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It's been 40 years since the 1967 Detroit riot. The Detroit News remembers. Where we stand, four decades after that fateful summer. Extensive coverage including galleries, video, audio, and articles.
posted by The Deej at 11:32 PM PST - 35 comments

I never saw Simon Birch but I found this interview Roger Ebert did with Ian Michael Smith really amazing. I don't know if it was how comfortable Ian is with sci-fi-ing up his body, how the two of them used technology to overcome their current physical conditions, the discussions of "disability blogospheres" or just how happy Roger seems to be in this conversation but the whole thing made me smile...and something made me think MeFi would agree.
posted by Brainy at 7:32 PM PST - 15 comments

Qaraami music is from Somalia. In qaraami style you sing and play an embellished melody on the oud, and maybe with some drums. The Somali diaspora have taken it everywhere. I just heard it for the first time in Shafeq's taxi in Wellington. With luck, it will flourish in its home again.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:17 PM PST - 8 comments

How did the Polynesians navigate without maps? And where did they get to? [Previously]
posted by djgh at 7:05 PM PST - 26 comments

Gorilla marketing! This is an ad.
posted by sveskemus at 6:15 PM PST - 47 comments

Partial face transplants.
posted by miss lynnster at 5:39 PM PST - 15 comments

How to Draw a Head. Fun tutorial. Amy is cute. Go draw a head. (For those easily confused, start with Getting Started.)
posted by snsranch at 4:38 PM PST - 21 comments

Ghetto Man roasts the Superheroes As Scott Tipton says, "No superhero movie, no matter how bad, how awful, how soul-numbingly un-good in every sense of the word, can hurt me. I’ve seen LEGENDS OF THE SUPERHEROES. Truly, nothing else comes close
posted by vronsky at 3:03 PM PST - 25 comments

Fate, Absolute Life and Death, the Aleph, the Zeitgeist, the sinking of the Atlantis, the World Trade Center, the formation of the universe...what more could you want from art? There's probably already been a been a post on this guy, Paul Laffoley, but I should hope more people could get a glance at some of this man's work. Crazy or brilliant, you make your decision. A video from his website.
posted by moonbizcut at 1:57 PM PST - 24 comments

The Price. Confessions of a College Call Girl is a blog by... well a prostitute who is in college. While her posts are mostly entertaining stories about her experiences, her most recent entry addresses e-mailers who have expressed interest in her field.
posted by spec80 at 11:33 AM PST - 95 comments

It's not a bug, it's a feature: Carolin Horn has designed Anymails, which represents your email messages and folders as micro-organisms. The morphology of the individual organisms and their behaviour within colonies imparts information about the state of your email. You can view QT movies of the application in action (1, 2), download her thesis, and download the Anymails code itself. See some of her other work here (predominantly in German). via Madame Martin, the "French Metafilter".
posted by Rumple at 10:44 AM PST - 22 comments

Brian Dettmer is an artist/surgeon who carves books into intricate, astonishing & precise new pieces of art.
posted by jonson at 10:06 AM PST - 35 comments

Yasujiro Ozu on trains & automobiles
posted by hama7 at 8:57 AM PST - 7 comments

Notebookism. A site for people that like notebooks.
posted by chunking express at 8:53 AM PST - 43 comments

Derinkuyu wasn't discovered until 1965, when a resident cleaning the back wall of his cave house broke through a wall and discovered behind it a room that he'd never seen, which led to still another, and another. Eventually, spelunking archeologists found a maze of connecting chambers that descended at least 18 stories and 280 feet beneath the surface, ample enough to hold 30,000 people. [flickr]. [wiki].
posted by dersins at 8:21 AM PST - 48 comments

Man buys Allsop, relists it as Allsopp - proving that on eBay, presentation is everything. via b3ta
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:12 AM PST - 38 comments

Seattle to Boston in 15 minutes. Katja Suletzki drove the full length of Interstate 90, the longest interstate highway in America, from Seattle to Boston. Thanks to a webcam, a modified version of Flix, and a laptop, the journey was recorded for posterity as a 15 minute film.
posted by dw at 8:02 AM PST - 29 comments

The Eight Strangest Communites On the Internet. (via)
posted by nuclear_soup at 7:59 AM PST - 72 comments

The Trouble with Tribbles, A Television Adaptation by Edward Gorey
posted by Slithy_Tove at 6:21 AM PST - 23 comments

Open access articles at Antiquity, a quarterly review of world archaeology. Recent project reviews cover Aztec cities, earliest rice domestication, and Pleistocene rock art in Egypt. There's lots to read.
posted by Abiezer at 5:29 AM PST - 8 comments

Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on THEIR copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright! Writer, film-maker and "somewhat renegade Christian thinker" Christopher Knight (No, not the Brady Bunch kid. And yes, I'm as disappointed by that as you are.) fights back via his blog, with links to his original material. The show in question is Vh-1's Web Junk 2.0, and the clip in question was removed from YouTube, but preserved for posterity by Political Soup (A .wmv file here).
posted by amyms at 12:45 AM PST - 46 comments

The latest victory for gay rights occurs in ... Iowa?
posted by kyrademon at 12:06 AM PST - 82 comments

"If the truth was really known about the origins of Jazz, it would certainly never be mentioned in polite society." The expression arose sometime during the later nineteenth century in the better brothels of New Orleans, which provided music and dancing as well as sex. Jazz has been around for more than a hundred years now. It is not the result of choosing a tune, but an ideal that is created first in the mind, and willed in the music, inspired by A Passion for Jazz.
posted by netbros at 9:28 PM PST - 27 comments

We've seen that one picture of earth at night. And we all know what Google Earth is. But someone has put the two together. Be sure to check out the map overlays, including the dusk map.
posted by philomathoholic at 9:20 PM PST - 30 comments

Why stop at one great undiscovered site when you can have 100? PC Magazine released its top 100 undiscovered websites for 2007 which you can view as a slideshow or download as bookmarks. There are some cool new sites that would be postworthy in themselves, such as: Footnote, which has digitized millions of national archive documents; WebsiteGrader, which automatically tells you how good your website is (MeFi gets a 98%); Rentometer, which compares your rent to others in the neighborhood; and Yapta, which lets you take advantage of airline policies that refund part of your ticket when prices drop. Many others have been covered on the blue, but are still worth revisiting such as OldVersions.com for finding software before the bloat, the video how-to site VideoJug, and Zamzar for conversion between file formats. If you can't get enough, check out the 100 classic websites.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:19 PM PST - 22 comments

Them's some big webs!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:31 PM PST - 48 comments

As the global climate changes, agriculture is sure to be affected. The Stern Review explains that "developing countries - in particular the poorest - are heavily dependent on agriculture, the most climate-sensitive of all economic sectors." Working Group II of the IPCC says that: "Smallholder and subsistence farmers, pastoralists and artisanal fisherfolk will suffer complex, localised impacts of climate change (high confidence)." Meanwhile, some important staple crops are especially threatened by rising temperatures (though genetic engineering may help). You can experience a taste of it yourself, with a climate change awareness fast, taking place on Tuesday, September 4th.
posted by sindark at 8:15 PM PST - 12 comments

Tonight I present to you Wikipedia articles that are too technical. Warning: Your brain may explode.
posted by loquacious at 7:36 PM PST - 49 comments

What's the Big Secret? Four surveillance experts try to figure out what the NSA's superclassified wiretapping program really is (hint: it may have something to do with the filters). They don't seem to realize that this kind of reckless public discussion means some Americans are going to die. [Via Threat Level.]
posted by homunculus at 6:10 PM PST - 47 comments

Michael Jackson the Beer Hunter (not the other one) passed away this morning. Beer fans remember the man and his impact on the world of beer. Among other things, he is responsible for establishing the definition of worldwide beer styles. He is also credited with reviving the Belgian beer industry and inspiring the U.S. microbrewing renaissance. I'll raise a glass of ale to him tonight because he was a friend and inspiration.
posted by sixpack at 3:03 PM PST - 78 comments

Recently deceased Leona Helmsley left $12 Million to her dog, as predicted by Soviet propagandists in 1963. Other predictions have been less than accurate.
posted by TrialByMedia at 2:33 PM PST - 34 comments

Is there anything Japanese sailors won't have sex with? [via]
posted by absalom at 2:19 PM PST - 95 comments

Welcome to the official home of the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival.
Sponsored by, you guessed it, Shell. [via]
posted by [expletive deleted] at 12:36 PM PST - 27 comments

Youscope is the result of hooking up an oscilloscope to a soundcard. [youtube] 3rd place winner in Short Films at Assembly 2007.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:30 PM PST - 26 comments

Folks, don't worry about energy crisis. Because Standard Oil, Shell, Gulf, Mobil, Texaco, Amoco, Esso, Sunoco, Exxon, Nixon, Standard Oil, General Motors, Chrysler, George Wallace, and Ford is not the backbone of America. The backbone of America is a mule and cotton. [mp3] Bluesman, outsider artist, vaudevillian: Abner Jay was a real One Man Band and, as he put it, "the last great Southern black minstrel show". Some more mp3s: [Cocaine Blues, excerpt]; [I'm So Depressed, excerpt]; [The Reason Young People Use Drugs, full]
posted by billysumday at 12:11 PM PST - 8 comments

David Pogue on the Power of Simplicity Complete with musical opening.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:28 AM PST - 51 comments

A Life With Jazz is a collection of the wonderful photographs of Herman Leonard, focusing on the iconic figures of 20th century jazz music.
posted by jonson at 9:59 AM PST - 9 comments

Since when did we get cat 5 levees? Or a working flood plan? Behold the New Orleans Levee, where 'We don't hold anything back.'
posted by localroger at 9:24 AM PST - 21 comments

Interviews and segments from the film American Philosopher by Phillip McReynolds.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:41 AM PST - 16 comments

T.S. Eliot reads the The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, accompanied by Portishead.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:35 AM PST - 55 comments

The proper way to deal with a KKK march (Do not click link while drinking liquids) With all the doom and gloom in the news these days, I was beginning to think there was nothing to be done to make things better. I was proven wrong. By clowns.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 8:18 AM PST - 89 comments

The Mensch of Malden Mills There's supposedly an exception to every rule. If CEO greed is a rule, the exception is Aaron Feuerstein. When his Malden Mills burned to the ground in December, 1995, he took a $300,000,000 insurance payment and used much of it to pay his 3,000 workers ther wages and benefits while he began to rebuild the factory. [more inside]
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:00 AM PST - 54 comments

Make a single, make a video and unleash it on the internet to see if you can make money. The Schema began as a project to get a single out in 30 days from one man's bedroom on a tight budget. Despite the massive popularity on YouTube, will "Those Rules You Made" succeed in making any money?
posted by edd at 6:34 AM PST - 59 comments

Relativity "Lite."
posted by Citizen Premier at 6:33 AM PST - 18 comments

Want to become the sixth person to get a perfect score in Pac-Man? Here's how.
posted by Plutor at 4:35 AM PST - 18 comments

In 1971, George Harrison^RIP and Ravi Shankar organized, promoted, and put on The Concert for Bangladesh – the first high-profile rock concert to raise money (administered by UNICEF) for humanitarian causes – at NYC's Madison Square Garden.

Performances: Ravi Shankar { Bangla Dhun } George Harrison and band { Wah Wah, My Sweet Lord, Awaiting On You All, That's The Way God Planned (composed/performed by Billy Preston), It Don't Come Easy (composed/performed by Ringo Starr), Beware of Darkness (featuring Leon Russell on guest vocals), While My Guitar Gently Weeps (featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar), Jumping Jack Flash/Young Blood Medley (performed by Leon Russell), Here Comes The Sun (featuring Pete Ham) } Bob Dylan { A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall/It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry, Blowin' In The Wind, Just Like A Woman, Love Minus Zero/No Limit, If Not For You (soundcheck duet with George Harrison) } [Encore!, Encore!]
posted by Poolio at 2:52 AM PST - 37 comments

Wellcome Images This collection of thousands of high-quality images includes anatomical images, rare books and manuscripts, posters, photos, and more. Also includes galleries on war, witchcraft, wellness, and other subjects.
posted by hortense at 1:19 AM PST - 10 comments

The Royal Randwick Racecourse has been locked down. At least 8 horses have tested positive for equine flu. It is predicted that 700 horses will contract the virus. [more inside]
posted by gomichild at 11:58 PM PST - 32 comments

The man got lit up early. Culprit out on bail. LOLCATS on the case.
posted by jcruelty at 11:45 PM PST - 125 comments

Dampcats.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats moist, or why.
posted by landis at 11:29 PM PST - 37 comments

The Pinky Show takes on some tough issues. Is the Iraq War legal? (24 minute video.) Cats with guns. (6 minutes.) Viet Nam. (40 minutes.) Did Thomas Edison hate cats? (2.5 minutes.) Or just browse the archives.

Oh wait. Did I mention it's hosted by a cartoon cat with an annoying monotone voice? Well it is.
posted by The Deej at 11:26 PM PST - 22 comments

Astrona - Space & Astronomical Art Journal : "specialising in space and astronomical art, science fiction art, visions of future worlds, design and visualization of technologies for living in space, space exploration, spaceships, starships, space colonies, etc."
posted by peacay at 10:29 PM PST - 6 comments

Eco Porn. "Fuckforforest is an erotic non-profit eco organization. By showing the beauty of love and nature we wish to direct attention to and collect money for the earth’s threatened nature, with help from sexually free people." (NSFW)
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:04 PM PST - 25 comments

Do you want your next president to be an unintelligent, corrupt, incompetent liar? Of course you don’t. Neither does Russ Feingold. (And oh by the way, the next president must also be a Dylan fan. More about the video)
posted by growabrain at 9:40 PM PST - 33 comments

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust - an overview of the people and events of the Holocaust through photographs, documents, art, music, and literature. It is designed to prepare K-12 teachers to approach this sensitive topic. The content is presented from three perspectives: Timeline, People, and The Arts. Produced by the University of South Florida.
posted by netbros at 9:22 PM PST - 6 comments

American Elf is a daily diary comic by James Kochalka. The latest strip is always free but the archives are subscription only. He also a musician, his most famous song being Hockey Monkey, and he has number of songs up for free on his site. [via Eddie Campbell who says: "Beginning in 1998 Kochalka took the form of daily strip and imbued it with a life that has been missing from it for a long time. Since then he has made sure his daily round is not finished until a strip is done. Another thing I like about it is the way he carefully avoids any taint of 'continuity'. There is no story here, just the eternal incidentalness of life as it is lived."]
posted by Kattullus at 8:39 PM PST - 21 comments

i:wound
posted by hama7 at 8:06 PM PST - 6 comments

Like the US, the UK, and Canada before it, Australia has recently announced that, as part of its new citizenship guidelines, prospective citizens must pass a test with questions relating to Australian history, society, and culture. Not everyone is a fan of the test, though, or the information on it, and today The Age has released its own suggestions for a citizenship test. Could you pass it?
posted by mosessis at 7:31 PM PST - 67 comments

Death Grip: How Political Psychology Explains Bush's Ghastly Success. Interesting article on the work of psychologists Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski. [Via Disinformation.]
posted by homunculus at 4:45 PM PST - 68 comments

"It so often happens that I receive mail - well-intended but totally useless - by amateur physicists who believe to have solved the world. They believe this, only because they understand totally nothing about the real way problems are solved in Modern Physics...It should be possible, these days, to collect all knowledge you need from the internet. Problem then is, there is so much junk on the internet... I know exactly what should be taught to the beginning student...I can tell you of my own experiences. It helped me all the way to earn a Nobel Prize. But I didn't have internet. I am going to try to be your teacher. It is a formidable task."
posted by vacapinta at 4:22 PM PST - 47 comments

Ian Brown, the former lead singer with The Stone Roses has a new single out. Illegal Attacks is an anti-war song featuring Sinead O'Connor urging the US and UK governments to "bring the soldiers back home". The striking thing about the song, to my mind, is its scarcity value. The War in Vietnam brought us anti-war songs by Glen Campbell (Galveston); Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (Ohio); Edwin Star (War!); Donovan (The Universal Soldier); Steppenwolf (Draft Resister); Billy Joel (Goodnight Saigon); Bruce Springstien (Born in the USA); Jimmy Cliff (Vietnam) Nina Simone (Backlash Blues) and many, many more . Why have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are as deeply unpopular, not generated a similar body of work?
posted by MrMerlot at 3:46 PM PST - 86 comments

Today's post of tenuously related audio brings you ten historic radio broadcasts, 529 eternal questions in popular music, and one mildly amusing black metal band prank call.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:24 PM PST - 11 comments

Six feet long, eight feet wide, bicycle tires all around, and 0 to 60 in four-and-a-half hours. Have any MeFites the courage to admit they owned one of these horrors of engineering?
posted by bwg at 3:11 PM PST - 122 comments

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin. This Saturday will mark this article's four year anniversary. Frankly, I was mildly surprised not to have found it mentioned before in MeFi. It's a good read about a sad state of affairs; how our government is turning its own people into outlaws, because freedom has been traded in for an illusion of security. ...but then we already knew that. Don't we?
posted by ZachsMind at 1:22 PM PST - 110 comments

show them to me (nsfw)
posted by vronsky at 12:33 PM PST - 161 comments

Jail Guitar Doors is an independent initiative set up by Billy Bragg with the aim of providing musical equipment for the use of inmates serving time in Her Majesty’s prisons. With Mick Jones and in memory of Joe Strummer. It seems to be working. Here's an interview, a Guardian article, and the original.
posted by Alec at 10:51 AM PST - 18 comments

Is College Worth the Cost? In strict dollar terms, is that degree going to be worth the parchment it's printed on?
posted by blue_beetle at 10:13 AM PST - 134 comments

The fight to free Burma has been making noise lately. Protests are picking up in Burma, international activists are putting pressure on the UN to step in, and Jim Carrey has joined as yet another celebrity to try to bring public attention to the effort. Burma is an amazing place and the Burmese people are some of the warmest, most hospitable, beautiful, and silliest people I have ever encountered. The people of Burma deserve a better world. Is the tide shifting? Will this be a turning point for Burma? I hope so.
posted by crawfishpopsicle at 10:13 AM PST - 29 comments

The origin of the peace sign. Various histories of designs, top 10 tools for artists and designers, hilarious pencil attachments and other cool stuff at designboom (previously).
posted by nickyskye at 10:01 AM PST - 16 comments

Illicit Ohio has a wide range of photos and essays of abandoned places in Ohio, from the Cincinnati subway system (yes, there really is was one, and it's been discussed here before), to various and sundry prisons, government installations, hotels, hosiptals, houses and more. And don't miss the old vs. new galleries, either.
posted by dersins at 9:07 AM PST - 20 comments

Om Nom Nom Nom via adorablog
posted by ozomatli at 8:59 AM PST - 40 comments

Minsky Meltdown ahead? Named after Hyman Minsky, an economist who was known for his research concerning financial crises, specifically asset bubbles based on credit cycles. [much more inside]
posted by umop-apisdn at 8:56 AM PST - 75 comments

Test your facial, verbal and object memory.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:53 AM PST - 56 comments

M.Baryshnikov - G.Kirkland - Don Quixote - Coda 2/2.
posted by chunking express at 8:42 AM PST - 18 comments

Artist Tessa Farmer sculpts nightmarish scenes of winged insects being attacked, harnessed & even ripped apart by tiny skeletal faries. Partially found via.
posted by jonson at 8:26 AM PST - 15 comments

The abstract Polaroid photography of Grant Hamilton.
posted by nthdegx at 6:58 AM PST - 15 comments

Animated population pyramids project a steady increase in the median age. England and Wales. United States. Canada. China. Japan. "The number of older persons has tripled over the last 50 years; it will more than triple again over the next 50 years." [pdf] There will be a shortage of workers to support the retired and disabled. The looming crisis has been predicted for years. Proposed solutions include robots and immigration. [previously, previously]
posted by desjardins at 6:49 AM PST - 39 comments

Hilly Kristal has died at age 75. First the club, now the man.
posted by kimdog at 6:45 AM PST - 35 comments

The Law Library of Congress’s Guide to Online Law includes legal information from over a hundred different countries and all fifty states. The Legal Information Institute has guides to 130 different areas of law. The Armed Forces Legal Assistance site is also a great resource for basic legal information, aimed at service members, but often generally helpful, on topics including consumer law, family law and trusts and estates. Your State’s Bar Association may also offer information specific to your jurisdiction.
posted by ND¢ at 6:27 AM PST - 20 comments

China bans reincarnation without government permission.
(Coming soon: right to exist first requires government permit.)
posted by PsyDev at 6:18 AM PST - 37 comments

Invite Share. I've seen some invite sharing on MeTa, but this is another cool way to perhaps bump up your chances of getting an early invite to the latest exclusive, invite-only website a little sooner than later.
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:35 AM PST - 23 comments

Rakshabandhan
posted by hadjiboy at 4:02 AM PST - 15 comments

The looming food crisis is already upon us. The Institute for Food and Development - Food First - whose Policy is to eliminate the injustices that cause hunger is joined by Green Horizon talking about a global food crisis emerging. By promoting biodiesel as a substitute, we have missed the fact that it is worse than the fossil-fuel burning it replaces. As a result the line between the food economy and energy economy has become blurred. In the United States and Canada, governments are manipulating the market in the biofuels industry.
posted by adamvasco at 12:34 AM PST - 76 comments

You've got just over two weeks to make it to the John Henry celebration in Leeds, Alabama, where some folks believe the legendary steel driving contest actually took place. Maybe you already made it to John Henry Days in Talcott, West Virginia (or read a fictionalized account), where some more folks claim the same. John Garst, Scott Nelson, and other folklorists weigh in here, supplemented by a wealth of links and resources on the subject. While you think on it let Mississippi Fred McDowell, The Boss, Ralph Stanley, John Jackson, Merle Travis, and Jason Isbell tell their own versions. John Garst and his research mentioned previously.
posted by Roman Graves at 11:34 PM PST - 17 comments

Welcome to The Wieners Circle, a Chicago hot dog stand where you can stumble in after a night at the bar and trade some colorful banter from the staff (along with your chocolate milkshake). But a local tradition that was "supposed to be fun" often cuts a little too close for the black employees in the predominantly white Lincoln Park establishment. [NSFW]
posted by dhammond at 11:13 PM PST - 53 comments

My 1952 Federal truck was originally a short frame water tank truck, I needed to lengthen the frame to accommodate the design of the house.
posted by bigmusic at 10:45 PM PST - 36 comments

'Hey, We're Back' is a new podcast by Jonathan Katz, of Dr. Katz. Recommended for those who like low-key humor and Katz's soothing voice.
posted by agropyron at 10:32 PM PST - 12 comments

Inside Out A topographical bedtime story. (Warning, contains spheres!)
posted by loquacious at 10:18 PM PST - 19 comments

"Hello Youtubes, have you heard my SICK beats?" Ronald Jenkees started a youtube channel over a year ago where you can find him clucking about his roommate, giving tips for the unwashed masses, and producing some incredibly awesome beats. The internet agrees, his debut album is genius.
posted by vishnubob at 10:15 PM PST - 50 comments

The organisers of New Zealand hacking convention Kiwicon have created some PR the only way they know how, l33t h4x0ring. Using a XSS bug in NZ's largest newspaper the NZ Herald they created a fake URL that injected javascript to rewrite an article there. The URL got passed around and soon ended up with genuine media coverage in NZ Herald's biggest competitor Stuff. An earlier effort on the NZ Computerworld site was quickly fixed and got no media coverage.
posted by sycophant at 9:55 PM PST - 14 comments

RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise. Also has subsites such as a coin flipper, dice roller and a jazz scale generator.
posted by Kattullus at 8:23 PM PST - 11 comments

In 1955, at least twelve men in Boise, Idaho were arrested for "infamous crimes against nature.". In the resulting dragnet, the vice president of the Idaho First National Bank was sentenced to seven years in prison, while national magazines fomented a McCarthyite Lavender Scare with headlines such as Male Pervert Ring Seduces 1,000 Boys. This dark chapter in Idaho gay history was documented in both John Gerassi's 1966 book, The Boys of Boise and the recent film, The Fall of '55, by documentarian Seth Randal, but neither Gerassi nor Randal could identify The Queen, a closeted but politically connected homosexual who allegedly used his massive clout to stop the witch hunt.
posted by jonp72 at 6:39 PM PST - 45 comments

President Bush touched down in New Orleans at 7:11 p.m. this evening The 84-year-old Chase sat close to the president and accepted his praise for the meal of jambalaya, stewed okra and gumbo z'herb, an all-greens gumbo that's a tradition at Chase's Holy Thursday dinners.
posted by nola at 6:38 PM PST - 50 comments

“It seems that everytime I get a request from a western photojournalist to do a project on Manila, it's always about the slums and squatters and I am sick of it.” Carlos Celdran is well known for his chatty walking tours of Manila, and he’s tired of the one-track perception Westerners have of the city. Manila as slum gothic – low-hanging fruit for lazy photojournalists or writers? Or is a fairer perspective (in more ways than one) possible?
posted by micketymoc at 5:19 PM PST - 18 comments

Space Wolf!
posted by Second Account For Making Jokey Comments at 3:16 PM PST - 28 comments

It sounds like a bad Newfie joke: the Newfoundlanders who had never seen a black person before and tried to scrub the colour off his skin. But the story is real: in 1942, Lanier Phillips was the only black survivor of the wreck of the USS Truxton off the coast of Newfoundland. Like the white survivors, he was half-dead and covered in oil when he arrived on shore, and the women nursing the survivors were puzzled when they could not clean the black colour off his skin. What happened next affected Phillips' self-perception and prompted him to push for equal treatment in the US Navy. He went on to become the first African American US SONAR technician, and continues today, at the age of 84, to speak across the US about his experience with the people of St. Lawrence. [previously]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:53 PM PST - 39 comments

The Wacky World of beating up guitars to add value."Normally, even one of the resulting scratches or dings on a brand-new instrument would make a guitar enthusiast cringe. But in the hands of Mr. Eldred, they are the first steps in the process of creating a "relic" guitar -- a brand new instrument that has been deliberately aged to simulate decades' worth of rock-and-roll wear and tear."
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:52 PM PST - 45 comments

Clean (but not sanitize) your kids' faces the easy way, with MomSpit.
posted by ericbop at 2:39 PM PST - 23 comments

Knytt Stories. From Nifflas, the maker of the lovely and fiendishly difficult Within a Deep Forest, and the lovely and relaxing Knytt comes another simple platform game, this one user-modifiable. (Previously)
posted by CrunchyFrog at 2:20 PM PST - 8 comments

This PBS documentary about Anti-Americanism (a hate/love relationship) examines the complicated mixture of envy, pride, admiration, and cultural misunderstanding that characterizes european views. This documentary covers only France, Britain and Poland. Is there comparable Anti-Europeanism similar to Anti-Americanism? Or maybe it's all down to the evil liberal european media [Part 2]?!
posted by homodigitalis at 2:03 PM PST - 89 comments

First the Sub Pop Single of the week club brought us Nirvana, then the Moshi Moshi Singles Club, brought us Kate Nash; now more and more labels are having a go. What's more, the kids are buying seven inch singles again. Is this a backlash against digital downloads? Or just nostalgia for the 45?
posted by MrMerlot at 1:07 PM PST - 43 comments

At rivertrout.com, the goal is to bring together people who nurture a passion for an old, and yet exquisite, form of literature: The writing of letters.
posted by netbros at 11:45 AM PST - 12 comments

Nanda Devi - India's second-highest peak, at 25,645 feet (7816m), sits in a "sanctuary," surrounded by 21,000-foot+ lesser mountains. This has made it even more of a challenge to climb. Among those who took up the challenge were a 1965 CIA team trying to set up a plutonium-powered device to spy on China's nuclear testing program. That expedition retreated in the face of bad weather, leaving the device on the mountain. When they returned the next spring, it was gone. The Nanda Devi Sanctuary supplies water to the Ganges River, and there were fears that the four pounds of plutonium in the device could escape into the watershed. Those fears have been confirmed.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:24 AM PST - 42 comments

Hallstatt, Austria, besides being idylic, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is historically fascinating: A Bronze Age cultural center, with a 2,500-year-old salt mine (the world's first); beautiful ice caves; and a Catholic cemetery so small that the dead were regularly disinterred after a time, their skulls painstakingly identified and decorated and stacked in an ossuary.
posted by bigskyguy at 10:23 AM PST - 5 comments

You're Gonna Miss Me is playing in a few theaters this summer. The documentary explores the life of Roky Erickson, former frontman for the seminal psychedelic rock group The 13th Floor Elevators, an influential musician who's life and career has been marred by mental illness. But in recent years his life has been characterized by drastically improved health and an increasingly active recording and performance career. (Via Chicago Public Radio's Sound Opinions, see footnotes 5 & 6).
posted by nanojath at 10:00 AM PST - 21 comments

BoingBoing launched its redesign today and, among other changes, allows comments again. So, if you're tired of anagram maps, steampunk crap, self-promotion, endless and often pointless crying about copyright laws, orgasms about everything Katamari Demacy, or anything else, now is your chance. The folks behind the now abandoned corysucks and the still running xenisucks must be happy.
posted by Muddler at 9:35 AM PST - 146 comments

360-degree quicktime VR panoramas of the new seven wonders of the world.
posted by dersins at 8:55 AM PST - 14 comments

March of the librarians: "Twice a year, tens of thousands of librarians make a trek across the United States to a meeting of the ALA. How they know to congregate in the same spot, no one knows. They come to learn, to network, to collect free stuff, and possibly to mate." (YouTube)
posted by Orb at 8:55 AM PST - 30 comments

Guess who's censoring references to evolution out of David Attenborough documentaries? That's right, the Dutch. See the differences; here's a detailed write-up by a Dutch biologist and documentary enthusiast comparing the two versions side-by-side (in Dutch).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:42 AM PST - 41 comments

Lucy, one of the oldest and most complete fossilized hominid skeletons, is hitting the road. Although not without a little controversy. (And that's even before the creationists get wind of the tour!)
posted by tugena13 at 8:10 AM PST - 12 comments

If Hansel were alive today, he might very well get arrested and cause a panic. This is not the first time, either. When are we going to ban running clubs and make everyone safer?
posted by Bovine Love at 7:39 AM PST - 49 comments

DMOZ Editor(s) seeking extortion for continued inclusion is putting further smudge on the "volunteer" directory. Seems lots of folks have had their hands out over inclusion in the DMOZ, so why hasn't a business been built out of it? Is Best of the Web positioning itself as Google Bait?
posted by FlamingBore at 7:23 AM PST - 12 comments

In honor of this morning's impressive lunar eclipse, another moon-photo post: For decades you had to be a scholar or specialist to get access to the original Apollo flight films, most of which have been stored in freezers at Houston's Johnson Space Center. Now Arizona State University and NASA are scanning the negatives with high-resolution equipment and creating an online digital archive of downloadable images for the general public. Here are the first few, from Apollo 15. (Similar topics previously: 1, 2, 3, 4.)
posted by GrammarMoses at 7:21 AM PST - 9 comments

Circus History, with photos, logos, show routes, and more. See also Circus World, Circus Web, and Princeton's Circus Poster Archive.
posted by Miko at 6:19 AM PST - 14 comments

Leaping Through the clouds 40 years ago yesterday, 18 experienced recreational skydivers took off in a converted World War II B-25 flying at 20,000 feet, intending to land at Ortner Field in Wakeman, Ohio. Expecting to free fall and then pop their chutes at 3,000 feet, after passing through the clouds at 4,000 feet, they instead plunged into Lake Erie, five miles from shore. FAA rules then and now bar skydiving through clouds, for obvious reasons. The plane's pilot wasn't rated to fly the craft but he also received bad information about his location from an air traffic controller in Oberlin: the controller mistook a Cessna observing the jump from a couple of miles away for the B-25. Two skydivers, one of whom had used his Styrofoam-lined helmet as a flotation device, were saved from the waters by a passing boater; 16 skydivers drowned. Oddly, one skydiver had told people the night before that, given a choice, he would take drowning as the way to go. He did not survive. The tragedy remains the worst recreational skydiving accident in history. (Sub. required.)
posted by etaoin at 6:17 AM PST - 20 comments

Many a music fan out there in MeFitown and beyond was delighted with and intrigued by that now-vanished website, Dylan Hears a Who! It featured backing tracks that captured, with an astonishing believability, both the sound and the feel of Highway 61-era Bob, not to mention an uncannily good Dylan vocal imitation. And of course, as is now legend, "Dylan" was singing lyrics straight out of the wonderful works of the good Dr. Seuss. Well, back in April Salon magazine broke the story of the very, very talented individual who put the whole thing together. Those for whom this is old news please forgive me, but it's news to me, and I can't find any notice of it here at MeFi, so, here it is.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:22 AM PST - 13 comments

Lo-fi ultraviolent cartoons are the new hotness, and Grey Girling, aka BarfQuestion, brings the heat. Or, at least, inconstant toasters.
posted by Slap*Happy at 3:49 AM PST - 11 comments

80 years of Found Footage Filmmaking...
1927-1967:
The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty, 1927.
Rose Hobart, 1936.
Night and Fog 2 3 4 5 6 7, 1956.
1968-2007 inside...
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:06 AM PST - 12 comments

Tiger Attack. Forget snakes on a plane. Tigers on an elephant is what you need to worry about.
posted by allkindsoftime at 1:22 AM PST - 43 comments

The Richard Mille Planetarium-Tellurium - 10 years in the making and looking absolutely fabulous.
posted by tellurian at 12:03 AM PST - 12 comments

Dead Road - Museum of Communism in the Open. "It was one of the most ambitious projects of the Stalin era, known as the 'railway of bones'. At least 10 people a day died during the four years of its construction [actually 1947-1953], but unlike most of Uncle Joe's grand designs it was never completed and now sits unfinished in the tundra, an icy road to nowhere." The transpolar railway was built by labour camps^ 501 and 503 and construction was stopped after the amnesty following Stalin's death in 1953; 800km, about half, was built. Some sections are currently in operation, but much is abandoned: depot and locomotives in Dolgoe, Dolgoe itself, labour camps, more spectacular decay. (Previously: Norilsk, which was supposed to see an extension of the line.)
posted by parudox at 11:36 PM PST - 13 comments

1983 Fleer Project As of 8/25/07: 364 of the 660 cards autographed (55%).
posted by dhammond at 11:09 PM PST - 18 comments

Ocean Residences by Four Seasons is your own private apartment aboard a giant cruise ship (one of 112 similar apartments aboardship). For those afflicted with both wanderlust and an unimaginable amount of money, the online brochure makes a somewhat compelling case for having no fixed abode.
posted by jonson at 10:33 PM PST - 40 comments

The aurigids meteor shower is this weekend.
posted by bigmusic at 9:55 PM PST - 20 comments

"I don't know anyone who calls himself that" Bob Dylan insulted in Australia 20 years ago. It's a wonder he still does interviews at all, and he tours down under regularly. He's resiient (Part 2 of a double YouTube link).
posted by St Urbain's Horseman at 9:54 PM PST - 25 comments

Hamsters are pretty good at video games. Maybe he would have done better if he and his hamster coach had mastered the super hamster wheel. Or maybe he should have brought along his slithery pal for backup. At least he tried, and didn't turn to the bottle for comfort. Here little guy, have some popcorn and some Elvis as a reward.
posted by lazaruslong at 9:51 PM PST - 8 comments

The Chernobyl exclusion zone has been mythologized as a sort of wildlife garden of eden with storks, bears, birds, wolfs, pigs etc.. taking over in the absence of man. However it turns out the reports are anecdotal, there have been no formal scientific studies - until now. According to this study of birds, both the number of species and abundance of individuals declined with increasing radiation levels. For example, the most contaminated sites had about two-thirds fewer birds than those with normal levels of radiation. Chernobyl is far from a wildlife paradise, “This was a big surprise to us,” biologist Dr. Mousseau of the University of South Carolina said. “We had no idea of the impact.”
posted by stbalbach at 9:31 PM PST - 29 comments

Nomic, as introduced by inventor Peter Suber (homepage): a game of self-modification—every move is an attempt to alter the rules governing how the game is played. Further from wikipedia. [A great deal more within.]
posted by cortex at 8:57 PM PST - 59 comments

Science in the Himalayas. [Via Gristmill.]
posted by homunculus at 8:25 PM PST - 4 comments

What happens when you play two separate copies of Radiohead's "Kid A" exactly 17 seconds apart? According to some, it produces some amazing synchronization effects. Although some fans claim to have heard Thom Yorke say it was intentional, "Whether or not it was intentional to me seems beyond the point. Fact of the matter is that it actually 'kind of' works." If that doesn't float your boat, you can always just sync it up with The Matrix.
posted by jbickers at 6:31 PM PST - 73 comments

Wishbook Web. Christmas catalogs scanned in their entirety from the 1944 Wards Catalog (152 pages) to the 1985 Sears Catalog (648 pages!). The site looks like it was built circa '97, but the scans are quite interesting. via - Similar posts to this one: 1, 2.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:16 PM PST - 28 comments

The bizarre art of Christopher Uminga. Eerie, Cute and simultaneously freaky. Bonus points for the awesome rendering of one of the best Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes ever, Hush. Here is a link to the whole gallery.
posted by sneakin at 5:57 PM PST - 18 comments

NoSo [embedded audio] is the next stop on the self-referential satire train of Web 2.0.* Going beyond Useless Account, inspired (kinda) by Flash Mobs, Fight Club ("the first rule..."), and MeFi Meetups, it allows anonymous users the opportunity to organize "NOevents" where members can congregate in selected physical locations without using their technological connectivity devices and NOT engage in communication with each other. That's right, no talking allowed at a NOevent. Reading books is OK. You may go home and blog about it, but NO live blogging. Organized by a San Franciso art group that may just be using it to get people to show up at their installations (aha!), and who violate the Fight Club rule in an interview with R.U. Sirius.(viablame TechCrunch) *Plagiarized with attribution from bhouston.
posted by wendell at 5:24 PM PST - 11 comments

GOP Senator Larry Craig arrested in 'bathroom incident' --and pleads guilty. ... At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, “What do you think about that?” ... He's denied similar stories in the past.
posted by amberglow at 3:09 PM PST - 519 comments

Boston law firm Nixon Peabody commissions a song to praise itself ("Everyone's a winner at Nixon Peabody!") after being named one of Fortune's 100 Best Places to Work. The legal blog 'Above the Law' posts an MP3 of the song, a video to YouTube and writes about it. The law firm is 'non-too-happy' that bloggers and lawyers are circulating the cheezy song via e-mail and blog postings. They lawyer-up and issue a claim of copyright violation with Google. The clip is removed from YouTube. Bloggers run with the story ... let the mocking and parodies begin!
posted by ericb at 2:47 PM PST - 24 comments

Radar picks the worst colleges in America. At least one of the picks is rather dubious, although I suppose being the "worst" Ivy League is a position of some note, and another one of the picks was where my school's valedictorian went. Either way, it's always nice to see the Moonies somersaulting into otherwise non-Moonie related stories.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:09 PM PST - 74 comments

The World's First Skyscrapers. "The clay-formed houses... rise high up the sky clouds by thirty to forty meters lengths, whilst its floors vary between five to sixteen." "One of the oldest and best examples of urban planning." Another amazing Yemeni city.
posted by desjardins at 2:00 PM PST - 31 comments

The wonderful, horrible films of Leni Riefenstahl
posted by vronsky at 1:12 PM PST - 36 comments

Press embargo be damned, pictures of the 2009 Jaguar XF are popping up on the Internet. Perhaps the final design has strayed too far from the original concept. Hopefully there are better designers in India.
posted by punkfloyd at 12:35 PM PST - 58 comments

The Marquis de Condorcet and Admiral Jean-Charles de Borda were two men of the French Enlightenment who struggled with how to design voting systems that accurately reflected voters' preferences. Condorcet favored a method that required the winner in a multiparty election to win a series of head-to-head contests, but he also discovered that his method easily led to a paradoxes that produced no clear winners. The Borda method avoids the Condorcet paradox by requiring voters to rank choices numerically in order of preference, but this method is flawed because the withdrawal of a last-place candidate can reverse the election results. Mathematicians in the 19th century attempted to design better voting systems, including Lewis Carroll, who favored an early form of proportional representation. Economist Kenneth Arrow argued that designing a perfect voting system was futile, because his "impossibility theorem" proved that it's impossible to design a non-dictatorial voting system that fulfills five basic criteria of fairness. (more inside)
posted by jonp72 at 12:11 PM PST - 43 comments

MotionPortrait (flash, loads slow, doesn't work for me in IE7 but works in Firefox) is a new kind of interactive photograph. Follow the bouncing mouse! (Via)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:06 PM PST - 18 comments

Two tales of fraud from the New Yorker. [more inside]
posted by billysumday at 11:45 AM PST - 39 comments

For Roland Barthes, the Death of the Author came on March 23, 1980, in the form of a car speeding down the Rue des Écoles (perhaps that car has become, like wrestling or detergent, another myth); though the Author is gone, his works--texts--remain; they are about history, about fashion, about love, about chopsticks, but fundamentally, they are about signs--as Barthes, once interviewed, said, "Each of us speaks but a single sentence, which only death can bring to a close"--rapidly approaching the end of his sentence, Barthes thought about living together, but the period would be found on his tombstone: écrivain. [more inside]
posted by nasreddin at 10:28 AM PST - 19 comments

"At a convocation of writers in Seville, Spain, six weeks before Bolaño died [in 2003], he was declared to be the most influential Latin-American writer of his generation." (NYer)
And since then, Roberto Bolaño's reputation has been growing (NYRB:"The Great Bolano"). A man who dismissed magical realism as "shit" is more the heir of Cortazar and Borges (his two idols) than Garcia Marquez or Vargas Lllosa yet he is also something entirely new. Bolano was also the founder of infrarealism, a movement whose manifesto proclaims "A new lyricism springing up in Latin America, nourishing itself in ways that continue to amaze us.... Tenderness like an exercise in speed. Breath and heat. Experience at full tilt, self-consuming structures, stark raving contradictions."
Why has the English speaking world not heard of Bolaño? His great novel, The Savage Detectives, a sprawling work about youth and poetry and chaos (with no less than 52 narrators across several continents) has only this year been translated.
posted by vacapinta at 10:27 AM PST - 24 comments

Celebrating Onam (via Google and Flickr)
posted by hadjiboy at 10:11 AM PST - 16 comments

A Pile of Index Cards. A somewhat byzantine way to organize your life using index cards.
posted by chunking express at 8:09 AM PST - 83 comments

A nation of outlaws. A century and a half ago, another fast-growing nation had a reputation for sacrificing standards to its pursuit of profit, and it was the United States.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:45 AM PST - 18 comments

Wikipedia explains biorhythms ".. is in need of attention from an expert on the subject." There are many programs available, some are free; some are online. Hocus pocus, unsubstantiated, or substantive? A Mefite refers to a course tutor "Recording everything from blood pressure to sleep habits several times a day every day for 29 years." Myself? I work with numbers and know how to manipulate them. But perhaps more will be revealed about biorhythms. But when and by whom?
posted by Schroder at 6:02 AM PST - 32 comments

Newsfilter: Attorney General Gonzales resigns
posted by rxrfrx at 5:17 AM PST - 205 comments

Steve Mann's hydraulophone with sculpture gallery and performance video snippets: [1] [2] [3]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:18 AM PST - 8 comments

A post and comment thread on BlackProf (a blog run by leading black law professors) regarding Obama fielding a question as to the "homophobia problem in the Black community" [see third video down]
posted by pwedza at 12:40 AM PST - 33 comments

Burundanga (NSFW, video). Arguably the worlds most sinister drug. Under its influence you remain lucid and articulate yet absolutely compliant to any suggestion. When your 'trip' is over, you have no recollection of what has transpired. The "Devil's Breath" is an admixture of Scopolamine, a chemical that was experimented with, for its interrogative properties, by both the C.I.A. and Josef Mengele. For at least the past two decades, Burundanga has been a major component of Colombia's criminal element.
posted by thanatogenous at 12:04 AM PST - 46 comments

The Philosophy Research Base features thousands of annotated links and text resources for philosophy research on the Internet. Categorized by history, subject and author, this meta-index serves as both a study guide and a platform for a wide variety of community services for students and teachers in philosophy and related subjects.
posted by netbros at 11:24 PM PST - 5 comments

Need advice? Ask a Theoretical Physicist. Ask A Gay Man. Ask A Dork. Ask A Ninja (previously). Ask Great Granny. Ask Poop Report. Ask a Hill Staffer (if you can have a job writing Ask A Hill Staffer). Ask A Nun. Ask the Dalai Lama. Ask the Magic 8 Ball. Or I suppose you could always just Ask Mefi.
posted by haricotvert at 10:55 PM PST - 20 comments

Here are four classic short stories by John Collier in four different forms: the original text of his famous "Thus I Refute Beelzy"; a 1947 radio script for "Evening Primrose"; a radio version of "Back for Christmas", starring Peter Lorre; and Patton Oswalt's interpretation of "The Chaser."
posted by Iridic at 9:03 PM PST - 10 comments

Best marriage proposal ever.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:40 PM PST - 99 comments

Lessons from Past Western Incursions in the Middle East. A speech by Juan Cole at the New America Foundation in which he discusses his new book, Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East, and the relevance and lessons of Napoleon's expedition in Egypt to the current American occupation of Iraq. A shorter version, covering many of the same points, is in this article: Pitching the Imperial Republic.
posted by homunculus at 8:20 PM PST - 17 comments

I'ts fun to stay at the... N-M-K-Y!
posted by miss lynnster at 8:04 PM PST - 27 comments

Lessons Learned in Web Publishing. A nice overview of the stumbles that print media has made as it has come on-line.
posted by tkolar at 6:32 PM PST - 14 comments

The Whole Five Feet is a blog about reading the complete Harvard Classics by Christopher R. Beha. He's up to vol. 27 of 51. Here's a history and critique of the series from Harvard Magazine.
posted by Kattullus at 6:25 PM PST - 22 comments

"The storm carried twice as much dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal. The canal took seven years to dig; the storm lasted a single afternoon. More than 300,000 tons of Great Plains topsoil was airborne on that day."
Black Sunday. April 14, 1935. Timeline, Oral Histories (Kansas, Nebraska), Dust Bowl Movie (part I, part II), Black Sunday photos (1, 2, 3, 4). [previous dust on mefi: iraq, texas, africa, china]
posted by jessamyn at 5:56 PM PST - 17 comments

If you enjoyed Supermarket 2.0, you'll love brgr, aka Burger 2.0! Yes, it's your basic "if your hamburger were like a website/web celebrity/software product/tech company/buzzword" schtick, but some of them are funny. My faves [inside].
posted by wendell at 5:01 PM PST - 13 comments

Lurch has very big horns.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 4:58 PM PST - 19 comments

Taj Mahal (sound alert) has been delighting audiences for more than 40 years since his debut with Ry Cooder in the pacesetting Rising Sons. He's a multi-instrumentalist most noted for blues, but his life's work spans gospel, Caribbean, Hawaiian and many other genres. Much respected by fellow musicians, he's a 2-time Grammy winner and official blues artist of MA. He loves to go fishin' and if you like fishing too, you can join him on his next Taj Mahal Fishing Blues Tournament, a benefit to aid southern musicians. [more Taj music inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 4:50 PM PST - 26 comments

Halo 3: Play-testing evolved.
posted by nthdegx at 3:32 PM PST - 56 comments

As complete a history of comedian, civil rights activist, and cross-over superstar Moms Mabley as you're likely to find anywhere , including audio, from Beware of Blog.
posted by serazin at 3:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Voice of a castrato or voice of a dolphin? You decide. (previously: 1, 2)
posted by of strange foe at 1:54 PM PST - 25 comments

Miss Teen South Carolina, why are Americans bad at geography?
posted by mathowie at 1:47 PM PST - 168 comments

Possibly the worst product name ever via Fake Steve Jobs
posted by porn in the woods at 12:05 PM PST - 50 comments

Celebrating Tony Wilson (realplayer - realplayer alternative here). BBC Radio One's weekly 2hr Essential Mix, this week featuring show host Pete Tong and Hacienda legend Mike Pickering. It'll be up for a week from today - tracklisting here.
posted by forallmankind at 11:56 AM PST - 15 comments

The Great Iraq Swindle: How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:00 AM PST - 78 comments

The Ongoing Hunt for Osama bin Laden is a comprehensive Newsweek update on the search for Osama. Psychics can't find him. Native American trackers can't find him. As the Daily Show noted in 2004, the dead or alive terrorist mastermind is "a really good hider."
posted by kirkaracha at 10:43 AM PST - 36 comments

Twin blasts rocked the city of Hyderabad late on Saturday evening killing at least 41 people, and wounding dozens others, while 19 other unexploded devices were found a day after. The hand of a Bangladeshi Terror group, perhaps the same one that was responsible for the Mecca Masjid blasts, may be behind the killings.
posted by hadjiboy at 8:52 AM PST - 18 comments

Amsterdam's bike culture is jarringly different than the U.S. A photo essay.
posted by craniac at 8:25 AM PST - 146 comments

There are good beeps and there are bad beeps. Beep beep beep beep beep. Previously: 1, 2, 3.
posted by jiiota at 6:54 AM PST - 30 comments

Mike Dailly, the creator of Lemmings, describes the story of the game's creation in "The Complete History of Lemmings." If you feel the need to play the game after reading that, try it in DHTML (previously mentioned, though the old link is dead), and if you need help here are some walkthroughs and level codes. Finally, to short-circuit the rumors about these misunderstood rodents: no, they don't jump off cliffs in real life.
posted by barnacles at 6:43 AM PST - 13 comments

Old enough to remember those AT&T "You Will" ads from 1993? via Barry Ritholz's The Big Picture blog.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 4:32 AM PST - 70 comments

Vinnie Colaiuta is the greatest drummer ever.
posted by toma at 3:57 AM PST - 43 comments

Meet Rick and Steve : The Happiest Gay Couple In All The World. The animated series follows a gay couple, Rick and Steve, and other couples from their (fictional) town, West Lahunga Beach. Rick (voiced by Will Matthews from MTV's "Punk'd") is Steve's stay-at-home partner. He is a genius but very insecure. Steve (voiced by Peter Paige, best known as Emmet Honeycutt from "Queer As Folk") is a real estate broker and devotee of the gym. Margaret Cho lends her voice to the character Condie Ling. The computer generated animated series began airing on Logo on July 10, 2007, and is based on the 1999 short films of the same name from creator Quenton Allan Brocka. Let the comedic stereotyping begin! In animation form, anyway. (Episodes 1-5 available in three parts each from the first link.) Not quite safe for work. Or the easily offended.
posted by gummi at 10:55 PM PST - 27 comments

He's got Rhythm (single-link YouTube)
posted by St Urbain's Horseman at 9:11 PM PST - 19 comments

Today the DNC voted "to strip Florida of all its presidential convention delegates, threatening to leave the state without a vote for the party's 2008 nominee unless it delays the date of its presidential primary election." [More Inside]
posted by Avenger at 8:45 PM PST - 56 comments

Appalachian Apocalypse. Mountaintop removal mining (previously) has a devastating effect on the environment and local populations. The Bush administration wants to loosen regulations and expand the practice. [Via Wired Science.]
posted by homunculus at 7:45 PM PST - 42 comments

Euromyths from the English press in alphabetical order collected by the European Union's UK Press Room. Examples include: EU orders farmers to give toys to pigs, pets to be pressure cooked, circus performers must wear hard hats, no more Caerphilly Cheese in Caerphilly, butchers cannot give a dog a bone, EU says Brit yoghurt has to be called Fermented Milk Pudding & Brussels makes bright smiles illegal.
posted by Kattullus at 5:51 PM PST - 64 comments

There are 65,000 contracts @ $750.00 for the SPX 700 calls for open interest. That controls 6.5 million shares at $750 = $4.5 Billion. Not a single trade . But quite a bit of $$ on a contract that is 700 points away from current value. No one would buy that deep in the money calls. No reason to. So if they were sold looks like someone betting on massive dislocation. Lots of very strange option activity that I haven't seen before. I've been doing this about 25 years. The entity or individual offering these sales can only make money if the market drops 30%-50% within the next four weeks. If the market does not drop, the entity or invidual involved stands to lose over $1 billion just for engaging in these contracts! Clearly, someone knows something big is going to happen BEFORE the options expire on Sept. 21.via
posted by Huplescat at 4:49 PM PST - 115 comments

The Official Berkeley Breathed Website [warning: ComicSans] announced that the weekly "Opus" comics for August 26th AND September 2nd* "have been withheld from publication by a large number of client newspapers across the country, including Opus' host paper The Washington Post." The reason? Making jokes aout Islam. And just the week before, Opus was thoroughly ridiculing the late Jerry Falwell. BB recommends catching his missing strips in the Salon.com comics section. But it being the Internet, somebody has already found and posted tomorrow's "Opus". Let's hear it for Fatima Struggle!!!
Berkeley Breathed is no stranger to controversy. Even his latest children's book, "Mars Needs Moms", was declared "Politically Incorrect". He is no stranger to me, either, although my last email exchange with him was over 3 years ago and I had nothing to do with this recent interview at MSNBC.com.
*Comic strip trivia: Most newspapers have their Sunday comics printed weeks in advance; that's why Kudzu ran Sunday strips two weeks after the dailies ended when Doug Marlette died.
posted by wendell at 4:43 PM PST - 44 comments

If you tried to validate a legitimate copy of XP or Vista today before 2pm, you were in for a nasty suprise. It seems that all Windows Genuine Advantage servers failed at once sometime today. One BoingBoing reader who contacted Microsoft was told to try again on Tuesday, as they expected the servers to be down for a few days. Rob Knop of the ScienceBlog Galactic Interactions responds with an entertaining rant.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 4:04 PM PST - 24 comments

The hot new PC game "Bioshock" installs a copy protection root kit called "SecuROM" which might open security holes and which interferes with legitimate programs. The DRM on Bioshock turns out to be draconian, and there's an online riot brewing among early purchasers who have already been screwed by it.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:58 PM PST - 88 comments

Human Brain Cloud is a simple but addictive mutiplayer word association widget with a nifty Flash interface, brought to you by one of the founders of the Experimental Gameplay Project [previously].
posted by whir at 3:56 PM PST - 11 comments

Ted Haggard returns --with a cash for heaven offer to support him while he helps "broken people". Unfortunately, the procedure outlined is illegal, and the charity (Families With a Mission) is unregistered and run by a convicted sex offender. Meanwhile, Mike Jones, Haggard's favorite whore, pops up at a dirty bar trivia night (questions about Haggard and him, maybe nsfw, textwise)
posted by amberglow at 3:45 PM PST - 184 comments

MUVA El PAIS has been conceived as a dynamic, interactive museum bringing together the most renowned works of contemporary Uruguayan art, an important contributor to Latin American art. MUVA is devoted to quality, content, education, information and recreation through the knowledge of visual arts. In Spanish and English, Flash and/or HTML.
posted by netbros at 3:42 PM PST - 2 comments

nanoHUB is an information goldmine, aimed primarily at scientists and engineers engaged under the broad umbrella of nanotechnology research, funded by the NSF, and based at Purdue University. Start with a series of nano tutorial lessons at the undergraduate or graduate level. Move on to seminars from top researchers on a variety of topics, or try some self-paced learning modules. Then run (real, useful) simulations in your browser. [some stuff requires free registration]
posted by sergeant sandwich at 2:30 PM PST - 2 comments

SciVee is a site where scientists can upload video presentations alongside their published research. I especially like this one, but there's a lot to explore.
posted by nowonmai at 2:07 PM PST - 6 comments

Synth Coke
posted by vronsky at 1:26 PM PST - 53 comments

How to move an obelisk.
posted by carsonb at 11:06 AM PST - 21 comments

Lions are magnificent animals —they can be cruel, brutal and gory, but they're also beautiful and fascinating.
posted by nixerman at 8:11 AM PST - 27 comments

Hand drawn Tarot Cards created by a Boris Kobe, a prisoner at Allach Concentration Camp, a sub-camp of Dachau. Each card depcits an aspect of life in the camp - click each image for high-res versions.
posted by jonson at 8:01 AM PST - 34 comments

Scillywebcam. A frequently updated website with high quality photographs of Scilly. Here are some of my favorites.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:10 AM PST - 10 comments

Jammin' with Buddy Guy You are a good guitar player, you are a really good guitar player, but you are eight years old, but whoa, here you are on the stage with one of the greatest bluesmen ever, Buddy Guy, and he is digging your sh**.
posted by caddis at 12:50 AM PST - 67 comments

We have lost on the way the lesson of living together, We are now even scared of each other. They are others whose faces are on your hands, Your hurts are a deep sea -- our wounds are deep. The stories that are being spread in our names are lies, This is not us.
Words of a Pakistani pop song Yeh Hum Naheen [This is not us] hitting the charts, attempting to spread the message that all muslims are not terrorists, story via Salon. "Produced and written by a British Muslim, Waseem Mahmood, at the request of his two sons, "Yeh Hum Naheen" offers a welcome counterpoint to the images of troops storming the Red Mosque, or fundamentalist mullahs preaching jihad. But the key to the song's success lies neither in its production values or deft depictions of average Pakistanis going about their daily lives, but in its heartfelt expression of pain. "
posted by infini at 12:01 AM PST - 26 comments

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw is a writer and game designer who has recently begun contributing some decidedly unique game reviews to The Escapist magazine. (NSFW, naughty language.) via Kotaku.com
posted by Rangeboy at 11:54 PM PST - 20 comments

So you want to do porn but you want to be sure you get paid for your efforts? Kink.com posts detailed listings of what acts pay what amount. (if you don't understand that this is NSFW, this may be your only career option)
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:45 PM PST - 59 comments

Hipster Olympics: We're forced to assume that our contestants' participation is strictly ironic.
posted by defenestration at 8:10 PM PST - 50 comments

Tongue sucker wins design prize for Brits at the 2007 Index Design Awards
posted by growabrain at 7:32 PM PST - 7 comments

Virtual Out-of-Body Experience. Using two procedures to deliberately scramble a person's visual and tactile senses, neuroscientists are able to induce "out-of-body" experiences in people. The effect is the same as the 'rubber hand illusion', but extends the effect to the whole body instead of just one limb (you can try the hand illusion for yourself).
posted by homunculus at 7:31 PM PST - 11 comments

The Near-Fame Experience: A fascinating interview with former contestants of Bravo reality television shows Project Runway and Top Chef, presenting the fickle nature of fame and how it can come at significant professional and personal cost, if at all.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:18 PM PST - 25 comments

Make your own web strip. Drawing skills not required.
posted by konolia at 5:08 PM PST - 34 comments

Ill Doctrine is the best video blog about hip-hop ever. Seriously.
posted by chunking express at 3:09 PM PST - 28 comments

Notes towards the complete works of Shakespeare [pdf] by Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan. (About the authors.) Documentation. "Making of" video. [previously discussed, but never actually linked]. From the same people: Carbon Life Form, a small Mac application that will die of starvation unless you feed it files.
posted by dersins at 2:11 PM PST - 5 comments

The history of tacos in America. As reported entirely by the comments to a brief blog post.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:12 PM PST - 88 comments

Ventiçello is a miniature ceramic village sculpted and photographed by Steven Travis, who also invented a language and script called Tapissary, inspired by American Sign Language, which appears on the images.
posted by Kattullus at 12:38 PM PST - 5 comments

LUCIPO anthology is a long blog post with a lot of poetry.
posted by nasreddin at 12:34 PM PST - 4 comments

The story of Oedipus, in 8 minutes, performed by vegetables. [NSFW, 50mb qt]
posted by carsonb at 11:03 AM PST - 11 comments

Discovering Porn (On Your Boyfriend’s Computer) [SFW]
posted by BeerFilter at 10:42 AM PST - 230 comments

Top 10 Physically Modified People -- A list of those who have gone to extreme lengths to modify their body for decorative purposes. Let the squeamish beware (especially the videos embedded in the page).
posted by fallenposters at 10:39 AM PST - 62 comments

Friday Flash Fun, Pillage the Village. Kill as many villagers as possible by throwing them in the air, easy at first, but gets pretty hard after a bit.
posted by andywolf at 9:01 AM PST - 27 comments

Vernor Vinge: Mathematician, computer scientist and science fiction visionary worthy of Arthur C Clarke's mantle, Vinge is most famous for popularising the idea of the singularity, where technology advances so quickly that humans cannot participate, but he's also credited with writing one of the first stories about cyberspace, True Names, back in 1981. More recently, he's been exploring how augmented reality and belief circles will change the way we live in his latest novel Rainbows End - which he put online, completely for free.
posted by adrianhon at 8:01 AM PST - 43 comments

10 Steps to a More Dateable Facebook Profile 6. Un-tag photos at will. Bad angle? Bad outfit? Bad situation? Un-tag that picture! It's not worth adding a few numbers to that photo count to be seen in a photo that doesn't cast you in an entirely positive light. Did you see what happened to Miss New Jersey?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:51 AM PST - 67 comments

Bored? Why not watch some groovy slideshows from slideshow.net.
Inbox Zero, Death by powerpoint, Unlocking Cool The Bigness of Smallness, Shift Happens, The Brand Gap, Fantastic Pictures, I am the Media.
posted by seanyboy at 7:40 AM PST - 4 comments

This extremely cool video captures the first "Gigantic Jets" (purportedly) ever captured in the U.S. "Think of them as sprites on steroids: Gigantic Jets are lightning-like discharges that spring from the top of thunderstorms, reaching all the way from the thunderhead to the ionosphere 50+ miles overhead. They're enormous and powerful." See also: An article on the subject from 2003, a more technical article from Nature (mirrored) and how to look for yourself.
posted by spock at 7:35 AM PST - 11 comments

The Papalagi. "Then many of these thought-mats are tied into bunches and pressed together ('books' the Papalagi calls them) and sent to every part of that great country. Very soon, everyone who takes these thoughts into themselves is infected. They devour these thought-mats as if they were sweet bananas ... [Y]oung and old gnaw at them like rats gnawing at sugar cane. That is the reason why so few of them are still able to think reasonable, natural thoughts, like those that every honest Samoan has.'
posted by No-sword at 3:33 AM PST - 14 comments

Interesting goings-on in Belgium (really). "Plucky little" Belgium, HQ of the very post-national European Union, is in the throes of a deep political crisis, driven by strong nationalistic feelings. The winner of the recent general election, Yves Leterme, has proved [FL] unable [FR] to form a government across the Flemish-French divide, and talk of the country splitting two (or even three) is more serious than ever before. [more inside]
posted by athenian at 2:56 AM PST - 66 comments

Ever read a blog post, and think, "I wish I wrote that"? For all the Mefites with the many AskMe questions about "can I/should I/how should I learn to/ be a computer programmer", here's a pretty good explication of how good programing is done: Holding a Program in One's Head.
posted by orthogonality at 2:55 AM PST - 43 comments

Haluz 2 is another lovely point-and-click puzzle adventure thingumagig for those who loved the Samorost games, or indeed the original Haluz
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:36 AM PST - 8 comments

Where the Engineers Are - "To guide education policy and maintain its innovation leadership, the United States must acquire an accurate understanding of the quantity and quality of engineering graduates in India and China."
posted by Gyan at 2:01 AM PST - 39 comments

Cyril Raffaelli is a French stuntman, parkour stud and all-around physical badass.
posted by jonson at 11:57 PM PST - 21 comments

Before there was HTML, there was "Cigarette-Boy."
posted by geos at 10:41 PM PST - 15 comments

On July 16th, 1918, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia - along with his wife, their children, and a handful of retainers - was assassinated by Bolsheviks in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg. The bodies were split up and buried in different locations; it was not until 1989 that a mass grave was located and exhumed. In 1991, the found remains were officially announced as belonging to the Romanovs...or at least, most of them. Conspicuously missing were the Tsarevich Alexei and one of his Grand Duchess sisters (likely Maria but most popularly believed to be Anastasia). The report of primary executioner Yakov Yurovsky indicates that the assassins had wanted to complicate the discovery of the remains as much as possible in order to keep the "White Guards" from locating the bodies and exalting the murdered royals, thereby undermining support for the Bolshevik cause. However this week it was announced that the missing remains may have finally been located.
posted by angeline at 10:16 PM PST - 42 comments

They put it in my mouth. I didn't swallow. The savings I pass along to YOU!!! Some silliness which is keeping me sane on this slow Friday arvo...
posted by pompomtom at 10:08 PM PST - 21 comments

I loved this beautifully filmed short documentary on The Letterpress. For those of us who have ever risked our very own fingers for the cause of printing, or had the California Job Case burned into memory, this will be a trip down memory lane. For the rest of you, it may give you an idea for your next hobby.
posted by The Deej at 8:28 PM PST - 30 comments

From a Time magazine article: A new, innocuously titled book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist." Previously on Mother Teresa's doubt, more generally.
posted by ibmcginty at 7:54 PM PST - 106 comments

Three Generations of “America to the Rescue.”
posted by homunculus at 6:55 PM PST - 38 comments

"Finding JTAG on the iPhone": a ten-step hardware unlock of the iPhone, allowing it to function with other carriers
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:52 PM PST - 39 comments

People vandalising Wikipedia is hardly a new thing but now even the office of the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, is getting into the act. Website Wiki-Scanner (previously) has traced several edits to Wikipedia articles by the Prime Ministers staff, according to Australian newspaper The Courier Mail. And they aren't confined solely to the Wikipedia entry on the PM himself; there was even an act of vandalism on a martial-arts related entry, in which one of Howard's ministerial staffers wrote, “Poo bum dicky wee wee” on the page. Not good news on the eve of a federal election that the PM is largely expected to lose. Meanwhile, 'new media' is being put to good use at Opposition leader Kevin Rudd's website, Kevin07, where a recent blog entry compiles Youtube's 'best' political videos. Hours of fun for the whole family!
posted by Effigy2000 at 6:51 PM PST - 17 comments

How to Sequence a Genome [Flash. H/T to Jay]. Visualization of the process of genetic sequencing. Posted on the Nova website in conjunction with their show, Cracking the Code of Life, hosted by Robert Krulwich [Wiki].
posted by McLir at 5:16 PM PST - 14 comments

The Shanhai Cooperative Organization. ^[wiki] When Moscow and Beijing engineered the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) six years ago, I am not sure if they foresaw its emergence as an important actor in the international order. Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia, currently observers, are lobbying hard to get accepted into this club. The US request for membership was rejected two years ago.
posted by delmoi at 5:07 PM PST - 14 comments

How do you convince a raptor to exercise? One way is to send up a kite with bait (a chunk of meat) attached. This is a relatively new strategy (~30 years) in the millenia-old tradition of falconry.
posted by dkg at 4:32 PM PST - 8 comments

The History of The Discovery of Cinematography
posted by anastasiav at 4:21 PM PST - 7 comments

San Jose, CA - then & now - a decent collection of old photos, matched up with recent photos taken from the same vantage point. An interesting look at how things have changed around here. (Found in a reddit comment earlier today)
posted by drstein at 4:12 PM PST - 17 comments

The 50 Greatest movie sex scenes of all time (with clips)
posted by Roach at 2:55 PM PST - 104 comments

U.S. Representative Benjamin Sinclair (R-Ohio) announces the Ocular Penetration Restriction Act of 2007 [NSFW].
posted by dhammond at 2:19 PM PST - 60 comments

Almost 1700 Carnegie Libraries (wikipedia) were built in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from Pennsylvania to California, from Florida to Oregon, and almost every other single place in between . (Scotland, too!) Some of them are still in use as libraries. Others aren't. This person is trying to collect post cards of as many of them as possible.
posted by dersins at 1:46 PM PST - 23 comments

The story behind Comic Sans: The web's most hated typeface. Previously
posted by GuyZero at 10:59 AM PST - 396 comments

A wonderful obituary in the NYT for Grace Paley, who died yesterday at her home in Thetford Hill, Vt. She was 84.
posted by jokeefe at 10:33 AM PST - 17 comments

On the internet, nobody knows the G-strings aren't yours. Or how murderously they infatuate. Or whom they're infatuating.
posted by Firas at 10:21 AM PST - 85 comments

Baptists for Brownback are praying for, among other things GIANT WARRIOR ANGELS to keep them safe from chickens, and the Loch Ness Monster. They've pegged the the British character precisely as effeminate, Jesus-hating Shakespeare-quoters. Senator Brownback has no comment.
posted by Keith Talent at 10:15 AM PST - 44 comments

Hot Chicks With Douchebags [possibly nsfw] [via #mefi]
posted by Stynxno at 7:13 AM PST - 160 comments

Metaphors. [NSFW?]
posted by Armitage Shanks at 7:05 AM PST - 37 comments

Interesting discussion on classical and pop music, and two related older articles on the Pulitzer nomination process from Greg Sandow.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:14 AM PST - 19 comments

The Wuppertal Schwebebahn. In Wuppertal, birthplace of Aspirin and Heroin, they've been enjoying monorail travel since 1901. The line runs for 8 miles, most of it above the river Wupper, and has seen one collapse, one crash and one baby elephant jump.
posted by cillit bang at 5:29 AM PST - 18 comments

Isotown might be just another isometric pixel art urban setting lovingly rendered in MS Paint, but it has its own civic history in comic strip form. via
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:06 AM PST - 8 comments

The elderly are staying sexually active [WaPo], and this is a good thing. Although there is a sex-education gap among America's seniors. Play it safe, old folks!
posted by Avenger at 12:05 AM PST - 55 comments

The 'Neutral Hills' is the name given to a range of hills in east central Alberta (Canada) that were shared hunting grounds for the Blackfoot and Cree Indian tribes. Because of its importance to the tribes, the area was designated as 'neutral' for hunting only, not fighting. The area ranges from the village of Veteran as far east as Major, Saskatchewan, and from just south of the town of Provost to the community of Esther. Every image posted on this site was captured within the Neutral Hills region.
posted by bwg at 11:17 PM PST - 16 comments

Uh ohhh! McCloud is in trouble! Duel (1971) was Steven Spielberg's very first film, starring Dennis Weaver. If you haven't seen it before and were looking for inspiration to avoid dirt-encrusted, flammable trucks on the road, well here you go.
posted by miss lynnster at 10:07 PM PST - 58 comments

Pictures of white men and their adopted Chinese daughters by photographer O. Zhang
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 9:14 PM PST - 197 comments

On the Efficiency of AC/DC: Bon Scott versus Brian Johnson By Dr. Robert J. Oxoby, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Calgary (.pdf)
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:11 PM PST - 35 comments

Spending years clarifying my observations of the community and putting them down on paper slowly revealed a society beset by a fatal condition; an affliction that has been destroying us at an ever increasing rate for two centuries and must eventually return us to barbarism. A final result that should be no surprise, as it has overtaken every other civilization; a fate that appears as inevitable and as irreversible as old age with its increasing feebleness and dementia. I was no longer interested in why our bureaucracy was full of incompetents? but why our society was full of incompetents? My original aim to improve my community with technology was replaced with answering the question, why does a community age like any other creature?

Philip Atkinson knows: civilization is in decline. And he's determined to tell you about it. Find out the truth about Nelson Mandela, AIDS, obesity, parenting, standard weights and measures, and, of course, the Ten Commandments. We're screwed, guys. Sit down, read a book, and watch it burn.
posted by nasreddin at 8:17 PM PST - 44 comments

Tried to do some research about this technology called Trisenx, it's even been mentioned in the blue back in the day. But honestly I gave up, because the video and all you may extrapolate from it says everything. And yes, that's George Clinton.
posted by jeremias at 7:57 PM PST - 8 comments

Keepon , the bot that bounces to the rhythm! "[It] is a small creature-like robot with a soft rubber skin, two cameras in its eyes, and a microphone in its nose. Keepon is designed to interact with children by communicating attention and emotion. It has four degrees of freedom: attention is directed by turning +/-180° and nodding +/-40°, while emotion is expressed by rocking side-to-side +/-25° and bobbing up to 15mm:"
posted by Phire at 7:54 PM PST - 24 comments

It's the Vietnam War. Nixon has declared a state of emergency and allows for secret tribunals against anti-war protesters, draft dodgers, and others guilty of "hindering the war effort." They have two choices: spend 15 to 20 years in a federal penitentiary or spend 3 days in Punishment Park, where they will have 3 days to trek 50 miles in the California desert without food and water while on pursuit by armed National Guard and police units. Watch Peter Watkin's (previously) "documentary" of Punishment Park here (Google Video, with strong language ).
posted by champthom at 7:07 PM PST - 24 comments

For your consideration, "Six White horses" [youtube] As footnote to the events of November 22, 1963 . April 4, 1968 . June 5, 1968. A collection of photos and a recording of Tommy Cash's "Six White Horses" , which was writen by Larry Murray.
posted by nola at 6:56 PM PST - 3 comments

Ambushing yer bits on teh Interpipes (maybe) Accusation against Comcast shows need for net neutrality laws.
posted by univac at 6:23 PM PST - 22 comments

After 53 bids, the Pokemon cards went for $142.51. (see also)
posted by Robert Angelo at 6:20 PM PST - 25 comments

Dental Vacation Plans & Travel Packages For Single Men: At first thought, it may seem a bit strange to combine the objectives of romance and dental surgery or treatments - into a singles vacation package! But, if you are a single man who would like to seriously explore opportunities of finding a special woman and also have some dental health issues that you would seriously like to resolve, then why not?
posted by billysumday at 6:17 PM PST - 15 comments

Sexy girls moaning your IP address. (probably NSFW)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:10 PM PST - 35 comments

Wutaishan: Pilgrimage to Five Peak Mountain.
posted by homunculus at 6:01 PM PST - 4 comments

The Muse's Muse Songwriting Resource is the place for songwriting tips, tools, interactivities and connecting with other songwriters around the world. See the section about musical instruments or get into the guitar player's guide. Start communicating with other musicians and songwriters in the forums and check out the music reviews. Lots to do, see, hear, learn, and most of all, enjoy.
posted by netbros at 4:53 PM PST - 10 comments

Presidential Advance Manual [pdf] has been leaked, apparently. WaPo reporter Peter Baker discusses the "rally squads" to be set up by the advance team, whose job is to drown out potential protesters with chants of "USA! USA!" Slate's Dahlia Lithwick opines as well, and relates the document to the recent payment of 80,000 dollars to two people who had the unmitigated gall to wear anti-Bush T-shirts at a public event.
posted by bardic at 4:19 PM PST - 37 comments

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists[NPR segment]. Ted is a soon to be 37 years young punk singer/songwriter who draws his influences from artists like Billy Bragg, Curtis Mayfield and Clash singer Joe Strummer, Ted Leo mixes punk rock with soul, folk and pop melodies. Here is Ted with and without the Pharmacists doing a few tunes: Me and Mia, Kelly Clarkson's Since you Been Gone, Bomb. Repeat. Bomb, Where have all the Rudeboys Gone?, Little Dawn, the Pogues's Dirty Old Town, Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark and Sons of Cain. As he's touring nearly 365 days per year, you can rest assured that he's coming to a venue near you.
posted by psmealey at 3:34 PM PST - 44 comments

Second Life is a great place for a virtual job fair, right? Well, maybe not. (That recruiter's lucky all s/he got handed was a beer...) Even the cops are getting in on the action.. Time magazine probably thinks it's a bad idea, though maybe they wouldn't have 5 years ago.
posted by dersins at 1:43 PM PST - 23 comments

American Rhetoric :: an online archive
posted by anastasiav at 10:15 AM PST - 14 comments

Camp Okutta: give your child a summer to remember!
posted by generichuman at 9:34 AM PST - 34 comments

Bathing girls. Sort of like the Abbey Road of Japanese television.
posted by four panels at 9:05 AM PST - 40 comments

Not content to merely index all things terrestrial, Google Earth now lets you set your sights on the sky.
posted by the painkiller at 7:52 AM PST - 22 comments

Protesters are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello, Que. The video of the events leading to the accusation can be found online.
posted by chunking express at 7:20 AM PST - 195 comments

Zoomusicology , a subfield of Zoosemiotics.
posted by Miko at 6:38 AM PST - 23 comments

"Before you kill me, can you give me a bit of bread?" How a Jew, orphaned by Nazi atrocity, became a mascot -- to the Schutzstaffel.
posted by orthogonality at 4:38 AM PST - 33 comments

Is there anything good about men? In this address to the American Psychological Association, psychologist Roy Baumeister suggests that women have historically had a much greater chance of reproducing than men, and that this has had a profound influence on the way their respective roles in society have evolved:

For women throughout history (and prehistory), the odds of reproducing have been pretty good. Later in this talk we will ponder things like, why was it so rare for a hundred women to get together and build a ship and sail off to explore unknown regions, whereas men have fairly regularly done such things? But taking chances like that would be stupid, from the perspective of a biological organism seeking to reproduce. They might drown or be killed by savages or catch a disease. For women, the optimal thing to do is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it safe....For men, the outlook was radically different. If you go along with the crowd and play it safe, the odds are you won’t have children. Most men who ever lived did not have descendants who are alive today. Their lines were dead ends. Hence it was necessary to take chances, try new things, be creative, explore other possibilities.

posted by Turtles all the way down at 4:34 AM PST - 130 comments

Depleted uranium is now understood to have many medical consequences unique to its modern application as munitions, due to its incendiary, aerosolizing behavior when pulverized. (Rosalie Bertell explains, youtube) It has become a leading candidate for the cause of Gulf War syndrome, and was associated with massive increases in cancer and birth defects in Basra. The EU has called for a moratorium on its use four times, and WHO is deeply concerned with its consequences, but the USA (with Canadian complicity) and Russia continue to use it in Iraq and elsewhere. (prev: 1 2 3 4 5)
posted by mek at 12:59 AM PST - 52 comments

"She was the first and only girl I kissed in the car. It's priceless because of that, as far as I'm concerned." Clarence Cleveland Curtis, 84 years young, is still driving his first car, a 1929 Ford Model A he bought used (for $10!) as a teenager in 1938. It's the car in which he kissed his future wife 67 years ago, when he was 17 and she was 14... Related: "My First Car" at HotRodder, "My First Car" at Motortrend, and "My First Car" at "AutoWeek.
posted by amyms at 12:24 AM PST - 40 comments

From the Sarcasm Society
posted by misha at 9:20 PM PST - 56 comments

BioShock was released today for the PC and XBox 360. Why should you care? Well, it's the 2nd best reviewed game of the last 10 years, it's an interactive commentary on Objectivism, it features a great Art-Deco style and atmospheric sound design, and is the spiritual sequel to one of the best games of all time. If you still don't care, make sure to stay away from Big Daddy.
posted by JZig at 9:18 PM PST - 153 comments

Content Aware Image Resizing. Every year SIGGRAPH rolls around I get a reminder of how smart everyone else is, especially people who do computer graphics research. From Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir. The algorithm resizes images non-uniformly and, well, somewhat magically.
posted by GuyZero at 7:29 PM PST - 94 comments

The Cupboard.
posted by hama7 at 6:47 PM PST - 14 comments

A beautifully-composed blog of wedding Photographer James Christianson
posted by growabrain at 6:41 PM PST - 29 comments

The War as We Saw It. A powerful op-ed about Iraq written by seven infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division who will soon be heading home, it has received surprisingly little attention.
posted by homunculus at 5:46 PM PST - 72 comments

Most of the students entering college this fall, members of the class of 2011, were born in 1989. They never “rolled down” a car window. They have grown up with bottled water. “Off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone. Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre. Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM. They never saw Johnny Carson live on television. Wisconsin's Beloit College has published its annual Mindset List. [previously 2003 and 2006]. Now, get offa' my goddamned lawn!
posted by ericb at 5:29 PM PST - 108 comments

The Isle of Man TT race is arguably the most dangerous race one can do on a superbike, as it has claimed the lives of over 220 racers over the last 100 years. still, that doesn't seem to prevent people from competing, year, after, year.
posted by Industrial PhD at 5:28 PM PST - 18 comments

8 Foods You Should Eat Everyday
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:00 PM PST - 85 comments

Obesity has been called an epidemic in the United States. Looking at an interactive statistic [CNN, flash] of the state-by-state numbers is sobering ^mf. 64% of adults are overweight and approx 25% are obese [Wikipedia 1, 2]. The usual suspects have so far been a culture of low-exercise ^mf high-consumption (due to urban sprawl, driving, TV, ... ), microbes ^mf, genetic predisposition, and bad diet (the ubiquity of junk food with its high levels of fat, sugar and salt. Recently the high fructose levels in the common American diet has also been noted. Fructose comprises 50% of table sugar and up to 90% of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), both ingredients found in copious amounts in most American 'convenience' foods. [Wikipedia: Fructose#References, Wikipedia:HFCS]).
Now it seems that a decisive assessory is a common virus, the Human Adenovirus-36, which may really make obesity an actual epidemic. [Int. Journal of Obesity, CNN]
posted by umop-apisdn at 2:21 PM PST - 48 comments

Traditionally, media doesn't print names/photos of people only accused, but not yet convicted, but not always. Lots of towns have a police blotter section where arrests are listed. Here in Seattle, the FBI recently asked the public for help in identifying two men seen acting suspicious on the ferry system. The Seattle PI has decided not to publish the photos. Other local media have. The commentary on if the PI made the right choice follows predictable paths...
posted by nomisxid at 2:16 PM PST - 33 comments

Asheville likes to play: Pin the Bush on the Flag and Pass the Impeach Cheney (and Bush).
posted by paulinsanjuan at 11:23 AM PST - 37 comments

In 1918, at the age of 20, Oregonian Opal Whiteley published "The Fairyland Around Us" (contains full text & pictures), a nature book for children. Two years later, her diary (also contains full text and pictures) was published and became one of the best-selling books in the world. She died in a British mental hospital in 1992. More.
posted by dersins at 11:06 AM PST - 18 comments

Brazilian Blogger Bashing! The respected Brazilian newspaper Estadao decided to promote its new online presence by jokingly producing a series of ads with obvious misfits and asking such questions as "Is this the guy giving you dating advice?" and a video (youtube) comparing bloggers to monkeys. Bloggers are outraged "Why would you read a newspaper that compares bloggers to monkeys?". In today's newspaper, Estadao offers no apology but instead dryly recounts the facts. Meanwhile, the resulting controversy, with thousands of blogs weighing in, has driven a lot of traffic to their new site.
posted by vacapinta at 10:35 AM PST - 25 comments

In the 1890s, an unknown woman was found drowned in the Seine. Known as the l'Inconnue de la Seine, her death mask became a fixture in the homes of artists and writers, and her look the ideal of the age. Many have speculated on her identity, and she has inspired a long list of artistic works by Nabokov, Rilke, Man Ray, and others. She has since become the "most kissed girl in the world" thanks to the Norwegian toymaker that used her mask to create Resusci Anne, the standard CPR doll.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:43 AM PST - 56 comments

Women who stifle themselves in marital arguments die younger says a recent study.
posted by serazin at 9:25 AM PST - 35 comments

Minilogue / Hitchhiker's Choice. A curiously engaging 4 minutes and 13 seconds of whiteboard animation. The visual ideas are all over the place, and they move really fast, so don't blink or you'll miss entire subplots.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:20 AM PST - 17 comments

It has been three decades since the Summer of Sam. Since his conviction for the murders he committed as the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz has been imprisoned at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, NY. But he hasn't been idle. Through his website, he has been preaching the Word of God as well as conveying a public apology. But recently, alarmed by the murders in Newark, he wrote a letter[1,2] to amNewYork. "Perhaps," he writes, "it is time for us to go back to our roots and reexamine what America is all about. Greed or generosity? Unity or selfishness? Liberty or bondage? Love or hate? Life or death?"
posted by nasreddin at 9:12 AM PST - 16 comments

Joybubbles (1949 - 2007) [previously]
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:16 AM PST - 18 comments

The 2005 outbreak of Corrupted Blood in World of Warcraft may provide epidemiologists with a new platform for studying the spread of disease.

By using these games as an untapped experimental framework, we may be able to gain deeper insight into the incredible complexity of infectious disease epidemiology in social groups.

It comes as no surprise that the "stupid factor" plays a role in susceptibility to viral marketing, but it may also be a factor in the spread of real life germs.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 8:11 AM PST - 36 comments

Before Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, and Michael Whelan, J. Allen St. John brought to life the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and defined the images of Tarzan and Barsoom. St. John also illustrated a wide variety of books and magazines and produced some pulp masterpieces.
posted by marxchivist at 7:33 AM PST - 10 comments

One of the few to speak the truth about the Middle East, God-like journalist Robert Fisk holds more international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent. He has covered every major event in the region for the past thirty years. He rarely gives interviews to anyone, but agreed to talk to edgey/angry youth culture magazine, Vice, about his life in the danger-zone.
posted by domdom at 7:13 AM PST - 48 comments

I really enjoy discoveries that, in retrospect, should have been obvious (but weren't). It's not just your tongue that can taste sugar.
posted by orthogonality at 3:50 AM PST - 53 comments

"Another Kind Of Love" by The Stranglers' Hugh Cornwell - a music video directed and animated by Jan Svankmajer. (via)
posted by progosk at 3:40 AM PST - 5 comments

Reviews of MRE's, at times unintentionally hilarious. Kosher MRE reviewed. Also, the LA Times. Previously.
posted by Xere at 12:06 AM PST - 34 comments

My Disillusionment In Russia. Deported American anarchist Emma Goldman's narrative of her time in 1920s Russia. Omitted chapters were published as My Further Disillusionment With Russia. Emma was not only an anarchist, she was also an advocate for free speech, women's equality, sexual freedom, birth control and more. For more of her writings, see Anarchism: What It Really Stands For, Patriotism: A Menace To Liberty, and Minorities Versus Majorities. [Previously 1, 2]
posted by amyms at 12:03 AM PST - 53 comments

25 Weirdest Animals. See also: 24 bizarre creatures of the deep. Not responsible for nightmares related to the viperfish, the oarfish, or the star-nosed mole.
posted by bijou at 10:06 PM PST - 61 comments

Porn Star Registry List. As part of the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act (Sec. 503, p. 51), the "Department of Justice wants to come up with an official list of every porn star in America - and slap stiff penalties on producers who don't cooperate." Is this an effective way to make sure porn movie producers don't hire underage actors, or is this, as Paul Cambria alleges, a violation of first amendment rights?
posted by John of Michigan at 8:23 PM PST - 149 comments

To call Pat Fish the best British songwriter of the past twenty-five years is an invitation for some awfully suspicious stares. Pat who? But he might be just that. Known since the early 1980s as the Jazz Butcher (Or The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy, or JBC, and at times later as Sumosonic, The Black Eg, and Wilson), Fish remained detached enough to avoid the indie-rock vortex of the last decade, dooming himself to obscurity while leaving behind one of the most valuable buried treasures in all of alternative music.
posted by carsonb at 8:20 PM PST - 21 comments

Christs, Communists, & Rock 'n' Roll is an excellent introduction to a tradition of anti-rock writings and recordings by the Religious Right. In the 1960s, there was David Noebel who wrote Communism, Hypnotism, & the Beatles and The Marxist Minstrels. In the early 1970s, Reverend Riblett constructs a seven-foot cross out of rock music records and sets it aflame with gasoline. Michael Mills finds hidden Satanic messages in Bow Wow Wow and the Grateful Dead, while Bob Larson valiantly debates Mandy, a 13-year-old fan of the Cure. The motherlode is probably the cassettes of John Todd, who traveled the fundamentalist circuit in the 1970s claiming to be a former witch and a member of the Illuminati, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. (more inside)
posted by jonp72 at 8:13 PM PST - 30 comments

A Soviet Poster A Day delivers what it promises, one propaganda rich helping of Soviet art every day to help you on your daily doings.
posted by jonson at 7:53 PM PST - 12 comments

You probably heard the news today and saw earlier threads about Michael Vick, but ESPN has done an amazing job wrapping up the entire case into a handy one-page FAQ. Written by a sports lawyer, it explains all the interesting aspects of the case: what happened, when did it happen, and what results we'll likely see.
posted by mathowie at 7:33 PM PST - 71 comments

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone? Quickly. Where did the Mayflower first land in North America? Nope. Not Plymouth, but Provincetown. On Nov. 21, 1620 the Pilgrims set foot on the sandy tip of Cape Cod. After spending five weeks there, they sailed across Cape Cod Bay to Plymouth. Today Provincetown celebrates the 100 year anniversary of Cape Cod's Pilgrim Monument. The 252-foot granite tower which had its cornerstone dedicated by then President Theodore Roosevelt juts high above the relatively flat terrain of Provincetown and serves as a reference point for landlubbers and sailors alike.
posted by ericb at 4:28 PM PST - 25 comments

ITV Chart Show Indie Charts 1989-1994 on Youtube
posted by srboisvert at 4:15 PM PST - 16 comments

Blood Money : A widow is fighting to open records on how tainted blood plasma from Arkansas prisoners entered the U.K. and led to the death of her husband.
posted by thisisdrew at 2:45 PM PST - 7 comments

U.S. military practices genetic discrimination in denying benefits. "Those medically discharged with genetic diseases are left without disability or retirement benefits. Some are fighting back."
posted by homunculus at 2:10 PM PST - 43 comments

The Invisible Manuscript. An interesting account of Ralph Ellison's struggle to write a second novel after Invisible Man, and the work his literary executor, John Callahan, is doing to produce Three Days Before the Shooting, a Modern Library edition of the second novel based on Ellison's work. (Callahan edited Juneteenth from a subset of this material.) [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 12:28 PM PST - 20 comments

You’d need years to really study these murals of Califonia’s history - the artist certainly had a lot a free time to create them. You'd probably also need a special invitation to engage in a multi-year study in the gallery - and you probably don't want one.
posted by rtha at 12:11 PM PST - 8 comments

It is Saturday morning at 8:00. It's 1969. Your parents are asleep. What'll it be? CBS of course, with The Jetsons, then The Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Hour, Dastardly and Muttley and their Flying Machines, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Scooby Doo, The Archies, The Monkees, The Wacky Races, The New Adventures of Superman and Jonny Quest. On Channel 4 NBC fights back with Heckle and Jeckle, then The Grump, The Pink Panther, HR Pufnstuf, The Kellogs Banana Splits Adventure Hour, Jambo, The Flintstones and Underdog. Channel 7 is ABC which trails with Casper, then Cattanooga Cats, Hot wheels, The Hardy Boys, George of the Jungle and Fantastic Voyage. Good times.
posted by grahamwell at 12:06 PM PST - 93 comments

Peter Levine promotes civic engagement in Maryland youth and is working with Prince George's County to create an 'information commons.' He writes about citizenship (1, 2, 3), Iraq (1, 2, 3), literature (1, 2, 3), and other things.
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:16 AM PST - 4 comments

Crochet artwork. Some of it's a little violent. Some of it a little kinky (but SFW). Some is just a little...odd. But it's all pretty damn cool.
posted by dersins at 10:51 AM PST - 8 comments

Arthur Miller's Missing Act :: For all the public drama of Arthur Miller's career ... one character was absent: the Down-syndrome child he deleted from his life
posted by anastasiav at 9:06 AM PST - 50 comments

Skee-Ball! (warning: music) Perhaps the longest-running branded arcade game ever invented was created in 1909, originally with a rotator-cuff-injury-inducing 36-foot long alley. Once shortened to a more manageable 14' (10' for the Chuck E. Cheese kiddie model), the game's popularity took off, remaining largely unchanged except for the 1970s electrification of the scoreboard. It's both a nostalgic pastime and a present-day boardwalk staple, even enjoying some hipster revivalism in the form of BrewSkee-Ball. You can even try building your own game.
posted by Miko at 8:07 AM PST - 29 comments

Andy Kaufman { Mighty Mouse, Elvis impersonator, Bachelor #3, Latka Gravas/Vic Ferrari, the host of his own TV special, trouble-maker [?], Dostoevsky's Idiot, "born again" Christian, percussionist, inter-gender wrestling/bitch-slap champion, lounge singer Tony Clifton [?], bit player, Elayne Boosler's ex-boyfriend, and the Man On the Moon } RIP [YA RLY]
posted by Poolio at 7:49 AM PST - 32 comments

It's not spam, it's BACN. A web-term that was influenced by the proliferation of web 2.0 social networks used to describe "notifications you want, just not right now." Twitter requests, facebook notifications, bill-payment receipts, etc. Even though you're expecting the e-mail, *and* you want to read it, now is just not a good time to click the "read" button. You want to; you just don't have time right now. Hopefully the video and numerous blog postings in the last 24 hours will help to bring awareness to this new web-term recently brought to light this past weekend at Podcamp Pittsburgh.
posted by punkrockrat at 7:32 AM PST - 50 comments

When the Quabbin Reservoir is low, they say a church steeple rises from the water, a ghostly reminder of the towns submerged by the flooding of the Swift River Valley in 1939.

Enfield: "The residents of Enfield held a farewell ball in the town hall for their lost community."
Prescott: "The youngest of the four towns and the first to give up its identity in 1928"
Greenwich: "Where eastern Massachusetts saw four luckless, shabby towns, the residents saw a home."
Dana: "The Rabbit Run was used by school children. It was the only means of getting to daily classes at Athol High School"

'I had one guy in here who swore he remembered being a little kid on a boat with his dad, paddling around the steeple,"... He tries to set such visitors straight, but 'you can't just tell people they're crazy."
posted by jessamyn at 7:02 AM PST - 44 comments

Channel 4's Star Stories! exposes the truths behind the rising & falling of some of your favo(u)rite celebrities: Madonna, Simon Cowell, Britney Spears, George Michaels, Tom Cruise, Catherine Zeta Jones, Posh and Becks, and Take That. Partial episodes: Brad/Jen/Angelina and Jude Law. Occasionally NSFW (language/simulated sex)
posted by miss lynnster at 6:50 AM PST - 25 comments

Glamping. When you want to touch nature but you don't want nature to touch you.
posted by ShawnString at 6:12 AM PST - 80 comments

DIY business card holders from paint chips from industrial designer Aaron Tang at designverb, step by step.
posted by taz at 5:21 AM PST - 10 comments

With the French embrace of Pixar's Ratatouille, one of the movie's locations has become an unlikely tourist attraction. "Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles" reads the sign above the door of Aurouze, where the bodies of rats 80 years dead hang suspended by iron traps in the storefront window. Meanwhile, American scientists tickle rodents to record thier tiny gales of laughter. Viva la difference!
posted by maryh at 12:34 AM PST - 18 comments

Bush the Dissident. (WaPo) Background (and previously) here here here here and here.
posted by Avenger at 11:39 PM PST - 45 comments

The top 100 Indy games of the last three years as selected by GameTunnel, which offers in-depth reviews of independent games (also useful are their best of 2006 and best of 2005). On the other side of the indy gaming world, ModDB does the same thing for the best mods of 2006 chosen by their editors and players, along with a full database of other mods. [You may also want to see my previous post on free games.]
posted by blahblahblah at 10:13 PM PST - 20 comments

Recovering nicely, the American Bald Eagle was delisted (pdf) as an endangered species this summer by the Department of the Interior. Only a handful of species have fought their way back from the endangered species list. Credit the ban on DDT for the bald eagle's remarkable resurgence.
posted by netbros at 9:16 PM PST - 39 comments

Streaming interviews and performances from KGSR in Austin. Rufus Wainwright, Willie Nelson, The Gourds, Gomez, Kelly Willis, Pete Townshend, and many more.
posted by ColdChef at 6:32 PM PST - 12 comments

Hot Properties: Want to feel inadequate? Want to visit InsaneWorld? Check out the L.A. Times real estate column Hot Properties, which covers the world of high-end celebrity real estate moves. It's like rock candy for masochists. Scarlett Johansson recently picked up a $7 million pad from a family friend. Courteney Cox wanted more privacy, so she and David Arquette flipped their $33.5 million shack for a $17 million compound. John Cleese is selling his ranch for $28 million. Tom Cruise shows them the money for a $35 million upgrade from his rental. Even the D-list celebs get ink. Double you. Tee. Eff.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:55 PM PST - 40 comments

'Welcome to the wonderful world of Miroslav Sasek. This site is devoted to the life and works of the Czech artist, illustrator and author of the This is series of children's books.' From the equally wonderful I Like.
posted by Alec at 5:32 PM PST - 8 comments

Do You Want To Live Forever? [Google Video - Channel4 documentary] Aubrey de Grey is a genius, a weirdo and predicts the death of death. Don't miss his lectures and some interviews as well. Who is going to be the first immortal MeFite?
posted by homodigitalis at 4:12 PM PST - 76 comments

Movie Locations Guide has the real-world locations tons of scenes from famous & cult films & television shows; interesting if you live in (or plan to visit) Los Angeles or New York, for the most part.
posted by jonson at 3:38 PM PST - 16 comments

A little bit of personal piercing history that intersects with the larger tapestry of world politics. [NSFW, via BB.]
posted by homunculus at 2:00 PM PST - 64 comments

Fashion for the 21st century
posted by bijou at 1:40 PM PST - 11 comments

Computers get cheap. While Microsoft has seen fit to require a whole new generation of computers to run its latest operating system, a number of manufacturers have started the creation of cheap notebook computers. The list includes the infamous Palm Foleo, mentioned here previously, and the OLPC, mentioned pretty much everywhere previously. But also coming soon is the Asus EEE, a $200-300 notebook running Linux. And Intel's alternative to the OLPC, the Classmate PC. Even as the low cost alternatives to standard computer start to come on sale, the prices for traditional laptops dip ever lower. Can the digital divide, at least hardware wise, be consigned to the dustbin of history?
posted by zabuni at 1:28 PM PST - 83 comments

Is it a taxi? Is it a train? Actually it is a bit of both. Technically speaking it is a personal rapid transport system, a new hybrid form of transport that some have already taken to calling the podcar. Similar systems have been proposed before and failed to make it into development, despite some less-personal versions built in the 1970s in the US. But with the current desire for low-carbon transit as keen as ever, has the time finally arrived for this kind of low-emission people mover?
posted by MrMerlot at 11:20 AM PST - 44 comments

Aerogel Update Originally posted back in '02 by adrianhon this crazy new material looks to be on the verge of mass production. Currently used in homes for insulation & for winter clothes that are too warm to wear, this is a truly amazing technology. Want to know how to make it? Want to buy some? Here is a pic to help you believe it's real. More here. Aspen Aerogel is currently in production.
posted by thekorruptor at 9:38 AM PST - 29 comments

When was the last time you listened to a hurdy gurdy? No, I mean really listened to a hurdy gurdy? No, I don't mean the The Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan. I mean a real hurdy gurdy. That is to say, an actual hurdy gurdy. Oh, and by the way, the French call it a Vielle à roue. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:57 AM PST - 53 comments

A tiny wireless spy earpiece is being marketed to students who want the cheat on exams, much to the chagrin of teacher/examiner organisations. The Examear website proclaims they are: "Helping students succeed. Worldwide!" The makers say the devices are also suitable for people such as TV reporter, TV game show contestants -- anyone who needs help remembering things. Remember, before the internet, when students didnt copy all their essays and actually did some work?
posted by domdom at 4:38 AM PST - 73 comments

Physicists have 'solved' mystery of levitation Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing ... the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts. Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate. But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.
posted by MythMaker at 2:06 AM PST - 30 comments

Storytime is a 1968 animated short film which marks the directorial debut of Terry Gilliam. It is not to be confused with Storytime, a famous sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus (aka Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus) — the British TV show for which Gilliam created surreal animations that segued between sketches (or not). In 1974, he followed that up with another animated short film called The Miracle of Flight. The next year, he set off in a different direction, leading Monty Python's quest for The Holy Grail [LEGO]. That path eventually led to Brazil, which brings us to where we are today.
posted by Poolio at 1:07 AM PST - 17 comments

Like em or Hate em, Something Awful asks and answers the question: Do guitar solos make non-guitar solo songs better? A-HA, Beach Boys, Britney, Backstreet Boys. Rest of the thread.
posted by Lord_Pall at 11:43 PM PST - 73 comments

Newsfilter: Someone is clearly nostalgic for the good old days of the Iron Curtain.
posted by Krrrlson at 11:13 PM PST - 19 comments

How do you fit Fred "Rerun" Berry, Shaun Cassidy, Howard Cosell, Kate Jackson, Hal Linden, Penny Marhsall, Kristy McNichol, Donny & Marie, Parker Stevenson, Dick Van Patten, Adam Rich, Abe Vigoda, and Cindy Williams all into a single 48 minute TV show? It would take a magician like David Copperfield, in his first television special in 1977.
posted by The Deej at 9:23 PM PST - 37 comments

The Quinta de Regaleira, completed in 1910, was the dream palace of the Portuguese millionaire Antonio Agusto de Carvalho Monteiro who was a devotee of mysticism and lost arts. The enormous gardens include a Templar initiation well,underground labyrinths, hidden doorways, fantastic grottos, lookout towers, and of course the palace itself (hunting room, outside detail, gargoyles) More photos here and here.
posted by vacapinta at 9:05 PM PST - 20 comments

Internet Commenter Business Meeting (NSFW flash video)
posted by aerotive at 8:32 PM PST - 27 comments

"How I Became A Programmer" veers between linear biography and brain dump. The piece meanders through its theme, stopping along the way to flirt with word origins, family politics, the senior prom, Japan, airlines and military recruitment. Reading it, I felt trapped inside inside an extremely quirky -- yet recognizable (in a too-close-for-comfort way) -- mind. About half the time I yearned to tell him that he needs an editor; the other half, I was grateful that he didn't have one. Mostly, I'm amazed he HAD a date to the senior prom!
posted by grumblebee at 7:45 PM PST - 49 comments

People really do love their space beds!

On the otherhand....
posted by atomicmedia at 5:43 PM PST - 19 comments

The antidote to the controlled, indoor world of modern kids might be Adventure Playgrounds. Messy, chaotic, but counter-intuitively, safer than traditional playgrounds, there are only two in the US: Listen to Berkeley's Adventure Playground on NPR, or check out some flickr shots. In Europe, where they originated from the rubble of WWII, and in Japan where they are also popular, the importance of play that involves risks is better understood. There are hundreds of Adventure Playgrounds outside of North America.
posted by serazin at 3:53 PM PST - 38 comments

Learn To Draw Animals.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:47 PM PST - 15 comments

In the world of conversation killers, talking about Excel to the average person ranks up there with the best. At the same time, there is always a chance that you wish you could have that conversation at work when it gets down to the wire. Even as a pro, you might need that brush up on Array Functions, calculation tricks, VBA examples or some examples from one of the well known authors on Excel. There is also no shortage of people who dedicate their working lives to this arcane program and are more than willing to assist others for free by posting solved issues on their websites. People like David McRitchie, OzGrid, Rob Bovey, Ron de Bruin, John Walkenbach, Dick Kusleika, Joseph Rubin and Chip Pearson.

Or if you just want to be a Debbie Downer at the next party, just take page from any of the following, memorize it. and recite it when faced with that nudge you don't want to talk to: Excel Support, Jon Peltier, Colo's Junk Room, Scriptorium, Andrew's Excel Tips, Andy Pope, Anthony's VBA Page, Rodney Powell, Array Formulas, Erlandsen Data Consulting, Excel-it, ExcelUser, JKP's Excel Page, John Lacher, McGimpsey, Bill Jelen, Stephen Bullen, Tushar Mehta, VBusers.com, The Excel Nexus, The Excel Logic Page, and Anthoney Does Excel. It’s a fast and easy way to ward off lounge lizards.
posted by lampshade at 2:13 PM PST - 42 comments

Down The Mine. An essay on coal mining as seen by George Orwell in 1937. [Via The Huffington Post.]
posted by homunculus at 1:50 PM PST - 20 comments

Geek tattoos. Gamer tattoos. Science tattoos. Medical tattoos. Assorted nerdiness. More. Not ready to commit? Get bar coded, sans ouch. (Previously)
posted by desjardins at 12:39 PM PST - 29 comments

The British documentary Britain's Youngest Brides follows five teen girls on their paths to the altar. My personal favorite is Catrina and her 308 pound wedding dress.
posted by miss lynnster at 10:49 AM PST - 64 comments

The "Bootlegs" section over at The Rawking Refuses To Stop has a ton of great stuff, from a stripped down live acoustic Jeff Tweedy & Jay Bennet set (right before YHF was released) to a mock-up version of the unreleased new Radiohead album using the best available live tracks from the most recent tour to a rare Paul McCartney, John Lennon & Stevie Wonder jam session to all sorts of smaller gems.
posted by jonson at 10:38 AM PST - 12 comments

Pop-Up Puppetry
posted by carsonb at 8:12 AM PST - 18 comments

space war - a little animated clip by Christy Karacas.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:00 AM PST - 26 comments

Let's send a knowledge Ark to the Moon, says a French University. The founders of the group Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC) agree: "extending the Internet from the Earth to the moon could help avert a technological dark age following "nuclear war, acts of terrorism, plague, or asteroid collisions." Better than sending 1679 binary digits, into space? The French are no strangers to CETI , inventor Charles Cros petitioned the French Government for years for funding to construct a giant mirror to burn giant lines of communication into the deserts of other planets. [previously]
posted by takeyourmedicine at 4:30 AM PST - 45 comments

Urban Scarecrows! A fundraising project of the Great Torrington Cavaliers, encouraging private households and businesses to make and display scarecrows. The entries include Spiderman, Spongebob Squarepants, an elderly Superman, pirates, and much more. Proceeds from the project will go toward the annual Great Torrington Bonfire in November. Via.
posted by amyms at 2:27 AM PST - 12 comments

Slacklining is like tightrope walking on crack. There's even instructional sites dedicated to it. I'd never heard of it until running across this pretty unbelivable video, which led to the discovery of keywords and what is apparently an entire culture. Some of the basic tricks include surfing, the 360, various acts of balance reminiscent of breakdancing or olympic balance beam and even a front flip. Oh, and of course then there's complete insanity...
posted by twiggy at 1:05 AM PST - 37 comments

Diebold Election Systems is no more (at least in name). Taking a page from the cigarette companies, Diebold is changing their name and hoping to reverse the downward spiral after their recent news.
posted by mathowie at 11:57 PM PST - 46 comments

"Al Qaeda" A lecture by Lawrence wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. An interesting look at the "root causes" of terrorism
posted by delmoi at 9:20 PM PST - 17 comments

WebUrbanist: Collective Bloggings about Urban Cultures and Alternative Arts
posted by bijou at 9:09 PM PST - 8 comments

The YouTubes have the African balafon you need. Alya Dioubate. Coulibaly Samadou. Kanazoé. Epizo Bangoura. Koeta Hakiri. Bala. Man and child. Danse Moderne Balafon!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:06 PM PST - 14 comments

Even experts don't know what (3 and 3/16ths) times 20 is. But it has something to do with square roots and kinetic energy. [single link to excellent youtube deposition]
posted by orthogonality at 5:25 PM PST - 77 comments

Reversible flow! In the 1960s, the National Committee for Fluid Mechanics Films produced a series of films for education in fluid mechanics. This clip is part of "Low Reynolds Number Flow"; you can find the entire collection streamed here. Interesting demonstrations abound. (1st link is QT; rest are RealPlayer.)
posted by Upton O'Good at 4:32 PM PST - 19 comments

"Mem, mem, mem." A fascinating memoir of global aphasia -- total language loss -- following a stroke, by British poet and novelist Paul West.
posted by digaman at 3:47 PM PST - 40 comments

Who Needs Government? Over at Cato Unbound, Peter Leeson gives a spirited defense of self-government, which is followed by a number of responses from scholars, including a rebuttal by Leeson. Check the sidebar on this issue's front page for more discussion.
posted by Falconetti at 3:04 PM PST - 65 comments

A fairly lucid description of recent actions of the Federal Reserve.
posted by landis at 2:01 PM PST - 85 comments

Church chandeliers made from bullet casings and cannon parts Until today I'd never heard of trench art. From the second link: Pieces described as ‘trench art’ have the following distinctly different origins: 1. War souvenirs collected by soldiers or non-combatants during the war and during the demobilization period and modified in some way to serve as a remembrance of the war. 2. Souvenirs crafted by soldiers during the war. 3. Souvenirs made for sale to soldiers by other soldiers or civilians during the war. 4. Souvenirs made by prisoners of war in exchange for food, cigarettes or money. 5. Mementoes of the war made by convalescent soldiers. 6. Post-war souvenirs made for tourists visiting the battlefields. 7. Post-war souvenirs made by commercial firms in ‘trench-art style’.
posted by SassHat at 12:51 PM PST - 10 comments

The Century of Speed [Google Video] by Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame. Usually he reviews cars, writes nasty columns or does something stupid with vehicles, but this documentary is not just about cars ... it's about the speed of our modern lifes and his wife.
posted by homodigitalis at 12:43 PM PST - 17 comments

An excellent video collection of live performances of jazz and Brazilian music from Youtube user Pedro Mendes. Including such artists as Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Derek Bailey, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, Miles Davis and many, many more. Plus a host of Brazilian musicians I had never heard of before, but are quite excellent, such as Édison Machado, Dom Um Romão, Hermeto Pascoal, Elis Regina and Maria Bethania.
posted by Kattullus at 12:17 PM PST - 7 comments

Watching this years television coverage of the TdF there seemed to be a void in the absence of Viatcheslav Ekimov. During the Tour de France he was busy being team director for the non-TdF Team Discovery Channel cyclists who were competing in the Tour de Qinhai Lake bike race in China. Beautiful scenery, exotic peoples, described with interesting Chinese to English translations. Altogether a great preview for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
posted by X4ster at 11:42 AM PST - 10 comments

Would you like to buy an island? Some are small and affordable. Others, not so much.
posted by dersins at 10:37 AM PST - 47 comments

The on-stage rantings of various famous musicians.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:13 AM PST - 63 comments

Aerial Archaeology in Northern France
posted by anastasiav at 9:53 AM PST - 13 comments

The New Yorker now has animated cartoons. Animating by Ring Tales.
posted by nickyskye at 9:39 AM PST - 30 comments

Since the US economy will soon explode and eat all our monies, I give you this: 100 Things You Can Make Yourself!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:23 AM PST - 47 comments

Asian Giant Hornets in action. Asian Giant Hornets on the palm of your hand. Asian Giant Hornet vs Mantis. Asian Giant Hornet vs Asian Giant Hornet.
posted by voltairemodern at 8:37 AM PST - 55 comments

The software awards scam. I put out a new product a couple of weeks ago. This new product has so far won 16 different awards and recommendations from software download sites. Download it now from PC World!
posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:36 AM PST - 20 comments

Toronto: 1977 vs 2007. Shige Sakamoto spent a week in Toronto back in 1977, and took several photographs. Damon Schreiber is retracing Sakamoto's steps, taking photos of the same locations today. He's presenting the photos on his photoblog.
posted by chunking express at 8:04 AM PST - 43 comments

A society without power relations can only be an abstraction. Which, be it said in passing, makes all the more politically necessary the analysis of power relations in a given society, their historical formation, the source of their strength or fragility, the conditions which are necessary to transform some or to abolish others. For to say that there cannot be a society without power relations is not to say either that those which are established are necessary or, in any case, that power constitutes a fatality at the heart of societies, such that it cannot be undermined. Instead, I would say that the analysis, elaboration, and bringing into question of power relations and the "agonism" between power relations and the intransitivity of freedom is a permanent political task inherent in all social existence.

"Saint" Michel Foucault (1926-1984) transformed Western thought. Institutions -- prisons, asylums, clinics -- define the rhythm of our daily existence; Foucault found that they also determine the way we think. The search for the political and philosophical implications of this insight led him to biology and economics, linguistics and the study of sexuality. In Foucault's eyes, intellectual activity, however radical, could never be divorced from the techniques of power. This is why some have accused him of political quietism. Other critics say he was simply a bad scholar. Who was the real Foucault? "Anarchist, leftist, ostentatious or disguised Marxist, nihilist, explicit or secret anti-Marxist, technocrat in the service of Gaullism, new liberal," gay saint, charlatan, or something else entirely? Perhaps we have posed the question incorrectly...
posted by nasreddin at 8:01 AM PST - 91 comments

How to Market a Deadly Disease: Ten provocative examples of AIDS awareness campaigns from around the world. Here are some more [YouTube]. NSFW. Via. [Previously/related: 1, 2]
posted by veronica sawyer at 7:39 AM PST - 5 comments

Mmmm, beeeer: ratebeer.com The World's Worst Beers, Best Beers - 2007, find the top beers by category or region. Emphasis on craft brews. (See also the previously mentioned BeerAdvocate.com) Happy Friday, everyone!
posted by spock at 7:29 AM PST - 91 comments

Giuliani promises a bigger longer war than we got right now with W. This from a guy that used his command center in NYC as a love nest. Of course, the Onion sums it up best.
posted by zzazazz at 7:03 AM PST - 80 comments

Clinton White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart does stand-up. Text, or if you prefer there is some audio at the 51min mark from This American Life.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:52 AM PST - 7 comments

Happy birthday dear CD! Today marks 25 years since the first CD rolled off the production line. Love it, lump it or just use this occasion as an excuse to eat cake.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 3:16 AM PST - 55 comments

National Center for Health Statistics says the median for heterosexual men is seven partners and for heterosexual women it’s four, and isn't that just plain BS? The New York Times has looked at the NCHS study and found The Myth, the Math, the Sex while Salon explained that Chaste women + promiscuous men = impossible. Now Janet W. Hardy, the author of The Ethical Slut, reminds us either men are rounding up or women are rounding down. Then she does something radical by admitting that she has honestly, depending on your definition, perhaps hundreds of lovers. Is either gender ready to be honest about sex? For instance, do hookers or blackout sex even count?
posted by PeteNicely at 12:03 AM PST - 83 comments

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, formerly knows as King/Drew and forever known as Killer King, has shut its emergency room and will close in a week due to feds pulling its funding. The hospital near the Watts section of LA, best known for its incompetent staff and meaningless deaths was profiled here a few months ago. Local residents see the hospital as a symbol of freedom and don't want to see it go. (UpdateFilter)
posted by daninnj at 11:12 PM PST - 28 comments

This map displays county-to-county migration data for 2000-2005 from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. In, out, staying put, median household income. [via]
posted by tellurian at 10:58 PM PST - 19 comments

I've been struggling for days to refrain from posting this video of a chimp taking five British bulldogs for a walk around the streets of Japan, and it looks like I failed.
posted by jonson at 10:36 PM PST - 54 comments

In sort of the same vein as the MS Paint posts seen here lately is a website where you too can draw, and have the process of it captured to be watched over and over again - Sketchfu. The application isn't nearly as complex even as MS Paint, yet you'd be amazed what kind of work some of these people put together.
posted by Quidam at 9:00 PM PST - 12 comments

"You've reached this page because the site you were trying to visit now blocks the FireFox browser". Because Firefox has endorsed and allowed the Ad Block Plus plug-in, which is "is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers," some folks aren't too happy. With links to How to Block Firefox, Firefox Myths, and The Firefox Cult.
posted by zardoz at 6:57 PM PST - 180 comments

Bilderbook.
posted by hama7 at 6:14 PM PST - 22 comments

Filipino-American artist Jhoneil Centeno is a painter, photographer, digital artist, game developer, and bow and arrow maker. He explains his art and his technique. Title quote from Lucid Skin review (NSFW).
posted by desjardins at 5:15 PM PST - 9 comments

NBC's most controversial "news" program finally hits an all-new low. ThisJustIn.com presents To Catch A Predator: The Reunion Special. Bloopers are included free! [2-video blog link]
posted by beaucoupkevin at 4:17 PM PST - 27 comments

Dick/Crack/Head - The Return of Alexyss K. Tylor. And yeah, it's a single link YouTube post that definitely isn't safe for work. Previously.
posted by awesomebrad at 3:13 PM PST - 36 comments

"We have broken speed of light." So say Dr. Gunter Nimtz and Dr. Alfons Stahlhofen of the University of Koblenz, in this article from New Scientist. Dr. Nimtz's work has been cited on MeFi before.
posted by hermitosis at 12:51 PM PST - 53 comments

A verdict on Padilla – and the US. [More inside.]
posted by homunculus at 12:18 PM PST - 91 comments

Taxidermia! Animal furniture! Via tanned hides!
posted by parmanparman at 12:11 PM PST - 5 comments

Max Roach has passed at age 83. The famed drum innovator, composer and educator who came to prominence during the bebop era died last evening at age 83 at home in Manhattan. Known as the pioneer of a technically complex style that allowed for far greater improvisational texture, Max was one of the first drummers to step out from the role as mere timekeeper. His imprint on both the history of jazz and the history of music is indelible.
posted by nonreflectiveobject at 12:10 PM PST - 53 comments

Countrywide Empties Out on Widowmaker gives a vivid idea of the turmoil in the mortgage market, and the difficult American real estate environment. "You sold your unlimited subway card after the 5th race, plunged full-bore on a filthy hot dog, a beer and a 9-1 shot that finished next-to-last. You are Countrywide."
posted by Adamchik at 11:46 AM PST - 42 comments

Phonetic alphabets have taken many forms across many languages. But why go with Alpha-Bravo-Charlie when you can choose Bread-Debt-Indictment , Abides-Bowling-Chinaman, Are-Beady-Cue, and Ackbar-BadgerBadgerBadger-Camwhore? What's the MetaFilter phonetic alphabet?
posted by blahblahblah at 11:26 AM PST - 71 comments

Salad? mmhmm. If you're not one for the ever-generic chicken caesar, well, there are alternatives. (in keeping with recent baconposts, of course.)
posted by vellocet at 10:57 AM PST - 16 comments

Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland has been in operation for 800-odd years. Needless to say, this has given the miners plenty of time to carve some pretty amazing things. More photos here and here. Videos here and here. Virtual tour here. Wikipedia.
posted by dersins at 10:20 AM PST - 36 comments

User interface design so epically bad you need a strategy guide to defeat it. Presenting The Legend of FacilityFocus.
posted by designbot at 9:49 AM PST - 20 comments

4th Edition is Coming... Eight years after the release of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition (and only four years after the release of 3.5), Wizards of the Coast announced today that 4th Edition will be on the shelves in May of 2008. Back in 2000, the release of 3rd Edition launched a boom (and bust) of secondary adventures published under the Open Gaming License. Back then, a gamer couldn't swing their boffer sword without hitting a start-up game company with d20 content. Contrast that to this month when the very last issues of venerable Dragon and Dungeon magazines hit the shelves.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:34 AM PST - 105 comments

I now know what to do in case I ever got stuck on an airplane that's not going anywhere- organize and stage a revolt, like the passengers of Continental flight 1669.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:19 AM PST - 74 comments

Move over Village People. Introducing Bearforce1 from Holland... the first gay bear man group. They are clearly having fun.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:25 AM PST - 40 comments

God-awful games.
posted by flabdablet at 8:16 AM PST - 29 comments

A 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit Peru in the Ica region, south of the capital of Lima. Ica, Chincha and Pisco have been hardest hit, although the pavement rippled in downtown Lima as well. BBC (first link) and CNN have been reporting about 336-7 dead, but my uncle (in Lima) says that many towns south of San Bartolo have simply disappeared into rubble.
posted by LMGM at 8:08 AM PST - 27 comments

This post is simply to call attention to the gorgeous music of Carlos Paredes (1925-2004), soulful master of the 12-string guitarra Portuguesa. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:24 AM PST - 9 comments

Dutch East Indies. "After a wonderful youth in the Dutch East Indies, today Indonesia, my family and I went through three and a half years Japanese occupation. I lost my father, I lost the country I loved, I lost everything, but I kept my memories. ... So here I am, 79 years old, sitting behind my computer, going back to the Dutch East Indies."
posted by No-sword at 5:58 AM PST - 29 comments

pronunciationguide - for aspiring classical radio announcers
posted by Gyan at 5:34 AM PST - 9 comments

Thank You Mask Man – a hilariously NSFW animated short film produced and voiced by Lenny Bruce – was previously FPP'd. But you can thank me for these videos of Bruce performing live, on The Steve Allen Show, in this unaired TV special, and in the 1953 movie Dance Hall Racket. [♪]
posted by Poolio at 5:05 AM PST - 15 comments

MAKING HAPPY/one human life is a photoblog by Gayla Trail.
posted by JohnR at 3:33 AM PST - 10 comments

Why New Yorkers Last Longer. Interestingly, urban theorists believe it is not just the tightly packed nature of the city but also its social and economic density that has life-giving properties. When you’re jammed, sardinelike, up against your neighbors, it’s not hard to find a community of people who support you—friends or ethnic peers—and this strongly correlates with better health and a longer life. [New York Magazine article]
posted by nickyskye at 11:32 PM PST - 75 comments

And now for something completely different: A star with a tail like a comet. (Cool pic). Don't know how we missed it. It's one of the most well-known stars in the sky and the tail is 13 light-years long, or about 20,000 times the average distance of Pluto from the sun.
posted by spock at 9:56 PM PST - 44 comments

Acrobatic kite flying (Background music: Flower Duet from Lakmé’ by Delibes)
posted by growabrain at 9:43 PM PST - 11 comments

Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley so it seems somewhat appropriate that we remember not only The man King but his music as well, including Jailhouse Rock, Love Me Tender, In The Ghetto, Unchained Melody, Always on My Mind, Burning Love, Suspicious Minds, Return to Sender, Blue Christmas, Heartbreak Hotel, It's Now Or Never, Hound Dog, My Way, Don't Be Cruel, Way Down, Are You Lonesome Tonight, Amazing Grace, You've Lost That Loving Feeling, Promised Land, Viva Las Vegas and many more. Here's the lyrics if you want to sing along to any of those. Not a fan of his music? Fair enough. Why not go make yourself a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich? Just don't eat 12 to 15 of them in one sitting!
posted by Effigy2000 at 6:39 PM PST - 77 comments

My Right Wing Dad is a new-ish and rather informal blog that aims to provide "a chance for folks to examine the unrestrained rhetoric that is quietly passed from in-box to in-box in America," by hosting a collection of the emails that form an often untraceable and unacknowledged part of public discourse in the U.S., especially on the Right. Tagged by category (for example: God, college, flag, liberal, and World War II), the amateur archive presents a range of colorful opinion, not all of it strikingly accurate, and some of it offensive. In efforts to understand liberal and conservative habits of communication, it may be worth considering the role of forwarded email in the electoral process, and the reasons that the forwarding of email is popular among some people, and whether this behavior tends to correlate with particular political opinions. The emails hosted on MyRightWingDad may in any case be enlightening, unless you're already on the forward list of someone in the know.
posted by washburn at 5:16 PM PST - 105 comments

In the world of fantasy art, he is an icon. Some argue Arnold would never have become governor without him. Though his arrogance is second only to his skill, Frank Frazetta suffered for his art: for eight years an undiagnosed problem left him unable to create at all, while a series of strokes in his later years led to the artist having to learn to paint all over again, this time with his left hand. Since I was a girl, only this artist ever came close to inspiring me half so much as Frazetta did.
posted by misha at 4:51 PM PST - 33 comments

Simba Just Got His Report Card via
posted by vronsky at 4:43 PM PST - 14 comments

What's the relationship between the rise of film noir and the national mood of post-war (WWII, that is) America? "Was noir simply a way of reanimating the tired conventions of the pre-war crime film? Or did we need melodramatic illusions potent enough to overcome whatever disillusions strayed briefly into our minds as we surrendered to the mighty engines of prosperity? Or was it one of those cycles - like biopics, westerns, sci-­fi, etc. - that Hollywood mysteriously embraces and then just as mysteriously abandons?" Via.
posted by amyms at 4:34 PM PST - 8 comments

As a follow up to this post, photographer & Alaskan fisherman Corey Arnold has several amazing galleries up at his personal portfolio (and yay, it's not in Flash!). Favorite galleries include Bering Sea (1 & 2), Arctic-ness & Lofoten.
posted by jonson at 4:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Phrogging - To sneak into a house and live among its occupants without their knowledge. ^ (via the Presurfer)
posted by caddis at 2:50 PM PST - 66 comments

"A group of teenagers, en route to attend a rock concert, lose their way when their car runs out of fuel in the dead of night. They find themselves in an unfamiliar rural backwater where they are confronted by flesh-eating zombies and a psychotic cannibalistic killer dressed in a sheet. It could be the plot to a thousand Hollywood horror films but while these teenagers may dress, talk and smoke dope like young Americans they are in fact young Pakistanis, and the film - Zibahkhana or Hell's Ground - is the first modern horror film to be filmed in Pakistan."
posted by brundlefly at 1:51 PM PST - 11 comments

Pablo's Penis Prosecution, the crazy case against comic retailer Gorden Lee was supposed to start today. Only the judge was sick, or the air conditioner was broken, or maybe the prosecution wants to drop all the charges and refile...again. Interesting to note that the judge presiding over the case has ruled against Mr. Lee in a previous prosecution for comics obscenity. Previous MeFi discussion, before the original charges were all dropped 18 hours before trial.
posted by dejah420 at 1:40 PM PST - 30 comments

Charlie Rose's new website has been in development over a year as technicians worked with Google to archive over 4,000 hours of interviews all culminating in 8,000 program segments including David Foster Wallace talking about David Lynch, Christopher Hitchens badmouthing religion, and Rem Koolhaas discussing recent changes in China.
posted by four panels at 1:24 PM PST - 37 comments

Seattle is red hot and almost no other market is. So says this great data visualization that Zillow just put out. (bonus: while previewing the link I also noticed a useful page of quarterly reports for major real estate markets)
posted by jragon at 12:53 PM PST - 42 comments

Find inner serenity by making it easier to find your keys. Become an early riser. Create a "Landing Strip" to become more organized. All these and more at 100 Great Tips to Improve Your Life.
posted by Floydd at 12:39 PM PST - 42 comments

The Case for Resilience. How Efficiency Maximizes Catastrophe.
posted by homunculus at 12:15 PM PST - 23 comments

The Shoe Project: people and their shoes. Simple and sweet, I don't know why this makes me smile so much but it does. (via swissmiss)
posted by mathowie at 12:11 PM PST - 23 comments

Is there a link between donations given and bills passed? MAPLight.org aims to help you find out, giving you the ability to compare contributions with how legislators voted. [Via]
posted by djgh at 10:19 AM PST - 33 comments

The marine flatworm Pseudobiceros hancockanus engages in penis fencing [video]. SFW, I guess, unless your boss is a super uptight nudibranch or something.
posted by dersins at 9:29 AM PST - 26 comments

Bar Code Revolution! With more than just lines and rectangles, Japanese company Design Barcode works around the basic elements of a barcode and infuses real, functional barcodes with creative designs and silhouettes. See barcodes as tomatoes, stomachs, rain, pianos, guns, train tracks, waterfalls, cliffsides, and yes, even combovers.
posted by Lush at 4:31 AM PST - 46 comments

Fuerzabruta, from one of the creators of De La Guarda . Argentine 'physical theatre' , but without a plot and the term seems simply too limiting. I would call it emotional theatre. Currently in the middle of a run at the Edinburgh Fringe (tickets here). Simply Fantastic , its coming to New York soon , and Europe ...GO !! ( De La Guarda Previously)
posted by burr1545 at 3:17 AM PST - 20 comments

The largest democracy in the world celebrates its 60th anniversary, in a year which saw horrendous floods, the election of its first woman president (previously mentioned here), the signing of the 123 Nuclear Agreement, and the recent victory over England after a span of 21 years.
posted by hadjiboy at 12:03 AM PST - 23 comments

Little Boxes is a song written by Malvina Reynolds in 1962 that lampoons the development of suburbia and what many consider its bourgeois conformist values. [1]

During the first season of the Showtime series Weeds, Malvina's original recording was used during the opening credits. In the second season, the song was performed by a different artist each episode — Elvis Costello, Death Cab for Cutie, Engelbert Humperdinck, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Maestro Charles Barnett, Aiden Hawkin, Ozomatli , The Submarines, Tim DeLaughter, Regina Spektor, and Jenny Lewis. [Malvina's recording was used again for the season finale.] Randy Newman just kicked off the third season, which the network promoted with a Little Boxes music video contest. Kevin Nealon and Romany Malco were notable among the participating cast members.
posted by Poolio at 11:18 PM PST - 132 comments

The most cruel viral ad campaign yet. Give your friend the experience of being stalked by a serial killer. Make sure to preview the very slick customized video generated first, before you decide whether you really want to do this to someone you like. [Yes, yes, viral advertising for some FX show, also Flash]
posted by blahblahblah at 10:28 PM PST - 37 comments

BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG is a musical composition by the inimitable Dan Deacon, dubbed by his local paper as part vaudeville ham, part electronica genius. Take a tour of Dan's thrift-store electronic keyboard and read his answers to stupid questions in Ignore Magazine. via Miss Cellania
posted by madamjujujive at 9:57 PM PST - 34 comments

Is there no humor in public relations? The public relations blog PRBlogNews included a post last week on PR and LSD (a long strange happy tradition). It appears to have been a joke, mixing a selection of early youth-on-acid videos with a vintage discourse about LSD by Dr. Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) re-imagined as a history of successful "tripvertising." It must have stirred some sort of trouble; there's been a follow-up, "LSD and PR don’t mix" post (Don’t eat the brown acid) which warns against mixing PR and LSD (and hot dogs).
posted by mmahaffie at 8:16 PM PST - 11 comments

St. Louis Cardinals' manager Tony La Russa loves re-treads more than a long distance trucker. And even though the Cards are often willing to take a chance on former big league players with problems, their latest retrieval from the scrap heap is unusual, even for them. At the ripe old age of 28, former pitching phenom Rick Ankiel is back. As a hitter.
posted by paulsc at 7:46 PM PST - 25 comments

The Continental was a short-lived TV show that debuted in 1951 on KNBH Los Angeles and aired nationally on ABC and CBS during the 1952-1953 TV season. Sponsored by Cameo Stockings, the show featured Italian actor Renzo Cesana (who got discovered when Robert Rossellini produced a play Cesana wrote when he was 16!) purring seductively into the camera, while offering "sham-pan-ya" to an offscreen lady friend. Best known for inspiring a series of Saturday Night Live sketches starring Christopher Walken, the show inspired parodies in its own era, such as this Popeye cartoon (where Bluto tries to seduce Olive Oyl by posing as "The International"), a Jerry Lewis skit on the Colgate Comedy Hour that imagines the Continental as played by Marlon Brando, and a Pepe Le Pew cartoon where our amorous skunk attempts to seduce the feline object of his affection in The Cat's Bah. Unfortunately, Internet footage of the real show appears to be nonexistent, although you can buy some love songs recorded by the Continental off EBay.
posted by jonp72 at 6:33 PM PST - 25 comments

Last summer, Uwe Boll took on four of his many critics. The "Teutonic Terror" (an amateur boxer who spent months in training for the event) so throughly savaged his opponents that three of them became gushing fans. Sure, he exploits an enormous German tax loophole to make dreadful films, but maybe he's just an industry-savvy Ed Wood. His most recent bit of empassioned lunacy suggests so. Hell, he has one more doctorate in literature than I do, and even the Wired guys though one part of Postal was funny.
posted by absalom at 5:56 PM PST - 34 comments

Just watched a tv show, looking for the music you just heard? Playing the radio, and didn't catch the DJ saying the title? On the go? In the woods? (Also)
posted by desjardins at 5:28 PM PST - 14 comments

"The ile is full of wild fowls, and when the fowls has their birds ripe, men out of the parish of Ness in Lewis sail and tarry there seven or eight days and to fetch with them home their boatfull of dry wild fowls with wild fowl feathers" - Donald Monro, Archdeacon of the Isles, 1549. The men sail again, as they have done since the 15th Century, this month.
posted by brautigan at 5:13 PM PST - 6 comments

Barbie Recalled. Mattel recalled one of their Barbie products today, a sweet little toy to teach kids responsibility called Barbie and Tanner. But watching that commercial closely one must wonder, if those magnets are coming out of Tanner so easily, surely they won't stay in your kid. Perhaps the design flaw had nothing to do with magnets but rather such an ill-conceived product. So, after Tanner poops out the magnet, you do what with it?
posted by Toekneesan at 5:10 PM PST - 75 comments

David Juritz a leading violinist left his house with a backpack, fiddle and completely empty wallet at the start of a 60,000-mile, twenty-five-country, round-the-world busk. He is raising money for Musequality (read about some of their support efforts, like the M-Lisada Brass Band). His comment about Berlin being a terrible city for busking put me in mind of this post about Joshua Bell. You can donate here if you feel so inclined.
posted by tellurian at 5:04 PM PST - 5 comments

A shortstop extraordinaire, loan pitchman, vocal accompanist, announcing icon. and friend to yogi's ...has left the building. RIP, Scooter.
posted by jonmc at 4:57 PM PST - 38 comments

WriteCloud is a collaborative writing game where the wisdom of crowds guides the cursor. Kind of like a web 2.0 version of exquisite corpse with letters instead of drawings. [via mefi projects]
posted by eoligarry at 3:55 PM PST - 11 comments

Oh, Inverted World. As we’ve all learned in school, 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, only 30% is solid ground. What if everything was reversed? What if every land mass was a body of water, and vice versa?
posted by Ufez Jones at 3:47 PM PST - 25 comments

Extreme aerial bowfishing!
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 3:24 PM PST - 27 comments

nic. will never grow up
posted by nthdegx at 2:13 PM PST - 43 comments

Debtor Nation. The rising risks of the American Dream, on a borrowed dime.
posted by four panels at 12:33 PM PST - 96 comments

On human odour, malaria mosquitoes, and historic Limburger Cheese.
posted by Floydd at 12:03 PM PST - 14 comments

Take some assorted body armour. Attach an assortment of castor wheels to just about every part of your body and you become Rollerman _Flash. His real name is Jean Yves Blondeau, a former design student and proud owner of the world's only rollerblading supersuit. It may be handy for zipping in and out of traffic, but the fun really starts when you roll down an alp _QT, reaching speeds of up to 60mph with oncoming traffic. Is this insane, or an extreme combination of inline skating and street luge.
posted by bap98189 at 11:08 AM PST - 54 comments

The Arab Republic and Socialist Democratic Commonwealth Kingdom of United Islamic Principalities and Federated Islands. Brendon O'Connor analyzes the names of countries in relation to their Freedom House political rights score.
posted by Falconetti at 10:50 AM PST - 15 comments

Frankie Valli is very old but he is not dead, (MySpace, music plays on load) so you can keep those periods packed away. That first link showcases Pilooski's shockingly subtle and effective remix of Beggin', which should have been the radio hit of summer 2007, except for the small problem of not getting airplay in the States. You can compare different video treatments of the full song here (cyriak's trippy animation), here (pretty dancing people), and here (Northern Soul slideshow). The original 1967 version of the song should still be available here.
posted by maudlin at 10:06 AM PST - 21 comments

Tasty
6/4 blues: Carlos Santana/Buddy Guy duo. Jeff Beck "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat/Brush With the Blues" at the Udo Music Festival '06. Roy Buchanan "Sweet Dreams" at the Rockpalast and here trying out a Fritz Bros. custom guitar.
posted by sluglicker at 8:48 AM PST - 9 comments

Flying in the Alaska Bush. A photoessay of some bush flying in Alaska with a Piper Super Cub.
posted by exogenous at 8:02 AM PST - 27 comments

Foreclosure Radar. This is the fastest growth market in real estate, and we can help you capitalize on it. We go far beyond simple foreclosure listings: we track every single foreclosure auction in the state, every day.
posted by chunking express at 7:37 AM PST - 30 comments

Re-thinking the "cradle of civilization". New discoveries at dig sites in Middle Asia are challenging the archaeological worlds idea that civilization began in Mesopotamia. Sites in modern-day Iran and Russia suggest that a vast network of societies together constituted the first cities, along with the potential discovery of a new writing system.
posted by stbalbach at 7:32 AM PST - 20 comments

The Idea Generator.
posted by jbickers at 5:56 AM PST - 50 comments

What, no Bill & Ted? NY Magazine's interesting and diverse (or at least conversation-engendering) list of the top 15 pop-culture "duos" of all time. They cleverly narrowed down the list by eliminating non-equals (e.g. Batman & Robin), duos within groups (e.g. Spock & Kirk), & romantic couples (e.g. Mork & Mindy). Fans of classic comedy duos might be disappointed (they're also missing the most dynamic duo in the history of mankind).
posted by ericbop at 5:55 AM PST - 81 comments

See who's editing Wikipedia. The most shameful Wikipedia spin jobs and another one from Fox News. Meet Virgil Griffith and find a few interesting Wikipedia battles of your own with his new creation.
posted by spock at 5:36 AM PST - 92 comments

You might recognise him from just about every American TV series ever made (as well as a few films). However, you're missing out unless you watch his podcasts. He's also a very funny writer. Thank God for Taylor Negron. He's not too proud of this
posted by Geezum Crowe at 4:51 AM PST - 21 comments

Sami Al-Haj and Bilal Hussein The detention of AP photographer Bilal Hussein was not without controversy. AP president and CEO Tom Curley stated : "We are the target. Freedom of the press is the target." Meanwhile Prisoner 345 otherwise known as Sami al Hajj continues by reporting on life behind the wire. related
posted by adamvasco at 2:37 AM PST - 8 comments

How to build a fast offline Wikipedia reader using open-source tools in two days
posted by forwebsites at 2:29 AM PST - 27 comments

We've discussed David L. Cunningham before, especially the controversial 9/11 docudrama he made. But there's more to the man who's the son of Christian reconstructionist and University of the Nations founder Loren Cunningham. There are a lot of movies he claims to have directed on his IMDB page that don't have any external verification outside of self-published websites, which seems to contradict IMDB policy. Then there's the fear from both pagans and various political bloggers and fans of the books that his upcoming adaptation of the The Dark is Rising fantasy books is going to completely butcher the source material. The movie is produced by Walden Media, the production company owned by conservative christian billionaire Philip Anschutz, who's trying to "clean up Hollywood", in association with 20th Century Fox.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:34 AM PST - 9 comments

Women In Film, similar to the previously posted Women In Art
posted by aerotive at 12:58 AM PST - 22 comments

Salary, Gender and the Social Cost of Haggling: Just how much will negotiating for that extra $1000 cost a woman? "Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this (Carnegie Mellon) study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were 'less nice'." (Washington Post)
posted by anitanita at 10:20 PM PST - 38 comments

Exactly how mental maturity develops—and the anatomy responsible for its emergence—is being revealed.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:56 PM PST - 6 comments

Prime Vertebrae. PZ Myers discusses the critical difference between having six or seven cervical vertebrae.
posted by homunculus at 9:00 PM PST - 15 comments

In the town of Bomarzo in central Italy you will find Monster's Grove, a vast sculpture garden created in 1552 by Pier Orisini to be a unique & astonishing place. The scupltures are quite large, and some are carved directly into the bedrock; as the name might indicate, the subjects are mainly mythical creatures. For centuries, the stone was uncared for, and nature began to reclaim the art, until the 1970s when efforts began to preserve the pieces, and today it is a major tourist attraction, though still privately owned nearly five centuries in.
posted by jonson at 8:46 PM PST - 20 comments

Hey, let’s go on a Sea Cruise! Or, at least join in via the blog every morning. The sponser list is pretty cool, too. So, that’s how you set an anchor mid-ocean/mid-storm.
posted by dpcoffin at 7:53 PM PST - 17 comments

Birthdays Without Pressure If you think children’s birthday parties are getting out of control, you’ve come to the right place.
posted by konolia at 5:19 PM PST - 76 comments

In Scenes from an Overrated Career, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum writes a rare New York Times op-ed arguing that the work of recently deceased director Ingmar Bergman is overvalued compared to Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson. Both Roger Ebert and David Bordwell respond to Rosenbaum's takedown of Bergman, while Rosenbaum writes a brief eulogy blog post on Bergman. Meanwhile, another blogger discusses how Antonioni and Bergman hated each other despite recent obits that have paired them together.
posted by jonp72 at 5:05 PM PST - 23 comments

Struggling for a way to combine your love of simulated cut-throat capitalism with your love of the Adelaide Crows, classic Coca-Cola ads, Réunion Island, or the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror? Look no further than one of the 1,235 special-edition Monopoly boards. Browse the full street layout of 64 national variants at Monopolybase, or check the going price on 225 official Parker Brothers -opolies from Aachen to X-Men. If even that's not good enough for you, you can always (as discussed here), roll your own.
(Plus 35 Harry Potter games, 100+ rejuvenating house rules, and more from Israeli board-game blogger Yehuda Berlinger.)
posted by ormondsacker at 4:22 PM PST - 28 comments

Who can count the ills visited upon modern society by women's suffrage? Dr. John Lott would include government spending, taxation and social programs. Lawrence Auster thinks that it's worth considering an end to the experiment of women's suffrage. (And is mocked and responds). Perhaps he'll find an ally in former senator Kay O'Connor.

On some level, it's heartening to see conservatives conserving 100-year-old arguments.
posted by klangklangston at 4:03 PM PST - 54 comments

Ever wonder what's powering your favorite websites? Builtwith promises to give you a clear picture of what software and technologies are behind almost any site. Unfortunately, it's not always very accurate.
posted by IronLizard at 3:04 PM PST - 20 comments

TV DX Photos by Channel seen from Macomb, IL Since 1983
posted by pieoverdone at 2:34 PM PST - 25 comments

La Vida de Vagabundos Americanos. Images of America's young homeless from the excellent Polaroid Photography Collective, featured before.
posted by borkingchikapa at 2:24 PM PST - 25 comments

OBITUARIES
Dunn, Nicholas Ryan. August 5, 2007.
"Yesterday my son took his own life. He did not intend to. He did something thousands of people have and are doing, using drugs. Drugs they know nothing about. Drugs recommended and provided by friends or strangers that are not chemists that know what's in them or doctors that knew how much his body could take. My son Nick has devastated us … We also all hurt for a three year old little girl named Kylie Marie who will grow up without her father … Those drugs do not discriminate by race, income, the status of you or of your family. These are those who care about you and those who you care about. Consider them, please! The pleasure is not worth the risks! Goodbye Nick, we love you, and will miss you."
posted by pardonyou? at 2:09 PM PST - 116 comments

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers is a beta release of the Library of Congress/National Endowment for the Humanities partnership project, the (previously mentioned) National Digital Newspaper Program. In its current state, Chronicling America allows users to search for and read newspaper pages from 36 newspapers published between 1900 and 1910, and search for information on American newspapers published between 1690 and present day.
posted by cog_nate at 2:05 PM PST - 9 comments

Buildings UI, good and bad
posted by nthdegx at 1:27 PM PST - 38 comments

What do you give the chicken who has everything? Well, maybe this.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 1:12 PM PST - 11 comments

What we've tried to do is create a piece of software that streamlines the design process from start to finish. Digital, um, art. (Slightly suggestive images in last link.) (Previously 1|2|3.) (Via)
posted by desjardins at 11:47 AM PST - 19 comments

While enjoying today's International Space Station construction mission, don't forget America's first outpost in space, Skylab. Launched in 1972, the experimental station, cobbled together from Apollo hardware, was abandoned two years later and plunged to Earth in 1979. Today, you can pitch in to save the rotting hulk of the Skylab trainer.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 11:03 AM PST - 17 comments

"While we were there, sitting by the fire one night, I saw an extraordinary-looking dog that appeared to have two noses. I was sober at the time, and then I remembered the story that the legendary explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett came back with in 1913 of seeing such strange dogs in the Amazon jungle", explains fellow British Colonel John Blashford-Snell. The double-schnoz phenomenon has been documented in other species, and has even been studied, dramatized, and synthesized in humans. But a clue has recently been discovered in Bolivia that hints at not just a random mutation, but what might have once been a multi-snouted dog breed.
posted by Toekneesan at 10:27 AM PST - 29 comments

High resolution images of Earth. The German satellite TerraSAR-X was shot into space on June 15, and already four days after sent some beautiful pictures back to Earth. Pictures are described in German, but you'll figure it out.
posted by Glow Bucket at 8:08 AM PST - 17 comments

A State Street Family Album - State Street in Madison, Wisconsin is a half mile link between the Capitol dome and the campus of the University of Wisconsin. Tree lined, traffic restricted, shops of all manner, State Street represents an almost picture postcard ideal. It is also home to the Family. In the 30's they might have ridden the rails, now they are hanging out in the Peace Park. Glenn Austin has documented their community.
posted by caddis at 7:27 AM PST - 72 comments

Real Life "Colossal Cave Adventure”! Discussion of original source code, different versions of the game, hand draw maps, and lots of photos inside the cave the game is based on. Grab your shiny brass lamp and tasty food and meet me at the Bedquilt entrance.
posted by cosmicbandito at 7:14 AM PST - 17 comments

DayFilter: Everyone from T-Bone Walker, The Mamas & the Papas, The Carpenters, Jimmy Buffett, Fleetwood Mac, The Neighborhoods, The Boomtown Rats, New Order, Duran Duran, The Bangles, Snow, Pulp, Rialto, Alan Jackson, Tegan and Sara, to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, has a song about Monday... but only Ohio's best newscast - 19 Action News – has Carl Monday, bitch! [closed]
posted by Poolio at 6:31 AM PST - 25 comments

Episode one of controversial evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' new series Enemies of Reason premieres on Channel 4 tonight. Here's a list of topics.
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:42 AM PST - 309 comments

Karl Rove Resigns. The man known as “Bush's Brain” and whom Frontline called “The Architect” will leave office at the end of August.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:31 AM PST - 209 comments

Attack of the Giant Negroes.
posted by serazin at 12:09 AM PST - 34 comments

Snake boat racing in god’s own country.
posted by hadjiboy at 11:47 PM PST - 10 comments

Interviews with 100-year-olds:
(Short): Quick NPR interview with a guy who works on Wall Street.
(Medium): A series of small segments with the oldest graduate of Gilbert High School.
(Long): Part of WFMU's 365 day project. Restored tape from 1978, on which it appears a young student is interviewing an old lady from Kansas.
posted by Alex404 at 10:57 PM PST - 8 comments

The Bender Brewer Project. Inspired by an episode of Futurama in which boozy robot Bender is used to brew beer, Star Wars ASCII animator Simon Janson decided to build his own Bender to use to brew his own beer. Among the many careful details that went into this project was to actually build the robot's brain out of a 6502 processor, as specified in the show, and to build a remote detonator to operate his brain.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:29 PM PST - 24 comments

3D design artist and Filmmaker, father-to-be and fan of long titles extraordinaire, Transfatty, aka Patrick O'Brien (dir. The Man With The Smallest Penis In Existence And The Electron Microscope Technician Who Loved Him, previously) will debut his new DVD, Everything Will Be Okay, or How I Learned to Trancend Form, Live in the Now and Make Love in my Electric Wheelchair, tomorrow in NYC. The DVD is clips from his forthcoming film, October 5, 1974, his ongoing personal documentary about his journey to the end with ALS.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 8:24 PM PST - 7 comments

Elizabeth Murray, a New York painter who reshaped Modernist abstraction into a high-spirited, cartoon-based, language of form whose subjects included domestic life, relationships and the nature of painting itself, died yesterday at her home in upstate New York. (Images)
posted by R. Mutt at 8:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Happy Vinyl Record Day, everyone. On this date in 1877, Edison invented the phonograph. To commemorate the date, a blogswarm of 22 of the best vinyl sharity blogs out there have come together to celebrate the legacy of the dominant recorded music format of the 20th century, led by jb of The Hits Just Keep On Comin' and featuring Flea Market Funk, Echoes in the Wind, Funky 16 Corners, Davewillieradio, Good Rockin' Tonight, Py Korry, It's Great Shakes, (bonus!), Ickmusic, Jefitoblog, FuFu (bonus!), Lost in the 80's, Three-Sixty-Five 45s, Underground Vault of Records, AM then FM, The "B" Side, In Dangerous Rythm (bonus 1, bonus 2), You Must Be From Away, Got The Fever, Retro Remixes, Bloggerythms and finally The Stepfather of Soul.
posted by jonson at 7:39 PM PST - 33 comments

Social Wallpaper. A community effort to classify, rank, and distribute high resolution images for use as computer wallpaper.
posted by Mitheral at 7:08 PM PST - 22 comments

Christian Embassy at the Pentagon and on the hill. Scary.
more here. "We're the aroma of Jesus Christ?"
posted by specialk420 at 7:02 PM PST - 49 comments

You want to waste as much time as possible before going back to work Monday morning, right? So, stay up late and watch 6 episodes of The Unpleasant World of Penn and Teller, their mid-90s show on British TV. Don't have time for all that right now? Then jump right to a card trick with John Cleese, or their unique version of the Card Stab trick. At the very least, you owe it to yourself to prepare for tomorrow's coffee break.
posted by The Deej at 6:42 PM PST - 12 comments

The Visual Image of Chemistry: Perspectives from the History of Art and Science. [Via homunculus (no relation)]
posted by homunculus at 2:31 PM PST - 10 comments

The menacingly complex roguelike (previously) world-building game Dwarf Fortress (previously) is busting into the mainstream with an article in a gamer mag. Scans: page 1, page 2, page 3. For the less ASCII-minded among us, Let's Play has a thorough (and absurd, and tragic) chronicle of the fortress of Koganusan, or Boatmurdered, so you won't have to wait 20 minutes for the world to generate and be populated with mandrills and kobolds. via tigsource, where you should also check out their latest recommended independent games list.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:18 PM PST - 62 comments

A 15 year-old girl was dragged behind a van as punishment. Her crime was being unable to keep up on a forced run at an at-risk youths boot camp, Love Demonstrated Ministries. It's not the first time something like this has happened. These boot camps and reform schools are still in operation, so it will continue to happen.
posted by FunkyHelix at 2:10 PM PST - 133 comments

The Fuzzwich mini-vid widgit lets you build easy little animations.
posted by carsonb at 1:06 PM PST - 26 comments

Louis Wain became one of the most famous British illustrators of the late Victorian and Edwardian era after trying to cheer up his wife Emily by drawing portraits of their pet cat, Peter. In addition to publishing a popular children's book about kittens, he was a founder of the U.K's National Cat Club who was instrumental in promoting the Cat Fancy movement, which encouraged Britons of all classes to view cats as lovable pets instead of household pests. Unfortunately, after Wain's wife Emily died of breast cancer, Wain gradually went mad due to psychosis and late onset schizophrenia, ending up in London's notorious Bethlehem Hospital (the etymological origin for the word bedlam). While at Bedlam, Wain continued to draw, but his cat portraits transformed into pure geometric abstraction and psychedelic fractals, but some see harbingers of madness in cryptically titled works, such as Early Indian Irish and The Fire of the Mind Agitates the Atmosphere. For more insight on Wain, check out this 1896 interview and this short film dramatizing the progression of Wain's schizophrenia through his art.
posted by jonp72 at 12:37 PM PST - 24 comments

The "Great Climate Change Debate" finally on the cover of Newsweek - what's new, you ask? This is the story of the denial that global warming exists and how exactly the science behind the undeniable facts of increasing hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts, heatwaves and monsoons was muddied for profit. Bonus links from the same issue: Timeline of global warming and its denial and a slideshow of images from around the world on the effects but its one of those fancy interactive thingamajigs that doesn't allow it to be linked by an URL so be sure to take a look at it. Extra bonus! Quiz your knowledge on global warming
posted by infini at 9:36 AM PST - 125 comments

Spider cat. Cats in a box. Cat playing with himself. Cat on LSD. Man murdered parents with axe for laughing at cat's death. Rudy gives Winston a vigorous tongue lashing (tender). Winston the cat, blog.
posted by nickyskye at 8:05 AM PST - 66 comments

A milestone in the Iraq conflict.
posted by bobbyelliott at 7:39 AM PST - 75 comments

Frank Zappa' was so many different things { Mother of Invention, orchestra conductor, garage freak, SNL musical guest, anti-censorship advocate, home movie maker, Congressional witness, Monkee, documentary film subject, whipping boy, drug trafficker, late-night TV talk show interviewee, death wisher, composer, Dance Fever judge, master of his domain, dental floss tycoon, cosmic force, breast man, Crossfire combatant and The Walrus, among others } that the one day he was recently given by Baltimore's Mayor hardly seems enoughs.
posted by Poolio at 4:52 AM PST - 77 comments

The Pardoner's Tale - adapted to rap by Baba Brinkman, who has been rapping Chaucer tales for a few years now. He's also released The Rap Canterbury Tales, a book that presents raps side by side with Chaucer's original Middle English. Both video and book are illustrated graffiti-style by his brother Erik. Discussed in a previous post by fatllama on hip hop classics.
posted by madamjujujive at 12:33 AM PST - 18 comments

Of Muppets and Men. [1 2 3 4 5 6] Excellent behind-the-scenes documentary showing the mental, verbal and physical athleticism of putting together The Muppet Show. Also, a TMBG video mashup with excerpts from the doc. [All YouTube, Previously]
posted by McLir at 12:02 AM PST - 54 comments

Meet Shakeel Bhat (aka Islamic Rage Boy), a term given to him by two US Bloggers, which some have found offensive, while others amusing.
posted by hadjiboy at 11:41 PM PST - 32 comments

This isn't 1998. There's no model for what's happening now in the housing and mortgage industries. 116 mortgage lenders have imploded since 2006. 11 hedge funds have imploded in just the last couple months. Time to warm up the helicopters?
posted by wallstreet1929 at 10:24 PM PST - 126 comments

Multiplayer Jellybattle
posted by MetaMonkey at 7:53 PM PST - 18 comments

Hooked On Heat is the two year old foodblog of Meena, daughter of a Malaysian mom & Indian father, with tons of recipes & food stories for those who love spice in their food; her recent series of posts, Indian Cooking 101 is a must read for those who love to eat Indian food and want to try it out at home.
posted by jonson at 7:20 PM PST - 25 comments

Put Your Hands Up For Detroit - Silent film Dirty Dancing with music by Fedde La Grand (Slightly NSFW) and other successful mash-ups, including 8 1/2 Mile, an excellent Fellini’s / Eminem combo. (From a blog by "Mefi’s own" Ajit AP)
posted by growabrain at 6:02 PM PST - 10 comments

The Lost Sea.
posted by Atreides at 5:21 PM PST - 14 comments

The hucksters behind the QLink Pendant claim that it "utilises Sympathetic Resonance Technology to rebalance the energetic systems of the body". Apparently, some scientists and engineers think £69.99 is a fair price for a necklace consisting of a copper coil and a zero-ohm resistor [neither of which are actually connected to anything]. The inventor claims that the QLink does not use electronics components “in a conventional electronic way” yet it "increases your capacity to function in EMF saturated environments."I guess golfers will buy anything that promises an improved score. It's the perfect accessory for my new Faraday suit.
posted by chuckdarwin at 3:22 PM PST - 38 comments

Waterboard, waterboard, in cell number two
posted by nervousfritz at 3:08 PM PST - 17 comments

Your teenage son loves terrible horror movies, like C.H.U.D. How do you mend his ways? Well, you start with Paranoiac, and move on to Ravenous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,9,10,11,12. While he's still quaking, show him Takashi Miike's brutal Ôdishon ( even YouTube won't air those scenes.) Lighten the coming dark with Shaun of the Dead.
posted by Mblue at 2:42 PM PST - 46 comments

In Games, an Insight Into the Rules of Evolution. Carl Zimmer writes about Martin Nowak (previously mentioned here), a mathematical biologist who uses games to understand how cooperation evolved. [Via MindHacks.]
posted by homunculus at 2:25 PM PST - 4 comments

How the new type standard for American road signage reduces halation and improves readability.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:06 PM PST - 45 comments

LongPen from inventor (pdf) Margaret Atwood
posted by phoque at 12:31 PM PST - 37 comments

After growing up with opera and samba, having lived in Rio and Rome, her first album went double platinum, producing some modern classics. She didn't stop there, as has gone on to make many other great albums. Not to long ago, a one shot collaboration, with two other modern greats, turned out to be a success despite limited publicity (maybe because the songs were actually quite good). This is Marisa Monte, one of the great talents of MPB. Have a listen (thus the YouTube and Last.fm links).
posted by TheyCallItPeace at 12:10 PM PST - 9 comments

Nazi Pop Twins is an eerie documentary that debuted this year on BBC's Channel Four about the neo-Nazi teen folk musicians, Prussian Blue. The girls are managed by a neo-Nazi stage mom from hell, and the girls already seem to be more interested in shopping at the mall than singing white power lyrics. One of the creepiest scenes includes the twin girls on a phone call with their prison "pen pal," David Lane, the Neo-Nazi convicted of the murder of radio talk show host, Alan Berg. Lane refers to the twin girls as his "fantasy sweethearts," raising issues about whether an obsession with genetic "purity" leads to pedophilia on the Racist Right. Watch the documentary on YouTube (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) (Warning: may be exposed to YouTube comments from racist asshats.)
posted by jonp72 at 10:43 AM PST - 162 comments

He wasn't the greatest technician on earth (he only studied a short time with a teacher, as states his biography), he wasn't really famous outside Brazil, in spite of the many recordings available under his name, of his various talents (drawing, designing a new string instrument), but his playing is really endearing, and whatever the material, originals, bach or chico buarque, he made his point across easily.
posted by nicolin at 7:28 AM PST - 9 comments

Add this to your back to school shopping list.
posted by The Deej at 7:07 AM PST - 72 comments

Christopher Hitchens reviews Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. nyt, via their book review podcast.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 7:03 AM PST - 59 comments

Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls (1936), with cameos by Bela Lugosi, John Wayne & Terrence Stamp. This is a Hammer Film.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:12 AM PST - 16 comments

The A.K. Miller Auction "This is one of those stories that begins at the end. This was the end of A.K. Miller’s Stutz collection." Miller was a reclusive eccentric living on a ramshackle farm in Vermont. When he and his wife died, his estate was prepared for a tax sale. Sheriffs found a treasure trove of old cars, some wrapped in burlap to avoid prying eyes, stashed in a collection of dilapidated outbuildings. The auction (pdf) was eventually handled by Christie's and netted over two million dollars. [via]
posted by jessamyn at 3:56 AM PST - 13 comments

Deleuze's ABCs A year before his sensational suicide by defenestration, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, known for his refusal to appear on television, offered to set the record straight with close student and friend, Claire Parnet, on the condition that it not be released until after his death. The interview, spanning eight hours, was conceived as an abécédaire, like a child's ABC book, with headings of "A comme animal," "B comme boisson," C comme culture". L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze: [Part 1][Part 2][Part 3]. Overview.
posted by Frankieist at 3:37 AM PST - 12 comments

Stuff [more]
posted by Poolio at 1:44 AM PST - 22 comments

In 1937-38, computer pioneer George Philbrick worked for the Foxboro Co. as an analyst. He had the radical idea of building an electronic analog computer to simulate the behaviour of hydraulic industrial equipment, so Foxboro customers could experiment with control systems without needing a pipe wrench. One of the world's first analog computers was ignominiously ferried around the U.S. in the back seat of Philbrick's car. Ironically, Philbrick didn't give his "Automatic Process Analyzer" a properly techy, pretentious nickname. He dubbed his one-eyed monster Polyphemus. (PDF) (prev)
posted by metasonix at 12:19 AM PST - 9 comments

Taslima Nasrin, the Bangladeshi writer who was manhandled on Thursday, has been threatened with an issue of a Fatwa today, by the followers of the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) party, while other muslims have come to her defence.
posted by hadjiboy at 11:24 PM PST - 16 comments

"More than just a printmaking technique, photogravure etching is also a way of exploring the world that brings to light an incomparable variety of tone and texture: shimmering luminous highlights, deep multi-hued blacks, shadows within shadows, and the most subtle gradations of tone." The photogravure etchings of printmaker Peter Miller peacefully await your attention. Peter started out depicting scenes of 'quaint Japan' near his home in Kamakura Japan, but these days - exactly ten years after opening his website - he is working at a much wider scale, creating images from around the world. It's a bit pointless to try and pick more than a couple of examples to show you, so just start with his Viewing page, and browse around at random.

It's stunning work, and when you read his description of the process, hard to believe that anybody could still be doing this today. (Note: it's a bilingual website, and if you don't have asian fonts installed, you'll see some gobbledygook here and there on the pages, but the English explanations, and the images, will be understandable.)
posted by woodblock100 at 9:54 PM PST - 15 comments

A cowardly webhost censors a critic of American foreign policy. On August 10, the web hosting company Hosting Matters deleted the website of MetaFilter's own Hossein Derakhshan, itinerant Iranian blogger based in Toronto and a consistent critic of the Bush regime's foreign policy as it regards Iran. Hosting Matters completely erased his website, including his blogging software, his web directories, and his database. According to Derakhshan, Hosting Matters then went a step further and threatened to sue him if he mentioned what they had done. He claims it was done as a result of his criticism of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's fellow Mehdi Khalaji. hoder's criticism of Khalaji available via Google Cache (Part 1, Part 2)
posted by chlorus at 7:51 PM PST - 59 comments

Because everyone loves a good superlative, the Google Earth Community's "Huge and Unique" page lists the world's tallest, deepest, longest, widest & general all-around most of everything there is. With pictures! Found via.
posted by jonson at 6:54 PM PST - 13 comments

Badi Assad has some incredible technique goin' on (YouTube) and charisma to burn. The 41-year-old Brazilian singer and guitarist comes from a musical family and has been signed to a pretty prestigious North-American record label. Of course these days there is the obligatory Wikipedia entry and her MySpace page. Here's an interview (from ten years ago) wherein she discusses her music. So far as I can see those hips and those lips and those fingertips don't lie. [Much more Badi Assad on YouTube]
posted by St Urbain's Horseman at 5:33 PM PST - 24 comments

Light Graffiti. Wacky Japanese kids use glow sticks and time lapse to make a pretty sweet (embedded) video.
posted by Ufez Jones at 4:29 PM PST - 20 comments

Ever wonder much about those anonymous men and women who pass out towels, soap and toiletries in upscale restrooms? Me either, until I read this. But apparently some people do. Well, one man sees it as a creative outlet, and another sees it as his road to stardom! "just wash your hands for god’s sake"
posted by janetplanet at 3:17 PM PST - 41 comments

A New Kind of Bank Run. ...a new financial architecture has emerged that relied more on securities and less on banks as intermediaries. With the worth of [these new] securities now being questioned — and no equivalent of deposit insurance — some who financed the securities want their money out, a fact that has created the 21st-century equivalent of a run on a bank. . It's no wonder these securities are being questioned, when some are based on Ninja mortgages and foreclosures are up 58% from last year.
posted by storybored at 3:02 PM PST - 50 comments

Anthony H. Wilson: 20th February 1950 - 10th August 2007
posted by Webbster at 1:40 PM PST - 72 comments

A large freshwater lake lies under the Antarctic ice. Russian researchers bored a hole in the ice, almost all the way down to Lake Vostok, before complying with requests that they stop. The lake has been isolated under 4km of ice for at least 500,000 years, and could be irreversibly contaminated if the Russians' drill breaks through to the liquid. There may be life in the cold, highly-oxygenated water of the lake. Confident that they can reach the lake safely, the Russians have resumed drilling.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:02 PM PST - 50 comments

In August 1781, the case of Brom and Bett vs. Ashley went to the jury. The year before, Mum Bett, a slave in the Ashley house since 1742, was struck by her mistress. Mum Bett left the house and refused to return. Bett had overheard conversations about the new Massachusetts constitution that included the clause, "All men are created equal" and argued that the clause applied to her. When the jury agreed, slavery was effectively abolished in the state of Massachusetts. Mum Bett took the name of Elizabeth Freeman and went to work in the employ of her lawyer. (More inside)
posted by forrest at 12:44 PM PST - 33 comments

Time to make your plans to see the Perseid meteor shower Sunday night/Monday morning. 12 things you'll need. Odds are you won't see something quite as impressive as this "super bolide" in Croatia (watch it to the end), but it will still be well worth your while. A new moon that night means unusually dark skies for the event, so you will have a chance to see even the dim ones, under dark skies.
posted by spock at 12:33 PM PST - 28 comments

Comically Large Things is a blog about things that are so dang big you could fit everything at Smallist [previously] in any given entry. For example: nose! [via Projects and our own jbickers]
posted by cortex at 12:21 PM PST - 26 comments

Tagging, customer recommendations and user-generated content at the supermarket. "Users who buy cereal, red wine and Snickers also buy condoms..." SFW, btw
posted by salishsea at 11:13 AM PST - 24 comments

Why Does AT&T Hate Pearl Jam’s Freedom? Well, of course, they’re all apologies now… But this latest corporate misadventure seems to touch on all the hot buttons: Media consolidation, net neutrality and the future of political speech in America. (Newsfilter)
posted by saulgoodman at 10:28 AM PST - 72 comments

Joan Root, who spent most of her life in Kenya, was a noted naturalist and filmmaker (along with her (former) husband. She was murdered by gunmen at point-blank range in January, 2006 in her home on Lake Naivasha. Lake Naivasha is the only fresh water source in the Great Rift Valley, and has become increasingly endangered by pollution and overuse for irrigation, and Root spent considerable time fighting to protect it. Today, a Kenyan magistrate acquitted the four suspects in her murder, calling the testimony of 13 witnesses "defective".
posted by mkultra at 9:41 AM PST - 9 comments

Constitutional Showdowns. Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule analyze constitutional showdowns, ask what rate and level of showdowns would be socially optimal, and ask whether socially optimal showdowns will be supplied by government institutions acting to promote their policy preferences and institutional interests.
posted by dios at 9:40 AM PST - 9 comments

American Express's highly publicized Members Project has come to an end. A novel idea: Cardmembers nominated and voted for charities--and the nominee with the most votes won $2 mil. The winner? Children's Safe Drinking Water, a nonprofit that works with nonprofits to battle the public health crisis of contaminated drinking water in third-world countries by distributing water purification kits. Why on earth would anyone call foul on this? Bear with me here. [more inside]
posted by cowboy_sally at 9:20 AM PST - 30 comments

Christian the pet lion [yt] sees his former owners after being released in the wild. He was quite the sophisticated cat in his domestic days. Here is another video from prior to his liberation. [via reddit]
posted by frecklefaerie at 8:09 AM PST - 46 comments

Amusing notes on the requirements for a doctoral thesis in theology at Fordham University This is actually from the Graduate Student Handbook.
posted by zorro astor at 7:50 AM PST - 42 comments

""My Kid Could Paint That." It has been said before on metafilter about Jackson Pollock,and apparently it is being said about another artist. However, this artist is a kid. Is she a Pre-School Pollock? Or just another kid having fun with art supplies? I guess you'll have to wait for the movie to decide. [previously on mefi]
posted by nuclear_soup at 7:05 AM PST - 92 comments

Ever had a yen for a table made from jet engine turbine blades or a desk fashioned from a wing or a cowling? Giancarlo de Astis and Moto Art are two high-end design firms that are creating eye catching furniture and functional art from scavenged airplane parts. You can see their work and the work of others in the aviation art community at InterFlight Studio. Or do-it-yourself-ers in the crowd might just prefer a Field Guide to Aircraft Boneyards.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:56 AM PST - 20 comments

The author of this site takes screen-shots from long-pan scenes of classic animation and puts them together to re-create the original larger background images. Much cooler than it sounds, honest. [via MeFi's own kokogiak, sort of]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:58 AM PST - 47 comments

19 year old Pfc. LaVena Johnson's dead body was found in her tent, near Balad, Iraq. Her face was beaten, nose broken, teeth loosened, and she'd been shot through the left side of her head. A trail of blood was found nearby, and the tent appeared to be partly burned. The Army ruled it a suicide. Bloggers were doubtful. The Johnson family asked that the remains be disinterred and a better investigation launched. Meanwhile, the internet pushes back.
posted by toma at 2:54 AM PST - 37 comments

Poor Boy Long Way From Home. Momma Don't Allow. Aberdeen, Mississippi (look at him beat that National). Special Streamline (one of my favorite songs set to a compilation of old films). Plus some John Fahey, who decided to write Booker "Bukka" White a letter once, bringing him to prominence in the 60s blues/folk world. It's a YT Bukka White fest! There's some previous going on here as well.
posted by sleepy pete at 12:53 AM PST - 8 comments

Ewwwwww. Do-it-yourself home lipoma (fatty tumor) excision. But, to be honest, I can't tell if the surgery or the accompanying music is more sick-making.
posted by John of Michigan at 11:18 PM PST - 63 comments

In early 1968, Jean-Luc Godard filmed The Rolling Stones in the studio writing/recording "Sympathy for the Devil".

Mick Jagger recalled in a 1995 interview with Jann Wenner: "... [it was] very fortuitous, because Godard wanted to do a film of us in the studio. I mean, it would never happen now, to get someone as interesting as Godard. And stuffy. We just happened to be recording that song. We could have been recording "My Obsession." But it was "Sympathy for the Devil," and it became the track that we used."

Later that year, Godard released a film (in Europe) titled "One Plus One" which featured the "Sympathy for the Devil" studio footage. To increase the commercial value of the film, the U.S. release was re-titled after the Stones song and the end of the film's soundtrack was altered to include a full take of the song in its final form, much to the dismay of Godard.
posted by Poolio at 11:18 PM PST - 35 comments

Official transgender blessings -- Kulanu -- the newly-revised manual for LGBT issues and ceremonies put out by the Union for Reform Judaism (1.5 million US Jews are Reform) now includes 2 blessings (written by a Rabbi now male) for those transitioning and who have completed the change, alongside the already existing same sex marriage liturgy and other documents and procedures. A first? (blessings text inside)
posted by amberglow at 10:00 PM PST - 42 comments

Julia Margaret Cameron did not begin her photography career until she was 48. She lived on the Isle of Wight in two adjacent cottages linked with a gothic tower that she called Dimbola Lodge. Many of her captivating photographs are of The Freshwater Circle, a group of artists and intellectuals centered around Alfred Tennyson, whose poems Idylls of the King, she illustrated with her photographs. Cameron's portraits of contemporaries -- Charles Darwin, George Frederic Watts, Edward Eyre, Thomas Carlyle, Julia Jackson (mother of Viginia Woolf) -- became significant because they were sometimes the only existing photographs of her subjects.
posted by jessamyn at 7:11 PM PST - 16 comments

Chess legend Jude Acers. In prison.
posted by The Deej at 6:35 PM PST - 41 comments

I have to assume the only reason you're reading this right now and not busy home curing & eating bacon is because nobody has shown you how. Let's fix that.
posted by jonson at 5:44 PM PST - 100 comments

Please Be Kind, Rewind. Very cool trailer for Michel Gondry's new film. Great premise, great director and great cast.
posted by ShawnString at 3:55 PM PST - 66 comments

What was Jiroft? An ancient civilization in what is now southern Iran that was lost to history until very recently. Many beautiful artifacts have been dug up. It is claimed that writing originated with the Jiroft civilization and that this is the legendary kingdom of Aratta, subject of one of the world's oldest works of literature, Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta. There is dispute over both. Either way, it certainly was a commercial hub as early as 3000 B.C. The site has been extensively plundered in recent years, but is so rich in artifacts that excavations can go on for decades.
posted by Kattullus at 3:45 PM PST - 17 comments

China Praises Its Progress Toward Olympics. With one year to go before the 2008 Olympics, China still has many challenges ahead, like dealing with Beijing's terrible air pollution. There is still much criticism over China's record on human rights and freedom of the press, and some protests. But perhaps the most embarrassing public relations setback is that one of the official mascots, Yingsel (aka Yingying) the Tibetan Antelope, has defected from China's Olympic team and gone underground to campaign for a free Tibet. [Some links via BB and MoFi.]
posted by homunculus at 3:30 PM PST - 43 comments

Wes Anderson mp3s and David Lynch mp3s
posted by vronsky at 2:35 PM PST - 19 comments

High School Coaches outearning High School Teachers Texas high school football coaches in Class 5A and 4A schools (that's 950 students or more) earn an average salary of $73,804, while the average salary for teachers in those same schools is about $42,400. But hey, those Texas football teams are pretty darn good!
posted by CameraObscura at 2:28 PM PST - 179 comments

MS Paint isn't just for the LOLZ .
posted by absalom at 2:06 PM PST - 21 comments

Latest news out of the auto industry: Buick ties Lexus as top auto brand in vehicle dependability. Cadillac is #2. Mercury is #3. If you haven't seen the new Buicks, you should take a look at what they've been doing lately (see: Enclave, Lucerne). Also, the new (sort of) Taurus gets rave reviews. The Ford Edge, also new for 2007, has captured 16% of the crossover market, and owners seem to love it. Finally, for the greenies, GM is ready to test the electric Chevy Volt--says it is on schedule for production in 2010. Is it time to consider buying American again? And not just for the sake of it?
posted by fusinski at 12:49 PM PST - 143 comments

Excellent BBC Brain Story series available online. One of the best TV series on psychology and neuroscience ever produced, the BBC's Brain Story, is available on public bittorrent servers for download. It is a six part series covering virtually every area of contemporary neuropsychology, including the major researchers, discoveries, techniques and even many of the patients who have been the subjects of classic case studies that have helped us understand the curious effects of brain injury.
posted by nickyskye at 11:01 AM PST - 17 comments

Johnson & Johnson is suing the American Red Cross for trademark infringement. It contends that the Red Cross is supposed to use the symbol only in connection with non-profit relief services. "For a multibillion-dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute … simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene," said Mark Everson, the Red Cross president. Everson is paid $500,000 per year, more than triple his previous salary as IRS Commissioner. The suit asks the Red Cross to turn over the products in question to New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson for destruction and also seeks unspecified punitive damages.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:50 AM PST - 91 comments

The British Transform Drug Policy Foundation has recently released their 2nd guide After the War on Drugs: Tools for the debate. Described as a guide for prospective and current policy reform advocates, it enumerates the points typically brought up against reform, and offers strategies to rebut them. Somewhat of a counterpoint to the US DEA's Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization.
posted by daksya at 9:28 AM PST - 48 comments

Lit2Go - tons of stories, tales and poems suitable for younger readers: HTML, PDF, and MP3s. From Baa, Baa, Black Sheep to Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, and Flatland.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:28 AM PST - 6 comments

Don't know which candidate to support in the 2008 election? Let a web script match a candidate to your views!
posted by nthdegx at 6:21 AM PST - 176 comments

Ever dream of getting paid to watch YouTube?
posted by tatnasty at 4:19 AM PST - 28 comments

In 1968, Mattachine Society of Washington co-founder Frank Kameny declared "Gay is Good"; in 1971 he became the first openly gay candidate for the US Congress. But if you're running for president today, while you know gays contribute money and definitely vote, Kameny's or any "gay support could cost candidates":

Quinnipiac University polls of voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- the big three Electoral College swing states -- found voters by large margins more likely to see the endorsement of a gay rights group as a reason to vote against, rather than for, a candidate.

So is the Democratic Party's apparent embrace of gays, as evidenced by tonight's "gay debate," a good idea? Or would greater distance between gays and the Democratic Party help both groups achieve their goals?
posted by orthogonality at 12:56 AM PST - 129 comments

Rubik's Cube Cracked Down to 26 Moves "They think they can use their brute-force search method [PDF] on all of the configurations that require 26 steps to find a quicker way to solve them. Even if they manage this feat, however, it will probably leave room for improvement. Most researchers believe that just 20 steps are enough to solve any Rubik's Cube, but no one has proved it yet." [Previously. See recent post on checkers.]
posted by McLir at 12:34 AM PST - 21 comments

The California poet Robinson Jeffers, though once popular enough to make the cover of Time Magazine, is for various reasons now a somewhat obscure figure- however, he has attracted increased interest in recent days both for the quality of his work and his pantheistic personal philosophy, which anticipated much future environmentalist thought. [more inside, with links to poems]
posted by a louis wain cat at 12:10 AM PST - 24 comments

Learn Chess with Igor and Gleb.
posted by basicchannel at 11:31 PM PST - 17 comments

There's a lot of webcomics out there. Most are dull and pedestrian. Some defy any description. For example, Dreamwalk Journal. (nsfw) (via)
posted by metasonix at 11:02 PM PST - 40 comments

Former Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers guitarist is now an influential defense consultant. Jeff "Skunk" Baxter is considered one of the country's top experts on counter-terrorism. Baxter currently sits on NASA's Exploration Systems Advisory Committee, where his occupation is quoted as "Missile Defense Analyst". Arms Control Wonk and Outside the Beltway have some interesting analysis.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:57 PM PST - 35 comments

Fingerboarding. The art (sorta?) of skateboarding on two fingers.
posted by fungible at 10:21 PM PST - 24 comments

See Rock City. See Seven States.
posted by Miko at 8:29 PM PST - 27 comments

The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its citizens then other industrialized nations and that percentage has been increasing even as the crime rate declines. Glen Loury discusses this seemingly odd phenomena and speculates as to the cause. Don't skip the ruminations on perceptions of race and welfare deep in the article. Want to crunch some numbers yourself? US crime statistics, US prison statistics, international prison statistics. Previously on metafilter.
posted by shothotbot at 8:24 PM PST - 82 comments