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Minnesota engineer Dave Edmonson won the Society of Automotive Engineers MPG contest in 1977 and 1978 with a lightweight three-wheel vehicle that he soon put into production and sold as the HMV Free-Way, weighing 750 lbs and producing 12 to 16 hp. An electric model was available. Only around 700 Free-ways were ever made and many have been modified. Within less than five years the company went bankrupt. The last models appear to have been given away in repayment of outstanding debts. Online ephemera include charmingly rough newsletters and the original order form.
posted by bq at 10:23 PM PST - 15 comments

So, how do you increase interest in your compact hybrid cars? Well, if you're Toyota, and you're selling to a Japanese market, you run an ad themed around the iconic music for one of the most famous JRPG transportation options. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:29 PM PST - 28 comments

You know, sometimes life can be rough. We all got hard things to deal with, right? Sometimes we lose people. Sometimes people hurt us. And some days we're just not feeling it and we don't even know why. When I'm feeling down one thing I like to do is play a game. I feel like games can really bring us together. - Life got you down? Play a relaxing game of Dungeons & Dragons with action star Vin Diesel.
posted by Artw at 7:13 PM PST - 50 comments

California's Homeless Find a Quiet Place. (slNatGeo)
posted by Kitteh at 4:31 PM PST - 79 comments

A recent study served to confirm the patently obvious: song lyrics for the most popular genres of music are ridiculously obtuse — and getting worse over time. Though this might not be a revelation, the figures are distressing indicators of both an intellectually vapid societal and cultural future as well as its apparent inevitability. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 1:52 PM PST - 186 comments

The New York Times reports on "a five-week industry boot camp designed to bring young veterans into the television business" that is "run by one of the Iraq war’s fiercest critics, Jon Stewart, the longtime host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”" [more inside]
posted by Little Dawn at 1:37 PM PST - 13 comments

Everyday Sigils: A tumblr where you can commission magical sigils and symbols to deal with everyday trials, from the mundane to the sadly common.
posted by The Whelk at 10:01 AM PST - 57 comments

They haven’t forgotten. For 70 years, the Dutch have come to a verdant U.S. cemetery outside this small village to care for the graves of Americans killed in World War II. On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:28 AM PST - 32 comments

The 2015 Eurovision Song Contest winner has now been crowned (previously), but the real stars of the contest were the fabulous and entertaining International Sign interpreters. [more inside]
posted by zebra at 7:13 AM PST - 16 comments

It instantly hits your eyes haloed in a corona of potency—structured so soundly as to seem staged, this forceful frieze of physical dominance. The Victor yells, the Loser displays himself vanquished, and the Watchers are all caught in that moment. The kinetic poetry of moving bodies, momentarily frozen, such is the stuff of the best sports photos—this has that.

It's widely recognized today as one of the greatest photographs in sports history, but Neil Leifer's masterpiece, capturing the climax of the fight 50 years ago today between Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) and Sony Liston hardly made a stir at the time it was snapped.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:54 AM PST - 34 comments

Americans try Dutch sweets. Some are received very well, others ... not so much. Some commentary at 24 Oranges.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:11 AM PST - 61 comments

On The Beautiful and Tragic Weirdness of Sonic Adventure
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 1:04 AM PST - 40 comments

"The world authorities have run out of ammunition as rates remain stuck at zero. They have no margin for error as economy falters" (Telegraph) [more inside]
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:54 AM PST - 65 comments