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The manliest month is here! Stop shaving. NOW! Previously and Even More Previously. Also on Twitter.
posted by vidur at 8:03 PM PST - 108 comments

"His Face All Red," a comic by Emily Carroll. Happy Halloween! [via]
posted by brundlefly at 6:43 PM PST - 39 comments

Mr. Llewellyn [ . . . ] boasts that his safety testing method is foolproof: He and several colleagues sit in a room and take a new product "almost to overdose levels" to see what happens. "We'll all sit with a pen and a pad, some good music on, and one person who's straight who's watching everything," he says. [more inside]
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:15 PM PST - 57 comments

You've seen them here before: serving ice cream, pole-socking, with teddy bear heads, climbing trees, and sporting hands. But now robots are truly Metafilteranean, because they want to know: Who here likes pancakes? [more inside]
posted by jocelmeow at 1:55 PM PST - 15 comments

It was 1931. Subtitles weren't practical, dubbing had yet to catch on, but Universal Studios wanted their lavish new production of Dracula to play in Latin America. The solution? Shoot a separate film in Spanish on the night shift. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 1:53 PM PST - 20 comments

The Pack Horse Librarian (Photo Gallery) was a welcomed and much anticipated sight in the isolated and hard-to-reach mountains and hollers of Eastern Kentucky between 1935 and 1943. They brought books and magazines, retrieved already-read materials for delivery at another stop on the route, read to residents, took requests, and generally served homes, schools, villages, mining camps, and anywhere there were people who wanted to read. [more inside]
posted by julen at 1:01 PM PST - 17 comments

Crossbones Graveyard (YT) is a disused graveyard in Southwark, London. Lying outside the old city walls, it became the last resting place for 15,000 paupers and prostitutes (the latter known as the 'Winchester Geese' because they were licensed by the Bishop of Winchester). The history of Crossbones is being rediscovered by local playwright John Constable, and is becoming a place of pilgrimage to remember the outcasts in London society (audio/slide). A ritual is held there every Halloween.
posted by carter at 12:58 PM PST - 8 comments

The entire run of the Bell System Technical Journal, from 1922-1983, is available online for your reading pleasure. Bell Labs on the blue previously
posted by rmd1023 at 12:08 PM PST - 20 comments

With crowd estimates between 150,000 and 250,000, the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear has inspired a variety of reactions. NYMag's Vulture blog has a summary and round up of reactions. Huffington and Armey disagree about the meaning of the rally. But Jon Stewart offered a heartfelt analysis of the event just before it ended. [scroll down for video] And the Flickr photo pool of signs is growing and growing.
posted by hippybear at 10:53 AM PST - 369 comments

Broadcast on Halloween night 1992 Ghostwatch - a live investigation into a haunted house - was one of the most controversial and terrifying programs the BBC has ever shown. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:44 AM PST - 36 comments

How To Explain It To My Parents: a video series from Lernert & Sander where conceptual artists explain their work to their parents. [more inside]
posted by fryman at 10:13 AM PST - 5 comments

A four part series on the science of zombies: ethics of the undead, how zombie biology would work, can you kill the undead, everything you ever wanted to know about zombies. From Discover Magazine's blog Science Not Fiction
posted by device55 at 10:01 AM PST - 25 comments

Tired of using plain old knives to carve your pumpkins? Gregg, from Nashville, Tennessee, has the answer. And he has a youtube channel!
posted by lauratheexplorer at 9:53 AM PST - 16 comments

Original Swiss Family Robinson Tree Found! Kevin, I stumbled upon your post of March this year "Some Really Big Roots" which mentioned the original Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse from the movie of 1960. I live on the island of Tobago in the Caribbean and did research on the tree and actually found it still very much alive in Goldsborough!
posted by nickyskye at 8:58 AM PST - 12 comments

From National Geographic News, October 29, 2010 — Halloween Costume Pictures: Spooky Styles a Century Ago. In 1918, American kids, witches, and swastikas were cute.
posted by cenoxo at 8:21 AM PST - 16 comments

Historian Mike Dash's schtick is writing lengthy, well-researched blog posts about obscure mysteries that often draw on archival sources. Read about the Monster of Glamis Castle, the strange miniature coffins of Arthur's Seat, the (supposedly) murderous landlords of the Ostrich Inn, or the case of the time-tripping Scotswoman.
posted by Sonny Jim at 7:54 AM PST - 11 comments

Happy Halloween! Here's a guy in a Boba Fett helmet playing the accordion: Star Wars, Megaman, Zelda one / two / three, Mario Level 2-2, Amelie, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Macguyver (sans helmet), Punchout.
posted by tybeet at 7:47 AM PST - 11 comments

It's the BED INTRUDER COSTUME! The perfect last minute Halloween costume. Who is the brilliant inspiration behind the bed intruder? Antoine Dodson. Previously.
posted by Fizz at 7:26 AM PST - 49 comments

Once Upon a Title - "pervy little stories made entirely from children's book titles"
posted by BeerFilter at 6:53 AM PST - 17 comments

A friendly Halloween warning: do not go trick or treating at this badass house [SLYT]
posted by marmaduke_yaverland at 1:47 AM PST - 31 comments

"I couldn't care less" vs. "I could care less"... A letter to Ann Landers in October 1960 is credited with starting the debate over "one of the great language peeves of our time." Via. [more inside]
posted by amyms at 1:15 AM PST - 161 comments

Happy Halloween, y'all! The Devil has some music he'd like you to hear today... Me and the Devil Blues - Devil Is Watching You - Devil's Got The Blues - The Devil's Woman - The Evil Devil Blues - Devil Got My Woman.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:20 AM PST - 24 comments

The Hunter Valley Steamfest in New South Wales, Australia holds a Great Steam Train race every so often. [more inside]
posted by pjern at 10:53 PM PST - 7 comments

The gothic horror illustrations of Tatsuya Morino
posted by Artw at 10:51 PM PST - 11 comments

Low video quality, high Halloween value: the beautiful, original, Hermione in a magical tale. Her last line in the film is delightful.
posted by SheaCoin at 9:33 PM PST - 6 comments

In 2015, if all goes well, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the most powerful warship ever built, will begin service in the U.S. Navy - retiring the venerable Enterprise (CVN-65). Though displacing the same 100,000 tons as her Nimitz-class counterparts, increased automation will let her operate with hundreds fewer crewmembers. Capable of launching 90 planes, including the F-35C Lightning II, on 220 sorties a day, she will defend herself against anti-ship missiles with the Raytheon RIM-162 ESSM. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 7:36 PM PST - 135 comments

CreativeApplications.Net scours the net for platform independent apps that help sharing and engaging with information. They look at OSX, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Web Apps, Flash, Physical Interfaces, Max MSP development, Processing and others. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 4:46 PM PST - 4 comments

Polka medleys are a trademark of Weird Al Yankovic in which he covers the era's most iconic songs on accordion. His next album will likely include Polka Face. But, if you like some of the older stuff... [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 2:34 PM PST - 27 comments

Some political watchers are saying this could be the nastiest, most negative election season of all time. [SLYT]
posted by ennui.bz at 2:01 PM PST - 66 comments

Graham Crowden, character actor, has died at 87 after a 52 year career on stage, television, and film. In the United States he may be best known for playing the whimsical Tom Ballard alongside Stephanie Cole's cynical Diana in the BBC series Waiting for God, often shown on PBS. Born in Edinburgh in 1922, he had a distinguished career on stage, particularly at Olivier's National Theatre, undertaking (among other roles) The Player King in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In 1974, citing an inability to commit to a single role, he turned down the part of the Fourth Doctor, which eventually went to his friend Tom Baker. A few years later, in 1977, he played in Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky. He had another star turn on television in a previous BBC series, A Very Peculiar Practice, as the physician Jock McCannon. His last role was in 2008 in an episode of Foyle's War, "Broken Souls." Said his agent Sue Grantley to the BBC, "We will all miss him enormously."
posted by sister nunchaku of love and mercy at 1:52 PM PST - 23 comments

The noble timbre of the French horn is of course ideal for the stirring Star Wars theme.
posted by Wolfdog at 12:57 PM PST - 50 comments

The Wet-Dog Shake (SLYT). Scientists have worked out the optimum amount of shaking that animals have to do to dry themselves after getting wet. Filming in slow motion, they captured various animals shaking themselves off, from a wet mouse to a big grizzly bear. [more inside]
posted by 7-7 at 12:37 PM PST - 39 comments

Frustrated by the limited costume ideas out there for women? Join in the increasingly loud backlash and ridicule for the "sexy" Halloween costume, now a major stock in trade at party stores. In a time when "Goldilocks, in a snug bodice and platform heels, gives the impression she has been sleeping in everyone’s bed" and "sexually active plaid children" are celebrated cultural icons, projects like Take Back Halloween are promoting costume ideas like Frida Kahlo and Hatshepsut as alternatives to the "skank suit." Bitch magazine chimes in with suggestions like Angela Davis and Peggy Hill. Voices in the feminist blogosphere are arguing for other approaches to the holiday that's all about alternate identity. Meanwhile, the Ms. blog wonders what sexy Halloween costumes for men might look like, and Jezebel solicits photo submissions featuring your least sexy costumes. Find and share more ideas via the Twitter hashtag #feministhalloween.
posted by Miko at 9:36 AM PST - 147 comments

Although some claim most of the oil is gone, and new tests for dispersants say seafood and people are safe, the reality is of course much different. However, an investigation by an Al Jazeera online correspondent finds toxic illnesses linked to BP oil dispersants along the Gulf coast. Trisha Springstead is a registered nurse of 36 years who lives and works in Brooksville, Florida. "What I'm seeing are toxified people who have been chemically poisoned," she said, "They have sore throats, respiratory problems, neurological problems, lesions, sores, and ulcers. These people have been poisoned and they are dying. Drugs aren’t going to help these people. They need to be detoxed."
posted by agregoli at 9:18 AM PST - 31 comments

Out and Proud - Gay and lesbian personnel from the New Zealand Defence Force talk about their lives. In his 30-year career with the army, Wood has attended conferences with officers from American services. The notable difference is that Wood can stand alongside his partner of seven years, Gerald Johnstone, and introduce him as such.
posted by rodgerd at 12:15 AM PST - 19 comments

"Organ Trail was an edutainment game developed in 1971. Schools across America used this game as a teaching tool to prepare children for the impending zombie apocolypse and dysentery."
posted by brundlefly at 9:40 PM PST - 79 comments

Madness in the Fast Lane. Part 1, 2, 3, 4 (YT -- videos include footage of human-car collisions and some NSFW language). On May 17, 2008, the identical twins Ursula and Sabina Eriksson ran into traffic on the UK's M6 motorway, apparently for no reason whatsoever (original article & footage). Despite the first being run over by a lorry and the second hit head on by a car, both sisters survived, even cursing and struggling against the police who tried to help them. That's when things got weird. [more inside]
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:39 PM PST - 50 comments

Red Rabbit (SLVimeo) is a wonderful 8-minute animated video about human connection.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 9:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Nearly three decades ago, folklorist Alvin Schwartz published Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the first of three horror anthologies that would go on to become the single most challenged book series of the 1990s. But most of the backlash was against not the stories themselves (which were fairly tame), but rather the illustrations of artist Stephen Gammell. His bizarre, grotesque, nightmarish black-and-white inkscapes suffused every page with an eerie, unsettling menace. Sadly, the series has since been re-issued with new illustrations by Brett Helquist, of A Series of Unfortunate Events fame. Luckily for fans of Gammell's dark vision, copies of the old artwork abound online, including in these three image galleries: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones. Interested in revisiting the stories themselves? Then don't miss the virtual re-enactments of YouTube user MoonRaven09, or the dramatic readings of fellow YouTuber daMeatHook.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:00 PM PST - 47 comments

"You know, for a second there I thought maybe this would turn out different than every other time a woman has said anything on the internet about sexism." A comic about the seemingly inevitable trajectory of internet discussions of sexism by Gabby Shulz. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 7:13 PM PST - 254 comments

The first photographic image of a person was probably an accident. Taken by Louis Daguerre in Paris, the individual made history by not moving for 10 minutes. An interesting little article on the NPR science blog.
posted by HuronBob at 7:02 PM PST - 30 comments

Google wants to speed up the Web by killing the JPEG.... and replace it with a spiffier graphics format that might be pronounced "Web-pee". The new format promises to be a whiz, cutting image sizes up to forty percent. WebP is part of a broader web video initiative WebM.
posted by storybored at 6:05 PM PST - 64 comments

Ohio McDonald's Restaurant Tells Employees to Vote Republican As the election season is here, we wanted you to know which candidates will help our business grow in the future. As you know, the better our business does it enables us to invest in our people and our restaurants. If the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels. If others are elected we will not. [more inside]
posted by moorooka at 5:14 PM PST - 69 comments

For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance
posted by bwg at 4:55 PM PST - 175 comments

Cryoburn, the latest installment in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, is out in hardcover. Hard copies of the book also contain a CD with the text of the book... and most of the rest of the books in the series, along with a number of speeches, interviews, and essays. In keeping with Baen Books' approach to DRM and publishing (previously), the entire thing is available for free online.
posted by asterix at 4:34 PM PST - 33 comments

Too late for this Halloween, but some of these super high quality masks are super realistic. So realistic, a robber supposedly used one to commit several robberies last spring in Tampa, Florida (USA) before he was caught. (They also have a bunch of scary masks, too.)
posted by crunchland at 2:53 PM PST - 29 comments

"I've discovered some wonderful books but am frustrated by the standard of editing." [more inside]
posted by philipy at 2:48 PM PST - 42 comments

"[W]ebsites and hosting services should not be “fads” any more than forests and cities should be fads – they represent countless hours of writing, of editing, of thinking, of creating. They represent their time, and they represent the thoughts and dreams of people now much older, or gone completely. There’s history here. Real, honest, true history. So Archive Team did what it could, as well as other independent teams around the world, and some amount of Geocities was saved." Now, one year later, they have announced that nearly a terabyte of web history will soon be made available to the public as a 900GB torrent file. (Previously. / Previously.) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:49 PM PST - 57 comments

There is a porn parody of The Human Centipede called The Human Sexipede. Here is the script. That is all. [NSFW]
posted by chavenet at 1:18 PM PST - 122 comments

If you look around, you'll see that the ratio of 1.618:1 appears in architecture, nature, and artistic works (such as music, previously). Studied by the Greeks, the Golden Ratio is pretty much everywhere and is common accepted as aesthetically pleasing, and now it has been found to exist down into the nanoscale level, as a byproduct of investigating the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We may not be able to nail down both position and speed, but it appears the macro ratio is an echo of the micro one. [more inside]
posted by Old'n'Busted at 12:52 PM PST - 29 comments

In the midst of so many bitter political campaigns this fall, the race for State Senate in Connecticut's 18th district is a bit different. [more inside]
posted by jpdoane at 12:48 PM PST - 21 comments

Saw I to VI in six minutes and sixty-six seconds (sort of) (SLYT) (NSFW)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:33 PM PST - 76 comments

Baracka Flacka Flames - "Head of The State" (NSFW language) (Con text) [more inside]
posted by StopMakingSense at 11:46 AM PST - 21 comments

Security alerts have been declared at Airports in the US, UK and Middle East after the discovery of suspicious packages originating in Yemen. The packages, modified toner cartridges, have been described as "definitely not a complete bomb" but being "potentially sinister".
posted by Artw at 11:13 AM PST - 281 comments

Paris versus New York. A friendly visual match between those two cities, as seen by a Parisian-based-and-lover on New York : details, cliches and contradictions.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 10:45 AM PST - 37 comments

New York-based North Country Gazette has taken an interesting approach to monetizing its content: Threatening to sue people that read more than one article without buying a membership. [via]
posted by jbickers at 10:04 AM PST - 38 comments

Novelist Bill Morris on the lost art of the rejection letter (via) [more inside]
posted by otio at 9:31 AM PST - 23 comments

Who is Joe Wall? Why he's an author and ambient electronic musician who works in a clock tower and loves to sing. But most Mefites know him as sonascope, author of many vast and beloved comments. His touching 2004 show, My Fairy Godmothers Smoke Too Much, is available free and complete online. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 9:28 AM PST - 28 comments

Plaintiff has news for these slime ball, piece of shit, ass clown judges. (pdf)
posted by Avenger50 at 9:19 AM PST - 33 comments

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, 1966. With autumn already in full swing, the Peanuts gang prepare for Halloween. Previously.
posted by nickyskye at 9:08 AM PST - 29 comments

The newest and most exclusive residential tower for this city’s superrich is a cantilevered sheath of steel and glass soaring 27 floors into the sky. The parking garage fills six levels. Three helipads are on the roof. There are terraces upon terraces, airborne swimming pools and hanging gardens in a Blade Runner-meets-Babylon edifice overlooking India’s most dynamic city. There are nine elevators, a spa, a 50-seat theater and a grand ballroom. Hundreds of servants and staff are expected to work inside. And now, finally, after several years of planning and construction, the residents are about to move in. All five of them. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 9:08 AM PST - 82 comments

Hot New Dance Craze Hits the South (Via) [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:57 AM PST - 38 comments

Five years ago, the dinosaurs of Ryan North's Dinosaur Comics discussed writing a short story about a "Machine of Death" that would predict your fate. It sparked a forum discussion, which snowballed into a book project headed by North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki to create an anthology of short stories about the Machine of Death. Stories were submitted*, selected, and illustrated. Alas, no one was willing to publish an anthology that didn't feature Stephen King, Dave Eggers, Neil Gaiman or Nick Hornby. So they published it themselves and set out a challenge for their fans: "We want Machine of Death to become a Number One bestseller [on amazon.com] for exactly one day — October 26." And it happened! Meanwhile, unbeknownst to our heroes, October 26 was also the release date of a new book by a fellow called Glenn Beck (if you've not heard of him, a quick Google seems to indicate that he’s some sort of Ron Popeil-like infomercial huckster). And he's not happy about missing out on the #1 spot.
posted by alopez at 8:50 AM PST - 72 comments

How do you say these geeky terms?
posted by morganannie at 8:38 AM PST - 79 comments

Probably one of the 5 best amateur animated music videos about Lisp you'll see today. [more inside]
posted by DU at 8:11 AM PST - 27 comments

"...I heard animators critique the animation in my films as being 'too ruff'. Well, we didn't like it all either - but we LOVED what we were making..." [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:08 AM PST - 20 comments

I am trained and experienced in animal testing, and I am not ashamed of this fact. There, I’m out.
posted by shiu mai baby at 6:52 AM PST - 92 comments

"The Diverging Diamond reduced traffic accidents by a remarkable 60 percent. The only complaint is the strangeness of being shifted to the wrong side of the road."
posted by jefficator at 6:21 AM PST - 77 comments

“A parent’s presence alone does not give a reasonable [four-year-old] carte blanche to engage in risky behavior." So said a NY State Supreme Court judge in his ruling that four-year-olds can be sued. Cue Dora The Litigator.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:06 AM PST - 134 comments

"The boy insisted for months that he wanted to be a robot for Halloween. His sister was a robot when she was his age. We looked at various robot images on the computer and he was most intrigued by Robocop. After I showed him the trailer, there was no convincing him otherwise. He was going to be Robocop."
posted by Katemonkey at 4:22 AM PST - 58 comments

Salesman Pete and the Amazing Stone From Outer Space. You've never seen animation quite like this before. Bizarre, but supremely impressive. Looks great at low-res if you're on limited bandwidth. [more inside]
posted by Malor at 12:07 AM PST - 26 comments

Aidan is a 5 year old boy who was recently diagnosed with leukemia. Aiden really loves monsters, both dressing up as them, and drawing them. His family has is selling his artwork to help with medical expenses. [more inside]
posted by arnicae at 10:36 PM PST - 33 comments

Staying in a homeless shelter is no fun, especially for little kids. But a bright and sunny playroom can make it a little more comfortable, especially with Calvin & Hobbes murals on the walls. [more inside]
posted by Gator at 7:47 PM PST - 64 comments

Meet Actroid-F, the "world's first true Android", unveiled this month at a laboratory fair at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. Designed to be used as an observer in hospitals to gauge patient reactions, the robot can replicate surprisingly subtle facial movements. Previously.
posted by Dragonness at 7:39 PM PST - 52 comments

Earlier this year, the Washington Post exposed the increasing size of the US intelligence community: 1,931 private companies, 10,000 offices, and hundreds of thousands of employees (previously). Today we have a better picture on how much it's costing taxpayers: 80 billion every year. [more inside]
posted by notion at 6:39 PM PST - 73 comments

After 38 years in production, the Panasonic Corporation has decided to discontinue the Technics SL-1200. [more inside]
posted by orville sash at 5:50 PM PST - 76 comments

With the U.S. Midterm elections less than a week away, we can expect to hear more about the Red State/Blue State dichotomy. Journalist Dante Chinni and political scientist James Gimpel are among those who maintain that it's not that simple. They say we are a patchwork nation and divided U.S. counties into 12 categories: Boom Towns, Campus & Careers, Emptying Nests, Evangelical Epicenters, Immigration Nation, Industrial Metropolis, Military Bastions, Minority Central, Monied 'Burbs, Morman Outposts, Service Worker Centers, and Tractor Country. Find out how they classified your county. [more inside]
posted by weathergal at 5:47 PM PST - 39 comments

In stark contrast to the recent results of the Torontontian mayoral results, last week, Calgary, the third-largest "municipality" in Canada, elected the country's first Muslim mayor, Naheed Nenshi. [more inside]
posted by skwt at 5:33 PM PST - 52 comments

Despite an exploding department store that resulted in nearly two decades of Federal tunneling bans, non-existent local funding, and the tenaciousness of Beverly Hills residents, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has selected a route for the Purple Line Subway Extension. [more inside]
posted by hwyengr at 4:47 PM PST - 34 comments

Rescued hummingbird. (SLYT)
posted by hippybear at 1:54 PM PST - 67 comments

A 3.5m picture of a rabbit is going to be painted over in two weeks, if Hackney council get their way (a slightly clearer picture). The street artist ROA painted the picture with the permission of the building's owners last year, but the local council have said that it's a blight to the local area. ROA has done lots of other pictures of large animals around the area. [more inside]
posted by DanCall at 1:48 PM PST - 52 comments

Shadofax at MovingMeat has an interesting writeup about two WSJ articles on the AMA's RUC and warring specialities. [more inside]
posted by cftarnas at 1:37 PM PST - 6 comments

The dhole, the maned wolf, and the Tibetan sand fox are just three of the creatures featured at The Featured Creature, a neat (and not overly serious) wildlife blog. There are even some that aren't canids, I think. [more inside]
posted by Wolfdog at 1:18 PM PST - 25 comments

Captain Sensible travels on the historic Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch steam railway to Dungeness [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:27 PM PST - 18 comments

Charlie and Spike are two kittens with Myotonia Congenita, also known as fainting goat syndrome. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 11:13 AM PST - 73 comments

"We appreciate all the support that fans have shown for 'Caprica' and are very proud of the producers, cast, writers and the rest of the amazing team that has been committed to this fine series. Unfortunately, despite its obvious quality, 'Caprica' has not been able to build the audience necessary to justify a second season." - The Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica has been cancelled, and it's final episodes consigned to 2011. As ever there is debate as to what went wrong, though it looks like one complaint, the shows relative lack of action, will be addressed by the next spin-off: Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, set during the war years of a young William Adama.
posted by Artw at 11:06 AM PST - 125 comments

"Commuter" by Michael Patterson, was the forerunner to a-ha's "Take On Me" [via]. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 10:54 AM PST - 16 comments

This may only occur to the obsessive student of The Parent Trap, but once the subtleties are noticed, hints start stacking up, and a creeping sense of the mythic pervades the film...

Join Chris Stangl, King of the Beanplaters, as he obsessively studies The Parent Trap, Little Shop of Horrors, Beetlejuice, Teen Wolf, the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and more.
posted by Iridic at 10:32 AM PST - 31 comments

Being a Manifesto Based on Talking About Comics with the Young People of Today, Sometimes in the Classroom, Usually Not, Occasionally Sober.
posted by nomadicink at 9:49 AM PST - 38 comments

After 18 years in prison on false charges, Anthony Graves walked out a free man yesterday. This recent Texas Monthly article by Pamela Colloff played a major role in bringing awareness to his case. [more inside]
posted by mattbucher at 9:32 AM PST - 33 comments

Mapping the Jersey Devil
posted by Miko at 9:29 AM PST - 26 comments

Ever wonder how the folks who make all those cool Lego creations get all those pieces? It's not because they buy multiple sets to get thirty or so cheese slopes. They go to Bricklink, where hundreds of sellers offer up individual parts you can get in pretty much any quantity. Bricklink was started by Daniel Jezek in 2000 (it was originally called "BrickBay" but someone pressured him to change that) and is at the top of every Lego enthusiast's list of bookmarks. Jezek passed away suddenly on September 24th at the age of 33. His memorial page on Bricklink reveals that his was not an ordinary life, as this Americanized entrepreneur was born in Communist Czechoslovakia. The Lego Community would simply not be what it is without Dan Jezek.
posted by Legomancer at 9:17 AM PST - 19 comments

Arizona's Immigration Bill Was Drafted By Private Prison Companies
posted by empath at 9:07 AM PST - 87 comments

We are nearing the end of a golden age of astronomy as more than a dozen space observatories reach their end of life in a few years. The only replacement on the horizon is the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2014. Due to its enormous complexity and ever-rising costs, the JWST has starved other projects of funding. The fate of an entire generation of cosmologists and astrophysicists rests on its success.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:01 AM PST - 33 comments

MapCrunch.com Google Street View Randomizer. Try the slideshow.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:55 AM PST - 29 comments

"You fornicate and make a lot of children. You drink and you eat pork. Most of the children that you have are marked with spots and blemishes… these children that you have are bastards,” - a cautionary tale for anyone getting married or renewing their vows in a country where they do not understand the language. [YT video]
posted by MuffinMan at 7:52 AM PST - 145 comments

Gay Tea Party Witch Sex: Three tales of erotic political fiction (relatively SFW)
posted by FatherDagon at 7:40 AM PST - 11 comments

Hardcore Gaming 101 -- the blog previously responsible for an in-depth examination of Pre-Street Fighter II Fighting Games -- presents A Brief History of 2D Fighting Games.
posted by griphus at 7:15 AM PST - 15 comments

The nerdiest thing you will see today.
posted by crunchland at 7:04 AM PST - 145 comments

Millimetres Matter. [SLYT] via. Hover for spoilers.
posted by unSane at 6:48 AM PST - 36 comments

Cover Me - A blog about cover songs. Started out as a college radio show in 2006, now a website! Includes: A recently unearthed Weezer cover of Toni Braxton's 'Unbreak my Heart', 5 Good Covers of Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' (with one by MeFi favorite Pomplamoose), covers of songs from the Radiohead album Kid A (one by an a cappella group!)
posted by bluefly at 4:30 AM PST - 85 comments

'Marilyn Monroe' neuron aids mind control. "Volunteers fade famous images in and out using a brain-machine' interface. People have used mind control to change images on a video screen, a study reports. The volunteers, whose brains were wired up to a computer, enhanced one of two competing images of famous people or objects by changing firing rates in individual brain cells."
posted by Fizz at 4:15 AM PST - 10 comments

El Quijote Interactivo is a site from the Biblioteca Nacional de España displaying the 1605 edition of Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote.
You can of course turn pages and zoom in and out. But, you can also search text, get a map of Don Quixote's travels, read associated books and expert commentaries, forward through 50 editions of the book, listen to music referenced by Don Quixote and, yes, share pages with your Facebook friends.
This Youtube video walks you through it.
posted by vacapinta at 2:49 AM PST - 9 comments

A much-needed glimmer of hope for Pakistan? [more inside]
posted by bardophile at 1:48 AM PST - 6 comments

Procrastination is fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 1:31 AM PST - 59 comments

Jon Stewart interviews President Barack Obama. [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 12:28 AM PST - 108 comments

Allie Brosh (previously 1 2 3), drunk liveblogs (live drunkblogs?), on internet expectations, being a role model, and burritos as compared to fighter jets.
posted by yellowbinder at 12:24 AM PST - 21 comments

Torche is an absolutely incredible stoner metal band from Miami whose pop sensibility has earned them a lot of fans recently. Apparently Mike Huckabee is one of them.
posted by auralcoral at 12:12 AM PST - 31 comments

I'm going out to get a paper... When Richard goes out for moment before dinner to pick up a paper, it seems all well and good... well, almost... two weeks later...
posted by HuronBob at 9:11 PM PST - 38 comments

In Praise of Copying. A pdf of a book by Marcus Boon. [more inside]
posted by ovvl at 8:58 PM PST - 19 comments

In the scale of its intensity, its destructiveness and its horror, Stalingrad has no parallel. It engaged the full strength of the two biggest armies in Europe and could fit into no lesser framework than that of a life-and-death conflict which encompasses the earth. - The New York Times, February 4, 1943 [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 8:25 PM PST - 59 comments

PORTRAIT-DEX! Cartoonists create Pokémon self-portraits, with all three evolved forms. Featuring, among other fine artists, Scott Kurtz (PVP), Box Brown (Everything Dies, Bellen!), Anthony Clark (Nedroid), Aaron Diaz (Dresden Codak), and Steve Wolfhard (Cat Rackham), who also runs the project.
posted by Gator at 7:43 PM PST - 13 comments

Flowcharts! Flowcharts! Flowcharts! Fast Company magazine's latest installment of "Everything Explained through Flowcharts", charts the explaination of the Internet to a 19th Century British Street Urchin.
posted by jivadravya at 5:20 PM PST - 21 comments

Billy Ruane was a fixture in the whirl/world of Cambridge and Boston music in the early eighties. Billy Ruane lived widely and wildly in the Cambridge/Boston from the 1980's till now. Most who encountered him came away with stories to tell. Interesting ones. Music was his absolute passion. He had more records than anyone. One Christmas he proudly declared that he had bought the same Slim Whitman Anthology for everyone on his list. (My roommate was sitting beside him on the train from NY to Boston and so captive to such information.)
posted by emhutchinson at 4:27 PM PST - 10 comments

With all the recent attention in the NFL to dirty tackling, head shots, and concussions, some ground breaking research from Purdue University suggests that the routine hits to the head that happen 100s of times in every football game may be just as damaging as repeated concussions. The research was conducted on high school football players. The research uncovered marked reductions on visual memory tests in the kids who had not suffered a concussion and otherwise showed no symptoms of a head injury. These kids were, for all practical purposes, walking around with brain injuries during the season. The good news is that they all were back to normal by the next fall, suggesting that their young brains can heal themselves. (We are talking about the American brand of football here, but it doesn't seem like a real stretch that too many headers in the football played with a round ball might also be a problem.)
posted by COD at 4:04 PM PST - 67 comments

American Worker Cooperatives: a library, resource centre, startup guide, and map of over 200 industrial cooperatives. [via mefi projects]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:52 PM PST - 6 comments

Wow, what a life for Dana Gillespie. At 14 she was British junior national water-skiing champion. At 15 she was dating classmate David Bowie, who taught her guitar. Had bit parts in movies by 16. She dated Donovan for a little while, and Jimmy Page produced and played on her first album. She went on to a long string of starring roles in London's West End. She has devoted the latter part of her life to the blues, hosting an annual blues festival on the island of Mustique, recently featuring fellow Mustiquian Mick Jagger. And if all that weren't enough, she has also released several albums in Sanskrit under the moniker Third Man, devoted to the years she spent living in India. Allah Ho Akhbar::Chitta Chora::Om Shakti
posted by puny human at 2:13 PM PST - 20 comments

Defaced.me is a blog all about rejoicing in spotting things that have been drawn on, torn apart, covered in stickers, or just plain sullied.
posted by antgly at 2:06 PM PST - 18 comments

Two critiques of steampunk: The Hard Edge of Empire by Charlie Stross and Stupid Things We Say by Nisi Shawl.
posted by Zed at 1:20 PM PST - 214 comments

Though the sets and music are pure golden-age horror, the villagers are coded as ’50s sitcom types, bland exemplars of suburban uptightitude. Their ranks include a young Mos Def, though he’s seldom called upon to do anything other than act scared of supernatural goings-on in a manner that would cause even Stepin Fetchit’s ghost to say “For God’s sake, man, show some dignity.”

Just in time for Halloween, the AV Club series My Year of Flops unearths the Stephen King-written, Stan Winston-directed Michael Jackson's Ghosts (2, 3, 4).
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:48 PM PST - 14 comments

Last year, Marie Claire magazine made headlines by employing a plus-sized fashion columnist, Ashley Falcon, whose blog “Big Girl In A Skinny World” was proudly advertised as “proof that fashionistas come in all shapes and sizes.” Yesterday, a different Marie Claire blogger attacked the new CBS show “Mike & Molly” for featuring overweight characters. Her post received more than a thousand angry comments and the magazine reportedly received over 28,000 emails, prompting an apology from the blogger and a defensive response from the Editor in Chief. [more inside]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:41 PM PST - 267 comments

Recent exploration drilling and 3-D seismic surveys reveal the U.S. Geological Survey's optimistic 2002 assessment of Alaska's untapped oil reserves is actually off by about 90 percent. Oil and Gas Online explains the new geologic analysis and difficulty predicting petroleum reserves.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 11:49 AM PST - 50 comments

What Should I Be For Halloween? [via mefi projects]
posted by The Whelk at 11:22 AM PST - 72 comments

DEFIANCE, Ohio - town of 17,000, a longtime stronghold of the United Auto Workers, with a Democratic majority. Why is the Democratic party now doing so badly here? 'The Obama administration’s rescue of General Motors allowed the company to keep running the giant foundry here, a mainstay of the local economy. If the recession drove joblessness here beyond 13 percent, the lengthy extensions of unemployment benefits in the stimulus package enabled struggling workers to keep their homes and keep patronizing local businesses.''Jami L. Young exemplifies the emerging politics. At the age of 31, Ms. Young runs her own insurance agency.''Like many other Defiance residents, she was pleased when Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, used federal stimulus money to build a bridge, helping to temper unemployment that had climbed to 14 percent and, despite improvement this year, remains high. Yet Ms. Young, who says that she supported Mr. Obama in 2008 as “the lesser of two evils,” now says she regrets her vote.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 10:48 AM PST - 132 comments

Los Angeles's Crooked Heart: Ever wonder why the street grid in Los Angeles tips 36 degrees from the N/S axis once you are east of Hoover? Ask the Spaniards. [more inside]
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 10:30 AM PST - 42 comments

Wisconsin Life Trip, Ephraim Trimpey's Baraboo photography from the Wisconsin Historical Society .Ephraim Trimpey recorded 20th Century life in Baraboo Wisconsin. From burning German textbooks during WWI and draftees ready to leave for training to local traffic mishaps. [more inside]
posted by readery at 10:05 AM PST - 5 comments

"Most people think that Pipe Organs are only capable of producing the classical evil growl from horror movies, but in truth, they are capable of making quite a wide variety of noises that you wouldn't normally expect to come from a Pipe Organ." YouTube user FromTheGang plays covers on the pipe organ at his church and a couple accordions. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:57 AM PST - 19 comments

The Reverse Geocache Puzzle Box is quite nifty! Here's a video interview of the inventor. Maybe you prefer the analog version? Or do you want to build your own?
posted by lioness at 9:27 AM PST - 27 comments

With her writing career clearly going nowhere, Margaret Atwood has turned to a new vocation: costume design.
posted by griphus at 7:04 AM PST - 57 comments

This is the videogame you didn't know you wanted to play until now. Artemis - The Spaceship Bridge simulator is possibly the nerdiest game ever invented. The players take on the roles of Engineering, Communication, Weapon Control, etc, while one player - The Captain - stands in front of a projection screen and barks orders.
posted by empath at 6:27 AM PST - 110 comments

These Gears Really Work? Strangely soothing video of wooden, non-circular gears lovingly crafted by Clayton Boyer (YouTube Channel), talented designer of Wooden Clocks (YouTube Video, Flickr Photo Set). Via jwz and BoingBoing. [more inside]
posted by stringbean at 6:00 AM PST - 26 comments

Short Snorters: "A short snorter is a banknote inscribed by people traveling together on an aircraft. The tradition was started by Alaskan Bush flyers in the 1920s and spread through the military and commercial aviation...When the short snorter was signed, the collector would have to produce it upon request, if not, they are bounded to give the signer a drink." Some examples: Flickr, A Hawaiian one dollar bill, A bill with some real WWII history, Scrolling Multinational Short Snorters, and a British ten-shilling note.
posted by srboisvert at 5:35 AM PST - 24 comments

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon on the set of their new show, The Trip. An interesting article on the relationship between the two characters on screen and in real life. [more inside]
posted by Stark at 4:31 AM PST - 21 comments

You are reading this post thanks to the submarine communications cables that connect the continents together (except Antarctica). [more inside]
posted by bjrn at 1:33 AM PST - 29 comments

An internationally recognized Kanien'kehaka (Mohwak) intellectual and political advisor, Taiaiake Alfred is well known for his incisive critiques and groundbreaking work in the fields of Indigenous governance and political philosophy. In the past, Taiaiake has served as an advisor on land and governance and cultural restoration issues for many indigenous governments and organizations, and he has authored several important books including Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom and Peace, Power, Righteousness. Currently, Taiaiake serves as a Professor of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria. Recorded March 23, 2009 at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, University of Victoria Professor of Indigenous Governance; a broad, deep, and beautiful discussion of pathways toward the future for indigenous people, Gerald Taiaiake Alfred talks about the “Resurgence of Traditional Ways of Being: Indigenous Paths of Action and Freedom” [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 11:01 PM PST - 14 comments

Extremity is "tri-dimensional collage" by Emilio Gomariz. It's one of his latest works. His animated gifs.
posted by nickyskye at 10:43 PM PST - 5 comments

"Greetings, I'm MAX, the computer. Maybe you've heard of me, I'm superintendant here!" - Welcome to The Thirteenth Floor!
posted by Artw at 9:05 PM PST - 13 comments

Four is a premium alcoholic beverage that features 12% alcohol and a serious (but undisclosed) dose of caffeine. While the original "energy beer" dropped the caffeine from their formula in 2008, Four Loko has become a hit on college campuses. Now, nine students were sent to the hospital after a party at Central Washington University where the "black out in a can" was on hand. The FDA is mulling a general ban.
posted by chrchr at 6:47 PM PST - 141 comments

So You Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities. Also. (Previously)
posted by shivohum at 5:46 PM PST - 89 comments

No mystery left in the world: Researchers say chupacabras are just coyotes and wild dogs with severe mange. [Warning, sad pictures of dead canidae].
posted by 2bucksplus at 4:59 PM PST - 33 comments

Kentucky officials have identified the assailant in the face-stomping of a private citizen shortly before a debate between candidates for the office of Senator in the state of Kentucky. Contrary to initial reports which quickly dismissed the assault as the isolated acts of assorted private citizens, it has now been revealed that the gentleman curb-stomping the head of a MoveOn.org activist prior to the debate between candidates last night was none other than a county-level representative of the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, Mr. Rand Paul.
posted by joe lisboa at 4:20 PM PST - 342 comments

Graham "Grickle" Annable, perpetrator of the previously popular "Space Wolf"* animation, celebrates Halloween with some spooky, kooky, ooky** toons: in '07 it was the zombie-themed "Last Duet on Earth", in '08 "Joy to the Weird", last year we were introduced to "Principal Skeleton" and this year "Performance" (Spoiler: HE'S BACK). [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:14 PM PST - 6 comments

Ironman 1997: Sian Welch & Wendy Ingraham crawl for fourth place.
posted by hermitosis at 4:07 PM PST - 24 comments

Where Children Sleep: Children's bedrooms from around the world
posted by goo at 3:30 PM PST - 51 comments

Awesome people being awesome. (SLYT)
posted by morganannie at 3:22 PM PST - 51 comments

Communist Space Babies. Title says it all, really. The tags were pretty easy too.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 2:47 PM PST - 23 comments

The Barack Whisperer. Robert Draper's in-depth look at Robert Gibbs, senior advisor and press secretary to President Obama, and his sometimes controversial relationship to the media.
posted by availablelight at 2:33 PM PST - 15 comments

Shows like This American Life, All Things Considered, and similar stalwarts of Public Radio in the UK, Australia, and Canada have combined with the explosion of podcastery to inspire hordes of (fantastic) imitators. The result? An irresistable smorgasbord of intellectual content. Bill Mckibben examines the history of the trend, and how it can be maintained. [more inside]
posted by mreleganza at 2:04 PM PST - 36 comments

Mr (Mad) Men. Mad Men + Mr Men = Mr Sterling Gets Angry
posted by crossoverman at 1:32 PM PST - 26 comments

Time Magazine recently profiled Richard Fuller and his Blacksmith Institute in the magazine's series, "Power of One." Fuller, the president of an environmental consulting firm, is also the founder of the Blacksmith Institute, a non profit organization which is dedicated to identifying and cleaning up badly polluted sites in the developing world, especially those sites where children are at risk. Charity Navigator indicates the institute is efficient with its approximately $4 million in revenue, but it has greater ambitions. One project is to build a $500 million public health fund "to fight and eliminate legacy pollution."
posted by bearwife at 1:10 PM PST - 3 comments

Get a grip on this. "It turns out that opposable thumbs aren't critical for getting a good grip. Neither are fingers. Scientists have created a robotic arm that can do everything from serve drinks to draw pictures even though it has no digits. Their robotic hand, which they describe online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a thin rubber sack filled with coffee grains or small glass spheres. When this hand comes in contact with an object, a small pipe sucks air from the sack, causing it to contract and mold to the object's shape. The contraction is small—a mere 1% change in volume–but was enough to grab most objects the researchers tested." Inside the balloon hand. The robotic mitt. Via: Sciencemag.org
posted by Fizz at 12:53 PM PST - 47 comments

Previously on metafilter, a flock of ducks died in a Syncrude tailings pond in Northern Alberta. Last week Syncrude was fined 3 million dollars. Now, another flocks of ducks has landed in another Syncrude tailing pond. Meanwhile, the Council of Canadians is warning that Alberta may be on the road to privatising water rights, something that ducks have previously been using for free. [/tongue in cheek.]
posted by Stagger Lee at 12:00 PM PST - 33 comments

Back in May, Jen (but never Jenn) spent 2 weeks emulating a 1950s Housewife. [Results] [Lessons] Now she's back, this time, with a more husband-centric attempt at 1950s living.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:57 AM PST - 64 comments

Who best to officiate a zombie wedding? Only the newly ordained Bruce Campbell. [more inside]
posted by cottoncandybeard at 10:31 AM PST - 59 comments

'Death' is different than a haunted house, according to Michael Speece. "We don't have a safe word to give you an easy out. If you don't like the experience, tough".
posted by 300two8 at 10:07 AM PST - 124 comments

"The successful genres of a particular period are reflections of the needs and thoughts and social struggles of that time." Daniel Abraham offers some thoughts on the nature of literary genre, including urban fantasy, complete with specific predictions for the future of science fiction.
posted by Zed at 9:29 AM PST - 77 comments

The World's Largest Gummy Worm. Six Things You Could Do With The World's Most Disturbing Halloween Candy Besides Eat It. Shouldn't that be "Gummi" Worm? Hans Riegel Sr. must be spinning in his grave!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 9:23 AM PST - 33 comments

Nobuhiko Obayashi's House (also called Hausu) has been a cult film legend pretty much since its 1977 release in Japan. As director, Obayashi alchemizes the usual horror trappings (seven pretty young girls, each defined by one personality trait, visit a mysterious aunt who lives in a creepy house in the middle of nowhere) into a glorious, barely coherent, eminently watchable fever dream. The film has been discussed by those in the know for some time, but unless one knew who to ask, or lucked into the right festival, actually seeing the movie outside of the trailer or scenes on Youtube has been a bit of a difficult task. This particular injustice has officially been remedied, in a move for which very few people were calling out, but more might have if they'd known about it: House has been released on region 1 DVD and Blu-Ray by no less an entity than the Criterion Collection, finally taking its rightful place in cinematic history alongside such films as Rashomon, The Seventh Seal, and Olivier's Hamlet. Just in time for that Halloween party! Provided you not only want your guests to be entertained but also thoroughly bewildered and maybe slightly shellshocked.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 8:27 AM PST - 40 comments

Sándor Kégl, master of languages (via mr)
posted by kliuless at 7:28 AM PST - 15 comments

From the venerable MONSTER BRAINS (previously, previously, previously) comes the lost children's classic GODZILLA LIKES TO ROAR
posted by The Whelk at 7:17 AM PST - 19 comments

Wondering why the traffic is so slow? WONDER NO MORE! [Via]
posted by Lord_Pall at 6:33 AM PST - 63 comments

Physicist responds to Troll Physics.
posted by emilyd22222 at 6:13 AM PST - 59 comments

Paul the Psychic Octopus is dead. The English-born octopus shot to fame this summer by successfully predicting the results of World Cup matches.

Tributes are flooding in.
posted by i_cola at 4:52 AM PST - 79 comments

Exact String Matching Algorithms - Source code for Boyer-Moore, Horspool and other string-matching algorithms, along with visualizations of their operation
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:25 AM PST - 15 comments

"I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone." So begins Bishop John Spong's scathing assault on anti-gay Christians: 'I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy.'
posted by rodgerd at 1:22 AM PST - 284 comments

Picking locks for fun and education!
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:49 AM PST - 20 comments

Doonesbury turns 40. GT originally asked for a 12 month contract. Previously
posted by johnny7 at 11:54 PM PST - 37 comments

The Daily Beast attempts to identify America's Smartest Cities. Rather more seriously, Nature ponders the Best Cities for Science worldwide, as part of its special on Science and the City. (The podcast segment on cities is a nice overview.)
posted by philipy at 9:27 PM PST - 33 comments

Dogs Gods, great portraits of dogs by British photographer, Tim Flach l Bourgeois Dogs by Torkil Gudnason l Mute: The Silence of Dogs in Cars by Martin Usborne, now at theprintspace, London. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 9:13 PM PST - 9 comments

Wake In Progress: Illustrations to Finnegan's Wake [via]
posted by brundlefly at 8:38 PM PST - 17 comments

Rob Ford (previously, sort of previously) has won Toronto's mayoral election. [more inside]
posted by unSane at 7:46 PM PST - 141 comments

"You think you die alone, but that's not true. Nobody is alone in this world. We have to co-exist and take care of each other." (Caution : Video contains images which some may find disturbing.) [more inside]
posted by crunchland at 7:45 PM PST - 39 comments

Wired: "Who 'Ruled the Air' in 1910, and Who Rules It Now?". Also see: Vintage AdBrowser (Previously): Communications Ads of the: 1910's, 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's.
posted by zarq at 6:10 PM PST - 9 comments

Petra Cortright (C.V. here) is an internet visual artist. Her site has links to her works, which seem to be inspired by the aesthetic of the early web. She works in video, web art, and still image. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 5:47 PM PST - 11 comments

This new ad, [appearing on a "America's #1 taxpayer watchdog website"] which features a chilling look at one potential future scenario if America continues on its current destructive fiscal trajectory, is a 2010 homage to... [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 5:35 PM PST - 71 comments

Colette Magny (1926 – 1997) was a French song writer, composer and singer. Overlooked by the media because of her political engagement, she had success in the 1960′s with her blues-oriented repertoire and a big hit with her song “Melocoton (and gum balls)” (1963). Gifted with a strong and melodious voice, she was one of the few French singers at ease with blues and jazz. She sang the poems of great French poets (Rimbaud, Artaud, Aragon, Villon) as well as the repertoire of great blues and jazz singers (Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday) or her own, very creative, songs. Discover or rediscover the rich voice and soul of the great Colette Magny! Basin Street Blues::French Lullaby::Rock Me More And More::Frankie and Johnny::House of the Rising Sun::"Les Tuileries " chanson, texte de Victor Hugo::more.
posted by puny human at 5:23 PM PST - 6 comments

The Daily Beast discovers that the college programmers behind Facebook not only love their captors but also perpetuate the atrocities they themselves endured. Behind the new code of the schoolyard... [more inside]
posted by nickrussell at 4:44 PM PST - 27 comments

Triangulation Blog is done by industrial designer, art director Emilio Gomariz, and covers photography, art installations, product design, architecture, animation, technological and digital projects. Gomariz also does Base Times Height Divided By 2, an experimental, scientific and technologic extension of Triangulation Blog.
posted by netbros at 4:34 PM PST - 4 comments

Ussachevsky early tape manipulation piece Despite some of the synthesis sounding "dated", this and other similar pieces are still so full of audible discovery. You can find more of this and other instrumentation types here...
posted by somnambulist at 4:08 PM PST - 9 comments

Laura Podolnick writes stories about heartbreak, origami swans, the birds in the Staten Island Ferry and a child who wears a Hitler mustache. Many of them have very long titles.
posted by NoraReed at 3:21 PM PST - 8 comments

Best commercial for a video camera you've seen today (slyt commercial) [more inside]
posted by roaring beast at 3:09 PM PST - 26 comments

A third year law student at Boston College doesn't like the prospects he has after graduation, so he decided to ask the dean for a refund.
posted by reenum at 2:03 PM PST - 154 comments

The Taliban Can Has Website
They also welcome feedback.
posted by Biru at 1:55 PM PST - 81 comments

3VVVVVV (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by griphus at 1:24 PM PST - 21 comments

Sea Pools: And there are the ocean pools, so beloved by Australians that they have their own culture, a culture robust enough to be the subject of a documentary: Sea Pool: A Life in the Ocean, teased in the video above. Bondi Icebergs, shown in the teaser, is particularly amazing; fed by crashing waves, it is briny and bracing all year round. Membership requires that you swim every weekend, regardless of the weather. Do that for five years, and you’re a member for life. It is the ultimate pool-lover’s pool club. [more inside]
posted by dame at 1:21 PM PST - 28 comments

Homemade SLR
posted by plinth at 1:01 PM PST - 30 comments

Dyson likes to dress as a princess, so his mother wrote a book about acceptance, and his school and family rallied around him this Halloween. [more inside]
posted by mikoroshi at 12:45 PM PST - 64 comments

Unpopular Science: One man's unhappy encounters with the laws of physics.
posted by spiderskull at 12:45 PM PST - 7 comments

The art of glass sign making. (via) A delightful and strangely relaxing short documentary about the work of David Smith, a craftsman and artist making beautiful traditional glass signs.
posted by Long Way To Go at 12:34 PM PST - 10 comments

I'm sure you remember the time-travelling hipster photographed in 1940, and discovered in April of this year (MeFi). Well now there's been a new time traveler sighting - in the film "The Circus", by Charlie Chaplin a woman appears to walk by the camera talking on a cellphone. In 1928. [more inside]
posted by dirtdirt at 11:53 AM PST - 132 comments

The 99 (previously), the Islamic-inspired superheroes which have met both praise and somewhat batshit controversy, are crossing over with the DC Universe.
posted by Artw at 11:48 AM PST - 19 comments

Aaron Gouveia and his wife were already having the worst day of their lives. Then came the abortion protesters.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:07 AM PST - 134 comments

Since being mentioned previously in the blue, land artist Jim Denevan has visited Nevada, Vancouver, and Siberia. (Warning: photography interfaces, Apollonian gaskets). [more inside]
posted by Casimir at 11:07 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

“I’m surprised that there aren’t a lot of independent, owner-operated editorial Web sites out there,” Mr. Sicha said. “We will be two years old in April, and we are self-sufficient and stable. That’s pretty fast.” The NYT on the ups and downs of The Awl, which happens to be launching their new site, The Hairpin, today.
posted by geoff. at 10:05 AM PST - 40 comments

N8* Neverdaunt is a dream like world of floating Islands and falling stars where nearly anything can happen. N8* is an online massively multiplayer virtual sandbox, A place to play, make friends, be creative and competitive.
Windows, .Net 2.0 required.
Tip of the hat to Jake. Hi, Jake!
posted by boo_radley at 9:32 AM PST - 26 comments

A Squirrel's Guide to Fashion : from Life Magazine, circa 1940.
posted by sonika at 8:53 AM PST - 46 comments

Worldchanging Bright Green Future City - Alex Steffen sits down with the mayors of Portland and Seattle to talk about which is better the 'future city' and the confluence of urbanization, social justice and environmental change, not to mention political pushback amid high unemployment and cultural inertia.
posted by kliuless at 7:21 AM PST - 10 comments

Flying eyeballs. Pissed-off bearded ladies. Mummy Jesus. The Wolfman. The lactation of St. Bernard. The Jesus & Mary UFO invasion.* And the Phineas Gage of 1550.

These and more at the gallery of unexpected motifs in Renaissance art. [old-school NSFW] [more inside]
posted by theodolite at 7:20 AM PST - 31 comments

Reggae legend Gregory Isaacs has died after a battle with cancer. [more inside]
posted by analogue at 6:49 AM PST - 41 comments

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, has filed four lawsuits in a Californian court alleging that Mr Timonen, who ran its online operation in America, stole $375,000 (£239,000) over three years. [more inside]
posted by peacheater at 6:24 AM PST - 59 comments

"The whole endeavour of the consciousness studies community is absurd – they are in pursuit of a chimera" - Peter Hacker on philosophy
posted by Gyan at 4:30 AM PST - 143 comments

In 2008, residents of Seattle began to hear a very different kind of radio program on their AM dial, for three hours every weeknight. That show was Too Beautiful To Live. Much of the joy of the program is getting to know the hosts, and discovering whether or not the show survives, so I won't spoil it for you. You can start by listening to the First Show, or enter any weekday since Jan. 7, 2008, into the "Browse by date:" search box on the First Show webpage. If that's not enough motivation to start listening, here are some favorite episodes:  Interview with John Hodgman, Interview with Garfunkel and Oates, Interview with Wil Wheaton, Ross Dress for Less, Broke as a Joke in Seattle, Drunk People are So Meta, Interview with S.E. Hinton, Interview with Adam Carolla.
posted by LURK at 3:11 AM PST - 13 comments

462 feet above Seattle, a family has transformed the top of the Smith Tower into their rather fantastic residence. Slideshow here. [more inside]
posted by disillusioned at 2:15 AM PST - 105 comments

For your All Hallows pleasure, The Geek Pumpkin Roundup collects designs from Cylons to Star Wars, from silly to snappy.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:10 AM PST - 9 comments

Young guitarist Graham Stookey plays "Jonah, an original composition. (via Reddit)
posted by Rory Marinich at 12:09 AM PST - 26 comments

Stef reviews free jazz. Review index.
posted by kenko at 9:31 PM PST - 14 comments

An examination of the differences between the literary and scientific cultures, by John Allen Poulos.
posted by jjray at 9:07 PM PST - 29 comments

“When it comes to user privacy, SSL is the elephant in the room.” Meet Firesheep: a Firefox plugin that sniffs out unencrypted HTTP sessions on your network segment and lets you impersonate any of the users found. Eric Butler unveiled it today at Toorcon 12, a San Diego conference on computing security, and it demonstrates what amounts to a gaping hole in the Web security model.
posted by spitefulcrow at 8:24 PM PST - 63 comments

Competitive roller derby is undergoing a transformation: skaters are adopting tactics that are unconventional, but legal, and other teams have to adopt them to just keep up.
posted by LSK at 8:23 PM PST - 58 comments

WE ALL GOOD PEOPLE pt. 1 (ISRAEL/PALESTINE) (vimeo)
WE ALL GOOD PEOPLE pt. 2 (ISRAEL/PALESTINE) (vimeo)
More videos by Grant Slater.
posted by andoatnp at 7:12 PM PST - 11 comments

Fossil Angels - written by Alan Moore in December 2002 to appear in KAOS #15, which never appeared. Published here for the first time.
posted by MetaMonkey at 6:19 PM PST - 19 comments

Words of the World is a site dedicated to the exploration and life of words and language. [more inside]
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 3:01 PM PST - 8 comments

A City of Ghosts. Nashville blogger Betsy Phillips (Aunt B) (who I posted about last year) has published a book of new ghost stories, all set in Nashville. She's posting one sample story every day for the month of October on her blog. You can start at the post link with "Still Haunted" or check out my favorite, "The Purple Impala."
posted by emjaybee at 2:45 PM PST - 3 comments

Vladimir Putin Action Comics
posted by lullaby at 2:23 PM PST - 27 comments

Cross-dressing bass-playing Korean otaku endorses Meg Whitman for governor of California! [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 2:13 PM PST - 21 comments

Words I love , not to be confused with Words I hate.
posted by Fizz at 2:06 PM PST - 32 comments

E.O Wilson: Ants are a lot like us. Deborah Gordon: No, ants are like ants.
posted by The Whelk at 1:29 PM PST - 33 comments

The late Tony Wilson’s headstone, as designed by Peter Saville. “Factory Records founder Anthony H. Wilson died in August 2007 [MeFi previously]. Just over three years later, a memorial headstone – designed collaboratively by Wilson’s long-term associates Peter Saville and Ben Kelly, with Paul Barnes and Matt Robertson – was unveiled in the Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester.” A 2001-like Modernist monolith for a scion of Manchester, the “Original Modern.”
posted by joeclark at 12:46 PM PST - 33 comments

The Russian mafia and criminals have their own type of music. It's called shanson [chanson]. A couple of contemporary examples by Michael Krug- Kolschik and Lesovopal- Sit Boy l Arcadiy Severnyj (1939-1980) was considered the king of street (prison-folk) songs. Shanson MyRadio channel. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 11:46 AM PST - 24 comments

The birth of Wonder Woman - notes sent between William Moulton Marston and artist H. G. Peter show the genesis of the character . Meanwhile today is the 5th Annual Wonder Woman day - a Portland and Flemington, New Jersey event supporting Domestic Violence Programs. Not able to get over to Excalibur Comics or Comics Fusion to take part in the events or activities? There's still a few hours left in which you can take part by bidding on artwork online (previously).
posted by Artw at 11:42 AM PST - 19 comments

Developed by YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum, Youtube Play - A Biennial of Creative Video - aims to discover and showcase the most exceptional talent working in the ever-expanding realm of online video. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:52 AM PST - 10 comments

The Map of Non Monogamy [via]
posted by empath at 8:05 AM PST - 130 comments

A brief tour of the mysteriously universal laws of mathematics and nature. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:11 AM PST - 33 comments

Things Organized Neatly is a photo blog of exactly what the title says.
posted by bardophile at 2:55 AM PST - 57 comments

On November 4, 1950, the European Convention of Human Rights was signed in Rome. This site was created as part of the celebration, and apart from the text of the Convention itself it offers landmark judgements and other related information.
posted by rjs at 1:12 AM PST - 7 comments

"The history of greater St. Louis, is bound up in a tangle of local, state, and federal policies that explicitly and decisively sorted the City’s growing population by race." Mapping Decline visually connects and tracks the history of laws, zoning, urban renewal projects, and their effect on white flight in St. Louis.
posted by stratastar at 6:03 PM PST - 48 comments

Rain is falling on Australia's big red heart. [more inside]
posted by ninazer0 at 5:39 PM PST - 55 comments

The Banana Jr. 9000 lives. No, really. The Bloom County icon comes to life thanks to RetroMacCast co-host John, a "highly modified" Mac Plus shell, and a Mac Mini. Via Cult of Mac.
posted by mcwetboy at 12:26 PM PST - 35 comments

Cosplaygate brings you the finest in inexplicable costumes narrowly evading trademark issues, as well as Japanese-style fetish and cosplay wear (mostly SFW, actually). A banner promises "100% Off-World Shipping," while a live-chat bar reads "Need help? Jelly is online to help you." [more inside]
posted by gusandrews at 11:29 AM PST - 53 comments

After 30 years and 200 million sold, Sony has announced that their April shipment of cassette Walkmans was the last. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 10:32 AM PST - 189 comments

Omar Souleyman, is the Dabke Demon. Dabke is that wild line dancing thing they start doing 30 seconds in. Mahmoud Harbi (at 0:47) is the man who follows Omar around on stage, whispering lyrics in his ear.
posted by nickyskye at 9:08 AM PST - 18 comments

Get Home is a videogame for people who like to play videogames with loud music in the background. The band playing is Team Me.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 8:21 AM PST - 19 comments

Invented by Charles Dow in 1896, The Dow Jones Average ("The Dow") is perhaps the most widely known metric of equity market behaviour. Calculated as a price weighted average of thirty stocks, The Dow is generally eschewed by professional investors who prefer the broader S&P 500, a so-called market capitalisation weighted index consisting of 500 stocks. Regardless, proponents of the Dow claim its simplicity, long history and careful design as a reliable proxy of US economic activity as points in its favour. But can they now claim predicability as well? [more inside]
posted by Mutant at 8:05 AM PST - 19 comments

A lesser-known signatory of Charter 08 is an artist and human rights activist named Wu Yuren. And, like this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, he's now in prison. His wife, Karen Patterson, is a Canadian, from Calgary. And she believes his activism is why he's been detained by Chinese authorities for almost five months.
posted by acro at 7:01 AM PST - 3 comments

Number of Women in Group Linked to Effectiveness in Solving Difficult Problems
posted by kliuless at 6:54 AM PST - 53 comments

Teenage Dream in a not-so-manufactured-way. (SLYT)
posted by Han Tzu at 6:47 AM PST - 64 comments

One of music's greatest voices and songwriters passed away last week. [more inside]
posted by bonefish at 12:02 AM PST - 18 comments

Perhaps you feel like you should, like full-time Fox News analyst Juan Williams, get worried and nervous at the sight of people in Muslim garb, but you aren't sure you can always spot them. Fortunately, a new blog, Pictures of Muslims Wearing Things, is here to help you out.
posted by Tsuga at 10:46 PM PST - 85 comments

Stephin Merritt's TONY archive. Between 1996 and 2000, the principal singer and songwriter in the band The Magnetic Fields, filed more than 100 articles for Time Out New York, including record reviews, concert previews, a minigolf report, interviews, and a list of the best recordings of each year of the 20th century. Via.
posted by ND¢ at 7:36 PM PST - 13 comments

What a dollar gets you in America today. A slideshow of photography that shows exactly, per weight, the amount of food that one dollar ($1) will buy you. [SLNYT, Flash slideshow]
posted by Countess Elena at 4:55 PM PST - 55 comments

Visually impaired people are riding bicycles. Andreas Bocelli rides a bicycle. And then there's this.
posted by Xurando at 4:55 PM PST - 8 comments

"Hundreds of the leaked war logs reflect the fertile imagination of the torturer faced with the entirely helpless victim – bound, gagged, blindfolded and isolated – who is whipped by men in uniforms using wire cables, metal rods, rubber hoses, wooden stakes, TV antennae, plastic water pipes, engine fan belts or chains." [more inside]
posted by notion at 3:47 PM PST - 168 comments

Happy Birthday Windows 7, Happy Birthday Windows 7, thank God you aren't Vista, Happy Birthday Windows 7. [more inside]
posted by Mister Fabulous at 3:26 PM PST - 115 comments

The Zensunni Wandering, among other Dune maps. The universe of Farscape. The Foundation universe, in Thai. All courtesy of the Stars in Science Fiction section of Winchell Chung's comprehensive 3-D Starmaps site. [more inside]
posted by kmz at 1:46 PM PST - 8 comments

Data, take us out of orbit, warp factor one...engage.
posted by analogtom at 1:23 PM PST - 57 comments

"Retiring Judge Accuses Colleague Of Corruptly Siding With Major Financial Firms Over 20 Years." As also reported by Washington Post and elsewhere, retiring Judge George Painter recently leveled the explosive claim that a colleague, Judge Bruce Levine, had privately admitted to entering into a secret agreement with Wendy Gramm, former Republican chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to rule against investors in every case brought before his court. "On Judge Levine's first week on the job, nearly twenty years ago, he came into my office and stated that he had promised Wendy Gramm, then Chairwoman of the Commission, that we would never rule in a complainant's favor," Painter wrote. "A review of his rulings will confirm that he fulfilled his vow," Painter wrote. Murdoch's Wall Street Journal meanwhile runs with a slightly different take on the story (behind pay-wall).
posted by saulgoodman at 12:55 PM PST - 54 comments

Informed critiques of the science behind TV shows, by scientists: The Big Blog Theory (The Big Bang Theory), Polite Dissent (Fringe, House MD - with an excellent sideline of medicine in comics (previously)), Barone Rocks (Dexter).
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:24 PM PST - 30 comments

If Toonces the Driving Cat and Keyboard Cat mated, this would be the outcome: The new video Red Lights from the Canadian band Holy Fuck. [more inside]
posted by MaryDellamorte at 11:35 AM PST - 50 comments

Programmers Who Defined The Technology Industry: Where Are They Now?
posted by Artw at 11:10 AM PST - 18 comments

Marlow and Fran Cowan, an elderly couple who'd been married for 62 years, wandered through the atrium of the Mayo Clinic in 2008 and became accidental YouTube celebrities. Early this year they returned to the clinic for an encore performance (6 parts). The Cowans tell their story here.
posted by hermitosis at 11:03 AM PST - 23 comments

ESPN the Magazine previews the 2010-11 NBA season by collaborating with Marvel Comics artists to produce comic book covers for each NBA team. The covers, which range from goofy to badass, were drawn by a team that includes "virtually a who's who of who's hot in comic books right now." Hi-res jpgs available for your downloading pleasure. [via] [more inside]
posted by googly at 10:31 AM PST - 46 comments

Demon's Souls, an action-RPG from Atlus, is the most notoriously difficult videogame of this generation (previously). If the game was too brutal for you to finish, this should add insult to injury: someone's completed it in just 54 minutes. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. [more inside]
posted by naju at 10:22 AM PST - 44 comments

Computer science student wonders if his professor is really reading his papers, so he inserts an elegant, masterful pop-culture acrostic. He gets the paper back today. That is all.
posted by timsteil at 10:18 AM PST - 91 comments

Need to fine-tune your bike riding warmth? Here are three great patterns (last link opens as PDF) for making your own cycling cap, plus one very good video tutorial.
posted by peachfuzz at 9:39 AM PST - 13 comments

Spike Magazine offers up a splendid enchanting 598 page behometh anthology of interviews, features and book reviews taken from the last 15 years of this wonderfully eclectic magazine (Direct PDF / Zip) . Nicely formatted and with enough content to keep even the most avid britlit fan happy. Highlights include interviews with (among many others) Will Self (p451,460,464,467) , JG Ballard (p27,32,35, 39), Iain Banks (p54), Nick Hornby(p276). Enjoy.
posted by numberstation at 9:06 AM PST - 5 comments

The Myth of Charter Schools. A response to the case for charter schools advanced by "Waiting for Superman."
posted by availablelight at 8:54 AM PST - 103 comments

It's been suggested that the humble mosquito is responsible for more deaths than all the wars combined. Scientists working at the Planck institute are hoping to change this by using the mosquitoes themselves as a way to administer a malaria vaccine. [more inside]
posted by quin at 8:30 AM PST - 13 comments

The Amazing Flo Fox. A look at the interesting life of New York street photographer Flo Fox.
posted by chunking express at 8:03 AM PST - 7 comments

Apple has decided to follow the success of their iOS App store by making a Mac App store. Yes, applications for the Mac OS will soon be available, in addition to the previous methods, for one click download and installation from a single online source. Engadget covers the guidelines for App submissions, CNET has a FAQ about the store, while Ars Technica, PC Mag, ZDNET, MSNBC, CNN, Computerworld and Macworld discuss the pros and cons of this development.
posted by nomadicink at 7:26 AM PST - 286 comments

Code-switching is using different languages or language varieties in different contexts. Ta-Nehisi Coates does it. Jay-Z does it. The President does it. But, for African Americans, is code-switching necessary to escape poverty, an element of race as performed or neither?
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 7:11 AM PST - 61 comments

Return to Emerald Hill Zone! Sega recently released its modernized take on the classic Sonic the Hedgehog formula with Sonic the Hedgehog 4, but for something much more authentic and in the spirit of the original Genesis games, you'll have to turn to the free fan-created Sonic Fan Remix. Now with playable PC demo! Get to it before the lawyers do! [more inside]
posted by Servo5678 at 7:04 AM PST - 16 comments

Gordon Pinsent reads Bieber. (slyt)
posted by jimmythefish at 6:40 AM PST - 29 comments

The blue has previously covered Zach Galifianakis' Between Two Ferns, a satirical short talk show highlighting the uncomfortable banter (and silence) that arise between interviewer and interviewee. This week while shooting an interview for the upcoming film It's Kind Of A Funny Story he was treated a bit of his own medicine.
posted by analogue at 6:33 AM PST - 27 comments

Thomas was alone. A Flash game about friendship and cooperation.
posted by DU at 6:31 AM PST - 10 comments

The Birth of Sharing Law and the Rise of Co-ops - "A new sharing economy is emerging — but how does it fit within our legal system? Time for a whole new field of cooperation law." (via wc)
posted by kliuless at 5:43 AM PST - 30 comments

Welcome to the mezzacotta Café [more inside]
posted by Curious Artificer at 5:37 AM PST - 10 comments

In a follow on to her 2009 series "Fascist America" (part I, part II, part III) Sara Robinson asks "Is this election the next turn?" [more inside]
posted by IvoShandor at 3:17 AM PST - 93 comments

Eskimo cooking has been discussed before. But The Eskimo Cookbook still hasn't made me hungry for oogruk flippers and Eskimo ice cream. I still prefer Norwegian whale meat recipes.
posted by twoleftfeet at 10:31 PM PST - 47 comments

An Avatar costume for you and your best friend. SLYT
posted by biddeford at 9:44 PM PST - 29 comments

100 Incredibly Useful YouTube Channels for Teachers includes some great choices, among them are also many generally likable ones like the CIA (not that one, The Culinary Institute of America) l Words of the World l NPR Radio Pictures l The Metropolitan Museum of Art l PBS.
posted by nickyskye at 9:16 PM PST - 13 comments

Cubic Mouth is a series of plush dolls and toys designed by Satoshi Fumihara, creator of MTV Japan's The World of Golden Eggs and some rather interesting ads for Nissan. (previously) If the dolls look familiar, it's not a coincidence nor is it an artistic imitation; these are legitimately licensed Disney products. (most links in Japanese but self-explanatory) Oh Disney, why do you have to be so buttoned up at home?
posted by 1adam12 at 8:18 PM PST - 17 comments

This is what 121-1/2 tons of marijuana looks like. [more inside]
posted by Taft at 7:41 PM PST - 94 comments

OCTOBER 22 IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!! EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!! [more inside]
posted by tarheelcoxn at 7:37 PM PST - 367 comments

A great slideshow of the nyc subway system 1910-present. [more inside]
posted by jourman2 at 7:29 PM PST - 5 comments

Nick Robinson, the BBC's main political correspondent in London shows what he thinks of free speech. While taping a stand-up in the yard in front of Westminster Palace, Nick Robinson loses it with an anti-poverty protester. Robinson, an admired writer and broadcaster, was a leader of the Conservatives at university but has been largely non-partisan. His own blog about the experience in the video.
posted by parmanparman at 7:24 PM PST - 41 comments

The race is on: India by 2020, China by 2025 - will the US get there at all?
posted by PuppyCat at 7:21 PM PST - 24 comments

What it feels like to want to kill yourself. [more inside]
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:23 PM PST - 57 comments

A Year at War: One Battalion's Wrenching Deployment to Afghanistan: "Some 30,000 American soldiers are taking part in the Afghanistan surge. Here are the stories of the men and women of First Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division" out of Fort Drum, NY., based in Kunduz Province, Afghanistan. Over the next year, The New York Times will follow their journey, chronicling the battalion’s part in the surge in northern Afghanistan and the impact of war on individual soldiers and their families back home. (First link is an interactive feature containing images and autoplaying video, and requires flash. Second link is a standard-style article.) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 3:43 PM PST - 27 comments

Yesterday at around 3PM PST, John McAllister began his quest to beat a 25 year-old "Joust" record of 107 million points. His game is being broadcast live. It is oddly compelling to watch a skilled player in action - at 22 hours of play he has 47 million points.
posted by pashdown at 12:57 PM PST - 165 comments

The Dalai Lama on changing minds only through compassion and respect. He spent several days at Stanford recently, and this session focuses on the neuroscience of compassion. Watch it in full here.
posted by philipy at 12:39 PM PST - 54 comments

80s supermodel Paulina Porizkova (images may be NSFW) on aging: Beauty, unlike the rest of the gifts handed out at birth, does not require dedication, patience and hard work to pay off. But it's also the only gift that does NOT keep on giving. It usually blossoms at an age where you're least equipped to handle its benefits and rewards and instead take it all for granted, and by the time you start understanding the value of it, it slowly trickles away. How's that for revenge of the ugly ones? (related)
posted by Joe Beese at 12:07 PM PST - 120 comments

Badass Digest is a new blog from Austin's decidedly badass Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas and Devin Faraci, formerly of CHUD.com. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:01 PM PST - 10 comments

An awkward moment at the diner (complete with startled waiter) leads into a lengthy article about regrowing breasts from stem cells that are themselves harvested from liposuction, the procedure of which has been undergoing trials and continual improvement since 2006. The FDA has yet to approve it in the USA. (maybe NSFW sideboobs) [more inside]
posted by Old'n'Busted at 11:41 AM PST - 19 comments

Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson discuss tech evolution, overpopulation, the singularity, and spoons. [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 11:35 AM PST - 1 comment

"It’s the vehicular equivalent of the AK-47. It’s ubiquitous to insurgent warfare. And actually, recently, also counterinsurgent warfare. It kicks the hell out of the Humvee." It may suck to drive, but the tough and agile Toyota Hilux is the insurgent's vehicle of choice in Afghanistan. U.S. Special Forces prefer the comparable American-built Toyota Tacoma.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 11:29 AM PST - 78 comments

Keith Richards' book tl;dr? Fixed that for you. See what I did there? [more inside]
posted by punkfloyd at 11:09 AM PST - 31 comments

You've seen cat parkour, but have you seen dog parkour? How about monkey parkour? Squirrel parkour? [more inside]
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 10:30 AM PST - 19 comments

19 ways to recycle old, unused computer hardware [more inside]
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 10:25 AM PST - 18 comments

The Conversation Prism "gives you a whole view of the social media universe, categorized and also organized by how people use each network." [more inside]
posted by greenish at 7:59 AM PST - 26 comments

Bruce Goff (1904 - 1982) was either a creative genius or the worst architect of the 20th century. At best, his astoundingly diverse body of work resembles a cross between Frank Lloyd Wright and The Gobbler; at worst it recalls Middle-Earth or industrial storage. His designs, many of them unbuilt, run the gamut from geometric abstraction to organic imitation. Forgotten for years, Goff retains a small following, particularly in Oklahoma, where he spent most of his career. Today he's experiencing a minor resurgence in popularity. [more inside]
posted by theodolite at 7:57 AM PST - 21 comments

WikiLeaks communications
infrastructure is currently under attack.
Project BO move to coms channel S.
Activate Reston5.

This cryptic message, posted to WikiLeaks twitter account yesterday, comes ahead of the imminent release of more than 400,000 "mostly" low-level documents related to the Iraq war. Wikileaks.org currently reports that the site is down for scheduled maintainance. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 7:46 AM PST - 144 comments

Hatsune Miku's latest album debuted in the number one spot on the Japanese weekly Oricon album charts. She's playing live to sold out stadiums, and action figures depicting her have been shot into space... [more inside]
posted by zeoslap at 7:27 AM PST - 33 comments

An image of leafcutter ants at work in the Costa Rican rainforest has scooped top prize in the 2010 Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition (via The Guardian). The winners are on display now at London’s Natural History Museum. Online gallery. Previously on MeFi.
posted by londonmark at 6:51 AM PST - 15 comments

Winner-Take-All Politics [1,2] (PDF) - "The sources of American economic inequality are largely political – the result of deliberate political decisions to shape markets in ways that benefit the already-privileged at the expense of a more-or-less unaware public." (via bd) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 4:56 AM PST - 45 comments

NPR fires senior news analyst Juan Williams after he makes comments on The O'Reilly Factor about his nervousness when boarding a plane with Muslims. [more inside]
posted by waraw at 10:32 PM PST - 222 comments

Andy Gonsalves likes to draw silly, twisted cartoons and illustrations. What! Cat got your tongue?
posted by netbros at 10:20 PM PST - 9 comments

Porn mogul and entrepreneur Bob Guccione is dead at 79. I'll never forget sneaking peeks at my mom's copy of Viva, submitting my first post-Clarion story to Omni, and leaving the room when my college housemates were watching Caligula. Rest in peace, sir.
posted by xenophile at 7:55 PM PST - 77 comments

Do you want to be a writer? This is your tradition. In 1978, Michael Ventura co-founded the 'LA Weekly,' serving as film critic and feature writer until 1983, when (while continuing to write features) he began his biweekly column Letters at 3AM. The column appeared in that publication until 1993; since then, it has been published by the Austin Chronicle. [more inside]
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:16 PM PST - 6 comments

Ari Up became a music legend at the tender age of 14, as a founding member of legendary punk band The Slits. Their first album, Cut, blended the nascent punk genre with reggae beats and feminist politics, but was overshadowed by the nude photo on the sleeve [NSFW: boobies]. After the trio disbanded in the early 1980s, Up collaborated with Lee "Scratch" Perry, recorded with the New Age Steppers, released solo work, and raised a family. Her former stepfather John Lydon announced that Ari Up died today following a lengthly illness.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:54 PM PST - 67 comments

What Cannot Be Seen. "This is an ongoing postal photography project. I mail matchbox pinhole cameras loaded with photographic paper to participants, inviting them to photograph 'what cannot be seen'. The cameras are then returned to me to be processed, accompanied by an explanation of what the participant has photographed." [on flickr]
posted by chunking express at 6:16 PM PST - 15 comments

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:04 PM PST - 21 comments

The Chancellor of the UK coalition government has announced the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review, setting budgets for government departments to 2014/15. Total savings will be £18 billion. Local government funding will be cut 7% each year for the next four years. The Arts Council budget will be cut by 30%. 490,000 jobs are forecast to be lost over the period in the public sector. The average cuts for each government department will be 19%. The speech. HM Treasury Spending Review pages. Guardian summary. Independent article. Nick Robinson's blog for the BBC. Make your own cuts with the Guardian's interactive tool. Graphic showing 09/10 government spending (that is, before the cuts).
posted by paduasoy at 5:26 PM PST - 89 comments

A throne of weapons. An armchair built from a Russian seamine. A dress made of bullets. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 4:14 PM PST - 29 comments

Giant Beach Bubbles | selbbuB hcaeB tnaiG.
posted by crunchland at 3:37 PM PST - 38 comments

Renowned theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed gave a series of five Messenger lectures on "The Future of Fundamental Physics" at Cornell University two weeks ago. 1 3 4 5 [more inside]
posted by bread-eater at 3:33 PM PST - 15 comments

I ended up not taking my meds on the weekend to conserve them for workdays in case something went wrong when it came time to renew, as it always seemed to, and so the character of "Mike on the weekends" became much more sweary and unpredictable -- but even I had to admit, weirdly entertaining. I was known to unload a series of f-bombs on people wearing shorts (why shorts?) and the behavior was weird enough that I never got beat up. When Tourette's took over my life
posted by defenestration at 3:22 PM PST - 16 comments

Cocktail Party Physics-- Serving up science and culture with a splash of wit. "Cocktail Party Physics is a group science blog that aims to create a salon-like virtual space where contributors and readers alike can chat about the latest news and ideas in science -- with a twist. If we can make it fun, funky, unconventional, and blur the lines between traditional disciplines -- both within the sciences themselves, and science and the arts, literature, pop culture, history, and every other aspect of our culture -- so much the better."
posted by jokeefe at 2:10 PM PST - 6 comments

"I measure my life in terms of my relationship with Star Wars" - The Guardian interviews Simon Pegg, star of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and the forthcoming Paul (trailer).
posted by Artw at 1:12 PM PST - 47 comments

"Better people than I have sacrificed more than their careers, their livelihood, for the cause of freedom. Americans need to wake up and stand up." Michael Roberts, a pilot for ExpressJet, refused to enter the millimeter wave machine. TSA called the police and sent him home. [more inside]
posted by peachfuzz at 1:05 PM PST - 136 comments

Tea Party Nationalism: A Critical Examination of The Tea Party Movement and the Size, Scope and Focus of its National Factions is a new study that released today, just two weeks before the US midterm elections, by The Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR). Sponsored by the NAACP, it reports that the Tea Party movement is “permeated with concerns about race” and has “given platform to anti-Semites, racists and bigots.” [more inside]
posted by zarq at 12:59 PM PST - 72 comments

There was the home-built Lego + Mac + felt tip pen printer and a 3D chocolate printer made out of LEGO bricks (and some other bits), and now: the MakerLegoBot, a 'bot that can build models out of 1×2, 2×2, 3×2, 4×2 and 8×2 Lego bricks. Want to give it a go yourself? Here are the instructions, in 447 easy steps. Or you can skip the tricky stuff, and watch a small Lego house be built in under 3 minutes* [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:35 PM PST - 9 comments

Jack Conway, a candidate for United States Senate, is catching flak from Democrats and Tea-Partiers alike, for airing an attack ad against his opponent, Rand Paul that brings up some bizarre dirt published in GQ a few months back. At a debate between the two candidates Sunday, Paul refused to shake Conway's hand at the end. Today, the National Republican Senatorial Committee released a response to the Aqua Buddha ad. [more inside]
posted by krysalist at 12:20 PM PST - 65 comments

Empire magazine tracks down where the Colonial Marines from Aliens are now.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:13 PM PST - 62 comments

OMNI was launched (PDF) by Kathy Keeton, long-time companion and later wife of Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione, who described the magazine in its first issue as "an original if not controversial mixture of science fact, fiction, fantasy and the paranormal". [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 11:47 AM PST - 64 comments

In3structotank! (a.k.a. Indestructotank 3) Now with nukes! And blimps! Blimps that go "boing"! And an adventure mode! (original Indestructotank on MeFi)
posted by Curious Artificer at 11:41 AM PST - 11 comments

Fermilab particle astrophysicist Craig Hogan is building a holometer to directly measure if our reality is an illusion - that is, nothing more than a hologram. [more inside]
posted by Old'n'Busted at 11:33 AM PST - 58 comments

20.10.2010 is World Statistics Day, so help yourself to a metric (haha sorry) ton of publicly available data at UNdata, ICSPR (registration required to download data sets), and data.gov (previously). You can also explore, visualize and animate a variety of publicly available data sets with Google Labs' Public Data Explorer.
posted by cog_nate at 10:45 AM PST - 14 comments

oops, by Chris Beckman, is a fascinating video collage of people dropping their cameras. It won the experimental category of the 2010 Vimeo Awards (previously).
posted by Hoenikker at 10:38 AM PST - 32 comments

"I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day." [more inside]
posted by Mister Fabulous at 10:03 AM PST - 128 comments

So you want to go to law school?(SLYT) [more inside]
posted by Muddler at 9:05 AM PST - 113 comments

"Then the powers that had built the site abandoned it. But the glass endured — a splotchy green circle 200 feet in diameter, dull by night, bright by day, a monument to man's inhumanity to man. This monument was surrounded by a high fence, tight strands of barbed wire, and multilingual warning signs. The gate in the fence was chained with three padlocks — two put there by government agencies — serving as links in the chain. If you got through any of the three, you could gain admission to Trinity Site. And that's what I did. In July, 1951, I entered the site, and I took the glass. Let me explain.
posted by anastasiav at 8:31 AM PST - 42 comments

Tokyo drifts ... cat2525jp has a neat YouTube channel of voyages through Tokyo transit systems, set to electronica. They include timelapse (e.g. Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line), and the lovely mirror effect "Tokyo Sky Drive" series (e.g. 1 2), and povs of high-tech automated parking systems with bowing attendants.
posted by carter at 8:26 AM PST - 9 comments

What I've always wanted- an atlas of the world's vulnerability to climate change (downloadable pdf on page).
posted by leibniz at 8:20 AM PST - 11 comments

Gnome kidnapping has been a widespread crime for years, but now Furry Toys offers to send your stuffed loved one on a Grand Tour of Paris.
posted by mippy at 8:01 AM PST - 11 comments

Minimal pixel versions of well-known groups of individuals has become a trend at Something Awful, where it was originally inspired by this post of Street Fighter characters. Guessing who has been pixelated is surprisingly easy and entertaining. If you are properly geeky, you'll probably find #1, #4, and #16 to be easiest. I happen to like #10. [more inside]
posted by blahblahblah at 7:57 AM PST - 28 comments

Tseventy offers a curated collection of art-photograph wallpapers for mobile devices (it's affiliated with Poolga (previously)).
posted by box at 7:32 AM PST - 3 comments

Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground talks about her Tea Party activism. (Previously on MetaFilter: Johnny Ramone, conservative punk.)
posted by escabeche at 6:43 AM PST - 129 comments

Last month saw the premiere in The Hague of a new opera in the Klingon language. [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:40 AM PST - 13 comments

This is it. It's not the phone that would win a popularity contest in the U.S., but there are great reasons for it being the most popular phone in the world.
posted by Leta at 6:35 AM PST - 84 comments

Calgary elects Canada's first Muslim mayor. [more inside]
posted by Alex404 at 2:30 AM PST - 83 comments

Ta-Nehisi Coates has written about his evolving view of the American Civil War (among many other things) on his Atlantic blog for over two years. A reader has now compiled links for all of them for our reading pleasure. There is also a page of recommendations that will help a reader find the most often mentioned civil war resources in the discussions. [more inside]
posted by severiina at 1:31 AM PST - 18 comments

Yantra tattooing is a traditional Thai, Khmer, Lao and Burmese practice using beautiful and intricately designed yantras for good luck, fortune, strength and protection. [more inside]
posted by Ahab at 12:13 AM PST - 10 comments

San Francisco 1906, Barcelona 1908, London 1927. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 8:27 PM PST - 45 comments

Add some purple to your outfit today! October 20th is LBGTQ Spirit Day. Show your pride by remembering those who have taken their lives because of gay bullying
posted by WhiteWhale at 8:20 PM PST - 138 comments

Bacteria can communicate with each other, take concerted action, influence human physiology, alter human thinking, and work together to change their environment. The bacteria in your gut are talking to each other, and to you, and you are talking back to them. The mind boggles. [more inside]
posted by exphysicist345 at 7:16 PM PST - 55 comments

wendyvainity makes 3D animations and puts them on YouTube. They are strangely captivating. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 7:05 PM PST - 44 comments

A project to build Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. John Graham (blog) has setup a pledge to build a working version of the Analytical Engine, successor to the Difference Engine(Prev) it was to be a real steam powered programmable computer.
posted by Long Way To Go at 3:26 PM PST - 27 comments

Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell (previously) today challenged her Democratic opponent Chris Coons on his statement that the Constitution disallowed the integration of religion into the federal government, asking, "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" [more inside]
posted by phaedon at 2:34 PM PST - 324 comments

"I’ve never been so frustrated by something that I wanted to be excited about, and where I wanted to see the light bulbs go off, and just hearing (to my ears) empty, meaningless, self-referential chatter."

This year's buzz word in the Valley is "gamificaton." [more inside]
posted by victors at 2:28 PM PST - 49 comments

We've previously discussed the minutiae of computer keyboards, and now overclock.net has a detailed guide to their innards.
posted by bitmage at 1:41 PM PST - 49 comments

"Marion and I have not climbed Mount Everest, or written the great American novel. But we've had the joy of raising two wonderful kids, and watching them and their friends grow up into loving adults... and I guess no man or woman could ask for anything more. To happy days." Tom Bosley, TV's Howard Cunningham, has died at 83 [more inside]
posted by evilcolonel at 1:32 PM PST - 67 comments

"I've gotten a reputation for incorporating Lovecraft stuff into my work, but I've never sat down and done a straightforward tribute to him. That's what this Whittier story is." - After admirable efforts by Duncan Fedredo and Richard Corben, and spin-off work by Guy Davis, Mike Mignola returns to drawing Hellboy.
posted by Artw at 1:11 PM PST - 33 comments

"The mist — visible only under ultraviolet light — carries DNA markers particular to the location, enabling the police to match the burglar with the place burgled. Now, a sign on the front door of the McDonald’s prominently warns potential thieves of the spray’s presence: 'You Steal, You’re Marked.'"
posted by Scoop at 11:54 AM PST - 63 comments

Life in a Post-Scarcity World a.k.a., 5 Reasons the Future Will Be Ruled by B.S. (SLCRACKED; via) [more inside]
posted by tybeet at 10:37 AM PST - 104 comments

Llamas have a long history living alongside humans as pack animals, and as a food source. But did you know they can also be clowns or teletubbies or eagles? More information about Llamas.
posted by Makwa at 10:28 AM PST - 28 comments

Artificer Rick L. Ross presents the Blade Runner-inspired Sebastian's Immortal Game chess set and the box it came in. [more inside]
posted by griphus at 10:22 AM PST - 14 comments

Make your own customized paper sundial . This website creates a PDF based on your location so that you can easily print out and make a paper sundial.
posted by exogenous at 9:41 AM PST - 16 comments

The BBC presents a wee Flash gubbins that discusses the history of the English language in ten parts.
posted by Dim Siawns at 8:12 AM PST - 15 comments

The Gulf Between Us. Stories of terror and beauty from the world's largest accidental offshore oil disaster. Six months on, Terry Tempest Williams gives us a trenchant report on the BP spill, for Orion magazine.
posted by HumanComplex at 7:58 AM PST - 4 comments

Eyedea: A Life Cut Short. On Sunday, Michael "Eyedea" Larson's mother confirmed on Facebook that her son had passed away over the weekend. Eyedea was a talented and well-respected indie rapper with Rhymesayers. [more inside]
posted by TrinaSelwyn at 7:25 AM PST - 40 comments

The Iraq War: was there even a decision? "Perhaps most revealing ... is what is missing--any indication whatsoever from the declassified record to date that top Bush administration officials seriously considered an alternative to war. In contrast there is an extensive record of efforts to energize military planning, revise existing contingency plans, and create a new, streamlined war plan." The National Security Archive at George Washington University has released a set of documents from the US and British archives related to the Iraq war: Part I, Part II, Part III. Political scientist Russell Burgos (who served in Iraq):

... there is indeed a kind of inevitability about the confrontation, but it was an inevitability created by domestic politics rather than 9/11. In my estimation, the origins of the "path to war" are found in the Republican Revolution of 1994; I will suggest that from 1996 to 2000, Iraq policy was not about Iraq - it was about an increasingly strident partisan attack on President Bill Clinton in which "Iraq" was not a subject of deliberate policy but was a synecdoche for "Clinton's failure."

Historian Robert Jervis also comments. Via H-DIPLO.
posted by russilwvong at 7:01 AM PST - 42 comments

Scalzi's at it again with another great post. "Things I don't have to think about" - thoughtful piece of writing from John Scalzi about privilege and how it impacts us all. The comments are worth the read as well.
posted by leslies at 6:33 AM PST - 98 comments

Katherine Cahoon, author of The Single Girls Guide to Meeting European Men, breaks down the how (and why) of...Meeting European Men everywhere: at the Beach, the Club, and at the Running Of The Bulls.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:14 AM PST - 74 comments

Twice now, Mythbusters has tackled the story of Archimedes' "heat ray." Twice now it's been busted. So who could have persuaded them to revisit it a third time? ...President Barack Obama. [more inside]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:34 AM PST - 114 comments

Representatives of more than 190 countries will try over the next two weeks to save some of the world’s most delicate and diverse species and ecosystems threatened by pollution, exploitation and habitat encroachment. If they are to succeed, they must safely navigate the minefield separating rich and poor nations that has so far defeated initiatives on climate change. The UN will try to convince nations that it is in their financial interest to do so, but time is running out. One in five plants, one in five mammals, one in seven birds and one in three amphibians are now globally threatened with extinction — including the tiger, whose global population now stands at an estimated 3,200. Next month’s Global Tiger Summit in St Petersburg could be the last chance for the tiger. The World Wildlife Fund wants you to help.
posted by londonmark at 2:56 AM PST - 18 comments

"The Soft Boys came into my head in Cambridge, in the hot, dry summer of 1976 while punk was being conjured up by a small group of artists and villains in London...." [more inside]
posted by Rangeboy at 1:11 AM PST - 25 comments

Professional ear cleaners are not always popular amongst backpackers in India. Few realize it's an ancient trade, passed down from father to son. It's also one that may be dying in the face of stiff competition from Q-tips and western medicine. How does one recognize an authentic professional ear cleaner? By his red skull cap, of course.
posted by Ahab at 10:20 PM PST - 83 comments

Wired article based on the New Liberal Arts Previously on Metafilter, here and here, but now being published in Wired, not just Snarkmarket. Part of a cyclical trend in some corners of the smart set to suppose that college needs a complete reinvention.  Look, the New Liberal Arts.  These starry-eyed future watchers  bring up the very old proposal that higher education is outdated, outmoded and not preparing our students for their lives in the future.   They may get their wish, but they might not like the new world without liberal arts 1.0
posted by cogpsychprof at 8:22 PM PST - 72 comments

"If you want to marry a show, I'll marry you." Jimmy McMillan, of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, steals the show at an NY gubernatorial debate.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:05 PM PST - 81 comments

Is seeing believing? BBC Horizon looks at sensory perception, illusions and the interplay of our different senses. (Full program for UK viewers here). Makes you feel like you've entered The Twilight Zone. [more inside]
posted by philipy at 8:00 PM PST - 16 comments

Kaz's Underworld, animated. [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 6:38 PM PST - 11 comments

Jezebel compiles a glossary of gifs for only of your gif related needs. More to be found in the comments.
posted by lauratheexplorer at 5:44 PM PST - 71 comments

Y'know, I never really got into Phish (wiki) but, man, they just sound so good here.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:26 PM PST - 71 comments

Want to know what your old high school is doing to protect and support its LGBTQ students? Write Your Principal encourages and collects correspondence about anti-bullying efforts between alumni and their alma maters. [via projects]
posted by Anonymous at 5:23 PM PST - 15 comments

plsr. — an international photography showcase with dozens of options for filtering, or sorting by photographer, country, best rated, or most viewed. With links to the photographer's personal sites.
posted by netbros at 4:10 PM PST - 5 comments

Private security guards working for Alaska Tea Party candidate Joe Miller detained and handcuffed a blogger who was asking questions at a public campaign event in a public school Sunday. Here is remarkable video from the Anchorage Daily News of the security guards trying to strongarm other reporters at the same event. Miller told CNN the blogger was "hounding" him. [more inside]
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:22 PM PST - 209 comments

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Character Heads. [PDF] [more inside]
posted by IndigoJones at 1:07 PM PST - 11 comments

Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to be hiding close to each other in houses in northwest Pakistan, but are not together, a senior NATO official said. ... al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort, protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services... The official would not discuss how the coalition has come to know any of this information, but he has access to some of the most sensitive information in the NATO alliance. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 12:51 PM PST - 106 comments

The chaos theory of evolution
posted by Artw at 12:29 PM PST - 33 comments

'Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong.' Dr. John P. A. Ioannidis, adjunct professor at Tufts University School of Medicine is a meta-researcher. 'He and his team have shown, again and again, and in many different ways, that much of what biomedical researchers conclude in published studies—conclusions that doctors keep in mind when they prescribe antibiotics or blood-pressure medication, or when they advise us to consume more fiber or less meat, or when they recommend surgery for heart disease or back pain—is misleading, exaggerated, and often flat-out wrong. He charges that as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed. His work has been widely accepted by the medical community; it has been published in the field’s top journals, where it is heavily cited; and he is a big draw at conferences.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 12:26 PM PST - 65 comments

My Great Story (flash heavy) - The National Down Syndrome Society is building a collection of stories celebrating the lives of the 400,000 people with Down syndrome in the United States. Know someone with Down syndrome? You can contribute too.
posted by plinth at 12:25 PM PST - 5 comments

R Crumb talks to the Paris Review about his adaptation of The Book of Genesis, cartoons, LSD, Winnie the Pooh, Terry Gilliam, and some other things.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:07 AM PST - 29 comments

In the 80s and 90s, Swans made music that moved from dissonance to melody, sometimes mixing the two (and with some diversions along the way). They broke up in 1997. [more inside]
posted by Grinder at 11:06 AM PST - 38 comments

Read any good books lately? How about bad books? With Halloween around the corner, maybe we should take a moment to revisit The Necronomicon. (slyt)
posted by mannequito at 11:05 AM PST - 67 comments

The Wall Street Journal's What They Know blog is charged with determining what information marketers are capable of learning about internet users through tracking technology. This weekend, they took aim at Facebook, after their investigation discovered that many popular apps on the social-networking site, including those by Zynga, have been transmitting identifying information in the form of User ID's to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, even if a user has enabled strict privacy settings. Additional analysis. Response post on Facebook's Developer Blog. Forbes' blogger Kashmir Hill asks if the WSJ is overreacting, and Techcrunch notes that the severity and risks of UID transferral are still being debated.
posted by zarq at 10:39 AM PST - 56 comments

Did the ancient Israelites drink beer? Although at the time beer was consumed by “men, women and even children of all social classes,” references to it in the Bible are scant. Beer production at the time was similar to bread, where wheat and barley cakes were baked then rehydrated to ferment -- a process much like the ancient Egyptian method of fermentation, as found in the Hymn of Ninkasi, which was recreated by Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing. You too can be a part of beer history by brewing your own Archeobeer.
posted by slogger at 10:18 AM PST - 27 comments

The Gravestone Girls collect and reproduce aged New England cemetery art without damaging the original stones. Not able to attend any of their classes? In the meantime here are some do's and don'ts about collecting rubbings, via the Association for Gravestone Studies.
posted by hermitosis at 9:46 AM PST - 19 comments

Remember that amazing giant head papercraft Halloween mask from last year? You can get your own now.
posted by Dragonness at 8:13 AM PST - 25 comments

Pilot ejects an instant before fighterjet crashes [video] (via mr)
posted by kliuless at 7:11 AM PST - 51 comments

Homer Simpson, True Catholic? [more inside]
posted by BZArcher at 6:36 AM PST - 77 comments

Record-breaking numbers of Finns leave the national church of Finland following a gay rights panel discussion on TV. [more inside]
posted by sively at 5:51 AM PST - 60 comments

Iran – a Primer brings together 50 top experts —both Western and Iranian—to offer comprehensive but concise overviews of Iran’s politics, economy, military, foreign policy, and nuclear program. Overview.
Editor Robin Wright on The Challenge of Iran [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 4:11 AM PST - 24 comments

US Charity offers UK drug addicts £200 to be sterilised, according to a BBC report to be shown this evening, Project Prevention, which pays $300 in the US, "seeks to reduce the burden of this social problem on taxpayers, trim down social worker caseloads, and alleviate from our clients the burden of having children that will potentially be taken away."
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 10:16 PM PST - 212 comments

When he first saw a video of a Toronto constable threatening to arrest a G20 protester for blowing bubbles, one YouTube user was so livid, he couldn’t stop writing comments. In fact, the man, who uses the alias “theforcebewithme,” can’t even remember writing the specific comment that now has him defending a $1.2 million defamation lawsuit launched by Toronto’s now notorious “Officer Bubbles.” Const. Adam Josephs seeks to compel the Google-owned YouTube to reveal the identity of the person who created and posted the videos as well as any information it has on the 24 other users who made allegedly defamatory remarks. [more inside]
posted by thescientificmethhead at 9:57 PM PST - 136 comments

Measure the speed of light using your microwave. (via The Puzzler, who is, incidentally, a mefite)
posted by ocherdraco at 9:01 PM PST - 18 comments

OBJECTION! This is a silly meme [more inside]
posted by The Whelk at 5:19 PM PST - 54 comments

Les Twins at 2010 World of Dance - identical twins Laurent & Larry Bourgeois of Paris (aka Ca’ Blaze and Lil’ Beast of the Criminalz Crew) are turning heads among the b-boys and poppers for their creative "new style" dance moves and freestyle hiphop.
2010 dance battles: vs Bones+Pee Fly VS Laura+Boubou Flexing New Style Dance; vs Old Future Crew; vs MEENR and Russell aka Ironman, pt.1; Part 2
2009: Phone Home and Just Debout pre-selection Paris; 2007: twins criminlaz
At World of Dance, Ruffian posts more background and more clips on Les Twins.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:13 PM PST - 15 comments

Rudolf Brazda, one of the last surviving victims of violent persecution of GLBT people by the Nazi regime, and Adam and other deaf gays and lesbians relate their own kinds of It Gets Better stories.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:12 PM PST - 9 comments

Mary MacKillop became Australia's first ever saint yesterday (Vatican time). In a counterpoint to the celebrations, pressure groups are calling for MacKillop, once banished from the church for exposing sex abuse, to be made the Patron Saint of those sexually abused by the clergy.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 4:12 PM PST - 38 comments

Hey, look, another cute flash game. With sheep.
posted by phunniemee at 12:11 PM PST - 22 comments

Organized religion's increasing identification with conservative politics is a turnoff to more and more young adults. Evangelical Protestantism has been hit hard by this development. 'After 1980, both churchgoing progressives and secular conservatives became rarer and rarer. Some Americans brought their religion and their politics into alignment by adjusting their political views to their religious faith. But, surprisingly, more of them adjusted their religion to fit their politics.''Throughout the 1990s and into the new century, the increasingly prominent association between religion and conservative politics provoked a backlash among moderates and progressives, many of whom had previously considered themselves religious.''This backlash was especially forceful among youth coming of age in the 1990s and just forming their views about religion. Some of that generation, to be sure, held deeply conservative moral and political views, and they felt very comfortable in the ranks of increasingly conservative churchgoers. But a majority of the Millennial generation was liberal on most social issues, and above all, on homosexuality.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 12:07 PM PST - 171 comments

James Hadley Chase's No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939) did for the gangster novel what Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep did in the same year for the private-eye novel. Both works were clarifiers, intensifiers, transformers. ... But, as so often happens, Orwell raises the important questions, and it is his essay that has kept No Orchids for Miss Blandish alive for serious consideration. (links may contain mildly NSFW cover art) [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 11:47 AM PST - 6 comments

From the obscure reference, to the sexy obscure reference, WTF Costumes proves that if you have a Halloween costume idea, someone has probably already thought of it. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:43 AM PST - 48 comments

Meet "The Count of Pennsylvania". Has it been over 20 years since he was "Romeo in blue jeans", "burning canyons for you"? Michael Penn hasn't had success in the music biz like his brother Sean in the movies, but he's still making good music, and pops up from time to time, like in the "House" soundtrack with a song referencing a different hospital. His latest song is so far available only as a YouTube clip recorded in a living room, but the first verse did show up on a blog right before the LAST election, showing how its overtly political theme has evolved in a short time.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:27 AM PST - 26 comments

Last.fm Listing History via LastGraph As Wall Decoration - Andy took his LastFM listening history, rendered it via LastGraph as PDF document and created some stunishing simple and yet beautiful wall decoration for his home. [original text is german - read a google translated version here]
posted by misterhonk at 10:05 AM PST - 19 comments

Perhaps I don’t have the allegiance to paper that I ought to because anybody who invests in The Absolute Sandman, all four volumes, is now carrying 40 pounds of paper and cardboard around with them. And they hurt and they complain, “Oh, I feel guilty.” And I look at it and go, you’re not getting anything that is quantitatively or qualitatively better than the experience you’d be getting on an iPad, where you can enlarge the pages, you can move it around, it’s following the eye, and you can flip the pages. - Neil Gaiman on digital comics. Will this be the year of comics readng devices, as comiXology CEO David Steinberger says? Comixology is certianly leading the way, announcing tools for independant comics creators that will allow them to publish their comics via the comixology store, complete with the "guided views" which are a core part of their viewing experience. One creator who is full embracing digital is Alex De Campi, whose Napoleonic comic Valentine is not only published across a range of devices (iOs, Epub, Android, Kindle) but also in 14 languages, something that would have been difficult-to-impossible otherwise. Previous digital comics, Comixology suggestions
posted by Artw at 9:11 AM PST - 47 comments

The Electric Grandmother (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) was a made-for-TV movie from 1982, based on the short story "I Sing the Body Electric!" by Ray Bradbury. It deals in mortality, grief, abandonment, artificial (emotional) intelligence, and other themes suitable for children. [more inside]
posted by eric1halfb at 8:42 AM PST - 20 comments

Wanna Play D&D? Nobody to play with? Got a computer? Wanna experience The Temple of Elemental Evil, Castle Amber, The Palace of the Silver Princess, and Danger at Dunwater in your pajamas? Start with Circle of Eight Modpack forThe Temple of Elemental Evil and play the most complete Dungeons and Dragon game ever made. Think 3rd edition is for chumps? Show your true Moxie and revisit the modules of yore with the Classic Adventures Mod for Baldur's Gate II. [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall at 8:38 AM PST - 41 comments

Two examinations of the Tanna island prophet known as John Frum. Both with very unusual points of view. God is American parts 1, 2, 3, & 4, and Nate DiMeo's Memory Palace podcast. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan at 7:45 AM PST - 14 comments

Super WiFi - "How the FCC paved the way for the next generation of wireless innovations." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:55 AM PST - 39 comments

Wrong-headed animals. A collection of Frankentoys by the artist Lucy Roberts.
posted by mippy at 4:53 AM PST - 19 comments

An Interview with The Economic Hit Man, John Perkins; where he talks, among other things, about corporate social responsibility; Free Trade; other actors at the State Department and the Pentagon; and the so-called War on Drugs.
posted by adamvasco at 3:59 AM PST - 21 comments

ESPN screened this great documentary about the rise of the Yugoslavian basketball team in the late 80s, and the breakdown of relationships within the team, in particular Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic, as the country disintegrated in the 90s.
posted by jedro at 3:50 AM PST - 15 comments

Russian films worth watching l Russian cuisine l Russiapedia l Historama l War Witness films l from rt.com the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel which brings the Russian view on global news. The Russia Today YouTube channel. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 12:34 AM PST - 23 comments

Albertina Walker, the reigning Queen of Gospel, has died at 81. [more inside]
posted by magstheaxe at 10:10 PM PST - 4 comments

Jacqueline Rush Lee is an artist drawn to objects that record physical processes or bear the imperfections and scars of life. She transforms used books into sculptures that explore and redefine the book as familiar object, medium, and archetypal form. Also, inspired by gesture drawing and painting, her Paintures are figurative sculptures created from paint skins and paint scrapings affixed to scrap metal armatures. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 9:01 PM PST - 6 comments

"Zaha Hadid is a celebrated architect. You have probably read the articles by now: most famous woman architect in history, Pritzker prize winner, forceful character, born in Iraq or possibly, if the journalist hasn't done their research properly, Iran. She has just completed her first school, a powerful, singular object in Brixton, south London." Story. Slideshow. Some photos from Flickr. [more inside]
posted by lapsangsouchong at 8:59 PM PST - 53 comments

"These paintings became a way to explore how driving in weather shifts and changes the views outside the car as well how the driving experience informs our basic interpretation of environment." The work of artist Gregory Thielker.
posted by fantodstic at 8:56 PM PST - 8 comments

Water Balloons without the Balloons. How it's done.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:29 PM PST - 10 comments

Japanese children fight valiently to protect their home from a zombie. There's no way this isn't the cutest thing you see all day. (Don't forget to turn subtitles on). Full 7 min video, albeit without subtitles.
posted by fizzzzzzzzzzzy at 7:40 PM PST - 86 comments

I'm proud of the BBC. A song. [more inside]
posted by feelinglistless at 3:23 PM PST - 55 comments

"Gee, Mrs. Cleaver, your kitchen always looks so clean. Why, thank you, Eddie. My mother says it looks as though you never do any work in here." U.S. television and film actress Barbara Billingsley, mother of Theodore 'Beaver' and Wally Cleaver on the television series 'Leave It to Beaver,' has died. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 2:21 PM PST - 71 comments

Twenty-four vintage book covers from Portugal
posted by kenko at 2:14 PM PST - 11 comments

WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if? That is the question posed by former FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley and former Federal Air Marshal Bogdan Dzakovic.
posted by grounded at 11:47 AM PST - 111 comments

"This family album isn't all-encompassing. 'The Sopranos' had many parents and grandparents, and it spawned many more offspring than can be covered in one slide show. We've just focused on some of the more colorful ancestors and descendants in the family tree."
posted by griphus at 8:06 AM PST - 19 comments

The panda: surprisingly good at life - "New research has revealed that, contrary to popular beliefs, pandas are surprisingly well-equipped for survival." (via ners)
posted by kliuless at 6:32 AM PST - 35 comments

FCKH8 Fundraiser with Lots of F-Bombs; NSFW.
posted by bwg at 1:02 AM PST - 54 comments

"We will vigorously enforce the CSA against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law," -- Eric Holder on prop 19.
posted by delmoi at 1:02 AM PST - 169 comments

Nassim Nicholas Taleb states on his website and Facebook account that his occasional collaborator (and fractal pioneer/popularizer) Benoit Mandelbrot has died.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:51 PM PST - 109 comments

Playboy interview Robert Downey Jr. "If you were to write a script about a guy who had it all, lost it all and then redeemed himself in a miraculous fashion, you could do no better than to steal from the bio of Robert Downey Jr."
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:01 PM PST - 70 comments

How to Look at Mondrian by James Elkins [more inside]
posted by wittgenstein at 6:36 PM PST - 40 comments

The fish men see her still, their Annie, in the hide-and-seek shadows of South Street. She’s telling her dirty jokes and doing anything for a buck: hustling newspapers, untaxed cigarettes, favors, those pairs of irregular socks she’d buy cheap on Canal. She’s submitting to the elements, calling out “Yoo-hoo” to the snow and the rain and her boys. Annie and Gloria: Death of a Fulton Fish Market Fixture.
posted by dersins at 5:11 PM PST - 18 comments

Bohabb likes to put films to music. Some favs include Search and Destroy vs Apocalypse Now & Full Metal Jacket, Tron vs Aphex Twin, Coldcut vs Apocalypto, M.S.I vs Akira, Robocop vs Alec Empire and Shizuo vs bad girls of cinema.
posted by MetaMonkey at 4:24 PM PST - 12 comments

"… if I ever have to see this gurning little maggot clicking into faux reverie mode again – rising from his seat to jazz-slap the top of his piano wearing a fake-groove expression on his piggish little face – if I have to witness that one more time I'm going to rise up and kill absolutely everybody in the world, starting with him and ending with me.". Charlie Brooker, the UK Guardian's TV 'critic', calls it quits.
posted by lalochezia at 2:28 PM PST - 71 comments

Homemade strength training and other gym equipment. [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 2:19 PM PST - 18 comments

Angry Birds, the iPhone gaming sensation (and possible movie), is now available on Android for free in ad supported form. Not got a fancy phone? Maybe you can play the home game.
posted by Artw at 2:12 PM PST - 57 comments

Chris Wemmer is the Camera Trap Codger, posting wildlife photos from his robotic photographers. [more inside]
posted by domnit at 2:08 PM PST - 7 comments

How to pander to social media sites with bland shitty "comics" as pioneered by The Oatmeal.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 2:03 PM PST - 73 comments

Lost, Unpublished Dr. Seuss Manuscript Found
posted by morganannie at 12:53 PM PST - 23 comments

25 most dangerous neighborhoods 2010. Click through the maps for some more specific data.
posted by cmoj at 12:42 PM PST - 102 comments

In 2007, Beck, then the host of “Glenn Beck,” on CNN’s Headline News, brought to his show a John Birch Society spokesman named Sam Antonio, who warned of a government plot to abolish U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada, “and eventually all throughout the Americas.” Beck told Antonio, “When I was growing up, the John Birch Society—I thought they were a bunch of nuts.” But now, he said, “you guys are starting to make more and more sense to me.”

A secret history of Glenn Beck, by way of Robert Welch, Willard Cleon Skousen and the John Birch Society. From the New Yorker.
posted by gerryblog at 12:42 PM PST - 41 comments

This could be the coolest marijuana invention ever. Linda agrees.
posted by carpenter at 12:32 PM PST - 76 comments

Science meets the news cycle, part n: Researchers look at cancer rates in the ancient world and conclude that cancer is "a modern, man-made disease." The story makes headlines in the UK (and pops up on the political fringe). Meanwhile, New Scientist and others debunk the claim. Will that critical perspective get as much coverage as the original story? [more inside]
posted by twirlip at 11:56 AM PST - 42 comments

The History of the Color Wheel l Using text from Sarah Lowengard's The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe we're taking a look at the progression of color organization systems and how the color wheel came to be. l The Wonderful Color Wheel l All about color.
posted by nickyskye at 11:31 AM PST - 9 comments

During his campaign, skeptics warned that Barack Obama was nothing but a "beautiful loser," a progressive purist whose uncompromising idealism would derail his program for change. But as president, Obama has proved to be just the opposite — an ugly winner. Over and over, he has shown himself willing to strike unpalatable political bargains to secure progress, even at the cost of alienating his core supporters. This bloodless, if effective, approach to governance has created a perilous disconnect: By any rational measure, Obama is the most accomplished and progressive president in decades, yet the only Americans fired up by the changes he has delivered are Republicans and Tea Partiers hellbent on reversing them. Heading into the November elections, Obama's approval ratings are mired in the mid-40s, and polls reflect a stark enthusiasm gap: Half of all Republicans are "very" excited about voting this fall, compared to just a quarter of Democrats. But if the passions of Obama's base have been deflated by the compromises he made to secure historic gains like the Recovery Act, health care reform and Wall Street regulation, that gloom cannot obscure the essential point: This president has delivered more sweeping, progressive change in 20 months than the previous two Democratic administrations did in 12 years. The Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson argues The Case for Obama. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 11:30 AM PST - 175 comments

Robotic privacy curtain, "My workshop is located in an old storefront with a big window facing towards the street. In an attempt to create more privacy inside, I’ve decided to install a small but smart curtain in that window." (More here)
posted by geoff. at 11:27 AM PST - 13 comments

Caught Dead In That. What do you want on your tombstone? [via mefi projects]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:55 AM PST - 144 comments

Greatest calls in sports is a selection of 32 great calls in broadcast sports, chosen by Joe Posnanski, obviously US-centric but featuring some good choices. Want some elation this Friday? [more inside]
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:48 AM PST - 47 comments

"[London investment analyst Rupesh] Shingadia’s journey to fame began when London Daily Mail photographer Mark Pain captured an amazing image of Tiger Woods botching a chip shot on the 18th hole during the Ryder Cup competition. But all anyone talked about was the googly-eyed guy in the gallery behind Woods, wearing a ginger wig, Groucho Marx mustache and chomping on an enormous cigar ... [He] purchased his costume online to dress up as one of his favorite golfers, Spanish pro Miguel Angel Jimenez." * He's become a Photoshop celebrity. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 10:48 AM PST - 13 comments

Hermann Scheer - long-serving German parliamentarian, "Europe's Al Gore," father of the feed-in tariff, and perhaps the most important green politician of our time - died yesterday at the age of 66. [more inside]
posted by gompa at 10:43 AM PST - 8 comments

Rich Medina, one of New York City's most talented and innovative DJs and procuders, has put together "The King Meets The President In Africa", a ten-track mashup of Fela Kuti and Michael Jackson. Download it for free (if you're willing to trade an email address), or listen to all of the tracks on on the site's homepage. [more inside]
posted by kosem at 10:17 AM PST - 19 comments

A message to small-town high school bullies: you now risk being made an example of across the entire nation.
posted by hermitosis at 10:03 AM PST - 92 comments

The Center for Sexual Health Promotion, Indiana University, has investigated in 2009 sexual practices in the USA. The results are reported in this month's Special Issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. (The full text is available behind a short anonymous online survey.) [more inside]
posted by knz at 9:40 AM PST - 14 comments

"The first thing that needs to happen, I think, is to get these people out of their homes," a man wearing a bespoke blue-striped shirt, a Hermés tie patterned with elephants and Ferragamo loafers said recently. But, maybe Wall Street doesn't understand why foreclosure fraud is so dangerous to property rights? And, the Obama administration doesn't understand why HAMP has been a portrait in failure for homeowners (in eight parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII.)
posted by ennui.bz at 9:04 AM PST - 103 comments

Is the rise of automation from computers software and robotics and web-fueled outsourcing leading to a shrinking middle class? MIT Economist David Autor thinks so. Good Magazine speculates on the implications for America's future.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:56 AM PST - 69 comments

Bye bye Big Mal. Malcolm Allison, one of the most flamboyant characters in English football, has gone to the players' lounge in the sky. He certainly knew what sold, with his signature cigar, fedora and sheepskin coat, and also laid on a pretty good bath. But all that stuff aside, he was a well-respected manager, and will be fondly remembered by Manchester City fans (you can read the fans' tributes here, and leave your own if you are so inclined) for leading them to glory in the late 60s and early 70s. The world is a lesser place without him.
posted by Myeral at 7:37 AM PST - 3 comments

The Ballad of Reading Milton: A short story by then-undergrad Wes Anderson.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:33 AM PST - 7 comments

For the first time in their freely-traded history, the Australian Dollar, the Canadian Dollar and the US Dollar are all within a penny of parity.
posted by 256 at 7:30 AM PST - 56 comments

The latest crisis in South Korea is not coming from its northern neighbor. The country is reeling from the soaring price of kimchi. China responds with concern. "The politics editor of a major South Korean newspaper called the kimchi situation "a national tragedy,” and an editorial in Dong-a Ilbo termed it “a once in a century crisis.” previously
posted by Xurando at 7:04 AM PST - 25 comments

Friday Flash Fun. Daffy's Parachute Jump. [more inside]
posted by essexjan at 6:13 AM PST - 14 comments

The UN's FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) have announced that they believe rinderpest, an frequently fatal viral disease that affects livestock and wild ruminants, to have been eliminated. This is only the second virus, after smallpox, to have been wiped out. The BBC and the Guardian discuss the story in brief, and Science has a slightly more in-depth look at it. The FAO themselves have put up an interesting history of the disease and its treatment.
posted by Dim Siawns at 6:07 AM PST - 17 comments

Town in England turns off traffic lights, surprising results.
posted by heatherann at 5:57 AM PST - 77 comments

Monica Potts on Louis CK and privilege: "For the most part, people of color are the ones who initiate serious discussions about race and privilege in the public sphere -- and in the world of comedy ... Some white comedians, like Sarah Silverman, tend to joke about racism, making fun of white people and their ignorance in ways that shock and offend. ... But Louis' comedy is about being a white man -- and about how others view white men. He doesn't accept ignorance as a point of view. Moreover, this isn't the occasional stand-up bit; a significant number of his jokes are about race, class, and gender." [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 5:56 AM PST - 75 comments

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie resurfaced some of Microsoft's history in a recent post on his personal blog. In a sealed packet in his office, he uncovered the original press kit for Windows 1.0 and decided to put the documents online. It's a fascinating look into the beginnings of computing and into a technology that has fundamentally changed our world. from Yahoo News.
posted by Blake at 5:23 AM PST - 32 comments

Gotthardt rail tunnel breakthrough in pictures (click photo for popup gallery). The 35 mile/ 57 km long tunnel through the Alps is the longest in the world. The breakthrough is130 years after it's predecessor was finished in 1880. It took 15 years to build and cost 10 billion dollar, largely because of extra security requirements. The breakthrough in the middle happened today. Description in English.
posted by joost de vries at 3:28 AM PST - 39 comments

Scrabb.ly: Massively multiplayer online Scrabble.
posted by sveskemus at 2:21 AM PST - 36 comments

The evidence that eating a lot of butter will make you better at math is incomplete. The Butter Mind study, to be run from October 20 - November 12, will test the hypothesis that butter improves math performance.
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:42 AM PST - 37 comments

"He’s a minimalist and constantly reducing things to their simplest level. It’s not simplistic. It’s simplified. Steve is a systems designer. He simplifies complexity." John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview [via]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:31 AM PST - 82 comments

Andrew Fraser was a successful Victorian barrister until he was jailed for drug trafficking. The investigation against him was led by Detective Sergeant Malcolm Rosenes, but before Fraser entered prison Rosenes was charged with drug trafficking and conspiracy, for which he himself was later imprisoned. In an unlikely twist, Rosenes later approached Fraser to write an account of police corruption in Victoria. The book has been withdrawn from sale in Victoria, allegedly because it identifies informers and a "protected witness", but the publishers say that the material is old news that is publicly available (pdf), while Fraser suggests that the government wishes to avoid any embarrassment immediately before a State election.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:28 AM PST - 11 comments

Mad Men Theme Song ... With a Twist
posted by kmz at 9:11 PM PST - 47 comments

Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010... (possibly NSFW) [more inside]
posted by artof.mulata at 8:17 PM PST - 9 comments

The Secret of Kells is now out on dvd (and Watch Instantly). Worth watching for beautiful animation, worth thinking about for its tapestry of Irish myth and history. [more inside]
posted by freshwater at 7:18 PM PST - 23 comments

Sgt. Adam Sniffen from the 101st Airborne Division delivers the game ball via parachute before the Michigan vs. MSU game at Michigan Stadium on Oct. 9, 2010.
posted by dead cousin ted at 6:25 PM PST - 66 comments

The Society Pages is a collection of blogs based around sociology. Some have been mentioned here before, and they cover a range of topics within sociology such as sexuality, crime and race.
posted by lauratheexplorer at 6:19 PM PST - 6 comments

TheNintendoDrummer plays drums over Nintendo music. Totally Rad. Castlevania 2. Ghosts and Goblins. Ninja Gaiden 2. Mega Man 9.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:27 PM PST - 20 comments

Tail of a whale, snapped in 2 seas, reveals surprising wanderlust. "By scouring a photo-sharing website for tourists’ pictures of whales, a citizen scientist from Maine has helped to document a female humpback’s record-breaking 6,000-mile journey from Brazil to Madagascar. The remarkable voyage of whale number 1363 from one breeding ground to another is a scientific discovery for the social-networking age — a study made possible both by vacation photos posted on Flickr and an exhaustive library of photos of whales’ tails that scientists have built since the 1970s." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:21 PM PST - 11 comments

League of Legends is an indie game inspired by the Defense of the Ancients map for Warcraft III. [more inside]
posted by Soup at 5:12 PM PST - 36 comments

The BoomCase by Mr. Simo.
posted by bwg at 5:08 PM PST - 8 comments

Professional philosophers have long known that there are far fewer women in philosophy than there are men. (Some quick info.) Recently, this issue has taken center-stage in the philosophy blogosphere. First, a new study suggests that gender plays a role in what intuitions one has to philosophical thought experiments, such as the Gettier cases about knowledge, and The Trolley Problem related to ethics (via). Second, a new blog, What is it like to be a woman in philosophy?, has exploded in popularity as it shows the good, the bad, and the downright ugly involved in being a woman in the profession. [more inside]
posted by meese at 5:00 PM PST - 36 comments

Old anatomical illustrations that provide a unique perspective on the evolution of medical knowledge in Japan during the Edo period (1603-1868) [more inside]
posted by gman at 4:29 PM PST - 27 comments

Typographic Maps. "These unique maps accurately depict the streets and highways, parks, neighborhoods, coastlines, and physical features of the city using nothing but type."
posted by jacquilynne at 3:16 PM PST - 32 comments

Laila Kinnunen was very popular in Finland in the fifties and sixties. She sang beautifully in Finnish, but had also the ability to perform in many other languages. As performer Laila was quite versatile, just compare these two performances. Though in her heart of hearts she probably wanted to be a jazz singer. [more inside]
posted by severiina at 2:55 PM PST - 4 comments

Fuck Yeah Fluid Dynamics celebrates fluid dynamics in all their fuck-yeahness.
posted by staggernation at 2:14 PM PST - 25 comments

The KICKMap has come up previously on MeFi (1, 2, 3). In this article, designer Eddie Jabbour elaborates his approach and offers a detailed comparison with current and past NYC Subway map designs.
posted by Casimir at 2:02 PM PST - 8 comments

Vegan Dad: "When you have kids, supper has to be on the table every night. And when you are a vegan, the drive-thru, the deli counter, and TV dinners/frozen convenience foods are not an option. So, you do the best you can. This blog is a record of what my family eats. It's not always a totally complete meal, not always photogenic, and sometimes it's leftovers. But, it is a realistic look at a vegan family in a northern Ontario city that is not always vegan-friendly." [more inside]
posted by MaryDellamorte at 1:59 PM PST - 50 comments

Rob Levitt of Mado in Chicago butchering a pig. 19 more videos submitted by chefs and butchers to Protein University, a project that aims to "create an online resource populated with a family tree of butchery techniques from whole animal breakdowns to sausage making from across the globe". [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 1:47 PM PST - 15 comments

Cartoonist and former high school teacher Sean Michael Robinson (flickr) on what to do with those darn anime kids.
posted by Artw at 1:32 PM PST - 20 comments

The Laughing Gnostic: David Bowie and the Occult A lengthy analysis.
posted by kimdog at 12:56 PM PST - 15 comments

Dress the Part: ten posters for ten movies prepared by Moxy Creative. First link: all the images on one page, resized and re-hosted. Second link: the original images, three per page and over 1mb per image. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:47 PM PST - 20 comments

We've seen literal video before. Artist/author Tao Lin (b.1983, previously) has turned literalism into performance and literary art. His Asperger style can be quickly distilled in these literally boring videos: [1],[2],[3],[4]. A video interview with Tao has more insights into his technique (and vegetable chopping). The critics don't always seem to get it, nor do I, though they pay lots of attention.
posted by stbalbach at 11:41 AM PST - 40 comments

New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera's column last weekend excoriated HP and SAP, and presented Oracle in a positive light. One problem: Nocera's fiancee is the PR person for Oracle's lead attorney in its lawsuit against SAP. Woops. (via gawker)
posted by VicNebulous at 11:27 AM PST - 25 comments

For 70 years the Parisian apartment had been left uninhabited, under lock and key, the rent faithfully paid but no hint of what was inside.
posted by Heliochrome85 at 11:23 AM PST - 65 comments

Church and 30th St. San Francisco MUNI Construction is a 12 minute time lapse film showing 3.5 days of construction crews replacing MUNI tracks in San Francisco. "This is a time-lapse video showing the replacement of the MUNI tracks in front of my house. Demolition began on the evening of Friday, October 8, and work continued around the clock until early in the morning of Tuesday, October 12. The MUNI folks were nice enough to distribute earplugs to those of us in the immediate vicinity."
posted by hippybear at 11:09 AM PST - 27 comments

Why is airline food so often tasteless? It looks like there are many factors, and even the background noise in the cabin affects people's perceptions of taste. [more inside]
posted by philipy at 10:52 AM PST - 49 comments

Mental Floss has some good stuff, but I really like their quizzes. Especially the "Who Am I" series. Novels. Poets. Actors. Sports. Wonders of the World. [more inside]
posted by phunniemee at 10:30 AM PST - 13 comments

Since 1990, Woody Blackwell has been seriously flintknapping: shaping flint, obsidian and other stones into tools, using a process called lithic reduction. [more inside]
posted by avoision at 10:22 AM PST - 19 comments

The London Murder Map. A project-in-progress to map the variety (by gun, by knife, by bomb, by blunt object) of homicides that committed in London from the 19th century to now. Populated so far with only the last few years, Murder Map will eventually incorporate data from the oft-linked The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913. impressions so far? "Richmond, The City and Hampstead stand out as murderless pockets in an otherwise homogeneously dense circle of homicide."* (Somewhat Previously)
posted by grabbingsand at 10:12 AM PST - 16 comments

A man goes to prison for two years, then returns to a thread he started on 99chan to answer questions about it.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 9:55 AM PST - 151 comments

A Portrait of Hunger. A look at poverty and hunger in Philadelphia.
posted by chunking express at 9:52 AM PST - 12 comments

Tegan Leach, the first Queensland woman to be charged with procuring her own miscarriage, has been acquitted. She faced seven years in prison if found guilty. [more inside]
posted by goo at 9:12 AM PST - 22 comments

Surface Detail is the latest science fiction novel by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks to be set in his Culture universe.... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:29 AM PST - 63 comments

Thomas Pynchon is one of the great unheard lyricists. His award-winning novel, Gravity's Rainbow, is full of song lyrics. Depending on how you count, there are around 100 in the book. Over the course of a year, the Thomas Pynchon Fake Book managed to set twenty-eight of them to music. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 7:43 AM PST - 65 comments

The Never-Ending Language Learning system or NELL is learning the internet. Follow NELL's discoveries on Twitter.
posted by griphus at 7:33 AM PST - 31 comments

Defamation by Twitter Broadway actor Marty Thomas has filed papers in court asking that the identify of the "bwayanonymous" Twitter account (cache) be revealed, after the account made a post alleging Thomas has crabs.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:25 AM PST - 36 comments

The normally all-business Pimm Fox interviews Mr. T on Bloomberg Television (SLYT)
posted by nj_subgenius at 6:56 AM PST - 11 comments

Lego in the city. This is an advert I made for Lego. It uses pieces from the stash my brother and I used to play with when we were younger, so perhaps it looks a bit dated compared with modern day Lego. Dated, but still great. Temujin Doran makes a short film. (More from Doran.)
posted by shakespeherian at 6:54 AM PST - 8 comments

The English Defence League, a group protesting against 'Islamification of Britain', planned a march through Leicester (a city with a sizeable Asian population) this weekend. The town braced itself for riots. What happened was somewhat different. [more inside]
posted by mippy at 4:57 AM PST - 120 comments

Greater Manchester Police are posting every single incident they deal with over a 24-hour period to Twitter. Due to the high volume of incidents, they're posting them over three different Twitter accounts: one two three. [more inside]
posted by chorltonmeateater at 4:49 AM PST - 31 comments

Past, I'd like to introduce you to the present. "Letters Home relies on contributions. We are nothing without readers who are willing to share their stories or respond to others. We don’t think we’re alone in wondering what’s happened to our childhood homes since we left. Or in wanting to share an important event that occurred there – from a birthday party to a marriage proposal, a secret revealed to a lie concealed. Write a letter to the present occupant (even if it’s still family), the owner of the store that now stands on that lot, whatever or whoever might be there now, and share your memory. Ask them to respond with their own story and photo. Their letter and photo will then be added to your post." How Letters Home works?
posted by Fizz at 4:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Though never a competition, the Def Poetry Jam is a rhyming spin off from its comidic uncle that plays host to some of the most fantastic spoken word from a wonderful breadth of poets and people. The fun and inocent, the declaration of love , your cause the famous and the famouser, the needs of a single woman, the manifest, the virus and one written and delivered with such emotion and power that it left me speachless, "Knock Knock" by Daniel Beaty
posted by Cogentesque at 2:24 AM PST - 16 comments

If a car dealership makes less than $30 million per year or has less than 200 employees - help is on the way!
posted by Brent Parker at 10:42 PM PST - 11 comments

...in this life we have to take things as we find them as the torso murderer said when he discovered his victim was a quadruple amputee. Oliver Harris on Re-Editing William S. Burroughs' First Trilogy
posted by juv3nal at 10:02 PM PST - 3 comments

Danakil Desert ; 1938 - Dinner from the sky "Italians love their food. And they love it fresh. You know this. What you might not know, though, is the lengths they will go to in order to enjoy a fine dining experience."
posted by manny_calavera at 9:54 PM PST - 8 comments

Water Droplet Bouncing on a Superhydrophobic Carbon Nanotube Array [SLYT]
posted by IvoShandor at 9:29 PM PST - 26 comments

The Chicago Tribune, which has been having a few problems of its own (previously), has a grimly fascinating continuing feature called Mugs in the News in which people’s mug shots are linked to stories describing their alleged crimes. Photos are numbered and accessed from main page (no direct links, alas). Man drunk and texting, four children in car (7). Chicago politician (5). Aggravated child pornography (9). Child molesters (17,18,22). Happy teacher (21). Ninja shoplifter (23). Bad Buddhist (113). Aggravated battery of a police officer, attempted aggravated assault of a police officer, resisting a police officer, driving under the influence of drugs, reckless driving, failing to reduce speed, improper traffic lane usage, disregarding a traffic control light and disregarding a stop sign (12). Other MetaFilter Mugshots (previously 1 2).
posted by cogneuro at 8:27 PM PST - 44 comments

"Education of a President"
posted by Joe Beese at 8:26 PM PST - 45 comments

Kate Bolick tells a story of Facebook voyeurism.
posted by reenum at 8:22 PM PST - 16 comments

Sculptures Made of Recycled Blood
posted by cjorgensen at 8:01 PM PST - 23 comments

Richard Grayson is a (now retired) composer and classical improviser. To give you just a taste, Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" in the style of a Tango, "Heart and Soul" a la Mahler, "Take the A Train" as a Chopin Funeral March.
posted by non-kneebiter at 4:31 PM PST - 43 comments

"I started collecting found snapshots a few years ago — at swap meets, antique shops and the like — but the thing that got me started wasn’t the photos themselves so much as the writing I’d sometimes find on the backs."
posted by gman at 4:00 PM PST - 22 comments

In Gitmo Opinion, Two Versions of Reality. "When Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ordered the release of a Guantánamo Bay detainee last spring, the case appeared to be a routine setback for an Obama administration that has lost a string of such cases. But there turns out to be nothing ordinary about the habeas case brought by Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, a Yemeni held without charges for nearly eight years. Uthman, accused by two U.S. administrations of being an al-Qaida fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is among 48 detainees the Obama administration has deemed too dangerous to release but 'not feasible for prosecution.' A day after his March 16 order was filed on the court's electronic docket, Kennedy's opinion vanished. Weeks later, a new ruling appeared in its place. While it reached the same conclusion, eight pages of material had been removed, including key passages in which Kennedy dismantled the government's case against Uthman."
posted by homunculus at 3:16 PM PST - 87 comments

The Best American Essays, 2010, edited by Christopher Hitchens. Many of the essays can be found online: [more inside]
posted by craniac at 2:33 PM PST - 36 comments

Fort Worth city councilman Joel Burns shares his own anti-LGBT bullying story before Fort Worth city council this past Tuesday. [via Victory Fund] This is yet another successful video of Dan Savage's It Gets Better campaign. [previously]
posted by Mike Mongo at 2:31 PM PST - 56 comments

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s latest installation: one hundred million hand-painted pieces of porcelain that resemble the shells of sunflower seeds.
posted by Rory Marinich at 1:59 PM PST - 83 comments

Ask the atheist "Have a question for an atheist? Ever wonder what atheists think about morality, faith, science, etc.? How do atheists live their lives without a god? How do they know right from wrong? Are they just angry at god? Do they really NOT believe?" [more inside]
posted by Paragon at 1:48 PM PST - 210 comments

"This just blew my mind out of my nose and onto my keyboard." A spectacular show of 3D mapping light projections on 3D surfaces at the last Mobile World Congress presented by Alcatel-Lucent. Originally found via this blog:
posted by fantodstic at 1:22 PM PST - 22 comments

I doubt if you've seen anything like this before...
posted by treyka at 1:07 PM PST - 40 comments

What if the Tea Party was Black? Jasiri X raps about radicalism and racism. Inflammatory and simplistic, maybe, but the best rap polemic since George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People. Jasiri X responds to critics here.
posted by klangklangston at 12:05 PM PST - 137 comments

"Voice of San Diego reporter Adrian Florido set out to find a family, he writes, "whose experience could illustrate the day-to-day challenge for Burmese refugees" in San Diego, since "more than 200 Burmese families have arrived [in that city] since 2006." In the process, Florido met a 24-year-old man named Har Sin" who was unable to hear, speak, read, write or use sign language, and wound up writing a two-part story about him: In a New Land, Hoping to Hear and Breaking Free of a Life Without Language. The story is available as a downloadable pdf: A Silent Journey Series. / Via The Kicker, the daily blog of the Columbia Journalism Review [more inside]
posted by zarq at 11:35 AM PST - 5 comments

The Mysterious "Mirror Man", aka The Collector by artist Gustav Troger
posted by gottabefunky at 11:12 AM PST - 18 comments

McDonalds may have the worst burgers, but they have (visual) durability on their side, remaining consistent in appearance over 180 days on a shelf. McDonalds doesn't trust the images, according to a comment sent to The Upshot, though review by Salon finds that preservatives may not be necessary. With all this, the 180 day old Happy Meal has nothing on the hamburger from 1996, which remained unfrozen yet mold-free through 2008, or the 30 year old Twinkie that survived, unwrapped, on a shelf in Roger Bennatti's high school science class. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:36 AM PST - 85 comments

The biggest literary influence on my approach to game design, however, was one of the writers I worshipped as a teenager: Alice Sheldon, aka James Tiptree, Jr. Tiptree had one particular recommendation for starting a story: “Start from the end and preferably 5,000 feet underground on a dark day and then don’t tell them.” This is precisely how we begin Half-Life. It was a deliberate antidote to the many game openings that involved pages and pages of backstory presented in scrolling text. - An interview with Marc Laidlaw, writer for the Half Life series.
posted by Artw at 9:40 AM PST - 65 comments

[Probably NSFW] Alan Bennett responds to Penis Enlargement spam. [more inside]
posted by nam3d at 8:13 AM PST - 13 comments

It has been a dramatic start of the season for Liverpool Football Club both on and off the pitch. [more inside]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:36 AM PST - 91 comments

You have no idea how big Africa really is. But this map does.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:03 AM PST - 137 comments

Man phones Asda to complain about a pizza. (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:12 AM PST - 30 comments

Today is the day that extraterrestrials make contact with Earth! According to a retired NORAD officer who has studied alien phenomenon since WW2, a fleet of UFOs will perform a massive display for hours over the world's principal cities today, the first step in mankind's acceptance of alien existence. Drawing upon his military experience and a wealth of historical data from NORAD intelligence, Stanley Fulham has concluded in his recently published book, Challenges of Change, that October 13, 2010 is the date of first contact. Although they won't land or communicate today (so as not to cause a worldwide panic), the aliens come with the benevolent intention of saving humans from ecological disaster. Hoopy froods should know where their towels are.
posted by johnnyace at 1:46 AM PST - 184 comments

Logical literacy is an awareness and understanding of the metalanguage in which propositions, conjectures, lemmas and theorems are written.
posted by jjray at 5:50 PM PST - 44 comments

Russian cosplayer demonstrates the artistry behind her Jared Leto look.
posted by hermitosis at 5:18 PM PST - 58 comments

"I will never forget the first time I paid a player." Former sports agent Josh Luchs confesses to paying 30 college football players early in his career.
posted by availablelight at 5:07 PM PST - 49 comments

The Roman de la Rose Digital Library intends "to create an online library of all manuscripts containing the Roman de la Rose poem." The site currently offers illustrations, transcriptions, and bibliographical data for over one hundred manuscripts. One of the most influential poems of the Middle Ages, the Roman de la Rose was authored in part by Guillaume de Lorris, in part by Jean de Meun (who stepped in four decades later to finish it). Depending on which author is at work, the poem offers very different takes on its allegory of courtly love. The Roman de la Rose soon crossed the Channel as The Romaunt of the Rose, which may or may not be a translation by Geoffrey Chaucer. Notably, the poem's attitude to women spawned what came to be known as the "Quarrel of the Rose," led by Christine de Pizan (in French). In its long afterlife, the poem's influence has been felt everywhere from tapestry to pre-Raphaelite painting to allegorical gardens.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:00 PM PST - 5 comments

Rae Fleming's new book about the Canadian broadcaster, Peter Gzowski (who died in 2002, of emphysema) should appeal to many Canadians, fans of ‘This Country in the Morning,’ and ‘Morningside,’ among his many Boswellian ventures. He sometimes brought his personal issues of smoking (up to 80 a day) and his drinking to the table (so to speak), and ‘covered’ them as the journalist he was. Fleming brings news of a son w. another woman, the telling of which raises questions about biography (and biographers).
posted by JL Sadstone at 4:07 PM PST - 9 comments

WarLight is a turn-based strategy game similar to the board game Risk. [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 3:12 PM PST - 20 comments

Bloodied but Unbowed "... chronicles, for the first time anywhere, the late 1970's/early 1980's Vancouver punk rock scene. The documentary tells a tale of rebellion and music — a fiercely independent scene created from nothing." The full documentary can be seen here.
posted by squeak at 3:10 PM PST - 31 comments

This is the magazine that shut down 70,000 blogs... Back in July we discussed the feds shutting off 70,000+ blogs for links to Al-Qaeda... The link? A magazine for the would-be Al-Qaedian, INSPIRE. It's a pdf, but it is a sexy pdf. [more inside]
posted by artof.mulata at 2:52 PM PST - 27 comments

SKYLINER: A short documentary about highlining in the French Alps.
posted by gman at 2:41 PM PST - 8 comments

Got a question about old-school Dungeons and Dragons? Perhaps you should consult this database of questions and answers from Dragon Magazine's "Sage Advice" column.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:35 PM PST - 144 comments

Live coverage of the rescue operation of the 33 Chilean miners who have been stranded underground for the last 68 days. NASA are helping in more ways than one but it isn't over yet.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 2:17 PM PST - 189 comments

10 things you didn't know about sound. Among them: "You are a chord." A TED talk by Julian Treasure and responses by him to some of the opinions about his talk.
posted by nickyskye at 2:13 PM PST - 38 comments

Writing a work of fiction? Want to know if the female character in it is a strong one? There's a flowchart for that. ^{(more info)} Though you'll want to go through the flowchart at least twice if you want any hope of passing The Bechdel Test ^{(bonus link)}
posted by 256 at 2:11 PM PST - 106 comments

Software, and Instant Real-Time 1-Click Commissar Removal: In the old days, photographic purges were laborious and time-consuming. Modern software has of course made this process much faster, and now this important task can be applied to video, and in real-time. Of course, if you don't want to actually remove someone or something, but instead simply want to turn ordinary men into Heroes of the Revolution and vixens into forgettable faces in the crowd, well, that too is an option.
posted by darth_tedious at 1:25 PM PST - 18 comments

A federal judge has issued a worldwide injunction on the enforcement of the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, "ending the military's 17-year-old ban on openly gay troops." [more inside]
posted by John Cohen at 1:23 PM PST - 193 comments

Chokeville. [more inside]
posted by togdon at 1:08 PM PST - 20 comments

The Imperial Stars promote their new single "Traffic Jam 101" with a traffic jam on 101.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 1:03 PM PST - 38 comments

A few small things, seen up close.
posted by nomadicink at 12:30 PM PST - 34 comments

Four different shogi-playing software programs combined forces to "aggressively pursue" and defeat female champion Ichiyo Shimizu in 86 moves. (previously)
posted by Joe Beese at 12:21 PM PST - 25 comments

Don't Make Excuses - Make Good! Between World Wars I and II, the U.S. economy was booming - workers had choices and employers competed for their time. How to motivate and gain loyalty from a labor force that knew it could walk out the door and find more work soon? Charles Mather, head of a family printing business in Chicago, offered employers a solution: the first motivational posters for the private workplace market. Printed between 1923 and 1929, Mather's "Work Incentive Posters" used strong imagery and short, clear messaging to encourage workplace values like teamwork, punctuality, safety, and loyalty. Today, some of his 350 designs can be seen in traveling exhibitions and poster galleries, and Antiques Road Show - or you can soak up some motivation from his modern-day successors at Successories - or generate your own. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 12:16 PM PST - 22 comments

The world (internet) is full of interesting (creative) things... a slideshow created by Google. [via]
posted by AceRock at 11:58 AM PST - 11 comments

Gays vs. Straights. OkCupid does the math.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 11:18 AM PST - 136 comments

Today, The New York Times' Idea of the Day Blog announced that is is officially out of ideas.
posted by Scoop at 11:04 AM PST - 24 comments

Fox orders Napoleon Dynamite toon series. The original cast has signed on to voice the animations.
posted by morganannie at 10:24 AM PST - 66 comments

Veuve Clicquot- oldest drinkable fizzy grape juice? A missing shipment of some fine French vino, that Luis XVI sent over to the Tsar of the Russias, may have been located, and are currently being confirmed by the home vintners.
posted by LD Feral at 10:14 AM PST - 23 comments

The Bar-Barians. The Calisthenics Kingz (and their Kiwi First Lady). Hannibal & Barilla. [more inside]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:02 AM PST - 2 comments

I am thirty three years old and have not once seriously considered moving to Bolivia. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:38 AM PST - 136 comments

Depressing million-dollar London property. Even in the economic crisis, £635,000 doesn't get you much inside the M25: you can take your pick of a worker's cottage near a football stadium, an Australian backpacker-style apartment near Earl's Court, a 2-bedroom house right near the ring road or various other similarly dispiriting residences.
posted by acb at 9:16 AM PST - 52 comments

Evolution of the Swissair logo and Swissair posters. Many more logos and posters at the Swissair fan site. (logos/posters are direct links to frames at the fan site)
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 9:13 AM PST - 6 comments

How Facebook Can Become Bigger In Five Years Than Google Is Today [more inside]
posted by gwint at 9:06 AM PST - 91 comments

Stuck in an office this morning? Trudging through the downtown? Trapped in traffic? Time to reimagine your city. [more inside]
posted by Hardcore Poser at 9:00 AM PST - 8 comments

Just in time for the 30th anniversary of the movie's release, The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back chronicles the complete tale—from pre-release to blockbuster success — of what’s become the fan favorite of the Star Wars series. Vanity Fair presents an excerpt from the book: rarely seen photographs from the Empire Strikes Back set, annotated with behind-the-scenes details. They also have interviews with the book’s author, J. W. Rinzler, and the man behind Boba Fett’s mask, actor Jeremy Bulloch." On a lighter note, how about a Wampa Throw Rug, new from the folks at ThinkGeek?
posted by zarq at 8:49 AM PST - 35 comments

Eight miles of Minecraft highway, displayed in a hypnotic four minute time-lapse. It took 22 hours to build and 27 minutes to traverse in game time. [via]
posted by quin at 8:33 AM PST - 267 comments

A very detailed map of the Simpson's hometown, with refrences to every business in every episode
posted by wheelieman at 8:22 AM PST - 29 comments

The wife of Justice Clarence Thomas is a Tea Party activist. Together, they’re the right’s new power couple. 'It’s like a Hollywood movie. One spouse goes off to work at the Supreme Court, that most august of institutions, where formality and discretion reign. The other puts on her power suit—and occasionally, a foam Lady Liberty crown—and enters the raucous, chaotic world of Tea Party politics and Fox News pontificating.''A lawyer, former staffer for the Republican congressman Dick Armey, and a former director at the Heritage Foundation, she speaks of herself as a bridge between the Republican establishment and the crowds rallying out of anger and frustration.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 8:17 AM PST - 39 comments

Game designer Raphael "Raph" Koster (Wiki) has republished his essay "The Fundamentals of Game Design." Koster was the lead designer for the progenitorial (and, in its time, wildly successful) MMORPG Ultima Online.
posted by griphus at 7:55 AM PST - 3 comments

"Eschatology" is, generally speaking, the study of the end of the world, but when most people in the US hear the term, they generally think of Christian eschatology.

Specifically, they tend to think of the barrels of ink and that one movie (previously) which have been devoted to the subject over the past couple of decades. Neither seems to have contributed to a wider understanding of the actual theology involved. [more inside]
posted by valkyryn at 6:45 AM PST - 93 comments

Workers of the world, relax. via
posted by DU at 6:18 AM PST - 23 comments

Never-before-seen footage of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly in Back To The Future Before Michael J. Fox could take the part of Marty McFly, producers cast Eric Stoltz and filmed for five weeks. The producers eventually decided to go with Fox, fired Stoltz, and locked the footage away in the vault. Now, twenty-five years later, we finally get to see the "other" Back to the Future.
posted by Servo5678 at 6:05 AM PST - 66 comments

"We realized we'd never seen a Coming Out Day feature dedicated to the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered persons in the sciences and engineering." Science journalist Steve Silberman interviews Neena Schwartz, and gathers personal stories from Eric Patridge (President of Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), Tomlinson Holman (inventor of the THX Sound System), and others. [more inside]
posted by magstheaxe at 5:51 AM PST - 6 comments

Photographer Lyle Owerko's "The Boombox Project" is a visual timeline of the era of the boombox. [more inside]
posted by soundofsuburbia at 5:17 AM PST - 16 comments

Chances are you've seen videos here in the blue of Norwegian Eskil Ronningsbakken performing acts of extreme balance. As a follow up, I offer numerous additional stills of Eskil in his quest to create art from balance. His official web site has more images, and he also has a Facebook page, from which I took this quote: "The vulnerable human being balancing between life and death is something I, among many others, consider art. The most important message that I signal with my actions is that ANYTHING is possible!" [more inside]
posted by bwg at 3:00 AM PST - 8 comments

Back in the 80s when Doctor Who was mired in a creative and ratings slump, the programme's creator Sydney Newman was asked how to revive it. His answer - regenerate the Doctor as a woman. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:54 AM PST - 102 comments

"Kavus has got into an irritating habit of holding up his middle finger at you when you speak to him." In 2005, the Alphabet Business Concern announced that Cardiacs, its cult-favorite prog-punk outfit, would maintain an online diary chronicling the band's daily goings-on. The result is a surreal, hilarous interplay between the band's personalities — childish, whiny Tim Smith, pandering narcissist Kavus Torabi, contemplative Jim Smith, and the seemingly perpetually drunk Bob "Babba" Leith. [more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich at 12:28 AM PST - 7 comments

Abdul Karim Khan (1872-1937). Master Hindustani classical musician: Piya bin chain nahi aavat, Raag Natyageet, Bengali folk, Jamuna ke teer, Raag Bilawal
posted by stbalbach at 11:50 PM PST - 14 comments

The MIDAS - multifunction in-dorm automation system - offers a complete, torturously elaborate system for controlling every aspect of dormitory life. Note especially the emergency party mode button, and Seagalvision, the spy camera in a can of Seagal-branded energy drink.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 10:22 PM PST - 13 comments

An animated Flash demonstration of the Advanced Encryption Standard. [more inside]
posted by grouse at 9:03 PM PST - 20 comments

How to Buy a Round-the-World Plane Ticket (That Kicks Ass). Chris Guillebeau: "....Each airline alliance has its own rules for how the ticket works. The one from Star Alliance is mileage based, meaning you’ll have a limit of 26,000, 29,000, 34,000 or 39,000 miles on your ticket. The trick here is to optimize your route to...below one of the tiers, (A friend of mine got his itinerary to 33,998 miles, which I thought was pretty good.)". This, and reserving, paying for and planning the mother of all plane trips (along with Things to Watch out for).
posted by storybored at 8:10 PM PST - 34 comments

On 12 February 2009, soldiers from the ADF 1st Commando regiment crept through the dark near the village of Surkh Morghab, in southern Afghanistan. What happened next will be closely scrutinised, however grenades were used and five children were killed. [more inside]
posted by wilful at 7:20 PM PST - 164 comments

Stop Looking at My Moms! (YT) Boy-rapper The Astronomical Kid demands you show his mother some respect.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:55 PM PST - 36 comments

"We need to stop making autism advocacy about trying to create a world where there aren't any autistic people and start building one in which autistic people have the rights and support they deserve." In December, Ari Ne'eman was nominated to the National Council on Disability (NCD), becoming the first autistic presidential appointee in history. In response, "one anonymous emailer to a federal agency in Washington wrote that 'assholes like Ari Ne'eman' should 'have their tongues cut out' for suggesting that autistic people need respect, civil rights, and access to services more than they need pity and a cure. This conviction has made him a leader of the emerging neurodiversity movement, which Ne'eman sees as a natural outgrowth of the civil rights, women's rights, and disability rights movements of the late 20th century." (Previously.)
posted by scody at 6:36 PM PST - 49 comments

Meet Rich Iott, Ohio Tea Party candidate for Congress and currently America's most famous WW II reenactor. Rich Iott, Republican candidate for Congress in Ohio's 9th Congressional District and Tea Party favorite, has recently gotten a huge amount of national press for his hobby of dressing like a member of the German 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking. [more inside]
posted by jhandey at 5:58 PM PST - 145 comments

The Nation's Largest Libraries: A Listing By Volumes Held of the top 100 libraries in the USA.
posted by jjray at 5:39 PM PST - 31 comments

Web Design Ledger is a publication written by web designers for web designers. The primary purpose of the site is to act as a platform for sharing web design related knowledge and resources. Topics range from design inspiration to tips and tutorials and everything in between. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 4:42 PM PST - 15 comments

Eugene Field's Complete Tribune Primer (with illustrations). Best known for Wynken, Blynken and Nod, Field has some words of advice for young people. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston at 4:00 PM PST - 5 comments

End of the World (flash animation). Or, at least one way the world could end. [more inside]
posted by vidur at 3:55 PM PST - 30 comments

Hankering for a McRib? According to the Wall Street Journal, the elusiveness of this pork sandwich is driven by marketing, and that despite threats of retirement, the fiendish creation will get trotted out whenever they want to pull in the die-hard fans. If you're one of them, then you probably already know about the McRib Locator. But what exactly are McRib's made of?
posted by crunchland at 2:29 PM PST - 89 comments

Canvas Rider is an addictive game where you ride a bike on thousands of tracks drawn by other players. It's written only in JavaScript & HTML5, using the most of the new <canvas> element.
posted by sveskemus at 1:52 PM PST - 37 comments

Ice Cream Truck, the newest video from Cazwell. [more inside]
posted by MaryDellamorte at 1:39 PM PST - 33 comments

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West's 1941 account of the people, history, and politics of the doomed Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is available online in its flawed, majestic entirety.
posted by Iridic at 1:01 PM PST - 9 comments

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day.

Merlin Mann invites you to memorize, perform, and record the Happy Few speech from Henry V before St. Crispin's Day, October 25.
posted by swift at 1:01 PM PST - 63 comments

Take a game like Super Mario Bros. Introduce garbage data into the code, either through random Game Genie codes or a corruptor program. Try to play what results, while the laws of reality slowly go insane in the background, and upload the "best" results to YouTube. Can Mario make it to the princess when stomping a Goomba turns the air to water, when hitting a block ends the world, when the world is infinite length, if the ground can't support his weight, when touching a flagpole destroys his mind, when brought into being over an ocean immediately before a fatal heart attack, before the enemies turn into Bowser-halves, while the universe is freaking out around him? (hint: no)
posted by JHarris at 12:53 PM PST - 50 comments

We're thin and stacked, so lose the old bag. Pretzel Thins first ad campaign got taken down after a bit of backlash. Now, they've created a webpage where they're asking people to "lighten up," calling their campaign provocative and asking people to vote on what they think of the ads.
posted by dzaz at 12:39 PM PST - 66 comments

Britain’s Frank Kermode is, sadly, dead, aged ninety. I was reading the obits, and memories, and definitely agreeing with the general sentiment that literary criticism (and all of the rest of us) had lost a giant.
posted by JL Sadstone at 12:11 PM PST - 12 comments

A team of researchers at Iowa State University has found that a murder costs more than $17.25 Million to society. [via]
posted by AceRock at 11:53 AM PST - 64 comments

Junk Charts and its "sister blog", Numbers Rule the World, are long-running sites with trenchant critiques of the visual and textual display of information in media. Both are instructive for decoding the information glut, as well as getting your own messages across clearly. See for example, posts on display of census information and race; Trying Too Hard; and Over Plotting.
posted by Rumple at 11:38 AM PST - 5 comments

Grand Theft Rowhome: A look into a seemingly-lucrative business of stealing deeds to Philadelphia houses armed with nothing more than pen, paper, and a forged notary stamp. The depressing take-home message? The city's bureaucracy can't get its act together enough to slow down the practice, and budget cuts are only making that worse... [more inside]
posted by supercres at 11:34 AM PST - 12 comments

Hipster Album Cover Generator [more inside]
posted by BeerFilter at 10:26 AM PST - 82 comments

"In the making of character, I feel completely happy. [...] I get two innocent people into a Hitchcockian muddle and make them fight their way out. But from scene to scene, they have to lead me. [...] To me, that is the whole of life. I can’t put it differently." Today's Democracy Now! features an extended interview with John le Carré on topics from Tony Blair, geopolitics, and money laundering to the novelist's life and work.
posted by RogerB at 10:00 AM PST - 8 comments

Dame Joan Sutherland has died at the age of 83. One of the most remarkable female opera singers of the 20th century, she was dubbed La Stupenda by a La Fenice audience in 1960 after a performance as Alcina. She possessed a voice of beauty and power, combining extraordinary agility, accurate intonation, "pin point staccatos, a splendid trill and a tremendous upper register, although music critics often complained about the imprecision of her diction. Her friend Luciano Pavarotti once called Sutherland the "Voice of the Century", while Montserrat Caballé described the Australian's voice as being like "heaven".
posted by Joe Beese at 9:06 AM PST - 15 comments

"What's scary is that we've brainwashed our kids so brilliantly -- so even though they know something is disgusting and gross, they'll still eat it if it's in that friendly little shape." Jamie Oliver shows children how chicken nuggets are made [SLYT].
posted by bayani at 9:06 AM PST - 253 comments

Splitsider posts a "Fairly Comprehensive Guide" to Comedy Podcasts. The comments thread begs to differ. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:29 AM PST - 31 comments

Despite the social stigma that still surrounds mental illness, doctors are eager to learn and apply psychotherapy, and thanks to Skype and a healthy supply of retired American therapists, Freudian psychoanalysis is enjoying a renaissance in China.
posted by jetsetlag at 8:22 AM PST - 25 comments

Graham Greene, Arthur Ransome and Somerset Maugham all spied for Britain, admits MI6 "The authors Graham Greene, Arthur Ransome, Somerset Maugham, Compton Mackenzie and Malcolm Muggeridge, and the philosopher AJ "Freddie" Ayer, all worked for MI6, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service admitted for the first time today . They are among the many exotic characters who agreed to spy for Britain, mainly during wartime, who appear in a the first authorised history of MI6."
posted by Fizz at 8:13 AM PST - 27 comments

It's October, a fine time to learn some spooky stories to tell while you're gathered around a campfire.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:19 AM PST - 11 comments

Carl Paladino, Republican candidate for New York Governor addressed a group of Orthodox Jewish leaders in Brooklyn yesterday. Reading from a prepared statement:

“I didn’t march in the gay parade this year — the gay pride parade this year. My opponent did, and that’s not the example we should be showing our children. And certainly not in our schools. Don’t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way. That would be a dastardly lie. My approach is live and let live. I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t.”

The remarks were caught on video. [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 6:46 AM PST - 192 comments

Eustace Tilley lifts up his monocle to peer curiously at Nick Denton and the Gawker Media empire.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:24 AM PST - 23 comments

The art of Clue suspect cards through the years, courtesy of The Art of Murder, a comprehensive Clue fan site.
posted by anastasiav at 5:33 AM PST - 35 comments

Sociologist Amy Schalet has done wonderful research comparing American and Dutch approaches to teen sexuality. (Blog commentary here) [more inside]
posted by knz at 12:37 AM PST - 65 comments

One Hello World is a collection of voicemail set to music. In a sort of This American Life meets Post Secret twist, these messages cover life, love, death, and just about anything else you can think of.
posted by mewithoutyou at 11:04 PM PST - 3 comments

BB, Eric, Jim, and Buddy If this doesn't get your head nodding, nothing will.
posted by HuronBob at 9:42 PM PST - 12 comments

Last Wednesday, October 6, a panel of speakers from a variety of political positions met antiwar activists at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco to discuss how to build a consensus to end the war in Afghanistan. The speakers included Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, Antiwar.com’s Angela Keaton, Republican congressional candidate John Dennis, labor leader Michael Eisenscher, and radio talk show host Karel. The moderator was Jeff Johnson of PeacePundit.com, and included remarks by Unitarian Church leaders Dolores Perez Priem, Sandra Schwartz, Jeremiah Halliday, and Louis Vitale, and Anthony Gregory of the Independent Institute. (via) Daniel Ellsberg - part I - part II - part III [more inside]
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:35 PM PST - 11 comments

Banksy's Simpsons opening.
posted by empath at 7:47 PM PST - 155 comments

Vintage porn pics, with the actors removed. Also, The Promulgator has a similar idea. Probably NSFW despite the censoring, mostly owing to the hideous decor. [more inside]
posted by bwg at 7:03 PM PST - 30 comments

Katy Perry - Peacock (Chatroulette Version)
posted by cjorgensen at 6:34 PM PST - 63 comments

IMAGINE THAT THIS MINUTE, ON THIS STATION, YOU RECEIVED WORD THAT WE HAD MADE CONTACT WITH A CIVILIZATION ON ANOTHER PLANET. THE CLOSEST THING IN HUMAN HISTORY TO SUCH AN EVENT TOOK PLACE IN 1493 WHEN NEWS REACHED EUROPE THAT COLUMBUS HAD ENCOUNTERED A NEW WORLD.
posted by Brent Parker at 4:35 PM PST - 74 comments

In 1957, the year of the Treaty of Rome, founding the European Economic Community and setting the aim of an "ever closer union", the national railway companies of West Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and Holland (later joined by Belgium and Spain) launched the Trans Europ Express, a joint network of first-class-only international trains for business travellers. [more inside]
posted by Skeptic at 3:37 PM PST - 14 comments

The Weird Book Room at AbeBooks.com l Their Weird Travel Books l Weird Cookbooks l Bonus links: Une Semaine de Bonté – Max Ernst’s Surreal Masterpiece and their Codex Seraphinianus page.
posted by nickyskye at 1:56 PM PST - 24 comments

The next day, Sunday, I spent almost nine hours immersed in Robert Lepage’s marathon play, Lipsynch, at the Bluma Appel Theatre, which was part of Luminato. You tell people you’ve just spent nine hours watching a play conducted in four languages (with projected sur-titles) and they think you’ve undergone an endurance test, made a heroic sacrifice for art. On the contrary. There was no suffering(5 minutes of [enthusiastic] standing and clapping). The time flew by. It was like taking your brain on a luxurious cruise. Or spending the day in an art spa, basking in mind massages and sensory wraps. Maybe it was high art but the ascent was effortless: because Lepage did all the work for you, it was experienced as pure entertainment. [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation at 1:30 PM PST - 6 comments

Allie Brosh explains how to put on a coat. Extremely descriptive step by step process on how to put on a coat, complete with cautionary tips, from Hyperbole and a Half's Allie Brosh.
posted by sweetkid at 11:22 AM PST - 49 comments

The current American Scholar has a good article on geoengineering, latest greatest solution to the climate crisis (or not). (And see geoengineering and the new climate denialism previously).
posted by JL Sadstone at 11:10 AM PST - 31 comments

Are you feeling blue? Suffer from insomnia? Need career advice? Have dietary concerns? Want to know more about sex? Wonder how the market is doing and your finances? Never fear, Sweet Old Bob is here
posted by timsteil at 8:36 AM PST - 15 comments

The trick is to give without looking to receive - to give of yourself to your family, your friends, your community, and the world community with love. The King of Rock and Soul Solomon Burke, Archbishop of the House of God For All People and member of the Hall of Fame died on a plane (2) after arriving in Amsterdam. [more inside]
posted by ersatz at 6:01 AM PST - 47 comments

The Coalition of the Willing is a broad movement that began with an animated short about open source culture and the role it could play against global warming. Today, on 10th October 2010, people at 7347 events in 188 countries are getting to work on the climate crisis at the 10/10/10 Work Party. [via Appropedia] Previously
posted by The Lady is a designer at 2:47 AM PST - 50 comments

Now is the time on MetaFilter when we dance: with GROSSE FREIHEIT, Mera naam Chin Chin Chu (Hindi: मेरा नाम चिन चिन चू, Urdu: میرا نام چِن چِن چو) , and Occult Chemistry - Fire.
posted by puny human at 9:06 PM PST - 31 comments

A pullout isn't good news for PBS, either, as it signals "to other PBS members that affiliation isn't that important anymore," according to Jeffrey McCall, a media expert at DePauw University. Los Angeles Public Broadcasting Stations' (PBS) affiliate KCET has announced they will be pulling out of the network. Things have not been going well for the station for a while now. [more inside]
posted by victors at 6:55 PM PST - 52 comments

Anyone driving the twists of Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles recently may have glimpsed a Toyota Prius with a curious funnel-like cylinder on the roof. Harder to notice was that the person at the wheel was not actually driving. SLNYT + video.
posted by chavenet at 3:40 PM PST - 115 comments

The Banishment of Beauty (Part 1) "This is part one of a one hour slide presentation I made in Laguna Beach for American Artist's "Weekend With the Masters" event. It deals with the issues as I see them between traditional and "modern" art." (Part 2) (Part 3) & (Part 4).
posted by Fizz at 3:33 PM PST - 66 comments

Islands, Guano, and Imperialism: Columbia University Law Professor Christina Duffy Burnett is interviewed in Cabinet Magazine. Via.
posted by Rumple at 2:41 PM PST - 12 comments

Did an FBI provocateur fire the first shots before the Kent State killings. New audio analysis shows this might be the case. Dennis Kucinich wants answers.
posted by Xurando at 1:13 PM PST - 42 comments

Urban archaeologist Scott Jordan has spent his whole life uncovering New York City's remains: I have been digging for New York's artifacts since 1969. My first dig was on Governor's Island, which was my father's duty station, and I stumbled upon a time capsule of New York's military history in the moat of old Fort Jay. In the dirt under the old drawbridge were relics dating from the War of 1812 all the way to the Civil War including buttons, musket balls and bullets, coins, pottery, and even a small cannon ball. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 12:02 PM PST - 13 comments

RecycledMovieCostumes.com A site of screencaps and photos tracking outfits that show up in different movies. So sometimes you're watching a movie and you say "that actor looks familiar." This is a collection of photos and comparisons for the times you've thought "that outfit looks familiar." [more inside]
posted by SaharaRose at 11:28 AM PST - 14 comments

Double hit o’ 1990s-style Douglas Coupland aphorism and futurism: “Glossary of New Terms”; “A Radical Pessimist’s Guide to the Next Ten Years.”
posted by joeclark at 10:58 AM PST - 50 comments

A ballet based on Oh, Inverted World by The Shins. (SLYT)
posted by Askiba at 10:27 AM PST - 17 comments

Repetition needn't be redundancy. Contrastive focus reduplication (also lexical cloning, the double construction) is a little studied type of syntactic reduplication found in some languages. The first part of the reduplicant bears contrastive intonational stress, hence the name. [Via]
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:20 AM PST - 42 comments

Somebody fed the hydra a hand grenade. The “robo-signer” scandal began September 20th when news broke that GMAC/Ally was suspending foreclosures in 23 states due to flawed affidavits submitted in foreclosure proceedings there. Since then, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America, and now possibly Littleton Loan Servicing (a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs) have admitted similar problems. With yesterday’s announcement by Bank of America that it will be suspending foreclosures in all 50 states (not just the ones where foreclosures go before a judge) all signs point to the fact that mere false affidavits are no longer the issue; other, more serious problems are now being uncovered, e.g. forged assignments and failure to serve papers. Up to 40 state’s attorney’s general are poised to announce a joint investigation. What does all this mean? Well…uh…can you actually prove you own your house? And can your bank? And can the investment bank who’s been collecting the payments from the bond they made out of your mortgage? If you can’t, you’re going to have a hell of a time selling it.* And so will all the banks.* Did I mention that bank-owned (REO/forclosures) sales are 25 percent of the housing market? [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 8:00 AM PST - 145 comments

You're Stealing it Wrong: 30 Years of Inter-Pirate Battles. A presentation at DefCon by Jason Scott.
posted by chunking express at 7:52 AM PST - 22 comments

Philip Scott Johnson does morphing
Van Gogh self portraits
60 years of actresses
60 years of actors
women in film
Women In Art here previously; 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art now with links to original artwork.
posted by adamvasco at 7:15 AM PST - 14 comments

A mechanic noticed a strange device under the hood of a customer's car and offered to remove it for him. The customer, an Egyptian-American student named Yasir Afifi, shows his roommate, who posts pictures of it on Reddit to find out what the heck it is. Turns out it's an FBI GPS tracking device, and the agency turned up quickly demanding he give it back. The ACLU is reportedly getting involved. [more inside]
posted by richyoung at 10:04 PM PST - 115 comments

Memo to David Bruce McMahan, Daughter Seducer [more inside]
posted by waraw at 9:57 PM PST - 90 comments

How to Degauss a Cat
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:39 PM PST - 27 comments

In 1936, a teenager from Holland named Ria van Dijk shot the target in a shooting gallery, activating a camera shutter. She is awarded the photograph as a prize Over seven decades later, she is still shooting. The near-annual images are collected in the book In Almost Every Picture 7: Shooting Gallery. A selection have recently been posted online. (via)
posted by emilyd22222 at 8:31 PM PST - 26 comments

Andrew O'Hehir, writing for Salon.com, called Secretariat: "A gorgeous, creepy American myth". Roger Ebert described O'Hehir's review as "insane". O'Hehir responds.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:49 PM PST - 56 comments

Let's dust off our turntable, and the hash pipe and break out the C.O.B., which is Clive's Own Band, Clive being Clive Palmer, one of the founders of The Incredible String Band, who left after the success of their first album, took his money, and left England to live in alone in India. Later, in the early seventies, living off porridge and crackers in a caravan with Mick Bennett and John Bidwell, he released two 'progressive folk' albums, Spirit of Love and Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart, which some have called the best folk albums to have ever come out of Britain. Produced with Ralph McTell.
posted by puny human at 7:27 PM PST - 12 comments

Sesame Street's Grover spoofs the original Old Spice ad. As great as this is, it's not the first time Sesame Street has parodied something. They've also done 30 Rock, Mad Men, True Blood, Law & Order: SVU, Desperate Housewives, CSI, Highschool Musical, Twin Peaks (during a parody of Masterpiece, no less) and even Casablanca and Shaft.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:42 PM PST - 63 comments

"I don't know how magnets work," I say, to put him at his ease. Jon Ronson meets the Insane Clown Posse
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:09 PM PST - 75 comments

Cee-Lo Green has a message for all of us (NSFW!!) [SLTY]
posted by victors at 5:09 PM PST - 38 comments

River of the Net is a way to view short, tag-related videos without any sort of context. This interview explains things a little more. I've had some NWS content pop up (though not much), just as fair warning. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 5:03 PM PST - 4 comments

Jeb Corliss wing-suit demo. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 3:56 PM PST - 39 comments