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First recorded 50 years ago, Peter Paul and Mary's Puff the Magic Dragon has a rather sad ending: Puff 'sadly slips into his cave' while little Jackie Paper grows up and puts his childhood behind him. But in 2007, Peter Yarrow published a book, Puff, the Magic Dragon, in which the classic song remains the same, but whose illustrations give us a new glimpse into Puff's future. Here is Mr. Yarrow, performing the song with his daughter Bethany at Woodstock's Bearsville Theatre, in '07. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:51 PM PST - 57 comments

Anthony Griffith talks about the highs and lows of having his daughter fighting cancer as he struggles to be funny.
posted by pjern at 11:12 PM PST - 22 comments

Why History Needs Software Piracy: How copy protection and app stores could deny future generations their cultural legacy.
posted by homunculus at 8:54 PM PST - 54 comments

Photographs of the Prison Chess series were taken in 2008 and 2009 in a maximum security facility of the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 8:45 PM PST - 18 comments

Problem: There haven't been enough electronica genres clumsily co-opted by pop! Also, we need more modern interpretations of awkward '80s fashions. Solution: Party Rock Anthem. [more inside]
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:24 PM PST - 110 comments

Play ChatChat.
Description: A multiplayer game about being a cat.
Instructions: Be a cat.
(By Terry Cavanagh, who brought you VVVVVV).
posted by nobody at 8:20 PM PST - 35 comments

Let me introduce you to Kai Davis and her poem "Truth" (NSFW); a powerful commentary, on racism and perceived intelligence, which has been quietly circulating the web since December 2011. While the poet herself does not seem to have a web page, Davis' slam poetry is being noticed in slam poetry circles as well as on Tumblr. [more inside]
posted by DisreputableDog at 7:41 PM PST - 79 comments

While you may be familiar with popular video games like Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto or Call Of Duty, there is another genre of video simulation games dedicated to the more mundane, albeit vital aspects of life: [MLYT]
Street Cleaning Simulator
Woodcutter Simulator
Oil Platform Simulator
Bus and Cable Car Simulator
Demolition Company Simulator
Ambulance Simulator
Agricultural Simulator
They all appear to be made by the same German Game Designer. [more inside]
posted by AndrewKemendo at 7:23 PM PST - 43 comments

After announcing their reunion, all 220,000 tickets for the first three shows of the Stone Roses 2012 world tour sold out in just 68 minutes. [more inside]
posted by ancillary at 6:21 PM PST - 77 comments

An internet search, even in these days of abundant information, yields only that the pamphlets can be found in various library collections, and that they continued to be produced into the '70s. And that Edmund Wilson once sent one, "Mr. P. Squiggle's Reward," to Nabokov, calling it "one of the oddest of many odd things that are sent me by unknown people." He also got the title wrong, dubbing it "Mr. P. Squiggle's Revenge," which is probably significant. But that’s it: nothing about Volk or McCalib.

Epitomes was a series of pamphlets published by Elwin Volk and Dennis McCalib. Few traces of Volk's life are to be found, but he seems to have been a lawyer, and wrote at least a couple of pamphlets about law, which he self-published in Pasadena. McCalib is equally elusive. A man by that name contributed to an issue of One: The Homosexual Viewpoint in 1964. A Dennis McCalib also used the pseudonym Lord Fuzzy. The aforementioned "Mr. P. Squiggle's Reward" got a curt, two half-sentence dismissal in Poetry Magazine, otherwise these pamphlets seem not to have troubled the literary world. Someone donated their manuscripts to UCLA where they rest undigitized in fourteen boxes. But Library of Congress has scanned a total of twenty-six pages in high resolution.
posted by Kattullus at 6:17 PM PST - 9 comments

Cats On Film brings us My Day, By Jonesy. What's a cat to do when all the can-openers seem to have their attention focussed on the giant hairless kitten which just burst out of one of their chests?
posted by hippybear at 5:48 PM PST - 8 comments

http://lowcommitmentprojects.com/
posted by deanklear at 5:19 PM PST - 31 comments

StateTable:  US/Canada  states, provinces,  territories and minor possessions as CSV, SQL, HTML form elements, PHP arrays, and more. All the countries in the world, as a text list, CSV and API (from the very handy and open Factual).
Also: FreeMapTools, including “how far can I travel from any point on the Earth in a certain time, using a form of ground transportation?”, and “If I dug a tunnel straight through the planet, where should I emerge?” (previously)
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 4:07 PM PST - 11 comments

Take a ride through The Villages, FL, a retirement community where the Joneses are defined by... golf carts.
posted by troll at 3:47 PM PST - 37 comments

House music, particularly French house, relies heavily on sampling bits of material from all kinds of audio sources (i.e disco and classic rock). Find out how it works and where the samples from dozens of house tracks originated in this series of excellent youtube videos.
posted by Taft at 3:24 PM PST - 7 comments

Is Newt Gingrich’s plan for a moon mine science fiction? The technology may be in place, but is there any reason to go?
posted by Artw at 2:57 PM PST - 179 comments

on Goals Scored renders (largely English) football information into a variety of visualizations, some trivial, some striking. Test your knowledge of Premier League club crests, or identify goalscorers by the shape of their productivity. [more inside]
posted by Errant at 2:28 PM PST - 11 comments

Someone worked out when Ice Cube had his 'good day.'
posted by secretdark at 1:29 PM PST - 159 comments

After the Wire, actress Sonja Sohn couldn’t leave Baltimore’s troubled streets behind.
posted by modernnomad at 1:15 PM PST - 19 comments

"I suppose quite a few of you are gonna be sorta wondering what the hells going on and who the hell we are, em, but um, we're called Fingathing and we're from Manchester. My name's Peter Parker and I play, like, one turntable, and this dude over here is Sneaky, and he plays the double bass. And basically that's it. That's how we make our music." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:43 PM PST - 15 comments

The firm represented the justice, who never paid for the work. Now the firm litigates cases before him. Remember Michael Gableman, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice? Now he is the subject of a likely fruitless petition by a Democratic state representative, Kelda Roys, regarding the "free" legal work done for him by a prominent firm which still litigates before him. Previously on MetaFilter on the Wisconsin Supreme Court justices. Previously on MetaFilter on Wisconsin recall elections.
posted by bearwife at 12:37 PM PST - 12 comments

A UK man who downloaded recipes on how to make explosive devices has been jailed under the controversial Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which makes it a crime to be "in possession of records of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism". [more inside]
posted by unSane at 12:25 PM PST - 81 comments

What you may or may not have seen hidden in "The Shining".
posted by cashman at 11:16 AM PST - 216 comments

The girl with 7 horses – Photographer Ulrika Kestere uses clothing to form images of horses in a lovely photo-essay. [more inside]
posted by quin at 10:53 AM PST - 11 comments

Does California need the high-speed rail project? The New York Times published six opinion pieces debating the merits of the $90 billion high-speed rail plan that would connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. Streetsblog has a summary of the six opinions. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 10:41 AM PST - 123 comments

The seven biggest economic lies with Robert Reich.
posted by latkes at 9:06 AM PST - 126 comments

Contrary to popular belief, cats can make great DJs. It's just a small sample, but it's nice to see him really get into it as the set progresses.
posted by gman at 8:58 AM PST - 32 comments

Unsure what to give your special someone for Valentines Day this year? Why not give their name to one of the Bronx Zoo's 58,000 Madagascar hissing cockroaches.
posted by The Whelk at 8:35 AM PST - 47 comments

Artist Roger Ibars' "Hard-wired devices" are vintage video game controllers linked to clocks and other devices.
posted by griphus at 7:35 AM PST - 20 comments

DIY bungee jumping
posted by defenestration at 7:22 AM PST - 50 comments

Election year politics may be cruel, cynical and disheartening, but nerdy rapper Adam Warrock's new EP reminds us that there is one candidate whose message of positivity never wavers, even while it might be at odds with her name. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:02 AM PST - 18 comments

Alexander Alekhine lies dead. Little Samuel Reshevksy gives a simultaneous exhibition. Mikhail Tal presents his most chilling death stare. Fischer plays Fidel. Che meets Miguel Najdorf. Reuben Fine cavorts with a beauty on a beach, showing her his moves. Anatoly Karpov hangs out with Salvador Dali. The grave of Jose Raoul Capablanca. Klaus Junge plays in his Nazi uniform. Sometimes hit and miss, but it has to be said that this a great epic thread of vintage chess photos.
posted by rahulrg at 6:38 AM PST - 17 comments

Musaic Box is a puzzle game that uses music to define the pieces. Find outlines for songs, and then try to put them together...very fun and addicting. Don't try to play with the sound off obviously.
posted by schyler523 at 6:37 AM PST - 6 comments

"Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically." Link. [more inside]
posted by BobbyVan at 5:59 AM PST - 271 comments

Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life, in which the author, Erik Andrulis, proposes an "axiomatic, experimentally testable, empirically consistent, heuristic, and unified theory of life." He also claims to be able to unify physics.....ahem. All this is done using the chemistry notation you learned in highschool. [more inside]
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:57 AM PST - 53 comments

A serial intern in the finance sector speaks: "Applying for internships is so tiresome and bruising. It's like dating, you sit by the phone waiting for a call. Back in my days at university I would get up at 5.30am or 6am. First I'd go jogging, then send out an application for an internship. Every morning. It's so painful to hear 'no' all the time."
posted by feelinglistless at 5:21 AM PST - 86 comments

The Jerry Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection, given to Indiana University in 2006, is now online, with images and descriptions of some 24,000 puzzles, from an 18th century Japanese puzzle to nearly 300 kinds of Rubik's Cubes. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:54 AM PST - 11 comments