skip to main content
MetaFilter is turning
ten! Help us celebrate at one of dozens of meetups.
August 2000 Archives
August 31
Isolating the gene responsible for caffeine
is expected to lead to decaffeinated beans, and a higher-quality coffee product, all-around... But are they considering other applications? With a bit of gene splicing, anything is possible. Caffeinated oranges, anyone?
posted by Jairus at 3:24 PM PST - 35 comments
This Salon article on the state of web sites aimed at women
asks some interesting questions. Women-centric sites set out in 1997 and 1998 to start a revolution, and instead we have relationship quizzes, diet plans, TV reviews, and horoscopes. What went wrong? Are women
really interested in these things? Did the sites start out edgy and adapt to the audience? Would anyone expect online magazine/lifestyle properties to be much different than their offline counterparts? I also wonder what anyone that has ever seen and/or used
iVilliage,
Oxygen, and
Women.com think of each site's content? Is it enlightening, or pure fluff?
posted by mathowie at 2:51 PM PST - 12 comments
Pigs seem to be featured a lot in medical news as of late. Whether it be
cloning them or using their
cells to repair nerve damage in mice, the ultimate goal of all this is to transplant these organs and cells into people who need them. Personally I have no problem with this but I wonder if there are any religious objections to this sort of thing. I know Muslims and Jews can't eat pork, but if they needed a liver transplant would they be able to take it from a pig or would they have to refuse and risk death?
posted by Nyarlathotep at 11:41 AM PST - 8 comments
August 30
Politics and strange bedfellows
It's like slowing down to watch a car wreck, but more compelling. It's the scene from "Waiting to Exhale," when Angela Bassett took a match to her husband's belongings, writ large. It's probably not the start of a take-no-shorts stance from more political wives, as exemplified by the Giuliani/Hanover ruckus in New York, but it's still noteworthy: I never heard of Coretta Scott King, Effi Barry, Jackie Jackson or any other African American political wife doing something like this before.
posted by allaboutgeorge at 1:12 PM PST - 8 comments
I Have A Cunning Plan, My Lord...
- According to Al Fayed it was Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who masterminded the plot to kill Diana and Dodi and now he's gotten the CIA to help with the cover up. Perhaps he's been watching too much Blackadder or something.
posted by Nyarlathotep at 9:12 AM PST - 15 comments
Blogger/Pyra is getting into hosting?
Blog*Spot.com is run by Pyra, it's obviously not done yet, but it looks like it'll be an easy-to-setup microhost for blogs, complete with templates.
On a semi-related note, is anyone using WrapZap as an ASP for forms on their blog? Seems like integrating that with Blogger would be a nice little bit of advanced functionality for Blogger Pro.
posted by anildash at 7:48 AM PST - 21 comments
Immortality Protein May Offer Cancer Vaccine.
You know, I'm glad they're making progress, but once the 'cure' is found, I can't daydream about being this smart, intelligent doctor, (something right out of a soap), that creates the cure for cancer, and woos all the la-a-dies... then again there is always being that evil-twin and start cloning, with that, you won't need to wooo anyone, they're your toys! mwahahaha!
posted by tiaka at 6:00 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
August 29
When colleagues in countries outside the U.S. attempt to get me to understand how the rest of the world could loathe us quite as much as they do,
this is what they are talking about. "Well, shee-oot, they don' even speak English down there, howthehell they gonna know them tires is not safe? Just slap a little ol' label on 'em and
say they're safe.... Oughta be good 'nough!"
posted by m.polo at 12:05 PM PST - 16 comments
"The world is turning into a cesspool of imbeciles!"
"I don't want your input! You wanna input something, write your own goddamn story, moron!"
"There's no amount of money in the world that could get me to do a commercial for McDonald's toadburgers."
Choice quotes from a hilarious, scathing interview with Harlan Ellison. (From the "AV Club," one of the few non-parody/baloney sections of the Onion.)
posted by Tubes at 9:13 AM PST - 16 comments
August 28
chelsea.clinton@ox.ac.uk?
The Times is reporting that Miss Clinton is planning to follow in her father's footsteps. Though probably not
too closely... I'd imagine that it'll be easier for her to fit into the college environment once she doesn't have the Secret Service in tow, but I'm still intrigued how she'll get on here...
posted by holgate at 10:27 PM PST - 13 comments
Jason found a pretty cool javascript/CSS hack
so I took a stab creating a
bizarro kottke one (bookmark and try it at kottke.org). I think it improves the page :). This might be a killer hack for usability tweaking. If you set your backgrounds dark with light, 28px text for easy reading, few web pages follow that convention. Here's your chance to see things your way. Can anyone think of any other uses for this?
posted by mathowie at 9:37 PM PST - 24 comments
The Smoking Gun
has a copy of the wedding video mentioned on Drudge with George W. Bush. Bush tries to be sarcastic and funny. I certainly wouldn't say he's obnoxious or drunk at all.
posted by gyc at 7:16 PM PST - 6 comments
Letter to "Dr." Laura
since laura schlessinger can make biblical pronouncements on gays and lesbians, perhaps she can clear these things up as well. [and i refuse to call her doctor seeing as how she doesn't have a medical licence. but that's another discussion...]
posted by raedyn at 11:39 AM PST - 36 comments
Loudon Cty needs an AOL detective (via WP.com)
Confirming my suspicions that AOL users are all criminals. It seems that the only thing about AOl I hear nowadays is this-or-that criminal, or this-or-that victim, a.k.a. "sexiecxique129" or "discostude09" in the AOL chatrooms, was brutally defrauded of identity by someone calling themselves "When_This_Story_Breaks_Everyone_will_Judge_me_by_my_ridiculous_AOL_Handle56171:)"
posted by rschram at 9:47 AM PST - 3 comments
Code Name Mainstream (via NYTIMES)
One of those dumb MF posts that most of you would've found in your daily clicking reports on the strides in acceptance made by opensource advocates.
Posted merely for initiating discussion, of course.
posted by rschram at 5:49 AM PST - 4 comments
TV out in Moscow, due to fire in landmark tower.
So, am I just too much of an old Cold Warrior, or is anyone else a bit twitchily nervous that after the TV press hammered Russian President Vladimir Putin over his handling of the
Kursk disaster, now the TV just
happens to be knocked out? Oh, and that Putin is saying how this incident shows that the whole economy needs more "security"? Hmm...
posted by aurelian at 2:04 AM PST - 3 comments
China puts '700,000 troops' on Sudan alert.
"The Chinese have been brought in by aircraft and ship ... We've all seen the Chinese being brought in and can only pray about what's going to happen next." I am quite suprised I haven't heard more about this in the western media.
posted by cmacleod at 12:15 AM PST - 4 comments
August 27
Ethnic humor?
So am I suppose to be entertained by this or should I be shocked that ethnic humor is becoming popularized by the net sophisticate? Someone please help this poor
luddite realize how trendy it is to mock an ethnic culture. Peace out.
posted by dangerman at 10:39 PM PST - 10 comments
I want one.
There's absolutely no reason I'd need anything like this, but I still want it. Maybe it's a good thing they won't be sold in this country...
posted by Aaaugh! at 7:57 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
This may be too good to be true. Drudge says there's a
home video of a possibly drunk GW Bush acting the smartass.
posted by nikzhowz at 7:29 PM PST - 9 comments
Color me surprised. My annoyance at Tom Clancy for the shoddy quality of
Rainbow Six is
well known. I had expected to give up on him entirely; I didn't even plan to buy the new one in hardcover without reading it first...
posted by baylink at 12:23 PM PST - 2 comments
August 26
R.I.P.: Comic Book Pioneer Carl Barks
Anybody can do superheroes... Carl made Disney cartoon characters into action comc stars.
I devoured these as a kid; bought foreign-language versions from the Disneyland Main Street bookstore; to this day, the only "jillionaire" I can trust is Scrooge McDuck.
Now, if only HE had done the "Backstreet Boys" comic instead of Stan Lee...
posted by wendell at 10:49 AM PST - 1 comments
Just for the record, I am NOT
Wendigo, I am not related to
Wendigo, I'm not even sure what a
Wendigo is (or
El Wendigo, for that matter), and I am NOT suing a cybersquatter for the
Wendigo.com domain name.
Thank you, MetaFilter, for allowing mne to get that off my chest. And anybody who calls THIS self-linking is cruisin' for abusin'.
posted by wendell at 1:36 AM PST - 13 comments
August 25
Moron alert!
For those missing J. Danforth Quayle, your best bet for continued hilarity in the executive branch of the US government would be to vote for George W. Bush. Although some of the quotes listed in this link are simply Shrub getting tongue-tied, others are truly fascinating. Apologies for linking to the evil Slate.
posted by norm at 1:39 PM PST - 13 comments
The weezils at AllAdvantgae.com are up to no good.
- First of all, who thought paying people to surf was a brilliant way to make money? AllAdvantage is now seeing the error or their ways and is switching all members over from the Pay to Surf plan to a new Sweepstakes plan regardless of whether their members want to switch or not. Apparently those who have bothered to read the email they sent out about the switch are getting pissed.
posted by Nyarlathotep at 8:03 AM PST - 4 comments
(Almost) What you wanted for Christmas.
A lightweight browser using the Mozilla rendering engine, solely to browse webpages, minus all the smoad of bloat thats making Mozilla so un-usable at the moment. It is just work in progress though, so some important practical features aren't implemented yet, but something to look at nonetheless.
posted by aki at 7:28 AM PST - 4 comments
This reminds me of a quote, or, well, there are different version of this. "If dolphins are so smart, why don't they get a job?" Was it on Simpsons? or? Ohh well.
"Janik, a Scottish biologist now at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, said that the signaling pattern of the dolphins is similar to what experts believe happened when ancient human beings first began organized speech."
posted by tiaka at 6:39 AM PST - 4 comments
August 24
Aw, for the love of Kee-rist,
can't anyone quit screwing with stuff?
Columbus plans to shoot parallel versions of the first film -- one for the U.S.
market and one for Britain. His plan is to shoot two or three alternate sequences
for each film and to give the British film the first novel's original British title,
"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." The American film will be called,
"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
posted by baylink at 7:01 PM PST - 12 comments
"Ask Maxwell" -- Microsoft's New Support Database
Am I the only one who finds something a tad sinister about this thing? He looks a bit odd, and considering it's supposed to be automated support,
this profile of him is damned creepy.
By the way -- the profile states that he/it is an
English major. Uh, Bill? -- wouldn't it have been a smoother move to say that the "guy" was a Comp Sci major?
Geez...
posted by metrocake at 2:26 PM PST - 11 comments
Is it still "file sharing" if you don't share?
According to a Xerox Parc study, 70% of Gnutella users are downloading music, but they aren't sharing with others. Some Gnutella developers say this is a self-correcting problem and that new users will step up to fill the gap. Others think this is the start of a growing trend and the whole copyright infringement issue might go away if the greed of users in a peer-to-peer network prevents it from succeeding in the first place.
posted by honkzilla at 1:07 PM PST - 8 comments
John Gray wants to change the world
"But I have no interest in politics right now," he says. "The world is not ready for my messages. I've got a whole -- it has evolved. If you get me talking about it, which I won't do because it's too distracting, I have a whole agenda, a whole political party -- what to do about poverty, what to do about drug addiction, what to do about economics, what to do about welfare, what to do about health policies.
posted by john at 11:34 AM PST - 17 comments
August 23
Happy birthday to ya!
The Best Web App still alive turns 1 and doesn't look like slowing down. Now it's found it's legs, it seems like time to take pyra out of diapers and potty train the little guy (you can tell what's happening in my house at the moment).
posted by Neale at 7:12 PM PST - 9 comments
Schadenfreude
is such a wonderful word; too bad English doesn't have any equivalent. If it's scrolled down, look for August 22 with headline
G4e still stumbling, competition massing . Critical quote inside.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:42 AM PST - 21 comments
"Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this,"
Heckler told the Summer Forty-Niner. "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC."
Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds this really, really disturbing.
posted by CrayDrygu at 6:14 AM PST - 13 comments
August 22
iFeel your pane
Logitech comes out with a mouse that has a sense of touch. Called the iFeel mouse, it has the potential to do some interesting things with games, but does anyone see the use it could potentially have in UI usage? Would it be easier to navigate GUIs if you got a subtle bump when you hit certain clickable spots?
posted by daveadams at 12:21 PM PST - 18 comments
Big Brother
may be even more Orwellian than I thought. It may not be so much about constant surveillance, as about manipulating public perception of events.
posted by harmful at 7:25 AM PST - 9 comments
AltaVista lies
to England about free net access. I am shocked that a company in the honorable net industry could think of such a scam! Shocked I say!
posted by Mick at 5:55 AM PST - 7 comments
warning! addictive stuff!
Pictionary. IRC-like chat. Mix both ingredients. Serves up to 10 people confortably. Addictive when some colleagues in the same room are playing with you. Last warning : this will make productivity rate in the US economy go down (and possibly the interest rate will go up...)
B.
posted by Baud at 1:15 AM PST - 5 comments
August 21
iCab 2.1 is out
The fabbest little Web browser for adherents of the Macintosh religion, iCab, is now out in version 2.1. It lacks any CSS support, and JavaScript support is very poor,
but for a program written from scratch by one or two people (Alexander Clauss seems to be the lead), it's astounding. Absolutely full support for HTML 4 – every extended character (iCab seems to use its own font), weirdo tags like LONGDESC, ACRONYM, and ABBR, TITLEs on everything (no popups: text appears in status line). Filter out ads automatically. Only browser other than Lynx that handles metadata like LINK REL="next". The damn thing
validates your code for you (click the smiling or frowning icon at the right of the address bar). And so on. And so on. I love this program. And yes,
I'm in the minority. What else is new?
posted by joeclark at 4:10 PM PST - 4 comments
USA Vice President Al Gore
really put his foot in it this time. Seems he urged students to drive drunk responsibly. That makes as much sense as urging people to participate in safe sex without protection. Smart Al.
posted by jaxomlotus at 3:55 PM PST - 7 comments
Breaking up is hard to do.
Far be it from me to encourage celebrity gossip, but Anne Heche, formerly one-half of the Famousest Lesbian Couple Ever, was found in a Martin Lawrence-like state, confused, addled, and ringing strangers' doorbells. Just a nice little "WTF?" item for your day.
posted by solistrato at 1:43 PM PST - 10 comments
Gnutella not really distributed, de facto "servers" more vulnerable to lawsuits
How's that for a grab-ya headline? It's only part of the speculated dangers to Gnutella users postulated by Eytan Apter et al. in this Parc Xerox Department of Information Ecologies paper.
Gnutella purports to be a legal alternative to Napster, since it's a distributed, anonymous, peer-to-peer network, as opposed to a central clearinghouse owned by a group of managers. The authors of this paper have measured soem download and usage patterns and conclude that some de facto servers have sprung up by virtue of the fact that most Gnutella users take out more than they put it, many don't make any files available to the network, and the typical user is more likely to download than upload. Those few people who make large collections available to all end up serving practically all the queries. (And, since they already have a big collection, are less likely to download as well.)
The authors also conclude that the imbalance of "free-riders" (or, users who download more than the upload) threatens to make the network more sluggish, more vulnerable to crashes.
posted by rschram at 9:43 AM PST - 6 comments
This headline
hasn't exactly gone *bad*... but it's starting to smell a little. [actually, I thought it was hilarious, though I couldn't quite tell you why.]
posted by baylink at 6:35 AM PST - 5 comments
I musta slept though a lot,
since there's a buttload of new movie trailers over at quicktime.apple.com including
Disney's Summer 2001 animation offering as well as their
Christmas release with voices by David Spade and John Goodman, and MGM's Silence of the Lambs sequel,
Hannibal, (a lame pre-preview width nothing to it at all, really), the newest
Highlander film which I didn't even know was coming out on September 1st, and the full-length
Final Fantasy preview which, may I add, looks kick-ass awesome! And the only reason I went there was to get another look at the
Charlie's Angels preview I caught on the front of a showing of Godzilla 2000. Mmmm, Cameron Diaz. I see you baby, shakin' that ass.
posted by honkzilla at 12:42 AM PST - 3 comments
August 20
Web art is more than just pictures
- take this cool site for instance, with its strange sounds and flash movies. What I really like about this one, as well as eneri.net is the the emotional aspect, which is very rare on the net. Especially, I recommend you to check out the "contagion" link.
posted by joedrescher at 5:06 AM PST - 1 comments
August 19
Just what the church needs...
More excellent publicity. Two churches using the quarters that Catholic schoolchildren put in the collection plate to have a legal pissing contest over who has the right to use the name of a woman who spent her entire life trying to feed poor people one cup of rice at a time. I wonder how much rice each of those quarters would buy?
posted by Skylark at 10:06 PM PST - 4 comments
Face it: Gore doesn't have a chance.
-- So what is going on? In an
illuminating essay, Bijan Parsia suggests a cheap way that Gore might 'soften his anti-progressive image', but then concludes wisely that 'that image isn't merely skin deep'.
Barbara Ehrenreich argues along similar lines. So will Gore lose because he has permanently alienated the progressive vote, or for other reasons? And regardless, what will a Bush victory mean for progressives? (more inside...)
posted by johnb at 6:30 PM PST - 39 comments
Def Leppard
, the reason why
Q Prime came into existence, are offering a live mp3 for download on their official website. It's ironic, that their mangement Q Prime, are the same people who are helping their other clients like Metallica sue
Napster.
posted by riffola at 11:24 AM PST - 2 comments
They're dead. They're all dead.
Buf if the rear section has been flooded with high pressure water, and if the British mini-sub latches on and opens the hatch, the mini-sub will instantly fill with water and the entire crew of the mini-sub will die. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Now I hope they
can't latch on.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:44 AM PST - 20 comments
August 18
If you haven't already read "The Heavenly Jukebox", you should really check it out.
The Atlantic Monthly recently posted this great article subtitled "Rampant music piracy may hurt musicians less than they fear. The real threat -- to listeners and, conceivably, democracy itself -- is the music industry's reaction to it". While somewhat long, it's a very interesting read, going into the original copyright lawsuits in England over a hundred years ago to today's ordeal pitting the RIAA against the millions of people downloading Metallica mp3s off of Napster. Well worth reading.
posted by ookamaka at 4:10 PM PST - 1 comments
iToke
- Just place an order through any WAP enabled device and the folks at iToke will deliver you all the marijuana you want. And in less than a half hour guaranteed! Sorry. Amsterdam only. The way the sites designed you'de think they had a secret alliance with Apple.
posted by Nyarlathotep at 9:30 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
The "dickie game"
is a new feature on the public danish newschannel "DR". Yes - it is a publically owned and funded channel.
The rules are pretty simple: press the "start spillet" button and try to guess what dick belongs to which dude.
Have fun!
posted by joedrescher at 8:20 AM PST - 2 comments
Out of more (kinda) sad news, a possible ray of hope.
Maybe love can
build a
bridge between these two now...
posted by chicobangs at 6:59 AM PST - 1 comments
two words : $|<1|\|Z C0|\|T3ZT !!!.
whoo! so 3||3t3, you'll spray your shorts.
In other news, microsoft announces a wallpaper contest. Microsoft commented that they're "fuckin tired of seeing that sky thing, We want all those design kiddies to create us some cool shit, like with that small danish pixel font, aww yea..."
posted by tiaka at 4:52 AM PST - 3 comments
August 17
Something Awful
is one of my favorite game-related sites, full of goofy immature humor, game reviews, bad movie reviews and more. But the webmaster is having a hard time getting paid for the ads he hosted as part of the Gamefan / Express.com network... (more)
posted by wiremommy at 5:25 PM PST - 2 comments
Another corporation shoving dioxin-contaminated food down the throats of unsuspecting consumers. In this case, more than 2200 times the amount allowed to be in a
refinery's waste water. Obviously,
Ben and Jerry's must be stopped.
posted by aaron at 5:03 PM PST - 14 comments
The ultimate in online gaming?
But seriously, if there isn't anyone home and in danger, there is no justification for the use of deadly force. And, you'd better be able to take cover quickly in the event of a crack...
posted by quonsar at 3:15 PM PST - 2 comments
Short films have become a pretty standard propaganda tool in modern American presidential campaigns. When Al Gore set out to make his 2000 campaign film, there was only one guy he wanted for the job --
Spike Jonze.
posted by jjg at 11:39 AM PST - 8 comments
Buy My Vote!!!
Obviously a statement or joke, this could spell trouble for the involved party. I had the original URLs for eBay, but can't seem to find them now :-(
posted by da5id at 5:41 AM PST - 6 comments
Seattle's "Alternative Weekly,"
The Stranger has no actual articles in it this week. Instead, they replaced all of the words in the articles that would normaly be there with
a novella. All the normal formatting is there, right down to the letters to the editor and the little news bits. Really clever idea, and from what little I've read so far, a neat story too. Unfortunately the clever layout doesn't translate to the Web site, but the story does just fine.
posted by endquote at 1:34 AM PST - 5 comments
August 16
Remarq.com has been acquired
and squashed by Critical Path. "Critical Path will continue to offer RemarQ services" but "Critical Path will no longer provide free, Web-based access to newsgroups at RemarQ.com. " Augh! The best web-based usenet service is no more! I *loved* their convenient and fast interface. Now I'm back to awkward & clumsy Deja.com for free web usenet... unless anyone has a better idea?
posted by Tubes at 1:32 PM PST - 9 comments
"Keeping track of the kids is easy
in this smart kidswear concept which incorporates GPS-driven locators and miniature camera's allowing parents to ensure they're safe, while a computer game console worn on the sleeve keeps the kids happy." As a parent, I would pay any price to avoid actually watching or playing with my child. Where do I order?
posted by rcade at 12:37 PM PST - 20 comments
Now I'm depressed. I'd seen
The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit site before, but never really looked around. It was well worth the hour I spent there. Then I wandered over to
Modern Ruins. We're a destructive species, aren't we? We don't even value the things we create...
posted by Aaaugh! at 10:18 AM PST - 6 comments
Tipping at McDonalds
*this* is what a private citizen does? This entire "spontaneous" stop seems awfully contrived to produce warm fuzzies on the part of the public. I mean, how often does one of us 'normal' folk leave a twenty dollar tip or go behind the counter for pictures at a fast food place?
posted by tsitzlar at 9:52 AM PST - 18 comments
Michael Lynch
characterizes the D2KLA (or whatever they're calling it) protesters as idealistic and irrational. Also there's some interesting quotes and tactics discussion from the LAPD.
posted by dcehr at 9:25 AM PST - 21 comments
John Seely Brown interviewed by Wired.
The former head of Xerox Parc. There were two really insightful quotes I came across in this article;
Lurk is the cognitive apprenticeship term for legitimate peripheral participation. The culture of the Internet allows you to link, lurk, and learn. Once you lurk you can pick up the genre of that community, and you can move from the periphery to the center safely asking a question.
Sort of like Metafilter =) And...
Bob Metcalfe has it all wrong: The power of a network isn't the square of the number of people - it's the number of communities it supports. If you look at n people, there are potentially 2**n communities.
I've actually wondered about Metcalfe's law. This n^2 has always seemed metaphorical to me, but it seems a lot of people mention it as if it were a literal relationship. What is the "value" of a network anyway? Anyone know of research on this?
posted by lockecito at 6:02 AM PST - 2 comments
Kids click on banner ads most
according to a research held by Nielsen/NetRatings. What this means, is that we'll now be seeing ads like 'click here to win a free Barbie doll!' or 'Subsribe to our newsletter to get your free Pokemon'...
posted by kchristidis at 1:27 AM PST - 5 comments
August 15
The Burning Man website
has undergone a massive redesign, it seems. Much better than before, and with only 12 days left to BM2K. I could cry, really... I can't make it this year, nor did I make it to
Defcon,
H2K, or any other gather.
Bring back stories from the fire for me, people.
posted by Jairus at 8:56 PM PST - 10 comments
The Head Lemur's campaign
for the ICANN Board of Directors enters the next phase. During the month of August, there is a member nomination period, in which individuals can win a place on the ballot by attracting the support of 2% of the activated members in his/her region, up to a total limit of 7 nominees per region.
From now until August 31st, all activated At Large members will be able to "endorse" a candidate for member-nomination in their region. The
list of candidates, including Alan Herrell (The Head Lemur), have been through the nominating process. Please keep your membership number, your password (sent via email), and your PIN number (sent via postal mail) handy, because you will need to use them to endorse any candidate for member nomination, and to vote in October.
posted by netbros at 7:20 PM PST - 2 comments
Real goes subscription.
A decent business model, IMHO. But with two lacking elements: 1) Too expensive ($3-5/month is better), 2) More compelling content (needs more name brands). I think a flat rate type content model could work well for video/multimedia content (the porn industry does well with it).
posted by owillis at 3:19 PM PST - 8 comments
Admittedly,
this is nerdy-precedent cool, but methinks it will yield celluloid hemlock. Although, if it does work, maybe they can start augmenting the often less-than-lifelike performances of certain flesh-and-blood starlets (who are usually already augmented in other ways).
HOO-ah! indeed. Brave new world, and all that.
posted by highindustrial at 11:48 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Stoner Architecture,
a style that includes both the all foyer house and the "On-Duty-Pizzaman Neutrality Zone." By far the best Onion article I've read in some time.
posted by skallas at 10:00 AM PST - 2 comments
Napster and convergence again.
I suppose, like Lance, I can't get tired of this conversation much, either. I mean, my head might explode as I try to run down all the ramifications and possibilities, but I doubt I'd get tired of trying to work it out.
Although, it would probably be better to stop just talking about it and jump out in front and start doing things with those thoughts.
But, this isn't a 'damn Napster' point. It's a convergence thought. Will people buy a server and storage medium when they hbuy a house, lke we buy a new fridge today so they can network their lives? What's going to be the new compensation plan for content? How can infomration be guarranteed?
posted by rich at 9:03 AM PST - 15 comments
August 14
Enough of these pansy-assed candidates. Gore? Bush? Nader? Feh on them all, clueless newbies, no real experience. It's time for a candidate who's been there. A candidate who's a true stateman. A candidate who is tan, rested and ready! It's time for us to rise up and say
Nixon 2000!
posted by aaron at 8:44 PM PST - 9 comments
Contentville
is selling copies of over 1.5 million college dissertations and theses published since 1871. Contentville claims that authors will be paid royalties if their works are sold, but somehow I don't think they contacted most of those authors for permission to put said works up for sale in the first place.
posted by phichens at 5:05 PM PST - 15 comments
Wow...
whether it's someone playing with video editing or the real thing, this is pretty freakin' cool: footage of a jet liner triggering a lightning strike. The page takes a bit to load, but for all of you lightning freaks out there, you'll dig.
posted by RakDaddy at 3:12 PM PST - 1 comments
YEEEEOUCH!!!!!
-
"...writhed in pain, teeth bared as he saw all the treasures he had carefully preserved for the big day drop to the polythene bag he was standing on,"
posted by Nyarlathotep at 11:17 AM PST - 3 comments
CatchPhrase BuzzWord of the NanoSecond
-
issue terrain i.e.: "The issue terrain favors us enormously." LOL! I can't stop laughing!
issue terrain! What? They have men sitting in little smokefilled rooms coming up with these things? "The political
climate is bad for Gore (brrr!), but how about his
issue terrain?" "Oh that's good! No one knows what that is yet cuz we haven't defined it, so naturally his issue terrain is good!" ROTFLMAO!
posted by ZachsMind at 10:05 AM PST - 4 comments
Corporate Crackdown
is Adbusters' cover article this month. The story exposes the development of these legal fictions that are becoming more powerful than nations and suggests ways to bring them back under civil control.
posted by sudama at 8:00 AM PST - 13 comments
August 13
Last One Standing.
Now this is reality tv. Just came on at 8PST on USA. About 10 people have to keep a hand on a car in order to win it. After 3 days awake, they started losing their wits and begin to imagine that they're being plotted against. What Big Brother
should have been.
posted by owillis at 8:57 PM PST - 11 comments
Amazon.com's nwe navigation
Opened my mailbox and lookee-here, a message from Amazon.com's Jeff Bezo's for me? Yup. Looks like he's not only trying to push every product under the sun, but also acceptance of his company's new navigation.
posted by Christopher at 7:21 PM PST - 6 comments
We need a Great Pyramid.
I mean, come on, what is America's great constructional feat? The Empire State building? The Sears Tower? What relative pieces of shit. We need a pyramid to show we're at least as good as the Egyptians!
posted by muffin at 2:15 PM PST - 18 comments
August 12
Crackers hack a webserver
just to decry attrition.org who archives web page defacements. Wow, a defacement with a message other than "You suck" or so-and-so rules.
posted by skallas at 11:21 PM PST - 5 comments
Three good pieces from the Sunday Times:
New York as viewed through foreign tourist guidebooks (big surprise, the French books are the ones that spend the most time pointing out American inferiority).
Jerry Nachman on journalists' overwhelmingly one-sided ideology and their rapidly-decreasing ability to hide it. And
Michael Lewis on how TiVo and Replay are going to destroy television as we know it, eek! (And
don't miss the videos showing how they blew up the TVs and Kellogg's boxes to get the photographs that accompany the article.)
I don't think the Nachman link will live beyond 11 pm Eastern on Sunday; I couldn't find a longer-lasting link to it. I guess opinion pieces aren't important to the Times.
posted by aaron at 10:29 PM PST - 11 comments
This is absolutely one of my favorite web sites.
I've had this URL bookmarked on my computer for well over a year (maybe two?). It's simply one of those weirdass web things that defies explanation. It simply cannot be appreciated without seeing it. The page is truly demented. What are you waiting for? Geez!
posted by ookamaka at 3:15 AM PST - 15 comments
August 11
Public Broadcasting Gets Funky
The CBC (sort of like NPR, but Canadian, federally-funded and with TV too) has a stealth project, 120seconds. They are planning to embrace new media in a big way and this is their start: stories, music, film, experiments. Not bad.
posted by sylloge at 1:05 PM PST - 3 comments
Nader does good ad.
Pair of talking heads on Nader's upcoming TV ad. Interesting analysis, and links to either a transcript or a Windows Media file of the ad.
posted by aurelian at 12:49 PM PST - 2 comments
This
is for those of you running Windows, but wishing you still had a Mac. (novelty purposes only)
posted by thirteen at 9:50 AM PST - 4 comments
LifeFX
This company claims to have made 3D models of faces that are indistinguishable from the real thing. If I didn't know before hand, the few
examples they show would have fooled me.
posted by Nyarlathotep at 9:47 AM PST - 1 comments
Convergence.
Dave Barry does a bang-up job tying together the recent threads about Harry Potter and Stephen King.
posted by baylink at 8:14 AM PST - 4 comments
Excellent.
Massachusetts judge allows lesbian couple's names on original birth certificate. One supplied the egg, the other, the womb. The sperm were anonymous.
posted by baylink at 7:52 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Man kills self and injures fiancée in wood chipper. (reg req)
Phoenix police said Rodriguez told his new fiancée he had a surprise for her early Wednesday, drove her to the central Phoenix landscaping business where he worked and asked that she close her eyes and lie down. Then he lay down beside her, on what turned out to be a conveyor belt, and fed himself into a wood chipper ..
more
posted by chrish at 6:04 AM PST - 16 comments
John Stossel Reprimanded but not Fired by ABC
- It is not exactly
new information that Stossel has a habit of distorting facts and misleading the public. However, in this case he apparently thought he could get away with fabricating two complete sets of lab results related to food safety. Willingly disseminating false health information strikes me as a serious breach of journalistic ethics. In any case, ABC thinks a slap on the wrist will suffice, and tonight Stossel is expected to make an on-air apology. Will he admit he lied or blame an intern?
posted by johnb at 2:52 AM PST - 11 comments
RealityRun
is apparently real; 'Roger', the world's first 'Reality Runner', starts evading the masses on the 14th of this month. He has a 10K USD bounty on his head.
posted by dplanet at 12:02 AM PST - 12 comments
August 10
Love those open
instant messaging standards.
Rather than use their own servers or a decentralized approach,
Aimster offers peer to peer file sharing services by using the existing AOL and Microsoft Networking infrastructures.
posted by alan at 10:19 PM PST - 4 comments
"I was there!"
If you read the comments about Bob Doran's death threats against Clinton in
this thread, you may get a kick out the photo of him "marching with Martin Luther King Jr." that's on Doran's site.
posted by gluechunk at 3:05 PM PST - 7 comments
Would you believe...?
Considering the popularity of the "Get Smart" shoe phone at the exhibit, I'm surprised somebody isn't trying to market one today. It could be cooler than some of today's strangely designed phones... or shoes.
posted by wendell at 2:34 PM PST - 3 comments
The first weblog rallye ever.
You may not have noticed it because it is in German language. All you have to do is signing up and following the links on top of 26 German and Austrian weblogs. Can you be faster than
36 seconds? The competition closes tomorrow at 2PM Berlin time.
posted by arf at 11:24 AM PST - 3 comments
Nethack 3.3.1 released today.
This wonderfully addictive game has been under development for 15 years. That fact alone is major bonus points. Also, a quote from the d/l page: "This version might work on a 286 machine, but it has not been tested on one." Heh. 'cause they probably can't find one to test on. Well, the consolation prize is that it
does run on Atari and Amiga.
posted by syn at 8:19 AM PST - 4 comments
"Capitol Ill"
- Because it's time for a dose of the "Vitamin G"
(presidential candidates rapping - flash required)
posted by sawks at 4:32 AM PST - 2 comments
August 9
Craig Kilborn calls for the assassination of George W. Bush on national television. "Just a little joke, of course. huh huh huh." Yeah, sure, maybe, though not at all funny, and also wildly illegal. CBS and Worldwide Pants have been forced to apologize, and the Secret Service has an active investigation. It should be noted, though, that this aired last Friday, and CBS and Worldwide Pants said and did nothing until this got talked about on a New York radio show yesterday. Why do I get the feeling that if, say, Regis got on his show and made the exact same "joke" about Al Gore, he'd be fired before 10:30 am and be blackballed for the rest of his life?
posted by aaron at 9:24 PM PST - 29 comments
Surveillance of political undesirables continues. Round up the usual suspects.
The sad thing is that this is not the least bit surprising. I honestly believe that the Dem. convention protests are going to get unbelievably ugly. Here in LA, the cops are beginning to behave even more thuggishly than usual. And that's saying something, my friends.
So here's my question....I'm a liberal who feels that the Dem Party has lost its way, and I'd like to register my dissatisfaction with a peaceful protest. However, such a protest carries with it the very real chance of a billy club beatdown and a far from pleasant stay in the luxurious LA County jail. Do I follow my conscience, or my common sense?
posted by Optamystic at 5:16 PM PST - 14 comments
August 8
Pete's Compendium of Knowledge
"It was then that a large number of ducks (each with their own special little bar-coded death-ray machine) swarmed the supermarket, their eyes burning with the fury of sweet, sweet love. They knocked over the Post Toasties display, sending fruit-filled pastry wannabes flying everywhere. The TV newscaster commenting on the event blew chunks of roast beef around with an old run-down snowblower. Go figure."from
Attack of Torvas the Terrible.This site has lots of fun literary toys to play with. The above quote comes from a collaborative story writer in which anyone can contribute a few words at a time.
posted by lagado at 9:56 PM PST - 1 comments
How Culture Molds Habits
is a fascinating article. Read this article, tally another point for nurture. I've long thought this was true, but Nisbett's supposedly gathered rather a lot of data proving it is so. The article raises some interesting parts of the study, but I think the ramifications bear some considering. I'd be interested in reading the full study when it's published, but I haven't a clue where to get the Psychological Review.
And can you imagine what the advertising execs will do with this stuff? Ads tailored to the way you think. Wheee. It does, of course, raise some fun questions about religion and politics.
posted by fable at 9:37 PM PST - 4 comments
Trust me.
She's good. And depending on where you are in the world, she might be in your area very soon. [more]
posted by ZachsMind at 7:11 PM PST - 5 comments
There have been some, uh, interesting remarks made by people regarding the rights of protestors and the rights of police in Philladelphia. Bijan Parsia has written an
informative piece on Monkeyfist about what exactly is happening there, from a legal standpoint.
posted by queequeg at 4:19 PM PST - 11 comments
A retarded man in Texas is set to be executed tomorrow.
Is this what "
compassionate conservatism" is all about? Bush does not support laws that prohibit the execution of retarded people, even though such laws exist currently in 12 other states. Oliver Cruz commited a heinous crime, but isn't killing him tomorrow pre-meditated murder? Are we a better society after we kill Oliver Cruz? Does it send a message to other would be mentally-retarded killers that they will hear and will it convince them not to commit similar crimes?
posted by mathowie at 3:47 PM PST - 50 comments
Rewriting of history.
Now, I don't really approve of what Pinochet did, but in the same process, those in charge are raising up Allende as some sort of great humanistic leader.
All in all, I consider what happened to be part of war. IT has to be looked at in context. If Pinochet didn't do something about Allende, what would have happened to the people of Chile? It's not so black and white.
posted by rich at 1:41 PM PST - 16 comments
I have one, and so does Marky Mark
Finally there is a support group for all who have a supernumerary nipple. Most of us are still getting over Chandler's removal of his on Friends, so we need all the support we can find as a group. Please visit this page and see just what 1.5% of the population is experiencing.
posted by DragonBoy at 12:38 PM PST - 2 comments
Old time hockey, eh?
I always wondered what companies are targeting
me as a market. Well,
Spawn nailed me good for Hanson brother and Dr. Evil dolls^H^H^H^H^Haction figures. Their site's a wee bit pokey, but it makes me drool over their offerings. Of course the true Hansonites already know
where to go, right?
posted by plinth at 11:27 AM PST - 5 comments
Malasia's attitude to sodomy and politics
is brought into graphic focus by this bizarre news story in which an ex leader of the country has been sentenced to nine years in prison for sodomy. His brother has been sentenced to six years and four lashes with a rattan cane. Human rights violations literally up the wazoo...
posted by barbelith at 4:10 AM PST - 3 comments
Ethnologue Languages of the World
is a comprehensive online resource detailing all of the languages spoken in the world today. It has indexes based on language name, language family and country as well as a search facility. Also covered are creoles and deaf sign languages.
posted by lagado at 12:48 AM PST - 10 comments
August 7
The Village Voice is doing a great job
covering the RNC protests (isn't it a little odd that these stories aren't
all over the place?) and to top it off their new design features snazzy dHTML navigation.
posted by sudama at 9:05 PM PST - 38 comments
Revolution or... vodka?
The photographer who took the unforgettable (and much imitated) picture of Che Guevara, which still covers the cracks on many a student wall, may have to travel from Cuba to London to prevent an ad agency from using it to sell Smirnoff. "Che was not a drunk," he says. Not the first time that the revolution has been appropriated by the capitalist running dogs...
posted by holgate at 7:28 PM PST - 2 comments
Ok, here comes the firestorm.
Joel on Software has some very good things to say -- though, like most user-interface-design mavens, I think about 50% of the time that he hasn't comprehended what the problem really is... but in
this piece, he's wrong.
posted by baylink at 12:26 PM PST - 17 comments
I approached
this review expecting it to be of the "major media providers are the problem, not the solution" sort, but discovered something somewhat different:
"It’s not that the medium of the modern political campaign–television advertising–failed to do justice to men of substance, but that men of substance failed to adapt to television advertising..."
posted by dcehr at 9:19 AM PST - 3 comments
Big Brother, around the world...
Like
Survivor, it started in Holland and Germany, then spread across continental Europe, and finally to the UK and USA. And like
Millionaire, the duplication of the format is a good way of distinguishing cultural differences. The British version seems more candid than its American cousin, in keeping with Channel 4's character; it's also a lot less chummy. Anyone else keeping track of the two different houses?
posted by holgate at 8:53 AM PST - 11 comments
Monday morning quarterbacking: Gore/Lieberman '00
I could've sworn it was going to be Massachusetts' own John Kerry. With New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Missouri's Dick Gephardt removing themselves from the running, this was probably the
most courageous choice, and makes Cheney look even sillier than before. The downside is that the Connecticut senator's disapproval of Clinton during the Monicagate scandal may wind up calling more negative attention to Gore than positive. And then there's the bigotry, both veiled and unveiled, that no doubt is already on the way in ads, whisper campaigns and so on. I wonder to what extent was Gore's choice rushed by Bush's huge post-convention bounce. Did I miss any ramifications? Anyone care to play Dennis Miller here?
posted by allaboutgeorge at 8:11 AM PST - 17 comments
CBS said
NO! Reebok said yes.
If you have watched survivor, many of you may have noticed the ads for Reebok that push the limits of your imagination... somewhat. Now, watch the ad that CBS won't air. But Reebok has kindly put up on their website.
Is this a new low for TV? Or just another barrier being breached?
posted by da5id at 6:17 AM PST - 1 comments
The Mummies of the Tarim Basin
were discovered fifteen years ago by Chinese archaeologists working in the salty deserts of far western China. These bodies date from between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago and have been preserved so well in the extremely dry salty conditions that some of them look like they're still alive. Even more remarkable is that their clothing is still intact including tapestries and tartans. Finally these people were six feet tall, had long noses and fair hair and there is strong evidence that they spoke a language whose closest relatives are Celtic and Latin.
posted by lagado at 5:37 AM PST - 10 comments
August 6
Registered to vote yet?
Register on-line here, it doesn't actually register you, it just sends a letter with your info to your home address that you sign and mail to your state's election office who's address is on the envelope. The transaction is also over a
https connection. Personally, I just want to show the temps in the election office how hip and wired I am.
posted by skallas at 11:29 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
freespeech
Find out what really happened during the republitilian convention. The people showed up, on the streets!! Unity and diversity!!
posted by meme at 9:09 PM PST - 1 comments
"Use the force, Luke"
Of course, Sir Alec Guinness hated being typecast by the
Star Wars films. But his death seems to mark the end of an generation of British actors who straddled the differing demands of stage and screen. Who will take their place?
posted by holgate at 6:26 PM PST - 13 comments
Well here's why Ralph is running.
Do the other guys have anything this succinct and clear-cut? I can't find on the 'Net any page, nor have I heard in any of their speeches, where Bush or Gore come straight out and state exactly why they're running.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:42 PM PST - 21 comments
Philly's finest vs. protesters,
which is completely unsurprising. What more could validate the argument that our civil rights are in a sad state of affairs. What was surprising is that
Coyote Ugly isn't the T&A fest the commercials would have us believe it is, for shame movie marketers. Even more suprising: Body doubles.
posted by skallas at 12:41 PM PST - 5 comments
August 5
August 4
AOL's Netscape division is being sued by an NJ photographer
over their SmartDownload feature, which allegedly allows surveillance of activity between websites and you. He claims "[SmartDownload] secretly transmits to Netscape the file name and location, along with an identification string unique to that Internet user.''
"...we've never used or accessed any information about SmartDownload users or files..." - AOL
posted by tomorama at 6:35 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Sometimes, I just want to throw my hands up in the air, cry out in disgust, and give up. Apparently,
these people in Britain have never heard of
NTP, the Network Time Protocol, clients for which have been available for Win9X for *years*... and which *works*
Can we *stop* inventing the wheel, now? It rolls, already.
posted by baylink at 2:37 PM PST - 2 comments
I was astounded, but maybe I'm just naive. According
to
a
Beyond 2000 article, low oxygen content in aircraft cabins,
which contributes to the majority of air travel woes, is mostly
due to penny-pinching. Great, skimping on air! What's next? ...
umm ... ahhh ... Oh gee, I have nothing worse to compare it to!
posted by quirked at 10:29 AM PST - 24 comments
August 3
Dack provides a
pointer to the growing backlash in the US against cell phone use. While "conspicuous" phone use can certainly at times be annoying, the general level of distaste and
phone rage seems to be a phenomenon confined to the United States.
People in Europe, Australia and Asia, took to mobile technology like the proverbial ducks to water and haven't developed anywhere near the same irritation levels.
Is this just a difficult transition for a country slow to adopt a technology or says something deeper about the American psyche?
Afterall, we are talking about the country that invented Dick Tracy and Maxwell Smart.
posted by lagado at 7:48 PM PST - 14 comments
This commercial
looks familar. Didn't some other computer company do something similar back during the 1984 Super Bowl?
I suppose imitation is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
posted by fpatrick at 4:18 PM PST - 14 comments
This from the no-graphics page of the Progressive Review:
"DAVID LETTERMAN has recently expressed interest in hosting a presidential debate and has not decided whether or not to include Ralph Nader. To express your view on this matter call the short at (212) 975-5300 and ask for Art."
Sounds like fun to watch if it's true, if it even plays out.
posted by dcehr at 1:05 PM PST - 2 comments
This isn't anything new, or really all that interesting, it's hardly a link, but, Steven posted similar material, and this is certainly not some bait. Just, it might be interesting to hear your opinion. Ohh, and I apologize for it being this long.
While trying to find when the
kubrick festival thing at the music box will be, I found they were playing
Sex: The Annabel Chong Story, below they also had a quote :
"A man shags 251 women on camera and he is proclaimed a stud. He is admired. Why am I not regarded in the same way? I am a stud!" - Annabel Chong"
My immediate thought was, well, confusing. Where I wouldn't exactly call someone who just "shagged" 251 women a "stud", I wouldn't really look all that much down on him either. I'm not implying that Ms. Chong is the scum of the earth or anything, but I would certainly think just that much more of the man.
Is it me? I checked imdb's page, and a lot of the reviews had the same questions,
"I didn't know quite what to expect from this film. I didn't expect light and fluffy, but this movie, which documents the life of one weird nymphette, was less enjoyable than I could have imagined. Ms. Chong (not her real name) had a very decent middle class upbringing.
The question I asked myself was why she turned out the way she did"
And many more such reviews, which I won't cite, since I'm already taking up half the page, but you get the point.
Why? Our standard of women higher? Or, are we (some of us) (men), just can't stand for this sort of a thing, because we envision any woman as a mother, as maybe a wife? Easy answer might be Morals and Ethics, that it's simply not very, ahmn, in a lot of people's opinion, it's not right (it's dirty). Ok, going too far ahead here.
What are your thoughts on this?
posted by tiaka at 12:33 PM PST - 22 comments
The flip side of the DejaNews linking fracas.
Here's a story about YellowBrix (love that name) who supply a news feed with appropriate words pre-hotlinked to your products. This isn't exactly the same problem as the Deja thing for a couple reasons, but the original newswriters *still* didn't know their words would be linked. It's not as bad... but is it acceptable?
posted by baylink at 12:04 PM PST - 4 comments
Distortions
is generally a pretty silly site. This guy uses image-editing software to "distort" celebrity's faces. Sometimes they hit, sometimes they don't. This week is very funny and maybe a bit scary, Dick Cheney and Dubya Bush as Beavis and Butthead.
posted by edjo at 10:21 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Here is the last phrasebook
Americans will ever need when they go overseas. Packed with useful little snippets like:
I wish to complain.
Je veux porter plainte.
Protesto.
Don't "imperialist pig" me, my good man.
Fichez-moi la paix avec votre "cochon impérialiste", mon petit bonhomme.
¡Váyase usted al cuerno con su "cerdo imperialista", hombre!
How do I get Letterman?
Sur quelle chaîne je peux voir Letterman ?
¿En qué canal puedo ver Letterman?
posted by lagado at 5:56 AM PST - 5 comments
August 2
Great Philippe Halsman
gallery at the Smithsonian Magazine site, including a couple of those strangely errie jump photographs. Nothing's scarier than a floating Nixon.
posted by skallas at 6:57 PM PST - 1 comments
Perhaps
Lance was right. No maybe
Peter was right. Regardless, the wheels of progress continue to turn, this time it's
a p-to-p app that allows the swapping of console video games napster/gnutella-style, with the 17 year-old creator saying this about the possibility of getting shut down: "Sure, it is a concern that they may try to shut us down, despite the fact that we don't permit piracy, but I am confident in the law and believe we will prevail."
Riiiiiight.
posted by mathowie at 5:28 PM PST - 12 comments
Online Caroline
Join up, be her friend, the webcam changes every day and she develops a "friendship" with you. Interesting entertainment from across the pond.
posted by owillis at 5:22 PM PST - 9 comments
Man, I love Ontario.
Monday afternoon, an amazingly significant court trial ruled that possession of marijuana being criminal is unconstitutional, and that new laws need to be written.
posted by cCranium at 1:18 PM PST - 9 comments
Monster.com
,
careerpath, hotjobs.com etc, etc... While these sites offer tons of jobs, I wonder if I will actually be able to find work through them. Does anyone have experiences they'd like to share about finding internet jobs through the inernet? How about smaller, more focused sites, especially regional ones?
posted by chaz at 12:38 PM PST - 15 comments
Time looks at Dubya's Veep choice.
Here's what's interesting:
"In fact, by (the time of Sen. John Danforth's interview) Bush not only knew he wanted Cheney to be his Vice President; he also knew Cheney would say yes. But that was information that neither man shared with Danforth. He and 10 other would-be running mates had laid themselves bare before Cheney and his vetting team."
Why would Bush continue to put people through an
exhaustive screening process after he already made up his mind... Unless he was digging for dirt on rivals?
J. Edgar Hoover lives.
posted by aurelian at 11:36 AM PST - 15 comments
Evolution resumes in Kansas.
Two of the three state school board members who de-emphasized evolution in the science curriculum have lost in primary elections. Survival of the fittest is a bitch, ain't it?
posted by rcade at 9:17 AM PST - 2 comments
Rubberburner.com has been making the rounds via email and weblog, as has
supergreg.com. They both look a little too "perfect" to be true, don't they? Turns out they're both carefully crafted ad sites, designed to sell us
Lee jeans. Will we be seeing more of the Mahir ad model? I wonder how they went about spreading it initially....
posted by jkottke at 8:13 AM PST - 29 comments
Babe in a Bottle?
One could only hope so!!! Will Jenna from survivor pose nude for
Playboy? Will Colleen change her mind from "no" to "yes"??? Who would you like to see in
Playboy??? Does anyone here besides the sexist men care?
posted by da5id at 8:12 AM PST - 7 comments
blogger + news = newsblogger
the boys and gal at blogger launched a new site newsblogger.com that combines the feeds from moreover.com and blogger
nice job... clickfeed does a similar thing but eases the creation of an email blog
posted by efader at 8:05 AM PST - 4 comments
A survey on Gender Bias
recorded that America's largest survey of sexual activity asked, "What is the best moment of intercourse?" Of the top three men's answers, the MOST popular single response was "my partner's orgasm." Feminists complain that men are preoccupied with performance rather than intimacy ("my partner's orgasm" did NOT make the top three list for women). If things were reversed and men's favorite moment was their own orgasm;
(a) Feminists would complain that men were self-centered.
(b) Feminists would complain that men didn't care about satisfying women.
posted by murray_kester at 3:52 AM PST - 11 comments
Spelling Bee has a sting in the tail...
The highly influential
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has abandoned the much-heralded German spelling reforms, arguing that the attempt to simplify and "democratise" the language has been a costly mistake. At the same time, though, the new
Duden is accused of
including too many English words such as "downloaden, Wellness and chatten, Backstage, Smiley and Trash", allegedly indebted to "advertisers and cyber geeks".Given that MeFi readers are, generally, from the two cultures separated by a common language, it's an interesting case study of state intervention gone wrong...
posted by holgate at 3:33 AM PST - 4 comments
August 1
Another thwack at answering Fermi's question.
Which is, after scribbling a fairly convincing equation on the blackboard, "If there's intelligent life out in the universe, where are they?" An interesting sidelight is the principal donors: Paul Allen and Nathan Myhrvold of Microsoft... Both of whom are known for unverifibly abstract big-picture thinking, but maybe it'll pay off this time...
posted by aurelian at 1:00 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Not
just a deranged, hateful old man with a gun... a
drunken deranged, hateful old man with a gun...
(I personally attended an event at one of these "various universities" - social drinker my ass...)
posted by m.polo at 4:57 AM PST - 37 comments
If you choose to accept
this music file, Mr. Phelps, it will self-destruct after one listen. If you attempt to tamper with or share this file, it will also self-destruct. Thank you for your attention. End of Line.
posted by aflakete at 2:18 AM PST - 4 comments
