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Neuro is a new Flash cartoon by Bruno Bozzetto, an Italian animator most well-known for creating the character Mr. Rossi. In 1965, Bozzetto was the only Italian to create and produce an animated feature film in over 20 years. Check out the rest of his excellent site, which includes a bio, clips from his older work, and some more recent Flash cartoons. I recommend the short Europe and Italy.
posted by painquale at 11:52 PM PST - 8 comments

"Same-sex marriage? Euthanasia? Child's play issues in the avant-garde philosophy of Peter Singer" (Singer has been the subject of previous MeFi discussions). Having only skimmed those earlier threads, I don't know enough about Singer to usefully comment about the accuracy of World Magazine's interpretation of his views. What I found interesting was the tone of the article. The writer appears at times to bend over backwards to show that, while he thinks Singer's ideas are reprehensible, Singer himself seems like an OK guy (eg. "He approves of polyamory in the abstract but in his own life, to his credit, he has been married for 35 years to one woman"). Is World Magazine (mission: "To report, interpret, and illustrate the news ... from a perspective committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God") trying to present a balanced portrait of Singer and his views? Or is he being portrayed as a wolf in sheep's clothing? (original link courtesy of Arts & Letters Daily)
posted by e-man at 11:31 PM PST - 63 comments

No artist's palette was found in the studio and the artist appears to have used just about anything he could find as a substitute. Even the walls of the studio itself were used to mix and test paints.
posted by symbioid at 10:51 PM PST - 26 comments

Symmetry magazine.
posted by Gyan at 10:40 PM PST - 11 comments

The Wisdom of Super Sadhu: An Indian Sadhu, or holy man, expounds upon sexuality. Entries are scrawled out in a nearly illegible longhand and mailed to turbanhead, who transcribes them into blog form so the spiruatally bankrupt technoratti can get their learn on. Not to be confused with the other, less sexy Super Sadhu.
posted by ba at 10:30 PM PST - 9 comments

"LAB-TESTED: Just which toys, bowls, crates, etc. can stand up to the tender attentions of a young and determined Labrador Retreiver?" A Consumer Reports-like website for testing stuff to see how it will stand up to a big dog. My favorite item. What a neat way to write your dog off as a business expense!
posted by Doohickie at 9:07 PM PST - 22 comments

Nick Bantock's gorgeous Griffin and Sabine series is based on mail art, a medium with a long history. Developed in the mid-20th century by Ray Johnson and his contemporaries, today the community thrives, with the internet allowing dissemination beyond the reach of point-to-point mail.
posted by dmd at 8:53 PM PST - 12 comments

Jason Freeman created N.A.G. (Network Auralization for Gnutella), which turns peer-to-peer keyword searches into chaotic audio collages. Also, my favorite METAMIX, which algorithmically remixes user-selected source material into new music. They are both incredibly fun, and useful(be you a musician) programs. Also, runme.org and generative.net are two fun sites that host links to a cavalcade of software art.
posted by onkelchrispy at 8:31 PM PST - 3 comments

At least 10 percent of high-tech gifts this holiday season may fall victim to "computer rage" - acts of uncontrolled frustration by their owners - estimates University of Maryland professor Kent Norman, a cognitive psychologist who directs the Laboratory for Automation Psychology and Decision Processes.
posted by mhaw at 7:42 PM PST - 10 comments

Donations appreciated... "The male species is doomed, says Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University. And a woman-only world is possible." More here, and here.
posted by docpops at 6:26 PM PST - 49 comments

CARtoons was MAD Magazine for the hot-rod enthusiast, a bimonthly magazine-format comic book which I used to read regularly until it quietly disappeared from the newsracks in 1991 after a 30-year run. Reminded of the magazine earlier I was thrilled to find the website of George Trosley, the long-term CARtoons artist behind Krass and Bernie and the magazine's excellent how-to-draw articles whose results decorated my binders through high school. Those who remember the mag might enjoy the CARtoons archive he hosts, with scans of features and covers and writeups about the mag and its artists, many of whom passed away too soon. Still need a wild hot-rod fix? Ed "Big Daddy" Roth passed away in 2001, but Rat Fink lives on.
posted by mendel at 6:19 PM PST - 19 comments

What I had come looking for were the secrets to my father's murder. [LA Times link] In 1972, when Mark Arax was 15, his father was killed by two unknown gunmen. He spent nearly three decades trying to solve the crime, and wrote a book about his investigation. Then a break in the case led to some suprising discoveries.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:03 PM PST - 27 comments

Safe Personal Computing. Bruce Schneier, cited frequently on Metafilter, has a new article on his blog in which he gives home users concrete actions they could take to improve security. As the holidays come and I make the rounds to disinfect and repair all my family's computers, I'll be printing this out and sticking copies to their monitors.
posted by sohcahtoa at 2:11 PM PST - 74 comments

Backfence.com wants to see a thousand tiny websites bloom, created by neighbors, for neighbors, and supported by local advertising. The founders' assumption is that many little people creating content for free will put big dollars in their pockets. (WaPo link, reg. req.) Is there an information gap in your life that "hyperlocal" websites could fill?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:03 PM PST - 20 comments

"You can't buy any better heroin in the world than you can buy in New Jersey" The Drug Enforcement Agency cites New Jersey has having the purest heroin in the United States.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 12:41 PM PST - 32 comments

Watercolor landscapes of Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Hungary by Thomas Ender (1793-1875). The main frame for each painting allows you to open a large view, or read about the region depicted.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:23 AM PST - 7 comments

My Wife, The Coffee Table (Google cache)
Geocities Original (with awful Google Adsense ads covering the text on the right).
While I feel bad for the guy losing his wife at such a young age, I'm not sure that having her interred for all eternity in the living room isn't just a little damned creepy. Especially if he started dating again.
"Some of his friends and relatives, filled with fear, stop visiting Jeff. His true friends respected his decision and continue visiting him." No mention of whether his true family respects his decision and visits him still.
But if you think this is how you'd like to spend eternity or how you'd like your loved on to spend eternity then go hit up CasketFurniture (who now have a cool casket shaped pool table too), previously discussed in the Blue 1st here and again here.
posted by fenriq at 11:02 AM PST - 33 comments

iPod My Photo - Transform your photos into iPod ads
posted by puke & cry at 10:57 AM PST - 39 comments

The Sudan crisis isn't going away. Darfur is a dead link. This Christmas, I urge you, leave your favorite animal charity in the care of the Western world's army of old ladies, and instead use your money for the immediate saving of those most desperate of human lives.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:41 AM PST - 34 comments

Caring for the Wounded in Iraq. A photo essay in the New England Journal of Medicine. (NSFW)
posted by EmoChild at 10:35 AM PST - 16 comments

"When one is in prison, the most important thing is the door". The precise coordination of every element of filmmaking -- camera distance, sound, theme, narrative, motion, color, human action -- so that it functions with rhythmic clarity: that is the cinema of Robert Bresson, who died five years ago aged 98. A "Christian atheist" by his own description, he made only 13 films (and a short) and created a cinema of paradox, in which "the denial of emotion creates emotionally overwhelming works, the withholding of information makes for narrative density, and attention to 'the surface of the work' produces inexhaustible depth". Paul Schrader, the most famous among Bresson scholars, wrote that "Bresson has seemed like God himself; distant, beyond communication. Now, like God, Bresson is dead". More inside.
posted by matteo at 10:30 AM PST - 12 comments

The ancient concept of the sacred phallus in spirituality, art, and culture (that is, before moralistic taboos attempted to mute phallic representations with fig leaves for the geniality of civilization). Obviously NSFW.
posted by moonbird at 10:18 AM PST - 6 comments

Six reservists from the unit located in my hometown of Springfield, OH were court-Martialed for scrounging abandoned military vehicles so they could do their jobs delivering fuel to troops on the front line. Any other war previous such recycling would have gotten them commendations for resourcefulness, but because this only highlights the administrations lack of troop support and the war's poor equipment disbursement from military contractors showing their incompetence, someone has to pay for doing their jobs.
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 10:13 AM PST - 34 comments

The man who brought us The Paper Bag Princess and Love You Forever, Robert Munsch is Canada's best-selling author and, though originally from Pittsburgh, a Member of the Order of Canada. His website contains descriptions of his books and mp3s of his entertaining readings of them as well as stories written collaboratively with kids he meets on his reading tours. A former Jesuit-priest-in training, he will once again act as Honorary Celebrity Chair for ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation's 2005 Family Literacy Day. The CBC aired a documentary about his life on November 7, 2000 (video excerpt [.ram]). See also: many lesson plans for teachers using his books.
posted by heatherann at 10:08 AM PST - 13 comments

Can this matrixy eye candy be considered bunraku?
posted by Specklet at 10:05 AM PST - 17 comments

drew*#*#^*# - among the few sites about which I wax nostalgic, drew was one of the first really hilarious (imo) inter-net sites I discovered. Unfortunately, the site has become defunct (for the most part), but that's why God made the Wayback Machine, which allows you to view the past archives. Besides his various writings (including an unfinished novel entitled Temp Jobbin'), he gained relative internet stardom for his lego porn site, which due to litigation he had to change to block-structure porn. He also popularized Domokun and received a great deal of hate for his instructions on how to kill squirrels with electricity. He even took the time to register morrisseydance.com. Lately drew has been writing for .net magazine and drawing and sellings images through toothpaste for dinner. drew doesn't suit your taste? Perhaps you'd like other dumbrella member sites including diesel sweeties and exploding dog.
posted by Frankieist at 9:43 AM PST - 25 comments

The Tate Britain Christmas Tree
Every year the Tate Britain art gallery invites an artist to design a Christmas Tree to put on display. This year, artist Richard Wentworth has incorporated a bluetooth receiver into his tree. Files sent to the tree, or uploaded via the web, will be "unwrapped" online on Christmas Day.
posted by Mwongozi at 8:33 AM PST - 3 comments

Does bowling bore you? Kirsten Easthope maybe able to spice things up. She takes bowling pins and paints "Pin Up" girls on them (get it? pin up girls, on pins!...clever eh!). sfw -- but do know it's pin up work
posted by Hands of Manos at 7:50 AM PST - 22 comments

Upstart travel sites challenge the big three Catering to skinflints who can't be bothered to check multiple sites for the best fares, travel aggregator sites like Mobissimo, CheapFlights, Qixo, or Sidestep allow you to search Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity with a single query, as well as bargain airlines like JetBlue and Southwest, which aren't covered by the big three. (note: Sidestep requires a download, and only works on Windows; the others are all just regular websites.) But maybe you'd be best off just heading straight to an obscure Belgian travel site.
posted by yankeefog at 7:16 AM PST - 13 comments

Meet my favorite "new" 'toonist, if you haven't already. Andy Singer: I'm currently reading his latest "No Exit" collection about five times a week, but you can find free samples on his website, his CarToons over at Slate, some BikeToons at BikeReader.com, not to mention more in dozens of papers, mags and books, and on the web. (Interview.)
posted by Shane at 6:54 AM PST - 8 comments

Legendary running coach Arthur Lydiard died this weekend at age 87. Q and A with Lydiard here. Obit via Boomberg here. NYTimes obit here. Lydiard had been travelling through the US on a final lecture tour. Among distance runners Lydiard is a hero. Two of his athletes won gold medals for New Zealand at the 1960 Olympics, and Peter Snell went on to dominate the middle distance running at the 1964 Games, taking home two gold medals, the only man since 1920 to win both the 800m and the 1500m. Lydiard coached Mexican, Japanese and Finnish runners to Gold medal performances, and his philosophy of training has influenced countless other runners. Finland thought that he was important enough to the success of their runner's to award him the White Cross (eq. of a knighthood), making him the only non-Finn to be given the award. Lydiard's approach was high-mileage, aerobic conditioning. Even his middle distance runners trained 100 miles/week. He felt that too many athletes were training for speed first and endurance second. One of his lectures, explaining some of the science behind his theories, is here.
posted by OmieWise at 6:12 AM PST - 10 comments

New Power for 'Old Europe'
"Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the European Union has been steadily transforming itself from a facilitator of trade to a sophisticated geopolitical power with the teeth to back up its policies... Over the past decade, EU member states have ceded governing and enforcement authority to Brussels in areas ranging from environmental regulation to food safety, accounting standards, telecommunications policy and oversight of corporate mergers."
posted by Irontom at 5:47 AM PST - 26 comments

Logistical issues threaten to undermine Iraqi elections. "I just can't see how we can hold these elections," an American consultant working with Iraqi election planners said on the condition of anonymity." I found out about this story, btw, from someone working on the elections in Baghdad. They write: "We've got a leak. Someone, an American, is talking to the press. And ___ is *pissed*. It's a good article, though... er, even though I'm not commenting on it. Or expressing an opinion. But if you've got any interest in these elections, you should read it."
They also cited several of the problems they are having: "Because our meal times are regulated by (KBR), it only allows us about five hours a day . . . with our Iraqi counterparts. Iraqis bolt for home at around 3 PM to avoid being shot in the head or blown up . . . After a mortar attack, car bomb, or any other security related exercise, the US military shuts down the Iraqna mobile phone network . . . We have become the focal point for . . . everything that the Iraqi staff cannot handle . . . which includes getting people (and) equipment into the building, getting water (and) lunch for day laborers, preventing mass resignations due to salary disputes, replacing windows broken by car bombs, removing trash, cleaning toilets, fixing locks, moving (and unpacking) boxes . . . It makes it difficult to get our actual jobs done, although I have forgotten what those are."
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:19 AM PST - 13 comments

"Its like a fancy xerox machine": taking unplayable, broken, cracked, or worn-out wax cylinders and shellac disks, Lawrence Berkeley Lab scientists have found a way to image the grooves directly into digital sound files (some examples on this page). News summaries on this research make me think of obsolete computer media and the digital archaeology that may be needed to read them. What stable media should we use to communicate with the future? High density analog disks are one idea, nuclear waste warning monuments (long, surreal PDF) are another, and, of course, who can forget the pictographs for aliens sent out with Pioneer 10?. Serious thinking about this at the Long Now Foundation and the Foundation for the Future.
posted by Rumple at 1:37 AM PST - 13 comments