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Dunstan Orchard designed his site header to mimic the view and weather of his parent's home in Dorset. To do so he created 90 illustrations reflecting the local weather such as cloud condition, wind, humidity, etc. and matched the pics with a XML feed from weather.com. The design features a panel which folds out from beneath the current illustration and presents detailed local weather for both San Francisco & Dorset. Dunstan's talent and attention to detail are astounding. I've only scratched the surface of what he does with this site.
posted by filchyboy at 10:22 PM PST - 25 comments

Theo Van Gogh, murdered last week by a muslim in retalliation for a movie called Submission, a fictional short film critique of how women are treated within Islam. If you were curious about whether the film was worth dying for, the folks at iFilm have it on their site. It's basically an imagined monologue between a woman and Allah. It's 11 minutes long and is safe for work.
posted by mathowie at 7:52 PM PST - 36 comments

Discovering Japan. As a perennial outsider at loose in Japan, writer Donald Richie captures the joyous freedom of being foreign. The foreign observer is likely to be happy only if he sees his foreignness as an adventure, and recognizes that he has given up a sense of belonging for a sense of freedom, traded the luxury of being understood for that of being permanently interested. Richie, the philosopher-king of expats in Asia for the past half-century, arrived in Tokyo in 1947 as a typist with the U.S. government and never really left, writing dozens of books , on Japanese movies, temples, history and fashion, while enjoying himself as an actor, musician, filmmaker and painter. The Japan Journals: 1947-2004 is a monument to the pleasures of displacement. Richie watchers can observe, more intimately than ever, a man who is generally happiest observing. More inside.
posted by matteo at 5:28 PM PST - 12 comments

Let the Eagle Soar [mp3] John Ashcroft has resigned as attorney general, saying "the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." He leaves behind a legacy of DOJ Accomplishments in the War on Terror (many of which seem to have been accomplished by non-DOJ parties) despite not actually convicting anyone of terrorism. I feel safer already.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:31 PM PST - 73 comments

While trying to find anything about Japp Drupsteen's odd video piece Hyster Pulsatu (which I saw years ago on the sadly defunct Alive from off Center aka Alive TV and badly want to see again) I came across the site of the Netherlands Media art Institute Montevide/Time Based Arts collection. Quite an interesting catalogue, with many samples. No consumer releases, though they do rent tapes and discs for institutional screenings.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 4:26 PM PST - 1 comments

Lose WeightMoney Fast! If you click on this link, you'll go to an apparent sales site for "FatFoeTM Eggplant Extract" another 'miracle' weight loss aid. But click on the Order Now! link and you get a lecture from the FTC on how to avoid getting scammed by diet products that are too good to be true, all part of the US Federal agency's campaign against diet fraud.
posted by wendell at 4:10 PM PST - 12 comments

Struwwelpeter or Shockheaded Peter, twisted tales by Heinrich Hoffmann in Germany circa the 1840s.
posted by drezdn at 3:19 PM PST - 6 comments

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 was released today. Servers are reportedly being hit hard so you might want to try a bittorrent download. Comments from: The BBC, PC World, InformationWeek and a very good article from The Boston Globe. Users needing support should check out the Mozillazine Support Forums.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 2:20 PM PST - 74 comments

The Writings of Charles Darwin on the Web. Thanks to the British Library.
posted by plep at 1:16 PM PST - 11 comments

Conscience of an Economic Hit Man Amy Goodman of Democracy Now interviews John Perkins, a former international banker on how globalization is leveraged to cheat poor countries.

We've built the largest empire in the history of the world. It's been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It's only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.

posted by ao4047 at 12:13 PM PST - 17 comments

Anti Liger Alliance In 800 AD, Ligers stole Kubraday from humans, a secret day between Friday and Saturday. It's time to fight back!!
posted by mathporn at 10:52 AM PST - 12 comments

Last night's aurora borealis was seen in, among other places, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Recent sightings are reported here, and lots of charts and graphs that I don't understand are here courtesy of the government.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:42 AM PST - 20 comments

Pharmacist Refuses to Dispense Birth Control (USA Today link, sorry)
A pharamacist has decided that she's morally opposed to birth control and so has refused to dispense it to her clients. Neverminding the fact that its her job.

"The American Pharmacists Association, with 50,000 members, has a policy that says druggists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they object on moral grounds, but they must make arrangements so a patient can still get the pills. Yet some pharmacists have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill."

If a pharmacist refuses to fill your prescription and you suffer for it (pregnancy or whatever) wouldn't that pharmacy and pharmacist be culpable for your suffering?
Doesn't this just expose these drug stores to massive lawsuits? Or just massive boycotts?
posted by fenriq at 10:27 AM PST - 90 comments

Germs, Germs Everywhere... Get Over It "The makers of antibacterial products are fond of the word 'germs.' It is purposefully vague. Do they mean bacteria? Viruses? Both? Neither? Because the idea is simply to connote contamination. These products are as much about cooties as they are about viruses or bacteria."
posted by Irontom at 10:11 AM PST - 16 comments

The Mormon Peanut Butter Assassin David Race Bannon was serving as a Mormon missionary in Korea when he was caught up in a peanut butter smuggling ring that led to his imprisonment and eventual recruiting by Interpol for project "Archangel," a team of assassins trained to hunt down and terminate the leaders of child sex rings. Whew. Oh, and he has a book out. Is it just me, or does this sound a little . . . odd?
posted by mecran01 at 9:51 AM PST - 35 comments

Fooling the Bladder cops. Your best bet at beating a drug test.
Drug screens that do help? Aspirin. Golden seal does not. This is a list of procedures that labs use to detect countermeasures.
posted by keithl at 9:26 AM PST - 11 comments

Poverty, Political Freedom and the Roots of Terrorism [pdf]. "In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but in fact when you look at the data, it's not there," says Alberto Abadie, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
posted by gyc at 8:47 AM PST - 8 comments

Zicam is an amazing intranasal gel that shortens the duration and reduces the severity of the common cold. I've had four colds so far this fall (I've got a toddler) and all of them disappeared within a day. Problem is, now reports are saying that if you get this stuff too far up your nose, you could lose your sense of smell. Damn!
posted by fungible at 8:09 AM PST - 15 comments

If you want to use Firefox but still want the alt text for web images to appear when you hover the mouse pointer over them, then you want this.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:01 AM PST - 28 comments

Keith Olberman brings election fraud into the mainstream media On Countdown last night Windows Media MP3 he did a 16 miniute story on some strange goings on with the machines. Personally I think we need to move forward from the election, but, if no one checks this out and it's real, we're screwed!
posted by bas67 at 6:15 AM PST - 84 comments

A happier election story for some of us anyway
posted by donfactor at 5:40 AM PST - 2 comments

Do you suffer from chapped, crack lips? Are you an addict? You may well be, and not even know it. Read how these evil peddlers hook the kids... and then move onto the adults. But never fear - you can always follow the 12 steps.
posted by mattr at 4:33 AM PST - 39 comments