Displaying post 1 to 50 of 59
from
mefi
Witness trees
teach us about presettlement landscapes,
surveying methods and
Native American art forms. Witness trees
inspire us,
hide in plain sight, have
free parking,
become forgotten and sometimes
become tables. Witness trees are protected
by law and sometimes
by signs, but not protected
from stupidity. Photos:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 8:10 AM on September 3, 2007
(19 comments)
"
The storm carried twice as much dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal. The canal took seven years to dig; the storm lasted a single afternoon. More than 300,000 tons of Great Plains topsoil was airborne on that day."
Black Sunday. April 14, 1935.
Timeline, Oral Histories (
Kansas,
Nebraska), Dust Bowl Movie (
part I,
part II), Black Sunday photos (
1,
2,
3,
4).
[previous dust on mefi: iraq, texas, africa, china]
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 5:56 PM on August 26, 2007
(17 comments)
Popular:
It's Like That,
Humble Neighborhood,
Son of a Preacher Man,
Beautiful,
Barbi Girl,
Truly Madly Deeply,
I'm Alive
Indie:
Blister in the Sun,
Across the Sea,
Tom's Diner,
Zombie; Classics:
The Rose (
more, also
without lyrics),
Revolution,
Hotel California
Rap/Hip Hop (some comedic):
Baby Got Back,
Ice Ice Baby,
Music (
more),
Paul Revere,
Grillz,
White and Nerdy,
Where'd You Go
Non-English songs:
Film Dust,
Comme Elle Vient;
Pseudosign:
Torn (
again),
Sweet Home Alabama
Instructions:
general tips,
religious songs, and how to sign "
rock & roll"
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 9:58 PM on March 14, 2007
(27 comments)
"It’s a cliché among hikers that there are as many ways to hike the trail as there are people who hike it. Most start at Springer Mountain in Georgia and end at Katahdin in Maine; a few start in Maine and head south. Purists walk every 2,167.1 miles of the trail marked by white rectangular blazes painted on the trees. Blue blazers take short cuts on side trails marked with blue. Yellow blazers hitchhike ahead along roads. And then there are the pink blazers.
Pink blazers pursue women."
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 6:14 AM on August 28, 2006
(157 comments)
The Dumpster
is "an interactive online visualization that attempts to depict a slice through the romantic lives of American teenagers. Using real postings extracted from millions of online blogs, visitors to the project can surf through tens of thousands of specific romantic relationships in which one person has "dumped" another." Launched yesterday at
the Whitney. Frenetic social data browser with voyeuristic blog-sniffer available
here
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 4:41 PM on February 15, 2006
(14 comments)
Instructables
for showing what you make and how to make it. Not just any DIY site, the creator
Saul Griffith has an
impressive pedigree. The site comes with all the things you'd expect from a new collaborative widget including Creative Commons licensing options and of course
tags. From the about page: "
We like to think about the physical world as something that is programmable. We like to think of objects or stuff you make as 'code'. In other words, we are approaching the physical world as something that is describable and replicable." Dive in and learn how to make a
pimped out megaphone helmet,
Hungarian bookshelves or
canned applesauce. (
via)
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 7:34 AM on November 18, 2005
(14 comments)
New York retail prescription drug prices.
New York [USA] has a
state law requiring pharmacies to keep and provide a Drug Retail Price List for the 150 most commonly prescribed drugs. The
NY State Attorney General's Office collects that information monthly and makes it searchable by zipcode, city or county. The stark comparisons show that even within one region, retail drug prices can vary by as much as $120, or 50%. With five million New Yorkers
uninsured and having to buy their medications at
retail prices, this is a handy new tool.
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 12:26 PM on August 18, 2004
(6 comments)
Docusearch settles claim for 75K
with family whose daughter was
killed by
a stalker who
purchased her personal information from them -- a killer whose intentions were described on a Googleable website. The
NH Supreme Court determined
last year that
Docusearch, the company who sold
Amy Boyer's work address and SSN to her killer could be held
liable for her death, even though some of that information was publicly available. An "Amy Boyer's Law" intended to increase privacy by restricting the display, sale or use of SSNs received
negative reviews by privacy organizations and ultimately was
removed from an appropriations bill. In a statement, Amy's parents encourage others to use the Internet to keep track of who may be keeping track of their kids. "
If only we had typed our daughter's name into any search engine, the Amy Boyer Web site that was posted by her killer would have come up, and we could have called the police...This may never have happened."
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 8:55 AM on March 11, 2004
(6 comments)
Buy your porn now!
In a little over two weeks, you will no longer be able to purchase anything in Ebay's mature categories, or many other forms of
online adult amusement, using PayPal.
New rules being implemented and enforced by PayPal follow [with a bit of coercion,
some claim ]
new rules laid down by Visa late last year making it significantly more difficult to sell porn online if you want to accept Visa cards. While it's unclear
why exactly PayPal and Ebay are doing this, PayPal and Visa's corner on the online payment market is going to lead to
some sort of change in the
business of online porn.
[all links except "exactly" SFW]
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 8:56 AM on May 28, 2003
(17 comments)
Sheela Na Gigs
are stone grotesques found decorating old churches in Europe. They are characterized by "[a] huge head, staring eyes and hands reaching down between [her] wide open legs to spread [her] swollen and oversized womanhood." While the posture implies prostitution, the
Sheelas are said to be representations of the
Great Mother, and they are said to keep
evil away. There are even some male Sheelas, like
this one at Lower Swell.
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 1:45 PM on March 30, 2003
(24 comments)
How did they die, and why is it important?
The Death of the Father is an exhibit tracing the deaths of some modern political villains [Stalin, Ceausescu, Tito, etc.] and exploring the political importance of death-as-closure in the ending of tyrannical regimes. A bit pomo at times, but you get to see Hitler's teeth! Just one of the many fascinating sites from the
Cornell Institute for Digital Collections.
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 6:38 PM on December 11, 2002
(4 comments)
"Strike the heart, enjoy the florist,
fa la la la la la la la la"
AmIRight collates all of those misheard song lyrics and goes a step further, organizing them by
band,
song, or
decade. Plus for the truly band-curious, they have archives of cool and
stupid band names, song parodies and commentary on lyrics that people think are repetitive, nonsensical, or just
insincere. Sometimes it's tough to tell the wrong lyrics from the right ones... "You strut your rasta wear and your suicide poem"
real or misheard?
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 6:54 PM on May 25, 2002
(30 comments)
Head of Red Cross "resigns"
after the board forces her to step down in a vote of no confidence. Among her failings, the board says she was refusing to comingle 9/11 donations with the RC general fund. When I donated to the Red Cross, I was not aware that 15-25% of 9/11 donation monies would go to build up their
telecommunications infrastructure. This also comes just a day after the RC called the US "
deplorable" for bombing a food warehouse in Afghanistan. Coincidence? Here's
the Red Cross's version.
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 7:42 AM on October 28, 2001
(21 comments)
When does no not mean no?
When you are the Irish government and your country is the only one in the EU that requires a referendum to approve the pending EU treaty admitting new members. Last week, 54% of the Irish population who voted
turned down the Nice Treaty, and yet Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern insisted "The 'no' vote should not be interpreted as a vote against enlargement..." And
the protestors are at it again.
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 7:21 AM on June 16, 2001
(12 comments)
Idaho Standoff Continues
and while it may seem easy to view this as another Ruby Ridge, the differences in opinions that are coming up
in the news reports are fairly interesting. The cops claim they are being attacked with guns and dogs while
the lawyer for the children [who is consistently referred to as a man who has defended the Aryan nation] denies most of the allegations. Are they starving and cold, or do they have food and heat? Did their mother abuse them, or just try to homeschool them? And, most importantly, are you allowed to be
poor, weird and paranoid nowadays without being labelled a criminal?
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn
at 9:36 PM on June 1, 2001
(14 comments)
