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TRICK OR TREAT! Celebrate All Hallow's Eve by watching some great scary flicks on cable, including the premier of a newly restored print of a long lost Lon Chaney classic, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT [1927], or F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU [1922]. Or head out with all the other creatures of the night. You'll need to hurry and buy your mask, and your creepy contact lenses, your fake teeth, or maybe you just need a corpse...
posted by crunchland at 11:39 PM PST - 9 comments

Paul Bourke of Auckland has an excellent set of elegant and informative webpages for the kind of math you look at. Even if math perplexes you, his pages are still quite pretty and often make for interesting reading regardless. Every place I've worked between college and now, Paul has given me pages that nicely explained how to do somthing I needed to do and even personal help on occasion. Here's to you, Paul!
posted by tss at 11:22 PM PST - 5 comments

"I was driving a Lexus through a rustling wind." Did anyone recognize the opening sentence of Don DeLillo's Underworld? First lines often set the tone for a whole novel but they're fun on their own too. So, after reading this article by John Mullan, I found this interesting quiz to test my identification skills. Well! The warm-up exercises are recommended for giving you a false sense of security, btw... And here's a bonus quiz for Faulkner fans. Just one example: "The jury said "Guilty" and the Judge said "Life" but he didn't hear them." They don't get much better than that, do they?
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 10:40 PM PST - 36 comments

At age 15, it didnt occur to Karl Stanley that there was any reason he couldn't build his own personal submarine -- so he transformed a ten-foot steel pipe into one of the most innovative subs in the world. You too can build your own submarine out of an empty propone tank. Or from an industrial buoy. Or this one for $400. Or this one in the garage. More DIY submarine ideas and discussions at psubs.org
posted by stbalbach at 7:46 PM PST - 18 comments

U.S. Vows to Disarm Iraq with or Without U.N. We lead. You follow. Or get out of the way. How this will play out in terms of the very existence of the UN in the near future, the EU, and our attempt to maintain good relationship with Arab countries is anyone's guess. What is yours?
posted by Postroad at 6:09 PM PST - 84 comments

Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes; Big Brother goes retro. In the artistic tradition of classic London Transport poster art comes this sinister-looking campaign. Reminiscent of these parodies, but the art is better and they're not kidding.
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:36 PM PST - 29 comments

It's cute. It's funny. It's simple. It comes in different sizes and offers lots of goofy artistic possibilities. Its silly commercials [quicktime] will crack you up. It is nothing, really. It is just Meary.
posted by mediareport at 3:25 PM PST - 27 comments

Godplaying for the Do-it-yourselfer. Well, it's a frigid October Monday, and Bride of Frankenstein is on the telly. So, for the would-be re-animator, some helpful hints: First, some background research. Biochemical Cascades associated with cell death. And even Newton knew to stand on the shoulders of other mad scientists. You'll also need a corpse. Manbeef seems to be defunct. You might be able to steal one from a University. If you're on a budget, you can probably get a good deal from these guys. Apparently it's a buyer's market. Obviously you'll need one of these things too. This page has full plans for an assortment of tesla coils and lighting balls and the like. If you're a purist, you'll want your choice of human brains. This might be a good place to start. But you really gotta ask yourself: Why bother with all that wetware?
posted by condour75 at 2:30 PM PST - 4 comments

One of Our Inflatable Tanks is Missing. The UK has been returning to normal operation today after our latest storm (apart from the power, oh, and the trains but a state of disruption is 'normal' for the trains). The saddest story is of Christopher Vince, who died saving his brother. The silliest is that of the army and their lost inflatable tank.
posted by anyanka at 2:29 PM PST - 12 comments

The man who wrote 10,000 Grooks (grooks, grooks, grooks), Piet Hein, was also the inventor of Hex and the creator of the Soma Cube. In the design world, he is most famous for the SuperEllipse, a figure that rivals Buckminster Fuller's geodesics in ingenuity, an aesthetic balance between a circle and a square, and a mathematical figure which has been used to design a square in Stockholm. From the SuperEllipse, you can get the SuperEgg, a strange solid which will unexpectedly balance on one end and has been mistaken for an alien artifact.
posted by Winterfell at 2:16 PM PST - 11 comments

Todd Levin: "The United States of America According to my Racist Aunt" There's one in almost every family, and Todd does a hilarious map of the wisdom his racist aunt has shared over the years.
posted by leslie at 2:09 PM PST - 71 comments

Need something to brighten up your Monday? Get your mind off of work? Rather than actually surfing the internet, try the Realistic Internet Simulator!
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 1:56 PM PST - 11 comments

What a bunch of feral Slashdotters had to say when Blogger... got hacked recently “I would put forth the theory that communication may have been one of the very shortcomings that channelled so many veteran Slashdotters into their chosen field of hunched backs, Help Desk apps that prevent human communication, and Barney Miller-school hair concepts” – John Kusch
posted by joeclark at 1:31 PM PST - 33 comments

"We Will Never Forget 9/11/01" Hmm, so this is what happens when "9/11" becomes old news. I'm not American, I don't know anyone who was touched by what happened that day, but I am utterly appalled by this.
posted by chrid at 12:57 PM PST - 55 comments

Here is an excellent article on Rationality versus Values. Personally though, I'd rather be free of more mundane risks such as traffic accidents than say, extraordinary risks such as being held hostage in a theatre... but that's just my opinion.
posted by titboy at 12:40 PM PST - 10 comments

Still Avant-Garde After All These Years: Alexander Rodchenko: An outstanding collection of classic images and portraits from the bookmarkable, browserrific Howard Schickler Gallery. [Via gmtPlus9.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:53 AM PST - 5 comments

The Condiment Packet Museum exists to provide documentation and display of condiments found on packets. The packets in the Museum are specifically all packets other than sugar packets, which are currently well documented by other sources.
posted by DailyBread at 11:49 AM PST - 27 comments

Dear Saddam, How can I help? Whadya need? Weapons? Network capabilities?
posted by Raichle at 11:38 AM PST - 8 comments

Does this seem incongruous to anyone else? (-cnn) Two professors were shot and killed Monday at the University of Arizona's College of Nursing A student was "disgruntled" at the professors and shot at them. I am (sadly) not too surprised that something like this would happen on a college campus, but it does seem strange that it would happen at the College of Nursing.
posted by valval22 at 10:50 AM PST - 48 comments

More calls for stricter gun laws. Would new gun laws help or would criminals like John Mohammed just ignore any new laws and find a way to acquire more weapons anyway? [more inside]
posted by jasontromm at 10:45 AM PST - 164 comments

Formula One tweaked! The Formula One Commission met earlier today at what was touted as the most important meeting (PDF) in the last 20 years to discuss ways to rescue Formula One. The biggest outcome was to have single qualifying laps on Fridays and Saturdays, the historic Spa circuit was dropped from the calendar due to tobacco advertising restrictions. [More inside]
posted by riffola at 10:10 AM PST - 17 comments

America Still Unprepared - America Still in Danger, a new report sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, claims that "a year after September 11, 2001, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In all likelihood, the next attack will result in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to American lives and the economy. The need for immediate action is made more urgent by the prospect of the United States going to war with Iraq and the possibility that Saddam Hussein might threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in America." While of al Qaeda, George Tenet says that "the threat environment we face is as bad as it was before Sept. 11. It is serious—they have reconstituted, they are coming after us." This is not comforting (more inside.)
posted by homunculus at 10:03 AM PST - 4 comments

A European voice makes good case for Bush. Being ambivalent about Iraq, I found this to be one of the more thoughtful cases for Bush. Maybe if Dubya was making it this eloquently instead of lying and stonewalling people would be more supportive.
posted by McBain at 9:56 AM PST - 26 comments

Russian Theatre Debacle : BZ Gas? BZ Gas.. your friendly 'non lethal' incapacitator. Originally designed for military use, (" Just blow their minds, move in, and take over") they gave it to 2800 soldiers at Edgewood before the CIA got hold of it. Due to shifting wind patterns, BZ's tendency to trigger maniacal behavior, and the difficulties of controlling the amount of BZ absorbed during combat undermined its usefulness as a nonlethal incapacitant. An overdose of BZ could be fatal - and those tests had been concluded on physically fit army troops. This little puppy is simple to produce , and shows up in films, the Bosnian Serbian Army and also South Africa. Oh yeah - some people call it a warfare agent , others call it a Calmative agent... ( tell that to the relatives of 115+ russians). People disagree whether its short term effects are anything from 6 hrs or 2 weeks and long-term damage is still unknown.. Lovely stuff.
posted by HeadSessions at 9:38 AM PST - 47 comments

Your special day. Afterwards, you curl up in a corner with your new better half, gorging yourselves on leftover wedding cake and laughing over the pictures. You sift through the thoughtful presents your guests have selected, piles of dishware and linens, decorations and photo albums that will fill your home for years to come. Soon, you come to the most special present of all ... a coffee table book entitled Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America??!!
scroll down to #389
posted by grrarrgh00 at 9:26 AM PST - 19 comments

Oissubke's voyage continues this week (sorry for the delay, but I had to wait for a boat to come by Gough Island to pick me up) with the Kingdom of Talossa. Not only does this obscure nation have an online government website, but they've put all kinds of data online with their official database system. Not bad for a nation with a (hard to see) Berber heritage. They also have a fascinating language (PDF) and printable Talossan-English and English-Talossan dictionaries for the language geeks out there.
posted by oissubke at 7:50 AM PST - 10 comments

Remember the Dialect Survey ? The results are up.
posted by rtimmel at 7:31 AM PST - 10 comments

Lingerie Barbies. From FAO Schwarz. This is not a spoof.

(Personally, I'll pick black over white any day of the week, but that's another story)
posted by magullo at 7:18 AM PST - 33 comments

If sex is a pain in the a$$ (so goes the joke) then you are doing it wrong. But what if it's a pain in the head? 1 in 100 people will suffer from Orgasmic Cephalgia, causing blinding headaches when approaching orgasm. It's nothing more than a blood vessel dilating and causing pain that can only be stopped by coitus interruptus. Then again, it could always be a sexually induced brain hemorrhage...
posted by twine42 at 6:40 AM PST - 9 comments

Don't call her frigid. After ten years and almost four millions dollars, Glacier Girl, a P-38F ditched on the ice of Greenland, flies again in Middlesboro, Kentucky. While the restoration and recovery of any old craft is interesting, Glacier Girl was pulled out from under almost 270 feet of ice. Her story, in words and pictures. (and oddball html.)
posted by eriko at 6:03 AM PST - 6 comments

What makes for a successful life? Luc Ferry, French minister for education, recently released a best-seller which aims to work out what is success today and what makes for a successful life. So, what do MeFiers think - what is success? Who today is successful? What makes for a successful life?
posted by jonvaughan at 5:48 AM PST - 17 comments

The Guardian isn't so good at letting you link to their articles anymore. But if you use this link then click on "printable version" you might get to the site I want you to link to. My title being: If you're Jewish and American its hard to know whose side your on these days.
posted by donfactor at 4:52 AM PST - 20 comments

Sky Witness - New Site from Sky News Yet another another example of "big media" embracing audience involvement. Sky is asking people to "tell us in no more than 300 words how a particular news event touched your life," including eye witness accounts, and photos. The "most compelling" entries will be published on a special site at the end of the year. Anyone who has read the 9/11 Metafilter thread will know how extraordinary such commentary can be. Anyhow for the wordsmiths here, this could be a great opportunity to show just how clever you are ;-) My question to MF - how far can this go - should, or will big/national/local media open up far more to audience involvement?
posted by RobertLoch at 4:24 AM PST - 5 comments

The Postage Stamps of Donald Evans (scroll down a paragraph or two) A rich and complex internal world expressed through postage stamp art.
'When Donald Evans (born Morristown, New Jersey USA in 1945) was a boy, he drifted from his hobby of collecting postage stamps to creating his own postage stamps of countries he made up in his imagination ... He left behind an astonishing planet seen through its nations' postage stamps, thousands of them, all drawn to postage-stamp size, with all the familiar periphery of postage stamps hand-done ... '
posted by plep at 1:04 AM PST - 18 comments