MetaFilter

Over 1300 people have jumped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge since it was built in 1937. Is it time to stop just filming them and install a net or fence-type "suicide barrier" to keep these people from killing themselves? Student-studies at Berkeley argue that barriers are effective. And Mary Zablotny, mother of a jumper, wants to know: "what kind of monster would stand there before me and tell me that aesthetics are more important than my son's life." Opponents argue that suicide is a public health issue that requires a holistic response, and is ill-addressed by simply blighting public landmarks, offering some - ahem - innovative alternatives. [some previous discussions]
posted by scarabic at 6:39 PM PST - 123 comments

Reasonable people are capable of thinking about complex issues without resorting to simplistic oversimplifications. These two scholarly types discuss what seems obvious but lacks traction amongst most people. What can be done to make these voices heard and more importantly, accepted?
posted by mulligan at 5:15 PM PST - 35 comments

Tom Baker does 'Video Killed The Radiostar' Poigniant application of the new BT Text service. [via]
posted by feelinglistless at 4:21 PM PST - 51 comments

The Hype Machine tracks MP3 blogs so you don't have to.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:15 PM PST - 24 comments

Hello and welcome to Weird Meat(.com).

I've eaten dog, cat, rat, cockroach, camel penis, bee larve, scorpions, spiders, night hawk, and pre-born duck embryo without feeling ill. Can't say the same for Taco Bell or McDonalds.

Also see Ox Knee and One Day Old Chicks for more wonderful articles documenting the Weird Meat experience.
posted by benhugstrees at 3:22 PM PST - 44 comments

Ohio Senator: Bar adoptions by the GOP ---In response to Ohio Senator Hood's bill to bar adoption by gays and lesbians, one Senator uses humor to counter hate: ...To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that ``credible research' shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing ``emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.' However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims. Just as ``Hood had no scientific evidence' to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said. ...
posted by amberglow at 2:58 PM PST - 29 comments

US Sgt enlists Canadian hackers to take down weblog? Apparently a US chaplain posted some information about visiting a base that doesn't exist. Some networking people are concerned and since Canada's hockey team was out early in the Olympics, thought some Canadian hackers may be able to help...
posted by Coop at 2:43 PM PST - 9 comments

A few years ago, Sam Brown of explodingdog.com started drawing red robots (including my personal favorite). Other people started drawing similar red robots, and Sam collected links to them. Back in 2001, I posted to MeFi about the phenomenon. Then I forgot about it. But the meme continued to expand. Now, if you do an images.google.com search for "red robot," you get dozens and dozens of Sam Brown bots. The bot also shows up on Flickr. He also comes in blue, green and pink. And perhaps some other flavors.
posted by grumblebee at 2:34 PM PST - 17 comments

Tetrod is a jigsaw puzzle and a four-sided domino game mixed together. -- Java puzzle game; choose 3x4, 4x4, 5x4, or 5x5.
posted by Gator at 2:32 PM PST - 9 comments

Ninja and Zombie A short film and internet serial about the daily lives of a ninja and his roommate, a zombie. Episodes are available on the site or via podcast feed. [via mefi projects]
posted by boo_radley at 2:21 PM PST - 7 comments

Rephotographing Atget: Eugene Atget photographed Paris from 1888 until his death in 1927. Christopher Rauschenberg retraced Atget's steps in 1997 and 1998, photographing the same scenes, and documents his project in a gallery at Lens Culture. The gallery includes an audio discussion of the project. [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:02 PM PST - 19 comments

Marcus McKinney was arrested Wednesday for the gang-related shooting of Michael Jacola at Orange Park High School in Jacksonville. Florida. Marcus was caught because left his photo on his Myspace.com profile alongside various comments about belonging to a gang.
posted by tapeguy at 12:31 PM PST - 39 comments

Venezuela bans US Airlines. The Chavez government announced yesterday that as of March 1st, Continental and Delta will no longer be allowed to fly into Venezuela, and American's flights will be restricted significantly (allowing AA to continue their Miami to Caracas route, which is the same one that Aeropostal flies to the US). We've talked about Chavez in the blue before, and this may be simple political posturing in an effort to open more routes for Aeropostal and other Venezuelan airlines, but between this, and the recent comments by Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Porter Goss, are we looking at a new low in US/Venezuela relations?
posted by toxic at 12:08 PM PST - 45 comments

Feet Meat. {Probably NSFW}
posted by dios at 11:18 AM PST - 49 comments

Max Rodenbeck reviews a new collection of Osama bin Laden's speeches and a biography by Peter Bergen. David Cole discusses the US side of the conflict, reviewing the latest book by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon: "--when it comes to fighting the decentralized threat of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, Benjamin and Simon maintain, the best defense is not a good offense, but a good defense." More on al-Qaeda: Rodenbeck, MetaFilter.
posted by russilwvong at 10:57 AM PST - 1 comments

Ukulele Ike. We know his quavering, tentative, high tenor voice from his voice work as Jiminy Cricket, but Cliff Edwards -- aka Ukulele Ike -- was much more than that. Wikipedia offers a brief introduction to the man, his life, his works, and his lonely death. But, to my tastes, the best introduction to this once hugely popular singer is the man's own voice (mp3 links).
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:47 AM PST - 5 comments

The story of an autistic basketball player in his first game (youtube video) is an amazing story. It's worth the three minutes and you might even shed a tear of joy by the end.
posted by mathowie at 10:44 AM PST - 96 comments

Have you ever thought "Bush should read this book". Anatomy of a meme.
posted by stbalbach at 9:54 AM PST - 32 comments

My eensy-beensy alma mater in eastern Wisconsin currently has the only undefeated men's basketball team in the nation. This is not just in the NCAA, but in the NAIA as well. It's a Division III team, and its only loss this season didn't count--it was to Division I UW-Madison in an exhibition game. Like most Division III schools, Lawrence offers no athletic scholarships whatsoever. Its immediate past president, Richard Warch, in a 1987 speech at the NCAA national convention, controversially called for abolishment of all athletic scholarships.
posted by gillyflower at 9:53 AM PST - 16 comments

Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Art Buchwald is dying. On today's The Diane Rehm Show on NPR, he was interviewed in the Washington hospice he has moved to, about many topics, including his decision to suspend treatment for his advanced kidney disease, and live out his life in hospice.[more inside]
posted by paulsc at 8:47 AM PST - 18 comments

What if the South had won the war? Professor and director, Kevin Wilmott, brings you his vision of a Confederate victory with C.S.A. The Confederate States of America. Not quite Harry Turtledove, NPR examined Wilmott's satirical look at a not quite so possible future and offered their opinion of it. Trailer, anyone?
posted by Atreides at 7:48 AM PST - 359 comments

nsfw/(Defekto|Vomitus): (presence|representation) (emulsiates|animates) (real|imagined) (Baltimore|portal)./id
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:30 AM PST - 11 comments

I'm no dancer, but I'm fascinated by the Dance History Archives. The index of dance styles is comprehensive, and the individual entries provide everything from history to related music links. (Jitterbug, May Pole, The Watusi) There's a short glossary, an index of dancers, a voluptuous section on burlesque (including some great NSFW pictures), an archive of posters (Josephine Baker!), and so much more. The list of Dancer Related Celebrities is pretty extensive (Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth), although there's no Jennifer Grey, so I guess Baby got put in a corner after all.
posted by OmieWise at 6:46 AM PST - 17 comments

London's mayor suspended for four weeks for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard.
posted by atticus at 6:34 AM PST - 66 comments

Only in Tucson can the Mayor and his wife get rear-ended by a stagecoach. It all happened during the annual Rodeo parade in downtown Tucson. There is a fantastic made for TV video of it attached this story.
posted by Guerilla at 6:23 AM PST - 15 comments

Black Box Voting has completed their analysis of log files from Palm Beach (FL) county voting machines stemming from the Nov 2004 general election. You know it's not good news when the article starts with: The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night.
posted by taumeson at 6:18 AM PST - 96 comments

We all have a lot of questions that are very hard to answer. Like how to prepare cereal, how to prepare a Pop Tart correctly, and how to walk like a ballerina. Luckily, wikiHow is there to help us dummies.
posted by a47danger at 6:05 AM PST - 16 comments

Samarra is in the news. The modern city is small, but built on the colossal ruins of the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Google Earth reveals amazing details of the ancient city, one of the largest archaeological sites in the world.
posted by grahamwell at 5:04 AM PST - 16 comments

UAE, Jolted by Port Deal, Is Key Western Arms Buyer The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the centre of a growing controversy over its proposed management of U.S. port terminals, is one of the world's most prolific arms buyers and a multi-billion-dollar military market both for the United States and Western Europe.
posted by Postroad at 4:57 AM PST - 57 comments

On this date in 1848, The Communist Manifesto was published. Howard Zinn: "I don’t see much point in abstract theorizing or getting into arguments about Marxism, Leninism, etc. ... Theoretical analyses are useful but not crucial. There is a lot of wasted time in such endeavors, but not all is wasted. Marx’s Communist Manifesto was a theoretical analysis, immensely useful and inspiring. His first volume of Das Kapital was useful too. His second and third volumes, and his Grundrisse, were probably a waste of time!" Informal Poll: How many of you have actually read the entire Communist Manifesto? (I haven't.)
posted by mickeyz at 3:57 AM PST - 42 comments

Twilight for Black Farms. An interesting topic at NPR. Photos. Audio. Essay.
posted by dgaicun at 2:55 AM PST - 6 comments

Einstein was a very clever man, but dear lord did he write some weird things on his blackboard... (It's Friday, it's Fun, it's not Flash. Never mind...)
posted by twine42 at 2:54 AM PST - 23 comments

Odd Supernova Amateur and professional astronomers rejoice , point your telescopes at RA: 03:21:39.71 Dec: +16:52:02.6 to watch a new phenomenon that could turn into a supernova explosion
posted by elpapacito at 2:30 AM PST - 17 comments

One in five Americans consider themselves "holy", according to a recent poll by the Barna Research Group.
posted by bcveen at 1:52 AM PST - 52 comments

It has always amazed me what people will do for free and how much innovation goes on outside of the commercial videogaming industry. Gamehippo, Caiman, Acid-Play, Noodan and Planet Freeplay collectively have thousands upon thousands of freeware games of varying quality, with everything from Super Mario clones to completely original titles.
posted by pancreas at 1:48 AM PST - 3 comments