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The landmark Blackstone Hotel in downtown Chicago, which has hosted 12 U.S. presidents, opened in 2008 after a two-year, $116 million renovation. Inside the Beaux Arts structure, built in 1910, buffed marble staircases greet guests spending up to $699 a night for rooms with views of Lake Michigan. What’s surprising isn’t the opulent makeover: It’s how the project was financed. The work was subsidized by a federal development program intended to help poor communities.
comment posted at 10:42 AM on Feb-14-11

Painter Gloria Muriel: Pop Surrealism on a Spiritual Quest. [Via]
comment posted at 10:45 AM on Feb-13-11

Weezer has recorded a full-length cover version of Barry Manilow's "like a good neighbor" State Farm insurance jingle.
comment posted at 1:41 PM on Feb-11-11

The Central Intelligence Agency launched several enhancements to CIA.gov, attempting to make a more public-friendly internet presence. Their outreach efforts also include Flickr and YouTube accounts, where you can watch CIA Director Panetta deliver his keynote address at a foreign language summit, if you have an hour to kill. Or marvel at a silver dollar that is actually a hollow container! They even have a few pictures of a dragonfly and a fake fish. Wait, what? That dragonfly is a tiny gas-powered machine that actually flew in the 1970s, and that fake fish is a functional Unmanned Underwater Vehicle.
comment posted at 12:21 PM on Feb-9-11

Galaxy Quest: The Documentary. Before the movie, there was the tv series, which, oddly enough, appears never to have been syndicated or given a proper IMdB entry, which leads many people to claim that the show never existed. Oh, yeah? Then by Grabthar's Hammer, explain why we have this wonderful little reunion show with the entire cast. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. (via)
comment posted at 2:13 PM on Feb-5-11
comment posted at 2:22 PM on Feb-5-11

Star Wars Begins. Fan documentarian Jambe Davdar has completed has completed his third documentary about the original Star Wars trilogy. He's re-cut all three films, editing in alternate takes, deleted scenes, original audio, with quotes from various interviews and commentaries and recordings playing over the footage like the ultimate DVD commentary. [via]
comment posted at 8:03 AM on Feb-8-11

Kevin Kelly, writer and founding executive editor of Wired magazine, made the bold statement: "I say there is no species of technology that have ever gone globally extinct on this planet." The challenge was laid, including a search through the agricultural tools section of an 1895 Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue. Every item listed in that section was still made, somewhere in the world (and found online, to boot). Additional challengers were found, from the 8-Track (still being made [previously]), anvils (plenty), astrolabes (pick one [listed under Astrolabe Reproductions]). Button hooks? Check. Shoe X-Ray Machine? Probably extinct (via).
comment posted at 3:17 PM on Feb-1-11

All Apple is doing is slowing people down and aggravating them.
comment posted at 3:23 PM on Jan-21-11

Todd Bieber was skiing in New York City's Prospect Park when he found a mysterious roll of film documenting the NYC blizzard. He hopes that with $26 and your help, he can find the owners and return their negatives to them.
comment posted at 11:59 AM on Jan-18-11

So you found something cool on the Internet... A helpful chart that MeFites totally don't need because the Blue is all about "Found something cool on the web and want to share it with everyone else?" from Loldwell.com (previously) and Rosscott, Inc. (semi-previously) who's doing for symbols in The Noun Project (here) what xkcd did for/to stickmen.
comment posted at 8:20 AM on Jan-14-11

Ever get the feeling you're being watched? Maybe you're just Paranoid.
comment posted at 11:30 AM on Jan-11-11

Nothing is Forgotten, a lovely little wordless comic about loss, fear, kindness, and memory.
comment posted at 9:34 AM on Jan-5-11

"They're not out to make a quick buck, they're looking to protect the integrity of the franchise and its mythology." 1998's Star Trek Insurrection went through a number of different plots before becoming the film we ultimately saw. Starting out as Star Trek: Stardust, the first take on the idea involved Captain Picard going all Heart of Darkness on a former friend from his Starfleet Academy days in a bid to find the Fountain of Youth. That treatment evolved into a remarkably Avatarish story called simply Star Trek IX in which Picard must go upriver to kill a malfunctioning Data as part of a Federation/Romulan alliance to displace strange alien natives from a planet teeming with a valuable and rare ore (spoiler: Picard actually kills Data in this treatment, and Tom Hanks was supposed to have a major role somewhere). Let the late Michael Piller guide you through the writing of Insurrection in his unpublished book Fade In: The Making of Star Trek: Insurrection (his "last great gift to the fans and to aspiring writers everywhere") in which he presents his original story treatments, story notes from his bosses at Paramount, surprisingly reasonable Trekker-type reactions from actors Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, and much more. First made freely available by TrekCore.com, Piller's family has since asked that it be removed, but you'll still find the file roaming the Internet if you boldly go looking for it.
comment posted at 11:20 AM on Dec-31-10

What a Face A tribute to character actors with "distinctive" looks. [via mefi projects]
comment posted at 5:37 PM on Dec-29-10

Sad news out of California today for the avant-garde and experimental rock world: Rocks Off has learned from multiple online sources that Don Van Vliet of influential rockers Captain Beefheart passed away today at the age of 69 after a battle with multiple sclerosis. Van Vliet's management confirmed his death to Rolling Stone.
comment posted at 2:36 PM on Dec-17-10

After nixing the idea a year ago, Chevy is again toying with the idea of bringing back the El Camino in 2015. The car will be modeled after the Holden Ute, a popular vehicle in Australia.
comment posted at 1:11 PM on Dec-17-10

Blastoff! SLYT slow motion shuttle liftoff. (Up to 60,000 frames per second)
comment posted at 11:39 AM on Dec-12-10

"StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 8 million+ other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend."
comment posted at 2:53 PM on Dec-11-10

~Price Reduced~ 1.4 acre property in Lincoln, Montana. Great fishing and hunting! Cabin not included.
comment posted at 11:15 AM on Dec-5-10

A great gift for the archivist and/or audiophile in your life! Just in time for the holidays, donate NOW only $60 to preserve for posterity the controversial, the scandalous, the quixotic, the Springsteen-ian, the timeless classics, plus many, many more wax cylinder recordings from UCSB's Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.
comment posted at 10:01 PM on Dec-1-10

The 25 Awesomest LGBTQ Comic Book Characters
comment posted at 10:01 AM on Nov-29-10

Leslie Nielsen, dead at 84.
comment posted at 6:18 PM on Nov-28-10

Cartoonist John Allison of (Bobbins, ScaryGoRound, and Bad Machinery fame) has posted his take on the current state of webcomics in the UK.
comment posted at 8:24 AM on Nov-18-10

Amateur Photographer Captures a Grizzly Bear Chasing a Bison Down a Highway in Yellowstone
comment posted at 1:28 PM on Nov-12-10

A Life on Facebook [Video]
comment posted at 9:36 AM on Nov-11-10

A dispute outside a shoe store in Livingston, New Jersey, between a skater and the store's owner is posted to YouTube. [NSFW language] Now the fight has spread to the store's Facebook page and Google listings.
comment posted at 7:48 AM on Nov-10-10
comment posted at 7:49 AM on Nov-10-10

They Live, John Carpenter's 1988 cult classic, is a fairly subversive piece of work. The film, which combines sci-fi, horror and satire -- and includes one of the iconic fight scenes in movie history -- is an allegorical treatise on the evils of capitalism, set in a Los Angeles populated by evil, conspiratorial and wealthy aliens. The film, despite a mixed original reception, has developed a rabid fan-boy following over the last few decades, and now Jonathan Lethem, the author of "Motherless Brooklyn," "The Fortress of Solitude" and, more recently, "Chronic City" has written "They Live," a meticulous, scene-by-scene analysis of its many, many layers.
comment posted at 11:42 AM on Nov-8-10

Yesterday was the day that Microsoft Kinect for the XBox 360 launched (warning: site "works best with" proprietary, embrace-and-extendware--here's a slightly more accessible YT demo). Like with the Wii, it's possible the most lasting effect on the open community is the excellent commodity hardware. To that end, Adafruit offered a $1000 reward to the first open source code that could work with the hardware. Microsoft was displeased, citing both law-enforcement and product safety groups as co-enforcers. The bounty is now $2000.
comment posted at 8:56 AM on Nov-5-10

Why the Supreme Court should rule that violent video games are free speech
comment posted at 11:26 PM on Nov-1-10

I doubt if you've seen anything like this before...
comment posted at 1:32 PM on Oct-13-10

Hey! You might've heard, it's John Lennon's birthday! What better way to celebrate than singing along with the backing track for I Feel Fine? Then you can sing along with John's Rain, with the added fun of having Lennon himself do some harmony with you! Sweet! What? You don't know all the words? So, get a refresher course: listen to John's Rain lead vocal track, loud and clear and accompanied only by bass and tambourine. And his vocal track is mixed waaay up for your listening pleasure on I Am the Walrus and Ticket To Ride. And hey, if you're one of those folks who just can't sing at all, well, maybe your bird can. But hey, even if you don't have the greatest voice in the world, why not try singing along to some of John's tunes, to honor the 70th anniversary of his birth? I mean, Paul Mccartney did! If you don't, you won't know what you're missing.
comment posted at 7:36 PM on Oct-9-10

He was born 70 years ago. Killed almost 30 years ago. Museums around the world are celebrating his legacy. His Google Doodle isn't live in the US yet but you can see it on Google UK. And oh, yea...the FBI is still interested in him too.
comment posted at 7:49 PM on Oct-9-10

Tony Curtis, Hollywood Legend, Navy Man, star of The Defiant Ones, Some Like It Hot and The Great Race, has passed away.
comment posted at 9:05 AM on Sep-30-10

For millions of addicts around the world, Alcoholics Anonymous's basic text - informally known as the Big Book - is the Bible. And as they're about to find out, the Bible was edited. After being hidden away for nearly 70 years and then auctioned twice, the original manuscript by AA co-founder Bill Wilson is about to become public for the first time next week, complete with edits by Wilson-picked commenters that reveal a profound debate in 1939 about how overtly to talk about God.
comment posted at 8:53 AM on Sep-23-10

The strange face in the mirror illusion. Full Article.
comment posted at 9:09 AM on Sep-19-10

The Digital Comic Museum, a site for downloading free public domain Golden Age Comics.
comment posted at 10:05 PM on Sep-8-10

Felix Salmon formulates a theory regarding the interaction of cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians in New York City: "Cyclists get no respect as road users. Instead, tragically, they’re treated like pedestrians."
comment posted at 11:59 AM on Sep-8-10

Comedian Robert Schimmel, a frequent guest on Howard Stern's radio show and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, has died a week after being injured in a car accident.
comment posted at 5:01 PM on Sep-4-10

CAPTCHA comics: for when typing two words just isn't enough.
comment posted at 11:28 AM on Sep-4-10

In Defense of Jumping the Shark. The writer behind Fonzie's infamous, downfall-defining moment remains unrepentant. "More than three decades later, I still don't believe that the series 'jumped the shark' when Fonzie jumped the shark."
comment posted at 3:13 PM on Sep-4-10

Anderson Cooper attempts to reason with the wild-eyed Debbie Riddle, a Texas State Representative who wants to save the US from bomb-throwing "anchor babies".
comment posted at 9:02 AM on Aug-12-10

The Sovereign Citizen Movement (or Redemption Movement) in the US is based on a theory that the federal government has pledged each and every American citizen, as a fictitious "straw-man" corporate person, for collateral, and that you have the right to assert your "sovereign citizenship," free yourself from liens and taxes, and claim hundreds of thousands of dollars lent to the government in your very own name. This is accomplished by a number of pseudo-legal filings, mailings and renderings of your own name, intended to make you a Free Man on the Land. Although not yet mainstream, believers are becoming more active and visible, from the recent violent deaths of movement leaders Jerry and Joseph Kane (previously) to the rather less threatening Basil Marceaux (dot com), who pledges to get rid of the "gold-fringe flag" (previously).
comment posted at 1:03 PM on Aug-1-10

Spacegirl Comic by Travis Charest (via concept ships)
comment posted at 9:07 AM on Jul-24-10

Daniel Schorr is dead at 93. Schorr began a career in journalism which spanned more than six decades at 12 years old, when he wrote a story for the Bronx Home News about a suicide. A woman had jumped from the roof of his building, he phoned the police and then wrote and article about the event, for which he was paid $5. After serving in military intelligence during World War II, he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times before joining CBS in 1953 as one of the legendary "Murrow Boys".
comment posted at 1:05 PM on Jul-23-10

Hopefully people are familiar with the comic strip Doonesbury and the fact that it is sometimes kept on the editorial page rather than the with the rest of the funnies on the comics page. Doonesbury is also considered to be a fairly American left wing strip. Perhaps you'd be interested in seeing some comics with American right wing politics? The Gentleman from Lickskillet, Day by Day, Mallard Fillmore, and The Leftersons are here to help.
comment posted at 12:54 PM on Jul-21-10

It's like a concert tour but with sketchbooks. Get a sketchbook, fill it based on a theme (you can pick one or have one assigned randomly) by a certain date, then let it go on tour and eventually be a barcoded, checkout-able book in the Brooklyn Art Library that you can track. I love this idea.
comment posted at 6:13 PM on Jul-10-10

Theatre composer Jason Robert Brown (bio) tries to explain to a young fan why it’s wrong to download sheet music from the Internet for free. Via.
comment posted at 9:18 AM on Jun-30-10
comment posted at 10:09 AM on Jun-30-10