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Let Nader into the debates! Sign the petition, email the Commission on Presidential Debates, write letters to the editor about why Ralph belongs in the debates, and more!

No matter who you're supporting this election, I can't see why you wouldn't want Nader in the debates. If you're supporting Bush (um, why?), Nader would make Bush look like an even more solid conservative. If you're supporting Gore, Nader would nudge Gore on the important issues. And if you're supporting Nader, well...!
posted by veruca at 11:29 PM PST - 21 comments

Anglo Women are an endangered species! Actually, it's time for me to post another diatribe and I didn't want to put it here. (More in first post)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:48 PM PST - 18 comments

A positive MP3 story.. Yeah I know you're all sick and tired of hearing about the controversy, but this time let's try talking about the positive side to mp3 technology... [more]
posted by ZachsMind at 7:17 PM PST - 4 comments

Courtesy of CamWorld, Here is what XML is really all about.
posted by baylink at 6:54 PM PST - 4 comments

Intel's Sin: Vanity The truth about Intels new Pentium III 1.13 GHz.
posted by physics at 6:43 PM PST - 1 comment

Do the time warp Surf with the browsers of yesteryear...
posted by owillis at 4:55 PM PST - 4 comments

The CSS Anarchists Cookbook How to ruin a designers pride and joy with with one simple file
posted by Foaf at 3:44 PM PST - 4 comments

Mozilla Savaged By Suck. Yet another high-profile site calling for the open-source quagmire that might be Netscape 6 one day to put up or shut up. No word whether some crank from Mozilla has called Greg Knauss a Microsoft-loving son of a whore yet.
posted by solistrato at 1:02 PM PST - 50 comments

Magnificent Wellesian Flop to Be Remade as Mini-Series Ok, have I got something for you. Well, I think so. Actually, the title could have read : "Teenagers ruin Orson Welles' carrier", or there are a couple of other ideas, not going to bore you with them.

A&E to remake The Magnificent Ambersons at $14 mil, it will star Madeleine Stowe, Jennifer Tilly, James Cromwell, Jonathan Rhys-Myers and Thora Birch (Talk about a bad cast. Tilly? Each!)
"For those who don't know, Welles' second film was cut by over 40 minutes (mostly at the end) by order of his studio while he was away making (or trying to make) "It's All True" in Brazil. The loss of these 40 minutes is generally considered one of the great tragedies in film history, as much for the effect on Welles' subsequent career as for the masterpiece that might have been. (Not that it isn't a masterpiece of sorts, as it is.)"
Problems with this? Chances are that the original Welles script will be buried under too much new content. Then again, We could see the 40 minutes worth of cut content (Damn Teenagers). A&E claims that they have the technology and the resources to make the script better, stronger, and more agile with better reflexes than befoure. Heh. I'm goofy that way.
posted by tiaka at 10:45 AM PST - 3 comments

The Rock and Dick Cheney team up to layeth the smacketh down on Al Gore's candy ass!
posted by Nyarlathotep at 7:40 AM PST - 12 comments

Speaking of redesigns, has anyone visited http://www.kottke.org/ recently (like in the last 24 hours)? Whaddya think?
posted by Lynsey at 11:02 PM PST - 9 comments

AngryCoffee.com An interesting web interface for searching and downloading mp3s floating around on the MyNapster and OpenNap networks (Napster has currently shut them out of their network). But if everyone starts using a browser interface like this (and aren't logged into a Napster-like client) who's going to be serving the files in the first place?
posted by hit-or-miss at 10:31 PM PST - 2 comments

Mister Lance adds a bunch more words into the Napster debate. "Napster bad," he says, for the most part. But the opinions are thought-out and justified.
posted by endquote at 8:49 PM PST - 25 comments

When headlines go bad part N+1. However, the article is as important as the misused title, so read on up. Go Aussie, Go!
posted by Neale at 8:10 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

"Naming and shaming" needs to stop is being claimed by groups who are meeting with News of the World executives. These groups claim that releasing information about pedophiles to communities is degrading and sparks more violence than good. They beleive making jail sentences longer will become a better alternative to hilighting offenders, and help to reform them to the point where the information is not needed by those around them.
posted by tomorama at 5:50 PM PST - 17 comments

The new weblog/site: take back vermont covers the the recent gay marriage ruling in Vermont and the flap it has caused for some of the more kooky right wing citizens. Many citizens have go so far as to openly display their bigotry by posting signs in their yards. The best part about the site? Putting it at the domain of the people that oppose gay marriage, and asking people to deface the signs by adding a ".COM" to them so they can see a site that asks folks to support the law and all the reasons why it should stand. Simply ingenious.
posted by mathowie at 1:46 PM PST - 6 comments

Shadow Conventions start today.
posted by Mr. skullhead at 12:43 PM PST - 2 comments

What not to do to a Celeron. (Overclocked just slightly too much.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:52 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

"You rowdy punk kids! Get off the lawn!"
posted by ZachsMind at 6:57 AM PST - 2 comments

I'd have given my right arm for this when I was 6. Of course, in 1959 there was no such thing as this. (A lot of research scientists would have given portions of their anatomies for this in 1959; this thing is comfortably more powerful than an IBM 7090, which was state of the art then. I think it cotains more disk space than existed in the world in 1959.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:30 PM PST - 14 comments

AltaVista redesigns. Comments? I like it.
posted by Succa at 4:18 PM PST - 31 comments

Never buy anything through the net unless you're certain you know what you're getting.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:45 AM PST - 2 comments

I've been converted - Earlier today, I was arguing with some coworkers to the effect that napster was protected and should be free and clear. Between the document at the above link and the information in the RIAA injunction brief, it looks like I might have been wrong. Why can't these guys use more discretion in their e-mails? They might have been OK if they'd kept their mouths shut.
posted by syzygy at 3:37 AM PST - 1 comment

There's no reason they shouldn't be able to do this, but I still want to hurt them. (Via memepool).
posted by aflakete at 2:03 AM PST - 5 comments

A fresh shine on Spielberg's well-kissed ass.
posted by highindustrial at 3:36 PM PST - 11 comments

This just in: Napster's injunction to shut down tonight at midnight has been stayed (I'll add a url to a story when CNN writes it - BTW, how crazy is it that the napster news gets top level precedence as breaking news on a site as big as CNN? screenshot)
posted by mathowie at 2:59 PM PST - 19 comments

Is this for real?!? The Blair government in the UK is proposing to change the rape laws so that any man accused of such a crime will be guilty until proven innocent!!! (Even weirder, this tidbit is halfway down a story that thinks the bigger news is that they want to make sex in public legal. Which is fine, I guess, as long as I'd retain the right to hose them down if I saw them out on the sidewalk in front of my house.)
posted by aaron at 2:53 PM PST - 5 comments

Crazy Drunk Guy. Hilarious. Web developer shares RealAudio recordings of an unknown, crazy (but entertaining) drunk guy who keeps calling him at the office to chat. An example of the miracle of the web, that he is able to share this with the world...
posted by Tubes at 1:24 PM PST - 19 comments

These sliding menus may not be anything much to you design mavens out there, but to a simple engineer/management consultant like myself, they are addictively neat. Whenever I check out the site, I find myself pulling them out and playing with them while deciding where to go in the site. How'd they do that?
posted by fpatrick at 11:53 AM PST - 9 comments

wow. balthaser has a new concept...forget jakob nielsen, THIS could be the end of web design as we know it!
posted by centrs at 9:14 AM PST - 19 comments

Pagan/Wiccan underwear. [from Fark] My question is, how come none of them read "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."?
posted by plinth at 5:31 AM PST - 3 comments

I still haven't gotten my PIN number in the mail from ICANN. Has this happened to anyone else? How am I supposed to put The Head Lemur into office?
posted by CyberPal at 7:10 PM PST - 7 comments

Wow, get a life.
posted by highindustrial at 6:02 PM PST - 17 comments

I am not comforted. Anything which is based on voluntary compliance by those bastards is an empty promise at best and a delaying tactic at worse.

I want a law.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:49 PM PST - 7 comments

Another chink in the armor of anti-fat bigots, haters and discriminators: Scientists discover common virus appears to cause obesity. Interestingly, it also seems to lower cholesterol at the same time.
posted by aaron at 4:26 PM PST - 30 comments

This is a book I need to read. And here's a sampling of that writer's virtuousity....
posted by EssenDreck at 3:11 PM PST - 2 comments

This has been showing up in my referrer log. The site enables you to surf anonymously. It also blocks stats on systems, screen resolution and browser type. It might prove useful to some here. As a designer though, I have concerns about being able to track user statistics.
posted by centrs at 3:03 PM PST - 8 comments

Boycott the RIAA.
posted by y0bhgu0d at 12:59 PM PST - 33 comments

I reckon this is a really good idea. You can search for festivals and events pretty much anywhere, from classical music to bizarre. I've only found one made-up event, although I've got my doubts about the Baby-Jumping Festival.
posted by Mocata at 10:55 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Birth Control Pills for Men I'm not sure who the target market for this product is, though I'd think that the only women who would trust that a man is truly "on the pill" would be ones who watched him take it every day, so married/cohabitating men only, I suppose. Probably just as well.
posted by Dreama at 10:05 AM PST - 10 comments

No voyeur cam at home? Visit your local Exhibitionism Booth. Free on-camera tan for German customers. Next: Free on-camera motel room for horny couples?
posted by Tubes at 9:52 AM PST - 1 comment

Spinal Tap to post new song on the internet. [from Fark]. Unfortunately, the article doesn't crosslink you to the official site or Tapster where the song will be released.
posted by plinth at 9:39 AM PST - 3 comments

When Headlines go wrong, part III Do they know whose eyes they were?
posted by Outlawyr at 9:20 AM PST - 7 comments

I am speechless. I can't imagine the time and effort it took to create this. Unless of course there is some program out there that will do it for you. If there is, then it is just "kewl."
posted by da5id at 6:08 AM PST - 13 comments

Novel Idea. But aren't the dancing tampons in the bottom left corner a bit much? I wonder what music they are dancing to. "Ragtime" maybe?
posted by da5id at 5:01 AM PST - 3 comments

The Web is 500x larger than we think? While plausible, it also smacks of a press release...
posted by owillis at 9:36 PM PST - 3 comments

Dems blast Playboy as contradictory to equal and civil rights and human dignity, but still take big campaign donations and have fundraisers at the infamous mansion. Seems like the Democratic party wants to have it both ways. They have taken more than $25,000 in congressional campaign funds and $8,500 for Al Gore's campaign, and a dem leader handpicked by Gore himself is throwing the August 15 bash at the Hef's house, but Playboy is now supposedly officially baaaad, mmmkay? If they're so bad, shouldn't these denunciations have come with checks, made out to Playboy, returning the campaign donations????
posted by Dreama at 6:48 PM PST - 8 comments

Napster may be down, but pandora's out of the box, baby. Get OpenNap as soon as you can (if anyone finds a link to OpenNap, by all means post the URL)
posted by mathowie at 5:38 PM PST - 35 comments

Shut it down! Napster ordered to shut down immediately. Backlash anyone?
posted by Mick at 5:07 PM PST - 42 comments

It's not very often that I find a truly usefull plugin for my mp3 player, while I have nothing against incredibly cool vis plugins and shiny skins, these are just novelty...
It's good to see someone do something useful with digital audio... Even though I'm sure they can do a ton more...

This plugin (for winamp, sonique, or RA) more than makes up for the lossy nature of mp3s... it'd almost be worth registering if we didn't have AstaLaVista...
posted by Bane at 4:38 PM PST - 1 comment

A new feature from Deja.com "will automatically link mentions of product names in discussion threads to a commerce area on its site." Is it really useful, as Deja claims, or does it imply endorsements for the linked products by the authors of the posts?
posted by phichens at 1:53 PM PST - 7 comments

Farewell, Thomas Crapper, we hardly knew ye - Turns out the Chinese invented the toilet too! Next thing we'll find out they invented spaghetti, or toilet paper, or whatever.
posted by chicobangs at 1:05 PM PST - 8 comments

FRA-GI-LAY I think it's Italian.
posted by plinth at 12:08 PM PST - 4 comments

Is computer code a form of expression and therefore protected by the First Amendment? That's something being considered in the MPAA's case against Eric Corley and DeCSS.
posted by scottandrew at 9:57 AM PST - 6 comments

Kuro5hin.org has been silenced, because of a massive DDOS/Spam attack. For those of you that did not know the site, "K5" was a techy discussion forum, much like Slashdot, but with an open submission queue, meaning that everybody could decide on what topics showed up on the first page. Which was ultimately one of the means used to bring it down. Censorship by IP flooding? cyber-vandalism? doesn't matter; a nice, interesting community site has been forced off the Net...
posted by costas at 9:57 AM PST - 8 comments

Pregnant women on death row. I don't understand why this is an issue. I'm not commenting on capital punishment here, a problem in itself, but what's the rush? Why not just wait until the child is born?
posted by evilmaryellen at 7:52 AM PST - 70 comments

Police Sniper Killed Fla. Hostage
Police brutality at it's best. This is just sad.
posted by jdiaz at 4:57 AM PST - 10 comments

What kind of company sells a dual-CPU machine when the second CPU can't be used? See attached quote.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:58 PM PST - 11 comments

Yes, but can it stop a phaser?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:49 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Now admit it. You've always wanted to do this.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:04 PM PST - 5 comments

This reminded me of one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. Once on vacation in Eastern Oregon, there was a total eclipse of the moon, just like this one. And some people nearby were taking photographs of it. Flash photographs. The round-trip time to the moon at the speed of light is 3 seconds and I wouldn't even want to calculate the attenuation caused by 320,000 miles of range. Sometimes it seems as if some people are completely and totally clueless about what they're doing.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:52 PM PST - 12 comments

Now, this is what Ammuricka's all about! Let's be honest about our electoral process....
posted by EssenDreck at 5:46 PM PST - 10 comments

Beware the darkside and read the interview linked at the bottom of the page.
posted by inviolable at 3:13 PM PST - 1 comment

Sony Announces GScube Development System This new system is powered by the equivalent of 16 PlayStation2s. And created specially for development of "e-cinema," computer graphics movies and other new digital content.

Sony against Silicon Graphics?
posted by neo at 1:12 PM PST - 1 comment

Dex and Courtney's wedding is off ... and you can find out why by watching JenniCam. "Jennifer Ringley ... is in the eye of a virtual storm as a result of her relationship with Dex, ex of Dex and Courtney, whose wedding invitation promised a 'spiritual love fest' of 'two souls uniting in harmony' (it was still on Courtney's Web site -- www.latitude11.com -- even as Jenni's cam showed her and Dex having sex in her bedroom)."
posted by rcade at 1:08 PM PST - 19 comments

Say you want a revolution? Well you know, we all want to change the world..
posted by ZachsMind at 1:04 PM PST - 3 comments

O.J. Still in denial He refuses to pay the $33.5 million a civil jury awarded to the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1997 for his responsibility in their deaths. Good role model.
posted by Outlawyr at 10:15 AM PST - 7 comments

What's the big deal? I'm sure even if he's walking around naked from the waste down his little bits are no doubt fully entombed in his massive blubber. Then again, I'm sure dealing with his ass isn't too pleasant.
posted by Nyarlathotep at 9:26 AM PST - 7 comments

Concorde crashes near Paris. Oh, no. Not again...
posted by iceberg273 at 8:53 AM PST - 19 comments

No surprise here... Am I the only one on this planet who realizes that despite how beautiful it may be in the eyes of some, and how historically significant it may be, they're just fighting over sand? Am I the only one who sees this? Am I missing something here? [more]
posted by ZachsMind at 8:41 AM PST - 28 comments

Sears Expands Web Business, nobody notices Sears claims they've doubled their product categories. Well, they now offer one MP3 player. What did they have before, half of one?
posted by Outlawyr at 8:18 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

MTV Video Awards nominees have been announced ...and there's no "best alternative video" category anymore. What the hell! Granted, MTV has never been noted as a supporter of good music (remember 120 minutes? that got the boot a while ago), but seeing those early "alternative" bands rock out on screen was what initially got me into music as a kid - I cringe at the thought that there's a whole new batch of 11 year olds out there who see the guitar as nothing more than a prop in a choreography routine.

At least I can take solace in the fact that Weezer is finally touring the East Coast - all is not wrong with the world.
posted by NickBarat at 8:01 AM PST - 11 comments

Here's what I want for my next birthday... but I'd like to accessorize it StarSeige/MechWarriors style.
posted by riffola at 7:38 AM PST - 2 comments

Bullshit Analyzer is bullshit.
(either that or it's rigged)...
I made up a nice page of pure bullshit, and the best score I've been able to get is 100% BS, 14 points...
this is after days of looking through EULA's and clickwrap licences for inspiration... Is BA BS? or is it just too smart for me???
posted by Bane at 8:27 PM PST - 3 comments

Star Wars Episode II Trailer/Teaser Theforce.com has posted what is sapose to be the Episode II teaser, I haven't seen it yet buts its still unknown if it is the real thing.
posted by Goonan at 8:16 PM PST - 8 comments

Apparently, we're not the *only* ones who may think that Louis Freeh needs a new job.
posted by baylink at 7:35 PM PST - 1 comment

Finally, the weapon we've been waiting for. And at a bargain price really. ;]
posted by aflakete at 5:30 PM PST - 4 comments

Former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney will be George W. Bush's running mate.
posted by Awol at 5:03 PM PST - 14 comments

Arrgghh! Yuck! I guess orange is the new white.

Wrong Way! Go Back!
posted by baylink at 4:49 PM PST - 9 comments

Cyberpal, i couldn't disagree more. ESB is actually the best of the 4 SW movies because the characters aren't encumbered with destroying the Death Star or flying back and forth to Naboo by way of Tatooine and Coruscant. A New Hope and Return end all happy with medals and Ewoks. i like the tougher ending of ESB, especially as i get older. it was a little depressing when i was a kid, but, hey, i'm not one anymore.
posted by Sean Meade at 1:58 PM PST - 5 comments

Yes, Virginia, there was life before the Internet...
...but nobody's bothered to archive it yet. Thanks to those wacky .edu's, there's a fair amount of historical data out there, but if you're hoping the newspapers who charge for archive "reprints" will have material from the '40s, the '60s or even the '80s, you're still better off going to the library and flipping through microfiche (bet that's the first time THAT word's been used on MetaFilter). I hesitated blogging this story here until I saw how the Internet History Timeline caught some people by surprise... Yes, even we MetaFilterers are sitting on the shoulders of Giants (and a few of us are old enough to remember "They Might Be Giants" as a movie starring George C. Scott).
posted by wendell at 1:15 PM PST - 8 comments

Flash 5! Tasty and delectable new features including HTML TEXT! I can't wait!
posted by wiremommy at 11:53 AM PST - 4 comments

Legal weed in Alaska? It could be true, very soon. Tell your friends in AK to register to vote!
posted by snakey at 11:22 AM PST - 9 comments

Can you say "liar"? I knew you could!
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:22 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

So let me get this straight: I buy something from an online merchant, and your company tracks the shipment for me. Does the web need a service like this, or is this another candidate for fuckedcompany.com?
posted by ratbastard at 10:51 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

I wondered who invented the Internet. Some people would say Al Gore, but even after reading parts of the history of the Internet (first link), I can't figure it out. I think the "USSR" prompted us to do it when they launched Sputnik. Is this really the case?
posted by eyesandfists at 10:24 AM PST - 16 comments

Scientists have finally come up with a good use for old people.
posted by Nyarlathotep at 9:42 AM PST - 5 comments

Awesome splash page spoof of KPMG's marketing-speak site. Of course now that web design is over, I guess it's better that sites start looking alike.
posted by mathowie at 7:47 AM PST - 10 comments

Crap, don't tell me I have to upgrade again! IBM introduced a commercial version of the "ASCI White computer" today, which it claims is the world's most powerful supercomputer, able to process 12.3 trillion calculations per second. But can I play pacman on it?
posted by Outlawyr at 7:17 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Double Entendre and the Design of Public Lavatories. From a recent Wall St. Journal article on the architecture of bathrooms...

"Bathrooms are for more than just relieving the kidneys," says Ian Schrager, owner of 16 boutique hotels in New York, Los Angeles, London and elsewhere. "It's about someone coming out with a smile on their face and wanting to tell their friends about it because it's fun."

As one of the promoters behind Studio 54, I imagine Mr. Scharger is no doubt aware of the double meaning of the above quote. The article is interesting, but of course you need a subscription to read it, as such, I have taken the liberty of posting the article myself without the WSJ's permission.
posted by lockecito at 6:51 AM PST - 5 comments

Stephen King's new serial is now online. The download is free, but he's asking people to pay; the next installment will be posted only if he receives payments for at least 75% of downloads.
posted by harmful at 6:34 AM PST - 18 comments

Apple to release the vMac and dMac [from Fark], of course we all knew that the iBrator has been around for some time. Be sure to check out the movies if you haven't seen them before.
posted by plinth at 6:28 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

In the public interest or irresponsible journalism? One of our infamous tabloid newspapers published the names, locations and pictures of convicted paedophiles yesterday, the police have condemned what they did, the paper claims it is in the public interest and that the police don't do enough to protect us.....[more inside]
posted by Markb at 5:49 AM PST - 7 comments

ramomaccessmemory.org is a site that lets you store memories when they occur to you and read the memories of others.
posted by sugarfish at 12:06 AM PST - 3 comments

Classified documents posted, greeted with big yawn. What I find interesting is... If these documents are so uninteresting, why were they classified? It kind of bolsters my opinion that most secrecy in government is not unlike Calvin in his treehouse with the sign that says "No Grils". It's all an exercise in in-group, out-group dynamics, and has little, if anything, to do with National Security. Which means this is a big deal after all, if you think about it...
posted by aurelian at 12:03 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Do you remember when HTML seemed almost elegant?
posted by sudama at 11:23 PM PST - 8 comments

Ever want a really cool email address? Like howabout @jesusisdead-getoverit.com?
Why not yourname@icantfeelmylegs.com?

DataPimp offers tons and tons of rather... umm... unique email addresses...
Unfortunately most don't pass MetaFilter's obcenity restrictions... :]
posted by Bane at 3:28 PM PST - 4 comments

First there was Jolt and now this. I refuse to speculate whether this is a spoof. If it is, it's a well-done one. (Is "Hemp Seed Oil" legal to possess in Arizona?)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 2:27 PM PST - 9 comments

TigerWoodsIsGod.Com. A site "dedicated to examining the possibility that God is walking the earth as a 21st century, multi-ethnic, superstar golfer and whether that is any more or less likely than God coming in the form of a first-century, Jewish carpenter."
posted by rcade at 2:23 PM PST - 7 comments

Uh-oh-- I got a CD-ROM from John's site a few months ago. Am I on some CIA/FBI list now? (His site is down apparently.)
posted by aflakete at 1:41 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

"If you never fly, your wings are useless..."
posted by ZachsMind at 1:07 PM PST - 4 comments

Well, I'm compleetly fed up with english speling for everything. Its so dammed inconsistant and ilogical, Ill never get the hang of it. Forchunately, now theres a way to express yourselfs using chinese-like english characters. It's called Yingzi and now you can write english as quickly as you can write for Fellini or for Peach
posted by lagado at 6:55 AM PST - 13 comments

"It never occurred to me that you could settle a case by paying oneof your opponents," he said. Except this is about life and death, and directly affects everyone whether or not they use a computer.
posted by katchomko at 2:46 AM PST - 1 comment

Anyone up for a 35mb download? ...it's worth it...


Read More...
posted by Bane at 2:33 AM PST - 3 comments

This is fucked right up.
Sorry, but that's the only adequate description for it...
I love PLIF... It's one of the coolest comics ever...
posted by Bane at 2:18 AM PST - 1 comment

Like the X-Men movie? If so, it looks like you can buy a whole lot of the props and stuff from it. Kind of an interesting thing for the studio to be doing directly.
posted by endquote at 11:16 PM PST - 1 comment

It's the year 2000; I was promised flying cars. I don't see the flying cars. Why are there no flying cars; why; why!?
posted by baylink at 10:39 PM PST - 15 comments

I'm trying to buy a computer- a newer one. My 'mental health', however, won't seem to let me. Extreme paranoia and crushing guilt. How much is too much to pay for a computer (we're talking PCs here, not Macs)? Well, that depends on how much one earns, right? Let's just say that money is not an issue for me.
Plus, I'm a software engineer. So, I'll be using it for more than porn and MeFi. Why can't I 'click here to check out'?
Tell me I'm not alone...
posted by internook at 7:12 PM PST - 13 comments

Encyclopedia Mythica - An encyclopedia on mythology, folklore, and legend.
posted by y0bhgu0d at 5:19 PM PST - 9 comments

IBM's Linux commercial. Part of their Avery Brooks "serious software" ad campaign, which I like a lot, I have to say.
posted by dan_of_brainlog at 2:41 PM PST - 2 comments

Does anyone else notice the resemblance between this image and this one? Maybe something more than nominatons will be going on in there...
posted by bryanboyer at 2:10 PM PST - 3 comments

Pentagon to modify gay policy They have instituted a policy that attempts to prevent mistreatment or harassment against people who aren't even allowed to say who they are. I'm sure the gay men and women serving our country are sleeping much easier tonight.
posted by brian at 1:56 AM PST - 3 comments

Hizbollah supporters arrested for Cigarette smuggling.

The men may have netted up to $10,000, and according to an "confidential Canadian source" were under orders to buy night vision goggles for Hizbollah, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel and the United States. Their leader is said by another(?) source as being "very comfortable around weapons."

I don't think it's a coincidence that this story is coming to our attention during the peace talks at Camp David. There's nothing in any article I have read on this story giving any substantial proof that these people and their arrest were really front-page events. Does anyone else feel that reportage of the Middle East, and indeed US policy, is clouded and indeed skewed, perhaps in much the same way as the States' Cuba policy?
posted by chaz at 10:30 PM PST - 11 comments

Unleash your idea virus. A groundbreaking article from Fast Company - on the same order as the one a while back they published called "a Brand Called You". Very interesting read if you are hoping to be the holder of the next "big idea"....
posted by triptych at 10:09 PM PST - 1 comment

The government and FBI are innocent of any wrongdoing at Waco. Special Counsel John Danforth is '100% certain' that agents did not fire on Davidians or set the fires responsible for the 80 deaths. Also, he concludes that the government did not engage in any sort of cover-up.
posted by tomorama at 5:50 PM PST - 7 comments

Potential Spoiler Warning: If you're the sort who believes discussing a film before seeing it spoils it, please do not participate in this thread. Seen it yet? What'd ya think? Haven't seen it? Why or why not? I almost wasn't. till I heard Singer spoke with Stan Lee about what inspired X-Men and what makes it really tick. I'll see it tomorrow. Willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:13 PM PST - 45 comments

George W. Bush plans to spend this weekend thinking "long and hard".
Insert your own joke here.
posted by wendell at 2:53 PM PST - 12 comments

Wish I'd Said That Dept.
If the privacy-invaders are going to collect so much information on me, why can't they seem to USE IT?
posted by wendell at 2:46 PM PST - 4 comments

Drive through Funeral Home Viewing? This has got to be the most disgusting thing I've seen in a long time. "Convience in your time of grieving"??? How about respect for the dead? [obscene word] convience. THIS is where American society is just going down the tubes. Some things just should NOT happen. And this is one of them.
posted by eljuanbobo at 1:44 PM PST - 10 comments

A new survey of online music aficianados supports claims that the Napster crowd has been making for months: MP3-swappers are more likely to purchase music after listening to it for free.
posted by harmful at 12:46 PM PST - 3 comments

WaSP! blasts Netscape. Good, good, good... about f**king time. All of my Netscape cronies are now using I.E. because of exactly what this letter says.
posted by Dean_Paxton at 12:21 PM PST - 25 comments

Finally An honest review of Harry Potter.
posted by tj at 10:13 AM PST - 2 comments

"I am Curry. A slim and handsome race car driver. Bold, handsome, confident, and good-looking are the words that immediately come to my mind when I try to describe my personality. On second thought, other words that come up are gorgeous, sexy, and brave."
posted by rcade at 10:09 AM PST - 10 comments

After a two-decade search, scientists have found the first direct evidence of one of the most elusive and ghostly subatomic particles in nature -- the tau neutrino.
posted by grumblebee at 8:58 AM PST - 1 comment

ICANN's Report on new Top Level Domains came out a few days ago, and I saw a list in a paper of some of the new proposed TLDs. These include: .shop, .travel, .news, .sex or .xxx, .web, .arts, .store. Two things worthy of discussion - what's the difference between .shop .store and .web (and where are other CONTENT based divisions such as .gay, .fan, .info, .zine, .kids) and secondly, why are these supposedly GLOBAL domain names all in full uncompressed English?
posted by barbelith at 6:50 AM PST - 17 comments

"When Plastic Surgeons Attack"? It's good to know Fox is going about pandering to the worst instincts of American television viewers *responsibly*. I feel better, don't you?
posted by Sapphireblue at 12:31 AM PST - 13 comments

"Here, Lizard, Lizard..." My take on this: there's not much difference, in nutrition terms, between mass-reared fastfood chicken, and crunchy wild lizard. (Ask the cast of Survivor or Bush Tucker Man.)
posted by holgate at 10:13 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

"The Bible says to let a secret between friends die with you. You make it your business to keep your mouth shut." Perhaps they missed the part about the Bible not recommending you kill your three year old. (Sorry if someone already posted this, but I went back to the 14th, and saw no mention of it, so here it is now.) This really isn't the kind of thing I know how to comment on, but I thought it needed mentioning. It supposedly has something to do with email snooping, but I haven't been able to find out how.
posted by Ezrael at 8:22 PM PST - 14 comments

"Tim Starback of Émigré, said when I asked him what they would like me to do, that he wanted me to go to jail and lose all my money and computer."  Four companies are currently trying to have a graphic artist sent to jail for hosting a graphics community site using Hotline. Apparently he allowed users to "store backup files" of proprietary software online. I know, I'm tempted to "ahem" over that description too, but reading the guys story leads me to believe this is more of a naive David vs. four vindictive, publicity-seeking Goliaths. What do you think?
posted by quonsar at 6:53 PM PST - 9 comments

I think it's time to start playing Taps. And amazingly, they still haven't fired Michael Cowpland.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 6:24 PM PST - 1 comment

Speed of light broken. But it may be awhile before we can harness it for anything useful. Fascinating, nonetheless.
posted by scottandrew at 1:52 PM PST - 13 comments

Read the comment.
posted by Eric_Reid at 12:46 PM PST - 11 comments

Teenager runs his VW Jetta with used canola oil.
posted by Mr. skullhead at 12:06 PM PST - 5 comments

Webzine 2000: Must or Bust? Anyone here planning to go? Why? Why not?
posted by wiremommy at 12:06 PM PST - 4 comments

Barbara promises to go away. Given her track record, I bet she goes back on her word this time, too. (Psst! Barbara! Be a mensch. Pay Harlan back his fifty bucks. You don't even have to include over forty years of interest, and/or any vigorish for inflation, OK?)
posted by aurelian at 11:36 AM PST - 2 comments

Roger Black on Design. MacAddict put up an interview with Roger Black from their August 2000 issue. There are a couple of interesting points as in his take on transitioning from print to web:

"I think that the main thing is pretty much to work as you would in print design. A good designer always focuses on the reader or the customer, the viewer, whatever the end-user is. You just have to do that on the Net the same way you do in print.... I do not believe that the technological hurdles are that big. It doesn't seem to me that big of a deal.... Most of the stuff we do on the Web is not particularly difficult. Almost anybody, particularly anybody under thirty growing up in our society has enough technological culture to work with it. Don't get scared. It’s not that big of a deal."

posted by leo at 10:03 AM PST - 7 comments

hungry robot - 20 years from now we'll all look back on this and simmer...
posted by internook at 9:47 AM PST - 10 comments

Indiana restricts violent arcade games No more Mortal Kombat for kids. I'm sure we are all aware of the many dangerous games out there. Didn't anyone make a point about the good things these games offer Indiana kids.
posted by john at 9:24 AM PST - 4 comments

This just in: Columbine principal sued by victims of massacre. aka When headlines go bad II. Bad CNN!
posted by smeat at 9:21 AM PST - 7 comments

Hacktivism, as seen from the perspective of a pretty cynical guy.
posted by Doug at 8:23 AM PST - 1 comment

An article on espionage and security lapses? FBI says No Thanks The FBI has seized a computer hard drive used by former Energy Department intelligence chief Notra Trulock, concerned that he may have included classified data in a proposed article. Or maybe they just wanted to spell check it for him.
posted by Outlawyr at 7:08 AM PST - 1 comment

Screw Survivor. I prefer a competition that involves insane challenges, heavy machinery, a junkyard, and a short time limit
posted by plinth at 5:25 AM PST - 11 comments

Compassionate Conservatives are Hate Males

It has been a strange day today. I got a letter in the mail from a nearby church asking me to change my religion because said religion was supporting homosexuals. You know what, I'm thinking of going to their service on Sunday and letting them know what I think of their Hate mail they sent me. Deeply offensive.

Then I find out that a Shrub (George W. Bush) does not support seperation of Church and State. And infact wants to have state 'sponsored' 'official' religions!

Personally I am getting a little sick and tired of intollerance. Furthermore, I am gettign sick of Gerorge W. Bush. The man makes my skin crawl. Please, someone offer me a job outside of Texas...
posted by DragonBoy at 12:46 AM PST - 7 comments

Dr Kaos: Mad about Science, Crazy about God! What's weird is that I found this site by typing www.crawdad.com, because hey, who doesn't love the word "crawdad"?
posted by Succa at 10:02 PM PST - 7 comments

Netscape Communicator 4.74 Final has been released. This is reported to be the last in the 4.xx series browsers before Netscape 6 comes. Warning: this time it finally tips the scales at just over 20 megabytes for the Win32 version, wow. It's supposed to be a better Linux implimentation.
posted by Dean_Paxton at 7:46 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Imminent Death of Internet Predicted! Napster killed the Internet star, says record exec Edgar Bronfman Jr. "Let me tell you what else is in trouble here: the Internet. In the end, the Internet itself will not be able to survive if it becomes a haven for illegal activity. Copyrights must be protected online."
posted by rcade at 4:29 PM PST - 14 comments

Yet another outlook vulnerability. This one's significantly nastier than the previous ones, because it can attack and run programs on your computer as you download the email from your server
More >>
posted by cCranium at 3:18 PM PST - 12 comments

Nader of the Above ...Michael Moore's at it again, and I think this crazy scheme just might work. But then I thought Mike's idea of getting all the candidates to bodysurf over a mosh pit was gonna work too...
posted by ZachsMind at 3:17 PM PST - 24 comments

Laurel Mountain Technologies, Inc.
Is this really what "web design" is coming to these days?

Try Phenom Tek or Circle Graphics.
posted by Eric_Reid at 2:44 PM PST - 10 comments

Must. Resist. Need. For. Toys. But, damn, it's so sexy!
posted by rich at 1:37 PM PST - 10 comments

No sense of humor. Advertisers are saying women don't "get" funny ads.
posted by owillis at 12:33 PM PST - 13 comments

Taco Bell Chihuahua gets kicked to the curb. I'm happy and not too surprised by this. There's only so much mileage you can get out of a talking dog. Now, if I could just get the phrase "drop the chalupa" (as well as its alternate meaning, [dec 19th entry]) out of my mind....
posted by jkottke at 11:48 AM PST - 12 comments

For you Survivor fans, this is how it REALLY ought to be done. (Is anyone surprised that John "Daikatana" Romero was first to die? Who do you think will be the last man standing?)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:34 AM PST - 5 comments

Slanted story? Does anyone really believe that most VC firms wouldn't back a solid business plan only because a woman ran the company? The argument sounds like parity for the sake of parity, without merit.
posted by owillis at 9:26 AM PST - 4 comments

TWC Givin' Away Free RePlay TV units. Gosh, wonder if there're any strings attatched?
posted by Doug at 7:01 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

c|net buys ZD I guess the bright side is, now Download.com's archives will be combined with ZDNet's, as well as shareware.com.
posted by Dean_Paxton at 5:41 AM PST - 6 comments

IIS is more widespread within the Fortune 500 than Apache?! and by a serious margin. Is there any surprise that this comes from a Windows magazine? And as someone that works for a Fortune 500 company, let me add, these are the companies that don't know what they're doing...and by a serious margin. Sounds like another win for Apache to me.
posted by jdiaz at 3:50 AM PST - 6 comments

Got a question for OJ? Duhhhhhh. Hello. Hey OJ. Did you do it? Heh heh.
posted by davewiner at 12:01 AM PST - 8 comments

nospank.org is an anti-spanking site. - Now, does this read like a letter to penthouse or am I just sick, sick, sick!?
posted by internook at 6:05 PM PST - 14 comments

Is this the strangest contest ever? Guess what the winning couple's prize is for this? Answer: your wife's weight in beer. The even have a snazzy URL for the competition. Kooky.
posted by mathowie at 3:34 PM PST - 4 comments

The Borg have sent a gift to Earth The much rumored Apple cube seems to be real. Apple Insiders has just posted what looks to be a promotional photo of the new computer. Looks pretty cool. Not sure why there are vents on top but still, I wouldn't mind having one.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 3:18 PM PST - 22 comments

Breakin' dah law breakin' dah law! The eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not plagiarize... The following was blatantly copypasty stolen. An Important Note Regarding Netiquette: Under no circumstances is credit on a "links" page a way of giving back to the creatives of the web: its an afterthought that limps pathetically around the back corners of your site, while our work brings the main pages to life. So use the Web, but no linking! Just WHAT PLANET have these offended artists been on since 1994? Why are they suddenly freaking out now?
posted by ZachsMind at 2:16 PM PST - 4 comments

You are a loser because I say so. Ellison, the second richest person in the world, decides to give some come-upance to the intellectual elite his human resource people are probably now kicking themselves in the head over.
posted by rich at 2:08 PM PST - 7 comments

Mitnick is free to use computers for work
"[The] federal judge has ruled that such blanket restrictions are unacceptable and job offers should be considered on a case-by-case basis."
posted by rschram at 11:56 AM PST - 5 comments

R.I.P. bitchslap
pimpwar is down...
 
Warning: Can't connect to MySQL server on 'bitchslap' (111) in index.inc.pimp on line 91
posted by mantid at 11:54 AM PST - 2 comments

Love, robots and ghosts are each the topic of fascinating snippets at newscientist.com.
posted by grumblebee at 9:45 AM PST - 2 comments

Suddenly a great deal of idiocy is explained. This one goes down in my book as the single biggest blunder in corporate history in the last ten years.

Who the hell at Intel was stupid enough to sign this damned thing?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:35 AM PST - 3 comments

Internet may need new cyber-borders-U.S. legal body By Richard Meares
The internet's only use is for commerce. That's it. The only reason anyone uses the internet is to purchase books and rugs. The internet can not be defined as anything else, thus, there are no users, they're CONSUMERS. That's all they are. Consumers.
Too bad, We "Enthusiasts" "may love the Internet's scant regard for authority and borders?" What? "Scant regard for authority"? What authority? This is just sick.
posted by tiaka at 9:17 AM PST - 3 comments

The end of a computer "empire"?
posted by Eric_Reid at 8:40 AM PST - 2 comments

Yum yum.
posted by evilmaryellen at 8:21 AM PST - 12 comments

The fact that this article isn't condemning of this is amazing. Being from Long Island, I can say that less than 1/2 hour from this house are, basically, slums. Areas of very great poverty.
posted by Doug at 7:41 AM PST - 50 comments

How (not) to improve the ventilation in your computer case.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:45 PM PST - 1 comment

Anyone know of any good lyric sites besides stuff like LyricSearch?
posted by milhous at 9:31 PM PST - 7 comments

From the boys who brought you Napster comes the supposed copyright-adhering, pay-to-trade file swapping service AppleSoup. Here's their press release.
posted by Awol at 8:29 PM PST - 5 comments

Harry Potter is a head. Who knew? The things some people will find to be paranoid about...
posted by baylink at 7:36 PM PST - 19 comments

We're all a bunch of ignorami. Hooray! Hurrah! It's bliss!
posted by Mr. skullhead at 3:13 PM PST - 13 comments

Razorfish fires back and files their own lawsuit against IAM.com. Razorfish maintains that IAM.com is suing because they're out of money (they just laid off a quarter of their staff). Perhaps "funding-by-lawsuit" is a new sustainable business model?
posted by kaefer at 1:39 PM PST - 4 comments

A birth control pill for men. I wonder if it will be available over the counter, or if annual prostate exams will be required before getting a prescription from a doctor.
posted by phichens at 12:42 PM PST - 13 comments

DeCSS Trial Begins Today. Today is 2600's day in court. This trial deserves more media attention than it's been getting.
posted by Doug at 12:00 PM PST - 10 comments

Target sells one hell of a tooth brush
posted by dilok at 11:43 AM PST - 13 comments

Jesus Christ was a Communist? Fidel Castro seems to think so. The article even goes as far as to hint that Fidel's once atheistic views have "mellowed" in his old age.
posted by Satapher at 11:27 AM PST - 11 comments

The Hacker's Diet has been around for a while (since 1991), created by John Walker, one of the founders of Autodesk. There's no major gimmick, just eat less than you burn. What it does offer, though, is a handy way of keeping track of your true weight using a weighted moving average, that helps dampen the oscillations of your daily water input & output. The author made Excel charts at first, but now he offers a version for the Palm. Happily, it works on even my ancient, wussy little Palm Pilot Personal edition (512K memory). I've been using it for about a month, and lost about ten pounds so far. Your mileage will almost undoubtedly vary.
posted by beth at 9:06 AM PST - 4 comments

That must have been some damn tasty chicken!
posted by Nyarlathotep at 8:49 AM PST - 3 comments

ABC : Get ready for ``Must Pee TV.''
So, imagine, there you are, at the urinal, trying to make peace, when Norm's sexist melon is right in your face, saying "Oh my God, look at the size of that thing!"; "Hey watch your shoes!"; "You're a mover and shaker, and so am I."; "visual tag lines" like: "Another fine use of the color yellow." "The campaign is designed to raise awareness that the series has been moved to ABC's Friday schedule. The audience will understand when we're done that (Friday) is an adult night of comedy."
posted by tiaka at 6:53 AM PST - 9 comments

So, um, fire and water are copyrighted now, like music? "Buy the sky and sell the sky". . .
posted by aflakete at 12:10 AM PST - 6 comments

Bleeding Africa. I don't even understand exactly what the objective of the original mission was, other than risk your lives because we tell you to. Shouldn't we have goals when we send military units into action? (I say we because to me, the UN is all of us.) It reminds me of this article about how the Kosovo operation ignored the painful lessons America learned in Vietnam. I don't pretend to understand how we can solve these mammoth problems, but they still concern me. Is military force really the answer here?
posted by Ezrael at 9:45 PM PST - 12 comments

It is time for Louis Freeh to lose his job. Carnivore, indeed. This has got to stop.
posted by baylink at 6:05 PM PST - 9 comments

For those who are gamers and love the challenge of humans on fast LAN games . . . lanparty.com.

All HAIL Half-Life & Unreal Tournament.
posted by Eric_Reid at 2:36 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

The Anatomy of File Download Spyware. A nice report on the "spyware" present in downloading utilities like Netscape/AOL's "Smart Download", NetZip "Download Demon", and RealNetworks "RealDownload". It's true, we are all being watched.
posted by Succa at 10:01 AM PST - 1 comment

rodmantv.com - see who signed up rodman may know parties... but he doesn't know the web... follow the link above to view who signed up for notification of the launch of his site
posted by efader at 10:01 AM PST - 7 comments

Who's 'Big Brother' is most boring? The Brits prize is "only" $105,000, but any sex they have will be videotaped. Is their show more boring than ours? How does it compare to the Spanish and German ones?
posted by owillis at 12:59 AM PST - 3 comments

You must be of legal drinking age to enter this site.
Oh yes, when I'm in college, I WILL be one, I WILL. . . oh yes, it will be mine.
posted by Eric_Reid at 10:35 PM PST - 2 comments

This Just In: Computer commits suicide. When headlines go bad.
posted by aaron at 9:28 PM PST - 11 comments

Weblogs get some more press ... and it's positive this time!
posted by phooey at 7:27 PM PST - 5 comments

The 'biggest band in the world' are the last to get their site on line... (Not counting the Popmart site that only lasted as long as the American tour, after which MSN simply took it down, leaving European fans bewildered. It was a money thing.) Obviously still in beta, it is surprising the site has gone live already. Check the source for the company that made it: Good Technology. I would love to hear some expert feedback on the dhtml usage.
posted by prolific at 5:56 PM PST - 11 comments

Remember the movie Magnolia? One of the themes running through the movie was of amazing coincidences and chance. This story of a people getting hit by trains near San Francisco this week mentions one such coincidence. A man was hit by a train, and on that very train was the chairman of a "nonprofit group whose goal is to reduce the number of train-related collisions, deaths and injuries." The additional fact that this safety group leader was enroute to give a speech on grade-crossing safety makes it approach urban legend status, but it did indeed happen.
posted by mathowie at 9:02 AM PST - 5 comments

Lotion.org
This is some funny stuff.
posted by Eric_Reid at 11:04 PM PST - 3 comments

Do Leahy and Hatch actually read their email? Odds are you might get read by one of their assistants, but still I recommend you send a message in your own words as opposed to what mp3.com recommends. Whether you want changes to copyright legislation or not, let your voice be heard. It's just a click away. Also, MP3 Goes To Washington contains some enlightening and thought-provoking material.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:34 PM PST - 3 comments

Help Kalki Get Laid!!!
Come on, MeFi... where's your community spirit? If he gets 1 Million visitors (current count:262940), nine girls have agreed to sleep with him.
Help the kid out, willya???
Via: Sugar & Brine
posted by EricBrooksDotCom at 7:48 PM PST - 11 comments

Oh great another "weblogs are stupid and they all suck" article came out, but what I really want to know is: why does the other article running this week at ALA acknowledge that "99% of everything is crap," but the weblog article doesn't? Comparing the cruft at the bottom of weblogs with the 1% best of writers (Ginsberg and Kerouac) seems unfair and pointless. And where are the solutions? Tell everyone to stop? Tell them to write better? What's so hard about ignoring the sites you don't like instead (I do that with most advertising)?
posted by mathowie at 1:50 PM PST - 96 comments

Holly crap! $144 Bil. punitive damages.
posted by tiaka at 12:13 PM PST - 26 comments

IAM sues Razorfish for Poor Design Maybe it doesn't work on AOL 4, but it's not that bad--is it?
posted by dan_of_brainlog at 12:08 PM PST - 14 comments

"I'd rather take a hot stick in the eye then deal with your bureaucratic nonsense. " I'm interested in hearing from people in the MeFi community who think the University of California at Santa Barbara is correct in not publishing Chris Brown's profanity peppered 2 page disacknowledgement from his masters thesis.
posted by internook at 11:37 AM PST - 10 comments

Scour is in some trouble But is it really their fault? The web is loaded with all kinds of junk, they just happen to be bring it all together in one searchable site. none the less, bad news for them.
posted by sikk at 11:24 AM PST - 5 comments

The Coalition for the Future of Music is a group started by Jenny Toomey of now-defunct indie record label Simple Machines, entertainment lawyer Walter McDonough, Brian Zisk of iCast, and Michael Bracy of the Low Power Radio Coalition. Jenny's been doing some thought-provoking writing about the subject of digital music, even if I don't agree with everything she's said, and I'm glad to see a group springing up that seems (unlike the corporate mouthpieces from the RIAA) to be thinking about how musicians are going to make a living in a post-Napster world.
posted by snarkout at 11:22 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

"Dear Senator, As a user of the Internet and a fan of music, I am extremely concerned with the issues currently facing the digital music community, particularly those affecting my rights as a consumer to listen to the music that I have purchased. Your hearing has helped the public to understand my concerns."
posted by ericost at 9:57 AM PST - 1 comment

California offers schools payola for improved test scores. Why not just pay the students directly? That would raise scores a lot faster!
posted by Mr. skullhead at 7:43 AM PST - 1 comment

I am shocked - shocked, I say!- to discover that the Linux/Open Source media would operate using the same sort of shenanigans as the media covering the Evil Empire!
posted by m.polo at 7:00 AM PST - 8 comments

DSL Hell to get worse before it [maybe] gets better. CWA Local 2108 is in negotiations for a new contract with Bell Atlantic and it is not going well. If they can't reach agreements, there is a work stoppage scheduled on August 5th. This will affect pretty much every DSL install in the Bell Atlantic region; CWA includes installers, technicians and tech support. So get it while you can, or prepare to wait a while.

[note: I'm not a CWA member, I work for an ISP trying to grapple with this]
posted by jessamyn at 5:41 AM PST - 1 comment

10.am really does rock.
posted by mallum at 4:18 AM PST - 3 comments

Vive Le Google! ...or maybe "Viva La Google" or something...
I don't think I've seen Google use their logo to celebrate a non-American holiday before. Will we get holidays from around the world now? Can we expect a glorious logo for St. Swithin's Day? Where will it end????
posted by dogwelder at 10:28 PM PST - 6 comments

Funny how the 'Net works... I got an email from Sonrisa Vertical but couldn't read it, so I went to The Babelfish and found out they were asking me to add a song called "El Cazador" that they made to my Internatonal MP3 Station. Cool. Nice song. I like it. But The Babelfish wouldn't tell me what "El Cazador" meant. So I did a search on the 'Net. Ever heard of The Wreck That Changed The World? [more]
posted by ZachsMind at 5:34 PM PST - 6 comments

Is this the real reason some people hate cellphones?
posted by thirdball at 4:32 PM PST - 15 comments

"Hatch Warns Labels, Don't Make Me Come Over There and Spank You" Oooh! This is gonna be good. [ From Inside via Dan Lyke's excellent Flutterby. ]
posted by baylink at 4:05 PM PST - 20 comments

VW New Beetle Grand Prix...that's just dope.
posted by NickBarat at 2:16 PM PST - 11 comments

More Stupidity.
Now when little Billy goes to get that violent video game he can check out the latest issue of Juggs Magazine too!
posted by Nyarlathotep at 12:29 PM PST - 14 comments

How does the rate compare to a motel room in Pasadena, anyway? Now if they could just set up some scenario where the po' prisoners get off early for providing sexual favors to these deserving folks. I mean that's appropriate, right?
posted by aflakete at 11:30 AM PST - 1 comment

Even though I've mentioned this, I should post a link. Even though solar flares are evil and will ultimatly bring down the human kind, they make for really cool night light shows.

Sky watchers should be on the lookout for aurora during nighttime hours for the next two days. The bright gibbous moon will hamper visibility of faint Northern and Southern Lights, but bright aurora may be visible in spite of the lunar interference. Usually, the best time to see aurora borealis (or aurora australis) is near local midnight.
posted by tiaka at 6:53 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Let the witch-hunt begin. Truthfully, I don't blame the police one bit for taking the guy down as hard as they did... he resisted arrest 2-3 times as well as exchanged gunfire with them twice before they subdued him.
posted by da5id at 6:24 AM PST - 71 comments

It's an election year, folks. Remember, your vote makes a difference.
posted by plinth at 5:19 AM PST - 2 comments

Countdown to Armageddon - "In the last few years the world has gone from one Earth-shaking crisis to another. While some say that we are on the threshold of a Brave New World Order, others warn that humanity now totters on the brink of unprecedented disaster & chaos!"
posted by pehtes at 5:06 AM PST - 8 comments

In case you missed the metafilter promotion, here's a big fat link. And here's where to discuss it in MetaTalk. I think that this post gives me a good enough excuse to say Happy Birthday MeFi on the main page. But I wont.
posted by Neale at 2:49 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Cat-Scan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.

Oh, excuse me, but this is a duplicate post. But why does that previous post have tomorrow's date on it? Could it be from July 14th, 1999? And if that's the earliest surviving post in the archives, then that must mean...
Happy Birthday, MetaFilter!
a day early, but I thought we needed time to collect 1216 greeting comments, and take up a PayPal collection to buy Matt something cool for under 30 bucks.
posted by wendell at 12:12 AM PST - 13 comments

Open Secrets is a site for election information that takes the term "full disclosure" to the nth level. You can see how much money all the presidential candidates have taken and from whom. You can even do searches for "all the people in a single zip code that gave more than $1,000 to George Bush." And it's not just for would-be presidents, you can see who is filling senator's pockets too (like Philip Morris bankrolling Jesse Helms - big surprise there). It's all information that we deserve to know, and thanks to the web, it's there for the reading.
posted by mathowie at 12:02 AM PST - 7 comments

Free domains, it looks like. Register a .cc domain, and get some coupons to register some .com domains. The catch seems to be is that the .cc people are the administrative contact for the first year, which I guess means they "own" it. Should be okay though, as long as you don't do anything naughty.
posted by endquote at 11:54 PM PST - 1 comment

Doggy PPO/HMO , I saw on the news tonight where local companies are offering Healthcare plans for their pets as an added employment bonus. "Annual exams and annual vaccines are provided in FULL at NO charge. Extensive veterinary services are provided at significantly reduced fees. Office visits are only $15.00 which is a significant savings for United Pet Care members." How cool is that?
posted by 120degrees at 11:42 PM PST - 1 comment

Is there a reason mattl.com points to Metafilter, but www.mattl.com gives me a 500 error? Or am I just going crazy again?
posted by deckard at 7:13 PM PST - 11 comments

Kid Rock Starves To Death: MP3 Piracy Blamed ... "This is exactly the kind of thing we've been warning our fans about," James Hetfield, the lone surviving member of Metallica, told reporters during a press conference at Hollywood's Grace Church Homeless Shelter. "First, they found Madonna dead of a crack overdose in the alley behind Liquid. Then my best friend and bandmate Lars is killed by cops during a botched hold-up of a liquor store. Now, Kid Rock dies of starvation like a filthy dog in the street. My God, people, didn't we learn the lesson of Elton John?"
posted by aurelian at 4:48 PM PST - 8 comments

Arousers of Trousers ltd. is the strangest, most entertaining collection of writings and oddities i've seen yet. Stuart is bizarre yet absolutely hilarious. You have to hunt for the links a bit, but that's part of its charm. Even better reading than Greg's site. And 1000 blank white cards seems like a great instant source of amusement.
posted by syn at 11:03 AM PST - 4 comments

Massachusetts father surrenders in hockey rink killing A local story for me, but a scary one at that. The story is that Junta fought the hockey coach after the game because the game was too rough. This was after he had been kicked out by the rink manager. He then proceeded to beat the coach unconscious, in front of the kids, and the coach later died. His plea is self-defense. Yeah, he left the rink, came back, beat up a guy who was 100 pounds lighter, and pleads self-defense.
posted by jmackin at 9:43 AM PST - 7 comments

The August 2000 issue of Wired points readers to Tokyo Motor Trenz (site doesn't appear to be working at the moment), a small store in SF that will "trick out" your Nokia cell phone for you. Glow-in-the-dark buttons, clear plastic cases, LCD "tattoos", funky antennas, etc.
posted by jkottke at 9:41 AM PST - 2 comments

To those who are interested in such things, IE 5.5 is out, with all kinds of new and not that important features, including those great colored scroll bars.
posted by endquote at 9:29 AM PST - 23 comments

If this doesn't get some arguments going, then I'd hate to think what would.
posted by Mocata at 4:46 AM PST - 8 comments

Fireland redesigns. I...I...I love it! Possibly my favourite site on the web.
posted by Succa at 9:41 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

I can still remember and old ER co-worker's comment when they wheeled in a completely paralyzed pt "they should just let him go" and apparently this guy acted on his belief with some carefully calculated criteria.
posted by greyscale at 7:57 PM PST - 2 comments

If hacking and phreaking irc channels are any indication, hackers and phreaks don't get enough sex.
posted by dominic at 4:52 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Fresh net-privacy hell.
posted by aflakete at 3:40 PM PST - 12 comments

Wow! Lars Ulrich makes a valid point! Who'd a thunk it? While he still fails to notice the obvious benefits the Nap' provides, or make amends for attacking his own fans (or at the very least realized that it's not Congress' place to meddle), Lars has gone ahead and more clearly illuminated his own point of view. Now if only he could have STARTED his argument a few months ago with such calm and coherent points (as opposed to grandiose posturing), this whole Napster debate would be a bit more...um...SOLVED by now?!
posted by NickBarat at 3:20 PM PST - 14 comments

OPEC to increase crude oil production. Hopefully this will drop the prices of gas in Southern Ontario to below 70 cents/litre. More >>
posted by cCranium at 2:53 PM PST - 7 comments

Kill all the phones. Kill all the phones.
posted by alana at 1:50 PM PST - 10 comments

Speaking of artists' rights, one of the less obvious front lines in that war is the current Actors' strike against ad agencies (yep, Zach, it's still on), where the union is insisting on extending the concept of Residuals to cable TV and the web, while advertisers want to do away with residual payments altogether. The unlikely union leader in this battle is America's answer to David Tomlinson, and now drawn into the fight is a certain Presidential candidate who's putting non-union "real folks" in his ads. And if you don't think this is a pivotal battle, Hollywood's writers do.
posted by wendell at 1:04 PM PST - 2 comments

At work, I'm working on applying XSL transforms to XML documents to get HTML, HDML, and WML pages via an ISAPI filter for IIS. Maybe eventually I'll play with DISCO, and then I'll move on to SOAP, ROPE, and maybe even SAX. When will the acronymical madness stop?
posted by endquote at 12:44 PM PST - 7 comments

What Exactly have they bought?: "The Orange mobile telephone company has purchased Ananova, a virtual newscaster and information provider, in a $142.5 million deal with the British news agency Press Association" (via RobotWisdom, via Useit.com). Can someone please inform us just what exactly this Orange company has bought?
posted by lockecito at 11:45 AM PST - 2 comments

he's fabulous. i read this guy' journal from beginning to end in an obsessive fit yesterday. enjoy.
posted by patricking at 10:52 AM PST - 19 comments

Homosexuality is a sin? I swear to God I never would have thought that the percentage of ignorant homophobes could be this high. I know this topic has been raked over the coals here, but I am sincerely shocked. Can these numbers be right? Do half the people here think that gays will all go to hell?
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:21 AM PST - 37 comments

The end of view source? New software on the horizon may allow you to control who saves, copies or prints your web content. Are the days of right-click piracy coming to a close? Will this add weight to the budding concept that people might actually pay for content they want? Should we care?
posted by scottandrew at 9:36 AM PST - 15 comments

Wowie Zowie! This is just getting more and more fun all the time. I was reading this actually which led me to quite a revealing essay by Matt Johnson of The the. The the have joined the fight against big corporate music moguls downsizing and monopolizing the financial rewards of artists and performers. "Vivendi have just swallowed Seagrams who took over PolyGram and merged it with Universal who had bought Interscope who'd purchased nothing Records (home to Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson and TheThe)...' Now here's a guy who sees the writing on the wall, and doesn't like it.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:09 AM PST - 3 comments

Chop Chop!!! Circumcision seen to help prevent the spread of AIDS. Unfortunately, that's a little late for those already infected. You just have to hope that the people understand that it is male circumcision, and not female that helps protect.
posted by da5id at 6:53 AM PST - 4 comments

Not that we need to give Mattel any more press, but I found gothic Barbie and Ken, Addams gig or no, to be très étrange. (Oh Tish! That's French! You know that drives me to further acts of kitschy assimilation!)
posted by jason at 9:59 PM PST - 4 comments

are you a terrorist?
posted by dominic at 7:05 PM PST - 14 comments

Here is a somewhat innacurate review of opera - yet another example of lousy 'web' journalism

if you're going to test a browser for standards compliance, does it really make sense to do it by browsing a site with ~ 200 occurances of non standard html on its homepage?
posted by sawks at 6:25 PM PST - 4 comments

Tomorrow is a big day for Irish blogging (yeah, right). Vincent, Helena, Michael, Peter, Vincent and myself are all meeting for a drink. Should be good. There will be no pictures as seems to be Blogger-meet ritual. Maybe one or two, but don't count on it.
posted by tomcosgrave at 3:14 PM PST - 3 comments

WARNING: there's an operating system problem in the Sony AIBO Robotic dog. If you have one... try not to admit to it in public. :-)
posted by baylink at 2:48 PM PST - 1 comment

Israel to make 1.7Ghz Pentium Intel ordered it's plant in Israel to drop everything and produce 5,000 Pentium 4 wafers, each containing 200 Pentium 4's. Each chip will be rated at 1.7Ghz, a good .7Ghz from AMD's 1Ghz chip.
posted by dominic at 2:11 PM PST - 2 comments

Alan Herrell running for a seat in ICANN. He was the glue that held the etoy/eToys protest together, strong supporter of The Million Mom March, and exposed the Evils of Double-Click's hidden agenda.

He's running for office, and I can't think of a better man for the job of fighting for our rights....
posted by EricBrooksDotCom at 2:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Dekard a Replicant
The fact that Ridley Scott felt it necessary to share this information totally ruined my day. Not because I ever thought that Dekard wasn't a replicant, but because by the question remaining open it allowed one to take the film on so many more levels. Now he's just a robot. Thank you Ridley for clearing up all those annoying mysteries.
posted by captaincursor at 2:03 PM PST - 14 comments

Suck, Feed and Alt-culture merge and become automatic-media, which promises to be "a multi-brand, Internet-based media company targeting the Web's most sophisticated users." I wonder what zines will merge next? Perhaps weblogs will start merging to become uberblogs? Scripting Robot Kottke, anyone?
posted by icathing at 11:32 AM PST - 7 comments

Making Sure Usability 'Fitts' Flash Another thought provoking article about making better Flash sites on the web. I have to admit, I consider myself a designer, but I had never heard of Fitt's Law until I read this piece. Oh, I thought this was a nice quote:

Chris' First Law of Usability: Usability makes everything easier except for the job of the Designer.

Amen to that!
posted by DragonBoy at 11:00 AM PST - 7 comments

Heinz makes green ketchup. Green ketchup? According to a Heinz representative, "Green is going to be a shocker for a lot of adults, but kids don't have those hangups". The article also says, "company executives are hoping its unexpected colour and plastic bottle - which squirts a stream so thin kids can draw with it - will attract fans."

I see a few problems here (after the novelty wears off):
1) It's supposed to be the color of spinach - I know a few kids who would have a problem with anything spinach-colored.
2) If kids are meant to use it to squirt and draw things, parents will have a little something to say about that.

So, what's next, blue salsa? Pink mustard? Green mayo?
posted by JISH at 10:59 AM PST - 7 comments

This could make the Internet interesting. Talk about a whole new spin to the Stinky Meat project.
posted by jdiaz at 10:00 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Gosh, this is strange: US Congressman Robert Aderholt (R, 4th District of Alabama) wrote to President Clinton asking him to postpone the upcoming visit of the Philippine president to Washington, "citing certain businessmen close to Mr. Estrada with alleged ''strong ties to the communist Chinese.''

The funny thing, for me at least, is that the people the oh-so-smart Rep. Aderholt named aren't just CAPITALISTS, but are among the richest men in Asia!

Errr, since when did having a chinese surname make someone a communist? And doesn't China have most favored trading status with the US anyway?
posted by lia at 8:24 AM PST - 17 comments

Well, I guess that settles it. Thanks for leaving us hanging for 18 years, Mr. Scott.
posted by ratbastard at 7:46 AM PST - 15 comments

MySQL and PostgreSQL Compared. Now that license is not an issue, PHP Builder does a back-to-back comparison of the two wonderful SQL databases(via: slashdot). Guess which one wins?
posted by chrish at 5:30 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Police State 2000. "What makes you think you can edit content?" the federal judge asked city officials. "Isn't that classic censorship and prior restraint?"
posted by owillis at 1:36 AM PST - 24 comments

Does Jorn's workaround for the NYTimes still work? I tried http://partners.nytimes.com/library/financial/personal/070900personal-napster.html only to find myself directed to a login page. Has The Man finally got wise?
posted by Neale at 11:33 PM PST - 12 comments

Astounding Web shows us that there is far more to the web than the yahoo.com's and the ebay.com's. It shows us the hidden treasures which have remained undiscovered and now receive the recognition they deserve, not for recognition itself, but instead to get reviewed and examined by the rest of the users.

Astounding Web. Outstanding idea?
posted by skizz at 9:33 PM PST - 39 comments

Use MetaFilter to prevent Alzheimer's disease. It seems that a love of reading may help reduce the risk of getting Alzheimer's disease.

People with more education, in contrast, seem at lower risk of Alzheimer's. A study presented Sunday of Swedish twins where one twin had Alzheimer's and the other was healthy suggests a love of reading [metafilter.com], as a child and adult, might be protective.

posted by DragonBoy at 7:34 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

From the 'Green Eggs and Ham' Dept.
posted by quonsar at 2:39 PM PST - 9 comments

Are Jason and Heather secretly the same person, or is there some other reason (that escapes me) that his July 6th and her July 7th entries start out with exactly the same paragraph?
posted by lia at 5:46 AM PST - 30 comments

I thought this was funny... but I might just be drunk...
posted by Bane at 2:00 AM PST - 9 comments

Louisiana's Supreme Court has upheld a two-century-old law that makes oral and anal sex between consenting adults punishable by up to five years in jail. Where they're liable to have...you guessed it... oral and anal sex. Good thinking.

"Any claim that private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable," Justice Chet Traylor wrote for the majority. It was hard for me to imagine a learned adjudicator uttering such nonsense, until I repeated it out loud in a slow, Boss Hogg drawl...
posted by quonsar at 12:06 AM PST - 21 comments

Now this is what I call a choice. (Courtesy of Hard OCP, a hell of a fine site for those interested in keeping up with what's going on in the PC hardware world.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:57 AM PST - 4 comments

Criticize a company online - get targeted for corporate re-education New system developed to find and track online critics of corporate entities - including having posts or websites suddenly removed. All hail the power of the brand.
posted by gsh at 9:05 AM PST - 6 comments

"Starwars" missile defense test fails. What you have to understand is that these tests are rigged. They're not really fair tests of the systems; they're designed to make it as easy for the system to succeed as possible, because their purpose is to produce "successful" results for political reasons. So the fact that it still didn't work (and this is the third failure) is pretty impressive.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 8:39 AM PST - 10 comments

Citing Security, China Selects Linux for Gov't Systems
The government is also starting Red Flag, a Linux software firm. Trying to lock down the market before MS can get in, or adding one billion developpers to the opensource community?
posted by rschram at 6:56 AM PST - 6 comments

Sexy DHTML Tricks Abound! Have you seen the DHTML pop-up items at PHP.net? These things are cool, cutting edge and amazingly groovy! Nice to see additional features added to the page without bloating the design. I like it! (DHTML compatible browser needed!) [ref: nublog!]
posted by DragonBoy at 10:25 PM PST - 21 comments

For those that like scifi/fantasy art this page is for you. The gut has some original stuff and a few good links (places like Elfwood)
posted by y0bhgu0d at 5:42 PM PST - 1 comment

"There is a nose that is getting longer every day but it doesn't belong to Gore."
I'm not here to defend Al Gore; I think working alongside Bill Clinton for eight years is enough to corrupt any human being to the very depths of his soul, and he's certainly not alone being glibly mis-characterized by the press (the aftermath of Dubbya's "failing the foreign leaders quiz" comes immediately to mind).
But so many web-heads, including MetaFilterers, (two recent examples) are so invested in perpetuating the myth that "Gore lied about inventing the Internet", it makes me wonder why. Maybe the "libertarian spirit" of the Web can't face the facts that without a hell of a lot of U.S. Government initiatives (oxymoron?) and intervention, many of which can be credited to this otherwise non-outstanding politician named Al, this incredibly powerful tool (and toy) of personal expression and individual freedom might - no, WOULD still be a closed system serving the Military Industrial Complex.
And yes, I have put on my kevlar underwear.
posted by wendell at 3:46 PM PST - 3 comments

Well, here's an interesting one. Slashdot reports that a company called Quova is pinging the entire Internet, and pissing lots of folks off -- partially because they won't say why.

But I'm on the North American Network Operators Group mailing list, populated by the people who run those networks, and I ain't heard squat about it. Whassup widdat?
posted by baylink at 3:31 PM PST - 7 comments

Prosecutors say Wen Ho Lee wasn't spying when he downloaded those nuclear secrets, but even worse: He was padding his resume!!!
posted by wendell at 2:02 PM PST - 2 comments

Smoking tobacco is bad for computers and other living things.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 1:49 PM PST - 3 comments

Tired of Doom clones? Send this to your favorite game designer.
posted by mecran01 at 1:32 PM PST - 6 comments

Did I miss something? Okay, the bicicycle story that Barbelith, Megnut, and Kottke have all blogged.. what is this? I must have missed some inner circle of childhood memory bonding?
posted by eyesandfists at 10:00 AM PST - 44 comments

Mersenne Prime Search is a distributed computing project much like Seti@home, except instead of searching for aliens, you're in the running for $100,000 and a place in math history (shouldn't your computer actually be the one that goes into the math history books?).
posted by mathowie at 9:53 AM PST - 1 comment

It'll never work.
posted by honkzilla at 9:46 AM PST - 13 comments

The Blogging Revolution @ webreview.com Oy. No wonder no one respects web journalism. I could barely get past the first sentence. 1992? Funny, but the first visual browsers weren't released until 1993 and homepages didn't spring up like daisies till 94/95.
posted by gsh at 7:53 AM PST - 14 comments

"If you value your health, don't trust the WHO (World Health Organization)." As you recall, there was a World Health Report 2000 issued, ranking US #37, behind Columbia, Malta and Oman.
posted by tiaka at 6:05 AM PST - 7 comments

This isn’t exactly hot news, but there hasn’t been much MeFi discussion of the long-awaited defeat of the PRI in the Mexican elections.
posted by Mocata at 4:50 AM PST - 6 comments

While I'm not a fan of Harry Potter books (yet - I'll get around to checking them out someday soon), I find it interesting to see some folks still strongly oppose the stories of sorcery, while it seems the average CNN.com reader doesn't see a problem with them (the poll is 97-3 as I write this). It seems that every few years, some fiction strikes the fancy of kids, and parents rally against it, even though it piques kids' imaginations and gets them reading. What's so wrong with Potter books?
posted by mathowie at 9:16 PM PST - 15 comments

Stinky Meat has got to be on of the crudest, funniest, sophomoric pranks I've seen yet. But it's all in the name of "science" (NOT for the squeemish).
posted by inviolable at 4:04 PM PST - 6 comments

No one seems to have pointed out the Napster press release. It lists the points made in their legal brief, and, by cracky, they're all damned good ones. Their lead lawyer is the guy who just split Microsoft up; I think he might be able to win it; what do you think?
posted by baylink at 2:39 PM PST - 14 comments

An undoubtedly unintentionally ironic message that pretty much sums up the sad, sorry state of e-commerce today. "You have reached www.24-7.com. Unfortunately, we are now closed."
posted by monstro at 1:58 PM PST - 4 comments

"Netscape is using SmartDownload to eavesdrop," I thought Microsoft was the ONLY evil!
posted by Mick at 12:24 PM PST - 6 comments

This story of a whiz kid who vanished raises all kinds of questions. Sufiah, a 15-year-old student at Oxford University, disappears; then, her father receives an e-mail, supposedly from her. The e-mail claims that she ran away from her father's abusive high-pressure learning techniques; the father claims that she must have been kidnapped and brainwashed. The police aren't sure how to handle this situation, as there's no way to prove that the mail is really from the daughter. Finally, the father has called in the media to present his side of the story, since Sufiah has threatened to go to the media with hers.
posted by harmful at 10:12 AM PST - 11 comments

The story of Huang Qi, the man who started the first human-rights website in China, is one of the most depressing internet stories I've read. Now that he is jailed for "subverting state power," no US internet firms are sticking for him, as they're too busy trying to market their sites and services in China. I've participated in protests before, but I really wish we could get together and protest bigger things, things that might improve or save others' lives. I hope the proposed data havens like Sealand get online and allow sites such as Qi's to continue.
posted by mathowie at 9:14 AM PST - 3 comments

A Damn Good Idea, but about as likely as Dr. Laura joining NOW.
posted by Doug at 8:07 AM PST - 19 comments

"We apologize for any involvement in the terrible practice of buying and selling human beings." The Hartford Courant, the oldest newspaper in continuous publication in the United States, ran a front page apology for slavery on the 4th of July. What will it take for the U.S. Congress to do the same?
posted by sudama at 7:49 AM PST - 20 comments

The Last Refuge... invaded... Yes, I have a cell phone. Yes, I use it. But, I turn if off any place it would be rude to be having a full-voiced conversation, because I hate it when people make or take a call in those situations. I'd always sort of enjoyed the fact that the airlines claim they'll screw up navigation systems; whether they do or not, it means I don't have to listen to a dozen suits around me trying to out-do each other a-wheelin' and a-dealin and a-squealin' up and down the aisles. Guess I won't be flying Virgin Atlantic again any time soon...
posted by m.polo at 7:40 AM PST - 17 comments

Why not just put chips in their heads? Big Brother for real. . .
posted by aflakete at 12:26 AM PST - 11 comments

T-206 The most valuable baseball card of all time is up for auction on Ebay. Honus Wagner T206
posted by owillis at 11:17 PM PST - 5 comments

"You'll shoot your eye out with that thing!"
Has anyone seen the nuclear football? What? Al has it????
posted by quonsar at 6:55 PM PST - 9 comments

"I think it's a great honour for Scotland," he said. Well he sorta served in Her Majesty's Secret Service. He just wasn't very secret about it. He did once say he thought it was alright under certain conditions to "smack a woman" though. I'm not sure if that's a part of the Chivalric Code. I don't know. What do you think?
posted by ZachsMind at 5:48 PM PST - 12 comments

I hear dead components. How nice that your computer can sing to you when it's breaking down. I wonder if there's any significance to "It's a small world."
posted by jdiaz at 10:44 AM PST - 8 comments

"Fire Bryant Gumbel for His Intolerant Remark"?? -American Family Association-- What the hell is going on with people in this country? I can't have an opinion any more? Bryant wasn't being intolerant... He simply didn't like the guy. He was uttering his opinion under his breath when he thought the microphone was off and he was off camera. (It took a lip reader to ascertain what was actually 'mumbled') Must I agree with everyone's opinion ALL the time and actually 'LIKE' everyone all the time? Or what? Do I get a 'timeout'?
posted by chiXy at 10:31 AM PST - 42 comments

Sony to introduce new CD format. No, it's not DVD-Music. It's a new double-capacity CD format that Sony says "will be able to prevent illegal copying." I'm assuming the new format will require all-new hardware to read and to write. So my question is, what's the point? Won't another music format just increase consumer confusion and make them more reluctant to buy? Why come out with a 1.3GB format just as recordable DVDs, with much larger capacities, are becoming practical? Do they really expect people to buy all new hardware to support what is obviously a dead-end format?
posted by daveadams at 7:32 AM PST - 11 comments

Orange you glad I didn't say shamrock? Uhm... don't the catholics and protestants worship relatively the same diety? And didn't this diety say something about ..you know, uh, being nice to each other and stuff? Something like that? And by the way, when is the sequel to The Commitments coming out?
posted by ZachsMind at 5:35 AM PST - 22 comments

Napster Says RIAA Trying to Stifle Technology. Aw yeah, it's nice to see Napster get on the offensive. Armed with data showing that CD sales have increased with the rise in mp3 trading, Napster is now alleging that record companies are against the software because it reduces their 100% control of the music distribution business. But will a court allow Napster to go on while their users walk the fair-use tightrope?
posted by mathowie at 11:01 PM PST - 23 comments

The (hyper)active online thesaurus This thesaurus is the best visual example of the vitality of language I've ever seen. As you click through the web of linked words, they just quiver and fly around as though they both want to be used now and at the same time want to avoid being pinned down. I love this, especially the way the 3D effect leaves some words in the background, since they are only distantly related. But when you click on them they zoom to the top, along with a new constellation of associated words and concepts.
posted by elgoose at 8:10 AM PST - 12 comments

Motley Crue ROCKS man! Okay so maybe they're just as old and washed up as Metallica, but the diff here is that Motley Crue supports the idea of their fans downloading MP3s of their music via Napster and Metallica is just trying to get cheap publicity by screwing their own fans. Personally, I listen to bands like these and I made fun of groups like Metallica and Motley Crue back when I was in high school and everybody else thought they were cool, but I'll stop badmouthing Crue for the rest of my life. I might even try to appreciate their music. Metallica still sucks though.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:53 PM PST - 2 comments

Am I the only one who can't stand the testosterone driven crap that's proliferating cable? As a sensitive, new age man, I wish FX would just play M*A*S*H reruns ALL the time.
posted by aladfar at 10:46 PM PST - 19 comments

The Go.com translator is a pretty good alternative to babelfish. This very site looks pretty good, and I can finally read my favorite spanish-language blog. Is computer power/translation programming advancing enough to enable real-time translation, or will this continue to be the impossible dream? I've always wanted an icq client that would let me chat with a spanish speaker without any lag. Of course, if that were possible, my cell phone would do real time vocal conversions as well. Someday, I guess, someday.
posted by mathowie at 6:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Surgeon General's Warning: Canadian cigarette packages will soon make you gag, but only contain things which may complicate pregnancy.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:46 PM PST - 24 comments

"Yes, I'll have the McGreenBeans and a side of McOven Roasted Chicken" , McDonald's Corporation announced today that it has completed its acquisition of the Boston Market business and has named two executive officers to lead the business, effective immediately.
posted by 120degrees at 12:32 PM PST - 6 comments

Dr. Seuss gets political [via memepool] Some political cartoons from one of the great illustrators.
posted by owillis at 12:00 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Hollywood rewrites history... and (surprise, surprise) the Brits come off worst. It's particularly galling to have the Redcoats in The Patriot carrying out the kind of atrocities associated with the Nazis, given that recent WWII films have either ignored the roles of non-Americans (Saving Private Ryan) or simply cast Americans in their place (U-571 and the forthcoming remake of Colditz).
posted by holgate at 11:19 AM PST - 37 comments

Page One of Harry Potter IV posted at the The Standard. Man, I hope this is a spoof.
posted by silusGROK at 8:40 AM PST - 16 comments

Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures is one of the best readings on the interactions between artists, technology, and culture I've found so far. I found a quote here by Sir Isaiah Berlin which is very appropriate to my experience and perhaps those who search for sites like Metafilter:

Loneliness is not just the absence of others but far more living among people who do not understand what you are saying.

posted by Taken Outtacontext at 5:58 AM PST - 1 comment

www.excite@home.com Anyone know how they got that domain? Which NICs are allowing "unusual" characters, and how widespread is the standard?
posted by owillis at 1:05 AM PST - 15 comments

THOMAS allows you to look up, and even link to, any bill that's been before any congress.

For example, I could link to H.R. 1304, the Quality Health-Care Coalition Act of 2000. I could also mention that Tom Coburn (R-OK) added Section 2h to the bill, which says Doctors have no collective bargaining rights when it comes to ensuring women have access to abortion services.
posted by alana at 10:18 PM PST - 5 comments

Celebrate the Declaration, hip-hop style! For your 4th of July viewing pleasure, Atomfilms presents "Celebrate the Declaration" (select from the left hand menu, please). Realplayer and working speakers required.
posted by Lynsey at 9:55 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

If not the best weblog in the world, certainly in the top three. For all of us who think that there's no good blogs out there, I point to defense exhibit A: Ethel the Blog. It is, indeed, one of the best websites of any definition in the world, and I envy Steven K. Baum's mighty intellect greatly. I already reviewed it at my review blog, but because I know how low the traffic is there, and because this is indeed one of the best websites in the world, I'm posting it here. I don't know Steven. We've never met. He is not paying me to say this. This is purely for the public good. And now, quite possibly, the best blog in the world.
posted by Ezrael at 4:27 PM PST - 10 comments

Dial a CEO: Every month, Working Assets Long Distance, a phone plan managed by a progressive San Francisco-based citizen-action group dedicated to environmental and social-justice issues, highlights on its customers' phone bill two issues currently under debate (violence against women, gun control, road-building in national parks, etc.), plus the telephone numbers of the top corporate or political people involved in the issue, whose cage you can rattle at no charge. Targets have included senators, congressmen and the US president, as well as CEOs like Exxon/Mobil's Lee Raymond and Home Depot's Arthur Blank. "It's important to target the CEOs directly because they have ultimate responsibility for these issues," says Working Assets citizen action director Janet Nudelman. "They don't like it when they receive four or five thousand calls, but it certainly gets their attention"
posted by palegirl at 3:17 AM PST - 4 comments

Botswana warrior returns home: An African warrior who was stuffed, preserved and put on show in a Spanish museum for more than 100 years is going home after a lengthy diplomatic dispute. . . . The figure was one of the town's chief tourist attractions. One local man commented that it was bit like sending all the mummies back to Egypt.
posted by palegirl at 11:51 PM PST - 6 comments

In an elaborate ceremony, the confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina Statehouse dome where it had flown for 38 years by Citadel cadets - one white, one black - amid cheering flag supporters and jeering anti-Confederate flag demonstrators. A smaller, square version was raised moments later on 30-foot flag pole by Civil War re-enactors in front of Confederate soldier's monument on Statehouse grounds, part of the compromise reached by the Legislature in May. Gov. Jim Hodges, the only top official taking part in Saturday's flag relocation ceremony, said most South Carolinians support the compromise that plants the flag at the most visible spot on the Capitol grounds.
posted by palegirl at 10:08 PM PST - 22 comments

How American Are You? (It's Viz, so don't take it too seriously. But, still.)
posted by holgate at 4:00 PM PST - 2 comments

Day trading and looking at pictures of beautiful women. Life just doesn't get any better than this.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 2:20 PM PST - 4 comments

But has anyone notified Dr. Sam Sheppard?
posted by quonsar at 1:57 PM PST - 1 comment

Goodbye, you grumpy old man...
posted by tomcosgrave at 6:58 AM PST - 2 comments

Some people just kind of miss the point sometimes. Yes, it's the Japanese Nazi Party. Dedicated to furthering the goals of the Aryan Races...which, of course, they wouldn't be included in if the Aryan Races even actually existed, on account of their being Asian and all. Did they not read Mein Kampf when they joined?
posted by Ezrael at 6:06 AM PST - 9 comments

While you were sleeping, gay people were getting married in Vermont. Beginning at midnight last night, people began flocking to their town clerks [some of them] and signing pieces of paper that would allow them to visit their partners in the hospital and file state taxes jointly. While I have yet to see a news photo of a happy couple [no thanks to the AP] I'm sure today is going to be an interesting day in town.
posted by jessamyn at 3:59 AM PST - 4 comments