MetaFilter

So I was checking out Andre's FilePile, and I noticed the new page title: "ROR Alucard". A search at Google turned up over a hundred results...few of which really explained anything. This ASCII file was the most promising explanation. So what is it, who started it, and where did it come from?
posted by canoeguide at 11:46 PM PST - 18 comments

Fucking with StoryFuck.
posted by fraying at 6:59 PM PST - 35 comments

I wish I lived in Europe, if only for the month-long summer vacations people get on the continent. But I'm here at work in the U.S., surfing the net, only to find two of my favorite sites, The Onion and Satire Wire, are taking siestas at the same time. I wish I could get July off.
posted by msacheson at 2:49 PM PST - 21 comments

"Let's challenge the homosexual movement to play fair on the playing field of democracy." This bit of Newspeak is courtesy of the coalition of religious leaders and so-called "family" groups calling for a Constitutional amendment saying that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. (Of course, this leads one to wonder what laws will be enacted in order to legally separate the men from the, uh, women.)
posted by maura at 2:13 PM PST - 57 comments

Canadian wins this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest with an atrocious entry about the running of the Pomeranians. Personally, I prefer the second place winner's wonderfully tortured description of a butterfly in a cemetery. Sadly, the contest's official website seems to be down for the time being. [via mobylives]
posted by turaho at 1:46 PM PST - 7 comments

The Jim Morrison Simulatron

Sometimes, Modernhumorist can still make me laugh.*

"THIRTY YEARS AGO last week, Doors frontman Jim Morrison mixed drugs, alcohol and asthma to ascend to the big Whisky A Go-Go in the sky. Here in the virtual world, though, Modern Humorist has reanimated him in the form of lines and lines of programming code."

*Warning: Stupid Flash game
posted by GriffX at 1:40 PM PST - 9 comments

More painful than a Ricki Lake Show marathon? I'll take an afternoon with King Phalari, thank you very much.
posted by donkeysuck at 1:35 PM PST - 1 comments

Americans want self-regulated Internet - or do they? A Markle Foundation survey out today seems to contain contradictory responses: 60 percent say rules for governing the Net should be developed by non-governmental organizations. But 64 percent also say that government "should develop rules to protect people when they are on the Internet, even if it requires some regulation of the Internet." Um, so which is it?
posted by thescoop at 12:39 PM PST - 3 comments

Princeton president pines for peculiar persons. "Princeton University's new president, Shirley Tilghman, says her campus has a problem: not enough weirdos. 'I would like to think we could begin to attract students with green hair. We will take pink and blue and orange hair, too.'" The rest of the article is pretty bland, but that quote is hilarious.
posted by jeb at 12:37 PM PST - 9 comments

JAVE is an tool that helps ease the pain of creating ASCII art. In the days before GIFs, ASCII art roamed the plains of the Internet; people created hundreds of text-based pictures. Some spectacular examples are out there, but the rise of the graphical web has put a crimp in this art form. Perhaps tools like JAVE and FIGlet can help stave off the end.
posted by snarkout at 12:17 PM PST - 13 comments

Who benefits from this one?
It seems to me like Bush is doing crap like this just to see what he can get away with.
Is there something I'm missing about this decision that makes it a good thing? I hope so.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 11:32 AM PST - 47 comments

Bush is at it again.
Is the fact that he is able to get away with things like this an indication of a backlash against the more open years of Democrats in the White House?
Is this secretly what the American public wants?
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 10:38 AM PST - 48 comments

We want 'em shorter. Frustrated with links that are too long to 'cut 'n' paste 'n' click'? Makeashorterlink.com makes 'em shorter. Nifty! [ via, and because of the Gorjuss mailing list ]
posted by prolific at 10:29 AM PST - 35 comments

Puppetmaster is as addictive as it sounds. Another of Ernie's webgames in the vein of SurvivorBlog, PM involves twelve people, one of whom is a fictional creation of the "Puppetmaster," who's another player in the game. It's based on Kaycee and Debbie, in case you haven't already figured it out. I'm already hooked. (My current pick: Meghan. Look how fake the pic is!)
posted by tweebiscuit at 8:21 AM PST - 17 comments

It's all over, boys, we're obsolete A team of Australian scientists has announced that they've found a way to fertilize human ova with somatic cells instead of sperm. No actual living babies have been produced yet, but they expect results within the year.
posted by briank at 6:46 AM PST - 43 comments

What do Elvis, Jackie Robinson, and Lucille Ball have in common? They were the first 3 'famous persons' to have their FBI files put online. And this is about as close you'll ever get to the real X-Files
posted by bison at 6:41 AM PST - 6 comments

Do Republicans dream of electric sheep? A new study concludes that Republicans have scarier and more frequent nightmares than Democrats. As usual, the explanation for this is split among party lines:

"What do you expect after eight years of William Jefferson Clinton?" -- Kevin Sheridan, Republican National Committee deputy press secretary.

"If George W. Bush were the leader of my party, I'd have trouble sleeping at night, too," -- Terry McAuliffe, Democratic National Committee chairman.

Wow... deja vu all over again.
posted by Dirjy at 6:03 AM PST - 11 comments

Are all the journalists on summer vacation? The "big stories" on the CNN homepage: Second attempt launched to save injured whale, Backstreet Boys postpone summer concerts, and, the big news in the year's political sex scandal, D.C. police want to search congressman's apartment. Please wake me up when the real reporters return to CNN.
posted by tranquileye at 5:49 AM PST - 12 comments

Rioting in Jamaica. This one hits very close to home, as it's where my family is from and where I partially grew up. While the immediate effect of people dying is terrible, the long term effects of this news on tourism (Jamaica's top industry) will probably be devastating to an already poor country.
posted by owillis at 12:45 AM PST - 7 comments