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posted by huckhound at 11:02 PM PST - 11 comments

As of 2010 Steven Moffat will be replacing Russell T. Davies as lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who. In 2005 Davies revived the series, which had been dormant (bar the odd US co-production or audiodrama) since 1989, for BBC Wales. It won awards and was successful enough to spawn the spin-offs Sarah Jane Adventures and the popular-in-America Torchwood. He is replaced by Moffat, one of the regular writers on the show, whose highly acclaimed episodes have won a number of awards and nominations. "I applied before but I got knocked back 'cos the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven. Anyway, I'm glad the BBC has finally seen the light and it's a huge honour to be following Russell into the best - and the toughest - job in television. I say toughest 'cos Russell's at my window right now, pointing and laughing."
posted by Artw at 9:33 PM PST - 103 comments

The Art of Matt Furie (many images NSFW)
posted by puke & cry at 9:18 PM PST - 23 comments

F R DOUBLE E D - D O M spells FREEDOM [Youtube, perhaps NSFW]. In 1967, photographer William Klein created what is possibly the most surreal cinematic political satire imaginable: Mr. Freedom. Featuring production design outlandish enough to later inspire Beck and Pizzicato Five, the film went on to bewilder French critics and tank at the box office. Today, Criterion makes Mr. Freedom available on DVD for the first time in America as part of the strange and wonderful box set, The Delirious Fictions of William Klein.
posted by eschatfische at 9:14 PM PST - 12 comments

Annoying Software : A Rogue's Gallery. (single-page version). Software that makes us hate the internet and wish it had never been invented. High on their list : Adobe Reader, Java, RealPlayer, and Flash. [more inside]
posted by Afroblanco at 7:17 PM PST - 111 comments

Michael Bluejay:...... Who says he almost always rides a bike, tried to expose the cult he was born into, (Aesthetic Realism), is concerned about pedophiles in the nudist community, played with the Ben Folds Five, and can tell you really really effective ways to save electricity? Why, its some guy called Micheal Blue Jay and his densly information packed web site of practical millenial knowledge and other fascinating factoids. Kind of Ben Franklinesque.
posted by celerystick at 6:31 PM PST - 20 comments

Operation Orca - Springer, Luna and the Struggle to Save West Coast Killer Whales (1) They Shoot Orcas, Don't They? (2) Era of the Orca Cowboys (3) How Not to Ship a Whale [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 4:25 PM PST - 9 comments

Marijuana harvesting like you've never seen. Brought to you by the same folks that unpacked your iPhone (not really).
posted by msaleem at 2:49 PM PST - 39 comments

The [US] National Trust for Historic Preservation has released its 21st annual list of the nation's Most Endangered Historic Places. Among them: Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, (where Linda Brown tried to register for school, resulting in Brown vs. Board of Education); New York City's Lower East Side; California's State Parks; Philadelphia's Boyd Theatre, and several others. The previous 20 years of Most Endangered Historic Places can be found in the Archive. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 2:28 PM PST - 16 comments

Mehdi Kazemi is granted asylum in the UK. Mehdi, now 20, was studying in the UK when Parham (his boyfriend) was arrested for the crime of homosexuality by the Iranian government. Mehdi was named by his boyfriend and warned he was liable to arrest on his planned return. The UK Home Office denied him asylum [despite a thoughtful campaign by human rights campaigners] - because it was said he had overstayed his student visa and was therefore not seen as genuinely seeking asylum. So he escaped to the Netherlands. That's where it gets complicated. [more inside]
posted by dash_slot- at 1:43 PM PST - 17 comments

Ruminations on the Borderlands of Cartography, or: What is not a map? "..as far as animals with map-like blotches on them, they don't get in the tent as family, but we might consider letting them in as entertainers." [via]
posted by peacay at 1:43 PM PST - 10 comments

The Last Roundup. "Is the government compiling a secret list of citizens to detain under martial law?" [Via]
posted by homunculus at 12:25 PM PST - 109 comments

Edward Kennedy has malignant brain tumor A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures. "He remains in good spirits and full of energy," the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement. [more inside]
posted by photodegas at 12:19 PM PST - 101 comments

When Malcolm McLaren was managing Stuart Goddard (alias Adam Ant), there was one song that Adam says he listened to over and over -- Burundi Black. You can definitely hear the influence. [more inside]
posted by wittgenstein at 11:47 AM PST - 32 comments

Until recently, earthquake lights were folklore. It wasn't until the phenomenon was captured in photographs, taken during the Matsushiro earthquake swarm in Japan between 1965 and 1967, that the seismological community acknowledged their occurrence. The precise mechanism is unknown. A stunning example was captured on video thirty minutes prior to the Sichuan earthquake.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:02 AM PST - 66 comments

Ze Frank asks when the first time you saw your parents as just being human was.
posted by muthecow at 10:42 AM PST - 87 comments

The rapid growth of electronic trading since 1976 has benefited equity market participants by improving competition, reducing cost and increasing liquidity while insuring better pricing.

One unexpected side effect has been the recent emergence of "dark pools of liquidity", or the secret stock market. [more inside]
posted by Mutant at 10:14 AM PST - 21 comments

Why do New Yorkers seem rude? A quirky and interesting article about the culture of New Yorkers.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 10:04 AM PST - 164 comments

Australians celebrate their national football championships with a bloody frogs vs. cockroaches football game online! (The cane toad is a symbol of Queensland football...)
posted by destinyland at 9:17 AM PST - 9 comments

Ernie Fosselius, writer/director of Hardware Wars and more recently creator of the Mechalodeon, also created a brilliant parody of Apocalypse Now: Porklips Now. YouTube: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
posted by Armitage Shanks at 9:11 AM PST - 10 comments

Stemming from a lawsuit that has gone on for several years, a recent Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. government must make bills with distinguishable tactile features to benefit the blind. While the U.S. government disagrees, the judges say: "The government might as well argue that, since handicapped people can crawl on all fours or ask for help from strangers, there's no need to make buildings wheelchair accessible." Not all blind people agree with the decision. [more inside]
posted by jabberjaw at 8:59 AM PST - 74 comments

Ever notice how some words just sound like what they mean? Like how a distant star really does seem to sparkle. Words like mumble, twist, and squeamish. Jospeh Bottum describes them well: "They taste good in the mouth, and they seem to resound with their own verbal truthfulness... More like proper nouns than mere words, they match the objects they describe. Pickle, gloomy, portly, curmudgeon--sounds that loop back on themselves to close the circle of meaning. They're perfect, in their way." But he tries to coin a new term for them when some already exist. [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 8:45 AM PST - 57 comments

What makes married men want to have affairs? A provocative look at an age-old question from New York Magazine.
posted by you just lost the game at 8:17 AM PST - 172 comments

When programmers kill. [pdf] In 1982, Atomic Energy Canada, Limited, introduced the now-infamous Therac-25, a solely software-driven successor to its earlier medical linear accelerators. Six patients received massive amounts of radiation, and three died, before AECL was compelled to supplement the (faulty) software-only error-checking with hardware interlocks to prevent overexposure. [more inside]
posted by enn at 7:55 AM PST - 18 comments

6 hours til Eurovision 2008 begins (well semi-final round 1 begins in 6 hours). After last year's extensive Eurovision discussion, let's see how 2008 does. There are a number of Eurovision blogs and many of the bloggers are hanging out in Belgrade. Not in Europe? You can watch online as well. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 6:25 AM PST - 32 comments

Amazing Animations: Morphing, Graffiti, Mixed-Media, Sand (also from Ilana Yahav and Ferenc Cakó), Paint-on-film, Paint-on-glass, Pinscreen & The Greatest Stop-Motion Movie of All-Time. (Some reposting, but it's worth watching again. trust me.)
posted by FeldBum at 4:09 AM PST - 6 comments

Do you like Berlin? The hippest city on the planet has some interesting video blogs. My personal favorite is First We Take Berlin which is pretty off-beat and covers a lot of not so hip areas of the city. In their current episode they go to the annual may riots in Kreuzberg (after a weird little mouse story). Then there is Mayda3000 which is the longest running video blog about Berlin. Watch Berlin is a sort of compilation of many different video blogs most of which are in german but there are some are in english as well. And last but not least there's Verbundstoff which is in german only and takes a look at the very underground Berlin electronic music scene.
posted by namagomi at 1:55 AM PST - 47 comments