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The Land That No One Owns is a series of photographs taken in Anarctica by photographer Roberta Holden. [via Projekt30]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:56 PM PST - 26 comments

"We were tickling the dragon's tail all the way." The true story of the nuclear ramjet missile and the hypersonic nightmare that nearly was.
posted by Spike at 8:18 PM PST - 48 comments

Anyone remember the short-lived FPS game JFK:Reloaded? It caused quite a stir when it was released a little over two years ago. Since then, the game's development company discontinued the game and JFK:Reloaded is now considered abandonware. The full version can be downloaded here and a site dedicated to the game is located here.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:27 PM PST - 26 comments

Stupid Management Tricks at Circuit City. Is your retail electronics company losing money? Want to cut costs? Then how about firing some of your people? I know! How about singling out those store workers who are making too much -- 3,400 of them, and get them to reapply for the same job at a lower wage?
posted by storybored at 6:57 PM PST - 67 comments

Peter Falk is a multi-talented actor and very likeable guy. He's appeared in many famous films, but around the world he's mostly recognized as TV's Lieutenant Columbo. The guest stars on Columbo were often surprising, and his unconventional but brilliant crimesolving style was so addicting to watch that even his wife got into the action at one point. Columbo is still beloved in many languages and countries, and to this day there are still people hiring themselves out as Columbo lookalikes around the world (although some are clearly better than others). But despite an approved final script & an agreeable Peter Falk, no studio will ever greenlight another Columbo movie. Why? Nobody wants to finance a movie with an 80 year-old lead. Apparently they think there's no way the character can still work, that Peter Falk is too old and he can't possibly have the edge or energy to pull off Columbo now. Obviously, they're sadly wrong.
posted by miss lynnster at 3:57 PM PST - 72 comments

The significance of the dinosaurs' death has been greatly exaggerated. This article in Nature discusses how mammalian evolution accelerated independent from the death of dinosaurs. The theory was derived from a "supertree" [pdf ~ 1mb] of mammals and how common ancestors have branched out. Coolest info-graphic ever.
posted by phyrewerx at 3:27 PM PST - 33 comments

An ancient theatre filters out low-frequency background noise. The ancient Greek theatre of the Asklepieion of Epidaurus, built mostly during the 4th century B.C. and now a World Heritage Site, is renowned for its extraordinary acoustics. Researchers have figured out that the arrangement of the stepped rows of seats are perfectly shaped to act as an acoustic filter, suppressing low-frequency background noise while passing on the high frequencies of performers' voices. [Via MoFi.]
posted by homunculus at 3:24 PM PST - 16 comments

"I do not recall" --meet Lurita Doan, Administrator of the GSA (Our mission is to help other agencies better serve the public by meeting – at best value – their needs for products and services, and to simplify citizen access to government information and services.), and hear about the powerpoint presentation from Rove's office all about electing Republicans in 08 and how her agency should help. Her office supplied it to Congress--but it was just a (GOP) "team-building exercise" and "brown-bag lunch". (YouTube) Read up on the Hatch Act too.
posted by amberglow at 3:23 PM PST - 54 comments

Single largest taxpayer in... This comment highlighted that: The club is the largest single taxpayer in Hong Kong. It paid HK$12.4bn in 2005-06 - about 8.6% of all taxes collected by the government - on turnover of HK$98.9bn. In Virginia and lots of other places its a power company. In the Chinese province of Yiwu its a market specializing in counterfeit goods. Citigroup in South Dakota. Pemex in Mexico. A cell phone company in Afghanistan. A gold mining company in Indonesia... and Guatemala. MIT in Cambridge. And the US? Some say its the government itself. This 1999 posting inconclusively points the smoking gun at... ... and in your piece of the world?
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 3:23 PM PST - 7 comments

Klaatu barada...Jikto? First there was Nikto. Then along came Wikto. Last Saturday at Shmoocon Billy Hoffman introduced the world to Jitko, a client-side vulnerability scanner that exploits your browser & turns your PC into a platform for finding holes in computers across the Internet (or behind your firewall). Reactions were mixed. Does Jikto go too far?
posted by scalefree at 1:40 PM PST - 11 comments

The Digital Freedom Campaign believes that new technologies are essential to the creativity and innovation, and that digital technology enables anyone and everyone to be an artist and an innovator. The DFC is dedicated to defending the rights of artists, innovators, creators and consumers to use lawful technology free of unreasonable government restrictions and without fear of costly lawsuits.
posted by terrapin at 10:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Are you a gamer-widow? Here is your lonely corner of the internet, with forums and resources to help you find help. Inspired by AskMe.
posted by hermitosis at 10:05 AM PST - 89 comments

The dark side of Phobos, soundtrack tunes of the seminal first person shooter Doom from 1993 as an album remade by fans. The project originated at Overclocked Remix, a site dedicated to album endeavors of this sort. Of course there are others doing this as well, the freeware Jump'n'Run Doukotsu Monogatari (Cave Story) for example got this treatment. Not as albums, but SID tunes have been remixed a lot (e.g. here, here) and by Machinae Supremacy. Would you like a radio station with this music to tune into? You've got it.
posted by Glow Bucket at 9:56 AM PST - 16 comments

The excellent Chinablog EastSouthWestNorth has a series of photos entitled "Humanizing China." The photos are grouped in three categories: Survival, Relationships & Desires and all three sections are highly worth checking out. Via.
posted by jonson at 9:34 AM PST - 18 comments

How to control your look of openness by Microsoft. An inside look at how Microsoft spun wired's article covering Microsoft's video site Channel 9. It's an interesting peek at how PR works.
posted by srboisvert at 7:40 AM PST - 38 comments

My favorite entree is the salmon sandwich on foccacia bread. Water is served with a slice of cucumber which is very refreshing. Which profession dines out the most? Whose judgements can be counted on for honesty and straightforwardness? The truckers'.
posted by ardgedee at 7:01 AM PST - 60 comments

The Virtual Absinthe Museum What is there in absinthe that makes it a separate cult? ... Even in ruin and in degradation it remains a thing apart - Aleister Crowley. The Virtual Absinthe Museum has the whole fabled history plus literature, art and antiques. The accoutrements: spoons, glasses, brouilleurs and zoomorphic pichets. Classic art-nouveau posters, postcards showing Les Perils of France, French poetry, English fiction, and American pulp magazines.
posted by bobobox at 5:08 AM PST - 40 comments

Before RSS and personalized aggregators such as Personalized Google and NetVibes, there was CRAYON, a service that allowed you to "CReAte Your Own Newspaper" by providing a page with links to chosen sources. [mi]
posted by divabat at 3:28 AM PST - 11 comments

Twittervision is a browser app using Google Maps to show Twitter comments as they happen in (more or less) real time.
posted by zardoz at 12:06 AM PST - 54 comments