skip to main content
November 2003 Archives
November 30
the chemical home
"babies are born with toxic chemicals already contaminating their bodies" - we know we are exposed to these dangerous chemicals everyday, greenpeace puts together a nice site describing what the dangerous ones are how to avoid them. Isn't this the kind of thing our tax dollars going to the
EPA
are supposed to provide? [
via computerlove.net ]
posted by specialk420 at 6:00 PM PST - 33 comments
The Ovid Collection
Outstanding site devoted to the
Metamorphoses, featuring the original Latin, five different English translations, and some foreign-language translations as well. Be sure to look at the page devoted to illustrations. Speaking of illustrations,
The Ovid Project reproduces the plates from one seventeenth-century and one early eighteenth-century edition. For much more Ovid, see this German
metapage.
posted by thomas j wise at 2:46 PM PST - 4 comments
The Soldiers At My Front Door.
"I looked out the front window of the house where I live, next door to the church, and there they were--all 75 of them, standing yards away from my front door, in the street right in front of my house and our church, shouting and screaming to the top of their lungs, 'Kill! Kill! Kill!' Their commanders had planted them there and were egging them on."
Rev. John Dear, a Jesuit priest and peace activist, describes an encounter with his local National Guard unit.
posted by homunculus at 2:29 PM PST - 50 comments
the working poor
A new book by Beth Shulman called The Betrayal of Work” argues that hard work is just not cutting it in America anymore. According to Shulman, even in the go-go ’90s one out of every four American workers made less than $8.70 an hour, an income equal to the government’s poverty level for a family of four. Many, if not most, of these workers have no health care, sick pay or retirement provisions.
more inside.....
posted by jbou at 1:27 PM PST - 52 comments
Leisuretown's "A Comedy Crisis"
Dear Members of Metafilter: Unless one of us posts our Leisuretown archive up for all to see, this might be your last chance to see the amazing work of Tristan Farnon. This link wil only be up for a few days.
posted by Keyser Soze at 1:04 PM PST - 26 comments
November 29
The Girl Who Played Dead
"Her name, like most of her life, is forgotten, but her one defining moment is carved into memory: She is the girl who played dead. That moment came in a South Dallas crack house, where she'd been hanging out with four other teen-agers 'in the game,' dabbling in the margins of the drug trade. Her survival was the closest thing to a miracle at a time when it seemed like we were witnessing a final surge into apocalyptic violence on the streets of Dallas."
posted by item at 2:52 PM PST - 23 comments
Sure, you all know Barberella from the campy 60's
cult film, and our own
vacapinta turned us on to the classic French anti-hero,
Fantomas. Yet there are even more sleazy, Eurotrash cartoon characters to adore at
Cool French Comics: the diabolical
Satanik, the [ahem]
big-top avenger
Felina, and in a shocking twist, my childhood idol
TinTin going
main a la main with the Dark Knight.
posted by MrBaliHai at 2:16 PM PST - 11 comments
So we put a number of differently colored letters on the tray that we use, put the tray in front of Alex, and asked, ''Alex, what sound is blue?'' He answers, ''Ssss.'' It was an ''s'', so we say ''Good birdie'' and he replies, ''Want a nut.'' Well, I don't want him sitting there using our limited amount of time to eat a nut, so I tell him to wait, and I ask, ''What sound is green?'' Alex answers, ''Ssshh.'' He's right, it's ''sh,'' and we go through the routine again: ''Good parrot.'' ''Want a nut.'' ''Alex, wait. What sound is orange?'' ''ch.'' ''Good bird!'' ''Want a nut.'' We're going on and on and Alex is clearly getting more and more frustrated. He finally gets very slitty-eyed and he looks at me and states, ''Want a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh.'' - That Damn Bird - A Talk with Irene Pepperberg.
Referential Communication with an African Gray Parrot. Irene Pepperberg says that Arthur, an African Gray parrot, is so smart that she and a group of students at the Media Lab are teaching him to go
online. A more subjective take on some more African Grey parrots
here.
The Alex Homepage.
Alex interviewed.
languagehat on talking parrots.
posted by y2karl at 12:13 PM PST - 34 comments
One Saturday Night in Furbank
is an entertaining diary entry wherein diarist, Kitty Bukkake, crashes a furry shindig, The 14th Annual International Anthropomorphic Convention and Exhibition, ConFurence 2002 at the Burbank Airport Hilton.
"Problem: we don't want them to know we are impostors or they might kick us out. We'd brought some plush toys along: Steven had a bunny, and I had a whale, a bee, and a dragonfly, plus a panda keychain. But we weren't fooling anyone with our old toys, our short hairdos and stylish, non-pleated jeans. We didn't fit the profile."
Ms. Kitty B has turned those exciting field notes and photos of the Furry gathering into a
book.
posted by antifreez_ at 11:11 AM PST - 24 comments
Xtreme martial arts video gallery
- a gallery of clips of traditional martial arts fighting styles and weapons, as well as some rather cool "in-the-body" animations. The site is a preview for a
show on martial arts that will launch this week on the Discovery Channel.
(via Buzz).
posted by madamjujujive at 11:00 AM PST - 10 comments
Woman trampled in mammonmas sales
I knew those Americans loved to shop, but wow. Appalling though, is Wal-Mart's behaviour. No free DVD for her ... but, hey, they'll put one on hold. You see, they want to "keep her as a shopper". Harsh.
posted by bonaldi at 9:40 AM PST - 55 comments
Michael Musto on Michael Jackson
("We couldn't get Rosie or Martha to melt—and we can't even find bin Laden or Hussein—but if Jacko would just agree to be a pedophile, we could have our kook and eat him too.")
Sarah Hepola on Michael Jackson ("In my life, I have spent many years wishing I were someone else, but I have never wanted to be anyone – ever – more than I wanted to be Michael Jackson. Do you remember? Help me sing it.")
Michael Jackson on Michael Jackson ("You are right to be skeptical of some of the individuals who are being identified in the mass media as my friends, spokespeople, and attorneys. With few exceptions, most of them are simply filling a desperate void in our culture that equates visibility with insight.")
posted by adrober at 8:42 AM PST - 6 comments
"The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere "stick" in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis."
From an
interview with Nikolai Tesla in 1937 about the now near future...
posted by Aleph Yin at 8:22 AM PST - 12 comments
November 28
Why Isn't
Ted Gärdestad's Beautiful Music More Well Known? Everyone has a favourite musician who, for some reason, remains unknown and unfairly overlooked. At least for some swedes it might be this musical giant who worked alongside with the well known Benny & Björn of
ABBA fame.
warning: first link a 2.7 meg mp3
posted by lazy-ville at 4:00 PM PST - 8 comments
"The turkey is stuffed with raped women, dead babies, warriors who were stripped of their ability to fight and could no longer protect their families - which to warriors - is a fate worse than death."
Comedian Margaret Cho
weighs in on turkey day.
posted by emelenjr at 8:40 AM PST - 94 comments
November 27
Bush in Baghdad, Behind the Scenes.
Drudge has posted Washington Post reporter Mike Allen's raw notes from the 2-day secret whirlwind trip to Iraq. It reads like a script from "The West Wing." (The stripped-down finished article
appears in Friday's
Post.) Meanwhile, some in the journalism field are
pissed, says Howard Kurtz. Says one: "Reporters are in the business of telling the truth. They can't decide it's okay to lie sometimes because it serves a larger truth or good cause."
posted by PrinceValium at 8:56 PM PST - 59 comments
Here are some ideas for Thanksgiving dinner, though not a circumstance I'd like to participate in.
If ever there was a time to say Grace before dining, this certainly is one of those times.
Pumpkin pie anyone?
posted by bluedaniel at 1:08 PM PST - 10 comments
My very own parasite
"I swear it had two beady eyes on it. And it came out two or three inches, looked around and then retracted. I thought it was a dream, a vision of some sort." The yuck factor of our 'little friends' vs. the yuck factor of
Flushing PCB's into your nursing infant through breast feeding (
"Study finds a cocktail of potentially harmful man-made chemicals in every person tested in UK...") On our day of public gnawing on bird chunks, I ask : which of the above is yuckier? And does anyone out there have a juicy parasite tale to share?
posted by troutfishing at 5:56 AM PST - 45 comments
No volunteers for orgasm implant. A scientist
claiming to have invented a device which produces orgasms at the touch of a button can't find women to help him conduct trials into it.
posted by MintSauce at 5:26 AM PST - 27 comments
November 26
The War on Drugs
hasn't been working at all well. So let's make it even less sensible: harsher penalties, invasion of privacy, all that jazz. The proposal is surreal, but fits in with the rest of US Drug Policy: rapists aren't denied federal funds for post-secondary schooling, but pot-heads are; you can spend more time in jail for dealing weed than for murder; gonna deal pot, ya might as well deal speed, it's the same jailtime. And now... let's encourage dealers to sell pot with more carcinogenic tars!
[link goes to NORML, possibly NSFW, danger: encourages political activism]
posted by five fresh fish at 10:34 PM PST - 16 comments
Maintaining contact info.
I suck at it, but this new automation service may be the best I've ever come across, of any kind, on the net. No, seriously. Some have justifiably expressed concerns about what could possibly be the email-harvester to end all email-harvesters, but their
privacy policy looks sound, and so far, after a week, I am astounded at how well it works.
[Outlook/OE on Windows only, and this post smacks of bit of refreshing Pepsi Blue, I know, but I reckon it's the best of a very small breed, and free, so worth the link. Plaxo rocks.]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:56 PM PST - 19 comments
The value of disobedience.
[note: nytimes] "Ignoring the reactionary policies of the Vatican, some local priests and nuns quietly do what they can to save parishioners from AIDS." So: when and why do people choose to quietly disobey, rather than leave and promote change from outside their social institutions...or vice versa? Should dissenters just leave, or stay and fight? Anecdotes from Republicans and NRA members are especially welcome ;-)
posted by stonerose at 5:52 PM PST - 15 comments
What's really undermining the sanctity of marriage?
Dahlia Lithwick has an interesting piece in Slate commenting on the real threats to marriage in light of Massachusetts Supreme Court's declaration that gay marriage is protected by the Constitution. Lithwick lists:
1. Divorce (~43-50% of all US marriages end in divorce)
2. Frivolous marriages (i.e. it is easier to get married than it is to drive a car, buy a gun, buy alcohol, etc.)
3. Birth control (is marriage "only for procreation"?)
4. The various challenges to our time and attention that take away from quality time with our spouses
Can MeFiers please share with those of us yet to be betrothed your secrets in keeping a marriage successful?
posted by gen at 5:41 PM PST - 55 comments
Mr. and Mr. Claus
-- Harvey Fierstein, fabulous star of Hairspray and three-time Tony winner, is planning an homage to that happy couple--the Clauses--in tomorrow's Thanksgiving Parade. His NYT
op-ed (reg.reqd) today says it all:
In the end all I can say is this: If I really was Santa's life partner, you can believe that he would ask and I would tell about who has been naughty or nice on this issue. Still, as we approach the holiday season I'd like to imagine that fear and bigotry will not prevail in this land. Maybe this holiday season we can toss out some of the intolerance that nests in our hearts and make room for more love and acceptance.
posted by amberglow at 3:22 PM PST - 34 comments
“We fear the government using the current climate of fear and uncertainty about the future as a means to allow itself sweeping powers without an appropriate consideration of proportionality"
......no-go zones ........ power to ban peaceful protest ...... destroy private property without compensation ........prepare for the introduction of compulsory identity cards .... The climate seems to be changing.
posted by JohnR at 2:38 PM PST - 3 comments
Jon Johansen of DeCSS fame has made a program that
strips iTunes ACC files of DRM.
Here is what he has to say about it. Maybe I will give iTunes a try after all.
posted by epimorph at 2:38 PM PST - 16 comments
Putzmeister!
Saw it on a truck on the street; thought I was hallucinating; Googled it, and yes, they're into concrete pumping, and it's a German company, too. One for the
"Bad Business Name Hall of Shame" that I started with my
Blonder Tongue thread a year-and-a-half ago. Got any more? Think of it as a MetaTurkeyShoot for the day before Thanksgiving...
posted by wendell at 2:31 PM PST - 27 comments
Make this year's xmas a special one by buying the
Flavor Flav Talking Alarm Clock with five alarm phrases "Bass In Your Face, Get Up Get Down, Yo G Yo, Yeaa Boy." Have you seen any other similarly bizarre gifts on sale this holiday season?
posted by mathowie at 10:37 AM PST - 27 comments
Framed for defending herself.
On August 28th, 2002 in Las Vegas, Nevada a woman named
Kirstin Lobato was sentenced to life in prison. She was the victim of an attempted rape in May 2001, and had defended herself against her rapist. prosecutors used this "confession" of self defense to convict her of a murder that happened months later and in a town where
she didn't even live. How "innocent until proven guilty" can you be if prosecutors are willing to use known perjurers and refuse to allow expert testimony?
posted by dejah420 at 10:35 AM PST - 17 comments
Why Books Will Always Be With Us...
along with almost everything else.
Umberto Eco goes all encyclopedic on us (but in a nice way!) summing up (and reopening) the themes of a lifetime of reading, writing and watching. Though I'm sure what he says about the Web and electronic media will be picked to bits here, I'd say that would be a perfect vindication of this extraordinary exercise in common sense. [
Via Arts & Letters Daily.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:39 AM PST - 14 comments
Thrift store record collectors' treasure trove.
I know that we talked about the supposed worst record album covers of all time
here, but some of
these were too priceless not to share, and some have MP3s of the actual recordings to boot!!!
Here's just a small taste of what to expect:
"...There's no photos or credits anywhere on this album. Just the sickly drawing on the cover and a list of song titles. I bought it for 50 cents on a hunch after noticing the title: "Diary of an Unborn Child".
As far as bizarre Christian LPs, I gotta say, this is this most extreme thing I've ever heard. It's some full grown man with a munchkin voice, singing terrifying songs about drug use, abortion and being a fat kid and each fill me with a profound sense of dread, horror, and disgust."
posted by psmealey at 5:55 AM PST - 20 comments
Feeling Guilty?
A proposition has been announced recently to help reduce the deficit and to "Take A Bite Out Of Crime."
posted by konolia at 4:34 AM PST - 8 comments
Lala Deen Dayal: Photo Glimpses of 19th Century India.
Lala Raja Deen Dayal, pioneer Indian 19th century photographer(1844-1905). has left for us an exquisite photographic record of British India, of a bygone Colonial era influenced by Native Princely India- its picturesque opulence, rich costumes, whiskered nobility, hookah bearers, royal palaces, hunts, and parades, elephant carriages, historic events - golden moments captured on "silver" plates for posterity.'
Gallery here.
posted by plep at 4:02 AM PST - 5 comments
November 25
Inaugural Speeches from Our Action Heroes:
"As the first robot/semitruck to be elected to these hallowed halls, I pledge to rebuild America. To repair our crumbling roads and bridges, to lower gas prices, and to increase the speed limit. Things that all Americans need." [via
queso]
posted by mathowie at 11:52 PM PST - 5 comments
Positively the last Concorde flight ever in less than twelve hours time.
Here are the Avon police plans for Wed 26 November, when the last Concorde flight ever departs London Heathrow, goes Mach 2 just for the hell of it over the Bay of Biscay, and touches down at Filton, Bristol, where much of the original development took place.
I'll try to get to the Clifton Bridge, to celebrate Brunel at the same time.
posted by gdav at 4:32 PM PST - 11 comments
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics in the Reagan administration
Lawrence J. Korb is visiting Iraq on a trip that is a part of the Bush administration’s effort to inform the American people of the progress the U.S. is making in Iraq since the end of major combat and is reporting back every day with his findings on the ground.
His interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, November 12, 2003 -
Did you have a chance to walk the streets in Baghdad? No. They wouldn't let us do that. I guess they worried about our security. It was interesting. You couldn't walk anyplace. When we flew into Baghdad the first day, we landed at the airport and were going over to the palace where Bremer has his headquarters. They put us on an Apache helicopter from Baghdad International Airport and flew us to within 100 yards of Bremer's headquarters, and made us get on a bus. Even when we were in safe areas and were driving to see a Shiite cleric, they made us wear flak jackets, and they had Humvees and armored personnel carriers escorting us with guns pointed at the population. This is in the so-called safe Shiite area. Here is his
Day Three In Iraq from November 7th.
posted by y2karl at 3:52 PM PST - 29 comments
Ouch!
In honor of swordsman, litterateur, scenarist, bodybuilding enthusiast, homosexualist, fascist, and all-around nutball
Mishima Yukio, who
did the deed 23 years ago today, here's Wikipedia's intruiging list of
famous suicides.
Now, the West used to have its own tradition of suicide on the part of those who
preferred death to dishonor. Apart from various Koreshian poseurs,
the demonstrably insane, and those vainglorious fellows who arrange suicide-by-cop, whatever happened to this tradition?
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:33 AM PST - 47 comments
More problems with credit cards...after you canceled one
Apparently some credit card company may not take you seriously when you say "I want to cancel this credit card".
If the account of the credit card is not "terminated" you may still be charged, even after receiving a letter from cc company confirming you its cancellation. You may also receive "accidental charges" of stuff you never ordered. One more link inside.
posted by elpapacito at 10:25 AM PST - 26 comments
A Critic's Coda.
William Grimes, departing NYT food critic, gives an interview to Newsweek. "It’s like 'Groundhog Day.' You wake up the next day having eaten a four-star meal, you must go out and eat another four-star meal. And you get up the next day and you have to go out and eat another four-star meal." I think we've all been there before.
posted by adrober at 9:43 AM PST - 17 comments
Word Oddities
- did you know Honorificabilitudinitatibus, 27 letters long, is the longest English word consisting strictly of alternating consonants and vowels? You do now. Click the link for more fun facts about words.
posted by Orange Goblin at 9:34 AM PST - 17 comments
An Educational Exploration of Nunavut.
"Setting out to document arctic climate change we will dogsled the territory of Nunavut, meeting Inuit Elders and students, to explore traditional ecological knowledge in the remote communities visited along the trail while gathering scientific data daily from the field for NASA and Environment Canada." - a cool expedition to bring some attention to what many are describing as the
greatest threat to mankind today.
posted by specialk420 at 9:13 AM PST - 8 comments
LA County, leading the charge:
Equipment vendors who do business with Los Angeles County received a message in November 2003 from the county's Internal Services Department (ISD) informing them that "based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County," labeling or describing equipment with the term 'master/slave' is no longer acceptable. (via snopes.com)
the
slashdot comments on this...
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 6:25 AM PST - 145 comments
November 24
Why Isn't Judee Sill's Beautiful Music More Well Known?
Everyone has a favourite musician who, for some reason, remains unknown and unfairly overlooked. My choice for a much-deserved and long overdue revival is the silky-voiced, eccentric, tragic, ethereal and ultimately mysterious
Judee Sill, one of the great Seventies singer-songwriters. Who would you nominate? (
Here are a few mp3s of demos and unreleased recordings which will give you an idea of her beautiful voice and highly-strung delivery and, hopefully, lead you to explore her two main albums.)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:14 PM PST - 50 comments
Cow-Girl Morph Tutorial:
"A lot of people ask me how I do what I do at the Transforming Love Ring Fleshsculpting Page. I use a lot of different techniques for what I do, but they are applicable in a lot of different situations. Most of the following techniques are generally 'fleshsculpting' techniques, meaning they change the shape of the flesh and skin without changing the texture much." NSFW.
posted by cedar at 7:10 PM PST - 15 comments
1.26 million people killed every year on the road or from subsequent injuries...
..
Four Qld road deaths in 5 hours. 42,815 people died in 2002 in automobile crashes in the United States. Shouldn't these facts give us the resolve to explore a better solution to our transportation needs? I do not see the national debate that these deaths would evoke if the cause was different. Why are we numb to this?
posted by JohnR at 4:00 PM PST - 76 comments
More children now than ever are being born from
cesarean sections. It's known that giving birth this way can leave psychological damage to the mother, but what effect is it having on
the children?
posted by atom128 at 3:36 PM PST - 39 comments
The 1911 Encyclopedia,
or the LoveToKnow Free Online Encyclopedia, is advertised as "what many consider to be the best encyclopedia ever written. As a research tool, this 1911 encyclopedia edition is unparalleled - even today." But what about the definition for
Negro? It reads in part: "A dark skin, varying from dark brown, reddish-brown, or chocolate to nearly black; dark tightly curled hair, flat in transverse section,1 of the 'woolly' or the 'frizzly' type; a greater or less tendency to prognathism; eyes dark brown with yellowish cornea; nose more or less broad and flat; and large teeth." Can an encyclopedia with definitions like these be considered useful at all?
posted by josephtate at 1:36 PM PST - 40 comments
Alhamdullah.
"I do say that freedom is the Almighty's gift to every person," the president replied. "I also condition it by saying freedom is not America's gift to the world. It's much greater than that, of course. And I believe we worship the same god." Apparently, this is causing no small amount of controversy in the Christian God-believing circles. I was always under the impression that it was commonly accepted that
Jews,
Christians, and
Muslims were all working for the same
Guy. So, Bush finally says something that's not completely stupid, and he gets all kind of
hell for it. Great.
posted by majcher at 1:26 PM PST - 55 comments
Lost Lives
"A generation of Japanese youngsters has dropped out of society entirely, unable to cope, it seems, with the rapid syncopation of life in Asia's most developed nation. The phenomenon has been dubbed hikikomori, or social withdrawal, by psychiatrist Tamaki Saito, who estimates that one in every 40 Japanese households has such a loner. That's an astounding 1 million social dropouts".
Great article on Asia and how its countries deal/don't deal with mental illness.
posted by SpaceCadet at 1:17 PM PST - 15 comments
ET Could Hack SETI.
SETI, which uses down time on the computers of thousands of volunteers to search for intelligent signals from space, has a potential problem—besides information, a broadcast to us from an alien intelligence could also carry a computer virus.
Leonard David writes in the main link's space.com article that physicist Richard Carrigan (who works
here) takes it seriously. He thinks SETI should figure out how to decontaminate any signals it receives.
posted by jasonspaceman at 9:43 AM PST - 35 comments
Copito de Nieve, a.k.a.
Floquet de Neu, the only known white gorilla
dies at age 37. It was one of the symbols of my hometown Barcelona. Snowflake was the star of the Barcelona Zoo, he always surrounded by female gorillas (not surprisingly he produced 22 offspring but none of them albino) and was famous because of his bad mood and tendency to throw things around. He was finally put down today as his skin cancer condition was aggravating. There it goes a no small part of my childhood (although I preferred the dolphins, always so cheerful)...
Snowflake no longer lives with Virunga and Coco... (sigh!)
posted by samelborp at 8:17 AM PST - 9 comments
Computer generated singer, $200.
Vocaloid software, which is due to be released to consumers in January, allows users to cast their own (or anyone else's) songs in a disembodied but exceedingly life-like concert-quality voice.
Vocaloid will be able to "sing" whatever combination of notes and words a user feeds it. The first generation of the software will be available for $200. [NYTimes link]
posted by Outlawyr at 3:54 AM PST - 23 comments
November 23
Trashtalking - German Style.
Forget talking dolls, Berlin's speechifying its trash cans to thank pedestrians after they dump their litter. But is it appropriate to have immaterial things tell you how to use them? [More Inside]
posted by gregb1007 at 10:07 PM PST - 15 comments
delenda mp3.com est
"Vivendi Universal recently sold the MP3.com domain to CNet. However, they're not selling the approximately one million songs on the archive. (recorded by over 250,000 artists) Instead, they're simply destroying it as of December 3. MP3.com's founder and former CEO, Michael Robertson, is pleading with Vivendi to allow the Internet
Archive to preserve the songs." (via
Slashdot)
posted by kablam at 4:26 PM PST - 16 comments
The Protean Enemy by
Jessica Stern, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003
What accounts for al Qaeda's ongoing effectiveness in the face of an unprecedented onslaught? The answer lies in the organization's remarkably protean nature. Over its life span, al Qaeda has constantly evolved and shown a surprising willingness to adapt its mission. This capacity for change has consistently made the group more appealing to recruits, attracted surprising new allies, and -- most worrisome from a Western perspective -- made it harder to detect and destroy. Unless Washington and its allies show a similar adaptability, the war on terrorism won't be won anytime soon, and the death toll is likely to mount. Other texts by Jessica Stern:
How America Created a Terrorist Haven,
Pakistan's Jihad Culture,
Talking With Terrorists. Classical Reference:
Proteus.
posted by y2karl at 4:02 PM PST - 31 comments
"Dear [katemonkey], I just wanted to drop you a note as to what's happening here in America. The Matrix Trilogy is the latest GROSS thievery by the Hollywood/government in regards to the website
www.hammerstrikes.com.
The blatant outright and undeniable thievery is ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGEOUS! Surely the truth is getting out and suing for millions and millions is the only appropriate and proper course of action.
Sincerely,
Joe Messineo"
posted by Katemonkey at 3:59 PM PST - 19 comments
There was no conspiracy in the assassination of JFK,
according to a new BBC documentary broadcast tonight. Offering a CG reconstruction of the plaza based on the Zapruder film and interviews with people who knew people, convincing evidence was offered that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman acting on his own.
Essentially that all these people are misguided. It also carefully worked through some of the other theories, Cuban and Mob and had very few nice things to say about Oliver Stone. For example, there wasn't a magic bullet because the diagram in the film is wrong -- Texas Governor John Connally wasn't sitting directly in front of the president, but below and just off the side, so the round just went in a straight line. This was tragedy effecting millions perpetrated by one man. How often have we heard that story?
posted by feelinglistless at 2:53 PM PST - 59 comments
If you've participated in an anti-war rally, or helped organize a demonstration, the
FBI may have a file on you. The FBI claims that they are only weeding out anarchists and other "extremists." But the ACLU and some legal scholars are warning of a return of
Hooverism. Attention pinkos: You can run, but you can't hide, because you're probably on the
no-fly list.
posted by PrinceValium at 8:58 AM PST - 39 comments
What is this?
I really don't know how to make heads or tails on this one. I was listening to last.fm and some of the strangest ambient noise started playing. I ran a google search on the artist and was led
here.
One of the most unique pages I've ever seen. There seems to be a lot going on with this page. (Notice the poetry that appears on the index page for 1/3 second before refreshing to the main index map). In addition to having copies of the I Ching and the Kama Sutra (no pics) there is poetry and literature spanning back 2000 years, yet nothing I could find about the
the original artist I was looking for.
Has anyone run into this before or know what it's all about? And what are your thoughts?
posted by daHIFI at 8:53 AM PST - 9 comments
Walmart Nation
Wal-Mart's decisions influence wages and working conditions across a wide swath of the world economy, from the shopping centers of Las Vegas to the factories of Honduras and South Asia. Its business is so vital to developing countries that some send emissaries to the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., almost as if Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation. [First of a three part series in the LATimes. free reg. req.]
posted by srboisvert at 5:59 AM PST - 89 comments
November 22
Seppuku - A Practical Guide.
The rules for seppuku are as complex as for the tea ceremony, and the result roughly the same; if pushed we would have to recommend self-disembowelment over a slow death from lethal boredom, arthritis and bitter tea.
posted by srboisvert at 5:42 AM PST - 6 comments
The May 1970 Tragedy at Jackson State University: "Lest We Forget..."
'In the Spring of 1970, campus communities across this country were characterized by a chorus of protests and demonstrations. The issues were the escalation of the war in Vietnam and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia; the ecology; racism and repression; and the inclusion of the experiences of women and minorities in the educational system. No institution of higher education was left untouched by confrontations and continuous calls for change. '
'At Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, there was the added issue of historical racial intimidation and harassment by white motorists traveling Lynch Street, a major thoroughfare that divided the campus and linked west Jackson to downtown ... '
posted by plep at 4:55 AM PST - 16 comments
November 21
Leisuretown
has disappeared. Except for the
about, contact, navigation, and most important, the
donation page, there are no Christmas suicide balloons or Winter solstice parties. I just found out via this Comics Journal
thread and I wonder if there any other favorite web cartoons of mine that are about to bite the dust.
posted by jabo at 10:44 PM PST - 13 comments
The absence of sexual desire.
We often discuss the frustrations of excessive sexual desire but rarely touch upon its absence. A woman who was a virgin before her marriage discusses the adjustments she had to make before she started desiring or even feeling comfortable about having sex with her husband.
posted by gregb1007 at 9:53 PM PST - 61 comments
The Dr. Seuss Parody Page
: Offered to help wash the image of the Cat in the Hat movie out of your minds... If you've been on the net for more than 3 days, you've seen at least some of these:
For
Techies
And
Trekkies
And
Biblical Scholars,
Biologists,
Psychologists
And
Vikings who holler.
Political Seuss
Starring
Bush,
Gore and
Newt.
From
E-Mail to
ER
And
B5, that's cute.
From
Purity Tests
To
Deconstruction-ests.
From
Shakespeare to
Dante,
Who knows what's the best?
I'd list every one, I am so unabashed,
But do so, my rhymes would become
Ogden Nash.
So click and enjoy
Some of
this,
Some of
that,
And avoid Mr. Myers in 'Cat in the Hat'.
posted by wendell at 7:51 PM PST - 25 comments
Penis Enlargement Web Ads Prompt Calif. Spam Rage
The guy lost his cool because the pop up spammers basically unleashed all their tricks on him and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
So he threatened to unleash anthrax on them, to use a power drill and an ice pick and to shoot them.
He doesn't own any guns nor did he have access to anthrax and yet he now faces up to 5 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
Does this set a bad precedent for fighting back against spammers? Or did he get what he deserved for threatening them like this? The case raises some interesting issues about how hard you can fight back against spammers and pop up 'noids.
posted by fenriq at 3:00 PM PST - 22 comments
The Opus Interview
MSNBC: One more personal question: have you ever gotten back together with your mother?
Opus: Yes, we had a big reunion five years ago, and I’ve set her up in a nice place in Florida.
MSNBC: A condo?
Opus: Sea World.and to think we knew him when...
posted by quonsar at 10:32 AM PST - 18 comments
Someone is watching what you post.
Today I received a note from a site called InternetSeer that told me some of my posts on The
{Fray} were temporarily unavailable. Too bad I never asked them to keep an eye on things for me. Who are these people are what are they doing?
posted by tommasz at 10:06 AM PST - 29 comments
Matt Savage
is a promising young jazz pianist whose trio recently performed at the Blue Note in New York City. He's also
autistic. He's also
12.
(Challenges of raising an autistic child previously discussed
here.)
posted by emelenjr at 9:23 AM PST - 16 comments
Johnny Hart at it again?
"B.C." creator Johnny Hart is getting some negative publicity (again) for a comic that some say is anti-Islam. See the comic
here. An outspoken Christian, Hart has had brushes with religious controversy in the past. Are people reading too much into this, or does it look like bigotry to you? (via
Atrios)
posted by Gilbert at 7:44 AM PST - 115 comments
Collage Machine
from the National Gallery of Art. Click images to add; drag into place; click the green tab to bring an element forward, click red to send it backward; use the controls at the bottom to resize, flip, rotate and fade elements; see if you can ever, ever stop.
posted by taz at 5:30 AM PST - 7 comments
Dentsu Advertising Museum.
Japanese advertising 1603-1926.
'The Edo Era (1603—1867), during which a full-fledged feudal system was established by the Tokugawa shogunate, was also an era in which the culture of townspeople flourished. That Japan had already developed distinctive advertising techniques of its own as early as the Edo Era might come as a surprise to you. But ample evidence of these remain for us today to follow a historical trail, in the form of nishiki-e (a multicolored woodblock print), hikifuda (handbills) and signboards. A witness of the times, as well as a chronicle of advertising creative work in Japan, these relics represent a valuable record of both the evolution of corporations and the history of common people's lives.'
'Dentsu Advertising Museum presents selected advertising artifacts and works of art from the Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation collection, in order to give you a taste of the historical background to Japanese advertising techniques.'
posted by plep at 3:21 AM PST - 6 comments
November 20
"In the early 1900's, every music production company had a piano in the office, and from the street you could hear people banging away. Many of these pianos were made by William Tonk & Brothers at 10th Avenue and 35th Street. The pianos and the sounds they made soon became known as
honky tonk."
(An education in American roots music from NPR, with lots of lovely audio. There's an awful lot on this site to explore, so if you're looking for a place to start, well, it was this segment on Bob Wills that hooked me. Alternatively, the segment on Norteña accordion music or the introductory segment on the changing role of women in country music are also worth highlighting.) [real audio]
posted by .kobayashi. at 9:18 PM PST - 4 comments
Three great interviews in
Salon: Former Senator and Vietnam veteran
Max Cleland on the stonewalling of the 9/11 commission and the situation in Iraq, author
Jessica Stern (previously discussed
here) on the recent bombings in Istanbul and Riyadh, and executive director of Amnesty International USA
William Schulz on why the left must confront terror with the same zeal that it battles Bush, or risk irrelevance.
posted by homunculus at 9:06 PM PST - 5 comments
Looking for a job? Well, one of the
hot temp agencies in the nation is
FPI, Inc. Recruting from an active base of
some 80,000 people across the nation, and
enjoying exemption from competitive bidding (
although reform is on the way), FPI produces garments and textile goods. In fact, it's
the largest supplier of clothing and textiles for the U.S. government. Net sales for fiscal year 2001 were $583.5 million and, despite an economic shortfall, they rose to $678.7 million in 2002. What accounts for such an unlikely success? Well, the secret can be found in FPI's labor base. FPI only employs prisoners, paying them between $.23 and $1.15 an hour. Of course,
with so many resumes to choose from,
factory expansion and
rising sales figures and profitability (PDF), who knows just how high PDI's lustre will soar?
posted by ed at 8:42 PM PST - 11 comments
Jaron Lanier talks
about philosophy, computer science and physics.
Suppose poor old Shroedinger's Cat has survived all the quantum observation experiments but still has a taste for more brushes with death. We could oblige it by attaching the cat-killing box to our camera. So long as the camera can recognize an apple in front of it, the cat lives.
posted by kliuless at 8:18 PM PST - 11 comments
Pssst! Wanna Buy A Reliable, Second-Hand Car?
You could do worse than start with
Honest John, a plain-speaking, fiercely independent Cockney motor car wonk who'll see you right, no problem. If you're obsessive about reliability, i.e. don't have the time or inclination to look after your wheels and just want the damn thing to get you from A to B and back again, check out the often surprising
Reliability Index for the
most and
least trustworthy automobiles. [
Eurocentric warning! Btw, what are the most reliable independent car guides - preferably free and online - in the U.S, Canada, etc?]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:42 PM PST - 32 comments
del.icio.us
is a remotely hosted app that will let you quickly add links, which you can integrate into your site like the
pros.
posted by riffola at 2:09 PM PST - 13 comments
BBC lists
50 places to see before you die. Overall, choices are a bit too exotic for my own taste (only four European cities???) and I still consider Bali a wildly overrated place, but what's really shocking is kitschy Las Vegas at #7 and La Serenissa Repubblica di Venezia at #18. What happened to the British tradition of extolling Italy's beauty?
via Attu
posted by 111 at 1:33 PM PST - 54 comments
Happy Thanksgiving!
A friend told me the story of Corn Hill the other day (the house he grew up in is right across the street), so I decided to check out what the internet has to say about the situation. Not much apparently.
This ugly website is the only other one I found that didn't say that the pilgrims "borrowed" from a "cache" of corn that they "stumbled upon". What's really crazy is that the pilgrims had never seen corn, nor native americans. This means that they either started digging for fun, or found out about the Wampanoag burial traditions and decided it was a good idea. Either way, happy Grave Robbing Day!
posted by magikeye at 11:04 AM PST - 27 comments
The President Calling:
American Radioworks (MPR) explores the secret phone tapes of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. AFAIK, the content is all previously available, but online, they've
packaged and annotated it for ease of use. It's not exhaustive, but the moments picked out are often illuminating, showing "how each man used one-on-one politics to shape history."
You might want to start here.
posted by soyjoy at 9:02 AM PST - 5 comments
Interesting Column by Tim Whitaker, editor at
Philadelphia Weekly, who "
kind of jests" someone should order the main branch of the Free Library at 19th and Vine streets gutted, all the passé books written by the long since dead and decayed--books that nobody looks at anyway, thrown out, and replaced with computers.
This could be done over a long weekend, and the new Free Workstation Center of Philadelphia would open. Thousands of city residents who'd been priced out of the Information Revolution for well over a decade would rush to the free computers to experience the online rush that comes with access to the WWW.
He says Amazon's new service "search inside the book" is the first glimpse of a full-bore revolution in the way research will be conducted and books will be distributed in the future that spells the death of libraries.
He bounced this idea off of Steven Levy, a Philadelphia native who writes about technology for Newsweek, and he says "It's not that crazy, The future of libraries is a hot topic with librarians all over the country."
"Once the Web has become a full-service digital archive of the whole wide written word, it'll only be a quick innovation or two before we'll have the technology to order and bind books on our own home book-printing systems. Ebooks will finally become reality. Libraries will become mini-museums, where old books are kept under glass, relics of the pre-"inside the book" revolutionary age."
posted by Blake at 5:40 AM PST - 22 comments
Lichens of North America
'This website grew out of the activities of Sylvia and Stephen Sharnoff, who did the photographic fieldwork for the book Lichens of North America, by Irwin M.Brodo and the Sharnoffs, published in November, 2001 by Yale University Press ... ' -
the human uses of lichens,
a lichen sampler,
lichen portraits (
'This lichen is used medicinally in India as a poultice to induce copious urination, as a linament and an incense for headaches, and also as a powder to help wounds heal.') ...
more lichen links.
Related interest :-
The Hidden Forest, photos of lichens, fungi, mosses and slime moulds of the New Zealand bush.
posted by plep at 3:01 AM PST - 21 comments
November 19
Fox is considering renewing Family Guy.
"As many as 35 new episodes could premiere in January 2005, according to the Fox spokesperson, which would mark the first time a canceled series has been revived on the strength of its DVD sales and syndication ratings. "
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 11:36 PM PST - 46 comments
But I've never heard of any of these artists...
Say hello to iRATE radio. The premise is simple: mp3's collected from various free sites are collected and indexed on a common server. You, through your spiffy iRATE client, are fed mp3's, which you then rate. Over time, your musical tastes are matched against others, and you are then fed mp3's which you will like, ostensibly. [...via Bifurnicated Reinvents]
posted by jazzkat11 at 9:13 PM PST - 14 comments
Perle speaks (the truth)!
International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
I can't decide if this is really stupid or really shrewd. And can legal action be taken?
posted by amberglow at 8:24 PM PST - 64 comments
Taking it public.
Ethan Hawke is
looking for investors for his new movie,
"Billy Dead". For $8.75 a share of preferred stock (and only in blocks of 100 - ticker symbol "BILLY"), Hawke hopes to raise about US $7.3 Million through his broker,
Civilian Capital. According to a consultant with Civilian, potential investors will be able to "invest in a film maker, a story or a star."
Is this ushering in a new golden age of public media ownership, or an age of increased corporate hegemony? Also, for what other artforms would you like to see such investment opportunites? Finally, in what directors/actors/storylines etc. would
you like to invest?
posted by SilentSalamander at 7:09 PM PST - 29 comments
Tsk,
tsk, America. It seems that we may be collectively having a problem with being nice.
posted by moonbird at 1:42 PM PST - 16 comments
Spot The Essential, Seminal, How-Could-These-Imbeciles-Have-Forgotten? Popular Song:
A well-made list, specially if it's authoritative and includes no less than 500 songs, is just asking to be cruelly inspected for omissions, ridiculed for certain inclusions and generally derided. This one is, admittedly, a toughy. But perhaps way too US-centric and too Rockist. I mean, honestly, sometimes you Yanks act as if you'd invented Pop music! ;) (
Via the newly-discovered Rivurcated Bifets.)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:03 PM PST - 67 comments
Alas, of course I was just reviewing our fourth quarter numbers. Again.
Check out Gary Turner's solution for the age-old "I didn't hear you coming" feeling when someone walks into your office/cube/workspace and you're surfing blogs. It's the Web Fire Escape, and it allows you to click on a little box reminiscent (okay, just like) those little "Exit" signs all over Europe. And
Here is the muse behind the madness. Found this today via
Blogger's front page post about not getting fired for blogging.
posted by djspicerack at 11:40 AM PST - 32 comments
Dear President Bush,
I'm sure you'll be having a nice little tea party with your fellow war criminal, Tony Blair. Please wash the cucumber sandwiches down with a glass of blood, with my compliments.
Harold Pinter, Playwright.
Some caustic open letters in The Guardian for the big state visit.
posted by serafinapekkala at 11:33 AM PST - 45 comments
Who wants to marry a Kucinich?
"I think we're in a day in age when partnerships are imperative to making anything happening in the world. And I certainly want a dynamic, out-spoken woman who was fearless in her desire for peace in the world and for universal single-payer health care and a full employment economy. If you are out there call me." -- Dennis Kucinich, Nov 5, 2003
posted by mathowie at 10:14 AM PST - 26 comments
How to Make Money and Influence People.
Five workers who made false accounting entries during a huge fraud at HealthSouth Corp. kept silent out of fear after realizing the company was buying guns, grenades and spy equipment, according to testimony Wednesday at the first sentencing in the case. Richard Scrushy has been
mentioned here before, but his intimidation tactics are a new revelation.
posted by whoshotwho at 8:25 AM PST - 10 comments
Can Jackson buy his way out AGAIN?
Ok, I agree that EVERYONE (including drug dealers and supposed terrorists) is innocent until proven guilty, but for christs sake how many hush up bribes can "wacko jacko" pay before the "pedophile of pop" lands where he belongs...IN JAIL!
posted by hoopyfrood at 7:53 AM PST - 153 comments
Anger management therapy in prison.
Does it work? Is it ethical?
Prisoners who state "If I had had a better education, I would have a good job, and wouldn't need to commit crime"
have "distorted thinking"; and one prisoner claims therapy helped him premeditate an attack on an informer. Should prison therapy be effectively compulsory?
Meanwhile, the
positive
psychology movement aims to find out what makes people happy.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 4:57 AM PST - 18 comments
Japanese Prints and the World of Go.
Classic Japanese art meets classic Japanese boardgame.
'The purpose of this catalogue is twofold: to enlarge the understanding of print collectors who may be unaware of the long historical and legendary background of a game that has for centuries engaged the interest of many artists in Japan; and to enrich the experience of go players by presenting works that reveal some of the large body of traditions and associations connected with the game in Japan's cultural life. Although artists were inspired by the game of go to work the theme in several media--wood, ivory, metal, textiles, and clay, and while the motif appears on numerous scroll and screen paintings--it is in woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) that its image is most frequently found.'
'. . . there is a text that likens the world to a go-board. For those who see with their minds, it is the centre of the universe.'
Warning: Each sub-link in the article opens a new window.
posted by plep at 2:59 AM PST - 10 comments
The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the 'Blonde on Blonde' album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up.
Bob Dylan 1978
Blonde On Blonde--Seven mixes, four or five covers, four or five women,
some missing photographs and one leather coat...
(story within)
posted by y2karl at 2:32 AM PST - 26 comments
November 18
The Daily Herald is running a piece on Violence and Videogames,
and to any person who plays games, it may marr their opinion of the Daily Herald for a while. In fact, Steve from
www.HardOcp.com (november 18th link) wrote the author a letter to explain that what he wrote doesn't hold weight in the real world. "If a parent wanted their children to develop attitudes
like Gary Ridgway, the confessed killer of at least 48 women, these games might provide a good training ground."
Seems to me like the author doesnt play video games, especially considering there are other games besides first person shooters.
"Video games are expected to reach $20 billion in sales this year. That is a sizable piece of the growing economy everybody is hoping for, and it works directly against what most parents want for their children."
A little opinionated, but so am I.
What do you think?
posted by Keyser Soze at 9:19 PM PST - 44 comments
Victor Serge
is one of the missing links in 20th-century history; in at the beginning of the Soviet Union, he saw before almost anyone what a nightmare it was going to be, wrote some prescient books, may have invented the word "totalitarian," knew everybody who was anybody, and was forgotten. Christopher Hitchens
tries to remind us (quote and acknowledgment inside).
posted by languagehat at 6:35 PM PST - 6 comments
Much of the
news from Iraq looks grim and it's easy to feel powerless about the whole situation.
Mercycorps lets you do something about it, with 92% of all money collected going directly to humanitarian programs to feed, clothe, and provide healthcare to Iraq citizens in need. Looks like a good cause I'm happy to get behind.
posted by mathowie at 11:52 AM PST - 17 comments
To Invade Or Not To Invade?
Many have expressed the sentiment that unilaterally invading other countries can be justified as serving the best interests of its people. We can all agree that brutal dictatorships are a bad thing. What should be done when they are identified? Engagement or invasion? Should cognitive dissonance by our leaders be ignored and/or accepted? Are double standards justified by financial interests? Here is another case where all litmus tests fail.
posted by nofundy at 10:22 AM PST - 38 comments
PMS Alert 1.0
A system-tray reminder of where things stand.
Read a simple scale of five colors to get the likelihood of mood swings. Get a real-time estimation of fertility. Pick a date off the calendar to get a quick forecast of what's to come. Store custom notes to go along with each day in the cycle. Get reminders when conditions are changing. Even get reminders of her next birthday and anniversary.
posted by gottabefunky at 9:35 AM PST - 46 comments
Freecycling.
Reducing the amount of trash we generate by connecting people who have things that they no longer want with people who want those same things. The only rule:
Every item posted must be free.
posted by grabbingsand at 8:55 AM PST - 31 comments
Recovering the files of the Stasi
A group of German scientists has developed a computer scanning system that will be used to reconstruct millions of files torn up by the East German secret police after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
posted by Irontom at 7:27 AM PST - 18 comments
Mass. Rules In Favor Of Same-Sex Marriages.
The highest court in Massachusetts has ruled that same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution, but stopped short of immediately allowing marriage licenses to be issued to the seven couples who challenged the law.
The court is giving the Legislature 180 days to "take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this decision."
posted by Stynxno at 7:24 AM PST - 125 comments
CIA Seeks Probe of Iraq-Al Qaeda Memo Leak
The CIA will ask the Justice Department to investigate the leak of a 16-page classified Pentagon memo that listed and briefly described raw agency intelligence on any relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, according to congressional and administration sources...and
if this probe is like so many others, that will be the end of this news item.
posted by Postroad at 4:56 AM PST - 10 comments
Paul Erdös
(pronounced Air-Dersh) was the most prolific mathematician of all time. He wrote almost 1500 papers with many others, leading to the creation of the
Erdös number, connecting mathematicians to each other by way of their co-authored papers. Even
a horse has an Erdös number of 3. He also had his
own language - if a person had "left", they had died, but if they had "died", they had stopped doing mathematics.
posted by Orange Goblin at 2:36 AM PST - 24 comments
November 17
Whose criminals are they?
Canada and the U.S. are deporting immigrant criminals back to the Caribbean -- criminals who were born there but, in many cases, raised in North America. Whose problem are they? Virtually every Caribbean country feels the burden of the deportations,
especially from the U.S., which, in 1998, deported 55,500 "aliens" on criminal grounds, 3,700 to the Caribbean. Defenders of the deportations say Canada and the U.S. are just getting rid of bad apples, many of whom shouldn't be here in the first place. But The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) says that, frequently, the deportees have little more than place of birth to connect them to the region. In most cases these deportees have no money, little education, few relatives or friends to whom they can turn, and many are truly violent and lawless. The culture of drugs and guns that many carry back to their native lands is wreaking havoc in nations that receive them in substantial numbers.
posted by orange swan at 6:00 PM PST - 32 comments
Clone blogs: spurious blogs that look real, but exist solely to purvey smut in a very shady way. They're becoming ever more clever, those spammers.
posted by moonbird at 2:12 PM PST - 32 comments
The art of Vik Muniz
includes pictures of air, dirt, dust, thread, chocolate, ink, clouds... {flash}
(don't click the "erotica" section if at work--otherwise, i think it's completely safe)
posted by dobbs at 1:45 PM PST - 4 comments
Do you agree with Jamie?
Whether you do or not, it's been hard to escape the Jamie propaganda machine at my university for the last couple weeks: signs, buttons, toques, shirts, a website, and probably more. As it turns out, Jamie's just
one of many interchangeable spokespeople for the cause, apparently with quite a bit of cash behind them. Google reveals it's a
continent-wide phenomenon. If you do agree, perhaps you'll want to
organize an event yourself. I wonder if the campaign has made any converts yet...
posted by chumptastic at 1:04 PM PST - 69 comments
"
Amodal Suspension" is a large-scale interactive installation developed for the opening of the new Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) in Japan.
[more]
posted by hama7 at 11:51 AM PST - 6 comments
The Soylent Green Biscuit Factory
Are automation, robots, and computers taking human jobs and producing a new class of permanently superfluous ex-workers? (see
Robot Nation thanks spazzm) Maybe the Soylent Green Biscuit Factory can help!
Robert Wenzlaff says - "I'm not just the president. I'm also a raw material."
posted by troutfishing at 9:28 AM PST - 11 comments
Blogrolls around the globe now all point to
Laura's blog. Laura doesn't sound like your stereotypical evil hacker to me, but something sure went wrong at
Blogrolling.com. Anyone know what?
Laura's blog seems to have gone down what with all the hits it must be getting, but you can still read
Google's cache of it.
posted by jill at 7:51 AM PST - 31 comments
Don't do browser sniffing.
To properly view our site, you must be using a standards-compliant web browser. Your current browser is:
(...nothing...)
Over 97% of our audience now uses a standards-compliant web browser, however you appear not to be using one. We want to help you fix this situation and improve your experience on reuters.co.uk and the rest of the internet.
I'm using Mozilla 1.5 but my user agent string is set to report Netscape 4.75 running on Windows 95.
posted by jfuller at 7:35 AM PST - 45 comments
November 16
The U. S. Secret Service is going to extraordinary lengths
to ensure the safety of George W. Bush's visit to London - including some not insignificant structural changes to the Palace (which have not as of yet been approved). The article claims that "
There will be more armed men on the streets of London this week than at any time since the end of the Second World War." British security officials further describe operations as has having been "hijacked by the US secret service."
Everyone knows there's a possibility of violence against the president, especially in light of recent events. A measure of security is thus justified. However, are economic concerns being considered? Now, I have the utmost respect for the president's life - as much as I do for just about anybody. I hate the callousness of associating any sort of price on human life. But when security measures require
5,000 police officers and £4,000,000 (that's merely the cost footed by UK taxpayers, mind you), have we not yet reached the point where that money would have been better spent? -especially when the U. S. executive branch has a very robust official policy of succession in place. It's not like the government will suddenly evaporate if the president were to be killed.
posted by SilentSalamander at 8:16 PM PST - 115 comments
Metababy Returns -
"Metababy is an experiment in collaboration, a Web site created by its visitors. You're welcome to post anything you want on Metababy, and anybody else is free to change it. "
Content subject to change at any moment, so NSFW.
posted by 2sheets at 5:01 PM PST - 56 comments
Who gives, who gets...
and surprise, Google is on top. I always figured that the search engines had a symbiotic relationship, but playing with this
Search Engine Decoder to actually
see it is far more entertaining. And, I'd never heard of
Overture, but it seems like all the big boys pay them for content. The Decoder is hosted by
Search This, which "[provides] search engine optimization and web marketing strategies for the everyday web designer." I guess that's a few of us...
posted by pineapple at 1:03 PM PST - 12 comments
One hundred established graphic and fine artists were approached to create the definitive album cover of their favorite recording artist. Each chose an iconic musical subject from the 1940s to the present and from the genres of rock, blues, jazz, country and soul music. The result is an original and highly creative collection of contemporary art.
The Greatest Album Covers That Never Were.
posted by riffola at 11:23 AM PST - 25 comments
Anthony Argyriou uncovers what seems to be a serious problem either with California voting machines or the vote tallying system:
The Secretary of State's summary of votes on the Davis recall shows three counties--Alameda, Kern, and Plumas--that apparently had
zero voters who didn't vote on the recall. Not one. All three counties used Diebold machines. Other counties ranged from 0.5% to 10.3% of voters not voting on the recall.
More from Rick Hasen, a top election law scholar.
[Via Volokh.]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:08 AM PST - 41 comments
The Fantastic in Art & Fiction
- Cornell University's bank of nearly 300 images of the fantastic, the grotesque, the macabre, the marvelous and more
"from works spanning a period from medieval manuscripts and printed incunabulae, to the early twentieth century."
posted by madamjujujive at 7:16 AM PST - 6 comments
newspeak from disney: we at the Walt Disney Internet Group are dedicated to protecting your privacy and handling any personal information we obtain from you with care and respect.
How is your personally identifiable information used and shared?
The Walt Disney Family of Companies may use your personally identifiable information in many ways, including sending you promotional materials, and sharing your information with third parties so that these third parties can send you promotional materials. [...]As another example of Operational Uses, we may share your personal information with the Walt Disney World © Resort telephone reservations center [...] The Walt Disney Family of Companies may share your personal information with companies that offer products and/or services under brand names of The Walt Disney Family of Companies. [...] use of personal information shared with them under this Privacy Policy is subject to the same
opt-out rights (and limitations upon those rights)
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 6:29 AM PST - 9 comments
November 15
His name is Jean-Michel Cousteau!
[dramatic chords] His father's name was
Jack something, and like his father, Jean-Michel believes by working on things like
Finding Nemo he,
"can reach a far larger audience through entertainment in popular media than through innumerable press conferences, summits and reports. That is not to say that prestigious conferences and notable studies are irrelevant. They are critically necessary to validate the condition of the world’s oceans and bring opinion leaders together to share ideas and shape the collective political will." With this new
sea-lebrity (haha! get it?), he hopes to
help young people change the world. ...Well I just thought that was like totally rad and wanted to share with the virtual blue.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:53 PM PST - 7 comments
Iraq and Al-Queda Linked?
The WeeklyStandard claims to have received a letter sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy to the chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee, outlining the connections between Iraq and Bin Laden. Shortly thereafter,
the DOD criticizes the WeeklyStandard for mischaracterizing the memo. Story still developing...
posted by nads at 8:45 PM PST - 16 comments
Gore Vidal releases new book about the founding fathers, has some words for the current administration.
Vidal: But mostly we find the sort of corruption Franklin predicted. Ours is a totally corrupt society. The presidency is for sale. Whoever raises the most money to buy TV time will probably be the next president. This is corruption on a major scale.
Enron was an eye-opener to naive lovers of modern capitalism. Our accounting brotherhood, in its entirety, turned out to be corrupt, on the take. With the government absolutely colluding with them and not giving a damn.
Bush’s friend, old Kenny Lay, is still at large and could just as well start some new company tomorrow. If he hasn’t already. No one is punished for squandering the people’s money and their pension funds and for wrecking the economy.
So the corruption predicted by Franklin bears its terrible fruit. No one wants to do anything about it. It’s not even a campaign issue. Once you have a business community that is so corrupt in a society whose business is business, then what you have is, indeed, despotism. It is the sort of authoritarian rule that the Bush people have given us.
posted by skallas at 4:02 PM PST - 61 comments
"DEAR MR PRESIDENT, WE
WE THINK YOUR WAR IS STUPID, AND WE SAY NO WAY!" Thus the
Radical Cheerleaders arrive on the protest scene, taking the outfits and chants usually found on the football field to protests and demonstrations all over the world. Some chants
here, and more coverage
here. hey, it beats giant puppets!
posted by amberglow at 11:37 AM PST - 51 comments
Time Tales
: a collection of abandoned photographs, found at fleamarkets, thriftshops, or just lying on the street
posted by anastasiav at 10:41 AM PST - 7 comments
"Pending its review, the EPA says it is not now advising consumers to stop using Teflon products. The results of the agency's review of the safety of C-8 and of Teflon-related products that may release it are expected in coming months"
Teflon may cause birth defects and illness. D'oh!
posted by mathowie at 10:13 AM PST - 36 comments
DNA profiling may be a
complex issue, but whatever your take, go ahead and try your hand at genetic sleuthing with
this spiffy flash interactive.
posted by moonbird at 8:10 AM PST - 2 comments
Garden Sheds.
Why is it when men reach a certain age they get a hankering after a garden shed, somewhere they can escape to, to potter or mend things or just smoke and read? Well I'm glad it's not just me. And is this a particularly British thing?
posted by rolo at 7:22 AM PST - 21 comments
As Texas Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos said of his Republican colleagues: "They don't want to govern. They want to rule."
An apt quote regarding the sea change in American politics found in an enlightening article about the current state of pork barrel politics. I'm going to pinpoint that change as being the 1994 election when the Republicans gained control of Congress. Ever since then, it seems like the welfare of the American people wasn't only low on the politician's priority list, but it plain dropped off...and the PORK found in this batch of legislation has done nothing to disabuse me of that notion.
As an aside, I think I've found my new favorite texan (HA, like there's many),
Molly Ivins.
little bit of FARKfilter for ya, sorry.
posted by taumeson at 6:34 AM PST - 15 comments
November 14
AFGHAN DRAFT CONSTITUTION WORRIES CIVIL-SOCIETY ADVOCATES
Ah, the women. Again. I was unable to come up with some flash item to go with martinis so instead posted this. "The draft constitution of Afghanistan seeks stability in an ethnically diverse country whose infrastructure barely survived 22 years of constant war. It outlines a central government with a strong president and embraces principles of independent media and civil law. However, gaps in the draft worry advocates for women and for religious freedom. " And then there is the huge new opium crop.
posted by Postroad at 4:34 PM PST - 8 comments
Wal-Mart as Leviathan.
"The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?"
posted by the fire you left me at 3:24 PM PST - 31 comments
Tom DeLay thinks of the children.
The GOP House Leader is attempting to create a charity fund for abused and neglected children. Oh, the fund also pays for "late-night convention parties, a luxury suite during President Bush's speech at Madison Square Garden and yacht cruises" during the 2004 GOP convention. Unlike election funds now restricted by Campaign Finance law, donations to DeLay's semi-charity will be tax-exempt, and of course completely unreported to election officials.
(NYT Link)
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:20 PM PST - 10 comments
Too good to be true?
United Internet is launching its public hosting service with a special promotion:
a full 500 meg hosting account free for three years. Includes email hosting, FTP and shell access, 5 gigs of transfers, Perl, Python, PHP and MySQL... plus $25 worth of Google AdWords. Sounds fishy to me, but they never asked for my credit card when I signed up.
posted by johnnydark at 12:58 PM PST - 58 comments
Ted Rall's "Why we fight: Iraq from the other side."
Excerpt: You are joining a broad and diverse coalition dedicated to one principle: Iraq for Iraqis. Our leaders include generals of President Saddam Hussein's secular government as well as fundamentalist Islamists. We are Sunni and Shia, Iraqi and foreign, Arab and Kurdish. Though we differ on what kind of future our country should have after liberation and many of us suffered under Saddam, we are fighting side by side because there is no dignity under the brutal and oppressive jackboot of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority or their Vichyite lapdogs on the Governing Council, headed by embezzler Ahmed Chalabi.
Ted's cartoons can be seen here.
posted by skallas at 11:29 AM PST - 65 comments
"George Bush killed my son."
With these words, peace activist Rosemary Slavenas
buried her son, Brian, a National Guardsman and
"great, big kid" killed in the downing of a Chinook helicopter in Iraq. A tragic story of an Illinois family split in two by the death of their son, who received two funerals -- one military, with honors, and the other, with strong words for the current administration.
posted by digaman at 11:25 AM PST - 96 comments
Lyric Quiz - Test your knowledge of memorable lines from various hits of the 80's. Watch your spelling.
warning: It's a tad cheesy, but fun.
posted by Witty at 10:40 AM PST - 35 comments
International Jewish Conspiracy
Now you can get all the latest Conspiracy News without resorting to hard-to-remember secret handshakes, inconvenient drop boxes, or messy exotic fruits!
¨ Occupy world government!
¨ Dilute the Aryan bloodline!
¨ Read all the latest Protocols!
¨ Get the hottest tips for a successful Cabal!
posted by turbanhead at 9:56 AM PST - 14 comments
The elegant universe.
A 3 hour PBS NOVA documentary on string theory [in 24 ~5-10 minute chunks of real player or quick time video]. Welcome to the 11th dimension.
posted by srboisvert at 8:40 AM PST - 18 comments
New Scientist reports that
a virus has been built up from mail order components. Other reports on this are in
USA Today and
Nature. This isn't time life has been created in the lab,
as previously linked.
What's interesting is that this study was funded by the
Department of Energy to produce a completely man made lifeform that can create hydrogen or consume greenhouse gasses.
The present virus is an artificially created copy of a naturally occurring virus.
posted by substrate at 8:14 AM PST - 7 comments
Stories of Krishna: The Adventures of a Hindu God
is a lovely interactive Flash presentation from the Seattle Art Museum: Click an image and hear the accompanying tale (or read the transcript), then click "close the story" and mouse over the image icons to explore the characters and view details. After you are finished you can test what you've learned with a drag and drop card game. No broadband? View images of Krishna
here and
here, and
read some background.
posted by taz at 4:38 AM PST - 6 comments
November 13
Cnet has acquired "certain assets" of
Mp3.com (read story
here).
Please be advised that on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST the MP3.com website will no longer be accessible in its current form. Also,
all content will be deleted from our servers and all previously submitted tapes, CD-ROMs and other media in our possession will be destroyed. We recommend that you make alternative content hosting arrangements as soon as practicable.
posted by Quartermass at 11:17 PM PST - 28 comments
We've had lively discussion of unusual baby names here
before, but this
BBC report about a growing American trend is certainly a curious and rather disturbing angle.
posted by moonbird at 6:50 PM PST - 111 comments
Just in time for xmas, it's
Critters U Love: stuffed animals with robust genitalia. About as apealing as erotic cakes (funny, tho).
posted by mathowie at 4:29 PM PST - 30 comments
The Doctor's back ... again ....
this time he's an animated Richard E Grant (looking oddly like a vampire). Strange goings on in the east end of London and whatnot. Just the right amount of mystery and unanswered questions. Also an interesting use of flash animation.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:11 PM PST - 12 comments
November 12
"Wow! I have a lot of shows to watch... Will I ever catch up?”
Reuters reports on TiVo addiction, and it's tonight's #1 story on
Keith Olbermann's Countdown, a news show with less viewers than TiVo has owners. When they put up a transcript, it'll be in
here. Still, Keith asked one very good question: "Is it just part of the inevitable pattern of technology that everything starts as a luxury, becomes a necessity and finally becomes something for which we need therapy?" (I was able to do my own transcription because...
I got it on my TiVo!)
posted by wendell at 7:41 PM PST - 34 comments
Christopher Lee has been cut out of 'Return Of The King'.
"
Of course I am very shocked, that's all I can say....If you want to know why you would have to ask the company New Line or director Peter Jackson and his associates because I still don't really know why.".
Does anyone know any more about this sayonara to Saruman? '
Asked if he would attend the première, he said: "No, what's the point? What's the point of going? None at all."' I'm kind of shocked. But not quite as much as he is from the sounds of it.
posted by boneybaloney at 2:21 PM PST - 81 comments
Bad Toon Rising
- Think you remember what Mickey Mouse looks like? Daffy Duck? Bart Simpson? Ok - grab a scrap of paper and draw that character. Right now. (No peeking!!) Some other people already have, and these are the results.....
posted by anastasiav at 11:41 AM PST - 21 comments
Vanished America
If you've ever wondered what to do with all of your old vacation photos and slides, wonder no more. A fellow named Charles Cushman bequeathed his collection of over 14,000 slides and photos taken over a period of three decades, from 1938 to 1969, to Indiana Univiersity. IU has decided to create
an amazing digital archive of his photos as a history project.
The photos are nothing special in themselves. He took countless pictures of things he and his wife saw as they took driving tours across the United States, mostly near their home in Chicago and in the West. They are no different than and no better than anybody else's amateur photos. But, as the director of the project points out, without realizing it, Cushman captured an America already beginning to disappear in the middle of the 20th century, and did so by documenting its disappearance unwittingly over a thirty-year period. I lightly perused the
slide show of 120 images and the photos are indeed both banal and compelling all at the same time. A very nicely done site with a lot of rich material.
(via
The Cartoonist)
posted by briank at 10:19 AM PST - 45 comments
"Bring 'Em On:" A Certain Four Horsemen Rein Up to Inquire of The Taunt -- or "The Health and Environmental Costs of War on Iraq (PDF)." An independent survey just released by the UK global health charity
Medact, finds that "the war on Iraq and its aftermath exacted a heavy toll on combatants and civilians, who paid and continue to pay the price in death, injury and mental and physical ill health. Between 21,700 and 55,000 people died between March 20 and October 20, 2003."
According to the BBC, the report says that the "conflict and its aftermath have put the most vulnerable in society - women, children and the elderly - at risk", and "there has been a reported increase in maternal mortality rates, acute malnutrition has almost doubled from 4% to 8% in the last year and there is an increase in water-borne diseases and vaccine-preventable diseases."
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 1:41 AM PST - 32 comments
The Kumeyaay Nation
of southern California.
'This Web site is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the Kumeyaay culture. Kumeyaay.com tells the story from the Kumeyaay perspective, and is the premiere source for Kumeyaay Indian information.' With an interesting
history, language and culture section.
posted by plep at 12:52 AM PST - 6 comments
November 11
Radiohead
are taking over the
BBC this Christmas. For one week, from the 22nd to the 28th of December,
the band will assume control of BBC digital staion
6Music, choosing music, selecting shows, co-presenting programmes and contributing website material. The station is streamed worldwide. Christmas this year may be a little less jolly.
;)
posted by Blue Stone at 10:55 PM PST - 33 comments
Mystery Solved.
Somewhere in the Catskill Mountains, two nature filmmakers are busy shooting a documentary on rabbits in their natural habitat. In the morning dew they are about to meet something considerably bigger than a rabbit... [Flash and safe for work]
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:37 PM PST - 14 comments
Science Times: 25th Anniversary
The first issue of Science Times[weekly section of
N.Y. Times] appeared 25 years ago, on Nov. 14, 1978. Its guiding principle ever since has been that science is not a collection of answers, but a way of asking questions, an enterprise driven by curiosity. To celebrate the anniversary, we pose 25 of the most provocative questions facing science. As always, answers are provisional. [free reg req'd]
posted by Postroad at 5:09 PM PST - 2 comments
Robert Durst Admits to Killing but is found innocent
because the jurors didn't think the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Durst intentionally murdered, cut his ex-friend up and then threw the body parts in a lake.
I'm sure the fact that he's got like $9 billion had absolutely nothing to do with it.
But since he's got a history of killing, I suppose they'll just wait for him to "accidentally" kill someone else and then try to dispose of the body without getting caught.
But isn't an accidental killing still prosecutable? Isn't the fact that he admitted to chopping the body up and throwing it in a lake prosecutable?
Are you wondering what ever did happen to his wife too?
posted by fenriq at 2:44 PM PST - 21 comments
Art Carney
...dead @ 85. My favorite Ed Norton quote: "One hand washes the other... And both hands wash the face."
posted by thrakintosh at 2:33 PM PST - 16 comments
"Mac or PC" question planted at the Rock the Vote debate.
After much ridicule and criticism over her question, Brown University student Alexandra Trustman has written an Op-Ed to the campus Daily Herald explaining that CNN planted the question with her so they could "modulate the event" in order to keep the debate "light-hearted" making it easier for "the candidates to relate to a younger audience." Trustman, feeling that the question CNN gave her was not relevant, wrote a different, and more relevant she thought, question on "how, if elected, the candidates would use technology in their administrations." The executive producer told her just to read the card they had given her.
Howard Kurtz reports today that
CNN regrets getting caught the producer's actions.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 10:48 AM PST - 45 comments
yasse
is a nice little bi-monthly arty web magazine with some beautiful photography and intersting articles. enjoy.
posted by zeoslap at 9:39 AM PST - 8 comments
Iraqi official shot dead over parking violation.
U.S. military officials said Tuesday that U.S. soldiers shot to death the chairman of Sadr City's governing council during a heated argument this week.... Officials said the quarrel got under way Monday when the chairman, Mohannad Ghazi al Kaabi, tried to park his car near the District Advisory Council building in an area closed to traffic.
Do you suppose this might have a negative impact on public opinion in Iraq?
posted by ilsa at 9:26 AM PST - 56 comments
Judgment Day:
Roy Moore faces the music for defying federal law. Misconduct aside, will Roy Moore become a martyr? I think he should go, but is it wise? I believe it is; I mean someone needs to reign the "runaway" judiciary the Republicans are always talking about. (Who knew that their own straw-man would bite them it the ass?)
posted by Bag Man at 8:26 AM PST - 23 comments
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 may have brought an end to the Great War, but the ending was merely the beginning of the aftermath.
The aftermath years were a time of paradox, where the men who returned from the horrors of the trenches wanted to forget, and where those who had stayed behind, and had lost husbands and brothers, and sons and fathers were equally determined never to forget. It was a time where remembrance of the dead became a way of life, and where it was somehow assumed that all the best, and the finest young men of a generation had died. The other side of that assumption was that those who had survived were somehow less than those who had died. . . The exploration of that time, that world, is the theme of these pages.
posted by ewagoner at 8:00 AM PST - 11 comments
When Web Designers Reproduce
We've all seen web pages announcing new arrivals, and I have thrown up my own minimalist attempts using bare bones html. But I found this link a fascinating example of what happens when one applies a particular web aesthetic to an important life event. A new genre is born!
Is your infant w3c compliant? (no Flash required)
posted by mecran01 at 6:58 AM PST - 57 comments
Are You, Deep Down, Secretly, Between-You-And-Me, Proud Of Your Country?
Even if you're not
Canadian? Because
a lot of people in the world, no matter how badly run their country might be, seem to be just that. Isn't it weird, though - and, well, stupid - to be proud of something that just happened to happen to us and that we've done nothing to deserve, whether for good or for bad? A more telling question that occurs is: what nationality would you
choose to be, if you couldn't be the one you are? Here's
the menu.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:54 AM PST - 105 comments
November 10
Bush's Speech on the Spreading of Democracy
This is a massive and difficult undertaking -- it is worth our effort, it is worth our sacrifice, because we know the stakes. The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. (Applause.) The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.
Since
this speech was posted earlier, I just thought it would be good if we are exposed to ideas from both sides.
posted by VeGiTo at 9:22 PM PST - 88 comments
701 78s.
A huge set of "old-time" music recordings from 1924-1946, made available in RealAudio format by honkingduck.com. Not high sound quality, but an invaluable collection for anyone with any interest in early recorded bluegrass, folk, country, blues, etc.
posted by staggernation at 7:38 PM PST - 23 comments
An attempt by developing countries to put management of the
Internet under United Nations auspices is likely to be shelved at next month's world information summit in Geneva -
but the issue is now firmly on the international agenda.
posted by Mick at 7:29 PM PST - 14 comments
"Hi Jerks! Bender here. I just got back from the drinkin'est town in the known Universe: Las Vegas, Nevada- Earth. Check out these
photos and you will see what I mean!" from Bender's Las Vegas Scrapbook.
(Tons of pictures, big download alert) [via waxpancake]
posted by riffola at 7:05 PM PST - 18 comments
This guy has hit the nail on the head.
I've been marveling at how it was possible to completely screw up the sequels to what I consider the greatest action movie of all time. Matt Feeney has precisely and eloquently pinpointed everything wrong with the Matrix sequels.
posted by aznblader at 2:05 PM PST - 49 comments
Pax TV.
Salam Pax is diversifying; moving into TV. His first report will be shown on the
BBC's Newsnight programme.
Newsnight broadcasts at 10:30pm GMT, and can be watched here by clicking on the "latest programme" link during or after the show.
posted by Blue Stone at 12:33 PM PST - 6 comments
The New DJ Revolution?
"You are a DJ but you don't have any bulky gear. You don't need to drive to a gig, the subway/underground will do just fine. You don't need an assistant to carry milk crates of heavy vinyl. Everything you need is in your pockets and the size of a cigarette pack. You only have 2 iPods, but they together hold enough music to play for several months straight, 24-7, without a single repeat. You are a mp3j." [thank you,
iPodLounge.]
posted by grabbingsand at 12:00 PM PST - 27 comments
Dirty Bombs
Federal investigators have documented 1,300 cases of lost, stolen or abandoned radioactive material inside the United States over the past five years and have concluded there is a significant risk that terrorists could cobble enough together for a dirty bomb.
(warning - Salon link)
posted by Irontom at 11:22 AM PST - 13 comments
This page
is about
past, present and future of the german autobahn system. Discover the changing history, take a look at abandoned roads or get informed about new transportation plans. Have fun! [via Travelers Diagram]
posted by soundofsuburbia at 11:04 AM PST - 7 comments
But There's No Oil You Say?
The humanitarian situation in northern Uganda is worse than in Iraq, or anywhere else in the world, a senior United Nations official has said. It is a moral outrage" that the world is doing so little for the victims of the war, especially children, says UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland.
The rebels routinely abduct children to serve as sex slaves and fighters. Thousands of children leave their houses in northern Uganda to sleep rough in the major towns, where they feel more safe from the threat of abduction by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The United Nations [should] play a great role in scaling down the violence
The LRA, under shadowy leader Joseph Kony, says it wants to rule Uganda according to the Biblical Ten Commandments. They often mutilate their victims, by cutting off their lips, noses or ears.
posted by turbanhead at 10:56 AM PST - 15 comments
Paperplane.org
: Ken Blackburn holds the World Record for time aloft for a paper airplane. Visit his site to read how he did it, the history of paper airplanes, read some competitive airplane flying rules, and learn to fold some new airplane designs of your own.
posted by anastasiav at 10:09 AM PST - 6 comments
"Media Carta is the human-rights battle of our information age. It is about us, the people, singing the songs and telling the stories and generating culture from the bottom up, instead of having it spoon-fed from the top down."
Kalle Lasn and the gang at Adbusters are at it
again.
posted by Quartermass at 7:22 AM PST - 9 comments
Begun the microseries has...
in a very interesting format.
Star Wars: Clone Wars will be shown in two sets of ten installments, each three minutes long, which can be viewed on the Cartoon Network's website the day after they are aired. Director
Genndy Tartakovsky (of
Samurai Jack fame) seems to be doing a good job, based on my impressions of the first episode. Can this series help redeem the Star Wars franchise for the thousands (millions?) who feel cheated by the shoddy prequels?
posted by UKnowForKids at 5:03 AM PST - 18 comments
Al Gore claims the Bush administration is not helping America, but hurting it by focusing on all the wrong things.
Gore:The administration is still not investing in local government training and infrastructures where they could make the biggest difference. The first responder community is still being shortchanged. In many cases, fire and police still don’t have the communications equipment to talk to each other. The CDC and local hospitals are still nowhere close to being ready for a biological weapons attack.
The administration has still failed to address the fundamental disorganization and rivalries of our law enforcement, intelligence and investigative agencies. In particular, the critical FBI-CIA coordination, while finally improved at the top, still remains dysfunctional in the trenches.
The constant violations of civil liberties promote the false impression that these violations are necessary in order to take every precaution against another terrorist attack. But the simple truth is that the vast majority of the violations have not benefited our security at all; to the contrary, they hurt our security.
posted by skallas at 2:49 AM PST - 29 comments
The Beast of Bodmin.
'Photographs and even films had been taken of these beasts, but there has been little physical evidence to support the sightings. That was until recently when a 14-year-old boy discovered a skull with large fangs, in the River Fowey on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. '
'This is the story of how The Natural History Museum tracked down this beast... '
More at the
British Big Cats Society.
posted by plep at 1:50 AM PST - 8 comments
November 9
Dean can't carry the south.
The New Republic's Jonathan Chait writes in response to Dean's flag gaffe: "What's alarming here is not that Dean wants to win votes from guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. It's that he thinks he actually can... His aggressive secularism, association with civil unions, and antiwar stance all make him culturally anathema in the South. This is one of the many, many reasons Dean would be squashed like a bug in the general election if nominated: Bush could take the South for granted, and concentrate all his resources on battleground states like Pennsylvania. "
posted by gregb1007 at 11:54 PM PST - 47 comments
Career marine forced from job for 'liberal' views
- "I was brought up on charges of "Disloyal Statements" under Article 134 of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). Not because anything I wrote was disloyal, but because of my political views...
We now live in a climate of political correctness and false patriotism where anyone who goes against our president is immediately labeled as disloyal; unpatriotic; a traitor; a liberal. Consider the recent scandal involving the White House CIA leak. Because Mr. Wilson disagreed with our President and publicly acknowledged this, his wife's cover was conveniently blown so she could never work as an intelligence operative again."
posted by troutfishing at 10:03 PM PST - 26 comments
Dean forgoes federal campaign funds.
This goes contrary to his beliefs, although favors his campaign considering he's the front-runner. Why the ideological shift?
You might ask why I'm linking to the Des Moines Register, since every major newspaper is carrying this story anyway. Well, a little more than a week ago, Dean
made some rather off-color remarks to this same paper.
Edwards is now calling him out on two of his latest twists. Not that I think Edwards stands a chance of winning, considering he blatantly came out against gay marriage on the program. But, Edwards has a point, and Dean seems to be stumbling.
posted by BlueTrain at 7:06 PM PST - 49 comments
That's What Friends Are For:
Laughing, getting drunk together, telling all...and making celebratory, determinedly silly websites like
this one. Generally, private
jokes are painfully unfunny but, when the vicarious instinct kicks in, other people's gregarious
joie de vivre is contagious, touching - and great fun.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:50 PM PST - 7 comments
The Snow Show!
In the winter of 2004 a unique cultural event, The Snow Show, will take place in Lapland. Internationally recognized architects like Steven Holl and artists, for example Yoko Ono, will collaborate to design installations using as their primary materials snow and ice.
They already made some pretty
cool previews last winter.
posted by hoskala at 2:19 PM PST - 3 comments
So I reinstalled an older game,
StarTopia (Flash required and RIP
Muckyfoot, you will be missed), t'other day and discovered I'd lost my manual to it. Never fear, for
Real Time Strategic Carnage had about, oh, a bazillion times more info about the game than did the manual that actually came with the game, which should come as no surprise to most gamers. RTSC has detailed information on a number of strategy games, old and new, and I recommend it to your notice wholeheartedly.
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:42 AM PST - 3 comments
The Virtual Colour Museum
presents Colour Order Systems in Art and Science: "a complete cultural history of colour", including illustrated explanations of 59 colour theories from antiquity to modern time, plus the significance of colours in various cultural systems (click the small images to enlarge), and a "virtual colour-space" dedicated to illustrating the spherical colour system construction of early 19th century painter Philipp Otto Runge.
Walk this way >>
posted by taz at 4:31 AM PST - 4 comments
November 8
McDonalds CEO Puts McJob in Mainstream.
By taking Merriam-Webster to task for including
McJob ("low paying and dead-end work") in its latest Collegiate Dictionary, McDonald's CEO Jim Cantalupo has ensured that yet another disparaging fast-food web-fed meme joins the venerable "You want fries with that?" If this had been Fox, I would have said it was intentional.
posted by mischief at 10:45 PM PST - 39 comments
Many common food
plants contain noxious and toxic antinutrients designed to ward off predators, including humans. Tomatoes and Potatoes for example contain Glycoalkaloids which cause a Depressed central nervous system; kidney inflammation; carcinogenic; birth defects; reduced iron uptake. Can Genetically Engineered strains increase these naturally occuring antinutrients and toxins? (
more inside)
posted by stbalbach at 6:45 PM PST - 26 comments
Anima:
A fascinating archive of the ways early photography was used to give the illusion of motion, as well as information on the evolution of optical toys and early cinema.
posted by anastasiav at 9:18 AM PST - 5 comments
Clay Shirky smacks syllogism around.
Nice criticism of the
semantic web and the present (and increasing) hype of the
"semantic web revolution". The most damning part of the essay is the part about languages and categories being deeply intertwined with worldview and with culture—if there's no good definition for the word
"bachelor" (
see), how can there be an encoding of
"friend",
"lover" (see article for the classic AI example of
"John loves Mary") or anything else that isn't zipcode?
posted by zpousman at 6:59 AM PST - 62 comments
Early Manuscripts at Oxford University.
'This site provides access to over 80 early manuscripts now in institutions associated with the University of Oxford. Please read the information about using this website. '
'Between 1995 and 2000 the Early Manuscripts Imaging Project created high resolution digital images from manuscripts which were selected as major treasures from their respective libraries, to create wider availability for originals which may otherwise be too fragile for handling. '
posted by plep at 12:52 AM PST - 5 comments
November 7
The Wingnut Debate Dictionary
- spice up your political screeds with some colorful new terms like
Colmestrato (n.) - an emasculated, harmless "liberal" stand-in included for purposes of fairness and balance and
Condiment - a statement that needs to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. I am
so adding
Deus ex rectum and
Stepford Democrat to my vocabulary. And how is it that
fucksimilie hasn't found it's way here long before now?
This is a game that MeFi wags of all political persuasions can play...anyone have any terms to add to the lexicon?
(compiled by Ethel the Blog)
posted by madamjujujive at 8:56 PM PST - 25 comments
What's that pol running?
"For what it's worth, the Republican National Committee is running Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000, while the Democratic National Committee is running Apache on Linux.
As of this writing, November 5, 2003, the RNC has an uptime of 4.26 days (maximum of 39.04) and a 90-day moving average of 16.91. The DNC has an uptime of 445.02 days (also the maximum) and a 90-day moving average of 395.38 days." Also broken down by individual campaigns.
posted by cedar at 5:43 PM PST - 9 comments
Florida's New Senator.
Bob Graham's retiring and not running for re-election of his senate seat. It's sad to see a good senator go. But not to worry because the end of this Floridian's distinguished senatorial career marks the beginning of another... Katherine Harris for U.S. Senate 2004!
posted by gregb1007 at 3:47 PM PST - 12 comments
Pin-up Photoshop fraud.
I know Photoshop massaging of images has been posted here earlier (somewhere), but Maxim magazine seem to be getting sloppy. A least
Vargas didn't do tiles. (via Mikes list)
posted by marvin at 1:29 PM PST - 35 comments
Ten years of therapy in one night
Could a single trip on a piece of African rootbark help a junkie kick the habit? That was the claim in the 1960s, and now iboga is back in the spotlight. But is it a miracle cure? Daniel Pinchbeck decided to give it a go. And life, he says, will never be the same again...
Any of you junkies at Metafilter care to give it a try?
posted by Postroad at 1:11 PM PST - 34 comments
The hugely popular
iTunes is a success story. But not for Apple, which makes
virtually no revenue from the online download service.
"
When that 99 cents leaves your wallet, the RIAA monopoly swallows most of it, and the credit card companies swallow the rest. As the supplicant in this relationship, Apple is left holding the can." Steve Jobs -
"
We would like to break even/make a little bit of money but it's not a money maker,"
posted by Blue Stone at 12:32 PM PST - 57 comments
Not happy with the level of scientific discourse on
The Discovery Channel Fed up with missing out all those keynote addresses by top scientists at various conferences around the globe? Fear not! The
Cable Science Network is gearing up for launch. Billing itself as
'a C-Span for science' they hope to use television to counter some of the
crap and
misinformation that usually rides the airwaves.
posted by PenDevil at 3:54 AM PST - 25 comments
November 6
A flood of red ink This time the turnaround will be much tougher. There will be no “peace dividend” from the end of the cold war (indeed, the pressure on military spending may continue to increase). America is unlikely to see another stockmarket bubble, with its surge in tax revenues. As baby-boomers retire, the pressure from entitlement spending will be more acute. Set against this background, the path back to a sustainable fiscal policy will be extremely painful, even without any dramatic fiscal crisis. Long after Dubya is back on his ranch, Americans will be trying to recover from the mess he created.
posted by y2karl at 10:49 PM PST - 35 comments
The New Orleans Karaoke Cam
comes to you live from Cat's Meow in New Orleans. Choose the streaming video option and you can watch and listen to the performers and sing along if you know the song! If karaoke isn't your thing, there are
other cams on the site as well. Warning: this can be a MAJOR waste of time.
posted by SisterHavana at 3:40 PM PST - 5 comments
How do you get teens to crave milk?
Load it with caffeine. "We're giving teens the caffeine they want but also vitamins, calcium and protein" ...and also a lot more calories.
posted by bluno at 3:12 PM PST - 32 comments
Today's big bombshell:
Private Jessica Lynch reports that she was raped. But here's the kicker. In the biography, she confesses that she has no memory of the incident. The citation comes from "medical records." But even
author Rick Bragg notes that the records "do not tell whether her captors assaulted her almost lifeless, broken body after she was lifted from the wreckage, or if they assaulted her and then broke her bones into splinters until she was almost dead." Serious allegations against her captors or trumped up charges that fail to pinpoint the perpetrator? (It's also worth noting that Bragg
was suspended from the New York Times when he relied on the work of stringers and interns. Is it possible that a similar approach was utilized with these medical records?)
posted by ed at 9:31 AM PST - 61 comments
Those anti-Semitic Europeans are at it again.
In an opinion poll conducted in October, when shown a list of countries and asked "if in your opinion it presents or not a threat to peace in the world", some 59 per cent of European Union citizens polled said that Israel was a danger.
"This shocking result... defies logic and is a racist flight of fantasy that only shows that anti-Semitism is deeply embedded within European society, more than at any other period since the end of the war," responded Rabbi Marvin Hier. But, is it really so?
posted by acrobat at 7:50 AM PST - 53 comments
November 5
Claim: U.S. Government Spurned Peace Talks Before the War With Iraq -
A possible negotiated peace deal was laid out in a heavily guarded compound in Baghdad in the days before the war, ABCNews has been told, but a top former Pentagon adviser says he was ordered not to pursue the deal, ABCNews has learned.
Baghdad Scrambled to Offer Deal to U.S. as War Loomed -
As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal. Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent search. The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections.
posted by y2karl at 9:33 PM PST - 28 comments
I feel so burned.
I can't believe I
(called in sick to go see) went to
Matrix Revolutions. IMO, they shouldn't have made it into a franchise, as the first Matrix was just fine as a stand-alone movie.
posted by Lynsey at 3:44 PM PST - 123 comments
Who gives how much to whom.
For those like me who have been wondering about the claim that Republicans get more of their funding from ordinary people and the Democrats get more from foundations and rich individuals here is where we can find out. So far, I have found some surprises.
posted by donfactor at 10:44 AM PST - 36 comments
POWERSLAVES: An Elektro Tribute to Iron Maiden
A record label in Amsterdam has assembled 14 electro-fied covers of classic tracks by the British metal band. Vocoders, drum machines, and analog synths galore, plus influences as diverse as industrial, synthpop, and Miami bass. Loving tribute? Unholy abomination? Entertaining genre cross-pollination? You decide -- the entire album is available as streaming audio from
this Dutch radio station.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:25 AM PST - 20 comments
You thought web standards were bad, how about PC, DVD and Recorder standards too?
Well, the FCC has officially mandated that vendors making devices such as dvd players, recorders, pc's, must include (by July 1, 2005) copy-protection mechanisms which will prevent sharing of most digitally
broadcast content. Broadcasters will have the option of adding a 'flag' to data streams which will prevent users from sharing digital content ala mp3's. Yes, there will be ways around this;yes, old systems will still work (maybe), but in the end, the FCC has just established a new technological standard which will end up in all of our new computers, dvd players, tivos, post 2005. Want to do something about it? Sorry. Too
late.
posted by jeremias at 6:38 AM PST - 29 comments
Democracy Aid 2004.
One year from now, on November 2nd 2004, the next American Presidential elections will be held. For the first time ever, because of the Internet, it is possible for non-American private citizens to participate in the campaign process.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:15 AM PST - 20 comments
Arar releases statement:
"There were cats and rats up there, and from time to time the cats peed through the opening into the cell. There were two blankets, two dishes and two bottles. One bottle was for water and the other one was used for urinating during the night. Nothing else. No light.
I spent 10 months, and 10 days inside that grave."
a follow-up to my previous thread
posted by The God Complex at 2:16 AM PST - 96 comments
November 4
ESA astronaut, Pedro Duque writes
"I am writing these notes in the Soyuz with a cheap ballpoint pen. Why is that important? As it happens, I've been working in space programmes for seventeen years, eleven of these as an astronaut, and I've always believed, because that is what I've always been told, that normal ballpoint pens don't work in space... and here I am, it doesn't stop working and it doesn't 'spit' or anything. Sometimes being too cautious keeps you from trying, and therefore things are built more complex than necessary." From
Snopes: Fisher spent over one million dollars in trying to perfect the ball point pen before he made his first successful
pressurized pens in 1965, which NASA uses.
[via GearBits]
posted by riffola at 9:56 PM PST - 23 comments
The BBC introduces
it's new grass-roots political website
iCan. After research showed (surprise surprise) that "
many people are very disillusioned and cynical about politicians and local civic institutions" moves were made to set up iCan, to enable people to get information on and engage in local and national political issues. With search tools to find actions on local issues, message boards, and the ability to create a website for your cause, "
iCan aims to make politics accessible to ordinary people confronting a problem."
It's also one of the things Rupert Murdoch and The Guardian would like to squash.
posted by Blue Stone at 12:08 PM PST - 7 comments
Ocean Tank and Shark Video Cam
- take a aquatic break to explore the New England Aquarium's 200,000-gallon ocean tank, viewable from user-controlled cameras. The exhibit has more than 50 species of sea creatures from eels, sharks and barracuda, to turtles, stingrays and angelfish. You might catch a diver in the tank at feeding times. Viewable 9 am to 5 pm, EST.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:24 AM PST - 12 comments
ABC last night ran a program examining the life of
Mary Magdalene and her role in Jesus' life as possible wife. The
Mary-as-whore idea was debunked some time ago, but is it possible that she was made into a whore by the church to explain her intimacy with Jesus? The novel
The da Vinci Code, on which this ABC program was based, explores the relationship between da Vinci and a
secret society protecting the blood line of Christ, who according to some theories fathered children with his wife, Mary Magdalene. If you look at the
Last Supper, the figure to the right of Jesus is so clearly a woman, and it is possible that the Holy Grail that gathered the blood of Christ is a metaphor for Magdalene's womb carrying Jesus' children. And according to Magdalene's
apocryphal gnostic gospel, she knew secrets that Jesus kept from the apostles.
posted by archimago at 7:44 AM PST - 60 comments
The gallery of Kidrobot
is a collection of toy photos I ran into on a recent search for a U.S. retailer of a
desktop toy I wanted by
Cube-Works. Outside of finding what I came for, I enjoyed just browsing the photos and descriptions. In the vein of "fair and balanced", I also found the toy at
Sweatyfrog, which has some other neato-torpedo things.
posted by rudyfink at 2:34 AM PST - 7 comments
CBS may cancel 'The Reagans' mini-series over GOP protests.
Rep. John Dingall has some thoughts on the matter: As someone who served with President Reagan, and in the interest of historical accuracy, please allow me to share with you some of my recollections of the Reagan years that I hope will make it into the final cut of the mini-series: $640 Pentagon toilets seats; ketchup as a vegetable; union busting; firing striking air traffic controllers; Iran-Contra; selling arms to terrorist nations; trading arms for hostages; retreating from terrorists in Beirut; lying to Congress; financing an illegal war in Nicaragua; visiting Bitburg cemetery; a cozy relationship with Saddam Hussein; shredding documents; Ed Meese; Fawn Hall; Oliver North; James Watt; apartheid apologia; the savings and loan scandal; voodoo economics; record budget deficits; double digit unemployment; farm bankruptcies; trade deficits; astrologers in the White House; Star Wars; and influence peddling.
posted by skallas at 2:17 AM PST - 102 comments
R.I.P. Bay Area Transit Information Page,
1994-2003. The site, started by two
Berkeley students, provided quick access to transit information in the San Francisco Bay Area, who later received funding for their efforts in 1996. Instead, it gets replaced by
this abomination of web design. On the other hand, it is
very unusual for a web site to
keep the same user interface over the span of almost a decade. Already, there have been
user interface rants,
complaints about not finding information,
sarcastic commentary, and a brief
eulogy delivered from one of the original creators, and it hasn't even been the first day. Is content over style dead or are information sites like
this (flash) the wave of the future?
posted by calwatch at 12:12 AM PST - 12 comments
November 3
In this corner, Left-Wing Redneck Steve Earle!
"The deal is, he's gonna interrupt me and then eventually he's gonna tell me to shut up," Earle says. "That's what he does, then on to the next thing. Equating any of that with a serious political discussion is like thinking pro wrestling is real. But the worst that comes out of it is I get the shit kicked out of me on Fox News and we get free publicity for the tour. It's a win-win situation. The worst part is I actually have to watch Fox."
I *heart* Steve Earle.
Sorry, but it's probably already been aired by now. Anyone catch it?
posted by nyxxxx at 6:16 PM PST - 19 comments
Poor, Much-Maligned Alcohol Gets A Good Word:
It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place/Except you and me,/So set 'em' up Joe, I got a little story/ I think you should know... And the story is something, if you're a drinker, you probably already know. (
I was so surprised by this article I wondered if it was sponsored by the booze industry. But then I mixed myself another drink; read the wonderfully-named, probably Guinness - and poteen-fuelled - Dublin Principles and drank its health anyway!)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:07 PM PST - 16 comments
An act of ‘betrayal’--Army Times (newspaper)
Army TimesSounds like the cuts the Bush gang making on social programs except these are for our MILITARY: "Commissaries and the Defense Department’s stateside schools are in the crosshairs of Pentagon budget cutters, and military advocates, families and even base commanders are up in arms.
Defense officials notified the services in mid-October that they intend to close 19 commissaries and may close 19 more, mostly in remote areas.
At the same time, the Pentagon is finishing a study to determine whether to close or transfer control of the 58 schools it operates on 14 military installations in the continental United States.
posted by Postroad at 3:33 PM PST - 44 comments
Spammers Strike Back
- It looks like spammers aren't going to stand for your rejection of their messages. One of the current
virii (Mimail in various incarnations) is specifically designed to launch dDoS attacks against anti-spam websites. A newsletter at
spamhaus.org describes this attack in detail, but you may not be able to read it since the site is currently under attack. In other words, the spammer's attacks are working. Spam fighters are getting
driven off the Net. [more inside]
posted by y6y6y6 at 2:10 PM PST - 30 comments
Got ipecac?
Toss it out. The American Academy of Pediatrics reverses its long-standing position on the vomiting-inducer that has served many parents as a talisman of safety against poisoning.
posted by soyjoy at 1:10 PM PST - 34 comments
Problems in infinite decision theory [pdf].
You are in hell and facing an eternity of torment, but the devil offers you a way out, which you can take once and only once at any time from now on. Today, if you ask him to, the devil will toss a fair coin once and if it comes up heads you are free (but if tails then you face eternal torment with no possibility of reprieve). You don’t have to play today, though, because tomorrow the devil will make the deal slightly more favourable to you (and you know this): he’ll toss the coin twice but just one head will free you. The day after, the offer will improve further: 3 tosses with just one head needed. And so on (4 tosses, 5 tosses, ….1000 tosses …) for the rest of time if needed. So, given that the devil will give you better odds on every day after this one, but that you want to escape from hell some time, when should accept his offer? More discussion
here.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:05 AM PST - 37 comments
Secret 9/11 case before high court
"It's the case that doesn't exist. Even though two different federal courts have conducted hearings and issued rulings, there has been no public record of any action. No documents are available. No files. No lawyer is allowed to speak about it. Period."
posted by Irontom at 9:58 AM PST - 23 comments
November 2
These guys are pretty upset.
Symantec's new Internet Security suite combines a firewall, anti-virus utility, and content-filtering parental controls in one package. And guess what? When a user sets the filter to block "Weapons" sites, it blocks NRA pages!
Internet Security 2004 isn't really the issue, however. It's a (large) "community" once again overreacting, spreading
FUD about rights being taken away, political brainwashing, and the world coming to an end.
Or, this is just the best. troll. ever. You decide.
posted by bhayes82 at 6:29 PM PST - 41 comments
Friedman quotes a former Swedish prime minister.
"Our defining date is now 1989 and yours is 2001," I find this to be true. For most of the 90's, the US struggled to find a new purpose for its power. A few peace-keeping missions, a skirmish in Iraq (the first time), but for the most part, no real global strategy. Europe, on the other hand, has made significant progress with developing the EU, the euro (which no one believed would ever come about so quickly), and a semi-unified policy concerning the rest of the world (GB being the notable exception).
NY Times
posted by BlueTrain at 6:11 AM PST - 72 comments
November 1
Isaac Newton
Massive, ongoing project based at Cambridge University, devoted to putting Newton's MSS on the Web. At present, the digitized materials available range from journals to scientific MSS to theological speculations.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:00 PM PST - 6 comments
Hotelchatter.
The ever-prolific Rusty of
Kuro5hin fame has a new website out. This one is a collaborative weblog for reviewing hotels around the world. Having had some bad hotel experiences, I fully endorse the idea, but will people be motivated enough to write?
posted by Eloquence at 4:44 PM PST - 34 comments
A giant game of telephone in the sky
--For most of November in Yamaguchi, Japan, messages sent will be translated to japanese and back, and encoded as a unique set of flashes and redirected into the sky ove the city, flashing there until the recipient of the message retrieves it, transforming the skyline with
data as light--created by
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.
Meanwhile, at the same time on the other side of the world, there's
Poetrica, on Sao Paulo, Brazil,
advertising billboards.--messages that also can't be read in public in their current form. You write something and convert it into a non-phonetic font. The visual messages are archived on the web site and you get an email when your message is displayed on one of the billboards--created by
Giselle Beiguelman
posted by amberglow at 8:37 AM PST - 9 comments
Is The Blood Red Water For Real?
A
discussion on egullet, of all places, suggests at least one of these shocking pictures (
inside) has been retouched. A more interesting question is: is it OK to "enhance" real evidence, if the salient facts are true? Or even, more radically, if the cause is just and dedicated to save lives or relieve suffering?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:30 AM PST - 69 comments
Famous freaks.
There really should be an IFDB. Until then, marvel at these miraculous testaments to God's sense of humor.
posted by condour75 at 12:05 AM PST - 12 comments
