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The Long Term Ecological Research Network is a collaborative effort involving more than 1800 scientists and students investigating ecological processes over long temporal and broad spatial scales. Check out their photo gallery. [more inside]
posted by owhydididoit at 11:54 PM PST - 6 comments

This site was shown to me by my good friend Chris Capuozzo over at Funny Garbage. One of his students made it and that is all I knew to check. Now if I did not have to go and ink a sketch of a boombox carrying robot, I would make a few commix.
posted by RubberHen at 8:54 PM PST - 29 comments

Tom Vague's History Walk (PDF downloads) of the Notting Hill district is an evocative roll call of books, films, personalities, restaurants, anecdotes and a timeline strung together to cover the period 1950 to 2005. [whet your appetite inside]
posted by tellurian at 7:36 PM PST - 9 comments

Turns out Colin Powell was actually fired. In other administration news, it looks like one of the pre-9/11 anti-terrorism meetings wasn't mentioned to the 9/11 commission. According to Bob Woodward's new book, where we also find out that Bush meet with Henry Kissinger at least once a month, and Kissinger's theories on Vietnam inform Bush's reasoning on Iraq.
posted by delmoi at 7:10 PM PST - 51 comments

The Espresso Book Machine. A photocopier-size machine that can print and bind a paperback in a few minutes. This is the first fully-automatic book printer designed for retail locations, it is envisioned to be a kiosk. Current beta tests in DC and New York Public Library, also in talks with the Internet Archive and others to support the growing world of online scanned books. Further out, Kinkos, Starbucks, etc.. could become major book sellers and the practice of overstocking (and discounted books) could be reduced. Machine will probably be about $100,000.
posted by stbalbach at 6:16 PM PST - 36 comments

The Penthouse Wondering what to do with the $70 mil. that Granny left you in her will? You could buy that private tropical island you have had your eye on but that's a 30 hour trip in your private jet. Wouldn't you really be happier here?
posted by vronsky at 4:22 PM PST - 43 comments

Air guitar? Been done. Air sex? More fun!
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:51 PM PST - 16 comments

Haters! The Libertarian candidate for the 24th District of the Kansas House was canvassing the local Mission, KS Arts and Eats festival, speaking with attendees and distributing campaign literature. Suddenly, a councilwoman approached him with a police officer and informed him he had to leave and would be charged with trespassing if he returned, an action which the Mayor has publicly denounced and has launched an investigation into.
posted by deusdiabolus at 3:08 PM PST - 31 comments

Meet the next generation of GOP leaders, part 8,493: Justin Zatkoff, Dan Carlson, & Jim Runestad. ... the conservative student Web site Truth Caucus posted photos of his (Zatkoff's) injured face, pronounced the incident a "hate crime,' and speculated it was the work of "liberal thugs.' A Republican organizer in Michigan e-mailed campus Republicans, warning them to travel in groups until the election was over. ... Um, no--Zatkoff was severely beaten by his own friend while both were drunk.
posted by amberglow at 12:56 PM PST - 66 comments

The HiRISE camera is one of eleven instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Yesterday the first few images were downloaded from the MRO.
posted by carsonb at 11:09 AM PST - 16 comments

Mario and Zelda Big Band Live. I know we've done this sort of thing any number of times before, but this two-hour clip of orchestra music from Japan may be the best of the genre. It starts with a one-guitar blugrass version of the main Mario theme and goes from there.
posted by BackwardsCity at 9:54 AM PST - 10 comments

miniHome: "What is it? A cottage? A Trailer? A Home? All of the above. Technically, the miniHome is classed as an RV - or recreational vehicle (yes, it is on wheels!) but it is designed to work as a comfortable, year-round dwelling in extreme climates. While we see it as the future of sustainable housing and urban infill, it is ideally suited as a ski chalet, cottage, vacation retreat, guest cabin, a place for the kids or family - basically as a luxurious yet simple home-away-from-home." Welcome to life off the grid in Ontario.
posted by heatherann at 6:55 AM PST - 39 comments

Webcameron. David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party in the UK, reaches out to the Youtube generation.
posted by greycap at 1:33 AM PST - 53 comments

The Biology of B-Movie Monsters
posted by owhydididoit at 11:13 PM PST - 16 comments

Funny Farm What four-letter word links Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey? A word-association puzzle.
posted by revfitz at 9:04 PM PST - 24 comments

Texas Flood - Previously. (YouTube)
posted by persona non grata at 8:13 PM PST - 21 comments

Bowmaster - Friday flash fun. Shoot arrows (including ice, fire, and bomb types) at monsters. Protect your people's houses. Earn experience points to upgrade your weaponry.
posted by cerebus19 at 6:49 PM PST - 23 comments

John Hall of the University of Florida delivers a praiseworthy lecture. Part One, Part Two.
posted by rxrfrx at 6:23 PM PST - 31 comments

You Jackin' It? The Daily Show's Jason Jones gets an interview with Carl Monday, CLEVELAND'S INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, discussed here previously.
posted by BeerFilter at 6:05 PM PST - 38 comments

In the 20's and 30's automobiles did not come with turn signals or brake lights. Accessorizing 1920's style!
posted by snsranch at 5:44 PM PST - 13 comments

Qoolsqool is "a free and open educational resource for educators, students, and self-learners around the world."
posted by anjamu at 5:38 PM PST - 9 comments

Vatu Vara Thinking of using that spare $75mil. to purchase that apartment on top of the Pierre hotel? Wouldn't you really be happier here...
posted by vronsky at 3:19 PM PST - 27 comments

Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce. Minimize your chemical exposure in the produce aisle. PDFs : download a pocket version for your purse or wallet; en Español tambien.
posted by crunchland at 3:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
posted by ChasFile at 1:53 PM PST - 80 comments

The perfect gift: A Noise-Cookie Flower! A compilation CD from Women Take Back the Noise with circuit-bent packaging. Available in pink, orange, blue (YouTube) or purple. Featured on MAKE: Blog in August.
posted by bobobox at 1:23 PM PST - 10 comments

Zambia's presidential election took place in an atmosphere of enthusiasm. New rules ensured that it would be free and fair, making this the most successful election yet in the country's fifteen years of multiparty rule. Still, the challenger's support for Robert Mugabe's dictatorial regime raises some questions about his commitment to democracy. Meanwhile, Mugabe denied rumors that he was postponing his own presidential election, due in 2008. Are Westerners ignoring hopeful news from Africa?
posted by nasreddin at 1:03 PM PST - 13 comments

Kung Fu vs. Yoga. In French. (YouTube.)
posted by homunculus at 12:57 PM PST - 23 comments

Earth's temperature is dangerously high, Nasa scientists warn notice the global warming stories that don't get much coverage anymore
posted by hard rain at 12:04 PM PST - 66 comments

Top 20 Science Myths. Note: turns out some of these are not myths so much as exagerrations.
posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson at 11:28 AM PST - 57 comments

Mr. Borat Goes to Washington (YouTube video; part two) Kazakhstan's "Borat Sagdiyev" leads 50 journalists on a sprint to the White House after a press conference. "These claims are part of a propaganda campaign against our country by evil nitwits Uzbekistan, who as we all know are nosy people with a bone in the middle of their brain."
(Regret to inform that the chase isn't on the video.)
posted by kirkaracha at 10:33 AM PST - 150 comments

The Coming Death Shortage We've talked about Aubrey De Grey and gerontology before, but what about the Anna Nicole Smith syndrome and compound interest? This piece from the Atlantic online brings up a scenario that that we may well have to deal with as the maximum possible age increases. Generational warfare, government subsidized longevity treatments ,30 year old adolescence and bio-engineered nations are just some of the things we will live to see if this forecast is accurate. (via Plastic)
posted by daHIFI at 9:11 AM PST - 52 comments

Get your Yom Kippur Piñatas here! Why atone for your sins in shul when you can just whack the heck out of a carboard horsey? If you'd like to carry the south-of-the-border theme through, you can play music by these guys. Or kick it old-shul with this classic. You could just gather for a traditional game of swing the chicken, but maybe not for a kids' party.
posted by ericbop at 9:05 AM PST - 16 comments

What does the Digilog Dynamicator (DD-301), the 3P-III Palindrometer and the AP-302 Algorhythmic Prosecutor have in common? They're all products of Funk Logic; a company that designs filler panels for studio/live sound racks (or to quote them: "rack filler panels with stuff all over em'"). Notable: Their "Ideas That Never Made It" section.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:41 AM PST - 24 comments

Courses from UC Berkeley on Google Video - including a guest lecture by Sergey Brin and poems by Mary Karr. Perhaps they are now moving towards competing with YouTube's College section.
posted by mattbucher at 8:37 AM PST - 4 comments

Gay Marriage Debate Turns Violent A violent brawl broke out on Tuesday during a discussion in a Wauwatosa restaurant over the proposed same-sex marriage referendum, and the incident was apparently caught on videotape. Video of the brawl here. 39 days until Wisconsin votes "No" on the civil unions and marriage ban.
posted by thefreek at 8:10 AM PST - 84 comments

The new wallet for new generation! What happens when an iPod-owning Web 2.0 designer thinks to redesign the wallet-- complete with an odd combination of British slang and Engrish. Even if this smacks of Pepsi-Blueness, be sure to read "birth of wallet 2.0". (via)
posted by kimota at 7:51 AM PST - 57 comments

This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like -- David Corn, co-author with Michael Isikoff of HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War, writes about what waterboarding is and what the torturer's tools look like. Back in the day, the Khmer Rouge, among other repressive regimes, used it. Interestingly, waterboarding typically isn't employed to gain useful information. No, this near-drowning technique is most useful for eliciting "confessions". Good times, good times. ( via reddit via Diggdot.us)
posted by mooncrow at 7:25 AM PST - 166 comments

Running from a voodoo spirit. The urban game Crossroads is one of the featured games from last weeks Come Out and Play (yes, another FPP!) Posting because this game is still running this weekend.

Using GPS cell phones, players are trying to take over intersections in lower manhattan, like playing Go. But the Baron Samedi is in the grid with them, and one thing I know is that you don't want him to touch you... which is weird because he doesn't actually exist. You end up getting chased down Hudson street by something invisible. Feels like the future.

Part of an exhibition called the Good Life that closes this weekend.
posted by cloudscratcher at 7:02 AM PST - 8 comments

One man's song for his daughter [m3u] hits the interweb and, in the hands of zefrank's rabid fanbase, is remixed over 100 times in a little over a week. This [mp3] short and sweet techno mix quickly evolved into a 5-minute extended version, [m3u] (allegedly scoring radio play in SC) that's now being used as the basis of a collaborative video for Ray [mov] that ze wants to give as a thank you. But only after a manhunt of metafilter-detective proportions tracks Ray down. (ZePreviously.)
posted by disillusioned at 4:29 AM PST - 30 comments

This Must Be Designed By Idiots is an online art exhibit of three Amsterdam-based mixed media artists, where one of the media is taxidermy, and the other is some disturbing combination of fashion design, jewelry, glassblowing & handicrafts. The end result is compellingly creepy, and my personal favorite is this piece, a mouse permanently at rest inside the glass belly of a glass cat.
posted by jonson at 11:58 PM PST - 18 comments

The Canadian Design Resource - from Beavertail rockers to Broomball shoes.
posted by dobbs at 8:22 PM PST - 9 comments

Your favorite movie stars and the roles they didn't get. Edward James Olmos instead of Christopher Llloyd? JODIE FOSTER INSTEAD OF CARRIE FISHER?!
posted by WolfDaddy at 7:54 PM PST - 44 comments

Diverse rainbows, unicorns notably absent.
posted by longsleeves at 7:09 PM PST - 12 comments

Alternative Photography. How-tos and galleries of albumen prints, ambrotypes, tintypes (modern), (classic), temperaprint and many more. The article section is varied and includes instructions on making a cyanotype quilt and digital cyanotypes.
posted by Mitheral at 7:08 PM PST - 5 comments

Les Krims. (NSFWish)
posted by hama7 at 6:53 PM PST - 24 comments

20Hz not low enough for you? Aching for 5Hz notes? You need the rotary woofer.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:59 PM PST - 36 comments

Shakespeare Apocrypha including such classics as 'The Birth of Merlin', 'The Merry Devil of Edmonton' and 'The Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell'.
posted by feelinglistless at 2:58 PM PST - 20 comments

Guy Fournier has resigned. I like pooping too, but let's not overdo it.
posted by squidfartz at 2:23 PM PST - 28 comments

USSR Posters. Gallery of over 1400 posters from the Soviet era.
posted by plep at 2:06 PM PST - 44 comments

Congressman accused of sending 'sick' emails to 16 year old boy -- ""Maybe it is just me being paranoid, but seriously. This freaked me out."
posted by ericb at 2:06 PM PST - 476 comments

¡Viva Border Volleyball!
posted by chunking express at 1:56 PM PST - 8 comments

Preston Wheeler , Keven Dagit, Christopher Lem and Sascha Grenner- Case: Left Behind.
posted by taosbat at 1:40 PM PST - 37 comments

Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006). It was so pre-9/11 anyway. Instead we may get "our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts." What could go wrong?
posted by homunculus at 12:49 PM PST - 155 comments

"I am getting to my goal, slowly but surly." Cover letters from Hell.
posted by Iridic at 12:33 PM PST - 52 comments

"On September 30, 2006, for one day only, museums across the country will join the Smithsonian Institution in its long-standing tradition of offering free admission to visitors."
posted by moss at 12:12 PM PST - 27 comments

"I hate grades.... [But] I am obliged to follow the rules set forth by my employer and the larger education industry in general. Consequently, I assign grades."
posted by grumblebee at 10:52 AM PST - 97 comments

The Plan of St.Gall - QTVR models and hi-res zoom-able images - an idealized plan for an entire 9th century monastery complex.
posted by stbalbach at 8:46 AM PST - 5 comments

"imperial overstretch" Was a 1988 forecast a bit of a reach or closer to home?
posted by hard rain at 7:33 AM PST - 45 comments

Starfleet surplus rummage sale! Bargains, bargains, bargains! Own Captain Picard's desk! Power your starship with dilithium crystals straight from Rura Penthe! Build your own Borg! Everything must go!
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:09 AM PST - 38 comments

So it started with the original (NSFW) Eric Prydz video . Then we got a Parody (NSFW?) of the original. Now we have a completely different band doing a Sequel (NSFW). Hughes Corporation revisits the leg warmer plight of the original song. A continuing saga...
posted by Lord_Pall at 4:39 AM PST - 37 comments

Long before Robert Johnson ever went down to the crossroads, violinist & composer Niccolo Paganini was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical ability. Evidence against this theory: Paganini's 5th Caprice actually prevented the devil from stealing The Karate Kid's soul (the devil settled for stealing Ralph Macchio's career instead). Evidence in favor of this theory: When played on acoustic guitar, the virtuosity in his 24th Caprice really seems supernaturally inspired. For my money, however, the perfect storm of ominous music & stringed instruments comes together in this version of Carmina Burana (mp3 direct download), arranged for solo banjo.
posted by jonson at 11:49 PM PST - 35 comments

Program Yourself (Youtube link. Quicktime version) is one in a series of a music videos by Pete Moraites. Other movies in the series include Twitterpation (QT), Ragnarok-n-Roll (QT), and Linetwine (QT).
posted by aubilenon at 10:35 PM PST - 6 comments

Keith Olbermann receives phoney anthrax letter. "The New York Post may have just impeded an FBI investigation into terroristic threats." Why send anthrax to the media? (real or otherwise)
posted by augustweed at 10:27 PM PST - 52 comments

A rich man was not content just to have sex with his own daughter so he asked her to marry him and she said yes and so it goes.
posted by xmutex at 9:30 PM PST - 122 comments

Behold, the Terranaut. No, it's not another bloody truck, but rather a land vehicle for pilots not normally comfortable with such terrain. I, for one, welcome our...
posted by pompomtom at 8:58 PM PST - 12 comments

R.I.P Tokyo Rose Iva Toguri D'Aquino, who served seven years in federal prison for treason after taking part in Japanese propagande broadcasts during WWII, died yesterday at the age of 90. She had been originally cleared by the Justice Dept of any wrongdoing, howevera media frenzy led by the likes of Walter Winchell reopened her case, and she was convicted on very shoddy evidence and perjured testimony. Years later, it was relieved that she had actually been a part of a plot with US POWs to hinder the propaganda effort. (previously)
posted by kayjay at 8:37 PM PST - 20 comments

"Then my photography started to shift; everything had to be very clean and Republican, straight and perfect... Everything is staged and controlled... It's the complete opposite of war photography."
War photographer Christopher Morris's new exhibit and book: "My America".
posted by matteo at 6:42 PM PST - 19 comments

ChildStarFilter: 'Screech' sex tape. The Coreys reunited in reality TV. From Family Matters to porn spatters (NSFW). CSI: Partidge Family. Hogwarts heartbreak?
posted by Kickstart70 at 6:34 PM PST - 31 comments

Got a case of the Mondays? One error too many? For all your vicarious violence and/or Neo-luddite needs: Smash some stuff. Now one might say it's just a bunch of idiot kids smashing stuff...and, well, yeah.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:02 PM PST - 10 comments

Cats + Hamlet = Cat Head Theater. A short by Tim Maloney, author of pretty weird videos.
posted by darkripper at 5:14 PM PST - 11 comments

Did you ever wonder what a Block 1 Apollo guidance computer looked like? Was grandpa a gunner in the Imperial German Air Force ? Maybe he sold a pioneer some laxatives? Perhaps you're just interested in a high tech Japanese Cameras? Find images of these items and more! at The Smithsonian Air and Space eMuseum
posted by Megafly at 4:56 PM PST - 5 comments

Audi released its new super-sportscar, the R8, at the Paris Autoshow today. With cars like the R8 and the Bugatti Veyron at the top end and the Toyota, Volkswagen or Lexus, there's lots of neat stuff going on in the automotive world...just not from GM, Ford or Chrysler. Maybe it's just me, but pumping out crap like this may be part of the reason. Just guessing.
posted by tgrundke at 4:48 PM PST - 62 comments

Taliah Lempert paints bicycles. If you were really in love, you would have your bicycle's portrait done.
posted by R. Mutt at 4:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Snakes on Film — at last, a definitive resource for moving-picture snake identification and serpentine fact-checking! Care of our very own mcwetboy! [via mefi projects]
posted by cortex at 4:37 PM PST - 9 comments

Play Pac-Man against real live crickets for science and fun.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:47 PM PST - 10 comments

The world of folk music is often a rather dour place, as folkies try hard to fully express the miseries of a life pre-myspace. In the 1980s, however, the Kipper Family, of St-Just-near-Trunch, Norfolk, bucked this trend. With such classics as "Arrest These Merry Gentlemen", "Wild Mounting Time" and "We're Norfolk and Good", Sid and Henry Kipper managed to cheer up many a maudlin English folk club. Although Henry was retired, Sid Kipper still performs solo and has recently started doing podcasts for Channel4 (reg req to download).
posted by criticalbill at 1:13 PM PST - 9 comments

Little Superstar. YouTube, but also Bollywood. So it's got an international appeal. Via: First Rule.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 12:55 PM PST - 19 comments

"We are losing much of the history of the twentieth century because the copyright industries are more litigious than ever." A cogent "primer for reporters [and others] who find themselves lost in the copyright jungle" in the age of Google and the DMCA.
posted by OmieWise at 12:46 PM PST - 40 comments

Baby Toupee - because parents care about prematernal hair loss.
posted by triv at 11:39 AM PST - 20 comments

Scientists discover a region of the brain responsible for feelings of 'self' and 'other'. If electrically stimulated, it causes the perception of an alien being-- a shadow person, standing just behind you, mimicking your every move. This could explain strange feelings of being watched, or of strange presences, or ghosts.
posted by empath at 11:23 AM PST - 74 comments

Not your ordinary mud volcano. This erruption might be manmade and it is quickly engulfing a large swath of Eastern Java. The putrid gas and mud have been flowing since May, and recent attempts to control the flow have led to demonstrations serious enough for the govenrment to issue "shoot-on-sight" orders. The flow could last for another hundred years.
posted by imposster at 11:18 AM PST - 17 comments

Feeling sick and thinking of buying over-the-counter cold medicine like Sudafed or Claritin-D? Be prepared to wait in line at the pharmacy counter, show a photo ID, and sign a log book. The nationwide restriction of medication containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine begins this weekend. Why? Those 2 ingredients are used to make meth.. (NPR audio piece).
posted by jaimev at 10:20 AM PST - 136 comments

The Sony Reader is finally available for purchase. Those of us who cared enough to be annoyed by the over-hyped non-event that was the 'E-book revolution' have been waiting with baited breath for consumer level products featuring electronic paper. The Sony Reader isn't the only kid on the block though. At more then $800 versus the Reader's $350, the iRex iLiad can recieve Wifi, has a touch sensitive screen for note taking and marginalia, and is built around the linux kernal, allowing some pretty amazing hacks, making the whole thing rather irresistable. Many of us having been waiting to sell ourselves to the dark god of Electronic Paper + Project Gutenberg. This time seems to have arrived.
posted by Alex404 at 8:42 AM PST - 105 comments

The clear sky clock (this one is for Boston) provides a graphical representation of seven factors that affect the clarity of stargazing: cloud cover, transparency, seeing, darkness, wind, humidity, and temperature. Once you've figured out where and when to go stargazing (probably somewhere rural) make a custom map for your location so you know what you're seeing.
posted by nekton at 8:34 AM PST - 7 comments

Marmaduke explained. Syndicated cartoon broken down on a daily basis. In 500 words or less. (related)
posted by thatweirdguy2 at 8:22 AM PST - 41 comments

Remembering a forgotten hero on the anniversary of his death. Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, security guard Frank Wills called police after someone repeatedly taped the latch on a door at the apartment complex where he worked. That act changed politics forever; one reporter said “It was one of the most important phone calls ever made in American History.” Mr. Wills did not benefit from the circus that followed, however. After two arrests for shoplifting he died penniless on September 27, 2000.
posted by TedW at 8:02 AM PST - 58 comments

MySpace has started a voter registration drive. MySpace has a ton of users, so this could be huge. Could this get young Americans to vote? I'm going to guess no, but you never know.
posted by chunking express at 7:46 AM PST - 27 comments

My name is Jack and I live in the back of the Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls: A movie, a producer, a hotel, and a song.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:22 AM PST - 6 comments

The UN reports “ Up to a million cluster bomblets discharged by Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah remain unexploded in southern Lebanon." "What's shocking" (Read down) and quote "I would say completely immoral is that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict when we knew there would be a resolution, when we knew there would be an end. Most of them are from America." who may ban future sales. Some people are campaigning. A brief history (Scroll down). Bravo Belgium. An unexpected link between books and bombs. Last discussion.
posted by adamvasco at 6:59 AM PST - 154 comments

It's down to the wire for Project Runway: Tonight the final four designers' climactic collections are judged at New York's fashion week. Re-live the season by rating the runway. Enjoy resident guru Tim Gunn's podcasts, particularly his anti-Vincent and -Angela rants in the "couture" and "tiny dog" challenges. The best episode recaps are at FourFour. For backstage gossip, it's Project Rungay. For fashion fiends, here's an illustration-rich look at the history behind Laura's winning '20s dress and a deconstruction of just what's wrong with Vincent.
posted by Tuffy at 3:32 AM PST - 70 comments

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116: read firmly by Eleanor, skimmed through somewhat hurriedly by Megan, recited from memory by the cowboy hatted Bill, and delivered with a vaguely cockney accent by Will. There are others, as well.
posted by Iridic at 12:02 AM PST - 10 comments

Come see the robots at Bennet Robotworks.
posted by jonson at 11:47 PM PST - 14 comments

Arty hotel rooms. Some art slightly NSFW. Previously.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 10:59 PM PST - 9 comments

Reviewing peer review.
posted by Gyan at 10:49 PM PST - 33 comments

R.I.P. Sir Malcom Arnold
posted by persona non grata at 10:21 PM PST - 20 comments

Juggling TaeBo Masterclass. With bonus Russian girl bench press routine. [youtubefilter]
posted by The Monkey at 7:35 PM PST - 25 comments

Ass in the box.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:07 PM PST - 41 comments

Ask MetaFilter + group hug = justcurio.us
posted by GuyZero at 6:05 PM PST - 68 comments

Do you know how people will fly r/c planes in the future? Canadian enthusiast Dennis (aka VRFlyer) rigs up a camera and VR googles to view the flight in real time. To complete his dream of virtual flying, he then adds a gyroscope, allowing him to control the camera's pan and tilt with head movement. Dennis explains more about his method and passion for VR flying in this RC forum.
posted by MetaMonkey at 3:43 PM PST - 32 comments

BBC One's new channel idents. Dancers are out, circles are in. Along with hippos synchronised swimming, gravity defying cyclists and surfers. Dude.
posted by feelinglistless at 1:56 PM PST - 27 comments

One man: one plan, one stove, hundreds of accomplices, 200 tonnes of sand, 4,000 bed boards, 600 feet of rope.

76 men: 50 murdered, 23 recaptured, only three got away.

The real story behind the Great Escape.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:33 PM PST - 24 comments

Rob Fisher's combination of computer technology and art was a pioneering fusion in sculpture. His work has been exhibited all over the world. He died last week of sudden cardiac death.
posted by Dantien at 1:02 PM PST - 9 comments

Like old cheese and vomit, mixed with dog food ... Halitosis and aged cabbage ... Rank Swiss cheese ... Sour milk ... Pee in the air every day ... Like an open corpse ... Like a musty homeless person decomposing in musky homeless person urine ... Caramel with a slight undertone of mildly rank underarm ... Rodenticide. It's Gawker's New York City Subway Smell Map.
posted by Urban Hermit at 12:53 PM PST - 17 comments

Identify the 50 "dark" movie titles hidden in this painting. A clever bit of viral marketing for M&Ms Dark Chocolate.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:05 AM PST - 36 comments

Mouseprint.org -- "There's small print, there's fine print, and then there's mouseprint." Online trades as low as $9.95.*

* - with account balances of $1 million or more.
posted by ericb at 10:47 AM PST - 28 comments

A Rogue State. Matt Yglesias sums up what America has become after the McCain "Compromise."
posted by empath at 10:26 AM PST - 47 comments

Following the results of a report into the foul constituents of many laptop computers, Greenpeace have decided that the sincerest form of flattery may get results. Imitating the main brand, they call on image-conscious Apple and its dedicated fanbase to push for a better product and a better world: "I love my Mac. I just wish it came in green."
[via]
posted by NinjaTadpole at 10:14 AM PST - 21 comments

How do you transform lettuce into Pacman? The Sentence Game, that's how.
posted by randomination at 9:11 AM PST - 22 comments

"He spent much of his life recovering from the misadventures that plagued him even in the womb." A most unusual obituary that illuminates the life of a Denver-area man with unusuably horiffic bad luck.
posted by huskerdont at 9:08 AM PST - 40 comments

The small-sized fondling robot which is developed at the world-wide beginning. Its name is Azzang. I think it's a game of some kind, but it's hard to be sure. Brought to you by IZI Robotics. Via.
posted by owhydididoit at 8:54 AM PST - 12 comments

like words? stimulate your mind with the salon directory, new york times topics, the archive of every single time magazine, past issues from the new york review of books or just take a break and stare at pages and pages of google images
posted by petsounds at 8:00 AM PST - 19 comments

Keith Olbermann's Edward R. Murrow^* moment: A Textbook Definition of Cowardice. MSNBC's host excoriates Bush, FOX News host Chris Wallace, and the media for its response to former president Clinton's "tantrum" [still being discussed here]. Note: Don't just read the transcript. Watch the video, because Olbermann's use of visuals adds greatly to the power of his presentation. No matter which side of the red/blue-state divide you're on, students of politics and media will be reviewing this clip for years to come as a little cultural watershed -- if only a consummate example of "Democrat" anger^TM.
posted by digaman at 6:25 AM PST - 168 comments

New York Justice. Because every woman needs a good pounding every now and then.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 4:33 AM PST - 105 comments

Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus is a two part film oddity from 1971-72; two episodes of the legendary British sketch comedy show with all new material performed entirely in German, despite the cast's inability to speak German. Well... not 100% new material, as the Lumberjack Song did get its own German version. Here's a brief interview with Michael Palin about phonetically learning the words to the song. via
posted by jonson at 11:41 PM PST - 19 comments

Just over five years ago, we saw them come down. Now, watch them go up.
posted by keswick at 10:13 PM PST - 26 comments

Banned Books Week -- 25th anniversary year. How to deal with a challenge, what you can do generally, and of course, lists, and more lists. Captain Underpants is a more recent entry, i notice.
posted by amberglow at 9:52 PM PST - 42 comments

Because you can't handle the truth. These are this week's Newsweek covers, by region. But apparently only the US gets a special cover. The US gets a different website than the rest of the world too. I feel better informed already.
posted by Pastabagel at 9:49 PM PST - 123 comments

With nothing to lose but more of his own money, former convenience store magnate (kinda), local businessman, and independent candidate Christy Mihos has produced the 'cheekiest' political ad (so far) in the current Massachusetts gubernatorial race.
posted by scblackman at 8:45 PM PST - 10 comments

A POW takes a Rolex on credit: an amazing story told by the original documents.
posted by exogenous at 8:18 PM PST - 60 comments

600 cars and trucks stuck in the russian mud on what is supposed to be a highway. From the text:"Fuel, food, firearms and steel tow-line are the things that are needed most these days on this Federal highway"
posted by 445supermag at 5:06 PM PST - 47 comments

FBI is Casting a Wider Net in Anthrax Attacks "The strain of anthrax used in the attacks has turned out to be more common than was initially believed" and wasn't weaponized, and there's now "an almost endless list of possible suspects in scores of countries around the globe." FBI microbiologist Douglas Beecher wrote an analysis [PDF] that says, "A widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production." More comments on Beecher's findings from other biologists. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 4:18 PM PST - 56 comments

Neill Blomkamp the director for the Halo movie does his first interview regarding the film. Tempbot, Tetra Vaal, Alive in Joburg discussed previously. New links for Tempbot, Alive in Joburg. A showreel that has Tetra Vaal, a 4 minute adidas "movie" called Yellow, his citroen ad which revived the possibility of live action Transformers (for good or ill) and 3 commercials. Also 3 videos he's done (apparently he doesn't have much taste in music, but likes hot girls in bands). Fluffy Starr Bif Naked LiveonRelease. Uwe Boll he is not (I hope).
posted by jmarq at 4:15 PM PST - 21 comments

Coup leaders urge Thai soldiers to smile Military coup leaders in Thailand — often called the "Land of Smiles" — apparently don't want to ruin that image. They've ordered soldiers to smile. Army radio broadcasts are reminding soldiers to be friendly and courteous, especially to children. Many Thais have described this as the friendliest coup ever seen in a land with a history of violent coups.
posted by dwarfplanet at 1:55 PM PST - 45 comments

Sherlock Holmes on Stage & Screen is a gallery of almost every significant actor who has ever played the great detective. Among their ranks are William Gillette, who was able to build himself a castle in Connecticut with the proceeds from his Holmes portrayal; Charlton Heston, who enacted a version of The Sign of Four onstage; Jeremy Brett, the superlative television Holmes; and, of course, Basil Rathbone, the South African actor whose name became synonymous with the role.
posted by Iridic at 1:49 PM PST - 21 comments

Etta Baker 1913-2006
posted by y2karl at 1:35 PM PST - 19 comments

Master's thesis on My Bloody Valentine's album Loveless (full thesis as pdf, html).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:12 PM PST - 86 comments

Petticoat Pond Transgenerational Poufbunny Pinup Parlour. mnsfw!
posted by riotgrrl69 at 12:07 PM PST - 36 comments

Web discussion forums have some fantastic content. There is an excellent rank-ordered, categorized index of many of them, but the attempts to create a search engine for these forums, akin to that which already exists for the newsgroups, have generally failed. Let's wish Omgili some luck then. Maybe even do so in their forum.
posted by shivohum at 10:59 AM PST - 12 comments

SpandexMan - Your source for hot spandex costumes. mnsfw!
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:20 AM PST - 33 comments

Hitler and the Sea Monkeys. When Harold von Braunhut "discovered" a new species of brine shrimp, artemia nyos, he made millions marketing them as Sea Monkeys. Using profits from that and his other inventions (such as X-Ray Specs), von Braunhut funded anti-Semitic groups, including the Aryan Nations, despite being Jewish himself.
posted by jonp72 at 9:57 AM PST - 54 comments

Country Music in Black and White. Read the story behind the intertwined roots of Jazz and Country when Louis Armstrong famously backed up Jimmie Rodgers for Blue Yodel No. 9. Then see how he came back to the historic Ryman Auditorium to do his final concert with none other than Johnny Cash. Finally be glad that you can see this meeting of giants online.
(last link is an embedded flash movie, some sites have flash, but no noise)
posted by 1f2frfbf at 9:36 AM PST - 16 comments

If you're interested in musical instruments from all over the world, Wesleyan University's Virtual Instrument Museum should not be missed. Instruments are searchable by type (idiophones, aerophones, etc.), by materials (wood, bamboo, etc.), or by geographic region. The photos are very good, and many instruments are represented by excellent MP3 audio clips. And the exhibits (QTVR movies: drag your mouse to see the instrument from all angles) are wonderful.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:45 AM PST - 11 comments

The online confession of a childhood murderer. The story behind a trolling comment that caught notice here long ago and I never stopped wondering about.
posted by mathowie at 8:32 AM PST - 48 comments

IGN's top 50 DC Comics covers should satisfy those who didn't like the Marvel covers posted yesterday. Great art, traditional themes, and strange psychadelia.
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:20 AM PST - 18 comments

Stewart Lee of 'Jerry Springer the Opera' fame discusses the rise of religious intolerance to comments the believer disagree's with. Interesting in that this is not just the usual freedom loving athiest vs. god loving believers, but that we also have religious people arguing that God can survive some satire and deploring the fundamentalist intolerance of dissent. Prt 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
posted by Gratishades at 8:17 AM PST - 32 comments

When she walks, it's like a samba ... Links to 46 cover versions of the Girl from Ipanema.
posted by carter at 8:16 AM PST - 38 comments

TV's Mythbusters, (and as such Metafilter's 'very own' asavage), hopes to use the global reach of Youtube to send a yawn around the world. "If only one per cent of the global population took part in the Yawn Around The World experiment then 65 million people would have yawned across the globe" Savage was quoted as saying. The equivalent amount of air exhaled would "be able raise the Titanic or even inflate all the bicycle tyres in Beijing." Fascinating stuff! Watch the (hopefully) yawn inducing footage here.
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:12 AM PST - 33 comments

Excellent news if you're overwhelmed by feelings of being imposingly huge & impressive; this brief set of QTVR photos taken inside of a wind tunnel should help realign your sense of place in the world. Warning: those feeling tiny & insignificant should under no circumstances click the link in this post.
posted by jonson at 11:36 PM PST - 26 comments

Remember when Uwe Boll challenged his critics in the boxing ring? Some of them accepted and the event went down on September 23rd. One of the challengers was Lowtax, who had some fun with it.
posted by bob sarabia at 10:06 PM PST - 40 comments

He loves tradition: "[He] said he came to Virginia because he wanted to play football in a place where 'blacks knew their place'."

He gives free food to the poor: "After they had killed a deer, [he asked] where the local black residents lived. [He] then drove... to that neighborhood with the severed head of the deer. 'He proceeded to take the doe's head and stuff it into a mailbox'".

And even before "macaca", he enjoyed giving out clever nicknames: "[He] gave him the nickname 'Wizard,' because he shared a last name with.... the imperial wizard of the United Klans of America".

(But don't call him a Jew! That would be an "aspersion.")
posted by orthogonality at 9:09 PM PST - 145 comments

A case of Horlicks for 1,000 - 2,000 British Pounds (the lot description doesn't contains a mention of any actual Horlicks though). Horlicks has been around since 1883. Their early efforts at promotion included the invention of a condition they called 'Night Starvation'. As well as press, radio (they sponsored Dan Dare) and television advertising they also featured in the cinema at one time. These films, made by George Pál, are quite surreal. Although Horlicks seems to be made from the same ingredients as Maltesers, the company has pushed their product in India as making children "taller, stronger and sharper" - tying it in with the Superman Returns movie. Back home in England, Horlicks is made fun of despite the fact that it is one of the ingredients in a jolly nice self-saucing pudding.
posted by tellurian at 9:07 PM PST - 39 comments

RED ONE is a 12.6 megapixel digital film/HD camcorder developed by Jim Jannard, founder of the Oakley sunglasses company. The camera will retail for $17,500, and is alleged to outperform HD and digital film cameras from established companies like Sony, Arri, Panavision and Dalsa (whose offerings all cost well in excess of $100,000). The general consensus among pundits in media production circles is that Jannard's camera will be a true disruptive technology. Last night, no less than 24 hours after the very first publically available sample images from the camera's "Mysterium" sensor were posted to the RED Digital Cinema website, the company's development offices were broken into. According to Jannard, "Everything they took was camera and camera file related...there is no question all they came for was RED camera stuff." (Additional obligatory and annoying YouTube links: First public demonstration of the RED camera at the IBC convention in Amsterdam and the RED Q & A session that followed.)
posted by melorama at 7:06 PM PST - 74 comments

"The streets of 2030's New York remain the only venues not under the thumb of the monolithic corporations. Manhattan’s three major hacker gangs have developed black-market technology that enables them to jack into the phone network though the payphone nodes, and redirect the payment deposited into that phone into their own coffers." The premise of a new cyberpunk novel? Nope. A new street game you can play with your friends.
posted by maniactown at 6:51 PM PST - 16 comments

Plunging into the shadows: "In thinly traded, lightly regulated and untransparent markets, the bold can make an awful lot of money—and they can lose it on an even more extravagant scale... In today's caffeine-fuelled dealing rooms, a barely regulated private-equity group could very well borrow money from syndicates of private lenders, including hedge funds, to spend on taking public companies private. At each stage, risks can be converted into securities, sliced up, repackaged, sold on and sliced up again. The endless opportunities to write contracts on underlying debt instruments explains why the outstanding value of credit-derivatives contracts has rocketed to $26 trillion—$9 trillion more than six months ago, and seven times as much as in 2003."
posted by kliuless at 6:39 PM PST - 27 comments

Don't mess with my Citgo sign!
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 3:27 PM PST - 44 comments

Have you ever run into Trotskyites before? You know, those dour, uptight dudes handing out free papers at demonstrations? They can spout some pretty colorful rhetoric but apart from that, most of them lead dull, constricted lives devoted to Party meetings and getting out the Party newspaper. Juan Posadas was the exception to this rule. Señor Posadas was a high-octane Trotskyite superfreak who advocated a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USA in order to hasten the proletarian revolution. He looked to the skies and saw UFOs as evidence of the triumph of communism on other planets. Fidel Castro banned the Cuban section of his movement for trying to organize an attack on the U.S. base at Guantanamo. They don’t make ‘em like Posadas anymore. That’s for sure. (If you’re curious, there’s an archive of his works stored here. And some people are still keeping the faith.)
posted by jason's_planet at 3:14 PM PST - 50 comments

And God said
"C:\>RUN HEAVEN AND EARTH"

Oops.
posted by moonshine at 3:03 PM PST - 46 comments

See one, do one, teach one. This has been the mantra of medical education on the wards for a very long time. But is it fair to the patient on the receiving end of that third-year medical student's awkward physical exam? Since their first use over forty years ago at the University of Southern California, standardized patients (or simulated patients, medical actors or teaching associates) have been employed to help medical students learn how to examine patients. This internist signed his own mother up and much to his surprise found it helped her as much as her students [NB: requires registration or BugMeNot; .pdf available here].
A special subset of these teachers, called gynecologic teacing associates, bravely allow medical students to go where they've often never been before (with a white coat on). One 2nd year medical student found the experience helpful enough to write about it in the Village Voice [clinically NSFW]. And naturally, as technology marches on, even teaching associates may be downsized [technically NSFW].
posted by scblackman at 12:56 PM PST - 20 comments

Does the tolerance for abuses committed during the “war on terrorism” have any implications for the health of democracy at home?

The President’s broad new powers in the signing statements that enable him to override Congress have corroded the American system of checks and balances. American law enforcement agencies can now wiretap American civilians and detain citizens and permanent residents without charges, and consequently without evidence. Last week the House passed legislation to build a 700-mile Israeli-style fence on the U.S.–Mexico border and to deploy there many of the surveillance technologies tested in Iraq. Perhaps the domestic installation of wartime technologies and military surveillance in civilian settings has become acceptable to us because we have become accustomed, as Soviet citizens did during the endless Stalinist purges, to open-ended wars—wars with no opening salvo and no concluding treaty. Whether or not one agrees that American detention centers and secret prisons are the “Gulag of our time,” the comparison deserves serious consideration. It might help us shine a torch into the dark corners of repression, where the totalitarian qualities of our own society lurk, before the scale of violence ascends to Gulag dimensions.

Six Questions on the American “Gulag” for Historian Kate Brown
See also Bush seeks immunity for violating War Crimes Act
posted by y2karl at 12:27 PM PST - 50 comments

Interview with President Clinton.
posted by rxrfrx at 11:17 AM PST - 181 comments

CDX: great Flash adventure by BBC History (in association with Preloaded) for their "Ancient Rome" series.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:52 AM PST - 9 comments

Sita Sings the Blues is a feature film (in progress) combining the ancient Indian epic Ramayana, the 1920's blues vocals of Annette Hanshaw, and classically informed but modern animation. The animator wanted to envision what the Ramayana would look like told through the eyes of its much loved and much maligned female character, Sita. This is not the first time the Ramayana has been retold from Sita's perspective, Sanctuary, a play by Hema Ramakrishna is a feminist reinterpretation that has garnered a lot of controversy. Retelling the Ramayana is part of the tradition.
posted by arcticwoman at 10:34 AM PST - 7 comments

Being and Seeming: the Technology of Representation an essay by novelist Richard Powers
posted by MetaMonkey at 10:20 AM PST - 11 comments

"Democrats passed those black codes and Jim Crow laws. Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan." The National Black Republican Association airs a radio ad (mp3).
posted by four panels at 9:41 AM PST - 41 comments

The popularity of podcasting has grown by leaps and bounds in the past year. Evan Williams, co-founder and former CEO of Pyra Labs, the makers of Blogger, is a co-founder of Odeo, a resource for podcast listeners and podcasters. More info here. Odeo is just one of many podcast directories; personally, my favorite is Podcast Pickle. Another great resource for audio content is PodioBooks.com, founded by Evo Terra. PodioBooks are serialized audio books which are made available in podcast format, many read by their authors. [more inside]
posted by eclectica at 9:11 AM PST - 28 comments

Line Rider. It is all downhill.
posted by srboisvert at 5:04 AM PST - 55 comments

The Ballad of Big Mike. “Where are you going?” he asked. “To basketball practice,” Michael said. “Michael, you don’t have basketball practice,” Sean said. “I know,” the boy said. “But they got heat there.” Sean didn’t understand that one. “It’s nice and warm in that gym,” the boy said. As they drove off, Sean looked over and saw tears streaming down Leigh Anne’s face. And he thought, Uh-oh, my wife’s about to take over. ... “One night it wasn’t going so well, and I got frustrated,” Mitchell says, “and he said to me, ‘Miss Sue, you have to remember I’ve only been going to school for two years.”’
posted by caddis at 4:50 AM PST - 39 comments

IGN's top 50 Marvel Comics covers including this wonderful farmgirl She-Hulk (well, she DOES have two green thumbs!), this amazing Wolverine Origins painting, and...umm...superhero zombies?
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:22 AM PST - 34 comments

Lunatic religious cartoonist Jack Chick is targeting a new demographic; converting his greatest hits to provide more "urban" appeal.
posted by jonson at 11:29 PM PST - 101 comments

Happy Birthday Jim. Today, Sunday the 24th 2006 would have been Jim Henson's 70th Birthday. (and is the 46th birthday of current Kermit Muppitter Steve Whitmire) Rarely has one person had such a impact with their vision for the world. From Sam and Friends, Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, The Dark Crystal, and on and on and on. Lots of Muppets on Youtube, lots of muppets on Metafilter. Henson died on May 16th 1990 of pneumonia. A Boy and his Frog (mp3) Happy Birthday, and thanks.
posted by edgeways at 10:47 PM PST - 36 comments

Worried about your expensive camera gear (or other stuff I suppose...) getting lost by the airline? Be sure to pack a pistol.
posted by blaneyphoto at 9:16 PM PST - 27 comments

Project Nova: on the 9th of September three Cambridge engineering students launched a balloon equipped with a camera and tracking devices. It reached a height of 32km and took 857 photographs during its three hour flight, some showing the curvature of the earth. You can also download a KML file to follow the balloon's flight path in Google Earth.
posted by jack_mo at 5:50 PM PST - 24 comments

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat. A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. The assessment is part of the latest "National Intelligence Estimate".
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 5:50 PM PST - 102 comments

Every episode of the Simpsons.
posted by reklaw at 5:24 PM PST - 103 comments

Geiko of Kyoto is a stunning photo gallery of Kyotos's Geisha - both the mature Geiko and the apprentice Maiko. Melissa Chasse annotates many photos with fascinating details and offers an account of her tea party with Mamechika, a lovely Maiko. For more, this lovely Geisha site offers a brief history from the era of the floating world, more photos, Ukiyo-e art, and links. Also see y2karls' prior definitive post on ukiyo-e.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:33 PM PST - 17 comments

A Rough Guide to I Love Music's Rough Guides Never have to AskMe again for mix suggestions.
posted by klangklangston at 3:07 PM PST - 20 comments

(NSFW) “If you are denying yourself pleasure then you have to take responsibility for where you are right now. When you get to a place where you are happy then love comes into your life. When you begin to love yourself then people recognize that and you can start receiving it. Self-pity will get you nowhere. Our society is sexist, racist, ageist, but I am a biological creature with all these amazing gifts of orgasm and I cannot wait for the world out there to change for me to be happy. I have all the happiness I need inside myself and I’m keeping it. I have denied it and avoided it for myself for too long. I have waited around for other things to be arranged before I gave myself happiness and I’m not going to do that anymore. It wasn’t until I stopped wallowing in all that self-pity and took matters into my own hands that things started to change for me. . . . Don’t wait around for another person to give that to you, give it to yourself. . . . We have been taught to not like ourselves and it takes a lot to unteach that to ourselves. There is a lot of conditioning and everyone has their own kind of conditioning that they have to unlearn. . . . All I can tell people about myself is that I give it to myself just as I can. My area just happens to be sex, while others have art, painting or public health or whatever. I’m just as true to myself as I can be.” --Nina Hartley
posted by jason's_planet at 2:05 PM PST - 72 comments

Inspired by comments Brian Eno made in his book A Year with Swollen Appendices, Duncan Sheik released White Limousine with two discs: One, a CD labeled Mine and the other a DVD labeled Yours. The former contains his stereo mixes, while the latter contains WAV files of the individual elements of the mixes for each song. Sheik is requesting that people remix his CD to their liking, and has even provided a place for people to upload their efforts. The best remixes will be streamed on the remix site, and some will even be released as downloads.
posted by terrapin at 11:27 AM PST - 16 comments

Foreign Aid: Can it work? The conundrum facing the rich countries is that everywhere in the developing world, and particularly in Africa, you see children dying for want of pennies, while it's equally obvious that aid often doesn't work very well....But the pitfalls of aid tend not to be discussed among humanitarians, at least in loud voices, for fear of scaring donors. And now along comes William Easterly, in his tremendously important and provocative new book, The White Man's Burden, which asserts with great force that the aid industry is deeply flawed.
posted by storybored at 10:37 AM PST - 63 comments

WWII STUG Not sure how many people saw the post about the T34 pulled out of a peat bog a couple of weekends ago, but here is another story about German tank this time. Pulled out of the mud in the Czeck Republic. Decent amount of pictures with this one too.
posted by a3matrix at 6:52 AM PST - 23 comments

Osama bin Dead for a month? PARIS (Reuters) - A French regional newspaper quoted a French secret service report on Saturday as saying that Saudi Arabia is convinced that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.
posted by gregschoen at 1:13 AM PST - 105 comments

Big Brother 101 -- Could your social networks brand you an enemy of the state? (Popular Science Mag) And one staffer finds out it might--due to a connection to the Buffalo Six. Think 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with tapping and surveillance and worse at the other end.
posted by amberglow at 11:34 PM PST - 15 comments

When I first saw it, my jaw hit the floor. After years of thinking I would suffer alone with the memory, I found others who knew. Along the way, I discovered other gems... even though my personal tastes were more epic. When she asked why I loved them so much, I replied, "Because they are so ambitious. They try so hard".
posted by squidfartz at 11:30 PM PST - 22 comments

Urban Fiction is the ongoing art project of Xing Danwen, who takes photos of miniature buildings and then photoshops tiny versions of herself into the frame, doing mundane things amidst the tiny scenery(click the "Detail" images to see a zoomed in shot).
posted by jonson at 11:24 PM PST - 14 comments

Art of Bleeding: The first time Mr. Outerspace died, it was to serve the greater good of cleaning the Cacophony Society's gutters of useless hangers-on and lazybones. The second time, it seemed to serve no purpose at all. Some of us are hoping the third time will be the charm. You might not think you know his art, but you do. RIP Peter Geiberger, 1979-2006.
posted by Scram at 9:31 PM PST - 4 comments

Forgive me for this one link Youtuber, but this guy is one of my personal heroes. The Armless Guitarist of Balboa Park!
posted by snsranch at 6:43 PM PST - 26 comments

annoyed by algorithms? finetune radio lets you create your own station and choose the tracks
posted by petsounds at 5:13 PM PST - 10 comments

Folks, the condom broke Friday night and I searched all weekend for someone who could prescribe me EC. It is now Monday and I have to report that I have been unable to find anyone who will write me a fucking prescription for EC. None of the hospitals in the surrounding counties would write it for me. I stopped my search at about 100 miles from my home because my telephone book wouldn't take me out any further than that.

I have been asked about my sexual practices. Whether I'm 'monogamous' or 'in a relationship' if I'm married, if I have kids, how many kids I have, if I was raped or 'traumatized' but there wasn’t' ONE question about my health. Not one. The few places that said that they had a doctor who would occasionally write prescriptions for EC told me that I had to ask for that doctor specifically and then they proceeded to tell me that I would be 'interviewed' to see if I meet that doctors 'criteria' and then they proceeded to ask me all the above questions before telling me that I should 'try anyway' and I 'might be able to talk him into it'.

posted by orthogonality at 3:41 PM PST - 189 comments

Labor Intensive is a new online puzzle extravaganza in the style of the MIT Mystery Hunt and the aforelinked Puzzle Boat. Appease the Gods by performing twelve puzzly labors. Good luck!
posted by painquale at 1:17 PM PST - 3 comments

Take the U.S. citizenship test
posted by PenguinBukkake at 1:04 PM PST - 63 comments

۞۩unusual clouds۩۞
posted by riotgrrl69 at 12:45 PM PST - 43 comments

Tiki: How sex, rum, World War II, and the brand-new state of Hawaii ignited a fad that has never quite ended. (via)
posted by Otis at 12:35 PM PST - 22 comments

Alan Fletcher has died. One of the world's finest graphic designers, the co-founder of the legendary agencies Forbes, Fletcher & Gill and Pentagram, has left us after an 18-month battle with cancer. He leaves behind a huge amount of stunning work, and a profound influence on the world of graphic design. A retrospective of his life and work is opening in November at the Design Museum in London.
posted by ninthart at 12:03 PM PST - 14 comments

This year has been a good one for those who like little things that fly: you can get ultra-tiny remote controlled planes (video), helicopters, (or a cheaper one), and ornithopters. Also, the HydroFoam, a boat/plane/hovercraft that caused quite a controversy in the RC world after its inventor posted a famous video of the vehicle in action, and others tried to copy the design while he worked to commercialize it. There are smaller RC aircraft still, but you can't have them yet.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:58 AM PST - 30 comments

Nurse Fiction and Pineapples.
posted by mattbucher at 11:55 AM PST - 15 comments

History of the Button, a weblog devoted to 'tracing the history of interaction design through the history of the button, from flashlights to websites and beyond'. This presentation [4.5MB .pdf] provides a quick-fire pictorial history of the things we push to do stuff.
posted by jack_mo at 11:42 AM PST - 12 comments

Help wanted: must be eligible for government secret clearance, and willing to forget everything you learned about intellectual freedom in library school.
posted by lovecrafty at 11:37 AM PST - 15 comments

New terror that stalks Iraq's republic of fear
U.N. Finds Baghdad Toll Far Higher Than Cited
Iraq torture 'worse after Saddam'
The Facts on the Ground: Mini-Gulags, Hired Guns, Lobbyists, and a Reality Built on Fear
U.S. troops in Iraq are Tehran's 'hostages'
Anti-Americanism Is A Glue
posted by y2karl at 11:02 AM PST - 88 comments

T-SHIRTS T-SHIRTS T-SHIRTS! Funny T-shirts, user-designed-and-voted T-shirts, artistic T-shirts, geek T-shirts, just cool T-shirts, hacker T-shirts, more artistic T-shirts and even offensive T-shirts (NSFW). Like comics? web comic T-shirts. Still not right? make your own T-shirts. Or maybe you'd just like to read about t-shirts.
posted by patr1ck at 9:49 AM PST - 47 comments

The Case of Cory Maye. A cop is dead, an innocent man may be on death row, and drug warriors keep knocking down doors.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:45 AM PST - 26 comments

Easy to drive, and not bad looking. It's the quickup camper.
posted by leapingsheep at 9:43 AM PST - 26 comments

I'm a Jewish Yankee Doodle Dandy and other Yiddish sheet music on topics ranging from the Dreyfus affair to interreligious romance. How Broadway evolved from Yiddish theater.
posted by jonp72 at 6:39 AM PST - 10 comments

[O]ne muggy day in mid-August [2002], [Diebold consultant Chris] Hood was surprised to see the president of Diebold's election unit, Bob Urosevich, arrive in Georgia from his headquarters in Texas. With the primaries looming, Urosevich was personally distributing a "patch," a little piece of software designed to correct glitches in the computer program. "We were told that it was intended to fix the clock in the system, which it didn't do," Hood says. "The curious thing is the very swift, covert way this was done. . . . It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state," Hood told me. "We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level."
- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Will the Next Election be Hacked?
posted by Saucy Intruder at 6:12 AM PST - 111 comments

The Royal Society Digital Archive is now on-line and free to use ... until December. Until that time, every article in its collections, going back to 1665, is freely accessible. Poke around, who knows what you might find ... [pdf]
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:26 AM PST - 21 comments

Sven Nykvist leaves us. A master at the subtle manipulation of light, the multiple academy award winner and longtime Ingmar Bergman collaborator (including Persona, and the Through a Glass Darkly/Winter Light/The Silence trilogy) has passed away at 83.
more obits [1] [2] more about him [1] [2]
posted by juv3nal at 11:08 PM PST - 22 comments

Partituras - Hundreds of perfectly scanned "classical" music scores (and parts) in PDF. Chose a composer from the pop-up menu in the middle of the page to browse the available works by that composer.
posted by persona non grata at 10:52 PM PST - 19 comments

Tasty Research: A digest of interesting academic research Read about interesting topics of research (mostly sociology). Science is fun! [via mefi projects]
posted by onalark at 10:22 PM PST - 8 comments

Webcasts from the Clinton Global Initiative conference (all wmv, archived of past 2 days and live tomorrow) --covering energy, healthcare, agriculture, poverty, religious and ethnic conflicts, etc. They're trying to turn "practical ideas into meaningful action". More here, including a cool waterpump/merry-go-round thing.
posted by amberglow at 9:21 PM PST - 10 comments

Tu Lou, ("earthen structures") are massive, fortress like dwellings, native to the Hakka people of China's Fujian province. Distinguishing features include a central courtyard, multiple levels, a lack of windows on the ground floor, a single, heavily fortified entrance, and dozens of homes all wedged together. The buildings are ringed with a one meter thick outer wall, feautre no concrete or steel; living quarters on the upper levels are largely built from wooden beams, jointed with pegs. A typical structure would take several years to build.
posted by jonson at 9:04 PM PST - 17 comments

Senators cave on torture.
posted by EarBucket at 8:30 PM PST - 252 comments

Picture-History.com has "thousands of the most important photographs of the last 150 years", organised by collections and themes.
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:54 PM PST - 17 comments

Now this is what you call an alpha nerd. I remember this guy from his inspiringly, excruciatingly detailed analysis of various routes he took into work, collecting data over a year.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 4:47 PM PST - 35 comments

"You cannot, for instance, praise the shoes of just one player. You must praise the entire group's shoes."^[1] Assassin games have been featured before on MetaFilter, but here's one with a twist. To assassinate your target, you must compliment them with their specific compliment. But you don't know your target, or even who's part of the game, so innocent bystanders can get caught in the crossfire.
posted by fvw at 4:29 PM PST - 26 comments

One-Nil to Google against old media. As Inside Google says, the search engine "responding to Belgian newspaper’s complaints about being included in Google News and the Google cache, as well as a court ruling that they remove those newspapers from their services, decided to show them who’s boss and banned the newspapers outright from Google Belgium’s search results." Or, news organisation misunderstands the benefits of new media and pays dearly.
posted by feelinglistless at 1:49 PM PST - 45 comments

Artists in the Animal Kingdom. A gallery including, most notably, work by Ruby the Elephant, 1973-1998.
posted by hermitosis at 1:30 PM PST - 8 comments

Who is John Dishwasher? "Follow the white box" beckoned a mysterious and inviting flyer posted at several Massachusetts colleges. The simple website contains an online publication of Gods of Our Fathers, the first of what is suggested to be many novels by this reclusive author. Is this the next lonelygirl13 or just a new take on the serialized novel? One thing's for sure: whoever made the website aims to intrigue with vaguely suggestive hints as to the author's personal life. "We do not forward personal mail to John Dishwasher. He will not accept it. The reason for this will become clear in his later works." Could this be the rabbithole to a new alternate reality game, or just a get rich quick scheme?
posted by Zephyrial at 1:09 PM PST - 16 comments

Chris Columbus's Indiana Jones and the Monkey King and Jeb Stuart's Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars are just two rejected sequel scripts for the Indiana Jones franchise. Tom Stoppard, Steven Gaghan, Jeffrey Boam, M. Night Shyamalan, and Frank Darabont each submitted treatments and scripts of their own, but Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (or, more probably, just George Lucas) swatted down every idea until finally Jeff Nathanson's concept was greenlighted--and even that's still being reworked by David Koepp. But with Harrison Ford now older than Sean Connery was in Last Crusade and Steven Spielberg still hobbled by other commitments, it's not clear that Indiana Jones 4 won't be just another false start. The only Indy movie that looks at all certain is the one that Daniel Clowes is making.
posted by Iridic at 10:41 AM PST - 118 comments

Cigar Box Labels are among the finest works of commercial art ever produced. Package designs proliferated during the 1800s, thanks to the development of the stone lithography technique. "Each label could involve a dozen highly skilled specialists,, take a month to create, and cost upwards of $6000.00 (in 1900 dollars) to produce." Images range from racy to rustic to romantic to racist, offering a glimpse into the changing popular fascinations of the 19th and 20th centuries.
posted by Miko at 10:36 AM PST - 15 comments

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Over half a million photographs of Earth taken from orbit by astronauts, from 1961 through the present. The ability of the astronauts to rapidly identify interesting phenomena allows them to capture events as they occur, like volcanic eruptions, floods, and hurricanes, or take advantage of the angle of the sun to highlight specific features, like the pyramids or Mount Everest.
posted by Gamblor at 10:17 AM PST - 14 comments

'Pavarotti of the Plains' In 1957, Don Walser stopped recording country music and became a National Guardsman, just as rock 'n' roll took over the airwaves. He stayed with the Guard for 39 years, but around 1990, his performances at Henry's in Austin, Texas developed a following. By the end of the decade, he would sign to Sire Records, open for Ministry and the Butthole Surfers, collaborate with Kronos Quartet and be honored with a National Heritage Award. Walser retired from his music career in 2001 because of ill health. He passed away on Wednesday at age 72.
posted by NemesisVex at 10:05 AM PST - 17 comments

The legendary and influential DJ Shadow has been discussed here several times before. His latest album, The Outsider, dropped earlier this week. It dropped hard. Its embrace of hyphy and schizophrenic genre spanning has been met with near-universal disappointment, shock, anger, and sadness by his fans. Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow, explains himself here. As Shadow seems to be a long-standing favorite among Mefites, what do you think of it?
posted by ghastlyfop at 10:01 AM PST - 67 comments

Poitin, Hjemmebrent, and Slivovitz are all vying to be the next Absinthe. Though Poitin gets extra points for being banned by a 17th century monarch, they are all part of the very trendy, very quaffable moonshine revival.
posted by huckhound at 10:00 AM PST - 38 comments

CDC Recommends it for Everyone between 13 and 60 This seems like a very expensive proposition. It appears more people are living with this virus without knowing about it.
posted by henryw at 9:34 AM PST - 57 comments

Branson makes $3bn climate pledge Following, perhaps, the recent philanthropic example of Warren Buffett, Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group has pledged to donate 100% of the profits from his transportation interests for the next ten years to fight global warming. Given California's recent lawsuit against auto manufacturers for contributing to global warming (previously), could this be a way to blunt similar criticisms and liability generated by contributions from Virgin Group's own activities?
posted by kcds at 8:44 AM PST - 27 comments

Some people call it a poll-tax: "The House yesterday passed legislation that would require voters to show a valid photo identification in federal elections over the overwhelming objections of Democrats who compared the bill to segregation-era measures aimed at disenfranchising Southern blacks." [previously]
posted by chunking express at 8:33 AM PST - 192 comments

Come out and play. Hits NYC this weekend. When its over, see Cityhunt for continued fun. Similar to the previously discussed games in the city. Not to mention the idiotarod(s). Or for that matter any Improv Everywhere event. I love this dirty town.
posted by allkindsoftime at 8:09 AM PST - 10 comments

Polkarama
posted by triv at 7:58 AM PST - 14 comments

Chris Matthews: ‘I Have Been…Against This Bullshit War From The Beginning’
posted by four panels at 7:36 AM PST - 86 comments

The United Celtic Kingdom. A new study shows that most British are decended from the Celtic tribes that crossed over from Spain 7,000 years ago. Only 20% of the English are decended from Viking stock, even fewer are Anglo-Saxons.
posted by empath at 7:03 AM PST - 42 comments

Web programmers take note, gotAPI is an excellent collection of searchable programming references wrapped up into a customizable interface.
posted by Roger Dodger at 6:59 AM PST - 17 comments

Mars Express finally photographs the "face on Mars". Will these new pictures finally end the artifact theory?
posted by oh pollo! at 4:51 AM PST - 30 comments

Youtubers A one link youtube post.
posted by the cuban at 3:02 AM PST - 48 comments

Richard Hammond, much loved daredevil top gear and brainiac presenter, is seriously ill in hospital after trying to break the UK land speed record.
posted by handee at 2:18 AM PST - 72 comments

SonicLiving is a website which tracks live events (mostly shows) in your home town, and can read in tracks from your last.fm or pandora account to notify you of interesting shows coming up in your area, as long as your area is one of the currently-limited areas they cover. (vide intra)
posted by whir at 1:30 AM PST - 13 comments

NewsFilter: California launches lawsuit against automakers for causing global warming. via
posted by knave at 10:34 PM PST - 42 comments

Music makes you smarter if you get an early start. Certainly debatable given the incredibly small sample, but perhaps it's a prelude to an emerging 21st-century collaborative scientific suite or symphony that can explain why we love music so much.
posted by persona non grata at 10:02 PM PST - 22 comments

The Space Shuttle Atlantis and The International Space Station ...crossing the Sun.
posted by vacapinta at 9:40 PM PST - 35 comments

scale model cities: moscow, new york, edinburgh, shanghai, shanghai (ii), nanjing, london, london (ii), old jerusalem, sydney, san francisco, 4th century rome, singapore, havana, beijing, cincinnati, pompeii, futurama (via)
posted by jonson at 8:59 PM PST - 41 comments

Hydrothermal vents: More detail on how they are formed. These vents are also known as Black Smokers, undersea hydrothermal vents which contain a mixture of ground water and water that has previously disolved in magma. The water emmited by these vents can be as hot as 400C. The minerals and bacteria found in this water support life in rather extream conditions. They are known to occur in places from from 30 meters to 3,600 meters. Some feel this offers hope of finding life on other planets as there is speculation there are, or where vents on Mars and Jupiter's Europa(bottom of page). Eye Candy: [1][2][3]
posted by edgeways at 8:20 PM PST - 12 comments

An online version of a real museum in Vista, CA. The page is a bit hokey looking, but the photos inside are worth checking out.
posted by snsranch at 5:32 PM PST - 8 comments

Who knew Hitler sang reggae? View (YouTube, in German but with moustached rubber ducks).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:06 PM PST - 36 comments

First blog from space Milestones yet to be reached: First convoluted post about breakup from space; first fringe political views from space; first emo band in space (sponsored by MySpace, natch).
posted by klangklangston at 4:41 PM PST - 25 comments

Sam Brown's powerbook lies a-mouldering in the grave. (Via Daring Fireball.)
posted by timeistight at 4:27 PM PST - 51 comments

Trevor Paglen is a scholar and artist who investigates the California prison-industrial complex and secret military bases in his work as an "experimental geographer." In his new book, Tracking the Torture Taxi, Paglen uses the methods of "21st century participatory journalism" (including a Google Earth image of a CIA interrogation facility) to uncover the network of private planes (such as Aero Contractors of Smithfield, NC) that whisk people off to secret prisons without oversight.
posted by jonp72 at 4:07 PM PST - 6 comments

The End of The "Summer of Diplomacy": Assessing U.S. Military Options on Iran (PDF). "In a new report for The Century Foundation, Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner warns that powerful voices in the Bush administration are making the case for air strikes aimed not only at setting back Iran’s nuclear program, but also at toppling the country’s government. He says that these officials are undeterred by the concerns of military leaders about whether such attacks would be effective." [Via The Agonist and FDL.]
posted by homunculus at 3:55 PM PST - 63 comments

Dead Baby. Killed during flash flood, locked inside a block of sandstone. Relatives not suspects in death.
posted by orthogonality at 3:31 PM PST - 31 comments

College fresman works the system graduating from the University of Virginia in one year.
posted by blatant gizmo at 2:52 PM PST - 111 comments

Elfriede Hut aka Elfriede Rinkel, 84 years old, allegedly was a guard at the nazi female concentration camp of Ravensbruck. After the war she married Fred William Rinkel (link to obituary), a longtime member of B'nai B'rith. She left U.S. on Semptember 1st for Germany, were she will probably spend the rest of her life, as she recently was expelled and banned from re-entering U.S.A.
posted by elpapacito at 1:26 PM PST - 73 comments

Clarence Ashley - The Coo Coo
Skip James - Crow Jane
Howlin' Wolf - How Many More Years
Son House - John the Revelator
Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys - Close By
Houston Stackhouse & Joe Willie Wilkins - Cool Drink Of Water
Muddy Waters - Honey Bee
Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys - Lone Star Rag
Mississipi John Hurt - You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley
Maybelle & Sara Carter - Cannonball Blues
Al Green - Simply Beautiful
Enjoy. Note that, too, save for Mississippi John Hurt, there is more by each of the above artists linked on each clip's page.
The first is via FaheyGuitarPlayers, the rest were all in a day's surf. On dial-up, even.
posted by y2karl at 12:56 PM PST - 73 comments

Judge overturns Bush petition plan on roadless forests and reinstates the Clinton Roadless Rule. The policy gave governors an 18-month interim period to submit petitions to protect their national roadless areas, but the Forest Service sold timber rights to two tracts of land in Oregon (which have already been logged) before Gov. Kulongoski could submit his petition. A copy of the judge's ruling can be found here (PDF).
posted by arrhn at 11:58 AM PST - 27 comments

Only Revolutions, by Z. Also. They seem to be connected.
posted by Pastabagel at 11:56 AM PST - 46 comments

National Priorities Project for what its worth...
posted by hard rain at 11:45 AM PST - 17 comments

Is there anything USB drives can't do? PortableApps has dozens of applications from Open Office to Firefox, that will run from a USB key (and there are other applications as well), or you can run an entire Linux or Windows installation from your drive, or just steal passwords. And don't forget the weird gadgets (here is a slideshow), including cool USB rechargable batteries, missile launchers [Google Video], and, of course, the ultimate USB hub.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:16 AM PST - 23 comments

Comic Book Urban Legends. Would you believe ... that a Marvel Comics editor became a Pet Shop Boy? that Wonder Woman's creator invented the real-life lie detector? that the first-ever Marvel / DC Comics crossover was The Wizard Of Oz? that the King of Rock & Roll found hairstyle inspiration in Captain Marvel, Jr? Three of these are true, one is false, but all of the behind-the-scenes tales compiled by Comics Should Be Good could prove blissfully detrimental to your afternoon productivity.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:11 AM PST - 14 comments

Kissing is terrorist behavior now? From the article: 'Shortly after takeoff, Varnier nodded off, leaning his head on Tsikhiseli. A stewardess came over to their row. “The purser wants you to stop that,” she said...The captain told Tsikhiseli that if they didn’t stop arguing with the crew he would divert the plane.'
posted by Poagao at 10:53 AM PST - 161 comments

Ever seen Troll 2? This movie is consistently in the top 5 on IMDB's Worst Films Ever list and is currently #1. There was a UCB screening for it in New York last week, and apparently it is starting to gain a pretty loyal and huge following.
posted by blueplasticfish at 9:29 AM PST - 84 comments

Vice President Richard Cheney, a mystery and an enigma: Joan Didion pulls together what is publicly known about Richard Cheney--his career history, his ideas, the way he works. "He runs an office so disinclined to communicate that it routinely refuses to disclose who works there, even for updates to the Federal Directory, which lists names and contact addresses for government officials. 'We just don't give out that kind of information,' an aide told one reporter. 'It's just not something we talk about.'" Previously.
posted by russilwvong at 9:24 AM PST - 23 comments

Our very own ZippityBuddha's guide to the changes made to Star Wars , now with added continuity with dinosaurs and various anime series. [via mefi projects]
posted by boo_radley at 8:54 AM PST - 30 comments

Futures, organic abstraction in motion in this music video directed by Robert Seidel (previously) for Zero 7.
posted by ijoshua at 8:19 AM PST - 9 comments

D. F. Lewis: Weirdmonger. "Lewis is either a genius graced with madness, a madman cursed with genius, both, or neither ... But there is more to Lewis than that. Believe you me, my pretties. Oh yes, much more. Because every so often you catch sight of something stirring beneath the frosted surfaces of his dreamy prose, something brilliant yet dark and brooding, something revelatory, something true, something that were you to see it all in a single glance would burn you to a cinder; but you still want to see; it speaks to you. In sibilant whispers. It tells you something you've been waiting to hear."—SAMHAIN review of BEST OF DF LEWIS. "I have a paranoid sensation that I'm always being followed by DF Lewis ... he's always there to torment me ... I can't get away from him even if I switch genres... Is he for real or did somebody invent him purely to annoy me?"—Problem page of OVERSPACE #13. "Then I turned over the page and AAARGH! DF f**king Lewis again!"—from THE SCANNER #11. "DF Lewis? When he's bad, he's awful, but when he's good there's no-one can touch him."—Rhys Hughes.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:16 AM PST - 1 comment

What's Liberal About The Liberal Arts? The Graphic Novel. Downloading only one .pdf file this year? Make it this one. (Not credited in the file. It's by Chris Clark.).)
posted by jfuller at 7:58 AM PST - 49 comments

Why should we get excited about such a lacklustre topic as the future of Europe?
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:13 AM PST - 27 comments

Here are the NASCAR-style uniforms they would wear if companies were proud of their political donations, and if running for senate required a flame-retardant suit.
posted by riley370 at 10:17 PM PST - 26 comments

The Fine Art of Being Come Out To: A Straight Person's Guide to Gay Etiquette - yes, it's a bit dated, and no, I don't think too many people on MetaFilter need it. But it's a genre classic, with comprehensive coverage including advice for detailed coming out scenarios, weddings (both yours and theirs), and those ever-pesky language issues, all with good humor and a distinct lack of scolding.
posted by brett at 9:55 PM PST - 55 comments

Meet our new Special Envoy to Darfur, where genocide is taking place-- Andrew Natsios--he did a heckuva job at the Big Dig in Boston, and in misunderestimating the costs of Iraq, and --while head of USAid--at refusing funding AIDS drugs in Africa because many Africans 'don't know what Western time is.
posted by amberglow at 9:06 PM PST - 65 comments

Walter Martin & Paloma Munoz carve beautiful minature scenes with an otherworldly (almost nightmarish) quality about them, and then display the finished product in snow globes. Full gallery here, additional gallery here.
posted by jonson at 8:51 PM PST - 15 comments

Capitol of Punk, a walking tour and online documentary about the Washington DC hardcore punk scene.
posted by skullbee at 7:24 PM PST - 46 comments

The Brine Pool, at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, is a salt pond more than 50 meters in length, whose water has such a high concentration of methane gas, that it supports surrounding mussel beds resembling a beach shoreline, around its entire perimeter. Called by some "one of the strangest places on earth", The Brine Pool also provides habitat for hag fish and other creatures who dive into and out of its salty water for cover and camoflage, as well as some weirdo worms that live on the strange frozen methane hydrates that can form in, or adjacent to such pools. In some photos, "waves" can be seen on the "surface" of The Brine Pool, as its heavy salt water remains distinct from the seawater of the Gulf above.
posted by paulsc at 6:56 PM PST - 38 comments

neave.tv is an experimental use of video over the web... To watch, you'll need a broadband connection (>1mb) and a fast computer (1GHz or higher).
posted by crunchland at 6:45 PM PST - 23 comments

Consider the Marshmallow, and it’s offspring the Peep. The marshmallow is said to have originated in Egypt as honey-based candy flavored and thickened with the sap of the root of the Marsh-Mallow plant. Recently marshmallow have caused not one, but two deaths by suffocation from playing Chubby Bunny. Clearly this is retaliation from the bunny-like Peep, for the atrocities committed upon them in the name of research and narrative! Will we resort to, guns to solve the struggle? Or just give in and continue our primative and snooty and cutsey and basic way of flaming, making and eating the confectionary?
posted by edgeways at 6:14 PM PST - 35 comments

So, exactly how much do Congressional staffers make? What about their bosses? Regardless of amount, some think it's not enough, and some think it's plenty already.
posted by scrump at 5:36 PM PST - 28 comments

Gonzales wants Internet records saved for two years. Because any of you could be child porn perverts. "Gonzales acknowledged the concerns of some company executives who say legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on customers' privacy rights. But he said the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great.
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:14 PM PST - 98 comments

Ed Felten shows a hacked Diebold voting machine (youtubesday) in action, on Fox News of all places. Yeah, that Ed Felten.
posted by mathowie at 1:37 PM PST - 72 comments

Pyrats! In celebration of today being that day, here's a very well-made cartoon short from a group of students from the French animation school Gobelins. Be sure to check out the making of page for character designs, and some great shorts from the crew showing their process.
posted by kosher_jenny at 1:12 PM PST - 10 comments

Flickr MiniCards Finally, a business card that won't make you look like one of those douchebags that likes to hand out business cards.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:45 PM PST - 68 comments

After two months of sifting the information, Hegland had her answer. 'The data was really clear,' she says. 'It was mind-boggling.' It showed that most of the detainees hadn’t been caught 'on the battlefield' but rather mostly in Pakistan; fewer than half were accused of fighting against the U.S., and there was scant evidence to confirm that they were even combatants. In other words, most of the detainees probably were entirely innocent. Just a few days after Hegland published a three-part series on her findings in early February, a law professor at Seton Hall University... and his son, ...who together have represented Guantanamo detainees, published a study that also used the Defense Department’s own data... Only 8 percent of detainees at Guantanamo were labeled by the Defense Department as 'al Qaeda fighters,' they found, and just 11 percent had been captured 'on the battlefield' by coalition forces.

Who are the Prisoners at Gitmo?
posted by y2karl at 12:44 PM PST - 87 comments

Doktor Future's modular synthesizer has been set up to send a real audio stream, 24/7. The analog modular synthesizer will be running a quadraphonic aleatoric patch that will change from day to day. (via Matrixsynth)
posted by zonkout at 12:34 PM PST - 10 comments

Dr. Seuss The World’s Most Eminent Authority on Unheard-Of Animals.
posted by ashbury at 11:39 AM PST - 19 comments

The visual interplay of helicopters and fan blades in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now. The idiot-future soundscapes in THX-1138. The concept for the baptism montage in The Godfather. The actual cut of the "Director's Cut" of Touch of Evil. The man responsible for all of these is Walter Murch, one of the greatest film and sound editors of all time. More Inside.
posted by Iridic at 11:38 AM PST - 20 comments

Demi's Demo from 1982.
posted by eperker at 11:26 AM PST - 26 comments

Here's what happens when Popular Mechanics sends their lead fact checker to an AZ talk radio station to debate the 911 'inside job' theory. Lots of speculation, stammering and "I'll get back to you on that" ensues. [23 min. mp3]
posted by snakey at 11:00 AM PST - 122 comments

Dwarf Fortress is the best game you haven't played yet. A rogue-like crossed with Civilization/Dungeon Keeper, freely available (although in Alpha), completely random and incredibly deep. The Wiki will help you get started.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 10:24 AM PST - 21 comments

Coupfilter: State of emergency declared in Thailand after troops move in. According to Reuters the army are now 'in control'.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 9:55 AM PST - 53 comments

Pope asked to convert to Islam. Gaddafi's eldest son calls for the obvious solution.
posted by davy at 9:34 AM PST - 70 comments

Yesterday, the Arar Commission released their report on the handling of the Maher Arar case, previously mentioned here or here. The findings are widely reported; Canada is self-flagellating for being complicit in the United States' abduction and torture of a Canadian citizen. As President Bush goes to Congress to lobby for the legal authority to abduct and torture anyone without a trial, Arar should consider himself lucky: although Canada didn't help him out for a year, the Canadian government and news media were aware of and interested in his confinement, which likely saved him from the worst tortures. As a famous legal scholar commented some 240 years ago, "To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government."
posted by jellicle at 8:18 AM PST - 102 comments

Selected videos with closed captioning Self-uploaded videos aren’t just for hearing people anymore. A small number of videos on Google now have captioning. You can create your own caption files, albeit laboriously.
posted by joeclark at 7:42 AM PST - 4 comments

The age of horrorism. On the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Martin Amis analyses - and abhors - the rise of extreme Islamism. In a penetrating and wide-ranging essay he offers a trenchant critique of the grotesque creed and questions the West's faltering response to this eruption of evil.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 7:37 AM PST - 66 comments

Get Well Roger Flickr Group. Roger Ebert, still recovering from an arterial burst following surgery to remove cancer near his jaw, could use a little love. Show some, and be a gigantic nerd, by taking a picture of yourself giving a "thumbs up" and uploading it to this Flickr Group. They'll be sending the whole spiel to the good sir himself after they have enough pictures uploaded. Previously.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:37 AM PST - 13 comments

What do you get when you take a ton of dominos, insert a lot of creativity, and put it online in a non you tube format? Genius . Via
posted by wheelieman at 6:46 AM PST - 25 comments

"We lied in the morning, and we lied in the evening," ... "Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. You can't show me any significant government measure that we can be proud of, other than, in the end, we managed to drag the government back from the brink." 150 injured in rioting. brought about by the leak of a taped speech by Ferenc Gyurcsány wikipedia
posted by handee at 3:59 AM PST - 23 comments

Graffiti on Girls (NSFW)
posted by srboisvert at 2:55 AM PST - 111 comments

Popular Mechanics now has a podcast You have to look for it, but it's there. And the content might surprise you.
posted by persona non grata at 12:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Real Time Rome, the MIT SENSEable City Lab’s contribution to the 2006 Venice Biennale, aggregated data from cell phones, buses and taxis in Rome to better understand urban dynamics in real time. via information aesthetics
posted by signal at 10:30 PM PST - 4 comments

Are fantasy chess leagues too manly for you? Try on the MUSCLE FANTASY LEAGUE for size!
Now with more meat!
posted by loquacious at 9:34 PM PST - 12 comments

Let The Fun Begin! U.S. uploads anti-drug videos to YouTube, hilarity sure to ensue. [look who they popped]
posted by taosbat at 8:51 PM PST - 79 comments

This old post aboutknitted brains got me thinking, they'd be a delicious treat for some knitted zombies, like the cast of Dawn of the Dead (or Shaun of the Dead). For those of you non-zombie *but still made of wool* types, there's this fine selection of knitted foods.
posted by jonson at 8:36 PM PST - 13 comments

A-Team Stands for Anarcho-Capitalism
posted by MetaMonkey at 6:29 PM PST - 34 comments

Elephant sanctuary. Where do the old, sick and needy elephants go after outliving their “usefulness” in the US? Hohenwald, Tennessee is home to 2700 acres given over to Asian and African elephants. There are some pretty heart wrenching stories in their newsletter (pdf). This is the same state that hung an elephant in 1916 (mefi post). (elephant cam at the sanctuary)
posted by edgeways at 3:22 PM PST - 29 comments

The Amtrak photo gallery. Photos ranging from the familiar to the unusual to "What the heck is that thing?", more than 6,000 photos spanning over 30 years of Amtrak equipment & stations.
posted by drstein at 2:30 PM PST - 49 comments

Free Movies, Documentaries, Cartoons, TV-Shows, Music & Comedy - 100% handpicked content chosen to inform, educate, shock and entertain you. Most of the old films and cartoons are in public domain: "when a work's copyright or patent restrictions expire, it enters the public domain and may be used by anyone for any purpose." The newer media is probably not in public domain, they are just freely available for some unknown reason. Tomorrow they could be gone.
posted by crunchland at 2:21 PM PST - 19 comments

JPG, an online/offline photo magazine "for photographers like us who fall somewhere in between the strict definitions of 'amateur' and 'professional,'" launches today. The impresario of JPG is Derek Powazek, the author of Design for Community, who has a long history of building interesting Web-based community sites, including the personal-storytelling site Fray.com (currently on hiatus). The co-founder of JPG, Powazek's wife Heather Champ, created the haunting Mirror Project.
posted by digaman at 2:15 PM PST - 24 comments

The Matrix - Muppet Version. (youtube)
posted by triv at 1:57 PM PST - 32 comments

An Analysis of 20,000 Myspace Passwords
posted by matkline at 1:50 PM PST - 41 comments

Pre-marital sex! Eastern religious influences! Nods to Darwinian evolution! Spitefulness! In a world where rock music is poised to corrupt the souls of young America, the music review section of Plugged In Online (developed by Focus on the Family) promises to evaluate music not by melody, rhythm, beat or sound, but by the spirit of Colossians 2:8: "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."
posted by apple scruff at 12:46 PM PST - 69 comments

The Oz Library: a (almost) complete readable online library of OZ magazines [previously]
posted by brundlefly at 12:27 PM PST - 8 comments

Garbage of New York City - litter that is collected, packaged up in a neat plastic box, and then sold for $50 a pop.
posted by Orange Goblin at 12:07 PM PST - 35 comments

Paradise Lost: Greed, Sex Slavery, Forced Abortions and Right-Wing Moralists. Saipan is not a pleasant place to live or work.
posted by chunking express at 11:23 AM PST - 40 comments

The Photos of David Burnett - Come for the Aftermath of Katrina, stay for The Measures of Time, the Beaches of Normandy, Too Close!, and more. His photos stretching back over 35 years have earned him most if not all of photojournalism's top awards.
posted by ewagoner at 11:22 AM PST - 6 comments

"Not knowing may kill us." Seed Magazine asks why the DSCOVR climate satelite (constructed for a paltry $100 million) is just sitting in a storage warehouse collecting dust when several nations outside the US are offering to launch the thing on their own dime.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:53 AM PST - 26 comments

I Do Nothing All Day - The guys at idonothingallday.com (perhaps NSFW) do a great job of capturing the simple act of admiring a beautiful woman passing you by while walking around on the streets of NYC. Some of the smiles can really lighten up your day. My particular favorites here, and here. Most of the videos are embedded Quicktime with a few recent Flash videos.
posted by Big Mike at 10:26 AM PST - 155 comments

Holy Cow! The disk-based magazine LoadStar is still being published! If you haven't heard of this venerable magazine before, you'll know its platform -- the Commodore 64. The magazine publishes monthly software collections and still delivers via disk though now also delivers via email and makes several nods to the fact that y'all might not actually own the hardware any longer. Loadstar is also notable for it's early promotion of Quantum Link, the predecessor to a service you might be somewhat familiar with.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 9:10 AM PST - 26 comments

John Hoagland was the legendary war (warning: GRAPHIC) photographer who was killed in El Salvador in 1984 (his last six frames are a record of his own death). He was 36. Now his son, war photographer Eros Hoagland, has a gallery show in New York: "Tijuana". (via)
posted by matteo at 8:39 AM PST - 15 comments

Victorian Workhouses
I sometimes look up at the bit of blue sky
High over my head, with a tear in my eye.
Surrounded by walls that are too high to climb,
Confined like a felon without any crime...
posted by Miko at 7:44 AM PST - 14 comments

The Slimming Camera.
posted by longdaysjourney at 4:33 AM PST - 99 comments

Read the last statements of executed Texas death row inmates. Texas now publishes the last statements online in a extremely well organised database. Search through offender name, offender information (scanned OCR with pics and crime description). If that's a bit too heavy, why not just browse through some last meals on death row?
posted by Funmonkey1 at 2:02 AM PST - 135 comments

Most everybody's asleep in Grover's Corners. There are a few lights on: Shorty Hawkins, down at the depot, has just watched the Albany train go by. And at the livery stable somebody's setting up late and talking. -- Yes, it's clearing up. There are the stars - doing their old, old crisscross journeys in the sky. Scholars haven't settled the matter yet, but they seem to think there are no living beings up there. Just chalk... or fire. Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. The strain's so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest. Hm... Eleven o'clock in Grover's Corners. -- You get a good rest, too. Good night.
posted by orthogonality at 2:00 AM PST - 20 comments

Meditations on: the poetic and profane; on silence; death; catastrophe; Cage — and yet more strangeness and beauty from David Ralph Lichtensteiger's travels within the world of 20th C. avant garde music and postmodernism.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:46 PM PST - 2 comments

Mike Patton is not God.
posted by StopMakingSense at 11:30 PM PST - 40 comments

we've all heard the mathowie song.. but now hes got a video too!
posted by petsounds at 9:35 PM PST - 71 comments

Attention Tolkien Fans: if this obscure recording of JRR reading (and signing) The Lord of The Rings doesn't quench your lust for all things Middle Earth, then perhaps you should consider buying a home in The Shire, a new real estate development in Bend Oregon (which oddly seems to not feature Hobbit holes, but rather looks instead like Bree, the human village nearest the Shire).
posted by jonson at 7:51 PM PST - 26 comments

The Seismic Monitor is a map of recent earthquake activity. Earthquakes that have occurred in the last two weeks are depicted as circles with diameters corresponding to their magnitudes. You can click the map to zoom in on regions, and you can click the represented earthquakes to see information about them.
posted by owhydididoit at 6:21 PM PST - 9 comments

SWFRoads is one of the coolest flash games I've seen in a while.
posted by delmoi at 5:56 PM PST - 20 comments

The folks behind Bar Mitzvah Disco (which documented the "potent cocktails of ritual, acne, insecurity, and hormones" -- previously discussed) have a new project: Camp, Camp. They seek to document the American summer camp experience of the '70s and '80s, just as two new documentaries of the camping experience hit theaters in North America: Summer Camp! and Jesus Camp (previously discussed 1, 2).
posted by ericb at 5:44 PM PST - 7 comments

US federal income taxes at work. A 2007 version is now available. [previously]
posted by tellurian at 5:12 PM PST - 37 comments

Interesting gallery of images people have made using a program called zBrush. (some images nsfw)
posted by crunchland at 1:45 PM PST - 24 comments

New Yorker in Haiku. Every week.
posted by mabelstreet at 1:02 PM PST - 18 comments

A fair salty lesson in polishing up yer buccaneer's tongue. (via digg.) Two days hence is international Talk Like a Pirate Day. Plug in your pirate keyboard, cut out yer favorite pirate maskie and prepare for a day full of wenches, grog and keelhaulin. Harrr. Previously 1, 2
posted by isopraxis at 11:41 AM PST - 35 comments

James Frey, in his first interview since the whole I-sold-a-memoir-about-my-non-existent-life flap and extremely public Oprah smackdown. (previously mentioned in various posts)
posted by nevercalm at 11:24 AM PST - 56 comments

Hippopotamouse - authentic works of victorian surrealism
posted by MetaMonkey at 9:37 AM PST - 24 comments

President Bush is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming, senior Washington sources say.
posted by stbalbach at 9:18 AM PST - 78 comments

Why your horse should go barefoot The single most convincing thing for me was to see a thermograph of a horse's feet - three of which were without shoes and one which was shod.
posted by Lanark at 8:49 AM PST - 59 comments

Dinner with hippos. Richard Baron Cohen (not, as far as I can tell, this guy), inspired by memories of this book, commissioned a dinner service from a pattern designed for Catherine the Great, and hired a photographer who wrote this blog as she traveled the world shooting hippos.
posted by casarkos at 7:55 AM PST - 13 comments

"Be a philosopher, but amid all your philosophy be still a man"- David Hume
posted by Rufus T. Firefly at 5:00 AM PST - 35 comments

Satire [M]y father, temperamentally a gentle person, is often filled with rage. The news does this to him . . . . I have found a way not to be angry at all. I have taken shelter in the ridiculous.
posted by caddis at 8:11 PM PST - 31 comments

Vogue Picture Records, 1946-1947 These images reflect post-World War II attitudes and optimism. via
posted by hortense at 7:48 PM PST - 13 comments

PLOrk is the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, a group of students each wielding a laptop synthesizing multiple instruments. PLOrk makes recording of concerts and on-air performances available online.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:43 PM PST - 3 comments

Meet George -- 39, single, quirky sense of humour, looking for friends to chat with online. Last year, he won the Loebner Prize, to bots who can most successfully pass the Turing Test. More here from BBC. How long before we have our own Mefibots?
posted by amberglow at 5:58 PM PST - 48 comments

Friendster awarded patent on social networking.
posted by delmoi at 3:40 PM PST - 45 comments

How to make pizza. Jeff Varasano has finished his recipe, and his page now includes everything you need to know about making a real pizza.
posted by rxrfrx at 3:12 PM PST - 69 comments

Wikipedia gets forked.
posted by bingo at 2:31 PM PST - 101 comments

Members of Congress are thus on notice that minimum due process guarantees under customary international law must not be denied when Congress attempts to articulate what forms of procedure a military commission should adopt.... Such denials are war crimes.

Can a vote be a war crime?
posted by orthogonality at 2:24 PM PST - 34 comments

In the 1960s, as a response to the Comics Code Authority's attempt to sanitize comic books, Warren Publishing^ created a series of Graphic Magazine style horror books (using the "see, they're MAGAZINES, not comics, so that's why it's okay" defense), picking up the gauntlet from EC's Tales of the Crypt & other 50's era horror comics. The magazines, Creepy (and later) Eerie & Vampirella were rife with sex & gore, and featured full color well illustrated front covers by fantasy artists like Frank ("Conan") Frazetta & H.R. ("Alien") Giger. The Warren Magazine Collection Site (warning: annoying non-skippable flash intro) has put the entire catalog of cover art from the full run of all three magazines online. Skip the flash intro, and go straight to the galleries: Creepy, Eerie & Vampirella.
posted by jonson at 1:37 PM PST - 13 comments

A Pasadena Church is being investigated for preaching an anti-war sermon. And methinks, would it have had no trouble at all if it was pro-war, instead?
posted by paladin at 1:10 PM PST - 36 comments

"I'm not here for the Iraqis. I'm here for George Bush." How the reconstruction of Iraq was bungled by inexperienced staffers and officials who passed the GOP's loyalty test -- including their views on Roe v. Wade. A WashPost excerpt from Rajiv Chandrasekaran's new exposé Imperial Life in the Emerald City. (Corruption in Iraq previously discussed here.)
posted by digaman at 12:22 PM PST - 57 comments

Drugs at music festivals are nothing new. Sometimes this results in comically bad journalism and sometimes the results are not so funny. At the Wakarusa Music Festival this past year police used new, creepy tools pursue drug dealers on the Festival grounds in an attempt to seperate the drugs from the music.
posted by aburd at 12:09 PM PST - 28 comments

In 1961, on the Martha White Show, seven year-old mandolin prodigy Ricky Skaggs performs two songs with Flatt & Scruggs. "Ruby" and "Foggy Mountain Special". [both songs direct to youtube]
posted by kosem at 11:59 AM PST - 14 comments

Building with the Intermodal Steel Building Unit: It's cheaper for overseas shippers to dump the containers in the United States rather than return them to their place of origin. Tampa Armature Works with St. Petersburg Neighborhood Housing Services Inc. have started recycling them into affordable, hurricane-resistant housing in St. Petersburg, Florida. Bob Vila was there to document it (flash video). Previously on MetaFilter, a brief history of the steel boxes.
posted by SteveInMaine at 11:14 AM PST - 19 comments

The Chickencar. Chickencar sightings. Chickencar Recovery Effort. Chickencar in days past? See also Artcar and Legocar.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:56 AM PST - 12 comments

Have an annoying coworker? This just might be a solution...
posted by konolia at 9:22 AM PST - 51 comments

Planning a jump to Barnard's Star? Making the Kessel Run in 11 parsecs? You'll need maps. Also available in a solid state format from Bathsheba Sculpture. (Previously)
posted by loquacious at 8:16 AM PST - 11 comments

Currie Ballard, a historian in Oklahoma, has just made what he calls “the find of a lifetime”—33 cans of motion picture film dating from the 1920s that reveal the daily lives of some remarkably successful black communities.

A Find of a Lifetime
Twelve different short excerpts of the film are linked
posted by y2karl at 7:53 AM PST - 20 comments

St Custard's is an English preparatory school set in bracing downland country. Find out more about its teachers, the headmaster and his predecessors, the discipline, and its star pupil Nigel Molesworth. As a bonus you can find out more about how Kennedy captured the gerund and led it into captivity. If you're still confused, click here, here and here for the background to Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle's satire on a certain part of 1950s England.
posted by greycap at 6:01 AM PST - 17 comments

Fed up with the quality of the food on offer at a Yorkshire school, concerned mothers have taken matters into their own hands
posted by Flashman at 1:42 AM PST - 49 comments

Would you like a little head from Tom Cruise? Drew Barrymore? Brad Pitt? Lou Costello? Faces of Fame can help you... lifemasks from dozens and dozens of famous people.
posted by crunchland at 8:48 PM PST - 42 comments

Estonian hobbyists find WW2 Russian tank in a bog. And it runs. (via Linkfilter)
posted by LarryC at 8:18 PM PST - 50 comments

Star Trek, upgraded. The Trek Enhanced project (previously discussed here) is now a reality. CBS has remastered the show for broadcast with digital enhancements to both visual effects and sound. Daren Dochterman (of the original project) offers his commentary here.
posted by O9scar at 8:11 PM PST - 38 comments

The Institute for Figuring presents the Crocheted Hyperbolic Coral Reef Project and Hyperbolic Crocheted Cacti and Kelp (more at this flickr gallery). If you secretly spend your evenings crocheting mathematical models, help build the coral reef or send a photo of your other creations to The People's Hyperbolic Gallery. (via Wonderland)
posted by madamjujujive at 6:28 PM PST - 11 comments

An American troubadour pays tribute with a Steve Irwin death song, while the Australians blokes insist that stingrays must pay!!!
posted by jonp72 at 4:16 PM PST - 28 comments

Tabblo looks pretty cool. It will integrate with Flickr photos (or upload your own) and let you make a collage-style poster that can be had for $20. Very web 2.0-ish, but seems to be well executed. This could be an easy way to make a poster of album art? (via Lifehacker, via Techcrunch).
posted by rossination at 2:28 PM PST - 20 comments

The 2006 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest Winner Is...
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 2:13 PM PST - 43 comments

Tuesday was all about R.E.M. at the Fabulous 40 Watt in Athens, GA. Local musicians came together to celebrate a benefit CD release, a new CD/2CD/DVD release of R.E.M.'s early years, and R.E.M.'s induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. The Elephant Six Collective were there (darned near all of them) performing as The Observatory. Patterson Hood played, as did Five-Eight. And to start the show out right, R.E.M. themselves (even my fellow farmer Bill Berry) took to the stage. People in the audience (myself included) were feeling fine.
posted by ewagoner at 1:59 PM PST - 56 comments

Year of the Monkey. In the wake of yesterday's Nintendo Wii release information, take a look back at the birth of the company's flagship characters, Mario and Donkey Kong, who turned 25 last month. Play the classic online or check out the Donkey Kong Board Game while listening to "Kong in Concert."
posted by Otis at 11:40 AM PST - 16 comments

Flash Friday Get the nice shiny red car out of this garage so that you can go for a ride. (game)
posted by caddis at 11:10 AM PST - 60 comments

Photographs By Francesca Woodman. (nsfw)
posted by sgt.serenity at 11:04 AM PST - 57 comments

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry recreated to scale using 526,000 matchsticks is the latest model being constructed over at Matchstick Marvels.
posted by jonson at 10:42 AM PST - 15 comments

NewCROP index part of the Center for New Crops & Plant Products, at Purdue University is an amazing collection of commercial plant information. From Macadamia nuts and qinghao to Tumbleweed and Sweetgrass a broad range of plants are detailed. The information that is included for each ranges from a single paragraph for Quackgrass to dozens of internal and external links for Soybeans. Crops are listed both alphabetically by genus and common name. Warning: Web .95 navigation
posted by Mitheral at 10:32 AM PST - 5 comments

"My cancers are so bad that I think I've arrived at the end of the road. What a pity. I would like to live not only because I love life so much, but because I'd like to see the result of the trial. I do think I will be found guilty." -Oriana Fallaci
posted by felix betachat at 9:35 AM PST - 47 comments

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) have launched an interesting campaign to bring more fuel efficient vehicles to our streets.
posted by toddst at 9:26 AM PST - 18 comments

That sounds true... Blufr (from Answers.com) tests you knowledge by mixing real factoids with made-up trivia. And it ends with an "r" so it must be Web 2.0!
posted by GuyZero at 8:54 AM PST - 22 comments

The Trade Surplus and the Olive Tree The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has seen its loan portfolio drop 73 per cent since 2003. Nobody seems to be defaulting on their loans lately, and there hasn't been a big bailout since 2001. The IMF's summit this week in Singapore will look at this issue and how to better the world balance of trade betweed the developing world and the industrial economies of the west. But is there really a place (warning: PDF) for the IMF in the trade agreements between China and the US?
posted by parmanparman at 8:25 AM PST - 7 comments

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations adopted a bipartisan resolution to ask the Japanese government to formally apologize for sexually enslaving up to 200,000 "comfort women" in Imperial brothels during its colonial occupation of Asia from 1932 through the end of World War II. Many were tortured and raped, and only about 30% survived WWII. Japan has stated repeatedly that even though the brothels were established by military policy, the imperial government was not directly involved in operating them. Taking responsibility would be an admission that they committed war crimes -- slavery and trafficking in women and children -- and could give victims a legal basis to sue for reparations.

H Res. 759 does not ask Japan to provide reparations, but it does push them to unambiguously acknowledge what happened and educate future generations, (full text) rather than continue the current practice of denying what really happened. Previously on MeFi.
posted by zarq at 8:18 AM PST - 56 comments

Breathing Earth. A map of the world showing a real-time simulation of the CO2 emissions level of every country in the world, as well as each countries birth and death rates.
posted by stbalbach at 6:50 AM PST - 24 comments

Earlier this year, the U.S. Army awarded one of its favored defense contractors, Raytheon, a $70 million contract to develop a new system to combat rocket-propelled grenades, which have killed nearly 40 Americans in Afghanistan and more than 130 in Iraq. Raytheon’s “Quick Kill” solution — which the Army concedes will not be fielded before 2011 at the earliest — won out over Trophy, the Israeli system championed by the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation.
posted by prostyle at 6:44 AM PST - 44 comments

One link political newsfilter. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne says non-lethal weapons should be tested on US crowds first. Riots dont ensue.
posted by wilful at 4:58 AM PST - 53 comments

Google Image Labler game You and a random partner try to pick tags for random images. If any tags match up, you both get points.
posted by delmoi at 7:35 PM PST - 44 comments

Coffee, anyone? PDF found here Everyone needs that nice pick-me-up in the morning, after all. Don't worry - have a nice espesso!
posted by lalochezia at 4:59 PM PST - 55 comments

. (embedded QT, via Ursi)
posted by Substrata at 4:56 PM PST - 49 comments

Choose a (public domain) book and Daily Lit will e-mail it to you bit-by-bit every day. Finally, War and Peace delivered to your inbox in only 675 bite-sized pieces. [via LH]
posted by camcgee at 3:57 PM PST - 15 comments

Studying obedience and conformity: The Stanford Prison Experiment has been discussed many times before (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and has been made into a number of movies. Now you can watch the incredible review film made by the experimenter, with extensive documentary footage, post-experiment interviews and commentary: The Stanford Prison Experiment. [google video, 50 mins]
posted by MetaMonkey at 3:34 PM PST - 26 comments

It's better that n guilty men go free than one innocent man go free: a historical study.
posted by apathy0o0 at 3:21 PM PST - 28 comments

The 0.0 experiment Innominate Nightmare: One man, one shuttle, alone in the unsecured places of a virtual universe.
posted by Sparx at 3:07 PM PST - 13 comments

The diary of 17 year old Alvin McDonald is a fascinating primary document about the exploration of Wind Cave. Like Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave, Alvin mapped and named many of the rooms in the cave. He died of Typhoid fever at the age of 20.
posted by cosmicbandito at 1:55 PM PST - 11 comments

Why is it that crazy guys always have badly-designed web sites?
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:33 PM PST - 61 comments

Oops! A mud eruption probably triggered by oil exploration has been making thousands of Indonesians' lives miserable since May.
posted by thirteenkiller at 1:26 PM PST - 20 comments

Artur J's Annotated Lyrics of Bob Dylans Love and Theft has expanded and now features Annotated lyrics for Street Legal, Knocked Out Loaded, Oh, Mercy and Modern Times. And he is already on top of Dylan's quotes of Henry Timrod on the new album. On a related tip, someone waved a lawyer at Eyolf Østrem, so he removed all his tabs from his Dylan tablature site, My Back Pages. But, fortunately there are some mirrors and the blog of this one has a tab page for Modern Times already.
posted by y2karl at 1:02 PM PST - 13 comments

Barrack Obama is being urged by former political opponent Dan Hynes to run for president in '08 in a most eloquent open letter.
posted by sourbrew at 12:45 PM PST - 110 comments

Distance Learning by Eric Morin. Background on the short film. (QT instead of IFilm)
posted by MarkO at 12:12 PM PST - 3 comments

Not Another Middle East post. Dream of circling the globe on two wheels? Or three maybe? Don't think you are the first. Because you aren't. No, really, even a Jedi heroin addict has done it.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 12:07 PM PST - 6 comments

The Conflux Festival brings together mapmakers, urban adventurers, and performers to "investigate the physical and psychological landscapes of cities," NYC in this case. Tunnels and shortcuts, turning city sound samples into music, guerilla radio on unused FM frequencies, and a nighttime game of pursuit. My personal favorite is tide-propelled commuting on the Tide and Current Taxi. Via Flavorpill.
posted by salvia at 11:29 AM PST - 7 comments

UCLA's Awaken A Capella does some strange, beautiful things with the power of combined human voices. From Ave Maria to Mr Roboto, their oeuvre spans the spectrum. More clips, including Like a Prayer and Walk Like an Egyptian, available on their MySpace page. Their version of Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek," available through KCRW's daily podcast, is sublime.
posted by gottabefunky at 11:17 AM PST - 42 comments

The Ganzfeld Experiment. Is it evidence for the existence of psi abilities? Is it sloppy experimental practice? Philosopher and game designer Chris Bateman suggests that it might be most significant for what it reveals about the biases of the scientific community.
posted by Iridic at 11:17 AM PST - 73 comments

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine. These voting machines are even more broken than you think. Ars Technia has posted nice summary of this article. The research was done in part by Professor Ed Felten who writes for the Freedom to Tinker web site, which is well worth reading.
posted by chunking express at 10:36 AM PST - 48 comments

Extracts from the journals of Susan Sontag dating from the 1950s and 1960s were published in this morning's Guardian G2.
posted by nthdegx at 10:13 AM PST - 9 comments

There are so many great old vinyl rarities being shared @ Scar Stuff, it's hard to pick a favorite. But for me, the front runners are Count Chocula & Frankenberry's Monsters Go Disco & this outrageous 1971 sex record, Wife Swapping Swingers Party. It's like obscure sampler's paradise.
posted by jonson at 10:07 AM PST - 13 comments

No one believes me when I told them that the swarms of robot cockroaches are out to get me.
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:53 AM PST - 20 comments

Veritas Airways , the airline that tells it like it is.
The Economist asks, "In-flight announcements are not entirely truthful. What might an honest one sound like?"
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:44 AM PST - 51 comments

Alex Ramsey's journal gives an account of his journey westward to join the 1849 Gold Rush, a laborious trek of no more than twenty-five miles a day which ended in illness and disappointment. "I am now convinced that I done very wrong in coming here with the hope of bettering my pecuniary condition alone and I now declare and humbly ask God to enable me to perform my promise that if I am again permitted to return to a land of peace and quietude, that I will strive to be content." From the Wyoming State Archives' Document Photo Gallery.
posted by Miko at 9:24 AM PST - 16 comments

The misuse of language [pdf] has been embraced by our leadership. This heavily documented report provides tangible examples of the various redefinitions used in modern America.
posted by mulligan at 8:36 AM PST - 25 comments

The Master Plan. For the new theorists of jihad, Al Qaeda is just the beginning.
posted by semmi at 8:08 AM PST - 37 comments

Stains on paper.
posted by dead_ at 7:38 AM PST - 15 comments

This month, the Vancouver International Film Festival will screen the legendary Jacques Rivette film, Out 1: Noli Me Tangere, for the first time ever in North America. At approximately 750 minutes long, the work is the fourth longest film ever commercially released. A Holy Grail for cinephiles, the film was finally dug out of the vaults again for a rare British Film Institute screening, where New York film critic Dennis Lim made a pilgrimage to see it. Long championed by Jonathan Rosenbaum, the film finally makes its American debut at a complete Jacques Rivette retrospective at the American Museum of the Moving Image this November.
posted by jonp72 at 7:25 AM PST - 7 comments

The Demure du Chaos (french language) in Lyon looks like something in between a junkyard, a museum, a work of modern art, a manufactured tourist attraction and a black hole of attention grabbin' for his allegedly wealthy, outofordinary owner ; who just got a €200000 fine from a Lyon court for violating town planning laws ( here a direct link to a photoset of DdC). How could a neighbor possibly be pissed by that ?
posted by elpapacito at 6:54 AM PST - 8 comments

Bad News: (pdf) In the continuing degredation of Pluto, the former planet has been assigned a number establishing it among the ranks of bitty rocks dwarf planets, so now we have the name of 134340 Pluto. In good news, 2003 UB₃₁₃ is now 136199 Eris. Commence hailing!
posted by eriko at 6:01 AM PST - 46 comments

Nineteen are wounded and two dead (including the suspected assailant) after a shooting rampage at Montreal's Dawson College (a CEGEP). The suspect, Kimveer Gill, has a vampirefreaks.com (link goes to Google cache) page, which is accompanied by pics of him posing with firearms. As with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine infamy, there were signs. At least, in retrospect. Could this tragedy have been prevented?
posted by Ricky_gr10 at 5:54 AM PST - 153 comments

"Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth." Ann Richards, former democratic governor of Texas, has passed away from esophageal cancer. She was 73.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:37 AM PST - 119 comments

Architectures of Control in Design. A blog examining product designs intended to restrict or enforce behavior. In the built environment, we see speed bumps and roundabouts with intentionally obscured visibility; in the digital environment, we see various species of DRM and trusted computing; and in other commerical products, we see car hoods only openable by licensed dealers, printer cartridges for only one sort of printer, and a set of shoes for children which detects the amount of steps they take in a day and translates that activity into the amount of TV they may watch. The control may be for economic reasons, for reasons of safety, or even simply to enforce social nicety - and for each of these reasons are the implications worth regarding . [via the excellent things]
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:44 AM PST - 27 comments

Evil Villain Now Hiring I was looking for jobs this morning on craigslist, when I found this unique job opportunity. I have to say though I had no idea there were hollowed out active volcanoes in Maine.
posted by jackdirt at 4:23 AM PST - 34 comments

'Drastic' shrinkage in Arctic ice: 'The extent of "perennial" ice - thick ice which remains all year round - declined by 14%, losing an area the size of Pakistan or Turkey.'
posted by The God Complex at 4:16 AM PST - 24 comments

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the newest movie from Ali G creator Sacha Baron Cohen. Unfortunately, it seems to have sparked an honest-to-God diplomatic incident.
posted by EarBucket at 3:07 AM PST - 51 comments

When worlds collide: King Mswati III of Swaziland chooses his thirteenth wife at the Umhlanga, a Zulu reed-dancing ceremony [NSFW, tame]. The BBC reports on the story, but then realise US networks they syndicate to might be fined due to FCC regulations on nudity. Richard Porter, editor of BBC World, explains more in his blog.
posted by randomination at 2:28 AM PST - 20 comments

A good book is always a joy, and a good, free online book about The Beatles' Revolver album (PDF) is a real treat for fans of the Moptops at thier most transitional. Paul Ingles has a bunch of audio interviews to peruse. Somehow, everything was just right.
posted by maryh at 2:07 AM PST - 4 comments

Yes, you can tape bacon to a cat.
posted by loquacious at 1:12 AM PST - 61 comments

A flash beer ad. Not great beer, but a very flash and dancing ad. (Previously featured, presumably by the same agency.)
posted by wilful at 12:25 AM PST - 16 comments

Images of Atlantic City Boardwalk from R.C. Maxwell. Photographs taken to give client's an idea of the traffic that would see their billboards, provide a record of the people who have thronged to the boardwalk since the early 1900's.
posted by tellurian at 11:45 PM PST - 8 comments

Bennie Smith the St. Louis electric blues legend has died at age 72.
posted by muddylemon at 11:04 PM PST - 5 comments

Dr. Crippen. He poisoned his wife, buried her in the basement, and then escaped with his female lover disguised as man and son aboard a ship. Then there was Patrick Mahon, who chopped up his mistress and stashed her in a trunk at Waterloo Station, among other places. The connection between these two men? Aside from addressing the problem of how to dispose of a body, they inspired Rear Window.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:43 PM PST - 10 comments

today I learned (learnt?) how to exercise while sitting at my computer, keep an open mind, have a conversation, taste dark chocolate, give foot massages and draw a duck. what did you learn?
posted by petsounds at 8:12 PM PST - 28 comments

Clara the rhinoceros. Hansken the elephant. Monster from the deep. Prints from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam [previously].
posted by tellurian at 7:54 PM PST - 7 comments

It took 1291 days, rather than 102 minutes, but as of today the US death toll in Iraq has exceeded the number of lives lost during 9/11. Of course, on the Iraqi side, things are far worse.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 7:39 PM PST - 51 comments

The Net Democracy Guide contains a lot of neat information regarding political activity online. Whether you're a Freeper or prefer DU, this site discusses a lot of the legal formalities regarding political activity online and who is and is not subject to campaign finance laws. via
posted by Doohickie at 7:30 PM PST - 1 comment

Little People is a London street art project featuring tiny statues of people acting out the daily chores of full sized people (tourists, beggars, daydreamers, etc). Reminiscent of crash bonsai, or better yet the tiny food dwelling characters found @ minimiam.
posted by jonson at 7:10 PM PST - 8 comments

Have you played Robotron today?
posted by 6am at 4:36 PM PST - 41 comments

The LoTR musical needs Hobbits of a certain stature. What stature is that, budding thespians might ask? Well, smoot-height, of course! (Actually, 5'7" — or 170 cm — is the maximum height a would-be Frodo or Bilbo could be.) Another requirement is the ability to sing two songs ... and hairy appendages wouldn't hurt. So start knitting those foot-merkins! Auditions: 18 September, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Catherine St (tube stop: Covent Garden).
posted by rob511 at 2:53 PM PST - 25 comments

Seattle is proud of the public policy success of I-75, the marijuana enforcement deprioritization inititative. I-75 has been followed by similar local intiatives across the Western US, such as Oakland's Measure Z and Denver's I-100 (sponsored by SAFER). These grassroots initiatives presumably already rankle the federal government. But the council of San Francisco may be poised to outdo them all with a new proposal that "would commit the city to refusing federal funds intended for the investigation or prosecution of marijuana offenses. It also would prevent a federal agency from commissioning or deputizing a city police officer for assistance in such cases."
posted by owhydididoit at 2:27 PM PST - 40 comments

"The thing is, we're in Central London and we have to be really careful these days. I like your shots though... very nice." Dave Gorman's ever-so-slightly surreal Flickr adventure.
posted by greycap at 1:57 PM PST - 61 comments

Memorializing Hypereality maybe it is not always something 'new' that bears fruit but rather actually understanding something said before. Especially if we don't listen carefully the first time.
posted by hard rain at 1:14 PM PST - 12 comments

Transnistria aka Pridnestrovie is about to hold a referendum on joining Russia. This seems to be a new method for traditional Russian imperialism. South Ossetia and Abakhazia may have their own referenda. Is this a lesson in democracy learned by Russia? Is terrorism a necessary part of the process? Previous MeFi Transnistria mention.
posted by CCBC at 12:51 PM PST - 9 comments

Six n+1 degrees of separation. Stanley Milgram's famous six degrees of separation a fraud? Judith Kleinfeld thinks so. (1, 2)
posted by loquacious at 12:41 PM PST - 50 comments

Conservatives on why the GOP should lose in 2006. Let's quit while we're behind by Christopher Buckley • Bring on Pelosi by Bruce Bartlett • And we thought Clinton had no self-control by Joe Scarborough • Give divided government a chance by William A. Niskanen • Restrain this White House by Bruce Fein • Idéologie has taken over by Jeffrey Hart • The show must not go on by Richard A. Viguerie
posted by orthogonality at 12:17 PM PST - 76 comments

Some people love the Dog Whisperer. Some people think he's a crock (link goes to a discussion of an August 31, 2006 editorial in the New York Times which is archived and can't be read without paying). There has been a fair amount of controversy about his methods. His former publicist is suing him for copyright infringement, among other things. Emily Yoffe rehabilitated her difficult beagle (discussed in her book) using techniques learned by watching his show and reading his book. I myself have used some of the techniques with our recently-acquired pound puppy. What about you? Do you think Cesar's got it, or full of it? Have you ever tried any of his methods on your dogs? What worked, what didn't?
posted by jennaratrix at 12:15 PM PST - 42 comments

Bill Stumpf, Co-Designer of the Aeron Chair, Passes Away at 70 With Don Chadwick, Bill Stumpf designed the Aeron, the first “alternative” office-chair design to become a household name. Stumpf died 30 August 2006 (linked news release is from 5 September)
posted by joeclark at 12:10 PM PST - 24 comments

GAO: Anti-Drug Ads Still Don't Work In 2002 , Drug Czar John Walters admitted that anti-drug advertising was failing and may have tempted more kids to try marijuana. He called for more rigorous testing of the ads. Now, the GAO has released a report showing that drug ads since 2002 have been equally ineffective. Young teens and girls who saw the ads were more likely to try pot. The White House kept the results of their latest study from GAO auditors for over a year, and Walters is now claiming that the testing he commissioned should be discounted because the effects of the campaign can't be measured through testing. The 2007 federal budget proposes $120 million for ONDCP anti-drug advertising.
posted by Amy Phillips at 10:06 AM PST - 67 comments

America's Next Top Picket Line Writers from America's Next Top Model have gone on strike after the Writers Guild of America West began a campaign to unionize reality TV. How many strikes do you know have their own MySpace page, Television without Pity interview, and a model "working it" on the picket line? Ironically, a previous 1988 writers' strike encouraged the current boom in reality TV, as this article argues.
posted by jonp72 at 9:07 AM PST - 19 comments

Logically, the last thing you would think would help a person trapped in a persistent vegetative state is a nervous system is sleeping pill. Illogically, when you do, many of them wake up.
posted by eriko at 8:29 AM PST - 56 comments

Re Your Brains is the music video to a great song (a memo between two businessmen, detailing the fact that one of them is now a zombie and intends to eat the other one's brains) by the much mefi'd Jonathan Coulton; apparently inspired by his "Flickr: the Video", fans are making DIY videos for several of his songs over at the JoCoPro (Jonathan Coulton Project). Two of my favorite non-zombie related ones are The Presidents, a mnemonic for memorizing every U.S. President in order & at least one fact about each, and Code Monkey, detailing the warm secret heart of a Frito loving coder.
posted by jonson at 7:02 PM PST - 17 comments

Mainframe - The Art of the Sale. Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3. Brought to you by 360comedy. It helps to know what a mainframe is, but is not absolutely essential. Enjoy! (Post contains YouTube links)
posted by purephase at 6:52 PM PST - 5 comments

Japanese Surf Versions of Classical Themes
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 6:04 PM PST - 14 comments

What News Corp doesn't want you to know about myspace is that the much of the success of myspace was due to a large successful advertising campaign and it wasn't grass roots at all. They also don't want you to know that Tom Anderson didn't really create the site and that it is more spam 2.0 than anything else. The article is written by a 19 year old web journalist called Trent Lapinski. Has everyone just been had? Does it matter? (via Digg and Valleywag)
posted by sien at 5:26 PM PST - 90 comments

Who will condemn the "mean-spirited" International Astronomical Union for their demotion of Pluto from the planetary roster, causing "psychological harm among some... who question their place in the universe and worry about the instability of universal constants"? The California State Assembly, that's who!
posted by starkeffect at 5:19 PM PST - 26 comments

MC Plus+ [superclass subgenre]
posted by riotgrrl69 at 5:16 PM PST - 28 comments

Things are good.
posted by Melinika at 4:12 PM PST - 27 comments

commercialsihate.com is an old-school site that had me laughing so much that i hyperventilated. does anyone do stuff like this still?
posted by sdn at 3:21 PM PST - 47 comments

Sars still hasn't found Don. Previously.
posted by padraigin at 3:05 PM PST - 2 comments

Some form of PZP may save Australia's capital from a kangaroo invasion. The plan is not without risks, but the main alternative is culling the herd.
posted by owhydididoit at 1:41 PM PST - 33 comments

What I've Learned About U.S. Foriegn Policy is a two-hour video compilation by Frank Dorrel. It consists of ten segments, each relating to CIA operations and US military interventions around the world.
posted by chunking express at 12:59 PM PST - 37 comments

CIA Staff Worried Following on this previous (archived) post, it appears that some CIA staff are concerned the Justice Department might not defend them from charges of torture or human rights violations. " . . . some CIA officers have worried privately that they may have violated international law or domestic criminal statutes."
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:45 PM PST - 25 comments

Not only should we spare a thought to the thousands of ordinary New Yorkers who died needlessly in a day of madness, we should also spare a thought to the thousands of Chileans that perished in Chile under the Pinochet regime...33 years ago, Salvador Allende Gossens, the very first democratically elected socialist head of state in the western hemisphere, was overthrown by the Chilean armed forces, led by Augusto Ugarte Pinochet with CIA support.
posted by tomcosgrave at 12:04 PM PST - 23 comments

September 11th Memorial Jenga.
posted by reklaw at 11:44 AM PST - 59 comments

Baseball Race. "[A]n online application that allows you to view any Major League Baseball season, split by league or division (even wild card races), as an animated, date-by-date race between the various teams you choose."
posted by brain_drain at 11:38 AM PST - 22 comments

I have a plan that will save USA Basketball.
"these are the very kids who could save American basketball. ...Now, am I 100 percent sure this is feasible (or even legal)? No. But do you have a better idea? Because what we're doing now certainly isn't the answer."
posted by thisisdrew at 10:34 AM PST - 35 comments

In 2002 Salon.com ran an article on "forbidden thoughts" about 9/11 that they had heard expressed around them or reported by others. Apparently the response from their viewers was so overwhelming that they ran a second feature based on emails they received. All of which goes to show that while 9/11 united people in thinking about a certain subject, it certainly didn't mean that everyone thought the same thing about that same subject.
posted by clevershark at 8:00 AM PST - 187 comments

The Baylor Religion Survey (PDF) has been released, and - big surprise - Americans are religious. Just how religious? Although nearly a quarter of Americans believe in a "Distant god" - an essentially deist view - only 5.2% consider themselves atheist and 89% subscribe to some kind of organized religion. More stats: There are more evangelical Protestants (33.6%) than mainline Protestants or members of traditionally black churches put together. Of all people affiliated with a religion, 93% are Christian. And those considering themselves biblical literalists are twice as likely to support a pro-military, anti-crime political agenda.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 7:34 AM PST - 42 comments

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. He was a comic actor, who, despite his girth, was capable of acts of astounding physical grace (link goes to tiny Quicktime clips). But what Fatty Arbuckle is best remembered for is scandal. On Labor Day of 1921, Arbuckle hosted a party that ended with the death of an actress, Virginia Rappe. On this day in 1921, Arbuckle was arrested for her rape. Although he was acquitted twice, the event would ruin his career. (Previously.)
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:13 AM PST - 19 comments

Economic Freedom of the World: 2006 Annual Report (Summary [PDF], full table [PDF, p.13]). Winners: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the USA. Losers: Zimbabwe, Myanmar and the Congos. How free are you? And why does it matter anyway? (PDF, HTML)
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 6:34 AM PST - 18 comments

News Sniffer. It's a site dedicated to monitoring news articles and discussion threads at the BBC. For censored comments from BBC news threads: Watch Your Mouth. And now it has implementation that tracks changes in news articles, to see how things are edited: Revisionista. Here's a couple of examples.
posted by gsb at 5:12 AM PST - 5 comments

Slavoj Zizek United 93, WTC movies and 9/11 with some perspective no conspiracy theories here just a bit of philosophising.
posted by hard rain at 4:50 AM PST - 18 comments

"Every man for himself. I was irrationally convinced that if one particle of that sinister cloud managed to touch me I would die."
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:00 AM PST - 46 comments

Savitri Devi Mukherji. Born Maximiani Portas in 1905, this French woman of Greek and English extraction would, in pilgrimages to Palestine and India, experience a series of strange awakenings - that she was a National Socialist, that she was a Hindu, that the two were entwined in the struggle against the Judeo-Christian order, and that Hitler was the living incarnation of Kalki the Destroyer, the final avatar of Vishnu. Known to many as "Hitler's guru," she stood at the forefronts of Hindu nationalism, Nazi mysticism, Holocaust denial, animal rights, and the international Neo-Nazi movement. The Lightning And The Sun, her most famous work, most directly espouses her philosophy, but perhaps the best place to start would be Long-Whiskers And The Two-Legged Goddess, which is her autobiography as filtered through her many cats. Her nephews were Communists; her own mother was active in the French Resistance; and according to some, the daughter would have shot the mother dead for it. The world is not be a better place for the Savitri Devis of the world, but her presence made this world like none other.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:04 PM PST - 22 comments

Attention all precociously edgy kids: Have you bought your costume yet?
Your parents may insist on insist on something a bit tamer...
posted by hermitosis at 7:56 PM PST - 40 comments

The moral terrain of the desert. Mary Austin describes a desert "where the borders of conscience break down... where the boundary of soul and sense is as faint as a train in a sand-storm... [where] the senses are obsessed by the coil of a huge and senseless monotony” -- is that the desert of photographer Richard Misrach? Joan Didion describes a "country so ominous and terrible that to live in it is to live with antimatter, [where] it is difficult to believe that 'the good' is a knowable quantity... [T]here is some sinister hysteria in the air out here tonight” -- is that the desert of photographer Bill Lesch? Possibly the most depressing are these suburban deserts.
posted by salvia at 7:12 PM PST - 7 comments

Pennylicious is a (relatively) new blog, all about money. And yet despite that, it's fascinating. With entries about JSG Boggs, who draws US Currency freehand, or the greatest hobo nickels ever created, or the official currency of Emperor Norton (the only Emperor of the U.S.), among many other subjects, the blog covers a number of topics that may or may not be familiar to readers with a interesting links that even fans of a subject may not have seen.
posted by jonson at 6:58 PM PST - 15 comments

Europa (Earth's Cry, Heaven's Smile, YouTube...)
posted by persona non grata at 6:29 PM PST - 29 comments

Slate's ongoing "Survivalist" series lays out the steps that you can take to prepare for the disasters threatening to snuff out civilization in general (and, apparently, New York City in particular). Find out how to survive nuclear terrorism, an earthquake, a skyscraper collapse, an electronic apocalypse, and global warming.
posted by Iridic at 6:11 PM PST - 21 comments

Stardust@home is now finally working in the search for dust specks from the stardust mission. Previously here and here
posted by scodger at 5:57 PM PST - 9 comments

Alciato's (or Alciati's) Book of Emblems, first published in 1531, began the craze for emblem books. You can see the international scope of the emblem book's popularity by visiting the Emblem Project Utrecht (Dutch love emblems), the English Emblem Books Project, Glasgow University Press Emblem Website (French emblem books), the Bavarian State Library Project (international collection; German-language site), German Emblem Books, and Literatura Emblemática Hispánica (Spanish; utterly bonkers search engine). Bryn Mawr and the University of Iowa have online exhibitions from their collections. See also this scholarly exploration of the emblem book's influence on William Blake. (A different work by Alciati was discussed in this thread.)
posted by thomas j wise at 5:26 PM PST - 7 comments

Last night I saw this short film at the Breckenridge Film Festival which was an inspired and low-key effort at encouraging the two-state solution to The Problem. You can watch the video if you can watch a thirty-minute movie on your computer (I can't), or you can order a free copy to watch and hopefully share.
posted by kozad at 5:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Houseblogs.net is an aggregator of home renovations blogs, created by our own Jeanmari and hubby DIYer. The 340 member blogs range from This Old Crack House to a couple converting a missile silo. Featured stories include the people who found a secret room in their house, and a community section has more good home renovation advice than you could shake a wrecking bar at. A nice place for inspiration and commiseration for owners of older homes.
posted by LarryC at 4:58 PM PST - 14 comments

Mezmerizing videos of Qawwali master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan along with lyrics and translation. More performances at youtube: 1, 2, 3, 4.
posted by kosem at 3:39 PM PST - 24 comments

You deserve a million thank you's .
posted by 31d1 at 3:24 PM PST - 39 comments

Abu Zubaydah's secret interrogation in Thailand. In Thailand, the new C.I.A. team concluded that under standard questioning Mr. Zubaydah was revealing only a small fraction of what he knew, and decided that more aggressive techniques were warranted... The group included an agency consultant schooled in the harsher interrogation procedures to which American special forces are subjected in their training. At one point he told his questioners that (American citizen charged with terrorism-crimes) Jose Padilla was ignorant on the subject of nuclear physics and believed he could separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material. Meanwhile, in "other" news, theBin Laden trail is still cold.
posted by punkbitch at 3:11 PM PST - 16 comments

Cheney Clarifies Iraq, Afghanistan on Meet the Press. For the first time in three years, Cheney appears on Meet the Press. Transcript here. "We’ve never been able to confirm any connection between Iraq and 9/11[,]" but Iraq "...was a state sponsor of terror" and "while they found no stockpiles...[the Duelfer report claimed that] Saddam did in fact have the capability and that as soon as the sanctions were ended—and they were badly eroded—he would be back in business again." "[T]his was the place where, probably, there was a greater prospect of a connection between terrorists on the one hand and a terrorist-sponsoring state and weapons of mass destruction than any place else." "...if we had to do it again, we would do exactly the same thing..."
posted by shivohum at 2:23 PM PST - 71 comments

Lego Dildo
posted by cellphone at 1:24 PM PST - 56 comments

Vernon Ingram, who discovered the molecular cause of sickle cell anemia, has died. Dr. Ingram, a professor and active neuroscientist at MIT, demonstrated that conversion of glutamic acid to valine at position 6 of the ß-chain of human hemoglobin [Note: .pdf of original paper] was the sole abnormality in sickle hemoglobin. This seminal observation, which was based on an early version of 2-D protein electrophoresis, demonstrated that a protein abnormality in which a single amino acid is altered can produce a complex clinical disorder. Linus Pauling said, in response to Ingram's discovery, "“It is astounding that the difference in structure is so small – only about a dozen atoms out of 10,000 in the molecule are different. On such small atomies man’s fate depends!” Often called "The Father of Molecular Biology," Ingram's discovery is part of a remarkable, fascinating, and century long scientific endeavour to understand the biology of sickle cell disease.
posted by scblackman at 1:09 PM PST - 12 comments

Vintage Drug Ads, Spanish Drug Ads, Japanese Psychiatric Drug Ads
posted by MetaMonkey at 12:57 PM PST - 11 comments

Meet the new jailers-- Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad is at the centre of fresh abuse allegations just a week after it was handed over to Iraqi authorities, with claims that inmates are being tortured by their new captors. Mass executions, torture again, etc. How bad is it when the inmates plead for us to come back? (Warning--this second link is graphic evidence of what we did there--NSFW)
posted by amberglow at 12:00 PM PST - 27 comments

The limits of pop music, and Marxist critical theory, by way of the Gang of Four.
posted by jmhodges at 7:36 AM PST - 63 comments

1970s toy commercials. From an era when things were more fun, cool, and fresh. Whether you were a hipster or a genius type, there was some creative and smart toy to be had. Many toys were educational and prepared you for the vicissitudes of adulthood. (YouTube alert!)
posted by madamjujujive at 7:10 AM PST - 44 comments

The Tao Te Ching in dozens of languages and translations, with a lovely side-by-side comparison tool.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:35 AM PST - 19 comments

TimeCube HoloCube. Warning: May contain parabolic mirrors and unlatched electronic components.
posted by loquacious at 1:21 AM PST - 15 comments

In protest. As performance art. Arrested. Molested. Exposed. "Waying". Snowboarding. Picking. Pickling. Disturbing. Caring. And not. No doubt though, always an icon. _{Please add more in comments.}
posted by Kickstart70 at 7:48 PM PST - 43 comments

夜 .....
posted by hama7 at 7:27 PM PST - 74 comments

Louis Moreau Gottschalk - an unjustly forgotten American composer of classical music
posted by Gyan at 5:22 PM PST - 13 comments

This lawsuit was brought to you by the letter W.
posted by Robert Angelo at 1:53 PM PST - 46 comments

"364.4 Smoots plus one ear" is the official length of the MIT bridge between Cambridge and Boston. In 1962, pledges to an MIT fraternity were ordered to measure the bridge using the shortest among them, Oliver R. Smoot, as a measuring stick. Since then, members of the fraternity have repainted the marks on the bridge twice a year. Oliver Smoot's daughter Sherry, eventually went to MIT but was not used to remeasure the bridge since she was shorter than her father. Her brother Stephen, also an MIT student, was too tall. Oliver, of course, was just right. He eventually went from being a unit of measure to controlling units of measure: in 2001 he was chosen to be chairman of ANSI and in 2003 he was selected to be president of ISO.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:25 PM PST - 53 comments

Blogmusik is just what it says it is: a free internet virtual ipod. Search, find, play, save, make playlists. So good I feel like I am missing something.
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 11:22 AM PST - 35 comments

The effectiveness of groups, teamwork, collaboration, and consensus is largely a myth. So why then do we put so much stock in the opinions of many, and so little in the opinion of one?
posted by c:\awesome at 10:35 AM PST - 64 comments

Attention lovers of privacy & salt air! This island, the house on top of it, and the bridge connecting it to the mainland are all on sale for a mere 750,000 pounds.
posted by jonson at 9:55 AM PST - 44 comments

Platonic Realms is an online math academy. It features a searchable encyclopedia with extended articles on things from Cantor's Theorem to Zeno's Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles. You'll also find minitexts, such as "Coping with Math Anxiety" and "The Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher". Last but not least, a searchable math quotes database.
posted by owhydididoit at 7:44 AM PST - 4 comments

How to Create an Aerial Panorama from Google Earth. The Digitally Distributed Environments blog, and others following their tutorial, have created Google Earth panoramas of Belgium, Moscow, Paris, New York, London and the Sydney Olympic Site. They also note Panogames, who use a similar process to create panoramas from videogame worlds. This follows their Frank Lloyd Wright architectural/videogame walkthrough demo using the Half Life 2 engine [mefi thread] following which they appear hard at work formalising a clear method for importing CAD models into Half Life 2 for architectural visualisations.
posted by nthdegx at 7:09 AM PST - 10 comments

Japan in America: the Turn of the Twentieth Century - an exhibit of ads, cartoons, art and other popculture artifacts from the decades leading up to WWI. (image menu is at the bottom of the page)
posted by madamjujujive at 6:37 AM PST - 14 comments

It’s your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and he’s ready to boogie!
posted by cerebus19 at 10:27 PM PST - 27 comments

Senate Releases Pre-War Intel Reports. The two sections of the report released by the Senate intelligence committee are: "Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments" and "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress" (both PDFs). This seems to contradict previous evidence. [Via TPMmuckraker.]
posted by homunculus at 9:06 PM PST - 51 comments

Ragdoll Avalanche II - You against the falling icicles, and your own slow bendiness! (Flash game)
posted by persona non grata at 9:00 PM PST - 22 comments

Ever heard of Andy Martin? Probably not. But have you ever watched Family Guy or King of the Hill, or watched movies such as Spiderman, The Day After Tomorrow, or Monsters, Inc? Andy is on all of them. Trombonist Martin is one of many studio musicians (aka session musicians) in the LA area who are called upon day after day to record the music that we take for granted. Although it may not be the most fulfilling job, it pays the bills, and for someone with a talent as relatively obscure as trombone playing (or clarinet playing, or drumming, or anything else), it's one of the few careers left. Even so, drummer Russ Miller reminds us that studio musicians are rapidly being replaced by synthesizers (Hans Zimmer's score for Gladiator, for instance, uses lots of synths in lieu of real players) and that "we don't have the luxury of just playing our instrument like we used to".
posted by rossination at 7:12 PM PST - 26 comments

Paging Dr. Ronald McDonald and Dr. Pepper. To Cardiology ... stat. Despite the innumerable reports demonstrating an sharp rise in childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes in children, many children's hospitals continue to provide a plethora of unwholesome food and beverage choices. Moreover, these choices often contribute to revenue in most of these hospitals. This has been well-documented in community and academic [BugMeNot] hospitals. Different children's hospitals are awfully good at handing out advice to families. Maybe the hospitals should look in the mirror [note: links to .pdf of study].
posted by scblackman at 5:47 PM PST - 44 comments

One of the stars of the new NFL season will make its debut this Sunday. It's not a player - it's Arizona Cardinal's stadium. It's got a retractable roof, and a movable grass field that can roll out of the facility where it will reside most of the year and get its nourishment, maintenance and grooming. First of its kind in North America. NPR audio piece.
posted by jaimev at 4:30 PM PST - 37 comments

FBI Agent Chris Saviano Stop raping my wife.
posted by tomierna at 4:27 PM PST - 58 comments

Lyrikline: A German site showcasing more than 300 international poets reading their work in 39 different languages.
posted by Iridic at 3:45 PM PST - 7 comments

Multi-link YouTube Post: Communist China vs. Nationalist China, Satan is Real, Recycling 2 (actually submitted as a school project about recycling), Absurdlutely [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 3:36 PM PST - 18 comments

Amazon launched a new video download service today. It claims to be simple to use and features some superb movies. But are Amazon and the other major vendors missing the point? Will consumers pay for legitimate content with severe limitations on use or will they simply find ways of creating their own unrestricted versions?
posted by bobbyelliott at 2:43 PM PST - 37 comments

The evolutionary reason behind senescence^ is one of the great mysteries of biology. Now cancer researchers may have discovered the key to why we age.
posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson at 1:29 PM PST - 57 comments

Magink has built the worlds first billboard using a type of e-ink, similar to the display technology used in the coveted Sony Reader devices - except it is 10'x20' and in full color. Advertisers nirvana and a colorized glimpse of the future of electronic ink devices.
posted by stbalbach at 1:08 PM PST - 28 comments

BioVisions at Harvard University presents, The Inner Life of the Cell (Flash 8 Player). Explanation of what you see (It's meant to be fairly accurate).
posted by semmi at 1:00 PM PST - 27 comments

"You must have shot an awful lot of Legos sir." The Italian Job trailer, done in Legos. It's amateurish and it's YouTube, but it's only 50 seconds and it's really charming if you're a fan of the movie. There's a serialized version of the whole movie (part 1 and part 2). Part 2 is much better because it has the heist and the aftermath. Lorna, Big William and Camp Freddie are miscast, but otherwise it's pretty good.
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:38 PM PST - 14 comments

A Dozen Eccentric Westerns, Ten Neglected Science Fiction Movies, and Ten Overlooked Noirs selected by Jonathan Rosenbaum. A follow-up to an earlier post on offbeat musicals.
posted by jonp72 at 12:07 PM PST - 56 comments

Open Source Physics is a great resource for science eduactors and students alike. Here is a page of great examples that take advantage of OSP.
posted by ozomatli at 11:43 AM PST - 8 comments

"I would like to do better, to be better than I am". He's the French New Wave maverick and Academy Award winner (at 26, for his first short) who, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz -- with considerable personal pain and the admission that "no description, no picture can reveal the true dimension" of what happened in the camps -- made what François Truffaut called "the greatest film ever made", duly censored by French authorities. Four years later he baffled audiences with "the first modern film of sound cinema", shattering the rules of chronology to describe the “anguish of the future”: even if all he ever wanted was "to stop death in its tracks" (French language link), only for one minute. But he is also the unabashed lover of la bande dessinée who learnt English by reading comic books and in the Seventies dreamed (French language link) of making "Spider-Man" into a movie (the Hollywood studios were not convinced), the MGM old-school musical and operetta nut so in love with design that "half of the fashion photography of the past 40 years owes a debt" to him. Now, Alain Resnais' new work, just shown at the Venice Film Festival where his buddy David Lynch was awarded a lifetime achievement Golden Lion, is a French film inspired by an English play with 54 short scenes, music by the X-Files's Mark Snow. (more inside)
posted by matteo at 11:10 AM PST - 20 comments

IBM is laying off people in Burlington, Endicott, Rochester and Austin today. The presumptive reason is Indian outsourcing — some employees have posted that they were asked to train their replacements. Why hasn't this made the news?
posted by ubiquity at 10:37 AM PST - 70 comments

Star Trek is forty today. The basics of the series are well-known, the cultural impact is worldwide, and the letter-writing campaign to get a third season out of the network has spawned thousands of imitators, though only a very few are ever successful. The show has spawned twenty-seven other series and five hundred movies. (Okay, maybe not that many.) Though exhorted by the original series' star to Get a life, the fans of Star Trek -- whether they call themselves Trekkies or Trekkers -- are without a doubt the nutbars inspiration for the joys and insanity of all media fandom which has followed. I am proud to name myself among them. K'Plagh!
posted by tzikeh at 9:57 AM PST - 44 comments

A hoop, to draw the Earth's shadow: illustrating yesterday's partial lunar eclipse with a hoop and some creative camera positioning. Start here and work your way towards the painter. Via Spaceweather. More photos of the eclipse on Flickr.
posted by brownpau at 9:22 AM PST - 4 comments

Friday Flash Fun: Play a Missile Command clone in a somewhat-hidden section of Ryan Adams' redesigned web site. (So this is why he released so many albums last year...)
posted by emelenjr at 8:41 AM PST - 17 comments

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part. It's also the title of the directorial debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, set to begin filming in Summer 2007. He's proven his writing chops and shown us his creative ingenuity with Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but this will mark the first film that will showcase his vision from page to screen. The story centers on an anguished playwright and several women in his life, and is set to star Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michelle Williams.
posted by defenestration at 8:36 AM PST - 39 comments

Famous Divinity School Dropouts
posted by caddis at 7:41 AM PST - 24 comments

America Weakly A RNC-produced fake newspaper from the future under a Democratic Congress. Breaking News: Impeachment Hearings Gavelled In. -- Where do I sign up?!
posted by empath at 7:24 AM PST - 59 comments

ABC agrees to take the lies out of their 9/11 miniseries. previously discussed here
posted by tsarfan at 7:19 AM PST - 104 comments

Andy Baio blows the lid off a disturbing new trend: sex baiting on craigslist. The story is pretty simple: man makes up fake Casual Encounters ad posing as a woman looking for a good time, then he publishes any and all responses in a public forum. All hell breaks loose.
posted by mathowie at 7:17 AM PST - 216 comments

Vegetative Patient 'Communicates' Sort of.
posted by MarshallPoe at 6:49 AM PST - 25 comments

The Votemaster has returned. Electoral-vote.com has been re-launched for the 2006 elections. The major focus is on the Senate but there is also some quick analysis of the hotter House races. For those who missed the phenomenon during the heady days of 2004, here is the Wikipedia article and previous MeFi discussion.
posted by rocketpup at 5:45 AM PST - 40 comments

In case of The Missing Diver Mystery, all is not as it seems...
posted by Acey at 5:40 AM PST - 9 comments

Ferret Clothes.
posted by triv at 4:44 AM PST - 21 comments

It's official. Lonelygirl15 of YouTube fame is fake - an elaborate narrative created via a Hollywood talent agency. More details of how the plot came apart here. Previously discussed here.
posted by zaebiz at 3:04 AM PST - 101 comments

A look at an algorithm Google uses to run large-scale computations in parallel on thousands of cheap PCs: MapReduce. Via Joel on Software.
posted by russilwvong at 12:02 AM PST - 16 comments

In another shock for Australians this week, car racing legend Peter Brock has been killed in a fatal car crash at a race in Western Australia. May He Rest In Peace.
posted by cholly at 10:26 PM PST - 27 comments

In the 1981 film Escape from New York, the entire island of Manhattan had been converted to a self-sufficient, walled off open air prison, devoid of guards & cells. The fiction of the film bears an alarming similarity to the reality of life in San Pedro Prison, a walled off, police-free convict slum in Bolivia's capital city, La Paz. This fascinating/horrifying experiment in criminal justice is the feature of a 2003 eponymous documentary; some of the details include the story of a drug kingpin, unhappy with his cell, who had a second story constructed to allow more breathing room; or the prison soccer team, sponsored by coca-cola, or even the non-prisoner children of the imprisoned, who roam the streets of San Pedro ("At least this way the parents live with their kids, and the family stays together. Outside, they’d have nowhere to live").
posted by jonson at 9:31 PM PST - 24 comments

Louis Savain is the most coherent, articulate and ambitious Internet crank I've found. He's going to fix software, he's out to clean up physics, he's cracked the Da Vinci code, and he's got a discussion forum. Enjoy!
posted by flabdablet at 9:20 PM PST - 21 comments

GridWars 2 is superlative shooty thing for Windows; download here.
posted by riotgrrl69 at 9:20 PM PST - 26 comments

Alabama has many beautiful rivers, but the Cahaba is special. Its biodiversity is impressive. Boasting 131 different fish species, no other river in North America has more species of fish per mile. It's also the longest free-flowing river remaining in Alabama. It is home to a considerable number of rare plants*, including the Cahaba lilly. The proximity of Birmingham has taken a toll, but recovery efforts are underway, and the Cahaba remains popular with river and wildlife enthusiasts. *Page contains embedded quicktime
posted by owhydididoit at 8:51 PM PST - 8 comments

Chiquita Secrets Revealed - On May 3, 1998, the Cincinnati Enquirer published a series of investigative articles on Chiquita's business practices in South America, all in its own pullout section. The stories claimed the company sprayed workers in the field with pesticides and destroyed a village to stop union activity, among other offenses. A few weeks later, the Enquirer ran a huge apology on its front page for three days, and paid the company $10 million, because a reporter illegally accessed Chiquita voicemail in the course of his work. The renouncement became more of a story than the original articles, but one question remains: are the stories true? To this day, the Enquirer refuses to give a straight answer.
posted by brett at 8:37 PM PST - 18 comments

Much of the “jobs of the future” rhetoric surrounding the eagerness to end shop class and get every warm body into college, thence into a cubicle, implicitly assumes that we are heading to a “post-industrial” economy in which everyone will deal only in abstractions. Yet trafficking in abstractions is not the same as thinking...
posted by Kwantsar at 7:53 PM PST - 54 comments

"Himself an agnostic, Rove has masterminded a strategy that has helped to broaden the Republican base beyond its pro-business, anti-government heritage to appeal to devout evangelicals. In a calculated effort to weaken the Democratic base, Rove has engineered plans to use the antiabortion stance to attract Catholics, the anti-gay stance to attract black churchgoers, and the pro-Israel stance to attract Jews." Karl Rove's agnosticism also mentioned here and here (audio).
posted by Brian B. at 6:18 PM PST - 50 comments

You may have never heard of it, but you've damn near certain heard it. The Mellotron (FortuneCity link) is a keyboard instrument; each of its keys triggers a tape with a pre-recorded instrument on it. It was effectively the world's first sample player. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:03 PM PST - 38 comments

In an effort to track down the source of information leaks by Hewlett-Packard Co. insiders, private investigators hired company Chairwoman Patricia Dunn obtained reporters' telephone records illegally. They got the records by impersonating journalists from the Wall Street Journal, CNET.com and other news organizations in a practice known as “pretexting.” The news comes after the departure of HP director Tom Perkins [PDF], a founder of legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in May. Perkins later learned from AT&T that his private records were also illegally obtained. State and federal investigations have been launched.
posted by ericb at 5:30 PM PST - 18 comments

Sonny Rollins, one of the founding tenors of bop and post-bop jazz, is 76 today. Unlike many other jazz giants who passed away well before they ought to have, Sonny is still going strong. Rollins became famous with his record Saxophone Colossus which included, among others, the memorable St. Thomas. Sonny also became known for his ability to craft imaginative, articulate solos while playing with just a bassist and drummer (without the benefit of a chordal instrument such as piano to "flesh out" the harmonies). Happy Birthday, Sonny!
posted by rossination at 4:38 PM PST - 28 comments

Sure, Louis Farrakhan talks about UFOs. And, yes, some people think he had a hand in the death of Malcolm X. And maybe a case can be made that he isn't the most tolerant of men. Be that as it may, he was a suburb calypso singer.
posted by Astro Zombie at 4:10 PM PST - 22 comments

Microcars are cool. (Earlier microcar post )
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:44 PM PST - 39 comments

Thousands of new products and businesses every year need names. The creation of these names, is a business in itself, and is usually a pretty secretive process. But Igor, a naming and branding agency, offers a surprisingly detailed and illuminating primer on the naming game. Igor describes how they do it and who they’ve done it for. Igor’s naming taxonomy charts for various products (including one for the company names of naming companies) help illustrate the research portion of the process. Check out: studies of successful names like Pepperidge Farm’s cookie names, and why AT&T Canada’s name change to Allstream was a bad idea. And don’t miss Igor’s two blogs (metablogged here): Snark Hunting, “all about naming and branding in popular culture” and Wordlab, on “naming and branding issues.” For fun, try Wordlab’s own tongue-in-cheek naming tools, like the Drug-o-matic drug name generator, Name Your Band, and the Morpheme generator.
posted by beagle at 2:43 PM PST - 25 comments

Dealing a blow to meteorologists around the world, the nightly weather forecast at CBS 19, The Eye of East Texas, is delivered, in part, by a dog.
posted by punkfloyd at 1:58 PM PST - 35 comments

Since 2000, at least 40,000 soldiers have deserted the Army--most of them as a result of the Iraq War. 50,000 deserted during Vietnam. How do we compare their statements of moral outrage with those of Siegfried Sassoon? (related)
posted by mattbucher at 1:46 PM PST - 73 comments

Strange Bedfellows: Xavier Von Erck dropped out of college, started a pedophile-hunting vigilante group, and spent months posing as a woman to trick an online enemy to fall in love with him. Meet the new savior of NBC News.
posted by P-Soque at 1:19 PM PST - 68 comments

The Orb, known as one of the principal architects of ambient house, have receded into relative obscurity since the popular heyday of the electronic music movement in the US. Despite changes in the lineup - the group now consists of a duo featuring founding member Dr (Duncan Robert) Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann. Paterson's DJ sets are the stuff of legend and I was pleased as punch that they've just put together a podcast (actually a 50.8mb .zip file containing an mp3) that's available through their minimal website.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 1:08 PM PST - 36 comments

Competitive eating continues to go from strength to strength in the USA. But there has to be another, more subtle role for a Horseman of the Oesophagus. Step forward Steve, a man who eats weird stuff so that we don't have to.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:54 PM PST - 21 comments

David Watson's CADTutor, which deals with AutoCAD, PhotoShop, and several other design programs, is one of the most elegantly-designed tutorial sites I've ever seen.
posted by koeselitz at 11:59 AM PST - 7 comments

Prepare yourselves, teenaged Trollope fans! You have just four months remaining in which to send your Barchester Towers fanfiction to the Anthony Trollope Society's annual £1000 Short Story Competion. Previous champions have been feted at luxurious club dinners by titans like Andrew Davies and P.D. James. Could you be next to join their august ranks?
posted by Iridic at 11:07 AM PST - 7 comments

Felipe Calderon has been declared the next President of Mexico, but the controversy has not ended as his rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to stay in the streets. The most intense conflict has been in Oaxaca, but this is underreported in the US media. Tie this in with a recent Mother Jones article describing the current influx of Mexicans into the United States as an exodus from a failed economy, and all of a sudden the reports coming from Mexico take on a very different meaning.
posted by graymouser at 9:51 AM PST - 33 comments

"One Thing to Do About Food". Short essays on what to do about the nations food supply by Michael Pollan (Omnivore's Dilemma), Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and others.
posted by stbalbach at 9:09 AM PST - 28 comments

Tony Blair announces that he will resign as UK Prime Minister. Just broadcast on BBC. Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is expected to be nominated by Labour party as the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Blair hasn't set a date for departure.
posted by three blind mice at 7:06 AM PST - 71 comments

ClickDragType (version 3, just released) was the inspiration for a casual games design contest at Jay is Games. Play the games. See the winners. (All games in Flash, some require sound).
posted by empath at 6:30 AM PST - 11 comments

"Imagine a blend between a National Geographic documentary and a Tex Avery cartoon. This short is a combination of 3D characters and live footage." Five-ish minutes in the life of a ladybug with anger issues. (YouTube)
posted by Orb at 3:02 AM PST - 21 comments

In New Zealand at Ferrit you can buy things online. It hasn't had the best press. But it doesn't do itself any favours either.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 1:45 AM PST - 14 comments

The Best Hiding Place is Right Out in the Open?
Yes, its a simple Google search. But it returns confidential pdf's and pages from all over the internet. Business plans, powerpoint presentations and other naughty bits exposed to, well, anyone who finds it.
Oops.
posted by fenriq at 10:38 PM PST - 49 comments

Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance. Ten web-only clips leading up to the premiere next month. (Requires Flash 8, by the looks of it.)
posted by Cyrano at 8:59 PM PST - 40 comments

Save the Girls! A gallery of WWII era fighter & bomber nosecone art is the highlight of this site dedicated to the history and preservation of such works.
posted by jonson at 7:28 PM PST - 12 comments

Open Letter to ABC: Don't Airbrush 9/11 (Via C&L.)
posted by homunculus at 6:59 PM PST - 188 comments

FROM SECRET PRISONS TO GUANTANAMO President Bush announces the transfer of 14 al-Qaeda terrorist suspects previously held by the CIA in a secret detention program to the Guantanamo Bay naval base. This is the 1st public acknowledgement of such a program (though in November of 2005 the Post broke the story of its existence). Bush calls CIA interrogations "tough" but fully legal, and that they staved off new terrorist plots.
posted by punkbitch at 2:50 PM PST - 96 comments

Bush Pilot? [Google video]
posted by owhydididoit at 2:44 PM PST - 26 comments

Necrophiles are rare (thank God!) enough, but to find three such people in one location is strange indeed. We'll never know if they would have actually gone through with it. They were however certainly making all the preparations.
posted by Tablecrumbs at 12:58 PM PST - 114 comments

Science Live site I found this because of the live coverage of the Festival of Science 2006 from Norwich, but found lots of other great links! Great for kids, but good for anyone curious about science. "What if you could watch any popular science lecture you wanted to? What if you could participate in any popular science event? What if you could find out what scientists themselves have to say about the issues that are important in society today? ScienceLive is an initiative that seeks to bring some of the best popular science events (discussions, lectures, interviews) directly to your home, so that you can watch these events whenever and from whereever you can.
posted by k8t at 12:49 PM PST - 3 comments

Jesus as Rabbi paintings were found unacceptable because the interpretation is controversial; but perhaps these images of our Lord would be as offensive to others?
posted by Mur at 11:29 AM PST - 50 comments

Locate open mp3s with Google! From I-Hacked, where the author describes this as "p2p file sharing, but Google is one of those people." At this point, the interface allows you to specify an artist or song name and it returns a google search of files with that name and an mp3 suffix. The peer to peer weblog says that the trick relies on a default behavior of the Apache webserver.

Is it legal? Since the files in question were "left open in a public place" and since the application isn't necessarily limited to copyrighted materials, at least one blogger thinks it could pass the key legal test of having "substantial non-infringing uses." What do you think?
posted by jasper411 at 11:10 AM PST - 49 comments

No language, just sound: How writer Ned Raggett came to ignore the lyrics.
posted by klangklangston at 10:55 AM PST - 79 comments

Interesting confessions from otherwise boring people
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:47 AM PST - 54 comments

Melting glaciers - Once this site stops messing with your windows, there are some views of glaciers. The before and afters are supposed to be (in some cases) 100 years apart - maybe, maybe not - summer v. winter [who knows?] it's pretty harrowing what we're presented with in terms of glacier reduction - if that's what we're looking at here.
posted by tellurian at 9:56 AM PST - 33 comments

Have you ever seen the Choomuhzeek in the wilds of Russia?
posted by gcbv at 9:24 AM PST - 16 comments

Meal Assembly ... a new trend in figuring out what's for dinner. You go to a professional kitchen and assemble any number of meals, then bring them home and freeze them. Like a salad bar, but more diverse. They provide all the ingredients and the basic recipes, and cut out the shopping, the leftover ingredients ... (and maybe the creativity?). The upside is low cost (as low as $3 a portion), and better portion control. Coming soon to a suburb near you.
posted by crunchland at 9:01 AM PST - 128 comments

Democrats of Faith. Jesse Lava, co-founder, says the site is attempting "to help reframe the values debate to be beyond wedge-issue politics, beyond fear and division and more focused on justice and the common good."
posted by footballrabi at 8:01 AM PST - 63 comments

Chasing Crusoe (flash). A documentary site about Robinson Crusoe. The "Isla Mas a Tierra" section is interesting, well produced.
posted by stbalbach at 7:54 AM PST - 4 comments

Babyfilter: Suri exists! And the Japanese can stop worrying they'll have to be ruled by a woman!
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:42 AM PST - 70 comments

Wikipedia's lamest edit wars
posted by reklaw at 7:18 AM PST - 56 comments

Norman McLaren's Masterpiece with music by Oscar Peterson. Each frame of this short was scratched directly onto the film in order to be in perfect synch with the pre-recorded soundtrack. This has been discussed before here and more generally here but I haven't seen this online until now. More on Norman McLaren.
posted by ob at 7:10 AM PST - 34 comments

It is imported from Russia in three different flavors. What can't it do?. Why not attend a conference and sing the song. Previously. Skeptical?
posted by unSane at 6:29 AM PST - 16 comments

Mapping Medieval Townscapes: a digital atlas of the new towns of Edward I For each town you will find maps and images, as well as historical interpretation, bibliographical information, and access through to a geographical database. (The fancy interactive maps are especially good.) Warning: you'll have to click to agree to some terms and conditions before you can view the site.
posted by jack_mo at 5:35 AM PST - 6 comments

Do you know where you are? With Google Maps and Google Earth so commonplace now, GPS everywhere, and with websites such as our own Metafilter making use of latitude and longitude did you ever stop to think about how all this latitude, longitude and height above sea level works? The UK's Ordnance Survey explains it all in A Guide to Coordinate Systems in Great Britain. Discover that different coordinate systems might differ by as much as 200m, and that your house may be moving as much as 1m up and down each day relative to the centre of the Earth, and many other bits of geographical interest.[more inside]
posted by edd at 4:48 AM PST - 4 comments

Subliminal Spam. It's rather crude, but I wonder if we'll start seeing more of this, and done more subtly.
posted by delmoi at 2:44 AM PST - 20 comments

In the Chinks of the Genre Machine: it is slipstream week at Strange Horizons. Seventeen years after Bruce Sterling coined the term it has spawned two anthologies, ParaSpheres and Feeling Very Strange. (The later inspired by this blog entry.)
posted by ninebelow at 12:57 AM PST - 14 comments

Private Collection - an exhibit of not-so-rare objets d'art stolen from European galleries. Apparently, it's "a reaction to the commoditization of art and to gallery monopolies that price art, dictate which artworks have value, and set themselves up as the arbiters of artists' qualities," but you might find the gag funny anyway. [via mlarson.org]
posted by mediareport at 11:23 PM PST - 6 comments

Delaware 7+h Album and 5+h Exhibi+ion: Too Slow to Live Experimental -- ha, excuse me, experimen+al ar+ and visuals by JAPAnese LUNA+ics DELAware. What made me bring this to your attention? Two delicious bites, Monte Blanc and Walk, Don't Learn. The entire album is available to download if you've become enamored or are generally adventurous. [Flash, Audio, embedded gifs, generally odd]
posted by boo_radley at 11:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Live Dead - First Set
posted by persona non grata at 10:11 PM PST - 31 comments

Dapper: The Data Mapper
A recently launched service that allows users to extract data from any website into XML, and transform or build applications and mashups with that data. Described by it's creators as a way to, "easily build an API for any website... through a visual and intuitive process". Plagiarism Today, meanwhile, has cause for concern, "Dapper is a scraper. Nothing more... now the technologically impaired can scrape content from any site... the potential danger [is] very, very real".
posted by MetaMonkey at 8:59 PM PST - 31 comments

Beirut: Before and After
posted by poweredbybeard at 8:28 PM PST - 44 comments

He's 74-years-old, which makes him the world's oldest primate. He was a movie star. He lives a comfortable life as an older retiree. In his spare time, he paints. In fact, if you like, he will paint a painting just for you, and the money you donate for it supports his primate sanctuary. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cheeta.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:35 PM PST - 37 comments

Here are some alternative therapies you may not have considered. Animal assisted therapy promotes the healing benefits of the animal-human bond. Biblical Therapy provides treatment based on biblical "truths" to strengthen your relationship with Jesus. Color therapy has nothing to do with Spike Lee, and everything to do with your favorite shirt. With Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) you can replace years of therapy with one 90 minute session where you learn to roll your eyes the right way. Feng Shui suggests maybe it's not you, it's your crummy crib. Or perhaps you simply don't get enough Orgone. Doesn't it make you want to scream?
posted by ubiquity at 7:30 PM PST - 21 comments

"A quoi ça sert l’amour?" (previously) is an adorable cartoon set to a fantastic old song by Edith Piaf; recently, students at USC Film School set out to act out a live version of the cartoon, results here.
posted by jonson at 6:59 PM PST - 15 comments

What would the Middle East look like if there was a just realignment of its international borders? Ralph Peters, writing for the Armed Forces Journal, performed such a Gedankenexperiment. The before and the after.
posted by Falconetti at 6:26 PM PST - 38 comments

What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA: She was the chief of operations of the CIA's Joint Task Force on Iraq, in charge of gathering information on Iraq's supposed WMD programs, according to a new article in The Nation based on David Corn and Michael Isikoff's new book, Hubris. On his weblog, David Corn says, "She was an undercover officer in charge of running critical covert operations." Also, in the summer of 2001, "word came down from the brass: We're ramping up on Iraq."
posted by kirkaracha at 6:17 PM PST - 31 comments

ABC News: Osama bin Laden offered sanctuary in Pakistan:

If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

Offer comes as truce is concluded between Pakistan and Al Queada:

The Pakistani military will no longer operate in the area where Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda operatives are believed to be hiding, according to terms of what the Pakistan government calls a "peace deal," signed today with militant tribal groups allied to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

San Jose Mercury News reports Bush Administration approved truce, will offer millions in aid:

The Pakistani military is striking truces with Islamic separatists along the country's border with Afghanistan, freeing Pakistani militants and al-Qaida fighters to join Taliban insurgents battling U.S.-led troops and government forces in Afghanistan..... when the military failed to crush the separatists, the Bush administration agreed to support Pakistan's truce-making efforts and pledged millions of dollars in additional aid.

posted by orthogonality at 5:33 PM PST - 153 comments

The Memory Project enlists American high school art students to paint original portraits of children in orphanages around the world. The idea for the project came about in 2004 when a Guatemalan man who had grown up in an orphanage mentioned to founder (and then University of Wisconsin student) Ben Shumaker that "he could remember little of his early years and had nothing to help him fill in the gaps." The project connects American students with orphaned children around the world. CBS News' photo essay.
posted by ericb at 4:43 PM PST - 9 comments

Que would happen if, wenn Du open your Metafilter, finde eine message in esta lingua? No est Englando, no est Germano, no est Espano, no est keine known lingua - aber Du understande! Wat happen zo! Habe your computero eine virus catched? Habe Du sudden BSE gedeveloped? No, Du esse lezendo la neue europese lingua: de Europanto!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:16 PM PST - 129 comments

Daniel Levitin is a musical neurologist. His new book, This is Your Brain on Music, has an intriguing premise, and a very entertaining website.
posted by owhydididoit at 2:33 PM PST - 12 comments

Two girls, three wheels, 10,000 miles travelled: their epic overland adventure from Bangkok to Brighton comes to a successful end. Previously discussed here. The two girls (women, really) and their pink tuk tuk arrived home in Brighton on September 3rd. Many were skeptical that they would be able to make it; at least one poster seemed to be putting down a monetary wager against their success. Perhaps now is the time to stand by that bet and donate some money to the charity they are raising money for? People interested in the details of their journey should check out their blog; more than just a log of their daily activities, they add some interesting details regarding the culture and history of some of the places they visited. They aren't the first to have made a ridiculously long journey in a tuk tuk; a german couple drove around Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe last year (although there were apparently some ferries involved). Tuk tuk appreciation appears to be wide-spread in England; a "motorised rickshaw service" recently started up with compressed natural gas vehicles.
posted by giantfist at 2:31 PM PST - 2 comments

"MP3 players should carry warnings that users risk damage to their hearing by having the volume too high, a deafness charity says." Also, for prescription glasses: "If you use these glasses to see things that are disturbing, you could become disturbed." Is this not the height of PC, Western stupidity?
posted by JPowers at 2:22 PM PST - 74 comments

Ice bubbles collected from core samples in Antarctica reveal the biggest rise in CO2 in 800,000 years.
posted by four panels at 2:20 PM PST - 32 comments

...The United States, whose costliest political and military adventures since 1950 have ended in failure, now must face the fact that the technology for confronting its power is rapidly becoming widespread and cheap. It is within the reach of not merely states but of relatively small groups of people. Destructive power is now virtually 'democratized.' If the challenges of producing a realistic concept of the world that confronts the mounting dangers and limits of military technology seriously are not resolved soon, recognizing that a decisive equality of military power is today in the process of being re-imposed, there is nothing more than wars and mankind’s eventual destruction to look forward to.

The Great Equalizer - Lessons From Iraq and Lebanon
By Gabriel Kolko, author of Century of War: Politics, Conflicts, and Society Since 1914,
The Age of War: The United States Confronts the World
and Another Century of War?
posted by y2karl at 2:17 PM PST - 20 comments

151 Changes to The Empire Strikes Back Frame by frame analysis of the original movie vs. the 2004 DVD. Mostly cleaning and sharpening, but also more self-censoring on Lucas' part. [via]
posted by cgs at 10:31 AM PST - 43 comments

Party Builder. The Democratic party launches a suite of tools to keep in touch with politically active friends, find events near you, raise money and more.
posted by empath at 10:04 AM PST - 18 comments

To hear Rupert Murdoch's newspaper The Australian tell it, "Science" is now tempering its claims about the urgency of Global Warming. Arts and Letters Daily goes even further, declaring a "Catastrophe Postponed" on its front page. But a closer look at the meager factual content of The Australian article (as opposed to the specious inferences and dramatic allusions to "leaked IPCC documents") suggests that, in fact, "Science" has just gotten more specific about its Global Warming claims, and the real situation remains as urgent as ever if we continue on our current track. Meanwhile, in tangentially related news, Chevron is reporting a massive new oil find in the Gulf of Mexico. Not to imply any kind of conspiracy here (since, you know, "Science" has proven that actual conspiracies are an urban myth).
posted by saulgoodman at 8:49 AM PST - 31 comments

Albania to get more corruption, and duct-tape expert-- ... As much as Ridge's security expertise, Berisha wants him to also bring to Albania his "success story" as Governor of Pennsylvania on education, the judiciary, information technology, agriculture and money laundering. ...
posted by amberglow at 7:02 AM PST - 17 comments

The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities. Now that this former rogue nation has fallen in line, we can turn out attention to the real terrorist threat: Britain.
posted by thirteenkiller at 6:59 AM PST - 30 comments

The opening theme of Mozart's symphony in G minor, K. 550 - on rollerblades and downhill.
posted by persona non grata at 10:06 PM PST - 38 comments

Pat Buchanan blogs. Let the name-calling begin.
posted by Yakuman at 9:35 PM PST - 80 comments

Dolphin intelligence is under fire, but are these arguments over brain size relevant in the face of overwhelming behavioral evidence? Dolphins have been known to display almost all of the qualities which we would consider uniquely human, qualities that we would consider a mark of ‘higher’ intelligence. They are tool users, they are highly creative (perhaps even artistic), they enjoy recreational and social activities, from surfing (either on waves or around the prow of boats) to sex, and they have proven time and time again that they are self-aware. They’ve also formed symbiotic relationships with fisherman, and recent reports suggest that dolphins even have names for each other. But perhaps Douglas Adams said it best in the Hitchhiker’s Guide: “Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.”
posted by heylight at 9:33 PM PST - 44 comments

Max and Thomas have some classic fun doing the Lindy hip hop but, sometimes, there ain't nothin' like the real thing, baby: Helzappoppin, Groovie Movie, 50s Charleston in Harlem, Original UpRock, Swing Fever, Power Girls. Learn more about the history of this kickass dance at early Lindy Hop. (Alert: YouTube links)
posted by madamjujujive at 9:06 PM PST - 17 comments

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. Foucault's returning to Humanism.
posted by semmi at 7:21 PM PST - 34 comments

As Labor Day 2006 winds to a close, America's long & twisted history with Organized Labor seems to never come to rest on any one side of the fence, opinion wise. While we hate the idea of the evil CEO crushing the employees underfoot, there's something profoundly un-American about bolshevikism. This excellent collection of political cartoons from Life Magazine from the early decades of the 20th Century explores both sides of the debate, reminding us at the end of the day that nobody loves a fat man.
posted by jonson at 6:36 PM PST - 21 comments

Mesostics. John Cage invented this form of inclusion/acrostic poetry. Some examples by John Cage: Raphael Mostel, Mark Tobey, Marcel Duchamp, and Erik Satie. You can create your own through an automated mesostomatic process. Even cabbies have gotten in on the act.
posted by Falconetti at 6:20 PM PST - 4 comments

Flight simulator. As a hobby, this guy built his own Boeing 747 flight simulator. No, not just a PC simulation, but a full cabin with hydraulics motion simulation a correct control panel and the full works, just like the real thing. (via Neatorama)
posted by caddis at 5:54 PM PST - 24 comments

Cool book photos by Abelardo Morell, who takes pictures of other cool things, too.
posted by mediareport at 4:01 PM PST - 6 comments

I was a slave in Puglia. A long first-person exposé, in English, about immigrant slave labor in Italy, from Fabrizio Gatti writing in the Italian newspaper L'Espresso. "I can hire you. Tomorrow," he promises. "Do you have a girl friend?" "A girlfriend?" "You have to bring me a woman. For the boss. If you bring him one, he'll put you to work right away. Any girl will do." He points to a twenty year-old woman and her companion, working on the conveyor belt of a huge tractor that is being used to gather tomatoes. "Those two are Romanians, just like you. She slept with the boss." "But I'm alone." "No work for you then." Photo galleries. Italian version (includes additional sidebars not found in the English version, including local and government reaction to the exposé and more photo galleries under the sidebar "Reportage Fotografico.")
posted by Mo Nickels at 3:57 PM PST - 16 comments

This was the music of my childhood, along with massive infusions of Psalty the Singing Songbook and the Donut Man. During adolescence, my musical range expanded only slightly to include nashville country, teen pop, and the odd intersections between the two. YouTube has been an invaluable resource for expanding my previously limited horizons, from the productions which marked Michael Jackson's rise and fall to the birth and growing pains of the west coast rap scene. My favorite Youtube musical discovery thus far, however, is this pseudo-impromptu live rendition of Arthur's Theme.
posted by The Confessor at 2:59 PM PST - 20 comments

Today is the day that Rupert Murdoch started trying to kill off the Evening Standard^ by launching thelondonpaper, a free evening paper. But Associated, publishers of the Standard (and London's fake Metro^, too), rushed out their own free paper, London Lite, last week -- the same tactic they used against the London Daily News^ back in 1987. In 2006, why is London having a newspaper war? And considering that it's Murdoch vs. the publishers of the Daily Mail, who should we be cheering for, exactly?
posted by reklaw at 1:24 PM PST - 23 comments

Coverage with Evidence Development. Never heard of it? Me neither, until today. It's what they call this idea: if you want to be covered by Medicare, you're forced to participate in medical research. The AMA approves (article abstract only). So much for informed consent.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:04 PM PST - 26 comments

A little more than a year after leaving New Orleans, I miss the culture of sophisticated drinking. Sure, maybe not on Bourbon Street, home of the sickly sweet hurricane and Hand Grenade. But you head off Bourbon and you can get a very pleasant Pimms cup at the Napoleon House. And just down the street is a military antiques store that was once the pharmacy where Antoine Amadie Peychaud invented the sazerac, which lays claims to being the word's oldest cocktail. Any good bartender in New Orleans will be able to make you one; finding a sazerac-capable bartender outside the city is almost impossible. Of course, just outside the French Quarter, in the Fairmont Hotel, is the Sazerac bar, but, surprisingly, their specialty is not the sazerac, but the favorite drink of Huey Long, the delicious Ramos Gin Fizz. Nearby, back in the Quarter, on an upper floor of the Pharmacy Museum, was the former home of the Museum of the American Cocktail -- now seemingly in transit after Katrina. At the opening, cocktail chef Dale Degroff served up his specialty -- pre-Prohibition cocktails, including a brandy crusta that still makes me weep from the pleasure of it. Sure, up here in Minneapolis we invented the cosmopolitan, but somehow a drink that's also become popular as a perfume doesn't have that same Crescent City je ne sais quoi.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:56 PM PST - 36 comments

The Olympic National Park* General Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement is online, for your review and comments.
posted by owhydididoit at 12:37 PM PST - 1 comment

Almost 7 years after the release of his previous film Office Space, Mike Judge's Idiocracy is being all but abandoned by Fox. Despite favorable reviews and fan letters exhorting Fox to give the movie a chance, Idiocracy was released to seven cities on the 1st September with no promotion, no official release poster, no press screenings and a post-production budget so restrictive Judge had to ask fellow Austinite Robert Rodriguez to complete some effects shots for free. Is it because the film skewers Fox subsidiary Fox News (as well as advertisers like Starbucks and Costco) that Mike Judge is getting screwed (again)?
posted by PenDevil at 12:24 PM PST - 70 comments

Images of Ceylon - Hundreds and hundreds of photos taken in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from the mid 1800's to around the turn of that century.

Warning: A handful out of the ones I've seen show topless women so maybe NSFW.
posted by selton at 11:09 AM PST - 16 comments

"The ewok population is effectively extinguished. Most were killed in a mass-extinction event affecting life on their homeworld, due to unavoidable fallout and debris from the destruction of the Death Star II. The Rebel Alliance is culpable but perhaps innocent. All ewoks would have been better off if the tribe which made contact with the rebels continued with their original plan of killing and eating the commando team's leaders." (Rebuttal [PDF]).
posted by interrobang at 9:31 AM PST - 88 comments

The D-Day Photographs of Robert Capa (via Plep)
posted by jack_mo at 9:28 AM PST - 7 comments

At forty miles (64.4 km) from Pluto to Sun, the Maine Solar System Model is the largest complete three-dimensional scale model of the solar system in the world. What, you didn't know there was more than one? And yes, Pluto is staying put.
posted by jessamyn at 7:23 AM PST - 29 comments

Steve Irwin, better known as The Crocodile Hunter, is dead after a sting-ray barb went through his chest. He is survived by his wife and two children and both he and his larger than life persona will be missed.
posted by Effigy2000 at 9:33 PM PST - 467 comments

In 1992, Maureen Dabbagh's ex-husband kidnapped their daughter and fled to Syria. Now Maureen was about to step into a universe she had no idea existed: the covert world of the "snatchback industry." She would go on to become a snatchback agent herself, to help other "left behinds."

Also, How to kidnap your children and get away with it.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 8:16 PM PST - 18 comments

Either you liked them or you didn't, but for 60 years, the National School Lunch Program has been feeding American school children low cost, nutritious meals. Personally, from the 1960's, in small town Kansas, I miss the fish sticks, the thick oil crust sheet pizza, and the corn bread. And subsidized milk, at 2 cents an 8 ounce carton.
posted by paulsc at 6:57 PM PST - 86 comments

Kirk Rademaker makes sand sculptures that look like whimsical, steampunkesque machines (among other things).
posted by jonson at 6:08 PM PST - 8 comments

as often nostalgic and sad as they are summery and blissful, indiepop songs have long been the refuge of popkids the world around who embrace DIY but reject the rebellion of punk and pretentiousness of indie-rock. Over the years the regional focus has shifted from the twee bands in the united kingdom in the 80s to australia in the early nineties, to the northwestern united states, and to strangely.. sweden. Maybe its the combination of warm scarfs and good social services, but for whatever reason sweden's young generation has embraced the genre and, armed with casios and knit sweaters, have set about reminding the rest of us how truly wonderful and affecting it can be
posted by petsounds at 5:42 PM PST - 29 comments

Ultimate Wingnut Fantasy Wankball: "Fantasy football" (??) played with right wing bloggers. (Me, I think I want a raise.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:33 PM PST - 25 comments

MySpace has announced that it intends to sell the music of nearly 3 million unsigned bands who use the service as an alternative to iTunes. If nothing else, at least Metafilter should see an end to these sorts of links.
posted by Second Account For Making Jokey Comments at 4:30 PM PST - 54 comments

Living Without Ultimate Moral Responsibility. Is it desirable to live without the idea of free will as we normally understand it? Is it even possible? This interview with Galen Strawson explores these questions. Those who like something meatier may enjoy Derk Pereboom on the same subject (from the previously linked Determinism and Freedom Philosophy Website). Also of note: Susan Blackmore on living without free will.
posted by teleskiving at 4:15 PM PST - 99 comments

dg28.com: photographer eduction - 'Technique - Photography is all about light, and digital is no different. I try to light as much of my work as I can, and this was true before "Dig' day"'. Some great photography tips and techniques here, apparently from portrait photographer Neil Turner. Via Civil_Disobedient at Ask MetaFilter.
posted by nthdegx at 3:54 PM PST - 8 comments

'Thanks to FlexiSpy, I finally figured out my wife was cheating on me with my brother,' he claims. 'My life is so much better.'
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:46 PM PST - 27 comments

20 Years of Punishment
Agassi's incredible journey ended today with his loss at the U.S. Open. A class act throughout the years.
posted by ericb at 3:43 PM PST - 27 comments

Ghost Islands. Hashima: The Ghost Island. San Borondon: The Ghost Island. Ballale: The Ghost Island. Kandolhudhoo: The Ghost Island. Pulau Hantu: The Ghost Island.
posted by Falconetti at 3:13 PM PST - 7 comments

Making a watch by hand. In these days of “fast” and “convenient” I decided to commence a work of “painstaking” and “craftsmanship”, making my own wristwatch. I have had the idea for a certain arrangement of the watch dial, as on the image at the right, for a while now. My investigations into available movements showed that no production movement would give me this layout. After a long period of indecision and wondering what I was really getting myself into I decided to make my own movement, followed by the case and dial.
posted by caddis at 2:48 PM PST - 21 comments

The technology seemed so harmless at first. But as in any war, there was escalation. The pursuit of pointless perfection in shaving comfort now offers our beards only insanity. And now the multiblade wars have spilled over into electrics! Will these shaving firms not be satisfied until they've peeled the skin from our chins? Tell you the truth, I'd rather grow a beard.
posted by EatTheWeek at 12:13 PM PST - 63 comments

It's about the size of a golf ball. It is shockingly deadly. It has enough poison to kill 26 humans in minutes. If you see it's blue rings, it may already be too late. You will stop breathing. You will go blind. And the only way you will survive it is hours of artificial respiration and heart massage until the poison has worked its way out of your system. It is the blue-ringed octopus.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:41 AM PST - 45 comments

The Mesopotamian Marshlands have been inhabited for so long that some consider them to be the Garden of Eden. If this is true, then paradise is mostly lost. The marshlands have been shrinking since the 1970s, catastrophically so between 1990 and 1997. The Marsh Arabs have a pastoral lifestyle, relying on fishing and farming. They traditionally live in floating thatched huts, and build grand mudhifs, which serve as public spaces, but as the marshes have receded, the villages have moved ashore. As dire as it seems, restoration efforts are underway. But is it too little, too late?
posted by owhydididoit at 11:15 AM PST - 4 comments

In 1996 Frenchman Michel Guyot set out to build a XIII century castle the medieval way¹ -- using hammers and chisels to carve the stones, horses to cart the rock and no power tools. Ten years later it is one third completed and if all goes well will be finished by 2023, after which the plan is to build an abbey, then a village.²

1. Guyot, Michael (1996). "Guedelon: Chantier Medieval". Online project home page. Multi-lingual.
2. Doland, Angela (August 31, 2006). " Stone by stone, craftsmen build medieval-style castle". Associated Press, via CNN.
posted by stbalbach at 8:46 AM PST - 19 comments

"Everything is foggy. Everything is not clear. He was alive when we got to the other side. And now I have brought him back dead. Whatever hopes we had, that's where they ended."
The Summer of the Death of Hilario Guzman (BugMeNot)
posted by matteo at 8:38 AM PST - 13 comments

Street Artist Banksy "Shop Drops" 500 remixed copies of Paris Hilton's new album across the UK

Instead of Ms Hilton's own compositions, the replacement CD features 40 minutes of a basic rhythm track over which Banksy has dubbed Ms Hilton's catchphrase "That's hot!" and other extracts from her reality TV programme The Simple Life. Inside the accompanying booklet, a picture of the heiress emerging from a luxury car has been retouched to include a group of homeless people. In another shot, Ms Hilton's head has been superimposed on a shop window mannequin beneath a banner reading: "Thou Shalt Not Worship False Icons". [Independent] Mp3 soon, no doubt.
posted by takeyourmedicine at 8:33 AM PST - 57 comments

During his downtime on early worldwide tours with DEVO, Mark Mothersbaugh began illustrating on postcards to send to his friends, which he still creates, and has been creating every day for over 30 years. It's an obsessive habit/hobby which still yields anywhere from one to a couple dozen new postcard-sized images per day.
posted by furtive at 7:25 AM PST - 11 comments

1K Project II. 1000 cars racing at the same time in Trackmania Sunrise [via waxy].
posted by srboisvert at 5:20 AM PST - 32 comments

My Quonah. "My name is David C and I am the biggest idiot on this planet! Every girl I've ever met has done nothing except want me for what I had to offer them, the amount of cash I could throw their way and not for the person I was. One day that all changed when I meet a lady called Quonah..." Should she call him?
posted by feelinglistless at 3:27 AM PST - 33 comments

A self-portrait every day: Sven and Tobias Staude, Ahree Lee, Noah Kalina.
posted by MetaMonkey at 9:09 PM PST - 16 comments

"Skeet Spirit: A Crunk Tribute to Radiohead" by DJ Gyngyvytus. And it's free!
posted by JPowers at 8:03 PM PST - 57 comments

Becoming Mary Poppins - A look at the original author P. L. Travers, Walt Disney, and the differences therein. Via the New Yorker.
posted by loquacious at 6:22 PM PST - 27 comments

digit.exp: snapshots of Hokkaido, occasionally elsewhere
posted by hama7 at 5:02 PM PST - 13 comments

The Ten Stupidest Utopias. The Ten Best Dystopias. The Most Appealing Utopias and the Most Unpleasant Dystopias.
posted by Falconetti at 3:02 PM PST - 82 comments

Donald Rumsfeld's recent speech at the American Legion Convention has revived interest in the 1938 Munich pact between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler and its use as an analogy in foreign policy debates. Military historian Jeffrey Record weighs in with Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s. Michael Cairo examines how analogical reasoning based on "the lesson of Munich" influenced the first Gulf War and Clinton's intervention in Kosovo. Juan Cole argues against "the crock of appeasement" as applied to the Middle East, whereas MacGregor Duncan claims that the Munich analogy has caused us to underestimate the diplomatic value of appeasement. Finally, Pat Buchanan claims the Islamo-fascist label is historically inaccurate (or is he worried that non-Islamic fascists get a bad rap?).
posted by jonp72 at 2:07 PM PST - 40 comments

X-ray records are records etched into discarded x-ray film. State censorship and lack of resources were the mothers of invention in the USSR and Eastern Europe, and apparently millions of these records were made. Without this crucial conduit of illicit western music, perhaps there would have been no Plastic People of the Universe and no Velvet (Underground) Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Mostly, though, these are just the coolest picture discs ever.
posted by snofoam at 1:09 PM PST - 10 comments

Johnny Red was a story appearing in Battle and Battle Action magazine back in the late 70's and early 80's. Telling the story of a young British fighter pilot serving with the Falcons; a Russian squadron in World War II; Johnny Red was remarkable for it's time (in the midst of the Cold War) giving a positive image of Soviet Russian heroism in the fight against Nazi Germany. Scans of almost every issue are contained within - enjoy!
posted by longbaugh at 11:45 AM PST - 12 comments

Here are four stories by the great Ted Chiang.
posted by Iridic at 11:26 AM PST - 15 comments

Introducing Pollster.com. PoliticalArithmetik and the Mystery Pollster combine to form Pollster.com (about; FAQ; guide to charts and data). The site features nifty charts and graphs of state-by-state senatorial and gubernatorial races. [more inside; via]
posted by kirkaracha at 10:19 AM PST - 5 comments

On September 2nd at 10:41 p.m. PDT the ESA's Smart-1 will crash into the moon. While no one is certain how bright the impact will be, some believe it may be visible to amateur astronomers. We've discussed this before, but tonight's the night!
posted by quin at 9:45 AM PST - 17 comments

He is the world's tallest cast iron statue. He has a long and sometimes troubled history. His enormous bare buttocks have offended local prudes and religious leaders for decades. He was disassembled in 1999 for refurbishing, but now once again, from atop his lofty mountain perch, this pagan colossus reigns over Birmingham, Alabama, the virtual buckle of the Bible Belt. Behold, Vulcan!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:45 AM PST - 26 comments