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February 2006 Archives
February 28
The Ghazal
is a kind of poetry, originally of pre-Islamic Persian origin, consisting entirely of couplets, called "
sher," that share (no pun intended) an end rhyme. Well-liked especially in
India and
Pakistan, the
difficult-to-master form has experienced a surge of popularity among, of all people, white Canadians. Spurred by the
breathtaking poems of the
late John Thompson, contemporary writers like
Phyllis Webb and
Eric Folsom have created a interesting hybridized verision--
"The Bastard Ghazal". That's not, of course, to ignore
Kiran Ahluwalia, an Indian-Candian ghazal singer who hews more closely to the form's origins.
posted by maxreax at 10:59 PM PST - 13 comments
Rice, the rocket.
Secretary of State shares fitness tips with early-morning DC news. Next week: Cyclin' with POTUS (schedule subject to change).
posted by rob511 at 10:11 PM PST - 17 comments
Vlad gives his views on the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. As the anthem of
Phystech promises, "we will disperse, when the time comes, in all the world, from Dolgoprudny"
posted by tellurian at 10:04 PM PST - 3 comments
At this Larry King interview
and in other places, Jon Stewart is getting ready for his very big "before and after" moment. In one week he will go from hosting a sort of anti-establishment "basic cable" talk show to hosting the very establishment (of some sort at least) Oscars viewed by usually at least 40 million people. Despite what most of us me-fiers might think, Stewart is sort of unknown outside his core devotees and especially for a Oscar host -- unlike Bob Hope, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, and even Chris Rock -- he has never been responsible for a hit movie. Moreover, his
ratings (at 1.1 -- or about
two and half million people a night) would place him at about the sixth most seen cable news "show" -- behind Greta, Shepard Smith, Hannity, Larry, and, of course, the factor. Now, that's a very wealthy, influential 2-3 million viewers that policy makers and advertisers love, so it's not chicken change but you can still understand what the Oscars might mean for fans of Jon. For people who believe Stewart is the only effective keeper of a liberal flame, you can only hope he will continue to impress on the bigger stage. However, some people are getting worried -- a la the
NYT
and the
New Republic which is already claiming Stewart is losing his bite in order to please Hollywood and that he might not be so funny in the first place.
posted by skepticallypleased at 7:39 PM PST - 77 comments
One of the great virtues of the internet is the manifold ways in which it has revolutionised the arts. The postmodern works of contemporary artists
Pomme & Kelly (Google Video), when viewed together in context, form a striking example of a well-placed critique of popular culture, and modern living at large. The zeitgeisty meta-irony of their seemingly content-free interpretations of popular songs are only enhanced by the fact that, in a clever keeping with style,
they blog about it as well.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:09 PM PST - 30 comments
Say what you want about Tom Monaghan, he thinks big. He built a
big company, he's got a
big agenda , he wanted to build a
big Jesus, and now he's building a whole new town. That would be the town of
Ave Maria, Florida, -- home to
Ave Maria University, , but
that's not all - welcome to America's newest mini-theocracy: "You won't be able to buy a Playboy or Hustler magazine in Ave Maria Town. We're going to control the cable television that comes in the area. There is not going to be any pornographic television in Ave Maria Town. If you go to the drug store and you want to buy the pill or the condoms or contraception,
you won't be able to get that in Ave Maria Town." aturally, this has run him afoul of
Florida's ACLU.
posted by contessa at 4:26 PM PST - 101 comments
Getting Away with Murder
A new
Human Rights First report [PDF] "provides the first comprehensive accounting" of the 98 cases of detainees who have died in US custody in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2002. "Thirty-four deaths were homicides under the U.S. military’s definition...Only 12 deaths have resulted in any kind of
punishment." Most of
the people behind the abuse have been promoted. The
Washington Post concludes that, based on the report, US policy seems to be that torturing a foreign prisoner to death is excusable, but getting photographed doing it will get you in trouble.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:59 PM PST - 16 comments
So if you run the CD in your personal computer, by the end of it, the Minnesota GOP will not only know what you think on particular issues, but also who you are.
--a cd being sent out to home by the Minnesota GOP is polling people who use the cd, sending their personal info, including name, address, and phone, among other info, back to party headquarters. No privacy policy or statement identifying what the cd does is visible anywhere:
...As far as I could tell, nothing tells you that the answers are about to be e-mailed or otherwise transmitted to the Minnesota GOP.
So you finish, and then the phone rings. "Hello, Mr/Mrs. Voters, it's Joe and I notice you support gun control and the marriage amendment, would you like to donate some money to us?" That might startle the person who may have thought he/she was viewing the presentation in the privacy of the computer room. ...
posted by amberglow at 2:36 PM PST - 80 comments
Windows Live Local
Orgasmically merges street level imagery with satellite to create virtual streetwalks (For Seattle or San Francisco anyway)
posted by marvin at 1:49 PM PST - 24 comments
US Troop poll results in:
72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately. In other news,
58% of Americans think the troops should stay. Back to the troops:
85% said the U.S. mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks,” 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was “to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.”
posted by caddis at 12:15 PM PST - 74 comments
Whereas:
Dada is a virgin microbe which penetrates with the insistence of air into all those spaces that reason has failed to fill with words and conventions. .
The mayor of Lawrence, Kansas proclaims February 4, April 1, March 28, July 15, August 2, August 7, August 16, August 26, September 18, September 22, October 1, October 17, and October 26, 2006 as International Dadaism Month.
posted by billysumday at 12:12 PM PST - 58 comments
Exclusive: Dubai ports firm enforces Israel boycott
[Defenders of the Bush/Dubai deal argue that we ought to be fair and not be racist in being anti-Arab...that is "un-American."]
"The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.....Moreover, the Post found that the website for Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone Area, which is also part of the PCZC, advises importers that they will need to comply with the terms of the boycott....
posted by Postroad at 11:30 AM PST - 61 comments
"
My Barbarian's rock-operatic ouvre synthesizes music, art and theater through site-responsive spectacles, videos and recordings." Their
videos are a hoot—watch their epic "
Unicorns L.A." (
quicktime) for the
Breakfast Club moment.
posted by goatdog at 9:10 AM PST - 9 comments
Disappeared In America.
DISAPPEARED is a project by the Visible Collective/Naeem Mohaiemen that uses films, installations, & lectures to trace migration impulses, hyphenated identities and post-9/11 security panic.
posted by chunking express at 8:46 AM PST - 5 comments
For the past few days I have been mainly totally jealous of the guys in this
video (linked google video). It features Toronto's
Team Ryouko performing martial arts and breakdancing moves that look lifted straight out of beat-em-up computer games. I wish
this (linked google video) was me on the beach (rather than
this). Some more
here.
Others doing similar stuff include "Martial Arts Trickz" from
bilang.com which despite a pretty lame name are capable of some amazing
things (linked google video, few
more).
(
yesterdays post on breakdancers reminded me of how jealous I am of these kinda guys because they appear to me to be so free of gravity)
posted by 13twelve at 6:24 AM PST - 33 comments
The Shock Absorber Bounce-o-Meter
is
*definitely* NSFW, but sure is a lot of fun. Choose your cup size, then your level of activity, and you will be presented with naked breasts, breasts in a normal bra and breasts in the Shock Absorber bra side by side...all the while doing some exercise to get things jiggling.
posted by gren at 5:58 AM PST - 53 comments
Venezuela bad, Colombia good
Founded in the 1980s by landowners and powerful drug dealers, the paramilitaries carried out numerous massacres in villages they considered sympathetic to the rebels and were blacklisted by the U.S. State Department as terrorists. In recent years, however, the militias put their rebel-fighting efforts on hold to smuggle narcotics, extort businesses and engage in other illegal activities.
Strange how the White House decides which countries are "friends" and which are not. What exactly are the criteria?
posted by nofundy at 5:36 AM PST - 21 comments
Was U.S. Patent Number 7,000,000 reserved for DuPont?
The USPTO issues utility patents every Tuesday. Patent numbers are normally assigned sequentially first to the week's general and mechanical inventions, next to chemical inventions , and finally to electrical inventions.
In the
Official Gazette (OG) published on February 14th, there was gap in the list of
the list of electrical patents where the patent number 7,000,000 was supposed to be. And at the very end of the list of
chemical patents you find
U.S. Patent 7,000,000 assigned to E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company of Wilmington, Delaware. Just random chance, I wonder, or perhaps just another indication of the ability of corporations to influence U.S. government agencies?
posted by three blind mice at 1:32 AM PST - 40 comments
February 27
More point-n-click Flash puzzles, this time in a series: Escape to Obion, episodes
one,
two,
three, and
four.
posted by Gator at 6:06 PM PST - 7 comments
Art Frahm gets an update.
Ever wanted to see Art Frahm's
vintage pinups modernized? With some of those outrageous "Goth Girls" as models? Your wait is over! Now you can see for yourself what happens when those girls in their fishnet stockings and those scandalous dresses have their knickers accidentally fall down to their ankles. (No nudity.)
posted by CrunchyFrog at 1:58 PM PST - 34 comments
In the "debate" over the War on Drugs, there's a lack of nice quantitative data presentation in one place.
Brian C Bennett aims to rectify
that. From
trends in alcohol initiation relative to legal age limits, to
investigation of the
deaths classified by CDC as marijuana-induced. There are lots of charts, as for
cocaine purity over the years, or treatment
admissions, or
arrest trends. The site map is your
quick guide to the 2000 charts & articles.
posted by daksya at 11:24 AM PST - 18 comments
Last week US District Court Judge A. Howard Matz
ruled against Google and found them to be in copyright violation for thumbnailing images from the soft core magazine/site
Perfect10 (NSFW)... more inside
posted by cedar at 5:47 AM PST - 36 comments
February 26
Added to the rolls of those that passed away this weekend.
Octavia E. Butler
Sci Fi writer, MacArthur Genius grant winner... And as she wrote.
"I'm a 53-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Seattle -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive."
posted by edgeways at 2:50 PM PST - 64 comments
The things I will not do when I direct a Shakespeare production, on stage or film.
"32. I will not employ a conception of Caliban which would require him to wear a ghastly furry costume reminiscent of a hypothetical offspring of Chewbacca and the Wolf from
Into the Woods." "358. If cast members, especially fairies, are supposed to sing, I will make sure they can actually sing before opening night."
Some of these appear to have been agreed to through bitter experience. I don't know about you but I'd like to add 400. I will not set
A Comedy of Errors in a climbing frame which is meant to represent a lunatic asylum and have lookalikes played by the same actor in both parts as if has a split personality (watching that show was possibly the longest two hours I've spent in a theatre).
posted by feelinglistless at 2:48 PM PST - 90 comments
Congressional Oil spokesman goes after Citgo.
In Washington, Texas Republican Congressman
Joe Barton (R-
ExxonMobil) has
launched an investigation into Citgo. But he is not investigating whether any of the oil giants are engaging in price gouging at a time when gasoline and heating oil casts are skyrocketing. Instead Barton has
set his sights on the only oil company that actually dared to lower its prices last year - at least for the poorest Americans. Last week Barton demanded the Venezuelan-owned company Citgo produce all records, minutes, logs, e-mails and even desk calendars related to the company’s novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States. The
Citgo program, which began late last year in Massachusetts and the South Bronx, provides oil at discounts as high as 60% off market price.
posted by mountainmambo at 7:45 AM PST - 88 comments
The Century Of The Self.
It's a documentary, and the four parts are available at archive.org [
2][
3][
4] -- with a higher quality
bittorrent option [via
mindhacks]. The program is about the use of psychoanalytical techniques to manipulate and control the "bewildered herd", "engineering consent" in a world fraught with "irrational impulses" [more inside].
posted by gsb at 12:43 AM PST - 16 comments
February 25
The World’s First Cell Phone Feature Film. Sony Ericsson sponsored the film by providing W900i cell phones. The cheap medium allowed for a very loose shooting style, with multiple cameras constantly rolling, freeing the actors to experiment and improvise.. the footage looked "fabulous" when blown up to 35mm.
posted by stbalbach at 10:59 PM PST - 12 comments
"My name is Gudo Wafu Nishijima, a Buddist Monk, who is 86 years old, and recently because of my old age, I finished my Buddhist lectures, which were held at many places for many years, and so I decided to open
Dogen Sangha Blog, to express the Buddhist thought. It might be very short sentences, but I would like to continue it as far as possible almost every day."
The blog of Zen Master
Gudo Wafu Nishijima, founder of
Dongen Sangha Buddhist group. Learn from his video,
How to Practice Zazen, or read some of Nishijima Roshi's
lectures and articles, including the interesting talk,
Zazen, A Better Way of Experiencing Pain.
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:01 PM PST - 44 comments
Inspector Wombat, a point-and-click Flash puzzle game somewhat clumsily translated from the
German. Inspector Wombat has a seemingly-bottomless sack in which to store all the random crap he picks up, like banana peels, his lady friend's stereo system
(dude, she's standing right there. Ever try asking?), and tasty foodstuffs somebody left in the street. Your object is twofold: Find and apprehend the kooky blackmailer who's messing with the museum director, and fix the museum's paintings which have mysteriously gone all wonky
(hint: it's because of evil, unhappy bacteria).
posted by Gator at 3:18 PM PST - 3 comments
Looking for an ego boost?
The fine people over at
The Screenplay Agency are the place for you! No logline too stupid, no script too poorly written! Are you tired of agency after agency telling you that they don't want your 20 year old screenplay about how much you love peanut butter just because "It doesn't make any sense, and is written with crayon on a pile of dirty gym socks?" I know I was! Until I found out about The Screenplay Agency, who promptly accepted every criminally copyright infringing idea I threw at them until I just KNEW I was every bit as good I writer as I've always told myself I am. And all they asked of me was approximately $250 in fees paid to coverage agencies no one has ever heard of and which seem to be owned by the same company that owns The Screenplay Agency! Sure, you've heard of publishing scams like
Publish America (part 2) thanks to the diligence of sites like
Making Light and our own
thread on the matter, but The Screenplay Agency is totally different! For one thing, they only
rip you off boost your ego through
screenplays.
Now, some
legitimate screenplay writers high and mighty hollywood types have gone and
pranked this excellent automated delusion reinforcer. But don't let those spoilsports spoil your sport! (God, I am such a great writer. No wonder they loved my screenplay!) Go ahead and
generate your own rave reviews!
posted by shmegegge at 1:59 PM PST - 14 comments
China Pictures
is a free picture site featuring [thousands of ] pictures throughout China, including pictures of China's major cities and tourist attractions as well as pictures of Chinese people and their daily life. You will find not only pictures of the famous Great Wall of China, the forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors, but also pictures from the unbeaten path as far as Guizhou, Xinjiang, Tibet and other places.
posted by Postroad at 8:21 AM PST - 7 comments
The Asana Index.
There are literally 1000s of asana variations in Hatha Yoga.
We are attempting to collect the most descriptive pictures of these asanas from all over the Internet, published materials, and individual donations, listing them in an alphabetical index. (via chattering mind)
posted by matteo at 8:19 AM PST - 7 comments
February 24
Reasonable people
are
capable of thinking about complex issues without resorting to simplistic oversimplifications. These two scholarly types discuss what seems obvious but lacks traction amongst most people. What can be done to make these voices heard and more importantly, accepted?
posted by mulligan at 5:15 PM PST - 35 comments
Ohio Senator: Bar adoptions by the GOP
---In response to Ohio Senator
Hood's bill to bar adoption by gays and lesbians, one Senator uses humor to counter hate:
...To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that ``credible research' shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing ``emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.'
However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims.
Just as ``Hood had no scientific evidence' to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said. ...
posted by amberglow at 2:58 PM PST - 29 comments
US Sgt enlists Canadian hackers to take down weblog?
Apparently a US chaplain posted some information about visiting a base that doesn't exist. Some networking people are concerned and since Canada's hockey team was out early in the Olympics, thought some Canadian hackers may be able to help...
posted by Coop at 2:43 PM PST - 9 comments
Tetrod is a jigsaw puzzle and a four-sided domino game mixed together. -- Java puzzle game; choose 3x4, 4x4, 5x4, or 5x5.
posted by Gator at 2:32 PM PST - 9 comments
Rephotographing Atget:
Eugene Atget photographed Paris from 1888 until his death in 1927. Christopher Rauschenberg retraced Atget's steps in 1997 and 1998, photographing the same scenes, and documents his project in a gallery at Lens Culture. The gallery includes an audio discussion of the project. [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:02 PM PST - 19 comments
Venezuela bans
US Airlines. The Chavez government announced yesterday that as of March 1st, Continental and Delta will no longer be allowed to fly into Venezuela, and American's flights will be restricted significantly (allowing AA to continue their Miami to Caracas route, which is the same one that
Aeropostal flies to the US). We've
talked about Chavez in the blue before, and this may be simple political posturing in an effort to open more routes for Aeropostal and other Venezuelan airlines, but between this, and the recent comments by
Rumsfeld,
Condoleezza Rice and
Porter Goss, are we looking at a new low in US/Venezuela relations?
posted by toxic at 12:08 PM PST - 45 comments
Ukulele Ike.
We know his quavering, tentative, high tenor voice from his voice work as
Jiminy Cricket, but Cliff Edwards -- aka Ukulele Ike -- was much more than that. Wikipedia offers a brief
introduction to the man, his life, his works, and his lonely death. But, to my tastes, the best introduction to this once hugely popular singer is
the man's own voice (mp3 links).
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:47 AM PST - 5 comments
My eensy-beensy alma mater
in eastern Wisconsin currently has
the only undefeated men's basketball team in the nation. This is not just in the NCAA, but in the NAIA as well. It's a Division III team, and its only loss this season didn't count--it was to Division I UW-Madison in an exhibition game.
Like most Division III schools, Lawrence offers no athletic scholarships whatsoever. Its immediate past president, Richard Warch, in a 1987 speech at the NCAA national convention, controversially called for abolishment of all athletic scholarships.
posted by gillyflower at 9:53 AM PST - 15 comments
Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author
Art Buchwald is dying. On today's
The Diane Rehm Show on NPR, he was interviewed in the Washington hospice he has moved to, about many topics, including his decision to suspend treatment for his advanced kidney disease, and live out his life in hospice.[more inside]
posted by paulsc at 8:47 AM PST - 18 comments
I'm no dancer, but I'm fascinated by the
Dance History Archives. The
index of dance styles is comprehensive, and the individual entries provide everything from history to related music links. (
Jitterbug,
May Pole,
The Watusi) There's a short
glossary, an
index of dancers, a voluptuous section on
burlesque (including some
great NSFW
pictures), an archive of
posters (
Josephine Baker!), and so much
more. The list of
Dancer Related Celebrities is pretty extensive (
Fred Astaire,
Rita Hayworth), although there's no
Jennifer Grey, so I guess Baby got put in a corner after all.
posted by OmieWise at 6:46 AM PST - 17 comments
Black Box Voting has completed their analysis
of
log files from Palm Beach (FL) county voting machines stemming from the Nov 2004 general election. You know it's not good news when the article starts with:
The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night.
posted by taumeson at 6:18 AM PST - 96 comments
UAE, Jolted by Port Deal, Is Key Western Arms Buyer
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the centre of a growing controversy over its proposed management of U.S. port terminals, is one of the world's most prolific arms buyers and a multi-billion-dollar military market both for the United States and Western Europe.
posted by Postroad at 4:57 AM PST - 57 comments
On this date in 1848,
The Communist Manifesto was published.
Howard Zinn: "I don’t see much point in abstract theorizing or getting into arguments about Marxism, Leninism, etc. ... Theoretical analyses are useful but not crucial. There is a lot of wasted time in such endeavors, but not all is wasted. Marx’s
Communist Manifesto was a theoretical analysis, immensely useful and inspiring. His first volume of
Das Kapital was useful too. His second and third volumes, and his
Grundrisse, were probably a waste of time!"
Informal Poll: How many of you have actually read the entire
Communist Manifesto? (I haven't.)
posted by mickeyz at 3:57 AM PST - 42 comments
Odd Supernova
Amateur and professional astronomers rejoice , point your telescopes at RA: 03:21:39.71 Dec: +16:52:02.6 to watch a new phenomenon that could turn into a supernova explosion
posted by elpapacito at 2:30 AM PST - 17 comments
One in five
Americans consider themselves "holy", according to a recent poll by the Barna Research Group.
posted by bcveen at 1:52 AM PST - 52 comments
It has always amazed me what people will do for free and how much innovation goes on outside of the commercial videogaming industry.
Gamehippo,
Caiman,
Acid-Play,
Noodan and
Planet Freeplay collectively have thousands upon thousands of freeware games of varying quality, with everything from Super Mario clones to completely original titles.
posted by pancreas at 1:48 AM PST - 3 comments
February 23
Will Malcolm Gladwell's blog
be as good as his
New Yorker articles and books? Will it be better? I'm always fascinated when "big name" people start blogging. Will he be interesting and personal, dry and professional, or will the blog crash and burn?
posted by cmaxmagee at 9:47 PM PST - 34 comments
The Terrain Engine Project
is a nicely documented series of posts about writing a terrain engine from scratch. The author doesn't detail the actual code, instead covering some general problems involved in rendering decent-looking terrain that doesn't require mega-1337 hardware. It's pretty interesting, even for non-coders.
posted by Lirp at 8:52 PM PST - 11 comments
Kiva
allows users to
sponser small business enterprises in developing countries through flexible loans.
By getting repaid and reinvesting, it's a really cool way to give a sustainable gift that keeps on giving.
posted by rollbiz at 4:28 PM PST - 30 comments
(COMICS NERD FILTER) Have you, like me, ever imagined that that somebody could convince a woman that looks
remarkably like
Katee Sackhoff to portray
Power Girl in a fan film about Kara's search for a "real job?"
Imagine no more. Ambitious for a fan film, quite entertaining and the rewards for True DC Comics Fans are quite abundant.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 4:22 PM PST - 23 comments
Bouncin' Bop, episodes
one,
two,
three,
four, and
five. Cute little Flash game in which you control Bop, a happy smilin' rubber ball that ever bounces. Collect coins and don't touch the monsters, lest Bop join the Choir Invisible.
posted by Gator at 2:12 PM PST - 5 comments
An ambitious time capsule.
In the basement of Phoebe Hearst Hall at Oglethorpe University in Georgia, there is a stainless steel vault door which was welded shut over sixty five years ago. Behind this door lies a 20' x 10' waterproofed room containing a menagerie of once-modern artifacts and microfilm records, placed there by men and women in the years between 1937 and 1940. If their goal is realized, the contents of this vault will remain unseen and undisturbed for the next 6,107 years. Official site,
pictures, and
inventory.
(link lovingly pilfered from another filter)
posted by caddis at 12:59 PM PST - 42 comments
"A patent has been granted to a relatively unknown California Web-design firm for an invention its creator says covers the design and creation of most rich-media applications used over the Internet.
... The patent--issued on Valentine's Day--covers all rich-media technology implementations, including Flash, Flex, Java, Ajax, and XAML, when the rich-media application is accessed on any device over the Internet, including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes, and video game consoles, says inventor Neil Balthaser, CEO of
Balthaser Online, which he owns with his father Ken. 'You can consider it a pioneering or umbrella patent. The broader claim is one that basically says that if you got a rich Internet application, it is covered by this patent.'" (
via Jeff Zeldman)
posted by grrarrgh00 at 11:42 AM PST - 45 comments
MIT World
(not the same as
OpenCourseWare). And don't miss
LSE,
CMU, and
Connexions.
Still bored? Don't forget
ResearchChannel,
Vega, and
Wikiversity. Do you care for
psychology,
biology,
geology, or
math? Or maybe you prefer
journals,
papers,
textbooks, or
podcasts? Knowledge is
useful and
wonderful.
posted by foraneagle2 at 10:11 AM PST - 27 comments
Guess the movie
is a quiz where you have to guess the correct film from a single frame jpg. Part II
here.
Warning: site is crazy slow loading, may somehow be hosted on Geocities.
posted by jonson at 9:18 AM PST - 25 comments
[Warning! This is completely and utterly not safe for work. We're talking NSFW with sugar on top.] We've all been there. You meet someone you find attractive. They're intelligent and they share your interests. But there's still one thing you need to know about them and
you're just not sure how to ask... [Link is to embedded video.]
[Seriously. This is not safe for work. Hell, it's probably not safe for Alabama.]
posted by Clay201 at 7:17 AM PST - 89 comments
Newsfilter: On Wednesday, the
South Dakota state Senate voted, 23 to 12, to
criminalize abortion. The new law makes it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure, except to save the life of a woman.
"'The momentum for a change in the national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future,' said Rep. Roger W. Hunt, a Republican who sponsored the bill. To his delight, abortion opponents succeeded in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban, including exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such "special circumstances" would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene."
posted by milquetoast at 3:02 AM PST - 184 comments
Google Pages
is basically Geocities 2.0. You get a wysiwyg editing interface, a bunch of templates to pick from, and the ability to make as many pages as you need. Time will tell if this revolutionizes the web the way Geocities did (aside from all the obvious crappy pages from Geocities, it did give thousands of new writers and designers a place to start), but it's certainly a cool set of tools to do something mundane like start a website. [via
waxy]
posted by mathowie at 12:31 AM PST - 88 comments
February 22
hotghettomess.com --
I found this by following links from an earlier post. I am posting it because it is full of content and wry commentary. Since it may need to be said, I am not posting this out of any prejudice.
posted by longsleeves at 6:59 PM PST - 48 comments
Annoyed by the Bill O'Reilly's and Rush Limbaugh's of the world? So is Mike Stark, and he goes out of his way to get on the air on their shows. And then, of course, writes about it in his blog,
Calling All Wingnuts, which includes mp3 clips of his escapades on conservative talk radio airwaves.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 11:36 AM PST - 51 comments
American Chemical Society Feb. 2006
"As the federal government cuts back on funding for research, scientists are now forced to rely more and more on financial assistance from corporations; this raises troubling questions about whether the results from these studies will be impartial and objective or favorable to the companies that paid for them."
“The whole scientific enterprise is being distorted by these corporate interests ...”
posted by hank at 11:19 AM PST - 12 comments
Gore in '08?
Several weeks ago, former Vice President Al Gore told the Associated Press that he “had no plans to seek the Presidency in 2008.” His words were eerily reminiscent of a quote from another former Vice President, Richard Nixon, who told the same Associated Press in November of 1965 that he “had no plans to seek the Presidency in 1968.”
posted by caddis at 9:57 AM PST - 212 comments
Teddy: A sketching interface for 3D freeform design (in Java). Noodle around with the
online applet (see the
tutorial for instructions; there's also a
demo in .avi format), or download the program so you can save your creations. An even niftier upgrade is available,
SmoothTeddy (
.avi demo), but SmoothTeddy doesn't have an online version to play with.
posted by Gator at 9:21 AM PST - 11 comments
Well over 100 universities
around the world have set up searchable digital repositories to make available journal articles, datasets, theses and other academic materials using the DSpace repository system.
DSpace at MIT alone hosts over 11,000 theses. Also, the
software running the sites is freely available and open source.
posted by cog_nate at 9:04 AM PST - 12 comments
Oooh, I want
one. Or
all of them. Vintage high-tech, from the good folks at Worth1000. (Great idea, but I feel like even more could be done with this meme. Pointers?) [Via
BoingBoing.]
posted by digaman at 8:34 AM PST - 21 comments
The Abrigded King James Version
And the LORD Capital said unto the socialist, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
Hope you enjoy!
posted by nofundy at 7:07 AM PST - 11 comments
February 21
It Only Takes A Second
is the name of this 1996 industrial film from Federated Mutual Insurance. Essentially 3 straight minutes of chaotic on the job accidents geared towards terrifying the customers into being more careful (and thus more profitable), it may be my favorite industrial film ever.
link goes to embedded QT video
posted by jonson at 4:40 PM PST - 64 comments
The Passion of the Christ 2: Judgement Day. (Let's see... There's a short advert at the beginning and one for X-play at the end. It looks like it uses Macromedia Flash 8, and it's probably NSFW. But it is the director's cut!) Oh yeah, Family Guy did a similar gag recently, too. And no, you can not get two minutes of your life back.
posted by Cyrano at 4:28 PM PST - 33 comments
Why is Ice slippery?
You would have thought this would be well defined in 2006. But scientists are still arguing about the key elements. Plus no clear definition of Ice IX...
posted by somnambulist at 4:13 PM PST - 24 comments
Praise "Bob", slack off, lose custody of your child.
A Texas woman has
lost custody of her son, not even being allowed to write to him, because she was involved in activities of the
Church of the Subgenius. Although her son never attended any of the events, which involved fun, nudity, and good old-fashioned blasphemy, a New York judge,
James P. Punch, allegedly a "strict catholic", has denied custody of the child Kohl out of anger after seeing videos of the church's devivals and X-days.
Rev. Ivan Stang goes into more detail about the situation in alt.slack.
posted by Jimbob at 4:07 PM PST - 100 comments
Jack Hamm Religious Cartoons.
Hamm's art instruction books, including
Cartooning the Head and Figure, have been widely influential among a generation of illustrators, Simpson's creator
Matt Groening among them. Hamm began his cartooning career in the late 1930s and founded "The Jack Hamm Show," one of the first television art programs, which aired in the Dallas, Houston and Waco, Texas, TV markets.
posted by Otis at 3:57 PM PST - 17 comments
Out along old Route 66 in
Northern
Arizona is Canyon Diablo. Best known for its
large meteor crater, the
canyon and its surroundings contain another fantastic story. It begins in the mid 1870’s with a
Apache raid on the Navajo that ended in the
gruesome death
of some 50 Apaches trapped in what is now called
“The Apache Death
Cave”. The story picks up about 10 years later in 1880 when the
Atlantic and Pacific railroad ran out of money at the
canyon’s edge. Unable to progress any further a
make shift boom
town grew up over night. Said to be more dangerous than
Tombstone
and
Dodge City
combined, the first sheriff appointed at 3pm was dead by 8pm that same night.
The city of
Canyon Diablo
lasted 10 grizzly years, ending only when the US Army was dispatched to gain
control over the murder, theft and prostitution that ran rampant. The story
continues in 1920 at the inception of Route 66.
Harry E.
(Indian) Miller, opens up one of
the first and what would become one of the most elaborate
Route 66 trading posts/gas
station/curio shop/ tourist attractions. Named
Two Guns, it was
complete with
Hopi
made buildings, a gas station,
a well-lit “
Death Cave”
, a
“zoo” of filled with the local fauna. and lots of
colorful characters.
In a short time, the roadside stop began to take on what many by that time
calling the curse of Canyon Diablo.
Shady business deals, fires,
maimings, and murder abounded. After several attempts thru the 50’s and
60’s to rebuild ,all that is left is a
crumbling,
beautiful husk.
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 1:59 PM PST - 28 comments
On February 21, 1965,
Malcolm X was
gunned down in Harlem. After being
shot several times inside the Audubon Ballroom, he was pronounced dead on arrival at Vanderbilt Clinic, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
Malcolm sez: "If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country."
(from a November 1963 speech in New York City)
Then, there's this
1964 speech.
posted by mickeyz at 12:23 PM PST - 59 comments
"To tell the truth ... I'm sorta surprised they haven't caught me yet,"
The Washington Post ran an interesting interview with a botmaster, a young man who made serveral thousands of dollars a month installing XXX spyware on machines that he controlled. He installed the software on the machines of people he did not know by hacking into them remotely. The lenghty article included a partial photo of the botmaster along with vauge descriptions of the small midwestern town where the man lives, and was published with the understanding that the man's identity would be kept secret.
Someone should have told that to the person that manages photos at the Washington Post. An estute reader over at
Slashdot was able to locate some extra information stored in the picture's metadata including the photographer and the location the picture was taken, Roland, Oklahoma, a town of less than 3000 people. Whoops.
posted by daHIFI at 9:44 AM PST - 56 comments
Nature's Control: Hired
Thugs Bugs to police your garden.
"If desired, you can keep ladybug adults from flying by "gluing" their wings shut, temporarily, with a sugar-water solution. Half water and half sugared pop (Coke, Pepsi, etc.), in a spray bottle, works fine."
posted by Gator at 9:10 AM PST - 13 comments
Microsoft
recently made a change to the license agreement saying that a new motherboard is equal to a new computer, hence you need to purchase a new Windows license. Here is what Microsoft has to say:
“An upgrade of the motherboard is considered to result in a “new personal computer” to which Microsoft® OEM operating system software cannot be transferred from another computer. If the motherboard is upgraded or replaced for reasons other than a defect, then a new computer has been created and the license of new operating system software is required.”
The reason Microsoft gave for this term is that “Microsoft needed to have one base component “left standing” that would still define that original PC. Since the motherboard contains the CPU and is the “heart and soul” of the PC, when the motherboard is replaced (for reasons other than defect) a new PC is essentially created.” Microsoft sent a memo to its OEM partners asking them to enforce this new policy, every time they upgrade a computer for a client.
posted by zouhair at 3:17 AM PST - 96 comments
February 20
Kruschen Salts and Camus' Stranger:
"A bit later, for want of anything better to do, I (Mersault) picked up an old newspaper that was lying on the floor and read it. There was an advertisement of
Kruschen Salts and I cut it out and pasted it into an album where I keep things that amuse me in the papers."
Dave Till has collected some other
advertisements that Meursault might like.
posted by eighth_excerpt at 8:46 PM PST - 7 comments
The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft:
A searchable database of people accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736. Currently, 3,837 people have been identified, 3,212 by name. 113 cases involved fairies, 74 had a known political or property motive, 70 involved some aspect of "white magic". This is the real, and utterly fascinating, history of a hysteria that griped a country and a continent for more than a century. Religion, folk belief, fear and local relations all played out in witchhunts - and we still do not really understand why, why they started or why they ended. Projects like this one are invaluable to help us begin.
(Co-developed by mefite Flitcraft)
posted by jb at 5:01 PM PST - 17 comments
[Newsfilter] In mid-November last year, David Irving, arguably the world's foremost holocaust-denier (
Mel Gibson's dad comes a close second), was
arrested in Austria for doing exactly that (previously discussed
here). Today he was
jailed for it. Should we (read; Austria) be jailing people for their views, however reprehensible or otherwise incorrect they might be? Or is it justifiable in some cases?
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:49 PM PST - 315 comments
Escape to Romance
Here's a blogmeister that runs a romantic Powerball and offers the following:
"Romantic_atlanta_2 Are you a member of the Mile High Club? Would you like a free membership? Here is your chance to make your fantasy a reality with the amorous, single webmaster of Grow-a-Brain and the southern hospitality of the folks at Mile High Atlanta."
Do you qualify?
posted by Postroad at 1:29 PM PST - 27 comments
Babies, Footsies, Holdies.
Carry, Foul, Slam. Tea Parties, Fairbacks, Cherry Bombs. Double Taps, Underhand, Blackjack. Bitch Serving, Jedi, Extreme. Chicken Drops, Peppermint Sticks, Kamikazes. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Land Mines, Demons, Black Magic.
posted by bardic at 11:11 AM PST - 18 comments
Tammy NYP
Was the #1 search today on technorati.com. Who or what does it refer to? A girl named Tammy who attends
Nan Yang Polytechnic in Singapore, and who's camera phone was stolen by a
"a rival cheerleader, jealous of her popularity" who promptly uploaded a 10 minute video of her having sex. Is Tammy the next dog poop girl? The consequences could be a little worse, as the school may kick her out of school, and the average sentence for an 'unnatural sex act' is one year in jail, according to
this moralizing (and oddly worded, but grammatically correct) blog entry.
posted by Paris Hilton at 10:19 AM PST - 79 comments
Kill Bill + Harry Potter =
Kill Harry, featuring cameo appearances by Bender the robot, Bruce Campbell, and Zombie Rick James, bitch.
posted by Gator at 8:40 AM PST - 16 comments
One Billion Mazes
This site contains one billion mazes in high-quality printable PDF format. You may view, print and solve these mazes... and yes, there are exactly one billion mazes!
posted by ajbattrick at 7:21 AM PST - 43 comments
Laurel Hester, RIP
--because she and her partner fought, New Jersey police and fire department employees can now name anyone--not just a spouse--as a beneficiary for pension rights, helping to protect those they love after they're gone. Just one person who made a difference.
posted by amberglow at 6:12 AM PST - 15 comments
Drugs on the Rez.
It's a hell of a life going from utter poverty, where your mom gets you drunk so you'll stop complaining about being hungry, to being able to buy your kids toys with $100 accessories and sending them to private schools, to going back to literally not having a quarter to call your dad. In this case, the money came from Canadian
oxycontin. It's not just Native Americans who are targeted by the authorities. It's also
Indians. There's a pretty good newish book on the subject of black markets,
Illicit. Laos' opium market is apparently gone -- in favor of
meth and Afghanistan's
market is black in name only, so why keep up the
facade?
posted by raaka at 4:24 AM PST - 14 comments
February 19
If you ever feel like you just aren't particularly amusing, what you need to do is find a pack of 1 year old quadruplets. Those
kids will laugh at
anything.
posted by jonson at 4:13 PM PST - 110 comments
37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty
Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening. Are you proud to be an American? (newsfilter - no apologies).
posted by adamvasco at 11:51 AM PST - 255 comments
The Axis of Evil has some competition — in Ohio.
The Bush Administration continues to apply pressure to North Korea about its alleged counterfeiting of $100 notes: This
Korean story quotes Amb. Alexander Vershbow demanding physical proof that Pyongyang has destroyed its forging equipment. On the other hand, according to the BBC, South Korea's intelligence service
doubts the North is counterfeiting, although it may have done so in the past. Meanwhile, on the homefront, a 16-year-old has been fingered as the mastermind of a bogus bill ring operating out of the boy's home in North College Hill, OH. Oddly, the
Cincinnati Enquirer article announcing the bust is chock-full of juicy tips for would-be home engravers: rip off old bills rather than new, don't overlook those colored fibers, and set the wash cycle for delicates. Oh, and don't even think about using scissors: it's a sure giveaway!
posted by rob511 at 11:49 AM PST - 17 comments
Attending a show? You will, of course, be
on time. You will not
talk (or poke your fellow theatergoers). You will not use your
cell phone. You will not bring your
own food. You will not
fight. You will not
riot.
Audiences weren't always so sedate. Roman audiences were notoriously
drunk. Shakespeare's
groundlings were famously rambunctious. Victorian theater were hotbeds of
prostitution. Indeed, it isn't until P.T. Barnam opened a lecture hall in his
American Museum that "museum" standards of behavior became applied to audiences for live entertainment, and it never completely stuck (see Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford's wonderful
Sleazoid Express for fascinating descriptions of the lively audiences found at Times Square's grindhouse theaters). But, for the most part, theater and moviegoing is now a civil, dignified undertaking. How did this happen?
Well, it all started one day in
1849.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:15 AM PST - 26 comments
"Q: Is that another car on top?
A: Yes, it's a VW bug." --
Carthedral. A few more (clearer, daylight) photos
here.
posted by Gator at 8:34 AM PST - 27 comments
February 18
A lapsed neocon speaks out:
The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them.... After the fall of the Soviet Union, various neoconservative authors like Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol and Robert Kagan suggested that the United States would use its margin of power to exert a kind of "benevolent hegemony" over the rest of the world, fixing problems like rogue states with W.M.D., human rights abuses and terrorist threats as they came up. Writing before the Iraq war, Kristol and Kagan considered whether this posture would provoke resistance from the rest of the world, and concluded, "It is precisely because American foreign policy is infused with an unusually high degree of morality that other nations find they have less to fear from its otherwise daunting power." ... We are fighting hot counterinsurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and against the international jihadist movement, wars in which we need to prevail. But "war" is the wrong metaphor for the broader struggle, since wars are fought at full intensity and have clear beginnings and endings. Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a "long, twilight struggle" whose core is not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world.
posted by caddis at 10:43 PM PST - 57 comments
When good samaritans go bad,
and find
lost property they'd rather keep, they make up excuses like "but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him" and "we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card". Stay tuned for vigilante justice.
posted by pivotal at 10:01 PM PST - 131 comments
"He was someone who acted out our psyches ... He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen... the history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from."
A Valentine for Lon Chaney, the
Man of a
Thousand Faces.
(BugMeNot for the first link; more inside)
posted by matteo at 12:48 PM PST - 14 comments
The top-rated Greek news channel is Alpha TV's. Tonight's second-lead story:
outrage and disgust over
babycage.net, a quite obvious
web hoax that is even
listed as one on Open Directory (and which took this Googling non-journalist about 60 seconds to discover). The breathless commentary on this "instance of American self-indulgence"? how this is a first step towards a new Orwellian society --ironic considering they are spreading disinformation through mass-media, just like Mr. Orwell predicted...
posted by costas at 10:59 AM PST - 17 comments
eBay hilarity:
"THIS VEHICLE HAS COME TO US VIA AN INSURANCE COMPANY, IT HAS TRAVELLED 32,000 MILES AND IS ONE NOT VERY HAPPY OWNER FROM NEW. MUST TELL STORY:" (
via)
posted by NekulturnY at 7:08 AM PST - 40 comments
NewsFilter:
I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
posted by I Love Tacos at 2:08 AM PST - 154 comments
The punkiest Monkey that ever popped from an egg on a mountain top, the one and only Monkey from cult Japanese TV series
Monkey Magic, is finally
coming back to our TV screens after a 30 year absence. Monkey will be played in the new series by
Shingo Katori and even with blonde hair, in the role of Monkey he will no doubt tease the Gods and everyone and, presumably, have some fun while he's at it.
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:20 AM PST - 28 comments
February 17
Dale Begg-Smith is being called the "
golden boy of the slopes" by the Australian media after winning gold in the Turin Winter Games. However, when asked about his business, which has reportedly earned him millions of dollars and enabled him to buy a Lamborghini, Begg-Smith became "..vague about its nature." "It's complicated," he said. "We make the technology for companies to monitor their online advertising campaigns."
What is emerging now is that Begg-Smith's companies, AdsCPM and CPM Media, are
linked to home page hijacking, spyware, porn redirectors, and other unsavory internet practices.
A quick
WHOIS of AdsCPM.com reveals that the same IP address is shared with porn domain names and websites that are notorious for distributing spyware.
Bloggers using the Wayback machine have turned up similar information. Is he a willing spyware merchant who has now reluctantly been
bought to our attention, or a legitimate internet entrepreneur?
posted by davem at 11:47 PM PST - 39 comments
Clik. Clak.
(embedded Quicktime video.) Short animated film featuring little robots who make their own language using Rube Goldberg contraptions.
posted by jann at 10:22 PM PST - 28 comments
Kicking the Pigeon:
On Sunday, April 13, 2003, at about 5:00 p.m., Diane Bond, a 48 year-old mother of three, stepped out of her eighth floor apartment in 3651 South Federal, the last remaining high-rise at the Stateway Gardens public housing development, and encountered three white men. Although not in uniform, they were immediately recognizable by their postures, body language, and bulletproof vests as police officers. Bond gave me the following account of what happened next.
“Where do you live at?” one of the officers asked. He had a round face and closely cropped hair. Bond later identified him as Christ Savickas.
“Right there,” she pointed to her door.
He put his gun to her right temple and snatched her keys from her hand.
posted by jennyb at 7:02 PM PST - 48 comments
Flea Circus! It's just like
Lemmings! Only tinier! And faster! And you can only make three moves: Block, ramp, and other ramp!
(java)
posted by Gator at 4:32 PM PST - 11 comments
A monstrous discovery
suggests that viruses, long regarded as lowly evolutionary latecomers, may have been the precursors of all life on Earth.
"We haven't even begun to scratch the surface. The numbers are mind-boggling. If you put every virus particle on Earth together in a row, they would form a line 10 million light-years long. People, even most biologists, don't have a clue. The general public thinks genetic diversity is us and birds and plants and animals and that viruses are just HIV and the flu. But most of the genetic material on this planet is viruses. No question about it. They and their ability to interact with organisms and move genetic material around are the major players in driving speciation, in determining how organisms even become what they are."
posted by five fresh fish at 3:57 PM PST - 60 comments
HotOlympians.com has been shut down by the U.S. Olympic Committee.
The domain name hotolympians.com is infringing on federal trademarks. When I registered the domain name, I did some research on olympic trademarks and came to understand... that "olympic" was trademarked and "olympians" was not. I was wrong. And thus we will continue publishing under a new domain name which will be up shortly...
When asked why a local newspaper could publish a feature of an athlete right next to an advertisement, I was told that we weren't a news operation. I was told that hotolympians.com jeapordized American athlete's right to participate in the games.
posted by Tin Man at 3:09 PM PST - 35 comments
NPS PEPC
is the National Park Service Planning, Environment and Public Comment website. From the site: ".. provides access to current plans, environmental impact analyses, and related documents on public review. Users of the site can submit comments for documents available for public review."
A good place to start might be
this one, in which the NPS "is proposing to update the policies that guide the management of the national park system." Comment period closes tomorrow.
posted by the Real Dan at 12:30 PM PST - 2 comments
"They are demanding that I kill the children of my people with my own hands"On October 4, 1939, a few days after Warsaw's surrender to the Nazis,
Adam Czerniaków was made
head of the 24 member Judenrat, the Jewish Council (write "Czerniakow" in the linked page's search box) responsible for implementing German orders
in the Jewish community (interactive map of the Warsaw ghetto). On July 22, 1942 --
Tisha B'Av, the "
saddest day in Jewish history" -- the Judenrat received instructions that
all Warsaw Jews were to be deported to the East (exceptions were to be made for Jews working in German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Judenrat and their families, and members of the Jewish police force and their families. Czerniaków tried to convince the Germans at least not to deport the Jewish orphans). Czerniaków kept a diary from September 6, 1939, until the day of his death. It was published in 1979 in the English language as the "
The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniaków: Prelude to Doom", edited by one of the
most prominent Holocaust
scholars,
Raul Hilberg. More inside.
posted by matteo at 11:22 AM PST - 23 comments
7000 frames per second
Newscientist article, with links to the movies.
"Atmospheric 'sprites' captured in explosive detail
... by researchers using an ultra-high-speed camera.
"The best images yet of the flashes – which resemble a giant undulating jellyfish with its tentacles falling from a halo of light – have allowed the team to pick apart their structure and mechanics. "
posted by hank at 11:04 AM PST - 22 comments
That thing called love.
"National Geographic Photographer Jodi Cobb scoured the globe to document how people define love and how it fits into their lives." Some great photos and interesting commentary.
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:12 AM PST - 17 comments
Amal Graafstra
has implanted two rfid chips
into his hands to permit himself keyless access to his computer, car and home. He's also written a
book about the experience and the various rfid "toys" he's devised.
This Valentine's Day, he and his girlfriend expressed a
"modern declaration of their affection for each other, with implanted electronic chips that allow them unfettered access to each other's lives".
Interested in something similar? The
company Amal used is selling a kit. Though they don't actually recommend it for use with medical implants.
So, cool, crazy or inevitable?
posted by darkstar at 8:10 AM PST - 21 comments
Let's go quail hunting.
(flash) Don't drink too much. We all had a good laugh over the
Dick Cheney Quail Hunting game (Deadeye Dick sure is quite a shooter), but here you actually get to shoot some quail.
(my apologies to PETA and Harry Whittington) Sorry, but this will only waste about five minutes of your time this Friday.
posted by caddis at 7:42 AM PST - 16 comments
The Getty Address is a glitch opera about Don Henley by
Dirty Projectors, released on Western Vinyl in April 2005.
Vs. Anna Films is turning the audio opera into an epic animated film .
One of those things you stumble upon online that makes sifting through contentless sites worthwhile.....Touring starts next month and we'll definitely be making the trek to Baltimore for this !
Happy Friday Metafilter.
posted by shimmerglimpse at 6:28 AM PST - 7 comments
2005 Washington State 10 largest agricultural commodities: (1) Apples, (2) Milk, (3) Wheat, (4) Potatoes, (5) Cattle and calves, (6) Hay, (7) Nursery and greenhouse products, (8)
Marijuana, (9) Cherries, (10) Onions.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:37 AM PST - 24 comments
February 16
Writer Merrill Markoe
proposes a novel solution to the issue of having our elected officials turn out to be little more than political figureheads for corporate special interests; why not allow the corporations to run for office directly?
posted by jonson at 11:02 PM PST - 21 comments
The
Value of Algebra: "
Gabriela, sooner or later someone's going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers."
posted by daksya at 9:56 PM PST - 190 comments
Sine-Off
is the first brand of cold, flu and sinus congestion medicine to completely reformulate and remove
pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient needed to make Crystal Meth.
posted by ijoshua at 6:17 PM PST - 100 comments
The Office of Human Radiation Experiments
, established in March 1994, leads the Department of Energy's efforts to tell the agency's Cold War story of radiation research using human subjects. We have undertaken an intensive effort to identify and catalog relevant historical documents from DOE's 3.2 million cubic feet of records scattered across the country. Internet access to these resources is a key part of making DOE more open and responsive to the American public.
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 6:01 PM PST - 7 comments
Children review classic games- some more.
Back in November '03,
1up.com rounded up some kids from the 8-12 age range and had them play video and arcade games from the 70's and 80's, including
Pong, Donkey Kong, and Tetris.
The resulting commentary was mostly along the lines of "Tim: They could've just as easily called this game anything—Baseball, Bowling, Escape From the Monsters. EGM: Did you score? Kirk: I bumped into a dot." In December 2004 they brought them back to review Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and the 1983 Arcade version of Star Wars, among others. "EGM: What do those TIE Fighters look like? ...Are they scary? Anthony: No. It feels like they're trying to give me flowers."
posted by Meredith at 4:22 PM PST - 44 comments
LED Throwies
(QT) A simple combination of lithium battery, diffused LED, strong magnet and a little tape. Developed by the Graffiti Research Lab division of the
Eyebeam R&D OpenLab, full instructions are
posted and take only a few minutes to follow.
posted by cali at 1:06 PM PST - 53 comments
We all
know the Nazis picked, and ruined, a perfectly good
basic geometric symbol. But what about
other symbols of
fascism? Not as well known, not as demonized, but interting for students of symbolism.
Oldest, and among the most interesting and enduringly popular, is the
fasces, a bundle of sticks wrapped around an axe, from which
fascism gets its name.
It's pretty rare to see swastikas in public nowadays -- they're so associated with the Nazis that they were universally stripped off American
sports jerseys, soda pop promoting
watch fobs, and
first ladies. And yet, in the United States, fasces can still be found everywhere:
medals of honor,
the doors to the Nebraska Supreme Court, even
behind the president as he speaks at the U.S. House of Representatives.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:36 PM PST - 45 comments
A Blinding Flash of the Obvious
"The city is too beautiful of a city to be known around the world as the capital of exclusion and intolerance."
He was right. Now, a 22-minute film documents the successful fight to repeal an anti-gay ordinance in Cincinnati last year. The campaign was successful because it was honest, and because it included
people of faith.
posted by tizzie at 11:20 AM PST - 23 comments
"
[Vitek] Boden had waged a three-month war against the Scada (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system of Maroochy Water Services in Australia beginning in January 2000, which saw millions of gallons of sewage spill into waterways, hotel grounds and canals around the Sunshine Coast suburb." A 2002
Washington Post story on possible al-Qaeda attacks also mentions the Boden case: "Specialists in cyber-terrorism have studied Boden's case because it is the only one known in which someone used a digital control system deliberately to cause harm."
posted by russilwvong at 11:03 AM PST - 3 comments
28 U.S.C 1367
was a
controversial and
confusing attempt by
Congress to
codify and address
the issue of
Supplemental Jurisdiction established in cases such as
United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715 (1966),
Zahn v. International Paper, Co., 414 U.S. 291 (1973), and
Finley v. United States, 490 U.S. 545 (1989). The Supreme Court tried to clarify some of the confusing issues regarding 1367 in a 2005 opinion.
Exxon Mobil Corp v. Allapattah Servs., Inc., (2005) (Kennedy, J.,
writing for the Court) (Stevens, J.,
dissenting) (Ginsburg, J.,
dissenting). The
question of whether the Court
clarified the issue or
made it more
complicated remains arguably
unanswered.
posted by dios at 10:32 AM PST - 25 comments
Blueprint
...
Guide the ball to the target by making a path for it to follow. Fourteen levels of perplexity! (Flash)
posted by crunchland at 9:26 AM PST - 35 comments
Red State, Meet Police State
--take a big anti-Bush bumper sticker, some DHS cops, and an outspoken and educated federal employee. Put them in Boise, Idaho. Mix well.
"It's the First Amendment for a reason--not the last, not the middle. The first."
posted by amberglow at 7:32 AM PST - 251 comments
Has oil already peaked?
Princeton University geology Professor Kenneth Deffeyes argues that it has, based on the fact that oil production should peak when half the worlds oil has been produced. According to him, that happened in December of 2005, at 1.0065 trillion barrels.
critics claim that new methods and economic effects should prevent peak oil from happening, although global oil
discovery actually peaked in the 1960s. Meanwhile
stock speculators are making mad bank betting on peak oil today.
posted by delmoi at 7:31 AM PST - 75 comments
February 15
Survivorman.
An
incredible show of
one man surviving all alone in some of the
harshest conditions for 7 days without a camera crew. He has to not only survive but carry 50 pounds of camera equipment he uses to film the show.
Don't be fooled by the 30 minute abbreviated shows being aired on the US Discovery Channel, the good stuff is the meaty hour-long episodes available on The Science Channel.
posted by crunchyk9 at 7:58 PM PST - 33 comments
The
Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up. To start, pick the five or six words that you feel best describe you. Your results will be saved, under a name of your choosing, so that you can send your friends and colleagues directly to your Window.
posted by airguitar at 6:17 PM PST - 17 comments
Sports Illustrated's infamous swimsuit issue has taken to featuring naked models with the swimsuits painted directly on their shameful nakedness in recent years; for this year's entry they feature Heidi Klum in a tribute to the bathing suits of the 1940's.
Full gallery online here.
posted by jonson at 4:58 PM PST - 91 comments
HarperCollins
is the first major publisher to give away an entire version of a new book online, revenue being raised through Yahoo! ads. But they don't seem to be 100% committed - if you go to
their website you can pay $18.26 for the e-book and no mention is made of it being available free at the author's own
website.
[Appropriately the book, "Go it Alone" by Bruce Judson is about entrepreneurial ideas]
posted by meech at 4:51 PM PST - 6 comments
The Dumpster
is "an interactive online visualization that attempts to depict a slice through the romantic lives of American teenagers. Using real postings extracted from millions of online blogs, visitors to the project can surf through tens of thousands of specific romantic relationships in which one person has "dumped" another." Launched yesterday at
the Whitney. Frenetic social data browser with voyeuristic blog-sniffer available
here
posted by jessamyn at 4:41 PM PST - 14 comments
Welcome To IOTA NA-178 Mission Control
On behalf of IOTA Ham operators WorldWide, the SouthEast Farallon Island - Project NA-178 HAMS HELPING HABITATS project (conducted by K6VVA & K9AJ) will assist the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge ("The Refuge") by transporting materials and equipment via helicopter from the mainland for an important habitat restoration project on SouthEast Farallon Island ("SEFI"), as well as the return of old unwanted infrastructure water pipe from the Island for disposal.
If you thought Eco-tourism was passe, try a
DX-
pedition! Of course
hams have also put their personal concerns aside for other things, such as helping provide
emergency communications during natural disasters.
One thing you might not realize is our penchant for broadband Internet via BPL (Broadband over Power Lines)
may interfere with this hobby of radio enthusiasts.
posted by jackspace at 3:41 PM PST - 34 comments
David Garrow reviewed
Justice Blackmun's papers,
released to the public in 2005, and
concludes that towards the end of his career, Blackmun's clerks all but signed his opinions. In an
interview, discussing senility and Supreme Court Justices, Garrow argues that there has been "a dramatic increase over the last 35 or 45 years in the amount of the justices’ work that is performed by their law clerks," and recommends a "reduction to two or, even better yet, one clerk" from the four clerks available per Justice now. Garrow also comments on the now-deceased Chief Justice Rehnquist, who suffered from an
addiction to painkillers in the 1980s. Garrow's view is
controversial, though, and Legal Affairs published
several responses in the same issue. Other law professors have weighed in, including
Dan Markel,
Mark Tushnet, and some of the folks at the
Volokh Conspiracy. So how
large is the
impact of law clerks?
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:55 AM PST - 63 comments
The 2005 Annual Survey on Choice of Law in American Courts. [pdf]
The survey on
Choice of Law looks at the recent
controversial Supreme Court
ruling dealing with
conflict of laws.
See Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line, Ltd., 125 S.Ct. 2169 (2005).
(
Kennedy, J., writing the opinion of the Court) (
Ginsburg, J., concurring) (
Scalia, J., dissenting) (
Thomas, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part). At
issue in Spector was whether
disability statutes applied to ships that
depart from Texas and travel through domestic waters but
fly under the flag of the Bahamas. Other 2005 Supreme Court conflict of laws cases included
Small v. United States and
Pasquantino v. United States.
posted by dios at 9:18 AM PST - 12 comments
Eidos announces a new Lara Croft
(of Tomb Raider fame) to take over from Angelina Jolie. Her name is Karima Adebibe, and she is a completely unknown shop assistant from London. She has some big ... boots ... to fill.
posted by SharQ at 1:14 AM PST - 45 comments
February 14
Tess Fragoulis:
"Alternately, you might spend time with people who should have got divorced, but didn't, opting instead for a lifetime of bickering and dissatisfaction. Call up Mom and Dad and invite yourself over for dinner. Understand once and for all why marriage has always seemed a fate worse than death to you."
posted by rehpotsirhc at 6:39 PM PST - 8 comments
The Roofless realm. Prestes Maia, is a
colossal abandoned clothes factory that towers over central Sao Paulo:
"At first glance Prestes Maia, which sem-teto members occupied in 2002, resembles a chaotic, multi-storey shantytown; cardboard spews out of its cracked windows, graffiti litter its walls and children rattle through its wide corridors on bicycles. But the community is meticulously organised." It was first occupied as part of the
Movimiento dos Sem Teto, an organized movement of homeless families and workers and now houses over 468 families.
But, now, an injunction has been issued for the repossession of the building. Everyone must leave by
February 15th but there is no plan and the authorities fear violence will erupt. There's a
Flickr community.
posted by vacapinta at 3:38 PM PST - 15 comments
Mind Over Matter: South African Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy site. Bound by the code of conduct of the South African Association of Hypnotherapists
("1.17 Practitioners must not practice dentistry unless they hold an appropriate qualification. 1.18 Patients suffering from AIDS may be treated at the discretion of the practitioner"). Possibly associated with
these folks; I'm certainly inspired to put my subconscious in the glittery hands of
this guy.
P.S.: The female orgasm is 100% Purely Mental.
posted by Gator at 12:58 PM PST - 7 comments
Alexadex
is a place to buy virtual shares in websites, with the share prices set according to Alexa.com's site traffic ranking. Metafilter.com currently stands at $535 per share.
posted by slater at 9:01 AM PST - 18 comments
Zeitgeistfilter: Lumpen Leisure and
Welcome to Middle-Class Lockdown... Now Shut Up and Buy Something -- two fine rants about our current state of disunion by James Howard Kuntsler, author of
The Long Emergency (
excerpt), and writer and Vietnam vet
Joe Bageant. "All over but the keening for our soon-to-be-lost machine world," Kunstler predicts in
The American Conservative, while Bageant taps the inner stream-of-unconsciousness for
Dissident Voice: "Things cannot be as bad as the alarmists say. They cannot be as bad as I often suspect they are. If there really were such a thing as global warming they would be starting to do something about it. And besides, even if it were true, science will find a way to fix it. If there really were genocide going on in so many places far more people would be concerned... If the earth were heating up we would surely notice it. If our soldiers and government agencies were torturing people around the world it would make the news. If millions were being exterminated, it would be more obvious, would it not?" (Kunstler's book previously discussed
here, Bageant
here.)
posted by digaman at 8:11 AM PST - 52 comments
I just watched the chilling video of a
sniper [Flash, NSFW] in Iraq on TV. It was given to Paul McGeough of the
Sydney Morning Herald and published on their site. As discussed on The ABC
Lateline programme (transcript not available at posting time but pretty much covered by the SMH). Please read the report to put the video in perspective. It's propaganda but...
posted by tellurian at 5:18 AM PST - 99 comments
February 13
Tayler
makes handmade wooden weapons, which he then uses to stage semi-elaborate
one man cosplay involving him, his cat & an Australian Shepherd. Archives of previous months stories
here.
posted by jonson at 10:00 PM PST - 24 comments
We've heard of
outsider music, but along with this is the strange world of
song-poems.
...ordinary people" respond to come-on ads on the back pages of magazines, mailing in their heartfelt but often bizarre poems to "music industry" companies that, for a fee, turn those poems into real recordings.
More inside...
posted by ashbury at 8:59 PM PST - 16 comments
The Compact
"About 50 teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 -- except food, health and safety items and underwear..." And presumably gas, insurance, electricity, water, etc. Oh, and Internet service-- they have
a blog and a
Yahoo group.
Did I mention one of them currently works as a marketer and another one is a currently a professor in marketing?
posted by keswick at 4:47 PM PST - 95 comments
British soldiers filmed beating Iraqis.
A British tabloid has released footage showing British troops beating Iraqi rioters. The video, available in
realplayer format or
Windows Media format, was apparently taken by a British corporal, and shows at least eight British soldiers dragging four young rioters inside a British army compound, where they were repeatedly beaten with batons, boots and fists, and kicked in the genitals. Arab television and the BBC have since aired the footage.
posted by insomnia_lj at 4:01 PM PST - 72 comments
Proposed Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1.
Proposed
Rule 32.1 [.pdf] is an attempt to resolve a dispute in federal court practice over the propriety of citations to unpublished opinions. It is an
argument that has been played out in
academic papers and Circuit Courts. Judge Richard Arnold of the 8th Circuit, writing
for the majority, held that local rules which declare that unpublished opinions are not precedent are unconstitutional under Article III.
Anastasoff v. United States, 223 F.3d 898, 900(8th Cir. 2000),
vacated as moot on reh'g en banc, 235 F.3d 1054 (8th Cir.2000). Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit
disagreed, holding that nonprecedential decisions are not inconsistent with the exercise of the judicial power.
Hart v. Massanari, 226 F.3d 1155, 1163 (9th Cir. 2001). The proposed Rule would resolve the circuit split, but the
debate rages on.
posted by dios at 2:05 PM PST - 18 comments
Cardboard Geodesic Dome.
A how-to on building a geodesic dome out of cardboard, a bit of wood, some duct tape and paint. Plus some rebar if you don't want the finished dome to fly like a kite. If you like the concept but not the size
calculate your own then apply the concept.
posted by Mitheral at 2:03 PM PST - 14 comments
Room With A View.
Has the view out of your living room window become boring and stale? No problem, build yourself a million dollar
Rotating Home. A former office manager, self prclaimed "hobbyist" Al Johnstone has built quite the
technological feat [PDF] despite having no engineering background, obtaining around 30 patents in the process.
posted by afx114 at 9:29 AM PST - 19 comments
Betty and Barney Hill's Bogus Journey:
"This is one of the most well known and most historically important cases of alien abduction of all time, mainly because it's all baloney. However, it was well televised baloney, and that brought UFO abductions, and the little gray men that the Hills reported seeing, into the mainstream of popular culture."
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:53 AM PST - 44 comments
An Australian Government Member of Parliament (MP) will be
trying to amend a crucial piece of legislation which, if the amendment is successful, will make it far harder (if not impossible) for Australian women to gain access to abortion drug
RU486 because of fears that making it easier for women to access the drug will lead Australia down a path of Islamisation.
"I've actually read in the Daily Telegraph where a certain imam from the Lakemba mosque actually said that Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years' time. I didn't believe him at the time but when you actually look at the birthrates... we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence." Liberal MP
Danna Vale said today. Has she been
reading Metafilter?
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:12 AM PST - 106 comments
Last week, the Guardian posted a
three-part special report by their Middle East correspondent (and former South African correspondent) Chris McGreal on the similarities between the current situation in Israel and the South African Apartheid regime. The report provoked many heated responses,
a selection of which is reproduced here and
here. The Guardian responded by inviting Benjamin Pogrund, former deputy editor of the famously anti-Apartheid Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, author of a
number of books on South Africa and founder of Yakar, a Jerusalem center for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue to
weigh in with a response.
posted by ori at 12:16 AM PST - 20 comments
February 12
Desperate for Depression Era jobs, the communities of Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo and San Francisco raised 476,066 dollars to
purchase 1000 acres of land in the fertile Santa Clara Valley and put their community in the running for the
first West Coast base for rigid airships. On February 20th, 1933, President Hoover signed the
bill that authorized the Navy to accept the Mountain View property. Half of the five million dollars appropriated for construction went to the
building of
Hangar One, the eventual
home of the
USS Macon.
Sunnyvale Naval Air Station, commissioned on April 4th, 1933, was renamed
Moffett Field after the death of RAdm William Moffett in the crash of the airship USS Akron.
On February 12th, 1935, the
USS Macon ditched off Point Sur, effectively ending the Navy's rigid airship program.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:05 PM PST - 22 comments
The Origo Gallery's
recent exhibition features Gyorgy Kemenyi's new works, but for a chronological context it's best to start with his
earlier exhibition. The Gallery's
archives provide an interesting cross section of a few Hungarian contemporary artists.
posted by semmi at 8:53 PM PST - 3 comments
Aliens and Children.
This website features a series of drawings made by children who were abducted by aliens for the purpose of creating a new race of alien/human hybrids. They successfully resisted the aliens by using a
thought screen helmet which blocks the telepathic control aliens have over humans.
posted by Robot Johnny at 5:40 PM PST - 35 comments
"I'm worried, Larry.
A financial planner counsels his client: "...I think it's imperative that we start to budget and plan. New purchases should be kept to a minimum. We need to establish and execute on a diversification game plan, to eliminate (yes, eliminate) all debt and build up a significant, conservatively structured, liquid investment portfolio...." Sound advice, but you wouldn't have thought this
dickhead gentleman would need it.
posted by mojohand at 5:20 PM PST - 18 comments
Mixotheque
is an mp3 blog that does
some work for its readers: two songs posted every day (one "classic", one "rarity"), adding up to two well-planned mixes each month (to fit on 80min CDRs, one for newbies, one for collectors). Every mix has its own theme (and artwork, track description, etc.)
It caught my attention because
the first month's theme is New Zealand rock, a sweet, occasionally noisy, rather inbred realm of the music world. Already posted are mp3s from the "big" names (like the Clean and
the Verlaines) to the
obscure-even-for-New-Zealand. The commentary so far has been both enlightening and personal, and a month of this will probably be both a decent education and a solid chunk of probably-new-to-you music.
posted by snortlebort at 4:19 PM PST - 19 comments
Kid Congo Powers
, noted guitar stylist, teenage president of
The Ramones Fan Club, erstwhile member of
The Cramps,
The Gun Club, and
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (also known for his collaborations with
Julee Cruise,
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy,
Khan and others) has produced a
two part online autobiography of sorts for
New York Night Train. It includes
oral histories, available as transcriptions or MP3s, pages from
his Cramps scrapbook, a vintage
Creem article,
free MP3s from his back catalogue, and, of course, his
recipe for enchiladas.
posted by jack_mo at 4:04 PM PST - 6 comments
"The German invasion of Britain took place in July 1940, after the British retreat from Dunkirk".
We see, documentary-style, members of the Wehrmacht trooping past Big Ben and St Paul's Cathedral, lounging in the parks, having their jackboots shined by old cockneys, and appreciatively visiting the shrine of that good German,
Prince Albert, in Kensington Gardens.
Kevin Brownlow and
Andrew Mollo's film "
It Happened Here", with its
cast of hundreds (.pdf), imagines what a Nazi occupation might have been like — complete with underground resistance, civilian massacres, civil strife, torch-lit rallies, Jewish ghettos, and organized euthanasia. Shot on weekends, eight years in production, made for about $20,000 with nonactors and borrowed equipment and Stanley Kubrick's help, "It Happened Here" was originally envisioned by
Brownlow as a sort of Hammer
horror flick about a Nazi Britain. Thanks in part to
Mollo's fanatical concern with historical accuracy, however,
it became something else. The most remarkable thing about this account of everyday fascism is that it has no period footage.
Brownlow's 1968 book about the film's production, "
How It Happened Here", has recently been
republished. More inside.
posted by matteo at 8:04 AM PST - 16 comments
"There are chakrahs in our hands, Jesus had nail holes in his palms, and a sign of worship is to stand with your palms raised. Fortune tellers read palms. Handwriting is analyzed to expose deep secrets. Man’s thumbs differentiate humans from lower species....We control our world with our hands, and our hands are shaped by our world." -- The
Manual Project by
Bill Westheimer.
"Using 19th century collodion wet plate photography I photograph their dominant hand, then we work together to make a photogram of their palm print. Combining these two images together with the person’s handwriting, I create one portrait of the subject. "
posted by Gator at 6:30 AM PST - 12 comments
February 11
paved prophets house, put up a parking lot..
“What makes this demolition worse is the fact that the home of the Prophet is to make way for a parking lot, two 50-storey hotel towers and seven 35-storey apartment blocks; a project known as the Jabal Omar Scheme, all within a stone’s throw of the Grand Mosque. Yet despite this outrage, not a single Muslim country, no ayatollah, no mufti, no king, not even a Muslim Canadian imam has dared utter a word in protest. Such is the power of Saudi influence on the Muslim narrative.”
posted by zog at 9:07 PM PST - 36 comments
"We can't do anything about it. We just have to
obey." Fulton (Mo.) High School drama students learn that resistance is futile.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 3:15 PM PST - 87 comments
A wise Mefite once said "
I cannot fathom the stress of multiple spouses," and I'm sure it only gets
more stressful if your loved ones don't know about each other. As Valentines Day approaches, let us take a moment to
ponder the difficulties that two-timing scumbags of either gender will have trying to please everyone at once, on this holiday that was created by a greeting card company, yet ultimately benefits private detectives more than any other holiday of the year.
posted by jonson at 10:57 AM PST - 36 comments
Scott Stulberg takes beautiful photography of people and places in southeast Asia. Also, some fantastic nature and wildlife work.
(flash, sound alert)
posted by madamjujujive at 9:31 AM PST - 14 comments
Did you know that Marilyn Monroe was colorblind? Me neither. How about November being national gingivitis awareness month? No? Well, I'm sure I'm the last person to find out that the standard 52-card deck was originally used as a calendar before it was used for gaming purposes. And that Gershwin is the only composer to have written an orchestral part for the conch shell. Oh, oh, and you know why you close your eyes when you sneeze? Turns out it's because otherwise the pressure behind them would be sufficient to pop them out of their sockets.
Don't believe me?
posted by Gator at 6:16 AM PST - 41 comments
Bollywood is remaking Fight Club. It seems there wasn't enough dancing and singing. Trailers
here [Windows media]. No mention of soap.
posted by tellurian at 5:23 AM PST - 30 comments
A Letter to the American Left
By Bernard-Henri Lévy.
"Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left.
I know, of course, that the term "left" does not have the same meaning and ramifications here that it does in France.
And I cannot count how many times I was told there has never been an authentic "left" in the United States, in the European sense.
But at the end of the day, my progressive friends, you may coin ideas in whichever way you like. The fact is: You do have a right. This right, in large part thanks to its neoconservative battalion, has brought about an ideological transformation that is both substantial and striking. "
posted by mountainmambo at 5:16 AM PST - 84 comments
February 10
The Hall of Best Knowledge
"combines lush imagery with lucid prose—imagine the works of Chaucer projected on the ceiling of the Sistine hapel—creating a weekly learning experience that is without equal in this or any age." Updated weekly. A collection of hand-drawn typographic teachings on Flickr. (from
Drawn!)
posted by TimTypeZed at 7:26 PM PST - 10 comments
Amazon's "Top Selling Videos"
Here's a mystery: Amazon has a page showing their top selling VHS videos. It is "updated hourly." Before you look at what the top sellers are, take a guess. I doubt that anyone would think that the 1
994 Richard Simmons "Sweating to the Oldies" video would be listed as No. 1 -- particularly in view of the fact that it is described as being "unavailable."
The others in the top 10 are also interesting: #3 is the 1945 black and white
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". Would you guess that #7 is "
Fatso", a 1993 comedy starring Dom DeLuise?
I may be wrong but I suspect that Amazon's ratings are not accurate. Now I wonder about their book ratings . . .
posted by AJ at 1:25 PM PST - 24 comments
He liked blue.
In fact, he patented his own
blue. He like to claim that he could
fly unaided. There was a
movie. In it, he colored naked women blue and had them make a
painting. The film treated this comically, and he was crushed. Two weeks after the film opened, he died of a heart attack.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:03 AM PST - 23 comments
I never thought a string of videos of car accidents taken from automatic tunnel cameras in metropolitan tunnels would make for compelling viewing. But it turns out you
learn something new every day.
warning - embedded video on page contains horrible dance music
posted by jonson at 10:16 AM PST - 59 comments
WOXY.com has begun charging a subscription fee.
One of the best radio stations in America, it was a sad day in January of 2004 when WOXY in Cincinnati ceased being a terrestrial radio station. As one of the last truly independently programmed commercial rock stations in the country, it broke new ground and supported many worthy and truly alternative artists and unsigned bands. Unlike other radio stations, it actually lived up to its tagline "97X - The Future of Rock and Roll" --
a slogan you might be familiar with if you've seen Rain Man. Fortunately, with the help of some anonymous "angel" investors it was quickly resurrected as an internet radio station. In the past year or so, WOXY's terrific
Live Lounge Act series has seen bands such as Gorrilaz, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Wedding Present, Neko Case play in their studio (The station also makes the performances available as podcasts). Now the station says it's going to have to charge $9.95 a month to listen,
in part because of increasing royalties and increasing broadcast taxes. It's worth the money.
posted by Heminator at 10:10 AM PST - 25 comments
The Pearl
A journal of voluptuous reading for discerning readers, hosted in a
larger collection of bawdy books, dirty ditties and assorted salacious songcraft.
Thrill to cousin-fucking in Sport Among the She-Noodles. Puzzle over endless lashings by old women in Ms. Coote's Confession. Giggle over the protagonist of Lady Pokingham. Note for edification the blasé treatment of homosexuality, both male and female. Memorize limericks that provide both racial and sexual offense for your next social gathering. And learn obscenities you can sneak past all but the most agile editor!
Main site also contains hours of mp3s and reams of naughty toasts, drinking songs and folk stories. Other highlights include the ability to compare
American ribaldry with earlier
British off-colour humour.
Some engravings arguably NSFW.
posted by klangklangston at 8:22 AM PST - 21 comments
The Valley of the Kings not done yet?
British archaeologists have discovered a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings - the first such find since Howard Carter found Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. Ironically, the new tomb was a mere 5 meters from Tutankhamun's. The tomb includes unopened sarcophagi and 5 undisturbed mummies.
Patricia Podzorski, curator of Egyptian Art at the University of Memphis, said "People have been saying the valley was done for 100 years. They said it before Howard Carter found King Tutankhamun's tomb and they said it after. But, obviously, they are still wrong."
posted by robhuddles at 8:16 AM PST - 19 comments
"It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on
in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," writes former CIA official Paul Pillar, coordinator of U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until 2005, in an article soon to appear in
Foreign Affairs, hardly a radical rag. More confirmation that Seymour Hersh was right about the administration
"cherry-picking" intelligence to justify a foregone conclusion to go to war in Iraq.
posted by digaman at 7:49 AM PST - 49 comments
McDonald's: The Videogame. A scathing critique of lousy corporate and environmental practices, or an entertainingly complex little game about the fast food industry? A little from column A, a little from column B. Torch diseased cows with the flamethrower, corrupt politicians and environmentalists, plant genetically modified soy in what used to be the rain forests of South America, force your employees to smile all the livelong day, and try not to bankrupt the company. Be sure to read the tutorial first. (Flash.)
posted by Gator at 5:45 AM PST - 11 comments
Vault Radio.
Remember
Wolfgang's Vault? They've now started releasing the massive amounts of music that they discovered via FM-quality 128k stream. The
current rotation isn't huge (not much worse than commercial radio), but there's a lot of great stuff on there that you've never heard before, presumably.
posted by bigmike at 5:34 AM PST - 9 comments
Real Estate Value + Google Maps
Fly around a neighborhood with Google maps and see not only the houses but what they are worth. Click on an individual house for recent selling information, house details, tax assessments etc., all for free and no strings attached.
posted by caddis at 4:54 AM PST - 53 comments
Abramoff says Bush is lying.
"Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well." - George W. Bush,
Jan. 26, 2006.
"The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows." - Jack Abramoff
Mr. Abramoff, who raised over $100,000 for the Bush campaign, also indicated that he was sent a personal invitation to stay at the President's Texas ranch.
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:51 AM PST - 37 comments
February 9
This
great picture was taken in the French Pig-Squealing Championships.
This pic was alleged by Danish imams to be offensive to Muslims, and was included in the recent tour of the Middle East.
The Brussels Journal asks some pointed questions.
The Beeb belatedly explains - and (sorta) apologises.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:13 PM PST - 35 comments
Recondo!
In 1966, the
MACV Recondo School was established to train Special Forces Units in long-range recon tactics and commando operations. Graduates were called
"Recondos" and could infiltrate enemy-controlled territory for long periods of time without being resupplied. The school was well known enough to spawn a cheezy
GI Joe character.
Apparently you can easily infiltrate
Hollywood as well with
allegedly false Recondo credentials.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:35 PM PST - 12 comments
While my guitar fiercely weeps
Next on YouTubeFilter: Prince shares a stage with Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and George Harrison's son Dhani, at Harrison's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No, scratch that: Prince ain't sharin' with nobody -- that stage is all his.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:47 PM PST - 106 comments
For all the hoo-ha about Callas first bringing real acting to the operatic stage, one has only to view the footage of Risë Stevens legendary 1952 “Carmen” to see what kind of Method she brought to the Met. Stevens was the definitive gypsy wanton, and her performance has it all— fire, ice, and that impossible balance between elegance and sluttiness. Her technique is superb—licking her fingers before extinguishing the candles in what will be her death chamber, then flicking off the wax; flinging her unwanted lover’s ring at him, spitting out a contemptuous “Tiens!”.
The Metropolitan Opera Guild honors the
Bronx-born singer, now 92. More inside.
posted by matteo at 11:07 AM PST - 9 comments
Mixed Media Watch
is devoted to "tracking media representations of mixed people." Whether you identify as "mixed", "biracial", "mulitiracial", etc., this website is a great resource for a growing, but vastly underrepresented segment of the population. Of course, it is also a valuable resource for interracial couples, parents, and anyone else (like myself) who is endlessly fascinated with the social construct that we call race.
posted by crapulent at 5:47 AM PST - 19 comments
Food Art
Very interesting pictures of food represented as something else - pie tins as ice skating rinks, donut cycling rings, and mining for watermelon seeds.
posted by divabat at 12:09 AM PST - 36 comments
February 8
Auctioneer + Political Wonk + Chess Club = The World of Competitive Policy Debate. This video of the
national debate championships [realplayer, and many more here, including in other languages] is a real experience. This form of debate has evolved around a very specific
set of rules with results that may seem strange to the uninitiated.
Each year since 1921 there has been a single topic (take a look at 1939 for an example that reflects the times). Competitors
learn to speak very fast, while
elaborate strategies for winning have developed and
massive amounts of information are presented in just a few minutes. If you like your debates witty and understandable, you may want to check out
parliamentary debate instead (real format). I assume there are some other ex-debaters out there in MeFi land....
posted by blahblahblah at 11:20 PM PST - 85 comments
Was Gonzales truthful?
Shortly after the warrantless eavesdropping program began, then-NSA Director Michael V. Hayden and Ashcroft made clear in private meetings that the president wanted to detect possible terrorist activity before another attack. They also made clear that, in such a broad hunt for suspicious patterns and activities, the government could never meet the FISA court's probable-cause requirement, government officials said.
So it confused the FISA court judges when, in their recent public defense of the program, Hayden and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that NSA analysts do not listen to calls unless they have a reasonable belief that someone with a known link to terrorism is on one end of the call. At a hearing Monday, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the "reasonable belief" standard is merely the "probable cause" standard by another name.
posted by caddis at 10:47 PM PST - 47 comments
Cryptome out???
FBI Special Agent Matthew J. Bertron, 26 Federal Plaza, New York, NY 10278, left his card today, 8 February,
3 PM, while we were out, with a request to call his number, 718-286-7154, or the main number 212-384-1000.
We called, he was out, he returned our call about 6 PM to ask to meet here at 10 AM tomorrow, 9 February. No
reason given. In November 2003, two SAs visited, not sure if one or more this time. We'll report, maybe.
posted by OU812 at 9:50 PM PST - 28 comments
Hardball's Chris Matthews beats the crap
out of former Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clark on the WMD issue. I've never heard a member of the mainstream media so outspoken and heated in slamming the Admin's position on this before. Is the tide turning?
(Video-WMP; Video-QT)
posted by darkstar at 8:22 PM PST - 53 comments
The bad news: "4,100 people diagnosed with diabetes, 230 amputations in people with diabetes, 120 people who enter end-stage kidney disease programs and 55 people who go blind. ..That's going to happen every day, on the weekends and on the Fourth of July. That's diabetes".
The worse news: this is in New York City alone. The disease will soon afflict more than a million inhabitants of the city.
posted by storybored at 7:42 PM PST - 23 comments
As a proud patriot & supporter of our nation's armed forces, my greatest personal shame comes from the fact that my pugs aren't fit for service (Lola has cuddling issues that would prove a hindrance on the battlefield, whereas Oscar would run afowl of the "don't ask, don't tell" laws). Fortunately, the good people at
Pets In Uniform will gladly do an
awful photoshop job to make it look like they
actually served their nation proudly.
posted by jonson at 5:36 PM PST - 34 comments
""We only have to recall the colour of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who are most devastated by Katrina to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans." - Former President Jimmy Carter.
Coretta Scott King was
laid to rest Tuesday after a six-hour service attended by four presidents and 10,000 ordinary people who came to pay tribute to the first lady of the civil rights movement - and one of its last icons. But at an event designed to remember the lady who was as memorable as her late husband in fighting for civil rights, politics entered the fray with both former President Jimmy Carter and Rev Joseph Lowery taking
swipes at the Bush Administration. They say that there's a time and a place, and while this was clearly not the place, with
thousands of Katrina victims (mostly African-American) about to be evicted because of
budget cuts by the Bush administration, was it the
time?
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:53 PM PST - 149 comments
Recent surveys show that fast-food packaging makes up about 20 percent of all litter, with snack foods comprising another 20 percent. Oakland, CA is the first city to tax companies who create
"Fast-Food Trash".
posted by stbalbach at 9:55 AM PST - 30 comments
Band of Brothers
is an organization of
Democratic veterans running for U.S. Congress. Maybe you'll hear about their DC rally today on the
news (but don't hold your breath). Currently,
vets in the Senate are about evenly split among the GOP and Dems, but Republican vets are the majority in the
House. This is likely to change if the Democrats take control of Congress in this year's elections, in which the Iraq War will be a primary issue. Has a
White House full of
chickenhawks destroyed the GOP claim as the military party?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 6:44 AM PST - 41 comments
Pro-prostitution blog.
So you've seen the careful, rational and spell-checked arguments for the decriminalization of prostitution. Now read this instead. And don't forget, the author took time out
on christmas eve to tell you what it's like in a central american cathouse.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:32 AM PST - 102 comments
Properly Chilled, "a great guide to the downtempo music scene/lifestyle, spotlighting not only the essential release reviews, label/artist profiles and other data on the genre but also exclusive DJ mixes and all kinds of other goodies" (
via). Check out the totally free, totally chill
Radio Jazztronica #3 mix from DJ Chicken George. It's 55+ minutes of "unpredictable, energetic and heart-felt" downtempo that packs a serious punch. Did I mention it's free?
posted by JPowers at 5:08 AM PST - 19 comments
February 7
The Steam Tank
is a brief visual effects reel by Chris Paul, from the Vancouver Film School. It begins with a somewhat mundane steam powered tank attacking a mounted gun in a downtown building, but then replays the event shot by shot, showing the original filmed plate, and adding on each cgi component, to give a good idea of how cg & reality interface in an effects piece.
warning: link goes to direct download of 56MB QuickTime mov
posted by jonson at 4:09 PM PST - 13 comments
Boehner Gets Huge Overnight
The Congressman with the unfortunately spelled last name was elected House Majority Leader last week--it was only a matter of time....(embedded movie).
posted by P-Soque at 3:14 PM PST - 47 comments
The Roots Music Listening Room
for Collectors of American Roots Music. We feature Old-Time Strings Bands, Ballads & Breakdowns, Early Blues & Gospel, some Early Jazz, Vintage Country Gospel, Early Bluegrass and various Ethnic Musics played by immigrants to America. Most of this material was originally recorded in the 1920s through the early 1950s and was first issued on 78 RPM Records. (Out of consideration for others only download about 15-20 songs in one day.)
posted by crunchland at 2:38 PM PST - 22 comments
Science is better:
An enormous scientific study has conclusively demonstrated that "diet had no effect" on rates of women getting cancer or heart disease. Because the study investigated the efficacy of
overall low fat diets, rather than the more recently developed
hypothesis that saturated fats are the only pernicious kind, some leading medical researchers accept these findings but still think there MAY be a direct link between certain diets and major health problems in women, but (and here's the money shot) "if they did a study like that and it was negative, then I'd have to give up my cherished hypotheses for data." Now that, my friends, is a heartwarming example of one of the pinnacles of human creativity, the scientific method, which is under so much attack these days
. . .
posted by twsf at 2:23 PM PST - 29 comments
Find offensive content!
The people at Inboxer allow you
register for a free account to use their antispam software on approximately 500,000 Enron emails in a database.
According to a
Wired article, the appliance has found 71,268 inappropriate messages.
And just to add to the fun, they're offering to give away
3 Ipod Shuffles for people who submit the best emails in the "I'd fire him/her" the "Funniest Joke", and the "What were they thinking?" categories.
Just to give you an idea of what we're talking about here, check out this lovely
Booty Call contract. Also, check out the whitepaper they've written,
Monsters in your mailbox (.pdf), and get worried if you're using your business email account for personal messages!
posted by jasper411 at 2:15 PM PST - 25 comments
First it was announced
that an
Oregon State University graduate student was publishing a story in the journal
Science. titled, "
Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk," which undercut Bush administration-backed arguments for post-wildfire logging. A week later it was
made public that nine professors in the
College of Forestry (which gets 10% of its funding from a logging tax) lobbied the journal not to publish the article. Among them was
John Sessions, lead author of a report that pressed the U.S. Forest Service to expand salvage logging. After attention was brought to the professors' attempts to keep the article from being published, many
worried about the university's reputation regarding academic freedom, if not the state of academic freedom throughout the academic world. However if it wasn't difficult enough to just worry about your own professors standing in the way of getting your data published, you also have to worry about
the government pulling your funding if your data doesn't match the data they want to see.
"The
Bureau of Land Management acknowledged Monday that it asked OSU if the three-year study led by graduate student Daniel Donato and published last month in the journal Science violated provisions of a $300,000 federal fire research grant that prohibits using any of the funds to lobby Congress and requires that a BLM scientist be consulted before the research is published."
"It's totally without precedent as far as I can recollect," said Jerry Franklin, a professor at the University of Washington who has studied Northwest forests for decades. "It says, 'If we don't like what you're saying, we'll cut off your money.' "
posted by pwb503 at 1:58 PM PST - 51 comments
