skip to main content
March 2002 Archives
March 31
PrayStation . Year Zero "For those who don't know. Every year for the past 4 years April fools day has always been when I tear down my current website - and replace it with praystation year 0 - my very first posting to the domain. Enjoy it or hate it."
Don't miss this link. It's only up for one day only.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 10:18 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
You've got Blogs! AOL buys into homegrown media. April Fools Day starts with a bang in the UK. Determined to get linked by many a weblog, they put out a story about AOL purchasing popular weblogs.
In related news, MetaFilter was said to be signing a merger agreement with Kuro5hin to pool content between the two sites.posted by wackybrit at 7:13 PM PST - 14 comments
Really Good Haiku (in English!) Yes, some complain about the abundance of humerous haiku on the internet and otherwise (wherever that is), but the fact remains: we all love it, perhaps because it is so easy to do, but probably because it enriches our lives, like a really well made stone wall, or Sam Cooke. I have found some haiku which were actually written
in english, about the sorts of things which we all like to laugh at. Enjoy them now!
[sfx: gong]
posted by Settle at 6:18 PM PST - 14 comments
Holi .
Now Ruz. The
Hindu Festival of Colors. The
Persian New Year. Easter and Passover are not the only religious holidays associated with the first full moon of spring. Both appeal to me—in Holi people go about splashing each other with colors, powder and paint, and in Now Ruz I see Halloween--
Last Tuesday night in March before Ruz is Chahar-Shanbe-Soorey in Iran... Children wear masks, and go door to door to get candy. People jump over bon fires while wishing for good health--surely the greatest religious festival we celebrate. And, ancillary topic, polytheism fascinates me: so, let me get way way pre-medieval on your collective ass and drop some
James Hillman on you via
Marc Fonda (you may have to scroll down to
III. Polytheism as an Alternate Paradigm for Psychology).
Hillman, author of
Dream And The Underworld and co-author of
We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy And the World's Getting Worse, among others, is, of course, a name no stranger to these pages.
Both Holi and Now Ruz seem to celebrate a victory of by a legendary king over demon sources, and both celebrate Spring. Both I know little about—so enlighten me, please. A belated happy Holi to all you real brahmins, Boston or otherwise, and a belatedly same happy Now Roz to all you Teherangelenos here on MetafFilter. And do play
Virtual Holi.
posted by y2karl at 5:16 PM PST - 11 comments
I’m probably really late to the boat for
Epitonic, but goodness, if you’re looking to sample mp3s, videos, sometimes
entire albums, for indie or otherwise unknown bands this here is it. Genres from punk to folk to various electronica-delectica all the way back out to hip hop, jazz and
contemporary composers. They’re all here:
Styles of Beyond,
Solex,
Blue Six,
Sporto Kantes,
Couch (Alle Auf Pause),
Gonzales, on and on. They must eat bandwidth like Jim Morrison and mescaline caps.
posted by raaka at 4:39 PM PST - 11 comments
Why Doesn't the US Value Art? In Italy, school children have notebooks with grids. In America, you have notebooks with lines." In other words, we are taught to think in a linear manner, while they are taught to think spatially. First, is it true that the US doesn't value art? Second, does ruled note paper, or any number of other seemingly minor details of life, really materially effect the way somebody generally approaches the world?
posted by willnot at 2:58 PM PST - 38 comments
Happy Easter! This morning, as Christians pray for peace in the Middle East, it's a great opportunity for everyone to celebrate the spirit of forgiveness and new life. Where on the web do you find inspiration, faith in human nature, and new beginnings?
posted by sheauga at 9:05 AM PST - 94 comments
The pinacle of automobile racing now provides technology for your feet.
Pininfarina designed
Scuderia Ferrari replica shoe based on their Formula One cars, made by Fila is here. "The 3 Action system provides superior cushioning and the Speed Tech shank offers maximum responsiveness, stability and torsion control. And, so that you may choose your path, the racing tire-inspired outsole provides maximum traction on every surface."
posted by riffola at 7:57 AM PST - 21 comments
Donnie Darko. Aside from being a great movie with a great flash site, it's also appropriate for Easter (since the movie does have that freaky bunny in it 'n all).
posted by kingmissile at 7:39 AM PST - 18 comments
March 30
The Law of the Mental Mirror Image. We write what we are not. It is not merely that we fail to live up to our best ideas but that our best ideas, and the tone that goes with them, tend to be the opposite of our natural temperament. --Adam Gopnik on Popper in The New Yorker
posted by semmi at 11:33 PM PST - 9 comments
Happy Easter! "Bio artist"/eccentric intellectual Eduardo Kac has made a bunny that -- literally -- glows in the dark.
posted by milkman at 10:17 PM PST - 21 comments
Are You Ready For April Fool's Day? Better read the
Museum of Hoaxes's March Newsletter to find out. Certain
pranks are already in progress, while
other recent hoaxes - of which at least one was seriously discussed here on MetaFilter - remain fresh in our minds. Real aficionados and sleuths, of course, will head straight for the
hoax websites pages, where some seem too good - or too awful -
not to be true. In Southern Europe, April Fool's Day is known as
Liars' Day and everyone is entitled - nay, compelled! - to invent at least one big
whopper. Any ideas?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:15 PM PST - 35 comments
Everquest kingdom richer than Bulgaria. Norrath, the setting for the online game Everquest, has been found to be the 77th richest country in the world, sandwiched between Russia and Bulgaria. Research carried out in the United States shows that virtual internal markets, combined with illegal online trading on auction websites, mean that Norrath has a gross national product per capita of $2,266, bigger than China and India.
posted by ncurley at 8:06 PM PST - 16 comments
The
Read_Me Festival 1.2 shortlist has been posted, and includes such projects as
Carnivore(not the government one, though that was part of the concept), and the
DeskSwap screensaver. While this is a "software art" exhibition, it's of particular note that patches or
even just instructions for making existing software do things not originally intended are allowable entries. I haven't been through all of them to see if any patches were entered, but it'd be interesting what the publishers might think of these, since it would basically constitute hacking and/or reverse engineering.
posted by Su at 7:53 PM PST - 2 comments
Griffin Dunne as Frank Zappa in VH-1's movie "Parental Advisory". [Link won't tell you much about the movie but it was all I could find] The movie based on senate hearings regarding music censorship. Aside from Dana Carvey's Zappa imitation I don't recall any other actor playing him. Would Dunne have been your choice?
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:49 PM PST - 14 comments
Happy Easter egg hunting "Could be in computer software, movies, music, art, books, or even your watch. There are thousands of them, and they can be quite entertaining, if you know where to look." [Originally referenced in
comment in Nov 2000, but perhaps worth another swipe.]
posted by Voyageman at 7:03 PM PST - 2 comments
NYT: CBS's JAG To Explore Terror Military Tribunal
The Pentagon is reportedly very happy with the show. The episode portraying the secret trial of a Saudi-born terrorist will air on April 30. In this week's episode, a character feels stung when his coworkers favor someone else to win a race in a betting pool. (
1,
2)
posted by rschram at 6:27 PM PST - 4 comments
Battle of the Blurbs. The producers of the badly reviewed Broadway show "The Smell of the Kill" have pissed off Times critic Bruce Weber. Good strategy or Bad Karma? Well, at least they didn't make up their own critic.
posted by adrober at 10:23 AM PST - 3 comments
Yahoo has quietly changed its
privacy policy. Accountholders are now subscribed to lots of newsletters plus junk mail and telemarketing. You can change your
preferences and send Yahoo some
feedback. You can't prevent them from subscribing you to new products without closing your account. Will going to an opt-out system help or hurt their bottom line? Will there be a backlash?
posted by neuroshred at 8:45 AM PST - 27 comments
The New Patronage? It used to be that citizens buddied up to their elected officials in exchange for money, jobs, or power. In Washington, DC, however, it gets you a three-digit license plate number.
posted by PrinceValium at 7:36 AM PST - 3 comments
March 29
Congress is now calling for
public comments on the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA).
EFF has a new
action alert about it and a sample letter. Everyone should write, even if you have already.
posted by rhyax at 9:48 PM PST - 3 comments
Run faster, jump higher. What happens when you cross stilts and pogo sticks? The next 'extreme sport' on the verge of the big time, or a new and fun way to really injure yourself?
posted by KnitWit at 8:01 PM PST - 12 comments
Pacific Island States To Sue Western Countries Over Rising Sea Levels
At the meeting of Pacific Conference of Leaders' Standing Committee at the East West Center in Honolulu, members discussed the use of lawsuits to draw attention to the risks which climate change pose their countries, and to pressure the US and Australia to sign Kyoto. (
1)
The conference nearly coincided with a report by the AU National Tidal facility which reported sinking sea levels in Tuvalu. (
1,
2,
3) This story is particularly interesting (
1) on human impact on Tuvalu.
Heading into another major El Nino year, there is no doubt that Pacific states are vulnerable, but how should they argue for recognition of climatic inequalities?
posted by rschram at 5:11 PM PST - 9 comments
Here at Metafilter - as in
many other places on the web -
we spend a lot of time talking about (and in) Haiku. For some reason the web-enabled generation
has come to think of Haiku as a hip,
funny, and
somewhat ironic way to express ... anything. But lest we forget that Haiku is, first and
foremost, a beautiful, traditonal art form. How many of you out there know much about the
history of Haiku? Did you know
that Japan is full of
monuments to Haiku?
Have you heard of or read any of the great traditional haiku poets, like
Masaoka Shiki, the
man for
whom the
International Haiku Award is named?
If you enjoy reading traditional-style Haiku, you can read
any number of
magazines devoted
exclusively to Haiku.
Many of us have not tried to write Haiku since Junior High - do you perhaps need
some instructions on
how to write Haiku?
If you really enjoy reading or writing Haiku, perhaps you might wish to join the
Haiku Society of America.
And, of course, if you wish to know more about Haiku, there are
any number of other resources out on
the web.
posted by anastasiav at 4:51 PM PST - 26 comments
The Bottom Feeders. Are these truly the 5 worst movie critics in America? Personally, Ebert gives me migraines and Joel Siegel makes me want to claw out my eyes. Who's your most hated movie critic?
posted by tankboy at 3:18 PM PST - 30 comments
This article in "The Nation" bemoans the fact that the U.S is dissing its new best friend Russia, and that the recent entente cordiale is under threat.
This article at the the Institute for War and Peace Reporting suggests that the U.S could, perhaps, be a little more selective in choosing its friends.
I have often wondered if the west would have stood for Russia or the U.S.S.R using force on a scale to that which we have recently witnessed in Afghanistan or Chechnya. It looks like they have become our sons of bitches.
posted by Fat Buddha at 1:41 PM PST - 3 comments
The Philadelphia Daily News has
recently covered a
series of articles on "Malternatives," those hard liquor laced beverages like hard lemonades and vodka based alterna-beers that have sprung up in the last year. Even though they contain 100% distilled alcohol,
they are taxed as beer, saving Smirnoff over $80 million in taxes last year alone. Among their other advantages for manufacturers, they get to advertise on TV and be placed for sale next to milder forms of alcohol, dodging laws against hard liquor. Is this a boon for the industry or deceptive practices?
posted by mathowie at 12:29 PM PST - 27 comments
The Animated William Blake "embraces both the freak and the genius, illuminating the artist's visionary poetry with juggling and physical theater." Earthly delights include t-shirts and fortune cookies.
posted by bingo at 11:45 AM PST - 4 comments
Immortal classics I remember as if it were today when I first listened to Marvin Gaye's "Whats Going On" when it first came out. This album has never tired. "What's Going On was the first album out of Motown to include the printed lyrics of the songs in the album liner. Marvin Gaye had something to say and he wanted to make sure people got the message. Thirty-one years later, we're still getting it." Always bewildering why an album becomes immortal.
posted by Voyageman at 11:20 AM PST - 14 comments
Anti-immigrant parties gain support in Europe as they tap long-standing fears about security and the dilution of national identity. The deep running concern, as in Israel, is that their countries are involuntarily becoming multicultural as guest workers and refugees, mostly Muslim, establish themselves in residence. There are about 15 million Muslims in Europe, making Islam the the continent's largest non-Christian religion.
How important is national identity? What would become of democratic values in a Europeann country with Muslim population explosion? How would it affect their economy, as the immigrants are largely unskilled, heavily relying on the welfare system?
posted by semmi at 10:38 AM PST - 9 comments
About Sydney Poitier Something one of my professor's brought up. He said, "I'm tired of everyone being politically correct in Hollywood. They say African-American because they are afraid to say Black." His point being that Mr. Poitier is from the Bahamas and not Africa. What do you think?
posted by ProfLinusPauling at 8:32 AM PST - 74 comments
Death threats from Quale?
Former Prime Minister of New Zealand claims that during his term in the mid to late 80's, then vice-president Dan Quale threatened to have him "liquidated". Apparently it was due to NZ's anti-nuke policy and it happened during a meeting with the Australian cabinet. I don't know if this is funny or sad.
posted by Hackworth at 8:29 AM PST - 19 comments
Phyllis Chesler calls it as she sees it in her latest feminist manifesto. This is not what you think folks - Chesler toes the line at anti-feminism according to most modern day feminist. I well remember reading Chesler's
Letters to a Young Feminist eight years ago and patting down misogynistic tendencies in the hopes of bettering the lives of women everywhere. She calls for sisterhood to further opportunity and does not condone manhating and oppression from the masses which makes her arguments
logical as opposed to seething, vituperative vitriol. We all seemed to be begging for a discussion on feminism and issues between the sexes yesterday in
this particular post and after reading salon today, felt I would provide one...
posted by gloege at 7:27 AM PST - 3 comments
Despite what you may have heard, nationally syndicated dee-jay Don Geronimo, half of the team
Don and Mike,
is not dead. Two weeks after falsely reporting that the radio personality had a "grape sized tumor", the "fan" site
DonaAndMikeFans.com (now understandably defunct), reported Geronimo's "death" from said tumor, complete with a perfectly mocked up Washington Post story (sadly now gone from Google's cache). Needless to say, Geronimo was not amused. Between, Westwood One, The Washington Post, and Geronimo himself considering legal action, I'd say that webmaster is screwed. A joke taken too far, or a case of Shock Jocks not being about take what they dish out?
posted by emptybowl at 6:13 AM PST - 7 comments
Double Feature: An American History Test & "The Paula Principle" Larry David's experiment in web animation may be somewhat disappointing, coming from
Seinfeld's funniest writer, but the
Voting Booth Test that precedes it, about American presidential antics, is funny, informative, brilliantly presented and...damn
difficult! At least for us poor foreigners...[
Needs Shockwave or Flash or something. Just click on Play to get to the voting booth.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:27 AM PST - 7 comments
Barabbas was spared by the mob in lieu of Jesus on Good Friday.
Pär Lagerkvist, a Swedish novelist, explored this incredible character in his 1950 novel:
The novel BARABBAS (1950) was immediately hailed as a masterwork...Barabbas, the criminal in the New Testament, is pardoned instead of Christ, and is sentenced to the silver mines. His is incapable of loving, but becomes gradually aware of greater forces guiding his life.
Now I am myself atheist/agnostic, but I think this is cool. It reminds me of Vonnegut's description of Kilgore Trout as a badly aging Christ, whose sentence of crucifixion had been commuted to life imprisonment.
posted by crunchburger at 2:03 AM PST - 4 comments
Among the 'American Taliban' in Smalltown, USA. "I discovered that Taliban-style attitudes are not restricted to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They exist tenaciously in American towns like this one. Sometimes tolerance prevails in small towns; other times the dark fears and hatreds of the "American Taliban" -- vicious fundamentalists -- are resurgent."
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:44 AM PST - 3 comments
March 28
You may have heard of the
Dark Side of the Rainbow, the synching of
Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz. But this isn't the only mystery that surrounds the band. The
Publius Enigma is the story of an anonymous Usenet
poster connected to the band in some way that claimed that The Division Bell album held a very tangible and real prize. Was it a cosmic mystery of an esoteric nature or just a gimmick to sell records?
posted by euphorb at 10:35 PM PST - 26 comments
Interview with an Ol Dirty Bastard. This is the first interview with ODB I have seen since he was thrown in the slammer. ODB's first two releases were crazy brilliant and full of life. Now he sits in one of the worst prisons around, depressed and unmedicated, for parole violation. Reading this, do you think the court succeeded in breaking his spirit? Is he doomed to flame out when he gets out? Is it wrong that his new cd seems made without his input, and is weak compared to his amazing first two? Would you want to get out of prison and find someone made a book out of your throw off writings? Finally, do you like ODB?
posted by zenhues at 7:57 PM PST - 28 comments
Get your unique 32x32 piece of net art at
Image::copy. Give your e-mail address, select which part of any of three images you want, and get it within a few minutes. The section you receive is then blacked out in the original file.
posted by Su at 5:15 PM PST - 20 comments
The rental cars that the 9/11 hijackers used are available for auction. The rental company wanted to get rid of it because customers had negative feelings about the cars. At the time this article was posted, there haven't been any bids for the cars. I can't seem to find the cars on the
website, though. Would
you buy one of these cars?
posted by Kevin Sanders at 4:53 PM PST - 15 comments
Hollywood loses another giant. Billy Wilder passes on at 95. Just the quick list of movies at the top of the article gives me pause..
Stalag 17, Some Like it Hot, The Seven-Year Itch. Damn, this is definitely a sad week in the entertainment business.
posted by PeteyStock at 4:17 PM PST - 15 comments
Lego-lovers beware...because this is fun to play with.
(I haven't seen this link before, but if it's a double-post, my apologies. I live in fear of making a double-post)
posted by Badmichelle at 12:56 PM PST - 20 comments
The "Sum Of All Fears" trailer recently went online, and is already causing some
heated discussion over major changes from the book. In the wake of 9/11, it seems that terrorists in the film have been changed from Muslim to Neo-Nazi (who then go on to detonate a bomb within the United States). Hollywood knee-jerk reaction or a good call given the timing of things? Discuss...
posted by almostcool at 12:34 PM PST - 28 comments
Musharraf reportedly told the US ambassador in Islamabad that he would rather "hang himself" than extradite Sheikh Omar Sayeed.
I had made an earlier front page post on the issue of extradition, Omar's in particular, and most opinion then seemed to feel that he would be extradited. I am interested in your opinion on whether it's Musharraf who is playing games with the US, only to sustain power, all the while allowing the US to feel that they are playing him.
posted by bittennails at 12:32 PM PST - 36 comments
Who owns the products of slave labour? Or, more broadly, how do we remember the Holocaust?
A unique dispute over ownership rights to artwork in the case of the Auschwitz Memorial Museum vs. former camp prisoner Dinah Gottliebova Babbitt illuminates underlying moral questions about the Holocaust and post-Holocaust culture. Babbitt, now living in southern California, is a university-trained Czechoslovak artist who has been fighting to reclaim her art from the Auschwitz Museum since 1973... [She] was a Jewish prisoner there in 1944 when Josef Mengele learned of her artistic skills and forced her to make watercolor portraits of dying Gypsies in order to get the kind of documentation he wanted on exact skin color and ear shapes. Gottliebova Babbitt made a dozen such portraits, seven of which are now tucked away in Room No. 11 of the Auschwitz Museum. [...] "Mengele ordered me to do it as slave labor. But it was my work, my paintings."posted by jokeefe at 10:41 AM PST - 20 comments
Sony's PEG-NR70V is a PDA/digital camera/mp3 player with a swivel 320x480 color display that runs Palm OS 4.1. it comes with a built-in keyboard, can be used as a remote control for your TV/VCR/DVD player, uses memory sticks, and has a "jog dial" somewhat similar to the
iPod (via
newstoday)
posted by gwint at 10:40 AM PST - 36 comments
Globe software just released
globeProductive for Windows for an introductory price of $75. The software offers a basic office suite with a single file format. In addition, Sun has announced plans to aggressively market
StarOffice 6 for $100 and
reach out to foreign government agencies. Sun donated their product to the Chinese Ministry of Education for deployment in schools with the obvious benefits of growing your own loyal market by the millions. Neither of these packages includes an e-mail client at this time, but there is always
Mulberry and
Mozilla.posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:49 AM PST - 11 comments
The male, heterosexual victims of spousal abuse. "Blood streamed down my face. Internal injuries dislocated my ribs. Lacerations and multiple abrasions marked my back and groin. My attacker had no injuries. I told the officer that I wanted the crime report to note my injuries and the names of witnesses. He responded, 'We ain't takin' a report from you, buddy.'" The officer refused to take Stanley seriously because he was a man who had been beaten by his wife.posted by moz at 9:08 AM PST - 82 comments
This is why Yasser Arafat's, and the Palestinian Authority(sic)'s days are severely numbered: the sham capture and release last year of the guy responsible for yesterday's massacre. My prediction: Israel will completely reoccupy the territories in the next three months to clean out the place.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:30 AM PST - 55 comments
More disturbing mismanagement in Kansas City This time at the VA hospital:
A recent report in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine said that the hospital in Kansas City was overrun with flies and mice in mid-1998. Nurses even found maggots growing in the noses of two comatose patients. Both patients, astoundingly, were in the intensive-care unit. posted by milkman at 8:03 AM PST - 6 comments
Spinning Egg mystery solved Still recovering from the cold fusion 'breakthrough', the scientific world has finally cracked another mystery: why does a spinning egg flip to a vertical positon ? A few days before Easter, what a coincidence!
posted by swordfishtrombones at 2:30 AM PST - 6 comments
After an extensive search of my personal archives (box of stuff stored at my parent's), I stumbled upon the true inspiration for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Seven years prior, video game manufactuer
Koei Games released Aerobiz, an airline management simulator. Its boxart features this
chilling image of the New York City skyline. I am not a New Yorker so please, correct me if I am wrong, but the positioning of the Empire State building and the Chrysler building would seem to place the office inside one of the World Trade Center towers.
posted by nathan_teske at 2:05 AM PST - 22 comments
March 27
"Even though the challenges to bring the
space elevator to reality are substantial, there are no physical or economic reasons why it can't be built in our lifetime."
Once just a cool sci-fi idea dreampt up by
Arthur Clarke, Space.com reports that a 62,000 mile ride is not only possible, but probable. And cheap at only a couple hundred bucks per pound.
posted by tsarfan at 9:49 PM PST - 37 comments
Nuts About Nuts! Where Would Drinks Be Without Them? The Nut Factory is one of the world's greatest sources for nuts, of all kinds and descriptions, handled, roasted and presented in every possible way. Herman Swartz founded the company in 1952. If you've ever enjoyed a few nuts in your life,
a good proportion was probably prepared in their headquarters in Spokane,Washington. Their site happens to be the
most informative and passionate about nuts on the whole Web. Wherever you click; you learn and drool. Connoisseurs will welcome the chance to match nuts with their favorite drinks.
Mmmm... [Mine would be Irish whiskey and club soda with roasted, salted almonds!]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:16 PM PST - 23 comments
Has the web become boring? (NYT link, registration required) With the demise of the
Cool Site of the Day and the transition of MetaFilter to NewsFilter, the question is posed: Where have all the interesting sites gone? Is this the end of the Web as we know it? (...And do you feel fine?)
posted by dogmatic at 7:06 PM PST - 59 comments
Earthlink founding investor Reed Slatkin to plead guilty of defrauding over 800 people out of $254 million in a Ponzi scheme. Several of the victims were members of the Church of Scientology, where he was a minister. Oh, and he filed for bankruptcy too so there's no chance for reparations... I don't know how to feel!
posted by kfury at 4:22 PM PST - 10 comments
Middle East war predictions "..what we are witnessing looks like joint preparations by the Palestinian Authority, Syria, its Lebanese client, Iraq, and Iran, for war on a regional scale, against both Israel and U.S. interests. I fear we may face a major, sudden, external assault on Israel, meant to precede U.S. action against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and indeed prevent the U.S. from going there by enmiring it in the defence of Israel. [From The Ottowa Citizen, lead link in today's Wall Street Journal Best of the Web]
posted by Voyageman at 3:52 PM PST - 14 comments
This New Yorker article is a must read. Long and exhaustive (but well worth the trip), I believe it could have the power to change many minds about what should be done, and when, about Iraq and its dictator. The essential story is about the horrible and terrifying effects of Saddam Hussein's gassing of Kurdish villages, but as the story reminds us at the end "Please understand, the Kurds were for practice"
posted by cell divide at 3:15 PM PST - 13 comments
Our future lies . . . with eugenics??? "
The useful and intelligent classes should be allowed, indeed encouraged, to breed, and the murderous morons, who are never going to contribute anything except misery to themselves and others should be discouraged. No one need be killed." If this wasn't published in the
London Telegraph, I'd think it was from the lunatic fringe. Is A. N. Wilson attempting satire or auditioning for the lead in
Springtime for Hitler?
posted by Erendadus at 3:02 PM PST - 25 comments
I was watching Charlie Rose this afternoon and to my delight, he was interviewing my old favorite
James Garner. Since I was young, I've considered Mr. garner to be the walking epitome of cool. He's been
Bret Maverick(twice!),
Jim Rockford even
God . I always conside Burt Reynolds to be an pale imitation of Garner. Don't tell me I'm the only Garnerite in MeFi land.
posted by jonmc at 1:01 PM PST - 28 comments
The Next World Order. A fascinating article suggesting that the new guiding principle of American foreign policy, originally formulated by Cheney and Wolfowitz during the first Bush administration, is the prevention of the rise of any other great power which could rival the U.S.
posted by homunculus at 10:52 AM PST - 10 comments
The Solar System Simulator 'is
designed to simulate - as realistically as possible - what one would actually see from any point in the Solar System. The software looks up the positions of the Sun, planets and satellites from ephemeris files developed here at JPL, as well as star positions and colors from a variety of stellar databasees, and uses special-purpose renderers to draw a color scene. Texture maps for each of the planets and physical models for planetary rings have been derived (in most cases) from scientific data collected by various JPL spacecraft.' Far too complicated for me to even begin to understand, still I've always wondered what Saturn
looks like from Triton.
posted by RobertLoch at 10:32 AM PST - 15 comments
Sleep. "With pop culture so willingly providing countless numbers of prepackaged lifestyles, people no longer feel a need to truly think for themselves and do not bother to take the time to question the true origin of their own ideals and desires. Nothing can be taken for face value. Everything that portrays itself as one thing, turns out to be something else. Enter Slumber Inc."
An Atlanta-based culture-meme, more akin to
Obey than
Toynbee. But really, aside from drawing the occasional amused or confused glance from passersby, can pasting a poster actually accomplish anything revolutionary?
posted by grabbingsand at 10:10 AM PST - 17 comments
Michael Eisner realigns our moral compass (free mickey) concerning intellectual property and copyright laws, with the help of his "internet guru", Abe Lincoln
(free mickey). He champions the implementation of tech standards for copyright protection, among other things. "Most important," he explains, "what is needed is a common conviction that theft of all things is wrong." Tell that to the brothers Grimm, Mike
(free mickey) .
posted by sixfoot6 at 9:33 AM PST - 25 comments
Google rejects AdWords critical of Scientology. I hate this topic but I can't leave it alone. Google is being accused of being overly cautious in all its dealings with Scientology. A Google rep is quoted to say that they are under no pressure from Scientology to reject the ads. (more inside)
posted by maudlin at 7:07 AM PST - 25 comments
Overnight mutation or lousy science? Or maybe an early April Fool's joke. The Gameboy generation's thumbs are as developed and agile as the rest of their digits. "...the younger generation has taken to using thumbs in a completely different way and are instinctively using it where the rest of us use our index fingers is particularly interesting.' " An interesting social phenomenon, certainly, but biology...?
posted by gordian knot at 6:26 AM PST - 17 comments
oh glorious rapture, vertu has launched. (flash) the phones (called "instruments" in vertu-speak) are okay, but the real meat seems to be the one-touch vertu concierge: allows one to find theatre tickets, make reservations, or (assumably) order KFC. and, as promised, they are indeed clutch-the-pearls expensive: €6000 to €24000. golly.
posted by patricking at 12:58 AM PST - 12 comments
March 26
The Onion's lead story this week is about as succinct an indictment of the drug war as you can get. "If you are paying taxes and keeping your yard tidy, we're not going to hassle you if you come home from a hard day of work and want to enjoy a little pot or blow. But if, on the other hand, you're one of these lazy, shiftless types hanging out on the street all day looking for your next high, we're coming after you."
posted by McBain at 11:35 PM PST - 18 comments
E Online (via Yahoo news) just can't seem to get enough of itself. I'm all for creativity in presenting light-news pieces, but one line in this piece strikes me as over the top:
"The feds launched their, um, probe into the matter after fielding dozens of viewer complaints about the salacious commercial cum fall-sweeps stunt."
Did a major news organization just use a pun on the word "c*m" in one of their stories? Is this what our media has sunk to?
posted by gsteff at 11:19 PM PST - 9 comments
Long Bets. SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--In 28 years, commercial airline passengers will routinely fly in pilotless airplanes. Sound ludicrous?
Not to Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Craig Mundie, who recently bet Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt $2,000 that the prediction will come true.
This site is all about, well long bets. Oh, and it's all for charity.
posted by Zool at 9:18 PM PST - 10 comments
It's the Shperiks! Those wacky mascots for the upcoming FIFA World Cup Korea-Japan!
I can't tell what the heck is going on here, and if it weren't for the upbeat BGM, I'd probably be scared to visit this site again. But it was an interesting little adventure...
posted by Bixby23 at 4:22 PM PST - 6 comments
"Drugs and the Internet: An Overview of the Threat to America’s Youth" It should probably come as no surprise that the government is interested in finding out what kind of drug-related information exists on the internet. What
might surprise you is the Department of Justice’s self-described methodology and intent in pursuing that objective, with little apparent concern for such trivialities as oh, say, the First Amendment. For example, take a look at what the DOJ thinks constitutes "
offending websites." Or how about this "threat":
"Drug-culture advocates are chiefly interested in expanding the size of the community to both legitimize their activity and increase pressure on lawmakers to change or abolish drug control laws." (pressure on lawmakers to change or abolish laws? How un-American!) Needless to say, official statements like this
scare some people, including rave fans, who
appear to be a particular focus of the government’s efforts. (via
overlawyered.com).
posted by pardonyou? at 2:14 PM PST - 16 comments
Beauty and the Labor Market "
Plastic surgery has become one of those things--like reading the tabloids and watching The Home Shopping Network--that Americans like doing and love ridiculing others for doing. Depending on whose numbers you believe, more than seven million of us went under the knife last year"...I had no idea... "
In cold, hard economic terms, being attractive helps you get ahead." ...Now I get it, now I understand.
posted by Voyageman at 2:12 PM PST - 10 comments
Robot Guard Dogs - two new types of robo-dog on their way to market (in Japan) next year from Sanyo (the T7S
Type 1 and
Type 2) About 3 feet long, 80 pounds of Aibo-style security for $750. Cool factor - their onboard CCD cameras and cell phones can watch for intruders and beam images to your own 3G phone.
posted by kokogiak at 1:29 PM PST - 17 comments
Writing about child porn/abuse is artistic. Robin Sharpe has successfully defended himself against child porn acusations; case went all the way to the SC in Canada.
In unrelated news (except that both stories are from the front page of the Toronto Star) a Taiwan scientist has
created a bubble (soap) that you literally can't burst, no matter how hard you try, for days.
posted by Why at 1:22 PM PST - 13 comments
Clean air? We don't need no stink'n clean air. "The White House firmly defended Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Tuesday as newly released documents showed he held at least eight private meetings with industry leaders -- but none with environmentalists -- while the administration crafted its energy plan." Is this really a surprise?
posted by aj100 at 12:13 PM PST - 33 comments
Swissair reborn: "SWISS Air Lines"... "Our 'Swissness' subtly informs the way we look, operate and care for our passengers.
From colour palettes that reflect our natural environment to the cleanliness of our fleet and freshness of our food, our Swiss origins inspire us in all areas of our business."
Can the new airline be rebuilt around a new set of "design" principals, spearheaded by Tyler Brûlé of
Wallpaper mag fame?
posted by hulette at 10:57 AM PST - 9 comments
Food Drops Found To Do Little Good "The Bush administration's much publicized food ration airdrop in northern Afghanistan - hailed by the Pentagon as a way to feed starving residents while winning their loyalty - achieved neither goal in many targeted areas, military experts, aid workers, and a report by retired US special forces officers now conclude." Problems included spoiled food, greedy Afghanis and poor planning. US military claims success. Maybe we should just stick with the guns and skip the butter.
posted by martk at 9:22 AM PST - 12 comments
Mathematical beauty in science (NYTimes) Though I can't say I've seen a moment of God's glory in finding a balanced checkbook (on the first go), I have been in academia in physics and math enough to know the almost mystical pleasure its practitioners get from the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics", and the simplicity and elegance of the equations at its core. I was wondering -- are there other fields where this occurs, where people get the feeling they've tapped into some bare beauty of nature? Philosophy? Art? Architecture?
posted by meep at 8:13 AM PST - 24 comments
A judge has ordered a smoker to stop lighting up at home or in her car if she wants continued visitation rights with her 13-year-old son who has complained about her pack-a-day habit. "Where the child's health is involved," the judge said, "the court would intervene, even if it meant overriding the parents' religious beliefs." Is this in the best interest of the child or an intrusive ruling?
posted by phooey at 7:11 AM PST - 104 comments
Space, Here We Come! The Chinese make significant progress in their quest for the stars. A good bit of
background from Wired explains that they're leveraging off of Russian tech but China still considered the program their
#1 sci-tech advance last year. As an aside, some nice
spy pictures are available of the Jiuquan Space Facility although I imagine it's been a developed a bit since then.
So, will getting a man into space signficantly change the world's opinion of China as it slowly evolves in a major world player? For Americans, will it be
1957 all over
again except the little
beep beep is replaced by a Chinese man waving back at them?
posted by warhol at 6:41 AM PST - 27 comments
"
In a park in Bali, they found a monkey, a pig-tailed macaque, kept in a cage so small it could not lie down properly, and with one leg chained to the bars.
posted by leafy at 6:30 AM PST - 6 comments
March 25
Speedy Gonzales Censored? Cartoon Network officials have banished Speedy Gonzales from their day and prime time lineups for fear of offending Mexican Americans, but fans of the Mexican mouse hero are fighting back.posted by Iberaband at 9:01 PM PST - 21 comments
A gumby post for those sick of hopeless conflict posts and the like, inspired by the news that Rhino Video is about to release SEVEN DVDs containing the entire works of Gumby (it's not up on their site yet, so no link). More importantly, am I the only one who, as a kid, Gumby the scariest thing on television? Or perhaps Mefi's member base is too young to know about Gumby at all?
posted by ParisParamus at 8:26 PM PST - 22 comments
Saddam stokes war with suicide bomber cash. "The hall was packed and the intake of breath was audible as a special announcement was made to the war widows of the West Bank - Saddam Hussein would pay $US25,000 ($47,000) to the family of each suicide bomber as an enticement for others to volunteer for martyrdom in the name of the Palestinian people."
posted by Zool at 6:51 PM PST - 68 comments
A savior for my generation, finally (?) ANDREW W K = grunge - whining + innocence + rocking out something frightening + lust for life + humour + lots and lots of energy. Also keep in mind that I hate popular music. I think he's incredibly cool, and by incredibly cool I mean totally sweet. Anyway, my take is insignificant - what do
you people think of this kid?? The cure for the Linkin' Park disease? The aural Creed ointment??
posted by Settle at 5:28 PM PST - 62 comments
Sneak peek at the new look for the Wall Street Journal "Print buyers were presented with non-disclosure agreements when shown the pages...No media buyer was shown the front page, redesigned for the first time since the 1944." Pretty esoteric subject, but still remarkable how much influence the "look and feel " of a newspaper can have on its reader. Hard to imagine the WSJ looking different. It must be a very tough
endeavor to get right. (IMHO the recently revamped Int Herald Tribune looks way messier and more confusing than before.)
posted by Voyageman at 1:50 PM PST - 17 comments
The Flo Control Project is a test project for image recognition algorithms developed by
Quantum Picture. Basically, they rigged a home computer to control their cat door using image recognition software so that it would only allow cats to enter the house (and not skunks or raccoons), and then only if the cat wasn't carrying prey items (to play with in the comfort of the living room). The newest version of the experiment can differentiate between the two cats currently living in the house. Interesting stuff, not least because many
people couldn't tell two cats apart simply by looking at their profiles. I suspect there are some wide-ranging non-feline applications as well.
posted by biscotti at 1:50 PM PST - 19 comments
The Plastic People of the Universe are a reminder of how powerful and important a force rock and roll can be for positive change. Many American and British acts spoke of revolution, but they usually only meant it in the cultural sense, for these guys living in Iron Curtain-era Czechoslovakia, they were talking about the real life-or-death McCoy. Inspired by the Beatles, Frank Zappa, and future Czech president (and sometime collaborator)
Vaclav Havel,the Plastics created some
amazing music and were often surveilled or imprisoned as "enemies of the state" for their trouble. Thankfully, they lived to see a free Czech republic, although founder Milan Hlavsa passed away in early 2001. Special props to my main man rodii, for jogging my memory about the Plastics in
this commentposted by jonmc at 1:33 PM PST - 6 comments
The Economist recently completed a survey of Gulf countries. Much of the content is 'premium access only' or available in the print version. This article, subtitled "The Gulf states have come a long way, fast. Now they need to think about where they are going" is online and examines the swift changes in economy, institutions, and population trends in this in-the-spotlight region. Some fascinating stuff.
posted by cell divide at 12:44 PM PST - 1 comments
Depressed?
Cheer up, it's not the end of the world. You know, it seems that
The more things change, the more they stay the same . Undecided?
When in doubt, consult your inner child . Sure it hurts, but
No pain, no gain .Many believe
There is truth in every cliché , while others say you should
Avoid cliches like the plague . What's your most hated or loved cliche?
The Book of Clichés.
posted by Mack Twain at 12:42 PM PST - 24 comments
Dumbing Down The SAT I was reading this article and several recent news stories came to mind (sorry, can't find links). One was regarding the resistance of teacher's unions to adopt teaching techniques that have proven successful in private schools (phonics would be an example) and the other was a radio news story about a teacher's union defending three schools that had failed to meet state requirements as to quality of education being provided. So, my question is, are teacher's unions interested in educating children or simply fighting to lower the standards?
posted by billman at 10:44 AM PST - 66 comments
New study claims cold fusion is possible 'A paper by a team of researchers at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory who say they have discovered evidence of what looks like nuclear fusion taking place in a relatively inexpensive tabletop device.' You have to go back to 1989 for the
last claim of this kind. Cheap energy - the answer to America's dreams, or Bush's biggest nightmare? (Via
Techdirt)
posted by RobertLoch at 9:26 AM PST - 31 comments
Hey guys, want to play with some manly paper dolls...er, I mean manly paper
action figures? You do? Rev up your printers and sharpen your scissors, then. You can download and play with your very own
Elvis or
Ziggy Stardust, or maybe
Billy Ray Cyrus, The Dead Milkmen's
PunkRockEr,
Bob Dylan,
Brad Pitt,
Leonardo DiCaprio,
Oliver from Green Acres,
Professor Henry Higgins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks'
Mr. Brown, the fetching dual poses of
Mr. Humphries from "Are You Being Served?",
Brave Colonists From Mars,
Trekkies,
Luke Skywalker and his tons of
cool duds,
Dylan Hunt from Andromeda,
Tom Sawyer,
Hercule Poirot,
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Neil Gaiman's
Morpheus, Monet's
Young John, or
Diego Rivera.
(more inside >>>)posted by iconomy at 7:13 AM PST - 8 comments
Berry, Denzel Make Oscars History Denzel Washington is only the second African American male to win an Best Actor Oscar since Sidney Poitier's win for
Lilies of the Field in 1963. Halle Berry is the first African American female to win Best Actress ever.
Berry's speech was quite good (albeit long) but it leaves me wondering how all those "women who stand behind her[sic], Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox and it's for every nameless faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened" feel about being named inferior. And why didn't the camera flash onto Jada Pinkett-Smith when Berry said that? Now, that would have been a true Oscar moment.
posted by gloege at 7:02 AM PST - 60 comments
2002 Worst Manual Contest - as selected by Technical Standards, Inc (a documentation company). Some pretty good examples of confusing or confounding manual design (also check the
2000 - 2001 winners), with everything ranging from poor translation ("Operate it on the loosen condition of the levers without comfirmation can cause the handle pole bent and cause Incident") to perplexing images to just poor or absent proof-reading. PDF-intensive.
(Heard about this on NPR's "On The Media")posted by tpl1212 at 6:35 AM PST - 6 comments
March 24
Mel Lyman 1938-1978. Mel Lyman was controversial. He was the brilliant folk musician who soothed the Dylan-ruffled crowd at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the Fort Hill guru whose prose in the undergound newspaper Avatar shocked conservative Bostonians of the late 60s... Many years of collecting, and help from numerous people has resulted in the large collection of articles reproduced here. Some say Lyman was God... others that he was a devil... but most of these articles show him as a charismatic individual somewhere between those two extremes.
An exhaustively authoritative page about a very interesting harmonica player who became God. And, man, does this bring back the 60s...(Details within)
posted by y2karl at 11:28 PM PST - 21 comments
74th Annual Academy Awards aka The Oscars are on. History was made tonight? or just the same old, same old? Please note the discussion may give away the winners, as does the linked page.
posted by riffola at 6:44 PM PST - 155 comments
Rustboy , a short film about a Pinocchio/Frankenstein-esque robot child almost a year in the making thus far, has up until recently been illustrator Brian Taylor's personal side project. He's been keeping a diary of the process on his site and posting movie clips, storyboard sketches, and descriptions of how he achieves various effects the whole time. Followers of the site recently got the good news that Taylor has received funding to work on Rustboy full-time beginning in April. I've bookmarked it so I can check in every so often and say, "MAN, I wish I could do that!"
posted by apollonia6 at 12:40 PM PST - 22 comments
Modifyme.com is the one amazing Flash app. Crank up your speakers and make weird electronic music by making colored tiles fly around your browser window! (Sort of). It is just impossible to describe, and totally amazing.
posted by josh at 11:46 AM PST - 14 comments
All right, so maybe everyone's seen this -- I have no sense of just how much of a meme it's become -- but a Mefi search didn't turn up any previous links, so hey. This, ladies and gentlemen, is
The Official Ninja Homepage, with the divine URL of "realultimatepower.net." And, err, yes, I do think there's irony involved.
Hi, this site is all about ninjas, REAL NINJAS. This site is awesome. My name is Robert and I can't stop thinking about ninjas. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet. The "Big Pimpin" MIDI gives it a nice touch, I think. (I also recommend the Scripts. They're like Hemingway.)
Personally speaking, I'm officially done with the internet now. Nobody's ever going to make a better website.
posted by logovisual at 11:36 AM PST - 7 comments
Where were you during Vietnam?
Emi's Online Anti-War Anthology
"The only way to uncover the real truth about the antiwar movement is for hundreds (or thousands) of people to come forward and contribute their recollections. That is why history needs your stories. Please submit them. I don't care how insignificant you think your story may be. Everybody's story is important. All relevant stories will be accepted. I will be happy to work with anyone who wants to prepare one."
posted by sheauga at 10:26 AM PST - 8 comments
Study: Mobile Phone Users Worse Than Drunk Drivers
It took mobile users half-a-second longer to react than normal, and one-third of a second longer than when they had been drinking.
They were also less able to maintain a constant speed and found it harder to keep a safe distance from the car in front. Participants in the study stated that they found it easier to drive drunk than when using a cell phone.
Here's the fun quote:
"Eventually," said Dominic Burch, road safety campaign manager at Direct Line, "we would like to see the use of mobile phones when driving, both hand-held and hands-free, become as socially unacceptable as drink driving."
Nice graphic
Here that explains the time/distance it takes to stop. That fraction of a second = +46 feet stopping time over normal, and +33 over being drunk.
More Here and
The Full Report[PDF].
posted by Blake at 9:09 AM PST - 61 comments
I mourned Sassy, too! "Darren E. Burrows is to Keanu, as Samantha Mathis is to Winona Ryder, as Joan Collins is to Elizabeth Taylor, as Jason Priestley is to johnny Depp, as Luke Perry is to James Dean, as Caludia Schiffer is to Brigette Bardot, as Bill Clinton is to JFK, as YM is to Sassy." --Christina Kelly,in her "What Now" column, Sassy, May 1992. And wouldn't you know it,
she's now the editor-in-chief of YM. (Yes, I know this post won't make sense to anyone who wasn't a teenage girl in the early '90s.)
posted by lillitot at 7:07 AM PST - 23 comments
Who needs a US disinformation campaign when the Brits will do it for them? (maybe, because we're not very good at it?)
"Tony Blair's senior foreign policy adviser, David Manning, planted story of terror lab find in cave in Afghanistan to justify the deployment of 1,700 Royal Marines" - a White House spokesman said "we have received no specific intelligence on a chemical or biological weapons facility".
I'm tired of being taken like this - as a dumb schmuck who'll consume the lies which hack politicos generate for their own murderous ends, and not protest.
posted by dash_slot- at 5:40 AM PST - 19 comments
March 23
Stand and say it loud. Soapboxgirls is a monthly webzine focused on and relating pop-culture from the perspective of contributing female writers. The issues are extensive; the archives stretch back to 2000. The march issue: porn. If the essays aren't enough, you might consider the media reviews, the fiction and the poetry. Those of you for whom a monthly fix is not enough, well --
they understand.
posted by moz at 10:07 PM PST - 6 comments
Anonymously rat out your thieving neighbors. Cable companies are mounting a television commercial campaign advertising cabletheft.com, where you can rat out anyone you might suspect stealing cable. Tagline of the commercial: "Sooner or later, you're going to pay."
posted by dcgartn at 5:21 PM PST - 27 comments
Living with a Redneck Neighbor. What happens when a Vietnamese redneck moves in next door? You log all of his quirks and disasters (including setting the entire garden on fire) and put it all up on your Web site, of course! Complete with pictures.
posted by wackybrit at 3:25 PM PST - 39 comments
Low Haiku _____________________
i kick you so hard
and steal all your ice cold beer
and then run awayposted by Settle at 1:25 PM PST - 15 comments
Science doesn't always take place in labs, and scientists aren't always the right folks to turn to for answers. Sometimes you just have to ask a
lobsterman. [more inside]
posted by bragadocchio at 12:55 PM PST - 5 comments
The state of college discussion has been on the down-turn. I thought it might just be at my small college in the Midwest where people don't really have much to say. Everyone's liberal, everyone believes in equality, everyone believes that the government should help the poor (and I do too), but no one seems to be able to argue these points or give any reasoning for their own beliefs. Here at MeFi we engage in debate on many subject matters, but recently debate has gotten a bad name. This generation, for the most part, seems not to want to engage in it because it is somehow seen as pointless or destructive. I say bring it on... what is the college experience if not a contentious, interesting one? What would our parents think of us?
posted by Hammerikaner at 9:51 AM PST - 24 comments
DEA leaked report on Israeli spy ring Leaked report with blacked out names and no title etc? Note that the spies, if such they are, were gathering info dealing with drug enforcement and not with American military. Is this good? No Bad? yes. But seemingly not bad enough to anything other than shipping them out. Israeli mb big on Ecstasy and DEA well aware of this (If I am, why wouldn't they?). pdf file
posted by Postroad at 2:45 AM PST - 7 comments
March 22
John Fahey - American Primitive Guitar. I got an e-mail from a listener about a John Fahey song I played on my show today and it prompted me to revisit his website. I've been listening to him ever since '67 or so. He died last year due to complications during a coronary bypass operation--I realized again today how I miss him. (more inside)
posted by y2karl at 11:44 PM PST - 14 comments
If you grew up in or around New England you're probably familiar with a carbonated concoction called
Moxie. Tastewise, it's kind of a love or hate deal and I fall squarely in the love camp. And I'm
not alone apparently. The history of the product is actually pretty interesting. For those whose thirst has been stoked, here's a
list places to get it.
posted by jonmc at 9:24 PM PST - 34 comments
NYT is realizing that computer games can be relevent, and not just a silly fad that only kids and the uneducated can enjoy. In this review (albeit
very belated), Thursday's 'Circuits' section reviews both
Operation Flashpoint, the widely acclaimed, disturbingly realistic combat simulation, and Halo, the shooter du jour on the XBox.
posted by GriffX at 6:30 PM PST - 9 comments
Microsoft Windows + NSA = loopholes in security: "A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into [almost all versions of] Windows." an interesting article that really shouldnt be surprising, and all the more reason to buy a mac.
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 3:43 PM PST - 25 comments
Polls Come Under Fire.
Watchdog Group Issues Rebuke on Poll on Islamic Countries. Meanwhile, those bogus aggregates continue to circulate freely in this country and around the world.
posted by semmi at 2:37 PM PST - 16 comments
You thought the Webbys were dumb?
The International Web Page Awards: US$125 to enter, judges self-selected ("Check here if you would like to be a Judge") and the best part: IWPA site created and designed by
Matt Wolf (fast cars, hot babes and screaming guitars) who also happens to win something each year.
posted by sylloge at 2:26 PM PST - 21 comments
Like
Benny Hill,
Monty Python,
Mr Bean,
Eddy Izzard, et al , before him, looks like Sacha Baron Cohen, aka
Ali G. is finally heading this way. Although the
London Times denounces him, while "frighteningly" proclaiming his latest movie will be a massive hit, and the
BBC is royally pissed off, there's no holding him back. Next stop is
America and he wants to be
massive in da States. Some prior discussions going back all the way to May 2000
here,
here ,
here, PS You can catch a glimpse of him the next time Shaggy's Me Julie video plays.
posted by Voyageman at 12:42 PM PST - 26 comments
The Art of Espionage. The ongoing tale of the massive spy ring that the U.S. media won't talk about. "
The basis of the spy allegations is a 60-page document -- a compilation of field reports by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and other U.S. law enforcement officials."
posted by euphorb at 12:40 PM PST - 21 comments
This week marks the 90th anniversary of the death of
Robert Falcon Scott and four companions on their return trip from the South Pole. Most of the blame for the failure of the polar expedition has been placed on
critical blunders Scott made in his trek to the pole but Antarctic meterologist Susan Sontag says that although Scott cut his safety margins too close,
unusually cold weather provided the killing blow. On a related subject, next month A&E premires a movie starring Kenneth Branagh as
Shackleton (flash site) who
saved his crew after their ship shattered in Antartic pack ice.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:35 PM PST - 4 comments
The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act is being spearheaded by Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. He wants to prohibit the sale of any device that can play, copy or electronically transmit one or more categories of media unless special protection technologies are incorporated. Anyone intentionally violating the CBDTPA would be subject to civil and criminal penalties, including prison terms. Welcome to the 21st century.
posted by Hackworth at 12:26 PM PST - 18 comments
"Put your hand in the box." A fun loving duo from Germany has created a version of the classic arcade game Pong that lets you punish your opponent's hand with sensations such as heat, punches and electroshocks of varying duration delivered through a "Pain Execution Unit". Remember: Fear is the mind-killer. (from
Wired)
posted by Stuart_R at 12:14 PM PST - 12 comments
Reverse discrimination? Kathleen Carter, who is white, says that when she became chairman of the education department at historically black Delaware State University in 1995, she was told that she was usurping blacks' right to govern themselves and that whites in the department were trying to make blacks look bad. via Fark
posted by Rastafari at 10:39 AM PST - 16 comments
"I hate your politics. Listening to any of you yammer on about the geopolitical situation is enough to make one want to melt down one's dental fillings with a beeswax candle and then jam an ice pick into the freshly-exposed nerve, just to have something else to think about. "
posted by maudlin at 9:52 AM PST - 46 comments
domain highjacking this also recently happened to our friends at k10k.com along with numerous other legitimate domains in the recent past... an outrage. the blood trail does not lead very far:
heres what stinks my friends....
go to: www.k10k.com .... then click on merchant accounts... and take a look at who the number 2 listing is.... oh, i bet verisign comes up a few other places as well .... thoughts? - i suggest a boycott of netsol and versign until appropriate action is taken or at least their support for this organization ceases.
posted by specialk420 at 8:57 AM PST - 59 comments
The New York City I first saw in 1985 has partially disappeared, and vanishes more everyday. The New York of 50 years ago, the veneer of daily life in the city, is but a memory. The city of 100 years ago is a shadow, remembered by no one.
But the past remains, if not in direct human memory, in
"lampposts, advertisements, bridges, buildings, signs, and things you pass every day in the street that bear silent witness to the NYC that once was." What lies
forgotten below the streets?
The decaying splendor of an bygone age, as well as
the deep roots that have sprouted and nourished the present, living city...
posted by evanizer at 5:19 AM PST - 37 comments
"The Alphabet Synthesis Machine is an interactive online artwork which allows one to create and evolve the possible writing systems of one's own imaginary civilizations."posted by jacobw at 1:53 AM PST - 4 comments
Professor becomes world's first cyborg Surgeons have carried out a ground-breaking operation on a cybernetics professor so that his nervous system can be wired up to a computer.
It is hoped that the procedure could lead to a medical breakthrough for people paralysed by spinal cord damage, like Superman actor Christopher Reeve.
Prof Warwick believes it also opens up the possibility of a sci-fi world of cyborgs, where the human brain can one day be upgraded with implants for extra memory, intelligence or X-ray vision.
The medical possibilities with this are amazing, so why does it make me feel so uneasy?
posted by Tarrama at 1:00 AM PST - 24 comments
"In the end, we will need to give up any lingering fantasies of a color-blind Web and focus on building a space where we recognize, discuss and celebrate racial and cultural diversity. To achieve that goal, all of us -- white folks and people of color -- will have to shed the defensiveness that surrounds the topic of race." So says Henry Jenkins in a Technology Review article on
Cyberspace and Race. On the Internet, nobody knows you're oppressed?
posted by sudama at 12:09 AM PST - 4 comments
March 21
Interior department opens talks with Klamath Tribes that could lead to the return of 690,000 acres. Once the richest and most self sufficient tribe with land holdings of over 22 million acres, the Tribes fell victim to various land grabs over the years, the last being in 1954 when tribal status was terminated and they were (eventually) paid
$220 million for 1.2 million acres of timber. By 1963, 28 percent of the tribe had died by age 25, 52 percent by age 40. Of those deaths, 40 percent were alcohol related. This is also about timber and water, but mostly it's an opportunity to do the right thing. Can the Bush administration and Congress do the right thing?
posted by Mack Twain at 11:42 PM PST - 4 comments
Remember that Florida Mayor who banned Satan from town? Well, after she got done talking to mass-media syncophants like Dan Rather, her utterly misguided publicist apparently let her talk to the keen and incisive sleuths from
Satanosphere, who, as usual, got down to the really important stuff. Like:
matt: ...The one question everybody has for you is this: Are you planning on banning any other major deities or demons? Like Skeletor?
So, will
Skeletor be banned forever from Inglis, Florida? Will the ACLU extend
Skeletor the same legal protection as it graciously offered Satan? And perhaps most important of all, what about
Wil Wheaton?
posted by rusty at 9:57 PM PST - 13 comments
JOSEPH SABIA RESPONDS!!! "Nearly 30,000 individuals have visited Cornell Review Online to read my March 4th article, College Girls: Unpaid Whores [editor's note: that number is now approaching 60,000]..."
posted by Settle at 8:58 PM PST - 36 comments
Tooling around today, I happened upon small but burgeoning subculture-
gay Heavy Metal fans. Headbanging and Rainbow Pride stickers may seem like an odd combo until you think of the number of openly gay performers in Hard Rock (Roddy Bottum of
Faith No More, Doug Pinnick of
King's X-a gay
Christian metalhead, and of course the great Rob Halford formerly of the legendary
Judas Preist. I dunno whether this is a large trend or merely people coming out of yet another closet, but it's nice to see metal shaking off it's homophobic image.
posted by jonmc at 8:10 PM PST - 17 comments
"IU WINS! IU WINS! For the first time in years, IU is proceeding to the Elite 8, knocking down the number one team in the country. The last time Indiana beat Duke in the tournament in 1987, they went all the way. Could it happen again?"
[thanks to
SportsFilter for this one. Aw yeah. Ol' Dickie Vitale must be rollin' over in his grave right about now. Oh, wait. He's not dead yet. Or is that just a matter of opinion...baby?]
posted by Bixby23 at 6:54 PM PST - 18 comments
Michael Moore San Diego Near Arrest Blown Out of Proportion: Despite
Moore's implications that his appearance was somehow a courageous act of dissent, it turns out that the whole thing was a harmless followthrough with a permit: a trivial book signing session, not a rally storming the gates. Is Michael Moore a legend in his own mind? And with self-designated spokesmen of this egotistical caliber, how can the Left as a whole expect to be taken seriously?
posted by ed at 6:50 PM PST - 28 comments
NBC is pulling out of air hard liquor ads. Citing congressional pressure and public outcry, NBC announced today it has reversed its alcohol advertising policy. The decision comes the same day MADD
proposed new stricter rules on TV ads for
all alcohol, including beer and wine, that are based on the NBC's now-scuttled "time, place and manner restrictions" set for the hard-liquor ads. (See also this
AdAge story on MADD's proposal) A spokesperson for the Distilled Spirits Council called NBC's decision decision "unfortunate" and a "disservice to the American public."
posted by me3dia at 2:38 PM PST - 19 comments
'Bout time. For those of us holding out on the iPod, waiting for more storage space, the time to buy is finally here. One caveat: instead of dropping the price of the 5gb iPod to $299 and debuting the 10gb model at $399, they've kept the same price for the five gig and raised it a hundred bucks for the ten! Not quite what I was expecting...
posted by andnbsp at 11:14 AM PST - 31 comments
Astrology Takes the Semiotic Turn: CURA Promotes New Theories of the Fates
Almost a year ago, we discussed the case of Sorbonne PhD and famous French astrologer, Elisabeth Teissier (
1,
2). She caused a stir with her argument that astrology was a "human" science on par with anthropology and philosophy.
It seems her case bolstered the hand of other practicioners. CURA (Centre Universitaire du Recherche Astrologique) has an extensive collection of writings on astrology both ancient and modern. More recent papers examine astrological patterns as sign systems, a conceptual heuristic made popular by anthropology and later studies of popular culture. There's also some use of statistical methods, and concepts from cognitive psychology. It seems there's some movement in both directions;
Semiotica recently published a paper that's very popular among the astrosociologues (
1).
posted by rschram at 9:51 AM PST - 3 comments
The Sans Halen Tour? Former Van Halen frontmen David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar are reportedly discussing a possible summer tour together. They met for the first time recently and are now in talks to team up. Hagar broke the news this week on his
official website, saying, "Believe it or not, Sammy and David Lee Roth are talking about touring this summer. Sammy was blown away at how well they got along together." A spokesman for Diamond Dave confirmed only that the two exes "have met for the first time." But Hits magazine is reporting that superstar manager Irving Azoff has signed on for "The Sam and Dave Show."
No matter how bad this tour might be, it's still gonna be better than seeing Van Halen with Gary Cherone. Heck...watching squirrels defacate is more interesting than Van Halen with Gary Cherone. These boys need to realize that Dave sucks without Eddie, Eddie sucks without Dave, and Sammy and Gary suck no matter who they're teamed with. posted by Reggie452 at 9:50 AM PST - 39 comments
Plagiarism anybody? Cute hyper-referenced spiel whose tech issues are more seriously discussed elsewhere - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/616339/posts?page=1 (which is itself probably a plagiarism)
posted by peacay at 7:44 AM PST - 2 comments
Controversial corpse exhibit,
Körperwelten (Body Worlds), is set to display human corpses in London, UK in two days. UK health department concluded that the exhibit did not breach the 1984 Anatomy Act as the law did not cover the preservation of corpses by means of plastination, a technique invented by
Professor Gunther von Hagens, the creator of the exhibit.
posted by frenetic at 7:30 AM PST - 9 comments
Portrait of a Con-Artist: Due to the efforts of the site
StopAglaia! (which was posted here earlier in the year), The New Jersey Star-Ledger printed this facinating story exposing a con woman of "Kaycee Nicole" proportions, and includes an interview with the woman in question. She's impersonated Denis Leary, Henry Rollins, and the manager for Bright Eyes, and she's conned both men an women out of thousands of dollars. Sadly, the printing of this article has caused
StopAglaia! to shut down, but their
forum is still up, so victims can trade info. [More Inside]
posted by emptybowl at 7:15 AM PST - 7 comments
Genocide Alert for Zimbabwe issued by Genocide Watch, a group founded by a former State Department official on Cambodia and Rwanda issues, Gregory Stanton, who in 1996 devised the
Eight Stages of Genocide:
Classification, Symbolization, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Extermination, and
Denial. GW contends that Zimbabwe has reached Stage 6, Preparation. With the
arrest of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on treason charges, Robert Mugabe is proving himself impervious to
international pressure. Is Zimbabwe really on the brink? If so, what can, or should, we do? Our record
isn't good, but we didn't have Stanton's scale then, either.
posted by dhartung at 5:56 AM PST - 16 comments
Growing meat in a laboratory may seem like a good idea. They evey suggest that it might stop us "having to slaughter animals for food." But, to do it, they have to soak the meat in the blood of unborn baby cows.... Somehow, that doesn't sound right.....
posted by dwivian at 5:41 AM PST - 26 comments
March 20
StarTrek.net is
offering internet access (care of EarthLink), your own StarTrek.net email address with anti-spam service, and exclusive Star Trek content, as well as a few other "goodies", all for 21.95 USD a month. Destined to be huge, or will this fizzle and eventually disappear?
posted by mikhail at 7:49 PM PST - 15 comments
The Shy Girl's Guide to becoming a Whore is an online tutorial for women considering becoming an escort by using the technologies of the Internet. The web has changed the nature of prostitution offering women more opportunities than the traditional street walker, escort. or brothel models. We now have the 21st century CyberWhore model, and this is an overview as to how it is done.
posted by jcterminal at 5:23 PM PST - 16 comments
Chlamydia seems to be on the rise. Working in a hospital lab I've seen an increase in tests for
HPV,
Herpes and
Gonorrhea. It's enough to make one wonder if sex is worth the risk.
posted by Apoch at 1:48 PM PST - 13 comments
Well, ha ha ha, and yah, boo said Christopher Hitchens to those who would oppose the war on November 14. At this time, of course it was assumed by Hitchens and his ilk that we had won, all that remained was to install "our sons of bitches", and rub the peacenicks faces in it.
Now it seems very far from over and Hitchens and others with similar views have articulated their thoughts in the Guardian. It makes interesting reading.
As does
this article on how it is possible to love the U.S but not George Bush.
posted by Fat Buddha at 1:04 PM PST - 9 comments
America, Heal Thyself. "Racial and ethnic minorities tend to receive lower-quality health care than whites do, even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable, says a new report from the National Academies' Institute of Medicine. 'Disparities in the health care delivered to racial and ethnic minorities are real and are associated with worse outcomes in many cases, which is unacceptable. The real challenge lies not in debating whether disparities exist, because the evidence is overwhelming, but in developing and implementing strategies to reduce and eliminate them.'"
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 11:45 AM PST - 17 comments
The story of the former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center is a tale of absurd and comic excess. "...he cajoled the Abbot's Council—a hand-picked body of senior priests that he employed to circumvent Zen Center's legally constituted Board of Directors—into granting him $25,000 for the purchase of a BMW... But why a BMW, and especially one in the pricey 700 series? A smaller car, Baker pleaded, wouldn't allow him to sit in zazen posture while driving." This must be what is meant by
"Boomer Buddhism."posted by homunculus at 11:06 AM PST - 8 comments
White House media advisor spins the war in London. President Bush has sent "military advisors" to Yemen, Georgia and the Philippines to help with the war on terrorism. Did anyone know he sent his #2 media man,
Tucker Eskew, to London as a "media advisor" to Tony Blair's #1 media man,
Alastair Campbell, to help spin the war to the Brits?
Do you think a U.S. administration would ever agree to a foreign government rep "advising" them on how to talk to their citizens? Or do they already?
posted by busbyism at 10:50 AM PST - 9 comments
God Changes Everything Let's say there was a school system or a chain of clinics on whose professional staff were a certain number of men who molested the children in their care and who, whenever this behavior came to the attention of their superiors, were shifted to another school or clinic, with parents and colleagues, not to mention the justice system, kept in the dark whenever possible...
posted by cell divide at 10:38 AM PST - 8 comments
Hearing Voices Fascinating stuff... Sights, sounds and stories; a photo-audio-essay, with excerpts from Scott Carrier's Harper's article and ambient recordings of the streets, songs and prayers of the Afghan people.
posted by zeoslap at 9:32 AM PST - 3 comments
Combatting White Supremacy in the Anti-globalization Movement
The anti-globalization movement has been vibrant in communities and organizations of color in the US and around the world for hundreds of years, yet white supremacy was rampant in the movement against the WTO ministerial meetings in Seattle. In other words, racism is alive and well in social justice organizing, and the WTO was no exception.
posted by djacobs at 9:04 AM PST - 8 comments
Islamic Republic of Great Britain? The heartland of violent Islamic extremism is now none of the official fronts of the war on terror. Its center is Western Europe -- mainly, but not exclusively, in Britain. "Al-Muhajiroun has one goal," Anjam Choudry, its U.K. chairman, told the Observer newspaper. "We would like to see the implementation of the sharia law in the U.K. Under our rule this country would be known as the Islamic Republic of Great Britain."
posted by semmi at 8:16 AM PST - 24 comments
Send Them Packing! That's right -- the uninformed opinions of well-known Hollywood actors have grated on you for years. They seem to love Cuba more than America. Well, with the click of a mouse, you can buy them a ticket! [more inside]
posted by dhartung at 1:51 AM PST - 46 comments
March 19
Sims Survivor - 8 contestants left alone in a house. When the food runs out, who do you think will win? Follow it day by day. Great idea!
posted by Jubey at 11:23 PM PST - 14 comments
HP shareholders vote to acquire Compaq... or not? Stop me if you've heard this one before: One side has already declared victory while the other won't concede defeat until all the votes are counted. The margin appears to be less than one half of one percent, and a manual count is in the works.
posted by jjg at 10:57 PM PST - 4 comments
Does
this actually throw any more responsibility onto ISPs? In PA they are now mandated to block child pornography. But only the kiddy porn the government already knows about. Which apparently anyone can get
around, anyway. Noble attempt at eradicating a social scourge or pointless burdensome do-nothing legislation?
posted by umberto at 8:52 PM PST - 5 comments
Jandek
has been creating some of the most arrestingly
bent music around(audio
here
) for 23 years now. On top of the strangeness of his music he's so reclusive
that he makes J.D. Salinger seem like a party animal. This brings out the
investigative
impulse in some folks, like this fan who went so far as to take
pictures
of his record company's PO Box, among other things. Someone else has has
created this fittingly inscrutable
tribute
page
. Jandek's music is worth a listen, but be prepared to recalibrate your
understanding of the term "strange."
posted by jonmc at 8:37 PM PST - 6 comments
Giant world map stencil - Teach kids that there's more to this wide world of ours than just their hometown with this giant pavement stencil. Learning geography has never been this much fun!
posted by phalkin at 6:03 PM PST - 9 comments
Bringing up Adultolescents Newsweek has a fascinating article on adult children who're still living with their parents after graduating from college. It's hardly a new concept, but this is a good piece. (Especially noteworthy: The parents who spend away their own retirement savings providing for grown kids.) And if you've priced a supposed "starter" home recently, you know as well as I do that this trend isn't going away any time soon.
posted by GaelFC at 5:29 PM PST - 13 comments
Most internet users have monitors that can display more colors than the 216 that are used in the traditional “browser-safe” palette.
moreCrayons is a bigger box of crayons; 4,096 colors for the web. A site by our own
kirkaracha.
[Via Zeldman]posted by riffola at 5:09 PM PST - 14 comments
Marconi was a fascist anti-Semite , says The Age. Evidence has emerged that the father of wireless communications blocked all Jews from becoming members of the science-oriented Academy of Italy at the behest of Mussolini, long before Il Duce's racist laws became known to the rest of the world.
posted by brookish at 4:26 PM PST - 34 comments
College Girls: Unpaid Whores. So you think you're a great troller. You think you know how to spin your words with absolute precision to force your opponents into a saliva-spewing frenzied rage. Well, guess what? You're a nobody, an amateur. It's time for you to bow down before the One True Master: Cornell University doctoral candidate
Joseph J. Sabia. I defy a single MeFite, of any ideology or political persuasion, to not find at least one statement in this article that doesn't completely infuriate them.
posted by aaron at 4:04 PM PST - 90 comments
Bye Bye, Tuvalu...
"In 1998, BAS predicted the demise of more ice shelves around the Antarctic Peninsula. Since then warming on the peninsula has continued and we watched as piece-by-piece Larsen B has retreated. We knew what was left would collapse eventually, but the speed of it is staggering. Hard to believe that 500 billion tonnes of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month."
speccy piccy this.(
link via Ethel)
posted by lagado at 3:14 PM PST - 18 comments
AOL's UK tax break to end...next year?!!? To those that hath, shall be given.
For some years now,
the worlds largest online service (now part of the worlds largest media co.) has been allowed a
$30m./year exemption from Value Added (sales & services) Tax - VAT. This has been blamed on European Union legislation by
Customs & Excise, who await the Brussels behemoths decision - as we all do - with baited breath.
Is it just a case of sour grapes by their rivals, especially
Freeserve, now owned by one of Europe's largest media companies - Wanadoo - or was there a real distinction between
ISP and
Content Provider?
Surely, there must be a defence for this -
'Devil's Advocate', anyone?
From TheRegister.co.ukposted by dash_slot- at 1:23 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
In a world of frustratingly cyclic bloodshed,
peacemakers show the way according to an article by William Pfaff at the IHT. AC Grayling at The Guardian says that true heroes are
those brave enough to make peace. With terrorism and counter terroism raising the temperature of rhetoric and war across the globe, will a new wisdom emerge where cooler heads prevail?
posted by will at 11:09 AM PST - 9 comments
13-year-old girl dies after being hit by puck at Blue Jackets' game: A 13-year-old girl died after being hit in the head by a puck that was shot over the glass and caromed off another fan at an NHL game. Brittanie Cecil died Monday night, two days after she was hurt at the game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Calgary Flames, Children's Hospital said. It was believed to be the first death of a fan hit by a puck at an NHL game.
posted by dagny at 10:38 AM PST - 40 comments
The Sybli's raving mouth, according to Heraclitus, speaks without mirth
or adornment or perfume: with the help of the god her voice continues for a thousand years:
Plutarch -
Why The Pythia No Longer Prophesies In Verse...
So, what kinda gas was she huffin'? The Sybil on solvents--an archeological update on the Oracle of Delphi (NYT: you know the drill...)
posted by y2karl at 7:07 AM PST - 7 comments
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto. Both Honda and Sony have unveiled the newest versions of their humanoid robots. Honda favours a more practical design, while Sony's is geared for entertainment. Having just watched
AI the other night, I'm wondering when and if people would want to have one around the house.
posted by Stuart_R at 6:33 AM PST - 21 comments
Robbers escape with $3m (£2.1m) in cash after hijacking a van at Heathrow Airport, London, the second such raid there in recent weeks. Nice to see that security has improved then, at the worlds busiest
airport after 9/11.
via BBCposted by MintSauce at 4:30 AM PST - 12 comments
Is Silicon Valley coming back? Newsweek's cover story this week is the return of Silicon Valley after the Bust of 2000, start-ups and all. Does this new round of hype have any morsels of truth to it?
posted by costas at 4:21 AM PST - 3 comments
Are you seeing the world differently? You may be suffering from synesthesia, a rare condition that allows an individual to perceive symbols in color. Someone who has synesthesia will read a newspaper in multitudinous colors, often perceiving a color change within particular syllables. In one case reported in this article, a man overhead a conversation in Korean, only to have his mind inundated with colors, despite being unable to understand the words. Rare condition or a state of sensory cognition to come?
posted by ed at 3:58 AM PST - 48 comments
Damned if you do, damned if you're dead. If families don't purchase an expensive urn for cremated remains, require them to purchase a $45 temporary container. But be sure to stamp it "Temporary Container" on all four sides, advises one industry newsletter.
The funeral industry may not be making any friends, but they're making a boatload of money. The
Funeral Consumers Alliance would like to help them make a little less.
posted by headspace at 3:13 AM PST - 14 comments
Dali + Lichtenstein =
Massurealism? That's one ugly baby. Apparently a lot of the marketing and visual information we're presented with currently has roots in surrealism. But is it art?
posted by Su at 12:54 AM PST - 4 comments
March 18
Man dies before boarding an airplane? Or did he die in midflight? "Authorities disagree on whether Walsh, who had a history of heart- and kidney-related health problems, died midflight or before he boarded the plane." What really gets me is: how could he get on the airplane if he was already dead? Wouldn't the people helping him onto the plane notice?
posted by Kevin Sanders at 10:12 PM PST - 13 comments
If you were a reader of
Who's Who in Baseball or
The Sporting News back in the late '70's and early '80's you probably recall seeing ads for the amazingly intricate
APBA Sports games, arguably the forerunner of Fantasy Baseball and the like.I was always fascinated by themyet I never ordered a set. I imagined that in the age of the GameCube, they had gone the way of many outdated amusements. I couldn't have been more wrong, apparently.Judging by the number of
fan sites and
league sites,(not to mention
APBA shareware)the hobby seems to be alive and well. Makes me wanna go buy a set and start a league.
posted by jonmc at 8:33 PM PST - 7 comments
Britain is now at War - US request the support of 1,700 Marines "These troops are being deployed to Afghanistan to take part in warfighting operations. We will be asking them to risk their lives. Their mission will be conducted in unforgiving and hostile terrain against a dangerous enemy. They may suffer casualties." A lot of people, including the media, were stunned by this announcement. Speculation is starting to become rife as to why the US need our troops? SAS, fair enough, but why our Marines? This is the largest deployment of British troops since the Gulf War, and arguable in far more dangerous circumstances. Most thought we were just going to lend a hand, now it appear that we will be playing a very serious part. Has there been much comment on this over in the US? Specifically on why these troop have been requested?
posted by RobertLoch at 5:55 PM PST - 43 comments
Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies discusses time travel concept discrepancies in popular movies, such as Back to the Future, 12 Monkeys, and Flight of the Navigator. Although they're really just movies, and time travel isn't real (as far as we know), author M. Joseph Young provides very logical arguments for why those things couldn't really happen.
posted by lnicole at 4:17 PM PST - 25 comments
100 Dumbest Moments in dotcom land a particular favourite being.. "Candice Carpenter tells Fast Company in Feb 98, 'There isn't an Internet company in the world that's going to fail because of mistakes -- Internet companies make thousands of mistakes every week" .... quite :) (via
lesser-evil)
posted by zeoslap at 2:51 PM PST - 15 comments
(In)famous Last Words We often look to the last words of our great thinkers to tell us something about that mysterious transition between life and death. So what are we supposed to make of Walt Whitman's last words:
"Hold me up; I want to shit"? And how about Dylan Thomas' dying declaration:
"I've had eighteen straight whiskeys. I think that's the record"? What last words would
you want recorded for posterity? (via
a & l daily).
posted by pardonyou? at 2:46 PM PST - 38 comments
About to take the plunge into BlogWorld? Help me out, here!
Assuming that I have enough 'interesting' thoughts on my 'interesting' life (ha ha), which of the many products and services out there has the best features for the novice, and which are for the veteran?
Talk to me of writing style and format, any early mistakes you made, and what are your proudest blogging moments?
F'gedabou' de 'A-List' - what do
you think - I wanna pick yer brains!
posted by dash_slot- at 9:16 AM PST - 29 comments
N.Y. taxpayers' welfare Viagra bill rises to $6M. Conservative Party chairman Michael Long called the expense "an unconscionable waste of taxpayer money."
I would tend to agree. It doesn't seem right. The money could have gone to those who really need it, instead of a bunch of old folks who just want to get laid.
posted by susanlucci at 8:15 AM PST - 23 comments
Moby on the cover of the NYTimes Mag, talking about music. Actually, the whole issue is "Future of music" related, and considers what will be valuable when the music itself becomes free. Very interesting stories. It's an NYT story, so l:metafilter, p:metafilter.
posted by rev- at 7:16 AM PST - 35 comments
Remember the missing boeing? Well, the man behind that revelation has now come out with a book that will blow all previous conspiracy theories out of the water. (and by conspiracy theories i don't mean 9/11 - but also who shot JFK, etc). Interesting way to get rich.
posted by dabitch at 6:52 AM PST - 18 comments
Thrash Yoga is not yet on the horizon, much to the comfort of a few people who think breathing can be too loud for neighborhood noise standards. Now, let's all chant together, but quietly, "where's my pony....."
posted by dwivian at 6:49 AM PST - 1 comments
A Good Summary, albeit in the form of a NYPost Editorial, as to why Israel should ignore 95% of the criticism it gets regarding it's current policy towards negotiating withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. President Bush: are you listening?
posted by ParisParamus at 6:04 AM PST - 33 comments
Brand USA Naomi ('No Logo') Klein on Charlotte Beers' work to manage the US 'brand'. Sitting outside the US, a lot of what Klein says about external perception of the 'brand' (and of Beers' actions) seems quite believable to me, but I'd be interested in hearing an insider view.
Klein's assertion that "...
America's problem is not with its brand-- which could scarcely be stronger--but with its product" seems relatively solid, and if it is, it seems that Ms Beers' mission is all-but-impossible, or at the very least misdirected.
That said, the thrust of Klein's argument is the assertion that the US's values are basically incompatible with the whole idea of branding, and I'd suggest that the same could be said of many countries. I suppose the point here is that this specific exercise is rooted in the US's positioning of itself in the world at this point in time.
[Via
abraxas]
posted by jonpollard at 4:59 AM PST - 4 comments
Brilliant Astronomy Pix "This page is the gateway to a unique collection of wide-field astronomical photographs, mostly made with the telescopes of the Anglo-Australian Observatory by
David Malin.....These are some of the finest pictures made with professional telescopes anywhere and every effort has been made to capture the true colours of distant stars, galaxies and nebulae using innovative photographic techniques and CCD detectors".
Found via Scout Project - http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/sr/)
posted by peacay at 4:44 AM PST - 3 comments
March 17
The University of Iowa, of all unlikely places, maintains the
International Dada Archive. I suppose someone had to try, since almost no one understands it. There you can not only view images, but download PDFs—page by page, unfortunately—of
many Dadaist publications. Most of them are in various non-English languages, but still worth looking at just for the visual design.
And yes, the urinal is there, but you'll have to find it yourself.
[via
Consumptive]
posted by Su at 11:35 PM PST - 8 comments
The Essential Hinduvta Orgchart by Suman Palit in his weblog
the Kolkata Libertarian. I'm not from Calcutta, and I'm not Libertarian, but I found the information design in this chart of the relationships between the Hindu nationalist party BJP and various other Hindu institutions fascinating. Note that not only each organization block, but most of the relationship lines, have individual links. What specialized knowledge do you have? What tools would help you share it with the world?
posted by dhartung at 11:28 PM PST - 4 comments
Globe of Blogs lists weblogs by location (
Portugal, anyone?), title, authors's name, sex, age or birthday (why?). Problem is, the list is scanty at best. Sign yourself up.
posted by rodii at 7:47 PM PST - 22 comments
CBT Cafe, for those who learn visually. I was scouting around looking for Flash tutorials and stumbled on this site. The gimmick: they don't just teach you the code/effect/design, they actually walk you through it with a narrated Quicktime movie.
Currently serving Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop, Cleaner, Quicktime, EBay, and the MacOS.
posted by jragon at 6:50 PM PST - 2 comments
Stupid Animals! Feast your eyes on these lovable but unintelligent-looking beasts. Who says the Web doesn't cater to all possible tastes? For the record, here's
my favourite moron...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:40 PM PST - 21 comments
From David Remnick's analysis in The New Yorker. Faisal Husseini, a decided moderate among Yasir Arafat's leadership ranks, gave an interview not long before he died in which he compared Oslo to a Trojan horse, an intermediate, tactical step leading to the elimination of Israel. He said, "If you are asking me as a Pan-Arab nationalist what are the Palestinian borders according to the higher strategy, I will immediately reply: 'From the river to the sea' "—that is, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.
posted by semmi at 3:32 PM PST - 7 comments
Rejection reduces IQ "To live in society, people have to have an inner mechanism that regulates their behaviour. Rejection defeats the purpose of this, and people become impulsive and self-destructive. You have to use self-control to analyse a problem in an IQ test, for example - and instead, you behave impulsively"
posted by zeoslap at 2:09 PM PST - 21 comments
New York's hidden world of ethnic pharmacopoeia [nyt reg req] Always cherished Witch Hazel, but these are true eye openers: "
Dr. Chase Nerve and Blood Tonic, with liver concentrate: for simple anemia and associated symptoms such as that tired feeling-nervousness-lack of appetite ;
S.S.S. Tonic, iron and 12 percent alcohol, and
Canadian Healing Oil, turpentine, oil of tar and creosote: universal liniment for strains and sprains;
Safi the Blood Purifier : for skin diseases such as acne vulgaris, boils, skin rashes, blemishes, urticaria, checks nose bleeding, cures constipation, corrects indigestion, improves complexion , and helps you stay slim and smart... [btw] This isn't the 19th century, this is New York, 2002. " One years supply of Safi now on its way.
posted by Voyageman at 9:37 AM PST - 15 comments
Smoke Different An old Mac gets overhauled as an iBong, and sparks some interesting hypothesis about where does Apple's creativity spirit really comes from.
posted by betobeto at 9:29 AM PST - 15 comments
I'd like to wish a happy
St. Patricks Day to Irish readers, Irish-Americans, Irish-Britons, Irish-Australians, Irish-New Zealanders, and whoever is of Irish descent. And if you don't have Irish blood, go to the pub, drink some Guinness and you soon will!
posted by tomcosgrave at 7:07 AM PST - 33 comments
Six months that changed a year -- Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci take on 9/11 with predictably dark and comic results...
'9/11: The planes strike - as Martin Amis memorably describes them - 'sleeking in like harsh metal ducklings'. Tony Blair publicly drains every drop of blood from his wife to help the injured of New York. Taking his time, George W. Bush formulates a measured response - which turns out to be the most expensive bollocking ever unleashed against shepherds.'posted by LMG at 2:29 AM PST - 35 comments
March 16
Save internet radio The [American] Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel ("CARP") is proposing to lawmakers that internet radio stations aught to pay royalties retroactive to 1998; royalties of .14¢ per song per listener for Internet-only webcasters, .07¢ per song per listener for broadcast radio simulcasts, and .02¢ per song per listener for non-commercial radio simulcasts.
Most stations are operating on zero financing. Do the math; .02¢ x 12 songs per hour and 100 listeners..
Don't let this spell the end of internet radio. Please, go to the site and
click to help.
posted by giantkicks at 11:12 PM PST - 6 comments
The
Global Positioning System is now commonly used for navigation in hundreds of ways worldwide. Some
very innovative things are now being done with the system beyond simply finding out where you are. However, according to
this BBC story, "emerging applications are being hampered by concerns that information from the global satellite network, which is run by the United States, could be switched off or restricted in the event of a security threat." Am I the only one worried about what will happen to all the hikers, rescue services, ships, small planes and geeks that would suffer if the network is switched off?
posted by Gamecat at 9:00 PM PST - 12 comments
"There should be a law about these people with web diaries or they should all wear identifying clothing or something, so that innocent bystanders who don't need some perverse kind of public fame can know to steer clear." Or, using Google to flush out potential dating disasters.
posted by Psionic_Tim at 8:56 PM PST - 73 comments
"Britney Underground takes you on a tour of poignant urban artistry in a time of crisis." it's a
nice collection of graffti from britney spears posters in new york, pretty funny. the
negative emails are possibly the highlight.
posted by rhyax at 3:34 PM PST - 10 comments
Neo-Nazi movie reviews, because neo-Nazis need culture, too. It's not all slurs against Jewish and black people (although there is a lot of that); there's also deep cultural insight, like:
- "Having odd sex or sex with odd things or odd people is very, very likely to make you not-ordinary" (American Beauty review)
- "Rage Against the Machine, which, if you're unfamiliar, is screechy Mexican supremacist noise." (American History X review)
- Kids are "quart-sized creeps: greedy, selfish, stupid all-consuming egomanaical tyrants who will drive adults crazy if they they let them" (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory review)
- Lord of the Rings is "a glimpse, here and now, of the kind of White culture we are working to create in the future"
[Via the April 2002
Esquire, not online]
posted by kirkaracha at 2:41 PM PST - 37 comments
Yo La Tengo take your requests right now live on WFMU (various streams are
here). Best pledge drive gimmick going: right now they're doing some T-Rex. A $60 pledge gets the band to play your selection.
posted by BT at 2:34 PM PST - 9 comments
Saudi Arabia's religious police caused the deaths of 15 schoolgirls by preventing them from escaping from a burning building. The children were not allowed to escape because they were not wearing the correct Islamic dress. When something like this happened under the Taliban it was taken as proof of Evil, but when it happens under our friends in Saudi Arabia it seems to just be ignored by the American government and the American media alike (or at least I haven't been able to find any reference to it in the American media.)
posted by homunculus at 1:42 PM PST - 29 comments
E.mail Mugabe. Amnesty International, unsurprisingly, has grave concerns for the welfare of Mugabe's opponents, particularly as few international observers remain. It suggests you send a fax or an e.mail asking that he considers the human rights issue and provides an address and number. Very probably a meaningless gesture but hey, you never know.
posted by Fat Buddha at 1:22 PM PST - 4 comments
Maria Bartiromo's
hair is a predictable market indicator. She can talk for
hours. Joey Ramone
wrote a
song about her [realaudio]. I hope she likes all those letters I sent her.
posted by Hildago at 12:53 PM PST - 12 comments
A feminist critique of "post-feminist" fetish. "It was bad enough when so many feminists supported Bill Clinton...'Sex positive' feminism, at its root, is really just another manifestation of patriarchy, because it fully supports men's 'rights' to seek pleasure wherever and however they wish."
(Clean site, but includes subject matter and links that may not be safe for work.)
posted by bingo at 12:37 PM PST - 18 comments
Speaking of religion causing nightmares, these just don't feel 'right'. Maybe it's the idea of 'reinforcing' the idea that Jesus is your friend, in all activities. Last i checked, forced friendships don't work well. And sandals aren't conductive to track and field.
posted by jcterminal at 12:06 PM PST - 17 comments
A family of six was found dead in a case of murder-suicide, authorities in Oregon said Friday. Bryant, the father, became estranged from several branches of his family, including his parents, three brothers and a sister. The other family members were Jehovah's Witnesses and the split appeared to involve differences over religious beliefs.
In other news,
An angry, mysterious preacher told Andrea Yates that she was evil, that her children were damned, and that only death could save her. Mr. Yates testified that the preacher had taught him and his wife that children are lost forever to God, and therefore damned to eternal hellfire, if they are not "saved" by the time they are 13 or 14.
Are we regressing to the religions produced nightmares of the Middle Ages?posted by semmi at 10:20 AM PST - 49 comments
March 15
Google continues march towards world domination with Google News. "Google's News Search (BETA) service presents information culled from many of the world's news sources collected over the previous week. With continuous updates throughout the day, you'll keep up to date with what's happening now and learn about the stories that led to the most recent developments." Now there's no excuse for posting a CNN link.
posted by darukaru at 9:59 PM PST - 19 comments
The Case for Profiling 'As it happens, the suicide bombers who attacked us on Sept. 11 were young, Islamic, Arab and male. That is not a stereotype. That is a fact. And there is no hiding from it, as there is no hiding from the next al-Qaeda suicide bomber. He has to be found and stopped." From what can be read
here,
here, and in another Time article
here , it would appear that profiling is a touch harder to do than this lightweight rant suggests. Whether one agrees with profiling or not, there seems little point in Time Magazine cheerleading it with an article that can only add to the high level of ignorance already surrounding this subject.
posted by RobertLoch at 6:19 PM PST - 23 comments
Doctor of love anthropologist Helen Fisher argues that romance, marriage and divorce follow predictable patterns as old as the species. The evidence is as near as your local bar. Objective observations about Love and what it means when her toes curl.
posted by stbalbach at 3:19 PM PST - 8 comments
ATHEIST tag wins! The State of Florida has ruled that Steven Miles will be allowed to keep his vanity plates. Says Miles, "Actually, we didn't have to fight very hard." Well, you get the
ACLU into something, and people start to listen...
posted by LuxFX at 12:52 PM PST - 22 comments
Life, not Death for Ms. Yates. And, Texas doesn't have a no-parole sentence, so she'll be eligible for release. Where does she go from there?
posted by dwivian at 11:59 AM PST - 33 comments
U.S. Spy agencies say Gulf War pilot likely seized. A U.S. intelligence report on the case of Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher provides the most complete explanation by the U.S. government on why the pilot probably was captured alive by Iraqis after ejecting from his F-18 in 1991. Interesting that this story comes out just as the U.S. is preparing to war on Iraq.
posted by Ty Webb at 10:47 AM PST - 26 comments
meta-run-for-your-money? I have had a bizzare 15 minutes contemplating and ranting about this very thing (reading news twice at two different sites) at this mefi
link. I better get to work. I'm hooked. A bloggolidator?
posted by kremb at 9:32 AM PST - 2 comments
A Bush amnesty for a Mexican army. Perhaps hell has frozen over, but I find myself in agreement with Pat Buchanan.
"With this vote to grant mass amnesty to hundreds of thousands from Mexico, the House and the president abdicated their duty to defend the American Southwest from foreign invasion [...] Congress was inundated with phone calls and faxes pleading, "Don't do this!" But well after dark, Speaker Hastert, under a suspension of rules, did his business and ran it through, by one vote. White House lobbyists had greased the skids." I heard about this on TV last night, but this is the only story I've yet run across which really goes to the meat of the issue, even if I still think Buchanan is a meathead and even if it isn't exactly an unbiased news source. In time of "war," does this really serve the interests of
homeland security?.
posted by StOne at 9:16 AM PST - 25 comments
Turn any flat surface into a speaker. "The Soundbug can be plugged into the headphone socket of, for example, an MP3 player or a Walkman and then fixed by suction to the flat surface — effectively turning a desk or window into a speaker."
posted by o2b at 9:00 AM PST - 33 comments
125 Car Pile-up on Georgia Interstate 75. This is the second time my neck of the woods (literally the neck of the woods!) has
been in the news. With 125 vehicles involved, I think this might be the largest wreck in US history. Thankfully, only 4 people were killed, considering it happened during the morning rush to get everyone's kids to school.
posted by mcsweetie at 8:59 AM PST - 23 comments
My friend Duncan is comatose in a hospital clear across the country after a horrible
car accident last weekend, and there is little I can do. His brother is keeping us all updated as to his progress, but the
prognosis [shockwave: diffuse axonal injury] is not good. Yesterday, he suffered a mild heart attack, and they can't give him so much as an aspirin, because of his recent cranial bleeding. There's no time for establishing a formal open source project, but if anyone's got a few spare cycles to ping him (as his sister said, one of those wires plugged into him has to be a T3) and let him know we miss him, it'd mean a lot to us.
posted by birddog at 3:40 AM PST - 26 comments
"Everything it takes to stage a
guerrilla drive-in fits neatly into the back of a Honda Civic: a VCR, a video projector, an FM receiver and a generator. The only other things you need are a film and a wall."
posted by sudama at 1:01 AM PST - 4 comments
March 14
America's greatest quadrapelegic, recovering alcoholic cartoonist has a home
online. John Callahan may be the most hilariously truthful people alive.
This page contains animated versions of some of his best. The collection of
hate mail he's recieved is a hoot as well, if you enjoy laughing at the sanctimonious.
This is one of his best and also the title of his excellent
autobiography.posted by jonmc at 7:21 PM PST - 20 comments
Either Proud To Be A Racist Or Sorry To Be A Racist; But A Racist All The Same... No, it's
not easy being white. Here's an excellent article by Robert Jensen in
Mighty Organ which identifies racism in its most well-meaning form: "
Unlike Joe, who was hiding his weaknesses, I think Jim was hiding his strengths. Just as Joe needs to be accountable for his actions, so does Jim. Instead of saying "I am still a racist," it would be far more honest, and more courageous, for him to say, "I have worked hard to overcome much of the racism that this culture handed me. I think I have done a pretty good job. But precisely because of that fact, I have even more of a stake in having other folks - non-white and white - keep an eye on my behavior and hold me accountable."
Right. Racism isn't all the same - but can one admit one's racism and not want to be a racist at the same time? Isn't this paternalism under a liberal guise? So, what is the balance between condescension, white guilt, political correctness and conscious racial prejudice?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:40 PM PST - 38 comments
Boom Selection is a music blog, focused on bootlegs. Not old Grateful Dead concerts, but DIY remixes and combinations, with tracks that pit Eminem against Britney, or Grandmaster Flash against Boards of Canada. Crazy stuff.
bsx is a helpful filter that whittles it all down to must-listen boots and mixes.
posted by lbergstr at 12:13 PM PST - 13 comments
North Koreans would rather drink poison than return Refugees seek asylum at the Spanish embassy in China.
"We are now at the point of such desperation and live in such fear of persecution within North Korea that we have come to the decision to risk our lives for freedom rather than passively await our doom," the group's statement said.
"Some of us carry poison on our person to commit suicide if the Chinese authorities should choose once again to send us back to North Korea," the statement said.
posted by norm29 at 12:07 PM PST - 7 comments
Goliath lost. This and other pro-small billboards are popping up in downtown Atlanta. No doubt they have cousins (little ones, I'm sure) springing up in your cities. I couldn't believe my eyes, because the billboards seemed to be promoting the ever-so-British
Mini Cooper.
The Mini is... well... just like it says, the veritable opposite of the stereotypical American SUV. Yes, it is the type of car
Mr Bean would drive. But when you see them in their natural Anglo habitat, you can't help but notice they're just perfectly suited to zipping to and from wherever. The site lets you find a dealer, build your own Mini and save it for future reference. The catch is that you have to fill out an opt-in form, but with lines like this as part of your agreement, how could you resist?
"- I agree to chase squirrels around the park now and then and giggle like a madman while doing it."Yeah. I want one. But will the American public?
posted by grabbingsand at 12:07 PM PST - 77 comments
SFMOMA appoints Neal Benezra as new director. Benezra was formerly the deputy director and curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Art Institute of Chicago, and replaces David Ross, who left the museum in a hurry last August to become chairman of the board of
Eyestorm. During his tenure, Ross spent $140 million on acquisitions for the museum; Elaine McKeon, chairwoman of the Museum's board told the NYTimes that "We will still continue purchasing works of art, but we are going to move more slowly." Benezra has ties to Hunk and Moo Anderson, and wrote the catalog essay for the 2000 show of the Anderson collection. Could this mean that the Anderson collection will eventually be gifted to SFMOMA? (
sfgate story,
nytimes story)
posted by msippey at 10:51 AM PST - 4 comments
Booklend is for those who love books but chafe at purchasing an unknown quantity and dislike the public library’s pesky practice of due dates and fines. MetaFilistine
MarkAnd not only allows you to peruse his personal library, but will ship you the tome of your choice
gratis and even sends a postage-paid envelope for you to return the book at your leisure. The NY Times jokingly refers to it as a "
quixotic effort", but Mark’s library is bereft of
Don Quixote. Perhaps you could donate this book, or others, to his library.
posted by Avogadro at 10:22 AM PST - 19 comments
Too many neighbors? Bioweapons can help solve that problem. Recently declassified documents say that one of Australia's leading scientists suggested just that in 1947.
posted by gimonca at 9:37 AM PST - 6 comments
Let him stay. Spend just one hour with the Loftons to understand why Florida's ban on gay adoption is wrong. This couple has taken in several HIV positive kids, but now that 14-year-old Bert, whom they have raised since infancy, tests HIV negative, the state of Florida considers him "adoptable" and is trying to find him a "suitable" (read
heterosexual) adoptive family. Interested parties can
send a letter to Florida officials in protest.
posted by whatnot at 9:31 AM PST - 46 comments
Oil makes the world go round. The Senate yesterday defeated an effort to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks by 50 percent over 13 years, voting instead for a measure backed by the auto industry.
posted by semmi at 8:15 AM PST - 39 comments
Domain Surfer is just plain cool. I mean... now I can see if a text string appears
anywhere in a domain, and the results are clickable (note to the folks who do those awful WHOIS searches: I don't care who registered it, I care whether it's up-and-running!). Anyway, the link is via
Rion.nu who, BTW, has some wonderful
photographs of the Tribute of Light.
And the link to the photographs came via David Gallagher... another fine photographer, not to be confused with that ijit from Oasis.posted by silusGROK at 7:59 AM PST - 12 comments
"
Rendition" is the State Department legal term for when they
ship (its a lot like extradition minus due process ) Al Qaida/Taliban POWs to a friendly 3rd country such as Egypt or Jordan for questioning.
"Why not just question them in Guantanamo" you ask? Thats because in some countries, interrogation is less regulated than it is on US soil. Neat, huh?
posted by BentPenguin at 6:35 AM PST - 52 comments
"They were weakening our morale, it was better for them to go." Thus spake one of our new allies, Afghan Commander Allah Mohammed, about U.S. soldiers in yesterday's Times article entitled "'Inadequate' U.S. troops pulled out of battleground". No doubt many will just call Commander Allah a low-down fluoridator and leave it at that. Sheesh, I mean, it's U.S. troops doing the fierce ground infighting over there, right? Er...well...but anyway...strangely, at least some U.S. troops "tactically reappraised" out the battle (as the U.S. military so aptly phrase-coined it)
echo his judgment: "It was nothing like training at all," said Sgt. Michael Dickson, 21. "They were real bullets, and they were intended to hit you. It was scary at all times."
Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? Our young...Afghan young...always the young, learning about the reality of bullets, in our name.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 2:03 AM PST - 45 comments
Are people demonizing Islam to gain publicity? In an op-ed article in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle,
Asma Hasan wrote that post 9/11, 'hating' Islam is getting 'intellectualized'. She wrote that those who are framing the debate in 'clash of civilization' terms are doing it mainly to gain publicity (or because they dont know better). Her ire was directed more towards Sullivan and Rushdie whose voices as she rightly pointed out carry greater weight than that of people like Buchanan or Graham.
I do see a lot more stuff on the the 'clash of civilization' theme now than I have seen before sept 11. Is it because people think and speak a lot more on this subject now and this is what they actually believe or has the subject been getting sensationalized over the last few months?
posted by justlooking at 2:02 AM PST - 11 comments
March 13
Highly Addicitive Yes I know these are usually reserved for friday...But I couldn't resist sharing! Warning: a small windows download (an applet is available too).
posted by neilkod at 8:38 PM PST - 2 comments
Slaughterhouse webcams. Would you eat meat if you were confronted by images like this every time you ate it?
I wouldn't.
"You have just dined, and however scrupulously
the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful
distance of miles, there is complicity."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870
Warning: graphic pictures.posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 7:54 PM PST - 51 comments
Soulwax , the Belgian hepcats have just completed their latest album. It appears it became something of an albatross. Very good link
here detailing some of their trials and tribulations, also provides a little bit of an insight into the workings of the record industry (Is it still called the
record industry?). I found it fascinating, not least because of their eclectic tastes.
posted by Fat Buddha at 4:23 PM PST - 5 comments
The Minstrel Show The Minstrel Show presents us with a strange, fascinating and awful phenomenon. Minstrel shows emerged from preindustrial European traditions of masking and carnival. But in the US they began in the 1830s, with working class white men dressing up as plantation slaves. These men imitated black musical and dance forms, combining savage parody of black Americans with genuine fondness for African American cultural forms. By the Civil War the minstrel show had become world famous and respectable. Late in his life Mark Twain fondly remembered the "old time nigger show" with its colorful comic darkies and its rousing songs and dances. By the 1840s, the minstrel show had become one of the central events in the culture of the Democratic party..
The image of white men in blackface, miming black song, dance and speech is considered the last word in racist bigotry for some. And yet, standing at the crossroads of race, class and high and low culture, blackface minstrelsy is one fascinating topic in academic circles. It’s history is intertwined with the rise of abolitionism, the works of Mark Twain and the histories of
vaudeville,
American vernacular music, radio, television,
movies, in fact all of what is called popular culture. Details within.
posted by y2karl at 1:57 PM PST - 26 comments
Start saving! US Airways announces that for just 10 million frequent flyer miles, you can get a free trip to space! "There's just one catch: The rocket and the launch pad don't exist. So don't ask for time off quite yet."
posted by stew560 at 12:47 PM PST - 7 comments
Text Based Pong: The game doesn't keep score yet, if you want to see who's winning, write it down on a piece of paper.
A word is worth 1/1000th of a picture. And yet, somehow I find this a compelling bit o' minimalism.
posted by danOstuporStar at 11:01 AM PST - 15 comments
INS grants visas to deceased hijackers - on Monday, the folks at Immigration and Naturalization services finally got around to issuing student visas to Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi (who were aboard the two flights that struck the WTC).
posted by tpl1212 at 8:47 AM PST - 18 comments
Legally, is a computer more like a TV, a pen, a radio, a CD player or a shortwave radio (or a hat, a brooch or a pterodactyl)? "Last month the top executives of two of the most powerful media companies in the world traveled to Washington to testify before Congress about the most dangerous threat they face: the American consumer." As in most computer piracy discussions, this
NYTimes article (reg. req'd) analogizes computers to existing technologies:
"airplanes, telephones, watches and televisions." Isn't the problem that no existing precedent really fits? To me, a computer is at once a communications tool, an entertainment (audio and video) device, a content creator, a copier, and much, much more. The laws regulating each of those things vary significantly, and in some cases approach mutual exclusivity, and for good reason. How can one device satisfy all of them?
(oh, and via blogdex)posted by Sinner at 8:46 AM PST - 14 comments
Are Jesus & Mary buried in Pakistan & Kashmir? Hmm. Suzanne Marie Olsson, a New York-based researcher, claims that the earthly remains of Jesus lie under a Muslim saint's tomb in Kashmir. She is using DNA testing on remains from the Pakistani town of Murree that she believes to be those of Mary. Olsson also believes Moses is buried in Bandipore in north Kashmir and Solomon at Takht-i-Suliaman in Srinagar. "You have more Christian holy sites than even Egypt or Israel," she said in an appeal for help from Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah. (Via
alt.muslim)
posted by laz-e-boy at 8:36 AM PST - 27 comments
Play "police sketch artist" with this Flash project. You can select from dozens of different noses, jawlines, eyes, hair, and so on to create an image of your friends or foes. It's harder to recreate someone than you'd think.
posted by acornface at 7:50 AM PST - 65 comments
Cairo on the horizon (again). Balmer talks of Microsoft's intention to integrate MSDE (i.e. SQL Server) technologies into the Windows filesystem. This long sought-after utopia of unified, object-oriented storage where files and directories become irrelavant has been talked about since 1994. It may, soon, be upon us.
posted by costas at 7:00 AM PST - 9 comments
Buying & Selling Babies? "The practice, which is widespread among private adoption facilitators, of charging prospective parents different fees depending on the race or ethnicity of the child they adopt is one that Hutcherson is fighting to change from his Redmond, Wash., church. The Antioch Bible Church has established its own adoption agency, and is lobbying state legislators to change Washington's laws. He said that besides putting a price on children, the practice discriminates against white babies and people who seek to adopt them — an issue he said has been overlooked because white people, particularly those who can afford the high adoption fees charged, are not used to considering themselves victims of discrimination."
posted by owillis at 6:20 AM PST - 14 comments
March 12
The Ramones and the Talking heads to get rock and roll rocking chairs in Cleveland
The sparring, though, is as much a part of the Ramones' history as their baseball-bat-clutching American eagle logo. "They'd play for 40 minutes," recalls CBGB proprietor Hilly Kristal. "And 20 of them would just be the band yelling at each other." Danny Fields says that early on, they'd also come to blows after their sets. "Johnny would be strangling Dee Dee, and there'd be press or fans waiting to see them," he says. "I'd tell folks they were just toweling off, give them a couple of minutes, and by the time people saw them, they'd be sipping a beer."
posted by AsiaInsider at 6:13 PM PST - 18 comments
The inevitable seems imminent. Despite widespread condemnation of the election process, Robert Mugabe seems destined to win the Zimbabwe Presidency 'legitimately'*.
This is terrible, terrible news.
*please read posts here for explanation of ghost quotes.posted by davehat at 6:07 PM PST - 9 comments
Scientists will tell you that Hydrogen is the most common element in all of nature.
Me, I think the scientists have it all wrong. I think the universe is really made out of
ironyposted by BentPenguin at 5:44 PM PST - 9 comments
Information Activism - Spring Clean the Internet Week. "We aren't here to censor or judge information. We say publish what you want, useful or frivolous, but take care of it once you've created it. Keep it up to date, make sure it's still doing what you wanted it to do. And if it's not, get rid of it. It's that simple."posted by jacobw at 5:37 PM PST - 7 comments
Wow. The little Afghani girl whose eyes captivated a nation back in 1985 (when her portrait graced the cover of a National Geographic magazine) has been located (alive!).
posted by silusGROK at 4:44 PM PST - 38 comments
Getting the Picture at the Smithsonian Archives. Sometimes a bit of doodling can make that note a little more special than the latest syrupy Hallmark design.
posted by Su at 4:28 PM PST - 4 comments
Business magazine editor sleeps with interviewee. Harvard Business Review editor Suzy Wetlaufer interviews retired GE CEO Jack Welch for HBR. They begin a torrid romance (Welch is, of course, still married to his second wife.) Other editors find out about the romance and Wetlaufer cancels her story. Other HBR editors call for her resignation and the managing editor merely reassigns her. 2 other HBR editors quit in disgust. You can't make this stuff up!
Additional coverage via
Financial Times;
Boston Globe;
MSNBC.
posted by gen at 3:11 PM PST - 9 comments
Let's hear it for the Fighting Whities! Solomon Little Owl, director of Native American Student Services at the University of Northern Colorado, is a member of an intramural basketball team that has adopted the name
"The Fighting Whities." Team members say they want to raise awareness of the issue of painful cultural stereotypes. The team, made up of American Indian, Anglo and Hispanic players, is protesting nearby Eaton's use of the team name "Fightin' Reds" and an Indian caricature as a mascot. Little Owl said, "The Fighting Whities" issue is "to make people understand what it's like to be on the other side of the fence. If people get offended by it, then they know how I feel, and we've made our point." Curiously, I'm not offended. Are any of you?
link via yil daily net buzzposted by David Dark at 2:09 PM PST - 107 comments
Web/TV, apparently The CBC gives the Web/TV interface another go with
Zed. Instead of collateral materials from a TV show posted on the Web (a begrudging old-media conceit), you post on the Web and it’s all voted onto a TV show. Details skimpy at present, but quite possibly viable.
posted by joeclark at 1:50 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Police officers and FBI agents find cyanide in a Chicago subway. A Wisconsin computer worker who dubbed himself Dr. Chaos was charged Monday with possessing a chemical weapon.
The suspect was wanted on several warrants from Wisconsin for allegedly staging attacks on a television station transmitter, electric power substations and natural gas pipelines.
When police shut down the subway tunnels for three hours Saturday night, they publicly said they were searching for the possessions of a homeless man who had been living in the tunnel.
posted by andre_111 at 1:37 PM PST - 8 comments
Good news on the pollution front.
Town in Northern California finds a way to turn its sewage into non-polluting water and make a wildlife refuge. If you live in Arcata, you can flush your toilet with pride! Quick overview
here or the
full flush.posted by keithl at 12:39 PM PST - 8 comments
Should creation of intellectual property be taxable? The City of Seattle wants to tax the development of software, not the sale, the development.
Across the country state and local governments are starting to consider taxing this. The question is, is software development taxable? If so, is writing a book taxable, painting a picture? People pay sales tax on the software, and businesses pay income, use, and B&O taxes already. Why is this different?
via /.posted by patrickje at 12:21 PM PST - 28 comments
All your favorite news can be found at Stereotypography -- or, at least, the news from 18 distinct weblogs. Condensed into three frames, you can read the news from three of those sites and switch between them with drop-down boxes. Resize the font or refresh the news feeds at will. (found via
alt.sense.)
posted by moz at 8:59 AM PST - 9 comments
Obesity Harder on Health Than Smoking according to a RAND study of 10,000 adults released today. "The study found that obesity -- linked to health complications including diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, strokes and certain cancers -- raises a person's healthcare costs by 36 percent and medication costs by 77 percent. [...] In terms of dollar amounts, the study found that obesity raised healthcare costs by an average of $395 a year, while smoking increased costs by $230 and heavy drinking is associated with a $150 annual increase."
posted by NortonDC at 8:44 AM PST - 48 comments
White house announces more silly and vague schema for defining terrorist threat. Ok, so how does going from the total unclear status of "everybody lookout, it's coming" to Yellow Alert which means "a significant risk of terrorist attacks" make things more clear? For that matter what's the point of Red Alert anyhow? Is that for when the Pentagon is already on fire?
posted by shagoth at 8:41 AM PST - 39 comments
Not a hoax!? 'We are in Mrs. Lentz's Computer Class at Clara Bolen
Elementary in Tawa City, MI. We are doing an experiment for the art and science fair to be held in April at our school. We are trying to see where our email can travel in the space of one month.'
posted by asok at 7:10 AM PST - 19 comments
Kurzweil teleports to nanotech conference. Well, nearly... it looks like an oversized teleprompter - but according to those who were there, a lifesized 3D image of ace tech-visionary
Ray Kurzweil did indeed appear at a conference in Richardson, Texas, March 7, 2002.
"I thought it worked really well," said Steve T. Jurvetson, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson. "I thought it was at least 95% of the real thing. In fact, the person that followed strangely enough seemed pale and flat. In comparison Ray almost was more realistic and three-dimensional." But will it share a Bud in the after-meet schmooze? In any case, we always knew that, in terms of the tech-spec,
The Force Was With Us.posted by theplayethic at 7:05 AM PST - 19 comments
If you would, please, I'd like to politely invite you to consider
The Decay Of Manners: "
We rush through life in such a hurry these days, that there is little or no time or thought for the refinements and courtesies that in the good old days of our grandparents were considered necessary to good manners."
Minnetonka Record, November 21, 1902. Thank you very much for your time.
posted by ColdChef at 6:53 AM PST - 110 comments
Here’s a nice addition to your movie memorabilia collection. Would that I had the spare £15,000 lying around. If you could owe one little piece of a favorite cult film, what would it be?
posted by Fenriss at 6:43 AM PST - 51 comments
Don’t call them terrorist – call them "Koran Preservationist." Bob Jones III, writing on BJU’s
website, says that his university & Christians in general should move away from the word "fundamentalist" because of it’s negative connotations since the September 11th terrorist attacks.
"Bob Jones University is unashamedly Fundamentalist, but the term is beginning to carry an onerous connotation with the world at large because of the media's penchant for lumping Christian Fundamentalists in the same heap as Islamic Fundamentalists. Instead of "Fundamentalism" defining us as steadfast Bible believers, the term now carries overtones of radicalism and terrorism. "Fundamentalist" evokes fear, suspicion, and other repulsive connotations in its current usage."
Is Bob Jones III right to lay blame solely on the media? Or is the public at large simply fed up with religious
zealots,
young earthers,
fundies,
anti-abortion bombers and
terrorist?
posted by wfrgms at 6:32 AM PST - 25 comments
The Integrator. Mostly for math/science/engineering people, this is a web based free
Mathematica integrator. It can do indefinite integration on every integrable function (over one variable). It is a blessing for students and a great web resource. Anyone seen anything as scientifically handy on the web recently?
posted by talos at 6:28 AM PST - 7 comments
Does extradition serve any purpose? A few weeks ago there was some talk of extraditing Omar in the US press, but since then the story seems to have died down, or rather lost momentum. I wonder why there hasn't been a louder clamoring for his extradition? I am sure his wife cares about the outcome of this case.
posted by bittennails at 5:46 AM PST - 11 comments
50 Cents, Please. Remember When A Call Cost a Dime? Soon: the 50 cent NYC local phone call. The poor state of payphones in NYC has long fascinated me. Supposedly, most don't work because of vandalism (often, the dial tone works, but the you lose your coins), but I suspect Verizon just wants to maximize cell phone sales. And I suspect the payphone is an endangered species for health reasons.
What's the state of the pay phone in your city?
posted by ParisParamus at 4:50 AM PST - 38 comments
March 11
Art Fights Back — an exhibit of poster art at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa — displays images dedicated to the memory of September 11 and support of the Unites States and its troops. Seems like a typical thing to do around war time, right?
Take a close look at the
actual poster design. Don't they seem rather
non-American in their artistic style? In fact, they recall an era of poster design for a
dramatically different context than what was typically thought of as U.S. patriotism.
posted by Down10 at 9:29 PM PST - 39 comments
Star Trek Goes All Right Wing On Us This week's
The Nation brings us a treatise on how all the post-Kirk Treks were really progressive and groovy, and how
the new Enterprise is racist, misogynistic, and perhaps even crypto-anti-semitic. Quote: "interplanetary politics seem to have been framed by Pat Buchanan" and "The women were like insects themselves...and in the time we spent mentally fondling their bouncy, soulless bodies, I felt, for the first time, that
Star Trek didn't consider me a person." Oy veh.
posted by lisatmh at 9:23 PM PST - 27 comments
The BBC launch a new radio station. For too long, an entire demographic has been excluded from British radio. That is, contemporary and classic rock music that isn't exclusively chart oriented. It's only available on digital radio and streaming over the internet. So far it looks very promising. As a public sector broadcaster, this is exactly the sort of thing the Beeb should be doing - filling in the gaps left by commercial stations. Enjoy.
posted by salmacis at 4:47 PM PST - 28 comments
Dig him up! Dig up that corpse! If you really love Jesus Christ, you'll haul his bones out of the ground to prove my daughter wrong! Dig up his grave! Pull out his tongue!
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:24 PM PST - 42 comments
They call them
"echphenomena".It's interesting to discover years later that there's a formal name for something you experienced. Around age 7 to 8, I went through a period where I would repeat
everything a second time just under my breath(I could also not hear my self doing so). It eventually went away on it's own, but for a while I was freaking people out. In my twenties I met two other people who underwent similar experiences. Most often, these behaviors seem to be associated with
Tourrete's Syndrome or Parkinson's, although I suffer from neither. It
is a fascinating phenomena, though. Have any other MeFite's been acquainted with this phenomena?
posted by jonmc at 3:44 PM PST - 38 comments
Ginger... iMac... Yahoo? It looks like Yahoo! is taking a page from
Steve Jobs's book, promising something that's 'so big there's never been anything like it on the Internet, or anywhere else.' Liftoff is 1 PM Pacific Time on Wednesday which, incidentally, is just after trading closes at NASDAQ.
posted by kfury at 2:12 PM PST - 37 comments
Survivors Healed, but Not Whole "But hearing the story of how Patty crawled out of that room, dutifully dragging her behemoth purse (it weighed a ton, it seemed, with enough odds and ends to supply an army), and this as her colleagues were stripping off their clothes and lapping up water off the floor in a desperate struggle to escape the terrible heat and stay alive -- that was funny.
A half-year after the attack, the reconstruction of the Pentagon is racing along, with crews repairing the broken facade and ready to start roof work today, the six-month anniversary. Harder to mend are the souls of those who were there Sept. 11."
posted by owillis at 11:28 AM PST - 2 comments
No Profiling, No Saftey? ...to placate special interest groups that fear profiling will result in widespread racial or religious discrimination, authorities are imposing screening quotas that are unlikely to thwart a future terrorist attack. They should be doing the very opposite by creating more sophisticated profiling systems that catch real criminals.
Is it really "damned if they do, damned if they don't" or is there a better way?posted by nobody_knose at 10:11 AM PST - 36 comments
GeoCities was once the darling of the online world to every-man wanted to post his own web site. Free space for all, and all were happy. Then Yahoo! bought it, and the dot-com collapse occurred. Now, GeoCities offers
new premium packages, offering more features. But at $19.95 before you can even having scripting, traditional web hosts greatly undercut Yahoo!'s offering, and offer more in terms of features still.
posted by benjh at 9:11 AM PST - 13 comments
Perhaps AOL isn't that bad. I've never liked
AOL, but this recent
article makes me want to give the company a big hug. Finally, people are stepping up to the
Microsoft juggernaut and deciding to use other means to deliever content and run their own machines. AOL is trying to cut costs by migrating from UNIX and Windows to a
Linux environment on the server-side. On the client side, they will apparently be pushing the use of
Mozilla instead of their previous default browser, Internet Explorer. This has the potential to impact the web enormously, as AOL's 30 million subscribers will soon be using Mozilla as their browser. Web designers will have to start sticking to
w3c specs instead of using MSIE-specific coding, which will hopefully force Microsoft to follow the specs more closely. Begun this browser war has. (via
/.)
posted by Hammerikaner at 8:50 AM PST - 43 comments
Hackers target Cell Phones With the connectivity of cell phones to the internet, hackers have begun to target cell phones, programming prank calls, placing calls to wherever and erasing the software in the phone.
posted by Lanternjmk at 8:25 AM PST - 7 comments
Report from Ground Zero Brenda Berkman, highest-ranking female FDNY firefighter (25 women, 11,475 men): “[O]ne good thing that has come out of it is that I didn’t have to die to find out how many people care about me. It has really been overwhelming, the love and concern that has been directed to me from women and men from all over the country.”
No female firefighters died in the bombing: “We have fathers and sons on that list, brothers on that list.... But no women firefighters, which was an absolute miracle because a huge percentage of us are in the companies that were hit the hardest.”
posted by joeclark at 7:38 AM PST - 2 comments
How engines work. This isn't new but it's a great resource for the mechanically minded and the mechanically challanged as well. It includes animations and step by step descriptions of how most existing engines work, from
Steam Locomotive to
Jet Propulsion. Simple yet informative.
posted by talos at 5:52 AM PST - 18 comments
Police offers will soon have to disclose why they have stopped someone - I thought this sounded like a reasonably good idea... especially since on more than one occasion I've been pulled over just so they can "check my car over"... until I read this:
"Forces will be told to set up panels of community representatives to scrutinise stop and search records and check that ethnic minorities are not being targeted disproportionately.". Can anyone else see where this is going? "Oh, I'm afraid we can't arrest Mr. X, because we've arrested too many [insert random racial group here] this month".
posted by robzster1977 at 3:45 AM PST - 17 comments
March 10
Isaac Asimov died of AIDS. His widow, Janet Jeppson Asimov, reveals that Asimov acquired AIDS from a blood transfusion during bypass surgery in 1983 in a condensed version of his biography just published this month ("It's Been a Good Life"). Apparently his doctor advised that they not disclose his AIDS infection.
posted by maudlin at 4:44 PM PST - 39 comments
StorTroopers suck. Long live Scholz & Volkmer's
60/90/60! The whole site is in German, unfortunately, but it's not that hard to figure out. If you want to skip directly to creating your own figure, click "Selbermachen." Otherwise, click "Loben" to view and vote on other people's. Too bad you can't download and post
these to your site...
posted by Su at 4:38 PM PST - 2 comments
Yeah, we all know that
PETA is pretty loopy. Well ok, that's unfair. I meant to say we, the thinking, know that PETA....
Seriously tho, even tho I'm not into PETA, and I don't agree with a lot of what they do, I think one of their latest ideas, the concept of
taxing meat is such a good idea. I mean why not? Meat's about as healthy as cigarettes, coffee, and beer, and those products are taxed. Mostly, I'd like to see some money come in to balance out the money spent to fix the damage created by the Meat Industry. [
digitalbutterfly.net]
posted by jcterminal at 10:49 AM PST - 97 comments
FLOW is a spiffy flash-animated music video thingamabob, if you're into that kinda thing. Very clickable.
posted by apollonia6 at 10:36 AM PST - 14 comments
"This is like someone handing you a camera before the first-ever picture was taken. You have no idea what the light will do and it's the same light that Moses read the Ten Commandments by." Farrell Eaves was heartbroken when his digital Nikon Coolpix fell into a New Mexico pond. Now he's grateful. He fished it out and dried it as best he could, and now it's a magical camera. Read more about the metamorphosis
here (frames ahoy - click on "NEW !! Mr Eaves and his Magic Camera" in the upper left). I'm just
this close to dunking mine in the tub.
posted by gleuschk at 7:16 AM PST - 55 comments
"To this day, the illustrations march right off the page" describes a rare book published in 1493 found in a Maine farmhouse. The book is illustrated with more than 1,800 exquisite pictures made from woodcuts. Where will they find my rare digital photo in 500 years and will they say "it marches off the CD-ROM" or "data-error.. should have used wood block"
posted by stbalbach at 7:12 AM PST - 5 comments
March 9
Now here's some useful information for the frequent traveler! It was only a matter of time. The Ultimate Strip Club List is basically MeFi for the Jiggle Room set. The reviews are all user submitted, and considering the subject matter, somewhat thoughtful and informative. It includes a lengthy MeFi style debate about the merits of my
local favorite. I imagine you hometown joinys are here as well.(
Not Safe For Work mild nudity)
posted by jonmc at 8:28 PM PST - 71 comments
Think your life sucks? Take a trip through a day in the life of a Canadian McDonald's employee with
this great simulator.There's more to it than that first animated gif, click the 'simulator' button below...posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 3:14 PM PST - 25 comments
Netscape Phones Home Yet another major software vendor snoops on users. Netscape, the former darling of the anti-Microsoft movement, captures search terms that users enter on third party sites if users have set the search tab in the sidebar to load a site other than Netscape's own search engine and sends information back to Netscape. Can you trust your own system anymore?
posted by srboisvert at 8:12 AM PST - 6 comments
Bush
prepares nuclear weapons for use. A classified Pentagon report directs the Defense Department to prepare "smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations," such as "targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack." Potential targets listed include China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. Is the U.S. merely bluffing, or should we begin stocking our fallout shelters?
posted by johnnyace at 6:48 AM PST - 9 comments
U.S. Works Up Plan for Using Nuclear Arms -- "The Bush administration has directed the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations... The secret report... says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria."
posted by mrbula at 6:47 AM PST - 42 comments
March 8
Family of Man Part 2 Many will remember
Edward Steichen's (the first photo curator of the New York Museum of Modern Art besides being one of photography's greats) epic 1955
Family of Man exhibition for the MOMA and the ubiquitous
book memorializing it. This is a worthy attempt at keeping that 50's spirit alive. PS all photos taken with Leica cameras, and for any Leica fanatics, take a peek at the just unveiled
Leica M7 while you are at it.
posted by Voyageman at 10:54 PM PST - 11 comments
The mention of Benedict Arnold was inadvertent. Just caught a fun piece on NPR about '
Kill Duck Before Serving', a collection of notable corrections printed in The New York Times. Miscaptioned photos, famously bad journalist math (
how many bras?), and transcription gaffes ('veteran,' not 'Bedouin'). Great stuff, whether you love or hate the 'paper of record.' One gem: "A caption in Business Day with an article about the National Bank of Kuwait mistranslated the Arabic script of the bank symbol. It says, 'National Bank of Kuwait' [not 'There is no god but Allah']." The Times regrets the error.
posted by pzarquon at 8:02 PM PST - 3 comments
Sex! Now that we have your att... hello? 'Boring sex': latest 'global problem', or the cry of a world full of jaded misogynists?
posted by iamrobotandproud at 7:08 PM PST - 16 comments
W.P. Kinsella probably the finest literary chronicler of America's National Pastime is also a master at the delicate art of being sentimental without being saccharine.
The Band created some the greatest musical portraits of America ever committed to wax. Both of these artists tackle very "American" themes, yet both(excepting Band drummer Levon Helm) are Canadian. Canada is often ignored or glossed over culturally speaking, but these two examples make me think that perhaps Canadians have a unique perspective on America that helps them create such amazing portraits of the US.
posted by jonmc at 5:34 PM PST - 16 comments
Artist-in-Residence Program at the landfill. There are plenty of "found object" artists out there, but in this particularly enlightened recycling program, the Sanitary Fill Company pitches in to the process in a big way.
posted by badstone at 3:41 PM PST - 2 comments
What We're Fighting For : a group of 60 diverse academics lay out the basic principles shared by Americans and the West in the war against terrorism:
We affirm five fundamental truths that pertain to all people without distinction:
1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
2. The basic subject of society is the human person, and the legitimate role of government is to protect and help to foster the conditions for human flourishing.
3. Human beings naturally desire to seek the truth about life's purpose and ultimate ends.
4. Freedom of conscience and religious freedom are inviolable rights of the human person.
5. Killing in the name of God is contrary to faith in God and is the greatest betrayal of the universality of religious faith.
We fight to defend ourselves and to defend these universal principles.
[More inside.]
posted by dhartung at 1:02 PM PST - 29 comments
Super Exciting Moving Sale "Do you own clothes? Do you love the Justice League of America? If you answered yes to either of the preceeding questions, then you are a prime candidate to be the proud new owner of the Batman Dresser. A picture of Al Pacino as Tony Montana will appear next to all sold merchandise."
posted by kirkaracha at 11:12 AM PST - 4 comments
A Grand Narrative "When Hindus kill Muslims it's not a story, because there are a billion Hindus and they aren't part of the Muslim narrative. When Saddam murders his own people it's not a story, because it's in the Arab-Muslim family. But when a small band of Israeli Jews kills Muslims it sparks rage — a rage that must come from Muslims having to confront the gap between their self-perception as Muslims and the reality of the Muslim world." Thomas Friedman looks for an angle and finds a story! What role, if any, does
narrative consciousness and
social psychology play in the Middle East? (via
blogdex :)
posted by kliuless at 8:24 AM PST - 26 comments
"The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS)" is the Trade Association for "America's favorite brands of distilled spirits." They try to promote pro-liquor causes such as
reducing tariffs on alcohol and increasing the number of
states selling it Sunday. Here is where it gets interesting: their site is at:
www.discus.health.org/ which is (obviously) a subdomain of
health.org. If you go to health.org there is no mention of DISCUS involvement. The health.org '
about' page implies that the site is jointly run by several
Federal Agencies. Health.org itself seems devoted to stopping drugs in their seedy illegal tracks. Take a look at:
"Marijuana: Weeding out the hype" or this
"Prevention Alert" which suggests "Skewed articles can be used in the classroom to provide 'teachable moments' in seeking the facts about... ecstasy." Is it troubling that "the trade association for... America's favorite brands of distilled spirits" is operating behind the scenes of the 'government sponsored' anti-drug site with no disclosure? Would it be too jaded to conclude that when health.org commands teens:
"If you're smoking marijuana--stop!" that the puppet master is more worried about the fierce competition presented by non-alcoholic drugs than they are genuinely concerned about the health.org of young people?
posted by limitedpie at 8:23 AM PST - 22 comments
Bond, James Jimmy Bond. Last Saturday ABC television aired
"Diamonds Are Forever" and
digitally altered the color of character Plenty O’Toole’s panties, as well as adding a black brassiere.
What possesses a network experiencing serious viewership erosion to cause them to spend time and money is such ridiculous censorship? What are the issues regarding copyright and intellectual property?
More importantly, what are they smoking over there at ABC?
posted by jpburns at 8:21 AM PST - 30 comments
Lord of the Hackers? Sherri Turkle writes in the NYT:
Adolescents are wise in the psychology of computer games and Middle Earth. They live in a world they can't control, in a body that seems increasingly alien. To them the computer world is soothing, offering reassurance through mastery. Just as each episode of "The Lord of the Rings" presents a danger and each has its resolution, so many adolescent boys move from one block of intransigent code to another, from one screen to the next, declaring victory as they go.
But this distinction is about more than gender; it is about ways of looking at the world — real, imagined or computer-generated. Some pioneers of computing had a style of working that rewarded risk. They spoke of programming itself as though it were a dangerous quest. At M.I.T. computer hackers even had a name for it: "sport death." To pull back from the impending doom of a system crash required near magic, an almost empathetic knowledge of the intricacies of code. For this community, a certain bravado came to be seen as valuable, even necessary, beyond the world of programming.
Any programmer-hobbits care to comment on this? This doesn't
exactly describe my feelings when unsnarling html.
posted by mecran01 at 7:46 AM PST - 41 comments
What if...? Uchronia: The Alternate History List is an annotated bibliography of novels, stories, essays and other material involving the "what ifs" of history. Such texts may also be called as alternate histories, alternative histories, allohistories, uchronia, counterfeit worlds, counterfactuals, negative histories, etc.
Alternative history is
big on the web. See this
alternative Russian Revolution example. For an exaustive AH list check out Uchronia's
links pages. Are there any other favourite alternative history sites / books you have enjoyed?
posted by talos at 5:21 AM PST - 9 comments
March 7
Why does it take so long to mend an escalator? Incisive article which seems to be metaphorically demonstrating the difficulties in repairing society's ills through the voices of mechanical engineering. "The chinks in an escalator's armour are the spaces between step and step, step and wall, and comb plate and step. That is where a shoelace, a scarf, a child's finger or a foot can get caught - which is bad for travellers - and where small hard objects, dragged along and forced between cleats and comb plate, can chew up the aluminium steps, which is punishing for the machine."
posted by feelinglistless at 5:01 PM PST - 21 comments
Solvent Paranoia. A roomful of nothing. Except bungee babies, eating tapeworms and foreign tears. "Too much thoughts for such a small head. Which way should I go?" (via
artkrush)
posted by liam at 4:49 PM PST - 6 comments
"Beige. I think I'll paint the universe beige." Remember those
arguments we had about the exact shade of turquoise the universe was supposed to be? Umm, computer glitch, sorry. "Fairchild realized the software Glazebrook was using actually took a slightly pinky looking colour as white. 'There was a huge green shift due to the erroneous white point,' he says."
posted by maudlin at 4:49 PM PST - 8 comments
Puzzling X-rays from Jupiter "We weren't surprised to find x-rays coming from Jupiter." Other observatories had done that years ago. The surprise is what Chandra has revealed for the very first time: the location of the beacon -- surprisingly close the planet's pole -- and the regular way it pulses.
(Via Fark.)posted by Mwongozi at 4:29 PM PST - 8 comments
Correct Currency I haven't seen any of these quarters yet, despite their apparent circulation of over two months, but I can't believe that they couldn't do enough QA to realize that they were making one obvious error and another one that most might not pick up on, but is incorrect nonetheless.
posted by whoshotwho at 3:34 PM PST - 28 comments
so which "officials" do we believe? is this a final salvo from the "now disbanded" office of military misinformation?
i don't know which is spookier the thought of the threat, or the folks in charge getting their "credible" info from some clown in las vegas??
posted by specialk420 at 2:31 PM PST - 4 comments
Amazing collection of information on Folklife in Florida between 1937-1942. Audio files are stunning. They were originally recorded (with a portable acetate cutter!) by Zora Neal Hurston and Stetson Kennedy, working for the WPA. Does anyone else have other favorite Library of Congress sites?
first heard about on
npr last week.
posted by anathema at 2:25 PM PST - 12 comments
Carry Nation: Extreme Temperance Advocate "A female figure dressed in black appeared on Topeka's streets on January 26, 1901. A dark veil shrouded the woman's face but couldn't disguise her from the city's populace, who immediately recognized her as one of the country's foremost temperance advocates. Carry Nation had arrived in Topeka.
For the next three weeks she and her followers smashed saloons in an effort to close all the city's illegal "joints." She was threatened by howling mobs, beaten by wives of saloon owners, and repeatedly arrested and jailed. The violence she initiated quickly spread all over the state, and had a lasting effect that endured for many years."
posted by owillis at 1:47 PM PST - 15 comments
The New York Times finally justified asking for my email address: you can specify a list of words and phrases and have the Times
email you whenever an article containing one of them appears. (My list: 'aphex, autechre, squarepusher, "warp records"')
posted by lbergstr at 12:55 PM PST - 17 comments
The Internet Classics Archive. Along with the
Perseus Project, part of an expanding effort to put all the wisdom of ages gone by online. After all, it's all in the public domain, right? There are so many translations of the ancient texts, so many onlne analyses by lunatics...when you search online for that quote from the Iliad, how much discretion do you use in determining how good the translation and commentary is? What are the most legitimate online sources for accessing apocryphal knowledge?
posted by bingo at 12:31 PM PST - 12 comments
Designer Drugs and Raves - Second Edition (PDF). A Royal Canadian Mounted Police document designed to educate and inform police officers and social workers alike, complete with helpful photos of "The Candy Raver".
The result of a three-year 'intelligence probe' into the rave scene, it's an interesting read, and a fairly good indication of the Canadian government's attitude towards increasing drug use at raves and nightclubs.
posted by Jairus at 8:20 AM PST - 33 comments
Myths Over Miami. Captured on South Beach, Satan later escaped. His demons and the horrible Bloody Mary are now killing people. God has fled. Avenging angels hide out in the Everglades. And other tales from children in Dade's homeless shelters.
posted by Spoon at 7:49 AM PST - 8 comments
Environmental Hypocrites? Jennifer Lopez: black Lincoln Navigator. Meg Ryan: black Ford Explorer. Dustin Hoffman: dark green Land Rover Range Rover…I don't begrudge these individuals their choice in automotive transportation…I just can't stomach so-called "environmentalists" who are about as green as Clifford the Big Red Dog."posted by nobody_knose at 5:37 AM PST - 59 comments
Syria on Brink of Conflict Over Lebanon For reasons unkown to me, the Liberals (the Znetters) fail to mention this 30 thousand man troop occupation of Lebanon and focus on Israeli occupation of land taken in war; conservatives never mention this occupation. American political figures ignore or push this aside; and Arabs, about to meet in Beirut for their summit brush this aside, but for the Lebanese, a sore issue.
posted by Postroad at 2:57 AM PST - 6 comments
March 6
Pinocchio Fetish? Ok, now what's the attraction with women who look like they've told too many fibs? Well… that's hard to say. It's just sexy...posted by milnak at 10:57 PM PST - 14 comments
"If every girl who had a Barbie doll had a vulva puppet she'd have a very different view of her body," says Dorrie Lane, the Oakland artist and sex educator who made the 300-pound vulva.Indeed.
posted by adampsyche at 6:39 PM PST - 38 comments
THE SIRIUS PAPERS — "The first of a series of books the contents of which, over 450 items, were dictated directly to a group of mediums in answer to questions highly important to humanity, by what are termed 'Aliens', ...in fact, THEY are NOT 'Aliens' - THEY were HERE before WE were..!"
posted by sylloge at 5:27 PM PST - 6 comments
"Terror Widows'' An editorial cartoon that ridicules widows of World Trade Center victims as greedy and shallow publicity hounds drew instant outrage last night from the grieving survivors. One widow was shown with a pile of cash in her lap and telling a reporter, 'I keep waiting for Kevin to come home, but I know he never will. Fortunately, the $3.2 million I collected from the Red Cross keeps me warm at night.'
The NYTimes pulled the strip from its Website.
posted by matteo at 2:10 PM PST - 52 comments
The emotion Buddhists call samvega is hard to translate because it covers three clusters of feelings at once: "the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle." Not being a Buddhist, I can't say I have any more faith in pasada than in prozac. But I and many people I've known have experienced a complex emotion like this one, so it's interesting to know that this concept has been around for so long.
posted by homunculus at 1:14 PM PST - 66 comments
"Netochka threatens lawsuits, she revokes software licenses, she cries Nazi! So much as criticize her software publicly, and she might announce that you have been banned from using it. It doesn't necessarily sound like the most prudent business strategy. But Netochka's defenders see her whole online persona as her genius. The irritation and hand-wringing -- that's all part of the point. She speaks in her own cryptic lexicon and syntax and then stands back to see just how disruptive this can be to an online community."
posted by Dean King at 12:34 PM PST - 10 comments
Fifteen tons of popcorn is not a murder weapon. It's just evidence in a completely seperate crime. But, one has to wonder.... did he need fibre in his diet that badly?
posted by dwivian at 11:25 AM PST - 12 comments
We Knew? Apparently, the US government was informed in 1995 by Filipino authorities that there were terrorist agents in the US training to crash planes into buildings. I head a blurb about this on the radio and had to dig to find the article... is this something else that is just going to be swept under the rug?
posted by darian at 9:08 AM PST - 15 comments
John Darnielle has written a song by song defense of Radiohead's amnesiac (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8/9,
10,
11), among
other overly wordy and passionate music reviews, including many pleas for us all to learn to love
doom/death metal. John is a
prolific songwriter himself, under the name The Mountain Goats. All the TMG's music, including their
newest, is recorded on the
Panasonic RX-FT500, a cheap boom box with the gears audibly churning in the background as extra musician.
posted by malphigian at 8:00 AM PST - 25 comments
Arundhati Roy Fined, Sent to Jail for a Day. The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday sentenced Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy to a day's imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 2,000 for contempt of court. If she doesn't pay the fine, she will be jailed for three months.
posted by Ty Webb at 6:45 AM PST - 19 comments
March 5
Noah's Ark is being rebuilt, but I don't think
it will float. I can't help but think that it would make a wicked skateboard halfpipe. The project broke ground in 1976, but seems to be moving slowly. More info
here and
here. Any Maryland MeFi'ers know the current status of this thing? more inside:
posted by machaus at 7:37 PM PST - 26 comments
Belushi. Even before he died, John could drift off into space and become an angel, a tribal God of comedy, and I worshipped him. 20 years later, I still do. Bye-bye John.posted by xowie at 5:01 PM PST - 12 comments
Trade Wars Bush imposes import tariffs on steel, something I didn't really expect coming from the administration. Dangerous precedent or useful bulwark against laissez-faire globalization?
posted by kliuless at 4:12 PM PST - 46 comments
Guantanamo Bay: 'The American Auschwitz' "...We always see how human beings prey upon each other, how values are trampled, and how tragedies recur. This is exactly what happened, and is still happening, at the 'American Auschwitz' detention camp...excuse me, I meant the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay!! " more follows: any truth to what he is saying or is this total madness?
posted by Postroad at 4:07 PM PST - 35 comments
9/11 - the CBS documentary. Okay, so we've heard of, and
discussed the footage of the attacks before, and many of us know that this will be airing on CBS (in the U.S.) this Sunday (interestingly from 9-11 pm). I wonder if anyone (or everyone) will watch? Some people have tried to
halt or delay the showing, but CBS is going ahead, and promising not to show 'graphic footage'. I'm really torn between curiosity and a fear of "too much too soon", and really don't know whether I'm going to watch or not.
posted by kokogiak at 2:46 PM PST - 49 comments
Even if you
hate San Francisco and think it is filthy, there are some good things there. Unfortunately, there may soon be one less good
thing if the National Park Service doesn't make plans to accommodate this historical treasure trove. They want to rebuild the Cliffhouse and have no current space allotted for the
Musee Mechanique. As many
people will
attest
, it's a wonderful place for children and adults alike. You can sign the
petition
if you care or think it will help.
posted by donkeysuck at 1:51 PM PST - 5 comments
What if they threw an All-Star game and nobody came? In one of the most devistating blows to Commisioner Bud Selig's controversial reign, the MLB players are threatening not to attend this year's game in Milwaukee.
Selig owned the Milwaukee Brewers before handing it over to his daughter in order to be Commissioner, and in this battle over revenue-sharing, it would be almost too easy not to boycott the game due to Bud's connection with the host city. Conflict of interest around Selig's quasi-ownership and quasi-commissionership make him the ideal target for this fascinating threat, and probably the most exciting thing to happen to Milwaukee since "Laverne & Shirley."
posted by tsarfan at 12:13 PM PST - 14 comments
"Let us pray that our country will stop this war." From a recent speech by U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio: "We did not authorize the administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy. We did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on Sept. 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in
Afghanistan."
Amen.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:05 PM PST - 76 comments
"Cadillac's brand manager says, "Cadillac research showed that there was a real need for the EXT." A real need for a Cadillac pickup? Really? If so, then here are a few things that I really need: An air-conditioned front yard. Iguana-skin patio furniture. Stigmata. Mint-flavored Drano. Gold-plated roof gutters. A 190-hp MerCruiser SaladShooter. A dog with a collapsible tail. An office desk that converts into a Hovercraft. Chrome slacks. A lifetime subscription to Extreme Fidgeting. A third arm. A fourth wife. A smokeless Cuban Robusto. Reusable Kleenex."
Is this
Car and Driver review SUV-bashing? Sure. Is it funny?
Definitely.posted by darukaru at 11:02 AM PST - 43 comments
"Towers of Light" given ok by Bloomberg "There's nothing we can do to bring back those we lost, but we have to make sure we have a way to remember". Towers of Light
and a now-damaged sculpture called "The Sphere," which stood in the fountain of the trade center plaza, will form two temporary memorials.
posted by Mutha at 10:02 AM PST - 11 comments
Like tarot or astrology in that it's a tool for introspection, only without the occult trappings. Kinda fun to play with, though. Or maybe not. (Warning: annoying
The Weakest Linkesque music.)
posted by alumshubby at 6:39 AM PST - 20 comments
The coming breed of couch potato jocks? "Discoveries made at the University of Dundee are helping in the development of drugs that fool your body into thinking that your are actively exercising even when you are not, and may help in the fight against the current increase in the incidence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes."
It might
seem that I'm just sitting in front of a computer screen all day, but in reality I'm training for the Olympics.
Story coverage from the BBCposted by talos at 6:13 AM PST - 2 comments
You tell'm Ted! (nyt link) Koppel is first to publically denounce accusations that
Nightline is irrelevant or lacks a competitive edge in the late night wars. David Letterman is still strangely silent about rumors that ABC is trying to steal him from CBS to replace Ted Koppel's long-running news program. Perhaps after publically ribbing Oprah Winfrey & getting the cold shoulder, Letterman has learned when
not to open his mouth? ..nah!
posted by ZachsMind at 4:57 AM PST - 14 comments
Bravenet Hacked - Damned hackers
I think I found why my page wasn't loading right. They even have a question about it making pages load wrong. Mine was loading like molasses.
Sigh. I need to go find a new counter.
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 4:11 AM PST - 8 comments
Remember Hanging Out And The World Out There? This invigorating article by Jay Walljasper in the current
Utne Reader, lists 60 favourite
gathering places in the U.S. I half-expected MetaFilter to figure prominently. But then, all of a sudden, it hit me. And I felt guilty about forgetting the real outdoor, face-to-face meaning of the lost art of
hanging out . Well, I plan to make amends this weekend. I'll be hanging out at my favourite café in Lisbon - the beautiful eighteenth-century
Nicola - where table-to-table political discussions, flirting, studying, hot buttered toast and almost illegally caffeinated espressos are
de rigueur. So what's
your favourite hang-out? If and when you can tear yourself away from your computer, that is...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:17 AM PST - 62 comments
March 4
Did China circumnavigate the globe before Magellan?
"When explorer Christopher Columbus landed in America in 1492, he was 72 years behind a Chinese expeditionary force, which had already made its way to the area.
And although Captain James Cook was credited with discovering Australia for the British Empire in 1770, the Chinese had mapped the island continent 337 years earlier."
All this was accomplished by a castrated eunuch named Zheng He.
What do you think?
posted by AsiaInsider at 5:44 PM PST - 33 comments
What sleeping postures reveal Curiuously accurate. "People say we gotta watch while he sleeps, for it is the only time that body is not under suppression, but never judge Mr. Nice Guy from one posture" They claim it applies to women too.
posted by Voyageman at 5:04 PM PST - 18 comments
What constitutes a catchy flag design? This site has assigned a letter grade to the flags of the world, with points taken off for bad color combos, trite slogans, and other flag faux pas. Which flags do you find eye-catching, and which are more appropriate as tea towels?
posted by Oriole Adams at 4:30 PM PST - 47 comments
exposing herself to win votes? this university of alberta sophomore thinks she's got what it takes to wow the voting pool. she say's
"I never thought 'I'm going to get naked to get people to vote.' Maybe people need a bit of a slap in the face to take notice. You have to do something to get people to vote." is this starting a new trend in campaign policy? i can only hope that this isn't taken too far. (pictures current administration attempting to do something to this effect.) <shudder>
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 3:50 PM PST - 12 comments
"Feeeeed Me!" Although the physical reality of this "museum" seems a bit sketchy, you simply have to love lush color photos of carniverous plants. I mean
c'mon! Audrey II would be proud.
posted by jeremias at 1:14 PM PST - 2 comments
Slim Shady sees the light! "Eminem has given up alcohol and purple pills...He is 'trading in his hardcore hip-hop MO and going the gospel rap route.'" Furthermore, he's opening a church. Is this all a marketing scam? Something seems shady.
posted by Werd7 at 12:56 PM PST - 27 comments
Microsoft plans "doomsday defense". Microsoft Corp. plans to argue in court hearings next week that if antitrust sanctions sought by state prosecutors are granted, the company would be forced to pull its latest Windows computer operating systems off the market and be unable to develop new systems.posted by aaronshaf at 12:42 PM PST - 56 comments
Shades of Gray. "Environmental groups sent out a worldwide call to save the gray whale from a Mexican salt plant. They got millions of dollars and thousands of new members. But scientists found no threat to the whales." From part six of a series that explores the ecology of the gray whale, as well as the many different ways it touches various cultures, and some of the moral dilemnas that have emerged as a result.
posted by bingo at 11:51 AM PST - 9 comments
AIDS Programs: An Epidemic of Waste. Interesting article about AIDS funding in the USA... and these people want more taxpayer money! Heres a quote:
The Stop AIDS Project of San Francisco, which received $698,000 (39 percent of its budget) in CDC grants in fiscal 200139, has sponsored several "prevention" events, including a gay prom in April. Last August it held "Booty Call," a seminar about dildos, plugs, fisting, and rimming. The advertisement read, "After a little basic science, share tales of intercourse and orgasm. Find out why so many of us find ass play a major turn on."posted by Keen at 6:06 AM PST - 47 comments
Finally,a home for the Turner bequest : In 1856, nearly five years after Turner's death, his estate was settled by a decree in which the works found in his studio that were considered to be by his own hand were accepted by the nation as the 'Turner Bequest'. This comprises nearly 300 oil paintings and around 30,000 sketches and watercolours (including 300 sketchbooks).
All of this work is now available to view online at the Tate.
If nothing else you can get some beautiful wallpaper for your desktop.
posted by Fat Buddha at 3:57 AM PST - 4 comments
'Alternative' media can be corrupted too. Narco News publisher Al Giordano is pulling out of
Alternet, which he said has a near monopoly in the market of "alternative" news syndication. He outlines a number of problems with Alternet's operation and its director: in addition to taking
half the fee paid for content, he says Alternet also stole content and blacklisted writers. He also touches on the sometimes rivalry with "alternative" news groups, including
FAIR,
Project Censored, and
IndyMedia, and expresses hopes for
looming competition. In the fight to legitimize "alternative" media, are the evils of the mainstream unavoidable? [More inside]
posted by pzarquon at 12:22 AM PST - 2 comments
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was in the news 3 and a half years ago when the Senate
failed to ratify a treaty we created. Although there have been no formal talks of ratification since, with all that has been happening
these days, one can't help but wonder if now is the time to act. Bush mentioned earlier of
reducing our nuclear arsenal, but wouldn't ratification be our best solution to control major threats, such as North Korea, Iraq, and Iran?
posted by BlueTrain at 12:07 AM PST - 6 comments
March 3
What Linux Really Needs: Non profit, public service announcements by a foundation formed expressly for that purpose. Whether you keep up with the OS fray or not, what a neat idea really.
Trolls: Slashdot is burning! You're needed over there.posted by crasspastor at 11:00 PM PST - 8 comments
Mom kills, dad kills: Two takes on tragedy This article looks at the differences between the Andrea Yates case and that of Adair Garcia, a Los Angeles man accused of murdering his children. The article discusses gender differences, but I wonder if ethnicity plays a role as well. (
Here's another link, since the URL field on the "post a link" page seems to be cutting it off).
posted by electro at 1:43 PM PST - 22 comments
60's British Pop Culture Shirley Bassey. Tom Jones. Sandie Shaw. Cliff Richard. Petula Clark. Gordon Banks. Jane Brikin. Charlotte Rampling. Twiggy. Julie Christie. Patrick McGoohan. Peter O' Toole. Terence Stamp. What a decade. Oozing coolness.
posted by Voyageman at 12:36 PM PST - 45 comments
Who Lost China's Internet?
Here's a problem for your American company. You want access to the lucrative and growing Chinese information technology market but the Chinese government is demanding some questionable things from you. If you're Cisco you bend over backwards to make your routers filter subversive content. If you're Network Solutions you donate 300 viruses to study. If you're Yahoo! then you censor chat rooms, filter searches, and underreport your traffic. But if you're Microsoft you refuse to cough up your source code and call their bluff. Strangely, that puts Microsoft, The Voice of America, and the Cult of the Dead Cow on the same side. (via
Peek-a-Booty)
posted by euphorb at 11:17 AM PST - 11 comments
More on the bad ads that seem to be going around the web. This time, I went to see what was on tv, and a Six Feet Under ad took over the entire screen. Talk about not being able to use the website.
posted by thebwit at 9:39 AM PST - 18 comments
"linked to President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction" -- i keep hearing this in regards to recent acts, like a mantra mentioned as an aside. the steady way in which arafat's name is insinuated without any explanation makes me extremeley suspicious. i wonder if stories i haven't found make a stronger case for arafat's involvement (or refute such statements).
posted by subpixel at 7:03 AM PST - 22 comments
If you're an old geek like me, you'll enjoy a nostalgic browse through the collection at
OLD-COMPUTERS.COM. If you're a young geek, you can laugh at all the boxen that we used to think were
cutting edge 20 years ago. What system currently in use today will be the
Intertec Superbrain of 2020?
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:50 AM PST - 24 comments
Digital Domesday Book lasts 15 years not 1000 On the 900th anniversary of the Domesday Book, thousands of people, of all ages were asked to take part in a project to create a digital version. The result was a couple of laserdiscs which could be read on a specially modified BBC Micro. It was quite a success and again there was record of what the world was like in the mid-Eighties. But in the intervening years, technology has moved on and now the discs have become inaccessible without that obsolete technology. So ironically, the original millenium old manuscripts have more usability. In the rush to digitise everything, isn't there a danger that we're going to repeat this mistake over and over again?
posted by feelinglistless at 6:20 AM PST - 21 comments
March 2
Tom Perrotta may be one of the best novelists working today, yet not that many folks know his name.
His books and
short stories portray prosaic suburbia accurately and without condescension, and he has uncanny insight into the mind of the terminally adolescent. Not to mention an uproarious sense of humor. If the films of Kevin Smith and Richard Linklater, the music of Weezer, or
Pete Bagge's comics resonate with you, you may want to check out their literary equivalent. As an added treat, here's an
audio link of Perrota reading his work. For my money, this guy is one of our best American writers right now, although you wouldn't know it.
posted by jonmc at 8:29 PM PST - 10 comments
Is there any suprise about todays attack in Jerusalem after
yesterdays assault on the refugee camps which appear to have been particularly brutal. I'm suprised there has not been a post about this weekends suprisingly swift and depressing tit-for-tat.
posted by specialk420 at 4:56 PM PST - 36 comments
They just wont let it lie. What posses these people to keep fighting against overwhelming odds.I can see what they are against but for the life of me I cannot see what they are for.Couple of points near the bottom of the piece are interesting.IHave I been asleep or has the killing of innocents on 23 January been underreported.Does the fact that small raids have led to arrest interrogation and subsequent
release answer my own question?
I am perplexed,are there any good guys?
posted by Fat Buddha at 2:25 PM PST - 10 comments
Much Ado About Something. Fascinating Salon review of a new
documentary investigating whether Shakespeare was really just a front-man for Christopher Marlowe, the true author of all the Bard's work. At first it sounds like just so much literary conspiracy theory, except unlike most conspiracy theories this one seems to gain more credibility the further you delve into it. The film just wrapped up a two- week opening run in New York City, and should be arriving soon at theaters in your area.
posted by hincandenza at 12:11 PM PST - 45 comments
Witness the scalability of Gnutella in realtime. We've all read the technical papers and masters thesises (thesi?) about the theoretical growth of the Gnutella network and if/how it will work. Today with the release of Morpheus Preview Edition, now connected to the Gnutella network, you can witness its 345 trillion users put the Gnutella network to the test. In a little over a couple hours it has grown to roughly 3 times the size it was last week, and still going strong.. how much bigger can it get?
posted by afx114 at 11:07 AM PST - 40 comments
The work of
Cambodia's Army of Peace is known throughout the world, and a
Southeast Asian Peace Army or Shanti Sena is in the works for 2002.
Gandhi called for a Shanti Sena for national defense in 1942. Because the Japanese did not invade, India has used a "Shanti Sena" for combatting riots rather than homelands defense. (The Rainbow Gathering also calls its security people
"Shanti Sena, or the Peace Army.")
A short history of grassroots initiatives in unarmed peacekeeping from 1932 to the Present" shows that many of the Peace Army initiatives preceded Gandhi.
Narayan Desai is one of Gandhi's successors. Californian
Sanderson Beck offers comprehensive links to religion, non-violence, and peace movements.
Peace Brigades International is known for its work in the Balkans, Colombia, Indonesia and the Middle East. Working directly on terrorism, as well as war, is the
Sarovodaya Movement of Sri Lanka. Prize for the most highly focused "Peace Army" goes to the
North Koreans. Governments always come up with money for soldiers, but they don't hire unarmed, non-violent peacekeepers. Howcome?posted by sheauga at 10:53 AM PST - 7 comments
therapeutical cannabis An Israeli pharmaceutical company is working on a drug mimicking cannabis' chemical constituents -- cannabinoids -- to offer marijuana's therapeutic benefits without the buzz.
posted by trismegisto at 5:14 AM PST - 13 comments
The racial background of rumors/urban legends (
part 2 here) "When the target is a supposed corporate conspiracy, the white version tends to address alleged behavior that isn’t race-related. Meanwhile, "black rumors play on the belief in racial animus by the elites." The Snapple-funds-anti-abortionists story was spread mostly among whites; the Snapple-KKK rumor spread mostly among blacks."
posted by owillis at 4:39 AM PST - 7 comments
March 1
Dig through the Glass Engine. A truly cool little app that indexes Mp3 samples of over 60 compositions by Philip Glass. Play with the buttons or drag the blue bar at the top of the screen to browse by year (with or without a filter thrown on to get just film scores, opera, etc.). Drag the second series of blue bars to get presented with other selections with more or less joy, sorrow, intensity, density and velocity. Even if you don't care for Glass, think how you could use something like this elsewhere. (via
Jerry Kindall)
posted by maudlin at 10:04 PM PST - 26 comments
"Bringing serenity to your busy workday". Bored with the view from your office? Kloudscape offers ten high-resolution images of clouds taken from 40,000 feet by photographer John Wang. These images are available in a variety of resolutions for use as desktop wallpaper.
posted by phatboy at 5:44 PM PST - 4 comments
Imagine losing almost $6 billion of your own personal fortune in a year and
still being the richest damn human in the known universe, hands down, with no one even close. (If i must, here's a link to the new
Forbes list.) What I want to know is, how come out of the approximately 500 billionaires on the list, only 35 are women, and of those, only ONE made it herself. All the other
super rich dames on the globe either married bucks, or got 'em from daddy.
posted by jellybuzz at 2:39 PM PST - 21 comments
A print journalist admits her fear of blogs "What the blog threatens to do is dislodge the traditional news media's corner on the "scoop" market. With their unorthodox reporting strategies and lightning-fast publishing schedules, blogs are making it clear that you don't need to have some big, fancy newspaper job to break stories. In fact, you don't even need to write stories; you can just throw a couple of sentences up on your site with some telling links. And you can quote that naked boy in your bed who knows how to hack protocols. Whatever."
posted by ezfowler at 2:07 PM PST - 23 comments
Take the Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic is a 50-question
IQ test administered by the National Football League to all prospective draft picks. Teams use the test results to varying degree, in part to determine the ability of athletes to learn systems and grow as a player. Interestingly, offensive tackles and centers have the highest average NFL Wonderlic scores. (The test here is a fast 15-question sample; you'll need a piece of paper to jot down your answers.)
posted by werty at 11:40 AM PST - 31 comments
After 6 years hiding in the hills, Illija Panincic
discovers that the war in Bosnia is over.
On
BBC
today he told how he fought his next door neighbour,
a bear, for the rights to the pear tree. I wonder how
long they will be hiding in the hills in Afghanistan.
posted by Geo at 11:02 AM PST - 6 comments
"Children Drink 25% of Alcohol Consumed in the U.S." At least according to the attention-grabbing headline of a press release recently issued by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. The only problem is that
it wasn't true. The organization had miscalculated the data, and the figure was actually closer to 11%.
It was also misleading, since the word "children" included 18, 19, and 20 year-olds (who presumably do most of the drinking). Aside from yet another lesson in the inherent malleability of statistics, what conclusions should we draw from this study? Should we accept that teenagers are going to drink, and teach moderation? Or is stricter enforcement of the 21 age-limit the way to go? I'm also interested in the views of those living in (more enlightened?) countries with a lower drinking age.
posted by pardonyou? at 10:50 AM PST - 22 comments
The worst Internet ad ever. Hopefully I won't be the only one to see it; it's not clear how long it will be there. They actually obliterate your ability to see the content for a few seconds. Makes me want to strangle Next Day Blinds. Anyone else have examples of horrible (or good) new Internet ads?
posted by IPLawyer at 10:42 AM PST - 21 comments
Hello my future girlfriend. I can only listen to this once all the way through before I get embarrased. This may be a little bit light for a front-page post, but hey, it's Friday.
posted by dr_emory at 10:39 AM PST - 9 comments
Star Wars on telnet. It only gets about halfway through, but still an amazing effort.
posted by Gaz at 9:46 AM PST - 
