Nova Alea is a small real-estate speculation game loosely modeled on the rent-gap theory. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
posted to MetaFilter by clorox at 7:39 AM on June 7, 2016 (7 comments)

“Where are all the people?” – this question often arises when people see photos of the white-marbled capital of Turkmenistan. Indeed, new Ashgabat looks empty. Huge new buildings lined with marble, wide avenues, parks, gardens, fountains are all there, but there are no people in the city. Ashgabat is divided into two parts – old town and new town. City of the living and the city of the dead.

Ashgabat: the city of the living and the city of the dead
posted to MetaFilter by griphus at 12:33 PM on June 6, 2016 (47 comments)

On paper, my life seemed great. I had a dream job, a swanky apartment, and a loving girlfriend. But something was off. I couldn’t bear being chained to my desk in a stuffy office any longer. So I decided to quit and travel the world, bringing only my passport, a small backpack, and... (SLNewYorker)
posted to MetaFilter by anarch at 10:12 AM on June 6, 2016 (113 comments)

Infochammel. Experience the next level of HDTV Info and Non-Engaging Nontertainment 24-7-365-11000 encoded with proprietary Techno-Loc HDTV subliminal positive human behavioral modification frequencies.
posted to MetaFilter by zabuni at 8:47 PM on June 5, 2016 (17 comments)

When "Rationalism" makes you dumber: Scientific American writer John Horgan's recent talk to a large skeptic conference was cut short when he called for turning skepticism towards "hard targets" such as psychiatric drugs, medical overtesting and militarism, and away from "preaching to the choir" rants against the paranormal and superstitious.
posted to MetaFilter by blankdawn at 11:06 PM on May 30, 2016 (102 comments)

Leyla McCalla is a classically trained cellist who grew up in New York with her Haitian parents. She moved to New Orleans where she performed on Royal Street and learned about the Haitian history of the community. McCalla also joined the Carolina Chocolate Drops and diversified her style and sound. With the combined influence of place and company, she started performing Haitian folk music, which she paired that music with poetry of Langston Hughes for her first solo album, Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes (Soundcloud album stream). That was two years ago, and now she has her second album, A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey (YT, official video for the title track; YT playlist), where she sings in Haitian Creole, French, and English.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 11:49 AM on May 29, 2016 (7 comments)

Lebanese coffee commercial. That's all I got.
posted to MetaFilter by drlith at 2:08 PM on May 24, 2016 (63 comments)

How some of the greatest rappers make rhymes is an impressive video from Vox that explains how the best artists manipulate rhymes, beats, and motifs in exciting ways.
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah at 7:38 AM on May 19, 2016 (44 comments)

"Nerd pandering at its finest! Got an idea for a shirt! How about combining Doctor Who and Mega Man? That doesn't make sense, you say? Doesn't matter! It's just two things! Put it on a shirt!"
posted to MetaFilter by Krom Tatman at 8:50 AM on May 24, 2016 (2052 comments)

So you're me and you're in math class and you're learning about graph theory, a subject too interesting to be included in most grade school's curricula so maybe you're in some special program or maybe you're in college and were somehow not scarred for life by your grade school math teachers.
posted to MetaFilter by achmorrison at 7:35 PM on February 22, 2011 (32 comments)

No, seriously. I keep on rereading the first two-thirds of Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, and I gotta get out of this place. Please make me aware of other things I should read.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by BrunoLatourFanclub at 1:37 PM on May 22, 2016 (40 comments)

Kimmy finds her mom. Jacqueline finds a cause. Titus finds where he belongs.
posted to FanFare by DoctorFedora at 2:49 PM on May 19, 2016 (17 comments)

As far as I can tell, Da mother fuckin share z0ne is basically what you get when you add a lot of skulls and pretty rad, metal-ass fonts to Laughapalooza.
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 10:57 PM on May 22, 2016 (28 comments)

Thrill at the 2-4 minute long, extremely cheaply animated adventures of INFERNO COP, passionate, tireless, easily distracted crusader for justice in Jack Knife Edge Town, as he battles the sinister (and poorly motivated) secret society Southern Cross! (click the "CC" button to turn on English subtitles)
posted to MetaFilter by J.K. Seazer at 8:16 PM on May 20, 2016 (10 comments)

The beta test of Project Earth is finally over. First, the bad news: this update comes with a server wipe. Yes, we know you've poured time and effort into your 'lives' on Earth, and it's disappointing to lose your progress. Unfortunately, this can't be helped. We experimented with methods of porting existing avatars into the new version, but it brings a host of compatibility issues with our new character-creation system (more on that later). As a consolation, we're planning another exciting in-game 'End of the World' event, so you can go out with a bang.
posted to MetaFilter by pjern at 5:40 PM on May 19, 2016 (25 comments)

Established in 1982, the [San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive] preserves 6000 hours of newsfilm, documentaries and other TV footage produced in the Bay Area and Northern California from the Twentieth Century. We are a part of the J. Paul Leonard Library’s Department of Special Collections and oversee material owned by local TV stations KPIX-TV, KRON-TV, KQED and KTVU. All 1,659 items in the collections can be streamed. A few notable inclusions within.
posted to MetaFilter by Going To Maine at 10:32 PM on May 18, 2016 (5 comments)

The Creatures of Yes
I can't explain it, so I'm not going to. Puppets. That's all you really need to know…puppets.
posted to MetaFilter by cjorgensen at 11:41 AM on May 2, 2016 (17 comments)

"Mercy VR is an interactive web based DJ set inspired by "virtual reality" which is a cutting edge torture technique used by the united states military. the music is based on our performance at that.party in march 2016" EXPERIENCE MERCY VR ON THE WEB
posted to MetaFilter by churl at 5:56 PM on May 17, 2016 (2 comments)

No brush stroke, no accidental blotch of paint, no hidden nuance of a great painting by van Gogh or Monet can hide from the ultra-high resolution Google Art Camera.
posted to MetaFilter by ColdChef at 6:35 PM on May 17, 2016 (12 comments)

How To Replace Blade For Little Metal Cutting Handheld Hack Saw Spring Style Maintenance Repair Vide
posted to MetaFilter by The Minotaur at 7:43 PM on May 15, 2016 (16 comments)

It's spring in Wisconsin, and the rivers are running. Time to think of Lorine Niedecker, Wisconsin's austere laborer poet, who lived her whole life in modest circumstances on the shores of Lake Koshkonong, sometimes working as a janitor. From her small home came some of the greatest American poetry , as she lived her complex, but simple, "Life by Water."
posted to MetaFilter by SandCounty at 12:43 PM on May 12, 2016 (10 comments)

Comics artist Panic Volkushka imagines a present day scene [SLTumblr] between those Fox TV sons, Chris Griffin, Bobby Hill, and Bart Simpson (cw: discussion of abuse).
posted to MetaFilter by coolname at 8:51 AM on May 12, 2016 (34 comments)

"Happy Money lists five principles of happy spending:
1) Buy experiences
2) Make it a treat
3) Buy time
4) Pay now, consume later
5) Invest in others
Five principles are four too many for a lazy reductionist, let’s see if we can identify some common themes and combine these ideas into a single framework that would lose all nuance and intricacy but be expressible as an equation. (Spoiler: of course we can, duh)."
posted to MetaFilter by zarq at 12:22 PM on May 11, 2016 (31 comments)

Friend has multiple sclerosis (MS), recently a lot worse. She's deciding between treatments: Lemtrada, or a hematopoietic stem cell transplant at the Clinica Ruiz in Mexico (since it's incredibly expensive and doing it abroad is 1/3 the cost of getting it done in the US). Anybody have research, info, or personal experience with these treatments or this clinic? Do you know any really good MS support/info groups?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by LobsterMitten at 4:26 PM on May 9, 2016 (6 comments)

In the summer of 2015, FiveThirtyEight's Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller, the editor in chief of Baseball Prospectus, took over the baseball operations department of an independent-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, putting their sabermetric beliefs to the test with actual professional players. As spring training approached, they compensated for their lack of connections, tight budget and even tighter time frame by using statistics to scour the country for overlooked talent. "If the [Moneyball] A’s were 'a collection of misfit toys,' as Michael Lewis wrote, then we’ll be building a team out of toys that got recalled because they were choke hazards."
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 12:54 PM on May 9, 2016 (23 comments)

At the intersection of country, surf rock, and black metal lies the one-of-a-kind genre mashup Desert Dances and Serpent Sermons (from the always interesting Black Twilight Circle collective [bandcamp]):
Track 1: Volahn - Chamalcan
Track 2: Shataan - Caminando del Destino / Desert Smoke / Wells Run Dry
Track 3: Arizmenda - Ropeburn mutilation on the outskirts of life
Track 4: Kallathon - Falling into the Horizon, Burning into the Black Twilight
(Full album on Bandcamp here.)
posted to MetaFilter by Frobenius Twist at 9:48 AM on May 8, 2016 (15 comments)

World After Capital by Albert Wenger [Work in Progress; GitHub; GitBook; PDF; FAQ] - "Technological progress has shifted scarcity for humanity. When we were foragers, food was scarce. During the agrarian age, it was land. Following the industrial revolution, capital became scarce. With digital technologies scarcity is shifting from capital to attention. World After Capital suggests ways to expand economic, informational and psychological freedom to go from an industrial to a knowledge society." (previously)
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 2:36 PM on May 7, 2016 (23 comments)

Part 1. Part 2. Two hours and forty minutes of classic Russian opera, in over-the-top Soviet style, produced in the unsettled years between Stalin's death and Krushchev's Secret Speech. If you don't have the time, you can watch the eleven minute death scene (part 1 and part 2 - a truly operatic death), performed by Boris Christoff a couple of years later in London.
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 1:29 PM on May 6, 2016 (3 comments)

... at the same time that Chicago was creating House and Detroit was forging ahead with what would become Techno, the roots of Trance were being sawn on the beaches of Anjuna and Vagator. And just as Chicago had Ron Hardy and Detroit had The Electrifying Mojo, Goa had a DJ called Laurent. If it wasn’t for him, it’s quite possible that the music played at parties in Goa would have been little more than a carbon copy of what was going on back in Europe and America. Unveiling The Secret: The Roots of Trance - before Goa was Goa, it was "new electronic music coming out of Europe and America," sliced and edited by Laurent to make one long, constantly morphing psychedelic groove.
posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief at 9:50 AM on May 5, 2016 (64 comments)

17 Amazing Plot Elements... When You See #11, You'll Be Astounded!
posted to MetaFilter by storybored at 2:36 PM on May 5, 2016 (9 comments)

When my anger is expressed through dance.
posted to MetaFilter by ChuraChura at 12:01 PM on May 5, 2016 (6 comments)

In which the Seattle-based instrumental funk band Polyrhythmics perform a 35 minute live set in-studio for KEXP. Funky.
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:32 AM on May 5, 2016 (4 comments)

British Pathe has a bunch of great old bike newsreels uploaded to YouTube: Birth of the Bike (1937); Historic Bikes (1953); Six Day Race (1937); Penny Farthing Bike (1928); Penny Farthing Race (1936); Cycling Tips (1936); Housewife Cyclist (1956); All about Bikes (1959)
posted to MetaFilter by OmieWise at 6:43 AM on May 6, 2016 (12 comments)

Listen to this 1929 Louis Armstrong recording cleaner than you have ever heard, thanks to Nick Dellow's audio transfer from a mother record shipped by Okeh to Germany for their Odeon pressings. (slyt)
posted to MetaFilter by fings at 2:33 PM on April 6, 2016 (43 comments)

Mrs McGettrick makes Fugglers from felt and discarded false teeth. Even stranger, some people buy them. "It was something I would do in the evening to unwind: cup of tea, episode of something trashy on TV, force some teeth into the gaping maw of a felt teddy bear... I was both bewildered and excited when I sold my first order. I purchased another bag of teeth."
posted to MetaFilter by billiebee at 4:27 AM on May 3, 2016 (29 comments)

Portuguese photographer Tomba Lobos uses "caucasian skin color play dough" to enhance portraits:

P H O T O G R A P H S / 1
P H O T O G R A P H S / 2
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Wallflower at 12:04 AM on May 6, 2016 (29 comments)

The Miley Cyrus Entrance. The Phil Collins entrance. The Venga Boys entrance. The Pokemon Entrance. The Foo Fighters entrance. The Queen Entrance. The Limp Bizkit entrance. Featuring The Local Hero, Joe Hendry. (All links YouTube, which has tons more.)
posted to MetaFilter by Pyrogenesis at 5:02 AM on May 5, 2016 (5 comments)

I Love Serial Entertainment And So Can You - We don’t binge on television because we like it, we like television because we can binge on it.
posted to MetaFilter by The Devil Tesla at 12:31 PM on May 4, 2016 (26 comments)

ProPublica has relaunched Represent, which " provides information on lawmakers, the bills they consider and the votes they take (and miss). You can browse the latest votes and bills, see how often lawmakers vote against their parties and compare voting records." This applies to federal representatives in the United States.
posted to MetaFilter by the man of twists and turns at 9:18 AM on May 4, 2016 (2 comments)

From Project Rainbow to the Montauk Project - a brief history of what might have happened.... From the Philadelphia Experiment to Project Montauk.
posted to MetaFilter by marienbad at 5:25 PM on May 3, 2016 (11 comments)

A hermit colony ran as a decentralised autonomous organisation on the ethereum blockchain.
posted to MetaFilter by boo_radley at 12:42 PM on May 3, 2016 (31 comments)

all i can picture is that horrible rendition of the jurassic park theme with the harmonica
posted to MetaFilter by griphus at 8:58 AM on May 3, 2016 (29 comments)

In 1979, scientist Kewaunee Lapseritis was first telepathically contacted by a Sasquatch and an ET simultaneously, which was the shock of his life! To further complicate matters, the contact changed him and he developed psychic ability overnight, which triggered a spiritual transformation. Psychic Sasquatch covers the intersection of hairy hominids, UFOs, and psychic ability. Lapseritis' first book, The Psychic Sasquatch and their UFO Connection was recently featured in The New Yorker.
posted to MetaFilter by robocop is bleeding at 5:08 AM on May 2, 2016 (40 comments)

The only limit is yourself. [via mefi projects]
posted to MetaFilter by not_on_display at 5:59 PM on May 1, 2016 (32 comments)

TANE          T
      T      A
T      A    N
A       N  E
N        E
E
      T A N E

posted to MetaFilter by Spinda at 12:29 AM on May 2, 2016 (42 comments)

Whatever happened to the happy modernists?
posted to MetaFilter by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 11:24 PM on May 1, 2016 (11 comments)

It's entirely possible that you haven't heard anyone quite like Ghana's King Ayisoba.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 5:23 AM on April 30, 2016 (13 comments)

Hosted by Sandra Bernhard, clips from Something Weird Video’s (previously) catalogue and a heavily edited main attraction that cut down some feature length z-movie to a presentable bite-sized clips made up 1996's Something Weird Video. SWV has put up the entire run on their Youtube channel, so if you’re looking for some trashy fun, check it out. It’s not safe for work, but Puritans will be happy to know everyone’s best bits get covered in episodes like the “Nudist Camp Night.” Ta-tas get covered with happy faces and front bottoms with Stop signs! (via the twice Hugo nominated Black Gate).
posted to MetaFilter by Mezentian at 3:38 AM on April 30, 2016 (1 comment)

In 2014, Provo, Utah-based rock band Neon Trees' lead singer Tyler Glenn's came out as gay and Mormon. At the time, he seemed optimistic in his ability to navigate both identities, reporting that he received positive messages from Mormon church leaders shortly after coming out. In 2015, he commented that the LDS church seemed to be changing for the better. But with the release of the single "Trash" from Tyler's new solo endeavor and Rolling Stone's related article, it appears that all has not been well in Zion.
posted to MetaFilter by subversiveasset at 5:20 PM on April 29, 2016 (17 comments)

Inspired by Greg Nog's comment in an earlier MeTa, I want to suggest Keep MeFi Weird May.
posted to MetaTalk by griphus at 9:58 AM on April 29, 2016 (229 comments)