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When the Andean exotica singer Yma Sumac became famous in the United States for her supposed Inca heritage and five-octave voice, her fellow Peruvians called her a sellout. UC Davis professor Zoila Mendoza, however, knew Yma Sumac as her mother’s childhood friend.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:10 PM PST - 18 comments

Several years ago, the American Heart Association was looking for a song with 100 beats per minute to help instruct people in Hands-Only CPR. They found their song in the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive". Here is "Community" star (and licensed M.D.) Ken Jeong to show you how its done (Bonus Behind-the-scenes video here).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:18 PM PST - 72 comments

This 1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows that the Romans Were Nanotechnology Pioneers. The Lycurgus Cup appears opaque green under normal light, but the ancient dichroic glass vessel transforms to a translucent red color when lit from behind. Roman artisans achieved this by impregnating the glass with particles of silver and gold as small as 50 nanometers in diameter. Inspired by the cup, modern researchers have created the world's most sensitive plasmon resonance sensor. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:08 PM PST - 28 comments

Crusader Kings II is a computer game in which you play as any one of hundreds of feudal lords in Europe in the High to Late Middle Ages. Hoping for your family to become just that little bit more powerful, you scheme against your liege, your vassals, and occasionally even your enemies. Meanwhile, at least half of the game's cast of thousands schemes against you. The game's potential for Shakespearean intrigue has made it ripe for post-game write-ups called after-action reports. With the recent release of The Old Gods, an expansion allowing for play as a pagan ruler, PC Gamer published its own series of after-action reports: Lords of the North. The game's thematic similarities to A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones have not gone unnoticed, either. [more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:48 PM PST - 244 comments

(MeFi's own) Jacob Appelbaum receives Transparency International's (DE) 2013 Whistleblower Prize on behalf of Edward Snowden (statement from Snowden starts here) joined remotely by Glenn Greenwald.
posted by anemone of the state at 1:16 PM PST - 24 comments

L.A.'s urban parks: for the homeless, too? 'The new small parks include features that homeless advocates say are meant to harass. But managers contend they just want to prevent people from living there.'[LA Times - for access, use private browsing function in your browser]. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 12:48 PM PST - 96 comments

A bit over a year ago, Warp Record's digital music shop, Bleep.com, presented their guide to recorded* electronic music, spanning from 1930 to 2010 (also as a Facebook timeline, which apparently kicked the whole thing off). The overview of recorded electronic music was presented as a selection of 55 tracks, almost five and a half hours in full. Part of this presentation was a (now expired) promotional deal to purchase the collection of songs as a lot, but you can still read about each piece of music on Bleep and hear 49 of the tracks in a playlist on Grooveshark. There's more to hear and read below the fold. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:22 AM PST - 26 comments

Today, Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes the first Supreme Court Justice to officiate at a same sex marriage.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:56 AM PST - 28 comments

Robert Peston answers a question from a disappointed six-year old. (As picture) [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 10:29 AM PST - 31 comments

The proliferation of dashcam videos have given us some amazing material, here's another one to add to the pile
posted by ambivalentic at 10:05 AM PST - 74 comments

Comics Alliance's Andy Khouri and Betty Felon (curator of Best Cosplay Ever) review SyFy's Heroes of Cosplay and talk about narratives of reality TV, Yaya Han and credit and authenticity in cosplay.
posted by Artw at 9:01 AM PST - 22 comments

"Mary Williams adopted the name “Kate Carew” and wrote candid, witty interviews with luminaries of the day, including Mark Twain, Pablo Picasso, and the Wright Brothers. She adorned her interviews with her unique “Carewatures,” and often drew herself into the scene. Imagine Oprah Winfrey as a liberated woman caricaturist-interviewer in 1900 and you have an idea of who Kate Carew was. -- The Comics Journal's Paul Tumey rediscovers a cartooning pioneer in the course of a review of a new book about early US comics. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 6:56 AM PST - 4 comments

Fragments of a hologram rose: Re-seeing Blade Runner - Tears in rain Memories of missing words, stories and concepts; All-seeing eye Entering picture space with the Esper; The city and the city The architecture of Los Angeles, 2019; Painting the future Syd Mead’s production art; Spinner and gun Tools of the job
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:50 AM PST - 18 comments

Why It Makes Perfect Sense for MTV to Host the VMAs and Not Show Music Videos
posted by reenum at 6:20 AM PST - 39 comments

Pitch Black Heist. A short film directed by John Maclean and starring Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham as two safe crackers who have to open a safe in a pitch black room.
posted by dng at 4:46 AM PST - 14 comments

"And so went the next seven years of my life, or my "life", I should say. Because when the pure O exploded, my life grew inverted commas and flew away. All that was left was an effigy of a young woman and a neon pink MySpace profile." What it's like to live with pure-OCD.
posted by mippy at 4:17 AM PST - 37 comments

Old School FRP is a tumblr blog with a ton of illustrations and art from the golden age of Dungeons and Dragons and games that were totally not Dungeons and Dragons.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:47 AM PST - 33 comments

Bernard Waber died this past May. Mr Waber was the auther of many children's books, including the Lyle Lyle Crocodile books, the first of which was "The House on East 88th Street". David Haetty put together a little video, reading the book for us. Pretty much the most endearing collection of misspelled words, misread sentences, awkward text pacing, strange accents and mispronunciation you'll come across today.
posted by HuronBob at 7:17 PM PST - 8 comments

You're perhaps familiar with the Stevie Wonder classic, For Once in My Life. It's a great little tune, catchy, pleasing, just makes you feel good. What you may never have really thought about, though, is how much James Jamerson's bass line has to do with the tune's infectious brilliance. So, check out James Jamerson’s Bass Line Visualized. I mean, just... damn! Right?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:08 PM PST - 73 comments

There’s a moment which comes every time Minh Ha enters the Hall of the Dead: a single, agonizing moment of hope when she sees the streets before the bombs extinguished the lanterns hanging in the trees—when she sees Mother and the aunts exactly as she remembers them, their faces creased like crumpled paper—when she hears them say, “Come to us, child,” in Rong, just as they once did, when handing her the red envelopes of the New Year celebration.

It never lasts.

posted by deathpanels at 6:29 PM PST - 7 comments

For £20 million you can buy your very own London tube station underground military headquarters. [more inside]
posted by Thing at 4:25 PM PST - 14 comments

What do you mean?
posted by roll truck roll at 3:57 PM PST - 29 comments

The 1976 BBC drama I, Claudius, an adaptation of Robert Graves's novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, which came out in 1934 and 1935, respectively, is on YouTube in its entirety. [more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:34 PM PST - 70 comments

EN PUNTAS (extracts). "A ballerina, whose pointe shoes are extended by a set of sharp kitchen knives, dances and twirls insistently until reaching exhaustion, fighting to maintain balance on the lid of a grand piano set on a stage..." Video installation by artist Javier Pérez, featuring ballerina Amélie Ségarra.
posted by homunculus at 2:46 PM PST - 25 comments

Most people, including social scientists, think about poverty in one of two ways. Either they view the behaviors of the poor as rational, "calculated adaptations to prevailing circumstances", or as the result of deviant values and character flaws stemming from, and perpetuating, a "culture of poverty". A third view is emerging in which "the poor may exhibit the same basic weaknesses and biases as do people from other walks of life, except that in poverty, with its narrow margins for error, the same behaviors often manifest themselves in more pronounced ways and can lead to worse outcomes." "It's not that foolish choices make you poor; it's that poverty's effects on the mind lead to bad choices." (original research, pdf) [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 12:57 PM PST - 50 comments

Has there ever been a more ludicrous yet beloved video game device than Metal Gear Solid's infamous Cardboard Box. Fans have written detailed histories of the box. It has its own Facebook page. In the real world, it has even been known to actually work. But it's just so much more fun to laugh at it.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:51 PM PST - 24 comments

Collaborating with a 4-year Old -- Mother and daughter share a sketchbook, make magic.
posted by neroli at 11:59 AM PST - 23 comments

New Harmony, Indiana is a small town whose history is rooted in not one but two attempted utopian communities. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 10:58 AM PST - 19 comments

At the turn of the last century, Mary MacLane wrote of her life in Butte, Montana, but she was no Laura Ingalls Wilder. Instead of comforting tales of a tough life, she instead imagined herself conversing with the Devil, and she could come across like "an off-kilter Walt Whitman with odes to her red blood, her sound, sensitive liver." Her first diary was originally titled I Await the Devil’s Coming, but her publisher re-titled it The Story of Mary MacLane, released to much (publisher-stirred) flurry and attention (Google books preview). Thanks to her book, she was able to move to Chicago. She wrote two more books, a variety of news paper columns and even a movie entitled Men Who Have Made Love to Me (Google books), which she wrote, directed, and starred in, directly addressing the camera at times. But for all the attention and publicity of the era (she was commemorated in a drink recipe, paid $500 for her likeness to be used on cigar boxes, and a Butte baseball team took her name as the team name), she has largely faded away, in part thanks to a public who turned from intrigued to mocking. Recently, Mary MacLane has found a renewed interest, thanks to the re-publishing of her original diary under its original name, as well as an anthology of her writing with additional notes (Google books preview). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:51 AM PST - 22 comments

Teaching Cliteracy 101: "It is a curious dilemma to observe the paradox that on the one hand the female body is the primary metaphor for sexuality, its use saturates advertising, art and the mainstream erotic imaginary. Yet, the clitoris, the true female sexual organ, is virtually invisible." ~ Artist Sophia Wallace is using street art and an art exhibition that incorporates pithy slogans, 'scientific data, historical information as well as references to architecture, porn, pop culture and human rights' to make "the case for the clit". (Links throughout this post may be NSFW.) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:33 AM PST - 57 comments

One popular subreddit, Explain Like I'm Five, is where you can find answers to questions dumbed down enough for five-year-olds to understand them. (What is Obamacare? What does the One Ring actually do?) But Explain Like I Am A takes things a step further:

Explain color like I'm blind.
Explain the possible North Korea vs. USA conflict like I have spent the last 5 months playing Civilization V
Explain how the female orgasm feels like I'm a man (and Explain what an erection feels like like I'm a woman)
Explain how war really is like I'm a 12 year old boy who plays Call of Duty for the "realism".
Explain C++ like IamA programmer from 1979 who only knows BASIC and you are Mufasa
Explain quantum physics like you are a writer for Cracked / I am completely terrified by words featuring any more than 4 letters.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:26 AM PST - 87 comments

Originally created as a special feature for the out-of-print 2003 Aliens DVD, Superior Firepower: The Making of 'Aliens' is a warts-and-all documentary about the making of the film.
posted by griphus at 9:18 AM PST - 44 comments

August has been a strange and confusing month for some of the Internet's most famous cats. Maru, Master of Boxes That Are Bigger On The Inside, was presented with a new kitten companion who will travel with him across that impossibly clean floor and anywhere else they can manage. He is adjusting. (Posts are in Japanese and excellent English. Cute Overload's commenters have attempted to smooth out the Google translations of the Japanese: 1. 2.) And back in the States, Grumpy Cat met Lil Bub at a film festival. There were some flattened ears and bodies (Jezebel post with two vines), but no Eve-Margo tributes. Bonus retro musical link for Canadians.
posted by maudlin at 9:17 AM PST - 21 comments

DANGER RADIOACTIVE - a playlist of High Youtube Weirdness, Odd Content, and Weaponized Strangeness DANGER RADIOACTIVE 2 [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 8:55 AM PST - 26 comments

While promoting The World's End, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost covered "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk.
posted by quin at 7:04 AM PST - 107 comments

Yesterday the House of Commons and the House of Lords debated a response to Syria's use of chemical weapons. The government lost the debate and the commons rejected military action. David Cameron said "the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the Government will act accordingly.." A government MP explains why she voted against and Charles Stross makes a suggestion for what could be done (distributing gas masks, field decontamination showers, NAAK kits, and medical resources to everyone in the conflict zones)
posted by Gilgongo at 5:43 AM PST - 381 comments

The poet Seamus Heaney has died aged 74. "There's a summons in those first words; they're like a tuning fork": a long interview from 1997. Metafilter's 70th birthday celebration. Some poems. [more inside]
posted by unless I'm very much mistaken at 5:29 AM PST - 101 comments

Hey kid! Are you a budding young talent anxious to present your work to the world, but not quite sure how the professionals draw comics? Well, the wise guys at Charlton are ready to help you with their 1973 comic book guide for the artist-writer-letterer.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:52 AM PST - 21 comments

70 years ago today in Philadelphia, PA, a weirdo was born. He grew up in a spectacularly dysfunctional family, angry, alienated and beset by bizarre sexual compulsions, mostly involving girls with giant butts. But following those early years of bitter struggle, he became a celebrated cartoonist, musician and misanthrope whose controversial, hilarious (and just as often despairing) art transformed funnybooks and American society. His name is R. Crumb. [more inside]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:35 AM PST - 45 comments

Literate indie rock band Okkervil River have put together an adventure game to celebrate their new album, The Silver Gymnasium. It's the best Okkervil River game since Saints Row 2.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 11:41 PM PST - 26 comments

Why are pharmaceutical names so goofy?
posted by Chrysostom at 7:34 PM PST - 129 comments

Iggy & The Stooges tour rider begins with "First of all, can I say what a pleasure it will be to work with you all. Probably." And keeps going.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 7:34 PM PST - 28 comments

The BBC reports that 6000-year old clothing, bows and arrows have been found under melting snow in Norway. Earlier reports with different photos. Meanwhile, Archaeology has a longer article about "the race to to find, and save, ancient artifacts emerging from glaciers and ice patches in a warming world". And glacial archaeology is becoming so much of a thing that it's getting its own scholarly journal.
posted by Athanassiel at 7:27 PM PST - 26 comments

When Matt Smith took over the role of The Doctor, he was presented with several costume ideas the Grand Moff had envisioned. Fortunately for us all, Smith had his own ideas and was given carte blanche on costuming The Doctor.
posted by mediocre at 7:15 PM PST - 47 comments

Text-art collective Blocktronics released it's 3rd pack last night called "Space Invaders" with over 100 pieces of text-based ANSI/ASCII art
posted by livejamie at 6:36 PM PST - 10 comments

The Bechdel Test has inspired several similar tests for works of fiction. There's the Shukla Test, the Mako Mori Test, and the Vito Russo Test. But, are any of these tests as useful as the original? Overthinkingit.com proposes a Bechdel Test (for Bechdel Tests.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:15 PM PST - 156 comments

Simkin and the City Starring Daniil Simkin, Principal with the American Ballet Theatre.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:46 PM PST - 6 comments

On Wednesday, the Walker Art Center held its second annual Internet Cat Video Festival. This year, it was held at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand. Some of the featured videos can be seen at Animal Planet's website. Minnesota Public Radio has a gallery of photos of the Festival and City Pages presents "Five types of feline-frenzied fans seen at Cat Vid Fest." A butter sculpture of a cat was created for the Festival and you can watch a video of it being created. (Previously.)
posted by Area Man at 1:38 PM PST - 24 comments

Tom Waits - A Day in Vienna. "In 1978 or 1979 (we’ll get to that in a minute), Tom Waits was touring Europe. He had a concert in Vienna the day after a show in Amsterdam. He showed up in Vienna and was greeted by two young men named Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher, employees of ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk, i.e. Austrian television) with the proposal of shooting an interview while he was in town. Waits countered with a better idea."
posted by homunculus at 1:09 PM PST - 10 comments

Chouchou are a Japanese duo of artist/musicians who make haunting, ethereal electronic lullabies of otherworldly beauty. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 1:01 PM PST - 3 comments

A Week With Action Bronson 'A highly stoned, deeply weird, very food-obsessed three days on the road with 300-pound Albanian American rapper Action Bronson' (SLGrantland)
posted by box at 12:38 PM PST - 8 comments

From The Atlantic, a series of photography that documents America in the 1970s: the Pacific Northwest | New York City | the Southwest | Chicago's African-American community | Texas [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:22 PM PST - 19 comments

The Department of Treasury and Internal Revenue Service announced today that it will recognize same-sex marriages for the purpose of filing federal taxes, even if the couple lives in a state that does not recognize their marriage. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:33 AM PST - 107 comments

Unlike its original namesake or famous sibling, the new Eastern span of the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge opens with little fanfare on Labor Day. Even governor Jerry Brown, once mayor of Oakland and the political force [1998] behind its groundbreaking signature design, is skipping the party.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 11:22 AM PST - 44 comments

Using documents obtained from whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Washington Post reports on the United States' $52.6 billion "black budget" for 2013.
posted by anemone of the state at 11:13 AM PST - 76 comments

The Limits of Computer Trespass Law (Lengthy video with audio available) "Have you ever borrowed a smartphone without asking? Modified a URL? Scraped a website? Called an undocumented API? Congratulations: you might have violated federal law!" Legal and internet thinkers (including Ed Felten, Jennifer Granick, Dan Auerbach, & others) talk about vagueness in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, chilling effects, and the prosecution of Aaron Swartz in a panel discussion at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society. [more inside]
posted by gauche at 11:05 AM PST - 16 comments

ライナーノーツ (translation: "liner notes") is a short video clip that makes sense if you imagine a fan of Terry Gilliam was inspired by the animated scenes from Monty Python, but set them in the grim future of Brazil, with the added twist that the dark future is built in/around giant giraffes, turtles, whales, and bison. From the Japanese artist Yuta Ikehara, whose website and additional work is available here (Google auto-translation; via Dark Roasted Blend's post on contemporary Japanese 2D artists)
posted by filthy light thief at 10:33 AM PST - 1 comment

"My desire for experience, for openness, for adventure, had been overpowered by a stronger imperative, one I had internalized without realizing it: Don’t get yourself raped." Travel writer Tara Burton writes about her different opportunities and experiences, and the changed values they have brought her.
posted by corb at 10:21 AM PST - 136 comments

Dr. Donna Nelson is the science advisor for Breaking Bad. After reading an interview where show creator Vince Gilligan said no one on the show's staff had a scientific background, she reached out to the Breaking Bad creator. The rest is history.
posted by reenum at 10:14 AM PST - 31 comments

Hyon Song-wol, North Korean pop star and rumoured lover of Kim Jong Un, has reportedly been executed by firing squad. The singer, previously noted on Mefi for her 2005 video Excellent Horse-Like Lady, was reportedly arrested on August 17 and was executed with others on August 20.
posted by jokeefe at 9:25 AM PST - 96 comments

Trilling is a 2006 video by Catherine Ross featuring horizontally scrolling, looping hand gestures from Three's Company paired with looping, spontaneously composed trumpet flourishes by Taylor Haskins.
posted by usonian at 9:12 AM PST - 12 comments

The son of a Yanomami tribeswoman returns to the jungle to look for her. David Good is the child of an American anthropologist and the Yanomami woman he married while doing field research in the remote Amazon rainforest. Raised in the US, he returns to find his mother. [may be nsfw - images of unclothed tribespeople]
posted by desjardins at 7:50 AM PST - 29 comments

Its been 25 years of the ONION 25 years of the best news reporting around from America's Finest News Source. [more inside]
posted by TheLittlePrince at 7:46 AM PST - 220 comments

inXile (previously) have released 18 minutes of gameplay footage from their upcoming game Wasteland 2. [via]
posted by griphus at 7:15 AM PST - 37 comments

New fiction by Ted Chiang (previously)
posted by Artw at 7:00 AM PST - 40 comments

"Dancing" Baby Ostriches. [slyt | cute | via]
posted by quin at 6:55 AM PST - 9 comments

The 1991 CBs made-for-TV movie adaptation of Shadow Of A Doubt and the 1943 Alfred Hitchcock version are based on the same source material and contain many of the same lines, beats, and scenes. So why is one considered a classic film noir and the other a flop? The Dissolve puts the two movies next to each other and tries to find out.
posted by The Whelk at 6:45 AM PST - 15 comments

"Generation Z will arrive brutalized and atomized by three generations of diminished expectations and dog-eat-dog economic liberalism. Most of them will be so deracinated that they identify with their peers and the global Internet culture more than their great-grandparents' post-Westphalian nation-state. The machineries of the security state may well find them unemployable, their values too alien to assimilate into a model still rooted in the early 20th century. But if you turn the Internet into a panopticon prison and put everyone inside it, where else are you going to be able to recruit the jailers? And how do you ensure their loyalty?" Charlie Stross on the future demographic peril faced by spy agencies.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:36 AM PST - 84 comments

Launching my first product : Brand, Make, Sell Sell, Make, Brand
posted by Gyan at 4:39 AM PST - 31 comments

Over the last year and a half, I have been visiting São Paulo and, especially, Rio de Janeiro, observing the process of “pacification,” by which the government attempts to peacefully enter and reestablish state control over the most violent enclaves of the city, those dominated by drug gangs called traficantes, or by syndicates of corrupt police called militias. Until 2008, when the pacification program started, the traficantes controlled roughly half of the favelas, and the militias the other half. Both still hold power in most favelas. The ultimate aim of the state government of Rio’s plan, called the Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP), or Police Pacification Unit, is to drive both of these groups out and replace them by the state. (SLNYRB)

posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:16 AM PST - 6 comments

A film that inevitably leads to the buying of a Jeep. (Warning: potentially disturbing black comedy SLYT) [NSFW]
posted by panaceanot at 4:16 AM PST - 24 comments

Weird Duolingo Phrases (SLTumblr). [more inside]
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:28 AM PST - 33 comments

Sam Ulano appears to have been drumming, non-stop, since he arrived on the planet in 1920. Sam Ulano is a drumming MACHINE. He's drummed on more gigs than anybody. Anybody. He's also a celebrated educator, who, throughout his long career, has taught and inspired thousands of drummers. But those aren't the reasons Sam Ulano is appearing today at Metafilter. No, Sam is here because of this: Little Red Rhumbahood. That's right. And this: Santa And The Doodle-Li-Boop. Because you've never heard anyone tell a nutty story while accompanying himself on the drum set, and doing it this, um... well, with this kind of verve, spontaneity and deliciously crazed energy. Sam Ulano is a law unto himself, a category of one. Ah, but the pièce de résistance, friends, the crowning achievement of this mad genius, the epic masterpiece which simply must be heard to be believed, is HOW TO PLAY A SHOW. Thank you, Sam Ulano, you joyously inspired lunatic!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:12 AM PST - 5 comments

For Anting New City, China asked for an idealized theme park of a Teutonic village, but instead they got a modern Bauhaus inspired ghost town. Only about 1,000 people live in this Shanghai mega-suburb that was built to be home to 50,000 residents. (via)
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:54 AM PST - 45 comments

Cookieless Monster: Exploring the Ecosystem of Web-based Device Fingerprinting [pdf]. From the 2013 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, this article examines "how web-based device fingerprinting currently works on the Internet. By analyzing the code of three popular browser-fingerprinting code providers, we reveal the techniques that allow websites to track users without the need of client-side identifiers [i.e. cookies]." [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 10:59 PM PST - 33 comments

Try a Little Tenderness, a classic of R&B, and Otis Redding, in this 1967 version, recorded the day before he died, nailed it... in 1969, this old Italian guy, Jimmy Durante found that same soul feeling.... Try a Little Tenderness And, if you enjoyed that... here's more of the Schnoz: Make Someone Happy I'll Be Seeing You Young At Heart As Time Goes By Inka Dinka Doo And, of course... Good Night Mrs. Calabash, Wherever You Are
posted by HuronBob at 8:37 PM PST - 19 comments

In 1869 John Wesley Powell lead an expedition down the Green and Colorado rivers including the first documented passage through the Grand Canyon. Now, geologist, teacher and blogger Gary Hayes writes a post a day about each day he spent on his own journey Into The Great Unknown, a rafting trip 226 miles down the Canyon that he just completed. Start here. Come for the fabulous pictures, stay for the geology, wild life both past and present. And when you're done stick around and checkout many of the other great past series on this blog (scroll down).
posted by Long Way To Go at 8:12 PM PST - 6 comments

LET'S-A GO! Super Mario Parkour (slyt) : Exactly what you think it is, plus cool augmented-reality effects.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:01 PM PST - 17 comments

At the University of Washington, researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface. [more inside]
posted by cairdeas at 5:04 PM PST - 54 comments

Ben Popper writes about the increased faith in strangers and falling crime rates that are enabling services like Lyft, AirBNB, TaskRabbit, and others in the new "sharing economy". [more inside]
posted by lattiboy at 2:27 PM PST - 103 comments

'Damned if you do, doomed if you don't' - When it comes to violating welfare rules, recipients sometimes do so after suggestions from caseworkers. Published by Al Jazeera America (previously), which opened for business just this month. Consider it a sequel piece to Planet Money's controversial report on dissability fraud (previously).
posted by The Devil Tesla at 2:07 PM PST - 66 comments

"The reason I picked the over-used cliché “behind the lines” for this series is probably going to be pretty obvious. Each month I’m going to take a look at Jack Kirby original pencils and examples of Kirby original art — images that reveal information not in the final newsprint publications. I may also take a look at some scans of Jack’s pencils from the 70s and compare those to the printed books. Mainly I want to focus on Jack’s famous margin notes from his 1960s work so we can get a glimpse into the Jack Kirby/Stan Lee collaboration." -- On what should've been Jack Kirby's 96th birthday, Robert Steibel starts a new column at tcj.com looking at the King's artwork. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 2:04 PM PST - 16 comments

Annie Lennox on how to catch creative ideas (video)
posted by Dragonness at 1:54 PM PST - 7 comments

On Jun 4, 1976, between 40 and 100 people gathered to see the Sex Pistols perform at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, a gig that has been called "the greatest gig of all time." It was attended by members of Joy Division, New Order, the Fall, the Smiths, A Certain Ratio, Ludus, Simply Red, Buzzcocks, Magazine, the producer Martin Hannett, and voted one of the most important concerts of all time, alongside Woodstock and Live Aid. A documentary about that night is called "I Swear I Was There." (SLYT)
posted by 4ster at 1:32 PM PST - 60 comments

"Have you ever dropped a stick in a river and wondered where it might go if it floated all the way downstream? Now you can trace its journey using Streamer." In addition to displaying the distance traveled, difference in elevation, and number of states, counties and cities the stick will pass through before reaching its outlet point, Streamer can do an upstream trace to show you which rivers and smaller streams fed into the spot where the stick was dropped. [more inside]
posted by Rykey at 1:11 PM PST - 32 comments

Hasbro took a vote, and the internet has spoken. Not content to simply remove the losing token from the game, Hasbro will send the offending piece directly—and permanently—to jail. The ballots have been counted, and the people have said F the iron—the new Monopoly token will be a cat. [more inside]
posted by JujuB at 12:14 PM PST - 93 comments

Covariance is a particle detector-inspired art installation in the London Canal Museum's ice wells. It is part of the Superposition: physicists and artists in conversation project.
posted by homunculus at 11:40 AM PST - 3 comments

The Problems of the 1st and 3rd Worlds have been well covered. And in 2011 we found out about 5th World Problems and 6th World Problems. But there are new worlds and new problems (and new ways to express them). Let's explore some shall we? [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:33 AM PST - 50 comments

Academics are farmers and intellectuals are hunters - and the hunters may be the future of the liberal arts, writes Jack Miles.
posted by shivohum at 10:53 AM PST - 46 comments

From Protest to Politics by Bayard Rustin, the civil rights leader almost erased from history. "From Protest to Politics" talks about the difficulty of moving beyond symbolic victories into lasting justice for the Civil Rights Movement.
posted by klangklangston at 10:40 AM PST - 13 comments

As soon as it was announced that Ben Affleck would play Batman in the sequel to the Superman reboot, twitter-ers were a-flutter with jokes and bemoaning the choice, and YouTube user started putting together a Man of Steel 2 Comic Con Teaser Trailer, in the style of the original Comic Con MOS audience recording. YouTube user soylentbrak1, aka "Steve," recently released a slightly longer, cleaner version of his fan-made trailer, pulling from 20 different video sources, including features of the rumored role of Bryan Cranston as Lex Luthor . If you like that sort of thing, soylentbrak1 also made a Mad Max: Fury Road trailer and over 100 other short clips in tribute to films, franchises, and dreams of what could be.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:14 AM PST - 117 comments

wwwtxt.org: "In 1995, commercialization, a swelling population, and the multimedia revolution began to shape Web 1.0 and the modern Internet. 1988–94 represent the final years of a much smaller, non-commercial, and text-dominated Internet. / The users of this era were not only programmers, physicists, and university residents—they were also tinkerers, early-adopters, whiz kids, and nerds. Their conversations and documents—valiantly preserved by digital archivists—are fractured across numerous services, increasingly offline-only, and incredibly voluminous (100GB+). / wwwtxt digs deep and resurrects the voices of these digital pioneers as unedited, compelling, and insightful 140-character excerpts." [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 9:35 AM PST - 20 comments

"The coming of “academic capitalism” has been anticipated and praised for years; today it is here." (Thomas Frank for The Baffler)
posted by box at 9:31 AM PST - 121 comments

Paul Solotaroff of Rolling Stone investigates the life of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez and the path he took from NFL player to murder suspect.
posted by reenum at 9:25 AM PST - 32 comments

Nintendo, already no stranger to customer confusion over its consoles' names, "will be launching a new portable gaming system in October. It's called the Nintendo 2DS. It's a 3DS without the 3D, and it's shaped like a thin piece of cake." [more inside]
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 9:25 AM PST - 108 comments

Since completing a successful fund-raising campaign, Rob Rhinehart has set up a company to make a food substitute, somewhat controversially called "Soylent", designed to be a complete food substitute -- drinking only Soylent shakes, people can stop eating "traditional food" completely. The he company's ambitions appear to be concerned with freeing up a few minutes from a busy, chewing-averse person's day, but extend as far as providing cheap food aid to the starving. [more inside]
posted by wormwood23 at 8:40 AM PST - 123 comments

Simon Stålenhag paints digital alternate histories. More here. Previously.
posted by Acey at 8:40 AM PST - 5 comments

Climate Name Change "Since 1954, the World Meteorological Organization has been naming extreme storms after people. As scientific evidence shows that climate change is creating increasingly frequent and devastating storms, and with climate scientists declaring these extreme weather events as the new normal, we propose a new naming system. A system that names extreme storms caused by climate change, after the policy makers who deny climate change and obstruct climate policy."
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:31 AM PST - 29 comments

Did you enjoy Nintendo 64 classics from the 90's? How about their soundtracks? Well, I have some good news for you (MLYT).
posted by Evernix at 8:07 AM PST - 6 comments

London to Brighton, side by side. "In 1953 the BBC made a point-of-view film from a London to Brighton train. 30 years later it did the same again. And after another 30 years it did so once more." [more inside]
posted by feelinglistless at 7:47 AM PST - 21 comments

On Monday, August 19 - day 43 of the strike a federal judge approved a request by state and federal prison authorities to engage the controversial practice of force-feed striking prisoners.

[more inside]
posted by eviemath at 7:38 AM PST - 43 comments

Patrick Stewart demonstrates a master class on the quadruple take. [SLYT]
posted by fight or flight at 7:20 AM PST - 89 comments

Animals on trampolines, the supercut. [slyt | previously]
posted by quin at 6:53 AM PST - 9 comments

As his wife, how do I respond? That he survived? That he’s brave? That he’s a hero for letting me talk about it? That I will stand beside him with a personal mission and public vow that nobody will ever hurt him, physically or emotionally, again, the way they did during his 30 months as a choirboy from 1988 to 1990?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:59 AM PST - 28 comments

Meet the Dread Pirate Roberts - the man behind booming black market drug website Silk Road
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:30 AM PST - 61 comments

Why has there been only one non-white Worldcon chair? Because science fiction fandom is not welcoming to non-white people, because con-running has not done enough to address its own lack of diversity, because people would rather believe that fandom is inclusive than force it to become inclusive.

Jonathan McCalmont writes on institutional racism in the science fiction fandom.
posted by NoraReed at 4:51 AM PST - 92 comments

I made a thing! It’s a simple music creation tool, called Bosca Ceoil (pronouced “bus-ka kyo-al”, Irish for “Music Box/Accordion”). [Mac+Windows/Adobe AIR/Flash App] [more inside]
posted by Doleful Creature at 1:13 AM PST - 17 comments

Sadako throws out the first pitch at a baseball game - undoubtedly you'll want a Sadako Hair Dog and Sadako Well Water after watching that, just be careful when you order it.
posted by Artw at 9:58 PM PST - 19 comments

Magic for Beginners. SLYT
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:23 PM PST - 19 comments

More than half the population of small, rural Madras, Oregon (population: ~6059) and its surrounding community is served by one clinic: Madras Medical. At the beginning of 2006, the clinic's doctors and nurses decided to ban pharmaceutical reps from visiting their practice. No more free lunches. No more free drug samples. No more gifts. And yet.... "It's made us better doctors." (Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:07 PM PST - 38 comments

Finding a Way: The Future of Navigation (BBC Radio 4 program audio, 30 minutes) examines problems with our dependence on GPS and what can be done about it. [more inside]
posted by double block and bleed at 8:29 PM PST - 34 comments

"Making journalism harder, slower and less secure , throwing sand in the gears, is fully within the capacity of the surveillance state. It has the means, the will and the latitude to go after journalism the way it went after terrorism... Only if they can turn a mostly passive public into a more active one can journalists come out ahead in this fight. I know they don’t think of mobilization as their job, and there are good reasons for that, but they didn’t think editors would be destroying hard drives under the gaze of the authorities, either! Journalism almost has to be brought closer to activism to stand a chance of prevailing in its current struggle with the state." [more inside]
posted by felch at 8:07 PM PST - 29 comments

Miller's Crossing, 20 Years Later Photographing (and finding) the exact filming locations for the Coen Brothers' New Orleans classic and comparing them to present day. [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 7:46 PM PST - 51 comments

Coach Jerry Kill of the Minnesota Gophers battles the stigma of epilepsy.
posted by cellphone at 6:01 PM PST - 24 comments

How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:08 PM PST - 33 comments

Sullivan’s book was a hit. It was the single best-selling book of 1947, ahead of de Beauvoir, ahead of Sartre, ahead of Camus. People wanted to meet him. The press wanted to talk to him. He was also the plaintiff in a civil suit that could carry a heavy fine or even lead to time in jail. He had to appear in court, which was tricky, because Vernon Sullivan didn’t exist. (SLTheAwl)

posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:35 PM PST - 17 comments

This is the greatest practical joke of all time...(via io9.com)
posted by Renoroc at 4:33 PM PST - 87 comments

Rope Ladder to The Moon: A Film About Jack Bruce.
posted by timsteil at 4:24 PM PST - 5 comments

The famous $500 Sourtoe Cocktail features a human toe at the bottom of it. When drinking this famous Dawson City cocktail at the Downtown Hotel, it is traditional to kiss the toe. It is not traditional to swallow it. CBC Radio's As It Happens interviews the bar's "Toe Captain" to get the full story. [audio only]
posted by thisclickableme at 4:13 PM PST - 37 comments

It's 1963. You're in a cold war with Russia. You want to keep up communication capabilities globally. Communication satellites haven't come into their own. The ionosphere is fickle and jammable. What do you do? You fire 480 million tiny copper wires into space to create an artificial dipole antenna belt around the earth. You call it Project West Ford. It works. [more inside]
posted by cortex at 2:56 PM PST - 26 comments

"In the fall of 1970, sixteen-year-old Chesley Karr returned to Coronado High School in El Paso, Texas, after a summer spent harvesting wheat in the Midwest. During his working vacation, he had let his hair grow out over his ears and collar. Later he asserted that his long hair, which he referred to as a "freak flag," was both "a cultural statement and a practical matter." Culturally, he believed his hair identified him as a supporter of the "peace or hippie movement"; practically, haircuts had been a low priority on the wheat farm. To his surprise, the high school gym coach refused to admit him to class; the issue then ascended through the principal's office to the school board, which told Karr he could not return to school without a haircut. Rather than acquiesce, Chesley Karr took his school to court." -- Flaunting the Freak Flag: Karr v Schmidt and the Great Hair Debate in American High Schools, 1965 - 1975 or a history of uptight authority figures overreacting to trivial fashion changes, sort of relevant again now Arkansas is attempting to ban tattoos and piercings. (Via.)
posted by MartinWisse at 1:48 PM PST - 84 comments

Paul Vunak doesn't want you to be irresponsible while fighting with knives. Here he is, busting common knife fighting myths in his dulcet tones. Bonus: best video transition in history around the 4:39 mark.
posted by lattiboy at 12:56 PM PST - 98 comments

Tom Stoppard's new play Darkside (free next 6 days) to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. A fantastical story about fear, philosophy and madness interwoven with the lyrics and music of the album. Interview.
posted by stbalbach at 12:40 PM PST - 21 comments

JPS a street artist from Weston-super-Mare is more than your average street artist. Here is a 2011 interview with him.
Jamie Scanlon's art is is being mistaken for that of Banksy.
posted by adamvasco at 12:12 PM PST - 6 comments

This is a game where you play as one of the greatest monsters of all time: your asshole cat. Via. (requires Unity)
posted by backseatpilot at 11:34 AM PST - 36 comments

Wanted: Caretaker For Farm. Simply watch over a 688 acre patch of hilly farmland and feed a few cows, you get 300 a week and a nice 2 bedroom trailer, someone older and single preferred but will consider all, relocation a must, you must have a clean record and be trustworthy—this is a permanent position, the farm is used mainly as a hunting preserve, is overrun with game, has a stocked 3 acre pond, but some beef cattle will be kept, nearest neighbor is a mile away, the place is secluded and beautiful, it will be a real get away for the right person, job of a lifetime—if you are ready to relocate please contact asap, position will not stay open. [more inside]
posted by gauche at 11:31 AM PST - 109 comments

"Curses! The birth of the bleep and modern American censorship" by Maria Bustillos
"The bleep of censorship invariably draws attention to the material it was intended to conceal; circles it, if you like, by loudly omitting it. Bleeping also serves as proof that there is a watcher: someone looking out for us in advance. In the bleep lies the evidence that you are being “protected” — but by whom? Why? And from what?"
posted by andoatnp at 11:16 AM PST - 15 comments

Oh Sweet Lorraine After his wife of 73 years died in April, Fred Stobaugh was heartbroken. But the Peoria, Ill., widower was still able to speak to her – in song.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:35 AM PST - 7 comments

Thanks to the FBI, he has a vast — and accurate — archive of the time. "If I have a fuzzy memory or hazy memory, I look at it, and there's a verbatim transcript of the conversations. Clarence Jones, Dr Martin Luther King's legal advisor, talks to NPR about working with Dr King, the metaphor he supplied to the "I have a dream" speech and the extent of the surveillance of King and his associates by the US security establishment. [more inside]
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:31 AM PST - 8 comments

Epigenetics (prev) is the study of changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype, caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence. David Epstein, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated has written about this topic for his book The Sports Gene (not as reductive as the title might suggest), but cut the chapter because the material he researched was so new as to require that he "caveat the writing rather heavily." Instead, he shared his chapter How an 1836 Famine Altered the Genes of Children Born Decades Later on IO9. You can read or hear more about the book in a half-hour segment from NPR's Fresh Air, opening with a story of Jennie Finch, a softball pitcher who "just whiff[ed] the best hitters in the world." (Related video clip: FSN Sport Science - Episode 7: Myths - Jennie Finch, on the force of fast baseball vs softball; ends with smarmy teaser for a "sex test")
posted by filthy light thief at 9:27 AM PST - 13 comments

Entergy announces it will close and decommission the contested Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in southern VT. Vermont Public Radio covers governor Peter Shumlin's announcement.
posted by maniabug at 9:06 AM PST - 66 comments

The big news yesterday was Miley Cyrus' twerking on Robin Thicke at the VMAs, and revelations of Syria's flagrant violations of international law by using chemical weapons against its own civilians. [more inside]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:35 AM PST - 357 comments

Former CBS Reporter Bruce Dunning, who reported the story of the last flight from Da Nang, has died at the age of 73. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:30 AM PST - 6 comments

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.

To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.
posted by procrastination at 7:32 AM PST - 124 comments

Fifty years ago, another bus-centric race dispute took place. Despite "Just 12 miles away in Bath, black crews were working on buses. London Transport recruitment officers had travelled to Barbados specifically to invite workers to come to the capital" ...non-whites found it impossible to obtain employment working on buses in Bristol, England. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 7:04 AM PST - 11 comments

Street Fighter II has been ported to the Virtual Boy. [more inside]
posted by griphus at 6:54 AM PST - 9 comments

"Anything else you want to add? Don't do drugs kids?" "Yeah That's a good one." In a highly (un)scientific experiment, BuzzFeed video producer Andrew Gauthier spent one night drunk and one night stoned while performing identical tasks. He filmed the results for our entertainment education..
posted by quin at 6:48 AM PST - 26 comments

"Imagine being alone, in space. Just you and your shiny spacesuit and your tiny metal capsule, the world splayed beneath you in swaths of blue and swirls of white. The only immediate link to the humans below you being a faint, crackling radio line back to Earth. ... [Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr.], the seventh member of the "Original Seven," spent a total of one day, 10 hours, 19 minutes, and 49 seconds in space, making 22 full orbits of the planet before splashing down in the Pacific on May 16, 1963. (His flight overall took 34 hours.) Over the course of his long voyage, Cooper had a dinner of "powdered roast beef mush" washed down with water. He captured mesmerizing pictures of the Earth below. He became the first American to sleep in space. The story doesn't end there, though: Cooper also ran into some trouble." Imagine being alone in space ... and almost not making it back.
posted by SpacemanStix at 6:45 AM PST - 21 comments

A Softer World - a Metafilter favorite better known for stories of love, loss, and dysfunctional relationships - takes on government spying: Happy beginnings. Signs of trouble. Denial.... [more inside]
posted by eviemath at 6:34 AM PST - 9 comments

Writer Dan Devine reminisces about getting married during Hurricane Irene.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:28 AM PST - 5 comments

It seems eco-friendly cargo ships are slowly on the rise. Today i learned there is a full length documentary on Vimeo about one of these sailing vessels, the Tres Hombres; a bittersweet account of a voyage to transport supplies and aid to Haiti after the devastating earthquake: How Captain Longhair saved the World (HD, 42 min.).
posted by Substrata at 6:19 AM PST - 9 comments

Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove is a fascinating, informative and often surprising 46 minute documentary that offers a thorough and loving look at the creation of Stanley Kubrick's classic of modern cinema.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:21 AM PST - 3 comments

How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater - a brief story of the humble bag of saline solution given intravenously at ERs and hospitals, and how one unit of it can be marked up from 86 cents to $91 when given to patients
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:43 AM PST - 67 comments

If you start typing "why" into Google, the autocomplete gives you a glimpse at the various mysteries people want answers to, such as "why is space black?" or "why are people stupid?" or "why is there yellow discharge in my underwear?" XKCD's current comic, "Questions," shows a glimpse at some of these questions, culled from a big list of over 33,000 that XKCD's author, Randall Munroe, generated from Google API queries. In response, Reddit user GeeJo made his best attempt at answering every single one posed in the comic.
posted by malapropist at 2:56 AM PST - 50 comments

Why not visit to the World's Fair of 2014, as envisioned by science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov in 1964? By 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars, though a manned expedition will be in the works and in the 2014 Futurama will show a model of an elaborate Martian colony. (Via) [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 1:34 AM PST - 28 comments

The work of the statistician Joseph Chang in 1999 showed that it was almost certain that all Europeans are descended from Charlemagne. Now, a new genomic analysis of European populations titled The Geography of Recent Genetic Ancestry across Europe, shows that Chang was essentially right.
As the paper concludes "...so long as populations have mixed sufficiently, by 1,000 years ago everyone (who left descendants) would be an ancestor of every present-day European. Our results are therefore one of the first genomic demonstrations of the counterintuitive but necessary fact that all Europeans are genealogically related over very short time periods, and lends substantial support to models predicting close and ubiquitous common ancestry of all modern humans"
The paper is quite accessible and includes much more data about the interrelatedness of different European populations. But for those who have more questions, the authors have prepared a FAQ.
posted by vacapinta at 12:44 AM PST - 54 comments

I've got a lovely bunch of super cuts! (Deedle de dee!) [more inside]
posted by GoingToShopping at 12:04 AM PST - 6 comments

What would it look like to fly through the distant universe?
posted by curious nu at 10:04 PM PST - 40 comments

The Internet's Love Affair With Introverts Online might just be the introvert's natural environment, where conversations can be staged, staggered and stopped at their discretion – all from a distance. Thoughts can be edited to perfection, solitary hobbies and pursuits can be meticulously researched before being shared online, friendships maintained without the obligation to meet face-to-face … plus it's never been easier to uncover other introverts and forge friendships without the inconvenience of meeting.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:34 PM PST - 57 comments

"Life is so difficult," reads one reply. "It breaks us down, challenges us, pushes us to the very depths of desperation and darkness. These are the times when we need each other the most." Via. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 8:30 PM PST - 5 comments

While students return to class today, Tribune photojournalist Brian Cassella visits the buildings that sit empty after being shut down by the Chicago Public Schools. More on CPS closings on metafilter here and here.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:05 PM PST - 22 comments

A middle-aged man in a red golf shirt shuffles up to a small folding table with gold trim, in a booth adorned with a flotilla of helium balloons, where government workers at the Kentucky State Fair are hawking the virtues of Kynect, the state’s health benefit exchange established by Obamacare. The man is impressed. "This beats Obamacare I hope," he mutters to one of the workers. “Do I burst his bubble?” wonders Reina Diaz-Dempsey, overseeing the operation. She doesn't. If he signs up, it's a win-win, whether he knows he's been ensnared by Obamacare or not.
posted by reenum at 7:03 PM PST - 63 comments

Of the 10,000 therapy animals currently in use in the United States, only 14 are llamas. Jen Osborne tells the story llama therapy in photos for Colors: Beat Your Intimacy Issues. (via @pourmecoffee)
posted by madamjujujive at 7:02 PM PST - 11 comments

Not even Democrats still use the phrase “the public good.” Public goods are now, at best, “public investments.” Public institutions have morphed into “public-private partnerships” or, for Republicans, simply “vouchers.” [more inside]
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:49 PM PST - 64 comments

Even un drunk, they KILL! Stream the Whole Set (SLS) via slate [more inside]
posted by shockingbluamp at 5:28 PM PST - 25 comments

Why do we find free time so terrifying? Why is a dedication to work, no matter how physically destructive and ultimately pointless, considered a virtue?
posted by Anima Mundi at 5:10 PM PST - 66 comments

Tricia's Obligatory Art Blog presents " Reading "Jurassic Park" in 2013 is Weird As Hell "
posted by The Whelk at 4:58 PM PST - 72 comments

Mississippi Delta Crop Duster Pilot (7 minute video)
posted by exogenous at 4:32 PM PST - 13 comments

Do you like history? Do you like drunk people? If you answered yes to these two questions, you may like Drunk History, where you get to see what happens when a drunk historian explains what happened. The original web series was previously discussed twice on metafilter. Now there's more: [more inside]
posted by medusa at 4:11 PM PST - 24 comments

John Scalzi responds to a troll Cheezburgering "This is what a feminist looks like" on a photo of him in a regency-era gown.

Over the weekend, some dudebro with a history of shitting on women took this picture of me and meme-ized it, with the intent, given his personal history and predilections, of mocking me — both for my views as regards women, and for wearing a dress. Dudebro: Let me detail for you the various ways this picture has utterly failed you as an attempt to ridicule me.

[more inside]
posted by modernserf at 3:43 PM PST - 300 comments

Dead Horse Bay was the site of a 19th-century horse rendering plant on the far edge of Brooklyn. It was also a massive landfill that was capped in the 1930s. In the 1950s, the cap burst. The organic debris rotted away, but the remaining glass, ceramic, and metal spilled onto the beach. At low tide, the sand is covered with a dense layer of bottles, broken dishes, and other hundred-year-old detritus. More is washed free every day. [more inside]
posted by nonasuch at 2:30 PM PST - 46 comments

"New research has uncovered the reason why some people seem to dislike everything while others seem to like everything." Yes, this finding comes from the field of psychology, in an area of research called "attitude theory," but maybe they've struck upon something we've suspected is true all along.

From the paper: "The dispositional attitude construct represents a new perspective in which attitudes are not simply a function of the properties of the stimuli under consideration, but are also a function of the properties of the evaluator."
posted by ChuckRamone at 1:47 PM PST - 51 comments

Dubstep cat, a.k.a. the most patient cat in the world. [previously]
posted by danny the boy at 1:41 PM PST - 42 comments

Meet the 'other' next-gen console
posted by DynamiteToast at 1:32 PM PST - 17 comments

A map of every protest everywhere since 1979 (some caveats are noted in the accompanying article).
posted by MartinWisse at 1:31 PM PST - 18 comments

Photos of pet knitting projects, with captions, from Mefi's own orange swan's blog.
posted by bearwife at 12:59 PM PST - 18 comments

Physicist Art Hobson disentangles 'Schrodinger's cat' debate. The solution is within the framework of standard quantum physics. 'In an article published August 8 by Physical Review A, a journal of the American Physical Society, Hobson argues that the phenomenon known as "nonlocality" is key to understanding the measurement problem illustrated by "Schrodinger's cat."'
posted by VikingSword at 12:39 PM PST - 29 comments

Vancouver woman steals bike back after seeing ad for it on Craigslist [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 11:49 AM PST - 88 comments

Dancing Ghosts
posted by Memo at 11:33 AM PST - 2 comments

The decaying cable car network of Chiatura, Georgia.
posted by Artw at 11:17 AM PST - 56 comments

Network of Blood: "Videodrome’s depiction of techno-body synthesis is, to be sure, intense; Cronenberg has the unusual talent of making violent, disgusting, and erotic things seem even more so. The technology is veiny and lubed. It breaths and moans; after watching the film, I want to cut my phone open just to see if it will bleed. Fittingly, the film was originally titled 'Network of Blood,' which is precisely how we should understand social media, as a technology not just of wires and circuits, but of bodies and politics. There’s nothing anti-human about technology: the smartphone that you rub and take to bed is a technology of flesh." Nathan Jurgenson writes about Videodrome (previously) as a way of understanding our present social media technologies for Omni Magazine (previously).
posted by codacorolla at 10:42 AM PST - 33 comments

In 1967, Fran Allison, along with her friends Kukla and Ollie, began hosting The CBS Children’s Film Festival. It offered many American children their first look at foreign films, and their contemporaries from other cultures. [more inside]
posted by timsteil at 10:39 AM PST - 15 comments

A collector has found what may be the oldest globe to depict the New World, dated 1504 and engraved two half ostrich eggs. The Hunt-Lenox Globe may be, according to analysis by Stefaan Missinne in The Portolan, designed after this new discovery. [more inside]
posted by frimble at 10:28 AM PST - 5 comments

Popped At is a real-time stream of images being shared on Twitter. Unfiltered, potentially nsfw.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:24 AM PST - 25 comments

Buffalo News theater critic reviews a recent school board meeting.
posted by latkes at 9:58 AM PST - 14 comments

Code By Voice Faster Than By Hand [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 9:45 AM PST - 10 comments

The Indonesian Walking Shark -- a new species of shark that walks on its fins rather than swims.
posted by DoubleLune at 8:53 AM PST - 29 comments

"Every new member of Israel’s Knesset gives a debut speech, and this year, with 48 rookies, the docket was full, with parliamentarians introducing their résumés, their proposed policies, and their hopes for the coming four-year term. One decided to ignore convention altogether. This member of Knesset used the allotted time to teach Talmud. A full third of the 19th Knesset are observant Jews, but it wasn’t any of them. It was a woman named Ruth Calderon, a Talmud scholar and the founder of two Jewish houses of study. She was elected to Knesset as No. 13 on the list of Yesh Atid, a new party headed by former journalist Yair Lapid that swept the recent elections, earning 19 seats on a promise to bring about a more equal Israel..." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:38 AM PST - 21 comments

Casualties from the Syrian civil war are being treated in Israeli hospitals, some of them with referrals from Syrian doctors. The identities of the patients and the route they have taken is being kept secret for fear of repercussions from authorities in Syria, which is formally at war with Israel. [more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:31 AM PST - 13 comments

French film Amélie (2001) is going to be adapted into a Broadway musical by American composer Dan Messe (Hem), who will be creating new music for the score. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet is disgusted by these plans, but sold the rights anyway to support a charity.
posted by Lush at 8:29 AM PST - 78 comments

Would you like to learn how to make pink-colored pancakes? Or practice 13th-century dental care? Or garden with lobster claws? Or perhaps 12th-century hair care or choosing the right cravat is more your speed? Fortunately, Ask the Past has answers to all those questions--and more!
posted by Cash4Lead at 7:59 AM PST - 29 comments

"My friend Ian left his Midi Fighter 3D at my house, and I made something with it. :]"
posted by griphus at 6:47 AM PST - 28 comments

Wrangling yellow, peeping kittens: A mother cat caring for some ducklings. [more inside]
posted by quin at 6:42 AM PST - 29 comments

"Video footage of the little artist at work recently surfaced. It was uploaded to YouTube by MarineStation Amami, a hotel and dive center that assisted Yoji Okata and NHK in producing the video segment that aired last year. Of note, watch at around 1:20 when the fish takes a small shell in his mouth and plants it in the sculpture. Scientists believe that the shells are filled with vital nutrients and this is the soon-to-be-father’s way of preparing nourishment for the babies." UPDATE [Aug 26, 2013] [more inside]
posted by jammy at 6:32 AM PST - 3 comments

Adam Cadre's Photopia is a short, heartbreaking work of interactive fiction. You can play it in your browser. Cadre writes about the making of the game here—spoilers, obviously.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:30 AM PST - 17 comments

It's time for MIND YOUR MANNERS with BILLY QUAN, a recurring spoof on martial arts movies from classic Seattle sketch comedy group Almost Live! Today's episode:
YARD SALE, 8 BALL, BLADES, HOOPS, WICKETS, RACKETS, FUMES, TOOLS, JOCKS, TRICKS OF FURY
ENTER THE BOWLER, TIPSTER, PYRAMID, DOGGIE, JUGGLER, NEW YEAR, GARDNER
FIVE DISKS, LIBRARY, OFFICE, FIVE IRON OF DEATH
Remember kids, BE LIKE BILLY. BEHAVE YOURSELF!
posted by JHarris at 1:31 AM PST - 21 comments

IS ☻ JAPAN COOL?! The International Olympic Committee votes in 15 days on whether Tokyo, Istanbul or Madrid will host the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, and major efforts are underway to cajole the committee. Promotional videos have been released, royalty, major sports figures, and robotic cats have been dragged out. A few nasty remarks have been flung, which were subsequently dismissed. Meanwhile, activists, petitioners, protesters, and economic instability are potentially hurting the Olympic bids in Madrid, Istanbul, and Tokyo, Turkey has experienced a major doping scandal, and radiation continues to leak from Fukushima. And what would the Olympics be without a logo design failure?!
posted by markkraft at 12:59 AM PST - 73 comments

Balance from Within is a robotic, self-balancing sofa by artist Jacob Tonski. (via @golan)
posted by gwint at 8:29 PM PST - 16 comments

In June 2013, the Allegheny County Council approved the yarn bombing of the Andy Warhol Bridge in Pittsburgh, in celebration of Warhol's 85th birthday [previously mentioned on MeFi]. On 11 August, 1800 volunteers blanketed (heh) the bridge in 3000 feet of hand-knitted panels. More photos and behind the scenes. [more inside]
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:36 PM PST - 27 comments

Bobby Riggs, The Mafia and The Battle of the Sexes.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 5:03 PM PST - 44 comments

The American film industry is in trouble. Does this mean the end of the blockbuster as we know it?
posted by rcraniac at 4:32 PM PST - 338 comments

Wonkblog has a new advice column called "Dear Dylan" where Dylan Matthews answers the usual advice column staples using game theory, mathematics and charts.
posted by reenum at 2:17 PM PST - 29 comments

"On August 25, 1921, the largest labor insurgency in American history and the largest civil uprising since the Civil War began in Logan County, West Virginia when 10,000 miners and their supporters went to war with 3000 coal mine executives and their hired thugs. The Battle of Blair Mountain is one of the least known major events in American history." -- America's long labour history, even such spectacular events like the Battle of Blair Mountain, is largely unknown, but historian Erik Loomis is trying to change that with his This Day in Labor History series for Lawyers, Guns and Money.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:13 PM PST - 35 comments

On August 23, 2013, voice teacher Sarah Horn went with her friends and family to see Kristin Chenoweth (previously on Metafilter) in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. When, after intermission, Ms. Chenoweth asked if anyone in the audience knew Wicked's "For Good", Sarah Horn volunteered that she did. What happened next (closer video here) has gotten more than 300,000 views since it went up Friday night.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:23 AM PST - 101 comments

Across three decades, his goal was to drive a scientist’s skepticism into the heart of India, a country still teeming with gurus, babas, astrologers, godmen and other mystical entrepreneurs. Dr Narendra Dabholkar, a former physician, was assassinated at age 67 earlier this week in the city of Pune. From Times of India: "Since 1983, he was confronted time and again by many religious and spiritual gurus, and faced several threats and even physical attacks. But he rejected police protection for himself. 'If I have to take police protection in my own country from my own people, then there is something wrong with me,' he used to say. 'I'm fighting within the framework of the Indian constitution and it is not against anyone, but for everyone.'"
posted by storybored at 11:18 AM PST - 39 comments

Mind Your Manners is only the 14th music video from Pearl Jam across their 23 year career. It was directed by Danny Clinch, and includes animations from Andy Smetanka. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:35 AM PST - 19 comments

'Just a small-time cat, livin' in a lonely world.' Cat puppet. Journey lyrics.
posted by angrycat at 10:13 AM PST - 24 comments

Here is a video of the philosopher Graham Priest giving a talk at the 2012 Conference on Paradox and Logical Revision. He addresses three questions. Can logic be revised? If so, can it be revised rationally? If so, how? [more inside]
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 9:55 AM PST - 22 comments

5 Math experts split the check. From Math with Bad Drawings.
posted by zabuni at 9:53 AM PST - 25 comments

Actress Julie Harris , best known for roles in the film East of Eden and on television's Knots Landing, has died at the age of 87. [more inside]
posted by DRoll at 9:10 AM PST - 16 comments

Patrick Cockburn: Syria's Civil War is complicated and from the LRB in May: The quagmire is turning out to be even deeper and more dangerous than it was in Iraq.
Did Syria gas its own people? The evidence is mounting.
The Guardian postulates that it was Assad's ruthless brother who mastermind alleged the Syria gas attack.
posted by adamvasco at 8:30 AM PST - 511 comments

"We were roommates, Marine infantry officers, perpetually sleep-deprived from the training, the planning, the preparations for war. Back then coffee was little more than a bitter, caffeine-delivery system. It was just what we needed to stay awake. We were missing so much." And so begins the story of two former marines and their quest for the perfect cup of coffee. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:28 AM PST - 60 comments

U.S. public radio program Studio 360 held a battle of the high school bands. Listeners were asked to submit tracks recorded by bands they were in during high school. The submissions, which were recorded in six different decades, are on a Soundcloud page. The judges, Andrew W.K. and Thao Nguyen selected the winning song, The River, which was made by three young women from the Nashville area who go by Bea, Rita & Maeve. You can hear their song and a cover created by Andrew W.K. and Thao Nguyen here. The show also created two volumes of mixtapes of the best submissions.
posted by Area Man at 7:15 AM PST - 6 comments

'There’s more lobster out there right now than anyone knows what to do with, but Americans are still paying for it as if it were a rare delicacy.' Also, from 2004: David Foster Wallace goes to the Maine Lobster Festival. Via)
posted by zarq at 6:02 AM PST - 62 comments

High hopes: the UFO cult 'restoring' the victims of female genital mutilation [more inside]
posted by moody cow at 4:41 AM PST - 28 comments

In two days, Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series vol. 10 will be released. The 12-minute promo video that's currently streaming at Amazon is full of enticing audio snippets of Dylan in fine vocal form, as well as talking heads from Self Portrait producer Bob Johnston and collaborators David Bromberg and Al Kooper.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:18 AM PST - 23 comments

Twenty-five years ago, in the pre-dawn of August 25, 1988, a fire started in downtown Lisbon's Carmo Street and quickly spread to Garrett Street and others, destroying a total of 18 buildings of the Chiado. Two people were killed, and 73 were injured (60 of them firemen). Between 200 and 300 people lost their homes. Several of the historical shops were lost. In terms of the extent of the city affected and number of destroyed buildings, the Chiado fire is considered the worst disaster to strike the city since the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. A rebuilding project directed by Portuguese architect Siza Vieira has, to a great extent, returned the area to its former glory. The exterior look of the buildings were restored, while the interiors have been completely renovated. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 12:04 AM PST - 2 comments

Just a supercut of crashes from Thomas The Tank Engine set to Drowning Pool.
posted by hellojed at 10:44 PM PST - 53 comments

JustDelete.Me -- A directory of direct links to delete your account from web services. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:51 PM PST - 19 comments

The Guardian's interactive food quiz. Includes geography factoids on food production and UN FAO stats on undernourishment.
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:04 PM PST - 5 comments

Spend too much time on Facebook? Shocking and shaming new help now available! [more inside]
posted by tafetta, darling! at 7:55 PM PST - 14 comments

Telecom Timeline downpour This video seems to have been put together by GOOD magazine who dumbly called it "the most insane polyphonic collage you will ever see" whatever that's supposed to mean. The video compiles hundreds of audio and video clips into a timeline of (long distance?) telecommunication. It's an awesome & well edited clip that brings to mind Kraftwerk and OMD's dazzle ships among other things...
posted by scouringpad at 5:03 PM PST - 12 comments

How the Conservative Party in Canada got in bed with Gay Rights in two decades or less: The move allowed the Conservative government to poke a stick in Iran’s eye, and help a genuinely in-need refugee constituency, all at one blow. As a bonus, such steps help create a bulwark against radicalism in our immigrant population. “When you’re dealing with a country like Iran, gay asylum seekers are exactly the ones you want,” says Mr. Raphael. “In general, these are precisely the people who you can guarantee don’t support the Iranian regime back home. They’re going to bring in a more secular, moderate perspective.”
posted by skermunkil at 4:20 PM PST - 28 comments

Jose Julio Sarria, Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, Jose I, The Widow Norton, passed away on August 19th, at the age of 91. [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer at 3:36 PM PST - 36 comments

Comic artist Lucy Knisley (prev., prev.) is often asked if there's anything in her life that she won't make comics about. [more inside]
posted by cairdeas at 1:35 PM PST - 37 comments

Interestingly enough, Bushwick Bill was set to do missionary work in India before coming to Houston and joining the Geto Boys
posted by Renoroc at 12:26 PM PST - 6 comments

Dad gets his adorable daughter to stop fake-crying
posted by desjardins at 12:23 PM PST - 52 comments

Powstanie Warszawskie/Warsaw Rising is a new Polish movie about the 1944 Warsaw Uprising that makes use of contemporary footage, colourised and dubbed.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:14 PM PST - 14 comments

Five beer brands – Budweiser, Steel Reserve, Colt 45, Bud Ice and Bud Light – were consumed in the highest quantities by emergency room patients, according to a new pilot study from researchers at The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
posted by 445supermag at 11:52 AM PST - 97 comments

Leading up to The Piece-Maker III, legendary producer/DJ Tony Touch released 50 video clips from his archives: performances, studio sessions and assorted behind-the-scenes footage. Too many names to list, so why not start with the first episode featuring "Busta Rhymes, Old Dirty Bastard, CL Smooth, Rampage, 8 Off, back in 1994 at the Gavin Convention in New Orleans." Further reading: Mixtape Memories with Tony Touch.
posted by Lorin at 10:13 AM PST - 4 comments

A Letter to the Wife of My Boyfriend
posted by SkylitDrawl at 10:09 AM PST - 209 comments

The Russian Army Chorus performs "Skyfall"
posted by griphus at 9:31 AM PST - 29 comments

Kevin Spacey urges TV channels to give control to viewers (SLYT)
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 8:47 AM PST - 37 comments

"Obama’s new education policy neatly showcases the spectrum of choice we now have in our political system: to be ground down a bit at a time by technocrats who either won’t admit to or do not understand the ultimate consequences of the policy infrastructures they so busily construct or to be demolished by fundamentalists who want to dissolve the modern nation-state into a panoptic enforcer of their privileged morality, a massive security and military colossus and an enfeebled social actor that occasionally says nice things about how it would be nice if no one died from tainted food and everyone had a chance to get an education but hey, that’s why you have lawyers and businesses."
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:40 AM PST - 48 comments

The Saudi Arabian government has been tight-lipped about the spread of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), a disease first discovered in 2012 that has "killed more than half of those who contracted it", "responding slowly to requests for information and preventing outside researchers from publishing their findings about the syndrome. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 7:20 AM PST - 13 comments

But what would have happened — I can’t know for certain — if the black woman said “This is unfair! Why are you doing this the me?” A glimpse at white privilege and how to use it for good.
posted by Deathalicious at 6:35 AM PST - 122 comments

My vacation to the set of Disney's "The Lion King." Via reddit, the real pictures were taken at the Mara Bushtop at the Masai Mara Manyatta Camp in Kenya.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:16 AM PST - 14 comments

Jennifer Lee makes music under the name TOKiMONSTA. The Los Angeles born-and-raised musician started out in beat-battles, then released some remixes that got broader recognition in a style clearly inspired by older hip-hop and trip-hop. She got her start releasing her music through her friend, Flying Lotus, but has only released one EP for his Brainfeeder label. Her discography includes two proper albums, a handful of EPs and singles, plus various appearances on compilations, never sticking with a single label for any length of time. Her style started with 1990s hip-hop and trip-hop, branched out into IDM and "grittier" styles, and her new album, Half Shadows, was said to range from "delightfully weird" for the collaboration with Kool Keith, to "lush, hypnotic" for the track with Andreya Triana. The album also features a collaboration with MNDR (possibly NSFW skimpy clothing scene in intro) and with Gavin Turek. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:53 PM PST - 11 comments

A clip of the Edsel Show (Oct 1957) is the oldest surviving broadcast video recorded electronically to videotape, a turning point in an era where TV shows were preserved on film (Feb 1958) and kinescope (Sep 1960). Kinescope was achieved by training a film camera on a television monitor, showing camera cuts just as the audience at home would see it. Some studios were able to print video directly onto the film (Feb 1956) with great results, achieving something close to video. The year 1958 saw the earliest surviving color video clips, such as an address by President Eisenhower (May 1958), An Evening With Fred Astaire (Oct 1958, restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive), and Dinah Shore (Nov 1958). [more inside]
posted by crapmatic at 9:42 PM PST - 20 comments

This past Wednesday, the Doña Ana County County Clerk in Las Cruces, NM (my hometown!) started issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. The Attorney General of NM says he won't challenge the move. The Washington Times (I know, I know) has the story. So does the NYT, if you haven't used up all your free articles for the month. Two days later, a District Court judge ordered Santa Fe County to begin issuing licenses to same sex couples. Bit by bit, the 47th state is becoming the 14th state.
posted by hippybear at 9:15 PM PST - 38 comments

Johnny Greenwood (guitar) (2013), Mark Stewart (guitar), Los Angeles Electric 8 (guitars, third movement), Neo_Impressioniste (recorders) [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 8:09 PM PST - 8 comments

Managing Editor Jimmy Soni appeared on CNN Friday to explain The Huffington Post's latest effort to fight trolls: as of next month, commenters won't be allowed to post anonymously on the site. "We're looking to promote civil discourse on our site," Soni said. "We want to do what we've always done: promote a positive, healthy community at our global news website." "We feel like it reflects the maturing internet and our maturing website," he added. Video here.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 7:29 PM PST - 87 comments

The Mystery of Flying Kicks.
posted by cashman at 7:09 PM PST - 6 comments

Most Friday nights at 10 PM EST, the guitarist of the New York Dolls hosts a "Rampage of Songs" on the band's Facebook page [more inside]
posted by ChuckRamone at 6:20 PM PST - 7 comments

Schizophrenics used to see demons and spirits. Now they talk about actors and hidden cameras – and make a lot of sense. Clinical psychiatry papers rarely make much of a splash in the wider media, but it seems appropriate that a paper entitled ‘The Truman Show Delusion: Psychosis in the Global Village’, published in the May 2012 issue of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, should have caused a global sensation. Its authors, the brothers Joel and Ian Gold, presented a striking series of cases in which individuals had become convinced that they were secretly being filmed for a reality TV show.
posted by Telf at 6:02 PM PST - 47 comments

"The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program" the Guardian reveals [more inside]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:06 PM PST - 127 comments

Stanley Kubrick's Amazing Old Photos Of The NYC Subway System
posted by Artw at 3:41 PM PST - 32 comments

Consumption of lungworm snails can transmit the lungworm parasite Angiostrongylus cantonensis, which can cause meningitis in humans and respiratory problems in dogs, which can eat afflicted slugs while running through open fields. Researchers at the University of Exeter hooked up LEDs to these snails to study their nighttime movements through gardens and how those movements might help them act as a vector for the parasites.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:39 PM PST - 15 comments

The March (1963, restored) from the US National Archives.
posted by feelinglistless at 2:11 PM PST - 7 comments

I Forgot My Phone (SLYT)
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:26 PM PST - 73 comments

A Conservative Catholic Now Backs Same-Sex Marriage
"Among religious conservatives, opposition to same-sex marriage has remained essentially unquestioned. Which is why “The Things We Share: A Catholic’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage,” an essay by Joseph Bottum, published Friday on the Web site of Commonweal magazine, is something new in this debate."
posted by andoatnp at 1:16 PM PST - 27 comments

Movin' On Up: A skewed history of New York City as depicted by the opening themes of 1970s TV shows
posted by scody at 12:56 PM PST - 45 comments

Dreams are real [YT, 3:01, cats]
posted by bobobox at 12:47 PM PST - 12 comments

This was Zombotron. Welcome to Zombotron 2, the Zombotronner sequel. This planet keeps its own secrets, and lots of them we ourselves are eager to know in Zombotron 2: Time Machine [Flash], where the Zombotronning deepens.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:32 PM PST - 4 comments

Richard Simmons has released a video. It is called Hair Do. He raps.
posted by Shepherd at 12:21 PM PST - 33 comments

Fifty years after the March on Washington, Dr. King’s most famous speech, like his own political legacy, is widely misunderstood.
posted by brundlefly at 11:42 AM PST - 51 comments

From the nearly-forgotten 80s educational show Vegetable Soup, Woody the Spoon tells you how to make gohan, Japanese-style rice. If Woody's voice sounds a little familiar, it's because he's voiced by Bette Midler.
posted by JHarris at 11:29 AM PST - 24 comments

From the music website, Cover Me, Five Good Covers: five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song. Why not enjoy all new versions of Cars, Milkshake, Can't Help Falling In Love, The Sound Of Silence, Life In A Northern Town, Modern Love, You Shook Me All Night Long, Age Of Consent, Don't Fear The Reaper, Be My Baby, and much, much more. ( Cover Me previously)
posted by The Whelk at 11:26 AM PST - 40 comments

The most frustrating part of my situation is that I can count on one hand the number of people who know about my mental illness. The stigma that surrounds mental health is suffocating, and I don’t feel comfortable talking about it with most of my friends and family, and certainly not my boss or colleagues. Writer opens up about mental illness stigma in the workplace.
posted by rcraniac at 11:17 AM PST - 35 comments

The New York Times is reporting that pressure from the NFL led ESPN to pull out of an investigative project with FRONTLINE regarding head injuries in American Football. The two-part investigative report and book will reveal how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage. ESPN has a $15.2 Billion deal with the NFL. (Football concussions previously: 1, 2, and 3)
posted by Public Policy at 10:40 AM PST - 83 comments

On Monday, web technology mogul Dave Winer shared his theory about the gender imbalance in software engineering. This kicked off a hashtag on Twitter as well as this response from Rebecca Greenfield and this correction from Andy Baio. Yesterday Winer posted a follow-up, declaring "I don't care why there are so few women programmers." It was later revealed that some comments on this post were deleted, including the personal testimony of a 54 year-old female veteran of software engineering. [more inside]
posted by annekate at 9:59 AM PST - 104 comments

Spatafora's Ferrari [more inside]
posted by mullacc at 9:45 AM PST - 28 comments

Five Fun Things to do with Dry Ice. [slyt | via]
posted by quin at 9:44 AM PST - 36 comments

In a publicly issued statement on August 22, Chelsea Manning announced her status as a woman as well as intent to undergo gender transition [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 9:36 AM PST - 231 comments

Lead programmer John Carmack is clearly the main reason behind the technical superiority of Id's games.... When the contractor Id hired to do the network drivers for Doom didn't come through, Carmack matter-of-factly wrote a network driver and had it up and running the next day.

[Project] specialist John Romero ... plays the latest beta making his own sound effects with his mouth to compensate for the game sound effects that haven't been added in yet.

Monsters from the Id: The Making of Doom (reprinted from Game Developer magazine issue #1, January, 1994.)
posted by griphus at 9:20 AM PST - 18 comments

Nothing's Shocking, the debut album by Jane's Addiction, turns 25 today. (but is still NSFW)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:19 AM PST - 75 comments

Ballmer Announces Retirement From Microsoft. [more inside]
posted by mazola at 7:25 AM PST - 193 comments

49 Years in the making, a map of how London Tube stops 'taste' to lexical-gustatory synaesthesia sufferer James Wannerton. [more inside]
posted by Markb at 7:20 AM PST - 23 comments

"Borders feel like places of movement. A transition point from one place to another. You don't think of people making a home there. But they do."-A description of Photographer Lara Shipley's project, Coming, Going and Staying
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:29 AM PST - 4 comments

So does any of this matter to the most important people in the equation, the audience? Live shows sound great these days, that's for sure. How could they not, with bands of our era being able to play along to studio-quality backing tracks through more powerful and more accurate PA systems than ever before? To me it boils down to what audiences really expect from a live performance. What is the point of seeing a band, or act, live? [more inside]
posted by smcg at 6:18 AM PST - 84 comments

Roads kill map: an interactive map of worldwide traffic fatalities, including causes of death and levels of enforcement, created by the Pulitzer Center. According to the WHO, road injuries are the 9th cause of death worldwide, with 90% occuring in developing countries where they are expected to rise to the 5th rank, "leapfrogging past HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis", due to growing traffic numbers and lax enforcement. (Via /.)
posted by elgilito at 6:14 AM PST - 25 comments

A recent book by David Kaiser tells the story of the Fundamental Fysiks Group of Berkeley, California during the 1970's. Here is a one hour oral presentation from the November, 2012 Cambridge Science Festival. Kaiser describes the book's title as tongue-in-cheek, but he does argue that the physics outsiders made a substantial contribution. [more inside]
posted by bukvich at 5:59 AM PST - 5 comments

Can you defeat some of history's greatest philosophers, discover the true nature of morality, and escape the afterlife armed with only the Socratic method? You can if you are Socrates Jones: Ace Accountant Pro Philosopher!
posted by narain at 5:28 AM PST - 34 comments

"We talked about how it’s crazy that there is this generation of comics collectors that basically all have the same collection. Exactly the same. Like the one we just saw. And how it’s (basically) worthless. And how those collections were worth real money even ten years ago. Maybe more like 20 years ago. Remember G.I. Joe #2 from 1982? It used to be worth 40 bucks. Now, just a click away, there are 6 used from various sellers starting at 99 cents. Spahr joked that we should have all sold when the market was at its peak in the early ’90s." -- Bad news for those of us who wanted to fund our kids' college funds with our comics collection: even rare comics are worthless now.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:32 AM PST - 128 comments

When we see old photos in black and white, we sometimes forget that life back then was experienced in the same vibrant colours that surround us today. This gallery of talented artists helps us remember that. Via r/ColorizedHistory.
posted by cthuljew at 1:26 AM PST - 69 comments

"The perception of Shakespeare's matchless linguistic inventiveness is closely bound up with his role as an icon of English nationalism." New computerized research indicates he didn't make up so many words. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 11:37 PM PST - 34 comments

Don't fly during Ramadan. Aditya Mukerjee describes his experience while attempting to clear the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's checks and board a JetBlue flight. After being cleared by the TSA, following two hours of questioning and checks, Mukerjee was prevented by JetBlue from boarding his intended flight. He was offered rebooking for the following day and, when he declined, given a refund.

This isn't the first time that the TSA and JetBlue have been called out for this type of action.
posted by fireoyster at 11:19 PM PST - 137 comments

LET'S HAVE A GIF DANCE PARTY
posted by boo_radley at 9:57 PM PST - 49 comments

Man in Power Ranger costume becomes hero of Tokyo subway station Compared to how Kanemasu started, he claims that people have been more positive in their response. “When I first began, people basically said, ‘Get away from me, you weirdo’,” he recalled.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:37 PM PST - 44 comments

Gaze into the Past ... the Present ... the Future ... with psychic (and occasional comedian), Emily Heller, as she delves into the cards for Reggie Watts, Kal Penn, John Mulaney, Kenan Thompson, and Janeane Garofalo.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:31 PM PST - 4 comments

Once upon a time, a man explored some abandoned cottages. The people had left long ago, but the houses were still being lived in. Fortunately, the man was a photographer.
posted by Lou Stuells at 8:04 PM PST - 26 comments

The God of ‘SNL’ Will See You Now. "How do you please Lorne Michaels? Twenty-two ‘Saturday Night Live’ cast members – and one who came close – share tales of the audition that can make or break a career." Also, extended interviews with Kristin Wiig, Will Ferrel, Chevy Chase, Dana Carvey, Jimmy Fallon and Molly Shannon, on what it took to get hired for 'SNL.' Check out audition tapes from: Phil Hartman, Andy Kaufman, John Belushi, Jimmy Fallon, Dana Carvey: 1 & 2, and Dan Aykroyd. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:39 PM PST - 26 comments

"Young shrews are occasionally observed following their mother in a ‘caravan’. Each shrew grasps the base of the tail of the preceding shrew so that the mother runs along with a line of young trailing behind. This behaviour is often associated with disturbance of the nest and may also be used to encourage the young to explore their environment." - The Mammal Society
posted by moonmilk at 6:58 PM PST - 22 comments

Cyriak interviewed about taking inspiration from his cats, living in Brighton, making music videos, animated GIFs, and so on.
posted by ardgedee at 6:02 PM PST - 9 comments

Most work in the psychological and social sciences suffers from a lack of conceptual rigor. It’s a bit sloppy around the edges, and in the middle, too. For example, “happiness research” is a booming field, but the titans of the subdiscipline disagree sharply about what happiness actually is. No experiment or regression will settle it. It’s a philosophical question. Nevertheless, they work like the dickens to measure it, whatever it is—life satisfaction, “flourishing,” pleasure minus pain—and to correlate it to other, more easily quantified things with as much statistical rigor as deemed necessary to appear authoritative. It’s as if the precision of the statistical analysis is supposed somehow to compensate for, or help us forget, the imprecision of thought at the foundation of the enterprise.
posted by AceRock at 5:49 PM PST - 45 comments

"One night in August 2012, after months of unexplained seismic activity and mysterious bubbling on the bayou, a sinkhole opened up on a plot of land leased by the petrochemical company Texas Brine, forcing an immediate evacuation of Bayou Corne's 350 residents—an exodus that still has no end in sight." [more inside]
posted by maxwelton at 5:23 PM PST - 30 comments

How to politely react to your friend's terrible engagement! (Without lying) (SLYT)
posted by wreckingball at 2:33 PM PST - 139 comments

Ever do a photo shoot with hundreds or thousands of similar images, only to find yourself scrolling through Lightroom really fast, rating the best shots and/or deleting the worst ones? Here's an optical illusion that makes the case for why you might want to slow down. (via) [more inside]
posted by phaedon at 1:40 PM PST - 33 comments

Morten Lauridsen - How to write a song [more inside]
posted by Think_Long at 12:49 PM PST - 18 comments

Fast sharp right! Fast sharp right! Sharp right! Sharp right! Listen, Samir, you have to listen to my calls, please! (Some NSFW cursing) [more inside]
posted by zippy at 12:37 PM PST - 31 comments

The Deschutes River fly-fishing guide called Stealhead Joe was an angling master with a long list of devoted clients. But off the water, Joe’s life was a tangle of troubles that ultimately overwhelmed him.
posted by nevercalm at 12:27 PM PST - 14 comments

9 things you may not know about giant azhdarchid pterosaurs, via Quetzalcoatlus: the evil, pin-headed, toothy nightmare monster that wants to eat your soul
posted by Artw at 12:18 PM PST - 14 comments

Molly Lambert and Emily Yoshida go see Taylor Swift at the Staples Center and are transformed by the experience: Basically, you are at a slumber party with 15,000 people where everyone gets to talk about their emotions and just get real as girlfriends. And by everyone, I mean Taylor. The concert also featured the unlikely collaboration of Swift and Tegan and Sara on the latter's single "Closer."
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:40 AM PST - 111 comments

Steve Martin and Kermit the Frog perform Dueling Banjos.
posted by quin at 9:20 AM PST - 61 comments

John Green: "Why Are Americans Health Care Costs So High?" A quick, handy little overview of common misconceptions on the US healthcare system. (SLYT)
posted by The Whelk at 9:02 AM PST - 69 comments

Tim Noble & Sue Webster make art (mildly NSFW), including an ongoing series of abstract sculpture which, when spot-lit, throw very human shadows. [more inside]
posted by griphus at 8:51 AM PST - 14 comments

The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates has spent the last few months in Paris specifically studying French. His latest dispatch, "Or Perhaps You Are Too Stupid to Learn French," looks at how hard it is to apply the rules of new language in real time, while fighting with one's perceptions and limitations (Other dispatches are here).

Washington Post writer Jay Matthews asks if learning a foreign language is worth it and recounts his own struggles studying Chinese. Another WaPo writer, Elizabeth Chang, recalls her experience in learning Arabic.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:17 AM PST - 199 comments

chew on sticks, go through bins [more inside]
posted by we are the music makers at 3:26 AM PST - 18 comments

It has been during his time in charge of Blyth that Jameson has displayed the kind of obsessive-bordering-on-mentally-unstable behaviour that separates a casual Football Manager player from a genuine addict. "The worst it got was probably when I reacted to getting a touchline ban by playing the game from outside my room," he says. "I hit start, left the room, came in again at half-time, hit start and left again. It was a Champions League tie against Espanyol. We lost 1-0." -- Some blokes get a wee bit obsessive playing Football Manager, The Grauniad reports. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 2:34 AM PST - 49 comments

Ghosts of the past revisit little-changed streets and avenues of New York City in Famous Daily News photos brought back to life.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:35 AM PST - 19 comments

"My wife and I were chatting while she was slicing potatoes on a mandoline..." A list of kitchen accidents, both personal and professional. (Maybe NSFW, definitely gory, though entertaining as hell.) [more inside]
posted by converge at 12:16 AM PST - 158 comments

Collect feathers. Observe quiet beauty. Act with bravery. [PDF] Brave Sparrow is either a roleplaying game, a cult, or a life philosophy. Or maybe all of those, or none. [more inside]
posted by Scattercat at 10:46 PM PST - 51 comments

Get the brand new social network that all your friends are talking about.
posted by Sebmojo at 8:52 PM PST - 68 comments

Developers and Depression, a talk by Greg Baugues, co-founder of forum Devpressed.
posted by Memo at 8:40 PM PST - 10 comments

In this video, you'll see people doing tricks on skateboards, rollerblades, and kendamas, for which the crowd goes wild. Yes, kendamas, the traditional Japanese wooden toy consisting of a handle, three cups and a spike (the "ken"), and a wooden ball (the "dama") on a string, with a hole opposite of the string. This toy has a long history, and is similar to a number of games found elsewhere in the world. But it wasn't until 1975 that it was formally organized as a competitive sport in Japan by the Japan Kendama Association, which has patented the design of the kendama and designated the tricks required to reach specific rankings. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:30 PM PST - 7 comments

A “very special” Diff’rent Strokes that’s terrifying for all the wrong reasons. The AV Club looks at a "very special" episode of Diff'rent Strokes as part of their TV Roundtable, which lately has been focused on controversial episodes: Ellen, Amos & Andy, South Park, I Love Lucy [more inside]
posted by crossoverman at 8:03 PM PST - 41 comments

"Cuthbert Ottaway lifted the FA Cup as skipper of Oxford University, represented them at five different sports ranging from athletics to real tennis, and once shared a 150-run partnership with WG Grace in the highest level of cricket. His most notable achievement was captaining England in the first ever international football match though. About 4,000 spectators, including a "large number of ladies", gathered to watch the historic game against Scotland at the West of Scotland Cricket Club in Partick on 30 November 1872."
posted by marienbad at 7:32 PM PST - 4 comments

1912 Eighth Grade Examination for Bullitt County Schools.
posted by latkes at 6:57 PM PST - 80 comments

On December 18, 1980, the New York Review of Books published M.F.K. Fisher's review of "Unmentionable Cuisine," by Calvin W. Schwabe. "Yuk!" begins with these words: "In spite of my firm belief that I can eat anything my hosts choose to serve me, there are a few high-protein tidbits that I hope never to have to cope with, and almost all of them are discussed cheerfully in this extraordinary book." [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:35 PM PST - 87 comments

Collected Essays by Rudy Rucker [via]
posted by brundlefly at 4:02 PM PST - 7 comments

Avez-vous déjà vu... ...une girafe avec un collier? (...a giraffe with a necklace?); ...des moutons qui organisent un pique-nique? (...sheep who're organising a picnic?); ...une poule très très riche? (...a very, very rich chicken?); ...la fée fagot qui a oublié ses lunettes? (...the wood fairy who forgot her glasses?) [more inside]
posted by metaBugs at 3:41 PM PST - 34 comments

A few weeks ago, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano (@astro_luca) almost drowned during a spacewalk when his helmet started uncontrollably filling with water, possibly from a leaky spacesuit cooling system. (See previous MeFi discussion on the incident.) A week later, his fellow ISS astronaut Chris Cassidy posted two videos online showing the actual spacesuit and using it to illustrate the problem. All future US and European spacewalks have been halted while the incident is being investigated, although the Russian ones are continuing, as they use different suits. Yesterday, Luca published a scary new entry on his in-orbit blog, where he not only gave all the horror-movie details, but also revealed that he nearly chose to depressurize his suit outside the ISS in order to survive.
posted by Asparagirl at 2:40 PM PST - 47 comments

The Planeterrella "The planeterrella is inspired by experiments carried out at the turn of the last century by the Norwegian physicist, Kristian Birkeland, who first described how the Northern Lights were caused by the solar wind’s interaction with the Earth’s magnetic field. In a series of experiments, Birkeland aimed a beam of electrons at a magnetized sphere (terrella) inside a glass vacuum chamber and succeeded in recreating the ethereal glow of the aurora(video in french) at the sphere’s poles." [more inside]
posted by dhruva at 1:38 PM PST - 2 comments

Grantland writers put in their two cents on the all-time great drinking scenes in TV and movies (Available on Youtube Edition). [more inside]
posted by dry white toast at 1:08 PM PST - 50 comments

cats against catcalling inspired a mixtape. (won't someone make a song for these ponies?)
posted by dizziest at 1:06 PM PST - 8 comments

Obit page on NPR "Marian McPartland, who gave the world an intimate, insider's perspective on one of the most elusive topics in music — jazz improvisation — died of natural causes Tuesday night at her home in Long Island, N.Y. She was 95." - from the lead of the article
posted by randomkeystrike at 12:01 PM PST - 66 comments

Guys With Fancy Lady Hair.
posted by changeling at 11:55 AM PST - 144 comments

A history of CLiNT, Mark Millar’s attempt at launching a newsstand anthology comic, which ended this month despite its Lad Mag sensibility, celebrity creators such as Jonathan Ross and Frankie Boyle, and a recent reboot. The comic magazine joins the likes of Revolver, Deadline, Crisis, Toxic! and Meltdown in the great newsagents in the sky, though like many of those other short lived UK magazines it has spawned many spin off successes, not least the controversial Kick Ass II, which is now a movie minus its rape scene.
posted by Artw at 11:15 AM PST - 62 comments

On Tuesday, 20 year old Brandon Michael Hill walked into a Georgia elementary school dressed all in black, and carrying a bag full of guns and ammunition, including an assault rifle. He exchanged gunfire with the police, and fired off several shots in the office of bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff-Michael. Here, she gives her account of what happened next. [more inside]
posted by pretentious illiterate at 10:46 AM PST - 98 comments

Emo has made a resurgence. With the recent Saves The Day tour, popularity of bands like Joyce Manor, The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, and Pianos Become the Teeth, its safe to say that the oft derided musical style known as emo has made a resurgence.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:02 AM PST - 68 comments

Cool out with some photos of pets sitting on mixing boards - behold Tape Op Magazine's 'Studio Pet of the Month' gallery. [more inside]
posted by mintcake! at 9:29 AM PST - 6 comments

Drummer Wanted: Dean Zimmer (slyt) is handicapable drummer living in Southern California that will blow you away.
posted by pwally at 9:20 AM PST - 8 comments

Behold! The Amazing and Terrifying Stop Motion Animated Magic Beard. [slyt | via]
posted by quin at 9:17 AM PST - 12 comments

More than a quarter of counties in the United States have at least one in 10 households where English is not the language spoken at home. A nice interactive map from the Washington Post.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 8:59 AM PST - 54 comments

Whistleblower Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years for releasing documents to Wikileaks. Amnesty International, the ACLU, and other rights groups have decried the verdict.
posted by anemone of the state at 8:42 AM PST - 379 comments

Can You Solve Slate’s Gerrymandering Jigsaw Puzzle? Put the ridiculously gerrymandered congressional districts back together. What is gerrymandering? What is the history of gerrymandering? (previously)
posted by NoMich at 7:47 AM PST - 41 comments

America’s Forgotten Pin-Up Girl: "Meet Hilda, the creation of illustrator Duane Bryers and pin-up art’s best kept secret. Voluptuous in all the right places, a little clumsy but not at all shy about her figure, Hilda was one of the only atypical plus-sized pin-up queens to grace the pages of American calendars from the 1950s up until the early 1980s, and achieved moderate notoriety in the 1960s." [NSFW] [more inside]
posted by eunoia at 6:54 AM PST - 95 comments

Monstergeddon is an annual, one-night tournament of monsters competing in various categories -- Best Kill, Most Unnecessary Collateral Damage, Sexiest Victim -- with the top prize being the coveted Killer Cup. The objective of the tournament is killing humans.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:53 AM PST - 22 comments

Wooden Heart is a video by Listener. Listener is a spoken word rock band. Their new record is Time Is A Machine. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:51 AM PST - 9 comments

"Many Beatles fans remember where they were when they heard John Lennon was shot. I hope they also live to hear the day he was given another chance." (autoplay music)
posted by 256 at 5:54 AM PST - 41 comments

The Big Father Essay. Some readers may find sections disturbing.
posted by zarq at 5:50 AM PST - 5 comments

Neko Case's new album streaming in full. Due out in September, The Worse Things Get the Harder I Fight is available for preview at NPR.
posted by dortmunder at 5:49 AM PST - 21 comments

Unlikely but not impossible images.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:19 AM PST - 28 comments

"So, that brings me to the Farm Bill. Which the fucking Republicans want to pass without Food Stamps. A lot of very intelligent commentary has been written on how the Farm Bill has always been a compromise bill, wherein Food Stamps are traded for support for agribusiness, and how this compromise is breaking down. But you know, I don't feel intelligent or reasoned or informative on the topic. What I feel is fury and betrayal. I know, first hand, real live personal, how utterly and vastly important being able to eat can be.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:43 AM PST - 130 comments

Australian Federal Election time is heading into high gear now that the official list of candidates has been finalised—and it is a long one! With a record number of candidates in the 2013 election, it can be awfully tempting to just vote above the line for the Senate, especially as many believe that voting below the line means wasting your vote. Thankfully, Dennis the Election Koala is here to explain why you can't waste your vote. (It also makes a good intro to preferential voting for those still mystified by it.) [more inside]
posted by Athanassiel at 1:12 AM PST - 61 comments

"My first taste of Europe. My first realisation that a border is just a line – you cross it and nothing changes. No, everything changes. You are in another world, which is both exactly the same and entirely different." When you leave a country to live somewhere else, where is home?
posted by mippy at 11:48 PM PST - 24 comments

"In every society, democratic or totalitarian, the sensible, grown-up thing to do is to commit to the long haul of sleazy conformity. The rewards are mostly guaranteed: if not freedom or happiness, then respectability and degree of security. What spoils it is the obstinate few who do otherwise – those, absurdly, who actually believe in the necessary fictions; enough to be moved and angered by the difference between what an organisation does in reality and what it says in public." (SLGrauniad)
posted by kengraham at 10:18 PM PST - 34 comments

New Policy on Drones. Black Rock City Drones that is.
And a very cheery and relaxation-inducing 5-minute video shot with such an UAV (Unmanned aerial Vehicle). Floating around the Burning Man playa. [more inside]
posted by fantodstic at 9:01 PM PST - 58 comments

"Unlike most teen dramas, Buffy wasn’t a narrative about finding an identity; it was always about having a lot of them." Kim O'Connor for The Toast on Buffy Summers, growing up, identity, and how saving the world every week is a better model than just getting through high school.
posted by The Whelk at 8:22 PM PST - 113 comments

You might recognize the name Gertrude Zachary if you've been in the Albuquerque, NM area and have seen the billboards for her jewelry, or if you watch Breaking Bad, you might have noticed one of her shops (more location details). If you've driven around the Old Town are of Albuquerque, you might have seen the purple and green jewelry store (Google maps streetview), vaguely reminiscent of the pueblo deco style. But Zachary's greatest architectural legacy is her European-style castle on "skid row", seen in this photo gallery and profiled in this local news segment. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:20 PM PST - 19 comments

Why particle physics matters [no pun intended]. Physicists from around the world talk about why we study the nature of the universe. [via] [more inside]
posted by Eideteker at 6:51 PM PST - 17 comments

Rosalind Franklin vs. Watson & Crick - Science History Rap Battle [more inside]
posted by latkes at 5:29 PM PST - 12 comments

Lorem ipsum for Online Dating
posted by mulligan at 4:32 PM PST - 120 comments

Isolatedvocals is a SoundCloud user that posts iso'd vocal tracks from a variety of pop songs. The tracks range from Outkast's mind-bendingly impressive vocal track on B.O.B., to the unhinged-sounding vocal track on the Pixies' Debaser. Somewhere in the middle, the user has also posted vocal tracks from Come out and Play by The Offspring, No Rain by Blind Melon, Say It Ain't So by Weezer, among others (and even more over on Reddit).
posted by schmod at 3:29 PM PST - 65 comments

A brief overview of the history and significant concepts applicable to the development and understanding of a transcentric approach to the dignity, civil rights, and human rights of trans people: Introduction to Transness (scribd link), by Antonia D'orsay. [more inside]
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 2:31 PM PST - 9 comments

The fully reversible Idries Shah on the wireless in 1971. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
posted by titus-g at 2:28 PM PST - 8 comments

Webcomics artist Sarah Becan and her partner traveled to Montreal in June. She illustrated the culinary highlights of their trip for Saveur magazine.
posted by Kitteh at 1:44 PM PST - 46 comments

"But Freud had a second fear: a fear of Rome's layers. In formal treatises, he compared the psyche to an ancient city, with many layers of architecture built one on top of another, each replacing the last, but with the old structures still present underneath. In private writings he phrased this more personally, that he was terrified of ever visiting Rome because he was terrified of the idea of all the layers and layers and layers of destroyed structures hidden under the surface, at the same time present and absent, visible and invisible. He was, in a very deep way, absolutely right." [more inside]
posted by Paragon at 1:40 PM PST - 29 comments

Christie's Auction House is set to appraise The Detroit Institute of Art's holdings as part an accounting of Detroit's assets. According to Art Market Monitor, the danger of the appraisal now taking place ... is that it will reveal a much greater value than the $2.5bn bandied about recently. Todd Levin, a Detroit-born art adviser and director of the Levin Art Group in New York, said the value of the museum’s entire 60,000-piece collection would have to be significantly higher — “at least in the low to mid-11 figures, In other words, at least $10 billion to $20 billion. (Previously)
posted by R. Mutt at 1:20 PM PST - 61 comments

In April, we covered an AI that learns to play NES games. Youtube user suckerpinch has returned with a new video that provides a bit more info about LearnFun and PlayFun, and much more footage of it doing okay at video games.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:08 PM PST - 17 comments

"The logics of privilege rest on an individualized self that relies on the raw material of other beings to constitute itself. Although the confessing of privilege is understood to be an anti-racist practice, it is ultimately a project premised on white supremacy."

Andrea Smith on The Problem with 'Privilege'.
posted by downing street memo at 1:06 PM PST - 79 comments

I sat her on my lap and went to the official Lego website. She dismissed every Lego City kit that I pointed to. She had her eyes set on a kit that I was pretending not to see. [more inside]
posted by Fleebnork at 12:59 PM PST - 108 comments

Practical Typography "For all those who need to communicate clearly and even add a modicum of aesthetic value to their messages, this publication provides everything you always wanted to ask but didn’t know how to." [via]
posted by dhruva at 9:09 AM PST - 63 comments

Drawing on inspiration from Andrew Huang's highly entertaining Alphabetical 26 Genre Song [previously], Nick Galvan has given us the Alphabetical 26 Genre Metal Song. [via]
posted by quin at 9:08 AM PST - 20 comments

Which US State is the most overrated? Which would you like to see kicked out of America? Which has the weirdest accent? Which has the best food? Business Insider polls Americans across the country on important questions like these and maps the results. [more inside]
posted by Solon and Thanks at 9:02 AM PST - 207 comments

Panzer Dragoon was a series of video games released between 1995 and 2003. Created by Yukio Futatsugi, the series quickly became a hit among gamers for its arial combat and great soundtrack. And if that weren't enough, apparently the ending of the third installment helps explain the Holy Trinity.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:55 AM PST - 20 comments

The New(er) South, a 2013 essay by Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers reexamines the questions and contradictions of the American south originally explored in their 2001 album Southern Rock Opera. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 8:11 AM PST - 28 comments

One of the 20th century's most prolific and well regarded authors of crime fiction, Elmore Leonard, has died at the age of 87, following a stroke two weeks ago. Leonard's novels and short stories were frequently adapted to movies and television, with particular acclaim in the cases of Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Jackie Brown, and Justified.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:03 AM PST - 101 comments

The instrumental version. The behind the scenes actor dialog. (NSFW (well, one word anyway)).
posted by HuronBob at 6:26 AM PST - 3 comments

Last post at groklaw ~pj a.k.a. Pamela Jones, the writer behind the law analysis site groklaw, has decided to shut down in the wake of the closure of Lavabit confidential email service. [more inside]
posted by wenestvedt at 5:00 AM PST - 248 comments

Rescuing a kitten from a tree is child's play compared to the crew of Engine No. 35's capture of a hawk in City Park early Sunday evening (Aug. 18). A resident called the New Orleans Fire Department to report a hawk trailing a long length of twine, tangled in a tree. "I don't like how he is looking at me" said Andy Monteverde, a firefighter working up the nerve to grab the hawk. Capt. Mark Shubert encouraged F/F Andy, "Just grab a handful of leg." Scroll down for the live action video. [more inside]
posted by JujuB at 4:39 AM PST - 21 comments

A corporation is not a living creature. It has no soul. It has no heart. It has no feelings. It can neither experience towards you nor enjoy from you even the concept of loyalty. It is a legal fiction, and it exists for one purpose only: to make profit. If you assist in this goal in the long term, your ongoing association with the organization is facilitated. If you detract from it consistently, you will be cut. Family is “where they have to take you in no matter what you’ve done.” A corporation is… well, it’s sort of the exact opposite of this.

Be loyal to yourself.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:12 AM PST - 87 comments

Scott Hanselman talks about productivity. On information overload; prioritising and how we can be more effective. (Video)
posted by zoo at 11:58 PM PST - 4 comments

The Last Beatles Photo Shoot
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:38 PM PST - 91 comments

The history of the hamburger could be a relatively short story, or one spanning centuries and continents, depending on how far you disassemble the modern hamburger. If you look for the origins of ground meat between two pieces of bread, that's something American, but where and when exactly is the question. But how did we get the ground meat patty? You can thank the Mongols and Kublai Khan, who brought their ground meat to Russia. Oh, and don't forget the fish sauce! [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:05 PM PST - 34 comments

Ashton Kutcher gives a surprisingly good speech at the Teen Choice awards.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:26 PM PST - 52 comments

Typehunting. A very long page of very well curated snippets of lettering and typography on packages from decades ago.
posted by ardgedee at 6:14 PM PST - 12 comments

Songs from the Black Chair, published by Bellevue Literary Review in 2004, from a 2005 memoir by the same name, by Charles Barber
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:05 PM PST - 4 comments

GangStarr - Manifest
Heavy D. & The Boyz - We Got Our Own Thang
Queen Latifah - Dance for Me
Kid 'N Play - 2 Hype
Slick Rick - Hey Young World
Salt-N-Pepa - Let's Talk About Sex
De La Soul - Me, Myself And I
Kwamé - The Man We All Know And Love
Pete Rock & C. L. Smooth - They Reminisce Over You
posted by y2karl at 5:57 PM PST - 41 comments

I am chasing you like a drone
You have become al Qaida;
there’s no trace of you
 
The poetry of Afghan trucks.
posted by Artw at 2:26 PM PST - 10 comments

Fish Fear Robotic Predators, Unless They're Drunk. Scientists swear they had a really good reason for building a robotic fish, getting some other fish drunk, and then chasing them around with it. The robotic bird head, too. Direct link to research: A Robotics-Based Behavioral Paradigm to Measure Anxiety-Related Responses in Zebrafish.
posted by not_the_water at 2:24 PM PST - 15 comments

The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle lists his favorite every metal song for every conceivable occasion.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:29 PM PST - 40 comments

Pirate Joe's is an unaffiliated reseller of Trader Joe's products in Canada. They buy Trader Joe's merchandise at retail cost across the border, bring them into Canada, and sell them at a markup. Trader Joe's is suing, and Pirate Joe's owner Michael Hallatt has not backed down. “This is a little bit David versus Goliath and a little bit Occupy Grocery.” He took the "P" off of the store's sign in reaction to the suit, leaving just "Irate Joe's."
posted by Stewriffic at 12:56 PM PST - 286 comments

Flatland: Fallen Angle [Flash] is a Noir-influenced game inspired by Edwin Abbot's 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions [Previously]. The streets in this scenario may not appear rain-drenched, but perceiving the Z-axis is a luxury few people in this city can afford...
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:54 PM PST - 7 comments

How airplanes pulling banners take off. (With wonderful MSPaint style illustrations.) Short video showing how it's done. You can hire companies to fly most any banner, of course. The pickup move is risky, so some types of banners can be directly taken off with, because of wheels (that from Wikipedia).
posted by skynxnex at 12:33 PM PST - 24 comments

Grass beatboxing does what it says on the tin. SLYT
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:11 PM PST - 3 comments

It's not tough to use a computer! Especially if you've got... Komputer Kindergarten!
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:50 AM PST - 25 comments

Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams production company, released a teaser for...something...today. SLYT Called just "Stranger", there appears to be no indication what exactly this is about, but given Abram's previous work, expect lots more where this came from.
posted by griffey at 11:36 AM PST - 76 comments

"The Notorious MSG’s Unlikely Formula For Success: The umami craze has turned a much-maligned and misunderstood food additive into an object of obsession for the world’s most innovative chefs. But secret ingredient monosodium glutamate’s biggest secret may be that there was never anything wrong with it at all."
posted by arcolz at 10:43 AM PST - 267 comments

"In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen."
posted by chrchr at 9:27 AM PST - 116 comments

For you to borrow, some libraries have to go begging: NPR story about public library funding, featuring MeFi's own jessamyn. (previously)
posted by mark7570 at 9:25 AM PST - 13 comments

Welcome to Midi Mondays, a weekly installation where the hottest MiDi traxx — replete with lyrics — are posted each and e’ery Monday (requires browser/player that supports MIDI files). [more inside]
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:21 AM PST - 24 comments

"Growing up in New York City has a lesser known side effect for those of us who were raised here. We grew up in a tourist attraction... [When] you’re from New York, the city is never a faraway place filled with Woody Allens and Notorious BIGs. It’s simply... here. But that here is increasingly there."
posted by griphus at 9:17 AM PST - 122 comments

For many North American women of a certain age, sneak-reading a copy of V.C. Andrews’ bestselling novel Flowers in the Attic was a teen rite of passage. The story of four siblings locked in an attic by their mother (and guarded by their cruel grandmother) made for strangely compelling gothic titillation. On August 12, The Toast celebrated V.C. Andrews Day by publishing editor Ann Patty's account of how she came to acquire the manuscript in 1978 and form a relationship with the reclusive author. [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:13 AM PST - 33 comments

Last weekend a judge in Tennessee changed a baby's name from Messiah to Martin. Following this, Dahlia Lithwick looked into what level governments restrict baby names around the world and the U.S.
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:01 AM PST - 175 comments

NYC Grid is hosting a neat photo-series which lets you slide back and forth between images of New York today and a similar shot from the early 20th century. [via]
posted by quin at 8:56 AM PST - 10 comments

Last week, in a surprise vote, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) elected its first female presiding bishop, Elizabeth Eaton. [more inside]
posted by DRoll at 8:42 AM PST - 15 comments

"We’ve suspected for some time that the French and German governments’ refusal to take part in the Iraq war had something to do with their access to independent overhead imagery satellites. Briefly, France and Germany did (with the HELIOS and SAR Lupe programs respectively), and didn’t take part at all. Spain and Italy had some access to French imagery and had advanced plans to get their own. They made a limited commitment. The UK, Australia, Denmark, and the ROK relied on the United States and were, in a phrase that should be better known outside Australia, all the way with LBJ." -- Alex Harrowell explains how the absence of independent satellite intelligence may have helped the UK into the War on Iraq [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 8:37 AM PST - 12 comments

In 2011, the CIA declassified documents admitting its involvement in the 1953 coup that overthrew Iran's elected government and installed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, details of which were first first disclosed by the New York Times in 2000. Timeline. However, they refused to release them to the public. Today, the National Security Archive research institute has (after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit) obtained and made the 21 documents public. "Marking the sixtieth anniversary of the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the National Security Archive is today posting recently declassified CIA documents on the United States' role in the controversial operation. American and British involvement in Mosaddeq's ouster has long been public knowledge, but today's posting includes what is believed to be the CIA's first formal acknowledgement that the agency helped to plan and execute the coup. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 8:24 AM PST - 33 comments

Teslapunk is a new game for mobile where Nikola Tesla has to save the world, shoot-em-up style. The heavy vintage graphics are by Thorsten Fleisch who is no stranger to metafilter. He also did the music. It doesn't get more indie than this. [more inside]
posted by namagomi at 7:26 AM PST - 5 comments

Leaving the UK shadow-cabinet earlier this year, Labour MP Tom Watson confused many by unexpectedly tipping a two-piece garage rock band from the Peak District called Drenge in his resignation letter. Drenge (rhymes with grunge), comprising Eion (b. 1991) and Rory Loveless (b. 1993), a band who cite England's heartbreaking loss on penalties to Argentina in 1998 and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders among their influences, were "not totally overjoyed" about this. Their response has been a series of feral, vaguely disturbing videos that highlight the oddly crap aspects of modern British life, some festival appearances, and a number of droll interviews. Is British music finally climbing out of what Dorian Lynskey calls its deadeningly conservative, R&B-goes-to-Ibiza period? Probably not, but Drenge's debut album, released today and currently streaming on the Guardian, at least provides something loud to play at the neighbours.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:02 AM PST - 21 comments

A reddit thread entitled “What is a ‘dirty little (or big) secret’ about an industry that you have worked in, that people outside the industry really ought to know?” gives a profound glimpse into human nature. Corners are cut, be it for sloth or greed, and people, animals, and tax dollars all suffer for it. The thread contains material for dozens, if not hundreds, of documentaries, and just goes on and on. And on. [more inside]
posted by blook at 6:37 AM PST - 126 comments

"Harrison Ford Angrily Points At Stuff" Supercut, courtesy of Conan O'Brien.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:14 AM PST - 27 comments

A look into the world of Anonymous Inside the Hacker World
posted by Yellow at 4:52 AM PST - 4 comments

Chirality by North Atlantic Oscillation. [SLYT]
posted by scruss at 4:11 AM PST - 3 comments

A game that would be at home in an arcade cabinet beside Robotron, FORGET-ME-NOT is a classic-style, that is to say, neon-filled, randomness-laden, bone-hard 2D maze/shooting game, with cute characters and retro effects, inspired by the Commodore game Crossroads II, Nethack and Pac-Man CE. Collect all the FLOWERS in each random, single-screen level to make the EXIT appear. Then, get the KEY and take it there to move to the next level.

The only controls are the arrow keys (or screen swipes in the iOS version). Face down a large variety of randomly-generated enemy types, and get as far as you can! You automatically shoot in front of you, but beware: your shots can wrap-around, and if they hit you they hurt! They key to playing well is grinding: push into a wall as you sail past it to build up a charge. Charge up enough and you start glowing; while glowing, you instantly kill any enemies you touch, but if you charge to much you blow up.
Free: Windows - OSX - Pandora - Morphos. Not free: iOS [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 2:45 AM PST - 22 comments

Listen to Wikipedia edits in real-time. Bells are additions, strings are subtractions. Pitch is the size of the edit. One can listen to the edits in various languages too: Japanese | Swedish | German | a mix of various languages. Wikidata as well. It was based on Listen to Bitcoin. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 11:28 PM PST - 28 comments

Mega Dashboards and Instrument Panels is part two of a collection of interesting and mind-boggling arrays of dials and switches. Part one, previously.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:50 PM PST - 31 comments

How one Twitter user got famous by allegedly stealing comedians’ tweets. Prominent Twitterer Sammy Rhodes has been caught plagiarizing so many tweets that a dedicated Tumblr exists to track them all. The wonderful Mr. Destructo chimes in with his own take.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:44 PM PST - 64 comments

The Dutch Army Bicycle Band. Does exactly what it says on the tin (helmet).
posted by unSane at 7:43 PM PST - 17 comments

What, really, is a wolf-dog?? Wolf-dogs already blur the line between dog and wolf - BUT things get really muddy if dogs are proven to have evolved themselves : "The evolutionarily correct way to state all this is that human beings, with their campfires and garbage heaps and hunting practices, but above all with their social interactions, represented an ecological niche ripe for exploitation by wolves."
posted by huckhound at 6:02 PM PST - 34 comments

Welcome to the real world, my dear Battle Penguin. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 4:13 PM PST - 11 comments

Theatre and film composer and GLAAD award winner Damon Intrabartolo has died at the age of 39. Intrabartolo is best known for the cult off-Broadway musical bare: a pop opera, the modern day Romeo and Juliet story of two boys who fall in love at a Catholic high school. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:12 PM PST - 8 comments

Next weekend, The Showroom, an arthouse movie theater in Asbury Park, New Jersey, presents Bruce Noir — a screening and discussion series on film noir and its influence on the life and music of Bruce Springsteen. The series will be hosted by crime novelist Wallace Stroby (Kings of Midnight), who once loaned Springsteen a DVD copy of Two-Lane Blacktop, and will include appearances by Springsteen biographer Peter Ames Carlin (Bruce) via Skype and Jersey Noir photographer Mark Krajnak. The films being screened are Gun Crazy, Badlands, Out of the Past, Atlantic City, and Thunder Road. (Not screening is Woody Allen's Stardust Memories. It's not a noir, but as the story goes, a fan spotted him alone at a screening of that film and eventually asked him to come home and have dinner with him and his mother. Springsteen agreed, making him not just a world-class rock-and-roller but also an A+ film buff in the eyes of many admirers.)
posted by Mothlight at 3:12 PM PST - 9 comments

Mari Kalkun is an Estonian folk singer. If, after those words, you are still reading, you'll probably like her. [more inside]
posted by lapsangsouchong at 2:29 PM PST - 14 comments

Now it's time for America's new favorite game: Hot Dogs or Legs? (single-serving Tumblr, with mustard and relish.)
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:29 PM PST - 39 comments

Chris Hedges on Journalism, truth, and why he was fired from the New York Times: "Great reporters care about truth more than they do about news".
posted by four panels at 2:09 PM PST - 30 comments

A slime mould expresses its emotions through a humming robotic face. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 1:53 PM PST - 20 comments

Unique Pieces -- Sculpture materials: metal (copper, bronze, brass, steel, stainless steel), wood. Assembly: welding, rivets, screws. Metal shapping: hammering, rolling, cold rolling.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:45 PM PST - 7 comments

Glenn Greenwald's partner was detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours , his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles confiscated. Glenn Greenwald calls it a failed attempt at intimidation. "...to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members..."
posted by dabitch at 12:05 PM PST - 494 comments

"To launch a science-fiction anthology series is to dare comparisons with The Twilight Zone. Happily, Welcome to Paradox is not unworthy to be mentioned in the same sentence as Rod Serling's classic show. The weekly dramas, all based on short stories, are set in Betaville [a nod to Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 dystopian sci-fi/noir film, Alphaville], a future city filled with ultrahigh technology and perennial human unhappiness.... Bottom Line: Makes the future look intriguing." The Sci-Fi channel only produced 13 episodes (archived view of their site; ep list on Wikipedia), letting the series end with one season. The show was only released on DVD in Australia, which now seems to be out of print. But fear not! You can watch the episodes on YouTube in a convenient playlist, or with separate episodes linked below the fold. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:48 AM PST - 6 comments

Scientists first discovered invisible gamma-ray flashes in Earth's atmosphere in 1991. This year, the radiation burst, known as dark lightning, was discovered to be linked to regular lightning flashes. Will you get zapped by dark lightning when flying through a thunder cloud? A single burst can give an airline passenger a lifetime's safe dose of ionizing radiation. But it is rare enough that, for now, the risk is thought to be minimal. The US Naval Research Laboratory is rigging balloons and aircraft to further study the radiation burst threat.
posted by eye of newt at 11:41 AM PST - 20 comments

The Castle That Jack Built — by Emily Gilman, a finalist for the short story category of the 2013 World Fantasy Awards. (via)
posted by nangar at 11:30 AM PST - 5 comments

A Black Hole Mystery Wrapped in a Firewall Paradox - "A paradox around matter leaking from black holes puts into question various scientific axioms: Either information can be lost; Einstein's principle of equivalence is wrong; or quantum field theory needs fixing." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:11 AM PST - 36 comments

Dial a Trade (link to charming You Tube documentary) is an AM version of a flea market on KURM out of Rogers, Arkansas. You might be able to listen to it occasionally on this Tunein station.
posted by PHINC at 10:14 AM PST - 21 comments

Pere Ubu , famed avant-garde rock band, has run into some visa issues in preparing for their upcoming US tour... [more inside]
posted by SansPoint at 9:07 AM PST - 65 comments

Artist Nobutaka Aozaki is creating a map of Manhattan made up entirely of hand-drawn maps given to him by strangers, which he solicits by asking for directions. The project, called From Here to There, is ongoing, and currently the main map is roughly 3' by 10'.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:03 AM PST - 8 comments

A brother in trouble. Author John Niven reflects on the suicide of his brother.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 7:41 AM PST - 15 comments

Paperscape is a searchable 2-dimensional visualization of the 800,000+ scientific papers (mostly in physics and math) on the arXiv preprint server.
posted by escabeche at 4:33 AM PST - 20 comments

Last week the NPR Ombudsman made a series of posts about problems with the investigation and framing of a 2011 story on foster care among Native American children in South Dakota. [more inside]
posted by gubenuj at 1:44 AM PST - 14 comments

Professor Deepak Malhotra offers 15 pieces of negotiation advice, followed by Q&A, in an informal session for students at the Harvard Business School. (1 hr 5 min video).
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 10:33 PM PST - 12 comments

A new film has been released about guitarist John Fahey titled “In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey” (NYTimes review). Trailer can be viewed here, and an interview with director James Cunningham on WNYC's Leonard Lopate show can be heard here. [more inside]
posted by indices at 8:58 PM PST - 9 comments

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

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

Salon responds. Sarah Lacy wants Valleywag, which leaked the emails, to pay her $100,000 in damages. Paul Carr responds on his own site, and clearly regrets nothing.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:24 PM PST - 166 comments

The Yo Is This Racist? Podcast [iTunes, SoundCloud] is a show where people call in with racism questions and blogger Andrew Ti and a guest give answers. There's nearly a year's worth of podcasts, so there's lots of material. The most recent episodes, featuring Baron Vaughn, are a good place to start, but so are the ones with Kulap Vilaysack, Paul F. Tompkins and Cloud Atlas Week, when a whole run of episodes was dedicated to the movie Cloud Atlas (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). [YITR previously]
posted by Kattullus at 6:29 PM PST - 22 comments

In our past midnight conversation, Steve Albini discussed his interesting history with Kurt Cobain, his abandoned work with Fugazi, the stories behind making In Utero, the mostly good but surprisingly sad and surreal professional aftermath of making In Utero, how it might have changed his life, how the new Shellac LP’s test pressings are on route to the band, and why he doesn’t care about Breaking Bad but can tolerate The Newsroom.
posted by mannequito at 6:27 PM PST - 10 comments

Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, formerly part of News Corp., has bought a 5% stake in Vice Media for $70m. The move is said to give Vice access to Fox's satellite broadcasting networks, whilst preserving the founders' editorial control.
posted by acb at 5:14 PM PST - 32 comments

The Superlab Playset will keep enthusiasts, young and old, living imaginatively in the world of Breaking Bad. An interview with those who made it.
posted by juiceCake at 4:18 PM PST - 12 comments

Little Tich was a music hall star best known for his Big Boots dance, studied by the Ministry of Silly Walks (3:42), and homaged by Wayne Sleep. [more inside]
posted by Thing at 4:02 PM PST - 7 comments

Though the original Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee opened its doors nearly 150 years ago, many would place its true birth at around 1940 when they first began the Peabody Duck March. The tradition has drawn people from far and wide to watch the mallards in residence make their morning commute from their rooftop palace to the fountain in the lobby. If you can't get to to Memphis, there is another Peabody in Orlando that also holds a Duck March, but don't bother with Little Rock (The Peabody there held their last march in May before being converted to a Marriott). Oh, and if you happen to shell out enough dough to stay the night, don't forget your complimentary duck soap.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 3:30 PM PST - 13 comments

"So lately I haven’t talked about how infuriating it’s been to be told I was “asking for it” — “it” being Mr. Beale’s racist, sexist abuse and that of his commentariat. (What was I wearing? My skin.) I’ve watched ostensibly reasonable people ask whether it’s racist to call an entire group of people savages — no, really — and I haven’t talked about how nauseating that was. I’ve seen fellow SFWA members suggest that there must be room in the organization for white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry — because of course some members’ right to be assholes should trump all members’ right to operate in professional spaces free of harassment, intimidation, and abuse." -- Fantasy writer N. K. Jemisin comments on the recent sexism/racism crisis in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and her own role in the controversy. (previously). [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 2:08 PM PST - 88 comments

"I can envision no more perfect visual representation of my Dune world than John Schoenherr’s careful and accurate illustrations." –Frank Herbert
posted by griphus at 12:56 PM PST - 17 comments

What makes a movement work in the first place? Why do some movements like the struggle for civil rights take off while others like Occupy Wall Street wilt? Four ways to beat 'The Man'.
posted by shivohum at 12:44 PM PST - 20 comments

Yo Momma Jokes
posted by andoatnp at 11:57 AM PST - 43 comments

Build a new internet from scratch. Hyperboria is a global decentralized network running cjdns software. The goal of Hyperboria is to provide an alternative to the internet with the principles of security, scalability and decentralization at the core. Anyone can participate. Project Meshnet uses Hyperboria, here is a list of local meshnets, or start your own with a MeshBox or linux router.
posted by stbalbach at 11:55 AM PST - 28 comments

15 Really Strange Beaches
posted by Artw at 11:37 AM PST - 20 comments

In 2012 alone, keas were responsible for $425 million in damages and 5 deaths. And while it’s true those statistics aren’t based on real data and that I just made them up, they are nonetheless startling.
posted by latkes at 9:53 AM PST - 34 comments

The Sausage Dog Hotel is a dachshund hotel and retreat in Hertfordshire. Its site and Youtube channel contain updates on the various proceedings among the distinguished guests.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:33 AM PST - 13 comments

The lawyer who defended Klaus Barbie, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, among others has died. [more inside]
posted by bodywithoutorgans at 8:58 AM PST - 26 comments

This week the Getty Museum announced that it is making 4600 digital images of public domain materials in its collections freely available, with plans to release more as their status is confirmed. You can browse the collection here, or take a look at some selected highlights. Want more free images? Try these repositories.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:08 AM PST - 30 comments

"The information and technology ecosystem now represents around 10 per cent of the world's electricity generation, and it's hungry for filthy coal. In a report likely to inspire depression among environmentalists, and fluffy statements from tech companies, analyst firm Digital Power Group has synthesized numerous reports and crunched data on the real electricity consumption of our digital world." - IT now 10 percent of world's electricity consumption, report finds
posted by jammy at 6:07 AM PST - 34 comments

Western numerology is traced back to Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, though the older Chaldean Numerology System is also utilized by some. It's from Pythagoras' system that people have created Angel Numbers, which some believe represent messages from a higher power. Angel-Numbers.com has you covered from 0-999, and Sacred Scribe's Angel Numbers goes farther, up to 1299, and identifies potential meaning in number patterns.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:36 AM PST - 50 comments

"Exercising his split personality, Childish Gambino stars in a film written by Donald Glover, (formally known as Troy Barnes): Clapping For The Wrong Reasons. The recently debuted short is 24 minutes of exactly what you wouldn't expect from Donald Glover: it's serious, quiet and incredibly sparse. There's no Troy Barnes vibes throughout the film, there's no over the top Childish Gambino levity: it's mature and clean."
posted by Mezentian at 4:01 AM PST - 20 comments

A look inside the cartoonist's sketchbook - Anders Nilsen, Jeffrey Brown, Kate Beaton, Rutu Modan, Chris Ware
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:07 AM PST - 6 comments

When the remains of Richard III were discovered beneath a car park in Leicester (previously) there was some debate over where he should be reburied. It seemed that the question was settled by the decision of the University of Leicester to follow up the stipulation in the exhumation licence that the remains be re-buried in Leicester. However, a group of Richard III's collateral descendants were not content to let this rest, and issued an application for judicial review of the Ministry of Justice's decision to set and abide by that restriction on the location for reburial. The first stage of that application has been successful, with Mr Justice Haddon-Cave QC granting permission for a full judicial review (order and reasons, PDF). [more inside]
posted by Major Clanger at 1:12 AM PST - 63 comments

Librarians + Beastie Boys = Sabotage (SLVimeo)
posted by geek anachronism at 11:33 PM PST - 14 comments

The Thoreau Poison - Caleb Crain of The New Yorker takes a closer look at the ideas explored in Upstream Color (spoilers)
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:27 PM PST - 18 comments

"They call it '9 to 5.' It's never 9 to 5, there's no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don't take lunch."
posted by Memo at 6:59 PM PST - 82 comments

Ancient North Americans gouged elaborate rock art into a heap of big boulders northeast of Reno, Nev., more than 10,000 years ago and perhaps 15,000 years ago. That makes the carvings the oldest known petroglyphs on the continent, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
posted by 445supermag at 6:41 PM PST - 9 comments

Certain Doctor Who Phrases and how Olive Garden Customers React: An Experiment Done by a Server
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:02 PM PST - 98 comments

Stunt women Jessie Graff and Tree O'Toole recreate an epic live-action version of Family Guy's original epic chicken fight. (SLYT)
posted by Room 641-A at 5:46 PM PST - 17 comments

Here's the entire show (audio only) from Landover, Maryland, January 15, 1974, by Bob Dylan and The Band.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:26 PM PST - 11 comments

Man leads sheep political rally.
posted by The Whelk at 4:48 PM PST - 39 comments

Hitoshizuku x Yama (or Yamashizuku) are producers for vocaloid, a singing voice synthesizer program (previously on mefi). Their most recent compilation album, EndlessroLL, is available on Amazon and iTunes. They seem most fond of Kagamine Rin/Len, but have also released songs featuring other vocaloids. Suzunosuke often does the artwork for their videos. Examples of their works below. Warnings for: singing robots, high-pitched Japanese voices, catchy tunes, English subtitles, occasional violence, death, melancholy, some mildly NSFW content, and more than a dollop of drama.

• Bad∞End∞Night / Crazy∞nighT / Twilight ∞ nighT - a villager is trapped in a mansion with a bunch of nuts! Can she find the key to survival, or can this only be a Bad End Night? Features the Vocaloid Eight - i.e., all 6 Crypton vocaloids + Gumi & Gakupo. TO BE CONTINUED.
• Alluring Secret ~Black Vow~ - An angel falls in love with a human girl, which is forbidden. But she has a plan.
• Soundless Voice / Proof of Life / Endless Wedge. A girl wants to leave something good behind. A boy grieves.

Click through the cut for more. [more inside]
posted by anthy at 2:10 PM PST - 9 comments

Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal. "The federal government has made it easier than ever to borrow money for higher education - saddling a generation with crushing debts and inflating a bubble that could bring down the economy."
posted by homunculus at 1:54 PM PST - 139 comments

Here's a video of a giant baby panda cub being reunited with her mother at the Taipei City Zoo. [more inside]
posted by medusa at 1:25 PM PST - 45 comments

She doesn't make much, but she still gets paid - she's a lower level mayoral office aide! (MLYT, last link NSFW).
posted by borkencode at 1:24 PM PST - 4 comments

To start with the beginning: Jack Sheppard was a notorious English robber who inspired John Gay to write The Beggar's Opera (1728). Two centuries later, the German composer Kurt Weill and dramatist Bertolt Brecht adapted it into a musical as a socialist critique of capitalism and the modern world: Die Dreigroschenoper. It was about to open when the lead actor demanded a song to introduce his character. It was this song that would open the play and at its premiere, it was Kurt Gerron who would be the first to sing the Moriat of Macky Messer as the street singer setting the scene. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 1:20 PM PST - 20 comments

On this day in 1819, 60,000 people turned out at St Peter's Field in Manchester for democracy...and the Yeomanry turned out for a massacre. [more inside]
posted by Thing at 12:49 PM PST - 22 comments

Sometimes if the king of the jungle is not available, then use the next best animal
posted by dov3 at 12:27 PM PST - 22 comments

"Developers, both named and those who wish to remain anonymous, tell Polygon that harassment by gamers is becoming an alarmingly regular expected element of game development." (Previously)
posted by griphus at 12:20 PM PST - 101 comments

Mo Farah wins 5,000m gold at World Athletics 2013: "Mo Farah's career reached incredible new heights as the Briton became only the second man in history to complete an Olympic and world 'double-double' in the distance events."
posted by marienbad at 12:15 PM PST - 7 comments

EA is setting it's hopes for the future on Plant's Vs Zombies 2's "freemium" model, hoping they've done it "the PopCap way". Here's how to play it without paying to win.
posted by Artw at 10:48 AM PST - 94 comments

Bad Jelly. Trying retro recipes so you don't have to. (Some images involving fruit may be NSFW. )
posted by louche mustachio at 10:29 AM PST - 52 comments

How a Swath of 20-Somethings Have Tuned In to 1920s Pop. New Hot Jazz Is Warming Up(audio link). Looking to catch some live? Check out the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island this weekend, or the New York Hot Jazz Fest on August 25th. [more inside]
posted by fings at 9:48 AM PST - 60 comments

Two timelines with slang for the male and female genitalia, simply titled The Penis and The Vagina. The timelines are made by Jonathon Green, a slang lexicographer (previously on MeFi). [more inside]
posted by bjrn at 9:15 AM PST - 77 comments

Esther Lobo is a photographer who has recently started playing with food.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:38 AM PST - 5 comments

In conjunction with the Whitney Museum of American Art's exhibit Hopper Drawing [NYT review], which the museum calls "the first major museum exhibition to focus on the drawings and creative process of Edward Hopper," the museum has constructed a temporary life-size window installation recreating Nighthawks in the Flatiron Building's Sprint-sponsored Prow Artspace. The Flatiron is believed to be one of the real-life inspirations for the iconic diner by Carter Foster, curator of drawing for the Whitney and organizer of the Hopper exhibition. [previously]
posted by orthicon halo at 8:37 AM PST - 21 comments

"I think the answer is 100 per cent of people cheated! That's what everyone tells us. Do we mind? No." A history of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy game books.
posted by dng at 8:15 AM PST - 49 comments

Today is August 15, 2013. Today is my 60th birthday. Today is the last day of my life. Today, I committed suicide. Today, is the first day this site is active, but it will be here for years to come.
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 8:11 AM PST - 55 comments

Syd Mead's Stanford Torus Illustrations for National Geographic got him the job, 40 years later, of designing Elysium for Neill Blomkamp. Mead calls the unique visual effect of these interior drawings, in which the horizon wraps up and over the viewpoint, 'inverse perspective'. This effect, and others like it, have been explored in the concept art for large, rotating, space habitats at least since the early 1960s. [more inside]
posted by sevensixfive at 7:44 AM PST - 21 comments

As part of the preparation for a special exhibition on the history of Chinese food in America, the Smithsonian opens the world's oldest can of fortune cookies. More posts on the exhibit research under the Sweet & Sour tag. [previously]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:11 AM PST - 23 comments

Mining heiress Gina Rineheart, Australia's richest person, the fourth wealthiest woman in the world, and not incidentally an advocate for the abolishment of the minimum wage who claims "Africans are willing to work for $2 a day" (and yes we've talked about all this previously previously), now has an anthem: "Sweet Child O' Mines", as performed by the Australian TV show Wednesday Night Fever. For maximum viewing enjoyment, imagine that Rinehart is out there somewhere gnashing and grinding her teeth over it while you watch.
posted by orange swan at 6:25 AM PST - 34 comments

In which Stephen Colbert exposes how Johnny Cummings is destroying the moral fabric of small-town America.
posted by saladin at 5:58 AM PST - 46 comments

"A man walked past our bench holding a single cucumber." A letter from Detroit by Mark Benelli walks you through today's Detroit. [more inside]
posted by HuronBob at 10:40 PM PST - 38 comments

It became necessary to finish this thing. A U.S.-funded 'ally' has carried out one of the largest massacres of protesters since the 1989 assault on Tiananmen Square. At least 525 people (and counting and counting) have been killed since Egypt's police and army attacked two sit-ins in support of ousted president Muhammad Morsi on August 14th. Armored cars, police officers, and soldiers marched on the protests in Nasr City and Giza, opening fire with birdshot, tear gas, and live ammunition. It only gets worse from here. [more inside]
posted by ecmendenhall at 10:37 PM PST - 143 comments

What if Episode II Were Good? (Previously)
posted by Navelgazer at 9:07 PM PST - 41 comments

In 1931, Gladys Maud Cockburn-Lange, presented some amazing photos from her deceased husband's days as an RAF pilot in World War I. They were hailed as "the most vividly realistic of all the air records that came out of the war," as they were taken from a camera that was mounted on the plane (example photos). The photos were published in British newspapers in 1932 and years to come, and bound with the diary of the pilot in the book Death in the Air: The War Diary and Photographs of a Flying Corps Pilot. Except it was all a hoax. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:50 PM PST - 5 comments

John Franzen: Each line, one breath
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:40 PM PST - 15 comments

Spoon in underwear saving youths from forced marriage. "As Britain puts airport staff on alert to spot potential victims of forced marriage, one campaigning group says the trick of putting a spoon in their underwear has saved some youngsters from a forced union in their South Asian ancestral homelands." [more inside]
posted by kmennie at 8:21 PM PST - 14 comments

Shigeru Ban is a Japanese architect whose work includes 'temporary' structures (YT) made from cardboard tubes. His work blurs the distinction between temporary and permanent, and includes designs that focus on cost effective and liveable shelter after natural and human disasters. Now, two-and-a-half years after the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake destroyed the city's cathedral, the Cardboard Cathedral has been opened. [See also: 1 2 ]
posted by carter at 8:15 PM PST - 5 comments

In the Twitter war between the fans of One Direction and The Who, who wins? Does it really matter that One Direction members weren't even born util 10 years after It's Hard?
posted by theichibun at 7:06 PM PST - 95 comments

Making Music with a Möbius Strip : "It turns out that musical chords naturally inhabit various topological spaces, which show all the possible paths that a composer can use to move between chords. Surprisingly, the space of two-note chords is a Möbius strip."
posted by dhruva at 6:37 PM PST - 16 comments

"So, after reading all his sexts and stuff, it’s basically impossible for me to not hear every single thing Anthony Weiner says as some sort of horrible half-assed double entendre sexty come-on. So I cut together a few of his recent public statements to demonstrate why I laugh every time he speaks." (SLYTP)
posted by The Whelk at 4:40 PM PST - 51 comments

Apparently Chris Froome just rides this way. (SLTumblr)
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:35 PM PST - 19 comments

Released today on Steam, Gone Home has garnered praise for its deeply affecting narrative, stripped-down design and a unique aesthetic steeped in 90's nostalgia and riot grrl culture. "When I played Gone Home I had the stunning realization that there could be a game for me. Someone can make a game for me." -Leigh Alexander. "It’s touching, unsettling, deeply honest, and enormously compassionate. -Rock, Paper, Shotgun. "Gone Home is an epic story, but its definition of epic is far removed from how we usually talk about scope and drama in games. It’s epic, personal and revelatory to the people involved, and that’s why it’s so special." -Giant Bomb. Polygon's 10/10 review. How Gone Home's design constraints lead to a powerful story. The Fullbright Company's Journey Home.
posted by naju at 3:21 PM PST - 195 comments

So much rain fell on Australia during 2010-11 that global sea levels dropped, rather than normally rising. Australia has large basins from which rainwater doesn't drain (well). Australia is giving it back as evaporation and sea levels are on the rise again thanks. The record breaking rainfall was attributed to global warming.
posted by stbalbach at 2:03 PM PST - 29 comments

A sentence from her novel History of Emily Montague is the earliest OED citation for "literally" used to mean "figuratively." Frances Brooke may be responsible for negatively impacting the English language by actioning a disconnect between a word's definition and its usage. Google was called a traitor to the English language for recognizing this use. Others are suggesting that since we've totally busted the English so much we probably shouldn't even use the word "literally" anymore.
posted by ChuckRamone at 2:01 PM PST - 141 comments

"So, here's the thing. If someone forces you to do something sexual, then it's not your fault. You don't have to feel guilty or ashamed for doing something "dirty" or taboo, or for being with someone villainous or forbidden, or for being a sexual creature or having sex in the first place. This is one reason people (including me) write noncon-themed stories—to overcome or bypass or interrogate that guilt or shame through a fictional character we may or may not identify with." -- Force Me, Please talks about non-consensual sex scenes and their appeal (or not) in erotic and fan fiction. (nsfw)
posted by MartinWisse at 1:08 PM PST - 30 comments

National Geographic takes some amazing photos and video. (SL National Geographic, requires Flash) Takes quite awhile to load but worth it.
posted by bearwife at 1:07 PM PST - 12 comments

A wise man with a deep understanding of world and eerily prescient and accurate thoughts. Post-NSA revelations, 1984 seems even more real and possible. Reading this letter gives a view into George Orwell's thought process and he really impresses. [more inside]
posted by TheLittlePrince at 12:14 PM PST - 127 comments

Charles Mingus trained his cat to use the toilet. Toilet training your cat is not a new phenomenon, as Youtube will testify. Everyone* has an opinion on how best to convince your cat to use the commode instead of a litter box. This week, the Billfold explores the possibility of saving money on cat litter by getting Muffin to use the commode. But the buried treasure in the article is Charles' Mingus' guide to toilet training your cat. [more inside]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 11:04 AM PST - 45 comments

Ladies and gentleman, presenting the Watermelon Kids of China. That is all.
posted by pixlboi at 10:33 AM PST - 29 comments

Earlier this week, Big Sean released Control (7:32), a song that features a second verse from Kendrick Lamar and a third verse from Jay Electronica. Kendrick's two and a half minute verse was pretty standard fare in hip hop - bragging, saying he's the best, displaying talent on the mic. But in just 3 days, the rap world's response to Kendrick's verse has been almost unprecedented. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 10:22 AM PST - 463 comments

Raised by two drug addicts with virtually unlimited wealth, Georgia and Patterson survived a gilded childhood that was also a horror story of Dickensian neglect and abuse. They were globe-trotting trust-fund babies who snorkeled in Fiji, owned a pet lion cub and considered it normal to bring loose diamonds to elementary school for show and tell. And yet they also spent their childhoods inhaling freebase fumes, locked in cellars and deadbolted into their bedrooms at night in the secluded Wyoming mountains and on their ancestral South Carolina plantation. While their father spent millions on drug binges and extravagances, the children lived like terrified prisoners, kept at bay by a revolving door of some four dozen nannies and caregivers, underfed, undereducated, scarcely noticed except as objects of wrath.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:11 AM PST - 51 comments

Via the Smithsonian: For the first time in 35 years, a new carnivorous mammal species has been discovered in the American Continents. Native to the cloud forests of Ecuador and Colombia, the olinguito is the newest member of the raccoon family. [more inside]
posted by flyingsquirrel at 9:35 AM PST - 26 comments

ISPs often don't say why a website is blocked and court orders are rarely voluntarily published. So when sites are blocked, it's really hard to find out why. 451 Unavailable is here to help ISPs make it clear why websites are blocked and to encourage courts to publish blocking orders. [more inside]
posted by jenkinsEar at 8:46 AM PST - 30 comments

1) Go to any old YouTube video.
2) Type "1980".
3) DEFEND THIS VIDEO FROM ATTACK. FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

(For those of you on tablets or mobile, it looks like this.)
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:23 AM PST - 32 comments

The latest Humble Bundle is a collection of 8 AAA games from EA. Retail price for these games is $215 but, with the Humble Bundle, users can set their own price at anything starting from $1. Humble Bundle has received some flak previously for partnering with big brands, with many arguing that they had abandoned their original purpose of promoting indie game developers. EA however, in a likely attempt to stave off such criticism, has agreed to have 100% of proceeds from this bundle go to charity.

So what's in it for EA? Three of the games in the bundle can only be redeemed through Origin, EA's proprietary digital distribution framework which has thus far had very little success at competing with Steam. Unfortunately, Origin does not seem to be up to handing the influx of new users.
posted by 256 at 7:17 AM PST - 135 comments

A photograph of breaker boys that changed history for millions of kids in America, who worked grueling lives as child laborers. What Charles Dickens did with words for the underage toilers of London, Lewis Hine did with photographs for the youthful laborers in the United States. Library of Congress collection of over 5,000 Lewis Hine child labor photos. Kentucky 1916. Previously. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 7:11 AM PST - 5 comments

Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong. - I hate Strong Female Characters.
posted by Artw at 6:51 AM PST - 114 comments

This article covers the US drone program. It looks at the pilots of drones, the decisions to use a drone, their highly effective short terms goals vs long term potential blowback and whether drone strikes are legal.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:47 AM PST - 50 comments

If you're not already in the mood for bacon fat, you might find yourself craving it anyway, just as soon as it hits the pan. Cause it's a slow simmering, juicy slab of swamp doo wop just right for easing across the kitchen floor to. Or the juke joint floor. Or just about any floor. Aww, have mercy! By the way, I mean this kind of Bacon Fat. Mmmm-mmm! Hungry for more? Alright then, there's... [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:04 AM PST - 11 comments

Professional wrestling's relationship with homosexuality and non-heteronormative presentation has long been downright hostile: from Gorgeous George in the 1950s, to "Pretty Boy" Pat Patterson in the 1970s, "Adorable" Adrian Adonis in the 1980s, Golddust in the 1990s, the infamous Billy and Chuck in the 2000s, and even Orlando Jordan in the 2010s, wrestlers who present as effeminate or who "might be gay" have always been portrayed as heels, drawing boos from the crowd. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the suggestion of female homosexuality has been called upon only to titillate. And although former performers like Patterson and the late Chris Kanyon publicly acknowledged their homosexuality after their active careers had ended, and though the WWE recently hired openly-gay retired professional golfer Jane Geddes as VP of Talent Relations, there hasn't been an active, out WWE Superstar until now, when Darren Young, asked if he thought there was a place for a gay wrestler, told TMZ that he's "gay ... and happy."
posted by uncleozzy at 5:20 AM PST - 40 comments

Dr.Buzzard's Original Savannah Band - I'll Play The Fool
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band -- Cherchez la Femme
Then, later, in a guerrilla video to the original recording,
CoATi MuNDi -- Que Pasa / Me No Pop I
then, after that,
Coati Mundi with Kid Creole & The Coconuts - CoatiMundi's Que Pasa/Me No Pop I
Kid Creole & The Coconuts - I'm A Wonderful Thing Baby [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 12:57 AM PST - 7 comments

Guillermo del Toro's Sketchbook
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:18 PM PST - 25 comments

From the depths of the old internet (Deuce of Clubs), here is a prank call to the Monticello Drug Company about their "666" Cough Preparation, which was followed up by a cease-and-desist letter to the site, and explained the source of the "666" branding. DoC replied, and received letters of support from folks, including the CEO of Montiecello, who found the whole thing to be a laugh. The CEO also sent weird labels to the Deuce of Clubs, including a box of/for "Ghost Scent," a re-labeled version of a body odor eliminator that was initially intended for older individuals, but found a following with hunters. To finish this journey into the internet past, DoC collected images of products, and a painting of a rural scene, complete with a "666 Cold Tablets" sign on a tree. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:08 PM PST - 19 comments

Have your cat nearby? Pick from your favorite exercises and get started. -Let your cat be your purrrsonal trainer [more inside]
posted by Wolfster at 8:07 PM PST - 17 comments

All the worst-rated videos in one handy place.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:20 PM PST - 49 comments

The Conflict-Resolving Game is a new and challenging alternative to the traditional Debate. It can be played by adults and by children and by teams of very mixed age groups. To succeed in this game you should know the difference between debate and dialog. You will need to master the Twelve Skills. You may want to consult a 270 page training manual.. This longer one will work also - even mentioning the principles of Aikido. Oh, and mastering the game is not just for adults.
posted by storybored at 6:10 PM PST - 9 comments

This is a visualization of Beach Boys vocals inspired by the physics of church bells. Using a mathematical relationship between a the circumference of a circular surface and pitch, I wrote code that draws a circle for each note of the song. (Single Link Vimeo)
posted by Navelgazer at 3:02 PM PST - 8 comments

The Baseballs are a German rock and roll band founded in Berlin in 2007. They became popular with 50s and 60s style rock cover versions of modern hits such as "Umbrella","Hot n Cold","Call Me Maybe", "Tik Tok", and "Poker Face".
posted by The Whelk at 2:15 PM PST - 37 comments

Men Who Want AIDS—and How It Improved Their Lives Some homeless people find that having AIDS entitles them to assistance that will allow them to get off the streets. Some are desperate enough to deliberately get infected as they see no other way to get the help they need.
posted by 2manyusernames at 2:11 PM PST - 36 comments

"The Life and Times of a Tyrannosaurus Rex," a lecture by Dr. Thomas Holtz
posted by brundlefly at 1:57 PM PST - 13 comments

Occasionally, an artist will paint something, but neglect to include monkeys and/or robots. When he can, John Lytle Wilson fixes that. In addition to correcting the paintings of others, Mr. Wilson also paints original pieces. Most of which include monkeys and/or robots. And unicorns. There are some unicorns in there too.
posted by Cookiebastard at 1:46 PM PST - 12 comments

Following last November's passage of Initiative 502, which legalized personal possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, the Seattle Police Department has confirmed via their Twitter account that they will be giving away Doritos at this year's Seattle Hempfest, along with information about citizens' rights and responsibilities as granted by the new law.
posted by KathrynT at 1:32 PM PST - 41 comments

"Isn’t it time for a women’s publication that puts world news and politics alongside beauty tips? What about a site that takes an introspective look at the celebrity world, while also having a lot of fun covering it? How about a site that offers career advice and book reviews, while also reporting on fashion trends and popular memes?" Bryan Goldberg, the founder of Bleacher Report, raised $6.5 million to build and grow a feminist website for women, Bustle.com. [more inside]
posted by meese at 1:05 PM PST - 162 comments

"Migrants quite rationally responded to the increased costs and risks by minimizing the number of times they crossed the border,” Massey wrote in his 2007 paper “Understanding America’s Immigration ‘Crisis.’” “But they achieved this goal not by remaining in Mexico and abandoning their intention to migrate to the U.S., but by hunkering down and staying once they had run the gauntlet at the border and made it to their final destination." -- How the militarisation of the US-Mexico border actually increased Mexican immigration into the US.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:23 PM PST - 40 comments

Lantern--a search platform for the collections of the Media History Digital Library that enables access to over 800,000 pages of digitized texts from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound (from 1904 to 1963)--has gone live. (Previously.)
posted by carrienation at 12:18 PM PST - 9 comments

Oldtime Tales of Drugs, Sex, Liquor and Gambling [NSFW] [more inside]
posted by ursus_comiter at 12:00 PM PST - 11 comments

For the first time in the United Kingdom, cat hair DNA has led to the conviction of a killer. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 10:32 AM PST - 33 comments

Dustin Cable, a researcher at the University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, has created a map of the United States incorporating 2010 US Census data. 308,745,538 colored dots represent every citizen of the United States (as of 2010, anyway.)
posted by emelenjr at 10:03 AM PST - 48 comments

Peanuts comics paired with Smiths lyrics (SLTumblr).
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:42 AM PST - 69 comments

The Coming Dark Age For Science In America (single link HuffPo)
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:35 AM PST - 84 comments

Mark Brown, costar of a viral video perhaps best known as "Hillbilly Dances with a Raccoon", is seeking a pardon from Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R), after his pet raccoon Rebekah was placed into state custody. (Previously) [more inside]
posted by Benjy at 5:13 AM PST - 45 comments

Explaining death to a four-year-old through Doctor Who
posted by zarq at 5:11 AM PST - 62 comments

Walk into the TARDIS on Google Maps. Surprisingly, it gets only 4.3 stars.
posted by you must supply a verb at 4:49 AM PST - 28 comments

Tongue-in-cheek US imperialism and fun stuff as well, for instance Europe according to the USA, and some educational Countries Officially Not Using the Metric System
posted by Schroder at 4:28 AM PST - 72 comments

A Day in the Life of the Ku Klux Klan, Uncensored
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:12 AM PST - 66 comments

The U.S. Secret Service has begun releasing their roughly 14,500 pages on Aaron Swartz in response to a FOIA lawsuit against the DHS by Kevin Poulsen (DHS filing, groklaw). Poulsen's FIOA was delayed by MIT and maybe JSTOR fighting against the release. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 3:01 AM PST - 49 comments

Mealku is a service designed to help people obtain home-cooked meals, by connecting strangers online. It's sort of like AirBNB for leftovers as takeout meals, though right now it's only in New York City. An article from The Atlantic Cities describes Ted D’Cruz-Young's vision for the network and addresses concerns. “There’s always food left over. It’s nice to know it could be someone’s dinner", said one fan.
posted by knile at 1:38 AM PST - 63 comments

Early this morning (midday in the Middle East), al-Qaeda launched a hashtag on Twitter to solicit advice on "suggestions for the development of jihadi media". JM Berger, writer of the national security/terrorism blog IntelWire, noticed this, and decided that they could use some help. The good word was spread across the national security and terrorism Twitterspace, and they successfully hijacked the hashtag from al-Qaeda. [more inside]
posted by Punkey at 10:53 PM PST - 31 comments

Prince, once an early adopter of selling music over the internet and more recently notorious for controlling his online presence, got ahold of his newest band's twitter account and posted several youtube videos, including "Let's Go Crazy" and "Screwdriver." [more inside]
posted by elmer benson at 8:48 PM PST - 32 comments

"This [129 question] survey will determine your ability scores, fantasy race, class, alignment, and character level describing what you would be if you were transformed into a Dungeons and Dragons character."
posted by jedicus at 8:23 PM PST - 298 comments

If you rented VHS horror and sci-fi in the late eighties and early nineties, then you’ll recognize the name of Charles Band. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:28 PM PST - 18 comments

C.J. Boyd is a wandering bassist improvisor/composer who has found time to make 11 "multimedia mixtapes" for his Obsolete Media label-mates, and you can stream or purchase (for a price of your choosing) more than 16 hours of enjoyable, experimental music, featuring a ton of artists.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:18 PM PST - 4 comments

Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing will make you care more about typing than is perhaps healthy or advisable. [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 4:20 PM PST - 26 comments

Until recently one of the rarest animals ever had only ever been sighted once - the hexapus. It's not an injured octopus but seemed to be a fully developed octopus that only had six limbs. The trouble with being so rare is that most people would never realize if they found a hexapus - like the vacationing family in Greece that found the second hexapus ever then cooked and ate it. [more inside]
posted by GuyZero at 3:45 PM PST - 69 comments

How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets. "It all started with her own fight against surveillance." [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 1:05 PM PST - 92 comments

Matthew Ingram used the tools available to him to watch the online behaviours of his three daughters. Here is his (and his daughter's) story: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and his daughter's response.
posted by Amity at 12:38 PM PST - 199 comments

In the autumn of 1832, 14-year old Yamamoto Otokichi was aboard the cargo ship Hojunmaru when a storm hit. 22 years and a trip around the globe later, he finally got back to Japan.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:18 PM PST - 6 comments

The Art of Punk: Winston Smith, collage artist. [SLYT]
posted by Rykey at 12:09 PM PST - 5 comments

When you think of Berlin, you think of Cold War thrillers, the Wall, Cabaret and reggea? You do if you know about Seeed, Berlin's finest reggea/dancehall/hiphop music group. What finer way to unwind on a Tuesday evening than with a few of their best songs, like their first hit, Dickes B, an ode to their hometown or perhaps Aufstehn (featuring Ceelo Green), Ding, Music Monks, Wonderful Life or Augenbling are more your style. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:01 PM PST - 19 comments

Comic artist Chris Weston unilaterally declares it Kurt Russell week and produces a triptych of posters for Escape from New York, The Thing and Big Trouble in little China. These are just the roughs.
posted by Artw at 11:31 AM PST - 61 comments

The Histomap: Four Thousand Years of World History
posted by brundlefly at 11:17 AM PST - 65 comments

White definitions of merit and admissions change when they think about Asian-Americans.
posted by kanuck at 11:02 AM PST - 54 comments

Josh Weathers does a pretty darn good I Will Always Love You. SLYT
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:12 AM PST - 13 comments

The street photographer I share with you this week was a man born in Great Britain an entire century before Winogrand and Friedlander. His name was John Thomson (1837-1921) and it is known that he traveled the Far East taking photographs during much of the period between 1860-1879. When he returned to London, he began taking documentary photographs of everyday people on the streets of London. Via madamjujujive
posted by nickyskye at 10:00 AM PST - 18 comments

A snapping turtle, dubbed Lotti, has been terrorising the town of Irsee, Germany since last week, where it bit a boy who was swimming, severing his achilles tendon. [more inside]
posted by frimble at 9:25 AM PST - 61 comments

It's The Victory Belles! The house vocal trio for the National WW2 Museum's Stage Door Canteen in New Orleans perform medleys of war-time hits in shimmery brown uniforms (or Santa suits).
posted by The Whelk at 8:29 AM PST - 5 comments

A song that many people love and connect with, at least, at every karaoke night ever held. Christina Bianco's impressions of a variety of divas singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" are pretty much spot on.
posted by noonewilleverloveyou at 8:05 AM PST - 31 comments

How Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy learned to grow up and start firing his friends.
posted by Kitteh at 8:04 AM PST - 127 comments

A Chinese professor, Zhang Lin, has spent years building an actual mountain on top of an apartment building in Beijing, without ever having received a permit for the construction. Ceilings are cracking in the apartments of his downstairs neighbors.
posted by beagle at 7:00 AM PST - 62 comments

Take Back Your Pregnancy When she got pregnant, Emily Oster, associate professor of economics at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, she found herself faced with the laundry list of rules that pregnant women have been handed for years regarding coffee, alcohol, soft cheese, deli meats, and so on. But when she looked at the studies behind the guidelines, she was surprised to see that most of them failed to make the distinction between causation and correlation. [more inside]
posted by kat518 at 6:53 AM PST - 172 comments

Ferrett Steinmetz's open letter to his daughter is a heartening riposte to the "rules for dating my daughter" cliché. [more inside]
posted by greenish at 6:34 AM PST - 99 comments

"The restless protagonists of these films never have wake up to the reality that crop-dusters simply can't fly faster than sleek racing aircraft. Instead, it's the naysaying authority figures who need to be enlightened about the importance of never giving up on your dreams, no matter how irrational, improbable, or disruptive to the larger community." (Atlantic article)
posted by forza at 5:13 AM PST - 139 comments

Send Me To Heaven, a new app by Norwegian developer Carot Pop, will probably be the last game you play on your (Android) phone.
posted by mahershalal at 3:34 AM PST - 17 comments

The presence of the Pacu, a Piranha like fish, has resulted in a warning to people, specifically men, swimming in the Danish/Swedish strait of Oresund. [more inside]
posted by HuronBob at 3:20 AM PST - 53 comments

The Hitchcock Infographic
posted by crossoverman at 12:19 AM PST - 18 comments

Some surprising subversives on Twitter: Babe Ruth, Michael Jackson, Mahatma Gandhi, Pope John Paul II, Francis of Assisi, Marlin Brando, Martin Luther, Mary Wolfstonecraft, Pablo Neruda, Ann Landers, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Camus, Voltaire, John F. Kennedy, Bill Wilson and Socrates.
posted by Apropos of Something at 10:46 PM PST - 16 comments

Noah Veltman gives us a comparison of Google Search Suggestions By Country for America, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
posted by 23 at 10:06 PM PST - 56 comments

Damon Lindelof uses the story of American folk hero John Henry as an illustrative example of the market pressures on blockbuster screenwriting.
posted by Uncle Ira at 9:34 PM PST - 66 comments

"Women in hip hop are more important than men in hip hop". KRS-1 recently gave a lecture at Fresno State detailing the very beginnings of hip hop in the early 1970's. Even if you've been following hip hop your whole life, you will likely still learn something incredible about the history of this art form.
posted by cashman at 7:08 PM PST - 12 comments

If you ever happen to be in Florida and some challenges you to climb the tallest peak, believing they have you beat because they think Disney World's Expedition Everest is the tallest "mountain" in the state, don't worry! There are more than 50 points that are taller than the summit of Expedition Everest, with it's peak less than 200 feet above sea level. A Summit Post member chronicled their adventures to the four tallest "mountains" in Florida, and included a note about Spook Hill (YouTube; Wikipedia). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:06 PM PST - 20 comments

Does what is says on the tin. The Artistry of sign spinning.
posted by skatz at 6:54 PM PST - 30 comments

You may know The Horse as a groovin' RnB instrumental record from the 1960s. You may know The Horse as a popular marching band tune. But did you ever hear the vocal version? OK then, how about the other vocal version? Ever danced The Mule or The Camel?
 
Here's the story of how three records were made using the same backing tracks and how a singer named Cliff Nobles became associated with a series of instrumental records on which he does not appear. [more inside]
posted by Herodios at 6:26 PM PST - 12 comments

Recently surfaced video of the 2011 tsunami in Japan. An incredible 25 minutes of breathtaking power and destruction.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:18 PM PST - 81 comments

               LEELA
A holophonor? Only a few people in the
whole universe can play that. And they're
not very good at it.

posted by griphus at 5:22 PM PST - 21 comments

"How can it be a mistake when I don't have to wash my hands after I touch her?" Neil Hilborn performs his piece "OCD" at the 2013 Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam.
posted by hippybear at 4:40 PM PST - 11 comments

A beautiful animated music video for Born and Left by Joachim Pastor [more inside]
posted by memebake at 4:39 PM PST - 1 comment

Our Science Fiction Movies Hate Science Fiction. An intelligent discourse from The Awl about the state of modern science fiction movies. [more inside]
posted by zooropa at 3:33 PM PST - 170 comments

From Texas Monthly, a brief oral history from Austin of The Most Important Taco of the Day (there is a recipe included!) At Slate, L.V. Anderson comments on the article noting, "Valera’s and Vasquez’s memories are proof that the mainstreaming of Mexican cuisine happened because Mexican immigrants worked hard in the face of racism, not in the absence of racism." The authors' website, Taco Journalism, has taco-related interviews and reviews.
posted by Area Man at 2:16 PM PST - 79 comments

HYPERLOOP Elon Musk & SpaceX finally reveal their plan for a radical new mass transportation system, Hyperloop.
posted by GuyZero at 2:10 PM PST - 288 comments

One of this summer's most popular holiday activities in Bristol is Gromit Unleashed, the Gromit Trail. Wallace and Gromit were created by Nic Park for his graduation film A Grand Day Out from The National Film and Television School. He completed the film after joining Aardman Animations - they took him on before he finished the piece, allowing him to work on it part-time while still being funded by the school. Ever since then, Wallace and Gromit have continued their adventures, and Aardman have continued to document them. Wallace is a Yorkshireman (he was going to be a Lancastrian but the actor who voiced him could only do Yorkshire) who loves Wensleydale cheese, Gromit is his dog. Wallace is a dreamer, a creator of fabulous inventions, Gromit (though mute) his down-to-earth and capable rescuing sidekick. The Gromit Trail is a series of 80 model Gromits placed in and around Bristol, and the activity is to try and see them all. There's a map, toys, model Gromits and an auction at the end, in aid of Bristol Children's Hospital. [more inside]
posted by glasseyes at 2:08 PM PST - 26 comments

On the fifty-eighth anniversary of Thomas Mann's death in 1955, a YouTube playlist with almost all of his top twelve favorite recordings. [more inside]
posted by ariel_caliban at 1:36 PM PST - 8 comments

On his excellent blog The Visual Science Lab professional photographer and author Kirk Tuck give his theory for why camera sales are down almost 43% year over year.
posted by lattiboy at 12:13 PM PST - 77 comments

The BBC broadcast a great deal of socially-aware drama during the 60s and 70s. Two of it's major successes were by Jeremy Sandford. In 1971 Edna the Inebriate Woman featured a harrowing performance by Patricia Hayes and probably opened middle-England's eyes to the problems of homeless people in general and female alcoholism/homelessness in particular. [more inside]
posted by epo at 12:04 PM PST - 2 comments

"I'm 13 and none of my friends use Facebook."
posted by box at 10:59 AM PST - 246 comments

Njideka Akunyili's acrylic painting over photocopies combines figurative, domestic scenes with the cacophony of globalism and traditional decorative motifs.
posted by klangklangston at 10:56 AM PST - 5 comments

They battle crosswinds and waves that attack from the side, rocking them relentlessly and slamming the oars into the rowers’ shins until they’re bruised and bleeding. They go ashen with seasickness, but Hanssen is the worst. “I can vomit and row at the same time,” he notes cheerfully. -- Rowing across the Atlantic Ocean
posted by Chrysostom at 10:45 AM PST - 15 comments

Sentencing reform for drug offences is expected be announced by the US Attorney General. Eric Holder will announce Monday that he is mandating the Justice Department modify its policies so that certain non-violent drug offenders will no longer endure “draconian mandatory minimum sentences,” according to excerpts of his remarks to American Bar Association. [more inside]
posted by arcticseal at 10:33 AM PST - 68 comments

"Spot checks and being demanded to show your papers by officialdom are not the British way of doing things. Yes, of course we want to deal with illegal immigration, but what's the point of rounding people up at railway stations if at the same time they're still flooding in through Dover and the other nearly hundred ports in this country.
I'm astonished that the Home Office has become so politicised that they're actually advertising 'another 10 arrested'. Before long they'll be live video-streaming these arrests. I don't like it. It really is not the way we've ever behaved or operated as a country. We don't have ID cards; we should not be stopped by officialdom and have to prove who we are." -- Even UKIP leader Nigel Farage thinks the home office goes too far with its politically motivated immigration raids at railway stations.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:55 AM PST - 19 comments

Behind the scenes at Warby Parker, the "Warby Parker of Glasses" for the post-wealth generation.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:54 AM PST - 50 comments

Eydie Gormé dies at 84. They met as cast members of the Steve Allen Show in the 1950s, and it was the start of something big. Known ever since as "Steve and Eydie," they became fixtures of Las Vegas and television variety shows. But Eydie had many hits of her own along the way, such as Blame It On the Bossa Nova, and she became famous in Latin America for her Spanish recordings like Amor. [more inside]
posted by dnash at 9:44 AM PST - 20 comments

The Smiths Poster Exhibition is at BarcelonaNQ in Manchester until August 31, 2013. It features art from the personal collection of obsessive Smiths fan Marc Capella. The Guardian has a slideshow of some of the more famous pieces.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:40 AM PST - 10 comments

In the realm of higher ed, law schools are at the forefront of finding creative ways to maximize revenue. Georgetown Law has pioneered an academic Ponzi scheme where they are able to essentially use the Federal loan money given to new students to pay for public interest law graduates' loans.
posted by reenum at 9:19 AM PST - 46 comments

The NOAA's Okenaos Explorer is surveying the ocean floor off the East Coast of the United States. Livestream 1. Livestream 2. Livestream 3.
posted by dortmunder at 9:14 AM PST - 37 comments

Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives. "In 2011 the Texas state legislature slashed family planning funds, passed a new sonogram law, and waged an all-out war on Planned Parenthood that has dramatically shifted the state’s public health priorities. In the eighteen months since then, the conflict has continued to simmer in the courts, on the campaign trail, and in at least one PR disaster. Meanwhile, what will happen to Texas women—and their fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands—remains very much unclear."
posted by zarq at 9:04 AM PST - 35 comments

Stop and Frisk violated the constitutional rights of New Yorkers, federal judge holds. The ruling comes after the two-month trial in Floyd v. City of New York and finds the tactics and policies of the NYPD in conducting stop-and-frisk systemically violates both the 4th and 14th Amendments of New Yorkers of color. Stopping short of striking down stop-and-frisk more broadly, already upheld numerous times by the Supreme Court, Judge Scheindlin ordered an independent monitor to oversee reforms to the practice.
posted by likeatoaster at 8:06 AM PST - 68 comments

Suncalc is a nifty online app that lets you input a geolocation and a date, and then uses google maps to graphically display the azimuth for the sunrise, sunset, and current time, for that particular date. Example: the sunset for the May 28 Manhattanhenge.
posted by carter at 7:35 AM PST - 28 comments

The Blip: What if everything we've come to think of as American is predicated on a freak coincidence of economic history? And what if that coincidence has run its course?
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:35 AM PST - 107 comments

That Homer used the epithet "wine-dark" to describe the sea in the Iliad and Odyssey so puzzled 19th Century English Prime Minister William Gladstone that he thought the Ancient Greeks must have been colorblind. Since then many other solutions have been proposed. Scientists have argued that Ancient Greek wine was blue and some scholars have put forward the case that Homer was describing the sea at sunset. Radiolab devoted a segment to the exploration of this issue, saying that Gladstone was partly right. Another interpretation is that the Ancient Greeks focused on different aspects of color from us. Classicist William Harris' short essay about purple in Homer and Iliad translator Caroline Alexander's longer essay The Wine-like Sea make the case for this interpretation.
posted by Kattullus at 4:41 AM PST - 107 comments

'The ploughman's lunch is a UK pub meal who's core components are cheese, chutney, and bread. It can also include such items as boiled eggs, ham, and pickled onions, and is accompanied with beer.' [more inside]
posted by panaceanot at 4:39 AM PST - 90 comments

MetaFilter's own Jessamyn West (jessamyn) interviewed in today's NPR feature, For Disaster Preparedness: Pack A Library Card?
posted by jim in austin at 4:27 AM PST - 60 comments

"This realistic simulator of a 4-function Texas Instruments calculator from 1974 runs the calculator's source code instruction by instruction by simulating the processor. The unusual processor has 11-bit opcodes, 44-bit BCD registers, and a 9-bit address bus. To use the simulator, slowly click keys on the calculator image and you can watch how the calculator performs operations step by step. Since the processor doesn't do multiplication or division, it does these operations by repeated addition or subtraction."
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:41 PM PST - 50 comments

boy genuis in Nevada At age 14, Taylor Wilson built his own nuclear fusion reactor and now he aspires to change the world with inventions like mini nuclear power plants.
posted by shockingbluamp at 7:58 PM PST - 67 comments

While we've discussed it before, the link was removed but YouTube's new content guidelines have allowed it to be re-uploaded. In 2001, photographer and filmmaker David LaChapelle directed a video to be shown before Heatherette's first runway show and MAC cosmetics in-store video. Starring Amanda Lepore, the 6 minute video is a bizarre gunshot of pink lipstick, gay cowboys, 80s pop music, and constant full frontal nudity. YouTube (sign-in required) Vimeo. (NSFW)
posted by The Whelk at 7:53 PM PST - 62 comments

The Janoskians are a group of five YouTube comedians from Melbourne, Australia renowned for their cringeworthy pranks on unsuspecting members of the public. Formed in 2010, the group now attracts rock-star welcomes from hordes of screaming fans when it tours across the world and has signed deals with Sony and MTV. [more inside]
posted by dontjumplarry at 7:24 PM PST - 31 comments

Caught this guy playing with himself
posted by nadawi at 7:10 PM PST - 40 comments

It all started with a mirror in the Casbah. Well, it re-started with that mirror, when Safinez Bousbia, who is of Algerian descent but had never visited the country, went to visit with a friend from Ireland. Bousbia commented on the artistry of a mirror. Mohamed Ferkioui, the shopkeeper and artist, told her that he also made music, but had lost contact with his former friends and band-mates, but he had so many memories and items from that past period of his life. As he showed them to Bousbia, she decided she wanted to get the band back together. Her short stay extended into a few years, and she documented the reunion of friends and the playing of a traditional Algerian music style called chaabi, which is a mix of North African polyrhythms, Andalusian classical music, jazz, flamenco and French cabaret. The result was El Gusto (auto-playing music). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 6:58 PM PST - 5 comments

The 10 Best Music Moments In Danny Boyle's Movies
posted by Artw at 6:39 PM PST - 14 comments

How the Internet Ecosystem Works. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 6:34 PM PST - 11 comments

Last year, Rhea Ewing started asking questions like "What is gender? How do we relate to it? How do we talk about it? Does it mean the same thing for everyone?" In trying to answer them, she interviewed people and turned their responses into a zine, only to find that those answers sparked more questions. [more inside]
posted by Athanassiel at 6:30 PM PST - 9 comments

I Left My Camera Bag on a Train We surveyed the area and figured out which direction to take for about 2 seconds, but as soon as we were about to move out along the platform, it hit me…“Where is my camera bag?”
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:42 PM PST - 17 comments

40 years ago today, on August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc, father of hip hop, innovator and inventor of the "merry go round" technique of dj-ing, threw a back to school party in order to raise some money for school clothes and supplies and changed the course of music history. [more inside]
posted by elmer benson at 4:33 PM PST - 15 comments

Frisk Frugt is "flipping brilliant" [more inside]
posted by J0 at 3:49 PM PST - 11 comments

The Sound of the Earth is sound artist Yuri Suzuki's spherical record project, modeled after a topographic globe of the Earth. The grooves represent the outlines of each geographic landmass. Each country on the disc is engraved with a different sound. As the needle passes over, it plays field recordings collected by Suzuki from around the world over the course of four years: traditional folk music, national anthems, popular music and spoken word broadcasts. [more inside]
posted by mykescipark at 2:57 PM PST - 2 comments

Old records wear out, and sheet can't really describe the swing of jazz, ragtime and blues—but a good player piano roll captures the style and rhythm of a live performance and preserves it for generations to come. [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 1:13 PM PST - 20 comments

Chris Sims' amazing pitch for the Superman/Batman movie: "A dang BOOM TUBE opens up, and who comes out? Every Superman and Batman we’ve seen in mass media for the past thirty years." (previously)
posted by kittensofthenight at 12:42 PM PST - 78 comments

Some making-of footage from Jerry Lewis's infamous film The Day The Clown Cried has turned up on YouTube. (previously)
posted by mintcake! at 12:31 PM PST - 30 comments

Norway's Prime Minister, facing a leadership challenge, has taken a somewhat unique approach to reconnect with voters.
posted by MuffinMan at 10:57 AM PST - 39 comments

I could tell you all about Piqua, Ohio's own very favorite sons, the Mills Brothers. I could mention how they made more than 2,000 recordings in their nearly 40 year career and sold more than 50 million copies. I could emphasize how they were the first African American performing group to attract a wide white audience. Most of all, I could explain how downright fun the Mills Brothers were, but I'd rather just show you. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:37 AM PST - 21 comments

Dave Bowman meets Papa Lazarou. (slyt)
posted by MartinWisse at 9:43 AM PST - 36 comments

WICKED LEAKED PAGES FROM THE UPCOMING ENTOURAGE MOVIE [COPYWRITE WERNER BROS.]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:52 AM PST - 19 comments

Yahoo! is getting a new logo—in a month. Until then, it's showing off a new logo every day. You can see the first five days' photos on their blog.
posted by Rory Marinich at 2:48 AM PST - 114 comments

What Batman can learn from Mad Men and The Sopranos
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 2:16 AM PST - 33 comments

NPR's Fresh Air interviews Elizabeth Rosenthal about her year spent investigating the high cost of health care.
"Every part of the system needs to rethink the way it's working. Or maybe what I'm really saying is we need a system instead of 20, 40 components, each one having its own financial model, and each one making a profit." [more inside]
posted by arcticseal at 12:55 AM PST - 103 comments

By employing directors with backgrounds in drama, the studios hope action-heavy films will be infused with greater depth. The catch, however, is that drama directors are usually inexperienced at, and thus incapable of, properly handling [the] material that is the film's main selling point .... "The Wolverine" is the latest example of this burgeoning trend. To name just a few examples from the past couple of years, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (dir: Gavin Hood), "Quantum of Solace" (dir: Mark Forster), "Skyfall" (dir: Sam Mendes) ... were all brought to the screen by filmmakers whose careers were predicated on dramas or comedies, not action. That fad remains in full effect this summer .... While no studio exec would dare hand over an Oscar-hopeful drama to Michael Bay, the opposite model—Hey, Marc Forster directed "Finding Neverland," so he's obviously the ideal candidate for a Bond film!—now reigns supreme.

Nick Schager writes about action films helmed by a director who is not an action director.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 11:56 PM PST - 59 comments

Archie Comics Gets Its First Gay Kiss, Takes On One Million Moms. A couple years back, Archie Comics introduced its first gay character, Kevin Keller. (previously) Since, he's become a normal fixture in Riverdale, and even gotten married in an alternate universe. But finally, Kevin gets an on-panel kiss for the first time -- in his own universe, even! The issue includes a riff on everyone's poorly-counting scolds One Million Moms. [more inside]
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 9:00 PM PST - 39 comments

You might know him as reformed drug addict Walon in "The Wire," or as Harley Watt from "Treme," or maybe even as the beardy, eyeglasses-wearing dude in the all-star "Give a Kidney" group on "30 Rock." But do you know Steve Earle? Ladies and gentlemen, please let me introduce you to this American treasure -- Grammy-winning singer and songwriter, activist, writer, actor, father, and the last of the hardcore troubadours. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:35 PM PST - 52 comments

From all the depositions, here is a summary of the animal’s behavior and apparent anatomy: The animal only appeared in calm weather and in flat water; its body was thick as a keg in circumference and skin dark, nearly black, and reflected sunlight very brightly when it rested on the surface. It had black eyes, too, and its head was about the size of a big dog’s or horse’s head but leathery and snake-like — ship master Eppes Ellory, standing with 20 witnesses, deposed, “I was looking at him with a spy-glass, when I saw him open his mouth and his mouth appeared like that of a serpent; the top of his head appeared flat.” Did the Gloucester fisherman see a massive tuna, or a serpent? And what are we conjuring, when we imagine the sea?
posted by mannequito at 8:08 PM PST - 6 comments

The Avengers - 6 Pieces Of Pleasure. NSFW: Black Widow & Hawkeye Aren’t Left Out Of This Fake Avengers Sex Toy Line.
posted by homunculus at 6:31 PM PST - 70 comments

DEFCON is one of the world's largest hacker conventions, and for its 20th year, MeFite and technology documentarian jscott was asked to capture the event as best as he could. Almost 300 hours of footage was cut down to a two hour documentary, which has been recently released online in HD (YouTube, Vimeo, Archive.org, and an official torrent from DEFCON). More details on IMDb. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 5:42 PM PST - 27 comments

The X-Files 20th anniversary reunion panel at San Diego Comic-Con (Youtube) (Podcast version here) (Summary and slideshow), featuring Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Darin Morgan, Glen Morgan, Jim Wong, John Shiban, Howard Gordon and James Amann. sex scenes, a third movie and Home are discussed. The Lone Gunmen will return in Season 10. The Guardian picks 13 best X-Files episodes but somehow misses Jose Chung's From Outer Space.
posted by Artw at 5:22 PM PST - 114 comments

Matte Shot - A Tribute to Golden Era Special FX ...the inventiveness and ingenuity of the craft of the matte painter during Hollywood's Golden Era. Some of the shots will amaze in their grandeur and epic quality while others will surprise in their 'invisibility' to even the sophisticated viewer. I hope this collection will serve as an appreciation of the artform and both casual visitors and those with a specialist interest may benefit, enjoy and be amazed at skills largely unknown today.
posted by cenoxo at 3:03 PM PST - 13 comments

Some jazz sessions are incredible magic. And within those sessions one will occasionally hear a brilliant, cosmic rendition of a gorgeous composition - in this case it's Bill Frisell's gorgeous composition named "Throughout" played by Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra with Carla Bley, in 2004, at the annual Jazz in Marciac Festival in Marciac, France. [more inside]
posted by Vibrissae at 2:53 PM PST - 16 comments

CATS? WHAT THEY ARE AND HOW THEY GOT DOMESTICATED (MAYBE??) A TUMBLR ESSAY
posted by The Whelk at 2:04 PM PST - 51 comments

Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin welcome you to Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine. Every Friday, they dig through the annals of medical history to uncover all the odd, weird, wrong, dumb and just gross ways we've tried to fix people over the years. [more inside]
posted by pjern at 1:55 PM PST - 8 comments

Yesterday, Achewood, Chris Onstad's beloved webcomic, returned after a year-long absence, throwing off "its droperidol-impregnated ticking shroud" and picking up with the adventures of Ray, Roast Beef, Mr. Bear, Lyle, and the rest where they left off in the current storyline, "Ray in Rehab". (Previously)
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:57 PM PST - 73 comments

Ahh the morning breeze wafting. All are welcome. Even comic sans [more inside]
posted by vapidave at 12:07 PM PST - 9 comments

"This wall of shame is dedicated to photographers that feel that it's okay to steal others work and post it as their own. Oh I'm sorry, it's okay to let their "web designer" do it."
posted by nevercalm at 10:41 AM PST - 52 comments

Freetown fashpack shows you where it's at fashionwise in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Jo Dunlop's blog was covered today in the Guardian.
Meanwhile Sierra Leonean fashion model Kadiatu Kamara has launched her own fashion brand called "Kadiatu". (via brandsierraleonetv).
posted by adamvasco at 10:38 AM PST - 8 comments

"Depression comix are simply a graphical representation of how depression and other related illnesses feel from a personal perspective." (about)
posted by Memo at 9:14 AM PST - 22 comments

Could this be the next k-pop viral hit? The Wall Street Journal seems to think so. Climbing its way up the Korean charts since debuting at No. 143 in June, Crayon Pop's "Bar Bar Bar" has proven popular with policemen and policewomen, Taekwondo students, cheerleaders at baseball games (Samsung Lions, Lotte Giants, Hanhwa Eagles) and been parodied by Saturday Night Live Korea. Crayon pop also boasts some devoted fans - videobombing, serenading, and cheering at music shows.
posted by needled at 7:38 AM PST - 42 comments

The family of redditor oktober75 have opened up a great aunt's shoe store hidden for over forty years. There is a lot of interest in the front page Reddit post with offers to purchase the shoes and boxes, despite probable damage. I'm no hipster and I don't play one on tv but I'd love to get a pair of these.
posted by humph at 7:34 AM PST - 32 comments

No Country For Old Miley: Cormac McCarthy Describes the Video for “We Can’t Stop” [Previously] [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:20 AM PST - 26 comments

Nine Inch Nails' mindblowing festival tour set from Lollapalooza 2013 [~1h45m], designed by Moment Factory (who created the brain blender that was the Lights In The Sky Tour). The stadium tour NIN is doing this fall will be an entirely different production, so no spoilers here.
posted by hippybear at 6:20 AM PST - 38 comments

"Consider some iconic acre of Brooklyn vacant lot. You could grow food on it—or you could throw up a 30-story apartment complex housing 600 people. That’s 600 people who won’t be settling in low-density exurbs where they would be smeared across 60 acres of subdivision; in turn, those 60 acres of vacant exurb could remain farmland or forest. Using communal laundromats and lacking basements to put junk in, those new Brooklynites would lead lives of anti-consumerism. And because they would use mass transit instead of driving everywhere, their carbon footprints would be roughly a third as large as the average American’s. That fundamental land-use equation is the key to understanding how cities promote global sustainability. By concentrating high-density housing, business and lifestyles inside its borders, New York lifts enormous burdens from the ecosystem outside its borders, but that potential is squandered when we consign pristine brownfields to low-density crop-growing. We may root for the community gardeners in their eternal battle with real-estate developers, but it’s the developers who are, despite themselves, the better environmentalists." -- The case against locavorism and or urban farming.
posted by MartinWisse at 5:24 AM PST - 71 comments

"Folk Music in America" is a series of 15 LP records published by the Library of Congress between 1976 and 1978 to celebrate the bicentennial of the American Revolution. It was curated by librarian/collector-cum-discographer Richard K. Spottswood, and funded by a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts. It's absolutely fantastic. And here it is.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:25 AM PST - 21 comments

Banks usually reserve the right to change the rules or rates for credit cards they issue at any time, and the only notice given is buried in a long legal document. Russian Dmitry Argarkov turned this on its head: After he received a junk-mail credit card offer, he modified the document to include terms ridiculously in his favor and sent it back. The bank signed and certified it without looking at it, and sent him a credit card. [more inside]
posted by Sleeper at 1:13 AM PST - 57 comments

Create a high-powered microscope from a cheap webcam by following Mark's simple step-by-step instructions. Because your microscope is connected to your computer, you can save and share your images easily.
posted by nickyskye at 8:58 PM PST - 24 comments

It doesn't matter whether you hate the spies and believe they are corroding democracy, or if you think they are the noble guardians of the state. In both cases the assumption is that the secret agents know more than we do. But the strange fact is that often when you look into the history of spies what you discover is something very different. It is not the story of men and women who have a better and deeper understanding of the world than we do. In fact in many cases it is the story of weirdos who have created a completely mad version of the world that they then impose on the rest of us.

—Bugger: Maybe the Real State Secret Is that Spies Aren't Very Good at Their Jobs and Don't Know Very Much About the World by Adam Curtis. It's about the checkered history of the MI5.
posted by Kattullus at 7:59 PM PST - 62 comments

People spend more time on computers than ever before, but Marc Scott, a computer teacher and writer for Coding 2 Learn, says computer literacy is at an all time low.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:54 PM PST - 162 comments

‪The Gravity Gun‬. Behold the birth of the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator. [SLV, Via]
posted by homunculus at 6:15 PM PST - 29 comments

Ask a Homosexual
posted by latkes at 4:22 PM PST - 16 comments

"Through my business, I worked in Afghanistan on agriculture projects designed to assist with stabilization efforts in the region. I want to share with you some of the lessons learned along with some photos. I hope these are beneficial to those of you looking into or already working on low tech, sustainable farming/gardening projects here in the states." A first-person account of working with the locals to reconnect them with the land. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:49 PM PST - 12 comments

This is my window. Or my windows—the view from my living room, where I sit and write. Might not seem very inspiring. I wish I could offer green mossy lava, roaring waves, a glacier mountain top. I do have other spaces—in an abandoned powerstation, a favorite fisherman’s cafe by the harbor, a summer house on the arctic circle—but this is my honest view, what I really see most of the days. This house was built in the 1960s when people were fed up with lava and mountains; they were migrating to the growing suburbs to create a new view for themselves. The young couple who dug the foundation with their own hands dreamed of a proper garden on this barren, rocky strip of land. They dreamed of trees, flowers, shelter from the cold northern breeze. What is special depends on where you are, and here, the trees are actually special. They were planted fifty years ago like summer flowers, not expected to live or grow more than a meter. The rhododendron was considered a miracle, not something that could survive a winter. It looks tropical, with Hawaiian-looking pink flowers; Skúli, the man who built the house and sold it to me half a century later, took special pride in it. I am not a great gardener. We are thinking of buying an apple tree, though they don’t really thrive in this climate. I would plant it like a flower, not really expect it to grow, and hope for a miracle. —Andri Snær Magnason [more inside]
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 3:13 PM PST - 3 comments

"1000 Shadows" is a series of works by the urban/street artist Herbert Baglione, which consists of spirits escaping from urban settings. His latest creations in this series are set in the empty rooms of an old abandoned psychiatric hospital in the city of Parma in Italy, which further increases the fascinating and frightening ambiance of his creations. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:00 PM PST - 3 comments

"Flaunting themselves on Instagram, they are also all proudly and openly gay ... But at the same time, they all look fairly heteronormative: hunky, sporty, the kind of guy who would call himself “masc & musc” in a hook-up app and would never take a photo of himself at Drag Brunch. And all are careful to avoid appearing like they are doing this just to get laid. By showing that, they would be revealing that they are vulnerable and have needs, and an #Instastud can never look unsatisfied with his life." Meet The #Instastuds - The Cut looks at the gays on instragram who really want to you look at them and how they live. Contains a link to a discussion of “Fire Island Pines, Polaroids 1975 to 1983” at Salon. (NSFW, nudity)
posted by The Whelk at 1:50 PM PST - 35 comments

You! The Musical! is a group of professional actors and musical theatre writers in New York who will literally write a musical about your loved one for their big day.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:21 PM PST - 5 comments

Trolling Ram meets Dirtbike. Hilarity ensues.
posted by sweet mister at 12:50 PM PST - 48 comments

“You know a storm is going to be bad, people in Oklahoma will tell you, when Gary England removes his jacket.” At Oklahoma City's Channel 9, Gary England is on the tail end of a legendary 40-year meteorology career featuring some of the most intense commercials ever) in the midst of Tornado Alley. Following in his Mizuno-clad footsteps (the choice of marathon standers) are the competition: Channel 4, featuring former reality star Reed Timmer of Storm Chasers, rising star Emily Sutton (just trying to get his attention... yeesh...) and, yes, The Dominator. Previously. [more inside]
posted by Madamina at 10:20 AM PST - 23 comments

Music for Airports, Music for Real Airports. [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 10:20 AM PST - 60 comments

Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," Twenty Years Later. Novelist Brad Leithauser muses on "the finest play written in my lifetime": One sign of "Arcadia"'s greatness is how assuredly it blends its disparate chemicals, creating a compound of most peculiar properties. The play’s ingredients include sexual jealousy and poetasters and the gothic school of landscape gardening and duelling and chaos theory and botany and the perennial war between Classical and Romantic aesthetics and the maturing of mathematical prodigies. [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead at 10:08 AM PST - 39 comments

It's amazing, isn't it? Just when you think this photo shoot has peaked — that Donovan's inert lower lip or Mathis's oddly bendy face have set an unsurpassable standard — it finds a way to top itself, in this case by dressing a hulking, be-dreadlocked defensive midfielder in Stormtrooper underleggings and a miniaturized I Love Lucy housedress and convincing him to make unhurried love to a set of stadium bleachers. If "The Boys of Soccer" were Maradona, this would be his England game. Grantland investigates the greatest sports photoshoot of all time.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:03 AM PST - 25 comments

"We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment. The military is the call of the Sirens, the enticement that has for generations seduced young Americans working in fast food restaurants or behind the counters of Walmarts to fight and die for war profiteers and elites."

-- War is Betrayal. Persistent Myths of Combat, an essay by Chris Hedges of Truthdig. Responses within. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:03 AM PST - 56 comments

"This series of images are mostly landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes, and they are a single composite made from sequences that span 2-4 hours ... The basic structure of a landscape is present in every piece. But each panel or concentric layer shows a different slice of time..."
posted by griphus at 9:24 AM PST - 9 comments

Greatest Vines 2013 [more inside]
posted by Nelson at 9:04 AM PST - 41 comments

Dan Harmon poops out his story-breaking process, and it's beautiful.
posted by ericbop at 8:45 AM PST - 15 comments

Paul Scheer and friends have recreated a bunch of classic Arsenio Hall interviews with Scheer playing your host, ArScheerio Paul. [more inside]
posted by mintcake! at 8:37 AM PST - 18 comments

The MTA may not be investigating, but someone is. Perhaps they should try tweeting him?
posted by jacquilynne at 8:16 AM PST - 27 comments

Watch the Melvins (with Jeff Pinkus) play a Butthole Surfers tune while giving kids free Ice Cream.
posted by cellphone at 8:11 AM PST - 10 comments

How to win any bourbon argument
posted by DynamiteToast at 8:07 AM PST - 93 comments

To reduce the risk of future Edward Snowden style leaks, the NSA wants to reduce the number of people in the loop. Director Keith Alexander told Reuters that the NSA plans to eliminate fully 90 percent of its system administrators and replace them with machines.
posted by Naberius at 7:56 AM PST - 102 comments

Online ‘Likes’ Herd Others to Similar Views

Researchers during the five-month study randomly altered the ratings of 101,000 comments. Those manipulated to be more positive were about one-third more likely than unaltered comments to receive a positive rating from the next viewer, and 30 percent more likely to achieve a high favorable rating.

[more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 7:49 AM PST - 36 comments

WWE wrestler CM Punk wants to help you improve your grammar. Some language NSFW.
posted by Shepherd at 7:12 AM PST - 38 comments

We already know that yawning is highly contagious and, in humans and other primates, may be rooted in empathy. Human-dog yawning contagion is well known too, as previously shown in Metafilter, but its causes are contradictory, as yawning in dogs is also associated with psychological tension or mild stress. A new study confirms that dogs yawn more frequently when watching their owner than when watching a stranger, demonstrating that the contagiousness of yawning in dogs correlates with the level of emotional proximity, possibly indicating rudimentary forms of empathy in dogs.
posted by elgilito at 6:21 AM PST - 20 comments

From the 1973 Grammys, here are The Staple Singers - I'll Take You There [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 3:08 AM PST - 36 comments

John Boorman's Lord Of The Rings "Perhaps the most provocative change occurs in Lothlorien where, before gazing into Galadriel’s mirror, Frodo must become intimate with her."
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:46 PM PST - 75 comments

A new set of Mickey Mouse shorts have debuted this summer. Mickey heads around the world, getting into slapstick situations on his own and with Donald, Goofy, Daisy, and Minnie.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:41 PM PST - 53 comments

Barbara Mertz, whose writing career encompassed over sixty books and three nom de plumes, has died at the age of 85. As Barbara Mertz, she wrote scholarly books on Egyptology after receiving a doctorate from the from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago in 1951, but then turned her hand to writing fiction under the names Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels. [more inside]
posted by PussKillian at 8:47 PM PST - 39 comments

A visual representation of your days on earth, made delicious. SLYT [more inside]
posted by GoingToShopping at 7:43 PM PST - 15 comments

One Second to the Next - Werner Herzog's 35 minute documentary on texting while driving.
posted by dobbs at 7:18 PM PST - 50 comments

In a remarkable paper Allison et al. (2011) gather data on the weight at mid-life from 12 animal populations covering 8 different species all living in human environments. Dividing the sample into male and female they find that in all 24 cases animal weight has increased over the past several decades.
posted by bookman117 at 6:18 PM PST - 34 comments

Too much information: Our instincts for privacy evolved in tribal societies where walls didn't exist. No wonder we are hopeless oversharers. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 6:10 PM PST - 14 comments

Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here? So why make trouble? Why not just go along? Let the profs roam free in the realms of pure thought, let yourselves party in the realms of impure pleasure, and let the student-services gang assert fewer prohibitions and newer delights for you. You’ll get a good job, you’ll have plenty of friends, you’ll have a driveway of your own. You’ll also, if my father and I are right, be truly and righteously screwed.
posted by shivohum at 5:42 PM PST - 36 comments

An editorial in the Nation recently argued in favour of higher wages for WalMart employees, many of whom make only the minimum wage. WalMart responded by pointing out that the Nation employs its interns at less than the minimum wage. The Nation replied that since interns are at the beginning of their careers, the situation is different.
posted by modernnomad at 4:26 PM PST - 75 comments

Superman's dog: A history.
posted by Artw at 4:25 PM PST - 41 comments

Metafilter's own Anil Dash defends talking in movies. Metafilter's own Jesse Thorn agrees, and extends the point to the world of menswear blogging.
posted by bzbb at 4:12 PM PST - 337 comments

Lavabit, the email service allegedly used by Edward Snowden, has been shut down by its owner. "I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations..." - Ladar Levison, owner. via Reddit, Slashdot, and The Guardian.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 2:45 PM PST - 180 comments

"Ana gets super embarrassed when it’s time to get to the main event, because he’s going to “kiss me there!” By all means, let’s continue with the coy use of “there” to indicate your fully adult woman parts, because childish prudery is absolutely not squicky at all when you’re already wearing pigtails and constantly referring to aspects of your sexuality as childlike. " -- Jenny Trout reads the world's best known Twilight fan fiction, Fifty Shades of Grey and doesn't like it. (language, nsfw strangely enough)
posted by MartinWisse at 2:31 PM PST - 64 comments

When Hollywood turned to talkies, it created a not-quite-British, not-quite-American style of speaking that has all but disappeared.
posted by brundlefly at 2:07 PM PST - 93 comments

David Bradley is an engineer, one of the 12 strategists who worked around the clock to hammer out a plan for hardware, software, manufacturing setup and sales strategy for the first IBM PC from 1980-1981. At that time, Bradley and others were tired of wasting time rebooting the system without powering it down. So, one day he had something like "write keyboard shortcut to reboot system" on list of things to do, and Control-Alt-Delete was created. Years later, he said "I may have invented it, but I think Bill made it famous." (YouTube) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:54 PM PST - 21 comments

In anticipation of the Wii U Virtual Console release of EarthBound (Mother 2), Nintendo asked series creator Shiegato Itoi (official homepage) to say a few words about the game. What he wrote is nostalgic, heartfelt and perhaps even a little bit wise. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 12:57 PM PST - 49 comments

People have been frightened by clowns for centuries.
posted by Obscure Reference at 12:39 PM PST - 75 comments

How One Group of Seniors Bucked Convention and Avoided the Retirement Home (SLPBS)
posted by Etrigan at 12:30 PM PST - 3 comments

Parametric Expression: Artist Mike Pelletier's guaranteed-to-induce-nightmares attempt to find beauty in the uncanny valley. Via: There is no plot, no antagonist, just a group of androgynous characters staring, smiling, and baring their teeth in a stilted manner as if they were robots or aliens attempting to act human. [...] “I found the collision of data recorded from the real world, mixed with the frozen expression really triggered the ‘uncanny valley’ effect for me,” he says. “It just highlights a feeling of awkwardness, that something isn’t entirely right, that there’s some sort of translation error happening.
posted by not_the_water at 12:28 PM PST - 31 comments