February 14, 2009

Stephen Glass Didn't Pass

In 1998, a journalist at The New Republic named Stephen Glass wrote a compelling piece in the influential magazine entitled 'Hack Heaven'. It told the story of how Glass witnessed a 15 year old hacker named Ian Restil being hired by a large Californian computer company named Jukt Micronics at a hacker convention as a security analyst after Restil hacked Jukt's website. But the entire story was, in fact, entirely fictional. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 at 9:03 PM PST - 46 comments

SAD

The Society for the Advancement of Despair. [Via]
posted by homunculus at 8:44 PM PST - 18 comments

Prochaine Station: Gotham's Soul Breakdance Battle

BBOY JOKER (single link interactive youtube game) - Patrick Boivin (from visual wizards Phylactère Cola [wiki]) strikes again with a new stop animation game following his success with YouTube Street Fighter.
posted by zenzizi at 8:04 PM PST - 4 comments

Aaayyyy!

Belated Flash Friday | Funny Viking strategery game. It makes me so happy I finished the levels and go back to do better... [more inside]
posted by maggieb at 7:26 PM PST - 24 comments

FATALITY!

Chicago-based video game developer Midway Games has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. [more inside]
posted by 40 Watt at 6:54 PM PST - 43 comments

Shopping Cart Hero

Stupid Flash Fun! Shopping Car Hero. For all your shopping cart jumping needs.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:53 PM PST - 12 comments

Other People's Pictures

You are interested in the unknown... the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you, the full story of what happened on that fateful day. We are bringing you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony, of the miserable souls, who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of a flickr collection of old snapshots?
posted by gamera at 6:45 PM PST - 18 comments

Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk and the Electronic Music Revolution. (amazon) A 3 hour long documentary detailing Kraftwerk's influences and career. [more inside]
posted by empath at 6:11 PM PST - 33 comments

My crafty Valentine, sweet recycled Valentine...

You forgot all about Valentine’s Day and now must come up with an extra special momento to pacify your beloved. Or you are sitting home alone with no way to celebrate V-day. In either case, it’s crafting time! You can recycle things you probably already have to make Valentine’s Day trinkets. You can start by making a card with scrap yarn, or from wrapping paper. You can make gift bows or a heart-shaped candy basket from recycled magazines, and a gift bag from a newspaper. You can make a love letter box from an old box. The kids or the artist in your life might like to get heart-shaped crayons, made from stubby old crayons. [more inside]
posted by orange swan at 5:51 PM PST - 5 comments

Yuken Teruya and the Beauty of the Everyday.

How to make something beautiful out of...well, toilet paper. (Insert metaphor here.) [more inside]
posted by teamparka at 2:59 PM PST - 11 comments

The Expanded Universe begins expanding

30 years ago, the sixteenth and final issue of Pizzazz magazine was published by Marvel Comics at a retail price of 75 cents. In addition to cover stories like "Linda Ronstadt: Rock's Superwoman" and "Is Meat Loaf the Cutest Cultural Development Since the Pickle?", Pizzazz published what is arguably the very first addition to the Star Wars Expanded Universe - a serialized comic titled "The Keeper's World". Appearing in October 1977, only 5 months after the theatrical release of what was not yet known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, it comfortably pre-dates Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye (March 1978) and even Marvel's own Star Wars #7 comic (January 1978). (previously)
posted by Joe Beese at 2:16 PM PST - 15 comments

World Press Photo of the Year Winners - 2008

World Press Photo of the Year winners. [more inside]
posted by terranova at 1:44 PM PST - 53 comments

This post is exactly the sort of post you would expect someone like me to make...

Free Will versus the Programmed Brain. Shaun Nichols discusses some recent experiments relating belief in free will to moral behavior. [more inside]
posted by voltairemodern at 1:30 PM PST - 42 comments

The entire Harper's Index

The entire Harper's index is now online.
posted by chunking express at 12:44 PM PST - 29 comments

Vintage Valentines

A collection of early Valentine cards, and, A Treatise on Courtly Love .
posted by hortense at 12:12 PM PST - 10 comments

What Anchors Do During Commercials

"WGN-TV weekend anchors Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange do a little dance number each Saturday and Sunday night during their telecast's first commercial break. Word is that it started out as a short 10-second dance, but now they have choreographed it into the full 2:40 of the break. "
posted by Knappster at 11:53 AM PST - 45 comments

Don't Worry, Be Hungry.

Foodies, gourmands, and gluttons! Courtesy of those muckrakers at the New York Times, consider this recent op-ed piece. For those still pissed about the Times cheerleading us into Iraq, skip it and just dig this handbook from your federal watchdogs to determine just how much rat shit may have been in those beanie-weenies you enjoyed cold from the can last night at 1:34a.m. Handy alphabetization makes finding your favorite processed foods easy as pie.
posted by barrett caulk at 11:50 AM PST - 23 comments

interactive feature highlights

Journalism may be going through a painful period but thanks to the web the once lowly information graphic is finally growing up to be all it never could on paper. Especially the New York Times seems to currently stand out in how frequently and quickly they build amazingly detailed and insightful interactive features. Consider the tracking of US Airways Flight 1549 or the piece on raising its engine from the Hudson. Other recent highlights: 9,955,441 parking tickets issues in NYC mapped by street, The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts 1986 — 2008, Ansel Adams's Yosemite, the view from the 10-meter platform explained, A look at the language of presidential inaugural addresses 1789 to the Present, A Map of the number of medals that countries won in summer Olympic Games, Going to the End of the Line, The 44 Places to go in 2009, an explanation of how the Pentagon responded to criticism of then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, The Soyuz Spacecraft, How the Towers Stood and Fell and many, many, more. [more inside]
posted by krautland at 11:50 AM PST - 16 comments

This cycle, which may continue until our sun--or our planet--fails us...

Wilfred Sätty; 1939 - 1982 Illustrator and Collagist extraordinaire; like many talented people of that era hung out at Vesuvio.
" There is a time in the span of civilizations when creative energy and the human spirit are wholly, if briefly focused. When this occurs culture in all its manifestations reaches its zenith. The moment passes; civilizations decline, only to be replaced by others. This process of life appears cyclic. Communities become tribes, turn into nations and become empires which, like suns, radiate their energy to the limits of their power, then decay and finally vanish, leaving behind only traces. This cycle, which may continue until our sun--or our planet--fails us..... "
When you want to know about someone's life you either ask the person yourself or you ask friends ... Sätty is Dead [more inside]
posted by adamvasco at 11:33 AM PST - 4 comments

A different kind of grey scale

This drawing toy responds to volume.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:19 AM PST - 16 comments

Happy Valentine's Day, Mr. Rushdie

Today is the 20th anniversary of the permanent fatwa pronounced by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against the life of Salman Rushdie for writing his novel The Satanic Verses. Said the Ayatollah: "Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to Hell."
posted by rdone at 9:41 AM PST - 41 comments

I Love Jesus But I Drink A Little...

Ellen Degeneres speaks on the telephone with 88 year-old Gladys Hardy of Austin, Texas. [more inside]
posted by ericb at 9:27 AM PST - 23 comments

If X is Kobe Bryant and Y is the ball...

The selfless NBA stats geek, by Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis previously on mefi [more inside]
posted by jourman2 at 9:20 AM PST - 32 comments

it's good to be a banksta

Simon Johnson on Bill Moyers [1] (and, prolifically, making the public media rounds on npr [2]) tackling the bailout of the American Oligarchs, a.k.a. banksters... [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 9:19 AM PST - 16 comments

The Film and Arts Online Magazine

Scene 360 is an online film and arts magazine, profiling and interviewing artists & web designers, filmmakers and writers.
posted by netbros at 7:43 AM PST - 2 comments

Presidential Portraits in Cupcakes

To celebrate both St. Valentine's Day and Presidents Day, the Smithsonian American Art Museum invited artist/baker Zilly Rosen to create a duo portrait of Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln in cupcakes in the museum. [more inside]
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 5:16 AM PST - 15 comments

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