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Just Say No To Drug Reps.
posted by Gyan at 9:57 PM PST - 40 comments

Narts! The Nart Sagas are arguably the most essential ingredient of Circassian Culture, to which they are what Greek mythology is to Western Civilization. Though much less known than their Greek counterparts, the Nart epic tales are no less developed. The heroism, sagacity, guile and ferocity of the Nart demi-gods are more than matches to those of the Greek Pantheon. If this selection of stories captures your interest, you might want John Colarusso's Nart Sagas from the Caucasus; you can read the introduction online ("A ship sailing across the Black Sea in the year 1780 eventually would have come upon a lush shore at the eastern end of the dark gray waters..."). Although they seem to have been brought by the Ossetes (and J. Cassian is posting an Ossetian tale, The Death of Soslan, on his blog), they're everywhere in the Northern Caucasus. And some people say they were the source of the King Arthur stories.
posted by languagehat at 7:24 PM PST - 13 comments

Vote for your favourite online community
posted by Mwongozi at 4:12 PM PST - 62 comments

Internet is not a luxury in Iran anymore (NPR)
posted by hoder at 3:42 PM PST - 5 comments

The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time. From An Algonquin Round Table Christmas to Noam Chomsky: Deconstructing Christmas, these are the worst Christmas specials ever. I'd pay good money to see the Ayn Rand one for real.
posted by apathy0o0 at 1:23 PM PST - 44 comments

As illustrated by this recent Wired Magazine article, consumer-to-consumer recommendations on the Internet are certainly influencing consumer demand. Goodblock attempts to gather casual friend-to-friend recommendations--from a good baby-friendly Thai restaurant in town to a doggy day care you trust--and collect them in a directory much as del.icio.us collects bookmark recommendations for your friends to peruse. For now, goodblock is in beta and is accessible only by friend invitation and, similar to the friendster model, you can only see your own directory and those of your listed friends.
posted by lowkey at 12:58 PM PST - 20 comments

Etymology-wise, which hormone is an island? What word both denotes a prime and euphemizes Satan? What word denotes "the future" and abbreviates the unknown? Is urine pith? These are some of the questions from "Moot: The World's Toughest Language Game," a homemade and little-known board game for lovers of words. Some puzzles are available online; there are a few more available on a page detailing the interesting story behind the game's creation. You can sign up to have a new language puzzle e-mailed to you every week.
posted by painquale at 12:09 PM PST - 8 comments

Don't believe the hype Debunking the so-called genius of Prince, The Sopranos and 'Blade Runner'. Amusingly harsh yet convincing cases all round. Can I add 'Goodfellas' to the list? Never has so much been written about a film so lacking. I prefered 'Casino'.
posted by feelinglistless at 11:30 AM PST - 135 comments

Criticize Iran? Obviously, you're with the Mossad. As it turns out, Al Jazeera is run by Americans and Zionists bent on discrediting Islam in the West, heightening tensions among Islamic countries, and obstructing President Khatami's Dialogue Among Civilizations initiative. Tehran Times has the scoop.
posted by ibmcginty at 11:16 AM PST - 22 comments

The weather just got a lot more accessible. The National Weather Service's weather data is now freely available in XML format for SOAP clients; it had previously been only available through commercial providers or in a difficult-to-decipher format. Not knowing anything about web services, I'm not sure about the implications, but I imagine that anyone who knows their SOAP could build their own weather app really easily.
posted by mcwetboy at 9:25 AM PST - 18 comments

Tommy Thompson, former Wisconsin governor, GOP platform committee chairman, and outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services leaves with these reassuring words: "For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do." Time stock up on those rapture rations?
posted by three blind mice at 7:33 AM PST - 48 comments

Remote controlled aerial photography is not just for spies - members at RC Groups take low-altitude photos from remote-controlled planes. This impressive gallery of submissions for an aerial photography calendar offers a sampling of the art. (via Buzz)
posted by madamjujujive at 7:22 AM PST - 14 comments

Elite Designers Against IKEA
posted by armage at 5:55 AM PST - 90 comments

John Nozum's Sleep Apnea page isn't particularly interesting unless you suffer from the condition. He spends a great deal of time discussing his treatment which included a Tracheostomy. Some of it's not pleasant to look at but then you stumble onto this page and things... well... what can I say? I just hope to God this guy never gets a colostomy bag. A few warnings: Although not particularly gory or gross, many of these pictures are unpleasant in one way or another. Also, there's an embedded midi file on every page. BEWARE (it's located at the bottom of the page).
posted by E_B_A at 5:42 AM PST - 6 comments

The G-Cans Project is a massive project, begun 12 years ago, to build infrastructure for preventing overflow of the major rivers and waterways spidering the city (A serious problem for Tokyo during rainy-season and typhoon season). The underground waterway is the largest in the world and sports five 32m diameter, 65m deep concrete containment silos which are connected by 64 kilometers of tunnel sitting 50 meters beneath the surface. The whole system is powered by 14000 horsepower turbines which can pump 200 tons of water a second into the large outlying edogawa river.
posted by joelf at 12:48 AM PST - 24 comments