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We’re no more or less imperfect or tragic than the average family. We don’t even have measles.
posted by sleepy psychonaut at 10:21 PM PST - 72 comments

Spider-Man is Marvel's marquee character, but due to licensing agreements has long been the subject of films produced by Sony Pictures and could not be featured in films produced by Marvel Studios. Until today.
posted by thecjm at 8:53 PM PST - 155 comments

"Stripped of tenure over a blog post." John McAdams, a tenured politics professor at Marquette University, has been terminated for publishing a blog post critizing a philosophy graduate student, by name, for telling an anti-gay-marriage student he could not make "homophobic comments" on the subject in class, in a conversation the student surreptitiously taped and shared with McAdams. The graduate student was subsequently flooded with hate mail and threats, and has moved to a different university. The case recalls that of Steven Salaita, who was either fired from or unexpectedly un-hired to a tenured position at the University of Illinois after a series of fiery tweets critical of Israel and its war conduct, which some called hate speech. Salaita is now suing the university. Can tenured professors be fired for what they say on social media? Should they be? [more inside]
posted by escabeche at 8:52 PM PST - 223 comments

Coming off a successful Kickstarter campaign, Innuendo Studios has released a really interesting piece of video game criticism, that is somewhat about Call of Duty, but also about the problems with reviewing video games; and it gets better as it goes on. Previously by Innuendo (and enjoyed by MeFi), an engaging meditation on Phil Fish, and the problems of internet fame.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:37 PM PST - 14 comments

You say you don't t like jazz? Too much harmonic complexity just winds up making everything sound like scrambled eggs? Well, I've got something gonna make you change your mind. Right here.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:28 PM PST - 37 comments

The sequel to classic b-movie Samurai Cop had a successful Kickstarter that ended September 2014. Here's the recently released trailer for Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance. With the full original cast (including Robert Z'Dar) none other than Tommy Wiseau playing the villain, and an amazing lineup of b-movie favorites, porn actresses and aged heavy metal musicians providing support. They thought he was dead. He was just coolin' off.
posted by kittensofthenight at 7:22 PM PST - 13 comments

Color Tiles is a simple, yet fiendishly addictive game.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 7:14 PM PST - 63 comments

Moviepilot puts together a chronological sequence of (selected) scenes from Severus Snape's arc throughout the Harry Potter film series.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:42 PM PST - 34 comments

It's marriage day in Alabama. The Supreme Court refused to stay the marriage equality decision in Alabama, and couples started to marry today (lots of amazing adorable pictures throughout). [more inside]
posted by joycehealy at 6:06 PM PST - 97 comments

JONI MITCHELL: Ask anyone in America where the craziest people live and they'll tell you California. Ask anyone in California where the craziest people live and they'll say Los Angeles. Ask anyone in Los Angeles where the craziest people live and they'll tell you Hollywood. Ask anyone in Hollywood where the craziest people live and they'll say Laurel Canyon. And ask anyone in Laurel Canyon where the craziest people live and they'll say Lookout Mountain. So I bought a house on Lookout Mountain. [more inside]
posted by sallybrown at 3:31 PM PST - 65 comments

"Gendered Language in Teacher Reviews: This interactive chart lets you explore the words used to describe male and female teachers in about 14 million reviews from RateMyProfessor.com." Created by Ben Schmidt, a professor at Northeastern University, the chart lets you enter specific words to see how they correspond with the professor's gender and teaching discipline. Schmidt provides more background on his blog. Feministing compares the results for "genius" and "bossy."
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:30 PM PST - 35 comments

Early this morning, viewers of the FXX network were treated to an unheralded TV pilot for a show based on Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time (previously on Metafilter). Adapting only the first six pages of the 13,000 page series, it appeared just two days before film and TV rights were due to revert to Jordan's estate. Jordan's wife and editor has stated that the pilot was filmed without the knowledge of anyone involved with the estate, which casts doubt on producer Red Eagle Entertainment's plan to continue the series.
posted by penguinliz at 3:11 PM PST - 58 comments

Over 50 years ago, The Beatles arrived in New York for their first US visit, but what if ....

Having departed Heathrow on the 7th February 1964, John Lennon, in a playful mood, ordered the pilot to divert the plane via the Bermuda Triangle. Newly declassified documents reveal that Pan Am Flight 101 disappeared from US radar screens shortly after midday, local time. At great expense we have obtained – from reliable Russian mafia sources – an MP3 copy of the black box recorder of that ill-fated Boeing 707. This indicates that as far as those aboard the plane knew, after experiencing severe cyclonic turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean, they re-routed towards New York, believing themselves to have narrowly avoided aeronautical disaster. But on arriving at JFK airport, they were stunned to learn that they had arrived in the year 1994.

That's the premise of An Adventure To Pepperland Through Rhyme & Space, a two-hour ill-trippy musical adventure with golden era hip-hop musicians, from P.E. to Spoonie Gee, Tha Liks to Hieroglyphics and Large Professor to Salt n Pepa, courtesy of Tom Caruna, also the artist behind Enter the Magical Mystery Chamber (previously, and still online)
posted by filthy light thief at 2:24 PM PST - 14 comments

A Jewish magazine is testing an unusual solution for toxic internet comments. I think we can all agree that this proposal is ridiculous. Please leave your toxicity in the comments.
posted by pashdown at 1:24 PM PST - 75 comments

25 years after first seeing light as a 6-page story in RAW(Prev), Richard McGuire expanded his time and space-spanning Here to a 300-page novel. In Five Dials Magazine's 35th issue, Richard McGuire Makes a Book, "sketches, notes, phrases, inspirations, paintings, lists and photo collages used to create the essential Here," are presented for your enjoyment and edification. [more inside]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:23 PM PST - 4 comments

The University of Glasgow's French Emblems project hosts thousands of 16th century woodcuts and etchings. The archive boasts an unusually thorough metadata scheme, allowing you to browse cryptic images of beards, birds in cages, pointed fingers, triumphal conquerors, and fabulous animals, among many other categories. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 12:42 PM PST - 6 comments

As the city of Boston is continually getting buried under record breaking amounts of snow, one Yeti attempts to bring a little joy.
posted by sonika at 12:37 PM PST - 37 comments

Baby chameleon hatching. That is all.
posted by Mchelly at 12:34 PM PST - 20 comments

It got lost in the Kanye vs. Beck hoopla, but metal fans are fuming that "joke band" Tenacious D took home last night's "best metal performance" Grammy for their cover of Dio's "The Last in Line." The comedy duo beat out such metal mainstays as Anthrax, Mastodon, Motorhead and Slipknot.
posted by Clustercuss at 12:22 PM PST - 280 comments

Paint. A Short Lego Film by Jon Rolph
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:21 AM PST - 6 comments

What is BitchCoin?
BitchCoin is a digital currency backed by the photography of Sarah Meyohas at a fixed exchange rate of 1 BitchCoin to 25 square inches of photographic print. This rate of exchange will not change, even if the value of the photography increases. As her work changes in value over time, so will the relative value of BitchCoin. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:46 AM PST - 15 comments

"The global elite is basically looking for a safe-deposit box." Last July, NYMag published a lengthy piece on rich foreigners hiding hard-to-track money in NYC Real Estate (prev) This weekend, the NYTimes began publishing on "Towers of Secrecy" with the first in several deeply-researched pieces on the very rich, very shady figures buying high-end real estate in Manhattan: Stream of Foreign Wealth Flows to Elite New York Real Estate. [more inside]
posted by entropone at 9:31 AM PST - 70 comments

1,500 speakers, each playing a single microtonal frequency, collectively spanning 4 octaves. [more inside]
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:31 AM PST - 56 comments

The Kreyos Meteor Smartwatch has an extremely impressive feature set: Voice and gesture controls. Full integration with iOS, Android, and WP8. Shockproof, waterproof, accelerometer and activity tracker built in. Not a hard product to sell; In fact, it's a marketing person's dream. But after an extremely successful Indiegogo ($100,000 goal, $1.5 million raised) it was time to build the things, and they had no clue how to do it. [more inside]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:56 AM PST - 107 comments

Lebensader [YouTube] by Angela Steffen. A little girl finds the whole world in a leaf.
posted by Fizz at 8:27 AM PST - 2 comments

Optimism of Intellect

Thanks to a new wave of small intellectual magazines, an infectious buzz has returned to public debate in the United States. Roman Schmidt talks to David Marcus who, as a new editor at Dissent, is well placed to provide the lowdown what's driving this genuinely critical movement.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:23 AM PST - 18 comments

"You know how every once in a while you buy the $40 bottle of wine instead of the $8 one, thinking you're gonna have a special dinner or something?" Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson wrote over instant message. "And you get home, and you make the salmon or the pasta or whatever and you light the candles? And you pour the wine, swirl it like they do in Sideways so that it looks like you know what you're doing... you bring it to your lips and after smelling it—it smells like wine—you have a sip? And it's like… yeah, I guess this tastes good or something, but really it just tastes like wine?

"The Pono Player is kinda like that, but for music."
posted by MartinWisse at 6:05 AM PST - 206 comments

When the robotic revolution begins, it will be lead by those that look like young Asian women who use to check you into your room.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:54 AM PST - 42 comments

"I was 23 and needed a summer job; he was 21 and needed full-time support. He’s one of an estimated half million people diagnosed with autism who are soon becoming adults — and who society is entirely unprepared for." (Note: graphic description of sexual abuse; SL Buzzfeed)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:44 AM PST - 27 comments

Jails and prisons are supposed to be technological dead zones. In all but the laxest minimum-security facilities, cell phones are banned for inmates, as are personal laptops, tablets, and other Internet-connected devices. Federal prisons have implemented CorrLinks or TRULINCS, e-mail systems that allow inmates to send monitored messages to pre-approved contacts. But the wider Internet remains off-limits. In many prisons, the most up-to-date device approved for ordinary inmate use is the pay-phone. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 3:59 AM PST - 13 comments

"Instead, most current systems, almost without fail, do the opposite. Moderators responsible for content and complaints, regardless of gender, are making decisions based not just on the information they are reviewing, but on the way in which the information flows – linear, acontextual and isolated from other incidents. They are reliant, despite their best efforts, on technical systems that provide insufficient context, scale, frequency or scope. In addition, they lack specific training in trauma (their own or users) and in understanding gender-based violence. " -- "Silicon Valley sexism: why it matters that the internet is made by men, for men", by Soraya Chemaly, The New Statesman
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:25 AM PST - 25 comments

Mamoru Oshii, writer/director/filmmaker of famous anime such as Mobile Police Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell (both the original movie as well as the sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is interviewed at TIFF 2014. [more inside]
posted by gen at 12:06 AM PST - 3 comments