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It's nearly time for National Novel Writing Month 2002 This was discussed in detail on mefi last year, and plenty of interest was shown. Now you should take it to the natural conclusion: a collaborative novel attempt. It might be bending the rules a little, but surely Metafilter users could come up with 50,000 words between them in a month. Maybe this is short notice, but I'd like to see an attempt...
posted by tapeguy at 8:34 PM PST - 45 comments

I've always been fascinated with the idea of having a photographic memory. They have products saying you can train yourself but I don't buy it. Can you really train your kid to have a photographic mind before age 6? I'm curious how many Mefites have snapshot memories.
posted by Degaz at 7:59 PM PST - 36 comments

Post a great earnings quarter then cut jobs and send them to India. Nice job Bank of AMERICA
posted by Macboy at 7:56 PM PST - 21 comments

For some, Halloween can mean candy, treats, and tricks. For others, Samhain can be an important religious holiday. The Witch's Sabbats are the calendar of pagans, where the celebration of time is underway. There are more rituals then could all be linked. Some prefer solitude, while some prefer groups. There is a Christian understanding of the correlation between Pagan holidays and Christian holidays. But then some people pull the old Bible out. And then some people just miss the point entirely.
posted by benjh at 5:05 PM PST - 28 comments

Virginia is for Snipers. The owner of a Richmond, Virginia vintage clothing store has created T-Shirts with large red targets on the back and a play on the "Virginia is for Lovers" tourism slogan on the front. The clothing store owner has displayed a track record of being a little off kilter...
posted by machaus at 4:08 PM PST - 37 comments

Fun Gifts. The Season for Giving is soon upon us. The web contains a colorful collection of odd but interesting gifts. Some particular favorites include: sushi jewelry, Klein bottle hats and glassware, Zanti Misfits, and Homer Simpson's Rubik's cubes. (Note for sale yet is the ever-popular Matrioshka Brain.) What fun and strange gifts have you found in your peripatetic searches of the web? What fun gift would you most like to receive?
posted by Morphic at 3:24 PM PST - 9 comments

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle may be hindering DC sniper investigation. An interesting, albeit unanswerable, question: Is the sniper responding specifically to feedback from the media -- or are the examples in the linked article "cherry-picking" to make the point? Also, apparently the art of "profiling" as practiced by TV expert commentators can very effectively destroy any profile investigators may have constructed on the guy. Think before you post to this thread: the sniper could be a Metafilter reader.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:47 PM PST - 53 comments

Continuing Oissubke's trip around the world, I bring you Liechtenstein: Where Democracy and Monarchy Harmonize! (More inside...)
posted by oissubke at 1:47 PM PST - 12 comments

DVDs are bad for business? They are, according to the producer of "Attack of the Clones." Although it seems to me that every week I hear about a new box-office record being shattered, Rick McCallum says such things as: "I don't think there's a single movie that can survive on box office gross alone; it just doesn't exist anymore" and my favorite: "Literally, our very lives are at stake now. George and I are just praying that we can finish 'Episode III' in time, before it's all over." What do you think? Legitimate concern, or more ridiculous whining by millionaires lobbying to place restrictions on technogy?
posted by eas98 at 1:08 PM PST - 56 comments

Finally, a holiday we can all get behind. Saturday, November 2 is the American Homebrewers Association’s 4th Annual Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. Find a location near you to help you create the nectar of the gods. "To alcohol! The cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems."
posted by mathowie at 12:52 PM PST - 16 comments

Nokia Game is back with a vengence (certainly here in the UK anyway), and claiming to be "an experience you will never forget". Will it be? Will it surpass the last two Nokia Games, which became clouded in game-playing techies' catty derision of the technology used? Will the huge band of followers at the cunningly titled fan site Nokia-Game return again? And, more pressingly, will they still create stunningly TV, radio and newspaper adverts, so we can all boast again that we're part of it?
posted by wibbler at 12:15 PM PST - 12 comments

Le Voyage dans la Lune/A Trip to the Moon A tree grows in Houston. Apparently a cache of tree seeds were carried into space by an American astronaut in the early 1970s. They were carried home, planted, grown into seedlings, and distributed around the country, mostly in honor of the 1976 bicentennial. Anyway, no one took note of where the moon trees went. A curious NASA scientist is on the hunt for the locations of the moon trees. Do you have a moon tree in your town? Do you have a documented historic tree in your area? Are your local trees protected? Does this make local residents irate?
posted by jengod at 11:51 AM PST - 13 comments

Keys of Nutrition You may not be familiar with Ancel Keys, but his discoveries about nutrition and health are behind much of the dietary advice people now receive. Have you ever wondered who proved that the amount of cholesterol in food did not influence the amount of cholesterol in the blood? Do you know what causes high cholesterol? Do you like olive oil but need a good rationalization to keep using it? (hint: there is one) What dietary advice has most fascinated you, or helped you the most?
posted by Tystnaden at 10:55 AM PST - 17 comments

Sex Therapy or Chemotherapy? If you suddenly start collecting pornography, soliciting prostitutes, making sexual advances toward young children and lusting for your 90 year old landlady don't worry, you may not be developing socially and legally deviant behaviour but you actually may just have a brain tumour. I thought brain tumours just gave you headaches and blurred vision but apparently they can cause all kinds of symptoms and uncontrollable urges.
posted by henriettachicken at 10:53 AM PST - 4 comments

NJ Guido! A site for guidos, by guidos... hilariously enough! The pics are great (actually, many hotties), but the clincher has got to be the proud testimonials (under "writings"). Can anybody say B&T?
posted by adamms222 at 9:42 AM PST - 52 comments

"I took the picture of Kelly's butt, I saw she was naked and I took it." Theresa King, Photographer, Age 5.
posted by pedantic at 9:18 AM PST - 17 comments

Woman injured by obese passenger offered $20,000 by Virgin Atlantic With two-thirds of US citizens overweight, and one-third classified as obese, some airlines are charging one person for two seats (previous discussion). But who's responsible when a large passenger injures someone — the passenger or the airline?
posted by dayvin at 9:14 AM PST - 59 comments

Toxic House
"This is a site about the hazards of indoor pollution, largely created by the synthetic and organic chemicals that are a part of our daily lives. It might sound like a place you want to stay away from, but really it’s a place intended to help you make informed decisions about the places and spaces in which you live."
posted by theRegent at 8:04 AM PST - 13 comments

Crime experts in the spotlight - The sniper shootings are an ugly mark against society, but they've been a boon for my alma mater's criminal justice program and the likes of James Fox, Jack Levin and Edith Flynn. It has to be quite a contradiction for people in this line of work: The longer the killing spree goes, the more attention they get, but more innocent victims die.
posted by MediaMan at 7:53 AM PST - 6 comments

Have you grown weary of the tiny, grayscale maps of Iraq and the Middle East accompanying most newspaper stories on the region? TomPaine.com went in search of better geographic tools, and found them at the University of Texas' Online Library, with links to dozens of maps—political, topographical, historical—of a region many Americans have never scrutinized geographically. More inside... [via TomPaine.com]
posted by silusGROK at 7:39 AM PST - 7 comments

Drew Carey had a date with a Furry on last nights episode. Can you think of any other occasions where internet based subcultures or fads have broken through to prime-time? Is it only a matter of time until someone on 7th Heaven gets in trouble because of a post on a weblog?
posted by quibx at 7:22 AM PST - 36 comments

And my opponent was all like beepbeepbeepbeepbeep... Bob Ehrlich is running for governor of Maryland. Bob Ehrlich's ad agency has seen the Apple ads and likes what it sees. Bob Ehrlich and his agency think it would be a great idea to jump the Zeitgeist Train: "I used to be a Democrat, but I'm switching."
posted by baltimore at 7:12 AM PST - 14 comments

Distributed computing gets a huge success. The folding@home project has successfully mapped the folding of a protein, which could lead to important research into degenerative disorders. They achieved 2000 years' worth of computer number crunching using the spare CPU cycles of people's home computers. For those of us without PhD's, you can read about it here. I'm still looking for space bugs.
posted by mkultra at 6:25 AM PST - 6 comments

One of the better online dictionaries for technology-related material that I've seen. And it's free! What's better than free? Nuthin. The title is a bit misleading as it's not as comprehensive as a traditional encyclopedia, but it's helped me every time I've needed it.
posted by archimago at 5:59 AM PST - 12 comments