MetaFilter

Donald Rumsfeld, Revealed - Parts 1 and 2. A nice, brief historical roundup of the man who - in the words of John McCain - is "one of the worst secretaries of defense in history."
comment posted at 10:13 PM on Feb-20-07

George Takei responds to Tim Hardaway's recent comments.
comment posted at 4:12 PM on Feb-20-07
comment posted at 4:27 PM on Feb-20-07
comment posted at 5:10 PM on Feb-20-07

The Big Four Become to Become the Big Three? EMI confirms Warner Music takeover offer.
comment posted at 4:19 PM on Feb-20-07

The Nisshin Maru is on fire. After being rammed by the Greenpeace Ship Sunrise, chased and harassed by anti-whaling activist Captain Paul Watson, and playing set to contemporary artist Matthew Barney's film Drawing Restraint 9 (which co-starred Barney's wife Bjork), the Nisshin Maru, flagship of Japan's whaling fleet has been crippled by an onboard fire fueled by whale oil, spelling a possible end to whaling in Japan.
comment posted at 4:02 PM on Feb-20-07
comment posted at 8:52 PM on Feb-20-07

Youtube stars NSFW MC Mack, Little ***king Kev and Ginger Joe getting more fame then they could have possibly imagined. More inside...
comment posted at 4:16 PM on Feb-20-07

In The Air Tonight. Acapella R&B group Naturally 7 perform their version of the Phil Collins classic on a Paris Metro.
comment posted at 3:49 AM on Feb-18-07

The Way We Are: David Sedaris makes coffee with tea while ruminating on identity
comment posted at 4:04 AM on Feb-18-07

A Gallery of Topless Women on the Streets of New York (nsfw) - Jordan Matter's photographs are alternately stunning, striking, inspiring, and provocative.
comment posted at 3:12 AM on Feb-16-07

Jan Ruff-O'Herne's idyllic childhood in Indonesia came to an abrupt end in 1942 when the Japanese invaded and forced her into sexual slavery. In this transcript she reveals her story; how she hid the secret from her children until she finally broke her silence in 1992 to demand an apology from the Japanese government. This week Ruff-O'Herne joins other former sex slaves in testimony before the US Congress as part of a resolution urging Japan to apologize. Japanese politicians are working to stop the resolution from passing.
comment posted at 8:38 PM on Feb-15-07
comment posted at 9:12 PM on Feb-15-07
comment posted at 9:13 PM on Feb-15-07
comment posted at 9:25 PM on Feb-15-07
comment posted at 9:52 PM on Feb-15-07
comment posted at 10:17 PM on Feb-15-07
comment posted at 10:23 PM on Feb-15-07
comment posted at 10:24 PM on Feb-15-07
comment posted at 11:01 PM on Feb-15-07

The One that Got Away - Tom Waits
comment posted at 9:32 PM on Feb-15-07

Alien vs. Predator? *Yawn* Freddy vs. Jason? *Puh-leeze* For true ass-kicking video mashup fun, I'll take Terminator vs. Robocop. [Part 2]
comment posted at 5:24 PM on Feb-15-07

BoxHead - An entirly addictive zombie shot 'em upper. (via digg)
comment posted at 5:30 PM on Feb-15-07

Tentative agreement reached with North Korea. The six-party talks in Beijing finally succeeded: under the agreement, North Korea will close its main nuclear reactor within 60 days, in exchange for food, fuel aid, and steps towards normal relations with the US and Japan. The deal still has to be approved by the six governments. Analysis from the New York Times. Background from Richard Bernstein in the New York Review of Books, and from the International Crisis Group. Previously.
comment posted at 2:06 AM on Feb-15-07

You knew it was coming. Fox News's "Daily Show for conservatives", The 1/2 Hour News Hour.
comment posted at 10:21 PM on Feb-14-07
comment posted at 1:27 AM on Feb-15-07

The Fountain "No matter how good CGI looks at first, it dates quickly...So I set the ridiculous goal of making a film that would reinvent space without using CGI." Director Aronofsky tapped into the microphotography work of Parks and Parks to bring a new look to special effects in science fiction cinema.
comment posted at 10:17 PM on Feb-13-07
comment posted at 10:42 PM on Feb-13-07
comment posted at 11:25 PM on Feb-13-07
comment posted at 11:27 PM on Feb-13-07
comment posted at 1:14 AM on Feb-14-07

I Am Trying to Believe. Well, maybe not. (Previously: Best, shortest review of a NIN cd, ever.)
comment posted at 10:31 PM on Feb-13-07

The one dollar bill: 2.61 inches wide, 6.14 inches long, 0.0043 inches thick. Wait - that's all of them. What happens if you just can't see the bill? Some 180 other countries have non-visual ways to determine what denomination a bill is, but the USA does not. The ACB has twice tried to introduce resolutions to fix this, with no results. A recent lawsuit, however, may finally make the change happen. After all, It's Our Money, Too.
comment posted at 11:03 PM on Feb-13-07

Flurb! Issue 2 of the Webzine of Astonishing Tales -- edited by Rudy Rucker, featuring 'demented and counter-cultural' stories from luminaries of the cyberypunkery like Charles Stross, John Shirley, Mark Laidlaw (who also wrote the story for Half Life 2), Richard Kadrey, one of MeFi's favorite snark-targets, Cory Doctorow and others besides -- is out. [found via the RU SIRIUS podcast] [Previously: Issue #1]
comment posted at 12:20 AM on Feb-12-07
comment posted at 12:33 AM on Feb-12-07
comment posted at 5:07 PM on Feb-13-07

Human Rights Watch indepth report on male rape in US prisons. "I've been sentenced for a D.U.I. offense. My 3rd one. When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. "
comment posted at 8:19 PM on Feb-11-07

The Shame Game. Perverted Justice (prev.) and Dateline NBC's series of To Catch A Predator specials are of questionable-at-best morality and have received much flak, particularly on the part of the former party. At the Columbia Journalism review, Douglas McCollum shares the case of Louis Conradt Jr., who killed himself upon being pounced upon by police and Dateline's cameras. McCollum also takes issue with NBC's paying of Perverted Justice for their services. And, for the other side, PJ's rebuttal.
comment posted at 4:36 PM on Feb-11-07

So.. who's ready for Quantum Computing?

British Colombia-based D-Wave says they've got one and they're going to demo that sucker in Mountain View, CA on Feb 13th and then at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver, Canada on February 15th.

Quoting from TechWorld :

"Multiple quantum states exist at the same time, so every quantum bit or "qubit" in such a machine is simultaneously 0 and 1. D-Wave's prototype has only 16 qubits, but systems with hundreds of qubits would be able to process more inputs than there are atoms in the universe."

Naturally, the tech-savvy blogosphere is skeptical. But what do you think? (previously, previously)
comment posted at 4:28 AM on Feb-9-07
comment posted at 4:56 AM on Feb-9-07

The internet is a series of Pipes. Create your own feed mashups with a visual programming environment.
comment posted at 6:13 AM on Feb-8-07
comment posted at 6:38 AM on Feb-8-07

BC cabinet minister flames out.
comment posted at 9:54 PM on Feb-7-07

Welcome. To Web 2.0.
comment posted at 8:58 PM on Feb-6-07

Astronaut charged with kidnap attempt. It's current, it's for real, and each paragraph is weirder than the last.
comment posted at 4:37 PM on Feb-6-07

2007 Super Bowl ads (note the multiple pages). And be sure to post your fav (mine = the Coke GTA spot).
comment posted at 8:40 PM on Feb-4-07

... "All the Shiites have to do is tell everyone to lay low, wait for the Americans to leave, then when they leave you have a target list and within a day they'll kill every Sunni leader in the country. It'll be called the `Day of Death' or something like that," said 1st Lt. Alain Etienne, 34, of Brooklyn, N.Y. "They say, `Wait, and we will be victorious.' That's what they preach. And it will be their victory." Quinn agreed. "Honestly, within six months of us leaving, the way Iranian clerics run the country behind the scenes, it'll be the same way here with Sadr," said Quinn, 25, of Cleveland. "He already runs our side of the river."

Mahdi Army gains strength through unwitting aid of U.S.
Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates 1000 killed in one week
Northern Iraq seen as next front in war
comment posted at 8:07 PM on Feb-4-07

The RIAA Says CD's Should Have Cost $33.86 in 1996 however, this news article says and shows how their math (and logic) is more than a little skewed.
comment posted at 8:38 PM on Feb-4-07

In Korea, you use Windows and IE, or you're out of luck. MeFi's own Gen Kanai writes about the Microsoft lock-in in South Korea. It is also a monoculture in other ways, of course, but in a country of 48 million where internet usage has risen from 9 million in 1999 to 35 million today, that leads the world in broadband penetration, some lessons for the rest of the world about the dangers of monopoly might be learned.
comment posted at 8:58 PM on Feb-1-07
comment posted at 9:32 PM on Feb-1-07