NSFW "Here at Fantasy Feeder we either want to be fat or we want to fatten. We're feeders and feedees obsessed with over endulging our huge bellies and fat bottoms, and we're here to share stories, play online games and encourage each other to gain weight."
posted by holloway at 11:26 PM PST - 112 comments

While groups like the Serious Games Initiative are working on making games effective teaching tools, and Social Impact Games are categorizing hundreds of socially useful games, there are some simulations and "serious games" available now which can also be a lot of fun (at least for a little while). Online, you can try your hand at the basics of sailing, setting wildfires, learning photography, or experience a heavy-handed simulation of the war on terror. Less seriously, there is the stapler simulator and the zombie attack simulator. For a bit more involved experience, download a college administration simulator, the UN's Food Force, and, soon, a simulation on the Rwandan genocide. Is learning this way actually useful, or do we have further to go, first? [Flash, Shockwave, and Java used in some links. Some prev. here and here]
posted by blahblahblah at 11:04 PM PST - 11 comments

Colored Soap Bubbles
Look, pretty! via
posted by fenriq at 10:31 PM PST - 24 comments

Mainstream former federal judge speaks out
Former CNN talking head and Texas federal judge Catherin Crier speaks out in defense of the courts, and mainstream america... if Ms. Crier is now the left - how far to the right have we drifted?
posted by specialk420 at 10:13 PM PST - 17 comments

Where are they now? Stories and pictures from the Sunset Strip in the 60s. [some NSFW]
posted by tellurian at 8:58 PM PST - 9 comments

Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago "Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed." Woodward's statement. [PDF] The unnamed official isn't Libby or Rove. [via]
posted by kirkaracha at 8:52 PM PST - 103 comments

Celebrity Maps is a google maps/stargazing mashup that makes stalking your favorite star so much easier. And it doesn't even cost you $5 on Sunset.
posted by mathowie at 8:32 PM PST - 35 comments

NOISE is a global youth arts initiative (under 25s) that develops and profiles artists and their work across television, radio, in print and online. Requires Flash. [MI]
posted by sjvilla79 at 7:58 PM PST - 3 comments

Save King's Quest IX. Ever since personal computers became powerful enough to run graphics-intensive action games, adventure games like the ones once produced by Sierra On-Line (King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and countless other titles) and LucasArts (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Sam & Max Hit The Road) have been in decline--most of the series have been abandoned, King's Quest was awkwardly morphed into an unsuccessful first-person fighting game, and Sam & Max 2 was famously cancelled (and, less famously, uncancelled). In the last couple of years, the genre's gotten a shot in the arm from an active emulation community, the ready availability of "abandonware," but mostly from unauthorized sequels and remakes created by fans and distributed for free. The flagship of these new games was to have been King's Quest IX, a three-part finale to the series that wrapped up all outstanding loose ends and properly said goodbye to the characters. The project team included forty people, some of whom worked on the game for more than four years. And, at the end of October, Vivendi Universal (which bought, then disbanded Sierra On-Line) pulled the plug.
posted by Epenthesis at 7:27 PM PST - 40 comments

Untitled States is Lore Sjöberg's latest creation. You may remember Lore from such hits as The Brunching Shuttlecocks and Name Decoder. His new instance of Sensation Heightening Interactive Technology is yet another effort by Lore to capture the interest of today's hip young Webloggy crowd.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:51 PM PST - 87 comments

Some are stark. Some are funny. Some are blunt. All are beautiful; all are raising money for the Red Cross's relief efforts in New Orleans; all are part of the Hurricane Poster Project, "a collaborative effort of the design community."
posted by docgonzo at 4:37 PM PST - 13 comments

Gorillaz perform "Feel Good Inc" live at the MTV Europe Music Awards, using smoke and mirrors to neat effect. I wish the the band members weren't all smacked out in suitable rock fashion, though.
posted by elphTeq at 4:27 PM PST - 64 comments

The Radiant Vista is a new photography site on the web that offers photoshop tutorials (in Quicktime and PDF) and daily photo critiques (Quicktime). Not much here for non-photographers, but I know a number of members have some interest in taking pictures and might find something good here.
posted by TedW at 3:36 PM PST - 14 comments

The US Fed wants the Yellowstone Grizzly Bears taken off the list of threatened species. (No, not those Grizzlies, heh.) Through very serious recovery efforts the Grizzly bear population in the area around Yellowstone National Park is being considered "recovered", such that they can be removed from the protection of the endangered species act. Some fear that this move doesn't address the issue of where the bears actually live, though it needs to be pointed out that hunting and killing bears in the Park is prohibited. Some are celebrating this as a great move by the DoI. Some of America's friends overseas don't appear to be any too happy about this. The proposal only covers those bears in and around Yellowstone, but the Grizzly recovery in other areas remains slowed by illegal killing, and stupidity. Can we call this a success for the Endangered Species Act? Or is the ESA itself endangered? Of course, this post wouldn't be complete without the headcase who blames environmentalists for keeping him from baiting the bears.
posted by Wulfgar! at 3:07 PM PST - 27 comments

Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price, the latest film by Robert Greenwald, director/producer of last year's Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (mentioned here and here), is being screened across the country this week in a private activist-driven model used by Outfoxed. The campaign is driven by Wake Up Wal-Mart, a UFCW-driven campaign to change the retail giant's reputation and unionize its employees. The film's trailer has gotten a reaction from Wal-Mart's PR division. Is the political documentary a new form of journalism, or a form of disinformation?
posted by graymouser at 2:16 PM PST - 71 comments

Bush in the bunker. [this link takes you directly to the article, but will call up the print dialog] In a story seemingly out of Capital Hill Blue, sources say that "Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions."
posted by caddis at 12:50 PM PST - 199 comments

Who is 10641?
via via
posted by airguitar at 12:16 PM PST - 77 comments

Via AmericaBlog: Target responds to recent coverage of their policies on dispensing emergency contraception with a fluffy PR email that invokes, of all things, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (No news yet on whether Jewish cashiers can refuse to sell pork or vegan cashiers can refuse to ring up all meat...) Unfortunately, Target isn't the only company doing this. But their popularity has made them a ripe target (!) for criticism. Whose civil rights are more important? Pharmacists' or customers'?
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:16 AM PST - 109 comments

Pitchfork's Worst Album Covers of All Time. (Previous discussions of worst and best album covers)
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 8:58 AM PST - 107 comments

Did You Pet Your Phone Today? An examination of the effects of ubiquitous communication.
posted by yerfatma at 8:46 AM PST - 20 comments

Dinner with Chalabi
posted by delmoi at 8:39 AM PST - 46 comments

The Ames Fan Club documents the life of each of the deceased department stores following the dissolution of their corporate souls. From Gallipolis to West Hartford, the shells of Ames have been photographed and critiqued. Some have lain dormant, logos still peeking out from between overturned racks and offline registers. Some have found new lives, though while the buildings remain, the smell of "bargains by the bagful" will never return. If only we could all age as gracefully as the Agawam Ames.
posted by setanor at 8:25 AM PST - 26 comments

Games games games! Board games have under gone a renaissance, spurred by games like Settlers of Catan. Because users are rewarded for contributing content, the site has some real depth. In addition to exhaustive lists of games, sorted by rank (with Bayesian averages and standard deviation), there are a gajillion reviews and player aids. You can even search for games based on criteria such as weight, game mechanism, ranking, or even game mechanics. The site is a great example of organically-generated user data.
posted by craniac at 7:46 AM PST - 36 comments

The Beer Hunter I was jealous when New York got subway stations marked on Google Maps, but this more than makes up for it.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 7:42 AM PST - 40 comments

The Other Iraq: "The Government and the peoples of Kurdistan invite you to discover their peaceful region, a place that has practiced democracy for over a decade, a place where the universities, markets, cafes and fair grounds buzz with progress and prosperity and where the people are already sowing the seeds of a brighter future." via Sterling
posted by signal at 7:16 AM PST - 34 comments

"I had been planning to set up a socialist band, which I hope will play a leading role in the world socialist revolution because it is possible to influence people greatly through music and I have acquired sufficiently strong singing abilities through karaoke to convince myself that I would be capable of singing in a band." [music here]
posted by dodgygeezer at 6:39 AM PST - 80 comments

iPud For those of you wondering why Apple fans don't just have sex with their iPods, now they can!
posted by fungible at 6:12 AM PST - 21 comments