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T Pain auto tunes Obama Health Care
posted by bluesky43 at 6:51 PM PST - 53 comments

Peter Goldmark, developer of early color tv technology, is lesser known for a cooler invention, the Highway Hifi – the first recorded-music player for an automobile. The under-dash system played records provided by Columbia Records which played at 16 ⅔ rpm even when the vehicle was in motion. It was first released with Chrysler models in 1956 but lackluster promotion of the option by both Columbia and Chrysler led to the option being discontinued before the 60s. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn at 6:41 PM PST - 36 comments

"Long thought to be lost or destroyed, this complete recording of one of the few hour long interviews of Alfred Hitchcock has been found." [more inside]
posted by dhammond at 6:34 PM PST - 17 comments

After 10000 hours of hard work, more than 10 years from time to time in the garage and about 15000 Euros spent, the Snaefell was ready to ride! Ever wonder what the teleportation booth mishap result of a sportbike crossed with a sportscar would look like? François Knorreck spent an insane amount of time finding out and the results are, well, you decide whether you like it or not but you can't say the workmanship is anything but top notch.
posted by fenriq at 6:08 PM PST - 42 comments

"Won't you gentlemen have a Pepsi?" Raised from '80s oblivion by Family Guy, the 1986 Dan Aykroyd / Chevy Chase comedy Spies Like Us deserves some respect. When the American government sends two inept diplomats abroad into enemy hands as unwitting decoys, hilarity ensues all the way into the Soviet Union where they have to prevent World War III with plenty of classic Chase one-liners and Aykroyd attitude. Then there's Paul McCartney's theme song, "Spies Like Us", and the remixed version from Art of Noise.
posted by Servo5678 at 5:53 PM PST - 123 comments

Simon Dyson was the winner at the Dunhill Links Championship, but Manuel de los Santos may have made the biggest impression at the pro-am event, which was played on St. Andrews, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie. De los Santos, 25, is a former baseball player who lost a leg in a car accident and picked up golf in 2004, after moving from his native Dominican Republic to France. He plays to a 3-handicap without the aid of a prosthesis.
posted by netbros at 5:32 PM PST - 4 comments

In 1771, John Wilkes succeeded in defending the freedom of the press to report the then secret debates of Parliament. In 2009, the well-known libel law firm Carter-Ruck, possibly acting on behalf of their clients Trafigura, succeeded in gagging The Guardian newspaper from reporting a question to be asked in Parliament (see #61). [more inside]
posted by Sova at 3:42 PM PST - 53 comments

They're responsible for the slang terms "hip" and "dive."¹ Among many other traditions, Chinese immigrants brought opium dens to the Western world. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde all embellished the existence of opium dens in Victorian England. In the expanding US, Chinese railroad workers brought opium dens to outposts as far-flung as El Paso. By the 1880s, US readers were familiar with the stereotypical opium den of urban Chinatowns like San Francisco's (pdf) -- where it was made illegal for white people to smoke -- and New York's (pdf).²

Learn more about opium dens, and see the photos, at the online Opium Museum. [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 2:34 PM PST - 45 comments

Today is the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's murder in Laramie, Wyoming. His mother, Judy, continues to speak out against her son's death, the House of Representatives has passed expanded anti-hate crime legislation, the event is being commemorated with the staging of The Laramie Project Epilogue in over 150 cities worldwide, including a special performance in Laramie itself. Meanwhile, some people continue to deny Shepard was killed because he was gay.
posted by elder18 at 1:47 PM PST - 80 comments

A new iPhone app helps you, uh "score" with women. (YT) It's made by Pepsi to promote its AMP energy drink. You choose the type of girl, and it gives you information related to that type (music suggestions, locations of bars). Then you can Tweet your conquest when you're, uh, done. Is Pepsi alienating its female customers? It's sure not going over well.
posted by desjardins at 1:41 PM PST - 209 comments

"Captain, the tech is overteching" - Ron Moore confirms everything you suspected about the Star Trek TNG approach to writing.
posted by Artw at 1:00 PM PST - 246 comments

"This is for the guy who needed a card to come out to his parents." (Youtube) David Ellis Dickerson draws on his previous job as a Hallmark greeting card writer to create funny, poignant cards for people with unconventional greeting card emergencies (but he won't do cards aimed at making people feel bad). [more inside]
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 11:39 AM PST - 46 comments

Wonderful documentary on the art inspired chain of Best retail stores designed by Site architectural firm in the '70s and early '80s. 1::2::3::4
posted by vronsky at 11:09 AM PST - 17 comments

uPlaya uses algorithms to determine if a song will be a hit. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:07 AM PST - 42 comments

Juan Cabral, the commercial maker behind the Sony Bravia bouncing ball ad has completed a new piece: this time, he and collaborators, including Múm, Richard Fearless (of Death In Vegas) and the people behind Sigur Rós' live concerts, transformed the Icelandic town of Sey∂isfjör∂ur into an ambient sound installation, placing speakers throughout the town, playing music (from folk to electronica to ambient orchestral) and filming the reactions of the locals as they went about their lives. [more inside]
posted by acb at 10:54 AM PST - 17 comments

One Fast Move or I'm Gone : a documentary of Kerouac's Big Sur features a soundtrack by Ben Gibbard & Jay Farrar.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:23 AM PST - 8 comments

Electric Junkyard Gamelan is the brainchild of bandleader and composer Terry Dame, and fuses Dame's passions of composing, inventing and building. Originally inspired by traditional Gamelan music from Bali, the group recycles and repurposes everyday objects into musical instruments. While some of their songs do indeed resemble the hypnotic percussive melodies of a Balinese/Javanese gamelan orchestra (The Nutbutter Challenge), other tunes strike out into new, distinctly urban American directions (Ode to Fred Beans). Following the band's motto, "Reuse, Recycle and ROCK," instruments are fashioned from coat hangers and rubber bands, bed frames, old farm equipment, turntable platters, clay pots, saw blades and truck springs. The "Big Barp" rubber-band harp makes a particularly unusual sound. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 10:07 AM PST - 6 comments

The Pekar Project started a couple of months ago from Smith Magazine; it posts new webcomics every other week by Harvey Pekar and one of four artists, like "Pekar and Crumb: Talkin' 'bout Art, plus occasional extras. They just posted a tribute to Harvey's 70th birthday. [Smith Mag's webcomics previously, including Pekar's The Next-Door Neighbor I Don't Know] [via] [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 9:22 AM PST - 9 comments

How To Save Media Jason Ponti from Technology Review offers some suggestions as to how traditional print publishers might save themselves from becoming irrelevant.
posted by reenum at 8:56 AM PST - 30 comments

Colleen lives in New Orleans and makes strange dolls out of polymer clay. She has a blog and an Etsy shop. Here's a short interview. See also Art Dolls Only and the Travelling Doll Project.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:16 AM PST - 21 comments

Surprise, surprise. It's a girl - for the first time. Elinor Ostrom ("for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons") and Oliver E. Williamson ("for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm") have won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009.
posted by jfricke at 5:13 AM PST - 44 comments