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"I'm about to name my brother the ambassador to Chad" Guess who spoke into an open mike again? Major League!
posted by owillis at 11:37 PM PST - 21 comments

MP3.com's Payback For Playback seems to be having success. Exactly 6 months ago, this thread tells us about the birth of this program. Since then, some online artists have made close to $200,000 from listens alone! The site shows the top monthly earners since July. Amazing or what?
posted by swank6 at 8:05 PM PST - 11 comments

"Because in the end..." One of the most insightful, engaging, and well written sites (not to mention the one that got plenty of us blogging in the first place) stops updating, at least for the near future; the tear-jerker of a last entry touches on so many things- relationships, art, emotions, careers, etc - it perfectly encapsulates so much of what made the page great. We'll miss you, Jack Saturn.

That being said, I can't wait for the book.
posted by NickBarat at 5:39 PM PST - 7 comments

Songs that you'll never think of the same way again.
posted by milnak at 4:58 PM PST - 19 comments

Who knew that Calvin's favorite magazine was real?
posted by JFunk2800 at 3:20 PM PST - 5 comments

The truce shortlived. I thought what I was hearing was great news. But watching TV this afternoon I've seen a Caring Foundation and NARAL commercial back-to-back at least 3 times. It's been years since I've seen it this bad.
posted by bkdelong at 3:14 PM PST - 1 comment

Germ Warfare against Canadian Politicians. Letters allegedly containing Anthrax were sent to MPs in Canada
posted by jpate at 2:58 PM PST - 5 comments

Splat! It has all the usual stuff like yourname@spl.at e-mail etc... BUT you should check out this link...

'Help The Girl'

It's a weekly serial where you can vote to control the characters...
posted by jonpanky at 2:50 PM PST - 5 comments

Deepak Chopra starts an internet company
"MyPotential, which opened for business on the Net this month, could use some clever wheeler-dealing. It is a lousy time to launch a multimedia venture, especially one that until a few months ago was hyped as a web-oriented business."
posted by cell divide at 2:32 PM PST - 5 comments

A Stunning finding Perhaps some rock groups do this too.
posted by Postroad at 2:01 PM PST - 1 comment

Drunk Russian diplomat kills Canadian woman
He claimed immunity and was sent home. Should ambassadors be held accountable by local laws in extreme circumstances such as these?
posted by Starchile at 12:23 PM PST - 32 comments

Dallas tries to override the First Ammendment in order to fight a community activism page [javascript navigation... ick] that criticized the city for not enforcing zoning laws, amongst other problems. I personally love the concept of a city considering suing one of its citizens for trademark infringement for using the name of the city itself.
posted by jammer at 12:03 PM PST - 8 comments

The first "space tourist" is scheduled be lifted to the ISS by the Russians, in exchange for millions of dollars, on 30 April.
posted by jammer at 11:57 AM PST - 9 comments

From the what was this guy thinking department. Man arrested for watching porn video in store's electronics section. Well, at least it wasn't a tape of Battlefield Earth.
posted by remo at 10:55 AM PST - 5 comments

Virginia's Senate passes bill to make students pledge allegiance. Scary quote from the bills sponser ``I personally don't believe anybody should be allowed to object on a philosophical basis,'' he told fellow senators Tuesday.
posted by remo at 10:46 AM PST - 51 comments

Libyan gets minimum of 20 years for Lockerbie Bombing by Scottish Court. Why are British courts handing out such tiny sentences? After all, in America it's not uncommon for people to receive 99 years for a single murder. Some people are doing over 10 years for rape alone. This Libyan could have easily received the death sentence if he were in the US, as it was similar in scale to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Yet, in the UK, it's possible to kill people through negligence, and get away with it. Just last month an uninsured driver was speeding, killed a pedestrian, fled the scene, and although found guilty, only received a driving ban!

Is the UK overly soft in its sentencing? Or is the USA overly draconian?
posted by wackybrit at 10:20 AM PST - 23 comments

There is Unrest in the Galactic Senate... The gang at TheForce.Net have posted the (current) version of the opening crawl of Episode 2. Big-time Spoilers within, but you know you want to...
posted by kevincmurphy at 10:18 AM PST - 8 comments

Born Magazine : Design, Literature, Together.

Found through The Magnificent Melting Object.
posted by jbushnell at 9:34 AM PST - 9 comments

Sega bails on another piece of hardware. It looks like the dreamcast is dead. They are stopping production and reducing the price to clear the dreamcasts they have remaining in stock.
posted by bytecode at 9:01 AM PST - 18 comments

orlando has vulture problems
posted by bliss322 at 8:41 AM PST - 10 comments

Minnesota tells prisoners to get rid of soft porn magazines. Hard porn is already forbidden, but now they won't be permitted to have Playboy or Penthouse or the like. Will there be a rise in prison rape?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:31 AM PST - 19 comments

15 year old girl who had a heart attack last Friday at Sydneys Big Day Out during Limp Bizkit's set died yesterday afternoon. This was the original story I read about it, that said she was 18. It seems even worse knowing she was only 15 years old.
posted by endorwitch at 8:14 AM PST - 10 comments

Feeling Safe about the Keeper of Domain Names Anyone notice that at least at 10:30am EST that Network Solutions homepage brings up an Error page? Doesn't that make us all feel safe. And then there was the Registrars.com registrar transfer form which didn't think the domain I was trying to transfer had been registered (but if you used their WHOIS it showed it was).
posted by matte at 7:39 AM PST - 17 comments

A short critique of "Boo 2" at Evolt. With a change in business model at Boo.com comes a new problem: 'pogo purchasing,' in which each product must be ordered separately through different retailers.
posted by tranquileye at 4:55 AM PST - 1 comment

Had this idea about a year ago over beer, when netthings were a-cookin', fleshed it out with some geek-comrades, pitched it under an NDA to a VC, got the green light, and then chickened out and went back to the day job. Once you really thought it through and calculated the wired populace as a percentage of the unwired, we figured, the idea was fabulous, a service to The People and a MoneyMaker. Now someone else seems to have had the same idea, more or less. I wish them luck. If it takes off, I'm gonna feel mighty dumb, and if it tanks, mighty lucky. Now I can finally ask the MeFi jury...Silly thing or smart?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:34 AM PST - 17 comments

Salon tightens its belt... No surprise there, things are tough all over. But what caught my eye was a quote in paragraph 5 from an industry pundit who said he "hasn't seen any site that can be profitable with a revenue base of less than $15 million per quarter". What future does the web have if every site that creates its own content has to bill $60 million a year?
posted by BGM at 1:19 AM PST - 12 comments

The first chapter of Eric Schlosser's new book piqued my interest; this and this solidified my desire to read Fast Food Nation. Has anyone else read the book yet? Comments?
posted by JDC8 at 12:07 AM PST - 11 comments

CNN portalizes? Not exactly, but the portal is clearly the model for their new design, which resembles nothing so much as a tall Yahoo. Headlines, except for the top story, are smaller and scattered about the page in more than one category -- something they've done for some time, but now with magnified effect (I counted six links to Lockerbie stories). Have they forgotten that their mission is delivering news?
posted by dhartung at 11:00 PM PST - 8 comments

k10k hits 100! Can't let today end without a little applause for k10k's 100th issue. And it's a doozy. (Be sure to check out all the random splashes.)
posted by fraying at 8:06 PM PST - 8 comments

Asera is everywhere Read the lyrics. Listen to the MP3. Check the glossary. WOW.
posted by bkeaggy at 6:15 PM PST - 4 comments

Palmstories Porn for your Palm. The joke writes itself.
posted by ritualdevice at 4:13 PM PST - 10 comments

Amazon.com to cut 1,300 jobs. Is this the beginning of sustainability for Amazon? Or is it the beginning of the end?
posted by tranquileye at 3:52 PM PST - 11 comments

Georgia approves a new state flag, which should displease just about everyone (historians, civil rights leaders, residents that call it "the war of northern aggression"). It looks like design-by-committee, in which everyone compromises to the point of utter pointlessness. It's certainly hideous, redesign contest anyone?
posted by mathowie at 12:19 PM PST - 47 comments

The Museum of E-Failure. "May history not soon forget the hell we've all been through."
posted by fraying at 11:38 AM PST - 24 comments

Can you make change for a $200 bill? Looks like one store was able to.
posted by milnak at 9:53 AM PST - 10 comments

The next ultimate "where were you?" question? According to Tecumseh’s Curse, every U.S. President elected in a year ending in zero will die in office from natural causes or otherwise. This beg's the question "Where will you be when Bush dies?"[via cam]
posted by DragonBoy at 9:33 AM PST - 17 comments

Censorware.org one of the best censorware pages, has died. "Due to demands from some of the people who contributed, in however minor a fashion, to this site, it has been taken down." Dagnabit! Anybody have any idea why? The site had one of the neatest pages on the net, estimated how fast it was going to show how impossible it was to keep up. Free spxxch loses an important defender.
posted by mrmorgan at 8:31 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

CBS pulled this ad from the Superbowl. Which is a shame because I think it deserves a place on the Ad Critic Superbowl Top 10.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 7:54 AM PST - 6 comments

Disney will finally shut down Go.com Guess I wasn't the only one to think Go was a bad idea. Ever since Disney started doing the Go thing, their Disney.com site went from useful to down-right nasty. They might as well have called it goaway.com. I just hope what they mean by streamlining is take away the crap and make this stuff useful. The move was praised by Wall Street analysts. "Good riddance"
posted by jdiaz at 6:56 AM PST - 7 comments

While IjustGotFired.com seems to be in full-swing, handing out free @ijustgotfired email addresses to the many people who are finding themselves being cut in the world of lay-offs, the site's founder, Wrybread, of WryBread.com fame (a great site to waste enormous blocks of time at, looking at fun-but-useless mayhem type of stuff), has been unusually quiet with his own site since November.

Anybody in the S.F. area know anything about this? He didn't walk perilously close to the edge of the Earth and fall off, did he?
posted by lizardboy at 5:49 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

"Cheburashka is a creation of the great writer Eduard Uspensky, while most Japanese cartoons are based on comic books that have absolutely no literary merit." Here, here! Cheburashka rules!
Does this bring back memories.
posted by tiaka at 5:20 AM PST - 8 comments

The Bush voucher plan A British opinion on the Bush education voucher plan. Is it too bold or too timid? We have read pros and cons on vouchers but this tackles the issue from a different slant.
posted by Postroad at 5:04 AM PST - 12 comments

A short film by an ex-Amazon employee who snuck into the main building....something for some of us to watch while awaiting more layoff news.
posted by gluechunk at 1:32 AM PST - 5 comments

"Well, at least I got to see the officer squirm a little bit" A man takes pictures, creates a computer simulation, and still manages to get a ticket. More proof that traffic court is about revenue generation and not justice. I still give the guy and "A" for effort.
posted by john at 1:30 AM PST - 31 comments

Pop psychology, in fun-for-the-whole-family game form. Based on her nationally syndicated radio show, this fast-paced board game has players matching wits with the doctor, responding to some of her 600 real, phone-in dilemmas. This amazon outlet deal features Nag, Preach, and Teach cards, and a scary looking box. You know your fifteen minutes are up when you hit the amazon outlet rack.
posted by mathowie at 1:24 AM PST - 3 comments

One of the best movie news and gossip web sites, Roughcut.com, has just closed, a victim of the AOL Time Warner layoffs. Luckily, the single best thing about Roughcut, David Poland's daily column "The Hot Button," will live on via Poland's personal site.
posted by aaron at 12:48 AM PST - 3 comments

I'm surprised that none of us thought to post this: January 28 was the 15th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. For most of us Generation Xers, that day was the ultimate "where were you?" event, a moment as defining to our generation as the JFK assassination was to Boomers. Or at least that's what the media wants us to believe. In any case, it affected most people very strongly, and threw a hell of a monkey wrench into the US space program that we're arguably still recovering from. Worse, the shuttle's almost guaranteed to blow up again at some point, due to design problems and the inherent risks of space flight. So where were you on that day? How did it affect you? Do you think the nation was permanently affected?
posted by aaron at 12:33 AM PST - 65 comments

Physics problem A "Discovery" program for kids at MSN.com explores the physics of skydiving, specifically the trajectory of an object dropped from a moving plane. Problem is, their demonstration animation looks completely phucked. More inside...
posted by Tubes at 8:46 PM PST - 8 comments

Ok, time to drop the recent religious wars, and return to the traditional religious wars. "Linux is just a fad", saith Microsoft. Genties and ladelmen, start your engines.
posted by baylink at 7:52 PM PST - 17 comments

You thought the Holocaust was sickening? Read about the Nanjing Massacre. A very graphic account of the massacre of Chinese citizens by Japanese soldiers in World War 2. I found this tale to be far more sickening than that of the Holocaust.

Don't read it if you don't wish to read and see accounts of how Japanese soldiers sliced up pregnant women and beheaded children in the streets. It is truly awful.
posted by wackybrit at 5:44 PM PST - 47 comments

a 13-year-old gets third-degree burns after watching mtv's 'jackass'. Who are these kids? Do you think mtv is responsible for their direct actions?; or are these just silly kids doing dumb stuff?
posted by tiaka at 5:21 PM PST - 35 comments

Reed's Law is about how, under certain conditions ("Group Forming Networks") the value created by a network, rather than being quadratic as predicted by Metcalfe's Law, becomes exponential. What's interesting is his discussion of the kind of networks he's talking about (chat rooms, eBay and … MetaFilter?) and what happens in them. Trouble is, I can't quite follow him! Can you?
posted by rodii at 5:18 PM PST - 1 comment

Government waste. While the report had very libertarian leanings, John Stossel's special on how royally inept our government is at accomplishing anything is an indictment of the entrenched ways of doing things. There must be some sort of crossroad where liberal social policies can meet with real accountability without bureaucracy.
posted by owillis at 3:48 PM PST - 21 comments

A Confederacy of Denial: in which David Blight reveals the origin of the myth of the moral Confederacy.
posted by sudama at 3:22 PM PST - 8 comments

John Draper says he's going straight for good and looking to "pay back society for [his] deeds in the past," by working with a software security outfit.
posted by idiolect at 2:01 PM PST - 2 comments

See? Y'all sent me off to TVTechnology, and I found something interesting... Remember a couple years ago -- The Day The Pagers Died? They died because Galaxy 4 fell over, which in turn was because its Satellite Control Processors broke.

Both of them. 4 other birds are down one processor; a total of 25 are in danger -- all built on the Hughes HM-601 satellite 'bus'. What is it we always say about genetic diversity being good? Wouldn't you hate to be the engineer on the hook for *this* 12 billion dollars?
posted by baylink at 1:31 PM PST - 6 comments

GOP measure to allow for our govt to assassinate those deemed worthy of it. introduced by Bob Barr in Senate today. I assume they mean non-Americans?
posted by Postroad at 1:12 PM PST - 19 comments

a sign of our prosperous economy.
posted by tiaka at 1:12 PM PST - 10 comments

This link is a couple of weeks old, but its message is eternal: DON'T POSE THE DEAD.
posted by jpoulos at 1:05 PM PST - 4 comments

An interview with Sam and Zak about the shit (parson the pun) they've smoked throughout their lives. Only gets funnier the more you read. Seriously. [Danke: Boing Boing]
posted by ookamaka at 10:34 AM PST - 20 comments

Napster caves. So what is the best alternative for dial-up connections?
posted by aflakete at 10:13 AM PST - 22 comments

Tetsuo! Kaneda! Akira on DVD!
posted by ritualdevice at 10:07 AM PST - 6 comments

IE 6.0 beta? It looks like they leaked a copy (Win 2000 only). Many screenshots. More integration with MSN, sidebars (explorer bars), media player, etc.
posted by tremendo at 8:54 AM PST - 18 comments

Christian States of America according to President Dubya. Government should not fund international family-planning groups, but should fund faith-based programs. Someone please pinch me so I can wake up and discover this is just a bad dream.
posted by quirked at 8:21 AM PST - 69 comments

the news versus e-mail news Is this link, an article about spreading news via e-mail and the net, an example of my present posting?
posted by Postroad at 7:39 AM PST - 2 comments

Catcher in the Rye just turned 50 and J.D. Salinger is staying true to form by doing nothing to mark the occasion. Even his publishing company is saying very little about the anniversary. I don't think it's right to stay silent about perhaps the greatest American novel of all-time. I've loved this book ever since I first read it. Hail to Holden Caufield, and Kudos to Salinger for writing the book.
posted by Bag Man at 12:53 AM PST - 27 comments

dear debb- we're all going to have sex with each other and you're not invited! -kucha

[you're all bitches. -debb]
posted by palegirl at 8:30 PM PST - 18 comments

Scientology is sueing someone who in Sweden has published the Fishman Affidavit online in 1996. Fortunately, even harrassments by Scientology outside court cannot prevent the strong arguments the publisher makes in court.
posted by willem at 8:02 PM PST - 8 comments

There's been a lot of talk of late about signal-to-noise ratios here on MeFi (er, Ashcroft who?...). Generally, we think of noise as something that always degrades the quality of a signal. Sometimes, however, the opposite can be the case. Here's a neat little demonstration of a non-linear system in which noise can be used to amplify a signal that would otherwise be too be faint to detect any other way. It exploits a phenomenon known as Stochastic Resonance.
posted by lagado at 7:50 PM PST - 25 comments

While AOL/TW is setting up Netscape to be Pathfinder 2.0, Disney is thinking of something else. Looks like Go.com will soon be gone.com
posted by TNLNYC at 7:35 PM PST - 9 comments

Quoth the Ravens, nevermore. 34 - 7, and the Vince Lombardi trophy goes back to Baltimore. My favorite spots were...
posted by baylink at 7:07 PM PST - 32 comments

There will always be a lawyer. "Internet intoxication"? This is worse than twinkies.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 6:05 PM PST - 7 comments

This is pretty damn cool: your bookmarks, napsterized. A new app (windows only, sorry) to let you share your favorite sites with everyone and allow others to search for them. If they add a hotlist, ala napster, this could be one killer app.
posted by mathowie at 2:02 PM PST - 7 comments

When is a photograph not a photograph?
...and does it matter? Photosnobs get bent out of shape at Photo.net.
posted by normy at 1:01 PM PST - 16 comments

NBC apologizes to Latinos for 'Law & Order' episode The network's action was swiftly criticized by Dick Wolf, executive producer of the long-running legal drama. So a TV network caves into a lobbying group, even though the episode was based on real events.
posted by fleener at 9:12 AM PST - 25 comments

When I Am King seems to be the latest supercool discovery in online comics. This guy updates weekly, and he's got 18 episodes so far.
posted by David Gaddis at 12:20 AM PST - 36 comments

Like the rest of Europe, Germany is going through a histrionic BSE scare. So Germans switched to sausage and pork. And then they were told pork contains anabolic steroids. So they switched to venison. And then they were told it might have BSE too. So the Germans, who hate veggies, are starting to "starve." And raid zoos for meat. Hey, where'd all this paté come from?
posted by aaron at 11:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Probably the most arogant article I've ever read
Jesus. Hermenaut is ususally pretty good but this attack on anorexics is incredibly cynical. Can everyone else fill in the blanks about why this is such cynical crap? Thanks.
posted by davidgentle at 9:05 PM PST - 15 comments

The Virginia Senate voted to let Fairfax County prohibit its residents from sleeping anywhere but their bedrooms.
posted by sudama at 6:37 PM PST - 22 comments

24 hours to go. Am I the only one who can't wait for the new tribes to square off? Place your bets at SurvivorDeadPool.
posted by Basta at 2:51 PM PST - 13 comments

the birthday girl got her best birthday ever, she told the newspaper. "I got a stripper and I got to bitch out Naomi Judd," she said.
posted by palegirl at 1:23 PM PST - 15 comments

DirecTV takes a stand and VIA satellite, "killed pirated pieces of hardware that had enabled viewers in the U.S. and abroad to see a broad range of programming, including premium channels and pay-per-view events that they had not paid for." I didn't even know these pieces of hardware existed, but there are whole sites dedicated to satellite hacking which tell you what to do now if you had one of these. I hope if you have one of these cards you didn't have a Super Bowl Party planned.
posted by Mark at 12:01 PM PST - 13 comments

Winamp 3.0a2 has been released to the general public. Beware it's Alpha 2 so some things aren't complete, such as the EQ, but it still has some nice new features such as the Thinger and the ability to layer and alpha blend skins.
posted by physics at 10:30 AM PST - 13 comments

The french buy childrens' body parts.
posted by tiaka at 7:06 AM PST - 7 comments

IT gets a domain. The interesting thing is now maybe less how world-changing IT might be (most dreamers I know, at least, have gone from wide-eyed Bradburian dreaming to the expectation of disappointment to resigned cynicism by now), but how the commercial game will play itself out. I feel all dirty now.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:33 AM PST - 6 comments

"...all great [historical figures] appear, so to speak, twice...the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."
-- Karl Marx from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon

The Marx & Engels Internet Archive for all your smart-arsed pseudo-intellectual quoting requirements.
posted by lagado at 3:20 AM PST - 10 comments

Shop Mandiberg!! eCommerce or performance art?
posted by aladfar at 10:02 PM PST - 7 comments

woo! blogvoices is staying open thanks to the good folks at pyra. well, im just going to go right out and say that this has made my day. way to go chris and pyrates!
posted by will at 8:45 PM PST - 23 comments

Etoy vs. Etoys: Round Two. One last nail in the coffin of the dying dot-com?
posted by jia at 7:35 PM PST - 4 comments

"My Untold Story" - What if we threw a presidential campaign and nobody came? Ralph explains how he tried to engage the press, and why it didn't work.
posted by fleener at 6:29 PM PST - 20 comments

U.S. sending Patriot missles to Israel Iraq moves troops close to Syrian border and announces it is a military exercise. The U.S. moves Patriot missle outfit to Israel with some troops and announces it is a military exercise. My trainer told me that sometimes you can overdo the exercising.
posted by Postroad at 5:00 PM PST - 4 comments

Global women are planning a general strike on March 8, 2001, in protest of pay inequity.
posted by tamim at 4:43 PM PST - 17 comments

$425 for an empty box. Imagine how much more it would be worth if it contained a Playstation 2. (Check his feedback, he really did send someone the empty box. "Caveat emptor"...)
posted by kindall at 4:35 PM PST - 48 comments

I can't believe no one has posted this... but if I had a cool ten-grand, this set of Generation One Transformers would definitely be mine.
posted by hobbes at 4:15 PM PST - 13 comments

Noted without comment: 'The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that an unexpected pat on the bottom at work could not be labeled sexual harassment — as long as men didn't make a habit of it.'
posted by rebeccablood at 2:25 PM PST - 16 comments

Breast Milk: Assassin of Youth! (thanks, Unknown News)
posted by snakey at 1:42 PM PST - 5 comments

I’m not sure whether design is dead or kinky, but Kiiroi is back and looks hott for spring.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 1:17 PM PST - 12 comments

"President Bush intends to move ahead with a national missile defense plan despite objections from Russia and other countries." Is it just me, or is Bush on some kind of mission to destroy America as we know it? Does anyone still believe that America is under threat of nuclear annhilation? (other than Dubya?) We are so screwed.
posted by liquidgnome at 1:14 PM PST - 32 comments

So, who are you going to vote for? Yes, it's that time again, as the 2004 presidential campaign gets underway! The Des Moines Register asked registered Iowa Democrats to declare their favorites. Who are you supporting?
posted by aaron at 12:49 PM PST - 12 comments

:-( Despair, INC. Secures official trademark registration for ":-(", announces plans to sue millions for trademark infringement.
posted by Hackworth at 11:55 AM PST - 13 comments

SurvivorBlog2 - Crazier than the first time around Now, if only Yahoo would add this as a module for my start page. For those who followed SurvivorBlog1, all the old contestants are back in the peanut gallery and there's a heap load of drama, cat fights, & smack talking going around for SB2. Sick, twisted, embarrassingly addictive.
posted by jujubee at 11:53 AM PST - 9 comments

Mostly BS. In it, we learn the World Economic Forum wants to revamp its public relations, and that the next WTO Ministerial (previously in Seattle) will be held in Qatar. I read elsewhere the tiny nation doesn't have enough hotel rooms, so attendees will stay on luxury cruiseliners anchored in the harbor.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 10:32 AM PST - 6 comments

More than Missing Dubyas Following up yesterday's iffy Drudge link, a bit more conclusive (MSNBC) reporting of the so-called "pranks" that bitter Clinton & Gore staffers pulled before leaving their offices. (more inside)
posted by Dreama at 10:29 AM PST - 25 comments

yahoogroups conversion of egroups is in full swing. I've been through the conversion from onelist to egroups, but now with this they're mandating a conversion to the Yahoo ID and killing off the old sign-in system - which was email address + password. Why *must* I have a Yahoo ID?
posted by artlung at 8:14 AM PST - 30 comments

Maha Kumbh Mela from space I know it has been covered, but this kinda thing always gives me goosebumps...
posted by snowgoon at 5:06 AM PST - 4 comments

Malawi's albinos are discriminated against. People are suspicious of their pale skin and yellow hair. so they've formed the Albino Association of Malawi which is lobbying for such rights as an end to workplace discrimination and government aid for their unique medical needs. the ministry of health considers the group's demands reasonable and is working on solutions which would include education for comunities on how to look after albino children.
posted by palegirl at 9:18 PM PST - 3 comments

In case other forms of augmentation isn't a viable option, now women can order Bloussant, "an all-natural herbal tablet, which, when taken daily will increase ... bust size by up to two cup sizes." The site also has the commercial for the product in Windows Media and QuickTime formats.
posted by tamim at 7:28 PM PST - 12 comments

Two of the biggest tech news sites seem to be coming up a little short in the creativity department. ZDNet and CNet News have both been redesigned recently, and their new similarities are astounding. Worse still, they both now feature huge, ugly ads (which we're supposed to "explore") that completely overwhelm the page.
posted by fraying at 6:40 PM PST - 24 comments

We Live in Public launches! Voyeur alert. Note: Free registration required...
posted by heather at 5:07 PM PST - 12 comments

I'm something of a bibliophile; at age 17 I have a personal library of over 600 books and I read about 120 books every year. One of the cool things I discovered on the 'net last year was the growing number of personal book review sites. A couple of my favorites are John Regehr's Book Pages and Danny Yee's Book Reviews. Both sites provide literate, enjoyable commentary on a wide-range of books. Assignment: Anybody else out there found any good book review sites? If so, please share and explain. :)
posted by hanseugene at 4:05 PM PST - 29 comments

"States' Rights" hit the UK? First abolishing tuition fees, now providing long-term care for the elderly: the Scottish Executive is making life, um, "interesting" for its progenitor in Westminster. The downside of an unwritten constitution?
posted by holgate at 3:13 PM PST - 7 comments

Have you ever been embarrassed to tell someone they have gas? Or maybe they cancel out that smell with too much cologne? Now you can tell them anonymously, with a "gentle hint".
posted by Mark at 12:23 PM PST - 6 comments

California on verge of gutting goals for electric cars, Ed Begley Jr and the rest of California hangs collective heads in shame.
posted by jasonshellen at 12:09 PM PST - 14 comments

Whitehouse staffers des- er, I meant Kids love biometrics!
posted by gluechunk at 11:55 AM PST - 7 comments

An 18-inch dog swallows a 15-inch serrated knife and lives to, well, bark about it. Not the most compelling story on metafilter, but the x-ray photo is worth the trip (and they had no idea it was in there until they did the x-ray).
posted by teradome at 10:51 AM PST - 7 comments

Welcome to the Church of God-Zillah: A giant, fire-breathing symbol of destruction has become a force for Christianity in this land of cowboys and cabernet.
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:35 AM PST - 11 comments

When did Mo revive World New York? Woohoo!
posted by sudama at 10:22 AM PST - 10 comments

TO A CARPENTER, EVERY PROBLEM LOOKS LIKE A NAIL. Pennsylvania Man Cuts Off Hand, Shoots Self in Head With Nail Gun.
posted by crunchland at 9:17 AM PST - 13 comments

Goodbye, farewell, and chicken butt. One of the most brilliant comedy sites ever, Computer Stew, is going away. If you've never watched any of these amazingly funny web-shows you have about 24 hours to do so. I highly recommend you do.
posted by bondcliff at 9:10 AM PST - 5 comments

TANGMONKEY.COM , on of my favorite sites on the Net, bills itself as an Evil Empire that rules the world from behind their smoke-screen of fake Record Companies, Ball Lightning information, free email, Tangmonkey Dance, and more. It's the only place I've seen where you can contribute to an archived collection of rants and on the same page click an "eating babies" icon. It's... er... "capital jamcracker".
posted by Marquis at 8:12 AM PST - 2 comments

The year is 1995, and GE Information Services is looking to sell off its unprofitable online service GEnie. (Here is a rate sheet.) GEnie Lamp Apple II offers some thoughts on the sale, and here is a synopsis of the big online services after GEnie's demise (choice quotes abound!)
posted by hijinx at 8:00 AM PST - 8 comments

We are the world. No matter what you think of this expansion into Ecuador to stamp out the drug trade in Columbia, you have to love the great economic ramifications for locals as they open facilities and raise prices for their wealthy neighbors from the north. No mention, alas, of the prostitutes who usually move close to military facilities.
posted by Postroad at 6:58 AM PST - 5 comments

Statement of Senator Feinstein opposing John Ashcroft. I hope he doesn't get in. A friend of mine told me he saw some "Roe v. Wade is dead" demonstrators on TV outside the capitol building and the first thing he thought was Triumph of the Will had descended upon Washington.
posted by kliuless at 6:53 AM PST - 5 comments

Greenspan for taxcuts.
posted by tiaka at 6:35 AM PST - 5 comments

Strangest Story Ever Told - The Weird Legend of Jesus in Japan
Little known religious fact #2: Jesus didn't die up on his cross at Golgotha. That was actually his brother. Christ himself fled across Siberia and, after a brief detour through Alaska, landed in Japan, where he got married and raised a family.
Warning: some wacky religious notions will be mentioned in this article.
posted by lagado at 4:08 AM PST - 15 comments

Lisl Auman will spend the rest of her life in prison for a crime that she didn't commit. I was made aware of this woman's plight by a brief mention in Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN column. This woman is serving a life sentence for a murder that was commited while she was in police custody. Surely, a travesty such as this cannot stand.
posted by Optamystic at 2:18 AM PST - 7 comments

Chiariglione steps aside. SDMI over?
posted by aflakete at 1:45 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Porto Alegre--the Inclusive Alternative to Davos (?) (via Utne Web Watch Daily)
posted by aflakete at 1:38 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Britney Spears cusses, and you can hear it. (Napster link)
posted by owillis at 12:30 AM PST - 34 comments

Hey Teen Activists! Want to protest the evil capitalist confab at the World Economic Forum in Davos, but you just don't have the time? Well, now you can! Thanks to revolutionary (no pun intended) Swiss technology, hellomrpresident.com will allow you to send messages that will then be projected via laser onto the side of a mountain overlooking Davos! Starts today at 1700, though it doesn't say whether that's UTC or local time. Five hours a day for five days. Let us know what you get projected! (They have a webcam up, so you may be able to grab a jpeg of your thought.)
posted by aaron at 11:18 PM PST - 9 comments

You thought it was just "shenanigans," but it turns out to have been a lot more. Outgoing Clinton-Gore Administration staffers committed many acts of vandalism on their way out the door, including mass destruction of internal wiring, destroyed office equipment, intentionally-reprogrammed phone systems and trash strewn everywhere. It was so bad in the Vice-President's offices that Tipper Gore had to personally call Lynne Cheney to apologize.
posted by aaron at 9:36 PM PST - 20 comments

"Accept our valuation or let Sand Hill put you into Chapter 11." This article from Red Herring on bridge financing for cash-strapped dotcoms makes the dire nature of the situation pretty explicit.
posted by JParker at 9:31 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Can you believe they sell these things online? $1.2 million Sun Enterprise 10000 server or a Sun StorEdge T3 Array, which has a mere 168TB capacity. (yeah that should hold my mp3z)
posted by grank at 9:16 PM PST - 5 comments

And you thought US environmental policies were bad. Europe is facing a major environmental crisis that it seems unwilling or unable to act on -- deforestation, flooding, desertification and more. From the article: "One fifth of the land in Spain is already so degraded that it is turning to desert" -- and it's as bad if not worse elsewhere on the continent & in Britain.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 8:35 PM PST - 2 comments

More a conversation than a comic - and that's no bad thing. Of particular note is his "I Can't Stop Thinking", and the 24hr Comic. Author of Zot, too.
posted by holloway at 6:30 PM PST - 2 comments

Unfortunately, he's too white to go to jail...
posted by lagado at 4:05 PM PST - 23 comments

Drudge fooled by WHOIS prank ... reports that name servers such as MICROSOFT.COM.IS.NOTHING.BUT.A.MONSTER.ORG are a hacker's "warning for Microsoft."
posted by rcade at 3:35 PM PST - 8 comments

Oh, hell. Now all of that tanker fuel is floating around the Galapagos Islands. Okay, so stupid question time: How is it that oil tankers are allowed to be near the islands at all, given their fragility and the number of endangered species on them? I'm sure they'd have to go out of their way to move the oil, but wouldn't that be better environmentally than, well, this?!
posted by metrocake at 2:47 PM PST - 3 comments

Democrats: Al Gore lost because he was a raving lefty. *sigh* I guess the dems will run an even more conservative candidate next time. At least they've stopped blaming Ralph Nader.
posted by snakey at 2:21 PM PST - 19 comments

Google Editorializing? Someone forwarded me this search on google. Look at the first link. Is this pure editorializing or just dumb (pardon the pun) luck?
posted by TNLNYC at 1:36 PM PST - 9 comments

Ford Motor goes after 13 year old girl for her domain name. Personally, I'm disgusted with corporate America right now.
posted by tj at 12:13 PM PST - 54 comments

The (Net) King is Dead! Long live the King! Alas, Time Warner finds a way to repurpose it's dead Pathfinder into another of its new but also ailing properties. Didn't they learn the first time? Or is it more of a "Well, we have this highly visible domain...." Hmmmmm.
posted by bkdelong at 10:22 AM PST - 4 comments

This is, of course, intended as humor, albeit rather coarse humor, but it's all too depressingly accurate. Why does customer service suck so badly these days? [Spotted at Joel on Software, whom I haven't disagreed with much lately... probably because he hasn't said much lately. :-)]
posted by baylink at 10:08 AM PST - 58 comments

Microsoft properties down again. This time due to DNS routing. How embarrassing for them.
posted by quirked at 9:59 AM PST - 15 comments

Who Killed Vincent Chin?
posted by tiaka at 9:34 AM PST - 7 comments

"IT," also known as "Ginger," has not yet been released by its inventor, but we'll be glad to notify you by e-mail when we actually know what IT is and if IT will be available for purchase from Amazon.com.
posted by endquote at 9:21 AM PST - 6 comments

Basques separatists: a long-standing problem The Basque separatist movement is symptomatic of ethnic , religious, and cultural desire to be distinct and to have their own "place." And yet, at the same time, the world moves toward globalization, with economics becoming trans-national. A push and a pull at the same time. Can this contradiction be resolved without violence?
posted by Postroad at 9:15 AM PST - 4 comments

If you want to try playing with little planets or images of them, try visiting these websites...

Webearth -- builds a LIVE vrml model of the Earth as it is right now. It draws from current composite satellite photos. Or you can play with a VRML Moon, Venus, Mars or Jupiter, if you'd prefer. (Note: this site does require a VRML 2.0 compatible plug-in, like Parallel Graphics Cortona VRML Viewer.)

Here's an oldie, but a goodie... Same concept, just not live. Earth and Moon Viewer uses various static composite satellite images from many different points of view, and it lets you zoom in and out ... (to a certain extent).

Webwide World lets you zoom in on an earth-like planet... not quite the same thrill, but the images the site produces are beautifully gem-like. And the planet it produces is huge. You'll be able explore islands off the coasts of islands off the coasts of islands.

And for more satellite image zooming pleasure, you can't beat Microsoft's Terra Server.

posted by crunchland at 7:38 AM PST - 2 comments

Superbowl Sunday meets The Matrix Some of you may not need a reason to watch the phenomenon that is Superbowl Sunday. Others of us need technological cajoling. Here's a video demonstrating the replay special effect. (Sorry about the Verizon ad.) via slashdot.
posted by crunchland at 7:07 AM PST - 21 comments

Chicago's Cardinal Francis George blessed a Porsche dealership yesterday. What do you think? Conflict of interest, or way to give back to a helpful business?
posted by hijinx at 6:36 AM PST - 6 comments

Not satisfied with shooting mere vegetable matter from a gun? Try shooting soda cans. Clip holds a six pack. [via fark]
posted by plinth at 6:07 AM PST - 4 comments

Pope John Paul II has been busy protecting his conservative legacy by appointing a record number of new cardinals. This expanded group of cardinals will vote for the next pontiff and so a continuation of the Church's present course on abortion and birth control is quite likely.
Still, it's a little known fact that the Vatican actually ceased to the home of the true Catholic Church on October 9th, 1959 and that John Paul II is, in fact, a heretical anti-pope.
posted by lagado at 3:57 AM PST - 26 comments

Telegraph Codes. Was doing some searching the other day to remind myself what code traditionally goes at the end of a wire story (it's "-30-" of course) and stumbled upon this gem. Best of all, it's not political.
posted by kindall at 8:34 PM PST - 4 comments

"A pizza is something, a traditional thing. I am a pizza lover. And I like to eat a real pizza." As It Happens, everybody's (second) favorite CBC show is playing classic bits from 5, 15 and 25 years and letting listeners vote on which ones get rebroadcast. In this 1996 excerpt (.ra), Michael Enright interviews Eugenio Ghezzi about pizza. Gradevole! Quintessential Italian charm; you can't help but love him.
posted by sylloge at 6:37 PM PST - 7 comments

And here I thought it was spontaneous! Boy do I feel cheated. The whole thing was rigged from the start. Feh. I'd be curious to know if others have information.
posted by rschram at 5:54 PM PST - 35 comments

dreamcast dead!?

ah sega... we had such hopes.
posted by o2b at 5:42 PM PST - 17 comments

San Francisco Muni to consider naming stations after advertisers. If you've been in SF (or any major US city) recently, you've probably noticed the buses covered with ads inside and out, the two stadiums named after corporations (all US stadiums seem to be now), and subway platforms coated in billboards. Now, they're considering selling the names of each station off to the highest bidder. Is this going too far or should a city do anything to make a buck? (I'm reminded of the book Generation X where the author jokes about rampant advertising, and how one day you'll ask your friend what time it is, and he'll simply say "Pepsi")
posted by mathowie at 4:09 PM PST - 39 comments

Cookie the clown died yesturday. My favorite clown of the long running 'Bozo Show' recorded in Chicago.

"I am the luckiest guy in the world to have worked at a job I loved, and I'm going to miss it dearly," Brown said upon his retirement in 1994.
posted by john at 3:58 PM PST - 3 comments

Ashcroft sings! Actually, seems like it was 4 or 5 years ago, but hey, it's still catchy. MP3 contained at link to TheSmokingGun.com
posted by daver at 3:03 PM PST - 5 comments

FTC ends investigation of DoubleClick and finds no evidence of wrongdoing. I don't know about you, but I feel cheated. Don't forget to opt out of their cookie-bending racket.
posted by mathowie at 1:22 PM PST - 16 comments

'Chinese' New Year news fest The generally wonderful Guardian Weblog has a special page of hard-hitting Chinese news links in honor of Lunar New Year beginning Jan. 24. (Commonly called Chinese New Year, but the Vietnamese celebrate it, too.) These include a link to a Foreign Affairs discussion of the Tiananmen Papers, believed to be internal Chinese documents about the Tiananmen Square events of 1989. (Earlier MeFi linkage of a Tiananmen Papers article can be found here.
posted by jhiggy at 11:48 AM PST - 1 comment

A while back, you'll remember, a professor from Princeton cracked the SDMI watermark, but couldn't publish [MeFi search], and weren't awarded the prize because they wouldn't NDA. Well, a French team has also cracked it, and not being bound by the US DMCA, they've published. Good thing? Or bad?
posted by baylink at 11:47 AM PST - 3 comments

Crouching Sapphire, Hidden Bastard
Are Michelle and Don the new Michelle Yeoh and and Chow Yuen Fat? Answers on a postcard.... ;-)
posted by tomcosgrave at 11:26 AM PST - 10 comments

Darwin's Paradise Lost. I'm really suprised no one's mentioned the oil spill that's threatening some of the most rarest animals in the world right now. With oil spill after oil spill, it really amazes me that we're not experimenting with safer, cleaner fuels. Although I wonder what would happen to wildlife should you spill 144,000 gallons of ethanol or biodiesel....though you can't really spill hydrogen or solar fuel, can you?
posted by bkdelong at 11:12 AM PST - 17 comments

USA's Depleted Uranium Weapons

1 in 7 Gulf War veterans suffer from Gulf War Syndrome, including a high incidence of birth defects, respiratory, kidney and liver problems. There are outrageously high rates of leukemia and severe birth defects among Iraqi civilians. Now Israel uses DU weapons against Palestinians. After DU weapons were used in Kosovo, Italy wants to know why Kosovo veterans are getting cancer. Still the pentagon insists that "... we do not believe it poses any significant health risk." Does anybody in the US give a damn?
posted by snakey at 10:06 AM PST - 22 comments

parts: the clonus horror , here we come.
posted by tiaka at 9:17 AM PST - 5 comments

Today, 80 to 90 percent of Egyptians and Peruvians lack legal addresses Interesting interview with Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto who argues that in many Third World Countries, the government's failure to formally recognize and document property claims is a major barrier to development. (more inside)
posted by straight at 9:00 AM PST - 2 comments

Powell wants to scrap most US sanctions (IHT via Robot Wisdom) Is this a good idea? We've talked before on here about the damage sanctions can do. But is it a good idea to dismantle them in such a wholesale way? The primary motivation seems to be economic.
posted by Sean Meade at 8:49 AM PST - 17 comments

A guy paid $5000 to a bank for a list of 4 million credit card numbers, complete with name/address of the owners. He proceeded to start making false charges to those cards totalling some $37 million. He's going to jail. My question is, what the hell was the bank thinking? Why are they selling something like that? Didn't they recognize the potential for abuse? What possible legitimate use could such a list have?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:47 AM PST - 8 comments

Where's the dubya? Shenanigans by departing whitehouse staffers.
posted by ritualdevice at 8:35 AM PST - 18 comments

Crud! Blogvoices is closing.
posted by Sean Meade at 8:01 AM PST - 24 comments

dumb. (but then again, posting a large image file isn't really clever either.)
posted by tiaka at 7:53 AM PST - 15 comments

Jakob takes on the presidency in this Wired review of whitehouse.gov.
posted by fleener at 7:14 AM PST - 11 comments

An incredble collection of jazz photos, for those hooked on the PBS series.
posted by jpoulos at 6:56 AM PST - 14 comments

A new wrinkle in the tale of TV vs. Telephone. Cable TV over your phone lines? I doubt it will fly, but who knows?
posted by jpoulos at 6:44 AM PST - 4 comments

Tri-State Malted Waffles Why? Because I spent a half hour in heavy, waffling traffic, slowly passing and being passed by one of their trucks bearing the plate 'WAFFL1'. Hee. It's fun to say over and over again: malted waffles malted waffles malted waffles. Uh-oh - might be time to take that test again.
posted by plinth at 6:38 AM PST - 2 comments

News.com gets redesigned and ordinarily I wouldn't consider this newsworthy, but the incredible overrun of annoyingly large banner & Flash ads is the matter at hand here.
posted by hijinx at 6:12 AM PST - 31 comments

Armenian holocaust You accuse Turkey of what they did to the Armenians--all a part of history--and you lose out. Thus, the Unite;d States has yet to cite Turkey, our needed ally, of what is known to have taken place, despite the many protests from the Armenian community in America.
posted by Postroad at 5:49 AM PST - 5 comments

Yeah, sorry another bloody Salon story but wait, this one's different:
Salon outlives its predicted date with Death by more than a week!
Of course it might have something to do with the erroneous data that they lodged with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Watch this space! When a company runs out of money something has to happen.
posted by lagado at 5:08 AM PST - 10 comments

Bertie Fisher dies.... A tragedy for Irish motorsport, and of course for the Fisher family.
posted by tomcosgrave at 2:09 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

While the world was busy debating if the Playboy article was a giant step backwards for female sportscasters, Jutta Kleinschmidt became the first woman to win the Paris-Dakar Rally.
posted by tamim at 12:16 AM PST - 4 comments

One wo/man; many, many votes. From the seventh circle of hell comes the second-last sign of the apocalypse; the voting form for the bloggies. I know which site I voted for... you're reading the damn thing right now. Go MeFi!
posted by Neale at 9:19 PM PST - 38 comments

Will the Pluto mission once again get cancelled? I mean, now that Pluto isn't a planet anymore; apparently, it's been downgraded to "big ball of ice." After all those years of service, of faithful rotation, that steadfast revolve, how can they just kick a planet out like that?! It's a travesty, I tell you -- a travesty!
posted by monstro at 9:07 PM PST - 11 comments

Bwaha-ha-ha! (insert 'things in common' joke here)
posted by tiaka at 8:04 PM PST - 11 comments

Bill Gates and 17 paupers appointed to National Infrastructure Assurance Council. [ couldn't beat their lead. Also from Cryptome. I'm done now. :-) ]
posted by baylink at 6:05 PM PST - 2 comments

Well, here's a good Point/CounterPoint: The More Guns Bill / The Less Guns Bill. [ Courtesy of Cryptome, whence the Gilmore screed ]
posted by baylink at 6:02 PM PST - 2 comments

Jesus gets his own Theme Park This strikes me as bit too odd to appeal to many, but maybe I just don't appreciate the idea of laser shows combined with Hebrew prayers or chomping a hot dog at the site of crucifixion.
posted by tdstone at 5:48 PM PST - 18 comments

"Insert something meaningful here" Is that how the Bush White House is going to communicate with us for the next four years?
posted by TNLNYC at 5:10 PM PST - 7 comments

One nation or two? An interesting critique from afar of wehre our nation might be heading, given two separate and distinct cultures
posted by Postroad at 4:32 PM PST - 6 comments

Open your heart (and wallet) and give generously. Can you really think of a better cause? Think of all the poor widows and orphans whose husband/father is being thrown out of work and who need your help.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 3:55 PM PST - 8 comments

Erik Davis on Feed: "I feel compelled to mention the strangely underreported fact that, thanks to the FCC, all U.S. cell phones will soon be required to pack GPS units (or some equivalent tech) that will allow their location to be fixed the moment that 911 is dialed... the FCC has also ruled that wireless carriers, and not users, own GPS location data, and can freely sell it to third parties... your radio-cum-PDA-cum-cell phone... may want to tell you about the great deal on Beanie Babies or Canon’s 15 x 45 image-stabilized binoculars that awaits you two shops down to the right."
posted by Tubes at 1:40 PM PST - 19 comments

Open casting call for "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back"
posted by plinth at 1:18 PM PST - 27 comments

John Gilmore (via Wes Felter) lets the dogs out on the new Mac DVD-R drive. Seems it's a DVD-General drive, rather than a DVD-Authoring drive, and, therefore, there are lots of things you might want to do with it that you can't.

This is how Apple can fit a $4500 drive into a $3500 machine.
posted by baylink at 12:09 PM PST - 23 comments

The opening prayer at the inaugural ceremonies was delivered by Rev. Franklin Graham (Real Audio NPR broadcast -- forward to 45:47 for the prayer). You'd think he was ushering in the government from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Maybe GW could have done better by choosing a Unitarian minister to help us unite? (Transcript inside.)
posted by ewagoner at 12:03 PM PST - 54 comments

"Soccer" has been nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. No, really.

Any other suggestions for nominations?
posted by Avogadro at 11:43 AM PST - 24 comments

IBM, with the latest attempt to put the genie back in the bottle. Their fatal flaw is betting on a post-napster world, though I bet their EMMS technology gets cracked before that ever happens.
posted by mathowie at 10:41 AM PST - 11 comments

What was previously speculation has finally come to pass. Converse files chapter 11. Guess I didn't stock up for nothing.
posted by frykitty at 10:32 AM PST - 5 comments

Linux no longer foolproof? And a smile descened upon Redmond...
posted by mecawilson at 9:35 AM PST - 20 comments

First day in office and this is what we get. Dubya cuts off U.S. funds to international family-planning groups offering abortion and abortion counseling. Why do I get the feeling this is only a calm before the storm?
posted by NickBarat at 9:32 AM PST - 68 comments

Co$ Tackiness The Church of Scientology spinoff Narconon completely rips off the Urban75 Web site (including similar meta tag content). Jeeze....talk about unabashed design stealing.
posted by bkdelong at 8:24 AM PST - 6 comments

organ transplant needs Only the extreme of religious people might object to organ transplants, but what do we do with an increasing need and insufficient donors?
posted by Postroad at 6:03 AM PST - 33 comments

Erasing the Jewish past in Israel? Some months ago I had read that there was an attempt being made to eliminate traces of the Jewish past in and near sacred Jewish shrines in order to make Israeli claims invalid in any forthcoming peace talks....is this an example of what was meant?
posted by Postroad at 4:08 AM PST - 13 comments

A nice update on what's free online collected by Site Sherpa.
posted by aflakete at 2:38 AM PST - 7 comments

FDA sez "Frankenfoods don't need labeling". Even though 86% of Americans want mandatory labels.
posted by Mr. skullhead at 7:36 PM PST - 41 comments

"One giant leap backward for sports womankind." Playboy runs an article about female sports-casters. (ESPN and ABC told them to "get stuffed" when asked for photos and bios. Bravo!) And there was a reader poll. The winner of the poll was supposed to get an offer of a million bucks to do a nude pictorial in the mag. (She declined. An even bigger Bravo!) More interesting is that third place in the poll went to woman who described herself as having "reached the 175-pound mark during her third pregnancy, at age 38". (I wonder if it was a protest vote, like when "Hank the angry drunken dwarf won People Magazine's online "Most beautiful people" poll. [I voted for him.]) Of course, the kicker is that Playboy is run by Christie Hefner, Hugh's daughter. He retired from the business a long time ago. So, today's quiz: Is Christie Hefner a symbol of the success of American Womanhood, or a traitor to the cause?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:03 PM PST - 43 comments

"The world is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we can imagine." I defy anyone to read this and not find at least one thing which dumbfounds them. For me: the woman with the knife in her neck, Canadian election open mike gaff, C***fest at Penn State, obscene Furby, the dominatrix who lost one and what she did.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:19 PM PST - 3 comments

Eco-celebri-conscious cybersquatting?
Elizabeth-Taylor.com, anybody?
PopeJohnPaulI.com? [dead, alas]
JonasSalk.com? Sure, we got that…
Margaret Mead, Jerry Brown, Noam Chomsky? No problem.
Danny Thomas??Jerry Lewis???
…and don't miss the popups. (Warning: annoying and pointless.)
posted by rodii at 3:38 PM PST - 4 comments

A unusually even-handed article about Ecstasy use. The author describes his own experiences in the mid-80s with the now-popular drug . Nice to see a mainstream publication tackling this issue in the right way.
posted by brittney at 1:34 PM PST - 11 comments

Pillsbury Doughboy mauls techies! Use of the term "bake-off" proves no laughing matter for Mr. Pop-N-Fresh. Yes...it's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man -vs- the Internet Geeks! Film at 11...
posted by webchick at 1:25 PM PST - 8 comments

The NYTimes looks back upon its 5 years of existence on the Web. There's even a small Flash movie detailing how the front page has changed over the years. When the heck did the Web start getting old?
posted by jkottke at 11:27 AM PST - 28 comments

"Every school has its story, every room its ghost."

Ian Dugay writes about the terrors of elementary school; his experience might be rather particular (if you read it, you'll understand that I don't mean that in a Columbine kind of way), but he can't be the only one with unpleasant memories -- how do you remember grade school?
posted by lia at 10:44 AM PST - 17 comments

User Friendly goes public. And the commercialization of geekdom takes yet another giant leap forward. How long before there are Official Geek(tm) Shops in every mall?
posted by darukaru at 10:01 AM PST - 7 comments

From the Bad-Rumors-That-Unfortunately-Turn-Out-To-Be-True Department:
Britney Spears confirms duet with Madonna. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

(I admire Madonna's knack for perpetual self-reinvention and surprising everyone with what she's cooked up next, but really, this is something I'm sure I'd be quite happy to live without.)
posted by lia at 7:51 AM PST - 34 comments

The Three Fingered Salute I was going to post to ask if anyone knew what this was. I did some digging and it is said to be a sign of serb solidarity (different fingers), something meaning "read between the lines" and Geroge's way of saying 'W'. OH, and the scouts too. What is it really?
posted by fullerine at 5:11 AM PST - 17 comments

Steve Jobs on selling apps based on life beyond the Net "I edited a digital movie of my children using our iMovie software," he said. "It took me about an hour, and when I showed it to my wife, she started crying. It was clearly the most emotional thing I've ever done on a computer in my life." ... "The Internet is a wonderful thing and for a while it was such a blinding bright light that it obscured every other bright light," he said. "It's a wonderful thing, it's a magical thing, but there are other wonderful things too. Music is a wonderful thing. Movies are wonderful things."
posted by allaboutgeorge at 3:52 AM PST - 13 comments

Global Trends 2015 A paper published “under authority of the Director of Central Intelligence.” In which, we find the CIA believes “US global influence [will] wane” and that countries which “fail to benefit from globalization, are prone to internal conflicts, and risk state failure.”

I can see Uncle Sam pointing and saying “Shapen up, or else.”
posted by capt.crackpipe at 2:18 AM PST - 23 comments

If only we backed this guy's mission or these folks, the national nightmare may have never come to fruition. They even offer a reward if you can prove Texas is part of the union. Don't forget to ask your congressional leaders to support the secession amendment, and support their real leader.
posted by mathowie at 12:04 AM PST - 15 comments

Doesn't anyone in this country know what condoms are for anymore? For crying out loud. (Yet Another Unexpected Baby...)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:02 PM PST - 9 comments

There's a Japanese portal site named Goo (not to be confused with A Boy Named Goo). I wonder if Goo will merge with the GLE Concern to challenge a certain search engine we all know and love?
posted by jkottke at 6:25 PM PST - 8 comments

Welcome to a new era of drop shadows. Ever since Gore conceded, I was curious about the transition of the White House site. And, um, it's a little sparse right now. Did anyone catch what time it went live?
posted by holgate at 2:03 PM PST - 58 comments

Rae Carruth is acquitted of first-degree murder. Guilty of 3 other charges. Football fans out there: another OJ?
posted by swank6 at 1:59 PM PST - 18 comments

Alternative Television. Until I saw this show, it had never occured to me that the television medium was conducive to producing anything that could be labelled as 'art'. I would rather watch this than one more minute of 'standard network programming.'
posted by kristin at 12:55 PM PST - 6 comments

"Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" Dave Eggers' new appendix for the paperback edition of AHWOSG, extends the self-analysis even further. "Typical conversation a month after publication: 'Would it be possible to remove my name?' 'Of course.' 'Why?' 'Well, no offence, but I really didn't think anyone would see the damn book.'"
posted by holgate at 10:40 AM PST - 11 comments

Just as everyone suspected, the police are up to their regular anti-protestor hijinxs. DC.imc has an ongoing list, and I just heard on Inauguration Radio tear gas has been used.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 10:21 AM PST - 33 comments

Clinton stressed that most of the people he would pardon have long since paid their debt to society and that the main intent of his executive action was to lift restrictions on voting and employment. That explains why Patti Hearst and the presidents brother gets one, and Leonard Peltier does not. I guess Bill know which side his is buttered on, and realizes he is going to be spending way more time with the FBI than with Indians in the coming years. Who else should have been pardoned? Who should not have?
posted by thirteen at 7:38 AM PST - 16 comments

How to bypass web content filtering programs. It's easy, it works, and all you have to have is a Hex calculator. Strike a blow for freedom!
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:58 AM PST - 16 comments

Is this the next Craig Shergold? A hundred and fourteen thousand emails so far and it's only going to get worse. Will it mutate? (The Shergold story has appeared in different versions.) I think this will be around for a long time. "The only mistake Street said he made is not including an end date. He doesn't know if the responses will ever stop." Hoo boy. No kidding.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:22 AM PST - 7 comments

Bill Maher savagely attacks the handicapped. I know its not the brightest or wittiest of shows, but I was amazed when I read the transcript for this episode of Politically Incorrect from last week. Skim the assaults on the overweight at the beginning if you like, but the real action is in the last topic of conversation before the show is over, where Bill compares mentally handicapped children to dogs and Martin Short calls him a "hideous, cold person."
posted by ztt at 12:49 AM PST - 49 comments

Spent half of last night on the streets with around a million other people; my feet still smart from standing up so long, but we've finally kicked the f**cker out!
posted by lia at 12:27 AM PST - 16 comments

Government hacking abound! I hate it when a group of kids do a big .gov and .mil defacement. Then all the other kids start puffing themselves up and try to outdo each other. S'cuse me while I break out my virtual lawnchair... and please pass the mint julep.
posted by bkdelong at 10:40 PM PST - 3 comments

Dakar 2001 the 10,000+ km auto rally ends this Sunday. In recent years the rally has lost its luster. Even the website does not look exciting.
posted by tamim at 10:34 PM PST - 1 comment

This guy thinks all natural deaths are caused by vitamin or mineral deficiencies. And is a great read. Imagine Ross Perot saying this:
Well, when I practised for 12 years up in Portland, somebody'd come to me with a headache. Never had one, and I'd just walk up to them and tap them on their sinuses, and if they collapsed to their knees, they'd know they had a sinus headache. "Oh Doc, why'd you do that?" Well, that's a cheap lab test. Then if they had blood dripping out of their nose, it would take a $35 x-ray to see if they had a cancer in there. 35 bucks and a free lab test as opposed to 421 bucks.
I'm pretty sure he's a nut. But you can never tell.
posted by norm at 9:31 PM PST - 5 comments

Fermented beaver blamed as 13 fall ill.
I humbly offer this link for your 'consumption' without further comment.
posted by quonsar at 7:36 PM PST - 1 comment

The infamous Jeff K arrested by the FBI? Is it just a prank? If not, that's some pretty serious stuff!
posted by swank6 at 5:36 PM PST - 18 comments

"Ego Finds a New Outlet In 'Blogs'"
blahblahweblogsblahblahyesi'minitblahblah. One of the few to acknowledge Justin Hall as Our Great Blog Father.
posted by peterme at 1:24 PM PST - 30 comments

Researchers say they have slowed light to a dead stop, stored it and then released it as if it were an ordinary material particle. Cool, huh?
posted by tiaka at 12:27 PM PST - 21 comments

More than meets the eye. Next stop, Cybertron!
posted by jjg at 12:17 PM PST - 6 comments

Forget Marylin Manson, it's all the Dixie Chicks' fault. Yay, they've finally found a new punching bag skapegoat!
posted by afx114 at 12:06 PM PST - 13 comments

Linda Tripp fired. What I don't understand is, why the hell was she still there after all the crap she pulled? If they couldn't actually fire her, she should have left on her own. I can't see why she'd stay except to be a, well, a b-word. And if it's traditional and expected that people resign their positions for the new administration, then why didn't she? Did she think she still had a job after tomorrow? Seems to me she only refused to resign as one last attempt to make Clinton look bad. I don't think it worked.
posted by dnash at 11:51 AM PST - 8 comments

Is Ska dead? Moon Records hadn't produced any of the really good Ska music for years, but I can't believe they've closed down. Is this it for Ska? Does anyone care? Do I care?
posted by Doug at 11:37 AM PST - 19 comments

Clinton has struck a deal with the Independent Counsel to avoid indictment after he leaves office.
posted by rcade at 11:27 AM PST - 11 comments

It's uncertain how important online privacy is to President-elect George W. Bush. He indicated a general support for online privacy laws during the presidential campaign without indicating whether he leaned more toward industry self-regulation, technological solutions, legislative solutions, or some combination. A working document drafted by the Bush transition team on "technology proposals" echoes the same undefined support for online privacy. One analyst thinks his transition-appointments indicate a reference for industry self-regulation.
posted by jhiggy at 10:27 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Act for Change : California’s electricity crisis Act now and be heard! Express your own position on the California energy crisis by sending an email to the state speaker of the Assembly.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 10:22 AM PST - 6 comments

When pictures go bad... I'm not trying to start another link of gratuitous Bush bashing, honest. But this picture of him is simply awful. Are news organizations deliberately picking the worst pictures to show, or is Dubya naturally unphotogenic? Is this an extension of his public malapropisms and grammatical errors? Is the man just awkward in front of a crowd? And how will this affect his ability to be a good President?
posted by solistrato at 8:53 AM PST - 32 comments

Beat poet Gregory Corso dies at 70.
Should I get married? Should I be Good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood?
Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries
and she going just so far and I understanding why
not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel!
Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky--
posted by dnash at 7:12 AM PST - 16 comments

I Am Not A DNA Sequence, I Am A Free Man! Yet more proof that NewLabour, and in particular Jack Straw, regards the further erosion of civil rights as a vote-winner. Volunteer to give a DNA sample in order to eliminate yourself from inquiries, and it'll be kept on the record just in case you're naughty in the future.
posted by holgate at 6:09 AM PST - 8 comments

Revolution in the Philippines! The Secretaries of Defense and Finance, the National Treasurer, and the entire administration of the Armed Forces have joined the giant People Power Rally II in the streets to bring down the corrupt Estrada administration.
posted by lia at 12:40 AM PST - 10 comments

The Porn Crackdown Begins: They're making lists of porn no-no's. Remember, they know what's good for you. Makes me wish for the good 'ole days.
posted by owillis at 11:41 PM PST - 38 comments

Kadd Stephens, organizer with the Justice Action Movement, offers a refreshingly lucid explanation of why thousands of us will be protesting on Saturday in this Washington Post Q & A.
posted by sudama at 10:10 PM PST - 2 comments

Breaking up is hard to do... Bill Clinton tells a nation, "It's not you, baby...it's me." Actually, I noticed a few things about his farewell speech, and I thought I would - what else? - comment on it. Inside...
posted by solistrato at 8:02 PM PST - 22 comments

"GMO free" labelling set to become illegal in the US? "The U.S. regulatory system is a model around the world because it is grounded in science, not superstition or uninformed emotion." So says the president of a biotech lobby group. Ahem.
posted by holgate at 7:17 PM PST - 20 comments

Counting is profoundly political
The standards used to count (or not to count) Florida ballots is similar to the way the media reports on welfare reform success. It all depends on what you want to consider legitimate. (Happy birthday, Dad!) [PXQTZ.com]
posted by rschram at 6:04 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

"Waazzzaaaapppppp!!!????" chortles a jubilant Ricky Martin, as the president-elect prepares to thoroughly shake America's Bon-Bon.
posted by Hankins at 5:41 PM PST - 25 comments

Well, only 10 shopping days left until Super B(bleep)l Sunday, and of course, everyone's ready for the big... commercials. This one, from People for Eating Tasty Animals -- er, um, sorry; mispronounced that -- was refused by CBS, or so saith the minions at AdCritic. Hope they're planning a Superbowl focus page during and after the show. They really oughtta hold a vote. No, wait... it would take too long. :-}
posted by baylink at 5:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Macromedia and Alliaire to Merge.... Linking the power of Coldfusion, Homesite, along with Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Seems interesting.
posted by Cavatica at 5:17 PM PST - 3 comments

Email romance led Israeli teenager to his death? A classic honey-trap given a modern twist. Awful, just awful.
posted by holgate at 4:15 PM PST - 4 comments

Tom Alciere Resigns - As a followup to the thread from a few weeks ago. This is the newly-elected New Hampshire Representative who advocated cop-killing and wife-beating.

*sniff* I'll miss the funny lil' guy.
posted by JimmyTones at 4:07 PM PST - 5 comments

Now this is really evil. A woman put her twin babies up for adoption through a "private agency" in California and the agency was paid by an American couple here who adopted them. Then after two months the biological mother asked for a chance for one last good-bye with the babies alone, was granted it, and delivered the babies to a British couple who had also paid the "agency", who then took them to Arkansas and adopted them there, and then returned to Wales. Now the biological mother says she wants them back. The American couple wants them back. The Welsh couple wants them, too. British authorities have taken them away and they're being cared for in foster care. Some judge is going to have a real problem. Probably the "agency", actually a woman working out of her home via a web site, is going to have legal problems -- quite possibly including criminal charges. Here's another account.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 3:58 PM PST - 20 comments

Use your Palm for exceptional Presidentiality. via an alltime favorite.
posted by donkeysuck at 3:50 PM PST - 4 comments

Greymatter 1.2 For what it's worth, the notably talented Noah Grey has just recently released a new version of his weblogging software GreyMatter. I've been using GreyMatter for my personal weblog for a few weeks now: anyone feeling frustrated with server problems over at Blogger or just wishing for a little more control over their content might want to check it out. Let me tell you, it's a control-freak's dream program. And especially nice, it runs using Perl cgis on your own server, so there shouldn't ever be any accessibility problems. Noah is a great guy and really deserves more recognition for the wonderful job he's done on GreyMatter. Just thought I'd mention...
posted by hanseugene at 3:38 PM PST - 10 comments

"until every vote is coutned" : A review of 10,600 previously uncounted ballots in Miami-Dade County showed George W. Bush gaining six more votes than Al Gore.
posted by tomplus2 at 3:02 PM PST - 5 comments

Mafiaboy pleads guilty today in a Quebec court. I think that this case was turned into a witch hunt. The media as always he no idea what it was talking about. A lot of people could have done what he did, but he was stupid enough to do it.
posted by bytecode at 2:53 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

More on Ashcroft (via Salon) Supported a law that makes it OK to kill abortion providers. This is not a "political difference of opinion." The man is dangerous.
posted by jpoulos at 2:17 PM PST - 18 comments

If anyone scores under 50 on this, I wanna have a long talk with you. I need some education. (Damn. I scored 93. I never get to have any fun. Via CrackerJap.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 2:13 PM PST - 24 comments

Altavista to become only search engine
Not really, but they do plan on enforcing several search-related patents that they have, hoping to increase revenue by extorting other search companies. "We believe that virtually everyone out there who indexes the Web is in violation of at least several of those key patents.... If you index a distributed set of databases - what the Internet is - and even within intranets, corporations, that's one of the patents," says CMGI CEO David Wetherell.
posted by daveadams at 1:28 PM PST - 25 comments

Freebies Aren't Forever. Are free web applications going down in flames? This article make the future out to be dim indeed.
posted by ericost at 10:32 AM PST - 28 comments

Jesse Jackson with two unfortunate souls I wonder what ol' Jesse Jackson is thinking in this picture. I'm sure it's something like, "Those two poor, poor women. They don't even know what they gotten themselves into."
posted by grambo at 10:20 AM PST - 21 comments

She Hates Music. All music. A cranky Brit named Tanya Headon (hey, I dunno) frags everything you might like (well, mostly rock). Professional crank or insightful satirist?
posted by Skot at 10:07 AM PST - 28 comments

William Safire in the NY Times: "...to attribute racism to Ashcroft, who appointed more black judges than any Missouri governor and whose wife is revered for her years of teaching at mostly black Howard University, is to admit the bankruptcy of his opposition."
posted by ericost at 9:20 AM PST - 38 comments

Internet Visitation So much for quality time. A New Jersey court "permitted a divorced woman and her daughter to move to California on the basis that the child's father could exercise his 'visitation' rights by staying in touch with his daughter online."
posted by frykitty at 8:33 AM PST - 13 comments

Freaky Friday removed from schools for review A mother of a third grader at this school submitted two pages of objections to the book. HUH? It's Freaky Friday!!! (related link: American Library Association's 100 most challenged books of the last decade)
posted by Haveed at 7:25 AM PST - 19 comments

Compressed Natural Gas is much more cleaner than diesel, the dual-fuel engines run quieter and you get lower operating costs. It's certainly very promising, and the technology is already widely implemented from busses to vans to trucks. However, changing a truck to this system can be costly, especially for small fleets. With this and the lack of fueling stations across the nation, do you still think this might be a good option for the future?
posted by tiaka at 6:52 AM PST - 28 comments

UK Govt. votes to ban hunting in England and Wales. Browsing the web last night, several national polls were showing that more of the British Public were against a ban than in favour. Will the MPs who turned up to vote but not to debate (not very democratic?) live to regret their decision as the debate turns from animal welfare to civil rights?
posted by nico at 4:48 AM PST - 29 comments

She's an expert on marriages. How do we know this? Because she's written a book about it. And what is her advice for a successful, happy marriage? The woman should be acquiescent to the man. I open the floor for comments...
posted by aaron at 11:40 PM PST - 26 comments

TELL HIM IT WAS YOU, IDIOT. Ben Brown interviews John Ashcroft. Kinda.
posted by fraying at 8:47 PM PST - 35 comments

Bulletproof teenage twins surrender! Johnny and Luther Htoo, leaders of a Myanmar rebel militia called God's Army, have surrendered to Thai authorities (who apparently coaxed the boys out of the jungle with crackers). Are today's teens leading rebel armies too soon?
More inside.
posted by varmint at 4:57 PM PST - 6 comments

This is one amazing found diray!
Once you start reading this transcription, it is very hard to stop. Incredible. From the site:
Walking to work the week before Christmas, 2000, I found a notebook on the sidewalk, on 5th street between Mission and Folsom. I thought to find a phone number in it and return it, but after reading it, I couldn't find any contact info at all. What I did find was a diary, spanning about nine months of someone's life. Here is the contents of the notebook, reproduced as faithfully as possible.
posted by DragonBoy at 4:30 PM PST - 46 comments

DivX + filenavigator = headaches for MPAA. Of course the SPA and RIAA can't be too pleased about filenavigator either. I've checked and the DivX of Castaway is on the net already.
posted by john at 4:22 PM PST - 3 comments

Jason Newsted leaves Metallica. "Due to private and personal reasons, and the physical damage that I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love, I must step away from the band". Any enterprising bass players looking for an opportunity? :)
posted by pnevares at 3:32 PM PST - 15 comments

Welcome to the blob. Please watch your step. It looks like Viacom's going to swallow up Yahoo! and all its assorted properties. What does this leave untouched, by partnerships or redistribution deals or what-have-you? Anything? (Who was it again who was predicting that one large company that controlled everything called Omnivox? I remember reading about it somewhere when I was, like, ten or so.)
posted by maura at 2:56 PM PST - 11 comments

California Triggers Blackouts Due Power Shortage. Me no speak complete sentences. Looks like everyone is giving conservation a shot, though.
posted by hijinx at 1:21 PM PST - 35 comments

Stunning news tonight? Sean Hannity at Fox News, Howard Finneman at Newsweek, and a few less reliable sources have caught wind of a New York Post / National Enquirer story to run tonight and tomorrow that they promise is an absolute stunner... media reactions have ranged from "Jesse Jackson's career is over" to "Ashcroft confirmed!" But no one will say what the story is... yet.

Does anyone else have more reliable sources?
posted by mikewas at 1:13 PM PST - 27 comments

sorry this is a little mundane. however, i drive across these streets every day and i can't get over the strange synchronicity of this city. explained inside.....
posted by donkeysuck at 10:51 AM PST - 7 comments

The stilt palm. Easter lilies. Pilobolus. Plants that move, and the people who study them.
posted by jhiggy at 10:31 AM PST - 2 comments

Why can't more protest movements be like this one? Neal Pollack, of McSweeney's, ushers a (very polite) call to arms.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:13 AM PST - 4 comments

Oh Mullet! As if the mullet was restricted to just rednecks from Virginia or something...the mullet is worldwide baby.
posted by j.toronado at 9:00 AM PST - 3 comments

While George W. Bush is being sworn in... I, for one, am going to be chanting "MORON".
posted by ignu at 8:59 AM PST - 30 comments

Keep on truckin'! Is this becoming a trend? Will we see concrete bunkers sprouting like mushrooms all across the country?
posted by rushmc at 8:05 AM PST - 13 comments

G. Gordon Liddy says that Watergate was really about call girls. Now he's being sued for defamation. I think that everyone's missing the real crime here--the G-Man's acting career.
posted by rorschach at 5:36 AM PST - 6 comments

It appears that things at e-toys are even worse than we thought WARNING: This link has no redeeming social value, and is not for the easily offended. (no nudity or anything, though)
posted by Optamystic at 4:43 AM PST - 6 comments

Dark. Like America's Future. Join the dark campaign until after inauguration day.
posted by Veruca at 9:39 PM PST - 45 comments

Even the bad guys have PR sites these days. From the cuddly looks of this buddhist sect leader, you'd never have assumed he was responsible for the only large-scale act of terrorism in Japan in recent memory (the Tokyo subway Sarin gassing).
posted by Neb at 9:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Kids are smarter than ever before, AOL chat transcripts notwithstanding. It seems to me that the fact that IQ tests measure culture acquisition as much as anything else may explain a lot of this, but I wonder if there may not be something to the "visual literacy" idea: are we (as a species) building a new type of perception, or honing old cognitive tools into something which might as well be new? And, if so, where might it lead us?
posted by rushmc at 8:14 PM PST - 11 comments

CrackerJap is a web site run by three guys who were hassled by Nintendo for using "Pokemon" in an HTML Meta tag in a file they no longer used online. Their web host killed their site instantly and they've only just found new hosting in the last few days. [There's a second reason they're interesting, inside.]
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:12 PM PST - 16 comments

The nose doesn't know, it seems. We can't make sure they're properly sheathed (see condom mom below) but we'll give them a good swabbin' when they get home. I'm a decade past the drinking age, but this makes me hate my parents en passant.
posted by chino at 6:59 PM PST - 2 comments

Am I Shot Or Not? (Yeah, I know, but Ashcroft stories are boring.) The Belgian embassy says that Kabila has been assassinated; the British embassy isn't so sure. Strangely, if he has been killed, it's likely to improve the prospect for peace, as the surrounding nations will try to use the power vacuum as an opportunity to negotiate themselves out of the civil war.
posted by holgate at 5:03 PM PST - 7 comments

2gether's Michael 'Q.T.' Cuccione Dies. And the world mourns yet another musical superstar.
posted by littleyellowdifferent at 4:58 PM PST - 12 comments

High Tech Toilet Paper - "After top-secret tests in consumers' homes, company officials believe they've got a hit on their hands." Apparently most consumers prefer bath tissue which is slightly soggy. I really had no idea. Do people really do this?
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:24 PM PST - 30 comments

It looks like LEGO has licensed Eric Harshbarger's Pixelego Mosaic program. The cool part? You upload an image to the Lego servers, and they send you "building instruction, a mounting panel, a wall hanger and 1,936 bricks to build [the] mosaic"
posted by alana at 2:55 PM PST - 8 comments

Not as sexy as the AOL/Warner combo, but... Macromedia and Allaire to merge.
posted by gluechunk at 2:21 PM PST - 21 comments

Lowtax (of Something Awful fame, and creator of JeffK) on the State of the Internet.
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 10:44 AM PST - 16 comments

Petition Against Ashcroft
Yet another anti-Ashcroft site. Complete with a petition and scary Ashcroft quotes.
posted by snakey at 9:53 AM PST - 47 comments

Oh hell, here we go again.... Mother faces 15 years and $10,000 for buying 13 year old condoms. Why must we be so stupid?
posted by baylink at 9:51 AM PST - 57 comments

Snootchie Bootchies Independant Film Channel will be running Kevin Smith's (Clerks, Dogma, etc) fave picks this weekend.
posted by magellan at 7:40 AM PST - 2 comments

Holden Caulfield expelled. This article makes a case that Catcher in the Rye is being pushed out of classrooms for more "multicultural" books. Since when does opening the doors to diversity mean excluding others?
posted by croutonsupafreak at 6:10 AM PST - 35 comments

Gay Legislator in Deal to Leave U.S. Army Reserve He came out and stood up for Gay rights in the AZ Legislature...KUDOS to the U.S. Army Reserves for seeing the wisdom in giving him his HONORABLE discharge. BUT...
posted by Princess Buttercup at 5:30 AM PST - 3 comments

Ouch So, a new Fantastical is out via wetlog. Am I the only one a little put off the by scathing article about weblogs? (more inside)
posted by Hackworth at 12:45 AM PST - 23 comments

Justin's Relationship Resume is a very practical approach to surveying ones past, and is an interesting read. What level of relationship are you qualified for? [via dangerousmonkey.com]
posted by th3ph17 at 8:40 PM PST - 4 comments

tv = agressive behavior in children.
Danny: What was the Donner Party? Jack: They were a party of settlers in covered-wagon times. They got snowbound one winter in the mountains. They had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
Danny: You mean they ate each other up?
Jack: They had to, in order to survive.
Wendy: Jack...
Danny: Don't worry, Mom. I know all about cannibalism. I saw it on TV.
Jack: See, it's OK. He saw it on the television.
posted by tiaka at 7:48 PM PST - 5 comments

Didn't get a chance to buy that scooter you wanted for Christmas? You can always jump on one of these.
posted by moural at 6:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Dubya, Britney and the bare naked truth ... about homo chatroomus Americanii. I'd have read it and wept, but I was laughing too hard.
posted by allaboutgeorge at 5:50 PM PST - 22 comments

Unmitigated gall, Part Deux ...no, it's not déjàvu. Some folks simply have no respect for the work of others.
posted by webchick at 3:36 PM PST - 17 comments

First gay marriage legal, for now "The Ontario government will face a court battle if it refuses to register two marriages performed yesterday at a Toronto church in a ceremony billed as the world's first legal homosexual wedding since the Middle Ages."
posted by sylloge at 3:15 PM PST - 11 comments

Unmitigated Gall dept. AOL calls for the breakup of Microsoft because monopolies are a bad thing.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 2:58 PM PST - 6 comments

One word...Plastics. New techniques for restoring bones. Speaking of broken bones, is everyone else dreading the full media coverage of Ronald Reagan's slow liquefaction over the next several years.
posted by ritualdevice at 2:28 PM PST - 12 comments

Attorney General-Designate John Ashcroft -- Unprincipled Attacks On A Man Of Principle Here is a more accurate view of Ashcroft. The unfounded accusations that I keep hearing are mostly ridiculous and absurd. It seems clear to me that this effort at defaming him is part of the self-admitted goal of REVENGE that the Democrat party has adopted since it lost the Presidential election. For less biased news, read this recent MSNBC article, Hearings to test Bush, opposition.
posted by bsperan at 2:14 PM PST - 33 comments

Poking around the web looking for details on Black Light Power, mentioned in a previous MeFi thread, I found a link to a kook science motherlode. Will any of these links measure up to Alex Chiu or the legendary Archimedes Plutonium? Only (nature's harmonic simultaneous 4-day) time will tell!
posted by snarkout at 1:40 PM PST - 5 comments

Cell phones linked to eye cancer.
posted by tiaka at 12:45 PM PST - 5 comments

Note to GWB Here's an easy, cheap way to improve the quality of education, and (ahem) get a grasp on world geography. Also a good lesson on how linked we all are. Maybe there's a foreign policy lesson here too. . .
posted by aflakete at 12:37 PM PST - 2 comments

Google cache saves web log from disk crash. How the heck much disk space do those guys have, anyway? How can anyone cache the whole web? Sheesh.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:49 AM PST - 18 comments

New take on IT News.com has a different skew on what IT might be.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 10:40 AM PST - 10 comments

Entropy in action, or a covert maneuver in the ongoing American war to implement anti-intellectual, low-culture values and destroy anything perceived to aspire to any qualities beyond the strictly utilitarian?
posted by rushmc at 10:11 AM PST - 11 comments

Iraq to Donate $94 Million to Poor Americans Interesting propaganda. But more interestingly - disregarding the donor, would the US ever accept such a donation? (How could we admit a need for charity at home when we send billions in aid abroad?) And what's next? We're not of a mindset to accept foreign meddling. What about UN relief efforts? International peacekeeping forces?
posted by Tubes at 9:32 AM PST - 14 comments

A corporate MetaFilter? The editors of Suck present Plastic.com, a moderated web log with commentary, in collaboration with editors from about a dozen other leading cultural / news print and on-line zines
posted by MattD at 8:06 AM PST - 50 comments

Ashcroft's nephew received lenient sentence for drug violation in 1992. Sixty marijuana plants. Intent to sell. And he only got probation. Jeez, I hope the Democrats give Mr. "tough-on-drugs" a very hard time about this during the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings.
posted by Potsy at 6:49 AM PST - 14 comments

Pirated LOTR trailer. But only the sit-in-cinema-with-camcorder-hope-I-don't-get-caught type way. A textural description. Not officially available online until the 19th. It's 2.4 megs, Quicktime 4 required. Aliens bless the Internet.
posted by holloway at 4:42 AM PST - 7 comments

Did you ever consider joining a cult? Well, here is one for you. Read the secret truths of Scientology (pay special attention to the "OT III Part 2 section").
posted by joedrescher at 1:30 AM PST - 9 comments

Front Line Force is a brand-new mod for Half-Life, and in only a few months has become the fourth-most popular Half-Life mod with approximately 150 servers (behind the undisputed king Counter-Strike, TFC, and Deathmatch).
posted by stazen at 11:27 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Lance gets into the act, feigning humor, just grazing bitterness on the way to the kitchen. Wouldn't we all like to be bloggered?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:38 PM PST - 9 comments

Science textbooks are riddled with errors. It sounds like they've gotten as bad as history textbooks have been for about thirty years. How the heck does any kid learn anything in school anymore? (Answer: a lot of them don't. And no wonder.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:00 PM PST - 29 comments

Duking it out with Bill Maher not your cup of tea? Prefer something a little more Rokeresque? All right - what about brunch with Katie Couric?
posted by hijinx at 9:38 PM PST - 4 comments

Andrew Sullivan on the blessed relief of presidential silence:
"The promise of Bush is to make politics boring again, to return it to the prose of government rather than the drama of private life or the poetry of the broader culture."
posted by hanseugene at 7:44 PM PST - 13 comments

Live audio description of Bush inauguration If you get PBS and if your PBS station broadcasts in stereo, you will likely be able to hear only the second-ever attempt at audio description of a live event - the inauguration of Bush. (The other live-described event was Clinton's inauguration.) This of course is audio description, ostensibly for blind viewers. Set your TV or VCR to SAP and compare the approaches of the standard announcers, who call the event assuming the viewer can see, and the describers, who don't. (No sexy Web page for this event.)
posted by joeclark at 5:52 PM PST - 9 comments

Buy your way onto network television. For over $15k you can argue against Bill Maher himself (eBay).
posted by grank at 4:58 PM PST - 2 comments

Rave = crack house? More drug war idiocy.
posted by ritualdevice at 4:41 PM PST - 38 comments

i don't know about the rest of you, but this is the beginning what i fear about the new bush administration...
posted by o2b at 10:00 AM PST - 54 comments

Remember last year's story about the plane hijacker in the Philippines who jumped with a home-made parachute and died? Here's the story from the point of view of the crew and the flight attendant who pushed him off of the plane.
posted by lia at 9:42 AM PST - 5 comments

Help wanted, celibate. The Diocese of Rochester NY is using the web to recruit young men for the priesthood. According to MSNBC the supply of priests is dangerously low.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:43 AM PST - 9 comments

Being judgemental about (presumably) religious practices again...
posted by rushmc at 8:30 AM PST - 5 comments

Soon several thousand movie theaters will close nationwide. Short of tearing it down and building something else, what would you do with a multi-screen theater if you could pick up one for a few cents on the dollar at a bankrupcy auction? Can anyone think of any use for these monsters?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:13 AM PST - 26 comments

Country house anarchy. Seminal anarcho-punks CRASS go the Blogger route, and reluctantly call in some good will. More details
posted by ceiriog at 4:37 AM PST - 8 comments

The wireless e-mail device market splits along racial lines. Black users prefer Motorola, while whites favor BlackBerry.
posted by jjg at 2:37 AM PST - 11 comments

In a perfect world , this would be in mass production. In black. With an espresso machine. I'm surprised I haven't heard of this earlier; most good, respectable geeks that I know would most likely kill for one of these.
posted by nickd at 10:54 PM PST - 7 comments

Dean Kamen denies everything!

DEKA is currently working on several exciting projects. The book proposal referred to one. However, the leaked proposal quoted several prominent technology leaders out of context, without their doubts, risks and maybes included. This, together with spirited speculation about the unknown, has lead to expectations that are beyond whimsical. We have a promising project, but nothing of the earth shattering nature that people are conjuring up.

posted by palegirl at 9:47 PM PST - 12 comments

One of Leonard Nimoy's Lesser known works. Although "Leonard Nimoy Demonstrates the Magnavision Videodisc Player" wasn't previously on my to-see list, this reviewer has certainly changed my mind! [Note: Both ludicrous and irrelevant]
posted by Lirp at 9:15 PM PST - 12 comments

Yahoo Finance: Macromedia changes its name to New Jersey Media Group or did it?
posted by lagado at 8:16 PM PST - 13 comments

North Dakota Blind man gets weapons permit : FARGO, N.D. (AP) - Carey McWilliams has a concealed weapons permit from the state of North Dakota and isn't afraid to use a gun - even though he's blind...
posted by crunchland at 8:15 PM PST - 14 comments

Wow, these kids must be really clever to "take down the Internet". Exaggerated headlines are the stuff of news and have been for ages. Lets all try and simultaneously adapt to that. (via geeknik)
posted by davidgentle at 6:23 PM PST - 9 comments

This and this aren't exactly what you'd call urgent breaking news. (Respectively they're about the Ring of Fire and historical earthquakes.) So why couldn't the BBC take enough time on them to get their facts right? [More inside]
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:25 PM PST - 8 comments

Hangin' Tough like a New Kid Looks like this guy could use an "IT"
posted by Brilliantcrank at 2:57 PM PST - 6 comments

"You must be the author of your own life." Milan Hlavsa has passed. I never listened to their (Czecheslovakia's Plastic People of the Universe) music, but I found their strength, authenticity and persistence in the face of oppression inspiring. I found this link on Google, looking for an alternative to the NYT link in Daily Media News (scroll down). It seems a fitting obit. R.I.P. Milan.
posted by aflakete at 1:34 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Raleigh N.C. area Fox Station removes Temptation Island from it's programing. Here is the stations reason why "We're not going to support a program that could break up a family," said Tommy Schenck, WRAZ's general manager. What makes this funny is this same man allows Riki Lake, with it's cheating couples and dysfunctional families to be shown 5 times a week. Needless to say, it has caused quite a stir here. What's everyones take on this?
posted by remo at 1:11 PM PST - 26 comments

The IDEO identity card project. I'm fascinated by the micro-genre of busness cards. There's something about that tiny space that seems to get people's creative energy going in ways that even the big wide-open spaces of the web don't (not always in good ways). These designers are pushing the envelope in every direction: DNA, Bluetooth, plastic bags, incinerators, cameras, anonymity, you name it.
posted by rodii at 9:36 AM PST - 11 comments

Everyone who recognizes a nut, raise your hand...
posted by rushmc at 9:00 AM PST - 15 comments

Why Blogger Empowers Mindless Nits.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 7:36 PM PST - 40 comments

The CES Hall of Shame. The ten stupidest products these guys saw at CES this week. My favorite: Panasonic's Internet-Capable Microwave Ovens. [shudder]
posted by Steven Den Beste at 6:25 PM PST - 4 comments

Bill O'Reilly raps eminem style. This has got to be the best thing I've seen today, or maybe even this week. heh.
posted by tiaka at 5:57 PM PST - 10 comments

Tom Hanks = the Jimmy Stewart of our day? one of Salon's useful popular media pieces, but nothing you couldn't read on Sunday Arts section of the Times, such pieces being the Holy Ghost of Salon's Trinity (see inside for the Father and the Son)...
posted by MattD at 4:12 PM PST - 12 comments

SELECT 'name' FROM 'slave owners' BY 'gender'. It's an SQL joke. Geddit? Geddit? Oh never mind.
posted by holloway at 3:57 PM PST - 24 comments

Strings And Beads: Why worry about which device has the power to perform which function? Why not tie all your processing power together and use it to drive the functions you want where you want it? Full-motion video on your handheld? Sure!
posted by honkzilla at 1:04 PM PST - 6 comments

where did word go? It always screwed up my computer when it loads, but I love it for giving me Tony Millionairre.
posted by schlomo at 1:02 PM PST - 15 comments

Is LiveJournal taking aim at Blogger? I use both Blogger and LiveJournal myself, one for my weblog and one for more of a web journal I write things in occasionally. I think both web apps have different strengths and purposes, but there are certainly marked similarities, especially in light of the successful server fund raising drives both services have recently completed.
posted by Axodys at 12:41 PM PST - 40 comments

Ang Lee to direct "Hulk" Now that's a "green destiny" I can't wait to see. Sure hope it comes to fruition before the estimated theater date of 2003. And they're going to set it in Berkeley, Calif. -- schweet!
posted by allaboutgeorge at 11:02 AM PST - 8 comments

Invasion of the Usability Experts! It's about time someone said this, and I'm glad it was Dale. [ via kottke, where another conversation is going on ]
posted by fraying at 11:02 AM PST - 11 comments

The difference between intelligence and wisdom. How can someone that smart do something so foolish? (Borland Interbase has a hard-coded backdoor account name politically and password correct in it. Word has gotten out. It's used by such small organizations as Nokia, MCI, Boeing, and the US Army.) Here's the CERT advisory on this blunder.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:04 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

These Gore guys, I tell ya... Al Junior didn't invent the Internet... his dad, Al Senior didn't invent the other superhighway; you know, the one you drive on.
posted by baylink at 7:55 AM PST - 9 comments

A wearable car? is this really 'IT'?
posted by tiaka at 7:34 AM PST - 40 comments

The Quadratic Law of Resentment If you combine N people, there are N(N-1)/2 possible ways in which arguments can break out. [via A&LD] This seems rather salient to a site like Metafilter...
posted by rushmc at 7:15 AM PST - 9 comments

Chefs Prepare to Spill Ink in Court Battle Anyone hungry?
posted by Princess Buttercup at 5:47 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Nude, Gay Marines? Isn't that what the web is all about? The right to be different? United States Marine Corps officials are investigating reports its troops are posing nude for gay pornography being sold on the Internet....
posted by murray_kester at 2:36 AM PST - 18 comments

Tuesday's Lunar Eclipse has come and gone. How did you mark its passing? Here's how some of our global neighbors celebrated. Some seemed inclined to shoot the Moon in Turkey. Others in Nigeria believed the eclipse was caused by Sinners, so they burned hotels and bars. Some Hindus in India said the eclipse was sent by Lord Shiva, and took a dip in the Ganges as part of Kumbh Mela. Iraqi children sang to the heavens asking "Please Great Whale, give the moon back". And in Europe & Canada, up to 1,500 White witches gathered to ward off doom.
posted by kokogiak at 11:09 PM PST - 11 comments

The FCC approves the AOL/Time-Warner merger. We're all doomed.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 6:48 PM PST - 35 comments

A modern Dr Bowdler... (yeah, I know it's Salon, but...) A video-rental store in Utah offers "cleaned up" versions of modern films. First thought: is it legal? Post-DeCSS, one would think not: after all, the MPAA has done its best to protect its right to control the manner of reproduction. But are the studios not jumping to litigate, because they're happier to alienate Linux users with DVD drives than the LDS contingent in UT?
posted by holgate at 5:20 PM PST - 31 comments

From our No Matter How It Reads The Article Can't Live Up To The Headline Dept. in beautiful downtown Janesville, MN comes the news that Michael Jackson to Speak on Family Values... The world, no doubt, waits with bated breath...
posted by m.polo at 2:44 PM PST - 14 comments

This time it's for real: A Stage Three Power Emergency has been declared in California this evening. Rolling blackouts are expected, especially in Northern California. If MeFi goes down tonight, this is why. Nothing like government intervention disguised as "deregulation" to muck up the works.
posted by aaron at 1:56 PM PST - 27 comments

Scientists insert a jellyfish gene into a rhesus monkey. No word yet on how many asses the monkey has.
posted by plinth at 1:35 PM PST - 15 comments

Luminous Wallpaper ...trippy. Cool article about newer efficienct light sources.
posted by ritualdevice at 1:32 PM PST - 2 comments

"In a case believed to be a first of its kind since the inception of the Wisconsin hate crimes law, three area young men have been charged with a hate crime for singling out a Christian." Found at obscurestore.com
posted by ericost at 1:03 PM PST - 40 comments

When captions catch your eye: Scrolling down the page, it's all blah blah blah Reno leaves blah blah blah disagreements with Freeh blah blah blah...wait a second - the Drug Enforcement Agency Choir???
posted by solistrato at 1:00 PM PST - 6 comments

Whoa man, look out! This sewing machine's got attitude! Singer and Nintendo join forces to create a sewing machine that attaches to a Game Boy. After seeing Microsoft and La-Z-Boy team up, I guess they were feeling the technotextile envy.
posted by hijinx at 12:29 PM PST - 5 comments

Worth downloading the plugin. Well, I thought it was funny. And free, easy 3d graphics for the web sounds like a good idea to me. Pwaaak.
posted by andrew cooke at 12:16 PM PST - 6 comments

I think this guy displayed a much healthier reaction than suing Doritos, don't you? Instead, he "storms" back into the store and demands another packet. I'm in love.
posted by jfwlucy at 11:23 AM PST - 15 comments

Contact information viewable with Alexa toolbar? Disturbing. Anyone with the Alexa toolbar installed can apparently see your address and telephone number, along with helpful information like maps to your home. This information is in the public record, but providing it instantly can only lead to more stalking incidents. You may want to follow Leia's advice and visit Alexa.com's site editor to make sure you're protected.
posted by jmcnally at 10:44 AM PST - 16 comments

Things to say when you're losing a technical argument.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:19 AM PST - 9 comments

Well, if Dogz and Catz ain't good enough virtual pets for you, now you can get your very own Virtual Pamela Anderson (certain to be popular with 15-year-old boys everywhere) complete with patented "Silicone on Silicon" technology.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:17 AM PST - 11 comments

Apparently, Junior wants to be the "edufication president"... He said he wanted his administration to be remembered for making America ``a more literate country and a hopefuller country.''. Sigh. How do you spell "potatoes," again?
posted by m.polo at 9:05 AM PST - 59 comments

"Ten years ago, Kurt Cobain saved us from the horrific pap that was popular music. We sure could use another Kurt Cobain today." Are we really being duped these days? There's still good music in my opinion - maybe it's hard to find, but it's there.
posted by pnevares at 8:47 AM PST - 87 comments

Friends of Bill W. Indeed...
"For the past week I have read Jakob Nielsen's Flash alertbox over and over again and came to a startling revelation. It seems that Jakob got the title all-wrong. Flash is not 99% bad, as the usability guru says... Flash is 99% Proof, as in alcohol."
posted by DragonBoy at 8:35 AM PST - 20 comments

The Sputnik Apparently like a "super-dooper type of acupuncture", the Sputnik is "a 'Pied Piper' for worms". Don't ya just love medical jargon?
posted by Foaf at 7:29 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Norton's a racist. So now if you even mention the Confederacy in a less than evil light, you're a racist. I am really sick of people using the charge of racism to oppose those with other viewpoints. (More inside)
posted by CRS at 6:46 AM PST - 50 comments

Unisys, Microsoft, Dell to Create New Voting System The system will integrate election processes from voter registration to counting results, Unisys said. Let the Microsoft jokes begin . . .
posted by Outlawyr at 6:12 AM PST - 13 comments

DNA analysis of a 60,000-year-old skeleton from Lake Mungo in Australia throws doubt on the "Out of Africa" theory of human evolution.
posted by lagado at 4:00 AM PST - 7 comments

StorTroopers! With their giant heads and interesting range of fashion accessories, these little buggers are taking the UK blogging world by, um, storm.
posted by Foaf at 1:25 AM PST - 11 comments

Is this really very likely to happen? The Russians plan a new space station.
posted by davidgentle at 10:47 PM PST - 3 comments

The latest e-business. Surely this one can't fail. After all, look who they've got for a backer.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:36 PM PST - 2 comments

This guy thinks the XBox will kill off PC gaming. He also thinks the XBox is "one of the most important events in gaming in the next decade". Whew!
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:05 PM PST - 15 comments

Singer Steve Earle, who knows something about jail himself, became friends with a death-row inmate in Texas and walked the last mile with him. Earle wrote this piece for Tikkun; the link is to Utne Reader Online reprint of it.
posted by jhiggy at 7:57 PM PST - 6 comments

Piercing is a cool online comic by David Gaddis. It's received a minor plug before but I think it deserves a little more attention. I don't want to give away too much but it's not some angsty ode to genital rings or anything. Caution: big files.
posted by davidgentle at 6:00 PM PST - 5 comments

This by far is the all-time worst use of flash ever. Boring, long, and utterly unimportant. It blows -- the competition away!
posted by rschram at 4:08 PM PST - 17 comments

Ebola is for wimps! Some Australian scientists were trying to come up with a mouse contraceptive vaccine, for use in pest control. And they succeeded. Unfortunately, the virus they created works by killing mice before they can breed, and killing them very very well. Oh, and it's extremely vaccine-resistant: 100% death without vaccine, 50% with. And any kid with a Li'l Johnny Gene Engineering Kit could conceivably make a human version. Anyone got some smallpox virus laying around?
posted by aaron at 3:44 PM PST - 5 comments

"Her bra-topped collection of Madonna rejects are pure fashion overkill," says Mr. Blackwell of Britney Spears in his 41st. annual list of Hollywood's Worst Dressed. The archive of his previous lists reads like a time capsule of tinsel town's weird and wacky trends.
posted by tamim at 1:58 PM PST - 24 comments

These planets are big
Perhaps they are populated by a species of supergiants!
posted by rschram at 11:02 AM PST - 9 comments

Four out of Five Americans Know Earth Revolves around the Sun. I certainly wish this was an Onion Headline. Should we all know this? I'm inclined to think so. Elsewhere in the article, 2% of Americans believe that Independence was won from France. Shoot me in the face.
posted by liquidgnome at 11:00 AM PST - 71 comments

MacOS X comes of age. Microsoft has just announced that Microsoft Office will be released for the new Apple OS in the fall. "Analysts had warned that without a version of Office, or similar productivity suite, running natively under Mac OS X, Apple would face problems getting businesses to switch to the new operating system. "
posted by Brilliantcrank at 10:10 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

The U.S. Post office is a monopoly! or is it? USPS allows rate hike under protest...
We can't choose another vendor for this service. It is illegal for anyone to deliver to a mailbox other than the USPS. Has there ever been a substantial court case challenging this?
Should it be privatized? Your thoughts?
posted by ooklah at 8:39 AM PST - 39 comments

Yet another software patent issue with a twist. This time Sun threatens to derail the potentially useful XPointer effort. The twist? The inventor is none other than Jakob Nielsen.
posted by nedbatchelder at 7:37 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Be all that you can be? From the announcement: "The Army announced today a compelling new advertising campaign, marking its first major change in advertising direction since 1981. Ads unveiled today by Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera will open the innovative campaign, which centers on the message 'An Army of One.' "
posted by alethe at 7:32 AM PST - 15 comments

Charging for software as a service. As soon as the software vendors get this ironed out the hardware vendors are going to want in too. Soon you'll be paying monthly service fees based on how much you use your computer. (More ranting inside) ->
posted by monkeyboy at 4:09 AM PST - 17 comments

Protests planned for Bush inauguration. The Associated Press is reporting that there may be the largest number of protestors since Nixon's inauguration in 1973. I hope the D.C. cops behave themselves, unlike the last time there were major protests in Chief Ramsey's little district.
posted by Potsy at 3:41 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Author Caleb Carr argues in favor of government regulation of the Internet. He suggests that if we don't have government making the rules, the corporations will make them instead. (Yeah, it's a Salon link. You got a problem with that? Keep it to yourself.)
posted by jjg at 12:29 AM PST - 18 comments

Introducing Mac OSX. Due for release on Sat., March 24, 2001, at $129 a pop, mac users of the world, let the hoopla begin!!!
posted by leo at 12:06 AM PST - 21 comments

Clinton: "They thought the election was over, the Republicans did. By the time it was over, our candidate had won the popular vote, and the only way they could win the election was to stop the voting in Florida". Give 'em hell Bill!
posted by owillis at 10:51 PM PST - 16 comments

The latest iteration of the Great Chad Count of 2001 has been announced. Some news organizations finally announce specifics about their planned gang-recount. They'll pay a nonprofit firm to "inventory" the votes, but each news organization will decide separately what the results mean. And one paper is holding an entirely separate count of its own. Inside.com summarizes: "When the laborious process is completed in 8 to 10 weeks, look for an orgy of tea-leaf discernment as any news organization willing to share in the costs will be free to spin and analyze the results in any way they please."
posted by aaron at 10:28 PM PST - 2 comments

Barak offers Gusinsky asylum. Showing just how desperate Barak is to shore up support domestically, while potentially alienating Moscow and Washington. NOTE: Link only up publically for today, 1/10/01--stratfor is mostly subscription only. So here is alternate AP link.
posted by aflakete at 10:14 PM PST - 2 comments

Winning isn't enough, it seems. GOP targets Florida Supreme Court Justices...
posted by black8 at 8:49 PM PST - 19 comments

Myth III: The Wolf Age Gathering of Developers announced today that Myth III is not only in production but will be sold in November 2001! Anyone else counting the days?
posted by Brilliantcrank at 8:48 PM PST - 7 comments

How is O'Reilly wrong?
posted by tiaka at 8:29 PM PST - 15 comments

New career option! Be slave worker on the Martian surface!
This is pretty cool, actually. It's an internet based pilot study run by NASA to identify and classify all of the craters on the surface of Mars. This is a big job. All you need is a IE 5 or Netscape 6 web browser. Since its inception on November 17, web users combined have contributed 111,938 crater-markings and 26,877 crater-classification.
posted by lagado at 7:40 PM PST - 2 comments

If you've suddenly started getting a lot of telemarketing calls, this may be the reason why. So go look at your EBay options; you may find they've been helpfully changed for you.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 6:28 PM PST - 12 comments

Supreme Court limits federal control over "wetlands."
Ruling that not only does the Clean Water Act not support such control, but that it would be unconstitutional anyway, the court removed the Army Corps of Engineers' authority over isolated wetlands such as ponds and mudflats. [more]
posted by daveadams at 5:10 PM PST - 11 comments

Nat Hentoff on the Supreme Court and Bush v Gore: "Far from stealing the election for Bush, the majority of the Supreme Court shamed the politicians of both parties who, for so long, have failed to secure everyone's meaningful right to vote."
posted by aaron at 5:03 PM PST - 10 comments

NATO Ducks Uranium Ban Amid Clamor for Research.

NATO partners split on dangers of depleted uranium weapons.

"U.S. attack jets fired some 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition during NATO's 1999 campaign to end Serb repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. About 10,000 rounds were also fired in neighboring Bosnia in 1994-95."

Of course, this doesn't count rounds used during the Gulf War.
posted by Mr. skullhead at 5:00 PM PST - 1 comment

The "Stop Ashcroft" movement gets busy - does this coalition have a website? I've already e-mailed my senators but I'd like to see what else I can do to keep this goon as far away from the Attorney General's office as possible.
posted by NickBarat at 2:32 PM PST - 31 comments

What is "IT"? National Medal of Technology winner demos some kind of hush-hush invention to Bezos, Jobs, and Doerr: the consensus view is that it's bigger than the PC. Either one of the most stunning inventions of all time or one of the most stunning publicity stunts of all time. Possibly both.
posted by grimmelm at 1:52 PM PST - 77 comments

Open Letters stopped publishing on Friday. This was mentioned quietly in a comment in an unrelated thread last week, but I didn't notice at the time. They're taking Paypal donations to be distributed among the 72 contributors. What a drag.
posted by waxpancake at 1:38 PM PST - 14 comments

TPD to NFL: Sure, we'll arrest your quarterback for getting a lapdance. Oh, do I wanna see them be dumb enough to try this.
posted by baylink at 1:32 PM PST - 5 comments

Surfing in style with the new Lazyboy recliner - except the keyboard is on the left side. Probably so your right hand can use the remote control.
posted by fnirt at 1:17 PM PST - 8 comments

Chavez Withdraws From Consideration for Labor Post. Looks like Bush decided to cut bait on this nomination.
posted by rorschach at 1:14 PM PST - 25 comments

“The group's communique to Rosebraugh said it hoped to see an "escalation in tactics against capitalism and industry" in 2001.” The Earth Liberation Front struck twice in the three weeks.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 1:00 PM PST - 1 comment

Time to wash up for Hindus. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for religion and such. But if you wash your sins away in this river, you might wind up with something that won't wash off.
posted by CRS at 12:19 PM PST - 8 comments

Here's an idea for struggling web-based publishing tools
Jump-start the reflective process by prompting webloggers on what to write about.
posted by rschram at 10:53 AM PST - 10 comments

Poor man's Quicktime.... Apple Keynote, in a text format.
posted by Cavatica at 9:29 AM PST - 23 comments

Time to short Microsoft stock. After building a behemoth though a quarter-century of tacitly encouraging piracy to increase market share, Microsoft appears to be getting ready to drink the anti-piracy kool-aid. Look for revenues to shrink accordingly.
posted by aurelian at 9:02 AM PST - 11 comments

Privacy makes strides online. I'm actually pretty amazed by the ruling - while I think this is a great thing, could it be used for evil?
posted by rich at 7:58 AM PST - 3 comments

Is "Rushmore" the funniest movie of the 90's? Matthowie thinks so, and kottke apparently does too. However, Eric Rapp sums up my thoughts exactly about the movie that may account for 2 hours of "lost time". Seen any other movies that people raved about but were completely lost on you?
posted by ethmar at 7:04 AM PST - 103 comments

Amok, amok, amok! For some reason, I find this hilarious. Imagine watching Clinton sprinting across the Whitehouse lawn trying to beat the monkeys to the waiting helicopter while the Marines fight a desperate rear-guard action. We don't have any of the cool stuff here.
posted by CRS at 6:58 AM PST - 2 comments

Organizine Closing Doors already? Organizine is shutting down services at 5pm PST. Well, at least I found out with a few hours to go (!)... time to move all content out then.
posted by williamtry at 6:55 AM PST - 42 comments

Is this plagiarism or not? Have to profess an interest here: I write for this site sometimes. But when I see they've created yet another "Hot or Not" ripoff I begin to wonder... will this joke ever end?
posted by tobyslater at 1:29 AM PST - 4 comments

These guys are at it again.

"We will send about 20 men, their ages ranging from 25 to 77, to pull the 400-seat B747. We hope to set a world record."

And I was impressed by those World Ironman competitions...
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 10:02 PM PST - 3 comments

Not just another Weblog link: This, apparently, is the front door (or at least today's front door) to the ChristianityToday.com Weblog. It comments, it provides links, it archives.
posted by jhiggy at 8:44 PM PST - 5 comments

Broken Arrow: Goldsboro, NC. On Tuesday, 24 January 1961, at about 12:30 a.m., two hydrogen bombs fell to earth near the tiny farming village of Faro, NC...

An interesting read.
posted by milnak at 6:14 PM PST - 4 comments

beam me up! the ultimatetv thread made me wonder which satellite TV system would be best for me (and why is directTV evil?) -- anyway with this gadget you can watch DISH channels plus upload AND download via satellite IP. too good to be true?
posted by subpixel at 5:26 PM PST - 12 comments

Micropayments to the artist as a young boy So, I've been thinking about this end of copyright thing as has Scott McCloud it seems. Coupled with Lance Glassdog's rant on the subject and something has been tickling my brainstem about it. Since when does being an artist equal being paid?
posted by fullerine at 4:53 PM PST - 14 comments

Why in hell is the National Acadamy of Science involved in looking for ways to censor the Internet?

Here's an interesting commentary on the fact that all censorship ultimately fails. A great quote: "It amazes me to see parents who support 'family values' demanding government censorship on the Net. In other words, their family values have failed, and they can't control their children, so they expect the government to control the situation for them." (Via GeekPress.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:16 PM PST - 7 comments

Concerned About Frankenfood? Ralph Nader has some ideas.
posted by snakey at 4:10 PM PST - 25 comments

Jack Chick Parody Site is up. Not surpringly, Chick Publications isn't pleased.
posted by milnak at 3:48 PM PST - 6 comments

Microsoft unleashes their TiVo killer and it looks like it has everything you could ever want in a personal video recorder. Two tuners so you can tape one thing and watch another, DSS, 35 hours of recording time, and webtv/email functionality. Is it too much or will TiVo owners want these increased features?
posted by mathowie at 2:26 PM PST - 15 comments

Teenager jailed for his 'imagination.' A 15 year-old boy is beaten repeatedly by school bullies. His parents complain about it, but no one does anything. He writes a short story describing a bullied boy blowing up his school. Rumours swirl. Police raid his house but find no weapons or bomb-making stuff. Regardless, the boy is charged with "uttering a death threat." Today he was found guilty and sentenced to thirty days in jail.
posted by tranquileye at 2:15 PM PST - 36 comments

"He's not a Democrat."
posted by tiaka at 12:59 PM PST - 40 comments

eBlots presents you with a picture. You type what you think/feel/see, and are presented with what everyone else thought/felt/saw. You're identified by a random color, so it's anonymous, and you can even have your eblots mailed to you daily.
posted by fnirt at 11:41 AM PST - 15 comments

A Minor Threat to business as usual: A fine Q&A with Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi) about the ethical, fan-friendly approach to music business at Dischord Records. Obligatory MeFi disclaimer: It's a Salon link.
posted by jhiggy at 10:39 AM PST - 10 comments

the degree confluence project is an attempt to photograph and document some 11,000+ intersections of longitude and latitude and you can help!
posted by centrs at 10:05 AM PST - 11 comments

The battle for unrestricted encryption continues. Professor Bernstein won't rest; he's not going to let this go. More power to him and let's hope he ultimately wins. [He's challenging the US government restrictions on private encryption on free-speech grounds, and so far he's won in every court where the case has been heard. The government has been using delaying actions, and their relaxation of restrictions may partially have been in hopes he'd give up, leaving them still capable of some control. He's not going to, though. He's got blood in his eye, so to speak.]
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:32 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

The Infinity Project Josh Simpson makes glass planets. Tickle his fancy and you too may have the opportunity to hide one for posterity.
posted by plinth at 8:35 AM PST - 14 comments

How to get a Ph.D. in the Hardy Boys. I wish *I* was that creative. :-) I still like the originals best. [Spotted at GirlHacker's Random Log]
posted by baylink at 8:10 AM PST - 1 comment

LiveJournal's "Paid Accounts" model might be the route that Pyra wants to take with Blogger. I don't know much about LiveJournal's features as compared with Blogger, but they certainly have thought out their revenue model. Does anyone know anything about LiveJournal?
posted by jmcnally at 7:04 AM PST - 9 comments

Tiananmen Square transcripts revealed this confirms what you already knew; but it shows the process by which they came to it.
posted by bliss322 at 3:48 AM PST - 1 comment

High-tech world mafias breeze past borders. This is a good introduction to a disturbing and daunting problem that touches on many issues: online privacy, bureaucratic inertia, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the future of immigration policy. In the underworld, dealing drugs is day-trading while dealing humans is blue chip investing.
posted by aflakete at 1:41 AM PST - 5 comments

Sony's left hand disagrees with its right hand. Sony Electronics just announced a player at CES in Vegas which will play MP3's off of a CD in addition to playing normal audio CDs. Sony Music, on the other hand, is part of the SDMI initiative which is trying to stamp out MP3's. "They were pissed." (Via GeekPress)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:20 PM PST - 10 comments

What to do after you realize your dot com is never going to make money Apparently once you run out of other people's money one option is to stop spending extravagant amounts of money.
posted by rdr at 9:15 PM PST - 13 comments

left-over gun shells poisoning the environment US and NATO forces left enough low-level depleted uranium shells lying around in bosnia/kosovo to cause an environmental hazard. I wrote whitehouse.gov and the d.o.d. about how important i think it is that we clean up this mess, pronto. i love using the word, pronto. this is important, and could really affect us if we don't fix it now.
posted by bliss322 at 8:01 PM PST - 26 comments

Found in today's Times: It takes some time to wind up, but this could be the finest and most thorough Internet hoax ever, at least that I am aware of.
posted by luke at 6:53 PM PST - 12 comments

'Goonies' House for Sale -- Throw in a set of Bully Blinders^TM for good measure, and I'll take it. via bamf.com
posted by ratbastard at 5:50 PM PST - 3 comments

New administration, same old Zoe Baird problem. Labor Secretary-Designate Linda Chavez housed an illegal Guatamalan immigrant and gave her spending money in the early 1990s. Will it nuke Chavez's confirmation? Or will Senate Democrats not touch it out of fear of appearing anti-Hispanic?
posted by aaron at 4:17 PM PST - 24 comments

Inspired partly by science fiction, NASA scientists are seriously considering space elevators as a mass-transit system for the next century.
If they hurry, I just might be able to make it into space before I die. Speed the plow Poindexter!
posted by thirteen at 3:59 PM PST - 9 comments

The Internet Ray Tracing Competition for November, December 2000. Some of these are amazing - and some only use POVRay for a renderer. Anyway, looks like Gilles Tran is probably going to win again. But who will take second and third? Props up to my good homey DSI for his phat submission!
posted by SilentSalamander at 9:40 AM PST - 14 comments

Eat your heart out, Burning Man... Allahabad may become the world's largest city for the next six weeks. It's expected that at least 20 million people will attend the Kumbh, but numbers could rise to 70 million. Wow.
posted by holgate at 7:14 AM PST - 10 comments

The Monolith revealed!! Durn, I was hoping this would keep going for awhile...
posted by black8 at 5:24 AM PST - 3 comments

More guns then people "...they found there were 1.4 million guns in the state, just over one for each of the nearly 1.3 million residents..." yikes! good move on the free gun locks though.
posted by cburton at 2:17 AM PST - 7 comments

Feeling left out by the democratic process? Despair not. Now you can vote for your favorite artists for American Music Awards, favorite TV shows for the TV Guide Awards, or, if you are feeling extra patriotic, for America's National Tree at the Arbor Day website, and have the vote count.
posted by tamim at 1:57 AM PST - 2 comments

Now that is one, big and expensive tuna fish! What must have that thing eaten??
posted by crog at 12:34 AM PST - 12 comments

Any console gamers out there thinking about getting an X-box instead of a PS2? Which system has a brighter future?
posted by thirteen at 10:55 PM PST - 43 comments

When a group of astronomers bought a bunch of land in Transylvania County, N.C., to use the abandoned satellite dishes, they got a bonus: Thirty-five years' worth of leftover techno-wonders from the National Security Agency. Check out what they found, and largely can't identify.
posted by aaron at 10:44 PM PST - 4 comments

Protecting England's elderly from encyclopedia salesmen.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:12 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

I am making a list of failed and over-hyped Internet business jargon. Here is part of it: Java applets, Push, Web TV, ad-supported sites, B2C, B2B, proprietary music formats, WAP, 100% Flash sites, broadband. Do you agree? What is missing?
posted by tranquileye at 7:25 PM PST - 32 comments

X-inventions: The home page of a high school kid who shows you exactly how to build pneumatic cannons, hovercraft, lockpicks, high explosives, telephone bugs and a lot of other fun stuff. Impress your friends! Be the first on your block! (Remind me to be nice to the next teenager I meet.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:01 PM PST - 6 comments

Welcome back, state's rights. As if Dubya's comments following his "ethnic" Cabinet appointments wasn't enough retrograde logic -- roughly: if blacks and hispanics (would only?) work hard and make the right choices in life -- he's now using language that has been used to mask agendas based on race from before the Civil War through the fight against integration. And it looks like that fight ain't over, if you read "states rights" in today's context to mean the right to spend public funds on getting (primarily) white kids out of (primarily) black schools.
posted by subpixel at 5:49 PM PST - 13 comments

No, Mr.Bond, you die. Dr. Death? How are hospitals run in england? 297 patients!
posted by tiaka at 3:10 PM PST - 13 comments

"If US drugs policy were a company, it would have gone bankrupt years ago." This, see, is why Bush needs to increase military spending. long before the dot-com era, the same mentality fuelled the War on Drugs: spend now, and hope for profits... well, some time in the future.
posted by holgate at 2:14 PM PST - 2 comments

George W. Bush is elected President of the United States. Affirmed by no less than Al Gore himself. The electoral votes have been tallied and certified. It. Is. Over.
posted by aaron at 1:50 PM PST - 29 comments

An interesting place to work, especially for the Fox Mulders among us. (via null device) Oddly enough, the first time I tried to post this, my PC crashed. . . *X-Files theme*
posted by aflakete at 11:37 AM PST - 7 comments

Stuck in the past? Ok, while this is hardly news it's annoying as hell. No matter what I search for, it doesn't pull any articles up after 1/1/2001. What's worse is they don't appear to have ANY contact emails for anyone other then a frustrating "feedback" form. Grrrr. There's got to be other comprehensive live news search sites....
posted by bkdelong at 9:54 AM PST - 3 comments

Truth in advertising. All you have to do is look at the URL to know what this guy's site is about. (It's actually quite good, with a great deal of humor and also a great deal of substance.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:30 AM PST - 6 comments

"Who on Earth actually listens to what [Michael] Moore says?," Nicholas Confessore asks in the current American Prospect. "You might as well blame the Republican Party for some nut's post on FreeRepublic.com."
posted by rcade at 9:23 AM PST - 9 comments

Donate a Mammogram! My aunt sent me this URL so be nice. =) If you go there and click on the button, a woman gets a free mammogram at no cost to you. Corporate sponsors pay for it. Only one free mammogram donation per person. Sure it's corny but it's for a good cause. Besides, it is every man's sacred duty to do what he can to insure all the world's breasts are in top form. =)
posted by ZachsMind at 9:21 AM PST - 15 comments

Jason talks about all of these new features but i can't figure out how to get them to work. Help?
posted by Sean Meade at 5:06 AM PST - 25 comments

Pixelflo launches Web Trumps - a new Top Trumps style game where you can play with your favourite web celebs, down-at-heel webloggers, and gods like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Based upon Dan Hon's Blogtrumps. Several questions leap to mind, including the obvious one: it's fun, but why?
posted by barbelith at 3:49 AM PST - 9 comments

Oops! Drugs awareness officer dies from overdose. I just saw 'Traffic' tonight...
posted by black8 at 2:19 AM PST - 3 comments

If computer engineering defined the last half of the twentieth century, then biotech will surely define the first half of the twenty-first century.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Blogger gets its server Pyra pulls it off with a little help from its friends.
posted by allaboutgeorge at 10:05 PM PST - 13 comments

Everquest claims a child's life, from the fatal neglect of a game-addicted father. Sentenced to 15 years in prison, the deadbeat dad squeezed his 9-month-old son and left him in a utility closet for over 24 hours while he played online. According to the prosecution, his son's crying was distracting him from the game.

I've been addicted to games before, and Everquest definitely has a reputation for being one of the most addictive games ever, but this is just evil.
posted by waxpancake at 9:34 PM PST - 10 comments

Not Dubbing the Simpsons The Office de la langue française and others are up in arms (ils capotent) about anglicisms in Internet discourse. Business 2.0 talked about it. Branchez-Vous writes a short, cutting article, giving those who pepper their French with English enough rope to hang themselves. («Dans la catégorie "Un mot français, un mot anglais et hop!," le prix revient à Rational Software France, the e-development company, qui a annoncé la nomination d'André Arich au poste de Partner Manager pour sa filiale française, ainsi que le lancement en France du programme de partenariat Rational Unified Partner Program (RUPP).») ¶ Strangely, French has a nicer word for E-mail than English does: courriel. (Grand Dictionnaire is the OLF's official bilingual tech dictionary.)
posted by joeclark at 7:38 PM PST - 14 comments

Maybe I spoke too soon. A lot of semipro tech-zines, sort of like blogs except with specific subject matters to cover, are financed by ad networks. In the recent past a bunch of them have lost their funding when their ad networks went out of business. Now one of the biggest networks which remains is changing their terms to the detriment of the web sites. I gather that a lot of the ad networks were running at a loss, and of course new funding has dried up. [more inside]
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:12 PM PST - 6 comments

A fine football story for the year... Oklahoma won the National Championship, and Penn State did not do so well, however the local hero walks out of the hospital to get on with the rest of his life. Granted the injury was a bruise and Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli saved his life, but my question is how long before we'll see the successful repair of spinal cord injuries? Will Christopher Reeve walk again?
posted by brent at 4:39 PM PST - 4 comments

Vatican's lines too long? The Pope has just closed the door to the bronze Holy Door in St. Peter's Basilica for the next 25 years. I have heard of crowd control but give me a break, can the lines really be that bad?
posted by Brilliantcrank at 3:29 PM PST - 11 comments

Inevitable, really. Thankfully still under construction. Is nothing sacred?
posted by Cobbler at 2:26 PM PST - 15 comments

National Cyber Cop Committee of India enlists teenage hackers as advisors.
posted by tamim at 1:07 PM PST - 2 comments

Where are search engines headed? Paid inclusion seems to be an increasingly popular strategy among search engines and directories. In addition to Yahoo and the ones listed in the article, Go.com and NBCi have recently implemented paid inclusion systems. Should we expect even more search engines to head in this direction? Does this worry anyone?
posted by Aaaugh! at 12:40 PM PST - 10 comments

"This is a painful reminder of the risks our agents take each and every day." Is this referring to the CIA? The FBI? Nope -- real estate. (via the one true /usr/bin/girl)
posted by jjg at 12:08 PM PST - 11 comments

Not the turtle, but maybe a relation? A company called Terapin is selling a recorder that can create CD-audio and CD-V (MPEG 1 video) disc recordings (CD-R and CD-RW), from real time sources. Now, this may seem like a day late and a dollar short, but DVD-R's are still 5 grand, and real-time MPEG video encoders ain't that cheap either. For 6 bills, who knows? Anyone got/seen/played with one of these, or knows who's selling them? I've got a few blank CD-R's I'm not using...
posted by baylink at 11:59 AM PST - 7 comments

NM Task Force Urges Marijuana Legalization . . . for possession of up to an ounce, but no provisions made for cultivation.
posted by snakey at 10:42 AM PST - 19 comments

House Republican introduces resolution to protect ISPs from criminal liability for third party content. Californian David Dreier's proposal isn't an actual bill but would put the House on record as supporting such protections.
posted by thescoop at 10:31 AM PST - 9 comments

shades of microserfs: man locked himself in his parents bathroom two years ago and refuses to come out. is fed by flat food slipped under the door.
posted by palegirl at 9:29 AM PST - 34 comments

ZZ Top to play Dubya coronation. Yessir, America's forgotten hair-farmers will no doubt be rocking the frat...er...White House with aplomb. Think Cheney will do a kegstand?
posted by NickBarat at 9:04 AM PST - 11 comments

Public Service Announcement: starting Sunday, first-class postage goes up a penny. So if you've got a pile of 33-cent stamps leftover from holiday card season, either use 'em up now, or stock up on 1-cent stamps.
posted by sandor at 8:57 AM PST - 15 comments

Unenlightened geekdom. It started out as a discussion about the racial discrimination case against Microsoft. It turned into an interesting (and depressing) dialog showing the ignorance of geeks (nerds, whatever) about racism in their industry.
posted by owillis at 8:35 AM PST - 59 comments

Terrific News in Mexico City: Air Is Sometimes Breathable. Strict environmental rules have reduced air pollution levels to below life-threatening levels, and produced this great headline too.
posted by rorschach at 8:20 AM PST - 1 comment

Boon-Ga Boon-Ga! [via fark] - a video game played by spanking. Even worse is the person dressed up like the game controller at a trade show, even more disturbing next to the person in the turd (?) costume. Brought to you by Taff System (link not functional at time of posting)
posted by plinth at 7:12 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

I need another MeFi posting like I need a... Here's an organization devoted entirely to *intentionally* boring a hole in one's head. Apparently, it helps your brain to "function better". Well, if you're willing to go through with the procedure, you've certainly got room for improvement in that department.
posted by jpoulos at 6:33 AM PST - 38 comments

Wacky! even Kooky, what do you think it is? It seems that these days every other post has something to do with politics or dotcoms, Art Bell is coming back and it would be fun to do something of his range. How about best/funniest ghost/supernatural pic you can find on the net and then your explanation. There was mine.
posted by tiaka at 6:23 AM PST - 3 comments

Play with yourself anytime you like... I don't know why, but I find myself wondering if I could afford the $250 or more they're asking for one of these. I can think of a thousand fun things I could do with a 'me' action figure (via Thirteen Labs).
posted by Markb at 5:37 AM PST - 12 comments

Sunspots apparently are the cause of recent protests and riots around the world. And this person has, um, "evidence."
posted by gluechunk at 12:28 AM PST - 6 comments

Somebody can't take a joke... A lewd e-mail picture showing the cartoon character Bart Simpson in a sexual clinch has cost 10 people their jobs at a big British insurance company. Eighty others have been suspended
posted by murray_kester at 8:33 PM PST - 26 comments

Television networks are changing their election night coverage techiques. Both NBC and CBS have announced their changes for how they cover national elections in the future so as to save face with the audience. If this was Japanese TV, they would have dropped the show producers in a vat of acid by now. Oh well.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 6:59 PM PST - 11 comments

Linux 2.4 is out. I guess it's not vaporware after all. [Linus's announcement email inside]
posted by holloway at 6:48 PM PST - 7 comments

Is this town big enough for two blogs named /usr/bin/girl? [more inside]
posted by dhartung at 6:26 PM PST - 39 comments

MTV will run a continuous list of hate crime victims' names for 17 hours. Seems like a somewhat empty gesture to me...
posted by owillis at 5:52 PM PST - 28 comments

Etoys to lay off 70% of its workforce in their never ending quest for profitability. Does it really take 1,000 employees to run an e-commerce site? I hope not, since there will only be 300 left after today. I imagine most of those employees were in the fulfillment end of the business.
posted by mathowie at 4:54 PM PST - 13 comments

Stephen Wolfram [article from Forbes.com] could become the world's greatest thinker, or the world's biggest fool. Could he be the next Einstein?
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 4:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Dubbing the Simpsons Should The Simpsons in French be egalitarian or classist? Depends on whether you use Quebec or national French, apparently. (Second article.)
posted by joeclark at 4:28 PM PST - 4 comments

The Age of Embarrassment "Bush’s cabinet choices are an assortment of right-wing ideologues, fat cats, has-beens, wannabees, and plain ol’ opportunists. There’s not a visionary in the bunch." Truth? Or liberal hysteria?
posted by owillis at 4:22 PM PST - 14 comments

Durian is not the new budget chip from AMD. It's a big prickly fruit I've seen for sale in Chinese supermarkets and now I know what the real attraction is...
posted by xiffix at 1:41 PM PST - 11 comments

DoubleClick one of the 10 Worst Corporations of 2000. I'm no Doubleclick fan, but are they really in the same league with a Firestone, or even a Glaxo?
posted by Doug at 12:52 PM PST - 19 comments

Gadgets are better than sex, or so lots of guys think. Kind of reminds me of that old beer joke.
posted by tatochip at 12:42 PM PST - 1 comment

How deflating..... I am aphalled at the statements of the girl and her mother that if someone has low esteem then breast implants are the way to improve both self image and success! As if breast size is the only factor in social standing and prosperity. *sigh* Obviously television, societal rhetoric and socialization of body image opinion has truly sunk to new lows.
posted by bkdelong at 12:39 PM PST - 19 comments

The article isn't *nearly* as funny as the headline "Anna Nicole Smith Resents Jokes". (Sorry for the Salon, but it was buried and many probably missed it.)
posted by jpoulos at 12:25 PM PST - 3 comments

The Gospel according to The Simpsons: A study finds that 69% of the episodes have at least one religious reference, while 11% of the episodes have a plot revolving around some religious issue.
posted by tamim at 10:22 AM PST - 23 comments

Hack that damn talking fish.
posted by plinth at 10:20 AM PST - 10 comments

Pain Compliance -- Is it a revolutionary new tool for law enforcement, or legalized torture?
posted by snakey at 9:25 AM PST - 34 comments

Sunlight: It's What's For Dinner. This guy claims he's been living on nothing but water and sunlight for about a year. :::Cough::: He also exhumes the hoary myth about using only 10% of your brain. My favorite is the author credit: "By A Staff Reporter."
posted by Skot at 9:11 AM PST - 11 comments

Uncanny. [Ok, so no one will grouse about lack of explanation, let's just say the link provided explores certain physical similarities between our president-elect and the common chimpanzee...aw, it would've been funnier without the explanation, but rules is rules]
posted by chartres at 9:07 AM PST - 1 comment

Speaking of suddenly appearing monoliths... A six-foot anatomically correct snow sculpture was found in Connecticut. It was destroyed so that "young eyes" would not view it.
Best Quote: "That was before she discovered that this rendering of the body part that puts the man in snowman was taller than she was, and hardened by ice. "
posted by champignon at 8:19 AM PST - 7 comments

Microsoft and Starbucks join forces to provide wireless Internet access for caffeine junkies. I was worried enough by this alliance ("Great Satan" and "Corporate Kudzu," etc.), but then I read that McDonald's is looking into doing the same thing. Sure, there is a certain convenience factor, but do we really need branded connectivity everywhere we go?
posted by mkhall at 7:03 AM PST - 12 comments

"Go To Class -- It' a Blast!!!" The Washington D.C. school board strikes a blow against truancy, and manages to take out grammar at the same time.
posted by rorschach at 6:43 AM PST - 14 comments

I was reading this article about the new breed of modern airships when I stumbled over the line "Not your grandfather's airship". That started me off thinking about the "Not your father's X" meme that's been part of the journalistic background noise for a while now. It seems to me to evoking something oedipal, a male child's revulsion of his father and his father's way of doing things. It's usually juxtaposed against technology or at least things that aren't all that old to begin with. Does anyone know who used it first? A quick search of Google reveals it in everything from "Cuba: not your father's stagnant nation" to "XML: Not your father's HTML". Anyone got any favorites?
posted by lagado at 3:50 AM PST - 19 comments

®™ark is looking for someone to marry a corporation. Since corporations are legal “people” — only missing the right to vote — they must have the right to marry. Perhaps Pyra is looking for a spouse?
posted by capt.crackpipe at 1:33 AM PST - 18 comments

Calvin....not urinating on anything, thank God. Universal Press Syndicates' comic's site, which, along with allowing you to sign up for a daily dose of "Calvin and Hobbes" spam, has many of the strips of this and other comics archived. Chuckles abound.
posted by Optamystic at 11:23 PM PST - 12 comments

Why HAVE the Republican and Democratic parties shifted about so dramatically? In most periods from 1789 to the present, the US has had two dominant national parties competing to control government: Federalists vs Republicans (1790s-1810s), National Republicans vs Democratic Republicans (1810s-1830s), Whigs vs Democrats (1830s-1850s), Republicans vs Democrats (1850s-present). Despite the changing names, the underlying coalitions have been remarkably stable. In effect, there have been only two main parties in American history: the northern party and the southern party. [via A&LD]
posted by rushmc at 9:08 PM PST - 7 comments

monolith disappears! the monolith has disappeared as mysteriously as it first appeared.
posted by quonsar at 8:14 PM PST - 14 comments

GeekPress (much recommended) is threatened by the fire. They posted a picture of what it looked like from their house.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:38 PM PST - 1 comment

nofilters.org - a new one-stop (info)shop for all your anti-filtering/censorware needs.
posted by gluechunk at 6:04 PM PST - 1 comment

Well, it's official. Civilization has now come to an end; drowned in a sea of vapid mediocrity and fad. In five years, will anyone still give a damn about Brittney Spears?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:41 PM PST - 21 comments

Visa in Financial Trouble... Can't buy a clue
This takes the cake. Visa is announcing a new Animated Logo with a press release. This animated logo (with sound!) will be played when ever someone makes a wireless purchase with their visa, alerting everyone within earshot of what you are doing. In addition to the animated logo they are staking claim to the newest buzz word to make executives sound stupid: U-commerce.
[via camworld]
posted by DragonBoy at 5:29 PM PST - 16 comments

Republicans Step Up Campaign Against Global Court

Jesse Helms and co. against international war crimes court treaty.

Guess somebody's got some skeletons to hide.

Bush administration against it too.
posted by Mr. skullhead at 5:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Lawrence Lindsey, George II’s economic advisor, would have the rich pay less taxes, but to keep the revenue flowing, he’d raise rates for everbody else. With both major political parties relying on the same corporate donors it’s no wonder the superrich and their kingdoms get away with nearly anything.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 3:59 PM PST - 32 comments

How to Self-Publish a Book and Turn it into a Bestseller. Seth Godin, author of unleashing the idea virus wrote this rather simplistic article about self-publishing books -- perhaps it's a little easier to self-publish when your book is about giving information away & spreading memes than it would be for the hypothetical novelist he suggests. media monopolies are scary. self publishing -- it's all the rage.
posted by palegirl at 1:21 PM PST - 5 comments

Rumours about Saddam Hussein's health. According to a report from Sky News, the Iraqi dictator may have suffered a major stroke or may be dead.
posted by andre_111 at 1:09 PM PST - 16 comments

While a lot of you are shoveling snow, we in San Diego are getting brushfires. I can smell the smoke from 30 miles away.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 1:04 PM PST - 10 comments

Breastfeeding at Five Years. - How old is too old?
posted by kevincmurphy at 12:53 PM PST - 5 comments

Why McDonald's fries taste good - A very interesting article about Americans, food, and "flavoring." The statistic that made me gasp in shock was this: "About 90 percent of the money that Americans now spend on food goes to buy processed food." Is it any wonder the nation is so fat? Good grief.
posted by acridrabbit at 12:45 PM PST - 23 comments

How you say Duking it out with Accenture for the title of most disagreeable computer-generated faux-English corporate nomenclature de la semaine, a company with the perfectly good name Productivity Works has gone and screwed it up by renaming itself isSound. "Because the future is listening," the homepage tells us. What it's listening to is all of us stammering to pronounce an unnatural string of letters. In related news, despite admitting it still works, isSound isShitcanning itsScreenReader, pwWebSpeak.
posted by joeclark at 12:38 PM PST - 5 comments

FLASH: buffer bug in Flash! Well, we all hate Flash anyway; now we have reason. I've Got a Bad Feeling About This...
posted by baylink at 8:36 AM PST - 9 comments

Privacy is an endangered species at work. Not that this is a surprise... but I'm wondering. Will we see a wave of MIS professionals who become conscientious objectors on this topic, similar to the responses engendered by 'defense' projects in the early days of computing?
posted by baylink at 8:35 AM PST - 4 comments

The fat had the gooey texture of well-cooked pasta. What is it about national delicacies? To the uninitiated palate, they always just sound so disgusting. All I can say is thank goodness the US is forcing its culture down the rest of the world's throat and not the other way around.
posted by willnot at 8:24 AM PST - 10 comments

Cue left shoe: drop. eToys lops off its European arm; how far behind can the US arm be?
posted by hijinx at 7:17 AM PST - 4 comments

Send in your votes now! Fairvue presents the Bloggies for 2001.
posted by Foaf at 5:56 AM PST - 39 comments

Microsoft faces $5 billion race discrimination lawsuit.
posted by tamim at 5:35 AM PST - 29 comments

2001 - The year of new reason? "There is clearly only so much that people can take in terms of stories which range from the unnecessarily alarmist to the downright silly, and the news media are at last recognising this."
posted by todd at 5:17 AM PST - 4 comments

Let's give a big "Yahoo!" for censorship! Yahoo caves in and bans all "hate materials" from being sold through its auction service anywhere, not just in France. What is "hate material," of course, will be defined by Yahoo itself, in ways they haven't yet bothered to deliniate. (I'm going to go out on a limb and venture that "No Fat Chicks" bumper stickers will still be allowed, along with anything else that denigrates groups that don't have politically-effective special interest groups behind them.) In addition, they'll now charge for listings. Are these smart ideas for a site whose auctions have a pretty anemic response rate in the first place?
posted by aaron at 10:13 PM PST - 15 comments

New Hampshire Lawmaker Advocates Killing Cops -- Sort of gives new meaning to "Live Free Or Die."
posted by mrbula at 10:00 PM PST - 13 comments

"Ante up!" Say the good folks at Pyra, as Blogger goes to telethon mode and asks for New Server donations. And they really suckered me in, too, because sufficient donations yield free stickers!
posted by anildash at 6:33 PM PST - 136 comments

Also Sprach Zarathustra, anyone? Does the arrival of a monolith in Seattle implicitly suggest that Microserfs are in need of an extra-terrestrial intelligence boost?
posted by holgate at 5:10 PM PST - 25 comments

This is an amazing photograph of what the world looks like at night, from a low orbit. Although this is found in a subdirectory of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, I'm not sure how to get to this pic by surfing the site, nor do I have any information on what was used to do the photographing. The link was sent to me in an email.

Anybody know the details on this one?
posted by lizardboy at 5:07 PM PST - 13 comments

DotComGuy leaves house; world fails to care. For those who weren't paying attention to this, The Story Of The Year, some schmuck renamed himself DotComGuy, moved into a house, and lived off e-tailers for an entire year to prove that the Internet helps commerce. Or something. The experiment proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, nothing.
posted by solistrato at 4:28 PM PST - 3 comments

The commercializaton of the web has failed. Oh, dear. What a catastrophe. Heh-heh-heh...
posted by Steven Den Beste at 1:07 PM PST - 32 comments

The overtime stigma has bit me in the ass. I realize this is an old article, but some of the meatier aspects of this high tech business culture still surprise me because I'm not part of it. Yet. But I almost was.
posted by tranquileye at 12:56 PM PST - 16 comments

Aloha, Mr. Hand. Ray Walston is dead. For all you counting by threes, he would be the third, I guess. You can stop counting now.
posted by bondcliff at 12:51 PM PST - 5 comments

Predictions from an Icelandic prophet for 2001: Total war in the Middle East, a worldwide natural disaster, money market instability, the spread of mad cow disease, and oh yeah - an Oscar for Bjork. I'm not sure what to comment on; what safe bets these are, or the interesting addition of Oscar picks in the predictions.
posted by jragon at 12:44 PM PST - 6 comments

"Officers have even taken a large yam - a staple of African diet - into custody." Need I really say anything else?
posted by ookamaka at 11:16 AM PST - 8 comments

Newseum Exhibits Pulitzer Prize Photographs The Shockwave version of this provides audio clips of the photographers (I believe) talking about the photos. Although you have to actually visit the Newseum to see the entire collection, it's a nice preview.
posted by karenh at 10:07 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Location of Ark of Covenant and Holly Grail.. possibly narrowed down .. involves nights of the Templar, inscriptions on columns, NAZI searches and other Indiana Jones (Monty Python?) like adventure.
posted by stbalbach at 8:27 AM PST - 13 comments

Finally, a product that Amazon.com doesn't sell. Now that the holiday season is over, it's time to start saving for next year's gifts. Just the thing for the couple that has almost everything.
posted by bondcliff at 6:58 AM PST - 7 comments

Going on vacation? Why not drive to Russia? This gives new meaning to "closer ties with Russia."
posted by bkdelong at 5:54 AM PST - 9 comments

Love your dog, but don't love your dog. If you know what I mean.

71-year-old man attacks 44-year-old son with a crowbar after discovering that his son's canine companion was also his special friend. Dad got a suspended prison sentence; no mention at all of the son getting charged with anything.
posted by lia at 11:34 PM PST - 11 comments

John Ashcroft :Another one of Dubya's "compassionate conservatives"? Confederate lover, or just a good 'ole racist?
posted by owillis at 11:32 PM PST - 33 comments

"I wanted to be a mother who bakes. But then I found out it's illegal." While I can understand being afraid of a Hepatitis or E. Coli outbreak, I can't help but think this is simply another example of a school district of applying really stupid rules to a situation.
posted by ookamaka at 10:29 PM PST - 10 comments

The Y2K bug gets in its last lick. We all thought we were safely past that a year ago, didn't we?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:30 PM PST - 8 comments

Steven Spielberg to receive honorary knighthood One of the first signs that either each year is stranger or more of the same as the previous: Steven Spielberg will receive the Insignia of a Knight Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire at a ceremony at the British Embassy on the evening of 29th January 2001. Americans admitted to membership of British Orders of Chivalry do not style themselves "Sir". He can, however, place the letters KBE after his name. Found at badassmofo.
posted by riley370 at 3:18 PM PST - 5 comments

Aaargh! They're considering adding AOL to the Dow!
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:24 AM PST - 9 comments

'Kilimanjaro in 5 Days' is a fun article I saw in 'The Charlotte Observer' when I was back east for Christmas. Mainly, it's fun for me because I climbed it myself, back in november 92, along the same route. The climbing costs are here. Anybody else been and want to comment on this article (or not been and want to comment)?
posted by Sean Meade at 10:18 AM PST - 7 comments

My wife and I watched 'Notorious' last night. We weren't far into it before we realized the plot had been lifted for 'Mission:Impossible 2'! It makes us think even less of the latter movie. What's more, we couldn't find anything in their publicity about stealing the plot. It had to be left to the critics.

Can you name any reworkings of original plots that actually turned out good or better? (more inside)
posted by Sean Meade at 8:59 AM PST - 47 comments

Explaining it all? Now if only someone could explain the year itself before we have to slog through it for 364 more days. (Flash)
posted by fpatrick at 7:55 AM PST - 5 comments

Looks like Lance is up to something... I took the usual peek at Glassdog to see if Lance had anything up. Lo and Behold, what the heck is that? :)
posted by Cavatica at 7:14 AM PST - 18 comments

JDoom. Get this. It's a patch for Doom that allows for 3D acceleration, dynamic lighting, free mouse looking, and remapping keys. Works with ANY version of Doom. Simply Unzip the file [737k] into your Doom dir and run JDoom.bat (for OpenGL mode). It also supports D3D (I'll explain inside). Some screenshots: 1 2 3. Doom shareware is available here.
posted by grank at 3:27 AM PST - 4 comments

Robert Fisk on Saddam Hussein.
An interesting portrait of the world's "Last Great Tyrant". Link via thewebtoday.
posted by lagado at 3:10 AM PST - 1 comment

Happy 5000th post, MetaFilter. On New Year's Day, no less; how touching. Perhaps we should talk about what MeFi means to us. (Wholly Meta, I know.)
posted by pnevares at 12:29 AM PST - 6 comments

Happy New Year. Happy New Millenium. Feliz Año Nuevo. Bonne Annee!
posted by Lynsey at 12:05 AM PST - 9 comments