May 20, 2009

Healthy Country, Healthy People

An opinion piece in the Age states that the Northern Territory Government "plans to, in effect, close down indigenous outstations". [more inside]
posted by ginky at 9:54 PM PST - 12 comments

Feeling all the bumpers, always playing clean

Make your own pinball machine. The art of pinball machines is in decline, but some folks endeavor to keep it alive. From the basic, to the the full blown experience, these guys do it their way. DIY pinball goodness.
posted by caddis at 7:27 PM PST - 28 comments

For Creative People

Lost At E Minor is an online publication of inspiring art, illustration, photography, music, fashion, film — basically contemporary pop culture.
posted by netbros at 4:37 PM PST - 23 comments

Suck, squeeze, bang, blow.

Honda insight 1.3 IMA SE Hybrid: "So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more."
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 3:36 PM PST - 180 comments

Metafilter: If I wanted a long, boring story with no point to it, I got my life

When does making fun of yourself make you more attractive? Suppose, in an initial conversation, you say:
I hate this “to be continued” on TV. I was watching this show with a friend of mine the other day and I felt it was coming. We were into the story and when there was 5 minutes left you realize they can’t make it! There is no way to wrap it up in 5 minutes. The whole reason to watch a TV show is because it ends. If I wanted a long, boring story with no point to it, I got my life.
Would this make you seem more attractive? [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 2:41 PM PST - 67 comments

The SCP Foundation

The SCP Foundation: To Secure, Contain, and Protect
posted by Prospero at 2:06 PM PST - 39 comments

Taking back the catalytic converter.

Bob Barr and Ralph Nader support the Right to Repair Act of 2009 -- to protect the rights of consumers to diagnose, service, maintain, and repair their motor vehicles. [more inside]
posted by puckish at 1:17 PM PST - 272 comments

You do science like a boy

The kids girls are alright.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:39 AM PST - 50 comments

Climate projection roulette wheel

MIT has completed the most comprehensive computer climate model to date to project how much warming will occur in the 21st century. The biggest unknown is not nature, but human actions to address the problem. To illustrate the results of 400 simulations they use a roulette wheel display - which wheel is spun and where the ball stops no one knows. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 10:35 AM PST - 31 comments

The Web OS

Grabarz & Partner's website looks oddly familiar... A German ad agency, apparently they couldn't be bothered of thinking of something original so they ripped off an existing concept.
posted by GuyZero at 10:17 AM PST - 62 comments

"I guess it goes with alcohol"

"Some American consumers believe sriracha (properly pronounced SIR-rotch-ah) to be a Thai sauce. Others think it is Vietnamese. The truth is that sriracha, as manufactured by Huy Fong Foods, may be best understood as an American sauce, a polyglot purée with roots in different places and peoples." A Chili Sauce to Crow About.
posted by dersins at 10:12 AM PST - 103 comments

The Fucking Weather.

What's the Fucking Weather?
posted by chunking express at 10:03 AM PST - 50 comments

Frank Lloyd Wright Legos

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum now available in Lego.
posted by pashdown at 9:27 AM PST - 42 comments

Give a little, get a little

Crowd surf, crowd sourcing, crowd funding? Like being supported by an ocean of people, or collaboration from around the world, crowd funding gets projects financial backing from the people. It's not new, as it has been the method for funding charities and political campaigns for a very long time, but it is a novel attempt at getting funds for other projects. Some people have placed their hopes in crowdfunding as a way to save journalism, while other companies are looking to get micropayment-scale public investments in fashion by offering investors the potential for a cut of future profits. The more typical return is physical goods, like getting the t-shirt you help sponsor [via mefi projects], or a limited edition version of the album. There's another site long these lines, but more free-form in structure: Kickstarter, crowdfunding for people who make stuff. [via mefi projects] The fundees can set a fundraising goal, deadline, and a set of rewards for backers. If the goal's reached by the deadline, then everyone's charged and backers get their goodies. If not, nobody's charged. The previously discussed 8-bit tribute to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, Kind of Bloop was funded this way.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:55 AM PST - 7 comments

everything is international now

Root magazine analyzes "Blipsters" (with photo examples). In an era when Hip-hop is on the presidential I-pod (Atlantic Roundtable on Hip Hop) while more and more multiracial rock, hip-hop, and crossover acts are appearing on the scene, is mainstream culture ready to move beyond racial fashion dichotomies? [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:51 AM PST - 79 comments

You don’t need an upfront. You need therapy

“Let’s get real here. Let’s get Dr. Phil-real here. These new fall shows? We’re going to cancel about 90 percent of them. Maybe more.” At ABC's annual Upfront meeting with advertisers and press, late night host Jimmy Kimmel had a breakdown/"Jerry Maguire" moment/opportunity to use blackmail photos, and rips into the whole practice. Via (the predictibly gleeful) Gawker.
posted by waraw at 7:48 AM PST - 104 comments

Shakespeare's Sonnets Turn 400

400 years ago today, Thomas Thorpe entered into the Stationers' Register a book titled "Shake-Speares Sonnets". However, Clinton Heylin argues that - like Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - the Sonnets were never intended for a wide audience. "In both cases, they were killing time and at the same time dealing with huge personal issues in a private way, which they never conceived of coming out publicly."
posted by Joe Beese at 6:59 AM PST - 37 comments

Can I Marry Gay?

What with all the changes lately, sometimes I'm not sure where my right to marry whomever I want to has been ensured. Can I Marry Gay? is a handy reference with state by state information, and keeps me up to date. Worried about recent state Supreme Court decisions forcing you to join teh gay? Must I Marry Gay? is for you. [via mefi projects]
posted by ocherdraco at 4:50 AM PST - 48 comments

The Curious Case of the Missing Sunspots

Solar activity normally follows an 11-year cycle. The new cycle was originally predicted to start in early 2008, but despite a few sunspots appearing last year, the Sun still features a remarkable lack of activity - the deepest minimum since 1913. However, NASA's STEREO mission has seen indications that activity is increasing again, in the form of a coronal mass ejection (video [.mov, 3.3 Mb]), with an accompanying radio burst.

[Previously]
posted by Electric Dragon at 4:48 AM PST - 16 comments

Domino letters

Joshua's Alphabet Dominoes: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
posted by twoleftfeet at 12:50 AM PST - 41 comments

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