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Serial killer blog. Well not really. More of a religious rant than true crime novel, but the case of the Son of Sam murders has been reviewed for the possibility of a second suspect. An article in Fortean Times may have opened the floodgates, but I am unable to find an online source. Did anybody else see this story?
posted by destro at 11:17 PM PST - 8 comments

"Plugs in the City" My Spock like left eyebrow went up questioningly at the ease with which Charlotte York discreetly ordered her embarrassing book with 1-click® shopping. She was going to buy it at the books store with Miranda, who had just come from a Weight Watchers® meeting and was trying to resist the cravings for Krispy Kreme®. Mmmm... original glazed is my favorite, too. While I enjoy the fact that HBO doesn't have commercials, I thought that is why I paid $20 a month. Some how I prefer real ads to this insidious crap. It was creepy and also destroyed a lot of the immersion of the show for me. The whole episode seemed stilted and odd.
posted by McBain at 10:10 PM PST - 56 comments

Life as a Blackman: The Game. A board game that depicts life from the perspective of a minority.
posted by josephtate at 9:41 PM PST - 20 comments

Goodbye Galen and Barbara. World-renowned wilderness photographer and writer Galen Rowell, and his wife and business partner Barbara Cushman Rowell, a photographer and writer in her own right, died early Sunday morning in an airplane crash outside of Bishop, Calif.
posted by faithnomore at 9:12 PM PST - 6 comments

Ever get a hankerin' for some Kangaroo?? Now, I know a lot of people who love some game meats, like rabbit or dear meat, but kangaroo? Snapping Turtle? Mmmm, lizard..the other green meat.
posted by lasthrsman at 8:15 PM PST - 35 comments

The unofficial Islaam News Page. Suddenly, everyone's a journalist- but are they credible? What's "unofficial Islam" anyway? Depends who you ask.
posted by sheauga at 7:35 PM PST - 5 comments

Trash homes a.k.a. earthships sound like the way to go. Now if they would start building them here in Seattle...
posted by folktrash at 7:17 PM PST - 15 comments

Redefining the keyboard. CPUs have gotten smaller, monitors have gotten wider, chairs have gotten ergonomic. Technology has resized our machines to fit our lifestyles, business needs, and personal comfort. But for the past 128 years, the mechanics by which we input text into machines has been dictated not by technology, but by the limitations of our hands. Soon, this era may be over if retired engineer John McKown gets his way. McKown has invented a palm-size one-handed wearable keyboard. Should we embrace this giant leap into mobile computing? Or are we not able to part with a century of QWERTY? (Via NYTimes. Similar ideas have also been discussed here previously.)
posted by PrinceValium at 5:15 PM PST - 19 comments

Why Are The English-Speaking Nations Crap At Foreign Languages? The standard explanation is that they're lazy and arrogant and expect everyone in the world to speak English. Well - surprise, surprise - that's not Philip Hensher's experience and it certainly isn't mine either. So why - or what - is it? [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:07 PM PST - 87 comments

Free Culture (8Mb flash). Lawrence Lessig's keynote speech at this year's OSCON conference is a stirring and effective explanation of how the entertainment industry, with the help of lawmakers, have undermined our fundamental right to create. Lessig asks, what have you personally done to stop them? This 30 minute long flash slideshow (mirror), compiled by Leonard Lin, tells you what happened and what you can do.
posted by waxpancake at 3:34 PM PST - 45 comments

The September 11th 'Ground And Freeze' order which halted air travel for 4 days didn't come from the president, nor SecTrans... not even the Adminstrator of the FAA. Nope, it came from Ben Sliney. [ Actual journalism in McPaper. Whoulda? ]
posted by baylink at 2:52 PM PST - 22 comments

SlamBall is America's newest sport. Combining Basketball, full-contact play, and massive trampolines into an extreme-team sport for the masses. Anyone seen it? Dude! or Dud?
posted by cell divide at 1:02 PM PST - 30 comments

Top-Earning Dead Celebrities Forbes' has published their annual list of what dead celebrities are earning. Shooting to number 4 this year; Dale Earnhardt, who kicks Andy Warhol off the list.
posted by mikemonteiro at 12:51 PM PST - 16 comments

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: A capital idea. Why did we not fasten a thread to our projectile, and we could have exchanged telegrams with the earth?. Bad idea, said Jules. Great idea, says NASA.
posted by thijsk at 12:43 PM PST - 27 comments

For the Ground Zero memorabilia collector who has everything... 9/11 wine charms! What's the tackiest piece of 9/11 memorabilia you've seen?
posted by illusionaire at 12:05 PM PST - 61 comments

Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe reiterates his threat to re-distribute land. "One farmer, one farm policy." What this fool doesn't realize (or perhaps more terribly, really does), is that this policy will cause a devastating famine, and bring about economic chaos: "Commercial agriculture is Zimbabwe’s biggest private employer, providing work — and, almost invariably, accommodation — for about 350,000 people. If Mr Mugabe carries out his threat to evict 2,900 white farmers, the workers and their families — a total of 1.2 million people — will join the ranks of the dispossessed..." Not only that, but his government has been terrorizing black farm hands and others thought to have opposed him in the recent "election." What can be done about Zimbabwe? The EU seems willing to help in case of famine, but there is no guarantee their money will get past Mugabe's pockets.
posted by insomnyuk at 12:04 PM PST - 30 comments

have you heard of quorn?
some people say it's great, others aren't so sure.
does anyone have personal experience with this type of food, and if so, what's your take? the next big thing or the new olestra?
posted by dolface at 12:01 PM PST - 54 comments

Kinder, gentler minders in Kabul? President Hamid Karzai has re-opened the Department of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Department head Mohammad Wazir Razi Kabuli promises no beatings or jailings for violating Islamic tenets, as was common under the Taliban Ministry of Virtue and Vice. Instead, "propaganda" will be used influence the people of Afghanistan. However, when asked what would happen if, for example, a woman was caught wearing makeup in public, Kabuli said "It's too early to talk about that."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:56 AM PST - 11 comments

This baby, a Norwegian coastal defense high-tech catamaran can travel at 60mph, fool radar and ride 5 feet above the water was in Washington, D.C. recently cruising the Chesapeake Bay to possibly be bought by the US Navy.
posted by stbalbach at 11:28 AM PST - 12 comments

Perseid Meteor Shower-(Peaks Sunday & Monday) "The August Perseids are among the strongest of the readily observed annual meteor showers, and at maximum activity can yield 50 or 60 meteors per hour. However, observers with exceptional sky conditions often record even larger numbers. Also, during an overnight watch, the Perseids are capable of producing a number of bright, flaring and fragmenting meteors, which leave fine trains in their wake."
posted by DailyBread at 11:19 AM PST - 13 comments

At kuro5hin a couple of weeks ago there was a post about what life was like in your area of the world. The idea led some enterprising person to create a website built for the same purposes using the original questions. Seems like a cool way to read about far away places from real people. It's not too full yet, but I'm sure that will change soon enough.
posted by rhyax at 10:48 AM PST - 19 comments

Can Dumbing Down Save Our Libraries?
An intersting story from The Sunday Herald that says libraries are facing a stark choice: modernize or die.
The author say we just can't win, if we put in a bank of computers we are accused of dumbing things down, if we demand silence in the reading rooms and purchase books that aren't "popular" we find ourselves charged with elitism.
He says the public library has an altruistic purpose of making knowledge freely available through the printed word. The trouble is that those high principles were undermined by the librarians themselves. Facing a revolution in communications, they tried to become all things to all people.
He focuses on England, but I think many of these issues are international. Are public libraries out of date?
posted by Blake at 10:38 AM PST - 26 comments

Tech support war stories compiled by category for your viewing pleasure. Every nuance of hardware and software is represented in this extensive collection. This is why the tier 1 techs wake up screaming at night.
posted by dr_dank at 10:00 AM PST - 14 comments

Amazing 9/11 Photographs From the late photographer, Bill Biggart. (via Fark)
posted by yarf at 8:52 AM PST - 35 comments

WorldCom examiner job goes to dinosaur Dick Thornburgh.
posted by engelr at 7:58 AM PST - 1 comments

The Apostrophe Protection Society: ...reminding all writers of English text, whether on notices or in documents of any type, of the correct usage of the apostrophe should you wish to put right mistakes you may have inadvertently made.
posted by acridrabbit at 7:57 AM PST - 57 comments

Brown Cloud threatens SE Asia Having flown into Mumbai a couple of times over the past years, and to Singapore once, I thought I saw this, but passed it up to gunk on the windows. Turned out it was gunk in the sky.
posted by rshah21 at 3:12 AM PST - 34 comments