May 25, 2007

mouthy little git

Filmmaker Julien Temple chronicles the life of Joe Strummer in his new film titled The Future Is Unwritten.
posted by Sailormom at 11:04 PM PST - 22 comments

Make me fries. Potato wave!

Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam. I've always wondered what that song was about. Who knew it was about Bennigan's, Anna Nicole and icy democrats? (Yep: SLYTP.)
posted by miss lynnster at 11:02 PM PST - 59 comments

Or, are you simply happy to see me?

This is not your regular twister. The strange weather formation we saw yesterday off Singapore's coasts (YouTube) was a waterspout (wiki), a water-based tornado that occurs usually in tropical areas, Florida Keys (great pic!), for example. The last tornado that happened in Singapore was in 1950.
posted by the cydonian at 9:40 PM PST - 20 comments

Now With Six Six Sixty-four Bit Support

Linux For the Damned. "We suggest installing over Ubuntu Christian Edition, but the standard Ubuntu will do fine."
posted by IronLizard at 9:28 PM PST - 22 comments

gabba

gabba
posted by sgt.serenity at 7:18 PM PST - 45 comments

Memorial Day Bugle Post

In honor of Memorial Day, the music teacher at my wife's school played TAPS. Find out what they mean while listening to them: The U.S. Army Bugle Calls. In memorium. (not an add for the army or the current "war" or any other political thing.
posted by snsranch at 6:34 PM PST - 10 comments

The Intersection of Origami & Escher

Origami Tessellations is the website of Metafilter member Eric Gjerde. In addition to the many interesting posts on the main page (such as this article about an artist who lasercut an 85:1 scale model of his house into a hardback book), the site features many original pieces by Gjerde, with downloadable PDF diagrams & graphics to show you how to make your own geometric art out of paper.
posted by jonson at 6:03 PM PST - 15 comments

Gorilla warfare

A band of Congolese rebels is threatening to kill all of the Virunga mountain gorillas. Two-hundred Mai-Mai fighters attacked conservation posts in the violence-prone Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in response to government efforts to protect Virunga National Park from settling and poaching. Virunga is home to roughly half the world's 700 remaining mountain gorillas (and was the workplace of Diane Fossey). Last year, Mai-Mai fighters killed nearly half of the park's hippos, eating the meat and selling the teeth as ivory, and in January they killed and ate two silverbacks. The increased violence is part of a trend that has accompanied attempts to integrate the area's independent militias- mostly remnants of groups that fought in the Congo civil war, then refused to disband- into the national army, and some observers believe that the war, which already killed 4 million, may reignite.
posted by gsteff at 6:01 PM PST - 55 comments

AWOL W/PTSD? FUBAR

Court martialed for PTSD? "But I'm very concerned that, in a time when the Army is going out there and saying, we're trying to make sure that we provide good counseling for the troops, that, when someone has asked for help, they're potentially facing a court-martial. "
posted by Smedleyman at 4:52 PM PST - 20 comments

Dream brother, dream asleep in the sand with the ocean washing over

This Tuesday will mark the 10th anniversary of the tragic passing of Jeff Buckley, the supernaturally talented singer/songwriter whose name, alongside Nick Drake and Elliott Smith, has become a favorite comparison point for rock critics everywhere. Columbia is remembering the day with the release of "So Real," a compilation of 14 tracks, three of which are live, and one previously unreleased cut, his cover of The Smiths' "I Know It's Over." ("Jeff was a huge Smiths fan," said his mother Mary Guibert in an interview. "He thought Morrissey was a living legend, so this song was a very meaningful choice.") BBC did an excellent documentary on him a few years ago called "Everybody Here Wants You," the full vid of which is available here. Another doc, "Goodbye and Hello," ran on Netherland TV in 2000, and there's a multi-award winning doc about Jeff soon out on DVD called "Amazing Grace." It's probably too much to hope that there are many more unreleased songs that were complete (or nearly so), but there was this gem ("Forget Her") from the deluxe edition of "Grace" from a few years ago. And on top of it all, the man was one of the finest interpreters of Leonard Cohen ever, which is saying quite a lot.
posted by jbickers at 4:33 PM PST - 26 comments

GEEK FIGHT CLUB

The Gentleman's Fight Club: Armed with Dust Busters (Warning dopey MSNBC anchor and video ad.) How do you blow off steam after a long day of coding? Why smack your buddy over the head with a toilet seat, of course. Higher consciousness through harder contact (.WMV LINK - LOUD).
posted by tkchrist at 1:55 PM PST - 18 comments

Use the Force, Luke!

30 years ago today
the dream of a man
named George Lucas
became a phenomenon
that changed the world.

posted by cerebus19 at 1:54 PM PST - 139 comments

Motion Trio, from Poland

The Art of the Accordion
posted by TRAJAN at 1:39 PM PST - 9 comments

He couldn't smoke now even if he wanted to.

Dr. Tod Mikuriya has died at the age of 73 in Berkeley, of cancer. He was the founder of California Cannabis Research Medical Group.
posted by the Real Dan at 12:55 PM PST - 16 comments

Sushi Bar Video

Someone puts a video camera on a Japanese sushi bar conveyor belt. You can tell it's in Japan because it doesn't get stolen as it travels around the bar. Via b3ta.
posted by Mwongozi at 12:37 PM PST - 103 comments

You are likely reading this in the city.

This week, the world became more urban than rural for the first time in human history. Trace urban growth over the past century, or with more detail over the last 50 years, and see how the idea of the city has evolved. When you are done admiring the skylines (more from US cities) and singing the songs, reflect on the best and worst of cities: the richest by GDP and personal earnings, the worst slums, the best skylines, the worst polluted, the fastest moving, the most expensive, and the most polite (New York?). What does it all mean? Stuart Brand [video] (slideshow here) and other experts weigh in. [see also my previous post on the names of cities]
posted by blahblahblah at 12:28 PM PST - 18 comments

And I think my spaceship knows which way to go

Animated Space Oddity. more from artist
posted by ozomatli at 12:07 PM PST - 23 comments

But who wants to do math? Math is hard. Scaring ignorant people is easy.

Wi-fi Routers: Silent blinking death. Via badscience.net, where it was posted in response to what sounds like a truly awful show. Electrosensitivity previously discussed here.
posted by Artw at 12:04 PM PST - 52 comments

Suspected murderer blogs his life on the run

"Dillan Kramer," the alias of a man accused of killing his family doctor, is currently on the run from the FBI with his son, "Michael," and he's liveblogging the entire thing. High potential to be fake, sure, but is it? Go, hive-mind -- use your powers; get to the bottom of this!
posted by c:\awesome at 11:42 AM PST - 42 comments

Urban Lumberjacks Building Steam-Powered Tree

Chop it down and steam it up! (work in progress)
posted by ...possums at 11:36 AM PST - 2 comments

She's a beauty

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art in 3 minutes. List of artists inside.
posted by vronsky at 11:35 AM PST - 39 comments

Corridos Prohibidos

On November 25th, 2006, Valentin Elizalde was killed in the city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Elizalde, a singer of a style of song known as the narcocorrido, was warned not to step foot in Tamaulipas because of a video for his song “A mis Enemigos," which showed footage of (WaPo article) the deaths of drug traffickers from the Gulf Cartel. In December of 2006, Javier Morales Gómez was killed in Huetamo, Michoacán while talking on his cell phone. Morales Gómez was the singer for Los Implacables del Norte, another group closely associated with narcocorridos. The most famous death of a narcocorrido writer/singer has to be Chalino Sanchez, killed in 1992, and spawning several imitators known as Los Chalinillos that are still prevalent 15 years after Sanchez's death. (previously) [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete at 11:29 AM PST - 17 comments

Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies ...

It was 40 years ago next Friday (June 1) that the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, becoming one of the most influential releases in rock history. It is the number one favorite album of the British public and has been ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as No. 1 of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. "When Sgt. Pepper's came out, it was an album that surprised people on every single level. The vast majority of the millions who bought it had never seen a gatefold sleeve, they’d never seen lyrics on the cover, they’d never seen a cover like that—a real piece of art—and they never heard music (side A | side B) like this. The combination was so dynamic that it’s still being talked about 40 years later."* John, Paul, Ringo and George talk about the tracks.
posted by ericb at 11:23 AM PST - 52 comments

I can't believe its not [strike]butter[/strike] photograpy!

Okay, so there's airbrush, and then there's this guy.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:29 AM PST - 57 comments

Squigglebooth is a playground for videobloggers

SquiggleBooth : a charming collaborative videoblog, from our own Ajit AP. [via Projects]
posted by cortex at 8:16 AM PST - 7 comments

Marriage in America: The Frayed Knot

Marriage in America: The Frayed Knot. "As the divorce rate plummets at the top of American society and rises at the bottom, the widening “marriage gap” is breeding inequality."
posted by chunking express at 8:01 AM PST - 133 comments

Imprisoned for life, by your husband

You, wife, your husband, minister, of the strict Calvinist stripe. You're well educated and deign to have your own ideas which challenge your husband's beliefs. For your own protection, to keep you from infecting the children with your heretical ideas, and just basically to control you, your husband has you committed to an insane asylum. A doctor at the hospital agrees and you are imprisoned, most likely for life. If you sign a paper agreeing to never challenge your husband's beliefs again, you can be free. Too proud, you refuse and remain confined. You do write a book though.
posted by caddis at 7:37 AM PST - 94 comments

Who will debunk the debunkers?

Texas A&M Paper presents evidence to show that evidence used to rule out second shooter in JFK murder was flawed. New testing on the type of ammunition used in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy raises questions about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, according to a study[PDF link] by researchers at Texas A&M University.
posted by psmealey at 5:17 AM PST - 103 comments

Eviction surprise!

So you're in the Big Brother house in Australia. Your dad died last Wednesday. His funeral was on Monday. But his dying wish was that you shouldn't be told that until you're evicted. So when will you be evicted? Since you're not up for eviction this week, it'll be at least a fortnight. A letter from Emma's brother.
posted by reklaw at 4:22 AM PST - 79 comments

Friday Flash Fun: Miestas

Miestas is a lovely hand-drawn point-and-click game by Jurgis Jonaitis and Justinas Malijonis. Sequel to menulis. Warning: contains both Flash and jazz. Via the indispensible Jay is games
posted by popkinson at 4:10 AM PST - 17 comments

From whom are the Métis descended?

Canadian Citizenship Practice Test. Who were the United Empire Loyalists? Why is the British North America Act important in Canadian history? List four rights Canadian citizens have. Which province is the only officially bilingual province? On what date did Nunavut become a territory? What do you call the Queen’s representative in the provinces? And more.
posted by three blind mice at 2:12 AM PST - 44 comments

The Maestro

Being a huge fan of the late, great Mr Harrison, I was hunting around youtube and found this video of a sitar lesson... which led me to this stunning performance by Ravi Shankar on Dick Cavett's show. [Previously]
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:57 AM PST - 21 comments

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