MetaFilter

Disenchanted comments on the "Web Standards Project" and he disagrees with it. And I think what he says rings true: "There's no point in hanging a 'No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service' sign outside a web site."
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:10 PM PST - 71 comments

"We’re not behaving, sometimes we’re pretty wild."
The buggy’s interior is upholstered in royal blue velour. A triangular swatch of the same material is attached to the dash. Silver key chains with colorful emblems - Guns and Roses, Cleveland Browns, and a miniature baseball bat - hang from battery-operated light switches.

Five stereo speakers - including a 12-inch sub-woofer - line the inside of the covered buggy.

On the seat is a selection of old cassette tapes: "The Outfield," "Vixen," and "Hooters."

"This thing will rock, I’m telling you," one of the boys says.
posted by quonsar at 6:16 PM PST - 21 comments

Disclaimers. Peter Shank barely has a website, but it has one of the most extensive collections of disclaimers I've ever come across.

No animals were harmed in the production of this file.
All models over 18 years of age.
If condition persists, consult your physician.
Freshest if consumed before date on carton.
Prices subject to change without notice.
Times approximate.
No postage necessary if mailed in Singapore.
If swallowed, do not induce vomiting.

I bet if we add up all the disclaimers and qualifiers out in the world we would find that no one ever actually says anything.

Cynical? Me? No...
posted by o2b at 6:01 PM PST - 9 comments

VMware. Run the Operating Systems You Need, All at Once, on the One Machine.
posted by Zool at 4:58 PM PST - 16 comments

God's Debris by Scott Adams. "I'm distributing "God's Debris" exclusively as an ebook, without going through a publisher... If the ebook sells well it will set a precedent that screws up the entire book industry. If you ever wanted to screw up an entire industry - and who wouldn't - this is your chance."
posted by Neale at 4:37 PM PST - 23 comments

Domain name game to get hot this summer... Kent Jordan, who represented .info registry Afilias, said the process has been challenged by people who believe that trademark holders should not have first crack at domain names containing their names. "We reject that," he told the audience. Interesting...
posted by canoeguide at 3:46 PM PST - 5 comments

The World [Map] According to America Quite funny indeed...
posted by tatochip at 3:40 PM PST - 16 comments

Apple Goes Retail: Good Idea? As this NYTimes Article describes, Apple is planning to open about a dozen stores nationwide. Because Apple specializes in aesthetically pleasing hardware, I actually think this is a good idea for them.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:46 PM PST - 34 comments

R.I.P. R.A.H.
posted by baylink at 1:45 PM PST - 9 comments

BBC to North America and Australia: Drop Dead. The BBC World Service is dumping all shortwave broadcasts to the US, Canada and Australia as of July. If you want to listen you'll have to get it off the net, or hope your local public radio station uses at least a few WS programs as cheap filler material. A couple hundred US stations do this, but did we mention they tend to do it at 3 in the morning? (Scroll down past the Angola stuff in the above link.)
posted by aaron at 1:42 PM PST - 18 comments

Very thought provoking I would say, but you might want to think about the choices for a minute before you answer. It matches you as closely as it can with famous philosophers. Not perfect, but definitely an interesting site. Has anybody seen others like it?
posted by prototype_octavius at 1:38 PM PST - 101 comments

An exchange between James Fallows and Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

[L]et me explain that your book is the account of three month-long episodes of attempting to live entirely on earnings from $7- or $8-per-hour jobs. You show up in low-wage cities and try to get on your feet, like someone "graduating" from welfare to work. One of many intriguing aspects is the juggling of three challenges: landing a job (not that hard, in the "tight" economy of the late nineties); doing the job (sometimes quite hard, as you make vivid); and finding a place to live (nearly impossible, for reasons we will get to).

The material questions are 1) Do we care? 2) What should we do about it? The author makes a couple of suggestion a couple of links into the article. What do you think?

link via adam
posted by Sean Meade at 12:13 PM PST - 51 comments

Remember Screech? Ran across this site today and although I was never a big fan of the show Saved by the Bell, seeing this and hearing the songs made me chuckle quite a bit. Oh, by the way, that's him on the far right of the band photo.
posted by almostcool at 11:50 AM PST - 12 comments

Like smartertimes, but dumber - dumbertimes.com is kind of like the Onion of small independent sites that provide daily criticism of the New York Times.
posted by transona5 at 11:32 AM PST - 2 comments

Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) has introduced into the house HJR 45, being termed the Liberty Ammendment, which would not only expressly prohibit the federal government from engaging in any enterprise except as provided for in the Constitution, but would also repeal the 16th Ammendment. [That's the one that made legitimate the income tax, after the US had managed to survive without one for a century and a half]
posted by jammer at 11:25 AM PST - 29 comments

A Day at the Races: PM Tony Blair calls for the General Election on June 7. What will the next month of campaigning be like? Well, Trimble has already threatened to resign his post in N. Ireland.
posted by ahughey at 10:47 AM PST - 6 comments

Every OS sucks... A nice little ditty (requires either windows media player or flash player).
posted by TNLNYC at 10:30 AM PST - 13 comments

Top 25 Women of the Web as selected by "San Francisco Women on the Web". Evidently they have different criteria than I do; no Hannah, no Jennifer Ringley, not even Danni Ashe. In fact, I've never heard of any of 'em. What make these ladies "top"?

Who would you nominate for a list titled "Top 25 Women of the Web", and why?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:18 AM PST - 31 comments

Could this be the straw that breaks the Camels back.
posted by monkeyJuice at 9:32 AM PST - 13 comments

The Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) was founded in 1914 to support amateur radio experimenters (hams) that the U.S. began licensing in 1912. The ARRL's 163k+ members refer to each other by strange codes, speak in arcane abbreviations, and do extremely cool things like talk to the space shuttle and international space station via ARISS/SAREX (in the news recently), do two-way EME (earth-moon-earth) communication, and ragchewing (chin wagging) with folks in other countries via commercial and homebrew equipment. And their handbook is a great reference for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of electronics. Sounds like fun.
posted by jplummer at 9:32 AM PST - 20 comments

This is the NEXT oh who am i kidding? *sob* icy hot stuntaz to parody page in less than a week. is this a record?
posted by jcterminal at 9:30 AM PST - 29 comments

Katie Couric: Your Execution Morning Friend Oh, nothing against Katie. Just seems a smidgen ridiculous to have TV morning shows with live-from-elsewhere coverage centered around the execution of McVeigh. Also, 1600 journalists will be around. I know this is typical media overkill for our times, but is it making a martyr out of the guy? Greta from CNN thinks lethal injection executions are snoozers anyway.(Registration required).
posted by raysmj at 9:21 AM PST - 8 comments

Don't like the rulings? Fire the umpire. Trent Lott got the Senate's parliamentarian, a Republican, fired because he, appropriately, wouldn't exempt some bills from filibuster. It seems the GOP has abandoned any pretense of bipartisanship.
posted by anapestic at 9:20 AM PST - 8 comments

Is this cybersquatting? While researching a new car, I decided to check out the research guide at Edmunds.com. When I misspelled the name, I found that edmonds.com is basically a mirror for Amazon.com, which happens to sell cars. Is that kosher?
posted by jpoulos at 9:13 AM PST - 6 comments

Why love your neighbor when you can sue him? A tiny, Florida-based charity called Love Thy Neighbor is being sued for trademark infringement by a Detroit entrepreneur whose enterprise goes by the name Love Your Neighbor.
posted by revbrian at 8:36 AM PST - 2 comments

Long live Nina Tottenberg, Bob Edwards, Ira Glass and the rest of the gang! "We like NPR! We really, really like it!"

This restores at least a little bit of my faith in the American media consumer.
posted by mapalm at 8:24 AM PST - 37 comments

Sen. Storm Thurmond poster boy for term limits? Is this more hipocracy on part of we need term-limits Republican? Why doesn't he just resign and spend some time with his family?
posted by Rastafari at 7:56 AM PST - 8 comments

"Marion County officer says he feared for his life as he faced a knife-wielding man at arm's length." Man breaks into own home after losing keys, neighbors call the police because of the noise, police investigate, man attacks them. Man gets shot dead.
posted by pnevares at 7:53 AM PST - 10 comments

HR 1542, the so-called Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act, will do exactly the opposite of what its name implies, reducing Internet freedom and broadband deployment by eliminating many regulations designed to force the Bells into being more competitive, and also by outlawing voice over IP.

From the article: "This bill ... does nothing more than strip-mine the remaining competitive safeguards of the current law, green-lighting the Bells to bludgeon any remaining competitors into oblivion."
posted by donkeymon at 7:03 AM PST - 4 comments

Another innocent man gets out of prison - after 15 years Jeffrey Pierce goes home. If he admitted committing the rape, he would have gone free by now, but he stood his ground, and lost 15 years. II
posted by tomplus2 at 6:27 AM PST - 19 comments

A new Darwin Award candidate? "[Henry] Elrod's death certificate lists the cause as multiple organ failure from 'voluntary ingestion of China berries.' Indigenous to Asia, China berry trees produce berries, flowers and bark so toxic that six to eight berries have been known to kill a person." This guy ate them for 19 days while on holiday. He even took some home.
posted by Cuppatea at 5:33 AM PST - 19 comments

Claims based on early census data that "non-hispanic whites" are becoming a minority in many regions of the United States are very devisive and inaccurate, this nytimes op-ed by Orlando Patterson claims. "The misleading reports of white proportional decline are likely not only to sustain the racist fears of white supremacist groups but also to affect the views of ordinary white, nonextremist Americans."
posted by palegirl at 5:07 AM PST - 13 comments

Fatbubble -- include-all blogging in real-time? This new program will allow you to spy on what your instant messenger buddies are browsing on the web, let them know what you think about the sites they're on, rate them, comment on them, send them to a friend etc. (Their press release)
posted by frednorman at 5:02 AM PST - 9 comments

Last week, the United States lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

The U.S. has been voted out of something again, losing its seat on the International Narcotics Control Board, a worldwide body which monitors drugs manufacture and illicit drugs trading.
posted by lia at 3:08 AM PST - 33 comments

McVeigh, Nichols did not act alone? U.S. had prior knowledge of the bombing? (via Fark) Interesting piece about a forthcoming 500 page report by the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee. They conclude, among other things, that the blast has links to bin Laden. Kind of scary how much the allegations remind me of the JFK investigation.
posted by sixdifferentways at 12:37 AM PST - 13 comments