MetaFilter

Our Brains Weren’t Hardwired To Catch Con Artists [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:11 PM PST - 80 comments

Iconic Blaxploitation star and talented martial artist Jim Kelly died this week. [more inside]
posted by brookeb at 8:30 PM PST - 21 comments

Relive techno fears of yore ... malware aficionado Daniel White collects vintage computer viruses, infects his machines and records the results. See more examples at his YouTube channel.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:26 PM PST - 22 comments

According to The Guardian and Der Spiegel, the NSA has bugged EU government offices in Washington and New York, installed spyware on EU embassy communications equipment, and used the NATO headquarters in Brussels as a base to infiltrate the phone and computer networks of the EU's Justus Lipsius building. In addition, the NSA is targeting German civilian communications, monitoring ca. 500 million phone calls, emails and text messages per day.
European leaders are not amused- these revelations could endanger a trade pact worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
posted by anemone of the state at 6:11 PM PST - 361 comments

Steve Lovelace created a map that shows the corporation that best represents each state of the US.
posted by reenum at 5:21 PM PST - 95 comments

Two years in the making, Scottish bike parkour rider Danny MacAskill (Previously) (Previouslier) releases his brand new riding film. Whilst previous projects have focused on locations and journeys, MacAskill's Imaginate sees Danny take a completely different approach to riding a bicycle in ridiculously implausible ways. Enter Danny's mind and enjoy. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 4:16 PM PST - 24 comments

There are people who believe that Plinko is the best game on The Price Is Right. I have a name for these people. I call them "Wrongety Wrong Wrong." They are the leaders of Wrongitania. They are the Doctors Of Wrongology. They are the Wrongtown Rats.

posted by maggieb at 4:02 PM PST - 46 comments

Why did Samuel Beckett write to Ernie Bushmiller? Did he feel a sense of kinship with the cartoonist whose strip he read every day? Did he see in Bushmiller a man who quietly pursued his repetitive vocation day after day, no matter what? Did the Bushmiller characters strike a chord in the creator of Vladimir and Estragon? Did Beckett first formulate some of the innovations of his later plays while pondering situations for Nancy and Sluggo? We can never know if the inadvertent surrealistic antics of Bushmiller’s tykes influenced the translator of Eluard and Breton, or what first prompted the author of The Unnamable and Krapp’s Last Tape to begin sending strip ideas to a cartoonist in Connecticut. Was it Beckett’s frustration with his literary career, or the seemingly endless difficulties in mounting Godot that led him to seek another outlet, in yet another literary form, for his ideas and emotions? Whatever the reasons, we are lucky that much of the Beckett-Bushmiller correspondence has been preserved. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:15 PM PST - 19 comments

"On June 20th I received an email: a huge pink blob has been found off the coast of Cuba, and no one can figure out what it is.... They combine my two great loves: random biology facts and digging through the internet. Roughly 247 aquarium forums, journal articles and poorly-translated Japanese websites later, I had my answer. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the biggest mass of teensy eggs that I have ever seen." See also: videos 1, 2, 3. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:14 PM PST - 4 comments

Hypnotic Wind-powered Kinetic Sculptures by Anthony Howe. [Previously]
posted by homunculus at 1:00 PM PST - 15 comments

Game of Thrones character names according to some Imgur user's dad.
posted by delmoi at 12:10 PM PST - 104 comments

50,000 years of Western music in under 500 seconds: A video of artist Pablo Morales de los Rios creating one of those whiteboard-n'-marker style accelerated drawings spanning ~500 centuries of the stuff that soothes a savage breast. (Spanish, with English subtitles. Warning: may not contain all the things.)
posted by taz at 11:15 AM PST - 12 comments

The 2013 Locus Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy have been announced by Locus Magazine, and (at least) two MeFi writers have won in the novel categories. [more inside]
posted by Sunburnt at 11:00 AM PST - 45 comments

Journalism is under pressure.
Glenn Greenwald speaking on NSA stories, Snowden and journalism. (Contains further links of interest.)
Chris Hayes discussion of how establishment journalists love leaks that serve the interests of political officials, but hate leaks that disclose what those officials want to keep suppressed.
Salon: Obama's war on Journalism.
TruthOut: National Security Journalism on Trial.
posted by adamvasco at 8:06 AM PST - 79 comments

Scientists in Japan have cloned a mouse from a single drop of blood. (via)
posted by kliuless at 7:42 AM PST - 32 comments

What happens when lava is poured over ice?
posted by Artw at 7:41 AM PST - 55 comments

"Daniel Somers was a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was part of Task Force Lightning, an intelligence unit." [more inside]
posted by eviemath at 6:05 AM PST - 46 comments

To promote their latest dance record, the record company mailed out a 12" single. But how could those who received it play it? This is their solution. [Warning: this is technically a promo for an artist and a small record label - I just think its an interesting use of technology]
posted by marienbad at 5:52 AM PST - 79 comments

For years, there have been rumors among car people about a bunch of unbelievably low-mileage 50's and 60's cars in a barn or warehouse in the upper Midwest. It's true, and they'll be auctioned off this fall. Not Safe for people with a propensity to drool over old metal. [more inside]
posted by pjern at 12:15 AM PST - 72 comments

If you’ve played pinball in the last 20 years , you’ve almost certainly played an Addam’s Family at some point in your life, and we're going to take it to task here, show you some ways to play the game. This entertaining series of videos features an extremely jargon-filled description of game strategies; with a top-down and forward-angled view of the table. Part 1 (Multiball), Part 2 and Part 3 (Mansion Rooms)
posted by Deathalicious at 10:16 PM PST - 54 comments

The Brain-Chilling, Shrimp-Caressing, Lamppost-Sized, NSFW Organ Hiding In A Whale’s Mouth
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:00 PM PST - 26 comments

" The House In The Middle" A 1954 Civil Defense film shows how you can protect your home against atomic firestorms via good housekeeping (13 min, YouTube)
posted by The Whelk at 6:52 PM PST - 43 comments

Fear Of A Black Hat was a 1993 film in the tradition of This Is Spinal Tap, a mockumentary of early 1990s rap such as Public Enemy and NWA. The entire movie is now available, officially, on YouTube.
posted by DecemberBoy at 5:30 PM PST - 53 comments

The rise and fall of Norm Macdonald's book club on Twitter.
posted by Cash4Lead at 5:00 PM PST - 32 comments

Fido and Spot weren't always generic dog names. Dogs and cats (and monkeys, birds, etc) have been kept as pets for a long time, and medieval pet names can sound very strange or oddly familiar to modern ears. [more inside]
posted by Athanassiel at 4:38 PM PST - 36 comments

First, SomethingAwful posted a parody of LifeHacker's How I Work series that imagined it interviewing famed Internetter Nick Smith, aka Ulillillia. Then Smith responded with a detailed 18-point critique of the original post. "Though not an all-out error, I primarily use paper towels instead of napkins for degreasing. Paper towels are far more effective and they practically never stick like napkins pretty much always do (they still do, depending on various circumstances (grease level of cheese and the food's temperature being the main ones)."
posted by Rory Marinich at 4:32 PM PST - 30 comments

"The success of the campaign made the three activists wonder: Could they replicate it on a grand scale by getting themselves detained on purpose? Inside immigration detention facilities, they would surely find dozens, if not hundreds, of low-priority detainees like de los Santos whom they could help. At the same time, they could publicize the fact that it wasn’t just criminals who were being deported, as the Obama administration kept insisting. “We realized we could be more effective if we just went straight to the source,” Abdollahi says. Doing so would flip the script on immigration agents; the activists would be taking advantage of their undocumented status and thus could be detained and deported. Deportation was unlikely, because they were Dreamers without serious criminal records. Even so, this would make the risk they’d taken in Charlotte look like nothing. But Saavedra, Abdollahi, and Martinez had been growing more fearless, and more radical, since they’d met." -- Los Infiltradores: How three young undocumented activists risked everything to expose the injustices of immigrant detention—and invented a new form of protest.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:41 PM PST - 52 comments

The Darcys, decided to cover Steely Dan's Aja.

The result? [more inside]
posted by timsteil at 1:28 PM PST - 55 comments

Five Ants - Forward and Backward Tango (youtube). [Fem myror - Framåt och bakåt-tangon. Clip from a children's show, in Swedish with no subtitles.] [more inside]
posted by Glinn at 11:53 AM PST - 5 comments

Eric Strand finished this year's Grandma's Marathon in Duluth in 6 hours and 15 minutes. But before he got to the starting line that day, he had run the entire course backwards.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:02 AM PST - 30 comments

Jimi Hendrix and Dusty Springfield’s duet of “Mockingbird,” the soul/novelty number originally made famous by by Inez and Charlie Foxx in 1963, hasn’t surfaced in decent quality yet, and maybe it never will, so savor this admittedly murky peek at it, apparently taken from a super-8 camera pointed at a TV screen when it originally would have aired in 1968.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:04 AM PST - 15 comments

Joe Hisaishi in Budokan was a series of concerts given in August 2008 to commemorate both the Japanese theatrical premiere of Ponyo and the 25 years of musical collaboration between composer Joe Hisaishi and film maker Hayao Miyazaki. This massive concert featured performances of these signature Miyazaki film scores composed by Hisaishi, conducting from the piano, and the 200-member New Japan Philharmonic World Dream Orchestra, along with six featured vocalists, the 800 combined voices of the Ippan Koubo, Ritsuyuukai and Little Singers of Tokyo choirs, plus a 160-piece marching band. Altogether there were some 1160 musicians and singers on stage, backed by images from Miyazaki's films projected on a giant screen. The almost two hour long show is on YouTube in HD, for your viewing pleasure.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:04 AM PST - 10 comments

"All my life, I have searched for a car that feels a certain way ... powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball ... now at last I have found it." -- 22 years later, "The Homer" is now a reality. [more inside]
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:54 AM PST - 27 comments

What would the night sky look like if the other planets were as close as the moon?
posted by jim in austin at 7:57 AM PST - 53 comments

Chesapeake, the largest natural gas producer in Pennsylvania, is losing money. The current low price of gas will leave the company around $4 Billion in the red this year. Part of their response is to use a recent state Supreme Court ruling to justify charging landowners for the drilling and transportation expenses involved in extraction, reducing or eliminating all royalties. What was once a windfall to Pennsylvania communities is now becoming a burden, with Chesapeake now retroactively billing landowners for previous expenses. StateImpact Pennsylvania has written and recorded a thorough report on the issue.
posted by Toekneesan at 4:20 AM PST - 77 comments

Credits mashups or remixes are a Youtube meme with a simple concept: create a intro sequence for one show using the music and style of another show's credits. Some drastically change the story or tone of a series, some play up similarities between two shows, some provide a more glossy intro for shows that originally relied on a title card or an unpopular credits sequence, and some just seem to happen because people really like "Ballad of Serenity." [more inside]
posted by kagredon at 11:24 PM PST - 32 comments

The Problem with Wonder Woman - An iconic DC superhero on the level of Batman and Superman, her potential remains competitively untapped. Can Grant Morrison And Yanick Paquette’s Wonder Woman: Earth One Help? Or is Perez’ Wonder Woman the Gold standard?
posted by Artw at 10:11 PM PST - 189 comments

"Polish architect Jakub Szczesny claims to have built the world's narrowest house, just 122 centimetres across at its widest point."
posted by The Deej at 9:22 PM PST - 48 comments

"The apartment block behind my shop wasn't there when I moved in either. That was just shanty houses stacked one on top of the other. It's tough these days for a developer to legally purchase a patch of land and everything above it, but 'connected' guys can be pretty persuasive. They kept the boat dock at water level, but demolished the rest. I know some of the folks who live in the lower levels of that building, but the guys up top keep to themselves. One thing I've learned living here for so long is not to ask too many questions." - Henry Li, On the Neighborhood

The Cyberpocalypse is an incredible build featured at Brickworld 2013. Shuppiluliumas has been describing different bits of it in this photoset More pictures can be found in the creator's photostreams, linked inside [more inside]
posted by rebent at 7:53 PM PST - 17 comments

Today, Danish shipping line Maersk took delivery of the new World's Largest Ship from Korean shipbuilder Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. The M/V Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, a 165,000 metric ton container vessel, that is too big (particularly with her 48 foot loaded draft) to call on most North American ports, employs novel design and operating strategies to radically lower shipping costs. First in the new "Triple E" class of 20 similar ships on order by Maersk, the Mc-Kinney Møller will initially support container trade between Asian and European markets. [more inside]
posted by paulsc at 6:54 PM PST - 67 comments

An Aura of Familiarity: Visions from the Coming Age of Networked Matter. The Institute for the Future commissioned six science fiction writers to create short stories for their Age of Networked Matter research project. "We asked our collaborators to envision a world where humans have unprecedented control of matter at all scales, and to share with us a glimpse of daily life in that world. It was a process meant to make the future tangible." Three of the stories have appeared so far. [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 5:45 PM PST - 9 comments

With the TV premiere of Mary Harron's Anna Nicole Smith biopic fast approaching, The Hairpin wonders what other indie/art house filmmakers would do with the same subject.
posted by The Whelk at 5:24 PM PST - 16 comments

Oh Joy, Sex Toy! (NSFW), is a comic concerned with "reviews of everything that relates to sex, sexuality and the sex industry. From toys to workshops to birth control and much more, no stone will be left unturned, no vibrator left unused, no nipple left unpinched," by Erika Moen (Tumblr) [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:44 PM PST - 20 comments

It's debatable whether the troubled World War Z signals the end of the ongoing zombie craze, but the film that started it all is much more clear: Danny Boyle's bleak, artful cult horror-drama 28 Days Later, which saw its US premiere ten years ago this weekend. From its iconic opening shots of an eerily abandoned London (set to Godspeed You! Black Emperor's brooding post-rock epic "East Hastings") to the frenzied chaos of its climax, Boyle's film -- a dark yet humanist tale of a world eviscerated by a frighteningly contagious epidemic of murderous rage -- reinvented and reinvigorated the genre that Romero built (though many insist its rabid, sprinting berserkers don't really count). And while sequel 28 Weeks Later with its heavyhanded Iraq War allusions failed to live up to the original (despite boasting one of the most viscerally terrifying opening sequences in modern horror), and 28 Months looks increasingly unlikely, there remains a small universe of side content from the film, including music, short films, comics, and inspired-by games. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 3:49 PM PST - 87 comments

Malcolm Gladwell on the biography of economist Albert O. Hirschman.
posted by holmesian at 3:26 PM PST - 7 comments

Craft Truck is a filmmaker website and home of the web series Through the Lens, a regular series of interviews with leading cinematographers. [more inside]
posted by hamandcheese at 3:22 PM PST - 3 comments

Stuart Cohen on when The Thing became John Carpenter's The Thing. [via]
posted by brundlefly at 3:09 PM PST - 33 comments

Eye to Eye The English language version of Taher Shah's ballad to himself. Pakistan's latest viral sensation. An interview (in English) with the man himself. And his website, profiling him as model, singer, and businessman.
posted by tavegyl at 2:27 PM PST - 3 comments

So the Scots pride themselves on basically invented everything that makes modern life worth living and now they can add comics to their list. William Heath's The Glasgow Looking Glass was first published in 1825, twelve years before Rudolphe Töpffer's Histoire de M. Vieux Bois.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:14 PM PST - 18 comments

Ho-hum, it's another music download service and MP3 player - but this one's been created with the needs of correctional facilities in mind and is already in use in a dozen states and some federal prisons.
posted by porn in the woods at 1:32 PM PST - 18 comments

Slate posts on a 1960's era voting literacy tests [more inside]
posted by garlic at 12:20 PM PST - 261 comments

Imagine two politicians: One preaches fear and excessive "security," while the other says terrorism is a negligible risk. They hold, like me, that risk is part of life, and that while some security is necessary, we should mostly just refuse to be terrorized and get on with our lives. Fast-forward 10 years. If I'm right and there have been no more terrorist attacks, the preacher of fear takes credit for keeping us safe. But if a terrorist attack has occurred, my government career is over.
posted by blankdawn at 11:34 AM PST - 40 comments

What's the most intellectual joke you know? is Slate's summary of this Reddit thread (for once, the comments are worth it!), with more good comments in this Marginal Revolution discussion. Of course, we can do better...
posted by blahblahblah at 10:55 AM PST - 177 comments

How to pronounce Chicago street names. How to pronounce London street names. How to pronounce Austin street names. How to pronounce New Orleans street names (and a whole lot else). How to pronounce "Spuyten Duyvil," "Kosciuszko" and "Goethals." How to pronounce "Van Nuys," "Sepulveda," "San Pedro," and "Los Angeles." [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 10:42 AM PST - 118 comments

@kyledrake "I want to make another Geocities. Free web hosting, static HTML only, 10MB limit, anonymous, uncensored." And with that tweet, NeoCities was born. Browse existing sites, or create your own. [more inside]
posted by wcfields at 10:35 AM PST - 34 comments

Two and a half minutes of cute, yawning animals for your Friday entertainment. [slyt | previously]
posted by quin at 10:32 AM PST - 14 comments

From SomethingAwful: Instruction for a Help. Starts off slow but ramps up quickly.

Instruction for a Fruit
Instruction for a Babie
Instruction for a Spring
Instruction for a The Bodie
Instruction for a Town
Instruction for a Peace
Instruction for a THing
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:38 AM PST - 37 comments

"Calling out rapists and online predators is a more than legitimate strategy for dealing with abuse. But how are we supposed to handle common-or-garden sexist dickwaddery when it puts photos on the internet and asks to be loved, or at least to enter what one heavily-photoshopped smiler refers to hopefully as “the bone zone”?" Laurie Penny on Nice Guys Of OK Cupid (nsfw language)
posted by mippy at 9:30 AM PST - 375 comments

Richter: The Enigma 1, 2. In Tours. At the Moscow Conservatory. At the Barbican 1, 2. Well-Tempered Clavier. Italian Concerto. Beethoven Sonatas. TL;DW: Richter plays Chopin
posted by seemoreglass at 8:57 AM PST - 7 comments

While L. Frank Baum never specifically mentioned where Dorothy lived in Kansas, he did leave some vague and/or misleading hints. They don't quite point anywhere, but two home inspectors did some digging and claim Dorothy's house was near Troy, Kansas, but they're not the first to claim a home for Dorothy. That credit goes to Max Zimmerman, an insurance agent from Liberal, Kansas, who thought of capitalizing on this lack of location. Oliver Brown, another resident of Liberal, knew of a house that resembled Dorothy's, and this was the start of Dorothy's House Museum & Land of Oz. But over 300 miles away, Wamego, Kansas has its own little land of Oz, where you can attend the annual OZtoberfest, or check out the Oz Museum, with its collection of Oz memorabilia on permanent loan from Friar Johnpaul Cafiero. And then there's the abandoned Land of Oz theme park in the resort town of Beech Mountain, North Carolina, about a thousand miles from Wamega.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:53 AM PST - 10 comments

Comedian/actor (and now singer) Eddie Murphy has recorded a reggae song with Snoop Lion (previously) called "Redlight."
posted by raihan_ at 8:45 AM PST - 31 comments

Brand New evaluates the SC&P logo
posted by Thorzdad at 8:28 AM PST - 75 comments

A short film about giraffes. Previously.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:25 AM PST - 10 comments

Alt-rock stalwarts the Pixies have released their first new song in nine years, "Bagboy." [more inside]
posted by Rangeboy at 8:03 AM PST - 40 comments

"We heard them yell, shout and scream. But, who ever pays attention when they take that deep breath before they shout it out? Nobody does except for me. Have fun." Professional wrestling frequently leaves the audience breathless, and this video is no exception.
posted by codacorolla at 7:52 AM PST - 12 comments

A Letter to Rachel Jeantel, the prosecution's key witness in the George Zimmerman trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin (tag) by Khadijah Costley White.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:05 AM PST - 680 comments

An amazing bead chain experiment
posted by secretdark at 6:46 AM PST - 14 comments

Why it's good to be wrong. Unless, I'm wrong about that.
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:11 AM PST - 12 comments

Tiger in a Jar is a film production company run by husband and wife team Matt and Julie Walker, located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Their work is inspired by everyday life and the joy found in simple but meaningful activities.
[more inside]
posted by jammy at 5:47 AM PST - 3 comments

One of the first and eventually most widely available fetal stem cell strains, WI-38 was harvested (in 1962) and has arguably helped save more lives in the ensuing years than any other created by researchers. Vaccines made using WI-38 cells have immunized hundreds of millions of people against rubella, rabies, adenovirus, polio, measles, chickenpox and shingles. WI-38 has helped epidemiologists identify viral culprits in disease outbreaks and understand cellular senescence. They have served as a normal control for disease comparison, and remain a leading tool for probing the secrets of cellular aging and cancer. Nature explores the line's controversial history. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 5:28 AM PST - 19 comments

"Hi, I am Francis, the host of this show - Cooking With Dog." We will be cooking Choux Creme (Cream Puffs) / Tako-meshi (Mixed Rice with Octopus) / Cheese in Hamburg / Chicken Curry / Okonomiyaki / Agedashi Tofu / Yaki Gyoza / Bento Lunch Box / Green Tea Ice Cream. "Good luck in the kitchen!" (Previously)
posted by Katemonkey at 5:05 AM PST - 26 comments

You've seen one university's annual Banished Words list posted here (mostly by me). And then there are Matt Groening's Forbidden Words from his dear departed Life in Hell comic. But do real journalistic entities have similar lists of words to avoid? Well, Journalism Journalist Jim Romenesko has received a list (leaked?) from the editor of the Washington Post Outlook section of Things We Do Not Say. And yes, it's growing.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:35 AM PST - 75 comments

A Friday flash featuring fins.
posted by clarknova at 3:21 AM PST - 5 comments

The Epidemiology of In-Flight Medical Emergencies Friday SLYT- No time to read the NEMJ paper? (Previous Blue Medical emergency goodness). Doctors of Metafilter, what are you're favourite stories?
posted by Wilder at 12:55 AM PST - 29 comments

The point being, an angry song about a political prisoner in South Africa, held captive for 21 years (at the time of writing), and written and performed by a bunch of chippy former pop stars who appeared hellbent on throwing their success back in the faces of their fans, has no business being this happy, this celebratory, and this powerful.
posted by nickyskye at 8:33 PM PST - 47 comments

Like a lot of us in our mid-30s, he has found his career has landed somewhere between optimal happiness and utter futility. These days, Cervenak is more valuable for his reliability than his potential. He would be a tough guy to lose but not a particularly hard guy to replace. He is organizational depth. He is not a prospect. [more inside]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:53 PM PST - 17 comments

You can control how drunk Moones are in their newest music video for Better Energy. (SLYT, enable youtube annotations)
posted by rebent at 7:40 PM PST - 14 comments

Gentleman and Scholars. Paintings of mystical animals by Shwa Keirstead. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:30 PM PST - 1 comment

Nike Wagner, the composer's great-granddaughter, puts the question that this raises in these terms: "Should we allow ourselves to listen to his works with pleasure, even though we know that he was an anti-Semite?" There's a bigger issue behind this question: Can Germans enjoy any part of their history in a carefree way?

posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:31 PM PST - 121 comments

We've seen Dumb Ways To Die before but how about Dumb Ways To Die ....in Minecraft.
posted by The Whelk at 4:23 PM PST - 11 comments

Rising Demand for Long-Term Services and Supports for Elderly People (pdf, 574 kb) - "By 2050, one-fifth of the total U.S. population will be elderly (that is, 65 or older), up from 12 percent in 2000 and 8 percent in 1950. The number of people age 85 or older will grow the fastest over the next few decades, constituting 4 percent of the population by 2050, or 10 times its share in 1950. That growth in the elderly population will bring a corresponding surge in the number of elderly people with functional and cognitive limitations."
posted by kliuless at 3:45 PM PST - 18 comments

"If Shirley Jackson’s intent was to symbolize into complete mystification, and at the same time be gratuitously disagreeable, she certainly succeeded" - The New Yorker takes a look at the over 300 letters in reaction to The Lottery
posted by Artw at 3:17 PM PST - 44 comments

"It's just one of those days where you wake up thinking that if you jazzed up Stravinsky's Owl And The Pussycat it'd be awesome..." [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by motty at 2:54 PM PST - 42 comments

Much note has been made of Wendy Davis's 13 hour filibuster in Texas . Now the oft-photographed shoes she was wearing are getting their due.
posted by maryr at 1:45 PM PST - 81 comments

"A quarter of U.S. households have a member with special needs. More than 8% of kids under 15 have a disability, and half of those are deemed severe. What we share in common with the parents of all those special-needs children is that our kids have almost nothing in common [...] "Saying you study autism is like saying you study the world of non-elephant animals." Special-needs parents do share one thing: the eviscerating cost of our children." Paying for a Special Needs Child. [more inside]
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:42 PM PST - 53 comments

Conan O'Brien takes a break from hosting Late Night in 1997 to re-enact Dazed And Confused from Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same" complete with fantasy sequences. (slyt)
posted by mediocre at 1:27 PM PST - 22 comments

Cat March. SLYT (Based on the Mitchiri Neko video game.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 1:00 PM PST - 19 comments

SNL's Bill Hader, Rob Klein, and Jon Solomon discuss "Song for Daddy", the sketch with host Justin Bieber that never made it past dress rehearsal.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:32 PM PST - 31 comments

Against Author Photos [Part 1.] For Author Photos [Part 2.] by Stephen Burt [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 12:22 PM PST - 18 comments

If you are like me and always tinkering with UI fonts in Linux... Just tripped over Infinality which is a set of pretty nifty FreeType patches. Got it installed and my painfully tweaked Linux font settings look lovely.
posted by Samizdata at 12:09 PM PST - 42 comments

It's been 30 years since Trading Places was released.
posted by COD at 10:31 AM PST - 141 comments

I Like to Juggle With My Cats [slyt | probably not what you expect]
posted by quin at 10:27 AM PST - 21 comments

“I have not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende.” Political Scientist Corey Robin documents the connection between libertarian theorist Friedrich von Hayek and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. According to Robin, Hayek met Pinochet "came away from Chile convinced that an international propaganda campaign had been unfairly waged against the Pinochet regime (and made explicit comparison to the campaign being waged against South Africa’s apartheid regime). He set about to counter that campaign." Libertarians have accused Robin of "smearing" Hayek. [more inside]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:26 AM PST - 234 comments

The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum is the only museum in the nation devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. While its home, the grand Andrew Carnegie mansion in Manhattan, is currently undergoing a major renovation, you can still experience the richness of the collections through its Object of the Day blog. Recent highlights range from scratch & sniff wallpaper to the elegant simplicity of an Eames dining chair.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:53 AM PST - 9 comments

An article entitled '8 Foods We Eat In The U.S. That Are Banned In Other Countries,' purporting to expose the rampant toxicity of American processed foods, was posted on Buzzfeed. Here's a response from research chemist Derek Lowe (of Things I Won't Work With fame, previously).
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:46 AM PST - 177 comments

“Fifteen years of diary entries. From 1817 to 1832. Some just a couple of lines. Some maybe a thousand words. At a rhythm ranging from two or three a day to one a month, or even less frequent. Suddenly, translating Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone it occurs to me that if it were written today, it would most likely be a blog.”—Tim Parks writes of the challenges of translating from this “collection of personal impressions, aphorisms, profound philosophical observations, philological analyses, literary criticism and notes” written by “the finest Italian poet after Dante.” Meanwhile, a team based at the University of Birmingham have prepared the first-ever complete translation of the Zibaldone into English, which is due for publication next month. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 7:44 AM PST - 7 comments

Is there any point to the 12 times table? [more inside]
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 7:18 AM PST - 156 comments

A couple of days ago song writer David Lowery blogged about the low royalty rates streaming music service Pandora paid him, compared to terrestrial broadcasters: "My Song Got Played On Pandora 1 Million Times and All I Got Was $16.89, Less Than What I Make From a Single T-Shirt Sale". Understandably, this caused a bit of a commotion in music blogging circles, but perhaps this was unjustified. Michael Degusta does some digging and finds out that actually, Pandora paid $1,370 for these million plays in royalties. He also explains that Pandora actually pays more royalties than terrestrial radio stations.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:58 AM PST - 60 comments

Chris Pace (some images NSFW) creates 8-bit portraits of people on New York City's subways.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 12:54 AM PST - 25 comments

Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple are being monitored by the FBI and NSA, with Dropbox "coming soon." So what can you do? Use some alternatives. As Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo, told NPR: "we made the choice to just not track people so there is nothing to turn over."
posted by filthy light thief at 9:14 PM PST - 116 comments

Braulio Castillo began winning hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with the IRS within months of founding his technology company Strong Castle in early 2012.. [more inside]
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 6:48 PM PST - 81 comments

Olympus Overdrive is a webcomic in which the gods of Greek mythology compete to replace Zeus as the ruler of Olympus. Each deity is rebooted into the modern world and bound to a mortal companion, and together they must try to defeat the other teams. The winner immortal gets Zeus's Thunderbolt, while the winner mortal gets anything they desire. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:01 PM PST - 20 comments

Jesse Friedman, one of the subjects of the documentary "Capturing the Friedmans", is in fact a "psychopathic deviant" who molested 17 children in his parents' Long Island home. This, according to a the three-year review that "has only increased confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea and adjudication as a sex offender," Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in her 168-page report. The exhaustive report also took aim at the makers of "Capturing the Friedmans," director Andrew Jarecki and producer Marc Smerling. It accused them of using misleading, out-of-context snippets of interviews to further their campaign to exonerate Friedman, 44. Of course, Friedman, his wife, and Jarecki all maintain that Friedman is in fact innocent. [pdf] Previously.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 3:06 PM PST - 113 comments

The United States' National Security organization has many parts, from the famous (NSA, CIA) to the mundane (OCI, NGA) to the more esoteric (NRO, CSS). But even the most dedicated Washington insider may not have heard of INR. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:36 PM PST - 21 comments

David Esterly makes intricate, delicate carvings out of wood, in the tradition of Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), whose spectacular cascades of flowers, fruits and foliage revolutionized ornamental sculpture during the age of Christopher Wren.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:55 PM PST - 7 comments

Don't go to art school. Why it's a bad idea and what you can do with the money instead.
posted by Artw at 1:49 PM PST - 103 comments

Rape in the Fields is a Frontline documentary that explores the persistent allegations that female agricultural workers in the U.S. are frequently sexually assaulted and harassed by supervisors who exploit their (often undocumented) immigrant status. Victims typically do not seek help from US law enforcement, either out of fear that they will be fired, deported or worse, or from a lack of understanding of U.S. law. Reviews: Popmatters. NY Times [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:14 PM PST - 18 comments

Summer Talks: "Before Midnight" In a conversation moderated by Phillip Lopate, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke discuss their new film Before Midnight as well as their nearly 20-year collaboration that now spans three features. [Warning, the last two links have some spoilers, but the first link does not]
posted by KokuRyu at 11:41 AM PST - 51 comments

Former Labor leader and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd defeated her in a Labor Party leadership spill, 57-45, on Wednesday. The result has triggered a wave of cabinet resignations, including that of the erstwhile Midnight Oiler and Minister for School Education, Minister for Early Childhood and Youth, Peter Garrett. Previously.
posted by rhombus at 9:17 AM PST - 147 comments

Pussy Riot aren't just on tour. They're on the run. Laurie Penny meets the Russian punk-protest group. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 8:58 AM PST - 18 comments

You've played Pac-Man as a terrifying FPS game in 3-D (including ominous music), but Pac-Man is so much more: Pac-Man as a Match 3 game, as a math tutor, as a co-op game, as a 404 error page, as a side-scrolling shooter, as an endless runner, as a Google Doodle, and, finally Pac-Man as an 8-bit roguelike tower defense game. Also, a niceonline clone of the original, which famously caused a coin shortage in Japan when it was released. [some variations from here]
posted by blahblahblah at 8:40 AM PST - 26 comments

Sleeping Dreaming Dancing Kittens [slyt | via | adorable]
posted by quin at 8:40 AM PST - 16 comments

A Deadly Triangle - the proxy war in Afghanistan
posted by Gyan at 7:38 AM PST - 7 comments

SCOTUS declares DOMA Unconstitutional, 5 - 4. The gay rights movement saw a significant victory at the Supreme Court Wednesday, where the justices struck down part of a law barring federal benefits to married same-sex couples. In a 5-4 ruling, the court struck down a provision of the 17-year-old Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denies federal benefits -- like Social Security benefits or the ability to file joint tax returns - to same-sex couples legally married. The impact of the DOMA case, United States v. Windsor, is clear for the nation's approximately 130,000 married same-sex couples. Section 3 of the law, the provision that was struck down, denies same-sex couples federal benefits. That provision impacts around 1,100 federal laws, including veterans' benefits, family medical leave and tax laws.
posted by theora55 at 7:15 AM PST - 746 comments

Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes runs from 15 June - 23 September 2013 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. It is the museum's first comprehensive exhibition on Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, 1887-1965), and is billed as "the largest exhibition ever produced in New York of [his] protean and influential oeuvre"; in 2014 it will travel to Madrid and Barcelona. Exhibition curator Jean-Louis Cohen, an architectural historian at New York University, gave a tour of the exhibition as part of the "Le Corbusier/New York" symposium at the Center for Architecture on June 8. World-Architects was in attendance, so here we present some insight into the exhibition, accompanied by highlights from the symposium at right.

posted by infini at 7:10 AM PST - 17 comments

How Wikimedia Commons became a massive amateur porn hub
"Diving into Wikimedia Commons is like walking into a hoarder's photography warehouse. It is a vast, comprehensive mess."
Warning: The following story contains sexually explicit language.
posted by andoatnp at 5:59 AM PST - 106 comments

Garfunkel & Oates just released their new song online (probably not SFW) It's the latest of their social commentaries Please note that the latest video is not really SFW [more inside]
posted by I have no idea at 4:13 AM PST - 88 comments

One wasp can seriously ruin your picknick. A wasp nest in or near your home can be dangerous to your health. A yellowjacket wasp nest? Serious trouble. Now imagine a wasp nest holding a million yellowjackets.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:59 AM PST - 116 comments

The upcoming game Saints Row 4, an over-the-top open world action game that features weapons like a Dubstep Gun, has been refused classification (banned) in Australia. The new R18 classification for games was supposed to make this less common, but Saints Row 4's (trigger warning) 'alien anal probe' weapon and 'alien narcotics' have caused it to fall afoul of the new guidlines. Developer Deep Silver said they'll resubmit Saint's Row 4 to the reclassification board, while The Guardian sees this as evidence of Australia's conservative culture. Saints Row previously.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:07 PM PST - 92 comments

On the other side of the world from Venice, there exists the ruins of another mediaeval maritime city, built upon dozens of small islands divided by canals, that was home to a political dynasty that lasted for centuries. Unlike the world-renowned Adriatic city, however, the Micronesian city of Nan Madol faded away into history, leaving behind an overgrown archipelago of artificially-constructed rectilinear islands for modern eyes to marvel at centuries later.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:38 PM PST - 6 comments

There are certainly drawbacks to living in Florida this time of year. You have to deal with the heat. You have to deal with the tourists. And you have to deal with erratically flying pairs of insects joined by their genitalia. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:07 PM PST - 50 comments

"Dallas can become the Hollywood of the faith-and-family movie market." So says former Pennsylvania Senator, Fox News contributor, and erstwhile presidential contender Rick Santorum, who has taken a new job as CEO of Echolight Studios, a "family-friendly" Christian movie studio based out of Dallas. Mother Jones asks the question, what does Santorum actually know about movies? [more inside]
posted by duffell at 7:27 PM PST - 48 comments

The Legend of Zelda universe is complex, even if you focus only on the canonical material. Fans have been trying to create a timeline for the stories, but in 2009, Nintendo shot down those attempts, specifically in response to a split timeline series. Still, fans were not satisfied. For instance, in 2012, a fan named Zach played all the canonical titles in a month and wrote a 55 page paper (PDF; page 56 is just a short list word frequencies) on the topic. The only problem was that Nintendo released Hyrule Historia (fan translation) in late 2011, complete with an official timeline. Fans made a humorous translation of the timeline, and had some criticisms for the official history. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 6:54 PM PST - 30 comments

"If I had to conduct an experiment that would give an insight into neorealism, I'd build a time machine and travel to Italy, circa 1952. I'd ask Vittorio De Sica to make a film using Hollywood actors like Montgomery Clift and Jennifer Jones. I'd then team De Sica up with a Hollywood producer, the kind that liked to impose his will and sensibility onto a film—someone like David O Selznick. In bringing these two worlds of cinema together, I'd hope for a clash of sensibilities so great that it would result in two cuts of the same film, one by De Sica and the other by Selznick. I would run these two films side by side and examine each cut, and in the difference I would find something to say about the essence of neorealism."

Sight & Sound magazine's excellent video essay 'What is neorealism?' compares Terminal Station to Indiscretion of an American Wife.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:51 PM PST - 4 comments

Science experiment of the week: an AI car simulator with these supercar sounds playing in the background.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:37 PM PST - 45 comments

Stratus Dance Club mid-80s style - videos from a club in Spring Valley CA offer hours of dancing voyeurism. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 5:15 PM PST - 36 comments

Q: What do you call a Wilco concert, with no Wilco songs?

A: Awesome.
posted by timsteil at 4:31 PM PST - 37 comments

A checklist checklist (PDF)
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:43 PM PST - 28 comments

"After she passed, the chimps examined the body, inspecting Pansy’s mouth, pulling her arm and leaning their faces close to hers. Blossom sat by Pansy’s body through the night. And when she finally moved away to sleep in a different part of the enclosure, she did so fitfully, waking and repositioning herself dozens more times than was normal. For five days after Pansy’s death, none of the other chimps would sleep on the platform where she died."— "Want to Understand Mortality? Look to the Chimps", by Maggie Koerth-Baker in the NYT [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan at 3:25 PM PST - 16 comments

"Oh boy" (slyt)
posted by mediocre at 2:31 PM PST - 40 comments

President of the United States Barack Obama unveils his Climate Action Plan

While no single step can reverse the effects of climate change, we have a moral obligation to future generations to leave them a planet that is not polluted and damaged. Through steady, responsible action to cut carbon pollution, we can protect our children’s health and begin to slow the effects of climate change so that we leave behind a cleaner, more stable environment.

[more inside]
posted by No Robots at 2:10 PM PST - 107 comments

“I think a lot of people don’t have someone in their life that they can receive comforting touch from on a regular basis." Since Jacqueline Samuels established The Snuggery in 2012, similar services have cropped up in Portland and Tokyo. [more inside]
posted by I've a Horse Outside at 1:26 PM PST - 172 comments

School violence prevention programs typically focus on risk-reduction by teaching girls not to be victims and boys not to be rapists, with no other roles to play. Even though bystander intervention not a new concept, some schools, advocacy groups and corporations are pushing it with renewed vigor in an effort to deter violence.

The goal is to challenge perceptions of "normal behavior" and make teens aware of the nuanced interactions that create a hostile climate. It could be as simple as diverting a friend's attention when he hollers at a girl on the street, encouraging your sister to talk to her boyfriend instead of secretly checking his texts, sneaking off to call 911 when the popular guys start messing with a girl who's barely conscious.

[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 12:27 PM PST - 12 comments

Remember those little ads in the pages of comic books that offered mail-orders of cheap toys, novelties, and gags? (Previously.) Kirk Demarais collects that stuff so you don't have to. [more inside]
posted by hydrophonic at 11:38 AM PST - 35 comments

In a 5-4 decision, "The Supreme Court on Tuesday gutted a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act." [more inside]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:30 AM PST - 249 comments

The Walrus And The Lexicographer, or How Tolkien's OED Etymology Makes An English "Walrus."
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:40 AM PST - 12 comments

It began with a special session called by Governor Rick Perry, who put abortion restrictions on the table. SB5 bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and requires facilities that perform them to conform to new restrictions. The practical effect would close most of the abortion facilities in Texas. Then came the People's Filibuster, a mass protest designed to run out the clock and prevent the bill from being passed. It didn't work. The bill passed the House and went to the Senate. But today, Texas Senator Wendy Davis began a 13-hour filibuster to stop the bill. [more inside]
posted by emjaybee at 10:22 AM PST - 1694 comments

On the last day of August, Arkansas will kick off against Louisiana-Lafayette, and Bielema will step to the sideline for the first time in this new conference. Hog calls will echo above and around him. The stadium will rumble with Week 1's blind optimism. The temperature will be warmer, the athletes faster, and the expectations higher. There will be more tailgaters, sundresses, and reporters. For now, on this practice field, every rep is geared toward preparing for that moment, when Bielema will begin to answer the question of just what the hell he's doing down here.Via Grantland.
posted by Atreides at 10:05 AM PST - 13 comments

The People's Songs: The Story of Modern Britain in 50 Records is a radio series on BBC written and narrated by Stuart Maconie. Each episode focuses on one particular pop song and tells the story of the song as well as what social trends it mirrored, for instance the episode on Telstar by The Tornadoes focuses on the technological progress, especially in space travel and music, and the story of songwriter and record producer Joe Meek. 25 episodes have been broadcast, including ones on Dizzee Rascal's Bonkers and 21st Century Britain, Cornershop's Brimful of Asha and the British-Asian experience , and Serge Gainsbourg's Je T'aime and sex. There are 25 more to come. There is also a blog and profiles of the songs already discussed. [Previously on MeFi]
posted by Kattullus at 9:06 AM PST - 14 comments

How You Know You Are Not a Brain In a Vat [PDF] [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 8:41 AM PST - 102 comments

In the early eighties, Orson Welles was a fixture at L.A.’s Ma Maison, where Wolfgang Puck was the chef before he moved on to Spago. Nearing 70, and 40-plus years removed from Citizen Kane, which he made when he was just 25, Welles was fat and famously difficult, no longer a viable star but still a sort of Hollywood royalty—a very certain sort. The younger director Henry Jaglom was one of many aspiring auteurs who admired him but possibly the only one who taped their conversations. These took place in 1983 over lunch at the restaurant.
posted by The Whelk at 8:38 AM PST - 66 comments

Dr. Easy is a beautifully produced dark sci-fi short based on the story The Red Men. It follows a medical robot trying to help an armed and wounded man before the police are sent in. [via | SFW but may have triggers]
posted by quin at 8:34 AM PST - 20 comments

Save Points is an essay about gaming after the loss of a friend.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:16 AM PST - 8 comments

On appeal, the Federal Circuit has upheld Ultramericial's patent on the process of users viewing video ads online in order to view content. The court ruled that the abstractness of the patent does not invalidate it. [more inside]
posted by juiceCake at 7:47 AM PST - 37 comments

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who, upon hearing Harry Reser's 1926 recording of OH! HOW I LOVE BULGARIANS will cover their ears and run as far as they can possibly get from the Victrola, and those who will, um... want to hear more? For those in the latter category, then, there's... [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:29 AM PST - 7 comments

Samuel Aston Williams shows maps of the spread of urban sprawl in several American and international cities over 30 years, as seen from space.
posted by reenum at 5:16 AM PST - 36 comments

Richard Dawkins talks about memes. [SLYT, contains flashing images]
posted by zoo at 2:51 AM PST - 47 comments

Lorem Gibson carbon smart-sensory Legba urban receding rifle refrigerator. Bomb boy saturation point j-pop rebar knife San Francisco car. Dome drone Shibuya computer plastic katana rain kanji. Tank-traps courier beef noodles plastic rain motion papier-mache.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:13 PM PST - 42 comments

"By century's end, rising sea levels will turn the nation's urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin (1Page) [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 11:07 PM PST - 191 comments

"No one gets what’s special about Superman. ... What’s special about Superman, is that his parents didn’t f*cking die." Max Landis rants about Man of Steel and superhero movies.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:57 PM PST - 235 comments

The cruel tragedy of The Iron Sheik is a heartbreaking story about the wrestler, Howard Stern guest and Internet joke The Iron Sheik. Vice also has a hilarious interview with him.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:18 PM PST - 18 comments

Hair Apparent. A collection of punny hair salon names.
posted by curious nu at 8:24 PM PST - 85 comments

Want to find fruit on publicly owned land? fallingfruit.org offers utilitarian maps showing public fruit locations in several countries (eg, lillypilly trees in Melbourne, Australia; breadfruit trees in Mauritius; apple trees in Prague). fallenfruit.org is a collaborative artists' project that includes hand-drawn maps of public fruit trees in specific neighbourhoods of cities in the United States (California and Colorado especially), as well as a few international locations including Guadelajara, Mexico, Malmo, Sweden, and Herlev, Denmark. [more inside]
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 6:57 PM PST - 36 comments

Time Team's Mick Aston has passed away. Co-creator of the noted British archaeology series that ran from 1994 through 2012, Professor Michael Antony 'Mick' Aston popularized local archaology in the UK by presenting it in an easy to digest, accessible form. [more inside]
posted by disclaimer at 6:49 PM PST - 27 comments

Exploding Actresses 2: Love Movies. Should you require more exploding actresses, here's Exploding Actresses 1 and Exploding Actresses 3: Disney Princesses.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:40 PM PST - 36 comments

Why the students at one prominent South African university, once a model of racial harmony, chose to resegregate. "UFS hadn’t remained segregated after apartheid’s end—it had integrated and then resegregated later. I wanted to know why the white students raised those ancient flags, and why the black students had left Karee. I uncovered a tale of mutual exhilaration at racial integration giving way to suspicion, anger and even physical violence. It seemed to hold powerful implications well beyond South Africa, about the very nature of social change itself. In our post–civil rights struggle era, we tend to assume progress toward less prejudice and more social tolerance is inevitable—the only variable is speed. But in Bloemfontein, social progress surged forward. Then it turned back."
posted by bookman117 at 6:29 PM PST - 10 comments

Writer Richard Matheson has died. One of the most prolific and adapted American authors of the last half of the Twentieth Century is gone. [more inside]
posted by dortmunder at 3:35 PM PST - 107 comments

The 24 best Mr. Show sketches, in order (with video). The influential sketch comedy show is 20 years old this year, but has generally aged surprisingly well (and has been remarkably prescient about blowing up the moon). Topless Robot has a different top 10, so does Cracked. A great AV Club interview with David Cross, Scott Auckerman, and others details how one complex sketch came together.
posted by blahblahblah at 3:08 PM PST - 89 comments

Did you see? On June 23, the full Moon was the biggest and brightest of the year, so it's called the Supermoon! While this is technically true, Phil Plait points out you'd never notice the difference in size or brightness by eye. Still, it meant more people were outside, staring up at the sky, and taking pictures of the moon. See more on The Big Picture, and a ton of user submissions in a HuffPo slideshow (deslided *)
posted by filthy light thief at 2:43 PM PST - 34 comments

"Just before 8:00p, the doorbell rang insistently. To answer it, you had to unlock a steel door that opened onto a flight of stairs leading down to the ground floor. Bartender Buddy Rasmussen, expecting a taxi driver, asked his friend Luther Boggs to let the man in. Perhaps Boggs, after he pulled the door open, had just enough time to smell the Ronsonol lighter fluid that the attacker of the UpStairs Lounge had sprayed on the steps. In the next instant, he found himself in unimaginable pain as the fireball exploded, pushing upward and into the bar." -- Forty years ago today in New Orleans thirtytwo people lost their lives due to arson in what was the deadliest attack on LGBT people in the US to date. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:50 PM PST - 67 comments

Chicago Sun-Times editor Robert Elder asked 35 film directors to name the movies they most admire that have been panned, forgotten or ignored. Some nuggets from the TOC: Todd Solondz is sweet on The Honeymoon Killers, Peter Bogdanovich finds Trouble in Paradise and Danny Boyle shouts Eureka.
posted by wensink at 12:49 PM PST - 63 comments

"I think a major change in zombie behavior in this was if something were to bite you, well, you're still fresh, you're still able to move quickly. But now you don't think about yourself. You only think about where's my next bite, where's my next takedown. And you will run as fast as you can because you're still healthy, and you'll lead with your teeth to take the next human down..." says Scott Farrar, visual effects supervisor of World War Z, on the fast moving and swarming zombies in the movie. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:03 PM PST - 210 comments

South Korea has the one of the highest suicide rates in the world. An addition to the one of the more popular suicide bridges in Seoul has prevented many (SLYT).
posted by JiffyQ at 10:46 AM PST - 83 comments

A study published last year shows that teenage marijuana use can lead to decreased IQ in adulthood. According to Nature, "when their adult IQ was tested at 38 years old, the heaviest and most persistent adolescent-onset users in the study had experienced an average decline of eight IQ points from childhood to adulthood." [more inside]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:36 AM PST - 171 comments

"Meanwhile, the Ruffs are wondering, too. They want to solve the mystery. At the very least, they want to be able to tell Blake and Lori’s daughter who her mother was. Yet they worry they’ll find out something terrible, something they wish they had never known." An East Texas woman commits suicide. Her distraught former husband opens the strongbox she'd forbidden him from accessing. The contents, however, continue to baffle investigators (and the public) - who are now requesting help with identifying the woman formerly known as "Lori Ruff".
posted by julthumbscrew at 10:33 AM PST - 23 comments

Rifftrax (previous and previously and previouslier) hilariously carries on the tradition of MST3k. And though the premise is much the same as before, the Rifftrax folks have added something new: MP3 Commentaries. Instead of confining themselves to public domain and titles whose rights are easy to procure, they do commentaries on hollywood blockbusters in audio form only. People then can sync them up to their own DVDs of these films and sit back to experience riffing on the likes of Nicholas Cage instead of John Agar. This is great for home viewing, but what about their live shows? Then someone came up with an idea. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:02 AM PST - 63 comments

Samuel Leech, R.N., fought in the battle between the 38 gun HMS Macedonian, commanded by Captain John Surman Carden, and the 44 gun USS United States, Commodore Stephen Decatur on October 25th 1812.

A strange noise, such as I had never heard before, next arrested my attention; it sounded like the tearing of sails, just over our heads. This I soon ascertained to be the wind of the enemy's shot. The firing, after a few minutes' cessation, recommenced. The roaring of cannon could now be heard from all parts of our trembling ship, and, mingling as it did with that of our foes, it made a most hideous noise. By-and-by I heard the shot strike the sides of our ship; the whole scene grew indescribably confused and horrible; it was like some awfully tremendous thunder-storm, whose deafening roar is attended by incessant streaks of lightning, carrying death in every flash and strewing the ground with the victims of its wrath: only, in our case, the scene was rendered more horrible than that, by the presence of torrents of blood which dyed our decks.

posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:26 AM PST - 8 comments

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?,” Sandberg asks women in the opening chapter of Lean In. She obviously does not work in journalism (as my wife does) or academia (as I used to), let alone manufacturing. The question for most American women, and for most families, is much simpler: “How do I survive?” Sandberg’s book has been compared with feminist classics like The Feminine Mystique, but it really belongs in the category of capitalist fantasy, a tradition that originated with Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help and was popularized by the novels of Horatio Alger. The success of Lean In can be attributed, at least in part, to its comforting espousal of an obviously false hope: that hard work and talent alone can now take you to the top. This is pure balderdash, for women and men. Class structures have seized to the point where Denmark has more social mobility than the United States. The last myth to die in America will be the myth of pluck; Lean In is the most recent testament to its power.
posted by barnacles at 8:58 AM PST - 70 comments

Unpromised Land: Eritrean Refugees in Israel (Readibility Link)
"60,000 African migrants sought refuge in Israel. Many found hostility, resentment and a one-way ticket to prison. They are Israel's new unwanted."

Previously on Metafilter: "Politicians say these things in the morning, and by the afternoon we get bomb threats made to our office." - Nic Schlagman, African Refugee Development Center
posted by andoatnp at 8:53 AM PST - 15 comments

The reviewing court must ultimately be satisfied that no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity. The Supreme Court issued a decision[pdf] in the affirmative action case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin today. [more inside]
posted by insectosaurus at 8:14 AM PST - 91 comments

My Dad Was in a Band: Stories from the children of dads who were in famous and not-so-famous bands, from the Byrds to the Earl Warren Sextet.
posted by Cash4Lead at 7:54 AM PST - 24 comments

Green, red, blue ... pink ... it's all crap.
posted by mrgrimm at 7:42 AM PST - 43 comments

Fluffy Grey Cat Sleeps in Fishbowl. [slyt | via]
posted by quin at 7:19 AM PST - 31 comments

Stirrup Hoe. Collinear Hoe. Dutch hoe. Swan neck hoe (hand hoe). Grubbing hoe. Japanese Draw Hoe. In addition to gardening, hoes can be used for trail building. Just make sure to keep your hoe sharp.
posted by Deathalicious at 3:06 AM PST - 45 comments

Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado was first elected president of Ecuador in Nov. 2006 and most recently for his third presidential term in Feb. 2013. Ecuador is sometimes identified as joining the Latin American leftist "pink tide" movement by electing Correa, and Correa in turn joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) economic bloc in 2009, which also includes the countries of Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia, and which was explicitly conceived by Hugo Chavez as an alternative to US-lead economic partnerships in the region. [more inside]
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 2:35 AM PST - 33 comments

It's time to say farewell to one of the great and legendary voices of American music. Mr Bobby 'Blue' Bland has died. With the perfect combination of muscle and tenderness, grit and sweetness, he gave us so many stellar performances over his long career. Here are but a few: Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City, The Way You Treated Me, Stormy Monday, Further Up the Road, St. James Infirmary, I'll Take Care of You, I Stand Accused, That's the Way Love Is, Ain't Nothing You Can Do... and the list goes on. Thanks for the music, Bobby Bland.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:00 PM PST - 44 comments

• Is Doctor Fun the oldest comic on the Internet?
No. That would be "Where the Buffalo Roam" by Hans Bjordahl. "Where the Buffalo Roam" started in 1991, and had its own Usenet group long before Doctor Fun came along, and is still running on the web.

• Was Doctor Fun the first cartoon on the World Wide Web?
There you go! You've got it - Doctor Fun was the first cartoon on the World Wide Web.
[via]
posted by not_on_display at 9:03 PM PST - 31 comments

AMMO - oddly beautiful cross section photos of ammunition by Sabine Pearlman, taken in a WWII bunker. The io9 write-up has Redditor identification of the cartridges.
posted by Artw at 8:08 PM PST - 59 comments

John Bisset & Ivor Kallin celebrate something or other, are happy, but occasionally do I'm not sure what. [more inside]
posted by scruss at 8:03 PM PST - 5 comments

For years in Malibu, CA, homeowners have tried to hide public access points to local beaches in order to prevent people from using them. A recently released app has tipped off the public as to exactly where these access points are, causing an outcry from the homeowners.
posted by reenum at 7:11 PM PST - 114 comments

In which Hart, a vlogger, responds to a question she is commonly asked: "If you love women so much, how come you don't dress like one?"
posted by ocherdraco at 6:26 PM PST - 40 comments

The end of Summer 2013 should see the release of Memoto, a wearable camera that takes a picture of what's in front of you every thirty seconds 24/7. Billed as an unobtrusive observer for lifebloggers, it is also being touted as a legal witness and an alibi provider. An interview that asks Memoto's CEO about privacy. (warning: interview filmed in shaky-cam)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:09 PM PST - 38 comments

In December 2012, school district officials informed the family of Coy Mathis, a girl who was assigned male at birth, that she would no longer be allowed to use the girls' bathrooms at school. The Mathis family filed suit. Today, they won. [more inside]
posted by not that girl at 5:02 PM PST - 46 comments

The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola's fifth feature film, went into wide release this week. Adapted from Nancy Jo Sales's article "The Subject Wore Loboutins" (excerpt) and the reality TV series Pretty Wild, has attracted some controversy on its release. [more inside]
posted by pxe2000 at 3:34 PM PST - 65 comments

The results of the Cambrian explosion are well documented in the fossil record, but its cause -- why and when it happened, and perhaps why nothing similar has happened since -- has been a mystery. Now a recent paper in Nature (abstract) suggests that the answer may lie in a second geological curiosity -- a dramatic boundary, known as the Great Unconformity, between ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks and younger sediments.
posted by Long Way To Go at 3:27 PM PST - 17 comments

Perhaps the most dangerous effect of the Big Crunch mentality has been to make television creators think of themselves as auteurs, to convince them that in spite of the massive interference with their work, they can somehow create a work of aesthetic integrity and sociological insight even if they don’t know where it’s going. Well, sometimes you get lucky, but more often, the result is disaster, and the effort spent toward that failure is redirected from where it would be better put: creating great trash. An essay on the challenges and pitfalls of writing serialized TV plots from The American Reader. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 3:15 PM PST - 48 comments

Going back to at least 2011, it was believed that Facebook kept "shadow profiles" of users and non-users, accumulating information when users synchronize mobile phones, import personal data from e-mail providers, import personal information from instant messaging services, send invitations to friends or make search queries for other people on Facebook. In early 2012, four members of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations demanded answers from Facebook (PDF) and were told that non-users didn't have "shadow profiles", but the contents of the reply were not made public. Just this past Friday, Facebook released an "Important Message" on a data leak they closed, in which information from members' "shadow profiles" could be obtained. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:33 PM PST - 25 comments

Metamorphosis. A short film retelling of Titian's Diana and Actaeon for The National Gallery, London, by Tell No One. [Possibly NSFW, Via]
posted by homunculus at 1:21 PM PST - 7 comments

The Bosnian Resettlement, 20 years later. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) Twenty years after St. Louis became the center of one of the largest refugee relocation efforts in the nation’s history, Bosnian refugees have remade this neighborhood at Gravois Avenue and Morganford Road into a thriving business district, with restaurants, bars, markets and a newspaper.
posted by notsnot at 12:09 PM PST - 17 comments

"For nearly two centuries, biologists have been struck by a mystery of geography and biodiversity peculiar to Europe. As Edward Forbes pointed out as far back as 1846, there are a number of life forms (including the Kerry slug, a particular species of strawberry tree and the Pyrenean glass snail) that are found in two specific distant places—Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula—but few areas in between." -- How did a specific snail species from the Pyrenees end up in Ireland but nowhere else?
posted by MartinWisse at 11:56 AM PST - 16 comments

I just appreciate silence In a world that never stops talking- "Introversion", a comic by Luchie.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:54 AM PST - 71 comments

On being an octopus [more inside]
posted by latkes at 8:03 AM PST - 47 comments

Because of nationwide shortages, Washington hospitals are rationing, hoarding, and bartering critical nutrients premature babies and other patients need to survive. Doctors are reporting conditions normally seen only in developing countries, and there have been deaths. How could this be allowed to happen?

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:01 AM PST - 109 comments

Hitchcock assembled. At the time, Hitchcock had many restrictions placed upon when creating this film. This is a perfect example of restriction breeding creativity.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:49 AM PST - 19 comments

All of Terry Gilliam's animation bits from Monty Python's Flying Circus: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 (SLYT, NSFW)
posted by Room 641-A at 10:17 PM PST - 31 comments

Since at least November 4th, 2004, the Internet has secretly been under the rule of a shadowy, unelected government led by a secretive "Office of the President of the Internet." Media accounts claim that Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian may have been a recent candidate for the office. Other sources suggest The Tech Guy, Leo Laporte, may have been elected in July 2009. [more inside]
posted by saulgoodman at 10:13 PM PST - 26 comments

Dragon Quest X is on its way to Windows later this year, and they've released perhaps the most charming benchmark ever (download is the green button about halfway down for those who can't read Japanese) so you can see if your computer can run it. [more inside]
posted by luvcraft at 9:49 PM PST - 18 comments

Meet Holly Maniatty, the sign language interpreter who has brought the words of Wu-Tang Clan, Marilyn Manson, Killer Mike, Bruce Springsteen and the Beastie Boys to the deaf.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:26 PM PST - 12 comments

"The Verse flows throughout Aquaria, through each ripple and wave, through every living being. The Verse binds us, narrator and explorer: my story will become your own, and yours will become mine. You will live my life through my eyes, and you will learn the truth… In time, I would discover far more than I'd wish to learn." [more inside]
posted by Nomyte at 8:03 PM PST - 7 comments

Bryan Adams, the photographer. Most people know Bryan Adams as the Heartland Rocker from Canada who scored hit after ubiquitous hit in the meat-and-potatoes rock and pop-rock mold in the 1980s and early '90s, a la "Summer of '69" and "Everything I Do (I Do It For You." Comparatively few, however, know about his second career, as a successful editorial and advertising photographer who has work published in Vogue, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar and many other glossy magazines, and shown in exhibits in worldwide. [more inside]
posted by raysmj at 7:30 PM PST - 94 comments

Building conversions can be a tricky business, but it's especially so when there is a fifty ton steel vault built into the structure. So what can you do with that old bank? Well, restaurants are popular. So are nightclubs and bars. Really big banks seem to be a natural for a hotel conversion (here's one in progress). And if all that sounds too fancy, well, how about a Walgreens? [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:34 PM PST - 50 comments

From this, one can make a deduction which is quite certainly the ultimate truth of jigsaw puzzles: despite appearances, puzzling is not a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzle-maker has made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks again, and studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the other. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 4:34 PM PST - 6 comments

Jim's skullgallery; be sure to click sculpture and then the little numbers and you will see more like these with their inspiration in Amerindian and Oceanian cult objects .
A short interview with Jim Skull.
posted by adamvasco at 4:15 PM PST - 5 comments

In Defense Of Kanye’s Vanity: The Politics Of Black Self-Love
"Kanye West has become a pop-culture punch line, but those who have dismissed him as aimlessly arrogant have missed the point. He is part of a long tradition of black artists who have fashioned a deeply political articulation of what it means to love yourself."

Previously on Metafilter: Complete awesomeness at all times
posted by andoatnp at 2:59 PM PST - 274 comments

Though homosexual activities weren't a crime under Italy's fascist regime, there was persecution and blackmail of men of "dubious virility." The hidden threat of homosexual men was so strong that the attempt to criminalize homosexuality failed because to pass such a law would only "publicize" homosexuality (Google books preview). It was in that context that Benito Mussolini declared Italy too masculine for homosexuals to exist, rounded up around 45 men believed to be homosexuals, and sent them into "internal exile" on San Domino, in the Isole Tremiti archepeligo. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:16 PM PST - 16 comments

Between 1994 and 1998, P. Segal edited a zine about Marcel Proust called Proust Said That. [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:36 PM PST - 9 comments

"Peter Molyneux has had a long and storied career. As the creator of Populous, Black & White, Fable, and the recent iPhone experiment Curiosity, he's been no stranger to ambitious concepts throughout his 30-year history in the industry. I had a chance to sit down with Peter at E3 this year, and picked his brain about three of the top fart apps on the app store."
posted by rollick at 12:44 PM PST - 15 comments

17 cooking projects ain't nobody got time for. [more inside]
posted by KathrynT at 11:45 AM PST - 119 comments

Less time separates us from Tyrannosaurus rex than separated T. rex from Stegosaurus.
posted by Artw at 11:08 AM PST - 66 comments

The Memory of the Netherlands is an image library making available the online collections of museums, archives and libraries. The library provides access to images from the collections of more than one hundred institutions and includes photographs, sculptures, paintings, bronzes, pottery, modern art, drawings, stamps, posters and newspaper clippings. In addition there are also video and sound recordings to see and listen to. The Memory of the Netherlands offers an historic overview of images from exceptional collections, organized by subject to provide easy access

Search 833928 objects from 133 collections from 100 institutions.
posted by infini at 11:06 AM PST - 4 comments

Last month, Paula Deen gave a deposition (full transcript) for a discrimination lawsuit brought against her and her brother by a former employee. In it, she stated that "of course" she had used "the n-word" in the past and responded to questions regarding a "very southern-style wedding" in which the servers would be "professional black men doing a fabulous job." This week, Deen recorded, posted, and then made private three slightly different videos of apology. The Food Network has since announced that it will not renew her contract when it expires at the end of this month. [more inside]
posted by houseofdanie at 9:49 AM PST - 360 comments

Sometimes you don't need expensive professional cameras to make spectacular photos. Instead sometimes all you need is a beer can and a sheet of photographic paper. That's how the Philippus Lansbergen Observatory in Middelburg captured the movement of the Sun over a six month period, through a socalled solargraph. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 9:39 AM PST - 9 comments

Finally, the faithful movie adaptation of Max Brooks' "World War Z" that we deserve.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:00 AM PST - 72 comments

During my service in the Korean military, I worked for two years as special intelligence personnel for the NSA, learning first-hand how to extract information from defense targets. Now, as a designer, I am influenced by these experiences and I have become dedicated to researching ways to “articulate our unfreedom” and to continue the evolution of my own thinking about censorship, surveillance, and a free society.

ZXX is a disruptive typeface designed by an ex-Korean intelligence officer to prevent automated text processing. ZXX Type Specimen Video. Project site offers a free download (.zip, 77 KB).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 7:50 AM PST - 42 comments

Our digital recorders cut off the last minutes of sporting events and our favorite shows. That doesn’t happen in Europe.
posted by beisny at 6:52 AM PST - 59 comments

Matt Welch, Reason: The Death of Contrarianism

Klein, then at The American Prospect, a progressive D.C. opinion magazine founded in 1990, wanted Peters, founder (in 1969) of The Washington Monthly, to answer for the way neoliberalism had degenerated into lefty-on-lefty contrarianism. “What has happened, at least to some younger folks like me,” Klein said, “is that at times this appears to have become not an honest critique, but a positioning device. The idea that it’s not about the quality of the argument, but the display: You show honesty by attacking Democrats, you show independence by attacking liberals. At times I think that has been a damaging impulse on our side.”

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:05 AM PST - 30 comments

Nill Kamui is an independent island caught in a power struggle between the forces of Donatia, the land of Knights and the Church, and Koran, an empire of secrets and the immortal empress Ghost Mother. When the Red Dragon, the ancient protector of the island, goes berserk and starts killing for no reason, a desperate plan is hatched: a team of representatives from each of the three powers is given a mission to find why the Red Dragon went mad and stop him by any means necessary. Red Dragon is a tabletop RPG campaign with its own trailer, and that's not all. [more inside]
posted by 23 at 1:15 AM PST - 20 comments

Forgotten 1960s 'Thunderbirds' projects brought to life. The "Multi-Unit Space Transport and Recovery Device" (MUSTARD), the "Jumping Jeep", and the "Intercity Vertical-Lift Aircraft". "British arms company BAE has recently been through its archives and publicised some of the projects dreamed up in the glory days of the 1960s, when designers' imaginations were allowed to run riot with little consideration of practicality or budget." From The Economist magazine, which has period sketches of the designs.
posted by alasdair at 12:06 AM PST - 10 comments

Samantha Keely Smith is a New York-based painter whose sweeping abstract landscapes were deemed "too distracting" for HBO's boardroom. [more inside]
posted by k8lin at 9:59 PM PST - 26 comments

Thank God almighty... One hundred and one years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and two months before the march on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to 25,000 people in Detroit, and made it clear to America that "the Negro is now determined to be free". This speech in Detroit became the foundation for King's speech in Washington...."I have a dream..." On June 23rd we celebrate the 50th anniversary of that speech in Detroit.
posted by HuronBob at 9:04 PM PST - 4 comments

Hyper Drive Yurikamome: Mirrored Hyperlapse of Tokyo’s Automated Transit System.
posted by homunculus at 8:24 PM PST - 13 comments

It's the 21st century, where's my flying bike? (YT) [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:32 PM PST - 31 comments

Sparky Sweets, PHD drops some of da illest classical literature summary and analysis that yo ass ever heard on The Great Gatsby, Crime and Punishment and To Kill a Mockingbird.
posted by sacrifix at 6:18 PM PST - 10 comments

NPR presents a non-chronological megamix of every hit " Song Of Summer" from 1962 to 2013
posted by The Whelk at 5:57 PM PST - 43 comments

No stranger to controversy, Mike Krahulik, gabe of Penny Arcade, has found himself embroiled in yet another debacle over a series of transphobic tweets he's made, coming right off the heels of public criticism and outrage over an apparently racist/misogynistic panel that was to be held at the upcoming PAX Aus convention. Citing this and past controversies, The Fullbright Company, the indie developer of "Gone Home", has pulled out of PAX's coveted Indie Megabooth. gabe has issued a pair of apologies for his tweets, swearing off ever talking about topics other than comics or video games again. [Previously]
posted by yeoz at 5:47 PM PST - 478 comments

How To Use Math To Crush Your Friends At Monopoly Like You've Never Done Before
posted by Renoroc at 3:29 PM PST - 81 comments

Supercut: John Goodman Loses His Shit (NSFW, SLVimeo)
posted by Room 641-A at 2:40 PM PST - 40 comments

Conservative MPs have drawn up an “Alternative Queen’s Speech” with radical policies - "The 42 bills also include legislation to scrap wind farm subsidies, end the ringfence for foreign aid spending and rename the late August Bank Holiday “Margaret Thatcher Day”. Britain’s relationship with Europe features prominently in the action plan, with draft laws setting out how the UK would leave the European Union and a Bill to prevent Bulgarians and Romanians winning new rights to work, live and claim benefits here from next year. All of the proposals were laid before the House of Commons last night after the Tory backbenchers hijacked an obscure Parliamentary procedure by camping out in Westminster for four successive nights." [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 2:28 PM PST - 63 comments

Whatever you think about Sampson...may say more about you than about him. The Washington Post's Kathy Orton tracks the rise and fade of Basketball Hall of Famer Ralph Sampson. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 1:40 PM PST - 33 comments

Angelyne the Amazing Deaf Cattle Dog (YT)

Angelyne performs tricks for young and old, with owner Eric Melvin's positive message emphasizing perseverance, compassion, "oneness" with your fellow man (as he puts it, despite our varying appearances and more profound differences "we are all the same"), and the strengths that underlie what may seem to be our greatest weaknesses. Eric incorporates poetry written by himself and others into his training presentation.

Promo Video (YT)
posted by lordaych at 1:13 PM PST - 4 comments

One of the many things that sets NBC's Hannibal apart is how it treats the violence it shows. The finale for the first season aired last night, bringing to a close a season of television that most seem to regard as unexpectedly excellent, and a second season is on the way. This interview with the show's creator, Bryan Fuller who previously created Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies, touches on the reasoning behind the heightened, stylized murders. A second part that deals more directly with the contents of the finale went up shortly after it had aired.
posted by sparkletone at 12:27 PM PST - 99 comments

Ashton Kutcher, one of the greatest actors of our time, in a new trailer for the forthcoming Jobs
posted by sgt.serenity at 12:27 PM PST - 118 comments

Francoise Gamma makes bizarre, convoluted, abstract GIFs, and is a generally mysterious individual. Gamma provided answers to a visual interview, and you can get a quick overview of Gamma's animation from The Creators Project. Gamma also created works in the physical realm, first as part of a group guerrilla art installation project, then etched into a transparent material by "harnessing the power of rare crystals and secret lasers". [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:45 AM PST - 8 comments

Nicolas Jaar (previously on MeFi) and Dave Harrington, the musicians constituting the hypnotic and funky group Darkside, have remixed Daft Punk's Random Access Memories (previously on MeFi) in full. You can stream it here.
posted by en forme de poire at 10:28 AM PST - 27 comments

Transcend!
posted by Tevin at 10:22 AM PST - 25 comments

Thirty-nine year-old Andrew Johnson demonstrates the effect of Deep Brain Stimulation on the motor symptoms of Parkinson's Disease.
posted by eugenen at 10:22 AM PST - 34 comments

CARTOZIA IS A WORLD OF MANY STORIES Each issue of Cartozia Tales will feature stories by nine indy cartoonists. Each of us will be bringing his or her separate ideas, imagination, and drawing style to the world that we're sharing. Every issue will be full of surprises, and no one knows where the stories will wind up. [more inside]
posted by jillithd at 10:16 AM PST - 3 comments

NOAA and NASA visualize a green planet. The amazing maps of Earth's vegetation highlight areas where plant life is the densest and barest... (Space.com). They have an interactive map too! [more inside]
posted by bonehead at 9:45 AM PST - 9 comments

Mr Balls is a happy mascot, and he's spreading the word in Brazil regarding testicular cancer. Outside of Brazil, there are songs, and another by Tom Green. Will Mr Balls be a greater spokesman than even Lance Armstrong? Long Live Senhor Testiculo!!!!!
posted by Eekacat at 9:06 AM PST - 42 comments

"Portland cement is the source of the “glue” that holds most modern concrete together. But making it releases carbon from burning fuel, needed to heat a mix of limestone and clays to 1,450 degrees Celsius (2,642 degrees Fahrenheit) – and from the heated limestone (calcium carbonate) itself. Monteiro’s team found that the Romans, by contrast, used much less lime and made it from limestone baked at 900˚ C (1,652˚ F) or lower, requiring far less fuel than Portland cement." -- How Berkeley Lab scientists discovered the secret of Roman concrete's durability and how it could help make modern concrete more environmentally friendly.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:53 AM PST - 39 comments

In 1985, McDonalds sued left-wing activists in the UK for libel over a pamphlet accusing the multinational food giant of environmental destruction, abuses of workers' rights and selling junk food. The ensuing trial became the longest-running civil trial in English history, ending in 1997 in a Pyrrhic victory for McDonalds, who had lost millions of pounds in pursuing the case, and won £40,000 for their trouble. (The judgment was later overturned in the European Court of Human Rights.) Now, it has been revealed that the leaflet in question had been co-written by an undercover police officer assigned to infiltrate Greenpeace. The officer in question, Bob Lambert, had previously spent years infiltrating environmental groups, even fathering children with activists before disappearing. [more inside]
posted by acb at 8:41 AM PST - 61 comments

Measure America offers a terrific tools for visualizations and charts of the Measure of America Project from the Social Science Research Council, which looks at the Human Development Index at a city and state level, with breakdowns by race as well. Among the general findings are that "Red States" rank lower, opportunity is increasing everywhere but Michigan, and Connecticut is the best state, Washington DC the best city..
posted by blahblahblah at 8:28 AM PST - 24 comments

Military planners for the U.S. Army have decided not to ship back more than $7 billion of equipment — about 20 percent of what the Army brought into Afghanistan — because the shipping costs are too high and the need for the used equipment too low. Instead, the Army is destroying the equipment in-country: shredding it, crushing it and selling it on the Afghan scrap market for pennies a pound.
posted by infini at 7:47 AM PST - 82 comments

There are too many bicycles in Amsterdam.
posted by four panels at 6:12 AM PST - 109 comments

"I may be a high functioning zinfandel addict with three estranged wives who's seen Kissinger naked, but I am NOT an over sharer." (SLNYT)
posted by MeanwhileBackAtTheRanch at 5:54 AM PST - 18 comments

London record label Black Butter have been spearheading a new wave of UK dance music. [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 4:51 AM PST - 32 comments

Belgian designer Kristof Luyckx recently made six short videos as interstitials between lectures at the Beyonderground graphic festival. They are covers of famous songs, as sung by a cast of bizarre, colorful and very calm monsters. You can see all six at his site, or on Vimeo: [more inside]
posted by cthuljew at 10:28 PM PST - 4 comments

A Reference Of Female-Fronted Punk Rock: 1977-89 is a set of 12 downloadable mix CDs collecting more than 360 punk songs sung by women.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:07 PM PST - 30 comments

The Bicycle Craze of the 1890s had a significant impact upon women's lives. Leaders of the women's movement saw bike riding as a path to freedom. Many women cyclists enjoyed the freedoms and experiences bikes gave them. Although many health experts recommended biking to women for its health effects, other health experts and some moralists saw dangers in letting women venture off into the wild blue yonder with and without men, danger in potential physical damage to women's bodies, disaster in letting them adopt "unfeminine garb" - and of course, they might enjoy it TOO much. [more inside]
posted by julen at 9:17 PM PST - 55 comments

The National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2013 most endangered historic places.
posted by vrakatar at 8:08 PM PST - 34 comments

Of Sisters And Clones: An Interview with Jessica Rath

Every apple for sale at your local supermarket is a clone. Every single Golden Delicious, for example, contains the exact same genetic material; though the original Golden Delicious tree (discovered in 1905, on a hillside in Clay County, West Virginia) is now gone, its DNA has become all but immortal, grafted onto an orchard of clones growing on five continents and producing more than two hundred billion pounds of fruit each year in the United States alone.

via Edible Geography [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:24 PM PST - 52 comments

"We live in a world where digital information is exploding. Some 90% of the world’s data was generated in the past two years. The obvious question is: how can we store it all? In Nature Communications today, we, along with Richard Evans from CSIRO, show how we developed a new technique to enable the data capacity of a single DVD to increase from 4.7 gigabytes up to one petabyte (1,000 terabytes). This is equivalent of 10.6 years of compressed high-definition video or 50,000 full high-definition movies."
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:09 PM PST - 75 comments

"It’s not inconceivable that if you are on the right part of the Earth, and you stand outside and wave, that one or two of the photons of sunlight that reflect from you are going to make it out to Saturn and into Cassini’s telescope." NASA is taking a new version of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot image, and they've invited everyone to Wave at Saturn!
posted by brundlefly at 5:55 PM PST - 22 comments

David Gaider, senior writer at Bioware, delivers a talk on sex, sexuality, and sexism in video games and the gaming industry at the 2013 Game Developers Conference. (single-link 49-minute video)
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:11 PM PST - 83 comments

With the deeply unpopular shutdown of Google Reader less than two weeks away (previously), plenty of would-be replacements have jumped into the mix, including the newly web-based Feedly, Newsblur, Digg, and possibly even Facebook (a particularly bitter irony, as obsession with defeating Facebook has been the alleged impetus behind CEO Larry Page's abandonment of beloved Google hallmarks like 20% Time, Google Labs, and open platforms like Reader). But while there's no shortage of attempts to replicate Reader's look and feel, there's one little-known aspect that none can match, and that will be lost forever come July 1st: the vast cache archive of every article from every website, living and dead, that has ever been subscribed to in Reader. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 3:20 PM PST - 146 comments

Honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1990. Giovanni Palatucci was considered the Italian Schindler. Giovanni's name has recently been removed from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum after the Centro Primo Levi at the Center for Jewish History sent a letter to the Museum with evidence that Giovanni was really a Nazi Collaborator.
posted by Arbac at 2:23 PM PST - 12 comments

Mr. Sardonicus is a horror film produced and directed by William Castle. It tells the story of Sardonicus, a man whose face becomes frozen in a horrifying grin while robbing his father's grave to obtain a winning lottery ticket. Castle cited the film in his memoir as one of his favorites to produce, and, with his reputation as the "king of gimmicks" to market his films, built the marketing for the film around the idea of the two possible endings.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:12 PM PST - 14 comments

Above The Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome with Women has raised $16,369 out of its $2,000 goal on Kickstarter. Casey Malone has called it out as "a book about how to sexually assault women" and "a rape manual", including quotes from seddit, the seduction subReddit (Google cache). A petition asking Kickstarter to withdraw funding has gathered close to 50,000 signatures, but while Kickstarter agrees that the material is "abhorrent and inconsistent with our values", it has declined to cancel the project. Author Ken Hoinsky is "devastated and troubled" by allegations that his book promotes rape, because the quotes were taken out of context. However, Jezebel reports that Hoinsky e-mailed them, "Wanna let your readers know [about the Kickstarter]? I'm sure they'll have a field day with this" which indicates he may be banking on the outrage and the backlash for added publicity. [via /r/feminism and /r/nottheonion]
posted by Lush at 2:02 PM PST - 446 comments

Every Thursday, the Seamless (a delivery service that serves as a takeout service for over 12,000 restaurants) posts the Best of Seamless Special Instructions of the Week.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:54 PM PST - 66 comments

Among tabletop RPG players and in particular among Call of Cthulhu players, Masks of Nyarlathotep is often held to be the gold standard for adventures. A sprawling mystery that begins with a murder in New York City and takes the investigators on a world-spanning chase to London, Cairo, the interior of Kenya, outback Australia and Shanghai, trying to prevent the opening of the Great Gate and the return of the elder gods who will end the world, it does not lack for ambition. Created by Larry DiTillio with editorial assistance from the late Lynn Willis, Masks is rated #1 by a wide margin of the 4,254 adventures reviewed on RPG.net. The Call of Cthulhu website Yog-sothoth.com, to celebrate the site's fifteenth anniversary, is making available a pdf of the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion: 570 pages of behind-the-scenes info for running the campaign. [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:17 PM PST - 118 comments

Was Marina Chapman really brought up by monkeys? (The Guardian), Kidnapped, dumped in the jungle and raised by monkeys (Daily Mail), The Girl with No Name: Author claims she was raised by monkeys (The Star), Strange life of the housewife who grew up with monkeys (Telegraph), Marina Chapman tells her incredible story of survival (Today), Girl who lived with monkeys spins incredible tale (CBC). National Geographic is producing a documentary. [Feral children previously on MeFi - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
posted by stbalbach at 12:26 PM PST - 23 comments

Imagine if you Tweeted something embarrassing, offensive, or just plain weird - and you had no control over it. This is an awareness program from the Tourettes Syndrome Foundation of Canada that uses random automated tweets to participants Twitter accounts to simulate the experience of having Tourettes and raise awareness of the Syndrome. [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 11:45 AM PST - 27 comments

Debenhams, an international chain of fashion stores, has embraced more attainable body images by no longer retouching photos lingerie model, after they stopped airbrushing swimsuit models in 2010. The chain also recently featured models outside of the usual height, age and range, plus Paralympian athlete Stefanie Reid, in line with their selection of their first disabled model, Shannon Murray, in 2010. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:25 AM PST - 26 comments

Everyone knows that female fertility begins a rapid decline at thirty-five. Or does it? In the Atlantic, Jean Twenge dismantles the data and reaches a startling conclusion: many oft-cited statistics on female fertility are based on data from pre-twentieth century populations, whereas studies on contemporary populations yield very different results. Might the mid- to late-thirties be the ideal time to have a baby? Twenge suggests we consider forty as the new cut-off for pregnancy.
posted by artemisia at 11:15 AM PST - 55 comments

Master Bedroom, Extra Closet: The Truth About Gay Marriage
"In the fight for marriage rights, gay activists have (smartly) put forward couples who embody a familiar form of unity... But not all gay unions are built on the straight model, particularly when it comes to the issue of monogamy... The gay rights movement has made a calculated decision to highlight the similarities, not the differences, between straight and gay love on the road to marriage equality."
posted by andoatnp at 10:15 AM PST - 56 comments

"Emma Whitehead was near death from acute lymphoblastic leukemia but is now in remission after an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia."

The New York Times has a feature from December 2012 and this incredible story was the subject of a short film as part of a GE/cinelan-sponored Vimeo series of 3 minute documentaries on "big ideas"
posted by 3rdparty at 10:00 AM PST - 10 comments

"The government’s plans for deficit reduction have increasingly stark implications for public spending as their deadline draws nearer, according to new Resolution Foundation analysis. While overall expenditure is set to remain relatively flat in 2015-16 (the period covered by the latest Spending Review) the pace of reduction in total government spending is due to increase significantly in the two subsequent year"
posted by marienbad at 9:55 AM PST - 3 comments

I’ve lived in this city for almost a decade. I chose my lavaball strategy early. I have big legs; thick, muscular. When I sit, I sit with legs straight and feet on the floor, using no more space than necessary. When I am lavaballed, I dig them in and hold firm.
posted by zoo at 8:37 AM PST - 584 comments

Now, "Voyager": in praise of the Trekkiest "Trek" of all "As we mourn Abrams’ macho Star Trek obliteration, it’s a good time to revisit that most Star Trek-ian of accomplishments, Voyager, the most despised object of fanboy loathing in the franchise's history."
posted by dirtdirt at 6:50 AM PST - 233 comments

Forest fires due to slash and burn farming in Sumatra, Indonesia have led to unprecedented air pollution levels in Singapore and Malaysia. In Singapore particularly, Facebook and Twitter are aflame as well. For a country used to very clean air, the sudden pollution has led to public outcry, with air purifiers and face masks being snatched off the shelves. So far, no stop-work-order has been issued, and there are complaints that the government is not tackling the situation rapidly enough. Indonesia is working to put out the fires and is considering cloud seeding; their response to pressure from Singapore to do more was that Singaporeans should stop behaving like children and not disturb their domestic affairs. While image macros about the 2013 haze continue to fill up Facebook feeds, some people are taking the whole affair in a more irreverent way. [more inside]
posted by destrius at 3:11 AM PST - 42 comments

“I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatised parents.” The world’s oldest and largest ‘ex-gay’ organisation, Exodus International, is finally shutting down a year after deciding it was wrong. Previously. Previousier.
posted by Mezentian at 2:34 AM PST - 108 comments

Yahoo, on June 12, announced that it is releasing inactive IDs. Yahoo says they are "committed and confident," while others think it is a "spectacularly bad idea" and a "dirty trick."
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 10:55 PM PST - 82 comments

Gagged by Big Ag. "Horrific abuse. Rampant contamination. And the crime is…exposing it?"
posted by homunculus at 8:54 PM PST - 58 comments

Baseball, as called by someone who knows nothing about baseball [more inside]
posted by pompelmo at 8:40 PM PST - 38 comments

Meet a Giant Rodent Who Hugs Cats [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 7:52 PM PST - 39 comments

If New York Were A Blank Slate, How Would You Fill It In? is a piece on Becky Cooper's book Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers both famous and not. Cooper's Map Your Memories tumblr. Found from Brain Pickings, which has much more. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:16 PM PST - 6 comments

More or less what it says on the tin - some cute whimsical plate designs of men with beards.
posted by Schadenfreudian at 6:39 PM PST - 7 comments

Fuck Yeah Coelacanths! "It's a Tumblr about coelacanths. For all your coelacanth needs." [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by stet at 6:11 PM PST - 31 comments

After the demolition accident caused the death of 6 people in Philadelphia in the beginning of this month, it was brought to light that a resident issued a complaint with Licenses and Inspections regarding unsafe working conditions at least two weeks prior to the building collapse. Tragically, the LNI inspector took his own life, feeling responsible for the accident. Now Philadelphia City Council is denying liability for the accident stating it is not responsible for the work of private contractors, despite the flawed LNI inspection of the demolition site as well as the laughable demolition requirements established by the city,
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 5:37 PM PST - 36 comments

James Gandolfini, best known for his portrayal of Tony Soprano on The Sopranos, has died at the age of 51. [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 5:02 PM PST - 209 comments

New software system from MIT could help people improve their conversational and interview skills "[N]ew software developed at MIT can be used to help people practice their interpersonal skills until they feel more comfortable with situations such as a job interview or a first date. The software, called MACH (short for My Automated Conversation coacH), uses a computer-generated onscreen face, along with facial, speech, and behavior analysis and synthesis software, to simulate face-to-face conversations. It then provides users with feedback on their interactions."
posted by bookman117 at 5:00 PM PST - 30 comments

Country crooner Slim Whitman has passed away at the grand old age of 90. His gentle, relaxed and pristine voice (featuring an effortlessly soaring falsetto and a mighty fine yodel, friends) is the kind that, well, you just don't really hear anymore on the pop music landscape. Let's take a moment to revisit a musical aesthetic that now seems a million miles away... Cattle Call, Rose Marie, North Wind, Blues Stay Away From Me and Indian Love Call. So long and happy trails, Slim.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:56 PM PST - 36 comments

We Hate Movies is a hilariously nerdy and affectionate podcast about bad movies. Its sister show, Blame It On Outer Space, mocks conspiracy theories and paranormal tall tales.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 4:47 PM PST - 5 comments

'Lets Grid' is an online programming environment that is designed to get people into programming. I tried to strip away all of the complicated set-up that goes along with real-world programming and just give students the very basics they need to create cool things and share their creations with the world.
posted by Artw at 4:39 PM PST - 10 comments

Kim Thompson, of Fantagraphic and Comics Journal, dead at 57
posted by klangklangston at 3:48 PM PST - 41 comments

The fifty best (public domain) classic movies that you can legally watch online for free right now, all neatly collected for y'all by Flavorwire (paginated version).
posted by MartinWisse at 3:13 PM PST - 23 comments

Dogs groomed to look like cows, giraffes, Queen of Hearts (??), bison, Pittsburgh Steelers, etc. [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 2:19 PM PST - 47 comments

Filip Topol - lead singer of the legendary Czech underground band Psi Vojaci (Dog Soldiers) - is dead (translation) at the age of 48. [more inside]
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 12:15 PM PST - 2 comments

Did you hear the one about the KKK-member in NY who made a death ray? In a weird twist, he targeted Jewish Groups--for sales. "An industrial mechanic with General Electric Co., who is also allegedly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, designed a deadly, mobile radiation device that he tried to sell to Jewish groups and then to a southern branch of the Ku Klux Klan, according to a federal complaint unsealed Wednesday in Albany" (found via TPM)
posted by saulgoodman at 11:20 AM PST - 76 comments

Graham Hastings, Alloysious Massaquoi and Kayus Bankole are a musical trio from Scotland. They first met at a local hip-hop night for under-16 youth in Edinburgh, where the music scene is more focused on indie rock than beats and rapping. They started collaborating a few years ago, and now go by the name Young Fathers. They mix rap, grime, modern R&B, afro-beat, noisy samples and more, though they write music from a pop-perspective, and consider themselves "pop boys." They have two short releases that are something between EPs and albums, plus a handful of singles. Their primary releases, Tape One and Tape Two, have been (re)released on the US label Anticon, and they have a handful of official videos: Deadline, Sister, Rumbling and Romance are the first four tracks from Tape One; I Heard is the first video from Tape Two; The Guide is separate single to stream and/or download, for free on Soundcloud.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:12 AM PST - 6 comments

The last mystery of the financial crisis. It's long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it. by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone.
posted by lalochezia at 11:10 AM PST - 32 comments

Having Daughters Rather Than Sons Makes You More Liberal In remarkable research, the sociologist Rebecca Warner and the economist Ebonya Washington have shown that the gender of a person's children seems to influence the attitudes and actions of the parent.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:04 AM PST - 98 comments

World's Smallest Museum Finds the Wonder in Everyday Objects "Tucked away in a lower Manhattan back alley, the freight-elevator-sized, generically named Museum is one of New York City’s newest curiosities. While it’s only open 16 hours a week, during the day on Saturdays and Sundays, the museum’s contents are viewable 24/7, lit and sealed by glass doors." [more inside]
posted by xingcat at 10:51 AM PST - 9 comments

The Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB), on behalf of The National Academies, is seeking input papers on human spaceflight until July 9th, 2013. You can also read the current submissions. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:15 AM PST - 3 comments

My Imaginary Well-Dressed Toddler Daughter. Pinterest collection featuring the high style exploits of "Quinoa," an imaginary stylish toddler with her imaginary stylish friends.
posted by sweetkid at 10:05 AM PST - 86 comments

Digital mapping startup MapBox teams up with social data warehouse Gnip to create some stunning visualizations of every geotagged tweet since September 2011. [more inside]
posted by Nelson at 10:01 AM PST - 7 comments

Well, all you lazy butt people who couldn't manage 7 minutes, here's hope. Norwegian researchers have discovered an even shorter and effective workout. Straight off the heels of the 7-minute workout (which really was more of a 21 minute workout), the 4-minute program (but designed to be done 4 times, so 16 minutes of HIIT total) is said to contain the minimum amount of exercise required to develop appreciable endurance and health gains.
posted by kinetic at 9:56 AM PST - 63 comments

On blogginheads.tv Mark talks to Glenn Loury about helping the state of Washington to legalize marijuana. Licensing, costs, restrictions, methods of sale etc. One of the best conversations on the topic I've heard.
posted by xjudson at 9:52 AM PST - 2 comments

Today saw the release of the first trailer for The LEGO Movie, and there are some interesting things to note about it. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 9:34 AM PST - 77 comments

Andy Warhol bridge to be "yarn bombed" Maybe some of you saw the post about the Rubber Ducky coming to Pittsburgh. Well, apparently, now Pittsburgh is getting one of their bridges covered in yarn. This is so bizarre. I hope it all happens at the same time. Bath time fun for everyone!
posted by kbennett289 at 9:18 AM PST - 24 comments

Vice's Women in Fiction issue contained “Last Words”, "a fashion spread featuring models reenacting the suicides of female authors who tragically ended their own lives." Jezebel called it "almost breathtakingly tasteless" and republished the photographs here after Vice removed them from their website. [more inside]
posted by andoatnp at 8:45 AM PST - 117 comments

Margaret Doughty is a 65 year old UK citizen, and founder of Literacy Powerline, recently applied for US citizenship after living in the United States for more than 30 years. When she noted in her application that she has a moral objection to taking up arms for her new country, the USCIS asked for a letter on official church stationery. But Ms. Doughty is an atheist. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:23 AM PST - 155 comments

The A.M.A. has officially recognized obesity as a disease. [more inside]
posted by astapasta24 at 7:00 AM PST - 332 comments

John McAfee on How to Uninstall McAfee Antivirus (Light NSFW: Profanity)
posted by lemuring at 6:31 AM PST - 62 comments

Western Sahara: Why Africa’s last colony can’t break free
posted by infini at 5:16 AM PST - 20 comments

"I started the World SF Blog in February of 2009 – a century in Internet time! – partly as an excuse to promote my then-forthcoming anthology of international speculative fiction, The Apex Book of World SF – but mostly out of what can only be described as an ideological drive, a desire to highlight and promote voices seldom heard in genre fiction... The change I have seen in the four years of the blog is heartening. In a way, I have decided to stop now because the blog has fulfilled everything I ever wanted it to, and so much more." - Lavie Tidhar. The World SF Blog leaves behind 61 short stories and a serialized novella by authors from 33 countries, plus exclusive interviews, articles, guest posts and round tables (on WP.com where it's likely to stay up for a while)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:52 AM PST - 7 comments

"You know you've made it when your shoppers start composing ballads about you." [more inside]
posted by knile at 4:23 AM PST - 46 comments

"One Town at a Time", by Pokey LaFarge [SLVIMEO] [more inside]
posted by Doleful Creature at 12:48 AM PST - 5 comments

NGUYỄN Hùng Cường creates some truly amazing works of origami. [more inside]
posted by Athanassiel at 11:03 PM PST - 15 comments

The Time I Went Roller-Skating With Prince, as told by Questlove "I got a text from Prince’s assistant." And so the story begins, in an excerpt from "Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove" by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Ben Greenman. What's not to love?
posted by raysmj at 9:27 PM PST - 31 comments

Inseminoid Academic criticism of Inseminoid has concentrated on the film's treatment of the female sex and female sexualities in the context of corruption by an alien source. In addition to its depiction of the abject Sandy, who is rendered a distorted Other in the aftermath of her unnatural impregnation, the film has been seen to incorporate a clash between the patriarchal and the maternal towards its climax, as the would-be-mother eliminates her former friends one by one. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 9:02 PM PST - 18 comments

Journalist Michael Hastings has died in a car accident at the age of 33. Hastings' best known piece, a profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal (previously), was instrumental in McChrystal being dismissed as commander of US forces in Afghanistan. A tribute to Hastings from Rolling Stone, and a collection of remembrances from his colleagues at Buzzfeed.
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:00 PM PST - 124 comments

Amaranth Borsuk, Jesper Juul, and Nick Montfort present The Deletionist, a bookmarklet for automatically producing an erasure poem from any Web page
posted by juv3nal at 8:58 PM PST - 4 comments

Ford has replaced its human test drivers with robots.
posted by storybored at 8:51 PM PST - 13 comments

Mapping The Newest Old Map Of The World: A full-sized, 3D plaster relief facsimile of the Hereford Mappa Mundi, the largest surviving medieval map of the world (Previously).
posted by homunculus at 8:41 PM PST - 7 comments

Old school Hip Hop photographer, Joe Conzo, captured the emerging art and culture of Hip Hop in the South Bronx during the late 70's and early 80's. Conzo's photo archive has made its home at the Cornell Hip Hop Collection, whose mission is "to collect and make accessible the historical artifacts of Hip Hop culture and to ensure their preservation for future generations." Now Scream! is the Collection's first comprehensive exhibition. It runs from April 4, 2013 to February 4, 2014. Conzo's work is part of the exhibition as well. [more inside]
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 8:19 PM PST - 6 comments

Russell Brand ends up surrounded by idiots on Morning Joe. Destroys them and they hardly know it. Pictures at 11.
posted by anothermug at 8:15 PM PST - 148 comments

Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe: understand the rules then play it online. [more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:01 PM PST - 16 comments

Steve Reich's 3-movement (Fast, Slow, Fast) somewhat jazzy, somewhat rock-ish 2x5 was composed for 5 musicians and prerecorded tape, or two groups of five musicians. Here is Bang On A Can All-Stars (6 of them, no idea why) performing the piece. [20m] Here is a large group of BOACA-S performing it as a 10-piece ensemble. [21m] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:40 PM PST - 5 comments

Form and Landscape - Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940-1990 - is a series of themed exhibitions that tell the story of how Los Angeles 'became modern' by using photos from the comprehensive archives of Southern California Edison. The photos portray the many roles that electricity has played in the development and modernization of Californian life and culture (domestic life, signage, streetscapes, etc.). Part of the Getty's Pacific Standard Time Presents initiative.
posted by carter at 7:04 PM PST - 7 comments

Our Inconsistent Ethical Instincts

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

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:08 PM PST - 25 comments

"I’ve also been written about, in ways I could find no fault with but that were nonetheless excruciating for me to read. It is simply not pleasant to be objectively observed — it’s like seeing a candid photo of yourself online, not smiling or posing, but simply looking the way you apparently always do, oblivious and mush-faced with your mouth open. It’s proof that we are visible to others, that we are seen, in all our naked silliness and stupidity." -Tim Kreider writes about finding out what people really say about you, and how it's all okay.
posted by smock smock smock at 5:16 PM PST - 45 comments

Strip Search is a reality web show from PATV that's now 30 episodes deep. The twelve indie webcomic artists who arrived at the Strip Search house in February have now been whittled down to three. The final three artists (spoilers) were sent home for two months to each create six strips of a brand new comic, on which they would then be judged. The final episode (Finale, Part 2) goes live tonight at 7:30 PM PST. Better hurry if you're going to catch up. [more inside]
posted by 256 at 5:13 PM PST - 58 comments

Scarlett Johansson is suing the author of a best-selling French novel that features her “doppelgänger.”

"The American star is challenging writer Gregoire Delacourt, and his publisher JC Lattes, after he described a character in his novel as being her "doppelgänger", or exact double. The case — if it comes to court — could make legal and literary history."

posted by Fizz at 5:01 PM PST - 82 comments

Alternate Reality Game puzzle design - Adam Foster of Valve talks about the design of the Portal 2 ARG, (previously)  and do's and don'ts for future ARGs.
posted by Artw at 4:39 PM PST - 10 comments

Cosmography of the Local Universe. From the comments: "Best video display of our Universe and our exact position in it to date.... [more inside]
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 4:25 PM PST - 29 comments

My dentist was made to believe I was dead "Having no idea how or why I got there, I found myself in the embrace of a near-stranger who was overwhelmed with joy just because inconsequential, strange, and silly little me had lived to see another day"
posted by Bluecoat93 at 3:23 PM PST - 59 comments

The New York City Municipal Archives Online Gallery offers over 870,000 historical images related to the 'city that never sleeps,' including maps as well as video and audio recordings. A selection of 53 images from the collection can be seen at In Focus. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 3:08 PM PST - 10 comments

Back in the early nineties Harvey Comics published a series of licensed New Kids on the Block comics. Sadly for Justin Bieber, Harvey Comics no longer exists, so instead he has to make do with the very unlicensed and very nsfw Sean T. Collins/Michael Hawkins created Biebercomic.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:56 PM PST - 9 comments

"Bicycle helmets do an outstanding job of keeping our skulls intact in a major crash. But they do almost nothing to prevent concussions and other significant brain injuries—and the very government agency created to protect us is part of the problem. The time has come to demand something safer."
posted by killdevil at 1:17 PM PST - 124 comments

The Art of the Trailer [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 12:10 PM PST - 73 comments

An Oral History of the Birth and Death of BattleBots
posted by Copronymus at 12:09 PM PST - 32 comments

Last Action Hero was released twenty years ago today. Directed by John McTiernan (Die Hard -- previously), written by Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3 -- previously), and starring The Terminator Himself (um, previously), the movie was a send-up of action movie tropes and conceits. [more inside]
posted by gauche at 9:53 AM PST - 151 comments

More nightmarishly dystopian horror comedy with Dr. Good
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:23 AM PST - 24 comments

The Periodic Table of Muppets
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:59 AM PST - 32 comments

Inappropriate Time For Ham
3 Cheers for Steak!
A Steep Price For Pie

Three tasteless comics by Andrew Hussie about various kinds of comestibles. Also: Humanimals [possibly NSFL]
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:28 AM PST - 14 comments

The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air jumped dramatically in 2012, making it very unlikely that global warming can be limited to another 2 degrees as many global leaders have hoped. [more inside]
posted by j03 at 8:23 AM PST - 106 comments

Four Mile Run is an urban stream that runs through the middle of Arlington County Virginia, inside the Washington Capital Beltway. It is nine miles long, having been accidentally renamed by a typo from its original designation as "Flour Mill Run" [more inside]
posted by humanfont at 7:57 AM PST - 26 comments

You and Your Fucking Coffee is a web series about a man who politely asks for coffee, and in doing so, ends up destroying the lives of those around him. From Henry Phillips, host of Henry's Kitchen (previously)
posted by rebent at 7:54 AM PST - 23 comments

Swiss Researchers develop a robot that runs like a cat.
posted by The Whelk at 7:20 AM PST - 54 comments

In a 5-4 ruling on Salinas vs. Texas, the SCOTUS ruled that silence can be used in court. (PDF) Without being placed in custody or receiving Miranda warnings, Genovevo Salinas voluntarily answered some of a police officer’s questions about a murder, but fell silent when asked whether ballistics testing would match his shotgun to shell casings found at the scene of the crime. During his trial in Texas state court, and over his objection, the prosecution used his failure to answer the question as evidence of guilt. He was convicted, and both the State Court of Appeals andCourt of Criminal Appeals affirmed, rejecting his claim that the prosecution’s use of his silence in its case in chief violated the Fifth Amendment. Analysis on SCOTUSblog
posted by dukes909 at 6:49 AM PST - 137 comments

Because New Leaf’s tanning doesn’t seem to happen in real time, and because it seems to take days instead of hours now, trying to get a particular mid-level skin tone is more precarious than maintaining a pale complexion. Not only is the outcome hard to predict, but someone who wants the default skin to stay only has to bring a parasol around with them in the summer sun. They literally have access to tools and methods I don’t. It is very hard not to just write “DO YOU GET IT?” over and over again. I don’t have a tanning booth, or tanning lotion. I certainly don’t have a way to lock in my current tan level.

The other implication is that it might be the case that tanning is a disincentive to overplaying. I hadn’t realized it until my friend with the cobblestone roads pointed it out. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you’ve kept your game running for five straight hours for some odd reason. You might notice that your town’s other villagers will greet you with an admonishment. You look tired they say, you should take a rest. You should stop playing. There is a strange, formal parallel between this directive and tanning. Both come only after hours of uninterrupted play. The same activity results in both outcomes. Coupled with the fact that players are outfitted with ways to prevent, but not cause tanning, it’s hard not to draw some connections.

My argument isn’t that Nintendo has gone out of its way to be racist, it’s that the question of race seems to have never been brought up to begin with, and that has its own problems.

Me, On The Screen: Race in Animal Crossing: New Leaf
posted by timshel at 5:52 AM PST - 54 comments

"I’m not saying the Left embraces or even excuses away these clerics , but this strange reticence across the Left not only allows them to fester, but has other consequences."
posted by marienbad at 5:22 AM PST - 42 comments

The US government has finally released the names of 46 men being held in Guantánamo under the classification of "indefinite detainees" – terror suspects deemed too dangerous to release or move yet impossible to try in a civilian or even military court for reasons of inadequate or tainted evidence.
For more than three months, the US military has faced off with defiant prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, strapping down as many as 44 each day to feed them a liquid nutrient mix through a nasal tube. The prison camp has now been labelled a 'a medical ethics free zone' by Senior Professors at Boston University.
The hunger strikers are now reportedly being fed Reglan a medicine that increases the movements or contractions of the stomach and intestines with worrying side effects. See Huff Post Live video.
See previous ''Gitmo is killing me''.
posted by adamvasco at 1:48 AM PST - 182 comments

Lately, I've had some doubts about the level of discourse here on Metafilter. To remedy the situation, here is that great American essayist and thinker, Mr. Edgar Allan Poe, on diddling. [more inside]
posted by Nomyte at 12:16 AM PST - 30 comments

"Great war novels inevitably follow great wars, and in literary circles following World War II, everyone was wondering what would be the successors to A Farewell to Arms and All Quiet on the Western Front — and who would write them. But when John Horne Burns, age 29, in his small dormitory suite at the Loomis School in Windsor, Conn., on the night of April 23, 1946 (Shakespeare’s birthday, at that), finished The Gallery — 'I fell across my Underwood and wept my heart out,' he later recalled — he was convinced he had done just that, and more. ‘The Gallery, I fear, is one of the masterpieces of the 20th century,' he wrote a friend." (SLNYT) (via) [more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:32 PM PST - 47 comments

Amazingly detailed replica of the Friends Apartment made of paper. By artist Bruna Salvador Conforto. She also did a replica of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore's house in Stars Hollow. Made of paper.
posted by sweetkid at 7:09 PM PST - 35 comments

"Bored of being in a dark room, she flips on the light, opens the door and bails. This particular episode takes place at 1am. This is why we keep doors locked with her around. We don't need her harassing the neighbors..." Julius Escaping.
posted by codacorolla at 6:48 PM PST - 125 comments

Second Avenue Subway: New York's Excavation Project Looks Like A Moonscape (slide show)
posted by slogger at 6:43 PM PST - 43 comments

Some Notes on Attunement: A voyage around Joni Mitchell (or pdf). Author Zadie Smith discovers Joni Mitchell.
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 6:11 PM PST - 62 comments

Cooking For Freedom

A few days before I met Ahmed Jama in Mogadishu, three Islamist gunmen from Al Shabaab — al-Qa’eda’s Somali branch — burst into his new restaurant wearing suicide bomb jackets. They sprayed the place with bullets and then detonated themselves.

NPR: At His Own Risk, Somali Chef Creates Gourmet Haven In War-Weary Mogadishu [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:05 PM PST - 11 comments

Dave Lamb and MorganEve Swain are Brown Bird, a band from Rhode Island with a dark, rootsy, foot-stomping sound. Although Brown Bird has been around since 2003, they have enjoyed a recent increase of popularity, culminating in the April 2013 release of a new album, Fits of Reason, and a national tour to promote it. Just weeks into the tour, though, Lamb was diagnosed with leukemia, and the tour (and the band) were put on hiatus while Lamb undergoes chemotherapy. [more inside]
posted by quiet coyote at 5:56 PM PST - 6 comments

Babies Laughing About Rubber Bands SLYT
posted by Ipsifendus at 5:53 PM PST - 24 comments

Mechs done in the style of Richard Scarry by comics artist Evan Palmer.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:42 PM PST - 12 comments

The most well known of New Zealand's World War II home-built tanks was the Bob Semple tank, designed by New Zealand Minister of Works Bob Semple. There was only one made, but it served its purpose of "showing the people that something was being done to meet the enemy. It rumbled around, took part in parades, and inspired confidence." One problem: the tank, built on a Caterpiller tractor and armored with corrugated steel, would momentarily pause while changing gears, unless it was already headed down hill. During parades and public shows, its driver was instructed to change gear as little as possible, to prevent people from thinking their tank was stalling. The other New Zealand-built tank was the Schofield tank, built on the chassis of a Chevrolet heavy-duty truck, with the ability to drive quickly on wheels, then operate on treads, the transition only taking 7 to 10 minutes. Two prototypes were made, but neither the Bob Semple nor the Schofield tank were mass produced, as New Zealand started receiving tanks from abroad by 1943.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:27 PM PST - 15 comments

The Secret History of Privacy. "Something creepy happened when mystery became secular, secrecy became a technology, and privacy became a right..." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:15 PM PST - 26 comments

Dead men tell some tales - a visit to the Hellfire Caves, home of one of the most infamous Hellfire Clubs.
posted by Artw at 4:38 PM PST - 9 comments

In this video, Cheryl Misak delivers a lecture mostly having to do with the relationship between the accounts of truth given by C.S. Peirce and F.P. Ramsey. [more inside]
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 3:56 PM PST - 8 comments

...no background checks needed. Coming to (or already in) an airport near you: Holograms serve as "virtual assistants" giving instructions in multiple languages. via
posted by agatha_magatha at 3:45 PM PST - 30 comments

"Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities." -- PC Gamer's Crap Shoot looks at (semi-)obscure pc games, featuring big budget failures, extinct for a reason subgenres and godawful erotic games (movies) but also lost classics and beloved eighties masterpieces.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:32 PM PST - 33 comments

In commemoration of the 19th edition of its Colors series, Field Notes brand notebooks offers this video of the Night Sky. [more inside]
posted by Apropos of Something at 1:05 PM PST - 32 comments

The Restart Project encourages community engagement in repairing broken electronic equipment. This one year old charity enables "restart parties" which bring together consumers with broken electronic equipment and volunteer repairers, in an attempt to address our modern culture of "passive, flabby consumers of technology". When recycling is the second best option.
posted by walrus at 12:59 PM PST - 22 comments

To kick off each week the staff of NPR's "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" posts Sandwich Mondays on The Salt blog, to look at some of the more... unusual sandwich offerings from America's commercial kitchens. This week, they recreate Wendy's nine patty T-Rex burger, which recently went extinct.
posted by zarq at 12:54 PM PST - 58 comments

There is a joke here somewhere about Bears, Rights, Arms, the Right to Bear Arms, Bears Arms and holy crap camera work. SLYT Cats and dogs are cute, but how about a black bear? Cute bear climbs tree to see what the heck the hunter is doing on the blind in the tree. [more inside]
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:38 PM PST - 68 comments

Picture this. You're one of the 3 million-ish users of Duolingo, doing online Italian lessons so you can talk to your Italian boyfriend in his own language. Halfway through one of your daily lessons, you're given the sentence "Lui ti ama" to translate. "He loves you" -- cute coincidence. But then it starts getting stranger.
posted by pont at 12:11 PM PST - 49 comments

The Council of the European Union recently released a proposal to amend the General Data Protection Regulation. Scaling back from becoming the most strict privacy regulation in the world, the amendment greatly favors corporate interests while reducing the rights of data subjects. [more inside]
posted by ChipT at 11:25 AM PST - 8 comments

India to send world's last telegram [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 10:43 AM PST - 69 comments

What Daleks, xenomorphs and slasher movies tell us about palaeoart. [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 10:19 AM PST - 9 comments

Feathers, photographed and scanned. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by aniola at 10:02 AM PST - 16 comments

When it comes to unappealing couples that have been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Arch Hall Jr. and Marilyn Manning are near the top of the heap. Their appearance in Eegah provided rich fodder for Joel and the bots. And yet, only one year after the release of Eegah, Hall and Manning would find themselves together again in radically different roles. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:57 AM PST - 13 comments

Disclaimer (Autoplay MP3): "Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and a psychologist, Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes." Favorite themes include responsibility and revenge, agency and utilitarianism, dishonesty and character, empathy and offensiveness. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:51 AM PST - 3 comments

The lasting effects of the Vietnam draft lottery. Men who were more likely to be drafted in the Vietnam war were more antiwar, more liberal, and more Democratic than those who were protected from the draft. Moreover, these attitudes persist into adulthood. [more inside]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:50 AM PST - 119 comments

Foster was a longtime model-airplane enthusiast, and one day he realized that his hobby could make for a new kind of weapon. His idea: take an unmanned, remote-controlled airplane, strap a camera to its belly, and fly it over enemy targets to snap pictures or shoot film; if possible, load it with a bomb and destroy the targets, too.

An accessible but detailed overview of the history and current implementations of military drones. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 7:13 AM PST - 46 comments

Character designer veteran Phil Postma has a blog, Minion Factory, where he often likes to explore the possibilities of Pixar-like reinterpretations of such things as Superman, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Pulp Serials (and much, much more).
posted by Atreides at 7:12 AM PST - 27 comments

The whimsical and awe-inspiring light art of Darren Pearson. Just how does he capture those skeletons on camera? Previously.
posted by Mooseli at 7:06 AM PST - 6 comments

Perhaps slightly obscurred by its charmingly primitive web design, my new favorite website is a fantastic reference resource for delving into American speeches that have changed history as well as discovering new amazing ones. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 6:32 AM PST - 5 comments

The Troy McClure Credits Supercut (SLYTPHT*)
*Single Link You Tube Phil Hartman Tribute [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:47 AM PST - 39 comments

In the mid-1920s, Claude Friese-Greene filmed The Open Road, a record of his journey through Britain, using the 'Biocolour' technique first developed by his father William. Eighty years later, the BFI produced a digital version of the preserved and restored film. We've seen London in 1926 previously on MeFi, but there's plenty more of The Open Road to see, including weavers in Kilbarchan (1:16), farmers harvesting with oxen in Cirencester (0:52), Glamorgan coal-miners (0:46), and more. [more inside]
posted by Catseye at 2:46 AM PST - 7 comments

Minneapolis foursome City of Sound make music that's part Mars Volta, part Death From Above 1979, and all experimental madness, listing influences like Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Both their albums, L'Implosion and Creatures, can be heard in full on their Bandcamp page.
posted by cthuljew at 12:32 AM PST - 6 comments

Mirage Men is a book and documentary by fortean investigator and author Mark Pilkington on governmental manipulation and general mindfuckery of UFO investigators. "In 1983, while researching a documentary on the subject of UFOs for HBO, [Linda Howe] was engaged by Richard 'Rick' Doty, an agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), initially with the promise of helping her investigate an alleged UFO landing near Ellsworth Air Force Base. But Howe's meeting with Doty took an unexpected turn when the AFOSI agent suddenly produced a manila folder, saying she could take a look at it but, not remove it from the office or make notes. Within it was a document titled "Briefing Paper for the President of the United States of America on the Subject of Unidentified Aerial Vehicles", which listed a number of alleged UFO crash retrievals by the government, as well as paragraphs that became "emblazoned" on Howe's mind concerning how they had discovered that Homo sapiens was a species created by extraterrestrials through genetic manipulation of primates." [more inside]
posted by artof.mulata at 11:05 PM PST - 47 comments

Paris Apartment opened for the first time in 70 years Including intriguing links to a scandalous Belle Époque art wold romance and a $3 million dollar painting. Subject of this AskMe last year but includes additional photos. [more inside]
posted by DarthDuckie at 11:01 PM PST - 23 comments

For the first time, James Joyce's Ulysses will be read around the world in one day. Today. Which is Bloomsday. The reading, organized by the James Joyce Centre, draws upon volunteers from 25 countries. Previous readings of the book include the excellent RTE (Irish public radio) version from 1982, now made freely available. And a short excerpt read by Joyce himself.
posted by storybored at 8:55 PM PST - 29 comments

Sly Stone's history of drug addiction and eccentricity is well known. But, a recent California Court of Appeals ruling details how a series of ill advised business deals left Stone destitute. [more inside]
posted by reenum at 5:10 PM PST - 41 comments

Why I Am No Longer A Skeptic

That's right: the nerds won, decades ago, and they're now as thoroughly established as any other part of the establishment. And while nerds a relatively new elite, they're overwhelmingly the same as the old: rich, white, male, and desperate to hang onto what they've got. And I have come to realise that skepticism, in their hands, is just another tool to secure and advance their privileged position, and beat down their inferiors. As a skeptic, I was not shoring up the revolutionary barricades: instead, I was cheering on the Tsar's cavalry.

Referenced in The Cult Of Bayes' Theorem [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:41 PM PST - 204 comments

Chicago's hillbilly culture may come as a surprise. The great migration of African Americans from the South to Chicago is, of course, widely known and well documented; their impact on the south and west sides continues to be clear. The lesser known and somewhat later stream of white Southerners ("hillbillies" for short, though that's a pejorative, of course) had a big impact on the city's north side. [more inside]
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 4:35 PM PST - 25 comments

The NFL announced a change to its bag policy Thursday and beginning with the 2013 season, only clear plastic, vinyl or PVC bags will be permitted inside NFL stadiums. [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 3:45 PM PST - 119 comments

The first thing I did after I heard about the highly classified NSA PRISM program two years ago was set up a proxy server in Peshawar to email me passages from Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:16 PM PST - 47 comments

25 Things I'm Learning From Closing a Bookstore. (previously)
posted by telstar at 1:19 PM PST - 138 comments

The Houghton Library is Harvard's largest for rare books and manuscripts, and the tumbler currently showcases an image a day, with a link to the record in the online catalog for anyone who wants to know more about the source or come in to see it in person.

Teddy and Alice
Abraham's homework
Ingenious Headpieces
(street scene)
What's a holometer?

posted by the Real Dan at 1:04 PM PST - 19 comments

Fifty years ago today, Valentina Tereshkova became the first textile factory worker, first civilian and of course first woman in space. She completed 48 orbits, in the process amassing more space time than any of the American astronauts had logged. It would be almost twenty years before a second female astronaut got into space, slightly more than that for the first American woman. In total, fiftyseven women have flown into space, or roughly ten percent of the total number of astronauts.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:50 PM PST - 14 comments

Motor Trend has put a considerable amount of effort and money into their YouTube presence (autoplay) over the last year or so, and have pulled up a decent batting average for quality videos. However, one of their series stands head and shoulders above the rest: Roadkill (also autoplay). Starring Hot Rod Magazine's Editor in Chief David Freiburger and Staff Editor Mike Finnegan, Roadkill is a roughly 20 minute web series, typically posted the first Friday of every month, and is essentially two hot rod/muscle car guys taking on self-imposed amusingly bad ideas - such as throwing a dart at a map and trying to buy a car and drive home on only $1,500 - or occasionally chronicling the goings on at major Hot Rod Mag events like Hot Rod Drag Week. [more inside]
posted by Punkey at 10:26 AM PST - 20 comments

Oreo Wonderfilled Anthem. And during which show did The Martin Agency decide to roll out its new, optimistic, and wonder filled (yes I know) Oreo ad campaign? Why, during the sometimes dark and always cynical show Mad Men, of course. [more inside]
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 10:20 AM PST - 34 comments

The Self-Transcendence race starts today. It's a run around the block, 5,649 times around the block. Runners cover 3,100 miles, running 6 am to midnight over 52 days, at least 60 miles a day over concrete. The best runners average 75 miles a day. All the runners seem to have the same mantra. The first race was in 1997, “The first couple years, the kids threw things at us.”
posted by Smedleyman at 9:53 AM PST - 35 comments

In a Sydney Morning Herald exclusive, an international team of archeologists have revealed the discovery of a hitherto unknown city in Cambodia.

Dr Evans, director of the University of Sydney's archaeological research centre in Cambodia, said the ''eureka moment'' in the discovery came weeks earlier when the lidar data popped up on a computer screen. ''With this instrument - bang - all of a sudden we saw an immediate picture of an entire city that no one knew existed which is just remarkable,'' he said.

Mahendraparvata, as the city is known, is estimated to be 350 years older than the UNESCO Heritage site of Angkor Wat, built on on Phnom Kulen before Jayavarman II descended from the mountain to build another capital. As Dr Evans said ''This is where it all began, giving rise to the Angkor civilisation that everyone associates with Angkor Wat." The news comes on the heels of the recent repatriation of looted archeological treasures back to Cambodia by the New York Metropolitan museum.
posted by infini at 9:10 AM PST - 16 comments

Enki Bilal: Haunted by the Future -Paul Gravett on the Yugoslavian/French comics superstar.
posted by Artw at 8:53 AM PST - 9 comments

New York magazine, via Reddit, compares how much people in New York City get paid to do thier jobs.
posted by The Whelk at 7:50 AM PST - 86 comments

CCCP Fedeli alla linea was an Italian "Emilian¹ melodic music pro-Soviet punk" band that performed and recorded between 1981 and 1990, disbanding on the same day as German reunification. For those who can read Italian, here is their story in their words. For the rest of us, Wikpedia does a pretty good job of thumbnailing the group, calling their sound a "genre-defying convergence of militant rock, industrial music, Folk, electropop, Middle Eastern music, and even chamber music." CCP's final album was Epica Etica Etnica Pathos (Epic, Ethics, Ethnic, Pathos), recorded live in an abandoned farmhouse/villa in the Romagna countryside. (exterior shot, and a couple more pics on this page) [more inside]
posted by taz at 6:16 AM PST - 8 comments

American painter Tyree Callahan converted an old typewriter from 1930s into a machine that prints colors instead of letters.
posted by chavenet at 1:15 AM PST - 23 comments

'Loss is difficult at any time of life. It can be particularly difficult for teenagers, who are still navigating their way, sometimes clumsily, toward adulthood. They know they need help, but are sometimes reluctant to ask for it. And often, because of their youth, their loss may be the first death they have ever known.' For a year, a reporter from the Cincinnati Enquirer sat in on meetings of a grief group at Archbishop Moeller high school, for boys who had lost a parent... and learned The Rules of Grieving.
posted by zarq at 8:52 PM PST - 27 comments

...James is, of course, overshadowed by the most famous bluesman of them all: Robert Johnson... Few can resist the legend that he sold his soul to the devil, was poisoned by a jealous lover, and died a young genius's death... Skip James' mythos is less compact than Johnson's. James survived his misspent youth, and the story of his later years provides plenty more of the kind of misery that fueled his music. Where Johnson supposedly cut a single, grand deal with the devil—trading his soul for mastery of his form—Skip James seems to have struck deal after deal and never come out ahead. In a way, James' story is the truest story of the blues: He led an open wound of a life, and all he got for it was minor-league, post-mortem stardom.

Skip James' Hard Time Killing Floor Blues

See also Mississippi John Hurt & Skip James on WTBS-FM 1964 [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 8:32 PM PST - 17 comments

How to get ahead. Again and again. Moths and butterflies are just flying gonads that make new caterpillars. Caterpillars are feeding machines with one primary purpose: eating enough food to build the body of a future moth or butterfly. A caterpillar stuffs itself with food, but eventually is limited by its exoskeleton, which is rigid and can’t grow. ‘Pillars deal with this by splitting their external skin, shedding it, and making a new, bigger exoskeleton so they have room to grow. For some reason, this species of moth caterpillars keeps their heads and build themselves a strange “hat” that gets taller as they grow.
posted by srboisvert at 5:34 PM PST - 16 comments

The Seattle Public Library has set a new record for the longest domino chain... made of books (full video)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:05 PM PST - 21 comments

Click the button to get a virtual private server. [more inside]
posted by jenkinsEar at 4:47 PM PST - 63 comments

Midas is a puzzle game by Wanderlands. (Flash)
posted by oulipian at 4:46 PM PST - 19 comments

Jake Yapp presents the whole of Radio 4 in 4 minutes. (SYLT)
posted by Cannon Fodder at 2:47 PM PST - 30 comments

Fifteen years ago this month, the WB network premiered what they heralded as the first animated miniseries: Invasion America. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 1:14 PM PST - 14 comments

New York City (and elsewhere) has lost its damn mind for a little something called: the Cronut. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:59 AM PST - 131 comments

OB298 — A Preliminary Atlas of Drone Strike Landscapes. This is part of the Murmuration Festival of Drone Culture.
posted by homunculus at 11:11 AM PST - 33 comments

Videos of a chimp, elephant, and leopard giving birth or taking care of young, relying on instinct and what looks like pure love. [more inside]
posted by whalebreath at 10:52 AM PST - 9 comments

Giant rubber duck coming to Pittsburgh The large rubber ducky already made its debut in Hong Kong. Now it's headed to the Steel City. Watch out, yinz!
posted by kbennett289 at 10:28 AM PST - 28 comments

You may know him as simply Paul F. Tompkins from Mr. Show with Bob and David or Best Week Ever but fans of now-defunct Comedy Death Ray Radio, Comedy Bang Bang: The Podcast, and the Comedy Bang! Bang! TV series know that there is more to him than meets the eye. Much, much more. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 10:20 AM PST - 36 comments

What do you do with 55 gallons of lube? George Takei knows. Scroll down for his scintillating review.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:52 AM PST - 58 comments

Internet slideshows got you down? Deslide!* [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:27 AM PST - 35 comments

See string svengali Eddie Peabody drive three count 'em THREE ladies crazy with his smooth-as-silk strumming on three count 'em THREE exotic instruments: Strum Fun, for sure! And not only was ol' Eddie a suave lady's man, he was surely one of the best violinists (when it comes to bird calls, anyway) of his day! And what say we drop in and watch the wild and crazy guy strutting his stuff, doing a bit of crooning, banjo picking, toy-violin sawing and who knows what else, with His College Chums. We'll close it out with Eddie and the Beachcombers, as the irrepressible picker and grinner demonstrates some newfangled *electrified* instruments! Thanks, Eddie, and keep on plucking, baby!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:42 AM PST - 13 comments

Classical Sculptures Dressed As Hipsters
posted by escabeche at 5:52 AM PST - 39 comments

MOOOOOOOM, I'M BOOOOOOORED Really? Didn't I just give you and your sister that thing that adds like 180 tracks to Mario Kart Wii? YEAH BUT SHE'S NOT AROUND AND MARIO KART REALLY BENEFITS FROM ANOTHER PLAYER Well, maybe I could play with you? COME ON MOM YOU'RE, LIKE, OLD OR SOMETHING So? What's your point? I WANT SOMETHING THAT'S JUST AS MUCH FUN BY MYSELF, BUT ALSO FOR WII, AND IDEALLY IT SHOULD ALSO HAVE OVER A HUNDRED LEVELS BECAUSE THAT PART IS ALWAYS IMPORTANT [more inside]
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:24 AM PST - 59 comments

Project Kronos: is a documentary film set in the not too distant future, following a mission to achieve interstellar space travel. As the mission unfolds with extraordinary results, the scientists find themselves dealing with a much bigger agenda.
posted by lemuring at 2:17 AM PST - 15 comments

Project Loon: Google is testing an Internet access system mediated by stratospheric balloons. They are starting in New Zealand with 30 balloons.
posted by grouse at 9:08 PM PST - 57 comments

Paul Thomas Anderson's sketch for SNL, "FANatic" (SLVIMEO)
posted by Red Loop at 8:06 PM PST - 15 comments

Brutal police crackdown on protesters against a bus fare rise in São Paulo and Rio, as well as other cities. [more inside]
posted by Tom-B at 7:30 PM PST - 72 comments

Ryan Hansen celebrates his return to the Veronica Mars cast with a very silly video. I LOLed. Previously. [more inside]
posted by CrazyLemonade at 7:15 PM PST - 34 comments

David Letterman wants to know if those are your drums.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:32 PM PST - 42 comments

Amadeus is a chihuahua who likes to play ball. On a pool table.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:29 PM PST - 25 comments

Carpets For Airports [spacey sound on load] | Hugh Dancy is one of the contributors. -via- [more inside]
posted by maggieb at 6:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Obecalp, Standardized Pharmaceutical Grade Placebo (invented by a mother!)
posted by Elementary Penguin at 5:31 PM PST - 49 comments

Although the new Superman movie by Zack Snyder (previously) has put off critics with its appropriation of 9/11 imagery and riled fans with its revision of the superhero's moral code, Warner Bros. Studios is hoping Man of Steel will win over the Christian market. In interviews, Snyder is talking up "Christ-like parallels" in his reboot of the character created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel. For those who'd like something more theologically grounded, the studio's marketing department is offering sermon notes entitled "JESUS - THE ORIGINAL SUPERHERO" [PDF] by Dr. Craig Detweiler, M. Div., and organizing free pastor screenings through faith-based PR firm Grace Hill Media. They aren't the first, however, to notice similarities between Jesus and Superman (among other popular cultural figures).
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:39 PM PST - 219 comments

"I know the only reason you wear those cargo shorts is to get my attention, okay? I'm not buying it." Ladies, I'm sure you've noticed them on the Internet: Fake Nerd Boys -- a brief rant on the impending demise of a proud but beleaguered subculture. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:26 PM PST - 80 comments

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros play an acoustic session while moving through the French Quarter of New Orleans on a horse-drawn carriage.
posted by Corinth at 4:18 PM PST - 36 comments

Science fiction writer/fan Jamie Todd Rubin went on a holiday in the Golden Age, by reading through vintage issues of Astounding Science Fiction, starting with the July 1939 issue.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:14 PM PST - 15 comments

Men to Blame for Menopause: Younger Women Preferred in Human Evolutionary History. Humans are actually the only species where females cannot reproduce throughout their lives, and previous studies have suggested that there may be a "grandmother effect." This suggests that women lose their fertility at an age where they may not live to care for another child. Instead, they're available to care for younger women's children. Yet some scientists weren't satisfied with this theory. "How do you evolve infertility? It is contrary to the whole notion of natural selection" ... Original paper published in PLOS Computational Biology - Mate Choice and the Origin of Menopause [more inside]
posted by Golden Eternity at 2:07 PM PST - 68 comments

Why walk on a bridge when the rope railing is much more fun? [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:56 PM PST - 28 comments

Mindtunes is a track created by Andy, Jo and Mark , 3 physically disabled music fans, using only one instrument: their mind. The track was produced by DJ Fresh.
posted by prepmonkey at 1:13 PM PST - 8 comments

The Accessible Icon Project seeks to change public perception of the disabled by subtly redesigning the traditional blue-and-white accessibility icon. New York City is one of the first to embrace the new design.
Also: OpenDyslexic, a free font designed to lessen confusion between visually similar letterforms.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 1:04 PM PST - 31 comments

A Closed Letter To Myself About Thievery, Heckling and Rape Jokes - Patton Oswalt
posted by nadawi at 1:01 PM PST - 100 comments

Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration is a bilingual initiative to help children cope with an incarcerated parent. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:55 PM PST - 3 comments

What happened to Jim Thompson?
posted by seemoreglass at 11:04 AM PST - 10 comments

Garry Winogrand, best known for his street photography, left behind "three hundred thousand pictures (at a minimum), barely sorted, unorganized, with no indication of why or when they were taken" after his death in 1984. Jacob Mikanowski from The Awl. previously
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 10:53 AM PST - 13 comments

People who are dressed like Jackie from Roseanne.
posted by The Whelk at 10:51 AM PST - 98 comments

A minute is a long flippin' time. Fill it like you care. One of the most minimalistic games to be released last year, Super Hexagon has been praised by many as being hypnotic, addictive, briiliantly designed, and devilishly challenging. It's a game that, like Tetris, delivers pleasure with each inevitable failure, and is simply about reaching escape velocity from your own feeble reflexes. The game has a reputation for turning one's appreciation and apprehension of its challenges into intense addiction, constant improvement, and fervent devotion. [more inside]
posted by mysticreferee at 10:14 AM PST - 41 comments

. . . when half the population is ignored: At the Movies, The Women are Gone Also: Joss Whedon pissed off about lack of female superheroes in films. Female roles in 2012 blockbuster films drop to lowest level in five years.
posted by weeyin at 10:12 AM PST - 135 comments

“You know who I am, don’t you?” he asked. “Who’s that?” “I am BLACKWOLF the DRAGONMASTER. I am the unofficial wizard of New York.” Blackwolf's official web page. With Triumph the Insult Comic Dog More Triumph (starts at 4:06)
posted by josher71 at 9:54 AM PST - 13 comments

The Avant/Garde Diaries interviews Jarad Dawkins, 11, and Malcom Brickhouse, 12, aka the metal band Unlocking the Truth. Here they are performing on Totally Biased With Kamau Bell [via]
posted by brundlefly at 9:45 AM PST - 11 comments

PUNK: Chaos To Couture is an exhibit running at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Reactions have been mixed. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:24 AM PST - 53 comments

I Can't Break 'The Walking Dead' I’ve tried breaking The Walking Dead down to its core components. I’ve tried to analyze it from a distance to figure out how it’s able to so effectively hook my emotions, but I can't break it. I can't "game" it.
posted by ShawnString at 9:23 AM PST - 43 comments

Vernon Bogdanor has recently completed a series of lectures on politicians who have played a crucial role in shaping the postwar political agenda in the UK [more inside]
posted by banal evil at 8:53 AM PST - 2 comments

YouTube user LUXE37 makes awesome miniature car chase videos.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:44 AM PST - 21 comments

A Dark Room [more inside]
posted by cirrostratus at 8:33 AM PST - 117 comments

Nazi SS commander living in Minnesota

"A top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press."

posted by edgeways at 7:57 AM PST - 78 comments

The Open Key: comics inspired by the endless stream of weirdness that is the Chicago Police and Fire scanner. (And if you prefer your scanner feed with evocative ambient music, You Are Listening to ___ has a new site.)
posted by theodolite at 7:51 AM PST - 2 comments

Ettore Sottsass was an industrial designer who was born in Innsbruck, Austria. Famous for his My Valentine typewriter design and his geometric enamel designs. [more inside]
posted by panaceanot at 7:12 AM PST - 15 comments

The FW reimagines 9 Disney movie posters.
posted by MoonOrb at 7:12 AM PST - 37 comments

Jennifer Nelson is suing the music publishing company Warner-Chappel to block it's copyright to the worlds most popular song: Happy Birthday to You. "The lawsuit notes that in the late 1800s, two sisters, Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill, wrote a song with the same melody called “Good Morning to All.” The suit tracks that song’s evolution into the familiar birthday song, and its ownership over more than a century." previously
posted by Xurando at 6:59 AM PST - 62 comments

Mechanised Japanese Underground Bicycle Parking Pictures and video of space-saving bicycle parking in Japan.
posted by hawthorne at 6:33 AM PST - 26 comments

Obit for Lt. Col. Mark Weber. Author Lt. Col. Mark Weber, U.S. Army, has passed away, but not before promotion to the rank of Lt. Col. by his high school's JROTC unit, almost twenty-five years after graduation. [more inside]
posted by wenestvedt at 6:17 AM PST - 3 comments

Greg Marinovich is well known as a member of the Bang Bang Club, winning the Pulitzer Prize for photography for his work during the death throes of apartheid in South Africa. Less known are the unique (and often difficult to obtain) images documenting the often secret rituals amongst the diverse peoples of his homeland. As he writes in a recent column remembering Mandela, making the right choice can often be a difficult one.

Mandela's release in 1990 was a pretty surreal series of events for me. As a fledgling photographer I was thrilled when a British agency asked me to cover it. It was a great chance to make a break into the business, but I was conflicted. I had also managed to gain access to an otherwise secretive ceremony in the far north of the country, scheduled for the same day. The distance between Pollsmoor Prison, where the news crews of the world were camped out, and the mysterious stockade of the Modjadji was some two thousand kilometres. I had to choose between two competing once-in-a-lifetime shoots.

Here is a showcase of the works he has made publicly available as prints as well as collections from his close colleague, Joao Silva*. [more inside]
posted by infini at 5:53 AM PST - 3 comments

Neil Gaiman is editing the Guardian books site for the day [more inside]
posted by Cannon Fodder at 3:35 AM PST - 11 comments

Tower Of The Blood Lord is a hypertext Twine game based on the first twenty minutes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 11:39 PM PST - 28 comments

Cow tools: Revisiting a Comic Masterpiece
posted by bq at 9:27 PM PST - 88 comments

Pierre Matter’s Imaginative Hybrid Sculptures.
posted by homunculus at 9:05 PM PST - 8 comments

Internet anonymity is the height of chic. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 7:59 PM PST - 57 comments

In 1994, after a perceived slight, Saafir the Saucee Nomad battled Casual of the Hieroglyphics crew at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. This confrontation led to one of the better (recorded) rap battles when Saafir's Hobo Junction crew battled Casual and the Hieroglyphics on Sway and Tech's radio show on KMEL in San Francisco.
posted by reenum at 6:55 PM PST - 10 comments

James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem talks about failure and about trying not to stifled by fear of it. (Referenced frequently in the interview: Losing My Edge)
posted by ardgedee at 6:54 PM PST - 27 comments

Getty Critics is a blog that pokes fun at Getty stock images.
posted by zardoz at 5:55 PM PST - 31 comments

The most recent wave of Hawaiian-monk-seal murders began on the island of Molokai in November 2011. An 8-year-old male seal was found slain on a secluded beach. A month later, the body of a female, not yet 2 years old, turned up in the same area. Then, in early January, a third victim was found on Kauai. The government tries to keep the details of such killings secret, though it is known that some monk seals have been beaten to death and some have been shot. Who Would Kill a Monk Seal? [New York Times Magazine]
posted by DaDaDaDave at 5:47 PM PST - 32 comments

As an investigation is launched into men in the Australian Army circulating explicit and derogatory material about their female colleagues, Lieutenant General David Morrison, Chief of Army, delivers a searing rebuke to those who perpetuate or condone the harassment of women in the military.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 5:38 PM PST - 82 comments

Oliver the green moray eel loves to be petted. With small children, a fish popsicle, and commentary about barracudas. (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by casarkos at 4:19 PM PST - 33 comments

On Wednesday, William Van Poyck was executed by the state of Florida for murdering a prison guard during a botched 1987 attempt to free an imprisoned friend. Poyck spent 25 years in solitary confinement on death row, during which time he wrote to his sister about his life in prison. Since 2005 she has published those letters to a blog called Death Row Diary. 'Poyck used to write about everything from the novels and history books he was reading and shows he watched on PBS to the state of the world and his own philosophy of life – punctuated by news of the deaths of those around him, from illness, suicide, and execution.' Excerpts. His final letter.
posted by zarq at 3:28 PM PST - 154 comments

Base, animalistic and ravenous: Daniel Berger's book What Do Women Want claims that a sexist bias has obscured research into the female sex drive. (previously)
posted by mrgrimm at 3:24 PM PST - 47 comments

CSS Tube Map , a re-creation of the iconic map of London Underground routes, rendered entirely with HTML5 and CSS3*.
If you'd like a more compact** means of getting around, here is a CSS TARDIS.
Or if you'd just like to forego the CSS in favor of something more solid, here's a Tube Map made of Lego on display at several stations.
* "for use with webkit browsers, such as Chrome and Safari - Firefox is also supported", sorry IE
**at least on the outside... but the outside is all that it shows
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:19 PM PST - 16 comments

Ed Balls Teaches Typing
posted by feelinglistless at 3:15 PM PST - 18 comments

Using factors like the number of strip clubs per capita, violent crime per 1,000 residents, and the percentage of disposable income given to charity, the Movoto Real Estate Blog came up with its list of the ten most sinful cities in the United States. The winners (?) are: (1) St. Louis, MO; (2) Orlando, FL; (3) Minneapolis, MN; (4) Pittsburgh, PA; (5) Milwaukee, WI; (6) Cincinnati, OH; (7) Miami, FL; (8) Buffalo, NY; (9) Detroit, MI; and, (10) Las Vegas, NV.
posted by Area Man at 1:04 PM PST - 90 comments

Deleted and alternate Bladerunner scenes chronologically arranged.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:38 PM PST - 26 comments

About 30 miles west of Charleston, West Virginia is a little town called Milton, which was the home to the Plato Records label back in the 1960s. According to Al Collinsworth, vocalist and co-songwriter for The Outcasts, Plato was intended to be an African-American music (Afrilachian) label, but the only known Plato releases are a handful of garage rock and funk singles from predominantly white bands, like The Outcasts' Loving You Sometimes. That particular track has seen an uptick in interest, since it has appeared on some recent mixtapes, including Diplo's Chasing the Dragon (MP3, streaming on Grooveshark). For more on those few known Plato recordings, Garage Hangover has interviews, information and promo photos from members. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:53 AM PST - 7 comments

"We hold that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated," Justice Clarence Thomas writes in the court's decision following a unanimous ruling in the case of Association for Molecular Pathology et al. v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., et al.. "Myriad did not create or alter either the genetic information encoded in the BCRA1 and BCRA2 genes or the genetic structure of the DNA. It found an important and useful gene, but groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant discovery does not by itself satisfy the §101 inquiry." [more inside]
posted by Hairy Lobster at 11:51 AM PST - 98 comments

Cheetahs’ Secret Weapon: A Tight Turning Radius [New York Times]

"Anyone who has watched a cheetah run down an antelope knows that these cats are impressively fast. But it turns out that speed is not the secret to their prodigious hunting skills: a novel study of how cheetahs chase prey in the wild shows that it is their agility — their skill at leaping sideways, changing directions abruptly and slowing down quickly — that gives those antelope such bad odds."

posted by Fizz at 10:48 AM PST - 34 comments

While some of Marvel's superheroes are busy fighting the forces of dry, aging skin, Publisher's Weekly wonders if Marvel's decision to release original graphic novels (OGN) after years of refusal is a game changer for the industry.
posted by The Whelk at 10:27 AM PST - 73 comments

The race for one of the worst jobs in America took a sharp turn this week as Mike Duggan was removed from the ballot for the Detroit mayoral election. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 10:22 AM PST - 48 comments

Arabbers (possibly derived from "street arab") are fruit 'n vegetable selling street vendors, going door to door with a horse and cart. Once a common sight in US East Coast cities, there's now only a handful left, in Baltimore. (You may have seem them on The Wire.) In 2004 a documentary was made about these last few remaining arabbers, now available at the Folk Streams website. (Previously about arabbers on MeFi.)
posted by MartinWisse at 9:42 AM PST - 51 comments

The Case For Revenge [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:22 AM PST - 53 comments

The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths. Simon Critchley gives both an overview of philosopher John Gray's thought and reviews Gray's new book.
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 8:43 AM PST - 36 comments

Must cats die so birds can live?
posted by xowie at 8:25 AM PST - 275 comments

Alfred Hitchcock ‘Directs’ a LIFE Picture Story, 1942. "...perhaps no filmmaker provided richer fodder for the Allies during the war itself than Alfred (later Sir Alfred) Hitchcock. Between 1940 and 1945, Hitch made films for England’s Ministry of Information as well as several excellent movies featuring plots that centered on the war (Saboteur, Foreign Correspondent, the remarkable Lifeboat and others). Hitchcock’s most unusual director’s credit from the 1940s, however, wasn’t attached to a movie at all, but instead appeared in the July 13, 1942, issue of LIFE magazine. Titled Have You Heard? (The Story of Wartime Rumors), the feature carrying Hitchcock’s name is a war thriller in photos, shot by LIFE’s Eliot Elisofon from a plot 'suggested by' FDR’s press secretary, Stephen Early, and 'directed by' Hitchcock himself."
posted by HumanComplex at 8:13 AM PST - 5 comments

Today In Adorable: Orphaned Pony Sleeps With Giant Teddy Bear. "Sadly, little Breeze has not got his mum around to keep him company" So he sleeps with a sweet faced, ever vigilant Giant Teddy Bear. (Video and short description from cbc.ca)
posted by sweetkid at 7:52 AM PST - 17 comments

INFINITE is an amazing timelapse of Australian graffiti artist Sofles painting an abandoned warehouse. [slyt | via]
posted by quin at 7:45 AM PST - 8 comments

An open letter to Dan Snyder (Owner of the Washington Professional Football Team). [more inside]
posted by Groundhog Week at 7:40 AM PST - 120 comments

The organizers of Riot Fest 2013 have announced the Replacements will be reuniting for the Toronto, Denver, and Chicago dates this summer.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:27 AM PST - 56 comments

Kellie and Alex, better known as Kili and Fili on the Tolkein fan site TheOneRing.net, are sisters who run the webseries Happy Hobbit. They filmed themselves watching the trailer for the new Hobbit film and posted the resulting video on their facebook page. Peter Jackson came across said video, posted it on his facebook page, and then filmed some of his cast as they watched it. Of course this then required a reaction-to-the-reaction-to-the-reaction video.
posted by tractorfeed at 7:25 AM PST - 30 comments

El Candigato Morris (The Candicat Morris). [more inside]
posted by idiopath at 7:11 AM PST - 6 comments

Inside The Meltdown At America’s Most Conservative, Most Christian Political Consulting Firm
Rex Elsass built a Republican empire on his faith. But he found himself battling his closest allies over his immortal soul.
posted by andoatnp at 6:37 AM PST - 38 comments

One year ago, America was gripped with controversy over the Florida shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, who claimed he was shooting in self-defense under the "Stand Your Ground" statute, while many believe the shooting, subsequent police inaction, and even the court actions had racial undertones - given Martin was black and Zimmerman Hispanic. Now, furor somewhat quieter, the trial is beginning, with startling (and occasionally hilarious) presentations and demands from each side, including cellphone photos and texts from Martin's phone showing drugs and someone holding a gun, which the defense claims the prosecutors withheld, a list of words Zimmerman's attorneys want not to be used during the trial, which include any mention of racial profiling, and a (rejected) request that all 500 potential jurors be sequestered until their selection. [more inside]
posted by corb at 6:14 AM PST - 280 comments

The BBC put cameras, GPS and mics on 50 domestic cats to find out what they get up to. The link shows the movements of ten within their village in Surrey with a highlight video for each.
posted by biffa at 4:46 AM PST - 41 comments

Everyone needs professionally-trained Mascots. Especially Princesses. (Wait for the 2 min. mark) [more inside]
posted by lemuring at 3:07 AM PST - 6 comments

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas predict ‘massive implosion’ in film industry.
posted by mazola at 11:46 PM PST - 101 comments

Freebase, formerly Metaweb, is a Google-run open, community-curated database of everything: 40 million topics and over a billion facts, all free to use. If you need to wrangle the resulting data into another format, Mr Data Converter (previously) has you covered.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:41 PM PST - 23 comments

Donald Featherstone and his wife Nancy have been wearing matching outfits for the past 35 years. Each matching pair of outfits is handmade by Nancy, who began the practice early in the couple’s marriage. As Nancy’s tailoring skills improved over the years, the outfits became more elaborate and the couple’s coordinated clothes now fill four wardrobes. A special closet contains 40 outfits made of flamingo fabric—an appropriate pattern as Donald Featherstone is the inventor of the pink lawn flamingo. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 11:16 PM PST - 59 comments

Still The Boss: Bruce Springsteen and the (Re)activation of Sex Appeal
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:04 PM PST - 40 comments

Why it might be possible to go snowboarding on Mars.
posted by homunculus at 8:52 PM PST - 10 comments

The evolution of Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is an excellent interpretation of their latest single through different decades.
posted by spiderskull at 8:44 PM PST - 55 comments

David and Jason are a married bi-national couple fighting the Defense of Marriage Act which denies gay Americans over 1100 federal rights. This includes preventing gay Americans from gaining green cards for their foreign born spouses. Since meeting in the Spring of 2007, Jason has returned to LA over a dozen times for expensive lengthy visits but is now being warned he will no longer be allowed to visit as a tourist.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:43 PM PST - 14 comments

"When it comes to Star Wars (and Star Trek) items, I've resolved myself to the fact that I'm not likely to dig up anything that's new to the die hard fans. But every once in a while, I do come across stuff that's new to me - like this early Star Wars advertising campaign concept art."
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:36 PM PST - 10 comments

TV REWIND! You're watching Supernatural, late season 3. (Welcome back! Spoiler alert!) Demon hunter Dean Winchester has sold his soul to a demon to resurrect his brother Sam, a deal that Sam is determined to break before Dean's payment is due.

"A hunt for a dragon in New York City ends with some unexpected changes for Sam and Dean. With the clock ticking down on Dean's deal, can the brothers pull together to save the city?"

You're now watching The Other Side, a 25-minute Supernatural fan film created as a volunteer labor of fan love. Written by novelist Naomi Novik, The Other Side is the first episode in a series exploring how fannish tropes, a tricksy dragon, gender issues, and a teeny tiny film budget could have sent Sam and Dean's story in a very different direction. [more inside]
posted by nicebookrack at 7:28 PM PST - 65 comments

"I could perceive the dead bodies of my crew were nearby. I could smell them. The fish came in and began eating the bodies. I could hear the sound. It was horror." -- Harrison Okene [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 7:28 PM PST - 31 comments

Fort Carroll is an abandoned Army fort on an artificial island in Baltimore's harbor. Robert E. Lee designed its hexagonal structure and supervised its construction, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commenced in 1848. The fort was declared defunct in 1921, having never seen combat. Sitting in the middle of the Patapsco River, it can be seen clearly from the Key Bridge (named after a witness to an event at Baltimore's more famous fort), but rarely is it seen up close. Certainly, it helps if you have a boat. [more inside]
posted by spaltavian at 6:18 PM PST - 5 comments

Rogue State: How Far-Right Fanatics Hijacked Kansas
posted by reenum at 6:16 PM PST - 40 comments

In an interview with Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, NSA leaker, Edward Snowden, claims that the US is "trying to bully the Hong Kong government" into extraditing him, and provides new documents which describe the NSA's routine hacking of targets in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009, including regular access of large backbone networks. [more inside]
posted by pjenks at 4:11 PM PST - 935 comments

Nipple.es
Just a single-serving site reminding us of that questionably-attributed quote “The only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned.”
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:48 PM PST - 57 comments

Realm of Chaos 80s - an 80s Games Workshop blog.
posted by Artw at 2:32 PM PST - 29 comments

I really think there’s an excellent chance that the camera brand I buy in 2018 may be a brand that doesn’t make cameras today.
posted by The Girl Who Ate Boston at 1:24 PM PST - 74 comments

The very first major science fiction series for adults on radio was Mutual Broadcasting System's 2000 Plus (1950-1952). An anthology program, 2000 Plus used all new material rather than adapting published stories. Just one month after its premiere, NBC Radio began airing Dimension X (1950-1951), which dramatized the written work of such young writers as Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Kurt Vonnegut. In 1955, NBC relaunched Dimension X as X Minus One (1955-1958), drawing from stories that had been published in the two most popular science fiction magazines at the time: Astounding and Galaxy. 17 of 30 episodes of 2000 Plus, all 50 episodes of Dimension X, and all 125 episodes of X Minus One are available for free download as individual mp3s from the Internet Archive. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:16 PM PST - 23 comments

The last mile of logistics in getting food from the warehouse into the consumer's house is getting exciting. Schwan's has a very large delivery area for quite awhile, but only with frozen food. Amazon Fresh has expanded to L.A. Safeway is expanding quickly too. Peapod has been in this space for awhile but hasn't expanded very far. But sometimes, you just need a Whopper delivered. Daily milk delivery doesn't seem to be on the radar.
posted by Brent Parker at 12:50 PM PST - 63 comments

Domestic violence becomes news - only when it turns into a mass murder As the report points out, there's a glaring flaw in Washington State's protection-order system: "With very few, recent exceptions, law-enforcement agencies did not have protocols in place to remove firearms from protective-order respondents or convicted domestic-violence offenders." [more inside]
posted by el io at 12:43 PM PST - 53 comments

Police are stumped as to how thieves are breaking into cars holding small unknown devices, even when they are caught on video doing it.
posted by mathowie at 12:41 PM PST - 85 comments

Recession prompted 'unprecedented' fall in wages - Wages have fallen more in real terms in the current economic downturn than ever before, according to a report. On top of the rising cost of living, a third of workers who stayed in the same job saw a wage cut or freeze between 2010 and 2011, said the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). "The falls in nominal wages... during this recession are unprecedented," said Claire Crawford from the IFS. Labour said the figures showed there was a "living-standards crisis".
posted by marienbad at 12:33 PM PST - 62 comments

Legendary Mad Men blog "Mad Style" sets out to explain Bob Benson to a twenty-first century that is apparently ill-prepared to understand him. [more inside]
posted by gerryblog at 12:28 PM PST - 158 comments

A fanfic explanation for a certain continuity issue in the new Star Trek movie. It's amusing, and it checks out.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:44 AM PST - 105 comments

On June 11th, 2013, in the wee hours of an early summer night in Nebraska, the temperature shot from 73°F to 99°F in the space of minutes, accompanied by 50MPH winds. The cause of this weather oddity was the poorly understood Heat Burst, a phenomenon that sometimes occurs as thunderstorms die out, usually late at night. The temprature rise can be so extreme that it has been imaged from space, and there are unconfirmed stories of heat so extreme that crops were cooked in the fields where they grew, and paint blistered on houses and vehicles. Once believed to be a very rare event, with the advent of personal weather stations, science may find they are more frequent than was previously believed.
posted by smoothvirus at 11:19 AM PST - 22 comments

7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy (An Insider's Perspective). Mara Wilson (previously) explains, and is interviewed by NPR on the subject.
posted by Cash4Lead at 10:56 AM PST - 33 comments

No Animals Were Harmed is the Film and Television unit of the American Humane Association. Their website provides details on the different kinds of certifications films and television shows earn and how they go about earning it. You can browse recent films (such as Life of Pi and Django Unchained) or page through their archive (which includes everything from Fellowship of the Ring to Rushmore to… (cough)… Apocalypse Now).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:23 AM PST - 37 comments

"In the early 1800s, a hammer was kept near Plymouth Rock for the pilgrim who had forgotten to bring one. By the end of the 19th century, what was left of the rock was fenced off within a memorial." "The United States, it turns out, was a nation of casual plunderers from the start. Visitors to Mount Vernon snapped splinters from the moldings; beachgoers in Massachusetts chiseled off chunks of Plymouth Rock; tourists snipped fabric from the White House curtains. By the early 19th century, newspapers were referring to illicit souvenir hunting as a “national mania.” " [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:49 AM PST - 48 comments

ShareFest is a "One-To-Many sharing application. Serverless. [It] Eliminates the need to fully upload your file to services such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Put your file and start sharing immediately with anyone that enters the page. Pure javascript-based. No plugins needed thanks to HTML5 WebRTC Data Channel API."
posted by mrgrimm at 9:22 AM PST - 27 comments

Marguerite Humeau is an artist who has made reconstructions of extinct creatures' vocal tracts, extrapolating from extant species and fossil remains. The Extinction Orchestra. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:03 AM PST - 5 comments

The owl and the pussycat may be friends, but this little turtle is a right bully.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:28 AM PST - 25 comments

This past Sunday, while privately meeting with a delegation of clerics from Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious, Pope Francis reportedly confirmed the existence of a "gay lobby" within the Curia. The delegation's notes of the meeting were published by Reflection and Liberation, a Chilean website focusing on liberation theology. While the Pope's statements were not public remarks, the question puzzling most Vatican watchers is not whether he made the remarks, but rather what does gay lobby in the Vatican mean? Rocco Palmo from the blog Whispers in the Loggia. Columnist Jimmy Akin from the conservative National Catholic Register. [more inside]
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 8:04 AM PST - 49 comments

Random Weekend Project shows how to seemingly make magic by creating instant ice from flowing water. [slyt]
posted by quin at 7:38 AM PST - 34 comments

What would a balkanized United States look like if it was divided along ethnic lines? (original map) Alternate divisions here and here.
posted by seemoreglass at 7:25 AM PST - 109 comments

Eerie computer-generated images reveal how UK landmarks could crumble and decay if humanity was wiped out. Gallery
posted by infini at 7:07 AM PST - 42 comments

Robert is a little known artist and long time resident of Franklin New York. In the late nineties, Robert began constructing fantastic stone castles and keeps from native stone, in his small backyard. He has since created amazingly unique works at the homes of several Franklin residents. But, Robert's artistic interests and instincts go way beyond his stonework in ways that are surprising and very enlightening.
posted by VicNebulous at 6:59 AM PST - 2 comments

"On an average weekday the TTC collects 1,582,000 fares. 180 are collected at Bessarian Station": Finding Bessarion, a short film about exploring the unknown (subway station).thanks to AM for the link
posted by jb at 6:49 AM PST - 58 comments

Every now and then it's just good for the soul to hear a nice, filtery, fat and squelchy analog modular synthesizer, don'tcha think? Let's drop in on David Baron, then, who's been kind enough to offer us a taste of several of the finest modular machines ever made, in his Tour Of The Universe - Analog Modular Synthesizer Journey. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:59 AM PST - 21 comments

The Pirate of Love is an album of love songs to Sherry by outsider musician / truck driver Daniel C. The self-released album somehow found its way to Iceland, where it's had some influence on the music scene and caused an animation student to make an animated documentary about the film. A truck dispatcher in Memphis was given the CD by one of his drivers, Daniel Ciocan. The man googled it, found the documentary, and put the driver and the filmmaker in touch. Each of them is now working on a sequel. Daniel and Sherry are now married.
posted by dobbs at 9:31 PM PST - 18 comments

Promotion is ramping up for the sixth studio album by Kanye West, the modestly titled "Yeezus", due for release June 18. The 36 year-old rapper and producer debuted the songs "Black Skinhead" and "New Slaves" on SNL, following up by projecting videos for the songs on buildings across the country. In a new interview, Kanye shares his grandiose artistic ambitions and frustrations.
posted by chrchr at 8:45 PM PST - 230 comments

Timelapse of a supercell near Booker, Texas. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 8:34 PM PST - 42 comments

Can you identify a composition, given only a single clarinet cadenza? Can you recite a poem, given only the last words from a single stanza? Can you play on the piano extempore the most popular song from a Gershwin show, given only a snippet of a few seconds from a little-known piece in the production? And can you believe this was once one of the most popular radio shows in America? The radio quiz show from a wrier age, Information, Please, features an urbane, erudite host (Clifton Fadiman, the editor of the New Yorker's book review section), whip-smart panelists (like Franklin P. Adams, of "Baseball's Sad Lexicon" fame), and ridiculously interesting guests (Dorothy Parker, Leonard Bernstein, S. J. Perelman...!). Several years' worth are available here, for your listening pleasure. (Start with Page 2 -- the quality of the broadcasts on Page 1 is quite low.)
posted by ariel_caliban at 6:36 PM PST - 15 comments

Raymond Chandler: The Master of Nasty
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:30 PM PST - 53 comments

Yo Dodger Blue (L.A. Loves You) (SLYT) "It's no surprise [Harry] Nilsson was a Dodger fan. They were both Brooklyn born, and both eventually relocated to Los Angeles. In the late 80s and early 90s, when Harry was doing little in terms of his "career," he was still actively writing songs and still coming up with ideas like this to amuse his creativity. These unreleased recordings probably come from 1990. The first version is a studio recording (musicians unknown) while the second version comes from KABC in Los Angeles, where Harry personally showed up to premiere the sing along. It's a catchy, rousing stadium chant that coulda/shoulda worked, though it was never officially adopted by the team." Links to both downloadable versions can be found at the blog For The Love of Harry Nillson. (via) [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 5:56 PM PST - 7 comments

sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own (from the dictionary of obscure sorrows)
posted by desjardins at 5:21 PM PST - 79 comments

Cocks (almost) don't have a penis, a trait common to 97% of bird species, but they can grow one when the expression of the Bmp4 gene is prevented. The expression of this gene causes the percursor of the phallus in the chick embryo to undergo apoptosis (cell death) and Bmp genes are also involved in 3 other bird traits: feather development, toothlessness and beak shape. In penis-less bird species, copulation requires a sex maneuver nicknamed the cloacal kiss (in French) which requires a full cooperation of the female (3 min of tender parrot sex). In species where males have a penis, like ducks, females are less lucky: the coevolution of the rather convoluted morphology of male and female genitalia has been hypothezised to occur through sexual conflict [many previouslies]. The evolutionary mechanisms that drove phallus reduction in most birds species are still unknown.
posted by elgilito at 5:15 PM PST - 18 comments

Dressing: "It is a gift, and the way God expresses herself through me. I’m so grateful for this art form because I don’t have to invite you to my studio to see my painting. You get to see it on me. I get to wear it, live it, be it". Collector's Weekly profiles Tziporah Salamon.
posted by goo at 4:15 PM PST - 25 comments

Between pounding out Flying Lotus on a typewriter, plucking at Erykah Badu with a Chinese harp, and tickling a bit of Lapalux on a vibraphone, BINKBEAT has quite possibly the best live performances of any Youtube channel I've seen or heard.
posted by tarpin at 2:49 PM PST - 12 comments

The story of the Pippin game console
posted by Artw at 2:21 PM PST - 53 comments

South Carolina wants to switch to digital license plates that will display messages related to the driver's eligibility to operate a vehicle. In 2010, California considered using similar technology to display advertising.
posted by reenum at 1:14 PM PST - 105 comments

The recent Netflix House of Cards series starring Kevin Spacey was a remake of a very popular British political thriller of the same name that aired during the 90's. The show begins by tracking the dark political machinations and skullduggery of an urbane Chief Whip of the Conservative Party, who is conspiring to become Prime Minister after Margaret Thatcher's resignation. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:39 PM PST - 88 comments

Pretty much every single Black Flag flyer designed by Raymond Pettibon.
posted by porn in the woods at 11:35 AM PST - 22 comments

Yesterday there were six humans beings in space. Today there are nine. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:32 AM PST - 91 comments

In September 2002, Scott Hagan completed a five-year project to celebrate Ohio's bicentennial by painting a logo on a barn in every one of Ohio's 88 counties (although he had to paint at least 90: one was destroyed by a tornado and one was torn down for a gas station). And Hagan is still painting barns.
posted by skynxnex at 10:18 AM PST - 12 comments

Austerity at work. The public radio-television broadcaster Elliniki Radiophonia Tileorasi (ERT/EPT) is closing down, throwing thousands out of work and at least temporarily depriving Greece of one of the totems of statehood (such as a national airline, a national cuisine, a national comic-book character...). Announcement in Greek here, with reactions. It will be interesting to see what sorts of job the former journalists will be competing for when the service is reopened.
posted by homerica at 10:18 AM PST - 33 comments

The only known example of a Second World War Dornier Do 17 aircraft has been successfully lifted from Goodwin Sands in the English Channel. [more inside]
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:47 AM PST - 28 comments

It's the 27th anniversary of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. "Unlike almost every modern protagonist I can think of, whether it be comedy or drama or superhero movie, Ferris Bueller wasn’t defined by his exclusion. He didn’t wear some dumb label, like “jock,” or “drama geek” or “bro” or “nerd,” he was just himself. He was a little bit of everything, and that’s why people liked him. On his day off, he went to a ball game and an art museum."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:37 AM PST - 287 comments

In 1831, the Mediterranean south of Sicily began to boil and bubble, and before long a volcanic island appeared, in full eruption. The English were the first to lay claim to the new island, naming it Graham Island, for James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty. Then the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies laid claim to the island, removing the Union Jack and naming the island Ferdinandea, after King Ferdinand II. The next nation to claim the island was France, though initial French interest was in the geology of the newly emerged island (Google translation of French text, much from geologist Constant Prévost). France's choice of names was practical, Île Julia, as the island was formed in July. Spain also tried to lay claim to the newly formed island, setting the stage for a grand four-way dispute over its sovereignty, but before a single shot could be fired over its possession, geology rapidly had the last word on the matter. Graham Island/ Ferdinandea/ Île Julia crumbled in on itself and all but disappeared by the end of the year. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:34 AM PST - 16 comments

Broadway musicals can’t bust a rhyme
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:26 AM PST - 37 comments

At Apple's keynote presentation at the WWDC yesterday, scorn for Scott Forstall – their recently-fired VP of iOS software – ran rampant. His preference for skeuomorphic design (calendars that look like leather and so-on) was mocked repeatedly by Craig Federighi: “Look! Even without all that stitching, everything just stays in place.” But the real shocker was the completely redesigned iOS 7, created under the supervision of Jonathan Ive, who prior handled all of Apple's hardware design and none of its software. Previously Ive and Forstall were much at odds, reportedly refusing to even meet with each other—and it should be noted that Ives' famous idol, the legendary industrial designer Dieter Rams, famously rejected artificial wooden furnishings with his breakout design, the record player that was nicknamed "Snow White's Coffin" for its transparent lid. Forstall's ousting placed Ive in charge of interface as well as industrial design, and it was expected that the shift would lead to a change in iOS design philosophy. But the change was perhaps more radical than expected—a complete overhaul that looks simple to the point of cartoonishness, with abstracted icons and stark layouts. Some critics are already complaining that iOS 7 goes too far in the other direction; others note the deep rigor of its new rules-based design. You can hear Ive talk about his design here [warning: obnoxious Apple promo video]. And Apple threw its support behind Ive with an unexpectedly lovely short video about the design process [warning: possibly also obnoxious]: "We start to confuse convenience for joy, abundance with choice. There are a thousand no's for every yes."
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:02 AM PST - 302 comments

“With a $100,000-plus salary from newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, beginning in 1929, followed by endorsement deals, speaking engagements, and earnings from his best-selling books, radio shows, movies, and museums, he was earning well over half a million dollars a year during the height of the Depression. By 1936, a newspaper poll found, Ripley was more popular than James Cagney, President Roosevelt, Jack Dempsey, and even Lindbergh.” – Vanity Fair features an excerpt adapted from Neal Thompson’s new book, A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It or Not!” Ripley. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:57 AM PST - 7 comments

The relationship between lead and crime has been well-documented. Now, researches show that there may be a link between lead exposure and schizophrenia.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:54 AM PST - 14 comments

The Accumulation Of Ruin Space
In Between The Ruins On The Edge Of The Salton Sea (Salton Sea, previously)
Inhabiting Construction [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:53 AM PST - 7 comments

"In 1961, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. called “right to work” a “fraud,” saying that it “provides no ‘rights’ and no ‘works.’ ...Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining." -- The Most Dishonest Words in American Politics: 'Right to Work'.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:02 AM PST - 72 comments

Plush cows? Plush cows! Plush cows.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:37 AM PST - 48 comments

The John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island is a 3 century old family business that primarily carves lettering in stone buildings and memorials using traditional designs, including the John F. Kennedy Memorial in Arlington. It is astounding to see the high quality of their work over time, from the documentary Final Marks (1979) to fonts designed for Adobe, to perhaps the greatest task: training those that will follow so they may lead.
posted by plinth at 7:35 AM PST - 8 comments

Well, maybe Twitter is just another big toilet wall, but there's as much clean space and spray paint as you'll ever need. What are you going to do with it? Create something or destroy someone else's picture? Ricky Gervais on the Internet as creative playground.
posted by maxim0512 at 7:31 AM PST - 10 comments

Horse (particularly harness) racing is often accused of being a dying sport, and if that's the case then Bill Finley attended a funeral at Thunder Ridge Raceway in (near?) Prestonsburg, Kentucky. Even if horse racing isn't your bag, though, a worthwhile read for those interested in a night in the life of an entertainment venue on the border of Johnson & Floyd Counties (combined population ~70k). It's not the middle of nowhere, but it's not where you'd expect to find a gambling venue either.
posted by EJXD2 at 7:14 AM PST - 6 comments

Your parent dies. You hurt. You weep. You mourn. You do and say the necessary things even as your daemon’s disciplined askesis has you (against your will) coldly taking notes on what the emotion feels like, how others around you react to the death, what the corpse of your parent looks like, how you feel while looking down at it, what voids there are in that feeling, what pretenses, what posturings. It's all part of finding your daemon that dwells perpetually in the Condition of Fire. Other entries in Dan Simmons' series On Writing Well.
posted by shivohum at 6:20 AM PST - 29 comments

Literally the most abused word in English.
posted by zeikka at 5:24 AM PST - 153 comments

Jury acquits escort shooter. Texas Penal Code s. 9.42 has been interpreted to possibly allow the shooting of sex workers who accept money at night but do not then perform sexual services, and Ezekiel Gilbert was therefore found to have the legal right to shoot at a sex worker over a $150 dispute. This interpretation of the defence of property has come under some criticism, and although the jury may have reached their decision on a different ground, the possibility of this defence under state law appears to be sound.
posted by jaduncan at 4:29 AM PST - 156 comments

"Don't forget to take your vitamins!" Or not. Some say it could kill you. Will there ever be any definitive answers when it comes to nutrition?
posted by kidkilowatt at 3:27 AM PST - 62 comments

Will The Real Mr Sellers Please Stand Up - a rare ~50min film narrated by Spike Milligan and made during the filming of 'The Magic Christian'*via Cinephilia and Beyond. [NSFW - some nudity] [more inside]
posted by peacay at 12:33 AM PST - 12 comments

Singer/songwriter Vienna Teng has released a demo for The Hymn of Acxiom, a haunting, vocoded choral composition written from the perspective of a marketing database. [more inside]
posted by Alterscape at 8:42 PM PST - 17 comments

How A War Hero Became A Serial Bank Robber. "Army medic Nicholas Walker returned home from Iraq after 250 combat missions, traumatized and broken. His friends and family couldn’t help him. Therapy couldn’t help him. Heroin couldn’t help him. Pulling bank heists helped him." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 8:28 PM PST - 32 comments

The Guardian has an excerpt of Neil Gaiman's latest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. You can also watch him reading an excerpt of it, and he writes about it a bit (and links to several reviews) on his blog.
posted by Athanassiel at 8:05 PM PST - 12 comments

IG-88: The Dancing Robot [slyt]
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:35 PM PST - 28 comments

Tired of the standard baseball metaphors for sex? Here’s 300 queer as fuck bases. [more inside]
posted by NoraReed at 7:30 PM PST - 11 comments

Twenty years after thinking his fifteen minutes of fame were up, Canadian actor Rob Stewart discovers via Facebook that his cheesy Magnum PI ripoff had taken Serbia by storm. Sweating Bullets (or Tropical Heat, as it was known outside the US) had a three-season run in syndication before becoming popular escapist fare in Milosevic-era Serbia. Stewart visits Serbia to meet this previously-unknown fanbase with a camera crew in 2012. Trailer
posted by dr_dank at 7:14 PM PST - 20 comments

Into the Light

Humanity has paused on Jones Street near the summit of Russian Hill in San Francisco. Tourists, businessmen, café workers, the homeless – all seem to have taken a collective breather at this steepest of places, a city peak where stairs are carved into the sidewalks so people don't topple. Only one person keeps climbing, and he's talking, too; he's saying that you can't stop here, that if you just keep pushing, you'll see things no one else will see, that Macondray Lane is just over the hill and that it's the most magical place in all of San Francisco, but you'll never see it if you don't keep pushing, you'll never see Macondray Lane unless you really know how to look.

[via Slate]
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:00 PM PST - 12 comments

Dan Harmon set to return as showrunner for Community Season 5.
posted by Saxon Kane at 4:28 PM PST - 129 comments

Monday's Google doodle honors Maurice Sendak [more inside]
posted by BlueHorse at 3:16 PM PST - 26 comments

The Spectator Archive was announced today, with searchable, browsable content of the weekly U.K. (conservative-leaning) magazine, from 1828 through 2008. [more inside]
posted by steef at 3:14 PM PST - 10 comments

Nicaragua has awarded a Chinese company a 100-year concession to build an alternative to the Panama Canal. With uncertain costs and impact to the environment, the canal is expected to pass through Lake Nicaragua, and will accomodate ships of 250,000 metric tons- twice the size the Panama Canal will accomodate even after upgrades. This is not the first time a canal through Nicaragua has been attempted. [more inside]
posted by Esteemed Offendi at 3:00 PM PST - 67 comments

Morrisey? Dickens? The BBC? Just how British do you want this to be? SLYT
posted by lucullus at 2:26 PM PST - 9 comments

Could Magic Mushrooms Be Used to Treat Anxiety and Depression?
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:02 PM PST - 59 comments

There’s an old dream in game design. It drives the design of games like SimCity, Dwarf Fortress, Tropico, The Sims, and Prison Architect. I like to call it the Simulation Dream. - Bioshock Infinite designer Tynan Sylvester on games, complexity, stories and simulation.
posted by Artw at 1:57 PM PST - 29 comments

Ahahahaha! Jet Bicycle!
posted by dobbs at 1:39 PM PST - 34 comments

Tolbachik is a volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. Andrew and Luda are two Kyrgyzstan-based photographers who wanted to take some video inside an active volcano. Tolbachik was happy to oblige. (SLYT)
posted by Room 641-A at 1:24 PM PST - 6 comments

These images of cisgendered, scantily-clad females reclining salaciously with books with quotes touting ownership do very little to promote reading and much more to bolster sexism and classism.
posted by josher71 at 1:09 PM PST - 187 comments

As the plane descended into Rangoon's international airport, I noticed a slight change in my heartbeat. I felt calm, but also excited, knowing that I was about to return to Burma for the first time in 24 years. Former student dissident and exiled journalist Aung Zaw spends Five Days in Burma. [more inside]
posted by seemoreglass at 12:34 PM PST - 4 comments

I'm Waiting Here is a bonus track off of David Lynch's forthcoming album. The video pairs the dreamy vocals of Lykke Li (reminiscent of the sound work on Twin Peaks) with a visual of rolling desert landscape (reminiscent of Lynch's Lost Highway). [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 12:08 PM PST - 8 comments

DJ Magrão from São Paulo is usually into Jamaican sounds, but he also has his Brazilian favorites. Over 10 hours of downloadable mixtapes, 100% vinyl.
posted by Tom-B at 11:41 AM PST - 7 comments

The Test Shot is an online visual project that aims to document and celebrate the variety and strength of transmasculine style. Ballet dancing "princess boys", dapper transmen fresh out of a golden age musical, hipstery trans* boys, preppy boy dykes, and video journalists in traditional Pakistani menswear showcase the diversity in how people interpret and express their gender through their favorite clothing. Original Plumbing [warning: non-explicit ad for porn site] is the premier print magazine dedicated to the sexuality and culture of FTM trans guys. OP documents diversity within trans male lifestyles through photographic portraits and essays, personal narratives and interviews. Read an interview with the creators, Dr. T's medical advice column, or check out blog entries on living in an all-male dorm,, how to get into queer porn as a trans guy,, and deciding to carry a baby after transition.. [more inside]
posted by Juliet Banana at 11:23 AM PST - 39 comments

Edward Burra was an English artist with a priviledged background who embraced the unrespectable.
More an illustrator or cartoonist he was variously described as eccentric, varied and bleak.
When the Royal Academy rang to ask if he would consider becoming an associate, he shouted downstairs to his manservant, who had picked up the telephone:
''Tell them to fuck off, I'm busy.''
posted by adamvasco at 11:15 AM PST - 2 comments

Actors Laughing Between Takes. A lovely little collection of still photos from between takes in movies showing actors, in costume, having fun.
posted by quin at 11:10 AM PST - 32 comments

The Welsh Space Campaign. The suit is made of the fabric woven in the last remaining wool mills in Wales. The astronaut boots are traditional Welsh clogs crafted by a traditional clog maker. The whole pressure system that will enable the astronaut to sustain life in outer space was built by a Welsh plumber. The aim of the designer is to reveal that Wales has the capacity to explore space, and to show that off-world culturalisation can be achieved through a collective communitarian effort; as a way to allow the people involved to reconsider their role and skill in relation to these cosmic contexts. -- We Make Money Not Art
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:50 AM PST - 15 comments

Dumbass

"So many people think they can improve the situation or collaborate. I think that's very wishful thinking in this political structure. It makes people not very conscious of what's happening," he said

posted by infini at 10:16 AM PST - 23 comments

Today, despite our interconnected and indeed “flattened” world, taxes are still being collected on a model not substantially different from the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 10:07 AM PST - 42 comments

Ken Imhoff wanted a Lamborghini Countach, but didn't have the money to buy one. So, over the next 17 years, he built one in his basement.
posted by reenum at 10:02 AM PST - 72 comments

Art History explained using Gifs (related: The true story of an art history grad student explained via gifs)
posted by The Whelk at 9:23 AM PST - 11 comments

For starters, he’s preparing for a career in librarianship, an industry largely dominated by white women. As an African-American male, Alston is what some would consider a double minority. Many of his friends and relatives wonder about his future after having spent many years earning a master’s and now a Ph.D. in library science. “What will you be doing all day?” “What’s the future viability of libraries?" Someone even teased him once, “That’s no kind of profession for a man.”

posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:49 AM PST - 15 comments

Montgomery County MD, a wealthy, sprawling suburban county outside of Washington DC - its blandess famously mocked by REM's ("Don't Go Back to Rockville.) - is moving towards adopting some of the most progressive and potentially transformational approaches to suburban/urban planning in the US. Driving the change is a concern that young, creative millenials are no longer interested in moving out to the suburbs.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 7:48 AM PST - 84 comments

Women are finally allowed to pray aloud at the Wall in Israel. Women of the Wall have been fighting to be allowed to pray and sing in their tallitot at the women's section of the Western Wall. The first day ended peacefully. They were not allowed to bring a Torah.
posted by jeather at 7:36 AM PST - 53 comments

The identity of the hacker KYAnonymous aka KnightSec, who exposed the Steubenville rapists has been uncovered as cybersecurity expert and aspiring rapper Deric Lostutter after being raided by the FBI. If he is convicted for hacking-related crimes, he could spend up to ten years in prison, more time than the rapists. His story is here and an interview here. [more inside]
posted by triggerfinger at 7:10 AM PST - 43 comments

Surgeries on Friday Are More Frequently Fatal. New research shows that "operations performed on Fridays were associated with a higher 30-day mortality rate than those performed on Mondays through Wednesdays."
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:00 AM PST - 51 comments

Broadway stars Andrew Rannells (of the now-cancelled TV show The New Normal), Megan Hilty (of the now-cancelled TV show Smash), and Laura Benanti (of the now-cancelled Go On AND The Playboy Club) join host Neil Patrick Harris at the 2013 Tony Awards to sing the joys and heartaches of Broadway-actors hiting the small screen. [more inside]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:50 AM PST - 60 comments

There was no wink and they never sold it out for these half-hour, densely, beautifully produced pieces, which is, for all possibilities, obscuring that this doesn’t at all sound like a comedy show. It is all the production elements you would use in a full-scale news production. All the gravitas, but just inflated to a point that it has no gravitas whatsoever. And I think that is where it became this excitingly subversive thing because it just showed that BBC Radio 4 and everything it stood for was just a big bag of shit.

John Oliver on why he's a fan of On the Hour. On the Hour, of course, is the legendary BBC news radio program created by, among other people, Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, In The Loop, Veep), Christopher Morris (Jam, Brass Eye, Four Lions, Why Bother?), Stewart Lee (41st best stand-up comic ever), and Steve Coogan (Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Partridge, I'm Alan Partridge). Short-lived but influential, On the Hour mimicked the tone and production of other radio news shows but replaced the content with what Oliver describes as "unremitting bullshit". On the Hour was aired in two six-episode series (S1E1 S1E2 S1E3 S1E4 S1E5 S1E6; S2E1 S2E2 S2E3 S2E4 S2E5 S2E6), and begat a television series called The Day Today. That show in turn added Graham Linehan (Black Books, Father Ted, The IT Crowd) to On the Hour's already all-star lineup, upped the already-insane levels of overproduction, and ran for six short-but-glorious episodes (one two three four five (WAR!) six), as well as a special 9/11 radio report. [more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:16 AM PST - 62 comments

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere.
posted by kenko at 11:22 PM PST - 22 comments

An interactive calendar showing birthdate rankings and estimated conception dates for each day of the year. Hover over your birthday to see how common it is (darker purple = more common), and what the estimated conception date is. This appears to use US data only, perhaps explaining the sudden drop in birthrate on July 4th, and the northern hemisphere-centric baby boom in the summer months.
posted by Joh at 10:41 PM PST - 76 comments

Facebook versus The Cloud "I got a call, 'Jay, there's a cloud in the data center'," Parikh says. "'What do you mean, outside?'. 'No, inside'." The data centre in question.
posted by GuyZero at 10:20 PM PST - 21 comments

Silent War. "On the hidden battlefields of history’s first known cyber-war, the casualties are piling up. In the U.S., many banks have been hit, and the telecommunications industry seriously damaged, likely in retaliation for several major attacks on Iran. Washington and Tehran are ramping up their cyber-arsenals, built on a black-market digital arms bazaar, enmeshing such high-tech giants as Microsoft, Google, and Apple. With the help of highly placed government and private-sector sources, Michael Joseph Gross describes the outbreak of the conflict, its escalation, and its startling paradox: that America’s bid to stop nuclear proliferation may have unleashed a greater threat."
posted by homunculus at 7:49 PM PST - 46 comments

One of the most striking features about daily life in China is how much of what one encounters has been appropriated from elsewhere. It’s not just the fake iPhones or luxury watches . . . . Above all are the physical spaces. . . . New architecture, when it is notable, is nearly always by foreigners or copying foreign styles, a tendency that has led Western architects to flood into China, often with second-rate projects for sale. . . . These are not just individual buildings but entire streetscapes, with cobblestone alleys, faux churches (often used as concert halls), towers, and landscaping designed to reproduce the feel of European and North American cities. The city of Huizhou features a replica of the Austrian village of Hallstatt; while Hangzhou, a city famous for its own waterfront culture, now includes a “Venice Water Town” that has Italian-style buildings, canals, and gondolas. Other cities in China now feature Dutch colonial-style townhouses, German row houses, and Spanish-style developments.

Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China from the NYRB blog.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 7:43 PM PST - 12 comments

Kittens gang up on a cardboard box. (SLYT)
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:40 PM PST - 38 comments

McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto and Gamer Theory, has turned his attention to the Situationist International. [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 7:00 PM PST - 17 comments

"Young ladies, indelibly fix this shape of head in your memories. Any man who will make a natural, kind and true husband will have a head in outline from a side view like this." Phrenology Diagrams from Vaught's Practical Character Reader (1902). Full 268-page book available in the LOC's Internet Archive.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:47 PM PST - 26 comments

An excerpt from the short film 5000 Feet is Best by Omer Fast. [more inside]
posted by ovvl at 4:49 PM PST - 8 comments

GamesMaster: The Inside Story
posted by rollick at 3:54 PM PST - 15 comments

Tumblr? Isn't that supposed to be full of furry porn, Teen Wolf fanfiction and teenagers determining the outer limits of priviledge? Not quite, as The Science of Reality shows. Run by Mae, "an aspiring journalist, photojournalist, science enthusiast, writer, & an artist of many fields" who loves "helping people discover the wonders of our universe through science".
posted by MartinWisse at 2:44 PM PST - 14 comments

John Oliver, a standup comedian from Birmingham in England, takes over from Jon Stewart as host of the Daily Show for the summer from tomorrow. The Guardian profiles him. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 1:35 PM PST - 91 comments

Around dusk on Feb. 17, Dr. Drew Pinsky was sitting at the computer in his hillside home in Pasadena, Calif., when he received an e-mail from a friend with some troubling news. Mindy McCready, a 37-year-old country singer and a star of the third season of “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew,” a television show that made its debut on VH1 in 2008, had shot herself at her house in Heber Springs, Ark.
posted by josher71 at 1:06 PM PST - 65 comments

I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."
posted by bitmage at 1:04 PM PST - 1004 comments

The LA Times Hero Complex looks at diversity in SF and Fantasy fiction.
posted by Artw at 12:12 PM PST - 45 comments

The avant-garde art of book stacking in stores of Japan.
posted by Fizz at 10:36 AM PST - 21 comments

"How Not To Be Alone" Author Jonathan Safran Foer touches on loneliness and empathy in an era of "iDistractions" during his commencement address at Middlebury College. (SLNYT)
posted by raihan_ at 10:09 AM PST - 39 comments

Pitch Battles: How a paranoid fringe group made musical tuning an international issue.

The petition had its origins in one of the strangest conflicts to have overtaken classical music in the past thirty years, and many of these luminaries were completely unaware of what they’d gotten themselves into. The sponsor of both the petition and the conference that featured Tebaldi was an organization called the Schiller Institute, dedicated to, among other things, lowering standard musical pitch. ... But behind this respectable front lurks a strange mélange of conspiracy, demagoguery, and cultish behavior. At its founding in 1984, its chairman Helga Zepp-LaRouche laid out the Institute’s role in surprisingly apocalyptic terms

Originally published at The Believer.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:41 AM PST - 51 comments

RIP Iain Banks. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:36 AM PST - 364 comments

Recently, a recording of electronic music allegedly created by an East German Kosmische Musik enthusiast recruited to help the DDR's Olympic training programme appeared. This recording turned out to be a hoax created by two musicians from Edinburgh, but, as such, it is the latest in a long line of ersatz krautrock to emerge in recent years. [more inside]
posted by acb at 6:47 AM PST - 18 comments

"One day I dreamed that my parents, my brothers and I went to visit three islands and I jumped into the water without protection," she wrote in her diary. "I felt like I could be in the water and not drown. I was curious and I swam into the deep water and then I saw my skeleton with my name written on it." Roger Omar collects children's dreams, and asks artists to illustrate them. [more inside]
posted by taz at 6:08 AM PST - 17 comments

Woody Allen interviewed by France Roche for the French TV in 1979 (61min SLYT)
posted by lenny70 at 2:12 AM PST - 1 comment

Throughout human history and across the globe, whether as intimate artifacts of interpersonal relations or state-level monumental works, textiles have been imbued with political importance. Textiles can communicate and construct status, ethnicity, gender, power, taste, and wealth, and have functioned at the nexus of artistic, economic, and political achievement in human culture. As trade goods, creative medium, and social artifact, textiles have been instrumental in generating, supporting, and challenging political power.

The Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium (2012) will explore the crossroads of Textiles & Politics.
posted by infini at 1:34 AM PST - 12 comments

A scale parade of robots, star ships, space stations and pan-universal super beings.
posted by tarpin at 10:31 PM PST - 55 comments

Montaous Walton just wanted to play ball, so he made up a fake online persona, fooled the media, signed with an agent and ended up in handcuffs.
posted by MoonOrb at 10:17 PM PST - 18 comments

LESBIAN LIGHTNING ROUND-Do you agree with these lesbians? Here! Have a dollar. (slyt)
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:01 PM PST - 62 comments

The Adjustable Cosmos. "In the fifteenth century, three worthies come together to tackle the Emperor's disastrous horoscope. They lift themselves to space in their medieval vessel, braving the terrors and wonders of the of the Ptolemaic universe, to reach for the stars..." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 7:21 PM PST - 12 comments

Kabang the hero returns home to the Phillipines to a parade! Kabang, previously mentioned here on the MeFi, returns home after surgery in the States. But the story might be a little deeper than just that, with some hints of patriotism and, while we're at it might as well segue into racism! But no really, this is just a story about one really awesome dog.
posted by eparchos at 7:05 PM PST - 4 comments

"Lobster is fancy. If you imagine a lobster talking, it probably has a British accent. Draw an animated lobster and I bet you’ll include a top hat, a monocle, and an opera cape. But it wasn’t always like this. If today’s lobster wears a top hat and an opera cape, 80 years ago he was wearing overalls and picking up your garbage. Lobster is a self-made creature, and quite the social climber." How Lobster Got Fancy.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:19 PM PST - 61 comments

Let Us Dot the ‘i’ and Cross the ‘t’: Insurgence and the End of ‘Tough Love’ Politics in Turkey: As I type out these words, it is the tenth day of the anti-government protests in Turkey. Beginning at that rather inconspicuous and under-visited park, protests have gone viral and spread to more than twenty provinces. For now, activists occupy the park and most of Taksim Square. Despite relentless police brutality aiming to subdue the blessedly unruly crowds, thousands of citizens remain in the streets. Activist youth have already come up with a whole new series of tear gas-related jokes. Abdullah Cömert, a young activist in Hatay,,was killed when shot by a tear gas canister in the head. Another young worker from Ankara, Ethem Sarısülük, is in a coma from a riot police officer that shot a bullet which ricocheted and hit Sarısülük in the head. There were protesters who lost their eyes to tear gas or to canisters shot in their face. In general, riot police deliberately targeted individuals by means of gas grenade launchers. Whatever the political prospects of Turkey’s “Occupy moment” will be, the Ministry of the Interior has a lot to answer for. [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 4:01 PM PST - 67 comments

Truck carrying fireworks hits moose on Trans-Canada Highway, shuts down road for 5.5 hours and lights up the sky. (pictures and video, driver and passenger unharmed.)
posted by The Whelk at 3:53 PM PST - 59 comments

Toute la mémoire du monde (1956: 21 minutes) is a remarkably lovely documentary short by Alain Resnais about the Bibliothèque nationale de France in the age of print. Via The Funambulist. [more inside]
posted by theodolite at 3:19 PM PST - 5 comments

Art toast. Artist's website.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 3:00 PM PST - 6 comments

During a speech at a $10,000 per plate DNC fundraiser on June 4, Michelle Obama was heckled by gay rights advocate and GetEQUAL member Ellen Sturtz, calling on President Obama to sign an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from LGBT workplace discrimination. The first lady responded by telling Sturtz and the 200 attendees, "[L]isten to me or you can take the mic, but I'm leaving. You all decide. You have one choice." [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:00 PM PST - 180 comments

"Green party politician Malte Spitz sued to have German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom hand over six months of his phone data that he then made available to ZEIT ONLINE. We combined this geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites, all of which is all freely available on the internet." -- The end result is an interactive map of Malte Spitz's movements over six months from 31st August 2009 to 27th February 2010 as an example of what you can do with telephone meta data.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:37 PM PST - 10 comments

On the relationship between energy companies and the Amish

[E]xtraction companies are buying up the rights to drill on private property with unprecedented speed. At stake are geysers of money. And in the thousands of cases in which the landowner is of the Amish faith, their business partner would never dream of taking them to court should things go awry. This, obviously, has enticed some companies to take advantage of Amish farmers—who are finally figuring out how to fight back.

posted by frimble at 1:38 PM PST - 9 comments

"There is no real independent self, aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world, inspecting other people. You are, in fact, connected not just via Facebook and internet, you’re actually quite literally connected by your neurons." — V S Ramachandran
posted by nickyskye at 1:03 PM PST - 19 comments

High prices are driving more motorists to rent tires. 'Chains such as Rent-a-Wheel and Rimco are seeing business boom. Many consumers pay double or triple the cost of buying and face aggressive repossession policies.' 'Customers pay huge premiums for their tires, sometimes four times above retail. Those who miss payments may find their car on cinder blocks, stripped of their tires by dealers who aggressively repossess. Tire rental contracts are so ironclad that even a bankruptcy filing can't make them go away.' [LA Times link; use privacy setting in browser]. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 11:22 AM PST - 129 comments

"In 1961, Phyllis Richman applied to graduate school at Harvard. She received a letter asking how she would balance a career in city planning with her 'responsibilities' to her husband and possible future family. Fifty-two years later, she responds." [more inside]
posted by DarlingBri at 10:35 AM PST - 52 comments

The Love Life of the Spumifers. (NSFW)
A series of hand-painted photographic postcards produced by surrealist artist Georges Hugnet master of collage between 1947 and 1948.
posted by adamvasco at 9:12 AM PST - 3 comments

"Canes were the 22-inch rims of 19th century cruising culture." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:38 AM PST - 59 comments

Short documentary film (SLNYT) about 91 year old George Weedon, former Olympic gymnast. Free posture advice included.
posted by neilb449 at 7:58 AM PST - 5 comments

In the deep sea, low oxygen levels, scarce sunlight, and freezing water limit the rate at which items decompose: Something that might survive a few years on land could exist for decades underwater. - ROVs photograph trash on the ocean floor.
posted by Artw at 6:58 AM PST - 33 comments

They told you not to enter.
You, an explorer didn't listen
"I will find out the mystery of snakes."

ROOM OF 1000 SNAKES
(A game, uses FPS controls, make sure to have sound on, requires Unity, probably a decent graphics card, and some appreciation for silliness.)
posted by JHarris at 4:51 AM PST - 21 comments

Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams Detailed and thoughtful exploration of clockwork and automata as a phenomenon in the 17th Century and their development into machines that could imitate human activity - eventually leading to the famous Mechanical Turk (eventually exposed as fake) and the truly astounding "Silver Swan" built by John Joseph Merlin. (Definitely not a fake) [more inside]
posted by JohnnyForeign at 4:01 AM PST - 9 comments

Avogadro Project - The International Avogadro project relates the kilogram to the mass of a fixed number of atoms by measuring the number of atoms in a sphere of silicon. I'll leave this here.
posted by hypersloth at 2:52 AM PST - 26 comments

What if you were to combine stock car racing with demolition derby and add a towed blocking car? Why Banger Racing Mini Tow Racing.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:58 PM PST - 17 comments

Portraits of My Family by Camilla Catrambone. "These portraits aim to represent my family members through the objects they've owned." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 7:14 PM PST - 11 comments

Cupcakes, lying, stealing, some pretty trippy animation, and one weirdly prescient line for 1965, courtesy your friends at the Southern Baptist Convention [previously]
posted by timsteil at 6:46 PM PST - 18 comments

There's still nobody who can make "dee da deedadet" sound as sexy as Freddie Mercury did. Under Pressure, vocals only.
posted by killThisKid at 5:55 PM PST - 53 comments

Starting from their very first album, ABBA was recording songs which opened a door onto a darker side than one might be familiar with from their hits. The first of these is Ring, Ring's track Another Town, Another Train, wherein a lover is left while still asleep with only a note to explain the departure of their now-long-gone beau. But that's nothing compared to what was to come across their career... [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 5:21 PM PST - 56 comments

This is the Greatest Event in Television History (SLYT). Amy Poheler, Adam Scott, and Horatio Sanz re-create the opening credits to "Hart to Hart." Jeff Probst gives it a proper dramatic (and hilarious) introduction. (previously)
posted by Room 641-A at 4:52 PM PST - 56 comments

Debarghya Das, an Indian student at Cornell, wanted to impress his friends by obtaining their examination marks for the Indian Certificate of Secondary Examination and the Indian School Certificate and, thanks to some poorly written javascript, discovers the entire database containing the grades for 200,000 Indian students, as well as potential evidence of widespread tampering.
posted by elgilito at 4:51 PM PST - 36 comments

Some cool mechanical paper models. [more inside]
posted by klausman at 4:25 PM PST - 6 comments

Universal Orlando opens real-life 'Simpsons' Springfield [more inside]
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 4:21 PM PST - 40 comments

Tanner, a blind golden retriever, has a guide dog. [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 4:15 PM PST - 10 comments

HappyPlayTime seeks to rebrand the entire concept of female masturbation through education and light-hearted games (...) At the heart of all this is HPT’s mascot: the pink, fleshy, and gleeful personification of a vagina.
posted by Omnomnom at 2:50 PM PST - 159 comments

This past month we learned about a pair of viral Craigslist ads that some nice young men had (successfully) used to find wedding dates. This was old news to me. In 2008, I was named a bridesmaid against my will, and I prepared to suffer through all the standard requirements that come with the duty. Usually, you simply grin and bear these life necessities, but when the bride vehemently insisted that we all have dates despite the fact that several of us were single, I decided to respond to her myopia with outright insolence, with the support of and in the shared name of my bridal party cohorts. On July 8, 2008, I posted the following ad to Craigslist:

“seeking awful date for awful wedding (w4m)”
i’m a bridesmaid in a terrible wedding. i need a date to ruin it with, preferably one that is either ridiculously unkempt or too hot to be able to enjoy with a straight face. i’ll buy you however many shots you might need to make it through this endeavor. you send me 25 words or less on why it should be you and a picture.

posted by Blasdelb at 2:40 PM PST - 37 comments

In 1966, with America in the grip of spy fever, some bright spark at Dell/Gold Keythought it would be a good idea to have the long running Mickey Mouse comic join the bandwagon. This didn't mean just getting Mickey to dress up as James Bond. It was much more bizarre than that. For three issues Mickey was running around in a human world, thwarting the plans of assorted evil villains, rescuing beautiful female agents, do all the things any other self respecting super spy would do, just as a cartoon mouse. The way they went about it was to have regular Mickey Mouse cartoonist Paul Murry draw Mickey and Goofy in his normal funny animal style, while Dan Spiegle, a much more realistic artist, drew the rest of the strip. The results were striking.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:16 PM PST - 16 comments

Your bronze head will be smashed to pieces and recycled into bicycles in Hunan province.
posted by seemoreglass at 1:33 PM PST - 20 comments

Several members of the Philadelphia Orchestra were on a flight from Bejing to Macao that got stuck on the tarmac for three hours. With nothing better to do, the musicians resorted to doing what they do best...
posted by schmod at 1:29 PM PST - 44 comments

Lexie Kinder is a nine year old South Carolinian who used to be homeschooled, due to heart and immune system problems. But this spring, her family began experimenting with an alternative — a camera-and-Internet-enabled robot called VGo that swivels around the classroom and streams two-way video between her school and house. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Jonah Lehrer has reportedly sold a book proposal to Simon and Schuster. In Slate, Daniel Engber examines the book proposal for possible plagiarism and comments: Having read through this proposal, I’ll propose a different lesson: If your underwear is full of grit, it might be time to change.
posted by BibiRose at 11:54 AM PST - 62 comments

“There’s always that joke that there’s a Starbucks on every corner," says Justin Grimes, a statistician with the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington. "But when you really think about it, there’s a public library wherever you go, whether it’s in New York City or some place in rural Montana. Very few communities are not touched by a public library.”
posted by EvaDestruction at 11:52 AM PST - 18 comments

Fishjn is a rhythm game that's sort of visually reminiscent of Rez. And also fishing.

The Fishing Game Jam has plenty more fish. [more inside]
posted by emmtee at 10:36 AM PST - 6 comments