MetaFilter

It is very hot as I type this. I'm glad to see global warming being treated seriously in the traditional press. This comes after 3 days of near record temperatures here.
posted by zenhues at 10:10 PM PST - 10 comments

If you are interested in interactive fiction, this is a MUST READ. By "interested" I don't mean you want to know about the latest cool games--I mean interested in IF as an artform, its possibilities, its future. NOTE: to understand this exchange, you only need to know that one of the authors is the developer of an interactive storytelling program called "erasmatron."
posted by grumblebee at 9:36 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Junkies stricken with a new, mysterious ailment. All thanks to Follow Me Here for the link. This one's eerily familiar if you remember the Eighties, or just read And the Band Played On once or twice.
posted by Ezrael at 9:19 PM PST - 13 comments

For all of you who remember Cosmic Encounter, a java version of it has been released. Of course, this happened several years ago, I just forgot about it until now. It's a fun game, if you can find the people to play it with!
posted by starduck at 7:37 PM PST - 2 comments

Cash for birth control - if you're a junkie. Came across an ad for this organization while riding a train that serves a number of low income Chicago projects. I'm hard pressed to figure out what this is about. On first glance, it seems to be an effort to help drug addicted mothers avoid unwanted pregnancies. However, upon further reflection, it takes on the guise of a frightening genetic engineering program.
posted by aladfar at 7:36 PM PST - 27 comments

I love old stuff. Tombs, sepulchres, whatever. To me, it's a deep old hole with a mummy in it.
posted by Ezrael at 6:57 PM PST - 1 comments

"For those who are feeling this election doesn't much matter, who think it's a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the court is the reason to care," said Lois Williams, senior counsel for litigation at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, a liberal advocacy group.

"If we get another Scalia or Thomas, we are courting disaster," said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way. "We are just one election away, and one or two new justices away, from the civil and constitutional rights we take for granted being eroded or eliminated overnight."
posted by veruca at 5:11 PM PST - 16 comments

So, how big did you say that app needed to be? Radsoft Labs knocks a Windows DNS client down from 3.5MB to 7*KB*. [Via RISKS Digest.]
posted by baylink at 2:07 PM PST - 3 comments

Plan 9 from Bell Labs open sourced. [posted up top so the open source people who weren't reading the unrelated other Plan 9 thread don't miss it.]
posted by baylink at 12:56 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

"Look, just make the damn drugs, would you, kids? My connection needs them...I mean, it's for education." What the hell was this guy thinking? I'm a big booster of the illict pharamceticals, but nevertheless you have to show at least a little common sense.
posted by Ezrael at 11:55 AM PST - 5 comments

We're one step closer to William Gibson's vision as reported in today's NY Times Magazine article, "The Mind that Moves Objects."
posted by grumblebee at 9:33 AM PST - 14 comments

Two-Faced Kitten Dies
And the original AP story (with pictures) lead me to believe that it would survive. Too bad — I have a soft spot for this sort of "abomination" (a two headed/brained-snake was the subject of my favorite paper on cognitive ethology). But seeing this story made me remember the most remarkable case of human conjoined twins [more >>]
posted by sylloge at 3:28 AM PST - 9 comments