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Cities at Night, an Orbital Tour Around the World was made when astronauts added stabilizers to the cameras on the orbital space station, allowing them to get sharp, crisp nighttime images.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:55 PM - 39 comments

Illustrated Quixote is a Brown University Library digital project--one of many inspired by the 400th anniversary of Don Quixote in 2005--that allows you to search/browse and view illustrations of Don Q produced between 1725 and 1884. There are a number of other excellent sites devoted to illustrations and paintings of the novels, as well as to the publishing history of the novel itself, notably The Cervantes Project, OSU's Digitized Historical Editions of Don Quixote, Georgetown U's Tilting at Windmills, and the Don Quixote de la Mancha digital exhibit.
posted by thomas j wise at 3:51 PM - 8 comments

It's a little heavy on the movie Easter Eggs but if you ever wanted to find some interesting stuff in your favorite software -- this is a good place to start.
posted by socalsamba at 3:49 PM - 15 comments

n+1: Is this your actual office? It’s so small.
HFM: Yes. I don’t actually spend much time in here, I have a desk out on the trading floor so this is just for, you know, meetings or phone calls I can’t take out of the desk, or interviews with literary magazines that I do every Wednesday at 4pm. [more inside]
posted by 235w103 at 3:19 PM - 19 comments

What are those circular disc things that you rotate to look up information? Volvelles. [more inside]
posted by aeschenkarnos at 3:15 PM - 12 comments

What the IFPI tries to conceal about its origins in fascist Italy IFPI is the global version of the RIAA
posted by mr.marx at 2:47 PM - 7 comments

At TED this past March, Al Gore once again presented the Mother of all Power Point Shows. This time around, there is a renewed sense of urgency, with updated slides about Arctic sea ice loss, among other things. More so than in the past, Gore specifically focuses on the necessity for laws to change, and how before that can happen, politics, especially American politics, must change as well. Another theme of Gore's latest TED appearance is how climate change is also a tremendous opportunity for a new heroic generation, to be remembered as the ones who solved the greatest crisis of human civilization.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 2:43 PM - 30 comments

Frank Newsome leads the congregation at the Little David Church in Hayside, Va. Old Regular Baptists, they sing the way people sang when they first came to the American colonies: without instruments or notation, and following their leader line by line. It's called lined-out hymnody, and people outside the southern Appalachian Mountains rarely hear it. One of the songs Newsome sings at services is a hymn about longing for heaven, called "Beulah Land."
posted by The Jesse Helms at 2:04 PM - 29 comments

Paul Theroux reviews Patrick French's frank, full, authorized (!) biography of Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul. Sir Vidiadhar is not, in Theroux's estimation, a very nice man. He tortures his wife emotionally, his mistress physically, and he treats people of all races with narcissistic condescension. But can he write? [more inside]
posted by sy at 1:41 PM - 18 comments

Knuckle tattoos
posted by phoque at 12:56 PM - 67 comments

The One Man Band has evolved. No longer will the one man band be burdened by the weight and bulk of backpack drum kits, guitars, or accordions - or knowing what notes to play. Behold! Beamz by The Sharper Image. Give your nearest buddy a high-five and catch a glimpse into the future of music performance and one of the most hilarious promotional videos you might ever see.
posted by hellslinger at 12:40 PM - 60 comments

Sacred Steel is a pedal-steel guitar style that evolved in the African-American Pentecostal denomination The House of God, Which Is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Brothers and lap steel players Willie and Truman Eason, inspired by the electric blues and Hawaiian steel guitar of the 1920s and 30s, brought the sound to two branches of the church, the Keith and Jewell dominions. Its hallmark: "talking guitar," in which the sliding steel emphasizes and mimics the words of preachers and singers. In the 1970s, a new "Motor City" tradition began, featuring the more complicated pedal steel guitar. This body of music was known mainly in church circles until two things happened: first, folklorist Robert Stone became interested in the music and relased several CD collections. And then, church player Robert Randolph (and his Family Band) began taking Sunday morning's music out onSaturday night. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 12:10 PM - 19 comments

Procrastination is... [QT, via]
posted by Armitage Shanks at 11:19 AM - 27 comments

Chemical Salvation? The history of LSD as a Chick tract. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 10:55 AM - 38 comments

Wired, which famously included the Tesla Roadster in its annual roundup of vaporware, takes on another electric car firm. Over the years, ZAP has taken millions from investors and dealers eager to see the company's line of green cars hit the road. But that line has never materialized. Of nearly a dozen groundbreaking eco-vehicles ZAP has promised in public announcements and on its Web site, only the Xebra and its sibling, a truck version, have ever made it to market. [more inside]
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 10:34 AM - 27 comments

Music is good. Free is good. So free music must be double good. With over 1000 albums listed from netlabels and other sources, Free Albums Galore (mentioned a while ago) is a well-curated collection of links to some of the best free full-length releases on the 'net. Of course, there are a lot more netlabel resources out there. [more inside]
posted by Shepherd at 9:35 AM - 8 comments

Multiple SIDosis is nine minutes and seven seconds of pure joy. [more inside]
posted by UKnowForKids at 9:34 AM - 29 comments

The Maria Theresa Thaler (or MTT), a coin first minted in 1741 and continuously to this day, remained legal tender in parts of the Arabian peninsula as late as 1970, where it was much prized both as a coin and for jewelry [magazine article] Incredibly important for trade between Europe and the Middle East, the MTT had a great impact on history. For more information turn to Maria Theresa's Thaler: A case of international money an indepth article about the MTT by Adrian Tschoegl.
posted by Kattullus at 9:05 AM - 10 comments

110 Best Books. 'The perfect library' - According to the Torygraph... at least there's a 'Sci-fi' section among the usual suspects (And one or two bizarre choices - Pelzer! What the heck!)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:09 AM - 77 comments

Nothing but short Flash animations, all with the most awesome or annoying techno/8bit soundtracks ever. Crazy techno monster , fingers from craters , sometimes it doesn't pay to get up , not quite an oomp lompaa , furies need exercise too , happy at my day job, all downhill from here, lunch with my little brother , looking for tps reports , cardboardobots transform!, more fingers in crators , dive into happy hell , mario, wtf?!, hey kitty , dance with me you big bear and finally, something to calm you down Found via this AskMe question.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:13 AM - 18 comments

Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium - "Underneath their sober lab coats and flannel shirts, scientists hide images of their scientific passions. Here they are revealed to all." From the science journalist and writer responsible for The Loom and numerous other published works.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:06 AM - 33 comments

The Museum of Broken Relationships. We've all been there. What else are you supposed to do with the garden gnome you lobbed at his car, or the axe you used to chop her furniture into tiny bits. Or the box, made of matches, that somehow helped to make it all alright?
posted by From Bklyn at 2:05 AM - 15 comments

World's worst tattoo? World's worst tattoo.
posted by jonson at 1:32 AM - 120 comments

Edo Photo Generator. Use this ancient photo generator (in JP, but a cinch to use) to give your photos that certain Edo look. Via C. Buddha's Hasty Musings
posted by KokuRyu at 9:32 PM - 36 comments

The musical number of "Leroy, The Uninterrupted Lobster," and the science of aging lobsters.
posted by Del Far at 9:21 PM - 10 comments

Total Annihilation, released over ten years ago by the now defunct Cavedog Entertainment, was one of the most popular RTS games of its day. And it is still being played today, partly due to the mod community who have been working on keeping it alive through the release of patches, units and maps, a list of which you'll find inside. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:55 PM - 30 comments

IDE the Shanty One is the front man for the Creative Juices crew out of NYC. He raps and produces. His 2007 production Force Fed is a great listen for fans of hard, New York rap artists like F.T. and Wu-Tang Clan. IDE is interviewed about how the crew formed. Listen to any of 148 solo tracks from him or 55 from Creative Juices. Already a fan? He just announced his new album Snapped. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 8:47 PM - 6 comments

Six Masai warriors will face cultural challenges when they run in the Flora London Marathon to raise money for clean water for their village. Meet the runners (video clip) Think about making a small donation in their time of trouble because when we had problems here in the US, they were most generous to us. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 7:40 PM - 25 comments

New maps show US fossil fuel emissions aren't where we thought they were. The Vulcan Project collects more accurate data at a higher resolution than previous studies. Explanatory video. via [more inside]
posted by desjardins at 7:03 PM - 25 comments

Uwe Boll has said if this online petition gets a million signatures he'll stop making movies. Previously
posted by Caduceus at 6:45 PM - 84 comments

Ikiki has a home. The mysterious game developer's strange, difficult, and interesting creations are all collected on one page (Japanese), and his art style - such as it is - displayed in fine form by these mesmerizing animated gifs.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 6:09 PM - 8 comments

Last month, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals: you cannot sue Craigslist for housing ads that violate the Fair Housing Act. Full decision (PDF); summary and analysis. This week, Ninth Circuit: you can sue Roommate.com for housing ads that violate the Fair Housing Act. Full decision (PDF); summary and analysis. The difference? Roommate.com facilitates the violations with its insidious check-boxes. It all hinges on how the courts interpret a section of the Communications Decency Act, a question that the Supreme Court may have to settle.
posted by goatdog at 5:22 PM - 16 comments

Storm chase from your desk. This link will not be interesting after a bit, but the technology is impressive. Storm chasers can now stream video of their chases, LIVE. This could be a good show between now and sundown. [more inside]
posted by spock at 4:03 PM - 19 comments

Sure, it's old news when Britney lip-synchs, but I reckon nobody really expected Pavarotti to lip-synch his his very last performance.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:41 PM - 32 comments

Tokyo By Night - Just one of the posts on ArkiBlog, a blog about architecture and design. {via}
posted by dobbs at 2:40 PM - 8 comments

The Makhmalbafs are an Iranian family of filmmakers, although Samira tends to get the most press. [more inside]
posted by sciurus at 1:58 PM - 13 comments

Improv Everywhere turned a little league baseball game into a major league event. Jumbotron & all. [more inside]
posted by prefpara at 1:34 PM - 91 comments

Graphjam: Pop Culture for People in Cubicles.
posted by saladin at 12:40 PM - 23 comments

Pay to play. The children of big-donor Harvard alums are systematically given preference over legacy offspring of lesser means. Additionally David Karen, now a professor at Bryn Mawr, concluded that alumni children at Harvard lose most of their admissions advantage if they apply for financial aid.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 12:02 PM - 95 comments

The things they teach kids in school today. Details in the pdf. From science to history to law, evidence of increasing political bias in education.
posted by binturong at 11:44 AM - 51 comments

Generative Creativity is a course offered by the University of Sussex through their Informatics department. The lecture series discusses tools and techniques for generating graphics, music, jokes and riddles, and more.
posted by weston at 10:31 AM - 7 comments

Bioculture critiques Cultural Critique Until literature departments take into account that humans are not just cultural or textual phenomena but something more complex, English and related disciplines will continue to be the laughingstock of the academic world that they have been for years because of their obscurantist dogmatism and their coddled and preening pseudo-radicalism. Until they listen to searching criticism of their doctrine, rather than dismissing it as the language of the devil, literature will continue to be betrayed in academe, and academic literary departments will continue to lose students and to isolate themselves from the intellectual advances of our time.
posted by jason's_planet at 10:26 AM - 107 comments

Audience of One. Documenting one man's God-given mission to create the ultimate sci-fi religious epic, Gravity: The Shadow Of Joseph.
posted by veedubya at 8:37 AM - 16 comments

French Theory. "This is drivel about drivel — “metadrivel” as some stucturalist, post-structuralist or deconstructionist might say."
posted by Xurando at 8:25 AM - 132 comments

Inflation in Zimbabwe recently reached 160,000%. Get in on the ground floor now by purchasing a $50,000,000 bill (currently selling for 20,000x its value). Dare to become a millionaire!
posted by splatta at 8:24 AM - 93 comments

Stuff Nobody Likes. A short list is provided for your convenience. [via mefi projects]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:07 AM - 99 comments

Growing up in 70s and 80s Britain you were exposed to some rather disturbing Public Information Films on the television. But that was nothing... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:47 AM - 32 comments

Interesting article in New Scientist describing how a Canadian artist created this representation of Ravel's Bolero whilst she unknowingly had the very same progressive aphasia that Ravel had when he composed the music. [more inside]
posted by leibniz at 7:38 AM - 15 comments

Protestor grabs the Olympic torch in London. (SLYTP)
posted by allkindsoftime at 6:08 AM - 108 comments

Ever wonder about the sign language used amongst stock market traders? Wonder no more, with this handy visual guide (NYT link) to the hand signals used by traders on the floor.
posted by zardoz at 4:56 AM - 22 comments