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Overdose live on IRC? Brandon Carl Vedas, 21, takes a mix of drugs (methadone, klonopin, etc) while in front of his webcam and chatting on IRC. He overdoses, and dies with the webcam still on. IRC log of the coversation, a log of the channel after he died, and an an obituary listing. (via #mefi)
posted by malphigian at 11:20 PM PST - 91 comments

Perpetual-motion machine being sold on eBay. It's essentially six automotive alternators connected (via motorcycle chain) to an electric motor. One of the alternators supposedly powers the motor, leaving the remaining five to provide 700W of free energy. Sigh...people actually believe this crapola?
posted by Vidiot at 10:17 PM PST - 25 comments

The Unseen Gulf War is a photo exhibit from the Gulf War that shows an aspect that I doubt many people have had a chance to see, the "human consequences". Why because the US government after Vietnam fears a media that is not corralled. Besides the fact that this is undemocratic, this view that the media really turned the tide of public opinion in Vietnam seems to be debated by many as this article explains. I must warn that many of the images can be highly disturbing
posted by GreenDragon at 10:15 PM PST - 44 comments

Rumsfeld's comment about the draft has caused a stir. The Hispanic Caucus is upset and they're the new major minority (an oxymoron?). It has also riled the feathers of the Vietnam Veterans of America. If you Google "Rumsfeld draft" there are the two links above but the only article in a major newspaper is The Moscow Times. Rumsfeld called his statement at a Pentagon press conference "not eloquently spoken". Is this a big story? Talk amongst yourselves.
posted by whatever at 10:00 PM PST - 11 comments

Vector Tobacco. A company that "develops and markets smoking products with science-based reductions in certain harmful elements."
posted by chemgirl at 7:01 PM PST - 35 comments

A scientist discovers that scorpions make two types of venoms. Cool. But he made the discovery while attempting to find a toxin that he wants to put into a common cold virus, in order to kill insects that catch the cold? Shouldn't we be worried about this?
posted by titboy at 6:40 PM PST - 16 comments

Verizon Must Reveal Internet Song Swapper In a recent discussion of the Supreme Court's decision to protect the rights of the individual from the greed and sloth of the many I warned that the RIAA and MPAA, comically inept though the media paints them, would soon have things their way. This link is to a news report about an important step in their fight for individual rights.
posted by BGM at 5:18 PM PST - 23 comments

Cloned Cat Doesn't look and behave like the original cat.Public perception of cloning is clone=original, but we have the proof it isn't always true. Isn't that the proof complex systems doesn't always work like we want, so it'd better to slow down the marketing of genetic engineered food ?
posted by elpapacito at 5:12 PM PST - 48 comments

When I was in sixth grade, all the boys and girls carried around bits of yarn, and at recess we all demonstrated our l33t skillz at making string figures, such as the Jacob's Ladder, or the Banana Tree. This site teaches you how to make these two, and many more. Yarn sales will spike as a result of this post, I'm sure.
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:58 PM PST - 15 comments

Mitnick Free! Kevin Mitnick, a hacker who went without trial in the US for years, has finally been freed from his computer-free probation today. Buy his stuff on ebay, or buy his book. Or don't, it's really up to you.
posted by shepd at 4:48 PM PST - 5 comments

Rock show sabotage! - 35 surefire ways to ruin a show for the suckers who actually paid to get in. I have to remember #7 - "Fake a fight with a friend during a ballad." next time I'm at a bad emo concert.
posted by deftone at 3:56 PM PST - 14 comments

What the Administration knew about Pakistan and the North Korean nuclear program. An excellent article by Seymour Hersh on how the current situation came to be.
posted by homunculus at 3:31 PM PST - 8 comments

is crayola doomed?
posted by donkeysuck at 3:15 PM PST - 27 comments

The tide is turning. A new poll from the Pew Research Center indicates that the Bush Administration is losing support for a war against Iraq, with only 29% favoring war if U.N. inspectors fail to find weapons of mass destruction. Polls are looking considerably worse in Great Britain, where 47% of the public disapprove of an attack on Iraq, compared to just 30% in favor of such an attack. Blair is certain that he can get the British public to support war, however, even if Britain goes to war without U.N. support. "When and if that time came, people would find the reasons acceptable and satisfactory because there is no other route available to us."
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:14 PM PST - 55 comments

"A gay Democrat firing a 9 mm pistol is not something you see every day in Utah County."
The Pink Pistols of Utah are ready for trouble. Members say they have joined the group because they want the ability to fight back if they become targets. Gays, lesbians and bisexuals ranked fourth in the FBI hierarchy of hate-crimes victims, according to 2001 statistics*.
*FBI report available here, PDF, 14.3MB
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:07 PM PST - 35 comments

Did Noman find it? Scientists on the Greek isle of Crete have found what could prove to be a "cyclops". Truly, it is a creature whose skeleton has been found in pieces, and there is a significant hole in the skull for the opening to the trunk, which people many, many years ago might have "invented" the stories of what this creature was when they found its remains. That is, if you don't believe that the stories brought to us through spoken word and attributed to the blind man, Homer...
posted by djspicerack at 12:30 PM PST - 10 comments

Why Gen X doesn't care that Gen X doesn't care about the war - in which an irreverent, arrogant, crass young essayist hits a nerve. What RAND has to say about the impact of Iraqi oil on the world economy. Who's organizing large demonstrations against war on Iraq, and who's upset about this. Spend an hour with the real experts on Iraq, real Iraqis, and real people who can't make the case for war. (RealPlayer) This in-depth broadcast interview features some truly key players, the real arguments on both sides, and you probably never heard it, making the case for Internet Radio.
posted by sheauga at 12:12 PM PST - 37 comments

Ghost Ship? After being grounded off the west coast of Fuerteventura in January of 1994, the SS American Star has slowly deteriorated over time creating quite a surreal landmark. [More info here! and here!]
posted by bhell13 at 11:52 AM PST - 21 comments

Children of the bean sing a catchy little ditty and have a theme park adventure. Something strange is going on at Edleston Primary School and I like it. Prepare for blastoff. (some links contain flash)
posted by snez at 11:35 AM PST - 9 comments

There Ultimate Standings. ESPN has done a ranking of the relative value of each major U.S. sports franchise not in terms of mere victories, or championships, or even felony convictions, but in terms of how much value (as calculated here) each franchise is providing its fans. Stunned to see perrennial winners such as the Yankees & Lakers pushed down to the 20s, while small market teams like Green Bay, San Antonio & Sacramento dominate. Clearly life IS better in the small towns, at least for sports fans. Here's a more in depth explanation of what it all means.
posted by jonson at 11:35 AM PST - 39 comments

"Buying an SUV is partly an act of fantasy." In the interest of throwing gasoline on the fire, I present David Brooks, SUV apologist, in the Wall Street Journal.
posted by serafinapekkala at 10:54 AM PST - 50 comments

76-year old Wisconsin man carded while buying non-alcoholic beer. Wish the article had more information, like whether or not the clerk refused to sell the goods to a senior citizen, or just asked to see some ID, but still. Shouldn't a little common sense come into play here? Do you blame the "old man" for getting upset in the first place, or the clerk for not bending "the rules," or the owner for the policy, or the lawyers for the law suits that engendered the policy, or prohibition for getting this country so worked about about alcohol and appropriate drinking ages in the first place? Me? I blame society.

And yes, yes, I know "newsfilter this" and "newsfilter that." But c'mon. It's Wisconsin. Appreciate the irony.
posted by RKB at 9:39 AM PST - 60 comments

Evil SBC acts like bully going after small sites with an absurd patent. If you've ever designed a web site with "selectors or tabs that... seem to reside in their own frame or part of the user interface" such as Metafilter's header or Amazon's tabs or c|net's yellow side bar, then your design is in violation of SBC Communication's patent number 5,933,841. Here's the abstract:

A structured document browser includes a constant user interface for displaying and viewing sections of a document that is organized according to a pre-defined structure. The structured document browser displays documents that have been marked with embedded codes that specify the structure of the document. The tags are mapped to correspond to a set of icons. When the icon is selected while browsing a document, the browser will display the section of the structure corresponding to the icon selected, while preserving the constant user interface.

Armed with this patent SBC is going after web sites with a licensing fee of $100,000 to $16,000,000. Will this insanity ever stop?
via Jarle's Cyberspace
posted by DragonBoy at 6:37 AM PST - 47 comments

What did John F. Kennedy, Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Confucius all have in common? They were masters of chiasmus. If you've ever been amused by the simple but elegant word play in sentences like "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy, or "It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men", then you appreciate a good chiasmus when you hear one. via the always interesting bragadocchio
posted by iconomy at 4:59 AM PST - 49 comments

"I'm not alive. I'm not myself. I'm tired of playing the role of somebody else. I want to be myself".
Kamagasaki, Japan in the 1950s: photographs by Inoue Seiryu, and Kamagasaki now: Photos and text by Shannon Higgins, with first-hand accounts and translations.[more]
posted by hama7 at 3:57 AM PST - 14 comments

Vibrating cellphones of love! "Within a year you could be able to "touch" someone over your mobile phone", says the BBC. Some people have been waiting for this for quite a while - and dreaming up VERY specific applications.
posted by theplayethic at 3:27 AM PST - 10 comments

What does the Miller Lite "Catfight" commercial (Bigger clip and boobs Real Audio here), Star Trek, and Stanley Kubrick have in common? A man named Gerald Fried. After studying the controversial beer ad over and over again, I noticed that the background music is inspired by the legendary Kirk vs Spock fight theme Ritual/Ancient Battle/2nd Kroyka (shorter mp3 here) in "Amok Time" (be sure to view the trailer). Gerald Fried composed the music for this classic episode that features a love-crazed Spock defeating Kirk (and also ripping his shirt in the process). How did a lowly oboe major from Julliard get into soundtracks? He was a high school buddy of Stanley Kubrick, and composed Kubrick's first film, Day of the Fight. He went on to compose themes for Roots and The Man from UNCLE. Isn't it great what you can learn from a mindless lesbian catfight scene? More proof: during the Amok Time battle, Spock may have said to the shirtless Kirk, "Let's Make Out!!!"
posted by Stan Chin at 12:10 AM PST - 25 comments

Civil rights, local style. Take a look at Mollie Huston Lee's great collection of as-it-happened coverage of the Feb 1960 lunch counter sit-ins in Raleigh, NC. Plenty of clippings about other heated local events, too. The details make the era come alive - boycott flyers, harumphing white editors, speculation that protests might "fizzle out, panty-raid style," armed Native Americans threatening to "wipe out" the local KKK, the program from the conference that birthed SNCC [pdf], early reactions to desegregation and much more. Gotta love those revealing little details.
posted by mediareport at 12:03 AM PST - 4 comments