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from
mefi
After playing
Areas, I now feel the world needs more no-click ambient shmups.
[via]
posted to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 11:33 AM on December 28, 2007
(29 comments)
Ficlets
are extremely short stories (a maximum of 1024 characters). Other writers swoop in and write prequels and sequels to your ficlet, making
interesting branching narratives a la Create Your Own Adventure.
posted to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 7:45 AM on March 15, 2007
(13 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 to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 5:07 AM on November 21, 2006
(17 comments)
On January 19, 1986, the first PC virus —
Brain — was detected. It was virtually harmless, and the Pakistani creators
claim that it was only intended to protect their copyrights. (They did, after all, include their own address and phone number in the machine code.) In the past 20 years, though, both
creating viruses and
destroying them have become billion-dollar industries.
posted to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 11:03 AM on January 19, 2006
(48 comments)
Serious vegetarians know to keep on the lookout for
isinglass and other animal products in their beer. Isinglass is a fish-derived additive that's
primarily used to help speed up the clarification of cask-conditioned ales, although some beer-makers will use it to reclaim batches that didn't filter properly. You can help keep your diet swimbladder-free with
this awesome list.
posted to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 5:01 AM on November 30, 2005
(86 comments)
God's Debris
by Scott Adams (of
Dilbert fame) is now available for free in PDF form. It's a controversial book that presents a philosophically strange view of the universe.
According to Adams, it splits readers between "the best book they've ever read" and "an insult to literature and a disservice to humanity".
posted to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 6:57 AM on November 18, 2005
(44 comments)
Ten years ago today, Microsoft released a
massive overhaul of their flagship product — Windows 95. It added support for 256-character mixed-case long filenames,
pre-emptive multitasking, and protected-mode 32-bit applications. Detractors noted that its
updated interface owed a number of debts to Apple's MacOS and IBM's OS/2. Most importantly, however, Windows 95 included built-in support for dial-up networking and a TCP/IP stack. Once this technology was widely-available, it was only a matter of time until the Internet became a household word.
posted to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 8:00 AM on August 24, 2005
(80 comments)
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posted to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 5:49 AM on July 5, 2005
(69 comments)
The operators of
FleetCenter in Boston decided it'd be a good idea to auction off single-day rights to rename the stadium and give the proceeds
to charity. Honorable idea. Unfortunately for them,
the winner of Monday, February 28, was the infamously crude news site
Fark. They held
a competition this afternoon to decide what the name should be. The winning entry: "Fark.com
UFIA Arena".
posted to MetaFilter by Plutor
at 5:08 PM on February 15, 2005
(50 comments)
