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June 2000 Archives
June 30
the economist presents a very clear
review of why and how the zimbabwe elections went horribly wrong and what this means for the future of zimbabwe & africa. [this article is neither long nor hard but it's strong. read it] "After 20 years of ZANU government, the average Zimbabwean is a third poorer and can expect to die more than 15 years younger. . . The responsibility for reviving the sick economy still rests with Mr Mugabe and ZANU. Half of the workforce is jobless. Inflation is eating Zimbabweans’ savings at a rate of almost 70% a year. An unrealistic exchange rate has led to shortages of fuel and other imports. Mr Mugabe’s plans to seize white-owned farms without compensation, and his contradictory statements about whether he will do the same to mines and factories, have scared off both foreign and domestic investors. Despite having some of the most fertile land in Africa, Zimbabwe could need food aid this year."
posted by palegirl at 10:28 PM PST - 17 comments
Violent Media is Good For Kids Interesting theory that viewing violent media, reading comics and playing bloody video games is actually cathartic for kids. Not sure it's valid, but it's interesting.
posted by brookish at 3:06 PM PST - 1 comments
Well, it's about time that we got around to this. Imagine the freedom we have now. Also imagine the possibilities for abuse. Could a jpeg be legally binding now? We still have a long way to go, but it's a good first step...
posted by dgallo at 2:33 PM PST - 1 comments
What if you didn't need a prescription to get birth control pills? The FDA is thinking about allowing The Pill to be distributed over-the-counter. This would save a lot of effort and money. The concerns over the issue are that women may not continue with their yearly checkups if they don't have to get a prescription; that they may not realize the side-effects of using the pill with other medication, such as antibiotics; or that teenagers might be more likely to start using it without their parents' knowledge. Any thoughts?
posted by daveadams at 8:32 AM PST - 23 comments
Has
Amazon.com finally ditched the unsustainable and cluttered one-tab-per-store interface? And if so, is this how they react to their stock falling?
posted by tranquileye at 7:34 AM PST - 12 comments
June 29
Oh, now this is just great. Going into bankrupcy, the most valuable property that a lot of failed dot-coms have is all the information they've collected about their customers in the mean time, like names and addresses and phone numbers and credit card numbers and purchasing patterns and loads of other stuff. In order to appease creditors, three of them are actively trying to sell off their databases right now. What makes that interesting is that they had previously promised never to reveal that information to anyone.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:06 PM PST - 10 comments
I seem to recall an online utility that presents a view of what a web site would look like in multiple browsers and on multiple platforms. My searching has turned up empty. Of course I've been known to choose unsuccessful keywords. Specifically, I'm looking for a utility to simulate the appearance of a web page on a Macintosh. Anyone here know of such a tool?
posted by netbros at 9:38 PM PST - 12 comments
Douglas Rushkoff: "The myth of the internet - and one I believed for a long time - is that most people really want to share the stories of their own lives." And I'd add to that: most of those people who DO want to share their own stories really don't know how to do it. And that includes me...
posted by ericost at 2:01 PM PST - 13 comments
Oh, happy day! Just when thought the 2000 US Presidential Race was going to be a woebegone contest between
Dull and
Duller, the impish whackjob returns for yet another round of merry hi-jinks and paranoiac delusions presented as fact!
posted by m.polo at 11:29 AM PST - 4 comments
Giving God His Props. The latest
Survivor reject thanks the Lord 37 times in his 750-word departing statement -- which is exactly the kind of spiritual Tourette's that got him kicked off the island in the first place. Did I miss the introduction of an 11th Commandment requiring God to be overthanked?
posted by rcade at 9:27 AM PST - 19 comments
Well this is Qte! I'm sure I'm probably the last to know about it. And it's probably not fashionable to admit to being a trekkie nowadays, but since when have I been fashionable? Finally they have come out with a Star Trek computer game that I enjoyed. Kinda like the card game. I suck at it, but it was still fun. And it's great for the ego. You get to pretend you're Q...
posted by ZachsMind at 12:53 AM PST - 10 comments
June 28
MSNBC's Robert Wright seemes confused in this story about the Global Positioning System. He misinforms the reader about how terrorists can now use the military's encrypted GPS signals for more accurate positioning. (FYI: you are still unable to use the military's encrypted GPS signals, contrary to what Wright claims.)
more inside>>
posted by darainwa at 10:08 PM PST - 2 comments
The New-Boy Network Finally, the Malcolm Gladwell article describing - all at once! - hiring in the software industry
and the scientific basis of first impressions ia
onliné. I discussed this very story with a recruitrix from MSN just today. It cast a bit of a pall over an otherwise surprisingly pleasant and reassuring interview (held after hours in a café with me wearing shorts).
But I digress.posted by joeclark at 6:42 PM PST - 5 comments
UK more crime-ridden than US? CBS News has come up with a
report describing the UK as a "battleground" for crime, replete with pictures of downtown Friday night battles after the pubs close. You're more likely to be robbed, assaulted, or have your car stolen in Britain than the US, according to recent figures. Then again, according to the DOJ, you're less likely to be raped, murdered or shot. Comparing apples and oranges?
posted by holgate at 4:25 PM PST - 29 comments
Frictionary! Now whenever someone posts crap about the state of MeFi, you can successfully use the phrase, "That's such whipped meme".
posted by Neale at 4:11 PM PST - 2 comments
Does it bug anyone else that if you have a MetaFilter account with cookies enabled, it automatically enters your password (which can be read in view source)???
Personally I think this is a very bad thing, as I've visited metafilter at the library a few times..
posted by Bane at 12:38 PM PST - 15 comments
Boy Scouts: 1 Gay Memebers: 0 Court Says Boy Scouts Can Bar Gays, which is slightly troubling, in that a psuedo-national organization can make rules that go against government policy. I don't see how a scoutmaster being gay has anything to do with teaching kids how to tie knots and go camping though.
posted by mathowie at 12:00 PM PST - 52 comments
Fidel's victory over the U.S. is complete. Elian will return to Cuba, probably before the next sunrise. Why did this decision take so long? The negligent bungling of the Clinton adminsitration, the Department of Justice, and the INS. When Elian first arrived, the INS placed him in the custody of his nearest kin here in America, and advised them to seek a state court ruling on custody. They relied on that advice and did so. Then, for political resonas, the administration betrayed both the family and the boy, critically undermining our foreign policy objectives in the process.
His future as a pawn of the Castro tyranny looks bleak indeed. We can only hope he and every other Cuban are soon freed from Fidel's rule.
posted by mikewas at 11:33 AM PST - 34 comments
Yahoo-Groups! Yahoo! seems to be building itself into a virtual AOL. I suppose they are going to grab a cable company or entertainment company next. Hey - maybe Paramount's new owners will put it on the block.
posted by rich at 7:09 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
June 27
If you`re like me, then you believe that as time goes on and technology gets better, information content providers will have fewer and fewer means of preventing their content from being freely distributed - until all information is free, essentially. We`re already seeing this - MP3, motion pictures and whatnot. But let`s stretch our imagination a little and try to conceive the convergance of this trend with
Nanotechnology... [more]
posted by SilentSalamander at 7:00 PM PST - 5 comments
I've never actually seen this in use (probably because I'm totally amerocentric in my browsing), but apparently you can get some
wäĉkŷ characters in your domain name if you want to, assuming you want a dot-nu domain. If your browser speaks Japanese, you can even have a
kanji domain. That's pretty neat.
posted by endquote at 6:24 PM PST - 12 comments
And now, here's something we hope you'll really like...
Californian David Simon decided that It Would Be Nice If you could use the Internet like your VCR. The MPAA and the Studios disagreed.
Is this guy crazy? Or crazy like a fox?
posted by baylink at 10:01 AM PST - 8 comments
Another day, another piece of
unconstitutional net-censorship legislation in Congress. And this time it's authored by your pal and mine, John "Watch Out for Charlies!" McCain. Perhaps we should start a deadpool for all these bills, giving out some cash to whoever guesses the dates on which the courts throw them out?
posted by aaron at 9:52 AM PST - 4 comments
Screenfridge! How many times have you read an article where some 'expert' predicts that even your fridge will be hooked up to the net in the future? Well Electrolux have already invented it.
posted by Markb at 9:18 AM PST - 13 comments
A true American tale: follow
the rise and fall and rise and fall of David Stanley, the con artist with Christ-like charisma who dodged a prison sentence, dyed his hair, and began the multi-million dollar startup
Pixelon without a driver's license, a social security card, or a shred of technology to sell. The people he has screwed over still love him for his kindess and genius. In Stanley's own words, "God has blessed me with a unique ability to defy reality". Why are people and corporations willing to invest millions of dollars into ideas without proof? And why do I admire this liar?
posted by sixfoot6 at 8:55 AM PST - 1 comments
Oh this is lovely. Sydney, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, and now... Somebody remind me to move outta Dallas within 12 years, before the gone and forgotten
Izzy makes its appearance in my hometown. Sheesh. We need this like we need another
DART bus. Or a pipe bomb, for that matter...
posted by ZachsMind at 6:47 AM PST - 7 comments
Jeff Koons on his art: "I'm interested in making objects that you would want to grab and take with you if your house was burning down. " He also says he's really into cereal boxes. New York Times (registration required)
posted by lockecito at 6:35 AM PST - 7 comments
YAHOOGLE!! Your average weblogger's favorite search engine makes the big time (and they just hit a billion pages indexed, too). Will success spoil
the Googs?posted by wendell at 12:14 AM PST - 5 comments
June 26
Tapping Dave Winer's backend , so I don't have to. Are Webloggers and Weblog-followers getting so jaded as to not even care about the New-And-Improved
SubHonker Filter? Let's see: according to Weblogs.Com's
Weblog Search, it has been mentioned by only 9 weblogs (including
its creator's own) prior to this post, and never made it over the threshold to show up on
Beebo's Metalog. Or maybe that's the point. We're not supposed to be counting hits or trolling for readership. But when you're looking for something new and fresh from someone who has something unique to contribute to the Weblog Community (which we're not even supposed to admit exists) is there an easier way to go than a random dive into the SHF's list of "New" blogs? Or maybe you just want to be made aware within an hour of when your favorite web-pundit has posted another magnum-opus (or magnum-bill-the-cat). Do these tools matter anymore? Or is it just that, with a couple thousand registered to weblogs.com, you have to be an obsessive-compulsive nutcase (like me) to even dive into the swamp, no matter how much Dan has improved the filtering interface. (Four hours going through the list so far, and I've only decided Yes-or-No on about 15%, and it's the obvious 15%!)
posted by wendell at 11:52 PM PST - 17 comments
A dose of reality. I apologize for the content of this URL, but this is just too funny not to post. Finally, the world gets a dose of reality that .com != good company.
posted by fusinski at 8:28 AM PST - 5 comments
Here's an interesting one... The Office of National Drug Control Policy apparently decided to buy banner ad rotations on websites... using pro-drug keywords. I actually think that's kind of clever. The problem is that they're using DoubleClick...
posted by baylink at 7:18 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
June 25
SIMbabes ain't putting out... I play
The Sims. You probably suspected that didn't you? Well, there's a
Blogger Powered weblog by the guy behind the upcoming
Blueprint program, and guess what? Copyright infringement once again rears its ugly head in cyberspace. A website called
Simcorally has downloaded objects others created and claimed them as his own. So now the
SIMbabes are on strike. The upshot of this is I'm still stuck with that obnoxious green couch. I want
something better. And that piano looks awful nice.
Simlane has more on the topic.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:38 PM PST - 8 comments
teens spin web of the future. great article re: the winners of a competition for teenagers maintaining useful, unique, nonprofit sites.
Emily Boyde, 17, of Newcastle, Australia, was the only female finalist. Her Web site,
MatMice, allows kids to create their own Web sites and view sites made by their friends.
She taught herself to write HTML, the language used to create Web sites.
"I don't know a lot of other females who do this sort of thing," she said. "But after I saw the Internet, I liked the look of it. So I decided to learn to use it myself."
Emily rocks my world.
What do you think of the winners?
posted by gusset at 5:06 PM PST - 2 comments
«Êtes-vous un mod ou un rocker?» At the earsplitting industry schmoozefest I attended this week (which I am forbidden to link to because I blogged it at one of my sites), I beelined toward the more interesting-looking people. One fella had a full-on
mod look. I listen to the show
Mods & Rockers on
CIUT, and I claim to understand
Blow-Up. But I was impressed as hell by an explanation of the origin of the terms
mod and rocker. It's the sort of cultural introduction I wish more people would write – after you teach yourself what a concept is, you document that self-teaching for others. Hey, it's the Internet gift kulcha, innit? (Also:
Mod films!)
posted by joeclark at 10:29 AM PST - 1 comments
"To achieve memorable badness is not so easy. It has to be done innocently, by a poet unaware of his or her defects. The right combination of lofty ambition, humorless self-confidence, and crass incompetence is rare and precious. "
I wish I was talanted enough to write something really bad. At best, I flirt with the mundane.
posted by grumblebee at 7:02 AM PST - 7 comments
Words to web by: "My personal theory, for what it's worth, is that Web sites looking to make real money either need to A) be Yahoo, B) sell porn, or (best of all) C) start small, and win a damn following."
posted by owillis at 12:41 AM PST - 2 comments
June 24
Porn on the net is not a problem. Readers chime in on
an opinion column with opinions of their own. My favorites "All one has to do if you don't want to read such garbage is to delete it when you first sign onto the Internet" (this guy obviously has no clue how the web works) and "Is there software I can buy to block out you?" In this article, Porn site supporters and detractors both seem to agree that users have to go out of their way to see pornographic content on the web. You
have to click on the link to see porn. Funny how the writer of the original article couldn't figure that out. Is porn really that much of a problem on the web, or are some people just too embarrased to admit that due to some curiosity, they
wanted to follow the links?
posted by mathowie at 5:13 PM PST - 11 comments
June 23
Three words: Charlie's Angels Trailer. This looks pretty funny, especially with Bill Murray involved. I guess the real question this movie raises is "are the re-makes of yesteryear successes going to continue in the 00's?" Personally, I thought it was a 90's thing, which I often call the "recycled decade." Side question: why don't the angels have guns in the ending silhouette? Is that because of the current anti-gun climate? [thanks
Kristin]
posted by mathowie at 3:19 PM PST - 6 comments
Yesterday Justice Philip Cummins looked down at the two clean-cut young men in the dock as they sat close together on a long, leather bench. He condemned the brief, severe assault that caused Hibbins' death. He said their actions could not be justified as a citizen's arrest of a suspect because they punished Hibbins instead of apprehending him. However, he said, they were not vigilantes because their conduct was not premeditated. Instead it occurred because of an unplanned upsurge of emotion in both men. The judge said their behavior belonged in the least culpable category of manslaughter because they were decent young men who entered the park not looking for trouble, who reasonably believed a woman had been raped and who were then caught up in a perverse confluence of events for which they were truly sorry.
posted by murray_kester at 12:43 PM PST - 10 comments
Unsurprising posts: Perhaps this should be in Metatalk (and certainly it's more Matt's business than mine), but I want the readers of MetaFilter to read it. Unless I'm confused, the point of a post to Metafilter is to satisfy two criteria:
1. It's interesting to the readership.
2. It's something they're unlikely to discover or encounter elsewhere on their own.
As I look at MetaFilter today, I see several articles which are nothing except digests of news events which I could just as easily have read at Reuters, or the BBC, or CNN, or any of half a dozen other normal web sites. Unless the post here includes an odd editorial slant, just what does it contribute that I can't get from those other sites?
To contrast this, we spent a great deal of time discussing Elian over a period of weeks, and many of those articles included links to the mainline news organizations. But these were
means to permit commentary, not treated as
ends in themselves.
If you want to tell us that
the Dutch truck driver has been indicted, tell us
something else besides which we
can't discover by visiting CNN or Reuters or the BBC. And why were we told about
the end of the hostage standoff in Fiji? What was
added here beyond what I would have discovered on my own at CNN?
Unfortunately, what this looks like is "Gawd, this is neat! I want to participate, too!" syndrome. That part's fine, but before you say something, make sure you have something worth saying!
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:45 AM PST - 25 comments
Are you sick of John Rocker yet? I am. How about
Rudy Giuliani? I am.
In the latest round of NYC entertainment, Rocker has promised to ride the No. 7 train to Shea Stadium. Lots of people are telling him to not be a dumbass (little bit late for that). Comedy hijinks ensue.
For what it's worth, I rode the No. 7 for years and nobody looks at anybody on that line (or at least gets caught doing so), as is consistent with NY subway etiquette. Rocker will be completely anonymous, unless he decides to go through the car passing out gift pens with little slips of paper that have the sign language alphabet printed on them. Even then, 98% of riders won't make eye contact with him.
posted by elgoose at 10:24 AM PST - 3 comments
Deal Announced To End Hostage Standoff in Fiji President's spokesman Joe Brown announced yesterday that a deal has been reached for the release of hostage MPs, and the former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry. The release is set for 11 a.m. (Fiji Time) today. Additionally, amnesty has been granted to the seven men who led the coup in Fiji on May 19.
The hostages have been held for the past five weeks, leading to the declaration of martial law, the suspension of the country's constitution, and plans for an interim government. Military officials conceded that George Speight, leader of the hostage-taking, has won most of his demands from the government, including enshrining native Fijian political hegemony in any new constitution.
posted by rschram at 5:42 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
The Filth and The Fury. I went to see this film last night and it has to be one of the best music documentary (or, if you will, rockumentary) films I've seen. It charts the Sex Pistols rise and fall and is surprisingly funny and touching. It even manages to capture Seventies Britain in all its revolting glory. I think I shall now go and put a safety pin through my website.
posted by dodgygeezer at 5:32 AM PST - 3 comments
June 22
Longtime dream of Francis Ford Coppola finally comes true. I posted this on my site like 5 times just because I think it's so cool. I've never posted on Metafilter before but felt I had to share this since other blog types aren't blogging it. It's a revolution for artists of all types that (writers, screenwriters, photographers, actors, graphic designers, and more) just opened yesterday. Coppola has been dreaming of it for a while. I've been a member of the earlier Zoetrope site for short stories for two years and can tell you that this is the result of a lot of hard work on the part of the webmasters and Zoetrope company. Go there. Share your stories. Share your images. Share your headshots. Share whatever. I know there are writers and budding photographers and filmmakers among you. And if you go, email me or post it here so I can invite you to my private message board area over there -- it's really one big, fun, family.
posted by tracy at 6:58 PM PST - 4 comments
Gee that was sweet Johnny but the world happens to like suing everyone for everything they're worth be it offline or online so we're going to pretend you never said that. Honey?"
"Yes dear." "Where's my
lawyer's phone number?"
"You put it on speed dial, remember?" "Oh yeah.."
posted by ZachsMind at 5:45 PM PST - 6 comments
Sports Night No Go on HBO. Despite the fact that Aaron Sorkin (the creator) had already made plans on an HBO-ized show, ABC and HBO have called off talks due to "financial issues which couldn't be resolved." If you were a fan of Sorkin (Sports Night), you may enjoy "The West Wing." I do.
posted by chrish at 11:41 AM PST - 2 comments
The overthrow of Premier Mossadeq Last week the NYT posted PDF files of a CIA report detailing the overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran in 1953. Names of Iranian participants who assisted in the operation were digitally "removed" because of fears that there families would face retribution when their status as foreign agents was revealed. John Young of
cryptome discovered that the redacted text was not really gone -- by cancelling the PDF rendering at a certain point, the hidden names were revealed. He contacted the NYT and after some discussion told them he would not post the full files; the Times removed their copies of the files until they could edit out the names more securely. Young has since heard that other people also noticed the flawed redaction and has concluded that the information is therefore public. He is now posting the full text of the files (
first installment up now) with the names restored. Is Young playing fast and loose with people's lives? Or does belief in a free press obligate this sort of thing?
posted by tingley at 8:10 AM PST - 14 comments
Nortel offering $1 Million to employees who recruit talented friends. Employees are being asked to submit applications from family and friends, and for every new hire the referring employee gets $2,000 and the chance to enter five draws, each with a prize of $100,000. About 1,000 of the 5,300 optical jobs are in Canada, with the rest split between the United States and Britain. For well-connected employees, there is a $10,000 bonus for bringing in three people, and a $20,000 bonus for five.
Did I happen to mention my major is Telecommunications Management, and I graduate in 2 semesters???
posted by da5id at 7:10 AM PST - 3 comments
Found in my referer logs. Does anybody have any idea what this guy is about, or why someone who would go here would visit me, too? :-) [WARNING: Even adults may not want to look at this page...]
posted by baylink at 7:03 AM PST - 11 comments
What will George do? Gary Graham is on death row and would be president Bush has a decision to make. Only one of six witnesses has identified Graham as the killer and four witnesses say Graham was elsewhere when the crime took place. I'm not saying the death penalty is wrong, but isn't it the greatest injustice of all to be executed for a crime you didn't commit.
posted by jay at 3:56 AM PST - 26 comments
June 21
Kottke offers a good critique of online discussions (like MeFi), and he makes some excellent suggestions on how to improve them. He quotes an unnamed source: "The problem with online forums is that those who have very little to contribute participate the most while those with valuable information to share participate the least." Now, let's try to keep the conversation cordial...
posted by ericost at 8:15 PM PST - 2 comments
Hate your neighbor??? I wonder why I never thought of doing this to the neighbor that accused me of smoking pot... in front of my mom, for Heaven's sake. Those were the days...
posted by fusinski at 4:57 PM PST - 4 comments
F.Y.I. the second round of Pimpwars has begun with sign-ups starting last night. New in the 2nd version: 20 members per alliance, 3 different types of weapons, but still the same ole laying the smack down on people.
posted by da5id at 4:59 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
June 20
Poetry Slam 2000 will be in of all places Providence Rhode Island this August 8th-12th. I have liked this idea and yet could never wholly embrace it. The intensity is strong but the angst seems repetitive.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:24 PM PST - 8 comments
Let web designers have
Jakob Nielsen for usability guidance, we Flash designers have our own budding guru of usable Flash on the web at Flazoom.com. The guy behind Flazoom follows up his Cancer piece with some
good guidelines for Flash on the web.
The best link in the article goes
here, where he asks you to find both uses of Flash on the page. I totally missed the first one, even when I knew what to look for. His use of Flash that just blew me away - hardly any animation, just usefullness.
I'll stop cheering now...
posted by DragonBoy at 8:40 PM PST - 2 comments
"[11-year-old] Greg Smith loves going online and playing soccer . . . he spends afternoons reading outdoors, hiking through the mountains and playing basketball with buddies...except that this 11-year-old has just completed his
first year as a full-time student at Randolph- Macon
College in Virginia..."
Why do I have a feeling this kid is going to be writing a painful memoir about his lost childhood by the time he's 19?
posted by Zosia Blue at 12:16 PM PST - 10 comments
Where are they now? Don't front like you weren't pumping
Arrested Development back in junior high. Yeah, we now know their whole Afrocentrism schtick was a record company ploy, and I'm sure this new album will be nothing to write home about. But man, I still know all the words to "Mr. Wendal" and "Tennesee" by heart. Sounds like time for a Napster run...
posted by NickBarat at 7:48 AM PST - 2 comments
I pulled up to a
McDonald's today and saw a sattelite dish on top for Muzak.
Their web site looks hip and cool, completely belying that their output is the work of Demon Spawn. One disturbing thing - doesn't the guy in the lower right look a little
too much like
Pat McKenna from the
Red Green Show?
posted by plinth at 5:56 AM PST - 7 comments
June 19
Election fraud in Haiti? I can't believe it! Imagine that...they don't seem to want the US telling them what to do. How novel. Well, I'm sure our compassionate President will respond by feeling their pain, and of course, causing more of it with our laser-guided bombs and the like.
Didn't we put Aristede there in the first place? Man, it ain't like the old days, when the US would stand by its tyrant, now is it? (Sorry, but I must obey my
Uncle Joe, and I always thought of sarcasm as linguistic bran anyway.)
posted by Ezrael at 11:33 PM PST - 1 comments
Mike Meyers deserves a medal for having the guts to admit that the character he created for a five-minute sketch wasn't going to carry a full-length movie. He gave up a 20-million-dollar payday and saved us all from another "SNL spin-off" movie.
posted by wendell at 2:14 PM PST - 10 comments
I can't help but feel that Flash interstitials (like those one finds at
HillmanCurtis.com) are like holographs stuck on book covers. All the little flashing squares and pomo imagery and industrial sounds are wonderful, but they don't seem to add very much to the user experience. Did the Web kill cool multimedia? Have we actually taken a step back from the mid-1990s, when there were interesting projects on CD-ROM?
posted by tranquileye at 1:39 PM PST - 8 comments
Well, we're all screwed. Seems like BT patented hyperlinking years ago, and they plan to aggressively enforce it in the US. Anyone know how to setup blogger for gopher?
(free registration is required to view article)posted by Jairus at 12:31 PM PST - 9 comments
Why does the left ignore Waco? I remember watching Waco burn on tv and being totally radicalized by it. Believing I was experiencing holy truth, I was of course shocked to find alot of people thought they had it coming. This link proposes things I had not considered.
posted by thirteen at 10:56 AM PST - 27 comments
UK - Eighty-eight people mistaken for tomatoes found
dead in a truck.
posted by tiaka at 6:57 AM PST - 4 comments
June 18
Coinstar seems like a good idea, however, in the FAQ, they don't give the exact amount of the service charge. How odd.
posted by starduck at 2:48 PM PST - 15 comments
Another new console is set to hit the market. That makes PS2, Dolphin, XBox, and now, the INDREMA! Personally, I think this is a bit too modern for current gamer tastes, but the fact that it runs LINUX makes me think they're going for something else. It saddens me to see all the next-gen consoles turning into computers, because nothing beats holding a controller in your hand. *gets misty-eyed*
posted by starduck at 2:38 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
furnish thy pad. pure design sells some of the best work from the new generation of designers...including douglas coupland (yes, *that* douglas coupland), karim rashad, and nick dine. and they sell it online. superbonus!
posted by patricking at 12:34 PM PST - 7 comments
Weekend box-office
shakedown: "[Shaft] skewed younger and male, said Wayne Lewellen, president of distribution at Paramount Pictures, which released the film in 2,337 theaters.
It was 'certainly very strong' with black audiences, but also pulled in solid receipts from Canada, he added." I guess "Canada" signifies white people? What a fatuous thought process.
posted by highindustrial at 12:08 PM PST - 2 comments
I love "The Apartment." It's one of my favorite films of all time. But whenever I've rented it and showed it to friends, they've dismissed it as a fun/sentimental comedy. I think it's got infinitely more depth than that, though it can be seen as a simple love story. Finally, someone else shares my love of this American Masterpiece.
posted by grumblebee at 7:53 AM PST - 11 comments
Napster retains (ahem)
counsel. The right move I think. Along with the DeCSS case, this may be setting the precedent for what "intellectual property" and "public domain" mean in the 21st century. Hopefully, things will turn out better than in Sterling's
"Distraction". Either way, things will never be the same.
posted by aflakete at 1:10 AM PST - 1 comments
June 17
how helpful. a relatively complete listing of gay pride days around the world. just in case you're proud only once a year.
posted by patricking at 1:20 PM PST - 5 comments
Sigh. Apparently it's cruelty when humans hunt and eat "animals," but not when other "animals" do it to each other. (Basic biology flashback: humans
are animals!) This is what happens when a species supersaturates its environment. Biological imperative begins to collapse and such furiously futile exercises as "pro-rat protests" are perpetrated in the name of something called ethics (not to mention free publicity).
posted by highindustrial at 11:08 AM PST - 17 comments
It's nice to know that people can still have big dreams. This is not hallucination; these guys are very serious and very practical and their credentials suggest that they know exactly what they're doing. It's the same team which is just finishing the
Very Large Telescope project, which
when complete will be the biggest scope in the world, and will be more sensitive and get better pictures than the Hubble. Scopes #1 and #2 are now online, #3 is in engineering shakeout, and first light for #4 is coming shortly.
All four scopes will work together to generate images using interferometry.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:59 AM PST - 2 comments
June 16
Today I saw
an ad on TV
complaining that American health care is being “Canadianized.” All I can say is
that I wish these Americans would stop
lying about the Canadian health care
system. While most Canadians seem to agree that our health system is
a bit of a mess,
we also seem to agree that
we
don’t want the American system, thank you very much.
The US market-driven
medical system spends about 14% of its economy on health care, while Canada's
cost is about 9% of GDP. Both countries' health care costs stood at about 7% in
1971, when the Canadian system converted to the public system and the US decided
to stick with a market-driven private system. Yet the Canadian system covers
everyone; the American system doesn’t. Private delivery of health care means
money is lost to the profits investors demand (as much as 15%), higher executive
salaries, higher marketing/advertising costs, and lost economies of scale.
Why
attack the Canadian system? Part of the answer lies in the fact that to the
American health care industry, Canada is just one huge, untapped market that
they would love to have access to.
posted by tranquileye at 9:42 PM PST - 24 comments
If this little man with the funny haircut has the courage to abandon the policies of his father, there is a chance within three years to witness one of the greatest triumphs of human spirit in recent memory.
posted by netbros at 12:01 PM PST - 3 comments
Clearing landmines with a click It costs $3 to put a landmine in the ground and $1000 to pull it out. Along the same lines as The Hunger Site, head over to this site and help make war-torn areas safe again for the people living there.
posted by Calebos at 10:56 AM PST - 4 comments
Is the Boss really in charge? Tucows is -- supposedly legally -- posting tracks from his early album, "Before the Fame" (though that sounds like a title applied after the fact to *me*).
posted by baylink at 8:44 AM PST - 2 comments
We can try who we like, but don't anyone try to try one of ours. From the article: "The Clinton administration is offering a "Get Out of Jail Free" card to future Saddam Husseins and Slobodan Milosevics, simply in order to pander to the Pentagon and the Republican right on Capitol Hill. American diplomats are fighting a rearguard action in New York, in tandem with Congress in Washington, to emasculate the International Criminal Court that was established by the United Nations last year in Rome.
"Why does the United States oppose a way to punish the world's greatest villains? In short -- and in no uncertain terms -- congressmen such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms demand that no such court have jurisdiction over potential American criminals."
Silly me, I thought the law was supposed to apply to everyone or to no-one at all. Am I just being old-fashioned, or is anyone else bothered by the hypocrisy at work here?
posted by lia at 8:15 AM PST - 13 comments
Is linking illegal? New York Times article about DeCSS linkage fiasco involving 2600. If linking is illegal, the Web is SOL. This is insane.
posted by elgoose at 6:55 AM PST - 7 comments
how in the world did
this article, which basically repremands readers from making assumptions about and being intrusive into the private lives of memoirists, end by propositioning dave eggers? i mean really, wtf? the author of the piece, lorri gottlieb, ought to be ashamed of herself.
posted by palegirl at 6:48 AM PST - 9 comments
never acknowledged: evidently, reparations were never made to gay holocaust survivors in germany. never mind that's where the pink triangle came from...
posted by patricking at 12:15 AM PST - 2 comments
June 15
Do we really need virtual dolphins? While I really find biomimetic research fascinating, I do sometimes wonder what it will end up actually producing. Then again, I am the guy who secretly wants it to produce battlesuits so I can play
Iron Man or what have you. I'm shallow that way.
posted by Ezrael at 8:06 PM PST - 2 comments
You know, after all the GW ads, I'm afraid that
this will look rather silly.
posted by tiaka at 5:47 PM PST - 1 comments
Sure, spud guns have been done, but sometimes we need
reminders of the awesome power of a flying tuber. I prefer this design, as it is powered by compressed air, whereas a buddy of mine just finished a device he calls "The Judge" powered by Acetylene and O2.
posted by plinth at 10:53 AM PST - 7 comments
This is a bit old, but still topical; Louis Freeh propounds his ideas about freehdom... [from BugTraq^HSecurityFocus, via Counterpane Labs ]
posted by baylink at 9:04 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Did they miss a country? The Amnesty International yearly report really makes you think about how much abuse, brutality, and persecution is still going on in the world that does't make the daily news.
posted by mkn at 12:44 AM PST - 1 comments
June 14
Is this a crock, or what? Pseudotainment claims to be online tv, but
DotComGuy has better quality than this. The audio isn't as choppy as the video, but it's a sad state of affairs when the best we can do with all this technology can't even compete with local cable access programming.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:23 PM PST - 2 comments
POWER ALERT: SF and SJ, CA.
If you, or your website, are located in the *other* bay area :-), you might want to know that The California ISO (the people who run the grid)
have declared a power emergency and the City of Palo Alto Utilities, among others, has
implemented rolling blackouts.
Again, if you host in this area, this may result in intermittent outages to your site; you might wish to post a notice to that effect, so that regular visitors don't get worried.
posted by baylink at 7:16 PM PST - 8 comments
Internet dependence among college students Article based on study done by counselor at RPI that identifies characteristics of "internet dependent" students. "What he found is that at least 10 percent of college students use the Internet so much that it interferes with their grades, their health, or their social lives, and that the problem may run much deeper at science-and-engineering institutions."
posted by elgoose at 1:07 PM PST - 10 comments
I despise parades. The author gets a bit theatrical at the end but the core of the editorial is true. I live in NYC and often these ethnic pride parades devolve into some kind of justification for violence. Last Sunday's PR Day Parade was en especially bad example of this.
posted by Nyarlathotep at 11:51 AM PST - 23 comments
Pimpwars Resets today. I know most of you probably don't care, but from the rumors, the newer version sounds funner than the first: i.e. - 2 different guns, larger alliances, better administration over all.
posted by da5id at 9:44 AM PST - 3 comments
Love unloads This is one of the more comprehensive and insightful takes on the RIAA vs. Napster vs. Record Companies that I've heard. It's long and rambling, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
posted by y6y6y6 at 7:54 AM PST - 35 comments
Pat Methany accuses Kenny G of "lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing."
And more! One of the best rants I have ever read.
posted by glish at 7:47 AM PST - 16 comments
June 13
"Well, nobody's perfect..." Men in Skirts honored by #1 and #2 in AFI's all-time best movie comedies list ("Some Like It Hot" and "Tootsie") Nuclear War got #3 ("Dr. Strangelove"). So what would the MeFi Top 100 Comedies look like?
posted by wendell at 11:16 PM PST - 28 comments
Napster's screwed: Internal NapsterCo email and documents show that they intended to be a copyright-infringing pirate haven from the very beginning. Should have used PGP, kids!
posted by aaron at 11:10 PM PST - 5 comments
Sanity always comes as a surprise. Apparently, for at least someone, the price is too high. I'm not sure I agree (I don't think drugs are ever the answer to anything, but I doubt we can afford to keep chasing them) but I applaud his concern for his men.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 11:06 PM PST - 1 comments
The Digital Sweatshop Continues If this letter is for real (and corroboration would be nice), the CFO of Mylackey.com is berating his staff for having the gall to go home before 6:45pm. In fact, he wants to mandate office hours of 8am to 7pm with a 30 minute lunch.
That'll really boost morale. I don't think I've gotten to work at 8am ever.
Anyway, though I lovelovelove the idea of Mylackey.com, I don't think I'd invest in them anytime soon.
The letter, which states that they're "lagging behind revenue goals" seemingly contradicts
the interview with the CEO, where he states "we're exceeding expectations" with revenue.
posted by peterme at 10:59 AM PST - 33 comments
"
FuckedCompany.com is a game based on the classic deadpool, but instead of betting for (or against) people, you're betting on companies.
FuckedCompany.com has also pretty much turned into the source for news about dot-com companies. Bad news, that is. "
posted by endquote at 10:34 AM PST - 2 comments
The first episode of 1900 House was really cool, and I can't wait to watch the rest tonight. The main link (above) is to pbs.org's cool site about the project. And if you're not a fan of "reality TV," but you like history, you might still enjoy the
Victorian links page.
Note: I love the Victorian period, but there are other periods that also interest me. It would be REALLY cool to watch a show called "Middle Ages House," but I doubt that will ever be possible. There were so many health and safety issues involved in just going back 100 years. In fact, the producers had to make some concessions for the safety of the family. No network would ever take the insurance risk of placing a family in any sort of authentically reproduced early period.
posted by grumblebee at 9:44 AM PST - 12 comments
Win a fantasy career from Yahoo! Dot Com! Oh... did we mention that it's your fantasy career in the military? The US gov't must really be getting desperate, they're also blanketing the airwaves with ads that make the Army look like a thinking man's extreme sport.
posted by chaz at 2:03 AM PST - 4 comments
Midwest gas prices declaired unfair. I guess, you know, $1.80 a gallon was fair, ok even, but $2.15 isn't. Take your time. no really.
posted by tiaka at 1:45 AM PST - 27 comments
June 12
This illustration of the human digestive tube is just one of the many joys of
Gray's Anatomy (1918 Edition). "This 1,396-page ebook is divided into nearly 300 sections, with 1,247 illustrations (many in color and unchanged since the first edition of 1859) rendered in three different resolutions, and with an encyclopedic subject index comprising some 13,000 entries hypertext-linked directly to their respective pages in the text." And it's yours for free at
bartleby.com. [via
researchbuzz (a very cool weblog which deserves more attention)]
posted by grumblebee at 9:49 PM PST - 1 comments
Designer-programmer-actor-model-waiter? Finally, someone giving one or more fingers to Toronto's tightarsed, outdated
nouveaux-médias hiring practices. How would
you like to be on call
24 hours a day as an interactive-TV manager for the Weather Network way the fork out in Mississauga?
Lila Feng worship isn't enough of a payoff, kids.
posted by joeclark at 7:15 PM PST - 7 comments
What?! It's great how BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN is more important to protest than trigger-happiness. I know this issue has already been talked into the ground, but just check the F.O.P. president's quotes. Come ON, guy. Didn't you see the sign above the door that said "Please remove head from rump?"
posted by NickBarat at 7:59 AM PST - 13 comments
The HalfBakery is a site that's probably been posted here sometime in the past, but worth revisiting. It's a site which allows you to post your crazy ideas and get feedback from others, and possibly find links to similar ideas. Kinda cool.
posted by triptych at 12:33 AM PST - 4 comments
June 11
Cash for birth control - if you're a junkie. Came across an ad for this organization while riding a train that serves a number of low income Chicago projects. I'm hard pressed to figure out what this is about. On first glance, it seems to be an effort to help drug addicted mothers avoid unwanted pregnancies. However, upon further reflection, it takes on the guise of a frightening genetic engineering program.
posted by aladfar at 7:36 PM PST - 27 comments
"For those who are feeling
this election doesn't much matter, who think it's a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the court is the reason to care," said Lois Williams, senior counsel for litigation at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, a liberal advocacy group.
"If we get another Scalia or Thomas, we are courting disaster," said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way. "We are just one election away, and one or two new justices away, from the civil and constitutional rights we take for granted being eroded or eliminated overnight."
posted by veruca at 5:11 PM PST - 16 comments
Two-Faced Kitten Dies And
the original AP story (with pictures) lead me to believe that it would survive. Too bad — I have a soft spot for this sort of "abomination" (a two headed/brained-snake was the subject of my favorite paper on cognitive ethology). But seeing this story made me remember the most remarkable case of human conjoined twins [more >>]
posted by sylloge at 3:28 AM PST - 9 comments
June 10
Newsworthy it's not -- but hey, it's the weekend: what's with
mySimon's creepy mascot? Looks like a cross between MTV's Carson Daily ... and a pod person (if there's a distinction).
posted by highindustrial at 3:57 PM PST - 4 comments
"Fellow citizens, Arabs everywhere, the National and Regional Commands of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, the Central Command of the Progressive Democratic Front, People's Assembly, Council of Ministers, the Armed Forces Command, Vocational Syndicates and Popular Organizations in Syria, the children of the great who departed, Bashar, Maher, Majd and Bushra, the Assad and Makhlouf families, announce to the Arab Nation..." Man, I wish we American peons could get obituaries like this!
posted by aaron at 3:25 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
It's finally happened. Playboy has finally exhausted the supply of beautiful women, and is having to dip into the "second tier" as it were. (This link may not stay current, so I'll explain.
Roseanne Barr is gonna pose nude for Playboy. If that's not one of the signs of the apocalypse, it damned well ought to be.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 3:01 PM PST - 10 comments
June 9
New Global Warming Threat In fifty years, computation will be so complex, and so demanding of memory and working on devices of such intricacy" - the sugarcube of Beelzebub - "that a single calculation could change the heat level of the universe."
posted by PaperCut at 8:17 PM PST - 4 comments
Just saw Dogma and I know the rest of the world saw it before me. I waited. All my friends said, "you got to see this movie Zach cuz the way you've talked about religion all your life this is IT!" And I thought that was pretty sour, that Hollywood could ever get my idea of religion right, but Kevin Smith's not Hollywood and I saw it and it was good. It's close. It doesn't quite take it to eleven though. What I find more interesting is seeing Kevin Smith's take on
other Hollywood projects. I feel for Kevin. He's like Daniel in the Lion's Den..
posted by ZachsMind at 6:19 PM PST - 3 comments
Circumcision as a way to slow the spread of HIV. I'm posting this here mostly 'cause I want to see some people's opinions on it. I'm against the operation for any reason other than religious, myself. I think a far better way to slow HIV would be to get people to stop sleeping around, but like
that's gonna happen, eh?
posted by CrayDrygu at 5:02 PM PST - 10 comments
Reciprocality might sound like some kind of new age sci-fi mumbo jumbo at first, but considering who's behind it, it might just be worth reading about. Remember the
Programmer's Stone essay that hit slashdot and made its way around the weblog circle a few months back? Well, this is what became of it.
posted by sabren at 4:52 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Remember the misanthope thread? Here's an update to the story: the guy actually TALKED to my wife today. She was asking people at work how to get from her office to the Central Park Zoo. Her colleagues were arguing about it, but no one could agree on the correct route. Finally, with great exasperation, the guy said, "all you have to do is walk STRAIGHT UP
THIS STREET! You'll get to the park, and the path will split in two. One way is for cars and the other is for not-cars."
"Not-cars???" said my wife.
The guy heaved a massive sigh. "PEOPLE," he said.
posted by grumblebee at 12:24 PM PST - 8 comments
Sinead enters the competition for this year's Donea Memorial Ambiguous Orientation Award.
posted by aurelian at 11:47 AM PST - 4 comments
a few weeks ago, I introduced dr. mcqueen to
the breast chronicles. I didn't hear from the good doctor again until he was calling me- "did you look at
the breast chronicles today?" He had a tinny edge to his voice that suggested hysteria. While a fan of breasts, I involve my time more with obtuse intellectual trivia and the collection of semen-encrusted socks. then the emails began. dr. mcqueen was surfing- surfing with a pazzion and zeal unseen since the robot wars of '97. my theory is that dr. mcqueen was driven mad by
charlotte's admittedly glorious
breasts. he had to
know and
see more. he wanted her
legs and her
eyes, she became a
star to him. soon the emails reached a fevered pitch, charting the four corners of what I have come to call
the breast network.
>>>>posted by wisdom at 7:22 AM PST - 17 comments
Gee, stupid me. I thought it was a pretty good statue, myself. Seems someone with a laser beam and time on his hands has worked out that the statue of David squints. Wow. Thanks a lot, mister! I can rest a lot easier knowing
that. Why, I might have been misled into believing it was some kind of masterpiece or something.
What, he couldn't find anything
more useless to do with his sabbatical?
posted by Ezrael at 5:51 AM PST - 11 comments
All he wants, is a fair, um, hearing. When I first read this, I thought to myself, "It is beginning." Meaning that whenever something, or someone becomes really successful and makes lots of money, the lawyers smell the money, and want it. But after reading this, there are a few valid points. And it isn't as if the man is asking for Multi-Millions... He just wants to win the $1 million prize.
posted by da5id at 5:44 AM PST - 15 comments
June 8
Interest in traffic Web site no accident after a dramatic increase in fatal accidents, the osaka prefectural police started posting the exact locations of upcoming traffic inspections [for speeding & drunk driving] on
their website, and now they are logging record numbers of hits -- the idea being that the more people who know about their plans for traffic inspections, the better. the police feel that disclosing such information will help cut down on the number of deadly road accidents.
whether it has had a noticeable effect on traffic safety, however, is uncertain -- the number of drivers caught for violations is about 10 percent less than by this time last year, but the death toll on the prefecture's roads are about the same
posted by palegirl at 8:51 PM PST - 4 comments
World Internet Animation Competition Winners - Shockwave.com has announced the winners of the World Internet Animation Competition. The contest, held in conjunction with the annual World Animation Celebration, was open to original animated productions in Shockwave, Flash, Quicktime, Pulse or Windows Media formats. Artists submitted more than 650 entries in ten categories. (link from
Flazoom.com - where they have a partial
list of links to the winners's sites!)
posted by DragonBoy at 8:29 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
I don't care if it's the greatest operating system in the world.. It's still got a stupid name:
Doesn't Bell Labs'
Plan 9 OS remind
you of Ed Wood's
Plan 9 from Outer Space?
Watching my Geek Rating drop to minus-23...posted by wendell at 5:59 PM PST - 5 comments
I knew this had to happen eventually. Someone finally developed a digital camera in the form factor of
a roll of 35mm film. That means you can just pop it in your regular ol' film camera, and boom, it's digital.
posted by endquote at 5:48 PM PST - 5 comments
Microsoft fires the final bullet into it's head. As of April 1st, OEMs may no longer ship a CD-ROM containing a full-installable copy of Windows with the machines they build. They can ship a "recovery CD", or just a "recovery partition". So, what did you get for your $90?
You got to rent Windows until you upgraded your machine.
posted by baylink at 2:34 PM PST - 15 comments
Pinnacus looks like an interesting idea: a tool for bringing together writers and sites looking for "content."
(Lifted from
Jakob)
posted by LoganAxis at 12:28 PM PST - 3 comments
The discovery of mirror neurons in the frontal lobes of monkeys, and their potential relevance to human brain evolution — which I speculate on in this essay — is the single most important "unreported" (or at least, unpublicized) story of the decade. I predict that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology: they will provide a unifying framework and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments.
--V.S. Ramachandran
(after you read the essay, you might be interested in the
responses.)
posted by grumblebee at 11:38 AM PST - 1 comments
Chalk one up to Freedom of Expression! *** WARNING *** Viewers may be offended by bare-asses sticking up in the air!!!
Is this art? In my view, yes. Maybe next time they can face upward and fill in the potholes, instead of creating more speed bumps.
posted by da5id at 9:42 AM PST - 19 comments
The world's most successful terrorist group strikes again. Although they can't claim the numbers of other terrorist groups, 17 November is considered to be one of the deadliest. Claiming over 20 kills with none of their members ever having been captured or killed is something to be proud of I guess. When I was stationed over in Greece, this group was our biggest fear, besides the fact that it was rumored that the group had links to the Socialist Party of the government and that the party "assisted" (using the term loosely) them from being captured. I had hoped that they had turned to internal terrorism and not International, as I hadn't heard anything about them in the last 7 years, but I guess that hope was optimistic.
posted by da5id at 9:37 AM PST - 1 comments
Identity swapping makes life relative Do any of you do the Safeway Card Shuffle? I think I probably would, but then again the level of tracking where I live is currently negligible, so it isn't yet an issue. How about where you live?
And how does this tie in to online privacy, like advertising cookies and programs like RealPlayer and GoZilla that track and report where you've been and what you've been doing?
posted by lia at 1:20 AM PST - 8 comments
June 7
The future of filmmaking? These guys shot a short film, and posted it on the web. Most importantly (to me) it's downloadable and not streamed which retains the quality of the filmmakers work without hackin' the heck out of it with Real and Windows...
posted by owillis at 11:32 PM PST - 3 comments
SearchBots.net is a search engine, or a weblog, or yet another grituitous Flash site, depending on how you look at it. I think it's neato.
posted by endquote at 6:11 PM PST - 2 comments
Judge rules Microsoft must split up Judge Jackson handed down the verdict today that Microsoft should be broken into two companies: one for Windows OSes, the other for all other applications and services. Many restrictions on Microsoft's behavior would also be put in place, pretty much just ensuring they couldn't lock anyone into exclusive contracts or force bundling deals on anyone.
posted by daveadams at 1:49 PM PST - 38 comments
June 6
Parenting: Is Aol Worse Than TV? After reading this article my first reaction was "what an over-reaction," my second was "Do these parents think AOL is the only way to (not) access the internet?" (stolen from Robot Wisdom)
posted by Mick at 11:32 PM PST - 12 comments
Voodoo science? I've been seeing these things at CompUSA lately: little gizmos that you stick on your home appliances, cell phones, monitors, etc. to protect you from all those eee-vil EMF's. The site appears to contain more marketese than convincing science. Does anybody out there know: 1) whether everyday Electro-Magnetic Fields are as dangerous as these guys are saying, and 2) if so, whether a little chunk of inert material is going to have any positive effect? The whole thing sounds kind of fishy to me.
posted by harmful at 7:28 PM PST - 5 comments
Hmm. Why am I not surprised? Muddling with your serotonin in such a drastic way has always struck me as an overreaction to depression. Let's be honest. In a world jam-packed with aggressive apes who deny that they
are apes, a little depression is a healthy response. Taking a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor just because you feel blue is like taking 10000 micrograms of Acid because you like the Harry Potter books.
posted by Ezrael at 7:05 PM PST - 30 comments
This is something that has been bothering me for the entire NBA playoffs. Watching the Lakers / Blazers series has seriously made me think about this. Portland down 3-1, Lakers come back for a heroic game 7 victory on a Shaq alley-oop? hmmmm... Does this sound fishy to anyone else? Seems more like a script from a Rocky movie than a professional sport. What do you think?
posted by Doomsday at 5:28 PM PST - 10 comments
Takes money to make money Does this creep anyone else out, as much as it does me. Sad to see how the web, where everyone used to be equal, is slowly conforming to the real-world model of money = worth.
posted by nomisxid at 3:44 PM PST - 8 comments
Gut check - I find this very disturbing. Inevitable, but disturbing. Look at the page as it loads up and please share the first thoughts or emotions that grab you.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:48 PM PST - 32 comments
Photo.net redesigns Yet another bastion of "webbing like it's 1995" is gone. Nice, clean interface, but there's something
really disorienting about a Philip Greenspun site changing so radically...
posted by holgate at 10:46 AM PST - 6 comments
This has nothing to do with the web.. But in case you're like me and the time you spend away from your computer usually consists of
drinking beer and/or playing on your neato
video game system.
You NEED Tony Hawk. the graphics on the DC version kick playstation's ass and its the perfect game to waste hours of time and lots of beers and to destroy your friend's ego.
posted by sikk at 10:31 AM PST - 11 comments
June 5
So called Gnutella-worm.... So, I'm sure one or two of you have seen press coverage of the supposed spread of a set of vbs-worms, through the Gnutella community (Napster without a centralized server for those who don't know what it is). I have to agree with the Gnutella-folks statement, that this is more an exploit of windows and user-foolishness, than anything technically skilled. What's interesting to note is that it seems to be having a chilling effect...usually there's somewhere around 5,000 hosts, and 10 Terabytes of data online...today, there's barely 1100 hosts. I would have thought the average gnut-er was smarter than to fall for a vbs-worm.
posted by nomisxid at 11:48 AM PST - 1 comments
With all the big companies slapping down anybody who comes close to infringing on their big beautiful trademarks, how come
these guys have never gone after
this guy? It's not like he hasn't done
plenty to
denigrate the spirit of those who melt in your mouth but not in your hand?
(And shouldn't Mars Candy be more
protective of their mascots?)
posted by wendell at 11:21 AM PST - 3 comments
A spin-off of a
previous thread: "The folks at firms like Kioken, who are known to fire their clients if they do not follow them down their ego led path...".
Uh, not to put down Kioken...but does the phrase "The customer is *always* right!" still apply to web design... Or did I miss the revolution...(again)?
posted by EricBrooksDotCom at 7:57 AM PST - 25 comments
Patently Absurd. James Gleick, chaos researcher and all-around smart guy, has written a very nice piece for the New York Times Magazine about the current spate of stupidity at the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Most important, in my view, is that unlike
the John Perry Barlow piece we discussed earlier, the Gleick piece got national press... which is far more important than we geeks think...
posted by baylink at 6:34 AM PST - 5 comments
peterme's bathroom There's a story...
About a man name Haughey...
Who attended a party...
(sing this to the brady bunch theme song)
posted by efader at 6:31 AM PST - 19 comments
June 4
How about another hole in your head? It's probably been discussed already - i'm not the powerlogger who finds super-obscure links... at any rate, read it and enjoy (or not)... I'll see y'all in a month, i'm leaving for Mexico in about five hours.
posted by cadence at 10:33 PM PST - 2 comments
Malatian Eagle Freedom Fighters take PM of Solomons Islands hostage, demand his ouster Fijilive.com and ABC News Radio are reporting that members of the Malatian Eagle Freedom Fighters, rebels fighting for the independence of Guadalcanal Island, have taken the Prime Minister hostage.
Fijilive.com reported that it received an e-mail annoucing that the hostage takens had broken into the Armory in the capital of Honiara, stolen weapons, and stormed the Parliament building.
posted by rschram at 8:31 PM PST - 1 comments
Dallas Area Music is of personal interest to me, so I'm not sure if this makes a bad post. It's not my homepage but I'm an active member of the organization. With that cautionary warning, I did read the guidelines over and over and 1) most of you probably haven't seen this, 2) there IS interesting content, and 3) I'd like to hear discussion from others.. [more]
posted by ZachsMind at 8:30 PM PST - 2 comments
Earthquakes hit off of Sumatra, Indonesia Successive earthquakes measuring 7.9 and 6.7 have killed at least 25 people in Bengkulu, Indonesia, on the island of Sumatra.
The epicenter of the quakes was in the Indian Ocean east of Sumatra. The quakes were so storng they could felt as far away Singapore.
posted by rschram at 8:24 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Brig asked the weblog world for a gender check.
Four percent said it's not anyone's business. Well if it's not anyone's business why take the poll? 621 people think it's no big deal. And it is no big deal. In fact, who cares what plumbing is behind all these blogs? Why am I even posting this?? Somebody just shoot me.
posted by ZachsMind at 3:07 PM PST - 4 comments
This is scary as hell. I'd like someone to explain to me how this ("update-dll.exe") is any different than "Back Orifice" or "Backdoor G7"? Aren't these guys violating the law? Where's the FBI when we need them?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:47 AM PST - 7 comments
A digital camera that plays mp3s? Convergence is a steam train that can't be stopped. In the future, will every piece of electronics priced over $100 include a mp3 player in it? Stuff like this makes me think the mp3 format will definitely surpass CDs and tapes as a delivery medium. Too bad the record companies still want to stop it, they're losing money everyday by not offering mp3 albums.
posted by mathowie at 10:50 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Bye bye online privacy The RIP Bill goes through the Lords this week. Watch as the UK's ISPs and e-commerce ventures up sticks to the US and Ireland. John Naughton has been providing a commentary on its passage (he's well-briefed by the good people at
STAND) and how it's such an insidious piece of work.
posted by holgate at 3:56 AM PST - 1 comments
"On Monday, a small international group of computer rebels plans to introduce what they are calling a data haven, perched precariously on a World War II military fortress six miles off England's coast."
Sealand will become their refuge for rebel data. Will they remain sovereign? Will they get away with anything?
posted by mathowie at 2:16 AM PST - 15 comments
June 3
Web Stalker, absolutely fabulous new toy for me to play w/, spiders the web, does a visual map of what you are finding. (I was actually workig on something to do almost the same thing, now I don't have to :)
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:03 PM PST - 2 comments
Americans believe in a recession within the next four years.
But of course. It's only natural after the most prolonged economic expansion in history. So don't go blaming the next administration when it finally happens.
If Gore is president, then people will say: "12 years of democrats is enough!", but if Bush is in charge, then the complain will go "You see? republicans don't have a clue".
posted by tremendo at 10:49 AM PST - 6 comments
June 2
He's so cute. In the spirit of the web, I'm asking the people of the web to help me name my new cat. Wondering also if there have been other pet-naming events out there?
posted by bluechief at 6:33 PM PST - 15 comments
HA! How could I have found out about this through something other than Metafilter? You people are slacking!
Anyway, The Offspring are selling bootleg Napster merchandise.
posted by peterme at 4:41 PM PST - 11 comments
John Perry Barlow tries to grapple with the Napster thang, with his usual interesting writing. A buried revelation: Bands are only getting about 5% of retail, rather than the 10% I thought.
posted by aurelian at 4:30 PM PST - 1 comments
I
almost though it had gone the way of so many other webzines.
Josh needs to learn how to use his tongue . . .
posted by alan at 10:07 AM PST - 14 comments
This redesign looked swell on my Mac, but the tables are all screwy when I look at it through Windows (at work). Explorer 5 ain't the same on both platforms. Argh!! Not a hard fix, but what do you do when your 'blog looks like ass and you can't fix it for a whole day!! I know it's uncool to link to oneself - I'm not just trying to generate pageviews. I'm genuinely pissed off about all these web standards problems!
posted by aladfar at 9:30 AM PST - 11 comments
Canada urging Microsoft to move north It's pretty obvious to everyone that the US government does not believe that Microsoft should be allowed to continue operating within their borders. No problem. We'll take em, as would most other countries. I for one, would
love to see Microsoft leave the US. Wouldn't you?
posted by Calebos at 9:09 AM PST - 22 comments
June 1
Will someone please just explain Metababy to me? I promise I will try to be patient and understanding... I mean I think I understand the mechanics of it. I think I understand that it's an experiment in social interaction with technology or some such technobabble. What I don't understand is.. well if I could explain the parts that I don't understand then I wouldn't need someone else to explain it to me, would I?
...Just please someone explain it to me... Thank you... I'll just ..be over here..
posted by ZachsMind at 10:20 PM PST - 17 comments
I started looking for websites about misanthropy after my wife told me about this incredibly unfriendly guy at her office. Both my wife and this guy are artists/temps--she is an actress/secretary and the guy is a director/document operator. Like many New York artists, they support themselves with corporate day jobs. Anyway, whenever she walks into the document center (where he works) and says "hi," everyone there says "hi" back--except this guy, who doesn't even look up... (more>>)
posted by grumblebee at 12:11 PM PST - 29 comments
A Cancer on the Web called Flash - The publisher of Flazoom.com has published a lengthy opinion/rant about evil Flash designers. I love how this guy publishes a Flash site about cool Flash sites, then publishes an editorial about why Flash is bad for the web. His commentary is dead on though, something that all Flash designers should think about.
posted by DragonBoy at 11:30 AM PST - 5 comments
The Big Re-run? "In the first millionth of a second after the universe’s
beginning, the entire cosmos consisted of this ultradense,
ultrahot brew, scientists say." And now scientists are trying to re-enact the Big Bang. Too big of a task to take on?
posted by Zosia Blue at 10:56 AM PST - 3 comments
Elian's fathers rights were affirmed today, and
the decision is already online. One thing I love about the Internet is that things like this take nanoseconds to be available to the public (if the system's working right, at least!) -- where previously you had to rely on the newsmakers' spin on things, now you can read the decision yourself and come to your own conclusions.
posted by delfuego at 10:29 AM PST - 4 comments
No wonder my mom got hooked. My mother turns 70 years old on the 26th of this month. She's smoked since college. It's the only thing that I really bug her about; try to stop. She quit about five years ago for almost a year, then started again. I know she's lonely, living alone, but then when I see ads like the link above, I get a better understanding of the cultural acceptance of smoking that was prevalent when she was in college. I watch her immediately reach for her smokes when she gets out of the car after a ride; is that her body chemistry screaming out for more nicotine? I just know there's a special place in hell for the cigarette executives; a special room where they're forced to watch videos of their own children lighting up for the first time.
posted by marktucker at 8:24 AM PST - 5 comments
