MetaFilter

Philosophy’s great experiment. "Philosophers used to combine conceptual reflections with practical experiment. The trendiest new branch of the discipline, known as x-phi, wants to return to those days. Some philosophers don’t like it." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 11:25 PM PST - 45 comments

THE BUGS ARE CRAWLING UNDER MY SKIN
posted by baphomet at 10:29 PM PST - 48 comments

John C. Odom, the minor league baseball player made famous last year for being traded for ten bats, has met a tragic end.
posted by MegoSteve at 9:45 PM PST - 68 comments

Does your linen closet runneth over? Yes, you say, you have a stack of towels you regularly use in the bathroom and for swan origami, but you have others that are getting worn. You have tablecloths and aprons you never use, your dish towels seem to breed in their drawer, and you have pillowcases which have outlasted their matching sheets, king-sized bed sheets for the bed your ex took when you split, and your linen closet contains a selection of linens that are faded or torn or leftover from former decorating colour schemes. What are you to do with them? [more inside]
posted by orange swan at 7:17 PM PST - 23 comments

Terry Riley celebrates the 45th anniversary of his groundbreaking composition, In C. A major work in the history of minimalist music, In C has an incredibly flexible score and performance guidelines, which have inspired many musicians to make their own versions, including a French guitar quintet, a traditional Chinese orchestra, a keyboard ensemble, an all-synthesizer group, CalArts Music students, French-Canadian hippies, a Danish vocal and percussion ensemble, another percussion ensemble, Japanese acidheads, a "laptop orchestra", the Bang on a Can Orchestra, and a rock "orchestration" by the Styrenes. No two versions can sound exactly the same, but it's still an open question how they will compare to the performance of In C at its Carnegie Hall debut next month. No recording of the original 1964 performance has ever been publicly released, but some eyewitness accounts can be found here.
posted by jonp72 at 7:16 PM PST - 40 comments

"Iceland is no longer a country. It is a hedge fund." Also: exploding Range Rovers and the environmental impacts on elves. (Pre-vi-ous-ly.)
posted by shii at 6:41 PM PST - 86 comments

The Saddest Bear of All. A children's book about a young girl's friendship with a morose bear. [via mefi projects]
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:11 PM PST - 64 comments

"Members of Quilters of South Carolina have created one-of-a-kind bras for Breast Cancer Awareness. The exhibit consists of fifty original works of art which are unique, entertaining, humorous, and beautiful to make the public aware of breast cancer, to memorialize those lost to the disease, and to honor survivors." via
posted by gman at 4:17 PM PST - 15 comments

No longer an enigma nor a challenge, The Magic Cube a.k.a. Rubik's Cube has been mastered by a many puzzle enthusiasts: two-handed, one-handed, with feet, and heck, even nose!. But despair not! There is a new challenge on the horizon, introducing The PETAMINX! (plus the story behind this insane contraption).
posted by pakoothefakoo at 3:35 PM PST - 35 comments

WikiLeaks: every current Congressional Research Service report in a Torrent (2.2 GB). h/t Jessamyn's twitter. Americans spend $100 million a year on the Congressional Research Service, a private think tank for members of Congress and their staffs. While technically available to the public, their reports were never posted on the Internet by the government. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 3:18 PM PST - 18 comments

Hacking the Sky: Robert Simpson writes astronomy tools for use with Google Earth, Google Sky, and Twitter.
posted by Upton O'Good at 2:46 PM PST - 5 comments

The Ripples From Little Lake Nellie — "Four months after Cleveland Indian pitchers Tim Crews and Steve Olin died in a boating accident, their families and friends are coming to grips with the grief that still washes over them" [more inside]
posted by IvoShandor at 1:01 PM PST - 24 comments

Family Words (scroll down, p.9). Do you know what the "Ahh-hee's" are? It describes the feeling you get when you put on a bathing suit that is still damp. What about a "winterpepper?" That would be a backwards flip (opposite of somersault). "Eeksler?" The lever on an ice cube tray, so-called because of the sound it makes. Daw daw, doot-do, to-do to-do, taw taw, der der, drit-drit and hoo-hoo? All refer to the tube of cardboard inside a roll of toilet paper. Featured on NPR's A Way With Words (full episode).
posted by vronsky at 11:52 AM PST - 76 comments

Pakistan's believers in Islamic mysticism embrace a personal approach to their faith and a different outlook on how to run their country’s government. The BBC asks "Can Sufi Islam counter the Taleban?" The Economist reports "Of Saints and Sinners".
Meanwhile from two in-depth reporters; William Dalrymple : Pakistan is a country staring disaster in the face); and Moni Mohsin: A personal history of Pakistan on the brink.
The counterinsurgency tactics that seem to have worked so well in Iraq could backfire in Pakistan. (more articles from Nicholas Schmidle)
posted by adamvasco at 11:51 AM PST - 34 comments

The Silicon Dawn Tarot, an exquisite creation by mefite Egypt Urnash. For those craving additional context, there's the Silicon Dawn LJ group devoted to this deck and Tarot in general. Via MeFi Projects
posted by hermitosis at 11:08 AM PST - 23 comments

The Mark Cuban's Stimulus plan. [more inside]
posted by jourman2 at 11:04 AM PST - 34 comments

So how's the economy doing? Everyone, even google's CEO, seems to acknowledge it's bleak. Of course, panic would not be good, but a glance at the headlines reveals that one in five mortgages are underwater--prompting yet more federal relief--while the FDIC's insurance fund is threatened by further bank insolvency, and the U.S. private sector hemorrhaged nearly 700,000 jobs in February. New revelations about the banking crisis show that as Merrill Lynch foundered, its top 10 earners made $209 million last year, and that some of the companies that caused the mortgage crisis are now benefitting from it. At a time when 87 million Americans can't afford health insurance, and prison spending outpaces all but Medicaid; when we still don't know where exactly $2.2 trillion in bank loans have gone, some analysts are nevertheless cautiously optimistic. One sign of progress is that Obama is taking on the kinds of costly and wasteful U.S. defense contracts that the previous administration let run amok. If he can take on that racket, and make a dent, there may be hope after all.
posted by ornate insect at 10:38 AM PST - 132 comments

We've discussed the beautifully simple Stirling engine. Now witness the variety that a master craftsman (warning: German) can bring to this simple concept.
posted by DU at 10:06 AM PST - 13 comments

A little detective work traced the problem to default date format conversions and floating-point format conversions in the very useful Excel program package. The date conversions affect at least 30 gene names; the floating-point conversions affect at least 2,000 if Riken identifiers are included. These conversions are irreversible; the original gene names cannot be recovered.

Yet another reason not to use Excel as your "database".
posted by orthogonality at 2:00 AM PST - 153 comments

Kutiman, the masterful Israeli funk musician and producer, outdoes himself by creating Thru-You: Multiple YouTube clips (mostly instructional and performance videos) edited into slick mega-mashups. They're not just patchwork assemblages, they're sample-based original creations that coud hold their own on anyone's album... Plus they're 100% audiovisual! It's a work of next-level genius.
(sorry for the hyperbole, but my mind has just been blown)
More Kutiman here. Music video here. And for you Pitchfork aficionados, here.
posted by Silky Slim at 12:58 AM PST - 171 comments

"Dead people are the newest frontier in debt collecting, and one of the healthiest parts of the industry. Those who dun the living say that people are so scared and so broke it is difficult to get them to cough up even token payments. Collecting from the dead, however, is expanding."
posted by Knappster at 12:54 AM PST - 96 comments

Endangered Species Act Protections Restored by President Obama. Previous regulation made it easier to start projects without consulting scientists.
posted by Smaaz at 12:36 AM PST - 17 comments