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How To Stop Spoilers from Ruining TV for Everybody
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 11:03 PM PST - 115 comments

Broken on Purpose: Why Getting It Wrong Pays More Than Getting It Right - 'It doesn’t end with Facebook, either. Being broken pays off, so social media is often deliberately broken. In fact, nearly every major social network, site or app has greedily pursued this logic.' [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:36 PM PST - 89 comments

Brian O’Dea is a big time drug smuggler on his way out of the game when he gets a call from his sworn enemy with the deal of a lifetime. Buckle up for an international ride of shady characters, huge scores, and the true tale of a man who always had to keep one step ahead [16:47 min. audio]. From the Trust Me episode of Snap Judgment on NPR.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 10:25 PM PST - 8 comments

Solar art. V3Solar has a spinning blue crystal prototype that has many advantages over flat-panels. Some details on costs. Via GizMag.
posted by stbalbach at 9:07 PM PST - 32 comments

"Looking back a year ago when conceiving this idea, we thought it would be far too impossible to even attempt. We tried anyway. So, after months and months of recording/writing its finally finished: “Persongalize”, a one of a kind personal song generator, featuring thousands of different girl names available in the rock, pop and country genres. Yes, someone, (Karlton Tillman), had to sing 1,816 names into these tracks, TWICE, since each name is sung twice in each song."
posted by unSane at 7:29 PM PST - 25 comments

Short film by Khalil Joseph Song by Flying Lotus, Film by Khalil Joseph. Very violent images, but beautiful all at the same time.
posted by Yellow at 7:21 PM PST - 9 comments

It might still be September, but signs of halloween are already in the air. Or, rather, at the butcher's.
posted by overhauser at 7:00 PM PST - 26 comments

The puffer fish mating dance.
posted by rhapsodie at 6:43 PM PST - 14 comments

Something is wrong on the internet (SLImgur). Please add to the list in the comments [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 6:41 PM PST - 121 comments

The satellite man is typically young, with an entrepreneur’s zeal and a sense of adventure, often from the mercantile district of South Tehran, trained by colleagues in the black-market niche of satellite TV installation...
posted by Chipmazing at 6:41 PM PST - 11 comments

Well isn't this just super cool? Love and Rockets creators Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez were on NPR last week to talk about the music that helped shape their groundbreaking alt comics series. (Just in time for me to figure out my Hopey Halloween costume! Easier said than done, it turns out.)
posted by jarsizedsibyl at 6:25 PM PST - 11 comments

The Flat Design Era: Forget Apple and its lickable design. Let's get flat. via Sexpigeon
posted by dame at 5:45 PM PST - 44 comments

The World Waterfall Database seeks to become "a complete, accurate record of the waterfalls throughout the world." The two creators each maintain their own websites, Bryan Swan's The Northwest Waterfall Survey and Dean Goss' Waterfalls of the Northeastern United States. Others have also attempted, though some efforts appear abandoned. [more inside]
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:13 PM PST - 11 comments

Romance novel covers are a frequent subject of ridicule. But they have also featured highly talented illustrators like Alan Ayers, Pino Daeni, Elaine Gignilliat, Phil Heffernan, and Albert Slark. [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 4:55 PM PST - 13 comments

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, a podcast in which writer and game designer Robin D. Laws (Hamlet's Hitpoints, The GUMSHOE system) and game designer and writer Kenneth Hite (Tour De Lovecraft, GURPS Horror) (previously) talk about stuff. Stuffs include: Why vampires are assholes and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, stopping WWI and Beasts of the Southern Wild, Margaret Atwood and the difference between a mystic and an occultist, why no invented setting is as interesting as the real world and Woodrow Wilson, Gencon and sundry RPGs, Neil Armstrong, HP Blavatsky and theosophy, the ebook prcing settlement, what big publishing could learn from RPG publishers, and the many crazy fictional possibilities of Charles Lindbergh and his UFO investigating chums, and Dungeons and Dragons edition wars and Aliester Crowley.
posted by Artw at 3:04 PM PST - 30 comments

Go Pro Grain Farming Good, watchable videos of grain farming are hard to find, but using a Go Pro camera to document 2012 crop production on the Canadian prairies was a great idea.
posted by bluebelle at 2:50 PM PST - 18 comments

Six years ago, New Dorp High School on Staten Island, NY, had a 40% dropout rate, and more than 80% of freshmen were reading below grade level. In spring 2013, the school expects an 80% graduation rate. What happened? New Dorp decided to teach its students how to write. [more inside]
posted by catlet at 2:49 PM PST - 83 comments

Lester Bangs, rock critic extraordinaire and pop provocateur, made the argument for the Lizard King as the punk rock godfather in this 1981 Creem magazine defense of Jim Morrison., via Dangerous Minds.
posted by Isadorady at 2:23 PM PST - 37 comments

Shtone mad for shpeed. The accent's what makes it.
posted by ironjelly at 2:09 PM PST - 8 comments

Dance of Darkness (Pt.1, Pt.2, Pt.3, Pt.4) is a documentary about the Japanese art form, Butoh. (Video links are generally NSFW:Nudity) [more inside]
posted by lemuring at 11:11 AM PST - 12 comments

The tale of the day eight years ago when Gordon Brown went to Washington and heard that Tony Blair wasn't going to stand down for him ahead of the 2005 general election, as told by Brown's former special advisor Damian McBride. [more inside]
posted by imperium at 10:57 AM PST - 22 comments

“I was a monster,” Malvo said. “If you look up the definition, that’s what a monster is. I was a ghoul. I was a thief. I stole people’s lives. I did someone else’s bidding just because they said so. . . . There is no rhyme or reason or sense.”
posted by silby at 10:20 AM PST - 158 comments

Back in New York I strapped on my helmet for a weekend bike ride in Central Park. But I’m not sure I’ll do the same two years from now if I’m commuting to work on a mature Citi Bike system. (SLNYT)
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:20 AM PST - 225 comments

Highlights from Snow White Live, filmed in 1980 at Radio City Music Hall: "I'm Wishing/One Song" - "Heigh-Ho" - The Queen hires a huntsman - Snow White and the huntsman - "Someday My Prince Will Come" - The Queen becomes the hag - Poisoned apple - The Queen's death - The Prince's kiss
posted by hermitosis at 10:18 AM PST - 2 comments

"Liberals have not always been very good at communicating why liberalism works. There’s many reasons for this, but part of it is that it can be hard to defend the obvious from an absurd and deceptive attack. For half a century you had to be a crank to oppose what Roosevelt accomplished; liberals got out of the habit of arguing for their beliefs. I hope this page will help. Liberals don’t need to apologize for their vision of how American society should work. Liberalism saved American capitalism and democracy, defeated Naziism, created a prosperous middle class, and benefited every sector of society, from the back streets to Wall Street. " Mefi's own Zompist (previously) on Why Liberalism Works.
posted by The Whelk at 8:34 AM PST - 107 comments

California has become the first state in the country to ban the so-called "reparative" ex-gay therapy for people under the age of 18 years old. "This bill bans non-scientific 'therapies' that have driven young people to depression and suicide. These practices have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery," Brown said in a statement to The San Francisco Chronicle. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:44 AM PST - 37 comments

real good magic
posted by eggtooth at 7:27 AM PST - 44 comments

In decades past, R&B and soul artists didn't shy away from covering country songs. That's right, children, straight up country songs. And the results were often stunningly good. For example, Al Green's performance of Kris Kristofferson's For the Good Times (best known as a hit for country crooner Ray Price). Or Ray Charles' performance of Eddy Arnold's You Don't Know Me. Or Aretha Franklin's performance of country chestnut You Are My Sunshine, first recorded in 1939 by the Pine Ridge Boys. And... [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:38 AM PST - 98 comments

On the first episode of Modern Comedian, IFC game show host Kurt Braunohler discusses his love of random acts of absurdism, starting way back with his combination of street theater and riot: Chengwin Vs Chunk. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:38 AM PST - 2 comments

This is a real life story, with images, that contains the following head turning phrase: "...Hilton's doctors stowed it away inside her stomach..." [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:19 PM PST - 42 comments

Why did one newspaper, in a story copied by several other UK newspapers, somewhat underestimate the number of adult cod in the North Sea by a factor of...
posted by Wordshore at 6:20 PM PST - 66 comments

Earlier this year, the people behind Star Wars Uncut presented a "final" version of their crowdsourced feature-length fan film, comprised of a continuous series of 15-second clips. After much anticipation, the Empire Strikes Back version is officially underway. [more inside]
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 5:38 PM PST - 23 comments

Badly Recreated Animated Film Frames: "Take a still from a multi-million dollar animated film that required thousands of man-hours to create and replicate it in Maya in 30 minutes."
posted by ardgedee at 5:21 PM PST - 28 comments

Hey Metafilter, you like John Carpenter's The Thing? Now, see the toys from the merchandising tie-in! (SLYT, NSFW, possible spoilers)
posted by zippy at 5:19 PM PST - 33 comments

Atomic Rockets is chock full of stuff to tickle the imagination of anyone who has enjoyed science fiction accounts of space travel. You can move your cursor over the "Show topic list" button in the top right corner of the page and start exploring.
posted by Egg Shen at 4:49 PM PST - 8 comments

Maria Pages, dancer and choreographer is perhaps best known internationally for Firedance.
However it is with her native Flamenco that she really takes off. Here she and her troupe interpret Shostakovich; and here are clips from Songs before a War and Utopia.
posted by adamvasco at 3:50 PM PST - 3 comments

Nico Calabria plays soccer and wrestles for Concord-Carlisle High School in Massachusetts. He summitted Mount Kilimanjaro at 13 [Vimeo] as a fundraiser to provide wheelchairs to people in Tanzania, he does some parkour, and this week he's in a race to have the "Best of the Best" video on ESPN's SportsCenter for a goal he scored in a recent game. Calabria was born with one leg and uses carbon fiber crutches when he plays; he's a starting forward on the US Amputee National Team.
posted by catlet at 2:36 PM PST - 14 comments

A bad ass on blades represents. Jack Uzi SLYT
posted by Brocktoon at 11:40 AM PST - 35 comments

GIFCTRL is a Tumblr that allows you to control a GIF file's playback with your mouse. Move your mouse left or right to control the direction of playback; click to change GIFs. The slow-motion cymbal hit is great intro! [more inside]
posted by raihan_ at 11:09 AM PST - 16 comments

Obama Works It
posted by Evernix at 10:59 AM PST - 118 comments

Author and librarian, Jess Nevins, offers The Black Fantastic: Highlights of Pre-World War II African and African-American Speculative Fiction. [more inside]
posted by artof.mulata at 10:35 AM PST - 5 comments

How Does An Idea Become A Book? (flowchart)
posted by The Whelk at 8:28 AM PST - 25 comments

What makes a candidate Presidential? A series of articles on what qualities make a good American President by Slate's John Dickerson
posted by Renoroc at 8:26 AM PST - 29 comments

The SCI-Arc Media Archive features 600+ video lectures on modern architecture and design, with an emphasis on Southern California.
posted by xowie at 8:22 AM PST - 2 comments

Her name is Catherine Davis. And she is a Hollywood legend. A near saint. Taylor Negron remembers Catherine Davis, the woman who was murdered by "Sons of Anarchy" actor Johnny Lewis.
posted by h00py at 8:17 AM PST - 53 comments

Sadly, despite the growing acceptance of variable sexuality in western culture, there's still widespread acceptance of casual homophobia. NoHomophobes.com seeks to shine a bright light on this, in the hopes of rendering this speech as socially unacceptable as racist slurs.
posted by ChrisR at 7:55 AM PST - 61 comments

Bidzina Ivanishvili, presidential candidate, has a long name, but a story you won't forget. From village boy to billionaire (estimated worth of USD 6.4 billion - half of Georgia's GDP, making him the 153rd richest person on the planet), Ivanishvili essentially created his own kingdom in his old village, setting up alternative healthcare and education system, paving the roads, and designing welfare payment. After starting an opposition party earlier this year, he may have a shot at using his fortune to experiment with Georgia's future. While he isn't running for president directly, whichever party wins Parliament on Monday will be able to elect a prime minister next year. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 6:28 AM PST - 24 comments

Aircraft Carriers in Space: Naval analyst Chris Weuve talks to Foreign Policy about what Battlestar Galactica gets right about space warfare.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:24 AM PST - 63 comments

Curiosity has been on Mars for 51 sol-days and today NASA announced it has found what looks like a concrete slab made up of rounded stones which is probably an ancient stream bed formed by hip-deep fast-moving water over thousands or millions of years. Observers have long hypothesized the canyons and river-like beds photographed from space were carved by water, but only now do researchers have on-the-ground confirmation for the first time.
posted by stbalbach at 12:31 AM PST - 70 comments

Gangnam style without music. [SLYT via Reddit]
posted by metaplectic at 12:03 AM PST - 41 comments

Michael O'Hare, the Chicago-born actor who is best known for his role as Jeffrey Sinclair in the science fiction television series Babylon 5 has died, aged 60 (non FB link) O'Hare suffered a heart attack on September 23 and had remained in a coma until the 28th, when he passed away. [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 10:52 PM PST - 58 comments

Romney is perhaps best known for being a clown and a humanitarian, but long before his involvement in presidential politics, Romney was an LSD-fueled comedian. Here's a snippet. (No, not that Romney; the other one.) [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 8:55 PM PST - 30 comments

Glen Campbell started his career in 1954, and his solo career in 1961. In 1965 he hit #45 with a version of "Universal Soldier" (and, ironically, also stated that "People advocating burning draft cards should be hung.") [more inside]
posted by HuronBob at 8:10 PM PST - 49 comments

Dresses that hid Frida Kahlo's pain come to light decades on. The colorful dresses of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo will go on display for the first time in November after being kept hidden from public view for 50 years at the request of her husband, acclaimed muralist Diego Rivera. [more inside]
posted by SweetTeaAndABiscuit at 6:36 PM PST - 13 comments

When Rex Conte's letter to the editor -- "Why I am Voting for Mitt Romney" -- was featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and then reached top-tier status on Google News, several commenters pointed out that Rex had a similar letter published in the Chicago Sun-Times. Nothing too abnormal there, but in the Post-Dispatch letter he claimed his residence was "Chesterfield," outside of St. Louis, and in the Sun-Times letter, he claimed that his residence was "Oak Hills," outside of Chicago. So, "where does Rex live?" curious readers wanted to find out. An editor from the Post-Dispatch called Rex to find out and followed up with a note at the bottom of the letter: "Mr. Conte wrote a similar letter to the Chicago Sun-Times that said he lived in Oak Park, Ill. Comments and emails questioned how he could live in two places and whether he was a real person. I talked on the phone with Mr. Conte, who says he used to live in Chesterfield but not any more. So we've changed his hometown in this letter." So, we now know he doesn't live in Chesterfield any more but the editor doesn't go into whether he still lives in Oak Park now or if he just "used to live there." The Sun-Times hasn't added any notes to Conte's letter in their publication but critics on the web are claiming that the GOP is "planting fake Letters to Editors." [more inside]
posted by Jagz-Mario at 6:32 PM PST - 76 comments

In 1890, the painter John Singer Sargent--best known for portraits like Madame X and The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit--accepted a commission to execute a large-scale mural cycle in the Boston Public Library, The Triumph of Religion. His last completed mural was installed in 1919, but the cycle remained unfinished. After years of decay, the cycle has undergone extensive conservation work, and the Library now has a detailed site devoted to Sargent Hall. [more inside]
posted by thomas j wise at 6:23 PM PST - 20 comments

Adelaide is a short movie about a woman who seeks attention in a very particular way.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:20 PM PST - 21 comments

Johnny Cash once called 1968 the happiest year of his life. It was the year his masterpiece At Folsom Prison came out, the year he was named the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year, and the year he married the love of his life, June Carter. So it was a fortunate time for a young filmmaker named Robert Elfstrom to meet up with Cash for the making of a documentary. Elfstrom traveled with Cash for several months in late 1968 and early 1969. The resulting film, Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music, is a revealing look at Cash, his creative process and his ties to family. [via]
posted by netbros at 4:37 PM PST - 14 comments

The Pottstown Mercury is using Pinterest in a bit of an unusual way - they're using the site to post photos of wanted criminals and arrests are apparently up in number.
posted by blaneyphoto at 4:23 PM PST - 15 comments

Doll scene from episode 313 of LOUIE
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 4:17 PM PST - 55 comments

On October 4 you will have the cinematic opportunity of a lifetime to see David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen in a new 4K digital restoration.
posted by Egg Shen at 3:10 PM PST - 122 comments

"I'm pretty happy. I think we've almost got our house together now. We just need, like, a coupla lamps, maybe a nice piece of photography to hang, and we'll pretty much be there. So, yeah. I guess we're gonna make some pasta now and watch HuluPlus."
posted by eric1halfb at 2:45 PM PST - 47 comments

Analog, Warren Buffett and Digital Media - Why Warren Buffett invests in newspapers: " You essentially have a business that will make a lot of money if you are terrific, it will make a lot of money if you're lousy," Buffett said, "...how good a newspaper is depends entirely on the wishes of its owner. There is no correlation between profits and excellence," Buffett added, "there's really nothing like that in American business." Enjoy nearly a full 60 minutes of Warren Buffet's (all too rare) public teaching style in this recently uploaded video from 1992.
posted by spock at 2:01 PM PST - 15 comments

Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn of the Dark is now taking pictures of its audiences, and posting them to Facebook so you can tag yourself watching a Broadway show.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:05 PM PST - 49 comments

Nadia is perfect. Nadia is perfect. Nadia is perfect. Nadia never cries and never falls. Nadia is a covergirl. Nadia is a Hero of Socialist Labor. Nadia is very dangerous to her enemies. [more inside]
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:24 PM PST - 56 comments

Someone named Casey Couture wants to tell youall about his 50 favorite movies. Perhaps you've heard of some of them?
posted by hermitosis at 11:56 AM PST - 53 comments

Pog Songs: a tumblr of short songs about pogs. (some lyrics NSFW)
posted by mediated self at 10:34 AM PST - 11 comments

Synchronizing 2, 3, 5, 9, 16, 24 and 32 metronomes on a moving platform. A brief explanation. Another explanation, with pictures.
posted by griphus at 10:32 AM PST - 26 comments

"All of their lives they had been taught and told--hypnotized, really--that no one played better hockey than Canadians. And in a span of the first few weeks, when they lost two games and tied another on Canadian soil, they had to confront the fact that this was just plain wrong. And then they had to immediately adapt and overcome and figure out a way to win anyway."

Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic makes the case that 40 years ago today, the final game of the "Summit Series", between Canada and the Soviet Union, was the greatest day in Canadian history. [more inside]
posted by dry white toast at 10:17 AM PST - 51 comments

Dr. Horrible and products liability. Doctor Who and the necessity defense. Firefly and contract law. The Legal Geeks blog is exactly what it sounds like.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:06 AM PST - 41 comments

33 Infomercial Characters Who Need To Get Their Shit Together
posted by boygeorge at 10:05 AM PST - 128 comments

Here's a full Tears For Fears concert from 1990, filmed in Santa Barbara, California. Tracks inside. [more inside]
posted by swift at 10:02 AM PST - 39 comments

There's something distinctly off about the Wikia for Doug. For starters, I doubt the veracity of these 'extended universe' books. And, maybe I'm wrong, but I think the "theories" section on Mr. Dink is in desperate need of citation. The Hamburger Boy article is, frankly, a mess of half-cooked conjecture, the This Doug Live page is filled with spurious information... a whole page for Lardy the Fat Cell?... don't even get me started on the editorializing in the Chalky Studebaker article. The culprit appears to be Skeeter Valentines Day Massacre, the rapscallion. Other users have noticed this problem, and the effect it's having on the credibility of the Doug Wikia community. If you want to get your facts straight, you can check out some real info over at the Doug (previously) Wikipedia page.
posted by codacorolla at 9:36 AM PST - 15 comments

What's a Girl Doing Here? Short documentary about two female taxi drivers in NYC.
posted by femmegrrr at 9:06 AM PST - 12 comments

Layered psychedelic animation goodness from mother Russia's Lyapis Trubetskoy. As I don't speak Russian i can't really tell you what this video is about -- although "something about capitalism" wouldn't be a bad guess. I can tell you that director Alexey Terekhov has a wonderfully trippy sense of layered animation. ('Shroms, Mr. Terekhov?) Viewing it certainly put a smile on my face this Friday morning....
posted by Dean358 at 8:46 AM PST - 19 comments

Librarian Jenica Rogers wrote an interesting post on how her library decided to cancel their ACS subscription. Walking away from the American Chemical Society where she talks about money issues all too familiar to librarians but maybe not well known in the general public. Her post was picked up by The Chronicle Of Higher Ed The ACS only said "We find little constructive dialogue can be had on blogs and other listservs where logic, balance and common courtesy are not practiced and observed..." Things took a turn on a discussion list, where The Director of Office of Public Affairs for the ACS said "But I think you would agree that vulgarity and profanity postings do not lend themselves to meaningful, productive and civil discourse, thus our decision not to engage any further with her on this topic." Many other bloggers have taken up the torch including Walt Crawford, Jonathan Eisen, Iris Jastram, Chris Zammarelli and Steve Lawson, Any Woodworth, John Dupuis and one on ChemBark.
posted by Blake at 8:32 AM PST - 62 comments

Cruise post-Cruz was apparently tired of having ... ecclesiastical pillow fights interfere with his sex life: he needed a devout Scientologist to sleep with. Thus began an elaborate auditioning process ... to find him a drop-dead-beautiful true believer to share his life

Maureen Orth charts the rise—and fall—of a celebrity marriage. [more inside]
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:15 AM PST - 90 comments

The American Library Association fires the latest response in its tussle with publishers over e-books in public libraries, while in England, a government review of e-books in public libraries is announced.
posted by Wordshore at 7:11 AM PST - 36 comments

Branded For Life: what it's like to be the face of a brand. (Interesting fact: Andrew Olcott - probably better known as "Smiling Bob," the face of Enzyte - also works as a visual artist.)
posted by alex.dudley at 5:58 AM PST - 61 comments

More than 1,000 works by Goya are now online. Presented only in Spanish, the site concerns the works found in the Prado alone, but covers the paintings, drawings and engravings. This is a catalogue raisonné (there are entries for all of the paintings) of the collection, including works with debatable attributions or by followers, copiers and imitators. High definition images are available and users can edit a PDF version of each of the entries for the works. A section is also devoted to Goya’s correspondence, residing at the museum ; for each letter, besides once again offering high definition images, the site provides information on the bibliography, watermarks, inscriptions as well as a transcription. Finally, an important bibliography is rounded out with texts from twenty books and nine articles on the artist published before 1920. (from Tribune de l'Art via Art History News)
posted by Marauding Ennui at 4:04 AM PST - 19 comments

Earlier today, Vancouver free weekly The Georgia Straight published allegations that VANOC CEO, Chairperson of Own the Podium and Executive Chair of the Vancouver Whitecaps F.C. John Furlong (O.C., O.B.C.), is guilty of physically and psychologically abusing students at a Northern B.C. First Nations high school forty years ago. [more inside]
posted by Catchfire at 9:43 PM PST - 72 comments

Marc Morrone is a pet shop owner from the Bronx who spun a small cable-access show about pet care into a Martha Stewart Omnimedia-backed pet-advice career. But he first became known for his call-in show in which he gave advice while surrounded by a menagerie of moving, falling, pooping animals.
posted by The Whelk at 9:34 PM PST - 19 comments

69°S. - Phantom Limb Company | Video from the successful Kickstarter project | Brooklyn Independent TV Promo [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 6:55 PM PST - 2 comments

The Guardian Projects The Social Distopia. Or, Big Brother wants to be your friend.
posted by Diablevert at 6:30 PM PST - 43 comments

Πολλών δ' ανθρώπων είδεν άστεα και νόον έγνω. [more inside]
posted by Nomyte at 5:21 PM PST - 35 comments

We know the Obamas planted a vegetable garden in 2009, bringing back the tradition of a White House Vegetable Garden (7:44 YT video), and Barack has home-brewed beer. The White House then released the recipes for their honey ale and honey porter, but what of the other White House recipes? Here are some modern Thanksgiving recipes, but what about the rest of the year? Our White House provides a glimpse into past White House kitchens, menus, and recipes, but that's still too thin. More than 50 White House recipes? Still not enough! OK, how about the complete White House Cookbook from 1887 (on Archive.org, also on Project Gutenberg and Google books). Vintage Recipes has kindly provided a tidied up table of contents and recipes for quicker browsing, but be warned, the techniques are dated, and some of the household tips are a bit questionable. More on presidential gastronomy, previously.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:55 PM PST - 18 comments

Everyone loves mac and cheese, one person perhaps too much. Sometimes this causes drama.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:51 PM PST - 37 comments

The Golden Age , an essay by prominent Australian economist John Quiggin, reflecting on the current relevance and future possibilities of Keynes 1930 essay, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.
posted by wilful at 4:37 PM PST - 16 comments

Ever wondered what the physical production of a minicomic or zine is like? Jim Rugg provides a guided tour.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:57 PM PST - 4 comments

The Man Who Wasn't Darwin. 2009 was Darwin's Year. 2013 will be the Year of Alfred Russel Wallace. The title and last link lead to a recent, excellent website, Wallace Online. Read the biography and proceed from there.
posted by Substrata at 3:13 PM PST - 6 comments

His official title is continuity database administrator for the Lucas Licensing arm of Lucasfilm — which means Chee keeps meticulous track of not just the six live-action [Star Wars] movies but also cartoons, TV specials, scores of videogames and reference books, and hundreds of novels and comics.
posted by Egg Shen at 3:09 PM PST - 63 comments

Fish Filleting: A short Youtube series of demonstrations by fish mongers with sharp knives [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 2:23 PM PST - 22 comments

The television program Adventures of Superman aired in first run from 1952 to 1958. When it ended, producer Whitney Ellsworth -- not that one -- sought to produce a follow-up series, The Adventures of Superpup. The show concerned an anthropomorphic super dog, Superpup, whose secret identity was mild-mannered reporter Bark Bent. (Bark was assisted by ace reporter Jimmy Olsen, who was now a mouse hand puppet living in Bark's desk drawer.) Naturally the producers cast little people in dog masks, as one does. [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:10 PM PST - 30 comments

Have we reached the end of economic growth?
posted by adamdschneider at 1:06 PM PST - 73 comments

Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature. A collection of interesting scientific names. [more inside]
posted by bluefly at 1:02 PM PST - 37 comments

The NFL has reached an agreement with the Referee Union (NFLRA), guaranteeing regular refs will be calling games starting tonight. League commissioner Roger Goodell has formally apologized. The agreement comes on the heels of a blown call this past Monday. How do we know the returning refs won't be rusty? Ed Hochuli, arguably the most famous ref, has been holding weekly conference calls. [more inside]
posted by troika at 12:26 PM PST - 62 comments

Like spiders? How about giant spiders? How would you feel about having a couple move in next door? The nightmare begins at 1:24.
posted by roger ackroyd at 11:39 AM PST - 67 comments

"Everybody Knows Their Names: The GQ Oral History of Cheers." (Single page version.) On the thirtieth anniversary of the premiere of Cheers, GQ "sat down with just about everyone who made it." Also, Christopher Lloyd, Amy Poehler and Shawn Ryan talk about what they learned from the show. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:10 AM PST - 141 comments

The 35 Greatest Animal Photobombers Of All Time 25 Hilarious Animal Photobombs 85 Amazing Animal Photobombs 21 Hysterical Animal Photobombs Best Photobomb Ever etc.etc.
posted by stbalbach at 9:48 AM PST - 43 comments

14 Black Male Comedians Talk Television, Tokenism, and not being Post-Racial
posted by psoas at 9:39 AM PST - 27 comments

Operation Rainbow (single link flickr set)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:53 AM PST - 17 comments

Recommended procedures in the event of being propelled through the windshield of your truck, exhibit A. Youtube.
posted by Anything at 8:46 AM PST - 49 comments

According to a revision by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent more jobs were created over the 12-month period concluding with March 2012. The new numbers would increase the monthly pace of job creation during that period to about 194,000 a month, up from a pace of 162,000 jobs a month. [more inside]
posted by DynamiteToast at 8:41 AM PST - 33 comments

News has come in today of the passing of Herbert Lom, best known for his role of Chief Dreyfus in the Pink Panther films. He was 95.
posted by stannate at 8:12 AM PST - 31 comments

Bret Victor: We often think of a programming environment or language in terms of its features -- this one "has code folding", that one "has type inference". This is like thinking about a book in terms of its words -- this book has a "fortuitous", that one has a "munificent". What matters is not individual words, but how the words together convey a message. Likewise, a well-designed programing system is not simply a bag of features. A good system is designed to encourage particular ways of thinking, with all features carefully and cohesively designed around that purpose.
posted by AceRock at 7:17 AM PST - 69 comments

Rolling Stone talks to comic stars Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware and Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez
posted by Artw at 7:12 AM PST - 40 comments

Growing up on the grounds of a notorious high security psychiatric hospital.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:55 AM PST - 25 comments

Researchers have developed a backpack that generates building layout map in realtime. (yt) The prototype system automatically maps the wearer’s environment, recognizing movement between floors. It was designed at MIT to be used by emergency responders. Read more.
posted by crunchland at 5:30 AM PST - 34 comments

Buddhist statue acquired by Nazis is space rock "An 11th-century carving from Mongolia of the Buddhist god Vaiśravana was fashioned from a meteorite fragment, a chemical analysis shows. Its extraterrestrial origins make it unique in both religious art and meteorite science."
posted by dhruva at 3:57 AM PST - 58 comments

Since mid-2011, a substantial rise in pertussis [Whooping Cough] cases has been reported in the state of Washington. In response to this increase, the Washington State Secretary of Health declared a pertussis epidemic on April 3, 2012. By June 16, the reported number of cases in Washington in 2012 had reached 2,520 (37.5 cases per 100,000 residents), a 1,300% increase compared with the same period in 2011 and the highest number of cases reported in any year since 1942 [Make sure you don't miss Figure 1]. Commentators are already drawing corellations with the fact that Washington State leads the nation in vaccine non-compliance, Washington State's recent cutbacks in public health funding, and increases in the number of uninsured (PDF). [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 3:08 AM PST - 110 comments

LA-based electronic artist Flying Lotus has teamed up with the interesting animator Cyriak Harris (Previously) for a video to his new single "Putty Boy Strut". A small game based on the collaboration was released prior to the video. [more inside]
posted by raihan_ at 1:03 AM PST - 11 comments

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission changed their rules to require companies to disclose if they use 'tantalum, tin, gold, or tungsten if those minerals are “necessary to the functionality or production of a product”' These are also known as 'conflict minerals.' The Deadly Tin Inside Your Smartphone, Businessweek [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:05 AM PST - 16 comments

Looper, a time travel thriller from Rian Johnson, comes out this Friday. It is being hailed as an "uncommonly smart, bravely original blend of futuristic sci-fi and good old-fashioned action." [more inside]
posted by mysticreferee at 11:45 PM PST - 80 comments

Is the GOP still a national party?
posted by latkes at 10:39 PM PST - 100 comments

"Zhang Yue, founder and chairman of Broad Sustainable Building, is not a particularly humble man. A humble man would not have erected, on his firm’s corporate campus in the Chinese province of Hunan, a classical palace and a 130-foot replica of an Egyptian pyramid. A humble man, for that matter, would not have redirected Broad from its core business—manufacturing industrial air-conditioning units—to invent a new method of building skyscrapers. And a humble man certainly wouldn’t be putting up those skyscrapers at a pace never achieved in history." [Meet the Man Who Built a 30-Story Building in 15 Days]
posted by vidur at 10:29 PM PST - 13 comments

US calls Assange 'enemy of state'. The US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States - the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency. Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.
posted by jaduncan at 8:40 PM PST - 232 comments

The First Hero is a very short (~10 minutes) but wonderful point-and-click game set in the realm of the Greek gods, with lovely artwork and music.
posted by jbickers at 8:27 PM PST - 5 comments

A controversial replacement cast has been selected for one of FX's long running comedy hits. Has the Sun Finally Set in Philadelphia?
posted by codacorolla at 8:00 PM PST - 40 comments

"Does Tesla's Supercharger answer the road trip question for EVs?" Tesla announces plans to rollout a network of supercharger stations that will generate more solar power than the Tesla S series cars draw, leading to a net input into the grid. Yahoofinance says "...the first six Supercharger stations, which will allow the Model S to travel long distances with ultra fast charging throughout California, parts of Nevada and Arizona."
posted by BillW at 7:37 PM PST - 56 comments

cashcats.biz [more inside]
posted by azarbayejani at 6:54 PM PST - 36 comments

AAAAAAHHHHHHH (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by NoraReed at 6:27 PM PST - 37 comments

In 1992, Carole Simpson was the first woman and first minority to moderate a presidential debate. Twenty years later, as Candy Crowley is about to become only the 2nd woman to moderate, Carole Simpson writes a compelling look back on why it's taken 20 more years, and why both women have moderated "town hall" style debates, rather than asking the questions outright.
posted by nakedmolerats at 6:04 PM PST - 12 comments

EconoTrolls: An Illustrated Bestiary [more inside]
posted by Jakey at 4:54 PM PST - 34 comments

The shady players in Myanmar's drugs trade: Drug exports from Myanmar continue to escalate, as distinctions between the illicit trade and the 'legal' economy blur.
posted by Cloud King at 4:19 PM PST - 3 comments

The Swedish Vallhund is an ancient dog, believed to have been brought to Sweden with the Vikings and used as an all-purpose farm dog, cattle herder, and pest controller. It was close to extinction by the mid-twentieth century, when a Swedish Count and a school teacher worked together to revive the breed from one male with only one testicle and three female dogs. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 3:35 PM PST - 29 comments

One and One Story, a romantic little platformer. [more inside]
posted by mikoroshi at 3:31 PM PST - 11 comments

Urban miniaturist Alan Wolfson (previously) unveils his latest masterpiece: Katz's Delicatessen (related) [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 3:08 PM PST - 27 comments

Balpreet Kaur is a (female) sophomore at Ohio State who follows the Sikh tenet of kesh (uncut hair). Choosing to leave her facial hair in its natural state, however, led to her candid picture drawing negative attention in Reddit's "funny" section. Her clear, friendly and smart response has now gone viral, changing the opinion of at least one european douchebag.
posted by Madamina at 1:54 PM PST - 130 comments

Popular US crooner Andy Williams, best known for singing the bittersweet "Moon River" (YouTube link), is dead at age 84. [more inside]
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:34 PM PST - 52 comments

Korean eunuchs outlived uncastrated peers - "The average lifespan of eunuchs was 70.0 ± 1.76 years, which was 14.4–19.1 years longer than the lifespan of non-castrated men of similar socio-economic status." The study made use of the Yang-Se-Gye-Bo (養世系譜, 양세계보), a genealogy record of Korean eunuchs, and cross referenced the Annals of the Chosun Dynasty and Diary of the Royal Secretariat. The Annals and the Diary are official records of the daily activities of the Chosun government and the King.
posted by needled at 1:19 PM PST - 81 comments

Life's actual supervillains ....if they were enshrined in comic book form, of course.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 12:32 PM PST - 29 comments

Design Principles Behind the Firefox OS UX - An interesting look at the design philosophy of a modern smart-device interface, this one being developed as Free Software by the Mozilla Foundation.
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:48 AM PST - 51 comments

Witness the excitement of Iron Man repairing a spaceship for twenty minutes! Watch Batman and his ongoing battle with throat cancer! In a dystopian future the rich dress like second-rate Lady Gagas! More honest trailers.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:54 AM PST - 231 comments

Google Maps Street View Collections now includes Heron Island, a coral cay in Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
posted by capricorn at 8:47 AM PST - 12 comments

Clay Shirky: How the Internet will (one day) transform government [1,2,3] [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:42 AM PST - 46 comments

History Of [US] TV Theme Songs (slyt / Jimmy Fallon & "Guys With Kids" Cast)
posted by zarq at 6:53 AM PST - 30 comments

The Lesbian & Gay Peace Officers Association produced a video comprising of LGBT officers and civilian members of the Austin Police Department to send a message to LGBTQ youth that it does get better... (SLYT)
posted by jim in austin at 5:09 AM PST - 34 comments

"The Hole is a small triangle of land divided in half by Brooklyn and Queens, and is located west of the intersection of Linden and Conduit Boulevard. The Hole is literally a hole. It is "30 feet below grade," according to the NY Times, sunken down from the busy roads around it. The neighborhood floods often and is only a few feet above the water table, so its homes are "not incorporated into the city sewer system. They all have cesspools," according to the NY Times. Streets are threatened by reedy marshes, and many residents keep a boat parked in the driveway." It's also home to some stables used by the Federation of Black Cowboys. Brooklyn's Lost Neighborhood [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:51 PM PST - 37 comments

How to Buy a Daughter: Choosing the sex of your baby has become a multimillion dollar industry "Gender selection now rakes in revenues of at least $100 million every year. The average cost of a gender selection procedure at high-profile clinics is about $18,000, and an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 procedures are performed every year. Fertility doctors foresee an explosion in sex-selection procedures on the horizon, as couples become accustomed to the idea that they can pay to beget children of the gender they prefer... Much of the evidence that Americans preferentially choose girls is anecdotal, as no larger body tracks gender selection procedures. But data from Google show that “how to have a girl” is searched three times as often in the United States as “how to have a boy.” Many fertility doctors say that girls are the goal for 80 percent of gender selection patients. A study published in 2009 by the online journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online found Caucasian-Americans preferentially select females through PGD 70 percent of the time. Those of Indian or Chinese descent largely chose boys."
posted by bookman117 at 10:57 PM PST - 213 comments

Like Thief or System Shock 2 but have trouble running them on a modern computer?
A user over at the French-language Ariane Thief forums has uploaded a pair of unofficial patches that not only allow the games to run well on modern hardware, but also update the games' underlying Dark Engine to greatly improve graphics.
So far, Kotaku has a short write-up on the patch but otherwise this is still breaking news. Dedicated Thief fans at TTLG are currently putting the release through its paces to see what the updated engine is capable of.

Thief 2 v.1.19 patch (apparently also supports Thief 1) - Thief 2 HD Patched Demo
System Shock 2 patch - SS2 HD Patched Demo

(Thiefy stuff previously, previouslier.)
posted by dunkadunc at 9:12 PM PST - 65 comments

If you think cam girls—those flirty naked characters that plague porn site pop-up ads—are raking in easy money, you're right. If you think cam girls are bleakly stripping online out of desperation, you're also right. Peel away the sex and pixels and money and you're left with the cloudy truth about the Internet's relationship status with these on-demand entertainers: it's complicated..
posted by latkes at 8:37 PM PST - 28 comments

Thousands of drug-related convictions in Massachusetts may be challenged as investigators learn more about improper evidence handling and testing at a Department of Public Health laboratory. Over 50,000 samples related to 34,000 convictions were tested by a single chemist at the lab, who is alleged to have violated multiple laboratory protocols. Governor Deval Patrick's office has identified 1,141 inmates currently serving time in Massachusetts whose convictions may be affected by the investigation. [more inside]
posted by catlet at 8:03 PM PST - 35 comments

Celeste doodles grown-up versions of characters from Hey Arnold, Rugrats, and Recess - most of them going into the arts, alt lifestyles, or hipsterdom.
posted by divabat at 7:14 PM PST - 24 comments

How did space travel turned into an office park when it was sold as being a unique adventure?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:18 PM PST - 45 comments

"It's like 'Carrie' with a happy ending."
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:16 PM PST - 65 comments

Ever heard of the Jewett City Vampires? Sure, you know about Salem and its witches, but New Englanders also went through several vampire panics that come far closer to the present than any Salem shenanigans. But who were the real people behind the modern legends? One common thread in the American myths: Tuberculosis (PDF).
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 3:37 PM PST - 9 comments

Just in time for election season, royalty-free music site firstcom has released a playlist of music for attack ads. You can choose the dramatic "Negative Vibes," the dual-mood "Compared to What's His Name," the dark "He's a Sneaky One" or the anthemic "Better Days Ahead." Firstcom also has playlists for pirates, extreme weather and science and technology.
posted by Clustercuss at 3:32 PM PST - 12 comments

A comet has been discovered and we may get to see it. If it doesn't boil away first, we'll be able to see it November 29th, 2013, give or take a day. Lots of back-slapping on the comet email list. (Via.)
posted by univac at 3:20 PM PST - 30 comments

Fifty-five years ago this month, nine black students attempted to integrate Little Rock Central High School. [more inside]
posted by Snarl Furillo at 3:17 PM PST - 11 comments

It's The Princess Bride's 25th anniversary! Little known facts about it. Fred Savage remembers. Why it's Jonathan Haynes's favorite film. Reunion. And don't worry, there's no remake in the works.
posted by Artw at 3:11 PM PST - 160 comments

Agustin is a Honduran shoemaker. Stricken with polio in his youth, he has spent more than 50 years creating something incredible. (SLVIMEO)
posted by Isosceles at 3:09 PM PST - 21 comments

England 3,000 years ago was already as suburban as the outskirts of Basildon.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:33 PM PST - 32 comments

eXtreme Deep Field (1.4 MB JPG) is the deepest-ever view of the universe - a new assemblage of 10 years of Hubble Space Telescope photographs focused on a small area at the center of the original Ultra Deep Field. With a cumulative exposure time of 2 million seconds, XDF shows approximately 5,500 galaxies - some of them 10 billion times too faint to be seen with the naked eye.
posted by Egg Shen at 2:17 PM PST - 62 comments

"The Mexican drug cartels are at war... with Mormons. VICE founder Shane Smith went down to Ciudad Juárez, near the US border, to investigate this story ... filled with guns, drugs, murder, and Romneys." [more inside]
posted by empath at 1:31 PM PST - 33 comments

A Scott Pilgrim themed trip to Toronto, followed by a surprise (single-link photo album).
posted by jb at 1:28 PM PST - 27 comments

"The Justice Department estimates that more than 209,400 people are sexually abused in US detention every year… A great deal has been learned about this over the past few years. The [Prison Rape Elimination Act] legislation, which charged the [Bureau of Justice Statistics] with undertaking annual statistical analyses of the problem that have proved indispensable, also created a body called the Review Panel on Prison Rape.… A commission charged with issuing recommendations didn’t do so until six years after the bill’s passage; then Attorney General Eric Holder missed by nearly two years the statutory deadline for promulgating them. But the standards that Holder’s Department of Justice finally did issue are very strong."
posted by the mad poster! at 1:23 PM PST - 46 comments

Research In Motion really, really, really wants developers to stick with them until they launch Blackberry 10. Really. [more inside]
posted by oulipian at 1:10 PM PST - 57 comments

Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan. An extensive new study (PDF) by human rights lawyers from Stanford and NYU examines the impact of drone strikes on civilians in Pakistan, including the strategic effectiveness of the policy as well as the psychological impact on those living in constant fear that they might come under attack. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 1:09 PM PST - 47 comments

Over the last forty years, many young women – most of them indigenous – have been murdered or gone missing along northern British Columbia's Highway 16, now nationally known as the Highway of Tears. Nobody knows just how many have disappeared: estimates range between a handful and hundreds. Their families have spent decades fighting institutional racism and governmental bureaucracy in a tragic tale that has seen no conclusion. Since 2007, the Royal Canadian Mountain Police have been investigating eighteen of these cases as part of Project E-Pana. Today, the RCMP announced its first major development: the death of Colleen MacMillen, who disappeared in 1974, has been linked to American serial killer Bobby Jack Fowler, who died in an Oregon prison in 2006. Previously on MeFi.
posted by avocet at 12:23 PM PST - 15 comments

Gregory Barsamian is a sculptor who creates three-dimensional objects, fixes them to arms radiating from a center point, and then spins the whole creation in a darkened room, lit only by a strobe light. The result is something akin to a 3D flip book. [more inside]
posted by 4ster at 11:35 AM PST - 18 comments

“What Exactly Does a Dramaturg Do?”
posted by shivohum at 11:21 AM PST - 50 comments

Over the weekend, the cast of Full House (minus the Olsen twins) attended their 25 year reunion. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:12 AM PST - 84 comments

Why does some cave art feature animals with multiple limbs and heads? French and Finnish researchers claim that prehistoric man was deliberately creating animated art, with the animals appearing to move in flickering torch or fire light.
posted by Wordshore at 11:07 AM PST - 29 comments

Former MTV State member Ken Marino will make you fall in love with him all over again! Did you love The State on MTV? More recent collaborations like Reno 911? The Ten? Party Down? Adult Swim's Children's Hospital? You may enjoy the Yahoo web series Burning Love, a pitch-perfect parody of reality shows like The Bachelor, but with so much more DRAMA! Narcissism! Alcoholism! Sexuality! Crazy eyes! Homelessness! Pantslessness! [more inside]
posted by Queen of Spreadable Fats at 11:06 AM PST - 26 comments

They're best known for one song: I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), as featured in Benny and Joon in 1993, and though the identical twin brothers faded from the public eye in the US, 500 Miles was lovingly parodied by Homer Simpson in 2001, and the brothers appeared on Family Guy in 2006. That song was featured in Comic Relief 2007, and that rendition was the number 1 song in the UK for three weeks. Given this focus on a single song that was first released in 1988, you might want mark The Proclaimers as a one-hit wonder and leave it at that. But David Pollock, writing for The Guardian, wants you to reconsider: The Proclaimers are a lot better than you probably remember. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:03 AM PST - 72 comments

Now that the NHL Lockout is fully upon us, some have wondered what NHL fans should do with their unmoored fandom. They have missed a greater conundrum: what are the listless captains of the NHL going to do with their pent-up energies? The Classical's Chris Collision has delved into the lockout activities of every NHL captain, from Jonathan Toews's train nightmares to Shane Doan's fedora delivery service and Joetho Rnton's abdication of his rule of the Gatlatian Smatet: Part 1, Part 2.
posted by Copronymus at 9:39 AM PST - 20 comments

Chicago's WBEZ has created an interactive map of the city and where its various gangs operate, using data provided by the Chicago Police Department. Chicagoist considers the map and its implications while Progress Illinois discusses the changing nature of gang violence.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:19 AM PST - 48 comments

An opinion column: Why do Russians hate ice? (SLNYT)
posted by Nomyte at 9:09 AM PST - 81 comments

Starting with a bracket for every letter of the alphabet, a bracket suggested by readers and a "Fuck" play-in bracket, blogger Ted McCagg just finished a contest for the Best Word Ever. In the running were Umpteen, Eke, Isthmus, Skedaddle and Akimbo. The Final Four. The finals. The champion. [Via The Paris Review & Kottke.]
posted by mediareport at 8:54 AM PST - 67 comments

The great naturalist Aldo Leopold took detailed notes in his journals every morning before sunrise, logging the birds he heard calling on his farm in rural Wisconsin. Now, using journals from the Aldo Leopold archives, and bird calls from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, researchers at UW-Madison have replicated what Aldo Leopold would have heard one morning on his farm in the 1940s autoplays bird calls.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:55 AM PST - 24 comments

The World of C86 showcases the bright, abstracted artwork of Matt Lyon. [more inside]
posted by Mizu at 4:17 AM PST - 11 comments

The tragedy of climate change: the UK Pig Association is warning that due to droughts causing high pig food prices, a global bacon shortage is now unavoidable.
posted by unSane at 3:47 AM PST - 108 comments

Joe Arridy didn't ask for a last meal. It's doubtful that he even understood the concept.

An article (one page print version) in Denver Westword News by Alan Prendergast recounts the life of Joe Arridy (1915 - 1939), his conviction and execution and Robert Perske's later investigation of the case. Perske has documented many cases of innocent people with mental disabilities being coerced into confessions, and he considers the case of Joe Arridy the most telling. [more inside]
posted by tykky at 1:50 AM PST - 19 comments

Who Draws The Borders Of Culture?(NYTimes) Cultural border, as opposed to national borders, are funny things. One country can contain many (Coke vs. Soda. Vs. Pop, previously and previously-er). Cultural borders often appear as food and drink choices, like sweet tea, forms of alcohol, or BBQ sauce. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:12 PM PST - 61 comments

In honor of the opening of Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in Oregon this week, the largest wind farm in the United States, let's take look at 'high-altitude wind power', HAWP: [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 11:08 PM PST - 35 comments

"...scientists have discovered that two 3,000-year-old Scottish "bog bodies" are actually made from the remains of six people."
posted by 445supermag at 8:57 PM PST - 64 comments

Did Blowing into Nintendo Cartridges Really Help? Mental_Floss takes a look at what a daily blow does to an NES cartridge.
posted by hot_monster at 8:35 PM PST - 53 comments

Cinemagraphs are elegant, seamlessly animated gifs that capture action in a subtle way that makes you feel like you're watching a video. There are cinemagraphs for everyone, including Stanley Kubrick fans, fashion aficionados, and people who like rain or kittens. Photojojo explains how to make your own. But of course, there's an app for that.
posted by desjardins at 8:00 PM PST - 37 comments

The Adventures of the Real Tom Sawyer " Mark Twain was nursing a bad hangover inside Ed Stahle’s fashionable Montgomery Street steam rooms, halfway through a two-month visit to San Francisco that would ultimately stretch to three years. At the baths he played penny ante with Stahle, the proprietor, and Tom Sawyer, the recently appointed customs inspector, volunteer fireman, special policeman and bona fide local hero."
posted by artof.mulata at 7:56 PM PST - 21 comments

Business Card Tricks I love the contradiction. Handing someone a business card is an act of optimism. It says, "Hi, this is me. I want to know you." I love the idea of pairing this optimism and hope with the complete opposite. I love that I can hand this to someone and they will look at it and smile, say "thanks," then turn it over and look at me puzzled. That's making an impact, which is a business card's job. [Cached version of link; scroll down]
posted by mlis at 7:48 PM PST - 114 comments

I was petrified. They had my address. I reported it to the authorities and hoped for the best. Two days later I opened my front door and there was a bunch of dead flowers with my wife's old Twitter username on it. Meeting A Troll.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:19 PM PST - 131 comments

"The counterintuitive, distressing, but necessary way to stop child sexual abuse." A Slate essay on the state of mental health services available to non-offending, self-aware pedophiles. Another recent essay on those "born this way." A Liberty University professor's "expose" of the group B4-UACT, an advocacy group for mental health services for those with pedophila, led to accusations that the group (and the mental health professionals associated with a recent conference) were attempting to "normalize pedophilia." B4U-ACT does take the stance that reducing stigma for "Minor-Attracted People" (MAPs) is the best way to increase the likelihood of therapeutic intervention; they believe the DSM-V description is too "adversarial.
posted by availablelight at 5:53 PM PST - 100 comments

Tactics of Waste, Dirt and Discard in the Occupy Movement: a photo essay by Max Liboiron, The essay was intended as part of this academic article (free download, for now) on the same topic, situated within the emerging field of "discard studies", but copyright permissions led to it being published on the Discard Studies blog.
posted by Rumple at 5:28 PM PST - 20 comments

It has never been easier to be an amazing mind-reader. (SLYT German PSA w/subtitles... any more would be telling)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:27 PM PST - 29 comments

Errors vs. Bugs and the End of Stupidity [more inside]
posted by absqua at 4:56 PM PST - 14 comments

Adobe is getting in on Google's act, offering 500 font familes of Typekit fonts for you to use for free on your website.
posted by crunchland at 3:42 PM PST - 41 comments

At first glance, the new Myspace is an undeniably beautiful redesign.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:25 PM PST - 70 comments

Among the Alawites: Nir Rosen reports from Syria
posted by Cloud King at 2:58 PM PST - 5 comments

What happens when you put Mitt Romney's words in Lucille Bluth's mouth?
posted by mightygodking at 2:50 PM PST - 51 comments

#bloodbath: how social media might have changed one of history's most infamous crime sprees
posted by Artw at 2:26 PM PST - 17 comments

Whenever the subject of women in science comes up, there are people fiercely committed to the idea that sexism does not exist. They will point to everything and anything else to explain differences while becoming angry and condescending if you even suggest that discrimination could be a factor. But these people are wrong. This data shows they are wrong. And if you encounter them, you can now use this study to inform them they’re wrong.
posted by sarastro at 2:17 PM PST - 68 comments

Like all shrines, this one is on a hill, and built into solid rock. Richard Olney saw it first in 1961 on an excursion south from his adoptive home in Paris. Olney, whose The French Menu Cookbook was recently judged the best cookbook ever by this magazine, immediately knew he had found his proper place on earth. [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 2:16 PM PST - 12 comments

"The psychology of the dare is that the dared person is caught in a double bind. They have the choice of either accepting the dare or appearing as a coward and suffering a social lowering in status. Faced with such a choice, many people accept the dare, attracted as much by the potential kudos as the fear of ridicule."^ Now available in Web 2.0. [more inside]
posted by maxwelton at 2:03 PM PST - 19 comments

Remember that great scene in "Toy Story 3" when the toys were about to fall into the incinerator? Well, a couple of siblings with a copy of Final Cut Pro decided to make the movie end there, with the toys going off to a fiery end - then showed it to their mom, who had never seen the film, and told her that was the real ending. [slyt]
posted by jbickers at 1:39 PM PST - 121 comments

"After a hair raising 400 metre descent myself and Bradley Ambrose become the first people ever to get this close. Climbing down to within 30 metres of the lava it was so hot (1150 degrees) that without protection we could stand the heat for 6 seconds before retreating..." Photographer Geoff Mackley visits the Ambrym volcano, located in the archipelago of Vanuatu. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:27 PM PST - 22 comments

Portrait of the Artist as a Postman. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:01 PM PST - 8 comments

Julia Ioffe - What I Will (and Won't) Miss About Living in Moscow
posted by beisny at 11:50 AM PST - 34 comments

"You are a cat. You don’t know your name, or where you are, or how you got there. You are sitting on a pile of clothes that smell familiar, and the room around you is quiet and dark." So begins A Stray In The Woods, an online collaborate comic/illustrated interactive fiction about being an amnesic cat. Take control of the story by suggesting things for the cat to do. [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 11:38 AM PST - 31 comments

Ben Krasnow shows us how he built a small hybrid rocket engine. Ben makes a lot of other cool things too, like astronaut ice cream, a DIY scanning electron microscope, and why not, carbonated fruit slices.
posted by joechip at 11:27 AM PST - 14 comments

Time to make the logos. Take 300, yes 300, fan blogs with all kinds of inconsistent, homemade, clip-art, crappy logos and re-design ALL of them to be consistent with one over-arching look and feel. Oh... and do it in 7 weeks. [more inside]
posted by pixlboi at 11:22 AM PST - 28 comments

Queer Music Heritage is a sprawling website about the history of queer music. You can listen to twelve years' worth of monthly radio shows (link goes to the first year, 2000); take a look at the Queer Music History 101 overview; check out the extensive photo galleries in the female impersonators section; or read through the blog, which features interesting tidbits from gay musical history, like this overview of the Sissy Man Blues. [more inside]
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:20 AM PST - 3 comments

Rovt shakes his head. “I would not pay $88 million for an apartment,” he said. “For $88 million, I would buy a house.”
posted by Chrysostom at 9:09 AM PST - 44 comments

Andrew Mitchell, Conservative Chief Whip, faces calls to resign after he reportedly said to police officers who refused to let him through the main gate of Downing Street: "Best you learn your fucking place. You don't run this fucking government. You're fucking plebs." [more inside]
posted by Jehan at 8:51 AM PST - 102 comments

Jess Nevins presents: Six-Gun Gorilla! The story of one gorilla's quest for vengeance across the Old West. The archetypal cowboy ape, publicly available for the first time.

Originally published in 1939, Six-Gun Gorilla is available as a result of Nevins' (completed) Kickstarter for the Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes. [more inside]
posted by zamboni at 8:35 AM PST - 11 comments

Camp Bastion, a sprawling, well-fortified British-run base in the desert in southern Afghanistan, is the size of the UK town of Reading and home to almost 30,000 people. Bastion - with its own water bottling plant, hospital, police force and even Pizza Hut - is widely regarded as a safe haven for troops. However, a Taliban attack breaching the perimeter and resulting in the death of two US Marines has shown it is not impregnable. What's it like inside Camp Bastion? Explore the graphical representation of the base ... to find out. [more inside]
posted by aqsakal at 7:48 AM PST - 14 comments

Photographer Travels China, Taking Pictures of Families and All Their Possessions Huang Qingjun has spent nearly a decade travelling to remote parts of China to persuade people who have sometimes never been photographed to carry outside all their household possessions and pose for him. The results offer glimpses of the utilitarian lives of millions of ordinary Chinese who, at first glance, appear not to have been swept up by the same modernisation that has seen hundreds of millions of others leave for the cities. [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 6:21 AM PST - 16 comments

Dave Hartnett was surprised with an award this week for his services to tax avoidance. He was celebrating his retirement as head of the UK's tax and customs department, where he agreed "sweetheart" deals with Goldman Sachs and Vodafone, letting them off outstanding tax bills. Cue some pleasantly awkward confusion as the partygoers realise what is going on.
posted by creeky at 5:59 AM PST - 54 comments

Adam Doyle paints "beautiful gestural portraits of birds," according to the art blog Colossal. His other work includes book covers, paintings and illustrations aimed at children, and contributions to the 52 Shades of Greed card deck (4 of clubs, 5 & 6 of hearts, and 7 of spades).
posted by catlet at 5:22 AM PST - 3 comments

“Our goal is to be the most economically free entity on Earth.” The Honduran government has agreed to allow an American investment group build a private city, with its own laws, government, and taxation structure, from scratch. While some laud the project as a "beacon of job creation and investment," others decry it as an assault on human rights and democracy. One murder has already been attributed to the political tensions related to the plans for the private city.
posted by Rykey at 5:05 AM PST - 163 comments

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, is an Iranian dissident group that has been formally designated for the last 15 years by the US State Department as a "foreign terrorist organization". When the Bush administration sought to justify its attack on Iraq in 2003 by accusing Saddam Hussein of being a sponsor of "international terrorism", one of its prime examples was Iraq's "sheltering" of the MEK. Its inclusion on the terrorist list has meant that it is a felony to provide any "material support" to that group. Now, in the with the support of A-list American politicians who have been handsomely compensated for their efforts, the MEK are being delisted. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 3:53 AM PST - 41 comments

Dr Roy Lowry of Plymouth University demonstrates what happens when you allow liquid nitrogen to vapourise in a sealed container, with the assistance of 1,500 ping-pong balls (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by hardcode at 2:31 AM PST - 81 comments

Burning Mercury Thiocyanide Will Amaze You (SLYT)
posted by shivohum at 11:14 PM PST - 65 comments

Dan Roam reminisces about walking into a Russian bookstore in 1993 and picking up a one-of-a-kind item...
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:25 PM PST - 23 comments

"On the morning of Saturday September 8th a suicide attack in Kabul claimed the lives of a number of young Afghans." Four of the six youth killed were part of the NGO Skateistan. Previously, the film "To Live and Skate in Kabul."
posted by Isadorady at 9:50 PM PST - 13 comments

And A Movie?: 'Why is it so important to the fans that there be a film adaptation of the franchise they love?'
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:33 PM PST - 135 comments

Circa 2005, Steve Jobs was introducing a new feature to iTunes and he called them podcasts! Unfortunately, during the LIVE presentation Adam Curry was not happy with his Mac!! Priceless!
posted by TangerineGurl at 9:06 PM PST - 28 comments

Finland is about to start using croudsourcing to create new laws: Earlier this year, the Finnish government enabled something called a "citizens’ initiative", through which registered voters can come up with new laws – if they can get 50,000 of their fellow citizens to back them up within six months, then the Eduskunta (the Finnish parliament) is forced to vote on the proposal.

Now this crowdsourced law-making system is about to go online through a platform called the Open Ministry. The non-profit organization has been collecting signatures for various proposals on paper since 1 March, when citizens’ initiatives came in, but a couple of days ago the government approved the electronic ID mechanism that underpins the digital version of the platform. That means it can now go live on 1 October.
posted by troll at 4:29 PM PST - 66 comments

Inside the dark world of the online sugar daddies.
posted by Sebmojo at 3:26 PM PST - 73 comments

When a Chomp or a Slurp Is a Trigger for Outrage For some people with misophonia, the simple sounds of someone eating can send them into an instantaneous, blood-boiling panic-filled rage. A basic fight or flight response can result from just a wide range of sounds such as breathing, typing, finger tapping and more. Most of the sounds would barely be noticed by your average person. The disorder was diagnosed in 2001 so many doctors are unfamiliar with the disorder and will often misdiagnose those afflicted with mood or anxiety disorders.
posted by 2manyusernames at 3:12 PM PST - 156 comments

Last week Reason Magazine posted a 20-minute video interview with David Simon (The Wire, Homicide, Treme and more) on its web site. On his personal blog Simon accused the Reason editors of "shanking" the interview by selectively editing the video in favor of "banter and quick reposite", and sacrificing context and complete arguments to the extent that the interview seems "incoherent." In response to Simon's comments Reason has posted the full 1 hour 20 minute audio of the interview. (direct link to mp3 audio)
posted by mediated self at 2:30 PM PST - 21 comments

They were alive and they spoke to me! That is the simplest and most eloquent way in which I can refer to those authors who have remained with me over the years. - Henry Miller, The Books In My Life [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 2:13 PM PST - 7 comments

Between 1922 and 1934 archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum embarked on a large scale excavation of the Mesopotamian city of Ur, one of the world's earliest cities. That excavation generated a huge mass of documents (lettres, field notes, dig report etc.) and now you can help to digitally transcribe them.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:55 PM PST - 17 comments

Danish author Sven Hassel (Wikipedia, official site) has passed away at the age of 95. (Danish - Translation) Hassel fought for the Germans during WWII and became famous after publishing Legion of the Damned, a semi-autobiographical account of the war. He went on to write thirteen more books following the adventures of his convict battalion, incuding Wheels of Terror which in 1987 was made into the movie The Misfit Brigade staring Bruce Davison and David Patrick Kelly (clip). He will be remembered fondly by all who browsed the bookshelves of charity shops as young men.
posted by Artw at 1:51 PM PST - 31 comments

"Jan Švankmajer is a major figure of contemporary East European animation whose surrealistic, often macabre work owes more to the nightmarish visions of Kafka and Buñuel than to the sunny daydreams of Walt Disney and his creative progeny. Noted for investing otherwise ordinary objects with ominous overtones, Švankmajer reached his widest audience to date with a feature-length adaptation of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" (1988) which blended animated and live-action footage--a technique he had earlier used to hair-raising effect in "Down to the Cellar" (1983)." -- TMC. Often credited with influencing the Brothers Quay, they hadn't actually seen his work until relatively late in their careers, as they mentioned in an introduction to their documentary on Švankmajer (YT playlist). More of Švankmajer inside. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:13 PM PST - 21 comments

Yes's Close To The Edge (quite possibly, progressive rock’s defining masterwork) has turned 40. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 11:26 AM PST - 103 comments

"On the 23rd day of the month of September...in an early year of a decade not too long before our own...the human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence." [more inside]
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:59 AM PST - 32 comments

The Confessions of Robert Crumb. [previously]
posted by timsteil at 8:38 AM PST - 12 comments

"Of all the things the Internet was expected to become, it is safe to say that a seed for the proliferation of backup diesel generators was not one of them." Power, Pollution and the Internet [sl NY Times]
posted by nowhere man at 6:43 AM PST - 88 comments

Roller Coaster Tycoon in real life (SLYT) via
posted by dogmom at 6:05 AM PST - 31 comments

Creepshots and revenge porn: how paparazzi culture affects women (The Guardian, UK)

‎"What unites creepshots [on Reddit], the Middleton photographs, the revenge porn websites," says Franks, "is that they all feature the same fetishisation of non-consensual sexual activity with women who either you don't have any access to, or have been denied future access to. And it's really this product of rage and entitlement"

[more inside]
posted by asymptotic at 3:50 AM PST - 493 comments

In 1975, composer/drummer Chip Davis, bass player Eric Hansen, and keyboard player Jackson Berkey introduced the world to the unclassifiable mix of classical, jazz, rock, and synthesizer music known as Fresh Aire: Prelude; Chocolate Fudge; Interlude I; Sonata; Interlude II; Sara's Band; Fresh Aire; Rondo; Interlude III; Pass The Keg, Lia; Interlude IV; Mist. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 10:05 PM PST - 28 comments

Lego Great Ball Contraption (Layout 2012.9) (Previously)
posted by klausman at 9:14 PM PST - 31 comments

Golden Buddha, Hidden Copper. "Twelve years after the Taliban blew up the world-famous Bamiyan Buddhas, a Chinese mining firm -- developing one of the world's largest copper deposits -- threatens to destroy another of Afghanistan's archeological treasures." Campaign to Save Mes Aynak.
posted by homunculus at 8:08 PM PST - 14 comments

Charles Babbage, Victorian mathematician and "father of the computer", suggested a small change for accuracy in Tennyson's poem "The Vision of Sin" in this letter.
posted by Isadorady at 7:46 PM PST - 30 comments

"The story came straight from Kennedy himself." "Though even some of his closest aides did not know at the time, Kennedy recorded more than 260 hours of Oval Office conversations, telephone calls and dictation into his Dictaphone. The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation has culled the highlights into a new book of annotated transcripts and two audio CDs. Some of audio portions will be available online." Please note the recording links on the left side of the page.
posted by HuronBob at 6:31 PM PST - 14 comments

All 32 NFL Quarterbacks and their Muppet Doppelgangers. Single link Buzzfeed.
posted by sweetkid at 4:33 PM PST - 42 comments

Tricking your parents into thinking you're reading...
posted by griphus at 3:55 PM PST - 84 comments

Mr. A debuted in 1967, in the third issue of Witzend, a collection of more artistically fulfilling side projects by mainstream comics professionals led by Wally Wood. In his very first panel, the Objectivist hero addresses his readers directly, stating his case that in moral life, there are no shades of gray, only evil or good, black or white. The hero stares at us, blank, emotionless. There’s a montage around him showing that his calm face is actually a metal mask, and that evil is truly disgusting. At the story’s end, Mr. A. beats up a nasty juvenile delinquent, ironically named Angel, and then allows the kid to fall to his death from a city rooftop. - Pat Barrett [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 2:10 PM PST - 46 comments

The Great Wave off Kanagawa is probably the most iconic Japanese artwork in history, often used to illustrate tsunamis, and scientists have attempted to analyze what kind of wave it depicts. The woodprint is part of the 36 Views of Mount Fuji series, which depicts the famous mountain from different spots in Japan. The artist who made the Great Wave, Katsushika Hokusai, created thousands of images, many of which can be viewed online, such as in the internet galleries of the Museum of Fine Art and Visipix (Visipix' Hokusai page). Besides woodprints, Hokusai produced sketchbooks he called manga, one of which, number twelve, can be flipped through on the Swedish Touch and Turn website.
posted by Kattullus at 11:04 AM PST - 36 comments

Singing "All Night Long", all night long. (via)
posted by The Whelk at 9:50 AM PST - 24 comments

"In March 2012, following the brutal attack of three rhinos by poachers seeking horn, Dr. William Fowlds, the wildlife veterinarian treating the rhinos, contacted WitmerLab for insight into the anatomical structure of the horn, skull, and nasal cavity of rhinos. The poachers had used machetes to hack off the horns, leaving deep wounds in the face and exposing the delicate mucous membranes of the paranasal air sinuses and nasal cavity." The result of this partnership was the Visible Interactive Rhino. For more rhinoceros anatomy, check out photos from a rhinoceros dissection from What's in John's Freezer? (previously). [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 9:16 AM PST - 16 comments

The 100 Most Iconic Artworks of the Last 5 Years [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:04 AM PST - 48 comments

Facebook takes the next step in the Nymwars [background explaination link]: now FB now actively prompts your friends to anonymously snitch on your use of the 'wrong' name/nym accounts.
posted by jaduncan at 7:34 AM PST - 131 comments

These photos are about Taylor, who lost most of his limbs in Afghanistan, and his girlfriend Danielle. It is a love story, told only in 22 pictures. Background story via Taylor's friend, photographer Tim Dodd.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:32 AM PST - 24 comments

Vanua Levu, population 130,000, is the second largest island of Fiji. It is also the home of the village of Vunidogoloa, one of the fist villages in the world forced to relocate due to climate change. The entire nation of Kiribati could be next. Recently, a Kiribati man was denied immigration status in New Zealand as a "climate change refugee".
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:14 AM PST - 9 comments

When Satire Conquered Iran: [NYR Blog] Molla Nasreddin, an early twentieth-century Azerbaijani magazine that “attacked the hypocrisy of the Muslim clergy, the colonial policies of the US and the venal corruption of the local elite, while arguing repeatedly for Westernization, educational reform, and equal rights for women.” [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:04 AM PST - 10 comments

Scott Bradlee is probably best known around the internet for his ragtime reinterpretation of classic 80's hits (previously), but that's certainly not the only thing he's done. There are the relatively straighter covers, for example. And then there's the other stuff. [more inside]
posted by KChasm at 5:14 AM PST - 5 comments

From 1915-2003, the National Office of Importance carried out its statutory public duty “to inform, insist and admonish” on behalf of the British Government. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 5:03 AM PST - 23 comments

Pirate Party Politician Doesn't Want You Pirating Her Book. Senior German Pirate Party board member Julia Schramm has a vision for a utopian Internet: a "huge library" where "the knowledge and stories of all people are united, collected and archived" free of charge and free of "disgusting" intellectual property. [more inside]
posted by three blind mice at 3:07 AM PST - 67 comments

Werner Herzog directs a mini-documentary about The Killers (SLYT).
posted by feelinglistless at 1:55 AM PST - 28 comments

The drugs don't work : a modern medical scandal - "The doctors prescribing the drugs don't know they don't do what they're meant to. Nor do their patients. The manufacturers know full well, but they're not telling."
posted by Gyan at 1:48 AM PST - 76 comments

Liron Peled is a drumming, strumming, throat-singing one-man-band [slyt]
posted by Ritchie at 12:47 AM PST - 7 comments

A Short History Of Book Reviewing's Long Decline: 'By the time of the first quote “book-review,” criticism had been in circulation for centuries—long enough for writers to know how it can sting. Understandably, then, the critic’s skepticism of an artist's genius has invariably existed alongside the artist's doubt over the critic's judgment.' [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:10 AM PST - 11 comments

In 2005, the Discovery Channel aired Alien Worlds, a fictional documentary based on Wayne Douglas Barlowe's graphic novel, Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV." Depicting mankind's first robotic mission to an extrasolar planet that could support life, the show drew from NASA's Origins Program, the NASA/JPL PlanetQuest Mission, and ESA's Darwin Project. It was primarily presented through CGI, but included interviews from a variety of NASA scientists and other experts, including Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, John Craig Venter and Jack Horner. Oh, and George Lucas, too. Official site. Previously on MeFi. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:11 PM PST - 12 comments

Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum, AKA Princess, perform Darling Nikki with The Roots on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. (apologies if this is blocked outside the US)
posted by hippybear at 9:51 PM PST - 34 comments

[Contemporary Okinawan author] Medoruma cuts an odd figure. He plays the recluse but is also an angry writer, powerful and loquacious. His work is at times beautiful, and at others horrifying, often in quick succession…
posted by Nomyte at 8:53 PM PST - 3 comments

Inspired by previous Road Rally races such as The CannonBall Run, a modern incarnation of the cross-country rally has emerged. Since 2007, the Fireball Run has taken place, with its 2000+ mile course varying from year to year. More than just a road race, the Fireball Run bills itself as an "Adventur-rally", relying more on cleverness than sheer speed. Organizer's compare it more to a "scavenger hunt", suggesting that a knowledge of history and local trivia are more valuable than driving skill. (in fact, racers are monitored so as not to be allowed to drive "unsafely.") [more inside]
posted by ShutterBun at 8:48 PM PST - 12 comments

You may know Scooby, The Hodge Twins, Tiger Fitness, and the Florida Fitness Twins. Now meet the new guys! A fitness model and his family of filmmakers have started B.U.F.F. Dudes, one of the newest bodybuilding channels on YouTube. You've gotta dig the Thor Workout.
posted by jwhite1979 at 7:55 PM PST - 5 comments

"Fierce fighting broke out on Friday night after crowds trying to storm the Benghazi base of a militia blamed for the death of US ambassador Chris Stevens came under fire", reports Chris Stephen in The Guardian. [more inside]
posted by mhoye at 7:18 PM PST - 51 comments

Dad sends his son's favourite train, Stanley, into space
posted by jontyjago at 5:12 PM PST - 44 comments

50 years of The Jestons and Why the show still matters. It was September 23, 1962 when ABC aired the first episode of The Jetsons. This was ABC's first color program and while it only lasted a single season, its impact, influence, and popularity is still felt today. Many of the predictions portrayed in the series are coming true.
posted by 2manyusernames at 5:10 PM PST - 58 comments

What do tostones, pumpkin pie flan, and egg nog have in common? Not much, except that you can learn how to make them by watching these drag queens' instructional videos.
posted by mudpuppie at 5:08 PM PST - 17 comments

Blacks Without Soul (slyt)
posted by mediocre at 3:02 PM PST - 33 comments

Tech company neurowear - the same people who brought you brainwave-controlled cat ears - "is now using NeuroSky's brainwave-reading headgear to suss out your emotional state and share it with your friends" on Facebook and Twitter, along with your physical location. As an added bonus, hook it up to Shippo, a tail you can wear that will wag at different speeds depending on your mood.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:00 PM PST - 31 comments

Bruce Boxleitner thinks he can sell a Steam Punk Saga to the Networks Lantern City exists in a parallel universe where the Victorians survived and the style of that period permeates their milieu. The site is not very old and Boxleitner has put some money behind this along with Trevor Crafts co producer he worked with Boxleitner on Smokewooda TV comedy pilot "It's Parks and Recreation Meets Tombstone." [more inside]
posted by pdxpogo at 2:33 PM PST - 36 comments

An Italian Circus Giraffe escapes near Bologna. The circus staff gives chase, and eventually the big guy/gal is subdued by tranquilizers. Regrettably, it died later of cardiac arrest. (Photo slideshow on CNN).
posted by sweetkid at 2:27 PM PST - 23 comments

A fellow tried to impress his friends by fitting a billiard ball in his mouth - he died. A young woman laced her corset too tightly - she died. A woman fell down the stairs, which caused one of her hairpins to penetrate her skull - she died. And, of course, many people had horrible encounters with mill and farm machinery. Predictably, they died. (warning-occasionally graphic descriptions of death and dismemberment, mostly from the late 19th century). [more inside]
posted by cilantro at 2:05 PM PST - 59 comments

Photos of the Flight Deck (cockpit) of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, fully powered for one of the final times, by young former NASA photographer Ben Cooper
posted by growabrain at 1:27 PM PST - 55 comments

"Employers could get waivers to work kids later than that but Landis did not seek one. The exact reason for this failure later became a matter of intense dispute. Either he thought he would not get the waiver because the hour was too late or he knew he could not get approval to have kids around a helicopter and explosives." [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 1:15 PM PST - 25 comments

Freight Dogs are cargo pilots, often flying under less-than-ideal conditions. An audio interview with the author Michael Walker.
posted by exogenous at 11:59 AM PST - 21 comments

Book Title: Author Name. Political thriller, erotica, sword and sorcery, cookbook, lock-picking manual, travel guide? Doesn't matter. Book Title: Author Name.
posted by codacorolla at 11:58 AM PST - 66 comments

PBS Newshour brings the science on bath salts (previously). Contains graphic descriptions of awesome laboratory experiments. via BoingBoing
posted by zjacreman at 11:02 AM PST - 91 comments

Nick Cave's Soundsuits: Calling up echoes of wild beasts, Carnival dancers, maskers and shamans, the "soundsuits" made of a wild diversity of materials by visual artist and dancer Nick Cave have life beyond the gallery. They're designed to be used in performances and 'invasions,' creating a sense of mystery, playfulness and joyful moments of community.
posted by Miko at 10:34 AM PST - 14 comments

Flash Friday Fun: Hexagon
posted by indubitable at 10:25 AM PST - 87 comments

Boojum, a spacefaring Cthulhu Mythos story run through the filter of Lewis Carroll by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear (Interview). A sequel in the same universe, Mongoose, Appeared in the Ellen Datlow edited anthology Lovecraft Unbound. An audio of Mongoose is available at the Drabblecast (part 1, part 2), as well as a further sequel, The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward (part 1, part 2)
posted by Artw at 9:57 AM PST - 31 comments

Tool-assisted speedruns seek to create a perfect run by using tools such as slow motion, scripts and manipulation of random numbers. A few TASs have appeared on the blue before, but it's easy to get lost in the archives of TASvideos. The pages of popular videos and notable videos are useful here. You could browse by platform or use the tabs to sort the videos by various statistics. A good starting point might be Actraiser (yt), a hybrid of sidescroller and city simulation, which has been subtitled so that you can understand the choices made by the author (click on the 'closed captions' button). Some of the most impressive TASs take advantage of glitches: watch Link complete Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (yt - no cutscenes) by supersliding, bomb jumping, and eschewing boss keys or a long game like Super Mario 64 (yt) completed in 5 minutes in a no-stars run. However, sometimes watching a longer, competent run like Donkey Kong Country 2 (yt) 102% is just as fun. Here are some recommendations. [more inside]
posted by ersatz at 9:29 AM PST - 37 comments

Popular Canadian columnist Margaret Wente is facing accusations of plagiarism -- but why isn't the media on the case? [more inside]
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:17 AM PST - 72 comments

"Finding my way in Beijing was tougher than I'd ever imagined. But sharpening my skills at a local youth academy for ping-pong—a game at which I'd dominated friends back home for years—seemed like an opportunity not to suck. So what if it meant beating up on little kids at the school and old men in the park? This would be my key to assimilation. Nice plan—but then I stared down the pre-teen pong machines and got my first real taste of China's national pastime."
posted by Chrysostom at 8:07 AM PST - 28 comments

It's Friday. Don't you deserve some animated gifs of cats reacting to a variety of topical, news-gathering situations?
posted by Mezentian at 4:18 AM PST - 21 comments

Nick Clegg is so, so sorry. (YT) During the last British general election, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was riding high on a wave of popularity (previously). [more inside]
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:01 AM PST - 111 comments

Drug-resistant and "extensively" resistant strains make containment and treatment of tuberculosis ever more difficult. Fortunately, researchers based in Switzerland have (re-)discovered a naturally-made antibiotic called pyridomycin, which will kill isoniazid-resistant M. tuberculosis bacteria.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:52 AM PST - 31 comments

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, went on sale 75 years ago today. The first printing, by Allen & Unwin, was for 1,500 copies (which now fetch a premium at auction); the first reviewer, the son of the publisher, was paid a shilling. Through a contorted publishing history, exact or even approximate sales figures are unknown; "over a hundred million" is often quoted. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 12:43 AM PST - 108 comments

IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO: 'How much do evolutionary stories reveal about the mind?' [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:45 PM PST - 118 comments

Elektrobiblioteka / Electric Book (video). Inspired by El Lissitzky's manifesto published in 1923. Background. Full-text (Polish).
posted by stbalbach at 10:52 PM PST - 4 comments

Lord Byron's copy of Frankenstein, inscribed by author Mary Shelley, is being offered for sale at Peter Harrington Books in London, where it will be on display from 26 Sept to 3 Oct. If you are interested in buying they are accepting offers in excess of 350,000. GBP ( about $568,000). [more inside]
posted by Isadorady at 9:36 PM PST - 26 comments

The TTY Demystified. History of the TTY and interrelationships of modern TTYs,Jobs and SIGs.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:38 PM PST - 71 comments

Little pig at a petting zoo rescues baby goat. [slyt]
posted by nickyskye at 8:13 PM PST - 58 comments

Brassica oleracae longata - the curious case of the seven-foot tall cabbage.
posted by unliteral at 7:20 PM PST - 34 comments

In 2005, Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks produced a 6 episode miniseries that spanned the period of expansion of the United States into the American West, from 1825 to 1890. Through fictional and historical characters, the series used two primary symbols--the wagon wheel and the Lakota medicine wheel -- to join the story of two families: one Native American, one White settlers, as they witnessed many of the 19th century's pivotal historical milestones. The award-winning Into The West can now be seen in its entirety on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:14 PM PST - 11 comments

It seems as if stealing bikes shouldn’t be a lucrative form of criminal activity. Used bikes aren’t particularly liquid or in demand compared to other things one could steal (phones, electronics, drugs). And yet, bikes continue to get stolen. What happens to these stolen bikes and how do they get turned into criminal income?
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:18 PM PST - 92 comments

"Beyond the Brain" In the 1990s, scientists declared that schizophrenia and other psychiatric illnesses were pure brain disorders that would eventually yield to drugs. Now they are recognizing that social factors are among the causes, and must be part of the cure.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:16 PM PST - 24 comments

The Random-MST3K-O-Matic mst3k.me shows you random Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes on YouTube. /random gets you a random episode, /joel gets you a random Joel episode, and /mike gets you a random Mike episode. [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 5:20 PM PST - 101 comments

Peru aside, South American cuisine does not get a lot of attention in the English-speaking world, but there are plenty of recipes out there which allow you to try the specialities from Colombia, Argentina & Chile in the comfort of your own home. Starting with the staple of Colombia and Venezuela and made from cornmeal / hominy, the arepa forms the basis of breakfast, lunch, dinner and anything in between. Basic arepa recipe. [more inside]
posted by jontyjago at 4:35 PM PST - 54 comments

After a very successful Kickstarter campaign Dave Sim had started work on republishing the entire Cerebus series, starting with High Society as high quality digital comics, including all the ephemeral content left out of earlier reprints. And then a fire happened which destroyed a lot of the Cerebus negatives, which, combined with the end through low sales of his latest project left Dave Sim pondering the end of his cartoonist career. But there's hope, as Fantagraphics bigwig Kim Thompson offered to help. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 3:25 PM PST - 80 comments

How do you make a computer game out of "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"?
posted by Egg Shen at 1:13 PM PST - 44 comments

"Articulate Silences is a blog which focuses on the introduction of 20th and 21st century classical music to listeners wanting to investigate beyond popular music. Through a series of posts focussing on major pieces, as well as the occasional more obscure work, this blog attempts to act as a gentle entry point for further exploration and discovery of similar sounds."
posted by vacapinta at 1:02 PM PST - 18 comments

Poetry Reincarnations. "I hope you may enjoy these glimpses at some of the long-gone poets and literary figures, etc., in the form of scratchy old movies, as if they had been filmed by candle light."
posted by Iridic at 12:13 PM PST - 6 comments

"Million Short is an experimental web search engine (really, more of a discovery engine) that allows you to REMOVE the top million (or top 100k, 10k, 1k, 100) sites from the results set. We thought it might be somewhat interesting to see what we'd find if we just removed an entire slice of the web." Developer Sanjay Arora, founder of Exponential Labs, explains the thinking behind his development of Million Short and its inverse, Million Tall, "which ONLY indexes the top million (or top 100k, etc.) sites." [more inside]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:07 PM PST - 33 comments

Astronomy Photographer of the Year
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:05 PM PST - 14 comments

Believer Magazine interviews Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold as he waxes poetic on Marcela Hazan, the peculiar aspects of Korean food, Pago Pago's love of Spam, and douche food.
posted by lemuring at 11:49 AM PST - 27 comments

For three days, the world's best 'Magic' players battle it out in Seattle Three weeks ago, Seattle hosted the Magic: The Gathering Players Championship. Noah Davis writes about one of the most prestigious M:TG tournaments from an outsider's perspective. It turns out, Magic is still around, and it's a big deal.
posted by explosion at 11:31 AM PST - 102 comments

"[Joe] Tamargo is not just a walking advertisement. He’s a walking advertisement for businesses that no longer exist."
posted by griphus at 11:27 AM PST - 35 comments

It's one of the best-known photographs in US history, but the fearless steelworkers dining al fresco in "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper" have remained anonymous in the 80 years since it was taken. A new documentary. Men At Lunch, tells the story of the photo and identifies two of its subjects for the first time.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:16 AM PST - 36 comments

This NYT slideshow of Cuba photographs does an excellent job of portraying Cuba's mood: "like the most beautiful slum ever." [more inside]
posted by univac at 10:19 AM PST - 22 comments

Since June, the NFL has locked out its referees as their union and league management have failed to come to an agreement over a range of issues, most notably the future of the referees' pensions. In their absence, the league has resorted to using replacement refs to officiate games. The results have not been pretty. [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:13 AM PST - 195 comments

If you're an old school Star Wars fan, and your relationship status with its chief architect could best be described as "it's complicated," Andrew Bridgeman provides levity with his Facebook mockups. Embrace some catharsis, and feel the lighter side flowing through you.
posted by trackofalljades at 9:01 AM PST - 42 comments

The WMD was discovered, quite by chance, lying by the side of a Bridgeville road in late July by a Delaware state trooper on an unrelated callout. Jutting out of the ground, the 75mm shell was encrusted in barnacles and pitted with rust; barely recognisable as a munition at all. The trooper called in his find and a military team took the bomb to Dover Air Force Base for disposal. As with most conventional rounds, a small charge was placed on the side of the shell and detonated to trigger the vintage munition’s own explosive. But something went wrong, and the bomb failed to explode. When the two staff sergeants and technician walked over to inspect the failed detonation, they found a strange black liquid seeping out of the cracked mortar. Given that the shell had been under the sea for the better part of fifty years, the men thought little of the foul-smelling substance until hours later, when their skin began to erupt in agonising blisters. All three were rushed to Kent General hospital, where two were released later after minor treatment. A third, more seriously injured serviceman was transported to Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, where he remained in serious but stable condition with what were only described as “burns or blisters” in a statement issued by the Army later that week. A scientific team were sent to Dover to collect soil samples from the area. The results were clear: the shell had been filled with mustard gas.
posted by Blasdelb at 8:43 AM PST - 51 comments

What happens when a former star of the West Wing's sister decides to run for the Supreme Court of the State of Michigan? This.
posted by timsteil at 8:27 AM PST - 71 comments

A colorful mural adorns Chao Tsung-song / Tibet House in Corvallis, Oregon. Commissioned by Corvallis businessman, David Lin, the 100 foot long mural depicts at one end, a cheerful Taiwanese countryside scene, and at the other, police beating Tibetan protesters and a Tibetan monk in the process of self-immolation. The Chinese government has requested that the mural be destroyed. Mr. Lin and Corvallis city mayor, Julie Manning, say, "no."
posted by Phyllis Harmonic at 8:18 AM PST - 44 comments

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. The Atlantic explores why not wanting kids is totally normal.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:41 AM PST - 167 comments

What's he been doing since his release in 1998? Find out on this helpful website, The Adventures of Pink Furby
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:01 AM PST - 7 comments

American Airlines has been forced to cancel 300 flights this week as pilots, upset over a discouraging deal with their union (including pay and benefits cuts), have begun calling in sick in high numbers.
posted by Tenacious.Me.Tokyo at 6:31 AM PST - 102 comments

How not to write comics criticism
posted by Artw at 6:15 AM PST - 82 comments

What lives where in the Solar System. Fantastic Adventure covers from 1939/40 depicting the kind of lifeforms they think each planet can support. [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 5:53 AM PST - 63 comments

Franco Fiorito, also known as Batman, is the (ex) leader and treasurer of Berlusconi's party - Il Popolo della Libertà(PdL) in the Lazio regional council. He is being accused of channeling 800k of the party's funds into 12 of his bank accounts and making extravagant expenditures for his own benefit. Reports say that in court he is more annoyed than afraid: "Yes, I went to two beautiful resorts of the Costa Smeralda with PdL money. The regional election campaign left me exhausted and depressed. I needed a big vacation". Fiorito is now lashing out at other PdL councillors: "There are eight thieves. I didn't steal, I distributed the money." [more inside]
posted by Marauding Ennui at 5:46 AM PST - 20 comments

The Sponsor Effect: Breaking through the Last Glass Ceiling (pdf) Women aren't making it to the top. Despite gains in middle and senior management, they hold just 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions. In the C-suite, they're outnumbered four to one. What's keeping women under the glass ceiling? High-performing women simply don't have the sponsorship they need to reach the top. The study found that women underestimate the role sponsorship plays in their advancement. And those who do grasp its importance fail to cultivate it. It's also a classic catch-22: a woman's personal choices, whatever they may be, brand her as not quite leadership material. What will it take to promote sponsorship?
posted by infini at 3:18 AM PST - 33 comments

Having dealt with the pressing problem of what to do with all the bodies following a nuclear attack and looked into whether the bureaucracy would survive, Restricted Data moves on to the big question: Can Beer Survive A Nuclear Apocalypse?.
posted by Hobo at 1:39 AM PST - 25 comments

In Bike-Friendly Copenhagen, Highways For Cyclists: 'Every day, one-third of the people of Copenhagen ride their bikes to work or school. Collectively, they cycle more than 750,000 miles daily, enough to make it to the moon and back. And city officials want even more people to commute, and over longer distances. So a network of 26 new bike routes, dubbed "the cycling superhighway," is being built to link the surrounding suburbs to Copenhagen.'
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:54 PM PST - 58 comments

The campaigns they chose to run, and the way they decided to run them, shaped the history of California, and of the country. - The history of Campaigns, Inc., the "first political-consulting firm in the history of the world" which morphed into the precursor for our modern lobbying firms (although they preferred the term "grassroots organizers").
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:32 PM PST - 7 comments

Three cute shorts from the Bellecour School of Art's 3D graphics program: Boringtown (3:38), about three youths who battle monsters; Monsterbox (7:38), about a little girl, her monsters, and a kind old garden shop keeper; and Destiny (5:26), about a fellow and his relationship with time. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:22 PM PST - 4 comments

The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History uses the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection as the starting point for a deeply informative, chronologically arranged exploration of world art history, with maps, timelines, art images, thematic essays, and more.
posted by Miko at 8:25 PM PST - 7 comments

A Conservative History of the United States - Jack Hitt for New Yorker's Shouts & Murmurs, pieces together America's storied history from quotes by Rick Perry, Dick Armey, Mike Huckabee, Dan Quayle and more.
posted by The Whelk at 5:16 PM PST - 151 comments

Brian Eno and Rick Wakeman take you on a voyage around the synthesizer: Part 1, Part 2
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 4:38 PM PST - 21 comments

The Canine in Converstaion: Dogs in Metaphor and Idiom Illustrated. A Compendium of Words and Phrases Referring to Dogs
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:27 PM PST - 8 comments

Epic Gallery: 150 Years Of Lesbians And Other Lady-Loving-Ladies (Some pics slightly NSFW) "Honestly before tumblr it was difficult to find very much lesbian imagery at all online — it was always the same ten or twelve stock photos — let alone pictures of lesbians taken prior to 2000. I wanted to see an evolution of our community, how we'd grown and changed over the years — and not just in a montage of famous out actresses and models, but pictures of actual people, pictures of women who were active in the community — regular human beings, writers and social activists."
posted by ColdChef at 2:40 PM PST - 47 comments

Google makes great maps. But Apple and Google aren't getting along well. So in its new iOS 6, Apple dropped all Google mapping tech in favor of its own Maps app that it promised would "blow your head off". Some people like it. Others don't. But the numbers are that 63 countries with a combined population of 4.5 billion people will lose at least one of the traffic, transit, or street views they had before. And even arch-supporter John Gruber acknowledges " the maps experience in iOS 6 is a downgrade". Google may produce an official Google Maps app for iOS. Then again, they may not.
posted by Egg Shen at 1:10 PM PST - 552 comments

From 1967-1968, Dr. Bill Podlich took a leave of absence from Arizona State University to join UNESCO, teaching in the Higher Teachers College of Kabul, Afghanistan. He took many photographs.
posted by ChuraChura at 12:35 PM PST - 14 comments

In the 16 years since Into Thin Air, Mount Everest has become safer in many ways, with better storm forecasting and amazing high-altitude rescue helicopters. So why did 10 people die in 2012?
posted by Chrysostom at 12:35 PM PST - 70 comments

The unexpectedly fascinating story of pantyhose in wartime, via Smithsonian Magazine (part 1, part 2).
posted by mudpuppie at 12:33 PM PST - 4 comments

What are the most common and least common 4-digit PINs? Using data from recent password database leaks, an analysis of PINs. (via Schneier)
posted by fings at 12:11 PM PST - 89 comments

Levi van Veluw* has taken his self-portraiture to the next level by bringing his family into the picture. "Portrayed in this piece is a room with 5 persons sitting at a table.... The endless repetition of wooden blocks stands for van Veluw’s attempts to gain control of his own position within the familial structure."
posted by carsonb at 12:08 PM PST - 8 comments

A Hearing for Vavilov is an essay by Stephen Jay Gould excerpted from his 1983 book Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, in which he describes the disastrous consequences of allowing ideology rather than evidence to dictate policy. The story concerns Russian geneticist Nikolai Vavilov (previously) and his nemesis, the pseudoscientist Trofim Lysenko whose work served as the foundation for Lysenkoism, a body of research and policy which set back biology in Russia by decades and caused agricultural disaster in the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century.
posted by Scientist at 11:53 AM PST - 11 comments

Proof that cats are better than dogs. Please do not allow your dog to watch this, it will depress the dog. Your cat, however, will just sit and nod it's head knowingly.
posted by HuronBob at 11:39 AM PST - 61 comments

Paul Thomas 'The Master' Anderson or Paul WS 'Resident Evil 5' Anderson... who's the best? There's only one way to find out... ask Armond White
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:19 AM PST - 56 comments

MUSLIM RAGE! in response to an alarmist Newsweek cover: 13 beautiful photos of Muslim "rage," a few round-ups of #MuslimRage and a brief history of hysterical Newsweek covers. [via Making Light]
posted by straight at 10:13 AM PST - 178 comments

Art history students at Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD University) are required to purchase a $180 textbook with no pictures. In place of images, the book has empty boxes with instructions to look up the images online. [more inside]
posted by oulipian at 9:51 AM PST - 85 comments

Science of Eating Disorders is a blog is dedicated to making peer-reviewed eating disorder research more accessible to the public.
posted by hermitosis at 9:05 AM PST - 11 comments

Following on the heels of a bloody summer in Chicago, Vice Magazine has partnered with CeaseFire for a new documentary on violence interrupters. The purpose of this documentary? To help promote Bethseda software's new videogame, Eye for an Eye, based on revenge killing. Previous work on this subject includes The Interrupters, which did not have a videogame tie-in.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:41 AM PST - 23 comments

Trains in Switzerland's Ticino canton filmed with tilt-shift lenses: Gottardo Nord & Gottardo Sud.
posted by jontyjago at 8:35 AM PST - 12 comments

Gokicha, a four-panel manga about the troubled life of a cute cockroach girl, has received an anime adaptation. The first episode features newspapers, cats, and human kindness.
posted by 23 at 8:03 AM PST - 9 comments

Chick-fil-A (previously), after negotiations with The Civil Rights Agenda's Alderman Joe Moreno, has apparently confirmed that they will no longer give money to anti-gay organizations.
posted by Maaik at 8:03 AM PST - 103 comments

Tonight, two new fall shows premiere: Mob Doctor, which is about a doctor who works for the mob, and Revolution, which is about a devastating global power outage and — more than that — a revolution. Neither of these shows particularly requires your attention, but taken together, they emphasize that essentially, all you need to make a show is the right combination of title-friendly words. In fact, if you take the correct 25 words, you can combine them (often in either order!) to create all the television we will see in the next ten years.
posted by malapropist at 3:53 AM PST - 106 comments

Click and Drag. And if you've worn out your mouse / trackpad, then here's some Spoilers.
posted by zoo at 2:27 AM PST - 95 comments

The Attention Deficit Designer, by Jon Winebrenner
posted by infini at 10:21 PM PST - 25 comments

Allegations have surfaced that a Wikipedia trustee and a Wikipedian In Residence have been editing the online encyclopedia on behalf of PR clients, while running an SEO business on the side. Response. Trigger warning: Violet Blue content.
posted by unSane at 9:42 PM PST - 73 comments

Mentos + Coke + Condom. SLYT. Safe for work, unless you're against balloons.
posted by Apropos of Something at 7:31 PM PST - 32 comments

Randy Newman released a new song today. Though he's best known for his film scores these days, he's done social commentary through song for decades. He's sung about the foreign policy, immigration, the environment, race, history, and predjudice. This isn't his first song about the president.
posted by fzx101 at 6:54 PM PST - 61 comments

In 2003, the BBC reported that a population explosion of Great Gerbils had destroyed more than 4 million hectares of grasslands in China's north-western Xinjiang region -- an area about the size of Switzerland. By 2005 the damage covered 5 million hectares, and the Xinjuang Regional Headquarters for Controlling Locusts and Rodents were reported to be breeding and attracting pairs of golden eagles to curb the gerbil population. So McSweeney's Joshuah Bearman was assigned to the story. His report: An Investigation Into Xinjiang's Growing Swarm of Great Gerbils, Which May or May Not be Locked in a Death-Struggle With the Golden Eagle, With Important Parallels and/or Implications Regarding Koala Bears, The Pied Piper, Spongmonkeys, Cane Toads, Black Death, [and] Text-Messaging..
posted by zarq at 6:28 PM PST - 38 comments

"Revolution" seems a little too much like "Powerless." Indie television proof-of-concept pilot "Powerless" is "about a trio who are in the woods when an unexplained and unexpected event causes electricity the world over to suddenly disappear." The pilot is submitted to a 2011 television festival where it is seen by studio executives. Then, "come February 2012, NBC picks up [a] mystery high concept pilot and reveals it's called 'Revolution' and the high concept is: An adventure series in a world suddenly and inexplicably without power." [more inside]
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:06 PM PST - 150 comments

From Martha Kemper at RH Reality Check, Vaginas Are Sperm Depositories and Other Scary Things About the State of New York's Sex Ed Curricula, a commentary on the New York Civil Liberties Union's recent report on the state of health education and sex ed in schools in New York state. [more inside]
posted by not that girl at 4:59 PM PST - 29 comments

A festival of indie creativity in Portland, Oregon, XOXO was Kickstartered into existence as an alternative to SXSW and sold out in just over two days. Its speakers spoke of a new kind of individual creative entrepreneurship enabled by technology, and included Dan Harmon, Adam Savage, MakerBot's Bre Prettis (previously) and MeFi's own mathowie, while its attendees were a kind of who's-who of the Internet. Anil Dash wrote up every session, and you can pre-order videos on the main site.
posted by bwerdmuller at 4:58 PM PST - 12 comments

Yesterday, a cello was stolen from the San Francisco conservatory. Today, the musician's dad is trying to use surveillance pics and a Reddit post to find the thieves. The Huffington Post has since picked up the photos as well. Will crowd-sourced crime solving work?
posted by kellybird at 4:47 PM PST - 32 comments

"Hey, isn't this where they shot that scene from..."
posted by griphus at 3:36 PM PST - 54 comments

"A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: 'Jesus said to them, "My wife ... '" [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 3:21 PM PST - 91 comments

What is the smallest prime? "It seems that the number two should be the obvious answer, and today it is, but it was not always so. There were times when and mathematicians for whom the numbers one and three were acceptable answers. To find the first prime, we must also know what the first positive integer is. Surprisingly, with the definitions used at various times throughout history, one was often not the first positive integer (some started with two, and a few with three). In this article, we survey the history of the primality of one, from the ancient Greeks to modern times. We will discuss some of the reasons definitions changed, and provide several examples. We will also discuss the last significant mathematicians to list the number one as prime."
posted by escabeche at 1:42 PM PST - 61 comments

What do you do when you can't get enough of a television show that doesn't exist, yet has an extraordinary 50 years of backstory and history? If you're Travis Richey, the answer is, you create: UNTITLED WEB SERIES ABOUT A SPACE TRAVELER WHO CAN ALSO TRAVEL THROUGH TIME. Episodes 1 and 2 are now showing, as well as a behind-the-scenes "confidential" episode.
posted by jbickers at 12:51 PM PST - 38 comments

... a new EPUB export feature has been enabled on English Wikipedia. You can use it to collate your personal collection of Wikipedia articles and generate free ebooks. These can be read on a broad range of devices, like mobile phones, tablets and e-ink based e-book readers. ... Collections can be exported in a variety of formats like PDF, EPUB, or OpenOffice.
posted by Egg Shen at 12:40 PM PST - 24 comments

Internet Poetry publishes poetry as gifs, screenshots, image macros, and other internet-based forms!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:55 AM PST - 8 comments

"Meet Your Creator" is a stage show involving mirrors and light and quadrotors.
posted by brundlefly at 11:44 AM PST - 7 comments

"The coach [of the University of Arkansas Cheerleaders] would offer "no special consideration" here. Beard would have to do all the stunts, and do them perfectly. There would be no charity for Patience." Patience Beard, an amputee since the age of 9 months, a fresh graduate of a Texarkana high school, refused to be dissuaded. Instead, she went out and did what she did best, and made the team. [more inside]
posted by Atreides at 11:34 AM PST - 21 comments

Filmmaker, football ambassador, part-time poet, creator of a music video genre and NFL films president Steve Sabol has passed away at the age of 69. The winner of 40 Emmys, Sabol made arguably the single biggest impact on the mythology of American football, completely changing the way the sport was covered and photographed.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:16 AM PST - 33 comments

When it came time to make Aimee Mann's new video for the song Labrador, director Tom Scharpling dragged a reluctant Aimee Mann into making a shot-for-shot remake of the 1985 video for 'til tuesday's Voices Carry. The results are even funnier if you watch the original video immediately afterwards.
posted by jonp72 at 11:05 AM PST - 73 comments

Jeans. Jeans. Jeans. JEANS! (via)
posted by mrgrimm at 10:30 AM PST - 18 comments

Stealing magic has become a commonplace crime. Teller, a man of infinite delicacy and deceit, decided to do something about it. Putative thief, Gerard Bakardy, tells the story differently.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:26 AM PST - 82 comments

Once upon a time, there was a wizard who knew what Heaven and Hell looked like.

On Joseph Michael Gandy (1771 – 1843), the architect's assistant who painted palaces that never were and ruins that had yet to be. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 9:57 AM PST - 14 comments

Well-known and quintessentially American poet Louis Simpson has died at the age of 89.
posted by aught at 9:46 AM PST - 12 comments

A gallery of ghost signs.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:44 AM PST - 22 comments

While the 2007 IPCC report showed Arctic sea-ice still present in 2100, it is now an unfolding "global disaster" according to Cambridge Professor Peter Wadhams. Climate Code Red summarizes the science, saying the sea-ice is "in a 'death spiral' and likely to be gone in summer within a few years" ... "The sea-ice volume is now down to just one-fifth of what it was in 1979", and paints a newly emerging, rapidly worsening climate picture, urging climate scientists to sound the alarm on new data showing a world on the brink of dramatic tipping points, far sooner than anyone anticipated
posted by crayz at 9:05 AM PST - 215 comments

Beautiful images from the USSR. Someone has scanned over 10,000 photos from the Soviet Union. Sources seem to be mainly the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Soviet Life magazine and catalogs and magazines. [more inside]
posted by k8t at 8:37 AM PST - 13 comments

35 years ago today, Voyager 1 transmitted three images which NASA processed into a single frame of Earth and its moon. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 6:48 AM PST - 49 comments

A data visualization reveals the gender bias in thousands of Wikipedia articles. [more inside]
posted by dontjumplarry at 6:26 AM PST - 49 comments

The working week of a commercial pilot as seen from the cockpit A timelapse video showing takeoffs and landings from the pilot's perspective. Complete with squashed insects on the windscreen.
posted by jontyjago at 5:33 AM PST - 32 comments

The McAllen, TX Public Library won a 'Best-Of-Category' award in Interior Design for its new layout. It's in an abandoned Wal-Mart. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:27 AM PST - 37 comments

When worker honeybees change jobs their DNA changes. The DNA change seems reversible and epigenetic in nature.
posted by aleph at 2:14 AM PST - 27 comments

Depth of Speed is a web series of videos that try to capture the essence of what it means to love cars. while there are so many corners of the internet dedicated to one brand, type, or model of car, Josh Clason sought out a diversity of machinery. from british sports cars to bikes, both human and gasoline powered. even a 1957 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. with cinematography at times stunning, visceral, emotional, and raw, these short films go right into the heart of what motivates people to turn wrenches and burn endless hours in pursuit of a true passion. [more inside]
posted by ninjew at 1:23 AM PST - 21 comments

"I don't see anything anti-American about not wanting to become an American citizen; it's similar to the fact that I don't know how to swim. I'm not anti-water; it just never mattered that much to me and my life is fine without it." Why I'm Still Not An American, an essay from a British green-card-holder with complex roots and complex feelings.
posted by Phire at 11:33 PM PST - 65 comments

Welcome to the Champion Spotlight, featuring Sejuani, the Winter's Claw Wrath. Sejuani is a sub par tanker with terrible AP scaling and... no rider. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 11:27 PM PST - 20 comments

Two old sheets of paper tell a story. Scroll down to the last big paragraph of the blog post, just above the photo of the two yellowed sheets of paper. (h/t Jane H.)
posted by brianstorms at 10:26 PM PST - 10 comments

Maciej (previously: 1, 2) tells the story of his girlfriend's struggle with disease and her friend Stephanie, before the entire story goes sideways.
posted by mathowie at 10:10 PM PST - 76 comments

The Popinator - a voice activated popcorn launching machine. Kinda cool, but my money's still on the robotic tweet powered popper. (via @peeweeherman and keepoutofreach)
posted by madamjujujive at 9:54 PM PST - 11 comments

You know how Jon Stewart shows politicians contradicting themselves on news clips? Do it yourself by searching a giant database of TV transcripts and video on Internet Archive. The collection now contains 350,000 news programs collected since 2009 from national U.S. networks and stations. The archive is updated with new broadcasts 24 hours after they are aired. Older materials are being added. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 7:19 PM PST - 22 comments

CHESS MOVES [27m14s] was a 1985 VHS release hosted by Sir Tim Rice comprising of the five music videos made to promote the 1984 album Chess. The individual videos are One Night In Bangkok (Murray Head), Nobody's Side (Elaine Paige), The Arbiter (Björn Skifs), I Know Him So Well (Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson), and Pity The Child (Murray Head). [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 6:36 PM PST - 48 comments

How child molesters get away with it. 'Jerry Sandusky and the Mind of a Pedophile,' by Malcolm Gladwell. Some may find the descriptions within the article disturbing. Via.
posted by zarq at 5:43 PM PST - 44 comments

Do you like biology? Do you like numbers? Like, actual numbers and not the television show? Take a look at BioNumbers. [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:34 PM PST - 10 comments

As internal leaks from the Romney camp suggest a campaign in serious disarray, and poll-of-polls meta-analyses show him with little time to recover his position before November, Mother Jones has acquired video from a private Romney fundraiser at which the candidate said of Obama supporters: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. Ezra Klein puts aside the political ramifications and crunches the numbers about who does and doesn't pay income tax in America. The Romney camp responds to the leak.
posted by gerryblog at 4:00 PM PST - 5751 comments

RidePost is a trusted ridesharing community where travelers meet and share rides across the U.S. It’s a friendlier way to travel—one that’s good for the environment, good for your wallet, and great for getting to know new people. It's a peer-to-peer ridesharing platform connecting those who need a ride with drivers who have extra space in their car. They are partnered with TrustCloud, another startup that assigns a “Trust Score” to individuals, to help increase security for both drivers and passengers.
posted by netbros at 2:45 PM PST - 12 comments

The Russian Institute of Geology and Mineralogy announced an allegedly previously undisclosed 60-mile-wide field of "trillions of carats" of impact diamonds caused by a metor strike into graphite rock in Siberia. The media is reporting that this has been known about since the 70s but undisclosed, but this is misleading. As detailed by Vishnevsky [academic summary PDF], for example, the presence of large amounts of impact diamonds within the impactites was very well known; it is perhaps better to say that the market-distorting sheer yield of the field (around an order of magnitude of increase over known reserves) had not previously been discussed. The diamonds produced by such high temperatures and pressures are around twice as tough as normal diamonds, and the extreme hardness and compartively cheap availibility is likely to hugely widen the usage of industrial diamonds even setting aside the gemstone issues. This does however put the 2011 sale of the Oppenheimer family 40 per cent stake in De Beers in an interesting light, especially as the field at once offers the prospect of huge diamond stones whilst devaluing De Beers' existing stockpile hugely.
posted by jaduncan at 2:24 PM PST - 48 comments

Nature constantly engineers new and creative solutions to all sorts of problems—turning our stereotypes about sex upside-down along the way.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:33 PM PST - 15 comments

Tisha UnArmed was born without arms. In a series of videos she shows how she gets dressed, puts on makeup, showers, drives, eats a sandwich and sushi and a lot more. She also talks about her condition and requests questions. (MLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:08 PM PST - 44 comments

Computer Timesharing Systems Explained parts 1 and 2. [more inside]
posted by Ad hominem at 12:58 PM PST - 28 comments

The Bionic Wiki is a collaborative project to create the most comprehensive information database for the Bionic universe as presented in the 1970's science-fiction, action-adventure series, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 11:39 AM PST - 43 comments

Director and/or star of many of the greatest films ever made including The Great Dictator (2:05:16) [Globe scene and the eternally goosebump providing Final speech], The Immigrant (20:01), The Gold Rush (1:11:49), City Lights (1:22:40), Modern Times (1:27:01), and Monsieur Verdoux (1:59:03), Charlie Chaplin's movies have entered the public domain in most countries. Below the fold is an annotated list of all 82 of his official short and feature films in chronological order, as well as several more, with links to where you can watch them; it's not like you had work to do right? [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 11:27 AM PST - 34 comments

"... bitterness, instead of a form of disillusionment, is really the refusal to give up your childhood illusions of importance" - Brian Jay Stanley
posted by mrgrimm at 9:11 AM PST - 99 comments

Scuba diving... with wheelchair. slyt
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 8:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Ben Folds Five and the Fraggles: Do It Anyway (SLYT Music Video)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:36 AM PST - 35 comments

"This is what anti-racism looks like. Equal opportunities are not handed down from on high by Westminster bureaucrats; they have been fought for by ordinary men and women. Even at its peak, the BNP never spoke for anywhere near the majority of working-class white people – in Dagenham, or anywhere else. Daniel Trilling, in The Guardian on Ten myths of the UK's far right. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 8:33 AM PST - 26 comments

Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni's kidnappers were convicted by a Hamas-run military court in the Gaza Strip today for their involvement in the abduction and murder of the Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni in April 2011. [more inside]
posted by aqsakal at 8:24 AM PST - 2 comments

The Dwarves^NSFW have been playing their variety of shockpunk for more than 25 years. Their stage shows^NSFW and album covers^NSFW are infamous for their nudity, dwarfsploitation, and glorification of violence (though they only manage #8 on the list of 10 most offensive punk rock album covers of all time^{oh so very NSFW}). And yet, despite the fact that sock rock does not traditionally demand much musically, they are really frigging amazing^{SFW, SFW, NSFW}.
posted by 256 at 8:24 AM PST - 27 comments

In January 2012, the whitewashed live-action Akira remake was shut down for the fourth time, after years of on-and-off interest in the remake. In the months following, storyboard illustrations from various iterations and artists have popped up, including illustrations by Sylvain Despretz showing a blond Kaneda, artist Jeffrey Errico shared his opening scene storyboards, and artist Chris Weston posted his more detailed drawings of the hospital scene and other scenes. Compare and contrast with the art of Akira (twice previously), and the art in the original manga.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:19 AM PST - 64 comments

In 1994, theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a scheme for virtual faster than light travel using a real-world analog to the familiar science fiction trope known as "Warp Drive." The basic premise exploited certain space-time warping effects predicted by General Relativity to fold space-time, theoretically allowing a specially designed space craft to reach distant destinations effectively at FTL speeds without actually having to accelerate to light speed or beyond at all. There was, however, at least one major problem with the proposal: The math suggested it would require as much energy as the mass of the planet Jupiter to power the thing. But according to newer calculations based on a modified version of Alcubierre's original proposal, warp speed travel may now theoretically be within reach (warning: eyeball-gouging Space.com link), requiring drastically less energy than originally thought. Of course, not everyone's convinced there's anything to see here. And even so, prohibitive energy input requirements may not be the only serious challenge facing the development of real-world warp drive technology, so don't go packing your bags for that long overdue vacation to Risa just yet.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:58 AM PST - 73 comments

The Loneliest Whale.
posted by zoo at 2:41 AM PST - 62 comments

arrrrr lass , so what do ye do when yer a pirate scavvie and want to spread yer music? of course, you release yer album on the pirate bay!
posted by xcasex at 1:44 AM PST - 6 comments

The Monkees' 1968 film 'Head' [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 1:24 AM PST - 34 comments

"The Republicans’ dominance in races throughout the country in the 2010 elections eviscerated the Democrats’ farm teams in state after state." Former Bill Clinton political director Doug Sosnik offers an 8-page analysis of the U.S. election that discusses the likelihood of an Obama win, the chances of a complete Republican takeover of Congress, continued Republican dominance of governorships and state legislatures for the rest of the decade, and more. There's also a related slideshow. [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 12:57 AM PST - 83 comments

Celebrity Pu$$y (SLTumblr)[via]
posted by benzenedream at 10:48 PM PST - 32 comments

Is poverty a kind of robbery?
posted by deathpanels at 10:36 PM PST - 137 comments

"When it debuts this month, it will make [Mindy] Kaling one of the only women of color to be both the face of and the creative force behind a network TV show. Every detail of this set, not to mention every word of every script, has had to pass through Kaling’s brain and reflect her unique worldview as a self-described “chubby” 33-year-old Indian-American female comic by way of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Dartmouth College; and eight years as both a writer and a cast member on NBC’s The Office."
posted by vidur at 8:30 PM PST - 46 comments

I Was Climbin The Stairs At Machu Picchu / Found My Cellphone And Tried To Reach You. Chester, Nova Scotia's Old Man Luedecke does what he does best: strums a banjo and tells some wandering stories, live at Toronto's Great Hall. Also in his backyard. On his davenport. In the bathtub. Sometimes he does covers. Sometimes he makes them more interesting by translating them into a language he doesn't speak.
posted by mannequito at 6:50 PM PST - 7 comments

The Wire's "100 Records That Set The World On Fire (While No One Was Listening) + extra 30 Records" [more inside]
posted by unSane at 6:40 PM PST - 76 comments

Gambling For Kids: A How To Guide - a discussion of claw games, Panini sticker books, and in-app purchases in free-to-play games for kids.
posted by Artw at 4:48 PM PST - 21 comments

Willy Bum Bum. Not safe for anything, really (cartoon willies and bums).
posted by cmoj at 4:35 PM PST - 52 comments

When volunteers and employees were suspected of sexually abusing children, Boy Scout officials often didn't tell police, files from 1970-91 reveal. A Los Angeles Times review of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 has found that Scouting officials frequently urged admitted offenders to quietly resign — and helped many cover their tracks.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:03 PM PST - 106 comments

The Ronnie Horror Picture Show In December of 1980, in the wake the election of Ronald Reagan, ABC's SNL-wannabe/rival Fridays diverted from its usual format to run an extended skit (at 20 minutes it may be the longest sketch ever performed) commenting on it all in a very ambitious spoof of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The Ronnie Horror Picture Show (featuring a young Michael Richards in the role of Brad) is an abridged version of the Rocky Horror tale mapped to a the era-shift from the liberal late 70s to the much more conservative early 80s. It's definitely a time capsule and and interesting window into that specific moment's attitudes. [more inside]
posted by Senor Cardgage at 12:50 PM PST - 46 comments

American Gladiators: "The masochistic sport of obstacle racing has exploded in popularity. Nick Heil tries to understand why so many are signing up for the misery." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:10 AM PST - 49 comments

It's been an Epileptic Trees theory since the 1890s: Given that in some reports (and subsequent productions) Cordelia and the fool in Shakespeare's King Lear are played by the same person, some theorists believe the Fool is either a stand-in for her, some sort of spiritual doppelganger, or literally just Cordelia pretending to be the Fool to be close to her Dad, and even to save him. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:03 AM PST - 26 comments

If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become Deadpool vs. Gangnam Style [more inside]
posted by jason's_planet at 11:00 AM PST - 44 comments

Question 3 is a Massachusetts ballot initiative concerning the legalization of marijuana for medical use. There are some organizations opposed to the initiative, who failed to register certain domain names. The Massachusetts voter's guide accidentally directed voters to one of the unclaimed domains, now the satirical VoteNoOnQuestion3.org
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:38 AM PST - 43 comments

District of Columbia government launches Trans* Respect ad campaign. First in the United States.
posted by floatboth at 10:22 AM PST - 44 comments

The New Dressmaker; With complete and fully illustrated instructions on every point connected with sewing, dressmaking and tailoring, from the actual stitches to the cutting, making, altering, mending, and cleaning of clothes for ladies, misses, girls, children, infants, men and boys; The Butterick Publishing Co., 1921; 168 p. illus. [more inside]
posted by applemeat at 9:40 AM PST - 12 comments

Why We Fight is a series of seven documentary films commissioned by the United States government during World War II whose purpose was to show American soldiers the reason for U.S. involvement in the war. Later on they were also shown to the general U.S. public to persuade them to support American involvement in the war. Each of them is in the common domain having been produced by the US government, available online, and linked below the fold: [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 9:12 AM PST - 24 comments

A wristwatch for NASA's curiosity team. What do you do when you are supposed to show up for work 39 minutes later than you did the previous day? You commission a special wristwatch to keep you on time.
posted by fieldcannotbeblank at 8:20 AM PST - 44 comments

We recently discussed which candidates you might vote for in historical elections, but Josh Fruhlinger (of the Comics Curmudgeon [previously] and [citation needed] [previously]) offers the chance to answer a somewhat different question: which Presidents should hook up? Hail to the Slash (NSFW text - and maybe logo - but hey, it's Sunday!) [more inside]
posted by solotoro at 2:31 AM PST - 24 comments

Interest rate swap derivatives have not only turned sour for local governments and agencies across the United States. London-based banks are accused of massive mis-selling to dozens of Italian cities and regions. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:32 PM PST - 60 comments

Talking Heads, Live in Rome, 1980 The Talking Heads concert film you haven't seen: the show that would eventually be recorded in the (awesome) concert film Stop Making Sense 3 years later, recorded while it was still a bit weird and uncertain. And therefore, wonderful. [more inside]
posted by BoringPostcards at 6:57 PM PST - 67 comments

A frog catching bugs on a touchscreen. I won't spoil the ending for you.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:53 PM PST - 49 comments

Hotel and restaurant menus of the 1850s and 1860s. Via.
posted by Rykey at 5:52 PM PST - 60 comments

"If I had felt any unease that I was potentially exploiting a horrible situation for personal gain, it was short-lived. The next four months were the most stressful, difficult, and dangerous of my life until that point, and probably—hopefully—ever. ... On December 31, 2004, I achieved a couple of significant milestones: I made my final student loan payment, and I had a positive net worth for the first time in my adult life. Mortars, rockets, and car bombs aside, that was pretty satisfying."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:10 PM PST - 33 comments

Rufus the Cat had to get some painful ear drops and was feeling pretty stroppy about it so his owner decided to build him a magnificent cardboard box tower to lift his spirits.
posted by The Whelk at 3:56 PM PST - 76 comments

In 1984, British synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys released the first version of West End Girls (which after being rerecorded would arguably become one of the first #1 rap records). As a b-side, they included Pet Shop Boys, an eponymous track largely created by their (then) producer Bobby Orlando. This was only the first in a career-long focus on b-side tracks that continues to this day... [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:52 PM PST - 59 comments

Amid all the problems, the PirateBay celebrated its 9th birthday today with an ode to yaargh!
posted by ding-dong at 10:55 AM PST - 27 comments

First published in 1997, Anne Fadiman's book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a chronicle of a Hmong refugee family's interactions with the American medical system in the face of a child's devastating illness, has become highly recommended, if not required, reading for many medical students and health care professionals, over the past 15 years quietly changing how young doctors approach patients from different cultures. On August 31, with little publicity, Lia Lee, the young girl who inspired the book, after living most of her life in a persistent vegetative state, quietly died [NYT obit].
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:52 AM PST - 76 comments

Children's author Judy Blume writes about her struggle with breast cancer: "As I've told my friends who've also been treated for breast cancer, I've joined The Club - not one I wanted to join or even thought I would ever be joining - but here I am."
posted by Fizz at 8:37 AM PST - 15 comments

After years of severe setbacks, plans gone awry, limited backdoor entry, millions of dollars spent lobbying and a truculent audience, Wal-Mart finally gets a green signal for the Indian market. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced lifting of restrictions on foreign investment in India's retail and aviation sectors as an economic boost. Many are sceptical. The truculence remains. What happens next?
posted by infini at 8:07 AM PST - 25 comments

The Fake-Pot Industry Is Coming Down From a Three-Year High - a fascinating read on the multibillion-dollar "herbal incense" business and its latest legal woes after the introduction of more severe legislation on synthetic cannabinoids. Featuring the rise and downfall of Mr. Nice Guy, rogue chemists, warehouses exploding, DEA undercover operations and "the Saul Goodmans of synthetic cannabinoids" - two attorneys specialized in providing "Cutting Edge In Incense Testing and Compliance" services to manufacturers to help them "stay one step ahead of the law". (via longform) [more inside]
posted by bitteschoen at 7:27 AM PST - 37 comments

Wired talks to William Gibson: on Why Sci-Fi Writers Are (Thankfully) Almost Always Wrong, on Twitter, Antique Watches and Internet Obsessions, and and on Punk Rock, Internet Memes, and ‘Gangnam Style’.
posted by Artw at 7:02 AM PST - 55 comments

Suddenly That Summer: It was billed as “the Summer of Love,” a blast of glamour, ecstasy, and Utopianism that drew some 75,000 young people to the San Francisco streets in 1967. Who were the true movers behind the Haight-Ashbury happening that turned America on to a whole new age? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:30 AM PST - 48 comments

Quiet at the back: classrooms around the world – in pictures From the Russian pupils in Prada to the Nigerian children who sit four to a desk, photographer Julian Germain takes us on a journey around the world's classrooms
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:53 AM PST - 46 comments

David Mitchell discusses the second series of Downton Abbey.
posted by nadawi at 10:04 PM PST - 67 comments

What Will the 'Phone' of 2022 Look Like? "Is the iPhone 5 the last phone? Not the last phone in a literal sense, but this is the apotheosis of this device we would call a phone...It's not clear to me that there is any such device as the phone in 2022. Already, telephony has become a feature and not even a frequently used feature of those things we put in our pockets." [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 9:43 PM PST - 93 comments

A Very Serious Wrestling Match. Courtesy of the fine athletes of CHIKARA Pro.
posted by mightygodking at 9:42 PM PST - 17 comments

Caine's Arcade 2 (SLYT) Previously on Mefi
posted by special-k at 8:40 PM PST - 13 comments

From Russia With Love is not unsophisticated. You are. Matt Zoller Seitz on whether older films are corny. [the comments are also worth a read]
posted by shakespeherian at 6:56 PM PST - 199 comments

Who's More Full of Shit? Aggregates Politifact ratings and identifies which politicians, pundits and media figures lie most often. [via mefi projects]
posted by JHarris at 6:31 PM PST - 32 comments

The Calgary Zoo's Gorillas Entertained by Caterpillar (or at least they look at it for forty seconds). SLYT.
posted by stebulus at 5:56 PM PST - 25 comments

Moby-Dick Big Read: 135 chapters over 135 days, as read by David Cameron, John Waters, Stephen Fry, David Attenborough, Simon Callow and many others. Today the first of sailing a bit around the world.
posted by stbalbach at 5:52 PM PST - 37 comments

The alphaDictionary Historical Dictionary of American Slang presents a unique way for studying slang. It contains over 2200 slang words with the centuries in which they were first printed. The dates were taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, the Online Etymological Dictionary, or the earliest occurrences the editors can remember. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 5:42 PM PST - 8 comments

Roger Ebert on the set of Barfly. [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 5:27 PM PST - 21 comments

The makers of Galaxy Zoo are not satisfied with classifying the cold depths of space. They also want to classify the slightly less cold depths of the ocean, with Seafloor Explorer, where anyone and everyone can help find and identify scallops, sea stars, crustaceans, and Other on various parts of the Atlantic ocean floor. Rarely there are fish. Often, there is sand. It seems to go on forever and often is full of starfish. [more inside]
posted by cmyk at 3:14 PM PST - 13 comments

Who's the most interesting speaker at this year's Values Voter Summit? It's almost certainly "former terrorist" Kamal Saleem, who claims to have smuggled weapons in to the United States and carried out missions for the likes of Yasser Arafat, Moammar Gadhafi, and Saddam Hussein before finding Christ and founding his ministry. He's appeared on The 700 Club, spoken at the Air Force Academy, and written a memoir, but Kamal might not have the history he claims to [more inside]
posted by 0xFCAF at 2:39 PM PST - 64 comments

Black Mesa, the fan-made total conversion of the original Half-Life game to the Source engine - complete with totally updated graphics - was released today. Launch trailer, wiki, and Reddit thread with updated torrent info (direct download is evidently proving very sluggish).
posted by jbickers at 1:41 PM PST - 92 comments

N Is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős is a 1993 documentary directed by George Paul Csicsery about the life of mathematician Paul Erdős. Paul Erdős (26 March 1913 -- 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. Erdős published more papers than any other mathematician in history, working with hundreds of collaborators. He worked on problems in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, classical analysis, approximation theory, set theory, and probability theory. He is also known for his "legendarily eccentric" personality. (Previously he was mostly a number)
posted by Obscure Reference at 12:51 PM PST - 19 comments

The Most Interesting Wine Man in the World? Maybe. Maybe not. But Paso Wine Man is not from France or Northern California. Paso Wine is from a winemaking region 100 miles west of Bakersfield and 30 miles east of Hearst Castle*. Proud winemakers with a sense of humor who introduced Paso Wine Man with an Old-Spice-esque video for the spring Zinfandel Festival. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:24 PM PST - 13 comments

Pretty cute job description.
posted by mrfuga0 at 12:06 PM PST - 66 comments

LA : What's that smell? The Salton Sea! [more inside]
posted by Afroblanco at 10:16 AM PST - 45 comments

With negotiations between management and the Indianapolis Symphony musicians hitting a standstill, one of the few remaining full time orchestras in the country has been locked out. [more inside]
posted by themadthinker at 10:08 AM PST - 31 comments

About 800 meters (a half mile) above sea level is Grüner See (Google maps), or Green Lake, fairly centrally located in Austria. Named for the emerald green color of the lake, which is the setting for nice hiking trails, camping and fishing in the fall and early spring when the water is lowest (Google auto-translate, original Austrian site), and a popular cold water diving location in the late spring through summer as snow melts and increases the water depth up to 12 meters (~ 40 ft), submerging trees for a few months, allowing you to swim around park benches, over hiking trails and past fish (Vimeo | more videos).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Mysteries of Vernacular is a series of delightful papercraft animations about etymology, by filmmaker Jessica Oreck. Four of a projected 26 videos, one for each letter of the alphabet, have been completed so far: Assassin, Hearse, Pants, and Clue. (via)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:55 AM PST - 5 comments

The 2013 Guinness Book of World Records has spoken and Ostego, MI's 3'8" Zeus the Great Dane is the tallest dog in the world.
posted by griphus at 9:40 AM PST - 59 comments

The World's most beautiful McDonalds may very well be located in Budapest, Hungary. With vaulted, coffered ceilings wrought-iron scrollwork and modern chairs, it's a lovely place to order a cheeseburger. [more inside]
posted by xingcat at 9:00 AM PST - 76 comments

We have talked before on the blue about movie theatre etiquette and the problem of movie talkers. London's Prince Charles Cinema has gone to the next level and hired ninja (volunteers wearing zentai suits) to keep order.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:52 AM PST - 52 comments

Obsolessons: selected passages from the self-help and guide books of the past. [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 8:50 AM PST - 16 comments

As far as we are aware, this is the largest scale discharge test of consumer batteries that has been performed. Battery Showdown!
posted by DU at 8:09 AM PST - 48 comments

Could the Low Line be joining New York's popular High Line park?
posted by shothotbot at 7:52 AM PST - 41 comments

Just straight-up walking made Weston, for a while, probably the biggest sports star on earth.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:10 AM PST - 25 comments

Victorious Vocabulary : A Lackadaisical Lexicon for Laggard Logophiles. [possibly nsfw]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:51 AM PST - 11 comments

Number simulation , because it is Friday. [more inside]
posted by Kale Slayer at 2:31 AM PST - 50 comments

Over at Make Blog, Sean Ragan has after years of search dug up a copy of the Rockwell International Integrated Space Plan from 1989. It's now scanned and downloadable for your enjoyment.
posted by Harald74 at 2:05 AM PST - 39 comments

The Citizens for Decent Literature want you to join their fight against PRINTED POISON. (possibly NSFW.)
posted by loquacious at 12:16 AM PST - 46 comments

Your brain on pseudoscience: the rise of popular neurobollocks
posted by Artw at 12:04 AM PST - 64 comments

August was one of the deadliest months in Afghanistan, for both civilians and soldiers. The death toll was increased by so-called 'green-on-blue' attacks by members of the Afghan National Army and police forces on ISAF and US forces. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:49 PM PST - 67 comments

presentations suck
let's automate them
hooray
posted by 23 at 10:20 PM PST - 33 comments

"The world's first colour moving pictures dating from 1902 have been found by the National Media Museum in Bradford after lying forgotten in a tin for 110 years." [more inside]
posted by Isadorady at 9:59 PM PST - 16 comments

Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) by Goudiss and Goudiss
posted by aniola at 9:58 PM PST - 36 comments

It's the turn of the 90s and you're back in the USSR, sitting on the Persian carpet that covers every inch of your Soviet living room and facing the old Rubin-714 set. As the clock strikes nine, you hear those familiar strains… [more inside]
posted by Nomyte at 8:05 PM PST - 23 comments

The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
posted by Deathalicious at 7:52 PM PST - 25 comments

There's been little discussion about the problem of poverty in the current Presidential election, the conventions pretty much ignored it. "The Circle of Protection, composed of Christian leaders from across the religious spectrum, released President Barack Obama's and GOP nominee Mitt Romney's video responses today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C." Both candidates responded.
posted by HuronBob at 7:04 PM PST - 52 comments

Kalamazoo Promise has come up in discussion a couple of times. The program, funded by anonymous donors, covers tuition and fees for all graduates of Kalamazoo public high schools. [more inside]
posted by Ghidorah at 6:34 PM PST - 13 comments

Feline performance of Collective Soul's Shine. [SLYT]
posted by hippybear at 6:33 PM PST - 17 comments

The science of Aquaman (previously: 1, 2)
posted by Egg Shen at 5:09 PM PST - 28 comments

Archival cardboard, glue and screws: art by Scott Fife.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:57 PM PST - 11 comments

Recently, it was announced that Zoe Saldana has been cast to play Nina Simone in an upcoming biopic. Objections to this casting decision include references to Simone's own embrace of her own dark-skinned appearance and have brought up colorism, which has been noted in other recent films, such as Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, where Harriet Tubman was depicted by Jacqueline Fleming, a biracial actress. Colorism is more than the warped preferences of the Hollywood star system, but an issue that affects the daily lives of black American women. Highlighting the effects of colorism is a short documentary film made by a teenage girl in 2007, "A Girl Like Me," which features different girls' takes on, among other social issues relating to black women, the role of skin tone in beauty standards. Simone herself touched on this issue in her song, "Four Women." [more inside]
posted by palindromic at 4:29 PM PST - 123 comments

American public transportation commercials? Boring. Belgian De Lijn commercials? Amusing. Danish? Exciting!
posted by fredludd at 3:21 PM PST - 17 comments

How to help increase the number of participating women in STEM conferences As a woman who got steered firmly away from a STEM career many, many years ago, I find this incredibly heartening.
posted by jfwlucy at 2:59 PM PST - 62 comments

Empire State of Pen — 80 second timelapse video of artist Patrick Vale drawing the view of the Manhattan skyline from the Empire State Building.
posted by netbros at 2:42 PM PST - 9 comments

Rock diva and Kickstarter heroine Amanda Palmer asks local musicians/fans to come on stage to perform a few songs with her. But professional musicians are outraged at this blatant act of exploitation. [more inside]
posted by monospace at 11:56 AM PST - 578 comments

Dr. Ruth, Shmuley Boteach, Mayim Bialik, Shalom Auslander, and 23 more on ensuring a meaningful year. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 11:53 AM PST - 28 comments

"Always remember that beautiful experiences and massive amounts of love are on their way. If you are able to feel pain and sadness this profoundly, more than most people can ever imagine, remind yourself that you can feel happiness and joy and love this profoundly as well, and that’s our little reward as depressed people. We feel things harder than other people do, and when those things are negative they are complete and total torture. But while we feel pain harder than other people have to, we feel beauty and joy and love harder than anyone else gets to, and that’s the victory that’s waiting on the other side of this pain for you. Hang on. Be tough. Better times are coming. Beautiful things and loving people are already out there, and when this cloud passes you get to experience them all so, so deeply." -Comedian Chris Gethard addresses an anonymous fan contemplating suicide (Trigger warning: discussion of suicide) [more inside]
posted by inturnaround at 11:43 AM PST - 27 comments

Ninety years ago today, the all-time weather temperature record (58° C, 136.4° F) was recorded at Al Azizia, Libya. Today, that record has been officially thrown out following research by extreme weather specialist, Christopher Burt. The video of how it all un-happened. [more inside]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:37 AM PST - 17 comments

In honor of the ZERO1 Biennial ISHKY has the first thousand digits of Pi written in the sky over San Francisco
posted by mikoroshi at 11:30 AM PST - 12 comments

Springsteen in the USA: 40 years of Touring as a Study in Spatial Diffusion "As a geographer, 1500+ shows over 40 years is an opportunity to map...how phenomenons such as innovation, fashion, or disease spread geographically. Except in this case the contagion is rock ‘n roll."
posted by Miko at 11:27 AM PST - 18 comments

20% of Anorexics Are Men. And that number is reportedly rising. "Diagnosis is hard. Finding treatment is even harder. Many residential centers don't admit men, out of a belief that treatment should be sex-specific." Article contains images and descriptions that may be disturbing to those with eating disorders. Single page version here.
posted by zarq at 11:12 AM PST - 20 comments

Beth Lesser, perhaps best known for her photography of the Jamaican music scene, has made her book "Rub-a-Dub Style: The Roots of Modern Dancehall" (pdf) free to download on her website. [more inside]
posted by Dim Siawns at 9:31 AM PST - 7 comments

According to the Guardian, Google has added Bacon Number functionality to its search engine. Simply type in 'Bacon number [other actor name]', and the Bacon Number, with all the steps linking the two actors, is given. Previously and previously.
posted by MighstAllCruckingFighty at 9:26 AM PST - 133 comments

After the initial proposal, a contentious public hearing, examination in the media, and the big vote, NYC Mayor Bloomberg's Large Soda Ban has been approved by the health board and "unless blocked by a judge, will take effect in six months." The Mayor's office is yet to issue an official statement but here's something to hold you over.
posted by griphus at 9:09 AM PST - 184 comments

80s Muscle!
posted by shakespeherian at 9:06 AM PST - 54 comments

Beyond the 10,000 Hour Rule: Richard Hamming and the Messy Art of Becoming Great
posted by infini at 8:50 AM PST - 20 comments

Clockwork - K'nex Ball Machine
posted by flabdablet at 6:51 AM PST - 30 comments

The Alfa [bicycle] weighs 20lbs, yet supports riders up to 24 times its weight. It’s mostly cardboard and 100% recycled materials, yet uses a belt-driven pedal system that makes it maintenance free. And, maybe best of all, it’s project designed to be manufactured at about $9 to $12 per unit (and just $5 for a kids version.
posted by barnacles at 5:46 AM PST - 63 comments

Good Fighter, Can’t Cheerlead Worth A Damn. The War Nerd writes an insightful piece on why Obama doesn't get much credit for military successes.
posted by jaduncan at 4:48 AM PST - 115 comments

Steganographic information (account ID, a timestamp and the IP address of the current realm) is secretly embedded in World of Warcraft screen shots. Via Schneier.
posted by unSane at 4:33 AM PST - 33 comments

Icky face-pooping flesh mites are only the tip of the iceberg. You've heard that your gut bacteria are necessary to help you digest, meaning not all germs are bad. Without them, we couldn't digest healthily. But stop and look at how far our interconnectedness with other forms of life goes: 1. Human DNA itself is at least 8.3% ancient viruses; without one of these viruses you could never have been born. 2. Mitochondria in human cells originated when the same type of bacteria that causes typhus disease raided one of our cellular ancestors and instead of hijacking it was pressed into service. (The same origin as chloroplasts in plants from cyanobacteria). 3. Far more of the cells in your body are non-human microorganisms than actual human cells. This relationship is not just interconnectedness. This is integration. [more inside]
posted by Sleeper at 3:37 AM PST - 59 comments

According to Adorno, in psychoanalysis only the exaggerations are true. If you wished to characterize the Democrats and the Republicans in terms of true exaggerations, you might say that the Republicans have become the Party of Psychosis while the Democrats have become the Party of Neurosis. The Republicans are psychotic because they have lost contact with reality, and orient their behavior not toward realities but toward fantasies. The Democrats are neurotic because they are aim-inhibited, as an old-fashioned shrink might say: their anxieties, hang-ups, and insecurities mean that they can’t attain satisfaction, since in a basic way they won’t even allow themselves to know what they want.
posted by j03 at 11:19 PM PST - 63 comments

NASA Scientist suggests everything we see, touch, feel, taste, and smell could be a simulation running inside a computer. [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 9:42 PM PST - 268 comments

"Pass the Spoon is a daft and instantly lovable collaboration between cartoonist David Shrigley, composer David Fennessy and director Nicholas Bone. The posters promised a "sort-of opera" about cookery; what transpired was a zany, warm-hearted sort-of pantomime held together by some extremely good music and expert comic delivery." The short-run "sort-of opera" was largely structured around the story and designs of artist David Shrigley, who had never been to an opera, and doesn't have any specific interest in TV cookery. The Space is streaming a lovely, professionally shot film of a performance.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:57 PM PST - 6 comments

"To aid the national security community in imagining contemporary threats, the Australian Security Research Centre (ASRC) is organising Australia’s Security Nightmares: The National Security Short Story Competition. The competition aims to produce a set of short stories that will contribute to a better conception of possible future threats and help defence, intelligence services, emergency managers, health agencies and other public, private and non-government organisations to be better prepared." (via)
posted by vidur at 7:43 PM PST - 42 comments

Before Mr. Dark and "Something Wicked This Way Comes," Ray Bradbury wrote about a mysterious little girl named Dark, who helps a little boy overcome his fears of the night. Presenting "Switch on the Night" (1955), Bradbury's first book for children and a delightful collaboration with Swiss artist Madeleine Gekiere. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:40 PM PST - 10 comments

Robert MacPherson interviewed as part of the Simons Foundation's Science Lives series. MacPherson is among the founders of the modern theory of singularities, points like a kink in a curve where the geometry of a space stops being smooth and starts behaving badly. In the interview, MacPherson talks about cultural differences between math and music, his frustration with high school math, growing up gay in the South and life as a gay man in the scientific community, smuggling $23,000 in cash into post-Soviet Russia to help mathematicians there keep the lights on, catastrophe theory, perverse sheaves, how to be a successful graduate student, stuttering, and of course the development of the intersection homology theory for which he is most well-known.
posted by escabeche at 7:04 PM PST - 5 comments

A new monkey species, known to locals as the 'lesula' (Cercopithecus lomamiensis), has been discovered in a largely unexploited rainforest within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
posted by Wordshore at 5:18 PM PST - 42 comments

"Priceless or Worthless?" is a handsomely photographed report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature identifying the 100 most endangered animals, plants, and fungi (9 MB PDF) on the planet and what needs to be done to save them. [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 3:22 PM PST - 11 comments

University builds inexpensive computer cluster with Raspberry Pi and Lego, and publishes a guide if you want to build your own.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:57 PM PST - 52 comments

Rank of states and territories in population at each census: 1790 - 1890
Political History (Supremecy of Parties and Popular Vote)
Insanity (1870)
and more at
A Handsome Atlas: The Amazing and Incredible Statistical Atlases of the United States of America compiled in the final decades of the Nineteenth Century. [via projects]
posted by carsonb at 2:47 PM PST - 11 comments

A genome-wide association study has linked a dislike of cilantro with a variant of a single nucleotide in a cluster of olfactory receptor genes. The palatability of cilantro has previously been a divisive subject on the blue. [more inside]
posted by dephlogisticated at 2:44 PM PST - 127 comments

What your crutch word says about you
posted by morganannie at 2:24 PM PST - 168 comments

A seagull steals a GoPro camera, flies around, figures it's not food, drops it. [more inside]
posted by mathowie at 1:31 PM PST - 135 comments

Accordion covers (previously) are no longer just for soloists. You've probably seen five North Koreans performing A-Ha's "Take On Me." (Previously.) And of course tango is ever-popular for the accordion. But have you heard Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor? Or a medley from "The Sound of Music?" Or the first movement from Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik? Or a choreographed routine for North Korean school children? Or the theme from E.T.?
posted by jph at 12:47 PM PST - 8 comments

The Moral Significance of Sex Workers and People With Disabilities [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:40 PM PST - 57 comments

Today was, according to Angela Merkel, "a good day for Europe" - but it might also be the start of something much bigger. [more inside]
posted by athenian at 12:05 PM PST - 34 comments

See all the aircraft* currently in flight around the world. Also: Google Flights, to help book your own trip. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:41 AM PST - 61 comments

Huge crowds gathered yesterday on the streets of Barcelona to demand autonomy for Catalonia. Police estimated that 1.5 million people protested. [more inside]
posted by Westringia F. at 11:32 AM PST - 48 comments

The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique reworked with original source samples [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 11:19 AM PST - 32 comments

"So it was right after we had the rest of him uncovered, and [the spine] was really obviously curved and we looked at each other and said 'Wow, this is a really good candidate'. - archeologists in England uncover what is likely to be the burial place of Richard III under a car park. Having traced an all-female line of descent direct from Richard’s sister, Anne of York, to a lady living in Canada, the team (and the world) eagerly await the results of the DNA tests.
posted by Marauding Ennui at 11:15 AM PST - 58 comments

Would you like to see the first disc of Final Fantasy VII recreated in LittleBigPlanet 2? It's terribly cute. More info here.
posted by ersatz at 10:58 AM PST - 3 comments

On 15 April, 1989, 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at the Hillsborough Stadium, in what was the worst stadium disaster in British football history. At the time and for years afterward, the blame for the disasters was laid squarely on the supporters themselves, who supposedly were drunk hooligans, smeared and slandered both by the South Yorkshire police and the media, especially The Sun. Now, twentythree years after the disaster prime minister David Cameron has formally apologised for the coverup. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 10:28 AM PST - 79 comments

Meanwhile, around the solar system...
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:10 AM PST - 14 comments

In 2009, the entire rental library of legendary New York video store Mondo Kim's (previously) was shipped to a small town in Sicily, with the promise of a nonstop film festival and free access for former Kim's members. The reality turned out considerably differently. (Printer-friendly link).
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:04 AM PST - 34 comments

The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis. ESPN's Outside the Lines has created a digital reading experience worthy of its subject matter. [more inside]
posted by whimsicalnymph at 9:41 AM PST - 17 comments

On September 4, 2012, the first ever Bitcoin extortion attempt was made public. The target? Mitt Romney and his tax returns.
posted by Clementines4ever at 9:26 AM PST - 112 comments

Who would you vote for in historical American presidential elections and why? Jeremy Young writes: I’m making my calculations based on a combination of which candidate I like the most and what I think candidates’ chances are of winning. I’m also not counting strategic voting (voting my conscience for a minor candidate in a state where my vote doesn’t matter). Nor am I considering regional “favorite son” status (i.e., the 1836 election). [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:16 AM PST - 18 comments

All the parody ads from Grand Theft Auto games, on one web page. Rockstar Games has published (nearly) all the radio ads from Grand Theft Auto games on their website.
posted by floatboth at 9:12 AM PST - 9 comments

Steam Greenlight is Valve's initiative to expand their catalog by letting the community vote on the games they want to see distributed (sound familiar?) Developers are generally positive, but issues with discoverability and outright trolling have led Steam to institute $100 entry fee (with all proceeds going to charity) that runs the risk of "[limiting] Greenlight's appeal by crowding out hobbyist developers that ... lack the will or ability to risk $100." In response, Dejobaan Games announced their plan to loan the fee to one aspiring developers and is calling on others to do the same. Meanwhile, the first ten games have made to the coveted Greenlit section.
posted by griphus at 8:19 AM PST - 28 comments

Rooked: The evolution of cheating in Chess
posted by Groundhog Week at 8:02 AM PST - 59 comments

Got a few hours to kill and want to spend a little time in gaming history? Don't have anything else to do until 2013? Check out Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021 (wiki) (previously), one of the earliest 4X games ever made, dating to 1987-88. The original version was DOS-based, but the creator, George Moromisato, released a Windows version in 2004 which has significant updates. [more inside]
posted by valkyryn at 6:07 AM PST - 11 comments

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens Killed in Consulate Attack in Benghazi: "Stevens, 52, was killed on Tuesday as 20 gun-wielding attackers stormed the U.S. consulate, angry about an American made film that depicts Prophet Mohammad as a fraud and womanizer." [more inside]
posted by sallybrown at 4:36 AM PST - 1419 comments

The music industry is moving rapidly into the digital world whether it likes it or not, and vinyl just might be the last thing standing in the way of a world where nobody bothers to buy physical music anymore. So did labels sabotage vinyl on purpose? Of course, the death of the CD has been touted before. Trends indicate, vinyl does seem to be making a comeback, but is a a word where you don't own your digital music (or do you?) enough to save the once-popular format? [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 3:35 AM PST - 140 comments

Armando Iannucci's Bafta lecture 2012 - In which the creator of The Thick Of It argues that the BBC should be more aggressive, fight back against critics in the press and goverment, be more like HBO than committee-driven American network TV, and that if as James Murdoch says the only reliable, durable guarantor of independence is profit then the only guarantor of profit is independance.
posted by Artw at 12:36 AM PST - 41 comments

Shinichi Mochizuki believes that he has found a connection between prime numbers by developing a 500 page proof of the ABC conjecture [more inside]
posted by zeoslap at 9:48 PM PST - 53 comments

This is how you do it: Streak at high school sporting event and get away with it. [NSFW warning: Butt.]
posted by Mike Mongo at 8:40 PM PST - 64 comments

LS3 - Legged Squat Support System can carry 400lbs over 20 miles without refueling. And is the stuff of nightmares.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:17 PM PST - 104 comments

the quiet place project is actually three projects: the quiet place, a 30+ second respite from flashing notifications, 90 seconds, the prolonged version, and the thoughts room, where you can type any thing and it will crumble away. best experienced at a computer with a space key and the ability to make web pages go full-screen, or you could let the music play in the background. that's nice, too.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:56 PM PST - 17 comments

The American people “should be enraged by the broken promises to Main Street and the unending protection of Wall Street” writes Neil Barofsky, former Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program in his new book, Bailout, about his time in that office. His trenchant criticisms of Washington egos, moneyed interests, and political games has some calling him an "idealistic alien" and others vehemently defending him. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner comes off particularly poorly in Bailout, unsurprising in light of his well-known feud with Barofsky over the efficacy of the bailouts. (previously)
posted by shivohum at 7:44 PM PST - 38 comments

"To understand how air-force navigator Tyler Stark ended up in a thornbush in the Libyan desert in March 2011, one must understand what it’s like to be president of the United States—and this president in particular. Hanging around Barack Obama for six months, in the White House, aboard Air Force One, and on the basketball court, Michael Lewis learns the reality of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who sent Stark into combat."
posted by vidur at 7:18 PM PST - 53 comments

The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering is Turing complete. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 6:25 PM PST - 58 comments

NYT Op/Ed on 9/11: 'The Deafness Before the Storm' "goes into teeth-grinding detail about how the Bush administration had even more advance notice about Osama Bin Laden's attack than we previously realized." Summary: significantly more negligence than has been disclosed.
posted by stbalbach at 5:33 PM PST - 113 comments

A user on Soundcloud has posted 458 full John Peel shows. The shows range from 2004 BBC episodes all the way back to several 1967 Radio London shows. Some of the shows playlists can be found on the John Peel wiki as well. John Peel has, of course, been mentioned on the blue before.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 5:04 PM PST - 31 comments

Be careful about using Google to find media for your big presentation. You might end up offering a tribute to US veterans while standing in front of a gigantic picture of four warships which belong to the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:55 PM PST - 64 comments

Jake Davis, aka Topiary, was part of LulzSec. He was 18 when he was arrested in the Shetland islands on July 27 2011, after what The Guardian describes as 'one of the biggest manhunts on the planet'. He is currently on bail in the UK, but faces the possibility of extradition to the USA and several decades in prison there. As part of his bail conditions, he is barred from going online. Here, he describes what that is like. [more inside]
posted by memebake at 3:28 PM PST - 34 comments

Knee Deep in a Dream: The Story of Daikatana [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 3:21 PM PST - 27 comments

If you've spent any time in Washington, DC during the past few years, you're probably familiar with Capital Bikeshare; the region's immensely popular bikesharing program. The system's big red bikes are designed for casual use, and are built like tanks to avoid damage, vandalism, and theft. This past weekend, one Falls Church, VA resident undocked one of the 40lb bikes, and rode it to the finish line of the Nations' Triathlon. [more inside]
posted by schmod at 3:19 PM PST - 34 comments

Bob Staake's bad children's books.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:49 PM PST - 36 comments

A new exhibit on the sometimes maligned, but often adored, Pre-Raphaelite painters is at the Tate Britain. "You get the impression, in this exhibition, that the Pre-Raphaelites had a good time because they were the only Victorian men who recognised women as sexual beings" previously
posted by Isadorady at 12:48 PM PST - 41 comments

Joe Biden commemorates 9/11 - tear-inducing
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:39 PM PST - 55 comments

Hungry? A former Google chef says, “They had no budget, it was foie gras and Kobe steaks every day.” The Semi-Charmed Life Of A Tech Company Chef
posted by wallstreet1929 at 12:34 PM PST - 88 comments

Mary Jo Bang has a new translation of Dante's Inferno in contemporary English. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:26 PM PST - 23 comments

The complete guide to America's jobs crisis and the failure of monetary policy using animated gifs
posted by Hypnotic Chick at 12:15 PM PST - 16 comments

Last year the RSC [Royal Society of Chemistry] launched a huge public investigation into a matter of national importance: are spiders afraid of conkers? A tale of ancestral folk wisdom, natural insect repellents, and surprisingly well-designed school science experiments. Particularly worth it for the 5-minute documentary produced by the kids of Roselyon School.
posted by ZsigE at 12:09 PM PST - 20 comments

Twitter user hella_brad stumbles upon a new and novel use for the platform: Livetweeting an acid trip.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 11:38 AM PST - 130 comments

Breaking: There Is No News A supercut of awkward silences in news reports.
posted by The Whelk at 11:19 AM PST - 33 comments

Legendary curmudgeonly rockist Athens GA music zine Chunklet is still around, and teaming up with Vice magazine to bring you such new Classics of argument-fomentation as The Wheel Of Punk™ (and the Wheel of Punk™ in action). [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:50 AM PST - 8 comments

A Mess of Memes (SLYT, slightly NSFW) [previously on the Blue]
posted by zombieflanders at 10:40 AM PST - 22 comments

"It's horrible to see smoke pouring from wounds in your own country from such a fantastic vantage point." Astronaut Frank Culbertson's reflections as he orbited the Earth on Sept. 11th, 2001.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:00 AM PST - 76 comments

Actual things that came out of human mouths at day one of Techcrunch's Disrupt SF Conference. (New York magazine)
posted by Wordshore at 9:33 AM PST - 83 comments

Nipplegate: Why the New Yorker Cartoon Department is About to be Banned from Facebook [more inside]
posted by asnider at 8:43 AM PST - 120 comments

In March of 2009, an R.E.M. tribute and benefit concert was held at Carnegie Hall. One of the most interesting covers of that evening was Ingrid Michaelson's take on "Nightswimming." Michaelson used a looping pedal to slowly build the harmonies, so that by the end of the song she was accompanied by a whole choir of her own voice. While the Carnegie performance isn't available online, you can see a pared-down but still extraordinary performance from her appearance at the Sirius XM studios. (YT)
posted by shiu mai baby at 8:40 AM PST - 25 comments

Did You Know Gaming? explores video game secrets, bugs, trivia and obscure ephemera.
posted by griphus at 6:41 AM PST - 31 comments

London advertising agency Iris have come under fire for the design of their staff benefits booklet. The photographs, while beautifully composed, are being criticised for their referencing of the chav stereotype, particularly at a time when benefit claimants are seeing drastic cuts proposed by the government. [more inside]
posted by mippy at 3:21 AM PST - 177 comments

Earlier this month Australian Christian Lobby head Jim Wallace suggested a homosexual lifestyle was more hazardous to health than smoking, but he was not was not comparing homosexuality with smoking. Smokers were offended. Last night, on the ABC's Q&A program (Transcript) the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, backed the comments, claiming ''It's very hard to get to the facts here because we don't want to talk about it, and in this country censorship is alive and well.". But Wallace's claims were based on a 25-year-old study by a discredited researcher. [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 3:02 AM PST - 48 comments

Cinema is another life A minor epic of demonology by Raúl Ruiz, from the excellent newish film journal Lola.
posted by Wolof at 1:00 AM PST - 2 comments

My fellow Oceanians, you know we've always been at war with Eurasia
(Or is it Eastasia?) Either way it's war and we need division to wage it
But now the proles are connecting online bypassing these illusory divisions
Of race, religion and nationality (Sounds grand to me?!) It's a catastrophe!

Rap News (previously) analyzes the ongoing struggle of civil liberties in the Internet Age.
Will it remain the one open frequency where humanity can bypass filters and barriers, or become the greatest spying machine ever imagined?
posted by dunkadunc at 10:59 PM PST - 30 comments

Artist Yuri Suzuki has made a map of the London Underground as a functional radio circuit board. [more inside]
posted by barnacles at 10:59 PM PST - 15 comments

Vitaly Borker, seller of counterfeit frames and gamer of google rankings, has been sentenced to four years in jail. "Vitaly Borker was an Internet shopper’s worst nightmare," said the US attorney. “Borker operated behind the veil of the Internet and aliases to first defraud his victims and then, if they complained, terrorize them with threats, intimidation and harassment.” Previously.
posted by Dolores Haze at 9:19 PM PST - 19 comments

In 2004, Gurgen Margaryan (from Armenia) and Ramil Safarov (from Azerbaijan) were in Budapest attending a NATO-sponsored language training. While Margaryan was sleeping, Safarov hacked him to death with an axe. Safarov, who never denied his culpability and stated he only committed the crime because Margaryan was Armenian, was sentenced to life in prison in 2006. [more inside]
posted by orrnyereg at 9:12 PM PST - 31 comments

To a fisherman, all areas of the sea have names, just as a farmer will name his fields or streets have formal and informal names. For instance, there is the Witch's Ground, an area where the fishing is good, but the bottom is very rough and gear can easily be damaged or lost. Or if you're really unlucky, an undersea methane burst might make water less dense, and the sea could swallow your whole trawler. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:13 PM PST - 18 comments

Three conventions compared in the great geek sexism debate.
posted by Artw at 5:34 PM PST - 312 comments

A pong traffic light in Germany
posted by adrianspiegel at 5:20 PM PST - 26 comments

Billy Gillispie, once a rising star in the USA collegiate basketball coaching ranks, is under pressure, scrutiny, and possible termination from his position as Head Coach at Texas Tech University as allegations of mistreatment arise and a current star player vows to leave the program if BCG returns. The coach is currently on sick leave... Meanwhile, some former players and colleagues defend him... [more inside]
posted by J0 at 4:54 PM PST - 18 comments

Skeu It! "A celebration of arbitrary and gratuitious user interface decisions." Specifically: needless or inappropriate skeumorphism. Best of Skeu It.
posted by grouse at 4:23 PM PST - 100 comments

Indian cartoonist jailed on sedition charges An Indian cartoonist detained on sedition charges for his satirical drawings highlighting widespread corruption among India’s political elite has been jailed for two weeks, rekindling a fierce debate on freedom of speech in the world’s largest democracy. In India the Enemies of Free Speech Find a "Symbolic" Means to Attack Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 3:45 PM PST - 13 comments

On November 7, more than 60 chefs will converge on Valladolid, Spain to vie for glory in the annual National Tapas Competition. [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 2:50 PM PST - 17 comments

In 1952, a gray male tabby cat appeared at the door of Room 8 at Elysian Heights Elementary School in Echo Park. He stayed throughout the school year, left at summer vacation -- and came back on the first day of class in September. He became the school's cat, and his name was Room 8. Room 8 was featured in LOOK Magazine and the Weekly Reader, had a children's book written about him, and lived until 1968. One former student said, "I never liked Room 8 because he sat on my homework." The Wikipedia entry. Room 8's grave. The Room 8 Memorial Cat Foundation (a no-kill shelter).
posted by sdn at 2:32 PM PST - 61 comments

16 year-old Taylor Townsend, currently the top ranked junior American tennis player, was recently bested by Anett Kontaveit in the quarter-finals of the US Open 2012, but won in the doubles tournament. However, she spent most of the week answering interview questions about her weight. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:08 PM PST - 75 comments

A bull burned at the stake, a swarm of locusts excommunicated—animal trials were once surprisingly common.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:41 PM PST - 27 comments

After a long absence, Sifl & Olly have made a triumphant return. After being pulled from MTV in 1999, Liam Lynch's slacker sock puppets have been resurrected to review fake video games (and sing about mother%&*in pie. (Previously.) Liam Lynch took questions at Gawker earlier this afternoon.
posted by dortmunder at 12:59 PM PST - 47 comments

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) is the greatest of Brazilian writers, an ironist, realist, and fabulist in the leauge of Chekhov, Flaubert, and Borges. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 12:25 PM PST - 4 comments

1992 saw the release of this caper movie. John Swansburg and Julia Turner discuss the film's enduring appeal; actor Stephen Tobolowsky fondly recalls his role as Werner Brandes; and Lowen Liu investigates how the movie's "Setec Astronomy" ended up on a black-ops uniform patch and attempts to re-create one of the most memorable scenes. [more inside]
posted by Z303 at 11:47 AM PST - 97 comments

McGill could lose $90 million from PQ decision to scrap tuition increases. The administration is not amused.
posted by Strass at 11:00 AM PST - 64 comments

In [a series of notes to Noel Moore, the oft-sickly son of her former governess], Potter punctuates her words with small, sweet illustrations: 'I have come a very long way in a puff-puff …' (next to a train), a straightforward, 'Here are some rabbits throwing snow balls,' and, of course, Peter’s debut in a special dispatch from 1893. - Beatrix Potter’s Picture Letters, The Birthplace Of Peter Rabbit [more inside]
posted by SugarAndSass at 10:43 AM PST - 4 comments

The Jehovah's Witnesses produced an anti-masturbation video for the hard of hearing. And here it is mashed up with R. Kelly's "Ignition (Remix)". (SLYT)
posted by 2bucksplus at 10:38 AM PST - 94 comments

British wildlife photography awards 2012
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:27 AM PST - 9 comments

The Disappeared. "How a fatwa changed a writer's life." A third-person autobiographical essay, by Salman Rushdie. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:53 AM PST - 18 comments

What do you do when you own the IP to a beloved 28-year old family classic widely regarded as one of the finest Christmas movies ever? Why you make a sequel of course. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 9:08 AM PST - 171 comments

Abolish restaurants.
posted by Catchfire at 7:44 AM PST - 209 comments

Do you have questions about picture framing? Picture Framing Magazine has answers. [more inside]
posted by jedicus at 7:42 AM PST - 19 comments

Newly declassified documents show the United States had full knowledge of the Katyn massacre, the Soviet massacre of 22,000 Polish officers. The Soviets attempted to blame Nazi Germany. The scars of Katyn remain on Poland, after the Russian State Duma admitted and condemned Stalin's role in Katyn, a delegation of 130 prominent Poles including the President on their way to commemorate the 70th anniversary at the site died in a plane crash.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 7:17 AM PST - 47 comments

100 [more inside]
posted by unSane at 6:25 AM PST - 25 comments

The Land that Time and Money Forgot New York City’s housing projects are the last of their kind in the country. And they may be on their way to extinction (New York magazine).
posted by box at 5:39 AM PST - 94 comments

The Award For Nerdiest Preposition Goes To ... [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:23 AM PST - 116 comments

The National Bureau of Economic Research has published a new paper analyzing 138 years of economic history in 14 advanced economies, which proves that high levels of private debt cause severe recessions. (Via) Bonus SLYT: Money As Debt (1hr)
posted by infini at 3:23 AM PST - 32 comments

"Hundreds of Kashmiri militants who left home as young men two decades ago have begun to return, middle-aged and disillusioned. What happens to them now?"
posted by vidur at 11:27 PM PST - 16 comments

For the first time since 1987, Chicago public school teachers will strike. Last year, the city council in Chicago passed a law mandating that 75% of Chicago Teachers Union members would need to vote to authorize a strike. In June, CTU announced that they had met that threshold, and that they would strike if negotiations with Chicago Public Schools over job security, evaluations, and a longer school day with no extra pay for teachers, failed. They did, and tonight Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, announced that as of midnight tonight, public school teachers in Chicago are on strike.
posted by deliciae at 9:36 PM PST - 183 comments

The 18 Worst Things For Left-Handed People
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:01 PM PST - 191 comments

They love firearms, hunting … and Jesus. In outback NSW (Australia), Jack Marx joins Steve “I Like Guns” Lee and crew for 24 hours in pursuit of feral pigs.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 8:16 PM PST - 22 comments

How to grow mushrooms in bulk
posted by Deathalicious at 7:12 PM PST - 49 comments

Every so often, the editorial staff at Grantland e-mail 25-year-old Rembert Browne a video from the 1980s that he hasn't seen before. Ladies and gentlement: Rembert Explains the 80s. My personal faves:
The 1985 American Music Awards: "LOOK. AT. LIONEL'S JACKET."
Bob Dylan Rehearses 'We Are the World': "I have to remind myself not to lose sight of the fact that Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Quincy Jones, and Lionel Richie are in the same room making music together. Oh, and Diana Ross and Dionne Warwick are shooting dice and smoking Virginia Slims in the corner." [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 6:07 PM PST - 107 comments

...When I was around four or five, my parents split up, and we didn't get to see a lot of my dad. So, anything that was his in our house was kind of a treasure. And I knew that record album, "American Pie." I can picture it in my head with the thumbs up and Don McLean on there. And in the top right hand corner there was my dad's name on one of those old-fashioned label makers where you could press the letters in with the white and it would come up in white raised letters... [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 6:00 PM PST - 20 comments

How to See the Future.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:54 PM PST - 35 comments

"Behold the future of video games. Or at least the future as envisioned by a bunch of gamers, programmers, tinkers and dreamers at the Valve Corporation here. This is the uncorporate company that brought us the Half-Life series, the hugely influential first-person shooter game. The Valve guys aren’t done yet. Founded 16 years ago by a couple of refugees from Microsoft, Valve makes games that wild-eyed fans play until their thumbs hurt and dawn jabs through the curtains. But what really makes Valve stand out is its foresight on technology." [more inside]
posted by SpacemanStix at 4:53 PM PST - 51 comments

At 16, she published her first book, started writing for Melody Maker, and won the Observer Young Reporter Of The Year competition, and they gave her a column. At 17, she "skipped ship" over to The Times, and has been writing there since. U2 filmed a video in her house at 18, when she was co-presenting on the short-lived Naked City program, interviewing Björk, Iggy Pop, and others. Caitlin Moran won the British Press Awards' Columnist of The Year award in 2010 and Critic and Interviewer of the Year in 2011, and Glamour Magazine's Writer of the Year award in 2012. The last award was in large part for her book How To Be a Woman, her mission from God to reclaim feminism, though it was more in the lines of The Blues Brothers: crashing a lot of cars, and having a hoot. The "British Tina Fey" talks about contemporary sexual issues such as slut walks, pop culture, clothing and women, abortion, having the sex talk, and why "it's actually technically impossible for a woman to argue against feminism".
posted by filthy light thief at 4:15 PM PST - 45 comments

Focusing on career -- how hookup culture empowers women
posted by msalt at 4:04 PM PST - 50 comments

[all links may contain SPOILERS] Antonioni's unique style works beautifully in The Passenger. The dream-like long takes, especially the final seven minute one where the dusty town square is seen through the barred window of Locke's hotel room—evokes a world that he is barred from. There is nothing romantic or sentimental about the space that we see, but it conveys a sense of an ongoing life that Locke has chosen to retreat from. There is also Antonioni's eye for aesthetic detail-for whitewashed walls of buildings, and vividly colored backgrounds like yellow doors and red car seats. He is a director of great formal rigor and beauty, whose style effortlessly suits his vision. The slow rhythm of the film may put off some viewers, but it forces them to be more observant, and understand there is nothing accidental in the images that Antonioni constructs. - Leonard Quart [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 2:48 PM PST - 8 comments

Indiana Jones Vs. the Cairo swordsman - original version
posted by Artw at 2:12 PM PST - 56 comments

this website is a collection of underground / independantly released cassette tapes from the days when the audio cassette was the standard method of music sharing, generally the mid eighties through early nineties. material represented includes tape experimentation, industrial, avant-garde, indy, rock, diy, subvertainment and auto-hypnotic materials... most of what you are about to hear is rather difficult to file under any one category, and thus has not been. [more inside]
posted by artof.mulata at 1:55 PM PST - 10 comments

Stephen Totilo of Kotaku tries to determine the correct chronology for all the games in the Super Mario canon.
posted by reenum at 1:27 PM PST - 23 comments

Information on cricket salaries in England is difficult to find, though the amounts are acknowledged to be low; many cricketers take on a second job during the off-season. One of the top flight teams, Durham, is the first county fined for narrowly exceeding the total playing staff salary cap for the year. As a cross-sport comparison, the top flight football (soccer) team wage bills for 2010-11, and the team salary caps for rugby.
posted by Wordshore at 1:10 PM PST - 12 comments

All children are creative. And, no matter how primitive the draft prototype seems, the final result can be fantastic. The question is, how do you get from that line drawing of a fart to the final product. What if you need a girraff? Or a black and red dog (with both a right and left perspective)? That's where Child's Own Studio comes in. Be sure to check the archives on the right side of the page for wonderfulness.
posted by HuronBob at 11:18 AM PST - 26 comments

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) thinks that new school lunch standards derived from the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act equal rationing. His constituents' kids are "starving," says the congressman. But the HHFKA actually expanded access to school breakfast and lunch programs and improved school nutritional guidelines. Is this a nanny state, or a culture war? [more inside]
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:07 AM PST - 72 comments

Bill Moggridge, 1943-2012 "I think it's always wise to remember to use the dirtiest method you possibly can at the time. Use the quickest thing and the simplest thing for the stage you're at." Bill Moggridge, designer, co-founder of IDEO and director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, died after a battle with cancer on September 8 2012. [more inside]
posted by running order squabble fest at 10:41 AM PST - 12 comments

Let's take another look at Chris Wayan's PLANETOCOPIA (previously): A series of detailed conceptions and paintings of vastly different Earths based on differing climates and land mass position. A planet designed to speed up East-West cvilization development! A life-bearing super hot world! An Earth with most of the seas missing! Forever Ice Age Earth! [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 8:53 AM PST - 11 comments

Bill Nye recently described in a Youtube video why he thinks that Creationism is inappropriate for children. Representatives of the Creation Museum have a response.
posted by Betelgeuse at 8:22 AM PST - 219 comments

Archibald Query 's creation, Marshmallow Fluff, followed a winding path to household name. Most famous as a component of the Fluffernutter sandwich, this icon of New England cuisine appears in hundreds of other recipes, including whoopie pies and Mamie Eisenhower's Never Fail Fudge. You can even try making it yourself. . Other homages include the pop-style "Fluffart" of Susan Olsen, perhaps better known to us as the Brady Bunch's Cindy; some video tributes, and the What the Fluff? Festival in Somerville, MA (previously),
posted by Miko at 8:03 AM PST - 36 comments

After more than 15 years on hiatus, the punk-spawned, world-music-defining Dead Can Dance released their eighth album Anastasis one month ago. The reunited act are on a world tour. [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 7:04 AM PST - 35 comments

Fantastic Norway has announced details of their New Utøya project, ‘a strategy for re-establishing a political camp on the island of Utøya. "Our ambition has been to reflect and reinforce values such as commitment, solidarity, diversity and democracy, both through form and function. In short we have done this by establishing a small village with small streets, belfry and a town square on the very top of the island. The village consists of many small units that together ad up to a bigger community: A symbol of unity and diversity." say the project leaders, Erlend Blakstad Haffner and Håkon Matre Aasarød, who won the Iakov Chernikov International Prize in 2010. The 22 July Fund of the Worker's Youth League raised $68 million to build the memorial to the 69 victims of Anders Behring Breivik's attack on the island. Via Things Magazine.
posted by parmanparman at 5:44 AM PST - 14 comments

India mourns Dr Verghese Kurien who passed away today at age 90. If you have eaten butter in India, or been able to add a spot of milk to your tea, then you've experienced the impact of Operation Flood — the largest dairy development program in the world. Operation Flood helped India become the world's largest milk producer by 2010–11, with close to 17 percent of the global production. Gujarat-based co-operative, the "Anand Milk Union Limited", often called Amul, was the engine behind the success of the programme. While much more can be said about Dr Kurien's work with dairy farmers, cooperatives, milk production as well as his awards and honours, his best known legacy is perhaps the creation of the Amul brand. The little girl who knew just how to poke India's funny bone has her very own Previously.
posted by infini at 11:37 PM PST - 12 comments

The Rolling Stones rock Warhol's East Hampton Pad, Montauk 1975 - Half way through the tour, Truman Capote met the group in Kansas City. In tow was his new best friend, Lee Radziwill. The mix of rock royalty and Fortunate Four Hundred did not work well. Jagger hated Capote’s mincing manners, and Capote called Mick – "…a scared little boy… about as sexy as a pissing toad." Stones guitarist Keith Richards welcomed the cultured Radziwill by banging on her hotel door that night, screaming "Princess Radish… C'mon you old tart, there’s a party going’ downstairs!"
posted by madamjujujive at 7:39 PM PST - 44 comments

The Medical School at the University of California, San Francisco “presents Mini Medical School for the Public, a series of programs providing an opportunity to learn about health and the health sciences directly from UCSF faculty members and other nationally-recognized experts.” Videos particularly geared toward integrative medicine and healthy living can be found here. (Most of the videos are between sixty and ninety minutes long.) [more inside]
posted by ferdydurke at 3:52 PM PST - 12 comments

John Locke builds, installs, and creates libraries in payphone booths in New York City. “There aren’t a lot of people out,” he said. “You can just go down, find a good booth, carry it out, latch it in. It takes seconds. And then just fill it up with books and let’s wait and see what happens.”
posted by Xurando at 2:58 PM PST - 47 comments

Michel Blazy is a French artist who "attempts to create multi-sensorial and changing spaces and sculptures to show the uncertainties of our condition". His Post Patman show in 2007 was truly designed to be experienced by all senses, designed with "the organic, the perishable, the mould-making." Some was pretty benign, like the atomic mushroom made of 91 kilos of soy noodles and the chocolate chickens. Then there are the piles of rotting orange peel halves and the truly fragrant wall painted with mashed potatoes and beetroot purée. His newest installation was much more pleasing to the senses: Bouquet Final was a wall of foam fountains in a 13th century structure, le Collège des Bernardins. More of Blazy's work at Galerie Art Concept.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:58 PM PST - 5 comments

Rereading Stephen King Guardian columnist James Smythe has read everything Stephen King has ever written – and now he's revisiting each novel in chronological order. First: a young girl with some dangerous powers [previously] [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 1:43 PM PST - 122 comments

The Lovecraft Connection (yt) - Jason Colavito's theory that the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft is the source of all Ancient Astronaut mythologies, via Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier's The Morning of the Magicians.
posted by Artw at 1:37 PM PST - 21 comments

The Tower Of Joy, an adaptation by comic book and storyboard artist Jeff McComsey of one scene from A Game of Thrones.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:27 PM PST - 49 comments

Hitchcock frets not at his narrow room. David Bordwell takes a look at Dial M for Murder, its roots in filmed theater and its dealing of the conventions of 3D filmmaking.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:20 PM PST - 6 comments

Next week, for the first time in 22 years, PBS will televise the four dramas of Richard Wagner's Ring cycle on consecutive nights - a rare opportunity to encounter in the manner intended "the most ambitious and most profound work of art ever created". [more inside]
posted by Egg Shen at 1:05 PM PST - 49 comments

The British like their hedges and shrubs. They like to train and trim them into interesting shapes, some more successful than others. [more inside]
posted by essexjan at 12:08 PM PST - 21 comments

Six kids, one bike, one tough mother. [more inside]
posted by gottabefunky at 11:24 AM PST - 93 comments

“Feminine stereotypes historically have haunted women scientists, including Rosalind Franklin, a co-discoverer of DNA. In his 1968 account 'The Double Helix,' James Watson, one of the genetics pioneers who had relied on Franklin's work, unflatteringly recounted Franklin's lack of lipstick and her unwillingness to dress in a more feminine manner. But the idea of combining 'beauty and brains' may represent progress of sorts. Two decades ago, Teen Talk Barbie was telling young American girls, 'Math class is tough.' The Miss Rikei Contest stands directly opposed to that message, as does Ebbel Angle's encouragement of young girls who want to become princess scientists.” (LiveScience.com)
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 11:16 AM PST - 79 comments

Nekrogoblikon - No One Survives (SLYT) (NSFW)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:46 AM PST - 44 comments

Lawn and garden products company Scotts Miracle-Gro will pay $12.5 million in fines for poisoning bird feed and violating pesticide laws, officials said Friday. [more inside]
posted by futz at 10:06 AM PST - 22 comments

50 Shades of Grey author E.L. James is threatening a Coventry-area housewife with legal action for throwing 50 Shades-themed sex toy parties. Says James' agent: "You can’t just hijack something someone else owns." Which is, to say the least, a little ironic. (50 Shades previously on the blue. Also.)
posted by mightygodking at 9:12 AM PST - 127 comments

A history of Nerf violence.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:00 AM PST - 40 comments

Silly Cyclists: The Video Series. Silly Cyclists was created by Gaz, a cyclist from London. The series features footage from Gaz and other cyclists showing silly, stupid, or extremely ill-considered decisions by cyclists around the world. Each episode features a top-ten countdown of Silly Cyclists, followed by a Savvy Cyclist. [more inside]
posted by pie ninja at 8:05 AM PST - 27 comments

Bridging World History. Moving far beyond a "names and dates" survey of world history, this course from The Annenberg Foundation "is inquiry-based, integrated, and recursive, and uses video, Web, and text materials to provide a comprehensive and interactive learning experience." Explore world history in 26 units that feature videos (courtesy of Oregon Public Broadcasting), text, audio, primary source materials, course guides and activities for students, and a nifty World History Traveler [Flash] pathfinding tool that examines various facets of history in greater depth. Once you're done with world history, you can check out the gazillion other subjects Annenberg offers.
posted by Rykey at 7:29 AM PST - 9 comments

In school, most grades have a favorite teacher. For Rockport-Fulton Middle School's seventh grade, it's Bobby Jackson. He teaches Texas History. (Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:21 AM PST - 39 comments

Hey girl. You want me to Take U Shopping? How about I Take U To Da Movies? Maybe later I can Take U 4 A Dinner? Ur Boy Bangs has all major date activity covered.
posted by robself at 2:19 AM PST - 23 comments

"If people walk out are they abandoning Becky? If they stay are they symbolically complicit in the awful events Becky endures?" Craig Zobel's (Great World of Sound (previously), Homestar Runner (previously)) new film Compliance explores a notorious string of disturbing prank calls (previously). The film has enjoyed almost universal acclaim from critics, but its audience reception has been... complicated.
posted by roll truck roll at 1:36 AM PST - 136 comments

Tens of thousands of protestors have been gathering outside the Hong Kong government headquarters every night since the start of the new school year to protest the introduction of "moral and national education" classes at primary and secondary schools. At the forefront is Scholarism, a student group led by 15-year-old Joshua Wong. [more inside]
posted by monocot at 12:54 AM PST - 20 comments

Political PBF: The seminal webcomic twisted into terrible political cartoons. It was something that just had to be.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 9:23 PM PST - 34 comments

Many writers are using software to fight what they call Internet Addiction that is interfering with their work. Zadie Smith thanked the programs, Freedom and Self Control, in the acknowledgements of her new novel,NW, which has a character who is addicted to online message boards. Other writers, including Booker short lister Will Self, prefer to use typewriters instead of being tempted by the Web's lures. Scientists have recently linked internet addiction with a nicotine addiction gene, although there is no consensus on whether it is addiction or habituation.
posted by Isadorady at 8:55 PM PST - 83 comments

Wiki Loves Monuments: "World's largest photo contest" seeks to create a visual record of world monuments and historic sites on the Wikimedia Commons. The USA version focuses on sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Canadian version here. If you don't see your country among the 30 participating so far, you can volunteer!
posted by Miko at 8:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Jean Genet meets the Black Panthers In an excerpt from Edmund White's biography of Jean Genet, the French writer visits the US and encounters Black Panthers, Jane Fonda, Ken Kesey on acid, and Jessica Mitford.
posted by larrybob at 5:01 PM PST - 10 comments

City Symphonies – The future sound of traffic by Mark McKeague
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:51 PM PST - 2 comments

The world has ended many times - a supercut of apocalyptic visions.
posted by Happy Dave at 4:13 PM PST - 54 comments

Police Log Comics is a webcomic adapted from the police log of the Carmel Pine Cone.
posted by brundlefly at 3:52 PM PST - 28 comments

The Undercities of Karachi
posted by Cloud King at 3:30 PM PST - 9 comments

Life and death in Aleppo. GlobalPost correspondent Tracey Shelton was filming a feature on the daily life of Syrian opposition fighters when a mundane chore for the men turned into a bloodbath... (Warning: Graphic.) [more inside]
posted by yeoz at 3:24 PM PST - 63 comments

I have no idea how these people got wedged into their scanners, or why. Oh wait, I do. Artist Enrico Nagel, in his series "Behind the Glass", makes portraits that way.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:10 PM PST - 9 comments

You're going to love this sweater! Bill Cosby tweets about sweaters. [more inside]
posted by ssmug at 3:01 PM PST - 23 comments

So, uh, apparently Jet Boards are a thing. Maybe you knew this? I did not. At first I just thought that video was kinda neat, and the idea was interesting. Then I looked at their website and found a ton of amazing photos, a lot more SCIENCE! explanations of stuff than I would have expected, and finally this promovideo which features both an endearingly cheesy original themesong, as well as lightning and explosions (GIF!). Soooooooooo yeah. Jet Boards. Apparently invented as early as 1965. Pretty sweet.
posted by lazaruslong at 2:45 PM PST - 24 comments

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, one of the NFL's few vocal advocates for legalization of gay marriage, donates two tickets to his team's season opener to a Marylanders for Marriage Equality fundraiser. Maryland state delegate Emmet C. Burns writes a letter asking Ravens management to silence Ayanbadejo. Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe responds with epic smackdown.
posted by googly at 1:49 PM PST - 175 comments

How to build a Dyson sphere in five (relatively) easy steps.
posted by Egg Shen at 1:03 PM PST - 80 comments

The Screaming Sheep (SLYT).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:55 PM PST - 29 comments

What if New Who had Target Novelisations just like the old Doctor Who?
posted by Artw at 12:08 PM PST - 58 comments

An “Infinite Jest” atlas. The Infinite Atlas Project is an independent research and art project seeking to identify, place and describe every possible location in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. The project includes: Infinite Map- a cartographic infographic poster identifying 250 of the most interesting locations from the novel. Infinite Boston-a ruminative travelogue and photographic tour of key locations in and around Boston, Massachusetts. [Previously]
posted by Fizz at 11:52 AM PST - 24 comments

"Behind every Google Map, there is a much more complex map that's the key to your queries but hidden from your view. The deep map contains the logic of places: their no-left-turns and freeway on-ramps, speed limits and traffic conditions. This is the data that you're drawing from when you ask Google to navigate you from point A to point B -- and last week, Google showed me the internal map and demonstrated how it was built. It's the first time the company has let anyone watch how the project it calls GT, or 'Ground Truth,' actually works."
posted by SpacemanStix at 11:32 AM PST - 43 comments

Dear Wikipedia, I am Philip Roth. I had reason recently to read for the first time the Wikipedia entry discussing my novel “The Human Stain.” The entry contains a serious misstatement that I would like to ask to have removed. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 11:08 AM PST - 102 comments

Creative cards is a deck of 54 playing cards, each card by a different artists. The cards are framed in the same way with the same typography for the suits, but the art has no over-riding theme.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:00 AM PST - 17 comments

Gif Sound is a mashup site that allows you to combine gifs and youtube audio in a manner similar to YTMND. Gif Sound The Video is a compilation (NSFW language) of the top rated videos from r/GifSounds
posted by The Whelk at 9:22 AM PST - 29 comments