MetaFilter

It's 1963. You're in a cold war with Russia. You want to keep up communication capabilities globally. Communication satellites haven't come into their own. The ionosphere is fickle and jammable. What do you do? You fire 480 million tiny copper wires into space to create an artificial dipole antenna belt around the earth. You call it Project West Ford. It works.
comment posted at 9:42 PM on Aug-27-13

It started when PandoDaily founder Sarah Lacy interviewed SpaceX/PayPal/Tesla founder Elon Musk at a facility called CrossCampus. She wasn't happy that CrossCampus put a banner over their stage, so she wrote them an angry email that seemed an awful lot like an attempt at extortion. So they responded saying as much. Which so infuriated PandoDaily columnist Paul Carr that he responded with a rant that has already become Internet-famous:

Fuck you Ronen, you condescending sack of shit. [...] Google me. Read a few of my columns in the Guardian, the Times, the Wall Street Journal or on blogs like TechCrunch and — of course — PandoDaily. Or pick up one of my books. Read what *always* happens when someone starts a public fight with me, or attempts to shake down one of my friends. [...] I suggest — and it's not really a suggestion — you fuck off and stop trying to play with the big leagues. You're barely ready for pre-school, let alone a pathetic "our lawyers are bigger than your lawyers" dance. [...] Batter up.

Salon responds. Sarah Lacy wants Valleywag, which leaked the emails, to pay her $100,000 in damages. Paul Carr responds on his own site, and clearly regrets nothing.
comment posted at 9:04 PM on Aug-17-13

15 Really Strange Beaches
comment posted at 2:20 PM on Aug-17-13

Until recently one of the rarest animals ever had only ever been sighted once - the hexapus. It's not an injured octopus but seemed to be a fully developed octopus that only had six limbs. The trouble with being so rare is that most people would never realize if they found a hexapus - like the vacationing family in Greece that found the second hexapus ever then cooked and ate it.
comment posted at 8:48 PM on Aug-13-13

I could tell you all about Piqua, Ohio's own very favorite sons, the Mills Brothers. I could mention how they made more than 2,000 recordings in their nearly 40 year career and sold more than 50 million copies. I could emphasize how they were the first African American performing group to attract a wide white audience. Most of all, I could explain how downright fun the Mills Brothers were, but I'd rather just show you.
comment posted at 7:00 PM on Aug-11-13

"Consider some iconic acre of Brooklyn vacant lot. You could grow food on it—or you could throw up a 30-story apartment complex housing 600 people. That’s 600 people who won’t be settling in low-density exurbs where they would be smeared across 60 acres of subdivision; in turn, those 60 acres of vacant exurb could remain farmland or forest. Using communal laundromats and lacking basements to put junk in, those new Brooklynites would lead lives of anti-consumerism. And because they would use mass transit instead of driving everywhere, their carbon footprints would be roughly a third as large as the average American’s. That fundamental land-use equation is the key to understanding how cities promote global sustainability. By concentrating high-density housing, business and lifestyles inside its borders, New York lifts enormous burdens from the ecosystem outside its borders, but that potential is squandered when we consign pristine brownfields to low-density crop-growing. We may root for the community gardeners in their eternal battle with real-estate developers, but it’s the developers who are, despite themselves, the better environmentalists." -- The case against locavorism and or urban farming.
comment posted at 10:32 AM on Aug-10-13

Band members must continually move to avoid being eaten by similarly deprived conspecifics . If you're a swarming Mormon cricket (Anabrus simplex), marching is the only way to avoid being eaten by the individual who is just behind you. Tips to deter your cannibal buddies from turning you into dinner: 1) Move 2) Move!!! 3) Keep your body axis parallel to the flow 4) Beware of females (shorter version). Cannibalistic interactions during swarming behaviour have also been observed in desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) (looks paywalled but actually free).
comment posted at 4:07 PM on Aug-4-13

Sweden is putting only four percent of its household waste in landfills (the US puts about half of its garbage in landfills) and much of the remainder is used for heating through an innovative waste-to-energy program. The problem? They are now running out of garbage, and have to import from neighbouring countries.
comment posted at 10:24 AM on Aug-3-13

In 1968, well loved cartoon character Donald Duck continued his educational film career by appearing in a Disney-produced short for the Population Council, called Family Planning.
comment posted at 10:48 AM on Aug-2-13

The disease that sours oranges and leaves them half green, already ravaging citrus crops across the world, had reached the state’s storied groves. To slow the spread of the bacterium that causes the scourge, they chopped down hundreds of thousands of infected trees and sprayed an expanding array of pesticides on the winged insect that carries it. But the contagion could not be contained.

With a precipitous decline in Florida’s harvest predicted within the decade, the only chance left to save it, Mr. Kress believed, was one that his industry and others had long avoided for fear of consumer rejection.

They would have to alter the orange’s DNA — with a gene from a different species. (SLNYT)
comment posted at 11:19 AM on Jul-28-13

Swedish farmer drops a turbo into his tractor.
comment posted at 11:15 AM on Jul-27-13

From Reddit: What is the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences. When /r/shortscarystories are too long, and you've already read through MicroHorror (previously) and Flashes in the Dark.
comment posted at 5:00 PM on Jul-26-13

John Morillo of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, will apparently not turn down a dare, even if it causes an international incident and racks up fines in the five figures. For instance, if you tell him he can't swim from Windsor to Detroit across a busy shipping lane, he'll do it (with the assistance of eight beers). And he'll swim back, too, as evidenced by the fact that the U.S. Coast Guard found him on the Canadian side. As Morillo said, "If I’m going to be in the paper, I’d at least like them to say I actually made it, even though I got in trouble and everything."
comment posted at 3:02 PM on Jul-24-13

At age 99, Mr. Newton still gets up and goes to work 3X a week. The company doesn't need him to do the work, and in fact the company didn't actually hire him. He showed up at age 86 on a Monday after the property had been sold. He worked for the previous owner, and he came with the property.
comment posted at 9:02 AM on Jul-19-13

"It's his charm. It's his gift. It's his political liability, and it's part of an American conundrum. We beg for authenticity, and then when we get it, oh man, it's hilarious. [Vice President Joe] Biden can be fantastic when he's on his game. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, his speech got higher Nielsen ratings than either Bill Clinton's or Obama's. He killed the debate against Ryan, pumped air back into a campaign deflated after Obama's miserable first performance against Romney. Watching those performances, it's almost impossible to see him as a person once crippled by speech."
comment posted at 1:48 PM on Jul-18-13

Nine Traits of the Veteran Unix Admin, Network Admin (from InfoWorld via /.)
comment posted at 9:29 AM on Jul-18-13

Scientists working at England’s Bristol Robotics Laboratory have developed a technique for converting urine into electrons, enough to power a cell phone.
comment posted at 9:18 AM on Jul-18-13

The Dorfbahn Serfaus is arguably the tiniest subway system in the world (technically, an underground funicular), built to alleviate congestion in the tiny ski resort town of Serfaus, Austria (pop. 1,081). The line is just 1.3 km long with 4 rather picturesque stops. Bonus video (German).
comment posted at 8:44 PM on Jul-9-13

Grantland checks in with 1980s megastar Huey Lewis, who is "hard at play," still relentlessly touring at the age of 62.
After tonight's concert, the band will shower, the crew will load out, and Lewis's 25-person caravan (which he refers to as his "small business") will hop back on their buses and drive 403 miles to Anderson, Indiana, for tomorrow night's gig at a horse track and casino. In the next seven days, Lewis will play five shows in places like Paducah, Kentucky, and Quapaw, Oklahoma, along with bigger cities like Dallas and Cincinnati. Even with the gaudy 1980s sales statistics, Huey Lewis and the News has the work ethic of a 2010s indie band.
comment posted at 5:02 PM on Jul-7-13

"Counter-clockwise seating is unnatural" according to Jackson City Council member LaRita Cooper-Stokes. It's confusing innocent school children who are taught to read from left to right. Fortunately the reporter provides a helpful diagram to clear things up for us (drawing not to scale).
comment posted at 3:54 PM on Jul-5-13

Jon Uriarte on Feature Shoot: Portraits of men wearing their girlfriends' clothes. (Photographer's own gallery)
comment posted at 8:50 AM on Jul-5-13

The Lone Ranger is now in movie theaters. Currently rated an amazingly low 23% at Rotten Tomatoes, this film is a train wreck. Even the horse is lousy. It could be worse.
comment posted at 5:26 AM on Jul-4-13

The Other Redskins. 62 US high schools in 22 states currently use the name "Redskins" for one of their sports teams. 28 high schools in 18 states have dropped the mascot over the last 25 years. As public pressure continues to intensify on the Washington Redskins football team to change their name -- one many consider a racial slur that disparages Native Americans -- similar debates are being waged in towns across the country about their local high school teams.
comment posted at 2:30 PM on Jul-2-13

In response to Senator Mitch McConnell and his assertion that in 2016, Hillary Clinton will be too old to run for POTUS, Jezebel presents 101 Things Older Than Hillary Clinton.
comment posted at 1:07 PM on Jul-2-13

Book Titles with One Letter Missing
comment posted at 8:39 AM on Jul-2-13

Breaking a bone often means a stinky, itchy cast that hinders personal hygiene arrangements and means your friends seem to suddenly think it's ok to scrawl obscene graffiti on you (although some people find ways of making them super awesome). But what about a 3D-printed cast?
comment posted at 12:42 PM on Jul-1-13

Steve Lovelace created a map that shows the corporation that best represents each state of the US.
comment posted at 6:20 PM on Jun-30-13

Scientists in Japan have cloned a mouse from a single drop of blood. (via)
comment posted at 10:20 AM on Jun-30-13

I just appreciate silence In a world that never stops talking- "Introversion", a comic by Luchie.
comment posted at 10:22 AM on Jun-23-13

Building conversions can be a tricky business, but it's especially so when there is a fifty ton steel vault built into the structure. So what can you do with that old bank? Well, restaurants are popular. So are nightclubs and bars. Really big banks seem to be a natural for a hotel conversion (here's one in progress). And if all that sounds too fancy, well, how about a Walgreens?
comment posted at 5:21 PM on Jun-22-13

Last month, Paula Deen gave a deposition (full transcript) for a discrimination lawsuit brought against her and her brother by a former employee. In it, she stated that "of course" she had used "the n-word" in the past and responded to questions regarding a "very southern-style wedding" in which the servers would be "professional black men doing a fabulous job." This week, Deen recorded, posted, and then made private three slightly different videos of apology. The Food Network has since announced that it will not renew her contract when it expires at the end of this month.
comment posted at 3:26 PM on Jun-22-13

Our Inconsistent Ethical Instincts

We like to believe that the principled side of the equation is rooted in deep, reasoned conviction. But a growing wealth of research shows that those values often prove to be finicky, inconsistent intuitions, swayed by ethically irrelevant factors. What you say now you might disagree with in five minutes. And such wavering has implications for both public policy and our personal lives.

comment posted at 6:34 PM on Jun-18-13

Project Loon: Google is testing an Internet access system mediated by stratospheric balloons. They are starting in New Zealand with 30 balloons.
comment posted at 8:16 AM on Jun-15-13

Oliver the green moray eel loves to be petted. With small children, a fish popsicle, and commentary about barracudas. (SLYT)
comment posted at 7:51 PM on Jun-13-13

It's the 27th anniversary of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. "Unlike almost every modern protagonist I can think of, whether it be comedy or drama or superhero movie, Ferris Bueller wasn’t defined by his exclusion. He didn’t wear some dumb label, like “jock,” or “drama geek” or “bro” or “nerd,” he was just himself. He was a little bit of everything, and that’s why people liked him. On his day off, he went to a ball game and an art museum."
comment posted at 7:33 PM on Jun-11-13

Bears searching for food will sometimes smash car windows to look inside. Not this bear, which prefers more of a "gentleman thief" approach. [SLYT]
comment posted at 9:03 AM on Jun-6-13

Cinematic historians trying to pinpoint the place where Shyamalan's hubris outgrew his oeuvre would be well advised to hit up YouTube; there, they'll find a weird, misbegotten 2004 Sci-Fi channel pseudo-documentary titled The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan that hints at the problems to come. Built to lead up to the heavily hyped release of Shyamalan's film The Village, this bizarre special follows documentarian Nathaniel Kahn as he begins to profile Shyamalan for what’s ostensibly an authorized puff piece ...
comment posted at 5:09 PM on Jun-2-13

A rare disease is defined as any condition affecting fewer than 200,000 patients in the United States. More than 7,000 such diseases exist, afflicting a total of 25 million to 30 million Americans.. One of them, fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), might be approaching a cure.
comment posted at 8:34 AM on May-24-13

You might have heard at one time or another a 60s band called Canned Heat, who made a wee bit of a splash way back when with a little number called Going Up the Country. The song featured a simple but very catchy little flute riff between verses. If you ever wondered where that riff came from (not to mention the melodic contour of the tune itself) you need look no further than a 1928 recording by Henry Thomas, who played the flute melody on his quills, or, panpipes. The song was called Bull Doze Blues.
comment posted at 8:05 AM on May-24-13

"Oh, the indignities of pregnancy! They told me it would be beautiful and glowing. They did not tell me about farting loudly at bus stops." -- Sophia Collins writes about the horrible truth of being pregnant and why consent matters.
Rachel Coleman Finch concurs and explains why it made her more pro-choice: One of my mantras for getting through the hideousness that was my last pregnancy was "I consented to this".
comment posted at 11:25 AM on May-17-13

Turing Drawings is a simple web app that uses Turing Machines to draw randomly generated compositions on a digital canvas. The results vary from stuff like striking static designs, organic forms that slowly devolve in to chaos, repeating animations, and systems with complex interactions. If you find a combination that you like, you can copy and paste the URL in the lower right hand corner of the site to share it. The creator, Darius Bacon, has some other cool stuff that mixes computer science with the humanities on his blog.
comment posted at 8:41 PM on May-15-13

On May 6th, 1937 the famous German Airship, The Hindenburg, was engulfed in flames as it docked in New York City. Newly available archival footage shows the great zeppelin at its end and on more successful voyages.
comment posted at 6:55 PM on May-6-13

YOU ARE 29 YEARS OLD, AND IT'S YOUR FIRST YEAR ON THE JOB.

ACCEPT WATERGATE ASSIGNMENT? [ YES / NO ]
comment posted at 4:53 PM on May-6-13

She steps in, takes off the bathrobe and stands silently before two men discussing her body. "Blachman" is a new Danish TV show, hosted by Thomas Blachman. [both links NSFW]
comment posted at 2:04 PM on May-2-13

The world first web page has been put back online by the folks at CERN, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the World Wide Web. Originally posted on April 30, 1993. Cern's announcement blog post yesterday.
comment posted at 1:55 PM on Apr-30-13

The Amanda Palmer Problem: How did a cult musician become a figure to be mocked?
comment posted at 5:14 PM on Apr-29-13

Delightfully funny, self-honest, interesting and wise. More about personal evolution really than the yo-yo. Some intelligent laughs and inspiration here. It's a TED talk: BLACK: My journey to yo-yo mastery. Actual use of yo-yo begins at 4:00.
comment posted at 12:45 PM on Apr-23-13

The Dow tumbled nearly 150 points this afternoon after a fake tweet about White House explosions was posted from the AP's hacked twitter account. Markets recovered almost completely after the AP clarified that the news was false.
comment posted at 2:48 PM on Apr-23-13

Wall Street begins playing again with the same matches that burned the economy in 2008 From the New York Times: "The banks that created risky amalgams of mortgages and loans during the boom — the kind that went so wrong during the bust — are busily reviving the same types of investments that many thought were gone for good. Once more, arcane-sounding financial products like collateralized debt obligations are being minted on Wall Street. " (View article on a single page)
comment posted at 12:44 PM on Apr-20-13

Controversy struck the exalted Augusta grounds of the Masters golf tournament on Friday as Tiger Woods put himself at risk of disqualification. It all began with a situation in which Woods had the extraordinarily bad luck of bouncing his ball off the flagstick on the 15th hole into the water. Instead of dropping his ball "as nearly as possible" to it's original position, Woods dropped it a couple of yards back. In an interview after the round, Woods said: "I went back to where I played it from, but I went two yards further back and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit and that should land me short of the flag and not have it either hit the flag or skip over the back." Woods signed his scorecard without assigning himself the two shot penalty the rules of golf require for an improper drop. The following day, the Masters Rules Committee ruled that Woods would not be disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard, justifying it by using a new rule that allows tournament committees to waive rules infractions called in by TV viewers, even though the intention of that rule was to prevent disqualifications based on tiny movements of the ball or sand imperceptible to the golfer but visible on close-up HD shots. Many in the golf world were outraged at both the ruling and the fact that Woods didn't withdraw himself from the tournament. Nick Faldo suggested it would be "the manly thing to do."
comment posted at 12:32 PM on Apr-14-13