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On August 17th one of the worlds largest hydroelectric plants, Sayano–Shushenskaya in Russia, suffered a major catastrophe. [more inside]
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:59 PM PST - 40 comments

Sure you like recipe websites, but do you ever wish they could have more auto-playing midis, exclamation points, all caps, and a charming disregard for political correctness? Filling this niche nicely is Gutsy Gourmet. [more inside]
posted by fontophilic at 10:19 PM PST - 13 comments

The autodidact course catalog. Twenty-two professors at Johns Hopkins propose reading lists for courses of self-study, from "Society Can Be Dangerous To Your Health" to "Higher Mathematics in Nouns and Verbs" to "Biochemistry and Human Evolution (with Rather a Lot about Mitochondria.)" If you're not going back to school this week, why not take on one of these syllabi instead?
posted by escabeche at 7:30 PM PST - 42 comments

Next Tuesday, Sept. 8, speaking at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. President Obama will address the youth of America during a live television broadcast urging them to stay in school. Some school districts, bowing to parent pressure, have decided not to show the speech during school. [more inside]
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:18 PM PST - 591 comments

"When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books," said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. Instead of a library, the academy is spending nearly $500,000 to create a learning center. Where the reference desk was, they are building a $50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine.
posted by tamarack at 3:58 PM PST - 129 comments

Here’s a cool concept. Top breakthrough bands of the day playing LIVE on TV late every Friday night. Such was The Midnight Special - from 1972 - 1981 (though the glory days were the early to mid 70s, that lost decade somewhere between the meltdown of the hippie dream and the coincident eruptions of PUNK + DISCO upon planet rock). [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 3:34 PM PST - 45 comments

Jon Klassen is an illustrator and designer, with a blog and a lovely website full of artwork, including The Miser (3:53, 2004, made with Kyle McQueen and Dan Rodrigues), An Eye for Annai (5:27, 2005, previously, also made with Dan Rodrigues, .MOV video link), an interpretation of a Mayan folktale (available in full in Flight vol 4, previously), The Adventures of Ship, a family art project, visual development and drawings for sets and props for the movie adaptation of Coraline (a couple previous), amongst other bits and bobs. Illustration Mundo had an interview with Klassen earlier this year.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:25 PM PST - 3 comments

"It is a scene from which many of us would naturally recoil, or at least avert our eyes: a grievously injured young man, fallen on a rough patch of earth; his open-mouthed and unseeing stare registering — who can know what? — horror or fear or shock; being tended desperately by two companions in what are the first moments of the final hours of his life."
The New York Times' Lens Blog explores the circumstances and consequences of the Associated Press releasing Julie Jacobsen's photo depicting Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard after he was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush. [more inside]
posted by heeeraldo at 2:38 PM PST - 137 comments

Al Franken shows a revolutionary way to deal with an upset crowd - talk to them like adults.
posted by jbickers at 2:11 PM PST - 111 comments

International Vulture Awareness Day 2009 is Saturday, September 5th, but the '24 hours of vulture blogging' has already started (19:00 GMT, 11:00 MeFiTime). [more inside]
posted by wendell at 11:36 AM PST - 43 comments

Senator Jake Knotts claims that embattled South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is the one spreading rumors that Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is a closeted homosexual. Now blogactive journalist Mike Rogers (of Outrage fame) adds credibility to the rumors.
posted by hermitosis at 11:34 AM PST - 81 comments

The images of 9 0 0 0
posted by boo_radley at 11:16 AM PST - 55 comments

"Death Risk Rankings calculates your risk of dying in the next year and allows you to compare that risk to others in the world." Fun with mortality data and statistics from Carnegie Mellon University.
posted by OmieWise at 10:57 AM PST - 28 comments

1,512 high-resolution images of Mars from the viewpoint of an airplane passenger. Previous photos: 1 2 3
posted by msalt at 10:33 AM PST - 14 comments

British Library's world music archive goes online for free. Amounts to around 28,000 recordings dating from 1898 onwards, according to The Guardian this equates with "about 2,000 hours of singing, speaking, yelling, chanting, blowing, banging, tinkling and many other verbs associated with what is a uniquely rich sound archive" The weirdest one? - possibly the recording of an Assamese woodworm munching its way through a window frame in the dead of night.......
posted by MajorDundee at 10:01 AM PST - 31 comments

FILM FORUM with Beavis and Butthead - The boys reappear after twelve years to shill for Mike Judge's new film, Extract, opening today. Is there a future for Beavis and Butthead? Mike Judge speculates.
posted by not_on_display at 9:38 AM PST - 96 comments

Warm Leatherette as considered by several musical performance troupes. It all begins with The Normal [youtube] b/w TVOD [youtube]. See also Wikipedia. And then there's... Absolute Body Control [youtube] / Blizzfrizz Spielt [youtube] / Chicks on Speed [last.fm] / Grace Jones [youtube] / Duran Duran [youtube] / Dolce & Gabbana [youtube] / Gadgetto [mp3] / Grammal Seizure [link through] / Neon [youtube] / Nick Anthony [youtube] / Prayer Tower [youtube] / Sleepchamber [web] / Spafros [youtube] / Die Tödliche Doris [youtube] / Vitalic [yahoo music] / Zombie Zombie [youtube] / Trent Reznor, Jeordie White and Peter Murphy [youtube]. Previously on metafilter.
posted by eccnineten at 9:16 AM PST - 26 comments

Pandemic: American Swine! New flash game from the makers of Pandemic II Send in the military! Control the media! Play as an open-government do-gooder or a city nuking despot and try to control the infection.
posted by The Whelk at 8:37 AM PST - 22 comments

Why is (Radio) Shack -- a company that only markets to North Americans -- spending $20 million sponsoring Lance Armstrong and his team as he spends a year racing bicycles mostly in Europe? "Somewhere, someone has a Venn diagram showing the crossover between electronics geeks and cyclists. I’m sure those two sets have a lot of crossover." [more inside]
posted by ardgedee at 8:25 AM PST - 78 comments

A Mac Classic shows bullies what's for in "3½ inches is enough" by Unreal Voodoo. This demo (actually written to run on a Mac Classic) was presented at ASSEMBLY, Finland's largest computer festival. More highlights from ASSEMBLY are available at GameSetWatch. The demos are mostly trippy and impressive hand-coded animations as one might expect, but there's also a live action short featuring a Rube Goldberg machine.
posted by ignignokt at 7:46 AM PST - 17 comments

Things seem to be going from bad to worse in PR terms for the Dixon Stores Group. First, PC World was voted one of the worst high-street stores in Britain. Then, their staff Facebook group reveals a lot of somewhat interesting comments abotu their customers. [more inside]
posted by mippy at 7:33 AM PST - 37 comments

A teenaged graffiti artist in London has been arrested after stealing a box of pencils which were part of a Damien Hirst sculpture. The purloined pencils have been valued at £500,000, making this potentially one of the highest value art thefts in modern Britain. [more inside]
posted by acb at 7:25 AM PST - 143 comments

Putting heart and muscle into the term "bespoke," Josh Hadar creates hand-crafted metal sculptures that double as functional bikes. He describes his process in a recent interview with RocketBoom. Intrigued? A bicycle custom built to your whims could run from $12-$35k, or if you live in NYC, you can try your hand at welding and metal sculpting at his Burn Clinic. (via bioephemera)
posted by madamjujujive at 7:13 AM PST - 14 comments

When it was released, the Apple iPhone 3GS advertised Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), but also noted "MMS support from AT&T coming in late summer." This has resulted in some legal issues such as a number of lawsuits. But now, AT&T has announced that MMS is coming to the iPhone on September 25, just a little past all defined ends of summer. [more inside]
posted by mephron at 7:11 AM PST - 44 comments

It's every young musician's dream: Quit this town, make it big and come back to show these squares! Well, tonight (and tomorrow) Muse return home to Teignmouth in Devon, England (pop. 15,116) to play two home-town, homecoming gigs. [more inside]
posted by benzo8 at 7:08 AM PST - 8 comments

Bliss and Heaven, No man is an Island II, The Sweetest Embrace of All, Something To Love (partial), A Vicious Undertow. These are works from Jesper Just, a Danish video artist. He merges a performance and video art approach with the aesthetic sensibilities of film. He explores subjects such as gender roles, sexual identity, and interpersonal relationships. The stories are usually ambiguous, unresolved, and quite haunting.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 6:36 AM PST - 4 comments

Join a young Jools Holland and Leslie Ash for a night out in NYC in the early 80's. Clubs visited include Danceteria, The Roxy (with Bambaata spinning) and Paradise Garage. Acts featured include Quando Quango, New Order and the Peech Boys. (SLYT)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:39 AM PST - 12 comments