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WikiWorld was a comic series developed for Wikipedia by Greg Williams using the encyclopedia's text and released under a Creative Commons license. It's topics range from the concept of a redshirt in science fiction, public radio personalities like (MeFi's own) John Hodgman, Sarah Vowell and Terry Gross, Godwin's Law, Ann Coulter and world domination.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 11:00 PM PST - 12 comments

Bad Romance a capella SLYT
posted by cthuljew at 8:28 PM PST - 79 comments

Leaves giant sinkhole. At least 115 people have died after a tropical storm battered Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador over the weekend, officials in those countries reported.
posted by pallen123 at 6:54 PM PST - 78 comments

The Biblioctopus Catalog can be as entertaining a read as some of the rare and antiquarian books that the Beverly Hills, Calif., shop sells. An entry for a $3,300 first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea asserts that the book is “as stubbornly immortal as those plastic baby diapers that won’t biodegrade.” Although Catalog 44 was mailed earlier this month, I have only been able to find links for Catalogs 20, 22, and 34. (previously)
posted by Joe Beese at 5:55 PM PST - 10 comments

French born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois is dead at 98.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:45 PM PST - 35 comments

No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency. A New Yorker profile of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his "media insurgency."
posted by homunculus at 5:28 PM PST - 43 comments

I scored a goal in the FIFA World Cup Final. A series of short films produced by ESPN about players ranging from Uruguay's Alcides Ghiggia in 1950 to Italy's Marco Materazzi in 2006. [more inside]
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:58 PM PST - 24 comments

Primavera by Victor Novikov. WALL·E checks out the scenery. [slv]
posted by netbros at 3:46 PM PST - 9 comments

Open air sports stadiums often have issues with birds, insects, and other wildlife. Common preventative measures include ultrasonic devices and bird netting. But Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium - one of the venues for the 2010 World Cup - has taken an all-natural approach. It is working with the Urban Raptor Project to install raptors, bats, and owls to patrol the stadium for various pests, while a trained peregrine falcon chases away crows. This is not a new technique - Millennium Stadium in Wales has long used a Harris Hawk for bird control. But according to the NMB stadium manager, it "is the only stadium with a programme like this in place as a pest deterrent".
posted by gemmy at 3:42 PM PST - 12 comments

Rene Fleming pulls a reverse-Sting and enters a "parallel universe" of sound. Brings up interesting issues in the different ways people in the pop and classical realm define the "natural" vocie, as well acknowledges that in our completely shattered, niche market this cross-over record has no more or less validity then any other album being released today.
posted by The3rdMan at 3:42 PM PST - 51 comments

From the BBC, A graphical treemap of the top 500 supercomputers in the world, arranged by country, speed, OS, application, processor and manufacturer. [more inside]
posted by memebake at 3:03 PM PST - 50 comments

Sean Haldane, a nominee for the post of professor of poetry at Oxford, talks about his dual life as a poet and neuroscientist

“I now think poetry has more capacity to change people than psychotherapy”

And he also has an interesting blog.
Robert Graves wrote in 1968: “I like Sean’s poems: clean, accurate and no nonsense – they still have the original poetic nap on them. They make sense, which is rare these days”.
From The Psychiatrist 2002: Are poetry and psychotherapy too ‘wet’ for serious psychiatrists?
Poetry Therapy is not new.
posted by adamvasco at 12:03 PM PST - 19 comments

Rolling Thunder XXIII - A seemingly endless line of more than 250,000 motorcycles roared across Memorial Bridge into Washington, DC yesterday. The 23rd annual ride, drawing riders from all over the world, wound its way from the Pentagon parking lot near Arlington National Cemetery, around the National Mall, past the Lincoln Memorial to the Vietnam Memorial, culminating in an emotional gathering at the West end of the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial. [more inside]
posted by toxic at 12:00 PM PST - 46 comments

Sprocket Rocket is a physics game whose goal is to collect sprockets to unlock argumentations to your egg shaped rocket ship (and school you about IP law but you can ignore that part). [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 10:34 AM PST - 41 comments

Whitechapel, the Warren Ellis forum, remodels Superman #1, 2000AD Prog 1, Amazing Adult Fantasy #15, Young Romance #1, Zap Comix #1, Wonder Woman #1 and New Worlds #223. More remodel fun. Note that the good stuff tends to be towards the middle of a thread, where the artists have had time to get going and before things tail off.
posted by Artw at 9:46 AM PST - 9 comments

The Hindi Urdu Flagship Program at the University of Texas, Austin has a number of freely available online resources on Hindi and Urdu, including vocabulary exercises for beginners, video interviews with native speakers discussing various aspects of their language, a Hindi-language podcast on various topics and the ways one can discuss them in Hindi, and several downloadable books in PDF format. [more inside]
posted by skoosh at 9:20 AM PST - 18 comments

Quebec is on fire. [more inside]
posted by vortex genie 2 at 8:49 AM PST - 100 comments

“Let us acknowledge the measure of their sacrifice by honoring them as brave women, and by honoring them as women who served without thought of glory which we accord to heroes of battle. The service pilot faces the risk of death without the emotional inspiration of combat. Men who battle in the sky have the grim, triumphant knowledge that their bombs and bullets are destroying the enemy, and their courage is sustained by the emotions of conflict. These women have given their lives in the performance of arduous and exacting duties without being able to see and feel the final results of their work under the quickening influence of aerial action. They have demonstrated a courage which is sustained not by the fevers of combat, but the steady heartbeat of faith—a faith in the rightness of our cause, and a faith in the importance of their work to the men who do go into combat. Let us pay tribute to these women by honoring their memory . . . Let us treasure their memory as women whose sacrifice has brought honor not only to their country, but also to their organization. We shall not forget the accomplishments of our women fliers and their contributions to the fulfillment of our mission. And we shall always keep and remember the brave heritage of the women who gave their lives. It is the heritage of faith in victory and faith in the ultimate freedom of humanity.” [more inside]
posted by caddis at 8:17 AM PST - 9 comments

A heartbreaking 10-minute documentary on Joe Gaetjens who scored the single goal in the USA's shocking victory over England at the 1950 World Cup. Gaetjens was a Haitian accounting student at Columbia University who went to Europe shortly after the 1950 World Cup and returned to Haiti a few years later. His story, and the story of the upset victory, was until recently largely unknown in the US.
posted by Kattullus at 7:09 AM PST - 12 comments

Forest Facts, a site that details the struggle between the Western Canadian silviculture & reforestation industry and the Mountain Pine Beetle. [more inside]
posted by mannequito at 10:02 PM PST - 16 comments

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla is attempting to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza from the sea. Those who ride on the five ships do so for their own reasons. Others are skeptical. The Flotilla has enjoyed the nominal support of Turkey. In retaliation, Israel has taken a shot at Turkey's wallet. [more inside]
posted by quakerjono at 9:57 PM PST - 768 comments

A very disturbing video (12 min.) from yesterday's Guardian UK on the recent rise of the virulently anti-Muslim and extreme far-right organization, the EDL, or "English Defence League". For more about the EDL see here (BBC) and here (wiki).
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 9:09 PM PST - 109 comments

Dog Surprises Officer After Being Freed From A Fence If you are feeling sad this will cheer you up, but it also may make you cry (SLYT Post).
posted by KokuRyu at 4:11 PM PST - 85 comments

I take massive NASA images and make them easily viewable. Milky Way. Carina. To zoom, click on the pics. All Hubble Images Sorted by Resolution. Excellent Video Narrated by Morgan Freeman [clip from Cosmic Voyage]. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 12:21 PM PST - 21 comments

Lisa Brawn makes woodcuts.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:58 AM PST - 24 comments

What do you do when you're supposed to come up with 50 separate webpages on a poorly defined topic? You come up with a mix of dangerous products (most of which were successful before their dangers were known), second-best technologies, just plain silly ideas, cool things that never caught on, uncool things that DID catch on and modern annoyances (including one that your website uses) to make "Time Magazine's 50 Worst Inventions" (link points to FULL LIST, or just refer to all the tags).
(I know, not the BEST of the web; just the MOST of the web)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:30 AM PST - 41 comments

Ray Kurzweil: That Singularity Guy In the year 2050, if Ray Kurzweil is right, nanoscopic robots will be zooming throughout our capillaries, transforming us into nonbiological humans. Ray Answers the following questions & more: Are we going to look like humans forever, or will we eventually just become ghosts in the machine while our physical bodies devolve into dwarves with lobster hands? Is the ultimate goal to transcend biology and choose how long we would like to live?
posted by Fizz at 9:46 AM PST - 99 comments

On May 10th, 2010 ExxonMobile had an oil spill in Nigeria Delta. It is somewhere around the 16th worst oil spill in [wikipedia reported] world history, at 95,000 tonnes (696,350 barrels or 214,475,800 gallons). Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it. Oil spills are a regular occurrence in Nigeria, about 300 a year, it is estimated over the past 50 years about 1.5 million tons have been dumped in the Delta, equivalent to the Gulf War oil spill (the largest spill on record) or 50+ Exxon Valdez. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 9:23 AM PST - 49 comments

LARP - what is it? - a comprehensive guide in comicbook form.
posted by Artw at 9:07 AM PST - 151 comments

Top kill has failed, and oil is still pouring into the gulf

Doug Suttles, COO of BP: "This scares everybody - the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing" [more inside]
posted by crayz at 7:56 AM PST - 381 comments

"Bryn the pygmy rabbit died in 2008, marking the end of her genetic line. This subpopulation lost its sagebrush habitat as the land was developed for agriculture ... In an off-exhibit room at the Oregon Zoo, the staff was quiet, even reverent, as they brought in Bryn. She was one of two Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits left, and since both were old females, this was a solemn occasion." Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species
posted by melissam at 7:50 AM PST - 15 comments

Why preserve Van Gogh's palette? - an exploration of color from the actual layout of various artists' color palettes - Degas, Delacroix, Gaugin, Moreau, Renoir, Seurat, Van Gogh. (via Neatorama) [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 7:01 AM PST - 15 comments

Large-scale color photographs from 2005 to 2006 reflect the ritual adornment and spirituality of masquerade in Nigeria, Benin and Burkina Faso in West Africa. These portraits of masqueraders build on Galembo's work of the past twenty years photographing the rituals and religious culture in Nigeria, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti, as well as the homegrown custom of Halloween in the United States. West African Masquerade. [more inside]
posted by Rinku at 6:33 AM PST - 5 comments

A fresh perspective on the hijab, different from the more common apologist/sexist arguments, the carefully academic expositions, appearances in controversial news, and especially the crassly commercial.
posted by bardophile at 4:07 AM PST - 128 comments

A glimpse at some of the Polaroid Collection soon to be auctioned. The Polaroid Archives Provide Snapshot of History
Renowned Polaroid users were Ansel Adams and; very differently Warhol with his mass produced point and shoot.
Ten Artists in praise of Polaroid; and a Newsweek compilation. (Related 1; 2).
posted by adamvasco at 2:42 AM PST - 1 comment

Leigh Brackett's original script for Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was leaked online some time in the past couple of months. This isn't the more widely circulated Kasdan treatment, but apparently the original, original draft submitted to George Lucas. Brackett died of cancer shortly thereafter. Ice castles, Wampa raids, transport guilds, Lando clones, Minch the Jedi master, a disturbing lack of incest and no, that's not your father, why do you ask? [more inside]
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:16 AM PST - 51 comments

Science vs. Religion: a new book, Science and Religion: What Scientists Really Think by Rice University sociologist Elaine Ecklund, discusses the results of her detailed study of 1,646 scientists at top American research universities. Among her findings: ~36% of those surveyed not only believe in God but also practice a form of closeted, often non-traditional faith. They worry about how their peers would react to learning about their religious views. Interview with the author from the Center for Inquiry's Point of Inquiry podcast. Also, here's a webcast from an author discussion forum held at Rice University on April 7th. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:42 AM PST - 89 comments

Visual puns combine two or more symbols (picture and/or text) to form a new meaning. The viewer must mentally elaborate on the visual stimulus to interpret the message. There are lots of examples, some good, some goofy, some bad.
posted by twoleftfeet at 10:11 PM PST - 32 comments

Gravel In My Shoe, Tight Pants / Body Rolls, Blame The Booty, and Craft Talk are the four most recent YouTube videos from Leslie Hall (previously, via)
posted by finite at 8:12 PM PST - 23 comments

20 men have thrown Perfect Games in the history of the MLB -- 18 since the modern baseball era began 110 years ago -- yet, remarkably, this month has witnessed two: Dallas Braden's perfecto on Mother's Day (previously), and Roy "Doc" Halladay, of the Philadelphia Phillies, tonight, on Memorial Day weekend (out #27). [more inside]
posted by bjork24 at 8:07 PM PST - 41 comments

You like vocoders? Dude wrote a book on it - How to Wreck a Nice Beach - and just released a mix of vocoder-heavy music and sound clips to accompany it: The Bears in Your Beargut. If you like robots and/or music, both are very much worth your time! The mix is pure ear candy. [more inside]
posted by Repression Jones at 6:31 PM PST - 17 comments

The Secret Powers of Time An animation of a lecture by Philip G. Zimbardo (previously). [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 6:23 PM PST - 18 comments

What our kids made: The refrigerator door of the internet [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 6:18 PM PST - 33 comments

Rochom P'ngieng, the feral "Cambodian Jungle Girl" who went missing in 1989 at the age of 8, and made news some three years ago (previously) when she surfaced after almost 20 years alone in the jungle, has fled back into the wild (according to news reports).
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 5:07 PM PST - 15 comments

Michal Brody's "Invoking the Ancestors: Edward Sapir, Bugs Bunny, and the Popol Vuh" [PDF] suggests that Space Jam is a product of the same mythopoeic impulses that pitted the Hero Twins against the lords of the Mayan underworld. [via]
posted by Iridic at 4:03 PM PST - 11 comments

Now that the Canadian Oxford Dictionary hasn't published an edition since the 2nd in 2004, there's a challenger to the much-desired title of standard dictionary of Canadian English: ladies and gentlemen, the 1st edition of the Collins Canadian Dictionary. There's even a short-story contest to promote it: in your 1,000 words you have to include at least 10 from the dictionary.
posted by anothermug at 3:15 PM PST - 44 comments

Jonathan's Cochlear Implant Activation. An 8-month-old deaf baby has his cochlear implant turned on and hears sound for the first time (SLYT). [Via]
posted by homunculus at 12:34 PM PST - 112 comments

The Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final airs tonight, 21:00 CET. A live stream can be found here. [more inside]
posted by PontifexPrimus at 11:34 AM PST - 165 comments

...The development sector, just like any other business, needs revenue to survive. Too frequently, this quest for funding uses these kind of dehumanizing images to draw pity, charity, and eventually donations from a largely unsuspecting public...

This is not to say that people do not struggle, far from it, but the photos I was seeing only told part of the story. I thought that these images were robbing people of their dignity, and I felt that the rest of the story should be told as well.

Duncan McNicholl, a Canadian volunteer with Engineers Without Borders, is embarking on a photography project in which he photographs low-income rural Malawians as they'd be seen by Westerners, and as they prefer to see themselves.
posted by emilyd22222 at 10:42 AM PST - 18 comments

Rest in peace, Easy Rider. Dennis Hopper has died of complications from prostate cancer at age 74.
posted by cerebus19 at 10:32 AM PST - 150 comments

Most Likely to Kill A new blog with the yearbook secrets of the rich and infamous. See William Kennedy Smith and Brooke Shields dancing together. Learn about Squeaky Fromme's friendship with Phil Hartman or the high school election Jack Abramoff lost. Read Matt Drudge's petulant Senior Class Last Will and Testament.
posted by jonp72 at 10:29 AM PST - 14 comments

Is the next debt crisis in student loans? Students are graduating from undergrad with 6-figures of student loan debt. With whom does the responsibility reside? [more inside]
posted by k8t at 9:19 AM PST - 200 comments

Barack Obama declares June to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.
posted by kylej at 8:56 AM PST - 139 comments

The Front Fell Off [more inside]
posted by HumanComplex at 8:46 AM PST - 30 comments

Aggressive Maneuvers for Autonomous Quadrotor Flight (slyt)
posted by Tom-B at 6:22 AM PST - 65 comments

Instead of kicking the shit out of a team that had just been formed out of kids who'd never played the game, didn't have a full set of equipment, and only loosely understood the rules, Roncalli High School's JV women's softball team forfeited the game in order to use the time to teach the new team how to play, then took up a collection to help them buy equipment and hooked them up with a former coach to help advise the program.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:45 AM PST - 67 comments

If TV's LOST was a 1987 point-and-click computer game.
posted by yellowbinder at 11:21 PM PST - 32 comments

Caravan carnage at banger race [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 10:23 PM PST - 28 comments

Fly
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:36 PM PST - 29 comments

The 10 oldest trees on Earth. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 4:22 PM PST - 40 comments

Bad Postcards: featuring Quacky, Bunnies, Dino, Piggy and Lee Harvey.
posted by puny human at 3:40 PM PST - 28 comments

Gaga Stigmata: Critical Writings and Art About Lady Gaga is a new (begun in March), heavily "theory" laden, online journal that takes the much-discussed pop phenomena of the Lady very seriously (or tongue-in-cheek, it's hard to tell).
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 3:06 PM PST - 76 comments

New Scientist Special Report: Living in Denial. Includes articles by Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine [more inside]
posted by zarq at 2:34 PM PST - 37 comments

Robert Heinlein really, really didn't like early Science Fiction fandom.
posted by Artw at 2:02 PM PST - 128 comments

A giant lego machine which builds a small lego airplane. A 10 min video of lego building lego... I couldn't make it through without fast-forwarding, but as a lego enthusiast, I was intrigued by the way the assorted pieces were provided to the machine and moved along to the final creation.
posted by lonemantis at 1:32 PM PST - 12 comments

Friends of the Pleistocene (and their blog) [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 12:30 PM PST - 10 comments

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) has set up YouCut, a website where users can suggest and vote on potential cuts in federal spending, which will be put up to be voted on by the House. Cuts selected by the website include a freeze on federal non-military employees raises (pending a vote), and a cut in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, a welfare service of the stimulus fund. The cut failed in a vote). The House Democrats have proposed that America Speaking Out (previously) be offered as an option to cut for the next round.
posted by mccarty.tim at 12:21 PM PST - 75 comments

Child actor, former California gubernatorial candidate, and former security guard Gary Coleman passed away today.
posted by kaszeta at 12:08 PM PST - 151 comments

Cards of Wu. A series of woodcuts in the form of a fictitious deck of divination cards by Ellis Nadler. They're available to buy online as high quality digital prints. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 11:48 AM PST - 17 comments

He's a philosopher; wore a super hero cape to premote civic values; mooned at students and admits he has Pakinsons disease.
Colombians, tired of corruption and human rights violations, could be about to bring in a radical new leader: Antanas Mockus, the green candidate whose super citizen’s past could help make him president.
One view of what is at stake.

And this is the first time we are really deciding over matters of national interest and not matters of fear. Issues such as health, education, international affairs. These are the central points of this election.

posted by adamvasco at 11:19 AM PST - 8 comments

The First Decoration Day was held by freed slaves on May 1, 1865 at the Washington Race Track in Charleston, South Carolina to honor "The Martyrs of the Race Course": Union POWs who had died in a Confederate prison camp there. Decoration Day later became known as Memorial Day. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 10:34 AM PST - 18 comments

In 2008, The Nation Institute published a lengthy expose (single page) by Sydney H. Schanberg about the role of John McCain in supressing evidence of American prisoners of war who never left Vietnam.

Despite the fact that John McCain based a significant part of his campaign on his military service, the story never attracted any significant media attention. [more inside]
posted by valkyryn at 10:33 AM PST - 59 comments

A Love Letter to a G.I. "This is in memory of an anniversary – the anniversary of October 27th, 1943, when I first heard you singing in North Africa. That song brings memories of the happiest times I’ve ever known." The most romantic argument against Don't Ask, Don't Tell yet.
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:30 AM PST - 43 comments

Magma perform a tribute to Otis Redding, 28/7/81 Not sure what Christian Vander is singing? Don't worry, he's singing in Kobaian.
posted by mippy at 9:11 AM PST - 16 comments

With a deep rift between people they can effectively train and people who can get into the country, jihadi terrorist groups are increasingly suggesting that grass-roots sympathizers plan simple attacks with readily available items. To a large extent this means mimicking tactics with which we're all too familiar. Recall that for Mumbai in 2008, this amounted to nine men holding the city hostage for four days, while killing or wounding almost 500 people. So what should you do [pdf] if you find yourself in an area that is under fire? What can you expect Law Enforcement to do?
posted by castironskillet at 8:59 AM PST - 36 comments

SLYT: Opera Web Browser. Faster than cooking a potato. And without all that ugly Chrome.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:58 AM PST - 53 comments

"It would take a lot to get me back to a conventional form of grading ever again." Cathy Davidson, an English professor at Duke, teaches a seminar in which final grades are determined by fellow students. She writes about the experience in Inside Higher Ed. (Thoughts by Duke faculty about the philosophy of grading previously on MetaFilter.)
posted by escabeche at 8:18 AM PST - 58 comments

Almost 15 years after her arrest, Lori Berenson is being paroled. [more inside]
posted by rmd1023 at 6:14 AM PST - 60 comments

Racebox.org A history of racial classification on the U.S. Census from 1790 to 2010.
posted by jonp72 at 5:45 AM PST - 42 comments

How The U.S. Government Built, Then Killed The Safest Car Ever Built. Thirty-five years ago, the U.S. government built a fleet of cars that were safer than anything on the road. Twenty-five years ago, the government shredded them in secret.
posted by rodgerd at 3:22 AM PST - 86 comments

I say! Professor Elemental, pith helmeted explorer of the outer reaches of steam-punk hip-hop feels moved to write a letter - deploring the behaviour of a young fellow named Mr B. [more inside]
posted by lucien_reeve at 2:10 AM PST - 26 comments

Learn a bit of Shanghainese for the World Expo: Say it in Shanghai is a short series of videos from the China Daily newspaper. Very simple, but actually kinda useful and funny. Direct links to lessons: Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five | Part six.
posted by jiawen at 1:46 AM PST - 4 comments

Rapper and actor 50 Cent has slimmed down to 160 lbs. for his role in an upcoming film in which he plays a cancer patient. Here, a gallery of other actors who notably lost or gained weight for their craft.
posted by Tenacious.Me.Tokyo at 12:54 AM PST - 72 comments

Ten days ago, Slate Magazine conducted an experiment modeled on the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984: they asked readers to look at eight photographs of notable political moments from the past decade and share their memories about each. Over 5,000 people participated in the first three days, but what they didn’t know was that four of the pictures were significantly doctored, and one was totally fabricated. [more inside]
posted by mondaygreens at 12:12 AM PST - 66 comments

What is the Biblioracle? The Biblioracle is a service in the person of The Morning News contributing writer John Warner, said service being a recommendation for what book you should read next. What do I have to do to receive a recommendation from the Biblioracle? In order to receive a recommendation, simply list the last five books you’ve read. Based on that list, the Biblioracle will tell you what to read next. The Biblioracle is now closed. Due to overwhelming response, the Biblioracle can only respond to requests submitted prior to 3:00 p.m. ET. If you missed your recommendation this time around, watch for the Biblioracle’s next appearance this summer! The time for submission is closed but it's still interesting to see the recommendations that John Warner made.
posted by Fizz at 3:51 PM PST - 31 comments

73 dead in Kingston, Jamaica after four days of fighting resulting from the search for alleged drug dealer Christopher 'Dudus' Coke. He remains at large. [more inside]
posted by Jawn at 3:47 PM PST - 62 comments

Submarine causalities are tragedies of war that are not always directly associated with combat. Systems failures at sea are often mysterious, with evidence and remains disappearing to all but the deepest diving vehicles. This was no different in the Cold War, with non-combat losses from the US and the Soviet Fleets. In that era of nuclear secrets, both those of nuclear-powered submarines and nuclear weapons, learning about the enemy's technology was paramount. Such an opportunity came to the US with the sinking of K-129, a Golf Class II Soviet submarine that went down with 98 men on board. The recovery took over six year, involved the possible payback of Howard Hughes, a videotaped formal sea burial that was eventually copied and given to then-President Boris Yeltsin, and decades of CIA secrecy. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:12 PM PST - 41 comments

English Russia presents Lord of the Rings character illustrations from the USSR. [more inside]
posted by gman at 2:06 PM PST - 47 comments

In response to a long and partially unflattering New York Times profile, M.I.A. (previously on MetaFilter) tweeted a phone number with the message "CALL ME IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME ABOUT THE N Y T TRUTH ISSUE". That phone number belonged to the woman who wrote the article, Lynn Hirschberg (waaaaay previously). Hirschberg responds.
posted by Rory Marinich at 1:26 PM PST - 156 comments

All the dirt that's fit to print. How the National Enquirer almost won a Pulitzer Prize. Almost.
posted by availablelight at 1:23 PM PST - 17 comments

In 1994, Leon Dash, while still at the Washington Post, wrote a Pulitzer winning series of articles about a woman named Rosa Lee Cunningham. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 12:32 PM PST - 12 comments

What do Singing in the Rain, Live Is Life, Don't Worry, Be Happy, I Will Survive and Ça fait rire les oiseaux have in common? In a study, French-speaking Internet users identified these five pop songs out of 100, as the most pernicious earworms. Here are their top 25 picks from BRAMS, including audio clips. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:17 PM PST - 55 comments

The 'attention economy' is so 2007. Now we have the 'engagement economy'. How to turn attention into engagement so we can enlist average joes to help save the world? How about permeating the game-reality boundary? Futurist, game-designer, and existential cookie roller Jane McGonigal assures us that gamers and gameplay are the answer to real world problems. And, apparently Serious Games are geting better. Killer Flu, Chore Wars, and Evoke are recent advances. The 7th annual Games4Change Festival, ending today, offers a spate of new promises. Hope or hype?
posted by cross_impact at 12:07 PM PST - 14 comments

old School Science Fiction RPGs: Traveller, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World.
posted by Artw at 11:53 AM PST - 99 comments

VentriloChoir performs "Yesterday" on Hungarian TV show. And the story of how they got there. [more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:16 AM PST - 12 comments

To commemorate Argentina's Bicentenary Celebrations 2 days ago, Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana appeals to the British Government to respect the "spirit of the Argentinian people" and reopen sovereignty discussions concerning the Falkland Islands, a British territory since 1833. Despite a recent increase in tension due to British companies beginning to drill to oil in the Islands, the new British Goverment has already rejected talks resuming. [more inside]
posted by jontyjago at 10:03 AM PST - 13 comments

In the late 1950s, psychologist Milton Rokeach was gripped by an eccentric plan. He gathered three psychiatric patients, each with the delusion that they were Jesus Christ, to live together for two years in Ypsilanti State Hospital to see if their beliefs would change. Vaughan Bell tells the story of one of the weirdest experiments in the history of psychology. (via)
posted by The Mouthchew at 10:03 AM PST - 53 comments

'Top Kill' seems to have worked, Apparently stopping the flow of oil -- now officially estimated by the government to have been about 12,000-19,000 barrels/day, with 75% most of the volume being gas ABC News Dives below the surface to get a look at plumes of 'dispersed' oil: (spoiler alert: not pretty). And a BP exec takes the 5th, refusing to testify before a federal panel.
posted by delmoi at 9:42 AM PST - 232 comments

30 objects, 40 audio and videocassettes, and 1,425 photographs, among them a Polaroid snapshot of Terry Fox’s artificial leg - Douglas Coupland submits his personal objects to the University of British Columbia. [more inside]
posted by mippy at 9:07 AM PST - 18 comments

On translating Roberto Bolaño's sex scenes.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:19 AM PST - 23 comments

Sure, you've played Final Fantasy VII, but what about Final Fantasy Extreme? You've played EarthBound, but what about Earth Bound (two words). You know all about Dragon Quest VIII, but are you familiar with Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mystery Dungeon? There's a whole world of forgotten, canceled games out there just waiting to be discovered. Let 1UP's Jeremy Parish and Frank Cifaldi be your guides in an exploration of The Best Games That Never Were. (Previously)
posted by Servo5678 at 8:12 AM PST - 30 comments

Joshua Glenn and anti-middlebrow blog Hilobrow present their generational periodization scheme: from the Prometheans born in 1844-53 and the technologically transformative Plutonians born in 1854-63, to the hiply earnest Revivalists (those who were teenagers in the 90s) and the Throwbacks (my generation, and an article that horrifyingly includes pictures of tweens and the Mickey Mouse Club). [more inside]
posted by The Devil Tesla at 6:17 AM PST - 67 comments

The dovetail joint was once the king of joints. Mechanically simple and reliable, it's fantastically strong, but it's not simple to get right by hand. Nowadays, the joint has largely vanished due to the rise of flat pack furniture's reliance on screws and glues, but it still exists in high end work and in the hands of hobbyists. Most dovetails are now done using a jig and router to reproduce predefined angles, but every now and again you find someone who goes off and creates something truly beautiful. Like this box with hand cut double dovetails.
posted by sodium lights the horizon at 5:11 AM PST - 82 comments

Type one-handed on a keyboard virtually "folded up" to be half the size? Pff. With zero training? Double pff. Except it totally works.
posted by DU at 4:54 AM PST - 85 comments

You're listening grooving to ABC News in Australia, or 7 News, or Ten. And now, over to the UK for the BBC or Sky News. Don't listen to the others! They are false prophets!
posted by divabat at 3:21 AM PST - 15 comments

Pop World Cup 2010! [more inside]
posted by Dim Siawns at 3:08 AM PST - 3 comments

Norway's penal system has gathered some attention recently, as the new Halden prison just opened. The $217 million facility will house 252 prisoners, some long-term and some short. The new prison is notable for, among other things, use of armoured glass instead of bars on windows, natural lighting and single-inmate cells with private showers, TVs and access to a gym and a sound studio. There was also an art budget, and Norwegian street artist Dolk was commisioned to decorate some of the walls. The Norwegian penal system is similar to the other Scandinavian countries', with no death penalty, and a "life" sentence of 21 years. In Norway there are no privately run incarceration facilities, and the opening of the rather plush-seeming Halden prison spurred some discussion, but garnered no big controversy. [more inside]
posted by Harald74 at 2:38 AM PST - 111 comments

Taxi top lights, called andon (行灯) in Japanese after the Edo-era wood & paper lanterns, come in a variety of shapes and colors. Although originally used in the mid-1950s to discourage robberies, andon are now used as company logos or to advertise.
posted by armage at 12:40 AM PST - 6 comments

...and there was just rope everywhere--it went around the whales mouth, around the whale's head, across her eye, over her back wrapped around the pectoral fins, all the way down to its tail. I thought there was no hope, there was no chance, we're looking at a dead whale, the whale just doesn't know it yet--but I knew that I had to try. ...It was a very surreal moment looking down and seeing the 20 crab traps and buoys just disappear into the abyss... And just like that, the whale was gone. ...I'm spinning around, where'd she go, where'd she go ? ...Now here's where the story takes a pretty startling turn. ...Next thing I know there's this fifty ton whale coming right at me...

From about 4:00 to 14:30 in nearly 23 minutes of the segment, Animal Blessings--in mp3 here, all 20 megs of it. Or you can try the podcast at RadioLab: Animal Minds. Either way, you are in for a most truly awesome anecdote. And listen to the whole program to have some back and forth science dropped on you in regards to what we think we know about what and how animals think. [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 9:10 PM PST - 67 comments

Vancouver Film School students create a portfolio project or demo reel for graduation designed to demonstrate their creative and technical abilities to potential employers and collaborators. Among the many great samples, I dig Rain Crowds in the 3D animation category, Dance! in classic animation, and Border in digital character animation. But there are literally hundreds to choose from, so please enjoy.
posted by netbros at 4:43 PM PST - 7 comments

Robert King spent decades battling for his release from the 'hell-hole' of America's notorious Angola Prison. Now free, he's still crusading for its inmates.
The late Anita Roddick was the powerhouse behind the making of the Documentary In Land of the Free.
Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and encarcerated in solitary confinement, for nearly 37 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
Angola not only has solitary confinement it has the prison within solitary confinement – The Hole [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 3:32 PM PST - 32 comments

Borne in the succession of rebellions, Tichumaren has redefined the image of the Tuareg. Popularized on the international stage in 2001 via the success of Tinariwen, the "desert blues" has changed the conception – from the exotic blue men of the desert to the Kashniklov/guitar strumming desert rebels. [more inside]
posted by iamck at 2:46 PM PST - 14 comments

The latest trend in hipster culture is the appropriation of Native American culture, here seen at San Francisco's recent Bay-to-Breakers race. The participants might ask, but why can't I wear a hipster headdress? Threadbared has a round-up of bloggers' concerns about the appropriation of Native American culture.
posted by desjardins at 2:39 PM PST - 233 comments

The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield. A fifteen page comic about the MMR vaccination controversy. Previously.
posted by ignignokt at 1:35 PM PST - 81 comments

He was abandoned on a door step in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1912. He hosted House Party and People are Funny on radio and TV. A segment became the hugely popular Kids Say the Darndest Things. He co-hosted the opening of Disneyland (with Ronald Reagan). His daughter Diane killed herself by jumping from a window; he blamed LSD and became an outspoken anti-drug crusader. Art Linkletter has died at the age of 97.
posted by evilcolonel at 1:25 PM PST - 58 comments

Intellectual Ventures is an invention factory founded by Nathan Myhrvold, who previously founded Microsoft Research and was MS's CTO. Bill Gates raves about IV, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article about the IV invention process in The New Yorker, Newsweek profiled Nathan’s company in April 2010, and this week there was an hour-long TV interview with Myhrvold on Charlie Rose. Take a 6-min video tour of the laboratory.
posted by stbalbach at 12:19 PM PST - 43 comments

Es gibt viele Quellen überall im Internet, wo man Deutsch hören und sehen kann. There are countless German TV channels, great podcasts, and news outlets online. Here are some of the best. Not fluent? Es geht weiter! [more inside]
posted by vkxmai at 12:07 PM PST - 45 comments

5 Lesser Known (Completely Ridiculous) American Civil Wars , via Cracked. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 12:00 PM PST - 44 comments

The last Hummer has rolled off the line in Shreveport, Louisiana. Although the H3 shared the same chassis as the Chevy Colorado, and the H2 was basically a Chevy Tahoe with a different body, the antipathy toward the gas Goliaths was immense.
posted by four panels at 11:58 AM PST - 56 comments

I Watched 146 Minutes of Sex and the City 2 and All I Got Was This Religious Fundamentalism - The legacy of the TV show destroyed forever.
posted by Artw at 11:51 AM PST - 211 comments

Are the Rules That Determine Who Can Donate Blood Discriminatory? Canadian AIDS researchers Dr. Mark Wainberg and Dr. Norbert Gilmore say that while the ban on blood donation from men who have sex with other men may have been ethically and scientifically justified in the 1980's, it no longer makes sense. (CMAJ.) Even though the US FDA reaffirmed their long-standing ban in 2007, they plan to revisit the policy in June. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:35 AM PST - 69 comments

Attenborough's Pitcher, an "Udderly Weird Yam," a two-inch phallic mushroom already immortalized on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and the "Bombardier Worm" ("Chaff worm" would seem a more accurate name) are just four of the newly described species making the International Institute for Species Exploration's totally arbitrary Top 10 New Species list. [more inside]
posted by dust of the stars at 11:16 AM PST - 6 comments

User-submitted inspiration for comics and art: Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines (prev), and more refined comics from "normal" text spam text. Cartoons drawn from titles sent to one Sam Brown (pseudonym of Adam Culbert). Artists send artwork, someone else adds the text. Submit a video game title and description and get the box art made for you, courtesy of MeFi's own cheap paper [via mefi projects].
posted by filthy light thief at 11:11 AM PST - 21 comments

The Peter Nguyen essays of 1999-2004 -- brilliant, illuminating, one-page studies of: [ Influential Person in World War 2: Jimmy McPerson • Biography: Christopher Columbus • The Stations of the Cross Report • Biography: Walt Whitman • U.S. Capitalism and Influence on Foreign Nations • Atoms ] • Bonus: Andrew Horowitz's "Preserving the Future: The Fight to Save Pop Rocks"
posted by not_on_display at 10:52 AM PST - 12 comments

50 mostly flash fun sites. These include Record Tripping; Sound of Hamburg; Echogenesis; Incredibox in English and French; Optus Whale Song; Blues Master; Flame. And many more. Soundtrack For A Book is one of my favorites.
posted by nickyskye at 10:28 AM PST - 2 comments

Photographer Eric Fischer created stunning maps of the places that pictures are taken in fifty cities worldwide. New York. London. Paris. San Francisco. [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 10:08 AM PST - 15 comments

Greenpeace invite redesigns of the BP logo. A few interesting ones. [more inside]
posted by nthdegx at 9:05 AM PST - 50 comments

On Failing To Make Bad Porn from Sex Worker Literati - Matthew Lawrence talks about being a rent boy who never shaved or worked out and his camera-obsessed client. Audio NSFW.
posted by The Whelk at 8:17 AM PST - 19 comments

Clouds and Stars over Cotopaxi Volcano in Ecuador
posted by puny human at 8:17 AM PST - 13 comments

Can the free market save the space program?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:08 AM PST - 41 comments

Lesbian Hipster Chic "I represent a small community of high fashion dykes, and I’m not talking about femmes or lipstick lesbians, to use the terms so popularized in culture today. We are often mistaken for straight fashionistas. We are the women who popularized chic undercuts, skinny jeans with patent leather wingtips, sexy flannel, fitted motorcycle jackets, Doc Martens and James Dean vibes minus the James. We are grrls, we are bois, we are young women with a taste for rock n’ roll, a penchant for sex appeal and an undying love for Alexander McQueen, may he rest in peace... It is our duty, as (NSFW) model lesbians, lesbian models, (NSFW) hipster dykes and purveyors of lesbian chic to establish ourselves as a force within the canon of high fashion... We’re fashion fagettes and we’re taking over the runways of New York, London, Milan and Paris. So let’s wrangle the model lesbians like Freja, Cat McNeil, Milou, Myf, Nimue editors like Kate Lanphear... and show fashion that as gay ladies, we not only epitomize the high fashion street style that has taken the world by storm, but we invented it." [more inside]
posted by Suparnova at 7:05 AM PST - 155 comments

Nokia's new ARG ad campaign seems to be co-opting activism for marketing. Written by Tim Kring of Heroes infamy. There's a good summary here. Strangely they managed to troll The Pirate Bay into a response and the bassist from Suede is doing the blog!
posted by debord at 6:08 AM PST - 26 comments

Popular Unrest is a multi-episode drama by Melanie Gilligan (of Crisis in the Credit System) set in a future much like the present. Here, however, all exchange transactions and social interactions are overseen by a system called ‘the Spirit’. A rash of unexplained killings have broken out across the globe. They often take place in public but witnesses never see an assailant. Just as mysteriously, groups of unrelated people are suddenly coming together everywhere, amassing new members rapidly. Unaccountably, they feel a deep and persistent sense of connection to one another. (via)
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:56 AM PST - 3 comments

Hitler dressed in pink is outrageous, shocking, offensive to Sicilian war vets.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:04 AM PST - 45 comments

Outsourcing has been a mainstay of internet marketers and lifestyle designers ever since Tim Ferriss made it popular. But at least one of its biggest proponents is now wondering: is outsourcing exploitative by taking advantage of international economic inequality?
posted by divabat at 9:57 PM PST - 60 comments

WELCOME TO MY NETSIGHT. WELCOME!
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:32 PM PST - 53 comments

Professional oboe player, senior economist in the UK Treasury, fellow of King's College, Cambridge, son-in-law of Jacob Epstein (and model for his statue of St Michael). Wynne Godley, who also wrote about his 'disastrous encounter' with the psychoanalyst Masud Khan in the 1960s, died last week. [more inside]
posted by lapsangsouchong at 8:42 PM PST - 17 comments

The Mandolin & Unicycle Project is a thesis project from Matt Manos. "I have always wanted to learn how to ride a unicycle, and I have always wanted to learn how to play the mandolin, so the most logical conclusion I came to was to learn how to play the mandolin while riding the unicycle. In one month." The project blog starts here.
posted by unliteral at 7:33 PM PST - 23 comments

Six Degrees of Musical Separation. Billie Holiday linked to Jello Biafra? Check. Clyde McPhatter to Moby? They're connected. (Well, the site allows more than six degrees, and it cheats a little by connecting songs, but it's still a neat way to associate one musician or group to a completely different one.)
posted by John of Michigan at 6:55 PM PST - 99 comments

AdViews is the newest of Duke University's digitized advertising archives (see previously). Unlike the earlier sites, devoted to print advertising, AdViews is all about American TV commercials--several thousand of them, to be exact, from the agency Benton & Bowles (later D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles). Viewing the commercials requires ITunes. [more inside]
posted by thomas j wise at 6:52 PM PST - 9 comments

Hey Spot! Good News! Finally, after 125 years of its existence, the American Kennel Club is letting mutts, or "All Americans," compete in AKC shows in their own category.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:39 PM PST - 87 comments

Lately, the organizations that make up the American Republican Party/GOP have been experimenting with going online. The House Republicans have created America Speaking Out, a website for the people to give their ideas to "an arrogant congress." There, visitors can upload ideas they would like the government to carry out.
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:51 PM PST - 189 comments

"Gary Foshee, a collector and designer of puzzles from Issaquah near Seattle walked to the lectern to present his talk. It consisted of the following three sentences: "I have two children. One is a boy born on a Tuesday. What is the probability I have two boys?"" [more inside]
posted by andoatnp at 3:20 PM PST - 232 comments

Tom Waits and Kool Keith collaborated on a song called "Spacious Thoughts" in 2009. Here's the video. [more inside]
posted by aftermarketradio at 2:59 PM PST - 37 comments

Who needs 12 Monkeys or 26 Monkeys? MeFite A.G. Pasquella's new book is all about one monkey, with a question: Why Not A Spider Monkey Jesus? The independently-published book has a nifty cross-platform approach and features a killer cover by Michael Kupperman (Kupperman, previously). [via mefi projects]
posted by sixswitch at 2:42 PM PST - 15 comments

Charges dropped against the former Attorney General of Ontario despite video evidence showing Bryant first striking the bicyclist with his car and then attempting to get away. Previously [more inside]
posted by GregorWill at 1:59 PM PST - 145 comments

Great groove. The first track from Airs' Moon Safari album, accompanied by scenes from a video shot from a streetcar traveling down Market Street in San Francisco in 1905. (SLYT)
posted by shockingbluamp at 1:47 PM PST - 29 comments

Nerds. Punks. Jocks. Emos. Preppies. Goths. The high school cliques have to make room for a new subculture: teen werewolves. (SLYT)
posted by clockworkjoe at 1:27 PM PST - 88 comments

Ann Curry dispenses graduation advice to the wrong student body. Close but no cigar.
posted by fixedgear at 1:07 PM PST - 33 comments

Columbia University valedictorian steals a bit from Patton Oswalt. [more inside]
posted by moviehawk at 12:48 PM PST - 98 comments

Jump. And jumping.
posted by Duug at 12:28 PM PST - 9 comments

Mag3737 (Tom Magliery) is a prolific flickr user with over 19,444 items uploaded. He categorized his photographs into sets (right now there are about 350 of them), and into larger collections. See for example, the Squircles (squared circle), the Monochromatic squircles, the Backsides and underthings page, numbers, letters, colors, many more. Since he once heard that there were 37 holes in the mouthpiece of the old-fashion telephone, he used to collect fascinating factoids about the number 37. Numerous other detours inside, Flower genitelia, Paul Bunyan's balls, etc. His old-fashioned website is here.
posted by growabrain at 11:24 AM PST - 21 comments

The Process will make you want to slap your marketing department. (SLYT)
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:44 AM PST - 73 comments

Fish Schtick, a video tribute to the Fishstick, the official dance of You Look Nice Today, announced two years ago this week. With due credit to Archie Bell and the Drells' Tighten Up. Previously, previously.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:24 AM PST - 7 comments

On March 26, 2010, the ROKS Cheonan, a South Korean navy ship, exploded and sunk, killing at least forty sailors. On May 19, an international investigation team concluded that a North Korean torpedo sunk the Cheonan. What does this mean for the Koreas and the world? It's not clear, but Ask a Korean provides a brief, yet historically contextualized dossier on this issue. [more inside]
posted by ignignokt at 9:14 AM PST - 85 comments

After a long and terrifying absence, the webcomic NOBODY SCORES! Returns! Reacquaint yourself with BBolt's style with home decor, internets!, origin stories, police states, Kittn 2.0, SPACESHIPS, Scott McCloud, Art, Wishes, Alternate Universes, Government Slash Fic, Time Travel , Class Struggle, True Love, Cartoonists!, Social Media, MEN, cuddle-ness, Augmented Reality , snorgling, Rule 34 ,and more
posted by The Whelk at 5:32 AM PST - 21 comments

All over the world today fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are heeding Douglas Adams's words that a towel is "about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have" - more from the towel day website.
posted by sgt.serenity at 5:09 AM PST - 71 comments

Out of Time: 14 minutes with Andrei Skur'yat and friends. [more inside]
posted by armage at 3:27 AM PST - 4 comments

"Immediately after an attack by Israel, and even with no Iranian response, the United States is likely to begin significant defensive deployments to the region. Its attempts over a period of a year to negotiate with the Iranians make the Obama Administration more vulnerable to domestic pressures to be strong in its reaction to an Israeli strike.

At an early stage after an Israeli attack, the United States would be faced with deciding whether to passively await casualties or to attack Iranian military capabilities on its own. The United States would probably decide to finish the job on Iranian nuclear facilities and destroy as much as possible of Iran’s capability to project combat power."

The Israeli Threat: An Analysis of the Consequences of an Israeli Strike on Iranian Nuclear Facilities [PDF]. [more inside]
posted by klue at 2:29 AM PST - 122 comments

When New York Observer publishes a thin article, apparently mostly based on a press release, about the altruistic new career direction of ABC News VP Mimi Gurbst, who "liked to advise her colleagues on various ways to improve their personal and professional lives" reader comments tell us that oh boy, did she ever! One of the many, many comments by ABC News alumni, from former ABC journalist Richard Gizbert, sums it up: "Finally: Don’t you just LOVE the internet? Don’t you just LOVE seeing this whole thing backfire on Mimi and the underhanded underling who tried to get away with this piece of fiction?" Oh snap!
posted by orthogonality at 10:54 PM PST - 81 comments

TV serials, says Richard Beck, self-consciously set out from the very beginning to get us to take them seriously. From Hill Street Blues to The West Wing to The Sopranos and The Wire, how the television series convinced us that it was art — and now, why Lost's achievement of success via casual genre mixing and narrative derangement might signal that there's no future creative ground left within the old limits of serial drama.
posted by hat at 10:26 PM PST - 111 comments

More than 30 members of the Opera Company of Philadelphia Chorus and cast members of La traviata performed a flash opera in the aisles of Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 10:01 PM PST - 31 comments

"The Journalist as Programmer" is an academic, ethnographic case study (pdf), which considers whether the New York Times' Interactive Newsroom Technologies unit, source of the paper's Open Source Developer Network, should be thought of as a template for the future of Web Journalism. Slide Deck. (Previously on MeFi.) NYMag profile of the INT team from '09: The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady. ("What are these renegade cybergeeks doing at the New York Times? Maybe saving it.")
posted by zarq at 10:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Dude plays an interpretation of Cracklin Rosie on 2 Android devices, 2 Windows Mobile devices, and 1 iPod Touch.
posted by gman at 8:25 PM PST - 11 comments

'If I die,' Brandon Franklin had said, 'I want all the bands at my funeral.' As Franklin’s family filed out of the eastern New Orleans church and the hearse waited, nearly 300 current and former band members performed a final salute. Via.
posted by ColdChef at 6:08 PM PST - 32 comments

Pigeon: Impossible is the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase.
posted by netbros at 5:26 PM PST - 18 comments

Hubble spots a planet-eating star. The list of confirmed extrasolar planets numbers only 455; the first ones being discovered in 1990. That count is about to decrease. [more inside]
posted by Hardcore Poser at 3:46 PM PST - 47 comments

'American Idol' (Season 8) top 25 finalist and kooky contender, 'Norman Gentle' (IRL -- Nick Mitchell) in his debut music video: 'Bitch Slap.' [more inside]
posted by ericb at 2:57 PM PST - 35 comments

Sorry I'm Late! is one of many sweet user-generated videos popping up on Atom.com. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:49 PM PST - 27 comments

The Beatles Complete on Ukulele is a surreal collaboration between Roger and Dave, some ukuleles, 185 other artists (many yet unknown!), and The Beatles. New tune and essay every Tuesday through July 2012.
posted by carsonb at 1:46 PM PST - 19 comments

The Brave and the Bold...Lost Issues! - in which Batman teams up with everybody.
posted by Artw at 11:26 AM PST - 39 comments

Whoopsy! Beefcake wardrobe malfunctions! Columbus, Ohio artist Paul “Paulypants” Richmond paints lovingly detailed and luminous and saucy portraits of gay demicelebrities with their britches falling apart or otherwise depantsed or underclothed. As Richmond describes it with the juice and vim of a ’50s tattler magazine, “It intrigues me that it was almost exclusively women who were depicted as hapless victims of comical wardrobe malfuncions in early pin-up art. Those ladies couldn't even walk down the street without their skirts blowing up or their underwear falling down (or both!)” [more inside]
posted by joeclark at 10:14 AM PST - 29 comments

Have a website? Use Google AdSense? Ever wonder what your cut of the ad revenue was? Google just revealed it this morning: 68 percent for content ads, 51 percent for search.
posted by mcwetboy at 8:43 AM PST - 33 comments

An 11 minute documentary exploring the merits and impact of pixel art, animation and chiptune music. From the Simon Cottee Animation Production Blog. (via) [bonus]
posted by shoesfullofdust at 8:25 AM PST - 7 comments

Crazy Cubes optical illusion. (SLYT)
posted by The Mouthchew at 8:06 AM PST - 25 comments

Marie Stopes International will tonight screen the first pro-choice Television advert to air in the UK - you can watch it on YouTube here. Debate on the appropriateness or otherwise if the advert has been predictably fierce. Meanwhile, Channel 4 have chosen not to screen the advert in Northern Ireland, prompting further arguments.
posted by muggsy1079 at 6:32 AM PST - 29 comments

In his book The Unspoken Alliance, writer and academic Sasha Polakow-Suransky references documents released by the South African government, indicating that Shimon Peres offered nuclear warheads to PW Botha's apartheid regime. Israel strongly denies the claims.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 6:09 AM PST - 78 comments

The Net Worth of the U.S. Presidents
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:54 AM PST - 52 comments

Stephen Perry, best known for his work on the cartoons Thundercats and SilverHawks, as well as comics including Timespirits and Psi-Force, has died in mysterious circumstances. Perry recently suffered from both bladder cancer and being uninsured. Through the charity Hero Initiative, he was able to receive treatment. He recounted his battle with the disease and the healthcare system in a post on Steve Bissette's blog. Bissette has started a series of articles on Perry's life and works.
posted by Hartster at 2:17 AM PST - 25 comments

Moon Zoo is another project from Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott, the creator of Galaxy Zoo (previously: 1, 2, 3). Moon Zoo calls for citizen scientists to record the craters and boulders, among other things, on the Moon's surface. [more inside]
posted by kro at 1:01 AM PST - 7 comments

Get Drunk Not Fat. Get Drunk Not Broke. [more inside]
posted by battlebison at 11:15 PM PST - 100 comments

UK adoption agencies are reporting "huge numbers of calls from 'deeply distressed' adoptive parents whose children have been contacted" through Facebook and other social networking sites, in violation of the traditional, confidential reunion process between birth parents and their offspring who have been placed with other families. Full report from Channel 4. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 8:05 PM PST - 44 comments

Die anen foan noch Ibitza die ondren noch Udine
Wir bleiben im Parkbad machen Party in Kabiene
Hallo geile Biene gemma no a bissal schwimmen
i brauch nur mei Handtuch no des in der Kabiene drinnen

Wiener Hip-hop? Vollig Geil! [more inside]
posted by dunkadunc at 6:03 PM PST - 34 comments

Mark Twain wrote an extensive memoir, but stipulated that it not be published until 100 years after his death. This November it will be published.
posted by borkencode at 5:07 PM PST - 65 comments

For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question. "Living with the crazy, fearless young men who risk life and limb to document Burma's genocide."
posted by homunculus at 3:25 PM PST - 20 comments

On the cusp of the long-awaited series finale of Lost, people are understandably confused. Fortunately there are plenty of ways to catch up, from the fan compendium Lostpedia to the 2-hour ABC recap tonight at 7:00 EST to YouTube summaries of Seasons 1-5 from ABC (in 8:15) and from costumed fans (in five minutes). As for longtime fans, why not reminisce by revisiting the show's infamous bookends -- the artfully inscrutable scenes which introduce or conclude each season? Look inside for these and more, along with a cavalcade of interesting fan videos and other fun stuff. [Warning: Spoilers (for everything but the series finale) inside] [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 12:36 PM PST - 1076 comments

Read These on Your Death Bed: Helen Vendler on last poems by James Merrill and Wallace Stevens.
posted by puny human at 11:36 AM PST - 33 comments

Oil spill booming 101. Good stuff starts around 1:55. NSFW for very, very, very naughty language.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:59 AM PST - 156 comments

Goofy-yet-mournful tribute to LOST, which (sob!) ends its 6-year run tonight. [SLYT]
posted by lunasol at 10:45 AM PST - 42 comments

Why Ray Bradbury made me want to write, by Neil Gaiman
posted by Artw at 10:29 AM PST - 79 comments

Yes as a matter of fact, 50,000 new films a year is a very good thing [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 10:03 AM PST - 29 comments

Armen Keteyian of CBS News bought four copiers for $300 a piece (video link). He found a great deal of personal data on the copiers' hard drives, easily accessible using free software one could find on the Internet. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 7:05 AM PST - 58 comments

WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE [previously]
posted by oinopaponton at 7:01 AM PST - 33 comments

When Gladys and Harold Degree pulled the siding off their Colchester, VT home, they made a surprising discovery--five large, full-color posters from an 1883 visit by the Forepaugh Circus. Conservators at the Northeast Document Conservation Center made another surprising discovery underneath--posters for Forepaugh's rivals, the John B. Doris Circus. The newly conserved posters are on display at the Shelburne Museum through October 24th. (via)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:42 AM PST - 26 comments

The Art and Science of Growing Vegetables Upside Down
posted by Xurando at 5:41 AM PST - 21 comments

Forget Kittinger's freefall from space at 102,800 feet, now Felix Baumgartner is preparing for a 120,000-foot supersonic fall. Of course Red Bull is involved as the project is named Red Bull stratos. [more inside]
posted by dabitch at 5:07 AM PST - 36 comments

"When on holiday, I ask him if he enjoys it, but he always misses his marbles. And it's difficult take that marble alley with us on holiday."
posted by pashdown at 10:40 PM PST - 76 comments

Arguing Three Strikes. A defense lawyer (and co-founder of Stanford's unique Criminal Defense Clinic), and a tough-on-crime Republican D.A. make for unusual allies in the move to reform California's Three Strikes law. [more inside]
posted by availablelight at 7:02 PM PST - 53 comments

From James Randi, Martin Gardner died.
posted by hexatron at 4:55 PM PST - 138 comments

Scraper bikes (previously) are featured in a new 7 min 32 s documentary. [more inside]
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 4:05 PM PST - 12 comments

Once in a generation, there comes along a piece of aural majesty able to improve any piece of video made by man or beast. From movies to British game shows to video games to even Scooby-Doo. Prepare for your life to be changed forever.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:52 PM PST - 26 comments

"I am a Gaga supporter. I’m Team Gaga. She’s my girl. My pop Arsenal; my dance Red Sox; my fashion England." Accompanying her from her back stage dressing room to a Berlin sex club, Caitlin Moran interviews Lady Gaga. And yes we do get an answer to THAT question.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:12 PM PST - 127 comments

Are teacher's unions the enemy of reform? DISCUSS The Teacher's Union's Last Stand. How President Obama’s Race to the Top could revolutionize public education.
posted by caddis at 1:12 PM PST - 127 comments

Dale Peterson is running for office in Alabama! You may not like the politics, but GODDAMN this is an AD! He's on a HORSE! And wait for the :50 mark where he shows you he means BIZNESS.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:09 AM PST - 118 comments

Animals AutoTuned: Wolves
posted by gman at 9:39 AM PST - 33 comments

The authorities of Russia's city of Volgograd closed a 7 km-long bridge across the Volga River late Thursday after strong fluctuation in the construction was detected. [more inside]
posted by rtha at 9:23 AM PST - 44 comments

Armed with a netbook, medical supplies and a bicycle, Bangladesh's InfoLadies are giving millions of poor people access to crucial information on their doorsteps that will improve their chances in life
posted by Artw at 9:19 AM PST - 13 comments

The Swinger is a bit of python code that takes any song and makes it swing. It does this be taking each beat and time-stretching the first half of each beat while time-shrinking the second half.
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:48 AM PST - 75 comments

Singer/songwriter Shirley Ellis is best known for her hits "The Nitty Gritty", "The Name Game" and "The Clapping Song," but there's... [more inside]
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:37 AM PST - 10 comments

A Partial Map of Your TARDIS (Subject to Change) (Flickr set, PDF version)
posted by Katemonkey at 5:58 AM PST - 216 comments

Eccentric or not? Captain Beany is a Welsh eccentric who loves baked beans, the dish so beloved of the British. [more inside]
posted by A189Nut at 5:24 AM PST - 19 comments

Comical is a program that lets you know when a webcomic you read has been updated and allows you to download the newest strip. It's great for people who (like me) follow a ton of different webcomics. It currently supports Over five-hundred different web comics. It even supports Newspaper Comics, Alt-Text, and Hidden Panels. If Comical is missing a comic you like, the program comes with the ability to add new comics manually or feel free to post a request for someone else to do it for you on the forums! [more inside]
posted by AZNsupermarket at 1:17 AM PST - 12 comments

Friday Night Fosse: Rich Man's Frug, The Heavyweight, and The Big Finish from Sweet Charity. Happy weekend!
posted by biddeford at 11:22 PM PST - 13 comments

Bean Pie, my Brother? The Muslim Bean Pie is a sweet, custard pie made from eggs, sugar, and beans (usually navy or pinto beans). [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 10:22 PM PST - 39 comments

I can has game?
posted by leotrotsky at 9:12 PM PST - 32 comments

A lion stalks the plains. It spots an antelope. His lunch, it would seem, is assured, except for one thing. This antelope... can TRANSFORM! It's another incredibly bizarre and awesome EYEZMAZE game. Click on the various parts of the antelope to make things happen, until he's safe from the predator's attack. [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 6:38 PM PST - 39 comments

The man who made philosophy safe for theists again is retiring. The conference in celebration of his impressive academic career is in progress on the campus of Notre Dame University and has brought together many important figures in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. Many of Plantinga's seminal works are available in their entirety online.
posted by MultiplyDrafted at 6:13 PM PST - 63 comments

Manufactoria is one of the best games I have played in a while. [more inside]
posted by motty at 5:45 PM PST - 42 comments

Why The Hills’ [new] Opening Credits Are Both Creepy and Cruel
For more can-this-really-be-an-accident marketing: This promo for the final season as compared to this earlier use of the same song.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 3:52 PM PST - 66 comments

In the recently concluded World Chess Championship, defending champion Viswanathan Anand successfully defended his title against Veselin Topalov. Now news has come out after the match that Topalov had prepared for the match with the help of an IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer capable of 1 petaFLOPS. Instead of a supercomputer cluster, Anand instead had the help of a human cluster in the form of two ex-World Chess Champions and one likely future World Chess Champion. [more inside]
posted by gyc at 2:21 PM PST - 15 comments

The Great Firewall just got a little taller. Starting next month, all geo data about China must be stored on servers inside China. This is much more that a snub of Google for moving its data out of the mainland, it is a power play aimed at controlling a type of data about which China is very sensitive, as shown in recent border disputes, and the discovery of secret military installations. [more inside]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:50 PM PST - 25 comments

Friday Fun --- Ian McKellen - Will Smith... the possibilities are endless!! [more inside]
posted by pearlybob at 1:24 PM PST - 27 comments

Easy AI with Python. High school-level introduction to a few artificial intelligence concepts, with relatively short open source Python code snippets. [more inside]
posted by cowbellemoo at 1:23 PM PST - 22 comments

Country music star Chely Wright talks to Oprah about coming out, prior relationships, and her career. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Via. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:09 PM PST - 14 comments

Mr, KIng
So Raymond Hamilton never killed anybody. If he can make a jury believe that I8m willing to come in and be tryed my self. Why dont you ask Ray about those two policemen that got killed near Grapevine? And while you are at it better talk it over with his girl friend. Bonnie and me were in missouri when that happened but where was Ray? coming back from the West bankjob wasn't he? Redhot too wasn8t he? I got it straight. And ask him about that escape at Eastham farm where that gard was killed. Giess he claims he doesn't know fire any shots there don8t ge? Well if he wasnt too dum to know how tp put a clip in a automatic he'd hace fired a lot more shots and some of the rest of the gards would got killed too. He wrote his lawyer he was too good for me and didnt go my pace, well it makes a me sick to see a yellow punk like that playing baby ad making a jury cry over him either/ He stuck his fingerprint on a letter so heres mine too just to let you know thjis is on the leve;
X Clyde
posted by mrducts at 12:30 PM PST - 21 comments

Go For Launch! Timelapse video of preparing STS-131 (Discovery) for launch. [more inside]
posted by blue_beetle at 10:55 AM PST - 17 comments

Hundreds of munitions and beakers with vintage chemical weapons, including "butter of arsenic" and lewisite, the "dew of death," are being dug up in Washington DC -- less than five miles from the White House (around American University). [more inside]
posted by msalt at 10:50 AM PST - 32 comments

Rand Paul, third son of 2008 Presidential candidate Ron Paul and winner of the Kentucky Republican Party Senate primary this week, has found his general election campaigned mired over a controversy about his libertarian ideology. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 9:02 AM PST - 415 comments

Hotel photo fakeouts. When hotel promo photos meet reality. (via 37signals)
posted by smackfu at 8:45 AM PST - 47 comments

SLYT: Write The Future - A three minute long Nike World Cup ad
posted by AceRock at 8:39 AM PST - 39 comments

Today Google unveiled its most elaborate doodle to date, in celebration of Pac-Man's 30th birthday. [more inside]
posted by schmod at 8:29 AM PST - 87 comments

On Monday the SCOTUS said juveniles who commit crimes in which no one is killed may not be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Thomas, ever the orginalist, apparently said they should only consider practices at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted. Stevens, however, noted people as young as 7 were put to death in the 18th century. "Knowledge accumulates," he wrote. "We learn, sometimes, from our mistakes." So, did they really put kids that young to death? Well, Probably Not. A look back at all the death sentences handed down for children under age fourteen by a well documented court in London found in every case (over 100 in all) the initial death sentence was eventually changed to transportation, imprisonment, and/or whipping. No child criminal was actually put to death.
posted by Blake at 8:05 AM PST - 37 comments

Hot Boxed, one man's experience at the Sauna World Champonships.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 7:44 AM PST - 16 comments

Impressive. Most impressive. Thirty years ago today, one of the most popular films of all time was released to theatres. Often described as "dark" and "moving," it has had its own cultural impact from commonly-misquoted quotes to introducing an entire generation of moviegoers to the concept of a plot twist That film? The Shining. [more inside]
posted by grubi at 6:42 AM PST - 153 comments

Comics: What girls like
posted by Artw at 6:02 AM PST - 92 comments

HEIST: Paintings by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger, worth ~$100 million, stolen! (Washington Post link) [more inside]
posted by OmieWise at 4:44 AM PST - 54 comments

James Brown and The Famous Flames on The T.A.M.I. Show: [ Part I | II | III ]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:00 AM PST - 31 comments

Crater face: "Astronaut risks life and limb to bring two moon pimples together for love."
posted by DZack at 10:04 PM PST - 10 comments

You've stepped out of a time machine, it's 1894 and you're standing in front of a young Adolf Hitler, with instructions to assassinate the child. What you do next may depend a lot on your belief and definition of free will (never mind the unintended consequences) [more inside]
posted by smoke at 9:36 PM PST - 198 comments

Letters to an Absent Father is a wonderful and touching comic strip that "takes place from the perspective of Ash Ketchum as he writes a letter to the father that he never met". [more inside]
posted by wander at 9:25 PM PST - 20 comments

Kate MccGwire makes creepy, writhing, gorgeous sculptures...out of feathers. [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 9:03 PM PST - 26 comments

Families, everyone's got to have one (or two, or three) Christopher and Peter Hitchens. Brothers.
posted by emhutchinson at 8:44 PM PST - 16 comments

Script to Page - Guy Davis(automusic) comic panels alongside a Rob Williams script of a story of the eponymous law man from the Judge Dredd Megazine, a spin off magazine from the venerable comic 2000AD. The original comic has been around since 1977 and the Megazine itself is now approaching it's 20th year. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:01 PM PST - 15 comments

Haven't had your fill of creepy machinery? Watch John Nolan Films' 2010 animatronics showreel video (quicktime version). [more inside]
posted by cashman at 1:57 PM PST - 18 comments

Socrates and Glaucon on the Home Shopping Network.
posted by wittgenstein at 1:12 PM PST - 32 comments

I've considered myself a fanboy on occasion in the past, but it never occurred to me to investigate the history of the term. Technologizer's Harry McCracken (god I love that name) has a *far* more detailed and interesting look into the history of the term than I would ever have considered undertaking. [more inside]
posted by antifuse at 11:43 AM PST - 25 comments

"To ignore this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value - and I refuse to do that." Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, whose new album Orchestrion came out in January (see him discuss it here), ranted about smooth jazz legend Kenny G, claiming that his overdubbed performance of What A Wonderful World defiled the memory of Louis Armstrong. (Via Aaron Cohen at Kottke.org)
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:37 AM PST - 67 comments

Nico vs Roman
posted by empath at 11:35 AM PST - 16 comments

Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes pitch "Rikers in Space" a Next Generation spinoff sitcom. (SLYT)
posted by yellowbinder at 11:20 AM PST - 67 comments

What Did Jesus Do? - Adam Gopnik takes a look at the man, and the myth that was Jesus Christ. A Q&A follows.
posted by timsteil at 11:13 AM PST - 57 comments

"The ability to design and create new forms of life marks a turning-point in the history of our species and our planet." - Freeman Dyson, on the J.C. Venter Institute's creation of a cell controlled by a synthetic genome. We are now in the business of engineering life.
posted by BoatMeme at 10:50 AM PST - 62 comments

Death to the spoiler police! Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams takes a stand against people who insist on spoiler alerts: "[O]nce a work enters the pop culture vernacular, it is not society's responsibility to provide you with earmuffs until you finally get around to experiencing it. ... But for the love of God, if you really don't want to know about a book/movie/television show, do the rest of the world a favor and stop hanging out in the online discussion groups about it." Via Roger Ebert.
posted by mcwetboy at 10:46 AM PST - 151 comments

Regrettably the Newzbin website has to close as a result of the legal action against us. Once the premier Usenet indexing site and the inventor of the NZB file format, Newzbin has officially closed its doors after losing a court battle against several Hollywood studios. Gossip suggests that Newzbin is in dire financial straights. [more inside]
posted by cosmic osmo at 10:27 AM PST - 36 comments

Up There is a twelve minute documentary about the nearly-lost art of hand-painted wall advertisements, the kind that eventually become ghost signs. The signs in this film were painted by Colossal Media/Sky High Murals and by Bob Middleton, himself the scion of a New York sign-painting family. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 10:08 AM PST - 10 comments

Jay Rosen thinks that "Sunday morning talk shows are broken. As works of journalism they don't work." In December, he had a suggestion for the producers of "Meet the Press": "Fact check what your guests say on Sunday and run it online Wednesday." When asked about the proposal, David Gregory responded, "People can fact-check 'Meet the Press' every week on their own terms." Two college students took Gregory up on this and created Meet the Facts. On the other hand, it looks like Jake Tapper of ABC's "This Week" thought it was a pretty good idea. [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 9:54 AM PST - 31 comments

The Saint Louis Bread Company Cares Cafe opened Sunday, as an experiment by Ron Shaich, former CEO of Panera Bread. Customers are asked to pay what they can afford. [more inside]
posted by Karmakaze at 9:23 AM PST - 66 comments

Achtung! Alles Turisten, Teknischen Und Nonteknischen Lookenpeepers! Relaxen Und Watschen Der Blinkenlichten!

Projekt PIWO (Poland): video

Mikontalo Lights (Finland): video

Schönherz Matrix (Hungary)

Project Blinkenlights (Germany, France, Canada...) (previously)

posted by zamboni at 8:23 AM PST - 8 comments

Floyd Landis admits to using performance enhancing drugs. He's also dropping the dime on Armstrong, Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer and his friend, David Zabriskie. So much for Omerta.
posted by mecran01 at 8:21 AM PST - 129 comments

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill hits the Louisiana wetlands. More photos here. Meanwhile, the state department confirms US officials have begun talks with Cuba about how to help the small island nation deal with the environmental impacts of the disaster. And as McClatchy and other news agencies are now reporting, the latest independent scientific estimates appear to confirm a rate of flow much higher than BP has previously been willing to acknowledge, in the likely range of 95,000 barrels a day, amounting to roughly an Exxon Valdez size spill every three days. Meanwhile, ProPublica reports that the industry seems intent on keeping the lid on just how bad things really are in the Gulf, and quotes company spokesmen as saying that the actual rate and amount of flow is “not relevant to the response effort.”
posted by saulgoodman at 7:36 AM PST - 244 comments

Lexicalist attempts to be 'a demographic dictionary of modern American English.' Here's how it works. Lexicalist's developer David Bamman goes into greater detail at Language Log. [more inside]
posted by shakespeherian at 7:02 AM PST - 28 comments

The worst place to mug someone? Probably right in front of the ninja school.
posted by sugarfish at 6:09 AM PST - 84 comments

Swinging Away: How Cricket and Baseball Connect Five minute slideshow with audio from the BBC of historical images to coincide with an exhibition at Lords on the linked histories of the two bat and ball sports.
posted by Abiezer at 3:50 AM PST - 41 comments

America at Work, America at Leisure - "Work, school, and leisure activities in the United States from 1894 to 1915 are featured in this presentation of 150 motion pictures." [Library of Congress Youtube playlist]
posted by peacay at 1:26 AM PST - 5 comments

Bangkok is on fire. A good collection of links on the conflict with many on-the-ground reports (may not work well in Firefox). Video of the assault on the red shirt encampment. Now the violence is spreading beyond the capital into the northern and northeastern provinces. Is Thailand heading for civil war?
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 11:20 PM PST - 50 comments

Koji Yamamura is an illustrator and animator. Perhaps you'll enjoy his cute animated GIFs or his Academy Award nominated Mt. Head.
posted by serazin at 10:46 PM PST - 4 comments

A (translated) Chinese report on life as a factory worker at Foxconn, the company that manufactures iPhones and other gadgets. Each employee would sign a "voluntary overtime affidavit," in order to waive the 36-hour legal limit on your monthly overtime hours. This isn't a bad thing, though, as many workers think that only factories that offer more overtime are "good factories," because "without overtime, you can hardly make a living."
posted by ignignokt at 8:03 PM PST - 126 comments

The Empire Strikes Back (1950) [more inside]
posted by kmz at 7:02 PM PST - 31 comments

"You can just about hear [the music] sometimes," Anderson said. "And you look at it on the meters and you see what it's doing. And your dog's ears will be twitching." Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson take a walkies on the wild side.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:35 PM PST - 36 comments

"Prior to the sagging pants, it was the shoestrings out of sneakers. All this is born out of prison. We took the shoestrings and the belts from prisoners." New York State Senator Eric Adams has launched a media campaign against low-slung trousers, including 6 billboards in Brooklyn. [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 6:22 PM PST - 96 comments

It's Flash Friday HTML 5 Wednesday! A variant of Asteroids has been unleashed on the web, as proof of the canvas element's abilities within the updated markup language; however, the color palette is opposite of the arcade game's original scheme, hyperdrive and shields are absent, as is audio, since in hypertext, additional lines of code are necessary for anyone to hear you scream. [via]
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:41 PM PST - 34 comments

u.s navy vintage fire control computers : An intriguing look at the mechanical workings of the computers of World War 2.
posted by mikepaco at 4:58 PM PST - 24 comments

As the shuttle program winds down, astrophotographers like Thierry Legault are taking advantage of these last opportunities to capture absolutely incredible shots like this one, showing Atlantis' transit in front of the sun as it performs its inspection backflip before docking with the ISS. His other photography includes this magnificent series of the launch of STS-125. [more inside]
posted by disillusioned at 4:01 PM PST - 16 comments

Roma/Gypsy Interiors and African Interiors by photographer Carlo Gianferro + a collection of imaginary interiors from artist Anne Hardy.
posted by puny human at 3:26 PM PST - 17 comments

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
[another great find at Postroad's blog (NSFW)]
posted by caddis at 3:20 PM PST - 21 comments

DEEDLY WEEDLY DEEDLY WEEDLY DUMB DUMB DUMB. German band Van Canto perform "a cappella hero metal," albeit with drums. Official site. FAQ. (via) [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:09 PM PST - 38 comments

Artist Jess Fink has some crappy luck. She's found her Threadless designs co-opted by Forever 21 and by Newbreed girl for Hot Topic. And now? Thanks to Billion Dollar Babes, unrepentant rip-off artist Todd Goldman (previously) is joining in.
posted by griphus at 2:49 PM PST - 63 comments

David Lynch Directs a 16-Minute short for Dior
posted by The Whelk at 2:39 PM PST - 25 comments

David Mitchell's Soap Box features The Peep Show's David Mitchell giving his opinions on various topics. The new series starts with Mitchell pondering the myth of King Cnut attempting to turn back the tides. The comedian has covered many issues, such as respect for the elderly, beer and being asked how much one earns. You can also subscribe to the series as a video podcast [iTunes link]
posted by Kattullus at 2:30 PM PST - 30 comments

While it should not come as a surprise that some chefs get high, it’s less often noted that drug use in the kitchen can change the experience in the dining room.
posted by gman at 2:10 PM PST - 55 comments

Complexo da Maré is one of the oldest favelas in Rio, and a new short documentary, Te Vejo Mare, shows how, despite the headlines and violence, a community and culture manages to thrive there. As featured on today's Guardian website: Welcome to Complexo da Maré (10:16), The Samba Is Infinite (10:22), Fighting for Peace (11:00)
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 1:55 PM PST - 4 comments

As rumored and requested, Google has released VP8 as a royalty free video codec, complete with patent license. Add in Vorbis for audio and Matroska as the container format, and you have WebM, soon to be supported in Chrome, Firefox and Opera. YouTube support is already here. [more inside]
posted by dragoon at 1:50 PM PST - 54 comments

A mining town in Kentucky hoping to build a different kind of future. One of the last three Negro League stadiums. A 34-acre ranch owned and run one of California's earliest entreprenuers and rare early female landowners. The "cathedral of African Methodism" which saw the funerals of Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks. Otherwordly sand dunes in Michigan, mysterious freshwater caves in Guam, the Wilderness Battlefield...and the Merritt Parkway. These and more sites are on the (US) NAtional Trust's 2010 roster of the 11 Most Endangered Places.
posted by Miko at 1:39 PM PST - 14 comments

In an alternate universe, where steampunk is the norm at the court in Versailles, the Sun King has gone missing. Welcome to the world of the Puppet Makers, an online comic from the imagination of MeFi's own The Whelk and his familiar illustrator/partner Molly Crabapple. [Flash interface] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 12:55 PM PST - 48 comments

The joy of Bourbon drinking is not the pharmacological effect of C(2)H(5)OH on the cortex but rather the instant of the whiskey being knocked back and the little explosion of Kentucky U.S.A. sunshine in the cavity of the nasopharynx and the hot bosky bite of Tennessee summertime--aesthetic considerations to which the effect of the alcohol is, if not dispensable, at least secondary.

Bourbon, an essay by Walker Percy. A warning: "Not only should connoisseurs of Bourbon not read this article, neither should persons preoccupied with the perils of alcoholism, cirrhosis, esophageal hemorrhage, cancer of the palate, and so forth..." [more inside]
posted by a.steele at 12:55 PM PST - 74 comments

Meet Wenlock and Mandeville - the official London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic mascots... the press are talking them up... but there are some objectors Previous design work for 2012 has not gone down well. Past Olympic mascots.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:22 PM PST - 86 comments

When budget cuts are imminent...who you gonna call?. [more inside]
posted by djgh at 11:28 AM PST - 39 comments

Joeurt Puk (aka Joe Cook) is the father of Cambodian baseball. In this feature by ESPN, Patrick Hruby looks into Cook's background and finds that Cook may not be the tireless philanthropist he claims to be. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 11:13 AM PST - 6 comments

The status quo of electric cars: better batteries, same range: A hundred years of advances in electric vehicle technology have scarcely improved the range of mass-produced electric vehicles.
posted by melatonic at 11:07 AM PST - 45 comments

Last night Dan Rather reports presented on child sex trafficking in Portland, Oregon. The Oregonian newspaper briefly covered the Dan Rather report and also had a longer article in January about the same issue. Dan Rather wrote a short piece in the Huffington Post yesterday, saying that Portland is second in the nation for child prostitution. The organization ECTAP-USA (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking) published this 2005 (PDF) report about child prostitution in the US, linking it, in part, to the strip club industry.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:36 AM PST - 51 comments

Joe Mozingo had always been told that his family name was "maybe Italian." In a three-part article in the L.A. Times, the "blue-eyed, surfing son of a dentist" journalist discovers that the Mozingo name actually traces back to an African slave freed in 1672. [more inside]
posted by infinitywaltz at 10:13 AM PST - 41 comments

Amanda Walther and Sheila Carabine became friends in Canadian high school band. They now make up Dala, an accoustic folk pop duo who sing songs like the cutesy pop song Levi Blues, Alive about a hellish New Years Eve in an old cabin, Marilyn Monroe about coming of age, and the more serious Horses, a song dedicated to a paraplegic teenager. They have opened for Neko Case, Tom Cochrane, and Matthew Good and covered Neil Young.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:48 AM PST - 8 comments

Three of the Hutaree militia are released on bail. And another one on the way. (Previously) There's a new federal prosecutor following some problems with accuracy in court filings. [more inside]
posted by warbaby at 9:40 AM PST - 14 comments

Anti-Identity-Theft Firm Lifelock was fined $12 Million in March for deceptive business practices by the FTC. More bad news: their CEO had his identity stolen 13 times after posting his own social security number in company ads as proof they could protect him. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:36 AM PST - 52 comments

The experimental method: Testing solutions with randomized trials -- In trying to help explicate the complexity of society Clark Medal-winner Esther Duflo is raising the productivity of social policies by increasing our knowledge of what works and doesn't work through repeated social experiments of randomised controlled trials. She has a large surplus labour pool, a veritable industrial reserve army, to worth with. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 8:42 AM PST - 18 comments

The Guardian has an article on Pimm's, a traditional gin-based English summer drink. Invented by one James Pimm in London in 1840, Pimm's soon became associated with upper-class institutions and the British Empire; its popularity declined somewhat in the decades following World War 2 (apart from a few revivals as part of ironic constructions of "Britishness"), though it has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity. Recipes for serving Pimm's vary, though they typically involve mixing it with lemonade and/or ginger beer in a jug and adding oranges, strawberries, sliced cucumber and mint. While the formula remains a secret, knockoffs do exist (both Sainsbury's and Aldi sell their own substitutes, though Sainsbury's had to change the label on its to look less like the original), or you could try making your own.
posted by acb at 3:19 AM PST - 151 comments

Yarchive is one man's collection of UseNET posts on the topics of Air Conditioning; Aircraft; Bicycles; Cars; Chemistry; Computers; Electrical, Electronic; Environment; Explosives, Pyrotechnics; Food; Houses; Guns; Jokes; Medicine; Metalworking; Military; Nuclear; Telephones; Physics; Risks; Security; Space mostly from a select group of authors. It has been updated several times since it first appeared here in 2001 and it never fails to sucker me in for hours every time I stumble upon it from a Google Search. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 1:25 AM PST - 36 comments

The greatest internet sports games of all time according to The Guardian. [more inside]
posted by nthdegx at 11:45 PM PST - 12 comments

Al Jarnow had been exploring time and space in his panoramic paintings when a friend suggested he try animation. From experimental films (Cubits) he went on to create shorts for Children's Television Workshop that were seen by millions on Sesame Street (Yak, Orange, Floor Tiles, Block City, Perpectives, Put Your Litter in the Can, Real Cats Drink Milk) and 3-2-1 Contact (Facial Recognition). One standout is Cosmic Clock, which speeds us through time much the way the Eames' Powers of Ten speeds us through space. Along with his collected works on DVD, Numero Group has released the half-hour documentary Asymmetric Cycles: The Work Of Al Jarnow. [more inside]
posted by hydrophonic at 8:48 PM PST - 8 comments

The Wally Wood Letters, 1976-1981. A collection of postcards and letters from comic book great Wally Wood to a fan, beginning in 1976 through 1981. Introduction. Letters begin here. via [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 7:31 PM PST - 8 comments

Need some dessert ideas? The Pentagon has recipes for brownies and oatmeal cookies. (26 page pdf)
posted by backseatpilot at 7:26 PM PST - 70 comments

Web 3.0 [vimeo - flash or HTML5] A story about the Semantic Web from Kate Ray.
posted by unliteral at 5:54 PM PST - 38 comments

Hey there Starcraft fans! Unbeatable Protoss 1v1 Strategy for Starcraft 2. To be honest I don't know much about Activision games or RTSes in general, but this works 100% of the time. You should totally check this out!! xxx
posted by litleozy at 5:45 PM PST - 42 comments

Barack Obama plays Chat Roulette (SFW)
posted by empath at 2:35 PM PST - 47 comments

Patrick Adams: The king of underground disco. With over 30 gold records to his name and 30 plus years in the music business, Patrick Adams has worked with everyone from Gladys Knight and Salt 'n Pepa, to Eric B. and Rakim and Rick James. But his early, harder to find, pioneering (and moogtastic) sounds from the mid-seventies, with his group Cloud One, and tracks produced for The Universal Robot Band, Queen Constance, Musique and Phreek is where the magic lies. If the sounds of Atmosphere Strut or Disco Juice don't make you want to shake your groove thing, you may not have a soul :( [more inside]
posted by puny human at 2:30 PM PST - 12 comments

"Former Harvard student Adam Wheeler was indicted [yesterday] on multiple counts of identity fraud and larceny. According to the Boston Globe, Wheeler allegedly built a 'fraudulent life history that led to his admission to Harvard, and for using forged academic materials from Harvard when he applied for the prestigious Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships.'"* In his transfer student application to Harvard "...Wheeler claimed he got a perfect score on the SAT, straight A's at prestigious prep school Phillips Academy Andover and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...In reality, he had never attended either school..."* He has plead not guilty to the charges. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 2:18 PM PST - 163 comments

On May 18th, 1980, thirty years ago today, at 8:32 a.m., the ground shook beneath Mount St. Helens in Washington state as a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck, setting off one of the largest landslides in recorded history - the entire north slope of the volcano slid away. As the land moved, it exposed the superheated core of the volcano setting off gigantic explosions and eruptions of steam, ash and rock debris. The blast was heard hundreds of miles away, the pressure wave flattened entire forests, the heat melted glaciers and set off destructive mudflows, and 57 people lost their lives. A photo-essay.
posted by Nothing... and like it at 12:29 PM PST - 75 comments

This Book is Overdue (link to a PDF of the first chapter from the author’s site: here) is a non-fiction work published in February of 2010. It’s a study of the modern library, and by extension, the modern librarian. Primarily the place that each of these things has in a world that is increasingly moving to a world of digital information. The book is divided into a few different sections... [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 12:14 PM PST - 21 comments

Serein v4. Online UK label Serein's last redesign saw a number of ambient and experimental albums released for free. They've redesigned again with a slightly more realistic business model, and in addition to the two releases out so far, they've put out three free "forecasts" so far, mixtapes of a sort, arranged by the artists. Three is the latest, and by halfway through I knew it would likely be appreciated here.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:07 PM PST - 4 comments

Renowned pianist Hank Jones, whose sixty year career in jazz saw him perform with scores of legendary musicians, has passed away at the age of 91, and was practicing up to the very end. [more inside]
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 11:27 AM PST - 15 comments

Anthony Le built a "working" War Machine suit. From the movie Iron Man 2. Video.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:25 AM PST - 40 comments

MOVIES R FUN! A li'l inappropriate book by Pixar Story Artist Josh Cooley. Not yet in stores, but several totally awesome samples are in his blog. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:24 AM PST - 10 comments

"I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion. [...] I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to reach a designated spot, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river. I will make covered chariots, safe and unattackable, which, entering among the enemy with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them. And behind these, infantry could follow quite unhurt and without any hindrance."

Leonardo da Vinci's cocky, violent resume
posted by not_the_water at 11:19 AM PST - 27 comments

Obese, gluttonous, and cannibalistic is no way to go through life, son: profile of a multi-core galaxy 20 times larger than the Milky Way.
posted by jjray at 11:09 AM PST - 10 comments

"Indiana Republican Rep. Mark Souder acknowledged an affair with a staffer Tuesday and unexpectedly announced his resignation, giving Democrats a chance at capturing what many had thought was a safe Republican seat." He had previously recorded a pro-abstinence video, with the woman he had the affair with.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:32 AM PST - 123 comments

The Most Widely Read Magazine in the World: The New York Review of Magazines on The Watchtower
posted by brundlefly at 10:21 AM PST - 68 comments

Amazing hailstorm video gets really good at about 1:00 and terrifying at about 2:00.
posted by alby at 10:14 AM PST - 92 comments

Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens.

The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment
posted by y2karl at 9:35 AM PST - 105 comments

Yesterday, the New York Times published an investigative report showing Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) either lied or spoke ambiguously about serving in Vietnam in several past public appearances. Blumenthal is currently the Democratic frontrunner for Senator Chris Dodd's Senate seat, and is expected to face former WWE CEO Linda McMahon (R). Today, McMahon's campaign announced they "fed" the story to the paper and posted the video of Blumenthal's statement to their YouTube channel. More from Politico. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:17 AM PST - 110 comments

Sean Stiegemeier decided that he had seen enough terrible pictures of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, that he flew to see it on his own. [more inside]
posted by Heliochrome85 at 9:10 AM PST - 26 comments

Twitter Parade: Icons happily march across your screen following the topic (or Twitter account) of your choice. In Flash with sound. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 8:20 AM PST - 28 comments

Never marry a woman with big feet. | A husband at home is like a flea in your ear. [more inside]
posted by Substrata at 7:12 AM PST - 55 comments

i have let paypal go. old-fashioned wheezy paranoid beast. and i can’t find a simple enough new solution. so, all music is pay-it-forward. [more inside]
posted by tapesonthefloor at 6:38 AM PST - 35 comments

The Most Harmful Drinks in America. Warning: simply reading this article may cause weight gain.
posted by zardoz at 6:14 AM PST - 232 comments

Introducing for your viewing pleasure: THE BIG CAPTION (A complement to The Big Picture)
posted by piratebowling at 5:31 AM PST - 26 comments

A photoset of the first Ugandan skatepark. Built by kids in Kitintale, a working-class suburb of Kampala, without government help or support of any organisation, the skateboard park has become an unexpected focus for a community.
posted by johnny novak at 4:07 AM PST - 12 comments

In March a little known potato vodka made in the UK by a Herefordshire farmer, William Chase, won best in class at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition [warning: PDF]. Chase was 20 when he bought his father’s 75-acre farm, in 1984 with a £200,000 loan from the bank. This is his second venture: in his first, he bucked the trend and told supermarket giant Tesco to get lost when they wanted to sell his potato chips. [more inside]
posted by MuffinMan at 4:04 AM PST - 25 comments

Mathematical model explains marital breakups.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:02 AM PST - 20 comments

How to be cool? How to stay calm? How to have better conversations? How to make love last? The School of Life is a place to step back and think intelligently about these and other concerns. [more inside]
posted by jonesor at 3:20 AM PST - 12 comments

Janelle Monae has been busy since the release of The Chase EP, the first of four "suites" that make up her genre-bending epic set in the distant future. She's been "discovered" by Diddy, continued to find inspiration in unexpected places, founded an artists' collective in her adopted hometown of Atlanta, and found time to speak to Vogue about her singular sense of style. Somewhere in there, she's also recorded the next two parts of the Metropolis Suite, titled The Archandroid (which is out today), put out a teaser for the album, and also the video for the first single, Tightrope. [more inside]
posted by heeeraldo at 1:47 AM PST - 24 comments

Mukhtar is a bus driver who gets a surprise for his birthday.
posted by creeky at 11:50 PM PST - 36 comments

How Karl Rove, a few corporate millionaires, and the Citizens United Supreme Court case will overwhelm American elections and rule the Republican party from the shadows: Rove Rides Again
posted by Glibpaxman at 8:41 PM PST - 48 comments

Just an ordinary Wednesday morning in April 2010 at around 8.30 am. In Utrecht (Netherlands), a third of all trips are by bicycle. This is one of the busiest junctions in Utrecht a city with a population of 300,000. No less than 18,000 bicycles and 2,500 buses pass here every day. And yet Google Street View missed it. Because private motorized traffic is restricted here. (Video is 4 times faster than reality, 8 minutes condensed to 2.)
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:13 PM PST - 105 comments

Kudzu, Pueraria lobata, may be causing double the emission of nitric oxide, and increases ozone pollution in areas it has overgrown, a recent study has shown. [more inside]
posted by strixus at 4:47 PM PST - 33 comments

"People who work with computers-especially those being exposed to a machine for the first time-can become quite entranced with these qualities, finding the computer a kind of alter ego. "Sometimes programmers just won't go home, take a bath or anything," reports a computer man who has got over it himself. "They're like a kid falling in love with a hot rod. They'll sit there working with their newfound 'friend' 20 hours a day, just watching the lights and drinking coffee. After a while they get to looking pale and unhealthy. They sit there fascinated and just forget to eat." Life, October 27, 1967 on "How the Computer gets the answer."
posted by geoff. at 4:28 PM PST - 49 comments

Charles Cawley's Medieval Lands is an encyclopedia of every major European noble family (and most minor ones) from AD 500 to 1500. Even as a work in progress, its scale is staggering.
posted by Iridic at 3:12 PM PST - 27 comments

idlekeyboard - now you can sound busy while reading metafilter at work
posted by nitsuj at 3:09 PM PST - 19 comments

The Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision on US v Comstock has upheld continued detention of sex offenders who have served their time.
posted by Electrius at 2:52 PM PST - 103 comments

Plummeting Marijuana prices cause panic in CA. In 1983, the Reagan administration launched a massive air and ground campaign to eradicate pot and lock up growers in northern California. Charley Custer, a writer and community activist, had just arrived to Humboldt County from Chicago. With the Reagan crackdown, Custer recalls, wholesale prices shot up — to as high as $5,000 a pound. That sudden and ironic windfall for those growers willing to risk prison time transformed the community.... Prices are now much less than $2,000 a pound, according to interviews with more than a dozen growers and dealers. Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman says some growers can't get rid of their processed pot at any price.
posted by caddis at 1:56 PM PST - 106 comments

The amazing "timeless incredible filth"* voice on these amazing songs, Sheep ; Holidays ; Ancestors ; DedNd are all from the amazing and amazingly produced album "A Killer and a Sufi" on Warp Records. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 1:27 PM PST - 21 comments

Do you like vintage needlework? The Antique Pattern Library is a collection of scanned craft books that are in the public domain. They contain patterns for crochet, knitting, tatting, netting, embroidery, needle lace, beading, and other crafts. See also Home Work, a Choice Collection of Useful Designs for the Crochet and Knitting Needle, and Beeton's Book of Needlework. If vintage instructions aren't your thing, try lace edgings from 1846 updated for the modern knitter.
posted by bewilderbeast at 1:15 PM PST - 12 comments

Chrysler's recent announcement of a three year technical collaboration with NASA continues the automaker's long involvement with the agency, including production of the historic Redstone, reliable Jupiter, and mighty Saturn launch vehicles, and the design of an unusual Space Shuttle called SERV. [more inside]
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 12:58 PM PST - 5 comments

With a surprisingly low voice and the composure of an R&B singer many years older, Helen Shapiro toured with The Beatles in 1963; inspired Lennon and McCartney to compose for her the song “Misery” (which they intended for her vocal style); wrote her own B-sides; starred in ("A Hard Day's Night" director Richard Lester's) 1962 movie; and recorded an album of songs in Nashville with (Patsy Cline producer) Owen Bradley. All before her 17th birthday. [more inside]
posted by applemeat at 12:29 PM PST - 25 comments

One of the first uses of a graphical throbber was in NCSA Mosaic. Command line versions did exist, but most were a spinning slash. Nowadays, with Ajax, they have become nothing more than variations of spinning gray wheels to indicate loading or buffering. Gone are the more creative ones like, Netscape, whose throbber is a condensed loop of how the dinosaurs became extinct.
posted by wcfields at 12:17 PM PST - 37 comments

"Why? Philosophical Discussions" about everyday life may be the world's first call-in philosophy show. Its mission is to create a large-scale conversation between philosophical professionals and the general public.

WHY? radio, from the University of North Dakota's Institute for Philosophy in Public Life, is a monthly, call-in radio show hosted by philosophy professor Jack Russell Weinstein. "...the show was created to illustrate how day-to-day life is steeped in deep philosophical commitments and to provide a venue for exploration of those same commitments." Shows feature notable guests such as Martha Nussbaum, Amelie Rorty, and Amartya Sen.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:12 PM PST - 12 comments

In the tiny lifeboat, she and the alien fuck endlessly, relentlessly. - Kij Johnson's Spar, the winning short story of this years Nebula award. Audio version. Interview. More stories by Kij Johnson. Kitty chaser: The Cat Who Walked A Thousand Miles.
posted by Artw at 11:15 AM PST - 176 comments

After a two-year run, the final Kevin Geeks Out will be at the 92Y Tribeca in New York this Friday. [more inside]
posted by JoanArkham at 10:46 AM PST - 3 comments

Is Facebook violating your privacy, or are you just oversharing? Facebook status updates are searchable through the Graph API.
posted by monospace at 9:11 AM PST - 150 comments

A Six Mile Inquiry Light rail is coming to Saint Paul and will change a significant stretch of a major urban street. An artist is using six miles of the street to showcase photography of local subjects. [more inside]
posted by ShadePlant at 8:11 AM PST - 13 comments

A tornado forms in front of a car taking video. A study of the spectrum of human reactions. NSFW language.
posted by jjray at 8:02 AM PST - 91 comments

In the debut of The New York Times' new philosophy series, Simon Critchley asks, "What is a philosopher?"
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:47 AM PST - 117 comments

The latest fun, gimmicky bra from Japanese lingerie maker Triumph International grows rice. Promo Videos (SFW, YT) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 6:58 AM PST - 29 comments

A preliminary atlas of gizmo landscapes. A comprehensive look at the environments necessitated by American gizmos, as exemplified by a single iPhone in Brooklyn.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:27 AM PST - 12 comments

"The Cellar Tapes" (1982) (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5) is a televised version of the revue show originally performed in 1981 by the Footlights - a group of comic writers-performers at the University of Cambridge. It is performed by Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, Paul Shearer and Penny Dwyer.
posted by severiina at 3:52 AM PST - 11 comments

On the heels of the highly publicized Missouri raid that ended in the death of a corgi (previously), a seven year-old girl has been killed in a no-knock raid in Detroit. According to one of Radley Balko's commenters, the family may have been targeted because they shared a two-family duplex with the target of the raid.
posted by Anonymous at 1:29 AM PST - 182 comments

it was street art until the preservation team showed up... banksy drops a piece in a derelict factory site in detroit. a local grass-roots gallery removes it to their hq for safe keeping. people go nuts.
posted by artof.mulata at 8:41 PM PST - 100 comments

There are a lot of ukulele players covering well known songs on the internet but my favorite is Ken Middleton, a man in his late fifties from Northern England. Here are some of his videos: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Just Like Heaven, Wild Horses and After the Goldrush. But he specializes in Leonard Cohen covers, even teaching a lesson on how to play Cohen songs on the ukulele. Here are three of my favorites: Take This Waltz, So Long, Marianne and Sisters of Mercy. He also asks and answers the question, what would Mmmbop sound like if it had been written by Leonard Cohen for the ukulele.
posted by Kattullus at 8:03 PM PST - 32 comments

Spike of Templar, AZ (Previously, Previously) tends to go on rants on twitter, now you can follow them.
posted by The Whelk at 7:18 PM PST - 22 comments

Why I Steal Movies... Even Ones I'm In. Written by Peter Serafinowicz, the mind behind Look Around You and Hot Chip's recent music video I Feel Better (previously).
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:58 PM PST - 72 comments

Werner Herzog Reads Where's Waldo
posted by Deathalicious at 5:52 PM PST - 37 comments

The 12th-century English chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall relates a strange story: two lost and distressed children appeared in a local village, speaking a language no-one could understand, and, most strikingly, with strangely green-coloured skin. [more inside]
posted by Catseye at 5:18 PM PST - 40 comments

Clio Visualizing History seeks to illustrate the unique role of visual images in American history. That history is rich with images taken by women, and of women. Frances Benjamin Johnston photographed a diverse sample of Americana from politicians to mine workers, socialites to factory women, and public institutions. She was a peer of many, including Gertrude Käsebier and the Allen sisters. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 1:28 PM PST - 3 comments

The rainbow has gone dark. Wendy Dio, wife and manager of metal legend vocalist Ronnie James Dio, reported that this morning he lost his battle with stomach cancer at the age of 67. [more inside]
posted by The Straightener at 1:12 PM PST - 134 comments

The Google Job Experiment ... or... how to get hired at Young & Rubicam using $6 of Google Ads. From the author of "50 Days Worse Than Yours" and "50 Relatives Worse Than Yours". Why it worked: [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:59 AM PST - 38 comments

The laser turns 50!, gallery, how Lasers work, more on how lasers work (in more detail than you can possibly want), 50 laser facts.
posted by Artw at 11:07 AM PST - 34 comments

Plus magazine has compiled all their articles on mathematics and the arts into one handy-dandy page full of highly enjoyable articles ranging from limericks and screeching violins to the restoration of frescoes.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:58 AM PST - 3 comments

The Physics of Futurama David X Cohen, producer of Futurama, explains how there's actual, legitimate physics in the show, why not.
posted by shmegegge at 10:49 AM PST - 54 comments

The Vader Project. [more inside]
posted by furtive at 9:13 AM PST - 12 comments

Moving beyond GDP for an information-based society - If indeed^[1,2] "A 'Quantum Leap' in Governance" is needed^[3] then, as part of the solution,^[4] we might start looking past GDP^[5,6] and perhaps more toward "betterness instead of business, pursue awesomeness instead of innovation — and maximize good, instead of quarterly profits..." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 8:42 AM PST - 28 comments

On September 24 1983, a brilliant young Argentinian footballer playing for FC Barcelona was brutally fouled in a Spanish league game against Athletic Bilbao. The resulting injury incapacitated Diego Armando Maradona for four months and ultimately resulted in him leaving Barcelona for Naples and a serious cocaine addiction. More than the fouling player (who already had the nickname "Butcher of Bilbao"), many blamed Bilbao's coach and his somewhat lacking concept of "fair play". [more inside]
posted by Skeptic at 8:40 AM PST - 46 comments

Sure, you've heard of Burning Man, that art festival/intentional community/temporary autonomous zone thing in the desert, but did you know that it has spawned a host of events called regional burns? As the name implies, these are smaller and mainly draw a local crowd; they operate under a charter from the Burning Man organization and all abide by its Ten Principles. Most are in North America, but they have crossed the pond with Nowhere in Spain. [more inside]
posted by adamrice at 6:44 AM PST - 46 comments

Just a bit late for Canadian Mental Health Week, legendary children's author Robert Munsch has admitted to cocaine and alcohol abuse to cope with bipolar disorder. [more inside]
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 12:30 AM PST - 32 comments

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon celebrated the rerelease of The Rolling Stones' "Exile On Main Street" album last week with a slew of guest performances. Green Day plays Rip This Joint. Taj Mahal plays Shine A Light (hulu link, probably US only). Keith Urban plays Tumbling Dice. Sheryl Crow plays All Down The Line (photobucket link). Phish plays Loving Cup. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 9:45 PM PST - 70 comments

Go watch some baby sloth's inaction. [more inside]
posted by Cold Lurkey at 8:28 PM PST - 36 comments

The results are in, and mathematician Kokichi Sugihara won the 2010 Best Illusion of the Year award with a video of balls rolling uphill. The competition, hosted by the Neural Correlate Society, is the "Oscars of perception," says society president Susana Martinez-Conde. The trophies are themselves visual illusions — wooden sculptures that look vastly different depending on the observer's point of view. The ten finalists are all interesting. Previously.
posted by jjray at 8:14 PM PST - 14 comments

My name is Maddie Chambers and this all began when I was a young child and read the Hobbit for the first time. And so, a year later I have a nearly finished replica of Bag End. I still have quite a bit of work to do on it, but I think it can be classed as an ongoing project that I can improve over the years (yes I am a perfectionist when it comes to things that I make!)
posted by Fizz at 7:29 PM PST - 46 comments

Not as good as being there, but pretty damn great. Sistine Chapel. (Uses Flash.)
posted by grumblebee at 6:38 PM PST - 31 comments

President Obama makes reporter sit on toy hovercraft.
posted by WPW at 5:38 PM PST - 75 comments

Draw With Me (SLYT) is an original animated short by Mike Inel with an unexpectedly creepy ending. [more inside]
posted by runaway ballista at 5:09 PM PST - 16 comments

Kuky just wants to go home. Directed by Academy Award winning Czech director Jan Sverak, this yet to be released film is loosely based on stories of the flooding of Bohemia in 2002. With design elements reminiscent of the beautiful flash games created by Amanita Design, it is visually stunning. No word on any North American distribution (boo), but opening on May 20 in the Czech Republic (yaay!).
posted by Ohdemah at 3:14 PM PST - 10 comments

Maybe Microsoft is trading in London at a penny less than it's trading at the same moment in New York. A high-frequency trader will buy shares in London and wait for them to rise. Since the discrepancy lasts a mere fraction of a second, speed is key. [Tradework CEO] M. Narang boasts it takes only 15 millionth of a second for his computers to place a buy or sell order after detecting an opportunity. Or, as he puts it, "If you try to pick up the penny, we'll probably beat you to it." [more inside]
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 3:11 PM PST - 60 comments

A candid late-night email exchange between an online journalist and Steve Jobs (who may or may not have realized he was in fact talking to a journalist). (SLGawker, though the perplexed are welcome to Google the obscure Mr. Jobs for more information.) Learn whether Jobs thinks a 20-year-old Bob Dylan would've thought Apple was groovy, how Apple is protecting you from porn, and more!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:19 PM PST - 213 comments

The Intor.net - A userless, interfaceless website and mindmap generator that creates interesting things from URLs. [via mefi projects]
posted by carsonb at 10:36 AM PST - 21 comments

Probing the link between slaughterhouses and violent crime. A study shows that as the number of slaughterhouse workers in a community increases, the crime rate also increases.
posted by binturong at 10:13 AM PST - 71 comments

Why, in this day and age when you can get them for $4 at the ol' Wal-Mart, would anyone knit socks? Simply put: Because we can. [more inside]
posted by Hwin at 10:01 AM PST - 41 comments

Two articles about successful clothes retailers - Uniqlo and Abercrombie & Fitch - that are both full of interesting tidbits ("Uniqlo is a company that prescribes, records, and analyzes every activity undertaken by every employee, from folding technique to the way advisers return charge cards to customers. Japanese style, with two hands and full eye contact"). In addition, the two articles have a lot to say about branding and what companies place importance on - with A&F coming across as a typical fashion retailer, aggressively selling and marketing a very specific look, and Uniqlo seeming to be doing something quite different and contrary to received wisdom. [more inside]
posted by Sifter at 9:52 AM PST - 42 comments

The 10 Most Harmful Novels for Aspiring Writers
posted by Artw at 8:00 AM PST - 138 comments

A botnet with 6 to 12 million computers, employing the world's most sophisticated encryption and peer to peer communication lies waiting, but for what? When the Conficker computer “worm” was unleashed on the world in November 2008, cyber-security experts didn’t know what to make of it. It infiltrated millions of computers around the globe. It constantly checks in with its unknown creators. It uses an encryption code so sophisticated that only a very few people could have deployed it. For the first time ever, the cyber-security elites of the world have joined forces in a high-tech game of cops and robbers, trying to find Conficker’s creators and defeat them. The cops are failing. And now the worm lies there, waiting … [via Postroad's rich linkdump: Goodsh*t (nsfw)] [more inside]
posted by caddis at 7:10 AM PST - 67 comments

French artist Anthony Geoffrey makes fantastic celebrity caricatures. The site uses flash and is in French but it loads fast and the navigation is simple. The caricatures are in the Portfolio. I particularly enjoyed his Ash from Evil Dead and his House MD. These are not the same as the ones you find in the mall by some poor guy trying to scratch out a living. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 3:51 AM PST - 11 comments

Everything you ever wanted to know about history's most abusive programming language. INTERCAL: Its history, reference manual and a style guide.
posted by serazin at 12:43 AM PST - 44 comments

Adapted from Jeremy Rifkin's talk at the RSA, the latest RSA Animate illustrates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society. (Also)
posted by infini at 12:25 AM PST - 12 comments

Bay Area Slang Top 100 (The Grinch song). From Rafael Casal — 100 Bay Area slang terms in under 3 minutes. [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 12:12 AM PST - 22 comments

What I find chiefly offensive about them is not that they are skeptics or atheists; rather, it is that they are not skeptics at all and have purchased their atheism cheaply, with the sort of boorish arrogance that might make a man believe himself a great strategist because his tanks overwhelmed a town of unarmed peasants, or a great lover because he can afford the price of admission to a brothel.

Christian writer Dan Hart wonders if New Atheism might just be a passing fad. [more inside]
posted by circular at 10:59 PM PST - 513 comments

Dan Meyer is a high school math teacher with a clever idea: make math about the real world. On his blog, he writes about classroom management, the real skills of teaching, labels, information design, and assessment.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 9:13 PM PST - 30 comments

Don't let the internet scare you off with archaic disco lessons, goofy cheerleaders in space, or mustaches from your darkest nightmares. Step away from the worst video ever and rejoice in the spectacular talent that is Andrew Lee. [more inside]
posted by routergirl at 8:19 PM PST - 12 comments

My name is Bisi Adeleke, I am from the Yoruba people of Nigeria, where this talking drum is originated.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:58 PM PST - 12 comments

Public Image Live in Concert - Streaming Audio from NPR Worth a listen! This was one of the best concerts I have ever attended - and I have been to a lot of shows in my life. "Public Image Ltd. was frequently overlooked when it originally formed and released a string of records in the 1980s and early '90s, or maybe it was looked at for the wrong reasons. The band is the creative vision of John Lydon, not the angry punk he called "Johnny Rotten" in The Sex Pistols. When The Sex Pistols broke up, it was expected that any new band Lydon fronted would be a punk group. In fact, the first single from Public Image Ltd. pretty much was. It was called "Public Image," and was straight out of The Sex Pistols' bag of tricks. Lydon, in fact, wrote the song back in the day, but everything that came after that cut was so different: The music was slower, more open and groove-based. The poetry and the subject matter was all different, while the singing — though distinctly Lydon — was more spacious. It was still in your face, but it wasn't ugly. "
posted by lucysun at 7:06 PM PST - 41 comments

Google accidentally collects private data over WiFi networks. Affects US, Brazil, Hong Kong, Germany, France. Google apologizes & explains & promises to knock it off. Plus the data was kind of all just hanging out there, unencrypted. So all is well, right? [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:52 PM PST - 73 comments

Raising a geek child in a geek household? The Geek Alphabet is the ideal primer for teaching your budding geek their ABCs.
posted by hippybear at 2:50 PM PST - 16 comments

The Secret Mission of the Terminator [slyt]
posted by ardgedee at 1:47 PM PST - 25 comments

The Aura Camera was developed in the 1970s by Polaroid as a way to see auras around people as a psychic might. Though very rare, Carlo Van De Roer managed to get his hands on an AuraCam 6000 to capture a stunningly unique series of portraits [some mildly NSFW].
posted by tuck_nroll at 12:53 PM PST - 44 comments

Amazing photos of unusual cloud formations, as seen from space—along with some of the science behind them. Click on the images for full-size, wallpaperable versions.
posted by ixohoxi at 12:44 PM PST - 24 comments

Last August (2009), the "ephemeral artists" of Nothing Happened Here staged a mobile public reading event, meandering around the town of San Luis Obispo, CA with The Reading Chair, and a group of folks reading a variety of stories, poems and tales. The group has planned Typing in Public to take place tomorrow (May 15, 2010), in the same little town. The event is primarily focused on people writing on typewriters around town, but people can also share comments via Twitter, Flickr, or texting the event coordinators. To spark some inspiration, the group has received submissions from a variety of people, including Gerald Casale for Devo, Paul Frommer writing in Na'vi (with translation to English), Dr. James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus, University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, writing on the library as the poster child of the it revolution, and plenty more. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:35 PM PST - 8 comments

Six Simple Ways to Fix Wall Street. "Elements of our Six Simple Steps are in the pending legislation. If they're part of what's adopted, we may get true and lasting reform. If they're not, it won't be long before Wall Street is back to business -- and bailouts -- as usual."
posted by storybored at 12:18 PM PST - 43 comments

"In order for somebody to understand something, belief is a necessary precondition." On Descartes vs. Spinoza, the necessity of the suspension of disbelief to the creation of belief, the rarity of skepticism and the myths we refuse to stop telling ourselves. Finance blogger Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns uses an essay by analyst by analyst James Montier citing the work of Daniel Gilbert to ponder whether we are doomed to be destroyed by distraction, and suggests that " financial calamity and economic collapse are really the only way" to destroy the Efficient Markets Hypothosis.
posted by Diablevert at 12:02 PM PST - 17 comments

After twenty years on the air, NBC has canceled the original Law & Order. The show didn't quite surpass Gunsmoke as the longest running prime time drama in history, although they most likely went through more regular characters and guest stars. The spin-offs Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent will continue. A new show, Law & Order: Los Angeles is set to disappoint us in the fall.
posted by HumanComplex at 11:26 AM PST - 179 comments

Terence Tao, former child math prodigy and 2006 Fields Medalist, recently admitted that he only got 4 out of these 5 basic math questions right. Can you do better? [more inside]
posted by DU at 10:32 AM PST - 154 comments

Find the Angry Video Game Nerd a bit obnoxious? Hey Ash, What'cha Playin', AKA HAWP, may be more your speed as far as video game comedy series go. See a pair of siblings (and sometimes their dad) take on games such as Trauma Center, Animal Crossing, text adventures, Persona 3, the best overlooked games, Professor Layton, Sleep is Death, and more.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:57 AM PST - 58 comments

Amari's video for their song Tiger is a voyage through some vintage 80's scifi.
posted by euphorb at 9:18 AM PST - 22 comments

The 11th annual NYC Commuter Race -- starring Al Roker on a bike, Meredith Vieira in a car, and Matt Lauer taking mass transit, each traveling from 72nd and Broadway to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The event (previously on MeFi) is organized by Transportation Alternatives.
posted by hermitosis at 9:16 AM PST - 65 comments

Barring the need for STS-335 and any potential extension to the program, today's 2:30 EST scheduled launch of OV-104 Atlantis on STS-132 (pdf) will be her 32nd and final trip to space. She's had a good run (gratuitous launch vid).
posted by cloax at 8:59 AM PST - 57 comments

I had never heard of Dustin Shuler before today. So, this is not an obit post, even if I learned about his death at the same time I discovered his art in this nytimes article. So I visited his website. Although his work has been dismissed as "derivative", there is only one word to describe an artist who has created "Destruction of the Nightmare Towers" in 1977 and "Death of an era" in 1980: visionary.
posted by bru at 8:36 AM PST - 23 comments

To push through even one more victory on the order of healthcare, Obama will have to give up the posture of mediator that comes naturally to him. He will have to admit in his political practice that there are parties; that he is the leader of a party; that there is a worse and a better cause; that it feels like a fight because it really is a fight. This does not mean just the adoption of a new set of tactics. It will require almost the emergence of a new character.
posted by gerryblog at 8:21 AM PST - 60 comments

Online Talk, Suicides and a Thorny Court Case A Minnesota nurse named William Mechert-Dinkel is charged with aiding in the suicides of a woman in Canada and a man in the UK. He assumed the name Li Do and trolled online for depressed people to encourage in (ultimately one way) suicide pacts. Caught in part by the efforts of a concerned retiree in the UK, his case brings up issues of not just jurisdiction but also of free speech. Somewhat related and previously.
posted by availablelight at 7:52 AM PST - 38 comments

Jane Graham in the Guardian on the new wave of fan films, with links to notable examples. "... fan films have come a long way from two fat blokes with beards running through a forest waving pound-shop light sabres."
posted by nthdegx at 7:41 AM PST - 11 comments

If you buy it, people will come. The property from the movie The Field of Dreams is for sale. You could own a 193 acre farm, along with a baseball field, and a tourist destination that gets approximately 65,000 visitors annually. The current owners even have permission from Universal to sell memorabilia. Along with ownership of the property comes ownership of the Field of Dreams site. The asking price is $5.4 million. via.
posted by bove at 7:39 AM PST - 38 comments

50 Greatest Samples in Hip-Hop History with full original tracks. (via)
posted by gwint at 7:26 AM PST - 51 comments

'The Conversations is a monthly feature in which Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard discuss a wide range of cinematic subjects: critical analyses of films, filmmaker overviews, and more. Readers should expect to encounter spoilers.' Including: Passion of the Christ vs. The Last Temptation of Christ, Mulholland Dr., Pixar, and others.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:25 AM PST - 10 comments

The First Great Radio Hoax: London, January 16, 1926 Twelve years BEFORE Orson Welles’ infamous War of the Worlds hoax, BBC radio put out a fake news programme of its own. Ronald Knox’s Broadcasting the Barricades convinced thousands of British listeners that London had been attacked by Communist rioters, Big Ben flattened by mortars, the Savoy Hotel bombed to rubble and a Government minister lynched in the street. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by seanyboy at 6:48 AM PST - 10 comments

[FlashFridayFilter] Ski Stunt Simulator [more inside]
posted by Aizkolari at 5:54 AM PST - 7 comments

Friday Flash Fun Ashes 2 Ashes - Zombie Cricket
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:45 AM PST - 11 comments

Friday Flash Fun: Cursed Treasure (Don't Touch My Gems) is a tower defense game with a twist. This time YOU are the evil overlord trying to prevent the heroic armies from stealing your gems. Fight off rogues, warriors, knights, mages, ninjas and priest with a level-up skill tree system that lets you command orcs, demons and the undead.
posted by ShawnStruck at 12:00 AM PST - 37 comments

A short photo story about how a version of this image ended up as the 91st and final cover design of the book, Information is Beautiful. See all 91 covers in chronological order. [via]
posted by mlis at 10:41 PM PST - 16 comments

September 9th, 2011. Mark it on your calendars. Experts say that this will be the day that the last bunch of IPs is given out to ISPs. "...the net's entire existing address space will be exhausted about a year after that date.". [more inside]
posted by battlebison at 9:36 PM PST - 64 comments

Cul-de-sac is a new independent film (trailer, briefly NSFW) by London-based directors Ramin Goudarzi Nejad & Mahshad Torkan. It tells the story of Kiana Firouz, a filmmaker, actress, and lesbian activist who fled Iran after authorities learned of her attempt to make an underground documentary about the lives of Iranian gays and lesbians. According to this interview, Firouz didn't write the film, but plays herself. Earlier this month, her asylum petition was allegedly denied. The denial shouldn't have been surprising according to statistics in a report (pdf) by the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, which states that the refusal rate for lesbians and gay men is as high as 98-99%. Although the Home Office claims it takes the sexual orientation of asylum seekers into consideration, laws which permit deportation of gay and lesbian asylum seekers have recently been challenged in the supreme court.
posted by treepour at 9:06 PM PST - 9 comments

"You know there's a perfectly good brisket back at the house we could be eating instead, Jo Ann?" One of what I can only imagine is the very small number of people to appear on both Wikipedia's list of "self-described messiahs" and its list of "restaurateurs," Supreme Master Ching Hai is known for the Quan Yin Method as well as the Loving Hut chain of vegan restaurants.
Apparently the latter serve some pretty tasty cuisine.
Previously on Metafilter.
posted by Neofelis at 8:56 PM PST - 25 comments

Gomer Pyle In Love (hat tip to kattullus )
posted by The Whelk at 8:50 PM PST - 12 comments

Infographic: Food spending in the biggest U.S. cities. Austin, TX is living large. Detroit, MI must be losing weight.
posted by jjray at 8:37 PM PST - 33 comments

In an attempt to correct a surprisingly common myth, the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy created Have Sex Standing Up *, a website dedicated to eradicating this particular misconception. They made a pretty great PSA. Via The Sexist.
posted by NoraReed at 8:28 PM PST - 48 comments

In early 1934, about a dozen of America's leading writers and critics - William Faulkner, John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, Edmund Wilson, Thorton Wilder, etc. - answered the question: What are some “Good Books That Almost Nobody Has Read”? [Via the always interesting Neglected Books Page]
posted by stbalbach at 8:08 PM PST - 24 comments

Instants! Fun is a smorgasbord of single-serving-site sounds, a central web collector of effects, clips and quotes, starting with the daddy of them all (previously), INSTANT RIMSHOT! (called BADUMTSS! here to put it first in the alphabetical arrangement) and including most of the sounds featured here, and more! (via) [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:26 PM PST - 16 comments

Considered by many to be perhaps the worst film ever made, Troll 2 (wiki) has resulted in a cult following 20 years after the film's release, and now features as the subject of a new documentary: Best Worst Movie.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 7:15 PM PST - 69 comments

But if we want to dig a little deeper and discover the roots of what he have been calling the art punk, new wave, synth punk scene, we should go to the west coast circa 1981 with Voice Farm -- Alien Welcome: Are You Ready To Enter The Portal?: Lost Adults: Modern Things or perhaps some spiky, sparky Nervous Gender. But then it would behoove us to move on to the late '70s when The Screamers were basically inventing the entire genre of synth-punk with each new performance -- Punish or be Damned: and here, Tomata du Plenty looking like Martin Rev's evil electric twin doing Vertigo: a demo : and Eva Braun.
posted by puny human at 7:11 PM PST - 5 comments

Dirty Old Women is an attempt to figure out why older female teachers sleep with younger boys. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 6:22 PM PST - 92 comments

The translated rarities at Virgil.org include the first biography of Virgil, medieval Aenid fan-fiction, and the poet's recipe for cheese dip. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 6:19 PM PST - 8 comments

The “LSER” is a response to longstanding requests from subscription holders for a faster mode of self-ejection from the concert hall...The LSER will be a particularly comforting addition to the concert-going experience for patrons anxious about contemporary music, as in the case next month when music director Alan Gilbert will present “Le Grand Macabre” by the twentieth century master György Ligeti.

NY Philharmonic to install new Speedy Exit Ramp. via Hell Mouth, the blog of John Adams. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:41 PM PST - 22 comments

Before David Koresh, there was simply "Koresh." Cyrus Reed Teed was an eclectic physician from New York who experienced a "divine illumination" (Google Books) in 1869. He recruited over 200 followers to settle a utopian commune in Estero, Florida based on his revelation of a unique hollow-earth theory called the Cellular Cosomogony. Elaborate experiments showed conclusive "proof" that the world's surface was a concave sphere. Despite this, his movement failed to gain traction; relations grew increasingly strained between the Koreshans and the Lee County locals. In 1906, the aging Dr. Teed was severely beaten in a Ft. Myers street brawl (PDF, see pp. 12-14) and died from his injuries on December 22, 1908. His martyrdom sealed, the Koreshans refused to bury the remains (PDF) in the belief that their messiah would be resurrected on Christmas Day. The commune has been preserved as a state historic site where Floridians can learn more about the cult leader in their backyard. [more inside]
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 3:51 PM PST - 14 comments

French website Le Cargo has a long-running series of live performance videos by alternative musicians, all of which can be watched on their YouTube channel. Here are a few that I liked: Erin McKeown - Put the Fun Back in the Funeral, Kings of Convenience - Mrs. Cold, Soltero - I'll Be a Writer, The Concretes - Military Madness, My Brightest Diamond - Be My Husband, Jose Gonzalez - The Nest, Jaymay - Lonely Men Build Lonely Cities, Vic Chestnutt - Supernatural, Metric - Gimme Sympathy, Françoiz Breut - Les jeunes pousses, Bowerbirds - Moonshiner, Joseph Arthur - A Smile That Explodes, Lambchop - You're a Big Girl Now, Alela Diane - The Rifle, Ane Brun - The Puzzle, Matt Elliott - Broken Bones and Fredo Viola - Sad Song. There are roughly 600 more videos.
posted by Kattullus at 3:16 PM PST - 6 comments

Looking for literary superheroes? Behold the awesome powers of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne! (SLYT)
posted by GatorDavid at 2:07 PM PST - 37 comments

Casey James Basichis comments on his score for the Adventure Time episode "Ricardio the Heart Guy". [more inside]
posted by Monstrous Moonshine at 1:32 PM PST - 4 comments

Since its first printing in 1964, Abramowitz and Stegun's Handbook of Mathematical Functions has been a standard (and public domain) reference manual for special functions and applied mathematics. This week, NIST released its successor, the Digital Library of Mathematical Functions, online to the public.
posted by Upton O'Good at 1:31 PM PST - 29 comments

Airventure 2009. A highlights clip from last year's AirVenture air show, also known as Oshkosh. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 12:51 PM PST - 13 comments

Halation can interfere with your brain making out the shapes of distorted words, such as on passing highway signs. Banned from advertising in F1 racing, a major tobacco company that sponsors a team came up with a novel design solution that may play on this visual effect to an opposite, suggestive effect, depending on the observer. European officials were not amused, going so far as to call the design "subliminal". Ferrari responded by removing traces of the design from its cars. Judas Priest could not be reached for comment. [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:19 PM PST - 49 comments

Adobe's Latest PR Campaign should bring comfort to those who fear Adobe pulling products from the Mac, given that Adobe loves Apple, and have said so today publicly. [more inside]
posted by juiceCake at 12:03 PM PST - 112 comments

A man in East Austin, Tx was removed from his home after it was discovered that he had been digging bunkers under his home, some which were 35ft at the deepest, and included two sub-levels tall enough for adults to stand in comfortably. Though his motives are unknown, many handguns and rifles were also removed from the home, and he as been very cooperative with city investigators.
posted by fontophilic at 11:40 AM PST - 124 comments

"In the African jungle, conservationist Damian Aspinall (of the Aspinall Foundation) searches for Kwibi, a lowland gorilla he hasn't seen for 5 years. Kwibi grew up with Damian at his Howletts Wild Animal Park in England. When he was five, he was released into the forests of Gabon, West Africa as part of a conservation programme to re-introduce gorillas back into the wild. Now Kwibi's 10 years old, much bigger and stronger." This is their reunion. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 11:30 AM PST - 57 comments

Best of History Web Sites (from EdTechTeacher,) is a resource of annotated and rated-by-content links to over 1200 history web sites across a broad range of related topics. The site also offers links of special interest to educators: hundreds of K-12 lesson plans, teacher guides, activities, games and quizzes and more.
posted by zarq at 10:19 AM PST - 11 comments

"The road looks empty, but it is sprinkled with massive centipedes, tarantulas, and the occasional unicyclist." People on unicycles have plans, man. When not riding seriously long distances across America, they ride a few hundred miles for cancer cures. They ride shorter distances playing musical instruments. And perhaps they'll get to ride the Segway of unicycles, the UX-3.
posted by cashman at 9:59 AM PST - 29 comments

With 5 million square feet of leased warehouse, light-industry, and office space, and a network of more than two miles of rail lines and six miles of roads, SubTropolis is the world’s largest underground business complex. [more inside]
posted by echo target at 9:16 AM PST - 17 comments

Project Iceworm was part of an investigation into the feasibility of storing nuclear missiles under Greenland's ice sheet, in the event that the Cold War turned Hot. In 1960 the US Air Force took it upon themselves to bury a city, called "Camp Century" in the ice sheet, and see how life went there. There's an excellent documentary (parts 2, 3, 4) on YouTube about its construction and installation of various facilities, including the first portable modular nuclear power plant. [more inside]
posted by Xoder at 8:53 AM PST - 16 comments

Bigtime expedition caving in 1980s Mexico A very high-quality 35-minute video about long-term, multi-expedition efforts to connect several large cave systems in southeastern Mexico. Lots of diving and climbing, and some very nice formations. No bats or insanity (unless you think cave diving is crazy). [more inside]
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:03 AM PST - 7 comments

Sex, Lies, and Splitting Up. "The function of the wakaresase-ya is the direct opposite of a dating agency: with great ingenuity, and the right fee, they will prise apart human relationships." How? Through sex and entrapment, apparently. [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 7:55 AM PST - 63 comments

The BP / Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill (previously): The Big Picture presents it. The New York Times is tracking it day-by-day. BBC places it in context of the 10 worst offshore oil spills on record. Visual Economics presents it in an infographic. Alternet covers the 7 stupidest statements made about it.
posted by tybeet at 6:06 AM PST - 213 comments

Value engineering (also known as Value Analysis) is an approach to cost-effective product development that seems to have had its heyday in the developed world. However, as this recent student project "Value Engineering Project (Tata Nano)" seems to show, it is still popular in the developing world. Comparing this definition of Carlos Ghosn's now famous phrase "Frugal Engineering" with VE's seems to imply "new name; same approach" - understandable since Tata are the leading lights of the Indian Value Engineering society. Is it time for a global revival of interest?
posted by infini at 5:55 AM PST - 9 comments

Who would have thought it? The UK has withdrawn the 500 Euro note after an investigation by SOCA discovered that 90% of the notes in circulation were linked to crime. Nicknames the ‘Bin Laden’ (you know its out there somewhere) the purple note worth $630 is a favourite of the criminally minded due to its ultra-portability and acceptance throughout mainland Europe. Drug investigations in Latin America time and time again turn up large amounts of currency in this form. According to Columbian financial regulators 234K Euros was legally imported and declared into the country but trails of 600M Euros being exported were discovered. Whilst money laundering and fraud relating to the Euro is nothing new the decision to put into circulation such a high note must now be being questioned at the highest levels.
posted by numberstation at 3:16 AM PST - 95 comments

Larry King questions Stephen Hawking's recent argument - that we should not try to talk to aliens - and other matters extraterrestrial with the physicist Michio Kaku, Seth Shostak of SETI, the science fiction writer and astronomer David Brin and the actor Dan Aykroyd (1, 2, 3) (Previous, previous)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:31 AM PST - 119 comments

Doris Eaton Travis, the last Ziegfeld Girl, has passed away at age 106. One of the last living links to the time of vaudeville and theatrical revues, Travis premiered the song Singin' in the Rain. She performed with the likes of Al Jolson and Irving Berlin, and hobnobbed with Babe Ruth and Henry Ford. Her career as a performer and entertainer lasted nearly 100 years... [more inside]
posted by Esteemed Offendi at 8:30 PM PST - 26 comments

Free speech radio. Forty years ago today the KKK bombed KPFT a Pacifica radio station a mere two months after they went on the air. They rebuilt and were bombed again during a rendition of Alice's Restaurant. The hatred of speech continues, but then so does the station and the network. [more inside]
posted by caddis at 7:12 PM PST - 14 comments

Come with me to Sierra Leone and listen to the hot Bubu of Janka Nabay -- Eh Congo, and then back to the '70s with Kaibara City, featuring; Super Combo Kings: Blind Musical Flames: Sabanoh 75 - Konko: Me Nar Poor Old Man Nor Do Me So - Ebenezar Calendar. Many more.
posted by puny human at 6:33 PM PST - 6 comments

"The Tea Party Jacobins" is one of the better insights into the weirdness driving populist politics in America (and elsewhere) today. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 6:24 PM PST - 50 comments

HTML5 For Drunks
Bonus Link: A brief history of markup
posted by Artw at 6:22 PM PST - 41 comments

Animated Album Covers featuring iconic images from The Beat les, David Bowie, The Clash, Pink Floyd (semi-related: The Dark Side of the Moon in real life) and more...
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:15 PM PST - 10 comments

If politicians were mathematicians. "I would like to suggest two systems for parliamentary votes, one that would weaken the party system but without killing it off entirely, and one that would protect large minorities. Neither has the slightest chance of being adopted, because they are both too complicated to be taken seriously. But mathematicians wouldn’t find them complicated at all — hence the title of this post." Fields medalist Tim Gowers messes around with political axioms.
posted by escabeche at 6:00 PM PST - 18 comments

Leaf blowers emit 34 times the hydrocarbons of a typical automobile per hour of operation. Fumes are compounded by noise. Cities from New York to California are banning them. Seems a straight forward issue, but what about time and money?
posted by mikoroshi at 3:34 PM PST - 129 comments

The strongest visual birth control on the market today.
posted by ottereroticist at 2:12 PM PST - 161 comments

Bad Hotel - a FlashMob direct action for San Francisco hotel workers' right to health care by Pride At Work, Sleep With The Right People, and the Brass Liberation Orchestra. [more inside]
posted by koeselitz at 2:11 PM PST - 46 comments

Home Depot was having an issue with employees cutting their fingers off while sawing wood for customers. Michael Powell invented a safety device that Home Depot then copied without Powell's permission. Today, Powell won a $25 million judgment in federal court. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 1:32 PM PST - 138 comments

Guido's Python: Introduction is part of a series by Yaniv Aknin which seeks to look at the programming language through the eyes of Guido van Rossum, author of the language (and mentioned previously). [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 1:14 PM PST - 67 comments

Steam, the hugely popular online videogame distribution network, is now available for the Mac. MeFi favorite Portal is also free via the service (both Mac and PC) until the 24th. (previously)
posted by mkultra at 12:51 PM PST - 246 comments

7 year olds perform dazzling dance routine to Beyonce's "Single Ladies." (SLYT)
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:29 PM PST - 227 comments

Bone - What Could Have Been. Animator Andrew Kaiko creates a few seconds of a hypothetical Bone movie using hand-drawn Flash animation and voices from the TellTale video games. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 11:00 AM PST - 15 comments

We've already discussed the death of a University of Virginia Lacrosse player, allegedly killed by her boyfriend. Now, UVa President John Casteen (statements on the murder 1, 2, 3, 4) wants greater access to student arrest records in the hopes that it will help prevent violence on campus.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:09 AM PST - 23 comments

For Sale: Rural Italian countryside, Priced to MOVE! A landslide (mud flow?) splits a hillside apart in the southern Italian town of Maierato.
posted by thisisdrew at 10:05 AM PST - 23 comments

Reconnaissance will outlive the U-2, but there will always be a divot in the hearts of those who have seen the curvature of the earth, the stars seemingly close enough to touch, and known the satisfaction of having completed a mission with the Dragon Lady. Former U-2 pilot and military correspondent Cholene Espinoza writes a lovely adieu to these beautiful, difficult-to-fly aircraft, as well as a requiem for the era of human pilots for surveillance, giving way now to UAVs and other remote-control drones. The U-2 is, amazingly, still in service, but apparently soon to be grounded -- or not -- half-a-century after Francis Gary Powers' little Cold War incident. [Previously]
posted by chavenet at 8:10 AM PST - 34 comments

Atkins was right?! According to a meta-study of nearly 350,000 people, "there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of (heart disease) or (vascular disease)... However, replacement with a higher carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate, can exacerbate ... insulin resistance and obesity that includes increased triglycerides, small LDL particles, and reduced HDL cholesterol. Dietary efforts to improve ... (cardiovascular disease) risk ... should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intakes and (losing weight)." [more inside]
posted by markkraft at 2:37 AM PST - 188 comments

"My new bank, Ally Bank, configures a security question and answer for customer service calls. In addition to your SSN, date of birth, and mother's maiden name they also ask you the question you specify and wait for the answer you've provided. A real live human operator always asks the question and waits for a real live answer. This measure has the potential to not just improve my account security but add entertainment value as well."
posted by Ljubljana at 12:55 AM PST - 131 comments

The Wolverine ABC
posted by Artw at 6:05 PM PST - 48 comments

Obscure, overlooked, early '80s new wave/electro/artpunk. JOHN FEKNER CITY SQUAD: Player on left. Try 2 4 5 7 9 11. Or better just listen to them all. Eighties synth wave doesn't get much better than this. Sound collage at the next level. Throbbing synths + icy guitar: Beautiful Skin - Harsh distraction. Gods of psychedelic coldwave, Lives of Angels (Gallis Pole). Trees: Sleep Convention. And Necropolis of Love (yes, that is how we danced in the eighties).
posted by puny human at 5:59 PM PST - 13 comments

Tzvia Greenfield is the first ultra-Orthodox woman to serve in Knesset, the Israeli legislature, representing the left-wing party Meretz. Her 2001 book Hem Mefahadim ("They are afraid,") an attack on rightism and insularity among the ultra-Orthodox, drew death threats. Despite her sharp criticism of the religious community ("The big issue here is a very delicate one. That is children. Large families thirty years ago was six children; now there's 13 or 14 - from one wife. I believes the glorification of bringing as many children as possible is a definite way of ensuring women can't bring their advantages into effect - subjugation.") she still lives an observant life in the ultra-Orthodox community of Har Nof. "They disagree with my ideas but they know me as religious and halachic person. They cannot see any blemish in my practice except for one thing- we have a dog." At least one haredi denies that Greenfield is Orthodox at all. (The dog comes up.)
posted by escabeche at 5:50 PM PST - 56 comments

"Starting Friday, Walgreens' shoppers can buy an over-the-counter genetics test from Pathway Genomics at 7,500 stores across the country. Priced at $20 to $30, the kit claims to offer information on users' possibility of developing conditions like Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, or diabetes. Access to the scientific analysis online, however, costs another $79 to $179"* [video | 02:31]. "But doctors and geneticists fear the worst for this new over-the-counter access to genetic testing. With no physician to interpret the results of the test, and no FDA regulation of how results are processed or delivered, there is the potential for consumers to misinterpret what their risk really means for their health and their lifestyle."* [more inside]
posted by ericb at 5:25 PM PST - 47 comments

David Bowie - the Playboy Interview, 1976 [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 5:09 PM PST - 42 comments

Fifty Extraordinary Churches
posted by minifigs at 3:48 PM PST - 55 comments

More than 30 years after it was written, the Pentagon has released a memorandum detailing its involvement in the CIA’s infamous Cold War mind-control experiments. The entire document, as linked to in the article, is available as a pdf.
posted by gman at 3:13 PM PST - 18 comments

"i accept the fact that i am GUILTY… and will not hesitate to be prosecuted when the law catch up with me… and i know my God will forgive because i pray to him to replenish the pockets of my clients with double of whatever they loss" Mike Nash has a surprisingly frank chat with a 419 scammer.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 3:03 PM PST - 23 comments

Given the news that Joe Biden's son Beau had a mild stroke today, perhaps it would be helpful to know the warning sides. FAST was a series of public service announcements from the Massachusetts Department of Health. You could be a hero! HBCH!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:13 PM PST - 29 comments

He first made headlines during the 2008 Presidential election as an electric (but polarizing) third party candidate. Though some considered him a marginal, fringe voice representing the worst of today's far-right wing, it looks like Joad Cressbeckler will be having the last laugh. Today ONN announced that he will be joining their nightly lineup with his own prime-time show The Cressbeckler Stance.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:01 PM PST - 19 comments

Following days of uncertainty not witnessed since 1974, David Cameron makes a hasty entrance to 10 Downing Street, an hour or so after Gordon Brown made a surprisingly hasty exit. [more inside]
posted by idiomatika at 1:59 PM PST - 207 comments

We've seen volcanic eruptions with lightning, heard the musical styles blending modern electro with the (samoan) sasa, and had a few snowclones of the phrasal play from Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (a quick way to tag often unnecessary sequels; exhibits: A, B, C, D, and E), but no sign of the originals. Without further ado, I present The Electric Boogaloos. Float and glide on in for more. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:32 PM PST - 15 comments

Although they admit a mutual fondness for a good burger and fries now and then, the President and First Lady Michelle Obama try to emphasize healthy eating at the White House. In 2009, the White House had its first vegetable garden since Eleanor Roosevelt’s World War II victory garden. This is quite a change to the meal President Eisenhower sat down to a little more than 50 years ago at the USDA's Beltsville Research Station. Eisenhower's own method of cooking a steak was not on the menu, as the showcase meal featured 22 “new and improved” foods, including modified milk containing increased nonfat milk solids and decreased butter, dehydrofrozen peas, orange juice reconstituted from a dehydrated powder, beef and pork grown with newly discovered hormones and antibiotics added, and “butter prepared, presumably, by the usual methods.” Our national conversation about food goes on and the White House will likely continue be at the center of it. Hopefully, we don’t end up with President Garfield's last meal as a White House canteen staple [recipe, including tip on getting rid of the “troublesome little bones.”] Bon Appetit!
posted by webhund at 12:23 PM PST - 34 comments

Conan@Google A 45 minute Q&A session Conan O'Brien at Google HQ. If thought the 60 minutes interview (previously) wasn't funny enough, this is definitely for you.
posted by delmoi at 10:24 AM PST - 67 comments

While folks ponder the nutritional value of the new KFC "double down" sandwich, around the world 1 billion people go to bed each day hungry, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (F.A.O.) (BTW, If you define hunger or malnourishment in a different way, 1 billion could be just the tip of the iceberg.) Today the F.A.O. asked those who find the world hunger situation to be outrageous to join with them and "blow the whistle" on this silent crisis. MIT's media lab helped them set up an online networking tool to track the global spread of this movement. Jeremy Irons is on on board... and mad as hell.
posted by Kneebiter at 9:44 AM PST - 66 comments

Surviving the Age of Humiliation. Jeffrey Zaslow: "It's no longer just celebrities and business executives who need to think about aggressive reputation-protection and face-saving techniques."
posted by The Mouthchew at 9:32 AM PST - 55 comments

Why Roger Ebert Hates 3-D (And You Should Too)
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:11 AM PST - 147 comments

Cocaine, The CIA, And The Unification Church: A History of Rev. Sun Myung Moon and The Washington's Times influence on Washington and South America by Robert Parry
posted by The Whelk at 9:04 AM PST - 14 comments

The ultimate GET OFF MY LAWN collection. Time magazine of all places brings the LOLZ with the ultimate Andy Rooney Top 10. What's a Lady Gaga?
posted by spicynuts at 7:35 AM PST - 92 comments

How to convert a SIM to a Micro SIM with a meat cleaver
posted by Dragonness at 7:16 AM PST - 44 comments

A Moment in Time: On April 8, the New York Times Lens photography blog asked their readers and students to take a photo at a particular date and time: Sunday, May 2, at approximately 15:00 (U.T.C./G.M.T.), then submit it for an upcoming interactive online gallery. 13,000 images were submitted, 10,000 have now been posted online. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 6:46 AM PST - 24 comments

Born in Big Sandy, Texas in 1874, Henry Thomas was one of the oldest black musician who ever recorded for the phonograph companies of the 1920′s and his music represents a rare opportunity to hear what American black folk music must have sounded like in the last decade of the 19th century. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:21 AM PST - 21 comments

The average human eye has three types of cone cells, each of which is sensitive to a different wavelength range of visible light. The difference in the relative signal from the three cones allows us to distinguish colors. Unfortunately, since these sensitivity ranges overlap, there are some combinations of signals from the cones that can't be created by light emitted from a real object. These are the so-called "imaginary colors". However, by selectively overstimulating one or more types of cone, we can still perceive these colors; this is the principle behind the Eclipse of Titan, an optical illusion which produces both a green and a cyan that don't otherwise appear in nature. (Similar effects can be seen in the Eclipses of Mars, Neptune, and Triton.) [more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good at 9:01 PM PST - 64 comments

Father and Son Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam
posted by HuronBob at 8:34 PM PST - 85 comments

In the wake of the release of Lucid Lynx, the latest version of Ubuntu ("Perfect", "Mactastic"), Canonical have unveiled Unity and Ubuntu Light, a new desktop environment and implementgation of Ubuntu aimed at the netbook and tablet market as well as offering an "instant web" experience that can either be stand-alone or on a dual booting device. Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth discusses the design process behind Unity. Ars Technica Hands on. (last two links via)
posted by Artw at 5:35 PM PST - 266 comments

THEORY, LITERATURE, HOAX (in the style of Borges)
posted by puny human at 5:22 PM PST - 35 comments

16 years after the end of apartheid in South Africa and one month before the first ever World Cup to be held in Africa begins, Raymond Whitaker writes about his memories of football (not rugby) in South Africa in the 60s and 70s. [more inside]
posted by WalterMitty at 3:42 PM PST - 3 comments

Autonomous Car Learns To Powerslide Into Parking Spot. via IEEE Spectrum.
posted by GuyZero at 2:50 PM PST - 51 comments

'GET OUT OF THERE!': The Video. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 2:30 PM PST - 34 comments

Kenny Strasser : YoYo Master
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 1:44 PM PST - 35 comments

Modesty Blaise was one of the greatest newspaper comics ever. Modesty was a take-no-prisoners adventuress. Easily one of the best drawn and scripted newspaper continuities.
posted by TDavis at 1:22 PM PST - 20 comments

Whatever Happened to N.W.A's Posse? L.A. Weekly tracks down the people featured on the cover of "N.W.A and the Posse."
posted by Mayor Curley at 1:13 PM PST - 43 comments

Frank Frazetta, was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1928. He rose to fame first for his work with comic books in the 1940s and 50s, then for his iconic fantasy art from the 1960s on. Frazetta was the inspiration behind Zelda artist Yusuke Nakano, and Frazetta's artwork for the "Famous Funnies" were an inspiration for Star Wars. Frank Frazetta died today, at the age of 82. More history, eulogies and links inside. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:05 PM PST - 85 comments

Bono and Bob Geldof worked in The Globe and Mail newsroom on Saturday to guest-edit a special edition of the paper on the future of Africa for today... Monday, May 10, in advance of the G8/G20 summit in Huntsville, Ontario, from June 25-27, 2010.
posted by netbros at 11:53 AM PST - 38 comments

During WWII Allied soldiers were taught how to smash jawbones while gouging eyes, crush windpipes and snap necks, and generally apply deadly force to the weakest, most vulnerable parts of the human anatomy in order to kill or disable the enemy quickly and efficiently. Current American military unarmed combat is heavily influenced by the popularity of mixed martial-arts and puts great emphasis on grappling with/controlling the enemy. Not a single neck-snapping technique is taught. Some current members of the military think that this is teaching our soldiers to die rather than kill the enemy, and that it would be better if our soldiers were taught to straight up kill the enemy rather than try to wrestle him to the ground while wearing 70+ pounds of gear. [more inside]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:55 AM PST - 117 comments

Thousands of people flee Somalia every year in rusty fishing boats. Here's a photo essay of one of those journeys. By the always-excellent Ed Ou.
posted by awenner at 10:17 AM PST - 17 comments

"A growing body of evidence suggests that humans have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life... Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone... [But] the sense of right and wrong that [babies] naturally possess diverges in important ways from what we adults would want it to be."
posted by AceRock at 9:58 AM PST - 85 comments

"We’re living in a disposable world. It’s just not worth it to repair things; it’s not worth it to build things from scratch. The magic of that seems to have passed.” The death of Radio Shack. [more inside]
posted by woodjockey at 9:50 AM PST - 122 comments

Last Wednesday, Hibernian and Motherwell played their penultimate game in the Scottish Premier League. It ended in a 6-6 draw, equalling the record for the highest score draw in the history of professional football. (YT highlights for those who can't get iPlayer.) [more inside]
posted by Dim Siawns at 8:58 AM PST - 26 comments

Joe Pop-O-Pie led his San Francisco punk band Pop-O-Pies through countless performances of the band's "hit", an idiosyncratic cover of the Grateful Dead's Truckin'. As the 1980's closed, Joe fell off the map while his other projects went mainstream, but last month the Pop-O-Pies reunited for one more Truckin' performance.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 8:44 AM PST - 15 comments

I'm just not sure that "happiness" is supposed to be the stable human condition, and I think it's punishing that we're constantly being pushed to achieve it. Screw Happiness, an essay on the folly of using happiness as a measure to define women's lives.
posted by desjardins at 8:18 AM PST - 82 comments

Science fiction and quantum mechanics on Rudy Rucker's blog.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:09 AM PST - 29 comments

"There was a hobbit, who didn't even know how to return home. He lived in a hole in the ground, and didn't know where he came from or where he was going to. He even didn't know why he had become a hobbit. This was Hogwartz School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 5th year apprentice Harry Potter. " 11 fake Harry Potter books from China.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:52 AM PST - 37 comments

The tree of Ténéré was the most isolated tree in the world. Standing there in the Sahara Desert, it had once been part of a lush and populated forest, but as fortunes changed and other trees disappeared, it stood alone in a barren desert, 120 miles from any other tree, an isolated landmark for caravan routes for hundreds for years (1, 2, 3, 4).
 
Until... [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:26 AM PST - 38 comments

Lena Horne dies at 92.
posted by iviken at 4:15 AM PST - 68 comments

MeetingWords is an online collaborative text editor. [more inside]
posted by mhjb at 12:14 AM PST - 17 comments

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. In a few hours, I will destroy the Greek economy. Unless, that is, you give me the sum of...one trillion dollars! (SLNYT, but with this much money I can afford to look frumpy)
posted by anigbrowl at 12:11 AM PST - 61 comments

The Inglehart Values Map , based on the World Values Survey, visualizes the strong correlation of values in different cultures. Countries are clustered in a remarkably predictable way, with great cultural continuity across the English-speaking world.
posted by ms.codex at 11:59 PM PST - 21 comments

Elena Kagan will be officially nominated to replace John Paul Stevens today, ending weeks of speculation and controversy as to who would replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice. Significant criticism has hounded Kagan throughout the nomination process, as she has never tried a case in court (much like Earl Warren). Many worry that her notable statements and writings do not provide a clear progressive record; some go so far as to claim she is Obama's Harriet Miers.
posted by mek at 10:25 PM PST - 178 comments

Salo has been discussed before here in the blue, but last week the Australian Classification Review Board determined that the DVD release can be classified R18+ (available, but with sale restricted to adults), if it includes 3 hours of additional material proposed by the potential distributor, Shock. In the decision, the Board notes that the additional material "facilitates wider consideration of the context of the film." While this decision is a win for anti-censorship campaigners and film buffs, it may not be the final chapter. The film has had a checkered history in Australia. The Board's media release is here (PDF).
posted by Artaud at 8:19 PM PST - 31 comments

Forclosure? This evening 60 Minutes did a segment on "walking away" from your underwater home... They featured a web site Youwalkaway.com (previously) which, this evening, is suffering from an overload of hits. Are we going to see an uptick in folks who have said enough...
posted by HuronBob at 5:48 PM PST - 129 comments

Too Much Horror Fiction: "Covering horror literature and its resplendent paperback cover art, mostly from the 1960s through the early 1990s. Mostly."
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:06 PM PST - 21 comments

Marble Hornets (previously) started out as Alex Kralie’s movie project. However after Alex became more paranoid the movie was aborted and he planned on burning the tapes. Jay (or "J") then convinced Alex to give him the raw footage instead. J began watching the tapes and noticing several odd things about them when suddenly things started happening to him.

After almost a year, the popular alternate reality game Marble Hornets has completed Part 1. (link to credits) [more inside]
posted by Deflagro at 5:02 PM PST - 41 comments

Precocious 14-year-old Alfie McKenzie writes an article for The Guardian on his Warholian 15 after voting in the UK General Election.
posted by Pranksome Quaine at 4:48 PM PST - 14 comments

Dallas Braden had a rough childhood. A problem child in the tough neighborhood of Stockton, California, he was raised by his mother and, after she died, his grandmother, both of whom he credits for turning his life around. Today, on Mother's Day, in front of a small home crowd and his grandmother, Dallas Braden pitched the 19th perfect game in Major League Baseball history and the second in as many years against the white-hot Tampa Bay Rays. This also happened to be 42 years and 1 day after the A's only other perfect game, by Catfish Hunter. [more inside]
posted by dirigibleman at 4:43 PM PST - 46 comments

dual n-back is a simple working memory game of unbounded difficulty. [more inside]
posted by melatonic at 2:30 PM PST - 31 comments

Less than 24 hours after it was opened, Detroit's $5M Bagley Avenue Pedestrian Bridge was vandalized. [more inside]
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:25 PM PST - 137 comments

Facebook's Gone Rogue; It's Time for an Open Alternative
[I]n December, with the help of newly hired Beltway privacy experts, it reneged on its privacy promises and made much of your profile information public by default. That includes the city that you live in, your name, your photo, the names of your friends and the causes you’ve signed onto. This spring Facebook took that even further. All the items you list as things you like must become public and linked to public profile pages. If you don’t want them linked and made public, then you don’t get them — though Facebook nicely hangs onto them in its database in order to let advertisers target you.
posted by mecran01 at 11:03 AM PST - 214 comments

Why Kindergarten children beat Business School graduates at finding solutions.
posted by gman at 10:51 AM PST - 26 comments

The Whatsisname Collection. A number of years ago there was a place called A&S Magazines on 40th Street behind the Port Authority, which sold used magazines. One week I went in there and they had this particular collection of magazines, boxes and boxes of them, which they were selling quite cheap, because they had all been defaced. A gentleman in Connecticut had been buying magazines - mostly men’s magazines - for several decades, from the forties to the early seventies - and deconstructing them. He would take them apart, and then he would make a new magazine from the remnants of several, arranging the pages to highlight certain stories and downplay others. He would staple the pages back into the cover, and then he would cross out whatever stories weren’t in his version with a wax pencil. Finally he would stamp his name on the cover and number the whole thing, presumably for his "library." Even though vintage, these oddly shaped, crude reassemblages really wouldn’t appeal to many people. Obviously I bought as many as I could. Michael Kupperman's Whatsisname Collection -- Part 1 // Part 2.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:27 AM PST - 15 comments

25 years after the siege at the MOVE house in Philadelphia ended with the police dropping a bomb on the house from a helicopter, killing 11 and destroying a city block, the Philadelphia Inquirer looks back on the events with contemporary footage and interviews with participants and those affected. The failure to rebuild adequately the houses that were devastated in the siege and fire remains an enduring scandal in Philadelphia.
posted by carter at 8:57 AM PST - 44 comments

Murder At UVA: George Huguely, Yeardley Love, And Lacrosse's Worst An Andrew Sharpe column with some personal analysis. Food for thought.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:37 AM PST - 30 comments

Morning. Before the world wants anything from her. When Five Fell is the beautiful short film about the five senses loving you back... from Wong Fu Productions. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 7:51 AM PST - 4 comments

Betty White hosts the mother of all Saturday Night Lives, Why I hate Mother's day, PostSecret: Mother's Day Secrets, Mother's day with no mother, Mr. T's Mother day message and a Mother's joy on learning her 15 month old daughter will get open heart surgery again.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:44 AM PST - 48 comments

Falling water controlled by microchips in Kyoto Station welcomes you using a technology similar to that used in inkjet printers. Here are some others. They are made by Koei Aquatec.
posted by Obscure Reference at 7:14 AM PST - 27 comments

Actress Kristin Chenoweth responds to a Newsweek article which focuses on her Promises, Promises costar Sean Hayes (who recently came out) as evidence that gay actors can't convincingly play straight.
posted by hermitosis at 5:52 AM PST - 126 comments

China is the new Dubai (when it comes to architecture)
posted by SamsFoster at 5:22 AM PST - 14 comments

When you think of African music, flutes may not be the first instruments that come to mind, but across West Africa there are some flute traditions that often involve a unique combination of vocalizing and blowing into the instrument, resulting in some amazing music that's a hella lotta fun to listen to. There are some nice examples on YouTube here, here, here and here.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:09 AM PST - 16 comments

The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program (led by Bruce Katz) has just released its The State of Metropolitan America report (full pdf). The report builds on eight years of the Census Bureau’s American Community Surveys; and includes a spiffy State of Metropolitan America Indicator Map of changes in population indicators at state, metropolitan, and suburban levels.160;160; Some interesting findings:

• America's suburbs are now more likely to be home to minorities, the poor and a rapidly growing older population as many younger, educated whites move to cities for jobs and shorter commutes.
• Two-thirds of primary cities in large metropolitan areas grew from 2000 to 2008
• For the first time in several decades, the population is growing at a faster rate than households, due to delays in marriage, divorce and births as well as longer life spans. People living alone and nonmarried couple families are among the fastest-growing in suburbs.
  

[more inside]
posted by stratastar at 10:51 PM PST - 12 comments

The Sphere of Mercury's Mathematician and other thrilling randomly generated retro pulp Sci-Fi titles are available to you now from the Random Pulp Sci-Fi Title-O-Tron!
posted by jjray at 10:40 PM PST - 21 comments

Renaissance Fair(e)s are fun(ny). All's Faire is a web comedy series about the fictional Southeastern Delaware Renaissance Faire and its actors/employees. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 8:56 PM PST - 28 comments

Pamela's Prayer: This heartfelt motion picture presents the highest standard of purity before marriage. Remember, a kiss isn't something you should just give away!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:45 PM PST - 58 comments

Here kitties kitties. [more inside]
posted by vapidave at 8:37 PM PST - 19 comments

BBC World Service has over 500 audio documentaries you can download. The subject matter is incredibly wide ranging, for example, internet cafés, the influence of Islamic art on William Morris, South African female AIDS activist Thembi Ngubane, Yiddish, the importance of cows, novelist Chinua Achebe, financial risk management, Obama as an intellectual, the physical and emotional effects of a car crash and many, many more. If the quantity and variety are overwhelming, you can subscribe to a podcast, which delivers a new documentary to you every single day.
posted by Kattullus at 5:33 PM PST - 21 comments

Zoological Mother's Day
posted by terrirodriguez at 4:48 PM PST - 4 comments

Greetings, Programs! This is enough to make the hearts of every sci-fi geek everywhere go pitter and patter (yes and no, like a bit!). Space Paranoids was "invented" by a young programmer named Kevin Flynn back in 1982. Now it's finally come to life! [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 4:37 PM PST - 18 comments

A Mind in the Water: The dolphin as our beast of burden. "The shocking double life of the dolphin, featuring neuropsychologists, hippies, spies, and extraterrestrials."
posted by homunculus at 3:24 PM PST - 21 comments

Everybody Edits is a fun Flash game where everyone edits the world and plays in it together.
posted by sveskemus at 2:16 PM PST - 161 comments

Is a Woman's MBA Worth Less? $4,600. That's how much less women made than men in their first post-MBA jobs, according to research by Nancy Carter and Christine Silva of Catalyst. And it's not because women tend to start at lower positions than men — though they do start at lower positions than men, on average, that's a separate problem. The research controls for job level and industry. What's more, the salary lines aren't parallel; men's salaries start higher, then rise faster. The gap widens over time, even after controlling for factors like having children or differing aspiration levels. The pay just isn't equal.
posted by infini at 1:23 PM PST - 94 comments

C.W. Roberts Contracting in Florida has come up with a simple and inexpensive method to remove crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico. [more inside]
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:32 PM PST - 45 comments

"At the end of March 2010, I found out that I was apparently a central figure in a conspiracy theory regarding aliens and a government cover up." David Levine's Contact Project was an early web game (1995!) in which message forum members would collaborate to translate increasingly elaborate "extraterrestrial" messages. What Levine didn't expect was that, over the course of several years, a convoluted conspiracy theory would spring up around the Contact Project based on the notion that Levine actually received transmissions from Tau Ceti, and lied to cover it up! (via gameshelf)
posted by speicus at 11:31 AM PST - 13 comments

Following Steve Eley stepping down as editor of Escape Pod, the first and probably most popular science fiction podcast magazine, Mur Laffety has taken up the reins. Probably best known for I Should Be Writing, a podcast for wanna-be fiction writers, Mur also currently hosts Tor.com's fiction podcast.
posted by Artw at 11:08 AM PST - 24 comments

Yoshida-ryo: Dilapidated, decrepit and downright dirty. A photo essay about a Kyoto University dormitory first built in 1913 that still houses student squatters for the ultra low price of ¥2,500 (about USD$25) a month. No wonder it looks like this [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 10:36 AM PST - 34 comments

"What would be it like to go a day without spending any money? I've thought about this before but I've never considered actually trying it. I couldn't imagine going a day without spending a single penny -- is that even possible? How would I get from A to B? What about food? Turns out, a day of living expense free is possible and you'd be surprised by the overwhelming sense of satisfaction and feeling of elation that comes from it. " The Huffington Post's Alexa van Tobel tells the astonishing and empowering tale of How I Went 24 Hours Without Spending Any Money...In New York City. Unfortunately, "this experiment is unsustainable for a long period of time."
posted by Legomancer at 10:04 AM PST - 147 comments

The Fundamentals of Bodyweight Strength Training. [more inside]
posted by jason's_planet at 9:58 AM PST - 23 comments

"High pressures? You had better believe it. And in this case, Mother Nature won." Absolutely fascinating analysis of both the hazards of deepwater drilling and what happened to the Transocean Horizon rig that sank in the Gulf of Mexico. A first hand interview from one of the survivors, and discussions about drilling, safety and the equipment involved. [more inside]
posted by tgrundke at 7:30 AM PST - 49 comments

"Imagine what it must feel like never to have known gentle touch, and then to have someone hold your hand, stroke your arm, run their fingers through your hair. It's a profound experience. Often, clients cry." Inside the world of sex surrogates. [more inside]
posted by AugieAugustus at 6:44 AM PST - 64 comments

There may be more ways to shelve your books than there are books.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:36 AM PST - 49 comments

Most people don't realize that Betty White was awesome nearly 60 years ago. In 1952, she was already TV's first female talk show host, and she became the first woman on TV to star AND co-produce her own sitcom (without being married to one of the other producers), "Life With Elizabeth", and the show is (IMO) a Lost Classic. (less lost now, with the help of YouTube; MLYT follows...) [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:48 AM PST - 24 comments

Liquid Mountaineering is a new sport (or viral hoax) that these guys are purporting will be the next big thing. [more inside]
posted by disillusioned at 10:38 PM PST - 70 comments

Jim's Pancakes are elaborate, multi-colored, and structural. Who here likes pancakes? I love pancakes.
posted by jjray at 10:34 PM PST - 36 comments

David Milch, creator of Deadwood, John From Cincinnati, and NYPD Blue reads from Luck, his Michael Mann-directed upcoming show for HBO. Following the reading there's a Q&A. (mp3)
posted by dobbs at 10:06 PM PST - 26 comments

She rides a Raleigh Twenty. [more inside]
posted by lapsangsouchong at 9:14 PM PST - 15 comments

Requiem for Detroit? - Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 [more inside]
posted by azarbayejani at 6:42 PM PST - 55 comments

So, there's a Japanese artistic concept called a Thomasson. In short, they are "defunct and useless objects, attached to someone's property and aesthetically maintained." But a more nuanced explanation involves artist Akasegawa Genpei, baseball player Gary Thomasson, and a whole generation of Japanese kids who wandered around Tokyo, looking for architectural abnormalities. Now that the book has found its way to English, American readers are submitting some pretty fascinating discoveries of their own . [more inside]
posted by zonkers at 5:15 PM PST - 46 comments

Rosie Hardy is a 19 year-old photographer from Derbyshire, UK. Having first got into photography at age 16, she built a large following on flickr. She detailed her romance and ultimate breakup with another photographer through her photos. As early as 2008 there was suspicion that her romance and photography skills were more than just raw talent, drawing comparisons between Rosie and Lonelygirl15. An MSNBC profile of her relationship raised questions about the veracity of her relationship with then-boyfriend Aaron Nace, who she moved to the US to be with before ultimately returning to England. She was accused of plagiarizing many of the concepts of her photos, for which she apologized. She has regular interactions with her fans and is still featured on photography websites.
posted by achmorrison at 3:42 PM PST - 49 comments

Don Knotts is The Love God?
posted by puny human at 3:23 PM PST - 28 comments

Is your sword having difficulty cutting through boots filled with meat? Then perhaps you need the Cold Steel Two Handed Great Sword. [via] Trouble getting through your opponent's cleverly designed chainmail (and some cardboard boxes)? What you need is the Cold Steel War Hammer. Pesky eggs hanging from strings hanging from a wooden frame got you down? There's a solution: the Cold Steel Indian War Club. More Cold Steel products/videos here. (All meats utilized in these videos carefully preserved and donated to the Ventura County Rescue Mission.)
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:54 PM PST - 107 comments

In 1916, Bone War veteran (and poet) Charles H. Sternberg loaded 22 crates of fossils from the Alberta Badlands onto the SS Mount Temple, intending to ship them to the British Museum of Natural History. They never made it. [via Dinosaur Tracking]
posted by brundlefly at 2:50 PM PST - 5 comments

Ferris Bueller is taking a day off. Follow him via Twitter and Foursquare. [more inside]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:46 PM PST - 24 comments

Want to earn tons of cool badges and prizes while competing with you friends to see who can be the best American? It's up to you to keep America safe! If you see something suspicious, Snap it! If you see someone who doesn't belong, Snap it! Not sure if someone or something is suspicious? Snap it anyway!
posted by boo_radley at 2:43 PM PST - 22 comments

Tepiiku is an original dice game (Flash) that will eat away your afternoon. [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 2:39 PM PST - 3 comments

We're the makers of Spam. We invented Kool-Aid, and this is where the first Reuben sandwich was made: Right Here in Nebraska. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by etc. at 1:42 PM PST - 31 comments

"if you see ken around the downtown eastside, chinatown, or gastown, buy his art or i'll stab you in the neck!" Ken Foster wanders the streets of Vancouver, painting the neighborhoods and selling the paintings he's made on found objects.
posted by cross_impact at 1:29 PM PST - 4 comments

Mathematician Barbara Shipman speculates that a honey bee's sense of the quantum world could be as important to their perception of the world as sight, sound or smell: "the mathematics implies that bees are doing something with quarks."
posted by jardinier at 12:35 PM PST - 45 comments

"There's no such thing as the Car or the Shoe or the Laundry Soap. But everyone knows the Pill, whose FDA approval 50 years ago rearranged the furniture of human relations in ways that we've argued about ever since." Time Magazine's cover article this month chronicles fifty years of reliable oral contraceptives. [more inside]
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:08 PM PST - 30 comments

The American Academy of Pediatrics is proposing that doctors be authorized to perform a “ritual nick” on the genitals of pre-pubescent girls in order to satisfy cultural requirements and hopefully stave off more invasive forms of Female Genital Cutting (FGC):

Most forms of FGC are decidedly harmful, and pediatricians should decline to perform them, even in the absence of any legal constraints. However, the ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting. There is reason to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life-threatening procedures in their native countries, and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGC. It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm. (source: PDF; not safe for work, contains line drawings of female genitalia.)

posted by Rumple at 11:33 AM PST - 152 comments

Odds of Cooking the Grandkids: "There is a horrible paper in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which looks at how the limits of human physiology interact with upper-range global warming scenarios. The bottom line conclusion is that there is a small - of order 5% - risk of global warming creating a situation in which a large fraction of the planet was uninhabitable (in the sense that if you were outside for an extended period during the hottest days of the year, even in the shade with wet clothing, you would die)." [more inside]
posted by symbollocks at 11:25 AM PST - 44 comments

If Super Mario Bros. Was Made in 2010
posted by Artw at 11:00 AM PST - 50 comments

Ralph Baer was just inducted into the United States Patent Office's National Inventors Hall of Fame. His favorite of his own inventions is the microcomputer controlled game Simon - a device almost as ubiquitous as Rubik's Cubes were in the 80's.

In 1966, Baer patented a revolutionary device - first video game system. The system was made commercially available in 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey. The Odyssey system inlcuded an optical gun for shooting dots on the screen almost twenty years before Nintendo released Duck Hunt... [more inside]
posted by cinemafiend at 10:19 AM PST - 18 comments

View examples of the Art of the Japanese Postcard (1, 2, 3) or browse the Leonard A. Lauder collection of them at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts website.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:05 AM PST - 3 comments

Meowmania. Friday flash "fun".
posted by Nothing... and like it at 9:50 AM PST - 41 comments

For the first time ever, a look inside the most secure room in the world. Not Disney's Club 33. Not the White House Situation Room or the Gold Vault at Fort Knox. Welcome to the OT VIII Course Room aboard the Church of Scientology's flagship MV Freewinds. This room is the only place (on this planet at least) where you can read an authorized copy of Scientology's highest level.
posted by scalefree at 9:41 AM PST - 62 comments

Fake Science. answering important questions like Where does Oil come from?, How do 3D glasses work?, and at least a handful more.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 9:30 AM PST - 21 comments

Beer Cooler Sous-Vide can produce restaurant quality results, without expensive lab equipment. All you need is a beer cooler and an accurate thermometer and you can make perfectly medium rare steak with a great sear, moist and tender chicken breast , and flavorful salmon. [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 7:33 AM PST - 56 comments

Very Mary Kate: The Unofficial Biography of Mary-Kate Olsen. It's better if you start from the beginning.
posted by lunit at 7:22 AM PST - 104 comments

"The multifunction folded shovle (sic) boasting a happy combination of a spade, pickax, trowel, hewing, knife, saw, scissors, hammer, operner (sic), shield, anchor, and oar is perfect design and refined making, making a pioneer in tools family!" I can guarantee you that never before (or, likely, again) will you be so inspired by a multifunction shovel commercial. The music is exhilarating! (PS: This shovel does freaking everything.) (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by GatorDavid at 6:38 AM PST - 77 comments

Braille is facing extinction, says Canadian newsweekly Maclean's, thanks to strained budgets, audiobooks and text-to-speech. "In the 1950s about half of all blind children learned Braille, says the U.S. National Federation of the Blind. Today, that number has fallen to 10 per cent -- and it's about the same in Canada. For some, like NFB director Mark Riccobono, that means we're letting blind children grow up as illiterate as Braille's 19th-century contemporaries. 'If only 10 per cent of sighted children were being taught [to read],' he told Maclean's, 'that would be considered a crisis.'"
posted by mcwetboy at 5:30 AM PST - 66 comments

Shiny Happy People will survive monsters, Doctor Who, Donkey Kong, and chipmunks.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:46 AM PST - 37 comments

The John Butler Trio's Ocean is an incredible thing to hear and to see (SLYT)
posted by Flashman at 8:32 PM PST - 37 comments

NPR Personalities Spoof Lady Gaga (SLYT)
posted by gordie at 8:05 PM PST - 118 comments

Adverputt! So fun that you won't realize you're being advertised to!
posted by fizzzzzzzzzzzy at 7:54 PM PST - 35 comments

Perhaps it's not surprising, given their intrinsic connection: sex and parenthood come together in Moms in Babeland, a blog run by the eponymous sex toy boutique (NSFW, obvs). [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 7:14 PM PST - 17 comments

Wonderful 16mm short films by Australian stop motion animator Gregory Godhard: Collide-a-scope(2009) - Lovesong (2007) - Museum of Dreams (2003) - A Room With Askew(2006) - And last but absolutely not least, Mind's Eye(1998) a terrific ride composed of "1200 photographs shot in sequence."
posted by louche mustachio at 7:03 PM PST - 6 comments

A family in Atlanta sold their house and donated half the proceeds to villagers in Ghana.
posted by reenum at 4:50 PM PST - 72 comments

Major market indices fell almost 10% this afternoon before recovering half of that value. Some blame the failing Greek economy and the related loss of confidence in the Eurozone. But a lot of attention is being paid to the role of automated trading systems. Accenture's stock, for example, dropped from $41 to one penny in two minutes and then recovered just as quickly. Will this trigger a loss of confidence in automated trading?
posted by spitefulcrow at 3:35 PM PST - 156 comments

In 1969, George Schlatter was riding high as the producer of the high ratings blockbuster, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. So when Schlatter pitched a show to ABC that was like Laugh In only more so (with faster jokes, faster editing, and even more outrageous topical humor), ABC was willing to let Schlatter have free rein. The result was Turn-On, a show that bombed so badly it was cancelled the very night it aired. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 at 3:26 PM PST - 43 comments

Computer, load up Celery Man, please. Paul Rudd and his computer on Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! [more inside]
posted by pollex at 2:57 PM PST - 90 comments

"What happened was that Abner Spector was an electronics nut. He took the girls in the studio on a Friday, and they didn't get out of there until everybody was on the track. Anybody that came in the studio that week, he would put them on. Originally, I think he had about 20 voices on 'Sally.'" The cost of the project alone, Richardson figured was over $60,000..." - Sally, Go Round The Roses (alt) was the first (and only) hit for the Jaynettes in 1963 and a unique and hypnotic studio creation. It's been called "a subtle and transcendental epic in 45rpm form" and there is much speculation on its mysterious lyrics. It has been covered by Donna Summer. Great Society (with Grace Slick) . Fanny. Pentangle. ? And The Mysterians and others.
posted by The Whelk at 1:41 PM PST - 16 comments

Neandertals are the closest ancestral relatives to modern humans. Today, Nature published a special report on the Neandertal genome, for which a draft sequencing of three billion nucleotides has been completed. This high-throughput sequencing project shows how the genetic relationship between Neandertals and modern Europeans and Asians suggests localized interbreeding between the two species roughly 40-80,000 years ago, complicating the common "out-of-Africa" story of how modern humans originated. Additional research extends this low-coverage, first-pass sequencing with a microarray approach that uncovers specific differences between the human and Neandertal genomes.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:40 PM PST - 72 comments

Oklahoma poet Lauren Zuniga responds to Oklahoma SB 1878 (which requires women to view a ultrasound image of the fetus an hour before receiving an abortion & allows doctors to refuse to provide contraceptive care) with a poem.
posted by eustacescrubb at 12:34 PM PST - 58 comments

Two MeFi faves end up crossing over: Muppets invade the writers' room at LOST.
posted by hippybear at 12:04 PM PST - 29 comments

How a misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray. The explication of the Chinese word for crisis as made up of two components signifying danger and opportunity is due partly to wishful thinking, but mainly to a fundamental misunderstanding about how terms are formed in Mandarin and other Sinitic languages... Among the most egregious of the radical errors in this statement is the use of the exotic term “Ideogram” to refer to Chinese characters. Linguists and writing theorists avoid “ideogram” as a descriptive referent for hanzi (Mandarin) / kanji (Japanese) / hanja (Korean) because only an exceedingly small proportion of them actually convey ideas directly through their shapes... [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 11:23 AM PST - 82 comments

Our fastest beta to date... On Tuesday, Google released Chrome 5.0.375.29 beta for Windows, Mac, and Linux, promising enormous speed gains for its popular browser. Just how fast is it? Let's watch at 2,700 frames per second. [more inside]
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 10:51 AM PST - 79 comments

The Soroban is recognisable to most in the West as an Abacus. Despite the prevalence of electronic calculators, the Soroban is still incredibly popular in Japan, with parents oft paying for private tutors to teach their children. The remarkable phenomenon of Flash Anzan is observed after a few years of practice, when users no longer need a real Soroban and can work off an imaginary one.
posted by Biru at 9:23 AM PST - 38 comments

This excellent article concerning Cardiacs and the heart attack of stalwart frontman Tim Smith, prompted me to write this post. They've been on the go since the late 70's and as one would expect, they have attracted a number of fanatics who catalogue everything. They've even been featured in the Sunday Sport! Personally, I find it hard to describe their style. [more inside]
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 9:05 AM PST - 13 comments

Five Californian high school students were sent home on cinco de Mayo for the clothes they were wearing. A vice-principal demanded they turn their shirts inside out so as to not offend other students, calling their clothing incendiary. They refused and, threatened with suspension, left campus. Their offense? Wearing American flag designs on American soil. At least one student believes the five owe everyone an apology for their disrespect.
posted by codswallop at 8:58 AM PST - 255 comments

A little background about that oddly shaped yellow fruit and the potential for bananageddon.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:37 AM PST - 47 comments

Bill Murray Reads Poetry to Construction Workers at Poets House
posted by xod at 8:18 AM PST - 21 comments

Proposed austerity measures in response to Greece's economic crisis have led to riots and three deaths . However, this isn't the first time that riots have shaken Greece in response to the economic turmoil. One dog has seen them all.
posted by emilyd22222 at 7:34 AM PST - 62 comments

"Women and men drink together in a bar? Well, then, you have to have bathrooms for the women. That's the invention of the powder room. That's a phrase that actually comes from Prohibition. They could tuck a tiny little room with a toilet and a sink underneath a stairwell or in a corner. Table service in bars can also be traced to Prohibition, because men and women together, they're not bellying up the bar, but sitting at a table. And the dance band: if you have only men in a bar, you're never going to have a five-piece jazz band there; but you are going to if you have men and women who might dance together." Daniel Okrent and the history of Prohibition. [more inside]
posted by geoff. at 7:30 AM PST - 30 comments

Smories are free original stories for kids, read by kids.
posted by DU at 7:28 AM PST - 5 comments

Thursday flash fun: Hue Shift - an addictive endless action platformer. You are controlling a pixel that can shift its color to red, green and blue. Climb as high as you can by matching your hue to the color of the platforms. Beware, only platforms with your color are solid! (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
posted by slimepuppy at 7:20 AM PST - 17 comments

"Watch out! The Big Banks Support the Financial Reform in Congress, So It Must Be Stopped!" This public service message brought to you by... the Big Banks? Robert Reich elaborates.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:06 AM PST - 13 comments

Diseased Pariah News started in 1990 as "a patently offensive publication of, by, and for people with HIV disease (and their friends and loved ones). We are a forum for infected people to share their thoughts, feelings, art, writing and brownie recipes in an atmosphere free of teddy bears, magic rocks, and seronegative guilt." It ran for 11 issues over the next 9 years, 8 of which can be found here. (NSFW, irritating interface) [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:07 AM PST - 4 comments

Two years ago, Police Officer Adrian Schoolcraft, an officer in Brooklyn's 81st Precinct, became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors. Initially he carried the recorder to protect himself from the civilian complaints that can result from street encounters. But then he began to document things happening in the precinct that bothered him. After he ran afoul of precinct politics, he recorded what he viewed as retaliation by his bosses. The Village Voice is releasing portions of the tapes in batches and is also publishing several stories to deal with the issues that the recordings present.

In this week's installment, the Voice looks at the roll calls at the Bed-Stuy precinct and the conflicting instructions given to street cops, who must look busy at all times, while actually suppressing crime reports.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:45 AM PST - 93 comments

A new documentary, Babies, is reviewed by Village Voice.
posted by zardoz at 5:25 AM PST - 69 comments