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Sgt. Reckless--Pride of the Marines The only Korean War horse hero--working for oats and peppermints. Her complete and awesome story from Leatherneck Magazine. Sometimes you just gotta have a feel-good moment. [more inside]
posted by BlueHorse at 11:19 PM PST - 17 comments

The practice has become so widespread – some say half of Modern Orthodox teens text on Shabbat – that it has developed its own nomenclature – keeping “half Shabbos,” for those who observe all the Shabbat regulations except for texting. [more inside]
posted by -->NMN.80.418 at 9:33 PM PST - 70 comments

Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" arranged for 8 pianos - performed by Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Claude Frank, Evgeny Kissin, Lang Lang, James Levine, Mikhail Pletnev, and Staffan Scheja. [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 9:24 PM PST - 24 comments

"When the person you love kills himself time stops," she says at one point. "It just stops at that moment. Life becomes another code, a language that you don't understand." An interview with Karen Green, visual artist, and widow of David Foster Wallace. [more inside]
posted by Cold Lurkey at 7:19 PM PST - 56 comments

The New York State Senate has just passed a religious exemption amendment to a bill granting marriage rights to gay couples. A vote on the full bill is currently underway (live stream) and seems headed for passage.
posted by pjenks at 7:10 PM PST - 384 comments

The videogame Red Dead Redemption has a rather unique glitch that occurs fairly frequently -- Flying Talking Horseman, Talking Bird riding a cart!!!!, elk-owl, bird bear, snake man, bird people, Genetically Altered Wolf-Men Attack, and Cougar-Man!
posted by codacorolla at 6:39 PM PST - 42 comments

The Guardian looks at how pregnant women who lose their babies or are found to have been taking drugs are facing charges for foetal endangerment.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:33 PM PST - 129 comments

"If you look at a lot of the work that's been done on scientific approaches to morality—books written for a lay audience—it's been about evolutionary psychology. And what we get again and again is a story about the importance of evolved tendencies to be altruistic. That's a report on a particular pattern of behavior, and an evolutionary story to explain the behavior. But it's not an account of the underlying mechanism. The idea that science has moved to a point where we can see two animals working together toward a collective end and know the brain mechanism that allows that is an extraordinary achievement." Nevertheless, Prinz says, how to move from the possibility of collective action to "the specific human institution of moral rules is a bit of connective tissue that she isn't giving us."
posted by macross city flaneur at 5:17 PM PST - 56 comments

"The technology used to create FabFi networks seems like it leaped out of an episode of MacGyver. Commercial wireless routers are mounted on homemade RF reflectors covered with a metallic mesh surface. Another router-on-a-reflector is set up at a distance; the two routers then create an ad-hoc network that provides Internet access to a whole network of reflectors. The number of reflectors which can be integrated into the network is theoretically endless; FabFi's network covers most of Jalalabad."
FabFi is an open-source initiative to bring low-cost, mesh-based networking to remote areas. Using little more than cheap, widely available routers and window screens, they piloted their idea in Kenya and launched JoinAfrica as a free, distributed ISP. In Afghanistan, they've brought the internet to Jalalabad, where One Laptop Per Child is also focusing their efforts.
posted by mkultra at 5:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Gay Pride in New York in the 1970s - a collection of photos.
posted by desjardins at 4:18 PM PST - 55 comments

The Street Price of Cocaine, Country to Country The Economist's report is based on data from the UN's recently released World Drug Report.
posted by modernnomad at 2:45 PM PST - 43 comments

Swimming Pool is a piece by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich that gives the illusion of people walking and breathing underwater in an ordinary swimming pool. Video from the MoMA PS1 installation. [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:33 PM PST - 10 comments

Tuesday: Incarna, the latest expansion to Eve Online, introduces an in-game "micro"-transaction store where virtual clothes and jewelry cost more than the same items would go for in the real world. Players are not impressed.
Wednesday: A purported internal CCP Games newsletter is leaked (direct PDF link) indicating, contrary to previous unambiguous promises to the community, plans for greatly expanding the scope of items and services available to be purchased for real money in Eve Online. The forums erupt.
Today: CCP confirms that the document is real. [more inside]
posted by 256 at 2:31 PM PST - 75 comments

The world's first human cannonball was a performer who went by the name of Lulu the Flying Artist. Flying up to 40 feet in the air, she gained a good deal of acclaim, even inspiring the Lu Lu Waltz. And yet, Mlle. Lulu was not what she seemed - He was a young man named Sam, who had previously performed as El Niño Farini. [more inside]
posted by Gordafarin at 2:27 PM PST - 8 comments

This is a dialogue between Teach, an adjunct philosophy instructor at a public university in New York, and Cheat, who has authored over 100 papers for pay.
posted by eugenen at 1:45 PM PST - 113 comments

Quirky is sort of like Threadless, but for inventions. (via) [more inside]
posted by flex at 1:31 PM PST - 14 comments

"You’d be crazy not to buy that. I mean, look at it. IT’S FULL OF WHIMSY."
posted by zarq at 1:26 PM PST - 260 comments

Peter Falk, American actor noted for his portrayal of TV's Columbo, has died. NYTimes obit. [more inside]
posted by meadowlark lime at 12:33 PM PST - 178 comments

Surfer Dude Remix
posted by puny human at 12:31 PM PST - 7 comments

It was bound to happen eventually. After a quarter-century, 26 Academy Awards, and an unparalleled streak of eleven artistic and commercial triumphs, Pixar's latest project, Cars 2, is Certified Rotten. Critics have assailed the film as a slick but hollow vehicle for Disney's $10 billion-dollar Cars merchandising industry "lifestyle brand," replacing the original's serviceable tale of small-town redemption with zany spy games, hyperactive chase sequences, and even more lowbrow aww-shucks potty humor from Larry the Cable Guy. But it's not all bad news! Along with a fun new Toy Story 3 short, preceding today's (3-D) premiere showings is a first look at next year's Brave -- a darkly magical original story set in ancient Scotland featuring the studio's first female lead (and director). Evocative high-res concept art [mirror] is available at the official website, and character sketches have leaked to the web, with the apparently striking teaser trailer sure to follow. Also, be sure not to miss the sneak peak of Brave's associated short, "La Luna"!
posted by Rhaomi at 11:42 AM PST - 263 comments

Archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History have used a remote-controlled microcamera to explore a 1500-year-old sealed Mayan burial chamber at the Palenque archaeological site in Chiapas, Mexico. Story in English from the Guardian but be sure to click on "Fotos" at the first link.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:05 AM PST - 19 comments

How to avoid getting hit by a train. SL(short)YT.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:03 AM PST - 44 comments

Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetical euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely kill a human being.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:58 AM PST - 64 comments

Comic book artist Gene Colan died on June 23, 2011. Colan began his comic book career in 1944, and after service in WWII went on to illustrate a wide range of comic book characters for both Marvel and DC. The artist might be best known for his 70 issue run in Marvel's Tomb of Dracula in the 1970's. Colan's lush moody style was also well-suited to Batman, as evidenced by his work on Batman and Detective Comics in the 1980's. Other titles and characters associated with Colan include Howard the Duck, Daredevil (including an 81 issue run from 1966-1973), Doctor Strange, and Captain America. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 10:44 AM PST - 26 comments

A Face A Day
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:31 AM PST - 8 comments

The long-polluted New York rivers are getting cleaner, but can still be dangerous to swim in. There are efforts underway to clean up the Bronx River, but that will take years, if not decades. Until then, signs are posted, warning would-be swimmers, yet people still risk sickness to battle the heat. One current safe solution is the Floating Pool Lady, a barge that was remade into an 82-foot-long city parks department swimming pool. She first arrived in the Bronx in 2008, and she'll return to the Bronx in a week. There's a new Big Idea to bring swimmers back into the rivers: the +Pool, a floating swimming pool located within a river, designed with a series exterior walls to filter the river water and make it safe to swim in. While that's in the early design stages, you can take a chance and jump in a swimming hole.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:28 AM PST - 26 comments

Boba Fett plays Zelda ''Lost Woods" on accordion. [SLYT]
posted by Fizz at 10:03 AM PST - 36 comments

21-year-old inventor Tim Pryde has come up with an alternative to the much-circumnavigated "chuggers" (chuggers previously) ‒ solicitous-but-impossibly-cute robot "Don-8r". [more inside]
posted by greenish at 9:12 AM PST - 25 comments

Author and Mefi's Own Charles Stross presents Three Arguments Against The Singularity
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 AM PST - 188 comments

At first, Collectors Weekly deleted virtually anything listed on their site bearing a Nazi swastika. Now they are explaining what changed their mind and why some people collect this particular paraphernalia.
posted by gman at 9:06 AM PST - 32 comments

The First World Problems Rap (SLYT)
posted by swift at 8:41 AM PST - 44 comments

When athletes are in financial trouble, they often go to high end pawn shops to get money.
posted by reenum at 8:38 AM PST - 27 comments

Root Hog or Die has an extensive collection of links to world folk music repositories. There are over 60, with days and days of music to listen to. Some are comprised of field recordings, some are from old 78s, and some are from more contemporary sources, so you'll have to use your judgement about which you're comfortable visiting. The sites cover everything from Hmong music to Ossetian music to Northwest Fiddle Field Recordings.
posted by OmieWise at 8:03 AM PST - 13 comments

A study conducted at Newcastle University (UK) shows that type 2 diabetes can be completely reversed, not with medication, but through following a 600-calorie diet for two months. [more inside]
posted by marsha56 at 6:35 AM PST - 135 comments

"I can tell you right now there is no I in A.I., and nor should there be." Veteran game programmer Mike Diskett (Syndicate, Magic Carpet, GTA IV) offers his thoughts on response mechanics, and how fuzzy logic can fail to account for the fog of war.
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:35 AM PST - 40 comments

SAFECAST is helping people in Japan (with internet access) review amateur and official radiation data.
posted by jeffmac at 6:20 AM PST - 6 comments

In 1967, IBM had the answer to our "paperwork explosion." Somewhat surreal film promoting new IBM dictation technology. Mad Men meets the future with a trippy electronic soundtrack. [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet at 6:09 AM PST - 41 comments

"Cubelets is a robot construction kit; by combining sensor, logic and actuator blocks, young kids can create simple reconfigurable robots that exhibit surprisingly complex behavior." Watch the Cubelets Engineering Prototypes demo (1.01) on Vimeo. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 4:43 AM PST - 14 comments

"The mind knows not what the tongue wants." We all take variability and niche markets for granted these days, but back in the 70's and 80's, the American food industry was obsessed with the so-called platonic dish - a perfect and universal way to serve a food. Howard Moskowitz, of prego fame, helped explode the idea in the food industry and beyond. In this TED talk, Malcom Gladwell, tells you all about it and why variability matters a lot. [more inside]
posted by fantodstic at 12:29 AM PST - 48 comments