September 10, 2015

Llanfairpwllgwyngyll​gogerychwyrndrob​wllllantysiliogogogoch

Weatherman pronounces the city of "Llanfairpwllgwyngyll​gogerychwyrndrob​wllllantysiliogogogoch" flawlessly on live TV.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:45 PM PST - 85 comments

The Right to Repair

WSJ Personal Tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler: We Need the Right to Repair our Gadgets. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 8:40 PM PST - 48 comments

We've all seen the Mentos in Coke, now propane…

Coca Cola + propane = Mega ROCKET [more inside]
posted by unliteral at 8:02 PM PST - 25 comments

Yard signs too pedestrian for you?

His superPAC is selling a poster of a ripped, tattooed Ted Cruz; the candidate says that the only thing was wrong with the picture is that he doesn't smoke. If Trump smells like victory to you, you may be interested in "Empire" (not an actual campaign site offering). Maybe you'd prefer Rand Paul's head on a stick. Dems may opt for a Hillary pantsuit tee shirt. Or, if you like Bernie Sanders and puns, you can go for this mug.
posted by Morrigan at 6:31 PM PST - 36 comments

#nextLOC

Metafilter's own Jessamyn West has an extended discussion the future of the Library of Congress and why it's relevant outside of the library community on the Circulating Ideas podcast. [more inside]
posted by adamsc at 5:05 PM PST - 6 comments

Decade Of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation In The 1930s

Francisco E. Balderrama on Fresh Air: America's Forgotten History Of Mexican-American 'Repatriation' In the 1930s, during the Depression, about a million people were forced out of the U.S. across the border into Mexico. It wasn't called deportation. It was euphemistically referred to as repatriation, returning people to their native country. But about 60 percent of the people in the Mexican repatriation drive were actually U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. [more inside]
posted by Golden Eternity at 4:01 PM PST - 31 comments

“You don't lick your boom boom down...”

Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon Perform the History of Rap Part 6 [YouTube] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 3:44 PM PST - 63 comments

"I wasn’t always a comments-hater."

Not all comments are created equal: the case for ending online comments - Jessica Valenti for The Guardian. Previously: All of the commenting, none of the comments., What We Comment About When We Comment About Commenting
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:35 PM PST - 58 comments

Free, White, and 21

The Rise and Fall of an All-American Catchphrase: 'Free, White, and 21'
posted by mhum at 2:05 PM PST - 62 comments

They both have very warm hands

On the Other Hand Steve Whitmire's been playing Kermit the Frog for 25 years. And on prime time television again real soon now.
posted by DigDoug at 1:25 PM PST - 17 comments

The Tools Designers Are Using Today

Subtraction surveyed 4000 designers from 198 countries to identify the tools they liked and used for brainstorming, wireframing, interface design, prototyping, project management and version control.
posted by jenkinsEar at 11:27 AM PST - 71 comments

Mefite Commune?

This is epic and cheaper than most San Francisco housing.... Just think of all the cool fun we could all have!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:55 AM PST - 44 comments

trillions and trillions

We live in a world filled with viruses; they are everywhere that host species exist.
The Human Virome's Permanent Mark
The virome doesn’t get as much love as its charismatic older brother, the microbiome. Studies of the bacteria that live inside us have caught the public imagination, showing that we contain a teeming diversity of critters whose populations affect everything from our diets to our immune systems. Thanks to cheap DNA sequencing, you can send samples of your microbiome to a lab and have a quick census taken; services like American Gut will even give you a colorful chart showing you which bacteria have been found and in what numbers. (Strictly the virome is part of the microbiome, which includes all the viruses, protozoa, and fungi living in one environment ― but bacteria are the stars of the show.)
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:39 AM PST - 10 comments

Tor, libraries, and the Department of Homeland Security

First Library to Support Anonymous Internet Browsing Effort Stops After DHS Email
In July, the Kilton Public Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire, was the first library in the country to become part of the anonymous Web surfing service Tor. The library allowed Tor users around the world to bounce their Internet traffic through the library, thus masking users’ locations. ... After a meeting at which local police and city officials discussed how Tor could be exploited by criminals, the library pulled the plug on the project.
[more inside]
posted by metaquarry at 10:03 AM PST - 67 comments

Inside Apple's design studio with Jony

Ian Parker from the New Yorker managed to secure time with and access to Apple's chief designer, Sir Jonathan Ive so as to write this extended profile of the man, his obsessively secretive workplace - and his dislike of orangey-brown..
posted by rongorongo at 9:11 AM PST - 44 comments

SOLO: DANG SON WHERE'D U FIND THIS? :SOLO

Do you want to go on a karaoke adventure? One that you know you have never been on? Then, go to KARAOKE_EBOOKS! [more inside]
posted by ignignokt at 8:55 AM PST - 6 comments

"We don't have victories anymore."

Mexico v. US Soccer Match Preview
posted by OmieWise at 7:20 AM PST - 12 comments

naturally, it’s slated for demolition

This legion of bureaucrats enables a world of pitiless surveillance; no segment of campus life, no matter how small, does not have some administrator who worries about it. Piece by piece, every corner of the average campus is being slowly made congruent with a single, totalizing vision. Why We Should Fear University, Inc.
posted by gerryblog at 7:18 AM PST - 59 comments

Possibly In Michigan

Possibly In Michigan is a surreal short film from 1983 about domestic violence and stalking (contains some horrifying imagery). It was directed by Cecelia Condit, whose 'enchanting and often unsettling videos, a mix of gorgeously saturated imagery and shadowy subject matter, have been called “feminist fairy tales”.'
posted by dng at 7:15 AM PST - 5 comments

Of pod bay doors and monkey suits and cigarette breaks and embryos.

Yo, Kubrick freaks (and that's pretty much everybody here, right?), check this fantastic collection of behind-the-scenes pics from the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:56 AM PST - 27 comments

The Terror and Tedium of Living Like Thoreau

When you’re alone in a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, the simplest question becomes the most complicated: How do you fill a day?
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 5:51 AM PST - 48 comments

Super Glitchy Mario World

Here is Let's Glitch Super Mario World, an in-depth series of 47 YouTube videos (each from 10 to 30 minutes long) that demonstrate breaking the game in myriad ways, with clear descriptions of what is going on.
posted by JHarris at 5:49 AM PST - 11 comments

“We’ve found a most remarkable creature”

This Face Changes the Human Story. But How? This is the story of one of the greatest fossil discoveries of the past half century, and of what it might mean for our understanding of human evolution.
posted by ladybird at 5:30 AM PST - 83 comments

A shaggy dog story

Black dog tales - Stories of the shuck, the skeff, the barghest, the hairy jack, the cu sith, the gwyllgi and more, the black dog across the British isles and beyond. Here's a map of sightings.
posted by Helga-woo at 4:37 AM PST - 12 comments

Well, Socrates, I am happy to tell you what a sandwich is

Is this a sandwich? Teaching the Platonic Dialogues through sandwiches. A philosophy professor thinks of a new way to get her students to think about the Socratic method. [more inside]
posted by colfax at 4:00 AM PST - 139 comments

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