MetaFilter

'GET OUT OF THERE!': The Video.
comment posted at 3:45 PM on May-10-10

C.W. Roberts Contracting in Florida has come up with a simple and inexpensive method to remove crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico.
comment posted at 12:41 PM on May-8-10

There may be more ways to shelve your books than there are books.
comment posted at 5:48 AM on May-8-10

Antoine Walker starred on arguably the greatest college basketball team of all time- the 1996 National Champion Kentucky Wildcats and went on to earn over $110 million dollars as a 3-time NBA All-Star with the Boston Celtics. In 2010, Walker is broke and eyeing an NBA comeback to pay off his creditors, including 2 Vegas casinos owed more than $900,000.
comment posted at 4:48 PM on May-5-10

The IDEA - The Indian Documentary of Electronic Arts - Seven somewhat dated collections of essays, music, videos, and thought curated and designed by Shankar Barua, backed by totally awesome early Internet-era graphics, and hosted at Laurie Spiegel's also-rad retiary.org.
Please note that many individual pages of The IDEA gazettes are very-very heavily loaded, by [2001's] WWWeb standards, with images/audio/video. In other words, if you can get past ugly old broken HTML and auto-playing music, you may find a lot to like in here.
comment posted at 8:24 PM on May-4-10

Conan O'Brien gives his first interview since losing the Tonight Show to Jay Leno.
comment posted at 4:18 AM on May-3-10

The Internationale, the anthem of international socialism, has been sung in many different ways. The original French. In Irish - Gaelic. In Russian. Hungarian. Romanian. By Billy Bragg. By Alistair Hulett and Jimmy Gregory. As Disco. As Chinese rock karaoke. As Gypsy guitar.
comment posted at 11:58 AM on May-1-10

American Meat Is Even Grosser Than You Thought In the focus on E. coli and salmonella, meat contaminated by heavy metals, veterinary drugs and pesticides has been slipping through the bureaucratic cracks. PDF report from USDA via. Pesticides previously and more.
comment posted at 6:26 AM on May-1-10

Songs From the Black Hole is a sci-fi rock opera written by weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo and originally intended to be the followup to their self-titled debut. Never officially released, the album has become known as a one of rock's "mythical lost masterpieces," akin to the Beach Boys' SMiLE.
comment posted at 5:01 PM on Apr-29-10

Eating local, organic foods may not be the best option. The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions stem from food production, not transportation, and production inputs for organic food are typically higher. Third world countries that have a food system that is organic and local by default are suffering from lack of infrastructure and investment in basic production technologies that could improve nutrition for millions of people.
comment posted at 12:33 PM on Apr-28-10
comment posted at 2:08 PM on Apr-28-10

February 1966 was the best month in comics ever
comment posted at 12:28 PM on Apr-28-10
comment posted at 1:56 PM on Apr-28-10

A small slide show of partisan monuments on the territory of former Yugoslavia. via: [aesthetic interlude] and [grain edit]
comment posted at 3:54 AM on Apr-28-10

Her full name is María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Moquiere de les Esperades Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Najosa Rasten, but she's better known to the world as Charo. According to Wikipedia, "One of Charo's regrets is that because of her flamboyant stage presence, she has been overlooked as a serious guitar player." So here' some Charo on guitar:
comment posted at 3:52 PM on Apr-26-10

Homeless man Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed several times in the chest while saving a woman from a knife-wielding attacker in New York City. He then bled to death while dozens of people walked by -- one stopping to snap a picture of the dying man with his cameraphone before leaving the scene.
comment posted at 1:22 PM on Apr-25-10
comment posted at 8:43 PM on Apr-25-10

Many Americans' understanding of the idea of reparations for African slavery in the U.S. stems from Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's field order that slaves made refugees by his march through the South be given parcels of Charleston's former sea island plantations and one of a surplus of Army mules.
comment posted at 1:23 PM on Apr-24-10
comment posted at 2:21 PM on Apr-24-10
comment posted at 3:56 PM on Apr-24-10

Yesterday, Arizona Governor (R)Jan Brewer signed into law a bill that effectively transforms police into immigration agents, giving them the power to stop people on suspicion of being in the country illegally, and making failure to carry immigration documents an arrestable offense. The bill, supported by the usual suspects, but condemned by many including the President and the Mexican government, will undoubtedly face significant legal challenges.
comment posted at 1:50 PM on Apr-24-10

Set to launch this summer, Right Network will feature content "to entertain, engage, and enlighten Americans who are looking for content that reflects and reinforces their perspective and worldview." In an ad for the network, Kelsey Grammer lists some things that "just aren't right," including "big government," "more taxes," "trillion dollar deficits," "bureaucrats," "overspending," "bailouts for billionaires," "flightless birds," and "partisan politics," among others.
comment posted at 2:29 PM on Apr-20-10

"Con men used to travel town to town hawking medical remedies said to be made of Chinese snakes. Snake oil was useless and dangerous. So the FDA was created to put a stop to it and other food and drug scams. But, today, quack medicine has never been bigger. In the 21st century, snake oil has been replaced by bogus therapies using stem cells. Stem cells may offer cures one day, but medical charlatans on the Internet are making outrageous claims that they can reverse the incurable, from autism to multiple sclerosis to every kind of cancer."* Video Part 1 [13:15] || Part 2 [11:49].
comment posted at 4:23 AM on Apr-19-10

Antony Flew has gone to meet his maker. Or not. Previously, on "the world's most notorious atheist who changed his mind." Flew was a philosopher who was known as the originator of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Some doubted the conversion was what it seemed to be. Antony Flew on the afterlife.
comment posted at 11:07 AM on Apr-17-10
comment posted at 12:02 PM on Apr-17-10

Talk Show
A Turn For the Worse
Pictures From the Daily Mail
Tales of the Unexpected
A Strange Theory of Light and Matter
[more soon]
comment posted at 11:26 AM on Apr-17-10

Who rules America? Wealth, income and power Next time you hear "Fair and Balanced" Fox News whining about the socialist wealth redistribution agenda of the Obama "regime", refer back to this. Goes a long way towards explaining why 47% of Americans don't pay income tax.
comment posted at 8:22 PM on Apr-15-10

'GOP hopes to go from Party of No to Party of Choice.' 'Speaker after speaker at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference rallied the faithful with stinging denunciations of Obama and the Democratic majorities controlling the Senate and House of Representatives.' Palin. Gingrich. Ron Paul. Steele. And many more. 'They know how to say no to President Barack Obama. Now, can Republicans get the rest of the country to say yes to them?' 'Obama's approval ratings remain near or below 50 percent, a dangerous position for the party in power. Also, Americans may be souring on the Democratic brand little more than a year after electing a Democratic president and adding to the Democratic majorities in Congress. A new USA Today-Gallup Poll shows that just 41 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, the lowest in the nearly two decades Gallup's asked the question. By contrast, 42 percent had a favorable opinion of Republicans.'
comment posted at 2:54 PM on Apr-11-10

The other day someone asked me "who's the most deeply grooving and truly exciting electric guitar player you've heard lately?" and I said "this guy".
comment posted at 7:25 PM on Apr-10-10

Poverty is an abstraction, even for the poor. But the symptoms of collective impoverishment are all about us. Broken highways, bankrupt cities, collapsing bridges, failed schools, the unemployed, the underpaid, and the uninsured: all suggest a collective failure of will. These shortcomings are so endemic that we no longer know how to talk about what is wrong, much less set about repairing it. And yet something is seriously amiss.

Historian Tony Judt, dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, makes a passionate call for a new New Left. [Previously]
comment posted at 4:25 AM on Apr-10-10

On August 8, 1997, the audience of Late Night with Conan O'Brien was made up entirely of eight-year-old children. The episode in five parts: one, two, three, four and five. Andy Richter remembers on This American Life (starting at 50 minutes).
comment posted at 4:26 AM on Apr-9-10

You might dismiss Little Honda by the Hondells as an infectious by-product of Grey Advertising's legendary 1962 "You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda" ad campaign. It's actually a Brian Wilson original, later recorded by The Beach Boys, and shares an eerie connection with the Jan & Dean classic Dead Man's Curve. Perhaps its the essence of youth and innocence captured by this corny little composition that inspires Yo La Tengo's contemporary covers.
comment posted at 8:04 PM on Apr-7-10

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) has proclaimed April to be Confederate History Month in his state, without referencing slavery or civil rights. The move has angered civil rights leaders and revived a controversy that has lain dormant for eight years. FireDogLake is reporting that the neo-confederate group which lobbied Governor McDonnell to make the proclamation has ties to white supremacists.
comment posted at 1:44 PM on Apr-7-10

Hand illustrated diagrams of parasite life cycles, with written explanations.
comment posted at 1:32 PM on Apr-7-10

Drawing every person in New York
comment posted at 2:16 PM on Apr-6-10

"Dear Penelope Fitzgerald, Among the books chance puts in our hands are a few that were never meant for us: this one, of course, was meant to come back to you, and it gives me great pleasure to be able to redirect it. With all best wishes, Alberto Manguel."
comment posted at 9:48 AM on Apr-3-10

"Broadside was a small underground magazine smuggled out of a New York City housing project in a baby carriage, filled with new songs by artists who were too creative for the folkies and too radical for the establishment." The entire back catalog of this influential magazine - which helped set the visual standard for underground zines until desktop publishing - is now avalable online, in PDF.
comment posted at 2:25 PM on Apr-2-10
comment posted at 3:06 PM on Apr-2-10

After possibly inspiring Nathan Barley with his Shoreditch Tw*t magazine, editing a semi-iconic lifestyle mag and then burning all his worldly branded goods, Neil Boorman has turned his brain to Baby Boomers and their relation to the current woes of the world. There's a website too...
comment posted at 3:55 AM on Apr-1-10

It's a sign of the times when The Economist, the house journal of the global business elite, holds a conference in London on 'design thinking' (official Big Rethink site here). Having attended the conference, produced in association with The Design Council and held over 11-12 March, I was left wondering one thing: why is design thinking such a hot topic with business leaders, given that it leaves so many designers cold? ~ via Core77
comment posted at 5:09 AM on Mar-31-10

James Lovelock, 90, says we're too stupid to prevent climate change. "I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change." One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added in an extended interview. "I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while." He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica.
comment posted at 7:41 PM on Mar-30-10

Sleeping insects covered in morning dew
comment posted at 3:30 PM on Mar-28-10

LCD Soundsystem has released a short series of surprisingly interesting promotional videos for their as yet unannounced album showing James Murphy and collaborators dicking around the LA Mansion where they recorded it (3, 2, 1). The first single from the new album, Drunk Girls, has been released to pitchfork.
comment posted at 2:40 PM on Mar-27-10

Daniel Leonard Everett is a linguistics professor best known for his study of the Amazon Basin's Pirahã people and their language. "Influenced by the Pirahã's concept of truth, he slowly lost his Christian faith and became an atheist." Radio NZ hast a 90 minute interview with him. This is a shorter introduction if you prefer
comment posted at 5:38 AM on Mar-27-10

Humans seem to be unemploying themselves very well.
comment posted at 3:53 AM on Mar-26-10

Jim Marshall, Rock ’n’ Roll Photographer, Dies at 74. The artist responsible for some of the most iconic photos in music history, died on March 24^th, 2010.
comment posted at 8:09 PM on Mar-25-10

Andrew O’Hagan writes in the London Review of Books on the James Bulger murder. It really should be read in conjunction with his earlier piece from 1993 to fully appreciate his stance. Previously [1] [2]
comment posted at 8:04 PM on Mar-25-10

Are we looking at end of Cancer? Human trials of nanobot treatment for cancer have proven the concept:
comment posted at 12:20 AM on Mar-25-10

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
comment posted at 9:59 AM on Mar-23-10

A new study suggests that humanity's sense of fair play and kindness towards strangers is determined by culture, not genetics. Speculation: the finding may be directly related to the rise of religion in human history, as well as more complex economies. (Via).
comment posted at 1:44 PM on Mar-22-10