To update followers of the Prenda Law porn-trolling copyright lawyers saga, Judge Wright has just issued a catastrophic order [.pdf] imposing sanctions and making criminal referrals, entertainingly littered with Star Trek references.
posted by T.D. Strange on May 6, 2013 - 67 comments

The Library of Congress posted a Jan 2013 update on its mission to archive public tweets, announced back in April 2010 (previously). 170 billion tweets so far, adding more than .5 billion per day. Search for a term? Prepare to wait ~24 hours. [more inside]
posted by sundog on Jan 29, 2013 - 20 comments

But back in 1996, users of the proto-Web community Usenet got spammed with messages that reached an almost transcendent level of bizarre—a weirdness so precise it implied the influence of a very human intelligence. “Markovian Parallax Denigrate,” read the title of each post, followed by a mountain of seemingly meaningless word spew:

Unraveling the Internet’s oldest and weirdest mystery
posted by the man of twists and turns on Nov 20, 2012 - 68 comments

SLYT: Atlanta Weather Update by Megan Mcglover. [more inside]
posted by whimsicalnymph on Jan 21, 2011 - 51 comments

Between 1938 and 1948, William P. Gottlieb wrote about and photographed the jazz world. In 1995, the Library of Congress acquired his collection of approximately 1500 photographs covering more than 250 jazz musicians. While discussed here seven years ago, not mentioned at that time was the fact that Mr. Gottlieb agreed to transfer his copyrights into the public domain 15 years after acquisition. Fast forward to 2010, and you will find that the Library has added high resolution TIFFs download links to the image pages (click on the thumbnail images to get to the TIFF download links). A few pictures to whet your appetite: Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, Les Paul, Django Reinhardt, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong.
posted by fings on Aug 6, 2010 - 19 comments

Important Update! Evacuation plan. [more inside]
posted by Meatbomb on Jul 7, 2010 - 44 comments

Your Open Book (NSFW language) lets you search Facebook's publicly accessible status updates. While the site exists ostensibly to protest Facebook's problematic privacy settings, perhaps its even greater achievement is to let us peer into the lives of our fellow Facebook users. (NSFW language)
posted by Sticherbeast on Jun 15, 2010 - 51 comments

This is a long-awaited update to the previous Palin thread. A LOT has happened since then, which I think deserves additional discussion. The last time Palin's Travels was linked to was 2004 and his most recent book that you could view on the site was Sahara. But now you can read the full texts of two more books in Michael Palin's wonderful travel/adventure series: Himalaya and New Europe. There are also loads of pictures, video (Quicktime req.) and audio clips.
posted by ND¢ on Sep 4, 2008 - 75 comments

Remember that thread where everybody posted their survival tips for the middle ages? (previously) Well, this singer/songwriter named Hillel compiled those tips and made them into a song. [more inside]
posted by Afroblanco on Jun 25, 2008 - 19 comments

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, formerly knows as King/Drew and forever known as Killer King, has shut its emergency room and will close in a week due to feds pulling its funding. The hospital near the Watts section of LA, best known for its incompetent staff and meaningless deaths was profiled here a few months ago. Local residents see the hospital as a symbol of freedom and don't want to see it go. (UpdateFilter)
posted by daninnj on Aug 16, 2007 - 28 comments

This is why we can't have nice things. The man who edited the John Seigenthaler facts concerning the assassination of JFK & RFK in the Wikipedia has finally come clean. As a consequence of his actions, Seigenthaler wrote an editorial to USA Today, anonymous editors can no longer create pages in the Wikipedia (although they can still make edits), and the credibility of the project as a whole was placed into scrutiny. NY Times bugmenotlink
posted by jonson on Dec 11, 2005 - 70 comments

Pump up the volume: Utah, 8/20/2005. A small fully permitted outdoor Drum and Bass gathering called "Versus 2" was the scene of a surreal amount of excessive force and tactics of cultural intimidation. Approximately 60 armored, helmeted and camouflaged Utah County Sheriffs officers armed with Police dogs, Tasers, MP5 submachine guns, rifles, batons and tear gas stormed the DJ booth and the dance floor. Still and video camera operators were singled out for abuse, police violence and confiscation of image recording devices. At least one video clip has made it to the net, helping spread the news globally within the Electronic Dance Music community within 24 hours. (Video Links: please use the torrents here or randomly choose one server here (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ) to help spread out the bandwidth costs.) Flashback to 6/31/2005 in the Czech Republic. Flashback to 70 years ago. More coverage: Daily Kos - Utah Indymedia - Drug Policy Alliance - Democracy Now (Audio) - more.
posted by loquacious on Aug 23, 2005 - 196 comments

Blog Change Bot is an AOL Instant Messenger-based bot that will send you an IM whenever your favorite blogs are updated. (via Blogroots; more inside)
posted by UKnowForKids on Jul 26, 2003 - 9 comments

Just a follow-up on this MeFi thread, because the link has been making its rounds around the Internet. It's a hoax, folks. Sorry.
posted by PWA_BadBoy on Jan 30, 2002 - 17 comments

A little while ago matt posted a link about this traceroute app. the link has expired, but the company is still there and, presumably, still sells the product. yet, there is a free version available. very cool visual packet/hop/latency program, lets you zoom in on the maps but i suspect they provide less detail than the neotrace pay version.
posted by donkeysuck on May 29, 2001 - 3 comments