October 22

Gentlemen, are you searching for that special something to wear to the Paris Court Ball? Ladies, do you long to don a pelisse and kid shoes for your next round of afternoon calls? Vintage Textile can help. [more inside]
posted by chihiro at 6:44 PM - 7 comments

If the World Could Vote
posted by bwg at 6:13 PM - 34 comments

Forget again to enroll at Oxford? Some of what you've been missing.
posted by Rykey at 4:53 PM - 15 comments

October 18, 1997, Liz Heaston becomes the first woman to score points in a college football game (NAIA), kicking for Willamette in their victory over Linfield College. August 30, 2001, Ashley Martin kicks three extra points for Jacksonville State University, helping them in their 72-10 defeat of Cumberland, and becoming the first woman to score points in a Division 1 game. August 30, 2003, Katie Hnida becomes the face of women in college football when she scores two extra points in New Mexico's victory over Texas State University. She received harassment and (alleged) assault from her former teammates at Colorado University before becoming the first woman to core points in a Division 1-A game, as well as the first to suit up for a bowl game. Five years later, Kacy Stuart, a 14-year-old High School Freshman who can kick 50-yard Field Goals, is facing opposition for suiting up for the New Creation Center Crusaders, first from the league, and now from the other teams...
posted by Navelgazer at 4:17 PM - 21 comments

Richard Thompson (no, not that one) is the writer and artist behind Cul-de-Sac, a delightful comic chronicling the lives of Alice and Petey Otterloop. [more inside]
posted by god hates math at 3:39 PM - 7 comments

Guns and Roses to finally release Chinese Democracy after all these years.
posted by Artw at 3:07 PM - 82 comments

Powerful, quiet photos of Barack Obama. Callie Shell captures Barack Obama in private and mundane moments that happen to say a lot about him. Highlights include two little kids literally looking up to him, Barack doing pull-ups, waiting in a stairway, and cleaning up after himself at an ice cream parlor.
posted by ignignokt at 1:22 PM - 189 comments

Crystal Palace. "Cavers in Mexico confront extreme conditions and find extraordinary beauty." (Previously.)
posted by homunculus at 12:21 PM - 32 comments

5 reasons Luke Skywalker is a complete idiot
Luke Skywalker the whiny farmboy
Luke "Jesus" Skywalker
Worst Luke Skywalker moments
posted by swift at 11:49 AM - 73 comments

"She handed me the box and I studied it carefully, squinting, even allowing my eyes to blur, to try and see what I was missing. She pointed- 'Do you see?' See what? I didn't see anything. Just broccoli. Her finger tapped on a certain part of the box and she urged me to look closer. 'There- right there. Do you see it? I'm not going to tell you what it is if you don't see it.' And then, it suddenly became clear to me. WHAT THE HELL?"
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:43 AM - 57 comments

Big Lots, the mega-retailer that specializes in really low prices on really odd assortments of stuff - basically, whatever their supplier has too much of - just launched its new website with a Woot-like "Deal of the Day" section. But perhaps most interesting is cartoon spokesmodel Anita Deal, who bears a striking resemblance to a certain vice-presidential candidate.
posted by jbickers at 10:41 AM - 82 comments

Six Russian artists have created reproductions of world-famous paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh and Picasso entirely out of sausage, earning a Guiness record certificate . This exhibition of perfectly edible art pieces took place a few weeks ago in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don to celebrate the centennary of a local meat-processing factory. Close-up photos of the pieces at English Russia. [more inside]
posted by wretched_rhapsody at 9:57 AM - 21 comments

Fish. They're ugly and they smell. You can't find many calendars with them on, and they lose out to pandas when it comes to zoo adoption. But wait! PETA are going to save fish through canny PR. Say hello to Sea Kittens.
posted by mippy at 9:23 AM - 76 comments

Microsoft is taking unprecedented measures to combat China's piracy. The people aren't happy. Is the company shooting itself in the foot?
posted by strangeguitars at 8:41 AM - 61 comments

Basketball rats. So the folks at the Finnish Science Centre Heureka have trained rats to play basketball.
Any tame rat can learn to play basketball, but brave rats which are relaxed playing in front of an enthusiastic audience will be the best professionals!
Video here and more here. Via TrueHoop.
posted by i_cola at 8:34 AM - 18 comments

Leadership for the 21st Century Harvard Business School hosts moderator Charlie Rose in a roundtable discussion concerning the credit crisis, housing, American leadership and foreign affairs. Participants are the 2008 HBS Alumni Achievement Award recipients, including eBay (and McCain advisor) CEO Meg Whitman, GE CEO Jeff Immelt, Venture Capitalist extrordinaire John Doerr, Indian business juggernaut Anand G. Mahindra, and former World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn. This aired on PBS last night and it was some of the most honest, intelligent, and inspiring discussion I have heard in some time. While the only transcript I could find is a paid one here, this 100 minute video should be required viewing for anyone working in a fortune 500 company, or those interested in politics, environmentalism, technology, foreign policy or the election. [more inside]
posted by daHIFI at 7:56 AM - 16 comments

A veeeery interesting article in Rolling Stone magazine, described by these words: Block the Vote, Will the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president? The article is signed by R.F.Kennedy Jr. and G. Palast
posted by acrobat at 7:38 AM - 145 comments

As the U.S. election approaches, you're getting fidgety. You've donated, you've volunteered for your candidate's campaign, but you've still got time on your hands for election-themed activities. What to do? Well, you could make some snazzy Obama or McCain earrings to wear to the polls on decision day. You could make presidential candidate finger puppets out of yarn, paper, or felt and re-enact the debates. You could knit a party animal so as to have something to snuggle up to at night when you wake from nightmares of stolen elections. You could decorate some oranges. Slate has a slideshow of political craft ideas, my favourite of which is probably the Homeland Security Quilt. For more ideas, check out the Obama Craft Project, where crafters are crafting for change and fundraising. There you'll find everything from Obamaware to a cool Yes We Can scarf, to a cross-stitch portrait, to a cozy Obama cap. Lest you think I'm being too partisan here, I'll say I did search for Republican-oriented crafts and there just didn't seem to be many. It seems Obama's got the crafting demographic, um, all sewn up.
posted by orange swan at 7:37 AM - 18 comments

SOMEHOW, THE FOLLOWING VIDEO CLIPS SEEMED APPROPRIATE FOR INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY: WORLD'S FASTEST CLAPPER - WORLD'S FASTEST DRINKER - WORLD'S FASTEST UNDRESSER - WORLD'S FASTEST SHOOTER and WORLD RECORD 124 HEADSPINS.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:49 AM - 39 comments

PALIN SONG
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:29 AM - 53 comments

In 1886, Association Football adopted a new tradition: "That all players taking part for England in future international matches be presented with a white silk cap with red rose embroidered on the front. These to be termed International Caps."
posted by Wolfdog at 3:12 AM - 14 comments

Using ground-breaking photography techniques, revolutionary 4D scanning techniques and anatomically accurate models, Channel 4 shows us Extraordinary Animals in the Womb.
posted by chuckdarwin at 2:28 AM - 8 comments

"India on Wednesday became the sixth nation to launch a moon mission when indigenously built PSLV-C11 rocket blasted off from the spaceport here carrying with it Chandrayaan-I, which will map the lunar surface." For India, The Future Is Here. [more inside]
posted by ageispolis at 1:08 AM - 32 comments

October 21

Can't decide on what would serve you best in the next zombie outbreak? Zombie Tools has you covered. Each weapon is handmade from tempered spring steel and designed specifically for dispatching the undead. [more inside]
posted by Telf at 11:31 PM - 50 comments

The City of Absurdity - The Mysterious World of David Lynch
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:07 PM - 40 comments

African Swim is the newest free album being offered by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. This time the album features South African hip hop groups.
posted by drezdn at 11:02 PM - 9 comments

Shantaram is the story of a violent man's search for the man of peace within himself. Gregory David Roberts, clip 1, clip 2, 3 and 4, is an ex-junkie, former gun runner; drugs, forged passports and black market currency dealer; was a member of the Bombay Mafia and close with a Mafia don there; acted in Bollywood movies; fought with the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan; imprisoned in an Australian maximum security prison with a 19 year sentence and escaped to the Bombay slums, where he set up a free clinic. His semi-autobiography is called Shantaram, which means man pf peace. Review on Shunya. His website. Movie due out in 2009. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 10:28 PM - 27 comments

The latest paper-based video from the folks at Common Craft. This video explains the ins and outs of phishing scams. Show it to your less web-savvy brethren.
posted by dbarefoot at 10:13 PM - 5 comments

Hear the Wind Sing
posted by vronsky at 9:59 PM - 1 comment

Pixish is Closing. Today, Derek Powazek announced on his blog that the collaborative website for creative and design work will close on October 31, openly admitting "We underestimated the 'spec work' issue." [more inside]
posted by pineapple at 9:25 PM - 34 comments

OCTOBER 22 IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!! EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!!!!
posted by chrisamiller at 9:00 PM - 246 comments

Flow of Time is a BBC documentary that "tries to explain time and covers the different ways we have used to understand Time, religion, mathematics, relativity, and quantum mechanics." Part 1, 2, 3, 4
posted by nola at 8:33 PM - 7 comments

This post is all about toilet paper, such as its history, toilet paper art, toilet paper facts, and toilet paper commercials. There's even links to toilet paper museums, detailed facts and scans of toilet paper from Germany and alternatives to toilet paper (both physical and virtual), which is great since finding ways to reduce your toilet paper consumption might just help save the planet or, at the very least, solve The Toilet Paper Problem.
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:00 PM - 14 comments

Flawless Aircraft Emergency Landings (QLYTP). Breatheless reporting aside, it looks like when a pilot can control the landing, these aircraft are tough enough that no one need be hurt. Many more excellent videos in the post-video links, too.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:24 PM - 39 comments

Friedman under attack More than 100 faculty at the University of Chicago, where Milton Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics, are trying to stop the university from putting Mr. Friedman's name on a $200-million (U.S.) research centre. The opponents argue that the Milton Friedman Institute would compromise the academic integrity of the university and serve as a monument to Mr. Friedman's world outlook, which they say has largely been discredited. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu at 7:23 PM - 28 comments

Smile!
posted by miss lynnster at 6:11 PM - 51 comments

He's a ghost, and he writes to us: GhostWriter. In 1992, PBS launched a new TV show designed to teach 7-to-10 year-olds to love reading and writing. The show initially featured a team of 5 characters (Rob joined the team a few episodes later, and by the end there were a few additional characters) in Brooklyn, NY solving mysteries. It had cameos by Julia Stiles, Spike Lee, and Samuel L. Jackson and one of the characters even had her own music video. So what happened to it? Well, it's available on VHS, but has not been released on DVD. Don't worry! There's an online petition!
posted by lunit at 4:49 PM - 39 comments

post a celebrity and i will TRY to tell you a story about them. Amhir "?uestlove" Thompson, drummer for the Legendary Roots Crew regales the crowds at Okayplayer with tales from the life of a professional musician. [more inside]
posted by cosmic osmo at 3:34 PM - 22 comments

NextBus uses GPS to tell you the predicted time of the next bus. Google maps show buses in real time, and you can get updates on your phone/PDA. The coverage is limited to certain agencies within the US, so these other sites might be useful: Hopstop covers subways and buses in NYC, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, DC, and more. (mobile version) Google Transit has many US metro areas in addition to Canada, Europe, and Japan. (previously) Many more locations inside. [more inside]
posted by desjardins at 2:58 PM - 36 comments

Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:43 PM - 45 comments

Internet Overdose Song (SLYT) [more inside]
posted by pearlybob at 1:39 PM - 23 comments

With election season in the US, it's probably hard to get a less than Gung-ho picture of the war in Afghanistan, but this Spiegel Online article paints a dark picture. "Pessimism about the situation has never been so high." High level NATO commanders are using phrases like "Doomed to Fail," "We are trapped," "repeating the same mistakes as the Soviets", military victory "neither feasible nor supportable," "downward spiral." For some it is so dark the only beacon of light would be peace talks with the Taliban. [more inside]
posted by stbalbach at 1:36 PM - 31 comments

Do you miss blasting with your orange and blue space-warping cannons? Surely you miss Companion Cube... Nine months of work by a dedicated modder: NykO18 (and team) has crystallized into what amounts to an epic prequel to Portal, called Portal: Prelude, whose story arc focuses on the "pre-GlaDOS epoch". It's said to have more gameplay than even the original: 8 chapters, 48 challenges, 6 advanced maps and more than 400 lines of speech. [more inside]
posted by tybeet at 12:25 PM - 56 comments

New Year’s Day 2030. A new report from Forum on the Future, Climate Futures (6.7MB PDF), maps out five possible scenarios for how climate change might affect our collective future by 2030. Meanwhile, the WWF has released a report, Climate Change: Faster, Stronger, Sooner (1.65MB PDF) which claims that global warming is accelerating at a faster rate than climate change experts had previously predicted. [Via Gristmill and Disinformation]
posted by homunculus at 12:12 PM - 21 comments

Before They Were UFOs, back when the only flying objects were arrows, birds, and clouds, how did people describe them? [more inside]
posted by not_on_display at 12:00 PM - 51 comments

For nearly 20 years, Chicago has known about police torture of suspects. Torture at the city's notorious Area 2, under Commander Jon Burge, resulted in numerous false confessions in the 1980s, including the men who became known as the Death Row 10. The Death Row 10 case was among the reasons former Gov. George Ryan's called a moratorium on capital punishment in Illinois in 2000 and pardoned four in 2003. Burge, fired in 1993, retired to Florida on his police pension, where he seemed to escape any measure of justice. Until today. [more inside]
posted by scody at 11:34 AM - 45 comments

Portland's got white ones, Austin has yellow ones, Vassar has them in pink. What are they? Community bikes. Colleges, universities, even whole cities are seeing the benefits of offering their students and citizens an alternative to cars, fossil fuels, and parking lots. Want to start a shared bike program in your community? Here's how. (previously)
posted by Toekneesan at 10:03 AM - 41 comments

ChinaSMACK. English China. (Occasionally NSFW)
posted by klue at 8:46 AM - 11 comments

In the 1960s and 1970s Hong Kong had a thriving film industry, dominated by studios such as Cathay Studios. One of Cathay's most fabulous stars was Grace Chang (Ge Lan), referred to by some as the Marlene Dietrich of Hong Kong Chinese cinema. Her greatest hit was The Wild Wild Rose (Ye mei gui zhi lian), based on Bizet's Carmen. The showstopper is her version of Habanera (YT). [more inside]
posted by carter at 8:44 AM - 16 comments

Wooden Paths is a flash game where you solve puzzles to complete bridges connecting two land masses with progressively more difficult levels and new challenges. [more inside]
posted by schyler523 at 7:13 AM - 12 comments

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