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August 2003 Archives
August 31
Mimosa
is a retro look at Russia through engaging and often playful snapshots - it has all the feel of rummaging through a box of photos in an attic.
Communist Store Windows offers another, more recent glimpse behind the iron curtain. Both galleries are like shots of peppered vodka.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:32 PM PST - 15 comments
And now, the California Recall Candidates Deck of Cards,
proceeded by the
Iraqi most-wanted deck of cards, then the Trade Relief Organization's
"regime change" deck, among others. Are we carrying this deck of cards thingy too far?
(Beware of nasty popups, slowloading page and possible NSFW ad on 1st linked
page, which was seen on Geisha Asobi blog.)
posted by Lynsey at 11:24 PM PST - 8 comments
Towards a robot-based economy.
Lots of interesting ideas here regarding what might happen and possible solutions to economic and social problems when robotics and automation become as cheap as computers did in the 90s.
posted by skallas at 6:25 PM PST - 20 comments
Have you reached the 13th level of rock and roll that is anti-folk? Do you
think using an 8-track recorder is selling out? If the phone rang while recording
a song for your album, would you try another take? Not if you were the
Moldy
Peaches you wouldn't. . . pansy. The Moldy Peaches are
Adam
Green and
Kimya Dawson. Their
first album, "the Moldy Peaches Greatest Hits" was most people's first
taste of anti-folk and it featured clever (and occasionally insane) songs recorded
in their apartment and subsequently rocketed them to
stardom.
In fact, they've just formed as a 6 piece and they have a
video
out. (The video is in realplay*buffering*er format)
But what exactly is anti-folk? The Moldy Peaches are pretty much all over the
place musically and other anti-folk artists are no different. Take
Jeffrey
Lewis, who's songs range from intricate
tales
(his first love is cartooning) of chance encounters with love to rockin' songs
about killing ghouls chimes in: [More Inside]
posted by untuckedshirts at 7:18 AM PST - 20 comments
August 30
Wound Gallery
[The main site is click-safe, all text. So you won't see a wound right away if you're squemish, just descriptions.] Say, wouldn't it be great if there was a site where you could submit your ticketstubs to and tell the story behind it? Well until somebody makes one of those, let's tell stories about our horrible cringe-inducing wounds instead. I lost all my stubs anyway, but I still have a giant scar from
Hootie and the Blowfish '99 baby! Spill it, what's the story behind your most impressive or memorable wound?
posted by Stan Chin at 10:18 PM PST - 18 comments
Krugman on Iraq
"The direct military cost of the occupation is $4 billion a month, and there's no end in sight. But that's only part of the bill.
This week Paul Bremer suddenly admitted that Iraq would need "several tens of billions" in aid next year. That remark was probably aimed not at the public but at his masters in Washington; he apparently needed to get their attention."
posted by skallas at 2:23 PM PST - 41 comments
At the WTO: At last, the USA backs away from the policy of putting intellectual property above innocent lives. Good news for everyone who cares about mankind.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:47 PM PST - 10 comments
Man Impaled on Drill Bit
but he's actually going to be alright although he lost one eye. There is a pic on the link of the X-ray shot showing an 18 inch long, 1 1/2 inch wide drill bit going straight through his skull.
No brain damage, no paralysis and his nephew is already joking about how he'll be popping out his glass eye at parties.
Amazing!
posted by fenriq at 10:25 AM PST - 30 comments
Press photographer stripped of award;
accused of
overly darkening some portions in the digital editing process. Nothing was added or moved. Explains N.C. Press Photographers Assoc. president Chuck Liddy: You might say, "Gosh, I don't like the way this background looks I can get rid of this with a couple of keystrokes". No contortions in the darkroom with your hands and a dodging wand. No making ten or fifteen prints over a two hour period to get that print just right. Nope, just go and use the lasso tool, yank those levels to the max and VIOLA! the background disappears. Burning has always been an acceptable action. Burning to "de-emphasize" a background is something all of us do. But deleting the background by using some of the powerful tools Photoshop offers is totally unacceptable and violates the ethics code we adhere to. Schneider, the photographer, responds in an
NPR interview (scroll down to audio link). In this allegedly
unethical photo, Schneider says he corrected for overexposure. Is this a backlash against digital manipulation, which rankles the old school because it is simply too easy?
posted by found missing at 9:45 AM PST - 31 comments
How everyday things are made.
See how things such as candy, cars, airplanes, etc are made. Learn about manufacturing processes, like forging, casting, or injection molding. Stanford University's Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing's site covers over 40 different products and manufacturing processes, and includes almost 4 hours of manufacturing video.
Optimized for DSL/Cable speeds or greater. Macromedia FlashPlayer plugin (6.029 or greater) required.
posted by riffola at 8:31 AM PST - 4 comments
August 29
Japanese Tolkien fans angered over translation issues.
Relatively old news, but I believe not that well known. Do the technical difficulties involved excuse the loss of important meaning in dialogue? Film translation seems to suffer from much less prestige than
literary translation, though that too has
its controversies. In the US, anime fans replay the loose vs strict translation debate daily, also protesting
cuts and
edits. Is it really impossible in the rush to make money off the geeks
and off the masses to stay relatively true to the original material?
posted by e^2 at 9:59 PM PST - 21 comments
The August 9, 2003 edition of the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi featured an
interview with Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq who, together with a group of Egyptian expatriates in Switzerland, is preparing an enormous lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world."
For material stolen from the Pharaonic Egyptians during the Exodus ...
(link via
The Daily Grail)
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:38 PM PST - 36 comments
Tom Feelings, an African-American
illustrator,
author, and
historian, has
passed.
"I had used the functional form of a narrative without words, it is open to all people, especially those who have difficulty visualizing what Black people describe as racism from the past and its lingering presence in the present."
posted by moonbird at 3:06 PM PST - 2 comments
Anekee, Anekee, I'm so confused.
(WARNING: no nudity but probably NSFW and a Flash-only-site.)What's going here?
A beautiful (18+) teenage girl sell memberships to her site,
presumably with the promise of revealing skin. Nothing new, right? But wait, what she
really
wants to do is
Free Your Mind.™ Could her mission possibly
be
be true? (<< that link is definitely NSFW)
posted by danOstuporStar at 2:35 PM PST - 28 comments
TerraServer USA. Can you find your own house? I drove myself mad looking, until I finally resorted to using the address finder. I can see my road, but I can't make out which house is mine. Can you find your home, or even your neighborhhod, in a satellite photo of the country?
posted by archimago at 9:38 AM PST - 18 comments
'Punk' Catfish Among New Species Found in Venezuela
: Scientists studying an unspoiled jungle river wilderness in Venezuela on Thursday announced the discovery of 10 new fish species, including a red-tailed tiddler, a "punk" catfish with a spiky head and a piranha that eats fruit as well as flesh, says
The Associated Press.
A little more
Here.
Other new species found recently include
Baffling 'Mystery Apes' [
More on them], some
gross, weird things, and even some
Odd Critters that thrive without oxygen, growing in salty, alkaline conditions, and may offer insights into what kinds of life might survive on Mars. But it's not just little critters,
Pseudoryx nghetinhensis was the first of the new mammal species discovered in quite some time, and even
A New giant squid.
Like this stuff?
A New Theory says many of the ecological patterns we see can be more simply and often better explained if competing species are treated as if they were essentially identical.
posted by Blake at 4:57 AM PST - 12 comments
August 28
OrcaLive is a
series of webcams and underwater microphones placed off of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. They are part of
OrcaLab started by Dr. Spong in 1970 to study wild orca. It appears the cameras are manned and observations of behavior and movement are made
here in the left-hand column. Combined, it makes for some good viewing--today alone I saw and heard different pods greeting each other, saw
spyhops, stomach rubbing along the shore, and tailslaps. Ken Balcomb at the
Center for Whale Research has been studying the orca around the San Juan Islands, Washington since 1976. They also have a
webcam and
still shots. You may remember the
story of Springer being reunited with her pod. (
discussed here) There is also a young male named
Luna L98 who has been separated from his pod for two years.
His situation has reached a crisis while Canadian officials have taken a wait-and-see approach. In the last few days,
Luna was wounded by a boat propeller and has a 6-8inch long 1.5inch deep gash above one eye. Maybe Canada will act now. With only 79 individuals in the Southern Resident population, down from 92 in 1991, every individual is important.
posted by lobakgo at 8:29 PM PST - 9 comments
Pop Quiz: What was the first personal computer?
"Be careful before you answer! The question is highly ambiguous. Are you sure you know what first means? How about personal? Even computer is an ambiguous term! Let's define personal computer as a computer having the following attributes: It must be a digital computer. It must be largely automatic. It must be programmable by the end-user. It must be accessible, either as a commercially manufactured product, as a commercially available kit, or as widely published kit plans. It must be small enough to be transportable by an average person. It must be inexpensive enough to be affordable by the average professional. It must be simple enough to use that it requires no special training beyond an instruction manual.
Ready?"
posted by quonsar at 6:05 PM PST - 11 comments
When all
dot-com companies existed in full power (late 90's), none of us could actually
use them (because of our lazy dial-up modems), now that we could use them they don't exist. "Which leads me to think that there might be another dot-com flourishing just around the corner."
Is Moby right?
posted by nandop at 4:13 PM PST - 21 comments
In Baffin's Bay where the whale fish blow, The fate of Franklin no man may know, The fate of Franklin no tongue can tell, Lord Franklin with his sailors do dwell...an Arctic mystery, involving the meeting of two cultures, cannabalism and the
occult (see under "Still more mysteries", the heading "Why wasn't the accurate information (etc.)")
posted by calico at 1:41 PM PST - 6 comments
If you happen to have a lot of time this afternoon and feel like revisiting an old music conspiracy chestnut, this is the most comprehensive page on
Paul Is Dead that I have ever seen (link via Bifurcated Rivets).
posted by oflinkey at 12:42 PM PST - 24 comments
The Bombay(Mumbai) blasts.
Why detonate two car-bombs in Bombay?
Destabilize the economy creating a climate for terror. Terror attacks have become
commonplace in parts of India. The US condemned the Bombay attack- Powell called Indian officials. But, it seems like India should do more before if it wants broader US support. As the WSJ editorial page put it- "We think India could have helped build even closer U.S. ties had it decided to send troops to Iraq. The U.S. has driven a wedge into the center of Muslim terrorism with its occupation of Iraq, and it is looking to see who its friends really are." What is the lesson from all of this to the Indian government? What would you do if you were running India?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 9:43 AM PST - 60 comments
After Life
is a gorgeous little demonstration of what can be done when you combine a talented photographer with some (relatively) subtle Flash effects. Summer is my favorite, with the grass that blows as you brush by it.
posted by majcher at 7:50 AM PST - 8 comments
Creation Science Fair
- the first place for elementary level was won by Cassidy Turnbull, who demonstrated the differences between her uncle and a monkey. Much more impressive was the winner of the high school level who used prayer to make microbes evolve antibiotic resistance. I, for one, am glad that children across the world are learning the power of Creation Science! (via New Scientist)
posted by adrianhon at 7:21 AM PST - 32 comments
"These are good people"...but changes must be made. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board final report was released on Tuesday.
Putting technical answers aside for the moment, the report targets the
organizational and
behavioral issues that led to a breakdown in communication, safety and responsibility. While acknowledging the good will at NASA, the report holds no illusions that changing this culture will be very difficult and very necessary in order to return to flight. What types of management/behavioral obstacles have you encountered in home, work, school or social organizations? How did you try to effect change and what obstacles did you encounter in an effort to make it more effective, safe, productive or enjoyable?
posted by tgrundke at 7:00 AM PST - 11 comments
It's brilliant,
or at least reflective and translucent. Fetosoap.com has started selling body products containing little fetuses. But don't worry; no children were harmed in the making of
this soap, or
this bar with conjoined twins. The creator doesn't claim any political motivation, but that's easy to superimpose. Good idea? Poor taste? Both?
posted by spaceboy86 at 6:51 AM PST - 14 comments
kids.us ready to go.
Hidden amongst the seemingly endless barrage of SOBig virii this morning was an interesting email from that
ResourceShelf Guy on the new
kids Domain.
Being billed as
"an Internet domain that parents and children can trust for educational and appropriate online fun" kids.us Launches On September 4, 2003. You can read the
Overview of kids.us Policies and Procedures, or
Register A Name (starting next week).
Interestingly they
Say a company called
cyveillance will be "monitoring and reviewing" content for the domains.
The domain names will
Look a little funny, but maybe
Someone should snag www.metafilter.kids.us, you know, for the kids. They don't seem cheap, as
"Registrants will be charged a combined registration fee and a non-refundable application fee for five-year registration.
posted by Blake at 4:36 AM PST - 13 comments
August 27
An anotated list
of the best-selling classics, (
as compiled by
Book Magazine), showing the years in which they will become public domain under current copyright law. Fans of Hemingway's
The Sun Also Rises will be in luck in 2021;
Memoirs of a Geisha will go public sometime in the early 2100s.
[Via Vidiot's brand new blog.]
posted by me3dia at 9:49 PM PST - 5 comments
Earth from the Air
is a free, open-air exhibition in the gardens of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London. It is a spectacular presentation of large-scale photographs of astonishing natural landscapes. Created by world-famous photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, also refer to the
previous discussion of his work. Every stunning aerial photograph tells a story about our changing planet. Seen together, they are an outstanding visual testimony to the world we live in today. A world with a growing population, shrinking biodiversity, polluted lands and oceans, a changing climate and a shortage of drinking water. A world, nevertheless, of beauty and of wonder. Also in a pioneering project Yann Arthus-Bertrand's unique aerial view of the world can now be seen by
blind and partially sighted visitors.
posted by riffola at 8:58 PM PST - 7 comments
Lies and the Lying Presidents Who Tell Them.
The
Washington Monthly publishes its "mendacity index" of the last four U.S. presidents, ranking their overall history (and severity) of lying. TWM's site also lets you rate them yourself, just in case ranking the 20 worst Americans got boring.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 12:36 PM PST - 44 comments
Cool watches through history.
A series of profiles on important watches in the history of the electronic watch. From one regulated by a tuning fork, to the once-omnipresent Swatch.
posted by o2b at 10:53 AM PST - 13 comments
Al Franken interviewed at Salon.com
"O'Reilly went on his radio show and said that the purpose of the lawsuit was to punish me for coming after Fox.
So this is the mindset of the right, that they have to punish you. Joe Wilson, the former Gabon ambassador, was sent to Niger by the CIA and came back and said the uranium claims weren't true. And when the controversy started broiling again about the 16 words in the State of the Union address and Wilson wrote the piece in New York Times, senior administration officials blew the cover on his wife, who was a covert [CIA] operative. And it jeopardized the lives not only of her contacts but every American, because she was a covert agent in weapons of mass destruction. And it's a way of intimidating other analysts who might come forward, and there's a parallel here: You will be punished if you come after us.
I really think the Wilson thing is the most disgraceful action of any White House since Iran Contra. "
posted by skallas at 9:37 AM PST - 85 comments
The Circus Trees of Axel Erlandson: In the 1920s Erlandson observed the natural grafting of two sycamores, became inspired, and then fused 4 sycamore saplings into his first successful experiment - a cupola that he named "Four Legged Giant". Using his own techniques, Erlandson went on to fashion zigzags, birdcages, chairs, towers, hearts, loops, baskets, rings, lightning bolts, towers, picture frames, ladders, and spiral staircases by painstakingly threading saplings together. His trees appeared often in Ripley's Believe it or Not during the 40s and 50s.
Click,
click,
click.
posted by iconomy at 8:03 AM PST - 21 comments
Kirby is god!
Tomorrow would have been Jack Kirby's 86th birthday. A creator (or co-creator) of such characters as the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and numerous others, Kirby gets a warm
remembrance from Elvis Mitchell (with lots of references to Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay," which was dedicated to Kirby) in the NY Times
(Reg. required). A lot of american popular culture was generated by this man in his 50 year career, and it's nice to see him finally get some recognition, especially when someone like Stan Lee tends to hog the spotlight, claiming creator's rights.
posted by jpburns at 4:08 AM PST - 21 comments
August 26
The Getaway
is a game for the PS2 set in a realistically modelled representation of London. You'd have to be really bored to go and find all the locations in the game and re-create the missions for real,
wouldn't you?
posted by Mwongozi at 5:07 PM PST - 16 comments
Illustrating Genji
An eighteenth-century scroll illustrating the first sixteen chapters of
Lady Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. (In
Japanese, anyone? Don't forget to take the photographic
tour.) A couple of images from an important twelfth-century scroll are
here. UNESCO hosts a full set of seventeenth-century woodblock prints by
Harumasa Yamamoto. For the nineteenth century, see a set of color sixteen woodblock prints by
Kunisada; and for the twentieth,
Shuseki's illustrations of the first eleven chapters. (Those in search of some artistic context should revisit
this post by y2karl.)
posted by thomas j wise at 4:17 PM PST - 14 comments
The gift of sight
is easy to take for granted. Not for
Mike May, blinded in infancy, Mike had partial vision restored at the age of 43.
This is his journal, written with infectious delight for his new gift and documenting the unexpected problems that the miracle brings. There's much, much more to vision than
just the data and Mike is an unprecedented opportunity to better understand how perception works.
[via the Guardian and previously mentioned here]
posted by grahamwell at 12:54 PM PST - 14 comments
Hippie Atrocities and Beautiful Freaks -- Oz Magazine
was, for a ten year run during the Sixties and Seventies, Australia's, and later England's, premier underground satire 'zine. Featuring contributions from (among others) Lenny Bruce and Germain Greere, and subject to two obscenity trials--one in Australia and another, more famous one following the editors' exile to
England--it evolved, in its English incarnation, a
wicked,
witty and of course, thouroughly
psychedelic design aesthetic. There are galleries of cover art
here and
here,
and a Shockwave adaptation of the infamous School Kids issue
here.
[warning: some images NSFW.]
posted by arto at 12:21 AM PST - 6 comments
August 25
The Forest Brothers
spent years hiding in the woods of Estonia and Latvia. They lived alone, carefully covering their tracks, sleeping in clammy bunkers, no bigger than walk-in closets. Then things got less comfortable.
(warning: nytimesfilter.)
posted by alms at 9:42 PM PST - 7 comments
Rumors abound about the
legality of the IRS, and about
people who've managed to avoid paying income taxes based on the lack of legality of the IRS itself. Is any of this real, or simply people trying to make a buck selling a book or two? And if the IRS is fraudulent, what can a citizen without massive fundage do to fight it?
posted by woil at 6:37 PM PST - 30 comments
Where are they now?
Hey, remember that guy that was head of that big company that went bankrupt and the employees lost their retirement savings and it turned out the whole thing was just this massive fraud? I wonder what happened to that guy.
posted by raaka at 6:08 PM PST - 21 comments
Reuters
and
AP have stories on The final energy report from the GAO on
Walker v. Cheney. You can see the
Chronology of the GAO's Attempts [PDF] to Obtain Information from the National Energy Policy Development Group, and more at the
GAO Site.
The General Accounting Office sued Vice President Cheney last year to obtain a list of officials from Enron and other companies who met with President Bush's energy task force.
Highlights or read the full report:
GAO-03-894 "Energy Task Force: Process Used to Develop the National Energy Policy"
posted by Blake at 5:45 PM PST - 16 comments
Everyone eavesdrops
but few people catalog the fragments of conversation that they overhear.
This guy travels on the
London Underground regularly...and posts some of those one sided exchanges that make you wonder
what the hell people are talking about. (its my first FPP - play nice...)
posted by mattr at 12:55 PM PST - 45 comments
Four 9/11 Widows Demand Truth.
"This is a stonewalling job of far greater importance than Watergate. This concerns the refusal of the country’s leadership to be held accountable for the failure to execute its most fundamental responsibility: to protect its citizens against foreign attack. 'If we have an executive branch that holds sole discretion over what information is released to the public and what is hidden, the public will never get the full story of why there was an utter failure to protect them that day, and who should be held accountable.'"
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:33 PM PST - 33 comments
Anybody see this coming?
The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.
posted by FormlessOne at 12:04 PM PST - 28 comments
It's Lunchtime. You know what that means: Meat.
Mmmmmm... I'm salivating like Pavlov's dog just looking at it! What's that?
You're in the mood for poultry? So tasty. Bill Cosby from
Leonard Part 6 would be proud! (Whoever else has seen that movie gets a free Hat of Meat. I vaguely remember it, but suffice it to say they don't make enough movies where the hero wields raw meat as a weapon against has-been disco queens and her army of gay bodybuilding henchmen.)
posted by Stan Chin at 9:45 AM PST - 18 comments
What's Not To Love About A Good Hatchet Job?
Christopher Hitchens gleefully chainsaws into
JFK; while
Neal Ascherson demonstrates the more elegant approach towards character assassination with a nice "Drunken Stalinist Bastard"
piece on Kennedy's Cuban Missile buddy,
Khrushchev. Meanwhile, in the streetfighting, eye-scratching category,
Laura Miller rips Chuck "Fight Club" Palahniuk into tiny pieces. What lowest of low instincts makes us relish such gratuitous - yet somehow
richly deserved in the Grand Scheme Of Things - slaughters?
(Warning: Sorry. Possibly unethical direct linking of a Salon Premium article. If your conscience objects, please go through the usual channel.)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:36 AM PST - 33 comments
A million lives.
Links to thousands of biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, letters, narratives, oral histories and more.
posted by pooligan at 8:53 AM PST - 3 comments
Pam Grier,
Tura Satana,
Laura Gemser.
Cult Sirens is a site dedicated to, you guessed it, the women made famous due to the cult movies they starred in. If you love this kind of stuff, there are
links to more sites having to do with actors, cult movies and horror movies. And there's always this list of
cult movies, complete with reviews.
posted by ashbury at 6:08 AM PST - 3 comments
About 2, if not more blasts
rocked Mumbai on Monday afternoon.
About 40 people are dead, and numerous injured. The bombs were apparently placed in taxis, and the two confirmed explosion sites are the historic Gateway of India, a huge tourist spot and the Mumba Devi temple, after which the city get its name. The city has been prey to a string of deadly bomb attacks since December last year, with the most recent, on a bus, killing three in July, and suffered a simliar serial blast back on March 12
th, 1993.
posted by riffola at 4:32 AM PST - 19 comments
August 24
"By recklessly cutting taxes, President Bush has enriched the wealthy and neglected the poor, sent the federal budget deficit to record heights, and imposed a colossal financial burden on the coming generation. He has revived the culture wars by flaunting his Christian faith and by promoting traditional values. He has undermined public schools by supporting school choice. He has eroded the wall of separation between church and state by seeking federal funding for faith-based charities. He threatens to reverse decades of progress in civil rights by packing the judiciary with right-wing extremists. He has alienated our European allies with his crude cowboy diplomacy and provided a legitimate basis for anti-Americanism around the world. And he has knowingly deceived the American people in a matter of grave national importance by resting his case for war against Iraq on trumped-up charges about weapons of mass destruction."
"That's a caricature", says
Peter Berkowitz in a coolly favorable article about the current Presidency.
1st link via aldaily
posted by 111 at 3:10 PM PST - 49 comments
False Start
How important is sportsmanship in the modern era? On Sunday afternoon at the IAAF World Championships, Jon Drummond false started in the 100m sprint and was disqualified. He refused to leave the track (initially prostrating himself in the middle of his lane) and ended up delaying the race by more than 50 minutes. In 1996, Linford Christie did
something similar in the Olympic games 100m final.
Is it just 100m sprinters, or is sportsmanship going out of fashion?
posted by daveg at 1:02 PM PST - 19 comments
Dyke to open up BBC archive.
Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation's programme archives.
Wow! The BBC has archives stretching back to when the Earth was still cooling. And now it will all be available online and for free. [Via
Slashdot]
posted by PenDevil at 10:20 AM PST - 36 comments
Peepshow
- Sunday art stroll: this cute little site is a quick flash tour through the portfolios of a dozen funky and fun British illustrators.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:54 AM PST - 6 comments
More or Less
is an interesting mini-encyclopedia of several of the great heroes & great villains of the 20th Century, with background information on each individual, the situation they were in, the scope of their impact on humanity, etc. It makes an interesting contrast, as well as a good thinking point on what one human life can achieve, for better or worse.
posted by jonson at 9:23 AM PST - 3 comments
Balance the State Budget
-- Fight this little Flash game created by the AP for hours and hours. It's certainly timely given the number of U.S. states struggling to balance their books and it's definitely engrossing (for geeks). While it certainly is simplistic, it makes me wonder, is playing the political game really this hard? Or is this game (or am I) just stupid? Even better question, is it impossible to win?
posted by lazywhinerkid at 6:25 AM PST - 9 comments
bikewriter
the newest weapon in the guerrilla graffiti arsenal. I wonder how long it will take before someone uses this to propose to his girlfriend.
posted by riffola at 3:37 AM PST - 23 comments
Drums around the world
"Drums Around the World is an annual simultaneous world wide drumming day.Our purpose is to Honor the traditions of the drum, celebrate its power to unify humanity."
The tenth anniversary of the annual "Drums around the World: ....In 1994, the inaugural event, over 2100 drummers showed up at the main event (facilitated by Baba Olatunji, Hamza El Din, Arthur Hull, John Bergamo, Jim Greiner, Muruga Booker, and Native Drummers) creating the worlds largest drum circle. This event was also broadcast world-wide via satellite (complements of CNN)."
Ever drummed on a Djembe until your hands bled? ....Or wondered why virtually no republicans practice African or indigenous drumming techniques? Are hand drums, to the US far right, a spooky talesman which evokes lurid fantasies of wild satanic or Santeria (Voodoo) rituals?
posted by troutfishing at 1:59 AM PST - 25 comments
August 23
Hey, Asswipe!
Sadly, there's a dearth of literature on toilet hygiene. Here in Portugal, being a clean-living people, after wasting a forest of bunched-up paper, we thoroughly wash our arses/asses in a
bidet after - pardon my French -
taking a dump. Men, it must be said, carefully wipe their dicks with toilet paper after a pee and flush twice. Women, though deprived of dicks in the tradition of old Freudian "penis envy", do the same. I wonder whether this is a universal tradition. Pray tell. Ugh!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:07 PM PST - 84 comments
EPA misled public on 9/11 pollution
"In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available."
posted by jpoulos at 9:27 AM PST - 17 comments
Tampa drops face-recognition system
The Tampa Police Department says the system, which scans faces in a crowd and compares them with a database of criminals, didn't help them catch even one criminal. Could it be that law enforcement is starting to understand that technology is no substitution for good old fashioned police work?
posted by whirlwind29 at 6:02 AM PST - 8 comments
August 22
"Hello, Neo. I am the Architect."
For those of us who liked The Matrix Reloaded but got lost shortly after the Architect opened his mouth, here's a handy annotated transcript of his entire scene. Great for people who want to delve into the deeper meanings of what he's going on about, and also great for people (like me) who are interested in the
way he talks.
[Warning: Geocities site. Mirrored here if it goes down]
posted by Monster_Zero at 5:29 PM PST - 25 comments
Dispelling Some Myths About Credit Cards.
In case you missed this post (via
Kuro5hin), as this is an excellent explanation of how to stay debt free and things you need to know about owning a credit card. As a first time card holder, I found this post to be really, really useful. Anybody have any bad credit card stories?
posted by Keyser Soze at 4:57 PM PST - 45 comments
Okanagan Moutain Fire
Here are some photos taken of a forest fire in British Columbia. So far I've seen evacuation numbers ranging from 5000 to 15000 people so far.
posted by synecdoche at 3:56 PM PST - 12 comments
Bloggin from/about Jail.
There is Alon the Felon (armed robbery):
Hes called Vomit coz soon as he gets nervous or any of the downers go near him . . . he starts vomiting profusely . . . It works. Or there is now-released
Michael Peterson (murder [scroll down]):
There is a group of three young men who spend most of their time together outside their cells – perhaps 6 hours a day – doing each other’s hair. They braid and unbraid one another, fix elaborate “dos,” then start all over again. Also, amazing writing for the
the female perspective:
i don't want to take out my navel ring for fear it will close up, so i lie and tell the warden it won't come out. "that's okay," she says, "one of the girls in your cell will just rip it out for you." (Some language may be NSFW.)
posted by onlyconnect at 1:35 PM PST - 31 comments
Pray for Paul Wolfowitz
Many across America and Americans in other countries are heeding the call to pray for our President. In a short time since the September 11 terrorist attacks, well over a million people have registered their promise to pray daily for the President. That number is increasing by tens of thousands of new team members every day. News of The Presidential Prayer Team is spreading rapidly throughout America as people march to the tempo of an almost forgotten tune, "God Bless America."
The independent, nonprofit organization behind The Presidential Prayer Team, has a singular purpose: to encourage specific nationwide prayer for the President. The goal is to enlist at least 2.8 million participants, or 1% of the American population, to make this prayer commitment.
posted by Slimemonster at 12:47 PM PST - 75 comments
So I
Google search on the
SoBig virus' affinity for UDP port 8998, and the possibility it may be
downloading additional programs this afternoon(actually, right about now). Great, more filters on the routers. Hang on, what's
this result on that first search? A link to
PornResource? Why, it appears to be a news and technical site for porn site operators. News, guides, interviews,
top designers,
host reviews, even a
message board. Of course, a site billed as
"The Standard for Up-To-Date Adult Webmaster News" is NSFW. Unless you are
BossHawg, of course.
posted by dglynn at 12:23 PM PST - 10 comments
Earthstation 5
is a new p2p application purportadly based in Palestine issue
a challenge to the MPAA/RIAA.
Sounds kind of fishy to me.. I'll stick to
Waste with my mates (sharing legal items, of course) for a bit..
posted by Mossy at 10:52 AM PST - 17 comments
Ars Magna hosts The Anagrammy Awards,
a monthly anagram competition. This got me thinking that we could "rearrange" the big acronym thread from a few weeks ago so that the first word or phrase of a comment would be an anagram of the last word or phrase of the previous comment.
Sort of like this.
posted by coudal at 8:35 AM PST - 25 comments
«A fascist is one whose lust
for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.»
Henry A. Wallace’s article, titled «The Danger of American Fascism», ran in the New York Times in 1944. Veeery interesting reading.
posted by acrobat at 8:33 AM PST - 11 comments
The new issue of
CBC Radio 3’s online magazine (Flash required) has a new piece today called
Self Storage, an interview with self-storage landlord Hal Spradling, mixed with photographs of abandoned storage lockers. People who place their belongings here know that if they don’t pay their rent after “X” amount of days, their stuff goes to auction, so is this a problem? Or, like “
Payday Loans!” is this yet another industry preying on powerless individuals?
[previous “Payday Loans!” discussion]
posted by Quartermass at 8:24 AM PST - 6 comments
The 40 oz. Archive.
Your comprehensive guide to the classic refreshment. St. Ides, Olde English 800, Ballantine...I'm working up a thirst just thinking about it. A Friday link if there ever was one.
posted by QuestionableSwami at 7:43 AM PST - 22 comments
Did the
earth move for you as well? The biggest earthquake to hit the "Shaky Isles" since 1968 rocked the southern South Island of New Zealand earlier today, with the tremor being felt as far away as
Sydney. Did you realise that recorded earthquakes are an almost
daily occurrence around the world? In fact, earthquakes with a magnitude of 1 or over happen at an alarming
rate.
While California is often thought of as earthquake central and New Zealand carries the "Shaky Isles" crown with justification (and not a little pride),
Australia is not generally considered to be a country prone to earthquakes. Surprisingly, there have been 15 earthquakes in Australia in the past month alone, ranging from 2 to 6 in intensity.
posted by dg at 7:13 AM PST - 5 comments
Rescue Rangers!
: of mice and mayhem. Quite possibly the most...
profesionally realized fanfic project I've ever seen. The Disney-level (and above) quality of the draftsmanship is, for me, what distinguishes this magnum opus of Rescue Rangers devotion from the teeming, frothing hordes. I hesitate to be too harsh because, well, just
look at it. There's a lot of love, time, and devotion in this gigantic comic which the man supplies to the world for free. That said, I feel it would benefit from two robots and a man named Joel up front and being frank (so to speak).
posted by kavasa at 2:55 AM PST - 19 comments
August 21
What did Pavlov’s dog think about Pavlov?
"Look at the poor man, every time I am hungry, instead of bringing me food, he rings the bell!"
Some people just
figure it out, but here on MeFi we
already knew it.
posted by MzB at 2:34 PM PST - 9 comments
Things to do in Denver When You're Stressed
Unemployed meditation teacher Jeff Peckman, apparently having nothing better to do, managed to collect enough signatures to squeak his stress-reducing initiative onto the November ballot. What would he suggest for reducing stress?: Indian Sitar music in public buildings, healthier school lunches, and (surprise surprise) meditation. The Denver City Council thinks it's stupid, which they have expressed in
varying degrees of bluntness:
--Councilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez: "While the ideas behind it are admirable, it would be impossible to implement."
--Council President Elbra Wedgeworth: "With a $70 million budget shortfall, this is not what we should be doing."
--Councilman Charlie Brown: "It's lunacy, it's frivolous, it's fantasy. If you want fantasy, go to Disneyland. These are city offices. We don't sit around holding hands, burning incense and singing `Kumbaya.' We are in serious economic times."
Denver martial arts instructor Ted Fowler scoffs at the proposal, calling it a waste of money and adding, “Well, I don’t listen to Indian satire music either. I’ve got a radio here and I can put on whatever music I like."
posted by Shoeburyness at 1:13 PM PST - 20 comments
For students in one Iowa school district this year, it's "sit down, shut up and
eat your lunch." The principal says it curbs the noise level and makes sure kids eat all of their meal. Because if there's one thing this country (not to mention
the rest of the world) needs, it's more
fat kids.
posted by emelenjr at 12:53 PM PST - 53 comments
Sex between teenagers is illegal in Wisconsin.
"Sex between kids is not legal," said Assistant District Attorney Lori Kornblum, who is prosecuting the case. According to the law, "Whoever has sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 16 is guilty of a Class C felony." There is no mention of consent. The boy's attorney will argue that children's privacy rights include the right to make "important decisions."
posted by Durwood at 9:46 AM PST - 92 comments
I've never heard of TAB (Tommy Aguilar Band) who apparently became quite popular in the mid-90's, but
Off The Record is nonetheless a fascinating read, offering great insight into what it's really like to be in a band. Michelle Rubin, the bass player, offers a
journal describing one of their first disastrous tours.
Tommy has a write-up that is also well worth reading. The
book gets rave reviews.
posted by ashbury at 7:57 AM PST - 8 comments
In the latest round
in the Bill O'Reilly vs Al Franken grudge match, Mr. O' Reilly attempts to prove that Mr. Franken isn't a satirist.
(more inside)
posted by jpburns at 7:13 AM PST - 60 comments
August 20
Britain's Small Wars
since 1945. India, Palestine, Malaya, Korea, Suez Canal Zone, Kenya, Cyprus, Suez 1956, Borneo, Vietnam, Aden, Radfan, Oman, Dhofar, etc. Iraq and
East Timor not featured, as yet.
posted by plep at 11:11 PM PST - 4 comments
From the website: "Since its inception in 1984, the
Mural Arts Program has completed more murals than any other public art program in the nation - more than 2,300 indoor and outdoor
murals throughout Philadelphia." To find a specific Philly mural by artist or location, try
this.
posted by moonbird at 4:33 PM PST - 8 comments
Texting blamed for summer movie flops
-Oh No! The good old days of 'Buying Your Gross' are gone. "No, the executives are not blaming such bombs as The Hulk, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle or Gigli on poor quality, lack of originality, or general failure to entertain. There's absolutely nothing new about that.
The problem, they say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films - sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching..." What's an honest marketing executive gonna do?
[Via
Arstechnica]
posted by kodas at 4:19 PM PST - 35 comments
Suspended Animation.
With its recent batch of new layoffs, Disney's animation department has just about completely abandonded production on any and all traditional 2D animated features in favour of flashier
money-making 3D computer-animated fare. Is an artform dying?
posted by Robot Johnny at 2:33 PM PST - 26 comments
Louis Althusser was a French philosopher in the 1960's and 70's who taught at the Ecole Normale Superieure. An interesting read can be found
[here], documenting how he scamed the French academic community into thinking that he was a "revolutionary thinker," but in fact was a hack who admitted that "he had faked much of his career including his knowledge of Marx, philosophy and history." Plus, he killed his wife - er, "while massaging his wife's neck [he] discovered he had strangled her." Brrrrr. [More inside]
posted by Quartermass at 1:52 PM PST - 5 comments
As a bunch of Average Americans living from paycheck to paycheck, we feel frustrated that our President is spending more of his time restricting the fundamental rights that our nation is founded on than fixing the economic woes we face. And, as Average Americans, we're doing what any red-blooded patriot would do when things seem their darkest —
we're Mooning.
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:11 PM PST - 24 comments
Well, I said, if they're going to insist on putting all those functions -- phone, camera, personal organizer, hand-held computer, TV remote, garage door opener, phaser -- on a single device then
I want 'em on my Gameboy.
posted by jfuller at 8:10 AM PST - 7 comments
Dire Gnosis
" In 1999, I started circulating a booklet called Beyond 2012, listing information, theories and ideas from diverse sources which predict 2012 as an evolutionary pinnacle; a leap in consciousness; a dimensional shift; an end of linear time; an encounter with an asteroid; mass genetic mutation from solar or cosmic rays; etc. The ideas come from scientists, artists, mystics, alternative Egyptologists, prophets, divinatory systems, shamanic psychonauts, mythology, and Mesoamerican research.....some of it originated before the Mayan Long Count was known about, outside archaeological circles. For example, the McKenna brothers, who found a complex fractal "timewave" encoded in the ancient Chinese I Ching oracle, discovered its 2012-termination point several years before they heard anything about the Mayan Long Count."
Drugs, aliens, spiritualism, impending world catastrophe. If it's New Agey and weird, it's here: A Rosetta Stone for New Age catastrophism! Don't miss:
What's New #1,
What's New #2,
What's New #3,
#4,
#5....
WARNING! - blue/green/purple/red/yellow text on a black background with a picture of a man staring upwards, lightning shooting into his eyes, with a "ZZzzzap" sound file to hammer the point across. (safe for work, I guess)
posted by troutfishing at 7:08 AM PST - 22 comments
Midnight voicejail:
"It's partially about a bunch of 20-somethings, stuck in the pre-web very work-oriented suburbia world of Silicon Valley during the 80's and 90's. They took over various voicemail systems and used them as their main social and creative outlet. They came to be known as 'voicejailers'." Their
radio shows are pretty amazing. Do people out there still
do stuff like this, or are "flash mobs" as good as the internet era gets?
posted by Jimbob at 5:52 AM PST - 2 comments
August 19
who to kill?
jimmy carter or donald rumsfeld?
michael flatley, or downtown julie brown?
hello kitty or bug-eyed earl?
they line up, you decide.
posted by quonsar at 10:01 PM PST - 52 comments
Distributive Justice
- It's an art project with both an interactive web exhibit and an installation at the
American Effects exhibit currently showing at
The Whitney Museum in NYC. In the words of the artists: "Distributive justice is not only a central issue of moral and political philosophy, but also an object of common-sense moral reasoning. Everyone is sensitive to the question of his/her share of the common good. Even those who get the best peace of the social pie are in need to justify the actual model of distribution. It has become a truism that most people (especially in the transition countries) experience their own social position as "unjust", relying on certain intuitive principles of distributive justice... All the parts of the project would later on be integrated on a web-portal. The actual or potential participants would thus gane a virtual space of their own designed for exchange of information and opinions (mailing list, forum, chat), creating archives etc. In this manner the project would eventually develop into a permanently open forum."
posted by The Michael The at 7:43 PM PST - 5 comments
Borscht Belt Memories
When I was a kid my family would all pack up and go to the Pines Hotel. Located in South Fallsburg NY, it was classic Borscht Belt even when we visited it in the 70's, with
Morris Katz painting using his trademark toilet paper to manically dab the trees with color, racing to staple the frame and sell the painting to somebody to that quasi-celebrity fellow who was known for the Simon Says games in the lobby.
The hotel has been
abandoned I have found out and a pang went through my heart -- surely I will have to take my gal Jenn up to visit the ruins. The photos at the site are interesting and the descriptions are too. I was hoping to go back there and rediscover the place but who knew it would be this way.
posted by RubberHen at 4:39 PM PST - 21 comments
The Public Library of Science
has been getting some good press lately.
An Editorial at the Sacramento Bee,
The New Scientist,
Washington Post and
The Boston Globe, have all written up The PLoS, the organization founded by a Nobel Prize-winning biologist and two colleagues, is plotting the overthrow of the system by which scientific results are made known to the world -- a $9 billion publishing juggernaut with subscription charges that range into thousands of dollars per year.
They are committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. Check it out at
publiclibraryofscience.org.
posted by Blake at 4:06 PM PST - 5 comments
Man Shoots Six at His Surprise Party
He intended to play a joke on them with his shotgun and ended up nearly killing six of them because he tripped (with his finger on the trigger of his Mossberg pump, sorry, had a Coolio moment there).
I would have thought the Swedes would have already disarmed their populance by now but apparently not.
posted by fenriq at 3:51 PM PST - 37 comments
Last Saturday afternoon, Rep.
Bill Janklow (SD) ran a stop sign and hit and killed a motorcyclist.
Janklow has a
history of driving poorly. In fact, his speedy habits have been the subject of
jokes in the past. Will Janklow receive special treatment because of his fame? What kind of penalty does a crime such as this deserve?
posted by graventy at 1:58 PM PST - 34 comments
Extra ordinary, every day.
Online exhibition drawn from the Bauhaus Collection at Harvard's splendid Busch-Reisinger Museum (which also includes fine holdings of Austrian Secessionism, 1920s abstraction, and German Expressionists). Fellow MeFi modernism buffs, you may start drooling...now.
posted by scody at 1:47 PM PST - 4 comments
Phoenix runs out of gas.
In a
scene reminiscent of the 70's, the entire PHX area is queued up, waiting in line for gas. Since Sunday, when this began in earnest, prices have shot up something like 50% to somewhere in between $2 and $3/gallon for unleaded. Apparently, it doesn't take much to throw off a city like Phoenix's gas supply -- a pipeline that linked Tucson to the greater PHX metro area
had to be shut down earlier this month, cutting off a major supply of precious petrol from El Paso. Panic buying ensued, throwing the whole system into total chaos.
Think alternative fuel is the answer?
Just ask 'Propane Jane.'
posted by ph00dz at 8:35 AM PST - 67 comments
Who Wants To Marry My Daughter?
Mom will interview suitors for her 22-year-old (who's also the mom of a 4-year-old), a la the NBC
"reality" show. Mom's already booked some dates and a getaway weekend for the winner. Seriously. Must have "a steady job, a love of children, strong morals, and no criminal baggage." Livestock
brideprice optional.
posted by serafinapekkala at 7:44 AM PST - 30 comments
August 18
"The depleted uranium being used in the Middle East is a repeat of the deception of Navajos, the abuse of the innocent.
'The United States government knew all along the uranium mining would kill Navajos....' said Badoni, among Navajos organizing opposition to further uranium mining on the Navajo Nation....declassified documents in the United States reveal that both the buyer, the United States government, and Ottawa, then the world's largest supplier, withheld information from Native miners that could have saved their health and their lives."
The ongoing, deadly fallout in a certain nation where development (and use) of weapons of mass destruction has
never been in doubt.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 8:34 PM PST - 10 comments
Windows Vulnerabilities XPlained
I've always used Gibson Research's website to test my Windows system for
vulnerabilities. With the latest
BLAST aimed at MS, I thought to share his site with the class. While Mr. Gibson obviously has some axes to grind and bones to pick with
Microsoft and with various software
firewall makers, his explanations of how Windows can be XPloited in terms that are fairly easy to understand is most appreciated. Be sure to check out the numerous
free utiltites (
small downloads! I mean,
really small!) that will help you plug nearly every hole in your Windows.
Didn't know MS had shut down www.windowsupdate.com til just now, either
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:49 AM PST - 42 comments
We're number one! We're number one!
From a source quoted in the article: "We have the wealthiest society in human history, and we maintain the highest level of imprisonment. It's striking what that says about our approach to social problems and inequality."
(apologies for the usual US-centrism)
posted by alumshubby at 10:52 AM PST - 103 comments
On Sundays West Coast Live
I heard an interview with Adam Johnson, the author of
Parasites Like Us, a post-apocalyptic novel with a decidedly (if somewhat spurious) anthropological bent. Literary criticism aside, as an anthropologist myself (and die-hard sci-fi reader), it got me thinking of what our vaunted Western culture may have to offer the survivors of whatever catastrophe may befall our civilization in the future.
From classic novels like
Earth Abides, or even
The Stand, writers and storytellers have tried to discern what may be the surviving aspects of culture once all else fails; what it is that has made and defines us as modern humans, and perhaps what it is that will sustain us.
So, what is it that would sustain you? What would separate you from the crazed and the mad that seem to populate the annals of post-apocalyptic literature? Or perhaps more specifically, what is it that you value of your culture and your technology that makes it worthwhile to maintain and perhaps fight your way back to?
posted by elendil71 at 10:37 AM PST - 28 comments
"We've got a conservative, evangelical Christian,Republican governor, trying to get a massive turnout of black voters to
pass a tax increase so he can raise taxes on Republican constituents." Alabama Governor has massive and unexpected change of heart.
posted by jonson at 9:00 AM PST - 35 comments
The Hutton Enquiry on-line.
Terms of Reference: "...urgently to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly."
Hearing transcripts and documentary evidence for your perusal.
posted by Frasermoo at 5:50 AM PST - 14 comments
August 17
Too Much, Too Young Or Too Good To Be True?
Fingers crossed!
Cristiano Ronaldo is a charming and talented 18-year-old Portuguese football player, from a very poor family, who has just been bought by Manchester United for almost 20 million dollars/euros, a record amount. Given the No.7 shirt previously worn by the likes of George Best, Eric Cantona and David Beckham,
his first game at Old Trafford has earned him
rave reviews in the British press. Forgetting the football for a moment, how difficult is it for a teenager to deal with expectations this high and success this early in career and life?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:14 PM PST - 24 comments
Sudden Giant Nostril Gallery.
Not as horrid as you'd imagine. Photos taken of animals, with the nose of the critter waaaay close to the camera lens. Actually, some images are pretty funny. And, no, this post has no intellectual merit. Step along, please.
posted by datawrangler at 9:10 PM PST - 9 comments
Transformation in a weekend?
Recently a friend told me he'd signed up for the Landmark Forum, a personal improvement seminar offered by the
Landmark Education Corporation. I did some googling on LEC and found
some very disturbing material. Since we're being all "fair and balanced" on MeFi now, I'll add I found
some positive material too. Oh, and since my research tells me Landmark tends to be very litigious about negative publicity, I'll just cover my orange-feathered butt and say that my negative impressions of Landmark are only my opinion, not that of MetaFilter, and I could be wrong. Have any MeFiers had any experiences - positive or negative - with LEC?
posted by orange swan at 8:33 PM PST - 47 comments
Schwarzenegger caught in lie about affair, statutory rape.
After years of speculation and denials by both parties, Arnold Schwarzenegger's longtime "avenue of relaxation" and partner in outerwear spills the beans to British television. The affair was first alleged by
Lacy H. Rich, Jr., a source of pictures and information for the infamous
Spy Magazine article. In 1995, with his health deteriorating and the mainstream media ignoring his full allegations, Rich made numerous
posts to Usenet with claims such as drug use, a longtime affair with Gigi that started when she was 16, car theft, and even prostituting himself to
Paco Arce, a gay Spanish millionaire with an interest in bodybuilders.
More plo chops, anyone?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:09 PM PST - 39 comments
newwavephotos.com
You will find here a selection of photos (mainly B&W) taken mostly in the late 70's and early 80's of popular and not so popular "rock", "new wave" and "punk" groups.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 3:57 PM PST - 22 comments
August 16
Sweden has a referendum coming up on whether to join the EMU (European Economic and Monetary Union). Blah blah blah politics blah blah, but perhaps most importantly,
Gayest.
Pro-EU propaganda.
Ever.
posted by rusty at 10:54 PM PST - 34 comments
Black sues black for racism.
"Dwight Burch, a former [Applebee's] employee, accused his manager at the Jonesboro, Ga., restaurant of repeatedly referring to him as a 'tar baby' and 'Black monkey' during his three months at the restaurant." Here's the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission press release about the lawsuit (settled out of court for $40,000). The EEOC calls the case "rare"; BET says it's "increasingly common". But wait a minute: since black males make it a point to call each other "nigger", how can you tell self-deprecating camaraderie from self-loathing colorism?
posted by 111 at 8:13 PM PST - 68 comments
Coral Reefs Doomed
Well, overfishing
has destroyed the Grand Banks and now according to studies, it is "dooming" the coral reefs as well. When will learn? That being said, can anyone actually see the world's governments agreeing on doing anything to stop it?
posted by Coop at 7:49 PM PST - 7 comments
Porn star Mary Carey
officially launched her gubenatorial campaign in front of a sports bar in Sacaramento, today. Her platform? Legalize gay marriage, tax breast implants and set up a live, streaming webcam in the Governor's Mansion. God help me, this is starting to sound appealing to me. Are politicians so bad that
porn stars look good by comparison?
posted by hipnerd at 6:34 PM PST - 26 comments
Hell
- we've all thought about it,
read about it (line 70 onwards 40% of the way down) and probably dismissed it as silly. Then along comes a
choice candidate and the questions start again. Who would you put in hell, and why?
posted by grahamwell at 2:11 PM PST - 47 comments
The
Panacea Society is a small group in England that has existed since the 1920s, waiting for Jesus to return to Earth and move into the house they've set up for him in Bedford - the new Jerusalem. Built on the prophecies of Octavia, a vicar's widow obsessed with the prophecies of 18th/19th century English prophetess
Joana Southcott, the Panaceans are the keepers of a box of prophecies left by Joanna. "War, disease, crime and banditry will increase until the Bishops open
Joanna Southcott's box" is still being placed in newspapers on their behalf as they send out linen squares, breathed upon by Octavia before her death, that will, if placed in jugs of water, will heal and protect.
Harmless neighborhood church group or
money-grubbing cult? As they receive more attention (including a
documentary shown on Channel 4) and their members slowly die off, it'll be interesting to see what happens...
posted by Katemonkey at 1:24 PM PST - 5 comments
August 15
Lemmings!
Do you miss sending hoardes of helpless little buggers into pits, and trying to free them from their own suicidal helplessness? Then this is for you!
posted by christian at 11:38 PM PST - 24 comments
In the 1980's, Mark "Gator" Rogowski was on par with Tony Hawk at the top of the nascent world of professional skateboarding. Contrasting the path Hawk took in the 90's (video games, ESPN tie-ins), things did not go so well for Gator. After surviving a hideous accident in 1989, Mark turned to Jesus, and then shortly thereafter he brutally
raped & murdered a female friend of his ex-girlfriend's. The
documentary of his rise & amazing fall appears today in limited release.
posted by jonson at 5:11 PM PST - 43 comments
Debating the Moral Obligations of Memory.
Jean Améry inspired Avishai Margalit and the late W.G. Sebald to likewise wrestle with questions of torture, revenge, and memory; questions as the destruction of memory, the obsession with memory, nationalism and memory, false memory, bad memory, opportunistic memory, lost memory, “too much” memory, memory versus reconciliation and, yes, the ethics of memory. In the Boston Review, Susie Linfield observes that for Améry, "the dream time of vengeance is the best place to be." (via the Cultural News Digest, nextbook.org)
posted by semmi at 4:57 PM PST - 11 comments
Visit Madison, Indiana. Why? We're not New York City!
Sure you can be opportunistic about selling
gas masks if you're an internet entrepreneur, but what if you're a small town in Indiana and you want to cash in on fear of terrorism. Why, tout what you don't have, of course.
"A safe place to visit...When you visit Madison you will discover that we have no tall buildings to fear, no nuclear power plants, airports or anything anyone would want to blow up."
posted by m@ at 2:58 PM PST - 16 comments
BLACKOUT BLOG
- Cleveland.com decides a weblog is the best way to cope with their servers getting knocked out in yesterday's power outage.
posted by mrbula at 2:19 PM PST - 8 comments
Statesman or Skatesman
"Last Christmas my Dad and me had a big argument. He'd found a picture of
Enoch Powell on a pogo stick and claimed that politicians weren't as interesting as that any more ... " Jason Whiley disagreed and wrote to as many politicians as he could asking them if they'd ever used similar transport, such as skateboards, gokarts, BMX bikes and Space Hoppers. Over Eighty responded including "three Prime Ministers, five Chancellors, six Foreign Secretaries, four Home Secretaries, and three Speakers of the House of Commons. " [via
B3ta]
posted by feelinglistless at 1:38 PM PST - 5 comments
See Through Kayak
This has got to be the most excellent Wonder Woman-arific kayak ever created.
Only thing I can see that's bad about it is if someone swims up underneath then they'd see your fat ass mashed against the bottom and might just die laughing.
Or maybe the fish would die laughing?
Doesn't matter though, I still want one!
posted by fenriq at 11:54 AM PST - 20 comments
A Real Fan (as in Fanatic)
"A former minder of Cardiff City Football Club owner Sam Hammam was today banned from attending football matches for five years after setting off a hotel fire alarm to disturb opposition players on the night before a vital game." A bit extreme, surely (although his side did win, 1-0, in overtime). What's the worst thing you've ever done to an opposing team?
posted by lelilo at 11:23 AM PST - 9 comments
Ren & Stimpy
create a home page for the web, perform usability analysis on it, and analyze the results using multiple regression. "
With the help of three hardworking, good looking, talented, and underpaid graduate students, we'll find a better way to make a home page!"
posted by ewagoner at 8:47 AM PST - 27 comments
Mr. Cowasjee
writes about the noble beginning of Pakistan's government (again) this week, how the dream has gone unrealized, and how the predicted degeneration occurred. Why does this happen? Why are fundamentalist freaks trying to destroy the dream in our own country? Why don't people pay attention to Thomas Jefferson and leave religion at home?
posted by ewkpates at 7:49 AM PST - 8 comments
August 14
Ted Koppel was prank called on live TV.
So I was watching the coverage of the Blackout on ABC, and Ted Koppel was doing his live coverage. He got a call from a "Bob Dobbs" who claimed to be some muckity muck with the subway transit authority. Then "Bob Dobbs" kept telling people to log on to
thankyoufortakingmycall.com to get emergency instructions. It was pretty funny. Ted was pretty clueless that it was a prank but I guess someone in the control room eventually got a clue and cut the caller.
posted by geekhorde at 10:46 PM PST - 26 comments
Welcome to the Blackout History Project.
With all the hub-bub today, josh m. marshall of
talkingpointsmemo posted a link to an associates history of two other nyc blackouts. marshall says:
The Blackout History Project...which covers the social history of these events, what happened, people's reminiscences in written and recorded formats, and so forth. The site also has a great deal of information about just how blackouts happen, what these 'grids' are that folks are talking about, and how various forms of electricity deregulation which have taking place over recent years have made an event like we've seen today much more likely.
take it easy nyers and anyone else blacked out.
posted by asparagus_berlin at 9:57 PM PST - 22 comments
The ARKive
"is the Noah's Ark for the Internet era - the world's centralised digital library of films, photographs and associated recordings of species, accessible to all via the world wide web."
posted by tbc at 9:30 PM PST - 4 comments
"Bring them home now!"
is a campaign of military families, veterans, active duty personnel, reservists and others opposed to the ongoing war in Iraq and galvanized to action by George W. Bush's inane and reckless challenge to armed Iraqis resisting occupation to "Bring 'em on." At a news conference yesterday,
reported the Washington Post, the organization has stated their goals of returning to their home bases the 150,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq.
posted by dejah420 at 4:43 PM PST - 19 comments
Drug offenders to be evicted.
While this law is meant to target methamphetamine labs, it is worded to allow for the eviction of anyone who smokes pot in his home twice in one year, for example.
posted by spazzm at 4:29 PM PST - 6 comments
Democracy might be impossible, US was toldThe CIA's March report concluded that Iraqi society and history showed little evidence to support the creation of democratic institutions, going so far as to say its prospects for democracy could be "impossible," according to intelligence officials who have seen it. The assessment was based on Iraq's history of repression and war; clan, tribal and religious conflict; and its lack of experience as a viable country prior to its arbitrary creation as a monarchy by British colonialists after World War I.
The State Department came to the same conclusion.
"Liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve in Iraq," said a March State Department report, first reported by the Los Angeles Times. "Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements."
posted by y2karl at 3:50 PM PST - 60 comments
Support out troops?
The Pentagon wants to cut the pay of its 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, who are already contending with guerrilla-style attacks, homesickness and 120- degree-plus heat.
posted by whatever at 2:19 PM PST - 31 comments
Hollywood Is Calling.
What do b-list celebrities do when they aren't running for governor? They converse with you -- for a fee. Because those
What's Happening? stories never get old, right?
posted by herc at 12:02 PM PST - 13 comments
What makes Dogs happy? Food? Sex? Working? Being pampered and spoiled? A whole host of books are out there alternating between the belief that your dog is somewhere between a fuzzy-wuzzy lovey parasite and a quasi-human companion.
(My dog sez, food and belly rubs...)
posted by vito90 at 10:46 AM PST - 23 comments
"I was thinking, 'The only way to make something that
won't come off is to tie it on,' and then it just
popped in my mind -
go around the testicles." Ann Arbor man invents new condom, wife rejoices.
posted by sandor at 9:55 AM PST - 47 comments
Americans pay lip service to diversity
says David Brooks in The Atlantic. Though we talk about the melting pot, we tend to group ourselves with similar people. Do you really care enough about diversity to actively seek it out? Is metafilter a virtual example of this phenomenon?
posted by rainbaby at 9:21 AM PST - 61 comments
First Stolen Segway Recovered.
It was inevitable. And it was all caught on tape. Segway owners and members of
SegwayChat covertly planned and implemented a successful sting operation to recover a stolen
Segway HT.
(Main link goes to 5 MB embedded Windows Media video of actual sting taking place!)
posted by docjohn at 6:29 AM PST - 30 comments
Gamma-ray weapons could trigger next arms race
"The hafnium explosive could be extremely powerful. One gram of fully charged hafnium isomer could store more energy than 50 kilograms of TNT. Miniature missiles could be made with warheads that are far more powerful than existing conventional weapons, giving massively enhanced firepower to the armed forces using them."
Half of me thinks: "WOW! Cool!"
The other 1% thinks: "We've really had it now"
posted by hmgovt at 2:32 AM PST - 25 comments
August 13
Don't Have Enough Joe?
After the recent info about the prototype G.I. Joe
going on sale (and not getting quite what was wanted) and the recent
POTUS Doll (action figure dammit!) I bebopped around and found a site that proports to be a force of good to get a G.I. Joe movie made. But can it really be for good when it has pages and images like
this?
posted by Dagobert at 11:56 PM PST - 11 comments
Dem Blogs
This community is filled with bloggers and I wondered if anyone had seen Maureen O'Dowd's take on how the Presidential Candidates are starting to use, for better or worse, "blogging" as a method to get their "message" across. ( Registration required )
posted by RubberHen at 8:22 PM PST - 9 comments
Statistical analysis killed the radio star.
Eigenradio analyzes the frequency content of 20+ stations at once, and mashes it, via math I don't understand, into music that is sometimes eerily beautiful, sometimes cryptically funky, and well, sometimes sounds like an
Autechre CD stuck in a blender. Who says media amalgamation is a bad thing?
posted by arto at 3:45 PM PST - 33 comments
Apocalyptic image gallery
A scholarly site with a large collection of images illustrating the Revelation of St. John, with emphasis on medieval painting, carving, and sculpture. Felix Just, S. J. has compiled a more diverse
collection that includes an extensive set of contemporary images. As a lover of all things nineteenth-century, I'm rather partial to
Francis Danby (I just saw
The Deluge at the Tate) and
John Martin.
posted by thomas j wise at 11:11 AM PST - 7 comments
Postal ID Plan
A government report urges the U.S. Postal Service to create "smart stamps" to track the identity of people who send mail.
[more inside]
posted by Irontom at 10:17 AM PST - 20 comments
The launch page for Super Sticky Post It Notes
has a creepy staged picture of a mom handing her daughter a post-it laden lunch box. Besides the creepy look on mom's face and the reminder post-it stuck to the
outside of the front door, I also like how the writing on each post it is
horizontal, regardless of the orientation of the post it. It's like one of those "can you pick out the 12 things wrong with this picture" games. I love advertising.
posted by jonah at 8:51 AM PST - 34 comments
Passport in Time
is a volunteer program of the USDA Forest Service where you can be a real-life archaeologist for a week or just a weekend. There are projects located around the country, around the calendar. With no previous experience, you can help professional archaeologists survey and excavate sites ranging in age from the early 1900s back to the paleolithic. Myself, I helped excavate
Pueblo de la Mesa, a pre-Columbian
Anasazi site atop a lonely mesa in New Mexico.
posted by ewagoner at 8:30 AM PST - 12 comments
$20,000 bonus to official who agreed on nuke claim
A former Energy Department intelligence chief who agreed with the White House claim that Iraq had reconstituted its defunct nuclear-arms program was awarded a total of $20,500 in bonuses during the build-up to the war, WorldNetDaily has learned...His officers argued at a pre-briefing at Energy headquarters that there was no hard evidence to support the alarming Iraq nuclear charge, and asked to join State Department's dissenting opinion, Energy officials say. Rider ordered them to "shut up and sit down," according to sources familiar with the meeting.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 8:28 AM PST - 22 comments
Apocalypse Sooner or Later?
"I am not sure whether
he knows all of the prophecies and how deep of a student he has been in God's Word, but
I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I’ve spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it’s in his hands.... He will know exactly what is going to happen in the Middle East and what part he will have under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God. So, it's a tremendous time to be alive."
posted by grabbingsand at 6:39 AM PST - 17 comments
Mass-produced diamonds
Two startups are threatening the De Beers diamond monopoly. They plan to use the money they make from their mass-produced diamonds to "reshape the computing industry". Interesting stuff.
posted by pizzasub at 6:08 AM PST - 52 comments
Come out! Come out, wherever you are!!!
The search for the Yeti has gone high tech. The latest "search party", if you will, is from Japan and employing infrared cameras in it's attempt to prove the existance of the Yeti. Team leader Yoshiteru Takahashi doesn't want to capture it but does want to shake it's hand(?!).
posted by Civa at 5:29 AM PST - 14 comments
Pssst...
got some luvverly bits of rocket here, guv'nor. Bring darn a plane like nobody's business. Yours for $90,000. Nah, 'cos I like you, I'll do you a deal: $85,000.
Black market missiles, anybody? [apologies for the Cockney accent]
posted by humuhumu at 2:06 AM PST - 23 comments
August 12
It "...has no side effects, causes no allergic reactions, is not addictive" and patients can even be taught how to administer it to themselves, yet
hypnosis isn't used as widely as pain drugs, anitdepressants and pharmaceuticals. (More inside.)
posted by emelenjr at 7:23 PM PST - 26 comments
Do Penis Enlargement Pills Work?
I'll be chronicling my experience here for the benefit of others. I'll add that I am just a regular guy living in New York City (Go Yankees!) who wants a larger penis.
(via Kill Ugly Radio). I'll be curious to hear how this progresses. This is safe for work (no pics; just measurements).
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 4:19 PM PST - 41 comments
"On Liberty"
(1859),
John Stuart Mill's classic, is all over the Web, says this
article in Salon.
"It stands to reason that the Net would embrace Mill, and not only because his text is now in the public domain: The Internet is the vastest marketplace of ideas that mankind has yet managed to create. It's an unbounded and still growing embodiment of Mill's ideals."
posted by homunculus at 1:22 PM PST - 4 comments
Retrolounge
is a compendium of the next new thing in design, art, architecture and fashion. I kid! Truly, go-go boots make me swoon.
posted by pedantic at 12:12 PM PST - 7 comments
In a new twist to a theme discussed
earlier on MeFi, on language censorship (but in an entirely different case) the UK might be the first country to jail a man for using
a single court-prohibited word in public.
As repellent as the defendant's behaviour was, can such a case of censorship and prohibition of freedom of speech ever be justified?
posted by Blue Stone at 9:21 AM PST - 36 comments
Remixed G.I. Joe PSAs.
Chicago filmmaker Eric Fensler has taken the "Knowing Is Half the Battle" PSAs that accompanied the 1980s G.I. Joe cartoon series and replaced the audio tracks with his own. The results are utterly hilarious. (Audio NSFW.) This site only has four, but there are more out there (details inside).
posted by staggernation at 8:51 AM PST - 31 comments
Last week, Josh Marshall of TPM
broke a story on his blog, about US detention of Mahdi Obeidi, who has been held under American surveillance since the fall of Baghdad. Marshall claims that Obeidi is being held due to his refusal to tell his captors what they want to hear as regards the alleged Iraqi nuclear program. It took a few days, but the story has now gone beyond the "blogosphere" and was picked up by Newsweek's Michael Hirsh in yesterday's story
Is Iraqi Intel Still Being Manipulated?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 8:00 AM PST - 7 comments
Giuseppe Garibaldi, who united Italy in the 1860s,
was asked by Lincoln to lead the army during the US Civil War. Garibaldi said he would if Lincoln officially declared that the aim of the war was to end slavery. Lincoln replied that he couldn't at that time, and so Garibaldi
moved on to other things. But what if Giuseppe had gotten involved? The Papacy would clearly
have denounced the North (indeed, the pope was the only world leader to recognize the Confederacy). The French hated him; the English loved him. Had he led the Federal troops, would France have jumped in on the side of the South? Would England have then jumped in on the Union side to counter? A whole different world history, perhaps, hanging on a yes/no question.
posted by ewagoner at 7:48 AM PST - 12 comments
The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Posters, pamphlets, social protest material. 'In the morning hours of August 21, 1968, the Soviet army invaded Czechoslovakia along with troops from four other Warsaw Pact countries. The occupation was the beginning of the end for the Czechoslovak reform movement known as the Prague Spring. This web site contains material from the days immediately following the invasion, and they reflect the atmosphere in Czechoslovakia at the time: tense, chaotic, uncertain, full of pathos, fear, and expectation... '
Related :-
the Berlin Wall and
East Side Gallery;
A Concrete Curtain: The Life and Death of the Berlin Wall;
Szoborpark in Budapest, with its gigantic Cold War-era statues.
posted by plep at 5:59 AM PST - 6 comments
August 11
Walk the Great Wall of China,
or rather, take a virtual stroll through the use of a QTVR-esque java applet along a good stretch of the Wall that seems to be in pretty fair shape. For the vast majority of us that will never get there in person, this is an interesting close up.
posted by jonson at 10:43 PM PST - 7 comments
Arnold the Barbarian?
We've heard that the wannabe governator faces potentially scandalous accusations, but what are they? I compiled a list which includes
statuatory rape,
infidelity,
repeated claims of sexual harassment,
sexist remarks,
recreational drug use (which he lied about in the January 1988 edition of Playboy),
steroid use,
nude photography (not worksafe), possible health issues related to
open heart surgery and steroids, his
support for ex-Nazi Kurt Waldheim,
multiple claims that he used to idolize Hitler... and even an Enron connection --
Arnie had a private meeting on May 26, 2001 with Kenneth Lay, where Lay sought support for his solution to the California energy crisis, opposing price caps on electricity and federal assistance. The Bush administration
supported Lay's solution and stood by while
Enron defrauded Californians out of billions... but did Arnie use his influence to drum up support for Lay's plan?! Will any of these charges stick?
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:48 PM PST - 61 comments
String and Knot, Theory of Inca Writing
An article today in the NY Times (you know the drill, I think it's metafi/metafi, no?) regarding a new theory to do with the decoding of the "cryptic knotted strings known as khipu".
If khipu is indeed the medium of a writing system, Dr. Gary Urton of Harvard says, this is entirely different from any of the known ancient scripts, beginning with the cuneiform of Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago. The khipu did not record information in graphic signs for words, but rather a kind of three-dimensional binary code similar to the language of today's computers.
Dr. Urton, an anthropologist and a MacArthur fellow, suggests that the Inca manipulated strings and knots to convey certain meanings. By an accumulation of binary choices, khipu makers encoded and stored information in a shared system of record keeping that could be read throughout the Inca domain.
More information about Urton's book, which is to be published this month,
here; more information about the Khipu themselves and further linkage
here (note: this link is to an angelfire page, popups and limited bandwidth are to be expected). From Cornell, detailed
descriptions of 200 Khipu, with photographs.
posted by jokeefe at 5:30 PM PST - 11 comments
The colour of numbers -
For the math geeks out there (which I'm not - maybe his theories will be shot down in flames), Karl Palmen has discovered that numbers can be assigned one of eight "colours", related to their prime factors. He goes on to show the interesting mathematical properties of these colours. A novel way of playing with numbers.
Software is on offer.
posted by Jimbob at 5:28 PM PST - 21 comments
How the Iraq war was lost.
"'These were the orders of an imbecile. Qusai [Hussein] was like a teenager playing a video war game,' [Republican Guard Col. Raeed] Faik, 33, said in the cool reception room of his Baghdad home, gesturing to his teenage son banging away on a computer combat game." "We were like 10 different armies fighting their own private wars," said another Iraqi soldier. An account of the war as seen through the eyes of the Iraqi military.
posted by Zonker at 5:04 PM PST - 11 comments
"So I thought about the story of the rabbit jumping into the fire and realized that Grendel would have wanted to give me every last little bit of joy possible, and I should do something truly personal with her body. I decided to
make a fancy dinner with her." (via
memepool)
posted by emelenjr at 10:01 AM PST - 86 comments
Supreme Court Denies Castillo Appeal.
Castillo was charged with two counts of obscenity for selling adult comic books to adults.
The State prosecutor did not offer contradictory testimony, but secured a guilty verdict with a closing argument stating,
“I don’t care what type of evidence or what type of testimony is out there, use your rationality, use your common sense. Comic books, traditionally what we think of, are for kids. This is in a store directly across from an elementary school and it is put in a medium, in a forum, to directly appeal to kids. That is why we are here, ladies and gentlemen. … We’re here to get this off the shelf.” Castillo was found guilty and sentenced to 180 days in jail, a year probation, and a $4,000 fine.
posted by jopreacher at 9:14 AM PST - 41 comments
"Buildings of Disaster
are miniature replicas of famous structures where some tragic or terrible events happened to take place. The images of burning or exploded buildings make a different, populist history of architecture, one based on emotional involvement rather than scholarly appreciation."
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:50 AM PST - 27 comments
The Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild
began in 1992 when two students of philosophy found their inner creativity in the midst of a dwindling academic job market. As it turned out, fulfilling gift giving needs proved to be almost as satisfying as probing eternal questions. They offer such items as "Freudian Slippers", "Nietzsche's Will to Power Bars", "Brainy Beanies", and "Dorothy Parker Martini Glasses".
posted by ewagoner at 7:39 AM PST - 18 comments
The Night Air
is a beautifully constructed radio show broadcast on Radio National here in Australia. It's essentially cut up bits of documentary, music and audio art .. woven together into a one and half hour themed show. It makes great headphone listening at work.
posted by mrben at 2:21 AM PST - 7 comments
August 10
Beware technology that disconnects war from politics.
This is a very interesting article by Fredrick Kagan on the growing gulf between America's military means and political ends.
"Unless the direction and nature of military transformation change dramatically, the American public should expect to see in the future many more wars in which U.S. armed forces triumph but the American political vision fails."
posted by homunculus at 3:40 PM PST - 16 comments
ABA games makes some of the coolest free games available.
I especially like
rRootage and
Noiz2sa [
OS X ports], whose wireframe graphics initially remind you of oldies like Tempest and Asteroids, but whose gameplay is much closer to recent
twitch classics like
Raiden and
Ikaruga. If you want a little preview of how these games play without making the commitment to download a ZIP file, you can check out a slightly simplified
Noiz2 in your browser [java].
posted by britain at 2:26 PM PST - 12 comments
August 9
The fire that will not die.
In December 1958, 92 children and three nuns died in the Our Lady of the Angels school fire. Only one fire escape, no sprinklers, layers of petroleum-based paint, no alarm connected to the fire department - in retrospect, it was a disaster waiting to happen. How many of us ever took school fire drills seriously?
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:20 PM PST - 15 comments
Documented Life
Miles has put his whole life up online for us to look at pictorially. It's actually quite a poignant exercise, as we see the sweep of a life within a few clicks of a mouse -- like a weblog telling his story over a greatly extended period.
posted by feelinglistless at 5:30 PM PST - 8 comments
Glider PRO
, a Macintosh game created by John Calhoun nearly ten years ago, was an innovative and one-of-a-kind title — a refreshing alternative to typical video games of warfare or board game translation. In the game, the player controls a small paper glider through a perilous household, catching updrafts from floor vents and gliding swiftly though the household collecting items, making sure never to touch the floor or the dangers abound. The long-time software publishers of Glider,
Casady & Greene have recently folded, and have since returned the distribution rights to Glider back to Calhoun, who is now graciously offering the game as a
download on his Web site, free of charge. The game remains as fun and unique as when it first appeared.
(Mac only.)
posted by Down10 at 3:00 PM PST - 24 comments
Insurance companies abandon brokerage firms.
A brokerage firm would have to have a catastrophic meltdown before insurance would pay the "last" dime to protect investors' accounts, after all other means had been exhausted. In fact, they haven't had to pay a single claim in over 30 years.
So why are three major insurers suddenly getting out of the business?
(NYT subscription req.)
posted by kablam at 2:53 PM PST - 5 comments
Anxious? Depressed?
- you need more
brain cells. Just take one of
these twice a day.
New research shows that antidepressants may not work as we
thought at all, rather they actually stimulate growth of cells in the hippocampus area of the brain. This may all be for the good - but it seems strange that we release millions of happy pills and market them as safe without knowing for sure what they do. Perhaps its the
money talking.
posted by grahamwell at 1:12 PM PST - 75 comments
The Indiana Supreme Court
scolded personal injury law firm Keller & Keller for their television ads that "create an impression that the claims they handle are settled, not because of the specific facts or legal circumstances of the claims, but merely by the mention of the name of the respondents' firm to insurance companies." Interestingly a search for this turned up
Network Affiliates
Incorporated, a company that sells advertising to lawyers.
Television ads are evidently
not the
best way to find competent legal council and are considered to
be
unethical
in parts of Australia. (Just to provide four different points of view on this issue.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:21 AM PST - 14 comments
August 8
Space Dudes!
Space Dudes is fifty levels of shooting... PacMan ghosts? It's a Java game. Simple but I found it addictive.
posted by bargle at 11:46 PM PST - 6 comments
Did he who made the lamb make
thee?
O. vulgaris, now appearing on a sea floor near you.
posted by Hildago at 9:50 PM PST - 12 comments
Old soda caps
sold by "the bottle cap man" provide a great web gallery of retro design. I wish I knew the histories of these obscure drinks. Warning: hundreds of thumbnail-sized pictures.
posted by pinto at 8:08 PM PST - 10 comments
The Itsy-Bitsy Spider.
I was looking online to try and identify the freaking huge spiders I saw today (possibly wolf spiders), and I came across this hand spider identification chart. Slightly unnerving when the spiders randomly wiggle. Perhaps more so if you have a problem with spiders.
posted by kayjay at 7:24 PM PST - 71 comments
Fourmilab Switzerland
is a large and diverse site created and maintained by John Walker, co-creator of AutoCAD and founder of Autodesk, Inc. A few sub-sites have been mentioned here over the years, but there is plenty to explore -- ranging from free computing utilities, science tools, a diet plan, original fiction and educational texts, to a page on
RetroPsychoKinesis: influencing the past with your mind.
posted by ewagoner at 2:25 PM PST - 4 comments
Visitors to the current
Illinois State Fair have the opportunity to see an American classic, the Butter Cow. This year's cow was sculpted over two days by
Nancy Wise. You can watch the construction or live shots of its admiring public at the
Butter Cow Cam.
[more inside]
posted by Songdog at 1:07 PM PST - 22 comments
Nature is amazing.
"Camera approaching coral with no sign of animal. As the camera gets closer, an O. vulgaris that was camouflaged changes color to white and becomes visible." This page leads to a video clip containing "special effects" that put the movie industry to shame. (via
Looka!)
posted by stefnet at 10:26 AM PST - 56 comments
Steve Martin's take on WMD
With a little stab to the left and a little stab to the right, it's good to read something funny. It's a NYT article but there's a Metafilter login I recall. Someone can tell us what that is?
I think that this sort of entertainment is a better use for the hollywood set than
this is.
posted by Red58 at 9:12 AM PST - 13 comments
Canada's Supreme Court Trashes Citizens' Property Rights.
Canada's Supreme Court ruled: “Parliament has the right to expropriate property, even without compensation, if it has made its intention clear and, in s. 5.1(4), Parliament's expropriative intent is clear and unambiguous.”
The Supreme Court ruling also stated: “Lastly, while substantive rights may stem from due process, the Bill of Rights does not protect against the expropriation of property by the passage of unambiguous legislation.”
M.P. Breitkreuz notes "They even ruled that the Bill of Rights ‘does not impose on Parliament the duty to provide a hearing before the enactment of legislation.’ So if the property rights guarantees in the Canadian Bill of Rights don’t protect an individual’s fundamental property rights, what good are they?"
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:54 AM PST - 54 comments
Michael Johnston, a strong voice of the ex-gay movement,
falls from grace, admitting he willingly had unprotected sex with men without disclosing his HIV+ status, after appearing in national advertisements to promote the
ex-gay movement. One of his strongest supporters, the Concerned Women for America, are
calling it a "severe moral failing" and equating homosexuality to alcoholism (i.e., a disease).
posted by archimago at 6:50 AM PST - 60 comments
The Tricolor, a 50,000-ton cargo vessel carrying 3000 automobiles worth more than $40 million, is being raised.
Cost to raise the
Tricolor: $40 million. It sunk, then was
hit three times, once by the Nicola, then by the
Vicky (an oil tanker which spilled some, and killed
marine life), then by a salvage tug. Good
summary of the collisions in Dutch and English, with photos (similarly in
French). Official
press briefings offer good outline of all stages since the beginning. The automobile manufacturers
tried to prevent pictures being taken of the destroyed automobiles, but
there they are and
even more and better. The
official Tricolor salvage site offers a PDF file on
how the salvage is being done: in part, with a huge cutting wire.
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:23 AM PST - 20 comments
DeanSpace
is an open development community providing web-tools, support, and advice to Howard Dean's supporters. The goal is to better interlink existing web activism, bring new citizen participants into the political process, and assist individuals to network and organize for taking action in Howard Dean's presidential campaign.
According to
some, this could be another sign of the approaching
singularity.
Smart mobs on election day anyone?
posted by cbrody at 12:00 AM PST - 5 comments
August 7
Historian H.W. Brands argues in this month's Atlantic
that we over-venerate our Founding Fathers. John Adams and co., he surmises, were no wiser or more virtuous than our current crop of politicians, but their numerous flaws have been rendered invisible through the rosy glasses of time. What today's politicians could learn from their predecessors, he says, is bravado, the courage to take risks.
Why not call a Constitutional Convention and rewrite the rules every so often?, he asks.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 9:20 PM PST - 40 comments
10%
of American tech sector jobs will move offshore by the end of the year.
Cyber-Marx (1999):
"... globalisation has given some knowledge workers, largely male, largely white, associated with high tech, finance, communication and information an exceptional importance. Concentrated in the technopoles that form the hubs of "global webs," these constitute a layer of privileged labour on whose loyalty capital can largely rely. But analysis that sees "symbolic analysts" as the crucial actors in globalisation does not grasp the speed with which capital turfs yuppies from the lifeboat when cheaper replacements can be found. Even symbolic analysts feel the blast of globalisation, as North American computer programmers are undercut by Lithuanian or Indian competition, and architects, engineers and professors discover that those who can telecommute can always be teleterminated by cheaper services uploaded from anywhere on the planet.
True? What effect will this trend have on the digerati as a class, do you think?
posted by hairyeyeball at 7:28 PM PST - 30 comments
Pavement Terror!
Do you jump out of your skin whenever a car backfires? Just hope this guy didn't catch you on film. Interesting photos of people reacting to his backfiring van.
[from MorningNews]
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 4:35 PM PST - 26 comments
On 2003 April 5th, a Saturday, at the age of 33, I threw away my dignity, mocked my Ivy League education, disgraced my Master's degree, and proved, in just over three hours, that humans can do things "The System" didn't anticipate. Rather than fight the test, I use the SAT's difficulty to my advantage, leveraging down to a new, elite level of distinction. Verbal: 200. Math: 200.
posted by gottabefunky at 2:31 PM PST - 17 comments
In their day, Trilobyte was at the height of the computer gaming world. Their first title,
7th Guest, made them an instant success, and their follow-ups,
11th Hour and
Clandestiny, were equally well-received. But as the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Haunted Glory, from the GameSpot archives, documents the rise and fall of Trilobyte.
posted by ewagoner at 1:49 PM PST - 18 comments
Not just another candidate
Forget Arnold, let's elect the Mozilla Foundation's very own Asa, he understands the web and technology, and even has a weblog. (Oh, and he works on some browser called Mozilla...)
posted by raster at 1:28 PM PST - 4 comments
Why is yawning contagious? Scientists at SUNY Albany
have a theory. It's got something to do with "mental state attribution" (i.e. the ability to inferentially model the mental states of others). Nature Magazine has a decent summary
here for those that don't want to read the paper.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:21 AM PST - 10 comments
How to Reform the Global Financial System
by Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz--a noted economist and author--takes a look at the recetn history of economic and currency crises, and suggests a novel (but not new) approach: reviving the SDR (special drawing rights) concept originally envisioned by John Maynard Keynes.
[more inside]
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:11 AM PST - 6 comments
How many times have you alleged sexual or racial allegations for a settlement? A recent Washington Post article, documents the somewhat troubled past of Charles Moose, the ex-chief of police in Montgomery County, Maryland (Remember the Sniper Manhunt).
$10,000 to his wife to settle a sexual harassment allegation, another undisclosed settlement of $10,000 to him and his wife for a separate incident, and the motherload, a $200,000 settlement from Marriott Corp. for a racial-bias allegation.
Is this, in the norm?
$10,000
posted by omidius at 9:02 AM PST - 22 comments
August 6
The game designers at
Orsinal have been busy since we
last discussed them, with a number of new amusing & lovely games. For those who haven't been there yet, and for those who haven't been there in a while, stop by and play... if only all flash animation were done with this degree of care and attention to aesthetic.
posted by jonson at 10:00 PM PST - 12 comments
This Webcam
features a live feed to a LED sign. You get to input the text it shows and then you can see it in real time via the webcam. This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time.
posted by thebwit at 7:22 PM PST - 26 comments
Max und Moritz
• The online edition of Wilhelm Busch's classic children's story boasts the original illustrations from 1865. This tale of two mischievous boys and their brutal deaths is considered a precursor to the modern comic strip. (More 19th-Century German stories
here.)
posted by Ljubljana at 4:13 PM PST - 9 comments
Because people have a need to glue things to other things, there is
thistothat.com. Let's glue! One of the simplest yet more useful sites on the interweb.
posted by ewagoner at 1:40 PM PST - 21 comments
How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back
As a white guy with a young kid, I worry about how the often gleefully violent, misogynist rap music he may choose to listen to could affect him. Maybe that's a racist thing for a white boy to say, but when a black scholar like
John H. McWhorter says it, maybe it's worth considering.
posted by kgasmart at 1:29 PM PST - 97 comments
6000 breathtaking aerial photos
of American towns and other sites, with particularly good coverage of towns in New England (
MA,
VT,
CT,
NH,
RI,
ME). All of this by one photographer, Joseph Melanson, whose mission in life is "to show you facets of your environment that you never realized no matter how long you lived there."
posted by dougb at 12:34 PM PST - 23 comments
Mike Hawash pleads guilty
to conspiring to provide services to the Taliban and will testify against his friends that attempted to travel to Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. After the previous MeFi threads about Mike
here and
here, this ought to be quite a suprise for some. No update yet on the
Free Mike Hawash site.
posted by schlyer at 12:18 PM PST - 30 comments
Starbucks sucks!
' The culprits went as far as to stick "closed" and "for lease" signs and notices on the stores -- using bogus Starbucks Corp. letterhead -- announcing that "thousands of retail locations worldwide" were closing, and the Seattle- based company was "making room for local coffee bars." ' I'd be lying if I claimed that I've never fantasized about doing something like this. If nothing else, admire the organizational skills required to pull this off.
posted by majcher at 12:07 PM PST - 101 comments
A Boeing 727
went missing from Angola on May 25. Some people made immediate,
predictable noises about "terrorists", despite the fact that things are a lot less settled in Africa (from a paperwork and regulatory point of view). It was
spotted with a new paint job on June 28 in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. But, now it's gone again and nobody knows where it is.
posted by Irontom at 11:04 AM PST - 8 comments
If a young worker attempts to reproduce, she is spreadeagled by her fellows and kept immobilized for hours or even days. At the end of her sentence, the best she can hope for is a reduction in rank and loss of reproductive capability. Often she is mutilated or killed.
Fascinating
article about police-state behavior in insects, complete with information on mutant anarchist worker bees, ant-led coups, and parasitic self-cloning bees.
(via BoingBoing.)
posted by Vidiot at 8:29 AM PST - 5 comments
Breastfeeding while driving
seemed like a good idea to Catherine Donkers, but now she is (thankfully) on trial for it. Since she's a member of a
weird cult that believes the Bible should be the law of land, this should be entertaining. Presumably, they can just keep appealing for a few years until the crazies run the country.
posted by peterb at 7:46 AM PST - 45 comments
Welcome to our wedding.
Join Scott and Helen as they countdown to their wedding on the 9th. View pix of the proposal, the stag do in Amsterdam, the hen night in Brighton, and check out all the details of the upcoming event. Would you open your wedding to the eyes of the world? Site designer and groom Harold says
"The idea is not to invite the world to our wedding, would you want them at yours? hence the reason I have now had to take off the reception maps/venues/pictures." (via Haddock)
posted by madamjujujive at 5:55 AM PST - 33 comments
August 5
I can't believe I missed a
National Day of Prayer. And to think, this one involved a demonstration just blocks from my house. Damn it, I'm usually so devout when it comes to these things, and now that the day is nearly over, it looks like the prayer didn't even come true...
posted by jonson at 9:23 PM PST - 27 comments
Howard Armstrong,
artist and
black string band musician who played 22 instruments--excelling by far on violin and mandolin--who spoke seven languages, who first recorded in 1930 and was still an active performer up into this year, died last Wednesday of complications due to a heart attack he suffered in March. He was the subject of the P.O.V. film
Sweet Old Song, which will be reprised a week from today on August 12th, 2003. He was also the subject of
Louie Bluie--the first film by string band muscian and director of
Crumb and
Ghost World,
Terry Zwigoff--which is well worth your watching by itself. He was quite a character and
lived quite a life.
posted by y2karl at 5:40 PM PST - 7 comments
Killing the music
Who is the real enemy here? Mefites argue on whether downloading the latest eminem is theft or merely copyright infringement. RIAA says this activity is killing CD sales and wants to slap a lawsuit on everyone with a cable modem. Everyone seems to be missing the real culprit here. [via
Ars-technica]
posted by Nauip at 3:07 PM PST - 128 comments
Those of you with crazy multi-tasking skills might want to check out
Arcadia, where you play four different super simple games at the same time. Extra points for the stylishly retro chunky pixels look, which brings me right back to happy afternoons spent with my
2600!
posted by lia at 2:56 PM PST - 18 comments
Future of the Net: "Information wants to be free" vs. "truth costs extra"
"...a coalition that included Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Disney and others....spoke of "tiered" service, where consumers would be charged according to "gold, silver and bronze" levels of bandwidth use. The days where lawmakers once spoke about eradicating the "Digital Divide" in America has come full circle. Under the scenario presented by the lobbyists, people on fixed incomes would have to accept a stripped-down Internet, full of personally targeted advertising. Other users could get a price break if they receive bundled content -- news, music, games -- from one telecom or media company.
Anybody interested in other "non-mainstream" news, software or higher-volume usage, could pay for the privilege. The panel's response was warm, suggesting that the industry should work this out with little federal intrusion. That approach has already been embraced by the industry-friendly Federal Communications Commission." For more, see
The Center For Digital Democracy
posted by troutfishing at 12:41 PM PST - 38 comments
Who's So Vain?
Carly Simon will be revealing the inspiration for her pop classic, "You're So Vain." Suspects include Warren Beatty and Mick Jagger. My guess (you heard it here first, kids): Gene Simmons of Kiss. Who do YOU think she was singing about?
posted by twsf at 12:08 PM PST - 69 comments
The World Triathlon Corporation ("WTC")
runs the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. Most people have heard of the 2.4 mile swimming, 112 mile biking and 26.2 mile running race in Kona, Hawaii. It's the best-known and most prestigious race in the sport of the triathlon (
although no longer the most lucrative). Legend has it that the event was born in 1978 when some buddies in Hawaii, led by former Navy captain John Collins, were debating which was the toughest sporting event in Hawaii: the 2.4-mile
Waikiki Rough Water Swim, the 112-mile bike race around Oahu, or the
26.2-mile Honolulu Marathon. After more than a few beers, the legend goes, the small group decided to attempt all three distances in one day, and the Ironman was born. Today, the Ironman ("IM") is a trademarked event replicated annually almost 20 times all over the world by the WTC. These (and a few 1/2 IM races) function as
qualifying races for Hawaii, which now serves as the World Championship. Basically, each of these events is allotted a number of
qualifying slots per age group and you have to win a spot for Kona. The non-pros that they show on TV are generally the result of 200
lottery slots or special invitation (celebrity, good tv story, etc).
Athletes are lining up to get into IM races in the US. Currently, there are 4 IM trademarked races in the US:
Ironman USA in Lake Placid,
Ironman Wisconsin in Madison,
Ironman Coeur d'Alene in Idaho and
Ironman Florida in Panama City. What you may not know is that to participate in one of these you routinely have to register and pay the $400+ fee almost one year in advance. Registration for the 2003 races closed within a week or two of the completion of the 2002 races. Just recently, registration for the 2004 Ironman USA -- 2003 was held last weekend --
closed in two days, so
you're already too late for next year.
And who are these entrants? According to USAT
demographics, over 41% of triathletes (USAT members) earn more than $80,000 per year, 40% have college degrees and 48% have graduate/post-graduate degrees. Perhaps reflective of the demographics,
CEO's (of corporations with a minimum $1 Million in annual gross revenue) now have their own racing category.
The WTC may own the name "Ironman" but I have my eye on a non-WTC, "iron distance" event this year:
Duke. You can still
register for this one.
Here is a 13-week Ironman
training schedule for a 12-14 hour finishing time.
posted by probablysteve at 12:03 PM PST - 25 comments
This WP commentary discusses
a new Harvard study says the conservative editorial pages are more intensely partisan, and far less willing to criticize a Republican administration than the liberal pages are to take on a Democratic administration.
Of course a liberal reporter did the study, but Mr Kurtz of the WP thinks his findings are well-balanced. I'm liberal, too, so I've got my biases, but I've felt this way for a while. I mean where's the liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, Andrew Sullivan, Bill O'Reilly, or Anne Coulter? People full of vindictiveness, name-calling, and outright hatred and condemnation?
posted by Red58 at 10:21 AM PST - 43 comments
Why Do Gays Smoke So Much?
Yet another escape from the cruel shackles of responsibility. Why do Gays smoke? 1. They have no children. 2. Social Opprobrium. 3. People are mean.
This isn't journalism. It's crap. High risk behaviors tend to promote other high risk behaviors, like the tattoos-sex-cigaretts connection. It could be something even more sinister, like the values of particular subcultures.
How can we get people to take more responsibility for self destructive behavior? Cigarettes, fat, alcohol, unsafe sex... if we are ever forced into National Health Care, there will be no reason to deny ourselves anything. Have another cigarette on me.
posted by ewkpates at 8:10 AM PST - 61 comments
Solid Space
is what I'd consider to be an old school website. A handful of weird things thrown up on a questionable background that truly takes flight with Awful Music and The Dark Side of Pez. And for the truly obsessed? A full list of View Master reels. Bonus!
posted by headspace at 7:07 AM PST - 8 comments
With the trial of the bali bombers underway, a
bomb has been exploded in the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta's CBD. Deaths have been reported here on Australian TV at 13, with over 120 injured, although these figures are expected to rise. The
BBC is reporting on the experiences of those at the scene.
posted by dg at 6:03 AM PST - 46 comments
Team B (from Outer Space)
Gordon Mitchell, author of
Strategic Deception, has recently penned a paper that investigates the process by which decisions about the quality of American intelligence are made. He highlights the role of Team B, a group of far-right conservatives who routinely debated against Team A, usually consisting of mid-level intelligence analysts. These debates were a commonplace during the cold war, and through a series of enthymemetic narratives that altered the conditions of proof, Team B was able to successfully beat Team A (time and time again) and move foreign policy further and further to the right. The cold war ended, and Team B ended with it. But now Team B is back in the form of the OSP, and the same movements are happening, this time challenging and compromising moderate foreign policy, including the more moderate portions of the Bush Doctrine. Is this structural device possibly to blame for the Iraq intel snafu, rather than some overt desire to lie and deceive? Your thoughts?
posted by hank_14 at 5:24 AM PST - 12 comments
August 4
The 100 Worst “Groaners”.
A “groaner” is a hackneyed, overblown, stuffy or just plain silly cliché that turns up time after time in news scripts. Groaners show laziness on the part of writers, disrespect for the folks watching, and a general contempt for lively English. Here are some of the worst offenders. You’ll recognize them immediately, so get ready to groan!
posted by madman at 10:47 PM PST - 95 comments
David C. Roy - Wood That Works.
"All of my sculptures are spring driven escapement mechanisms. Nothing is hidden. Each part of one of my sculptures is essential to the operation of the whole. The relative motion of these interacting parts produces the interesting, some say "whimsical and dynamic" patterns of motion. I am always searching for simple ways to produce complex, yet understandable, visual, and at times auditory, patterns." Boy, if I were a rich man...
[Note: Flash] (via Dublog)
posted by crunchland at 8:21 PM PST - 18 comments
Journey into Kimland
• American graduate student Scott Fisher lives in Seoul Korea where he studies US-NK relations. Last year he took advantage of a brief window of opportunity: venturing North into the DPRK. His itinerary included Pyongyang, the DMZ, Mt. Myohyang, and Mangyongdae, birthplace of Kim Il-sung. The notes & photos he took explicitly document a mysterious and out-of-time North Korean culture rarely seen these days by Western eyes.
posted by dhoyt at 8:05 PM PST - 45 comments
Preservation by Plastination
: Until recently the privilege to view corpses and the human body’s interior has been confined to medicine students and anatomists in dissection rooms. It is only due to the invention of plastination that the general public is now also able to enjoy fascinating insights into the human body.
posted by starscream at 2:50 PM PST - 11 comments
Do you want fresh, locally grown, organic food, but don't know where to find it? The
LocalHarvest map makes it easy to find family farms, farmers markets and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area.
posted by ewagoner at 1:33 PM PST - 9 comments
BullFighter
is shareware that flags corporate jargon, like "mission critical asset foregrounding" and "value-added paradigm shift," in Word documents. Who developed it?
Deloitte Consulting. Will wonders (or gimmicks) never cease?
posted by serafinapekkala at 1:02 PM PST - 13 comments
Why I Hate Advocacy.
Baseball, politics, and programming languages? Mark Jason-Dominus created a classic article that is really about the general human tendancy towards flawed dialogue and the pitfalls surrounding evangelism, even though it's specifically directed towards the perl programming community. Indeed, as
in the past, some may see the "spectre of Metafilter itself" in Mark's words.
posted by weston at 11:07 AM PST - 19 comments
Here’s the deal.
Brian has been crazy about Drew since the 2nd grade when he first saw her in E.T. So now it’s 20 years later and he figured since she hasn’t come knockin’ on his door, he’s gonna have to make the first move.
Problem…
She’s Drew Barrymore!
But wait, it’s not as crazy as you might think. See, Brian figured he’d combine his two great passions in life – making movies and Drew Barrymore – and document his quest to meet Drew. That way he will represent the “everyman”, and his quest will seem noble… instead of just desperate.
Next problem…
Brian is completely broke. And he doesn’t even own a video camera to make this documentary. Fortunately, he recently won $1,100 on a game show! So he figured it must be fate. He will use this cash prize to seize the moment and pursue his dream. And as it turns out, you don’t even need any money to buy a video camera these days, thanks to Circuit City’s 30-day Return Policy. So he grabbed a friend’s credit card and picked out the most expensive camera in the store, knowing he will have to finish his documentary before the camera has to go back.
So now Brian has 30 days and $1,100 to get a date with Drew Barrymore.
posted by amro at 10:29 AM PST - 60 comments
Robert Hooke.
''Robert Hooke is one of the most neglected natural philosophers of all time. The inventor of, amongst other things, the iris diaphragm in cameras, the universal joint used in motor vehicles, the balance wheel in a watch, the originator of the word 'cell' in biology, he was Surveyor of the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666, architect, experimenter, worked in astronomy - yet is known mostly for Hooke's Law ... '
More at
Robert Hooke's Micrographia: a digital facsimile. 'In it we are introduced to the living cell; to microscopic fungi and the life story of the mosquito; we find the two contrasting theories about the origin of the lunar craters posed for the very first time ... '
posted by plep at 9:36 AM PST - 4 comments
Riddle me this: why are so many people in such a hurry to monitor, record and analyze every aspect of modern life? A UCLA professor wants to
outfit an entire first grade classroom with minuscule sensors. The National Science Foundation awarded $1.8 million to fund the study, which will see students wearing special caps tracking their location and what they're looking at while cameras and microphones will record their activities. All the data gathered will be processed by a data-mining software package.
[more inside]
posted by Irontom at 7:51 AM PST - 24 comments
Bill and Liz
sit down on a sidewalk in New York City, and put up a sign that asks people to
talk to them. No catch, no trick, just conversation. They do this full time, up to 14 hours a day, every day.
posted by majcher at 7:25 AM PST - 24 comments
Anybody remember that classic sci-fi TV show
The Starlost? You're forgiven if you don't, since it barely lasted one season. Dreamed up by Harlan Ellison, he promptly disowned it when it failed to meet his expectations, but he had grand ideas: featuring writers such as Frank Herbert, Ursula Leguin, Philip K. Dick and others, with more help from Ben Bova, The Starlost was a virtual who's who of anything sci-fi. Read all about it in this exhaustive site.
Now that your interest has been piqued,
buy the series for only $60! I think it should be made into a movie, myself.
posted by ashbury at 6:15 AM PST - 14 comments
August 3
The intent of
stupidsecurity.com is to expose a particularly seamy aspect of modern life -- misguided thrashings labeled "security" and defended -- if at all -- by an appeal to paranoia. My hope is that by providing a chronicle of really stupid security measures, we can make it more uncomfortable for pointy haired bosses of various types to approve really stupid security measures.
[via codemode.org]
posted by soundofsuburbia at 1:13 PM PST - 14 comments
Argentina Didn't Fall on Its Own.
(Single-page, printer-friendly version
here.) I don't normally read long articles on economic subjects, but this one is riveting, because it links Argentina's collapse to larger issues of how the world of money works today.
"The time has come to do our mea culpa," Hans-Joerg Rudloff, chairman of the executive committee at Barclays Capital, said at a conference of bank and brokerage executives in London a few months ago. "Argentina obviously stands as much as Enron" in showing that "things have been done and said by our industry which were realized at the time to be wrong, to be self-serving."
...It is like "a bizarre AA program in which you remove booze from the homes of people who are reducing the amount they drink and put it into the homes of people who are drinking more every day," Pettis said. "This is probably not the best way to reduce drunkenness."
posted by languagehat at 12:20 PM PST - 7 comments
Audrey
is a flash portfolio of abstract paintings by Audrey Bergounioux, including videos of the creation of
Life is Energy and
Color Del Sol (requires Flash 6).
posted by eddydamascene at 11:50 AM PST - 5 comments
"Movies: They're worth it!"
In a move to educate those darn thieving kids and their evil P2P file-sharing networks which are used to trade ripped movies, the MPAA has launched a
public service campaign to explain, in layman's terms, why violating their copyrights is wrong. …Yes, these are the same people who have just brought us an entire summer of bloated sequels, shameless celebrity vehicles and uninspired hack-work. Respect!
posted by Down10 at 11:32 AM PST - 81 comments
C. Bradley Dilger's research on ease of use.
I'm reading Neal Stevenson's cryptonomicon and it got me thinking about interface design. Of course not all artists design interfaces, nor do they really want people to see their art as interactive, but for the rest of us I think this is an important topic.
Mr. Dilger's
Ph. D. dissertation is over 200 pages of current, well written anaylsis on the concept of "ease" in our culture, especially when it relates to technology and computer interaction. And to make it even better, his bibliography is top. I especially liked this article titled
The Anti-Mac Interface.
posted by abulafia at 11:03 AM PST - 9 comments
The great firewall of Burma.
"Burma's military regime has reluctantly dipped a toe in the cyber sea, but for most of the country's population owning a modem without permission means 15 years in jail." I guess I should stop complaining about my dial-up connection.
posted by homunculus at 11:03 AM PST - 5 comments
Fable
...There once was a boy with a mind of his own. Alone in a dangerous world, his destiny, the paths of good and evil... Built like a children's book with tabs that you toggle, choose your path in this gothic tale. The site is a beautifully designed promo for the upcoming xbox game release, but worth a visit for the illustrations and execution alone.
(caveats: flash site that opens in a pop-up window, contains sound.)
posted by madamjujujive at 8:42 AM PST - 11 comments
Rekkaturvat:
You've already pushed a hapless dummy
down the stairs. Now you can see what happens when that same guy
gets behind the wheel - or at least inside the cab - of a truck speeding toward a wall. Scant on documentation, but not hard to figure out (the 1 and 2 sliders control the position of two ramps). Anyone find a good technique for a high score? (2 MB Windows .exe)
posted by wanderingmind at 12:30 AM PST - 51 comments
August 2
Let's take a trip to the
Mustard Museum, shall we? "4,000 jars, bottles, and tubes of mustard from all 50 states and more than 60 countries." They even have their own
fight song.
posted by dchase at 10:16 PM PST - 11 comments
Interview with Profiler Roy Hazelwood.
Enough to make you feel a little less safer, and to marvel at both the "the infinity of darkness," the depths of potential monstrosity, and the ability of some to understand broken minds and bent hearts. "'If I were to give you each a test, could you take it the way you think this offender would take it?' We said yes.... Both of us came out as paranoid schizophrenics. The psychiatrist was astounded. We sat there and tried to take the test as we thought the guy we had in mind would take the test. "
posted by namespan at 2:32 PM PST - 18 comments
Dalai Llama Misses Sex, Shoots Guns
This is the finest tabloid newspaper headline
evar. Remember Peter Falk, in Tom Wolfe's
Bonfire of the Vanities, admiring the rhythmic and sadistic anticlimax of the headline: 'Scalp Grandma, then rob her' ? This is better.
Should I have worked on the school paper instead of playing bass? I could have been a contender.
via fark.
posted by crunchburger at 2:10 PM PST - 16 comments
For then entire month of July, the folks at
sh1ft.org have been holding an international photographic scavenger hunt called
26 things. The hunt involves taking pictures of abstract topics such as love or symmetry. With over 300 sets so far, they have
lots of great pics, any MeFi users do this?
posted by woil at 12:18 PM PST - 10 comments
Lone Eagle?
According to this news story (from Reuters), famed aviator Charles "Lucky" Lindbergh got lucky in Germany in the 1950s--fathering three children with a woman he met there and keeping this double life a complete secret from his other, American, family. If true, this would certainly require a reassessment of Lindbergh's personal life.
posted by Man-Thing at 11:49 AM PST - 19 comments
Dead Man Eating is a weblog listing last meals of American prisoners put to death. Often humanizing the prisoners without belittling their crimes, it's a macabre, fascinating read no matter which side of the death penalty debate you're on.
posted by kickerofelves at 6:23 AM PST - 36 comments
Report on 9/11 Suggests a Role by Saudi Spies
If this article in the NY Times is accurate, then The Saudi request that the classified pages be made public, and the Bush refusal to do so, is a cooperative effort to keep the public from knowing the Saudi involvement rather than an attempt to protect intelligence methods etc as had been claimed by Bush. Ot, Bush is right (we won't know) and the Times wrong. Take your choice.
posted by Postroad at 3:29 AM PST - 13 comments
August 1
STD-ster
is an online community that connects people through networks of sexual partners for tracking STD contraction. (flash)
posted by LexRockhard at 10:26 PM PST - 4 comments
Long, interesting article
in the NYT Sunday Magazine (reg. req'd, apologies) about a putatively "underground" community of black men who have sex with other men and who do not self-identify as gay.
There's more than a few problems with the piece. The reportage has a kind of breathless/clueless tone to it - like when the author identifies the phrase "on the DL" as originating in a 1990's TLC song (!) - and a pseudoanthropological,
National Geographic stink of imputed Otherness hangs over the whole enterprise, but I found it compelling anyway.
If nothing else, it's an introduction to a
entire new subculture I had always assumed the existence of, but never seen. (I particularly liked the NYT piece's excursion to a low-rent thug-life amateur pr0n operation. Gibson was right: the street does indeed find its own uses for technology.)
posted by adamgreenfield at 8:04 PM PST - 54 comments
Pet-a-potty.
Want to let your dog experience the thrill of doing their business on nature's own newspaper, but are scared that a great big eagle might swoop down and snatch poor Speckles away from you? Problem solved! Here's a nice square patch of grass! In a box! On wheels! No kidding!
Sometimes, I think it's not the pets that are the ones that need to be spayed and neutered...
posted by majcher at 7:25 PM PST - 10 comments
The Nazis are back
and this time they're green!
I can't seem to tell if it's real or not... which is kind of worrying.[Via memepool]
posted by knapah at 4:02 PM PST - 19 comments
Diaphanous Fog Screen Projection
Demonstrated at
Siggraph, a thin sheet of dry fog is silently generated and used as a projection screen floating in the air, so you can literally step through it. Levels of opacity can be dialed up and down. Beautiful, but the possibilities seem to be appealing immediately to marketers (imagine a walkthough ad in your local shopping mall), and possibly some
military folks. There are a couple videos
here, you can see it looks like a video waterfall.
posted by kokogiak at 10:20 AM PST - 15 comments
Rubber duckies wash ashore after 11 years
Eleven years ago, a cargo-ship container holding 29,000 toy ducks was lost at sea in the North Pacific storm. They have since floated round the United States, through the Arctic and past Greenland (
map). One American scientist is devoted to studying sea debris like these, including 80,000 pairs of Nike trainers, five million lost pieces of Lego and 34,000 hockey gloves, all lost when containers fell from transport ships.
posted by ao4047 at 10:20 AM PST - 17 comments
A bold paper published in the August issue of Foundations of Physics Letters seems set to change the way we think about the nature of time and its relationship to motion and classical and quantum mechanics. The work also appears to provide solutions to
Zeno's paradoxes. (Via
Kurzweilai.net. More inside...)
posted by Pinwheel at 7:20 AM PST - 41 comments
Honey, phone's for you....
it's the Barbi Twins! Almost-celebrities will talk to you or a loved one on the phone for $1 a second (30 sec. increments). So, so awesome, I don't know where to start. I'm just glad Epstein from Welcome Back Kotter is available!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:57 AM PST - 42 comments
The Pope really disapproves of gay marriage.
He says "people extending cohabitation rights 'need to be reminded that the approval or legalisation of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil.'" He "also described gay sex as inhuman and gay couples adopting children as 'doing violence'."
And some people thought Bush was bad!
posted by Blue Stone at 6:46 AM PST - 32 comments
Interview with Bernard Lietaer.
In this engrossing interview with economist, author, professor and businessman, Bernard Lietaer, he argues that complementary currencies (time dollars, local exchanges, bartering, Ithica dollars, “fureai kippu” (caring relationship tickets)), and other non-dominant currency systems can help to enable social change in small ways. Have any of you had any experience with complementary currencies? More inside...
posted by gen at 2:04 AM PST - 8 comments
