MetaFilter

Extra Virgin Suicides is an interactive graphic from the New York Times about the global business of counterfeit olive oil. The NYT graphic is pretty slick, too.
comment posted at 4:02 PM on Jan-28-14

Programmers will tell you that coding is one of the most approachable skills there is. If you want to learn, there's Code Academy, or perhaps LearnPython.org. There are major non-profits that want to help you learn, free books, and videos. Great! Finished with all of those?
comment posted at 6:19 AM on Jan-26-14
comment posted at 3:01 PM on Jan-26-14
comment posted at 4:48 PM on Jan-27-14

Photographer Victoria Will took some fantastic tintype portraits of celebrities at Sundance.
comment posted at 7:04 AM on Jan-26-14
comment posted at 7:09 AM on Jan-26-14
comment posted at 7:20 AM on Jan-26-14

If you haven't hung your calendars for 2014 yet, why not take advantage of repeating dates and use the 1975 Mighty Marvel Calendar -- featuring important milestones like Sal Buscema's birthday, the exact moment fans started protesting Dr. Strange's first costume change, and all the Doctor Doom appearances a mortal mind can handle?
comment posted at 7:50 AM on Jan-3-14

The problem with time.
comment posted at 8:57 AM on Jan-3-14

Hiram Cronk was born in 1800, at 14 he enlisted to fight the British, and in 1905, he passed away as the last veteran of the war of 1812. This amazing video shows the funeral procession, featuring veterans from the Civil War and the Spanish-American war as they marched through Brooklyn.
comment posted at 11:41 AM on Mar-7-12

The New Scientist writes about the attempts of scientists to induce an artificial state of being in the zone (also referred to as "flow") through electrical manipulation of the brain. As a bonus, they also include a forum link to homemade attempts to achieve the same thing.
comment posted at 5:34 AM on Feb-10-12

The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of Earth, taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on December 7th 1972, as they traveled to the moon. On January 23th, 2012, the Suomi NPP satellite snapped a similar, high definition photo, called Blue Marble 2012. By sure to check out the other side of the Marble, how the photos were taken and a PDF that describes the NPP project.
comment posted at 3:18 PM on Feb-3-12

Darkness "Sometimes you meet people like that, they have one adjective that fits them like a glove. They could be that word's picture in the dictionary..."
comment posted at 5:48 AM on Feb-3-12

TVTropes calls it a "Neo-Dada art form consisting of video remixes. . . to confuse, stun or entertain the viewer". A recent top ten list (more here) fills the gaps of that description with ample WTF, which is almost too appropriate for a video genre that first garnered attention as a misdirection troll.
comment posted at 4:26 PM on Jan-26-12

Having now traversed 34 kilometres (21 miles) across the surface of Mars and exceeding it's 90-day mission to explore Mars by 2,830 days, NASA's Opportunity rover turned 8 years old today. So what's the feisty martian robot been up to lately? It's now exploring the rim of the 14-mile-wide Endeavor crater, discovering "slam-dunk" evidence that water once flowed through underground fractures, and is being strategically positioned at a 15-degree angle for a long winter suntan.
comment posted at 1:57 PM on Jan-24-12

How the Glock Became America's Weapon of Choice The Glock was created in 1982 by a curtain rod manufacturer named Gaston Glock. Glock didn't like the handguns available on the market and decided to manufacture a new gun from scratch.
comment posted at 2:07 PM on Jan-24-12

In a unanimous decision [PDF], the Supreme Court has ruled on United States v. Jones and found that placement of a GPS tracker on a car by police is a violation of the fourth amendment—but is the ruling as clear-cut as it seems?
comment posted at 4:09 PM on Jan-23-12

Pipe Logic "Suppose the null-byte is an electron. Then, /dev/zero provides an infinite supply of electrons and /dev/null has an infinite appetite for them..." Modeling transistors and logic gates using Unix pipes.
comment posted at 4:28 PM on Jan-23-12

The debate about whether young people should expect to 'intern' or work for free - and what this means in terms of who* gets into these industries - has been raging for years, but for unemployed people in Britain, this kind of labour no longer just means trying to enter into competitive or media-driven industries. An unemployed graduate, having been sent to work for Poundland without needing the experience nor being offered the job, is seeking a judicial review against the regulations that require many receiving unemployment benefit to work, unpaid, for large corporations.
comment posted at 5:53 AM on Jan-17-12
comment posted at 2:23 PM on Jan-23-12

Few audience members, except film buffs, realized that the recent silent film THE ARTIST used Bernard Hermann's score from Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO as the soundtrack for its climactic scenes. But Kim Novak, Jimmy Stewart's co-star in the older film, sure did. Oh, boy, did she ever.
comment posted at 4:08 PM on Jan-9-12

What is it like to have an understanding of very advanced mathematics? A naive Quora question gets a remarkably long, thorough answer from an anonymous respondent. The answer cites, among many other things, Tim Gowers's influential essay "The Two Cultures of Mathematics," about the tension between problem-solving and theory-building. Related: Terry Tao asks "Does one have to be a genius to do maths?" (Spoiler: he says no.)
comment posted at 8:39 AM on Dec-25-11

Gender: there's a lot more going on than just "male" or "female". [some links NSFW]
comment posted at 9:24 AM on Dec-25-11

Bennett and I discuss joining the Illuminati. "These are text messages I exchange with my 17-year-old cousin Bennett... one of the most unintentionally funny and brilliant souls on the planet. He has no idea I do this blog. Yes, this is 100% real." [NSFWtext; TumblrFilter]
comment posted at 4:22 AM on Dec-2-11

According to a press release issued by Apple, co-founder Steve Jobs has passed away.
comment posted at 5:39 AM on Oct-6-11

Aviation Week and Space Technology explains that sequence of events in the crash that killed all 228 people onboard the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris can be segmented into two distinct phases. In the first phase, the pilots were dealing with the failure of speed readings that are almost certain to be linked to iced-over pitot tubes. The second phase began when speed indications returned to normal and the aircraft was at the edge of its flight envelope but under control and not stalled. Phase two also coincided with the captain’s return to the cockpit from an agreed-upon rest.
comment posted at 9:05 AM on Jun-19-11

Writer, traveler, and kidnapper of Nazi generals, Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor -- Paddy to friends and fans -- is dead at 96. A silver lining: his biographer Artemis Cooper reports that the long-awaited final installment of his trilogy recounting a year-long walk across Europe as a young man in the 1930s, "has existed for some time, and will be published in due course."
comment posted at 5:02 PM on Jun-11-11

The premise of HBO's hour-long special "Talking Funny" [Part 2, 3, 4] is simple: invite four top-ranked comedians — Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Louis C.K. — turn on the cameras, and let them talk shop for an hour. There are laughs, of course, but the most interesting parts focus on the technical craft of getting those laughs. Michael Bierut didn't tune in looking for lessons for designers, but he found seven.
comment posted at 5:49 PM on Jun-11-11

President Obama to make important announcement regarding Osama Bin Laden imminently
comment posted at 5:00 AM on May-2-11

Time to dust off you copy of Hodge and Kress's "Social Semiotics", pages 72-73 "Ritual Space and Time" are a reading of the 1981 Royal of Charles and Diana (sorry, these pages are unavailable on google books). The authors discuss the contrast of the participants. For the common person witnessing the event they are separated physically, and by the rituals available to them marked by the use of kitschy tokens. The "invited" participants are marked by their dress code and access to the wedding ceremony. Ironically, television allows the home viewer a more intimate level of participation than the invited guests providing televised images from outside and inside, commentary, and a sense of intimacy that even "invited" participants--excepting the bride and groom--experience only at a distance.
comment posted at 9:17 AM on Apr-29-11

From an early age, it was clear that Carly Fleishmann had autism. Furthermore, she couldn't speak, and professionals who had diagnosed her considered her moderately to severely cognitively impaired. Therapy helped, but she still wasn't able to speak. Then at age ten, working with a computer equipped with pictures and symbols, she started typing and spelling words. She started with single words, then wrote sentences, describing how she felt, and how she wanted people to treat her. Her story has been presented on a variety of shows, often with insight provided by Carly that she typed with one finger. As her writing ability has improved over the years, she has shared her thoughts through her blog (and as a guest on Larry King's blog), on her own Twitter feed, and Facebook page. Now 16, she recently appeared again on TV, talking through her writing (transcript).
comment posted at 3:43 PM on Apr-21-11

Total Lunar Eclipse Tonight! "A rare event not seen in 372 years will occur early Tuesday morning, when a total lunar eclipse coincides with the winter solstice."
comment posted at 8:46 AM on Dec-20-10
comment posted at 9:16 AM on Dec-21-10

Single....err....232bleLinkYouTubeFilter Set of videos made by a user to teach drawing of the human form from head to toe without reference to a model. Very raw and unpolished, but an incredible (and, incredibly, free) resource. Also in blog form.
comment posted at 12:18 PM on Feb-28-07

The Graphic Art of Si Scott.
comment posted at 6:18 PM on Nov-14-06
comment posted at 11:22 AM on Nov-19-06

Why don't Americans care about the loss of privacy? Give your SSN for a 50 cent coupon? Have your car tracked by EZ-Pass? Have a security camera on the corner? Who cares?
comment posted at 5:32 PM on Oct-16-06

Starfleet surplus rummage sale! Bargains, bargains, bargains! Own Captain Picard's desk! Power your starship with dilithium crystals straight from Rura Penthe! Build your own Borg! Everything must go!
comment posted at 9:31 AM on Sep-30-06

Operation removes lightbulb from anus. Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass lightbulb in his anus.
comment posted at 8:15 PM on Jun-30-06

He created Space Ghost, The Herculoids and made Saturdays worth getting up for with his Super Friends. In addition, he was a prolific comics artist. Comics great Alex Toth is dead at 77.
comment posted at 7:08 AM on Jun-3-06

Engadget turns 2. There are lots of famous birthdays in March, but I'm willing to bet none of them had cakes quite as elaborate as the ones Engadet fans made.
comment posted at 9:38 PM on Mar-16-06

Kicking the Pigeon: On Sunday, April 13, 2003, at about 5:00 p.m., Diane Bond, a 48 year-old mother of three, stepped out of her eighth floor apartment in 3651 South Federal, the last remaining high-rise at the Stateway Gardens public housing development, and encountered three white men. Although not in uniform, they were immediately recognizable by their postures, body language, and bulletproof vests as police officers. Bond gave me the following account of what happened next.

“Where do you live at?” one of the officers asked. He had a round face and closely cropped hair. Bond later identified him as Christ Savickas.

“Right there,” she pointed to her door.

He put his gun to her right temple and snatched her keys from her hand.
comment posted at 10:16 PM on Feb-17-06

"Too much information running through my brain. Too much information driving me insane!" ~ Too Much Information: The Police I was fanatical about the band as a teenager. One common piece of trivia about the band and its members was -- the band's founder and drummer, Stewart Copeland, is the son of a former CIA agent (now deceased). I never did give much thought to what his father, Miles Copeland Jr., actually did for the CIA until tonight. This spook was spooky.

He quite the CIA in 1953 to work for Booz-Allen Hamilton then rejoined the CIA in 1955. Now THAT'S interesting. He strongly supported George Bush Sr., who was CIA director in 1976, and disdained Carter. Copeland had knowledge of (and possibly involvement with) the delay in the release of the U.S. hostages in iran. He even founded the political support group called, 'spooks for Bush.' Oh . . . another Bush connection: Copeland was also involved in the oil industry after leaving the CIA (again) in 1957. More Copeland/CIA knowledge or involvement: manipulating Syrian Elections / participated in coup in which Syrian colonel Husni Za'im seized power / WATERGATE! / MK-Ultra / Church of Scientology / The Baath Party in Iraq / Thatcher's election. It's interesting what he had to say about The Sabotage of the Presidential Campaign of Senator Edmund Muskie 1971-1972

Was there any spook(y) business behind the scenes during the band's tour of third-world countries in the early 1980s. Who else was embedded with the band's tour crew? What about Ian, Miles III (the band's manager), or Stewart? At least Sting pulled the plug on "Brand New Day" from the Bush campaign. How much did Sting's knowledge of Copeland influence the tongue-in-cheek song, "Murder by Numbers?"
comment posted at 4:27 PM on Oct-15-05
comment posted at 1:12 PM on Oct-16-05

The atom bomb is 60. It's very popular now and becoming more so daily. The most recent nuclear nation to threaten to use theirs is China. The U.S, Europe, and the U.S.S.R. got through a half century Cold War without immolating themselves. Will South and East Asia be as successful and/or lucky in the near future?
comment posted at 12:14 PM on Jul-16-05

Has anyone else noticed actor Tom Cruise going more and more wacky in public? Is his love affair with the hot-young-actress really a sham? Is this a PR stunt run dangerously wild, or Scientology in action? Oprah's scared, are you? The folks at FreeKatie.net think you should be.
comment posted at 2:27 PM on Jun-15-05

ComicsFilter (but bear with me): Frank Miller & Jim Lee will be the writer and artist, respectively, of All-Star Batman and Robin, a new miniseries intended to make the characters simple, interesting, and easy to follow after decades of backstory. Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely were announced to be doing the same thing on All-Star Superman, and any comics fan will tell you that these four guys are some of the best in the entire field. Between these two projects, DC Comics most likely has the top-selling books in the tiny comics industry sewn up for most of 2005, which is reason enough to publish them.

But there's also a question for non-comics readers here at MeFi: DC are really doing this for you. They want new readers (best-selling comics are lucky to top 150,000 copies these days), and they think publishing accessible comic books linked to the release of large movies (The Christopher Nolan film Batman Begins, based in part on Frank Miller's Batman: Year One, will be released roughly alongside All-Star Batman & Robin) is the way to do it. But is there a snowball's chance in hell you'd read something like this? Would your kids, if you have them, be interested, do you think? (Frank Miller, it bears noting, is also the creator and co-director of Sin City, a film you might've seen a preview for recently -- truly insane cast.)
comment posted at 9:15 AM on Jan-6-05
comment posted at 10:06 AM on Jan-6-05

Darth Vader/Weirdo - An animated movie about....something. [mov]
comment posted at 10:39 AM on Jan-1-05

Twisting Tongues in Other Tongues
This page was originally created to give a good group of tongue twisters to people in speech therapy, to people who want to work on getting rid of an accent, or to people who just plain like tongue twisters. I hope you enjoy them.
comment posted at 12:31 PM on Dec-31-04