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Wall Street Journal owners officially considering joining the Borg
Minority owner Jim Ottoway vehemently opposed. One wonders what the opinion of a Senator from New York is?
posted by specialk420 at 11:01 PM PST - 27 comments

Associated Press reports Nessie caught on tape! News rockets around the world! Surprise: Amazing footage of mythical creature turns out to be a blob. In that same link, the BBC interviews the guy who filmed the tape and saw the monster. Nessie spotter: "I surmise it's going to be 45 feet long." Interviewer: "Could it be an otter?" Nessie spotter: "It could be an otter."
posted by bicyclefish at 10:02 PM PST - 36 comments

Happy Blue Moon! A dear friend IM'd me today, and told me it was blue moon... which was funny, because we had just been talking about it the day before — oblivious of tonight's occurance. Don't know what a blue moon is? Well, wikipedia has the answer, of course... In the mood for a little music? Well, you can always download the The Marcels classic or just sing the song yourself with a little help... or throw caution to the wind, and listen to Pink Moon instead.
posted by silusGROK at 9:36 PM PST - 21 comments

Gogol Bordello describe their music as "Gypsy Punk." Formerly the Bela Bartoks, singer Eugene Hutz was in the movie Everything Is Illuminated, as was their song Start Wearing Purple.
posted by homunculus at 9:30 PM PST - 45 comments

As Wolfdaddy put it last time we did this: "Yeah, like we didn't know that already." - So as the Glass Closet gets a tad smaller, might we be rapidly approaching that long hoped-for "tipping point" where those inside the glass no longer feel the need to play word games and dance around who they are, instead of standing up to be counted?
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 9:09 PM PST - 63 comments

Would you pay $22K for a designer Ashera "lifestyle" cat? ($6,000 extra if you don't want to wait 9-12 months for delivery)
posted by growabrain at 8:24 PM PST - 73 comments

The Internet Library of Early Journals :: A digital library of 18th and 19th Century journals
posted by anastasiav at 7:08 PM PST - 23 comments

Lumosity Brain Games [via mefi projects]
posted by iurodivii at 6:54 PM PST - 11 comments

LOLfeeds turns any RSS feed into cat macros. For instance: this place, MetaTalk, or Craigslist personals.
posted by mendel at 6:40 PM PST - 75 comments

'Google Gears' is program interface for AJAX application developers. * A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server * A database, to store and access data from within the browser * A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background
posted by acro at 5:58 PM PST - 20 comments

How to Swear in any language.
posted by hama7 at 3:32 PM PST - 57 comments

The Western Tradition, an outstanding 52-part instructional video series about the history of western civilization, is available as free streaming video.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 3:13 PM PST - 13 comments

Terra-cotta (Italian for "earth-cooked") was once a versatile material for architecture ornamentation. (A short video about the process) [QuickTime] It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings. The Natural History Museum in London has been called architect Albert Waterhouse's Terracotta Menagerie. (Take the Terracotta Tour.) Examples of architectural terracotta in America: Buffalo, NY, St. Louis, MO, Washington State, and many, many buildings in NYC (including 200 Gargoyles and Chimera salvaged from lost buildings). Just when you thought the past might be vanishing a little too quickly, terra cotta is coming back in new ways. See also: Understanding and Concerving Terracotta and The Preservation of Historic Glazed Architectural Terra-Cotta.
posted by spock at 2:10 PM PST - 8 comments

The first 3 months of a panda's life, in photos (courtesy of the World Wildlife Foundation). Bonus link: a gaggle of pandas make for the most adorable news outtakes ever.
posted by jonson at 1:50 PM PST - 34 comments

SlitherLink - a little spatial-numerical puzzle. Here's a better exposition of the rules from the puzzle's inventors, and another collection of puzzles. Oh, and a little survey of other sneaky, snaky puzzles.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:18 PM PST - 18 comments

Influenced by two related news items...
Were you a Blue Peter or a Magpie kid ? And on Saturday morning: Swap Shop or Tiswas ?
posted by Webbster at 11:53 AM PST - 29 comments

Recycle your computer junk. A large US office supply retailer just became the first to offer everyday, in-store recycling for computers & other office technology, and will recycle them using EPA guidelines. Only $10 an item (smaller stuff like mice and keyboards are free).
posted by Dave Faris at 11:27 AM PST - 52 comments

Inner lip tattoos
posted by GuyZero at 11:18 AM PST - 37 comments

Although Industrial Musicals and their jaunty odes to corporate pride and brand loyalty have seen the same fate as the values they espoused (mostly), goofily earnest and undeniable catchy tunes like Exxon's Up Came Oil♫, General Electric's Make a Woman Out of Your Wife♫, and The Monroe Calculator Company's 1660 & 65♫ are still as potent as all get out! [More songs and albums to help you get your gray flannel funk on inside]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:08 AM PST - 24 comments

Atomage Magazine, possibly the first fetish magazine, produced by clothing designer turned photographer John Sutcliffe, who clearly had a special place reserved in his heart for head-to-toe rubberwear.
posted by serazin at 10:50 AM PST - 6 comments

Galloping Gertie for the 21st Century. A friend sent me a link to this photo set. Quite something. Let's hope this doesn't happen again.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:37 AM PST - 38 comments

Dinos' might in army sights. The Comanche National Grasslands located near The Sex Change Capital of the World is under threat by an expanding Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site [attached to Fort Carson]. Home to countless fossils, and Native American cave art, the Purgatoire River could end up like The Stronghold Unit of the Badlands in South Dakota with one of the largest dinosaur tracks site in the world damaged or destroyed and rendered inaccessible to scientists.
posted by Stynxno at 8:15 AM PST - 12 comments

Escape from Real Bitch Island -- Nineteen and gay, too effeminate to hide, and persecuted by haters in his small town, Chris Crocker turned to the web to vent. Now he's a huge YouTube celebrity. Is the internet Chris Crocker's ticket out?
posted by ericb at 8:09 AM PST - 127 comments

Le Conversazioni: Last summer a group of writers including David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen, and Jeffrey Eugenides gathered on the Isle of Capri to discuss language and identity. This year's lineup includes Ethan Coen, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Claire Messud, and Chuck Palahniuk.
posted by mattbucher at 7:53 AM PST - 8 comments

1986 Mac Plus vs. 2007 AMD Dual Core "When we compare strictly common, everyday, basic user tasks between the Mac Plus and the AMD we find remarkable similarities in overall speed, thus it can be stated that for the majority of simple office uses, the massive advances in technology in the past two decades have brought zero advance in productivity." Factor in the internet, and the technological advances have brought me negative productivity.
posted by jdroth at 7:23 AM PST - 75 comments

"Twittering the first lines of books so you don't have to"
posted by Lezzles at 7:06 AM PST - 16 comments

The Days They Changed the Gauge. Early in the development of railroads in the American South, the builders departed from the standard 4' 8 1/2" gauge and built their railroads with the rails 5 feet apart. As part of a trend of increased government standardization, between May 30 and June 1 1886, workers moved over 11,000 miles of track 3 inches to the new standard gauge of 4' 9". [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 4:28 AM PST - 29 comments

This time, it was a fax. Last time, it was Mooninites.
posted by davy at 4:06 AM PST - 35 comments

"Anonymous" bloggers, don't be stupid. A physician blogs about his malpractice suit during the trial, using an alias, and is unmasked in court. He settles the next day.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:14 AM PST - 35 comments

The Bush administration has vowed that it will fight to keep meatpackers from voluntarily testing all of their cows for mad cow disease. Currently, the Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of their cows, but larger meat companies have objected, fearing that they might need to test their own cows to stay competitive. The Agriculture Department has also argued that potential false positives could harm the meat industry. Meanwhile, the president, under pressure from the cattle industry, is serving more beef to various visiting foreign statesemen and lamenting that mad cow fears are preventing the Chinese from enjoying American beef: “They need to be eating US beef. It's good for them. They'll like it.” When China rejects our food, shouldn’t we be worried?
posted by kyrademon at 12:56 AM PST - 98 comments

Find the star in each stage. [flash]
posted by churl at 12:33 AM PST - 29 comments

GrandCentral: Have a cell phone, a work phone and a business phone? This free service gives you one number that will ring all of them at once. Reviews: Slate, NYT, CNET
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:53 PM PST - 22 comments

Jess Nevins, obsessive cataloguer of Victorian science fantasy, early-twentieth-century pulp, and forties-era superheroes (all links Geocities) and annotator of certain reference-dense comics, weighs in with an opinionated overview of Han Empire science fiction. (Note: Enjrolasworld hosts several more comic series annotations, including the Sandman annotations previously discussed here.)
posted by ormondsacker at 11:44 PM PST - 10 comments

The Bill and Steve show: Jobs and Gates sit down together and discuss the past, present and future at the D5 conference.
posted by jaimev at 11:22 PM PST - 12 comments

The Unofficial Web Application List has a lot of neat applications. Some favorites include an amazing Ajax newsletter generator, a tool that lets you convert between any file formats, Rogue in Java, a free browser-based VoIP system that can call landlines, a music search engine that accepts humming as an input, and the lovely Flash Earth. You can also generate your own warning signs and use a page that makes browser content seem to be a MS Word document - you know, for work.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:41 PM PST - 13 comments

Looks like the phrase "Enhanced Interrogation" has a History.
posted by delmoi at 9:00 PM PST - 28 comments

Soft drinks for the undecided. Next time you're in Singapore and feeling thirsty yet noncommittal, why not pick up a can of Anything or Whatever? Just be warned that you won't know whether you're drinking Cola, Cloudy Lemon, or Chrysanthemum Tea until...your...first...sip. (Via the effervescent & esoteric Knowledge for Thirst.)
posted by unregistered_animagus at 8:29 PM PST - 17 comments

Misako Inaoka is a Japanese born artist living and working in San Francisco who makes her own ecosystems where the real and the artificial intertwine. She is currently showing at the Johansson Projects gallery. [via]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:27 PM PST - 6 comments

This photo has launched high school pole vaulter Allison Stokke into Internet memedom. Her reaction: "I worked so hard for pole vaulting and all this other stuff, and it's almost like that doesn't matter. Nobody sees that. Nobody really sees me."
posted by aerotive at 6:54 PM PST - 491 comments

After an abysmal, embarrasing attempt at collaborative fiction by Penguin Books, a new site takes a stab at the Wikinovel, this time, it appears, with a little better organization and planning. Though, still no users.
posted by nospecialfx at 6:09 PM PST - 31 comments

livejournal permanently suspends hundreds of accounts under pressure from "watchdog" group Warriors for Innocence (sketchy, possibly spyware laden site created by pretty shady people). Though the aim of the crackdown is seemingly to protect children from online predators, many suspended journals and communities apparently had nothing to do with promoting pedophilia, and the broad-based approach taken by livejournal has many users irate (over 3700 comments as of posting), especially in light of the fact that that neither livejournal nor the owner Six Apart have publically addressed users, though Six Apart did speak to CNET as linked above.
posted by 6550 at 6:00 PM PST - 147 comments

For months IDT Energy has been accused by Con Edison customers of fraudulant "sales" tactics. The Consumerist decided to hire a journalist to investigate how the company conducts business by getting hired by Midtown Promotions, the company IDT uses to canvas and bully ConEd customers into switching to IDT Energy. Today is Day One in a multi-part series investigating the underhanded practices of an unregulated utility company.
posted by basicchannel at 5:35 PM PST - 11 comments

An Atlanta man caused the U.S. government to issue its first quarantine order since 1963 this weekend, knowingly exposing as many as 107 passengers on two transatlantic flights to a rare, "extensively drug-resistant" form of tuberculosis. "It's regretful that we weren't able to stop that," the CDC's Dr. Martin Cetron said of how the man fled when U.S. health officials tracked him down in Rome and told him not to get on an airplane.
posted by rkent at 4:20 PM PST - 109 comments

An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization. [alternate link] To effectively organize their banditry, pirates required mechanisms to prevent internal predation, minimize crew conflict, and maximize piratical profit. [ssrnfilter]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 4:03 PM PST - 18 comments

Total Grafitti Awareness
posted by geos at 2:35 PM PST - 53 comments

It's been said before that trance, and DJ Tiësto in particular, are evil. Some may've taken that idea a little too seriously.
posted by flaterik at 2:13 PM PST - 29 comments

Imagine your monitor as one side of a cube. Yod'm (download) is an incredibly simple and intuitive desktop manager application that allows you switch between different sides of said cube. For those of us stuck on one monitor, it's an elegant solution that eases the pain a bit. (DirectX 9 required)
posted by ODiV at 2:12 PM PST - 35 comments

Some tech company releases something shiny
posted by cillit bang at 2:12 PM PST - 58 comments

Crawdaddy, one of the first rock criticism magazines, has made a comeback online, including some selected articles by the magazine's founder, Paul Williams. The SF Weekly has mixed feelings about the magazine's return. (via largehearted boy)
posted by sleepy pete at 2:07 PM PST - 7 comments

First Global Peace Index Ranks 121 Countries
posted by acro at 1:10 PM PST - 66 comments

Magnum Photos turns 60 this year. A retrospective of some of their best photos is featured on their site, and over at Wallpaper.
posted by chunking express at 12:35 PM PST - 15 comments

Not cringing enough? This gallery of photos of street dentists in India should solve that problem for you.
posted by jonson at 12:11 PM PST - 35 comments

al Qaeda's "Legitimate Demands". Azzam al Amreki (aka Adam Gadahn) appears in a newly released al Qaeda video to recite his group's demands and promise more bombings and destruction if we don't comply. (previously)
posted by scalefree at 11:58 AM PST - 100 comments

Hey! Isn't that the guy from that movie? The 20 best "that guys" of all time -- according to Cracked. (via)
posted by fallenposters at 11:34 AM PST - 154 comments

"He asks each of them to write down...any dollar integer between 2 and 100 without conferring together. If both write the same number...he will pay each of them that amount. But if they write different numbers, he will ... pay both of them the lower number along with a bonus and a penalty--the person who wrote the lower number will get $2 more...and the one who wrote the higher number will get $2 less.... For instance, if Lucy writes 46 and Pete writes 100, Lucy will get $48 and Pete will get $44."

What amount would you choose? And what does your answer tell us about the limits of Game Theory?
posted by empath at 8:56 AM PST - 238 comments

iTunes Plus has been released. Following EMI's announcement that it would begin offering its entire catalog DRM-free (and a barely-averted torpedoing of that plan), Apple has released an update to iTunes that offers DRM-free, 256kps AAC songs for $1.29. Entire albums are the same price as their DRM-laden counterparts. Those who have purchased EMI music can upgrade their files for $.30/song, $.60/album, or 30% of the album price. Currently only EMI is on-board, but Apple is perfectly happy to bring other labels into the DRM-free universe.
posted by mkultra at 8:49 AM PST - 98 comments

Hear them all...... The most famous version of the early synthesizer hit "Popcorn" was played in 1972 by a studio group called Hot Butter, led by legendary session musician Stan Free. Few people know that the song was actually written by electronic music pioneer Gershon Kingsley. If you'd like to hear excerpts of Kingsley's original version, along with scores of cover versions, here ya go.
posted by metasonix at 7:27 AM PST - 47 comments

Felix Pappalardi was a famous arranger and producer for the likes of Cream, the Youngbloods and the Vagrants, where he met Leslie West with whom he formed the legendary hard rock band Mountain who had hits with "Mississippi Queen" "For Yasgur's Farm" and a masterful reworking of Jack Bruce's "Theme From An Imaginary Western". In 1983, Pappalardi's wife shot him, in what she claimed was an accident. She was convicted of criminially negligent homicide and sentenced to four years.
posted by jonmc at 6:26 AM PST - 40 comments

Social networking/music discovery site Last.FM has been sold to CBS for $280 million. Much as love the service, I can't help thinking that this feels like 2000 all over again...
posted by Cobbler at 4:34 AM PST - 73 comments

Joel and Ethan Coen rarely disappoint. Their new film, No Country for Old Men (based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy), is no exception. See also: Cannes.
posted by chuckdarwin at 2:19 AM PST - 55 comments

Surface. A multi-user touch table. How curious that this happens some time after Apple revealed their own multitouch interface. More info here, here and here.
posted by Memo at 12:30 AM PST - 64 comments

Somewhere along the line you've probably heard Bobbie Gentry's brilliant signature tune, Ode To Billy Joe, but unlike previously, now you can see a sad-eyed Bobbie perform it live, displaying the understated Southern soul delivery that, in addition to the delicious lyrics, lazy tempo and no-drums arrangement, made the tune such a milestone in US pop music history. But there was another side to Bobbie: down-home sex kitten! The gal could work a fire-engine red catsuit. Check her out! Go Bobbie!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:33 PM PST - 21 comments

Trulia Hindsight merges real estate data showing the year properties were built with animated maps (US Only). Search for your town by name; here's mine.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:19 PM PST - 9 comments

You are most welcome. sigh. Bill Gates must feel like several billion dollars.
posted by longsleeves at 8:15 PM PST - 47 comments

The most amazing Google thing in awhile launched today. Walk the streets of New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, and Miami using Google's new Street View. You can look and move in any direction, and the detail is good enough to read license plates. It is getting lots of attention, though it makes some people a little afraid and has others scrambling. [Requires Flash. Click on the city names, really, it is worth it.]
posted by blahblahblah at 8:13 PM PST - 97 comments

The artwork of Shaun Tan. Of particular interest is his work on the award winning new picture book The Arrival, which uses photo-realistic graphite drawings alone to tell the story of a man who leaves an impoverished town to travel around the world. [via]
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:58 PM PST - 21 comments

The Brickfactory. Hundreds of instruction booklets for LEGO kits, organized by year, theme, number and name. If you're like me, just seeing the covers of some of these old kits will make you teary-eyed. (#268, the 1979 Family Room kit did it for me.)
posted by Lucinda at 5:45 PM PST - 65 comments

The new video for Paul McCartney's UK single, "Dance Tonight" starring Natalie Portman.
posted by semmi at 5:26 PM PST - 61 comments

"All Creeds. All Breeds. No Dogmas Allowed." Whether you are a dog person or not, you have probably seen Stephen Huneck's woodcut illustrations, sculptures, furniture or children's books. The man clearly likes his canines. About eight years ago, a wild idea came to him shortly after he returned home with his wife and three dogs following a near-fatal illness that left him in a coma for two months. He was inspired to build a non-denominational chapel on his 400-acre mountain-top farm in St. Johnsbury (named "Dog Mountain," naturally), and to style it in the manner of a small village church built in Vermont around 1820. He then opened Dog Chapel to the public. "I look at this chapel as the largest artwork of my life, and my most personal." he says. It looks cool. Woof.
posted by miss lynnster at 4:29 PM PST - 16 comments

Famed Arabic calligrapher Khalil al-Zahawi murdered. (Arabic: خليل الزهاوي‎; 1946 - 25 May 2007) Khalil al-Zahawi was the most famous practitioner in Iraq of the art of writing classical Arabic script. He was shot to death Friday as he left his home.
posted by psmealey at 3:18 PM PST - 51 comments

In just a year his bodycount has risen to 32. Jeff kills in Shadow Hills, California. He hunts them, disembowels them, decapitates and dines on them. Each killing is meticulously photographed and posted for your viewing pleasure. The site is not for the squeamish. via
posted by Sully at 2:28 PM PST - 97 comments

Peggy a redo of the Lichtenstein modern classic using 2788 hand cut, sanded, and painted dowels mounted on a wall, forming a 3 x 7 foot work of art.
posted by mathowie at 1:40 PM PST - 36 comments

Joan Rhodes, strong woman. Born ca. 1920 in England, as Josie Terena, ‘Joan Rhodes became famous in the 1950s and 60s as a strong woman,’ sometimes billed as The Mighty Mannequin. ‘She performed in cabaret, variety and vaudeville, stunning audiences with her amazing feats of strength. She could bend heavy steel bars that no man in the audience could even dent, she could break six-inch nails with her hands, and she could tear the 1000 page London phone book not merely in half, but into quarters.’
posted by misteraitch at 1:13 PM PST - 9 comments

If this album cover quiz frustrates you, you might enjoy watching some album art wars instead.
posted by Oriole Adams at 11:32 AM PST - 36 comments

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." Despite Theodosius Dobzhansky's succint description of natural selection at the core of biological research since Darwin's fateful trip to the Galapagos, evolutionary biologist Michael Lynch respectfully dissents, asking "whether natural selection is a necessary or sufficient force to explain" the complexity of multicellular organisms we see today, where mutation, recombination and genetic drift are often overlooked, but critical factors in evolutionary theory and understanding.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:05 AM PST - 80 comments

lolcats are great but now they can code!
posted by jeffburdges at 11:01 AM PST - 66 comments

Russia on Tuesday test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile The points to note are:- It could penetrate any defense system, the statement did not specify how many warheads the missile can carry, it's either a decoy or something that has been developed in complete secrecy.
posted by chrisranjana.com at 10:27 AM PST - 54 comments

Justin.tv, the 24/7 live webcam attached to the head of a San Francisco resident, is growing. Justine will be joining him in what will be one of several planned spinoff shows.
posted by drstein at 10:20 AM PST - 16 comments

"Good Riddance Attention Whore" Cindy Sheehan is done protesting. CNN Story [via]
posted by muckster at 9:10 AM PST - 168 comments

Fontfilter -- ever wondered what font a logo uses? Wonder no more. (site's in German but the chart is simple--there's also a reversed one, by font instead of by company)
posted by amberglow at 8:46 AM PST - 14 comments

Ichiro Hattori makes the finest knives in the world. Chef knives (gyuto KD series) start at $860 USD and top out at $1175. This hunting knife is priced at $2150. These are not collector knives. They are made for everyday use. Text and images of the process and a YouTube vid of same (23:40 mostly in English).
posted by sluglicker at 8:18 AM PST - 62 comments

For those of you curious about the newly opened $27 million dollar Creation Museum, but unable or unwilling to travel to Kentucky for a visit, Zachary Lynn has posted a photo essay of his visit (sadly missing is the opening diorama or human babies playing with dinosaurs).
posted by jonson at 7:24 AM PST - 83 comments

Al Columbia has finally updated his site . Previously, there had been ominous hinting at a more fleshed-out web experience, but no follow-up. Rumors of a documentary by Kevin Belli have been in the air for years, but nothing has been announced beyond this (scroll down). In March, the Fantagraphics blog brought more news of the documentary's progress and hints of publishing Columbia's sketchbooks. Columbia himself confirmed the Fantagraphics book at the beginning of April in an Inkstuds interview (audio), describing it as a large-format collection of most of his unpublished work from the last ten years. Promises, promises. His contribution to Mome 7 and 8 seem to be a bit more concrete. If you've been waiting on A.C. all these years, you'll want to hear that interview: he brings you song (his own Percival Cook), much nervous laughter, meandering descriptions, and dream revelations (at age 12, a dream of having sex with Felix the Cat). [more inside]
posted by ibeji at 6:13 AM PST - 10 comments

It's a sad old story but the reading of literature continues to decline. Prospero's Books - a Kansas-city used bookstore - is so desperate to thin out its collection it has started to burn books. Co-owner Tom Wayne says he is unable to sell many of his thousands of books, or even to give them away to libraries and thrift stores, so he started a pyre in protest.
posted by stbalbach at 5:45 AM PST - 63 comments

Heterodoxy is by definition not widely popular, and so it goes in the field of economics. Lately, though, the orthodoxy has been on the defensive against a faction that's named itself post-autistic economics. Arising in France, it has spread around the world, capitalizing on the widespread feeling that all's not well in the field of economics. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus at 4:58 AM PST - 57 comments

Line Rider does Mario Bros.
posted by reklaw at 4:28 AM PST - 16 comments

Eric Kraft might be he best writer you've never heard of. While at Harvard in the early sixties he imagined a boy on a broken down dock trying to place the soles of his feet as close as possible to the surface of the water without touching. What emerged was literary genius: the saga of Peter Leroy and the associated characters of the clamming town Babbington. Initially distributed as a newsletter to friends in the know, it was ultimately published in a series of remarkable novels.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 4:18 AM PST - 9 comments

A Funeral Home With Gory Problems. "A Harlem funeral home has been sued for losing bodies and filching corpses from nearby hospitals. Now it must answer charges that a dead man's body was chewed up by rats." [from the Village Voice]
posted by davy at 10:05 PM PST - 44 comments

Ryan Lobo is a photographer and writer who's work shows you an unique glimpse of India and other places.
posted by dhruva at 9:02 PM PST - 12 comments

A new series called The Seven Ages of Rock has spilling out of idiot boxes all over the UK recently. Get your overseas fix with some YT clips of episode two (Art Rock): 1 2 3
posted by chuckdarwin at 6:51 PM PST - 48 comments

The War Prayer -- Mark Twain's post-humously published anti-war classic, brought to life.
posted by empath at 4:37 PM PST - 17 comments

Are these people qualitatively different from us? "I would think yes," says Hare. "Do they form a discrete taxon or category? I would say probably -- the evidence is suggesting that.

Psychopaths. They form about 1% of the population. They enjoy the excitement of power. Some choice bits from Hare's book. The obligatory Bush link, but, hey, it's got the test sections and the sad truth is that we do have some psychopaths in positions of power, though probably not the Presidency. [Gosh this is getting long] It turns out there's a biological basis for it. Here's the DSM description and some detailed analysis/description (gosh, I identify with some of those traits!) And here's some AskMe fodder, "Are You Involved With A Psychopath?" And because of that lust for power... well, it could well be your boss.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:07 PM PST - 112 comments

A year after a false accusation of rape against 3 members of the Duke Lacrosse team led to their season being canceled, this year's team made it into the NCAA Lacrosse championship game today -- and lost it, 12-11, to Johns Hopkins. Oh, well... it was almost a Cinderella story.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:58 PM PST - 152 comments

Pie charts that represent the proportional amount of color in each country's national flag. Similar to this (previously), only not as pointed.
posted by tepidmonkey at 2:51 PM PST - 33 comments

I've heard a lot of bizarre music over the years, but Eurobeat has to take the cake for sheer W-T-F insanity. Virtually all the artists and producers are Italian, and the only place where their recordings sell in any quantity is, oddly enough, Japan. That's right, Eurobeat doesn't sell to Europeans. In most dance-music styles, 135 beats per minute would be considered rather fast; in Eurobeat, 155 BPM is considered slow. The lyrics are nearly always in English, with occasional Japanese--despite the fact that very few English-speaking people buy the stuff. And the artists tend to record under an assortment of pseudonyms, maintaining some degree of anonymity. Eurobeat had a major influence on the parapara dance scene. Which led directly to this. Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music called Eurobeat "sped-up, spastic Euro Disney cheese". And that fits perfectly, because the only places Americans are likely to hear Eurobeat are in a DDR game---or on a Radio Disney station. Eurobeat is (apparently) only available on costly Japanese imports, most released by Avex Trax.

Despite the anonymity of Eurobeat singers, at least one--Alessandra Mirka Gatti, aka Domino--has managed to become famous enough to have a fansite. In English, no less. Go there and examine her discography. That obscure, helium-voiced singer has been putting out records for twenty years. Someone is buying them.
posted by metasonix at 12:35 PM PST - 55 comments

"It's a gathering of tribes. Strange, nerdy tribes." The only guide to San Diego's Comic-Con 2007 you'll need, courtesy of The Comics Reporter (And former Suck.com contributor) Tom Spurgeon.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:15 PM PST - 15 comments

Kids Rock! Reaching puberty is not a prerequisite to rocking out. Check out Gary and the Hornets, Tony and the Tigers (featuring two sons of Soupy Sales), The Collins Kids (with more clips here and here), a 10-year-old Fergie singing the Pretenders' "The Middle of the Road," mini-skatepunks Old Skull, the Minibeats, Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point 3rd Grade Class, the Electric Company's Short Circus (featuring a pre-teen Irene Cara and intros from Morgan Freeman as DJ Mel Mounds), the Double Deckers, Smoosh on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Les Poppys, the Bantams, and Mulligan's Stew getting down with the four food groups. (YouTube-a-palooza!)
posted by jonp72 at 12:11 PM PST - 35 comments

Shoefiti: Shoes on powerlines. Shoefiti Phenomenology. Not to be confused with shoe trees.
posted by Rumple at 11:38 AM PST - 26 comments

Dr. Grordborts Infallible Aether Oscillators is "a line of immensely dangerous yet simple to operate wave oscillation weapons" - rayguns - that includes the Manmelter 3600ZX, the Goliathon 83, and the F.M.O.M. Industries Wave Disrupter Gun. Designed by Greg Broadmore to evoke the old-school Flash Gordon serials, they bring a fun steampunk aesthetic to Weta's Collectibles' traditional movie tie-in fare.
posted by gemmy at 7:50 AM PST - 11 comments

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.
posted by geos at 7:14 AM PST - 114 comments

The War against the libr'l media ? The Governmnt of Venezuela (read Hugh Chavez and his supporters) decided not to renew the broadcasting licence of RCTV station. RCTV issued this statement and consequently stopped transmissions. Some welcome the move, others observe the many facets of this event, many sustain it's outright government censorship and protest. [Previous] post and documentary on distortions by and in media.
posted by elpapacito at 4:25 AM PST - 111 comments

Fans of the late & much missed comic Mitch Hedberg might enjoy the stand up routine of Daily Show correspondent Demetri Martin: Some Jokes, Some More Jokes, Other Jokes & These Jokes.
posted by jonson at 12:41 AM PST - 45 comments

Phone Sex Pranks — "Below are prank calls I've made- to phone sex girls. Only thing is, I tell them I'm into some "weird" stuff. They're all 100% real and 100% expensive." He's Gil Ozeri of Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The weird stuff he's into? Clowns, Jewish mother stereotypes, old-timey barbers and Clippy. Yes, Clippy of MS Word infamy. [nsfw, natch]
posted by Kattullus at 12:39 AM PST - 54 comments

Anime Music Videos. Yet another remixing web subculture, they're usually a source of amateurishly produced angst. From the competitive perfectionists, though, come well lipsynched, action packed, meta-mashuped, and occasionally just filthy stuff for cartoon nerds. Besides the usual metal, ballads, and pop rock, there's some Daft Punk, club, and downtempo accompaniment. Or you can just go to hell. Wear headphones and no-one will know.
posted by anthill at 12:32 AM PST - 22 comments

What is the square of 85? In an instant, a 17-year-old boy said without blinking, "7,225." Kamlesh Shetty had used a trick from a quaint concept called Vedic math, a compilation of arithmetic shortcuts believed to have been written by ancient Indians who lived centuries before Christ, during a glorious period in Indian history called the Vedic Age. More on Vedic math. Still more. And there's a similar system called the Trachtenberg system, invented in a Nazi concentration camp. Where were these guys when I was in the third grade struggling with my times tables?
posted by frogan at 12:12 AM PST - 29 comments

Overheard In The Office, Overheard At The Beach, Overheard Everywhere and Celebrity Wit. (From the people who brought you Overheard In New York, which was previously featured on Metafilter here and here).
posted by amyms at 11:29 PM PST - 15 comments

Kuroko, Japanese performance art: Why is my girlfriend mad at me?
posted by nickyskye at 10:50 PM PST - 14 comments

Charles Nelson Reilly (1931-2007) If, in 1940, you had a lobotomized aunt, an institutionalized father, a racist mother, and were the only gay kid on the block, what do you think the odds would be that you'd end up a Tony winner, a staple of television, and a generational icon? (contains YouTube links)
posted by LinusMines at 10:28 PM PST - 87 comments

Judd Apatow's Family Values A look inside the comedic mind that brought us "Freaks and Geeks", "Undeclared", and "The 40 Year Old Virgin". Apatow’s childhood hero was Steve Martin. On a summer trip to L.A., Apatow persuaded his grandparents to drive by Martin’s home until Apatow spied his hero in the driveway. Martin wouldn’t give him an autograph, so Apatow wrote him an angry letter saying it was his patronage of Martin’s projects that allowed him to live the high life. A few weeks later, Martin sent Apatow a copy of his book “Cruel Shoes” with an apology: “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was speaking to the Judd Apatow.” Also: Judd and Seth Rogen at play.
posted by ColdChef at 9:10 PM PST - 33 comments

Recycled folk art, Mayólica pottery and other exhibitions at the Museum of International Folk Art.
posted by dhruva at 8:32 PM PST - 11 comments

1 click!
posted by wilful at 7:46 PM PST - 20 comments

Become a joystick.
posted by phaedon at 7:17 PM PST - 15 comments

Bisexual, but Only on the Internet : Could this be a new 21st century version of LUGs and hasbians?
posted by grapefruitmoon at 7:12 PM PST - 72 comments

Back in the day when... Mens fashion wasn't cutting it, modern Kiwi males welcomed in Stubbies ... Depth charges were the best because you always soaked Teresa McKee...You were there, and so was L & P. World famous in new Zealand since ages ago.
posted by clearly at 4:53 PM PST - 30 comments

Federal Aviation Administrator Marion Blakey is valiantly fighting European attempts to extend the EU's emission trading scheme to aviation. Those silly Europeans, Ms. Blakey has argued, are so overexcited about global warming that they are even using helicopters with thermal imaging systems to enforce a green tax on outdoor BBQs! Unfortunately for her argument, it turns out that the story she quoted is a complete hoax. Now, unlike Brownie, nobody would ever accuse Ms. Blakey of being a novice. Apart from previous tenures at, among others, the Department of Transportation and the NTSB, Ms. Blakey also founded Blakey & Agnew, a "public affairs" firm with a special focus on transportation issues.
posted by Skeptic at 2:09 PM PST - 9 comments

A striking essay with photos documenting a visit to the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Mark Resnicoff, a database programmer and amateur photographer, visited Chernobyl and took a schwack of atmospheric photos. This reminded me of a set of slightly-controversial Chernobyl photos from 2004. Wikipedia provides a little context on KiddofSpeed, the photographer in question with an awesome Engrishesque nickname.
posted by dbarefoot at 1:50 PM PST - 26 comments

Happy Birthday John Fogerty! Swamp rock progenitor, Vietnam and Iraq War opposer, 40th greatest guitarist of all time, and performer at Woodstock, John Fogerty turns 62 tomorrow. Prolific singer, guitarist and composer extraordinaire with Creedence Clearwater Revival on such hits as Have you Ever Seen the Rain?, Who’ll Stop the Rain?, Bad Moon Rising/Proud Mary, Born on the Bayou, Green River, Travellin’ Band, Whitfield and Strong's Motown classic I Heard it Through the Grapevine, Susie Q, and last but not least, Fortunate Son, a song whose message has again become so timely, more than a handful of prominent musicians have covered it over the few years, including Pearl Jam, Sleater-Kinney, the Circle Jerks, Bob Seger, Sublime, Ivan Neville, Brandi Carlile and .38 Special. As a solo artist, Fogerty also penned such hits as Centerfield, a song purported to be one of George W. Bush's favorites (to Fogerty's apparent amusement), and The Old Man Down the Road.
posted by psmealey at 12:17 PM PST - 74 comments

"November 4: Voters from the six counties of the District agree to a $35 million bond issue, using their homes, farms and business properties as collateral, in order to support the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. The vote is 145,657 in favor and 46,954 against." On May 27th, 1937, the World's longest suspension bridge opened to the public. Happy 70th anniversary, Golden Gate.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:06 PM PST - 8 comments

Parallels is a 10 minute dance video comparing current B-Boy poppin and lockin to vintage clips of African and global dance, jazz and swing, martial arts, and athletics. It's an excerpt from Detours - An Experimental Dance Collaboration, a video by dancer extraordinaire David "Elsewhere" Bernal. Via beans, beans, good for your heart [more]
posted by madamjujujive at 12:04 PM PST - 11 comments

The Goodyear Blimp: Building, filling, painting, testing. Structure. People. Signage. Flying.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:03 PM PST - 18 comments

Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media. On this year's list : Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran, Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger, High-Tech Genocide in Congo, and many more.
posted by Afroblanco at 11:29 AM PST - 26 comments

You need more free stuff in your life.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:43 AM PST - 40 comments

On May 26, 1907, a 13 pound baby boy named Marion Morrison was born in Winterset, Iowa. Nicknamed "Little Duke" after his childhood dog, he grew up to become the most famous icon of American patriotism in the world. When he was a football player at USC, Western filmstar Tom Mix got him a summer job at Fox in exchange for game tickets. After two years working as a prop man for $75 a week, his first acting role was in The Big Trail in 1930. "Marion Morrison" didn't sound like the right name for a trail scout though, so the studio took the last name from a Revolutionary War general and replaced "Anthony" with "John." Voila! A working actor from 1930 through the 1970s, this year John Wayne placed third among America's favorite film stars, the only deceased star on the list and the only one who has appeared every year. He was an opinionated patriot who, surprisingly, called himself a liberal... bigger than life, the consummate cowboy star, and the ultimate symbol of heroic action and the Code of the West. In the end, acting actually took his life indirectly thanks to radiation poisoning during a movie shoot in Utah (of the 220 persons on set, 91 had contracted cancer by the early 1980s), and almost three decades after his death, his family continues to carry on his legacy. He has an an airport, an elementary school, and various Cancer Foundations named after him, and while he wasn't much of a singer or dancer, he remains the ultimate symbol of American manliness to this day. Apparently there are hundreds of reasons to love the guy.

And for the record... no, he wasn't gay.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:39 AM PST - 73 comments

The Wagah border, that separates the countries of Pakistan and India, is the scene of some very eccentric pomp and ceremony during the lowering of the flags on either side, and the opening and closing of the gates of the opposing forces.
posted by hadjiboy at 7:12 AM PST - 57 comments

Bjarne Riis, current coach of premier cycling squad Team CSC, used drugs to win the Tour in 1996. His protege, Ivan Basso, was suspended from Team CSC before last year's Tour for suspicion of doping. Team Discovery hired Basso to fill Lance Armstrong's seat as captain, but Basso quit shortly before he had a chance to win his second consecutive Giro d'Italia, and is out for the season, if not permanently. The conclusion of Floyd Landis's appeals to reinstate his 2006 Tour victory will wait until some time after this year's Tour de France. Jan Ullrich capped a good but unsatisfying career by retiring early and under a cloud. Several of Ullrich's former Deutch Telekom/T-Mobile teammates, including Erik Zabel, admitted to doping, and the team masseur claims to have personally administered EPO to Ullrich. Ullrich, Basso, numerous other leading riders, and the majority of some team rosters continue to be under suspicion as the Operación Puerto EPO lab investigation grinds onward. It might be the best time ever to market a competition road bike called the Addict. (previously, previously, oh-so-very previously, )
posted by ardgedee at 5:47 AM PST - 14 comments

Controversial geneticist Jim Watson will soon be the first man to receve a fully-decoded copy of his own DNA blueprint. Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA molecule and won the Nobel Prize in 1962. Watson is also known for his frank opinions. Very frank, indeed.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:29 AM PST - 36 comments

Italian housewives travelled to Washington DC from their hometown of Vicenza, a UNESCO heritage site for its famed Palladian architecture, to protest the planned expansion of the US military base there. A huge tent has been set up to train local residents in non violent, peaceful non cooperation. They use pots and pans rather than guns and knives. How do you say "the Base" in Italian?
posted by infini at 5:08 AM PST - 9 comments

Drowned out by boos, former White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, receives an Honorary degree from UMass Amherst. (youtube)
posted by empath at 4:20 AM PST - 96 comments

A dust storm overtakes Lubbock, Texas
posted by jonson at 10:00 PM PST - 55 comments

Waymarking.com provides tools for you to catalog, mark­ and visit interesting and useful locations around the world. It's a fun site, packed with photographs, information and maps; a useful resource and tool for GeoCaching and other interests. Among the various categories included is Oddball Museums: The Glore Psychiatric Museum, Musee Mechanique, The National Plastics Museum with lots of great pics and links to other sites, Museum of Burlesque [nsfw], The Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum, Orange Show, wbur Museums of Dirt, Plumbing, Antiquated Technology, Lizzie Borden and more oddities.
posted by nickyskye at 9:48 PM PST - 5 comments

Baconfilter: Bacon baklava. Bacon candy. Bacon ice cream. Bacon cookies. And the inspiration for this FPP, Maple bacon cupcakes with maple frosting.
posted by Zinger at 8:00 PM PST - 54 comments

Make your own Jackson Pollock. Also, your own snowflake, your individual barcode, a weird vessel/flying disk, and flowers.
posted by frobozz at 6:24 PM PST - 11 comments

Lucid Movement.
posted by hama7 at 5:57 PM PST - 18 comments

This week, WNYC's On The Media reran a report from November 14, 2003 entitled "Pulling Back the Curtain." Here's the transcript of the report or you can listen here. Reporter John Solomon relates what it was like to join NPR and suddenly realize how much the "behind-the-scenes manufacturing process" gives NPR its polished product. Whether you are surprised by any of this or not, it is refreshing to hear a news outlet (which I could not live without) examine itself.
posted by loosemouth at 3:27 PM PST - 24 comments

Celebrations are being held in Australia's capital city Canberra today, to mark 40 years since the 1967 'YES' referendum which gave Aboriginal people the right to be counted in the census. This is the story of that referendum. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:54 PM PST - 42 comments

Her name is Florence Owens Thompson. In March 1936, FSA photographer Dorothea Lange took a series of photos of a 32-year-old woman and her children in a pea pickers' camp outside Nipomo, California, including one of the most famous photos in American history. Mrs. Thompson talked about the photos in 1979. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 1:51 PM PST - 15 comments

George R. Binks : The tragic story of Jar Jar's father! Posted here in "celebration" of the Star Wars anniversary. Written and drawn by Tony Millionaire! (Warning: frames. Link is to the pages in his e-commerce site, and two pages are missing, but you should be able to figure it out.)
posted by JHarris at 12:59 PM PST - 17 comments

How to tie a Prince Albert. Or, a four-in-hand, a full Windsor, a bowtie, an ascot, and a few others to suit your particular fancy/fetish.
posted by psmealey at 10:55 AM PST - 77 comments

Operation Dynamo, aka The Miracle of Dunkirk, began on this day in 1940. Before it ended, nearly 340,000 British and Allied troops would make it to safety and fight another day. Why would the Germans allow them to escape? Was it fear? Hubris? Or was it, as historian B.H. Liddell Hart wrote after the war, Hitler's appreciation for the British Empire?
posted by SaintCynr at 10:09 AM PST - 25 comments

In 2005, the Supreme Court of British Columbia decided that taxing the legal services of the poor "constitutes indirect taxation and is a tax on justice contrary to the Magna Carta and the Rule of Law." Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the decision, rejecting "the respondent’s contention that there is a broad general right to legal counsel as an aspect of, or precondition to, the rule of law." The case was largely the initiative of Dugald Christie, a Vancouver lawyer and political activist who devoted his life to the cause of improving access to the legal system, before dying on a cross-Canada bicycling fundraiser ten months ago. He is well remembered by lawyers and cyclists.
posted by sindark at 5:27 AM PST - 47 comments

The Internet Reposity of Free Hidden Information Videos: There's something for everyone here folks, whether you want to learn about The Truth behind September 11, The JFK Assasination Unmasked, Satanism and the CIA, The Masonic Origins of America, The Occult History of the Third Reich, The Flouride Deception...or just The Deepest Thoughts of Dolphins.
posted by Jimbob at 2:22 AM PST - 30 comments

You cannot live in Malaysia or Singapore without being a foodie on some level. Makan lah! or come and eat is a common and popular expression of welcome. Uniquely in the region, both countries have multiethnic populations each of whom have added their flavours, spices and condiments to the region's foodie heaven. There is Chinese food - Kuay Teow, Chicken Rice, Char Siu and Yong Tau Foo. There is Malay food, rendangs, sambals, petai and belacan adding a certain something to the mix. South Indian food proliferates like banana leaf restorans, idli-thosai pure vegetarian fast food joints like Komala's and of course the fish curries and prawn curries of the coastal regions. The colonial influence is felt with Roti John served up in hawker centres and food courts across the peninsula and islands, ending with cooling desserts like cendol, sago pudding with gula melaka and santan or 'pancake'.
posted by infini at 2:03 AM PST - 35 comments

Filmmaker Julien Temple chronicles the life of Joe Strummer in his new film titled The Future Is Unwritten.
posted by Sailormom at 11:04 PM PST - 22 comments

Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam. I've always wondered what that song was about. Who knew it was about Bennigan's, Anna Nicole and icy democrats? (Yep: SLYTP.)
posted by miss lynnster at 11:02 PM PST - 59 comments

This is not your regular twister. The strange weather formation we saw yesterday off Singapore's coasts _(YouTube) was a waterspout _(wiki), a water-based tornado that occurs usually in tropical areas, Florida Keys _{(great pic!)}, for example. The last tornado that happened in Singapore was in 1950.
posted by the cydonian at 9:40 PM PST - 20 comments

Linux For the Damned. "We suggest installing over Ubuntu Christian Edition, but the standard Ubuntu will do fine."
posted by IronLizard at 9:28 PM PST - 22 comments

gabba
posted by sgt.serenity at 7:18 PM PST - 45 comments

In honor of Memorial Day, the music teacher at my wife's school played TAPS. Find out what they mean while listening to them: The U.S. Army Bugle Calls. In memorium. (not an add for the army or the current "war" or any other political thing.
posted by snsranch at 6:34 PM PST - 10 comments

Origami Tessellations is the website of Metafilter member Eric Gjerde. In addition to the many interesting posts on the main page (such as this article about an artist who lasercut an 85:1 scale model of his house into a hardback book), the site features many original pieces by Gjerde, with downloadable PDF diagrams & graphics to show you how to make your own geometric art out of paper.
posted by jonson at 6:03 PM PST - 15 comments

A band of Congolese rebels is threatening to kill all of the Virunga mountain gorillas. Two-hundred Mai-Mai fighters attacked conservation posts in the violence-prone Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in response to government efforts to protect Virunga National Park from settling and poaching. Virunga is home to roughly half the world's 700 remaining mountain gorillas (and was the workplace of Diane Fossey). Last year, Mai-Mai fighters killed nearly half of the park's hippos, eating the meat and selling the teeth as ivory, and in January they killed and ate two silverbacks. The increased violence is part of a trend that has accompanied attempts to integrate the area's independent militias- mostly remnants of groups that fought in the Congo civil war, then refused to disband- into the national army, and some observers believe that the war, which already killed 4 million, may reignite.
posted by gsteff at 6:01 PM PST - 55 comments

Court martialed for PTSD? "But I'm very concerned that, in a time when the Army is going out there and saying, we're trying to make sure that we provide good counseling for the troops, that, when someone has asked for help, they're potentially facing a court-martial. "
posted by Smedleyman at 4:52 PM PST - 20 comments

This Tuesday will mark the 10th anniversary of the tragic passing of Jeff Buckley, the supernaturally talented singer/songwriter whose name, alongside Nick Drake and Elliott Smith, has become a favorite comparison point for rock critics everywhere. Columbia is remembering the day with the release of "So Real," a compilation of 14 tracks, three of which are live, and one previously unreleased cut, his cover of The Smiths' "I Know It's Over." ("Jeff was a huge Smiths fan," said his mother Mary Guibert in an interview. "He thought Morrissey was a living legend, so this song was a very meaningful choice.") BBC did an excellent documentary on him a few years ago called "Everybody Here Wants You," the full vid of which is available here. Another doc, "Goodbye and Hello," ran on Netherland TV in 2000, and there's a multi-award winning doc about Jeff soon out on DVD called "Amazing Grace." It's probably too much to hope that there are many more unreleased songs that were complete (or nearly so), but there was this gem ("Forget Her") from the deluxe edition of "Grace" from a few years ago. And on top of it all, the man was one of the finest interpreters of Leonard Cohen ever, which is saying quite a lot.
posted by jbickers at 4:33 PM PST - 26 comments

The Gentleman's Fight Club: Armed with Dust Busters (Warning dopey MSNBC anchor and video ad.) How do you blow off steam after a long day of coding? Why smack your buddy over the head with a toilet seat, of course. Higher consciousness through harder contact (.WMV LINK - LOUD).
posted by tkchrist at 1:55 PM PST - 18 comments

30 years ago today
the dream of a man
named George Lucas
became a phenomenon
that changed the world.
posted by cerebus19 at 1:54 PM PST - 134 comments

The Art of the Accordion
posted by TRAJAN at 1:39 PM PST - 9 comments

Dr. Tod Mikuriya has died at the age of 73 in Berkeley, of cancer. He was the founder of California Cannabis Research Medical Group.
posted by the Real Dan at 12:55 PM PST - 15 comments

Someone puts a video camera on a Japanese sushi bar conveyor belt. You can tell it's in Japan because it doesn't get stolen as it travels around the bar. Via b3ta.
posted by Mwongozi at 12:37 PM PST - 103 comments

This week, the world became more urban than rural for the first time in human history. Trace urban growth over the past century, or with more detail over the last 50 years, and see how the idea of the city has evolved. When you are done admiring the skylines (more from US cities) and singing the songs, reflect on the best and worst of cities: the richest by GDP and personal earnings, the worst slums, the best skylines, the worst polluted, the fastest moving, the most expensive, and the most polite (New York?). What does it all mean? Stuart Brand [video] (slideshow here) and other experts weigh in. [see also my previous post on the names of cities]
posted by blahblahblah at 12:28 PM PST - 17 comments

Animated Space Oddity. more from artist
posted by ozomatli at 12:07 PM PST - 23 comments

Wi-fi Routers: Silent blinking death. Via badscience.net, where it was posted in response to what sounds like a truly awful show. Electrosensitivity previously discussed here.
posted by Artw at 12:04 PM PST - 51 comments

"Dillan Kramer," the alias of a man accused of killing his family doctor, is currently on the run from the FBI with his son, "Michael," and he's liveblogging the entire thing. High potential to be fake, sure, but is it? Go, hive-mind -- use your powers; get to the bottom of this!
posted by c:\awesome at 11:42 AM PST - 42 comments

Chop it down and steam it up! (work in progress)
posted by ...possums at 11:36 AM PST - 2 comments

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art in 3 minutes. List of artists inside.
posted by vronsky at 11:35 AM PST - 39 comments

On November 25th, 2006, Valentin Elizalde was killed in the city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Elizalde, a singer of a style of song known as the narcocorrido, was warned not to step foot in Tamaulipas because of a video for his song “A mis Enemigos," which showed footage of (WaPo article) the deaths of drug traffickers from the Gulf Cartel. In December of 2006, Javier Morales Gómez was killed in Huetamo, Michoacán while talking on his cell phone. Morales Gómez was the singer for Los Implacables del Norte, another group closely associated with narcocorridos. The most famous death of a narcocorrido writer/singer has to be Chalino Sanchez, killed in 1992, and spawning several imitators known as Los Chalinillos that are still prevalent 15 years after Sanchez's death. (previously) [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete at 11:29 AM PST - 17 comments

It was 40 years ago next Friday (June 1) that the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, becoming one of the most influential releases in rock history. It is the number one favorite album of the British public and has been ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as No. 1 of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. "When Sgt. Pepper's came out, it was an album that surprised people on every single level. The vast majority of the millions who bought it had never seen a gatefold sleeve, they’d never seen lyrics on the cover, they’d never seen a cover like that—a real piece of art—and they never heard music (side A | side B) like this. The combination was so dynamic that it’s still being talked about 40 years later."^* John, Paul, Ringo and George talk about the tracks.
posted by ericb at 11:23 AM PST - 51 comments

Okay, so there's airbrush, and then there's this guy.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:29 AM PST - 57 comments

SquiggleBooth : a charming collaborative videoblog, from our own Ajit AP. [via Projects]
posted by cortex at 8:16 AM PST - 7 comments

Marriage in America: The Frayed Knot. "As the divorce rate plummets at the top of American society and rises at the bottom, the widening “marriage gap” is breeding inequality."
posted by chunking express at 8:01 AM PST - 130 comments

You, wife, your husband, minister, of the strict Calvinist stripe. You're well educated and deign to have your own ideas which challenge your husband's beliefs. For your own protection, to keep you from infecting the children with your heretical ideas, and just basically to control you, your husband has you committed to an insane asylum. A doctor at the hospital agrees and you are imprisoned, most likely for life. If you sign a paper agreeing to never challenge your husband's beliefs again, you can be free. Too proud, you refuse and remain confined. You do write a book though.
posted by caddis at 7:37 AM PST - 93 comments

Texas A&M Paper presents evidence to show that evidence used to rule out second shooter in JFK murder was flawed. New testing on the type of ammunition used in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy raises questions about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, according to a study[PDF link] by researchers at Texas A&M University.
posted by psmealey at 5:17 AM PST - 103 comments

So you're in the Big Brother house in Australia. Your dad died last Wednesday. His funeral was on Monday. But his dying wish was that you shouldn't be told that until you're evicted. So when will you be evicted? Since you're not up for eviction this week, it'll be at least a fortnight. A letter from Emma's brother.
posted by reklaw at 4:22 AM PST - 77 comments

Miestas is a lovely hand-drawn point-and-click game by Jurgis Jonaitis and Justinas Malijonis. Sequel to menulis. Warning: contains both Flash and jazz. Via the indispensible Jay is games
posted by popkinson at 4:10 AM PST - 17 comments

Canadian Citizenship Practice Test. Who were the United Empire Loyalists? Why is the British North America Act important in Canadian history? List four rights Canadian citizens have. Which province is the only officially bilingual province? On what date did Nunavut become a territory? What do you call the Queen’s representative in the provinces? And more.
posted by three blind mice at 2:12 AM PST - 44 comments

Being a huge fan of the late, great Mr Harrison, I was hunting around youtube and found this video of a sitar lesson... which led me to this stunning performance by Ravi Shankar on Dick Cavett's show. [Previously]
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:57 AM PST - 21 comments

An informative, gossipy and surprisingly engaging 6-page exploration of the life of Charles Dickens, including his up-and-down relationship with the U.S. press, his inexcusable behavior during his messy and very public separation from his wife, the "histrionic flair" of his performance career, and, of course, his works, including the one George Bernard Shaw called "a more seditious book than Das Kapital." Lots of interesting images, too.
posted by mediareport at 9:47 PM PST - 17 comments

Black hole mystery on Mars If a future earth ever needs a place to send convicts, the high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have found it a few nights back. (via crikey.com.au)
posted by mattoxic at 9:39 PM PST - 65 comments

Public libraries with Online Content: Residents of Missouri can get a free account at the Kansas City Public Library that will let them access digital databases including the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and downloadable audiobooks. Residents of the Empire State can get a digital library card at the New York Public Library to access a wealth of digital databases. (The rest of us can get a NYPL card for $100.) And the Boston Public Library will give digital access to most of the above, plus JSTOR and (sigh) the Early American Imprints collection of nearly everything printed in North America to 1820. Unfortunately you have to show up at a branch of the BPL and prove Massachusetts residence to get your card. Your turn--what other public libraries offer access to subscription online information databases?
posted by LarryC at 9:36 PM PST - 31 comments

A new wonder drug? Once used in a failed attempt to treat epilepsy, electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve now shows promise in treating severe depression. Billed as a Brain Pacemaker, it's making people happy. Or something: "Doctors began to suspect it held potential for treating severe depression when patients clung to the device, even when it wasn't helping their epilepsy."
posted by IronLizard at 9:02 PM PST - 48 comments

Since 1867, Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps have been used to assess fire insurance liability in United States cities. With their high level of detail and color-coding to indicate the materials used to construct the buildings, the maps have since become invaluable tools to historians, urban planners, preservationists, and genealogists. A few collections of cities and states have been digitized and made available online: Utah, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to name a few.
posted by marxchivist at 8:15 PM PST - 16 comments

Excerpts from and pictures of Ronald Reagan's diaries while president, with a brief intro from historian Douglas Brinkley.
posted by ibmcginty at 7:51 PM PST - 15 comments

A group of Mennonites at the University of Waterloo has come under fire for inviting a fundamentalist Iranian cleric to speak at a religious-studies conference. Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, who has openly supported human-rights violations in Iran, once lovingly declared: "If anyone insults the Islamic sanctity, Islam has permitted for his blood to be spilled, no court needed either." While Iranian-Canadians are up in arms, academic dean Jim Pankratz defends the invitation: "We really do believe it's important to talk to those who take opposing, even hostile, views." Persian bloggers see it quite differently.
posted by Menomena at 7:43 PM PST - 20 comments

The Global Terrorism Database is now available online. It includes information on more than 27,000 bombings, 13,000 assassinations, and 2,800 kidnappings. With 2D and 3D georeferences for some incidents. The interactive map isn't working for me though.
posted by tellurian at 6:29 PM PST - 18 comments

Bowie Vs Cher.
posted by sgt.serenity at 5:50 PM PST - 57 comments

The 41-year-old recognized and accepted his inclination when he was just 12 years old. It was then that he fell head over heels "into an emotionally and physically very complex and deep relationship, which lasted for years." His partner back then was a Hammond organ—he has now been in a steady relationship with a steam locomotive for several years. via
posted by cgc373 at 5:40 PM PST - 44 comments

Being the virile demigod I am, sometimes the average chastity belt isn't enough to keep me from having sex. Fortunately, the kindly metalworking folks @ Permanent Bondage have created a series of full body wire cages to help me contain my savage lusts. A couple more photos here. Oh yeah, some of these links may be perceived as NSFW.
posted by jonson at 5:32 PM PST - 41 comments

Was American Idol's Sanjaya a fraud? Graduate art student Bill Vendall claims that he created the American Idol character "Sanjaya" as an art project. He claims the character is "a symbol for the self referencing nature of progressive evolution." This is being debated around the internets.
posted by MythMaker at 5:27 PM PST - 47 comments

Facebook to open their API. Online networking site Facebook is adding third-party app support to their API. Adding a new app (which can include ads) broadcasts it to your contacts. Innovation, or recipe for disaster? But can MySpace even be beaten? And if Facebook can poach MySpace's users, do they really want them? For that matter, is MySpace even the juggernaut some claim? Anyone have any ideas for new Facebook app mashups?
posted by spiderwire at 3:59 PM PST - 44 comments

MyFreeImplants.com hooks up women who want breast implants with benefactors who want to help them pay for their breast implants.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:51 PM PST - 59 comments

Ohmygodimonfire and other Logan Whitehurst and the Junior Science Club fan videos. (post contains:1)fire 2)Mario 3)Wikipedia biography 4)music page 5)downloadable discography 6)cat robots 7)battling noodles)
posted by pantsrobot at 3:09 PM PST - 12 comments

For your lunchtime (or teatime, or bedtime) wooing pleasure: In which William and Conan are inadvertently embroiled in something much sillier than they will ever comprehend. [warning: WooTube]
posted by oneirodynia at 12:23 PM PST - 26 comments

Little Ritchie Petrie has something he really wants to tell us. You go girl.
posted by miss lynnster at 12:19 PM PST - 40 comments

$15 microwave -- this is why I'm hot. Via. $15 microwave -- this is why I'm hot (break it down now)
posted by parmanparman at 11:39 AM PST - 23 comments

Enlighted: This is a difficult piece to describe. Part bra, part sculpture, part social disturbance. As a vague description, we'll call it the 'nerve' bra, but it's really so much more.
posted by ozomatli at 11:19 AM PST - 43 comments

Requiem for a Bat Girl. Three years ago, writer Anne Ursu started a blog devoted to the Minnesota Twins. Pretty much immediately she was lauded as one of the best baseball bloggers. And then came the Lego reenactments. (Favorites: 1, 2, 3) And the Boyfriends. Yesterday, she ended the blog to spend more time with her young son. She will be missed.
posted by dw at 11:09 AM PST - 16 comments

Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena was born in October, 2006 to help fight the good fight against the overwhelming majority of noise in the media supporting useless alternative medicine systems, psychics preying upon the vulnerable, the erosion of science education in the classroom, xenophobia of advanced energy and food production methods, and generally anything that distracts attention and public funding from scientific advancement. Episodes feature such prominent MeFi discussion material as organic food myths, blood for oil, chiropractics, and SUVs. Links are to podcast transcripts. Full episode guide.
posted by arcticwoman at 10:27 AM PST - 38 comments

Gonna free fall out into nothin' YouTube has several videos of Joe Kittinger's skydive from a balloon at 102,800 feet. Earlier this year Colonel Kittinger described the jump at a meeting of the Athanasius Kircher Society (Named after this guy.) [via; more inside]
Previous post with more info.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:16 AM PST - 29 comments

Uncle Bobby dies at 82 If you were a kid in Toronto and surrounding area in the '70's, then you watched The Uncle Bobby Show every day at lunchtime, right before the Flintstones. Previously mentioned in these threads about kids' TV shows from the past.
posted by chococat at 10:14 AM PST - 20 comments

The Other Side - A funny short film by Mikhail Aldashin, one of the most talented Russian contemporary animation directors.
posted by vronsky at 10:08 AM PST - 10 comments

Sentencing has begun in the largest eco-terrorism sting to date. Is a recent string of arsons in Portland related?
posted by valentinepig at 9:59 AM PST - 221 comments

SUV sales are up. In spite of higher gas prices and concern about global warming, Americans still want bigger cars. It might not be enough to save the Hummer H2, though.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 9:01 AM PST - 131 comments

"Even LG Electronics Inc., maker of the handset Elmi uses, initially didn't believe her photos originated from its LG8100 phone when she asked the company to sponsor a recent gallery exhibit of her camera-phone art." (news, gallery works)
posted by mathowie at 8:31 AM PST - 34 comments

...Rembrandt's last self-portrait, for instance, shows an old man having a good laugh at the ways of the world, even as he is about to leave the stage. The Western world may be ageing, then, but, far from this amounting to a 'dying of the light', a case can be made for the very opposite, certainly where Bob Dylan's renaissance as an artist is concerned. Neither should age be confounded with a heavier tread. For while a perception and characterisation of the surreal nature of much of human life was a defining quality of Bob Dylan's first golden creative period in the 1960s, it's also a delightful characteristic of his artistic renaissance in the 'noughties' of the new millennium.

Bob Dylan and the ageing of the West
In other news, May 24th is International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day

Of course, he was 23 in 1965, the year when he recorded Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde, but, gosh darn it, he's still writing songs and touring and he still isn't dead yet..."
posted by y2karl at 8:05 AM PST - 38 comments

It's official. On May 9th, Bush issued NSPD 51, an "explicit embrace of what has been since 9/11 an implicit but fairly clear set of assumptions," i.e. George is the Decider and he has decided to strengthen the National Business Continuity Policy within the next 90 days.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 7:16 AM PST - 111 comments

"Bling Ballz" is a song by The Bassturd featuring MC Keef and Hermes. It is about the fine art of testicular enhancement through the application of "bling." [One-link YouTube Post / More songs on MySpace]
posted by beaucoupkevin at 6:38 AM PST - 14 comments

Medical Video Repository. Educational Videos for Medical Students and Doctors.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 5:14 AM PST - 14 comments

How To Deal With Negative People. "They are like human black holes which suddenly come out of nowhere and just suck the life out of you." Via The Presurfer.
posted by amyms at 12:41 AM PST - 131 comments

Because sometimes playing only two Mega Man games simultaneously with the same input just doesn't satisfy. Presenting Mega Man 3, 4, 5, and 6 - at the same ding-donged time. The music alone will drive you insane.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:29 PM PST - 15 comments

The Cossacks, a proud people with a long history, are famous nowadays for their dancing, whether of the mass spectacle variety, or the slightly lower-key celebration of actual Cossacks. They have some pretty famous music, too, often featuring balalaikas. (Behold, the real lyrics to "Tetris") But dancing and singing is not enough for some, apparently, who seek to refine Cossack martial arts.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 10:21 PM PST - 34 comments

A few days ago archaeologists discovered what is one of the most intact ancient Egyptian tombs ever found. If you would like to get in on the mummy fun from your own computer, there are several quaint things you may do on the internet; most satisfactorily, you can stick a hook up Seneb's nose and slice up his brain.
posted by frobozz at 10:10 PM PST - 18 comments

"If I could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album ... you could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want [and] pay $4 through PayPal." Former member of Cleveland's own Exotic Birds and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor flips his lid when he finds out his new album Year Zero is being sold in Australia for $34.99 ($29.10 US). Label responds: "It's because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out — you know, true fans." Then there's the RIAA accusing Reznor of intentionally leaking his own music. Album is available in its entirety on MySpace. The unique internet-based promotion of this album - what's being called an alternate reality game - has also generated quite a bit of buzz.
posted by phaedon at 9:37 PM PST - 73 comments

Conditions for Iraqi children affected by violence and displacement have reached a critical point, according to UNICEF (PDF). One of the worst problems is the lack of clean water: only an estimated 30 per cent have access to safe water that isn't contaminated.
posted by homunculus at 9:25 PM PST - 11 comments

A grand allegorical account of the past four decades of human history - or something, is of interest mostly to those of us over forty, but anybody can use the help of The Amazing Dostoevsky machine (new and improved!), to get through Crime and Punishment. Great literature not your thing? Try one woman's elusive search for a marketable, filthy domain name, or check how long you've been on this planet. I'm up to 20284, and counting ...

It's all part of the quirky (insane?) Bonkworld. There's bound to be something here to "feast your sense organs"
posted by woodblock100 at 9:06 PM PST - 5 comments

The Klein Four is a group of math students at the Northwestern University who delight in bringing you various lovely, well-sung A Capella songs infused with their very own and very nerdy flavour. They're not the newest of the web, having released their first CD in 2005, but witty lyrics and five-part harmonizing are definitely worth checking out. I did do a search for this and didn't find anything. Please don't kill me.
posted by Phire at 8:05 PM PST - 14 comments

DO NOT click the YouTube link contained in this FPP if you DO NOT want to see an ADVERTISEMENT. The link is to an ADVERTISEMENT. Not viral or whatever, just a plain, old-fashioned, straight-up ADVERTISEMENT. They want to sell you some sugary crap that might make you fat. But it stars Mr. T. In a TANK. And it's funny. But it's an ADVERTISEMENT. You have been warned. HERE IT IS.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:01 PM PST - 106 comments

Under the ole shade tree... Welcome to Jena, LA -- mix high school segregation, racism, nooses, fights, ineffective school administration, attempted-murder charges, shotguns, and a town in upheaval--a "racial powder keg". Much more here, including links to help.
posted by amberglow at 4:20 PM PST - 87 comments

Round-the-world travel guides from Perpetual Travel, Boots 'n' All and Travellers Lounge.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:22 PM PST - 10 comments

Does Twitter move a little too fast for you? Maybe Dawdlr is more your speed. The lovechild of PostSecret and the web-app-everyone-loves-to-hate, postcards sent in are scanned and posted twice a year. Next update? November 21st.
posted by Alt F4 at 1:01 PM PST - 20 comments

Those who remember the insane driving/smashing/killing game Carmageddon might enjoy the little-known but equally insane Carmageddon Comic. Others, less so.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 12:46 PM PST - 33 comments

Surprising findings in Pew study of US Muslims. The interweb is all atwitter over some of the findings of a Pew Research Center study of the attitudes of Muslim-Americans (the most comprehensive one done yet). While most of the findings should be welcomed (US Muslims are well off, appreciate being here, have non-Muslim friends, shun extremism, etc.), there is one troubling statistic: 6% of US Muslims - and 15% of US Muslims under 30 - believe that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "often or sometimes justified". Sounds bad, but what happens when you ask the same question of non-Muslim Americans? Turns out that 24% of all Americans agreed - four times the 6% of US Muslims who share that view. So are US Muslims more peaceful than their non-Muslim neighbors?
posted by laz-e-boy at 12:00 PM PST - 61 comments

According to this guy, you’re not ultimately morally responsible for choosing whether to snark or not to snark in response to this FPP. A discussion of the philosophical problems surrounding freewill from British Analytic philosopher Galen Strawson. (Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s throw in this unrelated review of Strawson’s latest work on consciousness, just for an extra splash of color.)
posted by saulgoodman at 11:30 AM PST - 115 comments

The UBC Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory has an online sex survey to take. If you've got an hour to spare, the Sex Research Team at the University of British Columbia needs YOU. Go to www.christofflab.ca/sexstudy to take an anonymous sex survey. VIA
posted by KokuRyu at 11:25 AM PST - 51 comments

Angry at CBS's canceling of Jericho, fans are sending nuts to CBS in an effort to get CBS to reverse their decision. At the time of this post, over four and a half tons of nuts have been sent. Why nuts? It refers to a term allegedly used in WWII by General A.C. McAuliffe at the Battle of Bastogne. The term was used as a plot device in the season finale. This is not the first time that fans of cancelled shows have used creative efforts to revive a canceled show with varying success. CBS's response so far has been tepid.
posted by shawnj at 10:13 AM PST - 87 comments

The Totally Awesome, Highly Ridiculous World of Scenario Paintball. [previously]
posted by brundlefly at 9:31 AM PST - 46 comments

The Hood Internet has a bunch of awesome remixes of hip-hop and indie rock(usually). I particularly enjoy R. Kelly vs. Broken Social Scene, Justice Vs. Destiny's Child, and Ghostface Killah vs. Spoon. I've been listening all morning.
posted by apathy0o0 at 9:02 AM PST - 10 comments

Passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers.
posted by chunking express at 8:32 AM PST - 47 comments

Summer of Love: 40 Years Later , a series of articles appearing this week in the San Francisco Chronicle, revisits the fabled, far-out, semi-spontaneous happening of 1967 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Videos and oral history interviews help tell the story of a utopian vision which created a pivot point for American social values, before going a bit rancid around the edges. For more consciousness expansion, see PBS' The American Experience episode on the same topic. Check out that summer's San Francisco Oracle. Oh, and the Diggers are still around.
posted by Miko at 7:24 AM PST - 59 comments

Spiritual Highs and Legal Blows - the power and peril of religious exemptions from drug prohibition
posted by daksya at 7:19 AM PST - 8 comments

No doubt an idol to crazy cat ladies everywhere, this woman has trained her cat[video] to use chopsticks. [via](mildly nsfw)
posted by kaseijin at 7:14 AM PST - 47 comments

Things you can do with empty Altoids tins. People are spending a lot of time coming up with uses for Altoids tins. You don't have to buy the mints. Pinhole camera. Photos taken with that camera. Key for practicing Morse Code. Another one. Religious shrines. Postage assistant. Miniature luggage and furniture. Quilted. Etched and plated. Ipod speakers. Ipod case. Previously mentioned on MeFi: Ipod battery pack; survival kit. Of course, you could stash your drugs in one - but maybe you shouldn't.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:10 AM PST - 31 comments

Chris Crawford puts up videos of some of his earlier talks and interviews. So far, there are four pieces but he says there will be more to come. These are the direct links to Quicktime movies that are also in his forum post which is the initial link. An Interview in 1982 about his nuclear power plant simulation Scram (52 MB), 1990 interview on Balance of Power (62 MB), half-hour interview with 30 seconds of Crawford about Excalibur (331 MB), lecture at the 1990 Computer Game Developers' Conference entitled "The Mystique of the Loop" (657 MB).
posted by Glow Bucket at 7:04 AM PST - 13 comments

As the smoking ban in England looms ever closer, some are considering its possible unintended consequences. Who will be the unintended winners? Wine merchants, chefs, online bingo sites, paparazzi, and people who make outdoor heaters. [Previously]
posted by chuckdarwin at 6:37 AM PST - 74 comments

Thinking about getting away from it all? Bouvetøya (Bouvet Island) is located at 54°26′S, 3°24′E in the South Atlantic. It is the most remote island in the world. Covered with ice, it has no ports or harbors, no arable land, it is uninhabited, and fair weather is extremely rare. Although a territory of Norway, you can register a patent in Bouvetøya via WIPO (country code BV) or (someday) a URL: Bouvetøya has the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) ".bv" (unfortunately not currently in use). Ham Radio operators visited visited this vacation paradise in 1990 and made over made almost 50,000 QSOs (morse code conversations). Ready to book your trip? A Google Search returns 1,180,00 results for Bouvet Island travel. (previously)
posted by three blind mice at 6:25 AM PST - 17 comments

65 years ago in May 1942, Sydney was doing what it does best: partying. The clubs and brothels of Kings Cross (site plays short burst of swing music, but may help set the scene) offered plenty of choice to US and Australian service men on leave in Australia's largest city. The party came to a shattering halt when three Japanese midget submarines crept into the harbour, past eight electronic indicator loops, past six patrolling Royal Australian Navy ships, and past an anti-submarine net stretched across the inner harbour entrance and … full history here. Recently one of the submarines has been found, virtually intact.
posted by mattoxic at 5:29 AM PST - 14 comments

Google turning to the dark side? From the article: In short, Google and Dell have teamed up to install some software on Dell computers that borders on being spyware. I say spyware because it’s hard to figure out what it is and is even harder to remove. It also breaks all kinds of OpenDNS functionality. At the end, I’ll tell you what we’re doing about it.
posted by psmealey at 4:41 AM PST - 103 comments

Read classic punk 'zines, without the inky fingers! Too young to have read the first issue of Flipside? Need confirmation that Maximum Rock 'N' Roll was just as boring (does/did anyone actually read those MRR Scene Reports?) and elitist back then as it is now? Do you find it hard to believe that Soul Asylum used to be credible enough to be interviewed by Suburban Voice? Or maybe you just want to marvel/feel-sad-for the obviously painstaking effort someone went through to scan every single page of these 'zines (including HeartattaCk) into PDFs? Well here 'ya go.
posted by melorama at 3:35 AM PST - 25 comments

Sex And Your Daughter / Sex And Your Son. For those who are too afraid to talk their children about sex. (mp3's)
posted by bigmusic at 12:45 AM PST - 17 comments

Terrifyingly awesome giant robotic beetle. Sadly, only a sculpture... for now...
posted by jonson at 9:54 PM PST - 25 comments

No denying it now... So this guy bought an answering machine in 1985. And kept all the tapes. Now they're a documentary. (clip 1,clip 2, via & interview)
posted by imperium at 8:40 PM PST - 19 comments

Business POV It is a forum for state-of-the-art business journalism using an innovative format: online video. Viewers can watch new, completely original, locally produced video profiles of companies, people and products that fall into our three main interest areas: innovation, entrepreneurship and the creative culture (advertising, graphic design, architecture, the arts). New content is posted Monday-Friday. Check out the archives section (Jason Fried, from 37 Signals is interviewed). Enjoy!
posted by zerobyproxy at 7:12 PM PST - 11 comments

My Million Dollar Ideas "Ever since I thought up of the basic idea of the World Wide Web in 1990 and didn't write it down, I thought I should start documenting these more." Jon Konrath takes notes on certain of his harebrained ideas. Examples to date: the pneumatic-tube-food-delivery theme restaurant 'Tubes,' America's next hit gameshow 'Heads or Tails,' and several ideas that combine the concepts of American status-seeking image-consciousness, SUVs, car conversion kits, and hybrids.
posted by mwhybark at 6:55 PM PST - 37 comments

The Emos are coming! The Utah ABC affiliate has the skinny on the newest thing that's killing today's children. Emo. (No, not THAT Emo.)
posted by nevercalm at 3:50 PM PST - 136 comments

Time to vacuum the cat. (YouTube, single link, via).
posted by scalefree at 3:41 PM PST - 62 comments

FanLib's mission is "to bring fan fiction out of the shadows and into the limelight." But mostly FanLib is just a multi-fandom fanfiction archive seeking to make money off of the fans through ad space. Not all fans are happy about this. Does this matter? Henry Jenkins, Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program thinks so.
posted by FunkyHelix at 3:27 PM PST - 58 comments

Meet Kevin Ham, the man who owns the Internet
posted by MetaMonkey at 2:14 PM PST - 53 comments

The Kaiten Memorial Museum on Otsushima Island, on the site of the original kaiten base. WWII Japanese suicide tactics included planes, boats, and suicide submarines. The submarine discovered recently near Sydney harbor was not such a craft, yet the pilots took their own lives rather than lead their pursuers to the I-class mother submarines nearby.
posted by acro at 2:07 PM PST - 10 comments

Interview with Ze Frank on creativity Ze Frank discusses some techniques he learned himself to harness his creativity. Apart from his quite creative daily online video, which is now defunct, he's apparently also an adjunct professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Parsons School of Design, and SUNY Purchase.
posted by jouke at 1:50 PM PST - 18 comments

Here's a set of some great balloon popping photography from the Maker Faire this past weekend. My favorites: 1, 2, 3
posted by soplerfo at 1:05 PM PST - 19 comments

Did you know you can save the world by eating my favorite lunch? Muffleuppa globba dupp!
posted by valentinepig at 12:12 PM PST - 78 comments

"He looks like a Bob." True? Apparently so. Researchers at Miami University have shown quantitatively that certain names are associated with certain facial features. Here's their press release; an article on their research will be published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. (Of further interest: the bouba/kiki effect)
posted by Melinika at 11:37 AM PST - 81 comments

Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program. That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist messages, ... from their About US page: Alhurra is operated by non-profit corporation “The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc.” (MBN). MBN is financed by the American people through the U.S Congress. US Govt. Accountability Office abstract about other MBN problems here.
posted by amberglow at 11:21 AM PST - 44 comments

Andy Fraser, the man who wrote and played on 'All Right Now,' one of the great swaggering rock songs, talks about his music, sexuality and living with AIDS in this exhaustive interview
posted by jonmc at 10:44 AM PST - 18 comments

Do you like to read spoilers? If so, then you might be interested in one of these t-shirts.
posted by bove at 10:37 AM PST - 72 comments

Slobodan Milosevic has died. Again. I'm sure everyone in the vampire community will miss him - whatever your personal feelings about him, there's no denying his contributions to bloodsucking. Truly a Yugoslavian icon.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:28 AM PST - 49 comments

Animal Face Off! A herd of buffalo battle a pride of lions and two crocodiles. Like "The Warriors" at a watering hole.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:57 AM PST - 45 comments

What did you do this weekend? I played Onslaught a mildly addictive, protect your base using upgradeable towers, flash game. Basic manual, extra detail FAQ and unlimited^* money sandbox version.
posted by Mitheral at 9:36 AM PST - 12 comments

Endless Zombie Rampage [flash] [coda]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:20 AM PST - 25 comments

On May 22, 1969, the Babies of Biafra launched their first attack against Nigeria. The Babies were a fleet of 5 civilian single-engine SAAB aircraft outfitted with unguided rocket launchers. They were going up against an air force composed of MIGs and Ilyushin bombers, flown by English, South African and Egyptian mercenaries. Their leader was Carl Gustaf von Rosen, a Swede who was Herman Goering’s nephew-in-law. (More inside)
posted by forrest at 8:47 AM PST - 17 comments

Exploring the world of Japanese whisky. [via mefi projects]
posted by chunking express at 8:31 AM PST - 26 comments

Sorley MacLean Probably best known for Hallaig, MacLean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain) was one of the finest poets of the twentieth century and has been credited with a renaissance in the literature of his native Scots Gaelic. The site has information about his life, critical writings and poetry, and some audio and video of the great man reading and talking about his work.
posted by Abiezer at 8:26 AM PST - 4 comments

"KNOCKING opens the door on Jehovah's Witnesses. They are moral conservatives who stay out of politics and the Culture War, but they won a record number of court cases expanding freedom for everyone. They refuse blood transfusions on religious grounds, but they embrace the science behind bloodless surgery. In Nazi Germany, they could fight for Hitler or go to the concentration camps. They chose the camps." View Trailer for KNOCKING, a surprisingly well-reviewed documentary about Jehovah's Witnesses, which airs tonight in most cities on PBS's Independant Lens. ..Filmmaker Q&A
posted by thisisdrew at 6:39 AM PST - 62 comments

Vancouver police posed as journalists to lure out and arrest the activist who threatened to bring protest of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics to the doorsteps of Olympic officials - and it isn't the first time police in BC have impersonated the media to make an arrest. The Canadian Association of Journalists is not amused, but a constable speaking for the VPD "doubts the outrage from the person on the street over the issue would be the same as it has been from the journalistic community". (Previously)
posted by blackberet at 6:37 AM PST - 46 comments

The invasion has begun. Millions of big, ugly, red-eyed, noisy bugs are beginning an invasion of the Midwestern U.S. today. It won't be pretty. And it's not the first time. Remain calm - the invasion may not be as big a deal as predicted.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:59 AM PST - 51 comments

My colleagues and I were witnessing the result of low admission standards. Were we expecting too much of young people who scored poorly on the SAT, who were rarely challenged to excel in high school, who were not motivated to take advantage of opportunities to learn, who could not imagine where a sound education could take them?
posted by landis at 4:44 AM PST - 132 comments

Free to Be... You and Me
posted by thirteenkiller at 4:31 AM PST - 56 comments

Guitarweek is quite easily one of the best, if not the best, guitar education websites on the web. Check out the Chord worksheets. The load of free lessons, plus some members-only flash lessons. It's a real labor of love by a pretty interesting guy, who like a lot of people who work more for a passion than money, appears to have trouble making ends meet on it. Membership is amazingly cheap to boot.
posted by bluevelvetelvis at 3:14 AM PST - 9 comments

A convention centre you say? Gosh, I wonder what sort of convention might want to turn up to a building like this?
posted by NinjaTadpole at 2:36 AM PST - 21 comments

UFO-filter: Odd spine-y and asymmetrical craft spotted over Lake Tahoe, then two days later over Capitola, California.
posted by tomharpel at 11:09 PM PST - 96 comments

Uncle Chuck had his eye removed (graphic)
posted by puke & cry at 10:32 PM PST - 41 comments

10 Animals That May Go Extinct in the Next 10 Years.
posted by homunculus at 10:21 PM PST - 41 comments

Former members of Luna, Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, make lovely videos together. Dean also fronted Galaxie 500 and Britta was the singing voice of 80's cartoon character, Jem.
posted by vronsky at 7:17 PM PST - 38 comments

Are You Living In A Computer Simulation? The Simulation Argument is a regularly-updated site, organized by Nick Bostrom, examining the hypothesis that we are currently living in an "ancestor simulation" run by a future "post-human" society.
posted by amyms at 3:53 PM PST - 163 comments

The RIAA wants the radio performance royalties exemption repealed. For decades, radio stations have gotten a free pass for spins of records due to the fact such play sells records. While decreasing in importance, and taking note of the myriad payola scandals in the past, terrestrial radio is still the single largest factor in promotions for the record industry and one of the few remaining things in the industry that still seems to work.
posted by Captaintripps at 3:16 PM PST - 58 comments

The Supreme Court issued its opinion Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly [pdf] today. Although superficially an antitrust case, the Court examined the standard of review under 12(b)(6) and concluded that the old "no set of facts" standard should be officially retired.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 3:15 PM PST - 33 comments

Helix — a 1D skyscraper with a single corridor. The principle is a cylindrical building with a helical shape for the floor. The slope of the floor is 1.5% (it rises by 1.5 cm every meter), thus hardly noticeable. The height of each ’storey’ is 3 meters, so that when you walk 200 meters along the corridor, you have walked a full circle, but you end up one ’storey’ above or below your starting point.
posted by psmealey at 2:30 PM PST - 50 comments

Chinese crime stories, staged, and photographed. (NSFW)
posted by Dave Faris at 2:15 PM PST - 16 comments

Lolcat Buildr.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:57 PM PST - 83 comments

The US pays Pakistan $1 billion a year to fight al Qaeda, but Pakistan doesn't do much fighting. Iraq is a "a big moneymaker" for al Qaeda, and al Qaeda's leadership may be stronger than ever.
[more War on Terror inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 12:02 PM PST - 76 comments

The current edition of Words Without Borders features a striking array of current and historical writing by prisoners held in such countries as Albania, Syria, Finland, Spain, and Argentina. previously on mefi
posted by Rumple at 10:32 AM PST - 5 comments

Finalists in the 4th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest.
posted by nickyskye at 9:53 AM PST - 26 comments

A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn't Its Copyright? (NYT) In this op-ed, novelist Mark Helprin argues that copyrights should be extended indefinitely. On his blog, Lawrence Lessig suggests using a wiki page to craft a collective rebuttal. More discussion here and here.
posted by Prospero at 9:29 AM PST - 103 comments

"Not everybody's a critic." Richard Schickel bitchslaps the blogosphere (in response to this) and not for the first time. The blogosphere slaps back. (via)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:57 AM PST - 47 comments

Death by Veganism. "I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.

Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run."
posted by four panels at 8:34 AM PST - 309 comments

Joe Is Japanese So far all there is are some Myspace profiles and a nifty teaser but I'll be darned if this doesn't look five shades of awesome. Desperate for more information? DeviantArt account of one of the animators.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:04 AM PST - 15 comments

Van Halen's Eruption on Violin | Elton John's Rocket Man on Banjo | Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody for solo classical guitar | Foggy Mountain Breakdown arranged for electric slap bass | Toto's Africa for Acoustic Guitar | The Postal Service's Such Great Heights for Voice
posted by jonson at 7:10 AM PST - 51 comments

Sharpest manmade object This site _via has a huge collection of wonderful images, some CG, some actual. Black hole merger. Solid state microrefrigerator. Helium nanodroplets used to chill Nitrogen Oxide. Playing a nanoguitar.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:02 AM PST - 29 comments

The U.S. Civil War in four minutes. Simple yet enlightening animation showing the shifting battle lines of the war. (This is a one-link YouTube post. Thank you.)
posted by zardoz at 2:39 AM PST - 81 comments

It's possibly the most popular (est. 300M participants) individual sport in the world. The 2007 World Championships starts today in Zagreb. (Sports nerds- there's also a scientific conference affiliated with the tournament.) Ma Lin and Wang Liqin and Wang Hao of China are ranked #1 #2 and #4, but #3 Timo Boll of Germany beat all three in a row to win the 2005 World Cup. How do you get to be as good as Timo? Start young, work on fundamentals, and persevere.
posted by MtDewd at 1:25 AM PST - 17 comments

How I Failed the Turing Test.
posted by Citizen Premier at 12:10 AM PST - 53 comments

The Cutty Sark burns. Nineteenth century tea clipper, preserved as a museum-ship in Greenwich since the fifties, is currently ablaze.
posted by hydatius at 10:58 PM PST - 47 comments

Homo sapiens enjoys carving big pictures of himself in the ground. Exhibit A: The Wilmington Long Man, a geoglyph associated with a Morris dancing squad, and curiously similar to an Andean carving at the Tiwanuku site. Exhibit B: The rude giant of Cerne Abbas, an impressively well-endowed figure of similarly unknown origin. (aerial photo) Over in Chile, they've got El gigante de Atacama. Oh, and there's also a 3,000 year old white horse. The hill on which it was carved was featured in the video for Kate Bush's Cloudbusting (obligatory Kate Bush/Donald Sutherland Youtube goodness).
posted by greatgefilte at 9:46 PM PST - 23 comments

Sure, you probably know in France that McDonald’s serves the Royale with cheese (thanks to the famous scene in Pulp Fiction) but did you know that McDonald’s all around the world offer a number of different items catering to their cultures? Ok, you might’ve known. But you might not know exactly what they serve. Here are some of your McDonald’s options in countries all over the world.
posted by ColdChef at 8:01 PM PST - 101 comments

Chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken? Chicken chicken chicken chicken—chicken chicken chicken-chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken?! (Chicken chicken.)
posted by grouse at 1:57 PM PST - 103 comments

Perfect Scrambled Eggs | Really Fresh Venison | Pork Chops | Broccoli Soup | Gordon Ramsey Hates Liars
posted by sluglicker at 1:12 PM PST - 92 comments

WagnerFilter: Tomorrow, Monday May 21st, CBC 2 broadcasts the Canadian Opera Company's performance of The Ring in its entirety, starting at 8 a.m (in all time zones) and running until midnight. Grand opera at its grandest; tune in for one of Western music's greatest achievements.
posted by jokeefe at 11:09 AM PST - 33 comments

Mass Grave Ghosts [NY Times BugMeNot]
posted by trinarian at 10:44 AM PST - 30 comments

The comic-opera Huey Long: Journalist, teacher, legal advisor to the abortive American-Indian-run state of Sequoyah, ‘Alfalfa Bill’ Murray (wiki) ran Dust Bowl Oklahoma with an iron fist - calling out the National Guard forty-seven times in four years and setting off a three-day armed standoff with the state of Texas. In 1932, his “Bread, Butter, Bacon, and Beans” Presidential platform was so badly eclipsed by The New Deal, his delegates officially threw their votes to a joke candidate (balloting). Unlike his fellow Depression-era populists, Murray continued as a public figure post-war, campaigning for worker’s rights, the United Nations, segregation, exporting the Jews to Madagascar, and winning the Cold War by putting ethnic Russians in internment camps. Seventy-five years on, he was honored by the Oklahoma legislature for the only bit that actually mattered, aretheyrite?
posted by ormondsacker at 9:51 AM PST - 7 comments

Christian Domestic Discipline: "[W]hen you cook a steak, and use high heat to seer the top, and then try to eat it you will find the steak cold and unsatisfying, just like a woman might feel after a very brief but hard spanking, yes she cried but only out of pain and learned only pain from the spanking. But slowly warming her bottom up, you will be able to spank her longer." Be sure not to miss the Crotchless Pantaloons!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:29 AM PST - 109 comments

Learn Spanish with podcasts from SpanishSense.
posted by klue at 6:54 AM PST - 14 comments

How to improve your voice and speech. Also, other helpful tips to help make life easier, such as how to tell if someone's lying to you, how to make people like you, how to handle yourself in a stupid argument and most critically, how to control your ejaculation pic NSFW.
posted by psmealey at 5:00 AM PST - 58 comments

Putins spy war on the West White House intelligence advisers believe no other country is as aggressive as Russia in trying to obtain US secrets, with the possible exception of China. In particular the SVR, as the former KGB’s foreign intelligence arm is now known, is using a network of undercover agents in America to gather classified information about sensitive technologies, including military projects under development and high-tech research.
posted by jouke at 4:54 AM PST - 30 comments

Chicago based designer & music fan J Tyler took it upon himself to craft a music video for The Arcade Fire song "My Body Is A Cage" using clips from the classic Sergio Leone film Once Upon A Time in the West. The clips evoke the elegaic, reflectively somber beauty in the song remarkably well - so well that the video reached the attention of someone in the Arcade Fire's camp, who emailed Tyler and requested his permission to post his work on their official site. If you have the bandwidth, I highly recommend this direct download link to a high-res quicktime version, it's much, much better than streaming flash.
posted by jonson at 12:25 AM PST - 72 comments

Proof that artistic inspiration can come from any walk of life, Anthony White has turned his former life as a stockbroker into inspiration for a series of Stock Code paintings. Also available - paintings depicting different values of British, American, Australian, and Euro currency.[via ArtNews Blog]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:16 PM PST - 28 comments

TV Shows | Cartoons | Anime | Movies | Music Videos | Sports
posted by carsonb at 9:14 PM PST - 48 comments

Y'know, I'm Hungry Like the Wolfyoutube. And I don't mean Duran Duran. I mean, Bruce Campbell and Old Spice. Behind the scenesyoutube of the commercial. Earlier Old Spice commercial about Experienceyoutube. Bruce's acting (or over the top machismo) has grown on me over the last couple of years, and the commercials hit it pretty well. If you want a little more, you might want to read If Chins Could Kill. Turns out, Bruce is considered one of the best Reverse Actors (I couldn't find any video of this.) Hail to the King, baby!youtube
posted by filmgeek at 9:00 PM PST - 31 comments

A Fair(y) Use Tale ^{Single link YouTube}
posted by IronLizard at 8:13 PM PST - 15 comments

A very old Granada documentary on Wigan Casino.
posted by sgt.serenity at 7:03 PM PST - 12 comments

Scandalfilter: Former South Dakota legislator Ted Klaudt is arrested for raping his own foster children, along with a legislative page.
posted by bardic at 6:54 PM PST - 116 comments

Too much Rambo? Looks a little different than the other movies. Will this level of violence make the theaters?
posted by bigcheesegump at 4:45 PM PST - 112 comments

Sheik Mohamed, ruler of Dubai, has pledged to donate $10 billion to set up an organization devoted to improving human development in the Middle East. Recognizing that the Middle East lags behind in areas of human development, particularly education, the visionary ruler of Dubai, and avid horse breeder, who has transformed the Persian Gulf port into the financial center for the Middle East and South Asia, has announced one of the largest charitable gifts in history to improve education and human development in the region.
posted by Azaadistani at 4:43 PM PST - 32 comments

Mars as art and the sun as art.
posted by vronsky at 3:28 PM PST - 20 comments

Top-hole! It's the First International Talk Like A Pilot Day!
posted by LinusMines at 3:23 PM PST - 42 comments

Kyrgyz Music.
posted by hama7 at 3:16 PM PST - 18 comments

From the Big Bang to Iraq: Jorn Barger's logarithmic timeline of the universe [Previous RobotWisdomFilter: 1, 2, 3, 4].
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:43 PM PST - 19 comments

NewsFilter: Lloyd Alexander (2) has died two weeks after his wife. Don't take his children's fantasy books seriously? Does it help that the American author introduced thousands of kids to Welsh mythology through The Chronicles of Prydain (Including The Black Cauldron [movie]), wrote over 40 novels (many of which are not fantasy nor children's books, such as his first book, "Let the Credit Go"), joined the army in WWII to become a better writer, and translated Nausea? His last book, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio, will be released in August.
posted by OrangeDrink at 1:43 PM PST - 56 comments

Dante's The Divine Comedy (trailer/text) has inspired an opera by the Vatican's music administrator, the choirmaster of St John Lateran, Monsignor Marco Frisina. The premiere is scheduled for fall of 2007. Although traditional orchestral music predominates, Monsignor Frisina says that he is using punk, rock and jazz to represent the Devil because its "violent and rebellious tones help create a hellish atmosphere" (The Clash, Straight To Hell YouTube).
posted by sluglicker at 1:00 PM PST - 8 comments

AmazingFilter: foolish fun inventions, lovey dovey, trompe l'oeil and anamorphosis art by Eduador Relero, Bev Doolittle(?), on buildings, kirigami, photographs [disturbing] and irony.
posted by nickyskye at 12:56 PM PST - 12 comments

China’s veteran voices of reform by Li Datong (李大同). Li is the former editor of Freezing Point, an influential Chinese weekly supplement to the China Youth Daily. His frequent clashes with his superiors and bold publishing stance there led to his sacking and the temporary closure of the magazine, but he now has a regular column in English at openDemocracy. Here, Li looks at how Party elders are using the pages of the journal 炎黄春秋 (Yanhuang Chunqiu "Chinese Chronicles") to promote a reform agenda quite daring in the Chinese context, making reformists hopeful about the upcoming Seventeenth National Congress of the CCP.
posted by Abiezer at 12:22 PM PST - 3 comments

"The old, mean man" vs. "The mean old man." Here's an aspect of English (and other languages) I've never thought of before. If you're using a string of adjectives, there's a natural order for them to appear in: "opinion :: size :: age :: shape :: color :: origin :: material :: purpose". (Although I find "old, mean," due to it's strange order, sort of striking.) [more info: 1, 2, 3]
posted by grumblebee at 11:58 AM PST - 91 comments

Dr. John K. Lattimer died earlier this week. &nCThe fact that he was the former chairman of the urology department at Columbia University is the least interesting fact about him. He was an expert in ballstics and became the first private citizen granted access to Kennedy's autopsy photos (he made this drawing to explain the path of the bullet). He treated survivors of the Hindenburg explosion and Nazi defendants at Nuremberg. He was also a collector of some very odd items: a pair of Eva Braun's earrings, the cyanide ampule that Hermann Goring used to commit suicide [.pdf], the key to Lincoln's presidental box at Ford's Theater. Oh, and he bought Napoleon's penis in 1977 for $3000. Some think it should finally be allowed to rest in peace.
posted by scblackman at 11:41 AM PST - 9 comments

Environmentalism, globalization and national economies, 1980-2000 [Schofer and Granados in Social Forces, Dec 06] Triple-punch! (1) "We find no impact of environmentalism on foreign investment and trade. Firms and investment do not appear to be fleeing countries with strong environmental standards." (2) "While it is common to assume that environmentalism targets industry, the agricultural sector may be [negatively] affected more significantly." (2) "[S]ociologists influenced by world-system theory [posit that] the relationship between environmentalism and growth could be spurious: environmentalism does not cause growth, but rather coincides with the economic success of core nations. However, broader results do not support this."
posted by Firas at 11:36 AM PST - 6 comments

Here are a few simple but challenging games: Ladybug, Boomshine, & Tama
posted by jake3456 at 11:01 AM PST - 20 comments

Pedicabs are a common sight all over. In the pedicab business, there can be success, personal enlightment, and failure. Pedicabs come in countless styles. This style is sleek and modern, and this man is trying to bring them to Detroit (warning, only the sparse main page is finished). Here is the mandatory YouTube video.
posted by The Deej at 9:05 AM PST - 13 comments

Help pick Hillary Clinton's campaign theme song. Previous presidential theme music discussion here.
posted by box at 8:51 AM PST - 65 comments

Six Billion Others. [flash] Everyone has a story.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:50 AM PST - 16 comments

The slur "white trash" has been used longer than you may think. ^
posted by moonbird at 8:43 AM PST - 63 comments

Excellent 8,000 word essay on waste disposal in the endlessly superlative LRB. Andrew O'Hagen goes bin-raiding with Freegans, talks up Zero Waste, rides with the (contraversial) Harrow binmen, meets the Community Recycling Network, tramps over the Calvert Landfill Site and pays a visit to the London Waste EcoPark Recycling and Energy Centre aka the Edmonton Incinerator. Doesn’t meet any mafia though. 8,000 words and none wasted.
posted by criticalbill at 7:02 AM PST - 10 comments

DRUMMERWORLD is your one-stop destination for great photos, videos, mp3s and capsule bios for hundreds of drummers from all styles of popular music. Learn more about the rhythmists who've been the driving percussive force behind your favorite music. Baby Dodds, Al Jackson, Jabo Starks, Clyde Stubblefield, Mitch Mitchell, Ginger Baker, John Bonham, Sly Dunbar, Zigaboo Modeliste and many, many, many more.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:55 AM PST - 37 comments

Tape Findings. Every week RJ from Sweet Thunder posts excerpts from one of a kind cassette tape recordings he finds at garage sales. Found due to Week 15 [better recording]. Other greats: Week 49, Week 73, Week 86. Dog damn.
posted by 6am at 4:46 AM PST - 13 comments

How to be an Alaskan fisherman is a fantastic photoessay by Corey Arnold targeted to any armchair crab hunters who've watched a few episodes of Deadliest Catch, about how to go from being a teenager in California to working one of America's most tortuous & lethal jobs.Via
posted by jonson at 11:57 PM PST - 23 comments

Magazine fetish? Like flipping thru mags when you're bored? Tidningar lets you look thru a bunch of Swedish mags, page by page, ads and all. Neat if you're into design. (The link on the left under each mag is full screen--on the right is regular.)
posted by dobbs at 10:03 PM PST - 12 comments

John Cage gives a little concert on a 1960's gameshow called "I've Got a Secret." (Flashvid)
posted by converge at 9:07 PM PST - 33 comments

Translations [previously]. Pronunciation guide. The movie. The engine. A poster. Spellchecked. And a weird link to Hamlet.
posted by YamwotIam at 9:07 PM PST - 8 comments

The only rat-free zones in the world are the Arctic, the Antarctic, some especially isolated islands, and the province of Alberta in Canada . Alberta is unusual in that rat infestation was prevented by deliberate government action. The first rat did not reach Alberta until 1950, and in 1951 the province launched an extremely aggressive rat-control program that included shooting and poisoning rats, and bulldozing, burning down, and blowing up rat-infested buildings. By 1960 the number of rat infestations in Alberta had dropped below 200 per year and has remained low ever since. We clubbed them with brooms and 2x4s, got most of them that way
posted by KokuRyu at 5:59 PM PST - 54 comments

The 2007 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt is concluded. Here is this year's hilarious and often cryptic list of items. [pdf!] [Official Scav Hunt Page] [U. Chicago News.] [Wikipedia.]
posted by kosem at 1:43 PM PST - 24 comments

Joff Summerfield is riding his penny farthing around the world. Check his progress in his online diary.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:39 PM PST - 14 comments

FridayFlashFun: Cat with Bow Golf. Ridiculous, gravity-defying fun for your Friday afternoon.
posted by knave at 1:21 PM PST - 49 comments

Snackfood reaches it's, um, peak(s)...
posted by jonmc at 1:05 PM PST - 73 comments

Art for your browser. (previously)
posted by mattbucher at 12:58 PM PST - 6 comments

"IdeaFarm (tm) Associates is an economic association for unselfish people. Its mission is to promote unselfish living by making life better for unselfish people. [...] The organizer is an economist and software developer. He is completing work on a new computer operating system that could destroy the Microsoft monopoly, create a new Internet safe enough for children and the elderly, and provide Associates with a new way to find work and sell products and services."
posted by Avenger at 12:44 PM PST - 30 comments

The non-profit group, Public.resource.org, are challenging the Smithsonian Institution by downloading all 6,288 (mostly) public domain photographs from the very restrictive Smithsonian Images site and reposting them to Flickr. [more: here, here] {via Ramage}
posted by peacay at 12:28 PM PST - 25 comments

The Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles has been building a remarkable digital library of documents and articles related to the history of sport and athletic competition. Among the documents currently available are the Official Olympic Reports from all modern Olympic Games through 2002 and back issues from the Journal of Sport History (1974-2002), Baseball Magazine (1909-1918), and the journal Outing (1883-1903), among others. Use the search function to search across all articles.
posted by arco at 11:07 AM PST - 2 comments

Bombs exploded outside the Mecca Masjid today as people were offering their Friday Prayers. Out of the more than 8,000 worshippers present, a total of 12 have been reported dead, and 50 injured. Also, this comes in the wake of the violence that has been taking place in the State of Punjab.
posted by hadjiboy at 10:45 AM PST - 34 comments

The secret Iraq documents my 8-year-old found. With a couple of keystrokes, you too can read the hidden history of the Coalition Provisional Authority, America's late, unlamented occupation government in Iraq.
posted by nevercalm at 10:31 AM PST - 50 comments

Foo! Notary sojac! 1506 nix nix!
posted by JHarris at 10:28 AM PST - 20 comments

I Chat, Therefore I Am... Outputs from chatterbots A.L.I.C.E. and Jabberwacky are piped back in forth and have a conversation that goes from nonsensical one line to surreal the next. [via Digg and BB]
posted by daHIFI at 10:20 AM PST - 40 comments

Do Women and Men Earn Equal Pay in 2007? Are women truly earning 77 cents for every dollar that men earn in the same jobs, as some activists, including restaurant owners in Oregon, claim? Or are women earning 23 cents less on the dollar based on total income because men traditionally spend more time on the workplace during their lives, relocate more often for jobs and accept dangerous jobs that pay more? That's one man's take on it.
posted by CameraObscura at 10:10 AM PST - 96 comments

The wait is ogre. Just a reminder from Tim and Eric. Share the memories.
posted by nola at 10:09 AM PST - 26 comments

CreatePaintings: "Take a quick personality test to produce your very own work of art. No artistic experience is required."
posted by Orb at 9:28 AM PST - 39 comments

Russia's attack on independent voices. In 2005, Alexandra Poolos interviewed Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya. Two years later, Politkovskaya is one of fourteen journalists murdered since Vladimir Putin came to power, and Frontline sent Poolos to Russia to investigate the Kremlin's crackdown on independent voices. She reports on voices struggling to survive -- the last independent newspaper, a persecuted Chechen activist -- amidst a booming economy and resurgent authoritarianism.
posted by Coherence Panda at 8:39 AM PST - 5 comments

Book Excerpt: The Assault on Reason Time Magazine publishes an excerpt to further whet appetites. Releases on the 22nd.
posted by allkindsoftime at 8:01 AM PST - 91 comments

It's not the first I've seen, but it might be the nicest. Puget Systems put together a nifty looking mineral-oil submerged computer and do some performance testing. In addition to the requisite YouTube video, there's also a conversation on their forum. The overclockers talk about it as well. [previous submerged mod thread]
posted by Fezboy! at 7:41 AM PST - 25 comments

Sniff Sniff Sniff. The scourge of medieval Europe and New York City subways lends a helping nose in the fight against land mines.
posted by Stynxno at 7:29 AM PST - 11 comments

This guy just has to win La Nouvelle Star, France's version of Pop Idol.
posted by Lezzles at 6:55 AM PST - 35 comments

Written Chinese may be older than we thought. Chinese archaeologists think that anicent cliff wall carvings may may take the history of Chinese characters back to 7,000 to 8,000 years ago.
posted by Karmakaze at 6:16 AM PST - 32 comments

How Could He? After the (who else but) Murdoch owned Sydney telegraph splashed the headline “How Could She” in response to the mother’s abandonment of her new born baby outside a hospital in depressed outer Melbourne suburb of Dandenong, Australia’s Prime Minister Howard leaped to the paper's defence saying that’s how most Australian’s would feel- Is it really how most of us would feel? Or is it just “dog whistle politics” from this past master, or a bad idea to criticise the ‘Tele’ in an election year?
posted by mattoxic at 5:44 AM PST - 34 comments

Throat singing from Tuva's Huun Huur Tu and Kongar-ol Ondar. [all youtube]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:38 AM PST - 26 comments

The Evolution of Modern Speech balloons (in painting and caricature). One small part of Andy's Early Comics Archive.
posted by anastasiav at 5:25 AM PST - 10 comments

Stories of Bram Stoker to enjoy on the 110^th anniversary of the publication of Dracula.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:44 AM PST - 3 comments

Bolt ya nugget. A send up of ned culture in Glasgow. [Single youtube link alert]
posted by ClanvidHorse at 3:37 AM PST - 39 comments

Yipee ti-yi - zap! The original Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry, defends his Radio Ranch (Autry was a radio star at the time) from gunslingers and Indians evil scientists, and robots from an underground civilization, in a 1935 twelve-chapter movie serial. It's Autry's first movie role (playing a singing cowboy named Gene Autry), and the first talking science fiction film. Longer plot summary of Chapter 1 and Chapter 4.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:26 AM PST - 8 comments

Terese Agnew's Portrait of a Textile Worker.
posted by serazin at 1:00 AM PST - 13 comments

Trying out MonitorThis , while poking around Lifehacker led me to this first installment of a flash cartoon (looks as if there were more in the works). Shortening the link a bit delivered Birdthingy (Deviantart link, no soundtrack). More interesting works on the artists homepage.
posted by IronLizard at 12:31 AM PST - 3 comments

As the countdown to the Australian federal election continues ever onward, the key issue looks set to be industrial relations. The incumbent Howard Government's WorkChoices laws (now re-branded due to their increasing unpopularity) have seen the poll figures for challenger Kevin Rudd go up and up and up. But even as the Government prepares to unleash a major advertisement spree in an attempt to sell the alleged benefits of Work Choices, the new laws have come under attack from the most unlikely of places; popular prime time TV soap McLeod's Daughters, which last night aired this thinly veiled assault (youtube) on the central element of WorkChoices, AWAs.
posted by Effigy2000 at 11:52 PM PST - 34 comments

Beautiful furniture and sculptures made out of circuit boards by Theo Kamecke.
posted by nickyskye at 9:30 PM PST - 22 comments

Gene2Music: "We assigned a chord to each amino acid," said Rie Takahashi, a UCLA research assistant and an award-winning, classically trained piano player. "We want to see if we can hear patterns within the music, as opposed to looking at the letters of an amino acid or protein sequence. We can listen to a protein, as opposed to just looking at it."
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:17 PM PST - 29 comments

Where's my jetpack?
posted by Kattullus at 9:07 PM PST - 30 comments

Rice Boy ~ a web comic. [updates log] [via] [no relation as far as I can see]
[mi]
posted by grobstein at 7:58 PM PST - 14 comments

Donald Fagen and the making of Kamakiriad (part 2). With cameos from Walter Becker and Rick Moranis. The album featured the song "Snowbound" which became this very cool video.
posted by vronsky at 6:30 PM PST - 51 comments

The mystery of the disappearing bees might not be much of a problem. That is if commercial bee keepers go organic. (previously 1,2)
posted by orgvol at 5:01 PM PST - 62 comments

The Animated Calvin & Hobbes. A fantastic student project. via
posted by graventy at 4:48 PM PST - 76 comments

New research suggests that taking vitamin D, preferably D3, may prevent up to half of the cases of breast cancer and two-thirds of the cases of colorectal cancer in the United States. Vitamin D3 is produced by your body when your skin is exposed to sunlight. (You can also get it from fatty fish, egg yolks, fortified milk and other products, and supplements. D3 supplements are usually produced from lanolin, so vegans will prefer D2.) This doesn't mean you should stop wearing sunscreen entirely - white people exposed to summer sunlight in a bathing suit will produce all the vitamin D they need in only 15 to 20 minutes, while darker-skinned people will need longer exposures (which might explain why black men have a higher incidence of prostate cancer). Health Canada now recommends all adults over the age of 50 take a daily vitamin D supplement of 10 micrograms (400 IU), and, because "vitamin D synthesis in the skin is absent during the winter months (October to March)," they note that Canadians (and, one assumes, other people in northern climates) must rely on dietary intake of vitamin D to maintain adequate levels of vitamin D in the body.
posted by joannemerriam at 4:19 PM PST - 26 comments

The Calvin Pelorian Cat Project, featuring Satoru Tsuda's Namennayo. And, hey look! San Francisco!
Beware... it's anthropomorphized-kitties-in-clothing time.
posted by miss lynnster at 3:22 PM PST - 19 comments

“Academic Economics: Strengths and Faults After Considering Interdisciplinary Needs” (.pdf)
posted by Kwantsar at 2:44 PM PST - 12 comments

100 Movies. 100 Quotes. 100 Numbers. If you've got 10 minutes, see how many you can name. I'm hovering around a sure 52.
posted by Stan Chin at 1:47 PM PST - 85 comments

Earth Guide: An interactive exploration of our planet. Also in Japanese. [via]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:43 PM PST - 7 comments

Protesters threaten to target homes of Olympic officials Anti-poverty protesters in B.C. are threatening to take their protest against the 2010 Olympics to the homes of Vancouver Olympic officials. Protest organizer David Cunningham says members of the Anti-Poverty Committee know where officials from the Vancouver Organizing Committee live and work and protesters will take their demonstration directly to them. The Anti-Poverty Committee has a controversial presence in Vancouver currently. Among other things, they throw urine at people they don't like. Anti-Poverty Committee spokesman David Cunningham said these tactics (well, maybe not the urine) are the only way to get the attention of politicians.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:29 PM PST - 25 comments

Public gatherings restricted? Check. Shutdown of independent businesses? Check. Lockdown on traffic and transportation in the area? You bet. Lawmakers in Baltimore trying to curb the city's homicide rate (already 108 this year) have come up with some "desperate measures" of questionable constitutional legality, including heightening police presence in order to lockdown streets in "emergency areas." It has been called, "partial martial law" by some, and one has to wonder if the city of Baltimore may not do better to take a page from The Wire's Hamsterdam for a solution to their inextricably linked drug and homicide issues.
posted by dead_ at 12:37 PM PST - 58 comments

A Canadian public servant who leaked Conservative green policy documents, was taken away in handcuffs and fired - Jeffrey Monaghan calls the government's actions "a profound threat to the public interest" and "an extension of a government-wide communications strategy pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization."

The documents outlined the Conservative's dismissal of the Kyoto Protocol and were to be released to the public a week later. Let the media panic begin: some have focused on Monaghan's political activism, others accuse corporate media of scapegoating Monaghan. Question is - if the documents were to be released to the public anyway, is this even whistleblowing? The environment minister says no. NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen says yes. Liberal leader Stephane Dion calls the Tories' actions "an attempt of intimidation ... although I have no sympathy at all for leaks."
posted by Menomena at 12:26 PM PST - 33 comments

Millions of uninsured children in this country. Even with public assistance, they teeter on the brink of a catastrophic illness. What's the answer? Elect Susie!
posted by Mur at 12:07 PM PST - 31 comments

Bad Astronomer and skeptic Phil Plait posted a rant last week about a supposed miracle – a woman, who survived a car accident against all odds. After being deluged by comments from irate readers, including the accident victim, he issued an apology, contacted her directly and is collecting donations to fund her medical bills. Phil writes, “Science, skepticism, and critical thinking are all about admitting when you’re wrong, and taking action to correct them.”
posted by grateful at 11:37 AM PST - 43 comments

Enertia is producing "innovative new homes of remarkable strength, economy, and beauty, brought to life by an elegant new architecture and the discovery of a new source of pollution-free energy." The design took first prize in the Modern Marvels/Invent Now competition (previously). In an interview, the inventor, Michael Sykes, says "he was inspired by the way the earth’s own atmosphere keeps the planet at a relatively constant comfortable temperature despite the frigidity of space." He also notes that his wife calls herself a "homemaker," natch.
posted by pithy comment at 11:03 AM PST - 17 comments

BBC Filter: Asked whether he was "partly to blame" for Mr Blair's departure, Mr Bush joked: "I haven't polled the Labour conference, but, could be." ... And he rounded on British journalists asking about Mr Blair's retirement, accusing them of trying to "tap dance on the prime minister's grave". At least they'll always have Iraq. One wonders if he and Mr Brown will also have a special relationship.
posted by chuckdarwin at 11:00 AM PST - 36 comments

This opinion piece in Prospect magazine argues that perhaps the importance of the problems in the Middle East are overblown. Interesting read.
posted by zeoslap at 10:31 AM PST - 33 comments

Bald? A swift blow to the head might solve that problem. If nothing else, it will give you something else to worry about for a while. Note: procedure tested on mice; results in humans may vary. Possible side effects include gaping head wounds. via Slate
posted by veggieboy at 9:57 AM PST - 35 comments

Nina Katchadourian's work includes mended spiderwebs, renovated mushrooms, a color-coded car park, and talking popcorn. Sadly the video for "a 10-minute excerpt from an archival film of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to the South Pole on the ship Endurance, projected onto my front tooth" is not yet online. [via]
posted by Armitage Shanks at 9:42 AM PST - 27 comments

...In March 1991, a few days after the end of the gulf war, American soldiers exploded two large caches of ammunition and missiles in Khamisiyah, Iraq. Some of the missiles contained the dangerous nerve gases sarin and cyclosarin. Based on wind patterns and the size of the plume, the Department of Defense has estimated that more than 100,000 American troops may have been exposed to at least small amounts of the gases. When the roughly 700,000 deployed troops returned home, about one in seven began experiencing a mysterious set of ailments, often called gulf war illnesses, with problems including persistent fatigue, chronic headaches, joint pain and nausea. Those symptoms persist today for more than 150,000 of them, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, more than the number of troops exposed to the gases.

Gas May Have Harmed Troops, Scientists Say
posted by y2karl at 7:24 AM PST - 45 comments

Reaping What We Sow? Right now, White House lawyers are working up new rules that will govern what CIA interrogators can do to prisoners in secret. Those rules will set the standard not only for the CIA but also for what kind of treatment captured American soldiers can expect from their captors, now and in future wars. Before the president once again approves a policy of official cruelty, he should reflect on that.Charles C. Krulak was commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999. Joseph P. Hoar was commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994. (Washington Post)
Some other opinions. (youtube) Thoughtful commentary. More.
posted by spitbull at 7:17 AM PST - 75 comments

Free Photoshop Plug-ins : Virtual Photographer for "professional" results. Filters and plugins from ad and design agency, Richard Rosenman. AutoFX Mosaic, for making your photos look as if they were created out of a mosaic tile. HDR Soft, (trial s/w) for increading dynamic range of photographs, and creating and HDR look. Power Touche for creating divinely-inspired photographs. And many more.
posted by psmealey at 7:13 AM PST - 20 comments

Crazed runner keeps a ceremonial trophy.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:00 AM PST - 57 comments

War. What is it good for ? (yt and rm videos resp.)
posted by Substrata at 5:54 AM PST - 24 comments

Behind the 'Zion curtain' Just as Arabs do not realise just how 'Middle Eastern' Israelis are, Israelis don't realise how 'western' millions of Arabs are. An article by Kaled Diab. via
posted by adamvasco at 4:22 AM PST - 112 comments

Engadget briefly cost Apple $4 billion today when they posted a fake email about the iPhone being delayed, causing Apple's stock to plunge. While competing gadget blog Gizmodo avoids gloating, there is evidence that some investors made a lot of money from the mistake. Are we seeing the early days of sophisticated stock hacking on the web, as has (incorrectly) been alleged before? Certainly the old pump-and-dump methods are no longer working like they did.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:35 PM PST - 46 comments

Two feet wide , twenty eight feet long, forty feet high. The six people that lived there called it flatland. They lived in this clear vinyl space for 15 days. Says the designer: "I see (smell and hear) way more than I want about the habits of the others I am flat [sic] with. The design of the space constructs us in a way that departs from how we culturally understand ourselves (autonomous, private, and with options for movement). After six days in Flatland I feel more like a pet than a person."
posted by bigmusic at 11:21 PM PST - 38 comments

Gina Trapani's Invisibility Cloak is a GreaseMonkey script for Firefox that blocks time-wasting websites while you're working. Conveniently, MetaFilter is included by default. Previously: Temptation Blocker.
posted by russilwvong at 10:34 PM PST - 12 comments

One man appeared more often than any other on the sports anthology ABC's Wide World of Sports: Yugoslavian ski jumper Vinko Bogataj, whose spectacular 1970 crash was shown in the show's opening montage to the words "and the agony of defeat." (Despite the brutality of the crash, he suffered only a concussion.) He still lives in his hometown of Lesce, Slovenia, and since retiring from his factory job in 2005 has devoted himself to critically acclaimed painting. Charmingly enough, he had no idea of his celebrity status until he was asked to appear during a special to mark the show's 20th anniversary in 1981.
posted by maxwelton at 10:26 PM PST - 18 comments

doFlick.com is a library of educational and instructional videos. It's short on content at the moment but it could turn out to be a useful resource. Who wouldn't benefit from knowing how to fold a plastic bag neatly?
posted by tellurian at 7:35 PM PST - 24 comments

Console Portraits: A 40-Year Pictorial History of Gaming. Inventor Ralph Baer designed the first videogame console for the home. In May 1967 he played the first-ever two-player game. "I lost!" Baer notes. At times offensive and controversial, console videogames have survived hard times to remain at the forefront of videogame history, and at times a reflection of ourselves.
posted by NationalKato at 6:01 PM PST - 19 comments

Second-tier colleges become first-tier colleges. First-tier colleges become fairy tales that New York Times contributors tell their kids about.
posted by geoff. at 5:22 PM PST - 139 comments

Talk to iGod, the God chatterbot. If you're in the right frame of mind, he's pretty hilarious. If you are feeling neglected by God in other contexts, he will seem very familiar. He does not pass the Turing test. He speaks in riddles, appears to know very little about you, and he hangs up on you after a few minutes. When you log back on, he says he does not remember. A lot like Waiting for Godot, in fact. (He said he didn't know about that either.)
posted by Broadside Affront at 5:12 PM PST - 79 comments

All the ads for Hulett Environmental Services have three things in common: bizarre themes, comically low production values, and an all-dwarf cast. For 17 years, diminutive brothers Greg & John Rice have written, produced & starred in a number of insane spots for their pest control company. My personal favorite is this Star Trek themed one, but really they're all pretty awesome.
posted by jonson at 3:36 PM PST - 15 comments

"War Czar" -- another term for "highly paid radio operator"? So the Decider in Chief wants to have a War Czar* in the White House. He appointed Douglas Lute after three other general officers turned him down. Note that Lute, a three-star general, is actually inferior in rank to David Petraeus, the four-star who's commanding the Multi-National Force in Iraq. Black Five had some thoughts on this, as did Jules Crittenden.
posted by pax digita at 3:20 PM PST - 77 comments

Scientists have discovered a planet composed of scorching hot ice. Originally thought to be a gas giant due to its mass, its actually only four times the size of Earth and most likely composed of exotic forms of ice, such as Ice VII and Ice X with s surface temperature of 300° C.
posted by Artw at 2:09 PM PST - 30 comments

No rest stop? Try latex. From consumerist.com, a tale of... what can i say? Just a funny story. With pictures.
posted by paulinsanjuan at 2:08 PM PST - 24 comments

Dirty Toilets in Tokyo Many more photos (in Japanese) here.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:57 PM PST - 57 comments

Horses are not always good role models. Just in case you thought the craziness was limited to this one book, the authors proudly present a "true crime" glimpse into a shadowy world of... okay, I actually have no idea what they're talking about. Ah, the joys of vanity publishing.
posted by OverlappingElvis at 12:45 PM PST - 51 comments

Nearly 700 cyclists are killed on U.S. roads every year, and more than 540,000 are sent to the emergency room. The annual Ride of Silence was started in 2003 to honor and raise awareness for those tragically killed and injured on the road, and has grown into a worldwide event, with more than 270 confirmed rides planned to start tonight, at 7 p.m. Ride along on YouTube or grab a black armband and join a group near you. [Previously on MeFi]
posted by dead_ at 12:30 PM PST - 59 comments

Church Locking: shattering the myth that "all churches are locked". With the aim of visiting every church in England and recording whether it is kept locked or unlocked, this ten-year-old 'side project' now has statistics by county and diocese, county maps, and a map of the country showing their progress.
posted by chrismear at 12:27 PM PST - 28 comments

Cutenewsfilter: Fresno, California high school crowns first transgender prom queen. Woot!
posted by serazin at 11:31 AM PST - 148 comments

Russian Book Jackets, 1917-1942, courtesy of the NYPLDG. [Via Growabrain]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:26 AM PST - 5 comments

Contrary to popular belief, not all loners have a pathological fear of social contact "Loners often hear from well-meaning peers that they need to be more social, but the implication that they're merely black-and-white opposites of their bubbly peers misses the point."
posted by 2shay at 9:28 AM PST - 89 comments

Life Imitating Web. Experimenting with very simple, life-like scenes in Flash by Ka Wai Cheung
posted by sluglicker at 9:14 AM PST - 14 comments

Unconventional Wisdom: Vote Local, Impact National? The City of Philadelphia often serves as a test-market for the introduction of goods and services, due to demographics that are sometimes representative of the country as a whole. Many of the usual tenets of political conventional wisdom have not held true in this election. A city still geographically divided by the artifacts of redlining did not have a campaign reflective of the population's breakdown by race (although the results map [PDF] implies a racial deliniation, with a largely-white Northeast Philadelphia preferring candidate Knox). The candidate with the largest war chest and most TV advertising did not win. Incumbents with various amounts of local name recognition (and even the support of a BIG NAME) could not garner a simple majority of the vote. Tremendous Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) efforts by local labor and the party-machine proved fruitless. And save for some swiftboating and alleged dirty-tricks at the end, the campaign was fought cleanly. Given that, the recently completed Primary Election and Great Expectations for the Next Mayor of the City of Philadelphia may serve as an example of newly-evolving voter behavior, where a brainy policy-wonk is the people's choice versus the usual suspects.
posted by rzklkng at 9:14 AM PST - 19 comments

The Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory compiles a fascinating array of primary sources about the 1871 fire that destroyed 4 square miles of the city of Chicago, killing hundreds and leaving nearly one out of five residents homeless. Explore 3D images, music [embedded], children's drawings, and personal recollections. See also a pictorial survey of the damage, including fused marbles and metal hardware, related documents and images at the Library of Congress, and an exoneration of Mrs. O'Leary and her bovine companion, along with a suggestion by John Lienhart that police corruption and class struggle were more to blame than a cow [embedded audio].
posted by Miko at 8:53 AM PST - 9 comments

"America's First Sightless Gunslinger" is upset that Minnesota denied him a gun permit. After all, he has permits from North Dakota and Utah. Carey McWilliams, the shootist, is also worried that North Dakota will lower standards for issuing a permit, but luckily Tucker Carlson is on the job. Videos, explanations of his shooting technique, and links to purchase his autobiography "Guide Dogs and Guns: America's First Blind Marksman Fires Back" (his is also the author of "Moonlight's Meridian: Nuclear Terrorism And the Undead ") are all posted on his personal website. But can we trust this guy? Is he really the first Sightless Gunslinger? Ringo Star and Armand Assante may have something to say about it.
posted by Muddler at 8:50 AM PST - 19 comments

Darwin wrote to 2000 people during his life; 14,500 of these letters still survive. The Darwin Correspondence Project is putting annotated transcriptions of these online, and they've covered about 5,000 so far, including a letter written when he was 12 after he had got into trouble with his sister for not washing regularly while at school. There's an intro here. See also Darwin Online, discussed here. And the prolific network theorist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi has co-authored a paper on statistical similarities between Darwin's and Einstein's correspondence (#51 on the list).
posted by carter at 8:39 AM PST - 11 comments

5 Days a Stranger. 7 Days a Skeptic. Trilby's Notes. 6 Days a Sacrifice. The great retro-fun of the Chzo Mythos adventure games, all of which are freeware.
posted by jbickers at 8:04 AM PST - 6 comments

Stateline.org has posted the results of a 2007 survey on the salaries of state governors, complete with neato bar graph. The Governator's paycheck was recently voted up, making CA's the highest at $206,500, yet the Hollywood millionaire gives his back. The governor of Maine makes less than his assistant. Jon Corzine of NJ only makes $1 a year (and pays his own medical bills too). Is it heartening to see the relatively moderate salaries alongside the number of executives giving back or refusing increases? Or is it a testimony to the notion that only the wealthy can afford to serve? Or something else altogether?
posted by pineapple at 7:43 AM PST - 24 comments

Pearl Fryar just wanted to win Yard of the Month back in 1984. Today his Bishopville, SC garden may be the most original example of outsider art in Southeastern America, and a tourist destination in it's own right.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 7:29 AM PST - 22 comments

Yolanda King, daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dies at 51
posted by BostonJake at 6:23 AM PST - 27 comments

Where's the money? [YouTube] In a short interview with the BBC, Bob Geldof and Bono discuss ongoing efforts to get G8 members to fulfil commitments made at the Gleneagles summit, their own credibility or lack of, and whether or not the current focus on climate change is taking attention away from the situation in Africa. This Guardian article has more details.
posted by teleskiving at 5:04 AM PST - 39 comments

Paramount does Neil: Gaiman's book (illustrated by Charles Vess) is being made into a film called Stardust. You can watch the trailer or read the first chapter online. The film is directed by Matthew Vaughn, who doesn't exactly have a strong fantasy background. Cross your fingers, Gaimanites.
posted by chuckdarwin at 3:56 AM PST - 45 comments

Comey made frantic calls to his own chief of staff and to Robert Mueller, then FBI director, while he raced to the hospital, sirens blasting. He sprinted up the stairs of the hospital to get to Ashcroft's room before Gonzales and Card did. . . . "I couldn't stay if the White House was engaging in conduct that had no legal basis." Comey testifies that there was something of a line to resign that day: Mueller; then Comey's chief of staff; and then Ashcroft's chief of staff—who asked only that Comey wait until "Ashcroft was well enough to resign with me."

A Saturday Night Tuesday Morning Massacre narrowly averted by an illness and the Madrid Train Bombings? Is it a High Crime and Misdemeanor if "the president was quite willing to forge ahead with an illegal program"?
Absoluelty riveting, it reads like a tale out of paperback thriller: in a darkened hospital room, a White House consigliere barges past the sick man's wife, and demands the disoriented Attorney General official sign a paper.
"First, they tried to coerce a man in intensive care -- a man so sick he had transferred the reins of power to Mr. Comey -- to grant them legal approval. Having failed, they were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation's chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice's authorization." I'm waiting for the movie, but you can watch the video now.
posted by orthogonality at 2:54 AM PST - 95 comments

The Semiwarriors: By creating an atmosphere of perpetual crisis, Presidents have expanded their powers and hidden their actions from the public eye. A recent essay by retired Army lieutenant Colonel and current Boston University professor of international relations Andrew J. Bacevich, on "semiwar," a term coined after World War II "to promote permanent quasi mobilization as the essential response to permanent global crisis." Bacevich is the author of The New American Militarism, How Americans Are Seduced by War (previously discussed here and here). Tragically, Bacevich's own son, an Army First Lieutenant, was killed on patrol in Iraq two days ago by an IED.
posted by homunculus at 2:32 AM PST - 45 comments

The Engineer's Plot To The Brink of Eternity The League of Gentlemen Goodbye Mrs Ant Black Power A is For Atom
posted by acro at 2:06 AM PST - 23 comments

Fascinated by Egyptian archaeology? View and learn all about the discoveries in Giza, the Valley of the Kings (and Queens), Memphis and Saqqara and the Sphinx from the comfort of home. Depending on today's pesky sandstorms and time of day, you may even be able to see the pyramids from the comfort of your couch. Want to go inside? Yeah, me neither.
Previously.
posted by miss lynnster at 12:34 AM PST - 11 comments

Gonzales pushes plan to criminalize copyright infringement, making it punishable by life imprisonment; to increase wiretaps; and to require Homeland Security to notify the RIAA in certain circumstances. "To meet the global challenges of IP crime." I'd comment on this, but I'm afraid that someone might think I was copying someone else. The Intellectual Property Protection Act (official press release) appeared previously in a speech (2005) and as a draft (2006) - now the Justice department is pushing Congress to bring it forward. [newsfilter]
posted by blacklite at 11:24 PM PST - 58 comments

Awesome Tapes from Africa (via)
posted by roll truck roll at 10:45 PM PST - 40 comments

Is it 2000 bucks worth of offensive? A Sydney youth who has created an uproar with an online game based on the Virginia Tech massacre, says he will remove the game if he receives $US2000 in "donations". More via Melbourne Age
posted by mattoxic at 10:20 PM PST - 31 comments

UniverseNewsFilter: Scientists claim to have detected dark matter! Here are NASA's press release, feature page and multimedia presentation. For an explanation what dark matter is, I refer you to this page. After all that excitement, you can sit down and work out how much dark matter is in the Milky Way.
posted by Kattullus at 9:12 PM PST - 30 comments

"When a marriage dies, what should be done with the wedding ring? Until now, millions of wedding rings have been banished to remote corners of sock and underwear drawers. Now you can give these wedding rings the proper final resting place they deserve."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:17 PM PST - 45 comments

Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma was recently released on DVD.
posted by RogerB at 7:39 PM PST - 15 comments

Three exceptionally beautiful videos featuring surreal genius architect Antoni Gaudi
posted by vronsky at 6:25 PM PST - 31 comments

The Daily Dump [video] is an open source design for a terracotta home composting unit that aims to provide manifold benefits - for potters, for homemakers, and also for civil society, particularly in a country where waste removal isn't as regular or reliable a service. How to's here.
posted by infini at 5:49 PM PST - 18 comments

Netflix of Books? BookSwim aims to be 'Netflix' of books with a monthly subscription, 3 book-at-a-time with free postage. They are not the first, BooksFree offers a wide selection of 'beach books' and JiggerBug rents a wide audio book selection. Google tried it in 2005, and nearly got burned to the ground. Could libraries and local used book stores be marginalized (though never destroyed) as the local video rental store? Will Border's become the same struggling dinosaur Blockbuster has turned out to be?
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:26 PM PST - 71 comments

Tvashtar in Motion. Awesome five-frame GIF of fountaining sulfuric lava on Io courtesy New Horizons as it swung by Jupiter earlier this year. Found via Planetary Society Blog (Thank you, Emily). More on Tvashtar.
posted by brownpau at 2:12 PM PST - 19 comments

Add to Cart, Buy, Buy Now, Add to Brown Bag? 107 clickable shopping cart buttons on one page. Most popular colour: red. I only recognize the Amazon button--clearly I need to hone my online shopping-fu.
posted by dbarefoot at 11:22 AM PST - 17 comments

[news filter]Iraq veteran wins blog prize "The timing of the award is almost as striking as the writing which it honours. A former American machine gunner's memoir of a year's tour of duty in Iraq based on his blog has just won a major accolade at precisely the moment when the US military high command is clamping down on blogs among the rank and file."
posted by Postroad at 11:08 AM PST - 11 comments

[NewsFilter] Jerry Falwell was found unconscious in his office today and has since died. Exactly what did they mean by "heart challenges" ?
posted by scblackman at 10:45 AM PST - 568 comments

Pinning down the elusive Banksy. "The art world is the biggest joke going," he has said. "It’s a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak." Yet the stencilist/graffiti writer's pieces regularly sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds at places like Sotheby's--not bad for a man who still remains cloaked in complete anonymity. The New Yorker gets a rare e-mail interview. [Previously: 1, 2, 3]
posted by dead_ at 10:32 AM PST - 33 comments

Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog. The NYTimes Magazine on the convergence of the internet and pop music.
posted by OmieWise at 10:29 AM PST - 24 comments

Founded in Berkeley by artist Jim Mason, The Shipyard, a collaborative industrial arts space constructed from recycled shipping containers, has hosted numerous large-scale projects and events including a Survival Research Labs show, Power Tool Drag Races, gassification experiments and workshops, and various large-scale Burning Man projects such as 2005's Clockworks. Short documentary here (quicktime). However, relations with the city of Berkeley have been consistently tense. Recently, the city shut off the Shipyard's power, to which the Shipyard responded by going off grid. On May 8, Berkeley issued 3-day vacate and abate notice, with which the Shipyard is attempting to comply (auto-playing video).
posted by treepour at 10:06 AM PST - 8 comments

You may know that November is NaNoWriMo, but did you know that this June is the first annual Script Frenzy?
posted by brundlefly at 8:51 AM PST - 20 comments

Sleepless in Penzance. Tony Wright is trying to stay awake for eleven days, in order to beat the current 1964 world record held by Randy Gardner. You can watch him on a live webcam. More on what attempting this might do to your brain.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:02 AM PST - 45 comments

Heard enough about Pain at the Pump? The 24-hour news love to cover the "unreasonable" record gasoline prices, but the real issue is crude oil supply--and this latest installment of Stuart Staniford's highly detailed analysis of the world's largest oil field, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, provides new evidence of sharply declining production. Can Saudi Arabia really increase supply to meet world demand that is surging on growth in India and China? Signs point to no--in the past week they have again voted to maintain OPEC's "voluntary" production cuts, and their petroleum minister commented that there may not be a "need" to increase Saudi production much further.
posted by DAJ at 7:53 AM PST - 64 comments

It began with an innocent-looking Valentine's Day card in 2005. Inside the card were several slips of paper, a hastily cut-up printout of names of 550 secret detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The human rights lawyer who received "this weird valentine" handed it over to authorities, and this week the court martial begins for JAG LtCmdr Matthew Diaz, facing 36 years for divulging state secrets.
Whither goest thou, American Jurisprudence?
posted by planetkyoto at 7:50 AM PST - 47 comments

"If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too." The World Bank opted to fuck with Wolfowitz anyway.
posted by chunking express at 7:37 AM PST - 93 comments

How many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?

None, they have machines to do that now. If you don’t like the 909, check out the Roland TR-330, or perhaps the Suzuki RPM-40, or even the classic Electro-Harmonix Rhythm 12, and many, many more
posted by psmealey at 6:48 AM PST - 38 comments

Woodstock^ (YouTuner)
Day ☼ { Richie Havens ♪ Country Joe McDonald ♪ John Sebastian ♪ Sweetwater ♭ Incredible String Band ♪ Bert Sommer ♭ Tim Hardin ♪ Ravi Shankar ♭ Melanie ♪ Arlo Guthrie ♪ Joan Baez ♪ }
Day ☼☼ { Quill ♪ Keef Hartley Band ♭ Santana ♪ Canned Heat ♪ Mountain ♪ Janis Joplin ♪ ♫ Sly & the Family Stone ♪ Grateful Dead ♪ Creedence Clearwater Revival ♪ The Who ♪ ☻ ♫ Jefferson Airplane ♪ ♫ }
Day ☼☼☼ { Joe Cocker ♪ Country Joe & the Fish ♪ Ten Years After ♪ The Band ♪ Blood Sweat & Tears ♪ Johnny Winter ♪ Crosby, Stills & Nash ♪ ♬ ♫ Paul Butterfield Blues Band ♪ Sha-Na-Na ♪ Jimi Hendrix ♪ ★ ♫ }

posted by pruner at 6:20 AM PST - 49 comments

The Best Places to Get Free Books.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 3:35 AM PST - 24 comments

Readersvoice.com is a lovely, low key site that interviews authors in a down to earth fashion that you normally don't see. The whole approach is wonderfully refreshing and endlessly fascinating.
posted by milkwood at 2:46 AM PST - 3 comments

The Cube (1969) , directed by Jim Henson. (Some background)
posted by growabrain at 11:43 PM PST - 20 comments

Need another ridiculous way to browse Flickr? Try the Flickr Color Selectr!
posted by Citizen Premier at 11:16 PM PST - 13 comments

Underwater Tigers. Best one.
posted by milestogo at 9:00 PM PST - 71 comments

Heather and Derek are suddenly out of JPG Magazine. Heather writes: "8020 has decided to rewrite the history of how JPG came into being, removing the original six issues from the site, and any mention of Derek and [me]."
posted by Dave Faris at 8:44 PM PST - 209 comments

FlightMemory.com You must remember this: Passengers can wax nostalgic about flights they made and missed. Launched in Germany last year, this free site made its English-language debut last month.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:13 PM PST - 6 comments

Plupon is a shockwave game. The object is to match up 3 descending numbered spheres so that they make up either 10 or 20. Click on the spheres to add them together. There are 7 levels.
posted by Kattullus at 8:10 PM PST - 14 comments

The Idol Thief "Vaman Ghiya operated one of the most extensive and sophisticated clandestine antiquities rings in history, and he had grown rich in the past three decades by smuggling thousands of Indian antiques to auction houses and private collectors in the West."
posted by dhruva at 8:01 PM PST - 15 comments

Baseball fans heckle Vernon Wells, and he throws them a personally-inscribed baseball which reads "Here’s your ball, now please tell me what gas station you work at so I can come and yell at you when you’re working. Please sit down, shut up and enjoy the game. From your favorite centre fielder, Vernon Wells." (See the followups at the bottom of that article, with pictures of the ball.) This past weekend, Ken Griffey Jr. throws his jockstrap into the stands because a dude has been heckling him. (Everybody is laughing in both of these stories.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:31 PM PST - 28 comments

Teddy Bear Pilot.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:03 PM PST - 22 comments

tony draws, eric writes, igor directs, tmbg sing - all in uncensored maakimation: the drinky crow show, ep. 0 (youtube, for foreigners). help a beleaguered publisher - vote for the pilot.
posted by progosk at 6:10 PM PST - 21 comments

Graffiti en route: Evolution in graffiti form. Animated graffiti at Etterbeek train station by Bonom & Lork.
posted by nickyskye at 6:00 PM PST - 16 comments

The Brain Trust Project “is a non-partisan organization dedicated to developing smarter public policy by supporting the role of academics in creating solutions for the political problems facing us today.” The website is the work of USC undergraduates Mathew Morgan and Colin Koproske.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 5:16 PM PST - 22 comments

Yahweh ben Yahweh is dead. He was an advocate of black separatism and supremacy, dubbing Martin Luther King, Jr. a "dead dog preacher," who would later go to prison on conspiracy charges, thanks to the helpful testimony of a certain Cardinals quarterback who is now serving 25-to-life himself for writing bad checks. Alternatively, you can check out his own website for his side of the story.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:38 PM PST - 27 comments

Video frames printed onto transparency film and cut down to Super 8 or 16mm film dimensions
posted by namagomi at 4:04 PM PST - 22 comments

Magna International has failed in its bid to purchase Chrysler, losing to private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP Bloomberg video: Canadian Auto Workers union president Buzz Hargrove (wmv) fears further job cuts.
posted by acro at 3:34 PM PST - 24 comments

Rosato was arrested after repeatedly complaining to police that his wife and their infant daughter had been replaced by imposters. Tony Rosato, former Saturday Night Live (81-82) and SCTV cast member, has been in jail in Canada for two years without as trial. He has been diagnosed with Capgras syndrome.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:28 PM PST - 72 comments

Habermas debated the Pope (pdf) when he was just Ratzinger. In German. In Spanish. In English. Summaries: 1, 2. Money quote: "Secular society must acquire a new understanding of religious convictions" (Habermas) while avoiding the "pathologies of reason and religion." (Ratzinger)
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:21 PM PST - 22 comments

The Green Scare: Rod Coronado gave a talk in San Diego and the feds called his words ‘terrorism.’ How new laws are equating environmentalists with Al Qaeda. [Via Gristmill.]
posted by homunculus at 2:03 PM PST - 39 comments

WTFfilter: remember smarmy former-mechanic Joey Buttafuoco and "Long Island Lolita" Amy Fisher? Yeah? Well... looks like they're rekindling their storybook romance for reality television. They're a cute couple. I wish them well.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:54 PM PST - 45 comments

Frederic Bastiat, described by Joseph Schumpeter nearly a century after Bastiat's death as, "the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived." A great proponent of free markets, his works show a fastidious devotion to the Vienna School of economic thought. His Petition to Candlemakers demonstrates both his satirical wit and an understanding of the failings of isolationist economic policies (cf Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act). Lorenza Garreau writes, "Every day he crushed a fallacy -- killed it by ridicule and by turning on it the bright light of logic."
posted by geoff. at 1:23 PM PST - 17 comments

rendur 2.1 - Dynamic HTML/CSS preview in your browser. A quick way to try out a bit of HTML and CSS code. Whatever you put in the box renders to its left. Now works in IE, though it's a bit better in Firefox (thanks to on-the-fly style sheet definitions). [via mefi projects]
posted by davebug at 12:25 PM PST - 18 comments

Soldiers may no longer use MySpace to communicate with family. The Defense Department will begin "worldwide" blocking access, as of today, to YouTube, Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos, FileCabi, MySpace, BlackPlanet, Hi5, Pandora, MTV, 1.fm, live365, and Photobucket on its computers and networks, according to a memo sent Friday by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander. Note that most soldiers deployed in war zones don't have access to any network outside of the military network.
posted by dejah420 at 12:10 PM PST - 73 comments

Twatter - A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: Who are you doing?
posted by chrismear at 10:58 AM PST - 33 comments

The Soviet Army fights its way into Berlin and then, in a Very Special Episode, Uncle Joe drops in for a visit.

warnings: YouTube; violence followed by extreme melodrama
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:48 AM PST - 26 comments

We've discussed odd bookmarks, but what about the humble inscription? Start with two lovely efforts to collect inscriptions, including the Book Inscription Project and Inscripticateded Dedicated to the One I Love, which tracks inscriptions found at used book stores. Read up on the history of inscriptions at the Library of Scotland's wonderful Private Life of Books, and discover how inscriptions change the value of books. And pity the poor author, who often has to come up with interesting inscriptions for book tours. Have you seen or written any good inscriptions?
posted by blahblahblah at 9:35 AM PST - 22 comments

Libya is a desert, yes, but if you trace your fingers through the moonlit sand and listen, carefully, you may hear ancient whispers: of Apollo's love of Cyrene; of prehistoric hunters making Rock Art [1, 2, 3], back when the Sahara was wet; of Phoenicians subdued by Greeks, of Romans followed by Byzantines, all leaving ruins that Libya is famous for [Cyrene, Leptis Magna, Sabratha, et cetera]; of desert soldiers in World War II, remembered in Graves and Memorials; of the occupying Italians, who responded to Omar Mukhtar's resistance of the Fascists by rounding Libyans into concentration camps; of the camps' prisoners, one of whom wrote this famous poem: "My only illness is the torturing of our young women, with their bodies exposed ... how my speech has become subdued, the humiliation of our noble and leading men and the loss of my gazelle-like horse..."; of more culture, more memories from this land that witnessed the wrenching passion of all man's history—whispering in the very dust that made his soul.
posted by Firas at 8:52 AM PST - 18 comments

Bent Objects is the blog of an artist named Terry who makes sculpture featuring everyday items, such as aluminum cans, tea bags, playing cards and other such things.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:42 AM PST - 11 comments

Carbonite Chocolate Han Goodness
posted by Stynxno at 7:24 AM PST - 33 comments

Flickervision (beta). Also, Twittervision.
posted by psmealey at 6:36 AM PST - 37 comments

Two nice conversations between a man and his dog on the subject of quantum physics.
[many worlds interpretation, uncertainty principle]
posted by moonbird at 6:14 AM PST - 21 comments

No one really knows exactly why we need so much sleep, but it seems obvious that many of us aren't getting enough. Tu veux coucher avec moi? I'm bushed.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:01 AM PST - 29 comments

The Illustrated Guide to GOP Scandals
posted by trinarian at 4:16 AM PST - 44 comments

Albion Drive: a saga of modern Britain. Straightforward, thought-provoking piece in the Observer about the effect of rising house prices on ordinary folk in a street in London.
posted by primer_dimer at 3:22 AM PST - 42 comments

Innovation, originality, revolution... Oh.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:11 AM PST - 23 comments

A Better Way to Read Text Online? By reorganizing text into cascading patterns, more circular (even vaguely poetic) than the usual dull horizontal layout, visual-syntactic text formatting (VSTF) increases online reading comprehension and efficiency while reducing eyestrain. Among high school students, who read with the format over an entire academic year, the VSTF method increased both academic achievement and long-term reading proficiency by more than a full standard deviation over randomized controls. Try it out. (Any login works)
posted by gottabefunky at 11:03 PM PST - 47 comments

On 29 April 2007 a Boeing 757 owned by the low-fare carrier Thomsonfly injested 2 large herons, causing a failure of the aircraft's #2 engine. A video camera was present and captured the entire event. The birds did not survive the incident, but the 200+ passengers did.
posted by drstein at 7:58 PM PST - 83 comments

廃道レポート・東北の廃道・旧道・国道・県道・林道.
posted by hama7 at 7:47 PM PST - 90 comments

Giants of Soviet opera are little known in the West. But Victor Han has taken it upon himself to keep their memory alive....my personal favorite is Mark Reizen, a deeply nuanced bass, who was powerful enough to carry on singing into his ninth decade. If you'd care to follow along with some of the songs, you can use Emily Ezust's massive archive of lyrics, to which Victor contributes. Or, try listening in English first. Too much music? Here's some reading.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 5:27 PM PST - 9 comments

Streeter and Amir work for CollegeHumor. One day, Streeter decides to pull an little prank on Amir. Amir then pranks back. Streeter retaliates. Amir dito. And now, in the fifth battle of the Prank War, Amir gets owned big time. To be continued ...
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:07 PM PST - 51 comments

"On May 10th, 2007, this video was banned in Congress" - Filmmaker, Robert Greenwald, wanted to show a four minute clip of his film when testifying to Congress, but Republicans disallowed it. This is the clip from his excellent movie now available on Google Video, Iraq for Sale.
posted by nickyskye at 3:52 PM PST - 52 comments

Computer Hope The location for free online computer support and computer related information. Computer Hope has been designed to assist all types of computer users with any of their computer related questions as well as a great location to learn more about your computer and its hardware and software.
posted by konolia at 2:01 PM PST - 14 comments

Whether you think they're good PSA's or not, these French Aids Awareness ads are wonderful.
(Definitely NSFW, Single Link, Wired Blog, Animated walrus, cowboy and squid sex)
posted by Lord_Pall at 1:50 PM PST - 31 comments

40 lie dead, as General Pervez Musharraf tries to quash the judiciary of Pakistan, before the elections (pdf) to be held this year.
posted by hadjiboy at 12:12 PM PST - 66 comments

"I sometimes wonder if anyone still reads this stuff." Here's an unique perspective for the self-styled brash, anarchist, punkrocker turned maturing, computer-geeky, old git in all of us, or at least those of us who remember John Coltrane's version of My Favorite Things. WrecklessEric dot com contains the words of a man filled with faux passion and finite jest, whose composed some good music and written some good lyrics to go with them. For those of you not that old, Wreckless Eric wrote the song Whole Wide World which is what Will Ferrell sings to Maggie Gyllenhaal in that movie before she jumps his bones. It was just last year. You might have seen it. Eric's done some other things too. I bring this to the blue cuz I happen to be fascinated by the wry, personable, unapologetic, self-referential, egotistical and occasionally self-loathing way the guy writes in his website, and cuz I'm a sucker for the history of punk, cuz I'm a geeky old git who used to fancy himself a shoegazing punk enthusiast. ...and cuz I'm bored.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:07 PM PST - 10 comments

An interesting collection of contemporary Chinese photography at “Meeting place Foto Fest Beijing 2006”. Among the 34 portfolios: Shackled prisoners, Children’s IDs, an actor awaiting his entrance by Luo Dan, the symmetrical works of Li Nan, images by Xu Yong and Li Yu. Many more inside. Click to enlarge. (Via)
posted by growabrain at 11:39 AM PST - 8 comments

Paintings of Buddha dating back at least to the 12th century have been discovered in a cave in Nepal. Tipped by a local shepherd, a team of international researchers climbed to some old caves where they found a mural with 55 panels depicting the life of Buddha, reminiscent of the artwork of the Ajanta Caves in India (possibly NSFW). There are probably many other forgotten caves in the Mustang area (previously discussed here,) but they may be threatened by a planned trans-Himalayan highway.
posted by homunculus at 10:06 AM PST - 22 comments

Stacey Peralta's directing and editing chops date back to the 1980s. His skateboard company Powell-Peralta's legendary Bones Brigade (the dream team of Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Lance Mountain, Mike McGill, Rodney Mullen and Tommy Guerrero) were dominating professional skateboarding, and Stacey lovingly documented the progress of his team with a series of great Bones Brigade videocassette releases such as the Bones Brigade Video Show (1984), Future Primitive (1985) and The Search for Animal Chin (1987) (all Google Video). Each video is a skateboarding historical signpost, featuring the debuts of Caballerials, McTwists and 720s. Don't miss the soundtrack to the Bones Brigade Video Show, which features great 1980s punk rock such as the Youth Brigade and the Faction (Steve Caballero's band).
posted by porn in the woods at 9:56 AM PST - 22 comments

“Why the hell the train?” and other questions answered “The real terror is the Three+ Sheltered Old Men, because they don’t sleep and they don’t have normal conversations. They’re completely sporadic: An observation is made, perhaps it is agreed on, then anywhere from two to 45 minutes pass before the next one. That’s the random non-rhythm your brain will feed on... and you’re never going to relax or get any sleep.” As for “train love”? “Ask yourself, do you really want this? Your potential train buddy is travelling by train. What the hell is wrong with this person? After two days on the train... [y]ou’re not at your Personal Best™”
posted by joeclark at 9:52 AM PST - 20 comments

This man is an on-duty BBC reporter, doing his best to make a Scientologist admit to brainwashing. The video was ended up on YouTube after being sent around by the Scientologists, so the BBC try to retaliate. Here's the reporter's explanation.
posted by cillit bang at 9:12 AM PST - 151 comments

Spend a bit of your Sunday getting a little more acquainted with Indonesian musical culture. Balinese gamelan. And a little more. See how they make some of those fabulous-sounding gongs. And here's the fabulous Kecak. And more Kecak. And just for good measure, howsabout a little Angklung karaoke? Meanwhile in Sumatra the gals are playing the dishes! [all links YouTube]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:56 AM PST - 24 comments

There has been a measurable "surge" of carbon in the atmosphere for the past 4 or 5 years, nearly doubling the annual rate of the 1970-2000 period, which has mystified scientists because it does not match human trends or known natural causes. A new paper (abstract) suggests we may have reached a tipping point with more greenhouse gases escaping from trees, plants and soils than in the past - hotter and dryer weather caused by high levels of CO2 is creating a feedback loop of unusually strong out-gassings of CO2 from vegetation more inside
posted by stbalbach at 6:15 AM PST - 41 comments

400,000 jobs? Or 40,000 blowjobs?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:26 AM PST - 42 comments

Jesus of Nazareth - a theological biography by Pope Benedict
posted by kyleg at 12:28 AM PST - 63 comments

In praise of Budweiser, in which Daniel Davies defends Budweiser, claiming that it is in the right in it's copyright fight with the Czech brewer Budvar and that the rice in Bud is not a modern cost cutting development but is an essential ingredient in brewing an American pilsner. Worth reading whatever your view on Budweiser is for the brutal attack on the Welsh town of Wrexham in the footnotes.
posted by afu at 11:16 PM PST - 131 comments

The Polar Bears of Spitsbergen is an amazing and gruesome photo gallery posted by a photographer who stumbled across a bear & its cubs at feeding time & spent the next 45 minutes capturing the event. via
posted by jonson at 9:58 PM PST - 40 comments

Badgers--fierce, secretive, beloved, reviled, surprisingly widespread, and enemy to snakes [Warning: Gore in "Snakes"]. Cousin to ferrets and weasels, badgers have some strange habits--such as digging a large new burrow to sleep in every night.
posted by agentofselection at 9:48 PM PST - 24 comments

John Petrucci of Dream Theater is pretty much amazing. His gear can control the heat of the sun. Additionally, Yngwie is your new God.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:35 PM PST - 48 comments

Contesting Confucius [Single-link book review tour de force] In which a returned exile Chinese scholar uses a literary spat between two Francophone sinologists as a springboard for an exploration of the politics of New Confucianism and the role of the Chinese 'other' in Western philosophical discourse. Isn't globalisation something?
posted by Abiezer at 8:08 PM PST - 13 comments

If Art Bell is to be believed, up to 11 million Australians could be calling USA home due to years of severe drought in the country's food bowl. The story picked up, and given appropriate treatment by the venerable News Corporation online mouthpiece news.com.au. Is it hard being a climate change sceptic when your boss is a convert? Is climate change a left wing plot?
posted by mattoxic at 7:51 PM PST - 55 comments

Joggers decked out in short shorts and iPods running alongside the road are common, but have you ever seen someone running backward? Backward running has been growing in popularity for years in many countries across the world where competitive races vary in length from sprints to marathons. This very different form of exercise is reputed to have many health benefits, despite the very obvious dangers of not being able to see where one is going. Think you can beat the current world records for backward running? If so, then this is the person you're going to need to try and beat...
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:42 PM PST - 11 comments

What happens when people get old?
posted by miss lynnster at 7:30 PM PST - 45 comments

Jazz dispute is billed as a heated exchange between Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Jazz not your thing? Classical music can provoke a range of emotions too. (YouTube alert)
posted by madamjujujive at 3:23 PM PST - 43 comments

War vs. Democracy: Untold Stories from the Lynch / Tillman Hearing -- ...U.S. soldiers whose injuries or deaths remain mired in secrecy. Pat Tillman's brother and fellow Army Ranger Kevin Tillman advocated strongly for other families still waiting for answers. ... "The family was told, it was -- quote -- 'an ambush by insurgents.' Two years later, they found out that those -- quote -- 'insurgents' happened to be the same Iraqi troops that he was training. Before his death, he told his chain of command that these same troops that he was training were trying to kill him and his team. He was told to keep his mouth shut." ... Thorough and eye-opening examination of the many ways the military spun, lied, withheld information on soldier deaths and injuries for propaganda purposes (and even delayed action until cameras were present in the Jessica Lynch rescue).
posted by amberglow at 1:01 PM PST - 29 comments

The link to the live stream has been posted! Eurovision (previously) from Helsinki is about to begin (2100 CET), and there is a live stream available. Just get the plugin, and, if it all works, you'll be ready to watch!
posted by jasper411 at 12:03 PM PST - 313 comments

Even if you're not a baby boomer, you might remember a little something called the kiddie matinée that apparently went all the way up to the mid 80s. I remember them because in the 70s they were still popular enough that the 1959 Mexican Christmas flick Santa Claus continued making the rounds and I saw it in the theater. Imagine my surprise 20 years later when my favorite man in space and his robot pals are subjected to one of own childhood traumas of Santa Claus vs Satan for the soul of a small Mexican child. One man was responsible for my trauma: K. Gordon Murray. Importer of not only fine children's classics like Little Red Riding Hood Vs The Monsters but also other great MST3K experiments like The Robot vs The Aztec Mummy and Samson vs The Vampire Women. It wasn't all X vs Y. Sometimes it was about peaceful things.
posted by smallerdemon at 11:43 AM PST - 12 comments

Sounds from the Vietnam War. Battle sounds, RTO chatter, speeches, briefings, LZ dustoffs, dogfights, and pirate radio. What war sounded like, in country and back the U.S.
posted by John of Michigan at 11:25 AM PST - 12 comments

Sputtr is a front-end for searching a variety of popular sites, of course dipped in some Web 2.0 sauce.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:59 AM PST - 27 comments

HPV linked to certain throat cancers. Also, the HPV vaccine may not be as effective as thought.
posted by pyramid termite at 9:45 AM PST - 28 comments

Satellite images reveal shrimp trawlers' turbulent trails. Vessels turn firm sea bottoms into ooze, destroying habitats. [Via Gristmill.]
posted by homunculus at 9:17 AM PST - 11 comments

Remember Lasse Gjertsen? Now he's helping cellist Giovanni Solima, and has created an awe-inspiring multi-armed, multi-location music video for his piece, 'DayDream'. (video links youtube)
posted by Happy Dave at 9:07 AM PST - 17 comments

Yesterday, Design*Sponge added a city guide for Toronto to their small but growing list of Guides. The list also includes a Letter Press Guide, an Affordable Art Guide, a Gift Guide (2006), and guides for Brooklyn and LA.
posted by dobbs at 8:49 AM PST - 9 comments

Swimming with the fishes' feces. Too bad it wasn't whale feces. After a hard day at the fish farm you might need a drink. Or maybe all this just makes you hungry. Maybe it's just the ocean's way taking revenge on humans. We do so like to shit where we eat.
posted by spitbull at 5:39 AM PST - 29 comments

Meet Obasan: Adorable demon-possessed little girl and Japanese professional wrestler for the horror-themed Triple Six promotion. More highlights: (1) (2)
posted by StopMakingSense at 1:36 AM PST - 30 comments

Puleng is a lovely and evocative animated short film (about 3 minutes) with a refreshingly simple yet sophisticated visual style. A poignant little portrait of life ended and life renewed.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:58 AM PST - 11 comments

Unusual ways of getting high: deliberately being bitten on the tongue by a cobra; injecting spider venom.
posted by nickyskye at 11:32 PM PST - 36 comments

Want to learn more about the media flood? Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting produces a magazine and a radio show. Browse their archives by issue area, region, or media outlet. Alternately, there's the Columbia Journalism Review (here's their requisite dig at digg), the American Journalism Review, and the (previously linked) On the Media (which doesn't attempt hard-hitting media analysis, but has some quality interviews and features that give back story behind a lot of stories).
posted by serazin at 9:50 PM PST - 21 comments

Russia in photos: 1941-1945.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:52 PM PST - 32 comments

12 Byzantine Rulers is a podcast lecture series about The Byzantine Empire by Lars Brownworth, a history teacher at The Stony Brook School on Long Island, New York. 1123 years of awesomeness ready to go onto your iPod! [iTunes link]
posted by Kattullus at 7:52 PM PST - 19 comments

Poorism or Poverty Tourism is a growing trend among otherwise thrill-jaded first world tourists and is engendering a lively debate as to whether "poorists" are helping the impoverished areas they are guided through, or are merely gawking voyeurs.
posted by telstar at 7:29 PM PST - 47 comments

Shoot an Iraqi live on the web. [With a paintball gun] Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal, whose brother was killed in by an American soldier in 2005, makes a statement about virtual war in Chicago's Flatfile gallery. For the next 42 days, anyone can log in and chat with him. Or shoot him with a remote-controlled paintball gun. You can listen to him narrate a summary of the piece (and show the gun-firing robot) in this slideshow from the Chicago Tribune. If you can't log in, you can watch his video diaries here.
posted by blahblahblah at 5:30 PM PST - 31 comments

“A typical C64 game took nine months from start to finish,” laughs David Crane, the game’s designer. “Ghostbusters took six weeks!” Remembered as one of the better games on the Commodore 64, Ghostbusters still has a fan base after all these years. Never played it before? You really should see it in action, or, better yet, download the modern retro remake.
posted by Servo5678 at 5:01 PM PST - 62 comments

I'm sure, like me, you've wondered what it would look like if a bunch of black teenaged dudes got together and banged their ottoman. Well, wonder no more. Via.
posted by jonson at 4:55 PM PST - 113 comments

Not-so-classy movies with classy posters. Previously.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:31 PM PST - 17 comments

Adventure II (a sequel to Adventure, here's a playable version of the original)
posted by bardic at 3:58 PM PST - 23 comments

dotSUB s a resource and gathering place for subtitling films from one language into many languages using our unique subtitling tools. These tools expand the power and reach of films by making it possible for people to view and enjoy films in their native languages. It is very easy to use and has many languages.
posted by k8t at 3:41 PM PST - 5 comments

So, Vanity Fair reports rumors that Live Free Or Die Hard will be toned down to a PG-13 rating instead of a hard R. A writer for Aint It Cool News responds with an extended rant about "the pansy-assing of the 4th DIE FLACCID movie." End-of-the-world fanboy ranting continues in the TalkBacks for a couple days, when a Walter B shows up claiming (indirectly) to be Bruce Willis. Walter B trash-talks about the previous Die Hard sequels, Michael Bay, and Cybill Shepherd. The admins are skeptical. iChat FTW! Just wait till the bloggers get ahold of this one!
posted by designbot at 12:16 PM PST - 77 comments

Happy Friday! A cute cartoon about surfing. There is a cat in it.
posted by dame at 12:14 PM PST - 42 comments

Does God Exist? The Nightline Face-Off
Former child star Kirk Cameron and his evangelist colleague Ray Comfort (infamous for their banana argument) take on atheists in a debate over the existence of God. Per usual, you can expect calm, cool, collected temperaments and absolute respect for a difference of opinion. Especially since both parties have been previously featured on Nightline, the former taking to the streets to challenge atheists and the latter proposing a God-rejecting blasphemy challenge. You know you're rubbing your hands in anticipation of the fireworks, but you better let Bill O'Reilly weigh in first. For more youtube goodness, parts 1 and 2 of the Nightline piece (the full debate is available in the first link).
posted by Mach3avelli at 10:58 AM PST - 294 comments

Virgil Finlay, Fritz Eichenberg, Bernie Wrightson, and much, much, more, at datajunkie.
Warning: Non-Thumbnailed galleries and YouTube sidebar. May not be suitable for all CPUs.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:55 AM PST - 5 comments

A YouTube PSA about sarcastic YouTube posts And the haters respond as read by the orginal poster.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 9:46 AM PST - 38 comments

Previously, Roger Ebert had the last word with Rob Schneider. A few days ago, Rob Schneider proves that despite his undiscriminating film choices, bad films do not make a bad person and he is one classy guy.
posted by spec80 at 9:20 AM PST - 53 comments

"I looked into the faces of my executioners and saw that many of them had tears in their eyes." In 1961, Bruce Olson, a brilliant 19-year-old linguistics student, tells his parents he wants to be a Christian missionary. In disgust, his dad buys him a one-way ticket to Caracas. Without sponsors, he walks alone into the jungle looking for the Motilone natives. A Motilone arrow pierces his thigh, and he is taken back to the village where his fate will be decided. He is eventually accepted into the tribe and begins to evangelize without disrupting the culture. In 1988, Olson is captured and condemned to die by guerrillas. Investigating the story, journalist Maria Caballero ventures into the jungles to interview indigenous leaders, who testify to Olson's 30-year history of service to them and in some cases volunteer to die in his place. The president of Colombia says, “This is the first white man to be defended by the indigenous communities in our country, in Latin America.”
posted by No Robots at 8:53 AM PST - 73 comments

"Clearly we need a much bigger telescope to go back much further in time to see the very birth of the Universe." The venerable Hubble space telescope is going to be replaced by what looks like a honeycomb on a box of chocolates. Of course, if it takes more pictures like this (XL), nobody is going to complain about its looks.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:38 AM PST - 39 comments

Micheal Kremer's proposal to lease antiquities: Most countries prohibit the export of certain antiquities. This practice often leads to illegal excavation and looting for the black market, which damages the items and destroys important aspects of the archaeological record. We argue that long-term leases of antiquities would raise revenue for the country of origin while preserving its long-term ownership rights... via The Art Law Blog
posted by RMD at 7:01 AM PST - 10 comments

Top 40: The greatest foreign films of all time as chosen by Guardian readers (complete with snarky comments by the paper's resident film writers).
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:54 AM PST - 89 comments

Metal! [Flickr set] Slayer! Metallica! Girlschool! Quiet Riot! Megadeth! Maiden! And many, many more.
posted by psmealey at 5:23 AM PST - 89 comments

A gast-flabbering awesome. single link YouTube post
posted by By The Grace of God at 4:46 AM PST - 49 comments

Reality Sandwich is a new web magazine whose subjects "run the gamut from sustainability to shamanism, alternate realities to alternative energy, remixing media to re-imagining community, holistic healing techniques to the promise and perils of new technologies." Daniel Pinchbeck, the author of Breaking Open the Head, is the editorial director of the site. [Via Disinformation.]
posted by homunculus at 12:01 AM PST - 15 comments

Ubuntu Studio is a Linux distribution focused on creative audiovisual pursuits.
posted by phrontist at 10:02 PM PST - 55 comments

When it came to Boss Radio, no station was more in charge than The Big 8 - CKLW. Thanks to a 50,000 watt transmitter, the Windsor, Ontario, station could be heard in four Canadian provinces and 28 U.S. states. CKLW had one of the first female program directors in the business. And even though Cancon requirements were blamed for the station's demise, it was that law that introduced many Americans to Canadian musicians that might otherwise not have gotten such U.S. exposure.
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:44 PM PST - 21 comments

"New Card. Whaddya think?" "It's very cool, Bateman. But that's nothing."
posted by hermitosis at 9:19 PM PST - 51 comments

Possibly the greatest comic-book ever written about a dead man wandering through Hell in search of his pants, Stig's Inferno is available online! Issues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
posted by lekvar at 9:04 PM PST - 17 comments

"Being thin doesn't automatically mean you're not fat." According to the data, people who maintain their weight through diet rather than exercise are likely to have major deposits of internal fat, even if they are otherwise slim. "The whole concept of being fat needs to be redefined," said Bell, whose research is funded by Britain's Medical Research Council.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:25 PM PST - 78 comments

Like checkers meets Blade Runner , Quadradius is draughts with powerups Well, with no diagonal motion or jumping, but they're checker-shaped and "Parcheesi meets Neuromancer" didn't have that ring. Pretty sure it's flash.
posted by klangklangston at 5:36 PM PST - 27 comments

The Nolli Plan. In 1748, Giambattista Nolli drew one of the most detailed and accurate maps ever created for the city of Rome. Improving on the Buffalini Plan of 1551 [interactive link to zoom], Nolli’s plan was drawn to an incredible precision, going as far as revealing public interior spaces in a stark figure-ground relationship. The Interactive Nolli Map allows you to overlap transparencies of the modern city to see how little has changed and how precise Nolli’s measurements were. Piranesi’s maps – however fanciful- were also inspired by Nolli’s achievements.
posted by yeti at 4:57 PM PST - 8 comments

Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace Else is Lee Hartsfeld's mp3-blog. He posts mostly pre-1960 music, most ripped from his extensive lp collection. Genres he posts include gospel, christian comedy, elevator music, space age exotica mood lounge pop and odd Beatles covers.
posted by Kattullus at 4:14 PM PST - 21 comments

Tammy Faye Messner Bids Her Fans Goodbye. Down to 65 pounds and unable to continue treatment for cancer, Tammy Faye Messner, one of the most colorful figures in religious broadcasting, has posted a goodbye letter to fans on her Web site.
posted by parmanparman at 3:09 PM PST - 138 comments

Excellent flash photo The things that can be done with Flash. Amazing. Very slowly run your mouse over the entire photo and see the city from dawn to dusk to the city lit up at night. I like. :) ]It amazes me about what some people choose to complain about.]
posted by rasmusnor at 2:24 PM PST - 57 comments

Douglas Crockford, leading JavaScript Architect for Yahoo!, has been teaching a series of classes on JavaScript programming for other Yahoo! employees.
The JavaScript Programming Language [4 video clips: 1 (31 min) 2 (31 min) 3 (29min) 4 (20 min), presentation slides: zipped PPT]
An Inconvenient API: The Theory of the DOM [3 video clips: 1 (31 min) 2 (21 min) 3 (26 min), presentation slides: zipped PPT]
Advanced JavaScript [3 video clips: 1 (31 min) 2 (25 min) 3 (11 min), presentation slides: zipped PPT]
posted by ijoshua at 2:09 PM PST - 27 comments

Hisaharu Motoda’s “Neo-Ruins” series of lithographs depict the cityscape of a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where familiar streets lie deserted, the buildings are crumbling and weeds grow from the broken pavement. More here, here & here.
posted by jonson at 1:03 PM PST - 39 comments

Another casualty in the War on Drugs "I think we're dying," he said in the 5-minute tape, obtained under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:20 PM PST - 146 comments

These are jellyfish made out of water bottles. These are jellyfish made out of glass.
posted by dame at 11:42 AM PST - 25 comments

"I've always wondered why, if I was called to search an airplane and some luggage … why did they let the airplane go before I arrived there." A former police officer says he believes he could have found explosives on Flight 182, but the plane had already left a Montreal airport by the time he arrived to check it.
posted by chunking express at 11:37 AM PST - 19 comments

Wild Recipes. And by "wild" they mean "different." I'll say: I like to take bologna and put it on a hot dog bun with string cheese and orange marmalade in the middle of the bologna, then micro wave it to melt the cheese a little--about 1 minute. Yum! I also like grape jelly and roast beef sandwhiches. I like grilled cheese sanwhiches, with strawberry jam and ham as the filling. Hamburgers on a plate, no bun, smothered in syrup or honey is good too.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:32 AM PST - 77 comments

“Kool-Aid pickles violate tradition, maybe even propriety. Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated.” (BugMeNot)
posted by jason's_planet at 8:23 AM PST - 123 comments

Have you played with Google Earth recently? You can track flights live and in 3-D, or watch an animation of global cloud cover over the last 10 days, or simply make Google Earth prettier using NASA images. Google Earth isn't limited to the current, you can also enable historical maps from the 1700s, and view an animation that will show you what will happen in the future to New York and San Francisco if the sea levels rise. Google Earth can also shed light on previous MeFi discussions, from the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (and, indeed many other ship wrecks) to the discussion over America's top 150 buildings, now in all of their 3-D glory.
posted by blahblahblah at 7:10 AM PST - 26 comments

Best headline ever. The AP lets it's geek flag fly in an article about high-wire artists crossing a river in Korea. [thanks kottke]
posted by Rock Steady at 7:05 AM PST - 63 comments

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is burning (again). Over the past few days, more than 22,000 acres have burned, and a mandatory evacuation has been ordered for the north end of the Gunflint Trail. Fire containment remains at only 5%, and the fire's growth potential remains high due to strong winds, lack of rainfall, and the dense concentration of blown-down trees caused by a major windstorm in 1999. Officials are now attempting to fight fire with fire. Fire danger is high to extreme across northern Minnesota and fire restrictions are in effect indefinitely. The BWCAW previously.
posted by mauglir at 6:33 AM PST - 19 comments

Happy 50th Birthday, John Simon Ritchie. Possibly the most famous "musician" to be almost completely unable to play his own instrument, would be 50 years old today, had he lived. Even had he not overdosed in 1978, it's pretty unlikely he would have lived anyway, given his propensity for mayhem.
posted by psmealey at 5:12 AM PST - 46 comments

Tony Blair tells Cabinet he will quit.
posted by plep at 3:56 AM PST - 86 comments

The Encyclopedia of Life project will create a compendium of every aspect of the biosphere. It aims to compile data on all of Earth's 1.8 million known species on one Web site, and will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. E. O. Wilson is getting his wish. [Via BB.]
posted by homunculus at 10:15 PM PST - 31 comments

"The Twelve Tribes" A useful and interesting statistical breakdown from Belief.net of the socio-cultural divides in the US. via digby
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:02 PM PST - 70 comments

Moptops in suits. Not necessarily the ones you were thinking of.
posted by oneirodynia at 8:47 PM PST - 32 comments

Have you ever come across a plaque commemorating an historical event that seemed well… just a little strange? Maybe it was the Krblin Jihn Kabin (KHS #1) in pCalifornia, Notgeon. Maybe it was the Noizomi in nMichigan, Raalberdus? Welcome to Kymaerica.
posted by tellurian at 8:11 PM PST - 26 comments

WiserEarth is a user-editable relational database that aspires to list, categorize, and describe every non profit and civil society organization on Earth. It currently includes 104,304 organizations which can be viewed by name, location, or areas of focus. You can perform complex searches. You can post (or search) jobs, events, and resources. You can discuss areas of focus, such as Urban Forestry, Evolutionary Ecology, or government oversight and reform. You can also visualize the networks connecting these areas of focus and the various organizations.
posted by alms at 7:28 PM PST - 6 comments

Turtle > cat youtube, cute critters
posted by Joe Invisible at 5:37 PM PST - 50 comments

Vladimir Putin: You know who else wanted to dominate the world? Also: Russia suspends compliance with treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. A 2002 analysis of Putin's foreign policy by Clifford Gaddy and Fiona Hill discusses Russia's fear of US unilateralism; a more recent article by Hill notes that high oil prices have made Russia an energy superpower. A 1951 article by George F. Kennan on US policy towards Russia. Previously.
posted by russilwvong at 5:32 PM PST - 28 comments

The BBC have published online new guidelines for programme makers as to how the end credits to television shows should be formatted in future. The instructions are geekily idiosyncratic and the diagrams offer a preview of at least BBC One's on-screen graphics in the future. Spy drama Spooks famously dumped its credits online. Are we now seeing the first stage of a process in which the same will happen for all programmes? Does it matter?
posted by feelinglistless at 3:45 PM PST - 29 comments

Sex Education media has been around since the days of silent films. Seems most everyone can use a bit of guidance when it comes to the appropriate handling of their lustful urges... your geriatric, dementia-ridden parents, soldiers, Boys, Girls, couples, teens, Christians, and yes, trainables. On a less serious note, the topic of Sex Ed as addressed by: Monty Python, Conan O'Brien, fireside chats, Amy Sedaris, MAD TV, Fry & Laurie, Weeds, Ali G and the Simpsons, Family Guy, and some Florida trailer park slut on youtube. Note: this fpp will not play well in Bangalore. NSFW. Duh. (Previously.)
posted by miss lynnster at 2:37 PM PST - 53 comments

Sweet! Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has made a 3D printer that forms objects out of sugar.
posted by exogenous at 1:02 PM PST - 36 comments

The 25 most exquisitely sad songs in the whole world. (via I Will Dare)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:49 PM PST - 354 comments

THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF AMERICA warning: sound, animated gifs, frontpage-1.0-ish
posted by Stynxno at 12:29 PM PST - 63 comments

The Free Voice of Labour [Flash video 57.11] traces the history of a Yiddish anarchist newspaper publishing its final issue after 88 years. One of 200+ films on anarchist and related themes at the ChristieBooks channel on Brightcove. Other films include Gordon Carr's documentary on the Angry Brigade, a wealth of Spanish-language material on the civil war and revolution, a Russian-language biopic of Nestor Makhno, the story of the Bonnot Gang and a history of Uruguay's Tupamaros. In other news, Franco is dead.
posted by Abiezer at 12:27 PM PST - 10 comments

Pachelbel Rant (YouTube) by Rob Paravonian (official site). A few more of his videos, including a comedy bit on the Friends theme and Sugar Ray lyrics. (previous reference on MeFi here)
posted by Melinika at 12:02 PM PST - 39 comments

The end of one-click patents? The Supreme court recently handed down a decision in the case of KSR v. Teleflex requiring courts to use "common sense" in determining what is an is not "Obvious" and therefore not patentable. According to SCOTUSblog, this will greatly affect "combination" patents that involve combining two already existing ideas in a new way.
posted by delmoi at 11:23 AM PST - 31 comments

Two podcasts from the BBC. Around the world, by every measure, America's reputation and image has never been so poor. Part 1: Venezuela; Part 2: Turkey
posted by adamvasco at 11:18 AM PST - 43 comments

The boundary stones of Washington DC.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:48 AM PST - 50 comments

Librarians and book collectors have many tales about ephemera left in books. While the legend of the bacon bookmark may be among the more pervasive reports of strange finds, a smallpox sample is probably the most bizarre. There are blogs and discussion boards that record other makeshift markers. Some readers prefer designated over spontaneous markers. Mirage Bookmark has an extensive collection of bookmark ephemera, with Bookmark of the Week and Bookmark Collector also offering noteworthy collections.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:34 AM PST - 67 comments

Like Progress Quest but looking for something you can get a little more involved with? Hours of semi-interactive entertainment are now available! Save, load, and undo with the roguelike game Save Scummer. Level up with Statbuilder, where you must click to win. And try my personal favorite, NPC Quest, which gives you all the excitement of RPG inventory management while automating the boring battles and exploration. (NPC Quest is near the bottom; scroll down.)
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:28 AM PST - 8 comments

Bandology! For those who loved Skyrates, here comes another casual, online community game from the brain-trust at the Carnegie Mellon University school of game design. Choose your instrument, join a band, and play old-school mini-games to build up your skills. Or choose track B to start your own band, recruit new members, and manage your gigs and travel. (And BTW, Skyrates has now rebooted from the beginning, with a new map and much more fun stuff implemented.)
posted by Navelgazer at 8:45 AM PST - 7 comments

Dude catches sunglasses with his face youtube 1:37
posted by Flashman at 8:45 AM PST - 107 comments

Secondlifefilter: The popular (and increasingly Euro-centric) site has certainly been getting some bad press recently. It's a little sad that a virtual world must now be patrolled by real policemen.
posted by chuckdarwin at 8:18 AM PST - 72 comments

The Long Take aka "The Greatest Long Tracking Shots in Cinema".
posted by Armitage Shanks at 6:39 AM PST - 93 comments

"Three years of legal education has been wasted because of an unmoderated message board." 3rd-year law student Anthony Ciolli has lost a job offer due to his association with law school message board AutoAdmit.
posted by Anonymous at 2:19 AM PST - 245 comments

The diminutive but intensely powerful Lillian Leitzel was known for her fiery temper, her flirtatious banter, and her ability to spin her entire body in the air while supporting herself by only one hand upwards of 200 times in a row, much like a human pinwheel. She was one of the Ringling Bros. brightest (and most petulant) stars, famously firing and re-hiring her maid several times a day. She married 3 times - (the second marriage ended after she cut off her husband's finger) but her last marriage was to the purported love her life, trapeze artist Alfredo Codona, a master of the triple back summersault off the flying trapeze who also enjoyed success as a Hollywood stunt double . Their passionate (if mercurial) relationship was cut short when, during a performance, Lillian's ring broke, and she fell 45 feet onto a concrete floor. Two days later she was dead. Alfredo, devastated, became reckless and was injured in a fall of his own, cutting short his career. His subsequent marriage to another performer failed, and while meeting with a lawyer to finalize their divorce, he shot her and then himself. Alfredo and Lillian are reunited in death, buried under a marker of their lives and love.
posted by serazin at 12:45 AM PST - 22 comments

The USA playing global sheriff isn't new, but the reach of US laws is extending. Hew Griffiths isn't a terrorist or a violent criminal, he didn't even make any money from his crime. He pirated some software, from his home in Australia. So why is he in jail in Virginia? Some think we might as well join 'em.
posted by bystander at 11:56 PM PST - 55 comments

New Justices, New Rules: How the Supreme Court's Validation of the Federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act Affects Women's Constitutional Liberty and Equality. A two-part FindLaw analysis of Gonzales v. Carhart.
posted by homunculus at 9:25 PM PST - 26 comments

"Venezuela and Cuba have both asked that Posada be extradited, but an immigration judge in September 2005 ruled he could not be sent to either country out of concern he might face torture there." Luis Posada is a free man today. A graduate of the notorious School of the Americas, he is wanted for various acts of terrorism in a number of Latin American countries.
posted by mullingitover at 8:22 PM PST - 38 comments

"The difference between BJ and AJ, Before and After Jobs, is not the process," [Don Norman] continues. "It is the person. Never before did Apple have such focus and dedication. Apple used to wobble, moving this way and that. No more."
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:17 PM PST - 26 comments

The Blurter. The Complainer. The Know-It-All. The Spoiled Darling. You can handle them all.
posted by mediareport at 8:06 PM PST - 33 comments

What is the connection between cute semi-naked japanese girls, and Orson Welles' F is for Fake? Momus explains.
posted by vronsky at 7:50 PM PST - 77 comments

Sleestaks are the new hotness. Sleestaks are large green humanoids with both reptilian and insectoid features; they have scaly skin with frills around the neck, bulbous unblinking eyes, pincer-like hands, stubby tails, and a single blunt horn on top of the head. There were only three Sleestak costumes available for Land of the Lost, which sometimes required creative editing to create the illusion that they were that numerous. Sleestaks have inspired psychedelic stoner/doom rockers, artwork, artwork and more artwork.
posted by grateful at 6:48 PM PST - 55 comments

For the past several years, Jonathon Liu of Rainy Bay Art has been accepting commissions to create detailed (and permanent) portraits in the medium of Etch-A-Sketch. He also works in the medium of pumpkin.
posted by jonson at 6:42 PM PST - 7 comments

FollowupFilter: The "Ashley Treatment" is a violation of Washington state law, ruled an investigative report today. The hospital that performed the sterilization acknowledged that a miscommunication was to blame.
posted by pineapple at 5:54 PM PST - 141 comments

Who is in the primary position? Abbott & Costello, Bard-style. (singlelinkyoutubefilter)
posted by papakwanz at 4:41 PM PST - 16 comments

Planed - a new work by Gilbert & George, available for download until 11:35pm on the 10th of May.
posted by jack_mo at 4:15 PM PST - 13 comments

Everyone featured on this site requires a fucken glassing. Who do you think needs to be glassed?
posted by mcsweetie at 3:06 PM PST - 67 comments

It's the closest we'll come to "working" there: Google brings in authors to speak to their employees, and now you can see presentations from Lawrence Lessig, John McCain, Metafilter's own John Scalzi, and more.
posted by drezdn at 2:20 PM PST - 22 comments

Little Mukesh is the most badass kid in his nursery. His little friends all have pet dogs, cats, ponies, goats, you know... same old thing. But not Mukesh! No no no! His parents got him a pet COBRA! (Albeit clearly defanged. I mean, he is a baby & all.)
WARNING: Do not click link if you don't want to see a bare-butted baby piss off a spitting cobra.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:59 PM PST - 47 comments

"Our main argument is that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights,” said Eberhart Theuer, a lawyer leading the challenge on behalf of a Vienna animal rights group. “We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions,” Theuer said. “We’re not talking about the right to vote here.” Some primatologists support the legal action, while others aren't so sure. Brazilian courts have already granted a chimp the right to a petition of Habeas Corpus.
posted by unSane at 12:40 PM PST - 70 comments

Ruining science fiction: Not only are the science fiction cliches humorously skewered in the Tough Guide to the Known Galaxy, but the science itself is wrong. For example, despite the best efforts of SF writers, interstellar trade will never work, unless wine costs $11 billion a bottle. Slower-than-light travel is much harder than you think, and warp drives are far away. Space battles, if they happen, won't have fighters and dramatic dogfights, but instead involve vast distances and maneuvers lasting years. And you can ruin a whole lot more science fiction with real science (and wonderful examples) at Atomic Rocket. Don't follow the links if you want to read Heinlein or watch Battlestar Galactica with a light heart.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:51 AM PST - 185 comments