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We want our tools to sing of not just productivity but of our love of curiosity, the joy of wonderment, and the freshness of the unknown. —Eric Paulos, “Manifesto of Open Disruption and Participation”

In his essay “Walking in the City,” the French scholar Michel de Certeau talks about the “invisible identities of the visible.” He is talking specifically about the memories and personal narratives associated with a location. Until recently, this information was only accessible one-to-one—that is, by talking to people who had knowledge of a place. But what if that data became one-to-many, or even many-to-many, and easily accessible via some sort of street-level interface that could be accessed manually, or wirelessly using a smartphone?

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posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:20 PM PST - 28 comments

It was Christmas Eve. I begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable way to begin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox, respectable way, and taught to always do the proper, orthodox, respectable thing; and the habit clings to me. Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary to mention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it was Christmas Eve ... It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story.

In Told After Supper (1891), Jerome K. Jerome parodied the tradition of telling Christmas ghost stories, but it's plain to see that he had fun writing them. And horror writer Ramsey Campbell, himself the author of a number of Christmas stories, recently dropped by /r/WeirdLit to list off a few places to find more. [more inside]
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:06 PM PST - 12 comments

KQED has been posting its Truly CA documentary videos on YouTube, including Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea, a touching look at the rise and fall of the accidental ocean that is less than 100 years old in its current form, narrated by John Waters and featuring interviews from residents who have seen its better times. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:30 PM PST - 13 comments

Let Me Tell You About New York City [SL Toast]
posted by KernalM at 7:28 PM PST - 29 comments

Do you like books for more than just the words inside? Here, thanks to MeFi's own Jason Kottke, are four and a half lists of the best book covers of 2014.
posted by Etrigan at 5:32 PM PST - 8 comments

"This is unedited raw footage of a bear I filmed with my cell phone. I'm not sure what kind of bear this is." (NSFW, intense flashing at 9min mark)

* Sponsored by Claridryl—"Take life in your hands"
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posted by Doktor Zed at 5:04 PM PST - 104 comments

9th Circuit upholds Los Angeles County law mandating the use of condoms in porn shoots. Decision here. Will this force the porn industry out of Los Angeles? [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:47 PM PST - 54 comments

Chelsea Manning turns 27 this week and some people have written to her.
Joe Sacco, Alan Moore, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Terry Gilliam, Edward Snowden among others. It will be her 4th birthday in prison.
posted by adamvasco at 4:29 PM PST - 24 comments

Meet Ulf. He lives north of the Arctic Circle and makes boat. He swims daily (brief male buttock shot), does household chores, and relaxes. Ulf is content. [10 minutes, Vimeo]
posted by Wordshore at 3:47 PM PST - 26 comments

"Truth be told, you should really set aside a weekend and watch all 83 sets back-to-back. But until then, here's a cross-section of favorites, from pop to opera, hip-hop, jazz, rock, country and whatever genre is broad enough to contain the Sun Ra Arkestra." 2014: The Year In Tiny Desk Concerts (here's the full list ).
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 2:02 PM PST - 31 comments

beautiful views from the cockpit, violating rules of the air [more inside]
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 1:06 PM PST - 68 comments

This Friday, Darlene Love will perform "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on David Letterman's show for the 28th and last time. She's performed it every year since 1986, on both Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman. Here's a supercut compilation of her performances. [more inside]
posted by Shmuel510 at 12:57 PM PST - 21 comments

Seattle's unbelievable transportation megaproject fustercluck — "In short: There is no plan to resolve the dispute over cost overruns, which are ubiquitous on projects like this; at $4.2 billion, it's the most expensive transportation project in state history. The tunnel will have no exits - no ingress or egress - throughout the entire downtown core (which makes the support of downtown businesses all the more mystifying). It won't allow transit, only cars. It will be tolled, highly enough, by the state's own estimates, to drive nearly half its traffic onto the aforementioned side streets. It will be a precarious engineering feat, the widest deep-bore tunnel in history, digging right between a) Puget Sound and b) the oldest part of Seattle, with vulnerable buildings and God-knows-what buried infrastructure. Also: Pollution. Climate change. It's the 21st f'ing century. On and on. People said all this and more, in real time, to no avail." [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 12:34 PM PST - 169 comments

Dr Dobbs, one of the oldest programming publications announces the end.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:23 PM PST - 39 comments

Report: Darren Wilson's Key Witness Lied About Everything: A summation of the findings of The Smoking Gun's investigation into Sandra McElroy also known as "Witness 40", a key witness for Officer Darren Wilson which may have been instrumental in preventing an indictment for the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. [previously]
posted by quin at 12:18 PM PST - 134 comments

On Dec 15, 2014, Microsoft announced the first public beta preview for new Skype Translate, a service which will (eventually) work as a go-between to help break down language barriers during voice calls. The initial trial is Spanish <> English only, [2m marketing video] but that's only the beginning. How, though, does it work? And the even bigger question, DOES it work? (The answer appears to be yes.)
posted by hippybear at 11:17 AM PST - 54 comments

How Chan-Style Anonymous Culture Shapes #gamergate Twitter user A Man In Black attempts to untangle the gamergater mindset using identity -- any identity as vice, and lack of identity as a chief virtue.
posted by boo_radley at 9:31 AM PST - 222 comments

Tuesday’s attack killed 141 including many children in grisly battle lasting several hours. The Pakistan military has launched massive air strikes in its remote border region against the Taliban in retaliation for the massacre in a Peshawar school on Tuesday morning that left at least 141 dead, 132 of them children. [more inside]
posted by standardasparagus at 9:24 AM PST - 145 comments

What's the best way to make sure that your politically divided children behave around the Christmas dinner table? Call in while they are appearing on C-Span.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:44 AM PST - 37 comments

I did not begin 2014 by imagining that the most resonant movie moment of the 12 months to come would be a quiet, resigned stare-down in a bathroom. But it has been that kind of year. "What the movie industry is about, in 2014, is creating a sense of anticipation in its target audience that is so heightened, so nurtured, and so constant that moviegoers are effectively distracted from how infrequently their expectations are actually satisfied."
posted by Tevin at 8:27 AM PST - 89 comments

Maybe you've heard of Bulletproof Coffee, the revolutionary fad that advocates mixing in butter and oil into your coffee? Well, Dan Norman's here to tell you about the Bulletproof Sandwich (YT) (here's the original Bulletproof Coffee promo video, for reference).
posted by shivohum at 7:49 AM PST - 77 comments

It’s that time of year again: the British Medical Journal‘s Christmas Edition is out, featuring some of the most hilarious research published since… well, since forever! All this week, Discover's Seriously, Science? will be featuring the best of this and past years’ BMJ Christmas Research Articles to get you in the holiday spirit. First up: Sword swallowing and its side effects [more inside]
posted by T.D. Strange at 6:54 AM PST - 9 comments

The 2014 Black List Has been announced - the top unproduced scripts of the year, according to Hollywood insiders. Excited film buffs will be scouring the list for overlooked gems and masterpieces that might have been, but why not go a different route? The Ten Worst Sounding Black List Scripts.
posted by Artw at 6:43 AM PST - 136 comments

The 50 best Ghostface Killah tracks (via Complex)
posted by Renoroc at 5:13 AM PST - 14 comments