MetaFilter

Collect art films on DVD? You probably already know of DVD Talk (and their forums). But What about Criterion Forums, a place to discuss boutique dvd labels (not just Criterion, but Kino, Anchor Bay, Blue Underground, Plexi, and others), as well as trade and purchase used titles from other collectors/ members? (You'll see more categories in the forums once you register.)
posted by dobbs at 11:34 PM PST - 10 comments

A returned U.K. expat on English drinking's sharp increase.
(supporting study with female subjects) (the gov's counterintuitive but well-researched solution)
Brits: any accuracy to the concerns?
posted by Tlogmer at 10:15 PM PST - 45 comments

So, does posting unreported news on mefi decrease the likelihood the corporate media will pick it up? Let's find out. Greg Palast is at it again, but is anybody listening? Former Texas Lt. Governor admits pulling strings to get Dubya into National Guard and then keeping quiet for big-time money.

... now all we need is a "control group" story. Any ideas? Email me.
posted by joe_murphy at 9:47 PM PST - 25 comments

Coral: The NYU Distribution Network "Are you tired of clicking on some link from a web portal, only to find that the website is temporarily off-line because thousands or millions of other users are also trying to access it? Does your network have a really low-bandwidth connection, such that everyone, even accessing the same web pages, suffers from slow downloads? Have you ever run a website, only to find that suddenly you get hit with a spike of thousands of requests, overloading your server and possibly causing high monthly bills? If so, Coral might be your free solution for these problems!"
posted by jonah at 9:26 PM PST - 4 comments

Are these really the 10 most hated men in rock?
posted by drezdn at 9:22 PM PST - 55 comments

Factfilter: Sen. Bob Graham's new book shows coverup.on Saudi's behalf Bush had concluded that ''a nation-state that had aided the terrorists should not be held publicly to account,'' Graham wrote. "It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety.'' And there's stuff about Iraq, too. After wearing 9/11 like a tiara during the convention, will the facts finally be aired?
posted by amberglow at 8:33 PM PST - 29 comments

It's Labor Day today. (newsfilter)
posted by semmi at 8:16 PM PST - 6 comments

Downing Street Says. 'Every day the British Prime Minister's official spokesman briefs a small coterie of political journalists'. This site feeds you summaries and lets you comment. (It's amazing what you can do with a quarter of a £mill chucked at you by John Prescott)

Other related worthy web projects: liftshare.com, timebank.org.uk, publicwhip.org.uk. And they want to 'identify, support and develop internet based projects that have real world impacts at very low cost per person helped'.
posted by iffley at 6:01 PM PST - 7 comments

Edison's New Media. American Memory (natch) offers this sprawling archive of audio files and filmic material. Uncovered while seeking an archive of piano roll recordings, unsuccessfully. Also noted: Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier and recordings from the American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920.
posted by mwhybark at 5:10 PM PST - 3 comments

Step aside xprize, here comes the elevator 2010 challenge. Sponsored by the Spaceward Foundation this is a "public challenge centered around the Space Elevator concept, offering a substantial prize for the first laser-powered tether climbing demonstration that can meet specific criteria." more here.
posted by Grod at 4:07 PM PST - 2 comments

Jet-Man Project. Man straps on composite wings and tiny jet engines. From AVweb.
posted by tss at 3:49 PM PST - 11 comments

The Yankees actually do suck (lately). Finding it difficult to win on the field, they try other means. This doesn't look good for people who think the Yankees aren't the personification of evil.
posted by found missing at 3:48 PM PST - 25 comments

Karate for Christ An inspired blend of Eastern Philosophy and Western Religion or just fundamentalism reaching too far? Also check out Kicks for Christ and the Christian Martial Arts Association . This begs the question: if the diciples were ninjas, would Jesus have died on the cross?
posted by graventy at 12:52 PM PST - 29 comments

Cheney disclosed. Rolling Stone's profile of our ambitious vice-president and the team he assembled to keep himself in power: "'They were like cancer cells,' says retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked on the Defense Department's Near East and South Asia desk during the buildup to the Iraq war. 'They didn't care about the truth. They had an agenda. I'd never seen anything like it. They deformed everything.'" [Did you know that "dancing revolution" blogeur John Barlow was a former Cheney campaign worker? I sure didn't.]
posted by digaman at 11:12 AM PST - 21 comments

Breeders are winning. "Conservative, religiously minded Americans are putting far more of their genes into the future than their liberal, secular counterparts." (WaPo link, bugmenot says try fedup@mailinator.com and fedup if you don't care to register. Definition of genetic fitness here.)
posted by jfuller at 10:04 AM PST - 77 comments

Hetch Hetchy is Yosemite's lost valley (the name is Miwok.) But it's no longer necessary as a water supply, so it may be time to bring it back.
posted by homunculus at 10:01 AM PST - 3 comments

Yesterday was the 13th Anniversary of Freddie Mercury's death, whilst [almost] coincidentally, tomorrow marks the occasion of the 13th Mercury Music Prize, which he had nothing to do with.
In that time, we've seen classical-punk piano recitals nominated, agit-prop rockers repeatedly snubbed and Radiohead routinely listed but falling short [though not this year.]. It's always a varied list, but are you really interested in the obscure, the fusion, the orchestral and the jazz?
Listen to 'em all here , and fill up the gaps here. A complete list of past nominees and winners can be found here , and the bookies seem to rate both The Streets and Franz Ferdinand worthy of the accolade, according to odds published here.
Will ascullion again pick the winner? Listen on the web to find out tomorrow, midnight GMT, or watch on digital TV in the UK . Previous years' threads here.
posted by dash_slot- at 9:15 AM PST - 14 comments

Twenty Years Ago, The BBC produced a topical drama called Threads - little did they know the furore it would go on to create. [more inside]
posted by metaxa at 3:16 AM PST - 32 comments

The quite amazing true story of the man on which Spieldberg's new Terminal is based. A tale of Iran, torture, McDonalds' breakfasts, dry-cleaning, and a man who really doesn't seem that well. And who doesn't meet and fall in love with Catherine Zeta Jones.
posted by humuhumu at 1:58 AM PST - 13 comments

The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history It's bigger than Bush vs. Kerry. It's about billionaire funded thinktanks (AEI, Heritage) paying columnists to sit around and make stuff up or legitimize crackpot theories (blacks are genetically stupid, japanese internment was okay). Furthermore its about radio, internet, blogs, tv news and publishing houses working in concert to pummel memes onto the American public. When this stuff infects your culture and is no longer the domain of the loons but now as mainstream as apple pie and Wal-Mart, what do you do?
posted by owillis at 12:54 AM PST - 74 comments

Joe Gould's secret made the brilliant New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell a legend, and the subject of a movie; but Greenwich Village icon Gould's Oral History of the World in Our Time wasn't as mythical as Mitchell presumed, even if it wasn't the masterwork Gould envisioned. Mitchell, after his lengthy exposé of Gould's imaginary 9-million-word opus in 1964's Joe Gould's Secret, spent years at work in his New Yorker office on a nebulous project and never published again; he died in 1996.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 12:23 AM PST - 5 comments