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Shannon's Law: a story about bridging Faerie and the mundane world with TCP-over-magic. From the forthcoming Welcome to Bordertown anthology. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 11:18 PM PST - 20 comments

Sisyphus and the Snowmobile
posted by puny human at 11:06 PM PST - 32 comments

The First Zombie-Proof House: "The Safe House" was designed by KWK Promes, and completely folds in on itself to become an impenetrable concrete bunker, keeping you safe from the undead.
posted by bwg at 6:29 PM PST - 82 comments

How To Make Guys Like You - romantic advice from the Vlogbrothers, who are also nerdfighters. [more inside]
posted by flex at 6:10 PM PST - 66 comments

Why is BBC Scotland getting all the new comedy shows?
posted by Artw at 3:08 PM PST - 43 comments

Leonard Nimoy and a beeping rock (with some help from ABBA) introduce the Magnavision LaserDisc player.
posted by jocelmeow at 3:03 PM PST - 71 comments

Kiev's topless prostestors (NSFW) Facebook used to block their pages and Ukraine's secret service has threatened them with violence:
"With a mix of political protest and eye-catching eroticism, the women's rights group Femen (wiki) has inspired fear in Ukrainian authorities with its fight against prostitution and sex tourism."
Non-Violent Civic Resistance in Ukraine has a history with Maidan.
The nude radicals: feminism Ukrainian style.
posted by adamvasco at 1:32 PM PST - 97 comments

Arthur Laurents (wiki), writer of the libretti for West Side Story and Gypsy, among many other things, has died at the age of 93. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:55 PM PST - 15 comments

The Honeymoon From Hell. Stefan and Erika Svanstrom had planned a long trip that would start in Singapore in early December and end in China four months later. But things didn't go exactly as planned. They encountered floods, fires, tsunamis and earthquakes along the way.
posted by mannequito at 12:52 PM PST - 14 comments

The current issue of the Village Voice profiled Fat Admirers, or Dudes who like fat chicks. One of the main guys interviewed was Dan Weiss who runs a blog called ask a guy who likes fat chicks. He has also written a couple of articles for The Hairpin: I Like Fat Chicks, Questions? 1 & 2.
posted by Uncle at 12:36 PM PST - 122 comments

The disco version of the Alien theme by Nostromo. Bonus: Just the Paxton
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:19 PM PST - 35 comments

Thomas Eisner, a Cornell biologist best known for his extensive work (PDF) with chemical ecology, passed away on Friday, March 25th, 2011. Eisner was more than a "bug guy," he was one of the "original guiding lights" in the study of chemical interactions of organisms, most often focusing on insects. He also was a photographer, pianist and occasional conductor (PDF), and conservation activist. More on his fascinating life inside. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:01 PM PST - 7 comments

This week is Hemp History Week. Hemp has been considered to be one of the most versatile plants known to man, and is a rapidly growing source of biomass, which produces strong fibers. [more inside]
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 11:39 AM PST - 17 comments

Animals with Stuffed Animals. Today's anti-grar.
posted by mephron at 11:15 AM PST - 50 comments

Jerry Seinfeld launches jerryseinfeld.com.
posted by Avenger50 at 10:50 AM PST - 72 comments

Sword & Sworcery EP is "a brave experiment in I/O cinema with an archetypical video game aesthetic." To put it more simply, it's an arthouse adventure game with unique pixel graphics, available for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Featuring music by Jim Guthrie, S&S is inspired by the Legend of Zelda, Carl Jung, Tim Schafer, and David Lynch. Trailer. [more inside]
posted by JimBennett at 9:25 AM PST - 64 comments

"ALL U-BOATS. ATTENTION ALL U-BOATS. CEASE-FIRE AT ONCE. STOP ALL HOSTILE ACTION AGAINST ALLIED SHIPPING. DÖNITZ." [more inside]
posted by AugieAugustus at 9:02 AM PST - 42 comments

Why I Love Mr Rogers. Scott Jordan Harris discusses discovering Fred Rogers's show as an adult.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:55 AM PST - 98 comments

Alien Loves Predator makes an (abridged) map of NYC movies. Can you name all 91? (via) [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 8:39 AM PST - 34 comments

Neil Gaiman: "A pencil-necked weasel who stole $45,000 from the State of Minnesota". Minnesota House majority leader Matt Dean was moved to fury at the discovery that writer, comic book celebrity and Minnesota transplant Neil Gaiman received this sum for a speaking engagement at a Stillwater, MN high school. [more inside]
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:38 AM PST - 489 comments

The town of Phil Campbell, Alabama is named for a 19th-century train engineer and is one of a handful of US towns with the full name of an individual. It is also the site of an occasional meeting of people named Phil Campbell (or Phyllis Campbell, Philippe Campbell, etc.) A piece about the convention was collected in Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and was previously mentioned on the blue. It was devastated by the recent tornadoes which left some 25 county residents dead; in response, the organizer of the irregular convention (named Phil Campbell, of course) has shifted his efforts to harnessing his network of Phil Campbells in a relief effort for their namesake. Here is organizer Phil Campbell talking to the CBC about the relief efforts.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:24 AM PST - 4 comments

You don't understand the nuances of social interaction. Casual encounters can become an ordeal. Sincere attempts to get needed information can create problems. Even the ability to react "correctly" to an emergency situation may be impossibly difficult. [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet at 7:20 AM PST - 82 comments

I always loved the Quincy Jones-composed theme song to 70s sitcom Sanford and Son, but up until a few minutes ago I'd never heard the entire piece: three minutes and six seconds of delightfully infectious, playfully bright instrumental pop-funk. It's called The Streetbeater, and its creative and ever-changing arrangement includes snippets of the rarely heard bass harmonica. The piece is just a hella lotta fun. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:04 AM PST - 70 comments

David Braben, developer of games such as Rollercoaster Tycoon and Kinectimals has turned his sights to hardware, to develop a £10-£15 PC in a USB stick form factor, to make computers universally accessible to children wanting to learn computing and programming.
posted by benzo8 at 6:26 AM PST - 41 comments

The I of It. Flash for a Friday.
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:04 AM PST - 15 comments

How to disappear completely: Almost everyone has a digital footprint these days. Think you could remove your tracks? Frank Ahearn worked as a skip tracer for years, but now he helps folks drop off the face of the Earth, those who want to disappear and erase evidence of their existence. "So, what we do in a nutshell, is make you a virtual entity where you work for this corporation. You lease your apartment through this corporation, your electricity, your phone. Everything about you exists under the corporation. The address doesn't have to be in the same city you're in. The goal is to make you virtual and have you communicate virtually through this corporation. "
posted by Blake at 3:40 AM PST - 40 comments

"Legendary" Russian movie studio Mosfilm is posting some it's most famous films on its youtube channel. They will be posting 5 new legendary Soviet films per week. They expect to have 200 uploaded by end of year. Most have English subtitles. [more inside]
posted by spicynuts at 2:11 AM PST - 16 comments

Surgical Robot plays "Operation" [SLYT]
posted by anateus at 12:32 AM PST - 31 comments