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What does a engaged couple do if they can't decided who their bridesmaids are going to be? Well, one couple decided to ask you for your advice.
comment posted at 1:06 AM on May-21-02

Very high level of PCBs in whale raises alarms. "The orca found dead on the Olympic Peninsula earlier this year carried a level of contaminants that was among the highest -- if not the highest -- ever measured in killer whales, laboratory tests show". If that is the case with free ranging whales then I shudder to think what similar measurements on city dwelling humans will reveal. Does anyone know of similar contaminant research on humans? (via Baloney.com)
comment posted at 8:18 AM on May-13-02

Australia and Europe incensed over U.S. lies on free trade Bush: "The final provisions of the farm Bill are also consistent with America's international trade obligations, which will strengthen our ability to open foreign markets for American farm products". In other words, free trade good when we sell to you, bad when you sell to us.
comment posted at 8:45 PM on May-3-02

Fly The Copter You think it's easy flying a radio-controlled helicopter into somebody's head. My hi-score is 418. See if you can beat it.
comment posted at 12:28 AM on May-3-02

Missing since January 2001, and no one knew it? In January 2001, Rilya Wilson was handed over to people who claimed to work for the Florida Department of Children and Families. Department officials say that they do not have custody of the child. In fact, they don't know where she is, or who has her. The child's caseworker's been fired for falsifying documents in another case, and had been slacking in this one. Rilya's grandmother's attempts at following up were apparently stonewalled. No one knows where little Rilya is, but there are some suspicions that she may be the child known as "Precious Doe," a little girl found murdered in Kansas City. How does something like this happen? More importantly, what could be an appropriate consequence for Florida DCF authorities who lost a five year old child and didn't seem to care?
comment posted at 5:26 AM on May-2-02

"When I see what you've done to this beautiful flower, I just go berserk!" That's right. Everyone's favorite karate-kicking, ex-Green Beret, Harley riding, pacifist Native American hippie is back and online. He's been keeping busy the last 30 years, writing books, giving Jungian Seminars and making loads of cool schwag. He even has a QT trailers up for the long lost film Billy Jack Goes to Washington. A fitting return for one of the great 70's period pieces and an unheralded influence on many of today's action flicks. I may have to buy one of these just for the cool factor.

*raises fist*
One Tin Soldier rides away....
comment posted at 11:09 PM on May-1-02

If Yao plays in NBA for 10 years, half of his earnings will be enough to host as many seasons of the CBA league. Chinese Basketball Association player in the NBA is required to send big money back home.
comment posted at 6:09 PM on Apr-30-02

Won't Commit, Can't Commit Or Just Doesn't Know How? Are single men of a certain age better off alone...or just losers? The Observer's Nick Compton does a good job of presenting the contemporary evidence for both cases.[N.B. Forget, for the moment, women face the same dilemma...].
comment posted at 8:02 PM on Apr-28-02

TLC's Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes dies. A car accident in Honduras. I sure hope her record company behaves itself.
comment posted at 1:25 AM on Apr-26-02

Wow. (via Plastic) More info. here, if necessary.
comment posted at 8:25 PM on Mar-31-02

Everquest kingdom richer than Bulgaria. Norrath, the setting for the online game Everquest, has been found to be the 77th richest country in the world, sandwiched between Russia and Bulgaria. Research carried out in the United States shows that virtual internal markets, combined with illegal online trading on auction websites, mean that Norrath has a gross national product per capita of $2,266, bigger than China and India.
comment posted at 1:40 AM on Mar-31-02

Now this is an obsessive college basketball fan. Are you ready for the Final Four? Do you obsess about your favorite college or pro team?
comment posted at 7:08 AM on Mar-28-02

The Flo Control Project is a test project for image recognition algorithms developed by Quantum Picture. Basically, they rigged a home computer to control their cat door using image recognition software so that it would only allow cats to enter the house (and not skunks or raccoons), and then only if the cat wasn't carrying prey items (to play with in the comfort of the living room). The newest version of the experiment can differentiate between the two cats currently living in the house. Interesting stuff, not least because many people couldn't tell two cats apart simply by looking at their profiles. I suspect there are some wide-ranging non-feline applications as well.
comment posted at 4:39 PM on Mar-25-02

The Ironminds weblog is back! I for one have really missed the excellent writing that Ironminds used to provide, and I'm glad to see at least a little of it is returning.
comment posted at 7:09 AM on Mar-24-02

Jesus-With you Always ... except that 'Web Developer' is missing. I guess Jesus is not with me...
comment posted at 5:52 PM on Mar-21-02

Sims Survivor - 8 contestants left alone in a house. When the food runs out, who do you think will win? Follow it day by day. Great idea!
comment posted at 6:51 AM on Mar-20-02
comment posted at 7:10 AM on Mar-20-02

i hate spam, but i love spamradio... the guys at spamradio use text to speech software on spam messages they recieve and mix the results with ambient music for truly disturbing and amazing results. from "run your own porn site" to "start spamming now", this is quite a quirky bit of audio.
comment posted at 5:25 PM on Mar-19-02

Stupid Animals! Feast your eyes on these lovable but unintelligent-looking beasts. Who says the Web doesn't cater to all possible tastes? For the record, here's my favourite moron...
comment posted at 5:38 PM on Mar-17-02

This photograph got the World Press Photo of the year award this year. Check out the other winners too. There some absolutely amazing images there.
comment posted at 12:23 AM on Mar-17-02

My friend Duncan is comatose in a hospital clear across the country after a horrible car accident last weekend, and there is little I can do. His brother is keeping us all updated as to his progress, but the prognosis [shockwave: diffuse axonal injury] is not good. Yesterday, he suffered a mild heart attack, and they can't give him so much as an aspirin, because of his recent cranial bleeding. There's no time for establishing a formal open source project, but if anyone's got a few spare cycles to ping him (as his sister said, one of those wires plugged into him has to be a T3) and let him know we miss him, it'd mean a lot to us.
comment posted at 7:26 AM on Mar-15-02

It's easy to think of lawyers as greedy, overpaid blood-sucking pigs. But do we have any clue what lawyers earn? Yes we do, thanks to American Lawyer Media's (via law.com) annual roundup of lawyer compensation. Not all of which is surprising. For example, partners at the top corporate firms like Wachtell Lipton, or Cravath, Swaine & Moore or Davis Polk each averaged millions in 2001 ($3,285,000, $2,245,000 and $1,740,000, respectively). Even piddly little first year associates at those firms got $125,000 to start. (We're talking 24-year-old law school grads with precisely zero professional experience and know-how. Zero.) But most newbie lawyers don't win those jobs. Also difficult to land are entry-level positions at district attorneys' offices, but they're not nearly as lucrative. A junior Manhattan D.A. earned $45,000 last year (up from $42,000 in 2000). But locking up criminals beats toiling for civil rights at a not-for-profit like the New York Civil Liberties Union, which paid entry-level lawyers only $35,000 last year. Over all, best off are lawyers who work for big companies. Top counsel at IBM last year earned a measly $506,000 in cash (salary & bonus), but throw in stocks & options and his compensation totaled $7,795,613. Compared to that, you have to worry about the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court whose family in 2001 had to struggle along on $192,600.
comment posted at 5:05 PM on Feb-28-02

your quest for a loyal compatible sex partner will come to an end, this website has the perfect answer as well as many other answers to common difficulties
comment posted at 3:26 AM on Feb-27-02

Patriots win it 20-17. Everyon thought it would be a blowout for St. Louis, But the Pats pull it out with a last minute field goal. All in all, a good nail-biter of a game. If it can't be my Giants, at least it's an east coast team.
comment posted at 10:08 PM on Feb-3-02

Eighties' design guru goes all Naomi Klein on us. Deeply impassioned screed from Neville Brody, original designer of the UK style'n'music magazine the Face, on the responsibility of designers (and creatives in general) in an age of extreme economic inequality. From a very interesting conference a few months ago called Superhumanism.
comment posted at 7:37 AM on Jan-29-02

Ha! Suckers! The first post of 2002 belongs to me. EST. Screw you Pacific Coast types.
comment posted at 9:24 PM on Dec-31-01

Angry Russian man slags off our great country.
Let's have him shot.
comment posted at 10:06 AM on Nov-29-01

Richard & Judy's new show on Channel 4 has begun. Three episodes in and Judy still looks nervous and Richard's marbles have still escaped him. But they've also taken a turn in 'National Enquirer' territory, featuring an item about non-movement excersise programmes and a video about a man who could change shape. As 'Off The Telly' reports: "This pandered to Richard and Judy’s well-worn obsession with anything of a freakish nature. The footage showed an ordinary person - or “Spookman” as Richard instantly dubbed him - whose face ostensibly changed into others as you studied it. The studio crew were convinced, gasping on cue, and Richard was rapt: “Oh man, I could watch this all night”
comment posted at 10:24 PM on Nov-28-01

Blockbuster now puts terrorism warning stickers on videos. Where's Cyndi Lauper when you need her? Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.
comment posted at 10:31 PM on Nov-21-01

Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, London Have always heard so much about this. Wild debates all Sunday long, no rest for the weary. Martin the Sex Speaker, Simon the Bulgarian and Barry the Marxist Mystic; who knows, do they have their own web sites ? Any other Speakers Corners one can go to, or is this purely a British phenomenon?
comment posted at 10:24 PM on Nov-21-01

Break the law just like the ruling party - get arrested. According to Singapore's Straits Times (article expires in seven days, I linked to the cache on Google), Robert Ho allegedly encouraged an 'attempt to incite violence or disobedience to the law'. The original posting that got him into trouble was encouraging civil disobedience, as if Singaporeans would dare do such a thing. (From Politech.)
comment posted at 1:18 AM on Nov-21-01
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comment posted at 4:20 AM on Nov-21-01
comment posted at 7:03 AM on Nov-21-01

"Mohammed, do you ever get that 'not so fresh' feeling?" The Captions Blog takes press photos and adds humorous fictitious comments. One of my favorites is a photo of two military men wrestling. The caption reads, "Soldiers prepare for Operation Sweet Sweet Lovin'." Kudos to the highly amusing moderator and creator Jeff Druzba. He seems to have prevented this site from devolving into the baffling inside references and unfunny gross-out jokes that proliferate on other group "humor" blogs.
comment posted at 10:31 PM on Nov-20-01
comment posted at 1:22 AM on Nov-21-01

Some people are so lazy that they’ll hold up the busiest airport in the world for 3 hours, rather than be inconvenienced. Is this a sign of social breakdown, this inability to follow the rules of civilization, or am I just a curmudgeon? Or both?
comment posted at 10:59 AM on Nov-17-01

The Real Feel Good Story of the Day.
comment posted at 11:18 PM on Nov-14-01
comment posted at 10:53 AM on Nov-15-01

Australia's Having Trouble Shirking Refugee Responsibility
In a sure sign of desparation, AU has approached TV (Tuvalu) about taking 1000 refugees in exchange for aid. They were rebuffed, for what should be obvious reasons. Its the same deal they've shopped around to PNG, FJ, and just about every Pacific island country since the refugees' boat caught fire near CX. PNG has already agreed to detain and process asylum requests on Manus. And the ultimate destination of the Tampa refugees was Nauru. Using Pacific island countries as chess pieces in the political calculations just isn't working -- I think it's highly revealing of AU attitudes toward the Pacific and asylum-seekers.
comment posted at 9:06 PM on Nov-13-01
comment posted at 10:55 PM on Nov-13-01
comment posted at 11:29 PM on Nov-13-01
comment posted at 11:34 PM on Nov-13-01
comment posted at 11:35 PM on Nov-13-01

Bing, Bangs, Liz, Hugh...and Baby Too Hollywood playboy Steve Bing doesn't want Liz Hurley's baby. Neither does Hugh Grant, although he'll be there for her. Divine Brown and Cannibal Sheila are nowhere to be seen. Confused? You will be, when you read this Sunday's episode of Soap. William Cash, an old friend of the mother-to-be, ungallantly spills the beans on an unholy transatlantic row.
comment posted at 6:30 AM on Nov-11-01

Uber-dictionary! If you're a student and get your access through a university, there's a fairly good chance the university subscribes to the Oxford English Dictionary online. Which means you get the OED too! regardless, it's 100x the dictionary m-w is.
comment posted at 5:35 AM on Oct-19-01

"They control culture. They control ideas. And I think the revolt of Sept. 11th was about 'F--- you! F--- your order'." Maybe Oliver Stone is an idiot. Don't kill the messenger here, but I think he's on to something... [more inside]
comment posted at 12:18 AM on Oct-16-01
comment posted at 12:37 AM on Oct-16-01

It's not germ warfare... and it's not terrorism, but it is the strongest argument to put off that Hawaiian vacation this winter to date. Nothing like a little tropical disease to take the shine off of paradise. I wonder what else is passing underneath the radar with this whole war on terror thing.
comment posted at 8:59 PM on Oct-15-01