June 2, 2009

mapping snoops annotate North Korea

North Korea has a reputation as one of the most secretive, authoritarian, repressive countries in the world. But that doesn't stop Curtis Melvin, a PhD student at George Mason University, from trying to shine some light into the country's dark corners l His North Korea Economy Watch site, which includes The most authoritative map of North Korea on Google Earth l Gulags, Nukes and a Water Slide: Citizen Spies Lift North Korea's Veil.
posted by nickyskye at 10:51 PM PST - 39 comments

Multilateral Mahjong Madness

George Bush's Mahjong Secrets: Revealed! The Legend of Koizumi manga, featuring both Georges Bush, Putin, Pope Benedict XVI, Thatcher, et al, has had its first chapter translated into English.
posted by HotPants at 10:49 PM PST - 7 comments

Illuminating!

"[Celtic] knots are most known for their adaptation for use in the ornamentation of Christian monuments and manuscripts like the 8th century St. Teilo Gospels, the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels." [more inside]
posted by litterateur at 10:27 PM PST - 9 comments

The right kind of meddlers

Although in many ways a regional conflict, the American Revolution had an ideological dimension that attracted many non-Americans to the conflict, from the Polish revolutionary Tadeusz Kościuszko to the French aristocrat marquis de Lafayette.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 10:03 PM PST - 18 comments

Feed Your Head Wisely!

In light of the recent threads about questionable scientific claims endorsed on Oprah, the belief that some vaccines cause autism, and the effectiveness of herbal remedies, here's a wonderful video to set you straight about the real meaning of open-mindedness.
posted by wretched_rhapsody at 9:41 PM PST - 82 comments

Lights

Lights. A new escape-the-room flash game from Neutral, the creator of Switch, Sphere, RGB, & Vision. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 9:40 PM PST - 20 comments

The 31-year-old in charge of dismantling General Motors

"There was a time between 4 November and mid-February when I was the only full-time member of the auto task force,” Deese, a special assistant to the president for economic policy, acknowledged recently as he hurried between his desk at the White House and the treasury building next door. “It was a little scary.” [more inside]
posted by 445supermag at 9:24 PM PST - 26 comments

How much zeal!?

An incredibly long, ten-day (so far) discussion in response to a letter to the editor in regard to "'God's law' and homosexuality" from an East Tennessee newspaper.
posted by pwedza at 9:18 PM PST - 36 comments

Sign of the time, so out of line

National Geographic's photographic history of monkeys in space.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:35 PM PST - 15 comments

Oooo... Yarooh!

The Magnet (scroll down on the linked page to see scanned copies of the magazine) published stories about an English public school called Greyfriars from 1908 until 1940. [more inside]
posted by winna at 6:51 PM PST - 18 comments

The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2008

The Wikimedia Commons Picture(s) of the Year 2008.
posted by stbalbach at 6:32 PM PST - 92 comments

This site has *everything*!

Explosions and boobs. (NSWF)
posted by boo_radley at 3:37 PM PST - 76 comments

Men who like to hear themselves talk?

The top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. Twitter is dominated by men, whereas other social networks tend to be dominated by women. Is Twitter biased towards men?
posted by desjardins at 1:00 PM PST - 153 comments

Random TV Plot Generators

On TV on any given night:
Party Baby: Game show contestants with a shoe box full of cash, combating threats to our rain forest, almost always confused by what's going on, find out that even when you lose, you win.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Whlist studying a pre-warp civilization, Wesley falls ill when the Enterprise encounters an apparent duplicate of Riker which is in fact a holographic simulation, so Riker delivers a phaser blast, which means everything turns out okay, though Picard has had to deal with children. Then, finally Guinan says something cliche and they leave at warp factor five.
...or, try your luck*.
*[previously on a very special MetaFilter. Other generators sold separately.]
posted by not_on_display at 12:51 PM PST - 27 comments

Fire and Ass

Fire and Ice (YouTube playlist) Ralph Bakshi's 1983 collaboration with Frank Frazetta. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 12:46 PM PST - 51 comments

The Journal of Business and Design

@Issue: is the online blog of The Journal of Business and Design. Topics of recent interest include Drawords, an ongoing caption this drawing project, and Typography in China, an explanation of the availability of Chinese typefaces. Also, @Issue interviews an iconic group that includes captains of industry and design.
posted by netbros at 12:02 PM PST - 5 comments

A complete meteorological analysis of the loss of AF447

Tim Vasquez, former U.S. Air Force meteorologist, author, software engineer, and head honcho of the storm chaser hangout Stormtrack Forums has done a complete meteorological analysis of the weather conditions which may have resulted in the loss of Air France Flight 447.
posted by spock at 12:01 PM PST - 26 comments

A livingroom built inside the hollow, under a pier

The room in the pier. Somewhere in Malmö, inside a pier, photographer Nils-Petter Löfstedt and carpenter Erik Vestman have been building a livingroom since January. Why? Why not? I might even have walked on it, not knowing that underneath the grey concrete lies a livingroom with white walls and oak wood floors. The duo will reveal its location on Friday and let the room meet its destiny. "Perhaps someone will move in here?" Erik muses in his written diary of the project. [more inside]
posted by dabitch at 11:42 AM PST - 23 comments

Now I Wanna Be Your Insightful, Respectable Rock Icon

You wouldn't expect Iggy Pop to be the poster boy for rock stars who age gracefully, but he seems to be doing a pretty good job of it. At the age of 62, he's released Preliminaires, an album steeped in French Literature and containing jazz standards, hardscrabble blues, and the Louis-Armstrong-meets-Tom-Waits hit, King of the Dogs. NPR's Fresh Air has this interview with a thoughtful, avuncular Iggy Pop
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:57 AM PST - 53 comments

SQUIRREL!

The real world location behind “Up’s” Paradise Falls. But could that house really fly?
posted by Artw at 9:26 AM PST - 54 comments

Marilyn's day in the park.

LIFE magazine publishes new photos of a 24-year-old Marilyn Monroe, with interesting captions explaining why they've never been seen before.
posted by HumanComplex at 8:43 AM PST - 70 comments

J'Accuse a la Highlighter

What Plagiarism Looks Like. William Meehan, president of Jacksonville State University, wrote his doctoral dissertation in 1999. Carl Boening wrote his in 1996. "Jacksonville State says no substance has been found in the charges, and no action by the university will be taken against him", but, well, look at the identical passages highlighted in the first link above (and keep in mind that other parts of Boening's dissertation were paraphrased in Meehan's). Sadly, this is not the first time that this has happened where a college president was involved.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:41 AM PST - 56 comments

Exactly What it Says on the Tin

30 Awesomely Bad Unicorn Tattoos [nsfw]
posted by Navelgazer at 8:33 AM PST - 89 comments

new flesh for the old fossil

Where art and paleontology intersect, there you'll find Viktor Deak.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:29 AM PST - 4 comments

No Lifeguard on Duty

J. Bennett Fitts traveled some 20,000 miles to produce “No Lifeguard on Duty,” an investigation of America’s forgotten roadside motels. These vestiges of an earlier era—when families packed into their cars for summer vacations via two-lane highways—now exist in various stages of operation and disrepair. [via, by way of]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:15 AM PST - 29 comments

Bird Song, Streaming Live

Time to listen to Bird Song Radio - A 'filler' radio station that played on DAB radio in the UK until this week has been pulled from the air, much to the chagrin of thousands of listeners. Reportedly, Terry Pratchett is a fan, saying "There's something about the sound of the outdoors that adds texture to a room. It cools the room down, makes you feel relaxed." [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave at 6:57 AM PST - 13 comments

A robot Hitler?

Electronic Evolution: Research Show Robots Forming Human-like Societies [more inside]
posted by supercres at 6:33 AM PST - 38 comments

London Shop Fronts

London Shop Fronts
posted by nthdegx at 2:57 AM PST - 71 comments

Mindsight

Mindsight is a deeply worthwhile exposition of the workings of the mind, an hour-long talk from the Google Personal Growth Series (but don't let that title put you off). [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by mhjb at 12:51 AM PST - 11 comments

Without Paul

We declare the man Paul of Tarsus [non-ebonite link], the false teacher against the mark of Covenant and God's Torah, to be outside of the Way taught by Yeshua, the anointed, son of Maria and Yosef.
posted by bigmusic at 12:42 AM PST - 183 comments

In Washington State, echoes of Proposition 8

In September of 2004, a Superior Court in Washington state ruled the state's 1998 "Defense of Marriage" act unconstitutional, a ruling which would have allowed the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 2006, the state Supreme Court issued in an opinion in Andersen v. King County overturning the lower court's ruling, noting "that our decision [pdf] is not based on an independent determination of what we believe the law should be." The legislature, in response, created the state-registered domestic partnership in 2007, expanding many (but not all) marriage-related rights to same-sex couples. Last month, a new law expanded the partnership to cover the remaining rights, creating an "all-but-marriage" partnership.

This year, the Washington Values Alliance has filed Referendum 71, which would put this expansion to a ballot vote. The referendum will need 120,000 signatures to make it to the ballot. WhoSigned.org intends to make these signatures searchable. Predictably, this is creating some controversy. [more inside]
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:24 AM PST - 115 comments

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