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On Female Armor In The Fantasy Genre. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 10:21 PM PST - 140 comments

Happy Canada Day! (via Garth Turner) [more inside]
posted by flex at 10:19 PM PST - 31 comments

What does a post-American world look like? NPR interviews Fareed Zakaria on America's future role in world events.
posted by bitmage at 9:07 PM PST - 65 comments

Blockbuster: DSK may be freed Friday as the rape case against him collapses The NYT reports prosecutors found the chambermaid was involved with drug dealers, possible extortion. previously
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:50 PM PST - 308 comments

NYC Street Photography by Matt Weber. | Cars/Buses | Subways of NYC | Men of NYC | Women of NYC | Urban Landscape | Portraits | Urban Prisoner | 911 Related | Gay Pride | Harlem | Old New York | Times Square. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 5:25 PM PST - 9 comments

Reports suggest that director Terrence Malick's recent film The Tree of Life, starring popular actor Brad Pitt, is experiencing a 5-10% walkout rate. Are misconceptions about the film driving audience members out of movie theaters in anger and bafflement? (previously)
posted by Nomyte at 5:03 PM PST - 186 comments

The Ray Harryhausen Creature List A video compilation of all Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animated creatures.
posted by marxchivist at 3:40 PM PST - 22 comments

"Bohemian Rhapsody" covered the the Porkka Playboys. Finnish polka group covers Queen's classic. [more inside]
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:58 PM PST - 20 comments

Mark Halperin, currently of influential political site The Page, founder of groundbreaking Washingtonian blog, The Note, has been a journalist and political analyst for twenty years. Until yesterday, he was a popular talking head at the MSNBC network. Halperin drew criticism and landed himself out of a job after calling President Obama "a dick" on the air. Reactions are delightfully mixed. Of course, Halperin has already apologized.
posted by msali at 2:49 PM PST - 87 comments

Terminator 2 - 20 Years. Sunday, July 3rd marks the 20th anniversary of the release of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" in theatres, so Rymdreglage (now known as "Ninja Moped") made a nifty stop-motion film in honor of the occasion. (Rymdreglage / Ninja Moped previously)
posted by Monster_Zero at 1:39 PM PST - 79 comments

The Federal Election Commission has given satirist Stephen Colbert the green light to form the "Colbert SuperPAC." Colbert, via his PAC, can now therefore accept unlimited contributions for whatever candidates and causes he wishes.
posted by aught at 1:01 PM PST - 99 comments

Avast ye dogs of the North Americas: Arr, clear the decks of yer calendar for July, for ye've some skivving to do. Curs of the crown need not apply. [more inside]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:35 PM PST - 7 comments

Using album & digital song sales, Hot 100 rankings, radio airplay, YouTube views, social media, concert grosses, industry awards and critics' ratings, Rolling Stone compares sixteen female artists to name the Queen of Pop. [more inside]
posted by troika at 12:11 PM PST - 40 comments

Splitscreen: A Love Story is a short film by JW Griffiths. Filmed entirely with two Nokia N8 phones, it was the winner of the first Nokia Shorts competition.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:56 AM PST - 11 comments

Eric Holder has announced a full criminal investigation into the deaths of two detainees in CIA custody. The breaking story is also being reported by Talking Points Memo. This latest development comes as a result of a preliminary DOJ investigation into possible criminal acts stemming from the Bush torture policies that President Obama requested in August 2009, which was broadly criticized at the outset as not going far enough.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:47 AM PST - 49 comments

Stuck on a train for an hour every day and sick of sudoku? Hands love to knit but the brain gets bored? Riding out the recession as a streetcorner sign-twirler? Or maybe you've just got a burning desire for "cultural conversation of the depth you demand." If so, then Metafilter's own Colin Marshall has got what you need at the Marketplace of Ideas. [more inside]
posted by villanelles at dawn at 11:36 AM PST - 9 comments

New York Attorney General: Coalition Against Breast Cancer - "Scam". 'The state of New York sued a breast cancer charity on Tuesday, accusing it of soliciting more than $9 million and spending virtually none of it on the cause.' 'The Coalition Against Breast Cancer, based in Long Island, told donors their money would go toward research and mammogram screenings, but spent most of the $9.1 million it collected over five years on fundraising fees, salaries and benefits and personal goods, the state attorney general alleges.' But what about all those "pink" products that tout a donation to a charity when you buy? [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 11:17 AM PST - 39 comments

An open letter to Research in Motion (RIM), apparently from an actual employee.
posted by Anima Mundi at 11:02 AM PST - 82 comments

Here, we refer to personality as the use of human personality characteristics to describe a robot vacuum cleaner. The translation from personality to behavior was inspired by a role play in which a group of actors was asked to act like a robot vacuum cleaner with these desired characteristics... Attributes, such as macaroni, were available to support acting out some of the situations (e.g. ‘cleaning a dirty spot’)... The actors were asked to act out situations—as if they were the robot vacuum cleaner—making use of motion and sound... In general, the actors either crawled about or walked around at a slow pace to imitate a vacuum cleaner. Often, a typical vacuuming sound was simulated by them. [more inside]
posted by jasper411 at 10:57 AM PST - 22 comments

Dan Savage speaks about the concept of monogamy.
posted by reenum at 10:47 AM PST - 322 comments

"What do you get when you combine 15kgs of silicon, 2km of wool, 46 highly enthusiastic filmmakers and 2 years of hard work? …Zero." (youtube / also on vimeo) Official site. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:27 AM PST - 14 comments

The Eternal Shame of the Online Handle asks prominent digirati about the source of their original online name (and features mathowie). Aside from embarrassment, those who chose their handles or avatars lightly may ultimately suffer, since research suggests that you may become more like your avatar. With the decline of the pseudonym, including for those who might rather be anonymous, online handles may be turning into a thing of the past, (MeFi excepted). What's the story of your original handle? [My original screen name on Prodigy was nicodemus, cause magical rats were awesome in the 1990s]
posted by blahblahblah at 10:02 AM PST - 230 comments

MC Hotdog is a Taiwanese rapper whose songs deal with tempestuous girlfriends, his love for Taiwanese women (some translation), problems with the cram school system, being half-assed, how other musicians suck, how badass he is and lots of other topics. All thoroughly NSFW, certainly if your boss speaks Mandarin, and full of casual sexism. (MLYT. Previously.)
posted by jiawen at 9:48 AM PST - 7 comments

When a TV meteorologist says "temperatures will be ten degrees above normal", the word "normal" has a specific meaning. Every 10 years NOAA re-calculates the "normal" temps for the USA based on the prior 30-year averages. The new normals have just been released, based on the 30 year period 1980-2010. Hotter is the new normal. With hotter weather comes more extreme weather. Extreme Weather and Climate Change, 3-part series from Scientific America .. and map of extreme weather events 1995-present.
posted by stbalbach at 9:39 AM PST - 35 comments

This is how angora rabbits are sheared to collect their soft fiber which can be spun into yarn and knit into sweaters, mittens and hats.[SLYT] [more inside]
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:11 AM PST - 45 comments

Giles Turnbull responds to the "20 craziest job interview questions" (as asked by such companies as Pottery Barn and Google).
posted by Iridic at 9:01 AM PST - 209 comments

Balloon twisting is more than ballon animals. If you get really good, you can make life-sized dinosaur skeleton replicas, complex alien flora and fauna, or intricate scenes with thousands of balloons. It all starts with learning how to twist and shape balloons. If reading diagrams doesn't work for you, there are plenty of tutorial videos online.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:04 AM PST - 14 comments

If you like dance but are stuck in a computer chair all day, you could do worse than watch some of these on-location videos showing people dancing for the sheer love of it. Folks from Brooklyn and India made BollyBrook (short for "Bollywood-meets-Brooklyn"), a music video featuring dancing in Mumbai. A 9-year-old girl dances in Tiananmen Square (don't miss her pas de deux with her father near the end of the video). A kid with the handle iTr3vor dances in the Apple Store (one of many videos in his series). And yes, Matt Harding probably helped start it all with his "dancing badly around the world" videos last decade. [more inside]
posted by mark7570 at 7:26 AM PST - 12 comments

Dissecting an episode of Mythbusters. Categorizing and graphing the various fillers and recaps and the A and B stories on MeFi’s de facto fave TV show, Thomas Baekdal comes up with a theory as to why you end up watching all the way through. [more inside]
posted by joeclark at 6:44 AM PST - 123 comments

With shrieking tennis players Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka taking part in the women's semi-finals at Wimbledon today the BBC has taken action by launching a device called Net Mix, which allows users to turn down the grunts of the players while listening to the radio coverage.. Previously, Belarusian tennis player, Victoria Azarenka ‘wail’ registers at 95 dB, but that's not the loudest (Listen Victoria Azarenka ‘wail’ here)
posted by nam3d at 6:25 AM PST - 62 comments

Energy: the new thirty years' war; we are heading for a global succeed-or-perish contest among the energy big hitters – but who will be the winners and losers? Michael Klare; (via )
posted by adamvasco at 5:15 AM PST - 59 comments

The 555 Footstool commemorates one of the most iconic integrated circuits ever produced. Since its introduction in 1971, electronic hobbyists and tinkerers have found endless applications for it: timing, flashing, oscillating, measuring, tone/sound effects generation, etc. Check out the winning entries in a recent 555 design contest.
posted by Rhomboid at 12:00 AM PST - 34 comments

Robert Morris, a pioneer in the field of computer security, early major contributor to the UNIX operating system, and father of Robert Tappan Morris (author of the Morris Worm), has died at 78. NYT [more inside]
posted by fireoyster at 10:41 PM PST - 23 comments

Every Day Posters Every Day turns mundane life into slightly less mundane posters.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:00 PM PST - 30 comments

Starting July 1, to make Sydney more liveable, the state government of New South Wales (NSW) will pay AU$7000 to Sydneysider families that relocate from metropolitan areas of Sydney to rural NSW. [more inside]
posted by vidur at 8:50 PM PST - 177 comments

Traveller is a series of related science fiction role-playing games, the first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop and subsequent editions by various companies remaining in print to this day. (previously)
posted by Trurl at 8:41 PM PST - 86 comments

Get ready to meet the fourth or fifth most famous pairing in Soviet children's animation: the meek, civil Leopold the Cat, and the rowdy mice who endlessly harass him in the course of 11 animated shorts (and a non-canonical feature made after the fall of the USSR). [more inside]
posted by Nomyte at 4:41 PM PST - 25 comments

It's official, Myspace has been sold to Specific Media with News Corporation will taking a minority equity stake in Specific Media. Specific Media touts itself as an innovative global interactive media company that enables advertisers to connect with consumers in meaningful, impactful [sic] and relevant ways. Once the crown jewel of News Corps online empire, it had faded into a quick decline selling for only $35 Million after being purchased for $580 Million in 2005. Specific Media, fueled by investment capitol have been acquiring various media platforms and faced a privacy lawsuit for re-creating deleted cookies. What this means for Myspace for now is a significant reduction in our workforce. A former employee gave some insight MySpace in their previous round of layoffs in January of this year.
posted by wcfields at 2:54 PM PST - 103 comments

The Oxford writing and style guide no longer advocates the use of the serial/Oxford comma.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 12:24 PM PST - 417 comments

Everybody calm down: Nobody wants to have sex with your fiancé anyway. Kat, a stripper and co-founder of Tits and Sass, demystifies the bachelor party experience.
posted by hermitosis at 12:03 PM PST - 238 comments

Al Jazeera English investigates political unrest in Puerto Rico with this episode of Fault Lines. This interesting look at the American commonwealth includes interviews with members of the Puerto Rican independence movement, people affected by high levels of unemployment, and centers around students involved in recent protests at the university. [NYT] [more inside]
posted by garuda at 11:29 AM PST - 19 comments

Serenity trailer... with ponies! [more inside]
posted by shiu mai baby at 11:19 AM PST - 95 comments

In perhaps the lowest key announcement of a world-changing breakthrough ever, Steve Perlman, CEO of technology research incubator Rearden Labs (and the once controversial, now successful, OnLive gaming network), claimed during a presentation to Columbia Engineering students on June 6, 2011 that Shannon's Law ... need not apply. [more inside]
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:06 AM PST - 98 comments

[Bill] Kerlina said his two years [as principal of a D.C. Public School] left him with high blood pressure, extra pounds from a stress-induced diet of Armand’s and McDonald’s lunches, and a sense that life is too short. The bitter icing on the cake, as it were, was when certain financial promises made to him were rescinded. Principal K has left DCPS to open a gourmet cupcake shop. (website under construction)
posted by obscurator at 10:27 AM PST - 49 comments

Minor Threats "The punk icon Ian MacKaye always wanted to create a tribe. Now an elder statesman of D.C. hardcore, the musician talks about organized religion, breaking toilets, and making peace with his mother’s death." A simply fantastic interview with Ian Mackaye from a magazine you wouldn't expect to be covering a hardcore music legend. I know there are some fans here on the blue who may really enjoy this.
posted by punkrockrat at 10:21 AM PST - 73 comments

The New Republic examines what they're calling "America's Next Great Civil Rights Struggle" and asks, "What will it take for America to accept transgender people for who they really are?" [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:14 AM PST - 167 comments

Chuck Klosterman breaks down Led Zeppelin's 1979 Knebworth Festival performance of In the Evening. Bonus: Led Zeppelin when they were crazy good in 1970.
posted by zzazazz at 10:00 AM PST - 43 comments

60 percent of Americans using a prominent tax deduction believe they get nothing from "government social programs." Cornell professor Suzanne Mettler describes what she calls the "submerged state," in which tens of millions of Americans benefit from $1 trillion of federal subsidies to private activities while believing they receive no benefits from the government. [more inside]
posted by Apropos of Something at 8:27 AM PST - 114 comments

Living in the Red: A 15 minute student documentary on the Ultras of the Chicago Fire.
posted by PenDevil at 6:43 AM PST - 27 comments

Fifty and Fifty: The State Mottos Illustrated mottos for the fifty states, by fifty different designers.
posted by OmieWise at 6:17 AM PST - 78 comments

Johann Hari, British columnist for The Independent and The Huffington Post (recently on mefi), has this week been caught in a storm of controversy concerning his apparent plagiarism of interview quotes. [more inside]
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 4:15 AM PST - 88 comments

Jimmy Murphy was a great country musician who has had less recognition than this MeFi'r feels is justified. Some of his songs are irreverent (but with precedence). Others a bit poignant, if in his signature upbeat kind of way. The man cooks. "When you get salvation you'll know it by it's tone"
posted by Jibuzaemon at 11:04 PM PST - 7 comments

In February, Supernatural supporting actor Misha Collins promised his 200,000+ Twitter followers pieces of a live rhino if they got the stars of Supernatural on the cover of TV Guide. They succeeded, and followers who sent in an SASE received a piece of a rhino jigsaw puzzle. Holders of the puzzle pieces were entered into a most unusual scavenger hunt. (Full story via Fandom Wank.)
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:22 PM PST - 54 comments

Tepco, the Japanese nuclear power company, is still battling multiple core meltdowns including one complete "melt-through" (breach of containment). The news gets worse, except for one hopeful story of two dogs. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 8:44 PM PST - 129 comments

Pet sales to be banned in San Francisco? The San Francisco Commission of Animal Control and Welfare, a panel of appointed commissioners advising the Board of Supervisors, recently passed "The Humane Pet Acquisition Proposal". This would ban the sale of all pets in San Fransisco - from rodents, reptiles and birds to dogs, cats and fish. The Board of Supervisors is yet to consider what the L.A. Times calls "a silly idea."
posted by joannemullen at 8:43 PM PST - 111 comments

Then, coming on six o'clock, Mr. Myhrvold, the former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft and an inventor with hundreds of patents to his name, came in, wearing chef's whites, and ushered us into dinner. Boy, people eat early around here, I thought. Little did I know I would be eating non-stop for the next three hours. (previously: 1,2) [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 8:39 PM PST - 31 comments

Love Your Vagina Song (nsfw) "...starring over 25 names submitted to the loveyourvagina poll, which asked women from across the world what they call theirs. You gave us 14,000 different names, and there are still more coming in every day!" (via copyranter)
posted by madamjujujive at 8:05 PM PST - 47 comments

The Neverending Nightmare of Amanda Knox. In an in-depth new article in Rolling Stone, writer Nathaniel Rich makes a compelling case for the innocence of the American student at the center of a sordid, long-running Italian crime drama. [via Longreads]
posted by killdevil at 7:34 PM PST - 88 comments

Koi Assisted Birth
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 7:33 PM PST - 49 comments

The Embroidered Secrets of Maurizio Anzeri
posted by dobbs at 6:57 PM PST - 11 comments

Telex and VideoText in the United States. What 1982 thought of the internet. (via Kottke). [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 6:56 PM PST - 21 comments

Following a widely-reported incident in which TSA agents required a 95-year-old cancer patient to remove her adult diaper for inspection before being allowed to board her flight, TV pundit Keith Olbermann has designated TSA chief John Pistole the "Worst Person in the World" and called for his removal. In other news, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) says it has obtained evidence that "the Department of Homeland Security has failed to properly evaluate the level of risk from airport body scanners." Documents obtained by EPIC via the Freedom of Information Act reveal that "even after TSA employees identified cancer clusters possibly linked to radiation exposure, the agency failed to issue employees dosimeters - safety devices that could assess the level of radiation exposure." (News report with video: TSA workers fear radiation dangers from scanners.) EPIC says the documents also indicate that DHS "mischaracterized the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, stating that NIST 'affirmed the safety' of full body scanners.". In a private email response (PDF link), NIST stated that the institute had not tested the safety of the scanners. And yesterday the Texas legislature approved a watered-down version of its TSA "anti-groping" bill. The Idaho legislature is also considering an anti-TSA-groping bill. [more inside]
posted by thescientificmethhead at 4:57 PM PST - 164 comments

Sephiroth the World's Enemy [SLYT] A Final Fantasy stop-motion video. Also: a behind the scenes look at the toys & animation, involved.
posted by Fizz at 4:10 PM PST - 18 comments

The name Clams Casino has been floating around for a while, whose production was likened to a castle floating in the clouds by the BasedGod himself, Lil B [prev]. But recently, 24 year old Mike Volpe has shot up from relative obscurity to being dubbed a "visionary beatmaker" in Rolling Stone. You can hear the start of the north Jersey bedroom producer's ethereal sound in his 2006 remix of Mobb Deep's "Get Twisted", which has carried forward into tracks for Squadda Bambino, Lil B, Havoc (of Mobb Deep), and Soulja Boy. Clams Casino has since released a free mixtape of his instrumental production (streaming) to glowing reviews. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 4:05 PM PST - 12 comments

The Avant Garde Project is a series of recordings of 20th-century classical, experimental, and electroacoustic music digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. Until now, of course. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 3:31 PM PST - 17 comments

The creator of the PSynth app for iPhone explains the basics of software synthesizers in a series of articles on Dr. Dobbs. Creating Oscillators. The Synthesizer Core. The final article promises delays and phasers. The source code is java so the example synth is easily extendable.
posted by Ardiril at 3:29 PM PST - 15 comments

CameraMail. Honolulu based conceptual artist Matthew McVickar sent a Kodak FunSaver taped to a piece of cardboard through the mail with instructions for the postal workers to take pictures as it travelled from his hometown on Cape Cod. These are the results. (via reddit)
posted by modernserf at 1:50 PM PST - 27 comments

Right around 1879, the fishwheel (historical images, McCord replica) came to the Columbia River. A clever application of mill-like thinking to traditional net fishing techniques, the fishwheel's river-powered automation of upstream harvesting revolutionized canning in Oregon and Washington, drawing both commercial attention and critical concern [NYT 1881, PDF]. Two men, Thornton Williams and William Rankin McCord, each filed patents for fishwheel designs in 1881 (#245251) and 1882 (#257960) respectively; Williams brought an infringement suit against McCord which was dismissed on the grounds that the invention was not new, being based directly on the publicly documented work of one Samuel Wilson in 1879. Fishwheels were fair game. [more inside]
posted by cortex at 1:34 PM PST - 15 comments

The 143rd running of the Bryant Park Stakes.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:06 PM PST - 17 comments

Could this be happening? A man's nightmare made real. PART II: Louis Gonzalez III stood accused of unspeakable acts: kidnapping, torture, sexual assault. If convicted, he faced life behind bars. 'He kept thinking that there had been a mistake, that he'd be out in no time. That the system, set into motion by some misunderstanding or act of malice, would soon correct itself.' 'A quote from a police officer: "In 19 years of police work, this has to go down as one of the most brutal attacks I have ever seen."' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 12:41 PM PST - 118 comments

The Supreme Court of British Columbia decided that the BC Adoption Act is unconstitutional "because it treats adopted children differently from children of sperm donors. Adopted children are provided information about their biological parents, whereas the children of donors are not." [more inside]
posted by Salamandrous at 12:36 PM PST - 53 comments

Goodbye public spaces? A recent St. Petersburg Times op-ed reports that Governer Rick Scott, through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has drawn up a plan to turn over portions of more than 50 state parks to private corporations to build camping and RV sites. [more inside]
posted by anya32 at 12:17 PM PST - 54 comments

A new study finds that re-usable grocery bags don't harbor sickening bacteria as much as previously found. Turns out, the previous study (June, 2010), which reported significant levels of sickness producing bacteria present in the bags they tested, was sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, an organization that represents the interests of the people who manufacture plastic bags. “A person eating an average bag of salad greens gets more exposure to these bacteria than if they had licked the insides of the dirtiest bag from this study,” says an expert.
posted by crunchland at 11:38 AM PST - 67 comments

Chi-Com Comeback? July 1st is the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (Official English website). Since 1979, China has been on a course of economic reform, first initiated by Deng Xiaoping, who climbed from disgrace during the Cultural Revolution to lead China away from a communist economy. Now, however, with the anniversary of the Party coming up, at least in Chongqing, the fastest growing city on the planet which 32 million people call home, the East may once again be Red. [more inside]
posted by Ironmouth at 11:37 AM PST - 25 comments

Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists presents Fifty Years of Space Nuclear Power "A plutonium fueled RTG that was deployed in 1965 by the CIA not in space but on a mountaintop in the Himalayas (to help monitor Chinese nuclear tests) continues to generate anxiety, not electricity, more than four decades after it was lost in place. See, most recently, "River Deep Mountain High" by Vinod K. Jose, The Caravan magazine, December 1, 2010." (MeFi previously)
posted by HLD at 11:33 AM PST - 6 comments

Last night Google quietly rolled out Google+ to a limited beta release. Unified across all Google sites, Google+ is the company's latest and perhaps most serious attempt to enter the social networking space. As Facebook surpasses Google in some key user metrics, Google's efforts may already be too late [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 11:28 AM PST - 178 comments

It is quite likely this is the coolest desk in the world! (Well, even if that's hyperbole, there are lots of other beautiful puzzles and woodworks in Kagen Schaefer's gallery, including some of his award winners from the annual Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.)
posted by Wolfdog at 10:58 AM PST - 28 comments

There were a lot of rocker dogs. You know, I want rock! My favorite were the ones in the front row—the droolers. They had all been really primed because for one week before the show, all of the owners had been like, “We are going to a concert just for you—you are going to love it." [more inside]
posted by Naberius at 10:51 AM PST - 6 comments

Oreo Cameo | egg on toast embroidery | cereal sampler | Judith G. Klausner has fun with her food. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 10:45 AM PST - 16 comments

Happy Tau Day! τ (2 × π, that is, 6.28...) is the number of radians in a turn. Translating the digits to notes even makes beautiful music. (By comparison, what pi sounds like). Previously.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 10:22 AM PST - 36 comments

Snailiad: The snails of Snail Town have gone missing! Use your power to climb walls to explore a Metroid-like world to find all the secrets also snails. YAY!
posted by The Devil Tesla at 10:06 AM PST - 11 comments

How to Talk to Little Girls. "Not once did we discuss clothes or hair or bodies or who was pretty. It's surprising how hard it is to stay away from those topics with little girls, but I'm stubborn."
posted by John Cohen at 9:48 AM PST - 136 comments

Late Night Political Zingers. The best of Leno, Letterman, Fallon, Maher et al for those of us who don't have the time to watch. e.g. "New Rule: Stop asking Miss USA contestants if they believe in evolution. It's not their field. It's like asking Stephen Hawking if he believes in hair scrunchies. Here's what they know about: spray tans, fake boobs and baton twirling. Here's what they don't know about: everything else. If I cared about the uninformed opinions of some ditsy beauty queen, I'd join the Tea Party." –Bill Maher [more inside]
posted by storybored at 9:47 AM PST - 40 comments

One hundred years ago today, the Nakhla meteorite fell to earth in Abu Hommos, Egypt, bearing possible evidence of life on Mars. And possibly vaporizing a dog. [more inside]
posted by MrVisible at 9:39 AM PST - 13 comments

Reviewing Netflix's 'Example Short 23.976.' Netflix has subsequently released the short in a variety of forms and at various lengths, in one case looping it for a full eight hours in a version that many viewers compared to Andy Warhol's 1964 film Empire. In another case the film was compiled into "a sample show with many episodes" titled Example TV Mega-series 700, containing exactly 700 episodes.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:33 AM PST - 17 comments

Adam Savage of Mythbusters (Mefi's Own) on Minnesota public radio singing "I Will Survive" in the voice of Gollum with Neil Gaiman in attendance.
posted by The Whelk at 9:23 AM PST - 37 comments

The Professor is Dead. Long Live Netflix! As Netflix rebrands itself as a cable TV alternative rather than a by-mail video rental service, it's killing off its user community and anonymizing reviews. Top reviewer The Professor is philosophical about the change (see main link), others less so.
posted by Scram at 9:19 AM PST - 100 comments

John Hyduk, a middle aged blue collar worker in Cleveland, writes about his daily existence.
posted by reenum at 8:23 AM PST - 46 comments

Daniel Tammet learned to speak conversational Icelandic in a week. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 8:08 AM PST - 28 comments

The History of English in Ten Minutes (Chapter I: Anglo-Saxon), from Open University. [via] [more inside]
posted by Bukvoed at 7:51 AM PST - 21 comments

The Hardest Cases: When Children Die, Justice Can Be Elusive A joint investigation by PBS Frontline, ProPublica and NPR has found that medical examiners and coroners have repeatedly mishandled cases of infant and child deaths, helping to put innocent people behind bars. (Via. (Article contains descriptions of children that have been killed by abuse. May be disturbing / triggering to some readers.) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 6:47 AM PST - 20 comments

Vatican officials unveiled a new Internet portal Monday , a service that will aggregate the latest news from all its various media in a campaign to reach a growing online congregation across the world. [more inside]
posted by aqsakal at 6:30 AM PST - 68 comments

As de Waal says, couldn't the full range of human nature encompass both those who want to rape and those who are powerfully averse to it? Put another way, just because some men commit rape doesn't mean all other men are only restrained from it by the artificial strictures of society. In fact, the fantasy of a hyper-willing female partner, one who is both exceedingly desirous of sex and exceedingly satisfied by a man's skills, is common in both porn and pop culture. A few current videos on XTube, for instance, include Climax2000, Cuming [sic] For You, Debbs Dark Desires, and Wanting Some Big Dick, all of which appear to depict women in various states of hunger-for-your-cock. Of course, Debbs Dark Desires may depict more what dudes want Debb to want than what she actually craves, but the point is that even quite male-centric depictions of female sexuality often include not just consent but enthusiastic desire and orgasm. The idea that men's natural instincts are rape-centric isn't supported even by media that serve their most private predilections.
posted by outlandishmarxist at 6:15 AM PST - 63 comments

From December 2007 through the end of 2010, 24 states have cut government spending by an average of 7.5 percent after adjusting for inflation. Another 25 states have expanded government outlays by an average of 11 percent. The result? States that cut the most money have lost the most jobs.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 6:10 AM PST - 36 comments

It's no secret that Aimi Eguchi is beautiful and talented. But human? Not exactly. [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:28 AM PST - 43 comments

Such Hawks Such Hounds explores the music and musicians of the American hard rock underground circa 1970-2007, focusing on the psychedelic and '70s proto-metal-derived styles that have in recent years formed a rich body of unclassifiable sounds.
posted by mhjb at 2:17 AM PST - 16 comments

"I remember going to a totally boring party for the magazine one night and thinking nobody is dancing because their heels are too high. Nobody is eating because in order to look like the women in the magazine, you have to eat next to nothing. And no one is actually drinking the cocktail in their hand because those are fattening, too. Nobody was really even talking to each other because they were too self conscious and painfully busy standing in the corner trying to look beautiful and important. It was not long after that party that I decided to try and resurrect my soul and work for a magazine that focused on something other than beauty and fashion. " [Linda Wells Would Be Horrified] (via)
posted by vidur at 11:13 PM PST - 51 comments

"Zoom from the edge of the universe to the quantum foam of spacetime and learn the scale of things along the way!" [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:54 PM PST - 24 comments

What a Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire (Synopsis)
posted by MetaMonkey at 9:10 PM PST - 63 comments

As much as any book I know, Crippled Detectives transcribes the dream state, not just in its flights of fancy and logic-jumping juxtapositions, but in the mutating narrative tactics, the topsy-turvy focus (the climax is over in a flash, whereas digressions distend to marvelous effect), and especially the inconsistent point of view... I forgot to mention that Lee Tandy Schwartzman was all of seven years old when she wrote it.
posted by Trurl at 8:21 PM PST - 14 comments

A hand-drawn, interactive map of Reykjavik, Iceland , via The Map Room
posted by desjardins at 8:08 PM PST - 18 comments

PossessedHand is ostensibly a training system for students of stringed musical instruments. It teaches fingering positions by means of electrodes that stimulate muscles in the forearm, forcing the hand into the correct configuration.
posted by contraption at 8:08 PM PST - 30 comments

Walking Home From Walden is a 5 part series by Wen Stephenson describing how a middle-aged resident of Wayland, MA got advice from Henry David Thoreau about responding to global warming while living in suburbia, by taking a 12 mile hike.
posted by paulsc at 7:58 PM PST - 5 comments

A letter by director Michael Bay helpfully advising projectionists the proper way to show his new film Transformers 3 in movie theaters and a very grateful response from the Projectors' Guild.
posted by Renoroc at 7:33 PM PST - 100 comments

Vag magazine is going to be a home for really important journalism. Rest of the series here. Sociological Images writeup here.
posted by prefpara at 7:05 PM PST - 28 comments

Dancing Chihuahua (SLYT). That is all.
posted by Felex at 6:41 PM PST - 26 comments

There's Only One Sun is a gorgeous sci-fi ad/short film by acclaimed director Kar Wai Wong.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:27 PM PST - 13 comments

When you imagine the crops that will provide biofuels, what is the first image that enters your mind? A field of corn or sugar cane? Maybe you should be picturing pond scum instead. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 5:23 PM PST - 30 comments

The Spam Factory's Dirty Secret. Undocumented workers, an autoimmune mystery traced to aerosolized pork brains from increased line production speed, and what sounds like one of the worst jobs in America.
posted by availablelight at 5:17 PM PST - 46 comments

U2 lead singer Bono is well-known for his charitable works. The band however seems a bit more mercenary in their business affairs, moving from low tax Ireland to lower-tax Netherlands in 2006. Some accuse the band of hypocrisy, and have attempted a protest at the Glastonbury festival.[prev.]
posted by wilful at 5:05 PM PST - 69 comments

The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest prospective study of mental and physical well-being ever conducted. For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been following 824 individuals through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Designer Laura Javier took ten of those cases and visualized them in the Elements of Happiness. [via flowingdata]
posted by anifinder at 4:38 PM PST - 13 comments

Middlebrow: The Taste That Dare Not Speak Its Name. GQ comes to terms with liking things that are popular.
posted by revgeorge at 4:22 PM PST - 182 comments

Norma Lyon, the "butter cow lady" whose sculptures were a primary Iowa State Fair attraction for decades, died of a stroke early Sunday.
posted by Foam Pants at 4:17 PM PST - 31 comments

The Rocketeer: [SLVimeo] Homage To Dave Stevens - "The Rocketeer 20th Anniversary" fan-film by John Banana.
posted by Fizz at 3:24 PM PST - 28 comments

Come on down to Funk Junction, we've got it all! Songs about cats, songs about orange things, songs about dolls, and songs about Canada! We have IDM, jungle, breakcore, and harsh noise! Do you like jazz and modern classical music? Great! We've got that, too, chopped up and re-arranged for easy digestion! A whole world of sound, created by Aaron Funk! A veritable city of Venetian Snares! And we have a biography, too, after the break (or you can skip the background, and go directly to the streaming music). Please note that kids should probably stay outside the Funk Junction, as it'll get loud, angry and obscene at times. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 3:02 PM PST - 21 comments

Letterology — an open classroom in book design, experimental typography, and professional practices. Popular posts include : The Olivetti Typewriter, in 1911 Olivetti produced Italy's first typewriter. One hundred years later we continue to celebrate the smart promotion. Early 20th Century Trademarks, pages of trademarked names from the Trade Mark Title Company, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1910-1913. Czechoslovakian Stamp Designs, the variety and styles of the hand lettered text on these stamps is stunning. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 2:30 PM PST - 4 comments

The town of Los Alamos, NM (home of LANL and the atomic bomb) is under a mandatory evacuation due to the Las Conchas wildfire. [more inside]
posted by jabo at 2:20 PM PST - 42 comments

A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100
posted by Samuel Farrow at 2:01 PM PST - 33 comments

Former Illinois governor Rod "Blogo" Blagojavich has been convicted of 17 counts, including trying sell to sell President Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. This links to the Chicago Sun-Times. Former Illinois governor Rod "Blogo" Blagojavich has been convicted on 17 counts, including trying sell to sell President Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. A "not guilty" verdict was returned on one count. Richard Roeper's column and the Editorial reaction links are good reads. And the home page has photos up currently.
posted by longsleeves at 1:30 PM PST - 79 comments

MAP OF THE SQUARE AND STATIONARY EARTH. Send 25 Cents to the Author, Prof. Orlando Ferguson, for a book explaining this Square and Stationary Earth. It Knocks the Globe Theory Clean Out. It will Teach You How to Foretell Eclipses. It is Worth Its Weight in Gold.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:30 PM PST - 47 comments

Dutch state secretary for culture Halbe Zijlstra published a letter stating that €200 million would be cut from the arts and culture budget, starting as early as 1 January 2013. [more inside]
posted by palbo at 1:27 PM PST - 11 comments

"Just last week you read about the H-bomb being dropped. Now two great English writers, two very imaginative writers — I’m gonna tell you if you have youngsters in the living room tell them not to be alarmed at this ‘cause it’s a fantasy, the whole thing is animated — but two English writers, Joan and Peter Foldes, wrote a thing which they called ‘A Short Vision’ in which they wondered what might happen to the animal population of the world if an H-bomb were dropped. It’s produced by George K. Arthur and I’d like you to see it. It is grim, but I think we can all stand it to realize that in war there is no winner." [via]
posted by brundlefly at 12:41 PM PST - 13 comments

‘Hello I am tweeting with my nose’
posted by cashman at 12:34 PM PST - 13 comments

In 2002 a Mrs. Soile Tuulikki Lautsi, a Finnish/Italian woman and member of the Italian Union of Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists objected to the crucifixes on the wall of her child’s public school. [more inside]
posted by IndigoJones at 12:32 PM PST - 48 comments

DEFCON Kids! [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 12:30 PM PST - 13 comments

From steroid-spiked pork to glow-in-the-dark meat to recycled cooking oil collected from sewers: China wrestles with food safety problems. 'China's food scandals are becoming increasingly frequent and bizarre': 'In May, a Shanghai woman who had left uncooked pork on her kitchen table woke up in the middle of the night and noticed that the meat was emitting a blue light, like something out of a science fiction movie.' 'Farmers in eastern Jiangsu province complained to state media last month that their watermelons had exploded "like landmines" after they mistakenly applied too much growth hormone in hopes of increasing their size.' 'Until recently, directions were circulating on the Internet about how to make fake eggs out of a gelatinous compound comprised mostly of sodium alginate, which is then poured into a shell made out of calcium carbonate. Companies marketing the kits promised that you could make a fake egg for one-quarter the price of a real one.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 12:27 PM PST - 48 comments

How violent sex helped ease a reporter's PTSD Female reporter Mac McClelland deals with the trauma of reportage. May include triggers.
posted by klangklangston at 12:14 PM PST - 61 comments

Bored by Bourdain? Zimmern make you go zzzzzzzz? Then this is the travel show you've been longing for: from the BBC, Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure. Think Felix and Oscar on a camper van road trip; with wine critic and dandy Oz Clarke teaching Top Gear's James May all about the noble grape. Season one finds them touring the vineyards of France. Season two, California. In the third series, Oz and James Drink to Britain, we follow the unlikely boon companions as they get soused from Plymouth to Aberdeen. Episodes are currently being rebroadcast on BBC America and are also available On Demand. Fortunately, some kind soul [IchiDeux] has put all three series up on YouTube. This is as entertaining and informative as anything you'll find on the telly. Not convinced? Here they are in Ireland. (And if you're in need of a good belly laugh, please do forward to the 12:15 mark.)
posted by wensink at 11:51 AM PST - 10 comments

An Oral History of Michael Bay
posted by bittermensch at 11:36 AM PST - 61 comments

As a public transit geek, I really enjoyed this story. We've talked about taking public transit on unlikely routes previously, and I read the original blog post giving the directions on how to get from SF to LA using only public transit. But the article from SF Weekly's In Transit blogger, Joe Eskanazi, really brings the trip to life.
posted by agatha_magatha at 11:04 AM PST - 28 comments

The Mellow Brick Road. The Wizard of Oz condensed into 4 minutes, with soundtrack by Pogo.
posted by Gordafarin at 11:04 AM PST - 10 comments

We have explained that the matching funds provision substantially burdens the speech of privately financed candidates and independent groups. ... We have explained that those burdens cannot be justified by a desire to “level the playing field.” In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down an Arizona law that provided public funds to candidates who have been outspent by either private funding or independent spending. Link to PDF of full decision. [more inside]
posted by gerryblog at 10:01 AM PST - 103 comments

Do you feel lonely or isolated in your 21st century life? Have you considered taking a hot bath? How hot baths can help dispel feelings of loneliness... [more inside]
posted by Kronur at 9:17 AM PST - 67 comments

The principle is to go into everything wanting to like it. Composer Nico Muhly has a blog. See what he thinks about Angelo Badalamenti, his thoughts on musical influences, and lots of posts about food.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:11 AM PST - 11 comments

Overfishing is a topic that's been discussed on the Blue before (recently previous, previously). Despite potential consequences, many of us will still eat fish. So, what should we eat? (Previously) From the always thought provoking Information is Beautiful. [more inside]
posted by glaucon at 8:22 AM PST - 76 comments

US Supreme Court finds Cali. law restricting sales of violent videogames to adults violates First Amendment. [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 8:16 AM PST - 93 comments

Daniel Soar on the militarisation of metaphor: Spies aren’t known for their cultural sensitivity. So it was a surprise when news broke last month that IARPA, a US government agency that funds ‘high-risk/high-payoff research’ into areas of interest to the ‘intelligence community’, had put out a call for contributions to its Metaphor Program, a five-year project to discover what a foreign culture’s metaphors can reveal about its beliefs.
posted by jack_mo at 8:05 AM PST - 40 comments

Camera shoots 1080p HDR video at 30 FPS. By using multiple sensors behind a single lens, it has a 17.5 stop range and can record and process HDR video in real time. [via]
posted by quin at 7:44 AM PST - 84 comments

Danish architect Jan Gehl on making cities safe for people, the art and science of designing good cities for walking, and how to plan good cities for bicycling.
posted by parudox at 7:38 AM PST - 39 comments

Johann Hari laments the decline of real books and advocates a 'digital diet'. Do we still "need dead trees to have fully living minds"?
posted by joannemullen at 5:33 AM PST - 306 comments

Every summer the arctic melt season plays out as the ice retreats in the summer sun. Are the monthly releases from NSDIC too infrequent for you? Is Cryosphere today lacking context? Neven's blog to the rescue.
posted by humanfont at 5:05 AM PST - 7 comments

Last month, California decided to shutter 70 of its 278 state parks. "70in70 is an attempt to create memories before history outpaces us: 70 state parks are slated for closure this year, and we intend to visit each one within the next 70 days."
posted by SpringAquifer at 9:16 PM PST - 89 comments

"Any industry would be proud of an average annual growth rate of 34% over ten years and of a global reach from Austria to Taiwan. But the headlong expansion of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which by May this year controlled almost $1.5 trillion of assets (not far short of the $2 trillion in hedge funds), has become a matter for concern among financial regulators. Could ETFs be the next source of financial scandal, or even of systemic risk?" Characterizing the Financial sector "like a hyperactive child" that "can never leave a good thing be", The Economist appears to be wishing for the ETFs to be better regulated because "it would be a shame if reckless expansion spoiled a good innovation".
posted by vidur at 8:50 PM PST - 28 comments

(Sunday night arthropod terror filter): YouTube user memutic has uploaded several dozen high-quality backyard video recordings of exotic insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and millipedes native to Central America, Southeast Asia, and the US. [more inside]
posted by Nomyte at 8:38 PM PST - 20 comments

On not reading books. Franco Moretti, author of the controversial Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History, proposes that literary study needs to abandon "close reading" for "distant reading": "understanding literature not by studying particular texts, but by aggregating and analyzing massive amounts of data." He is co-founder of the Stanford Literary Lab, where he and like-minded colleagues have published studies on programming computers to use statistical analysis to identify a novel's genre(PDF) and analyzing plots as networks(PDF). Similar projects are on the way.
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:08 PM PST - 52 comments

92 years young, the delightful Raymond Smullyan is a mathematician, logician, magician, concert pianist, and Taoist philosopher - who also pioneered retrograde chess problems.
posted by Trurl at 7:42 PM PST - 22 comments

US Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner '83 Speaks at Dartmouth Summer Lecture Series "Leading Voices in Politics & Policy". Geithner's alma mater is Dartmouth College.
posted by gen at 7:22 PM PST - 6 comments

Satirical newspaper and website The Onion is celebrating its 1000th issue by pushing for a Pulitzer Prize. Its spin-off Americans for Fairness in Awarding Journalism Prizes has garnered support from celebrities as far apart as Tom Hanks and Glenn Beck, as well as a host of geek icons and ordinary people.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:20 PM PST - 54 comments

Forum for the Future, a UK-based non-profit, has produced a series of short videos depicting possible future scenarios for sustainable urban mobility. Titled "Megacities on the move," the series explores "how we will live and travel in the cities of 2040". The four scenarios are (links to Vimeo): Planned-opolis , Communi-city, Renew-abad, and Sprawl-ville. [more inside]
posted by thescientificmethhead at 5:53 PM PST - 22 comments

Anatomy of a Writer. "Like the protagonist of 1984, who risked his life to purchase a notebook and signed it away by filling it with words, writers sometimes find themselves huddled in a corner, crouching onto their guilty pleasure protectively, hoping that their spouse, or friends won’t catch them at it."
posted by Phire at 5:40 PM PST - 13 comments

Henry Rollins talks with Dinosaur Jr. An 18 minute chitchat followed by a loud, rocking show, most of which was also posted: The Wagon Out There Don't
posted by vrakatar at 5:16 PM PST - 23 comments

Welcome to the history cookbook. Do you know what the Vikings ate for dinner? What a typical meal of a wealthy family in Roman Britain consisted of, or what food was like in a Victorian Workhouse? Why not drop into history cookbook and find out? [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 4:13 PM PST - 45 comments

I Draw Nintendo! A Nintendo fanart blog by Zac Gorman.
posted by chunking express at 4:05 PM PST - 16 comments

The Reith Lectures are an annual series of lectures by the BBC, started in 1948 and dedicated to advancing "public understanding of significant issues of the day through high-profile speakers." The BBC have just opened a complete archive of them, both as audio and as transcripts. (previously) [more inside]
posted by dng at 3:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Six Second ECG Simulator. "The Cardiac Rhythm Simulator generates 25 of the most common cardiac rhythms for you to explore, review, and play."
posted by Paragon at 3:03 PM PST - 9 comments

Two weeks ago, the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 4-3 [video] to reinstate the controversial anti-union Budget Repair Bill, which a district judge had declared void due to a law requiring 24 hours' public notice of meetings. The Supreme Court's deliberations were heated. The liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley now says that after she asked conservative Justice David Prosser to leave her office, he put his hands around her neck in a choke-hold. Justice Prosser denies the allegation. [more inside]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:37 PM PST - 160 comments

Snail attack | The Savage Colors of Naked, Toxic Sea Snails . Bonus link: giant slug eats flower. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 2:34 PM PST - 24 comments

"I love my parents! I had a great childhood! I've got a good job! Why do I feel so lost?"
posted by Obscure Reference at 1:22 PM PST - 152 comments

Reivestments, surging prices for commodities yield tidy sums for farmers. Midwest farmers seem to playing a system to their advantage. May be of worth to small farms being pushed out by encroaching growth.
posted by goalyeehah at 1:20 PM PST - 10 comments

Video of Steve Jobs discussing iCloud and other current Apple products, at the 1997 WWDC. Yes, 1997. Via Daring Fireball.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:41 PM PST - 58 comments

All Azure: The Monochromatic City of Chefchaoen, Morocco
posted by hippybear at 12:17 PM PST - 21 comments

Sports announcer quotes Notorious B.I.G. lyrics during a game. (SLYT)
posted by reenum at 11:46 AM PST - 38 comments

Cooking With Beefcake was a VHS cooking show about cooking near naked men. (Warning: Contains butts, feathered hair) (via)
posted by The Whelk at 11:34 AM PST - 38 comments

Tajazzle, Rejuvenique and the Almighty Cleanse are just some of absolutely necessary products you can find at Infomercial Hell.
posted by griphus at 11:33 AM PST - 22 comments

Fast Food Lasagna. NSF watching after a meal, frankly.
posted by mippy at 11:29 AM PST - 54 comments

Did you see this goal? It's the last goal of this year's Gold Cup, and it's one of the very best I've ever seen. I thought I'd share it. [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by fantodstic at 10:14 AM PST - 108 comments

The Beer Archaeologist. "Biomolecular archaeologist" Dr. Patrick McGovern has unearthed millennia-old alcohol recipes and ancient medicinals, "by analyzing residues in ancient pottery. Now he's working with brewer Sam Calagione, (of Discovery Channel's Brew Masters, (autoplaying video)) whose pub Dogfish Head serves up beers based on recipes that are thousands of years old." (Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:51 AM PST - 45 comments

What is Bird Poop? What Do Nesting Birds Do With All That Poop? Poop From The Front End. The Poop Wars of 1879. Poop Week has just concluded at 10,000 Birds, with stories, dirty science and beautiful photos at "the intersection of poop and birding, a fertile precinct if there ever was one." [via The Agonist] [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 7:27 AM PST - 28 comments

A behind the scenes view of the 2011 Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) road bicycle race [SLYT]
posted by KirkpatrickMac at 7:09 AM PST - 12 comments

Freezer Meals on the Cheap.
posted by bwg at 5:46 AM PST - 92 comments

One is never too old to rock.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:37 AM PST - 49 comments

Which device in the American home uses the most energy? No, it's not the refrigerator or the TV. It is actually the HD DVR cable box.
posted by beisny at 1:02 AM PST - 99 comments

Dozer, a 3-year old dog from Maryland, finishes a half-marathon Dozer somehow got out of his yard and decided to join a half-marathon in progress right by his house. So far, Dozer has helped raise $14,000 for cancer research. He was later given a finishers medal. [more inside]
posted by Gilbert at 10:51 PM PST - 42 comments

"'The dog lives in the present,' Ms. LeVine said. 'We don’t. Our body is fragile. We’re thinking about the past and what we could have done differently; we’re thinking about the future and what is going to happen to us.'" Senior Dogs Across America by Nancy LeVine (via) [more inside]
posted by quiet coyote at 5:52 PM PST - 55 comments

Love in the Age of Self Consciouness: Rob Horning argues authentic, risk-taking romantic love has been replaced, in the age of social networking, by peacocking aspiring to sprezzatura. "Modern identity, then, is born of the alienation of auto-surveillance, which makes the self seem a discrete thing we manipulate from behind the curtain of publicity." [more inside]
posted by Apropos of Something at 5:44 PM PST - 56 comments

Germany’s season of angst: why a prosperous nation is turning on itself [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 5:40 PM PST - 51 comments

Markus Kayser has designed and built The Solar Sinter, a solar powered 3D printer which creates glass objects out sand. Needless to say, the ability to create objects out of sand using solar power will be welcome in deserts. He took his machine into the Sahara desert to test it. Previously in the Sahara Kayser tested a similiar machine, The Sun Cutter, which uses a ball lens to create a kind of laser cutter.
posted by Kattullus at 4:30 PM PST - 40 comments

X-ray technology developed for airport security and bomb disposal is now being used to see beneath the surface of eighteenth-century furniture. The resulting images are unexpectedly clear and often beautiful in themselves, revealing not just nails and screws but also layers of upholstery and even woodworm tunnels. (Via Treasure Hunt, Emile de Bruijn's blog featuring works of art in the National Trust's historic houses.)
posted by verstegan at 3:37 PM PST - 11 comments

R.M. Berry on Samuel Beckett's peculiar writing style: "It's as though the narrator's words were almost thoughtless, accidental, written by someone paying no attention to what he or she says." Beckett is best known for his play Waiting For Godot, in which "nothing happens, twice", but he was also an accomplished writer of prose, ranging from the relatively simple Three Novels to the extremely minimal Imagination Dead Imagine. Some of Beckett's more challenging short plays are available on YouTube: Play (pt. 2), Not I (the famous "mouth" play), and Come and Go, one of the shortest plays in the English language (ranging between 121 and 127 words, depending on translation). Once he interviewed John Lennon and found out who the eggman really was. Beckett's final creative work was his poem What Is the Word.
posted by Rory Marinich at 1:50 PM PST - 41 comments

The bizarre musical instruments behind classic scifi movie sounds. Includes the Waterphone, Theremin and Blaster Beam.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:37 PM PST - 26 comments

She was just an average thirteen-year-old girl, until overnight her awkward dancing in the background of Rebecca Black's "Friday" video (Previously on MeFi) made her a target of near-universal derision on the Internet. GIFs of "that girl in pink" dancing proliferated (many of which threw in an accordion for good measure). When Benni Cinkle finally responded to the attention and began answering questions, the hordes anticipating more lulz at her expense did a 180, surprised to themselves interacting with a gracious, humble person with a sense of humor about herself. In the months since, Cinkle's website, That Girl in Pink, has become a launchpad for her charitable works. [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 12:24 PM PST - 85 comments

In 1976, at the age of 27, Patricia Rose began a relationship with the married, 62-year-old billionaire John Kluge. At the time, Kluge owned MetroMedia, a company that started life as the Dumont TV network and would go on to become Fox television. Previously, Patricia had been married to British pornographer Russell Gay. She had posed nude in Knave Magazine and had a bit part as a belly dancer in The Nine Ages of Nakedness. In 1981, Patricia Rose and John Kluge married. Soon after, construction began on the Albemarle Estate, a 29,000 sq ft., 45 room home in Virginia. Patricia and John were the 1980s power couple. In 1990, they divorced, and Patricia kept the house and went on to found the Kluge Estate Winery. Now, everything has come crashing down.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 11:59 AM PST - 34 comments

Should I Change My Password checks a list of e-mails connected to passwords released by hackers to the public (source list here) and tells you if your password has been compromised.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 11:32 AM PST - 49 comments

Philosophy fundraiser mountain walk-a-thon. Prominent philosophy professor Crispin Wright will walk the length of the Pennine Way, a 250+ mile mountaintop trail in the UK, to raise funds to support his philosophy students. (The link on the Pennine Way is worth reading.) Along the way he'll stop each day to answer a philosophical question voted on by the people who contribute to the fund.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:21 AM PST - 17 comments

An image showing disparity in sentencing appears in a tweet by Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow and raises questions of its validity. Paul R. Allen is clearly a real case and Roy Brown an actual criminal but what do the differences in their sentencing say about the state of justice in America? [more inside]
posted by geekyguy at 11:20 AM PST - 26 comments

Married To The Eiffel Tower is a documentary that tells the stories of three females who are sexually and emotionally attracted to inanimate objects. (Previously)
posted by gman at 9:10 AM PST - 77 comments

Seagull steals video camera (1m41s).
posted by BeerFilter at 8:20 AM PST - 81 comments

You Don't Want Fries With That. A new Harvard School of Public Health Study claims that even if calorie counts are the same per serving, eating servings of french fries or potatoes causes more weight gain over time than servings of nuts and yogurt. "Although calories remain crucial, some foods clearly cause people to put on more weight than others, perhaps because of their chemical makeup and how our bodies process them." [more inside]
posted by Ike_Arumba at 8:20 AM PST - 117 comments

Three talented musicians who abandoned their careers in mid-stream - Mark Hollis, songwriter and vocalist for Talk Talk, who also released one solo album. Harriet Wheeler, songwriter and vocalist for The Sundays. Christina "Licorice" McKechnie, vocalist for the Incredible String Band.
posted by davebush at 7:23 AM PST - 52 comments

This is a very insightful piece that shows the Soviet collapse from a completely different angle than one would expect.
posted by Vibrissae at 3:19 AM PST - 87 comments

Sgt. Reckless--Pride of the Marines The only Korean War horse hero--working for oats and peppermints. Her complete and awesome story from Leatherneck Magazine. Sometimes you just gotta have a feel-good moment. [more inside]
posted by BlueHorse at 11:19 PM PST - 17 comments

The practice has become so widespread – some say half of Modern Orthodox teens text on Shabbat – that it has developed its own nomenclature – keeping “half Shabbos,” for those who observe all the Shabbat regulations except for texting. [more inside]
posted by -->NMN.80.418 at 9:33 PM PST - 70 comments

Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" arranged for 8 pianos - performed by Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Claude Frank, Evgeny Kissin, Lang Lang, James Levine, Mikhail Pletnev, and Staffan Scheja. [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 9:24 PM PST - 24 comments

"When the person you love kills himself time stops," she says at one point. "It just stops at that moment. Life becomes another code, a language that you don't understand." An interview with Karen Green, visual artist, and widow of David Foster Wallace. [more inside]
posted by Cold Lurkey at 7:19 PM PST - 55 comments

The New York State Senate has just passed a religious exemption amendment to a bill granting marriage rights to gay couples. A vote on the full bill is currently underway (live stream) and seems headed for passage.
posted by pjenks at 7:10 PM PST - 379 comments

The videogame Red Dead Redemption has a rather unique glitch that occurs fairly frequently -- Flying Talking Horseman, Talking Bird riding a cart!!!!, elk-owl, bird bear, snake man, bird people, Genetically Altered Wolf-Men Attack, and Cougar-Man!
posted by codacorolla at 6:39 PM PST - 41 comments

The Guardian looks at how pregnant women who lose their babies or are found to have been taking drugs are facing charges for foetal endangerment.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:33 PM PST - 122 comments

"If you look at a lot of the work that's been done on scientific approaches to morality—books written for a lay audience—it's been about evolutionary psychology. And what we get again and again is a story about the importance of evolved tendencies to be altruistic. That's a report on a particular pattern of behavior, and an evolutionary story to explain the behavior. But it's not an account of the underlying mechanism. The idea that science has moved to a point where we can see two animals working together toward a collective end and know the brain mechanism that allows that is an extraordinary achievement." Nevertheless, Prinz says, how to move from the possibility of collective action to "the specific human institution of moral rules is a bit of connective tissue that she isn't giving us."
posted by macross city flaneur at 5:17 PM PST - 45 comments

"The technology used to create FabFi networks seems like it leaped out of an episode of MacGyver. Commercial wireless routers are mounted on homemade RF reflectors covered with a metallic mesh surface. Another router-on-a-reflector is set up at a distance; the two routers then create an ad-hoc network that provides Internet access to a whole network of reflectors. The number of reflectors which can be integrated into the network is theoretically endless; FabFi's network covers most of Jalalabad."
FabFi is an open-source initiative to bring low-cost, mesh-based networking to remote areas. Using little more than cheap, widely available routers and window screens, they piloted their idea in Kenya and launched JoinAfrica as a free, distributed ISP. In Afghanistan, they've brought the internet to Jalalabad, where One Laptop Per Child is also focusing their efforts.
posted by mkultra at 5:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Gay Pride in New York in the 1970s - a collection of photos.
posted by desjardins at 4:18 PM PST - 55 comments

The Street Price of Cocaine, Country to Country The Economist's report is based on data from the UN's recently released World Drug Report.
posted by modernnomad at 2:45 PM PST - 43 comments

Swimming Pool is a piece by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich that gives the illusion of people walking and breathing underwater in an ordinary swimming pool. Video from the MoMA PS1 installation. [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:33 PM PST - 10 comments

Tuesday: Incarna, the latest expansion to Eve Online, introduces an in-game "micro"-transaction store where virtual clothes and jewelry cost more than the same items would go for in the real world. Players are not impressed.
Wednesday: A purported internal CCP Games newsletter is leaked (direct PDF link) indicating, contrary to previous unambiguous promises to the community, plans for greatly expanding the scope of items and services available to be purchased for real money in Eve Online. The forums erupt.
Today: CCP confirms that the document is real. [more inside]
posted by 256 at 2:31 PM PST - 72 comments

The world's first human cannonball was a performer who went by the name of Lulu the Flying Artist. Flying up to 40 feet in the air, she gained a good deal of acclaim, even inspiring the Lu Lu Waltz. And yet, Mlle. Lulu was not what she seemed - He was a young man named Sam, who had previously performed as El Niño Farini. [more inside]
posted by Gordafarin at 2:27 PM PST - 8 comments

This is a dialogue between Teach, an adjunct philosophy instructor at a public university in New York, and Cheat, who has authored over 100 papers for pay.
posted by eugenen at 1:45 PM PST - 113 comments

Quirky is sort of like Threadless, but for inventions. (via) [more inside]
posted by flex at 1:31 PM PST - 14 comments

"You’d be crazy not to buy that. I mean, look at it. IT’S FULL OF WHIMSY."
posted by zarq at 1:26 PM PST - 257 comments

Peter Falk, American actor noted for his portrayal of TV's Columbo, has died. NYTimes obit. [more inside]
posted by meadowlark lime at 12:33 PM PST - 172 comments

Surfer Dude Remix
posted by puny human at 12:31 PM PST - 7 comments

It was bound to happen eventually. After a quarter-century, 26 Academy Awards, and an unparalleled streak of eleven artistic and commercial triumphs, Pixar's latest project, Cars 2, is Certified Rotten. Critics have assailed the film as a slick but hollow vehicle for Disney's $10 billion-dollar Cars merchandising industry "lifestyle brand," replacing the original's serviceable tale of small-town redemption with zany spy games, hyperactive chase sequences, and even more lowbrow aww-shucks potty humor from Larry the Cable Guy. But it's not all bad news! Along with a fun new Toy Story 3 short, preceding today's (3-D) premiere showings is a first look at next year's Brave -- a darkly magical original story set in ancient Scotland featuring the studio's first female lead (and director). Evocative high-res concept art [mirror] is available at the official website, and character sketches have leaked to the web, with the apparently striking teaser trailer sure to follow. Also, be sure not to miss the sneak peak of Brave's associated short, "La Luna"!
posted by Rhaomi at 11:42 AM PST - 253 comments

Archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History have used a remote-controlled microcamera to explore a 1500-year-old sealed Mayan burial chamber at the Palenque archaeological site in Chiapas, Mexico. Story in English from the Guardian but be sure to click on "Fotos" at the first link.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:05 AM PST - 19 comments

How to avoid getting hit by a train. SL(short)YT.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:03 AM PST - 40 comments

Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetical euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely kill a human being.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:58 AM PST - 64 comments

Comic book artist Gene Colan died on June 23, 2011. Colan began his comic book career in 1944, and after service in WWII went on to illustrate a wide range of comic book characters for both Marvel and DC. The artist might be best known for his 70 issue run in Marvel's Tomb of Dracula in the 1970's. Colan's lush moody style was also well-suited to Batman, as evidenced by his work on Batman and Detective Comics in the 1980's. Other titles and characters associated with Colan include Howard the Duck, Daredevil (including an 81 issue run from 1966-1973), Doctor Strange, and Captain America. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 10:44 AM PST - 26 comments

A Face A Day
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:31 AM PST - 8 comments

The long-polluted New York rivers are getting cleaner, but can still be dangerous to swim in. There are efforts underway to clean up the Bronx River, but that will take years, if not decades. Until then, signs are posted, warning would-be swimmers, yet people still risk sickness to battle the heat. One current safe solution is the Floating Pool Lady, a barge that was remade into an 82-foot-long city parks department swimming pool. She first arrived in the Bronx in 2008, and she'll return to the Bronx in a week. There's a new Big Idea to bring swimmers back into the rivers: the +Pool, a floating swimming pool located within a river, designed with a series exterior walls to filter the river water and make it safe to swim in. While that's in the early design stages, you can take a chance and jump in a swimming hole.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:28 AM PST - 26 comments

Boba Fett plays Zelda ''Lost Woods" on accordion. [SLYT]
posted by Fizz at 10:03 AM PST - 36 comments

21-year-old inventor Tim Pryde has come up with an alternative to the much-circumnavigated "chuggers" (chuggers previously) ‒ solicitous-but-impossibly-cute robot "Don-8r". [more inside]
posted by greenish at 9:12 AM PST - 25 comments

Author and Mefi's Own Charles Stross presents Three Arguments Against The Singularity
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 AM PST - 188 comments

At first, Collectors Weekly deleted virtually anything listed on their site bearing a Nazi swastika. Now they are explaining what changed their mind and why some people collect this particular paraphernalia.
posted by gman at 9:06 AM PST - 32 comments

The First World Problems Rap (SLYT)
posted by swift at 8:41 AM PST - 39 comments

When athletes are in financial trouble, they often go to high end pawn shops to get money.
posted by reenum at 8:38 AM PST - 26 comments

Root Hog or Die has an extensive collection of links to world folk music repositories. There are over 60, with days and days of music to listen to. Some are comprised of field recordings, some are from old 78s, and some are from more contemporary sources, so you'll have to use your judgement about which you're comfortable visiting. The sites cover everything from Hmong music to Ossetian music to Northwest Fiddle Field Recordings.
posted by OmieWise at 8:03 AM PST - 13 comments

A study conducted at Newcastle University (UK) shows that type 2 diabetes can be completely reversed, not with medication, but through following a 600-calorie diet for two months. [more inside]
posted by marsha56 at 6:35 AM PST - 134 comments

"I can tell you right now there is no I in A.I., and nor should there be." Veteran game programmer Mike Diskett (Syndicate, Magic Carpet, GTA IV) offers his thoughts on response mechanics, and how fuzzy logic can fail to account for the fog of war.
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:35 AM PST - 38 comments

SAFECAST is helping people in Japan (with internet access) review amateur and official radiation data.
posted by jeffmac at 6:20 AM PST - 6 comments

In 1967, IBM had the answer to our "paperwork explosion." Somewhat surreal film promoting new IBM dictation technology. Mad Men meets the future with a trippy electronic soundtrack. [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet at 6:09 AM PST - 40 comments

"Cubelets is a robot construction kit; by combining sensor, logic and actuator blocks, young kids can create simple reconfigurable robots that exhibit surprisingly complex behavior." Watch the Cubelets Engineering Prototypes demo (1.01) on Vimeo. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 4:43 AM PST - 14 comments

"The mind knows not what the tongue wants." We all take variability and niche markets for granted these days, but back in the 70's and 80's, the American food industry was obsessed with the so-called platonic dish - a perfect and universal way to serve a food. Howard Moskowitz, of prego fame, helped explode the idea in the food industry and beyond. In this TED talk, Malcom Gladwell, tells you all about it and why variability matters a lot. [more inside]
posted by fantodstic at 12:29 AM PST - 48 comments

While outside Parliament it is 2:00 AM EST, Friday June 24, inside it will remain the "Thursday June 23 Chamberverse" until the Canadian House of Commons rises. Canada's new Official Opposition, the New Democratic party is currently filibustering the Conservative majority government over Bill C-6 - An act to provide for the Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services brought forward to force postal workers at Canada Post, an arms-length Crown Corporation back to work. [more inside]
posted by HLD at 11:00 PM PST - 85 comments

70 games in 75 days in the Northwoods League. Andrew Barna, a varsity baseball player at Davidson College during the school year, is spending the summer playing first base for the Madison Mallards. The Mallards are currently a half game back of the Eau Claire Express in the Northwoods League, a summer developmental league where NCAA athletes play for room, board, the adulation of devoted Upper Midwest fans, and the slim hope of making it to the bigs. (Northwoods alums in the majors include Ian Kinsler (Mallards), Ben Zobrist (Wisconsin Woodchucks), and Juan Pierre (Manitowoc Skunks.) Barna's blog offers a look inside the real life of very-minor-league baseball: The best way to sleep on the team bus. Getting caught picking your nose on the field. Welcome back Jumpy Garcia. Signing your first breast.
posted by escabeche at 9:48 PM PST - 16 comments

Arrested Westeros (Game of Thrones spoilers/NSFW screenshots ahead.)
posted by griphus at 9:15 PM PST - 28 comments

Austrian research company IAT21 has presented a new type of aircraft at the Paris Air Show which has the potential to become aviation's first disruptive technology since the jet engine. ... The key to the D-Dalus' extreme maneuverability is the facility to alter the angle of the blades (using servos) to vector the forces, meaning that the thrust can be delivered in your choice of 360 degrees around any of the three axes. Hence D-Dalus can launch vertically, hover perfectly still and move in any direction, and that's just the start of the story.
posted by Trurl at 9:12 PM PST - 38 comments

Kansas: The First Abortion-Free State? "The law also requires the health department to issue new licenses each year, and it grants additional authority to health department inspectors to conduct unannounced inspections, and to fine or shut down clinics ... the department wasted no time in drafting the new rules, issuing the final version on June 17 and informing clinics that they would have to comply with the rules by July 1. The new requirements require facilities to add extra bathrooms, drastically expand waiting and recovery areas, and even add larger janitor's closets, as one clinic employee told me—changes that clinics will have a heck of a time pulling off by the deadline. Under the new rule, clinics must also aquire state certification to admit patients, a process that takes 90 to 120 days, the staffer explained." Previously, George Tiller (2).
posted by geoff. at 8:57 PM PST - 91 comments

Legendary English music critic Simon Reynolds asks why modern music keeps plundering the past.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:37 PM PST - 48 comments

L'equip petit - "... if one day I score, I'll be so happy that I'll fly."
posted by madamjujujive at 6:29 PM PST - 12 comments

Final Cut Pro backlash. Two months ago, Apple previewed the new 64-bit version of its popular professional video editing application, completely re-written and re-designed with loads of new, revolutionary features, an iMovie-like interface, and a deep price cut. Excitement and anticipation abounded. On Tuesday, it was released, and the excitement has been completely reversed. Unfortunately, as Apple typically does with all-new products, they left out a lot of features that users particularly needed (including backwards compatibility), and simultaneously killed the previous version, causing an unprecedented amount of confusion and anger in a matter of hours. Many people felt left in the lurch, others felt that Apple had abandoned the pro market without telling anyone, and still others prescribed patience.
posted by fungible at 6:28 PM PST - 187 comments

"Hot Dudes with Kittens." This is either the best or worst thing ever birthed by the Internet.
posted by flyingsquirrel at 6:27 PM PST - 43 comments

Romance comics are awesome, especially if you want stories about lesbians, naughty nuns, Vietnam war brides, teenage sex clubs or Gothic horror tales about feisty nurses. [more inside]
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 6:24 PM PST - 13 comments

Glen Campbell Announces That He Has Alzheimer's Disease Glen Campbell, the studio musician who shot to fame as a solo pop-country crossover singer in the 1960s with his summer replacement TV series, has told People Magazine that he is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. The announcement comes just as he begins the all-too-appropriately named "Goodbye Tour" to promote his final studio album. His wife told People: "Glen is still an awesome guitar player and singer. But if he flubs a lyric or gets confused on stage, I wouldn’t want people to think, 'What's the matter with him? Is he drunk?'" (In 2003, Campbell made headlines with an unfortunate mugshot after an arrest for drunk driving). We shared our love for Glen in this 2007 MeFi post, which features a number of great links to Campbell's performances and covers of his hits by other artists.
posted by briank at 6:19 PM PST - 28 comments

"Hackers of the world are uniting and taking direct action against our common oppressors - the government, corporations, police, and militaries of the world" says LulzSec (previously) in their latest release, Chinga La Migra. "We are releasing hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords belonging to Arizona law enforcement. We are targeting AZDPS specifically because we are against SB1070 (previously) and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona."

#antisec is a new track from nerdcore rapper ytcracker (previously)
posted by finite at 6:03 PM PST - 46 comments

Seven days ago, a new YouTube channel teased the creation of a mysterious new website called Pottermore. Today, JK Rowling released details about the new site. Pottermore will be 1) the exclusive place to purchase Harry Potter e-books, 2) a Harry Potter interactive experience/social networking site of sorts, and 3) a (free) repository of many pages of back notes about the Harry Potter series, similar in content, different in form, and possibly replacing the existence of the Harry Potter encyclopedia long-teased by Rowling. Fans react.
posted by lewedswiver at 5:55 PM PST - 52 comments

Metta World Peace [more inside]
posted by Ideefixe at 5:17 PM PST - 17 comments

Daniel Eatock is a London-based designer known for his conceptual approach to solving traditional client problems as well as those of his own choosing.^[1] His projects include Spray Can Sprayed With Its Own Contents, Fixed Pen/Signature Book, and many others, including my favorite, One Hour Circles, in which participants attempt to draw a circle in exactly one hour. (Compare to One Minute Circles.) A brief interview with Eatock. Some selected work. An overview.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:40 PM PST - 26 comments

Part 3 of the Everything is a Remix video series has been released, by New York filmmaker Kirby Ferguson. Previously on MeFi. See the entire series on Vimeo: Parts One, Two and Three. (YouTube versions and transcripts inside.) Official Site. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:22 PM PST - 31 comments

If you're a Chicagoan or have even a passing interest in Chicago's 'L', Chicago "L".org is an amazingly comprehensive resource for anything you might want to know about the Second City's rapid transit system. Highlights include historic route maps, details on rolling stock past and present, and more than you could ever want to know about every station. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 12:50 PM PST - 41 comments

A Dirty Business. New Yorker article on the prosecution of Raj Rajaratnam, head of the Galleon hedge fund. Previously: Matt Taibbi on Wall Street regulation and prosecutions.
posted by russilwvong at 12:44 PM PST - 13 comments

Go-Bag porn for the Arab Spring. Foreign Policy finds a 25-year-old architect protesting in Cairo's Tahrir Square and asks the perennial geek-out question: What's in your bag?
posted by Naberius at 12:39 PM PST - 20 comments

The Growth Ponzi Scheme, a series of five blog posts on the financial underpinnings (or lack thereof) of the American post-war development pattern. 1: The Mechanisms of Growth - Trading near-term cash for long-term obligations. 2: Case studies that show how our places do not create, but destroy, our wealth. 3: The Ponzi scheme revealed - How new development is used to pay for old development. 4: How we've sustained the unsustainable by going "all in" on the suburban pattern of development. 5: Responses that are rational and responses that are irrational.
posted by parudox at 11:08 AM PST - 84 comments

Twenty years ago today, the gaming world saw the launch of a truly landmark title: Sonic the Hedgehog. Developed as a vehicle for a new Sega mascot, the fluid, vibrant, cheery-tuned wonderland swiftly became the company's flagship product, inspiring over the ensuing decades an increasingly convoluted universe of TV shows, comic books, and dozens of games on a variety of systems (all documented in this frighteningly comprehensive TVTropes portal). And while in recent years the series has turned out more and more mediocre 3D and RPG efforts, the original games remain crown jewels of the 16-bit era. So why not kick off this anniversary by replaying the titles that started it all for free in your browser: Sonic the Hedgehog (1991), Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994), Sonic & Knuckles (1994). Or click inside for music, remakes, and other fun stuff! [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 10:56 AM PST - 68 comments

Blogger jailed over critical restaurant review. The Taichung branch of Taiwan High Court on Tuesday sentenced a blogger who wrote that a restaurant’s beef noodles were too salty to 30 days in detention and two years of probation and ordered her to pay NT$200,000 in compensation to the restaurant.
posted by lily_bart at 10:19 AM PST - 87 comments

A couple hours of streaming music, courtesy of the friends of Bloglin (potentially NSFW banner, if you aren't blocking scripts). Browse through the audio on Soundcloud (57 uploads to date, and most are mixes), or sort through Blogin by categories (29 Keep Watch mixes, 167 mixtapes, and 3,235 music posts [though many are reviews and don't include handy downloads]). The music is mostly electronic, with some odd jaunts into post-rock/gothic styles and even some punk. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:16 AM PST - 1 comment

Andy Baio: “Kind of screwed”. Baio produced a chiptune tribute to Miles Davis’ classic album Kind of Blue. He licensed all of the tracks and assigned all profits directly to the five musicians on the album. The one thing he didn't do was check about the cover art, a pixelated rendering of the photo on the original album cover. Jay Maisel, the photographer who shot the photo in question, sued Baio for $150,000 per download plus $25,000 for DMCA violations. Baio settled for $32,500, not because he wasn’t convinced he was in the right (this almost certainly qualifies as fair use), but because it was “the least expensive option available”. [more inside]
posted by spitefulcrow at 9:52 AM PST - 294 comments

Tribe meets white man for the first time. [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:49 AM PST - 84 comments

"Bachmann's entire political career has followed this exact same pattern of God-speaks-directly-to-me fundamentalism mixed with pathological, relentless, conscienceless lying. She's not a liar in the traditional way of politicians, who tend to lie dully, usefully and (they hope) believably, often with the aim of courting competing demographics at the same time. That's not what Bachmann's thing is."- Michele Bachmann's Holy War - Matt Tabbi - Rolling Stone
posted by The Whelk at 8:54 AM PST - 281 comments

The Invisibles and Hauntology: Amypoodle, a frequent contributor to the comics blog Mindless Ones (previously), has just completed an analytical appraisal of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles in light of Jacques Derrida's concept of hauntology. Critical analysis in terms of "ghosts", things that are both present and not present in a text, seems likely to be implicit as well in the forthcoming Supergods, Morrison's appraisal of superheroes as mythology.
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:55 AM PST - 33 comments

"Broken Doll" - an article by DIS Magazine that heralds a new generation of Broken Doll pose aspirants.
posted by hermitosis at 7:46 AM PST - 27 comments

Do you remember the scene in Oceans 11 where the Brad Pitt takes a bunch of Hollywood kids for everything they've got? Well, they really do play poker for big money in Hollywood and it turns out that not all the kids are sheep: Tobey Maguire is at the center of a lawsuit alleging that the actor won millions of dollars in an elaborate ring of underground poker games attended to by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon...
posted by doctor_negative at 7:27 AM PST - 75 comments

More than 300 heavily-annotated books from Charles Darwin's personal library have been digitized in a collaboration between Cambridge University, which holds the collection, and the Biodiversity Heritage Library, a project that has so far digitized nearly 50,000 titles from the natural sciences. And if you're looking for what Darwin wrote, rather than what he read, the University of Oklahoma has digitized the first edition of each of his 22 books.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:16 AM PST - 17 comments

The most recent issue of Superman, 712, was supposed to have a certain storyline, but it seems at the last minute, DC Comics decided to nix that storyline and instead publish a five-year-old story about Krypto the Super-Dog. These sorts of things happen, but Comics Alliance opined (with some help from direct sources) that the change was due to DC not wanting to feature a Muslim superhero (the original story had Superman aiding "Sharif", a Muslim superhero.) The theory is, after the brouhahae surrounding the Muslim Batman and Superman renouncing his American citizenship, DC is hesitant to add any more fuel to the "DC hates America" fire. "But," says comic-book muckraker Rich Johnston, "I have inside DC stories that are telling me the REAL reason the story got nixed." He claims it's not about Muslims, it's about...well, just see for yourself what it's allegedly really about.
posted by Legomancer at 6:51 AM PST - 55 comments

This year Georgia (US state) passed an Arizona-style law to make life and employment harder on its undocumented immigrants, including about 425,000 agricultural workers. In the spring, farmers argued that they would be unable to recruit new workers on time for the summer harvest with a sudden change in policy. Surprisingly, the Obama administration did not step in to block the law taking effect. The result is an estimated 46% of farms without enough workers and $300M of crops rotting in the fields. Georgia's govenor is shocked.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:17 AM PST - 214 comments

Your Glory Days Are Over, Mr. Cthulhu. "Mr Cthulhu tries to interest himself in his sons dance, but mr Cthulhus has lived a sheltered life, the intricacies of modern ballet passes him right by." (by Mattias Adolfsson, previously)
posted by OmieWise at 5:37 AM PST - 22 comments

James "Whitey" Bulger has been arrested in California. [more inside]
posted by rmd1023 at 5:00 AM PST - 91 comments

On tour with former singer-songwriter Nathan Hubbard and his showstopper of a plan to rescue Ticketmaster's business and, for an encore, its dreadful reputation. But Hubbard is dragging three decades' worth of  Ticketmaster ill will behind him, the noxious reputation he used to exploit. Ticketmonster. Ticketbastard. The Death Star. Joining the enemy made Hubbard so uncomfortable at first that when he arrived at Ticketmaster headquarters in Los Angeles, he says, "I couldn't look the logo in the eye."
posted by veedubya at 3:17 AM PST - 46 comments

If you follow trends, you have to admit that fried Kool-Aid is the tastiest thing you want to try.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:53 AM PST - 39 comments

Dexter In 60 Seconds: While the 6th season of Dexter is still a few months off, newcomers to the show might appreciate this quick summation of the series. [more inside]
posted by ShutterBun at 12:15 AM PST - 63 comments

The Welikia Project goes beyond Mannahatta to encompass the entire city, discover its original ecology and compare it what we have today.
posted by Trurl at 9:05 PM PST - 6 comments

Wikipedia awash in 'frothy by-product' of Santorum. Previously 1,2,3.
posted by stbalbach at 9:04 PM PST - 59 comments

Telstra and Optus, two of Australia's biggest ISPs, will start censoring the Internet next month. The two companies will block more than 500 websites.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:34 PM PST - 96 comments

Turntable.fm DJ for a virtual room at the newest attempt at music-sharing 2.0. Listeners can vote songs up or down, or DJ themselves. Other similar projects like Muxtape and Listening Room have unfortunately not survived long.
posted by melissam at 8:27 PM PST - 14 comments

Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like. (via)
posted by vidur at 7:53 PM PST - 19 comments

The title track on Michael Jackson’s hit album “Thriller” began life as a very different song - called “Starlight.” WNYC's Soundcheck gives us a listen.
posted by Fofer at 5:35 PM PST - 25 comments

Rochester, NY woman arrested for videotaping police from her front yard. Because cops have civil rights too?. Because "you have to stand somewhere while videotaping, right?" In this case, it's apparently obstructing governmental administration. Previously: [1], [2], [3].
posted by kanuck at 4:53 PM PST - 353 comments

An Artist's Statement by Charlotte Young.
posted by Memo at 4:01 PM PST - 21 comments

2-part KQED documentary about Dorothea Lange, from 1965. Lange meditates on the historical impact of images and how they can be used to examine/change society [more inside]
posted by Ideefixe at 3:58 PM PST - 1 comment

The Bravest Woman in Seattle "The reason for her sitting on the witness stand of a packed and sweltering eighth-floor courtroom at the King County Courthouse on June 8, in jeans and a short-sleeved black blouse, hands clasped over knees, a jury of strangers taking notes, a crowd of family and friends and strangers observing, a bunch of media recording, was to say: This happened to me. You must listen. This happened to us. You must hear who was lost. You must hear what he did. You must hear how Teresa fought him. You must hear what I loved about her. You must know what he took from us. This happened." (Trigger warning for rape and violence.)
posted by verbyournouns at 3:53 PM PST - 86 comments

"A vacation complex along the Baltic coast with 10,000 sea-view rooms in eight identical six-story blocks of steel-reinforced concrete, each one the length of five football fields." Built to last but never finished, Prora has been largely unknown until recently, as Germans debate its future use or demolition. [more inside]
posted by kinnakeet at 3:21 PM PST - 31 comments

So suddenly, everyone was talking about hookup culture, and they wanted to know: "What is this thing? What is it?" And they were afraid that somehow college was some alcohol-fueled Bacchanalian orgy.

The Promise and Perils of Hookup Culture: a talk by sociologist Lisa Wade (previously).
posted by NoraReed at 3:21 PM PST - 46 comments

The U.S.'s military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq are mostly staffed by Third Country Nationals (TCN), who are often victims of human trafficking. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 1:41 PM PST - 36 comments

Poems About Internet Dating. Does what it says in the profile.
posted by escabeche at 1:23 PM PST - 50 comments

Belarusian tennis player, Victoria Azarenka ‘wail’ registers at 95 dB, but that's not the loudest
posted by nam3d at 12:53 PM PST - 55 comments

Ernestina Herrera de Noble heads up The Clarin Group and the Clarin newspaper (in Spanish), the largest in Argentina. She is the mother of two adopted children, Felipe and Marcela, heirs to the Clarin Group fortune. She has been a controversial figure for much of her life. Currently, her paper stands in staunch opposition to the administration of President Cristina Kirchner, who in 2009 successfully pushed through legislation forcing the Clarin group to sell off some of its holdings. President Kirchner recently announced she will be seeking a second term. However, Mrs. Herrera de Noble's legacy will probably rest on the suit brought against her by the Grandmothers of the Plaza del Mayo, forcing her children to submit DNA samples to ascertain whether they are the children of detainees killed by the military during Argentina’s “Dirty War”. The siblings and their mother have fought to avoid DNA testing, claiming it is a violation of their privacy, but there are families who claim that Felipe and Marcela are the natural born children of women pregnant when they were detained and subsequently disappeared. Ernestina insists that the adoptions were “legal”, and her children stand by her side. If a genetic link is proven to former detainees, Mrs. Herrera de Noble may face a criminal investigation.
posted by msali at 12:28 PM PST - 30 comments

Who owns the term "app store"? Apple wants to, but Amazon and Microsoft, among others, think it is generic. Will Steve Jobs's own words come to haunt him? In any case, the first casualty of the fight between giants seems to be Amahi, a small open-source media server. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 11:17 AM PST - 94 comments

Billy puts on some new clothes and looks nice for once. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:56 AM PST - 71 comments

German photographer Peter Langenhahn has an unusual approach to sports photography: he combines multiple images from numerous times in the competition into a collage, with striking effects.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:43 AM PST - 21 comments

Radio Free Song Club is a monthly-ish podcast featuring a mix of New York veteran songwriters. The only (lazily enforced) rule is that each participant perform a song she's written in the past month. Listen to recent episodes or browse mp3s of individual songs.
posted by roll truck roll at 10:33 AM PST - 1 comment

To the people who stole my Les Paul.
posted by nevercalm at 10:28 AM PST - 122 comments

Photographer Hana Pesut pulls a switcheroo.via
posted by mrducts at 10:26 AM PST - 23 comments

Lightfield cameras capture the entire photonic information of a scene with essentially infinite depth of field, meaning that pictures can be focused after the photo is taken, and low-light conditions do not require a flash. Lightfield images are also “3D” without the need for stereo lenses.
Lightfield (aka “plenoptic”) technology was developed in the 90's: the first working prototype required dozens of separate cameras and a supercomputer. Professional plenoptic cameras have been available for the past year; the Lytro startup intends to release a consumer-ready shirt-pocket lightfield camera later this year. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 10:13 AM PST - 52 comments

Fela! is a musical based on a period in Fela Kuti's life when the musician faced off against Nigerian government soldiers. The musical was off-Broadway for a month in 2008, and about a year later opened on Broadway, running until January of 2011. Nominated for a number of awards, the musical presented a number on the 2010 Tony Awards show, where it won 3 awards. The show is now touring, including an opening in Nigeria just before the recent elections. If you can't catch it touring, the Broadway cast recording is streaming. Bonus: M.O.P (Movement of the People), Fela's 37 minute long song for the political party he founded. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:54 AM PST - 22 comments

A heroin substitute called "Krokodil" is having destructive effects on Russia's active user population. [more inside]
posted by rodmandirect at 9:48 AM PST - 104 comments

"I can't tell you about all the suicides and the accidental deaths where I work. ... One guy was 38. He went home after a really long day, poured himself a drink, sat down in his armchair, and died." Harrowing, Heartbreaking Tales of Overworked Americans. First person stories of doing more with less, from warehouses and classrooms to operating rooms and air-traffic control towers. [more inside]
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 9:38 AM PST - 82 comments

"Ocean Life on the Brink of Mass Extinctions," warns a new comprehensive study from "a 2011 workshop of ocean experts staged by [International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO)] and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) at Oxford University." The most likely culprits in the unfolding, large-scale disaster? Pollution and climate change, say the experts. What else is new, you say? Well, the schedule's been changed up: "Marine life facing mass extinction 'within one human generation,'... says global panel of scientists." [more inside]
posted by saulgoodman at 9:35 AM PST - 111 comments

Rob Zombie directs Torture. (YouTube) Background. (Via)
posted by zarq at 9:05 AM PST - 19 comments

The F.B.I raided a data center in Reston, VA yesterday morning, seizing three racks of servers and disrupting service to the Curbed Network, Pinboard.in, Instapaper, altlabs.co.au, and took the physical servers of tens of other clients. Curbed and AltLabs are currently still down. The F.B.I was reported in pursuit of one individual user, and agents took entire server racks, perhaps because they mistakenly thought that “one enclosure is = to one server” according to DigitialOne, the Swiss hosting company.
posted by 2bucksplus at 8:49 AM PST - 58 comments

Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has reported on the Virginia Tech Shootings for the Washington Post, interviewed Mark Zuckerberg for the New Yorker(previously), and explored the AIDS epidemic in Washington, D.C. He is also an undocumented immigrant.
posted by ghharr at 8:47 AM PST - 49 comments

ViolaGate, wherein a world-weary techno-busker wails on some catgut and twiddles some knobs (presumably), whisking veteran violinist Bernard Zaslav (slyt) into a cane-shaking frenzy. [more inside]
posted by obscurator at 8:33 AM PST - 18 comments

Heated Debates, Burning Books [Via NewYorker.com] The Canadian writer Lawrence Hill recently received the unsettling news that a Dutch political group would be assembling on Wednesday in Amsterdam to burn copies of his novel, “The Book of Negroes” (published in the Netherlands under the title “Het Negerboek,” and in the U.S. as “Someone Knows My Name”). So what exactly does this historical novel have to do with the Dutch? [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:00 AM PST - 45 comments

Olly Moss makes nerdy designs. [more inside]
posted by azarbayejani at 6:52 AM PST - 13 comments

You probably haven't heard of Gina Rinehart. However, she's Australia's richest person and will quite possibly be the world's richest person in a few short years. Her currently limited political activity appears primarily directed at maintaining profitability, avoiding taxes and stopping a price on carbon pollution.
posted by wilful at 5:05 AM PST - 40 comments

"[School] Officials warned that those [students] who did not return their [high school] yearbooks could face charges of possession of child pornography."
posted by orthogonality at 4:37 AM PST - 142 comments

Etat Libre D'Orange is a niche perfume house - the olfactory equivalent of arthouse cinema. So, in keeping with a company that claim to be challenging what we think of as perfume, it's no surprise that their most infamous scent is intended to smell literally like sex. [Here's a NSFW image of the label.] But what happens when you try it for the first time?
posted by mippy at 3:33 AM PST - 55 comments

"Schmeared by the rent" - Manhattan's H&H Bagels is closing its iconic and much-loved Upper West Side location.
posted by beisny at 3:08 AM PST - 55 comments

HowTheLightGetsIn is an annual festival of philosophy and music where "Leading thinkers in every field mix with cutting edge musicians to excite the imagination and renew the spirit." Talks from the 2011 event have recently been posted online and are well worth a watch. Highlights include Gerald Moore, Lewis Wolpert & Mark Vernon discussing faith , Richard Schoch on happiness, Lauren Booth discussing her conversion from "hedonistic libertarian to islam" Frank Furedi on the rules of the political elite and the Funny Women Awards which does what it says on the tin.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 2:39 AM PST - 6 comments

The epidemic of mental illness plaguing the Americans and the overmedication of psychiatric patients are in part artifacts of the diagnostic method. [more inside]
posted by hat_eater at 2:28 AM PST - 46 comments

The Queen Is Dead. [more inside]
posted by veedubya at 1:43 AM PST - 98 comments

"For journalists, it's a little hard for them to be the story." A discussion on Radio Times of sexual violence against journalists (previously) and breaking the silence. With Lauren Wolfe, author of a special report on sexual violence against journalists by the Committee to Protect Journalists; Kim Barker, who corresponded from Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; and Elana Newman, research director at the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma. [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 10:19 PM PST - 19 comments

Want to make a grilled cheese sandwich? Here you go. Want to take it to the next level? [more inside]
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:44 PM PST - 116 comments

26 years ago today, we said goodbye to Ettore Boiardi - who fed the Plaza Hotel, Woodrow Wilson, millions of GIs, and - more likely than not - you. [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 8:34 PM PST - 17 comments

The World of Jim Henson: 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 :: 8 :: 9 :: "An excellent biography of the Muppet master, this 85-minute film from the PBS show Great Performances mixes the history of Henson's projects with plenty of sketches that any fan age 6 and older should enjoy. The film shows the incredible range of Henson's creations, starting in 1955 with "Sam and Friends" then moving on to Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and beyond. It illustrates the breadth of his genius, from creating entirely new worlds in film (The Dark Crystal) to pithy '60s TV commercials that achieved branding and a laugh in less than six seconds. There's footage that most fans haven't seen in years, or at all: a regular bit from The Jimmy Dean Show; tantalizing bits of his 1965 Oscar-nominated short, Time Piece; appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show; his explanation of Wall Street on Nightline; and Miss Piggy's hilarious deconstruction of Morley Safer on 60 Minutes."
posted by puny human at 7:47 PM PST - 23 comments

Rave On Buddy Holly is streaming now. The album, released June 28th, features Nick Lowe, Patti Smith, Cee Lo, Justin Townes Earle and others covering Buddy Holly songs.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:38 PM PST - 21 comments

Just found this Fawlty Towers Video Remix Album [more inside]
posted by pmcp at 6:35 PM PST - 14 comments

Violet Mary Howard survived the Napier earthquake, and lived in Taradale her whole life. The best yet in Toby Morris' 200 people I used to know.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:06 PM PST - 8 comments

Secret Agent Cat barks when you're not looking. Housecat is caught barking and goes back to meowing when caught by his humans. Single link Tosh.0.
posted by sweetkid at 5:24 PM PST - 68 comments

What is this ad announcing? (note: scroll down slowly!)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:57 PM PST - 95 comments

The Environmental Working Group has released its 2011 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce. [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 4:57 PM PST - 31 comments

Henning Lederer's Machinatorium features art and animation of pictograms and other abstractions of the human form. Lederer is also known for animating Fritz Kahn's classic poster Der Mensch als Industriepalast.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:42 PM PST - 3 comments

So, you think you're gay. Prove it. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 3:12 PM PST - 304 comments

In 1772, at the age of 73, Mrs. Mary Delany invented a new way of depicting flowers: with hundreds of small pieces of paper carefully cut out and placed. This method - which she called "paper mosaicks" and which later became known as (paper) collage - enchanted her friend Lady Portland, King George III and his queen, and natural historians, artists, collectors, and friends alike. They look like botanical paintings, but are constructed out of paper. Browse the British Museum's collection. [more inside]
posted by julen at 3:11 PM PST - 21 comments

PIMCO's Bill Gross, when he's not divesting his bond funds of U.S. Treasuries, takes time to ponders "A mind is a precious thing to waste, so why are millions of America’s students wasting theirs by going to college?" [more inside]
posted by Rafaelloello at 12:50 PM PST - 105 comments

Did Errol Morris's brother invent email? Film documentarian Errol Morris starts an extended, discursive piece at the Opionator section of the New York Times. Having previously documented his investigation of Crimean War photographs, Morris has posted the first part of a planned five part series covering his older brother's role in creating an early form of email. Along the way he touches on the computer culture of the 60s, dining options in Cambridge, MA, the MIT experience, and the Van Vleck dynasty.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:45 AM PST - 40 comments

Unbound - like Kickstarter but for books. The idea is simple, authors pitch their idea and interested readers then pay a specified amount to bring the idea to life. [more inside]
posted by Faintdreams at 11:12 AM PST - 52 comments

A Miss USA delegate from each state (and D.C.) was asked whether or not they felt evolution should be taught in schools.
posted by gman at 11:09 AM PST - 218 comments

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today unveiled the nine disturbing health warnings required to appear on every pack of cigarettes sold in the United States and in every cigarette advertisement. (pdf) [more inside]
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:40 AM PST - 125 comments

It’s produced by the Tate Museums in London, animated by Aardman Studios, and stars the vocal talents of David Walliams, Rik Mayall, and Catherine Tate -- and features the creative control of thousands of British kids. Coming soon, it’s The Itch Of The Golden Nit. [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:37 AM PST - 9 comments

Launching today is Byliner, both a portal to the best narrative nonfiction from around the web, and a publishing platform for original works. Some additional background here.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:57 AM PST - 15 comments

Now, in 2011, in his endless middle-sunset as a player, [Roger] Federer has become something mysterious, an all-time great whose career feels increasingly fragile. Brian Phillips on Federer's long autumn. DFW, five years ago, on Federer as a religious experience (previously). Riffing on DFW, Phillips on Pele as comedian.
posted by AceRock at 8:52 AM PST - 27 comments

Weird Al: Perform this Way. (YouTube. Previously / On Vevo)
posted by zarq at 8:34 AM PST - 121 comments

Martin Liebscher's series Family Pictures feature many people, and all of them are Martin Liebscher.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:22 AM PST - 13 comments

"Once, a prima donna sheep got fed up with the photo shoot and stormed off the set," he says. "She was inconsolable and impossible to convince to return." Rob MacInnis takes photographs of barnyard animals using the techniques of fashion photography. More here (NYTimes blog). (Be sure to check out the panoramas.)
posted by OmieWise at 7:55 AM PST - 25 comments

Liz Collini makes fantastic wall drawings using typographic techniques. [via]
posted by shakespeherian at 7:08 AM PST - 3 comments

A few nights ago, AMC aired the final episode of the first season of the formerly critically acclaimed television series, The Killing. Based off of the highly regarded Danish television series Forbrydelsen, the show centered around two homicide detectives investigating the murder of a seemingly innocent high school girl in Seattle. Heavily marketed with the tagline "Who Killed Rosie Larsen?", the show's finale sparked a nearly unprecedented degree of outrage among television critics, with some going so far as to call it "the worst season finale of all time." [assume SPOILERS in all links and below the fold] [more inside]
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:23 AM PST - 223 comments

"We come up with two new mysteries for every one that we solve," he [Schmidt] says. Still, he has already drawn some conclusions. "Twenty years ago everyone believed civilization was driven by ecological forces," Schmidt says. "I think what we are learning is that civilization is a product of the human mind." - Charles C. Mann writes about Göbekli Tepe for National Geographic.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:18 AM PST - 43 comments

Six westerners make the same journey that thousands of desperate people make every year to Australia, but in reverse. [more inside]
posted by smoke at 4:47 AM PST - 104 comments

Lulzsec appear to have hacked the UK 2011 Census which, if true, could be quite a significant ramp up of the security wars. Grabbing a few million credit card numbers is one thing, 60 million identities is something else entirely. Not to mention the celebrity data. Here's the Hacker News comment thread, and a list of the actual census questions to show what could be on offer.
posted by Duug at 4:18 AM PST - 135 comments

A camera can survive in the sea, apparently. A man finds camera on the beach, rescues the SD card and puts all of them on flickr in an effort to find the original owner.
posted by bobbyone at 3:38 AM PST - 47 comments

An immersive 360° camera video of the Vancouver riots. (Bandwidth intensive video.) [more inside]
posted by converge at 2:19 AM PST - 33 comments

"The more David Lowery read of Joy's novel, the more upset he became. Lowery could no longer ignore the fact that the book's main character bore his name, played in his bands and lived his damned life. It was him. And it was most definitely not him." Boy Island is a fictionalized account of Cracker's first tour, written by a fictitious character. [more inside]
posted by roll truck roll at 1:11 AM PST - 31 comments

A look into the industry behind synthetic cannabinoids featured in "legal weed" and "incense" products. [more inside]
posted by cwhitfcd at 12:58 AM PST - 33 comments

Poppin' Fresh | My Little Pony | Kewpie | Smiley | Barbie | Gingerbread Man | Ducky | Goldfish Sashimi | Jason Freeny is a New York City artist who has fun dissecting | video of how it's done | Previously about Moist Production. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 10:13 PM PST - 11 comments

Detektivbyrån (The Detective Agency) was a little-known Swedish band that made delightful music often inspired by Yann Tiersen's soundtrack to Amelié. E 18 - Om Du Möter Varg - Generation celebration - Nattoppet - Partyland - Monster - Laka kaffa - Vänerhavet. (Warning: aggressively cute and happy music containing accordion and bells.) [more inside]
posted by non-kneebiter at 9:17 PM PST - 11 comments

MILES BEYOND: the web's premier resource on the influential and inspirational electric music Miles Davis played from 1967 to 1991 [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 8:17 PM PST - 20 comments

This next pitching stance is only attempted by the bravest of souls... SLYT - It starts a little slow, but hang in there until the 3:05 mark.
posted by figment of my conation at 7:29 PM PST - 34 comments

Box Art showcases awesome and artistic videogame box art. Eastern Mind writes about obscure Japanese videogames, with a focus on adventures and music games.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:20 PM PST - 11 comments

Haw Par Villa, also known as Tiger Balm Gardens, was quite possibly the weirdest theme park on the planet. The first park was built in Hong Kong in the 30s, soon followed by another in Singapore. Built by brothers Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, who made their fortunes selling Tiger Balm, the park was really a sculpture garden devoted to all aspects of Chinese mythology. Weirdest and most surreal of all was the section of the park which depicted the the 10 levels of Buddhist hell, featuring demons dismembering sinners, and is best described as "if Heironymus Bosch built a putt putt course."
posted by puny human at 7:14 PM PST - 30 comments

Trent the Baby vs. Angie the Lioness: SLYT, 1.25. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 6:06 PM PST - 43 comments

Stairway to Heaven, played by identical twins Camille and Kennerly, Third Degree Black Belts in Tae Kwon Do, "The Harp Twins". Their YouTube Channel
posted by growabrain at 6:03 PM PST - 50 comments

GigaOM writer: "Anonymity has real value, both in comments and elsewhere." In the wake of the faux lesbian Damascus blogger, the question over whether or not to allow anonymous comments is being raised again. Some claim anonymous comments allow for dissent and are essential to democracy. Other claim that that anonymous comments lead to harsher, uncivil conversation that serves nobody. [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 5:56 PM PST - 35 comments

Life imitates O'Henry's "The Cop and the Anthem" (tl;dr): James Verone robbed a bank to get health care while in jail. In a similar move, Nathan Bootz, Superintendent of Ithaca Public Schools, "proposed to make his school a prison" to increase the state's spending per-student to the same level as it spends per-prisoner in the jails.
posted by autopilot at 4:35 PM PST - 35 comments

Whitefield-Madrano is regarding mirrors in the same role that I often give to social media. (Social-media sites seem to me to be self-consciousness machines, encouraging that one maintain a directorial distance from one’s own life experience in order to strategize how to present it in update broadcasts.) But the realities of patriarchy complicate matters considerably; as much as believe we are collectively compelling one another to route our social life through commercial social-media sites, that seems like nothing compared with the coercion involved with fulfilling gendered expectations of self-presentation.

Marginal Utility dissects Mirror Fasting. A goal that blogger Whitefield-Madrano recently took up and called a Month Without Mirrors. The initial reason behind her project: "Sometimes I look in the mirror and see myself, or whatever I understand myself to be. Other times, I distinctly see an image of myself."
posted by P.o.B. at 2:50 PM PST - 25 comments

Philosophy Bro: Philosophy is hard - I read and summarize, so you don't have to, man. Nietzsche, Rand, Plato, Mills, etc.
posted by not_on_display at 2:46 PM PST - 28 comments

Reunited With His Dog: A Dying Man's Last Wish.
posted by kmz at 2:13 PM PST - 43 comments

The Speedup. Webster's defines speedup as "an employer's demand for accelerated output without increased pay," and it used to be a household word.
posted by bitmage at 2:11 PM PST - 42 comments

It's all about the Bordens. The Bank of Canada unveils its new series of polymer bank notes. Because no one wants soggy bills when you're makin' it rain.
posted by GuyZero at 1:57 PM PST - 68 comments

Republican Leadership Conference hires an Obama impersonator. Hilarity does not ensue. [more inside]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:57 PM PST - 107 comments

The Sartorial Twist. Why settle for one fashionable ensemble when you can have three?
posted by ardgedee at 12:51 PM PST - 26 comments

Your favorite author sucks. (According your another of your favorite authors.)
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:33 AM PST - 96 comments

Yesterday was the third Sunday in June, the officially recognized date of Father's Day in the US and many other countries. Google really, really wanted to remind you of that fact, not only celebrating the day with a special Google Doodle, but also putting reminders on the front page of Google Search and a special "Reminder: Call Dad" note in the chat roster of Gmail Calling. Many people were not happy about it. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 10:29 AM PST - 240 comments

The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a class-action gender-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart cannot go forward as the class of plaintiffs affected is "too large." All Things Considered summarized the facts of the case last March; Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reported on the key issue of "class commonality" during oral arguments. The full opinion, authored by Antonin Scalia, is here. Previously.
posted by gerryblog at 9:09 AM PST - 114 comments

More evidence of brain plasticity: Some blind people are able to use echolocation to perceive space and objects around them in surprising detail, even though the time differences in echoes necessary to do this are two small to be consciously perceived. An fMRI study by Lore Thaler, Stephen Arnott and Melvyn Goodale revealed that people who are especially adept at this use their calcarine cortex (a.k.a. V1 or primary visual cortex) to process spatial information from the echoes. The original paper. A shorter discussion. (Previously)
posted by nangar at 8:58 AM PST - 13 comments

Congratulations Graduates! Here are some comedic commencement speeches to send you off into the world:

Stephen Colbert's advice for the Northwestern graduating class of 2011: Don't follow your stupid dreams. Jokes start right away, serious bits start 18 minutes in.

Amy Poehler addresses the facts of the 9/11 memories of recent graduates.

Comedian Dwight Slade speaks to his own high school graduate.

More? [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:57 AM PST - 19 comments

Although much has been said about the demographic composition of the United States Congress, much less has been said about the thousands of staffers who work behind the scenes, drafting legislation, interacting with constituents, and advising their congressperson. The National Journal has created two infographics that attempt to describe this silent, but influential workforce.
posted by schmod at 8:41 AM PST - 19 comments

In a 32 page report to Congress [pdf] President Obama concludes:

...the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of “hostilities” contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision.

Now, the New York Times reports that this legal opinion was reached by rejecting the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department. It is instructive to compare President Obama's actions with those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. [more inside]
posted by ennui.bz at 8:28 AM PST - 230 comments

'Jackass' star Ryan Dunn has died at age 34 from injuries sustained in a car crash .
posted by Tenacious.Me.Tokyo at 8:27 AM PST - 252 comments

A profile of Nadav Samin, aka Siah : the best 90s underground rapper you've never heard of, by Bethlehem Shoals. [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 8:06 AM PST - 7 comments

Here Come The Lads - "The Irish soccer team will soon arrive for the World Cup with thousands of peaceful fans who love a glass and a singsong." Written before the arrival of Irish soccer fans to the US for the 1994 world cup, with anecdotes from the 1990 World Cup, when the Republic of Ireland qualified for the first time.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:04 AM PST - 17 comments

Before Robert Jordan passed away, he dictated the ending of his Wheel of Time" series. This was just another bump in the rocky saga of the series. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 7:13 AM PST - 82 comments

Big Bird Through The Years If you grew up watching Sesame Street, how Big Bird is "supposed" to look to you depends greatly on when you did the watching. He started out looking pretty scruffy looking, as seen one of his more famous songs. This song features a Big Bird closest to the one I know. The puppeteer behind Big Bird is Caroll Spinney who received a Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2006 Daytime Emmy Awards. [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 7:12 AM PST - 37 comments

'Dumbland is a crude, stupid, violent, absurd series. If it is funny, it is funny because we see the absurdity of it all.' Fresh off the critical success of Mulholland Dr. [previously] in 2001, David Lynch set out in 2002 to conquer the internet, creating a paywalled website to feature original content like his short film Darkened Room, an anti-sitcom called Rabbits, and the intentionally lowbrow DumbLand.

Featuring animation, music, sound effects, and voice acting entirely by Lynch, DumbLand is a black and white Flash animation series with a total running time of approximately half an hour. A few notes on DumbLand from Lynch. [Also previously: David Lynch's Weather Report] [And super-previously.]
posted by shakespeherian at 6:43 AM PST - 13 comments

Tips my Dad Says. Last week, MAKE Magazine asked their staff, contributors and readers to share some tips and words of wisdom from their dads and granddads. They received over 140 responses and have created a downloadable card of some of the best.
posted by zarq at 6:07 AM PST - 45 comments

(This Post is NSFW) Marcel Mariën is frequently referred to as Rene Magritte's surrogate son.
Magritte was so surreal he forged himself as well as producing fake Picassos, Braques and Chiricos which Mariën sold in Paris.
Mariën was an artist in his own right being a poet, photographer and publisher.
In 1943 his De Sade a Lenin marked the beginning of an mainly humorous oeuvre that was to continue through to the mid 1980's.
iphotocentral has a large collection of the work of this trickster.
His 1960 film L’Imitation du Cinéma could not be shown in the USA despite having the the support of the Kinsey Institute. A Biography.
posted by adamvasco at 4:32 AM PST - 1 comment

"Track trespassing is the largest everyday cause of unnatural deaths in Mumbai." Every day, an average of 7 million commuters ride the Mumbai Suburban Railway. Every day, an average of 10 people are killed crossing the train tracks. Can the lessons of Cognitive Neurology and Behavioural Economics change this? The results of a pilot public safety project seem promising.
posted by beisny at 1:55 AM PST - 53 comments

Hand Crafted Films, DOCOMOMO Louisiana and the Tulane School of Architecture present: A Plea For Modernism from Evan Mather (U.S.A., 2011, 11:59 [alternate YouTube link]).
The Phillis Wheatley Elementary School served the historic New Orleans African-American neighborhood of Tremé since it opened in 1955. Celebrated worldwide for its innovative, regionally-expressive modern design – the structure had sustained moderate damage during the storms and levee breach of 2005. DOCOMOMO Louisiana (autoplaying video) advocated for its restoration via adaptive reuse (For the Roots of Music). A Plea For Modernism is narrated by actor Wendell Pierce (“The Wire”, “Treme”). [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 11:04 PM PST - 6 comments

Many would agree that the advent of CGI has made movies worse, not better. Blogger Gin and Tacos makes the argument eloquently: "The fundamental problem is that CGI, rather that being a tool that allows directors to explore new creative possibilities, just enables laziness."
posted by bardic at 8:53 PM PST - 186 comments

"I had to stand in front of 92 people and say 'Not only do you not have a job anymore, you don't have a house anymore'". On June 20th, the United States Gypsum Corporation will shut down its plant in Empire, Nevada, the last Company town in America.
posted by MattMangels at 8:15 PM PST - 68 comments

Puppet Anarchy's 2010 take on Calling Occupants (of Interplanetary Craft) [The Official Anthem Of World Contact Day]. 5m48s. Watch to the end. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:55 PM PST - 23 comments

The B-Master Cabal is a site that aggregates some of the best bad movie review sites on the web and puts together for themed movie roundtables. Most of the sites focus not only on mocking bad films but also praising obscure horror, fantasy, action and science-fiction. B-Masters Roll-Call! Teleport City covers everything from Turkish spy movies to kung-fu rarities to Japanese whiskey. 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting has in-depth, critical reviews of classic horror and genre films. And You Call Yourself A Scientist! examines who movies handle from the perspective of a female scientist. Badmovies.org features a Marine dissecting crap film with copious quotes and clips. Jabootu.net posts excruciatingly long reviews of excruciating films, and is one of the few sites to cover contemporary trash like Gigli. The Unknown Movies Page unearths films too obscure even for the rest of the cabal. Cold Fusion Video, Stomp Tokyo, and Brain Eater round out the group
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:16 PM PST - 3 comments

"...authorities would try to find the culprits and would seek to clean up the monument, but it was unlikely to happen right away."
posted by griphus at 7:02 PM PST - 27 comments

In an effort to preserve the rich story behind this landmark film, CONELRAD has spent the last two years thoroughly researching DUCK AND COVER's production history as well as its initial public reception in 1952. Interviews were conducted with living participants involved in the making of the film as well as surviving family members of those key players who had passed away. In the course of our research, CONELRAD also uncovered a wealth of archival material that leaves no doubt that a tremendous amount of thought went into the making of this nine minute motion picture that has been the subject of so much dismissive ridicule over the years. (More CONELRAD goodness previously)
posted by Trurl at 6:29 PM PST - 12 comments

Britain Is More Germanic than It Thinks, and Kon-Tiki explorer was partly right – Polynesians had South American roots. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 5:56 PM PST - 51 comments

The World's Worst Records: an arcade of audio atrocities, including such classics as Hamsters for Jesus, Christmas in the Stars (Star Wars Christmas Album), Homer the Happy Little Homo, Someone Walked over My Grave, and many more! Slightly NSFW.
posted by bwg at 5:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Party Politics: How Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality from Time.com
posted by blue_beetle at 5:46 PM PST - 88 comments

The iconic BBC Television Centre is up for sale. Reaction is not muted. [more inside]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:25 PM PST - 25 comments

"The conventional wisdom, promoted by government and echoed by the subservient media, is that UFOs are mysterious objects which by definition are unknowable. Anyone attempting to explain them is a charlatan perpetrating a hoax and using 'junk physics' . That may not be so." [more inside]
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:19 PM PST - 50 comments

World War II: Before the War. Part 1 of a forthcoming weekly 20-part retrospective of World War II from The Atlantic's In Focus.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:07 PM PST - 13 comments

Laura Nyro - singer, songwriter. Covered by others: "Eli's Coming" - Three Dog Night ; "And When I Die" - Blood, Sweat & Tears. An occasional performer: "Poverty Train" - Monterey Pop Festival ; "He's A Runner" (TV) ; "Blowin' Away" and "Wedding Bell Blues" - Pittsburgh, 1994 ; "Save the Country" (TV). And media glitz: "Stoned Soul Picnic" - The Fifth Dimension ; "Sweet Blindness" - The Fifth Dimension w/Frank Sinatra. Video quality and loudness vary.
posted by Ardiril at 4:03 PM PST - 19 comments

Kurt Jooss' lament for the futility of war, The Green Table: A Dance of Death in Eight Scenes is a masterpiece of modern dance that premiered in 1932--just month's before Hitler's rise to power would propel Europe inexorably toward chaos for the second time in as many generations. A performance by the Joffrey Ballet is available on YouTube in five parts. [more inside]
posted by jefficator at 4:03 PM PST - 1 comment

This morning "The Daily Show's Jon Stewart entered the proverbial lion's den, appearing live [video highlights | 01:43] on Fox News Sunday to debate 'media bias' with host Chris Wallace." "The interview [video | 24:11] got off to a rousing start with Wallace almost immediately calling Stewart out for his criticism of the network and its brand of news coverage and went exactly where you'd expect it to from there." [more inside]
posted by ericb at 3:56 PM PST - 102 comments

The Typewriter Art of Keira Rathbone. (Video)
posted by cashman at 2:52 PM PST - 9 comments

Is Apple bypassing the Web? Maybe so, and the inventor of the Web's fears are one step closer to being realized.
posted by doctornemo at 2:46 PM PST - 118 comments

From bouffants du jour and shampoo secrets of the stars to yesteryear's 'dos and you-know-you-want-it accessories, if it's about hair, you'll find it at the always entertaining Hair Hall of Fame.
posted by madamjujujive at 2:28 PM PST - 6 comments

Scene and heard: Electro champeta | Champeta.net | I came across this dream collection of picós pictures on Africolombia's blog. Picós are these huge, powerful, customized, hand painted, highly fetishized sound systems from the Colombian Carribean Coast (Barranquilla, Cartagena, Palenque de San Basilio...). | Sound Systems, World Beat, and Diasporan Identity in Cartagena, Colombia [pdf] | Techno Tribal guarachero | Bonus cool link: Brazilian Dual Mix Dance Free Step. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 12:10 PM PST - 3 comments

OSHA's 1984 Fatal Facts report comes illustrated with surprisingly sangfroid cartoons of workplace accidents.
posted by The Whelk at 7:45 AM PST - 97 comments

Steve Goodman-My Old Man Happy Father's Day.
posted by Daddy-O at 7:44 AM PST - 22 comments

Solaris, Stanislaw Lem's 1961 masterpiece, has finally been translated directly into English. The current print version, in circulation for over 4 decades, was the result of a double-translation. Firstly from Polish to French, in 1966, by Jean-Michel Jasiensko. This version was then taken up by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox who hacked together an English version in 1970. Lem, himself a fluent English speaker, was always scathing of the double translation. Something he believed added to the universal misunderstanding of his greatest work. After the relsease of two film versions of the story, and decades of speculation, a new direct English translation has been released. Translated by American Professor Bill Johnston 'The Definitive Solaris' is only available as an audiobook for the time being. Copyright issues, hampered by several, widely available, editions of the poor English translation may mean it is some time yet before a definitive print edition makes it onto our bookshelves.
posted by 0bvious at 4:29 AM PST - 63 comments

In 1991 during the publicity tour for Harlot's Ghost, Martin Amis interviewed Norman Mailer (pt. 2, pt. 3, and pt. 4). Topics covered include the CIA, the Democratic Party, liberalism, communism, the writing life, being Jewish, feminism, the men’s movement, homosexuality, George Bush, and the Kennedys.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 12:27 AM PST - 7 comments

Kevin Kelly describes how a clock designed to run for 10,000 years will function and the efforts behind its creation and building.
posted by reenum at 10:13 PM PST - 71 comments

After the Green With Envy teaser, and the Fuzzy Pack teaser, and the Being Green teaser, we finally have the Official Trailer for The Muppets, the new movie coming out in November 2011.
posted by hippybear at 7:19 PM PST - 147 comments

You spin me right round baby.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:24 PM PST - 66 comments

To record the history of the large format movies and the 70mm cinemas as remembered by the people who worked with the films.
posted by Trurl at 6:23 PM PST - 18 comments

King of the World, Master of the Universe: Rest in peace, Clarence Clemons. [more inside]
posted by gerryblog at 6:21 PM PST - 144 comments

Imagine a web where domains can end in just about any generic top-level domain (new gTLD), e.g. .metafilter. Well, that's soon a reality:

The organization that oversees the Internet address system is preparing to open the floodgates to a nearly limitless selection of new website suffixes, including ones in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts. That could usher in the most sweeping transformation of the Domain Name System since its creation in the 1980s

[more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:09 PM PST - 97 comments

The Madness of Cesar Chavez
posted by telstar at 2:50 PM PST - 43 comments

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have published a new study (behind paywall - summary) on the effects of "magic mushrooms". Volunteers were given 4 doses of psilocybin spaced one month apart. The study built on previous work and attempted to optimize the experience for long-lasting positive effects:

61% of volunteers considered the psilocybin experience during either or both the [highest dosage] sessions to have been the single most spiritually significant of their lives, with 83% rating it in their top five. Consistent with this, 94% and 89% of volunteers, respectively, indicated that the experiences on those same sessions increased their well-being or life satisfaction and positively changed their behavior at least moderately.

[more inside]
posted by crayz at 2:35 PM PST - 170 comments

Amnesty International, 50 Years: Standing Up For Freedom (Vimeo. YouTube.) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:20 PM PST - 18 comments

Mr. Ghetto's New Orleans Bounce (Wal-Mart rap) has created quite a stir. Others comment that at least the Wal-Mart that the video takes place in is clean, and well-stocked. New Orleans bounce music has been mentioned previously.
posted by domo at 1:14 PM PST - 93 comments

RIP Wild Man Fischer (NYTimes link) Only saw him once, opening for the Mothers of Invention.
posted by Danf at 10:34 AM PST - 34 comments

Budget Films is a small, privately owned film archive in Los Angeles. Layne Murphy writes about working with her father, in the all-but-lost world of 16mil prints. One regular customer was obsessed with Paulette Goddard, and snipped out all of her scenes from the films he rented.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:23 AM PST - 13 comments

"Punk-artist-anthropologist Cameron Jamie has made three documentaries on violence; I’ve read about them all and seen just this one." The author speaks of "Kranky Klaus," LA-born artist Jamie's peek into the Austrian folkloric character Krampus, a sort of photo-negative of Santa Claus who comes on Christmas to punish bad children. [more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:20 AM PST - 12 comments

"Blame it on the Rain" by Milli Vanilli. "Unbreak My Heart" by Toni Braxton. "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith. "How Do I Live" by LeAnn Rimes. "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Cher. "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion. "If You Asked Me To" by Patti LaBelle. What do all of these songs have in common? They were all written by Diane Warren, a member of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame whose songs have awards such as a a Grammy, a Golden Globe award, and several ASCAP awards for Songwriter of the Year.
posted by MattMangels at 9:39 AM PST - 84 comments

Joe Bussard has a podcast called "Country Classics," (mostly old bluegrass, but there's also a couple featuring old-time jazz) ... also available over the air on WREK (91.1 Atlanta, GA) every Friday afternoon. [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 9:31 AM PST - 11 comments

"Despite the fact that the US spends more per capita than any other nation on health, eight out of every 10 counties are not keeping pace in terms of health outcomes. That's a staggering statistic."

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, life expectancy for many US counties fell relative to the world between 2000 and 2007. This Science Daily article gives an overview, and the IHME website has a nice page with links to data and visualizations. Here's the UN's list of countries by life expectancy for 2005-2010 for comparison.
posted by sneebler at 9:14 AM PST - 31 comments

Owls Dance To The Beat.
posted by The Owls at 8:46 AM PST - 27 comments

I don't like art with puke. It's not in my pallet. It's disgusting.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:36 AM PST - 69 comments

One night, I awoke out of a dead sleep, and jumped to my computer, and instantly began typing up an article about David Letterman. I kept going for ten minutes, until I realized I had dreamed it all. There was no article to write; I was simply typing up the same meaningless phrases that we all always used: “LADY GAGA PANTLESS ON LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN,” or some such.

AOL Hell: An AOL Content Slave Speaks Out.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:30 PM PST - 126 comments

Memory Implants Have Now Been Successfully Applied to Rats: Is an artificial enhancement arms race among humans visible on the horizon? Culturally-favored appearance and intelligence have often been associated with social mobility; a future in which the rich can readily purchase dramatic enhancements to both sex appeal and cognitive ability at least raises the possibility of deeper and more permanent social stratification.
posted by darth_tedious at 6:30 PM PST - 85 comments

Stuck. On their way home from photographing Formula Drift Palm Beach, Joe Ayala & Larry Chen found themselves stranded over night in Dallas Fort Worth as their flights home were canceled
posted by growabrain at 5:53 PM PST - 33 comments

Be it resolved: The 21st Century Will Belong to China. At tonight's Munk Debates, Niall Ferguson and David Daokui Li debate Henry Kissinger and Fareed Zakaria [more inside]
posted by HLD at 5:47 PM PST - 59 comments

Enrique Metinides artfully captured five decades of mayhem in Mexico City. His successors keep his tradition alive. "David Alvarado is a quiet guy who does one of the ugliest jobs in this world but he will win your sympathy with his famous saying "se logró el objetivo" (the objective was accomplished). previously (graphic images and content Very NSFW and NSFC not safe for children) [more inside]
posted by Xurando at 5:38 PM PST - 19 comments

In a non-binding resolution narrowly passed by 23 to 19 (with 3 abstentions), the United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned violence and discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgender people for the first time. [more inside]
posted by thebestsophist at 5:02 PM PST - 46 comments

With the NFL and NBA potentially going dark in the fall, Michael Schur and Nate DiMeo of Grantland.com decide to watch the India-Pakistan cricket match to see if it can be a suitable replacement.
posted by reenum at 4:45 PM PST - 71 comments

Animals Being Dicks. What is says on the tin.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 4:19 PM PST - 65 comments

Rudolf Hess and the Scottish Weather (slyt)
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:00 PM PST - 12 comments

The Muppets in Thor is NOT another fake trailer for the upcoming movie. It's a 24-page mostly-24-hour comic by the guy who does Max Overacts. Note: contains discrete male nudity, pig-on-Norse-God violence, obscure references (Junior Woodchucks!), sentimental time travel and IMO very good use of a lot of familiar characters, including Rowlf (MY favorite Muppet) putting it all in perspective.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:53 PM PST - 22 comments

"What I'm asking is this: Are screenwriters now affected by "spoiler culture" before they even begin the writing process? If you know a twist will be unavoidably revealed before the majority of people see the work itself, and if you concede that selling and marketing a film with a major secret will be more complicated for everyone involved … would you even try? Would you essentially stop yourself from trying to write a movie that's structured like The Sixth Sense?" Are Spoilers Flipping the Script?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:48 PM PST - 127 comments

The Film Archive is an eclectic collection of full-length television and films, focusing mostly on the 30’s to the 60’s, that include teenage self-help films, the first televised Nixon / Kennedy debate, nuclear preparation films, exploitation/propaganda movies of every era, and much more.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:41 PM PST - 8 comments

Welcome to the Circus of Value Despair A collection of photos from Six Flags New Orleans, an amusement park that closed at the approach of Hurricane Katrina and never reopened. Six years later it remains, slouching slowly into rust and rubble. (previously)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:40 AM PST - 99 comments

What lives in the rainforest, under a tree? Spongiforma squarepantsii! Who resembles a sponge but is really a fungee*? Spongiforma squarepantsii! First discovered in a tropical forest in Borneo in 2010, S. squarepantsii resembles a sea sponge not only in outward appearance, but "[w]hen it's wet and moist and fresh, you can wring water out of it and it will spring back to its original size. Most mushrooms don't do that," as told by Dennis Desjardin, a mycology professor involved with the discovery. * I claim artistic license. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:18 AM PST - 32 comments

Only 13% of articles in the New Republic, 22% of articles in The Atlantic and 30% of articles in the New Yorker are by women. ThinkProgress' Alyssa Rosenberg wonders why men's magazines underserve women and women's magazines underserve journalism. Anne Hays is boycotting the New Yorker for publishing too few women. Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks it's about old-fashioned class norms. Are the "female stars of long-form journalism" the solution to the problem or a red herring?
posted by Apropos of Something at 11:14 AM PST - 69 comments

35 cover videos of Radiohead's Paranoid Android mixed together. Reminiscent of Kutiman's ThruYOU which you should really, really watch if you haven't. Via reddit.com/r/music.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 11:08 AM PST - 43 comments

Montel Williams has announced a partnership to bring a high-end, deluxe medical marijuana dispensary to Sacramento, California. This is not the first time Williams has brought the issue of medical marijuana into the media spotlight, having put in previous public appearances to discuss his own firsthand experiences using medical marijuana to treat the symptoms of his multiple sclerosis. This latest venture puts Williams at the head of a growing list of celebrity marijuana legalization adocates, including Drew Carey, Justin Timberlake and others (this last link is possibly NSFW). But does all the Sturm und Drang around the issue of marijuana legalization really signal a changing political reality? Depending upon your perspective, the polls, at least, are starting to look pretty good.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:50 AM PST - 52 comments

Control of Robert Smithson's earthwork masterpiece Spiral Jetty (360° panorama - QuickTime required) is now in dispute. Last week, a spokesperson for the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands announced that the New York-based Dia Foundation, which was given stewardship over the work by the artist's estate, had been tardy in making its annual $250 payment on the 10 acres of land and had also failed to respond to an automatically generated notice that the 20 year lease had expired. (The Dia Foundation disagrees.) Consequently, it will now be "managed like any other sovereign land" - which may be of interest to the energy companies that have sought to explore the area. (previously)
posted by Trurl at 10:11 AM PST - 45 comments

Do you want some Spam with your Kindle? Spam has hit the Kindle, clogging the online bookstore of the top-selling eReader with material that is far from being book worthy and threatening to undermine Amazon.com Inc's publishing foray.
posted by Fizz at 8:53 AM PST - 93 comments

Shoomlah illustrates Disney Princess in historically accurate costumes, givs explanations for her choices, and shows us her process. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 8:39 AM PST - 55 comments

"In this piece I didn't browse YouTube, I actually wandered around Jerusalem, met with musicians and filmed them." New music/video from Kutiman - Thru Jerusalem.
posted by pashdown at 8:23 AM PST - 14 comments

Bumblebee, a program that allows Nvidia's Optimus to be used in Linux, brings you an epic fail for your amusement this Friday. [via spacebar] [more inside]
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:03 AM PST - 98 comments

The three-year run of FreakAngels, Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield's steampunk webcomic, will come to an end in late July. FreakAngels was (to my knowledge) the first ongoing webcomic by an established comic-book creator, and if his experiment with free online publishing is almost over, it seems to have been a successful one - Duffield's announcement of FreakAngels' impending conclusion mentions that "Warren and Avatar Press have more webcomics lined up for you." Earlier this week, Chris Sims asked why comics publishers aren't using the webcomic format to draw in new readers. Could Avatar's online expansion be the beginning of that movement? Previously.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:59 AM PST - 30 comments

Going Straight: My Ex-Gay Friend Also: Living the Good Lie: Therapists Who Help People Stay in the Closet. (Both links NYT, via)
posted by zarq at 7:49 AM PST - 90 comments

Facebook users are more trusting than other people. A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project takes a broad look at the social impact of social networking sites (SNSs). [more inside]
posted by DiscourseMarker at 7:33 AM PST - 34 comments

All about the spotting deer , a fictional species profile in comic form by Michael DeForge at What Things Do. [Previously]
posted by shakespeherian at 7:31 AM PST - 6 comments

Vera Brosgol (previously) is a Russian-born artist and illustrator now based in the US. One of her early works, Return To Sender, remains unfinished. Her first graphic novel Anya’s Ghost (preview) about a girl who finds a ghost at the bottom of a well has just been published.
posted by panboi at 6:30 AM PST - 9 comments

The New Aesthetic For a while now, I’ve been collecting images and things that seem to approach a new aesthetic of the future, which sounds more portentous than I mean. What I mean is that we’ve got frustrated with the NASA extropianism space-future, the failure of jetpacks, and we need to see the technologies we actually have with a new wonder.
posted by jack_mo at 4:05 AM PST - 56 comments

Aviation Week and Space Technology explains that sequence of events in the crash that killed all 228 people onboard the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris can be segmented into two distinct phases. In the first phase, the pilots were dealing with the failure of speed readings that are almost certain to be linked to iced-over pitot tubes. The second phase began when speed indications returned to normal and the aircraft was at the edge of its flight envelope but under control and not stalled. Phase two also coincided with the captain’s return to the cockpit from an agreed-upon rest. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 3:27 AM PST - 66 comments

"Hey guys, drinks are on me! I finally scored that interview with the Dali Llama. My journalism career is finally about to take off." 30 minutes and 3 rounds later..."Phil, you know what you should do? Tell him the Pizza joke. I'm sure he'll get a kick out of it." "Haha! You're right. That's an awesome idea. What could possibly go wrong?"
posted by jadayne at 10:51 PM PST - 396 comments

The insanely [un]popular Rebecca Black song Friday has been pulled from YouTube following a copyright claim from Rebecca Black! TMZ reports that the takedown is apparently the latest step in a dispute between Black and Ark Music Factory about rights to the song. [more inside]
posted by sycophant at 9:21 PM PST - 116 comments

accf96 catches a Napoleonfish. He should donate it. accf96 catches a Ray. Will he donate it? accf96 catches a Stringfish It's recommended that he donate it. Cute videogame enjoyment filter. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 7:06 PM PST - 17 comments

Rockstar Games/Team Bondi's open world adventure game LA Noire was released last month to near-universal praise. However, several long-form essays have been written exploring it's problems. The Shadows Of LA Noire criticizes its lack of noir feel. Press X For Beer Bottle (some spoilers) uses the game's lack of freedom to explore the nature of gaming. Finally, Kill Screen Daily's review finds a metaphysical explanation for some of its most obvious issues.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:49 PM PST - 61 comments

CN Tower EdgeWalk, June 2011; YouTube, 2.00. For CAD175 you can harness up and walk around the five-foot-wide edge of Toronto's CN Tower, 356 metres/1,168 feet above ground level. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 5:48 PM PST - 69 comments

The sliding rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California have mystified and delighted visitors for decades (previously). Now planetary scientist Ralph Lorenz and colleagues think they've figured out how the rocks get around: ice rafts float the rocks out of the mud, reducing friction enough that modest winds can push them along (PDF of Lorenz et al., American Journal of Physics, Vol. 79, 1 January 2011). [more inside]
posted by Quietgal at 5:23 PM PST - 22 comments

On June 7th the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska briefly lost the ability to cool spent fuel rods after a fire at the site. The FAA issued a directive prohibiting aircraft from entering airspace in a two mile radius of the plant. Since last week the plant has been under a "notice of unusual event" because of the Missouri River flooding. Local news reports that the "facility is an island right now". The flight ban remains in effect. [more inside]
posted by thescientificmethhead at 4:56 PM PST - 121 comments

Have we reached the era of the post-ironic riot?
posted by Cloud King at 4:34 PM PST - 87 comments

"People have always had an ulterior or imaginative life," opines writer Will Self. "There's something about the act of will involved in believing in preposterous things that I believe is the very kind of muscle and key of having an imagination... here, you have an arena that is inherently psychotic." In a series of interviews about the nature of human imagination and violence as they are transformed by the Internet, Self muses on how primal human desires are being satisfied more efficiently and easily by the increasingly connected life, and wonders how this will change us as much as society.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:13 PM PST - 10 comments

Need to make an artist statement but not feeling artisty enough? Use the Arty Bollocks Generator to generate one instantly.
posted by mccarty.tim at 3:32 PM PST - 49 comments

Metaskim: A news aggregator that cuts out a lot of the fat and gives you relevant local and national news.
posted by reenum at 2:24 PM PST - 24 comments

This site parses the emails sent and received by Sarah Palin while she was governor of Alaska and presents them in a more familiar interface. sarahsinbox.com
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 2:22 PM PST - 18 comments

AFSAD: On June 24, 2010 – Midsummer’s Day – the acclaimed British singer Jon Boden launched an ambitious new project – A Folk Song A Day. Every day for (nearly) a year now he's been posting his performance of a traditional song free online or as an audio podcast. He's now got just eight of his 365 songs to go, so now's your chance to catch up before it's too late.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:00 PM PST - 2 comments

Poop burger. [more inside]
posted by flex at 11:49 AM PST - 209 comments

"People have travelled along the Norwegian coastline with "Hurtigruten" since 1893. The journey is known as "The World's Most Beautiful Sea Voyage". Now everybody can travel along in the world's longest TV program! Spectacular fjords, midnight sun and genuine Norwegian scenery make the setting for a trip from Bergen to Kirkenes. We broadcast the whole trip live minute by minute for 134 hours!" Watch the whole thing live here. [more inside]
posted by sveskemus at 11:08 AM PST - 25 comments

Religion Dispatches: progressive, LGBT-and-atheist friendly, interfaith, non-academic journalism on faith and religious culture. Also of note: Good magazine has limited print distribution but a rich website.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:04 AM PST - 8 comments

Scriptsource: Pretty much every form of human writing, all documented on one site. Simon Ager’s Omniglot.com, which went online circa 1998, documents the many writing systems in use through history and in the present day. Now SIL International’s ScriptSource packs an even more boggling array of information on scripts and writing into one site, drilling all the way down to pages for individual letters.
posted by joeclark at 10:57 AM PST - 8 comments

Amin's hunger for publicity was so great, in fact, that in 1974 he became the first dictator in history to agree to be the subject of an independent documentary film. The resulting movie, Barbet Schroeder's General Idi Amin Dada... is a devastating look at despotism in action and a riveting, and strangely entertaining, portrait of Amin. [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 10:06 AM PST - 31 comments

It was music to be heard, not listened to. It was the soundtrack to the relaxed, sophisticated, mature vision of the good life. It was music for lovers. It was upbeat, elaborately arranged, chart-toppingly popular, and yet has been almost written out of the popular music history books, dismissed as “elevator music”; soulless, toned-down, pre-chewed, limp cover-versions of popular songs for old people. So sit back, put aside the politics and angst, slip into something comfortable (preferably with someone of similar description), and allow yourself to experience The Joy of Easy Listening [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:43 AM PST - 42 comments

El Bulli is closing and Ferran Adria looks forward to...Pepsi Co.? [more inside]
posted by bquarters at 9:27 AM PST - 47 comments

Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner, of New York's 9th congressional district, will resign from Congress today at 2 p.m. in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. [more inside]
posted by brina at 9:12 AM PST - 322 comments

Artists lovingly take on costumed heroes: Gregg Segal follows superhero impersonators home to get some great shots of crime-fighters doing chores (also, here). Mark Newport knits super hero costumes, when he is not trying to be the official knitter of the NFL. Meanwhile, Rafael Bastos creates minimal super hero costumes out of household objects (use a few laser pointers to become Cyclops!).
posted by blahblahblah at 8:49 AM PST - 8 comments

Russian Video from Russia does what it says, providing a variety of videos from Russia, presented in English or with English subtitles, and brief descriptions of the videos. You can check out videos as they're posted, or sort through by categories (including customs, musical video, science and technology, and movie for the weekend). This last category ranges from Russian Sherlock Holmes movies to a traditional New Year romantic comedy, a documentary on Yuri Gagarin to a classic Russian children's tale of Old Hottabych, an old genie freed in modern times.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:32 AM PST - 8 comments

The much-beloved Arrested Development was characterized by its complex, multilayered narrative jokes; here the A. V. Club analyzed a 50-second-long clip and tried to map out all its references (including one very subtle three-part joke about eggs). Luckily for you, there’s a very exhaustive web site, The Balboa Observer-Picayune, which documents the show’s obscurest jokes (H. Maddas, Blackstool, GOB’s ice obsession), its cleverest callbacks (Hello’s revenge, ”Mom says”, pilot/finale callbacks), its visual gags (yearbooks, newspapers, cartoons, Amazon), and its longest-running gags (I’ve made a huge mistake”, “Her?”, Cloud Mir, ”Hey, brother!”, and the chicken dance). Complete index of references at the Bluthcyclopedia. Complete transcripts of every episode. Bonus songs! All You Need Is Smiles. Yellow Boat. Big Yellow Joint. Hot Cops. It Ain’t Easy Being White. Discipline Daddy. Motherboy. Balls in the Air. You Here With Me. I Get Up. Finally, Fonzie jumps the shark again. [more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:59 AM PST - 291 comments

Here's a couple of kids covering the Foo Fighters.
posted by empath at 7:24 AM PST - 27 comments

A handful of complete Harold Lloyd films on YouTube:

A Sailor-Made Man (1921)
Why Worry? (1923)
Safety Last (1923)
Girl Shy (1924)
The Freshman (1925)

From the splendid F*** Yeah Harold Lloyd
posted by shakespeherian at 7:24 AM PST - 19 comments

Vancouver lost twice last night. Just over a year ago, Vancouver was the pride of Canada during the 2010 Olympics. This morning the people of Vancouver are waking up and wondering what the hell? [more inside]
posted by dogbusonline at 6:03 AM PST - 337 comments

Dr Beachcombing is curious about the strange and the unexpected in records of the past. This is his engaging blog.
posted by unliteral at 9:42 PM PST - 8 comments

"Davis didn’t have time to ponder their motives. The intersection of Jail and Ferozepur roads was packed with cars, bicycles, rickshaws, and pedestrians; the motorcycle pulled around his car and stopped just ahead of it. Shamshad, on the back of the bike, turned. He raised his pistol. He cocked it." [Black Ops and Blood Money] (previously and previouslier)
posted by vidur at 9:40 PM PST - 30 comments

Satan your kingdom must come down. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:08 PM PST - 31 comments

The True Cost of Tomatoes.
posted by storybored at 9:00 PM PST - 73 comments

"Today, auctions are a smaller portion of ecommerce than they were in 2001, and even on eBay they are a dwindling . . . [t]hey now account for just 31 percent of all sales on the site and are no longer at the heart of the company’s business model."

Why have internet auctions fallen out of favour?
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 8:06 PM PST - 107 comments

In an essay about the end of J. J. Abrams' film Super 8 (caution: spoilers!), Devin Faraci writes, "[It] would work if just clipped out and used to sell flowers or something; technically it’s well made, but narratively it’s disastrously bad and lazy. That, more or less, sums up the entire film." [more inside]
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:10 PM PST - 113 comments

In CA-36, Democrat Calls For Blanket Condemnation Of Stunning New Web Ad. Initially, businessman Craig Huey, a tea party Republican, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Los Angeles County GOP. Eventually, Huey's campaign manager stated, "If I could wave a magic wand and take it down, I would. The video was created by Turn Right USA PAC.
posted by black rainbows at 7:06 PM PST - 146 comments

An unproduced script for the Catwoman film written by Batman Returns scripter Daniel Waters would have sent Catwoman to supervillian support group outside of Gotham City. Want a more modern take on the character? She'll be playable in Arkham City.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:34 PM PST - 24 comments

DIY Weapons of the Libyan Rebels
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:55 PM PST - 46 comments

4chan's texboard /prog/ invents a novel new sorting algorithm(no images, but NSFW with a few reprehensible bits thrown in) called sleep sort and translates it into most most modern programming languages. Hacker News provides analysis and finds itself impressed.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:20 PM PST - 51 comments

Man confesses to Tupac Shakur robbery and shooting Dexter Isaac, now serving a life sentence for murder, told AllHipHop.com that he robbed Shakur outside the Quad Studio in Manhattan in November 1994 on the orders of hip hop management mogul James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond. [more inside]
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 5:05 PM PST - 20 comments

Bitcoin is growing up: early adopters lost money due to bad backups; the US Senate wants to crack down due to possible illegal drug purchases with the digital coins; it had its Black Friday, losing 30% of its value in one day (after a 5,600% increase in the first year); the Economist weighs in; and now an alledged heist of 25k bitcoins (original forum post), valued between $250k and $750k on the Mt. Gox exchange. Currently 154 petaflops of CPU and GPUs are computing SHA256 hashes in tight loops, easily beating the #1 on the top500, the Tiahne-1A with 2.56 petaflops. (Previously and more previously)
posted by autopilot at 4:58 PM PST - 109 comments

ⓑⓤⓑⓑⓛⓔⓑⓐⓛⓛ and uʍop-ǝpısdn text
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:00 PM PST - 64 comments

Google broadcasting today's Lunar Eclipse real-time. With play by play commentary on the action. [more inside]
posted by humannaire at 11:58 AM PST - 37 comments

In commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the release of Wet Hot American Summer, Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles is presenting an exhibition of artwork inspired by the movie. Gallery (2) [more inside]
posted by schmod at 11:57 AM PST - 67 comments

My Daguerreotype Boyfriend. Notables: Hermann Rorschach, Almanzo Wilder, Teddy Roosevelt, Robert Cornelius. More history crushes.
posted by katillathehun at 11:19 AM PST - 66 comments

What would a pro sports playoff drive be without a fan-written tribute song? For those anticipating Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs tonight, here for your enjoyment is Canucks Waleyan Ne, a Bhangra song written by members of Vancouver's large South Asian community. English lyrics available here (pdf), pasted below the fold for your convenience. [more inside]
posted by PercussivePaul at 10:25 AM PST - 81 comments

The Peoria Chiefs, the Class A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, are hosting a 2011 Lebron Championship Ring giveaway at their ballpark tomorrow night.
posted by drewski at 10:16 AM PST - 85 comments

As nationwide strikes sweeps across Greece, unconfirmed reports are swirling that Prime Minister George Papandreou is preparing to step down.
posted by phaedon at 10:15 AM PST - 130 comments

William Temple Hornaday was an early--and probably a founding--member of the American conservation movement, and was also director of the National Zoological Park. He wrote a tremendously bitter and accurate report for the U.S. National Museum in 1894 on the extermination of the American bison, an absolute head-shaker, detailing the history of the bison in North America and its destruction at the hands of sportsmen, hunters, mindless dolts and many others who massacred tens of millions of the animal ("murdered" is the word Hornaday uses constantly). To put the whole issue in perspective, Hornaday issued a famous map showing the shrinkage of the North American bison herd, setting out the enormity of the issue instantly on one piece of paper, a summary of hundreds of pages of bad stories and big numbers.
posted by Trurl at 9:59 AM PST - 18 comments

In other words, months before The War Games, The Mind Robber has quietly given us an origin story for the Doctor that is almost, but not quite, what we eventually get from the later "official" version. - Philip Sandifer discusses an alternate origin for Doctor Who.
posted by Artw at 9:51 AM PST - 42 comments

The Triumph of New-Age Medicine "Medicine has long decried acupuncture, homeopathy, and the like as dangerous nonsense that preys on the gullible. Again and again, carefully controlled studies have shown alternative medicine to work no better than a placebo. But now many doctors admit that alternative medicine often seems to do a better job of making patients well, and at a much lower cost, than mainstream care—and they’re trying to learn from it." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:44 AM PST - 273 comments

[Urban planning] allows discrimination but dresses it up as discriminating taste. So says an opinion piece in Reason magazine titled Urban Design Hipsters are Evil. [more inside]
posted by desjardins at 9:22 AM PST - 59 comments

Anchalee Saengtai is a Thai sculptor who makes incredible Transformer statues out of recycled scrap parts. | Her Predator creations | Alien | Megatron Tank | furniture | and more. Bonus link: Transformer art in Mexico.
posted by nickyskye at 9:13 AM PST - 17 comments

Joel Klein wrote an essay in the Atlantic about the reasons for the current problems in the primary educational system.
posted by reenum at 8:09 AM PST - 79 comments

Welcome to Boney Borough, a place where the unit of currency is credits or creds; the most popular (and illegal) sport is DieBall, a game in which the players rub an adhesive, gooey, and brain-damaging substance called Die Gunk on their hands and bodies to help them hold on to the ball; and where one itinerant, nicotine-patch addict, self-proclaimed botany professor, Professor Panther, spreads his knowledge of hallucinogenic plants throughout the town like wildfire. Oh, and did I mention that Boney Borough and its inhabitants are also being watched over by aliens, who are using the townsfolk as guinea pigs in a single-minded experiment? Or, it might be best to say, like ants in a colony.... This is BodyWorld, a comic by Dash Shaw. And it's all online. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:08 AM PST - 9 comments

It's not the objective environment that influences people, but their constructs of the world. You have to get inside people's heads and see the world the way they do. You have to look at the kinds of narratives and stories people tell themselves as to why they're doing what they're doing... Many policy makers, if they're thinking about a problem turn to economists... When economists think about how to solve a problem such as closing the achievement gap in education, or reducing teenage pregnancy, their inclination is to use incentives... To a social psychologist, it is a little naïve to think that adding external incentives is all you have to do. Not to say that incentives can't work, but they can sometimes backfire if you look at it through the eyes of the person who is getting that incentive.

Pioneering investigator of the unconscious Timothy Wilson on the state of social psychology and its practical applications – including government attempts to shape public behaviour, and the futility of the self-help industry. [via]
posted by AceRock at 7:34 AM PST - 21 comments

"Test tube kitten baby?" [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by likeso at 6:15 AM PST - 16 comments

With E3 2011 over and some majestically creepy 'booth babe' galleries cropping up, you'd be forgiven for wondering whether the 2006 ban ever happened. Never a site to shy from cheap titillation, RockPaperShotgun gives us Booth Babe Babes Bonanza. In a similar vein, Comic Con Pervs has its zoom lenses at the ready for San Diego Comic Con this year. NSFW scantily-clad ladies in first links, also a few incidentally featured in latter ones
posted by emmtee at 5:46 AM PST - 261 comments

Do Artists Have a Moral Responsibility in War? is a thoughtful, question raising 40 min video and podcast by NYT journalist Alan Riding.
Should Artists Speak Out Against War? Goes at some depth into the nuances of this complex question by describing the Cultural Life In Nazi-Occupied Paris
posted by adamvasco at 4:55 AM PST - 32 comments

Go the F**k to Sleep as read by Samuel L. Jackson (no really). Audible is offering it as a free download (registration required). [Go the F**k to Sleep previously]
posted by Kattullus at 4:52 AM PST - 53 comments

On the keyboards: Dr. House and Dr. Archie Morris. On the guitar, Nathan Petrelli and the plumber. Violin, Dr. Chase. On the drums, Matt Parkman. On the vocals, Bob Guiney. It's the Band from TV, and they do it for charity. Videos.
posted by curuinor at 3:07 AM PST - 14 comments

Bubbles, meet Bubbles.
posted by Chuckles at 11:41 PM PST - 13 comments

Shea Hembrey created an "inaugural biennial" showing the works of 100 artists - all fictitious. (SLTED) Over a two-year period, he created over 100 pieces in a wide variety of forms, media and styles as well as profiles and bios for the 100 artists (plus two fictional curators). Is this Meta-Art, Art Deconstruction, open fraud, parody, large-scale pranking, the worst case of Dissociative Identity Disorder ever or All Of The Above? (exhibition website and catalogue)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:08 PM PST - 11 comments

Datamancer's Steampunk Laptop - now taking pre-orders (with a $5500 early bird special).
posted by shivohum at 9:20 PM PST - 52 comments

It's no secret that throughout their long career, the Rolling Stones have covered lots of tunes by black singers and bands from the worlds of soul, blues, R&B, reggae and early rock'n'roll, and have, of course, been heavily influenced by these various genres in their own performance and songwriting. Perhaps a bit lesser known is that several of the most iconic and legendary figures in black music have covered Stones songs as well. Here's Brown Sugar by Little Richard, Satisfaction by Aretha Frankilin and Otis Redding, Under My Thumb by Tina Turner, Start Me Up by Toots and the Maytals and, rather unexpectedly, Let's Spend the Night Together by blues great Muddy Waters
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:40 PM PST - 51 comments

Dripped - a short animation about a man who just can't get his fill of art.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:19 PM PST - 11 comments

SpiderMonster: The Musical - Sneak Peak!
posted by hippybear at 7:11 PM PST - 14 comments

China’s capital is restricting car numbers and pumping money into trains. Is it headed for a less congested future – or already a city beyond help?
posted by wilful at 6:19 PM PST - 54 comments

"For a genre known for depicting obscure creatures, new concepts of civilization, and future predictions for humanity, sci-fi sure has a hard time being about more than white people." Multi-disciplinary artist Adriel Luis' list of "10 fantasmic films, books, and records to transport you to the unreal—while still letting you keep it real."
posted by artof.mulata at 4:56 PM PST - 112 comments

I want to believe in ET Bilu! He only appears at night, crouching among the bushes and talking in a squeaky voice. Oh, and he can also teleport. He's got a site. Here's a pic.
posted by Tom-B at 3:00 PM PST - 19 comments

Recently, 8-year-old Precious Reynolds became the sixth person in history to survive rabies without a vaccine. A few years back, Extraordinary People put out a documentary (1 2 3) on the first person to beat the only viral disease that hides itself completely from one's immune system.
posted by gman at 2:37 PM PST - 52 comments

A beautiful video montage of Saturn and its moons from Cassini mission recordings, reminiscent of Outside In [previously] but more abstract. Also: one year of Earth's moon in two-and-a-half minutes.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:04 PM PST - 17 comments

The Biggest Losers. Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella explains the disastrous defeat of the party in Canada's recent general election.
posted by rocket88 at 1:59 PM PST - 31 comments

Norm MacDonald, master of deadpan comedy, tells Conan O'Brien a joke about a moth. Elsewhere, Norm roasts Bob Saget old-school.
posted by Rory Marinich at 1:42 PM PST - 122 comments

Ferris Bueller's Last Day Off. (video)
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:37 PM PST - 29 comments

Berlin, circa 1921: The painter Hans Richter turns his talents to film and produces one of the earliest abstract films, Rhythmus 21. Clocking in at just over three minutes, it's a significant departure from the newsreels, romances, cliff-hangers, and penny-dreadfuls that made up the bulk of film production in the early ’20s—the first decade in which the film industry began to play a major economic and cultural role around the world. [more inside]
posted by scody at 1:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Sunspots, first observed by Galileo, normally follow an 11-year cycle. We are into a few years into (recorded) cycle number 24 but according to NASA it's looking rather underpowered. Nobody is certain exactly what the consequences will be, but one distinct possibility is a cold period; a previous low in solar activity, the Maunder minimum, is correlated with a brief Little Ice Age. Nobody really knows how this unusual solar weather pattern might interact with human-caused climate change. Previously, albeit somewhat controversially.
posted by anigbrowl at 1:29 PM PST - 28 comments

Animals, new sexy movie stars on the farm. (slyt) European fur breeders' association releases a youtube campaign. Oh dear. More of the same here.
posted by pica at 1:23 PM PST - 22 comments

The 100 greatest non-fiction books: [Via: The Guardian] After keen debate at the Guardian's books desk, this is our list of the very best factual writing, organised by category, and then by date.
posted by Fizz at 12:30 PM PST - 74 comments

Why should you be watching HBO's Game of Thrones? In two words: Peter Dinklage. At 41 and expecting his first child, actor Peter Dinklage may finally be coming into his own. Though his breakout role in the indie movie Station Agent might not have made it onto your Netflix queue, Dinklage is winning accolades for his performance as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, the HBO series based on George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice. [more inside]
posted by misha at 11:56 AM PST - 389 comments

Burzynski, the Movie is the story of a medical doctor and Ph.D biochemist named Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski who won the largest, and possibly the most convoluted and intriguing legal battle against the Food & Drug Administration in American history.
A documentary by Eric Merola.
posted by xmattxfx at 11:50 AM PST - 12 comments

Here's what happens when you put four guys in a wind tunnel (slyt)
posted by roaring beast at 11:31 AM PST - 63 comments

People argue just to win, assert researchers. Rationality may have evolved simply to let people feel triumphant; internet inevitable. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston at 10:44 AM PST - 96 comments

As time has gone by, though, Touch of Evil has acquired a large cult following, and it now regularly appears on lists of the best films of the century. What is not generally known is that the film never accurately reflected Welles's intentions for it. In July 1957, the studio took over the editing of the film and prevented him from participating in its completion. In an odd turn of events, however, a 58-page memo that Welles wrote in 1957 was recently rediscovered, and a small team on which I was film editor and sound mixer has used that remarkable document to bring Touch of Evil as close as possible to Welles's original concept. - Walter Murch, 1998
posted by Trurl at 9:56 AM PST - 37 comments

Newspaper drops website for Facebook, offers eight lessons on Facebook news publishing.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:43 AM PST - 38 comments

Your Sweet Justice story for the day: In February, K.C. was riding her bike home from work. While waiting at a stop light, she felt a slight bump from the car behind her, followed by laughter from within. K.C. wasn't looking for a fight, and did her best to ignore this. Disappointed with his failure to elicit a response, the driver bumped her again, this time a bit harder. This is when K.C. pulled out her police badge, and things started to get weird...
posted by schmod at 9:33 AM PST - 91 comments

Photographs Of Photographs In The Place Where They Were Photographed [more inside]
posted by minifigs at 8:40 AM PST - 47 comments

Is this the future of the bicycle? The Bezerra Corportation believe that their 'Stepper Mechanism' holds the future of bicycling for the new millenium. Bezerra Corporation's revolutionary cycle feature is its pedal-crank mechanism, referred to as the "Stepper Mechanism". When placed in its bicycle application, it operates in a vertical, up-and-down, "stepper" motion, and is designed to replace the 6.0" to 7.5" conventional rotary crank arm
posted by SyntacticSugar at 8:38 AM PST - 73 comments

Rides A Bike. Photos of film people and bikes, from the 1920s to 90s.
posted by goo at 8:38 AM PST - 4 comments

The game with the never-ending development cycle, Duke Nukem Forever, saw its North American release today. [more inside]
posted by d1rge at 8:19 AM PST - 164 comments

A Terrible Legacy More than 60,000 Americans were sterilised, many against their will, as part of a eugenics movement that finished in 1979, aimed at keeping the poor and mentally ill from having children. Now, decades on, one state is considering compensation.
posted by modernnomad at 8:15 AM PST - 24 comments

Famous People Hanging Out With Their Vinyl
posted by OmieWise at 8:09 AM PST - 17 comments

Smash Hits! was a UK music magazine, first published at the end of 1978. It charted the progress of pop styles, including the rise of 2-Tone, and included a number of freebie discs, first as flexi discs, and later on CDs. The magazine faltered in the 1990s, and closed shop in 2006. Since then there have been a few one-off "special editions," first a 2009 tribute to Michael Jackson, and then a Lady Gaga special in 2010. 30 years after the first issue went on sale, a fan posted the first issue online. So far, new scans have been posted fort-nightly, following the original release schedule. 73 issues are online to date, each three decades after they first were sold. (via MetaChat)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:45 AM PST - 20 comments

Lasers made from living cells are a reality. Just a matter of time, then, before we're shooting laser beams from our eyes and fingertips.
posted by jfuller at 6:38 AM PST - 40 comments

Carving the Mountains by Juan Rayos. A spring afternoon in the Madrid Mountains, with the Longboard Girls Crew swooping down the Spanish mountains. SLVimeo; 4.12.
posted by bwg at 6:28 AM PST - 18 comments

"Horror vacui - 'fear of emptiness' or empty space is a term I love. The phrase carries with it intimations of mania and compulsion —covering every surface, interweaving pattern atop pattern. Perhaps it can be as loosely interpreted as Collyer Brothers piles or the noisy and noisome claustrophobic streets of Dickensian London. Somehow, though, I relate the term to an overall sensibility. A complex density with an awareness of the whole, not an open-ended haphazardness." A blogger explores the artistic notion of horror vacui.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:28 AM PST - 40 comments

The Backfire Effect. (from the always awesome you are not so smart)
posted by seanyboy at 2:36 AM PST - 41 comments

Pro-government newspaper Gulf News reports that five Emirati bloggers go on trial today behind closed doors. While blogging has been on the rise in the UAE, internet access is tightly controlled by state-run Etisalat, many sites, including Flickr Groups and lists of blogs, blocked by the Etisalat firewall.
posted by bardophile at 2:12 AM PST - 11 comments

"Using pejorative terms like "handouts" and "doling out", some parts of the media are mounting a campaign to suggest Britain should be embarrassed by our level of aid giving. But the idea that aid is generous is absurd. Some families, inspired by religious tradition, think it is appropriate to give 10% of what they have to charity, £10 in every £100 of earnings. In 2010, the UK gave not £10, not £1, but 56p ($0.91) in overseas aid for every £100 ($163) we earned as a country. On average, since 1990 we have given even less, 35p ($0.57)." [Giving aid to poor countries is hardly a great act of generosity] [more inside]
posted by vidur at 12:42 AM PST - 55 comments

Today's Los Angeles Times reports on over six Billion dollars that can not be accounted for during the Iraq war and is now believed to have been stolen. [more inside]
posted by Poet_Lariat at 9:44 PM PST - 137 comments

Think making beer at home is legal? Depends where your home is.

In 1978, US President Carter signed H.R. 1337, which, among other things, provided an exemption from excise taxes on up to 100 gallons of homemade wine and beer annually. It was still up to the individual states to decide whether or not to allow their citizens to brew.

33 years later, homebrewing is a very popular hobby, legal almost all states.

Except Mississippi and Alabama. [more inside]
posted by Marky at 8:38 PM PST - 69 comments

Today, Judge Donovan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles ruled [link is to pdf of decision] that DOMA is unconstitutional. 19 judges join his opinion. [more inside]
posted by insectosaurus at 8:24 PM PST - 34 comments

The Japanese can now give you a doll with your own face on it. Danny Choo shows us the process.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:02 PM PST - 46 comments

Several Hymns sung by The Process Church of The Final Judgment, a religious group that worshipped both Christ and Satan, was rumored to be related to Charles Manson, and eventually became the Best Friends Animal Society, have been covered by Sabbath Assembly, producing a nostalgic psychedelic gospel project. Here is a interview of the band, from Terrorizer magazine. In Mefi: The Process on two funkadelic album covers.
posted by Tarumba at 7:09 PM PST - 19 comments

Whole Foods Parking Lot A rap about the extreme challenges people must face every day in their quest for organic kale and biodynamic kombucha. If you don't like rap, don't worry Whole Foods provides opera, hipster marching bands, strange dancing babies and Bollywood. If you just like naturally-grown peaches and quiet while you shop, there is always a freezing flash mob.
posted by melissam at 7:07 PM PST - 29 comments

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers prove that music videos are truly for the birds.
posted by hippybear at 6:56 PM PST - 21 comments

Louis Menand of the New Yorker looks at the competing theories of education: that it is to create more well-rounded individuals vs. teaching someone what they need to know to get a job.
posted by reenum at 6:13 PM PST - 68 comments

Endless Noise turns Beyonce's Single Ladies into a tribute to the girl groups of Motown.
posted by The Whelk at 4:58 PM PST - 24 comments

LulzSec (twitter account) have hacked senate.gov. The group has previously hacked Bethesda, Pron.com, FBI affilliates amongst others. Although some argue that LulzSec represent the catalyst to improve IT security, this message to the Senate seems likely to provoke a more direct investigation: [more inside]
posted by jaduncan at 3:32 PM PST - 141 comments

"This is it." This week, the final push is on for marriage equality in New York and it looks like the state is closer than ever. [more inside]
posted by Anonymous at 2:22 PM PST - 269 comments

Augmented reality has come to advertising. Holograms are being used on the catwalk. And, reminiscent of Star Trek’s holodeck, Japanese scientists are working on making projected light touchable.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 1:38 PM PST - 37 comments

This machine destroys EVERYTHING. (SLYT)
posted by Captain Cardanthian! at 1:12 PM PST - 155 comments

De Nyew Testament. Gullah [also, previously] is a creole language spoken by about a quarter-million people in the Eastern United States. For decades, Bible translators worked to translate the Bible into the Gullah language. The full, HTML New Testament is available online, but a print copy can be ordered online.

So den, oona mus go ta all de people all oba de wol an laan um fa be me ciple dem. Oona mus bactize um een de name ob de Fada God, an de name ob de Son, an de name ob de Holy Sperit. 20Oona mus laan um fa do all wa A done chaage oona fa do. An fa sho, A gwine be dey wid oona all de time til de time end.

--De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa Matthew Write, 28:19-20

This post was inspired by recently reading that Clarence Thomas grew up speaking Gullah, and thinking about the implications of growing up with very little written tradition in your own language.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 12:48 PM PST - 86 comments

A Doctor World: A beautiful mashup of Doctor Who and A Softer World. (Note that some posts contain major spoilers for "A Good Man Goes to War.")
posted by rhiannonstone at 12:42 PM PST - 29 comments

The twin Voyager probes launched by NASA in 1977 have discovered something new in the heliosheath at the edge of the solar system: it's frothy out there. Video. Press Release. Via. Voyager: Previously.
posted by zarq at 12:35 PM PST - 31 comments

Using a fake Facebook profile, Angela Voelkert got her ex-husband David to admit that he “planned to move somewhere warm with his kids, that he was still going to his next court dates, and would take off soon after” and ask his new teen-aged friend “to find someone at your school, there should be some gang bangers there that would put a cap in her ass for $10,000. I am just done with her crap!” Unfortunately for Angela, David was a step ahead and thoroughly played his ex-wife. All charges have been dropped and they are still Facebook friends.
posted by -->NMN.80.418 at 12:25 PM PST - 133 comments

Is Cone-ing the new Planking? Let's hope so. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:16 PM PST - 49 comments

The Unsung Heroes of Biscuit [cookie] Embossing: On Oreo, Hydrox, and other imprinted cookies. (Also Freemasons.)
posted by shakespeherian at 12:10 PM PST - 15 comments

Italy's PM: can I privatize water supply, guarantee private investors a minimum 7% ROI on investments in water supply infrastructure, avoid showing up at scheduled court hearings and build a few nuclear plants, please? NO, you can't, answered nearly 30 million italians (95% of the voters, 57% of the people that held the right to vote) in the latest italian national referendum, whose final results are just about to be published (italian). [more inside]
posted by elpapacito at 11:39 AM PST - 22 comments

Space Rubbish Take asteroids, add in an upgrade system and more realistic rock fracturing and you get the frantic experience of Space Rubbish. (Flash)
posted by boo_radley at 10:40 AM PST - 19 comments

How edumacated is your state legislature? (sorry, U.S. only) The Chronicle of Higher Education takes on the issue of how educated U.S. lawmakers at the state level are/should be. [more inside]
posted by JanetLand at 10:17 AM PST - 56 comments

‘A Frightening Time in America’: An Interview With David Foster Wallace
posted by timshel at 9:34 AM PST - 50 comments

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.
posted by Trurl at 9:27 AM PST - 45 comments

RIP John Mackenzie, scottish director who was probably best known for the classic British gangster thriller The Long Good Friday. He also directed A Sense Of Freedom (The Jimmy Boyle Story) and Just A Boy's Game, The Elephant's Graveyard and Just Another Saturday among others for Play For Today. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:04 AM PST - 15 comments

Project Thirty-Three "The seemingly infinite number of vintage record jackets that convey their message with only simple shapes and typography never cease to amaze me. Project Thirty-Three is my personal collection and shrine to circles and dots, squares and rectangles, and triangles, and the brilliant designers that made them come to life on album covers."
posted by OmieWise at 7:55 AM PST - 19 comments

Is contemporary young adult fiction too dark for its intended audience? Meghan Cox Gurdon, writing in the Wall Street Journal thinks so. Publishers Weekly blogger Josie Leavitt disagrees, as does YA author Sherman Alexie. Other reactions here and here. Via The Reader's Advisor Online Blog.
posted by Daily Alice at 7:46 AM PST - 149 comments

The Football Pantheon is a new website by football journalist Miguel Delaney. The aim of the website is to "present objective lists of the greatest clubs, players, countries, managers and so much more." The first entry is a very impressive list of The 50 Greatest European Club Sides, which breaks down the various legendary teams, from the late 19th Century until today, and ranks them according to their achievements.
posted by Kattullus at 7:34 AM PST - 17 comments

It started with a warehouse in the town of Milford. Now the investigation of Delaware businessman Christopher Tigani has expanded from a shady land deal to $200,000 in illegal campaign contributions to everybody from state legislators to Vice President Joe Biden. [more inside]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:53 AM PST - 29 comments

If you missed the 2011 Tony Awards ceremonies, you can read a live blog or five (WSJ, Backstage.com, Broadway World (read from top to bottom, Twitter-style), Broadway Direct (also Twitter-style)), check out the Wikipedia Page, or just let the evening's presenter Neil Patrick Harris summarize the whole thing in 2 minutes 20 seconds in a spoken word/rap (transcript). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 6:08 AM PST - 39 comments

Terry Pratchett starts process to take his own life. Sir Terry Pratchett, the fantasy writer who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2008, said yesterday he had started the formal process that could lead to his own assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. The fantasy writer Terry Pratchett says he has received consent forms requesting assisted suicide but has not yet signed them. [Previously] [Previously]
posted by Fizz at 5:56 AM PST - 132 comments

Jazzin' For Blue Jean is a 20 minute long David Bowie music video directed by Julian Temple.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:53 AM PST - 34 comments

"Internationally, the league has never been stronger: It's the only American sports league that attracts stars from every corner of the world. Digitally, the league has been light years ahead of everyone else, embracing the revolution and staying ahead of the curve with social media and video content. It's also spent the past two decades carefully (and successfully) selling mostly black players to a mostly white audience, an ongoing conundrum that nearly submarined the league in the late-'70s and early-'80s. Throw in a killer 2011 Finals and everything looks fantastic on paper … except for the part that the league is losing money." - Bill Simmons analyzes the NBA labor dispute for his new website, Grantland.
posted by beisny at 11:42 PM PST - 84 comments

Where’s @towerbridge? Even for non-Londoners the account @towerbridge was a bit of "London flair" in their twitter stream. It was a bot mostly posting when the famous landmark opened and closed due to ships passing by, run by game designer Tom Armitage. Now it has been taken from him by Twitter and given to the official Tower Bridge museum, apparently on the basis of trademark infringement. Twitter users both in the UK and abroad are not happy.
posted by dominik at 10:43 PM PST - 44 comments

How to replace 30 laptops (and $10,000) with 150 sheets of paper. A great little anecdote about why it’s important to think about how much computerization is needed to solve a problem. The comments on this story at Hacker News are interesting too.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 10:27 PM PST - 38 comments

90 years in the making, the 21-volume Chicago Assyrian Dictionary is finally complete. The full set is $1995, or free PDF downloads. If you can wait a little longer, the Chicago Hittite Dictionary will be complete in 2045 (begun in 1975), while the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary has no completion date. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 10:13 PM PST - 26 comments

University of Alberta Dean of Medicine Philip Baker is so inspired that he plagiarizes graduation speech from one last year at Stanford. He claims only parts were not cited properly as inspiration while grads at the ceremony claim it was an outright lift. The tip-off? "Velluvial matrix." The U of A Guide to Plagiarism here for reference.
posted by reiichiroh at 9:31 PM PST - 64 comments

Groupon: you're the product.
posted by serazin at 7:56 PM PST - 77 comments

Buranovskie Babushki is a charming group of grannies from the village of Buranovo in Udmurtia, Russia who came one place away from being the national entry to last year's Eurovision with their crowd-pleasing folk number. Since then, they've been covering a few western classics in their native language. Here's a few: Yesterday; Venus; and Let it Be.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:49 PM PST - 16 comments

(TumblrFiltr): Have you checked out the new Brahms yet? Did you catch Saint-Saëns at the Grossherzogliches Theater last week? Then hie thee to Melophonic, "a collection of semi-historically accurate, rock concert-style posters for dead composers' original premiere dates." 
posted by Nomyte at 2:51 PM PST - 16 comments

MySpace was once the big name in social networking, but things changed after being purchased by Newscorp in 2005. An investor group, fronted by Bobby Kotick of Activision, is in talks to buy the beleaguered social network, after several false starts from other interested parties. Want to feel old? A trending topic at Twitter (#WhenIHadAMySpace) has users reminiscing fondly (and not so fondly) about thesite.
posted by codacorolla at 2:47 PM PST - 101 comments

Iori Tomita: New World Transparent Specimens "If you’re a fish, Iori Tomita can see right through you. Or at least he can after he’s worked you over in his lab. A lifelong fisherman who studied ichthyology as an undergrad, the Japanese artist uses marine life he receives from fellow fishermen to create what he calls New World Transparent Specimens—sea creatures that have been transformed into DayGlo shells of their former selves. He first saw a sample of a fish that had been turned transparent at a university lecture six years ago, and since then he has used the same preservation technique to make thousands of hypercolored cadavers, which he sells at the Tokyu Hands department store."
posted by puny human at 1:19 PM PST - 10 comments

Listen to a conversation between legendary American crime novelist Raymond Chandler and James Bond inventor Ian Fleming recorded by the BBC in 1958. The talk ranges from Mafia hits to the nature of villainy to the difference between English and American thriller.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:38 PM PST - 25 comments

Deep in the heart of Switzerland there is a small gathering of individuals taking place.
Thats right Bilderberg is here again and so is the Guardians Charlie Skelton seeing an elected Swiss official get denied entry.
It is a meeting of those who control a huge section of the world's economy with minimum news coverage and near zero transparency.
"I don't have to tell you, and you don't need to know."
Here are some previous New World Order quotes. (Previously 2004 and 2002).
posted by adamvasco at 11:20 AM PST - 131 comments

Lorem Pixum — A placeholder image generator for web and print designers for any size or topic. Speed up your workflow during the development process.
posted by netbros at 8:38 AM PST - 24 comments

Rights And Reactions: Lesbian & Gay Rights On Trial is a 1987 documentary about the culmination in 1986 of the struggle to pass "Intro 2", the New York City "Gay Rights Bill", which prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in matters of housing, employment, and public accommodation. Made by Phil Zwickler and Jane Lippman, it is available in 3 Quicktime segments: Part 1 (22m), Part 2 (19m), Part 3 (16m). Total running time: 56m. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:42 AM PST - 12 comments

It's either really smart, or really stupid. Perhaps some genius in an advertising agency thought took the phrase "there are no stupid questions" to heart and decided to launch it as the new mantra for Diesel Jeans - Be Stupid. [more inside]
posted by Jon-A-Thon at 6:13 AM PST - 154 comments

David Mamet discusses free-market economists, studying Kaballah, Aristotle's conception of drama, Tennessee William's expensive habit, and his love for Sarah Palin. Oh, and his HBO movie about Phil Spector (whom he believes is innocent). Previously, previously, and previously.
posted by -->NMN.80.418 at 6:00 AM PST - 79 comments

The two year long saga of how McDonalds engineered the perfect cottage cheese filet for the McSpicy Paneer burger. McD has a turbulent history in India where its processes, practices and products, successfully developed over decades, have been turned upside down and redesigned, often from scratch. [more inside]
posted by infini at 1:03 AM PST - 114 comments

Letters to Hoder [via mefi projects]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:16 PM PST - 15 comments

Ten Charts that Prove the United States Is a Low-Tax Country from the Center for American Progress.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:01 PM PST - 69 comments

In a style reminiscent of Bart the General, these Dilbert cartoons will ＤＥＨＵＭＡＮＩＺＥ ＹＯＵＲＳＥＬＦ ＡＮＤ ＦＡＣＥ ＴＯ ＢＬＯＯＤＳＨＥＤ. (NSFW) [more inside]
posted by griphus at 8:24 PM PST - 40 comments

A Glitch in the Allspark? Transformers-obsessed comic artist David Willis reports on an unfortunate quip about sexual orientation at Botcon 2011 through the eyes of his gay character Ethan of Shortpacked!.
posted by emjaybee at 7:00 PM PST - 57 comments

Leicester, 1982. A school rock band enters an underground studio. Washington. A computer error detonates America's nuclear arsenal [YT]. Cruise of the Gods was made and released as a British TV movie in 2002. It traces the different fortunes of two child actors - played by regular collaborators Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon - who meet after decades of estrangement on a fan cruise for the fictitious 80s TV series "Children of Castor". [more inside]
posted by running order squabble fest at 5:38 PM PST - 12 comments

The world is not as you think it is. While every map system has its faults, the Mercator we all know was designed for ship navigation five centuries ago, and introduces significant geographical distortion. Alternative projection systems, including perspective-cylindrical, pseudo-cylindrical and conic, attempt to portray correct relative size, accuracy of features, and position. Inverted maps diminish natural tendencies to see countries at the top as "superior". [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 4:10 PM PST - 59 comments

Attorney General Holder mandates, at a minimum, another season of the Dickensian TV serial, The Wire. David Simon and Ed Burns agree that they "are prepared to go to work on season six of The Wire", with one small catch: "if the Department of Justice is equally ready to reconsider and address its continuing prosecution of our misguided, destructive and dehumanising drug prohibition". Simon, Burns, et al previously on the futility of the war on drugs.
posted by autopilot at 3:52 PM PST - 81 comments

Slate: The Longform.org Guide to the Porn Industry "From the inspiration for Boogie Nights to the twisted psyche of a professional porn reviewer, five great reads about the business of smut." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 2:13 PM PST - 22 comments

Britney Spears meets The Hunger Games
posted by litnerd at 1:55 PM PST - 19 comments

Starlite: Ineffective for Car Bonnets, Great Against Nuclear Blasts. In the late 1980s, an English amateur inventor and hair-dresser released a plastic which, he claimed, had unusual heat-resistant properties. BBC Television demonstrated the material, dubbed Starlite, keeping an egg cool despite a five-minute onslaught from a blowtorch; here the inventor provides links to the footage. After initial skepticism, the reception from industrial and military players was rapturous. But while Starlite apparently stood up to the heat of 10000 Celsius lasers, its inventor, wary of being cheated, proved equally stubborn in negotiation, and Starlite seems never have been brought to market or mass production. [more inside]
posted by darth_tedious at 1:31 PM PST - 61 comments

No time to read a babillion nineties Batman comics in the run-up to the Dark Knight Rises? Cooking With Comics will explain Knightfall for you in less than nine minutes! (SLYT) (via)
posted by EatTheWeek at 12:35 PM PST - 24 comments

The future has officially arrived. Would you believe a hoverbike? OK, if that one didn't impress you maybe this one will.
posted by scalefree at 12:34 PM PST - 46 comments

Color Rabbit: A Magic World, Drift To Magnetic Pole Shift, Flute Loopin'.[mlyt] [more inside]
posted by ennui.bz at 11:45 AM PST - 9 comments

Dem Phones, Dem Phones, Dem iPhones! The Delta Rhythm Boys' most iconic song brought up to date (well, as of 2007). An unadulterated original for comparison. (via every link blog I follow, traced back to everlasting blort; previous bones)
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:54 AM PST - 8 comments

Before John Ross died this January, he asked his family and friends to do the following with his ashes: 1) Scatter them along the #14 bus route in San Francisco’s Mission District, where Ross lived on and off for much of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. 2) Sprinkle them in the ashtrays in front of the Hotel Isabel in downtown Mexico City, Ross’s home base from 1985 to 2010. 3) Mix them with marijuana and have them rolled into a spliff to be smoked at his funeral. A certain half-baked logic ran through much of Ross’s life and writing. For a few years during the Carter era, as he recounts in his (mostly true) memoir Murdered by Capitalism, he spent his afternoons drinking Gallo wine and smoking pot and PCP in the Trinidad cemetery in Humboldt County, California. It was there that he met the ghost of Edward B. Schnaubelt...
posted by jim in austin at 9:17 AM PST - 17 comments

"Street Anatomy obsessively covers the use of human anatomy in medicine, art, and design."
posted by OmieWise at 8:45 AM PST - 5 comments

“They’re not aggressive, they’re just defensive, they only ever rear up if they feel threatened, they don’t go looking for trouble,” said Brett. grooming a funnel-web spider (via)
posted by bleary at 7:38 AM PST - 78 comments

Street View New York 1982. Black and white photographs of New York City streets [ a work in progress] | Street View 1982 Storefronts NYC. Created by Dan Weeks.
posted by nickyskye at 6:48 AM PST - 27 comments

Discover the charming children's literature of Thornton W. Burgess, author and naturalist, whose books embodied the Naturalist / Conservationist movement of the first half of the 20th century. His works are available through Project Gutenberg, The Literature Network (excellent biography on main page, navigate to books on the left sidebar (and within books also on the left sidebar)), and even several free audio book downloads through LibriVox. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 6:45 AM PST - 6 comments

Dear Leicester City Council, Can you please let us know what provisions you have in place in the event of a zombie invasion?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:35 AM PST - 27 comments

Tamora Pierce is a writer of YA fantasy whose novels primarily feature female protagonists. Among other things, her novels explore privilege and prejudice within her fantastic cultures. In a recent interview for The Atlantic, she talks about why we need more girl heroes, the use of birth control for her teenage characters, and the myth of “sappy, sugary, true love”.
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:50 AM PST - 57 comments

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns takes on the untold story of The Vowels. Part 2.
posted by clerestory at 4:24 AM PST - 21 comments

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick recently decided that the state would not participate in a federal program to deport illegal immigrants accused of crimes. Several Republican state Representatives have been very vocal about opposing Patrick's decision. One is Ryan Fattman (really), who says that all illegal immigrants should be deported. When asked if a woman who was raped and beaten on the street should fear deportation, Fattman replied, "“My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward." [more inside]
posted by waitingtoderail at 3:18 AM PST - 43 comments

Some sixty-five countries have some form of compulsory military service - the Republic of China (Taiwan) is one of them. Haitien, an American-born, college-educated person of Taiwanese decent who recently returned to Taiwan, is writing about his experience fufilling his service on his blog Bala daily 巴樂日報. [more inside]
posted by sudasana at 1:52 AM PST - 34 comments

M.F. Husain, Indian painter, passed away at age 95 in England, on the 9th of June 2011. [more inside]
posted by bardophile at 1:20 AM PST - 7 comments

Xenophon is called the original horse whisperer. He wrote one of the earliest works on hunting, and training dogs. He helped lead ten thousand Greek warriors and their camp followers out of Persia back to the Black Sea; his account, Anabasis, inspired The Warriors and countless other creative works. He is one of only two sources of information about the most famous philosopher of all time. He inspired Machiavelli. Xenophon at wikipedia, wikisource, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Project Gutenberg, famous quotes, In Our Time.
posted by bq at 10:17 PM PST - 34 comments

Internet K-Hole is an image blog consisting mostly of anonymous snapshots and Polaroids from the 1970s through the 1990s presented at random without description or context that go on for ever and ever and ever. (Some images NSFW.)
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 8:01 PM PST - 115 comments

The Rutt-Etra-Izer is a WebGL emulation of the classic Rutt-Etra video synthesizer created by Felix Turner. It requires a recent version of Chrome or Firefox. If you can't get the synthesizer to work, there is a video of the audioreactive version made with Processing in the author's announcement. YMMV. Do not taunt Rutt-Etra-Izer.
posted by mkb at 7:21 PM PST - 10 comments

Animals Dressed as Other Animals
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 6:28 PM PST - 39 comments

Peter Greenaway (wikipedia, previously 1, 2, 3, 4) talks about Second Life Machinima (also, Vimeo of a talk from 2010).
posted by juv3nal at 3:37 PM PST - 20 comments

Flying dreamlike around Venice Beach
posted by BeerFilter at 1:43 PM PST - 35 comments

"It's a bit like having a problem in your street, and your mum lives in the next street, so you go and visit your mum for a bit." - - Reem Haddad, Spokesperson for Syrian Information Ministry explaining that refugees are 'not fleeing to Turkey' [more inside]
posted by Surfurrus at 1:41 PM PST - 27 comments

Voters Have Up to Five Times More Influence in Early Primaries. 'Voters in states with early primary races such as Iowa and New Hampshire have up to five times the influence of voters in later states in selecting presidential candidates, according to research by Brown University economist Brian Knight. The paper, the first to quantify the effects of early victories in the race for the presidential nomination, is co-authored by Nathan Schiff and published in The Journal of Political Economy."Evidence that early voters have a disproportionate influence over the selection of candidates violates 'one person-one vote' -- a democratic ideal on which our nation is based."' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 1:31 PM PST - 52 comments

Writer, traveler, and kidnapper of Nazi generals, Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor -- Paddy to friends and fans -- is dead at 96. A silver lining: his biographer Artemis Cooper reports that the long-awaited final installment of his trilogy recounting a year-long walk across Europe as a young man in the 1930s, "has existed for some time, and will be published in due course."
posted by villanelles at dawn at 1:04 PM PST - 40 comments

We've met Ween before, so I don't need to provide further introduction to this 25 minute long sampling of a 3 hour concert in Australia. It's from 2008, but recently put online courtesy of BTFishing. Wait, who? Yes, it's Dean Ween gone fishing. Mickey Melchiondo Jr. (aka Dean Ween) previously shared his love of fishing in the Brownie Troop Fishing Show. He now runs Mike's Guide service, sometimes going directly from shows to go fishing. See also: Dean Wean's Tips For Amateur Anglers, and an article on the Brownie Troop Fishing Show.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:43 PM PST - 26 comments

Space Girl

My mama told me I should never venture into space.
But I did, I did, I did.
She said no Terran girl could trust the Martian race.
But I did, I did, I did.
A rocket pilot asked me on a voyage to go.
And I was so romantic I couldn't say no.
That he was just a servo robot how was I to know?
So I did, I did, I did.

A multisource fanvid by Charmax, music by Imagined Village. [more inside]
posted by severiina at 12:40 PM PST - 27 comments

"Do you think Jem cares about the Misfits? Jem don't care, she just takes what she wants." (slyt) (previously)
posted by Artw at 12:29 PM PST - 20 comments

"This week I’d like to start with a little audience participation. (...) Not every sufferer feels constrained to 'decorate the pavement.'" Jonathon Green, author of Green's Dictionary of Slang is Taking Slang Seriously. Also rounded up in The Vomitorium. [more inside]
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:15 PM PST - 11 comments

George Mason Green Machine athletic band plays Killing In The Name Of... Welcome To The Jungle played on two cellos. One by Apocalyptica. The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain plays the theme from Shaft.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:07 PM PST - 16 comments

The Washington Post asks: Can Mutants And Humans Really Co-Exist? Metafilter's own Mightygodking responds.
posted by The Whelk at 11:49 AM PST - 80 comments

Pitch Invaders: Loathed by players but loved by fans. [more inside]
posted by josher71 at 10:58 AM PST - 45 comments

A guide to taking better self-portraits.
posted by Memo at 10:55 AM PST - 23 comments

Snowpack in the northern Rocky Mountains has declined over the past 30 years more than at any other time in a least 1,000 years (30-year decline is old news, 1000 year perspective is new). Snowmelt from the Rockies provide water for at least 70 million people. Snow is also melting weeks earlier in the American West. Some consequences of earlier snowmelt (of less snow) are drier forests, more wildfires and less water for people in a West heating up and drying out.
posted by stbalbach at 10:46 AM PST - 26 comments

Toronto's new alt-weekly The Grid has kicked up a storm of controversy this week with their cover story Dawn of a New Gay, which focuses on a new breed of "post-mos" who sneer at the traditional trappings of homosexuality and gay activism. Torontoist responds, and one of the subjects of the article has denounced his involvement in the piece.
posted by yellowbinder at 10:12 AM PST - 126 comments

"I performed to MADONNA's "VOGUE" in the summer of 1991 when my parents took me to Hampton Beach Casino in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. A business in the casino at the time gave tourists the chance to lip-synch to their favorite pop songs in front of a blue screen background, and I was lucky enough to partake that summer."
posted by hermitosis at 10:12 AM PST - 71 comments

"Mother Jones [and, later, other media outlets] requested [Sarah] Palin's gubernatorial emails during the 2008 election. Almost three years later, the wait is over. ... Today, at [1:00 pm ET] in Juneau, the state of Alaska is scheduled to release 24,199 pages of emails Sarah Palin sent and received during her half-term as governor of the Last Frontier. State workers will distribute six-box sets and hand trucks (which must be returned) to representatives of a dozen or so media outfits" "Volunteers from the League of Women Voters and the Retired Public Employees of Alaska will be at Juneau's Centennial Hall convention center ... look[ing] for any significant or interesting emails, stick a post-it note on the page, and pass them to journalists, who also will be reading through the 24,000 pages. Exact copies of the best of those emails will be posted online immediately. ... In the same room ... a second set of the documents will be scanned for msnbc.com by Crivella West, an analytics and investigative-research company from Pittsburgh, returning the records to their original electronic form, allowing anyone anywhere to join in the crowdsourcing. That free, public, searchable archive will go online, sometime later on Friday, at http://​palinemail.​msnbc.msn.com." "The Washington Post is looking for '100 organized and diligent readers' to work with reporters to 'analyze, contextualize, and research the emails.' The New York Times is employing a similar system.'"* [more inside]
posted by ericb at 9:25 AM PST - 157 comments

A Mismeasured Mismeaurement of Man. Stephen Jay Gould's classic The Mismeasure of Man argues that 19th century scientist Samuel George Morton inflicted his own racial biases on his data to demonstrate that Caucasians had larger brains than other races. A new paper in the Public Library of Science: Biology debunks Gould's account by remeasuring the same skulls Morton used. Whatever biases Morton may have had, they are not reflected in the data.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:19 AM PST - 53 comments

Judging wine by the label.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:48 AM PST - 130 comments

"Milton Babbitt definitely cared if you listen, but according to Noah S. Weber, Emily Howell definitely does not since it is not possible for Emily Howell to care about anything. However, David Cope, Emily Howell's creator, sees it somewhat differently." -- Frank J. Oteri
posted by Dr. Fetish at 8:28 AM PST - 6 comments

The BBC presents The Story of the Amen Break
posted by empath at 8:23 AM PST - 31 comments