The Big Picture has shots from this year’s Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling in Gloucester, England:

In a tradition that dates back at least 200 years, possibly much longer, groups of fearless competitors chase an 8 pound (3.5 kg) round of Double Gloucester Cheese down an extremely steep and uneven hill, with a 1:1 gradient in some parts. Thousands of spectators gather to watch the five downhill and four uphill races, and to celebrate the winners and console the losers afterward. Injuries such as broken bones and concussions are commonplace, but the event continues to grow in popularity. The winner of each race is awarded the delicious round of cheese they were chasing.

Proving that it’s about the artist, not the tools, Jorge Colombo “painted” the 6/1 cover of The New Yorker on his iPhone.

It’s worth checking out the Last Ride trailer over at Twitch for its own sake, but especially if you’ve only seen Hugo Weaving play computer programs or elves to date.

Rearchers are eying 1.6 terabytes per DVD by using gold nanorods. Mmm… nanorods… is there anything they can’t do?

The official trailer for The Road is up (in HD!). Looks grim. Perfect.

Some details on David Simon’s next project, Treme, which will treat Hurricane Katrina as an allegory for the suckiness of the past year or so:

“The fact is that the levees on the canals were substandard, and done on the cheap at an immense profit. Ultimately that becomes a metaphor,” he said. “New Orleans was relying on things that were believed to be genuine bulwarks against tragedy and disaster. People felt that there were similar bulwarks protecting our financial institutions and foreign policy. Now, two years on, we are all essentially in the same boat as New Orleans. Katrina was an outlyer of where we are today.”

(via tmn)

I know I’m late to the party, but I just got around to watching the WolframAlpha screencast and it’s really impressive, and incredibly ambitious. I found myself slack-jawed often enough that I had to go out and find myself an appropriately sized grain of salt. Still, coooool!

The Guy Ritchie / Robert Downey Jr. / Jude Law Sherlock Holmes movie now has a cool HD trailer. Can’t wait. I didn’t know Mark Strong was in this, that’s definitely a bonus.

Usain Bolt lays waste to another world record, this time the 150 meters. Watching the race brings back Olympic déjà vu; total destruction of the field. Here’s the Science of Sport’s take. I wonder if he can score a WR in the 400 too? He’d need to take like 2.5 seconds off his personal best, I think. Michael Johnson thinks he can do it.

P.S. Here’s the super slow-motion replay of his 100m Olympic final again. Even slowed way down his feet spend such a remarkably short amount of time on the ground, and I love watching the clock tick down as he runs past it.

Fantastic Nike commercial featuring a Kobe Bryant puppet heckling a LeBron James puppet over his three championship rings. (via kottke)

The Onion on the ongoing struggle to rebrand The Rock.

Hmm. So do I tag this post “therock” or “dwaynejohnson”?

Phil Gyford compiled a list of all the books from the Metafilter thread What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization within your field) for laypeople? (via waxy)