MetaFilter

The much-renowned and very influential singer, songwriter and bandleader Tabu Ley Rochereau, the legendary pioneer of soukous, has died. His music was characterized by his sweet, mellow voice, smoothly beautiful and quintessentially African vocal harmonies, and chiming, smooth-as-silk interwoven guitar melodies. Not to mention a steady, infectious beat that kept people moving on dance floors all across Africa for the past five decades. Here is but a small sampling, spanning from his very fruitful, prolific musical career: Mokolo Nakokufa, Muzina, Kaful Mayay, Bania Irene, Mongali... and since the man is said to have written as many as 3000 songs, there's plenty more out there to discover. RIP Tabu Ley Rochereau.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:34 PM PST - 20 comments

A silent but epic battle is waging in the pages of toxicology journals over the use of science in public health policy. [more inside]
posted by hereticfig at 10:21 PM PST - 43 comments

"Shakira aside, the female presence is a little light. Why are there no more big female acts in Latin music right now? I look at my charts, and there's very few female names.... you have a lot of these pretty, sexy young women, who women now are identifying less and less with. I really wish that were different." That's a quote from Leila Cobo, executive director of Latin Content & Programming for Billboard, that opened an NPR piece that countered with a few names to watch, featuring input from Latin Alternative co-host Ernesto Lechner. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:01 PM PST - 10 comments

The "Fast & Furious" actor died earlier today at the age of 40.
posted by DRoll at 8:51 PM PST - 115 comments

Salina Turda: salt mines turned subterranean history museum. "What was once an enormous salt mine in Turda, Romania, has now been carefully renovated by the regional Cluj county council into the world’s first salt mining history museum. The Salina Turda salt mines were excavated in the 17th century, proving a crucial source for salt that brought the Romans much wealth. Today, the Durgau lakes at the mine’s surface – responsible for much of the salt deposits in the area – are popular tourist attractions that guarantee a steady flow of visitors all year around. A trip down the vertical shafts that once transported thousands of tons of salt will slowly reveal the immense scale of the excavated earth, made blatantly clear upon reaching the very bottom of the mine which is covered in a sand-like layer of salt."
posted by moonmilk at 6:32 PM PST - 25 comments

"It is truly punk beyond any of the music played by celebrated punk bands at the time of the term’s genesis." Old Skull were a trio of prepubescent boys from Wisconsin whose raw (some would say talentless) thrash punk albums in the late 1980s gained them nationwide attention and a record deal. The band consisted of J.-P. and Jamie Toulon and Jesse Collins-Davies, with a lot of help from the Toulon patriarch Vern. Their songs dealt with issues big ("Homeless," "AIDS") and small ("Pizza Man," "D'Yall Know Where the Herb Is?"). They opened for Sonic Youth and Gwar, they made it onto MTV and into People Magazine. Then their 15 minutes passed. Here's a haunting 2010 WFMU interview with Jamie Toulon when he was a homeless addict in NYC. Then the Toulon brothers died within a year of each other.
posted by goatdog at 6:26 PM PST - 29 comments

... and other quality headlines by Headline Smasher.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:13 PM PST - 55 comments

Someone in the UK really likes training budgies to ride little rides.
posted by The Whelk at 2:06 PM PST - 23 comments

Broker Bodega. (SLTumblr, excessive pun warning.)
posted by Anonymous at 2:00 PM PST - 27 comments

Clinton with an Uzi?...check.
Reagan on a velociraptor?...check.
TR taking out Big Foot?...check.
Hey, what about Abe Lincoln, riding a grizzly bear and packing an M-16?
No?!?! What kind of place is this? Oh, wait, here it is.
And many more, but for my money, nothing beats Abe on the bear. (Sort of single link Deviant Art)
posted by hwestiii at 1:51 PM PST - 26 comments

"We never get to see those photos juxtaposed against a picture of that same person looking unflattering." Gracie Hagen takes a stab at dismantling the myth of the "normal" body. [NSFW] [more inside]
posted by tybeet at 1:30 PM PST - 48 comments

A sexually imperfect, usually sterile female calf born as a twin with a male calf due to the influence of male hormones during the development in utero. The Freemartin Calf is a 40 minute experimental fiction shot on black and white Super 8. The whole film is free to watch on Vimeo. It's written, directed and edited by Jayne Amara Ross, with a soundtrack by Frédéric D. Oberland released on the excellent Manchester label Gizeh records. [more inside]
posted by Joeruckus at 12:56 PM PST - 3 comments

It's easy to dismiss DJ Dog Dick as a juvenile joke. Anyone with that name for a project can't be doing anything worthy of my time, right? But dig deeper, and what emerges is a man eloquently, urgently capturing the details of his life on the fringes of America. After years operating in the outsider noise scene, combining modular drones and off-kilter raps into a singular live show, 2013 saw a move toward something different. The Identity EP earlier this year was his statement of intent, a miniature coming of age narrative (stream full EP here.) His debut full-length on Hoss Records, The Life Stains was released last week. It's an ambitious, often deeply personal pop album. A modern song cycle about the way we live now. It also happens to be slathered in weirdo diarrhea death production. Watch the video for "Dried Old Leaves" and listen to "The Grease I Got", one of the best songs I've heard this year. And read a great little interview with Noisey that sheds light on where Eisenberg came from and where he's going with this unusual project.
posted by naju at 10:48 AM PST - 9 comments

The British band Big Big Train, winners of the Breakthrough Award at the 2013 Progressive Music Awards, have a vocalist who sings not unlike Peter Gabriel, and plays flute not unlike Ian Anderson; a hint of ELP in some songs; and a new member who was previously the guitarist for XTC. Non-prog fans may find the band's source matter intriguing: Their recent (double) album, English Electric I and II, features songs about the first scuba diver, Alexander Lambert, and his heroic work during the flooding of the Severn Tunnel in 1880; notorious fine art forger Tom Keating; an 1842 Royal Commission report on the working conditions of children employed in Welsh coal mines; a world-record-setting, 126 m.p.h. run by a steam locomotive in 1938; and a woman named Blanca Huertas, who is the Curator Lepidoptera at London's Natural History Museum.
posted by helpthebear at 8:38 AM PST - 17 comments

"Childhood ponies getting final brush out before going into storage indefinitely. I feel like a mortician. " - Freindship Is Magic creator Lauren Faust tweets her G1 My Little Pony collection. [more inside]
posted by Artw at 8:01 AM PST - 41 comments

So it's well known that apart from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, queen Elizabeth also rules the so-called crown dependencies, not part of the United Kingdom. The best known of those are the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands countries, Guernsey and Jersey. But who would recognise that other Channel Islands dependency, who could say even when presented with its distinctive outline that this is Jinsy? [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 7:43 AM PST - 7 comments

Installed solar capacity is growing by leaps and bounds, led by Walmart and Apple, and helped by bonds backed by solar power payments,[*] which have sent industry stocks soaring, even as molten salt and new battery technologies come on line to generate storage for use when the sun doesn't shine. Of course we could always go to geostationary orbit -- or the moon -- as well we may (if politics allow it) as thirst from the developing world grows beyond the earth's carrying capacity. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:42 AM PST - 41 comments

Not satisfied with Rule 110 - the first Turing Complete cellular automata (as proven by Matthew Cook), Wolfram Mathematics has announced a system that is “Making the world computable..." A combination of natural language recognition, data description and computational language, the goal is to allow a person to define what they want, not how to get it and manipulate it. Wolfram describes the process as follows: "A human defines what the goal should be, and a computer does its best to figure out what that means, and does its best to do it..." Of course, the rest is left as an exercise for the reader...
posted by BillW at 7:31 AM PST - 37 comments

ASCII fluid simulator (source code)
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:18 AM PST - 24 comments

My Secret Life in Los Santos : "On October 1, Rockstar released the online version of Grand Theft Auto V, the most popular video game in history. Unlike the “story mode” of the video game where players test their skills against computer generated cops and gangsters, in the online version of fictional Los Angeles we also get to kill and rob each other."
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:50 PM PST - 45 comments

Magic: The Musical: A Magic: The Gathering Puppet Musical [more inside]
posted by yellowbinder at 6:19 PM PST - 7 comments

The Poor Batman
posted by Tom-B at 4:04 PM PST - 17 comments

NSA SEXINT is the Abuse You’ve All Been Waiting For. According to documents revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA has been gathering records of online sexual activity and logging visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to blackmail and silence those advocating "radical" beliefs.
posted by anemone of the state at 2:08 PM PST - 150 comments

Jennifer Grout, an American singer and oud player, has made it into the finals of Arabs Got Talent. She has no Arab ancestry and a background in European classical music. [more inside]
posted by nangar at 1:28 PM PST - 58 comments

In 1979, a 14-year-old called Andy Popplewell started building his own six track mixer from a blueprint in an electronics hobbyist magazine. After it was finished he graduated to constructing his own synth before he turned 17 and then wrote a synth pop album in his mum’s garage and recorded it himself between 1981 and 1983; making one single cassette copy. Then due to a chance meeting with Andy Votel 30 years later in 2012, that cassette - not even a demo really as it never got sent to anyone - has now been released as an album.
posted by ignignokt at 12:46 PM PST - 17 comments

Every good Polka band* needs horns, right? Well, the fun-loving German** quartet Hoch Tirol has Konis Hupen (Koni's Honking)
(Short version for those of you who cannot handle more than 40 seconds of Polka.) (Live performance for those of you who think the video was all fancy editing and fakery) (Seven hour version because there are people on YouTube who do things like this) (Leek Spin Polka Previous)
*NOT an oxymoron
**also NOT an oxymoron
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:00 PM PST - 31 comments

Jmtb02 (John), creator of the fun, meta and little blue elephant-filled games This Is The Only Level, OBEY, and Achievement Unlocked returns with This Is The Only Level 3 and Achievement Unlocked 3 and an homage to SimTower-like games of yore: Corporation Inc
posted by The Whelk at 11:58 AM PST - 9 comments

"While DC continues to race through San Francisco power lines at nearly the speed of light, it does so anonymously. You’ll find no reference to DC power distribution in PG&E’s annual reports or on its websites. Even some utility engineers are unaware of its existence, which raises a curious question: Why is the inheritor of this legacy, the mighty and sophisticated PG&E, still bothering with DC distribution 133 years later?" [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer at 11:36 AM PST - 44 comments

Curse your loved ones in Old Irish.
posted by rtha at 10:20 AM PST - 24 comments

"This is a game in which a sentient closet-based AI locks four girls in a room (with giant metal barriers) because one of them smudged her make-up, and forces them to repeatedly apply lipstick and eyeliner to freakishly giant doll heads until he is satisfied. That’s not my arch interpretation of events. That’s what actually happens."
posted by griphus at 8:30 AM PST - 98 comments

The Panamanian golden frog that lives near loud waterfalls and the people of both Kuşköy (a small village in Turkey) and La Gomera (an island off the coast of Morocco) have something in common: creative communication in challenging situations. Where the golden frogs communicate by waving, the people of Kuşköy and La Gomera overcome difficult terrain by whistling. The Turkish people call their language "kuș dili" or "bird langage," as it originated in Kuşköy, which itself means "bird village," and the Silbo Gomero language is so organized and thorough that every vowel and consonant can be replaced with a whistle. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:44 AM PST - 14 comments

The Charles Mingus Sextet featuring Eric Dolphy perform
Take the "A" Train
Live in Norway, April 12, 1964 [more inside]
posted by timshel at 6:51 AM PST - 23 comments

Operation Migration has helped endangered bird species migrate by leading the way with ultralight aircraft. At the moment you can see a live video of them in flight.
posted by exogenous at 6:26 AM PST - 6 comments

Exclaim!'s Top 10 Freeleases of 2013 [more inside]
posted by mannequito at 3:25 AM PST - 19 comments

"He logged onto the central network using his personal computer, and waited while the system verified his identity. With a few keystrokes he entered an electronic ticketing system, and entered the codes for his point of departure and his destination. In moments the computer displayed a list of possible flights, and he picked the earliest one. Dollars were automatically deducted from his personal account to pay for the transaction." -- If all stories were written like science fiction stories, by Mark Rosenfelder.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:44 AM PST - 115 comments

SBNation, YouTube's independent sports network, presents "Sunday Symphony: How the NFL's most advanced game broadcast is made." "An exclusive, all access look at the people, technology, and highly organized chaos that results in the NFL's most advanced game broadcast."
posted by ob1quixote at 11:16 PM PST - 15 comments

"Very often, black people work to make white people at ease by layering away any unease we ourselves may feel. It is hard work to translate yourself daily to someone else who most likely lives life without ever being fully aware of how their very existence has been the basis for determining what is 'normal' in America and much of the world. And yet this painful and ongoing work of translation is second nature to those of us who have always had to figure out ways to be seen and understood in a world where the white experience is assumed to be the default."
posted by rcraniac at 9:11 PM PST - 180 comments

If It Happened There … America’s Annual Festival Pilgrimage Begins. This is the fourth installment of a continuing series in which American events are described using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events in other countries. Previously. Previouslier. Previouslierest.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:50 PM PST - 29 comments

Jeff Ansorge from five star dining to free lunch. A chef's spiritual transition. (SLHuffPo).
posted by bquarters at 7:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Much like the animated train in the old Gumby television series, the UP 4014 Big Boy is moving along hopscotched panel track on the first leg of its trip to restoration (previously) at the Union Pacific's Cheyenne Steam shop. [more inside]
posted by pjern at 7:24 PM PST - 18 comments

Northern Soul Girl Dances To 'Happy'. [more inside]
posted by Caskeum at 2:36 PM PST - 22 comments

How to chop wood without messing around. [more inside]
posted by SpacemanStix at 1:59 PM PST - 44 comments

Matika Wilbur is journeying across the United States to record and share the essence of contemporary Native Culture with the world. There are at least 562 Tribal Nations recognized by the US Federal Government.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:45 PM PST - 4 comments

The U.S. Cities Where the Fewest Commuters Get to Work By Car
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:39 AM PST - 40 comments

It's time for Americans to gather around the dinner table, eat too much, and argue about politics! A new genre of Thanksgiving-themed web pages seems to be taking off this year, that being the "How to argue with your [opposite political party] family members at Thanksgiving" genre. From the left side of the political spectrum, the Democratic National Committee has launched "The Democrat's Guide to Talking Politics with Your Republican Uncle", and The Huffington Post chimed in with "Here's Every Argument You'll Need To Win Your Obamacare Debate This Thanksgiving". Not to be outdone, conservatives have responded with cheat sheets of their own, including RedState.com's "Thanksgiving dinner with your liberal relatives" and The Washington Examiner's "The Thanksgiving guide to making conservative arguments liberals can understand". [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 11:09 AM PST - 125 comments

Norfolk Police Warn of Alarming Clown Epidemic "It appears that the people involved are waiting for a passerby to be startled by their appearance and run away, and then the clown runs after them for a short distance. Previously, in Northampton.
posted by sweet mister at 10:28 AM PST - 45 comments

Answers to All the Tech Questions Your Family Will Ask You This Holiday
posted by Artw at 10:22 AM PST - 43 comments

Dear Spike Lee: Juan Luis Garcia has a bone to pick with the agency who (apparently) boosted his designs for the posters promoting the Oldboy remake.
posted by Shepherd at 9:03 AM PST - 54 comments

A teacher's archive of 30 years of confiscated toys
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:44 AM PST - 24 comments

How to write about the North
posted by mippy at 7:45 AM PST - 63 comments

Spice up your day with Uproot Andy's mixes and remixes of various African/Latin sounds, made for Que Bajo, an Monthly Tropical Bass Party in New York City. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:34 AM PST - 5 comments

The Lost Roles of Rodney Dangerfield – Rodney Dangerfield starred as himself in this unsuccessful NBC pilot about a pre-teen boy who idolizes Rodney Dangerfield and gains the ability to magically make him appear to give him advice. Where's Rodney? was a co-production between Aaron Spelling and Hanna-Barbera and also starred Jared Rushton, Soleil Moon Frye, and Breckin Meyer.
posted by timshel at 6:28 AM PST - 24 comments

"Three unpublished works by J.D. Salinger, including The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls, have been leaked online after showing up in an eBay auction. Birthday Boy, Paula, and the aforementioned Ocean are three short stories that form part of a larger collection of Salinger works that was never published." [more inside]
posted by nicebookrack at 6:05 AM PST - 41 comments

Animals have tempers. Bad tempers. And they want what they want. And there are animated gifs to prove it.
posted by Mezentian at 3:07 AM PST - 16 comments

On March 22, 1621, a Native American delegation walked through what is now southern New England to meet with a group of foreigners who had taken over a recently deserted Indian settlement. At the head of the party was an uneasy triumvirate: Massasoit, the sachem (political-military leader) of the Wampanoag confederation, a loose coalition of several dozen villages that controlled most of southeastern Massachusetts; Samoset, sachem of an allied group to the north; and Tisquantum, a distrusted captive, whom Massasoit had brought along only reluctantly as an interpreter. Massasoit was an adroit politician, but the dilemma he faced would have tested Machiavelli. About five years before, most of his subjects had fallen before a terrible calamity. Whole villages had been depopulated. It was all Massasoit could do to hold together the remnants of his people. Adding to his problems, the disaster had not touched the Wampanoag’s longtime enemies, the Narragansett alliance to the west. Soon, Massasoit feared, they would take advantage of the Wampanoag’s weakness and overrun them. And the only solution he could see was fraught with perils of its own, because it involved the foreigners—people from across the sea.

The Indians who first feasted with the English colonists were far more sophisticated than you were taught in school. But that wasn't enough to save them In addition to providing a beautifully written account of what happened, the article does something subtle but incredibly cool in using a Native centered perspective that really illuminates how dramatically silenced and othered Native voices are in other accounts.

[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 12:45 AM PST - 90 comments

Hayao Miyazaki drawn Concept sketches and storyboards for a proposed but never made 1971 Pippi Longstocking animated movie. The movie was abandoned when Astrid Lindgren didn't give her permission.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:16 AM PST - 23 comments

Dave Clark, the former drummer of the Rheostatics, one of Canada truly great alternative bands, offers up The Woodshed Orchestra and their joyfully infectious homage to Geddy Lee.
posted by salishsea at 11:16 PM PST - 5 comments

All you Americans know what day it is today, right? Of course you do! It's Hendrix's birthday! Duh. And I'd like to suggest you celebrate by listening to this excellent compilation of various soul and R&B singles that featured Jimi's guitar artistry before the man became the most celebrated guitarist in American music history. JIMI HENDRIX : THE SOUL SESSIONS
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:03 PM PST - 9 comments

After today's troubling incident with the whale (see below) you might wonder what the hell is going on with the mysterious wiring in this batch of sea creatures, but fear not: the Vancouver Aquarium is just releasing these rehabilitated harbour seals back into the wild with some helpful satellite-linked transmitters on their heads.
posted by maudlin at 6:41 PM PST - 27 comments

A sperm whale, which died of natural causes off the Faroe Islands, explodes .
posted by R. Mutt at 5:44 PM PST - 76 comments

"The Dutch social network Hyves didn't chase its users in white clean profiles (like Facebook), and it also didn't allow them to build their own web sites (like Geocities, Tumblr). Instead, for almost 10 years, it was going with the Pimp My Profile model (Myspace): users were allowed to change the avatar, colors of texts and other elements, background image and its position. Not a lot, but the users of Hyves developed the mastery of talking to the world through the choice and combination of userpic and wallpaper." (From Contemporary Home Computing, Olia Lialina. Via @cory_archangel)
posted by grobstein at 3:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Silvio Berlusconi ousted from Italian parliament after tax fraud conviction.
Slideshow of his ups and downs. Wiki. Previously on mefi. [more inside]
posted by lalochezia at 1:02 PM PST - 57 comments

12. Wearable computing device as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a laser pointer that is arranged in or on the wig.

Sony has filed a patent application for the world's first (?) Smart Wig. [more inside]
posted by emmtee at 11:55 AM PST - 41 comments

"Now, I don't write many short stories these days, but I'm a sucker for the right kind of charity approach. And besides, I had a hypothesis I wanted to test: that every short story can be improved by adding dinosaurs and sodomy." SF author Charles Stross (metafilter's own) shares a short shaggy dog story he wrote back in 2011 containing sex, waterfowl, and reverse-engineering evolution: "A Bird In Hand."
posted by The Whelk at 11:41 AM PST - 35 comments

Udacity, who, along with Coursera and edX, has been one of the "big three" MOOC providers is stepping back from its initial vision, to refocus on corporate training. Now that we've had a bit of time to think through the potential offered by MOOCs, and to assess how well they live up to them in practice, what conclusions are people drawing? Is it possible that MOOCs have value, but just aren't the same sort of animal as a traditional "bricks and mortar" course? Jonathan Freedman, from the University of Michigan, thinks so, and calls them "usefully Middlebrow." John Covach of the University of Rochester talks in depth about his own experiences, and frames MOOC courses as more akin to a public lecture series than a college course.
posted by tyllwin at 11:36 AM PST - 38 comments

Last month, we lost one of the great philosophers of the 20th century. Arthur C. Danto was perhaps the most eminent voice in contemporary aesthetics. Always on the cutting edge, Danto shined a light on aesthetics in the post-art world. [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:30 AM PST - 8 comments

Scott Chesworth has recently finished his epic-scope but bite-sized The Ancient World podcast. [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:26 AM PST - 17 comments

Cats recognise their owners' voices, but never evolved to care
posted by exogenous at 10:38 AM PST - 107 comments

"I've been described as being a pioneer. Am I a pioneer? ... Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. I don't mind one way or the other." Saul Leiter was born in 1923 in Pittsburgh; at 23 he left theology school and headed to New York to become an artist. He worked in both painting and photography, finding early support for his black-and-white photos in an 1953 MoMA show. He settled into an East Village apartment and did fashion photography to support himself. But on his own time, on the sidewalks of NYC, he developed a lyrical and painterly personal style of color street photography that's now seen as both masterly and very ahead of its time. In his twilight years he saw a new appreciation for his work, with books and a new documentary film, which had its New York debut on Nov. 16. Saul Leiter passed away last night in New York City at age 89. (Previously on Mefi.)
posted by lisa g at 10:36 AM PST - 12 comments

NPR and Vulture talk to Sarah Silverman about her HBO special 'We Are Miracles', and why women run comedy. Though according to Variety she shouldn't be so dirty... or maybe Variety should shut up.
posted by Artw at 10:07 AM PST - 37 comments

Mormon Women Bare is an art project spearheaded by Katrina Barker Anderson, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's designed to challenge the LDS Church's strict views on modesty and the value of "virtue" by having Church members pose naked in an attempt to reclaim their bodies while protesting the belief that they need to be careful of inflaming the passions of men.
posted by inturnaround at 7:51 AM PST - 63 comments

24 hours of Happy is a full day of people dancing to Pharrell Williams' 4 minute song Happy, with a clock interface overlaid the video to allow you to jump around throughout the day. If you don't have the patience/ endurance/ care to watch a full day of lip-synching dancers, Molly Beauchemin watched it all, in two hour blocks, on mute, for you (and Pitchfork) and made note of the 5 best things. But if you are into that sort of endurance test, here's the Wikipedia list of films with the longest run times, including a total of 75 films that run over 5 hours. If you're looking for something a little shorter, an AMC blogger listed the top 50 longest (American) movies of all time, but missed The Ten Commandments (1956).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:17 AM PST - 23 comments

Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear two challenges to the Affordable Care Act's mandate that women's contraception must be covered. The cases, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, ask the Court to focus on whether the pregnancy-related care coverage can be enforced against profit-making companies — or their individual owners — when the coverage contradicts privately held religious beliefs. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:15 AM PST - 207 comments

Nature reports that a large international group set up to test the reliability of psychology experiments has successfully reproduced the results of 10 out of 13 past experiments. The consortium also found that two effects could not be reproduced. [more inside]
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:48 AM PST - 22 comments

I did not know that there were no roads connecting Central and South America. Previously, but it was over 10 years ago...
posted by COD at 5:48 AM PST - 68 comments

LogoThief is a new blog that "exists to name and shame logo thieves and all others who plagiarize the work of logo designers." Some are more subtle copies of form and/or color, some are minimally altered, and some are pure photocopy jobs. Some mix parts of two other logos into a rip-off hybrid. And then there are the multiple offenders, where logos are so good that they get stolen by many copycats or coffee copiers or just hand/eye appropriators.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:17 AM PST - 65 comments

If scientists are correct, the ocean will swallow most of Kiribati before the end of the century, and perhaps much sooner than that. … Before the rising Pacific drowns these atolls, though, it will infiltrate, and irreversibly poison, their already inadequate supply of fresh water. The apocalypse could come even sooner for Kiribati if violent storms, of the sort that recently destroyed parts of the Philippines, strike its islands. For all of these reasons, the 103,000 citizens of Kiribati may soon become refugees, perhaps the first mass movement of people fleeing the consequences of global warming rather than war or famine. This is why [Kiribati's president Anote] Tong visits Fiji so frequently. He is searching for a place to move his people. The government of Kiribati recently bought 6,000 acres of land in Fiji for a reported $9.6 million, to the apparent consternation of Fiji’s military rulers. Fiji has expressed no interest in absorbing the I-Kiribati, as the country’s people are known. A former president of Zambia, in south-central Africa, once offered Kiribati’s people land in his country, but then he died. No one else so far has volunteered to organize a rescue.

[more inside]
posted by bookman117 at 2:28 AM PST - 35 comments

Welcome to Fort McMoney, an interactive documentary game. [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 11:45 PM PST - 19 comments

Name this mouthwash. Name this winter coat. Name this urinal. Name the herb garden. Name this salt and pepper. Name this fire extinguisher. Name this Case Manager. Name this pie. [more inside]
posted by threeants at 9:44 PM PST - 28 comments

If you think turduckens are just too easy: Things inside things. Things on top of other things. Things that look like things. Things that do tricks, and other subtleties.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:43 PM PST - 21 comments

In 2004, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe teamed up with the Dresdner Sinfoniker to perform a new score at a presentation of Eisenstein's 1925 classic silent film Battleship Potemkin in Trafalger Square, London. It is estimated that 25,000 people attended the screening. The Pet Shop Boys' score and the film have been combined and are available to watch on YouTube. [1h15m] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 7:39 PM PST - 11 comments

Evidence suggests the Knights Templar maintained a fleet of pterodactyls and used them to colonize America years before Columbus. Some disagree with this theory, as clearly the Templars’ pterodactyls would not get along with their unicorns. [more inside]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:26 PM PST - 40 comments

Why I Am Leaving New York City
posted by griphus at 5:45 PM PST - 115 comments

Last month, an innocent video of Japanese celebricat Maru climbing a ladder was defaced with a dick pic in the comments (NSFW ASCII art). The Internet's favorite feline was the latest casualty in a hurricane of spam, links to viruses, ASCII art and other flying debris that has descended on the YouTube comments section ever since Google forced all commenters to adopt Google+ accounts. [more inside]
posted by dontjumplarry at 5:43 PM PST - 83 comments

The perfect thing for the pedant in your life, or for the person in your life who hates the pedant in their life.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:51 PM PST - 379 comments

We need to stop blaming cancer patients and start supporting their emotional needs. We can’t stop time. We can’t control most of life’s plot twists.
posted by rcraniac at 4:39 PM PST - 62 comments

The Men Who Made Zelda — Staff Interview
The Development of A Link to the Past
Early Screenshots

posted by timshel at 3:38 PM PST - 25 comments

Ruby by Emma Allen - The short film depicts the transition from living, to death, to eternity and reincarnation with some very impressive face painting make-up, which took Emma five days to apply. This is one of the most creative pieces of art I've seen in a long time.
posted by GrooveJedi at 3:13 PM PST - 4 comments

New Wave Artists of the 1980s aging gracefully (and not so gracefully) Don't click the link if you want to remember them "as they were" but why not click, because some of our favorites are still stone cold foxes 30 years later!
posted by vespabelle at 3:11 PM PST - 181 comments

Animals Were Harmed On the American Humane Association's relationship with Hollywood.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:03 PM PST - 28 comments

Yet another natural wonder: The spinning ice disk.
posted by Xurando at 2:44 PM PST - 11 comments

The Berners Street Hoax - On November 26th, 1810, at 5 o’clock in the morning, a chimney sweep appeared at Mrs. Tottenham’s door.
posted by unliteral at 2:32 PM PST - 10 comments

It seems to be legal, and rarely subject to scrutiny, to run a charity that keeps almost all the donations for itself. (SLNYT)
posted by bearwife at 1:57 PM PST - 36 comments

VICE made a documentary about the real Walter White. [more inside]
posted by gman at 1:48 PM PST - 4 comments

On Penny Arcade, Exploitation, and the Myth of the Do-Everything Rock Star. "We want someone who can code well in multiple front-end and back-end languages, maintain servers and other hardware including load balancing and database admin, do general office IT, manage your own projects, deal with the fact that one of our co-founders is a rampaging trans-phobic asshole, and be on call 24/7 though we hope not to bug you too much in the middle of the night." Also comes with other benefits.
posted by kmz at 1:30 PM PST - 271 comments

"Miley Cyrus" Chatroulette SLYT
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 12:15 PM PST - 35 comments

The FBI files on being and nothingness. "From 1945 onwards, J Edgar Hoover’s FBI spied on Camus and Sartre. The investigation soon turned into a philosophical inquiry…" [Via]
posted by homunculus at 12:12 PM PST - 14 comments

Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium has effectively labeled unfettered capitalism a 'tyranny' (previously). [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 10:53 AM PST - 219 comments

Like the AmigaOS, TOS, and BeOS, IBM's OS/2 operating system's rise and fall gives insight into the current computing landscape.
posted by juiceCake at 10:45 AM PST - 39 comments

At the elementary school in Brooklyn where I taught first grade, science was a “special,” along with dance, art, and physical education. That meant that students were delivered by their homeroom teachers to the science teacher between one and three times a week for less than an hour each time.

...

“I’M NOT A SCIENTIST, man,” Florida senator Marco Rubio told GQ magazine in an interview published in December 2012, following the first presidential debate season in twenty-eight years to fail to mention climate change. Rubio had been asked how old he thinks the earth is; it is unclear whether he was signaling a fashionable disdain for scientific facts or whether he truly did not know.

[more inside]
posted by tilde at 9:37 AM PST - 34 comments

Far from Vietnam 1967 (Loin du Vietnam) Far from Vietnam (French: Loin du Vietnam) is a 1967 French documentary film directed by Joris Ivens. In seven different parts, Godard, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais and Varda show their sympathy for the North-Vietnamese army during the Vietnam-war. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 8:58 AM PST - 4 comments

Five years after my great-uncle’s death, penicillin changed medicine forever. Infections that had been death sentences—from battlefield wounds, industrial accidents, childbirth—suddenly could be cured in a few days. So when I first read the story of his death, it lit up for me what life must have been like before antibiotics started saving us. -- Lately, though, I read it differently. In Joe’s story, I see what life might become if we did not have antibiotics any more.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:05 AM PST - 94 comments

Cats Vs. Mirrors: A scientific breakdown (French narration, English subtitles, lots of kitties).
posted by The Whelk at 8:03 AM PST - 26 comments

"Man vs. Woman"... vs. Robot vs. Velociraptor (via The Dissolve)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:55 AM PST - 9 comments

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw has released a pretty nifty Lovecraftian roguelike game. Croshaw is the acerbic fast-paced voice behind Zero Punctuation, and is also apparently a developer. And a poet. And a novelist. Somehow this all escaped my attention.
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:31 AM PST - 36 comments

The victim of the first big mistake I ever made was a gentleman to whom I had never been properly introduced (and whose name I still do not know) but who was possessed of three singular qualities: he was alone in a room with me, he was without his trousers, and he was very, very dead.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:05 AM PST - 20 comments

Twelve Mile Circle: a collection of geographical oddities and unusual places. The site is chock-full of short, well-written pieces on fascinating geographical phenomena around the globe, ranging from time zone oddities to islands joining the mainland to trap streets to roads with unusually low clearance. Among the many categories are borders, time, international oddities, roads, elevation, water, weather, US counties and states, Canada, terrain, history, government, etc. You can view all articles (there are a lot!) on a map as well.
posted by andrewesque at 6:38 AM PST - 13 comments

"You are standing in a hallway at nine in the morning, facing a dining room/kitchen to the south. To the west are stairs up. To the north is an office." -- The Writing Life as interactive fiction, as lived through by Patricia C. Wrede.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:23 AM PST - 19 comments

Chess Portraits — a glamourous costumed set by photographer Francesco Ridolfi.
posted by cenoxo at 3:33 AM PST - 17 comments

Slate.com has a great summary and link to the report here.
posted by bookman117 at 12:58 AM PST - 87 comments

This is the diary of me attempting to play Skyrim using only Illusion magic: I'm not allowed any weapons, armour, or magical items, and I can't attack anyone directly.

The first entry is here, or you can see all entries to date here.
posted by cthuljew at 10:52 PM PST - 80 comments

On January 5th 2012, an image was uploaded to various image boards. It contained two messages. One was obvious & easy to read. In white letters on a black background it said:

Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck. 3301

As promised there was another message hidden inside the image. It was the start of a bizarre, as yet unexplained chain of complex hidden messages leading those who could solve them on a journey across the Internet and around the world towards a destination none of them could predict with certainty. Is it a highly evolved ARG? Is it a recruitment campaign for the NSA? Welcome to the mystery of Cicada 3301.
posted by scalefree at 9:56 PM PST - 44 comments

A Timely Ranking of Cheap American Bourbon in Time for the Holidays
posted by Renoroc at 5:57 PM PST - 107 comments

NYTimes: At $142.4 Million, Triptych Is the Most Expensive Artwork Ever Sold at an Auction

It took seven superrich bidders to propel a 1969 Francis Bacon triptych to $142.4 million at Christie’s on Tuesday night, making it the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. William Acquavella, the New York dealer, is thought to have bought the painting on behalf of an unidentified client, from one of Christie’s skyboxes overlooking the auction.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:56 PM PST - 45 comments

‘Left-wing’ Twitter can often be a miserable, dispiriting zone. Earlier this year, there were some high-profile twitterstorms, in which particular left-identifying figures were ‘called out’ and condemned. What these figures had said was sometimes objectionable; but nevertheless, the way in which they were personally vilified and hounded left a horrible residue: the stench of bad conscience and witch-hunting moralism. The reason I didn’t speak out on any of these incidents, I’m ashamed to say, was fear. The bullies were in another part of the playground. I didn’t want to attract their attention to me.

In Exiting the Vampire Castle, Mark Fisher finds two recurrent bad dynamics in online left-politics debate: identity-essentialist witch-hunting and neo-anarchist fatalism. Jodi Dean agrees with the diagnosis: [more inside]
posted by RogerB at 5:21 PM PST - 166 comments

Framed as a letter in words and pictures to Magnus Carlsen, the new World Chess Champion, French comic artist Fanou recalls her experiences as a girl with an interest in chess and all the reasons why she still holds that world at a distance.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 4:57 PM PST - 46 comments

Why Did 9,000 Porny Spambots Descend on This San Diego High Schooler? A voyage into the strange underworld of spambots, shady marketing, and non-human intelligence.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:26 PM PST - 24 comments

UK-based performance artist Marissa Carnesky previously created Carnesky's Ghost Train, a dark ride with a theme of the experience of women immigrants, which after touring is now permanently located in Blackpool, England. More recently she produced Carnesky's Tarot Drome, an interactive extravaganza with roller-skating and wrestling versions of the major arcana.
posted by larrybob at 2:59 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

The Monkey Island Theme, as performed by eight 3 1/2 inch floppy drives.
posted by Copronymus at 2:52 PM PST - 18 comments

FDA orders personal genetics company 23andMe to stop selling tests. 'Last Friday, the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the most popular personal genomics service, 23andMe, ordering the company to stop selling its genetic testing kits. According to the FDA's letter, the company has been advertising that its tests offer diagnostic information for a variety of human conditions, placing them in the category of a "medical device" and thus within the agency's jurisdiction. Accordingly, the FDA has been working with the company since 2009 to get 23andMe's testing approved. Now, the FDA has apparently run out of patience.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 2:06 PM PST - 138 comments

You might now be running in your head to a well worn path of justified resistance, phoning up the ol’ gang, circling the hippocampian wagons of amygdalian resistance. Hold on a sec, pilgrim. Yahoo urges its employees to switch from using outlook to Yahoo Mail in a bizare internal email. Meanwhile, as Microsoft abandons the hated practice of stack ranking Yahoo adopts it as its own.  But hey, they have Katie Couric now!
posted by Artw at 1:30 PM PST - 84 comments

Just One Book is a site that asks for the single book you'd recommend to someone. [more inside]
posted by DigDoug at 1:01 PM PST - 42 comments

This is a motherfucking website. And it's fucking perfect. Seriously, what the fuck else do you want?
posted by Blasdelb at 12:54 PM PST - 101 comments

"Actor and Internet Personality" George Takei has a new fragrance out for the holidays. Yes, it's called exactly what you expect it will be called.
posted by Curious Artificer at 12:06 PM PST - 52 comments

Pro-Bono Promo In which artist Dori Pankowska puts product logo/names on walls, using the product itself. It's not graffiti, it's like free advertising with free samples! (Why hasn't anybody thought of this before?)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:46 AM PST - 18 comments

Seventeen Magazine encourages its readers to post pictures of their nail polish on twitter every Monday, using the tag #manicuremonday. Starting last week, working scientists and engineers have been contributing their own fingers - often beautifully manicured - doing sciencey stuff. The movement was started by scientist Hope Jahren. [Slate, HuffPo] [more inside]
posted by moonmilk at 11:21 AM PST - 34 comments

Watch Bound 3 — a shot by shot remake of Kanye West's music video for Bound 2, starring James Franco and a smokin' hot topless Seth Rogan.
posted by carsonb at 11:05 AM PST - 110 comments

A tour of 150 years of Brazilian history through photography and other iconography.
posted by Tom-B at 10:17 AM PST - 16 comments

San Diego is buzzing with our recent art celebration of The Complete Frida, the first and only exhibition worldwide where Frida Kahlo’s paintings can be seen in one place. Some paintings, especially from Kahlo’s early years, have never before been seen. Presented by SEE Global Entertainment. Small, trivial caveat, all the paintings are reproductions done by an uncredited group of Chinese artists - a fact the promoters buried until they were recently called on it
posted by BlerpityBloop at 10:16 AM PST - 41 comments

65 years ago Vincent Speranza filled his helmet with beer to provide refreshment to some wounded in Belgium in WWII. Visiting in 2009 to commemerate the 65th anniversary of the battle, Vince learned that his act was immortalized on the label of Bastogne’s Airborne beer. The beer is typically served in ceremonial helmets.
posted by COD at 10:13 AM PST - 33 comments

Giant Bomb: Streamception. Next gen is truly here.
posted by kmz at 9:51 AM PST - 8 comments

How to think about "Science Studies Prove My Position", for politicians and all non-scientists. Any collation of measures (the effectiveness of a given school, say) will show variability owing to differences in innate ability (teacher competence), plus sampling (children might by chance be an atypical sample with complications), plus bias (the school might be in an area where people are unusually unhealthy), plus measurement error (outcomes might be measured in different ways for different schools). However, the resulting variation is typically interpreted only as differences in innate ability, ignoring the other sources. This becomes problematic with statements describing an extreme outcome ('the pass rate doubled') or comparing the magnitude of the extreme with the mean ('the pass rate in school x is three times the national average') or the range ('there is an x-fold difference between the highest- and lowest-performing schools'). League tables, in particular, are rarely reliable summaries of performance.
posted by Dashy at 9:17 AM PST - 28 comments

The 92 Street Y in New York has just launched an amazing online resource, 92Y On Demand, with recordings from their massive catalog of some of the interviews and performances that have occurred there going back to 1949. Some of the many speakers include Kurt Vonnegut, Chinua Achebe, Sherman Alexie and Sapphire, Dylan Thomas, Maria Bamford, Lou Reed, Dan Savage, Junot Díaz and Jamacica Kincaid, Maurice Sendak, Ruth Reichl with Ann Patchett, David Rakoff, and Leonard Lopate, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
posted by Toekneesan at 8:44 AM PST - 11 comments

Ill conceived ad campaigns seem to be par for the course these days (I personally threw up my hands twenty years ago when Janis Joplin was first used to sell Mercedes Benz), but you have to marvel at the thinking behind Covergirl's recent marketing tie-in with the film "Catching Fire" that assumes people would enjoy looking like the air-headed, blood-thirsty residents of the Capital. The Guardian weighs in.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:49 AM PST - 196 comments

The late 19th century Armenian-Russian painter Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky created some truly spectacular paintings of seascapes that capture the beautiful, shimmering essence of the tumultuous waters. The marine artist gained recognition for his impeccable ability to recreate the expressive quality of oceans with over half of his 6,000+ paintings from his lifetime being devoted to the subject.
posted by timshel at 7:31 AM PST - 14 comments

Commenting on work by Hannes Schwandt, Peter Levine writes: "Many young adults feel that they are not yet getting what they want from life but expect to get it in five years. In middle age, people are disappointed not to have seen their expectations met and rate themselves dissatisfied. They also expect life to get worse–it won’t offer important new satisfactions or successes, but their health will decline as their years run out. Instead, life does offer new rewards in the later decades, and so people are pleasantly surprised. Mean self-reported satisfaction is the same at age 70 as it was at age 30 (and much higher than it was at 50). What could we do to avoid the dreaded U-curve of satisfaction?" [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:00 AM PST - 46 comments

Haitian photographer Daniel Morel has been awarded $1.22 million on a copyright claim against Agence France-Presse and Getty Images (previously) [more inside]
posted by girlmightlive at 6:39 AM PST - 25 comments

Mike Power's book, Drugs 2.0 was a hugely insightful and interesting overview of the rapidly shifting landscape that is Novel Research Chemicals. At a recent drugs conference, Power presented an overview of his work
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:56 AM PST - 14 comments

"When I showed Mrs. Sits she said "Shouldn't they take their heads off?" But I explained they're not meant to be people so that would just be silly..." -- Football mascots observing the minute's silence on 11/11, courtesy of the When Saturday Comes forums.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:18 AM PST - 23 comments

For anyone interested in various fundamentals of electrical engineering without too much detail on the gritty math (and more focus on the concepts), check out the US Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series (NEETS).
posted by Evernix at 8:26 PM PST - 35 comments

One of the founders and pioneers of electroacoustic music is gone. Parmegiani was a prolific and distinctive electronic musician. His works are currently being played on sfsound.org radio. [more inside]
posted by idiopath at 7:57 PM PST - 11 comments

A Mysterious Death at the South Pole
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:30 PM PST - 55 comments

In 1988, Nicholas Winton appeared on the BBC program "That's Life." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 5:03 PM PST - 12 comments

Alan makes helpful Youtube tutorials for his Youtube channel, alantutorial. His latest is "disk tutorial." [more inside]
posted by koeselitz at 3:10 PM PST - 34 comments

Matt Damon reads from Howard Zinn's 1970 speech "The Problem is Civil Obedience" (via) [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges at 2:59 PM PST - 40 comments

Virgil Ortiz is Cochiti Pueblo Native artist and fashion designer who makes pottery by traditional means, but with a range of inspirations, including futuristic design. As he discussed in this short interview clip, Ortiz is also interested in portraying the history of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. These inspirations blend in series such as Blind Archer: Tahu's Journey and Evolution, featuring 19 characters inspired by the 19 pueblos, in an effort to "use these characters to get the kids attention and it all comes back to teaching the youth and the world about the 1680 Pueblo Revolt." [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:40 PM PST - 9 comments

These demos represent the final writings and music of Gene Ween, before he departed and the inner FREEMAN emerged. On that note, we have received a two word personal statement from Aaron: "stay tuned." [more inside]
posted by mannequito at 12:19 PM PST - 19 comments

"This White Male Aged 18-49 Had An Idea. The Best Part? People Listened" and more incredible stories on Upworthy: Springfield.
posted by griphus at 12:17 PM PST - 50 comments

Ticket Wars: Why the Ticket Industry Is So Hated and How That's All About to Change "A couple of economists at Northwestern University have developed a scheme to change everything. It's surprisingly simple, and, if it spreads throughout the industry, it could control the very thing that makes the industry so frustrating. Ticket prices will finally make sense." [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 11:09 AM PST - 42 comments

The animated [and largely forgotten] life of A. R. Wallace (single-link NYTimes video)
posted by beagle at 10:51 AM PST - 2 comments

TV is dying, and here are the stats that prove it.
posted by yeoz at 10:50 AM PST - 122 comments

The Douglas Fir Plywood Association presents Second Homes for Leisure Living . . . here are 18 new leisure-time homes, built with fir plywood for comfort and economy. [via]
posted by Think_Long at 10:15 AM PST - 31 comments

On Graduate School and 'Love' is yet another commentary on the economics of academic work. A younger student chimes in on the role of education in life: "much of education is oriented, for better or worse, toward making a living, rather than making a life." [more inside]
posted by eviemath at 8:34 AM PST - 49 comments

In a six-month agreement, Iran will cap uranium enrichment at the 5% level, reduce its stockpile of already enriched uranium, and allow for more robust international inspections. In return, it will receive no new nuclear sanctions and "sanction relief" in the amount of $7 billion. [more inside]
posted by pjenks at 6:11 AM PST - 206 comments

Life Times Six: How Travion Blount got 118 years and six life sentences for a robbery. In 2006, 15 year old Travion Blount, along with two 18 year olds, robbed a group of teenagers at a party at gunpoint. No shots were fired. The two older boys accepted sentences of 10 and 13 years in exchange for a guilty plea. Blount plead guilty but refused to accept a sentence of 18 years. He went to trial, was found guilty, and received a mandatory 118 years in prison, without parole. On top of that, he received six life sentences. His only chance to exit prison alive is through geriatric release at age 60. He will most likely die behind bars. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:01 AM PST - 142 comments

Spider webs are incredibly strong and flexible. It’s no surprise, then, that spider silk proteins may someday form durable artificial ligaments for people who have injured their knees or shoulders. Six different kinds of silk are produced by orb-web weaving spiders. These silk fibers have very different mechanical properties that are so effective they have changed very little over millions of years. How to synthetically develop these silks is one focus of Lewis’ research. The secret to producing large quantities of spider silk is to use “factories” designed to manufacture spider silk proteins that are easily scale-able and efficient. Lewis uses transgenic goats, E.coli bacteria, transgenic alfalfa and transgenic silk worms to produce the spider silk proteins used to create spider silk. Spider silk is 100 times stronger than natural ligaments and 10 times stronger than natural tendons; it is stronger than Kevlar and more elastic than nylon.

A 6min brief on the work being done in Laramie, WY whereby spider silk is being spun from goat milk. SPIDERGOATS

[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 1:55 AM PST - 23 comments

Luigi Prina: The Ships That Sail Through The Clouds — Italian architect creates beautiful flying air ships.
posted by cenoxo at 7:07 PM PST - 26 comments

Fun Home: Is America Ready for a Musical About a Butch Lesbian?
YouTube montage
Q&A from Alison Bechdel
Watching Sondheim Watch Fun Home
More reviews

posted by Wordwoman at 6:36 PM PST - 28 comments

The New York Times (Two Gunshots on a Summer Night) and Frontline (A Death in St. Augustine) collaborate to present the story of the death of Michelle O'Connell, who died of a gunshot wound on September 2, 2010. O'Connell was the girlfriend of St. John's County Sheriff's Deputy Jeremy Banks. She was shot with Deputy Banks' county-issued handgun. Her death was quickly ruled a suicide. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 6:17 PM PST - 25 comments

Well, most of the world has now seen the 50th Anniversary special of Dr. Who. And the reviews are starting to trickle in across the world. (Warning: Spoilers may be contained within reviews.) What was your take on this epic episode? [more inside]
posted by docjohn at 5:38 PM PST - 508 comments

Feature Development For Social Networking
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:23 PM PST - 18 comments

Edmund Wilson was a friend [Vladimir] Nabokov shared with many people in American literary circles—including Dorothy Parker. Wilson had first learned about Nabokov's Lolita in the summer of 1953, when he was contemplating an article about Nabokov and asked the novelist whether he had a new project in the works.... A year later, Nabokov offered to let Wilson read his new novel, which he said he considered "to be my best thing in English."

In November, while in New York talking to Straus about his own projects, Wilson got the Lolita manuscript and was a bit less discreet than Nabokov would have wanted.

--How Edmund Wilson may have leaked the plot of Nabokov's Lolita to Dorothy Parker, who then published in the New Yorker a story titled "Lolita," about a middle-aged man in love with a teenage girl, three weeks before the novel came out.
posted by Cash4Lead at 4:28 PM PST - 7 comments

Like other forms of English, Death Metal English is a tool kit.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 4:10 PM PST - 23 comments

The African-American poet died yesterday, at 67, after a long illness. [more inside]
posted by PinkMoose at 2:13 PM PST - 15 comments

Babies laughing at dogs.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:30 PM PST - 32 comments

Toy-startup GoldieBlox (previously) had already proven their marketing savvy - then their new commercial went viral, and might even earn them an on-air spot during the Superbowl. But now they've got a lawsuit on their hands - brought by the Beastie Boys. [more inside]
posted by progosk at 1:23 PM PST - 204 comments

I write about Super Mario Bros. 2 a lot, I realize, especially considering that the game is now twenty-five years old. I suppose that results from the combination of it being especially surreal, even by Super Mario standards, and me having encountered it at the perfect age to be asking “Hey, why is that?” I actually still ask “Why is that?” fairly often. One of the things that had always bugged me about the game is its level structure. Super Mario Bros. makes sense: four sets of levels each composing a world, and eight world altogether. It’s all tidy and even. Super Mario Bros. 2 isn’t so easy: It has seven worlds, but an irregular number of stages.

“Hey, why is that?” [more inside]
posted by timshel at 12:35 PM PST - 18 comments

[T]he parrhesia in social media may set individuals against one another in pointless struggles for authenticity while precluding them from uniting politically to fight for shared goals against those remote elites. The satisfaction of those games, the “self” and “truth” that emerges from those compulsions [...] make the present tolerable or even pleasurable while altering nothing about a general condition that makes people feel overburdened, depressed, precarious, excluded, humiliated. There is a pale satisfaction in making a limited truth in the moment, even if it has no effect on the distribution of power or the way one is known by society.

In a series of recent posts at The New Inquiry, Rob Horning writes about the construction of the self in social media as novelistic pleasure, ego depletion, and Foucauldian truth game.
posted by RogerB at 11:43 AM PST - 12 comments

A "KKK Member Walks up to Black Musician in Bar-but It’s Not a Joke." Daryl Davis (his website here) is a black musician who has made friends with KKK members, many of whom have not only quit the KKK, but given Daryl their robes and hoods. [more inside]
posted by Daddy-O at 10:25 AM PST - 30 comments

Guardian critic Tom Service's ongoing survey of the 50 symphonies that changed classical music
posted by Gyan at 8:08 AM PST - 43 comments

Awkward Sign Generator. Inspired by the awkward phrasing of Automatic Caution Door signs [via mefi projects]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:12 AM PST - 51 comments

Danny was getting picked on, so... (SLYT)
posted by polly_dactyl at 6:21 AM PST - 40 comments

Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year. -- Reuters journalist Scot J. Paltrow investigates how the US military's bad accounting not only wastes taxpayers money, but helps ruin the life of ordinary soldiers and veterans. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 3:14 AM PST - 39 comments

The 2013 Information is Beautiful Awards Winners have been posted.

• Data Visualization Shortlist
• Infographic Shortlist
• Interactive Shortlist
• Motion Infographic Shortlist
• Tool Shortlist

posted by juv3nal at 11:26 PM PST - 12 comments

A 1955 TWA promotional movie about vacationing in the glittering metropolios - SKYLINE NEW YORK!
posted by The Whelk at 9:12 PM PST - 25 comments

In a storage unit somewhere in Philadelphia, 140,000 VHS tapes sit packed into four shipping containers. They contain 35 years of TV news recorded single-handily by Marion Stokes. She thought it would be a good idea to record every "network, local, and cable news, in her home, one tape at a time," beginning in 1977, "until the day she died in 2012 at the age of 83."
posted by stbalbach at 8:24 PM PST - 52 comments

illusions, Lieutenant Mills!, a Sleepy Hollow/Arrested Development mashup (SLTumblr). [Spoilers] [more inside]
posted by griphus at 7:43 PM PST - 7 comments

The bit about cows is especially useful.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 7:37 PM PST - 9 comments

Puppies Learning To Howl
posted by the man of twists and turns at 5:16 PM PST - 35 comments

It is difficult to be a little dog with short legs. Long sleeves lie in wait everywhere. mlyt - cute - they're fine don't worry [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 4:53 PM PST - 26 comments

"Detectives investigating the case of three women allegedly held as slaves for 30 years in south London have uncovered a "complicated and disturbing picture of emotional control". Last month officers were contacted by Freedom Charity after it received a call from a woman saying she had been held against her will for decades. A Malaysian woman, 69, an Irish woman, 57, and a British woman, 30, were rescued from the house on 25 October. A 67-year-old man and woman were held in Lambeth and bailed until January." More details on the BBC here.
posted by marienbad at 4:37 PM PST - 38 comments

"On a sunny day in 1998, Maura Gillison was walking across the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, thinking about a virus. The young oncologist bumped into the director of the university's cancer centre, who asked politely about her work. Gillison described her discovery of early evidence that human papillomavirus (HPV) — a ubiquitous pathogen that infects nearly every human at some point in their lives — could be causing tens of thousands of cases of throat cancer each year in the United States. The senior doctor stared down at Gillison, not saying a word. “That was the first clue that what I was doing was interesting to others and had potential significance,” recalls Gillison."

Human papillomavirus is causing a new form of head and neck cancer— leaving researchers scrambling to understand risk factors, tests and treatments.

[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 4:25 PM PST - 37 comments

John Carmack, co-founder and technical director at id Software, has left the company to focus his full-time attention on his role as chief technical officer at Oculus VR.

"I wanted to remain a technical adviser for Id, but it just didn't work out. Probably for the best, as the divided focus was challenging."

Carmack and Id are known for creating the Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake video game franchises.
posted by bdz at 4:00 PM PST - 60 comments

The Fed Up project has collected over 7000 student-submitted photos of school lunches from across the US. They'll be used to create a map and report to make a case for better school lunches. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 2:32 PM PST - 86 comments

[Norman Mailer] wanted to talk a lot about age and he told me I should look after myself. 'You know,' he said, 'when you get to my age you have to pee a lot. And there is no distance at all between knowing you want to pee and then just peeing. I was at Plimpton’s funeral in St John the Divine not long ago, and they sat me near the front, you know. Suddenly, I had to go. I knew I wasn’t gonna make it all the way down the aisle so I spotted a little side door and I got the canes and nipped in there. Halfway down the corridor, I was looking for a john and who do I see but Philip Roth. "Hey, Philip, what you doin' here?" "Oh, I had to pee," Roth said.'

—Mailer's Last Punch is Andrew O'Hagan's tender, short memoir of his interactions with Norman Mailer. Among other things he talks about are the long interview of Mailer he did for The Paris Review and an event at the New York Public Library with Mailer and Günter Grass.
posted by Kattullus at 1:04 PM PST - 5 comments

An EF-4 tornado chased Marc Rich into his Washington, IL home on Sunday and then ripped it apart. He filmed it all. Marc's loss was one of over a thousand houses destroyed in Washington on November 17. At least eight people have been confirmed dead in an outbreak that spawned 70 or more tornados across seven states that day. Neither Marc nor his daughter Josie were injured.
posted by Blue Meanie at 1:03 PM PST - 121 comments

Sales of digital comics have soared in the past three years. Readers love the look of comics on the iPad screen and they also love the convenience of in-app purchasing, which allows consumers to buy and store their comics within a single app. So it’s a big deal when Apple bans a comic—usually because of sexual or mature material or nudity—and it has happened to at least 59 comics this year. - Are comics too hot for Apple? Publishers Weekly looks at Apples role as Gatekeeper in the wake of their rejection of Sex Criminals #3 and retroactive removal of Sex Criminals #1 from the iOS marketplace. Strangely the books remain available via iBooks. This is not the first time Apples policies have been confusing or raised concerns of censorship, such as with the Saga of Saga #12 earlier this year, and before the rise of comixology with the banning/unbanning of Ulysses Seen (previously).
posted by Artw at 12:39 PM PST - 42 comments

Growing Out My Bush is a fascinating Tumblr where one woman explores the perception of the female body by first shaving and then photographing the re-growth of her pubic hair. Especially interesting are "The Reality of Nude Photos" and "How Breasts Can Look."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:11 AM PST - 117 comments

"Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes longer. [laughter] But, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it."

JFK delivered two speeches on the morning of November 22, 1963. The first took place around 9AM just outside the Hotel Texas in downtown Fort Worth, where a large crowd had gathered in the morning drizzle to hear the president speak. (PDF photo slideshow) Shortly afterward, he addressed the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce at a breakfast event, where he talked about the city's contributions to national defense, including the B-36 and B-58 bombers (both built there) and a proposed future project, the TFX (Tactical Fighter Experimental). [more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:26 AM PST - 15 comments

Arman, a French-born American artist (given the name Armand Fernandez at birth, later taking the American civil name Armand Pierre Arman) was a notable as both a painter and a sculpter. In his paintings, he moved objects through ink or paint to make the works, while his sculptures consist of "accumulations" and/or destruction/recomposition of objects. On the larger scale, he constructed the Hope for Peace monument (WikiMapia) and Long Term Parking. You can read about Arman on his official site, ArtNet, and The Art Story.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:06 AM PST - 3 comments

Girls Skating in Afghanistan (h/t darksilenceinsuburbia)
posted by benito.strauss at 9:46 AM PST - 12 comments

Stephen Pretow's thoughts on enlightening the family homophobes at Thanksgiving. (SL NYT)
posted by bearwife at 9:35 AM PST - 105 comments

"People are denied access to research hidden behind paywalls every day. This problem is invisible, but it slows innovation, kills curiosity and harms patients. This is an indictment of the current system. Open Access has given us the solution to this problem by allowing everyone to read and re-use research. We created the Open Access Button to track the impact of paywalls and help you get access to the research you need. By using the button you’ll help show the impact of this problem, drive awareness of the issue, and help change the system. Furthermore, the Open Access Button has several ways of helping you get access to the research you need right now." [more inside]
posted by daisyk at 9:21 AM PST - 11 comments

The day begins at around 9:00 am, with the workers drinking two beers and some coffee, if desired, before going to clean the streets.
posted by hereticfig at 8:23 AM PST - 48 comments

Sylvia Browne, famous for her claims of psychic abilities, has gone on to her reward. [more inside]
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 7:20 AM PST - 92 comments

Magnus Carlsen, the 22 year old Norwegian prodigy, is the new World Chess Champion. Yesterday's game 9 was the most exciting of the tournament; a desperate Viswanathan Anand played very aggressively and appeared--to most human commenters--to have an advantage (though the best computer programs saw the Carlsen was always fine if not slightly ahead); however, Anand made a serious blunder and lost. All Carlsen needed today was a draw--which he got. Many have called it the end of an era.
posted by whatgorilla at 6:51 AM PST - 54 comments

Gilded Birds: A Snapshot of Contemporary Ideals of Beauty. Writers, artists, and philosophers are prompted to select a piece that they consider beautiful, and then interviewed about their reasons for choosing it.
posted by painquale at 6:51 AM PST - 8 comments

Courtesy of the Archives of American Art, Robert Duncan and Jess Collins's collaborative art book Scrapbook for Patricia Jordan, 1959. Sketches, poems, doodles, collages, and joyous miscellany. [via]
posted by Think_Long at 6:43 AM PST - 2 comments

That's a winning combination for the "Dance Your Ph.D." contest, which celebrates efforts to turn doctoral thesis topics into interpretive dance. This year's top prize goes to University of Oxford biologist Cedrick Tan, for a series of dances based on his study of "Sperm Competition Between Brothers and Female Choice." The dance video has to be seen to be believed (and understood).
posted by billiebee at 6:36 AM PST - 16 comments

Charles Manson Today: The Final Confessions of a Psychopath. He made for terrific TV. But after a booming, almost sexually aggressive chat with Diane Sawyer in 1994, the state of California banned the use of recording devices during prisoner interviews. This upsets Manson greatly. It's the reason why you haven't heard from him lately. He tends to sulk about it.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:29 AM PST - 26 comments

Orgasm Wars is a Japanese game show in which a gay man tries to force a straight man to orgasm. (Link is to Huffpo Article, and relatively sfw. Video within the link, not so much.) [more inside]
posted by emperor.seamus at 5:13 AM PST - 82 comments

The assassination of President Kennedy forced most media in the United States (and beyond) to make some last-minute changes. The long-running Kiplinger Letter had to kill its lead story, "Less than a year until elections…how is Kennedy doing?", which has finally seen the light of day this week, as a historical footnote.

Meanwhile, LIFE Magazine dumped a cover story on college (and future pro) football star Roger Staubach [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:43 AM PST - 14 comments

A Textual Analysis of The Hunger Games (and Twilight, and Harry Potter)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:28 AM PST - 62 comments

"Douglas County Model" gives libraries new e-book leverage — The public library system in Douglas County, where bedroom suburbs rub shoulders with century-old ranches, might seem an unlikely game-changer in the world of publishing. But the county's innovative e-book lending platform, which aims to flip the dynamic between publishers and libraries, is giving hope to cash-strapped libraries from Alaska to Australia that they'll be able to offer more electronic material to users, for less money. From The Denver Post, 11/21/2013.
posted by cenoxo at 4:02 AM PST - 14 comments

This is what happens when the "most hated man on the Internet" messes with the wrong mother. [more inside]
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:35 AM PST - 104 comments

The crypto-patches of Five Classified Aircraft are covert, “in-house” advertisements. They are best viewed as “industry” marketing tools, as each of these occluded, unmentionable, quiveringly secret crafts is the product of a given contractor.

–William Gibson on artist/cultural geographer Trevor Paglen's Five Classified Aircraft
posted by timshel at 2:42 AM PST - 18 comments

Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years. He’s been searched more than 100 times. And arrested and jailed 56 times. Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens. But Sampson isn’t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.
posted by PenDevil at 2:32 AM PST - 59 comments

The strange history of WWE wrestling comics.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:19 AM PST - 1 comment

"The Most Quoted Man in News" (vimeo) is a short about Greg Packer, a man who, since 1995, has been quoted at news events across the country at least 100 times, according to an Associated Press memo. [more inside]
posted by Mister Moofoo at 2:19 AM PST - 1 comment

Suzdal awaited the Emperor's arrival... So the ancient Russian town had to acquire a duly imperial lustre, somehow, anyhow. [more inside]
posted by hat_eater at 1:10 AM PST - 6 comments

Need some vaguely disturbing furniture, sculpture, paintings or miscellaneous? William Robins, aka Elmer Presslee has your back. Visit his drive through exhibition.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:56 PM PST - 5 comments

Everything Wrong With Back To The Future in 8 Minutes Or Less
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 11:12 PM PST - 46 comments

22 Amazing Things Only A 90s Kid Would Understand
posted by Rory Marinich at 10:33 PM PST - 130 comments

Carving a turkey with a .460 Weatherby Magnum. [more inside]
posted by 445supermag at 9:21 PM PST - 16 comments

An Icona Pop Parody for the tumblr-reblogging, fanfic-writing, livejournal-updating squeeing fandom masses "I Ship It!"
posted by The Whelk at 8:55 PM PST - 24 comments

The 7 Hottest Cosplays Ever!
posted by griphus at 7:11 PM PST - 30 comments

Snakes wearing hats. That is all.
posted by COD at 6:41 PM PST - 28 comments

A jazz cover of Lourde's "Royals" by Postmodern Jukebox, featuring guest vocalist "Puddles" - Trigger Warning: Real Life Angry Clown Giant Lounge Singer (who's really good, which makes it scarier) [SLYT]
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:43 PM PST - 41 comments

We are Monty Python. Ask Us Anything. [more inside]
posted by Sequence at 4:34 PM PST - 50 comments

The Greatest Crossword Puzzle In The History Of The World is now playable: Adobe Crossword
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:20 PM PST - 37 comments

8 reasons I'm happy it isn't 1963 A refreshing take from a small business owner about how good the good old days really were.
posted by bartonlong at 3:18 PM PST - 66 comments

If you're a fan of the good Doctor, you'll probably want to use the Googles today. [more inside]
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:48 PM PST - 90 comments

For the first time, three women, identified as Pfc. Julia Carroll, Pfc. Christina Fuentes Montenegro and Pfc. Katie Gorz will graduate from enlisted infantry training today, having passed the two month course at the School of Infantry-East at Camp Geiger, a satellite of Lejeune. However, they still won’t be allowed to serve in an infantry unit, until the Marine Corps finishes its study of women in combat, in two more years' time. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:29 AM PST - 74 comments

You may find this brief history of the US Senate's filibuster fight timely and interesting, as the chamber just voted to end it for "executive branch and judicial nominees, except for the Supreme Court."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:28 AM PST - 160 comments

Hip Hop Chess Federation (HHCF) Presents: Street Games Vol. 1 [more inside]
posted by jammy at 9:50 AM PST - 5 comments

Today is World Philosophy Day. Celebrate by reading the Euthyphro, Al Jazeera's Defense of Philosophy, or the first chapter of the new book Why We Argue? (And How We Should.) But don't just sit there interpreting the world! The point is to change it, so maybe spend some time advocating for early-childhood philosophy education.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:20 AM PST - 34 comments

I can't rightly vouch for this story but a fellah told me when he was a young'n, didn't his mother wake him early on a weekend...

Norm MacDonald has spent the last 9 hours tweeting a set of rambling Faulknerian jokes.
posted by Iridic at 8:52 AM PST - 23 comments

Lubomyr Melnyk is a musician and composer who developed, in the 1970s, a distinctive way of playing piano very rapidly over extended periods of time, a style he terms ‘music in the continuous mode.’ Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in his work, including: re-releases of his 1979 debut LP KMH (in 2007) and of his 1985 collaboration with tubaist Melvyn Poore The Voice of Trees (in 2011); the release of a CD† of joint improvisations with the guitarist James Blackshaw (The Watchers, 2012); performances with Nils Frahm and with the artist Gregory Euclide (previously); and at least two new solo releases: Corollaries and Three Solo Pieces (both 2013). [more inside]
posted by misteraitch at 8:31 AM PST - 31 comments

Lil' Buco: fine dining for kids
posted by andoatnp at 8:10 AM PST - 36 comments

Behold, a 1854 Map of the world's tallest mountains and longest rivers (alt. link), as understood at that point in time, when Dhaulagiri was thought to be the tallest mountain in the world. This is taken from the General Atlas Of The World: Containing Upwards Of Seventy Maps, which can be read (awkwardly) on Archive.org as scanned from black and white microform, or go straight for the good stuff and browse the full color maps in David Rumsey's collection of high-resolution scans of historic maps (via Dark Roasted Blend and io9).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:59 AM PST - 17 comments

Collective Cadenza (CDZA) has been releasing musical histories of the guitar solo, the drums, the accordion, and the bass. [more inside]
posted by holmesian at 6:50 AM PST - 12 comments

"With no mourners around to serve as pallbearers, it was a task that fell to me and a few other reporters covering the funeral of John F. Kennedy's assassin." An ex-AP reporter remembers the funeral of Lee Harvey Oswald. No one showed up to mourn, and the press had to step in to serve as the pallbearers.
posted by jtajta at 6:15 AM PST - 51 comments

Who Killed Michael Hastings? (SLNYMAG) Reflexively distrustful, eager to make powerful enemies, the young journalist whose Mercedes exploded in Los Angeles one night couldn’t possibly have died accidentally, could he? [more inside]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:03 AM PST - 60 comments

The Far Post is a journalism series by Roads and Kingdoms and Sports Illustrated on global soccer culture that will run every other week until the start of "the largest theater that has ever existed in human history," the World Cup. So far there are five articles: Brazil 2014 Starts Now by Laurent Dubois gives an overview of the history of the World Cup and what it means now. Messi in Kolkata by Kanishk Tharoor is about a visit by the Argentine national team to Kolkata and the state of the game in India. Afghanistan United By May Jeong is the story of the incredible triumph of the Afghan national team at the 2013 South Asian Championship. Soccer and the Street in Istanbul by Izzy Finkel reports on the links between soccer and politics in Turkey. The Long Revolution of the Ultras Ahlawy by Patrick Kingsley is the account of how hardcore soccerfans in Egypt, at the center of the 2011 revolution, have fared in the aftermath.
posted by Kattullus at 4:52 AM PST - 14 comments

Boeing's largest, and ugliest, aircraft today is the 747 LCF, better known as the DreamLifter. The primary job of the DreamLifter is delivering entire 787 fuselages for final assembly. Yesterday evening, one DreamLifter was supposed to land at Wichita, Kansas... [more inside]
posted by eriko at 3:47 AM PST - 170 comments

Automate your love life.

Facial attractiveness is surprisingly uncomplicated to quantify. Essentially, evolution has us seeking partners that are as “normal” as possible. Anything that is unusually big or small, any ratio that differs from \phi, or about 1.618, hurts the score. After the face(s) are identified in the image, a mask of 25 anthropometric proportion indices is overlaid and mean compliance is measured.

[more inside]
posted by kandinski at 3:11 AM PST - 28 comments

Regular viewers of the delightful weekly public-access program The Chris Gethard Show know that last night, host Chris Gethard announced that the show has received a pilot order from Comedy Central. For those not caught up on the madness, TCGS's full archive is available on Youtube and Blip. [more inside]
posted by thatelsagirl at 2:17 AM PST - 13 comments

A parakeet infestation that started when Humphrey Bogart left the door to the set of The African Queen open, pigeons taking the Tube, foxes learning to sit pretty for sausages, a colony of pigeon eating pelicans gifted by a Russian ambassador in 1664 and underwater warfare between rival gangs of invasive crayfish species are just some of the miracles found in the unnatural history of London's wildlife.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:01 AM PST - 12 comments

How to shave. There comes a time in everyone's life where they have to start shaving, so it's important that you know how to do it correctly and safely without causing an injury.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 12:43 AM PST - 22 comments

Does doing yoga make you a Hindu?
posted by Gyan at 12:34 AM PST - 63 comments

One of the oldest sayings in boxing, the first warning every aspiring fighter hears long before they've ever entered a ring, is that the most dangerous punch, the one to fear most, is the one you never see coming. While the cliché is certainly true at the start of a career, it rarely holds up toward the end. This is because almost none of the great fighters in history ever stopped after that punch — and the history of the sport suggests that few can ever escape it. Manny Pacquiao, despite earning a reported $174 million since 2009 from boxing and endorsements deals, is no different. Why? Because, of course, boxing's not so well kept dirty secret is that, financially, most fighters can never stop. Requiem for a Welterweight.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 11:32 PM PST - 17 comments

How we think of and use The Simpsons on a daily basis comes in the form of jokes, bits, and memorable sequences. The Simpsons travels in these bite-sized chunks, and the value of The Simpsons in the age of online streaming should ideally reflect this. What I've long proposed is an online app that allows you to create your own clips based on classic Simpsons episodes.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 9:27 PM PST - 207 comments

41 uncensored instagrams from North Korea by David Guttenfelder
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:13 PM PST - 31 comments

The Very Organized Thief (requires Unity for Windows or OSX) is a creepy, short game about prowling about a house while nobody's home.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:26 PM PST - 11 comments

... is a time to commemorate past victims of violence — and rededicate ourselves to ending it. [TW: brief descriptions of some murders.]
posted by eviemath at 7:06 PM PST - 28 comments

Revel Cooper (1934^†—1983^‡) was one of the child artists of Carrolup whose crayon speed-drawings were returned to country, 2013, after 63 years off country. Tony Hughes-d'Aeth mentions Revel Cooper's history exercise book in his article Koolark Koort Koorliny: "an artefact of profound cultural significance". These kids went from comic-obsessed to crayon-obsessed in May 1946 when the White teachers took management of the Carrolup school and issued crayons. Here is Revel Cooper's enthralling school exercise book: Standard VI History Book. [more inside]
posted by de at 6:54 PM PST - 7 comments

Zack Hiwiller has the last ZZT disk.
posted by curious nu at 6:32 PM PST - 25 comments

A Philosophy of Tickling. As Nietzsche put it, in an ironic jab at eudaimonism: “What is the best life? To be tickled to death.”
posted by Rumple at 5:39 PM PST - 26 comments

A whole bunch of dogs playing the piano.
posted by griphus at 4:36 PM PST - 22 comments

BRBXOXO "searches online sexcam sites and only broadcasts feeds when the performers are absent." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:15 PM PST - 64 comments

Their hearts are not hearts, but clockwork springs. Their lungs are not lungs, but leather bellows. They are: Jack Donovan's Princely Toys [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:10 PM PST - 12 comments

Bacteria from personalities has been used to make human cheese as part of an exhibition on synthetic biology in Dublin. This included cheeses grown from bacteria from various belly buttons, noses, armpits, tears, mouths and toes. If that's a bit too strong for you, then other exhibits in the show include humans reproducing dolphins for food, and mice cloned from Elvis Presley's DNA.
posted by Wordshore at 1:39 PM PST - 39 comments

Very cute kids make a dessert of dubious delight in dryer (SLYT) WARNING: sugar and crap bread
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 1:19 PM PST - 55 comments

The NFL's Modern Man: How Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Connor Barwin — a bike-riding, socially conscious, Animal Collective–loving hipster — is redefining what it means to be a football player.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:16 PM PST - 52 comments

Find The Invisible Cow Does what it says on the tin.
posted by Mooski at 12:40 PM PST - 41 comments

Mouth, a cover of Smash Mouth's "All Star" by Internet legend Neil Cicierega, might just lead you into a world of hidden Shreks... [more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich at 12:35 PM PST - 34 comments

Aningaaq is a short companion piece to Gravity, written and directed by Gravity co-writer Jonas Cuaron.
posted by brundlefly at 12:20 PM PST - 30 comments

12/20, yet another apocalypse falls upon the world. The death of Winamp is upon us. Today on the Winamp homepage, it was announced: "Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date..." [more inside]
posted by symbioid at 11:46 AM PST - 171 comments

Actor Michael Cera invents a twisted text message relationship between actor Michael Cera and the unsuspecting "Jeremy" in a Shouts & Murmurs piece for the New Yorker.
posted by Clustercuss at 11:12 AM PST - 72 comments

Will we be able to forget things long enough to remember them again? Nostalgia Confuses Me
posted by sacrifix at 10:51 AM PST - 19 comments

A couple made the mistake of breaking up on a NYC rooftop next to comedian Kyle Ayers, who promptly live-tweeted their breakup with the hashtag #roofbreakup, which went viral, prompting not only retweets, commentary, and memeification, but also a video re-enactment. However, some are considering the wider implications of this kind of phenomenon, pondering the ethics of the panopticon, live reportage on ordinary people, and even the nature of relationships itself in the context of the pair. [more inside]
posted by corb at 10:12 AM PST - 235 comments

Don’t take the message too seriously.
posted by vozworth at 8:50 AM PST - 11 comments

"I did not see the appeal of a wife. We had never had one before. She would not be half as interesting as our buffalo." Read a lengthy excerpt from Catherynne Valente's Six-Gun Snow White, an adaptation of the Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 709 fairy tale as a campfire story set in the American west.
posted by The Whelk at 8:45 AM PST - 19 comments

At 5 meters long, the Airbus A380 is one of the biggest airplanes of its kind.
posted by Thing at 8:18 AM PST - 58 comments

The grand Thanksgiving tradition of the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" Turkey Day Marathon hasn't been seen since 1997. But all hail the Internet! The Marathon has been revived by none other than Joel Hodgson himself. He plans to host six classic episodes at his new website on Thanksgiving Day. If you have a suggestion as to which ones to air, then you are encouraged to tweet the man himself before the big day.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:59 AM PST - 155 comments

...one of the jobs of a publisher, I really believe, is to keep all forms in play, precisely because it is in keeping all forms in play (which forms are themselves always being reshaped in some fashion as they come into contact with each other) -- that creativity has the widest possible purchase on how things might turn out. Eileen Joy, co-director of open-access quasi-scholarly print-on-demand press Punctum Books, gives a talk on the state and future of open-access publishing in the academy and the arts.
posted by shivohum at 7:58 AM PST - 14 comments

This could be your last best chance to see Comet ISON as it hurtles towards the sun following a nearly 16-fold increase in brightness last week. Many astronomers are doubtful it will survive its Solar close encounter, but if it does it could end up visible during the day when it returns in December, rivaling the Great Comet of 1680. [more inside]
posted by alms at 7:19 AM PST - 22 comments

The Langner Group, based in Germany, has published the most detailed report yet on the Stuxnet malware that was used to sabotage Iran's uranium enrichment efforts. [more inside]
posted by jquinby at 7:02 AM PST - 23 comments

The Ultimate Guide to Shooting Rubber Bands.
posted by zarq at 6:47 AM PST - 10 comments

You Must Be: A tautological pickup line generator by Darius Kazemi (tinysubversions).
posted by oulipian at 6:16 AM PST - 160 comments

Peter Hartcher, political editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, tells the story of the self-immolation of the Australian Labor party and the political destruction of two prime ministers, in a five part series: Meltdown. [more inside]
posted by kithrater at 2:08 AM PST - 11 comments

Poor Little Rich Boys: The Art of the Mumbai Circulating Library, by Ryan Holmberg, The Comics Journal's resident Indian comics specialist.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:51 AM PST - 1 comment

How to make a doll lamp (video, maybe not safe for children) Philofix is a popular tv series for kids age 7-13 on Swedish TV network SVT. In a recent episode, shown this Monday at 7:30 PM, host Rakel Wärmländer showed viewers how to make a lamp out of a doll. Viewers were not happy. [more inside]
posted by iviken at 1:39 AM PST - 33 comments

Not so long ago, Western women who wore short hair, and/or garments usually tailored for men, had to be pretty badass to go so visibly outside the usual gender norms, whatever their reasons. And their reasons were many. A gallery on Flickr, with short descriptions of the women featured, from Ida Emily Leeson (1885-1964), the first woman to be named head librarian at the Mitchell Library, the state library of New South Wales, in 1932, to Dr. Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919), a Civil War surgeon who was the only woman to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor in the United States military, for her service during the Civil War.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:48 PM PST - 23 comments

Anthropologists weigh in on Jared Diamond's latest: lack of citations, ethnographic carelessness, and the smoothing of complex narratives into quotable fables. The World Until Yesterday has prompted a flurry of commentary from anthropologists unenthusiastic about the physiologist turned evolutionary biologist turned geographer. In a recent London Review of Books, leading political anthropologist James C. Scott doesn't buy Diamond's description of the modern nation-state arising to curtail primitive tribal violence "[i]n a passage that recapitulates the fable of the social contract" given how "slaving was at the very centre of state-making." Anthropologist Alex Golub, who shares Papua New Guinea as a major research site, wrote "Still, it is telling that we live in an age when a member of America’s National Academy of Sciences and one of the world’s foremost public intellectuals has less concern for citations and footnotes than do the contributors to Wikipedia." David Correia pulls no punches in his opinion piece "F*ck Jared Diamond" calling Diamond's resurrection of environmental determinism as racist apologia and his latest book as essentializing primitivism in order to define Western industrialized exceptionalism. [more inside]
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:03 PM PST - 265 comments

"The American homeland is the planet" Not content with a militarized southern border, the U.S. is now militarizing borders around the world (slsa)
posted by allkindsoftime at 6:49 PM PST - 7 comments

A short video clip about an artist who takes pictures of stranges acting like they're old friends or lovers or relatives. Surprisingly touching and beautiful photos ensue.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 6:21 PM PST - 14 comments

Before You Say You've Never Discriminated Against Someone, Listen To The Second Sentence From An Introverted Single Dad. You Will Punch Your Monitor When You See What A Homeless Upworthy Generator Delighted The Internet With. Starts around 1:54. Gets mindblowing around 2:15.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:05 PM PST - 73 comments

State Rep. Uses Sledgehammer To Destroy Homeless People’s Possessions [more inside]
posted by eviemath at 5:57 PM PST - 117 comments

Ry Cooder and Corridos Famosos: Live "From this rich catalog, Cooder cherry-picked only a dozen songs to include on Live but they’re fairly representative of his eclectic oeuvre. His picks also feature plenty of his guitar playing, which will please fans who felt (as I sometimes did) that his recent albums were a bit stingy with his greatest asset. " "The shows also were a family affair. The Corridos Famosos include Ry’s son Joachim on drums, Joachim’s wife Juliet Commagere on vocals, and her brother Robert Francis on bass, as well as an old friend and collaborator, Flaco Jimenez, the Tejano accordionist who was at Cooder’s side when he played this venue 34 years earlier. Terry Evans, another veteran of the 1977 shows, handles backup vocals, along with Arnold McCuller, filling in for Cooder’s other longtime singing partner Bobby King." Don't miss the clip at the end of the review. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 5:29 PM PST - 16 comments

5pointz is gone. Here's a tour of what one day in its history looked like. Here's 50 nice photos of the building and its surroundings. Bid farewell to one of the most (only?) iconic NYC subway views, as the 7 train emerges from underground. [more inside]
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 4:51 PM PST - 44 comments

That Intoxicating Pink

Rose champagne is the intoxicant of choice for courtesans and kings. Beautiful, expensive, and rare, it was beloved by the grandest of the grandes horizontales of nineteenth-century Paris—and the men who could afford to love them. In Second Empire France, the Countess Henkel von Donnersmarck—known to historians of the libido as La Païva, and earlier as Esther Lachmann, late of the Moscow ghetto—demanded magnums of it as a “gratuity” while entertaining clients in the boudoir of her ill-begotten Hotel de la Païva on the Champs-Élysées.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:40 PM PST - 18 comments

The Danish royal family has released their new portrait, which is less Hans Holbein and more "cover of a Stephen King novel." [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:17 PM PST - 175 comments

The Economist takes aim at the American criminal justice system in three articles from their latest edition: An opinion piece on mandatory life sentences without parole, a more in-depth view of some specific instances and of the data, and a look at the practice of charging fees to those convicted, or even just accused.
posted by felixc at 2:41 PM PST - 33 comments

An Atlas of Cyberspaces An archive of late 90s cybergeography research: Conceptual (Neuromancer/Snow Crash/The Matrix), Geographic, ARPANET, Usenet, submarine cable systems, early African fibre optics, Cospace screenshots and a ton of 90s web visualisations. via silentservant in /r/techonolgy (reddit).
posted by meta87 at 2:37 PM PST - 4 comments

Behind the scenes footage of the filming of the music videos for The KLF's 'Justified and Ancient' and 'What time is Love?'.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:16 PM PST - 18 comments

Kay Nielsen, a Danish illustrator who was popular in the early 20th century, the "golden age of illustration", contributed artwork for many Disney films, including concept paintings for a proposed adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid. The adaptation was to be part of a package film containing various segments based on Anderson's fairy tales. The film, however, was not made within Nielsen's lifetime and his work went unused until production started on the 1989 film. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 2:12 PM PST - 6 comments

Just like if you found out that revered Japanese/Australian chef Tetsuya secretly does the Tim Tam slam, there's a special kind of awesome when you see a collection of Martha Stewart's horrible food tweets. Maybe it's reassuring when the Queen of Lifestyle Programming makes food look so bad.
posted by Kaleidoscope at 1:59 PM PST - 118 comments

Blood Avocados: The Dark Side of Guacamole [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:21 PM PST - 25 comments

The First Gay Bachelor with Jesse Tyler Ferguson and George Takei
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:23 PM PST - 26 comments

So He Drew This Instead. (TW: child abuse)
posted by Kitteh at 12:02 PM PST - 28 comments

In a week which also marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, the Gettysburg Address was delivered by Abraham Lincoln, 16th President, 150 years ago today. Mitch Rapoport narrates an animated version. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 11:30 AM PST - 17 comments

In the summer of 2012, Jeffrey Wilson interviewed Noam Chomsky.

“When the police came into [Occupy Wall Street] under Bloomberg’s orders and smashed up Zuccotti Park one of the things that they did was destroy all the books. You have got to destroy books that are dangerous. It has a long tradition back to the middle ages. Arizona knows all about that.”

They discussed the Occupy movement (previously) and its roots in previous resistance movements, back to the Civil Right Movement Spanish Civil War. To bring the conversation to a mass audience, he's now publishing the transcript as a comic book. The artwork so far is beautiful. [more inside]
posted by mutesolo at 11:29 AM PST - 23 comments

English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet. The word "because," in standard English usage, is a subordinating conjunction, which means that it connects two parts of a sentence in which one (the subordinate) explains the other. In that capacity, "because" has two distinct forms. It can be followed either by a finite clause (I'm reading this because [I saw it on the web]) or by a prepositional phrase (I'm reading this because [of the web]). These two forms are, traditionally, the only ones to which "because" lends itself. I mention all that ... because language. Because evolution. Because there is another way to use "because." Linguists are calling it the "prepositional-because." Or the "because-noun."
posted by scody at 10:58 AM PST - 159 comments

A simple guide to how compound words work in German. (SLYT, rudimentary German makes it funnier but probably not essential)
posted by Artw at 10:32 AM PST - 38 comments

You might've noticed that the castles in the various Castlevania games, while different in every game, often feature similar areas and architectural ideas from game to game. You probably haven't gone to the trouble to catalogue these common components and their recurrences in the sprawling Castlevania series, but this is the internet, which means that somebody has.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:29 AM PST - 12 comments

"Martha, call the cable company--it's playing 'Like a Rolling Stone' on every channel again!"
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:11 AM PST - 45 comments

The U.S. Department of the Interior has an Instagram account, to which it posts some truly breathtaking photos.
posted by jbickers at 10:05 AM PST - 14 comments

"We are reminded that everything is flowing—going somewhere, animals and so-called lifeless rocks as well as water. Thus the snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty-making glaciers and avalanches; the air in majestic floods carrying minerals, plant leaves, seeds, spores, with streams of music and fragrance; water streams carrying rocks both in solution and in the form of mud particles, sand, pebbles, and boulders. Rocks flow from volcanoes like water from springs, and animals flock together and flow in currents modified by stepping, leaping, gliding, flying, swimming, etc. While the stars go streaming through space pulsed on and on forever like blood globules in Nature's warm heart." — John Muir [more inside]
posted by theodolite at 9:58 AM PST - 2 comments

Slate's Ben Blatt "sat in a Barnes & Noble for three hours flipping through all seven Where’s Waldo books with a tape measure" and emerged with a method for finding Waldo with speed more than 50% of the time. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 9:53 AM PST - 43 comments

In this teaching video, Suzanne Stensaas, Ph.D., demonstrates the properties and anatomy of an unfixed brain, showing its squishiness and vulnerability. [WARNING: The video contains graphic images, a human brain from a recent autopsy.]
posted by Blasdelb at 8:51 AM PST - 38 comments

In the spirit of "Cog," here's Honda's "Illusions." Making of here. Via Hendrick Ball's "Grand Illusions."
posted by Marky at 8:33 AM PST - 12 comments

A Cold War Fought by Women Intrasexual competition among women (SLNYT).
posted by The Blue Olly at 7:56 AM PST - 106 comments

How does economics work in a post-scarcity society - namely the United Federation of Planets? As depicted, the canon is not entirely consistent. But there are clear consequences to meeting all one's material needs with ease. Why is there money at all, for example? Does Picard's family own vineyards just for kicks?
posted by Chrysostom at 7:12 AM PST - 226 comments

Football as soccer …or should that be American Football as football?
posted by ShawnString at 5:46 AM PST - 55 comments

What Combat Feels Like , Presented in the Style of a Graphic Novel. An animated film based on a true story by Iraq veteran Colby Buzzell (previously).
posted by cenoxo at 4:58 AM PST - 22 comments

These movies offer not just a twist, but a twist atop a twist, and a joke atop the joke: the “superjoke,” as Billy Wilder called it. Those themes repeat: the lively, often-painful love triangle, the sexual and romantic jealousy, the thrill of sex, and in this case, the carnal kicks co-mingling with the art of stealing, an act more erotic than gold-digging. (Gold-fleecing is much more penetrating.) And then—important during one of the worst economic times in America’s history—there’s Lily and Gaston’s hard, artful work, something to respect.

Ernst Lubitsch’s charming pre-Code transgressions
posted by timshel at 3:01 AM PST - 10 comments

... has no limits, and your awesomeness will not be limited by your TV. Not anymore. Not today. Not with your new 4K UHDTV (or 4k TV. Or Ultra High Def TV). Get it for your yacht. Enjoy being on top with a TV so expensive, Sears' POS system didn't have enough commas for the price. You earned it, so soak it in. Except your 4k $39999 UHDTV yacht TV, will have to come over to my house and watch my 8K Super UHDTV, which will be known as Super Hi-Vision. Super Hi-Vision. Also available in 'Full Dome' Super Hi Vision. You heard me. So f*ck your $40k 4k Ultra High Def TV, because in 2016 I'm getting the 8K Super Hi-Vision Full Dome moth3rf*cker. Things just got real.
posted by jdaura at 2:40 AM PST - 81 comments

Magpie and puppy play a game. Featuring a very unphased woman hanging out a sheet.
posted by h00py at 2:18 AM PST - 29 comments

If Henry Ford were reincarnated as a bike maker, Le Corbusier as an architect of buildings and cities for bikes, and Robert Moses as their bike-loving ally in government, today’s bike plans would be far more ambitious in scope. Ford would be aiming to sell billions of bikes, Corb would be wanting to save the whole world, and, even if it took him a lifetime, Moses would be aiming to leave a permanent mark. -- According to Steven Fleming, to make cities more biking friendly what's needed are architects who make the bike their guiding inspiration, like Robert Moses was inspired by the car.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:43 PM PST - 61 comments

Australians are a people renowned for inventing awesome shit, mate. The flat white. The pavlova. Anzac biscuits. Flight of the Conchords. Now we've gone and topped it all by inventing the selfie. Fish-lipped sheilas everywhere - you're welcome.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 10:44 PM PST - 44 comments

It happens every year. The days get shorter, a sub-zero chill is in the Hoth air, the wampas start venturing into your hidden home base, and new Star Wars Snowflakes are introduced for holiday crafting fun. New to 2013, battles. It just isn't Christmas without a T-47 Snow Speeder making an attack run on an AT-AT, or Luke Skywalker facing down a hungry Rancor beast. Enjoy 13 new designs. So, get yourself a sharp cutting blade and have fun. (2012 snowflakes here.)
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:49 PM PST - 14 comments

Alexey Kljatov takes some rather nice macro photos of snowflakes on the open balcony of his house, mostly on glass surface, lighted by LED flashlight from opposite side of glass, and sometimes in natural light, using dark woolen fabrics as background. He recently detailed his camera set-up, featuring an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera and an old USSR-made Helios lense, taped to a board. Reverse mounting is nothing new, but it's usually done with reverse-mounting rings.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:41 PM PST - 13 comments

"Ten years on from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Pitchfork traces Big Boi and Andre 3000's path from Southern vanguards to the most universally beloved rappers in the world."
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 7:45 PM PST - 32 comments

On “Jenny Ondioline,” Stereolab pointed the way to a retro future 20 years ago Jenny Ondioline was released. [more inside]
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:09 PM PST - 55 comments

A server who was stiffed on a tip but left a note condemning her homosexual lifestyle instead, receives thousands from sympathetic strangers and donates everything to Wounded Warriors Project.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 5:04 PM PST - 97 comments

What could be more impressive than learning to program, and then writing a complete new music notation program? Doing it with your feet.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:48 PM PST - 9 comments

At 23 Camila Vallejo became Latin America's newest folk hero.
A leader of the Chilean winter movement of student protests; Camila Vallejo at 25 was elected to a seat in Chile's Congress on Sunday.
See wiki.
posted by adamvasco at 3:48 PM PST - 8 comments

Twenty-five years ago, David Raether was a successful comedy writer -- a member of the writing staff of Roseanne. Five years ago, he was homeless. This is his story.
posted by workingdankoch at 3:44 PM PST - 91 comments

In the tradition of A Christmas Story 2 and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure comes the latest news out of Hollywood: Variety reports 'It's A Wonderful Life' Sequel in the Works!

"Karolyn Grimes, who played George Bailey’s daughter 'Zuzu' in the original, will return for the 'Wonderful Life' sequel as an angel who shows Bailey’s unlikeable grandson (also named George Bailey) how much better off the world would have been had he never been born." [more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:39 PM PST - 67 comments

Let's Draw Abs!, a DeviantArt tutorial, by Coelasquid, of The Punchline Is Machismo (prev.) [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:19 PM PST - 16 comments

"I've seen things that you wouldn't believe."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:01 PM PST - 39 comments

Following Homelamb (previously), Far From Seven and Sons of Poetry in the category of "Things I Never Thought I'd See On Sesame Street," I give you The Hungry Games: Catching Fur. Note: free of children killing other children.
Previously. Full list of Sesame Street spoofs and parodies. [more inside]
posted by Madamina at 1:14 PM PST - 24 comments

Author Peter Watts (many times previously) eulogizes his cat Chip [more inside]
posted by figurant at 1:13 PM PST - 36 comments

Meet The 'Assassination Market' Creator Who's Crowdfunding Murder With Bitcoins
Last month I received an encrypted email from someone calling himself by the pseudonym Kuwabatake Sanjuro, who pointed me towards his recent creation: The website Assassination Market, a crowdfunding service that lets anyone anonymously contribute bitcoins towards a bounty on the head of any government official–a kind of Kickstarter for political assassinations. According to Assassination Market’s rules, if someone on its hit list is killed–and yes, Sanjuro hopes that many targets will be–any hitman who can prove he or she was responsible receives the collected funds.
posted by andoatnp at 1:11 PM PST - 143 comments

Cloud services that power email and other technologies we use each day are themselves massive energy consumers. Gigaom reporters have written a pair of in-depth articles about efforts by Amazon and Apple to build infrastructure and source their own energy.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:27 PM PST - 16 comments

Rock & Roll Heaven: What dead rock stars would look like if they were alive today.
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:05 PM PST - 84 comments

Today is the 104th birthday of Johnny Mercer, the great American lyricist, songwriter, and singer. We have him to thank for: [more inside]
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 11:27 AM PST - 15 comments

"Choruses of children evoking a crowded slum, humid jungles where Sri Lankan women bathe and wash their clothes, old Bimmers drifting in a Moroccan desert, the multiple limbs of a Hindu goddess stretching behind her, the austerity of areas long occupied by military, a digital print burqa [...] Welcome to Worldtown." -- Ayesha A. Siddiqi on the shamefully misrepresented "Pop Diaspora of M.I.A.", whose latest single from her new record Matangi is YALA (Flashing Lights Warning) [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:49 AM PST - 25 comments

Leonardo Da Vinci is well known as a man who invented many things on paper that never found their way into three-dimensional reality. Some would later prove to be unworkable in reality. Others would later prove to be potentially life-saving. But not all of Da Vinci's inventions were of a practical nature. Consider his plans for the viola organista, a keyboard instrument containing a system of revolving wheels, strings and other machinery to create a kind of cello that can be played with a keyboard. Never constructed in Da Vinci's lifetime, the inventor himself could only imagine what it would actually sound like. We no longer have to imagine that. [more inside]
posted by saulgoodman at 10:34 AM PST - 43 comments

"The collaborative, web-based, massively multiplayer game Glitch began its initial private testing in 2009, opened to the public in 2010, and was shut down in 2012. It was played by more than 150,000 people and was widely hailed for its original and highly creative visual style. The entire library of art assets from the game, has been made freely available, dedicated to the public domain. Code from the game client is included to help developers work with the assets. All of it can be downloaded and used by anyone, for any purpose. (But: use it for good.)" [more inside]
posted by jenkinsEar at 10:17 AM PST - 41 comments

The Canadian Press has released minutes from the Cabinet's discussions of abortion. The conversations began after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unconstitutional the restrictions on abortion (wiki). [more inside]
posted by Lemurrhea at 7:51 AM PST - 21 comments

Ten years ago today, invoking the “dignity and equality of all individuals", the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared that the state must allow same sex couples the right to marry. The plaintiffs' attorney was Mary Bonauto.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:10 AM PST - 12 comments

As a long-time Couchsurfer, I felt that once management put the values of venture capital funders over the organic, self-organized traveler base, and reorganized with a top-down, “start-up” mentality, the fall was inevitable.
posted by Blasdelb at 6:56 AM PST - 48 comments

HCI people discover bugs by receiving a concerned email from their therapist. Systems people discover bugs by waking up and discovering that their first-born children are missing and “ETIMEDOUT ” has been written in blood on the wall.

The Night Watch - James Mickens [SLPDF]
posted by xqwzts at 3:44 AM PST - 67 comments

Auto Correct — Has the self-driving car at last arrived? From The New Yorker, November 25, 2013.
posted by cenoxo at 3:28 AM PST - 173 comments

Muskeg is a cold swamp. Or bog if you prefer. You might find an 80 foot 50 year old tree near to an 8 foot 200 year old tree. Insects will find you. [more inside]
posted by vapidave at 3:27 AM PST - 17 comments

"For experts and those who want to join this illustrious group, the Samjiyon can easily develop into one of their major research tools. The DPRK-specific dictionaries and the encyclopedia are tremendously useful as reference works.It does not take much imagination to see all the future Ph.D. theses written about the North Korean educational system based just on the textbooks available on a single Samjiyon (don’t forget to give credit to the one who provided you with this idea). The selection of eBooks in the literature section is equally remarkable." -- Ruediger Frank reviews the ideologically correct North Korean Samjiyon tablet (PDF), an alternative to degenerate capitalist tablets like the Ipad which can't even receive analog tv broadcasts. All part of the relentless forward march of North Korean IT technology.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:04 PM PST - 16 comments

Lonely Old Dog Has His Dying Wish Come True - To Be Loved
posted by Wordwoman at 9:33 PM PST - 60 comments

50 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, many of us willl find a moment to reflect... June Oswald had these words in 2009.
posted by HuronBob at 9:02 PM PST - 27 comments

James cleans windows for a living.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 7:33 PM PST - 28 comments

Opening cans without a can opener, or any other tools
posted by beagle at 7:14 PM PST - 88 comments

The sexual harrassment within the Prada company of fine clothing as translated into Japanese culture Fascinating article in Salon about a woman who worked for Prada in Japan and was discriminated again and then stigmatized. Her case, years later, has been taken up by the United Nations.
posted by DMelanogaster at 7:10 PM PST - 12 comments

We Can't Stop and Wrecking Ball in G-Major. Maybe not G-Major, but at least pitched down and edited. As not-work-safe as the regular versions. [more inside]
posted by codacorolla at 6:27 PM PST - 22 comments

Animated Jazz Covers. Very cool.
posted by dobbs at 6:19 PM PST - 9 comments

A Day In the Life of an Empowered Female Heroine (Previously)
posted by Artw at 5:17 PM PST - 127 comments

How to draw GREAT BUTTS in five lines!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:15 PM PST - 53 comments

Israeli musicians present the music of Tom Waits. [Via]
posted by Rykey at 4:35 PM PST - 21 comments

Theo and Beau: Nap time!
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:46 PM PST - 10 comments

For your culinary enjoyment, I present NativeTech's collection of recipes, which you can browse by recipe category, regions, types of dishes, and alphabetically (the site is pretty vast, and you can find recipes throughout the site). For more manageable lists, here is a mixed collection of Native American Recipes, from Apache acorn soup to Zuni corn soup (there's more listed than soups, I promise). One Feather has shared some favorite recipes, and then there's the Native Food blog, with recipes and more information.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:44 PM PST - 24 comments

An aspiring scientist's frustration with modern-day academia. A resignation letter circulated to staff and students at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, which has caused a bit of a splash in the science community. Lee Smolin, author of The Trouble with Physics, responds in the comments.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 3:08 PM PST - 49 comments

The best of Jerome Jarre, a hilarious young Frenchman who delights in singing on subways, violating personal boundaries, and grinning like a loon on Vine. Previously on MetaFilter.
posted by Rory Marinich at 2:51 PM PST - 44 comments

Good Enough For Government Work

Welcome to the new incarnation of the “think tank” world, over which Jim DeMint—its ideal-type avatar—now presides. Instead of letting scholars of various shades of true believership study what interests them without predetermined conclusions, think tanks are now expected to formulate new ways to echo one or another approved ideological dogma—and then marshal lawmakers, none too subtly, to march in lockstep behind it. ... In other words, to consider DeMint’s legacy simply because he’s exiting the Senate after eight years is silly, when he’s just beginning to craft it, finally, from a position of actual power.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:47 PM PST - 12 comments

Pie-Town was held today (in Chicago) with America’s Baking Competition finalist Francine Bryson and her (no kidding) Chocolate Peanut Butter Bacon Pie! And with National Pie-Day coming up in January, again, you'll be all ready for the Great American Pie Festival next April with the National Pie Championships in Florida. Or stay at home and try out the winning recipes from last year (mostly non-bacon, non chocolate, non-peanut butter fruit pies, but still...Pie!)
posted by Smedleyman at 2:32 PM PST - 20 comments

Friday November 22, 1963, at the Boston Symphony Orchestra: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a press report over the wireless. We hope that it is unconfirmed, but we have to doubt it. That the president of the United States has been the victim of an assassination. We will play the funeral march from Beethoven’s Third Symphony."
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:26 PM PST - 24 comments

"In linguistic circles, there is a bit of excitement over the election of Marty Walsh as Boston’s next mayor. Not only does he have a strong Boston accent — perhaps the strongest in the city’s mayoral history — but his speech is a perfect example of the modern dialect, where the broad “a” sound is gone. He’s from Dohchestah. Not Dawchestah. And when it comes time to say pronounce his new job title, he shows the variability of the dialect, which is what actors who drop every R get wrong. Sometimes he’s a may-uh. Sometimes he’s a mare. And a lot of times, he skips both the Y and the R and he’s just a maeh..."
posted by anelsewhere at 1:35 PM PST - 57 comments

Super Trouper: 30 Years Of ABBA [1h30m] is a 2004 documentary about Sweden's biggest export, containing (then) current and historical footage and interviews, giving a generous, broad picture of the history of the band. Includes much never-before-seen performance and backstage footage.
posted by hippybear at 12:51 PM PST - 9 comments

Touch Isolation: How Homophobia Has Robbed All Men of Touch, a reflection prompted in part by Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:55 AM PST - 122 comments

The Kelpies. Giant Horse Head Sculptures Tower Over the Forth & Clyde Canal in Scotland. The Kelpies were designed by artist Andy Scott. [Previously]
posted by homunculus at 11:42 AM PST - 13 comments

"It was my second day on Soylent and my stomach felt like a coil of knotty old rope, slowly tightening. I wasn’t hungry, but something was off. I was tired, light-headed, low-energy, but my heart was racing... I had twenty-eight days left of my month-long all-Soylent diet—I was attempting to live on the full food replacement longer than anyone besides its inventor—and I felt woozy already.We were en route to Soylent HQ, where the 25-year-old Rob Rhinehart and his crew were whipping up the internet famous hacker meal—the macro-nutritious shake they think will soon replace the bulk of our meals. It’s just one of many visions currently vying for the future food crown. The world’s population is still burgeoning, after all, 600 to 800 million people are going hungry every year, and the specter of food riots is perpetually percolating—the demand for cheap, nutritious food is greater than ever." [more inside]
posted by bookman117 at 11:17 AM PST - 138 comments

No plate? No worries! [more inside]
posted by DoubleLune at 10:30 AM PST - 55 comments

‘Guestlist’ (NSFW lyrics) is the brand new single from Berlin based Denitza Torodrove AKA DENA, released worldwide on 23rd November. The tongue and cheek lyrics offer a poignant juxtaposition to the political message of the single which addresses immigration control issues in her native Bulgaria. The video, also shot in her homeland...provides a suitable backdrop to DENA’s unique brand of pop, 90’s inspired hip-hop and Balkan beats. ‘Guestlist’ follows singles ‘Thin Rope’ and ‘Cash, Diamond Rings, Swimming Pools" which came out on French label Kitsune earlier this year, rapidly reaching more than 800,000 views on Youtube. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:56 AM PST - 3 comments

"Anyone can eat for free here, and many, many people do. On a weekday, about 80,000 come. On weekends, almost twice as many people visit. Each visitor gets a wholesome vegetarian meal, served by volunteers who embody India’s religious and ethnic mosaic. “This is our tradition,” said Harpinder Singh, the 45-year-old manager of this huge operation. “Anyone who wants can come and eat.”" Behind the scenes at the kitchen (langar) at the Golden Temple that feeds 100,000 daily. More information from the Golden Temple's website.
posted by jessamyn at 9:54 AM PST - 30 comments

Planetary Projection: a collaborative online history of the (perhaps) disappearing art of film projection.
posted by goatdog at 9:40 AM PST - 4 comments

Breaking Bad - the alternative ending. The Bob Newhart ending - Breaking Bad / Malcom in the Middle version.
posted by caddis at 9:08 AM PST - 37 comments

Caught in Unemployment’s Revolving Door (SLNYT) [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 8:34 AM PST - 184 comments

Doris Lessing, revolutionary Nobel prize-winning novelist, passed away this morning at the age of 94. [more inside]
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 8:09 AM PST - 54 comments

William T. Vollmann: The Self Images of a Cross-Dresser [New York Times] From a profile on William T. Vollmann, in The New York Times. The profile centers around Vollmann’s latest book, The Book of Dolores.
posted by Fizz at 7:39 AM PST - 20 comments

Visarute Angkatavanich takes beautiful portraits of fish. [more inside]
posted by Fig at 7:20 AM PST - 11 comments

Songs broken down into their component parts. Choose a song, and use the green buttons to turn tracks on and off. (via Kottke)
posted by GenericUser at 7:14 AM PST - 25 comments

Anatomy of a Song (1976) is a half hour documentary (part two here) about Stephen Sondheim's song Someone in a Tree, from the musical Pacific Overtures. Sondheim talks about the challenges and thought processes behind what he calls his favourite of his own songs. See the original 1976 show in full here. Also see this earlier post on the same song.
posted by rollick at 7:05 AM PST - 3 comments

This is Belgium Part Two

At the time this was the devil's music for us, but we have learned to listen through the claps and distorted kicks and discovered that if you slow these really dark and heavy techno records down all the way to about 115 bpm, it suddenly makes them sound less frantic, ballsier and a lot sexier. Belgium at its best when pitched down.

[more inside]
posted by frimble at 5:57 AM PST - 6 comments

Hi, folks! Billy Mays here for The Economics of Infomercials! [more inside]
posted by ApathyGirl at 10:58 PM PST - 30 comments

Laments for Blockbuster in the style of Bruce Springsteen. Another dying American industry mourned.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 9:30 PM PST - 27 comments

Not content to simply riff on bad movies, Mike Nelson (formerly of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and currently of Rifftrax) recently visited the Video Game Abomination folks and played a little "Miami Traffic 3".
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:17 PM PST - 32 comments

"This year of grace, 2013, sees the 150th anniversary of the London Underground Railway (tube). In honour of this occasion, we thought we would give you a little church crawl around the circle line...Over the coming weeks we will take you around each station on the Circular line and show you not only the station, but also a church and a place of interest, so that those of you who are impeded by distance or other reasons from seeing the delights that central London has to offer in the flesh may not be bereft of some of the experience." The Watts Church Crawl. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:35 PM PST - 2 comments

Loki's childhood, illustrated.
posted by Artw at 5:16 PM PST - 25 comments

Lewis Lehe created an interactive graphic that shows what happens when one driver brakes in traffic
posted by reenum at 4:44 PM PST - 63 comments

Richard Pryor is Black Death
posted by brundlefly at 3:45 PM PST - 23 comments

"Even from its earliest scenes Grizzly plays like a cheap B movie version of Jaws and that's really what it is." Somehow, Grizzly was actually released less than a year after Jaws was theatrically released. Unlike the quick turn-around for the first Grizzly movie, filming for the sequel didn't happen for another 7 to 9 years, and the movie was actually shelved before it was completed. Generally, the sequel to a knock-off wouldn't be too interesting, but Grizzly II: The Predator (also known as Predator: The Concert) is notable for early appearances of George Clooney, Charlie Sheen, and Laura Dern in small supporting roles, and the workprint features songs by Michael Jackson as a place-holder soundtrack. This existence of the workprint was a myth told by horror movie nerds, until a copy leaked out in 2007. As described in the Twitchfilm review, "there are two things to watch this footage for, and a grizzly bear is neither of them. Activity #1 would be the "Holy shit, that's actually {actor X} right there!" game ... and Activity #2 would be gaping, slack-jawed, with a pulsating vein in your forehead, as the outrageously awful mid-'80s synth tunes cascade across your unwitting cranium." For your viewing (dis)pleasure: Grizzly and Grizzly II: (The) Predator: The Concert, both in full on YouTube.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:42 PM PST - 11 comments

When you get a headache, you're faced with the Big Three options for over-the-counter pain relief: aspirin, acetaminophen (paracetamol) or ibuprofen. But which is best, according to the latest scientific evidence? And what's the best for toothache, back pain, period pain or musculoskeletal injuries? A pain specialist explains who the winners are in each main category.
posted by dontjumplarry at 3:05 PM PST - 91 comments

The Cambridge Union Society on YouTube: Brian Blessed, Bill Bryson, Dame Judi Dench, Lisa Kudrow, Sir Patrick Stewart [more inside]
posted by Lanark at 3:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Tiny weasel is adorable. (slYT & all the cute)
posted by Kitteh at 1:05 PM PST - 33 comments

A Galveston medical student describes life and death in the so-called safety net. [via]
posted by AceRock at 8:02 AM PST - 78 comments

Luxuria Superbia is a game about having sex with a flower, or maybe your computer. You are definitely having sex with something.
posted by frimble at 5:42 AM PST - 35 comments

"We've somehow been culturally talked into accepting this arrangement, not realizing how businesses are using it to further extract value from us. Businesses are choosing candidates based on their open source contributions, knowing that they are getting more value for less money out of them. These are candidates that will continue to work on things in their free time because it's something they care about and are passionate about. This is akin to not paying someone for overtime." -- Ashe Dryden talks about how unpaid work on open source projects may help sustain inequality and exploitation in the software industry.
posted by MartinWisse at 5:37 AM PST - 154 comments

Undercover journalists publish firsthand account of asylum seeker journey to Australia An undercover journalist has detailed how he and a photographer posed as asylum seekers and took an epic journey from Afghanistan's shady currency markets to Jakarta and on to a flimsy open-decked wooden boat that delivered 57 desperate people to Christmas Island.
posted by Wolof at 4:43 AM PST - 28 comments

"Take me to your [Sailor] Venus!"
Lady Gaga – Sailor Stars
Lady Gaga – Papercraft Roleplay Venus [more inside]
posted by fraula at 3:06 AM PST - 21 comments

Brass Tacks, a BBC documentary / studio discussion programme from 1977, looks at the burgeoning phenomena of punk rock. (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:39 AM PST - 11 comments

Can common items sold in airports after the security screening be used to build lethal weapons? Yes.
posted by Zarkonnen at 1:44 AM PST - 57 comments

The O+ Festival in San Francisco offers artists an opportunity to barter their services for dental and health treatment. "The O+ Festival in San Francisco this weekend would seem a typical indie arts event, with performances by local musicians and displays of funky art. But in a twist that highlights a longstanding problem in the creative economy, the artists involved will be paid not in cash but rather in something they may need just as badly: health care." [more inside]
posted by semaphore at 9:05 PM PST - 17 comments

In the tradition of the 1939 novel Gadsby, Toronto rapper Andrew Huang (previously) recorded a hip hop track entirely devoid of the letter E.
posted by mannequito at 6:56 PM PST - 22 comments

It's not exactly the top of many people's "Favorite Sweets" list, but there is something hypnotic about watching ribbon candy being made.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:40 PM PST - 42 comments

Sizing Up Sally Jewell " The new Interior Secretary has an impressive résumé. Oil geologist, banker, president of REI. But today's Washington is a landscape without maps, and in this age of climate change and keystone, the major battles are taking place over at the EPA and State. Is greatness still possible at Interior?" [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:14 PM PST - 13 comments

Femme fatale. Vamp. Ballerina. Consumptive. Drama queen. Nazi film star? Mummy bait. Valentino's lover. Chaplin's girl. Rival of Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson. [more inside]
posted by mynameisluka at 5:42 PM PST - 12 comments

Today marks 25 years since Buran, the enigmatic Soviet Space Shuttle clone, made her single unpiloted 2-orbit flight before an inglorious retirement like her known siblings.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 5:28 PM PST - 21 comments

Shelter From The Storm – the inside story of Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 4:43 PM PST - 28 comments

Before the new movie and a new season, Season 8, the official Trailer Park Boys YouTube channel has been launched.
posted by juiceCake at 4:34 PM PST - 28 comments

Check out this rad MIT pin grid gizmo.
posted by rollick at 4:07 PM PST - 21 comments

Blood, sweat, and tears: Bodily inscriptions in contemporary experimental film
posted by namagomi at 3:14 PM PST - 1 comment

"Milk" is one of the most strange and powerful episodes to come out of the Children's Television Workshop. It is impossible to imagine this film being made now. Here's the pitch:

Yeah… Jim. Look, I thought we would show how milk gets made with no script and no dialogue. Yeah. Let's just go shoot footage of farmers and the milk truck, maybe throw in a crying baby and some weird, monotone music crafted by some composer who likes jazzy stuff played by a chamber ensemble. Sunny day? Nah. Let's not make it cheerful or happy. We should make it gloomy and unsettling. Oh, and Jim? To do it right, we need some crane shots, a huge decal for the truck, and about four and a half minutes running time.

Read on, for an interview with Robert Dennis, composer of Milk and other clips (including Cow Feeding and the Mad Painter series of shorts).
posted by filthy light thief at 2:52 PM PST - 117 comments

Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order, a novella by Carmen Maria Machado from the May/June issue of The American Reader. [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 2:39 PM PST - 23 comments

"Labeling women as 'crazy' is a way of controlling them...[a] quick and easy shut-down to any discussion. Once the 'crazy' card has been pulled out, women are now put on the defensive: The onus is no longer on the man to address her concerns or her issue; it's on her to justify her behavior, to prove that she is not, in fact, crazy or irrational."
posted by rcraniac at 12:48 PM PST - 136 comments

With the holiday shopping season upon us, it might be prudent to read the terms and conditions of a sale before posting a negative review on line. Jen Palmer found this out the hard way.
posted by pjern at 12:43 PM PST - 58 comments

The Fall of the House of Moon
posted by dortmunder at 12:15 PM PST - 18 comments

Better late than never? In the editorial about President Abraham Lincoln’s speech delivered Nov. 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, the Patriot & Union failed to recognize its momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance. The Patriot-News regrets the error.
posted by COD at 12:00 PM PST - 38 comments

Apparently we've been eating apples incorrectly. If each of us eats an apple a day, and we are all wasting 30 percent of our apples at $1.30 per pound, that's about $42 wasted per person per year—which is $13.2 billion annually, thrown in the trash or fed to pigs.
Taking a cue from a video entitled "How to eat an apple like a Boss", the Atlantic encourages us to be less wasteful.
posted by arcticseal at 10:31 AM PST - 161 comments

The first trailer for Noah, the forthcoming Paramount Picture biblical epic, is online. With a budget of $130 million, and slated for release in March/April 2014, and with a cast of stars, this covers Chapter 6-9 of the Book of Genesis. Filming took place mostly in Iceland, with some scenes in New York State. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 10:10 AM PST - 244 comments

La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano [2 3 4 5] is unlike anything you've heard before or will ever hear again. The notes are different from what you're used to, but what Young uses them for is... well. (If you don't have five hours to spend on a piano recital, may I suggest giving the first 4-5 minutes of disc three a go? It starts off briskly, builds to a scintillating pattern after a minute, and then, just before the three minute mark, the piano begins to roar.)
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:40 AM PST - 32 comments

Known primarily for their kitty, puppy, and owl cams, The Pet Collective has also created some entertaining music and film parodies featuring primarily cats and dogs. Among the best of their music parodies are Royals (with a very weird final scene), Wake Me Up, Thrift Shop, Roar, Wrecking Ball, and We Can’t Stop. Among the better movie parodies are Star Wars, Hunger Games, and Jaws
posted by Toekneesan at 9:35 AM PST - 10 comments

Foreign adoptions by large, evangelical families may begin happily, but patterns of neglect and dysfunction have Seattle area communities questioning their benefits. (SLSlate) [more inside]
posted by warm_planet at 8:48 AM PST - 86 comments

Once upon a time, on a now defunct site called Regretsy, there was a post about an Etsy-listed pair of "skants", priced at a mere $758(USD). Much mockery ensued, and skants became a meme of sorts, with Regretsy readers sending site owner April Winchell their own skants pictures. And now knitwear designer Stephen West has taken up the skants gauntlet by bringing us the next evolution in skants: swants. He's posted a tutorial on how to make your own swants, and a video of the Swants Dance. Swants promise to be bigger than skants ever were. Since Stephen West posted his tutorial on November 4, swants have appeared on The Today Show, on Boing Boing, and on Cosmopolitan's blog, as well as on a number of other blogs and news sites. Will you be doing the Swants Dance?
posted by orange swan at 8:14 AM PST - 51 comments

About as many people say they’ve been abducted by space aliens as say they’ve committed voter fraud One of the findings of a new working paper by John Ahlquist, Kenneth R. Mayer and Simon Jackman is that “the lower bound on the population reporting voter impersonation is nearly identical with the proportion of the population reporting abduction by extraterrestrials.” Roughly 2.5 percent of the population effectively admit to one or the other. [more inside]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:09 AM PST - 40 comments

Two days ago, as Hawaii's North Shore saw it's first swell of the winter season, Waimea Bay (one of the world's deadliest waves) was already crowded by mid-morning. Experienced San Diego surfer and recent Hawaii transplant Kirk Passmore paddled away from the crowds to the outer reef of Alligator Rock, soon after catching a relatively tame 20 footer, the final wave of his life. Though the search continues, his body has yet to be found. [more inside]
posted by BlerpityBloop at 7:52 AM PST - 12 comments

The Twitter feed for bookstore Waterstones Oxford Street, long known to fans of surreal twitter lit, reaches new heights of Fame with a Buzzfeed compilation. Browse around its Storify for science fiction, thrilling action/adventure, and poignant short stories.
posted by Erasmouse at 6:52 AM PST - 14 comments

Last week, Time magazine put out a feature on the Gods of Food, a series of articles on 60-some-odd empire-building chefs who the magazine thinks are influencing and leading cuisine today. Beyond the statistical problems with the article ... some folks had the temerity to point out that this culinary Mount Olympus was basically a bunch of white dudes. Actually it was all dudes, not a single woman deified. Eater's interview with Time's food editor Howard Chua-Eoan about the story. Amanda Cohen's scathing takedown of the clusterfuck. The New York Times' Room for Debate feature asking leading female chefs about underrepresented women in food media. Eater's latest piece on the question of gender bias in food journalism. [via]
posted by Room 641-A at 6:26 AM PST - 61 comments

'I can't sleep comfortably anymore, because she requires the exact center of the bed, meaning I have anywhere between 1-3 limbs dangling off the edge of the bed. Sometimes while she sleeps, in order to make myself feel better, I whisper to her, "I saved your life, I can take it away."' [more inside]
posted by billiebee at 5:53 AM PST - 61 comments

"what would i say?" automatically generates Facebook posts that sound like you! Technically speaking, it trains a Markov Bot based on mixture model of bigram and unigram probabilities derived from your past post history. Don't worry, we don't store any of your personal information anywhere. In fact, we don't even have a database! All computations are done client side, so only your browser ever sees your post history.

The results are often hilarious (and sometimes nonsensical) -- it all depends on what you've written on Facebook.

posted by Blasdelb at 5:27 AM PST - 251 comments

The Most Epic of Splits is a Volvo commercial featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme, and contains no computer editing or trickery. Behind the Scenes. The commercial is one of a series of new advertisements for Volvo Trucks.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:22 AM PST - 60 comments

At the core of good science and engineering is the careful and respectful treatment of data. We calibrate our instruments, scrutinize the algorithms we use to process the data, and study the behavior of the models we use to interpret the data or simulate the phenomena we may be observing. Surprisingly, this careful treatment of data often breaks down when we visualize our data.
posted by cthuljew at 11:54 PM PST - 54 comments

On Wednesday, The Smithsonian launched a new 3D viewer on its website featuring a selection of its digitised collection, some of which are also available for 3D printing.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:49 PM PST - 10 comments

Robot scientists! A Pretty cool video about research automation from the Wall Street Journal. [slyt]
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:18 PM PST - 10 comments

Alfonso Cuarón's "IKEA" [more inside]
posted by zippy at 11:09 PM PST - 27 comments

The robots are here. George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen predicts that the trend towards automation will squeeze the middle class further still, and compares its effects on American politics to a too-overlooked 1955 short story by Isaac Asimov.
posted by Jacob Knitig at 10:42 PM PST - 81 comments

Love's Secret Ascension: Coil, Coltrane & The 70th Birthday Of LSD. "Author and new Quietus writer Peter Bebergal celebrates the original synthesis of LSD with a thoughtful look at acid and transcendent, magickal music." [Via Technoccult] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 9:40 PM PST - 32 comments

The India-Pakistan partition in 1947 separated many friends and families overnight. A granddaughter in India decides to surprise her grandfather on his birthday by reuniting him with his childhood friend (who is now in Pakistan) after over 6 decades of separation, with a little help from Google Search. SLYT
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 6:59 PM PST - 45 comments

A Generation of Intellectuals Shaped by 2008 Crash Rescues Marx From History’s Dustbin [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:10 PM PST - 61 comments

From Eastern Europe to the East End
posted by Thing at 5:52 PM PST - 10 comments

Creationists' Last Stand at the Texas State Board of Education
posted by brundlefly at 5:26 PM PST - 82 comments

The News IQ Quiz by the Pew Research Center. Test your knowledge of prominent people and major events in the news by taking our short 13-question quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with 1,052 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a national survey conducted online August 7-14 by the Pew Research Center. [more inside]
posted by jquinby at 5:22 PM PST - 151 comments

"As a former DJ I hate how most electronic dance music is all about the drop now. To make fun of it, I set out to produce the worst drops of all time. Enjoy." (slsoundcloud)
posted by rebent at 5:16 PM PST - 82 comments

GOOGLE BBS TUNNEL
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:50 PM PST - 35 comments

Buzzfeed ranks every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from worst to best. Let the arguments begin.
posted by Athanassiel at 3:40 PM PST - 179 comments

A year ago a mysterious young man going by the name of Starcadian posted a surprisingly masterfully composed music video shot for $200 with half of a discarded movie prop cockpit. Other than a few songs on soundcloud, notably Girls Of Midnight which got some moderate blog attention a couple years ago, he hadn't really been on anyone's radar... [more inside]
posted by emptythought at 3:26 PM PST - 16 comments

Songs from Pearl Jam's 1991 debut album Ten, stripped of all but Eddie Vedder's vocals: Once. Even Flow. Alive. Black. Jeremy. Oceans. Release. Apart from highlighting Vedder's unique voice, phrasing and harmonzing, these vocal mixes expose some interesting studio effects applied to his voice (on 'Even Flow', for example).
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 3:21 PM PST - 38 comments

"Puerto Rican rappers/rockers Calle 13 continue their fierce criticism of government systems and oppression in their latest track Multi_Viral... [more inside]
posted by jammy at 2:14 PM PST - 6 comments

The 5 Ugly Lessons Hiding in Every Superhero Movie (SLCracked)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:13 PM PST - 75 comments

Here’s What Happens When You Ask People To Draw A Map Of The USA From Memory (single Buzzfeed link)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:35 PM PST - 119 comments

Every wondered where your favorite brown liquid came from? Find its starting position on the Bourbon Family Tree. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:34 PM PST - 66 comments

oublio: most popular stuff on the internet "I made a site and I thought MeFi might find it interesting: It shows the most popular image on Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Flickr in real time, as well as the most popular videos on YouTube each day: www.oublio.com. Now you can waste time on social media more efficiently!" [via mefi projects]
posted by xingcat at 1:07 PM PST - 22 comments

7 Fantastic Ways To Distinguish Between Sense And Nonsense from the listicle kings at Buzzfeed.
posted by blahblahblah at 1:04 PM PST - 36 comments

May 2011: Death Grips appears out of nowhere, releases Ex Military, a free mixtape of noisy, distorted aggro-rap (full album stream on YouTube).
April 2012: Death Grips signs with Epic, releases The Money Store, their first proper album of art-rap/ tech-beat/ psycho-rap/ whatever (YT album stream).
October 2012: Death Grips leak their second album, No Love Deep Web, defying Epic, and sever ties to the label.
July 2013: Death Grips signs to Capitol/Harvest under their own Thirdworlds imprint.
November 2013: Death Grips suddenly drops their 3rd album, Government Plates, for free to download and stream from various sources.
(It's best to consider all audio NSFW) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:09 PM PST - 28 comments

Tim Derbyshire, owner of London's On the Beat Records, has put his entire store up for bid on eBay. Says the NYT: "[Derbyshire] has decided to retire but would prefer not to just pack up and go. Nor is he keen on having an everything-must-go sale. His preference is to leave the shop as it is, with its stock of singles, albums, posters and 1960s through 1980s memorabilia intact, and turn over the keys to a record fanatic who will run it more or less as he has, since the late 1970s." The buy-it-now price is £300,000.
posted by Clustercuss at 11:54 AM PST - 12 comments

Beginnings: Part 1 and Beginnings: Part 2, aired as episodes 19 and 20 in the second season or Book Two of the animated show Avatar: Legend of Korra, and represented a shift from the show's straight forward animation to a style that embraced the aesthetic of traditional East Asian ink drawing/painting and symbolism with a dash of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli charm to tell the background story of the Avatar figure. The result is incredible. [more inside]
posted by Atreides at 11:48 AM PST - 54 comments

I really don't have anything to add to this. They piped him ashore. CMDCM Grgetich leaned in and quietly told me how significant that honor was and who it’s usually reserved for as we headed towards the gangplank. Hearing “Electrician’s Mate Second Class William Bud Cloud, Pearl Harbor Survivor, departing” announced over the 1MC was surreal.
posted by COD at 11:04 AM PST - 36 comments

Bob Dylan is a welder and he makes big iron gates out of scrap metal. You can see for yourself at Castle Gallery in London for the next couple of months. Says Bob: "Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference."
posted by maudlin at 11:00 AM PST - 48 comments

The entire nation of India grinds to a halt for the next 5 days, as Sachin Tendulkar competes in his final Test match before retiring. ESPN's CricInfo has a hub of reflections and recollections for the Little Master. [more inside]
posted by Errant at 10:54 AM PST - 13 comments

"Kiss Me, I''m Desperate," by Blake Grigsby. But how could anyone who made the world's largest cardboard castle be desperate?
posted by ericbop at 10:08 AM PST - 13 comments

RetroCollect reports: "...in 2005 ShenZhen Nanjing Technology released a run-down port of Final Fantasy VII for Nintendo's 8-bit system in China. Despite lacking a lot of story elements, gameplay aspects and finesse, ROM hacker Lugia2009 saw potential within the game's code and began using it as a basis to recreate the PlayStation 1 adventure in its entirety...
posted by griphus at 7:16 AM PST - 39 comments

Beijing and Amsterdam-based studio NEXT architects have won first place in a bridge design competition for Meixi Lake near the Changsha capital in Hunan, China. The shape was inspired by the Mobius Strip and Chinese knotting.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:02 AM PST - 17 comments

Rumors of a faked death have been just as much a part of Andy Kaufman's legacy as watching him turn from Foreign Man to Elvis, but if what played out at this week's Andy Kaufman Awards in New York City are actually true, the comedic genius may have pulled off his biggest hoax of all: not just faking his own death, but secretly spending the last 29 years raising a family.
posted by marginaliana at 6:55 AM PST - 127 comments

It Is What It Is "If you notice a guard at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis suddenly balancing on one foot or striking a yoga pose, it’s probably just Todd Balthazor limbering up. “I’m stretching all the time,” he said. “You have to do that, or else you are going to stiffen up. We have some elderly workers, and they just walk like trees.” [...] In the strip, “It Is What It Is,” Mr. Balthazor frequently aims graphic barbs at museum guests, like the “photo bomber,” who poses in front of large paintings without considering the art. “They look at it like, ‘This is going to be a great backdrop for my Facebook profile,’ ” Mr. Balthazor said." [more inside]
posted by xicana63 at 6:44 AM PST - 26 comments

13 Facts About Space That Will Make Your Head Explode. [SLCrackedVideo | Disclaimer: will not make your head explode. But is still interesting!]
posted by quin at 6:15 AM PST - 25 comments

An audacious museum heist, in which a timepiece made for Marie Antoinette was among a haul worth hundreds of millions of pounds, left police clutching at thin air. It was only when the watch turned up 25 years later that the pieces of the jigsaw began to fall into place. - Marie Antoinette : the queen, her watch and the master burglar
posted by beisny at 5:41 AM PST - 7 comments

Spray On Fabric Spray on clothes every morning! No ironing, no matching the tops to bottom, no "I ate too much last night so now this doesn't fit…"
posted by Yellow at 5:21 AM PST - 58 comments

Doctor Who is turning 50. There is a minisode. It goes there. If you are a fan, watch it. [more inside]
posted by Mezentian at 4:52 AM PST - 355 comments

For decades, Iceland has been rumoured to be the largest producer of bananas in Europe. This factoid made the BBC quiz show Q.I. in 2006, and was cited as truth in a Christian Science Monitor article about geothermal energy in Iceland. Now the Reykjavík Grapevine digs deeper and reveals the provenance of this rumour and what truth there is in it (PDF; see page 6).
posted by acb at 4:20 AM PST - 19 comments

The Cult of Cthulhu: A Real Prayer For a Fake Tentacle
posted by empath at 12:38 AM PST - 42 comments

It's black's move, move 11, and Carlsen has a decision to make - move his king queenside or kingside? With little hesitation, Carlsen moves queenside. His opponent, Anand does not visibly respond - kingside was the more common choice. The game is pulling away from textbook play into strange territory. As black, Carlsen is playing at a disadvantage. He knows that this is his chance to improve his odds, leading Anand into an unfamiliar middle game. After two beats, Carlsen bolts from his chair and walks away from the table. The chair swivels around lazily and the camera remains on Anand, who studies the board, either ignoring or oblivious to the young player's exit. [more inside]
posted by lubujackson at 10:04 PM PST - 62 comments

A tour of GE's Kitchen of the Future from the 1964 New York World's Fair. Warnings: Racistly vague ethnic appropriation; monorails; AquaNet. Kitchen porn kicks in hard core around minute 5. [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 8:05 PM PST - 42 comments

"cachemonet is an exploration into the serendipitous collisions that occur between two randomly generated arrays. the arrays contain a mix of custom and found .gifs sourced from tumblr. the output is autonomous, generative, art made possible through curation & code." (WARNING: frequent flashing/optically intense backrounds, plus full volume sound [mutable from top-right corner button])
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:26 PM PST - 26 comments

How Jihadists Are Blackmailing, Torturing, and Killing Gay Syrians. Even between the plush sofas and mood lighting of one of Beirut’s hippest bars, Ram shook with fear as he relived his ordeal. He turned his large green eyes from me to the translator and then back to me again, speaking in a low voice, even though we were the only people in the room. "I think I was targeted for two reasons: because I'm a Druze, and because I’m gay," he said. "They told us, ‘You are all perverts, and we are going to kill you to save the world.'"
posted by treepour at 6:55 PM PST - 16 comments

The Nextraterrestrials are a little-known group of underground rappers, producers, and DJs originally centred around Ottawa and Toronto in the 1990s with a sci-fi/conspiracy-theory/metaphysics/outer-space bent. [more inside]
posted by Hoopo at 5:34 PM PST - 5 comments

"The Synth Kit that just hit the market originated a year ago, at a TED conference where Bdeir and comedian/musician Reggie Watts met backstage after giving talks, and started discussing the idea of littleBits musical instruments."
posted by kliuless at 5:32 PM PST - 43 comments

The Trans-Pacific Partnership has come under fire for the sweeping effects it may have on intellectual property laws in signatory countries, and is expected to export and even extend some of the worst features of US copyright law, including the criminalisation of DRM circumvention. The level of secrecy surrounding the agreement has been controversial: the US Trade Representative has refused to make the text of the agreement public, and only three persons in each TPP nation have access to the full text. The New York Times editorial board has been criticised for its endorsement of the deal, when the public (and supposedly the NYT) were unable to read the agreement. In advance of the 19-24 November Chief Negotiators summit in Salt Lake City, Wikileaks has obtained and published the secret negotiated draft text of the TPP Intellectual Property Chapter, including negotiation positions and disagreements between all 12 prospective member states. [more inside]
posted by anemone of the state at 5:22 PM PST - 54 comments

Students at Richardson High School (Richardson, TX) was treated to a special, optional PTA-sponsored assembly during the school day. R U Dateable? founder and motivational speaker Justin Lookadoo came to let students know his big cool rules for dating, which included telling girls that they need to shut up and and let men lead.

Parents are angry about the religious nature of the assembly and the short notice given. The school district has yet to respond to inquiries.
posted by SNWidget at 4:52 PM PST - 532 comments

Vi Hart speaks at XOXO and is funny, meandering, interesting, and musical.
posted by Rory Marinich at 3:25 PM PST - 21 comments

Photographer gets in a tussle with an elk, copious amounts of headbutting ensue.
posted by mahershalal at 3:09 PM PST - 61 comments

Jaeil Cho illustrates Louis CK's bit on when children ask 'Why?' [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 2:44 PM PST - 35 comments

JPMorgan Is Taking Questions From Twitter And Getting Thoroughly Trolled [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 2:33 PM PST - 27 comments

"The McRib is like Holbein’s skull: we experience it as (quasi-)foodstuff, as marketing campaign, as cult object, as Internet meme, but those experiences don’t sufficiently explain it. To understand McRib fully, we have to look at the sandwich askew." By Ian Bogost (Previously). Also previously, The McRib as Arbitrage.
posted by codacorolla at 1:56 PM PST - 116 comments

In 1991, Your Family Could Make Its Own Star Trek Episode In the early ’90s, Universal Studios had the absolute genius idea to partner with Paramount Pictures to bring a green-screen experience to its Orlando, Florida theme park, in which Trekkies of all shapes and sizes could dress up, act out, and be inserted into a pre-filmed, Star Tours-esque episode of The Original Series. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:42 PM PST - 48 comments

Rolling Jubilee have spent just $400,000 to purchase $15 million of Americans' personal debt from banks before 'abolishing' it, freeing individuals from their bills.
Apart from The Guardian, HuffPo and Business Insider no one else seems very interested. Rolling Jubilee is a project of Strike Debt - slogan You are not a Loan. Previously - just on a year ago.
posted by adamvasco at 1:39 PM PST - 79 comments

A LIVING DEATH: Sentenced to die behind bars for what?
For 3,278 people, it was nonviolent offenses like stealing a $159 jacket or serving as a middleman in the sale of $10 of marijuana. An estimated 65% of them are Black. Many of them were struggling with mental illness, drug dependency or financial desperation when they committed their crimes. None of them will ever come home to their parents and children. And taxpayers are spending billions to keep them behind bars.

A LIVING DEATH: Life without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses (PDF)
posted by andoatnp at 1:31 PM PST - 31 comments

If you've like Jack, the Pumpkin King, and you've grown so tired of the same old thing, you know all the songs from the The Nightmare Before Christmas Soundtrack (YT Playlist), and you're done with the covers in the 2006 reissue bonus CD (featuring Fiona Apple, Fall Out Boy, She Wants Revenge and Panic! at the Disco) and the 2008 cover album, Nightmare Revisited (YT Playlist), why not check out the official translated versions? There's L'Étrange Noël de Monsieur Jack, Pesadilla Antes De Navidad, and ナイトメアー·ビフォア·クリスマス, to name a few versions. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 12:07 PM PST - 12 comments

Welcome to Dinovember. "Every year, my wife and I devote the month of November to convincing our children their plastic dinosaur figures come to life while they sleep." By Refe Tuma via Medium.
posted by sweetkid at 12:02 PM PST - 39 comments

The Most Senseless Environmental Crime of the 20th Century [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:53 AM PST - 41 comments

National Socialists with Cats
posted by Wordwoman at 10:11 AM PST - 61 comments

Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts. "This is what our lives are like, and here are our defense mechanisms, and here is why we think differently." (SLKinja) [more inside]
posted by Kybard at 9:45 AM PST - 276 comments

The Modern Farmer Pie Chart of Pies
posted by zarq at 9:31 AM PST - 40 comments

In 1984, the same year that Stop Making Sense was released, another meticulously crafted Talking Heads concert movie made its debut as well. Once in a Lifetime is a 69-minute piece of experimental television (originally broadcast on England's Channel 4) that Talking Heads fans (as well as those interested in mid-80s video montage stylings) will surely want to check out.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:19 AM PST - 8 comments

In 2007 (or maybe 2008, sources differ here), the Australian music game show Spicks and Specks asked its contestants to name the popular children's song that can be heard inside the all-time great 1981 Aussie anthem "Down Under" by Men at Work. None of the contestants identified the correct answer - "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree." (As a flavor - or flavour, I guess - of the show, here's Colin Hay of Men at Work on the show in 2008. He performs "Down Under" at the end.) [more inside]
posted by AgentRocket at 9:09 AM PST - 15 comments

Game Theory - it's not just for economists If you find yourself going on The Price is Right, you'll need this handy cheat sheet explaining how to win The Price Is Right—not just the Contestants' Row segment, but all of its many pricing games. This guide, which conveniently fits on the front and back of an 8.5-by-11-inch piece of paper, does not rely on the prices of items. Also see this
posted by 2manyusernames at 8:55 AM PST - 28 comments

A Man Has Trouble With His Security Questions - a sketch from The UCB show 'Small Men'
posted by The Whelk at 8:28 AM PST - 34 comments

Behold the trailer for The Visitor, which is now being re-released by Drafthouse Films. Co-financed by the notorious Film Ventures International, whose founder's whereabouts are currently unknown, this Italian-American co-production features John Huston, Shelley Winters, Sam Peckinpah, birds, Franco Nero, and Neal Boortz. It is also an amazing piece of work that has befuddled and delighted many.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:48 AM PST - 28 comments

What goes on in our minds when we see someone naked? A 2011 study [PDF] led by Kurt Gray revealed a curious fact about how people perceive other people when they take their clothes off: What emerged was that we see the capacity for feelings, whether pleasure or pain or happiness or anger, as distinct from the capacity for intellectual thought and planning. Namely, that we treat those we objectify as less intelligent, yet simultaneously we endow them with a greater ability to feel things.
posted by Cash4Lead at 6:34 AM PST - 49 comments

Prosperous Suzhou (20,353 × 546 pixel JPEG) is a 1757 scroll painting by Xu Yang illustrating the everyday life of the city, including more than 4,600 figures and 400 boats. It combines Western perspective with traditional Chinese style, and is currently on display at the Masterpieces of Chinese Painting exhibition at the London V&A.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:13 AM PST - 25 comments

"I felt the only way to make any progress with the project was to make a clay model to show Katayama-san, gain his support, and ask him, as the President of Nissan USA, to push for the model's development."

The Datsun 240-Z In The Styling Studio
Concept To Reality 1965 to 1968
posted by timshel at 3:06 AM PST - 29 comments

Adrian Belew has played with Frank Zappa, David Bowie, The Talking Heads and The Tom Tom Club - as well as having released many albums inependently. [more inside]
posted by vapidave at 12:19 AM PST - 38 comments

"There are six bookmakers, one more is on its way, and five loan shops. Even if you are on JSA you can borrow money from Speedy Cash. It's the main business around here.Take dole, turn it into weed, sell them, take your profits and put them into the machines. If you win, you are quids in. If you lose, you get cash from the money shops to cover your losses. Back to dole and buying drugs. There's nothing else around here to do." -- How betting machines help small time drug dealers launder their profits and how this is about the only economic activity keeping the poorest local economies in Britain going. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 11:34 PM PST - 55 comments

The Point! (1971) is the animated TV adaptation of singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson's fable about a boy named Oblio, the only round-headed person in the Pointed Village, where by law everyone and everything had to have a point. Despite his round head, Oblio has many friends. But an evil count, jealous that Oblio is more popular than his own son, says that without a pointed head, Oblio is an outlaw. Along with his faithful dog Arrow, Oblio is exiled to the Pointless Forest. There, he has many fantastic experiences (including encounters with a 3-headed man, giant bees, a tree in the leaf-selling business, and a good-humored old rock). From his adventures, Oblio learns that it is not at all necessary to be pointed to have a point in life. Directed by Fred Wolf and narrated by Ringo Starr, the film features all the original songs from Nilsson's album of the same name. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 9:29 PM PST - 41 comments

Just a few close races. [more inside]
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:13 PM PST - 31 comments

Composer Sir John Tavener has died. Most recently and popularly known for "Song for Athene," performed at the conclusion of Princess Diana's funeral, and for Funeral Canticle which was featured in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. His life and work was devoted to music as a search for deeply spiritual expression, having converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1977. In his last interview he discussed how he had begun to turn again to some of the Western music he'd previously shunned, and turned his spiritual thoughts to other traditions as well. (What he called the "supreme achievement" of his life, the eight hour long all-night vigil The Veil of the Temple contains Sufi, Buddhist and Hindu texts as well as Orthodox Christian.) [more inside]
posted by dnash at 6:55 PM PST - 28 comments

The Atlanta Braves have announced plan to move out of Atlanta to nearby Cobb County by 2017. The Marietta Daily Journal reports that a new $672 million stadium will be built just to the northwest of Atlanta. The announcement has left everyone "kind of stunned." [more inside]
posted by Panjandrum at 5:55 PM PST - 157 comments

30 for 30: The Space Jam Game.
posted by kmz at 5:38 PM PST - 15 comments

On the Lovecraftian Mode - Gord Sellar on why he writes lovecraftian fiction. Elizabeth Bear on the same question. I. N. J. Culbard on adapting Lovecraft.
posted by Artw at 3:28 PM PST - 22 comments

Allie Brosh, author of the widely-adored Hyperbole And A Half web comic, was interviewed by the inimitable Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air about her work, her new book, and her well-documented struggles with depression. (previously 1 2 3 4 5 6 8)
posted by shiu mai baby at 2:49 PM PST - 86 comments

Transition Game: America’s first publicly out transgender high school coach is opening minds in the conservative rural town of Glocester, R.I.
posted by yeoz at 2:46 PM PST - 19 comments

Like many, you might find TVTropes a little overwhelming. Understandable -- who has the time for 20,000+ pages of tropes? Fortunately the major tropes have now been organized into the Periodic Table of Storytelling.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:18 PM PST - 40 comments

Madison Kimrey is a rather exceptional 12-year-old girl whose speech protesting North Carolina's removal of a voting preregistration program for 16-and-17-year-olds has been making the rounds lately, thanks to Kimrey's intelligence and astonishing eloquence. Her blog, Functional Human Being, is similarly an engaging read, whether she's writing about Miley Cyrus, Daisy Coleman, or supporting the saner elements of the Republican party.
posted by Rory Marinich at 1:03 PM PST - 35 comments

“I have dropped stories in the past and avoided research on the company telephone due to concerns over wiretapping or eavesdropping.”
“I have made a conscious, deliberate choice to avoid certain conversation topics in electronic emails out of concern that those communications may be surveilled.” [PDF]
A survey by the literary organization PEN America shows the chilling effects NSA surveillance has had on writers in the United States.
posted by anemone of the state at 12:51 PM PST - 38 comments

"Basically, a guy who runs one of the stands called me over because I "looked like I would like rock 'n' roll"—and he was right. I don't know what was lost in translation, however. He obviously didn't know what he had. To tell the truth, I didn't either. I obviously knew it was the Stones, but it took about a week of looking them over to realize that this was really a very unique circumstance. After extensive research, I came to find that these are unpublished, never-before-seen photos of one of the most legendary bands in rock 'n' roll history. Not only that, they are beautifully composed, candid, raw and perfect in every way. They really convey a band innocent to their destiny." Lauren White, on her discovery and showing of 26 candid photos of the Rolling Stones, circa 1965.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:01 PM PST - 33 comments

Open Letter to Grandpa
posted by Wonton Cruelty at 10:59 AM PST - 17 comments

Why Japanese Web Design Is So… Different... If you've ever visited a Japanese website, it's a little like time traveling back to 1998. Randomwire explains some of the reasons why.
posted by SansPoint at 10:43 AM PST - 80 comments

"Explore your relationship with art as you guide bubsy through a realistic recreation of the James Turrell Retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After you have played Bubsy3d and understand art a little better, Arcane Kids encourages you to go visit an art museum in your area and quit video games." (Unity3D game) (flashing screen near the end) [more inside]
posted by hellojed at 10:37 AM PST - 14 comments

After several years out of the mainstream music scene Lily Allen returned last week covering Keane's "Somewhere only we know" in this year's John Lewis Christmas TV ad. However, today Lily released her latest video which is ... somewhat different in tone and nature. [more inside]
posted by Wordshore at 10:27 AM PST - 103 comments

Before the days of Roe v. Wade (and sometimes after) girls who got pregnant were sent away. Now one of the places that housed them is closing. [more inside]
posted by newrambler at 10:06 AM PST - 18 comments

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ruled today that its Height Committee has determined that One World Trade Center’s height to its architectural top is 1,776 feet (541.3 meters), which will eclipse Chicago's Sears "Willis Tower" as the tallest building in the western hemisphere. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:49 AM PST - 63 comments

"I want to see the world. Follow a map to its edges, and keep going. Forgo the plans. Trust my instincts. Let curiosity be my guide.
I want to change hemispheres and sleep with unfamiliar stars and let the journey unfold before me."
Maptia is on a mission to gather first-person stories from travelers, "to create the most inspirational map in the world." [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:28 AM PST - 3 comments

BioRxiv is a preprint server for biologists.
posted by dhruva at 9:12 AM PST - 10 comments

"There’s a dearth of rigorous coverage of the industry. The video game press, such as it is, remains mired in a culture of payola and ad revenue addiction, outside of a few outlets like Gamasutra. The one television station devoted to industry news, G4 (which has moved away from covering only video games), seemed committed to proving every gamer stereotype true, with an endless parade of uncritical corporate press releases punctuated only by sophomoric oral sex jokes. [...] All of which is a shame, because something in the industry is wrong. Here, as in few other places, we see the kind of exploitation normally associated with the industrial sector in creative work."
posted by postcommunism at 8:58 AM PST - 43 comments

What I think we forget–or worse, never even realized—is the extreme privilege often inherent in “digital literacy.” Yes, much of the Internet is free. But it takes time and energy to develop the skills and habits necessary to successfully derive value from today’s media. Knowing how to tell a troll from a serious thinker, spotting linkbait, understanding a meme, cross checking articles against each other, even posting a comment to disagree with something–these are skills. They might not feel like it, but they are. And they’re easier to acquire the higher your tax bracket. - The New Digital Divide: Privilege, Misinformation and Outright B.S. in Modern Media
posted by beisny at 8:48 AM PST - 36 comments

Is Vahid Brown An Agent Of The State, Or Are Portland Anarchists On A Witch Hunt? [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:33 AM PST - 64 comments

Reflections from a lawyer about her five years on a small tropical island. (SLHuffPo)
posted by mark7570 at 8:13 AM PST - 50 comments

"Psychologists Lisa Blackwell, Kali Trzesniewski, and Carol Dweck [found that] convincing students that they could make themselves smarter by hard work led them to work harder and get higher grades. The intervention had the biggest effect for students who started out believing intelligence was genetic."
posted by jeffburdges at 7:52 AM PST - 63 comments

The Howling Fat Men of the Coen Brothers (slyt & nsfw)
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:41 AM PST - 19 comments

"A generation ago, refusing these kinds of offers was a way for bands to telegraph where they stood, the sort of thing that showed their allegiance to the underground and their community... If someone in the independent-rock world thinks that this is bullshit, they should take a look at themselves. They’re doing the same thing; they’re writing albums that people stream 30 seconds of on fucking Pitchfork and then people are like, ‘Oh, I like your album.’”
posted by Kitteh at 7:37 AM PST - 97 comments

"In 1967, The Public Interest, then a leading venue for highbrow policy debate, published a provocative essay by Paul Baran, one of the fathers of the data transmission method known as packet switching [and agent of RAND]. Titled “The Future Computer Utility," the essay speculated that someday a few big, centralized computers would provide 'information processing … the same way one now buys electricity. Highly sensitive personal and important business information will be stored in many of the contemplated systems … At present, nothing more than trust—or, at best, a lack of technical sophistication—stands in the way of a would-be eavesdropper.' To read Baran’s essay (just one of the many on utility computing published at the time) is to realize that our contemporary privacy problem is not contemporary. It’s not just a consequence of Mark Zuckerberg’s selling his soul and our profiles to the NSA. The problem was recognized early on, and little was done about it... It’s not enough for a website to prompt us to decide who should see our data. Instead it should reawaken our own imaginations. Designed right, sites would not nudge citizens to either guard or share their private information but would reveal the hidden political dimensions to various acts of information sharing." -- MIT Technology Review on The Real Privacy Problem
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:34 AM PST - 17 comments

"The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push" The AP spent a year researching fuel ethanol from corn, and concludes that it's a bad idea: bad for the environment, bad for poor people, bad for everyone else. Not surprisingly, lobbyists for Big Corn have called it a hit piece and denounced it.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:29 AM PST - 50 comments

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About The Gender (Wage) Gap Some good and bad news from Time.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:47 AM PST - 22 comments

"Railway Mania was an economic bubble in the United Kingdom in the 1840s that involved a railroad development frenzy and a speculative bubble in the shares of railroad companies. ... [T]he British Railway Mania was the result of overexuberance toward the business prospects of a disruptive innovation; though railroads are now a part of everyday life, they were once every bit as revolutionary as the internet was when it was first introduced."
posted by frimble at 6:16 AM PST - 8 comments

Meet the Somalis is a series of short comics depicting the various experiences of fourteen Somali immigrants in cities across northern Europe.
posted by Dim Siawns at 2:31 AM PST - 21 comments

When taxidermy goes horribly wrong right. (SL Imgur set)
posted by ShutterBun at 1:47 AM PST - 39 comments

Craig Cobb is a white supremacist notorious for his plan to create a Whites-only enclave in Leith, North Dakota. Cobb's DNA was analysed for his appearance on The Trisha Goddard Show, with hilarious results. The episode will air on November 18th, but you can read more about it at the Daily Mail.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:05 AM PST - 87 comments

Fun video ("The story of two very illusive creatures almost interacting in the midst of the Swedish wilderness") for the song "You Make Me Real" by Rebekka Karijord from Oskar Wrangö. [Rebekka Karijord: personal site (w/autoplay music); Wiki page; on Grooveshark. Oskar Wrangö: site] [more inside]
posted by taz at 1:01 AM PST - 3 comments

In order to meet US Federal Aviation Administration’s and the European Aviation Safety Agency’s regulations, all aircraft with a seating capacity of 45 or more must demonstrate the ability to empty in under a minute and a half. For the Airbus A380 that meant 853 passengers and 20 crew members abandoning the craft in less time than it takes horses to run the Kentucky derby.

Link features SLYTs to both the Airbus A380 evacuation test and the Boeing 777 evacuation test. Bonus SLYT to evacuation slide deployment tests. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 9:45 PM PST - 48 comments

"I saw the conversation we were about to have like a long, familiar tunnel, and I turned around and walked away, done with riffing forever."
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 9:40 PM PST - 104 comments

In 2009, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, filmmaker Gilles Porte had children between the ages of 3 and 6, who have yet learn to read or write, and from around the world, draw themselves, without adult intervention, on a pane of glass. The result of which is this gallery of 80 self-portraits, that are in turn sweet, comical, and moving. At the end of each movie, the character drawn is animated and comes to life. (To play the movies, click on “voir” below each thumbnail image on the TV5 site.) [more inside]
posted by MelanieL at 8:21 PM PST - 3 comments

Stunning timelapse video of cities and countryside in China. (SL Vimeo)
posted by Wet Spot at 7:02 PM PST - 13 comments

Harder than it looks. Worth it.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 5:08 PM PST - 262 comments

Philadelphia police investigate online account which revealed court documents and witnesses [more inside]
posted by warm_planet at 4:11 PM PST - 26 comments

Harold Percival will not be missed. This. This is the power of the printed word, and the internet. If you only read one thing today, please read this.
posted by edmcbride at 3:17 PM PST - 49 comments

26 Women Share Their Abortion Stories
posted by yeoz at 2:30 PM PST - 36 comments

Singles' Day, or 光棍节, began as a joke holiday invented by some lonely Chinese college students, an anti-Valentine's Day on which singles could either revel in their singledom or double down on attempts to hook up. November 11th was chosen for the date because of a simple visual pun on the slang term for bachelor: a "bare stick," symbolized by the date 11/11. But in a few short years, this joke holiday has become the biggest retail sales day on Earth, surpassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. So, what do all the 'bare sticks' do on Singles' Day? It varies. Aside from eating four stick-shaped foods to symbolize the date, you could try one of these 11 ideas from Beijinger. Or watch this bizarre condom ad, featuring a compilation of animals having air sex.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:34 PM PST - 33 comments

What No One Tells You About Losing Lots of Weight. For at least some newly thin people, there’s a meta-dissatisfaction in feeling that significant weight loss has made life anything other than perfect: Any discomfort you may feel with your body is compounded by a sense of shame at not feeling unmitigated pride at a moment you expected to be triumphant. [more inside]
posted by Drinky Die at 1:18 PM PST - 178 comments

Thanksgiving in Mongolia. Ariel Levy writes a harrowing, heartbreaking story of her late pregnancy loss, adventure, and grieving.
posted by c'mon sea legs at 12:56 PM PST - 20 comments

Stakker Humanoid - How 25 years ago Future Sound of London brought Acid House to the mainstream.
posted by Artw at 12:37 PM PST - 39 comments

"It was as if, while Mark Zuckerberg was still in high school, Bowie was bracing for the 21st Century, the demand for everyone to “share” accessible versions of themselves. The self as a business card, to be distributed to anyone who asked for it. He also saw opportunity: on 1 September 1998, he launched BowieNet." Pushing Ahead Of The Dame (previously, previously) takes a look at David Bowie's late-90s, technophile projects and the future they foreshadowed - Omikron: The Nomad Soul (& BowieBanc & BowieNet)
posted by The Whelk at 11:58 AM PST - 30 comments

"What do you know about Rube Goldberg? This is how we do it -- Freestyle!"
posted by jason's_planet at 10:59 AM PST - 18 comments

The Eidophusikon, an early form of motion picture, is a theatrical technology developed by fine art painter and theatrical set designer Philip de Loutherbourg using sound, colored filters, mechanical works, light from newly invented Argand lamps, mirrors and more . It was first exhibited at his home in 1781, featuring five scenes of land and seascape. In recent years, recognition of this as an early chapter in cinema history has prompted several institutions to recreate the experience. Among the most successful is the 2005 storm at sea depicted in Eidophusikon Reimagined by the Australian National University.
posted by Miko at 10:26 AM PST - 4 comments

November 11 may be a day of sombre reflection in the rest of the world, the 95th anniversary of the end of the Great War, but in the Netherlands, as well as parts of Belgium, Germany and northern France, it's a holiday: Sint Maarten, the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours. This is traditionally the end of autumn and the start of winter, as well as the last day before the fasting period of Advent, enough of an excuse to sent the kids round the village waving paper lanterns, singing silly songs and begging for candy.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:52 AM PST - 16 comments

From Brad Neely comes a brand-new character and a brand-new rap: Queeblo, starring in Whopper and a Forty.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:34 AM PST - 33 comments

The Yellow Dogs was a NYC-based group of young expatriates who fled their native Iran for Williamsburg, Brooklyn in order to freely pursue their dream of playing rock music, saying what they wanted to say, and, well, having fun, which were three things they couldn't do back home. Three members of the band were found murdered today. A sad farewell to The Yellow Dogs. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:58 AM PST - 38 comments

To The Great God Pan

There is only one piece of film that shows Isadora Duncan dancing. It is four seconds long, the very end of a performance, and it is followed by eight seconds in which Duncan accepts applause. This small celluloid footprint – light-struck in the manner of Eugène Atget – contains quite a bit of information. It is an afternoon recital, early in the 20th century, and it takes place en plein air, trees in the background, like so much of the painting of the day. Duncan enters the frame turning, her arms positioned in an upward reach not unlike ballet’s codified fourth position, but more naturally placed. ... Because of her thrown back upper body it seems as if she is running, but she is actually slow and steady, offering herself to something so large she doesn’t need to move fast. The dance over, she stands simply and acknowledges her audience with a Christ-like proffering of her palms. In fact, her classical garb is as much that of the sandalled shepherd of men as it is a barefoot goddess of Greek mythology. ‘I have come,’ she once said, ‘to bring about a great renaissance of religion through the dance, to bring the knowledge of the beauty and holiness of the human body through its expression of movements.’ Thus spake Isadora.

[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:50 AM PST - 5 comments

The Myth of the Visionary Leader. "But just knowing that great leadership is not always going to look great, or even make us feel inspired, could help gird us against the power of big personality and encourage us to make more sober choices."
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:29 AM PST - 40 comments

Photographer Jenny Lewis' new project is One Day Young, portraits of mothers and their newborns.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:18 AM PST - 43 comments

A wacky turn-based game with delightful characters, cute graphics, and lots of room for strategy. Tutorial here.
posted by fix at 12:21 AM PST - 6 comments

Coal industry's go-to law firm withheld evidence of black lung, at expense of sick miners. "Jackson Kelly, documents show, over the years has withheld unfavorable evidence and shaped the opinions of its reviewing doctors by providing only what it wanted them to see. Miners, often lacking equally savvy lawyers or even any representation, had virtually no way of knowing this evidence existed, let alone the wherewithal to obtain it."
posted by jaduncan at 10:53 PM PST - 37 comments

CocoRosie performing live on May 27th at Bouffes Du Nord, Paris. (youtube link) [more inside]
posted by mannequito at 10:00 PM PST - 9 comments

Redditor sp07 started a Reddit trend: creating etymology maps of Europe, with more to be seen in r/etymologymaps.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:14 PM PST - 48 comments

An ending for Batman and the Joker.
posted by EatTheWeek at 5:16 PM PST - 104 comments

♪ Why do we always come here?
I guess we'll never know.
It's like a kind of torture
To have to watch the show! ♫
[more inside]
posted by zarq at 4:11 PM PST - 118 comments

The colorful Maasai Cricket Warriors
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:13 PM PST - 14 comments

Brian Eno and Grayson Perry in conversation
posted by thatwhichfalls at 2:07 PM PST - 18 comments

Everything Jonathan Franzen Currently Hates
posted by Sebmojo at 12:34 PM PST - 108 comments

What Is Missing? is artist and architect Maya Lin's (previously) last memorial, this one to vanishing species and habitats. [Via] [more inside]
posted by homunculus at 11:15 AM PST - 10 comments

If you haven't been able to find time to watch the recent 12.5-hour broadcast of Norway's National Knitting Evening (previously), Jimmy Kimmel has a 2-minute, 27-second piece on it that might be more your speed, and that features a bonus preview of a possible future "Norwegian Knitting Tour" reality show.
posted by orange swan at 10:06 AM PST - 19 comments

Last week, high school student Sasha Fleischman was set on fire while riding a city bus, most probably related to their gender presentation. Sasha identifies as agender and was wearing a skirt on the bus. A couple of lights in this appalling and sobering story are the solidarity rally held by Sasha's classmates, and the moving and compassionate letter from Sasha's father.
posted by latkes at 9:46 AM PST - 140 comments

Reluctant seal doesn't want to go into the water. (SLYT)
posted by theodolite at 8:05 AM PST - 56 comments

Qahera the hijabi superhero, in Arabic and English
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:10 AM PST - 45 comments

Miley's Lunch Box by The New Choobs is a lip-synched parody of Wrecking Ball and a deranged litany of the animals and foodstuffs Miley would like to eat.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:46 AM PST - 11 comments

"The phrase was first used by Arthur Mee in his King's England series in the 1930s. A Thankful Village, it was said, was one which lost no men in the Great War because all those who left to serve came home again. For example, in Yorkshire East Riding he says about Catwick, "Thirty men went from Catwick to the Great War and thirty came back, though one left an arm behind." It was also said that such villages have no war memorials - or that if they do, they are a thankful reminder of all who served. Any community which enjoyed this rare distinction must have been Thankful indeed, in an age when family and community life broken by war was the norm." -- From the Hellfire Corner research project on Thankful Villages [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 3:18 AM PST - 7 comments

Stone Nudes: photographs of naked women climbing mountains.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:44 AM PST - 99 comments

"I listen to Ira’s show on and off, because I think they do the best work there is in that form. But This American Life has inspired this proliferation of programs where people tell their stories, and I think it’s gotten—there’s too much of it. I find it annoying, because it’s very uneven. Now it just seems like everybody’s telling a story, and it’s beginning to sound narcissistic, and I’m thinking, Who gives a shit about your story? You’re just another person telling your story. How many do we need?" Joe Frank interviewed by Jonathan Goldstein for The Believer [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 8:56 PM PST - 68 comments

Pyret is a new programming language for teaching from Brown University that blends Python, Racket, and OCaml. [more inside]
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:49 PM PST - 132 comments

"Welcome to ‘Disaster Songs in Canada.’ This website serves as a vehicle to present the Canadian disaster songs that three academics have collected and are currently studying....Incidents in songs range across time, from the pre-confederation era, such as the New Brunswick blaze of 1825 (“The Miramichi Fire,” credited to John Jardine), to the 2009 Cougar helicopter crash off Newfoundland (“Fall into the Ocean,” by Mark Frost)." Come with me down the rabbit hole to the strains of songs about mine collapses, sinking ships, broken bridges, train wrecks, earthquakes, floods, and more. [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:42 PM PST - 42 comments

Tonight marks the 75th anniversary of the November Pogroms throughout Germany, known as Kristallnacht. @9Nov38 is live-tweeting the events of the night (in German.)
posted by muckster at 3:39 PM PST - 29 comments

Mighty Morphin Jaeger Pilots (SLYT)
posted by griphus at 3:37 PM PST - 19 comments

Brad DeLong, recently installed at Equitablog, lays out a future (wonkish) where the returns to capital keep increasing relative to labor: "What do we people do to add value? Eight things... [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 2:34 PM PST - 29 comments

My family lived on the southern edge of a certain Midwestern industrial city in an old house, old enough that its basement still had a dirt floor.

I was not yet old enough to openly question a parent's behavior, but certainly old enough to recognize its oddness, when my father began digging.
posted by Rory Marinich at 2:26 PM PST - 81 comments

"Let's say you have neighbors complaining about a drug house on the corner," he says. "They don't feel safe. It's a menace. Now, you could do a long investigation, culminating in a big raid. But in the meantime, the neighbors still have to live with the menace. Why not just send two uniformed cops to the house that same afternoon? They knock. They say, 'Hey. Knock it off.' The drug dealers pick up and leave. No guns drawn, no raid. Which approach will have a more immediate effect on the neighborhood?" - Salt Lake City police chief Chris Burbank's efforts to reform policing.
posted by Slap*Happy at 1:08 PM PST - 72 comments

If you've seen images of NASA, you've seen the work of Bill Ingalls, Project Manager and Senior Photographer for NASA Headquarters, who started out as an intern with NASA, and has worked now for the agency for 25 years. You can see a ton of images on the NASA HQ Photos account on Flickr (plus non-NASA photos on his personal Flickr account), and he even has a few short videos on Vimeo. You can read about NASA photographers, including Ingalls, and hear Bill talk about his work with NASA and photography in general in this 365 Days of Astronomy podcast (related: the super moon photo, and Neil deGrasse Tyson's response to the super moon hype).
posted by filthy light thief at 12:41 PM PST - 3 comments

Denis Forkas Kostromitin is a Russian artist that considers himself to be a modern symbolist painter (symbolism mentioned previously). The dark and dreamy quality of his work has lead him to be a frequent collaborator with metal musicians. Here he explains the process that led to the cover of Horseback's Half Blood and recently he was commissioned to create the cover of Polish blackened death metal stalwart, Behemoth's, new album, using lead singer Nergal's own blood.
posted by sendai sleep master at 10:05 AM PST - 6 comments

Redwood Saga (1946) — Once upon a time, how tiny lumberjacks with tools and muscle power fell the big ones.
posted by cenoxo at 8:53 AM PST - 61 comments

Combining famous historical paintings with images of 21st century technology, Art X Smart has transported them into another time. [more inside]
posted by Longtime Listener at 7:16 AM PST - 49 comments

100 years ago a storm on the Great Lakes sank dozens of ships I found it a riveting story. "It reads like the tale of the Titanic times a factor of at least a dozen. Freighters thought invulnerable to the weather cracked in two. Hundreds of sailors drowned. Sad farewell messages tucked inside glass bottles washed up on Lake Superior beaches. The “White Hurricane,” a cataclysmic storm which pounded Michigan 100 years ago this week, was quite simply the biggest, deadliest natural disaster ever to hit the Great Lakes. It’s also one of Michigan’s most epic tales. "
posted by leslies at 6:05 AM PST - 20 comments

Travel posters for imaginary destinations, from Ryhope Wood to the Dream Archipelo, with side jaunts to e.g. the end of the earth and the wreckage of the Nomad.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:17 AM PST - 22 comments

After a TED Talk demonstration and a successful Kickstarter, Backyard Brains plans to release a kit instructing kids to strap a miniature backpack to cockroaches and insert electrodes into its brain, allowing the cockroach to be controlled by a smartphone app. Some scientists are less than pleased with the ethics of the project.
posted by meowzilla at 11:38 PM PST - 128 comments

The universe of Game Of Thrones remixed with Mr.Men and Little Miss! One new character to discover each day.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:56 PM PST - 11 comments

Following the long-awaited replacement, which opened in September, the original east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is due to be demolished. However, before that happens, the California Highway patrol, along with MADD is inviting family and friends of those who have lost their lives in traffic crashes to visit the decommissioned original span and pay their respects at the site where their loved ones died. CHP will accompany family and friends out to the now-empty bridge span on Saturday morning so that perhaps a little closure can be gained. [more inside]
posted by otherwordlyglow at 4:06 PM PST - 33 comments

Get Data [SLYT]
posted by zennie at 3:09 PM PST - 36 comments

r/FullMovieGifs is a sub-reddit maintained by user matt01ss which is dedicated to compressing feature length movies to .gif format. The Fifth Element, Up, The Rock and many more. Via The AV Club.
posted by codacorolla at 3:00 PM PST - 76 comments

Dirtiest Book in the Canon: A new translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron. [Previously]
posted by homunculus at 3:00 PM PST - 22 comments

Between 1989 and 2003 journalist and UFO researcher Philip J. Klass published 76 volumes of his Skeptic's UFO Newsletter. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has posted them all (as pdfs) on their website. Klass died in 2005
posted by IvoShandor at 1:54 PM PST - 9 comments

The National Toy Hall of Fame has added its two latest inductees: the Rubber Duck and the game of Chess.
While featuring many interesting facts, the site does fail to mention Florentijn Hofman's giant rubber duck (featured multiple times here) or Tim Rice's "Chess" (seen here). [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:42 PM PST - 25 comments

They're Rad. They're Brown. They are Dads. They're Rad Brown Dads
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:21 PM PST - 20 comments

Inspired by a field game with foam swords, Killer Queen Arcade, a giant 10-player dual-sided arcade cabinet that premiered at NYU's No Quarter 2013 has been described as Half Joust, half StarCraft and one giant snail.
posted by guywithnoear at 1:07 PM PST - 13 comments

"A curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, / Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating." [more inside]
posted by mr. digits at 12:52 PM PST - 22 comments

At mile 10, local elite runner Mike Cassidy considered dropping out of the New York City Marathon; bolstered by the thought of his friends and family waiting for him at mile 16, he soldiered on, and just before mile 23, he caught up to Olympic silver medalist Meb Keflezighi. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:33 PM PST - 37 comments

"Perhaps, in some way, the suburbs encapsulate the British identity in a way that the cities don't any more – small dramas playing out beyond the stations without barriers, rather than the heavily policed, heavily funded bourgeois ghettos of the inner cities."
posted by mippy at 12:14 PM PST - 10 comments

Forward March (YouTube) is a silly little animated film, featuring four formal British military men and a furry fellow who emerges from the sewer. This short is one of the graduation pieces (Google auto-translate; original link) from the French arts school, ESMA (official French site). You can find more short animations on their YouTube and Vimeo accounts.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:53 AM PST - 5 comments

‘Gangster Party Line’: For Real Men Who Just Want To Talk Smack Are you lonely? Do you feel like talking smack? Do you just wanna talk to a hard gangster? Look no further. The ‘Gangsta Party Line‘ will fulfill all your needs. Hundreds of gangstas are waiting for your motherfucking call, and they’re all talking smack about you right now. The hardest niggas are standing by, waiting to answer your call. For only $4.99 a minute, you can talk to the hardest guys in the game.
posted by jcterminal at 11:49 AM PST - 48 comments

"In Advanced Readings in D&D, Tor.com writers Tim Callahan and Mordicai Knode take a look at Gary Gygax’s favorite authors and reread one per week, in an effort to explore the origins of Dungeons & Dragons and see which of these sometimes-famous, sometimes-obscure authors are worth rereading today." [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 10:32 AM PST - 42 comments

László Krasznahorkai's most recently translated book, Seiobo There Below, whose first chapter can be read online, is a collection of interconnected stories about art and revelation, stories composed almost entirely of pages-long sentences, "long, sinewy sentences," sentences which might make you think "Krasznahorkai holds the run-on in a suffocating bear hug," as Adam Z. Levy has it, sentences which other critics call "captivating", "vertiginous", "apparently endless [...] like diving deep underwater, with no hope of coming up for air, or like releasing the brakes on a bicycle at the top of a steep hill", but those sentences, which go on for pages as they shift scenes and perspectives, serve as vehicles for a terrifying aesthetic bliss or bewilderment [more inside]
posted by RogerB at 10:25 AM PST - 6 comments

CBS News/60 Minutes Have apologized for their interview of 10/27/13 in which Benghazi security Supervisor Dylan Davies said he was inside the Benghazi Consulate the night of the attacks. 2 Senior Government officials have confirmed the existence of a report in which Davies tells the FBI he was never there. Benghazi critics who were crowing about the interview earlier in the week are now strangely silent.
posted by Xurando at 9:55 AM PST - 115 comments

Double is the ultimate tool for telecommuting. From anywhere in the world, you have a physical presence in the office and can speak to co-workers at anytime. Double is a remotely controlled, mobile teleconferencing system, enabling conversations to happen anywhere and anytime.
posted by andoatnp at 9:45 AM PST - 71 comments

There are a few ways to end up on Hart Island. One third of its inhabitants are infants—some parents couldn’t afford a burial, others didn’t realize what a “city burial” meant when they checked it on the form. Many of the dead here were homeless, while others were simply unclaimed; if your body remains at the city morgue for more than two weeks, you, too, will be sent for burial by a team of prisoners on Hart Island.
posted by anastasiav at 9:26 AM PST - 26 comments

Tiny puppies napping on tiny couches! (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by elizardbits at 9:15 AM PST - 39 comments

The last remnants of the old LLC are being swept away forever. Nathan Rabin over at The Dissolve offers his own personal requiem to the store. And because moving on is part of the healing process, movie fans should prepare themselves for some final liquidation sales.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:46 AM PST - 77 comments

Super-Typhoon Haiyan has struck the Philippines. It is the fourth strongest hurricane in recorded history and has the highest wind speed of any hurricane at landfall.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:15 AM PST - 50 comments

Joey Manley, founder of Modern Tales and its spinoff sites (Serializer, Graphic Smash and Girlamatic) has passed away. Manley's vision of comics as something that could provide a sustainable business model to creators didn't pan out in the long term, but did launch and/or promote the online comics careers of a number of creators, including Justin (Wonderella) Pierce, James (American Elf) Kolchaka, Roger (Fred the Clown) Langridge, Shaenon (Narbonic) Garrity, Gene (American Born Chinese) Yang, Alexander (Panel One) Danner and many more. [more inside]
posted by Shepherd at 6:33 AM PST - 19 comments

Yoko Ono's new single Bad Dancer has a video which involves Ira Glass, Questlove, Ira Glass, and other cool people dancing, well, poorly.
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:12 AM PST - 44 comments

Blonde hair, skimpy skirt, big blue eyes. Yup, it's ... INTERNET EXPLORER — Get ready for Inori, the 'personification of IE'. Microsoft launches ad campaign in Singapore featuring a new Internet Explorer 11 mascot (mildly NSFW anime, not hentai).
posted by cenoxo at 3:14 AM PST - 93 comments

...to leave a smile on your face, by Helder Guimarães: Individual vs Crowd | Chaos | Freedom | Trick [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:00 AM PST - 12 comments

"By figuratively sticking her foot in America’s front door and keeping it wedged there long enough for an anonymous band of war-tossed Mongols to navigate around daunting racial barriers, Countess Tolstoy not only became the architect of the Mongol “invasion” of New Jersey and the country’s first ethnic Mongolian community, she also served as the midwife for the birth of Tibetan Buddhism in America." -- tells the amazing story of how a small band of Kalmyk Mongols (all WWII Wehrmacht veterans) established Tibetan Buddhism in America, as told by David Urubshurow, who was one of them. Featuring Leo Tolstoy's youngest daughter, Cold War CIA and Ivy League intrigues, how the Dalai Lama came to America and why this was only possible under president Carter and more.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:06 AM PST - 15 comments

on "You're the Expert" [via mefi projects] a podcast featuring academics interviewed about their specialty areas by comedians in front of a live audience. [more inside]
posted by chapps at 11:51 PM PST - 17 comments

Cheb i Sabbah's family has announced his passing at the age of 66. His unique world music creations have been cherished by dancers, trancers, and thinkers alike for decades. [more inside]
posted by batmonkey at 10:12 PM PST - 26 comments

The Story Behind Why AOL CEO Tim Armstrong Fired An Employee In Front Of 1,000 Coworkers
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:10 PM PST - 123 comments

The Best Of All Possible Worlds - "A public art contest in Evansville, Indiana becomes a debate over race, class, and good taste." [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:13 PM PST - 25 comments

Badass Digest reports on the next step in Marvel's ongoing cross-platform adaptation of their comic book properties to video media. Another example is that ABC's "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." will apparently crossover with both the new Captain America and Thor movies, the later of which has also garnered some positive coverage from Badass for reasons other than the crazy aggressive experimental delivery plan.
posted by Ipsifendus at 5:26 PM PST - 226 comments

Instructions:

1. Cook batches of meth
2. Sell meth
3. Buy stuff with your drug money

posted by no regrets, coyote at 4:35 PM PST - 184 comments

"There’s never been an America, but rather several Americas—each a distinct nation. There are eleven nations today. Each looks at violence, as well as everything else, in its own way." " [more inside]
posted by aka burlap at 4:28 PM PST - 81 comments

Sylvia Plath’s Unseen Drawings, Edited by Her Daughter and Illuminated in Her Private Letters
posted by brundlefly at 3:17 PM PST - 4 comments

Before They Pass Away: Powerful Portraits of Secluded Cultures on the Brink of Extinction. Q&A with Jimmy Nelson.
posted by homunculus at 2:30 PM PST - 47 comments

THE HEIGHT OF GOTH: 1984: futuristic + way out young people [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 1:58 PM PST - 115 comments

BBC Radio 4's 'The Film Programme' talks to George A Romero. 'Forty five years after the release of genre-defining Night of the Living Dead, Francine Stock talks to the director George A Romero about inventing the undead zombie and where he might unearth horror in contemporary society. Plus why he doesn't rate Stanley Kubrick as a horror director.' [SL BBC Radio 4 episode] [more inside]
posted by Celsius1414 at 1:36 PM PST - 15 comments

"Resources that should be going to empower LGBT voices are instead going to enhance the visibility of straight people. We've created professional allies (or, as the history major in me would call them, mercenaries). We've created famous allies. Think of how absurd that concept is. I have a public presence because I treat gay people with respect." - Patrick Burke of You Can Play writes for OutSports about the role of LGBT allies and his decision to step aside to let former NFL player Wade Davis, who came out in 2012, become executive director
posted by Copronymus at 12:58 PM PST - 12 comments

Happy feet! WOMBO COMBO! That ain't Falco! WHERE YOU AT?!
posted by Evernix at 12:35 PM PST - 14 comments

By a vote of 64-32. the United States Senate has passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Full passage of ENDA would make it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. It is already illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age or disability. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:26 PM PST - 88 comments

The Seeburg 1000 was a phonograph designed and built by the Seeburg Corporation to play background music in offices, restaurants, retail businesses, factories and similar locations, cycling through a stack of non-standard 16-2/3 RPM vinyl records provided by Seeburg in one of three different libraries of music: Basic, Mood and Industrial*.
And now, it has its own Internet Radio Station!
*in the 1960s, that meant "medium-fast tempo music of a lively nature, to induce workers to be more productive."
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:05 PM PST - 51 comments

A son kills a father and the question is why. In the case of 10-year-old Joseph Hall, the answer seemed simple: The boy had been raised around hate."

Amy Wallace digs into a case of a young boy who killed his Neo-Nazi father: "A Very Dangerous Boy"
posted by lunasol at 12:00 PM PST - 21 comments

Attenborrowed. SLVimeo. David Attenborough narrates the now-infamous Miley Cyrus/Robin Thicke "twerking" performance.
posted by raihan_ at 11:28 AM PST - 19 comments

Should software makers be held financially liable for the insecurity of their products? "The joke goes that only two industries refer to their customers as “users.” But here's the real punch line: Drug users and software users are about equally likely to recover damages for whatever harms those wares cause them." [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 10:31 AM PST - 90 comments

You might know that today is the birthday of Marie Curie. You might not know that it's also the birthday of the physicist Einstein called "Our Marie Curie." Although the birth register lists her birth date as November 17, 1878, Lise Meitner observed her birthday as November 7th. Her work with Otto Hahn in discovering nuclear fission led to him receiving the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The omission of Meitner's contribution, largely due to the political climate of World War II, is considered one of the most famous snubs in Nobel history. Their collaboration was portrayed in NOVA docudrama Einstein's Big Idea (video starts at her introduction). She also discovered the Auger effect a year before its namesake. Element 109, meitnerium, was named in her honor. The first chapter of Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, a biography written by Ruth Lewin Sime, is available here. As always, there is a relevant XKCD.
posted by MaritaCov at 10:28 AM PST - 10 comments

Ladies and Gentlemen, please feast your eyes on this year's Miss Universe National Costume Competition. Feathers, fans, drums, giraffes, a gecko, a bicycle, a windmill, a baby doll, Optimus Prime and—shockingly—at least one lovely dress were all on display. Previously. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 10:21 AM PST - 115 comments

An Ex-Cop's Guide to Not Getting Arrested (single link Atlantic Cities)
posted by bearwife at 9:50 AM PST - 108 comments

"I am an atheist and a Quaker."
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:07 AM PST - 79 comments

A recent strain of malware called Cryptolocker (technical description from BleepingComputer) has been infecting computers across the Internet. It's of the Ransomware (wiki) genre of attack, and searches a computer's drive for critical files by browsing their extensions (for example, focusing on word processing documents, images and music) and encrypts them with its own key that you can then buy back from the hacker for a fee of $100 to $300 dollars payable in Bitcoins. More information about the virus and how to avoid it is available at Krebs On Security, and the Malwarebytes Blog, with more recent developments on Naked Security.
posted by codacorolla at 8:29 AM PST - 169 comments

Occurring once before in 1888 and possibly not again for another 77,798 years (really), the two holidays of Chanukah and Thanksgiving will overlap. The result? Chefs, food blogs, and nearly everybody else scrambling to create distinct fusion menus that draw from the delicious traditions of each holiday (NYT). Buzzfeed's massive Thanksgivukkah menu. Gothamist: Four Easy Fusion Dishes. Food 52's recipe challenge (in comments). Serious Eats' response ( Latke-Crusted Turkey Stuffing Fritters With Liquid Cranberry Core and Turkey Schmaltz Gravy) . NY Daily News asks Chef Zach Kutsher for ideas.
posted by The Whelk at 8:16 AM PST - 59 comments

Mickey, Goofy and Donald go out for drinks.
posted by dortmunder at 8:07 AM PST - 45 comments

Why H is the most contentious letter in the alphabet is a quick overview of the letter H. Though the visual form of the letter has been pretty stable in Medieval writing, it's the pronunciation of the letter that has caused issues, from Catullus' poem mocking Arrius's addition of H's to words, to the Irish clash of Protestants and Catholics including how each group pronounced H. Such regional and generational shifts in pronunciation were of interest to the British Library, as documented in their Evolving English exhibit, which includes an online "mapped" catalog of sound clips (previously).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:06 AM PST - 33 comments

'I like the rhythm and intent of "pathetic prehistoric rage-filled inbred assclown," but that's a lot to ask of a hashtag.' Joss Whedon talks about the word feminist at an Equality Now dinner.
posted by billiebee at 8:06 AM PST - 160 comments

Dream Battle note count: 272789. What Does the Fox Say? note count 1.1 million. Bad Apple note count: 4.6 million. "Fujiwara no Mokou's theme" note count: 21100000+. It's The Impossible Music of Black MIDI where there is no such thing as Too Many Notes.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:25 AM PST - 28 comments

The original storyboard to the title sequence (previously) of Batman: The Animated Series (previously)
posted by griphus at 7:03 AM PST - 9 comments

Stefan Haustein's Timeline pulls timelines from Wikipedia, parses them and puts them into a coherent zoomable view.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:44 AM PST - 11 comments

These animations of famous paintings are freaking hilarious.
posted by crossoverman at 2:55 AM PST - 36 comments

Theoretically sound model for metallic carbon found. Researchers from Peking University, Virginia Commonwealth University and Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics employed state-of-the-art theoretical methods to show that it is possible to manipulate carbon to form a three-dimensional metallic phase with interlocking hexagons. “Unlike high-pressure techniques that require three terapascals of pressure to make carbon metallic, the studied structures are stable at ambient conditions and may be synthesized using benzene or polyacenes molecules." The new metallic carbon structures may have important applications in lightweight metals for space applications, catalysis and in devices showing negative differential resistance or superconductivity. The research is supported by grants from China and the US Department of Energy.
posted by markkraft at 1:10 AM PST - 23 comments

"I might be the only person who’s experienced both Wigan and, say the Taksim Square occupation in Istanbul this year, so this is hard to verify: but I think these very different atmospheres shared something in common. There was something overtly rebellious and subconsciously political about Wigan. Like with a riot, or an occupation, you could tell immediately, through eye contact, who was feeling the buzz.
What we were doing, back then, was rewriting the rules of being white and working class. We knew exactly what it meant to dance to black music in the era of the National Front and the racist standup comedian. Ours was a rebellion against pub culture, shit music and leery sexist nightclubs. Our weapon was obscure vinyl, made by black kids nobody had ever heard of." -- Paul Mason describes the importance of Northern Soul. [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 12:09 AM PST - 24 comments

2013 Science Journalism Award winners from the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

• Large Newspaper: Deep Trouble, about invasive Asian Carp, sewage, the Chicago River and Lake Michigan
• Small Newspaper: Warning: Quake in 60 Seconds, about why California doesn't have a decent early warning system for earthquakes
• Magazine: Attack of the Mutant Pupfish, about genetic integrity vs. genetic restoration in the fight to preserve endangered species
• Television (20 minutes or less): NOVA's profile of computer scientist Adrien Treuille and Foldit, a crowd-sourced protein-folding game
• Television (more than 20 minutes): Smithsonian Channel: Killer in the Caves, about bats and the deadly white-nose fungus
• Radio: NPR and The Center for Public Integrity - As Mine Protections Fail, Black Lung Cases Surge and Black-Lung Rule Loopholes Leave Miners Vulnerable
• Online: An environmental scandal that’s happening right underneath your feet, about the hidden cost of natural gas leaks in pipelines underneath cities
• Children's Science News: Cold Water Corals: Paradise on the Seabed [pdf]

[via Romenesko] [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 9:30 PM PST - 4 comments

"We pressed up Infinite. We might have pressed up maybe five hundred, a thousand records tops. We couldn’t give them away. Nobody was feeling it. We don't know why. Then Marshall, I think he was sitting on the toilet making a poop, and he came up with the alter ego. He came into the studio, talking about this alter ego that he has now."
An interview with Jeff Bass, who, along with his brother Mark, produced and co-wrote Eminem's first two albums (plus Lose Yourself from the 8 Mile soundtrack).
[more inside]
posted by mannequito at 8:50 PM PST - 25 comments

The Queenslander, April 4, 1898: "Mr. Clement K. Shorter, asked by 'The Bookman' to write out a list of 100 of the best novels in the English language, supplied the following list, naming only one book of each author, and giving the date of publication :--" [Via.] [more inside]
posted by Monsieur Caution at 8:50 PM PST - 57 comments

In 1879, a French gynecologist / knee expert suggested that a tiny but very important body part existed. No one seemed to be in any hurry to test his hypothesis, although there was some desultory interest shown in the 1970s and 2000s. This Tuesday, two Belgian researchers (Steven Claes and Johan Bellemans) confirmed that the anterolateral ligament (ALL) exists and that about 97% of us have it. (Press release; abstract.) "The doctors wanted to know why some patients with ACL tears suffered from pivot shifts, or knee collapses, even after successful reconstructive surgeries. ... Patients with ACL tears were likely suffering knee collapses because of ALL injuries." [more inside]
posted by maudlin at 8:34 PM PST - 15 comments

Despite the cries of "Save the Mimolette!", the FDA has decided to ban the sale of the French cheese Mimolette over mites used in the rind. [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 8:03 PM PST - 50 comments

Wired takes a look at the Steam box.
posted by Sebmojo at 7:08 PM PST - 173 comments

Rewarding friendly hackers who contribute to a more secure internet. "We've selected some of the most important software that supports the internet stack, and we want you to hack it. If the public is demonstrably safer as a result of your contribution to internet security, we'd like to be the first to recognize your work and say "thanks" by sending some cash to you or your favorite non-profit." This is a full disclosure bug bounty program, and all vulnerability reports will eventually be made public. Also featuring an Allie Brosh logo for The Internet.
posted by destrius at 6:45 PM PST - 15 comments

For those of us who remember, it's hard to believe that the "Morton Downey Jr." show (and consequently the height of Downey's stardom) lasted just two years. A new documentary has attempted to fill in the blanks of his life before and after that very brief celebrity. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:41 PM PST - 27 comments

On October 30th, it was reported that NFL offensive tackle Jonathan Martin walked out of the Miami Dolphins' facility after a cafeteria prank. It was subsequently reported that Martin had been subjected to bullying by his teammate Richie Incognito, long considered to be one of the NFL's dirtiest players. Though the incident was initially thought to be a product of rookie hazing gone haywire (resulting in, among other things, Dolphins rookies footing thousand dollar bills at strip clubs), the backstory turned out to be far more serious. Incognito allegedly sent Martin threatening and racially charged text messages and voice mails. The revelation kicked off a flurry of discussion about bullying in the NFL workplace. While many pundits and ex-players supported Martin, others blasted him for violating the "NFL Code." Incognito was then suspended for conduct detrimental to the team, while claiming that the truth would come out. Several days later, it was reported that Incognito had been asked by the Dolphins' to "toughen Martin up" because Martin, a Stanford grad, was considered by some in the NFL to be "soft", a characterization which disappointed some ex-teammates. So what has been the reaction from the Dolphins' locker room? In recent days, a number of teammates have vocalized their support for Incognito. Some defended his use of the n-word by claiming he was honorary which prompted a rebuttal from Deadspin.
posted by nathancaswell at 6:40 PM PST - 97 comments

"Hardly anyone at the time would have believed that I would still be here today." Christiane Felscherinow, better known as Christiane F., has published Mein Zweites Leben (My Second Life), the follow-up to her (in)famous autobiography, which was originally published when she was 17. Christiane's story became a sensation in Germany and a cult classic around the world (as well as the basis for a cult film, with a soundtrack by David Bowie), and has recently been republished in America in a new translation. (Previously)
posted by scody at 3:56 PM PST - 13 comments

The A-Team Killings
"Last spring, the remains of 10 missing Afghan villagers were dug up outside a U.S. Special Forces base – was it a war crime or just another episode in a very dirty war?"
posted by andoatnp at 3:10 PM PST - 15 comments

Researchers using eye-tracking technology found that 3-year-olds diagnosed with autism looked less at people’s eyes when they were babies than children who did not develop autism. But contrary to what the researchers expected, the difference was not apparent at birth. It emerged when babies were 2 to 6 months old, and autism experts said that may suggest a window during which the progression toward autism can be halted or slowed. Article in the NYT. Also SciAm, etc. Reduced eye contact for autistic babies has been documented previously (e.g.), but this study captures the exact window of the decline. [more inside]
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:06 PM PST - 22 comments

"[Walmart]'s policy of allowing overnight stays in their parking lots is intended to boost sales, but has the tangential effect of creating a subculture around its locations... The two separate Walmart parking lots in Flagstaff, Arizona are specifically known for their long-term residents, and this past summer photographer Nolan Conway spent several days making a series of portraits of both the overnighters and the people who call these asphalt grids a temporary home."

Waking Up At Walmart (via)
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:12 PM PST - 88 comments

Stalin's Story, by Victor Gijsbers, is a game combining Vladimir Propp's folktale archetypes with totalitarian manipulation. One player assumes the role of Stalin, and with it the power to dictate the rules and order executions; other players are either actors trying to beguile him with a traditional rustic tale or courtiers trying to twist the tale's elements to their rivals' discredit. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 12:43 PM PST - 13 comments

A website by Luke Taylor has all you ever needed to know about the London pigeon.
posted by 0 answers at 12:21 PM PST - 25 comments

Skydivers' planes collide. Everybody survives. More footage and interviews.
posted by kmz at 11:40 AM PST - 37 comments

In Canada, poppy pins are worn for the two weeks before November 11, Remembrance Day. The pins, inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields, commemorate Canadian soldiers who have died in war (any war), and are distributed by the Royal Canadian Legion in exchange for small donations.

There has been some discomfort with the pins in recent years, however, with activist groups claiming that they contribute to the glorification of war. The Rideau Institute has now started distributing white poppies symbolizing peace. Veterans are not pleased, and some are pointing out that the red poppy already symbolizes peace.
posted by 256 at 11:03 AM PST - 123 comments

Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned by polonium, like Russian Litvinenko before him.
posted by mgrrl at 10:55 AM PST - 88 comments

Woody Allen Making Love: a supercut
posted by timshel at 10:54 AM PST - 27 comments

Ringo, the TV Special, 1978.

With guest stars Art Carney, Angie Dickinson, Mike Douglas, Carrie Fisher, John Ritter, and George Harrison.

I shit you not.
posted by timsteil at 10:41 AM PST - 40 comments

I felt like we were intruding on Mr C. As if we’d interrupt him at work on a new manuscript. The housekeeper spoke not a word of English, but led us into his office... and then left. Michelle and I were there, alone. This was no museum. This was no shrine. This was Arthur C. Fucking Clarke’s office. His office with everything.
posted by Artw at 10:05 AM PST - 18 comments

Does the long-running reality TV program Survivor have a sexism problem? A few weeks back (Mefi's Own) Linda Holmes published "The Tribe Has Broken: How Sexism is Silently Killing 'Survivor'" in response to a controversial episode where a male contestant was soundly ridiculed by host Jeff Probst for following a suggestion made by his wife ("Does she tell you what to do all the time?"), while a female contestant who followed a much more direct command from her husband did not receive similar teasing. Over the weekend, Holmes joined former Survivor contestants Rob Cesternino and Stephen Fishbach on Cesternino's Robhasapodcast show for a lively discussion of this topic (runs just over an hour).
posted by The Gooch at 9:45 AM PST - 88 comments

A 30 for 30 short tells the story of the husband and wife team who created MLB's schedule every year for two decades, using only pencil and paper.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:27 AM PST - 8 comments

The Nazi Anatomists. "How the corpses of Hitler's victims are still haunting modern science—and American abortion politics."
posted by zarq at 8:19 AM PST - 27 comments

String Theory is a character-driven serialized comic book published on the web and written/illustrated by Dirk Grundy (Twitter cat feed). Following the adventures of grumpy, socially inept super scientist Dr. Herville Schtein, it is set in an alternate timeline where "the Cuban missile crisis went terribly wrong," the Cold War never ended, super scientists and super powered individuals run amok, the American Southwest is an irradiated postnuclear desert, "America...is not doing so well," and Chicago... Let's not talk about Chicago. It is about failure and families and how we all kind of mess each other up a little, but only because we care. It's kind of sad. But also kind of funny. Think Venture Brothers with the satire and comedy turned down, and the characterization and plotting turned up. Oh! There is also a very cute talking cat, if that helps sell it for you. [more inside]
posted by byanyothername at 8:16 AM PST - 12 comments

Mary Hastings Bradley (1882 – 1976) was a writer from a young age (Google books), publishing articles as early as high school. She was also a traveler and explorer, bringing back views of the wider world to American readers, first with The Palace of Darkened Windows and The Fortieth Door, both inspired by her trip to Egypt, where she took note of the purdah system of the veiled and secluded women. These books were made into movies in 1920 and 1924, respectively. After marrying Herbert Edwin Bradley, a lawyer and big game hunter, traveler and explorer, she traveled to Africa with her husband and other explorers, and the couple later took their daughter, Alice. Mary wrote stories from these experiences, including stories about Alice's adventures, providing the literary debut for her daughter, who would later take up the nom de plume of James Tiptree, Jr., in part as an effort to move out of the shadow cast by her mother. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 8:01 AM PST - 5 comments

According to an article in the South China Morning Post, "fog" in Northern China is so bad that the government is finding it interferes with surveillance cameras. (via Quartz.com and mefi's own @ftrain)
posted by maryr at 7:32 AM PST - 33 comments

Vocaloid producers Hitoshizuku x Yama△ (previously on meta) have just released a new song/video: Phantom Thief F's Scenario ~Mystery of the Missing Diamond~. Can you figure out who the culprit is? [more inside]
posted by anthy at 7:23 AM PST - 1 comment

Hitbox Team (creators of DustForce) (previously) explore designing game narrative.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:31 AM PST - 25 comments

Say It With Sea Otters is a blog where adorable cartoon animals deliver difficult messages. Here are some examples: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. While the sea otter has a well deserved reputation for extreme cuteness, these aquatic weasels engage in behavior that to humans seems truly reprehensible. Of course, we humans haven't exactly treated them well throughout history. Indeed, the first scientist to describe them, George Wilhelm Steller, emphasized their valuable fur in his description of them.
posted by Kattullus at 5:41 AM PST - 59 comments

"At the height of World War II, [Elizabeth] Black abandoned a promising Pittsburgh art career to join the American Red Cross effort overseas. She proposed a project to sketch soldiers and send the portraits to worried families in the United States. For two years, she sketched her way across Europe, choosing her subjects through a lottery and completing as many as a dozen portraits a day." A footlocker full of her work was discovered recently by family members, and is now the subject of a documentary, “Portraits for the Homefront: The Story of Elizabeth Black.” [more inside]
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:27 AM PST - 6 comments

Mike Tanier of Sports on Earth discusses poorly designed sports team logos throughout history.
posted by reenum at 5:11 AM PST - 55 comments

Sir Elvis is his stage name, but his real name is Elvis Otieno, and he may be the most successful country musician in Kenya. That's partly because Kenya doesn't have many country musicians. [more inside]
posted by jquinby at 4:37 AM PST - 10 comments

Cinemas in Sweden are introducing a new rating to highlight gender bias, or rather the absence of it. Bio Rio is one of four Swedish cinemas that launched the new rating last month to draw attention to how few movies pass the Bechdel test. Most filmgoers have reacted positively to the initiative. "For some people it has been an eye-opener," said Tejle. [...]For some, though, Sweden's focus on gender equality has gone too far.
posted by AlienGrace at 3:17 AM PST - 46 comments

Dr Bruce Ames, a toxicologist and one of the world's most cited scientists, discusses the impact of his Ames test, "toxic chemicals," and scaremongering [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 3:06 AM PST - 22 comments

From 1949 onwards, the closed city of Semipalatinsk (now Semey, Kazakhstan) was the test site for 456 nuclear devices. The test site was known as "The Polygon." Testing was stopped in 1989, but the long term effects remained. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:46 AM PST - 11 comments

Starlogged is a "celebration" of all things British and geeky, with a focus on 1972 - 1995 and Marvel UK, especially their early nineties attempt at creating their own superhero line. A true nostalgiafest for people raised on dodgy black and white reprints of American comics and hardcover annuals.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:55 PM PST - 8 comments