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How To Cope With Death. Fun, short, animated film. If only we could do this with the tax collector.
posted by bwg at 11:45 PM PST - 18 comments

Here are some ways to shrink your unnatural water- and gas-guzzling lawn and plant something that is beautiful and requires no water usage, no mowing, and is more likely to attract more interesting wildlife. With this much lawn in the U.S., and incessant water shortages, and other water issues and wars in our present and looming in the future, why not go native? Naturally, there are objections, since local ordinances often don't allow for natural prairie lawns, and the neighborhood stick-up-butt committees are quick to remove things they consider eyesores. What is your lawn worth to you?
posted by taursir at 10:59 PM PST - 64 comments

Tonight's tribute concert for Red House Records was a glimpse of heaven for lovers of roots and folk music. More than fifteen recording artists of Red House Records put on an amazing show on September 9th at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul in tribute to Bob Feldman, founder of the label who died last year. Each musician sang or played two songs. They all appeared gratis, with the proceeds going to benefit the redwood forests. The vibe was by turns friendly, poignant and joyous. Eliza Gilkyson nearly stopped my heart - I couldn't breathe until I heard 'My love s/he's like some raven at my window with a broken wing.' [more inside]
posted by Rain Man at 10:01 PM PST - 4 comments

[Her] prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ,... The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

Whose prayer group? Hillary Clinton's.
posted by orthogonality at 9:07 PM PST - 124 comments

Writer's Links. Write better, or at the very least, more authentically, with this list of hundreds of resources for writers of all shades. For example, writing a jazz age screenplay? This guide to 1920's slang will be handy. Need help getting your procedural legal drama accurate? Try the Jurisdictionary. Enjoy tormenting your readers? This list of Tom Swifties will do the trick nicely. [more inside]
posted by jonson at 8:47 PM PST - 14 comments

Philosophy Bites is a podcast by David Edmonds (of Wittgenstein's Poker fame) and Nigel Warburton. Listen to: Edward Craig - What is Philosophy?, Timothy Williamson on Vagueness, or Stephen Law on The Problem of Evil, and others. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:24 PM PST - 8 comments

Struck out on those Streisand tickets? Sick of getting stuck with the once-a-year folding chairs at the back of the shul? Here's the auction you've been waiting for! 2 front row seats at Temple Emanu-El of South Beach, not only for this high holidays, but for you to pass on, in perpetuity, from generation to generation. Bidding starts at a paltry 1.8 million dollars.
posted by ericbop at 7:21 PM PST - 24 comments

Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi was born on 1926 in Hamburg and grew up in Nazi-Germany. He dreamed of joining the Hitler youth but besides best efforts was always rejected. But you can see him here wearing a swastika. [more inside]
posted by yoyo_nyc at 5:27 PM PST - 26 comments

The Final Cut. "I never thought the end would come like this -- with me holding the end of my life's passion in one hand and a foot-long Italian sub on wheat in the other." The side of the NFL you rarely see: former Redskins lineman Ross Tucker tells his story.
posted by bijou at 3:56 PM PST - 84 comments

BrainPaint. Beautiful, real-time images created through neurofeedback by using the electrical activity of the brain to seed fractal patterns.
posted by homunculus at 1:11 PM PST - 21 comments

If you've ever worked with advertising or marketing "professionals," you've probably encountered this guy. Or this guy. Or her. Or one of these three guys.
posted by dersins at 12:19 PM PST - 61 comments

The Oneida Community was a Christian commune. Their practices included free love - "complex marriage", eugenics - "stirpiculture", an interesting form of birth control only effective due to their unique social structures - "male continence", and "mutual criticism." They did all this for over 30 years in the middle of the 19th century. The site is now run as a museum / apartments / bed and breakfast, and was visited by a descendant writing for the NY Times. The silverware company Oneida Limited was formed to maintain their productive enterprises after the end of the communal experiment. A former member wrote "A Record of an Attempt to Carry Out the Principles of Christian Unselfishness and Scientific Race-Improvement."
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 11:35 AM PST - 64 comments

Arecibo Observatory, only facility on the planet able to track asteroids with enough precision to tell which ones might plow into Earth is losing funding. NSF has told them to find outside funding for half their budget. Part of the problem? They're in PR, so they have no state senators to fight budget cuts on their behalf. Also facing a crunch, the Very Long Baseline Array (Very Large Array seems ok, money-wise) which stretches from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands.
posted by korej at 10:55 AM PST - 22 comments

Ruttmann vs. Milant
Alexis Milant has composed scores for three experimental animations realised by Walter Ruttmann. The pleasure in watching and [listening to] this come from the reactivity in the same temporality between sound and picture. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 10:11 AM PST - 8 comments

A heroic sculpture of explorer Christopher Newport recently unveiled at the university of the same name is drawing criticism because of the decision of the university and the sculptor to depict Newport with his right hand manfully resting on his unsheathed sword--even though he lost that arm two decades before the founding of Virginia. Sculptor Jon Hair ("AMERICA'S MOST HIGHLY COMMISSIONED MONUMENTAL SCULPTOR" according his website) isn't winning any friends with his explanation of the blunder. "I wouldn't show an important historical figure like this with his arm cut off . . . We don't show our heroes maimed." [more inside]
posted by LarryC at 9:55 AM PST - 61 comments

10 big stories the US news media missed in the past year.
posted by nickyskye at 9:41 AM PST - 46 comments

Basic Instructions - Your all inclusive guide to a life well-lived [more inside]
posted by MetaMonkey at 9:26 AM PST - 27 comments

A German consortium has announced its plan to build the world's largest structure - a 578m-high "Giant Pyramid" where for €700 anyone can get a burial spot.
posted by stbalbach at 8:51 AM PST - 35 comments

Steve Fossett Missing: Help find him by searching satellite imagery
posted by nthdegx at 7:00 AM PST - 69 comments

From hair styles and hotpants to bellbottoms and boots, this site has amassed a massive fashion photo collection of groovy celebrities and swingin' stars from the '60s and '70s.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:15 AM PST - 26 comments

The 100 Best TV Shows Of All Time, in alphabetical order, with embedded video clips of each show. Time Magazine critic James Poniewozik explains how he made his (admittedly US-centric) choices. [more inside]
posted by amyms at 2:03 AM PST - 126 comments

50 million computers are after your passwords, your money, and your processor time (single PDF link). No wonder William Gibson's new novel is set in the present: the world is fully caught up with any future we could make up. The business of spamming, carding and phishing supports and runs off a peculiar distributed platform: a market-allocated collection of ad-hoc peer-to-peer content delivery networks running on hijacked browsing appliances' stolen processor cycles. [via BoingBoing comment, previously on Metafilter].
posted by kandinski at 12:28 AM PST - 41 comments