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August 31
Grand Royal is shutting down!
the label, started by the beastie boys in 1993, is officially no more.
"This is one of the most difficult decisions weve ever had to make," said co-founder Mike Diamond a/k/a Mike D of Beastie Boys. "Over the years the Grand Royal family had grown to include some of the most talented musicians and staff in the business. Its tragic that the same growth has also produced an overhead and infrastructure that can no longer viable."
truly a sad day for independent music!
posted by mcsweetie at 11:33 PM PST - 31 comments
Chandra Levy disappearance solved?
A deaf man with a serious mental illness who cannot speak was wrongly jailed for nearly two years in the nation's capital even though minor charges against him were dismissed, prison officials said on Friday...
Department of Corrections Director Odie... was ... quoted as telling the Post: ``It was kind of unbelievable to me that we could hold a guy for nearly two years who should not have been there,'' he said.
Color photographs with arrows and pictures and a paragraph on the back to follow...
posted by dchase at 9:23 PM PST - 7 comments
Bougainville Rebels, PNG Sign Comprehensive Autonomy Deal
The deal, following two years of dialogue and almost a decade of violence, will culminate in a referendum on independence in 10 years. When fully implemented, it will give Bougainville broad autonomy in legislation, judiciary, and its own police force. Bougainvilleans fight for secession stems from PNG's distribution of revenue from gold mines on the island. Kabui's remarks at the signing emphasized the Bougainvillean identity and culture that autonomy would protect.
posted by rschram at 8:01 PM PST - 5 comments
In 1999, every company worth its salt was trying to figure out how to pretend that it was a "dot com". Now even the
real dot-coms who have survived and prospered (they an't
all dead, you know)
are trying to figure out how to pretend that they aren't really like that. It's a sign of the times.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 3:29 PM PST - 6 comments
Cringely's insight deepens
with this new article on
Excite@Home's troubles. Is broadband here to stay? If so, is it going to go anywhere? Three years from now, what will the options be and what kind of performance can be expected?
posted by bloggboy at 3:24 PM PST - 6 comments
Ladies beware!
It appears that foul contraption, the brassiere, is not only constricting, but holds up women's natural defenses against toxins. Surely, this article will give feminists of the bra-buring ilk the support they need to lift and separate their message from the din.
posted by CRS at 1:52 PM PST - 24 comments
Fighting feeping creaturism.
Following in the wake of "abandonware" sites, here's a chance to perform that much-needed downgrade in order to escape bloat/adware/etc. What's your favourite software relic?
posted by holgate at 12:48 PM PST - 34 comments
Freak Watcher's Textbook.
I am glad I waited to get the textbook before looking at freaks (or freaks eating cats). Now with this professional guide, I can watch like a pro. I assume Sally Struthers will be adding "Freak Watching" to her list of accredited courses.
posted by rev- at 12:37 PM PST - 10 comments
Eyewitness News, Reporting From Your Living Room.
KVDA, a Spanish-language television station serving the San Antonio, TX community, hopes to revitalize community-based journalism. Ordinary people report the news live
from their homes using high-speed Internet connections and web cams. Trinity University Communications Professor Rob Huesca says, "People are closer to the event than journalists can be, and that the expertise they bring is the expertise of real life, not the expertise of detachment, impartiality, balance, and the rest of
journalists' values." (more)
posted by kathryn at 12:26 PM PST - 11 comments
Someone is a werewolf. Someone ... in this very room.
About six months ago someone sent me the URL for this terrific party game called
Werewolf, and my friends and I have been playing it regularly ever since. The rules are simple, it doesn't require any equipment (except for some cards) and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't truly enjoy the game. It's only drawback: after an hour of so of play, you will no longer trust any any of your friends. Print out the rules, stick 'em in your pocket, and if you find yourself in a group of 7+ people this Labor Day Weekend give 'em a whirl -- you won't be disappointed.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 10:11 AM PST - 22 comments
Doesn't it rain enough already ?
Looks as though the British government had becomed tired with Englands beautiful year round weather and thought its citizens would be happier if it rained a tad more. Unfortunately they over did it a bit and thirty five people died in the floods that ensued...
posted by zeoslap at 9:44 AM PST - 4 comments
In the midst of being indignant over the death of the BeOS,
Scot Hacker talks about Microsoft's OEM license with hardware vendors. Although Microsoft claims the terms of the agreement are a "trade secret," preventing it from making appearnce in the DOJ circus, apparently it prevents OEMs from installing
any non-Microsoft OS along side a Microsoft OS... If true, the "browser integration" thing's just a minor annoyance -
this would be monopolistic and anti-competitive...
via rc3.org
posted by m.polo at 8:18 AM PST - 9 comments
Fight back against sneaky scumware
like TopText and Surf+, with this Javascript code by Gary Rosenzweig of CleverMedia. The code detects the scumware's presence, pops up a message letting the user know they're carrying a parasite, and then surveys the user to find out if they knew about it. In the first day of operation on his site, he discovered that 3.67% of his visitors had either TopText or Surf+ installed, and more than 90% of these visitors did not know until they were told. (Link to the Javascript code is at the bottom of the article.)
posted by cfj at 7:37 AM PST - 7 comments
The American Worker:
Labor Day is coming up, so its an opportune time for the AFL-CIO to release a poll saying how unhappy workers are. But is this just a by-product of a (basically) stagnant economy with the drumbeat of layoffs ever present, business
running roughshod over their employees, employees not realizing how good they have it - ready to
sue at the drop of a hat, or business as usual? (plus: Unions in Hollywood doing
their own thing)
posted by owillis at 2:00 AM PST - 49 comments
Dave Winer offers us 2 views of the scripting world in 2005.
He says that 'in one view, we are all inside Microsoft's box, sharing a common set of libraries and object hierarchies. In the other, we use our favourite tools and runtimes, our communities stay independent.' Frighteningly, he may well be absolutely right. What a great diagram; it reminds me of drawing when I was a kid.
posted by Atom Heart Mother at 12:04 AM PST - 17 comments
August 30
Fetuses may be able to feel pain as early as 20 weeks gestation.
"Members of the Medical Research Council's (MRC) expert group on fetal pain, led by Professor Eve Johnstone of Edinburgh University, say the finding could have important implications for the treatment of thousands of very premature infants born every year." It frankly makes my pro-choice conscience squirm a little, too.
posted by RylandDotNet at 7:24 PM PST - 42 comments
Online petition
to bring Spirited Away, Japan's currently largest grossing film, to thje states. Disney owns the domestic rights to all of Hayao Miyazaki's films (think Princess Mononoke) and has no plans to release
Spirited Away.
posted by skallas at 7:12 PM PST - 25 comments
Jigzone
- Another great place to waste time at work. The page features a java applet that lets you put together different jigsaw puzzles. I just started working tech support this week and the first day the person that was training me told me about this site. So far it has saved my sanity many a time.
posted by bytecode at 5:50 PM PST - 7 comments
Abercrombie & Fallacies
And theres the group of guys playing football wearing only boxer shorts and boat shoes, because what self-respecting masculine guy wears shorts or a shirt, or needs any kind of traction on wet grass, when playing football?
posted by joeclark at 3:53 PM PST - 19 comments
Timbuk2
is a webshop which lets you build your own messenger bags online.
Customatix does the same for sneakers (and I believe
Nike does too). What other products are available for customization (and purchase) online in the same manner?
posted by dagny at 3:26 PM PST - 22 comments
White Bread Blues
Why is it that stuff closest to the truth is the funniest? I think I qualify as the guy with the knife, although my cereal doesn't talk to me - well not since we had that argument this morning.
posted by Option1 at 1:48 PM PST - 7 comments
Diamonds in the rough.
ESPN lists the top ten most hated NFL players of all time as selected by you, John Q. Public! Just looking through this, it's a sick reminder that we pay/paid murderers, cocaine addicts, and wife beaters more money in a year than we'll ever see in our lives. What ever happened to sportsmanship and being a role model, anyway? Or just plain not killing people, for that matter...OJ!...*cough, cough*...
posted by fusinski at 1:11 PM PST - 7 comments
Good reason to move. (Or not, as the case may be.) Lessee, if I make $45k per year and own a little house in Athens GA I'd have to make $67K in Atlanta, $89K in DC, $133K in SF, $150K in Manhattan. No wonder all my friends who
did move to Manhattan are all stark, staring bonkers now.
posted by jfuller at 1:04 PM PST - 32 comments
Latest Internet/Email Worm
found by anti-virus company, Central Command, whom then sent out the press release announcing the worm along with information on how to purchase their anti-virus software. Is it just me, or does this cry, "Let's create a worm and then announce it along with links to buy our software!"
posted by physics at 1:01 PM PST - 4 comments
Don't register for contests at work?
Man wins new BMW...for his employers. While this case actually makes sense, i could see situations where employees could win prizes on company time and have a problem. I would be So bummed out.
posted by th3ph17 at 11:00 AM PST - 12 comments
"What would you like to know?
ActiveBuddy finally delivers their first real infobot, AgentBaseball. Use IM to find baseball scores, standings, player stats, player info, team stats, team info, xtra bases, and sports news.
Wanna try it? Just add AgentBaseball to your buddy list and send it a message with "hello".
posted by Brilliantcrank at 9:15 AM PST - 19 comments
Fictionline
sounds like a scam but isn't: pay a small reading fee and win a thousand bucks if they publish your story. The plain design seems aimed more at writers than readers, but it's an exciting new concept in the
glut of online lit mags.
posted by muckster at 8:39 AM PST - 11 comments
It isn't the circus YOU remember...
Why would the head of Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey hire a former top CIA honcho to torment a hapless freelance writer for eight years? Plus, some goodies on the Felds family - makes for a
long but interesting read...
Interesting... I always knew there was a reason people
feared clowns but now it seems you need to fear the circus??? What has the world come to, I ask you???
posted by gloege at 8:19 AM PST - 7 comments
why technology is failing us [and how we can fix it]
(at
Shift Magazine) is a call to arms for bored geeks. We made it through the Internet Revolution and realised that it really didn't change a whole lot about the way we actually live. Chris Turner suggests that the Next Big Thing could very well be environmentally friendly technology. Think about it: We had reams of venture captial money to make the world at large aware of the new medium, and we got to play the entire time. We can do it again, and this time we can literally change the world.
posted by cCranium at 7:54 AM PST - 28 comments
Rapatronic photographs
are eerie when you realise what the subject matter is. They leave me with a hole in my guts - the way I felt the time I experienced a total solar eclipse, only in this case the aftertaste is negative, rather than positive wonder.
More here.
posted by southisup at 5:30 AM PST - 17 comments
Doing science by stealth
Scientists have found a way of subverting the error checking mechanisms of web servers to allow them to perform calculations without the owners permission. This "Parasitic computing" could potentially use the internet as a single giant distributed computer.
posted by astro38 at 3:54 AM PST - 5 comments
Redbird reefs of the coast of Delaware
(NYTimes). When I came back from vacation, I was surprised to find that using old NYC subway cars as artificial reefs was being put into action (with a great pic of the cars being pushed off barges). NYC gets creative in getting rid of its trash, but this is the most creative way I've heard of yet.
posted by meep at 3:36 AM PST - 3 comments
Scott Adams helps to design the ultimate cubicle.
Oh, the irony. According to
The Register,
"So has Adams sold out, or what?
On closer inspection, this whimsical parlay could well be a physical extension of the Dilbert strip. How else to account for the 'sun indicators', or as the blurb says:-'Regardless of the weather outside, sunlight travels across your space, glowing and fading with the rhythm of the day.' Yes, to remind you of the futility of your miserable, rabbit hutch existence, of course."
posted by jetgrrl at 1:46 AM PST - 9 comments
August 29
The tax bill
was based on conservative ideology: not only did it offer the largest rate breaks to the richest people, but it had the explicit purpose of reducing the activities of the federal government.
posted by semmi at 10:21 PM PST - 21 comments
Unocal seems responsible
for driving up gas prices by taking shameless advantage of regulations and patent law. Why did our government get ambushed by a basic loophole that any first-year lawyer would think of? Maybe it's involved with too many things to do anything right?
posted by marknau at 6:41 PM PST - 8 comments
from "Ray Bradbury is on fire!" in today's Salon:
"Kerosene-spraying firemen aside, a closer look at the 1953 novel [Fahrenheit 451] shows Bradbury nailed the new millennium perfectly. There's interactive television, stereo earphones (which reportedly inspired a Sony engineer to invent the Walkman), immersive wall-size TVs, earpiece communicators, rampant political correctness, omnipresent advertising and a violent youth culture ignored by self-absorbed, prescription-dependent parents."
posted by moth at 6:39 PM PST - 21 comments
Given the recent
cinematic floppery of late, I was pleasantly surprised when I came across an
article about real-world Artificial Intelligence that was written in a solid down-to-Earth manner about some very technical concepts. If you're into AI it should be worth a look to you. How would you like to have a computer that learns and adapts? Heh...how'd you like your computer to pout because you won't buy the latest processor? ;}
posted by Spanktacular at 4:30 PM PST - 5 comments
Have you ever wondered about your sexuality?
If you're like me, no. But, you might want to mosey over here and check on it anyway. Who knows what happened to it since the last time you looked?
This quiz attempts to guess your sexuality based on the answers you give to multiple choice questions. There's a AI program behind it that grows more intelligent as more people take the quiz.
posted by RustyBrooks at 3:48 PM PST - 54 comments
was: Computer Programmer, now: Tigerman.
In San Diego, some jerk spent $150,000 to tattoo his face, file his teeth into points, etc. Why, you are clearly asking? Because he wants to be
a cat. Dude. Spend your dot-com cash on something constructive, like jackelope ranches or x10 cameras.
posted by rev- at 11:55 AM PST - 34 comments
There's a situation arising right now, between Australian, Norwegian and Indonesian governments. The issue?
A Norwegian freighter laden with 438 Afghan asylum seekers, stranded in the Indian Ocean. Today, Australia elite commandos
seized control of the Norwegian-owned "Tampa" and its human cargo and ordered the ship to return to international waters. Norwegian authorities, on the other hand, are
appealing to Australian authorities to help the refugees and the crew onboard "Tampa".
What should be done here, if anything, and by whom? And what about the situation in Afghanistan, that is causing these people to escape from there in the first place? (More:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7)
posted by dagny at 9:22 AM PST - 52 comments
Rude Software Installation
I clicked on a link that needed Shockwave 8.5 installed. Silly me, I said okay. After the download, the installation program nicely closed all of my open IE windows without first asking, creating a splendid loss of work for me!! Thanks Macromedia!! I'm now going to be on the lookout... What other software programs act rudely, creating defaults, shutting down your browser windows, or assigning themselves to extensions without first asking?
posted by yarf at 7:59 AM PST - 36 comments
Banned books are nothing new, but
this is just ridiculous.
"Those modern classics and seven other books have come under routine fire for profane language, unpleasant racial themes and references to homosexuality." Considering
this , why is it an issue. [see no evil]
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 7:27 AM PST - 52 comments
Stile has hit the fan.
His "Kitten - It's what's for dinner" video has finally attracted the attention of PETA, et al. Oddly enough, they seem non-plussed. Unlike much of MeFi's
response, PETA is seeking to censor and prosecute.
posted by NortonDC at 6:56 AM PST - 80 comments
Software Libre!
Local and national governments around the world are legislating in favor of open source, in a challenge to US corporate (read Microsoft) dominance. A liberating movement, or too much government intrusion?
posted by liam at 6:06 AM PST - 11 comments
August 28
Brain Cells Used To Make Working Semiconductor
"This is the first direct functional interfacing of a living neuronal network with an electronic semiconductor chip," said co-author Dr. Peter Fromherz of the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany, in an interview with Reuters Health. "It is a further step on our road to combine the elements of brains and computers," he added.
posted by Alwin at 9:22 PM PST - 2 comments
This amazing weapon
was fired by a helicopter into the third floor of a building and was so accurate it actually decapitated its target without harming the other tenants.
posted by semmi at 9:12 PM PST - 60 comments
Roll Your Own DSL
"But why would you even want to do such a thing? Well maybe DSL isn't available in your area. Maybe you want a significantly cheaper alternative to a T-1 line. Or just maybe you and the kid down the block want to play networked games at warp speed."
posted by frykitty at 4:07 PM PST - 9 comments
Uh-oh! We're almost out of IP addresses!
The current IP (Internet Protocol) only allows approximately 4.3 billion addresses to be assigned, yet demand in 2006 may be for 7 billion addresses or more? Do we make a tough upgrade to IPv6 or force greedy Class-A users to hand over blocks?
posted by wackybrit at 2:40 PM PST - 27 comments
If I had my own weblog, I'd write more about what
this story of one woman's coma (spotted on
World New York) means to me. I'll just say that I love my wife and fear ever facing a crisis such as the one described in this husband's extraordinarily well written story. If you want to think deeply about life and the people you love and have some time and tears for the introspection, take a read.
posted by msacheson at 2:35 PM PST - 23 comments
Sundance is a little ski resort about twenty minutes up the road from me... it's quiet during the winter, and a great date in the summer ...and aside from it's eponymous (and off-site) film festival,
who would have guessed that it was so famous? Do you have any local favorites in your neck of the woods... places that are surprising local hotspots (a la "a prophet in his own country")?
posted by silusGROK at 9:01 AM PST - 6 comments
What do you get when you mix a
zealous Christian, 12
blow-up dolls, and a
toga party? It's just too strange, but it might have been
the rapture for one woman...
posted by atfrost at 8:02 AM PST - 7 comments
August 27
I thought I was the only one
who giggled at the name of this British sweet treat. Traditionalists balk at changing the name, but supermarkets report sales lags because folks are embarrassed to ask for it. What would you re-name this dessert?
posted by Oriole Adams at 5:30 PM PST - 24 comments
Guess the Poll, Win $5000.00 FJ
Fijilive.com (with the Fiji Post) is hosting a contest to guess who will be the next prime minister. Voting for
parlimentary elections began on Saturday in Fiji, with few observed problems. Charges of intimidation, illegality, et cetera fly back and forth. Someone circulated some pamphlets that said paraphrasedly "a vote for Chaudry is a vote for bloodshed." Mahendra Chaudry was the Labor prime minister deposed while being held hostage in May last year. Several of those involved in that abortive, yet destructive coup are also running under their own banners. They seem to have split the ethnic Fijian vote (approx 51% of the population) more than anything.
posted by rschram at 3:52 PM PST - 2 comments
Bad Software
. Has anyone ever seen Gigex? Its a Download delivery helper for the PC. Thru
PCGamer.com. I just tried to dl a demo for a game and Gigex tried to help me. It helped me by completetly locking up my PC. A reboot launches Gigex again which freezes everything again and again. What to do about obnoxious software 'helpers'?
posted by darkpony at 1:41 PM PST - 26 comments
Apparently the Web is getting less eclectic.
The basic gist is that the Web, once a vibrant and quirky place, is just becoming a repository of dullness and repetition with such an overabundance of information that people tend to stick to sites that they know and love. What's your take on it?
(Thanks to Zach at Thinky.org for the link.)
posted by bshort at 12:28 PM PST - 35 comments
If you were to assassinate someone what weapon would you choose? Some poison or maybe a sniper rifle. Well L. Piyasena decided to try something different,
assassination by bus.
posted by bytecode at 10:42 AM PST - 30 comments
Dark Tower V Prologue available
at Stephen King's official website. Apparently, King is "hoping to press on to the very end and publish the remaining volumes all at the same time. That probably means three books, one of them fairly short and one of the other two quite long." If he continues the increase in quality that he established with Wizard and Glass, we'll be in for quite a treat.
posted by tallman at 10:08 AM PST - 23 comments
Free Anime!
Manga Entertainment will stream their new release
Blood: The Last Vampire on the Web for 24 hours Tuesday, while simultaneously showing the film at theaters in Los Angeles and New York. They will then sell DVDs of the movie online and in retail stores. [More inside.]
posted by Dirjy at 8:41 AM PST - 28 comments
Brothel Goes Live on Net
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Rio de Janeiro's Vila Mimoza (Pamper Village) brothel is propelling the oldest profession in the world into the 21st century. Within the next two weeks, the Vila Mimoza prostitution cooperative, just north of downtown Rio, plans to launch a Web site (http://www.vilamimoza.com.br) aimed at luring customers and making the "village'' a major stop on the tourism trail. Oh boy. Not much different than porn sites, but the "sex workers' labor movement in the 1970s" history tidbit could be interesting.
posted by adampsyche at 8:29 AM PST - 1 comments
No more Muzak and classic rock?
"The [IBM] interns collaborated on something called Hold Freedom, a way to ease the tedium of being on hold while waiting to talk to a human. The program enables callers placed on hold to listen to news, music of their choice, enter a chat group with other customers or even make another phone call without losing their place in the queue. The choices would be based on personal profiles that the customers had previously completed on the call center to phone company's Web site." (Also cool that the idea comes from summer interns.)
posted by tippiedog at 7:39 AM PST - 9 comments
US drone lost over Iraq
- It seems it's only a matter of time before they shoot down a piloted plane (even if by accident). What are we still trying to accomplish over there and what would the reaction be if they succeed?
posted by revbrian at 5:44 AM PST - 15 comments
August 26
No $250 million dollar crybabies here.
The Little League World Series has been much more engaging than the pro game to me - mostly because the kids are there to
play baseball as opposed to the ego and salaries that permeate MLB. (the broadcast, on the other hand, is the usual commercial b.s. with things like the "Bubblicious Lineup")
posted by owillis at 4:09 PM PST - 22 comments
Daema kicks some serious ape butt
The sequels to Pierre Boulle's original
Planet of the Apes novel are, apparently, leaving something to be desired. Lets invent some and raise the tone, shall we?
Planet of the Jeeps: An astronaut lands on a planet and gets rammed in his Nissan Micra at an intersection by a Simian driving a Sport Utility Vehicle. Director Tim Burton gets slated by the critics -
"Good Science Fiction should show us things we've never seen before".
posted by RichLyon at 1:50 PM PST - 19 comments
She didn't feel the same way, and that was that.
Crush.nu has formally ceased publishing stories.
Jack mentions the possibility of a book (for which you are able to send submissions right now), but the project as it was on the web is no more than its archives. I know it hasn't been updated in quite a while, but I'm going to miss it terribly all the same. What will you miss most about it?
posted by moz at 8:34 AM PST - 7 comments
stopping football holigans in the gambia
security forces banned from football tourney - "the beating of some of the footballers, team officials and supporters of the opposing team which resulted in the admission to hospital of a footabller and the serious wounding of some supporters is a total violation of fair play and can no longer be entertained by the committee."
well you've got to draw the line somewhere
posted by quarsan at 7:48 AM PST - 7 comments
Please help me, I'm falling
I nearly cried into my breakfast when I read this article - because I thought it was about me. The usual path after university is into a well paid job and a fulfilling future. But a growing number are leaving university, even with high marks, with little idea of how life works and what to do next. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
posted by feelinglistless at 7:31 AM PST - 63 comments
Mugabe's secret plan to evict all whites
Robert Mugabe plans to expel all white farmers from Zimbabwe before next year's elections, according to a secret document obtained by The Telegraph. [...] Entitled Operation Give up and Leave, it reads:
The operation should be thoroughly planned so that farmers are systematically harassed and mentally tortured and their farms destabilised until they give in and give up.
posted by dagny at 2:22 AM PST - 29 comments
August 25
Singer Aaliyah Killed in Plane Crash
R & B singer and actress Aaliyah died after a small plane that was to carry her and eight others back to the United States crashed after takeoff in the Bahamas, authorities said.
I keep typing a description here. and erasing it. I don't know what to say. This is beyond awful. :(
posted by mcsweetie at 11:05 PM PST - 71 comments
As funny as a sitcom set in a concentration camp.
So, your dad was into sex play and amateur "photography." Oh, yeah, and he was a celebrity. And he died under mysterious circumstances. Would the thought ever occur to you to charge folks to take a gander at your pop "gettin' it on?" This is several levels of creepy-from low level "huh, that's odd" all the way up to "oh, god I didn't need to see that!" levels of creepy.
Link not safe for work, unless you work at a place where they encourge you to look at celebrities getting hummers.
posted by ColdChef at 10:59 PM PST - 14 comments
Uh, guys? It's just a damn game.
Three different stories on the same page about people taking games far too seriously. I love my video games as much as the next person, but the closest I've come to injuring myself (or others) was getting an hour or two less sleep on the weekend from playing Civilization too much. Does anyone have any personal stories about games (video, board or card) unexpectedly causing injury?
posted by Grum at 9:48 PM PST - 28 comments
Wandering Camera
doesn't strike you with quality of the pictures, but with sheer volume and coverage. I've only been to SPb once, and didn't see nearly as much as what's covered in the albums. Rather than to capture the best visuals of a site, it puts you into its atmosphere.
posted by azazello at 6:19 PM PST - 3 comments
Should Teachers be Tested?
In Ontario there is a power struggle between the provincial government and the teachers union over whether teachers should be subjected to testing to ensure they are current on their subject knowledge.
Personally, I have enjoyed every ironic complaint of the teachers that testing is unfair. It seems to me that they are failing the test before even taking it when they implicitly claim that testing is good for the students but bad for them. What do you think?
posted by srboisvert at 3:44 PM PST - 15 comments
The Little Ninja.
A beautiful Flash series, one of the best I have stumbled across in my travels around the web. The music, artwork and production are all top notch, and Ninjai's voice is just spellbinding. Anyone know of any other high-quality flash comics like this one?
posted by skinjob at 9:37 AM PST - 20 comments
Not many still-practiced sports existed at the dawn of recorded
history. Sumo wrestling is one of them. I've been trying to
learn
more about Sumo lately, and with the Aki-Basho tournament coming
up next month, now is the time to
follow
along on the
web as the drama unfolds.
posted by machaus at 8:55 AM PST - 5 comments
Do you know me?
"I am a white male, Caucasian, about five feet, nine inches. I weigh 150lbs. I have no visible marks on my body. I have no memory of any events prior to waking up in the hospital in November of 1999."
"
Philip Staufen" has naturally dark brown hair and he has brown eyes. He doesn't have any tattoos, distinguishing marks, or scars. He is a Vegan and has a digestive disorder called Celiac.
"
Philip Staufen" is living a nightmare.
posted by o2b at 7:40 AM PST - 30 comments
Are there limits to Freedom?
Liberty means responsibility, said Betty Knowles Hunt in 1951.
"The answer, and the only answer, is for all of us to educate ourselves to the responsibilities as well as to the benefits of freedom. Perhaps as a people, we are not morally strong enough to be free. If that is the case, then we shall certainly lose our freedom, and it will not matter much what "ism" supplants Americanism. But this will not prove that our free way of life was not the best way. It will only prove that we were not worthy of it. "
What a spoil sport. Best sell the SUV, eh?
posted by RichLyon at 3:01 AM PST - 6 comments
Golf course: men only
PGA golfer Fred Couples is helping build a golf course open only to men. Is this any different from a womens-only gym, or more sinister?
posted by owillis at 12:22 AM PST - 35 comments
August 24
Apparently wildcard DNS is a trademark violation now.
Yahoo is suing the owner of the
sex.com domain, because the latter uses wildcard DNS. This means that if you type "yahoo.sex.com" (or "anything.sex.com", for that matter) in your browser, you get taken to sex.com's main site. Yahoo is suing because that it could cause the public to mistakenly believe that the sex site "is connected with, sponsored by, or approved in some way by Yahoo," and therefore constitutes trademark infringement.
posted by RylandDotNet at 9:14 PM PST - 19 comments
Speaking of childhood stars,
did you know the death of Dana Plato involved lesbianism, satanism, aliens, and heavy drug use? Ok, maybe not the 'alien' thing, but we won't know until someone actually ORDERS the book.
(btw, you can find this site atthis url as well.)
posted by jcterminal at 6:25 PM PST - 8 comments
Proof
that lame child actors grow up to be lame adult actors. With lame web sites.
posted by o2b at 1:38 PM PST - 91 comments
Polygamist Going to Big House
PROVO, Utah (AP) - A Mormon with five wives and 30 children was sentenced to five years in prison Friday in Utah's biggest polygamy case in nearly 50 years. Tom Green, 53, also was ordered to pay $78,000 in restitution to the state for welfare payments fraudulently collected by his family.
now he gets to be the wife.
posted by adampsyche at 12:07 PM PST - 40 comments
Liddy Dole does a Hillary
(or a Cheney)....registers in a state where she hasn't lived so she can run for office in that state.....now, granted, once upon a time Elizabeth Dole
did live in North Carolina, but it was decades ago. Do you suppose the Republicans will cry out with the same moral outrage they did when Hillary decided to run for Senate? Can we all just accept that this stuff happens all the time on both sides (RFK, Bush the Elder, Hillary, Dickie C, and now Liddy)?
posted by briank at 9:44 AM PST - 12 comments
Conformity rules in cyberspace
... countering expectations that near-anonymity would encourage actions outside social norms. An Australian research team entered chat rooms and staged situations (a somewhat skeptically viewed practice, though the article doesn't mention it). Now they're studying users' reactions to avatars of different races and genders -- and for control purposes, a chair:
Initial results show that most people approach the female character first and that some of those approaching the chair ask for a sex specification or assume it is female.
posted by dhartung at 6:17 AM PST - 9 comments
August 23
I think I just melted my irony meter.
The radically innovative new plan at VA Linux is to reach profitability by selling proprietary software.
(Larry Augustin has invented Microsoft!) But not just any software; they're going to sell the software which operates SourceForge, one of the largest repositories of open source software in the world. And this is now going to become the core business; they may even change the company name. I can't wait to see what the folks on SlashDot think of this! (VA Linux also operates SlashDot.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:38 PM PST - 18 comments
Just FYI, it's entirely possible for a human to survive
exposure to the vacuum of space for a limited time without any permanent damage -- as long as you expel all the breath from your lungs to avoid an embolism. Horrifying scenes of sudden explosive decompression or immediate freezing are, as far as I can tell, a myth. (In other words,
Mission to Mars got it wrong,
2001 got it mostly right. But that's no surprise now, is it?)
Link via BadAstronomy. Love that site.
posted by brownpau at 8:27 PM PST - 16 comments
Fakeintosh
- Have you ever wanted to run Mac OS 8 on your PC, but couldn't? Well now you can with this flash animation. I'm amazed at how detailed it is.
posted by bytecode at 6:29 PM PST - 14 comments
JKF didn't give a damn about the moon, just wanted to beat the Soviets.
Newly released tapes reveal that President Kennedy didn't really have 2001 A Space Odyssey in mind when he pushed for the Apollo program. "The President wanted it made clear that it (Apollo) was 'the' priority program not only for NASA but for the entire government with the desired result being that the United States would beat the Russians to the moon."
posted by Brilliantcrank at 4:52 PM PST - 20 comments
Air rage terrorist in the waiting,
or cranky old man? I can understand flight crews taking every caution with their captive audience, but will the new "zero tolerance" policies make for an airline police state, where shoddy treatment is the norm, and passengers dare not speak out Or Else?
posted by Oriole Adams at 3:57 PM PST - 27 comments
Stile has managed to finally offend the world
Now, I like odd things, but this was the last straw. For those who haven't seem it, it is an mpeg of a man cutting the head off of a live kitten and then eating it. The best part of this link ( I couldn't watch the vid all the way through ), are the e-mail responses. Anyway, we all seem openminded here, was he in the wrong to post the vid?
(Link not safe for work)
posted by remlapm at 2:00 PM PST - 157 comments
"Protrude, Flow"
A most amazing artistic endeavor - metallic filings dumped in oil to make magnetic liquid, and the fun that ensued afterwards. Make sure to check out the
video as well! (from memepool)
posted by skinjob at 1:21 PM PST - 11 comments
More Elvis Goodness
from Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi, who recently released a CD of his favorite Elvis tunes. What's next, a collection of Dubya's favorite Garth Brooks tracks?
posted by dogmatic at 1:17 PM PST - 3 comments
"Jesus and Sports
go together like peanut butter and jelly." But remember, once you apply elephant dung it becomes sacreligious.
(via Dr. Boom)
posted by black8 at 12:47 PM PST - 20 comments
Yahoo slideshows.
These showed up during MeFi's absence. I personally favor them over the "Most Viewed Images" list. Workers beware, it's effortless to blow an hour or so checking out all of the neatly organized topics.
posted by winterdrm at 11:58 AM PST - 10 comments
Brooklyn Tenant Is Charged With Murdering City Marshal
"As the marshal, Erskine G. Bryce, lay injured and disoriented, the police said, Ms. Jones bounded down the steps, beat him with an aluminum rod and stripped him of his .380-caliber pistol. The attack ended, the police said, only after she splashed him with a flammable liquid, took out a cigarette lighter and set him afire." (Free NY Times registration required)
posted by dayvin at 11:18 AM PST - 29 comments
Nano-art.
Japanese artist builds a sculpture of a bull that can only be seen with an electron microscope. It's the size of a single red blood cell. Next? Christo will wrap the head of a pin in pink tissue paper, I assume.
posted by rev- at 9:27 AM PST - 12 comments
Nintendo delays U.S. launch of GameCube
Nintendo has pushed back the U.S. arrival of its new GameCube video game console by nearly two weeks, with executives saying they intend to avoid the shortages and frustrated consumers that marked the debut of Sony's PlayStation 2 last fall.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 9:17 AM PST - 21 comments
New Calvin and Hobbes book!
"Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995" will reprint the 35 sunday strips that are being featured at the 2001 Festival Of Cartoon Art at the Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library. While not really a 'new' book, it will include "an essay by Mr. Watterson about his work on the strip, plus his comments on each of the strips in the display."
This is a treat for fans because Mr. Watterson is an extremely private individual, and has given no interviews or produced any new work since Calvin and Hobbes left us, December 31, 1995.
posted by o2b at 9:09 AM PST - 11 comments
Has anyone seen
this hosting company before? They seem very cheap but I have no idea whether they are reliable.
posted by ecvgi at 6:50 AM PST - 17 comments
In defense of flamewars
Bravest thing Ive read all year. Rules against
all flaming favor politicians and passive-aggressives. These people are experts at sticking the knife in subtly. When the victim yells out in pain, the politician/passive-aggressive feigns innocence and claims he/she is the victim and the true victim is the aggressor.... ¶ Rules against all flaming discriminate against those whose communication skills are less developed. A brilliant writer can pillory an opponent without seeming to. A less-skilled victim of such an assault knows that he/she is being attacked, but can’t muster the same subtlety in response.... ¶ The worst thing you can do is to post something like “Please take your flames off list”... People flame on list because they feel that their reputations have been sullied publicly. Telling them to take it off list is just like telling them to shut up and take it’
posted by joeclark at 6:38 AM PST - 23 comments
General Zod's homepage
"You are very wise to visit my web page and pay tribute. You may not be aware of this but the Bush monarchy is no longer in office. They have been replaced with my new order. Read on and you'll discover that I am a peerless master of politics, spearheading a generous and benevolent administration (meaning, of course, that you are allowed to live)."
posted by allaboutgeorge at 2:07 AM PST - 10 comments
August 22
Anxiety disorder,
attention deficit disorder. While I understand that these disorders exist, the skeptic in me tends to believe that the seemingly increasing diagnoses are more a symptom of our culture's need to blame external causes for behavior versus personal responsibility. Is this a post-60s/80s "Me" thing or am I way off base?
posted by owillis at 11:29 PM PST - 41 comments
I enjoy introducing my friends to the web and weblogging and I am quite fond of watching them play with the medium without prior knowledge of the weblog community and it's "rules". It's fascinating to see what they produce when they a
