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Have you ever seen a synth and said "Man, what this needs is cartoon eyes?" A bit similar to the Buchla Box or theremin in that they don't have a keyboard to control the sounds -- it's probably closest to the Booper, invented by The Weatherman from Negativland (or, well, Circuit Bending), the Thingamagoop is a photosynthesizer... which means it basically uses light sensors to generate sounds. The signal's run through a couple oscillators and, well, it comes out as somethin' that's pretty dang awesome. I'm on the fence on pickin' this one up. On one hand, it's a really neat toy that makes noise... on the other hand, um.... um.... I dunno. It's not made of candy?
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 11:40 AM - 18 comments

Stevie Ray Vaughn, Part 1 - a great little video documentary made by two Norwegian students as an English project. Part 2, Part 3. (YouTube alert)
posted by madamjujujive at 11:35 AM - 21 comments

Sudoku Combat. Sudoku, head to head style. The stress mounts as your challenger's board blinks and fills. Bring it on.
posted by jonah at 9:36 AM - 20 comments

Posit: Settlers of Catan is the greatest board game of all time. (Read the rules and see for yourself, just don't go too crazy with changing them.) Why not spend Saturday playing online? There are several java versions available for those leery of installing things.
posted by absalom at 9:05 AM - 28 comments

From the OC to al Qaeda. Meet Adam Gadahn, former Southern California metal-head with a messy bedroom, current al Qaeda propaganda chief. Once a Santa Ana rocker from a prominent Jewish family, "Azzam the American" appeared yesterday in a video linking the terror group to the London bombings.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:11 AM - 24 comments

One red paperclip has, after 14 trades, been turned into a farmhouse in Kipling, Saskatchewan. Previously, previously.
posted by cerebus19 at 7:15 AM - 72 comments

The one that got away? GIVE a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a world-famous English artist a fish, however, and he'll pickle it in formaldehyde, flog it to a South Korean art gallery for $5.7 million, and trouser the difference.. A controversial shark hunter learns of Damien Hirst adding value to "a freebie".
posted by bunglin jones at 3:26 AM - 54 comments

Private Phone is a free new (as of last month) service from NetZero that allows anyone to sign up for a unique private voicemail number; now phone numbers are as disposable as web based email accounts. For use by craigslisters, ebayers, and random cads, bounders & ne'er do wells, not to mention women who aren't sure if that hot guy is, in fact, dangerously crazy.
posted by jonson at 12:08 AM - 17 comments

Is Catholic-Anglican Reconciliation the only way forward? The Anglicans aren't Protestant, they're Catholics! In 1920 the Church of England - Anglicans - called for its reconciliation with the Catholic Church, and in 1925 the Catholic Ecumenical movement sought to make the Anglicans an autonomous Catholic church with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its patriarch. It would have been similar to the Coptic and Syro-Malabarese churches. The move was quashed by Pope Pius XI, who ended the ecumenical movement there and then. If conservative Anglicans chose this third way, instead of infighting over sexuality and gender issues or establishing a new model for membership, it could keep its married priests, its land, its churches, it's membership, and the Archbishop of Canterbury would still have a job.
posted by parmanparman at 9:28 PM - 26 comments

The Encyclopedia of Strange Vehicles. This is really just an excuse to link to the Fab 1, a car I wish I could drive even once.
posted by The Castle at 9:18 PM - 30 comments

Abandonded buildings: photos of.
posted by econous at 5:43 PM - 20 comments

A daily intelligence brief on Iraq, prepared by a private contractor for the U.S. military and companies working in Iraq--SOC-SMG Inc --paints a grim picture of life in Baghdad. The information in large sections of the brief? It came from this blog: Iraq the Model
posted by amberglow at 4:39 PM - 129 comments

The Mario Brothers Tragedy reaches the finish line. After a 2 year wait Alexander Leon has finally finished his Mario Bros. flash epic. (previously here and here)
posted by hugecranium at 4:28 PM - 42 comments

The World's Most Amazing Dog (YouTube) A clip from Montel Williams' show about a dog born without front legs. The owner has trained it to walk upright. As my boyfriend said, "After watching this, I'll never complain about anything in my life again."
posted by ArsncHeart at 3:36 PM - 57 comments

"Trademarks are not verbs.
CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.” [via]

Adobe Adobe® has a strict policy on how they want your buddies to use their trademark, even as slang. Proprietary Eponyms are increasingly common, with “google, ('gü-g&l) tr. v.” entering the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Is photoshop next?
posted by yeti at 3:14 PM - 65 comments

China is reported to be harvesting organs from Falun Gong members without their consent. Elsewhere, to increase the numbers of donated organs, the organ donation system is opt-out rather than opt-in for the entire population.
posted by DataPacRat at 3:01 PM - 47 comments

Jewsfilter: Rabbinic Council of America bans smoking for all Orthodox Jews "Jewish law is fully able to incorporate new realities, recognize new and reliable scientific findings, and embrace the need to change heretofore acceptable behavior." Read the full technical legal opinion here. [pdf] Now if only the Orthodox Union would stand up for the LBGT community in same the way that it has for Darfur, stem cell research, heck, even global warming...
posted by ericbop at 1:42 PM - 44 comments

Sam Harris on why religious moderates are worse than fundamentalists. (Salon click-through ad) "Religious moderates are, in large part, responsible for the religious conflict in our world, because their beliefs provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed."
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:29 PM - 112 comments

For Orthodox Jewish mothers with small children, the Shabbat can be challenging. The answer, for many communities, is the establishment of an eruv (discussed previously here, in passing). This San Francisco Chronicle article details the history behind Berkeley, California's unique instance. This isn't the first time an eruv has been attempted in the Bay Area: the failed effort to create one in Palo Alto was covered by the Chronicle, as well as the Jewish News Weekly. Berkeley isn't the only United States city with an eruv—the Boston eruv maintains a large list of domestic and international eruvim—nor is it the city with the most unusual eruv, or even the largest. Inevitably, perhaps, there's a blog entirely dedicated to the subject of eruvim, and vigorous commentary on the subject from several others.
posted by scrump at 12:55 PM - 59 comments

Hobby religion considers major change. The Church of England is considering a motion to dump its patron saint, St. George, noted for slaying dragons and being a fictional character. You see, he might be offensive to muslims. Next up, "Should 'Jerusalem' be abandoned for 'Peace Train'?"
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:39 PM - 37 comments

Blastwave
posted by MetaMonkey at 12:26 PM - 28 comments

kawaii not?
posted by me3dia at 11:45 AM - 43 comments

Breast Ironing : More african female-on-female child abuse
posted by mischief at 11:15 AM - 72 comments

Portraits of the Freedom Riders Eric Etheridge has been taking pictures of people who participated in the Freedom Rides (map) to accompany the people's 1961 mug shots. Some of the photos were in the July 2 issue of the New York Times Magazine, and there are more photos at his web site. Also, an excerpt from a recent book about the rides. [via]
posted by kirkaracha at 11:15 AM - 4 comments

Halo Zero. The Fall of Reach, old-school style. Some plucky French coders have borrowed a page from Codename: Gordon, the side-scrolling homage to Half-Life. As a result, Master Chief and his cohorts are now fighting the Covenant in 16-bit, 2D graphics. PC download only - though Mac owners at least have Boot Camp to avoid waiting for an OS X port. via Aeropause
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:10 AM - 9 comments

Cheney's Cheney and the Unitary Executive Theory. An excellent article from the New Yorker on the mysterious forces at work behind the Bush administration's expansion of executive powers.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:45 AM - 36 comments

"Most of us have a plan -- it's like, make hay while the sun shines." While this may be a slogan for mercenaries currently serving in Iraq, it may also be one for extremists infiltrating the military in order to gain skills necessary for their own sinister plots. This of course, isn't counting those in service who may one day snap. Could this be the beginning of another cruel example of "blowback?"
posted by j-urb at 10:30 AM - 7 comments

What do you get the man who has it all? How about a solar-powered flashlight.
posted by huskerdont at 10:28 AM - 40 comments

Tom Weir, climber, writer, broadcaster and cult figure, best known for the show 'Weir's Way' has passed away at age 91. Recently honoured for bringing Scotlands environment and its issues to public attention. I'll be climbing a munro in rememberance. RIP.
posted by Shave at 10:20 AM - 11 comments

Amphibian Extinction Crisis: "For the first time in modern history, because of the way that humans are impacting our natural world, we're facing the extinction of an entire class of organisms....This is not the extinction of just a panda or a rhino, it's a whole class of organisms." Original declaration of the Amphibian Conservation Summit (pdf). More details in the BBC and San Francisco Chronicle. Previously.
posted by salvia at 10:01 AM - 9 comments

We need to get Stephen Hawking an AskMe membership. Stephen Hawking asks the Yahoo public how the human race is going to survive. Yahoo staff are excited. But the answers? Well, let's just say that there may be more utility in eating tweens after the nuclear apocalypse than listening to their ideas. To balance the stupid, Hawking has several of his lectures online. And there's great stuff on PBS's Stephen Hawking's Universe (though it's aimed at providing a basic understanding of astrophysics). Or, for a more animated view MC Hawking's (sometimes clumsy) "What We Need More of Is Science. (Previous mefi hawking here, here [where he seems to be answering his later question], here [where he presents another view on how humans will survive], and here.)
posted by klangklangston at 9:56 AM - 56 comments

Teenage Hoboes in the Great Depression. During the Great Depression over 250,000 young people left home and began riding freight trains or hitchhiking across America. Most of them were between 16 and 25 years of age. Many finally found work and shelter through the Civilian Conservation Corps, a government relief project that Franklin D. Roosevelt established in 1933 as part of the New Deal. From 1933 to 1942, CCC enrollees built new roads, strung telephone wires, erected fire towers, and planted approximately 3 billion trees. By 1935, the program was providing employment for more than 500,000 young men.
posted by matteo at 7:45 AM - 25 comments

Friday Flash Fun- Fancy Pants Adventures is a terrific 2D platform game. Plays like a cross between Mario and Sonic, with a really nice artistic style.
posted by mkultra at 7:29 AM - 17 comments

When an accident becomes a community attraction... It's not one of these, but when some lads from Sheffield couldn't fit their piano into their house, they inadvertently created a new concept - the 'street piano'. Start your own street piano community today!
posted by altolinguistic at 3:18 AM - 25 comments

John Powers, artist. Simple, uncluttered site showing his sculptures, drawings and installations. Some more info here.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 1:35 AM - 5 comments

We hold that the New York Constitution does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same sex. By a 4 to 2 margin, the New York Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, upheld (70 page pdf) the state's Domestic Relations law that bars same-sex couples from getting married in New York and denying same-sex couples the hundreds of family protections provided to married couples. The court accepted the justifications advanced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for the state law barring marriage by same-sex couples. "Pointing out that stable relationships between parents are important for children, that straight couples can conceive children by 'accident,' and that gay couples can only have children with advance planning, Bloomberg and Spitzer argued that straight couples need the stability of marriage, but gay couples do not." The ruling was denounced by the ACLU, criticized by Howard Dean as based on "outdated and bigoted notions about families," and applauded by the Marriage Law Foundation pleased by the "superb and straightforward legal analysis." Background from NPR.
posted by three blind mice at 1:20 AM - 104 comments

Claude Théberge is a Canadian artist. Watch out for the umbrellas and hats. [MI]
posted by nervousfritz at 11:16 PM - 9 comments

The Museum of Fantastic Specimens is an online (virtual) museum of taxidermy specimens of imaginary creatures, all created by hand by Japanese artist Hajime Emoto. The museum itself can be difficult to navigate, as all the links are in Japanese, so the link in this post goes to an unrelated overview page in English.
posted by jonson at 9:18 PM - 12 comments

Today Jefferson County Sheriff's office released over 900 pages of documents [32MB pdf] relating to what happened at Columbine High School in 1999.
posted by BeerFilter at 8:15 PM - 117 comments

"White people call them Unidentified Flying Objects." This blog covers the incorporation of contemporary UFO myths into the Nation of Islam's peculiar pigmentational eschatology. It includes a link to a fire-and-brimstone speech by Reverend Farrakhan himself on this topic. (Due to subject matter and racial themes, these might not be the best links for work.)
posted by jason's_planet at 6:46 PM - 11 comments

For his 60th birthday, Nintendo of America sends President Bush a present: a DS Lite and a copy of the smash-hit game Brain Age: Train Your Brain In Minutes A Day along with a great covering letter. An astute piece of marketing? An honest gift? Or just a nice bit of guerrilla humour?
posted by Hogshead at 5:36 PM - 22 comments

Screamin Jay Hawkins got around. Over the course of five decades, he put out dozens of albums, which were fairly hit or miss. Though he would never top his 1956 hit "I Put A Spell On You", which would years later land him a roll in the Jim Jarmusch film "Strangers in Paradise", he was well known for his live act where he would jump out of a coffin with a variety of skulls he named Henry. I got bored and looked him up on the youtube today, and lo and behold, instant fun. Bonus: here's a video of Diamanda Galas performing his oft-covered hit, it's better than the limp Marilyn Manson version, but I kinda wish she'd done "Constipation Blues" instead.
posted by elr at 5:06 PM - 27 comments

Goals are become scarce in the final 16 knockout phase of the World Cup. A discussion has been going on over at the Guardian's World Cup blogs. In the knockout phase the number of goals has declined from 42 in 1986 to about 25 in 2006. There hasn't been a World Cup Final since 1986 where both teams scored. There have been a mere 3 games in the knockout phase from 14 where both teams have scored. For the first time ever a team, Switzerland, has been eliminated without conceding a single goal. Does something need to be done? Do bigger goals, no goalkeeper, fewer players or changed rules need to be considered?
posted by sien at 4:31 PM - 124 comments

How to Spot a Jap... scan of a 1942 US military educational comic strip, illustrated by Milton Canniff.
posted by crunchland at 4:29 PM - 61 comments

Birds As Art: Photographer Arthur Morris shares his dazzling images of (mostly) feathered creatures in his (up to 196 so far) email bulletins. It's quite worth wading through the archive.
posted by of strange foe at 4:07 PM - 9 comments

Boston's population woes may have been partially solved.
posted by RTQP at 3:19 PM - 29 comments

Power vs. knowledge. [via 3qd]
posted by panoptican at 3:17 PM - 23 comments

Harlem's in the house. More specifically, 5-10 year old rappers from Harlem are in the house. Unbridled innocence, spacey '80s electro-scifi production and candy as a metaphor for candy. Brought to you by the fine folks at WFMU.
posted by arto at 2:18 PM - 7 comments

Live in Thames Town, and enjoy the distinctly English atmosphere of this unique place! (Thames Town is in Shanghai.)
posted by jack_mo at 12:57 PM - 19 comments

Two weeks ago, the Small Business Administration proudly announced that they surpassed the legally required 23% of Federal contracts to small businesses. "This is excellent news for small businesses doing business with the federal government,” said Administrator Barreto. “For the third year in a row, the federal government has met or exceeded its small business contracting goal. The President and his administration are committed to helping small businesses get their fair share of government contracts.” [pdf] They however failed to mention that they continue to classify Boeing (member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average), GTSI ($900M in revenue last year), and other "small" businesses in that category.
posted by pwb503 at 12:48 PM - 18 comments