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The Keyboard Piano

empatterson — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:16:57 -0800

Sure, the site around it is not in English but since Music is a language we can all appreciate, the Keyboard Piano is a ton of fun. (Requires Silverlight)
Hint: alphabetical order makes scales happen.

Oh, and if you check out the links, they have some really funky sounding songs you can try.

This is what Democracy looks like, ten years later

twoleftfeet — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:54:52 -0800

I think that ten years from now, the thing that's going to be written about Seattle, is not what tear gas bomb went off on what street corner, but that the WTO in 1999 was the first of a global citizens movement for a democratic global economy (This is What Democracy Looks Like). Ten years ago tomorrow, diverse activist groups appeared in Seattle to protest perceived globalization/corporatization exemplified by the World Trade Organization. (Wiki) Some more anniversary stuff from KPLU in Seattle, Real Change, and maybe the Teabaggers. Previously: One year after.

Big kids Hotwheels loop-the-loop

allkindsoftime — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:09:48 -0800

Fifth Gear Loop the Loop. (SLYT, in the interest of science) prev 5th gear

Inconceivable!

bardic — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:34:15 -0800

WANTED: EDITOR OF A SUCCESSFUL LIB-LEANING BLOG AND NEWS ORGANIZATION LOOKS TO HIRE A PUBLISHER. Say what you will about the relative merits of Talking Points Memo or whether or not it's the triumphant example of why we don't need "real" newspapers or journalists any longer (previously on Mefi [1] [2]), but it does seem we've turned a corner (or perhaps jumped the shark?) when editors hire publishers instead of the other way around.

Private and Confidential

Artw — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:56:56 -0800

Bush and Blairline-dancing, The Queen on the loo, Marilyn wanking (nsfw). The phototgraphy of Alison Jackson blends the real and the irreal.

How to Think About Science

bewilderbeast — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:35:02 -0800

"Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. Historians, sociologists, philosophers and sometimes scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about how the institution of science is structured and how it knows what it knows." How to Think About Science is a 24-part series from CBC Radio's Ideas, featuring interviews with Steven Shapin, Ian Hacking, Bruno Latour, and others. The streaming audio links on the show's website seem to be out of commission, but direct links to all of the episodes can be found here.

Post Thanksgiving (Just Another Friday) Video Filter

filthy light thief — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:07:41 -0800

Thanksgiving may be over, but you can still join The Beverly Hillbillies for Turkey Day (1963) and (the controversial) Calvin and the Colonel for Thanksgiving Dinner (1961). Both episodes are available on Archive.org, along with another 50 or so episodes of the 274 Beverly Hillbillies episodes, and three more episodes from the 26 episodes of Calvin and the Colonel. Bonus bits: Jerky Turkey [YT] (1945, directed by Tex Avery), and Tom Turkey and His Harmonica Humdingers (1940).

Everyone's On LSD!

jonp72 — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:51:56 -0800

Autistics on LSD Elephants on LSD British Troops on LSD Spiders on LSD Cats on LSD Argentinians on LSD Childhood Schizophrenics on LSD

Art from the heart (and nose, ear, etc.)

Kickstart70 — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:41:38 -0800

CT Scan art - Radiologist Kai-hung Fung takes scans of our innards and makes them outwardly beautiful.

"Donald Sterling Continues To Get Away With Being The Most Evil Man In Sports"

ocherdraco — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:28:43 -0800

The Donald Sterling Rule "Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling lives by his own rules. And the only one that matters, apparently, is this: all bad deeds go unpunished. Over the last six years, nearly two dozen L.A. residents have sued Sterling for engaging in racist housing practices and Jim Crow-style bigotry. In a 2003 deposition, the 76-year-old real estate mogul admitted to paying a former employee to have sex with him in an elevator. Three years ago, the U.S. government charged him with "willful" mistreatment of African-American and Latino tenants, and earlier this month, he agreed to pay the Dept. of Justice nearly $3 million to settle a federal racial-discrimination housing lawsuit, the largest award ever for a case of its kind." So why, asks California's Tenants Together, has the NBA said nothing about Sterling's less than sterling behavior?
Dan Wetzel asks why the landmark settlement has gotten practically no media coverage. Sterling's problems extend to a lawsuit from his former GM, Hall-of-Famer Elgin Baylor.

The landmark lawsuit: United States v. Donald Sterling.

A list of Sterling's misdeeds, from Deadspin.

Moscow Cats Theater

Stewriffic — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:33:04 -0800

I was always taught that cats aren't possible to train; they do whatever they want. But everybody in Russia is used to it. It's just natural to see cats perform tricks.
The Yuri Kuklachev Cat Theatre was founded in 1990 and now has a company of over 120 cats.

Kuklachev: "The authorities thought 'What can a cat possibly say about Soviet power? The only thing a cat can say is MEOW!' It's an international language"

Moscow Cats Theater--meet the actors with and without a tail.
YouTube channel

Patrick Stewart: the legacy of domestic violence

porn in the woods — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:39:47 -0800

As a child, actor Patrick Stewart regularly saw his father hit his mother. Here he describes how the horrors of his childhood remained with him in his adult life.

Uncle Al's Showcase in the Sky

sjuhawk31 — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:13:51 -0800

Al Alberts, beloved Philadelphia broadcaster, singer and composer, has passed away.
Alberts' career began with The Four Aces, a group he founded with fellow Navy officer Dave Mahoney. The group famously recorded "Three Coins in the Fountain," which hit #1 in 1954, and the Academy Award-winning "Love is a Many Splendored Thing." Alberts went on to host Al Alberts Showcase,, a Saturday afternoon show that is credited with helping launch the careers of Andrea McArdle, Sister Sledge, Teddy Pendergrass, and Jarrod Spector. On the show, Alberts regularly sang "On the Way to Cape May." He is survived by his wife, two sons and a grandson.

Please dismantling Tea canister

Taft — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:11:43 -0800

Please dismantling the Tea canister(?). You have only a screwdriver. Japanese skill is NO need to slove this puzzle. Good luck! (Previously)

"Mirabel International Airport ... will turn out to be one of Canada's greatest investments." -- Otto Lang, Transport Minister, 28 Feb 78

crapmatic — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:47:13 -0800

Montréal Mirabel Airport was opened in 1975 at the cost of $2 billion adjusted. Ultimately its tarmac and runway areas alone were to take up 70 km² (27 mi²) of space and would have made it the world's largest airport. The airport never got any busier than Boise Airport is today, and the passenger terminals are now abandoned shells (slideshow). A key factor in the failure was that for 22 years authorities banned all international flights from the much-closer, thriving Dorval Airport, heavily used by locals and business travellers. It didn't help that Montreal was already sliding into decline in the 1970s due to the growth of the Great Lakes and Toronto-based economies and uncertainties about Quebec's political climate. Montreal is no stranger to alleged boondoggles: Olympic Stadium, half-finished during the 1976 Summer Games, spiralled $1 billion over budget.

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji

Joe Beese — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:51:08 -0800

The closing 4 pages are so cataclysmic and catastrophic as anything I've ever done — the harmony bites like nitric acid — the counterpoint grinds like the mills of God...
His work Opus Clavicembalisticum (1930) for solo piano takes between about 3¾ and 4¾ hours to play and consists of three sections, each divided into several movements, and each larger than the last. ... His longest work Symphonic Variations occupies 484 A3-pages of manuscript in three volumes and could take about eight hours to play. - Wikipedia (previously)

Budd Boetticher

vronsky — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:28:15 -0800

Budd Boetticher, Randolph Scott, and the remarkable Ranown Cycle of Westerns. "Boetticher is one of the most fascinating unrecognized talents in the American cinema...Constructed partly as allegorical Odysseys and partly as floating poker games where every character took turns at bluffing about his hand until the final showdown, Boetticher's Westerns expressed a weary serenity and moral certitude that was contrary to the more neurotic approaches of other directors on this neglected level of the cinema." - Andrew Sarris. Hero to the French New wave and early subject of Cahiers du Cinema auteur theory, Boetticher's films are true treasures of American cinema. Martin Scorsese on Ride Lonesome and The Tall T: Clint Eastwood on Comanche Station: Taylor Hackford on Buchanan Rides Alone and Decision at Sundown.
Seven Men From Now: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

Ride Lonesome: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7

The Tall T: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

Comanche Station: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

"Here be Dragons"

adamvasco — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:04:18 -0800

Hadji Muhiddin Piri Ibn Hadji Mehmed, ( 1465–1554/5) was an Ottoman-Turkish Admiral, Privateer, Geographer and Cartographer more commonly known as Piri Reis. In 1521 he finished his Kitab-I Bahriye or Book of Navigation This is an exquisite C17th - C18th revised and expanded version.
( scroll down and click the icons which can then be magnified. ) Marvel at the gold leaf and coloring of the map of the Bay of Salonica or the wonderful map of Rhodes. ( click addittional information button below map to get further information.)
However Piri Reis is more famously known for this map dated 1513 which is one of the oldest surviving maps to show the Americas. In the marginalia are the accounts of the pioneer seamen who have taken part in the discovery of the places shown on the map.
Piri Reis at The Map Room and wiki and related.

The dark side of the internet

jouke — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:23:41 -0800

The dark side of the internet. In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography.
Article in the Guardian.

Scottish brewery launches beer with 32% alcohol content.

Neekee — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:40:21 -0800

'World's strongest' beer with 32% strength launched.
A warning on the label states: "This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost." (from the BBC)
So, who's in?

whole lotta cat!

madamjujujive — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:55:55 -0800

Kitten Kong pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3 - The Goodies, Montreux 1972 Edition. Previously on Mefi: Goodie goodie yum yum! (via coisas do arco da velha - some images nsfw)

the psychedelic hoodoo gonna getchoo...

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:06:52 -0800

Just ease on into one of the most laid-back grooves to ever weave its way through a New Orleans junkyard, and join the procession as the estimable Dr. John is led through the rusting automobiles on a mule. After that, you'll be ready to enter the Inner Sanctum of Deep Mystic Hoodoo, with the good Doctor as your intoning, night tripping guide through the Zu Zu Mamou hallucinations. You won't be the same, afterwards...

Will Self reviews fast food

hydatius — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:54:13 -0800

"Real Meals": Will Self's (relatively) new fortnightly restaurant column reviewing high street food outlets for The New Statesman. Thus far: McDonald's, KFC, Indian Restaurant, Starbucks, Subway.