look behind the scenes at UPS. From repairing laptops, to warehousing every available Bentley car part, to running its own postsecondary institution, UPS is expanding beyond its traditional role as a shipper of goods.
posted by reformedjerk at 9:41 AM PST - 20 comments

"If elected, Laiacona would be the first known leather master to take office in Illinois."
posted by macadamiaranch at 9:01 AM PST - 51 comments

We've talked about tasers on Mefi before. We've all heard about the tasing of mouthy grandmothers, recalcitrant students, and diabetics. But as a method of controlling a 10 year old's temper tantrum? Stanford University [PDF] released a report saying that tasers should only be used in situations where the suspect is dangerous, and should not be used on children. However, there seems to be a trend where the taser is being used as a threat and a disciplinary tool, rather than as a tool to protect officers.
posted by dejah420 at 7:49 AM PST - 84 comments

When the Jessamine* County Public Library acquired a copy of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, two library workers conspired to keep it out of the patrons' hands, checking it out for an entire year. After an eleven-year-old girl put a hold on the book, they removed the hold; upon discovering this, the library director fired them. [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:32 AM PST - 147 comments

Minority Death Match: Jews, Blacks, And The "Post-Racial" Presidency by By Naomi Klein. An interesting look at the failure of the two United Nations Durban conferences on racism — and a whole lot of other stuff. [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 7:07 AM PST - 32 comments

"For Dirk McLauren, Wedesnday January 19 2381 has begun very poorly." The Zybourne Clock was to be a hundred-hour long electro-punk-themed RPG made by members of the SA subforum BYOB. After only a few weeks, the project collapsed in drama and failure, leaving only hilarious snippets of text, original "artwork," and level designs. More effort and skill went into parodying The Zybourne Clock than into creating it.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 6:38 AM PST - 35 comments

Hokey Smoke! Today is the 50th Anniversary of the television debut of Rocky and Bullwinkle! (...and Boris & Natasha & Peabody & Sherman & Fractured Fairy Tales... Dudley DoRight debuted later in the 1st season) The entire first episode is online at both Hulu and Joost (with some minor alterations based on the DVD release) so, hopefully everyone can see how it began.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:25 AM PST - 48 comments

In 1972, the book Mind Games - The Guide to Inner Space, inspired^* a song by John Lennon. This was during the heyday of the human potential movement, which offered the heretical and possibly dangerous idea that people can achieve heretofore unimagined potentials. Inevitably this movement led to military applications and even a movie about men staring at goats.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:24 AM PST - 11 comments

NASA invites you to Be A Martian [more inside]
posted by him at 1:50 AM PST - 19 comments

At least three million tons of fishlike creatures could theoretically live and breathe on Europa, according to Professor Richard Greenberg of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Greenberg recently presented his findings to the Division for Planetary Sciences, American Astronomical Society (PDF, Google quick view). Greenberg has written about potential life on Europa before, but his recent calculations suggest that the concentrations of oxygen would be great enough to support not only microorganisms, but also more complex animal-like organisms which have greater oxygen demands. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:01 PM PST - 45 comments

The History of Economic Thought Website contains a wealth of information on the many schools of thought in the history of economics and the issues they grappled with.
posted by moorooka at 8:34 PM PST - 13 comments

The Apidae family of bees includes a large variety species with interesting traits. Bees in Apidae are all long tongued bees. Not all have scopa. Those without a scopa cannot collect pollen and are cleptoparasitic. Some are solitary. Some are colonial. Some are burrowers. Most are not. Most collect pollen and nectar. Some do not and yet still produce honey. [more inside]
posted by onhazier at 7:50 PM PST - 10 comments

The Scroll Clock has no time zone option, but it's open source. There's also a gallery.
posted by ejoey at 7:50 PM PST - 16 comments

Employees of Providence St. Vincent Medical Center presents the Pink Glove Dance for Breast Cancer Awareness. via [more inside]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:46 PM PST - 15 comments

Tony Award nominated actor Lin-Manuel Miranda presents a rap about Alexander Hamilton from the perspective of Aaron Burr titled "The Hamilton Mixtape." [more inside]
posted by America at 7:14 PM PST - 31 comments

Senators' STATEments: As part of Geography Awareness Week, National Geographic asked United States Senators to draw and label their home states with at least three important places.
posted by NikitaNikita at 6:25 PM PST - 40 comments

Jack Kirby's Inglorious Basterds
posted by Artw at 6:04 PM PST - 32 comments

TV and Parables of Our Times: Speaking of Faith ( a weekly radio program about "religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas") looks at how tv deals with issues in contemporary life. A link to the main episode (MP3) is on the page along with various support media.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:41 PM PST - 6 comments

On pinball's downfall; draft Scrabble; strategies for choosing a seat; visiting our old friend, swoopo.com; and meatball theory: various and sundry economical, game theoretical, and miscellaneous morsels from the folks at Cheap Talk.
posted by cortex at 4:33 PM PST - 53 comments

A message from the future. (SLYT)
posted by juv3nal at 3:39 PM PST - 35 comments

November 24th marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Ray Comfort released plans to distribute thousands of free copies to students of the "50 top U.S. universities" on November 19th. His edition includes a 54 page introduction (PDF) written by Comfort. Apparently to thwart protest distribution was moved to today (according to the comments). The National Council for Science and the Environment has set up the website dontdissdarwin.com to counter Comfort's claims. via. previously. [more inside]
posted by cjorgensen at 3:05 PM PST - 74 comments

Edmunds released data this month on the results of the Cash for Clunkers stimulus. Freakonomics blog commented. Now the Detroit News has offered a state-by-state analysis of how funds were used. Which state was most likely to trade an American car for another American car? You guessed it...
posted by jefficator at 2:54 PM PST - 37 comments

It may win the All Time Millenial Award for Maximal Irony.
posted by Corduroy at 2:50 PM PST - 33 comments

Autocomplete Me: feeling lucky just got weirder.
posted by not_on_display at 1:01 PM PST - 63 comments

Russian food porn. [more inside]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:57 PM PST - 58 comments

Ethnic groups of China – that is, the officially recognized ones, in their respective finery. (Photo essay, text mostly in Chinese. Via.)
posted by joeclark at 11:25 AM PST - 46 comments

The nation's Catholic bishops approved a broad new document on marriage. "Since marriage and same-sex unions are different realities, it is not unjust discrimination to oppose the legal recognition of same-sex unions," the letter says. "These unions pose a serious threat to the fabric of society that affects all people." Also Tuesday, the bishops reaffirmed a moral obligation to maintain nutrition and hydration for patients in a persistent vegetative state and approved a document on reproductive technology. "Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology" reaffirms Catholic teaching against in vitro fertilization, egg, sperm and embryo donation, surrogates and cloning. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 11:05 AM PST - 195 comments

10 Magnificently Modern Musical Instruments
posted by Joe Beese at 10:58 AM PST - 45 comments

Revenue reality of a bestseller. Lynn Viehl's Twilight Fall was a top 20 mass market paperback bestseller. Here, she analyzes and posts her royalties and discovers "If I published only one book a year, and it did as well as this one, my net would be only around $2500.00 over the income level considered to be the US poverty threshold."
posted by HumanComplex at 10:27 AM PST - 175 comments

A US Senate Committee just released its report on online loyalty programs. Combined, Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue have made $1.4 billion in the past ten years charging customers $10-$20/month for marketing program memberships. Unfortunately, many of their customers (4 million this year) have no memory of authorizing the charges. [more inside]
posted by Nelson at 10:10 AM PST - 26 comments

Bittmanfilter: 101 Head Starts on the Day-- "The Minimalist" gives us a hundred and one Thanksgiving dishes that can be prepared in advance.
posted by dersins at 9:50 AM PST - 24 comments

You can see that things gradually become more terrifying : Five of the six alkali metals and their reactions to air and water. Learn more at the Periodic Table Of Videos. Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, Cesium (Caesium), and the elusive Francium.
posted by The Whelk at 9:30 AM PST - 29 comments

"YOU CAN HAVE THE FURRY ONE, I WANT THE ONE THAT SPARKLES." Fan posters at the Twilight: New Moon premiere.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:29 AM PST - 173 comments

Book of the Month is a feature that the University of Glasgow Library has been running for over a decade now. The format is simple, a single book is selected from their collections, written up and accompanied by pictures, maps and photographs scanned from the books. With over a 100 books to select from, it's hard to know where to start, but anywhere is good because they're all lovely. Still, here are a few, Charles Darwin's The Expression of the emotions in man and animals, a beautiful 15th century illuminated copy of Livy's Roman history, Treatises on Engines and Weapons, Valentines and Dabbities, The Birds of Australia, Facts and Observations on the Sanitary State of Glasgow, Ibn Jazla's The arrangement of bodies for treatment and finally, The Curious Case of Mary Toft, MetaFilter superstar.
posted by Kattullus at 9:28 AM PST - 6 comments

15 Things Worth Knowing About Coffee. 17 Things Worth Knowing About Your Cat. The MotherF**king Pterodactyl. These and various other amusements courtesy of The Oatmeal.
posted by brain_drain at 8:56 AM PST - 29 comments

“We send something whenever we have a little extra, at least enough so he can eat." Remittances, the small money transfers a previous FPP called "the most important antipoverty program in the world", are now flowing the opposite direction. Yes, poor families in southern Mexico are having scramble to find money to send north to their out of work relatives in the US.
posted by Forktine at 7:01 AM PST - 14 comments

Lady Gaga Stefani Germanotta performing in a 2005 NYU talent show. Could anyone in the house have predicted the rise of this? Previously. [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 6:06 AM PST - 224 comments

On November 14 "Robert Erickson" was introduced to the Minnesota Tea Party Against Amnesty as a Minneapolis resident concerned about illegal immigration. Sometimes the devil is in the details, as the supporters of the anti-immigrant Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform (MINN-SIR) slowly learn. On the other hand, some of them never quite figured out that "Robert" wasn't on their side...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:09 AM PST - 130 comments

Michelin inspectors have been anonymous as CIA spooks. Until now. And now. The New Yorker has a rare interview with one.
posted by converge at 3:30 AM PST - 33 comments

Armchair Viewing
posted by vronsky at 12:43 AM PST - 30 comments

31 years ago today, 918 people died in the Jonestown Mass Murder-Suicide. One week later, CBC Radio aired this comprehensive examination[MP3] of the events leading up the tragedy, including cult leader Jim Jones' rise to power, the founding of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project in Guyana, and the ill-fated investigative delegation headed by Congressman Leo Ryan which precipitated the tragic event.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:42 PM PST - 47 comments

Since 1995, Transparency International has published an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, ordering the countries of the world according to "the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians." The 2009 report was released today. See the data. Play around with their interactive map. (warning, map will resize your browser window)
posted by Afroblanco at 10:04 PM PST - 27 comments

Almost 15 percent of US households are "food insecure". Last year, nearly 17 million children, or 22.5 per cent, lived in households in which food at times was scarce - 4 million children more than the year before. And the number of youngsters who sometimes went hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million. [more inside]
posted by wilful at 9:46 PM PST - 77 comments

NME.com list The Strokes' 'Is This It' has topped the 100 Greatest Albums Of The Decade list in the new issue of NME magazine out tomorrow (November 18). The 2001 debut album by the New York band was voted top of the pile by a panel of musicians, producers, writers and record label bosses.
posted by ktrain at 7:45 PM PST - 161 comments

Since the Goldsmith's Conference of 2007 (which saw the formal embrace of the name), the movement known as Speculative Realism has, by some accounts, "revivified" philosophy. Led by the young philosophers Ray Brassier and Quentin Meillasoux, the movement is becoming known for its two-pronged critique of both the continental and analytic philosophical traditions. Speaking crudely, the goal is to fashion a "transcendental materialism" that puts the continental tradition in a better position to engage with the evolving insights of experimental science (particularly cognitive science, biology, and physics), while revising the analytical tradition's tendency to a "scientistic" and "naive" materialism. On the whole the philosophy tries to be less human-centric, acknowledging a world indifferent to human knowing and human being, while still acknowledging the problem of epistemic contingency. Brassier is also a leading proponent or investigator of nihilism, which will please Big Lebowski fans. [more inside]
posted by macross city flaneur at 7:25 PM PST - 79 comments

A glistening chunk of pork! [more inside]
posted by mrducts at 7:24 PM PST - 29 comments

The British government has announced plans to make Ordnance Survey map data freely available online. The Ordnance Survey is the government-funded agency which maps the country at high resolutions. Unlike the US Geological Survey's public-domain data, Ordnance Survey maps are proprietary, and licensed only under restrictive terms and for hefty fees, including to local governments; setting the data free is said to produce a £156 net economic gain. (Previously) [more inside]
posted by acb at 6:31 PM PST - 37 comments

Zoos and circuses in India will no longer be allowed to keep elephants. Elephants in captivity and PTSD. [previously]
posted by MaryDellamorte at 4:26 PM PST - 20 comments

The 21 Scariest Doctor Who Moments Ever, according to SFX magazine. Waters of Mars, which aired in the UK this weekend and airs in the US on December 20th, may add to that list. Meanwhile, in other formats, Michael Moorcock is writing a Doctor Who novel.
posted by Artw at 4:26 PM PST - 84 comments

On Thursday, the 12th of November, Karen Armstrong (previously & previously) unveiled her Charter for Compassion. The charter is the product of her Feb 2008 TED prize wish to “restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.” The project began with a “unique web-based decision making platform”, allowing “thousands of people from over 100 countries added their voice to the writing of the Charter.” These contributions were then given to the Council of Conscience for the construction of the final charter. Previous attempts at the promotion of a "global ethic" grounded in the Golden Rule have been largely, globally, ignored. Some people dislike the idea of blurring the differences between religions, some have problems with the Golden Rule itself. [more inside]
posted by ServSci at 4:16 PM PST - 55 comments

Interview with Clare Torry the singer in Pink Floyd's 'The Great Gig In The Sky' (youtube) [more inside]
posted by Lanark at 3:43 PM PST - 40 comments

The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft -- a new old time radio production [part one, part two]
posted by feelinglistless at 3:11 PM PST - 37 comments

LIFE magazine presents previously unpublished photos of Vladimir Nabokov, taken by Carl Mydens in 1959.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:39 PM PST - 30 comments

Julian Voss-Andreae makes art based on quantum physics.
posted by jefficator at 2:36 PM PST - 13 comments

Google Swirl is a new Google Labs experiment that lets a user search through images in a "visual and semantic" way, allowing users to search through radiating treeviews of conceptually related images. (requires flash)
posted by boo_radley at 2:27 PM PST - 27 comments

Wesleyan, a liberal arts college in Middletown, CT, has started a program that allows inmates in a nearby high-security prison to take classes. The students are selected competitively - with only a 16% acceptance rate - and receive the same rigorous education provided to Wesleyan undergrads. Here you can read some of their work. The Bard Prison Initiative [Previously on Metafilter] features a similar program. [more inside]
posted by lunit at 1:59 PM PST - 39 comments

For those of you, like me, who giggle uncontrollably at Jay Leno's "Headlines" schtick (but cannot stand him or the rest of his show) here's the screenshot version^*. You can also get a daily dose of News Fail on the web via Probably Bad News. And the Media Relations blog has a "funny-headlines" tag that's worth a few extra gaffaws^**. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 12:12 PM PST - 52 comments

A year and a half ago, Henry Chung was an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch. Now he's an NYPD patrol officer.
posted by four panels at 11:29 AM PST - 43 comments

Yesterday, the little-noticed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force caused a stir by releasing new guidelines discouraging routine mammography for women under age 50 and breast self-examinations at any age. (Comparison chart of new and old guidelines here.) The American Cancer Society immediately registered its strong disagreement; meanwhile, the National Breast Cancer Coalition came out in strong support of the new guidelines, saying:

The over-emphasis on the importance of screening, despite a lack of strong evidence, has been elevated to such a degree that some even equate screening with prevention of breast cancer. The National Breast Cancer Coalition hopes that today’s release of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) revised recommendations will put the brakes on this run-away train and will put screening and its limitations into proper perspective.

[more inside]
posted by iminurmefi at 11:21 AM PST - 63 comments

American Airlines fires AA.com designer for reaching out to customer 1.) Graphic designer and blogger has bad experience with AA.com, 2.) Designer mocks up AA.com page design and blogs about it, 3.) AA.com UX designer emails blogger with info about challenges the AA.com web team faces, 4.) Blogger posts UX designer's response (anonymously), 5.) American Airlines figures out who UX designer is and fires him/her for talking. [more inside]
posted by tippiedog at 9:10 AM PST - 156 comments

Autumn, by Roger Ebert. The season of new beginnings and the forever-remembered smell of burning leaves. [more inside]
posted by Turtles all the way down at 9:09 AM PST - 14 comments

27 live recordings from the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival can be streamed for free at Wolfgang's Vault. Here's a few of the musicians you can listen to: Count Basie & His Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Oscar Peterson Trio and Thelonious Monk. Registration is required but it's oh so worth it. The New York Times has the backstory of how these recordings ended up at Wolfgang's Vault.
posted by Kattullus at 8:57 AM PST - 11 comments

Total Recall - All The Deaths (Including Johnny Cab) (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:14 AM PST - 123 comments

Busy Bee Hardware, Est. 1918 (via)
posted by Joe Beese at 7:58 AM PST - 38 comments

Neda Agha Soltan, killed on camera by a sniper's bullet, became the symbol of opposition to Iranian President Ahmadinejad this summer. Her boyfriend, Caspian Makan, who has just fled the country, talks to Arash Sahami and Angus Macqueen about their romance, his imprisonment after her death and his terrifying escape.
posted by netbros at 7:08 AM PST - 8 comments

Seems a little early, but the American Family Association is gearing up for another round of Yuletide boycotting. You can check the "naughty or nice list for retailers to avoid. (Warning: AFA site is obnoxious- watch out for auto-play video). We’ve previously discussed AFA boycotts of Hallmark and Ford, which may or may not have had any impact. I guess even the "War on Christmas" isn’t immune to a little Christmas Creep.
posted by Shohn at 6:56 AM PST - 132 comments

Envisioning Chinese Society in the Late Nineteenth Century: Words and Images from the Dianshizhai Pictorial Very nice online presentation of translated content from the famed nineteenth century Shanghai pictorial journal (China's first); Dianshizhai (点石斋画报) was modelled on Britain's Punch and produced as a supplement for Shen Bao subscribers. Flash is used so elements in the cartoons can be clicked for further information: a young woman repels a thief with martial derring-do; a customer bilks on the bill in a street eatery in Hangzhou; small-town society and politics with the muddle-headed magistrate; a non-performing temple bell offers a chance for sceptical commentary on religion; the gentlemanly pastime of cricket-fighting.
posted by Abiezer at 4:33 AM PST - 3 comments

The New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year is.... UNFRIEND. That's right, the negation of the verbification of 'friend'. Well, it's not quite as cringe-worthy as some of the runners-up... Teabagger?!? And previous winners of this honor were Hypermiling (2008), Locavore (2007), Carbon-Neutral (2006) and Podcast (2005) (links include each year's finalists, including frugalista, staycation, bacn, mumblecore, Islamofascism, funner, lifehack and squick). Best comment about the WotY (so far)? "an unreliable yet fascinating barometer of tech". But, at risk of over-editorializing, these look more like candidates for the Banished Words List. Clearly better is the recent list of "A Word a Year, 1906-2006" from Oxford's website (if only for the invaluable perspective of time).
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:27 AM PST - 72 comments

Behind the growing Steven Pinker vs. Malcolm Gladwell feud (Pinker criticizes Gladwell, Gladwell snarkily replies) is a debate over the value of IQ, specifically, and intelligence, broadly, in success. Recent research has generally shown little link between intelligence and success within fields, and that there are multiple kinds of intelligences that drive achievement. On the other hand, scholars of psychometrics claim the opposite, showing that IQ at an early age can predict achievement, and no amount of study will help. Maybe everyone is right, with enough caveats.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:03 PM PST - 147 comments

“A deep political crisis of the Afghan society is obvious… The coalition of social forces continues to change in favor of the counter-revolution.The state regime is not capable of stopping the counter-revolution on its own.” CPAC’s Peter Van Dusen recently hosted a televised debate over Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan. Afghanistan: Noble Fight or Lost Cause?
posted by acro at 8:55 PM PST - 4 comments

Gabriel García Márquez's romance with power. During the youth of García Márquez’s grandfather, Colonel Nicolás Márquez Mejía, who was born in 1864 and died in 1936, a number of presidents and government ministers--almost all of them lawyers from the conservative camp--published dictionaries, language textbooks, and treatises (in prose and verse) on orthology, orthography, philology, lexicography, meter, prosody, and Castilian grammar. [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 8:31 PM PST - 9 comments

Can an obscure disease from Guam explain the explain the appearance of neurological disorders near Marscoma Lake in New Hampshire? The only people thought to contract Lytico-Bodig were Chamorros born before 1961 and related or married to particular familes living near the village of Umatac in Guam. It was theorised that it came from eating cycad seeds, but why were there no documented cases before the 1900s, and why are there no new cases on the island today? The popular author and neurologist Oliver Sacks visited the island and has continued to study the disease. He suggests that the cause is biomagnification of a toxin produced by cyanobacteria and concentrated twice - first by the cycads, and a second time in the flesh of the fruit bats. There are no new cases, he says, because the fruit bats have been nearly hunted to extinction.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:06 PM PST - 10 comments

Sky News Australia political editor David Speers interviewed Rupert Murdoch earlier this month, and covered a number of topics, including search engine access to news content under the Murdoch umbrella. In short, Rupert Murdoch is looking to a day when Google won't search News Corp. stories, and people will pay for their news (again). Murdoch's views of Google aren't new, claiming Google is stealing from News Corp. Murdoch's Google gambit set the internet buzzing, as briefed on The Opinionator. But Rupert Murdoch isn't the only one looking for Google to fall, with Mark Cuban proclaiming that Google can be taken down (again, or is that still?)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:54 PM PST - 63 comments

Ken Ober, host of MTV's Remote Control, dead at age 52.
posted by Lucinda at 7:11 PM PST - 55 comments

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is a survey that rated the 50 states of America from most to least happiest, based on things like emotional health, job satisfaction, and healthy decisions. The top states may surprise you.
posted by Taft at 3:51 PM PST - 92 comments

All You Haters (Suck My Balls) (slightly NSFW) by LA- and Denver-based short-film makers Nix Bros
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:29 PM PST - 44 comments

Devil's Tuning Fork is "a first-person exploration/puzzle game in which the player must navigate an unknown world using visual sound waves" and was made by a group of students in 6 months to compete in the Independent Games Festival. Unfortunately, it appears to be windows only, but the trailer is worth checking out anyways. It is pretty.
posted by juv3nal at 2:57 PM PST - 17 comments

Doll Kind :: Dolls of the 20th Century - A Celebration in Pictures and Histories
posted by anastasiav at 1:31 PM PST - 20 comments

Last month the United Steelworkers entered into an agreement with the successful Spanish cooperative Mondragon to work toward establishing worker-owned manufacturing coops in the US. [more inside]
posted by enn at 12:13 PM PST - 29 comments

Two months & three thousand photographs later: here is a fascinating YouTube video of the making of Abigail Uhteg's new art book The Complex of All of These. [more inside]
posted by OmieWise at 11:57 AM PST - 6 comments

Anthony Howe is a sculptor. Click on each work to see it in action.
posted by bearwife at 11:40 AM PST - 7 comments

Arkansas 5th grader refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance until gays and lesbians have equal rights. CNN and The Huffington Post pick up the story.
posted by Daddy-O at 11:32 AM PST - 267 comments

Sixteen workers are killed a day "Every eight hour workday, two people are killed on the job. Most companies are never prosecuted for negligence, even after repeated warnings that their workers were in danger. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace." In a short video examining several cases of worker deaths, David Uhlmann suggests the sanction for an offense that results in a worker's death should be as great as the sanction for killing a deer out of season.
posted by shetterly at 10:52 AM PST - 104 comments

The first four issues of Stray Bullets set the world on fire when they came out. Paper burns, you see, and a comic book as inflammatory as Stray Bullets just had to be burned. The religious right burned them. The Godless left burned them. The people in the middle felt left out and burned them too. Only a few copies survived and are probably worth millions by now. Inaccessible to the common man, the wonders of the digital universe have finally arrived to allow you—the average Joe—to see what the fuss was all about.
posted by Artw at 10:52 AM PST - 37 comments

'Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!'
posted by chronkite at 9:28 AM PST - 101 comments

The History of the Internet in a Nutshell [more inside]
posted by Miko at 8:10 AM PST - 58 comments

In Cold Blood, 50 Years On : The Guardian takes a look at Holcomb, Kansas 50 years (to the day) after the crimes depicted in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:04 AM PST - 10 comments

RIP Edward Woodward, star of Callan, The Equalizer and The Wicker Man. Edgar Wright, who directed him in Hot Fuzz, pays tribute. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:55 AM PST - 80 comments

Hear the Bible come alive in Dramatic Audio Theater! Jim Caviezel as Jesus (again). Lou Diamond Phillips as Mark. Malcolm McDowell as Solomon. Luke Perry as Judas. Max von Sydow as Noah. (warning: auto-playing video) The Word of Promise Audio Bible features over 1000 voice actors, a 150-piece orchestra, an iPhone app, 98 hours of recorded audio, and more. Meet the cast. Hear samples.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:02 AM PST - 25 comments

Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again — A generation of British Islamists have been trained in Afghanistan to fight a global jihad. But now some of those would-be extremists have had a change of heart. Johann Hari finds out what made them give up the fight.
posted by netbros at 6:59 AM PST - 15 comments

Kiva transparency commentary: "I suspect that most Kiva users do not realize this." The controversy is summarized by the NY Times. [more inside]
posted by kmennie at 4:43 AM PST - 73 comments

Speak like a 1950s hipster.
posted by mippy at 4:21 AM PST - 30 comments

October 29, 2009 marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Welcome To The Pleasuredome, by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, kicking off the short rule of Frankie over reality. oh so much [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:37 AM PST - 45 comments

In a hot lab in the center of Lyon, space-suited virologists want to create a superflu as contagious as H1N1 and as lethal as H5N1. Why? So nature doesn't get there first.
posted by drdanger at 11:06 PM PST - 50 comments

Been hypnotized lately? Anthony Burril's video for Acid Washed's "General Motors, Detroit, America" is pure eye candy.
posted by flatluigi at 11:00 PM PST - 9 comments

Charles Van Schaick was a photographer in Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the late 19th and early 20th Century. His work was made famous by Michael Lesy in the book Wisconsin Death Trip in which the photographs were juxtaposed with local newsreports of murder, suicide, disease, insanity, animal mutilation and other calamities plus the occasional non-morbid event. Flickr set of photos used in Wisconsin Death Trip. Some of the texts from Wisconsin Death Trip. Robert Birnbaum interviews Michael Lesy about Wisconsin Death Trip and other things. Over 2500 photographs by Charles Van Schaick owned by The Wisconsin Historical Society. [Warning: Some of the photographs are of deceased infants]
posted by Kattullus at 10:22 PM PST - 20 comments

Open Letter to the Sudoku community and the organizers of the Sudoku National Championship about the potential cheating of Eugene Varshavsky during this Saturday's tournament. An unknown "man in a hoodie" shows up late and unregistered to the 2009 Sudoku National Championship in Philadelphia, and wins third place despite skipping the first two rounds. Second-place finisher and 2007 World Champion Tom Snyder accuses him of having a radio transmitter concealed underneath the hood, feeding him computer-generated solutions. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Varshavsky, wearing a stocking cap, defeated a grandmaster in the 2006 World Open chess tournament. Has competitive puzzling lost its innocence?
posted by escabeche at 6:36 PM PST - 94 comments

“I think sometimes that being overly type-sensitive is like an allergy,” : The New York Times on the perils of being a font nerd.
posted by The Whelk at 6:02 PM PST - 96 comments

Sin Sisamouth, the king of Cambodian pop. Klen Kloun Noun Srey::Bopha Thy Moy::Kom Sman Bong Phlech::Ah Snae Meas Bong::many more here::(previously, from the mighty mighty flapjax)
posted by vronsky at 4:59 PM PST - 14 comments

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for "doing his duty". Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year. [more inside]
posted by Jakey at 4:04 PM PST - 132 comments

Hong Lauwai ('Red Foreigner') sings along with patriotic Red Chinese songs on various sites like YouTube. Alleged to be a New Yorker and stock trader, his true identity isn't known at this time. Since he appeared shirtless in his first performances (Without the Communist Party, There would be No New China; The East is Red), there was some doubt of his sincerity, and consternation among hard-liners in Beijing -- what if he was singing totally nude? [more inside]
posted by Rash at 3:47 PM PST - 16 comments

History of a New York Block. A nearly complete record of the life cycle of Eldridge St between Stanton/Rivington. Click on the buildings for details. [more inside]
posted by minkll at 2:29 PM PST - 21 comments

Every time you attempt to parse HTML with regular expressions, the unholy child weeps the blood of virgins, and Russian hackers pwn your webapp. Parsing HTML with regex summons tainted souls into the realm of the living. HTML and regex go together like love, marriage, and ritual infanticide. The <center> cannot hold it is too late. The force of regex and HTML together in the same conceptual space will destroy your mind like so much watery putty.

posted by spiderskull at 1:31 PM PST - 134 comments

Olympic Flame Burns for Icy Relay
Canada is launching its countdown to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics by boldly sending the Olympic flame farther north than it has ever gone before.
posted by kliuless at 1:01 PM PST - 21 comments

She is the Young Republican who "stung" ACORN. And he is her "pimp". Together they brought down ACORN. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 11:48 AM PST - 91 comments

You’d have to be blind to drive a bobsleigh. At least if you want to finish first, second, or third nine times in seven years. Since 2001, U.S. bobsleigh pilot Steven Holcomb has dealt with a degenerative eye condition that left him with 20/500 vision. He drove a sled hurtling down an ice track anyway, often winning. Now that his vision has been restored via an experimental operation, he fuzzes over his helmet visor so it’s just like the olden days. Bobsleigh, it seems, is all about feel. [more inside]
posted by joeclark at 11:43 AM PST - 3 comments

Doug Sahm was a country music prodigy. [more inside]
posted by dortmunder at 10:22 AM PST - 23 comments

Get a glass of Harvey's Bristol Cream, put on some funky 1970's music, sit back, and feast your eyes on some glorious Wood Porn! (SFW) "Oh, baby, you got some great vascular cambium!" "Yeah, that is some hard oak, drill me, baby!"
posted by Drasher at 8:12 AM PST - 34 comments

How should math be taught? The Kumon Math curriculum provides a simple and clear description of one possible sequence of skills. Hung-Hsi Wu decries the bogus dichotomy of basic skills versus conceptual understanding (PDF, Google Docs). David Klein provides a detailed history of US K-12 math education in the 20th century. The NYT describes the 2008 report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (full text as PDF). [more inside]
posted by russilwvong at 7:28 AM PST - 65 comments

Star Trek fans know that there was a second, unaired pilot episode of Where No Man has Gone Before. That version has been found by a collector in Germany, and is going to be released.
posted by pjern at 5:09 AM PST - 30 comments

STEP 1 Buy 100 pieces of crap from thrift stores and garage sales.
STEP 2 Get 100 authors to write a fiction about pieces of crap.
STEP 3 ???
STEP 4 Profit!
Significant Objects hosts the stories for all 100 pieces of crap/art, but the last six are still available for bidding: Blue Vase by Lauren Mechling, Umbrella Trinket by Bruce Holland Rogers, Lighter Shaped Like a Small Pool Ball by Rob Agredo, Bar Mitzvah Bookends by Stacey Levine, Geisha Bobblehead by Edward "ed" Champion, and Missouri Shotglass by Jonathan Lethem.
posted by carsonb at 10:28 PM PST - 12 comments

I have no idea what you're talking about, so here's a French magneto-lamp.
posted by boo_radley at 9:43 PM PST - 30 comments

Singer, beatboxer, electric ukelele player Merrill Garbus says "It was about a woman selling her child to the butcher," referring to her puppet show that led to her first written songs. Her one-woman band Tune-Yards (24:59 video) is like Imogen Heap's live performing, mixed with some Phoebe Snow and Nina Simone. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 6:54 PM PST - 9 comments

It's snowing in China. Who's responsible? [more inside]
posted by up in the old hotel at 5:59 PM PST - 24 comments

In 2010, Obama will have a miserable year, NATO may lose in Afghanistan, the UK gets a regime change, China needs to chill, India's factories will overtake its farms, Europe risks becoming an irrelevant museum, the stimulus will need an exit strategy, the G20 will see a challenge from the "G2", African football will unite Korea, conflict over natural resources will grow, Sarkozy will be unloved and unrivalled, the kids will come together to solve the world's problems (because their elders are unable), technology will grow ever more ubiquitous, we'll all charge our phones via USB, MBAs will be uncool, the Space Shuttle will be put to rest, and Somalia will be the worst country in the world. And so the Tens begin.

The Economist: The World in 2010. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:09 PM PST - 57 comments

Belle de Jour reveals herself. She's Dr Brooke Magnanti. She's real and once wrote this column about autopsies.
posted by feelinglistless at 4:51 PM PST - 71 comments

NASA's Fluxtimator helps calculate the meteor shower activity in your area. There will be one of the biggest meteor shower events of our lifetime, the Leonid Meteor shower of 2009. Start time: this Monday November 16, 2009 at 11:00pm EST. End Time: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 4:00am EST (best 2am to 4 am EST). An Atomic Age song in mp3 to celebrate: What Is A Shooting Star. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 4:34 PM PST - 18 comments

One time, OK, see, one time Randy Beaman's [aunt, uncle, sister, little brother, best friend who's name is Linda, cat] [had like this bean dip for the chips, had a dream she ate a big marshmallow, ate some cornflakes, had to take baths with his brother] and [Jason made this gross noise, this was in Kansas, he thought it wasn't Dracula] and [they were in there so long they became skeleton people]. [AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH] (clips from Animaniacs, big youtube playlist of them all here.)
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:07 PM PST - 26 comments

Newmoticons: Fresh new emoticons for happy internet people.
posted by The Whelk at 3:48 PM PST - 79 comments

NPR's jazz blog A Blog Supreme recently concluded a series in which they asked jazz bloggers to "name five albums you would recommend to somebody looking to get into modern jazz". The results are now up in the category Jazz Now; the intro has the index, including reactions elsewhere. Destination: Out had some pricklier suggestions—see also their best of the 90s list (and their own nominations). [more inside]
posted by kenko at 2:42 PM PST - 40 comments

NSFW - A gallery of the world's Ugliest Tattoos. [via FAIL Blog]
posted by not_on_display at 1:54 PM PST - 87 comments

Krautrock - the movie [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 1:37 PM PST - 19 comments

Robert McKee’s Unconvincing Story
posted by Artw at 9:26 AM PST - 78 comments

A Poem by Stephen King The poem is stored by Playboy.com so NSFW. Also, body horror and vernacular involved.
posted by Sparx at 3:16 AM PST - 92 comments

Animated Stereoviews of Meiji Japan [more inside]
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 6:40 PM PST - 37 comments

TSA is cracking down on snow globes. Although now a terrorist threat, traditionally snow globes have stood for Elvis, Jesus, and the American flag.
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:16 PM PST - 132 comments

David Guttenfelder is the chief Asia photographer for The Associated Press. Recently, he has been focusing his lens in Afghanistan. Photographer Collection: David Guttenfelder in Afghanistan and On Assignment: Afghanistan.
posted by netbros at 4:44 PM PST - 9 comments

Was the housing bubble caused by very low long-term fixed-rate mortgages? Or was is due to a national, get-rich-quick obsession? Or Did Christianity Cause the Crash? [more inside]
posted by jaimev at 4:16 PM PST - 106 comments

"The EyeWriter project is an ongoing collaborative research effort to empower people, who are suffering from ALS, with creative technologies." [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 2:32 PM PST - 5 comments

Andrew Zuckerman's Bird Book
posted by ooga_booga at 2:27 PM PST - 32 comments

Hiroshi Watanabe -- Love Point::Suo Sarumawashi::Ideology in Paradise::"I see angels every day"::Kabuki Players::Japanese Studies::Northern Places::Species Among Us
posted by vronsky at 2:01 PM PST - 6 comments

Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No by James Blagden (SLYT). MetaFilter is no stranger to the late Dock Ellis and the legendary no-hitter he pitched under the influence of everyone's favorite indole phantasticant (previously: 2001, 2005, 2008), but this animation takes the story to a new level.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 1:50 PM PST - 54 comments

NASA scientists claim to have found significant amounts of water, after successfully bombing the moon last month. This may have implications on possible Terraforming efforts as well as NASA's goal to understand the nature and distribution of habitable environments in the Universe. What might it look like?
posted by localhuman at 1:27 PM PST - 78 comments

Wikipedia is being sued for publishing the names of two convicted killers. Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed well-known German actor Walter Sedlmayr in 1990. They were convicted of the crime in 1993 and sentenced to prison, and recently released. Under German law, publishing the name of a criminal after he has served his sentence is considered an undue infringement of privacy, and is illegal. Accordingly, the German Wiki removed the names of the killers off the page discussing the murder --- but the English language version of wiki, based in the US and operating under the First Ammendment, has not. Now the killers' lawyer has sued the Wikimedia foundation to get them to remove the names. [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 12:30 PM PST - 144 comments

Don't! Mess! With! A! Snap! Diva! A clip from the 1989 documentary Tongues Untied which is about black gay identity. (via)
posted by The Devil Tesla at 12:23 PM PST - 14 comments

Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home Tribe of Heart's first film, "The Witness", was an eye opening look at how one man's whole life was changed by an encounter with a kitten. Their new film, "Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home", tells the story of a group of farmers coming to grips with the realization that they can't continue to make a living from the suffering of animals.
posted by DaddyNewt at 12:04 PM PST - 7 comments

Ninja Cat: The Reveal (previously)
posted by flatluigi at 11:36 AM PST - 25 comments

A collection of links to recipes from Thomas Keller's latest cookbook Ad Hoc at Home, including crispy braised chicken thighs with lemon and fennel, blowtorch prime rib, leek bread pudding, brownies, and the famous buttermilk fried chicken.
posted by AceRock at 11:33 AM PST - 17 comments

Thousands of people who play setar in Iran are against me,” he said. “They say why add two more strings to the instrument? But I don’t get upset with them.

Hafez Nazeri, son of renown Persian singer Shahram Nazeri, is an Iranian setar player and composer. Tomorrow night, he will be the first Iranian composer to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall. The concert will feature a new instrument invented by Nazeri: the Hafez. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:21 AM PST - 5 comments

Guantanamo Bay detainee Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, along with four others, now faces trial in federal court in New York. The United States is seeking he death penalty. "This is definitely a seismic shift in how we're approaching the war on al-Qaida," said Glenn Sulmasy, a law professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Mohammed was water boarded over 180 times: it is unclear if his confession will be admissible.
posted by bearwife at 10:53 AM PST - 94 comments

Five years ago today Russell, also known as The Ol' Dirty Bastard, passed away in a recording studio in New York City while finishing what was to be his final album. [prev] He is remembered by those close to him. [more inside]
posted by paisley henosis at 10:40 AM PST - 44 comments

How to use an Apostrophe
posted by blue_beetle at 10:29 AM PST - 112 comments

Looking to found your own Independent Republic of Metastan? Land is hard to come by, and barring sudden volcanic activity, they're not making any more of it. The Law of the Sea (1982) says that the ocean can't be claimed, and Outer Space Treaty of 1967 puts the moon off-limits. But your fledgling nation still has a couple of choices of unclaimed land parcels: Bir Tawil between Egypt and Sudan, and Marie Byrd Land (lower left) in Antarctica. [more inside]
posted by echo target at 9:45 AM PST - 13 comments

Fans of Dr. Horrible take note: there is a prequel. And it's fan-made. And it's good. Really really good. YouTube (ten segments) and higher-quality Vimeo available for your viewing pleasure.
posted by hippybear at 9:16 AM PST - 15 comments

7 scripts you gotta read [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 8:50 AM PST - 60 comments

If you're like me, you're in the market to buy yourself an island-sized boat, but you're not satisfied with the world's current inventory of formulaic, fuel-guzzling, cruise-ship-like mega-yachts. You might want to consider picking up a WHY 58x38, which offers 36,000 square feet of living space, a 120-foot "beach," three decks, and an 80-foot interior pool, topped by a vast solar panel array. It won't break your budget -- at a mere $151 million, it doesn't even crack the top four most expensive yachts in the world! [more inside]
posted by brain_drain at 8:44 AM PST - 65 comments

Using photosynthesis to power hydrogen production
Researchers have found that if they insert platinum nanoclusters into the photosynthetic machinery of bacteria, one acre could produce an amount of hydrogen equivalent to 79 gallons of gas per day. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 8:42 AM PST - 37 comments

Jerry Fielding (1922-1980) was one of cinema's most distinctive voices in the 1960s and especially '70s, the perfect musical complement to the films of Sam Peckinpah*, Michael Winner, Clint Eastwood and others. His scores are marked by modernism and intricate orchestrations but also a poetic beauty and intensity—an appropriate accompaniment to the decade's strange and often sad (but never sentimental) criminals and antiheroes, be they in westerns (The Wild Bunch) or crime films. He was, however, capable of numerous styles (he was a former Vegas bandleader), and wrote a great number of scores (from sticoms to dramas to sci-fi) for television. - Film Score Monthly [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 8:29 AM PST - 2 comments

Clicker is a site that collects all available streaming videos, movies and television shows and gathers them all up in one nice neat little bundle for your searching and viewing pleasure. [more inside]
posted by willmize at 6:07 AM PST - 8 comments

The Carillon is the most massive musical instrument in the world. Carillonneurs bang out heavy metal with their fists loosely clenched. It will leave your ears ringing. (Yes, it's bells. Big bells.)
posted by not_on_display at 5:37 AM PST - 46 comments

Do you know how many time zones there are in the Soviet Union? Eleven. That's Ridiculous. It's not even funny.
posted by jscott at 2:36 AM PST - 57 comments

After the 2005 Kelo (previously) decision, granting the city of New London, CT the right to seize dozens of homes to make way for a luxury development including a hotel, stores, and condominiums next to a Pfizer research facility. The Kelo House itself was spared - moved to another part of town. The rest were demolished. The planned development? It never happened. All that's left are empty fields. Oh, and the research facility? Pfizer just announced they'll be closing it
posted by delmoi at 1:51 AM PST - 63 comments

Mike Stilkey paints on books.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 10:33 PM PST - 10 comments

By order of the Principal, all students are forbidden to say the word "meep". That is all.
posted by scalefree at 7:05 PM PST - 200 comments

"Liberal Hawk" Peter Galbraith played a major role in justifying the American invasion of Iraq. Later he helped write the new Iraqi constitution. Turns out he failed to disclose the hundreds of millions he stands to make on Kurdish oil fields, in part because of his engineering of the same constitution to put him in a favorable business position. Another blogger remembers the good ol' days of 2003 when the media and politicians were shocked --shocked! -- that anyone would dare suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was "all about oil."
posted by bardic at 6:02 PM PST - 74 comments

North Dakota might be the butt of many jokes. It also might have the solution to many of the financial and banking problems facing our largest states. The Bank of North Dakota is the only state owned and operated bank in the USA. Some see it as a model for the future of banking.
posted by Xurando at 5:38 PM PST - 28 comments

Is Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao the GOP future? That's what Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) thought - a year ago. Since then, Cao has jolted Washington, and the question arises: was Boehner right about Cao being the future of the GOP, or will the purifiers prevail. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 5:28 PM PST - 62 comments

Do you want a definitive guide to washing your cast iron pan? Or you're curious about your vintage pans, maybe? Maybe your well-meaning partner left your beloved pan soaking in the sink, and you need to get rid of the rust, stat. Or maybe it's a LOT of rust, and you're looking to build an at-home electrolysis tank (warning: top-of-page Borat swimsuit shot). For all your questions on the loves and lives of the fabled cast iron pan, Black Iron Dude has the answer. [more inside]
posted by peachfuzz at 4:04 PM PST - 90 comments

Ten years ago today the government reversed one of the key elements of the Depression-era banking laws, knocking down the firewall between commercial banks, which take deposits and make loans, and investment banks, which underwrite securities. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was seen at the time as a way to help American banks grow larger and better compete on the world stage. [more inside]
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 3:30 PM PST - 22 comments

National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen (previously) relates the harrowing tale of a sweet, insistent, and ferocious lunchmate (note - clip begins with a dramatic drumbeat, mind your speakers) [more inside]
posted by Hypnotic Chick at 1:39 PM PST - 37 comments

Bisphenol A causes impotence and phthalates cause boys to act like girls.
posted by Glibpaxman at 1:23 PM PST - 133 comments

Projecting images onto buildings is nothing new. Even projecting buildings themselves has been theorized. But Dutch firm NuFormer has created a new means for projecting custom-made images onto buildings. The results are amazing.
posted by jefficator at 1:02 PM PST - 35 comments

Tutting is the name given to a contemporary abstract interpretive dance style that exploits the body's ability to create geometric positions and movements, predominantly with the use of right angles. Finger tutting narrows the dance to just the hands. See: Monsieur Clay-Doh | JBeast | Moon vs. Pacman | Bugs Bunny 1947 and Learn: WonderHowTo | thaSMIZofESV | TheFreekachu [some nsfw]. Kids these days.
posted by netbros at 12:02 PM PST - 36 comments

Demand Media (not to be confused with Media-On-Demand) is a success story in the "on-line content" business creating 4000 text or video pieces a day with an assembly-line formula that includes an automated editorial algorithm and an army of lowly-paid freelancers (but, hey, they're starting to offer health benefits!). Their own sites include the mind-numbingly practical eHow (and eHowUK for the non-US-centric), the .com affiliate of Lance Armstrong's Livestrong and the infamous (at MeFi) Cracked.com (link goes to parody of parody). They're syndicating content through their own domain registrar eNom (better than 'parked pages', right?), and one other thing: Demand is the #1 content provider to YouTube (and YouTube is their #1 revenue provider). All this from a CEO/mastermind best known as 'the guy who sold MySpace to NewsCorp'.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:26 AM PST - 80 comments

A few years ago, Gruff Rhys, lead singer of fabulous Welsh pop oddballs Super Furry Animals (Cymraeg/English) set out to make a film about the search for his uncle, a 1970s Argentinian pop star called René Griffiths. The result is Separado!: part travelogue, part music film, and part history of how a small band of idealists set out to establish a Welsh colony in the Argentinian part of Patagonia. [more inside]
posted by Len at 11:08 AM PST - 14 comments

Last year, Spotify made news as a revelation in music availability, by providing ad-supported free access or paid subscriptions to more than 6 million streaming songs. This year, Sweden is the home to another streaming media landmark, with Voddler. Currently limited to Sweden but with goals of reaching the world, the streaming video-on-demand provider was well-received, but initial movie selection did not impress all. That should change, as Voddler recently expanded the potential list of movies when they signed The Walt Disney Company Ltd and Paramount Pictures, netting access to the Disney assets and the Paramount library. A deal with Sony may be forthcoming. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:34 AM PST - 22 comments

Star Trek Tricorders are becoming reality. Not a doctor? Not a problem. There's an iPhone app that detects killer gasses in the air. There's one for Android phones that detects magnetic and gravitational fields and displays solar activity. This device doesn't do anything particularly useful other than play music, but it looks damned cool. Another iPhone app that's just for fun, presented by the geekiest guy ever.
posted by desjardins at 10:33 AM PST - 31 comments

The Mandelbulb "The original Mandelbrot is an amazing object that has captured the public's imagination for 30 years. It's found by following a relatively simple math formula. But in the end, it's still only 2D and flat - there's no depth, shadows, perspective, or light sourcing. What we have featured in this article is a potential 3D version of the same fractal."
posted by dhruva at 10:06 AM PST - 114 comments

Tom Sanford, a NY based artist, has created paintings depicting pop-culture icons before, but none have created a "regular trickle of hate mail/criticism" like this one. [more inside]
posted by dubold at 8:45 AM PST - 67 comments

Ambiguous movie endings resolved. Some jokesters have put together imagined endings to some ambiguous film (and TV) endings. Much funnier and better executed than I expected.
posted by meadowlark lime at 8:43 AM PST - 49 comments

Forgotten Objects. Found objects from an imagined past. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 8:31 AM PST - 7 comments

Birds are a liquid. One video. One minute. 300,000 starlings. (via)
posted by maudlin at 8:25 AM PST - 49 comments

Fumiko's Confession - a short film animated completely by one person. (via)
posted by flatluigi at 8:18 AM PST - 23 comments

Crime: A Tale of Two Cities. When "The Wire" gained popularity in Great Britain, we were contacted by a London-based journalist who proposed a job swap. Mark Hughes, a crime reporter with The Independent, a national newspaper in the United Kingdom, wanted to come to Baltimore to see if the city’s police officers, drug dealers, prosecutors and politicians bore any resemblance to those on show. We agreed to complete the exchange by sending our police reporter, Justin Fenton, to London to compare crime trends. [more inside]
posted by HumanComplex at 7:54 AM PST - 30 comments

"In hindsight, it’s often seen as inevitable that the two Germanys would reunite. But this, too, is a somewhat revisionist view. " Tim Mohr writes about the "awkward twist" about the fall of the wall, many of the protestors did not seek unification.
posted by The Whelk at 7:50 AM PST - 17 comments

An incredibly detailed reconstruction of US Airways flight 1549, from takeoff to ditching in the Hudson. The first video is an animation of the flight, with audio from the LGA tower and a transcription of the discussion between Capt. Sullenberger and F/O Skiles. The work also includes reconstructed radar target displays, radar returns of the birds, and various audio transcripts. Based on the NTSB docket, released in June 2009.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 6:57 AM PST - 51 comments

During the last week, a senior detective in Novorossiysk, Russia named Alexei Dymovsky had a viral hit on YouTube with a series of videos (in Russian: 1, 2. With English subtitles: 1) complaining about working conditions, accusing officers of corruption, and claiming that he and other police were ordered to stage crimes in order to put innocent people in jail. Dymovsky was promptly fired, but the Russian government has since admitted that parts of the police have been turned into criminal businesses. More here and here.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:40 AM PST - 11 comments

The man who killed Chuckles the Clown David Lloyd is dead. He wrote one of Mary Tyler Moore's funniest moments. He also wrote for Frasier, Cheers, Lou Grant, and Taxi, including Elaine's Strange Triangle . He also wrote and created Brothers, an early TV show to feature a character who just happened to be gay. No big deal.
posted by arse_hat at 11:46 PM PST - 19 comments

NASA debunks 2012 conspiracy theories
posted by Taft at 11:17 PM PST - 169 comments

Lou Jing was your average 20 year old woman from Shanghai, until being on Go! Oriental Angel, an American Idol like singing competition show, had to point out the obvious. Lou Jing is half Chinese, half African- America, something China apparently wasn't ready for.
posted by djduckie at 8:37 PM PST - 80 comments

In How to Write a Great Novel authors such as Edwidge Danticat, Hilary Mantel, Orhan Pamuk, Junot Díaz and Margaret Atwood speak about their writing process. If you want your thoughts on writing in a longer format, you could do a lot worse than The New York Times' Writers on Writing series, which features short essays by, for example, Kurt Vonnegut, Saul Bellow, Louise Erdrich and Annie Proulx. Should you thirst for meditations longer yet, Barbara Demarco-Barrett has on her Writers on Writing radio show interviewed a boatload of authors and it is available as a podcast [iTunes link]
posted by Kattullus at 8:09 PM PST - 21 comments

Club Internet, curated by Harm van den Dorpel
posted by carsonb at 6:54 PM PST - 10 comments

Lou Dobbs has quit his job at CNN. [more inside]
posted by Sys Rq at 6:44 PM PST - 98 comments

Christopher Bird at Mighty God King has written some corkers in the past - from his ejection from Livejournal owing to his review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to his frequent conversations with Flapjacks and Photoshopping of Final Fantasy Covers (previously). He's really outdone himself this time, with Scenes From An Alternate Universe Where The Beatles Accepted Lorne Michaels’ Generous Offer. Read it, and, quite possibly, weep. Bonus points to the first person who constructs a Primer-level explanation of what happened.
posted by danhon at 6:25 PM PST - 43 comments

Videogame voice acting at its finest.
posted by Chan at 5:35 PM PST - 84 comments

How Food Preferences Vary by Political Ideology [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall at 5:22 PM PST - 96 comments

"One month ago Dartz presented uberluxury armored car with whale penis interior - PROMBRON... As the world’s resonance was very huge and Dartz got lot of angry e-mails from Greenpeace, WWF and also Pamela Anderson, Dartz make strong decision to stop their plans regarding such interior."
posted by gemmy at 5:15 PM PST - 41 comments

A rare living fossil, the Queensland Lungfish can today breathe a sigh of relief. A decision yesterday by the Australian Federal Environment Minister (and Midnight Oil frontman) Peter Garret has rejected the Queensland Government's plans to dam the Mary River for urban water use. [more inside]
posted by Kerasia at 5:13 PM PST - 15 comments

Three word phrase - webcomics drawn in five minutes by Ryan Pequin.
posted by Rinku at 5:04 PM PST - 15 comments

Chainsaw Suit - A Webcomic
posted by sciurus at 4:37 PM PST - 31 comments

US Crude Oil Production vs. Rock Music Quality, by year. Is Rockism the cultural equivalent of Hubbert Peak Theory?
posted by acb at 4:20 PM PST - 41 comments

The Ride Journal is a lovely mag by/about/for cyclists of all types: bmxers, fixed gear riders, road racers, tricyclists, casual riders... you name it! It's a beautiful publication--great photography, nice paper, good personal stories. However, it's a print mag. As their 3rd issue is being mailed out, they've made their first avaiable for download as a 26MB PDF.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:03 PM PST - 5 comments

Phyllis Galembo: 100 Years of Halloween Costumes and Masquerade
posted by vronsky at 3:58 PM PST - 6 comments

Vanity Fair explores the rise of cuteness and why we love it so very much.
posted by Lutoslawski at 3:24 PM PST - 48 comments

A nail-polished obsessed blogger is using up her purchases on a new nail design every day for a year. [more inside]
posted by peachfuzz at 2:57 PM PST - 26 comments

It sounds like a George Lopez joke. “Times are so bad that I saw an Anglo day laborer standing outside Home Depot the other day.” Except it’s true.
posted by Joe Beese at 2:34 PM PST - 29 comments

MTV vs. martial law. [more inside]
posted by zardoz at 1:47 PM PST - 42 comments

Theme Park Maps showcases those hand-drawn brochures that showed where the roller coasters and bumper cars were at your favorite theme park.
posted by Wild_Eep at 1:43 PM PST - 22 comments

What does an aircraft company do when military contracts dry up? Fairey’s answer was to reinvent the helicopter and revolutionize the short-haul airline industry. After 15 years of effort, its unique project, the Rotodyne, came within an inch of achieving that goal. The Fairey Rotodyne, which first took to the air more than 50 years ago, was billed as the world's first vertical take-off commercial passenger aircraft. Fairey talked up expressions of interest from BEA in the UK, New York Airways and the US Army, but the crucial launch order never came. British government policy to rationalize the industry saw the end of the Rotodyne and Fairey as an airframe maker in 1962.
posted by veedubya at 1:28 PM PST - 26 comments

The American Image: The Photographs of John Collier Jr. at the University of New Mexico. "In 1941 to 1943, Collier worked as a photographer with the Farm Securities Administration and the Office of War Information under Roy Stryker and documented many areas around the eastern U.S and northern New Mexico." The full photoset is at flickr here.
posted by dersins at 1:16 PM PST - 2 comments

Yesterday evening, Robert Enke, goalkeeper of Germany's national soccer team, committed suicide. At a press conference today, his wife revealed, that he had been suffering from depression for 6 years and had been in therapy. He covered it up out of fear to lose custody of his adopted daughter and his career as a professional footballer. [more inside]
posted by starzero at 11:41 AM PST - 27 comments

Alaska’s most famous hockey player, Levi Johnston, is set to pose nude for Playgirl (previously). But didn’t Playgirl – the magazine – close up shop last year, going online-only? And wasn’t it ultimately run by straight guys in the first place? Jessanne Collins, Playgirl’s former managing editor, debunks some myths about the magazine that was to the nude-male pictorial what Marky Mark was to hip-hop.
posted by joeclark at 10:41 AM PST - 61 comments

In September, Jade Ewen replaced Keisha Buchanan in the line-up of the British pop group Sugababes. Buchanan was the last original member of the group, making the Sugababes the pop equivalent of the Ship of Theseus, an ancient philosophical paradox. The switch caused acrimony, heartache and legal wrangles. But Popjustice now reveals that it also has terrifying implications for the future of human civilisation. Sunday 30 April 2265: Mutyageddon.
posted by WPW at 10:03 AM PST - 32 comments

Underground Signs is a company in Brooklyn creating customized NYC subway signs. Other products have horned in on the distinctive look of the MTA's designs, including the map, the train line logos, and the neighborhoods serviced. But this is the first I've seen of the option to create a replica from the NYC underground with one's own name, street, etc. (the site allows you to generate a"Create Your Own" image). [more inside]
posted by adamms222 at 10:02 AM PST - 11 comments

Architect Jakob Tigges plans to erect a 1,000 meter tall artificial mountain in the middle of Berlin. [more inside]
posted by quoquo at 9:25 AM PST - 35 comments

The Guardian recently published a beautiful article about Danish Dynamite, the '80s Danish national soccer (football) squad. Rob Smyth and Lars Eriksen write about how the success and failure of the national team highlighted national traits that Denmark has. The writing about the matches is among the most inspired I have ever read. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 9:20 AM PST - 6 comments

Stem Cell Awareness and The Black Community "Due to genetic variance, 1 in 500 Europeans need to be on the registry, but 1 in 10 Africans should be on the registry worldwide..." 5 Fast Facts on Bone Marrow Registration and Donation. If you want to find out more about whether you can save a life, visit Be The Match (US), OneMatch (Canada), or the Anthony Nolan Trust (UK).
posted by shetterly at 9:17 AM PST - 21 comments

Say hello to googles new concurrent programming language Compiles faster than c/c++ and runs just as fast. Garbage collection + concurrency included
posted by FusiveResonance at 9:06 AM PST - 58 comments

Nabokov, Meet 50 Cent: Zadie Smith's Changing My Mind. "Those who have been paying attention to Zadie Smith since her White Teeth debut likely already know about her affinities for E.M. Forster, Lil Wayne, George Eliot, Kafka, and Fawlty Towers. She's one of probably three working writers capable of smuggling a riff on the perils of "keeping it real" into The New York Review of Books."
posted by geoff. at 8:59 AM PST - 15 comments

Beautiful data visualisations of the original Choose Your Own Adventure stories. A project by Christian Swinehart.
posted by creeky at 8:30 AM PST - 36 comments

"It is the business of educated people to speak so that no-one may be able to tell in what county their childhood was passed." Despite efforts by Victorians to eradicate them, dialects of English in Great Britain continue to vary greatly, much to the consternation of many traditionalists. But a recently acquired archive is giving new insight into old dialects--some of which no longer exist. Recorded in a WWI prisoner of war camp on shellac disks, the archive was part of an effort by German linguists to study regional variation in the English language. A report by PRI's The World includes a brief synopsis--and a powerful rendition of a beloved Scottish ballad by a homesick soldier.
posted by jefficator at 8:04 AM PST - 10 comments

Soldiers return home after months abroad and are greeted by their very excited dogs. (A compilation of puppy-focused welcome-home videos for Veterans' Day.)
posted by nobody at 7:53 AM PST - 60 comments

I like big bundts and I cannot lie! In honor of November 15th, National Bundt Day, the Food Librarian is bringing us 30 days of Bundt cakes. (via)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:22 AM PST - 28 comments

On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, Lieutenant John Purvis risked court-martial by taking some snapshots of the battlefield. Now his photograph album has been put online. It gives an extraordinary insight into what it was like to be an ordinary soldier in the middle of the battle, marching up to the front, resting in the forward lines, taking cover as a bomb explodes, advancing into battle, watching a shell burst, digging into freshly made trenches, or moving forward over captured ground.
posted by verstegan at 3:00 AM PST - 35 comments

Peter Greenaway on Robert Ashley: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:55 AM PST - 17 comments

Samoan government Minister Hans Joachim "Joe" Keil is suing US immigration agents and the State Department. [more inside]
posted by sycophant at 12:32 AM PST - 66 comments

A LOVE LETTER FOR YOU is a series of 29 murals visible along the westbound El in Philadelphia. [more inside]
posted by deafmute at 10:27 PM PST - 21 comments

Interesting article at Slate, In Defense of Jaywalking, where the author describes how the media and others often slant coverage of pedestrian vs auto accidents--examples include San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe , and New York Post columns. Police, who are typically car-bound, are often biased in favor of other drivers. Not unexpectedly the Federal Highway Administration has curious language regarding walkers--"Still, almost no one can avoid occasional pedestrian status". Even the term jaywalking is commonly misused. Solutions? More money towards safer walking (including a reversal of funding policies that favor cars), better places to walk, pedestrian-friendly engineering, lower urban speed limits, harsher penalties for drivers that violate pedestrian's rights, and critical reading of the often selective and sensationalized media coverage of traffic crashes.
posted by aerotive at 8:32 PM PST - 97 comments

The Australian Capital Territory, the home of the Australian capital of Canberra, has passed a bill allowing same-sex civil unions. As marriage is a federal matter in Australia, this is the highest recognition of same sex unions that is constitutionally allowed in a state or territory of Australia. However, it does give political momentum to the movement looking towards the repeal of the "one man and one woman" Marriage Amendment Act of 2004.
posted by Talez at 8:17 PM PST - 23 comments

As I write this, I realize I am about to do something that, for the most part, is never done. I am going to criticize a critic. Filmmakers are never supposed to respond to a critic about their work. It's an unspoken rule of engagement. But in this case, I feel compelled. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 7:34 PM PST - 52 comments

In 1996, the Ocoee Whitewater Center challenged the paddlers in the '96 Olympics. The dam controlled Ocoee river remains popular with rafters, kayakers and leaf-lookers. Today, the mountain reclaimed a bit the Ocoee gorge.
posted by I'm Doing the Dishes at 6:54 PM PST - 25 comments

We love our maps here, so how about a map quiz thanks to our friends at The Morning News. Warning: the answer underneath each map is a simple link, and the URL sometimes gives away the answer.
posted by shothotbot at 6:41 PM PST - 10 comments

Jazz in Azerbaijan [more inside]
posted by netbros at 4:53 PM PST - 13 comments

KATHMANDU_GLUE^nsfw // Frankie Nazardo set out to capture the glue gangs of Kathmandu.
posted by nitsuj at 4:52 PM PST - 29 comments

Destructoid has posted a full video play-through of the controversial "No Russian" level from the newly released Modern Warfare 2 (warning: possibly disturbing). The level, in which the player is asked to infiltrate a Russian terrorist group and, as a result, take part in a terrorist attack on civilians, has divided gamers and journalists. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 2:14 PM PST - 216 comments

Dismal economy got you down? Chin up, sport - it's possible to save money and eat like a king at one of America's abundant all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants. Before you and your dining companion are whisked off this culinary land of plenty, take note of the definitive strategy guide to maximize both your dollar and your waistline. Fill up on tips such as: Wear items with intricate patterns or designs that will disguise spills and stains. As you get your game plan together, here's your anthem.
posted by porn in the woods at 1:09 PM PST - 96 comments

How to make a baby. (SFW)
posted by fcummins at 12:42 PM PST - 41 comments

two youtube videos and a motherfucking crossfader
posted by boo_radley at 11:38 AM PST - 77 comments

When the Chrysler car company released its new model Dodge Coronet in 1967, the theme of its ad campaign was the "White Hat Special," with some ads featuring the "Dodge Girl" in her signature white Stetson, saying that "Only the good guys could put together a deal like this." These ads didn't need any elaboration. Madison Avenue knew the potential buyers had all been raised on film and TV Westerns, and knew the symbolism of white hats. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, the Lone Ranger — cinematic heroes wore white hats, and bad guys wore black. It was all very simple. The colors white and black have carried layers of moral meaning since long before American infatuation with cowboys and automobiles, and some scientists believe that those associations may be automatic and universal and ancient (abstract). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:34 AM PST - 41 comments

"From the moment the first kitty made shadow birds on the walls of a prehistoric cave, we have had theater." Claw Theater presents Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Robin Hood, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. [more inside]
posted by dersins at 11:09 AM PST - 4 comments

No Homo! Current's "That's Gay" addresses a hip-hop trend. (NSFW Language).
posted by hermitosis at 11:01 AM PST - 274 comments

Defending the Arsenal: In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?
posted by homunculus at 10:44 AM PST - 21 comments

Many kids read The Education of Little Tree in school, but the author of the book, Forrest Carter, was actually Asa Carter, a staunch racist and charlatan.
posted by reenum at 9:12 AM PST - 100 comments

When the Toronto Star announced that they were outsourcing in-house editing jobs, the union wasn't too happy. Neither was this disgruntled editor.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:26 AM PST - 81 comments

The Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity reports on the results of an online survey of 25,179 American Jews and 4,874 American Gentiles. Non-Jews say "klutz" but not "schmutz." The more Orthodox you are, the more likely you are to say "Good Shabbos" instead of "Shabbat Shalom." And so much more you'll plotz.
posted by escabeche at 8:12 AM PST - 86 comments

Imagine an alternate world, where the idea for "The Matrix" had been pitched to Charlie Chaplin. Behold.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:34 AM PST - 41 comments

Sunday night 60 Minutes aired a segment on the state of cyber crime & cyber terror which included the extraordinary claim that unknown hackers were behind massive power outages in Brazil in 2005 & 2007. Now Wired Magazine's Threat Level blog says that's just not true. According to two studies (PDF, Portuguese) by the Brazilian government it was buildup of soot on insulators that caused the blackouts, not super-hackers demonstrating their abilities. Is the US Intelligence Community passing around false information to justify its relevance?
posted by scalefree at 7:02 AM PST - 52 comments

Music video for Snake featuring giant stompy robots invading Uruguay. Short film sans band. Behind the scenes.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:28 AM PST - 13 comments

Armin Gessert, the creator of the classic Giana Sisters game and more recently a remake on Nintendo DS no less, passed away (German) on Sunday Nov 9, 2009. Giana has quite the fan following, and has been ported to pc, 32k among others. Also, previously 1. [more inside]
posted by lundman at 3:03 AM PST - 15 comments

Re-inhabited Circle Ks - an exhibit of identical storefronts abandoned by a national chain of convenience stores and re-purposed by new businesses. [more inside]
posted by mullacc at 2:46 AM PST - 60 comments

Homeopathy has been discussed on the Blue before, but you've never heard it explained so well as this. You'll learn lessmore about physics than you've ever believed possible, and see how Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity ties in to homeopathic medicine, and Stephen Hawking's String Theory makes it all happen. [more inside]
posted by Vamier at 10:45 PM PST - 235 comments

In [a recent] essay titled Heil Heidegger! Carlin Romano, a critic for The Chronicle Review, called Heidegger a “Black Forest babbler” and fraud who was “overrated in his prime” and “bizarrely venerated by acolytes even now.” As the NYT noted yesterday, the publication in English of a recent French book on the by now familiar controversy about Heidegger's Nazism is re-igniting an old debate about the influential philosopher's politics.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 7:58 PM PST - 143 comments

The jobless rate for people like you.
posted by Afroblanco at 6:33 PM PST - 107 comments

Confessions of an Independent Film Maker is the video log about a Filipino guy who wants to make a feature film. After a year and a half, he's finally in production. Watch out for this guy.
posted by Taft at 6:16 PM PST - 11 comments

What's After the Credits? is a handy website which tells you if a movie, television show or video game has any extra or special scenes during the credits or post credits, known 'in the biz' as a Stinger. And if after checking out those websites you're tired of just reading about these post-credit scenes, check out a whole bunch of them by following this link to Youtube.
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:54 PM PST - 60 comments

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on the appeal of two "math geeks" who were denied a patent for a business method they developed for utility companies. This is one of the most watched cases of the Supreme Court term, drawing some 67 briefs. Although the patent office has recognized that business methods can be patented, it is not clear whether patents, developed to protect innovations like machines and transformative processes, are available for 21st century inventions such as software.
posted by bearwife at 2:30 PM PST - 98 comments

The Beatles never broke up.
posted by klangklangston at 2:26 PM PST - 106 comments

When it comes to roleplaying games, there are your run-of-the-mill CRPGs and then there are Bioware CRPGs. Last week saw the release of the next Bioware CRPG, Dragon Age: Origins. The game has received the expected universal acclaim. [more inside]
posted by WinnipegDragon at 1:38 PM PST - 184 comments

Roomba Pac-Man! We've already discussed modding Roombas and Roomba art, but now these guys have made a fully playable real-life Pac-Man game using everyone's favorite robotic vacuum cleaner.
posted by dnesan at 1:27 PM PST - 16 comments

"I don't mean to be rude, but I try everything out on Sylvia, and if she can do it, anybody can." Fortunately, Sylvia is in the kitchen making another cup of tea. In sleepy Sussex is a group of dedicated cryonicists who believe they hold the secret to eternal life. Simon Hattenstone joins them for a demonstration – but first they need to make sure the hosepipe isn't too leaky.
posted by veedubya at 12:44 PM PST - 50 comments

It appears that the Lost Army of Cambyses has been found. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:25 PM PST - 74 comments

Do you like maps? How about historical maps? Oodles of links to even more maps? Then the PCL Map Collection hosted by the University of Texas might be for you. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 12:14 PM PST - 13 comments

Futurama Writer Saves Tiny Presidents. Beginning in the 1950's, toymaker Louis Marx released a line of figurines of U.S. Presidents (accompanied by a model White House). Sold as sets and given away as grocery store premiums the figures are still popular collectibles today. The series ended when Richard M. Nixon was president. Patric M. Verrone, writer for Futurama and The Simpsons has carried on the tradition, using appropriate torsos from the old Marx figures and sculpting new heads, he has continued the line up to President Obama. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 12:06 PM PST - 25 comments

Brynn Metheny is a freelance illustrator based in Oakland, California who loves to draw imaginary creatures. Metheny has taken this fascination with made-up animals and extended it to the point of conjuring up an entire continent, Orcura, through which flows The Morae River. The river basin has a bestiary and a Classification of Species to describe the animals that inhabit it. (via) (speculative zoology previously)
posted by HumanComplex at 11:18 AM PST - 8 comments

Few men can reach the notes, and few women have the lung capacity to manipulate them. Most of these arias have not been heard since the deaths of the castrati for whom they were written. Mezzosoprano Cecilia Bartoli has released an album entitled Sacrificium. The album is a compilation of 17th-century arias written for castrati--male singers who were castrated in order to sing in a higher register. Commentaries on the work are favorable; commentaries on the history of castrati and Bartoli herself are just as interesting.
posted by jefficator at 11:13 AM PST - 44 comments

Hacking is a Baltimore phenomenon that allows citizens to get cheap "illegal" rides across town. A hack indicates they want a ride by motioning their pointer finger towards the ground as they walk along the street. Inevitably a driver will stop, the two parties will negotiate a price and a ride will be given. It is both a dangerous and necessary part of the blighted Baltimore economy.
posted by cloeburner at 11:10 AM PST - 82 comments

MarineTraffic is a live map recording ship traffic based on AIS data. The site mainly covers European and North American coasts and includes info on vessels and ports, plus a gallery with some cool ship photos. Similar: see ShipAIS for live vessel movements from around the UK.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:27 AM PST - 8 comments

Hacking Perl in nightclubs
posted by yegga at 10:08 AM PST - 22 comments

The Polar Discovery team has documented science in action from pole to pole during the historic 2007-2009 International Polar Year, and covered five scientific expeditions. The science projects explored a range of topics from climate change and glaciers, to Earth’s geology, biology, ocean chemistry, circulation, and technology at the icy ends of the earth. Through photo essays and other multimedia, they explain how scientists collected data and what they discovered about the rapidly changing polar regions. From the awesome folks at WHOI.
posted by netbros at 10:01 AM PST - 4 comments

Carl Ballantine passed away at age 92. [more inside]
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 9:53 AM PST - 14 comments

In the late 1890s, a wooden "cycle-way" was built between Pasadena and Los Angeles for bicycle travel before freeways existed. It ran along the Arroyo Seco and though it was planned for the full ten mile distance, only two miles were completed by 1900 as the popularity of the bicycle waned. In 1983 a bike path was built along the stream basin but is both riddled with glass and debris and dangerous to impassible during a rainstorm. For the last 15 years, a group in Pasadena has been leading the effort to restore a bike path between Pasadena and Los Angeles.
posted by mathowie at 9:51 AM PST - 15 comments

Apple has rejected an iPhone app for making contact with your Congressperson. Why? Because it identifies each US Representative/Senator with a 'bobblehead' caricature by MAD magazine artist Tom Richmond (who, having done 540 not-terribly-disrespectful caricatures, is justifiably pissed). “Obscene, pornographic, or defamatory”?!? Well, maybe the Nancy Pelosi is gratuitously goofy...
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:37 AM PST - 151 comments

Your cafefully separated recycling heads to the dump. Reporters in D.C. follow some of the trucks around town and watch them dump the trash and the recycling together into the same truck. (previously)
posted by caddis at 8:57 AM PST - 64 comments

Video discussion on being a man with, and The Seven P's of Men's Violence by, Michael Kaufman, International Director of the White Ribbon Campaign. [more inside]
posted by catchingsignals at 7:24 AM PST - 106 comments

40 years ago today, The Rolling Stones played two concerts at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. In the darkness of the audience was a man known to history only as "Dub"... [audio auto-plays] [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 6:59 AM PST - 13 comments

The Open Road London pioneering colour footage from 1927 (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:16 AM PST - 15 comments

The strength of post-Soviet math stems from decades of lonely productivity. Russian math.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:36 AM PST - 19 comments

It's been posted before, but on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the stunning photography of Brian Rose is certainly worth revisiting. It's amazing that something like this existed. [more inside]
posted by jedro at 2:47 AM PST - 21 comments

Is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world? Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry debate the question with Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Anne Widdencombe. Parts 2, 3, 4, 5
posted by empath at 12:04 AM PST - 219 comments

Mefi's own Jason Scott (jscott) wants to raise $25,000 using waxy's Kickstarter to work full-time on computer history. He made BBS documentary (previously), founded the Archive Team, and owns textfiles.com (previously) and, yes, sockington. So far, 237 people have pledged $20,340. On Nov. 4, Jason did a 5-hours, non-stop Scottathon. Apparently, fundraising ain't easy. [more inside]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 11:51 PM PST - 38 comments

Biblioburro is a library that schoolteacher Luis Soriano Bohorquez of La Gloria, a small town in northern Colombia, carries around on his donkeys Alfa and Beto. Another video of Biblioburro by Al Jazeera English. Here's some further footage in Spanish. [Biblioburro previously]
posted by Kattullus at 10:04 PM PST - 12 comments

Simon Mann, freed dog of war, is demanding justice. After more than five years in jail, the British mercenary is seeking vengeance on others he says were part of the failed 'Wonga Coup' – including Mark Thatcher. [previously] [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 9:44 PM PST - 24 comments

Cuban players have long been a mainstay in baseball. After Fidel Castro made it impossible for people to leave the island, the flow of players stopped to a drip. That changed with the defection of Rene Arocha in 1991. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 9:08 PM PST - 4 comments

Aardvark is a Q&A chat service that tries find people to answer your questions among your friends, friends of friends and people who know something about your subject. In practice it's a bit like AskOmegle. [more inside]
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:49 PM PST - 38 comments

"Golb the Son has taken up his father’s cause with all the vigor permitted by multiple Gmail accounts." A tale of sock puppets and ancient scrolls.
posted by tractorfeed at 3:56 PM PST - 78 comments

Michelle Khine makes high tech out of children's toys. Doing medical nanotech with Shrinky Dinks and a toaster oven.
posted by idiopath at 3:52 PM PST - 10 comments

Desiree Jennings is a 25-year old marketing manager (and Redskins "Ambassador cheerleader") who claims that in August she received a seasonal flu vaccine at a grocery store that caused a never-before-seen dystonia. While saturating media outlets and drawing the support of celebrity anti-vaccinationists, she shunned the doctors who treated her at Johns Hopkins University who (along with other neurologists who have seen footage of her) judged that she was suffering from a psychogenic disorder. [more inside]
posted by inoculatedcities at 3:50 PM PST - 99 comments

Name That Movie The illustrator, Paul Rogers, description of his project: I started a series of drawings in my sketchbook, it's a kind of visual quiz of great movies. Each series is a sequence of six drawings of shots from classic films (in the order they appear on screen.) No portraits of movie stars, just iconic images from the film.
posted by TimTypeZed at 3:26 PM PST - 20 comments

Gerhardt 'Jerry' Fuchs, drummer for the bands Maserati (video) and The Juan MacLean died last night of injuries sustained while trying to jump of a disabled elevator in Brooklyn following an event for The Uniform Project (previously).
posted by setanor at 2:39 PM PST - 30 comments

"What's the deal with cat ladies?" asks an article. Maybe you saw the TV show, which could be "the grossest footage" on TV. Gross indeed, but read the studies from the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium, or watch the documentary, and maybe you'll want to visit the little old lady that lives down the street and see if she's OK.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:44 PM PST - 42 comments

Past Tense is a publishing project exploring London radical history. Their website has texts telling us about William Cuffay, the black Chartist tried and transported for levying war against Queen Victoria; an account of an early instance of women's organised labour struggle during the 1908 Corruganza box-makers strike; the drunken uproar of the 18th-century elections for the spurious Mayor of Garratt, really putting the 'mock' into 'mock election'; a yeoman farmer in Kett's Great Rebellion of 1549; the burning of the Albion Mills; and much more, including some walking tours to locations linked to radical history in various parts of the metropolis.
posted by Abiezer at 6:42 AM PST - 7 comments

The Kalinin K-7 was a giant flying fortress that might have redefined aerial combat in the 1930s. The hugely expensive and trouble-prone prototype was scrapped by Stalin and its designer was later executed. Here are some renderings of the planes that might have been, with spacious lounges, battleship-sized cannons, and the ability to defend us from UFOs.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:58 AM PST - 68 comments

Elona Shooter - a fantastic castle-defence-shooter-RPG in Flash. Warning: insanely hard.
posted by catchingsignals at 12:00 AM PST - 19 comments

If there's one thing that MeFites are absolutely universal in loving, it's the TV show Mad Men. Right? Right? Well, here's something that even the haters will enjoy : Milk Men - A Mad Men Parody
posted by Afroblanco at 9:31 PM PST - 59 comments

The House of Representatives just passed the health reform bill in a vote of 220-215.
posted by reenum at 9:01 PM PST - 388 comments

cosmolearning has a ton of college courses and documentaries aggregated in one place. And it was started by a couple of teenagers. I'm impressed.
posted by pahool at 7:45 PM PST - 8 comments

Vintage Mouse Porn (NSFW). Pre-1970 pornography, redrawn with cartoon mice. [more inside]
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:25 PM PST - 32 comments

People Doing Stuff. Strangely compelling.
posted by flatluigi at 5:40 PM PST - 68 comments

Reading to the Endgame: Algorithmic translation of classic nineteenth century novels into chessboard slugfests. Select the opponents from a list of fifty-five novels in five languages, and watch each text maneuver across the battlefield.
posted by carsonb at 4:49 PM PST - 16 comments

Batman's "disappear into the shadows" routine goes wrong. (SLYT, via)
posted by aheckler at 4:25 PM PST - 29 comments

The Mineral Makeup Mutiny was founded to encourage consumers to buy indie self-made mineral cosmetics, instead of overpriced makeup that were repackaging wholesale micas from companies such as TKB Trading, or publishing contradicting ingredients lists and sending Cease-and-Desist Letters to unfavourable reviews. Miss K of Aromaleigh, founder of the Mutiny (and former seller of repackaged wholesale hues, which she's discontinuing in favour of original colours), demonstrates how mineral eyeshadows are made. [more inside]
posted by divabat at 2:55 PM PST - 33 comments

Ever wonder how the physics of Portal's portals worked? Or how Mario could walk on space rocks in Super Mario Galaxy? Games Demystified seeks to answer these pressing questions, with code samples and working demos. [more inside]
posted by hellojed at 1:38 PM PST - 7 comments

The Obama administration has again invoked the state secrets privilege in an effort to dismiss a class action lawsuit challenging government surveillance. The DOJ has also unveiled new procedures for invoking the privilege. This is not the first time the Obama DOJ has taken this position. [more inside]
posted by bearwife at 1:12 PM PST - 58 comments

Shouting vs. Spanking -- What should the parent choose?
posted by Taft at 12:34 PM PST - 102 comments

Last August, six Harvard scientists went to the hospital after drinking coffee laced with sodium azide, in what appears to be a delibarate posioning. Previous laboratory-related poisonings have occured at other prestigious institutions, although radioactivity is generally the method of choice. [more inside]
posted by emd3737 at 10:50 AM PST - 56 comments

Whether working with the Nicholas Brothers (Previously), working with the muppets, working with that funny, funny, funny reefer man, or making out with your wife, Cab Calloway never fails to entertain.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 8:38 AM PST - 29 comments

Oral histories indicate that slahal is an ancient game, dating to before the last ice age. At times discouraged, this gambling game is still being played. Also known as the bone game and the hand or stick game, the rules are simple: guess which hand holds the unmarked bone. But while your team tries to guess, the opposing team will confuse you with chants and drumming and music. And you do the same to them. An entire game can be quite loud and quite subtle. A short documentary.
posted by twoleftfeet at 5:26 AM PST - 8 comments

A posting last month to RISKS on the topic of posthumous emails brings to mind the story of Colin Douthwaite. Mr. Douthwaite, an active USENET user, passed away in March of 1999 after some prolonged medical difficulties. His son Ian's farewell message to alt.ascii-art inspired a small flood of original memorial works and a much larger flood from members' personal archives in his memory. [more inside]
posted by mkb at 1:04 AM PST - 7 comments

The frequently excellent photo-blog The Big Picture at the Boston Globe has posted a collection of stunning and, well, alien-looking photos of the martian landscape.
posted by Frankieist at 12:10 AM PST - 30 comments

A compilation of clips in which characters say the title of the movie, in the movie.
Possibly inspired by Andy Baio's compilation of supercuts, & a Family Guy cutaway.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:45 PM PST - 82 comments

From the middle of the middle of me, to the middle of the middle of you, RIP Brother Blue, master storyteller, deep soul extraordinaire. [more inside]
posted by alms at 7:34 PM PST - 20 comments

"If you're gonna pull someone's ponytail and about snap their head off with it, that's going over the line." BYU advances in MWC tournament despite multiple dirty plays from New Mexico's Elizabeth Lambert.
posted by hermitosis at 7:27 PM PST - 141 comments

This YouTube video seems to break my browser. Does it play alright for anyone else?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:15 PM PST - 44 comments

Enchanted Spaces by Marrigje De Maar. Russia::Finland::China::Japan
posted by vronsky at 3:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Isaac Eiland-Hall wins WIPO case, hands domain name over to ... Glenn Beck? [more inside]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:43 PM PST - 74 comments

100 Creative Business Cards if that little white piece of paper just isn't doing it for you.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 2:38 PM PST - 62 comments

Satire has long been part of discourse, with written records going back to the Ramesside Period of Ancient Egypt, and two primary classifications of satire originate with the Roman satirists Horace and Juvenal. Other notable historic figures have also been authors of significant satire, but not always with much appreciation. News satire furthers the awkward stance with public, as the public may read satire as an outrageous truth, and be angered instead of amused. The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart in specific, ranks well in the fractured world of current news programming, and the show was noted in the New York Times as "a genuine cultural and political force" (previously), but you don't have take their word for it. Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism studied the content of The Daily Show for an entire year (2007), providing interesting (if slightly dated) details on the show. That year included their much-viewed coverage fo the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. And in poll results published July 24, 2009, Jon Stewart was voted America's most trusted newscaster, apparently filling the position previously held by Walter Cronkite. But is it because Stewart is one of the few journalists willing to ask the hard questions or has America been won over by "cheap laughs"?
posted by filthy light thief at 1:51 PM PST - 52 comments

"I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away." So said Mark Pincus, CEO and founder of Zynga, the company behind social games like Mafia Wars and Farmville. It's the latest revelation in a week-long bit of drama between TechCrunch and the companies running the shady virtual currency that makes the games profitable. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 1:35 PM PST - 42 comments

Ad agencies often have bizarre, unorthodox websites. But how about an agency that moves its entire website over to YouTube?
posted by Vhanudux at 1:33 PM PST - 27 comments

"Efficient Mondrian is a tongue-in-cheek art installation which generates HTML table compositions in the style of Piet Mondrian's Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red from the text of The Principles of Scientific Management by FW Taylor. It does this every two minutes, posting the results to twitter." [via mefi projects]
posted by brundlefly at 1:09 PM PST - 18 comments

Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!! is a blog featuring gobs of drawings by comic book artists of their favorite literary authors or characters. [via] [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 1:06 PM PST - 26 comments

Mark McGwire was one of the most feared sluggers in the game during his career. In 1998, the home run chase between McGwire and Sammy Sosa helped baseball recover from the 1994 strike. But, when a reporter found a bottle containing andro in McGwire's locker, some chinks in his armor began to emerge. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 12:13 PM PST - 61 comments

Twenty years ago in Berlin a wall came down. But at a free concert last night given by U2 in front of the Brandenburg Gate, MTV Europe decided to put a wall back up.
posted by jefficator at 11:27 AM PST - 65 comments

Japanese fishing trawler sunk by giant jellyfish.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:35 AM PST - 73 comments

Take your nose on a stroll down memory lane with vintage perfumery. The Vintage Perfume Vault features fragrance reviews and articles on perfume history. Perfume Shrine offers articles on perfumery including essays on the science of fragrance and aroma materials, interviews with perfumers and industry professionals, trend-watching. Inspiration in Perfumery profiles Henri Robert, Andre Fraysse, Ernest Beaux and Edmond Roudnitska. More about olfactory delights from 1000 Fragrances. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 8:17 AM PST - 24 comments

Safe Sex - A sketch performed by Dawn French (previously), Stephen Fry (lots of previously), Hugh Laurie (previously that's not also about Fry), and Rowan Atkinson (previously 1 2).
posted by kmz at 7:49 AM PST - 16 comments

The Gecko Wears A Tiara [via mefi projects] Sumarian proverbs. Compare those with the 1600BCE Ashubanipal proverbs and Proverbs From the Ancient Egyptian Temples and indeed, modern Iraq and Arabic more generally. Enjoy, culture geeks. [more inside]
posted by jaduncan at 7:34 AM PST - 29 comments

Night witches. "Russia's three all-female air regiments flew more than 30,000 missions along the Eastern Front in WWII. At home they were known as Stalin's Falcons, but terrified German troops called them the Night Witches." [more inside]
posted by shetterly at 7:18 AM PST - 32 comments

No, it isn't the Rock Biter from The NeverEnding Story. It's just a creepy-ass statue of Mr. Rogers. (Perhaps trying to steal some of Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary thunder?)
posted by jeremy b at 7:12 AM PST - 48 comments

Here is a simple game called Drench.
posted by thirteenkiller at 6:21 AM PST - 41 comments

Getting tired of fail, fail, and yet more fail? SUCCEED Blog chronicles that which is made of win. Leave your schadenfreude at the door. [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:38 AM PST - 55 comments

Soldier Kills 12, wounds 31 at Fort Hood Two descriptions of the alleged killer. One from the New York Times describes the suspect as unwilling to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, and some of his background, the second talks about some different aspects of his past.
posted by Snyder at 1:41 AM PST - 224 comments

If the worlds of upmarket foodie porn and hip-hop collided, what would you find at the crash site? Behold, The Rhyming Chef, who will threaten local cows and sing you through the preparation of dishes like the Barbuda Get Laid Salad. [more inside]
posted by bicyclefish at 11:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Russell Brand talks to Dawn French about comedy, revealing a peculiar and compelling intelligence apparently gleaned from TV and substance abuse. Part 1, 2, 3, 4 [YT]
posted by mhjb at 10:48 PM PST - 14 comments

Toilet training isn't quite so easy in Japan. There's squat toilets and western style to consider. Then there are the talking toilets, and toilets that act as electronic bidets. It's no wonder then, that Japanese kids need more than a few hints from mum to master lavatorial etiquette. Meet Pants Pankuro and his friends, in their efforts to master the strange world of the Japanese toilet. [more inside]
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:05 PM PST - 38 comments

Enheduanna was a priestess and poet in the city of Ur in the 23rd century BC and supposedly the daughter of Sargon the Great of Akkad. She is the first author known by name. Here are a number of her poems in English translation, The Exaltation of Inana, Inana and Ebih, A Hymn to Inana, The Temple Hymns and A Balbale to Nanna. Here are two alternate translations of The Exaltation of Inana, one by James D. Pritchard and an English rendering of Dr. Annette Zgoll's German translation. If you want to learn more, go to The En-hedu-Ana Research Pages.
posted by Kattullus at 8:33 PM PST - 27 comments

Norman Strike is blogging the 1984-85 U.K. miners' strike. From his account of the "Battle of Orgreave" (June 18, 1984): There was the coke works in the distance, squatting on the land and belching out smoke from Yorkshire coal. A black line of police spread across the yellow field in front, with horses to the rear and sides. . . . I began sprinting up the field, trying to avoid the slower lads. I made it to safety but was horrified at what I saw as I looked back down the field. Dogs were biting lads whilst others were being truncheoned by pigs and either led away or dragged away! It was a disgusting sight and one I never thought I’d see in this country. I’ll never forget it but worse was to follow. [more inside]
posted by chinston at 7:42 PM PST - 9 comments

What kind of eggs you like? (alternate version. Egg standup.)
posted by orville sash at 7:22 PM PST - 27 comments

The ASL Shakespeare Project brings us Twelfth Night, fully translated into American Sign Language (ASL) [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam at 7:12 PM PST - 17 comments

Someone has started publishing a handy guide to the Australian bogan. One bogan is not amused. (Previously)
posted by awfurby at 6:23 PM PST - 68 comments

From The Titusville Morning Herald of June 17, 1866, "Our attention has been called to a series of experiments that have been made in the wells of various localities by Col. Roberts, with his newly patented torpedo. ... The torpedo... is lowered into the well, down to the spot, as near as can be ascertained, where it is necessary to explode it. ... The object of the torpedo is to clean out all the deposits at the bottom of the well."
In the western Pennsylvania oilfields of the second half of the 1800s, "shooters" were men who set off nitroglycerin charges in wells to get the oil flowing again. Tales of Destruction relates stories and legends of this absurdly hazardous job. Additional notes here, in Samuel Pees's Oil History. (Previously)
posted by tss at 5:51 PM PST - 4 comments

Boys dared to grow their hair and girls dared to wear mini skirts and in Korea indecency officers patroled the street with scissors and rulers, publicly cutting hair too long and checking if skirts were too short. Shin Joong-hyung, was there with his 70s hit, Beauty, as were other musicians and artists like Sanullim and the Key Boys. [more inside]
posted by kkokkodalk at 5:35 PM PST - 12 comments

Such are the contradictions that seem to riddle not just Gladwell's thinking but the thinking on Gladwell's thinking, and perhaps even the thinking on thinking on that, and it is precisely these slippery but substantive contradictions that have allowed Gladwell to tout his revolutionary "big ideas" without couching them in anything so mundane as a logical, well-supported or otherwise sound argument. Gladwell for Dummies.
posted by defenestration at 3:46 PM PST - 101 comments

Representative Alan Grayson (Dem- Florida) has recently been supporting the Democrats health care plan. Well, 'support' is an understatement. His first speech on the subject outlined the Republicans plan: "Don't get sick. And if you do, die quickly." After mass outrage from the GOP, Grayson made an apology, but not to the GOP. Instead, he apologized to the 44,000 Americans who die each year due to lack of insurance. Yesterday, Grayson took the floor and named the number of people expected to die in each Republican representative district. This time, the Republicans tried to stop him.
posted by Taft at 3:26 PM PST - 169 comments

In its' third year, Softies for Mirabel is an appeal for handmade stuffed toys to benefit children supported by The Mirabel Foundation. [more inside]
posted by hecho de la basura at 1:56 PM PST - 2 comments

The Greatest Velvet Paintings of Science Fiction Icons [more inside]
posted by JoanArkham at 1:36 PM PST - 20 comments

Don't you want to watch a critically acclaimed chef get drunk and shout about the wonders of ham? (video is NSFW, due to cursing) [more inside]
posted by dnesan at 1:09 PM PST - 38 comments

Does John of God really heal the sick? Or is it just carnival tricks? John of God aka João Teixeira de Faria is a farmer who has been healing people close to his ranch in Brazil for close to 50 years by chanelling the energy of medical spirits. Sometimes he uses visible surgery and sometimes he uses invisible surgery.
posted by pick_the_flowers at 1:05 PM PST - 36 comments

Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio is controversial to be sure. He has been accused of using his office to retaliate against critics, and he has thumbed his nose at the feds. Are his rank and file officers following his lead? What's up with this?
posted by Crotalus at 1:04 PM PST - 62 comments

Released detainees talk about life during and after their unlawful detention in the video Justice Denied: Voices from Guantánamo which is part of an ACLU initiative against the practice of detention without due process that violates fundamental principles of American justice. (Previously)
posted by gman at 12:24 PM PST - 7 comments

She's a public mystery, craving attention but shying away from private interviews. She is a human being Andy Warhol would have created, a painter (of) herself. She ran for Hollywood City Council in 2002, joined the much-parodied 2003 California gubernatorial recall election (previously), and most recently tried to become Mayor of Hollywood (archive of her Mayoral site). She is still loved by snark-mongers. She is Angelyne. She is ... [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:10 PM PST - 42 comments

We all wish we had a teacher like this
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 12:07 PM PST - 49 comments

Spencer Baum's self-published first novel One Fall explores the world of professional wrestling through the eyes of an up-and-coming star, a taken-for-granted women's division wrestler, a head booker with no authority, and an internet fanboy, all trying to navigate the line between fiction and nonfiction. Baum is now releasing the novel one chapter at a time as a Creative Commons audiobook. The book closely parallels the Monday Night Wars, with sly references to infamous reality-blurring events like the Montreal Screwjob (the subject of an excellent National Film Board documentary you can now watch online) and Bash at the Beach 2000. (mild spoiler inside) [more inside]
posted by roll truck roll at 11:57 AM PST - 3 comments

A lot of us have had bad roommates. One man has taken it upon himself to chronicle the buffoonery of his meathead roommate, Steve, via Twitter. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 11:51 AM PST - 73 comments

A Common Nomenclature for Lego Families.
posted by Iridic at 11:39 AM PST - 47 comments

Bobbie E. Burnett is suing her employers, the Free Library of Philadelphia, for discrimination. She's been employed there for nearly 20 years, but transitioned to a female gender identity in 2001, at which point she says discrimination set in. "Slurs hurled at Burnett by some staffers include 'freak,' 'man in woman’s clothing' and 'nigger,' according to the suit. On one occasion, when Burnett expressed wishes for a nice weekend to a coworker, the employee responded with, 'Burn in hell,' according to the lawsuit." [more inside]
posted by booknerd at 11:29 AM PST - 60 comments

1989: The Lost Year. "Twenty years after the Berlin Wall came down, the end of the Cold War still inspires euphoria and triumphalism in the West. But even as we lift toasts once again to the victory of 1989, we should re-examine that momentous year. Documents, memoirs, and other evidence that have come to light suggest that for relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, it was also a time of missed opportunity." The first article in a series by Foreign Policy. Also, check out the National Security Archive's Electronic Briefing Books section to access "critical declassified records on issues including U.S. national security, foreign policy, diplomatic and military history, intelligence policy, and more."
posted by cog_nate at 11:02 AM PST - 8 comments

In March of 2007 Seattle artist Jack Daws (unrelated previously) went to a newsstand in LAX and bought a Hustler magazine, with cash. The cash included a counterfeit penny he had made from 18 Karat gold. Two and a half years later, 2,798 miles away, at the C-Town Supermarket on Manhattan Avenue, in Brooklyn, artist Jessica Reed found the penny.
posted by dirtdirt at 9:57 AM PST - 49 comments

[FlickrPoolFilter] Crappy Bootleg DVD Covers: Here, you will find Tom Cruise's hit movie, Pepe Likes Tacos. In this universe, Star Wars features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dustin Hoffman stars in Lost in Translation; witches, pirates, and hobbits inhabit the same world. Titles are improved upon. Reviews are refreshingly frank (if they make any sense at all). Your DVD may also contain subtitles in French, Chinese, Spamsoc, or Martian. (Don't say there was no warning.) Remember, kids: Piracy Creates Jobs!
posted by not_on_display at 9:55 AM PST - 57 comments

The world's worst bike lanes according to readers of the Guardian. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan at 8:54 AM PST - 43 comments

"100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do": Rules 1-50. Rules 51-100. [more inside]
posted by Jaltcoh at 7:49 AM PST - 356 comments

In Saint's Row 2 (a GTA-ish game for the PC and current-gen consoles), your character sings along whenever a-ha's song "Take on Me" plays on the radio. Here's all six player voices edited together to sing along at the same time. [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by CrunchyFrog at 7:39 AM PST - 56 comments

"So, 'now'--ooh, what a wonderful first word, right in the beginning of the play. 'Now.' Not in the past. Not a history play. Now." Ian McKellen breaks down Richard III. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 7:32 AM PST - 46 comments

This morning, Google launched a new feature called "Google Dashboard" that lets users view (and in some cases control,) what data is being stored on a range of more than 20 Google services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts and Latitude. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:18 AM PST - 56 comments

BBC test card music and other delights. Relive those rainy summer afternoons when the only thing to watch on television was a photograph of a girl playing noughts and crosses with a clown to an easy listening soundtrack who would later be fictionalised for Life on Mars. Join the club!
posted by feelinglistless at 4:16 AM PST - 18 comments

Tiny books in Russian and some contents at this site. (Previously)
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:49 AM PST - 18 comments

"Maggwire.com makes discovering magazine content a personalized experience. Utilizing social intelligence, our system recommends magazine articles you will enjoy reading from over 600 magazine titles." [more inside]
posted by allkindsoftime at 11:00 PM PST - 7 comments

"Every opportunity for peace in the Middle East has been led to slaughter" Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker writes about the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip nearly eleven months ago, talking to Palestinians, Israelis and aid workers. Political context combined with incredibly saddening everyday civilian life.
posted by smoke at 10:04 PM PST - 43 comments

A brilliant industrial design (IMO) for a slimline UK power plug. The UK plug is an exceptionally chunky and large lump; a real pain in the computer satchel. This video shows what appears to be a manufacturable design that turns it into an elegant device. SLYT. [more inside]
posted by five fresh fish at 7:45 PM PST - 94 comments

The 65-Year-Old Virgin: Robert Bergman’s photographs, finally revealed. "The last time Robert Bergman had a gallery show, it was 1964, and he was 20 years old. The college dropout and his best friend, Danny Seymour, took their earliest photographs, produced in a 'lint-filled darkroom'—a.k.a. his mother’s laundry room—to a 'rinky-dink bookstore' in Minneapolis’s run-down West Bank. 'Me and Danny just threw some pictures up on the wall,' he says. 'You couldn’t even call that a show.' Bergman is 65 now, and making a real debut in not one but three venues, at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center; Chelsea’s Yossi Milo Gallery; and, extraordinarily, the National Gallery of Art. (This is the National Gallery’s first artist’s debut show ever.)" An interview with Robert Bergman, and a slideshow of some of his work.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:41 PM PST - 13 comments

The Fore River Shipyard was in service between 1886 and 1985, first under the management of the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company, then Bethlehem Steel, and finally General Dynamics. She helped to close out the age of sail with the construction of the largest sailing vessel in history without any kind of engine. Besides providing a substantial number of liberty ships, surface warships of various classes, and submarines during WWII, it may also be the source of the "Kilroy was here" graffiti. [more inside]
posted by rmd1023 at 7:17 PM PST - 3 comments

Stormy the ferret has died. While the video accompanying that report claims dogs and cats are safe from H1N1 the Iowa Department of Public Health says otherwise. A cat in Iowa is confirmed with swine flu. Turkeys and pigs have also gotten it. The USDA is now releasing confirmed and presumptive cases in domestic animals (PDF).
posted by cjorgensen at 6:38 PM PST - 44 comments

"When you hear the popular phrase “Party like a rock star” in the national media, one tends to think of tony destinations, glittering venues, and dazzling celebrations. All of these perceptions will apply to Cleveland when The Rockometer building is completed." [more inside]
posted by subpixel at 5:05 PM PST - 52 comments

Photos by Wayne Levin of surfers, swimmers, fish and more. (-v-)
posted by vronsky at 4:03 PM PST - 9 comments

Making the Modern World presents a set of twisty little passages through the history of science and invention, from the eighteenth century to the contemporary era, brought to you by the UK's Science Museum.
posted by Miko at 3:53 PM PST - 4 comments

Twenty years ago this month, the nearly 700 mile border between East and West Germany started to disappear. "The fence is long gone, and the no-man's land where it stood now is part of Europe's biggest nature preserve. The once-deadly border area is alive with songbirds nesting in crumbling watchtowers, foxes hiding in weedy fortifications and animals not seen here for years, such as elk and lynx. But one species is boycotting the reunified animal kingdom: red deer." According to the Bavarian National Forest Park Service, scientists [link in German] have recorded nearly 11,000 GPS locations for 'Ahornia," a red deer who appears to never enter the Czech Republic.
posted by webhund at 1:59 PM PST - 21 comments

Please dismantling the Radio(?). your have only screwdriver. The tool you can use is the screwdriver. Japanese skill is NO need to slove this puzzle. Good luck. [Via JIG.]
posted by mudpuppie at 1:28 PM PST - 111 comments

Maine became the 31st state to block same-sex marriage through a public referendum Some said the loss was a sign that the state-by-state approach favored by the largest gay-rights groups had failed and that the focus should move to repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, which bans federal recognition of same-sex marriage, and which Congress can overturn without voter approval. Others argued that the defeat only reinforced the need to keep winning grassroots support. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 1:11 PM PST - 262 comments

Franny Armstrong is the director of McLibel, The Age of Stupid, and founder of the 10:10 campaign, which aims to cut 10% of carbon emissions in 2010. She was walking through Camden, North London, on Monday night, when a group of young girls pushed her against a car. One of them was armed with a metre-long iron bar. She called for help from a passing cyclist ... who turned out to be Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. [more inside]
posted by memebake at 1:04 PM PST - 54 comments

The capture of Adolf Eichmann is one of the more daring spy operations in the post WWII era. The story spans 17 years, beginning with Eichmann's clandestine escape from the Allied forces and the Nuremberg trial, and ending with his hanging in Israel. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 11:35 AM PST - 22 comments