MetaFilter posts by dhoyt.
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The Goddess Bunny (Quicktime req) • IMDB user review • The documentary
posted on Aug-15-05 at 6:34 AM
Exploitation in the United Arab Emirates: A total of 36 Bangladeshi children employed as 'camel jockeys' in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have returned home yesterday ending their prolonged sufferings in the oil-rich nation. "The job is very tiresome. We had to work from morning till night, tending the camels, training them, cleaning their faeces and mounting the camels in the racing games." In 2003, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights reported on the issue. Pictures via AntiSlavery.org.
posted on Aug-12-05 at 6:30 AM
Happy Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) Day • "PRD was created by the sex-positive group of redheaded friends, the Drunken Redheaded Sluts, as a hilarious way to denounce the 'bum rap' that self-gratification got Paul Reubens, while honoring the man’s erotic curiosity and zany character." The celebration will start with a pub crawl, followed by a Pornographic After-Party to benefit the The Center for Sex and Culture, and climax with a Midnight Mass with Peaches Christ (NSFW).
posted on Jul-23-05 at 2:39 PM
"At this moment, I am proud to be a citizen of a country that has done more than most to help the US get rid of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. And I think that it would do other Europeans some good to think again about what their countries have achieved, if anything, to try to stem the tide of dictatorships and terrorism around the world. They should wonder whether they are really asking themselves the hard questions. Or whether they are shrugging their shoulders and blaming America because that is what they have been brought up to do." A thoughtful & conflicted post from the anti-war Englishman in New York reflecting on the London bombings.
posted on Jul-16-05 at 4:31 PM
Loch Ness Tooth • "In March (2005) my roommate and I went to the U.K and spent our last two days at Loch Ness. The boat rental season hadn’t started so we hired a local who took us on a private boat tour. After a few hours we came across the remains of a dead deer. The animal had literally been ripped in half - hind quarters gone, its spine was broken and severed. There were huge bloody gashes, teeth marks and a bizarre bony protrusion sticking out of an exposed rib. It was a tooth - about 4 inches long, barbed and very sharp!"
posted on Jul-14-05 at 11:33 AM
NextGen Macromedia Flash Tool "Zorn" to Run on Eclipse • "Macromedia's announcement that their next generation enterprise Flash development tool, code-named Zorn, will be built on top of Eclipse, is a watershed moment both for Macromedia and for the open source movement. Macromedia's choice of Eclipse speaks volumes about the impact of open source on commercial software development -- and about Macromedia's commitment to making Flash into an essential platform for next-generation internet applications." </glavin>
posted on Jun-16-05 at 2:15 PM
The International Criminal Court will soon formally investigate war crimes in Darfur, Sudan. In two years the ethnic Arab militia janjaweed—many who received military training from Gaddafi hoping to set up an "Islamic Legion" of mercenaries—have slaughtered up to 180,000 non-Arabs and raped untold thousands. Nicholas Kristof's piece in the NYT reports on the rape crisis, and features a Flash piece with interviews. Zogby/ICG studies show 80% of Americans support a tougher international response to the situation in Darfur, yet it also revealed a strange datapoint: "African-Americans are among the U.S. sub-groups least aware of the situation in Darfur and least likely to feel that the international community has a responsibility to intervene." A few weeks ago, writer Jeremy Levitt (Chicago Sun-Times) addressed this.
posted on Jun-5-05 at 11:12 AM
Rocker Jeff Baxter Moves and Shakes in National Security • "Jeff Baxter played psychedelic music with Ultimate Spinach, jazz-rock with Steely Dan and funky pop with the Doobie Brothers. But in the last few years he has made an even bigger transition: Mr. Baxter, who goes by the nickname "Skunk," has become one of the national-security world's well-known counterterrorism experts."
posted on May-25-05 at 7:31 AM
Who is the real Bob Saget? • "In comedy circles, there’s a famous Saget story about the night his first daughter was born. After a very difficult birth, during which Sherri Saget and her baby almost died, a friend showed up to find Mr. Saget looking utterly destroyed, unshaven, unrecognizable, but holding his newborn. Oh my God, Bob, she’s beautiful, the friend said. For a dollar, you can finger her, Mr. Saget replied." Saget guests in the upcoming Aristocrats documentary discussed here.
posted on May-6-05 at 12:03 PM
Looking hate in the face • Washington Blade blogger Chris Crain describes a vicious beating he suffered while touring the Netherlands, "arguably the 'gay-friendliest' place on the planet. "By almost any measure, the equality movement in the Netherlands was won years ago. There are laws protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation, there are hate crime laws, and Holland is one of only a handful of countries where gay couples can legally marry."
posted on May-5-05 at 11:28 AM
"I Punched Saddam in the Mouth" • A man known only as "Samir" worked as an Arabic interpreter for United States Special Forces in late 2003 when Saddam Hussein was captured in Tikrit: "I was so angry. I began cussing at him, calling him a motherfucker, a son-of-a-bitch -- you name it. I told him I was Shiite from the south and was part of the revolution against him in 1991. I said he murdered my uncles and cousins. He imprisoned my father. In Arabic, Saddam told Samir to shut up. And when Saddam called him a traitor, an enraged Samir silenced his prisoner with a flurry of quick jabs to the face. I punched Saddam in the mouth."
posted on Apr-30-05 at 4:18 PM
Food-Force • An educational video game from the U.N.'s World Food Programme. Screenshots & overview: "An aircraft circles over a crisis zone. War. Drought. People are hungry. This is the virtual world of the Food Force video game. It represents our real world, where 852 million people lack enough food to eat and World Food Programme teams deliver food aid every day using not only airplanes but a fleet of ships and thousands of trucks." Available for both Mac & PC.
posted on Apr-24-05 at 4:52 PM
FemDefence: A Protection Against Rape • "Femdefence is an on-going project first presented in 2003. The project includes the creation of an imaginary product, which bears the project’s name. The 'product' is a kind of protection against rape, somewhat similar to a tampon in that its user carries it inserted in her vagina. In it there is a sharp pin which has a penetrating effect on the perpetrator’s penis in the event of a rape."
posted on Apr-19-05 at 10:52 AM
Earlier this month, the Young Republicans of UConn invited WWE wrestler The Ultimate Warrior to speak at their school, but things got a little out of hand: (via ComicCon) "People started yelling at Warrior as he spoke. Warrior at one point started yelling and stomping his feet, telling everyone to not talk while he is and to ask questions after his speech. Officers were eventually called in to calm things down. The group that brought Warrior in, the College Republicans, apologized heavily for bringing Warrior in after the speech ended. Statements that really got the crowd upset were when Warrior said queering don't make the world work and told an Iranian girl to get a towel." A week later, The Ultimate Warrior has strong, often-hilarious words for hecklers and Young Republicans alike. Not content with threatening college students, Ultimate Warrior also threatened libel against SomethingAwful last week.
posted on Apr-15-05 at 12:46 PM
Strange Findings, circa 1985: "Please welcome our very charming guest host—Mr. Corey Feldman!" (Quicktime req.)(NSFA: Not Safe for Anyone)
posted on Apr-7-05 at 1:03 PM
Sasha-Frere Jones writes a New Yorker column on Slint, who reunited this year for a tour: "During the nineteen-nineties, [Slint's album] 'Spiderland' sold steadily, a rare feat for an obscure, independent band that no longer existed and had performed live fewer than thirty times. In 1991, [producer] Steve Albini reviewed 'Spiderland' for Melody Maker, a popular British weekly, calling it 'flawless' and awarding it ten fucking stars." Mp3s from the recent tour can be found at MySpace & transmission3000.
posted on Apr-5-05 at 1:45 PM
WebWaste.net • "WebWaste is an Internet rubbish dump; a collective yet anonymous dustbin, open to all Internet users. By going onto WebWaste you can browse through the rubbish and inspect what Internet users before you have thrown away. This might include images, texts, sounds and movie clips. WebWaste collects trash from your own computer's Recycle Bin and uploads it to the waste dump through the downloadable Dustman-application. This process too is anonymous so no one can know who threw what away."
posted on Mar-30-05 at 6:11 AM
Oh Say Can You Seethe • The Board of Education in Brick, NJ "may toughen its policy on use of wireless telephones in schools, after a videotape showing a Brick Township High School teacher screaming at his students to show respect for the national anthem — and then pulling the chair from underneath one student who refused to stand — was posted on several independent Web sites (.wmv)." Some have come to the teacher's defense, and three students connected to the incident have been arrested for separate charges of prior vandalism--which they also taped.
posted on Mar-9-05 at 9:35 AM
Flying Cars and Roadable Aircraft • "Because flying cars and roadable aircraft seem to be more of a dream than a reality, many people believe that these things do not exist. The truth is that almost from the moment the Wright Brothers learned to fly, there has been a history of attempts to build such vehicles. Some of them have had a fair degree of success." The paracycle is dorky, but the winged MafiaMobile ain't half bad.
posted on Feb-16-05 at 10:36 PM
JoeMyGod implores his queer peers: What's the Gayest Thing You've Ever Done? • ''That is SO gay! I've been thinking about that expression a lot lately. What does it mean? Is it a playground epithet that is simply in vogue with the grown-ups? Or is it a sign that gay culture is so integrated into the pop culture that even the hets now see the evidence of homo-style in their everyday lives, and make jokes about it?" A followup to the original post, Part II: Flaming Son of "Gay, Gayer, Gayest"
posted on Feb-4-05 at 11:18 PM
Iraqi-Americans Vote in Washington • Jeff Simmermon photographs & transcribes his experience with Iraqi-Americans at the polls in Washington DC on Sunday. "You may think that you have felt dumb before, but let me tell you something: until you have stood in front of a man who knows real pain and told him that you are against your country's alleviation of his country's state-sponsored murderous suffering, you have not felt truly, deeply, like a total fucking moron.... I took refuge in a knee-jerk liberal identity for a long time, but now it's threadbare and not as comfortable as it once was." Lt. Smash responds.
posted on Feb-2-05 at 12:48 PM
Architecture of Density, by Michael Wolf • Dizzying photos of Hong Kong high-rise buildings. Think of bamboo stalks, Lego pieces, spinal columns, circuit boards...
posted on Jan-22-05 at 9:54 AM
Protest Warriors Clash • Gil Kobrin of the Protest Warriors went down "under a hail of black boots" belonging to anti-Bush peace activists. "It wasn't much of a contest. ProtestWarrior's contingent numbered 13, the other side in the hundreds. If they won any hearts and minds, no one said so." Meanwhile, DC activist group Anarchist Resistance issued their call to action: "There's nothing left to salvage in this empire that is the U.S. government. It's time to bring it down." AR is listed as a resouce by the Internet Liberation Front who Kos reported "hacked and defaced six Republican websites" yesterday. Some commentary on civil disobedience by Thoreau & ActUp.
posted on Jan-20-05 at 7:12 PM
Get rid of all those Gmail invites "Welcome to isnoop.net's gmail invite spooler. This page offers a place for people with Gmail invites and those who want them to come together with minimal effort and fuss."
posted on Jan-19-05 at 10:39 AM
Live Ween • Tabulature • Videos
posted on Jan-13-05 at 8:13 PM
Hiroshi Yamaguchi to Steve Ballmer: Suck My Tiny Yellow Balls • Now that he's retired and, er, mellowed, the former Nintendo CEO has a lot to say about Japanese business culture, Western business culture, and the gaming industry.
posted on Jan-6-05 at 9:05 AM
Custom Creature Taxidermy Arts • "The artist does not view a dead animal as disgusting or repugnant; she feels that all creatures exhibit their beauty in death as well as in life." My favorites are the Mutant Pickled Piglet, The Cackalope, Boar Heart Under Glass, and the Muskrat Feet Earrings.
posted on Jan-5-05 at 7:49 AM
Smoosh! • "Two Seattle sisters, Chloe (age 9) on drums and vocals and Asya (age 11) on keys and vocals, write and play pensive, pulsing indie pop rock." Audio interviews & live songs available from KEXP radio. Certainly more endearing than these little tykes.
posted on Dec-24-04 at 3:40 PM
FIDDLE • GoldenFiddle.com sends up Gawker.com, tailing celebrities in Atlanta: "Saw David Cross over thanksgiving at the Magnapop show in east Atlanta. He seemed really pissed off about something. Christianity maybe?"
posted on Dec-2-04 at 9:44 AM
Ceci Nes't Pas Une Satanic Message • "Years ago someone told me that if you played Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven song backwards that you could make out 'satanic messages'. It is not my opinion that Led Zeppelin and the other artists here were given some kind of evil power to make these backwards sounds have a satanic message. And, no, I did not create this to show the evils of Rock and Roll. Instead I made this flash piece for two reasons: 1. I was new to Flash and wanted to be better at it and 2. The reverse files sound cool. "
posted on Oct-8-04 at 9:40 AM
How long til you buy the farm? • "The Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator© was designed to translate what we have learned from studies of centenarians and other longevity research into a practical and empowering tool for individuals to estimate their longevity potential." Wasn't this on a Futurama episode?
posted on Sep-8-04 at 8:30 PM
Fired from Friendster.com • Scott Sassa, CEO of Friendster, has canned a programmer named TroutGirl for blogging about her job in what appears to be a generally positive and non-specific manner. Some are suggesting we cancel our accounts in protest.
posted on Aug-31-04 at 11:25 AM
Passed Out Wookies • Photographs of comatose hippies who may have smoked too much granola. Carolyn Cole it ain't, although this one might be worth framing.
posted on Aug-19-04 at 1:51 PM
Last month, people voiced their disappointment with AllMusic's for-the-worse facelift, and a week later someone at holovaty.com wrote a Mozilla Firefox extension that "routs around the damage" and allows for cleaner browsing. Some are pondering the legal consequences.
posted on Aug-3-04 at 5:41 PM
MP3 Blog Roundup • A far-flung variety of free mp3 singles posted almost daily. Without Sense's roundup I would have never stumbled across the excellent Enchanted Sounds of the Islanders. Equally worth bookmarking: Fat Planet, NewFlux, Pop77, ScissorKick, TangMonkey, TtIKtDA, Tofu Hut, Cocaine Blunts & Hip-Hop Tapes, Music for Robots, Soul Sides, MoistWorks, A Million LoveSongs, Copy Right?, The Big Ticket, TalkieWalkie, Bubblegum Machine, Fingertips, #1 Songs in Heaven, Mythical Beast, Fruits of Chaos, Moebius Rex...
posted on Jul-10-04 at 6:11 PM
Korean Psych And Acid Folk • An introduction to the late-60s/early-70s experimental music of Korea. Bonus: be among the few Westerners to hear these ultra-rare tracks by the Pearl Sisters with songwriting contributions from a man known as the "godfather of Korean rock and roll", Shin Joong-Hyun, who is credited with influencing Korea's heavier rock scene of the last two decades.
posted on Jul-8-04 at 6:44 PM
Building a Better Way: Music from the 1974 Chevrolet Announcement Film • "An interesting look at some of the musical trends from the early 70s. A little Isaac Hayes, a little John Denver, some Allman Brothers and a few sounds from that new-fangled instrument, the synthesizer."
posted on Jun-21-04 at 8:48 AM
Bob's Animal Fights • Hornet vs. Polar Bear! Army Ant vs. Panda! Ostrich vs. Gorilla! Bob Robertson, senior lecturer on the behaviour of African mammals, sets out to prove once and for all just what is the hardest animal on the planet.
posted on Jun-19-04 at 4:10 PM
Operation Shoe Fly • From Afghanistan, Sgt Hook writes, "So my esteemed friends of the blogosphere...I announce the beginning of Operation Shoe Fly in an effort to shoe the children with no shoes on their feet. If you can collect the shoes, used or new, boys' and girls' (age 14 and under), and send them to me, my crewdogs and I will fly them out to the Afghani kids who so desperately need them."
posted on Jun-16-04 at 12:26 PM
Naked guy in a maze
posted on May-13-04 at 3:33 PM
Heads are Gonna Roll • Ford Motor Co. is pissed at ad agency Ogilvy & Mather after O&M leaked a viral marketing ad for the Ford Sportka depicting "a realistic-looking orange cat climbing on top of the car and curiously poking its head into the open moon roof...The roof slides closed and the cat struggles briefly to escape before its headless body slides to the ground." Apparently Ford never authorized the commercial's (.mpg) release.
posted on May-2-04 at 12:36 PM
TheSafetyNet.Org • A collective of men who are working to stop date-rape and sexual abuse. "When a person is raped, it’s trust that’s used as the weapon...We’ve decided that it’s time to reclaim that trust, reclaim that responsibility. Men Rape. Men abuse. And men can stop it."
posted on Jan-10-04 at 5:13 PM
Rebetika, Music of the Greek Underground • "It originated in the hashish dens of Pireaus and Thessaloniki with the forced immigration of 2 million Greek refugees from Asia Minor." Audio samples here, more backstory, photos and a curious site supporting "Rebetiko Dechiotification and Bouzouki Detetrachordization".
posted on Jan-8-04 at 7:43 AM
Nigerian Email Scam Gone Wrong • Evangelist Ojukwu Damisa contacted a fictitious American pastor--Father Ted Crilley of the "Church of the Holy Cow"-- in search of donations. Though Father Crilley's prank response has become a familiar Something Awful-style troll, it's always funnier when there are pictures involved.
posted on Dec-14-03 at 10:51 PM
'Just Bring 'em In From Space' • An interview with Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro, co-creators of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and former writers for Space Ghost. "If talking food is a tool, it's one typically seized by a businessman/evangelist desperately grasping for 'funny' — and using the first inoffensive, seemingly comic concept he can find. But Adult Swim mainstay Aqua Teen Hunger Force may be enough to singlehandedly rehabilitate the genre."
posted on Dec-7-03 at 2:44 PM
C'mon People Now, Shine on Your Hipster • "A new and disturbing trend has sprung up as of late in our great city (NYC): beating up hipsters for sport. Sucker punching Williamsburg trendsters is the new Whack-A-Mole. It's cow-tipping for urbanites. It's blowing up mailboxes, but with less angst and more anger." (more inside)
posted on Oct-31-03 at 2:00 PM
Southern Folk-Art, Outsider Art & Self-Taught Art • Ginger Young of Chapel Hill, NC who runs this eponymously named art studio, says: "Despite their lack of formal training, these artists have tapped into a powerful wellspring of creativity to render their worlds with passion, pathos, and immediacy." Truly beautiful, unfiltered, vibrant stuff. How could you go wrong with artists named Tubby Brown, Minnie Adkins, Mose Tolliver and Woodie Long? On another note: is this school of thought/art, which comes in and out of vogue every few years, as pure as it seems, or is there an air of exploitation and corniness that comes with fetishizing The Other?
posted on Oct-17-03 at 10:46 AM
WarPhotoLTD.com is a Croatian photography showcase intended to "educate the public in the field of war photography, to expose the myth of war and the intoxication of war, to let people see war as it is, raw, venal, frightening, by focusing on how war inflicts injustices on innocents and combatants alike." Search by Photographer, War, Award or Collection, though the site is obviously new-ish and has a small database. Here's a particularly stunning one from their current collection ("A Decade of War").
posted on Oct-16-03 at 8:20 AM
Daphne Oram, Godmother of Electronic Music • During WWII, Ms. Oram worked for the BBC as a sound engineer while indulging an obsessive curiousity of experimental audio in her free time. In 1958, she finally convinced the BBC to open the seminal Radiophonic Workshop, which also fostered the talents of sci-fi composers Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer. During that period she developed a technique known as Oramics: manipulating 35mm film to create electrical charges and thus, editable sound.
posted on Sep-27-03 at 12:52 AM
Journey into Kimland • American graduate student Scott Fisher lives in Seoul Korea where he studies US-NK relations. Last year he took advantage of a brief window of opportunity: venturing North into the DPRK. His itinerary included Pyongyang, the DMZ, Mt. Myohyang, and Mangyongdae, birthplace of Kim Il-sung. The notes & photos he took explicitly document a mysterious and out-of-time North Korean culture rarely seen these days by Western eyes.
posted on Aug-4-03 at 8:05 PM
posted on Aug-15-05 at 6:34 AM
Exploitation in the United Arab Emirates: A total of 36 Bangladeshi children employed as 'camel jockeys' in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have returned home yesterday ending their prolonged sufferings in the oil-rich nation. "The job is very tiresome. We had to work from morning till night, tending the camels, training them, cleaning their faeces and mounting the camels in the racing games." In 2003, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights reported on the issue. Pictures via AntiSlavery.org.
posted on Aug-12-05 at 6:30 AM
Happy Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) Day • "PRD was created by the sex-positive group of redheaded friends, the Drunken Redheaded Sluts, as a hilarious way to denounce the 'bum rap' that self-gratification got Paul Reubens, while honoring the man’s erotic curiosity and zany character." The celebration will start with a pub crawl, followed by a Pornographic After-Party to benefit the The Center for Sex and Culture, and climax with a Midnight Mass with Peaches Christ (NSFW).
posted on Jul-23-05 at 2:39 PM
"At this moment, I am proud to be a citizen of a country that has done more than most to help the US get rid of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. And I think that it would do other Europeans some good to think again about what their countries have achieved, if anything, to try to stem the tide of dictatorships and terrorism around the world. They should wonder whether they are really asking themselves the hard questions. Or whether they are shrugging their shoulders and blaming America because that is what they have been brought up to do." A thoughtful & conflicted post from the anti-war Englishman in New York reflecting on the London bombings.
posted on Jul-16-05 at 4:31 PM
Loch Ness Tooth • "In March (2005) my roommate and I went to the U.K and spent our last two days at Loch Ness. The boat rental season hadn’t started so we hired a local who took us on a private boat tour. After a few hours we came across the remains of a dead deer. The animal had literally been ripped in half - hind quarters gone, its spine was broken and severed. There were huge bloody gashes, teeth marks and a bizarre bony protrusion sticking out of an exposed rib. It was a tooth - about 4 inches long, barbed and very sharp!"
posted on Jul-14-05 at 11:33 AM
NextGen Macromedia Flash Tool "Zorn" to Run on Eclipse • "Macromedia's announcement that their next generation enterprise Flash development tool, code-named Zorn, will be built on top of Eclipse, is a watershed moment both for Macromedia and for the open source movement. Macromedia's choice of Eclipse speaks volumes about the impact of open source on commercial software development -- and about Macromedia's commitment to making Flash into an essential platform for next-generation internet applications." </glavin>
posted on Jun-16-05 at 2:15 PM
The International Criminal Court will soon formally investigate war crimes in Darfur, Sudan. In two years the ethnic Arab militia janjaweed—many who received military training from Gaddafi hoping to set up an "Islamic Legion" of mercenaries—have slaughtered up to 180,000 non-Arabs and raped untold thousands. Nicholas Kristof's piece in the NYT reports on the rape crisis, and features a Flash piece with interviews. Zogby/ICG studies show 80% of Americans support a tougher international response to the situation in Darfur, yet it also revealed a strange datapoint: "African-Americans are among the U.S. sub-groups least aware of the situation in Darfur and least likely to feel that the international community has a responsibility to intervene." A few weeks ago, writer Jeremy Levitt (Chicago Sun-Times) addressed this.
posted on Jun-5-05 at 11:12 AM
Rocker Jeff Baxter Moves and Shakes in National Security • "Jeff Baxter played psychedelic music with Ultimate Spinach, jazz-rock with Steely Dan and funky pop with the Doobie Brothers. But in the last few years he has made an even bigger transition: Mr. Baxter, who goes by the nickname "Skunk," has become one of the national-security world's well-known counterterrorism experts."
posted on May-25-05 at 7:31 AM
Who is the real Bob Saget? • "In comedy circles, there’s a famous Saget story about the night his first daughter was born. After a very difficult birth, during which Sherri Saget and her baby almost died, a friend showed up to find Mr. Saget looking utterly destroyed, unshaven, unrecognizable, but holding his newborn. Oh my God, Bob, she’s beautiful, the friend said. For a dollar, you can finger her, Mr. Saget replied." Saget guests in the upcoming Aristocrats documentary discussed here.
posted on May-6-05 at 12:03 PM
Looking hate in the face • Washington Blade blogger Chris Crain describes a vicious beating he suffered while touring the Netherlands, "arguably the 'gay-friendliest' place on the planet. "By almost any measure, the equality movement in the Netherlands was won years ago. There are laws protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation, there are hate crime laws, and Holland is one of only a handful of countries where gay couples can legally marry."
posted on May-5-05 at 11:28 AM
"I Punched Saddam in the Mouth" • A man known only as "Samir" worked as an Arabic interpreter for United States Special Forces in late 2003 when Saddam Hussein was captured in Tikrit: "I was so angry. I began cussing at him, calling him a motherfucker, a son-of-a-bitch -- you name it. I told him I was Shiite from the south and was part of the revolution against him in 1991. I said he murdered my uncles and cousins. He imprisoned my father. In Arabic, Saddam told Samir to shut up. And when Saddam called him a traitor, an enraged Samir silenced his prisoner with a flurry of quick jabs to the face. I punched Saddam in the mouth."
posted on Apr-30-05 at 4:18 PM
Food-Force • An educational video game from the U.N.'s World Food Programme. Screenshots & overview: "An aircraft circles over a crisis zone. War. Drought. People are hungry. This is the virtual world of the Food Force video game. It represents our real world, where 852 million people lack enough food to eat and World Food Programme teams deliver food aid every day using not only airplanes but a fleet of ships and thousands of trucks." Available for both Mac & PC.
posted on Apr-24-05 at 4:52 PM
FemDefence: A Protection Against Rape • "Femdefence is an on-going project first presented in 2003. The project includes the creation of an imaginary product, which bears the project’s name. The 'product' is a kind of protection against rape, somewhat similar to a tampon in that its user carries it inserted in her vagina. In it there is a sharp pin which has a penetrating effect on the perpetrator’s penis in the event of a rape."
posted on Apr-19-05 at 10:52 AM
Earlier this month, the Young Republicans of UConn invited WWE wrestler The Ultimate Warrior to speak at their school, but things got a little out of hand: (via ComicCon) "People started yelling at Warrior as he spoke. Warrior at one point started yelling and stomping his feet, telling everyone to not talk while he is and to ask questions after his speech. Officers were eventually called in to calm things down. The group that brought Warrior in, the College Republicans, apologized heavily for bringing Warrior in after the speech ended. Statements that really got the crowd upset were when Warrior said queering don't make the world work and told an Iranian girl to get a towel." A week later, The Ultimate Warrior has strong, often-hilarious words for hecklers and Young Republicans alike. Not content with threatening college students, Ultimate Warrior also threatened libel against SomethingAwful last week.
posted on Apr-15-05 at 12:46 PM
Strange Findings, circa 1985: "Please welcome our very charming guest host—Mr. Corey Feldman!" (Quicktime req.)(NSFA: Not Safe for Anyone)
posted on Apr-7-05 at 1:03 PM
Sasha-Frere Jones writes a New Yorker column on Slint, who reunited this year for a tour: "During the nineteen-nineties, [Slint's album] 'Spiderland' sold steadily, a rare feat for an obscure, independent band that no longer existed and had performed live fewer than thirty times. In 1991, [producer] Steve Albini reviewed 'Spiderland' for Melody Maker, a popular British weekly, calling it 'flawless' and awarding it ten fucking stars." Mp3s from the recent tour can be found at MySpace & transmission3000.
posted on Apr-5-05 at 1:45 PM
WebWaste.net • "WebWaste is an Internet rubbish dump; a collective yet anonymous dustbin, open to all Internet users. By going onto WebWaste you can browse through the rubbish and inspect what Internet users before you have thrown away. This might include images, texts, sounds and movie clips. WebWaste collects trash from your own computer's Recycle Bin and uploads it to the waste dump through the downloadable Dustman-application. This process too is anonymous so no one can know who threw what away."
posted on Mar-30-05 at 6:11 AM
Oh Say Can You Seethe • The Board of Education in Brick, NJ "may toughen its policy on use of wireless telephones in schools, after a videotape showing a Brick Township High School teacher screaming at his students to show respect for the national anthem — and then pulling the chair from underneath one student who refused to stand — was posted on several independent Web sites (.wmv)." Some have come to the teacher's defense, and three students connected to the incident have been arrested for separate charges of prior vandalism--which they also taped.
posted on Mar-9-05 at 9:35 AM
Flying Cars and Roadable Aircraft • "Because flying cars and roadable aircraft seem to be more of a dream than a reality, many people believe that these things do not exist. The truth is that almost from the moment the Wright Brothers learned to fly, there has been a history of attempts to build such vehicles. Some of them have had a fair degree of success." The paracycle is dorky, but the winged MafiaMobile ain't half bad.
posted on Feb-16-05 at 10:36 PM
JoeMyGod implores his queer peers: What's the Gayest Thing You've Ever Done? • ''That is SO gay! I've been thinking about that expression a lot lately. What does it mean? Is it a playground epithet that is simply in vogue with the grown-ups? Or is it a sign that gay culture is so integrated into the pop culture that even the hets now see the evidence of homo-style in their everyday lives, and make jokes about it?" A followup to the original post, Part II: Flaming Son of "Gay, Gayer, Gayest"
posted on Feb-4-05 at 11:18 PM
Iraqi-Americans Vote in Washington • Jeff Simmermon photographs & transcribes his experience with Iraqi-Americans at the polls in Washington DC on Sunday. "You may think that you have felt dumb before, but let me tell you something: until you have stood in front of a man who knows real pain and told him that you are against your country's alleviation of his country's state-sponsored murderous suffering, you have not felt truly, deeply, like a total fucking moron.... I took refuge in a knee-jerk liberal identity for a long time, but now it's threadbare and not as comfortable as it once was." Lt. Smash responds.
posted on Feb-2-05 at 12:48 PM
Architecture of Density, by Michael Wolf • Dizzying photos of Hong Kong high-rise buildings. Think of bamboo stalks, Lego pieces, spinal columns, circuit boards...
posted on Jan-22-05 at 9:54 AM
Protest Warriors Clash • Gil Kobrin of the Protest Warriors went down "under a hail of black boots" belonging to anti-Bush peace activists. "It wasn't much of a contest. ProtestWarrior's contingent numbered 13, the other side in the hundreds. If they won any hearts and minds, no one said so." Meanwhile, DC activist group Anarchist Resistance issued their call to action: "There's nothing left to salvage in this empire that is the U.S. government. It's time to bring it down." AR is listed as a resouce by the Internet Liberation Front who Kos reported "hacked and defaced six Republican websites" yesterday. Some commentary on civil disobedience by Thoreau & ActUp.
posted on Jan-20-05 at 7:12 PM
Get rid of all those Gmail invites "Welcome to isnoop.net's gmail invite spooler. This page offers a place for people with Gmail invites and those who want them to come together with minimal effort and fuss."
posted on Jan-19-05 at 10:39 AM
Live Ween • Tabulature • Videos
posted on Jan-13-05 at 8:13 PM
Hiroshi Yamaguchi to Steve Ballmer: Suck My Tiny Yellow Balls • Now that he's retired and, er, mellowed, the former Nintendo CEO has a lot to say about Japanese business culture, Western business culture, and the gaming industry.
posted on Jan-6-05 at 9:05 AM
Custom Creature Taxidermy Arts • "The artist does not view a dead animal as disgusting or repugnant; she feels that all creatures exhibit their beauty in death as well as in life." My favorites are the Mutant Pickled Piglet, The Cackalope, Boar Heart Under Glass, and the Muskrat Feet Earrings.
posted on Jan-5-05 at 7:49 AM
Smoosh! • "Two Seattle sisters, Chloe (age 9) on drums and vocals and Asya (age 11) on keys and vocals, write and play pensive, pulsing indie pop rock." Audio interviews & live songs available from KEXP radio. Certainly more endearing than these little tykes.
posted on Dec-24-04 at 3:40 PM
FIDDLE • GoldenFiddle.com sends up Gawker.com, tailing celebrities in Atlanta: "Saw David Cross over thanksgiving at the Magnapop show in east Atlanta. He seemed really pissed off about something. Christianity maybe?"
posted on Dec-2-04 at 9:44 AM
Ceci Nes't Pas Une Satanic Message • "Years ago someone told me that if you played Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven song backwards that you could make out 'satanic messages'. It is not my opinion that Led Zeppelin and the other artists here were given some kind of evil power to make these backwards sounds have a satanic message. And, no, I did not create this to show the evils of Rock and Roll. Instead I made this flash piece for two reasons: 1. I was new to Flash and wanted to be better at it and 2. The reverse files sound cool. "
posted on Oct-8-04 at 9:40 AM
How long til you buy the farm? • "The Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator© was designed to translate what we have learned from studies of centenarians and other longevity research into a practical and empowering tool for individuals to estimate their longevity potential." Wasn't this on a Futurama episode?
posted on Sep-8-04 at 8:30 PM
Fired from Friendster.com • Scott Sassa, CEO of Friendster, has canned a programmer named TroutGirl for blogging about her job in what appears to be a generally positive and non-specific manner. Some are suggesting we cancel our accounts in protest.
posted on Aug-31-04 at 11:25 AM
Passed Out Wookies • Photographs of comatose hippies who may have smoked too much granola. Carolyn Cole it ain't, although this one might be worth framing.
posted on Aug-19-04 at 1:51 PM
Last month, people voiced their disappointment with AllMusic's for-the-worse facelift, and a week later someone at holovaty.com wrote a Mozilla Firefox extension that "routs around the damage" and allows for cleaner browsing. Some are pondering the legal consequences.
posted on Aug-3-04 at 5:41 PM
MP3 Blog Roundup • A far-flung variety of free mp3 singles posted almost daily. Without Sense's roundup I would have never stumbled across the excellent Enchanted Sounds of the Islanders. Equally worth bookmarking: Fat Planet, NewFlux, Pop77, ScissorKick, TangMonkey, TtIKtDA, Tofu Hut, Cocaine Blunts & Hip-Hop Tapes, Music for Robots, Soul Sides, MoistWorks, A Million LoveSongs, Copy Right?, The Big Ticket, TalkieWalkie, Bubblegum Machine, Fingertips, #1 Songs in Heaven, Mythical Beast, Fruits of Chaos, Moebius Rex...
posted on Jul-10-04 at 6:11 PM
Korean Psych And Acid Folk • An introduction to the late-60s/early-70s experimental music of Korea. Bonus: be among the few Westerners to hear these ultra-rare tracks by the Pearl Sisters with songwriting contributions from a man known as the "godfather of Korean rock and roll", Shin Joong-Hyun, who is credited with influencing Korea's heavier rock scene of the last two decades.
posted on Jul-8-04 at 6:44 PM
Building a Better Way: Music from the 1974 Chevrolet Announcement Film • "An interesting look at some of the musical trends from the early 70s. A little Isaac Hayes, a little John Denver, some Allman Brothers and a few sounds from that new-fangled instrument, the synthesizer."
posted on Jun-21-04 at 8:48 AM
Bob's Animal Fights • Hornet vs. Polar Bear! Army Ant vs. Panda! Ostrich vs. Gorilla! Bob Robertson, senior lecturer on the behaviour of African mammals, sets out to prove once and for all just what is the hardest animal on the planet.
posted on Jun-19-04 at 4:10 PM
Operation Shoe Fly • From Afghanistan, Sgt Hook writes, "So my esteemed friends of the blogosphere...I announce the beginning of Operation Shoe Fly in an effort to shoe the children with no shoes on their feet. If you can collect the shoes, used or new, boys' and girls' (age 14 and under), and send them to me, my crewdogs and I will fly them out to the Afghani kids who so desperately need them."
posted on Jun-16-04 at 12:26 PM
Naked guy in a maze
posted on May-13-04 at 3:33 PM
Heads are Gonna Roll • Ford Motor Co. is pissed at ad agency Ogilvy & Mather after O&M leaked a viral marketing ad for the Ford Sportka depicting "a realistic-looking orange cat climbing on top of the car and curiously poking its head into the open moon roof...The roof slides closed and the cat struggles briefly to escape before its headless body slides to the ground." Apparently Ford never authorized the commercial's (.mpg) release.
posted on May-2-04 at 12:36 PM
TheSafetyNet.Org • A collective of men who are working to stop date-rape and sexual abuse. "When a person is raped, it’s trust that’s used as the weapon...We’ve decided that it’s time to reclaim that trust, reclaim that responsibility. Men Rape. Men abuse. And men can stop it."
posted on Jan-10-04 at 5:13 PM
Rebetika, Music of the Greek Underground • "It originated in the hashish dens of Pireaus and Thessaloniki with the forced immigration of 2 million Greek refugees from Asia Minor." Audio samples here, more backstory, photos and a curious site supporting "Rebetiko Dechiotification and Bouzouki Detetrachordization".
posted on Jan-8-04 at 7:43 AM
Nigerian Email Scam Gone Wrong • Evangelist Ojukwu Damisa contacted a fictitious American pastor--Father Ted Crilley of the "Church of the Holy Cow"-- in search of donations. Though Father Crilley's prank response has become a familiar Something Awful-style troll, it's always funnier when there are pictures involved.
posted on Dec-14-03 at 10:51 PM
'Just Bring 'em In From Space' • An interview with Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro, co-creators of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and former writers for Space Ghost. "If talking food is a tool, it's one typically seized by a businessman/evangelist desperately grasping for 'funny' — and using the first inoffensive, seemingly comic concept he can find. But Adult Swim mainstay Aqua Teen Hunger Force may be enough to singlehandedly rehabilitate the genre."
posted on Dec-7-03 at 2:44 PM
C'mon People Now, Shine on Your Hipster • "A new and disturbing trend has sprung up as of late in our great city (NYC): beating up hipsters for sport. Sucker punching Williamsburg trendsters is the new Whack-A-Mole. It's cow-tipping for urbanites. It's blowing up mailboxes, but with less angst and more anger." (more inside)
posted on Oct-31-03 at 2:00 PM
Southern Folk-Art, Outsider Art & Self-Taught Art • Ginger Young of Chapel Hill, NC who runs this eponymously named art studio, says: "Despite their lack of formal training, these artists have tapped into a powerful wellspring of creativity to render their worlds with passion, pathos, and immediacy." Truly beautiful, unfiltered, vibrant stuff. How could you go wrong with artists named Tubby Brown, Minnie Adkins, Mose Tolliver and Woodie Long? On another note: is this school of thought/art, which comes in and out of vogue every few years, as pure as it seems, or is there an air of exploitation and corniness that comes with fetishizing The Other?
posted on Oct-17-03 at 10:46 AM
WarPhotoLTD.com is a Croatian photography showcase intended to "educate the public in the field of war photography, to expose the myth of war and the intoxication of war, to let people see war as it is, raw, venal, frightening, by focusing on how war inflicts injustices on innocents and combatants alike." Search by Photographer, War, Award or Collection, though the site is obviously new-ish and has a small database. Here's a particularly stunning one from their current collection ("A Decade of War").
posted on Oct-16-03 at 8:20 AM
Daphne Oram, Godmother of Electronic Music • During WWII, Ms. Oram worked for the BBC as a sound engineer while indulging an obsessive curiousity of experimental audio in her free time. In 1958, she finally convinced the BBC to open the seminal Radiophonic Workshop, which also fostered the talents of sci-fi composers Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer. During that period she developed a technique known as Oramics: manipulating 35mm film to create electrical charges and thus, editable sound.
posted on Sep-27-03 at 12:52 AM
Journey into Kimland • American graduate student Scott Fisher lives in Seoul Korea where he studies US-NK relations. Last year he took advantage of a brief window of opportunity: venturing North into the DPRK. His itinerary included Pyongyang, the DMZ, Mt. Myohyang, and Mangyongdae, birthplace of Kim Il-sung. The notes & photos he took explicitly document a mysterious and out-of-time North Korean culture rarely seen these days by Western eyes.
posted on Aug-4-03 at 8:05 PM