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Pentatonix does an a capella cover of Lorde's "Royals"
posted by jason's_planet at 5:41 PM PST - 67 comments

'Legendary Vietnam Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap dies.' 'Vo Nguyen Giap, the brilliant and ruthless self-taught general who drove the French out of Vietnam to free it from colonial rule and later forced the Americans to abandon their grueling effort to save the country from communism, has died. At age 102, he was the last of Vietnam's old-guard revolutionaries.' 'To military scholars around the world, he was one of the 20th century’s leading practitioners of modern revolutionary guerrilla warfare.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 4:35 PM PST - 135 comments

Pass the Garum is a cooking blog focused on the recipes and cuisine of ancient Rome. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 4:29 PM PST - 57 comments

Susan Bennett has identified herself as the original American voice of Apple's Siri. She came forward after tech blog the Verge did a video feature causing some to misattribute the voice of Siri to another woman.
posted by rcraniac at 3:05 PM PST - 28 comments

Kiva Interest Rate Finder "Kiva allows people to fund microfinance loans through Field Partners. Some Kiva Partners charge the equivalent of 109% APR. That is incredibly high. Kiva doesn't make it easy to find the partners that charge borrowers 0% or low interest, so I made a script to do so. " [via mefi projects]
posted by aniola at 1:20 PM PST - 11 comments

Joan Roosa, wife of Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot Stu Roosa, recalled "I was at a party one night in Houston. A woman standing behind me, who had no idea who I was, said 'I've slept with every astronaut who has been to the Moon.' ...I said 'Pardon me, but I don't think so'".
posted by four panels at 12:41 PM PST - 53 comments

Grapevine (The Reflex Stems ReVision) is a deeply funky version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's version of Heard it through the Grapevine remixed by French DJ Reflex, using just the original stems. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:30 PM PST - 28 comments

"The indispensable English footballer whose metatarsal will snap four weeks before the 2022 World Cup is currently 12 years old, but Fifa is already worrying stagily about the temperature in which he will perform disappointingly. As for the 12-year-old Nepalese boy whose family are unwittingly saving for the chance to send him off in a few years to die laying the foundations of a stadio-mall, or the 12-year-old Qatari boy wondering not when his people voted for this, but whether they'll ever vote for anything at all … well, it would be much easier if people did not concern themselves with them." The Guardian summarizes the current issues over the staging of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
posted by salishsea at 12:08 PM PST - 25 comments

When Connie Jones arrives home from her job as an information technology manager in Chandler, Arizona, she parks her car in her garage and fills it up with natural gas.
posted by storybored at 11:46 AM PST - 50 comments

Radio Free Earth "Radio Free Earth finds the #1 song according to the Billboard Charts on a random (or determined) date, measures how long ago that date was, finds a named star that distance away, and then outputs which star that #1 song is just reaching at this moment." [more inside]
posted by epersonae at 10:51 AM PST - 34 comments

Rob Meline always dreamed of being an astronaut. He became a teacher instead. But the beloved faculty member at Camas Prairie Elementary in Spanaway, Washington kept a family secret. When he fell victim to it in October 2012, he became the symbol of a flawed judicial system. What his students did next was out of this world.
posted by zarq at 10:49 AM PST - 43 comments

Hip Hop legend Lauryn Hill is set to be released from federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut today. It is the prison Piper Kerman was also in, depicted in the netflix series Orange is the New Black. Lauryn's team has released a new track as part of a new material called Letters from Exile. Consumerism.
posted by cashman at 10:35 AM PST - 18 comments

Arthur Conley - Sweet Soul Music
Alvin Cash & The Crawlers - Twine Time
Dixie Cups - Iko Iko
Robert Parker - Barefootin'
Barbara Lynn - You'll Lose A Good Thing
Al Green - Tired of Being Alone
Ann Peebles I Can't Stand The Rain
Al Green - Can't Get Next To You
Syl Johnson - Take Me to the River
King Curtis & the Kingpins - A Whiter Shade of Pale
[more inside]
posted by y2karl at 10:24 AM PST - 29 comments

This fall, why not kayak down a drainage ditch at speeds of 35 mph?
posted by Chrysostom at 9:40 AM PST - 40 comments

“Oh,” says the ad man. He’s responsible for the hour of primetime television Revlon has bought and turned over to Belafonte, who, by the way, will not be singing “The Banana Boat Song,” and has also decided that he won’t accept commercials. “Oh my god,” says the ad man. Belafonte grins now, and says what he thought then: “Swallow that sh*t, motherf***er.” The Revolutionary Life of Harry Belafonte.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:06 AM PST - 36 comments

Amaze Your Friends, Solve World Hunger; How to Create Chocolate out of Nothing! [slyt]
posted by quin at 7:58 AM PST - 22 comments

Wonder Woman, a short by Rainfall Films.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:30 AM PST - 34 comments

“Movie theaters wanted nothing to do with popcorn,” Smith says, “because they were trying to duplicate what was done in real theaters. They had beautiful carpets and rugs and didn’t want popcorn being ground into it.” Movie theaters were trying to appeal to a highbrow clientele, and didn’t want to deal with the distracting trash of concessions–or the distracting noise that snacking during a film would create. - So Why Do We Eat Popcorn At The Movies Anyway? (Smithsonian Mag)
posted by The Whelk at 7:09 AM PST - 134 comments

She's the most famous woman in the world you've never heard of. The Overexposed Model is a blog dedicated to collecting appearances of a mysterious stock photography model whose smiling face has sold eyeglasses in Greece, healthcare in Peru, oral gel in Malaysia, Jamba Juice in the US, radio stations in Germany, and countless daily deal websites. Its readers report seeing the model almost everywhere they go. [more inside]
posted by dontjumplarry at 6:33 AM PST - 79 comments

Teddy Bear Roll Out A printmaker, a printing press, and some stuffed animals.
posted by moonmilk at 6:23 AM PST - 11 comments

Interview at NY Mag, prompted by a few internet mockery blurbs linked in the first paragraph.
posted by kavasa at 4:23 AM PST - 83 comments

Wielding bagpipes, the largest hurdy-gurdy in the world, and a huge array of other medieval instruments, neo-medievalists Corvus Corax (official site) join with taiko drummers Wadokyo for an incredible sunset performance at 2013's Wacken Open Air festival. [more inside]
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:17 AM PST - 26 comments

A new report (pdf) released by LSE’s Media Department contradicts widespread claims about the decline of creative industries as a result of copyright infringement. The report shows that the gaming, film and publishing industries are growing and new business models are emerging based on digital sharing. (See pages 7-8 of the report for figures.) [more inside]
posted by ersatz at 4:04 AM PST - 16 comments

Once every two years "Only Watch", a charitable fundraiser for research on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, auctions unique watches provided by the prestige Swiss watch brands. It was held in 2013 on September 28, raising 5,066,000 Euros. In a year with some disappointing sales, which watch sold for the highest value? [more inside]
posted by Admira at 2:22 AM PST - 17 comments

Momoko: Is it good?
Paulo: Oh, yes! Please try it.
(and other insane Japanese textbook doodles from Twitter user 茶んた). [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 2:10 AM PST - 17 comments

A dialogue between the Anthropocene and Afrofuturism looks at alternate aspirations for modernity: "[u]nlike what it suggests, Afrofuturism has nothing to do with Africa, and everything to do with cyberculture in the West." (via) [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:21 AM PST - 12 comments

The Top 80 Highlights of the World according to Michael Spencer Bown, a Calgarian who may lay claim to the title of 'the most extensively travelled person in human history'. [more inside]
posted by mannequito at 12:39 AM PST - 31 comments