MetaFilter posts by anastasiav.
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In September, soldiers stationed in Iraq began to be granted two-weeks of leave so they could come home and see their families. There's just one catch - the military flies them to one of three US Airports (Baltimore, Dallas or Atlanta) for free, but then the soldier must pay his own way home.
The 87 Billion package passed October 17th does contain 55 million in funding to pay for these R&R trips, but that money won't become available for several weeks. In the meantime, more than 470 solders are arriving each day in the US, and they must find ways to pay for their travel home.
Support Operation Hero Miles - donate your Frequent Flyer miles so a soldier can get home.
::via snopes::
posted on Nov-7-03 at 8:21 AM
This is Broken A compendium of bad designs. By Mark Hurst
more inside..
posted on Nov-6-03 at 7:55 AM
The History of Robots in the Victorian Era
posted on Nov-5-03 at 7:27 AM
Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News....
Today is the 65th anniversary of the famous Mercury Theatre presentation of War of the Worlds, as adapted for Radio by Orson Welles. The infamous broadcast (listen in Real Audio or RealAudio or TrueSpeech) caused no small amount of uneasyness, and even some outright panic as listeners, already unsettled by coverage of the impending war in Europe, were all to willing to believe that Martians had indeed landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The broadcast led to an FCC investigation and remains a touchstone in the evolution of the American media.
posted on Oct-30-03 at 9:51 AM
Ancestry Maps from the 1990 census: Which states have the highest percentage of people of Danish ancestry? Greek? Hispanic? Who (perhaps) doesn't realize that we almost all came here from somewhere else? Using the data provided on 1990 Census question 13, which asked respondents to identify the ancestry groups with which they identified most closely, the State of Minnesota provides us with these nifty Ancestry maps. More info here on 'the ancestry question' from the US Census Bureau. link via ::crabwalk.com::
posted on Oct-28-03 at 11:05 AM
Grand Illusions: Optical illusions, scientific toys, visual effects, brain teasers, and (perhaps) just a little bit of magic!
posted on Oct-23-03 at 11:11 AM
On October 17, 1815, following The 100 Days and Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on the Island of St Helena, where he would remain until his death (mysterious or otherwise) in 1821. Discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, St Helena had a long and interesting history before Napoleon arrived, but that history was overshadowed by the story of the Emperor's last years, living in captive exile at the simple yet beautiful Longwood House. Victorians had an insatiable interest for information about the remote island. Today, the picturesque Island is a a tiny bit of England in the South Atlantic, where coffee and tourism (indeed, what some might call pilgrimages) are the main sources of income.
posted on Oct-17-03 at 8:53 AM
Happiness is a Dream of Fisher-Price
posted on Oct-15-03 at 11:07 AM
Riddles and more riddles - Easy Riddles and Ancient Riddles, Math Riddles and Traditional Riddles, Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Lawyer Riddles, Dirty Riddles and Logic Riddles, Medieval Riddles and Awful Riddles. Finally: Ambiguity, Classification and Change: The Function of Riddles.
posted on Oct-14-03 at 9:33 AM
Did you know that you can Rent the Principality of Liechtenstein (or any of six villages in Austria or Germany) for weddings and corporate events?
Flash Warning Inside!
posted on Oct-10-03 at 1:45 PM
Need an Idiom? Check out The Idiom Connection. Think certain phrases are such cliches that they should be banned? Before you condemn or mock them, take a moment to learn more about the origin of some of these phrases.
::via The Tower of English::
posted on Oct-7-03 at 10:57 AM
The Art History of Cheating - just one of the many interesting topics found at Cardshark Online.
posted on Oct-6-03 at 8:54 AM
Sitcoms Online: an archive.
Be sure to try Guess the Sitcom or Guess the Dictator or Sitcom Character.
posted on Oct-3-03 at 7:21 AM
Classic Feminist Writings : an archive
posted on Oct-2-03 at 6:11 AM
The story of Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls is the story of the civilization of the American West. From 1896 to 1945, Harvey House Restaurants and Hotels along the route of the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe represented first-rate food served in clean, stylish surroundings at reasonable cost. His corps of well-trained waitresses, wearing their distinctive uniforms and bound by a code of hard work and good conduct, provided both adventure and independence to generations of young women. Today, all that is left of the Harvey empire is the remembrances of former employees, beautiful buildings which dot the southwest, some vintage recipes, a 1946 Judy Garland film, and (possibly) the enduring term "Blue-Plate Special".
posted on Oct-1-03 at 5:35 AM
A Cautionary Tale: DNA Analysis of Alleged Extraterrestrial Biological Material: Anatomy of a Molecular Forensic Investigation .pdf file
::From The National Institute for Discovery Science via The Daily Grail::
[more inside]
posted on Sep-24-03 at 10:07 AM
The Alphabet: Meaningless shapes arbitrarily linked to meaningless sounds. When George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, his will provided for the development of a new alphabet for the English language, an alphabet of at least forty letters that could be used to write English without all the oddities of our traditional spelling. Learn more about the history and origins of The Shaw Alphabet, and look at some of its competitors, including the initial teaching alphabet, Inglish Simplifíd Speling and The Unifon Alphabet - a 40 character alphabet resulting from the Shaw alphabet competition. Or, read what Mark Twain had to say on the subject.
posted on Sep-23-03 at 10:04 AM
I have to travel the highways and byways of America by car and train a great deal, and its much more fun if you actually see America on the way. Two of my favorite sites for finding offbeat attractions and tasty eats are By The Way Magazine and Roadside America.
posted on Sep-22-03 at 9:54 AM
Iakov Levi analyzes history and literature using a very Freudian approach.
Some highlights:
Pinocchio - The Puberty Rite of a Puppet
Medusa, the Female Genital and the Nazis
Killing God: From the Assassination of Moses to the Murder of Rabin
Without Borders: The Borderline Case of United Europe
::warning! geocities links!::
posted on Sep-18-03 at 1:20 PM
Angle Grinder Man Superhero or Vigilante?
posted on Sep-17-03 at 12:35 PM
Luciferous Logolepsy: Dragging obscure words into the light of day.
::with thanks to Madamjujujive
posted on Sep-10-03 at 8:03 AM
The locals simply called it Carville. Known more formally as the The Gillis W. Long Hansen's Disease Center, it was transformed in July 2000 into The National Hansen's Disease Museum. What is Hansen's Disease? You may know it better by its biblical name - Leprosy. From the founding of the National Leprosarium in 1917 until the hospital closed in 1998, The stories of the people of Carville, their isolation, and finally their fight for civil rights combine to make one of the most important stories in American public health history.
posted on Sep-7-03 at 9:11 PM
The Small World Project was an online experiment (sponsored by Columbia University) involving over 60,000 email users, developed to test Stanley Milgram's famous "six degrees of separation" hypothesis. In the 1960's Milgram tested his theory that members of any large social network would be connected to each other via short chains of intermediate acquaintances by sending small packets via the USPS to individuals in Nebraska and Kansas, with the hope that the packets would eventually reach the intended recipients in Boston. The 21st century Columbia project used email to attempt to verify Milgram's findings on a global scale, and to see if the length of the contact chains have shortened in the 'virtual' world. Project Description - Procedures - Initial Results as published in Science Magazine, August 2003
posted on Sep-5-03 at 4:13 PM
baddesigns.com -- This is not a urinal. This phone is hard to turn on. This must be annoying. This design could get you a traffic ticket. This guy has too much time on his hands.
posted on Apr-29-03 at 6:12 PM
In the house where I grew up, we had a 1950's-era Bomb Shelter in the backyard (a cold war relic inherited from the previous owner). We used our shelter as a playground, but many are now forgotten, repurposed, or restored as museum exhibits. Although such shelters are still for sale (often marketed as Tornado or Storm Shelters), many people today regard these shelters as relics from an earlier time. For some, however, the current terror alerts are reviving cold war shelter memories. As demonstrated by sites like the excellent civildefensemuseum.com, we are clearly still fascinated with this important and revealing part of our history.
posted on Feb-25-03 at 7:51 AM
The Gallery of Regrettable Food: "Frizzle slices of cooked ham in hot butter, adding 1 1/2 teaspoons of drained prepared horseradish to each 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine. Add cheese." Advertisements, Strange recipes from "the golden age of butter", and just plain weird stuff. Also, I think this guy used to do my tech support. with thanks to Television Without Pity and cakeman
posted on Feb-12-03 at 3:13 PM
The Coffee Science Information Centre. Bach once referred to coffee as "lovelier than a thousand kisses." The writers and researchers at the Coffee Science Information Centre would agree. This site takes a scientific look at coffee, especially in regard to caffeine and health. Coffee through history is also examined. ::credit::
posted on Jan-2-03 at 9:18 PM
Mmmmm. Pancakes. Called by many names - Blintz, Palascinta, Flensjes, Pannkuchen, Po-Ping - yes, you know they're yummy, but what do you know about their history or their religious significance? For instance, Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day and for the past 53 years, women in Olney, England and Liberal, Kansas race down the streets of their towns flipping pancakes, continuing an English tradition that goes back more than 500 years. (Melbourne, Australia has a Pancake Day race, too! ) The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Shrovetide with a type of pancake called Blini, and I think most of us know that Latkes (potato pancakes) are a traditional part of the Hanukah feast. (Although apparently there is some debate on the virtues of Latkes over Hamentashen.) On a more secular note, we've just missed the 2002 Fall Flapjack Festival, held every year in Land O'Lakes, Florida. Glenn, Michigan has an annual Pancake Festival, too (since 1938). Hey! I'm getting hungry ... somebody pass the Maple Syrup!
posted on Nov-12-02 at 3:56 PM
Lost in Translation translates any bit of text you submit back and forth between another language (French, then German, Italian, Portuguese, and finally Spanish) and English ten times - the results are a cross between the results of a game of telephone and a Nostradamus prophecy. The best part (for me) is that it shows you the de-evolution of your phrase as it gets translated back and forth.
posted on Oct-12-02 at 10:07 AM
Sometime in the past hour, explodingdog.com (no, I'm not linking to it) got its front page hacked. Now I can understand the motives behind hacking as cyber-terrorism (.pdf file), or to promote your political or social agenda, and I can't say that I totally disagree with hacktivism as a sort of civil disobedience. I also understand hacking as a way to show off your skills. But off all the sites out there, why would some stereotypical punk kids (or whomever) pick a great site like explodingdog to hack? Where's the challenge? So many hackers say they're out to free the Internet - then why attack a site that give away so much for free?
posted on Sep-28-02 at 10:40 PM
As the day after Labor Day is traditionally the first day of School for many of us in the USA, I offer you froguts.com - virtual online frog dissection. All the educational parts of biology class without the nauseating smell of formaldehyde.
posted on Sep-3-02 at 4:39 AM
The Linguistic Fun Page. If you're stuck on a cube-farm somewhere, I especially recommend the Hellatine Dictionary of Bureaucratese. The remote links are much better than the local ones, although I did especially enjoy The Collective Nouns Page (An anthology of prostitutes, a smuth of jellyfish)
posted on Jul-29-02 at 9:45 PM
The Griffith Institute and Oxford's Ashmolean Museum have recently made the complete records of Howard Carter's excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun available on the web. You can browse the complete list of objects as well as read all the original handwritten descriptive cards and view any or all of Harry Burton's original photographs (many taken in situ and never before published). You can also read Howard Carter's complete personal field diaries from 1922 and 1923. Although this is still an work in progress, its an easy way to lose a couple of hours for any MeFi Egyptology fans. with thanks to The Daily Grail
posted on Jul-8-02 at 10:20 AM
Did you know that May is National Artisan Gelato Month? The Food Reference Website is an endless source of Facts and Trivia about eating and food. For instance, do you know the story behind how Dr Percy Spencer actually came to invent the microwave oven? Or that Nostradamus wrote a popular cookbook?
posted on May-2-02 at 11:23 AM
Nearly everyone is familiar with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber wants us to think about the new seven wonders - the wonders of the modern world. His website, new7wonders.org, allows you to peruse a list of around two dozen "modern wonders" ("modern" being a relative term - most date back hundreds or thousands of years) and vote on your seven favorites. Even if you don't vote, this is a great way to learn about astonishing places (like the old city of Sana'a in Yemen or Machu Picchu in Peru) that you might not have otherwise heard of.
Note: I found this site via a recent New York Times article about the efforts to rebuild and restore Taliban-destroyed cultural artifacts in Afghanistan. Apparently Mr Weber is also backing a plan to rebuild the Bamiyan Buddhas.
posted on Apr-15-02 at 1:11 PM
When I get depressed about the trials and tribulations of planning my upcoming wedding, I visit Etiquette Hell, and give thanks that I'm not any of these people! or the web-designer, but it's still a funny site
posted on Apr-12-02 at 11:09 AM
Here at Metafilter - as in many other places on the web - we spend a lot of time talking about (and in) Haiku. For some reason the web-enabled generation has come to think of Haiku as a hip, funny, and somewhat ironic way to express ... anything. But lest we forget that Haiku is, first and foremost, a beautiful, traditonal art form. How many of you out there know much about the history of Haiku? Did you know that Japan is full of monuments to Haiku? Have you heard of or read any of the great traditional haiku poets, like Masaoka Shiki, the man for whom the International Haiku Award is named? If you enjoy reading traditional-style Haiku, you can read any number of magazines devoted exclusively to Haiku. Many of us have not tried to write Haiku since Junior High - do you perhaps need some instructions on how to write Haiku? If you really enjoy reading or writing Haiku, perhaps you might wish to join the Haiku Society of America. And, of course, if you wish to know more about Haiku, there are any number of other resources out on the web.
posted on Mar-29-02 at 4:51 PM
Is Justin Chapman a misunderstood genius (at age 7) or just an average little boy pushed beyond reason by an abusive, mentally ill mother?
more thoughts inside...
...with thanks tocrabwalk.com
posted on Feb-13-02 at 11:11 PM
At the risk of reopening this recount thread - The Economist is running this rather sarcastic correction in their current edition, along with this strange little 'What if Gore Was President' article. Does this signal that the Age of Irony is not, in fact, dead - or did someone at The Economist just not get the memo?
posted on Nov-16-01 at 4:52 PM
I'm somewhat surprised that no one has yet posted anything about this (see also here and here, etc). My heart leapt last night when I heard this on NPR. All I could think of was that perhaps the five to six thousand seemingly-senseless deaths in our country will eventually, somehow, some way, end up saving at least that many Israeli and Palestinian lives - perhaps even pave the road to permanent peace. Perhaps some good can come of this, amidst all the pain. Am I a hopeless optimist?
posted on Sep-19-01 at 2:10 PM
I apologize for posting such mainstream links, but I'm finding that Time Magazine's coverage to be uniformly thoughtful and moving. Two articles in particular - one of Vignettes of victims and near victims, and another about Digging Out - have touched me in ways I never expected Time Magazine to do. Have you found comfort or eloquence in an unexpected place?
posted on Sep-17-01 at 12:44 PM
Murder on Swan's Island Not a Stephen King story or a Murder She Wrote episode, but a real tragedy in a real small town in Maine (not far from my home town) where the deaths of two people change the lives of an entire community forever. It set me thinking ... how would this story be different if set in Boston, or LA, or London? Would the pain and loss for those who knew Jamie and Stacy be the same? Or is it magnified by the close-knit family that makes up a rural island township?
posted on Jul-29-01 at 6:45 PM
Support Operation Hero Miles - donate your Frequent Flyer miles so a soldier can get home.
::via snopes::
posted on Nov-7-03 at 8:21 AM
This is Broken A compendium of bad designs. By Mark Hurst
more inside..
posted on Nov-6-03 at 7:55 AM
The History of Robots in the Victorian Era
posted on Nov-5-03 at 7:27 AM
Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News....
Today is the 65th anniversary of the famous Mercury Theatre presentation of War of the Worlds, as adapted for Radio by Orson Welles. The infamous broadcast (listen in Real Audio or RealAudio or TrueSpeech) caused no small amount of uneasyness, and even some outright panic as listeners, already unsettled by coverage of the impending war in Europe, were all to willing to believe that Martians had indeed landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The broadcast led to an FCC investigation and remains a touchstone in the evolution of the American media.
posted on Oct-30-03 at 9:51 AM
Ancestry Maps from the 1990 census: Which states have the highest percentage of people of Danish ancestry? Greek? Hispanic? Who (perhaps) doesn't realize that we almost all came here from somewhere else? Using the data provided on 1990 Census question 13, which asked respondents to identify the ancestry groups with which they identified most closely, the State of Minnesota provides us with these nifty Ancestry maps. More info here on 'the ancestry question' from the US Census Bureau. link via ::crabwalk.com::
posted on Oct-28-03 at 11:05 AM
Grand Illusions: Optical illusions, scientific toys, visual effects, brain teasers, and (perhaps) just a little bit of magic!
posted on Oct-23-03 at 11:11 AM
On October 17, 1815, following The 100 Days and Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on the Island of St Helena, where he would remain until his death (mysterious or otherwise) in 1821. Discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, St Helena had a long and interesting history before Napoleon arrived, but that history was overshadowed by the story of the Emperor's last years, living in captive exile at the simple yet beautiful Longwood House. Victorians had an insatiable interest for information about the remote island. Today, the picturesque Island is a a tiny bit of England in the South Atlantic, where coffee and tourism (indeed, what some might call pilgrimages) are the main sources of income.
posted on Oct-17-03 at 8:53 AM
Happiness is a Dream of Fisher-Price
posted on Oct-15-03 at 11:07 AM
Riddles and more riddles - Easy Riddles and Ancient Riddles, Math Riddles and Traditional Riddles, Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Lawyer Riddles, Dirty Riddles and Logic Riddles, Medieval Riddles and Awful Riddles. Finally: Ambiguity, Classification and Change: The Function of Riddles.
posted on Oct-14-03 at 9:33 AM
Did you know that you can Rent the Principality of Liechtenstein (or any of six villages in Austria or Germany) for weddings and corporate events?
Flash Warning Inside!
posted on Oct-10-03 at 1:45 PM
Need an Idiom? Check out The Idiom Connection. Think certain phrases are such cliches that they should be banned? Before you condemn or mock them, take a moment to learn more about the origin of some of these phrases.
::via The Tower of English::
posted on Oct-7-03 at 10:57 AM
The Art History of Cheating - just one of the many interesting topics found at Cardshark Online.
posted on Oct-6-03 at 8:54 AM
Sitcoms Online: an archive.
Be sure to try Guess the Sitcom or Guess the Dictator or Sitcom Character.
posted on Oct-3-03 at 7:21 AM
Classic Feminist Writings : an archive
posted on Oct-2-03 at 6:11 AM
The story of Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls is the story of the civilization of the American West. From 1896 to 1945, Harvey House Restaurants and Hotels along the route of the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe represented first-rate food served in clean, stylish surroundings at reasonable cost. His corps of well-trained waitresses, wearing their distinctive uniforms and bound by a code of hard work and good conduct, provided both adventure and independence to generations of young women. Today, all that is left of the Harvey empire is the remembrances of former employees, beautiful buildings which dot the southwest, some vintage recipes, a 1946 Judy Garland film, and (possibly) the enduring term "Blue-Plate Special".
posted on Oct-1-03 at 5:35 AM
A Cautionary Tale: DNA Analysis of Alleged Extraterrestrial Biological Material: Anatomy of a Molecular Forensic Investigation .pdf file
::From The National Institute for Discovery Science via The Daily Grail::
[more inside]
posted on Sep-24-03 at 10:07 AM
The Alphabet: Meaningless shapes arbitrarily linked to meaningless sounds. When George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, his will provided for the development of a new alphabet for the English language, an alphabet of at least forty letters that could be used to write English without all the oddities of our traditional spelling. Learn more about the history and origins of The Shaw Alphabet, and look at some of its competitors, including the initial teaching alphabet, Inglish Simplifíd Speling and The Unifon Alphabet - a 40 character alphabet resulting from the Shaw alphabet competition. Or, read what Mark Twain had to say on the subject.
posted on Sep-23-03 at 10:04 AM
I have to travel the highways and byways of America by car and train a great deal, and its much more fun if you actually see America on the way. Two of my favorite sites for finding offbeat attractions and tasty eats are By The Way Magazine and Roadside America.
posted on Sep-22-03 at 9:54 AM
Iakov Levi analyzes history and literature using a very Freudian approach.
Some highlights:
Pinocchio - The Puberty Rite of a Puppet
Medusa, the Female Genital and the Nazis
Killing God: From the Assassination of Moses to the Murder of Rabin
Without Borders: The Borderline Case of United Europe
::warning! geocities links!::
posted on Sep-18-03 at 1:20 PM
Angle Grinder Man Superhero or Vigilante?
posted on Sep-17-03 at 12:35 PM
Luciferous Logolepsy: Dragging obscure words into the light of day.
::with thanks to Madamjujujive
posted on Sep-10-03 at 8:03 AM
The locals simply called it Carville. Known more formally as the The Gillis W. Long Hansen's Disease Center, it was transformed in July 2000 into The National Hansen's Disease Museum. What is Hansen's Disease? You may know it better by its biblical name - Leprosy. From the founding of the National Leprosarium in 1917 until the hospital closed in 1998, The stories of the people of Carville, their isolation, and finally their fight for civil rights combine to make one of the most important stories in American public health history.
posted on Sep-7-03 at 9:11 PM
The Small World Project was an online experiment (sponsored by Columbia University) involving over 60,000 email users, developed to test Stanley Milgram's famous "six degrees of separation" hypothesis. In the 1960's Milgram tested his theory that members of any large social network would be connected to each other via short chains of intermediate acquaintances by sending small packets via the USPS to individuals in Nebraska and Kansas, with the hope that the packets would eventually reach the intended recipients in Boston. The 21st century Columbia project used email to attempt to verify Milgram's findings on a global scale, and to see if the length of the contact chains have shortened in the 'virtual' world. Project Description - Procedures - Initial Results as published in Science Magazine, August 2003
posted on Sep-5-03 at 4:13 PM
baddesigns.com -- This is not a urinal. This phone is hard to turn on. This must be annoying. This design could get you a traffic ticket. This guy has too much time on his hands.
posted on Apr-29-03 at 6:12 PM
In the house where I grew up, we had a 1950's-era Bomb Shelter in the backyard (a cold war relic inherited from the previous owner). We used our shelter as a playground, but many are now forgotten, repurposed, or restored as museum exhibits. Although such shelters are still for sale (often marketed as Tornado or Storm Shelters), many people today regard these shelters as relics from an earlier time. For some, however, the current terror alerts are reviving cold war shelter memories. As demonstrated by sites like the excellent civildefensemuseum.com, we are clearly still fascinated with this important and revealing part of our history.
posted on Feb-25-03 at 7:51 AM
The Gallery of Regrettable Food: "Frizzle slices of cooked ham in hot butter, adding 1 1/2 teaspoons of drained prepared horseradish to each 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine. Add cheese." Advertisements, Strange recipes from "the golden age of butter", and just plain weird stuff. Also, I think this guy used to do my tech support. with thanks to Television Without Pity and cakeman
posted on Feb-12-03 at 3:13 PM
The Coffee Science Information Centre. Bach once referred to coffee as "lovelier than a thousand kisses." The writers and researchers at the Coffee Science Information Centre would agree. This site takes a scientific look at coffee, especially in regard to caffeine and health. Coffee through history is also examined. ::credit::
posted on Jan-2-03 at 9:18 PM
Mmmmm. Pancakes. Called by many names - Blintz, Palascinta, Flensjes, Pannkuchen, Po-Ping - yes, you know they're yummy, but what do you know about their history or their religious significance? For instance, Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day and for the past 53 years, women in Olney, England and Liberal, Kansas race down the streets of their towns flipping pancakes, continuing an English tradition that goes back more than 500 years. (Melbourne, Australia has a Pancake Day race, too! ) The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Shrovetide with a type of pancake called Blini, and I think most of us know that Latkes (potato pancakes) are a traditional part of the Hanukah feast. (Although apparently there is some debate on the virtues of Latkes over Hamentashen.) On a more secular note, we've just missed the 2002 Fall Flapjack Festival, held every year in Land O'Lakes, Florida. Glenn, Michigan has an annual Pancake Festival, too (since 1938). Hey! I'm getting hungry ... somebody pass the Maple Syrup!
posted on Nov-12-02 at 3:56 PM
Lost in Translation translates any bit of text you submit back and forth between another language (French, then German, Italian, Portuguese, and finally Spanish) and English ten times - the results are a cross between the results of a game of telephone and a Nostradamus prophecy. The best part (for me) is that it shows you the de-evolution of your phrase as it gets translated back and forth.
posted on Oct-12-02 at 10:07 AM
Sometime in the past hour, explodingdog.com (no, I'm not linking to it) got its front page hacked. Now I can understand the motives behind hacking as cyber-terrorism (.pdf file), or to promote your political or social agenda, and I can't say that I totally disagree with hacktivism as a sort of civil disobedience. I also understand hacking as a way to show off your skills. But off all the sites out there, why would some stereotypical punk kids (or whomever) pick a great site like explodingdog to hack? Where's the challenge? So many hackers say they're out to free the Internet - then why attack a site that give away so much for free?
posted on Sep-28-02 at 10:40 PM
As the day after Labor Day is traditionally the first day of School for many of us in the USA, I offer you froguts.com - virtual online frog dissection. All the educational parts of biology class without the nauseating smell of formaldehyde.
posted on Sep-3-02 at 4:39 AM
The Linguistic Fun Page. If you're stuck on a cube-farm somewhere, I especially recommend the Hellatine Dictionary of Bureaucratese. The remote links are much better than the local ones, although I did especially enjoy The Collective Nouns Page (An anthology of prostitutes, a smuth of jellyfish)
posted on Jul-29-02 at 9:45 PM
The Griffith Institute and Oxford's Ashmolean Museum have recently made the complete records of Howard Carter's excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun available on the web. You can browse the complete list of objects as well as read all the original handwritten descriptive cards and view any or all of Harry Burton's original photographs (many taken in situ and never before published). You can also read Howard Carter's complete personal field diaries from 1922 and 1923. Although this is still an work in progress, its an easy way to lose a couple of hours for any MeFi Egyptology fans. with thanks to The Daily Grail
posted on Jul-8-02 at 10:20 AM
Did you know that May is National Artisan Gelato Month? The Food Reference Website is an endless source of Facts and Trivia about eating and food. For instance, do you know the story behind how Dr Percy Spencer actually came to invent the microwave oven? Or that Nostradamus wrote a popular cookbook?
posted on May-2-02 at 11:23 AM
Nearly everyone is familiar with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Now Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber wants us to think about the new seven wonders - the wonders of the modern world. His website, new7wonders.org, allows you to peruse a list of around two dozen "modern wonders" ("modern" being a relative term - most date back hundreds or thousands of years) and vote on your seven favorites. Even if you don't vote, this is a great way to learn about astonishing places (like the old city of Sana'a in Yemen or Machu Picchu in Peru) that you might not have otherwise heard of.
Note: I found this site via a recent New York Times article about the efforts to rebuild and restore Taliban-destroyed cultural artifacts in Afghanistan. Apparently Mr Weber is also backing a plan to rebuild the Bamiyan Buddhas.
posted on Apr-15-02 at 1:11 PM
When I get depressed about the trials and tribulations of planning my upcoming wedding, I visit Etiquette Hell, and give thanks that I'm not any of these people! or the web-designer, but it's still a funny site
posted on Apr-12-02 at 11:09 AM
Here at Metafilter - as in many other places on the web - we spend a lot of time talking about (and in) Haiku. For some reason the web-enabled generation has come to think of Haiku as a hip, funny, and somewhat ironic way to express ... anything. But lest we forget that Haiku is, first and foremost, a beautiful, traditonal art form. How many of you out there know much about the history of Haiku? Did you know that Japan is full of monuments to Haiku? Have you heard of or read any of the great traditional haiku poets, like Masaoka Shiki, the man for whom the International Haiku Award is named? If you enjoy reading traditional-style Haiku, you can read any number of magazines devoted exclusively to Haiku. Many of us have not tried to write Haiku since Junior High - do you perhaps need some instructions on how to write Haiku? If you really enjoy reading or writing Haiku, perhaps you might wish to join the Haiku Society of America. And, of course, if you wish to know more about Haiku, there are any number of other resources out on the web.
posted on Mar-29-02 at 4:51 PM
Is Justin Chapman a misunderstood genius (at age 7) or just an average little boy pushed beyond reason by an abusive, mentally ill mother?
more thoughts inside...
...with thanks tocrabwalk.com
posted on Feb-13-02 at 11:11 PM
At the risk of reopening this recount thread - The Economist is running this rather sarcastic correction in their current edition, along with this strange little 'What if Gore Was President' article. Does this signal that the Age of Irony is not, in fact, dead - or did someone at The Economist just not get the memo?
posted on Nov-16-01 at 4:52 PM
I'm somewhat surprised that no one has yet posted anything about this (see also here and here, etc). My heart leapt last night when I heard this on NPR. All I could think of was that perhaps the five to six thousand seemingly-senseless deaths in our country will eventually, somehow, some way, end up saving at least that many Israeli and Palestinian lives - perhaps even pave the road to permanent peace. Perhaps some good can come of this, amidst all the pain. Am I a hopeless optimist?
posted on Sep-19-01 at 2:10 PM
I apologize for posting such mainstream links, but I'm finding that Time Magazine's coverage to be uniformly thoughtful and moving. Two articles in particular - one of Vignettes of victims and near victims, and another about Digging Out - have touched me in ways I never expected Time Magazine to do. Have you found comfort or eloquence in an unexpected place?
posted on Sep-17-01 at 12:44 PM
Murder on Swan's Island Not a Stephen King story or a Murder She Wrote episode, but a real tragedy in a real small town in Maine (not far from my home town) where the deaths of two people change the lives of an entire community forever. It set me thinking ... how would this story be different if set in Boston, or LA, or London? Would the pain and loss for those who knew Jamie and Stacy be the same? Or is it magnified by the close-knit family that makes up a rural island township?
posted on Jul-29-01 at 6:45 PM
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