The Legal Stranger Project "How do I explain to my child as it grows up that in our state, I am not your mom, that there are people out there who go out of their way to make sure our family cannot be complete? "
posted by chronkite
on Jan 24, 2012 -
51 comments
Pokemon:
Game Freak and Nintendo's series of cartoony monster-training RPGs that kicked off huge crazes among the kids of both Japan and the U.S. In these games, children take up the calling of "Pokemon trainers," capturing the titular animals and then keeping them as pets or fighting them against either wild pokemon or those of other trainers.
Nobunaga's Ambition:
An even-longer-running classic series of historical strategy/simulation games produced by Koei. Noted for their realistic approach, their difficulty, and a high level of dryness. You grow rice, distribute it to your population to keep them happy, send out spies, guard against assassins, raise and train a military, and ultimately attempt to unite feudal-era Japan.
And now...
Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition, a Real Thing that will Soon Exist.
posted by JHarris
on Jan 1, 2012 -
26 comments
William Lawrence Cassidy has been
indicted for a series of threatening tweets directed towards Alyce Zeoli, aka Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, the leader of a Buddhist organization known as Kunzang Palyul Choling (KPC) to which Cassidy had belonged. There is however a small problem that federal prosecutors are employing a
vague anti-stalking law that makes 'intentional infliction of emotional distress' through the use of 'any interactive computer service' a felony, rather than focussing more narrowly upon the outright threats.
[more inside]
posted by jeffburdges
on Aug 1, 2011 -
34 comments
Using a fake Facebook profile, Angela Voelkert
got her ex-husband David to admit that he “planned to move somewhere warm with his kids, that he was still going to his next court dates, and would take off soon after” and ask his new teen-aged friend “to find someone at your school, there should be some gang bangers there that would put a cap in her ass for $10,000. I am just done with her crap!” Unfortunately for Angela, David
was a step ahead and
thoroughly played his ex-wife. All charges
have been dropped and they are still Facebook friends.
posted by -->NMN.80.418
on Jun 13, 2011 -
139 comments
The Doge was the leader of the Venetian Republic, which lasted for over a thousand years, so they must have been doing something right. Here's
Wikipedia's concise description of the selection process: "Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine and the nine elected forty-five. Then the forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who actually elected the doge." Sounds crazy, but Miranda Mowbray and Dieter Gollmann wrote a paper, "
Electing the Doge of Venice: Analysis of a 13th Century Protocol" (pdf) explaining its virtues in terms that should warm the cockles of MetaFilter's collective geeky heart. From the abstract: "We will show that it has some useful properties that in addition to being interesting in themselves, also suggest that its fundamental design principle is worth investigating for application to leader election protocols in computer science." Interesting sidelight: "security theater" can be a good thing.
posted by languagehat
on Jan 21, 2011 -
49 comments
Once, there was a boy named Yves. He lived in the mountainous country of Switzerland, and he dreamed of flying. He loved the idea of being free to soar through the air so much that he became a
pilot. Later, he went on to fly
bigger planes. Perhaps he's even been your pilot.
But being a pilot was never quite enough. Yves still dreamed of soaring through the air, like a bird. And now, he does.
Meet Jetman.
Previously
posted by anigbrowl
on Nov 7, 2010 -
6 comments
Chances are you've seen
videos here in the blue of Norwegian Eskil Ronningsbakken performing acts of extreme balance. As a follow up, I offer
numerous additional
stills of Eskil in his quest to create art from balance. His
official web site has more images, and he also has a
Facebook page, from which I took this quote: "The vulnerable human being balancing between life and death is something I, among many others, consider art. The most important message that I signal with my actions is that ANYTHING is possible!"
[more inside]
posted by bwg
on Oct 12, 2010 -
8 comments
Larry King questions Stephen Hawking's
recent argument - that we should not try to talk to aliens - and other matters extraterrestrial with the physicist Michio Kaku, Seth Shostak of SETI, the science fiction writer and astronomer David Brin and the actor Dan Aykroyd (
1,
2,
3) (
Previous,
previous)
posted by fearfulsymmetry
on May 13, 2010 -
120 comments
Following
Pennsylvania's lead, Georgia is poised to ban the involuntary implantation of microchips into people. With
SB235 passing both the state house and senate, it is now up to Governor Sonny Perdue to sign it into law (or reveal that he's in the pocket of Big Microchip). The transcript of testimony before the house in favor of this legislation is truly
eye-opening. Rachel Maddow had it
re-enacted on her show.
posted by adamrice
on Apr 21, 2010 -
149 comments
Following the vote on Sunday, Mike Troxel of the Lynchburg Tea Party posted the address of what he thought was Dem Rep Tom Perriello, with the comment that activists should add a "personal touch" to their anger at Periello -- who voted yes on the health care bill -- by going to his house. It turns out the address was actually Perriello's brother's house, and the FBI are currently investigating the
cut gas line that was discovered the next day.
[more inside]
posted by FatherDagon
on Mar 24, 2010 -
380 comments
Click here? Was structuralism, the big idea of Claude Lévi-Strauss, more cult than science? Apostolos Doxiadis, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna – the team behind the bestselling graphic novel Logicomix – investigate.
posted by infini
on Mar 18, 2010 -
30 comments
