MetaFilter

Ever wanted to watch a video games award show from 1994 hosted by Leslie Neilson and Jonathan Taylor Thomas? Well, your extremely questionable prayers have been answered (single two hour youtube link, stick around for all the commercials and a very early appearance by Will Arnett)
posted by Shadax at 10:50 PM PST - 75 comments

Tenacious Irish journalist demands an answer at a European Central Bank press conference (SLYT)
posted by moorooka at 8:08 PM PST - 47 comments

The lack of female road narratives and why it matters Whereas a man on the road might be seen as potentially dangerous, potentially adventurous, or potentially hapless, in all cases the discourse is one of potential. When a man steps onto the road, his journey begins. When a woman steps onto that same road, hers ends.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:35 PM PST - 74 comments

Phoenix pulls back the curtain on the future of inland empires. If you want a taste of the brutal new climate to come, the place to look is where that climate is already harsh, and growing more so — the aptly named Valley of the Sun.
William deBuys on climate change and Phoenix concluding one or several decades from now, people will bet on a surer thing: they’ll take the road out of town.
posted by adamvasco at 6:21 PM PST - 64 comments

Are your favorite writers using Google Docs? Probably. They're also bossy and irritable.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 5:29 PM PST - 14 comments

Odawa Indian tribe hosts Michigan's first legal same-sex marriage (and the third among all US Native nations). It was a historic day. Not just for them and not just for the tribe that [Tim] LaCroix belongs to, but for Michigan too. News story from UpNorthLive.
posted by NoMich at 4:28 PM PST - 10 comments

First, there was the closing of Google Reader. There was also the announcement that Google would only leave CalDAV open to whitelisted developers (no MeFi link, though it is briefly mentioned in the Google Illiterate discussion), forcing anyone else who wrote a calendaring application to migrate from the open CalDAV standard to Google's own Calendar API. Then there was the removal of advertisement blocking applications from Google Play. Now, Google is blocking invite requests to their Jabber service from non-Google Jabber servers. A Google customer user must send the request to the non-Google Jabber user. [more inside]
posted by Brian Puccio at 4:21 PM PST - 79 comments

'I've had it with lazy devs' - a forum-goer puts a studio on notice
posted by cthuljew at 3:07 PM PST - 33 comments

Defense contractor takes break from F-35 JSF, finds a way to eliminate 99% of the energy cost of desalination. Lockheed-Martin has developed a way to craft sheets of carbon a single atom thick, which can filter the salt (and just about anything else) from water with a tiny fraction of the energy required by current processes. "Lockheed officials see other applications for Perforene as well, from dialysis in healthcare to cleaning chemicals from the water used in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," of oil and gas wells." Previously.
posted by Morriscat at 2:29 PM PST - 67 comments

Key to slowing/stalling/reversal of desertification and climate change? More cows (sort of). Holistic Management advocate and biologist Allan Savory, co-founder of the Savory Institute, discusses the counterintuitive tactic of allowing large herds of animals to free-roam marginal lands. [more inside]
posted by lonefrontranger at 2:22 PM PST - 23 comments

A visualization of 826 days of Minecraft development, from alpha 1.2 to release 1.5, shown in 8~ minutes. [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 2:18 PM PST - 8 comments

Conservative Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) came out in favor of marriage equality today, in an interview on CNN and an Op-Ed in the Columbus Dispatch. This reversal comes via Portman's son, who came out as a gay man to his parents two years ago. Reaction has been mixed.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:01 PM PST - 261 comments

So a Ford Mustang Mach 1 shacked up with a Ford GT40 and, under the watchful eyes of engineer Terry Lipscomb and designer Mike Miernik, a child was born. Its name is Mach 40, and it is beautiful and healthy.
posted by invitapriore at 12:50 PM PST - 33 comments

Amidst the outrage generated by the Being White in Philly article, a 22 year old West Philly native gives her own account of what it's like. She is perhaps looking through rose-colored glasses, considering she grew up just blocks from one of the top 10 drug corners in the city.
posted by DoubleLune at 12:19 PM PST - 75 comments

MichaelKeaton.net [more inside]
posted by StopMakingSense at 11:44 AM PST - 29 comments

The blog US Slave collects long-form articles on every aspect of the history of slavery, primarily focussing on African slaves in the USA and their descendents. Among the content there is this biography of Ota Benga, the Congolese Pygmy man who was put on display in the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo, and several posts about Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman, the so-called Hottentot Venus. [more inside]
posted by daisyk at 11:04 AM PST - 16 comments

Using potential life expectancy numbers from the World Health Organization, Periscopic has created a beautiful, if depressing, visualization of the lost years resulting from gun deaths in the United States in 2010, and 2013 so far.
posted by quin at 10:29 AM PST - 57 comments

The Copyright Rule We Need to Repeal If We Want to Preserve Our Cultural Heritage
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:23 AM PST - 35 comments

It seems that the utopian imagination is trapped, like capitalism and industrialism and the human population, in a one-way future consisting only of growth. All I’m trying to do is figure out how to put a pig on the tracks. — Ursula K. Le Guin, "A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be"
posted by theodolite at 9:22 AM PST - 13 comments

1985 marked a few beginnings for gangsta rap, with Schooly D releasing the influential P.S.K. What Does It Mean? (YT), and a few Korean swap-meet vendors opening the Compton Fashion Center, the first indoor swap meet. It was there and then that Wan Joon Kim got his start as an unlikely godfather of gangsta rap. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:15 AM PST - 6 comments

"I'm confident that it's a Higgs particle. I don't need to call it Higgs-like any more...I may need to eat my words one day, but I think that's very unlikely."

"Cern scientists believe newly discovered particle is the real Higgs boson. Results of analysis at Cern in Switzerland show particle behaves precisely as expected." Previously
posted by Fizz at 8:56 AM PST - 53 comments

Ever wanted to try knitting with 1,000 strands of yarn? Neither did I, but it's a lot of fun to watch someone else do it. Extreme knitter Rachel John, a textile artist and the inventor and creator of Extreme Textiles, is a proponent of using multi-strand knitting to make décor items such as rugs and throws. And when John talks about multi-strand, she really means a multitude. She says, "Up to 300 [strands] is possible, but we think up to 100 should be about right". Knitting with 1,000 strands turns a relaxing past time you can do in a rocking chair into a contact sport, but I have to admit the process is fascinating to watch and the result is a painterly blending of colours. Pro tip: do not try this project with a cat around.
posted by orange swan at 8:47 AM PST - 47 comments

NASA recently announced that the latest results from NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars provide clear physical evidence that Mars once had all the conditions necessary to support life. Despite the skeptical reception given to recent news that the rover may also have found indirect evidence of organic compounds and active microbiological activity, other recent scientific results have gone even further. One Australian study from 2011 concluded, given what we know about Mars now, 3% of its total volume (as compared to 1% of Earth's) is likely habitable to known terrestrial lifeforms. And more recently, further analysis of the results of experiments performed by the 1976 Viking Lander mission suggests that we have likely detected active microbiological activity on Mars already, with one researcher going so far as to claim a 99% certainty that those earlier results detected life. (Previously).
posted by saulgoodman at 8:04 AM PST - 78 comments

The Things They Leave Behind. "When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened 30 years ago, something unexpected happened: People started leaving things at the wall. One veteran has spent decades cataloging the letters, mementos, and other artifacts of loss — all 400,000 of them." (Via.) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:36 AM PST - 26 comments

Hyperacusis is a condition where the slightest noise causes unbearable pain. It can result in phonophobia (fear of noise) and sometimes lead to suicide. Tinnitus is a far more common sound processing disorder, but severe cases can also lead to depression [autoplaying video] and suicide. The most serious threat to hearing comes from prolonged exposures to amplified live music (concerts). [more inside]
posted by desjardins at 7:17 AM PST - 83 comments

Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody? A short film directed by Miguel Arteta, written by Miranda July, starring John C. Reilly, July, Mike White, and cinematographer Chuy Chávez.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:29 AM PST - 21 comments

Attention budding cartoonists, want to become rich and famous? You have two choices. You can either become a newspaper cartoonist and let a syndicate help you get in the papers, as explained in this 1950ties public information film styled video. Or you can choose to cut out the middlemen and put your cartoons on the web, which if the video is to be believed, is not unlike an eight bit video adventure game. Either way, uncounted riches await you.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:12 AM PST - 32 comments