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The King and Tehanu go to meet dragons. A map of Earthsea. A very large map of Earthsea. The Hainish Encyclopedia. The Ekumen. The Disconnected. Le Guin's World. Ursula K Le Guin's Official Website.
posted by y2karl at 9:29 PM PST - 18 comments

Botanical Record-Breakers - learn about the world's most poisonous plants, the fastest growing, the most painful, the oldest, the ongoing debate about the largest, and much more. Also discussed is the rare coconut pearl - botanical jewel, or hoax?
posted by Jimbob at 9:28 PM PST - 8 comments

surreal photomontages from italy.
posted by crunchland at 8:35 PM PST - 6 comments

Mac Buds Everyone assumes you're gay if you use a Mac instead of Windows. Just because we're not hard-core gamers doesn't mean ... well, I guess the classic logo didn't exactly dissuade this line of thinking. I think it's awesome that people in a niche inside of a niche has a whole site to find one another.
posted by clango at 7:50 PM PST - 33 comments

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts, with subject and expert searches.
posted by hama7 at 7:44 PM PST - 4 comments

Paging adrianhon ... Everyone's favorite soulless cubicle farm, Metacortex, now has a web presence. You can also visit their strategic ally Underscore Hosting, and even see a currently functionless homepage for their forthcoming Metadex product. In fact, you can even check the status of their Greek fabricated-island resort Aquapolis. Should you need to contact Metacortex or Underscore, their websites offer both e-mail and telephone numbers, both valid. If the name Metacortex only rings a vague bell, it might help to recall their most, ah, celebrated ex-employee, Thomas Anderson. (more inside)
posted by blueshammer at 7:29 PM PST - 9 comments

Clooney gets conned Kaycee'd and is being sued. "THE ACTOR opened his heart last year when a woman told him about her tragic, cancer-stricken daughter, Cindy, and he began making calls and sending gifts to the terminally-ill young woman. Before long, however, Clooney began to doubt that 'Cindy' really existed."
posted by mathowie at 5:39 PM PST - 16 comments

The new Doctor Who might be Eddie Izzard, according to a previous (and best) Doctor, Tom Baker.
posted by Mwongozi at 5:28 PM PST - 30 comments

The court jester in history, and around the world.
posted by moonbird at 5:22 PM PST - 12 comments

The Horror Channel A 24-hour, all-horror, uncensored, digital cable channel plans to be launched for Halloween 2004, with programming to include classic and contemporary movies, specials, documentaries and original series’ each season. CEO and founder Nicholas A. Psaltos (former Director of Acquisitions and Program Administration at Bravo Television Networks) hopes the new genre network will capitalize on the success of other genre channels like Comedy Central and The Sci-Fi Channel. Psaltos has even put together a creative advisory board of genre legends and newcomers including John Carpenter, Roger Corman, Wes Craven, Guillermo del Toro, Tobe Hooper, Stuart Gordon, Lucky McKee, Eli Roth, George Romero and Rob Zombie. Starting a TV network is risky business and The Horror Channel is petitioning horror fans to help with programming by providing a survey on their consumer website. (Via Rue Morgue)
posted by Jeffy at 3:41 PM PST - 17 comments

September 12: A Toy World
"September 12 is a free Shockwave game where players try to solve the terrorist problem - a sort of editorial cartoon rendered in simple simulation." It's not really much of a simulation, and the 'argument' is simplistic to the point of inanity. But as a new medium, interesting. (via gamegirladvance)
posted by jcruelty at 3:16 PM PST - 18 comments

Want to buy the Web? The whole thing? (scroll to bottom of page). Alexa now offers - for sale - the entire web, collected from their crawler, in a portable form: "For organizations capable of hosting or mining an entire crawl index that exceeds 60 Terabytes in size, Alexa can ship the contents of the crawl to your location. Current customers include the Internet Archive and the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. The web-wide crawl takes approximately 2 months to complete. It is over 60 Terabytes in size, spanning over 3.5 billion unique URLs." No price listed, but "If you have to ask..."
posted by kokogiak at 3:03 PM PST - 16 comments

Russian Prison Tatoos.
posted by Ljubljana at 2:54 PM PST - 18 comments

Many2Many a group weblog on social software featuring, among others, Clay Shirky.
posted by turbodog at 2:31 PM PST - 1 comments

"I aim to close every kind of hole in the dike I can find on piracy," and with those words, MPAA demon Jack Valenti banned all DVD and VHS screeners of this years Oscar nominated films. File under "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater." Next up: Valenti plans to remove everyone's eyeballs with a rusty spoon.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:36 PM PST - 23 comments

"Sweat-hogging" -- seeking out plus-size women for romantic encounters characterized by a remarkably virulent brand of hatred, cruelty, objectification and, it seems, not a little self-loathing. And I use the word "romantic" loosely. Anybody ever run across this pathology before? (via Romanesko)
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:33 PM PST - 45 comments

"This is my brother Larry and this is his face. It has served him well for many years. UNTIL NOW."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:51 PM PST - 19 comments

Lions in Africa are getting close to extinction. In fact, all the big alpha predators are in trouble. It may only be a matter of time before all the mega species disappear from the wild.
posted by homunculus at 12:47 PM PST - 8 comments

Politics & Science. A recent report (PDF) commissioned by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) of the House Government Reform Committee "finds numerous instances where the Administration has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings." This White House, it says, has interfered with the objectivity of federal scientists – by stacking committees, ignoring or suppressing information, and interfering with research - to an "unprecedented" degree, on topics ranging from breast cancer and food safety to agricultural pollution and wetlands protection.
posted by gottabefunky at 12:09 PM PST - 6 comments

Neutral Good in a Lawful Evil World I'm sure that some of us have played Dungeons & Dragons before. Now imagine applying the D&D alignment traits to a nation. ( for example: Switzerland=Lawful Neutral ). What is your opinion of the alignment of your nation?
posted by patrickje at 11:53 AM PST - 27 comments

Gefiltefilter. Metagefilte?
posted by liam at 11:44 AM PST - 14 comments

New Wrinkles For an Age Old Chore ... A new sport is sweeping the world. It's an outdoor activity that combines the excitement of an extreme sport with the satisfaction of a freshly ironed shirt. It's only requirements: an iron, board and some laundry ... and ropes, harnesses, helmets, boyancy aids, parachutes etc .... Invented in 1997 by Philip Shaw from from Leicester, England, chapters are popping up all over and under. (From a WSJ article quoted here.)
posted by Jos Bleau at 11:01 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Attorney General Is Closely Linked to Inquiry Figures Karl Rove, President Bush (news - web sites)'s top political adviser, whose possible role in the case has raised questions, was a paid consultant to three of Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri, twice for governor and for United States senator, in the 1980's and 1990's, an associate of Mr. Rove said on Wednesday. Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of Mr. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, was the director of Mr. Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign, and later worked as Mr. Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff. No wonder 69% of Americans think that an independent counsel should conduct the investigation.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:48 AM PST - 48 comments

Wavy Gravy
posted by konolia at 10:45 AM PST - 36 comments

Belomorkanal. The history of the canal between the White Sea and Leningrad, constructed using penal labour and opened 'in Stalin's name' in 1933.
From the International Institute of Social History's collections. Of related interest :- Photo Album Van Marken ('one of the first Dutch entrepreneurs who took care of the social welfare of his employees.'); the William Morris Archive; Zo d'Axa ('Adventurer, traveller, anti-militarist, individualist, satirist, journalist, founder of two of the most legendary French magazines of the 1890s'); Auguste Fabre's 'Les Sky Scratchers', an optimistic vision from the 1890s; Sylvain Maréchal, who 'proposed a new calendar replacing the names of the Saints with those of the "benefactors of humanity" '. More inside.
posted by plep at 10:33 AM PST - 7 comments

Zombies Redux! More Zombies! Cartoon Zombies! More Zombies! Still more zombies! What is up with all the zombies? It's getting kind of creepy.
posted by sodalinda at 8:16 AM PST - 21 comments

Byronic Roleplaying?

Lord Vincent Smallpees (R51 D58 O21) wants to seduce Lady Margaret Whateley (R45 D55 O23), the wife of his best friend Alfred Thompson. He choses to tell her he's been loving her for such a long time, that his heart will shatter if she ever refuses to be kind, or something like that. His Actor choses to roll below Vincent's Despair ; he rolls: it's a 11, which is a Success. Cowabunga!

Welcome to Wuthering Heights: The Roleplaying Game. (More here.)
posted by grabbingsand at 6:33 AM PST - 12 comments

Classic Feminist Writings : an archive
posted by anastasiav at 6:11 AM PST - 34 comments

And the Weasel Award Goes to...
In the best weasel tradition, this poll is exuberantly, unapologetically unscientific. Last year a conservative group rallied its troops to bias the poll to serve its own agenda. We applaud that behavior and find it to be in the true spirit of weaseldom.
Sounds like a challenge to me... [more inside]
posted by wendell at 5:13 AM PST - 11 comments

I've never tried Java, but I can tell you right now it's not a good programming language.
posted by spazzm at 5:02 AM PST - 57 comments

'Compleat Diagram of Strange Persons' Something fun for your Thursday. What strange group are you closely related to? Personally i'm not surprised to see Mac users so closely related to Elitists and the Illuminati... Link via themorningnews.org
posted by efalk at 3:57 AM PST - 31 comments

The On-Line Picasso Project offers 6,893 works for your ogling pleasure, plus an obsessively documented chronological bio. I'm stunned. (please read the user's manual, inside.)
posted by taz at 3:55 AM PST - 12 comments

On sunday, Rush Limbaugh commented that Donovan McNabb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, was overrated and was only seen favourably by the media because they want to see a black quarterback do well. McNabb responded, and earlier tonight Limbaugh resigned from his post on ESPN's pre-game show. N.D. Kalu, one of the Eagle's defensive ends, offered this choice quote: "He speaks well, he's well-read, but he's an idiot."
posted by The God Complex at 12:19 AM PST - 100 comments