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Stick with WinAmp, not RealOne or WMP... Security vulnerability with RealOne and Windows Media Player, but not with WinAmp. Files with embedded URLs or JavaScript can be mislabeled as MP3 and RealOne and WMP will play them and the attachments. WinAmp will just complain... A demonstration can be found here...
posted by Samizdata at 9:13 PM PST - 30 comments

Speedy Gonzales Censored? Cartoon Network officials have banished Speedy Gonzales from their day and prime time lineups for fear of offending Mexican Americans, but fans of the Mexican mouse hero are fighting back.
posted by Iberaband at 9:01 PM PST - 21 comments

A gumby post for those sick of hopeless conflict posts and the like, inspired by the news that Rhino Video is about to release SEVEN DVDs containing the entire works of Gumby (it's not up on their site yet, so no link). More importantly, am I the only one who, as a kid, Gumby the scariest thing on television? Or perhaps Mefi's member base is too young to know about Gumby at all?
posted by ParisParamus at 8:26 PM PST - 22 comments

"Where can you go when skies turn grey, where the sun always shines, and the animals play..." I suppose this could have been saved for a friday, but what the hell. I'm not sure what to expect from the movie, but the website had much more than I expected. Tons-o-games, some screen savers, and lots of foul language. Fun for the whole family.
posted by mikhail at 7:56 PM PST - 4 comments

Sticks, stones, and bullies A British Columbia teenager who bullied a classmate into committing suicide has been found guilty of uttering threats and criminal harassment in a case the victim's mother is calling (the) ruling "for every child." When childhood bullies become adults they are more likely to have criminal records - but will the threat of criminal charges at an earlier age deter bullies before the damage is done?
posted by hannahkitty at 6:52 PM PST - 20 comments

Saddam stokes war with suicide bomber cash. "The hall was packed and the intake of breath was audible as a special announcement was made to the war widows of the West Bank - Saddam Hussein would pay $US25,000 ($47,000) to the family of each suicide bomber as an enticement for others to volunteer for martyrdom in the name of the Palestinian people."
posted by Zool at 6:51 PM PST - 68 comments

A savior for my generation, finally (?) ANDREW W K = grunge - whining + innocence + rocking out something frightening + lust for life + humour + lots and lots of energy. Also keep in mind that I hate popular music. I think he's incredibly cool, and by incredibly cool I mean totally sweet. Anyway, my take is insignificant - what do you people think of this kid?? The cure for the Linkin' Park disease? The aural Creed ointment??
posted by Settle at 5:28 PM PST - 62 comments

Sneak peek at the new look for the Wall Street Journal "Print buyers were presented with non-disclosure agreements when shown the pages...No media buyer was shown the front page, redesigned for the first time since the 1944." Pretty esoteric subject, but still remarkable how much influence the "look and feel " of a newspaper can have on its reader. Hard to imagine the WSJ looking different. It must be a very tough endeavor to get right. (IMHO the recently revamped Int Herald Tribune looks way messier and more confusing than before.)
posted by Voyageman at 1:50 PM PST - 17 comments

The Flo Control Project is a test project for image recognition algorithms developed by Quantum Picture. Basically, they rigged a home computer to control their cat door using image recognition software so that it would only allow cats to enter the house (and not skunks or raccoons), and then only if the cat wasn't carrying prey items (to play with in the comfort of the living room). The newest version of the experiment can differentiate between the two cats currently living in the house. Interesting stuff, not least because many people couldn't tell two cats apart simply by looking at their profiles. I suspect there are some wide-ranging non-feline applications as well.
posted by biscotti at 1:50 PM PST - 19 comments

The Plastic People of the Universe are a reminder of how powerful and important a force rock and roll can be for positive change. Many American and British acts spoke of revolution, but they usually only meant it in the cultural sense, for these guys living in Iron Curtain-era Czechoslovakia, they were talking about the real life-or-death McCoy. Inspired by the Beatles, Frank Zappa, and future Czech president (and sometime collaborator) Vaclav Havel,the Plastics created some amazing music and were often surveilled or imprisoned as "enemies of the state" for their trouble. Thankfully, they lived to see a free Czech republic, although founder Milan Hlavsa passed away in early 2001. Special props to my main man rodii, for jogging my memory about the Plastics in this comment
posted by jonmc at 1:33 PM PST - 6 comments

The vultures of India are dying, with a population decline of over 90% in just over the last decade, probably due to an unknown virus. The decline in vultures is a problem for the Parsis of Bombay in particular, who, as Zoroastrians, have come to depend on the vultures to dispose of their dead at the famous Towers of Silence.
posted by homunculus at 12:55 PM PST - 7 comments

The Economist recently completed a survey of Gulf countries. Much of the content is 'premium access only' or available in the print version. This article, subtitled "The Gulf states have come a long way, fast. Now they need to think about where they are going" is online and examines the swift changes in economy, institutions, and population trends in this in-the-spotlight region. Some fascinating stuff.
posted by cell divide at 12:44 PM PST - 1 comments

Depressed? Cheer up, it's not the end of the world. You know, it seems that The more things change, the more they stay the same . Undecided? When in doubt, consult your inner child . Sure it hurts, but No pain, no gain .Many believe There is truth in every cliché , while others say you should Avoid cliches like the plague . What's your most hated or loved cliche? The Book of Clichés.
posted by Mack Twain at 12:42 PM PST - 25 comments

Artists Of Brücke: German Expressionist Prints is the first exhibition New York's MoMA has created exclusively for the web. It was designed by Second Story, whose web site contains a lot of other terrific stuff.[Needs Flash]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:29 AM PST - 7 comments

Dumbing Down The SAT I was reading this article and several recent news stories came to mind (sorry, can't find links). One was regarding the resistance of teacher's unions to adopt teaching techniques that have proven successful in private schools (phonics would be an example) and the other was a radio news story about a teacher's union defending three schools that had failed to meet state requirements as to quality of education being provided. So, my question is, are teacher's unions interested in educating children or simply fighting to lower the standards?
posted by billman at 10:44 AM PST - 67 comments

New study claims cold fusion is possible 'A paper by a team of researchers at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory who say they have discovered evidence of what looks like nuclear fusion taking place in a relatively inexpensive tabletop device.' You have to go back to 1989 for the last claim of this kind. Cheap energy - the answer to America's dreams, or Bush's biggest nightmare? (Via Techdirt)
posted by RobertLoch at 9:26 AM PST - 31 comments

Are you a knowledgable negotiator? Another web test, this time courtesy the Consensus Building Institute, Inc. I got a 5 because I'm a sucker. How good are you at the wheelin and the dealin?
posted by andnbsp at 8:13 AM PST - 23 comments

Hey guys, want to play with some manly paper dolls...er, I mean manly paper action figures? You do? Rev up your printers and sharpen your scissors, then. You can download and play with your very own Elvis or Ziggy Stardust, or maybe Billy Ray Cyrus, The Dead Milkmen's PunkRockEr, Bob Dylan, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Oliver from Green Acres, Professor Henry Higgins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks' Mr. Brown, the fetching dual poses of Mr. Humphries from "Are You Being Served?", Brave Colonists From Mars, Trekkies, Luke Skywalker and his tons of cool duds, Dylan Hunt from Andromeda, Tom Sawyer, Hercule Poirot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Neil Gaiman's Morpheus, Monet's Young John, or Diego Rivera. (more inside >>>)
posted by iconomy at 7:13 AM PST - 8 comments

Berry, Denzel Make Oscars History Denzel Washington is only the second African American male to win an Best Actor Oscar since Sidney Poitier's win for Lilies of the Field in 1963. Halle Berry is the first African American female to win Best Actress ever. Berry's speech was quite good (albeit long) but it leaves me wondering how all those "women who stand behind her[sic], Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox and it's for every nameless faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened" feel about being named inferior. And why didn't the camera flash onto Jada Pinkett-Smith when Berry said that? Now, that would have been a true Oscar moment.
posted by gloege at 7:02 AM PST - 60 comments

2002 Worst Manual Contest - as selected by Technical Standards, Inc (a documentation company). Some pretty good examples of confusing or confounding manual design (also check the 2000 - 2001 winners), with everything ranging from poor translation ("Operate it on the loosen condition of the levers without comfirmation can cause the handle pole bent and cause Incident") to perplexing images to just poor or absent proof-reading. PDF-intensive. (Heard about this on NPR's "On The Media")
posted by tpl1212 at 6:35 AM PST - 6 comments

Terrorist threatens to blow up comic book store! Stolen comic books were the cause of the incident. According to a cop: "He said he wanted to blow up the place or burn it down...If he couldn’t have his comic books, nobody could."
posted by Keen at 4:16 AM PST - 10 comments

Know the one about the two nuns in the bath? As far as religious humour goes - I don't think it gets any better than Life Of Brian.
posted by zimbobzim at 2:54 AM PST - 7 comments