April 26, 2006

happy fun vacuum time

This game sucks. Courtesy of the experimental gameplay project.
posted by boo_radley at 9:51 PM PST - 20 comments

CSS Love Song

Hands to Boag A love song about web standards with lyrics like, "Tonight I need your CSS, coding in the darkness. From now on no more tables nest; you will meet web standards"...
posted by londontube at 8:51 PM PST - 3 comments

I'm betting Spock; maybe McCoy.

Trekkergate escalates! Canadian blogger J. Kelly Nestruck puts out the call for pics of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, closet trekkie. (I wonder if Harper has has an autographed photo of William Shatner?)
posted by docgonzo at 8:16 PM PST - 29 comments

You want something because someone else does

Mimetic rivalry on a planetary scale. Rene Girard is the author of several books developing the idea that human culture is based on sacrifice as the way out of mimetic, or imitative, violence between rivals. When one rival is successful in obtaining the love object, violence is precipitated, which falls on the head of certain scapegoats, of whom Jesus Christ is the archetype. The violence can be traced in literature.
posted by Tarn at 7:23 PM PST - 19 comments

Short? Commercial? Sellout?

Wes Anderson does a 2-minute commercial for American Express. (YouTube link). As you might expect from Wes Anderson, the results are "quirky" to say the least. Another bigshot director, M. Night Shayamalan, has made one as well. This certainly isn't the first time big companies have hired A-list directors. I wonder who's next?
posted by zardoz at 7:14 PM PST - 68 comments

Da Vinci Code Inspires Judge

“Smithy code” The secret lies in HBHG and DVC. According to news reports the Judge who recently ruled in the Da Vinci Code plagiarism case has included his own code in his high court ruling (PDF). At this time, no one seems to have decoded it all...
posted by tiamat at 6:06 PM PST - 39 comments

BBC Programme Catalogue

The BBC Programme Catalogue: an index of 946,614 radio and television broadcasts, dating back 75 years. (Via BB.)
posted by steef at 4:20 PM PST - 14 comments

Force in the House - super cool lightsaber duel

OK - Lucas has pretty much ruined Star Wars for me. Still, lightsabers are freaking kewl with a capital K, and true to its title, this one is quite probably The Best Home Made Lightsaber Duel Ever. Man, I wish I was a Jedi!
posted by willnot at 3:22 PM PST - 97 comments

High Yield Investment Programs

In the murky world of HYIP (high-yield investment programs), on the wrong side of the Internet tracks, Team Aaron and Shara were very well known. They had tens of thousands of fans, eager to know which programs were still paying 1-2% per day (or more!). Now their fans will have to resort to other sites to see who is still paying. Curiously, these programs only seem to take anonymous, non-disputable forms of e-payment, such as e-gold. Now, all that is left of them is their farewell website. Did they retire on all of the referral fees, as some suspect? It is impressive that such effort is dedicated to this snake oil, but the law of large numbers must make it work. Who can resist 1.5% an hour return on investment? Is this what has become of anonymous micropayments?
posted by Adamchik at 2:38 PM PST - 19 comments

Darfur: 400,000 dead, 2.5 million driven from their homes

Is the Bush administration really serious about NATO and UN protection to stop the Darfur genocide? "Is it only weak and incompetent, or is it two-faced?"

What can U.S. citizens do to help end this genocide? For starters, take to the streets: you can register for an April 30th demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge & at the Presidio, or in Washington, DC. You can also ask your Rep. to sponsor House Resolution 723, a measure that urges the President to help deploy a NATO bridging force to the Darfur region.
posted by n_s_1 at 12:20 PM PST - 57 comments

Ladies, you should know better!

Feminism causes rape. Or, maybe not.
posted by nofundy at 11:04 AM PST - 166 comments

Get Rich Quick?

Stock Spam Effectiveness Monitor Spam comes in, graphs come out. You are not buying stock based on spam, but surely someone must be, or else you wouldn't be flooded with more spam everyday. This tracks one user's inbox and the stocks spammed therein. A bit more analysis here and here
posted by mikepop at 11:02 AM PST - 11 comments

HOWTO: Host an orgy

FINALLY, the HOWTO you've all been waiting for...
posted by spock at 10:54 AM PST - 27 comments

Do it for someone you love.

Flatulence free legumes or, a more to the point headline. Although I thought ABC news might be a bit more scientific in their phrasing. Nope.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:43 AM PST - 28 comments

Check Out My Breasts

Hey Metafilter, check out my breasts! (NSFW)
posted by jonson at 10:04 AM PST - 149 comments

50th birthday of the shipping container

Happy 50th birthday (bugmenot) to "the box that changed the world". (Video interview with the author, here.) On April 26, 1956, Malcolm McLean, a trucker from rural North Carolina, hired a crane to hoist 58 trailer-sized steel cargo boxes onto a refitted oil tanker. This modest experiment would profoundly alter international trade and the global economy, eventually creating the "biggest real-time datastreaming network in the world."
posted by soiled cowboy at 9:47 AM PST - 27 comments

In the olden days, before 1984, not very many people used computers....

Apple Computer 1984 Newsweek Advertising Insert :: a complete scan of Apple's 16-page advertising insert in Newsweek magazine, introducing the new and revolutionary Macintosh computer.
posted by anastasiav at 8:49 AM PST - 55 comments

Wednesday Flash Design Fun

Leo Burnett Ad Agency - A pretty cool site, and, says this rank amateur, the best implementation of Flash I've ever seen (and I hate Flash).
posted by loquax at 8:35 AM PST - 30 comments

A Valedictory Forbidding Antacids

Vittles and verse - two great tastes that taste great together. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the poetry of cookery. As an appetizer, Chris Tusa serves up a tasty bowl of gumbo; next comes the entree, Mark Strand's comforting pot roast. Meanwhile, Shanna Compton imagines herself as the food itself -- eager ingredients in the skilled hands of Jacques Pepin. If you'd prefer to dine out, Charles Simic presents the menu of Cafe Paradiso, while Don Winter, a former night manager at a Niles, Michigan Burger Chef, proffers a more downmarket culinary experience. Bon appetit! (Poemhunter.com previously on MeFi here. )
posted by GrammarMoses at 8:33 AM PST - 4 comments

It's still the 60's here!

From colorful Eugene, Oregon, comes the new independent film HIPPIES about a group of folks who have not given up their values or their vices, and set about saving the earth. Trailer here. (Note release date.)

Of course, the Oregon Country Fair is still going strong and weird
(minor muddy boobage in last link)
posted by Danf at 8:09 AM PST - 26 comments

Better just shoplift it, then

The new DMCA: the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.
posted by beth at 8:07 AM PST - 36 comments

iKarma

I can't work out if iKarma is a well-intentioned stab at applying the power of social software to the world of business, or simply a well-intentioned scrape at the bottom of the Web 2.0 barrel.
posted by Jofus at 5:41 AM PST - 32 comments

The Difference Engine

Charles Babbage's Difference Engines. One built in 1853. A subsequent design completed in 1991. And again in Lego. Both designs recreated in Meccano parts. [more inside]
posted by slimepuppy at 3:15 AM PST - 11 comments

How far do the protections of the First Amendment extend in public school?

The Ninth Circuit (maligned by many as a hotbed of extreme liberal judicial activism, but defended by others PDF) issued its opinion in the case of Harper v. Poway Unified School District last week. Judge Stephen Reinhardt - who, to some people, embodies the alleged evils of the Ninth Circuit - issued the majority opinion, and Judge Alex Kozinski filed a strong dissent. The majority opinion held that a high school principal who ordered a student to remove his T-shirt that said "Homosexuality is Shameful" did not violate the student's First Amendment rights, reasoning that "limitations on speech" are permissible in cases where speech is "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race religion and sexual orientation," and the limitation is "narrow, and applied with sensitivity and for reasons that are consistent with the fundamental First Amendment mandate." [more inside]
posted by Pontius Pilate at 1:36 AM PST - 152 comments

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