MetaFilter posts by jonson.
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I drink my tea with chopsticks. At least, I would if I lived in outer space. Cool movie (achtung: Quicktime) from the international space station showing the effects of surface tension in the absence of gravity. I wonder if any of us will ever live long enough to experience this in person?
posted on Apr-9-03 at 4:59 PM
Staggeringly weird MP3 collection over at April Winchell's blog. Everything from Hindi ABBA covers to hideous celebrity sing alongs from the likes of Hulk Hogan and Catherine "Daisy Duke" Bach. My favorite so far is the german cover of the theme music from Bonanza.fromCKB's blog.
posted on Apr-7-03 at 10:30 PM
Along the same lines of sites designed to get kids to eat more red meat comes the Presidential Prayer Kids website, which instructs the young on how best to support our leader through prayer. This week's lesson instructs the Bush Youth to be faithful, compares them to dogs. "They are showing their faithfulness by obeying the commands they are given and by doing exactly the job they were trained for."
posted on Apr-4-03 at 10:54 AM
New White House policy: Drugs no longer cause terrorism. Well, not really, but the White House is officially pulling the plug on the Ogilvy & Mather "drugs cause terrorism" spots that have been the focus of previous debate here. Also of not in the article, the White House is ceasing the funding of an $8 million annual study that found the ads to be ineffective. That'll show 'em!
posted on Apr-2-03 at 2:10 PM
Beautiful gallery of ice sculptures. Well, not "scupltures" in the traditional sense of blocks of ice carved into horses and such, but rather abstract shapes, with fixed lighting. Really attractive. via BoingBoing
posted on Mar-31-03 at 3:40 PM
Use a misleading domain name, go to prison. A new bit of pending legislation (warning: PDF) called the "Child Abduction Prevention Act" (and really, who WOULDN'T vote for that?) has made the use of misleading domain names for sites of "purient interest" punishable by a sentence of up to two years in prison. Seriously. This is going to be very troubling to the White House. No, this White House.
posted on Mar-28-03 at 11:09 PM
House Resolution 153 recognizes the need for the American public to pray and fast in order to secure the blessings of "Providence" (read: Jesus) for our Armed Forces. Seriously. "Resolved that the President should issue a proclamation designating a day for prayer & fasting for all people of the United States". I take back the thing I said earlier about the Freedom Fries being the stupidest Congressional legislation I'd ever seen.
posted on Mar-27-03 at 10:16 PM
A study posted at Adobe's website describes how traditionally Mac-centric tasks (rendering using After Effects, Illustrator & Photoshop) are all faster on a PC. These kinds of studies are a dime a dozen; what's interesting isn't which platform is faster, but that Adobe would host a page proclaiming the PC is the "preferred" platform for such tasks. Given the notoriously fickle folks at Quark, I would have pegged Adobe as the biggest Mac boosters in the third party software market. Are times changing?
posted on Mar-26-03 at 9:40 PM
Apple to switch to Intel processors, at least according to John Dvorak in a brief article over at PC Magazine. No mention in the article of the massive amount of effort required to re-write every piece of mac-compatible software for x86 architecture, or the unlikeliness of developers to be willing to do so having just optimized for OSX, but then, this piece seems to be mostly just bold, unsupported predictions.
posted on Mar-21-03 at 9:58 AM
They're dogs... and they're playing POKER!! They've been hailed as some of the most important works of American art ever painted, they've been featured on television from The Simpsons to ESPN commercials to Cheers, but how much do we really know about the works of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge? For everyone that ever looked at the dogs playing poker and wanted to know more, here is the ultimate resource, including, of course, a gallery. Please excuse the cornea damagingly horrific site design.
posted on Mar-13-03 at 9:26 AM
WWTBBD? Ah, the Beastie Boys; their eloquence re: war is boundless, as evidenced in the lyrics to this funky fresh jam they just unleashed (for free download in MP3 – that’s how important it is to them to get the message across!) on an undeserving public. Seriously, if you feel strongly anti war, and you’re a hip hop artist, those two things can (and should) remain separate. I mean, when Ben and Jerry protested the war, they just published an article protesting it, they didn’t make interpretive dairy based dessert products about it.
From BoingBoing
posted on Mar-11-03 at 11:45 PM
Heavy Seas is an all too brief gallery of terrifying photos of huge waves crashing down around large boats & drilling rigs. I wish it were a little longer, but I did think the photos were impressive, as one who has never been at sea in very rough weather.
posted on Mar-9-03 at 9:47 PM
"Take your date here and you will be "closing" later that night" If you're tired of the "helpful quotes" and "genial commentary" that make up a typical Zagat's review, this list of "unfit for print" comments that failed to make the guide may be the only remaining reason to go to their site, now that they charge a membership fee to read the reveiews. From the fantastic Buffoonery.org
posted on Mar-8-03 at 6:06 PM
Justice is served. A career criminal, high on cocaine breaks into a bar that has been fitted with a security system that turns out to be lethal. The bar owner installed the system after the 3rd break in in the past month, and posted numerous signs outside warning of the danger. The criminal is electrocuted to death, and this being America, the widow of the bar's owner (who has passed away during the years of litigation over this issue) is forced to pay $75,000 to the family of the robber, who understandably need the money now that the breadwinner is no longer around to provide for them via a life of robbery.
posted on Feb-26-03 at 10:19 AM
Although the haiku as meme has fallen on hard times here at MeFi, there are still some practioners lurking about in the wilderness, no doubt. If you still feel the urge to get freaky with the 5-7-5, and you think you've got what it takes, you might want to try your hand at competitive haiku over at The Guardian, where quality haikuing will score you 20 lbs worth of Penguin Books. Damn, that's a lot of paperbacks!
posted on Feb-24-03 at 12:56 PM
HULK SMASH!!! Now check out Hulk's wish list!! In advance of his upcoming summer movie, the Incredible Hulk has taken the time out of his busy smashing/crushing schedule to jump on the blog bandwagon. Note for the sarcasm impaired: Blog not actually written by The Incredible Hulk, who is, in fact, fictional.
posted on Feb-22-03 at 12:07 AM
Lost Disney Memo Found. McSweeney's posts a posthumously uncovered memo from the Disney board to Walt regarding his initial plans for a radically different "Disney-Land."
posted on Feb-20-03 at 1:40 PM
If you get the chance to sleep with the former bass guitarist from Guns N' Roses, but aren't sure if it'll be worth the trip to the free clinic two weeks later, Donna Anderson of Metal Sludge webzine has put together the following list of brief reviews of 228 of hair metal (among other genres)'s most wanted men. Read, commit to memory, then hit the Sunset Strip. Leave your dignity at home, but remember to bring some condoms.
posted on Feb-17-03 at 12:52 AM
It's all about shareholder value. Steve Jobs has received tremendous positive press for only accepting one dollar per year as payment for his CEO services at Apple. How does he do it, you ask? Well, he supplements his income by a) being a billionaire, and b) renting out his corporate jet to Apple, at a cost of over 1.2 million dollars, over the past two years. Which is an exceptionally generous rental fee considering that Apple itself paid $90 million for the jet, which it bought for Jobs in May of 2001. This data was disclosed along in the most recent quarterly report in which Apple announced layoffs of 260 employees, none of whom were given a jet.
posted on Feb-14-03 at 12:09 AM
Pencil Carving For Experts. A mere four months after I posted this, I ran across this latest site of pencil carving wizardry, this time from Japan. Be sure to check out the gallery. The bar has been raised.
posted on Feb-11-03 at 3:49 PM
Live CDs, immediately after the concert. Many times after I've seen a great show, I've wished I could have a recording of the evening. Now, using CD Burners hooked up to the sound boards, ClearChannel is beta testing a program that would make soundboard quality concert CD's available to audience members immediately after a show ended. I'm torn; it's a great idea, but it's ClearChannel... I want to like it... but I want to hate it, too...
posted on Feb-8-03 at 11:33 PM
Handy tips for those new to the bomb threat call in line. This "FAQ" from the LAPD's website is actually a checklist of things novice police phone operators are instructed to ask anyone calling in to leave a bomb threat. Useful information being collected includes tone of caller's voice (raspy? pleasant?), background noise (party atmosphere?) and important personal data about the soon to be bomber (what is your name? what is your address?). Sleep soundly, Los Angeles, your days of random explosions are a thing of the past.
posted on Feb-6-03 at 9:35 PM
Japanese create "invisible" cloak. Well, not really. Technically, just a two sided cloak, the front of which is a projector, and the back of which is a camera. Only works, one would imagine, if you're looking at a person straight on, and even then it would help if you were partially blind, or at the very least, raised in the wilderness & easily fooled by modern technology.
posted on Feb-5-03 at 1:14 PM
Shortly after Jack The Ripper retired, a man named Henry Holmes moved to Chicago. Using insurance fraud money, in 1892 he built an elaborate mansion with over 60 rooms. This mansion, which became known as The Murder Castle, was perhaps the first extraordinary building in a city that has become known for its architecture, from Frank Lloyd Wright to the Sears tower. In his home, which he ran as a hotel for the unfortunate traveler, Holmes murderd & disposed of as many as 200 victims over the course of the next four years... (more inside)
posted on Feb-3-03 at 9:15 PM
Teenage Girls Not Getting Enough Meat... At least, not according to the American Beef Industry, which concoted this laughably ridiculous "lifestyle" site to appeal to god knows who, ostensibly focused on teen girl issues (prom? dating?), but with a thinly veiled meaty agenda beneath it all. Bonus points for the horrifically Avrilesque domain name. Marketing. It's what's for dinner.
posted on Feb-1-03 at 11:24 PM
Andrew Antone can't help falling in love... If, like me, you're tired of good looking, teen pop icons with salon coiffed hair and rock hard abs, but don't want to give up the illicit pleasures of horrendous teen pop, I humbly submit Andrew Antone, 15 year old icon to be, in an alternate universe where looks & talent are no obstacle to pop icon, fame & fortune. For added delight, I encourage you all to customize your desk with the free wallpapers.
posted on Jan-31-03 at 1:58 PM
The future of music retail... will be nothing like this. Echo Networks, a Los Angeles based "digital venture", in partnership with Best Buy, Tower, Wherehouse, Virgin & FYE, has launched an instore downloadable purchase initiative whose chances of failure are only exceeded by the extreme vagueness surrounding the announcement. For more, read the news article at CNET.
posted on Jan-27-03 at 3:06 PM
The Battle of Blair Mountain. Do you know the origin of the phrase "Redneck? In 1921, in West Virginia, after brutally corrupt regional law had employed thug tactics including false imprisonment, seizure of property, and murder (or simply "disappearance") upon the local mine workers to discourage labour Unions from forming, an army of nearly 13,000 workers took to the streets, meeting up with the forces of the murderous sherrif at an area known as Blair Mountain. [More Inside]
posted on Jan-26-03 at 2:49 PM
Everybody Loves Potato Chips! But not everyone is a fan of your nationally available tripe; for the true connoisseur, regional "estate" chips are where it's at. From the delicious, slightly vinegary "Utz Carolina Style Barbecue", to the St. Louis hot sauce flavored "Old Vienna Red Hot Riplets"; from the straightforward pleasures of Tim's Cascade Style Cracked Peppercorn to the more exotic temptations of Route 11's Mama Zuma's Revenge, these "micro-fryeries" will never threaten Frito Lay for America's spare change, but for those lucky enough to travel the U.S., they are a welcome taste of local flavor. The truly tempted can scratch that itch via the miracle of e-commerce, but don't expect them to get to your house in time for the Superbowl. Any other favorites out there to keep an eye out for?
posted on Jan-25-03 at 1:49 PM
What a bunch of little nazis. A scout leader in Denmark has been reprimanded for leading the kids (ages 11-14) in a theme based game of tag, with the theme being Nazi's vs. Jews. This included dressing the Jews in yellow Star of David outfits and a sign with the words "Arbeit macht frei". Danish Metafilter members, explain yourselves!!
posted on Jan-24-03 at 1:47 PM
The English have landed! In the spirit of international confederation, Nerve.com offers this all too brief list of common curses, epithets, and scandalous phrases, along with their French counterpart, and more interestingly, a transliteration of the French so one can better understand the Idiom.
posted on Jan-23-03 at 1:36 PM
50 years ago last month, a dark cloud settled in over London. And stayed for four days. This fog, which was brought on by a lethal combination of high pressure, near freezing temperatures and London's pervasive coal burning, starting killing things. At first, the animals at a cattle show, then the elderly, or those prone to resperatory disease. By the end, over 4,000 people had died. Strangely, to this day the disaster retains a low profile, unlike more glamorous disasters such as the Titanic, or Bhopal. Stranger still, is that unlike those others, while the fog was at its most deadly, few realized there was even an epidemic occurring, with most viewing it as, at worst, a mild nuisance.
posted on Jan-22-03 at 11:38 AM
There Ultimate Standings. ESPN has done a ranking of the relative value of each major U.S. sports franchise not in terms of mere victories, or championships, or even felony convictions, but in terms of how much value (as calculated here) each franchise is providing its fans. Stunned to see perrennial winners such as the Yankees & Lakers pushed down to the 20s, while small market teams like Green Bay, San Antonio & Sacramento dominate. Clearly life IS better in the small towns, at least for sports fans. Here's a more in depth explanation of what it all means.
posted on Jan-21-03 at 11:35 AM
Channel your inner Ansel Adams. Going off of the theory that everyone has at least one great photo in them (as opposed to professional photographers, who should have hundreds), missiouri webizen & amateur photographer Troy DeArmitt has hosted (for the past two years) an annual web based photo contest open to other amateurs only, sponsored out of his own wallet. If the results of this year's contest are any indication, he's right, there are some beautiful photos here.
posted on Jan-19-03 at 11:18 PM
5GB on a Credit Card. The ever shrinking world of data storage just got smaller, as a company called StorCard has apparently invented a way to write up to 5GB worth of data on to media the size & shape of a credit card. Along with the media you have to buy a USB adaptor to read, but it's a quantum leap in data storage either way. Where will this madness end? Five GB on the head of a pin???
posted on Jan-18-03 at 10:56 PM
Ability vs. Guile. If you've seen the latest Gatorade commercial where 39 year old Michael Jordan plays against himself circa his 85 - 86 Bulls era and wondered "how'd they do that?", here's a very cool description of one of the neatest tricks I've seen recently.
posted on Jan-16-03 at 10:41 PM
The catacombs of Paris are an immense maze of tunnels dug under the city. In 1786, all the bodies from Cimetiere des Innocents were exhumed and moved into the tunnels. A sign above the door reads: Stop! Here is the empire of the dead... For a significantly less creepy (and infinitely cool) city under the city experience, check out the Seattle Underground tour.
posted on Jan-15-03 at 10:34 PM
A fine idea, horribly executed... Want a portable, light, wireless PC as a second home computer but don't want to spend a fortune on a tablet PC? No problem. Viewsonic is coming out with Smart Displays, portable monitors (no computer included) that sync wirelessly with your primary PC, so you can carry them from room to room. However, they apparently missed the boat on the pricing, starting at over $1,000 when you include tax.
posted on Jan-14-03 at 8:33 PM
Memeufacture is a url aggregating service, such as Blogdex, but with human intelligence applied to the collection & categorization, such that links aren't merely ranked by popularity, but divided into categories such as Law, Politics (broken out by left & right), Design etc. There's no Religion (unless you count Apple), nor is the burgeoning world of sex blogs taken into account, but still, intriguing.
posted on Jan-13-03 at 3:38 PM
Southern public schools are becoming segregated again, but not through governmental regulation this time, but through the free will of white teachers who are fleeing all black schools, and relaxed bussing laws that are no longer forcing mixed race students to intermingle. A disturbing step backwards, and one that doesn't trend better in the foreseeable future.
posted on Jan-12-03 at 10:16 AM
Centralia, PA is a small town on top of rich, seemingly inexhaustible coal reserves in rural Pennsylvania. In May of 1962, an above ground fire ignited these underground coal mines, and the fires have burned ever since, for forty years straight. The towns population (and landscape) have been decimated. More info here.
posted on Jan-11-03 at 10:10 AM
The Mystery Pit of Oak Island. In 1795, two boys found a treasure map on Oak Island, on the coast of Nova Scotia; two hundred years, tens of millions of dollars and six lives later, the island is nearly obliterated with holes and excavations, and no one is any richer... The story of Oak Island makes a fine allegory for pursuing phantom riches at the expense of all else, in addition to just making a damn fine story.
posted on Jan-9-03 at 10:01 PM
Can't wait for The Sims Online? Try There.com. An online, avatar based metaverse game, not involving orcs, elves, or, for that matter, much out of the ordinary of our suburban lives. Is this the future of online gaming, or the flavor of the month?
posted on Jan-8-03 at 8:02 PM
Waiting In Line To Die is the title of this brilliant expose of the relentless homicide factory that is Disneyland, Anaheim's death camp, and siren lure of the unfortunate and unwary. To those who would visit the "happiest place on Earth" unawares, I encourage you to read this article first, and then head elsewhere. The life you save could be your own.
posted on Jan-7-03 at 4:51 PM
The Year In Pizza is a review of the happenings in one of the worst years ever for the pizza industry; what's touching, and quirky about this corporate industry wrap up is the inclusion of brief memorials for pizza murder victims, those workers slain by hungry robbers for whatever little cash they had on them. It's hard to imagine a "year in printing & bindery" review listing all the victims of industrial press manglings.
posted on Jan-6-03 at 4:45 PM
The Lost Boys of the Sudan are a group of nearly 17,000 orphans whose parents were murdered and whose homes were destroyed by a government miltary turned against them. They marched on foot, without food or water, under attack from hungry predators & occasional strafing miltary fire for several years until settling in a squalid refugee camp in Kenya; nearly a decade later, the U.S. began a humanitarian policy of importing them, a few at a time, and resettling the lucky few in cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, and even Fargo, N.D. (NYTimes, reg req'd)
posted on Jan-3-03 at 8:33 PM
Shaqzilla dethroned. Shaquille O'Neal, who warned Chinese citizen & #1 draft pick Yao Ming to "Look Out, Shaqzilla is coming" (presumably unaware that Tokyo is not part of China), has been dethroned; currently in fan balloting, he is running a distant second to the rookie for starting center in the All Star game. Even though his numbers are effectively double those of Yao's, even though he's a three time NBA Finals MVP.
posted on Jan-2-03 at 5:05 PM
The Fly Guy is a Flash toy/game/greeting card with lots to explore and a seemingly (but not actually) endless number of things to interact with. Nothing groundbreaking, just cute and amusing. Enjoy!
posted on Dec-27-02 at 10:14 AM
Bar Signs. Modern Drunkard has posted a handy guide for the alcoholic in us all, a set of gestures to communicate your needs when it's too loud to hear, or just because, as the site says, "when words come out, whiskey can't get in."
posted on Dec-16-02 at 1:18 PM
Bullets Frozen in Mid-Impact. This may have been posted before, but I couldn't find it; it's a series of photographs of bullets hitting objects, taken with a VERY high speed camera, frozen in mid-impact. This is NOT, for the record, an invitation to discuss your POV on gun control.
posted on Dec-9-02 at 9:54 AM
posted on Apr-9-03 at 4:59 PM
Staggeringly weird MP3 collection over at April Winchell's blog. Everything from Hindi ABBA covers to hideous celebrity sing alongs from the likes of Hulk Hogan and Catherine "Daisy Duke" Bach. My favorite so far is the german cover of the theme music from Bonanza.fromCKB's blog.
posted on Apr-7-03 at 10:30 PM
Along the same lines of sites designed to get kids to eat more red meat comes the Presidential Prayer Kids website, which instructs the young on how best to support our leader through prayer. This week's lesson instructs the Bush Youth to be faithful, compares them to dogs. "They are showing their faithfulness by obeying the commands they are given and by doing exactly the job they were trained for."
posted on Apr-4-03 at 10:54 AM
New White House policy: Drugs no longer cause terrorism. Well, not really, but the White House is officially pulling the plug on the Ogilvy & Mather "drugs cause terrorism" spots that have been the focus of previous debate here. Also of not in the article, the White House is ceasing the funding of an $8 million annual study that found the ads to be ineffective. That'll show 'em!
posted on Apr-2-03 at 2:10 PM
Beautiful gallery of ice sculptures. Well, not "scupltures" in the traditional sense of blocks of ice carved into horses and such, but rather abstract shapes, with fixed lighting. Really attractive. via BoingBoing
posted on Mar-31-03 at 3:40 PM
Use a misleading domain name, go to prison. A new bit of pending legislation (warning: PDF) called the "Child Abduction Prevention Act" (and really, who WOULDN'T vote for that?) has made the use of misleading domain names for sites of "purient interest" punishable by a sentence of up to two years in prison. Seriously. This is going to be very troubling to the White House. No, this White House.
posted on Mar-28-03 at 11:09 PM
House Resolution 153 recognizes the need for the American public to pray and fast in order to secure the blessings of "Providence" (read: Jesus) for our Armed Forces. Seriously. "Resolved that the President should issue a proclamation designating a day for prayer & fasting for all people of the United States". I take back the thing I said earlier about the Freedom Fries being the stupidest Congressional legislation I'd ever seen.
posted on Mar-27-03 at 10:16 PM
A study posted at Adobe's website describes how traditionally Mac-centric tasks (rendering using After Effects, Illustrator & Photoshop) are all faster on a PC. These kinds of studies are a dime a dozen; what's interesting isn't which platform is faster, but that Adobe would host a page proclaiming the PC is the "preferred" platform for such tasks. Given the notoriously fickle folks at Quark, I would have pegged Adobe as the biggest Mac boosters in the third party software market. Are times changing?
posted on Mar-26-03 at 9:40 PM
Apple to switch to Intel processors, at least according to John Dvorak in a brief article over at PC Magazine. No mention in the article of the massive amount of effort required to re-write every piece of mac-compatible software for x86 architecture, or the unlikeliness of developers to be willing to do so having just optimized for OSX, but then, this piece seems to be mostly just bold, unsupported predictions.
posted on Mar-21-03 at 9:58 AM
They're dogs... and they're playing POKER!! They've been hailed as some of the most important works of American art ever painted, they've been featured on television from The Simpsons to ESPN commercials to Cheers, but how much do we really know about the works of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge? For everyone that ever looked at the dogs playing poker and wanted to know more, here is the ultimate resource, including, of course, a gallery. Please excuse the cornea damagingly horrific site design.
posted on Mar-13-03 at 9:26 AM
WWTBBD? Ah, the Beastie Boys; their eloquence re: war is boundless, as evidenced in the lyrics to this funky fresh jam they just unleashed (for free download in MP3 – that’s how important it is to them to get the message across!) on an undeserving public. Seriously, if you feel strongly anti war, and you’re a hip hop artist, those two things can (and should) remain separate. I mean, when Ben and Jerry protested the war, they just published an article protesting it, they didn’t make interpretive dairy based dessert products about it.
From BoingBoing
posted on Mar-11-03 at 11:45 PM
Heavy Seas is an all too brief gallery of terrifying photos of huge waves crashing down around large boats & drilling rigs. I wish it were a little longer, but I did think the photos were impressive, as one who has never been at sea in very rough weather.
posted on Mar-9-03 at 9:47 PM
"Take your date here and you will be "closing" later that night" If you're tired of the "helpful quotes" and "genial commentary" that make up a typical Zagat's review, this list of "unfit for print" comments that failed to make the guide may be the only remaining reason to go to their site, now that they charge a membership fee to read the reveiews. From the fantastic Buffoonery.org
posted on Mar-8-03 at 6:06 PM
Justice is served. A career criminal, high on cocaine breaks into a bar that has been fitted with a security system that turns out to be lethal. The bar owner installed the system after the 3rd break in in the past month, and posted numerous signs outside warning of the danger. The criminal is electrocuted to death, and this being America, the widow of the bar's owner (who has passed away during the years of litigation over this issue) is forced to pay $75,000 to the family of the robber, who understandably need the money now that the breadwinner is no longer around to provide for them via a life of robbery.
posted on Feb-26-03 at 10:19 AM
Although the haiku as meme has fallen on hard times here at MeFi, there are still some practioners lurking about in the wilderness, no doubt. If you still feel the urge to get freaky with the 5-7-5, and you think you've got what it takes, you might want to try your hand at competitive haiku over at The Guardian, where quality haikuing will score you 20 lbs worth of Penguin Books. Damn, that's a lot of paperbacks!
posted on Feb-24-03 at 12:56 PM
HULK SMASH!!! Now check out Hulk's wish list!! In advance of his upcoming summer movie, the Incredible Hulk has taken the time out of his busy smashing/crushing schedule to jump on the blog bandwagon. Note for the sarcasm impaired: Blog not actually written by The Incredible Hulk, who is, in fact, fictional.
posted on Feb-22-03 at 12:07 AM
Lost Disney Memo Found. McSweeney's posts a posthumously uncovered memo from the Disney board to Walt regarding his initial plans for a radically different "Disney-Land."
posted on Feb-20-03 at 1:40 PM
If you get the chance to sleep with the former bass guitarist from Guns N' Roses, but aren't sure if it'll be worth the trip to the free clinic two weeks later, Donna Anderson of Metal Sludge webzine has put together the following list of brief reviews of 228 of hair metal (among other genres)'s most wanted men. Read, commit to memory, then hit the Sunset Strip. Leave your dignity at home, but remember to bring some condoms.
posted on Feb-17-03 at 12:52 AM
It's all about shareholder value. Steve Jobs has received tremendous positive press for only accepting one dollar per year as payment for his CEO services at Apple. How does he do it, you ask? Well, he supplements his income by a) being a billionaire, and b) renting out his corporate jet to Apple, at a cost of over 1.2 million dollars, over the past two years. Which is an exceptionally generous rental fee considering that Apple itself paid $90 million for the jet, which it bought for Jobs in May of 2001. This data was disclosed along in the most recent quarterly report in which Apple announced layoffs of 260 employees, none of whom were given a jet.
posted on Feb-14-03 at 12:09 AM
Pencil Carving For Experts. A mere four months after I posted this, I ran across this latest site of pencil carving wizardry, this time from Japan. Be sure to check out the gallery. The bar has been raised.
posted on Feb-11-03 at 3:49 PM
Live CDs, immediately after the concert. Many times after I've seen a great show, I've wished I could have a recording of the evening. Now, using CD Burners hooked up to the sound boards, ClearChannel is beta testing a program that would make soundboard quality concert CD's available to audience members immediately after a show ended. I'm torn; it's a great idea, but it's ClearChannel... I want to like it... but I want to hate it, too...
posted on Feb-8-03 at 11:33 PM
Handy tips for those new to the bomb threat call in line. This "FAQ" from the LAPD's website is actually a checklist of things novice police phone operators are instructed to ask anyone calling in to leave a bomb threat. Useful information being collected includes tone of caller's voice (raspy? pleasant?), background noise (party atmosphere?) and important personal data about the soon to be bomber (what is your name? what is your address?). Sleep soundly, Los Angeles, your days of random explosions are a thing of the past.
posted on Feb-6-03 at 9:35 PM
Japanese create "invisible" cloak. Well, not really. Technically, just a two sided cloak, the front of which is a projector, and the back of which is a camera. Only works, one would imagine, if you're looking at a person straight on, and even then it would help if you were partially blind, or at the very least, raised in the wilderness & easily fooled by modern technology.
posted on Feb-5-03 at 1:14 PM
Shortly after Jack The Ripper retired, a man named Henry Holmes moved to Chicago. Using insurance fraud money, in 1892 he built an elaborate mansion with over 60 rooms. This mansion, which became known as The Murder Castle, was perhaps the first extraordinary building in a city that has become known for its architecture, from Frank Lloyd Wright to the Sears tower. In his home, which he ran as a hotel for the unfortunate traveler, Holmes murderd & disposed of as many as 200 victims over the course of the next four years... (more inside)
posted on Feb-3-03 at 9:15 PM
Teenage Girls Not Getting Enough Meat... At least, not according to the American Beef Industry, which concoted this laughably ridiculous "lifestyle" site to appeal to god knows who, ostensibly focused on teen girl issues (prom? dating?), but with a thinly veiled meaty agenda beneath it all. Bonus points for the horrifically Avrilesque domain name. Marketing. It's what's for dinner.
posted on Feb-1-03 at 11:24 PM
Andrew Antone can't help falling in love... If, like me, you're tired of good looking, teen pop icons with salon coiffed hair and rock hard abs, but don't want to give up the illicit pleasures of horrendous teen pop, I humbly submit Andrew Antone, 15 year old icon to be, in an alternate universe where looks & talent are no obstacle to pop icon, fame & fortune. For added delight, I encourage you all to customize your desk with the free wallpapers.
posted on Jan-31-03 at 1:58 PM
The future of music retail... will be nothing like this. Echo Networks, a Los Angeles based "digital venture", in partnership with Best Buy, Tower, Wherehouse, Virgin & FYE, has launched an instore downloadable purchase initiative whose chances of failure are only exceeded by the extreme vagueness surrounding the announcement. For more, read the news article at CNET.
posted on Jan-27-03 at 3:06 PM
The Battle of Blair Mountain. Do you know the origin of the phrase "Redneck? In 1921, in West Virginia, after brutally corrupt regional law had employed thug tactics including false imprisonment, seizure of property, and murder (or simply "disappearance") upon the local mine workers to discourage labour Unions from forming, an army of nearly 13,000 workers took to the streets, meeting up with the forces of the murderous sherrif at an area known as Blair Mountain. [More Inside]
posted on Jan-26-03 at 2:49 PM
Everybody Loves Potato Chips! But not everyone is a fan of your nationally available tripe; for the true connoisseur, regional "estate" chips are where it's at. From the delicious, slightly vinegary "Utz Carolina Style Barbecue", to the St. Louis hot sauce flavored "Old Vienna Red Hot Riplets"; from the straightforward pleasures of Tim's Cascade Style Cracked Peppercorn to the more exotic temptations of Route 11's Mama Zuma's Revenge, these "micro-fryeries" will never threaten Frito Lay for America's spare change, but for those lucky enough to travel the U.S., they are a welcome taste of local flavor. The truly tempted can scratch that itch via the miracle of e-commerce, but don't expect them to get to your house in time for the Superbowl. Any other favorites out there to keep an eye out for?
posted on Jan-25-03 at 1:49 PM
What a bunch of little nazis. A scout leader in Denmark has been reprimanded for leading the kids (ages 11-14) in a theme based game of tag, with the theme being Nazi's vs. Jews. This included dressing the Jews in yellow Star of David outfits and a sign with the words "Arbeit macht frei". Danish Metafilter members, explain yourselves!!
posted on Jan-24-03 at 1:47 PM
The English have landed! In the spirit of international confederation, Nerve.com offers this all too brief list of common curses, epithets, and scandalous phrases, along with their French counterpart, and more interestingly, a transliteration of the French so one can better understand the Idiom.
posted on Jan-23-03 at 1:36 PM
50 years ago last month, a dark cloud settled in over London. And stayed for four days. This fog, which was brought on by a lethal combination of high pressure, near freezing temperatures and London's pervasive coal burning, starting killing things. At first, the animals at a cattle show, then the elderly, or those prone to resperatory disease. By the end, over 4,000 people had died. Strangely, to this day the disaster retains a low profile, unlike more glamorous disasters such as the Titanic, or Bhopal. Stranger still, is that unlike those others, while the fog was at its most deadly, few realized there was even an epidemic occurring, with most viewing it as, at worst, a mild nuisance.
posted on Jan-22-03 at 11:38 AM
There Ultimate Standings. ESPN has done a ranking of the relative value of each major U.S. sports franchise not in terms of mere victories, or championships, or even felony convictions, but in terms of how much value (as calculated here) each franchise is providing its fans. Stunned to see perrennial winners such as the Yankees & Lakers pushed down to the 20s, while small market teams like Green Bay, San Antonio & Sacramento dominate. Clearly life IS better in the small towns, at least for sports fans. Here's a more in depth explanation of what it all means.
posted on Jan-21-03 at 11:35 AM
Channel your inner Ansel Adams. Going off of the theory that everyone has at least one great photo in them (as opposed to professional photographers, who should have hundreds), missiouri webizen & amateur photographer Troy DeArmitt has hosted (for the past two years) an annual web based photo contest open to other amateurs only, sponsored out of his own wallet. If the results of this year's contest are any indication, he's right, there are some beautiful photos here.
posted on Jan-19-03 at 11:18 PM
5GB on a Credit Card. The ever shrinking world of data storage just got smaller, as a company called StorCard has apparently invented a way to write up to 5GB worth of data on to media the size & shape of a credit card. Along with the media you have to buy a USB adaptor to read, but it's a quantum leap in data storage either way. Where will this madness end? Five GB on the head of a pin???
posted on Jan-18-03 at 10:56 PM
Ability vs. Guile. If you've seen the latest Gatorade commercial where 39 year old Michael Jordan plays against himself circa his 85 - 86 Bulls era and wondered "how'd they do that?", here's a very cool description of one of the neatest tricks I've seen recently.
posted on Jan-16-03 at 10:41 PM
The catacombs of Paris are an immense maze of tunnels dug under the city. In 1786, all the bodies from Cimetiere des Innocents were exhumed and moved into the tunnels. A sign above the door reads: Stop! Here is the empire of the dead... For a significantly less creepy (and infinitely cool) city under the city experience, check out the Seattle Underground tour.
posted on Jan-15-03 at 10:34 PM
A fine idea, horribly executed... Want a portable, light, wireless PC as a second home computer but don't want to spend a fortune on a tablet PC? No problem. Viewsonic is coming out with Smart Displays, portable monitors (no computer included) that sync wirelessly with your primary PC, so you can carry them from room to room. However, they apparently missed the boat on the pricing, starting at over $1,000 when you include tax.
posted on Jan-14-03 at 8:33 PM
Memeufacture is a url aggregating service, such as Blogdex, but with human intelligence applied to the collection & categorization, such that links aren't merely ranked by popularity, but divided into categories such as Law, Politics (broken out by left & right), Design etc. There's no Religion (unless you count Apple), nor is the burgeoning world of sex blogs taken into account, but still, intriguing.
posted on Jan-13-03 at 3:38 PM
Southern public schools are becoming segregated again, but not through governmental regulation this time, but through the free will of white teachers who are fleeing all black schools, and relaxed bussing laws that are no longer forcing mixed race students to intermingle. A disturbing step backwards, and one that doesn't trend better in the foreseeable future.
posted on Jan-12-03 at 10:16 AM
Centralia, PA is a small town on top of rich, seemingly inexhaustible coal reserves in rural Pennsylvania. In May of 1962, an above ground fire ignited these underground coal mines, and the fires have burned ever since, for forty years straight. The towns population (and landscape) have been decimated. More info here.
posted on Jan-11-03 at 10:10 AM
The Mystery Pit of Oak Island. In 1795, two boys found a treasure map on Oak Island, on the coast of Nova Scotia; two hundred years, tens of millions of dollars and six lives later, the island is nearly obliterated with holes and excavations, and no one is any richer... The story of Oak Island makes a fine allegory for pursuing phantom riches at the expense of all else, in addition to just making a damn fine story.
posted on Jan-9-03 at 10:01 PM
Can't wait for The Sims Online? Try There.com. An online, avatar based metaverse game, not involving orcs, elves, or, for that matter, much out of the ordinary of our suburban lives. Is this the future of online gaming, or the flavor of the month?
posted on Jan-8-03 at 8:02 PM
Waiting In Line To Die is the title of this brilliant expose of the relentless homicide factory that is Disneyland, Anaheim's death camp, and siren lure of the unfortunate and unwary. To those who would visit the "happiest place on Earth" unawares, I encourage you to read this article first, and then head elsewhere. The life you save could be your own.
posted on Jan-7-03 at 4:51 PM
The Year In Pizza is a review of the happenings in one of the worst years ever for the pizza industry; what's touching, and quirky about this corporate industry wrap up is the inclusion of brief memorials for pizza murder victims, those workers slain by hungry robbers for whatever little cash they had on them. It's hard to imagine a "year in printing & bindery" review listing all the victims of industrial press manglings.
posted on Jan-6-03 at 4:45 PM
The Lost Boys of the Sudan are a group of nearly 17,000 orphans whose parents were murdered and whose homes were destroyed by a government miltary turned against them. They marched on foot, without food or water, under attack from hungry predators & occasional strafing miltary fire for several years until settling in a squalid refugee camp in Kenya; nearly a decade later, the U.S. began a humanitarian policy of importing them, a few at a time, and resettling the lucky few in cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, and even Fargo, N.D. (NYTimes, reg req'd)
posted on Jan-3-03 at 8:33 PM
Shaqzilla dethroned. Shaquille O'Neal, who warned Chinese citizen & #1 draft pick Yao Ming to "Look Out, Shaqzilla is coming" (presumably unaware that Tokyo is not part of China), has been dethroned; currently in fan balloting, he is running a distant second to the rookie for starting center in the All Star game. Even though his numbers are effectively double those of Yao's, even though he's a three time NBA Finals MVP.
posted on Jan-2-03 at 5:05 PM
The Fly Guy is a Flash toy/game/greeting card with lots to explore and a seemingly (but not actually) endless number of things to interact with. Nothing groundbreaking, just cute and amusing. Enjoy!
posted on Dec-27-02 at 10:14 AM
Bar Signs. Modern Drunkard has posted a handy guide for the alcoholic in us all, a set of gestures to communicate your needs when it's too loud to hear, or just because, as the site says, "when words come out, whiskey can't get in."
posted on Dec-16-02 at 1:18 PM
Bullets Frozen in Mid-Impact. This may have been posted before, but I couldn't find it; it's a series of photographs of bullets hitting objects, taken with a VERY high speed camera, frozen in mid-impact. This is NOT, for the record, an invitation to discuss your POV on gun control.
posted on Dec-9-02 at 9:54 AM
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