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A trickle of reports coming out of North Korea paint a picture of a regime in its dying days
comment posted at 4:37 PM on Dec-29-04

"How Walmart Is Destroying America And The World: And What You Can Do About It" Available for pre-purchase, online, from Walmart.com. List price: $10.95. Wal*Mart price: $7.55. You saved $3.40.
comment posted at 8:06 PM on Dec-27-04
comment posted at 3:35 AM on Dec-28-04

A massive earthquake - the largest since 1964 - centred off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra has caused tidal waves that are devastating coastal areas around the Indian Ocean including Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia.

Eyewitness report from the south coast of Sri Lanka. The death tolls are still rising, there is the risk of further tsunamis and it is being estimated that 100,000s of people will be left homeless.
comment posted at 5:22 PM on Dec-26-04
comment posted at 12:44 AM on Dec-27-04

Heavy Metal FAQ. (More inside.)
comment posted at 12:05 AM on Dec-24-04

James Lileks vs. James Wolcott. That link is Wolcott's blog entry about this whole "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays" thing. This is Lileks' response. Can't wait for Round 2!
comment posted at 12:33 AM on Dec-23-04
comment posted at 12:34 AM on Dec-23-04

President Bush gave a Press Conference yesterday, and it was only his 17th to date. According to Editor & Publisher, this compares to 43 for Bill Clinton, 84 for George H.W. Bush, and 26 for Ronald Reagan at similar points in their presidencies. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has an analysis of yesterday's rare event, calling him "elusive". (Milbank was the same reporter who shredded Dubya a couple of years ago for granting an exclusive interview to Rupert Murdoch's trashy UK Sun while snubbing reputable US newspapers that would have been more likely to ask hard-hitting questions.) (The WashPost links require registration, which can be bypassed with BugMeNot.) Don't want to read the entire transcript? Try the poem "Man Date", instead. RudePundit took text from Bush's statements and turned 'em into poetry.
comment posted at 3:23 AM on Dec-22-04

Mirrors. Documentarian Bruce Jackson found "a group of about two hundred 3x4" identification photographs made between 1914 and 1937... in a drawer in the Arkansas penitentiary in the summer of 1975"; this (slideshow) is the online record of an exhibition.

It is impossible to look at these images and not think about the persons depicted there. But, save for one fact that is a given—and what we find in or infer from these images—we know nothing about those persons, and never will. The given is that they are all prisoners: for whatever reason, they have been deprived of liberty, the single piece of enduring proof of which is the image at which we presently gaze. The conclusions we draw, the feelings we have, the narratives we suppose—they are all our own. The images are mirrors, resonating with aspects of our selves we perhaps never before encountered.

Many of them are haunting; this one has been turned by time into a work of art. (Via Ramage.)
comment posted at 5:23 PM on Dec-21-04

The Vatican's university in Rome is starting a seminar on satanism and exorcism. "The seminar will conclude with the testimony of two exorcists who will explain how to distinguish between someone who is ill and requiring medical care, and one is 'possessed by demons.'"
comment posted at 12:40 AM on Dec-20-04

R.I.P. SuprNova Greetings everybody, As you have probably noticed, we have often had downtimes. This was because it was so hard to keep this site up! But now we are sorry to inform you all, that SuprNova is closing down for good in the way that we all know it. Apparently something went down last night that prompted this exit from the scene, a great loss indeed as suprnova was the gold standard for bittorrent sites. From the inside I have also learned work on exeem is being halted (any beta testers can verify?) trying to head off problems previously seen here.
comment posted at 3:21 PM on Dec-19-04
comment posted at 3:22 PM on Dec-19-04
comment posted at 11:06 PM on Dec-19-04
comment posted at 1:10 AM on Dec-20-04

Person of the Year. TIME magazine reveals their pick. Is anyone surprised?
comment posted at 12:47 AM on Dec-20-04
comment posted at 4:57 AM on Dec-20-04

Project C-90 An impressively comprehensive archive of pictures of blank audio cassettes. Via
comment posted at 4:53 AM on Dec-20-04

Predicting who'll benefit from anti-depressants From the study's abstract: "There are well-replicated, independent lines of evidence supporting a role for corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) in the pathophysiology of depression." The NY Times has a bit more readable explanation (reg-free link) of a recent investigation of into whether there is a genetic explanation for why some people get more from their drugs than others.
comment posted at 11:21 PM on Dec-18-04

Nineteen Faces :: Nik adds some thoughtful commentary to photos found on US Sex Offender Registry websites. I find Number Six to be most interesting.
comment posted at 7:32 PM on Dec-18-04

AARP poll finds older Americans favor medical marijuana. With a medical marijuana case in front of the Supremes, and with a dozen states now with medical marijuana laws on the books, AARP decided to take a poll. Here's what they found: "Nearly three-fourths of older Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use." My father (a senior citizen) takes prescribed Marinol (synthetic THC) as an appetite stimulant; my wife, a cancer survivor, got through chemotherapy largely on the strength of the weed I was able to buy on the street in New York. [MI]
comment posted at 3:54 AM on Dec-20-04

Proof of Ohio Election Fraud Exposed. Move over "election irregularities", say hello to "recount irregularites". Hot on the heels of Blackwell's about face on his promise to let the recount proceed unmolested, and a Karen-Silkwood-esque attack on the "recount activist" who broke that story, comes even more damaging allegations concerning the central tabulators. The Kerry-Edwards campaign is nominally on the case, and the NY Times is finally picking up the story. Is American democracy hanging by a thread?
comment posted at 5:55 AM on Dec-17-04
comment posted at 6:31 AM on Dec-17-04
comment posted at 6:35 AM on Dec-17-04

The great thing about Ofoto and other photo printing sites is that you can instantly put up photos of an event for your friends to see and get prints made. But sometimes you accidentally leave them public. I give you: Lindsay Lohan's Thanksgiving.
comment posted at 11:48 PM on Dec-15-04

It's a Wonderful Life in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies.
comment posted at 4:35 AM on Dec-16-04
comment posted at 5:27 AM on Dec-17-04
comment posted at 9:57 PM on Dec-18-04

Help Save Chinatown Nope, not the Polanski classic, but London's Chinatown. I found this on the Reverend Rat's London street life blog, and the BBC seems to confirm it: London's Chinatown is becoming a victim of its own commercial success, in stark contrast to some others in the world which are shrinking dramatically or being superseded by the so-called ethnoburbs.
If you don't know much about Chinatowns, the Wiki entry is as a good place to start as any.
comment posted at 3:14 AM on Dec-13-04

Hate consumer culture? Authors of the new book, Rebel Sell, argue you've been co opted by the very consumer culture you thought you had rejected
comment posted at 5:22 AM on Dec-12-04
comment posted at 5:23 AM on Dec-12-04
comment posted at 5:38 AM on Dec-12-04
comment posted at 5:40 AM on Dec-12-04

The perfect Christmas gift for the geek in your life. Or maybe you need something for your new niece or nephew? Then again, this site may have all the stuff on your gift shopping list.
comment posted at 11:30 PM on Dec-11-04

1 million U.S. troops have gone to war The data also show that one out of every three of those service members has gone more than once. The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted since the war started in Iraq. Few experts are surprised to hear that a recent army survey discovered that half the soldiers were not planning to re-enlist. Experts are divided over how stretched America’s military really is. But they agree that another conflict would put the military in overdrive. Another war would require a shift to a “no-kidding wartime posture in which everybody who could shoot was given a rifle and sent to the front,” according to John Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org. - US Army plagued by desertion and plunging morale.
comment posted at 5:15 PM on Dec-11-04

Eminem is Right If yesterday’s rock was the music of abandon, today’s is that of abandonment
comment posted at 4:54 PM on Dec-11-04

241 titles on 282 disks, just $4,995 (after discount). It's the Criterion Collection Holiday 2004 Gift Set, exclusive from Amazon, all of the series' published DVD's through October*. One wonders who has the money for such a thing. (Not many -- current sales rank 26,154). Heck, for that kind of dough you can get one of these contraptions. Or, alternatively, you could feed 72 third world children for a year. Now, Criterion does great work, but as the comments point out, this supposedly complete collection does not include its out of print titles like John Woo's "The Killer" (current eBay bid: $148) and, sadly, the beloved This is Spinal Tap (High bid: $61). (At least it's a good investment). So, subtract the ones I already own and love, like The Third Man and some that are simply awful you could probably save scads with some selective shopping. Sure, it would be satisfying to own so much great film, but I find more and more I have no use for re-watching movies, unless I am joined in my satellite of love by some good companions. Anyway, happy consumer month!
comment posted at 11:25 PM on Dec-11-04

The ever-gracious Ann Coulter on why Canada is "lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent." A foreigner's (can anyone figure out where from?) incisive media-mash highlighting some [more] nauseating drivel from rockstars of the far right. (via wonkette)
comment posted at 12:22 AM on Dec-10-04

The New Games Journalism is a manifesto written earlier this year in an attempt to re-shape the way that video game reviews are written, moving away from a stats-based view (these are the weapons, the graphics quality is X, the A.I. is as good as Y), and toward a more narrative approach. The goal, essentially, should be to convey to the reader what it's actually like to play the game. Be sure to follow the link to "Bow, Nigger" as an example. This review of Eve Online (pdf) is another good example. Are other areas of media criticism in need of a revolution?
comment posted at 6:26 PM on Dec-9-04

Beware ... step away from the laptop. Laptop computers may damage male fertility. Dr. Yefim Sheynkin of the State University of New York (Stony Brook) reports in the journal Human Reproduction. "Laptops, which reach high internal operating temperatures, can heat up the scrotum which could affect the quality and quantity of men’s sperm." "...Sheynkin, director of male infertility and microsurgery at the university. 'Don't get me wrong -- the laptop computer is very useful and helpful. But we need to be cautious.' "
comment posted at 10:28 PM on Dec-8-04

The folks who hacked Amazon, Ebay, Google, Linux and TiVo have now Hacked Your Head. Yup, it's an O'Reilly book (no, not THAT O'Reilly Hack). 8 of the 100 Hacks are online, including the Elevator Button Analogy (pdf format). And they've got a blog, with some extra hackery. Free your mind. Forcibly, if needed.
via GleepGlop
comment posted at 10:29 PM on Dec-7-04

Recently we've all been thinking about flat (or better, faceted) hierarchy web apps that organize email, photos, bookmarks, and general knowledge. The common threads are metadata (tags, categories, labels) that enrich relationships within and hence searchability of large collections. But besides marketroid hype (buzzwords, snark) and a computer that plays Twenty Questions what else can we do and study using faceted data structures: searchable culture references in The Simpsons, library science, computer filesystems, A.I. development, models for human memory and cognition?
comment posted at 1:02 AM on Dec-6-04

A history of Mondo 2000 : "It had arrived at a particular moment where there was at least a subculture of people in the computer community that were ready for it," remembers Sirius. "At the time there was no competition at all. There was absolutely nothing to compare it to. It talked about how technology was important in our lives at a time when people were in denial about it."
comment posted at 3:38 AM on Dec-6-04

For anyone who still believes "reality" shows are legit, Time magazine's Joel Stein has the scoop in the LA Times (free reg. required) of "unscripted" programs with "real" people following carefully-written plots. He's even obtained a smoking gun: a Queer Eye script (.pdf) in which "every moment is planned in advance, including a few specific lines for the straight guy to deliver." The Osbournes features canned sound effects and phony reaction shots. Every scene in The Simple Life is so scripted, its producers stopped calling it a reality program, preferring the odd "soft-scripted show" euphemism. In short, the entire genre is a rather transparent fraud.
comment posted at 1:05 AM on Dec-6-04

Elite Designers Against IKEA
comment posted at 4:38 PM on Dec-4-04

The best essay on hip-hop I've read...
comment posted at 1:24 AM on Dec-4-04
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comment posted at 4:57 AM on Dec-4-04
comment posted at 4:56 PM on Dec-4-04