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Strangers - a visual record of one-night stands that never actually happened. Futoshi Miyagi in a series of photos of himself in the homes of other men. "To be naked with someone without having intercourse is weird." [Flash, nsfw]
posted by mediareport at 11:16 PM PST - 14 comments

Google Web Toolkit + Texas Holdem Poker = gpokr.com. I should probably be embarrassed about how much time I've spent in the last few weeks playing poker online for pretend money. As the site operator mentions in his development blog, it seems to be the small things that make the site so sticky: elegant ajax design, players' rankings displayed and updated right next to their names at the table, a slew of player statistics presented on the main ranking page, even more statistics and graphs on each user page. (Oh, and out of 5000 or so current players, I seem to be #1).
posted by nobody at 9:57 PM PST - 35 comments

Advance Australia Fair, written by a Scotsman and performed at the inauguration of the Commonwealth, has never been a hugely popular anthem. The ARU have been boosting Waltzing Matilda (a paean to a thief who got caught, which was considered as an anthem in the 70s but rejected) as a national song for Rugby internationals, while Men At Work's backpacker anthem Land Down Under can be heard almost constantly in bars from Ko Pha Ngan to Earl's Court, and the Chisels' song Khe Sahn gets a better pagerank than the battle it is named for.

But I think Adam Hills may have returned the anthem to relevance with this rendition.
posted by pompomtom at 9:37 PM PST - 34 comments

DHS's CyberStorm-- --Recognizing the imminent threat hippies and assorted leftists obviously pose to us all, a massive cyber terror simulation (international and involving 115 organizations) recently came to light: ...The attack scenario detailed in the presentation is a meticulously plotted parade of cyber horribles led by a "well financed" band of leftist radicals who object to U.S. imperialism, aided by sympathetic independent actors. At the top of the pyramid is the Worldwide Anti-Globalization Alliance, which sets things off by calling for cyber sit-ins and denial-of-service attacks against U.S. interests. WAGA's radical arm, the villainous Black Hood Society, ratchets up the tension on day one by probing SCADA computerized control systems and military networks ...
posted by amberglow at 9:20 PM PST - 28 comments

Wish you could have bought shares of Pearl Jam before they were famous? Fans sponsor bands in $10 'parts'. Once 5000 parts have been pledged, the band gets a proper studio recording. Tracks are made available free. CD's are sold. Money goes to the band and to the 'believers' who sponsored them. Might work. Probably better than this model.
posted by gregor-e at 8:57 PM PST - 30 comments

Bacteria Roll Out Carpet Of Goo That Converts Deadly Heavy Metal Into Less Threatening Nano-spheres. This microbe joins another reported not too long ago. We certainly could use their help.
posted by owhydididoit at 8:52 PM PST - 9 comments

The internet nerdocracy has inadvertently spawned a DDoS attack against a Hungarian government website set up to name a new bridge. Why? Because Stephen Colbert asked "the heroes" to march, and they obeyed. (We've heard from this guy before.) Next on their sights: The Saginaw Spirit team mascot. [more inside]
posted by absalom at 8:30 PM PST - 23 comments

Mah num ah num (Google Video) - The Muppets debut their first music video in 1976.
posted by persona non grata at 7:33 PM PST - 70 comments

Motion Mountain - "The project aims to produce a simple, vivid and up-to-date introduction to modern physics, with emphasis on the fundamental ideas of motion. 'Simple' means that concepts are stressed more than formalism; 'vivid' means that the reader is continuously challenged; 'up-to-date' means that modern research and ideas about unification are included."
posted by Gyan at 7:26 PM PST - 4 comments

An inquiry into living while walking the roads of America, Mexico, and beyond
posted by MetaMonkey at 6:55 PM PST - 16 comments

Jason Toney at Negro Please says, "This is officially the whitest thing I have ever posted." I didn't know what Metal School was, and I still don't know.
posted by cgc373 at 5:19 PM PST - 55 comments

Diigo (Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff) is a new "social annotation" bookmarking site with the standard save-and-share, tags, etc., and also sharable Web page annotations.
posted by davcoo at 5:00 PM PST - 6 comments

web2.0 logo creatr for yr web ideaz Beta
posted by boo_radley at 4:50 PM PST - 53 comments

Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown "Charlie Brown is on the run from the Peanuts Gang after the Great Pumpkin puts a bounty on his head." (Google Video)
posted by kirkaracha at 4:41 PM PST - 20 comments

In the Hollywood version of the Kwame James story, he becomes an NBA All-Star, helps achieve world peace and, of course, lives blissfully ever after. While the real-life plot hasn't followed quite that arc, perhaps it's headed toward a happy ending. (via SpoFi)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:54 PM PST - 7 comments

Holy Madness! (Flash interface.) The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City has launched a website that allows you to pore over and compare Tibetan Buddhist artwork from their exhibits. Use the "Decode" feature to pick paintings apart and learn about their intricate components.

See also: their ambitious calendar of events.
posted by hermitosis at 12:12 PM PST - 18 comments

Indexed: life lessons in chart and graph form.
posted by hydrophonic at 12:03 PM PST - 21 comments

The Great War on Terror shall be won with Powerpoint.

[Army Lt. General David] McKiernan had another, smaller but nagging issue: He couldn't get Franks to issue clear orders that stated explicitly what he wanted done, how he wanted to do it, and why. Rather, Franks passed along PowerPoint briefing slides that he had shown to Rumsfeld: "It's quite frustrating the way this works, but the way we do things nowadays is combatant commanders brief their products in PowerPoint up in Washington to OSD and Secretary of Defense…In lieu of an order, or a frag [fragmentary order], or plan, you get a bunch of PowerPoint slides…[T]hat is frustrating, because nobody wants to plan [img] against PowerPoint slides."

(Here's briefing standards *.ppt, clipart, and some earlier governmental [pdf] uses of PowerPoint [Cryptome], FAS, along with one from ABCNEWS making the case against Iran.) Also, here are previously related MeFi PowerPoint threads on the Downing Street Memos and the Columbia disaster.
posted by rzklkng at 11:32 AM PST - 97 comments

Nintendo music. Download some of their music. Go see them touring now. Enjoy the 8-bit goodness. Previously discussed nintendo music.
posted by ninjew at 11:03 AM PST - 17 comments

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has ruled that warrantless wiretapping by the Bush Administration's National Security Agency is unconstitutional, saying it violates rights to free speech and privacy. Judge Taylor, a veteran of the civil rights movement and the first black female federal district judge in the U.S. 6th Circuit, was appointed to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by President Carter. Legal experts expect the decision to be overturned by the 6th Circuit sitting en banc. Background on the case by Glenn Greenwald: "The theory of the lawsuit -- [is that warrantless wiretapping's] mere existence deters citizens from freely exercising their free speech rights".
posted by orthogonality at 9:48 AM PST - 91 comments

[ConspiracyFilter] Was the alleged "binary liquid explosives" plot actually plausible, in the sense of being capable of producing "mass murder on an unimaginable scale?"
posted by ijoshua at 8:32 AM PST - 138 comments

"I choose to hang on to the anorexia" (requires Flash, disturbing images)
posted by matteo at 8:24 AM PST - 45 comments

genggong, khomus, guimbarde, trumpi... Not ringing a bell? How about Jew's Harp? Though neither a harp nor associated with Jewish tradition, that's the name that stuck in the New World. Call it what you will, this ingenious little instrument is played all over the planet. It's the focus of at least one yearly festival, and there's no shortage of great players out there twanging and boinging away. The instrument has a looong history stretching from antiquity to house music. In certain parts of the world its playing is the province of women only, and yes, they've been known to make the camels cry. Unsurprisingly, they've found their way onto the beloved YouTube in extreme close-up glory. BOINNNNGGG!! (Note: some links go direct to bwaaaang-y audio or video)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:16 AM PST - 21 comments

"Photojojo scours the internets, rips pages out of magazines, ransacks their friends' closets, and goes through dumpsters to find the very best Photo tips, DIY projects, and Gear." Subscribe and get it by email or RSS. Some archives here.
posted by dobbs at 8:12 AM PST - 10 comments

Bending a soccer ball - mathematically. Found via Ivars Peterson's short exposition on Braungardt and Kotschick's The Classification of Football Patterns [pdf, technical].
posted by Wolfdog at 7:31 AM PST - 18 comments

The University of Washington CSE Colloquium features accessible talks by leading computer scientists and computer engineers from the University of Washington, the region, the nation, and the world, most of which are available as MP3 audio and/or Real/Windows Media video online for free. Personal favorites include talks on quantum computing, de novo protein design, and in silico biology as a smarter way to learn how our genes work.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:57 AM PST - 7 comments

The Domesday Book is online. This book is "a great land survey from 1086, commissioned by William the Conqueror to assess the extent of the land and resources being owned in England at the time, and the extent of the taxes he could raise. The information collected was recorded by hand in two huge books, in the space of around a year." You can browse it here. The site also has some background info both on England at the time and the book itself.
posted by marxchivist at 6:02 AM PST - 20 comments

In Wales, signs are bilingual. Sometimes, they get it very wrong
posted by handee at 5:36 AM PST - 50 comments

FSI Language Courses
posted by anjamu at 1:35 AM PST - 36 comments

If you ride a subway in North America, you've probably seen the pictures: standing before that always red background, stylish urbanites look over their shoulders, giving each other flirtatious looks. And even if you're not in the dating market, you may have taken interest in the posters' energetic style, in the way their intricate linework confidently mixes caricature and fashion illustration influences, and wondered what the artist gets up to when he's not tempting singles towards Lavalife. The artist is Marcos Chin.
posted by TimTypeZed at 12:48 AM PST - 38 comments

For nearly two years now, Ben T Steckler has been reviewing, posting album covers, and making full albums available for download from his seemingly inexhaustible collection of out-of-print, spoken word, sound effect, educational & other kooky recorded ephemera. If you're a fan of album titles like How To Buy Meat, What Smoking Has Done For Me, or The Catholic Marriage Manual, this site will provide you with endless hours of reading/downloading/listening pleasure.
posted by jonson at 12:08 AM PST - 15 comments

Casper the Friendly Ghost video One of the oddest animated characters still popular since the 1940's, Casper the Emotionally Needy Dead Boy continues to elicit uneasiness and distress in viewers. On the other hand, his catchy theme song* has inspired some*. *warning: sound
posted by maryh at 12:01 AM PST - 39 comments

Zap Reader. Browser-based reader that takes selected text and flashes them one (or two, or three) at a time on the screen for super-fast speed reading. Scroll down for the tutorial video. Convenient or headache-inducing? You be the judge.
posted by zardoz at 12:00 AM PST - 23 comments