MetaFilter

What's Making Blognews? This little web app scans 600 of the most popular weblogs, and ranks the news stories they're linking to.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 11:26 PM PST - 7 comments

online creativity self-assessment test
The questionnaire contains only 40 questions
Your personal score will be compared with the global average score
The test takes no longer than 10 minutes of your time
Do you feel ingenuous? Well, do ya, punk??
Macromedia Flash player is required to take the scan.
posted by y2karl at 7:46 PM PST - 81 comments

Images is a webzine devoted to pop culture new and old, particularly dealing with film and television. Along with their reviews of current releases is a growing archive of essays on varying topics such as blaxploitation films from the seventies, or film from throughout the world. Dare I post their list of The 30 Best Westerns?
posted by Evstar at 6:49 PM PST - 6 comments

One God, Many Names. An intriguing short paper (pdf) from the Nawawi foundation on names given to God within the Abrahamic faiths and beyond.
posted by Mossy at 6:34 PM PST - 13 comments

Genesis. "Life" from inorganic mixture. Full PDF paper : Spontaneous Formation of Cellular Chemical System that Sustains Itself far from Thermodynamic Equilibrium.
posted by Gyan at 6:02 PM PST - 9 comments

Chordie: Did OLGA leave you in the lurch? Or when she came back, did it just never feel the same? Do text-based song transcriptions make you rub your eyes and stumble over missing lyrics? [after the bridge, there is more inside]
posted by mwhybark at 4:33 PM PST - 12 comments

"Who is this Loretta Lynn chick, anyway?". Jack White, in a skintight, red cowboy suit, seemed a little nervous when he came out to introduce his opening act. So nervous, in fact, that the White Stripes frontman offered a cautionary preface of sorts to the massive huddle of young fans at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. "Now I want you all to be very nice to my next guest. I think she's the greatest female singer-songwriter of the 20th century,". The crowd looked around at each other, visibly puzzled. In White, Loretta Lynn has found her Rick Rubin. Finally. Much like the producer who revitalized the late Johnny Cash's career with spare, homespun recordings, White has raised the notion of Loretta Lynn as a hip, renegade country artist. The transformation is of the same magnitude as Emmylou Harris's ethereal work with Daniel Lanois in the mid-'90s. more inside
posted by matteo at 4:23 PM PST - 33 comments

Buy Douglas Adams' tent What I really want is his towel.
posted by feelinglistless at 2:45 PM PST - 16 comments

The Association Of Lincoln Presenters. Santarchy be damned, I want to go bar-hopping with these guys.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:15 PM PST - 4 comments

You Like Fish? Why Not English? A musical tribute to the Japanese people by George W. Bush.
(Warning: 500Kbps Windows Media stream. Also available: 500K bpsQuicktime, 80Kbps Windows Media, and 45Kbps Quicktime) [via VeryBigBlog]
posted by filmgoerjuan at 1:57 PM PST - 15 comments

DREAM WORLD Given that green tea provides a more effective and environmentally-friendly method of preparing computer hard disks, pulsars are used to study gravitational waves with great precision, solar cells made from nanocrystals are found to be much more efficient, and scientists have discovered evidence for the earliest known wildfire in Earth's history, 443 to 417 million years ago, it would be hard to make the case that what we are living in is not, in fact, a Dreamworld.
posted by mcgraw at 1:11 PM PST - 29 comments

Where is Rusty? An abandoned community cries out for its creator to return.
posted by reklaw at 1:11 PM PST - 34 comments

Becoming Evil : Boston WTKK-FM radio's Jay Severin advocates genocide of American-Muslims - this is the advocacy of domestic terrorism. And not the mere targeting of civilians but the murder of over three million men, women, and children. Why shouldn't Jay Severin be arrested and charged, under the Patriot Act, with aiding and abetting US domestic terrorist groups which advocate such violence? [Scroll down towards the bottom of the Globe story for a transcript of the quote in context.]
James Waller has studied the process by which individuals and society come to commit mass atrocities , and says of his theories: "...[the] explanation simply allows us to understand the conditions under which many of us could be transformed into killing machines. When we understand the ordinariness of extraordinary evil, we will be less surprised by evil, less likely to be unwitting contributors to evil, and perhaps better equipped to forestall evil." Hesiod Lists some of WTTK's advertisers : Purina, Hilton Resorts, 99 Restaurant and Pub, A.T. & T. Wireless. Still, Orcinus is my favorite "rise of extremist terrorist hate speech in America" news source. Germany has laws against such hate speech - which it believes to be so dangerous as to override free speech considerations - But we've got the USA PATRIOT Act, right?
posted by troutfishing at 12:46 PM PST - 104 comments

Remember when you could create subversive campaign posters with the Bush campaign's very own tool? Wasn't culture jamming fun? Well now you can stick it to McDonald's and use their banner design tool to make up your own advertising message! (via NewYorkish)
posted by turaho at 11:29 AM PST - 16 comments

Shortly after learning of the closing of Avenue Victor Hugo Books in Boston, a fire destroys Spartacus books in my former haunt Vancouver. Although obviously not related, the demise of these two institutions is sad, though Spartacus is trying to carry on through a series of fundraisers this summer. Good photos of AVH and Twelve Reasons for the death of small and independent bookstores.
posted by grimley at 10:08 AM PST - 35 comments

The Good Wife's Guide.
posted by hama7 at 10:03 AM PST - 32 comments

Duchess's poison dell will lure visitors Provided that a duchess can see eye-to-eye with the Home Office on growing cannabis, strychnine and cocaine, Britain is about to get the most venomous and hallucinogenic garden it has ever seen. via neil gaiman's journal
posted by widdershins at 9:41 AM PST - 7 comments

Now that the terrorists are all caught, it's time to go back to attacking the real problem in America: Ravers.

"The Ecstasy Awareness Act (H.R. 2962) would throw anyone in jail who "profits monetarily from a rave or similar electronic dance event knowing or having reason to know" some event-goers may use drugs at the event. Similarly, Section 305 of the CLEAN-UP Act (H.R. 834) makes it a federal crime - punishable by up to nine years in prison - to promote "any rave, dance, music, or other entertainment event, that takes place under circumstances where the promoter knows or reasonably ought to know that a controlled substance will be used or distributed."

ProtectLiveMusic.org has been setup to combat these proposed laws. The idea of busting anyone that promotes a concert where drugs might show up in the jackets of attendees sounds like a good safe law that would never be abused, right? On the bright side, we're now one bill away from Phish and the Dead never touring ever again. :) [via furdlog]
posted by mathowie at 9:35 AM PST - 49 comments

3-digit Interstate Highways - Everything you (n)ever wanted to know about the offshoots of the U.S. Interstate system, including naming conventions and the evil I-238. [via Fark]
posted by falconred at 9:33 AM PST - 20 comments

This site has a real cool slide show of a bunch of graffitied Rudy Guiliani tv movie posters in NYC subway stations (under 'Other'). Some other good stuff by this artist to check out, too (Flash required).
posted by Miyagi at 8:39 AM PST - 11 comments

My Life as Ralph Nader's Flunkie Ralph Nader believes an independent candidacy should "generate more understandings and support for major new directions for our country." His website says these new directions include "repeal of laws that obstruct trade union organization by millions of workers mired in poverty by wages that cannot meet their minimum family livelihoods." The site prescribes "a living wage for tens of millions of workers making under $10 an hour." But the perennial leftist candidate, whose name will appear on the presidential ballot for the third consecutive time this November, has not played by the same rules he strives to make binding for corporations and private businesses.
posted by Postroad at 8:34 AM PST - 19 comments

A Picture's Worth :: a slightly different kind of photo blog -- a single (often excellent) photo, accompanied by a short (often poignant) essay which explains the emotions, memories or thoughts that the photograph triggers for the photographer.
posted by anastasiav at 8:18 AM PST - 1 comments

The grays, the mantises, the snake-skins, and the hybrids are just some of the aliens drawn by children at Aliens and Children. To note: thought screen hats will successfully prevent abduction by the mantis-like aliens, the servants of the mantis-like aliens, the snake-skinned aliens, and the Meek-Moks.
posted by iconomy at 5:02 AM PST - 24 comments

Laser-o-vision: A system that projects light beams directly into the eye could change the way we see the world.
posted by moonbird at 4:15 AM PST - 18 comments

Doomed to failure in the Middle East. 52 former senior British diplomats, probably the most experienced people on Middle East issues in Britain, sent a letter to Tony Blair, telling him he is very close to fucking up big time. Tony is trying to pass this as just «right of opinion». What next? Are we going to see foreign office people demonstrating outside Downing street?
posted by acrobat at 3:58 AM PST - 64 comments

Today (April 27th) is FREE ICE CREAM CONE DAY at Ben & Jerry's. Tomorrow night is FREE SCOOP NIGHT at Baskin Robbins.
posted by crunchland at 3:57 AM PST - 19 comments

"The Patriot Act defends our liberty, is what it does, under the Constitution of the United States" A saudi national is being prosecuted for maintaining web sites that advocated violent jihad. [nytimes, reg. req.]
posted by rdr at 2:10 AM PST - 22 comments