December 14, 2012

My little piece of Heaven

People posting photographs of their bookshelves:
Father in Law's Library, built by hand in about 5 years: The card file. Details & overview.
The Air-Conditioned Nightmare: Building Wall Shelving for 9000 Books.
“…first time in years I've been able to get most of my books out of cardboard boxes and onto shelves…”
My desk after four months of working in a bookstore.
Nigella Lawson's library. [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 9:23 PM PST - 54 comments

Jeff Victor Redux

The Evolution Series, by artist and animator Jeff Victor. (Previously) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 8:42 PM PST - 3 comments

It's the Birthday Happy Birthday Song Contest

"Free Music Archive and Creative Commons want to dethrone one of the most notoriously copyrighted songs in the world. " [via mefi projects]
posted by aniola at 7:42 PM PST - 60 comments

(Please be) dead ant

This ant was as large as a hummingbird.
posted by curious nu at 5:06 PM PST - 32 comments

Migration mapping from road kill

SUNY Plattsburgh Assistant Professor, Danielle Garneau uses road kill data collected by her students using a free data collection app to track wildlife migration patterns (WARNING: Some links contain pictures of road kill). via
posted by agatha_magatha at 3:54 PM PST - 6 comments

Many dead in Connecticut primary school shooting

The BBC is reporting that police arrived at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut soon after 09:40 local time today, answering reports that a gunman was in the school's main office. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 2:19 PM PST - 3220 comments

Life & 6 Months: Investigating the Wellcome Trust's Tattoo Collection

Academic, writer and tattooist Gemma Angel is in the final year of her doctorate: researching the three hundred preserved, tattooed pieces of human skin in the Wellcome Collection. Check out her website, Life & 6 Months, for writing on the tactile experience of handling the skins, how to find out which part of the body a sailor's "unseen" tattoo was on, and tattoo collectors in fiction. [more inside]
posted by daisyk at 2:11 PM PST - 13 comments

Is the beard gray? Does he have a donut-shaped beard extremity? Does he look goofy?

How to identify each Hobbit dwarf by their epic beards
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:15 PM PST - 142 comments

"If I were to play nothing but Matteis all my life, I wouldn't mind at all."

The best classical performance you've never heard: the remarkable violinist Amandine Beyer plays the Diverse Bizzarrie Sopra La Vecchia Sarabanda Ò Pur Ciaccona, by 17th-century composer Nicola Matteis. Here she discusses trying to recreate Matteis's original violin technique, to understand why the Baroque composer, whose work pre-dates Johann Sebastian Bach, wrote his pieces the way he did. Previously, Beyer and her ensemble Gli Incogniti breathed life into one of classical music's most overplayed masterpieces, Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
posted by Rory Marinich at 1:06 PM PST - 16 comments

Guilded Youth

***You have connected to THE GUILD BBS*** Vorple version 2.4

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Adventurers' Lounge
posted by pravit at 12:25 PM PST - 34 comments

We're a long way from Danny Wood's Zubaz

BigBang, "Fantastic Baby" (slyt, K-pop).
posted by Diablevert at 11:45 AM PST - 42 comments

291 diseases and injuries + 67 risk factors + 1,160 non-fatal complications = 650 million estimates of how we age, sicken, and die

As humans live longer, what ails us isn't necessarily what kills us: five data visualizations of how we age, sicken, and die. Causes of death by age, sex, region, and year. Heat map of leading causes and risks by region. Changes in leading causes and risks between 1990 and 2010. Healthy years lost to disability vs. life expectancy in 1990 and 2010. Uncertainties of causes and risks. From the team for the massive Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010. [more inside]
posted by hat at 11:08 AM PST - 11 comments

Winter Camping for Dummies, Iron Chef version

Alferd (or Alfred) Packer has inspired musicals, songs, tourists, cookbooks, students, films and government employees. Even the local library and the state archives have found it necessary to document Packer's journey from maneater to vegetarian. Some still claim he was innocent.
posted by QIbHom at 11:00 AM PST - 10 comments

Autonomous cars and the law

Can autonomous vehicles navigate the law? This year has been full of big news about the progress of self-driving cars. They are currently street legal in three states and Google says that on a given day, they have a dozen autonomous cars on the road. This August, they passed 300,000 driver-hours. In Spain this summer, Volvo drove a convoy of three cars through 200 kilometers of desert highway with just one driver and a police escort. Cadillac's newest models park themselves. The writing, one might think, is on the wall. But objects in the media may be farther off than they appear.
posted by modernnomad at 10:53 AM PST - 83 comments

Jul!

Jul!, a creative and delightfully disturbing animated advent calendar (some images possibly NSFW). Via.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 10:15 AM PST - 5 comments

Perfection Is Perfected

Dec 15th, 1992 : The Chronic, Dr. Dre's first solo album, is released. [more inside]
posted by dubold at 10:07 AM PST - 36 comments

When I Post A New FPP

GIF and circumstance: A random and automated parody of #whatshouldwecallme-style tumblrs (previously) matching a random gif to a random recent tweet that contains the word "when." Potentially NSFW. [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 10:00 AM PST - 17 comments

The Uneasy Relationship Between Mental Illness and Comedy

"There are plenty of reasons to recover from addiction, anxiety, depression, and trauma....But comedians are perverse people who often don't care about any of those things. So maybe this will convince them, and maybe this will convince me: get better — so you can get funny." In a frank, personal, and revealing article, essayist Jaime Lutz interviews comedians Marc Maron, Eddie Pepitone, Paul Gilmartin, and Anthony Atamanuik about the uneasy relationship between mental illness and comedy.
posted by scarylarry at 9:57 AM PST - 9 comments

Everybody live for the music-go-round

Kim Wilde serenades passengers on a train (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:12 AM PST - 65 comments

6 Auteurs on Tantrums, Crazy Actors, and Quitting While They're Ahead

The Directors Roundtable: Quentin Tarantino, David O. Russell, Ben Affleck, Ang Lee, Tom Hooper, and Gus Van Sant. Full video. (YouTube version)
posted by starman at 8:46 AM PST - 25 comments

Love Lego? Love Rugby?

Ever wanted to see rugby highlights animated in lego? Of course you have! [more inside]
posted by Scottie_Bob at 8:01 AM PST - 6 comments

Driving in Russia

Driving in Russia. (SLYT) (warning: contains footage of many many car accidents.)
posted by alms at 7:44 AM PST - 122 comments

Just rub some dirt in it.

MTB vs. Soccer
posted by unSane at 7:02 AM PST - 44 comments

Volt Xoccula

Looking for a double-helix transistor to magnify your oblidisk? Want to discuss balooning algorithms or Dormison's Paradox? Ever wondered about Swedish teutonic logic commands, the Hans-Rodenheim Law of Vectoral Momentum, Fankel readings, Mornington axions, the Armistan Codex, Envels, or the newest breakthroughs in ion insulate plate technology? Come here for all your VX needs, whether it be tech updates, fixes, or conventions! [more inside]
posted by jenkinsEar at 7:02 AM PST - 31 comments

"Michelin-starred restaurants began to look and taste the same."

Vanity Fair: What's Wrong With The Michelin Guide. Esquire:Why It's Hard To Trust The Michelin Standards. FT:Star-Crossed: Once universally revered, the Michelin Guide is now dismissed by some as a relic of a bygone age
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:24 AM PST - 56 comments

That kitten is the very definition of "not having it."

Monkey adopts kitten (SLGuardian)
posted by Kitteh at 6:12 AM PST - 27 comments

missing the part where you wipe your hands on your pants

Paper towels or air drier? Previously
posted by shothotbot at 6:02 AM PST - 66 comments

Bald Knobbers

The Bald Knobbers were a vigilante group founded in the southern part of Missouri in the years after the Civil War. Though the group originally formed as a hedge against rampant crime and to protect citizens against marauding gangs, the Bald Knobbers themselves began terrorizing locals in an effort to enforce "clean living". The Bald Knobbers, who wore frightening masks, are not to be confused with The Baldknobbers, who make frightening faces.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:46 AM PST - 30 comments

More than just the Beano and 2000AD

"British comics go through peaks and troughs, and currently we’re in a peaky bit. In the mental graph I’m going to attempt to construct in your head, the x-axis begins around 1977 and the y-axis is the amount of interesting stuff happening. Up, down, up, down. Imagine at the moment that we are up." -- Hayley Campbell on "why we're banging on about comics so much", as The New Statesman holds a week of British comics blogging. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 5:12 AM PST - 24 comments

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