Here's Hunter S. Thompson in the 80s, a post on Rants, Ravings, Gibberish & Jabs. And here's an encode of a rare VHS video of Dr. Thompson at this time in his life, "The Crazy Never Die." (31m, NSFW for a little full nudity.) And here's video of a commercial for Dr. Thompson writing for the San Francisco Examiner.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 11:07 AM on September 16, 2015 (13 comments)

Audiobooks for the Damned takes the novelizations of films from the seventies and eighties, records audiobook versions, and uploads them to YouTube.
posted to MetaFilter by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:01 PM on September 12, 2015 (20 comments)

Herding Cats -- a feline puzzle game by indie game maker / big gay witch Anna Anthropy.
posted to MetaFilter by Narrative Priorities at 10:16 AM on August 12, 2015 (19 comments)

To start your weekend off right, here are 8 opossums eating banana pieces all at the same time. It's hypnotic.
posted to MetaFilter by codacorolla at 4:57 PM on August 7, 2015 (71 comments)

Nevada Public Radio has made an oral (no comment) history of the making of The Aristocrats, the infamous documentary about the offensive joke that comedians tell each other. The movie has many, many great performances, but I'm partial to Wendy Liebman's and Martin Mull's, which are kind of riffs on the joke and not the actual joke. For that, you need to see Bob Saget or Gilbert Gottfried.
posted to MetaFilter by anothermug at 9:44 PM on August 3, 2015 (23 comments)

Famed debunker James Randi (Wikipedia) teams up with Ars Technica to test the AudioQuest Vodka, a $340 Ethernet cable whose superiority to run-of-the-mill Cat 5 cables, as per a review by Audiostream.com, is as plain as day.
posted to MetaFilter by Gordion Knott at 4:45 AM on August 1, 2015 (96 comments)

Probably this is the first time Bono has ever publicly baptized a long-dead wife-beater into postmortem Irishness at Ellis Island, but honestly I wouldn’t know, because I mostly ignore his activities in his role as The Living Incarnation Of Thirst. Mostly this is just the convenient, and conveniently ridiculous, news peg I am using as an excuse to point out that he is an annoying doofus who has been peddling emptily profoundish, nauseatingly wholesome, sexless Disney World theme music to milquetoast nice bros for longer than I have been alive, and I wish he would quit it.

Albert Burneko puts the boot into Bono and U2, along the way taking swipes at John Lennon and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You might want to calibrate your outrage with his views on cats.
posted to MetaFilter by MartinWisse at 1:13 AM on August 1, 2015 (119 comments)

Lost TV Pilot of Clerks has emerged (SLYT). In 1995, Disney (Miramax parent company) under the Touchstone Television brand tried to turn the indie hit of the previous year into a PG-Rated sitcom. The results are exactly what you'd expect. (via AV Club)
posted to MetaFilter by lmfsilva at 5:34 PM on July 30, 2015 (59 comments)

Security researchers Charlie Miller (@0xcharlie) and Christopher Valasek (@nudehaberdasher) have found an exploit for Chrysler's Uconnect infotainment system allowing for remote control of many vehicle functions including climate control, audio, braking, and under certain conditions, steering. They plan to release details during a talk at next month's DEFCON 23 hacking conference. Chrysler has already issued a patch for the vulnerability, but it requires a manual update.
posted to MetaFilter by Small Dollar at 10:12 AM on July 21, 2015 (133 comments)

What it’s like to actually eat the food in Oakland County Jail.
posted to MetaFilter by ellieBOA at 4:51 AM on July 16, 2015 (34 comments)

Confronting New Madrid (Part 1): In the winter of 1811-12, the New Madrid fault in southern Missouri triggered a series of earthquakes in so powerful they altered the course of the Mississippi River and rang church bells as far away as Philadelphia... and we still don't fully understand why. A similar quake today is estimated to be the costliest disaster in US History.
Confronting New Madrid (Part 2): As dangerous as the threat of "the big one" might be, however, the real disaster is us.
posted to MetaFilter by absalom at 1:21 PM on July 16, 2015 (39 comments)

Beyond the Model Minority Myth : "Discussing certain Asian groups’ material advantages today as a type of transhistorical “privilege” or “complicity” with power — rather than the result of a specific set of immigration and domestic policies that have aligned with shifting national attitudes — mystifies the mechanisms of capitalism rather than elucidating them."
posted to MetaFilter by Conspire at 1:01 PM on July 15, 2015 (23 comments)

Paper Chasing by Jake Bittle On the subject of why we collect books as opposed to simply read them.
posted to MetaFilter by Fizz at 3:50 PM on July 11, 2015 (125 comments)

"The Animation School Dropout" (1:30) (2014) has actually been doing animation for over 40 years, including a 'bicentennial' film commissioned by the United States Information Agency (USIA): "200" (3:00) (1975) (previously here). A USIA propaganda production featuring hot dogs AND peace signs? Not bad. [post warning: possible visual triggers for epilepsy]
posted to MetaFilter by oneswellfoop at 9:02 PM on July 11, 2015 (11 comments)

Thick clouds of dust and gas prevent our eyes from seeing much of our Milky Way galaxy. But infrared light travels through that dust easily. Using infrared light, the Spitzer Space Telescope has been taking high-resolution images of our galactic center since 2003. Combining over 400,000 of those images in multiple wavelengths of light reveals a new view of our galaxy. Floating along the Milky Way (in 4k60p if your computer can handle it).
posted to MetaFilter by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:43 PM on July 9, 2015 (22 comments)

From the mid 40s to the mid 50s Coronet Instructional Films were always ready to provide social guidance for teenagers on subjects as diverse as dating, popularity, preparing for being drafted, and shyness, as well as to children on following the law, the value of quietness in school, and appreciating our parents. They also provided education on topics such as the connection between attitudes and health, what kind of people live in America, how to keep a job, supervising women workers, the nature of capitalism, and the plantation System in Southern life. Inside is an annotated collection of all 86 of the complete Coronet films in the Prelinger Archives as well as a few more. Its not like you had work to do or anything right?
posted to MetaFilter by Blasdelb at 12:32 PM on November 1, 2012 (41 comments)

On Monday, at the 2015 American Library Association Annual Conference, actress and author Sonia Manzano announced her retirement from the cast of Sesame Street, where she has played the role of Maria for more than 40 years.
posted to MetaFilter by divined by radio at 8:54 AM on July 2, 2015 (20 comments)

Using a femtosecond laser to create tangible holographic plasma. [SLYT]
posted to MetaFilter by Rob Rockets at 3:38 AM on June 28, 2015 (23 comments)

"Child actor-turned-maligned-Star-Trek-character-turned-geek-icon Wil Wheaton has been fairly open about his struggles with mental illness and depression. But for those who haven’t heard about that side of his life before, Project UROK spoke with the actor/writer about the way his anxiety affects him and why he eventually chose to seek help. We’re debuting that interview exclusively here on The A.V. Club." By Caroline Siede; direct YouTube link.
posted to MetaFilter by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:40 PM on June 25, 2015 (40 comments)

"A design so commonplace you've never thought about it. It's just there. When you ask if you can get some water...when you opt for the combo meal...when you're given a drink in the hospital." That teal-and-purple brushstroke combination that you've seen thousands of times since the early 90s has a designer, and her name is Gina Ekiss. A mystery launched on Reddit, solved by Thomas Gounley of the Springfield News Leader.
posted to MetaFilter by How the runs scored at 8:19 AM on June 21, 2015 (54 comments)

"I think these grill cookies...would be a fun dessert to have at a summer cookout."
posted to MetaFilter by Confess, Fletch at 7:53 PM on June 19, 2015 (45 comments)

Google Photos recognizes the content of images by training neural networks. Google Research is conducting experiments on these simulated visual brains by evolving images to hyperstimulate them, creating machine hallucinations - like that image of melting squirrels that's been going around lately.
posted to MetaFilter by moonmilk at 10:55 PM on June 17, 2015 (106 comments)

"There has never been a recording artist quite like Marcy Tigner." Marcy Tigner started out as a trombone player but soon created a puppet in her own likeness and used her child-like voice to teach others in Learning to do God's Work. All in all she put out more than 40 albums, and passed away in 2012 at age 90. YouTube: Join the Gospel Express (part of the Incredibly Strange Music series); Christmas with Marcy; Men in the Bible. Recent mention on Cracked.com (scroll down to end of #1)
posted to MetaFilter by Melismata at 4:37 PM on June 15, 2015 (22 comments)

Michael struggles with this sudden loss of privacy. It's too much for him, and he wants to discuss it at the next meeting.

"I don't have time to myself, either, you know," the Replacement says bitterly.

Michael starts to interrupt, but Dr. Kenston reminds him that the Replacement has the talking stick right now. "You've lived a whole life on your own, Michael," it says. "I've never had that. I've never been by myself. Never even existed completely outside of your abdomen."

The New Middle Class, a short story by Dolan Morgan. [cw: body horror]
posted to MetaFilter by divined by radio at 10:41 AM on June 9, 2015 (14 comments)

End of life planning is hard. There are checklists, like this set from Get Your Shit Together. There are practical tips for making things easier for whoever's dealing with your estate after you're gone, like the tech tips in this previously from MeFi's own Jessamyn. But in the murky middle between living completely independently and being incapable of managing everyday tasks lies a subtler and more difficult question: how to organize and manage your money when financial competence is one of the first areas to decline on the slide from mild cognitive impairment to dementia. SeekingAlpha contributor PsychoAnalyst has a surprisingly nuanced analysis of the steps self-directed investors can take to protect their finances from the underestimated risk of their own declining ability to make good financial decisions, and raises some points worth thinking about for folks beyond the site's investor wonk audience.
posted to MetaFilter by deludingmyself at 10:03 AM on June 6, 2015 (26 comments)

Recent video with striking imagery ... Abstract: O D Y S S E Y (see also Pacific Light) • Fu Liu (tutorials 1 & 2) and Beiquan ... Hyperreal / Glitched realities: simulacra (see also Plain Sight) • as-phyx-i-a (made using Xbox One Kinect) • Noah - "flaw" ... Allegorical: Leonard in Slow Motion (starring Martin Starr).
posted to MetaFilter by Monsieur Caution at 3:07 AM on May 24, 2015 (5 comments)

Check out the projects at this year's Stupid Hackathon across categories such as Disrupting The Body, Servitude-As-A-Service, and the Stealing Economy.
posted to MetaFilter by newton at 4:57 PM on May 17, 2015 (13 comments)

Sergey Morozov's scale model of Russia via model train layout is 800 square meters.
posted to MetaFilter by readery at 6:50 AM on May 17, 2015 (22 comments)

The Dover Boys at Pimento University is one of the cartooniest cartoons ever made. The 1942 Warner Brothers short, directed by Chuck Jones and animated by Bobe Cannon, is loosely based on the children's book series The Rover Boys. Quite visually innovative in its day, The Dover Boys probably contains the most outrageous smears and multiples of any cartoon since.
posted to MetaFilter by overeducated_alligator at 6:47 AM on May 12, 2015 (59 comments)

In December of last year, the NYC-based digital art nonprofit Rhizome successfully Kickstarted an online exhibition of cloud-emulated copies of the three CD-ROMs created by Theresa Duncan and based on young girls' everyday experiences. Last month, they were made available for play for a minimum of one year with probable extension. You can read about - and, thanks to embedding - play them at Rhizome itself and The Verge (or just play them right here). Note: you may have to wait in a queue. Also, you may have to wait a while for the computer running the game, which will be streamed to you, to start up.
posted to MetaFilter by BiggerJ at 9:00 PM on May 11, 2015 (9 comments)

Q: What do the US, Somalia, and South Sudan have in common? A: It's totally cool to put kids in jail forever.
At 38, Adolfo Davis is re-sentenced to life imprisonment as an accomplice to a gang murder when he was 14.
“The defendant’s acts showed an aggression and callous disregard for human life far beyond his tender age of 14.”
posted to MetaFilter by TheNegativeInfluence at 3:47 PM on May 5, 2015 (37 comments)

Type Drummer
posted to MetaFilter by Confess, Fletch at 4:19 PM on May 8, 2015 (47 comments)

60 minutes of makeup advice from Donna Mills in her 'Knots Landing' prime condensed into eight and a half minutes of pure glamour. (SLYT)
posted to MetaFilter by josher71 at 7:10 AM on May 8, 2015 (12 comments)

I'm a web developer. I'm almost 40, and I'm starting to wonder how much longer I can expect to sling code in the trenches with the youngsters. I mean, I still have a number of years of relevance left in me—but it's hard to imagine that I'll remain competitive as a developer as I enter my 50s and 60s. I need to start thinking about the long game. So...what does the long game look like?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by escape from the potato planet at 5:56 PM on May 6, 2015 (15 comments)

My daughter is 8 and she loves her bedtime stories, but she doesn't want to be read to, she would rather we recite a story out loud while sitting in the dark. Well yesterday my imagination ran out so I told her the story of Mata Hari as best I knew it and she loved it!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Vindaloo at 10:59 AM on April 30, 2015 (16 comments)

It was just a dumb thing. Then we put a chip in it. Now it's a smart thing.
posted to MetaFilter by koeselitz at 6:41 PM on April 19, 2015 (96 comments)

If The White Stripes and Queens of The Stone Age had a baby... Millennials, congratulations. You made something I love. The bludgeoning opener to Royal Blood's self-titled debut, Out of the Black is a riff-fueled onslaught that belies their two-piece status; with just a heavily processed bass guitar and a drum set between them, they make some four-piece rock bands look inconsequential. You're welcome.
posted to MetaFilter by bobdow at 8:10 PM on April 17, 2015 (43 comments)

Adrift in a sea of digital apps for every imaginable function, we often feel our needs are met better today than in any previous era. But consider the chatelaine, a device popularized in the 18th century that attached to the waist of a woman’s dress, bearing tiny useful accessories, from notebooks to knives.

--Chatelaines: The Killer Mobile Device for Victorian Women
posted to MetaFilter by almostmanda at 6:35 AM on April 17, 2015 (34 comments)

The Highwayman (1987-88) was a 60-minute sci-fi/action tv series from Glen A. Larson starring Sam J. Jones (1980's Flash Gordon). Jones played a federal marshall with a high-tech 18-wheeler "supertruck" that had advanced weaponry, the ability to turn invisible and a cab that turned into a helicopter. He patrolled America's highways and fought crime in the futuristic world of... 1992. A pilot movie, Terror on the Blacktop (starring Claudia Christian, G. Gordon Liddy, Jimmy Smits and Rowdy Roddy Piper) kicked off the series, which lasted nine episodes before driving off into the cancellation sunset.
posted to MetaFilter by zarq at 3:51 PM on April 13, 2015 (53 comments)

If you’ve driven Ritchie Highway where Baltimore spills into Anne Arundel County, or vice versa, you’ve probably seen her shaking her money maker and stopping traffic. Britney Girl Dale, the alter ego of Dale Crites, has become something of a celebrity here in Baltimore and she now has herself a short documentary, courtesy of filmmaker Dan Bell. The film, now showing on YouTube and embedded below, shows Britney Girl Dale and her pal Anthony doing what they do best within their South Baltimore and Anne Arundel County stomping grounds. Britney Girl Dale’s mission is to entertain the masses- whether they want to be entertained or not. Already semi-famous, Britney has appeared on 98 Rock and has already broken YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, in that order, but this film gives us a glimpse into her daily existence. Filmmaker Dan Bell shows us why Dale transforms himself into Britney, and Bell’s film shows the love, the hate, and the drama that revolves around the daily grind of being Ritchie Highway’s biggest star. The short is absolutely hilarious at times (especially when Anthony chimes in), but it’s not all beeps and hollas out there on the streets. There are also several sobering and sad moments that paint a complex picture of two of Baltimore’s most unique characters. (NSFW)
posted to MetaFilter by josher71 at 9:55 AM on April 16, 2015 (2 comments)

Hide your sons!
posted to MetaFilter by mikeand1 at 10:44 AM on April 10, 2015 (54 comments)

When displaying graphics on an original IBM Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), normally only 4 colours (from a palette of 16) are possible at once. So this ("Oldskool Demo" first place at the Revision 2015 demoparty) is not so normal.
posted to MetaFilter by juv3nal at 4:10 PM on April 10, 2015 (58 comments)

Plagued by the realities threatening many retail stores, Sears also faces a unique problem (alternate link): [CEO Eddie] Lampert. Lampert runs Sears like a hedge fund portfolio, with dozens of autonomous businesses competing for his attention and money. An outspoken advocate of free-market economics and fan of the novelist Ayn Rand, he created the model because he expected the invisible hand of the market to drive better results. If the company’s leaders were told to act selfishly, he argued, they would run their divisions in a rational manner, boosting overall performance.
posted to MetaFilter by Horace Rumpole at 4:05 PM on July 12, 2013 (119 comments)

"Cocktails & Dreams" on Youtube. My college girlfriend loved both the 1988 Tom Cruise vehicle "Cocktail" and cocktails too much, and in retrospect the first should have been a warning of the second. The people behind "Greenboy", all Mr. Show vets and other alt-comedy types, have taken on a new project - making "Cocktail" watchable. They shortened it to 10 minutes, and added Chris Fairbanks, Greenboy himself, to every scene. It's a funny testament to the power of technology to change history. Lenin would be proud. (Minor NSFW for language and art stuff)
posted to MetaFilter by solmssen at 12:46 PM on April 7, 2015 (7 comments)

Greenboy: Prescription for Death is a purported lost Dragnet episode made by writers from Mr Show and Mystery Science Theater. It uses technology first seen in Forest Gump to digitally add actors into the psychedelic "Blueboy" episode of Dragnet 1967. The result is a hilarious story of bad cops chasing after Greenboy, the pusher of a dangerous strain of medical marijuana called Larry in the Sky with Diamonds. (NSFW due to language).
posted to MetaFilter by Blingo at 8:17 AM on May 10, 2013 (25 comments)

In 1981. Sears released its first (and last) laserdisc based catalog. It's a time capsule of fashions in both clothing and video production, and one more example of how Sears was constantly searching for the future of retail, but never quite found it.
posted to MetaFilter by Horace Rumpole at 4:33 PM on April 7, 2015 (41 comments)

Stan Freberg has passed away at the age of 88. Equally famed as a voice and a satirist (and Weird Al Yankovic's idol), he had hit records making fun of pop music ("The Banana Boat Song", "The Great Pretender", Lawrence Welk, among others) with his biggest hit a re-located parody of "Dragnet", and his most memorable the 1958 attack on Christmas commercialization: "Green Christmas". He got even deeper with his deconstruction of American history, and was punished for his irreverence by becoming much in demand to make television commercials. But even earlier, he did cartoon voices, being one of the few to work (uncredited) alongside Mel Blanc at Warner Bros., and was the voice of Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent on the local-puppet-show-turned-network cartoon "Time for Beany". And more... previously here.
posted to MetaFilter by oneswellfoop at 1:50 PM on April 7, 2015 (92 comments)

A visit to Baotou Lake where rare earth minerals, used in "green" products and electronics, are processed.
posted to MetaFilter by readymade at 1:18 PM on April 3, 2015 (24 comments)

Durch die Nacht mit Sibel Kekilli & George R.R. Martin/ Au coeur de la nuit: George R. R. Martin et Sibel Kekilli: an ARTE documentary taking George R. R. Martin & Sibel "Shae" Kekilli through Martin's hometown of Santa Fe, with your choice of German or French subtitles. (As you know Bob, ARTE is a German/French art orientated cable channel; "Durch die Nacht" is one of its regular documentary series.(previously))
posted to MetaFilter by MartinWisse at 3:21 AM on March 29, 2015 (8 comments)

Yozhik v tumane - Soyuzmultfilm Yuri Norstein (YT, 1975) (Hedgehog in the Fog, Wikipedia) is ten delightful minutes of one of the most beloved animated movies in the world. That hedgehog, that owl: just look at them. Just a small good thing for your day. Discovered via Thomas Pynchon's "Bleeding Edge," source of the post title.
posted to MetaFilter by MonkeyToes at 5:21 AM on March 24, 2015 (7 comments)