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April 30
Vitaflo 8. Respect.
Lines and Colours. Hidden (from me at least) elements. From this eye (the left one) it is an expansive and daring, maybe refreshing, use of colour. Blew me away really. Also: Vitaflo turns four soon. Like I was saying: Respect.
posted by bruyneel at 11:19 PM PST - 39 comments
Boeing's new boat
will be able to fly 6,000 nautical to 10,000 nautical miles nonstop which means it could circle the earth having to only refuel twice. The linked page includes a nice rendering of what the plane will look like
(with concords permanently grounded, boeing might actually pull this off)
posted by Zebulun at 11:14 PM PST - 16 comments
LavaRand
...harnessing the power of Lava Lite® lamps to generate truly random numbers....
That's a bold statement, but who am I to doubt the power of the
lava lamp. The mathematical purist may disagree with the "truely random" part, but this
geek speak convinced me that LavaRand can handle all my random number needs.
posted by bicyclingfool at 10:37 PM PST - 1 comments
The Daily Radar is dead. This leaves only
Gamespot and
IGN left as the primary mega-gaming news sites. With
IGN's stock everything but worthless, what is the future state of online journalism in these specialized areas? Sure, there's
Blue's News and
Stomped. But with the online business model unprofitable for everyone from the small-timers to the big-timers, is the hobbyist nature of personal sites an effective way of carrying the torch of dedicated reporting? Is something being lost as whole staffs are decimated? Discuss.
posted by ed at 5:43 PM PST - 23 comments
Student loans got you down? Try
My Rich Uncle. Not a loan, they just skim a little off the top of your future earnings. Besides the obvious issue of whether or not it's a good idea, is the site even for real? They have applications and an address, but none of the legal info like you find on bank and educational loan sites.
posted by Bezuhin at 3:19 PM PST - 7 comments
As noted earlier this
month, there are slew of websites connected to Spielbergs AI. As it turns out, they are all part of an
intricate game that stands to last long after the movie comes out. That game is called movie marketing, albiet terribly engrossing marketing.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 1:37 PM PST - 7 comments
StoryTime
is a site created based on
netizen news' layout where hopefully people will go and post memories and the like. It's actually pretty theraputic.
(i know linkin your own work is discouraged - I wouldn't link it here 'cept I put a lot of work into it and no besides myself has thusfar posted.)
posted by Zebulun at 1:09 PM PST - 9 comments
Is Speech Recognition Software: What is it good fowah?
[caution: link to the vulgar FC]. The apparent demise, or at least fraud, of Lernout & Hauspie inspires me to ask whether speech recognition software can be used to create more than garbage writing, fast. As an attorney, I spent a good chunk of the 1990's trying to get permission from people born in the 1940's to draft my own documents with a keyboard rather than a Dictaphone. Fortunately, I don't think SR programs will ever catch on for more than commanding a computer do something. But maybe I'm completely wrong?
posted by ParisParamus at 11:26 AM PST - 11 comments
Startup.com
the movie...I guess it was only a matter of time before a documentary like this was made. It's produced by the team that did "The War Room." (There's an NYTimes article
here.)
posted by treedream at 9:31 AM PST - 2 comments
Oh sure,
once again, this "theory" proves nothing. Nothing more than another failed attempt to dismiss God's work. When are these morons, with such an imagination, ever going to admit it, that their theory is nothing more than that. I could ramble on and on like these suppose "scientists" about nothing, and make all these supposed "patterns", milarky, lies, and made up falsehoods on how the universe was just made from some wild explosion. Oh sure, that is how it was made.....just some big bang, then the next thing you know, man walked out of the swamp, got in his Mercedes, and drove away....haha
Just keep on believing such crap about this big bang "theory". But just like before, this will fail again and prove that God did create the world, and he has been, is, and always will be the creator, not the "big banger". And that is a FACT, not a "theory".....
posted by tiaka at 5:29 AM PST - 62 comments
the shame of the music industry
The industry seems ut to foil any attempt to allow known methods of foiling guards against making copies of music. Is this ethical and right or an imposition of monopolistic control over technology?
posted by Postroad at 3:52 AM PST - 16 comments
April 29
"Democratic Schools"
Just saw this school on 60 Minutes. The kids hang out all day, play video games, go to class
if they want to, learn if they want to. There's no principal or teachers, just "staff". I may be an old-school stickler but this strikes me as retarded. They had an eight year old on who couldn't read because he "wasn't ready for it yet"... c'mon.
posted by owillis at 7:51 PM PST - 70 comments
Buffett calls Internet investing "a big trap"
If only many investors would have listened to Mr. Buffett a few years ago. Today, in Omaha, Buffett said, "But I think the idea that you could take any business idea and turn it into wealth on the Internet is just wrong." Common sense strikes again.
posted by shackbar at 7:35 PM PST - 14 comments
VSA Partners hacked?
VSA Partners, designers of MarchFirst's website (among others) appears to have a hacked link in their portfolio. Can't include a direct link (thanks Flash), but click on Work / Portfolio, then on the, uh, 3rd box from the right on the bottom row. The link in your status bar should read "at kearney". I get the feeling it's been up for awhile, and I doubt they even know it's there. Serves them right for having this ridiculous abstract navigation.
posted by robbie01 at 7:34 PM PST - 7 comments
Alleged FBI Double Agent's Stripper 'Friend' Talks:
No easy way to put that, sorry. So this is what Robert Hanssen did with all that money from spying? Or allegedly did? He really was just trying to "rescue" her? Goodness, what a bizarre and disturbing story. Please be warned that this is dizzyingly strong material, especially the part about the fate of the subject's false teeth. It's "Pretty Woman" without the sex, but with the Soviet Union and crack.
posted by raysmj at 12:09 PM PST - 4 comments
There's been two threads in the pretty recent past about the
14-year-old kid who made the animation,
Hyakugojyuuichi -- some pro, some con. Let this be the third of such threads.
I don't know if this means that the kid has hit the big time, but I think it's quite remarkable that his animation has landed on the
front page of Ifilm.com. I, for one, give a big congratulations to the kid. I hope it's only the beginning for him.
posted by lizardboy at 6:13 AM PST - 13 comments
FTAA Diary
is a 48-page zine (available for download in pdf format) chronicling the experiences of folks who protested in Quebec. Illustrated with powerful black and white photos, the narratives personalize the events like no journalism could hope to.
posted by sudama at 12:10 AM PST - 21 comments
April 28
The Tibet Game: Doom for Buddhists. Give away your possessions, pump up your karma, see and hear beautiful Tibet. (Don't forget your high bandwidth, grasshopper.)
posted by luke at 7:11 PM PST - 6 comments
200 years
to life for fraud? Crime should be punished, but this seems somewhat harsh when there's murderers, rapists, etc. on the loose
posted by owillis at 1:15 PM PST - 19 comments
Wine.com Inc. ceases operations
and refers customers to eVineyard, billed as the largest online wine retailer. The email they sent doesn't make it clear if we are now eVineyard members or if we have to sign up again -- and recreate my my 10-page wine.com wish list. Ugh.
posted by thescoop at 11:46 AM PST - 15 comments
The Norwegian neo-nazi organization Vigrid is
suing*
on behalf of Nordic-looking women seeking damages after suffering from blonde jokes. Are blonde jokes racial slurs?
* Sorry, link only available in Norwegian, but you get the idea
posted by frednorman at 11:25 AM PST - 4 comments
April 27
The Guardian reports that
George Bush Senior, along with Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, Dan Quayle and a number of other prominent Americans are unhappy that Botswanan authorities have banned the
trophy hunting
of lions in that country. The number of lions in Africa has declined by 35,000 to only 15,000 in the last
10 years, but many wealthy Americans still see it as their right to pay big money to hunt a big cat. This just makes me sick
posted by sixdifferentways at 8:45 PM PST - 28 comments
Japan to get an army of its own
We forced them to agree to no military after the war. They have only a police force but this force has a very large military budget. Now they want their own army...just in case. Maybe we need not spend so much of our tax bucks there from now on.
posted by Postroad at 5:51 PM PST - 15 comments
Boobscan - the name sums it up.
Personally I prefer this to the nobscan site posted the other day. Just sharing in the name of gender equality. (Warning: if it's not obvious enough, this link will lead to a site featuring nudity - maracas on the glass plate to be exact.)
posted by sixdifferentways at 2:16 PM PST - 6 comments
Bianca's is shutting down.
One of the oldest community sites on the web is going away. It's been kept alive for so long through the hard work, passion, and sheer enthusiasm of the founders and volunteers who cared about the site. You
Burning Man participants take heart though, Bianca's will most likely still continue on as a
theme camp.
Bianca loves you.
posted by captaincursor at 12:41 PM PST - 10 comments
American Hollow
- The Bowling family has lived in the same rural hollow in Kentucky for seven generations. The Washington Post tells their story using the Bowlings' own words (including audio clips) and photographs with a Web site you might expect from PBS. Urban Americans (and others, too) might be surprised to learn that there are many, many families in the U.S. who still live like the Bowlings.
"It's 1998 and we just last year put running water in the house, into my kitchen sink. We did it ourselves. We bought line, hooked into Iree's well, dug up a ditch and ran it to the house. But I still need a bathroom and a septic tank. I got a rinse tub that we take a bath in. I'd rather have a bathtub, but meanwhile I can make do."
posted by ewagoner at 12:16 PM PST - 8 comments
"I did not have sex with that man,"
so says Denise Rich talking about Bill Clinton. She also claims to have never even slept at the White House and doesn't even know what the Lincoln Bed Room looks like. Can we take these statements at face value, or do we need a Bubba de-coder ring to figure it out?
posted by schlyer at 11:41 AM PST - 12 comments
Gag order at Indy Media lifted. Looks like the FBI wanted to get "all user connection logs" from a 48-hour period although the feds were seemingly just concerned with one or two specific postings.
posted by gluechunk at 11:37 AM PST - 6 comments
Falcon watching
I've always found falcons fascinating.
A long time ago, I helped out ( in a small way ) with the state effort to re-establish the peregrine falcon in the Midwest. It was in a major Midwest city, where the downtown buildings were a close match to their native nesting habitat of cliff faces and tall trees. The focus for the falcon release was a hack box. Now, the same hack box is being used as a nest by a falcon breeding pair, who have four eyasses ( singular; eyas: i.e., falcon chicks ) this year.
This URL is the webcam of the hack box; it refreshes every 30 seconds. Since falcons eyasses grow fast, they need a lot of feeding, so the parents are primarily out hunting when they are not sheltering their children. Every once and a while you'll see one of the parents feeding the eyasses. In the coming weeks, you can watch these eyasses grow to more than triple their present size and get their flying wings.
posted by dragonmage at 11:32 AM PST - 6 comments
The Flintsons: Based on a True Story
According to a recent survey, half the adults surveyed didn't know that the Earth revolves around the sun, and 42 percent said they thought early humans lived side by side with dinosaurs.
Seems like we hear about some survey of this nature every year ("87% of high school children can't find the US on a map of the US!"), although this article at least has a citation. I couldn't find any mention of said survey on the
CAoS website. (Although if you take a look at their masthead, you can see why some people may be confused about scientific issues, as it seems to show fish revolving around the DinoWorld ...)
posted by Shadowkeeper at 10:20 AM PST - 15 comments
Proxicom bought by Compaq,
last week's purchase of
Mainspring by IBM, the dissolution of
MarchFirst, and the not-so-slow slide of Viant, Scient, iXL and the rest ... is there any future for the independent style of "e-consultancies" which seemed poised to revolutionize the business world only a couple of years ago?
posted by MattD at 9:31 AM PST - 10 comments
Want stats?
Income, food consumption, the common cold...Fedstats, the "gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal Agencies", is a treasure trove for info junkies.
posted by frykitty at 9:29 AM PST - 3 comments
Princeton Backs Down
"Litigation is
costly, time-consuming, and uncertain, regardless of the merits of the
other side's case. We remain committed to free speech and to the value of
scientific debate to our country and the world."
Sorry for the drama, but as a scientist I have to go off and vomit now.
posted by DiplomaticImmunity at 8:46 AM PST - 5 comments
Sensible policy toward Cuba developing, or the beginning of the end for Colin Powell?
"He's done good things for his people," Powell told Rep. Jose E. Serrano, D-N.Y., who called the embargo of Cuba senseless. For most of his 42 years in power Castro has fomented revolutions and insurgencies, "but he is no longer the threat he was," Powell said.
This certainly breaks with what appears to be a fairly hawkish international stance by the administration, but maybe it's punishment aimed at Florida for not delivering a decisive victory? Poor Jeb.
posted by shagoth at 8:29 AM PST - 22 comments
Join the first-ever
Blogger Template Design Contest and you might win part of over $6,000 in prizes!
p.s. contest only open to residents of the United States, so nuts to you if you're a dirty steenkin foreigner
posted by lia at 6:43 AM PST - 51 comments
April 26
The Harvard Living Wage Campaign
has been sitting in blocking the administration building for 8 days, 8 hours, and 58 minutes. They've been
nytimesed and you'd think the college would
have to listen to Ben Affleck (and Ted Kennedey and 200 faculty and...).
posted by benjamin at 8:22 PM PST - 24 comments
100 Days of Bush
The DNC gets their digs in. I especially liked the Harper's like
index. Their commercials section doesn't seem to be active yet - but there's some political ads
here
posted by owillis at 4:52 PM PST - 24 comments
Jane Want Relationship, Tarzan Want Sex.
A study seems to confirm what women have long suspected -- women seek security in relationships, while men stick around for the sex.
The study says that in most species, monogomy is the top choice when fertility is hidden. Wonder if they took into account the Pill? ;)
posted by jennak at 1:17 PM PST - 14 comments
Fetus is a person?
The bill's supporters, predominantly Republicans during the debate, denied the measure is anti-abortion, and instead is aimed at punishing criminals who attack pregnant women. It exempts abortions performed with the woman's consent.
Is that all it is or is there a set up for further laws, going into abortion and such?
posted by tiaka at 12:54 PM PST - 39 comments
SpamCon 2001
gets underway in one month. It's a meeting of the minds to crush spam and
guys like this. But it's probably too late. Can legislation ever make a dent in spam? Are technical solutions possible (no open SMTP ports allowed)?
posted by mathowie at 10:48 AM PST - 10 comments
Catalogue your personal library...
I have a sizeable library, and have long wanted to catalog the whole thing for insurance purposes and for general gee-whiz potential. The prospect of hand entering information for each of the books, though, has kept me from doing anything. Now, thanks to a link at PB's
site, I've got the itch again... and something to scratch it.
Note to Mac users: Mac-Barcode has a USB scanner available.
posted by silusGROK at 9:29 AM PST - 27 comments
Oops! "Werent
you supposed to watch him?" "Me? I thought
you were watching him."
This is what happens when they let the Shrub pretend he is actually in charge.
posted by mapalm at 9:22 AM PST - 47 comments
Underwater Warpdrives
Some naval experts believe that supercavitating systems could alter the nature of undersea warfare, changing stealthy cat-and-mouse stalking contests between large submarines into something resembling aerial combat, featuring noisy high-speed dogfights among small, short-range "subfighters" shooting underwater bullets at one another after having been launched from giant "subcarriers."
posted by hmgovt at 6:15 AM PST - 22 comments
RoboHitler?
Paul Verhoeven has hinted that he may go ahead an make a film about Adolf H. ""The idea would be to show that charisma is not identical with good. So basically you would see how a charismatic person would be able to seduce 50 or 60 million Germans"...he's not, however, certain that it will ever make it to the cinema...
posted by hmgovt at 5:47 AM PST - 24 comments
Yet another "Jackass" injury
This time some teenagers were videotaping themselves performing a stunt in which a guy dodges an oncoming car, apparently in hopes of getting on the show. Interesting video of the event, from both inside and outside the car.
posted by Potsy at 3:05 AM PST - 35 comments
April 25
Ashcroft and Bush make their move.
"Justice Department lawyers have warned that they may soon be forced to abandon the federal government's landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry because the Bush administration has not proposed enough funding to keep the litigation alive, according to a confidential memo reviewed by The Washington Post."
posted by owillis at 8:29 PM PST - 22 comments
Feeling chest pains? Maybe it's that gun in your pocket!
Physicians For Social Responsibility want all doctors to screen patients for gun ownership, ostensibly so that they can warn them about the physical hazards said ownership can cause. Hmmm...doctors don't do that for toasters, trampolines, hammers, paper, and other things that can harm you. I'm no gun lover - don't own one, never will, but this smacks of political agenda.
posted by davidmsc at 4:43 PM PST - 20 comments
David! Cover Up!
But it gets so darned hot and humid this time of the year in Florida, even for great art. Is this likely to lead our school kids astray too?
posted by Postroad at 4:40 PM PST - 21 comments
Sen. Bob Kerrey tells a personal Vietnam horror story
And the NYT has posted an advance copy of its Sunday Magazine story to avoid being scooped, which is a first, I believe.
[via
<http://www.nytimes.com>] Kerrey, as a lieutenant in Vietnam helped kill a village of Vietnamese women and children in 1969. How many more skeletons in the closets of the current leaders of America? And will this spur the actual beginning of American critical reflection on Vietnam, or will it blow over in a few weeks like when MacNamara's autobiographical confession came out a few years ago?
posted by rschram at 4:15 PM PST - 32 comments
InfoBots are coming.
I believe we've touched on this before, but now it seems to be moving from concept to reality: Instant Messenger "buddies" that are actually bots. You send them an IM with a question, such as "Hey pal, what's the weather in
Thunder Bay, Ontario?" And it IMs you back with the answer, almost instantaneously. No waiting for messy web sites to load, no funky searches to run.
ActiveBuddy has been the most, um, active in developing the technology, but they've been working on it forever without anything to show to the public. Now, it's out there, somewhere. CNET is reporting today that an ActiveBuddy beta bot has been live for a few months; you can play with it right now if you know its name. (And if you do know its name, a tip would be appreciated. I've been jonesing for this for a good while.) A more public version is supposed to be out in a few weeks. Here buddy buddy buddy...
posted by aaron at 3:06 PM PST - 17 comments
Hello, Peril.
The so-called
model minority inspire an amazing amount of mistrust, according to a survey of US residents. Featuring the revelation that
one third of those polled "said Chinese Americans are more loyal to China than to the United States. "
posted by anildash at 11:34 AM PST - 56 comments
Generation X washed up?
Okay, so it became a marketing term for a demographic I'm part of, and I usually cringe when seeing something described as 'Gen-X', but I still saw some truths while reading this. Was that it? Was the 90's Internet revolution and crash our time in the sun, and now we're "so over"? (And do Gen-Xers really range from 20-38 years old now?) [via obscurestore]
posted by kokogiak at 10:32 AM PST - 56 comments
Should all of America pay for Davenport?
If a community has the ability to avoid a natural disaster and chooses not to, are the rest of us responsible? How many times. Apparently, Davenport benefits economically from the great view, unobstructed by a floodwall. Maybe it should use some of those benefits to clean up the mess?
posted by anapestic at 10:09 AM PST - 40 comments
Greenspun Redux.
Philip has written an excellent overview of "what went wrong" from ArsDigita's inception to lawsuit phase. It's very detailed, very candid and quite an interesting read. It makes you wonder what stories are behind all the other failed technology and .com companies in the past year and a half.
posted by bkdelong at 9:45 AM PST - 2 comments
Columbine parents sue game makers
Claiming computer games partially at fault for Colombine killings, parents of victims have brought a law suit against game makers...will this be viewed as unprovable cause of the shootings or bring about a study of relationship between violence and games?
posted by Postroad at 7:32 AM PST - 18 comments
"School bullying called widespread."
This one's a real gem. Not only are the results of the study overly predictable, but the article is full of other great realizations, such as how "bullying is [...] unacceptable behavior," and how there is a "possible connection between bullying and violence."
posted by CrayDrygu at 7:30 AM PST - 27 comments
Pathology Tribunal Collapses.
One pathologist, who asked not to be named, said last night: "This is going to call into question the credibility of the board. How can the public, let alone coroners and the police, have confidence in the crucial work it does if it can't run a disciplinary hearing?"
posted by methylsalicylate at 7:25 AM PST - 2 comments
April 24
Erap to be arrested today.
Filipinos might be interested to know that a warrant of arrest has been issued to deposed Philippine president Joseph Estrada for the non-bailable offense of economic plunder.
A few thousand of his supporters have gathered around his residence in the affluent subdivision of North Greenhills, and there have already been
untoward incidents. My family lives there; Mom says anti-riot police are roaming the streets.
posted by brownpau at 9:11 PM PST - 23 comments
What is a Print?
is perhaps the coolest bit of informative interactive Flash work I have seen. Well explained, meaningful interaction (not just click and watch), clean, and the transitions aren't too slow. Nice. (Props to
xplane for the link.)
posted by jplummer at 5:57 PM PST - 15 comments
A Suck article on "the death of banner ads"
(complete with humorous acknowledgement of the fact that their parent company relies on ads) made me think about the online advertising that I enjoyed or followed up on. What are some effective ads you remember?
posted by jed at 5:51 PM PST - 42 comments
This auction at eBay
has to be one of the more entertaining after effects of the dotcom meltdown. Personally, the last suggestion in the ad would be my preferred usage of the item for sale...
posted by Spanktacular at 5:47 PM PST - 5 comments
It
must hurt for
M$NBC to report NT hacks. Then again, I suppose the article wasn't about security but rather another triumph for deception and chicanery. For the 'good' guys this time.
FYI [
thanks for the lowdown Mike Brunker]
(MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)
posted by donkeysuck at 2:01 PM PST - 8 comments
Urban Legend, I choose you!
Pokemon is being banned in several Muslim countries because of rumour that it is anti-religious. What's your favorite urban legend that resulted in widespread societal changes? (You need not limit yourself to religious edicts . . . an sort of change made by people in power because of an urban legend will be fine.) Why do you think that urban legends have this power? What does this say about human cognition?
posted by iceberg273 at 10:37 AM PST - 46 comments
Center of the World
, a new film by director Wayne Wong has a really immersive, erotic website. There seems to be an increasing number of film sites like these that don't just post the trailer and a film information but extend the viewers experience by actually making the site an extension of the film itself.
posted by joshua at 6:03 AM PST - 14 comments
At the end of the Cold War, a lot of people professed to believe that the USSR's collapse "proved" that communism/socialism/egalitarianism (delete according to the size of claim you want to make) can never work.
Maybe. But
this got me thinking you could say the same about neoliberalism.
posted by Mocata at 3:08 AM PST - 17 comments
April 23
Corrupt Chinese Officials Plan Escape Routes.
Why? Because they believe the collapse of the Chinese government is imminent. Their planning is premature, experts quoted here say. But we all know that experts can often be . . . well, not so expert. Wild headline, to say the least.
posted by raysmj at 10:25 PM PST - 36 comments
Eudora Releases 5.1...
an incremental release is seldom worth a post, but with 5.1 comes support for SSL! Which makes me very happy: our SysAdmin banned us from hooking up to our mail server until we had an e-mail client that was A) SSL-enabled and B) not a product of Microsoft... finally! I can get my corporate e-mail without having it forwarded to my Yahoo! e-mail account! : )
posted by silusGROK at 9:50 PM PST - 18 comments
The 'truth' about letterboxing!?!
And I quote: "Lettershlocking will end! Film censorship will be defeated! HDTV will become the Betamax of the late 90's. DVD disks with lettershlocking will become the 8-tracks of the late 90's. FULLSCREEN FOR ME! BAN THE BARS! CANCEL HDTV BEFORE IT BEGINS! LETTERSHLOCKING IS WRONG! IT WILL END!"
posted by feelinglistless at 2:56 PM PST - 63 comments
Snappy Dresser
is
now to return Tuesday. Before I went to bed last night it said Monday. I haven't been there for a while and don't know what's up. They used to be The Daily Instigator, (now a porn site) but went down because:
"First of all, the word 'Daily' in your title is a death sentence for your ego when you skip a day. Or in our case, a few weeks. Second, it's hard to arrange legitimate interviews with a word like 'Instigator' in your title. The most important moral: don't think of possible magazine titles while on your sixth beer of the evening."
I was also going to link My Boot for his "She hates my futon" story, but it appears down or gone.
This was going to be a happy post with me saying things like: "No time in history have so many people done so much for so little." But now I wonder is all this altruism fleeting? Is your URL doomed for porn? The rationale for ftrain is why I am on the web myself. How long can good people with good ideas continue to give?
posted by john at 12:27 PM PST - 14 comments
Have a look
at what Miss Israel will be wearing to this year's Miss Universe pageant: "The top of the silk dress, embroidered with diamonds and pearls, is covered by
an army-issue flak jacket (emphasis mine) adorned with diamonds for a so-called softer look."
Bulletproof fashion as political statement?
posted by lia at 10:02 AM PST - 30 comments
one bad decision after another...
"Three months ago, our new sibling, Plastic, took its first breath and then took off. Being the opportunists that we are, we decided to do some genetic engineering, grafting some Plastic DNA into the FEED site. Today you are seeing the results of this experiment. There are two major changes, and for any long-time FEED readers these will feel more like revivals than outright novelties. The first is the new Filter section, our very own web log..."
posted by palegirl at 9:43 AM PST - 27 comments
Save the papers?
Nicholson Baker, in his new book
Double Fold, tries to convince libraries and anyone else who will listen that we need to keep original newspapers to preserve the historical record. He's even started the nonprofit American Newspaper Repository so that libraries would sell their old papers to him.
posted by amyscoop at 7:45 AM PST - 7 comments
The Rabble
Brand new journal--on-line, born in Quebec as a result of the demonstrations. Some good reading here.
posted by Postroad at 6:43 AM PST - 6 comments
Unrepentant Nader
Is Nader a Sancho Panza, the realist, or Don Quixote, the dreamer, when he says Bush policies toward environment help ignite attention to our needs and thus good to have?
Or is he just a guy who can't believe he might have been wrong?
posted by Postroad at 6:02 AM PST - 76 comments
April 22
Apparently exposure to violence in media caused the Columbine massacre.
There's a best-selling book, readily available in nearly every book store in the US, which includes descriptions of genocide, wars, deliberately-caused plagues, mass killing of children, cities being put to the sword, and which portrays those responsible for these crimes as
heroes! Clearly it establishes a culture of violence and should be suppressed. The success of this book (the best selling book of all time, which is regularly given to children!) makes clear that the publishing "industry will not effectively regulate itself, and that court intervention is necessary to keep violent [books] out of the hands of minors."
No question about it: there should be a class action suit against all publishers of the Bible.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:44 PM PST - 49 comments
"U R STINKY"?
From one of
those surveys: "14% of the seven to 16-year-olds interviewed had received a bullying, deliberately hurtful call or text message on their mobile phone." Beyond the observation that bullies are nothing if not creative, why the hell do these kids need the bloody things?
posted by holgate at 10:18 PM PST - 17 comments
The Dish [
official site/trailer] is the thoroughly charming, (mostly) true story of the crew at Australia's
Parkes Observatory and their unique role in relaying telemetry, biometrics and -- most importantly for posterity -- television pictures from the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission. [more inside]
posted by bradlands at 7:38 PM PST - 9 comments
NOW SHOWING -- It's a Sex Toy and A Candy
This link takes you to a Flash animation for an "adult product" called
GummyDongs -- gummy candy shaped like a penis, with a real vibrator inside. The animation is mildly amusing, but the concept was pretty funny to me. If you hate Flash, just go to the
home page
(sounds like pr0n, but it's actually pretty tame compared to the Nob-scan link)
posted by briank at 7:25 PM PST - 1 comments
So we think we're free?
Bill Moyers tells us that we're in the grip of the mega-corporate media who know how to lavishly butter their own bread. And if we like jam? Too bad.
posted by caraig at 7:08 PM PST - 3 comments
Paul Knox, Globe and Mail, on the Quebec City summit.
"The gestures the promise to release the draft FTAA negotiating documents and televise part of the summit were too little and too late to head off protest. One would hardly expect Mr. Chrétien to move the summit elsewhere. But as things stand today, these images of inchoate frustration and visceral repression are the legacy of Quebec City."
posted by tranquileye at 1:19 PM PST - 4 comments
Coffee, anyone?
Mints with caffiene, maybe? Anyway, according to a fairly recent press release from a group (I've never heard of) called the National Sleep Foundation, we're all working too much, studying too much or whatever, and sleeping less and having less fun, sex, etc., and suffice it to say that the Other NSF, if you will, thinks
it's a big problem.
posted by raysmj at 12:45 PM PST - 15 comments
IMDB Charging Actors/Actress for Pictures
The Internet Movie Data Base has provided an invaluable service to millions of Web users over the years. But now, the IMDB sees fit to charge actors and actresses to put a small 'headshot' pic on their pages.What next? Will IMDB start charging studios to list their films? For an example of a page without a headshot, try the gorgeous
Keira Knightley's page. Not so good without the pic, huh?
posted by wackybrit at 12:17 PM PST - 16 comments
The young men and women
of America's future elite work their laptops to the bone, rarely question authority, and happily accept their positions at the top of the heap as part of the natural order of life. What's your experince?
posted by semmi at 11:15 AM PST - 44 comments
Death by Information:
"Does the word 'pedestrian' frighten you? Could you survive for an hour without a cell phone, laptop, or - even worse - a television?"
posted by Zeldman at 6:55 AM PST - 24 comments
Criminals beware.
U.S. police dogs are being equipped with a new weapon in the fight against crime: titanium false teeth. Not just criminals are unhappy about this.
posted by Cuppatea at 5:23 AM PST - 7 comments
Europe's left makes Dubya's tax cut look small:
Based on Congressional Budget Office projections, Mr. Bush's tax proposal would provide American taxpayers with an accumulated relief of about 3.6% of gross domestic product between 2002 and 2006. Compare this with the plan from Germany's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens: Finance Minister Hans Eichel will hand back 4.1% of GDP of the world's third-largest economy between 2001 and 2005.
posted by frednorman at 4:13 AM PST - 2 comments
April 21
You too can be a felon!
Last year, the SDMI Foundation made a
public challenge to see if
anyone could crack 6 proposed protection mechanisms for digitally-encoded music. All six turned out to be feeble and all six fell. Since then, the SDMI Foundation has been relying on lawyers to cover up for the incompetence of their engineers. They're trying to suppress this article, so everyone reading this has a duty to make and store a copy of it. (Everyone should also own at least one copy of DeCSS. I have the 442-character C version printed on the back of my personal card.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:03 PM PST - 15 comments
HumanClick.
This is cool. This allows you to post a little 'chat link' on your site. You can chat online with your visitors that visit your site. I added it to one of my sites and people just drop by and say hello. They don't need to install anything on the client side. Interactivity always seems to benefit sites.
posted by borgle at 12:04 PM PST - 9 comments
Summit of the Americas
A very complex set of issues that are being discussed in Canada, but for most of us, all we see presented is the police, the tear gassings, the forces gathered in protest. Here, a summary of the complex issues at stake and being discussed.
posted by Postroad at 8:04 AM PST - 53 comments
April 20
One of the classier TV channels around has done a site re-design.
I think it's pretty neat, but it's a bit um flashy and so drags with a slower connection. I've been watching movies for over 30 years, but I'll still come across a gem on TCM now and then that I've never seen, or sometimes even heard of. They're running some more recent films lately too, like
The Hudsucker Proxy a few weeks ago.
posted by aflakete at 11:30 PM PST - 8 comments
So it's come to this.
California - my favorite third world country. We've had terrorist rampages; water rationing; more recently, energy rationing; senior citizens holding a *bake sale* for god's sake in San Francisco to raise funds for affordable housing;
an encephalitis outbreak in Livermore and now this.
posted by Lynsey at 9:49 PM PST - 7 comments
There's a ban on self-linking, but since this is my brother's instead of mine, it must be okay. He's in the Navy and I think this is one of the best descriptions of what
military service , and I do mean
service, is like. I hope all of you who look down on our military take the time to read it.
posted by CRS at 5:10 PM PST - 26 comments
¿Headed south anytime soon?
This fun, if somewhat depressing, little site is the work of the
South to the Future gang. These wicked, evil folks have taken it upon themselves to try and
educate the masses here in the SF bay area. What troubles me is despite the pervasive nature of the dang ol'
Innernet on our everyday lives, I don't see a lot of people buying into causes of this nature. Maybe I am just jaded and exhausted from dodging SUVs all over town. I mean, there are a lot of hills in SF so why shouldn't people have monster 4X4s? On a lighter note, this seems to be a neat little side
project of theirs.....
posted by donkeysuck at 3:41 PM PST - 14 comments
The 420 Philosophy
gives a brief overview of the popular marijuana codeword and its likely origin. Today is, after all, 4/20; please celebrate responsibly.
posted by johnnyace at 3:35 PM PST - 31 comments
The estate of a divorced father is freed from paying a failing son's tuition.
Basically, the ruling establishes (at least in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) that children have obligations to parents. OK, if you want your parents to pay for your college education, you should at least try to graduate. But what are the other consequences of this ruling? What's the point at which a child's bad behavior releases a parent from their obligations as a parent? If your divorced dad is the
Great Santini, can he cut off your child support if you hit him back?
posted by dchase at 3:26 PM PST - 2 comments
.the .product will make you happy.
It might make ya cream yer pants. .the .product
"demonstrates 'realistic' and detailed graphics are possible even within the limitations of the 64kb competition." Over a gig of data compressed into this small a space? The potential is frightening.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:32 AM PST - 9 comments
Johnny Ganja Seed
This certainly is not fighting stick figures. It is a series of cartoons about the savior of the herb. Seeing as it is today... I thought I would post it. Flash, large files and funny.
[via Flazoom]
posted by DragonBoy at 8:54 AM PST - 9 comments
Text messaging
is inspiring artists to new areas of creativity from theatre to sculpture, says the Guardian.
posted by jhiggy at 8:46 AM PST - 4 comments
True or False?
According to Karl Mueller (a.k.a.
"Gus"), the FBI came a knockin' on his door after taking his
"Trench Coat Mafia" parody site a little too seriously. I can imagine it happening, but considering what a prankster he is, one does wonder whether this is all a late April Fool's joke. What do you think?
posted by lia at 8:02 AM PST - 11 comments
No Hiding Place
"According to most experts in the field, a police state with powers of control and surveillance beyond the wildest dreams of Hitler or Stalin could now be established in Britain within 24 hours" Here's how...
posted by hmgovt at 7:33 AM PST - 4 comments
BlueLight (Kmart) screws up Mp3 player price.
But refuses to honor order requests.
The Nomad Mp3 normally lists for $299 but a glitch had it listed as $29.99.
Word spread, and many ordered, but Bluelight is refusing to honor the orders.
Is this right or wrong? Granted this was a glitch, but what about truth in advertising???
posted by da5id at 6:45 AM PST - 46 comments
AOLTWWBNBC?
The FCC (okay, no more acronyms!) kills off the rule stating that one company can't own more than one broadcast network. The big nets can't merge, but the little ones and big ones can get together.
posted by hijinx at 6:06 AM PST - 12 comments
The Gulf War: Hidden agenda?
A documentary just released suggests that the Gulf War was a staged American effort to put American forces into the Gulf region and that there was no abiding reason our troops had to be sent to Desert Storm. You read; you decide.
posted by Postroad at 5:18 AM PST - 20 comments
Apathyology:
Ten or twelve years ago, back when I was in high school, some friends of mine were gonna start something called the
National Apathy Society. I say
were cuz we never did. That was the joke. We were all members of a club about apathy but we were too apathetic to... well you get it don't you? You don't? Well
I don't care. My point is, and I do have one, I am highly suspect of any organization which
claims to be apathetic but they
actually have a website. Especially since I didn't think of doing it first.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:57 AM PST - 10 comments
ShadowTV
is tomorrow's technology today -- its
"TiVo on steroids," according to
Joachim Kim, a creator of a new technology that enables users (which may at sometime include the public on a subscription model) to pull up video-quality or better streaming footage of
any television show that aired or is currently airing, including (or not including) the commercials, all in a handy web application.
The limitations are endless.
Such a technology could prove deadly for the big TV networks (down the road sometime), although ShadowTV seems optimistic to work with content providers.
[Thanks to Professor Michael Rosenblum at NYU for introducing our
Televison and the Information Explosion class to tomorrow' technology.]
Now, let me begin planning that 7-season
Star Trek: Voyager marathon...
posted by nyukid at 2:45 AM PST - 45 comments
April 19
Outfront
is 15 minutes of radio, on daily, which reflects Canada through the eyes and minds of its freelance community. There's no host on this show
it's all about Canadians telling their own stories in their own unique ways.
transom.org is another website that archives short pieces by unknowns. see also:
radiodiaries.org,
soundportraits.org, dc productions... do you know other sites that showcase interesting radio pieces?
posted by palegirl at 10:22 PM PST - 2 comments
