"The OhMiBod vibrator is a whole new way to enjoy your iPod® or any other music player. Everyone loves music. Everyone loves sex. OhMiBod combines music and pleasure to create the ultimate acsexsory™ to your iPod." Keep in mind that if you try to use it with Damien Rice or Bread, your girlfriend will leave you. posted by jbickers at 1:48 PM PST - 47 comments
Military Weaponry for Kids Is a Flickr photoset of scans from a Chinese children's coloring (and character art practice) book. posted by jonson at 10:56 AM PST - 36 comments
Wii have a problem... documenting in pictorial form the latest trend in gaming violence. Namely, that of damaged electronics due to Wii related activities. Apparently the phenomenon is so wide spread that Nintendo has had to go and make an official safety information guide for playing with the Wiimote. posted by Effigy2000 at 3:17 AM PST - 40 comments
this body is a prison (google video link)
Go behind the scenes of media coverage of the West Bank and enter a world where terror is a daily reality. Against the backdrop of this politically tumultuous environment there emerges a deeply layered story of a nation fractured by walls both physical and internalized.
Professor of Psychology Khalil Issa discusses the existential dilemmas faced by Palestinian youth as they attempt to develop a sense of self in a land carved by war. posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 12:52 AM PST - 2 comments
MTBGuru is a new site that enables bikers, hikers and runners to upload GPS info, along with photos and comments, from their routes that get mashed up with Google Maps to create an ever-expanding trail resource. Mostly Bay Area now but that is changing. posted by fenriq at 11:13 PM PST - 9 comments
The FBI did not mention Mayfield's faith in its press release issued following his release, and reiterated some of an OIG report's findings on their investigation in a follow-up. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner also issued a statement praising the report, which did find that the Patriot Act was not misused. There is some controversy about what the report says about Mayfield's faith, and parts of the report were redacted before it was declassified. posted by owhydididoit at 5:23 PM PST - 21 comments
"Gold is one of the few elements you can find just lying on the ground. This one-ounce pure gold nugget was found in Alaska around 1890 by Hogamorth Marion, while on a trip to sell shoes to Eskimoes. Seriously."
Jewcy asks The Big Question-- Why Are Atheists So Angry? with Sam Harris and Dennis Prager. Email exchanges on the topic--and if you can get past the incredibly loaded and one-sided question, really interesting. posted by amberglow at 2:28 PM PST - 245 comments
A Nazi Christmas Since its most ancient days, the Christmas holiday has been continually reshaped to serve commercial, social, and political ends. These Nazi-era Christmas materials, including an Advent calendar and an essay on how to turn Christian holidays into National Socialist ones, come from the German Propaganda Archive of the Calvin College library. Of course, the Allies also enlisted Christmas in both pop culture and propaganda with cards, V-Mails, andposters. posted by Miko at 11:51 AM PST - 21 comments
Wordie: social networking... for words. Catalog your favourite (or least favourite) words — make any variety of word lists, and connect to other users using the same words. Silly, but fun! posted by Robot Johnny at 11:50 AM PST - 12 comments
Let's Say Thanks is a website that allows you a simple means of delivering a card to a member of the US Armed Forces serving overseas. While some of the pre-written sentiments will not meet with many Mefite's approval, you can just type your own. Of course, you may think that this is a bit cheesy, but maybe sharing a little kindness with someone who risks their life everyday (for whatever reason) isn't such a bad idea. posted by BrodieShadeTree at 10:26 AM PST - 75 comments
Is King Tut's tomb cursed? On February 16, 1923, Egyptologist Howard Carter, his financier George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, and Herbert's daughter Lady Evelyn Herbertentered the just-discovered tomb of the Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamen. Newspapers sensationalized the discovery, and told of a curse. Herbert dies in a Cairo hospital at 2 AM on April 5, 1923, only several months later. Supposedly, right at that moment, lights in Cairo go dark, and his dog at his estate back home in England howls and also drops dead.
So now, when scientists perform a CT scan of the body, strange stuff happens: “one researcher's vehicle nearly hit a child. Then a huge storm hit. The CT machine, usually reliable, wouldn't work at first. And when researchers finally began the CT scan, one scientist came down with such a violent coughing attack he had to leave.” Discoveries made? King Tut was 5'10' an 18-20 years old when he died. He probably died of gangrene from a broken femur, not with a blow to the head as previously thought. His head is cut off, his body is cut in two, and his wrist, shoulder, and elbow joints are disconnected. Oh, and his penis is missing. posted by bkudria at 8:21 AM PST - 52 comments
Danny Sveinson is The Rock and Roll Kid. The 11 year old guitarprodigy from Surrey, BC, has already played the Apollo Theatre in New York, jammed with Les Paul, and opened for April Wine and Colin James. They say he's the next Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix. They say he's the next guitargod. His parents say he has to be in bed by ten. How does Danny keep himself grounded under the pressure of fame and the spotlight? He watchesbirds. posted by debralee at 4:56 AM PST - 48 comments
Petroleum from Pond Scum: Dr. Isaac Berzin, founder of GreenFuel Technologies, is working on a prototype that uses algae to convert power plant emissions into biofuels. Good news: It would only take a bioreactor twice the size of new Jersey to supply the entire US with its petroleum needs. posted by tehloki at 12:25 AM PST - 40 comments
How can one bit actor have hundreds of millions, perhaps over a billion adoring fans and yet be a virtual unknown in his native land? Ask Mark Rowswell, aka DaShan. In 1988, Rowswell won a scholarship to study Chinese at the prestigious Peking University. More than twenty years later he has one of the most recognizable faces in China. He's been awarded and investigated for his work in film, on stage, in television, in commercials and for charity. So just who the heck is he? posted by Pollomacho at 9:29 PM PST - 57 comments
My Misio - a site for a pet crochet bear cat. Some nice pics in the diary section and a vid, too. {It be Flash} posted by dobbs at 6:51 PM PST - 8 comments
Jerome Murat A short video of a performance by Jerome Murat that is part Circ du Soliel and one of those human statues you see in Paris, New York and Florence and places like that.
Amazing how music and pantomime can be so effective. posted by melkozek at 3:03 PM PST - 13 comments
Save a Child, Save the World On November 29, 1944, Dr. Alfred Blalock made an incision in the chest of young Eileen Saxon. He was about to perform an operation suggested by a dyslexic, nearly deaf woman and perfected by an African American. Assisting in this madness were twomen who would also become giants in their field.
Cardiac Surgery has progressed to the point that having a Congenital Heart Defect isn't always fatal. In fact, there are enough adults living with heart defects that there is an organization supporting Adult Chongenital Heart Defect research and education.
While there is a great movie about the operation and Thomas covers it in his book, we still don't know one important fact: Did Blalock rub the toe that morning? posted by Wildcat3 at 12:29 PM PST - 9 comments
City in FlamesTwenty Five years ago the City of Lynn Massachusetts experienced its second great fire. Devastating several downtown industrial buildings dating to the rise of the Shoe industry. All of which were undergoing redevelopment. While nowhere near as big as the Great Boston Fire of 1872, or the various Chelseafires, the tragedy of the story is the empty wasteland that still sits after all these years. Today the Boston Globe dug up several articles from their pre Web vaults. The Lynn Museum has an exhibit, and the Lynn Library will have a slideshow. posted by Gungho at 12:25 PM PST - 9 comments
At the beginning was the noosphere. The existence of a "sphere of ideas", beyond the "sphere of life" (biosphere) and the "sphere of matter" (geosphere) was apparently first postulated by the pioneering Russian-Ukrainian geochemist V.I. Vernadsky. Vernadsky thought not only that the biosphere had entirely reshaped the geosphere, but that the burgeoning noosphere of interconnected thought would ultimately change the biosphere just as much.
French jesuit and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin took the concept and ran with it...(more inside) posted by Skeptic at 12:24 PM PST - 24 comments
Meet Tavin Dillard Tevin is a fine young man,and a patriot . He owns his own business, and enjoys recounting the events of the day, for anyone who is so inclined to listen. sit a spell, but don't spook the boy, or else. posted by nola at 11:34 AM PST - 6 comments
This Film is Not Yet Rated (SFW trailer) and a hilarious (audio NSFW) version.
(2:05) "How does one follow-up an Oscar-nominated documentary (2004's Twist of Faith) about sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church? If you're Kirby Dick, you deliver another exposé of institutionalized misconduct by taking direct aim at the ratings system of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)." Interviews with the director, Kirby Dick: 1,2,3. Not available on DVD until January '07, but the Amazon Reader Reviews are worth a look see. posted by spock at 10:04 AM PST - 21 comments
"This is a major innovation...and in places that are affected by high winds and earthquakes, it looks like it's going to make a big difference." And it only adds about $15 to the cost of an average 2000 sq. ft. house - the Bostich HurriQuake nail. posted by jaimev at 9:15 AM PST - 42 comments
Diary of a Collapsing Superpower - "Seventeen years ago, the Berlin Wall fell, and two years later the Soviet Union broke apart. More than 1,400 minutes published earlier this month in Russia from meetings that took place behind the closed doors of the Politburo in Moscow read like a thriller from the highest levels of the Kremlin. They reveal Mikhail Gorbachev as a party chief who had to fight bitterly for his reforms and ultimately lost his battle. But in doing so, he changed the course of history and helped bring an end to the Cold War." posted by Gyan at 7:48 AM PST - 32 comments
He is probably best known for Pick of the Pops, which reached a mainstream audience, but was also a champion of rock music. Along with John Peel and Tommy Vance, Fluff was the last of the three great DJ's I grew up listening to on late night radio. I'm too young to remember his Radio Luxembourg shows, but The Saturday Night Rock Show on Radio 1 was compulsory listening, part for the music and part for Fluff's unique catchphrases and jingles, particularly Sign of the Swingin' Cymbal (rm) which became his theme on all his radio shows. He was also the inspiration behind the Harry Enfield character Dave Nice. We'll miss you Fluff. Not 'arf! posted by bap98189 at 3:48 AM PST - 29 comments
The Torontoist Cover Song Catalogue.We tried to avoid some of the more obvious cover hits (like Alien Ant Farm's recent chart-topper "Smooth Criminal") and we stuck with actual recorded covers rather than including those only played in concert. You'll notice that most of these cover versions are pretty chilled-out, which is a byproduct of looking for tracks that were eclectic, odd and often very different from the originals. posted by soundofsuburbia at 3:47 AM PST - 31 comments
Bows and Arrows is an innovatively styled but bleak short movie. Don't make the same mistakes the Caretaker did! [via] posted by tellurian at 11:29 PM PST - 2 comments
You are an asteroid that has seen many of your brethren decimated by the evil spaceship in the original Asteroid's game. The loss of your rock-fellows has hurt and scarred you deeply. Your rocky heart has ached for vengenance.
But some residents have children serving in Iraq! A homeowners association in Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is anti-Iraq war. (picture of offending wreath).
Described as "the View meets the Daily Show and takes a right turn," The America Show, Episode 1 and Episode 2 are pilots that are being floated for possible TV broadcast. Weigh in on their potential. The driving force behind the show is conservative comic Julia Gorin, who also recently launched Political Mavens as "a celebrity-studded conservative answer to Arianna's Huffington Post." posted by madamjujujive at 11:27 AM PST - 245 comments
"In the monitor booth the sound technician listens to the rehearsal through a loudspeaker, and in cooperation with maestro Ellington, brings the music to its highest sound perfection before transmitting it through the electrical circuits to the recording machine!" Record Making With Duke Ellington (1937). [YouTube] posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:45 AM PST - 11 comments
Jobster is a 'web 2.0' answer to the perplexing puzzle of searching for employment or employees online. It allows you to tag yourself by skills, rank those skills and interact with other folks around the globe about where they work. Their search feature culls listings from every major job listing site on the net into one place as per your interests. It is a very clever design and offers some very intriguing features that, though they feel a bit 'beta-like', are already worth the visit if you are, like me, looking for work. I already like it a whole lot more than the many alternatives. posted by BrodieShadeTree at 9:07 PM PST - 39 comments
David Cockrum has passed on. The cause of death was apparently complications from diabetes; he died peacefully, in his sleep. Comics fans would know him from a number of projects, amongst them Giant Size X-Men #1 where he helped introduce Colossus, Storm and Nightcrawler to the world, his run on the Legion of Super Heroes, and possibly his self-published work The Futurians. You can find some nice retrospectives on his career and what he did for Marvel and for DC Comics. posted by mephron at 4:49 PM PST - 27 comments
Put a little commerce in your art with Lulu's Titlescorer, a widget that analyzes your book title's chances of gracing the top of the New York Time's bestseller list. posted by Iridic at 2:04 PM PST - 69 comments
Chris Booth Sculpture: "Booth always creates his sculptures for specific sites. They are inspired by and honour each site’s local history, mythology and cultures and require intensive research, and consultation with local indigenous people. Usually gigantic in proportion, these phenomenal sculptures are amazing feats of engineering and balance ..." (via Ursi's Blog) posted by madamjujujive at 8:55 AM PST - 17 comments
If you're one of those types who could never get into so called "fine art" because it didn't feature enough images of women having sex with cephalopods & crustaceans, then Tabitha Vevers is the artist for you. posted by jonson at 11:09 PM PST - 82 comments
Infinite Mario Brothers Did you love Mario Brother 3? Would you like to love playing it forever? With randomized maps and worlds? Oh, yes, you would. posted by boo_radley at 7:15 PM PST - 29 comments
Salt: Not just a condiment, salt is a major force shaping our world. In Australia, what do you get when you combine ancient salt-pans with European farming practices? In one state alone, we're losing a football field an hour to the salinity crisis. What do you farm when all you have is salt? posted by ninazer0 at 3:29 PM PST - 33 comments
What's your favorite watering hole? Link to a real watering hole. In Africa. Live. With video and sound. And real animals. Best viewing times are dusk and dawn, Africa time (It's +8 hours from CST). Learn more about the feed here; click on "Nkorho Stream" in the upper left corner.
Second link mentioned previously in a MeFi comment
here.
First link via; second link via. posted by Doohickie at 1:11 PM PST - 38 comments
Youtubes of Dawkins lecturing from Lynchburg, VA, reading excerpts from 'The God Delusion' in Pt.1 & an entertaining Q&A session in Pt.2; in related news, Sam Harris elucidates the dangers of religious moderation... posted by Rufus T. Firefly at 1:10 PM PST - 250 comments
Astronomy 161 - an introduction to Solar System Astronomy. These are a set of lectures in progress now at Ohio State University. All materials are available on line - audio resources (direct or podcast through iTunes), movies and lecture notes. If you are interested in where you live, these beautifully delivered lectures are excellent. posted by grahamwell at 4:29 AM PST - 7 comments
The Peacock : "We Challenge you to find a more Beautiful, Enlightening, and Inspiring Website on the Internet!! Please CLICK your Mouse HERE!" posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:58 PM PST - 58 comments
Clean water is a right: "The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published its annual report on human development. It denounces the world's complacent disregard for such unglamorous subjects as standpipes, latrines and the 1.8m children who die each year from diarrhoea because the authorities cannot keep their drinking water separate from their faeces. The study is both coldly analytical and angry..." posted by kliuless at 11:11 AM PST - 18 comments
Classic UK Hardcore Breakbeat videos. John Tab, a Washington DC-area Drum and Bass DJ, has been scouring you tube for classic UK hardcore and jungle videos from the early 90s and offering them up with commentary. posted by empath at 6:34 AM PST - 52 comments
Blighted Homeland. "From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were dug and blasted from Navajo soil, nearly all of it for America's atomic arsenal. Navajos inhaled radioactive dust, drank contaminated water and built homes using rock from the mines and mills. Many of the dangers persist to this day." A series of articles and photo galleries examines the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo (previously discussed here.) [Via Gristmill, BugMeNot.] posted by homunculus at 1:27 AM PST - 13 comments
BlogPulse keeps track of the most popular videos on the web, many of which have been featured in the blue recently. Are we trend setters or trend followers? posted by leftcoastbob at 4:46 PM PST - 28 comments
Study turns human genetics on its head. "The genome is like an accordion that can stretch or shrink . . . so you have no idea what's normal. We have to think of genetics in an entirely different way. We're actually more like a patchwork of genetic code than bar codes that line up evenly. Everything we've been taught is different now." posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:37 PM PST - 28 comments
Ask yourself: Do you play banjo when you are alone? Have you played banjo first thing in the morning? Are you the butt of amillionjokes?
If you answered yes to any of these questions you may have a serious problem. Fortunately there's help: Banjo Players Anonymous. via posted by Turtles all the way down at 6:52 AM PST - 52 comments
How's my niceness? Log on to... Apparently - there is not enough 'nice' in the world (not this nice, or this one) - but the generic 'nice', when someone just does something nice. These guys (shocking website - but anyway, I'm being nice), are trying to do something about it.
Its fairly simple - their 'nice team' will roam around and give out tokens to people that they see being generous, polite, courteous etc and then, you'll be able to track these tokens on the web, and watch the spread of 'niceness'. I give it a week or two before someone registers nastytokens.com. posted by mattr at 5:22 AM PST - 15 comments
Iraq: The War of the Imagination. "Anyone seeking to understand what has become the central conundrum of the Iraq war—how it is that so many highly accomplished, experienced, and intelligent officials came together to make such monumental, consequential, and, above all, obvious mistakes, mistakes that much of the government knew very well at the time were mistakes—must see beyond what seems to be a simple rhetoric of self-justification and follow it where it leads: toward the War of Imagination that senior officials decided to fight in the spring and summer of 2002 and to whose image they clung long after reality had taken a sharply separate turn." By Mark Danner. [Via Tomdispatch.] posted by homunculus at 12:26 AM PST - 83 comments
Maybe it's not really news because no one was killed, but you'd think that more people would notice when a massive explosion in suburban Boston totals 60 buildings, knocks out windows for a half mile around, knocks people out of bed in the middle of the night, and registers on the Richter scale 30 miles away. posted by alms at 7:41 PM PST - 44 comments
Israel recognizes same-sex marriageswn performed abroad. But even heterosexual Israelis are still often forced to marry abroad by Orthodox rabbis. Israel has partialy recognized same sex civil unions since 1994.wp The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, and South Africa are the only other nations to legalize same sex marriage; however, most European nations recognize some form of civil union.wp
Gay Palestinians often seek refuge in Israel since they may be tortured or killed by the Palestinian Authority; this continues dispite the fact that Jordanian law, as would be applied in the west bank, does not criminalize homosexuality. Israel sadly does not often grant gay Palestinians refugee status, forcing them to remain hidden within Israel. posted by jeffburdges at 6:18 PM PST - 37 comments
This just in... FOX is reportedly shooting a two and a half hour pilot for a show whose working title is This Just In, which is described as being The Daily Show for conservatives. Joel Surnow, co-creator of "24" is behind the show and has been quoted as saying " [t]he way I look at it, almost every comedy show or satire show I see uses the same talking points against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The other side hasn't been skewered in a fair and balanced way." Oh really? posted by Effigy2000 at 1:14 PM PST - 139 comments
The King's Kunstkammer - en vogue in Renaissance Europe, kunstkammers were status symbols of kings, vast collections of art, curiosities, and scientific and natural objects. This is a partial reconstruction of the Royal Danish Kunstkammer, established by King Frederik III in the mid-1600s. Exploring the collection's 250 objects offers insight into princely preoccupations of the era. posted by madamjujujive at 11:03 AM PST - 13 comments
Karolina Sobecka has made animations of a running tiger (Wildlife) and violent cartoon hijinks (Chase), which she projects onto city landscapes from a moving car. (Embedded Quicktime.) She's got a site full of her other projects, including a ton of nifty commercial work. posted by hydrophonic at 10:08 AM PST - 16 comments
Let's Go To the Mall!! Could Robin Sparkles be the patron saint of Black Friday?
Ok, so maybe her myspace page is just marketing for a CBS sitcom, but her video is one of the funniest, most accurate (and too damned catchy for its own good!) 80's video parodies in recent memory. The show's not bad, either. Probably the best comedy not on NBC right now. posted by ericbop at 5:55 AM PST - 41 comments
Talking Turkey Thanksgiving for those in the $1.5 billion turkey business is as insane as Black Friday for retailers and Christmas for ministers. Ever wonder what a day in the life of getting your favorite bird is like? By the way, your average run-of-the-mill Butterball ain't the only game in town anymore. Do you prefer free-range or antibiotic-free turkey? Fine. How about the Heritage Turkey: a behemoth that boasts the ability to actually fly, looks like a B-1 Bomber on the wing, and has darker, more succulent gourmet meat. It never hurts to have any pictures, either. Happy Thanksgiving! posted by PreacherTom at 5:09 AM PST - 26 comments
A blog dedicated to American sports uniforms may not sound that enthralling but when you discover it was conceived and written by Paul Lukas of Inconspicious Consumption fame it suddenly becomes a hell of a lot more attractive. For easy access into this world of minutiae try starting here. posted by meech at 8:45 PM PST - 12 comments
The Trash Princess: Why Americans love to hate Paris Hilton. "You don’t need to share Osama bin Laden’s view of America to see that Paris mirrors us at our contemporary worst. But something still doesn’t compute: Why, if Paris says so much about us, do Americans—not just college professors and the commentariat but celebrity watchers and tabloid junkies—hate her so much? And why, if she is so offensive, is she so ubiquitous?" posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 5:21 PM PST - 140 comments
Thiago's mom, Natalice Olson, initially was leery of the project, even though the only real danger from the fusion machine is the high voltage and small amount of X-rays emitted through a glass window in the vacuum chamber -- through which Olson videotapes the fusion in action.
Stan Meyer invented a water powered car that estimates showed could travel from one US coast to the other on 22 gallons of water. He shows the in car in operation in this old news clip. So what ever happened to him? He died after eating at a restaurant on March 21, 1998. An autopsy report showed the cause of death to be poisoning. posted by banished at 2:40 PM PST - 163 comments
Recombinant Activated Factor VII --the Food and Drug Administration said that giving it to patients with normal blood could cause strokes and heart attacks... the Army's faith in the $6,000-a-dose drug is based almost entirely on anecdotal evidence and persists despite public warnings and published research suggesting that Factor VII is not as effective or as safe as military officials say. ... posted by amberglow at 2:08 PM PST - 17 comments
Murder Update: "Syria's Lebanese allies are trying to undermine the Hariri investigation from within, and are expected to escalate their efforts very soon, maybe even this week." posted by kliuless at 11:19 AM PST - 8 comments
Fritz Haber's story is the story of the double edged sword of science. He won the Nobel prize in 1918 for his groundbreaking work in breaking the nitrogen cycle for Germany's WWI efforts, but it's been estimated that two out of every five people now living would not have been born if it weren't for artificial fertilizers created using his process. He also spent much of the war developing poison gases; first chlorine (after watching its first use, Haber's wife committed suicide) and later Zyklon B (the cyanide insecticide later used against his fellow Jews in concentration camps). He died alone and in poverty in Switzerland. But the lessons of his life haven't quite been forgotten. posted by Plutor at 5:07 AM PST - 17 comments
Ottobib does what it sets out to do very well: take a list of ISBN numbers, the international standard book number system, and generates citations for you. It's as if it is automatically making bibliographies. (ha! get it!) Currently supporting the MLA, APA, and Chicago Manual of Style citation formats. posted by ztdavis at 4:19 AM PST - 28 comments
Wierd tanks: Tank design has pretty much come to the point where all tanks are alike. They are mostly 60 ton machines with single turret with a 120-125 mm main gun. A number of different approaches has been tried through history, tough. One is the the heavy multiturreted Soviet T-35 from the 30s. Another take is the Swedish S-tank from the 60s, which did away with the turret altogether. A bit more conventional, but pretty much a one-nation tailor-made design is the Israeli Merkava, which is balanced heavily in favour of crew survivability with the engine in front and the ability to carry along a few infantrymen. The strangest of the bunch is the Russian WWI Czar tank, but just a tad impractical, standing 9 meters tall. posted by Harald74 at 3:36 AM PST - 39 comments
Film-maker Shane O'Sullivan has spent the last three years investigating the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968.
He has uncovered new evidence that at least three CIA agents were in the hotel the night he died. Tonight we [BBC's Newsnight programme] show the findings and ask could CIA agents have had something to do with the murder of RFK?
The Harvard University Worklife Wizard , created by an international team of journalists, economists, and statisticians, is Barbara Ehrenreich's wet dream. It's also a fantastic resource that has flown pretty much under everyone's radar. The Worklife Survey drives the constantly-revised, constantly-refined Salary Comparison Tool, which is always hungry for more data about employment from around the world. And when they say they want data from everyone, they mean it-- there's even a VIP Salary Checker that pits the wages of the Yankees against those of the Red Sox. (Plus if you take the survey, you can apparently earn a chance to win a trip to South Africa). Personally, I love the Workplace Horror Stories (and there's a competition there too). I can't look at a nail clipper the same way now. posted by yellowcandy at 12:22 PM PST - 26 comments
What Makes a Muslim Radical? Gallup polls 9000 Muslims in 9 countries and separates the Moderates from the Radicals. Most of the results are counter to "Conventional Wisdom". The most important stuff is on the last page of 5, including the methodology for deciding who was radical and who was moderate (in small print). Let's all get out our copies of How to Lie With Statistics and see if this survey is fatally flawed, shall we? posted by wendell at 11:00 AM PST - 41 comments
I Know I'm Not Alone: 10 minute embedded video interview of Michael Franti regarding his jaunt to Iraq (and Palestine/Israel), originally broadcast on CBC's The Hour. posted by edgeways at 9:30 AM PST - 16 comments
Michael ("Cosmo Kramer") Richards loses his mind. On stage at the Laugh Factory in L.A. last Friday, Richards flipped out at heckler and launched into a stream of racist taunts, all caught on video. The Seinfeld Curse strikes again. posted by jonson at 9:05 AM PST - 449 comments
Galactus is Coming! Galactus is coming to eat your planet, and nothing can be done to stop him! There is only one way to be saved! posted by brownpau at 8:42 AM PST - 28 comments
It's the season once again for the annualdolphindrives in Japan, the appallingly cruel (see "Les massacres" video) practice of herding into shallow waters and brutally slaughtering these highly intelligent, self-aware and emotional creatures. There are those trying to stop it, and should you be so inclined, you can sign their petition. posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:33 AM PST - 62 comments
Winners of an international poster competition to raise awareness about prostitution (probably NSFW). Quanto "wants to arouse new reflections to bring forward a topic that tends more and more to hide and become unconspicuous," by "attempting to explore the meaning of the word "prostitution" both from a moral and a sexual standpoint." 200 more entrants. the via is also teh NSFW . posted by Rumple at 12:13 AM PST - 26 comments
How much is a penny worth today? Oh, about $0.0105465. Of course, it costs more than that to produce them. Is the penny worth keeping? The old copper penny had bactericidal qualities. You could drop a copper penny in a glass of wine to discern its nature. They were the subject of various high-school chemistry experiments. According to some, they were excellent conductors of luck. And the new zinc pennies? Their melting point is lower, and they don't have the same ring to them. Some people like them, others like to eat them. What are they good for? Not much. The time has come to abolishthepenny. posted by sfenders at 9:26 PM PST - 75 comments
Roger Corman's Fantastic Four movie had been lambasted by many as the absolute worst in superhero moviedom, at least until Elektra and Catwoman came along. Shelved after production, it's hard for the casually-interested nerd to find without having to deal with bootleg video dealers at cons. Thankfully, somebody put it up on the internet in handy Flash video: Part One | Part Two. posted by beaucoupkevin at 2:29 PM PST - 45 comments
The Rhythm & Blues Review is a one+ hour Google video clip of a 1955 Apollo show featuring Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughn, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Cab Calloway -- and at 1.05, Miss Rhythm herself, blues diva Ruth Brown singing her signature song, Teardrops From My Eyes.Ruth Brown sadly passed away on Friday. [More on Ruth Brown] posted by madamjujujive at 10:30 AM PST - 15 comments
The largest archive of Nazi prison camp records, which has been closed for 50 years, is going public in May 2007. The International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany consists of 16 miles of files in six nondescript buildings in the German spa town and contains the fullest record of Nazi persecutions in existence. This past April Germany finally agreed to open access to the archive, ending a nasty diplomatic dispute between the United States and Germany. posted by ericb at 10:14 AM PST - 19 comments
Missing presumed tortured More than 7,000 prisoners have been captured in America's war on terror. Just 700 ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Between extraordinary rendition to foreign jails and disappearance into the CIA's "black sites", what happened to the rest? posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 6:59 AM PST - 22 comments
"I'm not a Christian, and I have my doubts about being Jesus'
descendant,' says garlic farmer Toyoji Sawaguchi. "Somehow I just can't picture Jesus, a great
man, as my ancestor.' Bucolic Shingo, formerly Herai, a tiny village in northeast Japan, is believed by some to be the final resting place of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.Photos of His grave can be found here. posted by maryh at 12:34 AM PST - 37 comments
With hundreds of die hard PS3 fans camped outside Metreon, site of the San Francisco Playstation store and home of the official US launch for the Playstation 3, PC Gamer magazine showed up and presented one die-hard PS3 fan with arguably the hardest choice he'll ever have to make; to give up the right to own (or be gifted) a Playstation 3 for the next three years in exchange for a free $7,500 custom-built Falcon PC and "a better gaming experience." Here's what happened and here's the signed contract. posted by Effigy2000 at 8:30 PM PST - 39 comments
This Israeli process could turn the gigantic oil shale deposits of the US into the largest energy production in the world, outstripping the Middle East's role and dramatically altering the world economy to be even MORE US-centric. posted by Kickstart70 at 6:55 PM PST - 39 comments
"I feel guilty because I have friends that are working really hard to get into television or acting and I'm just sitting here having not done anything more than enjoy playing with gadgets."
Peter Dench is a London photojournalist whose portfolio features work on some fun and quirky themes. He won the 2004 World Press Photo for his series called drinking of england. Some other series, like nudestock, are NSFW. posted by madamjujujive at 8:09 AM PST - 19 comments
Jamiel Terry, the gay son of charismatic anti-gay activist and Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, wrote an article for Out magazine about growing up in a fundamentalist household. Randall Terry responded to his son's article. Interviews with Randall and Jamiel about the exchange. posted by Falconetti at 10:18 PM PST - 106 comments
Poop-Freeze™ is a specially formulated aerosol freeze spray that, upon contact, forms a frosty film on dog poop (or cat poop) to harden the surface for easy pick-up. posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:24 PM PST - 45 comments
The men who ran the Republican Party in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years were a group of weirdos. Together, they comprised one of the oddest legislative power cliques in our history. And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do.
Ballmer: Linux Users Owe Microsoft. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle yesterday, that Linux infringes upon his company's intellectual property. Does this signal preparations for all out war against the open source community? Microsoft's recent acquisition of Novell was seen as an ominous sign. Or perhaps it's a sign that user friendly versions of linux such as Ubuntu threaten sales of Microsoft's problematicnewVISTAOS, scheduled for release Nov. 30th for businesses and Jan. 30, 2007 for consumers? posted by Skygazer at 12:00 PM PST - 79 comments
Owl Multimedia Use your music to find new (Creative Commons licensed) music. OWL analyzes MP3s you feed it, from the specific part of the song you want to match, and will give you similar music to listen to. Requires a painless registration. posted by livii at 10:39 AM PST - 4 comments
The UBS Bank calculated how long it takes an average worker around the world to earn enough to buy a Big Mac. Workers in Tokyo were the fastest:
Tokyo 10 minutes,
New York 13 minutes,
London 16 minutes,
Hong Kong 17 minutes,
Paris 21 minutes,
Moscow 25 minutes,
Rome 39 minutes,
Beijing 44 minutes,
Manila 81 minutes,
Jakarta 86 minutes.
Is this a fair comparison? Is it something that will change people's perspective about the rest of the world? posted by PetBoogaloo at 9:24 AM PST - 53 comments
FridayFlashFun Test your skill with the mouse wheel. Instructions in French, but roll your mouse wheel forwards and back to climb the ladder, then post your best time. Sorry, but doesn't seem to work on a Mac with mousewheel for some stupid reason posted by derbs at 8:36 AM PST - 25 comments
Is the web fuelling a crisis in politics? Matthew Taylor, Blair's chief strategy advisor has commented "as a citizen" that the "net-head" culture of political criticism is fuelling a crisis in politics where the populace is "increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet capable of self-government." One of his chief targets is the blogosphere, because he says bloggers are like teenagers - demanding, but "conflicted" about what they actually want. posted by talitha at 8:09 AM PST - 37 comments
"A Console To Make You Wiip: How the Nintendo Wii will get you emotionally invested in video games." Exploring the Wii from the aspect of William James' essay, "What is an emotion?" James contends that all emotions are rooted in one's physical state, e.g. goosebumps when spooked, and blushing while embarassed. Can the overt physicality of playing the Wii make it a more emotional experience? posted by frecklefaerie at 7:42 AM PST - 31 comments
Stalin's death camps killed more people than Hitler's. America's army in 1939 was smaller than Poland's. The casualties of the 1944 Warsaw uprising were the equivalent of the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre, every day for two months.
Michael Hughes takes cheap souvenirs, and then takes photographs with them superimposed over the real thing. A Flickr photo set.
via Wired's Table of Malcontents posted by Bugbread at 5:47 AM PST - 30 comments
New "Hi - tech" passport cracked. Standards for the new passports were set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in 2003 and adopted by the waiver countries and the US. The UK Home Office has adopted a very high encryption technology called 3DES - that is, to a military-level data-encryption standard times three. However they used non-secret information actually published in the passport to create a 'secret key'. That is the equivalent of installing a solid steel front door to your house and then putting the key under the mat. posted by adamvasco at 3:49 AM PST - 51 comments
Avalanche transceivers have become an essential piece of technology for people who spend time in avalanche terrain. Beacons, as they're also known, operate on an international standard frequency and can be used to find other transceivers (hopefully still attached to people) buried under snow, giving rescuers a chance to find victims before they suffocate. [more inside] posted by mistermoore at 3:08 PM PST - 19 comments
Milton Friedman has died. One of the most famous economists to come out of the Chicago school, his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom was a straightforward challenge to the predominant Keynesian model that government intervention was frequently necessary to prevent market failures, arguing instead that the way to true political freedom was through economic freedom. He was a devout monetarist and although conventional wisdom conflates conservatism with laissez-faire economics, he described his own philosophy as liberal in the Enlightenment sense of the word. His 1980 book Free to Choose, written with his wife Rose in conjunction with the PBS series of the same name, explained in layman's term his philosophy of how a truly free market works for the benefit of society. posted by Doofus Magoo at 11:02 AM PST - 122 comments
Only 35 days left until the Global Orgasm. Remember that you're doing it for Peace On Earth or Purity Of Essence or Projection Of Energy or whatever. Don't forget to visit the GlobalO Blog for more information. posted by forrest at 11:01 AM PST - 51 comments
When Everybody Called Me Gah-bay-bi-nayss - an ethnographic biography of Paul Peter Buffalo, son of Ojibwa medicine woman and grandson of the great chief Pezeke. Buffalo died in 1977, but spent his last dozen years chronicling his heritage and the things the elders told him. Be sure to check out the entry on John Smith, a wonderful character more popularly known as Wrinkle Meat. posted by madamjujujive at 10:48 AM PST - 8 comments
Muslim UCLA student tasered for not having ID "It was beyond grotesque," said UCLA graduate David Remesnitsky of Los Angeles, who witnessed the incident. "By the end they took him over the stairs, lifted him up and Tasered him on his rear end. It seemed like it was inappropriately placed. The Tasering was so unnecessary and they just kept doing it."
Jazz Pour Tous vous a presente Charles Mingus (via google video) Today I viewed the Time Magazine "allTIME 100 Recordings" (Nov13). I rarely spend much time with such lists because they rarely are more than fanlists, and this one is no exception. The Holy Three Albums of jazz were included, but no room for Charles Mingus or Eric Dolphy. So here, via a circuitous route that included this PopMatters review of a new release of Mingus material, I offer this video of the Mingus Sextet in Paris (Johnny Coles is absent). (more inside) posted by beelzbubba at 7:44 AM PST - 19 comments
And the reason we chose Kazakhstan was because it was a country that no one had heard anything about, so we could essentially play on stereotypes they might have about this ex-Soviet backwater. The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist -- who believe that there's a country where homosexuals wear blue hats and the women live in cages and they drink fermented horse urine and the age of consent has been raised to nine years old."
"you belong in Hell" --that's the message being taught in Kearny, NJ, History teacher David Paszkiewicz's classes. ... At first Paszkiewicz denied he mixed in religion with his history lesson and the adults in the room appeared to be buying it, LaClair said. But then LaClair reached into his backpack and produced the CDs.
At that point Paszkiewicz remarked, according to LaClair, "Maybe you're an atheist. ... (more here, including a link to some audio of it all) posted by amberglow at 3:47 PM PST - 84 comments
In the grand Village Voice tradition of slagging off musicians for being white and/or harmless, VV scribe Chris Ott writes an irrationally antagonistic critique of Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy, in an ostensbile concert review. Oh snap! Meloy's girlfriend Carson Ellis sticks up for him in the comments section! posted by Bizurke at 2:16 PM PST - 98 comments
Macaca... or whatever my name is... S.R. Sidarth writes post-election column about his role in the Jim Webb/George Allen Virginia Senate race. In case you were interested... "The hairstyle inflicted upon me by two friends late one night also became newsworthy; for the record, it was intended to be a mullet and has since grown out to nearly the appropriate length." posted by jonp72 at 1:19 PM PST - 25 comments
Hannes Kater is the drawing generator. Order now for a drawing of your choice, drawn to your text specifications. No charge! posted by signal at 10:56 AM PST - 10 comments
Tip-Tip-Top of the Line It's pretty sad when $255,000 and 3.7 seconds for 0 to 62 is the bottom of the heap. That's the Ferrari Fiorano, joined in its exclusive club by such beauties as the Lamborghini Murciélago LP640 ($319K, 3.4 sec). The group is led by the amazing Bugatti Beyron, which clocks the 0 to 62 in an astonishing 2.5 seconds and hits 188 mph in only 17 seconds; the damage: only $1.4 million. Here are more pix and models, just in case you haven't drooled enough. posted by PreacherTom at 5:07 AM PST - 43 comments
"I" is for "Infidel" "Associated Press and New Yorker [Q&A] writer Kathy Gannon delivers an intimately observed history of Afghanistan from 1986 to the present. The longest-serving Western journalist in the region, Gannon overturns simplistic understanding of the country's politics in this eye-opening talk."
[more inside] posted by kirkaracha at 5:04 PM PST - 17 comments
Ready for '08? Survey USA is. They've done polls in all 50 states, with sixty different match ups. You can only view one paring for free, mine showed Condi Rice beating Barak Obama with something like 462 to 76. However, a large community site wouldn't have too much trouble iterating through all the options, at least that's what they figured at myDD. Of course, most of this is just name-ID at this point. posted by delmoi at 4:26 PM PST - 52 comments
Good news for the world's forests. "...the researchers, using new analytical techniques, calculated that in the last 15 years forests had actually expanded in 22 of the 50 countries with the most forest, and that many others were poised to make the transition from deforestation to reforestation in the coming decades." Unfortunately, countries like Brazil and Indonesia aren't doing so well..... posted by storybored at 2:42 PM PST - 31 comments
Compassionate Slavery. A representative of the World Trade Organization proposes foreign corporate "stewardship" of workers in Africa from the moment they are hired until they die, describing it as "the best available solution to African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market theory". posted by Pastabagel at 12:30 PM PST - 24 comments
Tim Tagaris, a "netroots blogger", and David Sirota, a DC policy wonk turned blogger, both went to work for the Ned Lamont for Senate campign. Now they give their explanations for why Lamont lost. Regardless of your feelings about Lamont and Joementum, these fascinating inside stories provide insight into the internecine struggle for the future of the Democratic Party. posted by orthogonality at 11:16 AM PST - 43 comments
Kant. Modern thought begins with Kant yet his work is dense and hard to understand. Perhaps this set of lectures, some 12 hours in total from the University of Glasgow will help. Titled 'Kant's Epistemology' they cover most of the subject matter of the Critique of Pure Reason - an extremely ambitious task. They are free and appear to be available only for a limited period. Perhaps worth downloading now - to savour when you have an few idle years. posted by grahamwell at 10:13 AM PST - 91 comments
Remember Third Voice, the controversial browser plug-in that let you add public notes to any website? Enough webmasters complained and it was shut down in 2001, after only two years in operation. Maybe attitudes have changed, because the folks at Trailfire are trying this idea again. Available for Firefox or IE. posted by Who_Am_I at 8:25 AM PST - 42 comments
From Broadband to Broadway Video bloggers are the newest phenomenon to go from online to the mainstream. For example, Amanda Congdon, former host of Rocketboom, has a new gig as an ABC contributor. In fact, major movie and TV studios are increasingly looking to the Web for new talent for both on and off-line projects. Here's a list (with pictures) of the up and comers. posted by PreacherTom at 5:03 AM PST - 19 comments
Among the quotes from "Ever Since the World Ended," a fake documentary about the 186 survivors left in SF following a slate-wiping pandemic. No idea if it's any good, but the documentary approach makes it creepy, because it doesn't feel far from home. posted by cloudscratcher at 11:27 PM PST - 61 comments
Nerds Gone Wild Bad movies. Bad TV. Bad actors. Bad blogs. LAN parties. High scores. Mixtapes. Role playing. Stalking. Pirating. We care. And we discuss. posted by fenriq at 10:44 PM PST - 13 comments
Australiafilter: The Australian High Court handed down its ruling today on the constitutionality of the Howard Government's new Industrial Relations laws, called 'Workchoices', deeming them constitutional by a vote of 5 to 2 (full text of the decision here). Two dissenters, Justices Michael Kirby and Ian Callinan, argued that upholding the laws changes the very nature of the Australian federal system and is "in contradiction of, what was intended and expressed in the constitution by the founders." Whilst bloggers and academics debate the nature of the laws and how fair or unfair they are, the simple fact now is that the laws are here to stay unless there is a change of Government at the 2007 federal election. Find out what it means for you as an employee from both the Howard Government's view and the Union's point of view so you can know your rights at work and decide for yourself. posted by Effigy2000 at 5:19 PM PST - 24 comments
R.I.P. Doris Self, the world's oldest video game competitor. In 1983, she achieved a world record score of 1,112,300 points on the arcade game Q*Bert. Two years later, her record fell, but she was encouraged to continue playing by Pac-Man record holder Billy Mitchell, who delivered a Q*Bert arcade machine to her door. Doris would play Q*Bert five nights per week from 1-3:00 AM in the morning as an alternative to taking pills for sleeping. She continued playing Q*Bert competitively well into 2006. posted by Otis at 9:19 AM PST - 20 comments
Bobby Fischer vs. the Union Bank of Switzerland: Chess master doesn't like his Swiss bank unilaterally closing his account. Letters go back and forth, lawyers get involved. Fischer posts all letters sent and received on his website.
[Link goes to coral cache, original site is hosted at Geocities Japan. via namics weblog] posted by slater at 10:12 PM PST - 42 comments
Fans of Flight Simulators and Michinima might be familiar with the adventures of Bill and John. If you're not, download episode 1 along with the subtitles and and familiarize yourself with a very funny piece of machinima, even more impressive because it's not only in Lock On: Modern Air Combat, but in French to boot. Well they're back, winning Best Picture at the Machinima 2006 film festival, The Adventures of Bill Et John II. Browse the rest of the nominees and winners on the Machinima.com festival page. posted by Lord_Pall at 7:52 PM PST - 7 comments
There's an interesting piece over at This American Life (titled "What's in number"). It touches on the previously discussed Lancet study and gives a better explanation of the methodology use. Be sure and check out Act II, where Marc Garlasco, former chief of high-value targeting at the Pentagon, visits Iraq to see some of the actual sites he helped plan to hit. posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:46 PM PST - 24 comments
Medianera is the spanish word for the wall that separates two buildings. When one of those buildings is knocked down, the remaining wall often carries impressions left behind by the now-demolished living space. Flickr pools: [1][2]. posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:30 PM PST - 28 comments
Grandma, we only need you to fill it up to this line. Levy County, Florida, in the Good Old US of A is requiring drug tests of its library volunteers, most of whom are between 60 and 85 years of age.
“It’s not like we are a high-risk group for coming in drunk or high or stoned or whatever.”
This has, of course, put a dent in their volunteer pool (scroll down to "Municipalities"). Moody said that when the county signed the contract with First Lab to provide drug-testing a year ago, urine samples were the only means considered.
"We didn't know that there were other options," Moody said. posted by iurodivii at 1:58 PM PST - 57 comments
Conditions of the Working Classes in China is an essay that presents a Marxist perspective on the changes taking place in China. The author addresses the tensions between workers and employers, antagonisms between city workers and impoverished migrants from the countryside and the political fights between those who support the moves towards a market economy and those convinced that Mao had it right all along. posted by jason's_planet at 12:45 PM PST - 31 comments
The Google Book By V.C. Vickers, 1913. FAR! FAR away, the Google lives, in a land which only children can go to. It is a wonderful land of funny flowers, and birds, and hills of pure white heather. posted by caddis at 5:02 PM PST - 38 comments
The Bohlen-Pierce scale is a musical scale which has thirteen notes spread evenly across one and a half octaves, so that the highest note is three times the frequency of the lowest. Compare with the western twelve-tone scale, which has twelve notes spread evenly across one octave, where the highest note is twice the frequency of the lowest. Both are tempered scales, and both have close approximations to 'just intonations', meaning you could play the scales by plucking a string clamped at certain ratios like 1/2, 1/4, 5/3, etc.
One of the independant co-inventors of the scale, John Pierce, was also a famous electrical engineer best known for inventing the communications satellite. You can listen to Pachelbel's Canon(midi link) rewritten in this scale. posted by PercussivePaul at 12:46 PM PST - 45 comments
When Jack Williamson published his first story, Isaac Asimov was eight years old. Seventy-three years later, his novella, "The Ultimate Earth," won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Easily the longest career in science fiction, and one of the most distinguished, came to a close yesterday: Williamsondied at the age of 98. (Boing Boing, Locus.) posted by mcwetboy at 9:09 AM PST - 21 comments
was there just a second ago... Cop Watch LA, a police watchdog group, posted the video on YouTube, said organizer Joaquin Cienfuegos. Cienfuegos said the video was shot by a neighbor of Cardenas with a cell phone camera. The neighbor gave it to Cardenas' family, who then gave it to Cop Watch, according to Cienfuegos. posted by Bravocharlie at 12:40 AM PST - 82 comments
Roger's Mushroom's Visual Key is an image map of major fungi genera that drives a gallery/field guide for a large number of species. It's fairly useful for identifying mushrooms, and the images are for sale. There's also a Mushroom Kitchen, which basically filters the database for edible and choice species, and includes a big page of recipes.
Ellen Willis was a writer and critic who wrote for the Voice, the Nation, and Dissent, among many others; her NYU homepage and Wikipedia entry link to a number of essays and reviews, all of which are worth your time. She didn't make me a feminist, but her writing gave me much of the intellectual framework of my feminism and throughout the depressing retreat of the '80s reminded me there was still humor and hope. (From her Wikiquote page: "My deepest impulses are optimistic; an attitude that seems to me as spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.") She died yesterday, of lung cancer, at the absurdly early age of 64. I'd like to quote from her "Escape from New York" (Village Voice, July 29-Aug. 4, 1981), an account of a bus trip across the country that shows her inextricable mix of the personal, the political, and the just plain human: [more inside] posted by languagehat at 6:43 PM PST - 15 comments
So you’re in a platoon with 30 or so guys. One of those guys is the NFL player who gave up a multi-million dollar contract to be a hero in Afghanistan. He’s all broad shouldered NFL muscle. You can’t mistake him for anyone else in the platoon, much less an Afghani. So how do you put three bullets in his forehead by mistake? posted by Huplescat at 5:46 PM PST - 64 comments
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. With just a week to launch, the PS3 and Wii are almost here and there is plenty of help out there if you want to try scoring one on launch day. For the Wii, read up on this guide, or try this one for the ps3. The Wiiseeker and PS3seeker will tell you exactly how many units your closest Target, Walmart, and Gamestop will have ready to sell. Ask MeFi also offers help: 1, 2, 3. And the latest MeFi Project helps those that are sticking it out at Console Camp. posted by mathowie at 9:48 AM PST - 85 comments
A Concrete Solution to Pollution With concerns over global warming and pollution control reaching an all-time high, an Italian company has developed an interesting solution. It is called TX Active: a concrete that literally breaks down pollutants in the air. The effects are significant: 'In large cities with persistent pollution problems caused by car emissions, smoke from heating systems, and industrial activities, both the company and outside experts estimate that covering 15% of all visible urban surfaces (painting the walls, repaving the roads) with products containing TX Active could abate pollution by up to 50%.' Even more significant is that the cost is only 30% over that of normal concrete. Remarkable. posted by PreacherTom at 8:15 AM PST - 22 comments
Htting the Jackpot A destitute post-World War II vet living in a shelter will receive $11,000, thanks to a man whose hobby it is to search old government claims' records. Tomorrow is officially Veterans' Day, formerly Armistice Day and best remembered by this poem written by
this field surgeon. The line between Memorial Day and Veterans Day seems to have blurred over the years. Unfortunately, there are ever more veterans to remember, including those who have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan profoundly injured. posted by etaoin at 7:18 AM PST - 24 comments
Everyone by now has heard the story of Oscar Schindler, but he wasn't the only one saving Jews in the dark era of WW II. This story was kept secret for many years, until the last member of the Leitz family died. posted by pjern at 2:11 AM PST - 21 comments
Quad [flash] It's like Tetris without gravity. Rows erase vertically as well as horizontally, and what's left moves towards the center instead of down. [via The Ultimate Insult] posted by mediareport at 9:30 PM PST - 26 comments
A PORTION OF THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN REMOVED Not only did CNN edit out a portion of the Larry King Live show from last night for the west coast and later showings, they also edited their transcripts and have sent DMCA takedown notices for the copies on youtube. What was so controversial? Just Bill Maher claiming that Ken Mehlman is gay, something Mehlman neither confirms nor denies. posted by delmoi at 9:26 PM PST - 114 comments
The Heart Attack Grill
proclaims itself to be the "Home of the
Double Bypass Burger". Its motto is
"Taste worth dying for!" Its waitresses wear "naughty nurse" costumes. It's
pretty clear they're trying to
compete with
Hooters, and who can say? They might succeed. But not if the
Center for Nursing Advocacy has
anything to say about it. The Center claims that 54% of British men have sexual fantasies
about nurses, and therefore a restaurant in Tempe, Arizona
is a threat to the nursing profession, which could lead to "killing
thousands if not millions" around the world. posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:26 PM PST - 85 comments
Finding Species is an organization that integrates science, photography, and design to create standardized methods of photo-documenting plants and animals, for use in print and web field guides, educational exhibits, and conservation campaigns. posted by owhydididoit at 6:12 PM PST - 2 comments
A Photosynth Tech Preview has been released from Microsoft Live Labs & University of Washington. While we discussed this project at length earlier this summer, it's now a public ( well, Win/IE only ) prototype with sample datasets, if you'd like to see it for yourself. Technical details for those interested. posted by arialblack at 3:13 PM PST - 28 comments
One of only ten poems published during Emily Dickinson's lifetime, the poem beginning "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" continues to be reproduced in conflictingversions.
Emily Dickinson Writing a Poem lets us leaf through images of Dickinson's original manuscripts and correspondences concerning the poem. According to the site, this documents surrounding this poem offer "the only example of Emily Dickinson responding directly to another reader's advice." At one point, Dickinson apparently struggled to decide between at least three alternatives of the much-contested second verse. Also included is a history of the poem's early printings, providing an opportunity to note how many publications have ignored Dickinson's idiosyncratic punctuation. posted by treepour at 11:44 AM PST - 14 comments
Ed Bradley has passed away. We are seriously mourning his loss at NPR. He was the ultimate professional, sharp as a nail, and a damn good friend. posted by bluedaniel at 9:51 AM PST - 82 comments
That sure didn't take long. 2 days after the mid-term elections, Tom Vilsack announces he is running for president. And he's a video-blogger. Inspired by Amanda? posted by cjoh at 9:29 AM PST - 14 comments
Last Sunday was the 5th November. Often called Bonfire Night in the UK. That's the evening Brits build a bonfire and set off fireworks. Why? To celebrate the foilng of the dastardly Gun Powder Plot of 1605.
Some people also drink alcohol. Maybe this soldier did before he launched a firework from his bottom. He's not well. A nomination for Darwin for 2006? Anyone got any other nominations for aforesaid award? posted by Mister Bijou at 9:01 AM PST - 36 comments
At a certain age, young people get seemingly uncontrollable urges. But, in accordance with God's plan, these urges must be controlled. posted by punkfloyd at 8:28 AM PST - 26 comments
De Architectura, known also as The Ten Books of Architecture, is an exposition on architecture by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. Originally in Latin, here it is translated into English. posted by nthdegx at 8:25 AM PST - 15 comments
Quantum Encryption Scientists have created an unbreakable cypher through the use of quantum physics, where a photon is observed and used as the basis for an encryption key. "Uncertainty is the principle we exploit. It's impossible to find the key, because the photon can be measured once and only once. An eavesdropper can't measure it, and so can't get the key." Props to Heisenberg! posted by PreacherTom at 7:25 AM PST - 49 comments
Moon flatulence...amateur astronomers have seen puffs or flashes of light coming from the moon's surface. Although most professional observers have upheld the conclusion that the moon was inactive, such sightings have kept open a window of doubt. A gas release itself would not be visible for more than a second or so, but the dust it kicked up might stay suspended for up to 30 seconds. Nature article (subscription). posted by 445supermag at 7:24 AM PST - 9 comments
The music video for the song "Heart Made of Sound" (YouTube) by the California band Softlightes is remarkably captivating; every word of the lyrics is a unique stop motion animation of household (as well as less common) objects laid out to form the word. Direct QT download here. Via posted by jonson at 12:10 AM PST - 6 comments
Pyongyang Rocks! If you are a band playing any kind of rock, including heavy metal, then you can participate in 'ROCK FOR PEACE' in North Korea. What a blast! posted by Yakuman at 4:39 PM PST - 30 comments
"Typically, fast-food workers who handle drive-through calls are multitasking, wearing headsets to take orders while filling drinks or bagging food. It's a high-pressure job and employees often are more concerned about rushing through orders than trying to sell more food or being polite to customers... The call-center employees, who earn about $8.50 an hour, are trained to urge customers to add items to their order and are timed on how long each call takes." posted by reklaw at 1:29 PM PST - 55 comments
Apes of Wrath In October, they gained similar rights to humans, now it seems monkeys are plotting to take over the earth. Their bid for global domination has been happening right before our eyes; it's just a matter of connecting the dots. Check out this ominous timeline of escalating monkey aggression, drawn from real news reports. The evolution will not be televised. posted by P-Soque at 1:28 PM PST - 14 comments
Neanderthal Lovin’! New research from evolutionary scientist Bruce Lahn suggests that humans and the now extinct Neanderthal species mixed, and humans snatched up a valuable brain gene in the process. (The gene, MCPH1, and Lahn, discussed last year on MeFi) This comes on the tails of yet another new study providing morphological evidence that there was nontrivial interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals in Eurasia, despite the fact that Neanderthals may have been genetically closer to chimps than humans. Contrary to popular imagination, though, the Neanderthal species had bigger brains and sophisticated intellects, at least roughly on par with that of human beings. The gene regulates brain size during development, but its exact utility to humans is still unknown (and controversial). The origin of this gene and the question of Neanderthal mixing will soon be answered more definitively by the, just launched, 2 year project to map the Neanderthal genome, headed by Svante Pääbo (profiled in recent Smithsonian and Wired articles). Pääbo calls Lahn’s study "the most compelling case to date for a genetic contribution of Neandertals to modern humans." posted by Jason Malloy at 1:13 PM PST - 26 comments
John Humphrys is a militant grammarian: "We all care about language. Your concern may be different from the young hoodie's." On the other hand, he may have a point: "The simple fact is we cannot afford to be careless with our language, because if we are careless with our language then we are careless with our world and sooner or later we will be lost for words to describe what we have allowed to happen to it." (via) posted by anotherpanacea at 12:13 PM PST - 36 comments
Nip White Poppies in the Bud - Edmonton Journal Article The White Poppy emerged as a symbol of peace in th e1930's, and has been sold by a women's peace group and activist store in Edmonton, Canada for the past several years. This year, The Royal Canadian Legion has ordered a cease and desist, saying that the sale of the poppies is "illegal." Every year the Legion sells red poppies for Remembrance Day. This is an article from the local major daily newspaper offering views from both sides of the debate. posted by livingsanctuary at 11:00 AM PST - 23 comments
Traie Meangh is the name of an abandoned open-air swimming pool built directly between the ocean & the cliffs along the coast of the Isle of Man. Constructed in 1899, it operated until 1990, surviving briefly near the end as a fish hatchery. This Flickr photoset is the only collection of images I could find that do justice to the juxtaposition of sunny/nature setting & creepy/abandoned/industrial vibe that the place gives off. posted by jonson at 12:06 AM PST - 17 comments
Physics for Future Presidents is a class taught at UC Berkeley by Physics professor Richard Muller. It's a class specifically for non-physics majors and teaches the real world results of the sometimes impenetrable math involved in university physics. After every lecture, you should come away with the feeling that what was just covered is important for every world leader to know. I just sat through the entire hour and 13 minute nukes lecture and was riveted. posted by quite unimportant at 6:06 PM PST - 25 comments
The Danish Road Safety Council is a private association of authorities and national organisations in Denmark. The number of member organisations is currently 42. The Council has existed since 1935. The Council works to increase public road safety through information and traffic education. We aim for the public to gain knowledge and understanding of the aspects of road safety. The Council works to sustain road safe conduct by means of campaigns, consulting and the production of instruction blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
This movie was made by the Danish Road Safety Council and aims to draw attention to speed signs and speed limits in Denmark. (embedded movie, nsfw) (direct movie link) posted by Wet Spot at 5:18 PM PST - 11 comments
Chief Wana Dubie is the Libertarian candidate for State Representative in Missouri's 150th District.
He has a marijuana leaf tattooed on his forehead and once painted bullseye on his roof so the 'government could find him.' After a 5-year sentence for growing marijuana, he's running for office and with hopes for a 2008 bid for governor: Dubie vs. Blunt. posted by F Mackenzie at 12:46 PM PST - 17 comments
Transit of Mercury again. here Transit of Mercury again. Today -- and not for another seven years or so -- Mercury passes between the Earth and the Sun, shwoing up a speck-like black circle. But don't look. Starting times, real-time visual, ways to see it and another caution are here. rotoman posted by rotoman at 6:17 AM PST - 40 comments
Italian police impound the Bolzano Museum of Modern Art's toilet that flushes to Fratelli d'Italia. Prosecutors said the anthem "should never be open to ridicule." posted by jeffburdges at 4:54 AM PST - 25 comments
Walk It is a website for planning walking journeys. It gives you a map and directions for the best route, and info on distance, walking time, calorie burn and even CO2 potentially saved by avoiding the car, taxi or bus. London only, at present, alas. posted by nthdegx at 3:34 AM PST - 20 comments
The Monumental is My Sickness: a newly translated 1979 interview with German sculptor Arno Breker. Extremely revealing about art, memory, Nazism, and the troubling life story of "Hitler's Favourite Sculptor". For context, read this critical review of a recent exhibition of Breker's work. More Arno Breker resources, including many photos: (in French); the museum of Arno Breker (in German); Wikipedia entry. via posted by Rumple at 1:02 PM PST - 5 comments
This video about the history of petroleum industry propaganda used old archived footage found on the WayBackMachine. It shows some ridiculous propaganda videos from the past and leads us to the campaigns that the oily, slick PR-types and marketers are using today. It's hard to believe that companies like Ford Motor Company and ExxonMobil still get away with funding these industry front groups. posted by jacob hauser at 12:50 PM PST - 9 comments
Twenty years of Macintosh - a well done retrospect about the Apple Macintosh presented in a series of posters, annotated with excellent topical links for further reading. posted by loquacious at 11:42 AM PST - 32 comments
Awake, My Soul is a new documentary on Sacred Harp singing, an American musical tradition that's strange, beautiful, and very much alive. Previously discussed and beautifully explicated in this post. posted by Miko at 11:12 AM PST - 13 comments
Raft to the Future: An article about the weirdness of physical models of the universe, how that weirdness correlates to the inherent incompleteness of mathematical systems, and how time itself can emerge at the fringes of these incomplete models. posted by knave at 4:32 AM PST - 46 comments
Afterlife marriages in remote China "To ensure a son’s contentment in the afterlife, some grieving parents will search for a dead woman to be his bride and, once a corpse is obtained, bury the pair together as a married couple." (NYT article) posted by dhruva at 4:43 PM PST - 22 comments
US Military Papers open fire on Rummy. Tomorrow, the Army Times -- and all other Military Times papers, including Navy and Air Force Times -- will run an editorial calling for Donald Rumsfeld to tender his resignation or be fired, due to his gross incompetence in handling the Iraq quagmire. posted by lazaruslong at 2:01 PM PST - 70 comments
Climate change denial gets a sort of semi-mainstream platform in the UK. The author, Christopher Monckton, seems to be a colourful figure. Now that all the major political parties accept that it's time to do something about climate change, is this a last ditch effort by 1980s right wing relics to stave off the inevitable? Or are we going to be hearing a lot more of this kind of stuff, post-Stern Review (previous)? posted by Mocata at 12:58 PM PST - 17 comments
Ethical Realism. Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman (formerly of the Heritage Foundation) make a bipartisan attempt at a more realistic foreign policy, based on prudence and an understanding of others' interests, instead of a utopian belief in democratization. "It seemed to us that in [foreign policy] at least, the United States was almost coming to resemble some Latin American countries of the past, where rival hereditary political clans of 'Conservatives' and 'Liberals' clashed bitterly and even launched savage civil wars with each other - but in terms of real policy were virtually indistinguishable and equally wrong." [more inside] posted by russilwvong at 9:22 AM PST - 13 comments
Should a politician's "artistic endeavors" come into play when voters go to the polls? George Allen thinks that parts of his opponent, Jim Webb's, novels are demeaning to women and contain depictions of incest. Also, Republican candidate for Texas Comptroller, Susan Combs, is being accused of writing porngraphy because of excerpts like these from a romance novel she wrote 15 years ago. And they're not theonly politicians who've written naughty things. posted by eunoia at 7:26 PM PST - 40 comments
The 50 Worst Video Game Names Of All Time. This is no joke, there are some real stinkers here which show that people who market games never, never realise that people might actually have to ask for them in shops. Some of these are actually unpronounceable. [via] posted by feelinglistless at 1:51 PM PST - 80 comments
Blacklisted! The bankruptcy of the liberal Air America Radio Network is old news. What's new is a leaked ABC memo to affiliates (.pdf original) listing 90 corporations and major advertisers that stipulated that their ads not be aired during the broadcast of Air America content.
Is there any hope that radio or television news in the United States can report stories that do not uniformly support the goals and viewpoints of the S&P 500?
There are of course, alternative models. Is it time for a PBS Newschanel? posted by washburn at 9:59 AM PST - 58 comments
US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud View the most popular words in presidential speeches, from 1776 to 2006. Simply sliding the bar from year to year makes it easy to see trends over time. (via Crooked Timber) posted by afu at 9:57 AM PST - 27 comments
Newsfilter: U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons "The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods that their captors used to get them to talk...the government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14 detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees' experiences are a secret that should never be shared with the public."
Previously: (1)(2) posted by StopMakingSense at 9:45 AM PST - 50 comments
Who needs a fence when you have webcams? The state of Texas now has a virtual border watch online and is asking for your help spotting illegals crossing the border. It looks like Arizona has a similar program as well with pimped out ATV's. Let the hunt begin.
Warning: The Texas site seems to require IE, an ActiveX plugin and registration. posted by itchylick at 5:17 AM PST - 16 comments
I'm sorry. But if print-and-cut decorations for your penis don't qualify as best of the web, then what does? I'm serious. Where else would this even be possible? posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:52 AM PST - 31 comments
Now they tell us. Neocon hindsight is 20/20. War architect Richard Perle on invading Iraq, 2002: "We have no time to lose, and I think the president understands that and it's probably taken too long already, but I don't think it'll be much longer... Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder.... Now, it isn't going to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either." Four years later: "If I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies'... Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have." posted by digaman at 3:27 PM PST - 105 comments
Pizza in Three Dimensions "Every few years, a product comes along that completely changes its category. As the iPod has revolutionized the way people interact with music; as cell phones and wireless internet access has altered the way they communicate, so, too, will the way they approach eating change with the introduction of Pizzacono, the first dramatically new way to consume pizza in recent memory." posted by sportbucket at 1:30 PM PST - 92 comments
ObitFilter: Adrienne Shelly, New York film and theatre actress and director, died on 1 November 2006 of unknown causes. A longtime "next-big-thing", Shelly's early performances in Hal Hartley's films (most notably Trust) are cherished by fans of 1990s independent films. She is survived by her husband and three-year-old daughter. posted by pxe2000 at 10:33 AM PST - 30 comments
Newsfilter: Bush and America are now perceived to be more dangerous than Kim Jong-il according to an international opinion poll published by the Guardian Newspaper. Perhaps more interesting than that, it shows that only 1 in 4 people in Israel think that Bush has made the world safer - a fairly small percentage for a country that is traditionally one of America's staunchest allies when it comes to national security... posted by Mave_80 at 9:41 AM PST - 90 comments
Before Al Franken started calling Rush Limbaugh a big fat idiot, he did a big fat Mick Jagger impression. Enjoy. posted by punkfloyd at 9:13 AM PST - 27 comments
50s and 60s Album Covers.Archive volunteer and resident video guru, Eric Graf has amassed an amazing collection of novelty and children's records from the 50s and 60s. He brought a stack by the other day to be scanned. Check out how these covers make you want to rush to your phonograph to play the record. [via Bedazzled] posted by soundofsuburbia at 7:21 AM PST - 7 comments
Ortho-Evra Birth Control Patch Has Inconvenient Death Side Effect Ortho-Evra is a faddish, convenient birth control option in transdermal patch form, which has lured women by promising no-worries birth control, not to mention nice manageable periods or even no periods at all. In my local newspaper, I noticed a tiny news brief about the class-action lawsuit going on right now, and thought it was worth posting. It's not really new news--the first cases came out about a year ago. A year ago Ortho-Evra added to the list of side effects. Previously healthy women are suffering strokes--and it is well-known that doctors don't always report problems as patch-related when in fact they are. No surprises...the FDA estimated that 118/100,000 of users would experience blood clots and circulation problems related to the drug (this was double Johnson & Johnson's rate) before they approved the patch anyway back in 2001! They also estimated that the risk would increase drastically for women whose first birth control experience was with the patch See page 43 of the second Medical Review in the FDA report. Many apologies if I'm the last to know. posted by Fisherkitty at 2:58 AM PST - 61 comments
Arrest in real-time abuse case. "An undercover police officer in Toronto's child exploitation unit, who says he's seldom surprised what he sees any more, was shaken to the core Sunday when a suspected pedophile he was chatting with on-line allegedly began sexually assaulting a preschooler and sending images of the attack over the internet to him in real time." Detective Constable Paul Krawczyk: "My heart just started going, sweating, and I felt like throwing up." Police tracked down and arrested the man within an hour and a half. posted by russilwvong at 6:09 PM PST - 71 comments
Ted Haggard, one of the most prominent evangelical pastors in the nation, resigned today as president of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations that he carried on a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute. He also steps down as pastor of of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates, saying he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations." posted by ericb at 3:43 PM PST - 1823 comments
Dandelife. Q: "Why would I want to keep my biography on the Internet?"
A: "Stories are best shared, don't you think?" [from the about page]
Dandelife.com describes itself as a "social biography network." It allows you to construct an annotated timeline of your life, add photographs (it works with Flickr, with which is shares design elements) and links. Example here; via anh-minh.com. posted by jokeefe at 11:15 AM PST - 12 comments
First official goatse payment card. In which a guy gets a goatse image put on his credit/debit/payment card. Yes, it links to an image of the card, no it's not as bad as you think, yes it's PSFW (probably safe for work). posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:54 AM PST - 71 comments
Mexican Day of the Dead, only with a twist: in Pomuch, in the Mayan area in Southeastern Mexico, Mayans celebrate their dead by digging out their remains, and cleaning them. Photos here. The regular Day of the Dead of the dead festivities have been discussed previously on MetaFilter here, here, and here. For those of you who may want to practice, this is a story en español. The link to the pictures might be NSFW. posted by micayetoca at 5:09 AM PST - 21 comments
The Polling Place Photo Project is an experiment in citizen journalism that intends to collect photographs of every polling place in America next Tuesday. posted by coudal at 3:51 AM PST - 19 comments
The Holocaust Cartoon Contest results are in and the winner is Moroccan cartoonist Abdellah Derkaoui, who won $12 000 for his effort, "depicting an Israeli crane piling large cement blocks on Israel's security wall and gradually obscuring Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem." The contest was launched in response to the Danish cartoon controversy (previously discussed), with the intent of testing the limits of freedom of expression, so please resist the urge to riot - YHBT. 204 of the entries are now on display. posted by mek at 1:46 AM PST - 69 comments
Sketch Furniture, aka Furniture Made With Frickin' Lasers. Swedish designers use motion capture technology to draw chairs and tables with light in mid-air. Their sketches are then built out of plastic by a laser into real pieces of furniture. Honestly, either one of these things would amaze me. I'm starting to like living in the future. (via bb) posted by Riovanes at 9:09 PM PST - 23 comments
African dust storms [pic] have been suspected of causing fish-killing red tide in the Caribbean, but also of mitigating the effect of hurricanes. Now analysis of images from NASA's MODIS satellite have revealed the Bodélé, a region of the Sahara not far from Lake Chad, as the source of more than half the material that fertilises the Amazon rainforest. posted by ernie at 8:39 PM PST - 10 comments
Revisionista monitors news websites and detects when articles change. The versions are viewable and the changes are highlighted. Some edits are miniscule, others are quite interesting. A Recommended Revisions list yields all manner of edits. Also on the News Sniffer site, Watch Your Mouth monitors the BBC's 'Have Your Say' website and detects when comments get censored. posted by thisisdrew at 3:08 PM PST - 11 comments
Awakenings. Conservative (Pajamas Media) Blogger John Cole (NOT Juan Cole) writes as if awoken from a trance:
In short, it really sucks looking around at the wreckage that is my party and realizing that the only decent thing to do is to pull the plug on them (or help). I am not really having any fun attacking my old friends- but I don’t know how else to respond when people call decent men like Jim Webb a pervert for no other reason than to win an election. I don’t know how to deal with people who think savaging a man with Parkinson’s for electoral gain is appropriate election-year discourse. I don’t know how to react to people who think that calling anyone who disagrees with them on Iraq a “terrorist-enabler” than to swing back. I don’t know how to react to people who think that media reports of party hacks in the administration overruling scientists on issues like global warming, endangered species, intelligent design, prescription drugs, etc., are signs of… liberal media bias.
Next week in red and blue. Majority Watch uses a new, automated polling technology to track the 60 most competitive House races, displaying them in an interactive map of all the House districts. They are currently predicting 240 Democratic seats, and a solid Democratic trend. Political junkies should also consider Congressional Quarterly's excellent flash-based predictions (211 D, 207 R, 17 too close) and Electoral Vote, which compiles hundreds of House and Senate polls. The Senate is considered a toss-up by both of these sites. posted by blahblahblah at 10:49 AM PST - 43 comments
I pity the 'do! Would Mr. T really be as powerful a force if he were wearing a construction helmet, raver sunglasses, and a handlebar mustache? Now the world can know. posted by Alt F4 at 9:59 AM PST - 17 comments
41 lbs in 90 days Man discovers that World of Warcraft makes him oblivious to everything in the outside world. Man puts keyboard stand over his exercise bike. Man loses forty pounds in three months. Whether or not that's a healthy rate to lose weight, we'll find out later. posted by talldean at 8:54 AM PST - 41 comments
Save Studio 60! They did it with Arrested Development and they did it with Firefly. They did it with Freaks and Geeks and they did it with Sports Night. They're working to preemptively stop them from doing it again to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. posted by cjoh at 8:18 AM PST - 142 comments
The McDonogh library has no books. The stalls in a girls’ restroom have no doors. Fights break out daily. About 50 students have been suspended; 20 have been recommended for expulsion. Several weeks ago, a teacher was “beaten unmercifully” by a ninth grader enraged at being barred from class because he was late.
The principal, Donald Jackson, estimated that up to a fifth of the 775 students live without parents.
“Basically, they are raising themselves, because there is no authority figure in the home,” Mr. Jackson said. “If I call for a parent because I’m having an issue, I may be getting an aunt, who may be at the oldest 20, 21. What type of governance, what type of structure is in the home, if this is the living conditions?”
"At freeway speeds, the Toyota [Prius] is a near silent and comfortable cruiser, whereas the Audi [RS4] sounds and feels like a volcano making love to an avalanche." ... "you would swear the Audi is being launched from a trebuchet." ... "Let's say you're cruising at 80mph in sixth-gear and the engine is doing 3,000rpm, the mechanical equivalent of sipping a latte." ... "RS4 can blast sideways with such force that you will swear you are piloting violence."
Whether you are into cars or not, TTAC's Lieberman entertains. Not entirely unlike Jeremy Clarkson, but without the formulaic, wishy-washy introductions. Read the whole thing here. posted by SharQ at 5:10 AM PST - 53 comments
Video the Vote. "Starting this election... people like you and I... will document problems as they occur. We'll play them online, spread word through blogs and partner websites, doing our part to make sure the full story of our elections is told." via Rushkoff. posted by gsb at 4:38 AM PST - 14 comments
It's movember again at last. As well as being National Novel Writing Month this month is the month to let your mo grow and express your inner 70s self to the world. An Australian tradition since, well, 1999 that is going global. The official site has more about this year's event.
There results tend to look like
this. posted by sien at 3:14 AM PST - 38 comments
Long rumoured , after 35 years on the show, Bob Barker is leaving the Price is Right. His first ever show was September 4th, 1972 (note how much less spazzy the audience is on that intro?). No longer will we hear his reminder to have your pets spayed or neutered, but there's still the DJ&T Foundation that he started to help distribute vouchers and help support low cost spaying and neutering of pets. posted by antifuse at 2:29 AM PST - 24 comments
"Misunderstood" joke gets Kerry into trouble (youtube): "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
Kerry insists that he was referring to Bush, not the troops, in Monday's speech at a Pasadena, CA university, and that he won't apologize for his remarks. Some Democrats are distancing themselves after his remarks, in fear that public backlash might affect the upcoming elections. posted by aberrant at 1:19 AM PST - 138 comments