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A Better Way to Read Text Online? By reorganizing text into cascading patterns, more circular (even vaguely poetic) than the usual dull horizontal layout, visual-syntactic text formatting (VSTF) increases online reading comprehension and efficiency while reducing eyestrain. Among high school students, who read with the format over an entire academic year, the VSTF method increased both academic achievement and long-term reading proficiency by more than a full standard deviation over randomized controls. Try it out. (Any login works)
posted by gottabefunky at 11:03 PM PST - 48 comments

On 29 April 2007 a Boeing 757 owned by the low-fare carrier Thomsonfly injested 2 large herons, causing a failure of the aircraft's #2 engine. A video camera was present and captured the entire event. The birds did not survive the incident, but the 200+ passengers did.
posted by drstein at 7:58 PM PST - 84 comments

廃道レポート・東北の廃道・旧道・国道・県道・林道.
posted by hama7 at 7:47 PM PST - 90 comments

Giants of Soviet opera are little known in the West. But Victor Han has taken it upon himself to keep their memory alive....my personal favorite is Mark Reizen, a deeply nuanced bass, who was powerful enough to carry on singing into his ninth decade. If you'd care to follow along with some of the songs, you can use Emily Ezust's massive archive of lyrics, to which Victor contributes. Or, try listening in English first. Too much music? Here's some reading.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 5:27 PM PST - 9 comments

Streeter and Amir work for CollegeHumor. One day, Streeter decides to pull an little prank on Amir. Amir then pranks back. Streeter retaliates. Amir dito. And now, in the fifth battle of the Prank War, Amir gets owned big time. To be continued ...
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:07 PM PST - 51 comments

"On May 10th, 2007, this video was banned in Congress" - Filmmaker, Robert Greenwald, wanted to show a four minute clip of his film when testifying to Congress, but Republicans disallowed it. This is the clip from his excellent movie now available on Google Video, Iraq for Sale.
posted by nickyskye at 3:52 PM PST - 52 comments

Computer Hope The location for free online computer support and computer related information. Computer Hope has been designed to assist all types of computer users with any of their computer related questions as well as a great location to learn more about your computer and its hardware and software.
posted by konolia at 2:01 PM PST - 14 comments

Whether you think they're good PSA's or not, these French Aids Awareness ads are wonderful.
(Definitely NSFW, Single Link, Wired Blog, Animated walrus, cowboy and squid sex)
posted by Lord_Pall at 1:50 PM PST - 31 comments

40 lie dead, as General Pervez Musharraf tries to quash the judiciary of Pakistan, before the elections (pdf) to be held this year.
posted by hadjiboy at 12:12 PM PST - 67 comments

"I sometimes wonder if anyone still reads this stuff." Here's an unique perspective for the self-styled brash, anarchist, punkrocker turned maturing, computer-geeky, old git in all of us, or at least those of us who remember John Coltrane's version of My Favorite Things. WrecklessEric dot com contains the words of a man filled with faux passion and finite jest, whose composed some good music and written some good lyrics to go with them. For those of you not that old, Wreckless Eric wrote the song Whole Wide World which is what Will Ferrell sings to Maggie Gyllenhaal in that movie before she jumps his bones. It was just last year. You might have seen it. Eric's done some other things too. I bring this to the blue cuz I happen to be fascinated by the wry, personable, unapologetic, self-referential, egotistical and occasionally self-loathing way the guy writes in his website, and cuz I'm a sucker for the history of punk, cuz I'm a geeky old git who used to fancy himself a shoegazing punk enthusiast. ...and cuz I'm bored.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:07 PM PST - 10 comments

An interesting collection of contemporary Chinese photography at “Meeting place Foto Fest Beijing 2006”. Among the 34 portfolios: Shackled prisoners, Children’s IDs, an actor awaiting his entrance by Luo Dan, the symmetrical works of Li Nan, images by Xu Yong and Li Yu. Many more inside. Click to enlarge. (Via)
posted by growabrain at 11:39 AM PST - 8 comments

Paintings of Buddha dating back at least to the 12th century have been discovered in a cave in Nepal. Tipped by a local shepherd, a team of international researchers climbed to some old caves where they found a mural with 55 panels depicting the life of Buddha, reminiscent of the artwork of the Ajanta Caves in India (possibly NSFW). There are probably many other forgotten caves in the Mustang area (previously discussed here,) but they may be threatened by a planned trans-Himalayan highway.
posted by homunculus at 10:06 AM PST - 22 comments

Stacey Peralta's directing and editing chops date back to the 1980s. His skateboard company Powell-Peralta's legendary Bones Brigade (the dream team of Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Lance Mountain, Mike McGill, Rodney Mullen and Tommy Guerrero) were dominating professional skateboarding, and Stacey lovingly documented the progress of his team with a series of great Bones Brigade videocassette releases such as the Bones Brigade Video Show (1984), Future Primitive (1985) and The Search for Animal Chin (1987) (all Google Video). Each video is a skateboarding historical signpost, featuring the debuts of Caballerials, McTwists and 720s. Don't miss the soundtrack to the Bones Brigade Video Show, which features great 1980s punk rock such as the Youth Brigade and the Faction (Steve Caballero's band).
posted by porn in the woods at 9:56 AM PST - 22 comments

“Why the hell the train?” and other questions answered “The real terror is the Three+ Sheltered Old Men, because they don’t sleep and they don’t have normal conversations. They’re completely sporadic: An observation is made, perhaps it is agreed on, then anywhere from two to 45 minutes pass before the next one. That’s the random non-rhythm your brain will feed on... and you’re never going to relax or get any sleep.” As for “train love”? “Ask yourself, do you really want this? Your potential train buddy is travelling by train. What the hell is wrong with this person? After two days on the train... [y]ou’re not at your Personal Best™”
posted by joeclark at 9:52 AM PST - 20 comments

This man is an on-duty BBC reporter, doing his best to make a Scientologist admit to brainwashing. The video was ended up on YouTube after being sent around by the Scientologists, so the BBC try to retaliate. Here's the reporter's explanation.
posted by cillit bang at 9:12 AM PST - 153 comments

Spend a bit of your Sunday getting a little more acquainted with Indonesian musical culture. Balinese gamelan. And a little more. See how they make some of those fabulous-sounding gongs. And here's the fabulous Kecak. And more Kecak. And just for good measure, howsabout a little Angklung karaoke? Meanwhile in Sumatra the gals are playing the dishes! [all links YouTube]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:56 AM PST - 25 comments

There has been a measurable "surge" of carbon in the atmosphere for the past 4 or 5 years, nearly doubling the annual rate of the 1970-2000 period, which has mystified scientists because it does not match human trends or known natural causes. A new paper (abstract) suggests we may have reached a tipping point with more greenhouse gases escaping from trees, plants and soils than in the past - hotter and dryer weather caused by high levels of CO2 is creating a feedback loop of unusually strong out-gassings of CO2 from vegetation more inside
posted by stbalbach at 6:15 AM PST - 41 comments

400,000 jobs? Or 40,000 blowjobs?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:26 AM PST - 44 comments

Jesus of Nazareth - a theological biography by Pope Benedict
posted by kyleg at 12:28 AM PST - 63 comments