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Curt Purcell of The Groovy Age of Horror (previously) on Vampirella and the art of José González, who modeled his version of the character after Sophia Loren (NSFW, mild boobies) (Previous Vampirella)
posted by Artw at 11:26 PM PST - 7 comments

Breaking anthrax attacks update: A new suspect, a US goverment expert on anthrax, kills himself as he's about to be arrested. Bruce Ivins helped analyze the killer powder sent by mail in 2001 that killed five people and freaked out the US right after 9/11. The govt paid out $5.82 million just last month to former govt scientist Steven Hatfill for wrongly targeting him in the investigation.
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:22 PM PST - 166 comments

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border. The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' " [more inside]
posted by punkbitch at 9:49 PM PST - 131 comments

Zeno of Elea, Socrates and Jesus, Weev said, are his all-time favorite trolls. He also identifies with Coyote and Loki, the trickster gods, and especially with Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. “Loki was a hacker. The other gods feared him, but they needed his tools.” The New York Times investigates the ever-evolving, LOL-corrupting, epileptic-seizuring, iPod-leaving-on-gravestone-ing phenomenon of major Internet trolling, featuring interviews with Jason Fortuny, Weev, and a gentleman named Christopher Poole (prev). [more inside]
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:44 PM PST - 88 comments

Winning the Gold Medal in Young International Piano Superstardom is Chinese pianist Lang Lang. The 26 year old former prodigy compares himself not to Glen Gould, but to Tiger Woods. Given his "star appeal" and numerous endorsements, it's an apt comparison. [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:14 PM PST - 10 comments

Now I have seen a lion in a sidecar on a vertical wall of death. There are a lot of eye-popping images to be found on the vintage photographs livejournal group. The lion may be the eye-poppingest, but there's also this flattened elephant, this tiny photographer, and this soldier and dog in gas masks.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:23 PM PST - 43 comments

Artwork by Laura Pelick. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 8:20 PM PST - 9 comments

Ford Model T owners "transformed the cars into tractors, pickup trucks, paddy wagons, mobile lumber mills and power plants for milling grain." [more inside]
posted by Knappster at 7:50 PM PST - 8 comments

Oh happy day — the new Delicious is here "Over the past few days we’ve been transitioning Delicious over to our new platform, quietly starting with RSS feeds and APIs. Today we’re taking the final step and flipping the switch on the new web site".
posted by tellurian at 6:13 PM PST - 85 comments

Stream graphs, or stacked graphs, are a new form of (sometimes interactive) visualization that present data in a fluid timescale format. For example, the NY Times website has a graph showing the box office receipts from 1996-2008. There's a Twitter streamgraph based on keywords. Here's one of all the musicians a Last.fm user has listened to over time. Track the popularity of baby names back to the 1880s. Possibly the most striking, if not necessarily intuitive, is this visualization of US population by county, 1790-2000. There's already an academic study of the technique.
posted by desjardins at 4:30 PM PST - 27 comments

I am Walmarticus! [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 2:59 PM PST - 61 comments

62 year old emergency physician John Hall and his wife Jane took off on a Bike Ride Around America to promote cancer awareness. They started on April Fool's Day, and completed their 12,000 mile journey around the perimeter of the country just today. Along the way they encountered hundreds of towns and thousands of friendly people, and a few not so nice. All in all, a pretty amazing accomplishment in my book.
posted by netbros at 2:07 PM PST - 20 comments

The Kindergarchy: An essay on modern parenting.
posted by kimdog at 12:56 PM PST - 112 comments

SexyBeiJin (性感北京) Weddings Gone Wild Beijing Vs. Hong Kong Lost in Translation The Lost in Translation piece (above) introduces Beijing folks and the English names they have chosen for themselves. One "auntie" goes by the name "Smacker" (it sounds nice), and so SexyBeijing develops an entirely new segment called Ask Smacker. Hosted by Anna Sophie Loewenberg, the show has a frequently updated blog and downloadable video and audio podcasts. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 10:45 AM PST - 23 comments

Food Fight! For reasons unknown to mankind the people of Kreuzberg fight the people of Friedrichshain (two Berlin precincts) on the Brigde that connects them. Their ammunition is rotten vegetables, diapers, rotten fruit and everything else you'd find in your bio-trashcan. More (sorry only a Trailer), more and still more (in german only).
posted by namagomi at 10:39 AM PST - 24 comments

Rasa von Werder is the current name of one Kellie Everts [NSFW], stripper for God, bodybuilder, and church-founder. During the 70's she toured the nation on the novel concept that a stripper could save souls, and during the same time helped establish female bodybuilding as a legitimate sport. Nowadays she tends the followers of her female empowerment doctrines via the University of MotherGod Church, Woman Thou Art God! [NSFW] website and her Matriarchy RAMANA MAHARSHI Mother God Worship Femdom YouTube channel. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 10:25 AM PST - 20 comments

Fast Food Apartheid: The Los Angeles City Council has placed a one-year moratorium on the opening of fast-food restaurants in sections of the city with low-income residents. The council says it's meant to encourage healthy fare in locations that lack ready access to supermarkets and healthy restaurant. This columnist calls it "fast food apartheid." We're not talking anymore about preaching diet and exercise, disclosing calorie counts, or restricting sodas in schools. We're talking about banning the sale of food to adults. Treating French fries like cigarettes or liquor.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:18 AM PST - 281 comments

Better Living with the Batman & Joker Supersquad. Respect. Heavy Lifting. Bike Safety. UV Protection. Taking Time for Play. Herpes. Sexual Harassment.
posted by spec80 at 9:01 AM PST - 21 comments

A lifetime of lost playlists Martin Belam offers a personal history of music formats and describing how he made playlists with each of them. I'd love for his conclusion to become a reality.
posted by feelinglistless at 8:17 AM PST - 13 comments

Osage orange, avocado, papaya, honey locust, paw paw, persimmon, and many more: fruits that have outlasted the gomphotheres and other megafauna. These "anachronistic fruits" can be a key to understanding their intended consumers. More. More. More. And even more.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:01 AM PST - 33 comments

Edie Huggins was one of Philadelphia's most accomplished news journalists. The first African-America woman to report on television in Philadelphia. She began her career as a broadcaster in 1966 as a features reporter on WCAU-TV. In 2006, Philadelphia City Council declared March 30th “Edie Huggins Day” to honor Huggins’ more than 40 years of accurate news reporting and dedication to the City of Philadelphia. Edie passed away yesterday at 72 years of age. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 3:51 AM PST - 4 comments

Brazil's Gilberto Gil, now 66 years of age, is stepping down from his position as Minister of Culture to concentrate, once again, on his music career. That's good news for his fans, and here's some more good news: a huge chunk of his recorded work is available as streaming audio for your listening pleasure. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:56 AM PST - 19 comments

Walking a mile in our heels. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 10:19 PM PST - 183 comments

Ray Parer & J C McIntosh; The Flying Wreck. In 1919 six teams entered an Air Race from England to Australia, but only two teams finished. The winning team finished in 28 days, while the second team didn't even get started until the race was already over, but they didn't let that stop them. Ray Parer and John McIntosh in their de Havilland DH9 airplane deviated considerably from their intended course, suffered many mechanical problems, had 7 crash landings, and took 237 days to finish. But they sure did have an adventure. [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 7:25 PM PST - 8 comments

Häagen-Dazs wants you to know they are concerned about the disappearance of honeybees through a nice little flashed website. But we all know that the real reason our bees are disappearing is because of that damned hip hop music.
posted by Hands of Manos at 7:04 PM PST - 29 comments

Sysco : whether it's Wendy's, Applebee's, the local diner, a fancy restaurant, the cafeteria, or Guantanamo Bay, it's what you eat. Serving over 400,000 businesses, the "Wal-Mart of Food Service" has all the bases covered, from "Unique 3-D technology gives you the look and texture of a solid muscle chicken breast, at a fraction of the cost" to more gourmet offerings.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 5:12 PM PST - 135 comments

The Large Hadron Collider. The Large Hadron Countdown. The Large Hadron Rap.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:52 PM PST - 76 comments

Uncle Bobby's Wedding: A librarian's rebuttal to a book removal/relocation request involving a children's title dealing with gay marriage. Via MyLiBlog.
posted by rollbiz at 4:49 PM PST - 86 comments

The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted to repeal a ban on out of state marriages that has been on the books since 1913. The up-shot? Out of state gay and lesbian couples may soon wed in Massachusetts. The vote goes next to governor Deval Patrick, who has already indicate that he is in favor of repealing the law. [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:32 PM PST - 42 comments

You're planning on baking a cake, but you're bored of your plain old square pan, round pan, or bundt pan? If you live in the US Midwest, it's very possible that your nearby library allows you to check out cake pans. [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 3:05 PM PST - 52 comments

Are you looking for a nice, big kitty to let into your heart? Princess Chunk, at 44 pounds, might fit the bill nicely. Just two pounds shy of the world's record, the pudgy kitty was roaming sans collar in Voorhees, NJ and is now in good hands at the Camden County Animal Shelter. Chunker's owners have until Saturday to claim their big pal - after that, this big quarterback of a kitty is ready for a loving home.
posted by porn in the woods at 2:31 PM PST - 58 comments

Andrija Ilic is a photographer from Belgrade, Serbia. He uses photography to document social change to his environment and events in his homeland. He has covered some of the most important events in the region: war in Kosovo in 1998, NATO maneuvers in Italy in 1998 and intervention in 1999, numerous anti-regime protests 1996-2000, events surrounding the fall of government in Belgrade in October 2000, the crisis in southern Serbia. More recently, he has published new photos from the conflict in Israel and Palestine, every day life in Gaza, and reportage from the Faroe Islands. [some images NSFW - war violence and gore] [more inside]
posted by netbros at 1:49 PM PST - 6 comments

The Antikythera Mechanism has been decoded. Two years ago, it was confirmed that the machine was capable of astronomical calculations. Now it appears there's just one more thing: 3D imaging of the machine made it possible to reconstruct the complete workings, and it turns out it was also capable of tracking the timing of the Olympic games. The findings were reported today in Nature. Previous Apple joke here, an incredibly deep post about it here, and a longer report from the New Yorker.
posted by one_bean at 1:29 PM PST - 40 comments

"That's why so many insights happen during warm showers."[pdf/html]
A print-only print-mostly article in last week's New Yorker magazine fascinatingly describes the neurological processes behind human insight, with nods to Henri Poincaré's omnibus eureka ("Having reached Coutances, we entered an omnibus to go some place or other. At the moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it") and Archimedes' bathtub eureka* ("Eureka!")
posted by jckll at 12:40 PM PST - 33 comments

Light Photography
posted by empath at 12:34 PM PST - 12 comments

A three-and-a-half minute video explaining the American electoral process. As a Canadian, I've also found the American electoral system a little baffling. Electoral colleges? Maine and Nebraska do it differently? I thought this video by the smart folks at Common Craft did an excellent job of explaining how somebody gets to the White House.
posted by dbarefoot at 12:04 PM PST - 87 comments

There's something about Mary. Sarasota, Florida, resident Mary McFate was a prominent gun control activist, active in anti-gun groups around the country. Mary Lou Sapone was a freelance spy with an NRA connection. They are the same person.
posted by parmanparman at 11:10 AM PST - 58 comments

Don Hodges writes scholarly (but readable) articles on the mathematics and logic of classic video games - with a special emphasis on kill screens, such as "Stage Zero" in Galaga, Level 22 in Donkey Kong, and the legendary split screen at the end of Pac-Man. More here. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 10:58 AM PST - 30 comments

Anti-Israel Facebook group "seized" - the Jewish Internet Defense Force (warning: self-starting Google video) says that it has taken control of an anti-Israel Facebook group and is steadily deleting members by the second. "It has also changed the group's administrator titles to read 'Mossad Zionist.'"
posted by mrgrimm at 10:55 AM PST - 62 comments

John C. Frémont is a secret Catholic.
posted by EarBucket at 10:23 AM PST - 16 comments

Twones is a music tracker that monitors Last.FM, YouTube, MySpace, iTunes, Muxtape, and a few other services. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:19 AM PST - 10 comments

20 Ways to Die Trying to Dunk a Basketball - the only thing more triumphant than throwing down a tomahawk slam is having 20,000 people see you fail at doing it. (youtube)
posted by puke & cry at 9:52 AM PST - 44 comments

Transcendence, the outer space exploration/trading/shoot 'em up, has hit version .99. I cannot begin to tell you how much time I sunk into previous releases -- the Nethackish randomness, both in the layout of the systems to explore, and the mysterious devices and substances to apply to your ship in hope of an extra edge, makes the replay value immense. RGCD has a glowing review and an interview with the developer. (Mentioned but not actually linked to earlier.)
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:45 AM PST - 46 comments

12 Angry Men + Glowing = 12 Glowing Men. An absolutely beautiful film by Martijn Hendriks.
posted by hubs at 9:30 AM PST - 36 comments

St. Louis group Pray at the Pump is trying to lower gas prices the old fashioned way - by praying for them.
posted by ericbop at 9:10 AM PST - 131 comments

Vaughn Toulouse was not born Toulouse. He was born Vaughn Cotillard on the island of Jersey on this day in 1959. In the summer of ’78, he left home to tag along on tour with the Clash, which he chronicled in an early issue of The Face. Thus inspired, Toulouse formed a series of bands of his own including Guns For Hire and Department S, which scored a big hit with Is Vic There? (TOTP, Cheggers) and a lesser one with I Want. [more inside]
posted by grounded at 9:00 AM PST - 5 comments

Von Wernich signed the baptism certificate of a girl born in a clandestine prison, whose mother was murdered at his orders. He encouraged torture victims to "testify, for the sake of god and country," perverting the confession into an interrogation tactic. Under a Nazi flag, he witnessed the torture of Jewish journalist Jacobo Timerman [...] Von Wernich was convicted on nearly all counts "under the mark of genocide." The crowds inside and outside the courthouse broke into celebration, singing, lighting firecrackers, some burning effigies of the priest. After thirty years, the saga to bring Von Wernich to justice was over.

The Unending War — Argentina's quest for justice by Sam Ferguson is about how Argentine society is dealing with the legacy of the junta's Dirty War of 1976-83. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus at 8:12 AM PST - 7 comments

Libraries are neat. The New York Public Library has uploaded a collection of menus dating from 1851 to 1956 thanks largely to the efforts of collector Miss Frank E. Buttolph, a "mysterious and passionate figure whose mission in life was to collect menus" and whose unique collection aroused the interest of the NYT of her day (1, 2).
posted by prefpara at 7:41 AM PST - 28 comments

Back in 1978, Jack Nicholson was ahead of his time.
posted by gman at 4:40 AM PST - 48 comments

Australian short film - I Love Sarah Jane 'Jimbo is 13. All he can think about is one girl, Sarah Jane. And no matter what stands in his way - bullies, violence, chaos, zombies - nothing is going to stop him from finding a way into her world.' NSFW - swearing and gore. SLYT.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:14 AM PST - 16 comments

On 30th July 1908, after 169 days of competition, the 4-cylinder, 60-horsepower Thomas Flyer, driven by George Schuster from America, crossed the finish line to win the Great 1908 New York-to-Paris Automobile Race. After driving to the West Coast, the vehicles were shipped to Vladivostok from where only three teams managed to continue with the race across Asia and Europe. [more inside]
posted by peacay at 12:32 AM PST - 5 comments

Orson Scott Card on gay marriage, which he says "marks the end of democracy in America". Not everyone is too happy about that.
posted by Artw at 10:43 PM PST - 284 comments

Business Guys on Business Trips. Cool set of web cartoons about the 'creative' field. Clients and projects and corporate doublespeak, oh my!
posted by filmgeek at 8:29 PM PST - 39 comments

So ya skateboard, ya go ta prison, ya get a movie made of ya, you get famous, ya come out, ya get in the NYT, ya try to get t' the x-games...
posted by binturong at 8:16 PM PST - 20 comments

A Social History of the Surge by Juan Cole.
posted by homunculus at 6:46 PM PST - 33 comments

Narayan, Narayan. I was Atal Bihari some time back, now I am Manmohan. I may be Manmohan now but sometimes I am Sonia. I am the variable constant in Indian politics the Prime Minister, Pradhan Mantri. Soon I may be Advani or Rahul or Modi. Or maybe I may become Laloo…that will be the day of prayer in India. But if I become Mayawati will I need a surgery... A log of the nation in hypertext marked lies.
posted by hadjiboy at 6:17 PM PST - 4 comments

Can you pass a Barack Obama's final? [more inside]
posted by jourman2 at 5:27 PM PST - 91 comments

Calvin. Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes. John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes and Ten Pounds of Bullshit. Calvin and Durden. Nash and Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes and School Controversies. Calvin and John Calvin and Hobbes and Thomas Hobbes and Republicans. Calvin and Hobbes and Childhood.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:46 PM PST - 23 comments

Igor Kenk was arrested for bicycle theft in Toronto on July 17. Here's an audio documentary that includes an interview with the man himself: Steal This Bike (be warned, a lot of profanity, and a little pretentious). [more inside]
posted by Chuckles at 4:28 PM PST - 46 comments

Still looking for a vacation destination this summer? 2008 is the centennial anniversary of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, the girl Mark Twain called "the dearest, and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice." You can attend the L. M. Montgomery Festival and see Anne & Gilbert: The Musical (warning: exuberant fiddling). Or if you can't make it all the way to P.E.I., you can Blog About Anne.
posted by chihiro at 4:23 PM PST - 20 comments

From New York City to Seattle, Critical Mass cyclists are not having a good week. In Seattle, some question the motivations of Critical Mass, some report conflicting stories, while others suggest foul play.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:12 PM PST - 114 comments

[first name of a candidate] and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!
posted by unSane at 4:06 PM PST - 85 comments

Glitter And Doom: Tom Waits In Concert [more inside]
posted by acro at 4:05 PM PST - 22 comments

Anything but clear. It is well known that panes of stained glass in old European churches are thicker at the bottom because glass is a slow-moving liquid that flows downward over centuries. Well known, yes, but long known to be wrong. Scientists still disagree about the nature of glass, and researchers continue to try to understand its dual personality . [more inside]
posted by amyms at 3:57 PM PST - 15 comments

How deep does the rabbit hole go? The Ultimate Fractal Video Project features animated zooms into the famous Mandelbrot Set. Some zoom in so far that, by the end of the dive, the first frame you had viewed would be as large as (or larger than) the known universe. | The animations are offered as .zip'd WMV files; lower-quality versions are viewable on FractAlkemist's YouTube page. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 3:56 PM PST - 13 comments

Japan from the Driver's Seat -- American truck driver in Japan keeps a photo blog. [more inside]
posted by yort at 2:34 PM PST - 13 comments

Urlesque curates the Top 10 WTF Bodybuilding Routines. Because nobody does the robot like a guy coated head to toe in glistening lubricant.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:23 PM PST - 18 comments

What's Folk-Punk? Although celtic-punk groups like the Pogues, Flogging Molly, and the Dropkick Murphys may have been the first bands to combine punk rock with folk music, other groups have been crossing over folk music and punk rock for some time now. [more inside]
posted by dunkadunc at 2:13 PM PST - 54 comments

Researchers working on optofluidic microscopy at the California Institute of Technology have developed a minuscule microscope that works without lenses.... (via) [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 2:04 PM PST - 5 comments

Battlemind: Armor for Your Mind is a U.S. Army website designed to help, in part, families deal with deployment, including a series of cartoons and videos intended for children whose parents may be sent to or be returning from warzones. Part of the Army's Behavioral Health program, these give intriguing insight into military culture. [more inside]
posted by Rumple at 1:28 PM PST - 4 comments

When I stepped out the door of the caucus room, I saw a large crowd—members of the press, photographers, and bystanders. I realized that there was no way to avoid repeating my testimony. I was, I said, “foolish, naïve, prideful, and avaricious,” and added, “I have deceived my friends, and I had millions of them.” Charles Van Doren breaks his silence on the cheating scandal that inspired the movie Quiz Show.
posted by Knappster at 12:22 PM PST - 38 comments

In late 2006, Santhi Soundarajan took the Silver Medal in the Women's 800m at the Asian Games in Qatar. Less than a week later, she was stripped of her medal by the Olympic Council of Asia after a chromosomal test. According to the Times of India, "the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) said the 25-year-old had failed a sex test, implying she had deceived the sporting world by competing as a woman when she was actually a man." The disqualification ended her athletic career, and several months after returning to her rural village in Tamil Nadu, India, she attempted suicide. [more inside]
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:22 AM PST - 25 comments

NewsFilter: The Internet is a series of tubes indictments. Sen. Ted Stevens has been indicted for corruption. [more inside]
posted by bicyclefish at 10:50 AM PST - 61 comments

The Waiter unmasked. After several years of consistently great writing about his experiences as a high-end waiter on his blog Waiter Rant (previously), Steve Dublanica has finally revealed his identity. With the release of his book, Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip- Confessions of a Cynical Waiter, he is trading in his apron for a book tour.
posted by kimdog at 10:06 AM PST - 96 comments

Thomas A. Edison did not simply invent; he created the invention industry. He not only inspired the American Industrial Revolution, he provided the model for modern R&D concepts. Perhaps his greatest success beyond his legacy of innovation and invention is the introduction of team-based research. The Edison Innovation Foundation is using Edison's Invention Factory to educate the next generation of inventors.
posted by netbros at 9:59 AM PST - 23 comments

Take a look at this jetpack Is Adam Savage here?
posted by A189Nut at 9:53 AM PST - 38 comments

Hiram Bullock, original guitarist for Paul Shaffer's "Worlds Most Dangerous Band" died on July 25th. He was a fixture in the early days of David Letterman's show. The cause of death was not disclosed but Bullock had been undergoing treatment for cancer and was known to have had drug problems. Bullock was 52. [more inside]
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:19 AM PST - 24 comments

Coding Horror blogger Jeff Atwood granted $5,000 of his ad revenue to a worthy, open-source .NET project only to find the winner doesn't know what to do with the money. [more inside]
posted by swift at 9:17 AM PST - 23 comments

Write Rhymes : As you write, hold the alt key and click on a word to find a rhyme for it...
posted by blue_beetle at 8:27 AM PST - 39 comments

The sad day has come: Facebook has shut down Scrabulous. Read the complaint here (PDF). Those suffering from withdrawal can head on over to Scrabulous.com. [more inside]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:00 AM PST - 106 comments

The Uysal - Walker Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative is an immense repository of folktales from modern Anatolia. The full list of stories but luckily there's a search function. But that's not all, oh no, there's also a music section, with downloadable mp3s and a whole nother section with more stories and Turkish literature and mp3s. Here's a somewhat random selection of stories to get you started (all links pdf): Nasreddin Hoca's Brilliant Donkey, A Saint Urinates in Public, The Girl Disguised as a Monk and the Padishah's Youngest Son, Behlül Dane Discourses with the Dung Heap and finally, Elia Kazan in Kayseri (yes, that Elia Kazan).
posted by Kattullus at 7:40 AM PST - 10 comments

Who ruined the Hollywood fight scene? With average shot length under six seconds and falling, are fight scenes more exciting than they used to be? Or is Hollywood's love of fast editing cutting us short? [more inside]
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:21 AM PST - 111 comments

So lemony and wonderful. Of course I searched the Metafilter Archives. I wanted to be sure I was not reposting a link. But I did find one reference to moist towelettes from machaus

"Many individuals have asked me in past months, Why moist towelette collecting? Why not stamp collecting, or numismatics? To be different, perhaps? " posted by machaus (12 comments total) back in 2001.

Well -- Machaus -- now you know where you can leave your collection when preparing your will.
posted by RubberHen at 5:59 AM PST - 27 comments

So Open it Hurts. Web 2.0 visionaries Tara Hunt and Chris Messina blogged and twittered about their romance to all of geekdom as if it were one of their utopian open-source projects. Sharing their breakup has been a lot harder. [more inside]
posted by chunking express at 5:06 AM PST - 52 comments

We've discussed what Bush and Batman have in common, but when presented with a list of quotes, can you tell which is by Bush, and which is by Batman (as played by Adam West)? It's Bush or Batman!
posted by bjrn at 4:04 AM PST - 14 comments

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was the most popular console of the 80s but the unstoppable march of time and the introduction of more advanced 16 bit consoles inevitably ensured its demise. But you can't keep a good console down and now it's back, thanks to the work of some dedicated mods out there. But it's not quite how you remembered it. I mean, I don't remember the NES ever coming in the form of a belt, do you? Or a coffee table, for that matter. Those insane NES hackers have even gone and put an NES in an NES cartridge. There's also an NES in an NES controller, an NES in a lightgun, a wooden NES, an NES alarm clock, an NES wallet or finally, an NES guitar. Want to see more? Check this out.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:17 AM PST - 22 comments

"What kind of lawbreaking has happened on President Bush's watch, among his top and mid-level advisers? What hasn't? Who is implicated and who is not? Despite the lack of oral sex with an intern, the past seven years have yielded an embarrassment of riches when it comes to potentially prosecutable crimes. We have tried to sketch out a map of who did what and when, with links to the evidence that is public and notes about what we may learn from investigations that are still pending." Via Slate
posted by infini at 1:53 AM PST - 39 comments

Eighty one years ago to the day, barber, banjoist and balladeer B.F. Shelton travelled from his home in Kentucky to take part in a recording session in Bristol Tennessee. Now referred to as the "Bristol Sessions", these recordings are widely viewed as some of the most important and influential in American music history. The four songs Shelton recorded that day, stark, simple and immensely powerful in their unadorned honesty, can all be heard here. After Bristol, Shelton never recorded again. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:25 AM PST - 16 comments

£17,000 damages for victim of fake Facebook profile. Matthew Firsht found a fake facebook profile created in his name, and he has successfully sued the person who did it. Amol Rajan knows exactly what having your facebook online ID 'stolen' feels like, as do many others. Are your social networking friends always who they say they are?
posted by dabitch at 12:02 AM PST - 31 comments

After 40 years of national broadcasts, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood will be removed from PBS' weekday program service this fall. The current situation is that PBS beams the show to member stations as part of its children's programming block Monday through Friday. Most (63%) stations air it. Starting in the fall, PBS stations won't receive the show daily but rather one episode per week will be sent. This summer, PBS stations that still want to play the the show during the week will have an opportunity to receive a season's worth of episodes to stockpile. But receiving and scheduling those episodes requires effort. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 11:55 PM PST - 33 comments

In Memoriam -- Ed Foster, Infoworld Ed Foster, the Infoworld columnist who often went to bat for consumers screwed by tech companies that misrepresented their products and services, died on Saturday. He was 59. :-(
posted by tcv at 6:36 PM PST - 13 comments

Can you copyright a tattoo? Yes, you can. But there's more to it. The idea raises a lot of questions and concerns—for the artists, the inked-skin owners, and certain parties seeking to represent or showcase the work. Shortly after Marisa Kakoulas wrote The Tattoo Copyright Controversy guest article, featured at BMEZINE.com, she encountered a small legal battle of her own. [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam at 6:26 PM PST - 30 comments

Putting the Warp into Warp Drive.
posted by homunculus at 6:26 PM PST - 60 comments

Legendary post-bop jazz tenor saxophonist, renowned for his speed and tone, Johnny Griffin (wiki) has died at the age of 80 at his home in France, where he had lived for 24 years. Originally from Chicago, at the age of 18, three days after his high school graduation, Mr. Griffin left Chicago to join Lionel Hampton’s big band, where he switched from alto to tenor (see preceding link). He played with, among others, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Clark Terry, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and many more. From the wiki link: his first Blue Note album "Introducing Johnny Griffin" in 1956, [which featured] Wynton Kelly on piano, Curly Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums, brought him critical acclaim...A 1957 Blue Note album "A Blowing Session" featured him with fellow tenor players John Coltrane and Hank Mobley. Here he is playing the Village Vanguard.
posted by ornate insect at 3:35 PM PST - 16 comments

The algae problem was taken care of. But the smog is the worst it's been in several months. All kidding aside, is China the next world superpower? Maybe, maybe not. [more inside]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:30 PM PST - 68 comments

How have you been burned by love?
posted by divabat at 3:25 PM PST - 40 comments

Handbalancing by Russian contortionist Olga Pikhienko. [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:19 PM PST - 16 comments

How can bands claiming to want to make a difference write a song about, say, ending the war and then hold on to it to make a perfectly polished recording of it for their album which will come out in a year...? We don’t have any interest in that. We write songs about things that are happening now, record them, and release them with the hopes that they can be a small part of a big conversation that leads to real progress.
Max and The Marginalized are a band and a blog. Mastermind Max Bernstein writes and records a new song every week (available to download), punk political broadsides aimed at anything and everything wrong with the world today.
posted by saguaro at 12:28 PM PST - 19 comments

Man kills two, injures 7 others, in church shooting. Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church had "just put out a sign this week which says it welcomes gays." Link to Knoxville news. And the updates page. Greg McKendry, a 60 year old foster parent, attempted to subdue the shooter and was killed in the process. Knoxville's police chief says the man accused of a shooting that killed two people at a Tennessee church targeted the congregation because of its liberal social stance. The church sponsors the Spectrum Cafe, a meeting place for GLBT youth. A Facebook page has been created so you can express your condolences.
posted by CitizenD at 11:10 AM PST - 256 comments

Humiliation: Which book are you most embarrassed to admit that you have never read? Several "respectable" authors answer the question at the Ways With Words festival. (single-link Telegraph post)
posted by fiercecupcake at 10:28 AM PST - 256 comments

Cuil is a new search engine developed by former Google employees, and claims to index 3x more pages than Google. CNN Money story has the basics. My attempts were met with timeouts. [more inside]
posted by Ynoxas at 8:24 AM PST - 187 comments

Who are Muslims? Gallup has conducted a poll "in 40 predominantly Muslim nations and among significant Muslim populations in the West. It is the first set of unified and scientifically representative views from 1.3 billion Muslims globally." They'll be parsing and interpreting this data for years, but for the time being, they've offered some of their key results online and in print. See also, the Muslim-West Facts Initiative. (via) [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:12 AM PST - 31 comments

The Victorian Web is your one-stop resource for England in the Victorian era (1837-1901). The site is much too extensive to give but a flavor. It is divided into 20 categories, including Technology, Gender Matters, Economic Contexts, Authors, Political History, Theater and Popular Entertainment, Science and Genre and Technique. Here are a few examples of the articles inside: Inventions in Alice in Wonderland, The Role of the Victorian Army, Earth Yenneps: Victorian Back Slang (and a glossary of same), Algernon Charles Swinburne and the Philosophy of Androgyny, Hermaphrodeity, and Victorian Sexual Mores, Evolution, progress and natural laws and, of course, Queen Victoria.
posted by Kattullus at 7:00 AM PST - 10 comments

On this day in 2002, Canada's Govenor General declared "A Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval," which continues to be observed. In short, it marks the expulsion of the Acadians from what is now Nova Scotia. Their decedents became what are now known as Cajuns. It is still memorialized, both in Louisiana, as well as in Nova Scotia. Longfellow's poem, Evangeline tells this tale. How did I find this out? In the funny pages.
posted by MrGuilt at 6:48 AM PST - 15 comments

Macro Photography on the Cheap (film camera or digital). Reverse Ring tags and a roundup discussion on Flickr. All you need is an SLR body (scratch that: you can even do it with a point and shoot) and reverse ring for your camera mount, and a lens whose filter size matches the reverse ring (doesn't even have to be the same mount as your camera!). Or, make one from a body cap. How/why it works, tips on shooting reverse macro, and even a podcast on the subject. It's even possible to do EXTREME closeups. Come to think of it, why not try this with video? Now, need to get some light on your macro subjects? Make a cheap LED ring light, or go low tech. Make tons of more stuff for your creative photography needs at DIY Photography.
posted by spock at 5:46 AM PST - 11 comments

Saturday is Mead Day, a day to make, drink, and celebrate mead (honey wine). [more inside]
posted by maurice at 3:59 AM PST - 38 comments

Who decides what's cool? And what is the effect that it is having on our society (previously linked to metafilter on multiple occasions). An interview with the author of Birth of The Cool, and articles on how Conglomerates and Countries are trying to increase their "cool" quotient. Finally, a look at how coolness is experienced in different cultures.
posted by hadjiboy at 12:19 AM PST - 72 comments

Imagine if millions of people had seen you naked before you were old enough to say "embarrassing." That's the story of Spencer Elden. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 10:49 PM PST - 51 comments

In the years after leaving MST, Joel Hodgson of Mystery Science Theater, and his "smarter brother" Jim Hodgson, worked on a new movie-repurposing concept for USA Networks. The introduction for the test clip read:
"The Jolly Filter segment is a proof of concept test for a new film process. You will first view 2 minutes of the original film 'Rollercoaster' and then the same 2 minutes utilizing the JollyFilter technique.
"Note: If you find yourself getting bored during the original 'Rollercoaster' footage, don't worry, this is normal."
(SLYT, but an awesome one.) [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 7:17 PM PST - 47 comments

W.
posted by phaedon at 5:58 PM PST - 93 comments

The Greatest Frontmen of Rock
The Greatest Acoustic Guitar Albums
The Greatest Punk Rock Songs
The Greatest Britpop Artists
The Greatest 'Live' Blues Albums
The Top 10 Songs by the Greatest Jazz Artists
The 50 Greatest Classical Tone Poems
The Greatest Glam/Hair Metal Songs
The Greatest Country Love Songs
The Top 100 Songs of 1967
The Greatest Underrated Rock Artists
The Greatest Girl-Group Songs
The Greatest Rap/Hip-Hop Lyricists/Emcees

More: The Music Lists
posted by carsonb at 4:35 PM PST - 83 comments

Have you tried MUni yet? It's the latest rage in adventure sports.
posted by Xurando at 1:45 PM PST - 39 comments

For decades, the LDS church microfilmed old records of genealogical interest and stashed them in the Granite Mountain Record Vault for safekeeping. Copies could be ordered and viewed at local Family History Centers. Now, through massive digitization and volunteer indexing efforts, those records are starting to come online. [more inside]
posted by Knappster at 12:37 PM PST - 35 comments

When is reading reading? Or, rather, when is it good for you? The New York Times looks at how the internet is changing the ways we think and how we learn.
posted by ztdavis at 12:26 PM PST - 65 comments

Noseybonk Returns. This is not horrifying news unless you know who he was. Then it becomes endearingly nightmarish. As with V, the man in the mask is Noseybonk. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 11:59 AM PST - 15 comments

Black and White Graphic Insight : a body of work by collage artist Nubby Twiglet. [via] [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:48 AM PST - 3 comments

Handy, but out of shape? Make your own exercise equipment—mostly out of PVC tubes, steel pipes, webbing, and the occasional mouse pad. Instructions (with lots of pictures) for making chinup/dip/pushup bars, various grips, isokentic devices, isometric devices, isotonic devices, and martial arts equipment from Grunt and Shen's workshop. (Warning: Angelfire hosted site)
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 11:18 AM PST - 12 comments

'Llectuals. The fresh new PBS show about honor students learning love at Heidegger High School.
posted by plexi at 10:17 AM PST - 47 comments

Is Afghanistan a Narco-State? "Drug-related corruption pervades the government in Afghanistan, a former U.S. counternarcotics official says."
posted by homunculus at 9:25 AM PST - 54 comments

NPR's On The Media presents a short set of pieces about comments on news websites and the challenges of "digital democracy," with discussion from Ira Glass about responses to a show about teenage runaways, and New Republic editor and critic Lee Siegel, who posted anonymously to respond insultingly to comments on his own blog. And a Roanoke newspaper editor discusses how one paper sees the integration of comments into online news sites and whether it's a valuable reader service. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 7:58 AM PST - 66 comments

The Clown Walk (also known as the C-Walk) refers to a modern dance style, usually done to hip hop music. It is a variation of the Crip walk, a gang related dance. Clown Walking, however, was created to distance the relationship between the dance style and the Crips gang. PimpMyWalk.com is a site where you can learn how to C-Walk. (language and lyrics NSFW). Step-by-step video instructions teach you how to do the V, the shuffle, and when you're really gangsta, the wiggle walk. More than a dozen tutorial videos plus expert samples.
posted by netbros at 6:34 AM PST - 43 comments

Israeli paper publishes Obama's stolen Western Wall prayer New York, July 26 : Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama wrote a prayer in Jerusalem this week - and left it at Judaism's holiest of sites, the Western Wall. As Barack placed his prayer in the cracks of the Western Wall, someone came from behind and stole it. That pilfered prayer has now been published in an Israeli newspaper, exposing to the world a personal plea for God to help him "guard against pride and despair."
posted by Postroad at 5:13 AM PST - 237 comments

Painting Lance Armstrong with a tricycle. (pretty self explanatory) [more inside]
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:24 AM PST - 22 comments

And Adam Knew Eve: A Dictionary of Sex in the Bible. It's Sunday, an ideal day for increasing one's knowledge.
posted by Kattullus at 4:07 AM PST - 7 comments

These Beatles clips from a 1965 NME show are straight off the mixing desk, so the voices are way up front. Man, those vocals are so loud you can hardly hear Ringo! But let's back it up just a year, to Holland in 1964, and catch one of the rare performances without Ringo. Aside from his brief stint as a Beatle, session drummer Jimmy Nicol also played with zany Swedish instrumental surf rock band The Spotnicks. So, there you have it: Jimmy Nicol, a lucky fella who got to play with two of the greatest bands in the world! [NOTE: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:56 AM PST - 22 comments

Very nice High definition video from Phillip Bloom music is "28 Ghosts IV" by Nine Inch Nails. Deer Vegas music is Deer Stop" by Goldfrapp [more inside]
posted by hortense at 11:52 PM PST - 18 comments

Remember Cy? Well, meet the world's first pigmonk. Or would that be monklet? [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 10:16 PM PST - 40 comments

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice surprised New Zealand during her visit by calling us allies, despite our long history of disagreement over certain issues. The Auckland Student Association's shameless plug for self promotion has prompted a response.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 7:58 PM PST - 51 comments

The gyrojet pistol (video) - a handgun firing 13mm rocket ammunition, was an attempt to revolutionise gun design in the 1960s. Around a thousand were produced, and some may have seen use in Vietnam. Rifle and carbine versions were also produced. Design problems meant that it never seriously competed conventional firearms, but there is a modern attempt to revive the concept.
posted by Artw at 3:14 PM PST - 37 comments

Javier Grillo-Marxuach's PoMo spy-fi tv show, "The Middleman" (based on his eponymous comic book series) is in trouble -- ABC Family launched the show in late June with little fanfare in the 8 p.m. timeslot. After a strong start, ABC Family grew a little anxious about the show's PG-13 content and moved the show to 10 p.m. killing their under-18 audience share, if ever there was one. [more inside]
posted by vhsiv at 2:55 PM PST - 34 comments

Wrong side of the art. This blog was originally made as an easy access page to view/manage my collection of movie posters specializing in cult/horror/exploitation/B/sci-fi and basically any other genre to which one may refer as 'shit'. Don't forget the blaxploitation, naziploitation, nunsploitation, and bruceleeploitation, and watch out out if you're at work: some B-movies aren't for kids.
posted by gerryblog at 2:40 PM PST - 24 comments

As the Tour de France concludes, let's spend a moment commemorating the derrière garde of world-class cycling, those bad enough to come in last but never bad enough to fail, les Lanternes Rouge. If Wim Vansevenant can retain his tenacious hold on 145th place in Sunday's stage he will be the worst cyclist to complete the Tour de France for three consecutive years and set a Tour record. You can, indeed, win by losing. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 1:32 PM PST - 52 comments

John Henry Wilbrandt Stuckenberg emigrated from Germany to the United States, where he was eventually a Chaplain in the American Civil War. He also really liked maps; in the course of traveling over his lifetime, he collected hundreds of maps, some dating back to the 16th century. [Most maps in Latin]
posted by Rykey at 1:15 PM PST - 5 comments

Have the Eurosceptics won? Despite the referendum in Ireland being badly lost, a rabidly nationalist media, and a tottering Labour government likely to give way to the most Eurosceptic government ever, pulling Britain out of the EU remains an obsession for a few rather than a concern for many. Even the Eurosceptic hardcore is fretting that once in power, David Cameron will have to cosy up to Brussels.
posted by athenian at 1:10 PM PST - 32 comments

Should CEO's have to disclose health conditions to the public? The question matters if the person being referred to is Steve Jobs, whose health is under constant scrutiny. Does it matter that the person asking the question is one of Mr. Jobs' biggest critics?
posted by Xurando at 12:29 PM PST - 25 comments

Two cities in two days. Multiple injuries and several fatalities. The BJP has of course come out strong against the [ruling] Congress party for not trying to do enough to stop the menace of "terrorism" in the country, after having lost its fight to overthrow the government. Now, it is up to the Prime Minister to pick up the pieces and move on. [more inside]
posted by hadjiboy at 11:20 AM PST - 11 comments

Japanese-style popping is dope - check out u-min and dancers on the Polysics I My Me Mine. The girl, Strong Machine 2, was only 11 years old at filming. And let's not forget the classic display of popping in Late at Night. But beyond these dancers who've achieved some commercial prominence, check out a few fun and stylized Japanese popping clips from lesser known but great dancers. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 10:51 AM PST - 29 comments

Looking for the graphic "The Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music" I remembered from Tufte, I found HistoryShots. [previous mention]
posted by cgc373 at 10:41 AM PST - 16 comments

Harp And Rythmn Train Time Soundscape + The Mermaids Return ...v "What Conrad Praetzel and Robert Powell have done (again), no one has done."
posted by vronsky at 9:45 PM PST - 9 comments

Brian D. Collier is attempting to teach the starlings to say the name "Schieffelin." [more inside]
posted by Knappster at 9:38 PM PST - 19 comments

Technical animations are sometimes dull, with no soundtrack and limited change in viewer perspective. The M1911 Animated Assembly Video Remix is much better. [more inside]
posted by Tube at 9:02 PM PST - 31 comments

Got some time to kill? Well then, maybe you should start exploring the exciting world of papercraft! To get you started, here's a link to 100 free paper models and toys. Once you're done there, you might want to start checking out card modeling, build some skyscraper models, animals and motorcycles and when you get really good, faces of real people such as these. There's even some creative paper modeling websites out there for the kids and people who like Pokemon and Nintendo. And if all those links still aren't enough to satiate your new found lust for papercraft, check out this papercraft search engine for even more designs.
posted by Effigy2000 at 6:16 PM PST - 12 comments

The first legally transgendered man to become pregnant has given birth. Thomas Beatie and his wife Nancy have welcomed a daughter into the world. [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:31 PM PST - 147 comments

Coal. Cheap, Abundant, Clean.
posted by brownpau at 3:51 PM PST - 43 comments

Police set up a sting in a park and men are arrested for lewd behavior. The mens behavior is illegal but should their lives be ruined? He says he was told to plead guilty and did so to avoid a harsher punishment that would have come had Giles pled innocent and then been found guilty. Afterward, his employer fired him. "When I lost my job over it my wife was so upset and distraught and distressed that she had a major heart attack," said Giles, whose wife died shortly after ABC News interviewed him. John Stossel does his report.
posted by halekon at 3:11 PM PST - 117 comments

"A friend confessed to me that she didn't need to build credit. If the need for a loan ever arises, she told me, she can go to her parents or—as she secretly hopes—a husband who will take care of it."
A generation of twenty-somethings ponder when, or if, they will begin their financial independence from their parents.
posted by plexi at 3:08 PM PST - 84 comments

A Place for Science. Where I do Science. Labs at Night. [Via grinding.be]
posted by homunculus at 2:50 PM PST - 21 comments

Cyber Clean is a sort of slime that will clean your dirty keyboard.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:25 PM PST - 37 comments

Hats made of meat. From the canadian, the brisket yarmulke, to the porkpipe, come inside and cherish the present of meat hats. [warning: frametastic, 1995 design, and via [31d1]]
posted by Stynxno at 12:58 PM PST - 40 comments

Mazes and Monsters? Dungeons and Dragons? Faugh! When the Earth's very history is at stake, it's time for Tomes and Talismans! Learn the Dewey Decimal System and other library skills with Ms. Bookhart, a librarian cryogenically preserved from the 1980's and revived by The Users to save the books of Future Earth from technology-destroying race of alien beings, The Wipers. 260 of the geekiest minutes ever committed to video.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:34 PM PST - 15 comments

"Looking for all the world like an engine abandoned in the Amazon jungle, M2 class 4-8-0 number 1118 lies forlorn and forgotten at the Virginia Scrap Iron and Metal yard in Roanoke, VA." The Lost Engines of Roanoke website chronicles the history of four steam locomotives that were sold in the 50's to a scrapyard in Roanoke, Virginia. There are plenty of photos of the engines and other train equipment and information on two other lost engines. The news section has been busy of late since one of the engines has been sold to a railroad themed restaurant in Bellville, Ohio. The move was photodocumented.
posted by Kattullus at 12:18 PM PST - 10 comments

"I think we should get paid for it, don't you, Stan?" "I'll do what I usually do: he'll do all the work and I'll take all the credit." Stan Lee, comics legend, and Grant Morrison, fan favourite writer, sparring with each other.
posted by Artw at 11:44 AM PST - 52 comments

Medpedia is coming. "In association with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other leading global health organizations, the Medpedia community seeks to create the most comprehensive and collaborative medical resource in the world." Apply to contribute content. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 11:03 AM PST - 23 comments

Randy Pausch, who became famous for his "last lecture" after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, has died at 47. (previously) The last lecture video went viral in late 2007. Pausch became a minor celebrity and made a commencement address at Carnegie Mellon which also gained media attention. Homepage (currently being overwhelmed) and Wikipedia.
posted by brassafrax at 10:48 AM PST - 75 comments

Second Sun? Not in my solar backyard! The so far successful Cassini-Huygens Mission has been extended by two years, but we can rest easy knowing that if NASA ever scraps the probe by sending it into Saturn's heart, the end result will not be a redundant Sun. After all, Galileo took a programmed header into Jupiter back in September 2003 and we're all still alive, right? But for some, that's not enough to disprove the biggest conspiracy of all time: Project Lucifer STARCHILD!!! [Cue Soundtrack Music] [more inside]
posted by grabbingsand at 10:37 AM PST - 39 comments

Fantasy cartography collects scans of maps and charts from video games, comics, and novels. Take a look at the doll-house like maps of the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building from various comics (a Trophy Room and a "TV Sending Room"!), the Legend of Zelda's Hyrule, Asimov's Foundation galaxy, lots of Lovecraft locations, the lands of the Princess Bride, the Discworld, and lots of Star Trek maps and ship schematics. Also, some thoughts on how "serious fiction" writers often start with maps, from Joyce's use of the ordinance maps of Dublin to Pychon's use of aerial photographs. More fantasy maps (many in German) are available from the Fantasy Atlas. Also, from my previous post on the subject of maps of fantasy worlds, see the extensive listings in the Dictionary of Imaginary Places.
posted by blahblahblah at 10:13 AM PST - 20 comments

Pssssst. Hey you. Yeah... you. Feel like some damn good hot coffee? Of course you do. Well then... here ya go.
posted by miss lynnster at 10:09 AM PST - 36 comments

Dr. Kush: The New Yorker takes a detailed look at California's medicinal marijuana dispensary industry.
posted by porn in the woods at 10:04 AM PST - 27 comments

The Barbapapa family are shapeshifters. (In French, Barbapapa's name loosely translates to "Cotton Candy.") Barbapapa was lonely; thus he went on an adventure to find others of his species, only to find that his Barbamama had been laying dormant in the same garden where he'd been first discovered! He and Barbamama now have seven brightly-colored children. Here are all of their names. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 9:39 AM PST - 37 comments

Superlambananas are creatures about the size of a cow which have recently been herded through Liverpool and beyond, and been photographed all over the place. One particularly animated beast has recently escaped and its owners are looking for information to aid its re-capture, though its larger ancestor is still in place (for now).
posted by feelinglistless at 8:50 AM PST - 40 comments

A jury in Georgia this week awarded a woman $150,000 after she sued her fiancé for breaking off their engagement three days before the wedding....Adding insult to injury, the groom-to-be, Wayne Gibbs, informed his intended, RoseMary Shell, of his decision by leaving her a note in the bathroom." Shell sued for breach of contract ..."[She] said she has suffered emotionally since their breakup." "Gibbs testified that he paid $30,000 of Shell's debt while they were engaged" and "argues he got cold feet after he found out Shell hid [other] debts from him." [video | 0:50] She refutes Gibbs's claim that she was swimming in debt. [video | 03:33]. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 8:23 AM PST - 72 comments

What's tougher to get than a same-sex marriage? A same-sex divorce. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:11 AM PST - 32 comments

Great Opening Sentences From Science Fiction from io9.com.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:47 AM PST - 105 comments

Before the year is out it's worth giving a belated Metafilter sendoff to Thomas Scot Halpin, who died in February, his place in history secure as one of the great substitutes of all time, alongside Earl Morrall, Mr. Bergstrom, and tofu. [more inside]
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 7:39 AM PST - 8 comments

Jamie Hewlett of Tank Girl and Gorrilaz fame has created the animated film that will be used to introduce the BBC's coverage of the summer Olympics with music by his fellow Gorrlaz compatriot, Damon Albarn, inspired by Monkey, the cult classic television program. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:17 AM PST - 21 comments

What Bush and Batman have in common. "A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."
posted by you just lost the game at 6:41 AM PST - 79 comments

Couture by Gaahl (yt, nsfw)
posted by geos at 6:36 AM PST - 27 comments

Green Jellÿ (pronounced Green Jellö) is a Grammy-nominated (Best Music Video, Long Form), Top 40-charting metal band that nonetheless purports to be the world's worst band, choosing to "disguise their lack of ability with stupid props." [more inside]
posted by LSK at 5:52 AM PST - 26 comments

How do things look to colorblind people? Colour Lovers (Prev: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - all more useful to those who aren't colorblind) offers some popular websites and iconic art, As Seen By The Color Blind. Luckily humans are smart and have created technology like the Color Blind Web Page Filter. Prev. Wiki.
posted by allkindsoftime at 5:11 AM PST - 35 comments

15 awful mistakes made by designers in the music and apparel industries - such as not charging enough, ignoring typography, and unprofessional behaviour.
posted by divabat at 4:23 AM PST - 24 comments

Who is this Belgian man "fotoopa"? A nerd's nerd (and I say that with extreme admiration). Photopainting, Macro photography, 2004: Let's start with the simple stuff, moths (mostly at rest). Now, can you think of anything more difficult to photograph than insects in flight? 2005, 2006 (the 2006 equipment), 2008 (2008 equipment & more equipment). Images of the man working with the equipment. His Flickr photostream and new YouTube channel bears watching. (Previously)
posted by spock at 11:18 PM PST - 13 comments

Tarantino's Mind.
posted by phaedon at 10:58 PM PST - 25 comments

No gender differences found in math performance. None. Not on average, at least in countries where the sexes are treated equally. And no, not at the highest, outlier levels of mathematical ability, either, despite what some believe. And not in number of undergrad math degrees earned. And not in terms of complex problem solving ability. Just plain not.
posted by kyrademon at 10:42 PM PST - 103 comments

Criminal Searches - Making you feel safer or increasing your fear? [more inside]
posted by tellurian at 10:39 PM PST - 44 comments

Natalie Portman releases the fire of pain inside her body and immolates herself. Neat! (YT)
posted by badego at 9:12 PM PST - 99 comments

Brewster Khale over at Internet Archive just announced they are working with NASA to make available the most comprehensive compilation ever of NASA's vast collection of photographs, historic film and video at nasaimages.org. It combines for the first time 21 major NASA imagery collections into a single, searchable online resource.
posted by stbalbach at 6:58 PM PST - 19 comments

Microsoft, browbeaten by criticism over Windows Vista, demoed a new operating system code-named Project Mojave to a group of Windows XP users. An overwhelming majority of the XP users liked what they saw. It was then that Microsoft told them they were drinking Folgers Crystals, er, using Windows Vista. [more inside]
posted by dw at 4:48 PM PST - 162 comments

Songs we wish were ours l 2 l 3 l 5 l bootleg Great idea, no? I thought the series was over but it looks like they kept it going.
posted by danep at 4:24 PM PST - 29 comments

The following is a list of over 3600 titles recorded from my collection of 78 rpm records....Right now, there are over 2,450 titles on this page linked to mp3's....I have about 2500 more records to record, so I'll be adding more titles as time permits over the next hundred years or so....I loaded a searchable ACCESS database for this list HERE. [.mdb] I don't know if it will work for everyone. Good luck! [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 4:16 PM PST - 84 comments

Ren + Stimpy Production Music: 109 Instrumental Tracks!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:31 PM PST - 38 comments

On a sunny May morning, six plainclothes police officers, two uniformed policemen and a trio of functionaries from the state prosecutor's office closed in on a small apartment in Amsterdam. Their quarry: a skinny Dutch cartoonist with a rude sense of humor. Informed that he was suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities, the Dutchman surrendered without a struggle.

"I never expected the Spanish Inquisition," recalls Gregorius Nekschot, the cartoonist.
posted by plexi at 12:31 PM PST - 110 comments

Mundo Maya Online is chockfull of illustrated articles about various aspects of Mayan history and culture. Learn about the Mayan calendar, read Mayan legends, explore Mayan history, archaeology and the natural environment they thrived in. Mundo Maya also has articles about the daily life of the modern Mayans and the handicrafts they make.
posted by Kattullus at 12:14 PM PST - 9 comments

Botox for your bridal party. (NYT) [more inside]
posted by NikitaNikita at 11:52 AM PST - 73 comments

Dog Years. A brief, but touching short. Official site here.
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:37 AM PST - 11 comments

CounterfeitChic.com's latest roundup of world news stories on knockoffs. Via.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:33 AM PST - 11 comments

This week in mathematical physics, John Baez looks at the amazing tile patterns in the Alhambra in Granada, dividing the patterns into their characteristic Wallpaper Groups based on their symmetries. And if these patterns aren't good enough for you, try drawing your own with the Escher Web Sketch tool. [more inside]
posted by kiltedtaco at 8:45 AM PST - 20 comments

New Zealand judge makes Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii a ward of the court. [more inside]
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:41 AM PST - 165 comments

Sushi Go Round - a sushi serving game.
posted by nthdegx at 8:33 AM PST - 14 comments

Giles Coren is restaurant critic at the Times (of London). Last week he wrote a very angry letter to the subeditors complaining that they were "tinkering with his copy". The subs were guilty of deleting a single indefinite article. [more inside]
posted by MrMerlot at 4:15 AM PST - 128 comments

Days with my Father
posted by miss lynnster at 12:58 AM PST - 48 comments

You are beautiful.
posted by loquacious at 11:46 PM PST - 72 comments

A linguist and a sociologist at Hebrew Union College have teamed up to track the inroads made into American English by words and idioms from traditionally Jewish languages, including Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), and Hebrew. They've created an online survey and are looking for people from all religious and ethnic backgrounds to answer a few questions about their word choices, phrasing, and pronunciation. They're also trying to determine whether certain linguistic quirks usually attributed to Yiddish's influence are actually carried over from Jewish ancestors' speech patterns and accents, or whether they're merely an artifact from growing up in or near New York City. [via]
posted by Asparagirl at 8:21 PM PST - 63 comments

'We done heard your voice, we saw your marches, we don't want to hear that any more.' Music artist Nas directs pointed criticism toward civil rights stalwart Jesse Jackson and his generation. But he's not alone. Kevin Powell is running for congress and shares the sentiment. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 8:11 PM PST - 86 comments

Why do Asian-American students achieve higher grades than Latino-American students? Despite the fact that the students come from the same socioeconomic background (median annual household incomes below $50,000 in working-class Los Angeles neighborhoods), Asian-American students disproportionately get better grades, attend AP courses, and go to college than their Latino-American counterparts. Students at Lincoln High School sit down for a frank discussion of why that is.
posted by jabberjaw at 5:58 PM PST - 229 comments

Webcomic artist D.J. Coffman offers to draw anything you want for $2 apiece.
posted by divabat at 5:45 PM PST - 42 comments

Artweaver is a freeware "natural media" paint program, of the same type as Corel Painter. Natural media means it uses tools that are intended to simulate actual art tools, like oils, pastels, pencils and so forth. It's not as feature-rich as Painter, but it's getting better. [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 4:17 PM PST - 22 comments

Meet Lonesome George. George is the last known remaining Pinta Island Tortoise. That's pretty lonely. He's also, according to some, the most famous reptile in the world. via. But there's good news: George might be a dad!
posted by allkindsoftime at 1:50 PM PST - 25 comments

Cops on Segways From Kevin Kelly. Criminals beware!
posted by Faze at 1:19 PM PST - 100 comments

He's 25, She's 84. It is Harold & Maude, The Musical? (slyt, set to Coldplay)
posted by iamkimiam at 1:15 PM PST - 64 comments

Is Congress gearing up to hold a new American Truth Commission? What new horrors would they find if they did? The last time we tried this we uncovered MK/ULTRA, plots to kill Castro & Project SHAMROCK. One of the most significant outcomes was a little thing called FISA. After 30 years it may finally be time to wash out our national dirty laundry again.
posted by scalefree at 1:12 PM PST - 45 comments

The Devastation of Iraq's Past. "Since the looting of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad in April 2003, the international press has accorded considerable space to the country's imperiled ancient heritage. Much of this coverage, however, has been devoted to the museum, the impressive campaign to recover its stolen works, and the continued struggle to reopen its galleries. Only occasional, anecdotal reports—mostly from the first year of the conflict—have borne witness to large-scale plunder of archaeological sites, to which the damage is irreversible."
posted by homunculus at 1:10 PM PST - 8 comments

We all nurse private ambitions. Essam Ahmed Eid, a 53-year-old Egyptian man living in Vegas and dealing poker at the Bellagio, dreamed of becoming a hit man. He longed to take off the casino clown suit, the Nehru shirt and simpering smile — and replace them with a gun and a grimace. So Eid did what any enterprising 21st century contract killer would: He created a Web site — www.hitmanforhire.net — and waited for the clients to come.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:38 PM PST - 28 comments

Knol, Google's single-author answer to Wikipedia, has gone live. Or at least beta. Early beta. While there is a great Knol (defined by Google as "a unit of knowledge") on unclogging a toilet, it still has a way to go, as can be seen by contrasting Wikipedia on Knol and Knol on Wikipedia.
posted by blahblahblah at 12:38 PM PST - 38 comments

EO Wilson believes in Darwinism group selection: "evolution as a multi-level process¹ that can evolve adaptations above the level of individual organisms."
posted by kliuless at 12:33 PM PST - 28 comments

Don't Cry for Me, I'm Already Dead. A comic about brotherly love, loss and quoting the Simpsons. A brilliant short comic by Rebecca Sugar, creator of the excellent Pug Davis. Stupid sexy Flanders.
posted by clockworkjoe at 11:40 AM PST - 87 comments

"I haven’t figured out whether cracking open your computer, attaching it to an Underwood typewriter, then inserting it into a combination Victorian mantel clock/desk and calling it “The Nagy Magical-Movable-Type Pixello-Dynamotronic Computational Engine” is some sort of daft wit or evidence of a pedantry bordering on the pathological. " - Steampunk'd, Or Humbug by Design, design writer Randy Nakamura takes a look at the Steampunk phenomenon.
posted by Artw at 11:09 AM PST - 112 comments

It's almost time again for everyone's favorite WTF Olympic Sport -- Modern Pentathlon. But as the Games approach, the sport is rocked by scandals -- faked scores, questionable competitions, international disputes. Meanwhile, the French MP team, not content to merely swimshootfenceriderun, add singing to their skill set with this catchy tune "T'as les jambes et t'as la tête".
posted by grounded at 9:52 AM PST - 50 comments

The UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History has an extensive, searchable online collection. It focuse on material art and household items and has objects from all over the world. The website can be browsed either by geographic orgin: Africa, Asia, North and Central America, Pacific, South America, or through its two exhibits, Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives and Fowler in Focus. Some of my favorite objects (but really, everything is entrancing) are The Blind Scholar (a Taiwanese handpuppet), Chikunga (a Zambian mask) and a stirrup spout bottle which looks like a puma eating a piglet (Peruvian). All items have accompanying descriptions and some have short texts or audioguides with further information.
posted by Kattullus at 9:36 AM PST - 3 comments

Ever heard a chitravina? It's a 21-stringed musical instrument from India, similar in appearance to the more widely-known veena, but with a sonic character all its own, due in large part to the fact that it's fretless, and it's played with a slide. Here's an NPR feature on the instrument's prime exponent, N. Ravikiran. [NOTE: embedded audio on that last link] [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:21 AM PST - 9 comments

The Comic Bardo Thodol, or: Everything you ever wanted to know about the Tibetan Book of the Dead but were afraid to not read in a streamlined comic context. [via mefi projects]
posted by cortex at 6:34 AM PST - 22 comments

Google is testing a Digg-like social interface to Google Search results, Techcrunch has an early preview video. This is bad news for Jimy Wales's Wikia since this is what they have been trying to build. Perhaps related it looks like Google is buying Digg.
posted by stbalbach at 6:31 AM PST - 59 comments

Lionel Richiie's voice has a makeover in this creepy audio dub of the video to Hello. If you get bored half way skip to the Sinister/ridiculous drama at the end.
posted by Arnolfini at 2:29 AM PST - 33 comments

Butch Cassidy wanted to call his gang The Train Robber's Syndicate, but the name never stuck. The gang's core members - most notable among them The Sundance Kid - and a revolving cast of supporting outlaws were most commonly called The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and The Wild Bunch, and their goal was to be the most successful train robbers in history. The Butch and Sundance site is a comprehensive collection of "the hundreds, if not thousands, of theories, legends and folk tales" surrounding the gang, including an exhaustive list of biographies of the members, their associates, the lawmen who pursued them and the women who loved them, an archive of transcribed news articles dating from the 1880s (including a letter to the editor from Sundance himself), a picture gallery and more. [more inside]
posted by amyms at 11:39 PM PST - 26 comments

In January of 2004, Disney shut down their Florida animation studio, part of their decision to move away from 2D, or cell-shaded, animation for good. Two years later, as part of the new deal with Pixar, John Lasseter and Ed Catmull were brought in as heads of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, and promptly declared that 2-D Animation would thrive again on their watch. For their first new project, the team wanted to show support for the still-struggling New Orleans, and simultaneously introduce Disney's first Black Princess in "The Frog Princess" (Or The Princess and the Frog, as it is now known), a fairy tale set in 1920's Jazz-era Louisiana, with Randy Newman providing a period-specific score. Much response to the project has been quite positive, but as with all things, the devil is in the details.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:46 PM PST - 110 comments

For years, Wired magazine has tapped a bevy of designers and artists in the tech field to craft detailed visions of futuristic objects for a monthly showcase at the close of each issue. Now, after hinting as much in the July edition, it is clear that that the tradition of FOUND has been brought to an end. What better way to say goodbye to this whimsical feature than by taking a look back at the full archived run of the series? [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 5:42 PM PST - 29 comments

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) is probably best known as one of the principal architects of the 20th century children’s fairy tale, with such sly, savage and addictive masterpieces as The Enormous Crocodile, The Witches, The BFG, and personal favourite The Twits. [more inside]
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:36 PM PST - 70 comments

Fivedollarcomparison.org is a collaborative photo project designed by a number of Nokia researchers to understand the buying power of 5 dollars across the world. The goal of this project is vague: to understand how culture, context and communication might change the world. Post your own example here. Sample photo.
posted by |n$eCur3 at 5:07 PM PST - 19 comments

The Historic American Sheet Music archive at the Duke University Library has over 3000 pieces published in the United States available online, from the 1850s up to 1920. Composers represented include well-known names such as Scott Joplin, Irving Berlin, and John Philip Sousa. All the music is now in the public domain, and may be printed and performed freely. [Note: Language or stereotypes may occasionally be NSFW.]
posted by Upton O'Good at 4:59 PM PST - 7 comments

Cake Wrecks. "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong." [via]
posted by kolophon at 4:57 PM PST - 69 comments

Continuing the miniaturization of earlier designs, researchers at the Technical University of Delft have created a very tiny ornithopter which carries a one half gram video camera. The DelFly micro. [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 2:37 PM PST - 17 comments

Now Viacom will STEAL your movie Viacom has claimed ownership of an independent filmmaker's film and now she has to fight them for it. They allow her to leave it on YouTube but they claim ownership and they get to collect data on who's watching.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:30 PM PST - 45 comments

The future of classical music lies in China. Chinese enthusiasm for Western classical music is deep, says New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, but traditional Chinese music is older and more classical than anything in the West.
posted by plexi at 2:14 PM PST - 30 comments

What's the second most popular sport in the world after soccer? Badminton. (According to some sources - volleyball and cricket are also contenders.) When played competitively, badminton looks more like this and less like this. The Chinese are poised to win Gold in Beijing, while the American team, featuring star player Howard Bach gets no love.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:16 PM PST - 31 comments

The Mercury Prize shortlist for 2008 is: Adele - 19 | British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music? | Burial - Untrue | Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid | Estelle - Shine | Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim | Neon Neon - Stainless Style | Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep in the North Sea | Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns | Radiohead - In Rainbows | Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand | The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin at 12:46 PM PST - 45 comments

Emmy Award-winning actress Estelle Getty has died. [more inside]
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 12:19 PM PST - 88 comments

In the summer of 1897, the Devil transported a minor Decadent poet named Enoch Soames one hundred years into the future to see what posterity would make of his work. The only witness to the affair was the parodist Max Beerbohm, whose account of Soames and his journey ensured that at 2:10 P.M. on June 7, 1997, some dozen pilgrims waited in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum to see the poet appear...
posted by Iridic at 10:58 AM PST - 26 comments

See Nemo fetch. Want to train your comet to join the Comets? Your Shubunkin to do some dunkin'?

Goldfish training.

A school of fish or a school for fish? You be the judge.
posted by OhPuhLeez at 10:36 AM PST - 10 comments

Font Conference. A video from CollegeHumor which made me laugh more than a video from CollegeHumor really should.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:19 AM PST - 58 comments

Reaching: Joshua Heineman animates old photos from the NY Public Library collections. [more inside]
posted by mattbucher at 9:30 AM PST - 33 comments

The Coffee Junkie’s Guide to Caffeine Addiction. Caffeine's a hell of a drug. In fact, it's the world's most popular psychoactive drug. And more and more of us are getting hooked on the stuff. [more inside]
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:21 AM PST - 138 comments

Mygazines is for sharing magazines online.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:19 AM PST - 47 comments

Art Deco was the dominant style of the interwar era, coming out of Paris in the 1920's and ruling the roost until World War II broke out. Randy Juster's Decopix - The Art Deco Resource has enough pictures of Art Deco architecture to send one hurtling into The Gernsback Continuum. If that's not enough then there's always the 11000+ images of the Flickr Art Deco Pool. But Art Deco wasn't just about architecture. On the Victoria and Albert Musem's Art Deco site one can view Art Deco objects in great detail, rotating them and listening to audio lectures on each object. But before Art Deco was a design aesthetic it was an art-style. Illustrations for the Art Deco Book in France has more than 170 images from the proponents of that then-new style (some images are not safe for work, especially in the George Barbier section).
posted by Kattullus at 6:59 AM PST - 23 comments

The latest issue of Yellowstone Science quarterly is devoted to 5 articles chronicling the history of the management of grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, from the 1950s era "garbage dump bears," to listing as an endangered species, to de-listing as endangered, to current management. Many excellent photos, maps, charts and graphs make this a great resource for people interested in the fate of grizzlies in the lower 48 states. Part 1 of the issue. Part 2. [links to PDF files] (via)
posted by paulsc at 6:33 AM PST - 5 comments

Baby's first internet comes amidst other, less illustrated, concerns about the all-consuming 'blogosphere' and increasingly online life. The problems, it seems, are somewhat novel and (one assumes) almost endless.
posted by oxford blue at 6:26 AM PST - 30 comments

Baby Animal Alphabet [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 10:55 PM PST - 49 comments

Home Movies. A 1975 documentary by a young academic folklorist, exploring what it was that people were doing when they made home movies: remembering selectively, creating a "golden age." [more inside]
posted by Miko at 8:52 PM PST - 20 comments

Correlative Analytics -- or as O'Reilly might term the Social Graph -- sort of mirrors the debate on 'brute force' algorithmic proofs (that are "true for no reason," cf.) in which "computers can extract patterns in this ocean of data that no human could ever possibly detect. These patterns are correlations. They may or may not be causative, but we can learn new things. Therefore they accomplish what science does, although not in the traditional manner... In this part of science, we may get answers that work, but which we don't understand. Is this partial understanding? Or a different kind of understanding?" Of course, say some in the scientific community: hogwash; it's just a fabrication of scientifically/statistically illiterate pundits, like whilst new techniques in data analysis are being developed to help keep ahead of the deluge...
posted by kliuless at 5:58 PM PST - 40 comments

Active in the years before padded jungle gyms (and class action lawsuits), Action Park was a sometimes bloody rite of passage for many New Jersey kids. Infamous for its gravity-and-friction-defying looping waterslide and beer gardens, it eventually produced so many injuries that the park bought the surrounding city extra ambulances to cope. It still is alive in many New Jersey hearts today.<-video. [more inside]
posted by concreteforest at 5:09 PM PST - 69 comments

The NFB beta is worth exploring... You'll find some lovely old chestnuts like Mindscape, or The Romance of Transportation in Canada...the quality is generally good enough to watch in full screen mode if you choose a higher streaming speed under "options".
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:38 PM PST - 17 comments

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 came out in 2004, and was received with mixed reviews. Four years later, hobbyists of the game continue to take it to a whole other level. You may have already seen links to the creative ways to devastate in RCT3. A whole other group of fans, however, have gone on to create highly detailed parks and ride recreations. They use customized textures and mods to create massive architectural works that require hundreds--sometimes over thousands--of hours of work. [more inside]
posted by The ____ of Justice at 3:29 PM PST - 40 comments

Newsfilter: Radovan Karadžić arrested today in Serbia. Trial to follow. Will Srebrenica and Vukovar finally see justice? Or will another suicide intervene?
posted by imperium at 2:52 PM PST - 72 comments

Slides used to be dangerous..... After climbing up those sandy, metal crosstrax steps you got to the top and stared down at that steep ride below. The slide was burning hot to the touch, a stovetop set to high all day under the summer sun, just waiting to greet the underside of your legs with first-degree burns as you enjoyed the ride
posted by bluesky43 at 1:09 PM PST - 168 comments

Kristin's List. There are plenty of events guides in Los Angeles, but none has as personal a voice, as finely honed an aesthetic (the Neutra font is an inspired touch) or as discerning an eye as Kristin's. Her weekly emails and web listings are one woman's recommended sampling of the most interesting music, film, architecture, food, fashion, literary and unquantifiable events across the megalopolis. And so far, it's completely ad-free.
posted by Scram at 1:07 PM PST - 30 comments

Emirates Palace, a seven-star Hotel in Abu-Dhabi, is offering up the world's most expensive vacation.
posted by gman at 1:07 PM PST - 73 comments

Burton Holmes, Extraordinary Traveler. Burton Holmes didn't invent travel stories, slide shows, moving pictures or cross-country lectures, but he put them all together and created the travelogue (a term coined by his manager) as performance art. The site is full of information, pictures and additional links (including companion pages about the Trans-Siberian Railroad) chronicling Holmes' life and legacy.
posted by amyms at 11:30 AM PST - 8 comments

Tunnel boring machines, underground nuclear tests, and all manner of things below the surface.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:08 AM PST - 25 comments

Men in tights at the German Hosiery Museum [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 9:50 AM PST - 20 comments

A tasty chocolate cake you can make from scratch in five minutes. In the microwave. In a mug. Other 5-minute variations include peanut butter chocolate cake (picture), jello cake (picture), and spice cake
posted by blahblahblah at 9:15 AM PST - 78 comments

Jay-Z wanted the guitar to look like a big, goofy prop (in Gallagher's formulation, after all, guitars aren't instruments so much as membership cards); he wanted to mistreat the melody, not coddle it; and he couldn't be bothered to remember lyrics that, when you think about it, sound sort of flubbed to begin with. By butchering the cover, Jay-Z weaponized it.
posted by geoff. at 8:03 AM PST - 121 comments

For the first time in the Indian state of Maharashtra, life sentences were meted out based on the findings of Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature(BEOS) profiling. [more inside]
posted by Gyan at 6:42 AM PST - 53 comments

The Muppets have their own YouTube channels! Enjoy a little classical music with Beaker or Gonzo, opera with the Swedish Chef, get patriotic with Sam the Eagle, or just leave commentary with Statler and Waldorf.
posted by EarBucket at 6:05 AM PST - 15 comments

900 caricatures of noted Victorian and Edwardian personages from British society magazine Vanity Fair which ran from 1868 to 1914. Among those pictured are Oscar Wilde, Benjamin Disraeli, Herman Melville, Alfred Dreyfus, Teddy Roosevelt, Gustave Eiffel and Charles Boycott (from whose name comes the word). A couple are mildly not safe for work, a few quite racist, as was the prevalent attitude of the time, and at least one is both.
posted by Kattullus at 5:15 AM PST - 30 comments

Last Year I Killed A Man , by Vaughan Thomas. Published Saturday July 19, 2008 by The Guardian.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:09 PM PST - 116 comments

When you first hear of a shrimp breaking out of it's tank, the prospect isn't really frightening. But when you learn that the mantis shrimp has punched through the glass container, it becomes a little more serious. [more inside]
posted by thatbrunette at 9:56 PM PST - 67 comments

Not much is know about Bobby Gaylor, aside from what can be gleaned from his "songs," actually spoken word pieces set to music worlds apart from either Henry Rollins or King Missile. His official webpage now redirects to Google, and he has no wikipedia entry. His sole album, Fuzzatonic Scream (2000), was a buried treasure for anyone who could find it, with good music backing a born storytelling everyman from Massachusetts giving sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh, insights into life through the details of his own. Now, the only songs you may find video for are "One Moment," which discusses his first kiss, and "Suicide," the closest thing he had to a "hit," but his full (sadly bleeped) work may be found here. Personally, I recommend "Smelt," "I Hit a Guy With My Car," "Masturbation," and "Business End of a Gun."
posted by Navelgazer at 8:24 PM PST - 13 comments

Password Chart - Generate strong passwords.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:36 PM PST - 69 comments

Prvi svetski rat - Gritty and poignant Serbian postcards from the First World War. Just one of the seriously interesting (e.g. check out the collection of 78s) holdings at the Digital National Library of Serbia.
posted by tellurian at 5:06 PM PST - 12 comments

She robs, she injects herself with heroin, she flits across borders like a ghost, she seems to kill with almost professional precision, she leaves clues and bodies – and she has no identity. [more inside]
posted by yoyo_nyc at 4:12 PM PST - 58 comments

How did this man end of with a copy of the most iconic book in the English language? He says he got it from a friend in Cuba, but the Folger Library has identified it as the copy of Shakespeare's First Folio stolen from Durham University in 1988. Turns out that stealing the book is much easier than selling it.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:48 PM PST - 17 comments

Open Source Food is a multi-lingual community of enthusiastic cooks browsing, creating, and sharing recipes. The Itsa Pita Pizza is quick and easy, Yuzu Pesto Tagliolini is almost too pretty to eat, but !!!warning!!!, do not even look at the mango crepe a la mode. 2000 recipes with photos.
posted by netbros at 2:36 PM PST - 18 comments

Bandstand Busking have decided to put liven up the underused bandstands of London by, well, you know, putting bands on in them. [more inside]
posted by Helga-woo at 2:29 PM PST - 7 comments

Festooning The Tree Of Life. Carl Zimmer describes new research on lateral gene transfer which makes the Tree of Life look more like a Gordian Knot.
posted by homunculus at 2:26 PM PST - 15 comments

A discovery leads to questions about whether the odds of people sharing genetic profiles are sometimes higher than portrayed. Calling the finding meaningless, the FBI has sought to block such inquiry.
posted by finite at 12:18 PM PST - 29 comments

Dino Valls (NSFW) (large format slide show of his work) is a self-taught Spanish artist who studied Italian and Flemish masters of the 16th and 17th centuries. Use of egg tempera and oil is one of his favorite painting techniques, requiring great mastery but affording rich color and tone. His works are beautiful, disturbing and surreal. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 12:09 PM PST - 61 comments

A slightly drunken Momus sings us a song from his living room, then gives us 5000 years of chairs in 5 mimutes.
posted by vronsky at 11:33 AM PST - 35 comments

A detailed tour of Mike Tyson's abandoned mansion. [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall at 10:09 AM PST - 66 comments

Flying derbys! Revolving revolvers! Ladders to nowhere! It's Hans Richter's wonderful Vormittagsspuk (or, Ghosts Before Breakfast), certainly one of the most playful and entertaining of all the Dada film experiments of the 1920s. Presented here with a nicely done soundtrack by Donald Sosin. . [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:18 AM PST - 9 comments

Flash Sunday: Customize your disease and wipe out the population, Pandemic II. Get to Madagascar before they close their shipyard!
posted by sebas at 4:40 AM PST - 67 comments

China is making a concerted effort to colonize Africa with dire consequences for Africans. In protest to China's involvement in Darfur's genocide, Steven Spielberg has resigned as Artistic Director of the Beijing Olympics.
posted by MetaMan at 11:03 PM PST - 98 comments

Festejo? ... Festejo! [more inside]
posted by Rubbstone at 3:07 PM PST - 12 comments

Most people are familiar with welding metal, but it’s entirely possible to weld plastic. There are a surprising number of ways to weld plastic, but first you will need to identify what kind it is. The smell of burning plastic is a particularly effective diagnostic. This man is welding with hot air. Many instructional videos are made by companies whose products are featured in the video, like this somewhat surreal demonstration of speed tip welding. Perhaps the most low-tech method is with a soldering iron.
posted by Tube at 2:57 PM PST - 42 comments

Larry Groce has been producing Mountain Stage in West Virginia for 25 years. This weekly radio and public television program has been broadcasting the best mountain music in Appalachia, usually from the WV Cultural Center. This month NPR began distributing the show nationally in the U.S. Also, last year Mountain Stage began archiving podcasts of the programs ... many, many hours of wonderful mountain music. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 2:23 PM PST - 16 comments

The Dana Carvey Show lasted for only a handful of episodes on ABC in the spring of 1996. but produced more than its share of memorable sketches, thanks to a talented writing staff (with Charlie Kaufman among others), and a cast including Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, and Robert Smigel. Some highlights for the Hulu-impaired: Leftover Beatle Memories - Skinheads from Maine - Germans who Say Nice Things - First Ladies as Dogs - Waiters who are Nauseated by Food
posted by Silune at 2:08 PM PST - 65 comments

Bicycles are the most efficient mode of transportation; walking is a distant second, followed by crowded vans and motorcycles, with everything else being relatively equal. This may change soon. WSJ online jokingly tests a new plug-in electric bike versus a standard racing model.
posted by Brian B. at 12:10 PM PST - 81 comments

Early Twentieth Century Russian Drama and From the Ends to the Beginning: A Bilingual Anthology of Russian Poetry are both products of Northwestern University Slavic Department. The former is devoted to Russian theater from the 1890s through the 1930s and focuses on the visual aspect of theater, with images of costumes, set designs and photographs of stagings. The latter is a collection of 250 poems, both in Russian and English translations ranging from the 18th Century to the modern day. There are some amazing images from the history of Russian drama, such as Kazimir Malevich's designs for Victory over the Sun and a quicktime video of actors doing Meyerhold's biomechanical exercises. The Listening Gallery of russianpoetry.net has over 75 recitals of poems, including Vladmir Mayakovsky reading his own And Could You? and a reading of Velimir Khlebnikov's famous Invocation of Laughter.
posted by Kattullus at 11:09 AM PST - 8 comments

The Mehterhane or Mehter, as they are often known, are thought to be the oldest military marching band in the world. Starting around the 13th century, the band accompanied the Ottoman empire troops (Janissaries, or yeniçeri, roughly meaning "new troops" and were comprised mostly of young men from the Balkans) into battle, spreading their music along the way and influencing western classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete at 10:44 AM PST - 14 comments

Have some yip-yips with your weekend. [mlyt]
posted by shadow vector at 9:54 AM PST - 27 comments

The žižkov television tower in Prague was pretty weird looking to begin with, since 2000 it's gotten much stranger...
posted by Artw at 8:20 AM PST - 41 comments

Coming in at just under $860,000, the take for the recently auctioned estate of James Brown fell well short of the two million that Christie's had hoped for. You'll want to browse the collection for yourself, of course. If I had the extra scratch, I'd have sure bought this.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:46 AM PST - 21 comments

Meet Brent Rinehart: Conservative Republican. Active Christian. Roads Scholar. NOT a homosexual pedifile. [PDF] The controversial mix of comics and politics are back in the news this week. So are Oklahoma's homophobic politicians, with the amazing comic book adventure of Brent Rinehart. [more inside]
posted by Dirjy at 12:05 AM PST - 81 comments

Totem Destroyer ... a puzzle game where you strategically remove blocks in order to lower a golden idol closer to the ground. Get it within 3 squares from the bottom, but not touching it, and you move on to the next level. (via)
posted by Dave Faris at 11:37 PM PST - 29 comments

Meet the World's Greatest Distance Zorber [what's zorbing?], some dude who put ten rattlesnakes in his mouth?, the rellepS drawkcaB tsetsaF s'dlroW, TheWorld'sFastestTalker, and a host of others who are the World's ____-est via the Guinness World Records podcast. [all links are in .mp3 format except to the main site.]
posted by not_on_display at 9:57 PM PST - 4 comments

One Step Beyond - The Sacred Mushroom. A 1961 episode of One Step Beyond investigates whether or not psilocybin mushrooms can give you extra-sensory perception. Part 2, Part 3. [Via Neurophilosophy]
posted by homunculus at 9:35 PM PST - 27 comments

In a time before the Prius, the custom conversion van ruled the roadways. Pushing the boundaries of the airbrush form, testing the limits of mobile interior design, featuring the latest in automatic pink leather bed, compact toaster, 8-track, and love machine technology, the 70s van was celebrated in song and cinema. You started with a factory model, new or used, and ended at a place limited onlyby your creativity, your budget, and your old lady's patience (NSFW). Ford could make you a man.If push came to shove, you could even live in your van. It was fantasy on wheels: van-tastic, man. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 9:14 PM PST - 43 comments

Br. Cesare Bonizzi, "the heavy metal friar"(watch out for the volume on that last link), says he was inspired by the energy of Metallica and that he is not trying to convert anyone to Christianity, but rather to "convert [listeners] to life" and get them to live their lives "full stop."
posted by homelystar at 9:12 PM PST - 15 comments

Pictures (and a video) of a leopard attacking and killing a crocodile.
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:48 PM PST - 30 comments

What's YOUR Pew News IQ? (not to be confused with the New Zoo Revue, even though it rhymes) We've discussed Pew's surveys about news knowledge before, but this time you can test yourself. Just 12 eeeee-zeee questions (not 100). Wendell got them all correct. Can you? [more inside]
posted by wendell at 8:15 PM PST - 88 comments

This scale was first brought to my attention by the blog "The Unwound Road". It appears someone took the original 1930s rating scale and posted it to Flickr. From there it was a natural progression to Internet quiz. So, how would you rate as a husband or wife in the 1930s? Answer 100 true or false type questions and find out!
posted by polysigma at 6:45 PM PST - 26 comments

Browse the demise of Starbucks' stores in this searchable list of all 600 closures.
posted by plexi at 2:40 PM PST - 169 comments

They started out as spritely saplings, but something went horribly wrong.... The lucky ones merely got a little funny, the others became tormented, monstrous. Creepy Trees.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 1:32 PM PST - 18 comments

My favorite poet, Kay Ryan has been named United States Poet Laureate. [more inside]
posted by Peach at 1:31 PM PST - 39 comments

The Pram Museum
posted by anastasiav at 12:57 PM PST - 13 comments

MIT TechTV [beta]. Like YouTube for braniacs (minus the scandalous invasion of privacy).
posted by Rykey at 9:44 AM PST - 8 comments

Listen, can you hear them talk? They might be soft spoken, and not easy to get along with, but they can still command (previously) our respect. Read how they are looked after around the world, and the stories which affect their daily lives. Also, here (pdf) is a comprehensive study of their living conditions in different kinds of societies across the globe.
posted by hadjiboy at 9:39 AM PST - 9 comments

Charles Cohen improvises on the very rare Buchla Music Easel synthesizer.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:26 AM PST - 19 comments

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has photographed Earth from 31 million miles away. NASA has woven the images together, creating a video of Earth as the moon orbits around it. Videos: 1 | 2 [.mov]. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 9:04 AM PST - 76 comments

The developers of the long awaited vaporware title masterpiece, Duke Nukem Forever, had previously expressed their disdain for the E3 game conference, calling it "irrelevant nowadays," but in a surprise move they showed up for the conference and released this stunning four minute trailer for the three new handheld Duke games that are in development. "Duke Nukem Trilogy trailer redefines awesome," declares joystiq.com
posted by CheshireCat at 8:49 AM PST - 98 comments

Mario is at bat, man! Just in time to handle your jones for singalong fan bonding, to speak the heretofore unspoken truths of super _jawesome classic film themes. Also he dresses up, like it's, um, Halloween.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 8:41 AM PST - 10 comments

Type is art. Take little pieces of letterforms and make something new.
posted by signal at 8:01 AM PST - 10 comments

Friday Flash Fun [more inside]
posted by DU at 7:47 AM PST - 60 comments

Hellenica is an encyclopedia of Greek culture, from classical Hellas, through the Byzantine Empire until the modern day, though its focus is on antiquity and especially the science and technology of Ancient Greece. Featuring technical diagrams and explications, there's no better site if you seek information on gigantic galleys, now obscure great Greek mathematicians, the last still working Ancient lighthouse and gears and how they were used by Archimedes and other ancients. This is not to denigrate other sections of the site, such as the page on the Olympics (including a Google Map of the site of the games), biographies of ancient, Byzantine and modern Greeks, the warring and healing of the Byzantines or the overview of Greek literature, taking in antiquity, the medieval era and modern times. That said, Hellenica is at its finest when treating science and technology.
posted by Kattullus at 6:21 AM PST - 8 comments

Busted Wonder ― The cartoon art of Charity Larrison and Kieron Gillen.
posted by netbros at 5:24 AM PST - 9 comments

Winding their way down from California, they lost a few agents. Two were arrested in Albuquerque after they allegedly forced their way into the home of an elderly couple and beat them to death, raping the wife first.... Then, in West Texas, a van flipped, killing one agent and injuring three others. That's seven agents out of commission. That's about a $2,800 loss per day. After they turn in their cash and receipts, two agents, a pudgy girl and a lanky guy, hit the parking lot for a smoke.... It's a blast, they say. You lie all day to sell subscriptions, and you unwind afterward with some smoke. You tell the customers that you live a few streets over, that you go to the local school and play on the soccer team, that you just sold subscriptions to their neighbor, and the idiots buy it because by now you've got it down to a science. And on to the next town. And the next.
posted by orthogonality at 5:12 AM PST - 68 comments

A recently uncovered musical experiment by Delia Derbyshire predicted the sound of modern dance music three decades before it became fashionable. [more inside]
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:54 AM PST - 37 comments

The San Francisco Department of Elections has qualified our initiative. The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco has won its ballot initiative to honor George W. Bush: Should The City And County of San Francsico Rename The Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W Bush Sewage Plant?
posted by three blind mice at 2:11 AM PST - 67 comments

Something awful in a new CBC anthem. The CBC's Hockey Night in Canada is one of the highest-rated programs on Canadian television. It's something of a national shrine to our beloved sport. For the past 40-odd years, it's had a distinctive theme which most Canadians could hum. After something of a fiasco, the CBC lost the rights to the theme. They're running a contest to replace the venerated theme. A Something Awful forum user composed a truly dreadful entry ("mostly comprised of cat and sheep sounds, baby cries, and gunshots/explosions"), and got the community to 'vote it up' on the Anthem contest site. You really need to hear the awfulness to truly appreciate it. [more inside]
posted by dbarefoot at 12:30 AM PST - 69 comments

A corpse flower is blooming right now and you can watch. In addition to smelling like rotting flesh, the flowers are beautiful, and their scientific name means "misshapen giant penis."
posted by tits mcgee at 8:53 PM PST - 29 comments

Surtsey was first observed on November 14, 1963, as a pillar of smoke on the water some ways south of Iceland. The very next day lava and tephra broke the surface of the Atlantic and by May, 1964 the formation had grown to 2.4 km². Over the next three years lava eruptions continued, coating the loose debris in a hard shell and protecting it from erosion. An island born. Naturally, Surtsey has been under close scientific observation since its emergence, and courtesy The Surtsey Research Society you can read published reports on the geology and biological colonization of this new earth.
posted by carsonb at 8:41 PM PST - 9 comments

The Wu-Tang Clan ain't nuthin to PLAY CHESS wit. WuChess.com is the worlds first online chess and Hip-Hop community. You can create and share profiles with your friends and triumph over enemies on the 64 squares. Not just against people in your neighborhood but from all over the world. Play live chess with people from all over the world and get your learn on. Blog.
posted by ColdChef at 5:24 PM PST - 30 comments

It looks like a cigarette. It smokes like a cigarette. But it's actually the e-cigarette, and it might be the future of smoking. [more inside]
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:18 PM PST - 80 comments

More worries in New Orleans, this time from the Police Department. Within three weeks, Police Superintendent Warren Riley (as seen on the left) has suspended three NOPD officers in separate incidents: one for leading Crescent City Connection police on a high speed chase which ended in one pursuit officer grazed by the fleeing car and another slapped (video). One involved an off-duty officer brandishing a gun at a children's camp and shouting expletives, apparently even backed up by responding officers, according to witness accounts. Another was suspended for wearing the wrong colored shirt on the day he retired, a punishment Riley sees as appropriate as a "consequence of his actions".
posted by kuperman at 4:17 PM PST - 27 comments

The 10 Greatest Misspelled Tattoos, according to The L Magazine.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 3:54 PM PST - 71 comments

An inspirational update to the story of Jason McElwain.
posted by kyleg at 3:02 PM PST - 5 comments

Too polished? Too clean? Too much of a run of the mill action movie for my liking. But hey, I guess its only the first trailer....
posted by Mintyblonde at 3:02 PM PST - 218 comments

A couple recent documentaries have accurately shown how China is changing and developing at lightning speed. The People's Republic of Capitalism speaks mainly of China's all-consuming economic growth and its ramifications. I was riveted by Frontline's Young and Restless in China and Frontline World: Jesus in China. These show the struggles of the Chinese to keep up with the changes, deal with their hypocritical government and define their beliefs in a society still riddled with corruption.
posted by wundermint at 1:39 PM PST - 32 comments

From the Land of the Gods: Art of the Kathmandu Valley. [Via Plep - NY]
posted by homunculus at 12:20 PM PST - 3 comments

Pakistani Investors Stone Exchange Pakistan investors stormed out of the Karachi Stock Exchange, smashed windows and cursed regulators after the benchmark index fell for a 15th day, the worst losing streak in at least 18 years. [more inside]
posted by rough ashlar at 11:44 AM PST - 29 comments

Eusociality - its what bees, ants, and all those other insects that divide into workers, drones, and queens do. But naked mole rats (which are not related to moles or rats) are one of only two mammal species that follow the same pattern, with their cousins Damaraland mole rats as the only other eusocial mammals. They're also nearly cold blooded, impervious to pain, and feed their young on their own feces from the time they're a month old until they can eat the giant tubers that make up most of their diet.
posted by sotonohito at 11:08 AM PST - 39 comments

Gary Busey on Business.
posted by parmanparman at 10:30 AM PST - 60 comments

Retronomatopeya - cute collection of comic book images and language conveying sound and motion. Also see anastasiav's prior post: Ka-BOOM, the Dictionary of Comic Book Words on Historical Principles. (via oink!) [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 10:08 AM PST - 11 comments

This is a collection of the National Archives stored in the Digital Vaults. You can browse through hundreds of photographs, documents, and film clips and discover the connection between some of the National Archives' most treasured records. With the Pathways tool you can see the unique and surprising connections between events and people and test your knowledge of history. As you travel through the site and collect documents, images and films, you can then merge the objects to create your own poster or movie from your collection.
posted by netbros at 4:46 AM PST - 16 comments

Tiled Background Designer is just a small, useful tool to create patterns. Experiment with pictures, colors, textures and transparency to get best result.
posted by Dave Faris at 1:38 AM PST - 37 comments

Like penguins? Hey, who doesn't, right? So, head over to PenguinScience for all your penguin needs. Recommended: their "Webisode" documentary on Blondie, the rare "blonde" penguin, which also features footage of another thoroughly adorable genetic mutation: an all black penguin. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:42 PM PST - 21 comments

Saving the Regal Fritillary The Regal Fritillary (Speyeria idalia) is one of the largest and most spectacular butterflies found in North America....About ten years ago, the Regal Fritillary could only be found in a single nature preserve in Indiana. This year, the Fort Indiantown Gap Training Center won the [Environmental A]ward for its efforts in preserving the Regal Fritillary Butterfly and its habitat, building nesting boxes and tracking migratory patterns of 12 bird species, restoring five acres of wetlands, and conducting prescribed burns to manage fuel loads and forests. [more inside]
posted by caddis at 11:42 PM PST - 3 comments

Along the lines of celebrity/muppet vein, I give you Totally Looks Like: Famous People and Celebs that Totally Look Like Animals and Other Things. Some are weak, but others are surprisingly close. Mefites will especially enjoy the Nick Nolte and Cthulu comparison.
posted by bwg at 11:28 PM PST - 18 comments

Tina Manthorpe's Flickr set of churces and church carvings has many lovely images of the kinds of things one isn't surprised to see in churches, trees of life, colorful roof bosses, misericords and many more such beauties. More shocking to modern sensibilities are the pictures in the set she calls exhibitionist church carvings, featuring such images as a protogoatse, Starbucksesque mermaids, autofellatio, free-hanging genitals and, uh... something involving thumb-sucking and snakes.
posted by Kattullus at 11:26 PM PST - 16 comments

Just a Fun Loving Nerd!!! "the names abilio people just call me bill , let me tell you about myself..."
posted by Dirjy at 11:10 PM PST - 34 comments

Please Say Something -- ten quick animated episodes starring Mouse and Cat. [description] | More animation by David O'Reilly, creator of the "award-winning destructive and massively overrated" RGB XYZ [previously on MeFi]. | [be warned: some animations NSFW for language; jarring sounds and flashing colors in places.]
posted by not_on_display at 10:05 PM PST - 11 comments

Now, here's something you don't see every day. I found it unlikely, but perhaps he was a copycat suicide. [more inside]
posted by an egg at 8:06 PM PST - 78 comments

Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, just gave a historic six-day teaching of Je Tsong-kha-pa’s Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (the Lam Rim Chen Mo), a vitally important explanation of Buddhism written in 1402 and just recently translated into English by a team organized by Joshua Cutler of New Jersey's Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center. The teaching, attended by about 5000 participants (my estimate), consisted of two two-hour sessions per day, except for a public talk on Sunday afternoon, at which the Dalai Lama received an honorary doctorate from Lehigh and gave a speech. The speech is available as downloadable audio clips and for viewing online. It is possible that eventually the videos of the teachings themselves will be made available on DVD or for download at lamrim.com.
posted by setver at 7:03 PM PST - 11 comments

It's Time For Some Campaignin'! [Flash; "e-cards"; et al] via JibJab]
posted by humannaire at 6:57 PM PST - 29 comments

With its totemic population (pigmen and gente, riskloves and Old Maid Cards), and idiosyncratic lingo ("Q que aconteceu?") Russ Winter's blog could sometimes be mistaken for a work of speculative fiction, but in fact it's the most compulsive readable financial commentary out there... whether you agree with his massively bleak outlook or not.
posted by unSane at 6:53 PM PST - 12 comments

"Welcome to the "Periodic Table of Videos". Tables charting the chemical elements have been around since the 19th century - but this modern version will have a short video about each one."(YT subscription) (via kottke)
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 6:33 PM PST - 14 comments

The European Space Agency's Mars Express Probe has sent back some beautiful new high-resolution images of the Echus Chasma. More images and information can be found here.
posted by tits mcgee at 6:21 PM PST - 14 comments

This was not a triumph. I'm making a note here. Epic fail. It's hard to overstate my disappointment. Nintendo. They do what they must at E3 because they can. For the good of all casual gamers except the ones who are hardcore. But there is no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of new games. And the science gets done, and you make some neat pheripheral add-ons for the people who own a Wii.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:51 PM PST - 88 comments

Next-Door Neighbor, from SMITH Magazine, takes a bunch of renowned artists and writers from the world of Indie Comics and asks them to tell stories about, well, memorable Next-Door Neighbor experiences. "The Next-Door Neighbor I Don't Know," by Harvey Pekar and Rick Veitch is worth a look, of course, but personal favorites for me include "Halloweens Ago," and "Hank & Barbara." And after reading, "Dream Train," be sure to check out the video link of the subject playing an old cowboy song.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:40 PM PST - 5 comments

1 2 3 4: Feist visits Sesame Street, the latest artist to send up her work for an adoring audience of (what else?) furry happy monsters. [more inside]
posted by bicyclefish at 5:39 PM PST - 41 comments

Sean Tevis Takes On Intelligent Designer with Some Intelligent Design of His Own... Sean Tevis is running for State Representative in Kansas, against an opponent he describes as a proponent of intelligent design. Short on name recognition (and campaign funds) he took it upon himself to use his skills as an information designer to connect to his "constituents" - could he be the first true candidate for a generation that grew up on the Internet? Very clever xkcd-style infographic deployed against the agents of doom... (I donated, couldn't help myself) via BoingBoing
posted by piedrasyluz at 4:31 PM PST - 252 comments

Suspect Soldiers. "A Sacramento Bee investigation finds the military let in applicants with risky backgrounds -- with sometimes tragic results." Part 1: Troubled histories follow some troops to Iraq war. Part 2: Is there a link between postwar stress and crime? Part 3: Iraq doctor's shooter had long record. Part 4: Patriotic Texas city mirrors nation's recruiting troubles.
posted by homunculus at 12:12 PM PST - 30 comments

Should Oscar Pistorius be allowed to run with prosthetic blades in the Olympics for South Africa? Current money says maybe.
posted by Xurando at 11:16 AM PST - 149 comments

In March 2007, the FermiLab Office of Public Affairs in Batavia, IL "received a curious message in code" via USPS. In May 2008, scientists posted a facsimile image of the letter to their blog in the hopes of soliciting cryptologists to decipher the letter. [more inside]
posted by subbes at 11:08 AM PST - 44 comments

P.F.1 (Public Farm One) is a project designed by WORK Architecture Company for MoMA and P.S.1's Young Architects Program. P.F.1’s intent is to "educate thousands of visitors on sustainable urban farming through the unique medium of contemporary architecture." An artist in Providence, RI developed a similar installation called Green Zone, "an organic vegetable, herb, and flower garden planted in the detritus of wartime consumption: used tires, shopping bags, shoes, and other repurposed containers" at local venue Firehouse 13.
posted by lunit at 10:47 AM PST - 5 comments

Look out, New York ladies, the Goot is loose! His experience on Dancing With the Stars "made him a better person"; after getting the hook as a hoofer, a disllusioned Steve Guttenberg abandons Hollywood for New York.
posted by grounded at 9:59 AM PST - 45 comments

"Don’t stop. Keep right on going.... Go someplace you’ve heard about, where you can fish or hunt or collect rocks or just look up at the sky. Find out what’s at the end of some country road. Go see what’s over the next hill, and the one after that, and the one after that." In 1959 Airstream founder Wally Byam - taking his own advice to heart - led a convoy of 36 of his company's trailers - together with over 100 American adults, children and pets - on a journey from Cape town to Cairo. They stayed in remote villages, negotiated rough roads, saw upteen tribal dancers, met up with Haile Selassie and finally ended up at the pyramids of Cairo. Here is the original film account of the expedition (complete with its own theme song). Next year, on the 50th anniversary, there is a plan to do the trip again - this time there and back again. Wanna go?
posted by rongorongo at 9:42 AM PST - 12 comments

Humor goes back a long way. The oldest recorded joke in the world was told 4,600 years ago to Pharoh Snefru by the magician Djadjamankh: "How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish," and there's lots more ancient Egyptian humor (some quite dirty) as well. Humor really got rolling with the Greeks, however, and the Philogelos (Laughter Lover) a joke book from the 4th century. A representative joke: “An intellectual was on a sea voyage when a big storm blew up, causing his slaves to weep in terror. ‘Don’t cry,’ he consoled them, ‘I have freed you all in my will'." [more inside]
posted by blahblahblah at 9:18 AM PST - 70 comments

Is Batman Possible? "There's a quote from Neal Adams, the great Batman illustrator, who said Batman would win, place or show in every event in the Olympics."
posted by gwong at 8:42 AM PST - 129 comments

Is Xinjiang Province The Islamic Jihad Battlefront in China? China detains 82 'terrorists' targeting Olympics and police have shot Uighurs dead. Meanwhile people from the Uighur minority call on the international community to boycott the Beijing Olympic games. What side of the Jihad is China on? Previously there was The Al Qaeda - China Tie. The oil and petrochemical sector account for 60% of Xinjiang's local economy.
posted by adamvasco at 6:37 AM PST - 21 comments

Some lesser-known superheroes and their stories.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:58 AM PST - 38 comments

David Leite, on his quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie, learned that letting the cookie dough rest for 36 hours before baking makes for one hell of a cookie. Chefs Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot didn't want to wait that long.
posted by AceRock at 4:57 AM PST - 48 comments

"I hadn’t gotten beaten by my mom that day, and we hadn’t had any significant arguments over anything. I thought that if I died, I wanted to die without being mad at my mom. So I thought, I might as well take the opportunity to do so before I got back to the house—at which point who knows whether there would be another fight or a beating." Escaping the Amish.
posted by jbickers at 4:46 AM PST - 97 comments

The ancient web is an online resource for students, teachers, and anyone interested in the cultures of the ancient world. With the Olympics fast approaching, here is an opportunity to learn more about the past 4500 years of Chinese civilization. Or how the Celtiberians would get drunk and eat raw meat before going to war. 24 ancient civilizations in all.
posted by netbros at 4:25 AM PST - 8 comments

Copyright, copywrong, copyleft, copyWHAT?! Peter Hirtle is no stranger to the questions surrounding copyright and the use of public domain materials. He has been thoroughl in researching and referencing other's work in this area. Peter's handy little chart could not have been more timely; it was really long overdue. But it really just gets overwhelming sometimes ... I blame it all on that d*m**d mouse! [more inside]
posted by aldus_manutius at 3:42 AM PST - 16 comments

Freakonomics coauthor/blogger writes about a "spelling mistake" the Economist made in a recent issue. He is corrected within 5 minutes. The Economist responds to his "correction".
posted by jourman2 at 3:37 AM PST - 84 comments

Dispatches from Polar Scientists -- A compilation of blogs "in celebration of the International Polar Year (2007-08), [giving] you an up-close-and-personal look at research in extreme environments through the thoughts and experiences of the scientists working there. We’ll post their photos, videos, and blogs on this site."
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:33 AM PST - 10 comments

For the former U.S. marine Michael Elliott the psychological impact of war is the latest and most challenging battle. Private Joseph Dwyer survived rocket-propelled grenades and shocking violence, made his way back to his family and friends, but couldn't escape the “demons” that followed him home. Experts say up to 30% of returning soldiers will require psychiatric help: a number not seen since the end of the Vietnam War. Today 60% of war veterans suffering from PTSD don't receive any help at all.
posted by Surfin' Bird at 1:01 AM PST - 18 comments

"'I am not a defendant,' Mitchell declared. 'I do not have attorneys.' The court 'lacks territorial jurisdiction over me,' he argued, to the amazement of his lawyers. To support these contentions, he cited decades-old acts of Congress involving the abandonment of the gold standard and the creation of the Federal Reserve ... Judge Davis ordered the three defendants to be removed from the court, and turned to Gardner, who had, until then, remained quiet. But Gardner, too, intoned the same strange speech. 'I am Shawn Earl Gardner, live man, flesh and blood,' he proclaimed." Too Weird for the Wire: How black Baltimore drug dealers are using white supremacist legal theories to confound the Feds. [via]
posted by nasreddin at 11:13 PM PST - 75 comments

Regardless of whether or not the photos of recent Iranian missile tests were faked (previously), and regardless of whether Bush (and/or Israel) is planning to strike Iran (previously)--or is simply sabre-rattling--it certainly seems something's heating up: first, the BBC alerts the world that Canadian and other international troops stationed in Afghanistan may be targeted by Iranian missiles, and now the Bush administration claims Iran has the ability to strike Europe with its missiles. Note how both these claims involve allies who would likely have to consent to a US-led strike against Iran.
posted by ornate insect at 10:30 PM PST - 24 comments

If the Tiber rises so high it floods the walls, or the Nile so low it doesn't flood the fields, if the earth opens, or the heavens don't, if there is famine, if there is plague, instantly the howl goes up, "The Christians to the lion!" What, all of them? To a single lion? So wrote Tertullian. In the huge intellectual project that was the foundation of the Christian Church he was the great wit, most powerful rhetor and finest writer. Starting out as a pagan delighting in adultery and gladiator combat he became a great champion of martyrdom, defender of Christianity against its malefactors and heretics. His most famous contribution to our culture is undoubtedly the doctrine of the trinity. Towards the end of his life he threw his lot with a small group of hardcore ascetics called Montanists and was denounced as a heretic. Ending his life among the defeated of ecclesiastical history he was forgotten for a millennium until rediscovered during the Renaissance. The Tertullian Project collects all his extant writing and information about his lost texts as well as biographical information, selected quotations and much more.
posted by Kattullus at 9:58 PM PST - 14 comments

myopenbar.com (Chicago link) is a dandy little site that lets you know where to score free and/or cheap eats and/or drinks on any given night in your area (assuming 'your area' = NYC, SF, LA, Honolulu, Miami, or the aforementioned Chi-town). The places are rated, and visited personally by the website's bloggers, but who cares? It's free booze. [more inside]
posted by shakespeherian at 9:20 PM PST - 6 comments

Best Rapper Alive? No Krs-1, no Rakim, but Scarface is there. No MF Doom, no Pharoahe Monche, but Lil Mama is there. [via] Voting starts July 21st.
posted by cashman at 8:57 PM PST - 71 comments

In the introduction to his close friend's "Best of" DVD, Jack Lemmon says, "Ernie Kovacs was the funniest, wildest, zaniest man I ever knew. Ernie thought so, too, and so did millions of happy people. Ernie was all over television on one network or another from 1950 until he died in 1962. He had an unpredictable and illogical view of the world. He played with the medium of television in a way no one ever had before. And he created a batch of cockeyed characters that have become classics. So, slow down your internal clock; it was a more leisurely time, you know. Here's Ernie Kovacs." [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 8:32 PM PST - 16 comments

Grace Jones is coming to get you. [SLYT] From Jones' new album Hurricane, due this October. Sweet dreams, MeFites!
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 7:01 PM PST - 49 comments

Andy Grove on Our Electric Future - "Energy independence [viz.] is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to." Perhaps some infrastructure spending^1,2 is in order? [etc., &c., cf.] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:36 PM PST - 13 comments

Papert, who was a professor of mathematics, education, and media technology at MIT, has devoted much of his career to learning: self-learning (he taught himself Russian) and learning about learning. He was one of the early pioneers of artificial intelligence, and he invented the computer language Logo to teach children about computers. Now he must learn something even more challenging - how to be Seymour Papert again.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:33 PM PST - 18 comments

Defender of the Favicon -- I've never played a game inside a favicon before. Until today. Works in Firefox and Opera.
posted by chimaera at 4:32 PM PST - 26 comments

Digital pens like the Zpen and the Mobile Digital Scribe are electronic pen and receiver combinations that can capture hand-written text as you write it. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:08 PM PST - 18 comments

The Bindlestiffs - Looks like a show about a crazy traveling circus. I'm not sure cotton candy and elephants are part of their act, but they have a clown!
posted by captaindistracto at 3:29 PM PST - 11 comments

TV Dinner, the third part in Simon Tofield's award-winning animated series Simon's Cat (Previously Let Me In, Cat Man Do)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:12 PM PST - 9 comments

The Great Scarf of Birds -- John Updike [more inside]
posted by vronsky at 3:07 PM PST - 22 comments

Coen Kōans: A koan study in the wisdom of The Big Lebowski.
posted by carsonb at 2:31 PM PST - 36 comments

"New Deal Programs: Selected Library of Congress Resources was created to serve as a starting point for research using Library of Congress collections of New Deal program materials." Includes links to numerous collections of digitized materials, including photos, posters, music, manuscripts and more. [more inside]
posted by dersins at 12:55 PM PST - 4 comments

Kajima's floor-by-floor slow demolition is one of those rare things in life that leaves you truly speechless....After all, seeing the video of a 20-floor building submerging into the asphalt as if it was liquid is something that belongs to a sci-fi movie. [more inside]
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:49 PM PST - 30 comments

10 Amazing Light Graffiti Artists and Photographers: From Light Writing to Extreme Exposures. [Possibly NSFW]
posted by homunculus at 12:05 PM PST - 15 comments

What's the name of that peak over there? Can my HDTV antenna see the broadcast tower? Can I see that fixed wireless base station? See viewsheds and labelled horizons from where you're at, with a list of what other people are looking at, and all done with someone else's computers.
posted by the Real Dan at 11:03 AM PST - 21 comments

"The most startling features of Kosovo, now that the cleansing of the Serbian minority is on hold, are the poverty of the province ... and the pitiful economy that keeps it locked in." [more inside]
posted by geoff. at 10:06 AM PST - 6 comments

"Something really amazing happened in Downtown Spokane..." Slide show (annoying interface, but worth it for the cuteness).
posted by rtha at 9:03 AM PST - 42 comments

"Dear Mr Clarke... I had been a great admirer of your books for quite a time and had always wanted to discuss with you the possibility of doing the proverbial really good science-fiction movie." Excerpts from the letters of Stanley Kubrick. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 8:57 AM PST - 19 comments

Al Jazeera cameraman and Guantanamo detainee Sami al-Haj was released after 6.5 years. Meanwhile, an interrogation video of current Guantanamo resident, now 21 year old Canadian Omar Khadr, has also been released. Previously.
posted by gman at 8:20 AM PST - 55 comments

The Exile is back. Iconoclastic Moscow-based web-rag The Exile, having recently been shut down by the Russian authorities for its often less-than-complimentary views on all things to do with the motherland, is back, having relocated to Panama. A victory for the spirit of Gonzo.
posted by muggsy1079 at 7:52 AM PST - 18 comments

WFMU's Free Music Archive, "an online digital library of music that will allow music fans, webcasters and podcasters to listen, download, and stream for free, with no restrictions, registration or fees. And it will all be legal." Still pre-launch, but there's already quite a bit of music available on the site, including a sampler CD.
posted by cog_nate at 6:56 AM PST - 18 comments

I didn't think this would be cool but after seeing the video I am converted. Experience the original Super Mario in 3d... with a shotgun?
posted by ignorantguru at 5:43 AM PST - 35 comments

I had sex with my brother but I don't feel guilty. An interesting article in The Times written by a woman who'd had a sexual relationship with her brother that started during their teenage years and continued through to their twenties. Many societies have an incest taboo, but anthropologists have differing views as to how the taboo arose. Claude Lévi-Strauss believed it to have arisen as a method to encourage the practice of marriage outside of one's immediate social group, so that unrelated households or lineages would form relationships through marriage, thus strengthening social solidarity.
posted by electricinca at 5:43 AM PST - 130 comments

In the little town of Enterprise, Alabama, there stands a bizarre statue that would make any card-carrying surrealist proud: an archetypical Greek goddess raises her arms toward heaven and holds high above her head... an enormous insect. Of course, it's the boll weevil. That cotton-eatin' critter inspired not only the world's only monument to an agricultural pest, but some great tunes as well, from a wide range of artists. [note: see hoverovers for link descriptions] [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:49 AM PST - 33 comments

Open Doors - a puzzle game.
posted by nthdegx at 2:48 AM PST - 10 comments

In July of 1961, the bass genius Scott LaFaro, perished in a fiery car crash after visiting family and friends in upstate NY, just ten days after doing the last gigs he would ever do with the great Bill Evans's trio (which became the legendary live recordings from the Vanguard) . He was only 24 years old. But he was also developing as a fine writer as well, as this Evans trio track - a mystical ballad in 9/4, shows. [more inside]
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 1:03 AM PST - 20 comments

Khaufpur is a city of approaching a million souls situated at the absolute centre of India. The lakes around which our city is built were made a thousand years ago. Since that time the city was lost in jungles, rediscovered and rebuilt. Again in the lifetime of those living, a terrible calamity came upon this city, but again it has risen and continues toward a future filled with promise.
posted by dhruva at 11:28 PM PST - 13 comments

Free comics! BOOM! Studios' new web comics site, launching today, will be posting a page a day from six different titles including its Ninja, Zombie and Cthulhu Tales anthologies...
posted by Artw at 11:25 PM PST - 13 comments

Framce Trombly creates household goods such as garden hoses, extension cords, and receipts out of cloth and thread.
posted by divabat at 10:07 PM PST - 7 comments

[G]ays do not belong in the U.S. military because American troops need to be hardened warriors. "We aren't the Brits. We're not the Europeans. We're not the Swedes," says Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter, who is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. The choicest quote from the 16 Dec 2007 60 Minutes investigation into gays in the military (recently updated). [more inside]
posted by wilful at 7:29 PM PST - 107 comments

Happy Birthday, MeFi, here's a fun free* game! Ikariam is sort of like a Skyrates version of Civ, with the real-time MMO combat and diplomacy that might bring to mind. Also, it's set in Olympian Greece, but only kind-of. Enjoy! *Batteries not included. Some registration required. Suggested age: 8-and-up. Some implied violence and consumption of alcohol (wine). Expansion materials may be purchased but are not necessary to enjoy the game and are, by the judgment of this MFGA (MetaFilter Gaming Authority) member: "some kind of bullshit."
posted by Navelgazer at 6:41 PM PST - 20 comments

ArtMagick is a collection of art and poetry that roughly dates from after the Enlightenment but before Modernism. While the poetry section is extensive the main draw is the sites extensive art collection, which can be browsed by artist, art movement, title, theme or albums created by the site's users. So, forget the summer heat with some chilly pictures of winter, check out famous objects of devotion or search the archive.
posted by Kattullus at 6:32 PM PST - 5 comments

The end of Moore’s influence came when, years later, she tried to block the publication of a book by E. B. White. Watching Moore stand in the way of “Stuart Little,” White’s editor, Ursula Nordstrom, remembered, was like watching a horse fall down, its spindly legs crumpling beneath its great weight. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:04 PM PST - 30 comments

Making It, in which a young, black, upstart politician rises through the Chicago political scene by having his opposition stricken from the ballot, turning against his endorser, and redistricting himself into a fundraising monster. [more inside]
posted by Weebot at 5:03 PM PST - 32 comments

"The Bryant Park Project”, NPR’s attempt to reach a younger demographic and "capture listeners who had moved online" has been cancelled
posted by The Gooch at 4:11 PM PST - 120 comments

"Pulse", a project by Markus Kison, "...is a live visualisation of the recent emotional expressions written on the private weblogs of blogger.com. These emotional expressions are parsed according to a list of synonyms and transform a physical shapeshifting object...." (QT video) (via) [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 12:55 PM PST - 4 comments

Punk band Neurotic and the PVCs perform with three discerning robots who pogo for punk. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 12:00 PM PST - 4 comments

He wanted his espresso iced, but the coffee shop wouldn't let him. "Hey man. What you're about to do … that’s really, really Not Okay." [more inside]
posted by brownpau at 11:47 AM PST - 334 comments

Radiohead's promo for their single House of Cards was "shot" using light and laser-based scanning systems rather than cameras, with data being generated in real-time. Includes video and making of, and you can even play around with a 3D visualization of Thom Yorke's head.
posted by hnnrs at 10:49 AM PST - 107 comments

Мотылёк - Butterfly - is just a sweet little Russian cartoon (with subtitles) (and foxes). I seem to get a little speck of something in my eyes when I watch it for some reason.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:43 AM PST - 30 comments

Interval Signals Online is a site devoted to "Interval signals, signature tunes, airchecks and identification announcements from international, domestic, and clandestine radio stations around the world" such as Radio Tirana, AFAN Radio of Antarctica's McMurdo Station, and Radio Greenland. (Last three links are automatic downloads). Tip of the hat to mykescipark.
posted by jason's_planet at 10:20 AM PST - 19 comments

This is how we roll in India
This is how we slide in Saudi
This is how we fly in Sweden
Some people are a little bit casual about road safety.
posted by roofus at 7:15 AM PST - 69 comments

Worried about bank failures? First step: check if your bank is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). If so, then your first $100K is insured against loss so no worries.

Got more than $100K? Well then, you'd better speak with EDIE. [more inside]
posted by Mutant at 6:58 AM PST - 60 comments

All of the light, 40 times the power. Improve the performance of run-of-the-mill solar cells by standing orange pieces of glass on them. MIT's Mark Baldo describes the technology. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 6:56 AM PST - 41 comments

(Follow-upFilter) It's rare that jazz videos venture beyond filming live performances. This makes the exceptions all the more notable. Animation seems the medium of choice: from George Griffin's 1988 paper collage for Charlie Parker's "Ko Ko" to Len Lye's swinging The Lambeth Walk (1939), or (stretching musical definitions just a bit) his 1958 masterpiece "Free Radicals". More recent jazz seems to fit just as well: witness Lung's psychotic piece for Ladyscraper's "Thou Art Fucking Dead". [more inside]
posted by progosk at 6:32 AM PST - 11 comments

Join the Apathy Party 08 campaign and make sure that nobody decides or makes a difference, because we couldn't care less. Americans everywhere will make their voices heard and their voices will say, "Whatever."
posted by netbros at 4:47 AM PST - 74 comments

Land of the Free, home of the geek. Steven Schofield takes photos of british sci-fi fans, dressed in character in their homes. He treats it as 'found' photography, which seems to illustrate the subjects vulnerability. The title of the work is Land of the Free - and illustrates how American culture infiltrates, with the ironic edge of questioning the idea of the freedom of choosing to copy the look of these fictional characters. via kottke
posted by filmgeek at 4:07 AM PST - 34 comments

50 years ago Johnny O'Keefe released "Wild One" and Australia had its first homegrown rock'n'roll star. To commemorate the 50th year of Australian rock'n'roll The Age newspaper has asked various Australian music industry figures to pick the top 50 Australian albums (scroll down for the Top 50 - or check the (more inside)). [more inside]
posted by awfurby at 2:20 AM PST - 51 comments

Cat-scan.com Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by jokeefe at 12:41 AM PST - 186 comments

Photographs from the Chicago Daily News, 1902-1933. Stumbled upon whilst looking for historical info on 1933, this Library of Congress-hosted site provides access to "over 55,000 images of urban life captured on glass plate negatives" by the photographers of the Daily News. memory.loc.gov simply never disappoints.
posted by mwhybark at 11:00 PM PST - 5 comments

5 Year Old Adopted South Korean Blind Piano Prodigy Yoo Ye-eun can play songs after hearing them once. Watch her perform with Britain's Got Talent's Connie Talbot in a South Korean TV show called "Star King".
posted by MythMaker at 9:59 PM PST - 29 comments

Hello Hello Finally a myspace blog post worth seeing: funny window messages about neighbors with trash disposal concerns, vaguely reminiscent of the window messages in "You and Me and Everyone Else We Know" [more inside]
posted by srs at 9:22 PM PST - 15 comments

The Worlds Best Books (1909), One Hundred Best Books (1916), One Thousand Books for a Village Library (1895), The Book Lover, a Guide to the Best Reading (1889), The Choice of Books (1905), A Thousand of the Best Novels (1919), Comfort Found in Good Old Books (1911), A Guide to the Best Historical Novels (1911), A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914), and lots more..
posted by stbalbach at 7:12 PM PST - 15 comments

"The New Yorker says it's satire. It certainly will be candy for cable news." The cover illustration (by Barry Blitt) of the magazine's July 21^st. issue depicts Barack Obama in tribal African dress, fist-bumping his wife "in full revolutionary garb, an enormous afro making her look like a millennial Angela Davis, holding an automatic weapon and wearing military pants" in the Oval Office. On the wall -- a portrait of Osama bin Laden; in the fireplace a burning American flag. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 6:46 PM PST - 257 comments

How to Write With Style.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:35 PM PST - 36 comments

Vegging Out vs. Geeking Out. Romance as the MSG of film. The bifurcated careers of Lucy lawless, Sigourney Weaver, and Hugo Weaving. Characters making smart decisions vs. stupid decisions. Neal Stephenson discusses Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction as a literary genre at Gresham College. (Warning: requires Flash 9)
posted by Navelgazer at 6:32 PM PST - 27 comments

"In one booklet, I come across the rather fabulous student error that the protesters at Kent State in 1970 were shot by 'the Federal Reserve.'" In his essay "AP Diary," Christopher Phelps shares the true story of what it's like to spend a week grading Advanced Placement exams.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:01 PM PST - 20 comments

The Greatest Sideshow Video Ever Made. "The Greatest Sideshow Video Ever Made was shot at the Moore theater in Seattle in 1992. The oddball cousin of Seattle's grunge music scene, the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow mixed vintage sideshow acts with novel stunts never before seen. Previously available only on VHS tape or DVD, this mind-blowing collection of feats of human daring is now available online in six parts for your viewing pleasure: 1 2 3 4 5 6 As an added bonus, watch as Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam participates." [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by stet at 5:39 PM PST - 21 comments

English newspaper Mail on Sunday claims to have uncovered the identity of artist Banksy claiming his name is Robin Gunningham: "People who know Gunningham are now unable to say what has become of him. His father Peter, who lives in Kingsdown, Bristol, denied that the man in the photograph was his son, and his mother Pamela was surprised by the picture, then denied she even had a son, let alone one called Robin." More information in a report from CBC. If you don't know who Banksy is visit a Flickr pool with over 7000 pictures of his work in situ or check out previous MetaFilter posts about Banksy.
posted by Kattullus at 5:03 PM PST - 59 comments

"In humans, the categories of gay and straight are socially constructed.” Researchers are now revealing that animals may engage in same-sex couplings to diffuse social tensions, to better protect their young or to maintain fecundity when opposite-sex partners are unavailable—or simply because it is fun. These observations suggest to some that bisexuality is a natural state among animals, perhaps Homo sapiens included, despite the sexual-orientation boundaries most people take for granted
posted by plexi at 4:13 PM PST - 82 comments

Ferris wheel parking versus automated stacking.
posted by Brian B. at 3:49 PM PST - 20 comments

Just when you were getting tired of all this typing and clicking, a little slice of sci-fi has finally made it to real life. Let the calm-voiced folks at Emotiv Systems usher in the latest advancements in the brain-computer interface realm, where a thought, a wink, and a wave might replace the keyboard and mouse. [more inside]
posted by redsparkler at 3:49 PM PST - 12 comments

The Weather World 2010 project at UIUC began as a comprehensive meteorology tutorial designed for a high school/undergraduate level. It has since expanded to include guides to remote sensing and reading weather maps. (Some highlights include optical effects, severe storms, and the basics of weather forecasting.) For folks in the US, it also has current surface and satellite imagery for a number of different atmospheric properties.
posted by Upton O'Good at 12:26 PM PST - 6 comments

China's secret plot to tame Tibet. "Internal Communist party documents have revealed that China is planning a programme of harsh political repression in Tibet despite a public show of moderation to win over world opinion before the Olympic Games next month." Meanwhile, the military has sealed off several monasteries in Lhasa, keeping over 1,000 monks locked up. Another 1,000 monks have mysteriously disappeared, and may have been sent to prisons in a neighbouring province to keep them silent through the Olympics.
posted by homunculus at 11:56 AM PST - 111 comments

8 Forgotten Kids Shows Sure to Give You Nightmares [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 11:18 AM PST - 51 comments

Food and Beverages in Hungary is a pretty excellent blog, particularly for anyone who's interested in food, beverages, and/or Hungary.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:31 AM PST - 19 comments

I'm bo, yo. Bo Burnham is a precocious 17 year old musician, singer, and rapper who displays a gift for word play and rhyme through themes such as Rehab for Fictional Characters, a romance with a larger woman, and, my personal favourite, math. Previously. MLYT [more inside]
posted by shokod at 6:03 AM PST - 78 comments

Want to know what actions can have the biggest impact on your carbon emissions? Bloom helps you choose actions tailored to your home and lifestyle, then lets you compare them by how much CO2 they save and how cheap they are. With background guides for recycling, organic foods, energy ratings, and emissions. From the BBC.
posted by netbros at 4:19 AM PST - 15 comments

Strip searching 13 year old girls is bad mmmkay. Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in a 6-5 decision that students cannot be strip-searched based on the uncorroborated word of another student who is facing disciplinary punishment. In an even bigger twist, the court has found that the school official who ordered the strip search, Vice Principal Kerry Wilson, is financially liable in the case and cannot claim qualified immunity.
posted by Talez at 4:12 AM PST - 97 comments

Hiroaki "Rocky" Aoki, founder of Benihana restaurants and father of Devon Aoki, died from cancer complications on Friday. He was also an olympic wrestler, balloonist, backgammon player, and more.
posted by CuJoe at 2:26 AM PST - 14 comments

Shock Value .
posted by johannahdeschanel at 11:41 PM PST - 28 comments

Descending Night, Audrey Munson [Nudity] [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 10:02 PM PST - 16 comments

Multicolr Search Lab With the Multicolr Search Lab, you can browse through 3 million of Flickr’s most interesting images images, and find ones that share the same colours. Choose up to 10 colours from our palette of 120 different shades.
posted by puke & cry at 9:21 PM PST - 8 comments

The Art Institute of Chicago's website has been revamped. [T]he goal of this project was to integrate the site with their backend asset management system to allow users to browse the Museum's entire collection online. The changes are pleasing and highly functional. via
posted by sluglicker at 5:38 PM PST - 17 comments

Rumplo will help you waste even more of your hard-earned cash on artist and designer created T-Shirts. You can submit shirts you've found anywhere online, as well as comment on and favorite other people's findings. Thanks to user-submitted tags, you can browse by color, type ('boys', 'girls', 'kids'), and many other attributes. If you get bored of browsing aimlessly, you can always check out what's popular.
posted by defenestration at 4:50 PM PST - 37 comments

Two-dimensional Flash animations of gears, linkages, pumps, turbines and other mechanisms.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:09 PM PST - 17 comments

Dutch author Tim Krabbé, also an expert chess player, catalogues the unusual and sublime in chess: Tim Krabbé's Chess Curiosities.

Chess Records. The 110 greatest moves ever. Underpromotion in serious games. A poignant encounter with Garry Kasparov after a loss. Or you could just start at his Open Chess Diary and work your way back.
posted by shadow vector at 3:58 PM PST - 20 comments

Jamie Lynn's Reproduction Rap A slightly educational, slightly ridiculous look at where babies come from.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:06 PM PST - 34 comments

Today is R. Buckminster Fuller's 113th birthday. Visionary, designer, inventor, engineer - 'Bucky' continues to inspire us. Known as the grandfather of sustainability, even today we discover that we've barely scratched the surface of his thinking and still have far to go and much to learn about managing Spaceship Earth. [ previously]
posted by infini at 1:41 PM PST - 22 comments

Vintage ads galore.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:36 AM PST - 25 comments

Paris under the Occupation, in color. [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 11:11 AM PST - 42 comments

The Department of Homeland Security has expressed interest [PDFs] in forcing all commercial airline passengers to wear a taser bracelet that can be used to incapacitate anyone on an airline. This video, from the company that will produce the bracelets, explains how the bracelet would be put on the passenger at the point that they clear security, and would not be removed until they leave secure areas. It would take the place of boarding passes, carry personal and biometric information about the passengers, track and monitor every passenger via GPS and shock the wearer on command, immobilizing him or her for several minutes. DHS official, Paul S. Ruwaldt of the Science and Technology Directorate, office of Research and Development is also excited about the possiblility of using it as an interrogation tool at airports. Ah freedom, who knew it smelled like burning flesh?
posted by dejah420 at 10:35 AM PST - 143 comments

Dr. Michael E. DeBakey died last night a few months shy of 100 years old. The father of modern cardiovascular surgery, he extended the lives of thousands through multiple surgical innovations. [more inside]
posted by dog food sugar at 10:32 AM PST - 35 comments

It was called the Great Hurricane of 1938. The tradition of naming Cyclones had yet not begun, and not since 1869 had a storm of such ferocity hit the US mainland. What had made it unusally unique was the speed with which it had hit landfall, and the damage that it caused in its wake. (60 years on, and people can still recall the frightening grip that it had on their lives for those few days.)
posted by hadjiboy at 3:31 AM PST - 20 comments

An Interactive Space Simulator "Smash planets together, introduce rogue stars, and build new worlds from spinning discs of debris. Fire a moon into a planet or destroy everything you've created with a super massive black hole. You can simulate and interact with our solar system: the 8 planets,160+ moons, and hundereds of asteroids, the nearest 1000 stars to our Sun, and our local group of galaxies." [31Mb, Windows only, sorry, but see inside for similar Mac and Linux apps] [more inside]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:44 PM PST - 27 comments

As a child in Germany, he witnessed the rise of adolf Hitler. As a young man in WWII, he served in the Royal Marines as they fought their way to Berlin. And as an adult, for over fifty years, Charles Wheeler became one of the finest reporters on British television and radio.
posted by Mellon Udrigle at 11:37 PM PST - 6 comments

Manhattanhenge
posted by 445supermag at 6:24 PM PST - 31 comments

Dubstep is from the UK. It's typified by skittering, shuffled, syncopated rhythms with lots of triplets, dissonant and minor tonality, and most strikingly... (sub)bass. It uses a lot of effects people associate with dub. Crank your woofer and listen to the likes of Skream (who has done a pretty good introductory mix), Plastician, Digital Mystikz, and El-B. [more inside]
posted by phrontist at 5:43 PM PST - 68 comments

The FDIC has taken control of IndyMac Bank This is being described as the second largest bank failure in US history. If you are a current customer with funds on deposit, here's what you need to do.
posted by Asherah at 4:25 PM PST - 160 comments

The making of a glass trombone. [more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good at 3:37 PM PST - 33 comments

It's lovely! I'll take it! Sometimes, you just wonder what people were thinking when they posted photos in their real estate listings.
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:23 PM PST - 66 comments

The 50 top comicbook characters, according to Empire.
posted by Artw at 2:51 PM PST - 150 comments

The Lido was a shop on a busy road in East Vancouver that was always closed -- yet clearly occupied and maintained. It's been an intriguing mystery for locals for many years. Following the recent death of the owner, an elderly woman who lived above the shop, cleanup crews found old furniture, cans of dry goods -- and more than $400,000 in antique banknotes. [more inside]
posted by PercussivePaul at 2:41 PM PST - 30 comments

The NYT has a new blog on aging and eldercare. Thanks to the marvels of medical science, our parents are living longer than ever before.The Gray Lady has started a blog catering to the sandwich generation, with topics, so far, ranging from when to take the car keys to personal accounts of eldercare crises. The 290 comments on this post in particular are eye opening and heartbreaking.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:34 PM PST - 20 comments

A new sort of pop art has sprung up in New Orleans - cars emblazoned with brand names, usually snack foods.
posted by plexi at 1:34 PM PST - 117 comments

Today is the first birthday of Galaxy Zoo. The largest astronomical collaboration in history, Galaxy Zoo has enlisted nearly a 150,000 volunteers to help classify over a million galaxies and released four science papers. It's made a number of interesting discoveries such as a large number of ring galaxies, Hanny’s Voorwerp, and a large number of visually (but not physically) overlapping galaxies. You can help classify galaxies or classify galaxy mergers. Don't miss the visual catalog of over 250 Objects of the Day--pretty much every one of them stunning.
posted by flug at 12:37 PM PST - 5 comments

I'm not here to make friends. slyt
via [NEGATENDO]
posted by boo_radley at 12:29 PM PST - 79 comments

The Ryhiner Collection of maps has over 16000 images of world maps from 16th through 19th century. There are maps of every part of the world as well as sky maps, historical maps and optical views, caricatures & other drawings. All are viewable in high detail.
posted by Kattullus at 12:29 PM PST - 16 comments

This is Sand "is a website for play. It changes the pixels on the screen into digital sand that can be used as building material for cosmic landscapes, Clemens-style sand paintings, mandalas and so on." [Via The Presurfer]
posted by homunculus at 11:06 AM PST - 20 comments

I first saw Russian Barre at Cirque du Soleil's Alegria show. I find it an exciting display of acrobatics but the ending of this video is absolutely amazing to me.
posted by CuJoe at 11:02 AM PST - 25 comments

It's been proven that people tend to look like their dogs, but startling new findings reveal a freakish resemblance between Hollywood celebrities and Sesame Street puppets.
posted by HotPatatta at 9:12 AM PST - 40 comments

An Interpreter Speaking Up for Migrants: Erik Camayd-Freixas is a professor and a legal translator who assisted in the fast-track trial and sentencing of the over 400 illegal immigrant workers in Postville, Iowa, who were arrested on criminal charges involving identity theft rather than the usual deportation proceedings. Unusually for a court interpreter, who maintain a strict code of impartiality and neutrality, Camayd-Freixas spoke out, writing "that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived." [more inside]
posted by Forktine at 8:30 AM PST - 46 comments

Hey Meta,

Just saw a news report that you were on. Cool! Here is the link.

Best,

gnfti
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:08 AM PST - 59 comments

Today is July 11th. In the Gregorian Calendar, that is the eleventh day of the Seventh month. The free world celebrates it as Free Slurpee Day. [more inside]
posted by indiebass at 7:24 AM PST - 28 comments

Lillian Ladele, a Christian registrar, has won her discrimination case after refusing to conduct same sex civil partnerships. " Islington Council cared too much about the "rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual" community, the panel ruled. "
posted by chuckdarwin at 6:19 AM PST - 332 comments

Master of the hoax finally goes straight. Clifford Irving, author of the now infamous Autobiography of Howard Hughes, publishes his own autobiography, Phantom Rosebuds. Irving has already covered the story of that Hughes forgery pretty thoroughly in his earlier book, The Hoax, and Lasse Hallstrom retold the story in a film starring Richard Gere. Phantom Rosebuds though makes a case for the rest of Irving’s life - f for fake, the subsequent novels, the jail time and the dramatic consequences of the hoax which draw him into a world of espionage, renegade presidents, and rogue hitmen.
posted by blimp77 at 6:10 AM PST - 5 comments

Rambo Sings! In Spanish! (... may not be the real Rambo)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:10 AM PST - 14 comments

Quebec Margarine War Ends! For 21 years Quebec has regulated the colour of margarine, insisting it be distinctly lighter or distinctly darker than butter... The stated reason has been to protect consumers from unscrupulous restaurateurs selling margarine as butter. The real reason was to protect the province's politically influential dairy industry. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 1:05 AM PST - 59 comments

Slovenian compositions, mainly performed by solo singers (with piano or orchestra accompaniment) and by different orchestras and smaller vocal groups. The tracks are listed here. Might I suggest you start with Vinko Vodopivec and see if this the sort of thing you like?
posted by tellurian at 12:34 AM PST - 6 comments

"It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. The Environmental Protection Agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be. The value of a statistical life is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the [EPA] reckoned in May -- a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago." [more inside]
posted by ericb at 10:48 PM PST - 30 comments

"The secret lives of invisible magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic ever-changing geometries." Very pretty, eerie, animated interpretations of the fields inhabit Semiconductor's "Magnetic Movie." [more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 9:29 PM PST - 24 comments

Why the West is ablaze. [more inside]
posted by clearly at 8:56 PM PST - 28 comments

El-P, founder of Def Jux, is not your average rap artist. His themes and style are frequently lush and apocalyptic. While Deep Space 9mm launched 'El-Producto', cleverly futuristic works like Stepfather factory, Flyentology with Trent Reznor or the darker Tasmanian Pain Coaster are his hallmark. He recently released a new mixtape free online, along with the lyrics pdf for his album. He also recently remixed a song from MTV's TRL, warping it into a chaotic police state jam, mirroring other songs of his with themes of authority and control. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 8:54 PM PST - 36 comments

"This could take exactly 77 hours and 15 minutes, if the trains keep to schedule. Most likely, they won’t." GOOD Magazine takes a cross-country train ride to examine exactly why America's rail system sucks so badly, and where we go (slowly) from here.
posted by 40 Watt at 8:46 PM PST - 103 comments

Skulls Unlimited: For all your osteology needs.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:22 PM PST - 26 comments

The handwriting of typographers.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:19 PM PST - 19 comments

Sometimes a simple Amazon reader's review leads you to a fascinating story (or stories) of which you may have been previously unaware. In this case, the story of (the so-called) Buffalo Soldiers that liberated Tuscany in WWII. The novel Miracle at St. Anna also captivated director Spike Lee, who is bringing it to the Big Screen (Higher quality at apple.com). This may be considered his latest shot in the "feud" with director Clint Eastwood, who offended many by overlooking the contributions of black soldiers in his two recent WWII films.
posted by spock at 4:38 PM PST - 37 comments

Combining the camp of the live action Batman with the whimsy of Little Batman, The Amazing Adventures of Little Batman!
posted by mikoroshi at 1:09 PM PST - 11 comments

Salman Rushdie is now officially the Booker Prize's best-author. Rushdie's 1981 novel Midnight's Children was named Thursday as the greatest-ever winner of Britain's most prestigious literary award, in celebration of the prizes 40th anniversary. The only other time this award was given, on the 25th anniversary in 1993, Midnight's Children also won.
posted by stbalbach at 12:29 PM PST - 32 comments

EducationFilter: California becomes the first state to mandate all 8th graders take Algebra; in part because U.S. students constantly trail their peers from other nations in mathematics. At least one person thinks it's a bad idea ("If only 25 percent of this nation ever earns a college degree, why insist that all children take algebra in eighth grade?"). Here's the algebra curriculum 8th graders will have to learn. [more inside]
posted by jabberjaw at 12:27 PM PST - 121 comments

In Parentheses is a collection of many ancient, medieval and classic texts from all over the world, many of whom are hard to find anywhere, let alone on the internet. There are translations from Greek, Old Norse, Medieval Irish, Japanese, Incan, Old French, Medieval Latin and many more! As well as all that they have papers in medieval studies and vaguely decadent and orientalism series. Adding to that there's a linguistics section with wordlists and language flash cards in languages such as Icelandic, Quechua, Basque, Classical Armenian and a whole bunch more. [flashcard links go to pdf files]
posted by Kattullus at 12:19 PM PST - 18 comments

As the gay marriage fight unfolds in California, some gays (and others) are fighting back: one gourp is boycotting a rich hotel owner, others are standing apart and one is suing the Bible (who gets subpoenaed for that one?). Meanwhile, a key opponent to gay marriage keeps its doors open (and its ballot committee going) despite being suspended. They say they're working on it, but no changes yet.
posted by nospecialfx at 11:44 AM PST - 34 comments

In November 1943, the village of Tyneham in Dorset, England, received an unexpected letter from the War Department, informing residents that the area would soon be "cleared of all civilians" to make way for Army weapons training. A month later, the displaced villagers left a note on their church door: Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly. Residents were told they would be allowed to reclaim their homes after the war, but that didn't happen, and Tyneham became a ghost village. Though most of the cottages have been damaged or fallen into disrepair, the church and school have been preserved and restored. Photo galleries 1, 2, 3, 4. Panoramic tour [Java required]. Video: Death of a Village [YouTube, 9 mins.]
posted by amyms at 11:11 AM PST - 20 comments

Pickens Plan -- oilman T. Boone Pickens has a plan to reduce America's oil dependency problem: exploit the country's massive windpower potential for domestic energy, replacing natural gas, and then use natural gas to power cars instead of foreign oil. Some problems with the plan.
posted by Laugh_track at 10:59 AM PST - 41 comments

What if Al Gore really had won? J. M. Kearns crafts a new, imaginative Bush conspiracy in his new short story, "The Eagle Has Landed."
posted by Menomena at 10:40 AM PST - 50 comments

Doug Skinner translates Paul Vibert's House of Flesh and Bone, a short story about living inside large animals. Part 2. Part 3. via
posted by klangklangston at 10:39 AM PST - 1 comment

Asia's Angry Monk Syndrome. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 10:35 AM PST - 19 comments

The Wall Street Journal invites kids onto lawn. [more inside]
posted by Sys Rq at 9:50 AM PST - 60 comments

It is really interesting that Representatives John Culberson and Tim Ryan have started to really use Twitter and post from the House floor. While the Franking Commission reconsiders rules on Internet Use, the Sunlight Foundation wants to make sure they Let Our Congress Tweet.
posted by cjoh at 8:46 AM PST - 12 comments

In response to Israel's show of might, Iran tested long range missiles capable of hitting Israel and other U.S. targets in the region. Was the image AFP used photoshopped?
posted by gman at 7:50 AM PST - 77 comments

Enterprising kids in Connecticut spend a few weeks clearing weeds out of an empty lot, planning a halcyon summer of wiffleball. They scavenge some plywood out of a dumpster, buy some paint, dig some holes, pour concrete, and next thing you know, they have their own custom built playing field. As one kid put it, "if we build it, they will come." But the outcome was not what they expected.
posted by tractorfeed at 7:01 AM PST - 127 comments

[SO VERY NSFW] Fake or Not? The site will show you ten pictures of boobies, a pair at a time. You must determine whether or not they are augmented. Wes Cherry, creator of Solitaire for Windows, aptly cites it as one of his three favorite websites. [via memepool]
posted by not_on_display at 6:34 AM PST - 103 comments

A University of Chicago doctoral candidate has shown that the evolution of the flatfish was much more gradual than previously thought.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:33 AM PST - 21 comments

All of you have been given a harsh gift. It’s the same gift the graduating class of 1917, and 1938, and 1968 and now you guys got – the chance to enter adulthood when the world teeters on the rim of the sphincter of oblivion. You’re jumping into the deep end. You have no choice but to be exceptional. Patton Oswalt addresses the class of 2008 at his old high school. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 4:44 AM PST - 102 comments

Bonsai! The Karate Kid Fan Documentary… 1 2 3 4 5
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:51 AM PST - 17 comments

Invade New Zealand. (Flash video) (Rocks out) (Invades your monitor)
posted by ardgedee at 2:37 AM PST - 21 comments

The animator Pes has just released a new stop-motion short: Western Spaghetti. [more inside]
posted by bjrn at 2:30 AM PST - 25 comments

This is the city, Los Angeles California. I work Here. I carry a badge. My name's Friday. [more inside]
posted by tylerfulltilt at 10:40 PM PST - 47 comments

Bacon is dead! Long live bacon! is the title of a Salon.com article on the current wave of popularity the pork product is now surfing. Featuring a killer doughnut photo on the first page.
posted by zardoz at 10:04 PM PST - 48 comments

Channel 101 spoof of Turkish cinema, "Return to Supermans" Starring Hunter Stair, David Lyons and Hollywood Steve of Yacht Rock. Good Wikipedia overview of Yacht Rock.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:21 PM PST - 17 comments

Futility Closet (This guy)
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:35 PM PST - 37 comments

A major flaw in the DNS system is promised to be revealed at the next Black Hat conference. Convinced it was too important to wait, security researcher Dan Kaminsky (video, autoplays) convinced several software vendors to issue emergency patches today, before publicizing details of the attack. It can't be that serious though, can it? Oh yes it can.
posted by Skorgu at 6:57 PM PST - 59 comments

Obama votes to grant telecom companies immunity for illegal wiretapping and "refines" his stance against Iraq to consider indefinite, undefined or vaguely defined occupation. One remarks about Obama's recent move to the right with a new campaign logo. Obama denies any change in policy.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:43 PM PST - 355 comments

WWJD (Which Words Jefferson Digested) Some Flash
posted by Rykey at 4:42 PM PST - 4 comments

The ocean gives us life. It gives us oxygen, the rain, food, excitement, wonder, and mystery. The ocean buffers the weather and helps regulate global temperature. It manages vast amounts of our pollutants, contains all kinds of amazing creatures, and supports all life on our planet. But, the ocean is just now beginning to be understood and with that understanding comes the increasing realization that the ocean is in trouble. Marine conservation efforts are outnumbered by the problems. MarineBio is here to call attention to those issues and to provide information to inspire the actions necessary to address them.
posted by netbros at 4:00 PM PST - 9 comments

We have heard the PCR song. Now we have the epMotion song. "Yeah girl, it is time to automate." Even Nature has an article about it.
posted by dov3 at 2:48 PM PST - 12 comments

Nanotube Radio. "We have constructed a fully functional, fully integrated radio receiver, orders-of-magnitude smaller than any previous radio, from a single carbon nanotube". (via)
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 2:41 PM PST - 19 comments

Ask and it shall be given. Also, here's what Knight Industries has been working on for the past 20 years. Seems like they went backwards a bit.
posted by assoctw at 2:34 PM PST - 10 comments

DR. SBAITSO WAS MY ONLY FRIEND.
posted by chrismear at 1:22 PM PST - 45 comments

The African Cookbook is a compilation of recipes from 9 countries in Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan and Tanzania & Zanzibar. As well as a handful of recipes each section has short chapters on how food is served in each country. For more recipes and information go to Try African Food.
posted by Kattullus at 12:00 PM PST - 19 comments

Words of warning: Watch out for squirrels. Keep your kids with you, but don't put them here. And finally, some advice for golfers. (links go to pictures) [more inside]
posted by nospecialfx at 11:30 AM PST - 24 comments

Fascinating 3D renderings of different processes inside of a human body. Yes, the style is quite similar to The Inner Life of The Cell, but this one is different. Dissolving of the pills was definitely entertaining. It would be great if a doctor could comment on the other processes that are displayed.
posted by Surfin' Bird at 11:20 AM PST - 14 comments

The National Association of Scholars has been publishing a series of articles called "If I Ran the Zoo" (inspired by Seuss) in which various contributors describe what they would do if they were in charge of higher education. (via) [more inside]
posted by prefpara at 11:18 AM PST - 25 comments

Psychotherapy in the Age of Obscene Wealth
posted by Weebot at 11:15 AM PST - 67 comments

Photo Gallery: Translucent Creatures. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 10:30 AM PST - 25 comments

The Sidney D Gamble Photograph Collection at Duke University consists of about 5,000 newly digitised pictures, taken predominantly in China between 1917 and 1932. Browse by subject, category or location tags. Photos taken in 1908 are to be added in the future. [via]
posted by peacay at 10:23 AM PST - 5 comments

Have Food Will Travel: Pearl River Delta is a travelogue teaser video from Leonard Shek, a second generation Chinese American from San Francisco. Shek traveled to the Guangdong Province as part of the SF Chinese Culture Center's In Search of Roots program. While the main purpose of the trips is for Chinese Americans to explore where their parents or grandparents came from, Shek wanted to explore the origins of the food he grew up with.
posted by spec80 at 10:09 AM PST - 2 comments

Blood on the Mountain; part 2. In 1981 Randall Smith killed two hikers along the Appalachian Trail and served 15 years for second-degree murder. Two months ago Scott Johnston and Sean Farmer were camping along the trail when a man walked into their campsite. It was Randall Smith. And he was carrying a .22. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 9:34 AM PST - 75 comments

"No one told me there would be unremitting noise every Saturday for the rest of my life.” Historic Harlem drumming circle drives young white professionals drum crazy. Who will prevail?
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 9:20 AM PST - 141 comments

Inspired by such diverse influences as Pee-Wee's Playhouse to Frank Gehry and Warner Brothers Cartoons to Philippe Starck, Vancouver, BC based woodworker Judson Beaumont's furniture is whimsical yet fully functional and is suited for children and adults alike. [more inside]
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:54 AM PST - 15 comments

30 Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth "From 400 miles away, the earth transforms into abstract art. The global landscape is impressionist, cubist and pointillist." Nice NASA images from 2000, downloadable as wallpaper.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:48 AM PST - 16 comments

Canadian expatriate (and Metafilter member) stavrosthewonderchicken has a detailed and depressing look at the impact of the mountain pine beetle in Northern British Columbia, where a perfect storm of "forest fire suppression, clearcutting (and subsequent replanting), [and] global warming" has led to the destruction of over 130,000 square kilometers of forest.
posted by gen at 7:05 AM PST - 51 comments

(Life and) Death of a Pig - farmer to butcher to curer.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:38 AM PST - 51 comments

The simple phrase "it's different this time" are the four most expensive words in the English language. Sir John Templeton, 1912-2008, we thank you for this lesson and countless others. [more inside]
posted by Mutant at 3:48 AM PST - 67 comments

Renegade high school English teacher Connie Heermann was suspended without pay for 18 months for using the book The Freedom Writers Diary in her class. [more inside]
posted by kyleg at 12:07 AM PST - 88 comments

Gorbachov the music video, contains basically everything I've ever wanted in a music video.
posted by mock at 10:08 PM PST - 39 comments

Remote control birth control. The device, an implant for men that is billed as an alternative to a vasectomy, is still in testing. That's not the only idea for new male contraceptives, though. As a 20-something male, I can say with confidence that my favorite method so far is the application of an external heat source. This blog is my new favorite.
posted by tarheelcoxn at 9:33 PM PST - 36 comments

With 'Lively' Google tries something more interactive in the 3d space after buying SketchUp in 2006. [more inside]
posted by acro at 8:19 PM PST - 38 comments

American-Dutch photographer Peter van Agtmael and English photographer Olivia Arthur are the two newest nominees recently welcomed into Magnum Photos. Agtmael's images of Afghanistan and Iraq are very powerful - he discusses his work in Conscientious. Arthur's recent work has focused on women's experiences in what she calls the Middle Distance. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 7:29 PM PST - 8 comments

The CarTalk guys are invading the television airwaves starting tomorrow night with their new cartoon show "Click & Clack's As the Wrench Turns," airing on PBS. [more inside]
posted by Ike_Arumba at 5:54 PM PST - 51 comments

William Burroughs recites from the last words of Dutch Schultz, set to the music of The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
posted by Artw at 5:44 PM PST - 19 comments

Improv Everywhere’s latest “mission”: Human Mirror [video]. They filled a New York subway car with 16 sets of identical twins and recorded the reactions of riders who eventually realized they were looking at an MTA carriage full of real-life “mirror images.” [more inside]
posted by ericb at 5:39 PM PST - 37 comments

Guyville Redux, the DVD included with the 15th anniversary reissue of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, is available for viewing (for one week only) on Pitchfork.tv
posted by porn in the woods at 4:15 PM PST - 22 comments

"Type designers know well that context, culture, and history shape the connotations of letterforms. . . . In fact, type plays a starring role in the making of nations." A short but interesting look at typography and political identity from Print magazine.
posted by camcgee at 4:03 PM PST - 9 comments

According to Ilechukwu, an epidemic of penis theft swept Nigeria between 1975 and 1977. Then there seemed to be a lull until 1990, when the stealing resurged. “Men could be seen in the streets of Lagos holding on to their genitalia either openly or discreetly with their hand in their pockets,” Ilechukwu wrote. “Women were also seen holding on to their breasts directly or discreetly, by crossing the hands across the chest. . . . Vigilance and anticipatory aggression were thought to be good prophylaxes. This led to further breakdown of law and order.” In a typical incident, someone would suddenly yell: Thief! My genitals are gone! Then a culprit would be identified, apprehended, and, often, killed.
posted by chunking express at 3:46 PM PST - 68 comments

Tod Browning's 1932 cinematic masterpiece Freaks tells the story of a close-knit group of circus sideshow workers who are wronged and take revenge. The film's use of real-life freaks so disturbed audiences that some ran screaming from theaters, distributors refused to handle the film, and it was banned in Britain for over 30 years. [more inside]
posted by flug at 2:30 PM PST - 22 comments

The World's First Software Engineer David Caminer, the System designer behind LEO, the world's first business computer, has died, aged 92. He was a true pioneer, inventing many of the standards now called systems engineering. [more inside]
posted by Susurration at 1:16 PM PST - 29 comments

Bat. shit. insane. Words fail me. This part almost makes sense, but that's about it.
posted by desjardins at 12:52 PM PST - 154 comments

Natural disasters are good for the economy. No, they aren't. Yes, they are. Well, maybe sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. (pdf) It helps if somebody makes a movie or a television show about it. The Broken Window fallacy.
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:41 PM PST - 17 comments

Melting Greenland glacier water forms a "slow wave" that stays in the Atlantic for at least 50 years before reaching the Pacific, according to a new study. The water piles up in the Atlantic. "It is often assumed that sea levels will rise instantaneously, but that is unlikely, given what we know about ocean dynamics." Fifty years after the meltwater is released from Greenland, sea-level rise could be 30 times greater around Greenland and down the eastern side of North America, including the Gulf of Mexico, than in the Pacific Ocean. Sea-level rises in Europe are around six times that of the Pacific, but only a fifth as great as on the opposite shore of the Atlantic.
posted by stbalbach at 10:28 AM PST - 42 comments

Medinat Weimar wishes to establish a Jewish state in Thuringia, Germany, with the city of Weimar as its capital. A land without a people for a people without a land! Oh, wait ... [more inside]
posted by Sar HaPanim at 9:54 AM PST - 53 comments

Naxalites are India's most dangerous revolutionary organization (of which there are many). They capitalize on dissent against the Indian Government where it is weakest, promising a better life to India's poor. This Maoist movement has waxed and waned since its inception in the 1960's. The Government's latest attempt to vanquish the Naxalites, called Salwa Judum, has been a failure. Though little known in the West, the Naxalite uprising has torn asunder large parts of India, devastated local economies, terrorized millions and turned brother against brother.
posted by Kattullus at 8:33 AM PST - 12 comments

The news today is that Bruce Conner, an amazing artist across many forms, died yesterday.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:23 AM PST - 20 comments

"We create sewn art and artifacts based on the drawings of our two children using only thrifted and recycled materials. We also make custom pieces with a child's drawing provided or requested by you." Via plsj tumblelog.
posted by nthdegx at 7:53 AM PST - 8 comments

Cosmin Bumbuţ, Romanian photographer. [nsfw] [more inside]
posted by fire&wings at 7:41 AM PST - 5 comments

In July 1988 the art exhibition Freeze, largely organised by Damien Hirst, gave birth to the YBAs... twenty years on the artists involved are reuniting for another exhibition.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:27 AM PST - 12 comments

Rental Car Rally. (From the guys who brought Street Wars to NYC). That is all.
posted by allkindsoftime at 6:56 AM PST - 24 comments

Maintaining a historic home is an expensive business. Tissington Hall, a 400 year old house in Derbyshire with a mere 12 bedrooms, had a £16 000 bill for heating alone last year. The current owner sat down a cried when he inherited it and its £100 000 annual running costs. [more inside]
posted by fatfrank at 6:18 AM PST - 94 comments

SCAD Shorts, playful videos that stretch the imagination are from The Dandy Dwarves, an eclectic group of students who formed a video production company while attending Savannah College of Art Design. Each month the dwarves will release a brand new video short like the recent Scribe Conjures Alternate Dimension. It’s up to us to create fitting, descriptive, and creative S-C-A-D titles for each new video.
posted by netbros at 5:07 AM PST - 3 comments

"What we've invented is a way to induce charges on the wall using a power supply located on the robot....The robot carries with it positive and negative charges, and when the walls sees these charges it automatically generates the opposite charge. The robot can then clamp onto those charges." Scientists have robots climbing the walls.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 4:43 AM PST - 29 comments

XKCD mocks Wikipedia's "in popular culture" sections. Wikipedians take the idea seriously. The article ("Wood"). goes on lockdown. But is adding correct, even if useless, information really WikiVandalism?
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:16 PM PST - 70 comments

"...aside from the Devil, you have no enemy more venomous, more desperate, more bitter, than a true Jew... What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming.... First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians.... Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.... Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.... Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb." -- From On the Jews and Their Lies, authored by the man voted by his countrymen the second greatest German of all time, the theologian whose break with Rome began the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther. [more inside]
posted by orthogonality at 9:54 PM PST - 87 comments

Hans Reiser leads police to the body of his wife. Software engineer Hans Reiser, who was convicted in the murder of his wife, Nina, long denied he killed her. His defense was based on the theory that she was hiding out in her native Russia and her body could not be found. Today, in a possible exchange for a shorter sentence he led police to the shallow grave of Nina Reiser, just a moment's drive from the house he lived in with his mother and two children. Previously, previously.
posted by parmanparman at 9:19 PM PST - 129 comments

The Fallacy of Examples, and the problems of extrapolating from media. [Via RConversation]
posted by homunculus at 8:25 PM PST - 5 comments

"My name is a combination of 'take photo' and the letter 'C' for Charlie. How on earth do you pronounce that, you might ask. Well the answer is you don't. You sign it."
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:17 PM PST - 45 comments

The kids today sure do love the hip hop music, so let's be sure to cram as much of it into our movie as possible. Thrill as MC Hammer jams with the Addams family, Bobby Brown preaches the word of the Ghostbusters via bluescreen, Rodney Dangerfield cuts loose, Ronald McDonald busts a move, and Tom Hanks & Dan Aykroyd dance their way through a criminal investigation. [Previously]
posted by Servo5678 at 6:03 PM PST - 28 comments

"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was in Denver, CO, today for a town hall meeting. The event, at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, was billed as 'open to the public.' Yet Carole Kreck, a 61-year-old librarian carrying a 'McCain=Bush' sign, was taken away by police [on orders from McCain's security detail] for trespassing. A police officer told Kreck:

'You have two choices. You can keep your sign here and receive a ticket for trespassing, or you can remove the sign and stay in line and attend this town hall meeting.'

Kreck received a ticket for trespassing and her court date is July 23."^*. Video of Kreck's encounter with the police. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 5:24 PM PST - 171 comments

The Gerd Arntz Web Archive collects graphics from the career of the man who - in creating over 4000 Isotypes for social scientist Otto Neurath in 1930s Red Vienna - can make a serious claim to be the inventor of the modern stick figure. He attacked the corruption of German society as the Nazis rose to power, then joined Neurath in an attempt to create a transnational visual language that bore later fruit in Otl Aicher's 1972 Olympic pictograms and the AIGA passenger/pedestrian symbol signs. [via Mark Larson and Austin Kleon]
posted by mediareport at 4:35 PM PST - 9 comments

Ines Brunn and her bike. {mlyt}
posted by dobbs at 2:40 PM PST - 47 comments

Sitting With Fire is a blog running from Tassajara, one of the oldest Zen monasteries in the US. It provides information on the status of Tassajara's residents who have stayed behind to combat the Basin Complex fire. [more inside]
posted by whir at 2:29 PM PST - 20 comments

Michael Bay, director of Transformers and other predictable blockbuster movies apparently wrote a script for The Dark Knight that was rejected by Warner Bros. Amazingly, it has surfaced on the net…
posted by Surfyournut at 2:02 PM PST - 126 comments

"Nobody in the antipoverty community and nobody in city leadership was going to welcome the news that the noble experiment that they’d been engaged in for the past decade had been bringing the city down, in ways they’d never expected. But the connection was too obvious to ignore, and Betts and Janikowski figured that the same thing must be happening all around the country." American Murder Mystery. Page 2. Page 3. Page 4.
posted by wittgenstein at 1:37 PM PST - 57 comments

Bill Gates - 10,000,000; Vegetarian student - 300. Carbon Footprint of different lifestyles. [more inside]
posted by ilovemytoaster at 1:33 PM PST - 46 comments

Free Government is a directly-controlled, open-source, entirely transparent political "meta-party" in the United States that intends to field candidates guided exclusively by online polling and user-drafted bills. Recruiting of candidates has already begun.
posted by setanor at 1:24 PM PST - 23 comments

Dystopian storytelling is pillar of Western narrative tradition, but this decade has seen a significant shift in the way our apocalypse is told. Orthodox tales of government tyranny are giving way to visions of humans running helpless in the wake of environmental meltdown. From the plausible to the fantastic, most of this fiction remains hauntingly real while the non-fiction can get downright scary. In 2008, the 20th anniversary of climatologist James Hansen's landmark speech before Congress, popular art is beginning to reflect an increasingly bleak public sentiment on the future, playing out some of our worst nightmares. It may be that these writers and directors are wishing for the end of the world, but even so, they are certainly giving voice to the creeping feeling that indeed, we might not make it.
posted by dead_ at 1:18 PM PST - 21 comments

After a lengthy hiatus, Terry Rossio is once again writing columns on screenwriting and other aspects of the film trade for Wordplayer (previously). New articles include a dissertation on the use of dramatic irony, a fascinating story about a single vacation photo and the strange twists of life, and an insider's look into how good stories get killed, and which battles are worth fighting. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer at 12:28 PM PST - 18 comments

In a 2001 University of Houston study of 153 survivors of nearly lethal attempts between the ages of 13 and 34, only 13 percent reported having contemplated their act for eight hours or longer. To the contrary, 70 percent set the interval between deciding to kill themselves and acting at less than an hour, including an astonishing 24 percent who pegged the interval at less than five minutes.

A surprising article about the nature, methods, and deterrence of suicide.
posted by Who_Am_I at 11:41 AM PST - 64 comments

Eric Lieber, producer of the groundbreaking Dick Cavett and Mike Douglas talk shows as well as the creator of (my own beloved guilty pleasure) Love Connection, has passed away of leukemia at age 71. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 11:36 AM PST - 5 comments

Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam ... The year is 1897. For five long years Europe has been ravaged by Baron Battenberg's Steam powered war machines. Led by Great Britain, a handful of defiant countries remain free of the Baron's tyrannical rule. But time is running out for them as his forces grow stronger every day. As dawn breaks high above the Atlantic, a tiny airship arrives at its secret destination. Onboard, Britain's greatest explorer, spy, and master of esoteric fighting arts readies to strike at the heart of the Baron's empire!
posted by Dave Faris at 10:39 AM PST - 52 comments

Dress patterns made from bleeding markers. Simple, but totally awesome. (via ymk)
posted by mathowie at 10:39 AM PST - 33 comments

What would Jesus fly? Senator Charles Grassley investigates TV evangelists. One of whom claims his financial records belong to God. Further Investigation of TV evangelists some of whom are leaving on a jet plane. All thanks to the Prosperity Doctrine
posted by adamvasco at 9:47 AM PST - 89 comments

I first encountered the concept of forest gardening in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915) [relevant part pages 79-80]; the fictional race of women in her book have completely remade the forests to contain only beneficial and food-bearing plants, which live harmoniously together and replenish the soil naturally. This is actually being done, less than a hundred years later. More; similar, similar.
posted by fiercecupcake at 9:32 AM PST - 25 comments

Pocket Calculator Show. via: Beware of Blog
posted by serazin at 9:14 AM PST - 13 comments

For the first time in nearly a decade China is issuing new banknotes without the image of Chairman Mao. Instead there's a picture of, you guessed it, their shiny new Olympic stadium. And a discus thrower on the back. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:19 AM PST - 46 comments

The Weird-Ass Picture Book Awards, WAPB, are given to the books that make you go “Huhhh?” Awards are given for story, illustration, and cover art. The highest award goes to the picture book achieving outstanding weirdness in both illustration and text. The 2007 WAPBA went to The Fuchsia Is Now, by J. Otto Seibold, for its strange story and artwork. The interesting use of condoms as hats was clearly a deciding factor in this book’s selection. Dear Fish, by Chris Gall, won for both illustration and cover art. For storyline, My Father the Dog, by Elizabeth Bluemle, took the prize.
posted by Fizz at 7:14 AM PST - 18 comments

The Birmingham Central Library, one of the largest and most important public libraries in Europe, has often been vilified as one of the ugliest buildings in Britain. A prime example of Brutalism, English Heritage has (controversially) recommended that the structure should be listed. Others want it to go the way of Portsmouth's hated Tricorn Centre. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:17 AM PST - 89 comments

Stock Market on Crash Watch due to a Hindenburg Omen. [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall at 1:41 AM PST - 57 comments

One World Journeys produces exciting and educational photo-documentary expeditions that connect online viewers to unique wilderness areas around the world. Travel to the remote mountain forests of the former Soviet Georgia, track jaguars in Mexico, dive on pristine coral reefs, swim with wild salmon and wildlife of British Columbia and step into the heat of the Sonoran Desert.
posted by netbros at 1:14 AM PST - 2 comments

After 'The Wire,' Moving On to Battles Beyond the Streets - 'The Wire' co-creator Ed Burns talks about his life and his and David Simon's new project, 'Generation Kill', premiering next Sunday on HBO.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 11:22 PM PST - 34 comments

Poolga: iPhone and iPod Touch wallpapers from a selection of designers and illustrators from around the world.
posted by defenestration at 8:35 PM PST - 26 comments

Buddha’s Caves: The Caves of Dunhuang.
posted by homunculus at 8:15 PM PST - 7 comments

oh shit (short-term?). oh shit (long-term!).
posted by orthogonality at 8:08 PM PST - 65 comments

"The drug's effectiveness inspired an elegant theory, known as the chemical hypothesis: Sadness is simply a lack of chemical happiness. The little blue pills cheer us up because they give the brain what it has been missing. There's only one problem with this theory of depression: it's almost certainly wrong, or at the very least woefully incomplete."

How Prozac sent the science of depression in the wrong direction, from the Boston Globe.
posted by zardoz at 7:53 PM PST - 55 comments

September 14, 1998 "the Tan Canary" passes away. He started out as a gospel singer but went on to perform blues, soul, county, and jazz. In 1968 he covered the country standard "Release Me" and it became a hit. His audience grew, but stardom outside of his home in New Orleans was not to be his. [more inside]
posted by nola at 6:36 PM PST - 4 comments

The draft Garnaut Climate Change Review was released last Friday. This is the most comprehensive look so far at the economic implications of climate change and emissions trading for a developed country (Australia). Essential (but weighty) reading for those interested in the economics of the issue, a useful localisation of Stern (2006). [more inside]
posted by wilful at 5:16 PM PST - 18 comments

Josh Hamilton was destined to be an all-star baseball player, selected by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as the #1 draft pick in the 1999 MLB draft. By 2002, though, he was a bust, beset by injuries, spending his days downing an entire bottle of Crown Royal and snorting cocaine. [more inside]
posted by dw at 4:47 PM PST - 39 comments

I Met the Walrus In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. This is the whimsically animated film that Jerry has produced about the interview.
posted by milestogo at 2:31 PM PST - 26 comments

Jezebel.com editor on why she hasn't been raped: "I think it has to do with the fact that I'm like smart. I don't hang around with frat guys" -- a quote from Jezebelism: Lizz Winstead's interview with Moe Tkacik and Tracie Egan (aka Slut Machine). Winstead's intent was "to have a conversation about Hillary and sexism, women’s magazines and if they feel any obligation to write about responsibility and safety when they write graphically about their sex lives." After the interview Winstead stated: "I don’t know if they came to the show drunk, or just ended up drunk by the time they hit the stage, but what I do know is that the discussion that ensued was deeply disturbing to me..." [more inside]
posted by ericb at 1:56 PM PST - 175 comments

Karel Zeman was a Czech animator probably best known for his movies Journey to the Beginning of Time and The Fabulous World of Jules Verne. He used stop-motion animation, cartoons, puppetry, colorization, and live action to create surreal and otherworldly films of amazing beauty. Sadly (for some), there's not a lot on the internet in English about the man. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete at 12:13 PM PST - 4 comments

Channel 4 recreates The Shining to promote its Kubrick season. A 65-second tracking shot through a recreated Shining set, complete with look-alikes.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:12 PM PST - 21 comments

Matmos provides a song-by-song exposition of their synth-only* album Supreme Balloon, including explicit pics of the gear they used. Highlights include the Electronic Valve Instrument, the Coupigny, & everything else.

*Mostly - all sound sources were synths, some software controllers were used.
posted by univac at 10:53 AM PST - 14 comments

New Zealand War Art showcases about 1,500 images of New Zealanders at war beginning with World War I. Lots and lots and lots and lots of images in a wide variety of media by a long list of artists. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 9:51 AM PST - 2 comments

In the latter years of the second world war, the economist RA Radford was a prisoner of war. After the war ended, he wrote this now well known (if you're an economist) article on the economic structures that emerged in the POW camps. (JSTOR link) [more inside]
posted by pharm at 7:37 AM PST - 20 comments

Remember John Burstein? Since 1975, he has been educating children (including many of us!) about the human body and the importance of health and nutrition in a rather unique way. Like many superheroes before him, he dons a form-fitting suit and transforms into a shocking alter ego... the living anatomical reference, Slim Goodbody! [more inside]
posted by Mael Oui at 1:48 AM PST - 30 comments

Those familiar with the plaintive falsetto of Delta blues great Skip James will surely hear Skip's influence in the much lesser-known Johnny Temple's Evil Devil Blues, recorded in 1935, which features some delightfully unexpected melodic twists. And though Johnny Temple "never achieved stardom", he does have a Wikipedia page. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:29 PM PST - 9 comments

Where creative juices come from. Now that you're in the mood, let's get down to some great new creative stuff! What is likely to be ripped off on College Humor next week! Learn how to interrogate a lemon! Previous creative goodness...
posted by parmanparman at 10:10 PM PST - 12 comments

While the Darwin awards look away ... cluster ballooning is taking off. More and more people are taking to the sky with a cluster of helium balloons and a lawn chair.
posted by Susurration at 9:40 PM PST - 18 comments

Kids at school in nappies. Another report claims the average age of toilet-training is now 3 or 4, compared to the former norm of 18 months. Teachers don't want to change diapers; parents say they don't have time to toilet-train. Is our future a continuum of diapers to Depends?
posted by grounded at 8:57 PM PST - 70 comments

The Paintings of Fred Einaudi. [Via everlasting blort]
posted by homunculus at 8:10 PM PST - 17 comments

Wordchamp lets you view foreign-language web pages with definitions in your language as mouseovers (registration-only). [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:42 PM PST - 10 comments

Gabriel’s Revelation: “This should shake our basic view of Christianity... His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come... This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning.”
posted by orthogonality at 6:27 PM PST - 113 comments

MeFite scrumtralescent thought it would be fun to interview people who dared to take a chance and do something cool or exciting, like leaving their jobs to travel for a year, picking up an unusual hobby or starting their own business, and then share these interviews via a website for all to enjoy. So she did, and the result was 'The Life Less Traveled: How Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things…And How You Can, Too!' [via mefi projects]
posted by Effigy2000 at 6:05 PM PST - 13 comments

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Also, 2 and 3. NSFW due to a tasteless header image. You'll have to arrange by date and ascending to view them in proper order.
posted by puke & cry at 5:51 PM PST - 27 comments

Living on the Edge Welcome to Ronda, a beautiful city in southern Spain which is split in two by el Tajo gorge. As a result, certain buildings have been perched on the edge of the gorge’s vertical walls, enormous cliffs bridged by the 200 year old Peunte Neuvo. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 5:21 PM PST - 12 comments

50 Bands, 50 States: The Boston Phoenix declares the best all-time band, best all-time solo artist, and best new band from each state. [more inside]
posted by lunit at 5:10 PM PST - 83 comments

According to TIME, there are at least 10 things good about high gas prices. Such as four-day work weeks, less pollution, and fewer traffic deaths.
posted by dov3 at 4:46 PM PST - 41 comments

Congratulation! You have a fruit! A fruit is not ready currently. You must prepare a fruit. The color of a fruit is green. The color of a fruit to taste great and put inside your body is red.

[YES! A link to SomethingAwful "dot com." BUT.] [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 3:59 PM PST - 64 comments

According to the photographer's daughter, "All photos in this collection were taken by then Lt. and later Capt. George S. White, my Father, while he was serving in the Pacific as a pilot. They are generally between 1945 and 1948 from what is documented." My favorites? The barmaid or postwar Tokyo or wrecked planes and airplane graveyards.
posted by zzazazz at 2:05 PM PST - 10 comments

J.R. Williams is a prolific comics artist with a distinctive visual style 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. He is fond of fanciful takes on pop culture icons like Quisp and Yogi Bear, as well as more ribald characterizations like Polly Purebred and Jane Jetson (NSFW) More recently he has branched out into abstraction, which might be characterized as psychedelic pictographs.
posted by Tube at 1:45 PM PST - 4 comments

Simply Noise. Streaming white noise for your auditory zen needs. That is all. That is enough.
posted by wendell at 12:16 PM PST - 39 comments

John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account. Originally appeared in the May 14, 1973, issue of U.S.News & World Report. "My six years of hell" is a February 2008 extract from McCain's book Faith of My Fathers.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:58 AM PST - 79 comments

Jack English American presents I Hate Britain Day.
(Just pretend it's yesterday, ok? And ignore the Baywatch chick.) [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster at 10:20 AM PST - 19 comments