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A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Balasmic vinegar warehouse "Watch me turn balsamic vinegar and borderline road rage into Truffles." How one guy accidently made the best ever wedding anniversary meal.
posted by Man_in_staysis at 11:12 PM PST - 34 comments

Get away from it all. [more inside]
posted by phrontist at 11:01 PM PST - 9 comments

Crap Detection 101 Howard Rheingold offers a fairly in-depth primer on media and internet BS detection. Lots of links to resources for enabling critical analysis of various information sources included.
posted by telstar at 10:29 PM PST - 17 comments

The Toughest Canada Day Quiz Ever. In honour of Canada Day, one tough quiz from the magazine that told us how much the Internet sucks.
posted by GuyZero at 10:26 PM PST - 49 comments

Mr Squiggle, the Man from 93 Crater Crescent, the Moon, turns 50 today. Created by cartoonist and puppeteer Norman Hetherington, who would take children's scribbles and then craft it into a drawing, Mr Squiggle, along with friends Gus the Snail, Bill the Steam Shovel and the ever grumpy Blackboard (whom Mr Squiggle would use as an easel, being told to "Hu-rry u-p, hu-rry u-p" as he did) has been something of an institution for generations of Australian kids. Relive some of the magic...
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:28 PM PST - 17 comments

Nothing to Hide. Air New Zealand has introduced new ads and an in-flight safety video which uses body-painted uniforms to ... get your attention. SFW due to strategically placed drink carts, seatbelts and camera angles.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 6:29 PM PST - 54 comments

The surgery to give Mr Dapple the wings of a crow was scheduled to take twelve minutes...
posted by homunculus at 6:23 PM PST - 23 comments

It is fitting that today’s deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq’s cities coincides with a meeting in Baghdad to auction off some of the country’s largest oil fields to companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum. It is a reminder of the real motives for the 2003 invasion and in whose interests over one million Iraqis and 4,634 American and other Western troops have been killed. However, today's bidding was not the bonanza that was expected. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 6:15 PM PST - 43 comments

Vanity Fair recently published "It Came From Wasilla", Todd Purdum's lengthy profile piece about Sarah Palin, her involvement with and the inside workings of the McCain campaign, and her political future. [more inside]
posted by Weebot at 5:07 PM PST - 228 comments

Telstar: A film about the genius Joe Meek, had a fittingly interesting route to the screen. [previously]
posted by sam and rufus at 4:30 PM PST - 10 comments

You may know it as acetaminophen, paracetamol, APAP, or ... Tylenol. Today an FDA advisory panel recommended banning prescription drugs that contain acetaminophen, such as vicodin and percocet. The panel of experts also voted to give acetaminophen a black box warning, and reduce the maximum dosage of over-the-counter formulations. Acetaminophen is a popular painkiller by itself and, in combination with opiates, is the most commonly prescribed medication in the US. [more inside]
posted by borborygmi at 3:26 PM PST - 117 comments

"We were having dinner about four months ago and I was showing Clelia some pictures I'd taken in the air, and she said, 'Oh, that's so beautiful. I want to do that,'" Ben said. Easier said than done when you're 95. [more inside]
posted by emelenjr at 3:10 PM PST - 9 comments

Canning makes a comeback. Is it just another foodie trend? Or is canning back for good? [more inside]
posted by sararah at 1:49 PM PST - 106 comments

Maybe you already know about film noir, how Italian-born French film critic Nino Frank coined the term in 1946, and that Dashiell Hammett's book The Maltese Falcon was adapted for film 3 times in 10 years. Or perhaps you've just browsed through the detailed Wikipedia page, and found the list of film noir series and films to be daunting, and IMDB search provides a list that is lacking. Either way, Noir of the Week has a wealth of information if you crave more details, but focuses on one film per week if long lists are daunting. Not interested in this week's film? They have over 240 movies covered to date.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:07 PM PST - 20 comments

Debate over government-funded services heats up. [SLSO]
posted by boo_radley at 12:32 PM PST - 47 comments

If you're tired of boring twee t-shirts with birds and swirly stuff and junk on them, maybe it's time you started running with the Big Dogs. From "Fart Now Loading" to "Talk Slower - I don't speak STUPID", Big Dogs brand graphic tees are a great way to communicate your hip, in-your-face, modern attitude. [more inside]
posted by Optimus Chyme at 12:30 PM PST - 132 comments

The verdict is in. Absent U.S. Supreme Court appeals, meet Senator Franken. (Decision)
posted by Muddler at 11:43 AM PST - 150 comments

Sewer Creatures
posted by MetaMonkey at 11:41 AM PST - 117 comments

He is a man with one name. He is a thief and a killer, and the protagonist of 24 hard boiled novels written by prolific author Donald Westlake (previously) under the pseudonym Richard Stark. He is Parker, and he is enjoying a resurgence in popularity. [more inside]
posted by dortmunder at 10:59 AM PST - 39 comments

June has been a good month for political upheaval and mass protest. Peru (update), China, and Iran were discussed here previously. But how many of the following were you aware of: Canada, Thailand, Honduras, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Kashmir, Pakistan, and India? The latter four reflect a quite serious electricity shortage throughout the Indian subcontinent, during a record-breaking heat wave that has caused over 100 deaths. But don't worry, not everyone is dealing with life-threatening problems. In Israel 30,000 turned out to protest a parking lot. Meanwhile, Indymedia continues to cover all the bourgeois first-world protests you've never really wanted to know about.
posted by shii at 10:59 AM PST - 8 comments

A website has been launched to preserve the history of Danvers State Insane Asylum. The Asylum, which opened in 1878 in Danvers, MA (site of the Salem Witch Trials) and closed in 1992, was featured in the horror movie Session 9, and may have been the inspiration for HP Lovecraft's Arkham Asylum. Its Kirkbride Wings, which once held the institution's living quarters, now house a 400+ unit apartment complex. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 10:43 AM PST - 35 comments

The fine folks at OkCupid, the dating site, have begun to analyze aggregate data from the questions their users answer to form dating profiles, revealing, among other things, that users in Nevada are more open to rape fanstasies than those from Michigan. [more inside]
posted by dammitjim at 9:46 AM PST - 59 comments

• Canopy Formation Parachuting Record: 81 100
• Formation Skydiving Record: 400
• 69 :pɹoɔǝɹ uoıʇɐɯɹoɟ ƃuıʎlɟǝǝɹɟ [also, champion freeflying duo Spaceland Anomaly]
posted by not_on_display at 9:30 AM PST - 18 comments

Margie Profet was the "It Girl" of the 1990s, being awarded a McArthur Grant for her work in evolutionary biology in 1993 despite a lack of formal scientific training. Her papers on motherhood and the evolutionary influences on menstruation and morning sickness were hailed as revolutionary by some, but also dismissed as unscientific and criticized for numerous flaws in logic by others. As pressure mounted, she became more involved in her work, and less connected with her family and friends. [more inside]
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:24 AM PST - 33 comments

China's Marlboro Country: The strange, underground world of counterfeit cigarettes.
posted by chunking express at 6:12 AM PST - 33 comments

The most complete terrain map of the Earth's surface has been published. It covers 99% of the planet using ASTER satellite imagery. You can download the map and some cool images from NASA's page.
posted by atmosphere at 6:10 AM PST - 23 comments

How depressing is your sourcecode?
posted by mattoxic at 5:39 AM PST - 34 comments

The Pirate Bay will be sold to a Swedish listed software company. The press release states that the intention is to "introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site". Other stabs at this worked out less than brilliantly. The purchase amount (60MSEK of which half cash/half in stocks) matches the fine a bit too closely, but the founders states that the money are going into a foundation to promote freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. Pirate ideals or gold loot on Booty Island? Stay tuned...
posted by mnsc at 3:22 AM PST - 231 comments

Strange Games "What do you get if you cross a large rubber ball used for physical therapy with the medieval sport of Jousting? Yoga Ball Jousting."
posted by feelinglistless at 1:40 AM PST - 18 comments

Here's something interesting you can do with those clear plastic buffer discs that come in stacks of blank CDs: Blow a looooong bubble that looks like a condom. Here's another example. Here's a doubter trying it for himself. Apparently you can do it with actual CDs too, at least according to this post at English Russia. There are lots more videos of CD bubbles on YouTube, showing varying levels of success.
posted by amyms at 1:00 AM PST - 19 comments

How to start and drive a Model T
posted by loquacious at 12:52 AM PST - 26 comments

Print your own DIY papercraft drum machine. Webcam + paper template + free software = drum machine with tangible interface. [via] [more inside]
posted by mhjb at 12:11 AM PST - 3 comments

ifc.com's Top Fifty Movie Trailers [more inside]
posted by Ndwright at 10:41 PM PST - 54 comments

Kwaheri les amis on the way to the Islands of the Moon.
posted by pwedza at 9:46 PM PST - 8 comments

The Wire Files Open-access online journal darkmatter, "producing contemporary postcolonial critique," devoted its fourth issue to the television drama The Wire. An editorial explains that the "special issue aims to examine the place of race in the complex formation of the series." Thirteen articles cover The Wire's political economy, subversion of heteronormative assumptions, racial codes, Herc as a Zelig-like nexus, Baudrillardian urban space and much more in a veritable smorgasbord of academic bean-plating.
posted by Abiezer at 9:02 PM PST - 37 comments

Today, on the last day of this year's term, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its opinion in Ricci v. DeStefano, the latest in the Court's line of decisions on Title VII and the role of race in employment decisions. The famous case centers on white firefighters' claims of race discrimination following the town of New Haven's decision to scuttle a promotion exam after white test takers performed disproportionately better than black firefighters. [more inside]
posted by Law Talkin' Guy at 8:28 PM PST - 89 comments

The alphabet in satellite imagery of Slavonia. [via]
posted by parudox at 8:26 PM PST - 7 comments

Before 9/11, the center of the conspiracy theorist's universe was the Kennedy Assassination. And probably the definitive statement on the ridiculousness of the conspiracy theories of that era was the Illuminatus! Trilogy[warning, the entire several hundred page novel in PDF], published in 1975 and written by two Playboy editors at the height of the era of flower power. It drew on many sources, but most distinctively, it drew from a little public domain pamphlet called The Principia Discordia. Many people know the catch phrases (Fnord! Hail Eris!), but not many people know the authors' very real connections to the Kennedy Assassination. [more inside]
posted by empath at 6:29 PM PST - 74 comments

Liquid Sand: High-speed camera catches liquidlike behavior in a stream of granular material.
posted by homunculus at 6:04 PM PST - 17 comments

“One of the traditional notions of punishment is that an offender should be punished in proportion to his blameworthiness. Here, the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil.”

The 71-year-old man behind the biggest Wall Street fraud in history is sentenced to a maximum of 150 years in prison. [more inside]
posted by up in the old hotel at 4:28 PM PST - 157 comments

Persepolis 2.0 'describes Iran's post-election uprising and spreads the word about Iranians' historic struggle against repression. Based on the graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi and edited by two Iranians living in Shanghai.' Persepolis.
posted by plep at 4:19 PM PST - 12 comments

"The animals were allured by a sausage. When the fox bit in the bait, it activated the camera connected by a cord with the sausage. One week later the animals had learned to eat the sausage without being photographed." Daimlerstrasse 38 or How to get a fox to shoot portrait of itself For less furtive results, you could hire classical bassoonist, Andy Stolarek and jewelry designer/obedience and agility trainer Miki Aso to photograph your pet.
posted by xod at 1:10 PM PST - 43 comments

Melody Gardot was a New York fashion student, until a hit-and-run driver left her disabled and in need of therapy—musical therapy. [more inside]
posted by Mr. Anthropomorphism at 11:34 AM PST - 32 comments

As if there haven't been enough celebrity deaths, now the sad news that the great impressionist - comedian Fred Travalena has passed away at his Encino, CA home at age 66. Examples of some of his work are here from a Merv Griffin Show, and a later one from a live performance.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 10:17 AM PST - 34 comments

Industrial Span, Dead Cars, Burnout, Roadside Memorials. Short films by Ashley Perry.
posted by WPW at 7:13 AM PST - 5 comments

Meet Scott Campbell, a 13 year old swapping his MP3 player for a Sony Walkman cassette player for a week. [more inside]
posted by starzero at 6:39 AM PST - 262 comments

There, I Fixed It - "Epic Kludges + Adventures In Home Pwnership"
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:54 AM PST - 86 comments

Hanna Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 [via WFMU] Oh, the 70's...man how I miss you.
posted by GavinR at 10:01 PM PST - 18 comments

The NYTimes prevents leaks of its reporter's kidnapping from circulating on Wikipedia. [more inside]
posted by gushn at 9:17 PM PST - 99 comments

A journalist is filing charges against Big Pharma, the WHO, UN officials and Barack Obama, among others. For attempted mass genocide. Michael Jackson's death plays a part in this. [more inside]
posted by _dario at 8:20 PM PST - 130 comments

Maira Kalman does it again, with a beautifully illustrated blog post about her visit to Mr. Jefferson's Monticello. [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer at 7:46 PM PST - 25 comments

The Free Will Theorem - "If there exist experimenters with (some) free will, then elementary particles also have (some) free will." (previously)
posted by kliuless at 7:11 PM PST - 229 comments

Ground Zero 1945: Pictures by Atomic Bomb Survivors. Astonishing works created more than 25 years after the event, many accompanied by artist's comments. [disturbing, possibly NSWF artworks] [more inside]
posted by fire&wings at 4:50 PM PST - 71 comments

Army overthrows Honduras president in what some fear may be Obama's First Coup d'Etat. A troublesome circumstance: Key leaders of Honduras military coup trained in U.S. But condemning the coup with many others, Hillary Clinton says, "The action taken against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and thus should be condemned by all." [more inside]
posted by shetterly at 2:16 PM PST - 140 comments

Claiming to have invented a perpetual motion machine in 2006, Steorn Inc. (previously on Metafilter here and here) challenged a team of 22 international scientists and engineers to "verify" their apparently impossible device. Last week the scientific jury announced their results: “The unanimous verdict of the jury is that Steorn’s attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy,” it stated. “The jury is therefore ceasing work.” [more inside]
posted by Avenger at 1:29 PM PST - 73 comments

Billy Faier got tired of burning copies of his long-out-of-print albums, and is giving them away: The Art of the Five String Banjo (1957), Travelin' Man (1958), The Beast of Billy Faier (1964), Banjo (1973) and Banjoes, Birdsong and Mother Earth (1987). [more inside]
posted by scruss at 1:07 PM PST - 12 comments

S. E. Rogie: Go easy with me. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:34 PM PST - 6 comments

Shogi (将棋), or "Japanese chess," has been described here before, but it's such a fascinating game that a little more exposure can't hurt. Specifically, shogi has spawned a lot of variants, many of them astonishingly large. [more inside]
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:30 PM PST - 18 comments

I'm not a fan of front-page posts that don't describe their link, but I seriously have no idea what this is. It's Russian. It's from the '60s. Now that I've watched it, I feel my life is complete, yet I somehow simultaneously want my eight minutes back (you've been warned). SLYT.
posted by grumblebee at 11:53 AM PST - 66 comments

Iran's debate over theocracy took an interesting turn when Ayatollah Sistani the preeminent Shi'a cleric in Iraq made a recent visit. Sistani has stated that in order to be legitimate a ruler should win acceptance from a majority of believers. Threats Watch has analysis on this as the so called Battle for Iran shifts from the streets to the heart of power. How Iran is ruled is both different and complicated. The crisis is far from over; we are now probably at the end of the beginning. Here is a round up of analysis from dianaswednesday. [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 11:29 AM PST - 35 comments

Preserved in the cave excavations of Mogao and listing 1,339 stars the Dunhuang Star Chart is the oldest graphical star atlas known to exist. Dated to between 649 and 684 AD, it features two sections. The first consists of 26 diagrams of asterisms (including a recognizable Big Dipper and Orion) and the second contains 12 star maps each showing a 30 degree east-west section of sky in cylindrical projection plus an azimuthal projection circumpolar map. Star positions are accurate to within 1.5 degrees and it includes some stars in the southern sky. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral at 10:30 AM PST - 10 comments

EXTREME RICE
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 9:44 AM PST - 56 comments

Billy Mays dead at 50 But wait, there's no more! [more inside]
posted by majikstreet at 9:24 AM PST - 172 comments

The results of the 2009 Lyttle Lytton Contest are in. The Contest rewards unintentionally funny lines in writing. [more inside]
posted by disclaimer at 9:16 AM PST - 21 comments

3 Quarks Daily's top three 2009 science blog posts As chosen by Steven Pinker: Bands of Iron, The ecological disaster that is dolphin safe tuna and Ten Things You Don’t Know About Hubble. If that's not enough for you, you can read the seven finalists or the 20 20 semifinalists (or the 171 nominees)
posted by delmoi at 11:26 PM PST - 48 comments

Have you ever dreamed of moving an object with the power of your mind? Mindflex, the new mental acuity game from Mattel, makes that dream a reality. A lightweight headset containing sensors for the forehead and earlobes measures your brainwave activity. When you focus your concentration, a small foam ball will rise on a gentle stream of air. Relax your thoughts and the ball will descend. By using a combination of physical and mental coordination, you must then guide the ball through a customizable obstacle course, the various obstacles can be repositioned into many different configurations. [more inside]
posted by litterateur at 10:22 PM PST - 38 comments

Sex Galaxy (trailer 1, trailer 2, NSFW) is a new film that claims to be the first "green film," as it is made of 100% recycled material. In an Wired article, director/producer Mike Davis discloses his film sources. "Boarded-up libraries, abandoned schools, decaying drive-in movie theaters…. These are the realms in which I unearth my wares," he said. "And actually, many of these films are available on the internet. You can find amazing collections through the Library of Congress." The Wired article notes that the recycled material isn't itself wholly original, and Bad Lit expands the history of film plunder further. Sex Galaxy is sourced from Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, which relied on footage from Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, which in turn is sampled from the Russian film Planeta Bur. The history of film reuse is long and storied, and continues after the jump. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:12 PM PST - 17 comments

Tip of My Tongue: Find that word you've been thinking about all day but just can't seem to remember.
posted by Miko at 8:26 PM PST - 26 comments

TOE breaking Lorentz invariance - "by treating space and time differently as well as separately, the infinities in the quantum mechanics equations vanish, and gravity behaves as it should." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 6:54 PM PST - 44 comments

Sega has developed a 15-inch tall robot girlfriend, who can identify human heads and will kiss them on command. But they seem to be licensing it from WowWee, who call it Femisapien.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:17 PM PST - 51 comments

A pair of Swedish parents are keeping their child's ("Pop") sex a secret. The parents believe that gender is a social construction, and they want to keep Pop from being placed into any categories based on his/her gender. Psychologists, medical specialists, and other researchers disagree on how this decision may affect the child, and some believe this secret is similar to the one David Reimer's family kept from him. Via Feministing.
posted by Four-Eyed Girl at 5:01 PM PST - 190 comments

Escape and other tools made by inmates in German prisons, from the photographer Marc Steinmetz. My favorite is the functional battery-powered shotgun, although the hand-made toaster is a testament to the love of a decent breakfast. via.
posted by Rumple at 2:21 PM PST - 20 comments

In the heart of Greenwich Village, New York City at 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969 eight New York City police raided a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn (later deemed a National Historic Landmark). "As the police raided the bar, a crowd of four hundred patrons gathered on the street outside and watched the officers arrest the bartender, the doorman, and a few drag queens [see: police arrest reports]. The crowd, which eventually grew to an estimated 2,000 strong, was fed up."* Thus began three days of rioting and the advent of the modern gay rights movement. In honor of the Stonewall Riots, many gay pride celebrations around the world are held during the month of June, including this week(end)'s NYC Pride, celebrating 40 years of Stonewall's impact on seeking to bring civil rights to all, including the LGBT community. Happy Pride! [more inside]
posted by ericb at 2:05 PM PST - 65 comments

Daryl Peveto is a freelance photographer and videographer with a passion for social documentary storytelling. Over the last few years he has worked on issues ranging from American nomads to bullfighting in Tijuana to Antarctica: The White Continent to the black market economies of Peru. His photoblog is a sketchbook for story ideas and visual explorations.
posted by netbros at 10:56 AM PST - 4 comments

The Book of Genesis illustrated by Robert Crumb. Extracts of Crumb's latest work, years in the making and to be published in October, are serialized in the French cultural weekly Telerama during this summer (warning: bad interface, text in French). Short interview with the author here. [more inside]
posted by elgilito at 10:06 AM PST - 50 comments

Amazing Pooktre Sculptures. A gallery of living art. Previously. (with bonus extra Previouslies inside!)
posted by hippybear at 9:51 AM PST - 10 comments

There are worries that a new geothermal project in California may cause earthquakes (nice animation from NYT and here's the full article). These worries are not just theoretical, its happened before... [more inside]
posted by 445supermag at 8:23 AM PST - 32 comments

Our new silicon overlords might end up carbon based after all.
posted by flabdablet at 6:44 AM PST - 29 comments

We had a great Obit post yesterday and a great post on the music video work of Michel Gondry. Why not join the two? After all, he was one of the great pioneers and innovators of the format and worked with some of the great film and art directors there were... Here's The complete videography of Michael Jackson to enjoy for your weekend. Actual videos inside: [more inside]
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 2:53 AM PST - 62 comments

"The digested mouse generates the energy to power the trap door, sensor and an LED graphic display on the front of the table."
posted by orthogonality at 2:07 AM PST - 35 comments

Giovanni Arrighi, the renowned authority in the fields of world systems analysis and historical sociology, died earlier this month. A retrospective interview on his intellectual trajectory was published in the March/April 2009 issue of New Left Review. A major international conference was held in his honour in late May in Madrid, featuring several top scholars in an exploration of the insights of Arrighi’s work.
posted by Abiezer at 1:08 AM PST - 6 comments

Stephen Hawking: "Asteroid Impacts Biggest Threat to Intelligent Life in the Galaxy" Dare I say... there's more outside. [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 12:00 AM PST - 43 comments

Dreaming of Nonsense: The Evolutionary Enigma of Dream Content. Why on earth do our minds conjure up such ridiculous imagery, such inane thoughts, such spectacularly vivid and surreal landscapes, intense emotions—such narrative trash? [more inside]
posted by amyms at 11:18 PM PST - 14 comments

As soon as you start saying that it’s not something that Christians do, well, guns are just the foil. The issue now is the Gospel. So in a sense, it does become a crusade. Now the Gospel is at stake. Of the 40 states with right-to-carry laws, 20 allow guns in churches. [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 11:13 PM PST - 180 comments

Glenn Marshall is an Irish computer video artist and musician whose recent work has focused on audio visualization programed in the Processing language. Generally the program is left to its own devices, though his work-for-hire has more intentional design, as in his video for the Peter Gabriel song "The Nest that Sailed the Sky." Marshall has also been hired to create video for Guinness for Sky TV and the Rugby Six Nations Tournament, and a looping animation for Hermes of Paris. Marshall discusses his works with some detail on his blog. (More videos inside) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:52 PM PST - 7 comments

This year's winner of the Grand Prix Paris Match du Photoreportage, a stark B&W expose of student poverty in Strasourg, is a hoax.
posted by grounded at 8:14 PM PST - 30 comments

Tart cards [NSFW] are the means by which many London prostitutes advertise their services. Step into almost any central London phone box and you can contemplate up to 80 cards inviting you to be tied, teased, spanked or massaged.... [Wallpaper Magazine] asked designers – from students to superstars – to find the tart hiding in every typeface and create their own graphic numbers.... all 450 cards can be viewed here. [NSFW] [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 5:32 PM PST - 39 comments

Over three years later, has the Netflix Prize been won? Today our team submitted our solution to the Netflix Prize, resulting in a score of .8558, which corresponds to an improvement over Netflix Cinematch algorithm of 10.05%. This is the first submission in the competition to break the 10% barrier and sets off a 30 day period where all competitors are invited to submit their best and final solutions. (Previously.) [more inside]
posted by youarenothere at 4:44 PM PST - 58 comments

“...the Platonic nerd is invariably male. The stereotype is flexible to incorporate women and girls on an individual basis, but few people conjure up the image of a woman when they think about nerds.” Feminist blog Pandagon reviews two books about nerdiness and geekery, Jason Tocci addresses the question of why female involvement in geek culture seems to call for a special explanation, and two feminist geeks set out in search of an egalitarian future.
posted by velvet winter at 4:21 PM PST - 137 comments

Monarchy vs. Democracy: "Was the change from monarchy to democracy a step backwards? In practical terms, there is no question: democracy has had tremendously bad effects compared to monarchy." [more inside]
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:12 PM PST - 108 comments

Reports spread around the internet about an offer by a Russian company to do pirate hunting cruises off the coast of Somalia. The news garners a swarm of comments and outrage, and it looks like we have the beginnings of a snowballing controversy. [more inside]
posted by happyroach at 3:58 PM PST - 35 comments

The tragic story of Timothy Cole who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit, and died because of inadequate health care in prison. He was recently posthumously exonerated based on confessions of the guilty man and DNA evidence.
posted by djduckie at 3:46 PM PST - 26 comments

Man Who Committed Rape Asks for Victim's Forgiveness Decades Later [more inside]
posted by thisperon at 2:36 PM PST - 43 comments

Michele Bachman waxes fuzzy on the census with Glenn Beck. Michele Bachmann is continuing her anti-Census campaign and getting brighter by the minute - like that last intense glow before the bulb burns completely out.
posted by PuppyCat at 2:34 PM PST - 89 comments

A relatively long list of music videos by Michel Gondry. From his humble beginnings with Oui Oui to his eventual mastery of both space and time. [more inside]
posted by Weebot at 1:59 PM PST - 32 comments

Overly confident in the economic health of the United States? Feeling sanguine about current spending levels? Haven't yet been scared out of your wits about your financial future? No worries! The U.S. National Debt Clock page is for you! Your one stop shop for all things financial meltdown related: Total debt, debt per citizen, budget deficits and spending year-to-date, total governmental bailouts, and much much more!
posted by Justinian at 12:59 PM PST - 77 comments

FRONTLINE: Ghana - Digital Dumping Ground On the outskirts of Ghana's biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah. One of the biggest fallouts? Identity Theft.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 12:48 PM PST - 16 comments

Framed by a circle of clouds, this is a stunning illustration of Nature's powerful force. A plume of smoke, ash and steam soars five miles into the sky from an erupting volcano. The extraordinary image was captured by the crew of the International Space Station 220 miles above a remote Russian island in the North Pacific.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 12:46 PM PST - 22 comments

Could Transformers:ROTF(L) be one of the greatest achievements in the history of cinema, if not the greatest? This reviewer argues that it just might be.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:20 PM PST - 159 comments

Sky Saxon, lead singer and bassist for garage rock legends The Seeds, passed away yesterday at the (estimated) age of 63. [more inside]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:56 AM PST - 26 comments

Back in the days before music videos, and if the band could not make it to the Top Of The Pops studio, then out would come dance group Pan's People. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:06 AM PST - 8 comments

The Great Cosby Experiment 09. "As of the last actual count we have 185 Cosbies!"
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 10:18 AM PST - 59 comments

A handy rating guide to 1980s saxophone solos -- "I realized about 5 years ago that at some point in the 80s, lots of the popular music started incorporating saxophone solos into their songs. Some of them are fine, but most of them are ridiculous to have in the songs. I have attempted to separate the quality and appropriateness of the solos from what I think of the song as a whole..."
posted by miss lynnster at 7:13 AM PST - 137 comments

Getting smart about personal technology. NYTimes publishes Sonia Zjawinski's assertion that other peoples' images on Flickr are probably OK to download, blow up and use to decorate her house: And if you’re wondering about copyright issues (after all, these aren’t my photos), the photos are being used by me for my own, private, noncommercial use. I’m not selling these things and not charging admission to my apartment, so I think I’m in the clear. [more inside]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:41 AM PST - 169 comments

What Periodic Videos did for chemistry, Sixty Symbols is doing for physics and engineering. Some behind the scenes action and general scienciness. [more inside]
posted by DU at 6:24 AM PST - 13 comments

Norwich (UK)-based DJ 78 (aka Dave Guttridge) plays the great tracks of yesteryear using only two wind-up gramophones and a pile of 78s (watch). Now he's got his own monthly radio show, Shellac Shake, complete with podcast.
posted by sagwalla at 6:04 AM PST - 10 comments

Finally, finally - Zubbles are available for pre-order! Inventor Tim Kehoe has been searching for the elusive colored bubble for a long time. Through his experimentation he's stained his eyes a deep blue, along with his car, his kitchen, and his bathtub (he's also permanently stained the family dog). But in 2005, after 11 years and over $500,000 in funding, Kehoe successfully created a colored bubble that wouldn't stain. His invention, Zubbles, was given the "Best of What's New, Grand Award" from Popular Science. [more inside]
posted by avoision at 4:44 AM PST - 71 comments

Canadian War Poster Collection at McGill University. And if that doesn't strike your fancy, the list of digital collections include such time-honoured favourites as Expo '67, and the award-winner for unexpected collection, Gynaecology in Traditional Chinese Medicine. (previously)
posted by flibbertigibbet at 3:29 AM PST - 7 comments

HTML Playground allows you to learn HTML and CSS by example.
posted by minifigs at 3:13 AM PST - 10 comments

With the world buzzing about celebrity deaths, it was an opportune moment for hoaxsters. A rumour that Jeff Goldblum had died spread quickly on Twitter, and "'Jeff Goldblum dead' was at 11am the third-most popular search term on Google". The actor's agent quashed the rumour, but not before Australian TV broadcast it as fact, complete with a touching montage tribute. Still, now he knows what it will be like when he really goes: "A surprise funeral? For me?"
posted by robcorr at 1:31 AM PST - 76 comments

Foldable Display Tracking - more Wiimote magic from Johnny Lee Chung [previously].
posted by mhjb at 11:18 PM PST - 27 comments

World War III Propoganda Posters. Someone tweeted!
posted by crossoverman at 8:18 PM PST - 34 comments

"For a long time it has been a kind of martial arts Loch Ness monster: an American fighting form with supposedly sinister origins that many have heard of but few have seen or experienced. No one, it seemed, had any concrete proof that it existed, or at least none they were willing to share. Until (2:36) recently." Longer (5:19) ver here [more inside]
posted by P.o.B. at 8:11 PM PST - 68 comments

Internet Anonymity: A Right of the Past? | North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology

A newly designed Internet Protocol, restricting communication source autonomy, is being quietly drafted with detailed technical standards that “define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous” by a United Nations agency. The “IP Traceback” drafting group, which has declined to release key documents or allow their meetings to be open to the public, includes, among others, the United States National Security Agency.

[more inside]
posted by shetterly at 6:20 PM PST - 50 comments

Preemptive Friday Flash Fun: How to Raise a Dragon, a game by Gregory Weir, where you make decisions about a dragon's development. Nice pixel art style. [more inside]
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:18 PM PST - 19 comments

At the recent Games for Change conference, Brenda Brathwaite debuted her game Train. The WSJ blog Speakeasy interviews her: Players load boxcars with tiny yellow figurines and are asked to move the trains from one end of the course to the other. They pull cards that either impede their progress or free some of the characters. Once a train reaches the "finish line," the game is completed and it is revealed [more inside]
posted by j.edwards at 5:17 PM PST - 47 comments

Michael Jackson, the undisputed King of Pop, has died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, California. He was 50 years old. [more inside]
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:56 PM PST - 843 comments

Back in the late Pleistocene epoch 100,000 years ago, the 2000 book contended, men who carried rape genes had a reproductive and evolutionary edge over men who did not: they sired children not only with willing mates, but also with unwilling ones, allowing them to leave more offspring (also carrying rape genes) who were similarly more likely to survive and reproduce, unto the nth generation. That would be us. And that is why we carry rape genes today. The family trees of prehistoric men lacking rape genes petered out. Newsweek's Sharon Begley examines evolutionary psychology and some of its most controversial theories (and how they are being rethought) in Don't Blame The Caveman.
posted by hippybear at 2:28 PM PST - 92 comments

Dead people having sex Immoral? Illegal? Shocking? Gunther von Hagens latest exhibit in London is again not without controversy. His website is here
posted by halekon at 2:00 PM PST - 55 comments

"Movie Body Counts tallies the actual, visible 'on screen kills/deaths/bodies' of your favorite action, sci/fi, and war films." [more inside]
posted by Prospero at 1:53 PM PST - 42 comments

The Architects' Journal (home of British architecture) has recently listed their top 10 architectural features of Star Wars. The article cites the Sandcrawler of Tatooine (possibly inspired by the Hôtel du lac in Tunisia, and in turn may have influenced Casa da Música [virtual tour, requires Quicktime] ), gave Bright Tree Village an honorary rating of BREEAM Excellent (top marks for environment-friendliness and sustainability), then embrace the Ecumenopolis that is Coruscant. This is not the first discussion of the architectural styles of the Star Wars universe. George Lucas once said "I'm basically a Victorian person," referring to his love of "all kinds of old things," including sort of Art Deco or Art Moderne-type. The retro-futuristic styles of Star Wars has gone on to inspire others.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:23 PM PST - 12 comments

Mark is looking for his Goddess. From Mark's site: My Global Vision addresses and integrates a large number of disciplines. Its ultimate goal is to greatly reduce human suffering on planet Earth. It is deep, complex, and mind-boggling. [more inside]
posted by everichon at 1:22 PM PST - 85 comments

In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that school officials violated an Arizona teenager's rights by strip-searching her for prescription-strength ibuprofen, declaring that U.S. educators cannot force children to remove their clothing unless student safety is at risk. Clarence Thomas demurred, suggesting that panties would become the new drug underground.
posted by dejah420 at 1:08 PM PST - 61 comments

Stoned Wallabees make crop circles: Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:48 PM PST - 64 comments

Innovation, Ideas and the Global Standard of Living by Charles Kenny: "The Success of Development acts like a sword through many of the Gordian knots plaguing the development community, especially those surrounding the rate of economic growth in many developing countries. Put that question to one side, says Kenny, and suddenly a lot of much more interesting questions, about issues like education and healthcare and clean water and human rights, come into a lot more focus. And if you use those metrics, rather than GDP growth, to judge the success or failure of developing countries, then things look rather more optimistic than you might think." (pdf) Glenn Hubbard's review, cf. Technological Creativity and Economic Progress [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:21 PM PST - 2 comments

Hank Asher, billionaire eccentric philanthropist/data miner, is being sued by publishing giant Elsevier. “What's with these people? They've even sued my cancer research company.” On the one hand, Asher used to smuggle cocaine. On the other hand, Elsevier has their own problems.
posted by booknerd at 11:58 AM PST - 18 comments

The Baloney Detection Kit. "With a sea of information coming at us from all directions, how do we sift out the misinformation and bogus claims, and get to the truth? Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine, lays out a 'Baloney Detection Kit' — ten questions we should ask when encountering a claim."
posted by homunculus at 11:49 AM PST - 51 comments

Greil Marcus writes Real Life Top Ten for the Believer Magazine, in which he lists "anything that remotely has to do with music, a dress Bette Midler wore at an awards show or a great guitar solo in the middle of a song that otherwise wasn't very interesting." But he's been writing this column online for just about 10 years. [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:46 AM PST - 4 comments

Pauline Kael called it "a huge, jerry-built, crumbling ruin of a movie". Roger Ebert called it "such a silly and stupid movie... our immediate reaction is pity". Few directors of Michelangelo Antonioni's stature have followed a film as acclaimed as Blowup (1966) with one as reviled as Zabriskie Point (1970). [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 11:37 AM PST - 30 comments

In 1970, while burning captured enemy documents with no military intelligence value, Fred Whitehurst came across a tiny diary. Advised not to burn it by his translator, he kept it and took it with him to America when his tour was over. Thirty five years later, the diary came back home. [more inside]
posted by LenaO at 11:18 AM PST - 5 comments

Farrah Fawcett died today of cancer at the age of 62. She was perhaps best known for her role in Charlie's Angels, and also for inspiring the lust of a whole generation of men with one photo.
posted by elder18 at 10:34 AM PST - 126 comments

An amendment to the Defense Authorization Act currently under consideration in congress would force the notorious School of the Americas (currently known as "WHINSEC") to "release to the public the names, ranks, countries of origin, courses taken and dates of attendance of all the students and instructors at the institute." [more inside]
posted by saulgoodman at 10:19 AM PST - 28 comments

William Low children's author and illustrator of a variety of books, describes his process and his methods (YouTube videos 1, 2 ...more from his publisher), and talks about his beautiful new book, Machines Go To Work. [more inside]
posted by cal71 at 9:37 AM PST - 7 comments

How does our language shape our thinking? :"What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world."
posted by dhruva at 8:52 AM PST - 99 comments

John Dillinger was paroled from Indiana State Prison in May 1933 after serving eight years for assault and battery and attempted robbery and launched a Midwest Crime Wave from June 1933 to June 1934. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 8:38 AM PST - 28 comments

Email patterns can predict impending doom. [more inside]
posted by WPW at 8:25 AM PST - 18 comments

The evolution of a Programmer, a classic of the early Internet, has been brought up to date with the latest trends in purely functional, statically typed, lazily evaluated programming languages.
posted by Dr Dracator at 8:22 AM PST - 31 comments

Toast always reminds me of the global division of labor. A British artist inspired by Douglas Adams is attempting to make a toaster from scratch. Apparently this concept was also addressed before in an essay, "I, Pencil," by Leonard Read, a founder of a Libertarian think tank. Bottom line: Pencils and toasters are difficult for one person to make and using a microwave to smelt stuff for the toaster is apparently cheating.
posted by ShadePlant at 8:15 AM PST - 40 comments

kinetic sketch drawing tool [via mefi projects]
posted by seanyboy at 7:30 AM PST - 26 comments

Why Bother? was a Talkback production for BBC Radio 3, consisting of five radio interviews between Chris Morris and Peter Cook's character Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, recorded in late 1993 and originally broadcast in 1994. The majority of the dialogue was ad libbed between the pair, which Morris then edited. Eels, Love & Guns | Bears | Christ | Prisoner Of War | Drugs etc 1 | Drugs etc 2
posted by chuckdarwin at 6:58 AM PST - 11 comments

Steven Wells, the ranting music journalist known as Swells during his time excoriating indie bands on the NME, has died of cancer. [more inside]
posted by mippy at 3:32 AM PST - 40 comments

A Prison Nightmare. On June 23, 2009, the National Prison Rape Commission released its final Report and proposed Standards to prevent, detect, respond to and monitor sexual abuse of incarcerated or detained individuals throughout the United States. More prisoners reported abuse by staff than abuse by other prisoners.
posted by Non Prosequitur at 3:32 AM PST - 131 comments

Simon Singh is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association (previously on metafilter). A pre-trail ruling by the judge caused much concern in the scientific community and elsewhere. On the 4th of June Singh announced that he was applying to appeal against the pre-trial ruling, and Sense About Science launched a Keep Libel Laws Out Of Science campaign (T-shirts, badges and mugs available). The Streisand effect really started to kick in when Simon Perry screen-scraped 400 uk chiropractic web sites, searched for claims about the treatment of colic, and mail-merged letters to various Trading Standards officers. Over 240 letters were sent. This led to an interesting response. [more inside]
posted by memebake at 3:25 AM PST - 33 comments

London Sound Survey collects the everyday sounds of the capital, including the bells of St Clement's, the call to prayer at the Whitechapel mosque, football fans outside Millwall stadium, a demo in Piccadilly, dubstep at the Notting Hill Carnival and a street preacher at Speaker's Corner.. not forgetting, of course, those ubiquitous sounds of London life, 'Big Issue! Big Issue!' and announcements of planned engineering works on the Tube. (Via.)
posted by verstegan at 12:23 AM PST - 19 comments

Design geek and brilliant self-promoter Pete Dungey just completed a project where he did a 'survey' to find the best-known people named Alan or Allen, and printed the top names on Allen Wrenches (or Alan Keys as they're called in the UK, I guess). Brilliant! And if you're a non-UKian wh's wondering who the funny-named #1 is: Ground Force! [more inside]
posted by wendell at 11:51 PM PST - 31 comments

iD Software has been acquired by ZeniMax media. (Reports here, here, and many other places.) John Romero, the co-founder of the company, had some initial concerns but seems to have cheered up. No doubt a wide variety of retrospectives, histories, opinions and flames will rise from this most infamously-independent of game studios joining forces/merging/being swallowed by another, younger one. (ZeniMax was founded in 1999, iD in 1991.) With iD releasing games with years-long gaps between them, younger readers might not have grown up playing this company's output, but if you've ever run down a hallway with a gun bouncing earnestly before you and looking through a heads-up display, iD has touched your life too. Masters of Doom is an excellent history of the company in book form, assuming you still read.
posted by jscott at 11:19 PM PST - 56 comments

Artheme Swallows his Clarinet is a rather bizarre short film from 1912. [more inside]
posted by hydrophonic at 11:14 PM PST - 8 comments

A fight for the Amazon that should inspire the world. "Army helicopters opened fire on the protesters with live ammunition and stun-grenades. More than a dozen were killed. But the indigenous peoples did not run away. Even though they were risking their lives, they stood their ground. One of their leaders, Davi Yanomami, said simply: "The earth has no price. It cannot be bought, or sold or exchanged. It is very important that white people, black people and indigenous peoples fight together to save the life of the forest and the earth. If we don't fight together, what will our future be?" And then something extraordinary happened. The indigenous peoples won." Via A Tiny Revolution: Latin America, World's Moral Political Leader.
posted by shetterly at 5:33 PM PST - 26 comments

Honyanko bushi, Tsurumanzoku, Butamatsuri, and Nevaneva Land are music videos produced by Obakejaa. [NSS (Not Seizure Safe), MLYT]
posted by geos at 5:14 PM PST - 7 comments

Secret London has the story of a circulation promotion gimmick that runs awry.
posted by tellurian at 4:59 PM PST - 19 comments

A truly amazing optical illusion -- despite what you first think, there are only three colors in that picture.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:51 PM PST - 110 comments

Ross Racine's work may be interpreted as models for planned communities as much as aerial views of fictional suburbs, referencing the computer as a tool for urban planning as well as image capture.
posted by netbros at 4:33 PM PST - 11 comments

200 Dick Tracy Characters
posted by Artw at 4:04 PM PST - 18 comments

In 1999, Dr. Jerri Nielsen was the only doctor in the winterover crew at the South Pole Station in Antarctica. While there, she discovered and treated her own breast cancer until she could be airlifted out. She died yesterday of breast cancer at age 57. [more inside]
posted by rtha at 3:36 PM PST - 54 comments

Nice people take drugs
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:37 PM PST - 80 comments

Though the B-2 Spirit is perhaps the best-known of the flying wing designs, its creation came almost 50 years after the earliest attempts at creating fixed-wing aircraft with no definite fuselage. The first prototypes of Frenchman Charles Fauvel's flying wings followed the patent on his formula for the flying wing in 1929. Jack Northrop's newly formed Northrop Aircraft Co. created the first flying wing for the United States in 1940, dubbed Northrom N-1M "Jeep". But it was the Horten Brothers, German aircraft pilots and enthusiasts, who created the first fully-functional stealth flying wing: the Horten Ho IX. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:12 PM PST - 31 comments

"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. " - Henry Beston, naturalist and writer. [more inside]
posted by jquinby at 1:00 PM PST - 15 comments

Toy Stories: Dan Meth explores some up and coming movies inspired by your childhood toy chest.
posted by hippybear at 12:31 PM PST - 13 comments

Renowned blacksmith, Phillip Simmons, of Charleston, SC has died at age 98. [more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf at 12:20 PM PST - 16 comments

Gulls attack whales.
posted by binturong at 12:20 PM PST - 63 comments

Lightlane builds lasers that shoot out from your bike onto the road, displaying a bike lane wherever you ride. Written about here and here.
posted by erikvan at 11:35 AM PST - 91 comments

ladies: is your house making you fat? and unhappy? [more inside]
posted by msconduct at 11:20 AM PST - 58 comments

Douglas Rushkoff was mugged on Christmas Eve. After posting about the incident on a neighborhood message board, the response was not concern about crime or his safety but about the negative effect this might have on property values. Rushkoff writes in a new book (and discusses on BloggingHeads) the corporatization of our culture and the need to deal in currencies which are local and carry innate value. Previously.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:48 AM PST - 72 comments

Economists Matthew Weinzierl (HBS) and Gregory Mankiw (Harvard) make a utilitarian case for a height tax. [more inside]
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:16 AM PST - 120 comments

The 2004 Intelligence Authorization Act included funding for a pilot program that provided scholarships in exchange for recipients completing at least one summer internship in the intelligence agencies. The Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP) was praised in National Review but criticized by humanities organizations as a threat to academic integrity. The 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act [400kb pdf] submitted to Congress by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair makes the program a permanent budget item. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 10:11 AM PST - 15 comments

"Text Utilities" is a useful browser-based tool for geeks. It's a web page that does all sorts of operations on text, e.g. escape/ unescape, hashing, regexp testing.
posted by grumblebee at 9:06 AM PST - 33 comments

Too Complex To Exist? [1] Paul Kedrosky has been pondering complex social systems and why they sometimes fail. Apparently it has something to do with "normalization of deviance," "tight coupling" [2] and "slack." [3]
posted by kliuless at 8:42 AM PST - 7 comments

Waldo Jaquith of The Virginia Quarterly has discovered considerable evidence of plagiarism in Chris Anderson's new book, Free. [more inside]
posted by Diablevert at 8:06 AM PST - 74 comments

First Nations (aboriginal) communities in Canada often have levels of squalor and health outcomes comparable to developing nations [PDF]. Abuse of alcohol and other drugs is rife. Generally low health care levels in these communities has led to outbreaks of H1N1 (swine flu). While the distribution of hand sanitizer might help control these outbreaks, the Canadian government is hesitant to do so out of fear that the alcohol-based sanitizer will be ingested. Some argue that this is nothing more than continued paternalism that has reduced the First peoples of Canada to their present state.
posted by modernnomad at 7:44 AM PST - 62 comments

Former member of The Orb and electronic musician Andy Hughes passed away June 12th after a short illness. While he may not have been the most well-known member of The Orb, he definitely added a unique sound to many of their albums and remixes, including their groundbreaking Live 93 and Orblivion albums. In addition to his work with The Orb as well as his own solo material, Hughes also worked with Basement Jaxx, The Pet Shop Boys, Tina Turner, and David Bowie.
posted by 40 Watt at 7:03 AM PST - 36 comments

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus want to change the way countries think about global warming. Instead of treating carbon as a pollutant, and legislating our way out of a climate crisis, they suggest a "challenge" approach to the problem—igniting a creative fire under companies and even the federal government to create new and cheaper solutions instead of more loophole-filled legislation. [more inside]
posted by littlerobothead at 6:44 AM PST - 17 comments

The training of and science behind SAR dogs is a quite interesting and well developed field... [more inside]
posted by TomMelee at 6:12 AM PST - 30 comments

The Truth Rundown: High-ranking defectors provide an unprecedented inside look at the Church of Scientology, its leader David Miscavige, and the Lisa McPherson case. Expose from the newpaper in Clearwater, Florida, the "worldwide spiritual headquarters" of Scientology, in three parts.
posted by mosessis at 5:51 AM PST - 83 comments

Everything is terrible [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 1:19 AM PST - 39 comments

70s/80s Soviet album covers. Until today, I had no idea Soviet hair metal existed. Prepare for keytars, mall hair and proof that 80s cheese was not solely a product of degenerate kepitalist decadence.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:24 PM PST - 53 comments

This adult swim bump didn't make any sense until I saw this video. I think it changed my opinion of Taylor Swift, if only for just shy of two minutes.
posted by djduckie at 8:27 PM PST - 106 comments

Tuesday night is comedy night at the Big Fish
posted by ornate insect at 7:20 PM PST - 16 comments

"The 2000 census found that nearly 23 percent of families living in Letcher County, KY, fell below the poverty line. The median household income in most counties is at or below $25,000, with individuals making on average $12,000 a year." The White Family by Carl Kiilsgaard [more inside]
posted by saturnine at 5:37 PM PST - 42 comments

Dancing plagues and mass hysteria: how distress and pious fear have led to bizarre outbreaks across the ages. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 3:36 PM PST - 32 comments

Have you ever wondered what you would look like dressed as a captain in every branch of armed forces of every nation who fought in World War II? This guy did and then recreated it. [more inside]
posted by doctoryes at 3:19 PM PST - 64 comments

The blog associated with Ptak's online science bookstore is an absolutely fascinating, frequently-updated tour through historical, social, and scientific miscellany extracted from unusual books in the collection of the author, John Ptak. [more inside]
posted by Rumple at 2:57 PM PST - 5 comments

The girl who doesn't age.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 2:49 PM PST - 87 comments

The Village Dog Project is an ongoing research project to document genetic diversity in pariah dogs. These dogs haven't been subject to breed pressure, and may be able to help researchers learn more about the transition from wolf to dog. (via)
posted by Pants! at 2:42 PM PST - 5 comments

Hope withers on the vine. A look at daily life among the produce workers in Mecca, California.
posted by univac at 2:36 PM PST - 18 comments

On The Outside It Looked Like An Old- Fashioned Police Box - Mark Gatiss presents a Radio 4 documentary on the Target novelisations of Doctor Who stories. Free Doctor Who eBooks.
posted by Artw at 2:34 PM PST - 14 comments

"So, basically I put a pop/historical figure into a funny job for their personality or whatever." "gets a job" is an ongoing webcomic series that explores what would happen if JAWS gets a job at an office, Mario gets a job as a plumber, and more.
posted by spiderskull at 2:31 PM PST - 27 comments

(NSFW) The Angry Video Game Nerd (taking a cue from seanbaby's lead) has been producing video reviews of some of the most notoriously awful NES games, from Top Gun to Bible Games. (Can't miss: The Power Glove.) Not content to go after one system, he's upgraded his range to take on other colossal failures like the Atari Jaguar, Superman 64, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (the movie). His newest series of videos, You Know What's Bullshit?, takes on everyday nuances like DVD box sets. He may be vulgar and his vignettes silly, but damn straight he's got a point. Enjoy all his archived videos here, spanning five years of obscenity-laced love/hate for his greatest passions.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 1:55 PM PST - 18 comments

'Find My iPhone' in Action (via) [more inside]
posted by cjorgensen at 1:46 PM PST - 40 comments

Metafilter's own COBRA! has been producing a great comic about a rock band for quite awhile; and now it's been released as a book! Get to know the Awesome Boys in Nowhere Band.
posted by interrobang at 1:42 PM PST - 11 comments

The O'Reilly Procedure Roger Ebert waxes nostalgic about a calmer, more rational mediasphere and dissects the rhetorical strategies of Bill O'Reilly. [more inside]
posted by mecran01 at 1:30 PM PST - 90 comments

Cat and Girl are ten years old. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 1:20 PM PST - 17 comments

Have you ever been playing Double Dragon and just thought, "You know what would make this game better? Some gigantic swords!" Or have you ever been hacking your way through a Golden Axe game and thought to yourself, "If only I could headbutt these dudes into a fine red mist!" Then you need BO. [more inside]
posted by Eideteker at 1:16 PM PST - 5 comments

Item Not As Described: A website that explores the differences between items for sale on craigslist and the photos provided. ( via Miko via metachat )
posted by The Whelk at 1:05 PM PST - 26 comments

125 years of roller coasters: From the oldest, Switchback Railway, the first real coaster, Leap the Dips (photo), , New York City's famous Coney Island Cyclone (video), to the highest (456 feet, Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure (video), here's to 125 years.
posted by jaduncan at 11:05 AM PST - 22 comments

Two 78 sides by Gabriel Brown (yt) [more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf at 11:00 AM PST - 4 comments

We're a pro-leisure and anti-wage-slavery group of people dedicated to exploring the question: why work? (related)
posted by Joe Beese at 9:37 AM PST - 140 comments

Mike Jittlov worked in special effects back before computers took over. His legendary film short, The Wizard Of Speed And Time, was actually a self-created remake of an earlier short. [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 8:09 AM PST - 27 comments

Everyman's announcer: Ed McMahon enjoyed a remarkable entertainment career. From pitching vegetable slicers to passerbyers on the Atlantic City boardwalk to delivering the original king of late night to a national audience every night for thirty years; Ed McMahon's voice is part of the American fabric. Sadly, Ed McMahon has passed away. [more inside]
posted by cavalier at 7:26 AM PST - 76 comments

By 17 October, the day of the Soviet Moon landing, tension had risen. Czechoslovakian and Hungarian troops were said to be massing on the border with Austria. Soviet fighters had been harassing civil aircraft in the Berlin corridors, causing an American airliner to crash.

What was once the most secret British government document is released to the public on Tuesday. The Government War Book, used during the Cold War, set out in great detail exactly what would happen in the days before nuclear weapons were fired.

Prof Peter Hennessy describes the War Book
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar at 5:24 AM PST - 30 comments

Failed States Index 2009 is a collaboration between Foreign Policy and The Fund for Peace. There is an interactive map and a series of related articles including brief prognostics of future danger ahead. If you think its bad now, wait until climate change kicks in.
posted by adamvasco at 4:55 AM PST - 16 comments

Beautiful train stations that fell to the wrecking ball.
posted by gman at 4:33 AM PST - 71 comments

Polynomial (yt) is a 3D space shooter with mathematically generated fractal scenery and models by Dmytry Lavrov with demos available for Linux, (Intel) OSX, & Windows. (via)
posted by juv3nal at 2:19 AM PST - 35 comments

North Korea's concentration camps reportedly contain over half a million citizens, and is possibly one of the worst cases of systematic human rights abuses occurring in the world today. Ahn Myong Chol, an ex-prison guard, describes the conditions of the inmates of Camp 22, in objective and chilling detail. On medical experiments being performed on prisoners: "....the glass chamber has 3 main subdivisions: one is for blood experiments, another is for poison gas, and the third is for suffocation gas. 3 or 4 people, normally a family, are experimented on. The scientists sit around the edge and watch from above...". [more inside]
posted by thisperon at 2:03 AM PST - 90 comments

In 2008, Nokia Siemens’ Networks sold Iran a program called Monitoring Centre, which allows the government not only to monitor all mobile communications, but also to alter their contents, possibly for disinformation purposes. Implementation of the deep-packet inspection technology that the program uses may be to blame for the halt in mobile service that occurred after the June 12th election. According the BBC, Nokia Siemens markets the Monitoring Center product to 150 countries around the world.
posted by HylandErickson at 9:46 PM PST - 32 comments

Twenty years ago today, Warner Brothers took a risk and paired a director-and-actor pairing known for a quirky, moderately successful supernatural comedy and turned them loose with a high budget-take on an iconic character: Batman. [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:22 PM PST - 138 comments

Marc Johns: Drawings on paper, drawings on sticky notes, drawings on rat traps. Twitter, Flickr. Interviews.
posted by gerryblog at 9:00 PM PST - 7 comments

Buy American - Not as easy as it may seem. The "Cash for Clunkers" program is intended to not only help the environment, but also to stimulate domestic car sales. But what is a "domestic" car?
posted by johngumbo at 8:24 PM PST - 40 comments

Pug Fight — An animated short that explores the unbelievably cruel but really adorable world of underground pug fighting.
posted by blasdelf at 8:17 PM PST - 22 comments

Meet detective Kyösti Pöysti from Pasila, a cult tv-series that relies on tight, absurd and idiosyncratic language and depressing the suspects until they give up. Now there are fan-made subtitles to introduce this gem to the english misspelling world. Reetta Ruusu, The Orphant Dogs, For and against, Key player and lots more in related videos. [more inside]
posted by Free word order! at 7:57 PM PST - 5 comments

"Workmanlike" astronomy: The Vatican Observatory, among the oldest astronomical centers in the world, brings a team of Jesuits to the papal summer residence. Its scientists play a large part in the church's efforts to reconcile faith with reason. [Previously.] [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 6:50 PM PST - 30 comments

The Natural History of the Chicken which recently aired on PBS is now available in 6 parts on youtube.. 1/6 [more inside]
posted by acro at 6:32 PM PST - 18 comments

First lady Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press Monday that her husband [South Carolina governor and presidential hopeful Mark Sanford] has been gone for several days and she did not know where. She said she was not concerned. [more inside]
posted by msalt at 5:32 PM PST - 1043 comments

In 2005, Look Around You created a brilliant satirical video about the music industry charts.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 4:25 PM PST - 34 comments

They've taken my Kodachrome away, oh yeah.
posted by normy at 4:13 PM PST - 61 comments

The Great Johnny Quest Documentary (YT Playlist Link) A two hour and twenty minute documentary on Hanna-Barbera's first foray into action adventure primetime animation back in 1963. Though the original authors of this detailed and meticulous documentary remain unknown, it was reportedly created for a one-time screening at a private event.. Rapidshare links at the poster's blog.
(Via Drawn.ca)
posted by CharlesV42 at 2:35 PM PST - 73 comments

Genesis Revisited scientifically summarises the scientific field of Creation Science (warning: science) [transcript]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:00 PM PST - 103 comments

If you thought The Beatles' incredible success had something to do with talent, hard work, good luck or a combination of the three, you'd be wrong. It was all Satan's work.
posted by aldurtregi at 1:05 PM PST - 124 comments

Why We Stare, Even When We Don’t Want To “When a face is distorted, we have no pattern to match that,” Rosenberg said. “All primates show this [staring] at something very different, something they have not evolved to see. They need to investigate further. ‘Are they one of us or not?’ In other species, when an animal looks very different, they get rejected.” The article is about why humans stare at disfigurements, but it may say something about why we stare at anyone who seems different. Previously: Seeing race: the Other-Race Effect.
posted by shetterly at 12:49 PM PST - 38 comments

What happens when Elton John reads your book? As Joel Derfner, author of Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever recounts, you go from crying at lunch with your agent over a slow-selling hardcover edition to a brand-spanking-new paperback edition, complete with a blurb from Elton John. [more inside]
posted by joeclark at 12:05 PM PST - 20 comments

45 pictures of Mario & Luigi!
posted by EatTheWeek at 11:47 AM PST - 22 comments

Q. And TARP Wives? A. And TARP Wives From the soon to be defunct Portfolio magazine, another look into the heartbreaking struggles of the subaltern. (somewhat previously)
posted by allen.spaulding at 11:40 AM PST - 46 comments

The Mexican legislature has voted quietly to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and other drugs.
posted by flyinghamster at 11:10 AM PST - 156 comments

Thomas Berry passed away early on the morning of June 1st. He described himself as a cosmologist and "geologian," an Earth scholar. He was an advocate of deep ecology, and believed passionately in the power of the New Cosmology and the Great Story. Berry believed that "Our future destiny rests even more decisively on our capacity for intimacy in our human-Earth relations."
posted by diogenes at 11:09 AM PST - 7 comments

Study definitely shows massive ballot fraud. Link to download the study here. From Andrew Sullivan's curated tweets: “Head of parliament’s judiciary committee: Mousavi accountable for illegal protests, can be pursued legally.” AP: Police attack protesters with tear gas. Italy will let wounded protesters into its embassy.
posted by Stephen Elliott at 9:59 AM PST - 121 comments

Samuel Kent is the first judge to be impeached by the House in 20 years. [more inside]
posted by orrnyereg at 9:30 AM PST - 26 comments

Fats, whether from plant sources or animals, have been in use in cooking for a long time. Olive oil's history goes back 7 millenia and palm oil has a history dating back to 3000 BCE. Once widely used in place of butter during the 19th century, lard is finally making a comeback (and you can easily make your own). Schmaltz, the Jewish lard alternative, will probably never rebound as a food, although the word itself is still popular (to describe something that is overly sentimental). Although fat in general has a negative connotation, you need fat to survive and there are good fats and bad fats. [more inside]
posted by Deathalicious at 9:21 AM PST - 48 comments

From the satisfying click of its keys to its no-nonsense layout and solid steel underpinnings, IBM's 24-year-old Model M is the standard by which all other keyboards must be judged. (previously)
posted by Joe Beese at 8:57 AM PST - 106 comments

In 1991, SNL unveiled the prototype for The Love Toilet. Almost two decades later, the dream has finally been realized: presenting The Love Seat Toilet and the TwoDaLoo.
posted by not_on_display at 8:48 AM PST - 29 comments

Play Helen Hunt off, Keyboard Cat! So he does. And then he jams. It's a single link to YouTube, and you may skip it if you want. But you're missing out if you do, because as I type this I think this opus is the pinnacle of human achievement.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:24 AM PST - 130 comments

Slavoj Žižek recently gave five talks under the title Masterclass - Notes Towards a Definition of Communist Culture. It sez 'ere, "The master class analyses phenomena of modern thought and culture with the intention to discern elements of possible Communist culture. It moves at two levels: first, it interprets some cultural phenomena (from today’s architecture to classic literary works like Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Heloise) as failures to imagine or enact a Communist culture; second, it explores attempts at imagining how a Communist culture could look, from Wagner’s Ring to Kafka’s and Beckett’s short stories and contemporary science fiction novels." Audio of Zizek's talks and subsequent discussion is now online: Part I Utopias; Part II Architecture as Ideology; Part III Wagner’s Ring as a Communist narrative; Part IV Populism and Democracy; Part V Environment, Identity and Multiculturalism. Those who like to watch the beard in motion will find links to video of some of the talks posted here.
posted by Abiezer at 7:05 AM PST - 27 comments

Poupees Viandes (Meat Puppets): a flickr photoset of "flesh dolls made with stuffed taxidermy skin." These sculptures are not for those easily made nauseous! (via)
posted by OmieWise at 6:32 AM PST - 30 comments

To date, focus of most research into Domestic Violence has been on instances of violence against women by men based on the arguably sexist premise that it is more prevalent than instances of violence by women against men. However numerous books and studies have contradicted this premise, showing that men and women suffer domestic abuse in similar and sometimes equal rates. Despite this, preconceived ideas of gender roles still lead many to believe it would be virtually impossible for a woman to physically abuse a man, an attitude which Men's Rights advocates say often leads to many battered men hiding in shame, fearful of being ridiculed, or even prosecuted. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:36 AM PST - 189 comments

Gastrosexuals are masculine, upwardly mobile men, aged 25-44, who are passionate about cooking and the rewards that it might bring – pleasure, praise and potential seduction. A test for the gastrosexual. [more inside]
posted by bigmusic at 2:29 AM PST - 75 comments

Wordnik - An ongoing project devoted to discovering all the words and everything about them. [via]
posted by tellurian at 12:01 AM PST - 15 comments

We Are All Mice Within the Lesser Vastness of the Not-Kaleidoscope. (SLYT) Structure elevates random into beautiful; individual impasse, in multiplicity, resolves into vibrant design; mirrors are weird; enter, The Duck. via Wired. (Can't find the original link any longer.)
posted by darth_tedious at 11:34 PM PST - 12 comments

Strange Elongated Skulls have popped up everywhere from Russia, to Europe, to South America. The most likely explanation is that it is a form of head binding. [more inside]
posted by banished at 10:58 PM PST - 42 comments

Sam Kieth is an interesting guy, coming from an artistic family (including a cousin who created the animated series Cow and Chicken). His professional work has mostly been in the world of comics, though he did direct a movie for Roger Corman, entitled "Take it to the Limit" (2000), as a way "to recharge [his] batteries after the Maxx." The Maxx was a 35 issue comic (plus a few bonuses), and later animated and aired on Mtv's Oddities in the mid 1990s. (More videos inside) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:34 PM PST - 30 comments

Yesterday was self government day in Greenland. The last step before complete independence from Denmark. They played the Greenland National Anthem.
posted by Xurando at 10:24 PM PST - 15 comments

Osymyso - "Intro-Inspection" (mp3) [more inside]
posted by flatluigi at 8:59 PM PST - 22 comments

Awards can't feed the hungry. (via, with supporting links)
posted by divabat at 7:25 PM PST - 17 comments

Did I Say That?
posted by five fresh fish at 7:21 PM PST - 35 comments

Extraordinarily Weird But Beautiful Flowers, Apparently there are also ugly flowers.
posted by twoleftfeet at 7:15 PM PST - 15 comments

Disturbing video of a young Iranian woman shot and dying in the streets of Tehran has surfaced on the internet (extremely graphic, NSFW, requires youtube login). Known only as "Neda" in the video, she has been identified by subsequent reports as a 16-year-old student named Neda Soltani. Supporters of the Iranian opposition are saying that she is the face of the struggle, and that this video galvanizes the opposition movement. As of this writing, the authenticity of the video has not been conclusively determined, and a small but vocal minority on the internet are decrying it as a fake.
posted by orville sash at 6:18 PM PST - 229 comments

Boxmen. A bit late for Flash Friday, but not a bad way to spend some time on a Sunday evening.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:37 PM PST - 15 comments

"The design of the Society is specially to afford, to dwellers in remote parts of the country, by means of postal facilities, the advantages derivable from interchange of thought on such subjects of common interest as may be elucidated by the microscope." from the Journal of the Postal Microscopical Society c. 1882. It might interest you to know that the Postal Microscopical Society is still in existence and that there are other microscopical societies around the world. Now you can look at slides from the Victorian Era or present day without waiting for the mailman. [previously]
posted by jessamyn at 4:24 PM PST - 5 comments

"Necronomicons: The Scariest Book in the World" - A talk given by Daniel Harms, author of the Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, on the history of the Necronomicon(s) - taking in Abdul Alhazred, John Dee, assorted aquaintences of HP Lovecraft, some rather dodgy sounding occultists from the 70s and a man known only as Simon. Previously.
posted by Artw at 4:15 PM PST - 24 comments

If anyone could flame from beyond the grave, it is he. Erik Naggum was a young programmer and Usenet philosopher who exemplified the new breed of smug Lisp weenie. His hatred for Perl, C++ and XML fueled his Olympian rants. He was cruel, but smart; he was articulate, but he used arguments ad hominem; he left a trail of scorched earth, but he had devoted friends. I didn't know him, but I enjoyed his expression of free thought. He died young after years of torment; R.I.P. [more inside]
posted by e.e. coli at 3:00 PM PST - 72 comments

In Buffy Vs. Edward (Twilight Remixed), Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer at Sunnydale High. It's an example of transformative storytelling serving as a visual critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy's eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways. (Previous Twilight discussion on MeFi )
posted by ShawnStruck at 1:23 PM PST - 91 comments

In light of J.D. Salinger’s successful injunction against the publication of the subtly-nom-de-plumed J.D. California’s Catcher in the Rye followup, the NYTimes’s Jennifer Schuessler asks: How relevant is Holden Caulfield’s defiant disillusionism to the lives and tastes of modern adolescents? [more inside]
posted by oinopaponton at 11:52 AM PST - 65 comments

"At 1am on June 19, police and funeral cars arrived at the hotel, wanting to take the body away. 2,000 Shishou residents blocked the hotel entrance to protect Xu's corpse."
posted by sswiller at 11:36 AM PST - 38 comments

My dad saved me, and I killed him...
posted by Heliochrome85 at 10:08 AM PST - 102 comments

How Safeway Is Cutting Health-Care Costs - "At Safeway we believe that well-designed health-care reform, utilizing market-based solutions, can ultimately reduce our nation's health-care bill by 40%. The key to achieving these savings is health-care plans that reward healthy behavior... 70% of all health-care costs are the direct result of behavior... 74% of all costs are confined to four chronic conditions (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity). Furthermore, 80% of cardiovascular disease and diabetes is preventable, 60% of cancers are preventable, and more than 90% of obesity is preventable." [1,2] cf. Wyden's Third Way & Healthcare CEOs Shoot Themselves in the Foot [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 8:32 AM PST - 128 comments

A little something sweet and SLYT for Father's Day: Dads reenact famous movie scenes. [more inside]
posted by Countess Elena at 8:12 AM PST - 9 comments

When thousands of people depart, leaving an entire city dead that’s a real tragedy. There are mainly two reasons why people leave the place where they used to live for years or even generations: danger, and economic factors. Abandoned Places In The World. ( previously 1,2)
posted by netbros at 7:11 AM PST - 26 comments

The British Film Institute on YouTube. How we used to live and more [via].
posted by feelinglistless at 3:51 AM PST - 7 comments

An alternative look at Fatherhood: a study with bees shows that females mating with random males actually have more genes in common with their sisters than they do with their own daughters. And that makes them more likely to put the good of their colony sisters over their own reproductive legacy. Would that work with humans? Well, there's a society in China where kids don't have Fathers.
posted by eye of newt at 12:54 AM PST - 34 comments

One Laptop Per Child: Vision vs. Reality. Three researchers at the University of California, Irvine evaluate the progress of the One Laptop Per Child initiative (Wikipedia). The vision is being overwhelmed by the reality of business, political, logistics, and competing interests worldwide. As of June 2009, fewer than six hundred thousand OLPCs have been shipped, while 10 million netbooks were sold in 2008 alone. From Communications of the ACM.
posted by russilwvong at 11:19 PM PST - 67 comments

"It's a secret to everybody" -- an unbelievably comprehensive blog post about the etymologies of the names of famous (and not-so-famous) video game characters.
posted by empath at 7:26 PM PST - 26 comments

"The whole dream is that everybody has a world record in them," said Dan Rollman, president and co-founder of the Brooklyn-based Universal Record Database. Since the site went live last fall, more than 1,000 feats have been documented - ranging from the most binder clips on a face (now up to 34) to the longest toenail (seven-eighths of an inch) to the most whoopee cushions sat on without smiling or laughing (presently up to 18), and a few records involving mustaches (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Beyond the basics of setting records, the URDB is based on three principles: 1. Honesty and accuracy are pretty much everything, 2. Don't hurt yourself. Don't hurt others. Don't hurt the planet, and 3. Waste sucks. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 6:52 PM PST - 21 comments

Sorry about the sytigl, but - presenting the random youtube insult generator. Our work is done here.
posted by jourman2 at 6:48 PM PST - 46 comments

"Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals? Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break." Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O’Fallon) is staking out a strong position on child hunger: she's for it. (via).
posted by ornate insect at 6:37 PM PST - 92 comments

Saturday Flash Hangover: Help a penguin Learn to Fly and scratch "flighless bird" from that stupid wikipedia article. [more inside]
posted by Decimask at 6:35 PM PST - 10 comments

In keeping with its mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," Google Books presents every issue of Weekly World News from 1981 to 2007. previously via
posted by Knappster at 5:26 PM PST - 60 comments

Jørn Hurum, who brought the world the alleged missing link, Ida (previously), has been described by colleagues as "a bit of a showman". While Hurum maintains his assessment of Ida is correct, others have said his claim at finding the missing link is "seriously likely to undermine the credibility of science in the public eye". [more inside]
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:07 PM PST - 19 comments

A photo returned... A short video of a man returning a photo to the daughter of the man he killed, and from whom he removed the photo, during the war in Viet Nam.
posted by HuronBob at 3:57 PM PST - 21 comments

After more than 30 years of competions and planning and eight years of construction, the New Acropolis Museum officially opens today. The museum, designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, provides a dramatic new home for the many historic treasures of the Acropolis, including the marbles of the Parthenon frieze. [more inside]
posted by shoesfullofdust at 3:51 PM PST - 21 comments

Steam engine. Henry was first. Steam powered trains soon followed. Steam powered shovels, tractors, and rollers. Think technology has made steam obsolete? Not yet.
posted by Mblue at 3:04 PM PST - 24 comments

The Raw Shark Texts (spoilers if you poke around) is a novel about conceptual fish by Steven Hall that is rife with typographic gimmickry and has an ARG-like element to it. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 2:52 PM PST - 12 comments

Cat dies. The NY Times is there.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:39 PM PST - 61 comments

The Missive Maven. Extolling the virtues of snail mail: old-fashioned postal letter-writing and all of its yummy accoutrements
posted by Joe Beese at 1:22 PM PST - 7 comments

John Hodgman tests President Obama's nerd credentials at the Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner. [SLYT]
posted by HumuloneRanger at 9:11 AM PST - 96 comments

Seeing race: the Other-Race Effect. Why do so many people think people of other races look alike? Babies as young as three months old "tend to recognize faces from their own race better than those from other races," but "babies raised with frequent exposure to people of other races don’t develop this early bias." The Other-Race Effect, aka the Cross-Race Effect, "carries practical implications for cases of mistaken eyewitness identification." A follow-up study with Chinese babies confirmed the effect, and notes that it can change: "Korean adults who were adopted by French families during their childhood (aged 3–9 years) demonstrated the same discrimination deficit for Korean faces shown by the native French population." Yes, you have to be carefully taught.
posted by shetterly at 8:26 AM PST - 35 comments

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan passed into his next incarnation on June 18. He was unquestionably the greatest sarod player in the world. A sample of his artistry is on display here and here..
posted by rdone at 8:10 AM PST - 27 comments

The American Nightmare (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) Documentary on US horror films of the 60s and 70s and how their themes reflected the society of the time. Includes contributions from John Carpenter, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, John Landis, George R. Romero and Tom Savini. NSFW - horror gore plus extreme reportage.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:39 AM PST - 42 comments

WoW Detox -- "WoWdetox is a volunteer-run web site aimed at people with a gaming addiction to World of Warcraft. Here gamers and ex-gamers can share their testimonies freely and anonymously."
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:50 PM PST - 60 comments

Its previous owner named it the Old Kentucky Home. For Thomas Wolfe, it was the home of his youth, a boarding house run by his mother, Julia Wolfe. Now it's known as the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, located in Altamont Asheville, North Carolina, and its website offers fair overview of Wolfe, and even his legendary editor, Maxwell Perkins. Wolfe, the author of Look Homeward, Angel (.txt file), Of Time and the River (.txt file), and You Can't Go Home Again (.txt file), among other works. Text file copies courtesy of Project Gutenberg Australia.
posted by Atreides at 5:50 PM PST - 3 comments

'It has been said that cinema is in essence a special effect. The video work of Bernard Gigounon reduces that notion to its minimal essence: cinema as an illusion, created by the manipulation of images in time. He does not create this effect with advanced, multi-dimensional digital technologies, but rather through simple, transparent magic...' [more inside]
posted by carsonb at 3:29 PM PST - 31 comments

The Lilyest Hobo ... for fans of Lily Allen and CanCon children's TV: Lily Allen's 'Not Fair' vs 'The Littlest Hobo Theme'. Lily likes it too, by the way.
I stole the header quote from the Youtube comment thread, in case you're wondering...
posted by spoobnooble at 2:58 PM PST - 32 comments

The overall effect is like listening to an erudite gentleman employing $20 words while he screams at a bunch of punk kids to get off his front lawn. A review of Mark Helprin's Digital Barbarism : A Writer's Manifesto. [more inside]
posted by shoesfullofdust at 2:56 PM PST - 70 comments

Stereotypes -- Derided by typophiles as crass, "ethnic type" has a revealing taxonomy and, surprisingly, serves a purpose.
posted by cog_nate at 1:33 PM PST - 66 comments

At this year's E3, Shigeru Miyamoto told Kotaku (video interview included) and USA Today that the "Kind Code" patent (noticed back in January 2009, and well summarized on Kotaku) will be implemented in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The tentatively named "Demo Mode" was discussed by developers and received early approval from a teacher. With this new, slightly more solid information, feelings are mixed. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:31 PM PST - 59 comments

Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk gives a rare interview to the Guardian, who also have a rather nice interactive feature on the bands influence.
posted by Artw at 1:12 PM PST - 14 comments

Andrew Sullivan, retweeting the revolution, day 7, aggregates many of the best "tweets" coming out of Iran. Over at Huffpo, There Will Be Blood: An interview with a journalist in Tehran. TPM has video of the basij shooting into a crowd, causing at least one protester to go down. Speaking of the Basij, the counter protesters credited with most of the violence, Jon Lee Anderson answers the question, What are the Basij?
posted by Stephen Elliott at 12:33 PM PST - 130 comments

The objective of the experiment was to determine whether infrasonic frequencies and magnetic field fluctuations similar to those found in supposedly "haunted" spaces can elicit physiological or psychological effects similar to those experienced in "hauntings".
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:36 AM PST - 37 comments

Explore the joy of American Tribal Style (1, 2, 3), tribal fusion (1, 2, 3), industrial, gothic (1, 2, 3), fantasy, heavy metal, punk raqs, ‘80s fusion, hip hop, new age, feminist, Star Trek, or tough love belly dance. [more inside]
posted by velvet winter at 11:27 AM PST - 20 comments

“They are brands that may not be considered cool by the often elitist and self-absorbed standards of New York media,” she said. She had taken a car from Manhattan that morning, and wore a pink wool shirt-dress, patent leather Manolo Blahnik heels, and diamond hoop earrings.

Reader's Digest jumps the shark. (NYT)
posted by squalor at 10:27 AM PST - 177 comments

This site is dedicated to those hardworking and underpaid Angels of Mercy who, over the years, have made a stay in hospital that much more bearable. It's a growing collection of images of Nurses taken from Film, TV and The Media from the 1930s to the present, showing how uniform styles have changed over the years.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:18 AM PST - 7 comments

Flip Flop Fly Ball - Baseball infographics and other visual treats. Highlights: How tall is the Green Monster?, Assembling and dismantling the '86 Mets, and Wu-Tang Clan vs. E-Street Band.
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:35 AM PST - 47 comments

"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.," the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords. The City of Bozeman takes their job application process too far?
posted by hippybear at 9:11 AM PST - 84 comments

It's Friday! Enjoy Necronomicon, a fun little flash-based card game inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
posted by EarBucket at 8:42 AM PST - 33 comments

Online dating site match.com is being sued for deception by a New York man who claims their practice of keeping up profiles of non-paying members who have no ability to respond to suitors "defrauds the consumer of his/her time, labor, and emotional investment"
posted by The Gooch at 8:37 AM PST - 88 comments

A preview version of a 20-minute film following Damon Albarn as he and other western musicians (including Franz Ferdinand and Fatboy Slim) travel to Mali, Nigeria and Congo as part of the Africa Express, a sprawling musical collective collaboration between Africans (including Toumani Diabate, Baaba Maal and Tony Allen) Americans and Europeans. The film includes a visit and concert at The Shrine for last year's Felabration. [more inside]
posted by criticalbill at 8:07 AM PST - 4 comments

Don't want to wait until bedtime (UK bedtime that is) to drift off to Sailing By (one of Jarvis Cocker's Desert Island Discs)? Well thanks to permanent bedtime you can listen to the BBC shipping forecast all day. Oh? What's that? It's no use because it's from months ago? Okay, here's the Met Office current data, and the listen again page on the beeb. Or test yourself: can you name all the weather areas?
posted by itsjustanalias at 7:09 AM PST - 21 comments

Following a 30-year trend, bear sightings and human encounters in certain US cities seem to be on the rise. But when Cleveland's Fox Channel 8 (WJW) needed to report about recent black bear sightings in a NE Ohio neighborhood, they had to get a stand-in. Perhaps the bear refused to sit for an interview with intrepid reporter Todd Meany? [more inside]
posted by zarq at 6:50 AM PST - 40 comments

In a talk titled Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation given at The New Emergency Conference, Peak Oil activist and writer Dmitry Orlov (previously 1 2 3) shows how he has come to the conclusion that the oil price spike of summer 2008 was the trigger for the financial collapse that occurred later on in the fall. He goes on to summarize (from his point of view) pretty much everything that has been happening in the past year or so, and what he thinks is coming up next. [more inside]
posted by symbollocks at 6:32 AM PST - 39 comments

Hey: the Motion Picture. Featuring dinosaurs and a brief intermission for snacks. That is all.
posted by Naberius at 6:21 AM PST - 13 comments

American Verse Project is assembling an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry. Most of the archive is made up of 19th century poetry, although a few 18th century and early 20th century texts are included. Notables Include: Edgar Allen Poe, Carl Sandburg, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson (Series [1], [2], [3]), Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), James Russell Lowell. [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 6:14 AM PST - 5 comments

Beck intends to record cover versions of selected albums in a day, unrehearsed, with guest musicians and then to release them on his website. Pitchfork announced it yesterday here. The first song is Sunday Morning.
posted by tawny at 4:32 AM PST - 47 comments

"I filled my water bottles , fuel bottle and ate some snacks. I reset my altimeter to 1300ft and started shortly past 2pm. The first sign stated 'Eagle Plains 363, Inuvik 735'. The distances were measured in kilometers with green km posts every 2km along the road. A few kilometers down the road, I crossed an old fire burn area with dead trees still standing. The sun was shining and I was eager to get started on the road. The gravel was occasionally soft as the road slowly climbed along the valley." An enterprising man relates his journey up the Dempster Highway on bicycle. [more inside]
posted by Avenger at 2:28 AM PST - 14 comments

Is Dexter Romweber about to finally get his due? One of the great underground geniuses of rock, in the late 1980s and early 90s Romweber fronted The Flat Duo Jets. Their brand of raw, pared-down rockabilly proved cathartic and influential, if never commercially viable. Now Jack White, who has always acknowledged his musical indebtedness to Romweber, has produced a new 7" EP (in addition, a new album, not produced by White, features Exene Cervenka, Chan Marshall, and Neko Case). Romweber seems poised to receive some long overdue recognition. It's about time.
posted by ornate insect at 1:22 AM PST - 21 comments

Did you know there's an AJAX implementation of nethack? It seems to be pretty full-featured -- not a rouge-like light, supporting every option that the normal version does, right down to tiles. For traditionalists, there's also the internet nethack server known as NAO, where you can mingle with and watch other players struggle through the Dungeons of Doom and lose time in a stunning amount of trivia and statistics. To extend your chances of success you might also want to visit wikihack, which will certainly spoil your experience, detailing the tiniest details and tactics of the game.
posted by boo_radley at 6:23 PM PST - 86 comments

Dying of vascular cancer, all this girl wanted to do was to see Up!
posted by Heliochrome85 at 6:10 PM PST - 130 comments

Mule train!!! (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:48 PM PST - 26 comments

Michigan Congressman @petehoekstra: "Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House." The response, from the series of tubes? 21st century sarcasm mixed with a hint of cyberwarfare.
posted by mark242 at 3:58 PM PST - 50 comments

Jammie Thomas to pay RIAA $1.92 million. Found guilty of willful copyright infringement, the jury awarded the RIAA $80,000 each for 24 songs. This is up from $220,000 in the first trial (previously). Ars Technica has a good review of the case. [more inside]
posted by 6550 at 3:42 PM PST - 137 comments

Civilization is a video mural created by video artist Marco Brambilla and Toronto-based studio Crush for an elevator in the Standard Hotel in New York. It depicts a journey from hell to heaven as the elevator goes up, or from heaven to hell as it goes down. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 3:36 PM PST - 26 comments

"Exactly one hundred years ago a Russian photographer, began a remarkable project. With the blessing - and funding - of the Tsar, Nicholas II, he embarked on an extraordinary journey to capture the essence of Russia in full color photographs." [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 2:53 PM PST - 47 comments

Rob Zombie claims to own the word "zombie." I call dibs on "elf".
posted by shetterly at 1:53 PM PST - 113 comments

As of tomorrow a law will be in effect in Germany that allows the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation to block websites without any judicial approval. Both big parties voted favorably today - even in the face of protest and the most successful online petition in Germany so far. And while the original law states that only child pornography can be censored this way, politicians and music industry execs are already calling for the blocking of first person shooters and copyright-infringing content. (Last two links in German) [more inside]
posted by dominik at 1:39 PM PST - 35 comments

Los Angeles is home to approximately 3.8 million people in 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km²). There are plenty of reasons to hate LA, but there are also reasons to love the City of Angels. Hidden Los Angeles is a treasure map to the second largest city in the US, charting upcoming events, local trends, and in-depth features. [via mefi projects]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:24 PM PST - 51 comments

We've discussed trepanation, the boring of holes in the head as practiced in antiquity and by a fringe do it yourself-ers, before. There now seems to be research indicating that the procedure may have medical merit, and even help stave off age related cognitive decline. This curious research brought to you by the Beckly Foundation which "promotes the investigation of consciousness and its modulation from a multidisciplinary perspective" and has a sweet logo.
posted by phrontist at 12:01 PM PST - 50 comments

The Snyderphonics Manta . With a few exceptions like the rare Buchla Thunder and the ZenDrum, computer musicians were stuck with controllers disguised as traditional instruments, rolling their own, or using grids of generic rubber pads. The Manta, in the spirit of the Serge TKB's capacitance touchplate construction, attempts to do something new, and people are already doing interesting things with it. Videos: polyphonic keys, sequencer, technique, and lots more
posted by Señor Pantalones at 11:46 AM PST - 7 comments

"Now this is cool. Hellenic Shipping has a Google Maps mashup showing interactive, live data on the global shipping fleet." [via]
posted by Anonymous at 11:41 AM PST - 42 comments

The American Empire Is Bankrupt (via The Agonist)
posted by Substrata at 11:36 AM PST - 81 comments

Bumper Stickers for people who don't feel that strongly either way.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:21 AM PST - 146 comments

The Readers of Boing Boing interview Michael Moorcock
posted by Artw at 10:16 AM PST - 42 comments

What is a browser? Nobody seems to be sure. [more inside]
posted by chorltonmeateater at 9:58 AM PST - 80 comments

Bill Maher's criticism of Obama? Be more like Bush. ...And just like Lindsey [Lohan], we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something. Follow up of his statements with Keith Olbermann. ...But where's the beef? And it's easy to make speeches; what's hard to do is stand up against corporations. Corporations and their incredible strength are what have ruined this country so far, and this president -- we thought -- might be the one to stand up to them. I'm losing hope. I still have audacity, but my hope is fading.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 9:57 AM PST - 124 comments

Ice cream sundaes are good, but what if you could eat the bowl? On a suggestion from his son, Michael Ruhlman, food writer and critic, figures out how to make a chocolate chip cookie ice cream bowl... and tells you how to do it too.
posted by SansPoint at 9:17 AM PST - 60 comments

The Global Oneness Project is exploring how the radically simple notion of interconnectedness can be lived in our increasingly complex world. They travel the globe gathering stories from creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the understanding that we bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 9:13 AM PST - 9 comments

The man who really started the marriage trend: Henry VIII, how he dealt with the wives and what he had to do to get the woman he wanted (at the time he wanted her): Reformation.
posted by She Kisses Wyverns at 8:47 AM PST - 27 comments

On hive minds, “cognitive calisthenics”, “You+”. Cascio predicts that in the near future “many more humans will have the capacity to do something that was once limited to a hermetic priesthood”. Get Smart, by Jamais Cascio, the Atlantic, July/August 2009
posted by mareli at 8:20 AM PST - 26 comments

To Set the Record Straight. . . "The only thing that stood between Marxist street thugs and public order was a thin blue line of dedicated, tough Chicago police officers." And with that sentiment, The Chicago Police who participated in the riots of 1968 are holding a reunion on June 26. [more inside]
posted by Danf at 8:19 AM PST - 34 comments

A homeless man in DC has a wordpress blog which he posts images to using a remote camera. I saw this man in the DC metro yesterday, hauling a shopping cart around that not only contained his clothes, but was also festooned with cardboard signs advertising different web addresses. Wandoojin.wordpress.com was the only one I could make out, and though the fellow is clearly disturbed (though the site is not disturbing), to me it's a fascinating look at how accessible technology is to everyone, especially the folks who have too many words, images of Gremlins sitting on the US, and conspiracy theories involving Teddy Kennedy and the Clintons to keep to himself. Also, he's apparently made good use of the Apple store near my office. (I wonder if he knows the Arlington rap?)
posted by oneironaut at 7:43 AM PST - 44 comments

Custom Letters is an evolving category that includes calligraphy, sign painting, graffiti, stone carving, digital lettering, hand lettering, paper sculpture, and type design.
posted by minifigs at 2:01 AM PST - 17 comments

Run Firefox with greasemonkey and Facebook Purity to free yourself from the Tyranny of Facebook Quizzes. It's the nuclear option, and it works... like the bomb. BOOM. No more quizzy.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:45 AM PST - 71 comments

Obama's ninja-like fly swat has been objected to, rejected, genuflected, relatively neglected and hopefully disinfected.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:44 PM PST - 116 comments

A mechanic in Wasilla Alaska has built his own 18-foot tall mecha. He's a piker, though, compared to the Japanese, who have built a 59-foot tall Gundam. (Nonfunctional, alas.) [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:03 PM PST - 30 comments

One of the giants of free jazz, Albert Ayler was also one of the most controversial. His huge tone and wide vibrato were difficult to ignore, and his 1966 group sounded like a runaway New Orleans brass band from 1910. - AllMusic [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 9:25 PM PST - 23 comments

R.I.P. Bob Bogle. [more inside]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:50 PM PST - 15 comments

Hollywood Makeover Try on the hottest celebrity hair and makeup looks. Upload your own picture. Or picture of someone you hate.
posted by ColdChef at 8:16 PM PST - 35 comments

DrumChuk: "A customizable Ruby-based MIDI drum controller for the Wii remote and nunchuk on OS X." The code, and more about the project, can be found at github.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:11 PM PST - 8 comments

Monks on Segways, with fire on the top of their heads, playing "Lightning" by Philip Glass.
posted by geoff. at 7:07 PM PST - 81 comments

Fliers are being distributed in rural Boulder County calling on motorists blockade bicyclists in an upcoming organized ride (via 303cycling). [more inside]
posted by gruchall at 6:46 PM PST - 141 comments

US unveils banking reform plans. But will the proposed measures adequately address the causes of the current crisis? [more inside]
posted by atmosphere at 6:32 PM PST - 17 comments

Before the mouse, there was the trackball. Built for DATAR in 1952, DATAR turned out to be a complete failure. The next user interface device that used a ball was the mouse at Xeroc Parc in 1972. Trackballs are a dying breed of interface devices. But sometimes a trackball just seems more natural choice for certain applications - not so obvious for others. Would you sit on one?
posted by bigmusic at 4:43 PM PST - 65 comments

NSA E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress. "Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications of Americans went beyond legal limits in late 2008 and early 2009, several Congressional committees have been investigating. Those inquiries have led to concerns in Congress about the agency’s ability to collect and read domestic e-mail messages of Americans on a widespread basis, officials said. Supporting that conclusion is the account of a former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 2:33 PM PST - 44 comments

"Worio is a discovery engine that works alongside keyword search to expose you to stuff you've been missing using search alone." (via) [more inside]
posted by gman at 1:58 PM PST - 17 comments

Vogue is now frequently "retouching" phptographs to make models look larger...
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 1:54 PM PST - 71 comments

All the Great Operas in 10 minutes (1992) is a very quick overview of La Traviata, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Aida, Tosca, Tristan and Isolde, Madame Butterfly, Ring of the Nibelung (a four-parter), resulting 26 dead, plus all the gods of Valhalla, which brings the grand total to 38 dead. 10 More Operas in 10 Minutes is a tribute to the original, created by the students of the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences, covering The Merry Widow (technically an operetta), The Force of Destiny, Lucia di Lammermoore, The Magic Flute, Falstaff, The Damnation of Faust, Rigoletto, Romeo and Juliet, La Bohème, and William Tell. Only 14 deaths tallied (not counting armies fighting).
posted by filthy light thief at 1:13 PM PST - 13 comments

The Chronicles of Bruiser "It looked like the fucking Apocolypse. Metallica blaring, strobe light, smoke, and road flares all going off at once. I ran at them full steam an shouted 'I am the Dark Lord here to REAP YOUR SOULS.'" The unbelievable true story of a Street Sweeper named Bruiser. [more inside]
posted by namewithhe1d at 12:53 PM PST - 21 comments

Too Poor to Make the News "The super-rich give up their personal jets; the upper middle class cut back on private Pilates classes; the merely middle class forgo vacations and evenings at Applebee’s. In some accounts, the recession is even described as the “great leveler,” smudging the dizzying levels of inequality that characterized the last couple of decades and squeezing everyone into a single great class, the Nouveau Poor, in which we will all drive tiny fuel-efficient cars and grow tomatoes on our porches.

But the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of downward mobility — the already poor. From their point of view “the economy,” as a shared condition, is a fiction."
posted by nooneyouknow at 12:47 PM PST - 74 comments

Instructables.com moves to a "pay to see" model Instructables, the community craft blog of the handy set, has moved to a closed pay-only model, and the timer is ticking for legacy accounts. After 90 days from implementation rollover, people who do not pay for an Instructables "Pro" account will have their accounts "crippled". Non-paying accounts will no longer be able to view entire instructables at once, print out projects or get a PDF, have a "favorites" list, and most perniciously, people won't be able to view "secondary" images in instructable steps that have multiple images. (Even if you happen to be the person that created it.) [more inside]
posted by dejah420 at 12:18 PM PST - 59 comments

Ta-Nehisi Coates reflects on social myth-making from the losing side.
posted by shothotbot at 11:12 AM PST - 94 comments

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off. The author [Sandra Tsing Loh] is ending her marriage. Isn’t it time you did the same?
posted by you just lost the game at 9:55 AM PST - 305 comments

Darkseid Minus New Gods, in the style of Garfield without Garfield (via)
posted by Artw at 9:26 AM PST - 36 comments

Need to build an FE2b, or perhaps an SE5a? Need to keep the Hun at bay with an RE8 ? Haven’t a clue? Don't worry Vintage Aviator’s got your back. You’ll need to source the correct linen be able to splice cable, and learn how to make the [more inside]
posted by mattoxic at 6:02 AM PST - 24 comments

On May 29, 2009, Stuttgart took home the Golden Bowling Shoe at the first Deutscher Eisfusßball Pokal (that's "German Ice Football Cup" for the English speaking folks). Yes, that's right - those are grown men playing soccer, on ice, in bowling shoes. [more inside]
posted by paisley sheep at 11:51 PM PST - 12 comments

Zelda Lily: Feminism in a Bra A new blog from that same people who brought you Evil Beet Gossip. Featuring an exclusive with Riam Dean, "the beautiful British law student with a prosthetic limb who was removed from her job at a London Abercrombie & Fitch shop floor because she violated their 'look policy'."
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:16 PM PST - 92 comments

Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club, has launched his 557-foot yacht, Eclipse.
posted by Joe Beese at 9:20 PM PST - 75 comments

Behind them on the stage, a giant watermelon. In their hands, little tiny guitars, which they play like mosquitoes on speed. They scat, they dance, they get halfway through the alphabet. Their percussionist has the coolest little drum kit ever, but that doesn't stop him from playing the stage floor and the walls. Who are they? Why, The Five Racketeers, of course! And who's that lady who storms the stage for a little shimmy at the end of the clip? Well, that's Eunice Wilson, and she stuck around to do another number with the fellows. You want more, right? OK! Then let's head down to the All-Colored Vaudeville Show, for some serious oooold-school entertainment.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:14 PM PST - 21 comments

Tomorrow, Obama will extend federal employee benefits to same-sex partners. But is it too little, too late to mend the growing rift between Obama and gay rights advocates, especially after last week's controversial DOMA brief (discussed previously)?
posted by gerryblog at 7:08 PM PST - 171 comments

As turmoil continues in Iran, with protesters and members of the opposition party empowered by Twitter and camera-equipped cell phones, Clay Shirky gives a TED Talk on the emerging global era of bottom-up journalism, including the phenomenon of the transfer of social technology patterns from the second and third world to the first. Previously
posted by macross city flaneur at 6:21 PM PST - 48 comments

Unallotment. Minnesota, known for its colorful politics now adds today's announcement by Governor Pawlenty that he is using his executive power to unilaterally cut $2.7 billion dollars from the state budget. The list of impacted state projects includes heavy cuts to education, health and human services, and funds municipalities rely upon for their own local budgets. Lawsuits claiming Pawlenty is overreaching his executive power are likely. You are probably not from Minnesota, so why should you care? Well, in addition to bringing the 2008 Republican National Convention to the Twin Cities and co-chairing John McCain's presidential campaign, Governor Pawlenty recently announced he is not running for a third term - and it is widely speculated that he may become the 2012 presidential candidate for the "new" GOP.
posted by Muddler at 3:51 PM PST - 80 comments

Hooping. The hoops adults use to dance and perform tricks are larger and heavier than the children's toy called the Hula Hoop. As hooping becomes more popular, people across the States and across the world are pushing the boundaries of dance and sport with a simple, easily made tool. Hooping for pleasure, exercise, and meditation is becoming a phenomenon. There's even a documentary. [more inside]
posted by fiercecupcake at 3:28 PM PST - 23 comments

Take Your Design To The Next Level With CSS3. Why can’t we make use of the rich CSS3 features and tools available in modern web browsers and take the quality of web designs to the next level? It’s time to introduce CSS3 features into projects and not be afraid to gradually incorporate CSS3 properties and selectors in style sheets.
posted by netbros at 2:15 PM PST - 76 comments

The Medill School of Journalism's Washington Program revealed its Pentagon Travel project last week (multimedia). Most privately paid for travel was found to be within the bounds of federal law, but some still show a clear conflict of interest. Key findings: From 1998 through 2007, sources outside the federal government paid for more than 22,000 trips worth at least $26 million. The medical industry paid for more travel than any other outside interest — more than $10 million for some 8,700 trips, or about 40 percent of all outside sponsored travel. Among the targets: military pharmacists, doctors, and others who administer the Pentagon’s $6 billion-plus annual budget for prescription drugs. Medill acquired 10 years worth of trip data and partnered with the Center for Public Integrity to form a searchable database which includes destination, date, sponsor, sponsor nationality, cost of trip or agency.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:18 PM PST - 3 comments

To Marty, This bespells doom! A recent reading in Manhattan at the Strand bookstore by David Sedaris, whose most recent book is “When You Are Engulfed in Flames,” may have offered a glimpse of the future. A man named Marty who had waited in the book-signing line presented his Kindle, on the back of which Mr. Sedaris, in mock horror, wrote, “This bespells doom.” (The signed Kindle was photographed, but its owner’s full name is unknown.)
posted by Fizz at 1:13 PM PST - 53 comments

Arlington: The Rap (SLYT)
posted by Wet Spot at 12:10 PM PST - 54 comments

"Pryde and I came across it one day in an old stable, on a sack of fodder. It is a good, hearty, old English name, and it appealed to us, so we adopted it immediately." That's how The Beggarstaffs, a short lived but influential paring of graphic designers, got their name. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:57 AM PST - 9 comments

Oh cow, oh cow, what are you thinking?      Should I leave the gate open?
Are you content?                                     Would you be happy?
Do you yearn?                                         Would you turn feral?

Do you want freedom?                               Oh cow
Greener pastures?                                     Moo cow
A bull?                                                    Run free cow

The Online Dairy Ode Contest was a light-hearted, web-based, sister competition to the James McIntyre Poetry Contest. It was held at irregular intervals from 2001 to 2005. The only criterion for entry was that the poems had to be Dairy Odes; ie about dairy products, cows, or dairying.
posted by carsonb at 11:50 AM PST - 24 comments

Andrew W.K. (yt): Musician (yt), Motivational speaker (nyt) and now, kids show host (auto-playing video). via
posted by 1f2frfbf at 11:40 AM PST - 79 comments

So^* you want to learn the Language of Birds? There's the mnemonic route and the youtube guide. You can listen to the birds in your local habitat or geographic area: New York State^**, Florida, Southwestern US, Tropical America^***, for example. Or, just find your favorite bird out of 104,517 audio and 33,693 video samples at Cornell's Macaulay Library, and listen. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 10:53 AM PST - 19 comments

For generations, anglers have performed worm grunting (a.k.a. charming, fiddling, snoring, rubbing, or calling) to entice worms out of the ground. Worm grunting even has its very own annual festival. After accompanying Grunting King Gary Revell Vanderbilt neurobiologist Kenneth Catania has explained why scraping a "stob" or twanging a pitchfork brings the worms a-callin'. [more inside]
posted by mudpuppie at 10:52 AM PST - 19 comments

Has the mystery of sex been explained at last? Biologists have long struggled to explain why most creatures reproduce sexually when they could just clone themselves – now at last it's becoming clear not only why sex evolved, but when. - New Scientist
posted by dgaicun at 5:33 AM PST - 74 comments

The cat organ. The mouse organ. The human organ. Another human organ.
posted by Brian Lux at 5:25 AM PST - 18 comments

Controversy has erupted in Britain after it emerged that Prince Charles used his personal influence with Qatari royalty to sack modernist architect Richard Rogers from a development in London. Charles has been an outspoken critic of modern architecture and advocate of neo-traditionalist styles, and even created a model village to showcase his ideas about "proper" architecture. Charles' preferred replacement for Rogers is Quinlan Terry, known for his neo-classicist leanings. [more inside]
posted by acb at 4:39 AM PST - 95 comments

Opera, the inventor of tabbed browsing who just won't quit, today released a trial version of Unite, a dramatic attempt to reverse the centralization of the web as well as Opera's own decreasing relevance in a market dominated by far larger companies [more inside]
posted by crayz at 2:11 AM PST - 78 comments

Life imitating art [more inside]
posted by numberstation at 2:00 AM PST - 13 comments

Is there a question you've always wanted to ask about writing TV sitcoms? (Besides "Why bother?") Ask Ken Levine, the only living blogger and twitterer who has written for M*A*S*H, Cheers and The Simpsons (back when it was good), done baseball play-by-play for 3 Major League teams (and currently does the official DodgerTalk radio show), met Rush Limbaugh (when he was goodless awful), was once a disc jockey using the on-air alias "Beaver Cleaver" and had nothing whatsoever to do with the video game Bioshock.
posted by wendell at 1:06 AM PST - 19 comments

It doesn't seem as if the digital transition has been the resounding success we were told it would be. The FCC has admitted that they're confounded by some of the problems that have arisen across the country. With frustrated tv viewers mobbing the FCC hotlines (and major metropolises like Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore amongst the largest numbers reporting ongoing problems), some have yet to experience the mind-blowing crystal clear pictures and sound promised in those ubiquitous DTV commercials. [more inside]
posted by Mael Oui at 11:16 PM PST - 109 comments

Great Moments in Movie History. Scenes in a film taken out of context can be very funny. Though sometimes they were just funny anyway. [more inside]
posted by Alex404 at 10:34 PM PST - 44 comments

Data Center Overload. "Data centers are increasingly becoming the nerve centers of business and society, creating a growing need to produce the most computing power per square foot at the lowest possible cost in energy and resources."
posted by homunculus at 10:30 PM PST - 31 comments

Over 2,500 songs from Newfoundland (and also from away) [more inside]
posted by goingonit at 8:49 PM PST - 14 comments

Dear Mr. President: ... I realized that although I and other LGBT leaders have introduced ourselves to you as policy makers, we clearly have not been heard, and seen, as what we also are: human beings whose lives, loves, and families are equal to yours. I know this because this brief would not have seen the light of day if someone in your administration who truly recognized our humanity and equality had weighed in with you. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 7:48 PM PST - 150 comments

This is what it would sound like if hip hop was translated to proper form trust me the results are nothing short of amazing!
posted by The1andonly at 7:20 PM PST - 73 comments

As the world watches the conflict in Iran unfold, many commentators have tried to make a connection between the current protests and either the coup of 1953 or the revolution of 1979. But what do we know of the history of that country and how well do we know its leaders? Some of the major political players who have dominated the trajectory of the recent history of Iran include Mohammed Mossadegh, Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, and Mir-Hossein Mousavi. All links above are to Wikipedia pages. For more extensive articles and information, check below the fold. [more inside]
posted by billysumday at 7:06 PM PST - 123 comments

Bernie Madoff's being sentenced June 29th. 113 of his victims have submitted impact statements. Here they are.
posted by davebush at 6:56 PM PST - 40 comments

Gorilla Men !!!
posted by onkelchrispy at 5:36 PM PST - 8 comments

The Accidental Slumlord. In 2005, Daniel McGinn, a writer for Newsweek, wrote a story about out-of-staters buying rental properties in Pocatello, Idaho. A year later, Daniel McGinn, who lives 2,450 miles away from Pocatello, bought a rental property there. Why? [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:13 PM PST - 62 comments

DFG Science TV is back. Researchers documenting their work. If you missed the first series, it is still available for viewing.
posted by tellurian at 3:58 PM PST - 1 comment

Its reach is impossible to measure precisely, but more than 3 million vulnerable machines may ultimately have been infected. : The inside story on the Conficker Worm at New Scientist.
posted by The Whelk at 2:40 PM PST - 84 comments

Mark Wagner makes money into art.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 2:39 PM PST - 17 comments

Women may not be so picky after all. Researchers at Northwestern University have been finding some interesting things about human mating by holding and studying speed-dating events (pdf). [more inside]
posted by AceRock at 2:32 PM PST - 33 comments

There are few ways to make URL shortening any shorter, given the 90+ URL shortening sites available, unless you get tricky. Tinyarro.ws uses two tricks to further shorten URLs, and greatly expand the theoretical limit to short URLs: international domain names and unicode character encoding. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:18 PM PST - 43 comments

Bonsoir, Monsieur COK!
Dans un formidable élan de générosité notre patron adoré nous offre enfin la possibilité de voir son FILM sur la toile!
A short film about efficiencies in bomb manufacturing.
posted by boo_radley at 2:06 PM PST - 15 comments

DVDs to save the music industry (video interview) Record Producers discuss illegal downloads, home studios and why 5.1 DVD sound just might be the future. [more inside]
posted by Lanark at 1:44 PM PST - 62 comments

They were in the stairwell that led down to the commode, a dangerous place in its time, the Grand Central Station Men’s, but for different reasons. I saw the dirt tracks leading there, and I left the monkeys in the chandelier and followed them. I kept to the tracks careful as I could. There were pits and corrugations everywhere in the old tile, any one of which could hide a man killing gob of explosive. At my back I heard Spot complain: “Leave ‘em be, Blacks. We’ve warned ‘em, ain’t we? If they blow themselves up, it ain’t on us.”

UXO, BOMB DOG by Eliot Fintushel (single-link short fiction)
posted by grobstein at 1:12 PM PST - 15 comments

It's the mid 1980's, computer games are stored on cassette tapes and they take a very long time to load. This lead to the creation of loading music. [more inside]
posted by hellojed at 12:36 PM PST - 31 comments

The 50 words that generate the most click-throughs to the dictionary from the New York Times. The Nieman Journalism Lab reveals the words that sent NYT readers running to the Merriam-Webster. Key fact: Maureen Dowd is overly fond of the word "louche." If the post is TL;DR for you, here's the list in Wordle.
posted by escabeche at 9:01 AM PST - 132 comments

Bank insider steals 200 billion - a director in EBank in Eve Online has stolen 200 billion ISK (approximately 10% of deposits), engaging in real money trading to fence his loot. Equivalent to ~US$12,000, the theft has left Ebank with concerns over liquidity, security, auditor failure, and a run on the bank by investors. Unlike the real world, there is no government bail-out.
posted by Argyle at 9:00 AM PST - 92 comments

Graph databases - data 2.0 for Web 3.0?
posted by dabitch at 8:50 AM PST - 34 comments

Stan Hugill, often known as "The Last Shantyman," authored a book called Shanties From the Seven Seas, based on his own work experiences in the last days of sail. Influential in the folk revival, the book is one of the most important written sources for music sung aboard ships in the 19th and early 20th century, the "Bible" of sea music. Decades of chanteying in pubs and at festivals have kept many of the songs alive, but in most cases they've strayed stylistically from the verses and versions Hugill collected, or dropped out of popularity entirely. Now, one musician is returning to the source and creating a new audio archive for the original versions of the songs as written, by singing through the more than 400 songs in the book, one song each week, and posting the songs on YouTube, with commentary. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 8:43 AM PST - 28 comments

Hunch picks up "where a search engine leaves off," according to cofounder Caterina Fake, who previously cofounded the photo-sharing site Flickr and later worked on Yahoo Answers. Fake points out that a normal search engine would provide a user interested in buying a digital camera with links to hundreds of sites that review and compare the latest models. The user then has to sort through that information and figure out which camera is right for her. Instead, Hunch asks users pointed questions and narrows down the list of results for the user.
posted by Man with Lantern at 8:28 AM PST - 46 comments

Your favorite movies, compressed down to three meticulously scribbled frames.
posted by Dr Dracator at 6:27 AM PST - 52 comments

The Cornell Historical Math Monographs archive has a great many famous papers, including works by De Morgan, Hamilton, Descartes (warning: French) and of course Lewis Carroll. [more inside]
posted by DU at 5:37 AM PST - 7 comments

Pixar has released ten feature films thus far, and none of them have had a female main character. This has not gone unnoticed. In fact, it has been the subject of commentary for years. But when Linda Holmes at NPR weighs in on the subject (with thoughtful comments), some of the counter-blogs get downright nasty.
posted by hippybear at 10:50 PM PST - 646 comments

The Secret History: Can Leon Panetta move the C.I.A. forward without confronting its past?
posted by homunculus at 10:20 PM PST - 42 comments

Campaign is a documentary by Kazuhiro Soda. The film follows the 2005 election campaign of political novice Kazuhiko Yamauchi: In the film he's scolded all the time and people chew him out and he is generally humiliated, constantly, but he remains optimistic and he never speaks ill of other people. He's sincere, but maybe too honest. He didn't hide the fact that he was a political novice and a "parachute candidate". I think it's quite rare to see a person who wants to be a politician and who's that honest and sincere. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 9:34 PM PST - 7 comments

Getting up to speed : "If it can get started, the California high-speed train would almost certainly be the most expensive single infrastructure project in United States history. Judging by the experiences of Japan and France, both of which have mature high-speed rail systems, it would end the expansion of regional airline traffic as in-state travelers increasingly ride the fast trains. And it would surely slow the growth of highway traffic."
posted by dhruva at 7:04 PM PST - 76 comments

Biblemap.org is an interactive map system for the bible, which is great for visualising where certain biblical events are said to have occured. It's also great for people who don't subscribe to any kind of organised religion but do like looking at maps (like me!).
posted by Effigy2000 at 6:49 PM PST - 23 comments

Freeters, parasite singles, hikikomori, herbivorous males.
posted by needled at 5:10 PM PST - 53 comments

The New York steak dinner, or beefsteak, is a form of gluttony as stylized and regional as the riverbank fish fry, the hot-rock clambake, or the Texas barbecue. Some old chefs believe it had its origin sixty or seventy years ago, when butchers from the slaughterhouses on the East River would sneak choice loin cuts into the kitchens of nearby saloons, grill them over charcoal, and feast on them during their Saturday-night sprees. - Joseph Mitchell, 1939. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 5:03 PM PST - 38 comments

In his autobiography, published in 2007, Blur bassist Alex James admitted to blowing a million pounds on champagne and cocaine. This confession led to an invitation from Colombia's President Uribe to visit the country and see the damage being caused by the drug trade. He went, and the BBC filmed it (one, two, three).
posted by jontyjago at 3:45 PM PST - 63 comments

Video excerpts of the panel discussions from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' recent Milt Kahl tribute. [more inside]
posted by archagon at 12:45 PM PST - 2 comments

Van Shipley was the first electric guitarist in India. The name Van Shipley is Methodist, he [was] from Lucknow [Uttar Pradesh, India]. He designed his own electric eight string steel guitar in the 1940's. The reason he did this was that he'd studied Indian classical music under Ustad Alaudin Khan, the leading classical musician in India, who was also a contemporary of Ravi Shankar. He also studied the violin with a German teacher... so he made an eight string guitar, instead of a five string. His guitar was a solid guitar, designed to his style at the time, it was futuristic. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 10:37 AM PST - 10 comments

Ukrainian art is widely varied: easter eggs, body art(some pics nsfw). Painting, folk art, and religious art.
posted by lysdexic at 8:31 AM PST - 9 comments

Markets and Morals -- "without quite realising it, without ever deciding to do so, we drifted from having a market economy to being a market society" -- is the first of the 2009 Reith Lectures delivered by Michael Sandel. (previously) cf. Yglesias on free markets... [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 7:11 AM PST - 77 comments

History and Policy UK-based collaborative project by noted historians, offering free-to-view history papers on topics relevant to current policy issues.
posted by Abiezer at 6:08 AM PST - 5 comments

Three frames. And then three frames again. And repeat. [more inside]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:57 AM PST - 39 comments

Fallen Princesses : Dina Goldstein explores what life might have been like for Rapunzel, Snow White, and others after happily-ever-after. (via)
posted by divabat at 4:18 AM PST - 23 comments

"The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage," said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Yet "more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the U.S. population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way." In these areas, people are effectively living in perennial moonlight. They rarely realize it because they still experience the sky to be brighter under a full moon than under new moon conditions. "Reducing the number of lights on at night could help conserve energy, protect wildlife and benefit human health," astronomer Malcolm Smith of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. One study found an increased risk of breast cancer for women living in areas with the most light pollution (abstract). Some communities are embracing their dark skies, such as the New Zealand community of Tekapo, possibly home to first "Starlight Reserve," waiting on UNESCO's official approval. Not sure where to look in the vast night sky? Follow some guidelines, or check the view in Chile, Queensland, Australia, or Texas.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:51 PM PST - 74 comments

"Bartender, Make It a Stiletto." Meet Georgio, the human carpet.
posted by digaman at 11:30 PM PST - 32 comments

We Have Band's music video for You Came Out is stop-frame animation created from 4,816 still images without any video footage. The making of. (via likeCOOL) [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 8:52 PM PST - 16 comments

Tactical Corsets (marginally NSFW) -- "Tactical gear is no longer an all boys club. Tactical Corsets bring female operators MILSPEC features like MOLLE modular pouch attachment webbing and self-adjustable quick-release buckles in a load-bearing carrier designed to support the female form."
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:50 PM PST - 50 comments

Lea F. McCarty painted portaits of Old West killers. In 1959 he collected twenty of his paintings, each paired with an essay, in a book called The Gunfighters. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse at 5:37 PM PST - 12 comments

"If we could take deep breaths, we wouldn't need the inhalers." As of the beginning of this year, inhalers used by 40 million asthmatics in the U.S. to deliver life-saving medicines can no longer be powered by chlorofluorocarbon CFCs. The propellants used now are hydroflouroalkane HFAs. The FDA (PDF with Comic Sans!) and doctors insist that the new inhalers are just as effective as the old ones, but many asthma sufferers are adamant that they are not. Oh, and the new inhalers cost three times as much as the old ones. [more inside]
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:55 PM PST - 185 comments

This is the first site on the web to show where real artists and designers work. Painters, musicians, photographers, illustrators. The site lets you see their environment in which they go about the creative process and will hopefully inspire yourselves. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 2:43 PM PST - 10 comments

Curious about the health of your bank? You might find BankTracker helpful. This site crunches the FDIC's publicly available numbers on banks' deposits, loans, and nonperforming loans, and makes them available in a search interface for banks and credit unions. [more inside]
posted by A dead Quaker at 2:07 PM PST - 14 comments

The fiddle is usually associated with the hillbilly mania of people like Michael Cleveland (the nerdiest master ever to wield a bow), or the can't-get-it-out-of-your-head knees up party sound of celtic music. The violin, on the other hand, is associated with the elegance of orchestral music. They're actually one and the same instrument, applied to different sounds. And nobody wrote for this instrument more movingly than the Romanian composer Ciprian Porumbescu (1853-1883). Listen to his Ballad for Violin and Orchestra with your eyes closed, and weep for the suffering of the world.
posted by crazylegs at 12:12 PM PST - 23 comments

Somnia is a 3d/2d puzzle platformer by Alex Austin and Aimee Seaver of Cryptic Sea (apologies, only a demo & windows only) [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 10:43 AM PST - 2 comments

Ahmedinejad is declared victor in Iran presidential race. In spite of skepticism on the behalf of (among others) the Obama Administration, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday told all Iranians to respect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory.
posted by orville sash at 8:34 AM PST - 579 comments

Come, take a Train Ride through India. You could take the Palace on Wheels, and opt for a Luxurious Travel. Or, you can take one of the Super-Fast Trains here, according to Indian standards that is. And hey, while you're at it, how about taking a train ride to one of our Hill Stations? [more inside]
posted by hadjiboy at 2:00 AM PST - 36 comments

"This is the first show I've ever done where taxpayers' money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off."
posted by shoesfullofdust at 11:18 PM PST - 47 comments

George Herriman's Krazy Kat (previously, previouslier) has been animated several times: in 1916 under the aegis of William Randolph Hearst a series of at least ten shorts was made, including "Krazy Kat Goes A-Wooing," "Krazy Kat Bugologist," and "Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse at the Circus." By 1930, under the control of Charles B. Mintz Krazy Kat had lost much of the Kat's own look, and had become, in films like "Alaskan Knights," a knockoff of Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse. In the 1960s, Gene Deitch's Krazy Kat series got back to the original look of the Kat, but animation quality was poor, and the Kat was—GASP!—made explicitly female. In 1996, director Derek Mogford gave Krazy the stop motion treatment in a well-made short that's meant to be an introduction to Herriman's kooky love triangle of Kat, Mouse, and Pup.
posted by ocherdraco at 11:04 PM PST - 24 comments

Some comics about mental illness by Darryl Cunningham. (via)
posted by MegoSteve at 9:39 PM PST - 36 comments

Warning: Extremely disturbing material. Antichrist is Lars von Trier's (previously) latest film. It features graphic sex, masturbation, torture, and self-mutilation. The reaction to the self-proclaimed "best director in the world"'s new film has been mixed. Charlottle Gainsbourg won Best Actress at Cannes 2009, while the ecumenical jury gave the film a special "anti-award". The United States will get a cut version of the film, but it will be released in its original form in Britain. [more inside]
posted by atmosphere at 9:22 PM PST - 116 comments

Graphic Novels
posted by Mblue at 7:10 PM PST - 22 comments

A Horror Film that will Stiffen You with Laughter! The jungle is jumping, with gals, gags, and goofs! And a gorilla! It's not the set-up for an awkward joke, but an honest to goodness motion picture, starring Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist, and nightclub comedians Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo as themselves, though in roles approximating Martin and Lewis. It was the comedy duo's only movie (possibly due to the cease and desist request to Sammy Petrillo from Jerry Lewis), and was one of Bela Lugosi's last movies. Some classify this movie as a z-grade budget film, while others claim it to be staggeringly unfunny. But don't take their word for it. You can watch it all online, or download it from the Internet Archive.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:29 PM PST - 17 comments

Details are sketchy, but it seems that 14-year-old Gerrit Blank was struck by a meteorite this week and survived to tell the tale.
posted by R. Mutt at 5:49 PM PST - 58 comments

A minister, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says, "What is this, some kind of joke?" Warning: autoplay on first link. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:00 PM PST - 92 comments

Stressed out San Francisco Financial District workers have been helped by a stimulus of a different kind for the last week — a free show at the corner of California and Front streets. Dive-bombing bird takes aim at Financial District. Swoops, a Brewer's Blackbird, now has his own blog.
posted by nickyskye at 4:57 PM PST - 14 comments

When authors and poets write the news "It was on an average Wednesday that a very serious Israeli newspaper conducted a very wild experiment. For one day, Haaretz (scroll down and select June 10th) editor-in-chief Dov Alfon sent most of his staff reporters home and sent 31 of Israel’s finest authors and poets to cover the day’s news. Read articles on integration at the giraffe enclosure, love in the cancer ward, mosaics in Tel Aviv, addicts at the Jerusalem rehab centre, and a visit to the grave of a holy man, among others. [via]
posted by dhruva at 3:55 PM PST - 10 comments

In the wake of the Resident 5 racism flap (previously), and with the final game released, one of it's chief detractors, N'Gai Croal, talks to its producer, Jun Takeuchi (Part 1, Part 2). Meanwhile industry magazine MVC takes a look at Africa as a games market.
posted by Artw at 2:28 PM PST - 135 comments

Research journal accepts a computer-generated nonsense paper, and leads the editor-in-chief to resign his post. The authors write about their hijinks on their blog The Scholarly Kitchen. [more inside]
posted by NikitaNikita at 2:20 PM PST - 82 comments

The Millennial Project is a comprehensive plan for space development, beginning with the terrestrial cultivation of an environmentally sustainable civilization and Post-Industrial culture and culminating, far in the future, in the colonization of our immediate stellar neighborhood. The TMP2 project is specifically a project of the Living Universe Foundation community to continually update and revise the content of the original plan as described by Marshal T. Savage in his book The Millennial Project. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 2:17 PM PST - 8 comments

A 1,124-pound (510-kilogram) space probe will "collide" with our home planet in June 2010 to simulate an approaching asteroid, Japanese scientists have announced. [more inside]
posted by eiro0701 at 2:08 PM PST - 36 comments

Why do we get "tip of the tongue" moments?? We’ve all experienced the tip of the tongue moment where we wanted to say something but just couldn’t remember the word. But what causes this momentary lapses in vocabulary?
posted by CaptKyle at 1:22 PM PST - 43 comments

Doodlers Anonymous. Oodles and oodles of fabulous doodles.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:43 PM PST - 17 comments

Brian Blessed presents Have I Got News For You. [more inside]
posted by permafrost at 12:39 PM PST - 42 comments

The Civil War Preservation Trust has a wonderful page of assorted American Civil War maps. Includes the excellent CWPT topographical maps [viewable online, download .pdf requires free registration], and historical maps. My favorites are the animated maps, on the map of the First Day of Chancellorsville you can toggle between the topo map and a present-day satellite view so you can see the effects of modern development on the battlefield. [via]
posted by marxchivist at 12:34 PM PST - 5 comments

I's a Baby Baboon, with a bassoon on the moon. Flash Friday Weebl's!
posted by mikoroshi at 11:28 AM PST - 26 comments

Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer in Europe "Microsoft said it made it’s decision following an anti-trust investigation by the European Union." [more inside]
posted by sloe at 11:14 AM PST - 84 comments

The Ledge is an independent platform for international literature. At the heart of the site, to get you in the mood, is a series of interviews with authors, translators and literary critics. There is also a built-in, ever-expanding reading guide and a listing of literary events. The Ledge [ Flash Enabled ], the Flash version of the site is much more fun. For one thing, you can hear authors reading from their work... Have a look. And a listen. and The Ledge [ HTML] For slower connections.
posted by Fizz at 10:58 AM PST - 1 comment

I've listened to dozens of film podcasts, but Left Field Cinema is the first that devotes its episodes only — or at least primarily — to movies worth discussing. I'm talking about Malick's Badlands. I'm talking about Tarkovsky's Solaris. I'm talking Kieslowski's Dekalog which gets a two-parter. I'm talking about Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies. I'm talking Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. At long last, I say.
posted by colinmarshall at 10:41 AM PST - 38 comments

Dr. Batty's Asthma Cigarettes (not recommended for children under 6) -- and other ads from the era when heroin was an over the counter cough medicine.
posted by empath at 10:28 AM PST - 39 comments

Two Japanese men have been detained by Italian authorities after they were caught with $134.5 billion in US bonds and securities in a false-bottomed bag on a train heading for the Swiss border. [more inside]
posted by grounded at 10:11 AM PST - 99 comments

It's no secret that classic cocktails are back. Fresh fruit and house-made bitters and infusions are de rigueur, but no less important is the quality of the ice. Good ice and the right shake ensure that spirits are properly chilled and diluted and improve the cocktail's flavor profile.
posted by HumuloneRanger at 10:02 AM PST - 70 comments

BauBike
posted by ardgedee at 7:53 AM PST - 62 comments

By now, you've probably heard of Etsy (previously), a website that has been called a "crafty cross between Amazon and Ebay." The site is enormously popular, among women in particular, but some are asking is the buy handmade movement a good thing? Does the site peddle a false feminist fantasy?
posted by lunit at 7:53 AM PST - 108 comments

"This Friday, June 12, TV stations nationwide will cease broadcasting analog signals and switch to digital-only broadcasts. That’s fine with me. I have a digital television, and I have cable anyway, so it won’t affect me. At least that’s what I thought. Only recently did I realize that one of my favorite ways to enjoy television will go away. Starting Friday, I can no longer get TV on the radio."
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:32 AM PST - 93 comments

Science fiction writers have always been writing about remote control war, the Isreali arms industry has been develping remote control drones (as seen in Pakistan), but only the US military has a remote control mini tank driven via an Xbox controler!
posted by Coyote Modern at 4:32 AM PST - 36 comments

The Guardian Datastore is running a competition for the best visualizations, mashups and applications built with and for the data in their datastore. Amongst other things, they currently have the latest data on MP's expenses, world booze consumption and two centuries of bio diversity data from Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire. [more inside]
posted by johnny novak at 2:40 AM PST - 6 comments

After one performer tested positive this week, 16 previously unpublicized cases of HIV in the porn industry have emerged. Last time this happened, government officials called it an outbreak and porn production grinded to a halt for two months.
posted by hpliferaft at 12:54 AM PST - 193 comments

A new 10 CD compilation of Art Tatum's work has been issued by Storyville Records. [more inside]
posted by paulsc at 12:50 AM PST - 12 comments

Howard Armstrong, AKA Louie Bluie, has his own festival, two movies, and made music until the day he died at the ripe old age of 94 (about 5 years ago). I post this now because the festival is upon us. (I'm gonna miss it.)
posted by Phantast at 9:44 PM PST - 2 comments

UnitConversion.org is quite the resource to easily convert between different units of measurement. It has over 2100 units in 78 categories, which range from those that are common, such as, length, weight, volume, currency, velocity, and pressure, to more specialized categories like magnetic flux density, electrostatic capacitance, and surface tension.
posted by netbros at 9:01 PM PST - 27 comments

"There were a lot of possibilities with Krazy Kat and bricks and 'I’m gonna kill you all kinds of dead,' but I ran out of time." Conjectural movie posters for what might result if Frank Miller applied his certain je ne sais quois to classic comics "Little Nemo in Slumberland," "Pogo," and "Little Orphan Annie."
posted by ocherdraco at 6:32 PM PST - 33 comments

Open to Revisions. "Some religious entrepreneurs have adopted an 'open source' model, where rituals and doctrines can be rewritten as easily as computer code."
posted by homunculus at 6:21 PM PST - 54 comments

In Starcom, a space-based action adventure game, you pilot a starship defending the galaxy from an encroaching enemy invasion with an increasingly powerful array of armaments and technologies. It's a hell of a lot of fun, so play and enjoy! [via mefi projects]
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:01 PM PST - 32 comments

JOIN THE COOLCATS MVMT. So-Me is the art director for Ed Banger Records. His job description includes touring with his muse Busy P, living with Justice, directing music videos, fashioning t-shirts and album art, designing Coca-Cola bottles, contributing to art exhibits, and just being a Cool Cat. [more inside]
posted by Juliet Banana at 2:40 PM PST - 10 comments

Home taping didn’t kill music, says Ben Goldacre - but where did all the money go?
posted by Artw at 2:13 PM PST - 168 comments

Blastolenes are mighty hot rods built by artists. And the meaning of it all from Kevin Kelly. [more inside]
posted by Faze at 2:09 PM PST - 10 comments

Twangfest 13 is underway in St. Louis. A multi-day festival of Americana music, past editions have featured artists such as the Bottle Rockets, Neko Case, and Jason Ringenberg. Several of this year's featured artists will be playing live on KDHX during the festival, live streaming audio available.
posted by ArgentineBlonde at 1:36 PM PST - 13 comments

At the 53rd International La Biennale di Venice (wiki) Art Exhibition, titled "Making Worlds," one particular artist's work took an unexpected turn. Mike Bouchet's installation piece titled "Watershed" was intended to be a full-scale replica of an American suburban home that would float on pontoons. Except it didn't.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:19 PM PST - 26 comments

The Dalai Lama's Buddhist Foes contrasts "the tolerance and rationalism that the Dalai Lama represents globally and the theological hardball over mystical principles that he seems to play on his home turf." But the Shugdenpas aren't the Dalai Lama's only Buddhist opponents. Tibetan Buddhism's only female living Buddha, the twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo, who chose to stay in Tibet when the Dalai Lama fled, has said, "The sins of the Dalai Lama and his followers seriously violate the basic teachings and precepts of Buddhism and seriously damage traditional Tibetan Buddhism's normal order and good reputation." [more inside]
posted by shetterly at 1:15 PM PST - 95 comments

I Was A Marine Sniper
posted by jivadravya at 12:42 PM PST - 80 comments

Old bowling alleys are often things of beauty. Some are (in)famous. The NYTimes just had a wonderful feature on a little-known bowling alley in the basement of the Frick collection, complete with pristine antique bowling balls and a gravity-driven return mechanism. [Previously] (mandatory Big Lebowski reference)
posted by ericbop at 12:41 PM PST - 16 comments

A film (1 hour) about disappearing languages: The Linguists [more inside]
posted by idiomatika at 12:22 PM PST - 23 comments

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 12:12 PM PST - 78 comments

The English town of Doncaster has a new mayor. English Democrat Peter Davies was elected on the 8th of June 2009. His first engagement in his new role was an interview with the local BBC Radio station. Listen here (MP3 link) with a transcript here.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 12:08 PM PST - 39 comments

"There's only so many parking spaces in the city," said Sordillo. "And in this part, there's very few." A private parking space in Boston's Back Bay area sold for $300,000.
posted by jaimev at 12:07 PM PST - 60 comments

Are US tobacco companies conspiring to make tobacco more addictive through additives or aren't they? Ever since the first reports published in 1999, this has been debated off and on for years as the tobacco lobby defended itself against allegations of racketeering and outright lies. Recently they lost the case. But the question of American cigarettes being more addictive than others still remains unsettled.
posted by infini at 11:54 AM PST - 16 comments

Go buy a helmet because Astronomers calculate there is a tiny chance that Mars or Venus could collide with Earth. [more inside]
posted by CaptKyle at 11:53 AM PST - 28 comments

A nice stop motion video with sticky notes.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:32 AM PST - 10 comments

A short video explaining the new Income Based Repayment going into effect July 1st Your student loans might be more manageable soon. [courtesy of IBRinfo.org].
posted by mecran01 at 11:31 AM PST - 47 comments

WHO declares global flu pandemic. "The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century," [WHO Chief Margaret ]Chan told reporters. "The (swine flu) virus is now unstoppable." [more inside]
posted by empath at 10:22 AM PST - 83 comments

The periodic table will soon have a new addition - the "super-heavy" element 112. More than a decade after experiments first produced a single atom of the element, a team of German scientists has been credited with its discovery. But before it can be added to the official list of elements, they have to come up with an official name (hopefully better than its current unofficial moniker Ununbium).
posted by unSane at 10:11 AM PST - 78 comments

RIP Hugh Hopper. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 8:39 AM PST - 18 comments

Following in the fine tradition of The Nietzsche Family Circus (previously), Pearls Before Swine, And the Dysfunctional Family Circus, comes Scott Meets Family Circus ( via and self-salvaged from metachat)
posted by The Whelk at 8:15 AM PST - 85 comments

The Karl Waldmann Museum, where you can see all of his collages.
posted by OmieWise at 7:26 AM PST - 6 comments

Asian Poses - The Definitive Guide You may already know about the victory sign's popularity amongst Asians, but how about Nyan Nyan, Giant Heart, or Pigtails? Warning: cute overload.
posted by so much modern time at 6:45 AM PST - 105 comments

Rose bengal is a red dye that has been used for decades to identify eye and liver damage. A company, Provectus Pharmaceuticals, has developed a drug based on this compound, which clinical trials show may be able to destroy advanced melanoma with minimal risks. Melanoma is an extremely dangerous form of skin cancer. The company hopes to extend this drug to other cancers as well as to other skin conditions, such as eczema and psoriasis, for which poor treatment solutions exist. Claims such as these inspire skepticism, but the melanoma trials have been conducted by some of the most eminent names in the melanoma community. Does this drug hold potential, or is the whole thing snake oil?
posted by prunes at 6:35 AM PST - 18 comments

New botanical research is shedding light on plant behavior and "intelligence". [more inside]
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:23 AM PST - 37 comments

Mind-Melting Demo Disasters. An independent record label posts some of its more....interesting submissions. [more inside]
posted by Dr-Baa at 4:33 AM PST - 62 comments

Goths In Hot Weather
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:26 AM PST - 118 comments

"[Jax de Leon's] last project as a student was a graphic representation of every note, word, instrument and voice from Come on, Feel the Illinoise! by Sufjan Stevens." Read an interview with him here.
posted by spiderskull at 9:50 PM PST - 19 comments

Karl Junker House is just one of the locations on Atlas Obscura from Curious Expeditions. [more inside]
posted by tellurian at 9:40 PM PST - 6 comments

Robot penguins of the water and air are manufactured by German robotics manufacturer Festo, as well as aquatic and airborn rays (as in the fish). Here's another aquapenguin video from Festo's YouTube channel. These videos are so futuristic they don't seem real. [via, fittingly enough, William Gibson's Twitterfeed]
posted by Kattullus at 6:30 PM PST - 34 comments

Breach. Photographer Richard Mosse's pictures of Saddam Hussein's palaces.
posted by homunculus at 6:06 PM PST - 11 comments

The Uniform Project - "Starting May 2009, I have pledged to wear one dress for one year as an exercise in sustainable fashion. Here’s how it works: There are 7 identical dresses, one for each day of the week. Every day I will reinvent the dress with layers, accessories and all kinds of accouterments, the majority of which will be vintage, hand-made, or hand-me-down goodies... The Uniform Project is also a year-long fundraiser for the Akanksha Foundation, a grassroots movement that is revolutionizing education in India."
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 5:45 PM PST - 73 comments

Sungazer — discover the awesome beauty of the Sun. See images of Earth sized sunspots, towering prominences, and rivers of hot gas. Then, explore the cameras, telescopes, and accessories used in solar astro photography. (previously)
posted by netbros at 5:17 PM PST - 9 comments

Hoping to work his way around to describing the graphic novel bookstore he wants to open some day, big box bookstore employee the Rocket Bomber has made strides in natural history by delineating the seven types of bookstore clients. Some snark in the comments has led to a followup post with additional how-to-run-a-bookstore musings.
posted by shothotbot at 5:12 PM PST - 108 comments

LOL together, right now, OMG.
posted by divabat at 4:16 PM PST - 51 comments

Self-taught Sam Maloof, who called himself a woodworker, died recently at 93. Here’s a somewhat balky 21-minute youtube of him being interviewed, whilst shaping and piecing a chair. [more inside]
posted by goofyfoot at 3:26 PM PST - 10 comments

In a fascinating, still-ongoing conference on The inkWell, Richie Unterberger talks about the process of researching and writing about the Velvet Underground, for his recently published day by day chronicle of the group. (book excerpts here)
posted by anazgnos at 2:40 PM PST - 9 comments

GITMO's 17 Uighurs - a dissident Chinese religious group - sent to Palau. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 1:56 PM PST - 59 comments

With all the dust that's been* riled up by Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor (previously), everyone is suddenly taking an interest in Puerto Rico. A basic question that may come up is why we're there in the first place. Understanding that, we can see how the complicated relationship has played out between Puerto Rico, the US, and, most recently, the United Nations. Although the UN has urged the US to take steps towards establishing Puerto Rico's sovereignty, referendums held on the island have overwhelmingly preferred the status quo and the US has been indifferent at best. But independence activists, after a twenty-year decline, may be on the rise. The island's current governor, Luis Fortuño, is pro-statehood. But the whole issue has taken a back seat since plans have been made to fire 30,000 government workers, privatize some public services, and sell some the the government's US$3.2 billion debt. [more inside]
posted by krikkit261 at 12:43 PM PST - 26 comments

Señor Misterioso: who is he, why is he here? And who trims his mustache? Is he an interstellar voyager, world traveler, or something of a swinging socialite? He may appreciate art, yet he is disdainful of music. His activities have been tracked; his friends, companions, ideals and literarary leanings noted. His words are few, but his stories are many. He is no one, yet he is everywhere.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:29 PM PST - 14 comments

White-power gunman opens fire at Holocaust Museum. [more inside]
posted by FatherDagon at 12:16 PM PST - 462 comments

Mark Richardson muses about memory, personal history and YouTube. Specifically, he uncovered a storied 1970 Steel Mill gig (with Bruce Springsteen on guitar, audio only) that his wife's uncle MC'ed. And then the 15-year old Boss' garage band, The Castiles. And verified dim memories of seeing Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger and Steven Spielberg discuss radios in your teeth on TV, and John Cale on a TV game show. And an old Highland Appliances TV ad. That kind of thing.
posted by msalt at 11:46 AM PST - 10 comments

Djuna Barnes (12 June, 1892 – 18 June, 1982) was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel Nightwood became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T. S. Eliot. It stands out today for its portrayal of lesbian themes and its distinctive writing style. - Wikipedia [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 11:43 AM PST - 18 comments

A supervolcano may be brewing beneath Mount St Helens
posted by Artw at 11:29 AM PST - 84 comments

The First Blackberry.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:38 AM PST - 30 comments

When Kevin Atkinson gets home from a long day, he likes to play with his balls. "For those new to the blog, I've written a dataflow framework for real-time video effects, plus a number of effects implemented within that framework (some of which are demoed in the above video). In this post I'm announcing that I'm open-sourcing that framework."
posted by lazaruslong at 9:47 AM PST - 16 comments

Primus, Astor, and more on the Canine Wall of Fame [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:44 AM PST - 21 comments

A View To Hugh. After Hugh Morton's death in 2006, the widow of North Carolina's most prolific photographer donated his entire collection, half a million transparencies, photographs, and negatives, to the North Carolina Collection at UNC. The "A View to Hugh" blog details the work of the team of archivists who are organizing and digitizing the collection. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:15 AM PST - 6 comments

The first stage of New York City's High Line redesign was opened to the public yesterday, and reviews are generally favorable. The city's newest park (whose concept is similar to Paris’s Promenade Plantée,) transforms an abandoned, above-ground, elevated freight train track into a nine block "lofty expanse of walking and green spaces that stretches 60 feet wide in some spots". It also provides visitors with a unique look at some of the city's architecture and layout. (Previously on MeFi) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:56 AM PST - 51 comments

I am in love - and that means I get consumer durables for free! I demand a new kitchen - and you will pay for it!
posted by orrnyereg at 6:53 AM PST - 167 comments

Food writer Michael Ruhlman has issued the BLT From Scratch—Summertime Challenge where participants must cure their own bacon, grow their own lettuce and tomatoes, bake their own bread and make their own mayonnaise.
posted by slogger at 6:52 AM PST - 68 comments

A Gay Soldier's Husband — In the backdrop of the conservative activist Supreme Court's recent decision against hearing a challenge to the US military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, one gay American relates the difficulties he faces having a partner on active duty in Iraq. In Iraq itself, death squads continue to murder gay and lesbian Iraqis, while American occupying forces look the other way.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:04 AM PST - 71 comments

Homelessness is more and more common in the real world - and now it exists within The Sims. Meet Alice and Kev, a father and daughter just trying to get along without two Simoleons to rub together.
posted by mippy at 4:18 AM PST - 28 comments

Recent studies indicate that while big muscular hunks get more sex they do so at a cost. Wimps have faster reaction times.
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:22 AM PST - 59 comments

Minecraft is a multiplayer block-based sandbox game. It's built in Java, so no installation is required (except for Java). Reddit already has their own server; why don't we? [more inside]
posted by archagon at 10:36 PM PST - 28 comments

Dr. Frances W. Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages at Columbia University, New York, has created a superb online collection of resources, all about India and South Asia, its art, history, literature, architecture and culture. Her Indian Routes section (the Index page) is a particularly rich resource. Her vast, colorful and informative site also has many great images. Check out her "scrapbook pages" on the Princes l the Ghaznavids l British Rule l Women's Spaces l Perspectives on Hinduism. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 10:22 PM PST - 14 comments

An entertaining history of ClariNet, which its founder Brad Templeton describes as the first dot.com. Lots of good reading linked on that first page.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:15 PM PST - 2 comments

For baseball fans and/or map geeks: The United Countries of Baseball. [more inside]
posted by zardoz at 9:28 PM PST - 51 comments

Little Wheel. Short & sweet, charmingly animated, silhouette-style flash game. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 8:01 PM PST - 17 comments

Gazprom is the greatest corporation in the world/All other companies are run by little girls. This is the most moving corporate anthem I've ever heard (and I include Devo's "Corporate Anthem" in that assessment.)
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:36 PM PST - 45 comments

The US House of Representatives today passed a Cash-for-Clunkers bill, giving people up to $4,500 to trade in their old cars for newer, more efficient cars. Inspired by European and Chinese successes, the bill is naturally not without its detractors.
posted by spiderskull at 7:23 PM PST - 63 comments

Inside the White House in 2009 - 2002 - 1993 - 1990 - 1981 - 1977 - 1971 - 1962 - 1952
posted by Silune at 7:19 PM PST - 10 comments

Skin & Bones is a new exhibit about sailor tattoos and their symbolism and history, developed at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia. NYTimes story with neat art slideshow.
posted by Miko at 7:10 PM PST - 6 comments

Comedy Central has ordered a new season of Futurama.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:07 PM PST - 95 comments

Sports drinks and sodas are adding antioxidant vitamins to transcend their caloric nature and appear "healthy". Antioxidants defend against reactive oxygen species, which are purported to be causative agents in aging and cancer. However, a recent study has shown that supplementation with large amounts of antioxidant vitamins negates many of the beneficial effects of exercise.
posted by benzenedream at 6:46 PM PST - 12 comments

The day pain died. "The date of the first operation under anesthetic, Oct. 16, 1846, ranks among the most iconic in the history of medicine. It was the moment when Boston, and indeed the United States, first emerged as a world-class center of medical innovation. The room at the heart of Massachusetts General Hospital where the operation took place has been known ever since as the Ether Dome, and the word 'anesthesia' itself was coined by the Boston physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes to denote the strange new state of suspended consciousness that the city's physicians had witnessed. The news from Boston swept around the world, and it was recognized within weeks as a moment that had changed medicine forever." [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:55 PM PST - 46 comments

"Bring An End To This False Prophet Obama"

Jon Voight speaks at Annual GOP Fund-Raiser [more inside]
posted by sloe at 5:29 PM PST - 125 comments

Reed has cast aside its hopes of soon accepting students based purely on merit, without regard to wealth. "Money was the problem. Too many of the students needed financial aid, and the school did not have enough. So the director of financial aid gave the team another task: drop more than 100 needy students before sending out acceptances, and substitute those who could pay full freight."
posted by plexi at 5:20 PM PST - 43 comments

Jonathan Ro-Schofield is Jonny Cardboard, an artist and window display designer whose developmental medium is, yes, cardboard. Sure, anyone can fold a box, but can you make incredible sculptures or storefront display-designs and props? Perhaps Jonny Cardboard can cater your wedding cakes. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 5:07 PM PST - 1 comment

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble [more inside]
posted by paisley henosis at 4:49 PM PST - 12 comments

Another day in a regular city in Argentina, another thief looking to score a car in a city well fed-up with a high crime rate. Or it would have been, except for the enterprising chicken-suit wearing guy that was promoting a nearby shop, who gave pursuit and captured the would-be car thief. [more inside]
posted by Iosephus at 12:38 PM PST - 22 comments

Google Translate Toolkit is a new webapp from Google to help translate webpages. Video demonstration (1:30s). It has built-in support for Wikipedia and Jay Walsh thinks it "may change the way Wikipedia grows in other languages".¹
posted by stbalbach at 12:22 PM PST - 29 comments

Opening this Friday in L.A, New York, and San Francisco, Food, Inc. is a documentary about the modern food industry that features Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Joe Salatin of Polyface Farm, and Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Yogurt. Here's the trailer. And here's a New York Times article about the film. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan at 11:29 AM PST - 120 comments

As expected new iPhones were announced yesterday, taking a bit of wind out of the Palm Pre's excellent sales, pissing off some current iPhone users over upgrade fees, and leaving several gadget makers wondering if they have a future.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:04 AM PST - 200 comments

How are your minds today? Are they good? Not blown, you say? 30 Rock is a ripoff of The Muppet Show.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:57 AM PST - 72 comments

The Cavafy Archive has translations of all of C. P. Cavafy's poems (go here for the Greek) except for the 30 unfinished poems, which have just recently been translated into English for the first time by Daniel Mendelsohn. His translations are reviewed in a lengthy essay by Peter Green in the most recent New Republic. Mendelsohn was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered earlier this week. Late last year Mendelsohn wrote an essay about Cavafy in The New York Review of Books. The Cavafy Archive also has translations of a few prose pieces by Cavafy as well as manuscripts, pictures, translated letters & short texts and a catalog of Cavafy's library.
posted by Kattullus at 9:37 AM PST - 9 comments

The long-beaked echidna: plump, terrier-size creatures abristle with so many competing notes of crane, mole, pig, turtle, tribble, Babar and boot scrubber that if they didn’t exist, nobody would think to Photoshop them. More info, video, and images here and here.
posted by amro at 9:31 AM PST - 25 comments

Why did a small-town girl have her family brutally murdered?
posted by desjardins at 9:24 AM PST - 157 comments

Pencil Rebel is a little bitty point-n-click interactive adventure hand-wired with LEDs and simple circuit boards, and made with hand-cut and decorated cardboard, plasticine, string, and other household odd and ends. The artist, Grzegorz Kozakiewicz, has also made a (with spoilers!) video showing his process.
posted by tula at 9:00 AM PST - 12 comments

Winner of an Emmy for best dramatic series in 1988, thirtysomething (ABC, 1987-1991) represented a new kind of hour-long drama, a series which focused on the domestic and professional lives of a group of young urban professionals-- a socio-economic category of increasing interest to the television industry. The series attracted a cult audience of viewers who strongly identified with one or more of its eight central characters, a circle of friends living in Philadelphia. And its stylistic and story-line innovations led critics to respect it for being "as close to the level of an art form as weekly television ever gets," as the New York Times put it. - Museum of Broacast Communications [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 8:57 AM PST - 74 comments

A bad day in the news gallery? Talkback recording of everything going wrong during The One O'Clock News from the BBC in 1986: Part One, Part Two, Part Three. Unless of course, this was a typical day ... "I haven't got any scripts Mike! How am I supposed to run a show?" "Animate quantel or whatever you want to do..." [via]
posted by feelinglistless at 8:53 AM PST - 12 comments

This week marks the 102nd Isle Of Man Tourist Trophy motorcycle races, run over the 60.7 km Snaefell Mountain Course. The inaugural TT had a fuel consumption component to the rules, which was abandoned for the 1909 event. 100 years on, zero carbon, clean emission comes to motorcyle road racings Mecca in the form of the TTXGP [more inside]
posted by Duke999R at 7:46 AM PST - 11 comments

"What struck me the most were their clothes. The men, in particular, seemed not even dressed, in their baggy, below-the-knee silvery gym clothing, and synthetic t-shirts and cheap flip-flops from China. These were clothes that were worn without any intention; these were the clothes they wore when they did not have to wear clothes ... it’s not so much that they suffer economically, or suffer intellectually, though these of course can happen, but that they suffer due to lack of 'story,'" Choire Sicha on The Hangover.
posted by geoff. at 7:00 AM PST - 148 comments

Solving America's hunger crisis is an article by Sacha Abramsky
Feeding America has a Hunger quiz and Hunger 101 - Feed your mind. [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 3:49 AM PST - 66 comments

Editor Marty Halpern looks back at the career of George Alec Effinger (part 1, part 2, part 3), a prolific author best known for his work set in the Budayeen, a walled city in a future Islamic state, teeming with gangsters, hustlers and transsexual prostitutes, many of them habitual users of plug in personality modules. The noirish tone and exotic technology of the Marîd Audran books (When Gravity Fails, A Fire In The Sun, The Exile Kiss) made Effinger one of the leading lights in the cyberpunk movie, and spawned a videogame - a rare attempt at a graphical adventure from Infocom - and an RPG setting. Sadly Effinger faded from prominence after that, and he suffered from a number of health and financial setbacks before passing away in 2002. His work has had somewhat of a resurgence in popularity of late, with the Marîd Audran books coming back into print in 2007, a long with a collection containing The Wolves of Memory, Effinger's personal favourite amongst his novels.
posted by Artw at 12:24 AM PST - 32 comments

Mike Arrington and Leo Laporte have some passionate words for each other. Mike apologizes, and Leo accepts. This is not the first time someone has been angry at Mike.
posted by bigmusic at 11:36 PM PST - 42 comments

When Pat Robertson asked in April if hate crimes legislation would protect people who liked to have sex with ducks, he may have anticipated some reaction. But did he think that he would inspire an anthem?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:16 PM PST - 68 comments

If you like looking at vintage pictures of Van Halen, David Lee Roth recently posted a whole bunch of vintage pictures of Van Halen. Yup.
posted by hellbient at 10:58 PM PST - 35 comments

On the morning of 5 June, Peruvian police forces opened fire on indigenous protesters near Bagua, Amazonas. Amazonwatch has an excellent audio report (about 8 mins) from Gregor Maclennan. [more inside]
posted by nomis at 9:08 PM PST - 3 comments

Beautifully designed, quirky, colorful late 19th-century "artistic" and "gaslight" printing at Dick Sheaff's ephemera pages. [via, via] [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 8:41 PM PST - 10 comments

There are three official Japantowns in the United States , down from an estimated high of 43 in California alone. California Japantowns along with Japantown Atlas aim to preserve the history of California’s Japantowns. [more inside]
posted by dogmom at 7:48 PM PST - 24 comments

Ever wonder what those 2 second screen flashes after a Chuck Lorre Productions TV show are? Well, here you go. Chuck uses the 2 second time allotment to screen his views on - well - everything. Previously - here and here.
posted by torquemaniac at 7:14 PM PST - 54 comments

Watchwomen. A burlesque tribute to the Watchmen by the Peek-A-Boo Revue (probably NSFW). [Via]
posted by homunculus at 5:45 PM PST - 36 comments

Frankensteinia. Just about everything you can think of having to do with Victor Frankenstein and his monster is here. Everything from the actors who portrayed the doctor and the monster, toys, Nazi Frankensteins, illustrations, movie posters, and of course the story behind the book.
posted by marxchivist at 5:06 PM PST - 6 comments

The Served is a family of sites that brings you a steady supply of top quality creative work in specific categories: Fashion, Industrial Design, Photography [some nsfw], Typography, and Motion Graphics. All projects are streamed directly from the owner's portfolios in the Behance Network, along with proper attribution and a direct link to contact information.
posted by netbros at 4:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Before Fleetwood Mac, there was Buckingham Nicks. Their seminal s/t album (1973) has never been released on CD. [more inside]
posted by ageispolis at 4:36 PM PST - 33 comments

The Twitter feed from Chuck Grassley, senior United States Senator from the state of Iowa
posted by thirteenkiller at 4:33 PM PST - 63 comments

Bean. [more inside]
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 4:32 PM PST - 36 comments

As someone who's not interested in being threatened with a lawsuit, I thought I'd mention that Michael Savage is in no way connected to Rockstar Energy Drink, which just happens to be run by his son, with his wife acting as director, treasurer, and secretary of both companies, and run from the same address. When Charles Tsai claimed otherwise, his Facebook boycott group was taken down, his account was disabled and he was forced into making a public apology. [more inside]
posted by dragoon at 4:14 PM PST - 89 comments

If you love 1970s food-related advertising mascots as much as I do, you'll probably love Waffle Whiffer's blog. Loads of old posts on fast food characters, sugar cereal boxes, and even pogs! The Waffle Whiffer's flickr stream is a similar treasure trove of goodies with too many worth mentioning. Ok, just one: who knew the Thompson Twins had such great iconography (and why did they do a deal with Cap'n Crunch?)?
posted by mathowie at 3:29 PM PST - 14 comments

Wait, what are they talking about? Childish fun with edits and unnecessary censorship at Nintendo's 2009 E3 Media Briefing [SLYT].
posted by Servo5678 at 2:16 PM PST - 8 comments

Space Shuttle launch aborts. Approximately six minutes of on-pad post-ignition pre-liftoff aborts in a single YouTube link.
posted by loquacious at 1:53 PM PST - 26 comments

The Rangeview Library District in Adams County, Colorado, has become the first library system in the US to drop the Dewey Decimial System in favor an in-house, word-based cataloging system. Termed "WordThink", the replacement is based on BISAC, "a retail-based standard for organizing materials[, s]imilar to what you might see in a bookstore." Library Journal's treatment of the switch.
posted by 7segment at 1:33 PM PST - 47 comments

Hiding in "plane" sight. Images and details of the significant efforts made by the United States to prevent the Japanese from bombing our west coast aircraft factories. I wonder what this effort would take today to "fool" Google Maps/Earth. [more inside]
posted by hrbrmstr at 1:28 PM PST - 15 comments

Over the past few years, Eric Whitacre has been taking the composition world by storm. And now he's all over the web. (Most links silent, personal website has an autoplay rainstorm going on.) His choral works range from the mysterious and brooding Water Night to the rambunctious modern madrigal, With a Lily In Your Hand, to the wonderfully lush Sleep (formerly a setting of Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" - tragically halted by copyright infringement, but still available thanks to the magic of YouTube). While his instrumental compositions run the spectrum from silly musical parody (Godzilla Eats Las Vegas) to poignant melancholy (October) with some delicate crossover between vocal and instrumental (Lux Aurumque - first choral, then instrumental!). If you are or think you may be even remotely interested in contemporary classical music, you owe it to yourself to become familiar with the work of Eric Whitacre.
posted by greekphilosophy at 1:23 PM PST - 36 comments

Do your E-books look atrocious? They don’t have to. Liza Daly’s new ePub Zen Garden project does for electronic books what CSS Zen Garden did for the Web – demonstrate that typography and layout of E-books are easily altered and, quite possibly, beautiful and usable. [more inside]
posted by joeclark at 11:16 AM PST - 16 comments

Sara Ziff talks to Louise France about the world of teen modelling. "We might need to see you without your bra, he told me. I was 14. I didn't even have breasts yet."
posted by chunking express at 10:54 AM PST - 204 comments

Bank Accused of Pushing Mortgage Deals on Blacks: "They referred to subprime loans made in minority communities as ghetto loans and minority customers as 'those people have bad credit', 'those people don't pay their bills' and 'mud people,' " [a Wells Fargo subprime loan officer] said in his affidavit, filed in the NAACP's lawsuit (pdf) against 13 mortgage lenders. "The company put 'bounties' on minority borrowers. By this I mean that loan officers received cash incentives to aggressively market subprime loans in minority communities."
posted by hayvac at 10:32 AM PST - 40 comments

Parents can no longer support their hipster children's lifestyle. Oh, the humanity. I realize that schadenfreude is a particularly ignoble emotional response, but how am I expected to control myself after reading: [more inside]
posted by mojohand at 10:20 AM PST - 231 comments

The Brakhage Scrapbooks. Jane Wodening, then Jane Brakhage, assembled three remarkable scrapbooks in the early 1960s, when she was the wife and muse of experimental film maker Stan Brakhage [previously 1, 2] ... Wodening created the scrapbooks from literal “scraps” of their family life, Brakhage’s creative process, and the artistic communities of which they were a part. Pages are covered with the widest array of verbal and visual materials including but not limited to letters, manuscripts, photographs, original art, clippings, pamphlets, filmstrips, and flyers. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:54 AM PST - 15 comments

What [Francis] Bacon produced are not paintings, at least not satisfying ones. They are little more than rectangles of canvas inscribed with noirish graffiti: angst for dummies. Bacon turned his clever little quotations from the masters, old or modern, into the twentieth century's most august visual claptrap. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 8:40 AM PST - 85 comments

For Men by Men, the Stag Cookbook helped those who had previously tried their hand at cooking, but "weakened under a fire of feminine raillery & sarcasm." Contributors included: William Jennings Bryan, Warren G. Harding, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Jules Jusserand, Reed Smoot, Jerome Kern, and Houdini.
posted by OmieWise at 6:29 AM PST - 104 comments

Morisawa Fontpark : View or create amazing art with Japanese characters.
posted by rollbiz at 5:16 AM PST - 3 comments

The far-right, whites-only British National Party (BNP) has won two seats (Andrew Brons, Nick Griffin) in the European Parliament. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:40 AM PST - 224 comments

Parts 1, 2, 3 of a 1959 interview with philosopher, mathematician and peace campaigner Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). Works and pictures online include Anti-suffragist Anxieties, Why I am not a Christian, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto against nuclear weapons and the book The Conquest of Happiness. Russell is also known for his pithy quotes, his teapot and was the subject of poem Mr Apollinax by T.S. Eliot.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:30 AM PST - 59 comments

The Austin Lounge Lizards are Too Big To Fail. (SLYT)
posted by telstar at 12:07 AM PST - 16 comments

Three Woofs and a Woo: the daily life of some border collies and the canine photographer who loves them.
posted by Ms. Saint at 11:37 PM PST - 18 comments

Giant Steps by John Coltrane, note by note. (slyt)
posted by pyramid termite at 9:27 PM PST - 57 comments

Robert Burden's artwork (drawings, paintings) mainly concerns toys. [more inside]
posted by klangklangston at 6:16 PM PST - 9 comments

According to the BBC, US fantasy author David Eddings has died at 77 due to natural causes. More coverage at the Guardian. (via bureau42)
posted by reptile at 4:39 PM PST - 84 comments

Ice — Nick Cobbing features stunning photographs of the Greenland Ice Melt and a stormy voyage to Greenland on an old sailing ship. [more inside]
posted by netbros at 4:31 PM PST - 9 comments

Deaf People and World War II is an NTID project collecting videos, books, articles, links, etc., about the experiences of deaf Europeans, Asians, and North Americans during the war. [more inside]
posted by lullaby at 4:08 PM PST - 4 comments

My Milk Toof [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall at 3:04 PM PST - 36 comments

The idea of Hypnosis and Pain Management has been around a bit.
Now British surgeons are being advised to hypnotise patients for some operations.
The Mayo Clinic: Another Way to manage Pain; and as explained by the American Pain Foundation; also Hypnotic Approaches in the Cancer Patient. If this were a drug, everyone would be using it. (previously 1, 2 (links dead, discusssion only) ).
posted by adamvasco at 1:31 PM PST - 83 comments

Michael Kinsell sees himself as the next Mr. Rogers. So much so, that he planned a gala event, replete with big-name stars and full orchestra, where Rogers would be honored and Kinsell would be introduced as his successor, telling potential investors he had the blessing of PBS and Rogers’ longtime production company, Family Communications Inc. The only problem was, none of his claims were true, and his charade quickly fell apart.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:59 PM PST - 63 comments

Luke Cole, founder of environmental justice organization Center for Race, Poverty, and the Environment (scroll down for bio), has died in a car accident in Uganda. A lawyer, he was representing the village of Kivalina, Alaska, in a lawsuit against 24 oil companies who are alleged to have contributed to global warming. Dozens of people have written tributes to Cole on his Facebook profile. Cole's wife survived the crash. [more inside]
posted by granted at 12:21 PM PST - 8 comments

Followup-filter: Previously, we discussed the strange case of After Last Season, the strange, deadpan trailer for a film that provoked curiosity around the 'net. Hoax? Comedy? Performance art? After Last Season has just made its (4 city) premier and the first reactions are in ... [more inside]
posted by outlier at 12:16 PM PST - 75 comments

If you're loathe to invest in an e-Book because you long for the physicality of books, you can now purchase book perfume designed to replicate the smell of books. [via]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:35 AM PST - 47 comments

Julia Nunes can sing. And she plays ukulele. But what won me over: her charming, silly demeanor. She videoed herself playing Queen, Kanye, Destiny's Child, Bright Eyes and others and posted it to YouTube. Now she's got an album (eMusic) and is playing Bonnaroo.
posted by eustacescrubb at 10:16 AM PST - 43 comments

After falling silent for nearly a year, Geoffrey Chaucer is back and blogging. [more inside]
posted by orrnyereg at 9:50 AM PST - 50 comments

The European elections results 2009 website will open on June 7 at 18.00 CET. While waiting for the results, check out the issues, the EU 30 years ago and now and the EU Parliament twitter feed.
posted by ruelle at 8:52 AM PST - 97 comments

Ed Whelan, a lawyer and conservative law pundit at National Review has been making the rounds criticizing Sopreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, largely for her statements regarding judges making policy. publius, a pseudonymous legal blogger, wrote a harshly critical post of Whelan's behavior, accusing him of being a willing stooge of the right-wing - a "legal hitman"

In response Whelan outed publius, publishing his identity on the National Review website. publius added his side of the story. It's also worth reading Volokh's take on the original policy debate, which publius and Whelan each use in defense of their position
posted by crayz at 8:16 AM PST - 115 comments

"The Musical Cliché Figure Signifying The Far East", a.k.a. The Oriental Riff
posted by Joe Beese at 7:34 AM PST - 39 comments

Peasant! Free your pregnant wife from work, don't allow her to pick up heavy items since this will harm her and the child. An excellent collection of vintage soviet propaganda, public health, and infographics posters from 20s to 30s, many with full translations.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:01 AM PST - 17 comments

Multipart interview with film maker Kevin Smith on his career so far, why he's directing a film he didn't write, the internet and dying an early death. Part 1 - Selling Out And Salty Language, Part 2 - Writing & Film Making, Part 3 - Change, Death, Legacy, Part 4 - The Dark Side Of The Internet, Part 5 - The Curse Of Chasing Amy, Part 6 - Bright Side Of The Internet, Part 7- Talking To People He Wrote, Part 8 - Gretzky, Gratitude & God, Part 9 - Risking His Life & Starting A New One (and more to come apparently...)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:27 AM PST - 65 comments

I'm Back An analysis of the present macro-economic and political situation. [SLYT] [Adult Language] [NSFCRTs] [Right-wing Smears x2] [PepsiGold Pitch at the end]
posted by @troy at 3:00 AM PST - 37 comments

Dr. Virginia Apgar was born 100 years ago today. Although she is best known for her scoring system for assessing the health of newborn infants, she was a remarkable person in many other ways. [more inside]
posted by TedW at 2:43 AM PST - 19 comments

The Cooper's Hill cheese race is ridiculous and dangerous. The Dorset version of cheeseracing (previously), on the other hand, is completely sedentary and wisely swaps contusions for a minor risk of burns. [more inside]
posted by ATXile at 10:26 PM PST - 27 comments

20 Brilliant Bookcases via ( mightygodking )
posted by The Whelk at 9:41 PM PST - 48 comments

Hey Mom! Bobby wants to know if we can come out and play!
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 9:09 PM PST - 51 comments

The lunar orbital spacecraft Selene, better known by its Japanese name Kaguya, has been sending back some incredible HD video, including some of Earth rising and the Moon's surface. [more inside]
posted by Rinku at 9:07 PM PST - 25 comments

Growing into Womanhood -- In the images in White’s series, both figures are blossoming into womanhood, though each along a different path. [via]
posted by empath at 7:13 PM PST - 78 comments

Schott's Vocab Blog is doing a weekend competition for 'puns that monkey with the description of reported speech for comic effect', and has gotten about 2000 entries so far!" Tom said swiftly. "Some of them are actually funny if you think about them," he added judgmentally.

"And this no-frills site serves up random Swifties," Wendell said refreshingly. "I wanted to give an extra link because I procrastinated in posting this," he extrapolated.

"There's more on the inside!" he added punishingly. [more inside]
posted by wendell at 5:06 PM PST - 190 comments

Travel Posters — a Flickr set from the Boston Public Library. "Combining superb illustration and hand-drawn typography, they produced dazzling images in rich vibrant colors rendered through the magic of stone lithography." (via)
posted by netbros at 4:22 PM PST - 15 comments

The bar for utterly ironic chorus lyrics has possibly been out of the reach of normal people for now. Hard Place show considerable, erm, 'flair' as well as awareness of, erm....well. Um. This is too hard to describe. Justice can only be done by watching it. (SLYT + 1) via
posted by Brockles at 2:34 PM PST - 34 comments

Jeremy Scahill talked with Bill Moyers recently about the continued role and increasing centrality of private military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq, the use of military drones, and other issues related to these two ongoing wars. [more inside]
posted by ornate insect at 1:59 PM PST - 10 comments

Toto - Africa like you've never heard it before (via)
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 12:45 PM PST - 136 comments

"For as long as there is a Stanley Cup, famed hockey executive Frank J. Selke will be the "ass man."
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:33 AM PST - 26 comments

For Graham Greene he was "unquestionably our best thriller writer". John le Carré once called him "the source on which we all draw". With the six novels he wrote in the years leading up to the second world war - five of which have just been reissued by Penguin Modern Classics - Eric Ambler revitalised the British thriller, rescuing the genre from the jingoistic clutches of third-rate imitators of John Buchan, and recasting it in a more realist, nuanced and leftishly intelligent - not to mention exciting - mould. - The writing of Eric Ambler
posted by Artw at 10:07 AM PST - 14 comments

Michael Pollan or Michel Foucalt ?
posted by geos at 9:52 AM PST - 51 comments

In what has been described as "the American Idol of education" and "a biosphere of educational reform," The Equity Project Charter School will open in NYC this fall, offering $125,000 salaries to a "dream team" of teachers to test the theory that better teacher quality is the key to a better education for students.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:19 AM PST - 71 comments

How Nuclear Radiation Can Change Our Race. The excellent Modern Mechanix brings us Mechanix Illustrated's uninformed 1953 article on the effects of nuclear fallout.
But why, then, don't we have our superintelligent bobblehead beagles?
posted by dunkadunc at 5:45 AM PST - 32 comments

The internet loves it when things go wrong, anything from photoshopping to cakes. And while your personal failure might turn out to provide enjoyment for others, Adam Savage tells about the importance and upsides of colossal failures at Maker Faire. [more inside]
posted by bjrn at 2:41 AM PST - 17 comments

The Táin lithographs In 1967 Louis le Brocquy was commissioned to illustrate Thomas Kinsella's translation of the great Irish prose epic the Táin Bó Cuailnge. The resulting collaborative volume is widely acknowledged as the great Irish Livre d'Artiste of the twentieth century; Le Brocquy's "brush drawings merged seamlessly with the text; stark, fluent images, they expressed with great economy of means an epic breadth, evoking the movement of vast masses of people. Individual participants in the drama were also pulled into close focus."
posted by Abiezer at 2:04 AM PST - 19 comments

Just a little too late for Flash Friday, it's Flash Doom 2D, a fairly solid side-scroller.via Aaron Williams. [more inside]
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:43 AM PST - 11 comments

NAWLZ: A science fiction flash-based graphic novel 'experiment in interactive storytelling' that's pretty cool. Now up to 13 'issues'. [more inside]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:23 AM PST - 7 comments

Alabaster. Experimental interactive fiction take on Snow White written collectively by Emily Short and ten others. Features 18 endings and procedural illustrations that dynamically reflect game state. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal at 10:31 PM PST - 8 comments

A Boy and His Dog is available for viewing on the Internet Archive [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 9:09 PM PST - 38 comments

Hammer Pants mob invades a retail clothing store. SLYT
posted by exogenous at 7:15 PM PST - 79 comments

June 5th was established in 1972 as World Environment Day by the United Nations General Assembly. Home, the movie by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, which premieres today for the occasion, has some nice aerial visuals. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 6:34 PM PST - 12 comments

Yo. This is Ray. He's representing P-Town. Videoing from the road. He needs to get a job, dog.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:23 PM PST - 24 comments

flixel is an ActionScript 3 framework abstracted from Adam Atomic's raster-based games, including FATHOM (previously) and Gravity Hook. [more inside]
posted by archagon at 6:01 PM PST - 33 comments