MetaFilter

The Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), an advanced telescope onboard the Hinode satellite, was launched into space by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency on September 22, 2006. On October 23, the SOT opened its protective doors and began taking pictures
posted by Drunken_munky at 10:28 PM PST - 11 comments

The Mapmaker's Wife tells the extraordinary story of Isabel Godin, the first woman to travel down the length of the Amazon. Her journey brought an end to the first scientific expedition to the New World, which was led by Charles Marie de La Condamine.
posted by dhruva at 6:23 PM PST - 12 comments

Arrest in real-time abuse case. "An undercover police officer in Toronto's child exploitation unit, who says he's seldom surprised what he sees any more, was shaken to the core Sunday when a suspected pedophile he was chatting with on-line allegedly began sexually assaulting a preschooler and sending images of the attack over the internet to him in real time." Detective Constable Paul Krawczyk: "My heart just started going, sweating, and I felt like throwing up." Police tracked down and arrested the man within an hour and a half.
posted by russilwvong at 6:09 PM PST - 71 comments

Will It Blend? [Warning: Pepsi Blend]
posted by rxrfrx at 4:05 PM PST - 60 comments

Ted Haggard, one of the most prominent evangelical pastors in the nation, resigned today as president of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations that he carried on a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute. He also steps down as pastor of of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates, saying he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations."
posted by ericb at 3:43 PM PST - 1836 comments

Cicada Mania.
posted by hama7 at 3:12 PM PST - 20 comments

The election isn't until next Tuesday, but already problems are being reported. It's not just in Texas, and not just in relation to everyone's favorite electronic-voting whipping boy, either; it's becoming clear that every vendor has its own unsolved security issues. In fact it seems that an increasing number of voices are warning that the US is in for an awful lot of contention from all parties involved after next week's vote, and that can't be good. Others are taking a non-disinterested rose-colored view of things and loudly proclaiming that there's nothing wrong with the system, or at least that no one should imply or infer or investigate the matter. Still others are quick to point out that there's nothing wrong with electronic voting, except when they're linked to a foreign government that doesn't get along particularly well with them. Whatever is true about the state of electronic voting in 2006, you can't deny that it has led to a certain plurality of opinions...
posted by clevershark at 12:25 PM PST - 130 comments

"I couldn't face the prospect of my child growing up and asking me, years later, what I had done, and having to say: 'Nothing.'" Last spring Leslie Thomas, a Chicago-based architect, read a story detailing the fallout of hostilities between the Sudanese government and the rebels -- more than 200,000 dead, 2.5 million made homeless -- and decided to put together DARFUR/DARFUR: a traveling exhibit of digitally-projected changing images. The goal: to raise $1m with at least 24 venues in 24 months. The photographs have been taken in Darfur by photojournalists Lynsey Addario, Mark Brecke, Helene Caux, VII's Ron Haviv, Magnum Photos's Paolo Pellegrin, Ryan Spencer Reed, Michal Safdie, and former U.S. Marine Brian Steidle. On a sidenote, Pellegrin has just been awarded the W. Eugene Smith Grant.
posted by matteo at 11:40 AM PST - 13 comments

There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study. What IS our planet going to look like in 50 years? Can there really be no more fish by then? I can't even begin to imagine this.
posted by jfwlucy at 11:22 AM PST - 86 comments

Dandelife. Q: "Why would I want to keep my biography on the Internet?" A: "Stories are best shared, don't you think?" [from the about page]
Dandelife.com describes itself as a "social biography network." It allows you to construct an annotated timeline of your life, add photographs (it works with Flickr, with which is shares design elements) and links. Example here; via anh-minh.com.
posted by jokeefe at 11:15 AM PST - 12 comments

Sanjay Kumar gets 12 year setence, eight million dollar fine. Meanwhile, his old boss seems to have gotten away scot free.
posted by timeistight at 10:48 AM PST - 6 comments

William Styron, R.I.P The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis. One of the true 20th century American masters, is gone from pneumonia, at the age of 81. A writer of some the most fluent prose I have ever had the privilege to read, he also wrote one of the best first-person accounts of clinical depression ever written.
posted by psmealey at 9:23 AM PST - 27 comments

First official goatse payment card. In which a guy gets a goatse image put on his credit/debit/payment card. Yes, it links to an image of the card, no it's not as bad as you think, yes it's PSFW (probably safe for work).
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:54 AM PST - 74 comments

She would rather die than become a torturer.
posted by empath at 7:51 AM PST - 133 comments

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of how the language of Odysseus and his people found a home on the web. Of how the newest mass medium came to house a library of Ancient Greek literature. Of how the sounds of a dead language could find a new life online.
posted by jason's_planet at 7:22 AM PST - 19 comments

Breaking the Chain: The antitrust case against Wal-Mart. Barry C. Lynn argues Wal-Mart is a monopsony, and should be dealt with the same way A&P and Standard Oil were many years ago.
posted by chunking express at 6:55 AM PST - 32 comments

Mexican Day of the Dead, only with a twist: in Pomuch, in the Mayan area in Southeastern Mexico, Mayans celebrate their dead by digging out their remains, and cleaning them. Photos here. The regular Day of the Dead of the dead festivities have been discussed previously on MetaFilter here, here, and here. For those of you who may want to practice, this is a story en español. The link to the pictures might be NSFW.
posted by micayetoca at 5:09 AM PST - 21 comments

The Polling Place Photo Project is an experiment in citizen journalism that intends to collect photographs of every polling place in America next Tuesday.
posted by coudal at 3:51 AM PST - 19 comments

The Holocaust Cartoon Contest results are in and the winner is Moroccan cartoonist Abdellah Derkaoui, who won $12 000 for his effort, "depicting an Israeli crane piling large cement blocks on Israel's security wall and gradually obscuring Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem." The contest was launched in response to the Danish cartoon controversy (previously discussed), with the intent of testing the limits of freedom of expression, so please resist the urge to riot - YHBT. 204 of the entries are now on display.
posted by mek at 1:46 AM PST - 69 comments

Can the Marketing Universe be saved from the expanding event horizon of the ravenous black hole that is Google?
posted by XMLicious at 12:30 AM PST - 14 comments