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Another "Google heading for an IPO" report - but this time it's for real, according to the Financial Times. Apparently the shares will be sold through an electronic auction "designed to prevent a recurrence of the sort of financial scandals that have engulfed Wall Street since the collapse of the dotcom bubble". Not that Google was ever going to be Enron.
posted by zimbobzim at 11:10 PM PST - 24 comments

Concorde ends today. So what will it take to go commercially supersonic again?
posted by casarkos at 11:00 PM PST - 32 comments

Videohelper.com sells music and sound effects to film/video producers. Here's their FAQ. It's the most fun FAQ I've ever read when I wasn't even trying to have fun. Though they are a serious business, their entire site is in this style. I want to work there!
posted by grumblebee at 10:02 PM PST - 10 comments

locus novus ... a synthesis of text and image/motion/sound.
posted by crunchland at 9:02 PM PST - 1 comments

Can Islam and Electronica co-exist? Listen to a wonderful track named "Semitones In Darkness" by Subtonal and Fresh Moods from BBC Radio 1's Blue Room this week (Min. 5). You'll hear what Muslims normally say when they are praying: "al-Fatiha" (The Opening), the first chapter of Quran.
posted by hoder at 7:31 PM PST - 12 comments

Press underreports casualties I had never heard of "Editor & Publisher" before, but I came across this link, and thought the news was rather shocking.

So while 106 troops were killed since the "end of hostilities," 1927 have been wounded since the war began, 200 have been killed from all causes, and over 4,000 troops have been medically evacuated from Iraq.

The article says the stats are easily obtained from the Pentagon web site - though all I could find was press releases which just mention casualties one by one. Can anyone out there find a comprehensive listing on the Pentagon's page?

The article suggests that the media are at least in part to blame here (along with the administration's general reluctance to focus on bad news). Why wouldn't newspapers want to cover injuries to the troops? I, for one, would like to see this covered. What do you all think?
posted by jasper411 at 4:50 PM PST - 41 comments

Iraqi official says limited German, French help won't be forgotten "As far as Germany and France are concerned, really, this was a regrettable position they had," Allawi said. "I don't think the Iraqis are going to forget easily that in the hour of need, those countries wanted to neglect Iraq." And the money owed France? Pehaps no Perier or VW outlets in Iraq.
posted by Postroad at 3:23 PM PST - 19 comments

If you were a lab worm [with some modifications], you could live five times longer than a human. This news will likely be celebrated by folks like these and their ilk, while bioethicists and others cringe. Regardless of right or wrong, the ideas of life extension/biological immoratality pose some mighty difficult questions.
posted by moonbird at 2:05 PM PST - 49 comments

The Real Mother Goose, complete with pictures. Revisit your childhood and see how many Mother Goose rhymes you remember, then go through the list to find ones that you don't know. And in the what-were-they-thinking category, check out mothergooserocks.com for wacky tunes (click the music section and play the 3 Little Pigs - go on, I dare you) sung to top 40 tunes.
posted by ashbury at 12:43 PM PST - 9 comments

Poker Redux: Poker is sweeping America (and other countries as well). From million dollar online Texas Hold 'Em tournaments to the weekend nickel, dime, quarter games with friends to the World Poker Tour (heavily promoted on the Travel Channel), poker is forcing itself into the spotlight. [more inside]
posted by hawkman at 12:34 PM PST - 20 comments

A List of Arcane Occupations If I had lived two hundred years ago, I might have been a PUREFINDER - someone who "went about the streets gathering dog droppings which were used for tanning leather."
posted by mert at 12:01 PM PST - 20 comments

Craig and Yvonne are in the process of renovating their 1891 Victorian House. Progress can be followed on their site. Be sure to check out the before and after pics, which are pretty impressive.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:12 AM PST - 34 comments

Grand Illusions: Optical illusions, scientific toys, visual effects, brain teasers, and (perhaps) just a little bit of magic!
posted by anastasiav at 11:11 AM PST - 15 comments

Vampire babies.
posted by cinderful at 10:53 AM PST - 26 comments

The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps (PDF) is a new report by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea on North Korea's prison system for political prisoners. Using testimony and satellite photography, the report documents the kwan-li-so (political penal-labor colonies) and kyo-hwa-so (long-term prison-labor camps,) in which hundreds of thousands of political prisoners work as slave laborers, and are subjected to starvation diets and torture. Also documented are the jip-kyul-so repatriation centers along the Chinese border, where forced abortion and infanticide are common. Unsurprisingly, many North Korean defectors are haunted by guilt over loved ones left behind.
posted by homunculus at 10:26 AM PST - 9 comments

Have you ever wondered how pencils are made ?
posted by limitedpie at 9:53 AM PST - 23 comments

Dying for your country no longer warrants a picture in the paper. Ban on pictures of the coffins of soliders killed in Iraq.
posted by spazzm at 8:58 AM PST - 12 comments

How the Poll Results on Iraq Were Manipulated by James Zogby, Special to Arab News - ...In fact, Zogby International in Iraq had conducted the poll, and the American Enterprise Institute did publish their interpretation of the findings. But the AEI’s "spin" and the vice president’s use of their "spin" created a faulty impression of the poll’s results and, therefore, of the attitudes of the Iraqi people. Consider some of the other poll findings: Over 55 percent give a negative rating to "how the US military is dealing with Iraqi civilians." Only 20 percent gave the US military a positive rating... When asked whom they preferred to "provide security and restore order in their country," only 6.5 percent said the US...
posted by y2karl at 8:25 AM PST - 16 comments

Breaking the ice. "If we can help Palestinians and Israelis understand that even the greatest obstacles can be surmounted through cooperation and understanding, then perhaps we'll be able to positively influence the atmosphere for reconciliation in our part of the world. We want people to see that even enemies can find a way to do great things if they decide to take on the challenge together."
posted by johnnyboy at 8:12 AM PST - 5 comments

The World Scrabble Championship is taking place this week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 98 players from 38 countries are competing in the seventh biennial WSC. The format: everyone plays 24 games over three days, then the top two finishers play a best-of-five match for the championship. Past winners include three Americans, two Canadians and an Englishman, but this year's final pits two Thai players: Pakorn Nemitrmansuk vs Panupol Sujjaykorn.
posted by Daze at 8:02 AM PST - 15 comments

Starting today, every word (33 million) in ALL the books (270,000) sold at Amazon.com can now be searched word for word. File this under technologies used to implement more sales and better service to the end user aka marketing at work for you.
posted by omidius at 6:24 AM PST - 96 comments

Goddess Juice takes you on a ride like no other. Its purpose is to arouse your Kundalini, but be warned; an aroused Kundalini may not always be a good thing.
posted by debralee at 5:42 AM PST - 29 comments

Senate approves S.887 Can-Spam Bill. Spammers unhappy.FTC to report to Congress with a plan for creating a Do-Not-E-mail registry.
posted by elpapacito at 4:05 AM PST - 23 comments