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October 2003 Archives
October 31
Built for the Kill. No Halloween costume? How about going as a chameleon?
deconstructing the world's deadliest killers. A game by World Archipelago for National Geographic Channel Europe.
Guide your Namid chameleon, barn owl, American alligator, grassland cheetah, and Komoto dragon around the screen using the cursor keys. Your stealth and power need to be up to capture prey or they will escape. Finally, guide your Orca around the screen using the space bar to dive under boats or attack prey that are beneath the water. When you reach the beach use the space bar to launch an attack on the seals.
(Flash and music ahead....)posted by Dunvegan at 8:47 PM PST - 2 comments
Police find skeleton in Oddfellows lodge. Turns out, they'd already found it, 6 years before (your guess is as good as mine why no one did anything then). Even more interesting, it's not the only one that's been found and subsequently investigated by the police around the country. Makes you wonder about those Oddfellows.
posted by tommasz at 2:06 PM PST - 26 comments
C'mon People Now, Shine on Your Hipster • "A new and disturbing trend has sprung up as of late in our great city (NYC): beating up hipsters for sport. Sucker punching Williamsburg trendsters is the new Whack-A-Mole. It's cow-tipping for urbanites. It's blowing up mailboxes, but with less angst and more anger." (more inside)
posted by dhoyt at 2:00 PM PST - 44 comments
Tour the Nasher Sculpture Garden. Can't make it to Dallas. Big D is now home to the one of the first institutions in the world dedicated exclusively to the exhibition of modern and contemporary sculpture with a collection of global significance as its foundation. The Nasher Sculpture Center is further distinguished by a groundbreaking facility and landscaped garden specifically designed for the indoor and outdoor display of sculpture - not to mention the
"designer dirt".
(flash)posted by sierray at 12:49 PM PST - 1 comments
CocoWeb (
trans) is a project which has assembled 516
manifestations of the Bogeyman in Latin America. The list includes the well-known Coco or Cucuy, a dark figure who makes an appearance in the art world as
the subject of one of Goya's
Caprichos. Any Hispanic child can tell you about
La Llorona, a grieving woman who walks in the night (familiar enough to be used in a controversial
got milk? ad). In South America they can tell you about the
Sack-Man, on of the original bogeymen, who walks in the darkness, looking for children to throw into his sack.
posted by vacapinta at 11:55 AM PST - 4 comments
3d17.org - Ian Clarke of Freenet fame has created a distributed, collaborative document editing web application. Much like a wiki, but geared more purely towards polishing and editing documents. Rather than the "build fast" model of the wiki, 3D17 doc modifications are subject a voting process before being applied. [more inside]
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:07 AM PST - 4 comments
SCO is at it again ... this time they've asked a federal judge to declare that Linux's general public license — a backbone of the free software movement — unconstitutional.
Let's hope the judge has more sense than SCO.
posted by silusGROK at 9:48 AM PST - 33 comments
Long Wait for a Taste of Home: Guatemalan Fried Chicken Draws a Crowd. Pollo Campero's first US store in Los Angeles reached the unprecedented sales mark of $1 million in an astounding seven weeks, a daily average of $20.4 thousand. After a full weekend of operation in the Washington DC market,
Pollo Campero broke this record by selling $65 thousand in two days, a daily average of $32.5 thousand. At the franchise in Herndon (Virginia), I have personally seen the line exit the store, cross the front of the building and circle around to the back (at 3pm). Is this fried chicken really that good?
posted by probablysteve at 7:01 AM PST - 42 comments
"On a cold winter morning in 1937, a janitor grabbed his flashlight and headed down into the pitch-black basement of the Willard Library to stoke the coal furnace." And so begins the legend of the "
Lady in Grey," an apparition said to be haunting the aisles of the Evansville, Indiana building to this very day. In fact, so many have been said to have
seen her, and other ghosts, that the library has set up 24-hour
online web cams so that others may try their hand at spectre spotting. Whether real or not, the cams have revealed some
interesting, yet
creepy pictures and, some rather
silly spoofs.
posted by snarkywench at 2:50 AM PST - 23 comments
Live From Nowhere Near You is the name of a benefit CD created in the Northwest by Kevin Moyer and over 75 musicians. Professional contributors include Mike McCready and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam, director Gus Van Sant (singing/guitar), Squirrel Nut Zippers and more.
Might make a great Christmas present.
See also
related Billboard story.
posted by Twang at 12:03 AM PST - 2 comments
October 30
Mr. Civil Rights reaches out Other, bigger fish ex-CEOs of companies brought down to earth by major accounting, shall we say, woes, may be keeping quiet, even if they haven't been convicted of anything. But not former
HealthSouth exec and would-be platinum
girl group-manager Richard M. Scrushy, who not only has
flaunted his wealth as of late, but produced a personal web site that plays up his humble Alabama roots and which, in a totally bizarre fashion, links his struggle to the Civil Rights Movement. (Note: The site's all screwed up on Mozilla, designed strictly for IE.)
posted by raysmj at 10:27 PM PST - 7 comments
The severed foot : "The force of the blast propelled this severed foot over a high wall, into the yard of an unoccupied house." - In Iraq, has the US seized something similar to the West bank or the Gaza strip (but the size and population of California) in which
"The light at the end of the tunnel" casts a wan, pallid light over a future in which such events will seem routine ?
posted by troutfishing at 9:23 PM PST - 30 comments
Bad Writing = Good Writing? The academic journal Philosophy and Literature used to hold a "Bad Writing Contest" to ridicule dense, unreadable academic prose... but a new book argues headache inducing sentences are necessary to express subtle theoretical points.
posted by gregb1007 at 8:02 PM PST - 28 comments
A friend reports that she's in lockdown in her office at
The Canon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. due to a man wielding a .38 pistol. The Canon House Office Building houses 1/3 of the members of the United States Congress. Offices are now being searched for the gunman. He is supposedly a shorter man with dark hair and white shirt. News first emerged of the gunman around an hour ago.
posted by ericrolph at 11:03 AM PST - 32 comments
Studious peeps. A comprehensive and well documented look at the study habits and research practices of marshmallow Peeps.
"Our observations indicated that it was virtually impossible for Peeps to remove items from the upper shelves of the library stacks." Conclusion: Marshmallow Peeps have no business doing research at the university level.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:50 AM PST - 13 comments
New form of mousepox developed. A scientist has created an extremely deadly form of mousepox (a relative of smallpox) through genetic engineering. The new virus kills mice even if they have been given antiviral drugs as well as a vaccine that would normally protect them.
posted by Irontom at 9:35 AM PST - 42 comments
You're probably feeling safer today than you were a few days ago, and you know why? It's
Protection from Porn week, direct from the White House. Spurred on from groups such as
Morality in Media (who issued
a jubilant press release to mark their achievement) you can finally feel safe now that you've gotten out from under pornography's thumb. (note: These links couldn't be any safer for work)
posted by mathowie at 8:50 AM PST - 34 comments
Moo Mixer is a very cool interactive music mixer courtesy of the British Columbia Dairy Foundation. Incidentally, they say that
cows are music lovers and will provide up to 3% more milk while listening to music.
posted by debralee at 6:06 AM PST - 7 comments
Neil Armstrong. The awful truth. In 1969, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first man to walk on the moon, uttering the immortal phrase, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Or did he? Previously suppressed footage discovered by blogjam shows that Armstrong's reaction was a great deal more uninhibited than history suggests, and that a hasty editing job was needed to prepare the astronaut's moment of glory for broadcast.
So here, for the first time, is the unedited NASA film from the triumphant Apollo 11 mission. [Maybe NSFW]
posted by srboisvert at 4:13 AM PST - 51 comments
October 29
All The Nudes That Are Fit To Print: It's no exaggeration to say
La Repubblica is Italy's finest newspaper. It's liberal, modern, intelligent and independent. Along with Spain's
El Pais; France's
Libération and
Le Monde; the UK's
Guardian; Germany's
Die Zeit and Portugal's
Público, it's one of the mainstays of the European Left and Centre-Left. And yet its website offers
calendars in the, er,
Pirelli tradition of time-keeping. Imagine the
New York Times being similarly... liberal. Can soft prOn and serious reporting live together? Is it an Italian thing? The only other example I can think of is Spain's
Interviú, a magazine which in its heyday mixed superb (again, left-leaning) investigative journalism with politically incorrect - and photographically retouched - tits and ass. (
NSFW, obviously, unless you're somewhere in Southern Europe or Louisiana.)posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:08 PM PST - 49 comments
Mathematics and art are thoroughly explored as two intertwined fields, in this online version of a Dartmouth course focusing on patterns [more inside].
posted by edlundart at 10:03 PM PST - 10 comments
Search stock photos by color scheme. I generally hate (hate hate hate) that obnoxious stock photography that shows up everywhere, but this is actually kind of cool. Pick a color, and find pictures that match
your site. I'd love to see this kind of tool hooked up to more personal photo galleries.
posted by majcher at 6:34 PM PST - 9 comments
Early eBook designs. William Caxton's first two editions of The Canterbury Tales, probably published in 1476 and 1483, have been put online by the British Library.
posted by liam at 6:27 PM PST - 11 comments
Man Pleads Guilty to Raping his own 2 month old Daughter But wait, that's just the beginning. This guy's daddy heads the state Corrections Department and part of his plea is to reduce the amount of time he's going to spend in jail for this most heinous act.
This guy is facing, if the judge agrees to the plea, only 6 months in jail! The standard sentence for first-degree child rape is seven to 10 years in prison.
He's admitted to molesting a 9 year old in Maine before and has also been convicted of orchestrating an armed robbery.
How in the heck he's going to get ANY leniency is beyond me.
posted by fenriq at 5:32 PM PST - 65 comments
Donald Luskin threatens to sue and "out" blogger Atrios. Donald Luskin, right-wing
blogger, has threatened to sue the enigmatic
Atrios for "numerous libelous statements regarding Mr. Luskin" in a post on Atrios' blog. Particularly interesting is the threat by Luskin's attorney to use a subpoena to learn Atrios' identity -- which, as far as I know, is a pretty closely-held secret.
posted by Mid at 3:29 PM PST - 58 comments
Getchya Blacklist on "Actor Dustin Hoffman was so dismayed to find his name missing from the NRA's shadowy 19-page list of U.S. companies, celebrities, and news organizations seen as lending support to anti-gun policies that he wrote to the powerful pro-gun lobby group begging to be included. "
You can
join too!!
posted by GernBlandston at 12:59 PM PST - 28 comments
Welcome to Rawson, N.D.,
Population. 6. Are towns like these worth saving? Should these "areas" be allowed to go back to their natural equilibrium between man and nature? Is there a "natural" equilibrium? What does this mean for the future of small towns v. urban sprawl? Nicholas Kristof of the
New York Times and Drs. Frank and Deborah Popper of
Rutgers have an
idea.
posted by Bag Man at 11:13 AM PST - 27 comments
Web-based Humor at It's Finest Words fail me. DeCloak sells (I'm guessing) an HTML templating system that works in tables. But they can't make it work in CSS. The good news is there's no reason to use CSS:
Q: TABLES are for TABULAR DATA and not meant for Web Page Layout . . .
A: Last time I checked, most web sites use a database. And databases are just a bunch of tables in the first place, hence tabular data.
[from Zeldman]posted by yerfatma at 10:09 AM PST - 54 comments
The world's largest card file? "Google is in talks with several publishers to build a service that would allow Web surfers to search the full text of books online, according to a report this week from Publishers Weekly's online site."
posted by sierray at 9:47 AM PST - 12 comments
October 28
"The Band uses unique instrumentation: the music is performed using obsolete computer equipment for instruments. Currently they are using a 1977 Atari 2600 game console, a 1986 portable 286 PC, a 1983 Commodore 64 computer, and a 1985 Epson dot matrix printer."
posted by cody at 10:32 PM PST - 14 comments
NPR's "All Things Considered" had a great piece on the anger management industry today and it's increasingly ubiquitous presence in many
strata of American society.
This is the most well known anger management company in the biz, while programs like
this promote less orthodox techniques of trumping stressors.
Had any network rage lately?posted by moonbird at 6:37 PM PST - 6 comments
So you've "had enough"
and you're talented? Well how about a possible
30 seconds of fame?
WARNING: This link deals with subjects of a political nature and may not necessarily represent the views of MetaFilter.posted by LouReedsSon at 6:18 PM PST - 9 comments
Russian Prisoners Sing for Freedom
A strange take on the whole American Idol concept, prisoners in Russia were allowed to take part in a singing competition to get freed.
Of the 26 finalists, six were freed.
That only leaves just about a million prisoners left.
I'm curious about the precedent this sets.
posted by fenriq at 5:04 PM PST - 6 comments
It seems slightly scandalous that Krugman has persisted in noting that the present administration has been moving the lion's share of the money to an array of corporate interests distinguished by the greed of their CEOs, an indifference toward their workers, and boardroom conviction that it is the welfare state that is ruining the country. Krugman has been strident. He has been shrill. He has lowered the dignity of the commentariat. How refreshing. Russell Baker reviews Paul Krugman's
The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century.
We have now reached a point when even the White House may be forced to sort out how a president who got elected to execute a straightforward business agenda managed to sandbag himself with the coinciding fantasies of the ideologues in the Christian fundamentalist ministries and those in his own administration.... Joan Didion reviews
Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages
by Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
The New York Review of Books 40th anniversary edition is an especially good read..
posted by y2karl at 5:02 PM PST - 10 comments
Ancestry Maps from the 1990 census: Which states have the highest percentage of people of
Danish ancestry?
Greek?
Hispanic? Who (perhaps)
doesn't realize that we almost all came here from somewhere else? Using the data provided on 1990 Census question 13, which asked respondents to identify the ancestry groups with which they identified most closely, the State of Minnesota provides us with these nifty Ancestry maps. More info
here on 'the ancestry question' from the US Census Bureau.
link via ::crabwalk.com::posted by anastasiav at 11:05 AM PST - 38 comments
The largest solar flare of the current solar cycle shot off the sun earlier today. After the media latched on to what was predicted to be mostly a non-event last week (probably due to a NASA article released around the same time about
a super spacestorm) , it's not making as much news this time. But you should
pay attention this time. This could be the best and last chance for a lot of us farther south to see some auroras before the sun dives into solar minimum, assuming
all the variables line up correctly this time. I recommend watching the
Solar Terrestrial Dispatch, as it is a great all around resource for solar activity and auroras that includes live data and sightings reports by the general public. Unfortunately though, no doubt as word IS spreading, that site is being hammered again and may be quite slow.
posted by yupislyr at 10:34 AM PST - 21 comments
PublicRadioFan.com An extensive customizable list of (almost) all public radio stations that offer streaming audio and what they have playing now
and in the future.posted by Mick at 9:31 AM PST - 30 comments
Unloved Garden Gnomes. "A French police station has been stuck with a room of homeless garden gnomes, victims of a wave of gnome abductions, after a fresh bid to trace their owners failed." And I had never even heard of the 'Garden Gnome Liberation Front'.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 9:27 AM PST - 11 comments
U.S.S. Enterprise analyzed. "For StarTrek [sic] fans we tested the USS Enterprise in our super-orbital expansion tube... We perform similar tests on other models investigating dissociation and ionisation processes which occur during atmospheric re-entry."
posted by tbc at 9:13 AM PST - 10 comments
Anchors Away, A Life Unmoored An interesting, albeit sad, story about a once prominent D.C. lawyer who walked away from his life and now lives on a garbage-filled boat in the waters around Annapolis, MD. "Trash People" have always perplexed me; is there anything that society can do to truly help them?
posted by tommyspoon at 5:39 AM PST - 36 comments
October 27
Rod Roddy Dies at 66 Veteran game show announcer known for his work on the Price is Right and Press Your Luck succumbs to breast and colon cancer.
posted by dr_dank at 8:27 PM PST - 11 comments
Coming to a phone near you. The creative entries you'll see here fit not only the small screen size, but the on-the-go nature of mobile use. Entries typically run up to 3 minutes. All are sized and purposed to work in small handheld formats.
Flash, live action, 3D animation, its all here at the World's Smallest Film Festival.
posted by Grod at 3:56 PM PST - 3 comments
At least four times in the fall of 2002, the president and his advisers invoked the specter of a "mushroom cloud," and some of them, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, described Iraq's nuclear ambitions as a threat to the American homeland... Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use.
So in regards to Iraq's possession of
the one weapon we can be certain causes mass destruction: the atomic bomb, as
Gregg Easterbrook put it, the verdict is the unsurprising (and unsurprisingly
closely held) nope, not, zero, zip, nada...
posted by y2karl at 3:43 PM PST - 21 comments
Iraqfilter. "Sometime between April 2003 and October 2003, someone at the White House added virtually all of the directories with 'Iraq' in them to its robots.txt file, meaning that search engines would no longer list those pages in results or archive them." The robots.txt file is here. And here's the
Slashdot discussion. I guess it's hard to restore integrity to the Presidency when people can compare your statements over time.
posted by condour75 at 2:30 PM PST - 29 comments
One of my joys of going on vacation is to get off the interstate and
collect a bit of an old historic road. In California over the weekend
we managed to grab a bit of Hwy. 1 aka the Pacific Coast Highway past
nature preserves, resorts and neighborhoods. Another goal is to do all of
U.S. 50, the initial stages of which were reportedly surveyed by George Washington during his tour in the British Army.
Wired has a
nice
article about how a journalist and a photographer ignored the advice
of a Federal Highway Administration spokesperson to take a trip down
Route 1 from Maine to Florida.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:29 PM PST - 9 comments
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't even play one on TV. But every once in a while, I run across the website of one of these individuals that, in its own way,
at least appears to make sense. Using photos from the US Army, the DOD and the US Marine Corps., this English translation of a French site asks, "Can
you find the Boeing 757 that 'crashed' into the Pentagon on 9/11/01?"
[Linked page scrolls to the right, not down as one might expect...]posted by JollyWanker at 12:26 PM PST - 28 comments
Over the past few years, doping in sports has grown into an arms race of biology, chemistry, and technology as atheletes attempt to push their limits and escape detection. While it's hard to estimate how widespread the problem is or how much it actually improves one's performance, one amateur athelete for Outside Magazine
decided to test the latest on himself as he spent 8 months training for an ultramarathon cycling event. The article also notes
pro-cheating sites filled with
atheletes trading stories of their own programs. Disturbing stuff, when you think of all the records being broken in sports these days. As
Rafe says, this might be one of the most important sports articles ever written. note: it's a long article, but worth it.
posted by mathowie at 12:22 PM PST - 14 comments
Broadcast flag blues?! The EFF seems to be fighting a losing war against the FCC's proposed
"broadcast flag" initiative (Salon), but they're making a big last-minute push to get more people to spread the news and
contact the FCC. Will the broadcast flag initiative become a "gateway regulation", leading us to a future where Hollywood dictates to manufacturers what they can and cannot create? Mass exodus to Tokyo, anyone?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:58 AM PST - 4 comments
Recently, Rick Bayless has been making some appearances in Burger King ads for some new sandwiches they're trying to sell. If you've ever seen Rick's show, you know that he's a true lover of food. Why would he do an ad for BK? The money, you say?
Many seem to agree.
Here's what Rick Bayless has to say for himself:
"I decided that it’s time for those of us in the healthy food/sustainable food movement to applaud any positive steps we see in the behemoth quick-service restaurant chains." I have noticed that Rick looks like he's in pretty good shape, despite the fact that he occasionally cooks with "a little freshly rendered pork fat". Maybe he's for real.
posted by blakewest at 6:24 AM PST - 28 comments
October 26
Santa Ana Speeds the Spread of So Cal Fires
Five separate fires are burning in San Diego County, including several densely populated suburban areas. Dozens of homes have been burned. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar has been affected, including an FAA air traffic control installation. 16,000 people in the South Bay lost electricity when a major distribution line went down. Many San Diego firefighters went up to Camp Pendelton yesterday. (
1,
2)
posted by rschram at 3:04 PM PST - 42 comments
CEO of Russia's largest oil company in jail The guy sounds like a crook to be sure; but its an interesting contrast to the US. When was the last time in this country someone with limitless financial resources was thrown in jail? Is
Key Lay in jail? How about
Bernie Ebbers? (Worldcom getting
Iraq contracts is of course another story)
Jeff Skilling? With all the talk of crony-capitalism anymore its easy to get desensitized. But to get a reality check on how to treat toplevel white-collar crime from Russia of all places is sobering.
posted by H. Roark at 9:51 AM PST - 23 comments
Dezain.net is a weblog about design by Eizo Okada, with links to architecture, furniture, textiles, and other designalicious stuff.
posted by carter at 8:41 AM PST - 4 comments
Mark Lombardi created art out of the stuff of conspiracy theories. Following the money trails,
he was just completely fascinated by connections, how one thing led to another, how the C.I.A. would back a coup in Australia, someone would be murdered in Turkey and things would happen in Indonesia."
Some of his work
here and
here, and more about his work
here.
His drawings satisfy because they address a human need for coherent order drawn from chaos. Such a need, however, is bound to be frustrated. Instead of blueprinting perfection, the works' aura of mastery arises in the context of a sprawling dystopia.posted by amberglow at 7:42 AM PST - 13 comments
October 25
Ted Conover is a fantastic, prize-winning author. His book
Newjack is, to quote Jon Krakauer, "a compelling, compassionate look at a terribly important, poorly understood aspect of American society." In it, he works undercover as a guard at Sing Sing. You can read the
truncated New Yorker version on the site. Additionally, there are
many other articles,
reviews and interviews, and a
pretty interesting group of e-mails from "officers, their families, and others affected by prison." And, just to name-drop once more, Sebastian Junger says: "Ted Conover is a first-rate reporter and more daring and imaginative than the rest of us combined." Check him out!
posted by adrober at 11:56 PM PST - 7 comments
a,
b,
c,
d,
e,
f,
g,
h,
i,
j,
k,
l,
m,
n,
o,
p,
q,
r,
s,
u,
w,
x,
y,
z.
posted by crunchland at 10:40 PM PST - 31 comments
There comes a time when people at a technical conference like this need something more relaxing. A change of pace. A shift of style. To put aside all that work stuff and think of something refreshingly different. So let's talk about coding theory.posted by thebabelfish at 8:04 PM PST - 7 comments
Examining Bush's stem cell policy, two years later. Kinsley: Put it all together, and the stem cells that can squeeze through Bush's loopholes are far less promising than they seemed two years ago, while the general promise of embryonic stem cells burns brighter than ever. If you claim to have made an anguished moral decision, and the factual basis for that decision turns out to be faulty, you ought to reconsider or your claim to moral anguish looks phony. But Bush's moral anguish was suspect from the beginning, because the policy it produced makes no sense.
posted by skallas at 7:52 PM PST - 1 comments
What time is it? Tonight marks the transition in many parts of the US between daylight savings and non-daylight savings time. Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour!
posted by silusGROK at 6:24 PM PST - 46 comments
Knee Defender is a product that airline passengers can
use to keep the person in front of them from reclining their seat during a flight. They market it as an alternative to
deep vein thrombosis and
lawsuits (Warning: Flash Menu). It is creating a
stir in the
news. But people with long legs who do not want to detract from a fellow passenger's enjoyment can always save their money and consult the
Seat Guru (SG previously discussed
here).
(Via Fark.)posted by cup at 12:17 PM PST - 77 comments
Pick your poison:
highbrow (virtual tour of 10 Downing Street), or
lowbrow (virtual tour of the White House).
Hint: one of these is funny.posted by taz at 6:06 AM PST - 10 comments
October 24
exploring color ... online utility to help room designers (and maybe even web designers) choose the right color for their project.
posted by crunchland at 10:04 PM PST - 13 comments
Truefire TrueFire is a self-publishing tool and open marketplace for authors and artists wishing to promote and distribute their original poetry, guitar lessons, novels, music, reference material, photography and artwork.
posted by crunchburger at 9:40 PM PST - 4 comments
The RIAA Strikes Back. (c/o arstechnica.com) What do you do when nothing else seems to be working and you're the RIAA? Do it Soviet style! Take your message to the classroom! Indoctrinate the kiddies! Get them to rat on their friends! I don't know about everyone else, but I think that this latest RIAA tactic is particularly insidious. But what is worse is that schools apparently are welcoming the RIAA. And you thought that Coke machines in the cafeteria were bad...
posted by tgrundke at 3:48 PM PST - 37 comments
Forecasters at the NOAA Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo., observed two dynamic areas of the
sun, one of which has produced a
coronal mass ejection, or CME, Wednesday morning at 3 a.m. EDT that appears to be Earth-directed. The forecasters are predicting a strong geomagnetic storm, G-3 on the NOAA Space Weather Scales, that should reach Earth on Friday, October 24. Satellite and other spacecraft operations, power systems, high frequency communications, and navigation systems may experience disruptions over this two-week period.
Auroras visible in the lower 48 states are possible tonight and tomorrow.
posted by y2karl at 1:42 PM PST - 22 comments
Friday Terror! Solar blast expected to hit Earth at 3PM EST!!! Cell-phones, satellites, pagers and electrical grids may be disrupted!!! Could last 12-18 hours!!! Space martians land!!! Bad Friday Traffic!!! ACK!!!!
*zap*posted by omidius at 8:57 AM PST - 25 comments
Recipient of largest slavery reparations claim sentanced to 3 years in jail and her father, the accountant who did the paperwork to get the refund received 13 years in jail. The article goes on to report that the IRS estimates the fraudulent reparations payout to be apporx $2.7B.
"
It was unjust because we are supposed to get reparations as black people -- just like the Jews got it. What do we get? Jail time," said family friend Margaret Roach
What do you think?posted by cpfeifer at 5:58 AM PST - 70 comments
Morality and Logical Coherence A case in point.
If stem-cell research is morally questionable, the procedures used in fertility clinics are worse. You cannot logically outlaw the one and praise the other. And surely logical coherence is a measure of moral sincerity.And failing that test would be a measure of what?
posted by nofundy at 5:40 AM PST - 23 comments
A Fresh, Clean Sheet Of Paper: Is anything you can't make love to, eat or sip, more
sensual and inviting? In the
age of the Internet, fine paper - specially if it's handmade - seems to become ever more precious. Writing or sketching on its slighly grainy texture, sliding ink along its invisible grooves (almost independently of the result...) is an extravagant indulgence; a
romantic gesture; an
almost guiltless pleasure. And something
you can do yourself, satisfying that deep recycling urge, perhaps. A quick tour around some of the
outstanding manufacturers and dealers -
Fabriano;
Canson;
Pineider and
Twinrocker, for example - will silkily reassure those of us whose pens trembled and blotted with the first mentions of a paperless future. Will it ever come? Unlike so many things in life, the rarer it gets, the better and, paradoxically, the more
individual (
nice set of paper links here) it becomes.
(
*imagines a complete multi-handwritten version of MetaFilter on good paper of all sizes and types and instantly snaps out of the daydream, as it reminds him too damn much of his attic*)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:11 AM PST - 28 comments
October 23
Another "Google heading for an IPO" report - but this time it's for real, according to the Financial Times. Apparently the shares will be sold through an electronic auction "designed to prevent a recurrence of the sort of financial scandals that have engulfed Wall Street since the collapse of the dotcom bubble". Not that Google was ever going to be Enron.
posted by zimbobzim at 11:10 PM PST - 24 comments
Press underreports casualties I had never heard of "Editor & Publisher" before, but I came across this link, and thought the news was rather shocking.
So while 106 troops were killed since the "end of hostilities," 1927 have been wounded since the war began, 200 have been killed from all causes, and over 4,000 troops have been medically evacuated from Iraq.
The article says the stats are easily obtained from the Pentagon web site - though all I could find was
press releases which just mention casualties one by one.
Can anyone out there find a comprehensive listing on the Pentagon's page?
The article suggests that the media are at least in part to blame here (along with the administration's general reluctance to focus on bad news). Why wouldn't newspapers want to cover injuries to the troops? I, for one, would like to see this covered. What do you all think?
posted by jasper411 at 4:50 PM PST - 41 comments
If you were a lab worm [with some modifications], you could live five times longer than a human. This news will likely be celebrated by folks like
these and their ilk, while bioethicists and others
cringe. Regardless of right or wrong, the ideas of life extension/biological immoratality pose some mighty difficult
questions.
posted by moonbird at 2:05 PM PST - 49 comments
The Real Mother Goose, complete with pictures. Revisit your childhood and see how many Mother Goose rhymes you remember, then go through the
list to find ones that you don't know. And in the what-were-they-thinking category, check out
mothergooserocks.com for wacky tunes (click the music section and play the 3 Little Pigs - go on, I dare you) sung to top 40 tunes.
posted by ashbury at 12:43 PM PST - 9 comments
Poker Redux: Poker is sweeping America (and other countries as well). From million dollar online Texas Hold 'Em tournaments to the weekend nickel, dime, quarter games with friends to the
World Poker Tour (heavily promoted on the
Travel Channel), poker is forcing itself into the spotlight. [more inside]
posted by hawkman at 12:34 PM PST - 19 comments
A List of Arcane Occupations If I had lived two hundred years ago, I might have been a
PUREFINDER - someone who "went about the streets gathering dog droppings which were used for tanning leather."
posted by mert at 12:01 PM PST - 20 comments
How the Poll Results on Iraq Were Manipulated by James Zogby, Special to Arab News -
...In fact, Zogby International in Iraq had conducted the poll, and the American Enterprise Institute did publish their interpretation of the findings. But the AEI’s "spin" and the vice president’s use of their "spin" created a faulty impression of the poll’s results and, therefore, of the attitudes of the Iraqi people. Consider some of the other poll findings: Over 55 percent give a negative rating to "how the US military is dealing with Iraqi civilians." Only 20 percent gave the US military a positive rating... When asked whom they preferred to "provide security and restore order in their country," only 6.5 percent said the US...posted by y2karl at 8:25 AM PST - 16 comments
Breaking the ice. "If we can help Palestinians and Israelis understand that even the greatest obstacles can be surmounted through cooperation and understanding, then perhaps we'll be able to positively influence the atmosphere for reconciliation in our part of the world. We want people to see that even enemies can find a way to do great things if they decide to take on the challenge together."
posted by johnnyboy at 8:12 AM PST - 5 comments
The World Scrabble Championship is taking place this week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
98 players from 38 countries are competing in the seventh biennial WSC. The format: everyone plays 24 games over three days, then the top two finishers play a best-of-five match for the championship. Past winners include three Americans, two Canadians and an Englishman, but this year's final pits two Thai players: Pakorn Nemitrmansuk vs Panupol Sujjaykorn.
posted by Daze at 8:02 AM PST - 15 comments
Starting today, every word (33 million) in ALL the books (270,000) sold at Amazon.com can now be searched
word for word.
File this under technologies used to implement more sales and better service to the end user aka
marketing at work for you.
posted by omidius at 6:24 AM PST - 95 comments
October 22
Psst! Wanna download some mp3s? Now you can do so without looking over your shoulder to see who is watching.
Creative Commons has compiled a
selection of tracks utilising their licensing system for free download. The ability to create derivative works and share them around has resulting in some interesting
remixes of one of the original tracks, also.
via A Whole Lotta Nothingposted by dg at 8:44 PM PST - 10 comments
Those of you who added reams of ad-blocking software to your PC's in the last two years, almost solely to block ads for the
X10 wireless cam, may be shocked (gasp!) to find out that
they weren't paying for the ads the whole time. In a dramatic and satisfying turnaround, X10's ad providers have
sued them to the tune of 4.1 million USD. When lamers sue lamers, everyone wins!
posted by poorhaus at 2:46 PM PST - 12 comments
As of October next year, the
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 comes into effect in the UK. Under this act, a disabled person may have rights to sue a service-providing company if they have difficulty accessing their website just as they might if they had difficulty accessing their headquarters. The Royal National Institute of the Blind
website includes a "
web access centre", which takes a good look at the issue of accessibility and provides sound advice to web designers whether they are legally obligated to tackle such issues or not.
posted by nthdegx at 1:56 PM PST - 10 comments
Now's your chance to get with Jenna Jameson... Okay, not really. Apparently, the new gig in Berlin, Germany as of last month is pr0n Karaoke - you and a partner (or two, or three?) get together on stage, with a movie up on the screen, and "act out" the parts being played out graphically. So.... practice your faking and get ready to go!
posted by djspicerack at 12:12 PM PST - 26 comments
Butterfly Pee - Pure urine from the wild. In the wild butterflies find their greatest source of sodium, essential minerals and vitamins from wild animal urine puddles and urine-soaked leaves. Now you can bring this natural buttlerfly attractant to your garden.
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:51 AM PST - 14 comments
When Pink Bits Were Not The Norm - The art of X-rated movie posters from the 1960s and 1970s. Considered by most to be the Golden Age of the pornographic movie, the period's rising production budgets generated a dramatic improvement in film quality and plot.
posted by turbanhead at 10:25 AM PST - 6 comments
Make me an MCSE or I'll kick your ass. I came thisclose to sending a check for classes. Glad I didn't.
We especially regret not being able to call each student individually; we would have preferred that rather than posting a notice at our facilities. It was determined that informing students in person resulted in too high of a risk of physical danger for our staff.posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:48 AM PST - 27 comments
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal." More fun from Diebold: on Tuesday, two PA-based student groups announced they will engage in "electronic civil disobedience" by ignoring Diebold's demands to remove public access to leaked memos from Diebold offices, which indicate among other things "...that Diebold, which counts the votes in 37 states, knowingly created an electronic system which allows anyone with access to the machines to add and delete votes without detection."
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 9:47 AM PST - 49 comments
Justice Scalia's recusal in the Pledge case has prompted a serious debate on the judicial role.
Robert Alt has suggested that the Justice's recusal carries an important warning for the Senate in confirming new judges; if the Senate requires the nominees to answer questions about their opinions on potential cases, those nominees would have to recuse themselves if those cases later indeed came before them.
Matthew Franck, on the other hand, suggests "this argument ... permits the requirements of judicial ethics — and even a terribly broad reading of them — to trump the constitutional obligation of senators to inform themselves adequately about the kinds of judges they are being asked to confirm." [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:36 AM PST - 11 comments
Reflect the pain and desolate loneliness inmates felt when serving time - time in a prison surrounded by a paradise that teased them with what was forbidden.
In 1985, before I left Brazil to live in the United States, I journeyed with some friends to surf at Ilha Grande. One day, while we relaxed on a remote beach, a group of military men suddenly appeared looking for some escaped prisoners. They advised us to stay together.
Hours later, a helicopter flew over the sea with two fugitives trapped in a net that was hanging from its belly. ...At that moment, a desire was born in me to see life within the Caldron.posted by thisisdrew at 6:46 AM PST - 8 comments
In 1898, the United States made a major move in the direction of colonial imperialism with the acquisition of the Philippine Islands from Spain. President Bush, in a recent speech in the Philippines,
pointed to that country's story as a model for rebuilding Iraq. Perhaps
a history lesson about the American and Filipino experience in this occupation is in order for both us and our President. The
atrocities committed during the Filipinos' struggle for independence (including the use of
concentration camps), the
high death toll (between 250,000 and 1,000,000, according to this article), and the American occupation which spanned six decades lead me to question whether Bush is just ignorant of the associations made in this comparison, or if it's a subtle way for the administration to set the stage for what possessing Iraq is actually going to entail. (Most links courtesy of the outstanding
BoondocksNet, a collection of primary and secondary sources related to American imperialism.)
posted by UKnowForKids at 6:36 AM PST - 25 comments
October 21
A Nittle Light Music: A little record label called
Morpheus, considerably less soporific than the name implies, specializes in
late night music, with
many engaging mp3 samples. Though, somehow, they don't seem, in their soft prettiness, to hit the slightly anguished, melancholy spot of the truly
nocturnal listener. I might as well come out and say it: what's
your night music of choice? (
My man is the composer Harold Arlen, who wrote Blues In The Night; "Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe"; "Last Night When We Were Young"; "It's Only A Paper Moon"; "When the Sun Comes Out"; to mention but a few. Oh - and, of course, Sinatra's first 12-inch LP, In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning... /small>)posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:47 PM PST - 31 comments
Here's a little more nano for your Tuesday:
carbon nanotubes. Currently in the r&d phase, this article promises that they could become hot stuff and technologically indispensible...
"They are stronger than steel and as flexible as plastic, conduct energy better than almost any material ever discovered and can be made from unexotic raw materials such as methane gas." [found on blogdex]posted by moonbird at 7:17 PM PST - 8 comments
Hack an email account, go to jail. In what could be the first case of its type, a woman has been sentenced to 60 days of house arrest for obtaining the login and password of her husband's ex-wife and reading her mail. Probably the first of many such cases to come, these will be interesting to watch how the law is interpretted by the court (treat it as a wiretap violation or as computer hacking?).
posted by mathowie at 5:29 PM PST - 20 comments
Matt Taibbi checks in with 'Excerpt from The Rise and Fall of the United States (Putnam, 2037), William Shirer IV. From the chapter entitled, "The Anschluss Begins."' Typically clever stuff, especially the Franzen bit.
posted by GriffX at 4:17 PM PST - 5 comments
Daniel Rozin makes
mirrors. But not the
boring ones we're used to -- he prefers to make his out of
wood,
trash and occassionally,
shiny balls. His works are a combination of artistic expression and computer vision, and have been on
display around the world. Check out the quicktime videos of his
mirrors in action and prepare your mind to be boggled.
[via cool/lame]posted by krunk at 4:08 PM PST - 12 comments
Hinterland Who's Who Back in the mid 1906s the Canadian government made what have now become the longest running public service annoucments ever. They're also possible the most boring, but that can't stop them from being amazingly popular. Don't forget to check out the spoofs.
posted by tiamat at 11:48 AM PST - 35 comments
The first Kindergarten for men is now open in Germany. "Women in Hamburg who want to shop without dragging along grumbling male partners can leave them at the nation's first kindergarten for men. This adult daycare center has plenty of amenities to keep the big boys occupied....(women, uh, or guys) can drop off their partners at the "Männergarten," where for €10 ($11.64), the men get a meal, two beers and an afternoon of boy's games, cards, conversation and sports on TV." -how long before this catches on in malls across North America?
posted by giantkicks at 11:19 AM PST - 40 comments
Now class, please turn in your (meta)homework Several classes at Stanford have started relying on multimedia-intensive collaborative websites. A quick browse through the gallery and you will find classes that either rely on blogging or run entirely
"wiki style" . While it seems thrilling to see students stimulate and build ideas off one another, will this concept ever filter down to your average high school class? It seems that the whole principle of wiki comes at odds to traditional conventions of authorship. Surprisingly,
in this course, students can choose the option of being assessed solely on their experimental participation on the wiki site. When classwork consists of students adding and changing each other's comments, how would you grade each student individually?
(By the way, there are a lot of pretty pictures in the gallery.)posted by alex3005 at 2:34 AM PST - 12 comments
October 20
Play money is a blog about a guy trying to make money selling artifacts from online games. The guy is Julian Dibbell, whose
work has been discussed on metafilter before.
posted by rdr at 10:49 PM PST - 11 comments
The times had a little
blurb about live tv pitfalls that have a life of their own on the internet...actually i just found
this hilarious and wanted to share it. Is it just me or does anyone else love bloopers like this ?
posted by Cool Alex at 11:12 AM PST - 34 comments
Beginning in April 2002, the State Department project assembled more than 200 Iraqi lawyers, engineers, business people and other experts... to study topics ranging from creating a new justice system to reorganizing the military to revamping the economy.
Their findings included a much more dire assessment of Iraq's dilapidated electrical and water systems... warned... many Iraqis might react coolly to Americans' notion of quickly rebuilding civil society. Several officials said that many of the findings in the $5 million study were ignored by Pentagon officials until recently...
The work is now being relied on heavily as occupation forces struggle to impose stability in Iraq.
posted by y2karl at 9:33 AM PST - 9 comments
The Atomic Duty of Private Bill Bires. 'This is a short history of Pvt. Bill Bires' military duty with Co."A" 231st Engineer Combat Battalion from Ft. Lewis, Washington. Co. "A" was assigned temporary duty at the Atomic Test Series, Buster-Jangle in the Nevada desert, in the fall of 1951.'
'Co. "A"'s military duty at the test site was unique. While the rest of the battalion built the tent city known as Camp Desert Rock, Co. "A" was sent further into the desert to construct the displays of military equipment and postitioned them around the Ground Zeros for the atomic tests. '
'Thousands of troop observers from all parts of the country were brought forward from Camp Desert Rock to witness these atomic detonations. After the explosions, some were marched or bussed even closer to Ground Zero to see the effects of these explosions on military equipment. They then returned to Camp Desert Rock ... '
posted by plep at 8:22 AM PST - 11 comments
mumbo jumbo... BBC journalist John Humphrys bemoans the abuses suffered by the English language. At the risk of becoming a Grumpy Old Man before my time I can't help but agree with him, in particular about the Management Speak. I recently came across the verb "to hero" which set my teeth on edge. And just what the hell does "to leverage" mean?
posted by jontyjago at 1:30 AM PST - 73 comments
October 19
Europe's not-too-modest anti-piracy proposal. If accepted, it means that "not only could a teenager who downloaded a music file be sent to jail under it; so too could managers of the Internet service provider that the teenager happened to use, whether they knew what the teenager was doing or not." The proposal is being spearheaded by French parliamentarian Janelly Fourtou. Coincidentally enough, her husband is the chief executive of
Vivendi Universal.
posted by Ljubljana at 11:33 PM PST - 9 comments
Plants in motion is a comprehensive archive of time-lapse movies (Quicktime format) of plants germinating and growing, flowers opening, tropic responses and circadian movements. Some of the video is quite eerie. The plants really seem...erm...alive... The site also has a guide to
making your own time-lapse film.
posted by Jimbob at 8:15 PM PST - 14 comments
Several people here are fans of Gregg Easterbrook's excellent column Tuesday Morning Quarterback, available (until this week) at ESPN.com. Unfortunately, in his side gig as a writer for the New Republic, in a blog entry savaging the movie Kill Bill, Easterbrook
made comments that came across as perpetuating ugly stereotypes about Jewish people. He immediately claimed 100% responsibility for the ugliness, and
apologized completely and without reservation. Within a week, he was fired by ESPN, all his archived columns (nearly two years worth) removed, and the search engine rigged such that searches for his name, the name of his former column, or the nickname for his column all return only the front page of ESPN, as though the search itself had never taken place.
Many are beginning to suspect, however, that this isn't a case of political correctness, as much as corporate punishment, as ESPN is owned by Disney, which produced Kill Bill.
posted by jonson at 8:02 PM PST - 80 comments
Outside the Inbox is a compilation of songs inspired by and titled after the subject lines of spam. Brad of
Brad Sucks asked artists to choose a subject line from an actual piece of spam and then write a song with it as its title. The result is a fun 14-song concept album filled with some of the great music being made by home recordists on the Internet today!
posted by KathyK at 5:08 PM PST - 5 comments
"A ninth-grader in a denim miniskirt exchanges conversational barbs with a boy leaning against a post, then fakes a little scream as the young man steps toward her and pulls up her skirt, putting her panties on display." Kids these days, right? Nope, it's
Modern Flirting. [via
dangerousmeta.]
posted by emelenjr at 4:17 PM PST - 12 comments
Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction. For years, people have asked themselves, what would happen if certain crewmembers hooked up? Endless combinations have been thought out and pondered, but perhaps the most popular of all, Janeway and Seven of Nine, has been given the full treatment here. Possibly not safe for work (especially the "R" rated stories), because you could be carried out as you laugh yourself to death. A look into the bizarre and often highly amusing world of fanfiction.
posted by insomnyuk at 12:50 PM PST - 66 comments
Tim Davis: images from the sides of boxcars, coal cars, miscellaneous freight cars and a caboose. .
posted by hama7 at 12:47 PM PST - 8 comments
Pontiki Alert! Christmas 2002: Wife buys two
Pontiki figures as stocking stuffers. Husband opens the egg shaped toys delighted to discover a small package of eyes, limbs, and other appendages that fit into small holes on the surface of the egg-body. Husband goes wild, buying a dozen other sets and creating many Pontiki figures to excite the senses. Shortly after Christmas, Pontiki disappear from store shelves ... The Present: Anchovy (the creators of Pontiki) and
Basic Fun seem to have cut a deal for US distribution of the toys known as the
Japanese Mr. Potato Head. They open a gallery for Pontiki creations.
The Pontiki Showcase is now accepting submissions of Pontiki art with a grand opening scheduled for October 27, 2003.
posted by blakewest at 7:49 AM PST - 8 comments
Gathering the Jewels. Welsh culture online. 'The goal of the project was to put the cream of Wales' cultural history, from repositories throughout Wales, on the Internet for people to learn from and enjoy. ' Politics, religion, sport, domestic life, emigration (the
Welsh in Patagonia), the Welsh landscape etc. Via
the 24 Hour Museum.
posted by plep at 3:00 AM PST - 14 comments
October 18
The Final Verdict. Mother Teresa will be beatified today. While the media mostly uncritically reproduced even the wildest claims about her life and work, Calcutta-born writer Aroup Chatterjee has the hard facts on her case. Unlike Christopher Hitchens' polemic "The Missionary Position", Chatterjee's book is full of citations and paints a grim picture of the "gutter saint". The entire book, sans pictures, is available for free online. The reality: Aside from her fanatical opposition to abortion, condoms and the pill, which dominated much of her life since the 1970s, her order's activities often did more harm than help, it celebrates pain and suffering to an absurd extent, and was not involved at all in the major crises and disasters of the subcontinent. If you don't have time to read 400 pages, the
Wikipedia article about her gives a much more balanced picture than most media reports.
posted by Eloquence at 9:11 PM PST - 63 comments
Trading with the Enemy (Prescott Bush was a bad man) - The mainstream press
decides to bring up the Bush/Nazi connection - Newly declassified documents shed new light on the shady beginnings of the Bush family's dynastic wealth: through GW Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush's work as a director of a US bank which was both controlled by the German industrialist Thyssen (who played a key role in bankrolling Hitler's rise to power) and which continued to launder Thyssen Group profits after the US declaration of war against Germany. But if you've been reading Metafilter closely,
you would have known the facts almost a year ago.
( * executes clannish, self/Metafilter congratulatory victory jig * ). Will the mainstream press pick up the trail of the story, to the US government secret importation of
Nazi scientists immediately after WW2? (don't hold yr. breath)
posted by troutfishing at 6:00 PM PST - 60 comments
Not in Iraq or in Afghanistan, but right here at home. The forgotten front in the War on Terror™?
Agents found an underground bunker, thousands of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of pounds of gunpowder and manuals on guerrilla warfare, "booby traps" and explosives....posted by amberglow at 3:25 PM PST - 30 comments
Iraqi Daily: Saddam Ordered Training of Al-Qa'ida Members The White House had claimed a connection between Osama's terror organization and Saddam. No such connection thus far has been established and as a result the anti-Bush folks have accused the White House of fabrication (to put it kindly). This piece, translated from an independent Iraq newspaper, indicates a strong connection between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden.
posted by Postroad at 2:29 PM PST - 22 comments
Independent film festivals often see a wide group of styles brought together and none more eclectic than the films being broadcast through the
Iconscious Film Festival - "A diverse audio/visual festival featuring online events and live screenings of work from a selection of artists and film makers.
A lucid optical experience brought electronically to unsuspecting net users and clubgoers worldwide." Pick of the bunch is probably Ben Milner's
No Soul Journey whilst
Vector(Remix) is strangely compelling.
Real Player required.posted by Kiell at 12:25 AM PST - 1 comments
October 17
The
Druze community reside in Israel, Lebanon and Syria who've been rather overlooked as the middle-east situation complexifies.
Discover (scroll halfway down) an ancient
culture and it's
faith that have had to
adapt to an increasingly unstable climate.
They share some similarities to the Iraqi Yezidi of this thread.posted by moonbird at 7:37 PM PST - 5 comments
"pleix is a virtual community of digital artists based in paris. some of us are 3d artists, some others are musicians or graphic designers. this website is the perfect place to share our latest creations." [note: quicktime]posted by crunchland at 7:02 PM PST - 4 comments
Authors and journalists take note.
Junglescan is a way to track the Amazon sales ranking of a book or product over time. One can follow the ranking of a novel, or CD, or you can collectively track the rise and fall of an idea, or group of items. Not everything is tracked only what it's asked to but for a free service that Amazon should/could provide it works well. See also
Amazon Hacks (via
Kevin Kelly Cool Tools).
posted by stbalbach at 6:41 PM PST - 1 comments
Last night
Hosting Matters (and their related resellers) was taken down by a DoS attack attributed to Al-Qaeda. This attack not only disabled the
intended target but took down some 3000 sites for a significant period of time. Is this an example of
cyber-terrorism or some kid with a script?
posted by cedar at 11:26 AM PST - 48 comments
Southern Folk-Art, Outsider Art & Self-Taught Art • Ginger Young of Chapel Hill, NC who runs this eponymously named art studio, says: "Despite their lack of formal training, these artists have tapped into a powerful wellspring of creativity to render their worlds with passion, pathos, and immediacy." Truly
beautiful,
unfiltered,
vibrant stuff. How could you go wrong with artists named Tubby Brown, Minnie Adkins, Mose Tolliver and Woodie Long? On another note: is this school of thought/art, which comes in and out of vogue every few years, as pure as it seems, or is there an air of exploitation and corniness that comes with fetishizing The Other?
posted by dhoyt at 10:46 AM PST - 14 comments
On October 17, 1815, following
The 100 Days and Waterloo,
Napoleon Bonaparte
arrived on the
Island of St Helena, where he would remain until his
death (
mysterious or
otherwise) in 1821.
Discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, St Helena had a long and interesting
history before Napoleon arrived, but that
history was overshadowed by the story of the Emperor's last years,
living in captive exile at the
simple yet beautiful Longwood House. Victorians had
an insatiable interest for information about the
remote island. Today, the
picturesque Island is a
a tiny bit of England in the South Atlantic, where
coffee and
tourism (indeed, what some might call
pilgrimages) are the main sources of income.
posted by anastasiav at 8:53 AM PST - 3 comments
Voices of Reason
Julian Sanchez on Attack of the Dean-Leaners makes a case for libertarians supporting a Democrat in 2004. Personally, I don't see how real libertarians can have any other position, but then I'm so ancient I can actually remember why the Republican Party started pretending to be the party of "small government". ...
Cathy Young has a fairly dishonest piece called Bipartistan Coulterism ("Who's meaner, conservatives or liberals?") that tries to pretend the left has any equivalent of Ann Coulter. Of course, she finds equivalence, which works if you really think that Michael Moore's outrage about dead kids in highschools is the same as Coulter advocating killing liberals and expressing disappointment that McVeigh failed to bomb The New York Times.
I'm interested in what metafilterians (huh, what?) think of this person's opinions.
posted by nofundy at 7:53 AM PST - 36 comments
Forget British. Define English. The perennial ex-pat and honorary Yank
Christopher Hitchens may not be the best Englishman to define it - though his embarrassingly reactionary brother
Peter is even less suited - but at least he has a go. For everyone else in the world, there are the Scottish, the Welsh, even the Northern Irish - all strong nationalities in their own right, each one older and more culturally solid than the slightly French, slightly German and slightly Dutch English. So why persist, in this post-imperialist day and age, in the myth of the Brit? If
it is a myth. Americans, whether from the U.S. or Canada, certainly continue to buy into it. Or is it, for the rest of the world, too dangerous for the English - with devolution raging - to find their own, muddied identity? Think of those football hooligans and their grotesque politics, St.George face-masks and flags. (
Via Arts And Letters Daily.)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:31 AM PST - 40 comments
October 16
Wayne Joseph of Creole stock and therefore on the lighter end of the black color spectrum, decided on a whim to take a new ethnic DNA test he saw described on a 60 Minutes segment last year, to indulge a casual curiosity about his exact percentage of black blood. The results were staggering.
posted by lola at 11:06 PM PST - 36 comments
As the Boston Red Sox are poised to head to the 2003 World Series in a final American League matchup (the first Game 7 featuring opposing Cy Young pitchers) featuring ex-Sox
Roger Clemens (the only person to ever win 6 Cy Young Awards) against
Pedrom Martinez (3 Cy Young's), I thought I would offer a brief glimpse into every Boston Fan's nightmares:
The Curse. [More Horror Inside]
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:00 PM PST - 102 comments
This is one of my favorite
miniature knitting sites. I am a very bad knitter, being only able to make long rectangles (a.k.a. scarves), so I'm constantly amazed at the people who do this and do it well. I think I'll stick to
Hardanger.
posted by eilatan at 5:01 PM PST - 12 comments
Stu Hart passes away. Anyone who's been more than mildly interested in professional wrestling understands his contribution to the sport. He was father to Bret Hart and the late Owen Hart. He's trained more men than I care to begin to count.
posted by Lusy P Hur at 4:51 PM PST - 6 comments
Why was I still writing for these clowns? Charlie Stross wrote the Linux column in UK magazine 'Computer Shopper' for over sixty months, until a regime change started to impinge on his editorial freedom. The last straw came when he submitted a column regarding weblogging tools for the Linux platform only for it to be bounced because the tools weren't actually part of the operating system ... so he produced this column for himself and emailed his resignation. Part of his decision was based on declining quality and sales. Does anyone still actively buy computer magazines anymore? [thanks
Sore Eyes]
posted by feelinglistless at 1:47 PM PST - 22 comments
VeriSign to Sell Network Solutions The
Registry business that is the backbone of the global .com and .net domain name infrastructure currently handles over 10 billion interactions per day,
remains with VeriSign as a critical component of its business. The customer-facing
Registrar business is the world's leading provider of domain name registrations, and an industry leader in value added services such as business email, websites, hosting and other web presence services.
The Registrar, which re-assumed the Network Solutions name in January of this year, constitutes the current Network Solutions business that is being sold. [emphasis added]
posted by quonsar at 10:06 AM PST - 14 comments
Coca culture (NYT) I am a cocalera. I owe my life to coca. My father died when I was 2 and my mother raised six children by growing coca. I was a farmer myself, growing coca for traditional purposes. But the United States says it is better for us to just forget about coca. In the early 1990's, Bolivian officials distributed American money — $300 to $2,500 per farm — and told us to try yucca and pineapples. But 60 pineapples earn us only about eight bolivianos (about $1). And unlike coca, yucca and pineapples are difficult to carry to the cities to sell, and they spoil. So many farmers returned to growing coca.
posted by magullo at 9:35 AM PST - 34 comments
WarPhotoLTD.com is a Croatian photography showcase intended to "educate the public in the field of war photography, to expose the myth of war and the intoxication of war, to let people see war as it is, raw, venal, frightening, by focusing on how war inflicts injustices on innocents and combatants alike." Search by Photographer, War, Award or Collection, though the site is obviously new-ish and has a small database. Here's a particularly
stunning one from their
current collection ("A Decade of War").
posted by dhoyt at 8:20 AM PST - 3 comments
Top 10 data disasters The BBC report on a list of 10 data mishaps and asks for more. Some of the user submitted stories are too funny. So how did you lose yours?
posted by brettski at 6:34 AM PST - 36 comments
The
Clinton death list meme, so popular right before the 2000 election, has the possibility to start for GWB.
WaPo, Oct 5th;
Bush Family Babysitter Killed in Fairfax . I'm just wondering how you get your own car to roll on top of you?
"Officer Courtney Young, a police spokeswoman, said Champagne had gone outside the house about 9 p.m. Monday, reportedly to retrieve something from her car.
The vehicle had been in gear, police said, and appeared to have rolled in her direction when Champagne was in front of it." posted by CrazyJub at 6:31 AM PST - 23 comments
Hatred via weblog. The
Jewish Internet Association, a tax-exempt, non-profit California corporation, considers the Internet a battleground, where "every channel must be utilized to resist and convert others to our defense and support." A whois showed they have the same mailing address as
palestinefacts.org. However, examining
their weblog reveals an agenda that is every bit as hateful as Hamas.
From a recent entry:
"The Palestinian Arabs go through a pretense of having a government" .... "This must end. In the past the only way such murderous, bastard regimes have ended was through massive destruction of their people and lands." .... "The same process will be required to end the fraudulant "peace process" and come to the point where there can be a new start."
The JIA site links to a guide for
shutting down offensive websites. Do you think the same techniques would work against them too?
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:01 AM PST - 43 comments
October 15
Maggot Art. "A fantastic new teaching tool for use in the elementary school setting. Children get hands-on experience with insects that most people find truly disgusting -- maggots -- while creating a beautiful piece of artwork to share with others."
posted by lola at 9:39 PM PST - 10 comments
WalmartFilter: "Wal-Mart controls a large and rapidly increasing share of the business done by most every major U.S. consumer-products company: 28% of Dial total sales, 24% of Del Monte Foods, 23% of Clorox, 23% of Revlon... Wal-Mart plans to open 1,000 more supercenters in the U.S. alone over the next five years.. giving it control over 35% of U.S. food sales and 25% of drugstore sales...The $12 billion worth of Chinese goods Wal-Mart bought in 2002 represented 10% of all U.S. imports from China." Setting aside questions of monopoly, isn't this a potentially
dangerous monoculture?
posted by alms at 2:31 PM PST - 95 comments
The Abduction of Modernity. "Western thinkers, many of whom cannot speak or read any non-Western language, are held back in their analysis of modern civilization by the assumption that modernity is an exclusive characteristic of the West. At a time when the sole superpower is resurrecting the practice of imposing national will by military might, Henry C K Liu examines this assumption in a series of articles."
Part 1: The race toward barbarism, Part 2: That old time religion, Part 3: Rule of law vs Confucianism, Part 4: Taoism and modernity, Part 5: The Enlightenment and modernity, Part 6a: Imperialism as modernity, Part 6b: Imperialism and fragmentation, Part 6c: Imperialism resisted.posted by homunculus at 11:19 AM PST - 13 comments
Celluloid Skyline. New York City as a dream constructed by the movies, with reference photographs and production drawings from Hollywood.
posted by liam at 10:25 AM PST - 8 comments
Here comes the...what the hell is that? Yes, it's almost redundant to mention that bridesmaid's dresses are ugly--I've always assumed this was to make the bride look that much better by comparison. But sometimes the bride isn't doing herself any favors with her sartorial selection.
posted by adamrice at 9:33 AM PST - 30 comments
So You Think You Know All About Rock Music, Do You? Well, try Rough Music's
Rock Challenge quiz. (
Click on the top left-hand corner, where it says "Test Your Rock Knowledge", include nom-de-plume and imaginary e-mail addy - with spaces even - and prepare to ransack that befuddled memory of yours.). There's additional fun to be had by betting on each question. I loved it! Be warned, though: if you're any good, it's a great time-waster!
P.S. The site itself isn't half-bad either. (
Via LinkFilter.)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:16 AM PST - 24 comments
SCOTUS supports state medical-weed laws "The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a Justice Department effort to punish doctors in Washington and other states for recommending marijuana or even discussing the drug's benefits with their patients." (from google news)
posted by jfuller at 7:03 AM PST - 7 comments
Lego Master Builder search
"After kicking off at The Art Institute of California – San Diego on Thursday, Oct. 30, the official LEGO Master Model Builder Search will head to Art Institutes in Washington D.C., Boston, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles before its final stop in Orange County, California. Winners from each city will be invited to travel to the LEGOLAND theme park in Carlsbad in 2004 to interview for the ultimate job – and the chance for the coveted spot as the seventh LEGO Master Model Builder." Ladies and gentlemen, start your brick building!
posted by Irontom at 6:26 AM PST - 6 comments
My greatest mistake. As Thomas Edison said, "I've failed my way to success"; here a cross section of British great and good confess their greatest mistakes. So, come on then - what's yours?
posted by jonvaughan at 2:33 AM PST - 13 comments
October 14
Labor Unions in a free market.
Southern California is being gripped by crippling strikes by
transit workers and
grocery clerks -- both over health care -- that has stranded thousands of mostly poor commuters across Los Angeles and is expected to sap millions from the local economy.
As a person who can't drive due to a visual disability, I am personally effected by the MTA transit strike (that is rumored may last several months). State employees are not allowed to strike. Shouldn't that also be the case for essential services, such as public transit?
posted by lola at 9:14 PM PST - 80 comments
Mullet haiku, brought to you from the fine folks at the
Beer Church (The Largest Unorganized Religion in the World!)
It's Two! Two! Two links in one!posted by yhbc at 8:34 PM PST - 2 comments
Kafka at Camp: The Lost Diaries July 10,1897—In Arts and Crafts, that humid hut, the teacher stops. He looks down. I look up. I am working on something intricate, something simultaneously nothing and everything. It is made of paper.
"I always wanted you to admire my origami," I say.
"I do. I do admire it."
"Well, you shouldn't," I say.
"You're a weird little dude, Franzie."
posted by GriffX at 6:53 PM PST - 16 comments
Unmarried America According to stats [
1,
2] gathered in
this BusinessWeek story, Marriage in America truly is a fading institution. Married Couple Households "have slipped from nearly 80% in the 1950s to just 50.7% today. That means that the U.S.'s 86 million single adults could soon define the new majority. Already, unmarrieds make up 42% of the workforce, 40% of home buyers, and 35% of voters..."
As a percentage, Never-marrieds, Late-marrieds, Widow(er)s, Single-sex Relationships and Unmarried Cohabitation all have grown significantly, while traditional marriage (and remarriage) has faded. I had no idea that there had been such a downturn. BusinessWeek's angle is that this is an emerging dominant demographic, and will be targeted as a whole, like Gen-X or the Baby Boomers. I Guess that means more flavors of Single-Serving Hot Pockets are on the way.
posted by kokogiak at 10:41 AM PST - 229 comments
Do you have to be black to possess that elusive quality known as "soul"? Soul Music's
New Face: 16, Blond And British.
Joss Stone, the 16 year-old winner of the BBC TV talent show Star for A Night, traveled to Miami to work on songs for a pop album. Instead, she hooked up with a group of gifted but
long-overlooked musicians who were among the prime movers and shapers of "The Miami Sound" of the Seventies: Betty Wright ("Clean Up Woman"), Timmy Thomas ("Why Can't We Live Together"), Latimore ("Let's Straighten It Out") and Little Beaver ("Party Down"). Some of them had not been in the studio for years; Little Beaver was working for Amtrak and Timmy Thomas was a college administrator when they got the call. Together they recorded her first album,
The Soul Sessions, in only four days. Listen on
All Songs Considered or download full mp3 versions of the first 2 songs at
Amazon.
posted by probablysteve at 10:22 AM PST - 46 comments
A follow up on the debate concerning the Constitutionality of the pledge of allegiance. Apparently the Supreme Court is going to hear it.
posted by sourbrew at 8:58 AM PST - 26 comments
Americans are not going broke over lattes! Salon (warning: ad click-through required) interviews the author of a book who contends that American middle class overconsumption is a myth. This made me really think about how I relate to my $$$, and what I think is pushing me deeper into a hole. According to this author, kids are forcing people into bankruptcy, and it's not because we buy them gameboys and expensive clothes. The author also claims that credit card companies and mortgage lenders need to be regulated by the govt., as they are feeding off of middle class hardships. It's also making me wonder why real estate developers aren't building small homes anymore, at least in my state of the union.
posted by archimago at 8:13 AM PST - 91 comments
Wisconsin strip club owner discovers art. A Milwaukee Common Council committee last week agreed to designate Club Paradise, a strip club in Walker's Point, as a "Center for the Visual and Performing Arts" based on the art collection displayed there. This would allow the club to admit underage customers.
posted by Durwood at 8:08 AM PST - 9 comments
Travels in America. Another amazing resource from the Library of Congress, this contains "253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920... The narratives in American Notes range from the unjustly neglected to the justly famous, and from classics of the genre to undiscovered gems." Go to "Search by keyword," put the name of a city into "Search Full Text," and enjoy. (The quote in the post title is about Santa Barbara, from
First impressions in America by John Ayscough [pronounced "ascue"].) Via MeFi's own
plep.
posted by languagehat at 8:00 AM PST - 5 comments
Morning person or night person? "Scientists believe they may now know why some of us are early risers while others prefer to burn the midnight oil. ... Researchers have found that people with an extreme preference for early mornings are more likely to have a long version of [a gene called] Period 3." The article also notes "Your day or night preference is obviously a complex behavioural trait. It is not solely down to one single gene."
My wife and son are morning people; I am a night person. I have often wondered if I, through force of will, could become a morning person and thus spend more quality time with them. Now I have my doubts.
What success have Mefites had trying to change from one to the other mode?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:04 AM PST - 56 comments
Seeing with sound.
A researcher in the Netherlands has developed a system that converts pictures from a head-mounted camera into highly complex soundscapes, which are then piped to the user via headphones. After only a week of use, a woman who has been blind from birth can tell a CD from a floppy, and discern whether the lights are on or off. Not quite up to either a
bat and/or Daredevil standards, but very cool nonetheless.
posted by Irontom at 4:12 AM PST - 5 comments
October 13
Phylogeny recapitulates potheads. Apparently getting stoned affects the behavior of the smoker's sperm. The little guys start out really excited but then burn out before achieving their goals. Why does this sound familiar? Would it be a good ad campaign? Ah, I can't be bothered to figure it out, pass the bong.
posted by alms at 11:02 AM PST - 24 comments
Chronology of Wilsongate Articles Some may scream "overkill," but I found this illuminating and bookmark-worthy even though I've been reading everything I can find on this scandal. New blogger Alex Parker has compiled links to all the relevant pieces in this story, with annotations. As the WH strategy seems to be to constantly confuse us about what facts are nailed down and who knew, or said, what, to whom, and when, this is a good BS-cutter.
(via Calpundit)posted by soyjoy at 10:16 AM PST - 5 comments
Sim Gallery Project is calling for entries, they want proposals for works or performances to exhibit in a gallery space constructed within Sims Online
posted by atom71 at 1:39 AM PST - 1 comments
October 12
You Are As Old As You Feel But... You feel old anyway, right? Well, senectitude is not just an attitude, dude. You
are getting older. Deal with it. Listen, for instance, to old man
Cicero. He knows. And if you're still enough of a spring chicken to wonder what your
emotional age is, (
not to mention tolerate Oprah), here's a little consolatory quiz to pep you up.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:22 PM PST - 24 comments
Album Cover Challenge. The challenge is this: there are sixty album covers - some better known than others, but none willfully obscure - from which the artist and title information has been removed. Can you identify all the albums and provide the missing information? [via Travelers Diagram]posted by soundofsuburbia at 5:40 AM PST - 60 comments
Drink-o-meter: Have you ever wondered how much you've managed to drink in your lifetime? Or how much it might have cost you? You have?
(via B3ta)posted by Ljubljana at 5:21 AM PST - 18 comments
October 11
U.S. May Expand Access To Endangered Species. With this year being the 30th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, the Bush Administration is considering proposals that
"would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries."posted by Stynxno at 3:17 PM PST - 50 comments
You are fat because there is too much corn. [NYT, forfeit of first-born son required] I love good old-fashioned materialism, and Michael Pollan (author of
The Botany of Desire) scores one for the team with this article on the economics of corn production. Are we fat because New Deal agricultural policy was overturned in the 70s by Rusty Butz? Now there's a trailing question we can all enjoy.
posted by condour75 at 10:09 AM PST - 31 comments
October 10
How about tolerance for all? These regular protests in Utah (or other LDS-dense populations) don't seem to make much news, though they'd probably be scandalous if performed against other religious groups.
posted by oissubke at 11:44 PM PST - 133 comments
Shedworks / uncommon scenes. Naked women. In run down, abandoned buildings. In german. What else do you need to know?
NSFW, probably, but that really depends on where you work.
posted by signal at 2:25 PM PST - 15 comments
A certain psychologist of Hungarian extraction,
Mihaly Csikszentimihaly--
sounds like stoned sex-crazed muppet: Me High-ee! Chicks sent me highee!--began by monitoring the activities and emotional states of talented adolescent artists with what became known as
experience sampling forms, now available in a new, improved
hi tech version. He found people reported the greatest satisfaction when
actively involved in a challenging task that stretches abilities, to the extent that time, space, and self-awareness become secondary to the accomplishment of the task. He wrote a book about it,
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, which flew off the shelves in the Self Help sections of bookstores everywhere--even though there were no easy steps nor
Idiots Guide To... included beyond an academic enunciation of the parameters involved: the zone of experience in which Flow existed.
[More Within]posted by y2karl at 1:02 PM PST - 22 comments
ten years of my life seems to be our fearless leader's newest project.
it's an idea i've picked up from time to time and then discarded because i don't think i have the discipline.
does anyone know if similar projects out there?
go matt! i'm looking forward to this a lot. (via boing boing)posted by dolface at 9:31 AM PST - 30 comments
Some believe that
Michelangelo's famous work the
Creation of Adam depicts God superimposed on a cross-section of a human
brain. Michelangelo routinely made use of symbolism and humor in both his painting and sculpture. Was he suggesting man created God? If so, this is delicious irony.
posted by gruchall at 9:23 AM PST - 18 comments
Student sued after revealing CD copying secret. Apparently SunnComm Technologies is under the impression that mentioning that using the "shift" key on your computer will override its program's installation is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And also, the company's lost $10 million in market value since the story aired. Which may also have something to do with it.
posted by jscalzi at 9:03 AM PST - 21 comments
Nipsey Russell's Funky Palace "Hands down, Nipsey Russell is simply an entertainment master. His work in Vaudville, The Match Game, $20,000 Pryamid and The Hollywood Squares all represent wonders of modern entertainment. However, they pale in comparison to his greatest work, breathing new life into the Disco inspired Tin-Man character in the '70's revival of the classic Wizard of Oz film known as The Wiz." This hyperbole-spouting little site also includes
photographs of vintage vinyl from the couplet comic himself.
posted by NedKoppel at 8:53 AM PST - 4 comments
Impeach "the crazies" now! "Can there be any greater violation of the public trust than to bear false witness to the people's representatives in pursuit of short-term political gain? Can there be injuries more immediate to society than to send American citizens to their death on a fraudulent pretext? With each shooting of a U.S. soldier in Iraq, the case for impeachment grows stronger."
posted by acrobat at 8:04 AM PST - 28 comments
Breathtaking Hubble picture of the Sombrero Galaxy (also identified as M104). The Hubble Heritage team took the original images during May and June of this year using the Advanced Camera for Surveys and multiple color filters. They then stitched 6 images together to make the final composite image.
posted by Irontom at 5:41 AM PST - 39 comments
Won't somebody think of the children? Wired News reports that a
Mexican
company has launched a service
to implant RFID
verichips
(Technology That Cares)
into children as an anti-kidnapping device.
"The company envisions placing walk-through scanners -- similar
to metal-detector portals used in airports --
in malls, bus stations and other areas where a missing child may appear."
Similar plans have been
proposed
before by the UK's Kevin
"Captain Cyborg" Warwick, but while his plans to use the mobile phone
network are implausible, this method seems more feasible. So, why not
sign up to
get
chipped today!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 4:35 AM PST - 14 comments
Shirin Ebadi wins Nobel Peace Prize Iranian lawyer and human rights activist
Shirin Ebadi has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2003.
Ebadi is Iran's first female judge and a leading figure in the struggle for women's and children's rights in Iran. She is known for representing the interests of persecuted individuals and has braved reprisals for her beliefs.
posted by dagny at 2:37 AM PST - 8 comments
October 9
"I will hire an outside independent auditor, free of political influence..." Schwarzenegger breaks promise to Californians, hires Donna Arduin to head the 60-day audit of California. Arduin is "on loan" from Florida, where she is Jeb Bush's Budget director.
Arduin has been
criticized by economists and even
prominent Florida republicans for "surreal",misleading, unrealistic, and risky accounting procedures.
During her stint as Budget Director, Ms. Arduin oversaw numerous tax cuts aimed at the wealthiest Floridians, while most Floridians saw no significant decrease in taxes. Infact, today Florida has the
second most regressive taxes in the nation.The effects of these tax cuts? Unprecidented shortfalls in state tax revenues, with
massive budget cuts for public schools,
universities,
child welfare,
vision services for uninsured children, etc.
Class warfare, anyone?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:10 PM PST - 65 comments
Vladimir Brajovic does interesting research on "reflectance perception". The result: the
Shadow Illuminator, a site that brings out amazing amounts of detail in the shadowy parts of your digital images.
posted by tss at 12:06 PM PST - 23 comments
Sex makes you smell better. Er, in that it improves your sense of smell. And it reduces the risk of heart disease. And relieves pain. And even improves
teeth. This Forbes article explains those and other health benefits of getting a little something-something.
posted by NortonDC at 11:45 AM PST - 33 comments
The new Islam. Husam Tammam and Patrick Haenni in
Le Monde (English version) describe the new forms of Islamic culture taking shape in Egypt. I follow the Islamic world fairly closely, but this was news to me. Does it herald an Islam that can live with the rest of the world (and vice versa)?
This entry, both with the hijab [veil] and the nashid [religious chant], into consumerism and syncretism with non-Arab models, has led to an implicit questioning of the old puritanism of the 1970s and 1980s - and above all a questioning of the principle of the ideologisation of religion. The change is important: we could trace similar patterns in the Islamic economy, increasingly affected by the ups and downs of international finance; or in Islamic charity, which has been rethought, within a framework of neoliberalism, as a security net to replace the state's withdrawal from this area (a withdrawal the Islamists have widely supported).
(Via
Path of the Paddle.)
posted by languagehat at 10:24 AM PST - 9 comments
what do you call your circle of friends? Two years ago, Ethan Watters wrote
an article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine, covering the current phenomenon amongst adults who are marrying late, waiting for the 'right one', and using an extended social circle to fill the need for intimacy and emotional support that has been traditionally provided by a marriage. He has expanded the topic into
a book covering groups of friends that have the characteristics of 'an urban tribe' bound by a shared culture of inside jokes, origin myths and communal rituals. Does this apply to your social set? Do you have
a Yahoogroup or a
Friendster bulletin board that is used to plan movie nights, pubcrawls or group vacations? Does
introducing a new romantic partner to your friends feel more stressful than introducing them to your family? Conversely, do you need
a chart to track who has dated whom, who has slept with whom, and who has had more than their fair share of drunken hookups? Or is this all one man's conflated introspection of his extended bachelorship?
posted by bl1nk at 10:13 AM PST - 24 comments
Vatican declares fresh Death all around. It seems the Vatican is telling people in countries with high AIDS infection not to use condoms, because the virus is small enough to pass through the porous latex. The World Health Organization believes condoms do reduce the risk of AIDS transmission. To which the Vatican's Cardinal Trujillo replied: "They are wrong about that... this is an easily recognisable fact."
posted by the fire you left me at 8:49 AM PST - 93 comments
eMusic Ends Unlimited Service - starting in November, $10/month only gets you 40 downloads. They're "pleased" to announce $50/month for 300 downloads. eMusic has been one of my favorite sites for a while. Just a moment ago, I cancelled my subscription.
posted by Fantt at 6:27 AM PST - 98 comments
Limerick Challenge. In celebration of
National Poetry Day we are invited to write a limerick beginning with the line "
On Arnie's first day in the job..." with a warning that "BBC taste and decency guidelines apply". Fortunately there are no such guidelines here.
posted by cbrody at 6:22 AM PST - 48 comments
Pay your electricity bill -- or Fluffy gets it. Russia's First Channel television reported Dalenergo, an electricity company in Russia's Far Eastern city Vladivostok, is so frustrated by customers who owe around 300 million roubles (6 million pounds) that it has decided to confiscate their pets.
posted by gregb1007 at 4:55 AM PST - 7 comments
October 8
Go Ahead And Leave Me, See If I Care! Was
not what
the late, great Jacques Brel sung.
Oh no. (
Scott Walker, imo, did the best cover.) And last Tuesday a 16-CD collection
was launched, with
all his songs -
and then some, including 5 he specifically stated he never wanted released. I've heard two of the songs - they're wonderful. But the question remains, with echoes of Kafka telling his friend Max Brod to burn all his manuscripts: should the wishes of dead artists be respected? Does time - in this case 25 years since his death - make it any less problematic? Or the fact that the publication was approved by the Jacques Brel Estate, i.e., his widow?
(
My favourite Brel song, btw, is his wistful, sardonic tribute to his country: flat, boring Belgium: Le plat pays. It never fails to exercise the tear ducts, nope, never...)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:57 PM PST - 31 comments
Just how large is 87 billion dollars exactly?
It's this large, about the size of three costco warehouses by the looks of it.
posted by mathowie at 8:45 PM PST - 58 comments
"Now, this:" Neil Postman dies at 72, on the same day Americans elect a "talking hairdo" to high political office. If that doesn't seem ironic, you probably didn't read
Amusing Ourselves to Death, his best-known book. But I did, and as I only realized today, it deeply and permanently affected my worldview. Anybody else?
(via Atrios)posted by soyjoy at 8:29 PM PST - 22 comments
A third-rate bugging? Did Pennsylvania Republicans plant listening devices to gain an advantage in the next Philadelphia mayoral election? I think they did and in
his words, that's the truth!
posted by Bag Man at 5:59 PM PST - 16 comments
WiFi-SM is "a Wi-Fi-capable patch you stick on your body so you can feel painful shocks whenever news stories are published containing keywords that you enter into the software". (via Mikes List) Who needs this when we have MetaFilter?...
posted by marvin at 5:28 PM PST - 11 comments
But nudity is part of our culture! In a rare move, a French advertising sector association has called on underwear manufacturer Triumph to withdraw a billboard campaign for its Sloggi range, which has been widely condemned as offensive to women. The fear among advertisers is that the ad with its explicit exposure of the models' buttocks will prompt the government to replace the existing system of industry self-regulation with laws on what can and cannot be portrayed in ads.
Some pretty good lines here:
-
"It's the strip-tease context which is the problem in the Sloggi ads. ... It is very damaging for the image of advertising," said Joseph Besnainou
-
"Since the 19th century, the dress code of prostitutes has tended to set the tone for women as a whole," feminist author Florence Montreynard told LCI television.
-
"These models are beautiful by some criteria, but their buttocks are those of adolescents rather than of real women. Are women supposed to get a complex about that?"
-
"But nudity will always be used in adverts in France," he said. "It's part of our culture."
The link to
some of the ad creative in question.
Caution: Flash required, as well as it being not necessarily safe for France, which means it's definitely NSFW in the English speaking world.
posted by psmealey at 2:46 PM PST - 37 comments
The Confluence Project aims to
"visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location." Includes stories from each documented point.
posted by moonbird at 2:18 PM PST - 14 comments
They fixed my boo-boo. (warning - graphic pix)
Did you ever see this picture? It makes the email forwarding rounds ever so often, and is a fixture in the pro-life community. Taken in 1999, it shows a tiny hand touching the finger of one of the doctors involved in a spina bifida corrective operation. At the time, the fetus was 21 weeks old. Late last month, Samuel Armas (the boy the fetus became) testified briefly before a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee examining scientific and medical advances in prenatal surgery.
[more inside]posted by Irontom at 12:39 PM PST - 22 comments
This animation shows that biologically and socially relevant information about a person can be conveyed in biological motion patterns. You can adjust the moving figure in four areas: male/female, heavy/light, nervous/relaxed, and
happy/sad.
While I was intrigued by the concept, I'm not completely sure that the moving figure conveyed the state I had intended.
(I found using 'lines' provided a clearer image of someone walking)
posted by darsh at 12:34 PM PST - 13 comments
The Book of Roofs is a site to take your time with. Originally an art installation, the web site is a look at the concept of roofs - anthropological, biological, spiritual, metaphysical, social and political - in a collection of "roof tiles" consisting of short articles, personal narratives, mythological references, quotes, historic events, video and photographs, all related to the concept of shelter. If you feel so moved you can even contribute your own tile.
Flash and soundposted by taz at 11:29 AM PST - 2 comments
US TV news too liberal,
say Americans. Nearly half of Americans think its news media is too liberal despite the rise of controversial hard-right cable channel
Fox News. Only 14% of Americans believe the media to be too conservative, according to
a poll by
Gallup.
posted by MintSauce at 8:23 AM PST - 68 comments
Kennedy To Receive Bush Public Service Award Say Whaaat? "The George Bush Presidential Library Foundation announced that United States Senator Edward M. Kennedy would receive the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service." The Elder Bush selects the winner of this award personally... This must mean either that (a) W. had stopped accepting phone calls from his dad or (b) he will now...
posted by wendell at 3:12 AM PST - 8 comments
Arnie wins in california, a victory for Mr schwarzenegger. For a man whose acting ability was described as going all the way from A to B, lets hope for the sake of californians that he is somewhat more adept at politics.
posted by johnnyboy at 1:32 AM PST - 190 comments
"Before the invention of modern billboards, sign painters used to paint advertisements and company names directly onto building walls. These gradually fading painted signs are known as
ghost signs."
posted by dobbs at 12:01 AM PST - 28 comments
October 7
The Best-Kept Data-Superpower Secret on the Web RootsWeb is one of the older sites on the Net, and has one of the densest data collections, but it gets very few props. Almost all of the (we're talking terabytes here) data is a.) free; b.) user-contributed. It was open-source and public domain when Linus Torvalds, bless his soul, was still muddling through high school. Sugar-daddy site
Ancestry.com does a lot of advertising, but you hardly ever heard about homely, brilliant RootsWeb. RootsWeb hosts many of sites that make up the
WorldGenWeb Project, a loose network of genealogical and historical data repositories organized by locality, from the
AfghanistanGenWeb through the
USGenWeb all the way to the
ZimbabweGenWeb. Rootsweb's
Social Security Death Index UI is excellent--use it to search for a record amongst 70 million available. The
WorldConnect database offers up the family trees of 298,212,965 people. Remember the domain, because after this when you Google, you'll be impressed (I believe) by how many content-heavy sites are hosted by RootsWeb. Any other RootsWeb-hosted sites that MeFites enjoy?
posted by jengod at 2:57 PM PST - 12 comments
Virus replication is a feature! "If you are using a Macintosh e-mail program that is not from Microsoft, we recommend checking with that particular company. But most likely other e-mail programs like Eudora are not designed to enable virus replication." The original URL is 404. I wonder if Microsoft will be exerting their copyrights to force archive.org to remove this.
posted by tbc at 1:17 PM PST - 3 comments
The 5pm Deadline is approaching, but the White House doesn't care. The White House--expected to turn in all documents relevant to the Justice Department investigation of the Plame affair--has instead decided that a team of lawyers ought to spend two weeks determining which evidence can be used against their clients. Meanwhile, President Bush continues his
two-month initiative to get to the bottom of the matter himself.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 12:43 PM PST - 21 comments
You've laughed at them in the supermarket checkout line, now
dirt Magazine lets you create your own tabloid headlines and spread vile gossip about your friends and enemies with a few keystrokes and a simple click of the mouse!
posted by MrBaliHai at 12:08 PM PST - 11 comments
One of my favorite poets is
Denise Duhamel, whom I met at a writer's workshop back in '94. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to find the entire text of her first book,
Smile! online.
posted by hyperizer at 9:02 AM PST - 3 comments
Alphabet Evolution
See the evolutionary progression of alphabets through time and cultures. Examples include Cuneiform, Phoenician, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, modern Cyrillic and the Latin character sets. The Latin is the best documented character set and requires a wide screen to see all the evolutionary events (especially Y and Z)
posted by Irontom at 5:44 AM PST - 9 comments
Might as well jump. JUMP! An interesting article (nicked from
linkfilter) about suicide and the Golden Gate Bridge. Only 26 people are known to have survived the 220 ft drop into water 350ft deep. I have been across the bridge once and was "amused" by the fact that there is a free counselling phone as you get halfway across. Reading this article and realising the numbers involved, it suddenly seems less funny...
BTW, the jumper (who before he went a second time was one of the 26) protesting the Iraq War was discussed
here.
posted by jontyjago at 3:11 AM PST - 38 comments
Fragment: a writing meme. For creative writers who might need a small nudge in the ribs, three sentence fragments posted once a week "for you to fit into a bit of fiction/stream of consciousness/what-have-you... a quick bit of dirtiness to get your creative energy flowing". Write your bit and post your link.
(via the ever-enlightening Anne, of Fishbucket.)posted by taz at 2:07 AM PST - 5 comments
October 6
GAO: Pentagon sold biolab gear "The Defense Department sold equipment to the public that can be used for making biological warfare agents, according to a draft report by the General Accounting Office. "
Next: Anthrax on EBay?
posted by Postroad at 4:09 PM PST - 14 comments
By Presidential Proclamation, October 12 through 18 will be
Marriage Protection Week, which "provides an opportunity to focus our efforts on preserving the sanctity of marriage." October 12 is also the anniversary of the murder of Andrew Shepard. Just as President Bush gave a speech condemning Affirmative Action on Martin Luther King Day and declared the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision "National Sanctity of Life Day," this is, of course, a complete coincidence.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:32 PM PST - 94 comments
Would you like fries with that? Saturday's Washington Post has a touching story about a 58-year-old grandmother who thought she'd be retired by now, but instead finds herself popping four different prescription medications at 4 in the morning while beginning her shift at Hardee's. As a journalist, I found this incredibly detailed story an example of newspaper writing at its rare best.
posted by GaelFC at 2:00 PM PST - 44 comments
Ever Lose Your Security Deposit Because Of A Room-Mate? Well then damagedeposit.com has the contest for you. The site is run by
Adrian Crook, who is authoring a book entitled "
Damage Deposit: Stories from the Roommate Realm", and needs some fodder for it. So if you currently have or have had a horrid roommate or two, and can put together a few thousand words,
and could use $500, then this is the contest for you.
posted by djspicerack at 11:06 AM PST - 9 comments
California voters recall Gov. Gray Davis
55-45 percent and elect Arnold Schwarzenegger with
45 percent of the replacement vote. That's where the money is in the
Iowa Political Markets for tomorrow's recall election. To see how well MetaFilter's pundits fare in predicting the results, I'm offering a bribe ...
posted by rcade at 9:54 AM PST - 117 comments
There has been a
sharp rise in interest in exotic pets nationwide. Some people get exotic animals because they think it will be cool or because they saw one on Animal Planet. "I think there's more
tigers in the U.S than there are in India or Russia."
posted by stbalbach at 7:10 AM PST - 10 comments
October 5
Do Not Call 317-816-9336. Columnist Dave Barry takes on the American Teleservices Association
again, publishing their new number (they had to disconnect their old one after he mentioned it in a
previous column.) But please, don't call 317-816-9336, because to suggest "calling somebody who doesnt want to be called, even if you have the legal right to call, well, that's just plain rude."
posted by Fofer at 1:34 PM PST - 39 comments
Weird Gardens. 'It started with the winter blues: I wanted my small rowhouse garden to be aesthetically pleasing - at least to me - all year, not just during the growing season. One Friday evening I discovered a pile of rusted and beautifully shaped boiler parts in my alley; they became the fencing for my new rust garden ... '
posted by plep at 11:11 AM PST - 7 comments
Phelps to erect anti-Matthew Shepard monument. Anti-gay crusader
Fred Phelps' planned
monument (PDF, from Phelps' site), to be installed in City Park in downtown Casper, Wyo. (Shepard's home town), would contain the inscription, "Matthew Shepard, Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as womankind; it is an abomination.' Leviticus 18:22." (More inside...)
posted by boredomjockey at 1:24 AM PST - 146 comments
October 4
Another Top 100 films, but this is the product of
Tv Cream and is more special (and I'd hazard closer to our opinions) than the usual lists. I won't give away the top film but if I mention that 'Psychomania', 'The Belles of St Trinians', 'The President's Analyst' and 'Time Bandits' are all in there you'll get the idea. Purposefully obscure at times? Sure. After all, there are still no places for 'Krush Groove' or 'Electric Dreams' ...
posted by feelinglistless at 5:05 PM PST - 21 comments
bloggerCON webcast Can't get enough of bloggers incessantly and never-endingly meta-blogging about weblogs? Well, now all the usual suspects are droning on
in person and you can watch them do it live.
Warning: Not recommended for anyone other than people like me who are fighting a nasty cold and looking for something to put them to sleep.
posted by theonetruebix at 12:33 PM PST - 38 comments
Roy Horn, of Siegfried and Roy fame, was
mauled by a white tiger last night during his show.
posted by tomcosgrave at 9:56 AM PST - 67 comments
If Arnold Schwarzenegger is elected California can say HASTA LA VISTA BABY to 9 billion according to this article by investigative reporter Greg Palast. According to Palast it turns out that Schwarzenegger knowingly joined the hush-hush encounter with Ken (Enron) Lay and Michael Milken as part of a campaign to sabotage a Davis-Bustamante plan to make Enron and other power pirates then ravaging California pay back the $9 billion in illicit profits they carried off. For memories sake here are a few of the the details behind the
California energy scam in this report. Arnold has previously said that he does not remember such a meeting with Ken Lay.
posted by thedailygrowl at 1:34 AM PST - 62 comments
October 3
A land ruled by chaos. Award-winning writer Suzanne Goldenberg returns to Iraq, from where she reported on Saddam's fall. But in place of the promised peace she finds a country where lawlessness, violence and fear have filled the void.
posted by y2karl at 10:04 PM PST - 16 comments
So let me get this straight. These shoes, they
vibrate? All joking aside, the use of tiny vibrations in the soles of shoes to help keep the elderly from falling seems like a very interesting idea...
posted by Lokheed at 4:49 PM PST - 4 comments
For over a decade,
reclusive Berliners Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald have published a distinctive style of minimalist techno through
Basic Channel and several other labels based out of
their record store. In 1996, they expanded into dub with
Burial Mix, a series of 10"s featuring long-lost reggae vocalists. (They've also begun reissuing out-of-print releases by NYC's
Wackies.) Although their vinyl-centric releases have always been relatively underground, they may soon be reaching a wider audience thanks to a domestic (US) release of their latest CD comp by
Asphodel. Also see the latest issue of
The Wire for a new quasi-interview.
posted by hyperizer at 4:01 PM PST - 15 comments
High noon showdown on the Internet. Well, 6:00 p.m. showdown, anyway. "For all these reasons, ICANN has today insisted that VeriSign suspend the SiteFinder service, and restore the .com and .net top-level domains to the way they were operated prior to 15 September 2003. If VeriSign does not comply with this demand by 6:00 PM PDT on 4 October 2003, ICANN will be forced to take the steps necessary to enforce VeriSign's contractual obligations." (via
Spinnoff, and a followup to
this post and
this one.)
posted by UKnowForKids at 2:49 PM PST - 26 comments
The Lord of the Rings: The Extended Versions: On screen. Got 11 or 12 hours to spare? Want to see Peter Jackson's epic trilogy, all of it, all at once, all on the big screen? Your wish has been granted. See the first one, or see the second one, or on December 16th, see both -- and then see the premiere of The Return of the King, too. Bring your adult diapers, kids.
posted by honkzilla at 1:38 PM PST - 27 comments
Last night I saw
Brent Mendenhall on an Asian-language television channel, doing a sometimes-uncanny George W. Bush impersonation. Being able to understand his mock-Texan ramblings but not the host interviewing him was a surreal experience. Upon
cursory investigation, I was shocked to find that some
suspect Dubya of using a look-alike for particularly dangerous speaking engagements, and that others are
available for hire.
Saddam, too!
posted by scarabic at 1:22 PM PST - 3 comments
Link from the FEC's website A link off of the FEC's website seems to suggest Hillary Clinton's going to take a shot at the big office. The results can be retrieved like this:
1) Go to
The FEC Site
2) Click on "Citizen Guide"
3) Click on "View Reports" under the "Campaign Finance Information" header on the right
4) Click "Search the Report Image System"
5) Search for "Clinton, Hillary"
The first link is for Senate in 2000, the second is for President in 2004. It would seem that she's breaking her promise to the residents of New York State to not run for President during her first term. However,
this Wired article suggests she was listed for the same thing for the 2000 elections (though the record now lists 2004).
posted by phong3d at 12:12 PM PST - 16 comments
Jimmie Hatz, the official condom of Hip Hop Kulture™. Available in Great Dane and Rottweiler. Hey, whatever gets more people to use them, no? (flash-based site)
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:09 PM PST - 6 comments
Painkillers destroy hearing - Looks like America's fascination with Vicodin, Oxycotin, and other hardcore painkillers has a lasting effect other than addiction. Studies are showing that "rapid hearing loss, even deafness, in some patients who are misusing the drugs". This is serious enough for Vicodin's manufacturer to add a "warning about the potential for hearing loss to the drug's label."
Is Rush Limbaugh's
sudden deafness and recent involvement in a
painkiller drug investigation simply a coincidence?
posted by Argyle at 11:25 AM PST - 38 comments
"The
Virtual Truck Route offers many stops along the way. This site has been developed as a tribute to the drivers of the big rigs, to the artists of truck drivin' music, to the DJ's of the truck drivin' radio networks, and to those who love them. Happy motoring!"
posted by soundofsuburbia at 10:38 AM PST - 4 comments
Half-Life 2 source code leaked online Valve Software, the makers of
Half-Life 2, said the leak followed a concerted hacking effort on the company's computers over a number of months. Easily one of most eagerly anticipated games ever, Half-Life 2 is regarded by many as the next step in the evolution in First Person Shooters. What does this mean for the future of Valve Software? (More inside)
posted by stazen at 10:20 AM PST - 53 comments
How many misconceptions did you have, viewers? A study released today in the
Philadelphia Inquirer reports a majority of Americans had "at least one" of the three largest misconceptions about the Iraq War. The study also ranks frequency of misconceptions by most commonly-used news source. Supporting or opposing the war, it's interesting to see just how many people had at least some of their facts wrong, and how much whoever was allegedly giving them their facts had to do with it.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 10:05 AM PST - 4 comments
From the Asia Times — "The more commercial television news you watch, the more wrong you are likely to be about key elements of the Iraq War and its aftermath, according to a major new study released in Washington on Thursday." [more inside]
posted by grrarrgh00 at 6:25 AM PST - 44 comments
October 2
Botanical Record-Breakers - learn about the world's most poisonous plants, the fastest growing, the most painful, the oldest, the ongoing debate about the largest, and much more. Also discussed is the rare
coconut pearl - botanical jewel, or hoax?
posted by Jimbob at 9:28 PM PST - 8 comments
Mac Buds Everyone assumes you're gay if you use a Mac instead of Windows. Just because we're
not hard-core gamers doesn't mean ... well, I guess the
classic logo didn't exactly dissuade this line of thinking. I think it's awesome that people in a niche inside of a niche has a whole site to find one another.
posted by clango at 7:50 PM PST - 33 comments
Paging adrianhon ... Everyone's favorite soulless cubicle farm,
Metacortex, now has a web presence. You can also visit their strategic ally
Underscore Hosting, and even see a currently functionless homepage for their forthcoming
Metadex product. In fact, you can even check the status of their Greek fabricated-island resort
Aquapolis. Should you need to contact Metacortex or Underscore, their websites offer both e-mail and telephone numbers, both valid.
If the name Metacortex only rings a vague bell, it might help to recall their most, ah, celebrated ex-employee,
Thomas Anderson. (more inside)
posted by blueshammer at 7:29 PM PST - 9 comments
Clooney gets conned Kaycee'd and is being sued. "THE ACTOR opened his heart last year when a woman told him about her tragic, cancer-stricken daughter, Cindy, and he began making calls and sending gifts to the terminally-ill young woman. Before long, however, Clooney began to doubt that 'Cindy' really existed."
posted by mathowie at 5:39 PM PST - 16 comments
The Horror Channel A 24-hour, all-horror, uncensored, digital cable channel plans to be launched for Halloween 2004, with programming to include classic and contemporary movies, specials, documentaries and original series’ each season. CEO and founder Nicholas A. Psaltos (former Director of Acquisitions and Program Administration at Bravo Television Networks) hopes the new genre network will capitalize on the success of other genre channels like Comedy Central and The Sci-Fi Channel. Psaltos has even put together a creative advisory board of genre legends and newcomers including John Carpenter, Roger Corman, Wes Craven, Guillermo del Toro, Tobe Hooper, Stuart Gordon, Lucky McKee, Eli Roth, George Romero and Rob Zombie. Starting a TV network is risky business and The Horror Channel is petitioning horror fans to help with programming by providing a survey on their consumer website. (Via
Rue Morgue)
posted by Jeffy at 3:41 PM PST - 17 comments
September 12: A Toy World "September 12 is a free Shockwave game where players try to solve the terrorist problem - a sort of editorial cartoon rendered in simple simulation." It's not really much of a simulation, and the 'argument' is simplistic to the point of inanity. But as a new medium, interesting. (via
gamegirladvance)
posted by jcruelty at 3:16 PM PST - 18 comments
Want to buy the Web? The whole thing? (scroll to bottom of page). Alexa now offers - for sale - the entire web, collected from their crawler, in a portable form: "For organizations capable of hosting or mining an entire crawl index that exceeds
60 Terabytes in size, Alexa can ship the contents of the crawl to your location. Current customers include the Internet Archive and the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. The web-wide crawl takes approximately 2 months to complete. It is over 60 Terabytes in size, spanning over 3.5 billion unique URLs."
No price listed, but "If you have to ask..."
posted by kokogiak at 3:03 PM PST - 16 comments
"
Sweat-hogging" -- seeking out plus-size women for romantic encounters characterized by a remarkably virulent brand of hatred, cruelty, objectification and, it seems, not a little self-loathing. And I use the word "romantic" loosely.
Anybody ever run across this pathology before?
(via Romanesko)posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:33 PM PST - 45 comments
Attorney General Is Closely Linked to Inquiry Figures Karl Rove, President Bush (news - web sites)'s top political adviser, whose possible role in the case has raised questions, was a paid consultant to three of Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri, twice for governor and for United States senator, in the 1980's and 1990's, an associate of Mr. Rove said on Wednesday. Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of Mr. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, was the director of Mr. Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign, and later worked as Mr. Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff. No wonder
69% of Americans think that an
independent counsel should conduct the investigation.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:48 AM PST - 48 comments
Byronic Roleplaying? Lord Vincent Smallpees (R51 D58 O21) wants to seduce Lady Margaret Whateley (R45 D55 O23), the wife of his best friend Alfred Thompson. He choses to tell her he's been loving her for such a long time, that his heart will shatter if she ever refuses to be kind, or something like that. His Actor choses to roll below Vincent's Despair ; he rolls: it's a 11, which is a Success. Cowabunga!
Welcome to
Wuthering Heights: The Roleplaying Game. (
More here.)
posted by grabbingsand at 6:33 AM PST - 12 comments
And the Weasel Award Goes to... In the best weasel tradition, this poll is exuberantly, unapologetically unscientific. Last year a conservative group rallied its troops to bias the poll to serve its own agenda. We applaud that behavior and find it to be in the true spirit of weaseldom.
Sounds like a challenge to me... [more inside]
posted by wendell at 5:13 AM PST - 11 comments
'Compleat Diagram of Strange Persons' Something fun for your Thursday. What strange group are you closely related to? Personally i'm not surprised to see Mac users so closely related to Elitists and the Illuminati... Link via themorningnews.org
posted by efalk at 3:57 AM PST - 31 comments
The On-Line Picasso Project offers 6,893 works for your ogling pleasure, plus an obsessively documented chronological bio. I'm stunned.
(please read the user's manual, inside.)posted by taz at 3:55 AM PST - 12 comments
On sunday, Rush Limbaugh commented that Donovan McNabb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, was overrated and was only seen favourably by the media because they want to see a black quarterback do well.
McNabb responded, and earlier tonight
Limbaugh resigned from his post on ESPN's pre-game show. N.D. Kalu, one of the Eagle's defensive ends, offered this choice quote: "He speaks well, he's well-read, but he's an idiot."
posted by The God Complex at 12:19 AM PST - 100 comments
October 1
While the tragedy of the bombing in Bali was bad enough,
evidence has surfaced that the bomb was incorrectly assembled, resulting in less than 1/3 of the device exploding (bare-bones
link). Experts using computer modelling have worked out the net explosive quantity of the vehicle bomb outside the Sari Club was between 150kg and 300kg – as opposed to a potential 1150kg and that the toll could have been in the thousands had the bomb exploded as planned.
posted by dg at 4:00 PM PST - 12 comments
Take Action: Iranian woman to be executed for killing a rapist who happened to be the Head of Police Intelligence unit in a southern city of Iran.
Afsaneh Nouroozi was arrested in 1997 after she killed the in Kish, Southern Iran. She allegedly acted in self-defense in order to protect herself from being raped. Afsaneh Nouroozi is now at imminent risk of execution after the death sentence against her was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei, is the only authority able to grant clemency at this stage.
Amnesty International has more detail.
posted by hoder at 1:57 PM PST - 17 comments
Wisconsin has picked its quarter design! Gov. Jim Doyle Tuesday overruled an advisory panel and told the U.S. Mint to put a cow, wheel of cheese and ear of corn on Wisconsin's commemorative quarter, despite fears that it won't reflect the state's cities or its rich ethnic heritage
posted by Durwood at 1:20 PM PST - 34 comments
Here's A Really Neat "
Ask Slashdot" feature on how much we rely on the good 'ol Net for our daily dose of news and knowledge.
I've gradually abandoned almost all other sources of news, to the point where TV, magazines and news papers have pretty much disappeared from my life, but unlike the Slashdot guy, I still get a fair amount of "
Information" from books.
He's got a good question, and there are some really
Good Answers at Slashdot, but I'm curious about the mefites... "
Is the Internet Your Source of Knowledge?"
From his post:
"...but if I'm trying to look up something and can't find it online in a couple minutes I generally just blow it off, as if there's no other place to look. This realization seems sort of stunning. I'm very curious if other Slashdot readers have become dependent on the Internet to that level, and what their thoughts are on the subject." "
According to
a study Teens and young adults spend more time online than watching TV, and looking at
Other Studies, they all seem to point the same way.
Is print dead?
posted by Blake at 12:47 PM PST - 15 comments
Iraq: What Went Wrong By General Wesley K. Clark. I appreciate this article. It is simple, easy to read, and represents what I've been feeling for quite some time now. (NY Review of Books)
posted by y2karl at 11:46 AM PST - 21 comments
Tea. More than a beverage served hot or cold, for some it is a way of life. The British are renowned for their love of tea, so it comes as no surprise that
The Tea Home Page is a vast compendium of tea knowledge, games, quizzes and
leaf reading. Not so trite is the
Japanese tea ceremony. This site is beautiful in its calm approach to not only tea, but the digital world itself. Be sure to read
A Brief History of Chanoyu. You've heard of green and black teas, but what about
white tea? Lastly, I introduce you to
Yogi Tea, a company that is more than a tea seller. Do yourself a favour and have a cup today.
posted by ashbury at 6:21 AM PST - 66 comments
The story of
Fred Harvey and the
Harvey Girls is the story of
the civilization of the American West. From
1896 to 1945,
Harvey House Restaurants and Hotels along the route of the
Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe represented
first-rate food served in
clean, stylish surroundings at reasonable cost. His corps of
well-trained waitresses, wearing their
distinctive uniforms and bound by a code of
hard work and
good conduct, provided both adventure and
independence to generations of
young women. Today, all that is left of the Harvey empire is the
remembrances of former employees,
beautiful buildings which
dot the southwest, some
vintage recipes, a
1946 Judy Garland film, and (possibly) the enduring term
"Blue-Plate Special".
posted by anastasiav at 5:35 AM PST - 8 comments
U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs.
Privacy & Piracy: The Paradox of Illegal File Sharing on Peer-to-Peer Networks and the Impact of Technology on the Entertainment Industry. View the hearing of September 29.
[Real Media].
posted by nthdegx at 5:25 AM PST - 3 comments
Two women have just lost their right to use frozen embryos from IVF treatment while they were in previous relationships because UK law states that both parties must give consent before embryos can be emplanted.
The women are claiming it's a breach of thier human rights. The men claim that they shouldn't be forced to have children.
The London Fertility Centre claims double standards because they would have the right if it was naturally conceived. But what's your opinon?
posted by twine42 at 5:11 AM PST - 60 comments
The Cali candidates, Adam to Zellhoefer, are all listed at California-Recall.com ...and each gets their own page to tell you about themselves. Interesting lesser-known candidates include:
Angelyne ("I'm EXTRA large on top, I have a TINY waist, and my hips are JUST RIGHT!"),
Joel Britton, "retired meat packer,"
Art Brown - "I started for publicity, but now that I'm running, I kind of want to run" (such enthusiasm!),
William Chambers, "railroad switchman/brakeman,"
Mary Cook, an "adult film actress" who wants to tax breast implants and wire the Governor’s Mansion with live web cams ("We've had Brown, we've tried Gray, now it's time for some blonde").
Then there's
Michael Jackson (no, not that one; this guy's a Satellite Payload Project Manager),
Trek Thunder Kelly, "Business Executive/Artist,"
Paul "Chip" Mailander, "Golf Professional," and
Paul Mariano - "I am the only candidate who will appoint Davis as Chief of Staff in charge of the day-to-day governance of California, the job he was duly elected to do." And many more...
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:57 AM PST - 11 comments
Chickenhawk Down The Daily Kos
challenges readers to come up with a new name for the CIA-Wilson-Plame business that doesn't include the term "gate." Many amusing suggestions have been logged in comments. Entries include The Plame Game, Intimigate, FrogMarch, Novack-aine, and Karl's Bad. Whatever your political persuasion, the name game can be fun. Surely MeFi wags can come up with a few witty ideas.
posted by madamjujujive at 12:43 AM PST - 35 comments
