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Pssst. Hey, kid. Check out these bottle rockets. You can make them yourself. Via: Make.
posted by loquacious at 10:30 PM PST - 31 comments

Best Science Visualization Videos of 2009 from Wired Magazine
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:20 PM PST - 8 comments

Gorilla Sandwich. (Probably not what you think - SFW) You can make your own (with cheesy 70s porn music). [more inside]
posted by Smedleyman at 10:20 PM PST - 27 comments

Jason Derulo's song "Watcha Say" which debuted at 54th on the Billboard Hot 100 and is currently 5th on the Itunes Top 100 list prominently samples Imogen Heap's song "Hide and Seek" without giving her credit. Sampling in rap music has a long and controversial history.
posted by kylej at 9:03 PM PST - 48 comments

What is The Institute for Human Continuity? Are you The One? Find out about the E.A.R.T.H. Initiative & Operation Safe Haven. Farewell Atlantis - fiction meets fact? As always there's another perspective. Oh yeah, and don't forget to see the movie.
posted by scalefree at 8:57 PM PST - 35 comments

Wow. I was going to say something witty and clever, and I got nothin, so: "The new Web-based Sony Library Finder tool can be used to find e-books in the local library that can be checked out, downloaded onto a desktop computer and then loaded onto a Sony Reader device -- all without charge." [Note - Probably USian] [more inside]
posted by ZakDaddy at 8:20 PM PST - 63 comments

Betty Nickell, a 72 year old resident of Mansfield, Ohio, recently received some unexpected news. Much to her surprise, she learned that she had been inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 7:53 PM PST - 16 comments

Sir George Julius's Automatic Totalisator, first used by the public in New Zealand, and quickly taken up by racetracks throughout Australasia and North America (warning hideous HTML), automates parimutuel betting.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:41 PM PST - 4 comments

British Women Romantic Poets Project is a collection of poetry written by women from the British Isles between 1789 and 1832. Over a hundred female poets are represented. Women rarely feature in literary histories of the Romantic period but there is treasure if you search (some poems are, frankly, terrible). A few places to start are Charlotte Turner Smith's Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Christian Ross Milne's Simple Poems on Simple Subjects and Mary Robinson's sonnet cycle Sappho and Phaon. The oddest works to modern readers may be Elizabeth Hitchener's Enigmas, Historical and Geographical and Marianne Curties' Classical Pastime, which are collections of verse riddles (the answers are at the end of the text).
posted by Kattullus at 7:28 PM PST - 5 comments

"In 1971, Memphis act Big Star laid down tracks for what became one of the greatest rock albums of all time, the aptly-titled "#1 Record." During the historic sessions, bassist Andy Hummel and co-founder Chris Bell shot the following footage" + Nightime + Thirteen + Kangaroo
posted by vronsky at 6:01 PM PST - 48 comments

This fall, law students are competing for half as many openings at big firms as they were last year in what is shaping up to be the most wrenching job search season in over 50 years.

“Had I seen where the market was going, I would’ve gone to a lower-ranked but less expensive public school,” [a second year law student at Penn] said. “I’m questioning whether law school was the right choice at all."
posted by plexi at 4:22 PM PST - 215 comments

"God save me!" quoth the priest, with a loud voice, "is Tirante the White there? Give me him here, neighbour; for I make account I have found in him a treasure of delight, and a mine of entertainment. Here we have Don Kyrieleison of Montalvan, a valorous knight, and his brother Thomas of Montalvan, and the knight Fonseca, and the combat in which the valiant Tirante fought with the mastiff, and the smart conceits of the damsel Plazerdemivida, with the amours and artifices of the widow Reposada; and madam the empress in love with her squire Hypolito. Verily, gossip, in its way, it is the best book in the world..."

-Don Quixote de la Mancha, Part I, Chapter 6 [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 3:18 PM PST - 11 comments

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World by T.R. Reid (Washington Post)
posted by blue_beetle at 3:17 PM PST - 141 comments

A Saudi Prince tells America to give up futile dreams of energy independence. Op-Ed in the NYT says Peak Oil is a waste of energy and an illusion. Meanwhile, the OECD's energy advisors, the IEA are saying cheap oil will run out in ten years, a decade sooner than estimates made as recently as 2007.
posted by bystander at 2:57 PM PST - 88 comments

From the publisher's website: "The YouTube Reader is the first full-length book to explore YouTube as an industry, an archive and a cultural form." Features some seasoned commentators, among them film analyst Thomas Elsaesser, and an online exhibition. Looks interesting.
posted by Holly at 2:47 PM PST - 11 comments

My Baby Is Like a Narcotic. Reflections on the "opium den" of new parenthood by New York University professor, author and journalist Katie Roiphe.
posted by Stonewall Jackson at 2:47 PM PST - 108 comments

Psychologist Nick Troop has performed a "psycholyrical analysis" of David Bowie's 26 albums and used his findings, along with text analysis software Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, to write the "ideal" Bowie song (YT, 8:54; skip to 4:23 if you just want to hear the song). (See also.)
posted by Prospero at 2:14 PM PST - 41 comments

September 9, 2005 - Flight of the Conchords performed six songs and chatted with the audience as part of HBO's One Night Stand, not quite two years before the TV series would air. The show is online for your viewing pleasure (29 minute MySpace video, also available as a youtube playlist of 6 videos). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:29 PM PST - 65 comments

Ellie Greenwich, one of the foremost songwriters of the rock and roll era, has died at the age of 69. [more inside]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:00 AM PST - 37 comments

Sartorial inspiration for anachronistic atavists: Rhiannon, The Black Apple, Johanni, Solanah, Casey Brown, Strawberry Lemonade, Fleur de Guerre, The Freelancer, and Elinkan.
posted by Juliet Banana at 9:58 AM PST - 43 comments

The healthcare debate explained on the back of 4 napkins. Napkin 1: The health care equation. Napkin 2: It's not about health care. Napkin 3: The plans on the table. Napkin 4: What's it mean to me?
posted by lunit at 9:55 AM PST - 95 comments

Christopher Moore has been to Paris lately, and has decided to share some of his vacation snaps, and, most amusingly, teach us a bit of French.
posted by markkraft at 9:40 AM PST - 33 comments

At the insistence of Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown, the FAA is apparently targeting a pilot who was hired this month by disgruntled fans to fly messages like "Hire a GM!" over the team's training camp. A "Mike Brown Step Down" banner was flown over games last season. Brown's futility (1 winning season in 18 years) in Cincinnati has spurred fans to pay thousands for billboards and distribute urinal cakes, while HBO's Hard Knocks series has recently shown insight into his cluelessness. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 9:03 AM PST - 64 comments

Last week, Eddy Temple Morris, a DJ on UK radio station XFM, challenged Twitter to remix as many songs as possible into 10 minutes. The previous record was held by Wizard of Deekline and Wizard - it is now held by rapper, producer and all-round renaissance man Akira the Don, who managed to fit a staggering 210 tracks into 1/6 of an hour. He's just put together a video to accompany the mix - watch it here
posted by muggsy1079 at 7:44 AM PST - 23 comments

Beijing loves IKEA - but not for shopping. "Every weekend, thousands of looky-loos pour into the massive showroom to use the displays. Some hop into bed, slide under the covers and sneak a nap; others bring cameras and pose with the decor. Families while away the afternoon in the store for no other reason than to enjoy the air conditioning."
posted by geoff. at 7:36 AM PST - 78 comments

Only six years old, January Schofield is severely schizophrenic, actively hallucinating and violent. An LA Times article in June and a follow-up in July describe her parents' attempts to get help for her. Her father also has a blog. [more inside]
posted by infinitywaltz at 7:18 AM PST - 124 comments

A red-billed blue magpie doesn't have anything on Predator. The 2005-2006 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, on the other hand, would blow that intergalactic hunter out of the water (literally).
posted by alzi at 6:38 AM PST - 24 comments

Ikea de-Futurafies. You may have noticed something at once familiar and unfamiliar about the 2009 Ikea catalogue: The company switched from a custom variant of Futura to the font you stare at all day in your browser, Verdana. And type nerds are losing their shit! [more inside]
posted by joeclark at 5:26 AM PST - 167 comments

The work of Leo and Diane Dillon is on display in Brooklyn. I was tempted to find more of their art after noticing the cover they did for A Wrinkle in Time. [more inside]
posted by nervousfritz at 12:33 AM PST - 8 comments