MetaFilter

Intelligent YouTube Channels. A large collection from many sources, such as the Richard Dawkins channel l The 92nd Street Y l Big Think l Philip Scott Johnson's collection of art videos l MoMA l Vanity Fair l Yad Vashem a leader in Holocaust education l KQED Public Media l The Research Channel l YouTube EDU, which centralizes all of its educational/academic content. This is the best place to start if you’re looking for lectures and courses l The Spoken Verse l universities like Stanford and Cambridge. Previously.
comment posted at 3:52 AM on Sep-27-10

Ever since the Women's Health Initiative published data showing increased risk and little benefit with post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy it has become more controversial and the FDA now recommends using the lowest dose possible for the shortest time, if using it at all. Why was HRT so popular in the first place? It now appears one reason was that what appeared to be legitimate articles in peer reviewed journals were actually ghostwritten by drug companies.
comment posted at 10:42 AM on Sep-24-10

Women's Pro Tennis Turns 40. Women's professional tennis was launched by World Tennis magazine publisher Gladys Heldman 40 years ago on September 23, 1970, with a tournament that had nine entrants and $7,500 in prizes. The original nine were Billy Jean King and Rosemary Casals along with the lesser known Peaches Bartkowicz, Judy Dalton, Julie Heldman, Kerry Melville, Kristy Pigeon, Nancy Richey and Valerie Ziegenfuss. A year later, King became the first female athlete to earn six figures in her sport. In the '80s, Martina Navratilova became the first to earn $1 million. Today the WTA Tour is an $85 million-a-year sport. "We wanted to make sure that any young girl, if she was good enough and if she wanted to, would have the opportunity to make a living playing tennis," King said.
comment posted at 8:22 AM on Sep-24-10

If you were to ask me "What is the most artistic drum solo you've ever heard?", I'd say "You mean the one with the most exquisite sense of dynamics? One that doesn't bludgeon you over the head, but instead pulls you in with its subtlety and restraint? Where masterful technique is purely at the service of musicality? That best conveys a musical vision and a deep understanding of the interrelationships of percussive timbre and tone that make up that remarkable instrument we call the drum set?" You'd say "Yeah." I'd say this.
comment posted at 7:44 AM on Sep-24-10

Beleaguered B&Bs on the blunt end of TripAdvisor reviews are threatening legal action.
comment posted at 7:54 AM on Sep-24-10

In "My Lie" author Meridith Maran reveals her own painful history with recovered memory: she accused her own father of molesting her, and years later learned that her recollections had been false. Interviewed today on NPR,Maran equates her journey through the recovered memory movement to the persistent political lie that President Obama is a Muslim.
comment posted at 9:39 AM on Sep-23-10

...[John] Adams’s Koran [Qur'an] had a strong New England pedigree. The first Koran published in the United States, it was printed in Springfield in 1806.
comment posted at 5:08 AM on Sep-23-10

Europe according to... is a project to map stereotypes of European countries according to other countries and groups of people.
comment posted at 1:31 PM on Sep-22-10

"And if you really think about it, the only reason somebody gets out in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they've been waiting for it. Otherwise, we are open 24 hours -- come at 5 a.m., come at 7 a.m., come at 10 a.m. But if you are there at midnight, you are there for a reason."
comment posted at 1:44 PM on Sep-22-10

BDBGS! Last time Christian Swinehart was on metafilter, it was for his gorgeous visualizations of the narrative pathways contained in the Choose Your Own Adventure books. His new interactive visualizations plot bedbug reports in New York City between 2004 and the present.
comment posted at 11:00 AM on Sep-22-10

Assessing the Terrorist Threat -- Bruce Hoffman and Peter Bergen describe how Al Qaida has evolved since the attacks in 2001, including the development of domestic USA networks and the increasingly diverse and decentralized nature of terrorism. Homeland Security and local law enforcement are not keeping up with the changes.
comment posted at 10:54 AM on Sep-22-10

Recently uploaded airplane camera footage from 1945 Japan (slyt). Uploaded from the Romano Archives (previously).
comment posted at 4:33 AM on Sep-22-10

When Gillian Hills was discovered in 1958 by Roger Vadim, she was touted as being the next Bridgett Bardot. She went on to star in such films as Antonioni's Blow Up and the British rock and roll film Beat Girl, and even had a small part as Sonietta, the girl with the lollypop in A Clockwork Orange. But it is her early '60s French pop records which fascinate me. Here with Qui a su, Rien n'est changé, Rentre Sans Moi, Look at Them and Tomorrow Is Another Day .
comment posted at 8:37 PM on Sep-21-10

How segregated is your city? Eric Fischer maps the top 40 US cities by race, using 2000 census data. Each color-coded dot represents 25 people: Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, and Orange is Hispanic. The maps are oddly pretty, and revealing. Compare, for example, Detroit and San Antonio. via
comment posted at 3:43 PM on Sep-20-10

"Trespass: A History Of Uncommissioned Urban Art," a lovely looking guide to street art activations published by Taschen and soon to be released on the masses.
comment posted at 3:39 AM on Sep-20-10

Vincent Lexington Harper compiled the world's largest collection of digitally restored pinups from the 1920s and 30s in the Old Orient Museum.
comment posted at 7:45 AM on Sep-19-10

Belleza sobrenatural (supernatural beauty) is a project from Elle Spain magazine featuring twelve (Spanish) beautiful women completely without makeup and without Photoshop enhancement; four of them appear on the covers. It's being picked up by other websites, but so far only in Spanish; I couldn't find any coverage in English. Meanwhile, the US version of Elle has the usual makeup/photoshop enhanced cover models.
comment posted at 6:44 AM on Sep-18-10

The 32.000 year old artifact was discovered in the form of hundreds of small fragments in a cave in Stadel im Hohlenstein in Germany on the 25th of August 1939. The fact that the fragments belonged to a figurine was discovered in 1969 by Prof. Dr. Joachim Hahn. He mentioned a similarity of several small peices and puzzled a first version of the figurine with nearly 200 fragments. Meet the Lion Man.
comment posted at 12:53 PM on Sep-17-10

Niagara Falls... slowly I turned... step by step... inch by inch...
comment posted at 7:37 AM on Sep-17-10
comment posted at 7:46 AM on Sep-17-10

Mado by Tomoyuki Sakaguchi. A series of portraits taken in Tokyo. The subjects are framed by subway doors.
comment posted at 1:56 PM on Sep-16-10

Table For One.
comment posted at 8:05 AM on Sep-16-10

The 727 that Vanished. Interesting article that recounts a mystery still unsolved. Prev, from 2003.
comment posted at 7:54 AM on Sep-15-10

Advanced Style: 'Proof from the wise and silver-haired set that personal style advances with age.' Advanced Style is run by Ari Seth Cohen who in his own words: "Roams the streets looking for New York's most stylish and creative older folks. Respect your elders and let these ladies and gents teach you a thing or two about living life to the fullest." Debra Rapoport and Maayan Zilberman also collaborate on the site. Also worth checking out, Advanced Style Videos, a more in depth look into the lives of the wonderful people featured on the site. Made by Ari Seth Cohen and Lina Plioplyte these videos allow our wonderful friends to share their own voice and opinions about personal style: Tziporah Salamon, Thrifting with Debra, Going to the Movies with Debra, Debra's Hat, Design with Debra, Debra on the Importance of Colour, Hattitude!, Mary, Doris' Treasures.
comment posted at 4:59 AM on Sep-15-10

Not the commercials you'd expect for the 2010 Utah State Fair. Check out those hamhocks and don't for get to grab a corndog while you're there. The TV commercials have since been yanked by the fair's board. The director of the ads, Jared Hess of Napolean Dynamite fame, claims racism.
comment posted at 4:54 AM on Sep-14-10

"Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture."
comment posted at 11:57 AM on Sep-13-10

“Immortality is for suckers. If even a few of my words outlive me by even one hour, then I have cheated death.” - F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
comment posted at 11:10 AM on Sep-13-10

A Short Film about Pringle of Scotland by David Shrigley (SLYT).
comment posted at 3:16 AM on Sep-13-10

We No Speak Americano, Hand Dance, Hand Dance Live, Alles Gute zum St Patriks Tag from Cleary & Harding AKA Up And Over It
comment posted at 6:09 AM on Sep-12-10

It is simultaneously unlike, and above, every other record. ... Because perhaps it tells us what a trivial pursuit music really is, and at the same time how indispensable to a meaningful existence it in fact is. ... No one, least of all Carla Bley, has subsequently come even within an orbit’s distance of its achievements. ... It is, in the most literal of senses, untouchable. - Marcello Carlin
comment posted at 5:43 PM on Sep-11-10

Takashi "Hentai statue sold for $15m" Murakami has a new exhibition at the Palace of Versailles. The Guardian has photographs, and a short piece about the controversy sparked by the exhibition, which does not include Murakami's Lonesome Cowboy. A committee to defend the palace, made up of French monarchists aghast at the "triple scandal of art, money, and democracy", says "Non aux mangas!". (They didn't like Jeff Koons either.) Rue89 has an interview with the director of the palace. (Last few links in French. Previously.)
comment posted at 7:17 AM on Sep-11-10
comment posted at 7:59 AM on Sep-11-10

How downloading music has literally saved my life: a lightly punctuated personal essay about obesity and compulsion.
comment posted at 5:06 AM on Sep-11-10

'No Belgian church escaped sex abuse', finds investigation. It reveals that abuse was so extensive that it was going on in almost every diocese and at every Church-run boarding school: "We can say that no congregation escapes sexual abuse of minors by one or several of its members," the commission concluded." 'Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, an independent Belgian commission said Friday.' 'Friday's report lists 507 witnesses who came forward with stories of molestation at the hands of clergy over the past decades. It says those abused included children who were two, four, five and six years old.'
comment posted at 10:54 AM on Sep-10-10

The REAL ‘Stuff White People Like'
comment posted at 1:45 PM on Sep-8-10

Surreal Web Art: Duncan Alexander's hypnotic Freakin' Cats and Cursor Vortex, Nicholas O'Brien's tranquil GrassWalk, Thorne Brandt's Animated Gif of the Day July 2010, Pixelfucks' Untitled #4, A. Bill Miller's grid-portraits, Michael Manning's epilepsy-inducing information technology is the gateway to the infinite and much more at the 2010 Virtual Art Fair
comment posted at 5:25 AM on Sep-5-10

Twitter Discographies summarizes musicians' entire careers in 140 characters, album by album. (SLT)
comment posted at 12:08 PM on Sep-4-10

The one song played at every bar mitzvah isn't "Celebration," or "I Gotta Feeling," or even "New York, New York" -- it's "Hava Nagila." But what is it? A 9-minute documentary tells the story of how a wordless meditative nigun became a song everybody in the world, Jewish or not, could sing. Seriously, everybody. Harry Belafonte and Danny Kaye. Harry Dean Stanton with Bob Dylan backing up on harmonica. Polish metal band Rootwater. A guy who plays the ukulele behind his head. The Modern Female Choir of Zhejiang. The Dark Knight. What appears to be a group of comedy fiddlers ("featuring John and Pancho") from John Hagee's church in San Antonio. Even ... um... this guy. (Previously on MetaFilter: The closest you're going to get to the Beatles covering "Hava Nagila.")
comment posted at 5:00 AM on Sep-4-10

"Have you ever wondered how many cats you would have if you started with just one female and left it alone with males for 5 years?" via Forrst
comment posted at 10:47 AM on Sep-3-10

Take a solo trek through the back streets of toontown or gaze upon pastoral fantasia. You'll find an astonishing variety of familiar and fantastic locales at Bob Richards' Animation Backgrounds blog.
comment posted at 10:08 AM on Sep-3-10

Go Where? Sex, Gender, and Toilets.
comment posted at 1:19 PM on Sep-2-10

An idle brain may be the self's workshop. 'Recent research suggests that mind-wandering may be important and that knowledge of how it works might help treat such conditions as Alzheimer's disease, autism, depression and schizophrenia.' Once upon a time, scientists didn't regard idle musings of the wandering mind as very important. 'But in the span of a few short years, they have instead come to view mental leisure as important, purposeful work — work that relies on a powerful and far-flung network of brain cells firing in unison. Neuroscientists call it the "default mode network."''Understanding that setting may do more than lend respectability to the universal practice of zoning out: It may one day help diagnose and treat psychiatric conditions as diverse as Alzheimer's disease, autism, depression and schizophrenia — all of which disrupt operations in the default mode network. Beyond that lies an even loftier promise. As neuroscientists study the idle brain, some believe they are exploring a central mystery in human psychology: where and how our concept of "self" is created, maintained, altered and renewed.'
comment posted at 1:14 PM on Sep-2-10

Conaw. After getting canned in his short time as host of the Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien announces the name of his new TBS comedy show. (SLYT)
comment posted at 1:19 PM on Sep-1-10

Though her nomination was a joke, instigated by a group of men hoping to inhibit the local activities of the Women's Christian Temperance Union by embarrassing female voters, Susanna Madora "Dora" Kinsey Salter surprised the pranksters by winning two-thirds of the vote in the mayoral election of 1887 in tiny Argonia, Kansas, becoming not only America's first female mayor, but also earning the distinction of being the first woman elected to any political office in the United States. Her official notice of election read: Madam, You are hereby notified that at an election held in the city of Argonia on Monday April 4/87, for the purpose of electing city officers, you were duly elected to the office of Mayor of said city. You will take due notice thereof and govern yourself accordingly. Though she only served one term and had no further political ambitions, she became a hero of the early women's suffrage movement.
comment posted at 1:35 PM on Sep-1-10

There has been a recent outcry about "labia lift" searches in Colorado prisons. Almost 80% of offenders have been molested and these searches can trigger PTSD.
comment posted at 7:24 PM on Aug-30-10

Säkkijärven polkka. YouTube.
comment posted at 4:26 AM on Aug-30-10

Those old Disney cartoons too slow-paced for you? BLAM! (Original.) Are you confounded by physical humor? BLAM! (Original.) BLAM! (Original.) Does a cartoon without wisecracks leave you unsatisfied? BLAM! (Original.) BLAM! (Original.) BLAM! (Original.)
comment posted at 7:52 PM on Aug-28-10

Meet Arria, a new sculpture which is also the new figurehead of Cumbernauld, Scotland. Links to the construction phases here and here. Via
comment posted at 4:06 PM on Aug-28-10

In May, Jacob Lambert wrote in The Millions about the subversive messages hidden in classic children's books in the essay Are Picture Books Leading Our Children Astray? His conclusion: "What I previously considered whimsical trifles now reveal themselves as other things entirely: thinly-veiled endorsements of chaos, malfeasance, naïveté." Now Lambert's back, with: Again, I Ask: Are Picture Books Leading Our Children Astray?
comment posted at 2:41 PM on Aug-28-10

Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous, "I have a dream speech". The Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP, National Action Network and others will hold a rally starting a Dunbar High School. Glenn Beck and conservative leaders will hold a rally of their own on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Graduate students studying journalism and the media at American University are covering the events with a team of embedded bloggers.
comment posted at 6:59 AM on Aug-28-10