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"The paper puts forward a small but novel idea of how we can cut down the incidence of bribery. There are different kinds of bribes and what this paper is concerned with are bribes that people often have to give to get what they are legally entitled to. I shall call these 'harassment bribes'. Suppose an income tax refund is held back from a taxpayer till he pays some cash to the officer. Suppose government allots subsidized land to a person but when the person goes to get her paperwork done and receive documents for this land, she is asked to pay a hefty bribe. These are all illustrations of harassment bribes. Harassment bribery is widespread in India and it plays a large role in breeding inefficiency and has a corrosive effect on civil society. The central message of this paper is that we should declare the act of giving a bribe in all such cases as legitimate activity [PDF]. In other words the giver of a harassment bribe should have full immunity from any punitive action by the state." [more inside]
posted by vidur at 11:00 PM PST - 36 comments

Smilin Stan Lee, co-creator of everyone from Spider-Man to Striperella, is teaming up with Arnold Schwarzenegger for a comic and cartoon called The Governator. According to the article, Athe Governator will have a fleet of super vehicles at his disposal, a closet full of “Super Suits” that allow him to fly and perform other super stunts, and a team of colorful sidekicks, such as Zeke Muckerberg, the precocious 13-year-old computer whiz who acts as the Governator’s cybersecurity expert. Naturally, there will also be recurring supervillains — including an evil organization called Gangsters Imposters Racketeers Liars & Irredeemable Ex-cons (or G.I.R.L.I.E. Men, for short). There's an excerpt on the EW site. Excelsior!
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:58 PM PST - 53 comments

For more than forty years, Betty Debnam has been writing, illustrating, and publishing a newspaper for kids: The Mini Page. It's now fully archived online. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 8:49 PM PST - 20 comments

The GOCE satellite has completed its survey of the Earth's gravitational field. This visualisation of different gravitational potentials (the geoid) will help us understand earthquakes and the flow of ocean currents by comparing the actual height of the surface with the one predicted by the geoid. [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:44 PM PST - 11 comments

Historically Hardcore is an awesome fake advertising campaign for the Smithsonian. Created as a portfolio project by two students, the ads have gone viral and the Smithsonian is none too pleased about it.
posted by helloknitty at 8:06 PM PST - 66 comments

"It was fantastic to be undeniably receiving radio from Britain. Ever since then I've always wanted to spin records on the World Service." Former Clash frontman Joe Strummer first listened to the BBC World Service while visiting his father in Africa as a teenager in the mid-1960s. [more inside]
posted by futureisunwritten at 6:30 PM PST - 54 comments

Nuclear janitors |They’re called ‘jumpers’ and they go where no one else will | "Off to Japan" | The pay rate at Three Mile Island in 1979 post accident was $7.00/hour and $30.00/perdiem. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 3:20 PM PST - 49 comments

How to steal like an artist (and nine other things nobody told me).
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:42 PM PST - 57 comments

Y'all Get Back Now is the joyous new music video from Big Freedia, the Queen Diva of New Orleans Bounce. If Y'all Get Back Now isn't enough for you, there are more videos to watch on her website. [New Orleans Bounce previously on MeFi]
posted by Kattullus at 1:55 PM PST - 40 comments

In his project A More Perfect Union, artist R. Luke Dubois aggregated language used in the profiles of 19 million single Americans on 21 dating sites. He then organized the data to create "dozens of insanely detailed city and state maps which tell a wonderfully rich story about who we are, or at least, who we claim to be." A Video about the project. (R. Luke Dubois, previously on MeFi.)
posted by zarq at 1:48 PM PST - 15 comments

John Coster-Mullen didn't finish his university degree in physics, yet in less than ten years of spare time, he figured out how to make Fat Man and Little Boy, while driving semis for a living. What started as an effort to make replicas of the bombs for the 40th anniversary of the detonation of the two atomic bombs became a larger challenge to simply to present readers with accurate information about the past. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:37 PM PST - 17 comments

And here is Ten Dreams, your Symbolist, Magical Realist, and Metarealist brain/eye candy art source, featuring, among scores of many other artists and subjects, Alma Tadema, Bouguereau, Ernst, Hundertwasser, Klimt, and Maxfield Parrish, too. And then there is the Ten Dreams of Ten Dreams, and not an exemplar known to me included. [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 1:04 PM PST - 7 comments

Ira Glass does an atypical bit of investigative reporting about an especially punitive drug court in rural Georgia. [more inside]
posted by jon1270 at 12:49 PM PST - 100 comments

Jan Banning: Bureaucratics
posted by puny human at 12:19 PM PST - 15 comments

Do you need a free library of high-quality, carefully-recorded samples of a wide variety of musical instruments? The University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios' Musical Instrument Samples page has got you covered, from alto flute to violin. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 11:14 AM PST - 29 comments

A series of articles about developments in Japanese popular music spanning from the mid-1960s to the late-1970s. Part 1: 1966-1969. 'Although much has been written on Japanese experimental and avant-garde music from this period, the 60s and 70s were also times of massive change and development for mainstream Japanese music, and the origin of the split between “underground” and “overground” in Japan’s pop music discourse.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 10:53 AM PST - 6 comments

In 1971, a clinic in Brazil bought a radiation therapy machine. Fourteen years later, the practice closed and was abandoned. On September 13th, 1987, two men sold the inner canister of the machine for scrap. Upon breaking it open, a scrapyard employee found sparkling, glowing blue powder. It was distributed to family and friends, who used for decorative and magical purposes. Sixteen days later, 112,000 people were in Olympic stadium, being tested for radiation poisoning. [more inside]
posted by nevercalm at 10:32 AM PST - 123 comments

SciAm takes a look at the fine line between clinical pyschopaths and real-life superheroes. Related: Addicted to Being Good
posted by saulgoodman at 10:17 AM PST - 46 comments

Fran Lebowitz: Reflections on Austen [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:57 AM PST - 29 comments

An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been that millions of spiders have climbed up into trees to escape the rising flood waters, cocooning them.
posted by livejamie at 9:50 AM PST - 104 comments

Given that a book collection can be quite valuable if it has a quirky theme, keep in mind that Books by Murderers is on its 5th installment (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) over at the blog of respected London second hand bookshop Any Amount of Books. [more inside]
posted by lucia__is__dada at 9:13 AM PST - 7 comments

Why StartUpBritain is nothing more than a government backed link farm
posted by nam3d at 9:05 AM PST - 15 comments

As they leave the solar system, the Pioneer spacecraft have anomalously decelerated, pointing to a possible gap in our understanding of gravity. Now, a computer graphics technique known as Phong shading predicts that the Pioneer anomaly is just a side effect of how the shape of the spacecraft reflects sunlight.
posted by jjray at 7:35 AM PST - 57 comments

New York State Congressman Anthony Weiner (D) did an IAMA (I Am A Democrat Who Fights) Q and A on reddit last week. While he answered many questions, he responded to the top five most popular questions questions in video form. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 7:02 AM PST - 54 comments

"When undocumented workers are taken out of the economy, the jobs they support through their labor, consumption, and tax payments disappear as well."

A joint report from The Center for American Progress and The Immigration Policy Center calculates the striking costs for trying to remove undocumented immigrants from Arizona. Although S.B. 1070 has not been fully implemented in AZ, were it to be, it would: decrease employment by 17%; result in the loss of ~600k jobs; reduce state tax revenue by 10%; and, shrink the state economy by ~$49 billion. Intro and summary (pdf). Full report (pdf).
posted by OmieWise at 6:45 AM PST - 74 comments

Is a library without books still a library? Newport Beach library is considering closing its original library and replacing it with a community center that would offer all the same features — except for the books.
posted by Fizz at 6:12 AM PST - 80 comments

The pilot episode of Snake 'N' Bacon, based on the comics by Michael Kupperman.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 5:32 AM PST - 19 comments

Donna Stoneman - Mandolin Shredder . Winning Arthur Godfrey with The Bluegrass Champs (2:10), "Under The Double Eagle", and The Stoneman Family - "Big Ball In Monterrey".
posted by Ardiril at 5:27 AM PST - 7 comments

Kurds Move To Upend The Status Quo In Kirkuk - "In northern Iraq, Kirkuk has always been a flashpoint with Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs, who all claim it as their own. It has a special place in the new Iraqi constitution, but nothing has changed for years." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 4:56 AM PST - 1 comment

For the good of the nation, you won't be able to drink your favoured beer. At least, if the collection of middlemen monopolies called America's Beer Distributors and their lobby have much to say about it. [more inside]
posted by converge at 3:40 AM PST - 65 comments

GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons has just returned from a trip to Zimbabwe and has posted a video of the killing of a "problem elephant" (graphic images). The response has been fairly predictable: outraged tweets and Facebook posts, and a very special award from PETA. With many GoDaddy customers vowing to take their business elsewhere competitor NameCheap.com has taken the opportunity witha special offer of $4.99 transfers and a donation to Save The Elephants.
posted by sycophant at 2:31 AM PST - 180 comments

The Dangerous US Game in Yemen “The global war on terror has acquired a life of its own,” says Colonel Lang. “It’s a self-licking ice cream cone." [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 1:21 AM PST - 26 comments

High School geometry taught us about the Centroid, Incenter and Circumcenter of a triangle. But there are actually an infinite number of ways of finding the center. [more inside]
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:07 PM PST - 14 comments

Canadian indie/hardcore band Fucked Up have released the first of four singles from their upcoming rock opera, David Comes To Life. The album appears to be about a man who works in a lightbulb factory and is a follow-up to their critically acclaimed The Chemistry Of Modern Life. Cryptic character bios can be found on the album's site and more information from the band can be found on their blog.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:37 PM PST - 24 comments

"I've never been in a stadium that feels like this one. Hindus and Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, people from different castes and classes, speakers of a dozen languages, all citizens in the Republic of Sachin. The stern cops give wide smiles and thumbs-ups. The chant goes from "Sachin! Sachin!" to "Hoo … ha … IN-DI-A!" They are interchangeable." [more inside]
posted by vidur at 7:54 PM PST - 73 comments

A Call to Shun. Women share sexual harassment stories on "Being a Woman in Philosophy." Several philosophers suggest the idea of not inviting known repeat offenders to conferences. Professor Mark Lance of Georgetown: It's time for philosophers to take a stand against "the many people in the profession believed by wide numbers of people to have engaged in horrible behavior on repeated occasions."
posted by availablelight at 5:42 PM PST - 94 comments

CSSPivot: Add CSS styles to any website, and share the result with a short link.
posted by brundlefly at 5:38 PM PST - 23 comments

On June 30, 1999, sheriff’s officers in St. Louis, Missouri discovered the body of 41-year-old Ricky McCormick. He had been murdered and dumped in a field. The only clues regarding the homicide were two encrypted notes found in the victim’s pants pockets. The FBI is now asking the public to help them solve the murder.
posted by iamkimiam at 5:07 PM PST - 87 comments

AdViews: A Digital Archive of 8,700+ Vintage Television Commercials (1950s-1970s) at Internet Archive. So good it hurts.
posted by stbalbach at 4:25 PM PST - 32 comments

Ray Comfort calls the Atheist Experience. The Atheist Community of Austin run a live call-in show on public access. Over the years, they have challenged Ray Comfort to call in. This week, he finally does, and talks to AE hosts Matt Dillahunty and Russell Glasser. The only banana joke is visual. Ray reacts. Matt D reacts. AE fans react. [more inside]
posted by jenlovesponies at 2:31 PM PST - 101 comments

Sandwich Mondays! For the past year, the Wait Wait... Don't Blog Me! team at NPR has been blogging about a different sandwich every Monday. Some highlights include the most expensive burger in the world, the Kevin Butler (a "nonfictional sandwich from a fictional person"), , Paula Deen's favorite burger (it is even more impressive than you expect), and quite possibly the first sandwich ever made. And, from the Golden Arches, the McGangBang McRedacted, the classic McRib, and the Mc10:35 (possible only during the magical moment when breakfast and lunch menus are available at the same time).
posted by blahblahblah at 1:42 PM PST - 59 comments

Eighth grader silently expresses her anguish over being bullied for two years. [SLYT].
posted by morganannie at 1:10 PM PST - 245 comments

Not Back To School Camp is a place where unschooled teenagers (previously, 2) can go to meet, teach, and learn from other unschoolers. Despite doubts and criticism, unschoolers and homeschoolers are making their way to college [more inside]
posted by ejfox at 12:45 PM PST - 24 comments

The Beauty of Pixar and 25 Years of Pixar Animation. (MLYT) (Via and Via)
posted by zarq at 12:33 PM PST - 21 comments

Texas Republicans have been turning against the ideas on immigration supported by George W. Bush, who actively courted Latino voters in his 1998 gubenertorial election campaign (cached), and in his two presidential election campaigns. In 2010, some 12,000 Republican delegates came together, many proposing new directions on immigration reform. By January 2011, there were more than three dozen immigration-related bills filed, a number of them creating heated debates. By the of March, there were nearly 100 immigration bills written or filed, some with serious loopholes. (Rep. Debbie Riddle, previously.)
posted by filthy light thief at 12:31 PM PST - 54 comments

Gnome Chompski: The Game. I'm sure Noam is secretly a hardcore videogamer and he would approve. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 12:16 PM PST - 23 comments

1 April 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage (homohuwelijk) in the Netherlands. [more inside]
posted by neushoorn at 11:48 AM PST - 23 comments

The Game
posted by puny human at 11:35 AM PST - 43 comments

There is a constitutional crisis in Cheeseland. If you haven't been paying attention, WI governor Scott Walker and the Republican controlled Senate and Assembly passed a controversial bill and signed it. [more inside]
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:03 AM PST - 371 comments

Master painter of the anxious, alienated, mysterious and sublime, George Tooker : August 5, 1920 – March 27, 2011
posted by y2karl at 8:35 AM PST - 27 comments

Air New Zealand's new in-flight safety video featuring Richard Simmons. Enjoy.
posted by found missing at 8:10 AM PST - 50 comments

Russian designer Egor Zhgun (LiveJournal) remixes pop culture and politics, to humorous effect. His latest is a mashup of "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"; the game Angry Birds; and current Middle Eastern politics into an animated political cartoon: Three Big Pigs.
via Eathan Zuckerman and Cartoon Brew
posted by artlung at 7:12 AM PST - 9 comments

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has sponsored the most detailed ever look at county-level American health data. Access to the data--including a ranking of health in each state by county--was made available today at CountyHealthRanking.org [more inside]
posted by jefficator at 6:54 AM PST - 15 comments

China's Ghost Cities (via)
posted by nam3d at 6:44 AM PST - 47 comments

Touch The Screen [more inside]
posted by empath at 5:55 AM PST - 25 comments

Steinbolt1 battles with depression. On his Tumblr blog, he chronicles his week-long stay in a mental health facility somewhere in the American Midwest. First installment can be found here. There's two installments per day of his stay, and he posted part two of day four two days ago. And, by the way, he's currently feeling a lot better.
posted by Harald74 at 5:48 AM PST - 13 comments

"The finished Strahov library panorama , released Tuesday on Martin’s website, is a zoomable, high-resolution peek inside one of Prague’s most beautiful halls, a repository of rare books that is usually off-limits to tourists... Martin’s panorama lets you examine the spines of the works in the Philosophical Hall’s 42,000 volumes, part of the monastery’s stunning collection of just about every important book available in central Europe at the end of the 18th century — more or less the sum total of human knowledge at the time."
posted by languagehat at 5:40 AM PST - 24 comments

Listen to this first: Fraction Too Much Friction... and then listen to this while watching the clip: Liquefaction. Damned talented, them Kiwi's.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 3:49 AM PST - 6 comments

Gandhi street art. Classic. Armed. With friends. Writing. Silly. Warholesque. Urban. Meditative. Minimal. Grim. Shackled. Happy. Alone. Leading. On the fence. Mischievous.
posted by anirvan at 2:00 AM PST - 4 comments

Humanitarian Intervention 101 by Adam Curtis at the BBC. The idea of "humanitarian intervention" which is behind the decision to attack in Libya is one of the central beliefs of our age. It divides people. Some see it as a noble, disinterested use of Western power. Others see it as a smokescreen for a latter-day liberal imperialism.
posted by lucia__is__dada at 1:38 AM PST - 35 comments

Jedi Badminton. [SLYT] For the inner geek in you.
posted by pjern at 11:52 PM PST - 15 comments

Pakistan's Secret Dirty Little War
posted by lalochezia at 10:21 PM PST - 31 comments

It's like band camp, only with magic nerds.
posted by JPowers at 9:19 PM PST - 20 comments

Sixty Unusable Stock Photos. Does what it says on the tin.
posted by rodgerd at 8:49 PM PST - 103 comments

An extraordinary karaoke performance of "I Write The Songs"
posted by LSK at 8:43 PM PST - 20 comments

Craig Finn from The Hold Steady joins The Mountain Goats on stage to sing 'This Year'. [more inside]
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:17 PM PST - 58 comments

Dogboarding
posted by boo_radley at 7:27 PM PST - 28 comments

Give the drummer some? Nuh-uh. PAY the drummer some! Living Legend Tries to Make a Living. I'm talking about the man who gave us the drum solo (at 5:35) that launched a thousand hip hop ships, James Brown's funky heartbeat, Clyde Stubblefield. [previously].
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:54 PM PST - 36 comments

The Santiniketan Park Association, known informally as "The Family" was a group founded around 1964 after Dr. Raynor Carey Johnson began hosting regular meetings of a religious and philosophical discussion group led by the yoga teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne on his property on the outskirts Melbourne, Australia. The group began to recruit potential new members from Newhaven Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital, owned and managed by Marion Villimek, a Santiniketan member, and staffed by other Santiniketans psychiatrists who would administer LSD to patients. [more inside]
posted by wcfields at 4:56 PM PST - 23 comments

Cheezburger gets 30 million dollars in venture capital, peels off a couple million to buy Know Your Meme.
posted by ardgedee at 1:32 PM PST - 111 comments

For over a year now, Righthaven has been suing bloggers, news websites, and now even journalists covering Righthaven for reproducing, in full or part, articles and pictures from newspapers that it purchases the copyright for. But it might be starting to backfire. [more inside]
posted by SirOmega at 12:40 PM PST - 17 comments

Last Friday the blogger “Our Man in Abiko” launched an effort to produce a crowd-sourced collection prose, photos and illustrations that would be compiled into a self-published book to benefit the victims of the Japan earthquake | The title of the book is 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 12:38 PM PST - 7 comments

Last Monday, young adult author Jessica Verday announced that she'd pulled out Wicked Pretty Things, an anthology forthcoming with Running Press, after the anthology's editor asked her to change a romance between two teenage boys to a heterosexual pairing. The editor responded, "These teen anthologies I do are light on the sex and light on the language. I assumed they'd be light on alternative sexuality, as well. Turns out I was wrong!" [more inside]
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:36 PM PST - 121 comments

How to build a bookshelf with chopsticks. [SLYT]
posted by Fizz at 12:08 PM PST - 36 comments

"A practical [inexpensive] artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades. We believe we [Sun Catalytix] have done it." Video: Professor Daniel Nocera at MIT
posted by stbalbach at 11:36 AM PST - 69 comments

Voina are a group of revolutionary artists. The most controversial of all was Voina's final stunt before the arrests, which the artists called "Palace Revolution". Members overturned seven police cars, some of them with officers inside, at St Petersburg's Palace Square one night last September. Obviously, a group called "war," is going to attract a certain amount of controversy, but they're also going to attract some allies. Right now, they're just trying to dodge the fuzz. Who knows? Maybe they're just dicks.
posted by snottydick at 11:23 AM PST - 18 comments

For all your italo/euro/synth/space-disco needs, Cosmic Dudes record store has you covered. Sample tracks: Richie Heinen - Beach Freak or Torelli/Massiera - Afro Disco (scroll down for both)
posted by puny human at 11:19 AM PST - 6 comments

"Smoke on the Water", as performed by Germany's military brass band and Berlins guard battalion, part of the farewell to German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:03 AM PST - 54 comments

Just keep going, you've got nothing to lose. [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 11:01 AM PST - 45 comments

8 years in the making, ~200 antique appliances comprise Michael Petermann's Stupid Orchestra (SLVimeo).
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:19 AM PST - 10 comments

Popular Chicago Brewery Goose Island has been bought by Anheuser-Busch. Moreover, brewmaster Greg Hall has resigned and will be replaced by Brett Porter, former head brewer of Deschutes Brewery.
posted by IjonTichy at 9:46 AM PST - 136 comments

Boat builder, model enthusiast, author, World War 2 veteran, and all-around fascinating character Harold H. "Dynamite" Payson passed away last week at the age of 82. [more inside]
posted by richyoung at 8:27 AM PST - 10 comments

How do you clean up a massive nuclear disaster? With 800,000 people, 45 seconds at a time. The Liquidators, Chernobyl's "biorobot" cleanup crew: Part 1, Part 2. [more inside]
posted by googly at 8:26 AM PST - 22 comments

Photos from all over Japan of libraries after the earthquake. (Via) [more inside]
posted by jardinier at 8:22 AM PST - 10 comments

An author takes exception to a review of her book & comments on the reviewer's site. What could possibly go wrong?
posted by PepperMax at 7:44 AM PST - 185 comments

Halvorsen's Duo for Violin and Viola (after Handel), played by Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman in London, 1977.
posted by beisny at 7:06 AM PST - 8 comments

Who Goes to Hell? An editorial response (by Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, posted on Foxnews.com) to the controversy of Chad Holtz, a Methodist Church pastor in North Carolina, having been fired for questioning whether hell exists.
posted by rodmandirect at 7:03 AM PST - 393 comments

If you believe the hype, this is a surfer video edited by a monkey.
posted by crunchland at 6:50 AM PST - 27 comments

Last Friday, an adolescent cobra escaped from the Bronx Zoo. Now, it has begun taunting its former captors. (Via)
posted by zarq at 6:42 AM PST - 56 comments

Following the success of The Haunter of The Dark, the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcasts presents two new readings, From Beyond and The Picture in The House, by Andrew Leman and Bruce Green. Both recordings are available "In 3D". Alternatively if you like your Lovecraft with both pictures AND sound, the HP Lovecraft Historical Society version of The Whisperer in Darkness is complete and being shown at worldwide film festivals - it's a talkie! (The HPLHS are now also offering a rather handsome "official membership" pack.) Want something more interactive? Cthulhu Dark offers a complete Lovecraftian tabletop RPG system that fits on two sides of a sheet of paper. Please note: "If you fight any creature you meet, you will die. Thus, in these core rules, there are no combat rules or health levels. Instead, roll to hide or escape."
posted by Artw at 6:35 AM PST - 21 comments

Insulted by Authors. Book lover Bill Ryan had the clever idea to start asking his favorite authors to insult him instead of simply signing their books. (Via)
posted by shakespeherian at 6:30 AM PST - 24 comments

According to a new study from the UK's national science academy, the Royal Society, China is on course to outstrip US scientific output as earlier as two years from now. [SLBBC]
posted by modernnomad at 5:22 AM PST - 36 comments

Anna Åhman performs as the solo artist Birgit Bidder. Her debut album “The Life Home” will be released tomorrow. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 5:17 AM PST - 2 comments

A growth chart for Star Wars fans.
posted by bardophile at 5:07 AM PST - 26 comments

"It is completely strange, isn't it? It's all fucked up. Where the hell are all the others? No one is coming out." The Guardian interviews Anton Hysén, the world's only openly gay male professional footballer.
posted by londonmark at 4:36 AM PST - 51 comments

Alain Robert has scaled Burj Khalifa in Dubai for a world record. If you are into people climbing skyscrapers, there's Robert in Abu Dhabi or Sao Paulo and other awesome stuff. (Very previously.)
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:40 AM PST - 12 comments

Twin baby boys have a conversation. Beside music & how-to videos, politics, and whathaveyou, YouTube is an excellent conduit for cute home movies about baby twins (and triplets). Here’s another interaction between twin siblings, here's some kissing, some dancing, some crying, some more laughing (here’s a clip with triplets). So much more inside – you can search for the rest yourself there
posted by growabrain at 11:52 PM PST - 43 comments

Joe Bageant, influential voice of the silent underclass and cartographer of the American Hologram, has died at 64. Bageant, author of Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War and a prolific essayist known for his humor and irreverent style (shades of Thompson at his most human echo), spent a career reporting the rise and fall of the American working class and documenting the colorful lives of the people therein. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 8:44 PM PST - 53 comments

One of the key members of the award-winning Canadian comedy institution Royal Canadian Air Farce, Roger Abbott died on March 26th after a 14-year battle with leukemia. [more inside]
posted by hala mass at 8:08 PM PST - 22 comments

The Babylonian Talmud was composed in the historical region of Palestine and in (not surprisingly) Babylonia (modern-day Iraq) between ~70 C.E. and ~700 C.E. Many centuries later, it turns out that "there are more South Koreans with Talmud sets in their homes than Jews in Israel." (Hebrew original) [more inside]
posted by -->NMN.80.418 at 8:06 PM PST - 36 comments

Chris Sims offers up a blow-by-blow rundown of a My Little Pony vs Pokemon wrestling match, complete with fanart. Nostalgic for the old days of Internet fight-based nerdery? Than poke around the Comic Book Universe Battles archive. My Little Ponies previously
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:04 PM PST - 29 comments

“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began.” [more inside]
posted by TheGoodBlood at 7:16 PM PST - 142 comments

"My name is Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano and, alas, if you are hearing or seeing this message it means that I’ve been murdered by President Álvaro Colom, with the help of Gustavo Alejos." Rosenberg went on, "The reason I'm dead, and you're therefore watching this message, is only and exclusively because during my final moments I was the lawyer to Mr. Khalil Musa and his daughter Marjorie Musa, who, in cowardly fashion, were assassinated by President Álvaro Colom, with the consent of his wife, Sandra de Colom, and with the help of . . . Gustavo Alejos."
posted by vidur at 6:27 PM PST - 47 comments

The Ballroom Under the Lake [more inside]
posted by Paragon at 6:25 PM PST - 30 comments

Tired of having Rebecca Black's Friday stuck in your head? Try Gang Fight, the song as interpreted by a bad lip reader. They also bring you Asian Baby.
posted by jouir at 5:35 PM PST - 58 comments

When Palisades Toys went bankrupt in 2006, they ceased production of The Muppet Show collection of character figures, Lance Cardinal took it upon himself to craft an intricately detailed Muppet Theatre Playset by hand.
posted by rhapsodie at 5:03 PM PST - 20 comments

There is more than one way to knock down dominos: there are at least SIXTY-EIGHT of them. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:41 PM PST - 33 comments

No winning, no losing. Just choices. Mitoza. [more inside]
posted by dancestoblue at 3:25 PM PST - 10 comments

This Movie Made Me Feel Bad To Be Alive: A Review of Sucker Punch
posted by 235w103 at 2:52 PM PST - 437 comments

A History of Skeletal Drawings: Part 1 - pre-20th century, Part 2 - Bone Wars to the 1950's, Part 3 - Dino Renaissance to the present. Via Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs.
posted by brundlefly at 2:29 PM PST - 11 comments

JEFF KOONS MUST DIE! Who said games can't be art?
posted by Tom-B at 2:12 PM PST - 34 comments

In 1975, with $3,000 in savings Roxanne Quimby and her boyfriend moved to Maine. They bought a tract of land on which they built a cabin and an outhouse. Near her Guilford homestead, Quimby later met beekeeper Burt Shavitz and used his beeswax to create candles (making $20,000 in her first year selling at local crafts fairs) -- and later their (yes, the two cofounded a company together) best selling product Burt's Bees Lip Balm (it's Burt's image that still graces many of the company's products). With the phenomenal success that followed, she sold 80 percent of her shares in the company to New York investors in 2003 (eventually the company was sold to Clorox) to help fund significant land purchases. For years Maine sportsmen have been outraged with Quimby for forbidding hunters, loggers, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles on the 120,000 acres of woodlands she now owns. Quimby has recently offered a compromise. She wants to donate 70,000 acres to help create a new national park (Maine Woods National Park) while "setting aside another 30,000 acres of woodlands ... to be managed like a state park, with hunting and snowmobiling allowed." [more inside]
posted by ericb at 2:00 PM PST - 47 comments

Cover Song Archive A collection of songs you know, by people you don't. (a Booooooom project)
posted by Felicity Rilke at 1:53 PM PST - 15 comments

At 830 pm local time on March 26 the world celebrated Earth Hour 2011 by turning off the lights.
posted by Glibpaxman at 12:46 PM PST - 96 comments

An entire live recital with Skip Sempé and Pierre Hantaï at the Paris Musée de la musique from 25 mars 2011, on two historical harpsichords in very good condition, with (modern) arrangements of orchestral and chamber music by Jean Philippe Rameau [more inside]
posted by Namlit at 12:28 PM PST - 15 comments

SLYT: Steve Martin: Hymn for Atheists via Open Culture
posted by artlung at 12:11 PM PST - 24 comments

The Ateneo Grand Splendid Bookstore. "Argentinians are a famously literary people. In coffee shops, parks, on the bus and even while walking down city streets, their heads are often buried in a book. So it’s only fitting that Buenos Aires can lay claim to one of the world’s most incredible book stores: The Ateneo Grand Splendid."
posted by Fizz at 12:00 PM PST - 29 comments

Was the latest episode of Community making fun of its fans? (spoilers in this link and others) [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:29 AM PST - 225 comments

Let's say just for a moment that you were ready to cash out. Quit your job. Sell your house. Take you and yours out of the rat race with a few hundred of your friends and family and relocate onto arable land. What tools would you need to sustain a livable—maybe even comfortable—lifestyle? Open Source Ecology suggests you start with ~2.6 million dollars and these | fifty | machines (← watch this first), collectively referred to as the Global Village Construction Set.
posted by carsonb at 11:28 AM PST - 47 comments

La Coacha explores modern pop music in Blonde Ambition.
posted by hippybear at 11:20 AM PST - 3 comments

The father of packet switching - Mr. Baran’s invention was so far ahead of its time that in the mid-1960s, when he approached AT&T with the idea to build his proposed network, the company insisted it would not work and refused.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 10:24 AM PST - 24 comments

Pauline Baynes: Queen of Narnia and Middle-Earth
posted by puny human at 10:16 AM PST - 18 comments

In the summer of 1968, Jim Henson met Johnny Hart, the co-creator The Wizard of Id. The comic had been syndicated in US papers since 1964, and Henson and Hart discussed making a TV show based on the comic, featuring puppets by Henson and co. In early 1969, a short test pilot was shot and shopped around the TV networks. Over a year later, ABC supported the idea of a feature-length film, but by this time, Henson was busy with Sesame Street and other Muppet productions, so the program was scrapped. Earlier this month, the Henson Company posted the short test pilot on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:13 AM PST - 43 comments

A Cyclops' cave the wanderers brave
And find much milk & cheese
But as they eat, foul death they meet
For them doth Cyclops seize.

From The Young Folks' Ulysses [PDF], by H. Lovecraft, poet, aged seven. One of the "freely available editions of obscure, outlandish and otherwise outré works of semi-fine literature" from the electric publishing wing of kobek.com.
posted by Iridic at 9:32 AM PST - 7 comments

There's a map for that. If you're looking for a graphic (in a SFW way of speaking) of Penis size around the world...Read it and weep... or what's in the water in Bolivia.
posted by tomswift at 9:02 AM PST - 107 comments

David Kraftsow is a visual artist and programmer, and maintains Don'tSave.com to showcase his work. You may be familiar with Yooouuutuuube (Example, Previously) which has added a new feature called "flux", which increases the transformations that can be applied to a video. But Kraftsow is also the mind behind YouTube Datamosh (example), which will remove keyframes from a video to give it a glitched out aesthetic, an automated service to find videos that are better than Justin Bieber, a live feed of QVC processed with hallucinogenic video effects, and first person Tetris (previously). [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 8:50 AM PST - 5 comments

We all know what happens when you take Garfield out of Garfield, but what happens when you take the punchline panel out of Peanuts? A never-ending morass of melancholy and despair.
posted by Freon at 7:59 AM PST - 79 comments

Newly released GIRP is to rock climbing what QWOP was to running. (previously. also previously.) The games' creator, Bennet Foddy, appears to be a Doctor of Philosophy, focusing on biomedical ethics. His list of recent publications demonstrates an engagement with addiction studies. Proceed with caution. (via)
posted by nobody at 7:41 AM PST - 36 comments

OK News Sobering statistics in 2011 America:

One in three families with children relied solely on the mother's earnings in 2010, but women's earnings accounted for only about a third of married couples' income.

Women still earn less — about 77 cents for each male dollar.

[more inside]
posted by zooropa at 6:58 AM PST - 73 comments

Fecal transplants have been used with success to treat C.difficile infections, often acquired in hospital or nursing homes and notoriously difficult to treat. They have also shown some efficacy in treatment of ulcerative colitis (pdf). [more inside]
posted by ursus_comiter at 6:34 AM PST - 97 comments

AI War: The Big Boost has just been ...released? published? Up today on FS& (or "fsand") is the latest in The Continuing Time series by Daniel Keys Moran. The first book in this series, "Emerald Eyes," was published in 1988, and the last time new material in the series hit the stands it was in November of 1993, in the form of "The Last Dancer." So, it's been a while. [more inside]
posted by thanotopsis at 5:50 AM PST - 15 comments

Amazing Horse: The Musical. [more inside]
posted by SomeTrickPony at 5:34 AM PST - 13 comments

"Most actors will go their entire careers without doing a movie like Stand By Me, or working with a director like Rob Reiner. I got to do both when I was 12. For a long, long time, I felt like I needed to top or equal that, and it wasn’t until I was in my early 30s that I accepted that it’s unlikely to happen -- movies like Stand By Me come along once in a generation."

The cast of Stand By Me(link has autoplaying sound,) recently recorded some interviews to promote the re-release of the movie on Blu-Ray. Wil Wheaton has blogged about reuniting with the cast and missing River Phoenix. (Via)
posted by zarq at 4:46 AM PST - 50 comments

Tahrir Documents is an ongoing effort to archive, translate, and make available printed matter from the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and its aftermath. We are not affiliated with the papers’ authors nor with any political organization, Egyptian or otherwise. [more inside]
posted by jng at 12:20 AM PST - 6 comments

Have you ever looked at a goopy mess of ketchup and mustard and though, "I wish I could somehow pick this up with perfect precision and transfer it to some other surface?" Well, now you can*! [more inside]
posted by kmz at 11:18 PM PST - 74 comments

Just before intermission, Cowie took the stage and began juggling a ball with her feet until suddenly she popped it in the air, swished her right foot around the ball twice, kicked it up again, then rotated her left foot around once without letting the ball touch the floor. She bent her right foot back behind her body and caught the ball on the sole of her shoe. “I could feel the excitement building in the auditorium,” she recalled. “I could hear the oohs and the aahs. I could sense the shock.” ¶ For her finale, Cowie lay on her back and juggled the ball over her head with her feet. As they applauded, Green Hope students turned to their friends with the same question: Who is she?

The New York Times Magazine profiles soccer freestyling star Indi Cowie. Photos of a few tricks. Video includes demonstrations.
posted by grouse at 9:47 PM PST - 19 comments

Linda's dad is not an adventurous eater. Linda's dad likes hamburgers. All-American juicy hamburgers. Linda doesn't want to cook the same thing for her dad every night. So, Linda decides to introduce her dad to new foods through inventing a NEW hamburger recipe for every country in the world. 192 United Nations recognized countries. Using ingredients inspired by the cuisine of each country but relatively available in most U.S. grocery stores. Enter...the hearty Australian. The piquant Azerbaijan. The sweet and spicy Afghanistan. Each recipe invented for and tested out on Linda's dad. [more inside]
posted by jeanmari at 9:14 PM PST - 146 comments

"The United Nations-authorized intervention in Libya has pitched ethical issues of the highest importance, and has split progressives in unfortunate ways. I hope we can have a calm and civilized discussion of the rights and wrongs here." Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan writes An Open Letter to the Left on Libya.
posted by dvorak_beats_qwerty at 8:01 PM PST - 243 comments

Sydney's live music scene faces another crisis with the announcement that the iconic Annandale Hotel will be sold. The pub is one of the centres of Sydney live music and has played host to everyone from small local bands to Joan Jett. The selling follows the closure of the Hopetoun Hotel in 2009 and the recent loss of Raval and the Excelsior Surry Hills. In Melbourne last year the closure of the Tote Hotel lead to the 20,000 strong Slam Rally and an overhaul of planning laws. Nothing similar is planned for Sydney yet. In the meantime, you can realize your Australian live music memories with the videos at Moschcam.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:50 PM PST - 37 comments

Lois Lane, Girl Reporter - an awesome proposal for a series of YA books that didn't happen.
posted by Artw at 6:34 PM PST - 45 comments

bloom.io develops "pop-cultural instruments for data expression": Fizz takes your Facebook or Twitter connections and shows growth and changes to your social ecosystem. Cartagram places geo-located photos from Instagram on the surface of the planet. Newsmap (Flash required) draws Google News sources from different countries and visually treemaps them. The developer of Newsmap, Marcos Weskamp, also wrote the Etsy geolocator and Flipboard, a personalised social magazine for iPad. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 5:15 PM PST - 9 comments

"A group of Inuit experts, community researchers, and university researchers, have worked together over the past several years to document specialized Inuit knowledge about sea ice." [more inside]
posted by jessamyn at 3:04 PM PST - 27 comments

How To Make Love To A Trans Person by Gabe Moses
posted by Ardiril at 11:18 AM PST - 112 comments

Biggest Rabbit was "Roly-Poly." The remains of a 26 pound prehistoric rabbit were found on an island believed to have been without predators, accounting for their size. "He was probably on an evolutionary vacation," said Brian Kraatz, an expert in rabbit evolution, like an "islander beach bum."
posted by zizzle at 11:17 AM PST - 32 comments

Dane Cook Impression by Anthony Jeselnik
posted by puny human at 10:04 AM PST - 64 comments

"Among the Hagiographers": The Wall Street Journal's review of a new biography questions our supposed deification of Mohandas Gandhi.
posted by beisny at 9:42 AM PST - 93 comments

The Women@NASA website was developed to encourage more young women to pursue careers in math, science, and technology. Through a collection of videos and articles, the Women@NASA project shares the stories of 32 women across the agency who contribute to NASA’s mission in many ways.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:30 AM PST - 31 comments

Show Me is a site collecting games and resources for children from UK museums. [more inside]
posted by paduasoy at 8:33 AM PST - 6 comments

Natalie Barney was a muse for her age. A chance encounter with Oscar Wilde when only six years old ( she would later have an affair with his niece Dolly) helped change her outlook on life.
She moved to Paris and in 1909 started her famed salon at Rue 20 Jacob, with its Temple de l'Amitié (Fr.) sometimes called the Sapphic centre of the Western World and which ran for 60 years.
This was where Ezra Pound met Olga Rudge. Although polyamorous Natalie had a 50 year relationship with Romaine Brooks.
In 1927 she started an Académie des Femmes (Women's Academy) to honor women writers. The cast of females involved in Natalie Barney’s Fridays is vast and includes: Sylvia Beach, Djuna Barnes, Mina Loy, Colette, Nancy Cunard, Janet Flanner, Radclyff Hall, Hadine Hwang, Zita Jungman, Marie Laurencin, Toupie Lowther, Liane de Pougy, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Renee Vivien, and Virginia Wolff.
Here are a couple of brief interviews with her biographer; and some photos.
In 2009 Dayton got around to honoring her but by July 2010 the marker had been vandalized.
posted by adamvasco at 8:05 AM PST - 13 comments

6 ways to turn Cthulhu into an emoticon. How to pronounce "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" via The Lovecraftsman A contemporary blog about HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu, the Necronomicon, Miskatonic University, Arkham, R'lyeh, The Book of Eibon, Yog-Sothoth, De Vermis Mysteriis, & other unspeakable things...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:30 AM PST - 105 comments

Mo Ibrahim (wikipedia) is a Sudanese-born billionaire with opinions and goals for modern Africa. A recent New Yorker article profiled him. Earning his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and subsequent employment in telecom led him to found Celtel, the wildly successful(LGT PPT file) corporation that brought the mobile telephone revolution to Africa, despite a corporation-wide refusal to participate in the rampant corruption and bribery seemingly required at the time (~9:30 in this interview). He eventually sold Celtel to MTC Kuwait, which allowed him to focus on other pursuits, namely further development and investment within Africa. [more inside]
posted by knile at 6:24 AM PST - 15 comments

"The Life of Reilly" the film of Charles Nelson Reilly's autobiographical one-man show (no Match Game stories) is on Youtube in its entirety, in 28 bite-sized (approx. 3 min. each) pieces.
Opening, "I Thought You Were Dead", The Bronx, mom and dad, Puppets and Stickball, "Save It For The Stage", "You can't be in the play!", An actor was born, Dad and Disney, The State of Regret, aunt and uncle, an Ingmar Bergman adolescence, What Mrs. Treski told him, "I hope it burns to the ground!", from usher to actor, "Do you remember...", Uta Hagen's Class (and his classmates), the Hal Holbrook story, "they don't let queers on television", Off Broadway, Kate Treski and Molly Picon, a family Christmas tradition, dad and mom and Miss Marion, 56 times on TV this week, Shakespeare with Johnny, Burt Reynolds' father, "thank my mother", on teaching Acting, Epilogue: A Pelican. You will laugh, you will cry, you will [BLANK], you will see he really was as awesome as Weird Al says. (via)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:06 AM PST - 36 comments

Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood is a largely forgotten documentary about Hunter S. Thompson (previously).
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:07 AM PST - 27 comments

Nick Pitera. One Man Disney Movie. That is all.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:53 PM PST - 33 comments

The Cultural Cognition Project at Yale looks at the cause of polarizing debates such as: global warming, gun ownership, school shootings, terrorism, nanotechnology, public health, nuclear power, foreign wars and just about every heated thread in Internet history. In short, the polarizing issue is "risk"- the perception of risk, and the proposed solutions to risk. It turns out people see risk in polarizing ways according to where they stand on a scale of cultural beliefs. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 9:03 PM PST - 45 comments

"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative," says Kelly Fallis, chief executive of Remote Stylist, a Toronto and New York-based startup that provides Web-based interior design services. "From a cost savings perspective, to get something off the ground, it's huge. Especially if you're a small business." In the last three years, Fallis has used about 50 unpaid interns for duties in marketing, editorial, advertising, sales, account management and public relations. She's convinced it's the wave of the future in human resources. "Ten years from now, this is going to be the norm," she says.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:27 PM PST - 226 comments

Engineer-turn-blogger Scott Whitlock offers some insight into the limitation of free markets. [more inside]
posted by lohmannn at 5:28 PM PST - 33 comments

Back when Super Meat Boy first came out, PETA made a parody game called Super Tofu Boy, which sort of sucked hard. Really hard. But the developers were amused, and so they put a secret into the game, letting you play as Tofu Boy himself! Unfortunately, the anemic little man could only jump half as high as the titular character and was unable to run, making it seem absolutely impossible to use him in any capacity. He can't even complete the very first level of the game.

And so, he was shelved as a joke character, and everyone forgot about him.

Or not.

{OTD}q has just released a video showing almost every possible level possible to beat with Tofu Boy and set it to a killer soundtrack, pairing the popular fansong/remix "The Power of Meat" with a lovely mix of everyone's favorite band.
posted by flatluigi at 5:13 PM PST - 73 comments

Two people involved in marathon, inspirational artistic efforts: Six-year-old Jack Henderson is offering to draw anything in exchange for a donation to the Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh, which treats his little brother Noah for bronchiolitis. Meanwhile, artist Patrick Joyce, aka The Incurable Optimist, is trying to paint 100 portraits before motor neurone disease (also known as ALS) robs him of his abilities, and, ultimately, his life. Their works include, respectively, A rubber duck riding a bike shooting lasers, and Professor Stephen Hawking. [more inside]
posted by penguin pie at 4:41 PM PST - 5 comments

"Maxims and axioms are, just like summaries, the work that spirited people do, it seems, for the use of mediocre or lazy spirits." Presenting maxims, axioms and more from the Philosophes: Vauvenargues! Chamfort! Fontenelle! La Bruyère! Galiani! La Rochefoucauld! Saint-Évremond! [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 3:48 PM PST - 9 comments

The history of Hawaii, as told in plate lunches, by Sarah Vowell.
posted by Artw at 3:31 PM PST - 33 comments

Bioware has been well appreciated for their integration of LGB inclusive play options into Dragon Age, but recently, Dave Gaider has warmed hearts and hopes with his response to a player disgruntled by this. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 2:43 PM PST - 200 comments

Dianna Wynne Jones, author of many many excellent books, especially her YA Fantasy has passed away at 77. [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:35 PM PST - 83 comments

Geraldine Ferraro — who was a prosecutor in Queens, then a House Representative, then a United Nations Ambassador, yet will go down in history for her unsuccessful run as the first woman on an American presidential ticket — died today at 75. [more inside]
posted by John Cohen at 1:56 PM PST - 61 comments

A few of the best bicycle awareness PSA videos you'll ever see.
posted by Windigo at 11:41 AM PST - 38 comments

"The results were astounding. In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times. It traced him from a train on the way to Erlangen at the start through to that last night, when he was home in Berlin. Mr. Spitz has provided a rare glimpse — an unprecedented one, privacy experts say — of what is being collected as we walk around with our phones."
posted by Scoop at 11:24 AM PST - 45 comments

"I've been eating two family-size bags [chips/crisps] a day for two years, and little else for the past decade." Via: The Guardian .
posted by Fizz at 10:46 AM PST - 133 comments

The J programming language is kind of like a super calculator (it’s been described as executable mathematical notation). It was developed by Ken Iverson and Roger Hui and is a successor to APL (and there’s no need to buy a new keyboard). The language is free and open source, and works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. A series of books and articles on using J are also available to download. To whet your appetite, here’s an article on using J to find the eighth ten-digit prime number that appears among the digits of pi.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 10:10 AM PST - 79 comments

Many people have described the popular freeform game Minecraft as "kind of like Lego", so a few enterprising stop-motion animators have decided to jump on that idea.
posted by The Whelk at 9:21 AM PST - 27 comments

"Have any of you ever found a great PDF online?" [more inside]
posted by grumblebee at 9:01 AM PST - 52 comments

Anthrax Redux. Wired's gripping account of the FBI's investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks.
posted by dudekiller at 8:10 AM PST - 17 comments

Aluf Benn from Ha'aretz asks if the middle east is breaking apart. [more inside]
posted by beisny at 3:24 AM PST - 31 comments

Ever made an indie action film and needed something for that epic glass-break scene? How about the blackest black you can find? Want to adjust your boots so that they are mud repellant? Inventables has everything you need - for the budding inventor, busy set designer, or Q in training.
posted by divabat at 2:00 AM PST - 43 comments

An Ornithopter Drone That Actually Looks Like a Bird
posted by cthuljew at 10:18 PM PST - 59 comments

Draft Tommy Lee Jones for Senate. Texas’ conservative voters aren’t about to send just any Democrat to the Senate in 2012. Hell, it’s been seventeen years since a Democrat has won any statewide race here. That’s quite a record and one we’d like to see broken. To do that, whoever the Democratic nominee is in 2012 better bring something awfully special to the race. Tommy Lee Jones is the only Democrat (or potential Democrat) who does. His name ID, near-universal popularity, fundraising ability, residence in and love for this state, his success as a cattle rancher, Spanish fluency, his image as a western tough guy and his impressive academic credentials would instantly make him the frontrunner, regardless of who the Republicans nominate.
posted by valkane at 7:55 PM PST - 94 comments

Win $10,000
posted by cjorgensen at 7:22 PM PST - 83 comments

Chernokids: with English subtitles, by Chernokids.fr; SLVimeo, 6.57
posted by bwg at 5:41 PM PST - 6 comments

A half-month hunger strike by Venezuelan students has ended. More than 150 students participated in the protests, some sewing their own mouths shut. [more inside]
posted by clarknova at 5:30 PM PST - 18 comments

Tsunehisa Kimura (1928-2008) was a Japanese artist best known for his photomontage art. There doesn't seem to be much about him in online in English, beyond reiterations of the same three images that BLDG BLOG copied from the 1979 book Visual Scandals, and a few short pages that are related to an interview on Australian radio back in 2002. Yet his imagery has caught the eye of various musical groups over the years, including Midnight Oil, Paul Schütze, and most recently, Cut/Copy join the fanclub, with their cover for Zonoscope. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 5:02 PM PST - 4 comments

"Many Wikipedia articles are tagged with geographic coordinates. Many have references to historic events. Cross referencing these two subsets and plotting them year on year adds up to a dynamic visualization of Wikipedia's view of world history." Via curiosity counts.
posted by brundlefly at 4:55 PM PST - 38 comments

The music industry Loudness War is over. Research into actual sales rankings, Radio Impact, Listener ratings and Hearing loss, all show better results for music with a higher dynamic range.
posted by Lanark at 4:12 PM PST - 60 comments

Goodnight, Hipster Runoff. <3 u Carles. [more inside]
posted by naju at 3:51 PM PST - 42 comments

Earlier this month, thirteen record labels tried to claim that Limewire was liable for between $400 Billion and $75 Trillion in damages. (For some perspective, the world's GDP in 2011 is expected to be a mere ~$65 billion.) Judge Kimba Wood called the assertion 'absurd' in a 14 page opinion. (pdf) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 3:30 PM PST - 105 comments

"I called Sam and asked him if he wanted to come to dinner but he said he had softball practice and I said that was a damned shame and hung up. When I got to Sun City Bea and Rob were at were at the bar, behind tattooed women and men with guitars. They were sitting in the shade and their beers were half empty. We drank beer and ate pho but Rob was restless and did not talk very much..." Ernest Hemingway, Yelper. Fill free to riff up and add your best Imitation Hemingway below. Here is a guide and a sample
posted by growabrain at 3:23 PM PST - 8 comments

A while ago, the west Swedish city of Borås proclaimed itself city of sculptures. And indeed you find all sorts of petrified things around the city: some neighbor on the main square; a sad rabbit in the snow; an exclamation point; some freezing kids; and a lazy student. Some of them have stories attached. [more inside]
posted by Namlit at 2:29 PM PST - 6 comments

The Wozard of Iz "is a psycho-electronic re-working of "The Wizard of Oz" that sounds like the soundtrack to the greatest LSD/freak-out/moog/synth/electronic musical that never was. This oddity is a hysterical and typical leftist/hippie commentary on the socioeconomic human condition of the average American in 1968, and uses the analogy of Dorothy taking a "trip" from Kansas for a brighter and better world where one can really be "free." With music by electronic music/moog pioneer Mort Garson: Prologue - Leave the Driving to Us :: Upset Trip - Never Follow Yellow-Green Road :: Thing a Ling - In Man - Man with the Word :: They're Off to Find the Wozard - Blue Poppy :: I've Been Over the Rainbow :: High on Big Sur :: You can listen/download Mort's other moog masterpieces, including Black Mass/Lucifer, Music for Sensuous Lovers, and Plantasia here.
posted by puny human at 1:24 PM PST - 19 comments

In 2009, there were 423,773 children in foster care in the U.S., one of those children is "Jacket," who at age 20 months in December 2009 was placed into foster care with her foster mother Rebecca. Rebecca, single and in her early 30s, had already fostered a few young children and started blogging about it. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 1:17 PM PST - 42 comments

With the loss of Elizabeth Taylor perhaps it is time to check in on those performers from the golden age of film who are still with us. [more inside]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:04 PM PST - 35 comments

The BBC looks at time zones - how they are worked out, why they cause so many arguments, and how they affect us all. (via)
posted by nam3d at 11:54 AM PST - 35 comments

The Government of Canada has fallen after a 156-145 contempt motion passed in Parliament. The contempt motion came after a Parliamentary committee found (PDF link) that the government failed to provide adequate information on the costs of crime legislation. Stephen Harper will go to the Governor-General on Saturday to request an election.
posted by mightygodking at 11:35 AM PST - 158 comments

G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether. 'General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010. The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 11:33 AM PST - 117 comments

A 1961 fashion shoot from Disneyland which was featured in Midwest Magazine, a supplemental newspaper insert in the Chicago Sun-Times.
posted by gman at 11:14 AM PST - 30 comments

Could the three established domains of life - eukaryotes, bacteria and archaea - be joined by a fourth?
posted by Artw at 11:09 AM PST - 52 comments

Never steal a laptop from someone who is tech-savvy. You may end up publicly humiliated.
posted by MegoSteve at 11:07 AM PST - 46 comments

Within the realm of criminal justice policy, drug courts have received growing attention and widespread adoption in the United States as a solution to cycles of addiction and incarceration. Their effectiveness has again been questioned, however, in recent reports released by the Justice Policy Institute and the Drug Policy Alliance: Addicted to Courts: How a Growing Dependent on Drug Courts Impacts People and Communities and Drug Courts Are Not the Answer. The National Association of Drug Court Professionals issued a lengthy initial response, pointing to past research touting the success of the drug court model. [more inside]
posted by lunit at 10:55 AM PST - 20 comments

Earlier this week, nearly 30 years since the release of their first album, Duran Duran played a concert which was streamed live online, directed by David Lynch. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:47 AM PST - 42 comments

Remember when you got out of college and had no idea what to do with your life? Did you ever consider becoming a paranormal investigator? Well Ben Jordan did. His adventures have taken him to Florida, California, Scotland, England, Japan, Greece, and Italy, where he has encountered various paranormal phenomenon. Fortunately, Ben was created using AGS so you can tag along on his adventures in preparation for the final epsiode.
posted by dortmunder at 9:09 AM PST - 16 comments

Since they were first discovered just a few years ago Mandelbulbs (a remapping of the 2D Mandelbrot set into 3D space) have grown in diversity, becoming more exotic, ornate, and animated. They’ve even inspired their own fanbase and usergroups. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 8:20 AM PST - 33 comments

100 years ago today, fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, killing 146 garment workers trapped inside. The tragedy spurred New York State to enact progressive labor reforms and was the motivation for the creation of the American Society of Safety Engineers. Although subsequent labor laws and regulations protect factory workers in the United States, the problem has moved overseas.
posted by pashdown at 8:09 AM PST - 58 comments

In preparedness circles, EDC means Everyday Carry, being items one keep on or near one's person at all times, to help with both planned and unforeseen events during the day. A lot of opinions about what should be in an EDC kit exist, but the minimum usually recommended seems to be a cell phone, light source and small folding knife. The EDC blog shows pictures and lists of submitters' EDC kit. [more inside]
posted by Harald74 at 8:05 AM PST - 213 comments

Cruise Missiles: The Million-Dollar Weapon (SLHP) In the opening days of the assault on Libya, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a barrage of at least 161 Tomahawk cruise missiles to flatten Moammar Gadhafi's air defenses and pave the way for coalition aircraft. In fiscal terms, at a time when Congress is fighting over every dollar, the cruise missile show of military might was an expenditure of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. Each missile cost $1.41 million, close to three times the cost listed on the Navy's website.
posted by Dragonness at 8:01 AM PST - 105 comments

A week ago, University of Wisconsin History Professor Bill Cronon wrote a blog post about the organization he claimed was driving much of the legislation in Wisconsin: ALEC. Shortly after that, he wrote an op ed for the New York Times about the legislation. Now, the Wisconsin GOP have sent a FOIA request to the University requesting all emails that Cronon may have sent containing the terms "Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union ..." and others. Cronon responds, calling it an "Attack [on] academic freedom". (via TPM)
posted by demiurge at 7:34 AM PST - 119 comments

Interested in CAD but find AutoCAD too expensive? Try Draftsight, a free CAD package from the makers of Solidworks. [more inside]
posted by backseatpilot at 7:29 AM PST - 36 comments

Criggo is a blog that posts amusing newspaper bloopers and oddities - bad headlines, poorly chosen pictures, strange advertisements, etc. The blog only has the past month's worth of posts, but it's archived in its entirety here. [more inside]
posted by flex at 6:53 AM PST - 15 comments

Either the Best or Worst AIDS Awareness Video you'll ever see features "Smutley", a silent-era-style animated cat having sex with everything in sight, to a soundtrack of Joan Fucking Jett's "Bad Reputation". Kinda obviously NSFW although lacking any cartoon genitalia. And where's the message? Wait for the end. From the French non-profit organization AIDES, which has been even more NSFW in the past, like a year ago with an animation which was, well, all genitals. Coming next: a site about "a better way to talk condoms" at BlahBlahBlahBlah.org. Oh, those French! (via Adrants)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:36 AM PST - 39 comments

Cat-Library™[SLYT] .
posted by Fizz at 5:14 AM PST - 28 comments

Three grand masters have been caught cheating at a chess Olympiad. The team members communicated using instructions disguised as phone numbers and and an ingenious system relating positions within the room to positions on the board. Details of the system and the way it was revealed can be found here, and the French Chess Federation's report (in French) here.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:01 PM PST - 72 comments

Emphas.is is a site where photojournalists can pitch ideas to be funded by many small donations, i.e. crowdfund them. So far nine projects have been pitched, covering a range of subjects, from the Uyghur in western China to life in Greenwood, Mississippi. Each project has a short introductory video and all are interesting in their own right. So are the descriptions and photographs that accompany the projects. The blog is worth checking out as well, especially the interviews with journalists, such as the four women who want to document a mass rape that happened last year in the Congo and a project about communism in Laos. The FAQ explains Emphas.is and how crowdfunding works in greater detail.
posted by Kattullus at 10:40 PM PST - 3 comments

The circumstantial evidence suggests that the attack originated in Iran. Every time you see a little lock icon in your browser and are using HTTPS connections, odds are you're using a site whose certificate was signed by an Certificate Authority like VeriSign, Comodo, or Thawte. This week, SSL certificate provider Comodo announced that one of its accounts had been compromised. The attacker used the account to generate 9 bogus certificates to use for 7 well-known domains. While the breach was discovered and the certificates were revoked, it does raise questions about the chain of trust for all SSL certificates. [more inside]
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:05 PM PST - 49 comments

Message With a Bottle is a pretty darned charming tumblr by a stay-at-home dad who writes post-it notes to himself about parenting and fatherhood.
posted by Shohn at 7:06 PM PST - 31 comments

Controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio and movie/TV star Steven Seagal raided a suspected cockfighter's house with a tank and several other armored vehicles. No comment yet from Outlaw Vern, who literally wrote the book of Steven Seagal. He has been covering Seagal's show Lawman on his site. Previous post on Joe Arpaio.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:12 PM PST - 138 comments

10 O'Clock Live is a show currently airing on Channel 4 in the UK. It could be considered a British take on the Daily Show, but longer, weekly, with more discussion, and performed live. MeFi favorite Charlie Brooker is one of their presenters, along with David Mitchel, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr. While focused on British issues, the show sometimes covers international topics, and is wildly funny. Here are some highlights:
Charlie Brooker: On Gaddafi - On Berlusconi - On the 'Big Society' - On Sarah Palin - On the iPad 2 - On the English Defense League & the Daily Star - On Ed Miliband (Leader of the Labour Party, beating out his brother David) - On Prince Andrew
David Mitchell: On political hyperbole - On language in the media - On encouraging rich people to immigrate - On what to do with the Olympic Stadium
Jimmy Carr: As Berlusconi - On Product Placement
Lauren Laverne: Guide for new democracies - Inside the brain of Ed Miliband - British PR companies helping tyrants
Everyone on David Cameron on The One Show (this one's awesome) [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 6:07 PM PST - 84 comments

World control panel Continuing a trend of modern parents that put the boring, lifeless drones that raised you and ruined your life to shame, is Steve Lodefink, a UI designer for the Walt Disney Internet Group in Seattle. His latest project, The World Control Panel, was designed at the request of his son, Harlan. Harlan wanted a light panel to use for secret missions when he and his friend play "agents." The resulting UI design, which took three weeks to build, displays a variety of light combinations and includes a voice recorder and the Larson Scanner (used in Knightrider and Battlestar Galactica).
posted by hincandenza at 5:41 PM PST - 32 comments

For many years, the inhabitants of the Corsican village of Vezzani have been entertaining visitors with a curious legend: the actual father of a certain embattled dictator is rumoured to be a local boy. Like Saint-Exupery, Albert Preziosi once fell from the sky. According to local lore, he wandered in the desert until he met, not a Little Prince, but a princess. Like father, like son? No one has tried yet to get a DNA sample from the Colonel, but who knows what the future holds?
posted by elgilito at 5:32 PM PST - 9 comments

"Hi Rob. You know how we said we were going to have a 6 month party in your room?" Rob's roommates had a good time while he was away.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:25 PM PST - 51 comments

Betty Anne Waters's brother Kenny was sent to prison for first degree murder and armed robbery in 1982. Over the next 16 years, Betty Anne got her GED, college degree, and law degree, all in an effort to prove Kenny was innocent. With the assistance of the Innocence Project, Betty Anne was able to use DNA evidence to show Kenny was innocent. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 5:06 PM PST - 27 comments

Five Alaskans have been arrested and charged with plotting to kill judges and State Troopers. At the time of their arrests, they had obtained illegal guns, grenades, and silencers. Schaefer Cox, the leader of the group, identifies himself with the Sovereign Citizen Movement and is a member of the Alaska Citizens Militia. The militia—one of hundreds of active “Patriot” Groups in the United States—maintains a website with pictures of bears, videos, and a list of Acts of War, which include “mandatory medical anything” and “involuntary involvement in anything.” [more inside]
posted by charmcityblues at 4:03 PM PST - 88 comments

The protests in Wisconsin have drawn criticism from some quarters, leading to the firing of a deputy AG in Indiana. Previously. After a lawsuit forced the WI DoA to have emails to Governor Walker released, certain others have claimed to have "had their email hacked". Not so much.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 3:49 PM PST - 47 comments

Mormon Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson of the "Mistborn" and "Wheel of Time" fame got some flak for his stance against gay wizards- (and marriage). After a reddit user posted his essay, Sanderson joined the discussion to defend the position of his church and to explain exactly how sinful engaging in homosexual acts is.
posted by ts;dr at 2:55 PM PST - 216 comments

Don't touch the frog. Mark Moffett, previously discussed here, tells the humorous story of how he went to a remote Columbian valley and photographed a very deadly frog.
posted by apathy0o0 at 2:40 PM PST - 12 comments

The 3DS, Nintendo's new handheld console, is coming out next week in the US, and is already out in Japan. The console's big feature is its "glasses-less 3D" screen, which achieves its effect via a parallax barrier. One of the console's lesser-touted features, however, is that there are two cameras on the back of the device, which can be used for taking 3D pictures, and also for playing augmented reality games, using an included card for tracking. The augmented reality features also include the ability to render a tiny version of your mii on a tabletop. If you're somewhat ambitious, you could even make your own, larger version of the tracking card to render your mii "life-sized". And if you're REALLY ambitious...
posted by luvcraft at 2:21 PM PST - 37 comments

Sarasota Herald-Tribune Reporter Matt Doig is looking for investigative journalists....
posted by zarq at 2:15 PM PST - 14 comments

There's been a lot of talk about Koch lately, mostly in regard to Wisconsin and Michigan. Now the billionaire Tea Party financiers have turned their eyes to Canada, and are set to lobby the Alberta government. Previously.
posted by Stagger Lee at 1:06 PM PST - 85 comments

Game programmer and designer Mike Dailly has been making games since he was 14, back in 1984. It was then that he met David Jones, Russell Kay and Steve Hammond at the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club, a group that gathered at Kingsway Technical College in Dundee, Scotland. These four chaps would go on to form DMA Design, home to Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto, amongst other games. Dailly has been sharing stories and materials from the archives of DMA, including The Complete History of DMA Design, The Complete History of Lemmings (previously), GTA prototypes, graphics and early game design docs (when it was called "Race 'n' Chase"), and more.... [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:49 PM PST - 16 comments

On ILM's first animated feature, Rango: Visual Effects Supervisor Tim Alexander gives details about creating the scenes, while Johnny Depp discusses the acting techniques used.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:31 PM PST - 37 comments

Pates Tapes is an online music project from Charles Pates comprised of hundreds of hours of mixtapes culled from vinyl and cassette. Just click and play.
posted by dhammond at 12:04 PM PST - 20 comments

Get yer dose of Friday Flash Fun with this Fezalike: Sky Island is an adorable 8-bit platformer that involves perspective-shifting and tropical tunes.
posted by tybeet at 11:33 AM PST - 11 comments

Pontypool is Canadian director's Bruce McDonald zombie (?) flick about language virus. In real life, Toronto's Global News Mark McAllister suffers a bizarre on-air episode on Wednesday, reminiscent of the CBS Serene Branson.
posted by SylviaAspevig at 11:30 AM PST - 35 comments

Virginia Woolf and Arturo Gatti have never met. If they had met, likelihood would have made their meeting brief and prosaic. This Triple Canopy piece unites their motivation, if only briefly, and makes for one hell of an interesting article. [more inside]
posted by Arquimedez Pozo at 11:28 AM PST - 5 comments

Since the fur-coated Boot Girls’ particular services were suggested by the iridescent colors of their calf-length, patent-leather boots and shoelaces, suitors had to be intimately familiar with their semaphore-like advertising before accompanying them to nearby apartments. Naturally, only devoted aficionados could decipher such specific messages with confidence. Other potential clients had to buy special primers, where Berlin’s complex street semiotics were thoughtfully decoded for the uninitiated. - Sex tourism in Berlin during the Jazz Age, along with some illustrations from the period. (Racy rather than obscene, but somewhat NSFW)
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:15 AM PST - 16 comments

Raw Music International is a prospective television series about music from around the world that would usually escape the attention of folk not living in the middle of it. The first episode has already been shot in Kenya, and the folk behind it are currently trying to get it funded. But until it gets broadcast, we can read their accounts of going out and recording the hip-hop, reggae and more trad-ish music of Kisumu. If you're interested in THE MUSIC AND NOTHING BUT THE MUSIC, head over to their Soundcloud page.
posted by Dim Siawns at 10:45 AM PST - 3 comments

Why Is Microsoft Seeking New State Laws That Allow it to Sue Competitors For Piracy by Overseas Suppliers?
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:23 AM PST - 41 comments

Popular punk band Screeching Weasel has dis-banded after front man Ben Weasel punched two women at SXSW last week. Weasel offered an apology (kind of). Last night, the other four members of the band resigned. [more inside]
posted by shesdeadimalive at 10:14 AM PST - 204 comments

OS X is X today! Meanwhile, Bertrand Serlet, father of OS X, is leaving apple.
posted by Artw at 9:38 AM PST - 116 comments

Roberto Bolaño recalls his days of stealing books in Mexico.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:35 AM PST - 14 comments

The Zombie Autopsies with Steven Schlozman, MD (SLVimeo)
posted by cthuljew at 9:33 AM PST - 8 comments

Village Voice debunks influential study of online trafficking. Feministing has more.
posted by prefpara at 9:28 AM PST - 37 comments

In what appears to be the first such action of its type, an Immigration Judge in Manhattan has adjourned deportation proceedings for the Argentine lesbian spouse of an American citizen to allow the couple to proceed with their application to have their marriage recognized for purposes of federal immigration law. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:22 AM PST - 23 comments

The U.K. Government presented its 2011 Budget , intended to be a “budget for growth” aimed at reinforcing the message that Britain is “open for business”. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 8:47 AM PST - 27 comments

Francis Fukuyama on China's political (r)evolution: Will the protests that have swept the Middle East inspire a similar movement in China, or is that country's middle class more interested in the material than the political? [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:42 AM PST - 62 comments

Fiona Walker has stepped into the spotlight to claim ownership of the world's most famous bum- certainly the most famous in tennis [more inside]
posted by rongorongo at 5:21 AM PST - 70 comments

Beloved anime classic Akira (previously) is in the process of getting a live-action adaption courtesy of Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. In fact, they're currently trying to assemble a cast. Oddly enough, despite keeping the leading characters' names Kaneda and Tetsuo, all the actors approached are white. This hasn't gone unnoticed, and Racebending.com is preparing a campaign to protest. Just last year M. Night Shyamalan's adaption of The Last Airbender (previously) drew massive criticism for having an all-white cast in an Asian setting. [more inside]
posted by Harald74 at 5:21 AM PST - 226 comments

Think Quarterly a new online magazine by Google UK. [more inside]
posted by blue_beetle at 5:08 AM PST - 10 comments

This is an advice column by an L.A. party girl who likes to talk shit on the internet. E.g. She’ll take your questions about the point of Serious Relationships. And give you advice about your sexual identity. Or tell you about a little something called Prince Charming Disease. There’s some advice about managing your existential crisis too. Even replies to fifteen year old girls on tumblr about their teenage flirting. There is also tons of fun sized advice. In her own summary: “What I [write] may be unfiltered, but it’s still cooked up from the same basic ingredients as the rest of pop culture.” It’s “Shady advice from a raging bitch who has no business answering any of these questions.” It’s Dear Coke Talk. [more inside]
posted by fantodstic at 12:45 AM PST - 83 comments

Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Music Dance Culture is the first peer-reviewed scholarly journal for promulgating interdisciplinary research concerning all aspects of electronic dance music culture. [more inside]
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 10:11 PM PST - 16 comments

Everything I do gonh be funky from now on. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:49 PM PST - 23 comments

Looking for something familiar with a twist? Best told from their About Us Page: Vitamin Records was formed in Los Angeles in 1999 to provide music lovers with high quality string quartet, lounge and electronic tributes to major pop and rock artists. Vitamin's mission is to offer fans exciting versions of their favorite songs performed in new musical contexts. [more inside]
posted by filmgeek at 8:44 PM PST - 22 comments

Former Philadelphia mayor and PA Governor Ed Rendell responds to GQ's Worst Sports Fans in America.
posted by rodmandirect at 7:58 PM PST - 56 comments

There are few works of greater scope or structural genius than the series of fiction pieces by Horatio Bucklesby Ogden, collectively known as The Wire; yet for the most part, this Victorian masterpiece has been forgotten and ignored by scholars and popular culture alike. [more inside]
posted by kipmanley at 7:35 PM PST - 38 comments

In over 35 years of friendship and conversation, Walter Michaels and I have disagreed on only two things, and one of them was faculty and graduate student unionization. He has always been for and I had always been against. I say “had” because I recently flipped and what flipped me, pure and simple, was Wisconsin. When I think about the reasons (too honorific a word) for my previous posture I become embarrassed. ... The big reason was the feeling — hardly thought through sufficiently to be called a conviction — that someone with an advanced degree and scholarly publications should not be in the same category as factory workers with lunch boxes and hard hats. Wisconsin has taught Stanley Fish that academics are workers too. Marc Bousquet (author of How the University Works) responds at the Chronicle of Higher Education with five lessons for academics from Wisconsin.
posted by gerryblog at 6:46 PM PST - 48 comments

Mitch Clem, author of the late, lamented punk comic Nothing Nice To Say, is back with Turnstile Comics. The first issue is a collaboration with Jesse "Swan" Thorson from Minneapolis punks The Slow Death and includes a 4 song EP from them. It's printed in a 7 by 7-inch square to help fit with your record collection.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:00 PM PST - 9 comments

Full-on metaphysics. In meme form I know I probably shouldn't. It's too trite. Memes. Just shoot me now. One of probably many previouslies
posted by Redhush at 5:58 PM PST - 35 comments

Gary Brecher-ne-Dolan, better known as The War Nerd, has switched from bimonthly articles to a daily blog. First stop? Why Lybia! Where else? [more inside]
posted by clarknova at 4:54 PM PST - 24 comments

Scott Atran, has appeared previously on Metafilter. He released a book a few months ago called, Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists. Atran has spent many years studying terrorists, particularly suicide bombers. His research disputes the assertion that terrorists are primarily driven by religious belief, but instead youth culture and group dynamics. [more inside]
posted by KaizenSoze at 4:17 PM PST - 41 comments

Eerily calm - Civil Defence New Zealand has released footage of post-earthquake Christchurch.
posted by Catch at 4:06 PM PST - 10 comments

Coalition health reforms will spell the end for the NHS and lead to U.S. style system, claim researchers. 'Prof Allyson Pollock, from the Barts and The London School of Medicine, and David Price, senior research fellow at its Centre for Health Sciences, write in a paper published on BMJ.com that the legislation “amounts to the abolition of the English NHS as a universal, comprehensive, publicly accountable, tax funded service, free at the point of delivery”. They say the Government “has repealed the health secretary’s duty to provide or secure the provision of comprehensive care” in order to create a commercial market in care. Instead, under the new system the state "finances but does not provide healthcare", in “equivalent to Medicare and Medicaid schemes in the US”'. Meanwhile, Dr Kim Price, claims 'the UK coalition government's planned NHS and welfare reforms, and their use of 'nudge' theory, hark back to ideas on welfare and recession from the end of the nineteenth century, according to studies by a University of Leicester historian whose research paper has recently been published in the Lancet'. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 4:03 PM PST - 32 comments

The video game SEGAGAGA, a Japan-only release for the Dreamcast, is an incredibly odd bit of gaming history. A business sim (of sorts) it tasks the player to lead Sega to victory over its rival the evil DOGMA Corporation (a thinly veiled analog for Sony). Loaded with in-jokes obvious and obscure, it is a love letter to Sega fans, and it was one of the last Dreamcast games made before Sega went third party. After a four-year hiatus, the Segagaga fan translation project has resumed work on localizing this most unusual game. Intro video. Edge Magazine interviews the director. [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 3:59 PM PST - 24 comments

In the movie business, sometimes a flop is just a flop. Then there are misses so disastrous that they send signals to broad swaths of Hollywood. “Mars Needs Moms” is shaping up as the second type. Is the fact that the Robert Zemeckis animation tanked so badly (A $7m opening weekned against a $150m budget) part of a back-lash against 3D or was Mars Needs Moms just a particularly bad film?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:40 PM PST - 286 comments

A digitized collection of old school handheld electronic games from around the world. [more inside]
posted by gman at 2:55 PM PST - 26 comments

Maine governor Paul LePage has ordered the state's Labor Department to remove a mural he says is too pro-labor. He has also declared several of the building's conference room names to have "one-sided decor." This was reportedly at the behest of anonymous businesses who complained of a pro-labor bias. [more inside]
posted by Celsius1414 at 1:37 PM PST - 282 comments

For the 25th Game Developers Conference, organizers hosted several postmortems for classic games such as Out Of This World, Doom, and Maniac Mansion. They are now free to view online. [more inside]
posted by hellojed at 1:03 PM PST - 28 comments

In February, AOL acquired the Huffington Post for $315 million. (Previously) The formation of The Huffington Post Media Group was announced, to integrate content for a new combined, claimed audience of "117 Million Americans and 270 Million Globally." Then, AOL fired 200 US employees (leaving many sites without editorial staff) and began restructuring. Today, they announced that 30 brands, including popular site Slashfood, will be closed or folded into existing Huffington Post sections. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:44 PM PST - 52 comments

"Pretty Big Dig": Small advertisement will play before video. A dance film by Anne Troake that gently illustrates the assimilation of technology. Also, a shorter clip with commentary by Anne Troake.
posted by Fizz at 12:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Time lapse video of an aurora borealis, by Terje Sorgjerd.
posted by Pants! at 12:16 PM PST - 16 comments

4 lines of Javascript defeats the NYT paywall popup. NYTClean is a script which does the deed.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:09 PM PST - 86 comments

Be Linen (vimeo) a video commissioned by the European Linen and Hemp Community beautifully shows how flax plants become linen fabric. [more inside]
posted by vespabelle at 11:49 AM PST - 10 comments

How baby carrots got the Mad Men treatment to make them seem more like junk food.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:58 AM PST - 91 comments

Interesting effect on the lack of the neurotransmitter serotonin in male mice.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:52 AM PST - 36 comments

We order foie gras and snails to start. Foie gras is a L’Ami Louis specialty. After 30 minutes what come are a pair of intimidatingly gross flabs of chilly pâté, with a slight coating of pustular yellow fat. They are dense and stringy, with a web of veins. I doubt they were made on the premises. The liver crumbles under the knife like plumber’s putty and tastes faintly of gut-scented butter or pressed liposuction. The fat clings to the roof of my mouth with the oleaginous insistence of dentist’s wax.

Restaurant critic A.A.Gill visits L'Ami Louis. A.A.Gill is not impressed.
posted by Neiltupper at 10:30 AM PST - 104 comments

A few years back MeFi'er freshwater_pr0n covered the burgeoning trend of barefoot & minimalist footwear running. The trend has continued with Fila now producing a look-alike to the popular Vibram Five Fingers shoes, but the jury is still out, scientifically speaking, regarding the impact of running in little to no footwear. One study points to low loading rate as the potential key to injuries, while longtime running researcher Benno M. Nigg's new text says just the opposite and a third (excerpted) study seems to point out that a change in footfall/strike correlates to footwear but may not reduce injuries. Given the shifting scientific analysis, runners are left with impassioned testimonials and heated debates. Nigg's advice might ring truest: shoe comfort is "probably the most important variable". [more inside]
posted by mostlymuppet at 10:26 AM PST - 60 comments

Titas wuz here: Ancient graffiti begins giving up its secrets. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 10:25 AM PST - 15 comments

Dancing Android
posted by puny human at 10:19 AM PST - 26 comments

Written by Walter Doyle and arguably made popular by Harry Reser, Mysterious Mose became a cartoon starring an early Betty Boop and then Screen Novelties made this awesome puppet version!
posted by mikoroshi at 10:06 AM PST - 2 comments

Spoiler Supercut. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 8:48 AM PST - 41 comments

Tri-M.G. Intra Asia Airlines (Warning: Sound, Flash, airplanes) has taken regional airline website design to new heights (Warning: Airline banned in the EU for being unsafe). via
posted by swift at 7:57 AM PST - 25 comments

The top 50 dance records of the past 20 years. -- as selected by BBC radio DJs and 'industry leaders' and mixed by Jaguar Skills.
posted by empath at 7:57 AM PST - 98 comments

Film legend Elizabeth Taylor died today at the age of 79. The two-time Oscar winner, who was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in February for symptoms of heart failure, was reported to be feeling stronger as recently as late February. She celebrated her 79th birthday on February 27th. [more inside]
posted by litnerd at 6:33 AM PST - 182 comments

Even if you can't afford child support, a lawyer will not be provided for you. The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that parents who are behind on child support can be jailed for up to year without ever having had legal representation, on the basis that violating court orders is a civil offense rather than a criminal one.
posted by Leta at 6:28 AM PST - 171 comments

Rap News 7: #Revolution - What if it's the first world that needs to be liberated? (SLYT - The subtitles help.)
posted by Baldons at 6:19 AM PST - 10 comments

Chicago Cubs outfielder Fernando Perez has published his poems in Poetry and The Southern Review. He studied creative writing at Columbia, just like James Franco. He is into Robert Creeley. He has a twitter feed. His career batting average is .234 but he's hitting only .161 in the Cactus League and might not make the big league club. Spring Training is the cruelest month.
posted by escabeche at 11:01 PM PST - 15 comments

Musicians@Google Presents: Google Goes Gaga. A 1h13m video interview with Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, mostly fan-submitted questions. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:11 PM PST - 69 comments

A first? This month's Linux Journal cover features Angela Byron, co-maintainer of Drupal 7, while Wired's cover features Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries.
posted by anirvan at 9:52 PM PST - 19 comments

How to feed 9 billion people: The global food supply is starting to get tight, with increasing sensitivity to droughts and floods causing price spikes and food shortages. The UK commissioned a report to examine how to feed a planet with a population that is set to increase to 9 billion by 2050. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 8:42 PM PST - 50 comments

Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power Brit writer raises interesting points.
posted by goalyeehah at 7:17 PM PST - 402 comments

Topologies is an audiovisual work led by artist Quayola in collaboration with software artist Mauritius Seeger and musician Matthias Kispert, in which high-resolution photographs of Velazquez' Las Meninas and Tiepolo's L’ Immacolata Concezione are reduced to triangular meshes and transformed by sound, made into hypnotic ambient works: Excerpt I (Velazquez) | Excerpt II (Tiepolo). [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:18 PM PST - 4 comments

Televisions Turning Off. [more inside]
posted by mkb at 5:47 PM PST - 43 comments

The long-lost David Bowie album Toy has leaked online.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:47 PM PST - 65 comments

Employed as a Counterterrorism Analyst, But Think Your Bosses Are Misunderstanding the Problem? Quit your DoD post and write a book! Offer it for free, on the Web. Oh, and do it anonymously. Reddit AMA here.
posted by darth_tedious at 5:17 PM PST - 29 comments

German news magazine Der Spiegel has published trophy photos taken by a U.S. Army "kill team" in Afghanistan. [more inside]
posted by clarknova at 4:01 PM PST - 191 comments

Only weeks after Judge Denny Chin extended the filing deadline, and presumably a final decision, and reflecting the Department of Justice’s own opinion, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the landmark class-action lawsuit settlement between the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Google. And offers some advice for a revised resubmission.
posted by Toekneesan at 3:58 PM PST - 22 comments

Libya: Six injured as US team botches rescue of downed airmen. 'US forces sent into Libya to rescue two downed American airmen botched the mission by shooting and wounding friendly villagers who had come to help, witnesses have said. Libyans who went to investigate the US warplane's crash site said that a US helicopter had come in with guns firing, creating panic and wounding onlookers, some of whom had to be taken to hospital; one 20-year-old man is expected to have his leg amputated.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 3:51 PM PST - 125 comments

South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard has signed into law bill 1217 [pdf], which requires a three-day waiting period and mandatory counseling from a "pregnancy help center" before a woman may obtain an abortion. [more inside]
posted by 0xFCAF at 3:28 PM PST - 345 comments

Though Roald Dahl is better known in this day as the author of stories for children, he had a parallel career as the author of short stories with more adult, macabre sensibilities. Some of those stories became part of a short-run series to fill the slot of to not one but two ill-fated Jackie Gleason shows. But instead of another game show or talk show, CBS wanted something to pair with the Twilight Zone. That show was Way Out, though it didn't rate well and only ran for 14 episodes (and 5 episodes are on Archive.org). 18 years later, Dahl returned to TV with his sinister stories, but this time it was in the UK, where Tales of the Unexpected lasted 9 seasons, 112 episodes in total. You can view 23 or so episodes online, split into parts (YT Playlist). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:56 PM PST - 27 comments

How Operation b107 decapitated the Rustock botnet (Previously)
posted by Artw at 1:55 PM PST - 49 comments

Even Japan’s infamous mafia groups are helping out with the relief efforts and showing a strain of civic duty. "The Kanagawa Block of the Inagawa-kai, has sent 70 trucks to the Ibaraki and Fukushima areas to drop off supplies in areas with high radiations levels. They didn't keep track of how many tons of supplies they moved. The Inagawa-kai as a whole has moved over 100 tons of supplies to the Tohoku region. They have been going into radiated areas without any protection or potassium iodide."
posted by kingv at 1:19 PM PST - 61 comments

A beautiful interactive model of our Solar System
posted by analogtom at 1:15 PM PST - 20 comments

"A Adept Arranging For Mother Volcano Bakemeat" [SLYT] Horribly-translated Pokemon bootleg makes "All Your Base" intelligible. Walkthrough: Part 1 of 18
posted by Fizz at 12:14 PM PST - 4 comments

Julian Assange is apparently a bad houseguest.
posted by everichon at 11:44 AM PST - 69 comments

Comic Relief held Red Nose Day to raise money for charity by making some funny sketches.
posted by jaybeans at 11:40 AM PST - 15 comments

Imma Homo - Rainbow Noise Entertainment [SLYT, NSFW, has "rape" in the lyrics]
posted by kavasa at 11:23 AM PST - 18 comments

An interview with Chris Ware from May 2010 at the international Copenhagen comics festival. Ware is the creator of Acme Novelty Library and Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. (via kottke) Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:09 AM PST - 9 comments

Last year, the unofficial Dean of the White House Press Corps, Helen Thomas, spoke about the State of Israel on camera. (Previously) Her replies: "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," and that the Jews "can go home" to "Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else," sparked media outrage, prompted her to issue an apology and retire. After months of being out of the the public spotlight, she has now given her first long-form interview, which will appear in the April issue of Playboy Magazine. In it, she explains what she meant, tells us how she would like to be remembered and expands upon her positions regarding Israel, Jewish political influence, Presidents Bush and Obama, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
posted by zarq at 10:47 AM PST - 219 comments

There are days that your MP3 player has died, searching YouTube for music feels like too much work, and you just want some sounds to mask the world. A few options:
8Tracks has playlists to suit your mood (having a one-person dance party, gaming, sad, and many more); if you want something a little more ambient, SimplyNoise provides white, pink and brown noise; RainyMood, the sounds of an endless rainy day. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 10:45 AM PST - 16 comments

"Eisler’s decision is a key benchmark on the road to wherever it is we’re going" Publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin: I wasnt planning to write a post this past weekend for Monday morning publication. But then Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler contacted me on Saturday to tell me what Barry is up to. Ive read their lengthy conversation about Barrys decision to turn down a $500,000 contract (apparently for two books) and join Joe (and many others, but none who have turned down half-a-million bucks) as a self-published author. [more inside]
posted by lodurr at 10:35 AM PST - 59 comments

50 Unexplainable Black & White Photos. That is all. (Mildly NSFW.)
posted by flyingsquirrel at 9:49 AM PST - 121 comments

"cleans, sets, and casts splendour" is the motto of the Real Academia Española, the 300-year-old institution tasked with keeping the natural evolution of the Spanish language both coherent and true to its character, reflected in print through the publication of the Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia Española (online). [more inside]
posted by valdesm at 9:31 AM PST - 5 comments

Arab spring: an interactive timeline of Middle East protests.
posted by homunculus at 9:19 AM PST - 15 comments

Legendary disco and soul vocalist Loleatta Holloway passed away last night in Chicago, after a short illness. She was 64
posted by Morpeth at 8:57 AM PST - 17 comments

The Duke Nukem series is certainly not known for its positive portrayal of women. In the previous game, (NSFW) women were either strippers, prostitutes, or trapped in alien cocoons, begging you to end their pain. The new game starts off showing Duke getting an implied blowjob from twins in school uniforms. The strippers and clubs are back. But when a multiplayer mode called "Capture the Babe" requires you to abduct women and lets you give them a "reassuring slap" on their buttocks if they "freak out", have the developers simply gone too far?
posted by ymgve at 8:12 AM PST - 297 comments

Reggie Watts makes some music on Conan.
posted by empath at 5:42 AM PST - 40 comments

12-Year-Old Pong Master. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 1:23 AM PST - 42 comments

Bernard NotHaus has been convicted of possessing and selling coins that resemble United States coins, violating U.S.C. 18 § 486 and other US statutes. This follows three years after a raid on the Liberty Dollar offices. The trial took four days, the deliberation all of two hours. The US government is now pursuing a forfeiture case against Liberty Services for approximately $7 Million. (previously) [more inside]
posted by Hactar at 11:42 PM PST - 154 comments

RIP Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins - "It is with deep sadness that we announce Pinetop Perkins passed away peacefully at home on Monday, March 21, 2011 in Austin, TX at the age of 97." One of the last great Mississippi bluesmen, having played with Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, and for a number of years, the great Muddy Waters. Pinetop & friends at his 95th birthday; Pinetop Perkins with Willie Big Eyed Smith; Muddy Waters with Pinetop Perkins, 1970s [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 9:21 PM PST - 40 comments

A new kind of book has been created in Holland, where its sold over 1m copies since it came out in 2009. Now finding its way to England, called the "flipback", the pages are super thin Bible paper with a special lay-flat spine and small format, making it suitable for reading with one hand, thumb page-flips, and shirt pocket storage.
posted by stbalbach at 9:08 PM PST - 60 comments

With Few Jobs, an Unmarried Pastor Points to Bias “Prejudice against single pastors abounds,” Mr. Almlie wrote in articles (Part 1, Part 2) he posted on a popular Christian blog site in January and February, setting off a wide-ranging debate online on a topic that many said has been largely ignored.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:10 PM PST - 76 comments

"n arratives is a surreal, offbeat humour, low-key comedy cartoon show in amazing MULTICOLOURWIDESCREENMADNESSTECHNOLOGY." Apparently the first in a series. (SLVimeo; German with English subtitles.)
posted by ixohoxi at 7:55 PM PST - 7 comments

The original time-lapse self portrait? And some modern artists: Enchanting self portraits from Iceland's Rebekka Gaudleifs. Nude self portrait (NSFW) from Israeli artist Roni River. Disturbing stories from Canada's projecteye (NSFW) and magical self-portrait from New Hampshire-based Sarah Ann Loreth.
posted by SylviaAspevig at 7:53 PM PST - 8 comments

I have no idea how this poor child performer got on an American morning show and then got slowed down 33%, or why. However, I feel the results will likely be viewed by future historians as the primary contribution of this, and indeed any other, civilization. (SLYT)
posted by felix at 7:28 PM PST - 102 comments

Worcy Crawford ran the only bus company that would transport colored passengers in pre-Civil Rights Act Birmingham. Mr. Crawford recently passed away and now the buses sit in disrepair.
posted by reenum at 6:41 PM PST - 3 comments

How two American kids became big-time weapons traders - "Working with nothing but an Internet connection, a couple of cellphones and a steady supply of weed, the two friends — one with a few college credits, the other a high school dropout — had beaten out Fortune 500 giants like General Dynamics to score the huge arms contract. With a single deal, two stoners from Miami Beach had turned themselves into the least likely merchants of death in history." (via; previously on arms contractors)
posted by kliuless at 6:00 PM PST - 69 comments

An in-depth examination of Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance focusing closely on its aesthetic aspects and minute architectural and gameplay details.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:07 PM PST - 29 comments

"Another nagging idea which slowly grew from a whorl in the tub to a Pacific gyre was that, as I wrote piece after piece, it seemed like I was just imitating myself, if that makes any sense. I had always prided myself on not being formulaic (say, Monday jokes and lasagna jokes), so this presented a grave problem. I have always wanted Achewood to be something that didn’t exist before, including earlier versions of itself. ... Like a sparrow birthing a clenched human fist, Achewood must be reborn in strange ways over time to achieve this ideal." Chris Onstad announces an indefinite hiatus to the popular web comic Achewood. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 4:41 PM PST - 136 comments

The Newspaper Guild is calling on unpaid writers of the Huffington Post to withhold their work in support of a strike launched by Visual Art Source in response to the company’s practice of using unpaid labor. In addition, we are asking that our members and all supporters of fair and equitable compensation for journalists join us in shining a light on the unprofessional and unethical practices of this company. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 4:23 PM PST - 51 comments

Fantastical shoe designs by Kobi Levi.
posted by hermitosis at 4:13 PM PST - 33 comments

Boxer - the DOS game emulator that’s fit for your Mac, making it beautifully, trivially easy to run DOS games [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:58 PM PST - 39 comments

Area man builds scanning electron microscope in garage.
posted by mhjb at 1:45 PM PST - 31 comments

In the dim and distant past before video recorders, never mind DVDs and the interweb, the only way a Doctor Who fan could re-live old episodes of the programme was via the Target Books novelizations. The BBC is reissuing some of the classic stories with new intros by the likes of Neil Gaiman. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:31 PM PST - 32 comments

Captain Video and his Video Rangers was a television series that was staple of the DuMont Television Network. The series first aired in the middle of Golden Age of Science Fiction, and with an initial air date in 1949, it was the first science fiction television series in the United States, complete with futuristic gadgets. The series was aimed at children, with public service announcements for kids, the a special ring (or three). Recorded and broadcast live five to six days a week, the series had a run of thousands of episodes, though most are now considered lost. 24 episodes are in the UCLA Film and Television archive, and a few episodes have made their way into public domain compilations, and online (three random episodes episodes on Internet Archive; and same three episodes on YouTube). Continue in for more on the good Captain, and the network he called home. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:12 PM PST - 19 comments

The US Library of Congress has updated their site to be more user friendly. Collections are now very easy to explore. All of the fun of wandering around a library without leaving your chair. [more inside]
posted by kensch at 12:58 PM PST - 11 comments

FuckYeahSourceCode.tumblr.com
Tumblr has had a major security breach causing the web server to spit out source code containing passwords, database schema, and secret API keys. How did this happen? Probably editing the [live] file in vim, forgot it was in Replace mode, and tried to enter Insert mode by tapping i while at the beginning of the file.
posted by wcfields at 12:19 PM PST - 125 comments

Exodus International, the so-called "ex-gay" organization, has just released an iPhone app that, according to its website, is "designed to be a useful resource for men, women, parents, students, and ministry leaders." The Exodus website further boasts that its app received a 4+ rating from Apple, meaning that it contains "no objectionable content." Many are not pleased. [more inside]
posted by xedrik at 10:19 AM PST - 274 comments

Epidemiology: Study of a lifetime. "In 1946, scientists started tracking thousands of British children born during one cold March week. On their 65th birthday, the study members find themselves more scientifically valuable than ever before." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:14 AM PST - 7 comments

Owner of this iconic afro? Singer on the amazing "(Oh no! Not)The Beast Day!"? Muse for "Brown Sugar" and mother of Mick Jagger's child? Star of the musical Hair? The third stage breast cancer survivor? Author of these books? Not several people but one Marsha Hunt.
posted by rongorongo at 9:17 AM PST - 30 comments

How Manhattan’s Grid Grew. Interactive New York Times map comparing 1811 New York with present day, plus other cool historical stuff. Huzzah, as the kids say.
posted by flyingsquirrel at 9:12 AM PST - 25 comments

In the mid-1990s, a man named George Wood created a TV show called Flights of Fantasy on a Maryland public-access channel. The show was was dedicated to videogames, and gained quite a few detractors; Wood was not known for his playing skills, research, or good taste, and the production was rather cheap. He would also tend to go off-topic, sometimes markedly so.

It had a small following, being a local public-access show, but would have been lost forever had Wood not joined a video gaming association called NAViGaTR, who archived the entire series, edited each episode, and put them online as Gaming in the Clinton Years.
posted by Anatoly Pisarenko at 8:45 AM PST - 12 comments

Why are you on my train? [more inside]
posted by educatedslacker at 8:28 AM PST - 11 comments

To deny the awesomeness of frogs would be foolish. They are colourful, they are diverse, and if they were the size of humans, they could leap over buildings! 10 facts and 25 pictures about our amphibious friends, the mighty Frog!
posted by drlith at 7:27 AM PST - 31 comments

Why Was I Banned? via GFi
posted by jtron at 7:20 AM PST - 116 comments

The Great Sand Sea in Libya preserves some remarkeable meteoritea. Amazing though these are, none as enigmatic as the Libyan desert glass. [more inside]
posted by BadMiker at 7:05 AM PST - 9 comments

Fully (sic) is "Crikey’s very own language blog for discerning word nerds. Sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Australian linguists getting all hot and bothered about the way we communicate." It's the Aussie equivalent of Language Log, frequently linked here on the Blue. To get you started, Does Moomba really mean ‘up your bum’? (Answer: Nobody knows for sure, but the search is lots of fun.)
posted by languagehat at 7:03 AM PST - 9 comments

Over the years, he's become so well versed in restaurant labor law that his attorneys don't even charge him for filing lawsuits anymore. 'They take them on spec,' he boasts. 'By now, they know that if I file something, it's legit.' Eddie Santana, restaurant rebel, has filed 30 lawsuits against companies — nearly all restaurants and bars — for everything from illegal tip pools to excessive uniform costs. He's netted $144,924.79 after attorney fees from 20 separate settlements. And from the nine suits still pending, he hopes to make another $100,000, if not more.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:51 AM PST - 47 comments

Downhill Carnage (SLVimeo)
posted by KirkpatrickMac at 4:46 AM PST - 34 comments

Between Page And Screen is an augmented-reality book of poems (written by Amaranth Borsuk) developed by Brad Bouse. Like a digital pop-up book, you hold the words in your hands. Print a marker and try it. Requires Webcam. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 4:29 AM PST - 7 comments

The Responsive Eye. Brian De Palma's 1966 film (25 mins) of the opening night of New York MOMA's 'The Responsive Eye' exhibition on op art.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 1:43 AM PST - 13 comments

"My name is Blinky, and I just want to be your friend!" A well-crafted short film by Ruairi Robinson (slightly gory CGI ending may be NSFW).
posted by killdevil at 10:50 PM PST - 25 comments

The first nuclear reactor was in Africa, 2 billion years ago. Two billion years ago, there was enough uranium 235 in a naturally occurring deposit in Africa to fuel a nuclear fission reaction. In 16 separate locations, spontaneously occurring fission reactions went on for some hundreds of thousands of years, cycling multiple times per day. A picture of Fossil Reactor 15. The American Nuclear Society info site.
posted by bq at 10:43 PM PST - 46 comments

Giang Dinh uses the wet folding origami technique to make faces, animals, figures, and even miniatures.
posted by heatherann at 8:36 PM PST - 12 comments

The Van Allen Belt is a pesky radioactive torus surrounding Earth. Spacecraft operating for extended periods within it must use heavy and expensive radiation hardening techniques just to survive. Tethers Unlimited has proposed a rather daring scheme for circumventing this nuisance: HiVOLT. [more inside]
posted by Casimir at 8:22 PM PST - 23 comments

John D. Olmsted, a naturalist who for over 40 years led efforts to preserve Northern California nature areas, open spaces and hiking trails, recently passed away at the age of 73. A distant relative of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, John D. Olmsted was inspired by John Muir to preserve wilderness, and his son recently completed a film about his life.
posted by The Emperor of Ice Cream at 7:57 PM PST - 9 comments

AT&T has announced plans to acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom, creating the largest wireless provider in the United States. [more inside]
posted by ofthestrait at 7:43 PM PST - 147 comments

Types of Toast. Does what it says on the tin.
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:16 PM PST - 45 comments

One Dutch radio geek is monitoring the airwaves for information about Operation Odyssey Dawn—and tweeting the surprisingly-detailed results.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:46 PM PST - 37 comments

“To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” Craig Venter created synthetic life and inscribed this quote from James Joyce into its genome. Now he has been threatened with a suit for copyright infringement by the very litigious James Joyce estate.
posted by caddis at 6:43 PM PST - 31 comments

This listing for my urine-free wetsuit is getting a lot of unexpected attention which is nice but I'm feeling I should do something positive with all the 'f*cking energy man', so I've decided to give 90% of the money it makes to the Red Cross to aid their efforts in Japan. That sounds all 'oh look at me I'm so nice I'm giving to charity' doesn't it... yeah well p*ss off. Ebay stunt post goes badly right.
posted by Jakey at 4:53 PM PST - 40 comments

In Australia, about 250 detainees rioted last week at Christmas Island's infamous detention centre in protest of their harsh treatment and long incarceration. The Federal Opposition has called for the rioters to be charged amid controversy over police use of beanbag rounds and tear gas. A former detainee is also 'suing for the pain and suffering of being locked up more than four years'.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:34 PM PST - 116 comments

Today is the 8th Anniversary of the beginning of the War in Iraq. Protesters around the country are trying to bring attention to our nation's continued involvement.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 3:45 PM PST - 38 comments

Greg Mclanahan of Gamasutra talks how to design achievements right.
posted by flatluigi at 3:37 PM PST - 77 comments

Venturing into a cave more than a few steps can induce intense psychological pressure and strange sensory phenomenon. Werner Herzog's latest film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (trailer) shot in 3D inside Chauvet Cave in southern France suggests that our compulsion for this experience is shared with many ancient cultures, such as those at Chavin de Huantar, that may have included exploitation of the acoustic properties of caves.  We continue to descend into inner spaces, increasingly with high-tech equipment. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:22 PM PST - 30 comments

Girls Making Gun Sounds
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:39 PM PST - 92 comments

Being Alone. A good discussion on the upside of solitude, including cites to some research experiments. It's even on a single page.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 11:47 AM PST - 67 comments

Wijnanda Deroo: Inside New York Eateries "Continuing her long-term exploration of the architectural interior as a genre of photographic investigation, artist Wijnanda Deroo has scoured New York's five boroughs documenting the full spectrum of the city's culinary institutions. From Café des Artistes to Papaya Dog, the Russian Tea Room to Yonah Schimmel's Knishes, Deroo's viewfinder alights on diverse sites (and sights) where we New Yorkers sit (or stand) to consume our daily bread." More interiors at the artist's website -- Indonesia :: Curacao :: Mexico :: Berlin
posted by puny human at 10:44 AM PST - 5 comments

"On our island we loved to watch football. But no one had actually ever played it." The story of a football team on the floating village of Ko Panyi. [more inside]
posted by Taft at 10:24 AM PST - 14 comments

What would some famous (and infamous) comicbook classics look like as Penguins or Pelicans? [more inside]
posted by kipmanley at 10:16 AM PST - 11 comments

The xkcd Radiation Dose Chart. (More about it.) (via)
posted by Artw at 10:09 AM PST - 87 comments

I LIKE GOING ONTO MY FRIENDS FACEBOOK PAGE, TAKING PHOTOS OF HIM, CHANGING HIS FACE SLIGHTLY THEN PUTTING THEM BACK UP ON FACEBOOK. HE DOESN'T LIKE ME DOING THIS.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 9:50 AM PST - 156 comments

Harmony Korine's Ushimini Wam. A 16-minute short where Ninja and Yo Landi from South Africa's Die Antwoord, "play trigger-happy, gun-toting misfits who bond throughout the film by sharing cartoonishly huge joints, sticking-up business owners, and seeking refuge and shelter in the woods."
posted by geoff. at 9:34 AM PST - 18 comments

My Favorite Color. Another Youtube mix from Kutiman. Previously.
posted by zabuni at 8:18 AM PST - 17 comments

Paris in 2000 images. A time lapse of Paris at night. Interview with the creator. [more inside]
posted by Phire at 1:49 AM PST - 22 comments

Dogs with table manners. Slow, surreal and delightful.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 12:35 AM PST - 22 comments

Neal Adams is one of the greatest comic artists, best known for drawing the most reprinted comic sequence and revitalizing Batman after the campy Adam West show . Now, Neal Adams is returning to Batman with a 12 issue mini-series titled Odyssey and six issues in, some are already calling the story " without hyperbole... the most insane comic book we have ever read ." While some might be shocked that the famous Adams seems to have lost his way and is acting a little crazy, Metafilter readers probably should have seen this coming
posted by jaybeans at 12:26 AM PST - 80 comments

Inspired by Harry Beck's London Underground maps, Daniel Huffman designed a series of stylized river maps for Michigan, North and Central California, Southwest New England, The Colorado River, Columbia River, and The Mississippi River. He also writes about the process he used in creating them.
posted by sambosambo at 9:58 PM PST - 30 comments

The Légion Étrangère is a French special forces unit comprised mostly of foreign nationals who wish to fight for France, and the promise of a French citizenship. They are today considered an elite unit, on par with or superior to the British SAS or Russian Spetsnaz, and have in their long history served in campaigns as far-flung as Mexico and Vietnam, but are most famous for their image as colonial shock-troops in North Africa and the Middle East. Legionnaire fought Legionnaire in the Second World War during the Syria-Lebanon Campaign, as the Vichy's 6e Régiment Étrangère d'Infanterie lined up against the Allied 13e Demi-Brigade de Légion Étrangère in a critical, yet unsung battle for North Africa. Their first campaign was in Algeria - will their latest be in Libya?
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:33 PM PST - 45 comments

In the 80s, US intelligence services were claiming to have uncovered a host of un-American plots concocted by Gaddafi such as sending hit squads to kill Reagan and other members of the administration, launching terrorist targets in Europe and elsewhere , a plan to kidnap or execute the American ambassador to Italy, and a suicide mission against the USS Nimitz.

Then in 1986, Bernard Kalb stepped down as spokesman for the State Department after hearing of government plans to plant false stories about Gaddafi.
posted by destro at 9:02 PM PST - 55 comments

America's greatest president... Buddy Knox. (SLYT)
posted by whitneyarner at 7:44 PM PST - 27 comments

ICorrect: The universal website for corrections to lies, misinformation and misrepresentations. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 6:49 PM PST - 47 comments

Pictory is a showcase for people around the world to document their lives and cultures. Anyone can submit one large, captioned image to each of Pictory’s editorial themes. The recent theme was Infrastructure, where Japan’s near-simultaneous earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis has provided a graphic reminder about the centrality of infrastructure in our lives. Another theme was Platonic Love Stories, about the folks who laugh at the same dumb jokes you do, have been there for you through thick and thin, and are still friends with you despite it all. Pictory of the Day photo blog. The Pictory Feature Archive. Here are the presently open themes. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 4:34 PM PST - 6 comments

Francesco Marciuliano (writer of the comic strip Sally Forth) presents The Catalog of Unfit Toys, mixed in among many other random amusements and strange humor at the blog for his webcomic Medium Large (oh yeah, and there's a cat: cat poetry, that is - parts 1, 2, 3). [more inside]
posted by flex at 4:11 PM PST - 9 comments

Slow Action is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film that brings together a series of four 16mm works which exist somewhere between documentary, ethnographic study and fiction. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 2:10 PM PST - 4 comments

A few tiny towns in Maine have enacted new ordinances described as "food sovereignty laws". [more inside]
posted by Leta at 11:56 AM PST - 111 comments

Knut , who charmed visitors to the Berlin Zoo as an orphaned cub in 2007, died in his enclosure today in front of a crowd of 600-700 people. Knut was only four years old, as opposed to the typical polar bear lifespan of 15-18 years. Tragedy seems to have followed Knut for his entire brief life: his twin died at only four days old, and the zookeeper who hand-raised him died in 2008. As Knut grew, he stopped being the cute cuddly cub everybody loved; like many zoo animals, his behavior became problematic, and people avoided visiting him. A post-mortem is scheduled for Monday.
posted by briank at 11:42 AM PST - 76 comments

What if Mario was really just drug-addled and lovesick? [SLYT] Filmmaker Joe Nicolosi's short film remakes Super Mario as indie flick, produced for South by Southwest. WARNING: May contain content hipsters find appealing.
posted by Fizz at 11:31 AM PST - 24 comments

Posh Nosh "I once ate a Flayed Swordfish And Guava Millefeuille that reminded me, in one sweet mouthful, of a Sea Interlude by Britten, a painting by Turner and one of Michael Holding's rampant, perfect-length balls. Sniff your computer screen. What does it remind you of? Roasted fruits? A Hockney? Cherry blossom? No. It reminds you of nothing. Computer screens look, smell, feel (even taste) like nothing. They're devoid of sensuality. People who stare at screens all day should be shot. But there are so many millions of them. There simply isn't time." Architect's Fish and Chips :: Birthday Parties:: Paella :: Beautiful Food :: Bread and Butter Pudding :: Leftovers :: Sauces :: Comfort Food :: (BBC 2, Arabella Weir, Richard E. Grant, each episode 9 mins., previously)
posted by puny human at 9:57 AM PST - 43 comments

Six months ago, MetaFilter discussed Russian LGBT activist Nikolai Alexeyev's disappearance. This past week, an interview with him was aired on Gay USA. (Interview starts around 30m10s, and runs for 17m30s ) Episode also available as audio only, and available through iTunes as a free podcast. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:06 AM PST - 4 comments

A video has leaked online showing Microsoft's vision for their next generation gaming platform. The video comes from the WGX (Windows Gaming eXperience) team, and as ZDNet reports, the video shows "[the] team’s ambitions for next-generation gaming between Windows, Xbox Live, and mobile platform[s]." [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 8:25 AM PST - 84 comments

Chickam 2011 has begun. Live cam of a chicken-egg incubator run by a Something Awful regular. So far five chicks have hatched, please welcome Rambo, Spaghetti, Weedcat, Pompadour and Duck. [more inside]
posted by Iteki at 8:24 AM PST - 26 comments

Holi is a wild, sexy celebration in India. People wear white and then throw or squirt colored powders and water at each other. There are bonfires, marijuana drink parties, mischief, all kinds of sweet pastries, venting of sexual heat, dancing in the streets and happy, colorful mayhem. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 10:45 PM PST - 88 comments

The earliest preserved, figuratively painted wooden ceiling in Europe can be seen above the nave of St Martin's Church in Zillis. It features beheadings, temptations, naked people, and lots and lots of fish tails.
posted by nasreddin at 7:49 PM PST - 30 comments

Bill Mudron's Color Cornucopia
posted by OverlappingElvis at 7:22 PM PST - 7 comments

Welcome to Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages On these pages, I present solid information on (currently) 117 different spice plants. Emphasis is on their usage in ethnic cuisines, particularly in Asia; furthermore, I discuss their history, chemical constituents, and the etymology of their names. Last but not least, there are numerous photos featuring the live plants or the dried spices.
posted by halcyon_daze at 6:43 PM PST - 27 comments

Five surveillance cameras capture a tornado hitting Alexander Hardware and Small Engine; tornado was an EF 2 with wind speeds of 120mph.
posted by bwg at 6:24 PM PST - 38 comments

Japan explains nuclear crisis to kids with a cartoon about poop and farts
posted by Alcibiades. at 4:55 PM PST - 53 comments

Chicks Rock! 10 basement youtube unknowns.
posted by Ardiril at 3:00 PM PST - 29 comments

It was Alex St. Martin's gory musket injury that paved the way for cow fistulation, a hands-on method to explore the inner workings of bovine digestion.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 2:50 PM PST - 56 comments

USMC Warrant Officer (ret.) Michael D. Fay served as a combat artist from 2000 through January 2010 under the History Division of the Marine Corps University. He once described his orders from them as "Go to War. Do Art." Fay was deployed several times to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has been keeping a blog of his sketches since 2005. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:12 PM PST - 21 comments

The Creature Connection: Our love for animals can be traced to our capacity to infer the mental states of others, which archaeological evidence suggests emerged more than 50,000 ago. This article is part of a NYTimes series on the relationship between humans and the animals we raise. [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 12:32 PM PST - 21 comments

Hiding the Real Africa [more inside]
posted by infini at 12:30 PM PST - 23 comments

In 1967, Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov went up in a capsule he knew would never get back (NSFW gruesome image) to earth in one piece. He could have bowed out of the mission, but that would meant his good friend, Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space) would have drawn the mission instead. So Vladamir launched knowing it was a suicide mission. The CIA was listening in , and recorded what may have been Vladimir Komarov's last words, amid cries of rage. Adding to the tragedy, Yuri died in a plane crash the next year.
posted by COD at 12:25 PM PST - 101 comments

While constructing a free ebook of the complete Lovecraft stories, Cthulhu Chick made a wordle of Lovecraft's corpus, and notes on word frequency. (Surprise: he only used "squamous" once.) Another fan has made a geopolitical map of Pangaea c. 252 million years ago. The Cthulhu Mythos Timeline explains what's going on.
posted by Zed at 12:15 PM PST - 51 comments

What is a photocopier? Ten pages of Ohio Supreme Court testimony where a Cuyahoga County, Ohio, office worker deliberately tries to muddy the waters in a deposition. Hilarity ensues. "If you don't know what that means in an office setting, please tell the court you don't know what it means in an office setting to have a photocopying machine."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:06 PM PST - 82 comments

Earth Tides, Syzygy, this weekend's Supermoon, and whale beachings are all things that some folks think point to a possible tectonic event on the U.S. West Coast this weekend. Jim Berkland, retired USGS Geologist thinks so. See his interview here. And, he's got a track record of predicting earthquakes.
posted by bricksNmortar at 11:53 AM PST - 56 comments

Pleasant Family Shopping is an extensive blog dedicated to shopping malls and supermarkets of the past. The entries devoted to the 60's are especially interesting. The Woolco entry has lots of period photograghs of customers from around 1970. [more inside]
posted by pyramid termite at 10:36 AM PST - 27 comments

Comment OR Vote: "A civilized cyberspace being necessary for the sanity of a free state, the right of the People to be secure against unreasonable Internet comments shall not be infringed. No person leaving a comment, or any legal incident thereof, on any web site shall vote in any federal, state, or local election within two years, or within such lengthier period as the Congress or the legislatures of the several states shall direct."
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:30 AM PST - 43 comments

[Basetrack] is an experimental media project, tracking the deployment of 1/8 – 1st Battalion, Eighth Marines, throughout the duration of their deployment to southern Afghanistan. A small team of mobile media operators is embedded with the battalion, transmitting their reports and reflections from Helmand province as they travel across the battalion’s area of operations.
posted by nushustu at 10:26 AM PST - 1 comment

May 18th marks two significant days in the history of labor. On May 18th, 1871 the workers of Paris, joined by mutinous National Guardsmen, seized the city and set about re-organising society in their own interests based on workers' councils. [more inside]
posted by Stagger Lee at 9:38 AM PST - 23 comments

Last fall, Mitzi Swisher, a vintage dealer, bought a boxed set of posters [more inside]
posted by Ideefixe at 9:04 AM PST - 23 comments

The Texas House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee voted 5-3 Wednesday night to advance legislation to allow concealed handguns on college campuses. Over half of the Texas House has signed on as co-authors of the bill. University of Texas System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa disagrees. Utah beat them to it.
posted by the Real Dan at 8:41 AM PST - 102 comments

Chris Eckert is an artist who makes sculptures and... machines: Auto Ink, Auto Masochist, Auto Rosary
posted by gwint at 8:41 AM PST - 6 comments

Painting of a tangerine... being peeled (SLYT) Painter Duane Keiser paints a tangerine. Then peels it. Then paints it. Then peels it. Then paints it. Fun video, I thought.
posted by cogpsychprof at 8:38 AM PST - 25 comments

Abortion has always been a hotspot in the culture wars. But of late, the anti-abortion movement has had some huge wins, often sliding in under the radar of pro-choice supporters. Idaho bans abortions after the 20th week, claiming that mother's shouldn't have the right to make a fetus uncomfortable. Nebraska also banned abortion after the 20th week, so did Oklahoma. Oregon, Minnesota, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Missouri, and Ohio are also considering joining the 31 states that currently have such a ban. Virginia passed a law that will shut the doors of almost every abortion clinic in the state. And various areas are now enacting laws that suggest a fetus is significantly more important than the carrier of said fetus. One judge ruled that a girl couldn't have an abortion because she had bad grammar. It is quite possible that women who are in their 40s right now may be the only generation of American women that possessed full reproductive rights for their entire child bearing years.
posted by dejah420 at 8:30 AM PST - 209 comments

Jesse Heiman, World's Greatest Extra. According to myth, he has appeared in every movie and tv show ever created. (via)
posted by phaedon at 7:51 AM PST - 44 comments

Shallow diver breaks world record for paddling pool jump. "A US shallow diver has broken his own world record by swan-diving 36ft (11m) into a paddling pool containing just 12in (30.5cm) of water. Darren Taylor, also known as Professor Splash, dived into a pool of near-freezing water in Trondheim, Norway, making the jump his 13th Guinness certified record. Mr Taylor, who is from Colorado in the US, has 25 years' professional high-diving experience and works as a stunt diver." Via: BBC
posted by Fizz at 7:50 AM PST - 37 comments

How to be a Retronaut presents USA Shopping Malls, Summer 1990.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:29 AM PST - 80 comments

Mommy's Nose is Scary! Mother films her son reacting to her blowing her nose - he's not sure whether it's funny or terrifying (SLYT).
posted by rodmandirect at 7:21 AM PST - 23 comments

Urban Traps [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:38 AM PST - 52 comments

Wile E. Coyote in 127 Hours. [via]
posted by crossoverman at 2:33 AM PST - 37 comments

The incredibly influential and loved music show 120 Minutes returns, with Matt Pinfield returning as host. The MTV2 premiere happens later this year, while the web version 120 Seconds debuts today. [more inside]
posted by naju at 12:32 AM PST - 60 comments

The Society for Science in the Public Interest photostream features photos of Westinghouse (now Intel) Science Talent Search winners from 1942 to the present. First place winner Ron Unz, later a failed California gubernatorial candidate and now publisher of The American Conservative. Nerds have always loved glowing liquids. Also van de Graaf generators. A guy made the finals with a sweeping robot. "Look! It's the future!" Ann Sieferle-Valencia won 7th place in 1997 with a an archeology project and is now the curator of the Tucson Museum of Art. George HW Bush digs science projects. So does Chuck Schumer. Tall finalist. Science! I just liked this one.
posted by escabeche at 9:45 PM PST - 6 comments

Computer security vendor RSA, maker of two-factor authentication SecurID, has been hacked by unknown parties. In an open letter to it customers RSA Executive Chairman Arthur W. Coviello, Jr. calls the attack the work of an Advanced Persistent Threat, meaning a highly skilled, well-funded group acting deliberately & precisely to achieve a specific goal. RSA's clients include many Fortune 100 companies, US Government, Military & Intelligence Community organizations.
posted by scalefree at 8:27 PM PST - 114 comments

RetCon Artists: Improving the Future by Improving the Past ... A few days ago, MeFi's Own waxpancake hosted a special session at SXSWInteractive where he invited web-savvy people to make pitches for The Worst Website Ever II (it was done once before), with concepts that are bad, worse than bad, so bad they're good, evil, just plain wrong or not even wrong. One of the presenters (some guy from a website) came up with "RetCon Artists: Improving the Future by Improving the Past" (video) (PDF), providing a Social Solution to a Seinfeldian (or actually Costanzan) Problem. He went on to build a website that expanded the concept into useful services "whether you're polishing your personal brand or managing a multinational corporate image". Since this is the only one of the ideas that has ended up on the Web since the competition, it is obviously the one that won. Congratulations, Josh. [via mefi projects]
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:34 PM PST - 20 comments

The melodica has all the irritation and the none of the charm of the accordion, but James Howard Young is doing amazing things with it... and multi-tracking. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, first movement, arranged for 10 melodicas (the video shows 9), Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico Concerto no. 8 in A minor for 2 violins, 3rd mvt arranged for 7 melodicas, Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, no 1, first movement, arranged for 12 melodicas. All videos featuring just one melodicist. [more inside]
posted by Jahaza at 7:29 PM PST - 40 comments

UN Security Council approves no-fly zone over Libya.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:29 PM PST - 903 comments

We are IE - Comparing every version of Internet Explorer (slyt)
posted by Artw at 6:00 PM PST - 33 comments

Comic Punx is a blog devoted to the (mostly hilarious) depictions of punk rock in comic books. It's by Andrew Weiss, who's main blog is Armagideon Time (home of the great Nobody's Favorites.) He's also one of the the Bureau Chiefs behind Fake AP Stylebook (previously) and runs Dateline: Silver Age (previouisly).
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:58 PM PST - 21 comments

How to knit a GIGANTO-BLANKET! The finished product: Giganto-blanket – finished! Oh yeah, and there's a cat.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:31 PM PST - 43 comments

Discworld's City Watch to be turned into a TV series. Sam Vimes may finally be coming to moving pictures.
posted by kmz at 4:21 PM PST - 145 comments

Fukushima Dai-ichi status and potential outcomes The Oil Drum has begun posting daily threads about the Japanese nuclear plant event. As during the last energy crisis, the comments there tend to have a good signal-to-noise ratio.
posted by mediareport at 4:10 PM PST - 1760 comments

Aboriginal Science Fiction was started in 1987 to rethink the look and feel of SF magazines; Charles Ryan published it in full sized magazine format, on glossy paper, with four-color interior illustrations and it sold well. Aboriginal kept up a full schedule through 1991, when a personal financial crisis nearly shut him down. He kept putting out the occasional issue until 2001, but the irregularity made it hard to find.

Aboriginal courted new writers, one of whom was Robert A. Metzger, an electrical engineer and laser specialist who wrote quirky, fun hard SF stories. After Aboriginal mostly folded and he got shafted on his first book deal, he mostly walked away from writing. He's drifted back in a bit since 2001, but fortunately at some point along the way he decided to put some of his boomerang era pieces online. And that's how it's possible for you to read one of the most haunting, breathtaking short stories I've ever read:

In the Shadow of Bones
posted by localroger at 3:45 PM PST - 17 comments

Irish dancing flash mob in Sydney's Central Station. The dancers included twenty members of the Riverdance show and dancers from local Irish dancing schools.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:23 PM PST - 53 comments

Three parts guitar, one part drums, one or two parts percussion (to taste), one part trumpet, and a couple dashes of organ. Add a hearty shake of vibraslap. Season with half-sung, half-spoken vocals and lyrical wordplay. And there you have it, Cake, roughly the same recipe as they've been using for the last 20 years. There is a new solar powered serving available now. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:22 PM PST - 45 comments

The official "StreetView" map of China is eerily reminiscent of SimCity, rendered in perfect isometric perspective without a pixel out of place: Shanghai, the Forbidden City, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. That hasn't stopped companies from trying to create a more true-to-life photographic alternative: there is coverage of Hong Kong and Macau in Google Street View; sanction to cover the rest of China appears to have been given to City8, which covers 40 cities. (The latter site is in Chinese, but Chrome or language plugins do a decent job of translating the content). [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:06 PM PST - 32 comments

Smiling Indians [more inside]
posted by Miko at 1:48 PM PST - 40 comments

Wait for it. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 1:19 PM PST - 50 comments

The US House of Representatives has voted to cut all federal NPR funding. To take effect, this would still need to make it through the senate, which most likely would not succeed. [more inside]
posted by pla at 1:16 PM PST - 131 comments

Why Preschool Shouldn't Be Like School by Alison Gopnik [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 12:35 PM PST - 36 comments

Who ate the kitty cat treats? The guiltiest dog ever. via
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:09 PM PST - 85 comments

An Overly Intense Track-By-Track Analysis Of Joanna Newsom’s ‘Have One On Me’ [part one] [part two] [part three] (prev prev prev) {Amazon link with previews} {Label site for album}
posted by jtron at 11:44 AM PST - 25 comments

Babylon: Surreal Babies "Babies hatch from eggs, bubble from cauldrons, are fished from rivers, emerge in the cabbage patch, sit atop clouds, and ride in zeppelins. They play instruments, drive automobiles, fly in balloons, harvest the fields; an anarchistic world of baby heaven. The postcards were a source of inspiration to many artists in the 1920s and '30s, in particular to both the Dadaists and the Surrealists. They were collected by Paul Éluard, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Hannah Höch, Herbert Bayer, and Man Ray. The popular images excited inspiration in these artists because of their boundless inventiveness."
posted by puny human at 11:34 AM PST - 10 comments

"No Toilet, No Bride": Count the number of public toilets for women in India, or the availability of something as basic as low-cost sanitary napkins, and the invisibility of women’s needs becomes apparent." Private toilets may increase in number: "There are signs of change, though, and one of the most surprising may be in the matrimonial market. Four years ago, the Haryana government started its "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign, painting walls across the state with the slogan: 'I won’t allow my daughter to marry into a home without toilets.'
posted by emhutchinson at 11:23 AM PST - 31 comments

“I want to be very frank here,” Qadhi said, his voice tight with exasperation. “Do you really, really think that blowing up a plane is Islamic? I mean, ask yourself this.” The New York Times' Andrea Elliott explores the fine line between Salafiya and contemporary American values. Multimedia slideshow. [auto-playing video] Qadhi, previously.
posted by reductiondesign at 11:04 AM PST - 43 comments

Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World. An hour-long docu about the device born out of an organ company's need to replace a $4 switch with a 30 cent potentiometer. The Wah-Wah pedal's influence on rock and r & b (among other things) is indisputable. And yes, it is still in production today.
posted by grabbingsand at 10:27 AM PST - 44 comments

Michigan State University builds a prototype that would replace the internal combustion engine in automobiles. The wave disk engine runs on shockwaves, and would emit 90% less carbon dioxide, run at 3.5 times greater fuel efficiency, and weigh about 1,000 pounds less than a combustion engine system in a typical automobile.
posted by Rykey at 10:05 AM PST - 89 comments

Colin Stetson is an unusually gifted sax player. He's worked or is working with Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, GY!BE, Bon Iver and others. He's opened for Arcade Fire, Tim Hecker, and The National. What's most unusual about Stetson is that he's able to make all the sounds you hear with one horn, utilizing no loops or overdubs. Stream three tracks and download one or watch two videos of him play.
posted by dobbs at 9:12 AM PST - 28 comments

The only thing more off the hook than these Indian guys doing a Classic Dance is the Dubstep Version of the same video. (via)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:06 AM PST - 28 comments

The New York Times launches digital subscriptions, only for Canadians at the moment and on March 28 for everyone else. Packages start at $3.75/week. Readers will be allowed 20 free articles a month sans subscription. (previously, previously)
posted by shivohum at 8:29 AM PST - 185 comments

New streaming entertainment service Zediva is streaming new-release movies, avoiding the waiting period you get with Netflix, Amazon or iTunes. How? Instead of converting movies to files on a hard drive, they're renting out actual DVDs being played in actual DVD players - remotely. That means if the movie you want is being watched by someone else, you're gonna have to wait. Launched in November, the company is supposed to exit its beta phase this week.
posted by jbickers at 8:01 AM PST - 69 comments

Can you guess if it's film? Can you guess if it's film? Or digital? This is an old(er) quiz and the answer has been... answered but if you haven't seen it and you think you know your stuff, this is a good way to test it.
posted by SylviaAspevig at 7:46 AM PST - 20 comments

The Unst Bus Shelter website has been updated, and remains as charming as ever, 10 years on. It has been occasionally mentioned on the Blue, but the new version of the site shows that it just keeps on getting better. The shelter has even been praised by UK film critic, Mark Kermode who visited it when it doubled as a two person cinema. It has also hosted the crown jewels, beer drinking hamsters and music festivals.
posted by quarsan at 7:46 AM PST - 15 comments

Jerry Winkler was a homeless drug addict on the streets of Amsterdam. His life had been one filled with strife and tragedy, until the fateful day he discovered his biological father was a millionaire.
posted by msali at 7:39 AM PST - 19 comments

Heather Knight is currently conducting her doctoral research at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and running Marilyn Monrobot Labs in NYC, which creates socially intelligent robot performances and sensor-based electronic art. One of Heather's robots, Data, is an aspiring stand-up comic. He also has a twitter page. Heather and Data were recently featured on Marc Maron's WTF podcast. In addition to working on her robots, Heather also collaborated on the OK GO Rube Goldberg video.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:23 AM PST - 16 comments

Clint Eastwood as Superman or James Bond? ‘It could have happened.’
posted by Fizz at 7:19 AM PST - 25 comments

"To someone my age (47) Keith Richards (67) in his memoir Life has a kind of rare healthy post-Empire geezer transparency. But for my younger friends, it’s no longer rare; it’s now just the norm. What does shame mean anymore? my friends in their 20s ask. Why in the hell did your boyfriend post a song called 'Suck My Ballz' on Facebook last night? my mom asks. But nothing yet compares to the transparency that Sheen has unleashed in the past two weeks—contempt about celebrity, his profession, the old Empire world order..." Bret Easton Ellis on Charlie Sheen and the worlds of pre- and post-"Empire," i.e., celebrity.
posted by bardic at 11:48 PM PST - 110 comments

Combining two of Metafilter's favorite topics, Scientific American has an edited excerpt from Modernist Cuisine on the arbitrary and political nature of food safety guidelines. Yes, AskMetafilter, you can (probably) eat that!
posted by rhiannonstone at 8:16 PM PST - 65 comments

Bicycle racing requires strategy and skill as well as strength and endurance to keep up pace with the peloton. This article from Cycling Tips breaks down basic techniques to gain and keep position in the pack.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:11 PM PST - 30 comments

"Word spread quickly. By the summer of 1960, NASA had over 240 blackstronauts. White NASA was beginning to take notice". The Old Negro Space Program (yt)
posted by dunkadunc at 6:51 PM PST - 65 comments

Hi Everyone!
We are tsukushi! nyoki nyoki!

We've been acting "nyoki nyoki please" on YouTube.
"nyoki nyoki" means Growing up!

We want to grow up the world for the peace!
"nyoki nyoki"& your smile is going to save the world!

[Instructions on how to properly execute the "Nyoki Nyoki Please"]
[Here are some responses]
[more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 6:44 PM PST - 28 comments

"At a hearing of the Lahore Sessions Court convened for security reasons at the Kot Lakhpat Jail today, CIA contractor Raymond A. Davis was arraigned on double homicide charges and then quickly acquitted and released. Attorneys for Davis and the victims' families announced that they had entered into an agreement in which Davis offered compensation to the families -- $1.4 million total -- and they forgave him." [more inside]
posted by vidur at 5:58 PM PST - 60 comments

Playbutton embeds albums in wearable button badges.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:41 PM PST - 55 comments

"Anybody else give up the use of their left side for Lent?" Carl Warmenhoven, the owner of a Seattle's Comedy Underground had a stroke -- and two weeks later does a stand-up routine about it. [SLYT, via SLOG]
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 5:11 PM PST - 14 comments

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as C3PO and R2D2
posted by empath at 3:10 PM PST - 59 comments

Cat Island is Safe, Needs Supplies The people of Cat Island have a long history with cats: [more inside]
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 3:10 PM PST - 34 comments

Out of Context Science. (SLTumblr)
posted by kmz at 3:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Public Job as Only Route to Middle Class. 'While that might not seem like much, jobs' 'with benefits and higher-than-minimum wages, are considered plum in' the town of Gallipolis a 'depressed corner of southern Ohio. Decades of industrial decline have eroded private-sector jobs here, leaving a thin crust of low-paying service work that makes public-sector jobs look great in comparison.''Now, as Ohio’s legislature moves toward final approval of a bill that would chip away at public-sector unions, those workers say they see it as the opening bell in a race to the bottom. At stake, they say, is what little they have that makes them middle class.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 1:34 PM PST - 175 comments

On Sunday, ESPN aired an acclaimed documentary about the University of Michigan's Fab Five. In one segment the members of the Fab Five discuss their hatred of the Duke University basketball program, and Jalen Rose goes so far as to say that at the time he felt like Duke players were "Uncle Toms". Link goes to clip of relevant segment (1:24), after a short ad. Grant Hill, who played for Duke against the Fab Five, responded in today's New York Times. [more inside]
posted by auto-correct at 12:45 PM PST - 87 comments

A Very Special Episode: On July 20, 1985, ABC aired a "Too Close For Comfort" episode titled: "For Every Man, There's Two Women" in which Monroe Ficus (played by "unabashed gay icon" Jim J. Bullock) is kidnapped and raped by two bikers (possibly in a bathtub of jello). In recent years, stories have surfaced of individuals traumatized by the repressed memories of this mysterious episode. This is one of those stories. A film by Ethan Duff. (via The Retroist) [more inside]
posted by mrgrimm at 11:50 AM PST - 275 comments

EVERYPONY MUST STAND -- OR EVERYPONY WILL PERISH IN THE THUNDER OF COSMIC HOOVES! - Great Comics That Never Happened presents Jack Kirby's My Little Pony.
posted by Artw at 11:50 AM PST - 27 comments

The Trouble With Autobiography
posted by puny human at 11:16 AM PST - 18 comments

Five days of earthquakes. An animated display of all earthquakes over M4.5. 1 video sec = 1 hour real time. The big one hits at 1:17. (SLYT).
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:32 AM PST - 28 comments

Swiss search and rescue dogs were having trouble entering Japan due to strict Japanese rules on imported animals. [more inside]
posted by anya32 at 10:10 AM PST - 34 comments

It's not 'cheating' if you don't get caught. Elephants can figure out how to cut corners.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:42 AM PST - 37 comments

All your art are belong to us. Previously, Rogert Ebert said that video games can never be art. And previously, some disagreed. In a recent opinion piece, game developer Brian Moriarty discusses the debate, and fires a fresh salvo. The piece is long winded, examining art, medium, games, and industry. He seems to conclude that games are not Art, but lengthily addresses what may be the more important question: Could they be?
posted by Stagger Lee at 9:12 AM PST - 127 comments

#30daysofbiking "The only rule for 30 Days of Biking is that you bike every day for 30 days—around the block, 20 miles to work, whatever suits you—then share your adventures online." This round starts April 1st. [more inside]
posted by jillithd at 8:50 AM PST - 61 comments

Tour the solar system from a browser window. "Eyes on the Solar System", currently in beta, from JPL and Caltech. Yes, you have to allow a 3rd party plugin. Sorry about that. Zoom in to earth, and the sunrise line is accurate for the current time. Zoom to asteroids, satellites, or planets. Rewind time to watch Voyager go home.
posted by lothar at 8:41 AM PST - 16 comments

Professor Sheila Addison was fired from John F. Kennedy University for performing in a burlesque revue. Steven Stargardter, president of the university, said that her actions brought “public disrespect, contempt and ridicule to the university”, although she never publicized the show on campus, discussed it with students or identified her affiliation with JFK when she performed. Meanwhile, a male colleague in another department was performing at the same time in a one-man show in which he was partially nude, and he publicized his show on campus and invited students and colleagues. He was not disciplined.
posted by kyrademon at 7:58 AM PST - 126 comments

The musical saw is an instrument with close to a 300 year history. The musical saw sprung out of the Appalachian hills with mountain music, and then it found a home in Vaudeville. Despite its spotty documentation, the musical saw lives on.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 7:17 AM PST - 31 comments

Conceptual Devices is a think tank that considers design as a social engagement. Its projects operate through a shift of symbolic values due to the social utility and social responsibility of arts and design in contemporary society. Where you can learn how to transform a hoodie into a: computer sleeve, baby carrier, strap bag, back-pack, pillow. The DIY diary, Graphic Templates for DIY Leaflets, and much more. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:11 AM PST - 17 comments

41 year old rapper, singer, G-Funk ambassador Nate Dogg died last night. Nate is remembered by Snoop and Daz, but his death will leave a mark on the entire rap music world. Videos below the fold. [more inside]
posted by paisley henosis at 5:38 AM PST - 69 comments

The cyclotrope is a cycle of 18 images that is spun at a certan speed so that the frame rate of the camera filming it gives the illusion of animation. Created and animated by tim wheatley. Like a Zoetrope or Phenakistoscope but using a bicycle wheel. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 3:10 AM PST - 13 comments

I've been greatly enjoying the NZ MetService weather blog for a while now. There are posts about cloud formations, weather pioneers, forecasting, and all kinds of other weather geekery. It does have an NZ slant in places but everyone has weather, and the technical information included is fascinating whatever your location. [more inside]
posted by shelleycat at 2:05 AM PST - 6 comments

Claymation of the Roesch - Willi Schlage (Hamburg, 1910) chess game featuring fight scenes between the pieces. [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 9:55 PM PST - 9 comments

Want to help out after the earthquake in Japan? Huffington Post has info on how best to donate to disaster relief and Charity Navigator has information on what organizations are working there. On the nerdier side of things, the fandom community over at Livejournal is auctioning off their art, from fanfiction to scarves to editing, at help_japan and quite a few of the DeviantArt kids are making "Pray For Japan" (and "don't pray, just act") themed art to encourage people to donate. (More on the DeviantArt stuff.) Some Etsy users are also selling crafts for earthquake relief*. [more inside]
posted by NoraReed at 9:32 PM PST - 32 comments

SXSW is winding down and there are winners! Skateboarding punks and crippling anxiety! But is winning worthwhile? What happened to these guys?
posted by mrfuga0 at 9:20 PM PST - 23 comments

Thailand's Got Talent: Boy or Girl? (SYTL) Maybe this reinforces some cliches, and maybe it's overwrought and scripted reality tv, but I still found this pretty sweet.
posted by the thing about it at 8:19 PM PST - 58 comments

Recreating Mills & Boon romance covers, one passionate moment at a time. [more inside]
posted by whimsicalnymph at 8:18 PM PST - 6 comments

ChatRoulette Love Song; SLYT (3.44). Cool moment at 1.33.
posted by bwg at 7:11 PM PST - 39 comments

Returning from the 2011 National Science Teachers Association Conference with their cargo of penguins that had been on display in the exhibit hall, SeaWorld animal escorts decided to give their charges some freedom to stretch their legs during Southwest Flight 583 to San Diego. The flightless birds promptly made the most of the situation.
posted by scalefree at 5:04 PM PST - 70 comments

The Death Of Salvador Dali [18m23s] is a 2005 short film surrealistically depicting an imaginary visit to Sigmund Freud by the legendary artist. (Alternate Yahoo Video link) [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 3:14 PM PST - 6 comments

Glee has been massive ratings success for Fox and the character of Kurt has been named one of the "best gay characters" of all time. But others argue Kurt is nothing more than the latest embodiment of a tired cliche -- the 'fabulous' gay man. [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 2:41 PM PST - 165 comments

Taimane's Toccata. Via [more inside]
posted by zarq at 2:35 PM PST - 22 comments

Dickens condemned it over 160 years ago: "I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay. I hesitated once, debating with myself, whether, if I had the power of saying 'Yes' or 'No,' I would allow it to be tried in certain cases, where the terms of imprisonment were short; but now, I solemnly declare, that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy man beneath the open sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night, with the consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time, no matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent cell, and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree." But this very moment, over 25,000 prisoners in the U.S. are being subjected to it. Its horrific effects are well known. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 2:16 PM PST - 60 comments

Around midnight on January 27, 1700, a mysterious tsunami stole through several villages on the eastern coast of Japan. [more inside]
posted by Danf at 2:01 PM PST - 18 comments

"In the Bible, God appeared to Ezekiel as a “wheel within a wheel”. Spirals and concentric circles are commonly found in petrogylphs carved by cultures long dead. Similar visual effects are reported during extreme psychological stress, fever delirium, psychotic episodes, sensory deprivation, and are reliably induced by psychedelic drugs."
Form Constants and the Visual Cortex, or Where Psychedelic Visuals Come From.
posted by Taft at 11:44 AM PST - 46 comments

Celebrate "Buzzard Day" this weekend at Arizona's Boyce Thompson Arboretum. Too far away? You can always join the Turkey Vulture Society instead. They'll teach you how to attract vultures to your property (or if you prefer, how to discourage them).
posted by hermitosis at 11:29 AM PST - 24 comments

“Outside In” is a jaw-dropping IMAX film currently in production that uses only photographic images from space probes to create a tour of the solar system in a one smooth, continuous camera shot – no 3D, no models, no matte paintings - by a single filmmaker in his basement. Via
If you find the site overloaded, you can also see the trailer for the film at APOD or on Vimeo. Also of note: some amazing photographs of the Sun and other celestial objects by Alan Friedman, and a shot of Saturn’s moon Dione seen past Rhea, reminiscent of 2001.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:25 AM PST - 36 comments

Dave Ramsey - a syndicated radio host, author and revival-style seminar leader leads a Christian-themed, tough love crusade to convince Americans to cut up their credit cards and renounce debt forever. His detractors say our impulses, not our debt, are the problem.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:35 AM PST - 80 comments

Government of Bahrain declares state of emergency. Mixture of Saudi, UAE, and other GCC troops enter Bahrain upon invitation. [more inside]
posted by asymptotic at 10:15 AM PST - 41 comments

A recent article from Wired Magazine exploring a tragic case of genius gone mad.
posted by fernabelle at 9:47 AM PST - 59 comments

Best-selling author Seth Godin has launched a challenge to traditional publishing with The Domino Project, the first publishing imprint to be powered by Amazon. [more inside]
posted by crackingdes at 9:35 AM PST - 42 comments

Toshio Hirano is from Japan. Toshio Hirano lives here now. He came to this country following a particular sound and has made a career of it. He even has a movie about him (YT trailer)! He plays monthly here in San Francisco. Last night, as I watched him sing the blues, I reflected on how different yet connected our two countries are. Join me in sending good thoughts to our brothers and sisters in Japan.
posted by Jibuzaemon at 9:30 AM PST - 8 comments

Police reports are more than just the facts. Ellen Collett, who left entertainment to work for the LAPD, knows one officer by his words alone. [more inside]
posted by Ideefixe at 9:18 AM PST - 17 comments

A Lie of the Mind : 'Brain tumors are funny, but they're not hilarious.' On the Fourth of July 2010 I was walking to the train with my favorite person ever, Mike O’Malley, and had several massive, uncontrollable seizures. [...] I am now under the care of new specialists because of an insurance issue, and am kind of starting from scratch again regarding treatment. This blog is meant to record this bizarre process.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:04 AM PST - 7 comments

The Grant museum of zoology in London has been called "A restored Victorian treasure-house crammed with specimens from a bottle of preserved moles to extinct zebras and (just identified) the legs of a dodo. And all this was put together by the man that taught zoology to Charles Darwin"
The entire collection has been closed for almost a year as all 67,000 specimens were moved from a tiny (but charming) space to a new larger space.
The new Grant Museum and its reopening.
posted by vacapinta at 8:01 AM PST - 9 comments

Scottish teenagers to receive sleep training in schools. [BBC] Resources to teach teenagers how to get enough sleep are to be offered to schools across Scotland.
posted by Fizz at 6:01 AM PST - 57 comments

Bank of America has allegedly engaged in mortgage fraud, according to an Anonymous website. The first batch of leaked emails appear to show that bank employees were trying to hide documents from regulators. The emails are put into context on the website Seeking Alpha which explains that they refer to the use of force-placed insurance to increase mortgage servicers' profits through kickbacks from insurers - a practice which has just been forbidden under a settlement imposed by the US' states attorneys general. [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:52 AM PST - 93 comments

Long-time bullying victim finally snaps: a video of an incident at a Sydney High School has gone viral over the internet three days prior to Australia's National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence. Police and bullying experts are concerned about the level of online support that the fed-up victim's actions have received after the video, filmed by his miscalculating tormentors, was posted to Youtube (since removed and reposted multiple times). The 16 year-old has been suspended from school, but already has an online tribute to his actions and thousands of Facebook supporters.
posted by moorooka at 3:21 AM PST - 711 comments

Why Not a Negative Income Tax? "What kind of program could help protect every citizen from destitution without granting excessive power to bureaucrats, creating disincentives to work, and clogging up the free-market economy, as the modern welfare state has done? [Nobel-prize winning economist Milton] Friedman’s answer was the negative income tax, or NIT."
posted by shivohum at 10:20 PM PST - 106 comments

ionustron makes the most amazing video-game-inspired figurines out of twist-ties.
posted by luvcraft at 9:22 PM PST - 11 comments

Nate Siver of FiveThirtyEight.com (who prior to getting into political analysis invented the sabermetric analysis framework PECOTA) has published a detailed explanation of How We Made Our N.C.A.A. Picks. It goes well beyond the standard advice "don't just pick the favorites".
posted by TheShadowKnows at 8:06 PM PST - 37 comments

Wes Freed (some images NSFW) is a painter who combines Southern gothic subject matter with an outsider art style. He's best known for his work with the great Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers and has designed most of their album covers, posters, and merchandise.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:36 PM PST - 27 comments

Yep, that's an Xbox in R2-D2
posted by JV at 7:30 PM PST - 7 comments

The Dalai Lama announces his resignation as a political leader. It remains to be seen if the Tibet Parliament will accept.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:30 PM PST - 40 comments

The Zune [player] is dead. "Microsoft will concentrate on putting Zune software onto mobile phones." [more inside]
posted by iviken at 5:55 PM PST - 193 comments

Gulf states send forces to Bahrain following protests: authorities urged the population to "co-operate fully and to welcome" the troops.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:32 PM PST - 34 comments

Amateur Weatherman Snaps Stunning Pictures. Kris Dutson, 53, has spent ten years scouting out the ideal locations across Britain to capture the most astonishing atmospheric shots on his camera as rain falls. Via The Presurfer. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 4:13 PM PST - 28 comments

In a move reminiscent of Facebooks Beacon program, Etsy's new People Search feature has exposed account details, including purchase histories and real names, of its buyers and sellers. Here's how to opt out.
posted by Anonymous at 3:56 PM PST - 54 comments

What do you mean you don't remember Olegco Gaming? They were like the best developer for the Atari! They had classics, like Cool Beens, and Ghost Garden Man. Don't tell me you never played Baron of the SkeleBone Zone! Well, you take a look at all of their games on their archive site. Now try to be a little more knowledgeable before we talk about video games again... thanks.
posted by codacorolla at 3:34 PM PST - 17 comments

"Anyone who was around New York City in the late 1980s and early '90s couldn't have missed the work of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, better known as ACT UP. Its group's activism reached a fever pitch during the early '90s, when the iconic black 'Silence=Death' posters and t-shirts seemed ubiquitous downtown and served as somewhat more defiant symbols for the Gay community than the rainbow flags that took over to serve that role slightly later. ... So what were we to think as we wandered through Barneys Co-op in Chelsea yesterday when we spied a whole shelf full of T-shirts featuring ACT UP's famous imagery [priced each at $50 ... 'a portion of that price tag will go to the activist group'] as if they were magically transported there from 20 years ago?" [more inside]
posted by ericb at 3:07 PM PST - 48 comments

Top Secret! is a 1984 film from the makers of Airplane!, parodying WWII spy movies and Elvis movies amongst other subjects. One of its more famous scenes took place in a Swedish bookstore (proprietor played by Peter "Grand Moff Tarkin" Cushing). The eerie nature of the scene comes from having been created to be watched backwards. Here is that scene, now reversed, as in played forward, and acted backward.
posted by hippybear at 12:49 PM PST - 147 comments

Unfinished London's long awaited second episode is a wonderful DIY documentary about London's failed 'Ringways' road-building project, made and presented by Jay Foreman. The first episode, about a branch of London's underground that was never built, is also excellent (and much more fun that you might expect). [Previously.]
posted by hot soup girl at 11:58 AM PST - 22 comments

Mississippi Bluesman Big Jack Johnson has died. His performances in the documentary Deep Blues are brilliant. He was last surviving major performer featured in the film.
posted by zzazazz at 11:40 AM PST - 7 comments

How a handful of geeks on Usenet defied the USSR. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:28 AM PST - 39 comments

Thinking about natural disasters in your area? There's a map for that! For earthquakes, there is an interactive map of the US showing the maximum peak ground acceleration that your area has a 10% chance of encountering over the next ten years (about PGA, worldwide risks), and a map of global tsunamis. For weather, look at all F5 tornadoes in the US, tornado risks abroad, US hurricanes and cyclones (this map can also do hail, floods, drought and other weather hazards), and billion dollar natural disasters in the US. For bonus worries: global nuclear sites and volcanoes. More generally, a PDF of Presidential disaster declarations and Reliefweb's global crises maps. And a big map of all natural disasters going on right now.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:21 AM PST - 23 comments

Who invented the cloacascope? Who could pinpoint minute structural characteristics of charred bird feathers and identify the bird species or family based on the feathers? Who was the oldest of 15 children and worked for more than 50 years at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History? Roxie (large image). Roxie C. Laybourne, feather detective, pioneer of forensic ornithology. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 11:02 AM PST - 13 comments

You are Nikola Tesla. Dodge obstacles and control the elements as you race to stop Thomas Edison. A game by ThoughtQuake Studios, made using open source software and part of IndieDB's top 100 games of 2010. via BlenderNation.
posted by circular at 11:02 AM PST - 9 comments

Cloning trees to stop global warming! Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is a non profit organization that creates clones of ancient trees and uses them for the purpose of functional forestation. They are doing their part to stop deforestation and fight global warming by planting these cloned trees in different area across the planet. They are also preserve some of the oldest living things on the planet for future generations as well!
posted by Mastercheddaar at 9:20 AM PST - 62 comments

"MathJax is an open source JavaScript display engine for mathematics that works in all modern browsers." Displaying math and equations in web pages has been a pretty consistent problem. MathJax allows you to use either MathML or TeX/LaTeX as input and then formats it into beautiful, scalable HTML.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:28 AM PST - 24 comments

What it takes to write a great female video game character.
posted by EvaDestruction at 7:59 AM PST - 275 comments

"You probably don’t believe everything you read, hear or see in news, culture and advertising, but maybe you don’t know why." MeFi's own The Last Psychiatrist and Pastabagel have created a new open blog, PartialObjects.com [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:01 AM PST - 39 comments

Happy half-τ day! What's a half-τ? You know it as π, but π is wrong. (via)
posted by DU at 5:20 AM PST - 100 comments

Joe Morello was the drummer for the Dave Brubeck Quartet. His skill and style in odd time signatures was something to behold and emulate. His approach to Brubeck's music was often the first study, for many young drummers, in how to interact with odd meters as well as with soloing and stick control. He was a jazz legend in the percussion world.
posted by greenskpr at 4:56 AM PST - 35 comments

Zhuangzi as Philosopher Essay by Brook Ziporyn made available (there's also some other prefatory matter there) at the website of the publishers of his translation of the Zhuangzi, one of the seminal texts of Daoism, putatively authored by Zhuang Zhou in the fourth century BCE. Via, where there's plenty of other informed discussion on Zhuangzi, Daoism and other ancient Chinese thought.
posted by Abiezer at 1:45 AM PST - 24 comments

Filming in North Korea is a bit of an iffy task, and you never know when a minder may decide to confiscate your memory cards or camera. That was a risk I didn’t want to take, so I decided not to reveal to them the fact that my 5D was capable of shooting video. I taped up the back screen with black electrical tape. Pyongyang Style – North Korean Haircut
posted by finite at 12:09 AM PST - 47 comments

"The plan was money. The architect was money. The designer was money and the builder was money. And if you ever wondered what money would look like if it were left to its own devices, it's Dubai."
posted by vidur at 10:31 PM PST - 69 comments

An Accelerated Grimace. Chris Lehmann takes down Clay Shirky's cyber-uptopianism by way of Evgeny Morozov.
posted by Sparx at 9:03 PM PST - 39 comments

Does this machete go with my tiara? "Pageant hopefuls decapitate, skin snakes at Rattlesnake Roundup: To win the Miss Snake Charmer beauty pageant requires beauty, grace, talent and a strong stomach. It's probably the only pageant in the country that requires the winner to decapitate and skin a snake."
posted by Fizz at 4:38 PM PST - 72 comments

Rebecca Black's Friday is a video single from an artist you may have never heard of, yet it's spawned animated gifs and in-depth lyrical analysis, raised speculation over possible album tracklists, garnered numerous covers, it's received the super-slow treatment (similar to Justin Bieber), and a short movie mash-up. Where did this all start? A magical place called Ark Music Factory.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:03 PM PST - 277 comments

Psychedelic icon Owsley Stanley dies in Australia "Owsley 'Bear' Stanley, a 1960s counterculture figure who flooded the flower power scene with LSD and was an early benefactor of the Grateful Dead, died in a car crash in his adopted home country of Australia on Sunday, his family said. He was believed to be 76." The Bear, previously on MetaFilter.
posted by terrapin at 12:45 PM PST - 92 comments

Researchers at UCSD have modified an MP3 file so that when it is played on a car's stereo system it modifies the stereo's firmware and opens up a security back door into the car's operating system. Using it, they were then able to control the door locks, the car ignition, and change the speedometer reading. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:14 AM PST - 143 comments

Are there renowned Internet startups with black founders?
posted by Memo at 10:12 AM PST - 58 comments

M presents: The Master Theorem. Not that master theorem, this one is full of puzzles and games. Take a crack at this week's theorem, or start with a tutorial from the help page. Once you've solved your first theorem (and earned membership) check out the seals, a different, sometimes deeper style of puzzle. New theorems and seals are being added weekly. [more inside]
posted by Maastrictian at 9:52 AM PST - 57 comments

Should you be allowed unrestricted knowledge of your own genetic makeup? Or should your doctor be the one to decide how much you can know about your own genes? Currently direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing companies (such as 23andMe) allow consumers to discover which genes they have inherited. But some influential people are arguing that the general public is harmed by the ability to freely access this type of information. The American Medical Association is urging the FDA to make it so that genomic information is only available to a person through a personal physician or medical counselor. As a counterpoint the geneticists at the Genomes Unzipped website provide a six point statement on why People Have A Right To Access Their Own Genetic Information. [more inside]
posted by Jason Malloy at 7:28 AM PST - 97 comments

"Canyon Crest K9 Training Center owner, Ron Pace, saves the life of a boxer with CPR (SLYT; 7.52) during a regular training session. During the session, the dog suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing. Ron immediately applied CPR. Within a few minutes, the dog regained consciousness." [more inside]
posted by bwg at 6:41 AM PST - 26 comments

Top 50 bike blogs in 2011 from the London Cyclist.
posted by jeffmac at 6:29 AM PST - 13 comments

Matthew Engel, starting a new series on British institutions in the Financial Times, examines the BBC.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:46 AM PST - 10 comments

Description of Incident: POLICE SAVE DOLPHIN
posted by rodgerd at 1:20 AM PST - 37 comments

Plasticize Me: Will recent advances in human tissue preservation change the way we think about bodies, death, God… and China? [Previously, Via]
posted by homunculus at 12:15 AM PST - 13 comments

The Coca Cola Case is a 2009 National Film Board Of Canada documentary about labor rights around the world. NFB website with trailer [2m13s]. Full film on YouTube: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 11:41 PM PST - 2 comments

Ferris Bueller's Day Off: re-cut trailer, as a pretentious, coming-of-age indie film.
posted by SkylitDrawl at 10:43 PM PST - 134 comments

Amidst the massive aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami being discussed in this thread, the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plants continues to unfold. For objective information, discussion, and analysis of the ongoing efforts to stabilize the fuel cores in the boiling water reactors of the type in Fukushima, nuclear engineers such as @arclight are providing laypeople with a much needed crash course on the inner workings of nuclear reactors. [more inside]
posted by Dr. Zira at 9:06 PM PST - 3070 comments

I was doing some research on Dryads when I stumbled upon the TreeSpirit Project. To cut to the chase, it appears to be a series of artful, tasteful photographs of people dancing butt-naked around trees. What more can I say? Well, other than NSFW, obviously...
posted by jim in austin at 8:10 PM PST - 39 comments

'80s Dance Party with Don Armando and the Second Avenue Rhumba Band: I'm An Indian Too and Deputy of Love.
posted by puny human at 7:42 PM PST - 2 comments

Antique contraception & protection from the disease - (NSFW) male & female methodologies of birth control from antiquity to the 1900s in pictures and text (Translated from Russian) [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 7:32 PM PST - 19 comments

The Music of Group Doueh. Doueh is a guitar genius from the disputed territory of Western Sahara. [more inside]
posted by TheCoug at 6:25 PM PST - 9 comments

Protests spread to Portugal. As of posting, two hundred to three hundred thousand people are currently protesting the current government in Lisbon. The majority of the complaints come from the "desperate generation", 20 to 30 year olds who, although educated, cannot find a job, while facing increasing austerity measures, amidst rumors of an Ireland style bailout. The spark that set off the protests was a youtube video of a song by the popular band Deolinda (Portugese) (myspace). [more inside]
posted by zabuni at 5:50 PM PST - 47 comments

*LIVE THE DREAM* (Previously) [more inside]
posted by lemuring at 2:17 PM PST - 16 comments

Why Gas Is So Expensive Today (Hint: It’s Not Libya) A long but enthralling proposal that current gas prices have nothing to do with supply and demand, but are instead due primarily to rampant unchecked commodities speculation ("unchecked" because it had been granted special exemption from the clearly-defined checks). Quotes heavily from this article and this book. (found via Hacker News)
posted by luvcraft at 2:07 PM PST - 184 comments

"Developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience. The answer is no." - Not long after saddling it's own iOS client with some unpopular new "features" Twitter is saying no to the development of new competing clients. Existing clients such as Twitterific and Echofon should be unaffected.
posted by Artw at 2:05 PM PST - 42 comments

PonyCraft 2 - StarCraft 2's trailer, but with ponies.
posted by inedible at 1:13 PM PST - 29 comments

Da first ting ya gotta do, see, is friend da Brooklyn Underground Anglers Association's facebook page, who will hook ya up wit Dr. Claw, da Lobstah Pushah [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:49 AM PST - 13 comments

20 Sad Etsy Boyfriends , mostly wearing crochet beanies. Even more examples of this phenomenon at the Sad Etsy Boyfriends Tumblr. Regretsy started it with the saddest Etsy hipster boyfriend of them all... still, he dances, with only a neck and one sleeve to keep him warm. [more inside]
posted by flex at 9:45 AM PST - 77 comments

Despite Amnesty's recent denouncement of his treatment and a State Department official's comment that it is "stupid" among other things, Obama apparently stands by the current conditions under which Bradley Manning is being held. [more inside]
posted by Glinn at 7:00 AM PST - 269 comments

For the past two decades, Zahida Kazmi has been driving a cab in Pakistan.
posted by bardophile at 2:43 AM PST - 14 comments

The printing of an engineered [non-functional model of a] replacement kidney on stage at a recent TED talk is just the latest in a spate of recent high-profile biomedical engineering headlines. [more inside]
posted by richyoung at 10:41 PM PST - 17 comments

An open letter to Wil Wheaton. With response.
posted by kmz at 10:06 PM PST - 58 comments

College Bowl was an American tradition for more than 50 years: two teams of four players each, who are read a toss-up question which anyone could answer alternating with a bonus question which only the team which got the toss-up question could answer. It was officially cancelled in 2008, due to a variety of factors. A strange new format dominates its successors: pyramidal quiz bowl. [more inside]
posted by curuinor at 9:07 PM PST - 61 comments

In 1989, Bill "Calvin and Hobbes" Watterson gave a famous address at Ohio State U.'s Festival of Cartoon Art: "The Cheapening of the Comics" (transcript). Twenty-two years later, successful webcomic artist Dave Kellett (of "Sheldon" about a boy and his non-imaginary talking duck, and "Drive" a sci-fi comic with a convoluted premise and funny aliens) offered a new-generation response at the same venue: "The Freeing of the Comics" (YouTube part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). While Watterson told how and why newspaper comics were (and are) dying, Kellett explained how webcomics can (and do) replace them (although not necessarily for Watterson). [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:04 PM PST - 27 comments

Yes I like playing Dungeons and Dragons with you... "This Fantasy World" by the Doubleclicks, with animation by Brad Jonas. [SLYT]
posted by Gator at 6:57 PM PST - 46 comments

René Laloux is best known for his direction of the 1973 animated film La Planète Sauvage, titled Fantastic Planet in English, but his life in film started earlier. His first shorts came from his painting and shadow puppetry workshops with the patients of La Borde psychiatric clinic. Laloux continued to work in animation, making one short himself, then collaborating with four different artists (Roland Topor, Moebius, and Caza), turning out a total of 10 shorts and 3 feature films. [Surreal, NSFW videos and images inside] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 5:26 PM PST - 15 comments

Hipster Faith "To remain relevant, many evangelical pastors are following the lead of hipster trendsetters. So what happens when 'cool' meets Christ?"
posted by klangklangston at 5:22 PM PST - 127 comments

Jorinapeka For Friday Flash fun, here's the newest addiction from Tonypa Games.
posted by krakedhalo at 5:18 PM PST - 26 comments

Play Katamari Damacy with any website. [more inside]
posted by empath at 3:38 PM PST - 44 comments

National Geographic's Journey To The Edge Of The Universe. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:36 PM PST - 5 comments

♪ I feel so unsure as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor as the music dies, something in your eyes calls to mind the silver screen and all its sad good-byes ♪
posted by boo_radley at 2:40 PM PST - 59 comments

Dr. Charles Limb put jazz musicians and freestyle rappers in an fMRI machine and asked them to improvise/freestyle. [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 2:22 PM PST - 7 comments

Here’s what we think the Editor Trends Study tells us: Between 2005 and 2007, newbies started having real trouble successfully joining the Wikimedia community. Before 2005 in the English Wikipedia, nearly 40% of new editors would still be active a year after their first edit. After 2007, only about 12-15% of new editors were still active a year after their first edit. Post-2007, lots of people were still trying to become Wikipedia editors. What had changed, though, is that they were increasingly failing to integrate into the Wikipedia community, and failing increasingly quickly. The Wikimedia community had become too hard to penetrate. - The Wikimedia Strategy March 2011 Update discusses wikipedia's declining ability to retain new editors. Meanwhile the case of the deletion (and restoration) of the article on the remarkably notable Old Man Murray highlights the bad decisions that can occur when insular admins and editors favor deletionist sentiment and bureaucratic rule-waving over the input of outsiders and a basic level of research.
posted by Artw at 1:47 PM PST - 96 comments

The Plinkett/Nadine saga concludes... or does it? [more inside]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:30 PM PST - 16 comments

Enrique Metinides: In the Place of Coincidence "On Feburary 2011, Enrique Metinides will turn seventy-seven. Fifty of those years have been dedicated to what is called in Mexico “red note” photography. Sensational images of the tabloid press, images of accidents, deaths, disasters. Metinides’ images capture exquisite and compelling moments from such tragic events. His photographs a complex dynamic which both attract and repel; photographs which become engraved in our imagination through the power of the aesthetic experience." [graphic content]
posted by puny human at 1:08 PM PST - 3 comments

Inception remade as a 60-second Victorian woodcut animation via boingboing (via suckerpunch).
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:39 PM PST - 26 comments

How to play a trance song ... on a guitar. [via reddit]
posted by bayani at 12:39 PM PST - 55 comments

Episode One: Prairie Dogging is a Flash game that answers the question, "What if BioShock had been developed in the style of an old-school 2D adventure game?" By Jeremy Scott, creator of the Hsu and Chan comic strip. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 12:25 PM PST - 11 comments

"I Have Sex" is a video made by student group Weslyan Uncut to protest federal cuts to Planned Parenthood funding. via @heathercorinna
posted by DarlingBri at 12:08 PM PST - 45 comments

Kraftwerk, after being silent since 2003, finally has a new release of original material. It's not exactly what we were expecting.
posted by smcdow at 11:57 AM PST - 23 comments

"Frankly, my toilets don't work in my house. And I blame you, and people like you" [YT].Senator Rand Paul accused Energy Department official Kathleen Hogan yesterday of offering consumers more choice in reproductive decisions than in household appliances.
posted by Rykey at 11:48 AM PST - 200 comments

This dollhouse combines two of my fave things, doll houses and Frida Kahlo. (Single-link Neatorama post.) I love dollhouses and this one, of her tiny palette and paintbrushes really tickles my fancy!
posted by Lynsey at 11:30 AM PST - 1 comment

Women More Likely To Leave Engineering Over Work Environment, Study Finds [more inside]
posted by jillithd at 9:34 AM PST - 132 comments

Guide Dog Loses Eyes, Gets His Own Guide Dog There is a video at BBC News as well.
posted by dancingfruitbat at 9:29 AM PST - 30 comments

Using honeypots and logging tools, some server admins have logged actual server break-in attempts by nincompoop crackers. [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:35 AM PST - 50 comments

La cucaracha, la cucaracha - ya no puede caminar - porque no tiene, porque le falta - marihuana pa' fumar. (The cockroach, the cockroach, - can't walk anymore - because it doesn't have, because it's lacking - marijuana to smoke) The records of the Dutch accordion-playing duo Henny Voskuyl & Coby Mol (known as Die Kirmesmusikanten). Cecil Adams about the lyrics to the song.
posted by growabrain at 8:10 AM PST - 23 comments

According to new data released by the CDC yesterday, more Americans are surviving cancer thanks to advances in increased early detection and treatment. CDC analysis shows an unprecedented 20% increase in survival rates between 2001 and 2007, which is nearly a quadruple increase since 1971. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:43 AM PST - 26 comments

MetaVote! Britain will head to the polls on May 5 to vote on, er, voting, in a campaign that could change the political face of Britain. A little. It’s a two-horse race between the venerable, incumbent first-past-the-post and the upstart preferential Alternative Vote. Should Britain replace it’s electoral system? These people say yes. These people say no. These people also say no, but for different reasons. Does anybody even care? Let the bickering begin!
posted by londonmark at 5:23 AM PST - 83 comments

Users may now ban domains from their Google results. After users click through, they may return to Google and ban the entire domain from ever showing up in results again. This comes as part of a general reaction in the context of increasing complaints about Google's search results being spammy.
posted by jaduncan at 4:58 AM PST - 184 comments

In the two decades starting in the 1980s, Laurent Boutonnat produced a series of atmospheric pop videos for Mylène Farmer, the chart-topping "French Madonna" who is little known outside the Europop circuit. [more inside]
posted by raygirvan at 4:30 AM PST - 7 comments

The Crumble Song (Bombay Mix) (SLYT)
posted by mippy at 3:23 AM PST - 8 comments

Alexander Graham Bell's Delightfully Weird Sketchbooks . You know him as the inventor of the telephone, but Graham Bell also came up with horse-pulled kites, really sweet airplanes, "ghost effects" with an "elliptical reflector", and a better seesaw. More of Bell's papers from the Library of Congress.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:38 AM PST - 24 comments

What's in Spock's Scanner - Part 1
posted by Daddy-O at 10:51 PM PST - 23 comments

Preliminary magnitude 7.9 off Honshu at 05:46 UTC The Pacific Ring of Fire has been living up to its name lately. BBC flash reporting a Tsunami Alert has been issued.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:12 PM PST - 3215 comments

Phil dances in the Eaton Centre. Looks like Phil takes videos of himself dancing in various Toronto locations.
posted by pick_the_flowers at 9:56 PM PST - 25 comments

Bob was sick He didn't take it the way you or I might. He got pissed off. And he took it personally. [more inside]
posted by Splunge at 9:00 PM PST - 9 comments

Alice In Chains' bass player Mike Starr has passed away. They said it; we die young.
posted by rainperimeter at 8:16 PM PST - 29 comments

L'Eroica in Italy offers something truly unique: a race on ancient roads using obsolete bikes, surrounded by gorgeous scenery and fuelled by a mouth-watering selection of food and wine. [Official site]
posted by bread-eater at 8:15 PM PST - 19 comments

JP Morgan Chase considering limiting size of debit card transactions to $50 or $100.
posted by Netzapper at 7:52 PM PST - 129 comments

Fuck Yeah Nouns

While it remains unclear if we've reached peak Fuck Yeah Tumblr, if you're looking to start a new one on your own favorite obscure subject, now you've got a start. (Previously and previously)
posted by Copronymus at 7:37 PM PST - 45 comments

Old games with new SFX And bonus, Super Mario 1 with modern SFX
posted by delmoi at 7:15 PM PST - 18 comments

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), not content with questioning Muslim loyalty, has introduced HR 607, the "Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011," to take away HAM radio from amateur operators, and sell it to he highest commercial bidder in order to fund some kind of separate internet for cops.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:58 PM PST - 66 comments

"The Earth tide is a little-known daily event, similar to the oceans' more familiar tides. But the sun and moon's gravity doesn’t just pull on water, it deforms the Earth itself, causing the ground beneath us to bulge toward the pulling heavenly body." [more inside]
posted by Paragon at 6:48 PM PST - 12 comments

Rossi and Focardi's cold fusion claims update. [more inside]
posted by Brian B. at 6:33 PM PST - 31 comments

Jim Hughes loves illustration and graphic design, as witness his gorgeous and eclectic blog Codex xcix. He also loves Lego, as you can tell from his delightfully detailed Brick Fetish site. His newest blog post combines these two loves into Lego: A Natural History of Package Design. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:01 PM PST - 7 comments

Ron van der Ende is a sculptor living in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He specializes in wall mounted bas-relief constructed from found wood. The original color and texture of the wood is utilized to form a gripping and sometimes photo-realistic mosaic. The realism is further enhanced by the perspective built into the relief. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 3:45 PM PST - 15 comments

Andrew Crosse (June 17, 1784 – July 6, 1855) was a British poet, naturalist, local magistrate, and "gentleman scientist" who may or may not have created life in an electrocrystallization experiment. [Post inspired by TheophileEscargot on MetaChat] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:39 PM PST - 5 comments

Warren Ellis impersonates Alan Moore (SLYT audio only)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:20 PM PST - 61 comments

Yesterday Air Canada said it would stop shipments of all cargo to the U.S.A. due to an "emergency change to US security" [more inside]
posted by sardonyx at 1:17 PM PST - 60 comments

Mr. Hargreaves takes us on a Jungian journey to the integrated self. A series of entertaining Amazon reviews written by Hamilton Richardson for the Mr. Men classic library.
posted by Fizz at 1:01 PM PST - 16 comments

Omni magazine visits the set of THE THING. (previously)
posted by Artw at 12:45 PM PST - 58 comments

Slow dust devil lifts plastic sheets off of a strawberry field [via]
posted by puny human at 12:41 PM PST - 44 comments

The Green Tunnel is a six month hike up the Appalacian Trail in a five minute time-lapse video. Though the time-lapse road trip, usually with ambient music, is an overdone genre (except for Michael Gondry's), other time-lapse travel videos can still be interesting: a year long walk through China focusing on beard growth, a visually great (but faked) stop motion walk across America, a boat ride through the Panama Canal,a tilt-shift roadtrip, and the space shuttle Discovery being transported and launched. And, of course, Minecraft in time-lapse. Previously and previously.
posted by blahblahblah at 12:29 PM PST - 20 comments

The Wire's Felicia ("Snoop") Pearson has been arrested as part of large scale drug raids according to the Baltimore Sun. Life imitates art, but in this case art had closely imitated life, as Pearson was not a trained actress, but grew up in tough Baltimore neighbourhoods and has a conviction for second degree murder for an act at the age of 14. However in recent years she had been involved in anti-violence campaigns and other work with young people.
posted by philipy at 11:40 AM PST - 93 comments

"When the city introduces a bike lane on a given street, it removes dozens of parking places." John Cassidy, staff writer on economics at The New Yorker, blogs his feelings about bike lanes in New York City. [more inside]
posted by everichon at 11:39 AM PST - 154 comments

ProPublica reporter Dafna Linzer recently became a U.S. citizen. How? By not giving correct answers to the questions on the citizenship test. Readers respond. [more inside]
posted by bokinney at 11:24 AM PST - 81 comments

WeatherSpark is a new weather forecast visualization tool that will make you think you are living in the year 2011. [more inside]
posted by ChrisHartley at 11:24 AM PST - 37 comments

Can I sit down, please? Elizabeth Carey Smith of The Letter Office charted her progress in the subway while pregnant and presented the results in graphic form. The WSJ is there.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:22 AM PST - 75 comments

Is Glenn Beck losing his edge? David Carr certainly thinks so (NYT link). While Beck's numbers are still high in comparison to his rivals, he's lost around a third of his viewership, primarily younger viewers. Fox is even thinking about life without Beck. [more inside]
posted by willhopkins at 11:20 AM PST - 34 comments

The Facebook profile I could not get removed. Writer Susan Arnout Smith joined Facebook only to find she was already there, as a fake profile trolling for sex. Needless to say it was difficult to contact Facebook about the matter, and sometimes difficult to convince friends and colleagues it wasn't really her. Eventually though, she tracked down the perpetrators. Radio Netherlands interview here.
posted by JanetLand at 10:44 AM PST - 41 comments

International Color Idioms. Hundreds of international idioms that mention color, with literal English translations as well as meanings. From this page, which also has an interesting essay on colors and language. (via)
posted by kmz at 9:57 AM PST - 20 comments

Agnes Milowka, vivacious and courageous cave diver, was found dead last week in Australia's Tank Cave. [more inside]
posted by googly at 9:54 AM PST - 28 comments

A team at National Geographic, for an upcoming show called How Hard Can it Be?, created a real-life floating house inspired by the movie Up.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:40 AM PST - 18 comments

The Fantastic Mr. Star Fox.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:07 AM PST - 25 comments

As your airline takes you from Point A to Point B, do you ever wonder about all the points in between? Enter MondoWindow (in beta today), which mashes up satellite photos, air traffic data, wikipedia, and flickr to show where your plane is, and what's nearby on the earth below, provided your flight has wifi. [more inside]
posted by underthehat at 8:33 AM PST - 15 comments

How Rovio made Angry Birds a winner. [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 8:13 AM PST - 90 comments

The Situationist App. For the revolution of everyday life, or not?
posted by pianomover at 7:28 AM PST - 47 comments

An animated Gareth Bale destroys Inter Milan. [more inside]
posted by dyobmit at 7:19 AM PST - 24 comments

Tokyo artist Sagaki Keita creates incredibly detailed illustrations which are almost completely improvised. More of his work can be found on his website.
posted by gman at 6:48 AM PST - 17 comments

Via the Economist: the top twenty papers from 100 years of the American Economic Review. (This post is mostly pdfs.) [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:50 AM PST - 28 comments

Pretty much the entire run of HBO's Mr. Show is available on YouTube. One of the standout features of the show was it's treatment of advertising. Mr. Show did use the sketch comedy trope of strange products of dubious value, but it also satirized escalating political attack ads as well as the difference between the high road and the low road. Mr. Show also addressed public relations advertising. The show explored the use of shock to grab consumers' attention, and while send-ups of legal services advertising isn't unique, the technique certainly is. NOTE: some videos contain naughty words.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:35 AM PST - 106 comments

Progesterone caproate injections have been used to reduce the likelihood of premature births in at-risk pregnant women for years. Up until now, the drug was custom-compounded by wholesale and specialist pharmacies, legally, but without federal approval. These injections cost between $5 and $15 a dose and were regularly reimbursed by insurance companies and Medicaid. Last month, the FDA announced their approval of a commercially produced version of the compound, to be marketed under the brand name Makena by a company called KV Pharmaceuticals. No stranger to controversy and trouble, KV barely survived a rash round of layoffs and wrongful termination lawsuits. Their former chief executive now faces criminal charges surrounding the company's failure to notify the FDA that they were producing oversized morphine tablets. (He could also do for a shave, it appears.) Now, KV has announced that the new drug will be available at a cost of $1,500 per dose, bringing the total pregnancy term cost of treatment to $25,000-$30,000, from its former cost of $250-$300, a 100-fold increase—but it gets worse... [more inside]
posted by disillusioned at 11:47 PM PST - 63 comments

After the horrific gang-rape of a child in a small town in east Texas has gained national attention, serious criticisms have been made of how the story has been reported. [more inside]
posted by jb at 11:35 PM PST - 123 comments

"The Old Idaho Penitentiary State Historical Site was a functioning prison for 101 years. It was built in 1870 and the first prisoners were brought in 1872. The buildings on the site were built by inmate laborers. The Old Idaho Penitentiary grew from a single cell house into a complex of several buildings holding Idaho's most notorious criminals. The Old Pen received over 13,000 inmates with a maximum population of 603 inmates. There were 222 women inmates (including repeat offenders.) Closed after riots in 1973, some say it's haunted.
posted by bwg at 11:25 PM PST - 5 comments

Going for a Beer. A short story.
posted by shivohum at 10:05 PM PST - 9 comments

A man known as micromike was a cave dweller within the town famous for the Manhattan Project . Although the residents of the town didn't think of him as more than a nuisance, a documentary film was made about him. He isn't the small town's first outcast to gain attention from the outside world.
posted by hellslinger at 9:51 PM PST - 7 comments

[NSFW: contains graphically sexual crude images]

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Wanna see more? Visit asciipr0n.com, and peruse some of the sexiest keystrokes imaginable.
text adventure • 10 years ago via The Wayback Machine • jscott's textfiles.com has more ascii art and porn from back in the BBS days • asciip0rn linked previously (how to make a starship enterprise out of an old floppy disk)
posted by not_on_display at 9:28 PM PST - 56 comments

The future in 1988. (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 8:50 PM PST - 11 comments

The Ashtray: The Ultimatum. Part one of a series by Errol Morris on meaning, truth, intolerance and flying ashtrays. [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 7:47 PM PST - 20 comments

LIFE presents: Eva Braun's Private Photos. The highlight of the collection: Eva as Al Jolson.
posted by nasreddin at 7:12 PM PST - 77 comments

Remember that whole thing last fall where the banks got caught lying in court while trying to foreclose? And the attorneys general of all 50 states got all pissy? Well, on the quiet, ever since then….in some states it seems like the banks have quietly stopped foreclosing. Even though they said this was all sorted out back in October. In state courts across the land, legal troubles for the banks are mounting --- most especially, with regards to the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, which maybe kinda sorta hopelessly FUBARs 400 years worth of property law. But not to fear --- the nation’s largest banks are about two months from making this all go away: The state AGs and every federal regulator have almost come up with some sort of settlement plan with the banks. Details leaked today in American Banker (pdf of whole proposal; cliff notes version). Does the settlement have its heart in the right place? Or is it a useless slap on the wrist? [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 7:10 PM PST - 25 comments