MetaFilter

Your favorite band's website sucks. I can't count the number of times I've wanted to share a band's great new tracks with friends over email and had to give them detailed instructions on how to navigate the flash popup (ok, first click on the band's launch panel, then look in the popup for something marked "sounds" then click that and click the stream button...what? you don't have the latest flash?), or if I love a band's music, I can't seem to find their tour dates even though I know they're on the road. Merlin drops the five golden rules for bands that do too good of a job keeping their fans from their music.
posted on Dec-6-04 at 9:58 AM

While I'm certainly not a fan of the methods used to get us into Iraq and keep us there, I do feel for the troops on the ground and hope they return safe. Any Soldier is a site that aims to let you contact any random US Soldier in a pen-pal email or postcard kind of style, which is kind of cool if you don't know anyone over there. Recently they've gone and added Treat Any Soldier, a way to send a care package to any random US Soldier serving in Iraq. I didn't vote for Bush and I think the war is a growing mistake, but I'm sending a package over this holiday season. Seems like a great way to actually do some good for someone in the real world than putting a picture of a ribbon on your car will ever do.
posted on Dec-1-04 at 5:26 PM

Art.com's Art Pad is a fun little flash app that lets you paint a masterpiece, frame it, then hang it. Check out my handiwork. I'll start the opening bids at $50,000 for the piece. [via redferret]
posted on Dec-1-04 at 7:32 AM

The Meaning of Life Project is an attempt to get stories from everyday folks answering the question "what is the meaning of life?" for an eventual book. You only have until Friday to submit your own thoughts here, though I hope for the book's sake they have a blanket ban on mentions of puppy dogs, unicorns, and teddy bears.
posted on Nov-30-04 at 7:18 PM

If chess is the game of kings... The 2005 U.S. Chessmaster Championships are being held right now, in 2004, here in San Diego. When you have tons of money and a lifelong passion, like Erik Anderson, you can do things like prevent the tourney's demise. Keep your eyes on Hikaru Nakamura and Gata Kamsky, and ask yourself what Garry Kasparov will be doing this weekend. Deep Blue's press secretary told me that he will not attend, but I plan to stop by with my Ivan II, The Conqueror. And if I can't get in, I'll just stay home and read a book, watch a movie or do my damnedest to get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine. (First one is Swedish, last one's a midi.)
posted on Nov-24-04 at 12:01 PM

How not to pull a car out of the water: A visual guide. [via prolific]
posted on Nov-19-04 at 2:43 AM

GrandTheftTendo For those of you still rockin' the 8-bit NES, but want to play GTA III on it.
posted on Nov-16-04 at 12:20 PM

Grey Video: a further experimental mashup (this time, in video) of the Beatles and Jay Z, for the DJ Dangermouse song Encore. Looks almost as slick as the old Weezer Happy Days video by Spike Jonze.
posted on Nov-16-04 at 11:29 AM

Fox's 1.2 million dollar indecency fine was caused by three people complaining. Jeff Jarvis does a little investigative journalism that no mainstream outlets bothered to do. All he did was submit a freedom of information act request via this form, and they sent him the 90 complaints they had on record (the original claim was 159 complaints). But it turns out 88 of them were nearly identical. So three people complained in America, and the FCC fined a network over a million dollars for a show that was already cancelled.
posted on Nov-15-04 at 10:53 AM

I enjoy some basic origami birds that can flap their wings as much as the next guy, but check out this how-to origami gallery of insane projects. The Sea Urchin?! The Octopus?! The Rickshaw?! I have no idea how they did half of these. [via red ferret]
posted on Nov-11-04 at 10:36 AM

Theo Van Gogh, murdered last week by a muslim in retalliation for a movie called Submission, a fictional short film critique of how women are treated within Islam. If you were curious about whether the film was worth dying for, the folks at iFilm have it on their site. It's basically an imagined monologue between a woman and Allah. It's 11 minutes long and is safe for work.
posted on Nov-9-04 at 7:52 PM

Set your TiVos (no really, try this), mooks and midriffs, Douglas Rushkoff has a new Frontline about the "persuasion industry" coming out tomorrow night on PBS. If you caught his Merchants of Cool a couple years ago, you'll probably agree it was a breakthrough program and I hold high hopes for this year's update on how advertisers rule our world.
posted on Nov-8-04 at 3:18 PM

Ever wonder how the world is going to hell in a handbasket if gay marriage runs amok? Our own digaman recounts his ceremony from a couple years ago, after being together with someone for ten years. Sounds like every other wedding I've ever been to (except for the lack of bridesmaids). I'm always telling family members that don't have gay friends like I do: don't fear them, I assure you they're just as boring as you and I.
posted on Nov-5-04 at 5:14 PM

I always thought a future filled with robots would be kinda cool, but I find the Robowatch home security robot kinda creepy. It's expensive (50k euros), looks pretty obvious patrolling around, does have a slick futuristic controller, but finding the three stooges is about the best it can do. I suppose this would be like having your own googlebot around the house.
posted on Nov-5-04 at 9:07 AM

Philippe Starck's been making lots of stuff lately, but I didn't know he was producing shoes for Puma until today (flash site features an odd naked guy you can make jump and walk). Clean and sleek, but they're fetching $200+ a pair which is kind of outrageous. Another bunch of freaky expensive wacky shoe designs I found are from Fessura. Click through their gallery to get an idea of what they offer. Medium continue to be my personal favorite shoes, but I'm always on the lookout for more interesting things to wear. If you've seen any interesting shoes lately, do share.
posted on Nov-3-04 at 6:08 PM

The new server's up and until MetaTalk comes back to life, I wanted to keep this post up to track bugs. If you find one, let me know here.
posted on Oct-29-04 at 11:28 PM

The Rumors On the Internets Are True! "Our goal is to present you with these clips to help you make an informed choice next Tuesday." Your one-stop-shop for documentary clips related to Kerry and Bush, presented by the Internets Vets for Truth.
posted on Oct-28-04 at 11:13 PM

There are a lot of small sites doing caption contests from time to time, but I've never seen a site with such a long history of them. There's gold in the archives (1, 2, 3, 4), and weekly contests still going on.
posted on Oct-18-04 at 10:42 AM

"The sardines swim upstream through a river of tomatoes and hot, dangerous chilis." Cardhouse takes us on a tour of the wacky things you'll find in a hawaiian grocery store.
posted on Oct-11-04 at 3:25 PM

Today is National Coming Out Day which aims to raise awareness of the kinda screwed up laws we have about having The Gay™ in America. Did you know that in 36 out of our 50 states, if you tell your boss you're gay and you get fired over it, it's totally legal? One person has proposed that this day also be Gay for Pay Day, to protest the payment of income taxes to a government that doesn't protect their right to be and is actively trying to forbid their own marriages.
posted on Oct-11-04 at 2:02 PM

these tombstones looked really neat. Moocow's photos show what life is like on the ground in Iraq as a US liberator in the air force. It's always great to see an insider's view, but I must admit some of the captions come off as a bit weird/disrespectful. Otherwise, interesting stuff you don't see everyday.
posted on Oct-7-04 at 4:28 PM

What Barry Says. (mirror of the quicktime video) Though it may stray towards the tinfoil hat in places, you can't dispute that a small group of neocons really is actually trying to reform the world in their vision. But are they doing it merely for profit on the part of their closely related weapons companies? Even if you don't agree with its provacative message, it's a damn fine looking piece of type, design, and film all rolled into one 2 minute short [via randomfoo].
posted on Oct-6-04 at 11:25 PM

The amazing debate spotter text analysis tool is a fun way to look at the words our leaders use. Bush had a lot of obvious ones: hard work, wrong time, wrong place, he forgot poland. Kerry name dropped Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden quite a bit and had the highest kill ratio. Here's Cameron's post about how it came to be and how it works. Politics in the age of the internet are certainly an interesting time.
posted on Oct-1-04 at 2:52 PM

Eat 'em if you got 'em: hemp-based foods were banned several years ago, thanks to the Drug Enforcement Agency's neverending "war on (some) drugs" but lawyers for hemp-based food companies successfully overturned the law, and the deadline ran out on the DEA to challenge it. Not that I would ever want to eat a hemp cheeseburger, but it's nice to know I can. Hopefully hemp rope will remain legal as well.
posted on Sep-30-04 at 2:46 PM

Tattoo my head with anything anti-Bush! An interesting interview with someone that put their skin on eBay for an anti-Bush tattoo, but instead of the $10,000-30,000 price tags, her no-reserve auction started at one cent and only ended at $103.50. The final product kinda works no matter who wins, but still, a hundred bucks probably didn't cover the ink, let alone the commitment. Remember the Howard Dean tattoo? How far would you go for your candidate?
posted on Sep-28-04 at 3:19 PM

"Liberals want to ban the bible!" Guess I missed that meeting where "liberals" decided on this.
posted on Sep-25-04 at 9:39 PM

The full text of George W Bush's acceptance speech. I feel less safe now than I was before, but as of this week it looks like he's going to win.
posted on Sep-2-04 at 8:08 PM

The Extreme Gravity Racing Series: featuring cars from Porsche, Volvo, and mazda among others. Yeah, it's basically soap box derby racing for adults. [via red ferret]
posted on Aug-26-04 at 10:24 AM

The upcoming entertainment lineup for the GOP convention next week is mostly country music, but this article mentions that Stephen Baldwin will be there. Yep, you heard me, a Baldwin. Alec Baldwin was at the DNC last month, and now it's brother vs. brother, Baldwin vs. Baldwin. Remember when you're voting this fall that it's basically a best of the Baldwins contest. You either like Alec, or Stephen, but not both. Now choose your poison Baldwin. [via devoter]
posted on Aug-23-04 at 9:16 PM

When I watched the women's marathon today (which has only existed for 20 years, a shocking story in and of itself), the US coverage noted the final finisher, pulling in at just under four hours, almost an hour and a half after the gold medal. I thought it was odd, and wondered what the last place times and scores were for other events. Lucky for me, I don't have to look too far, as McWetboy's DFL blog tracks the last place in every event at this year's olympics. Because they're there, and you're not.
posted on Aug-22-04 at 10:22 PM

The most recent post on Brendan Grant's site is an unfortunate one: "For those who do not know, back on July 12th I had my house broken into." The full story is over here, but it has a upside: Grant recently picked up a used webcam that takes shots automatically when someone walks past, and caught the break-in.
posted on Aug-22-04 at 9:17 PM

Fear Itself: an american journalist wants to put the threat of terrorism into perspective, and elects to ride on a bus line in Jerusalem, the train line through Madrid, and a British Airways flight said to be a bombing target. He comes away with it unscathed but the stories he tells about the history of terror, especially in Israel, is chilling and daily life in some parts of Jerusalem sounds like scenes lifted straight out of Brazil. [via the big K]
posted on Aug-22-04 at 4:22 PM

Flickr's been around as a photo posting/gallery/sharing kind of place for almost a year now, but today they launched something pretty impressive (ignore the dumb name): Organizr. Check out the demo movies or try it out yourself if you already have photos there. This is the first time I've used a web application that rivaled my desktop application of choice (iPhoto, for photos). Pretty impressive what you can do in Flash these days, besides singing kittens and work-dodging games.
posted on Aug-18-04 at 12:13 PM

"This site was created with one goal; to create the most comprehensive online archive of information and digital photos of the Coventry Vermont Phish show, August 14th and 15th 2004." Seems odd to think folks went to the trouble of dedicating an entire website to just a single concert, until you learn it was the very last one for Phish.
posted on Aug-17-04 at 1:57 PM

iPod vs. Cassette Tape: a comparitive study in pictures.
posted on Aug-12-04 at 11:26 AM

Fox sued for trademarked slogan. Outfoxed has taken the rumblings you've heard online for ages mainstream: that Fox News claims fairness, but is grinding a sharp ax for one team. Now the battle ticks up a notch as alt-newspaper service Altnet takes them to court.
posted on Aug-11-04 at 5:39 PM

Another person gets fired for their blog. This is a strange story, the blog is here, and her former employer is here. According to the story, she was fired due to a complaint from a local, but it sounds like another factor was the blog outdoing the main site in Google searches. Of course it's only half the story, but this seems weirder than any previous occurrence.
posted on Aug-6-04 at 7:52 PM

The Long Bike Ride is a cross-country charity ride (which is short of its goal, kick in a few bucks) by two guys that have never ridden a bike more than 15 miles in one sitting. They're already halfway done, having ridden 50-75 miles everyday for the past couple months, probably thanks to riding high-end ultralight recumbent bikes. Their tour updates are extensive and looking at the photos they look quite relaxed. Then I realized if you're getting your 50-75 miles done in about 4 hours, the rest of the time you can just party! party! party! Still, a pretty amazing feat to do this entire route, especially considering their lack of experience and training.
posted on Aug-3-04 at 11:36 AM

When Wired News redesigned as nearly standards compliant xhtml in fall of 2002, it was cause for a great deal of celebration. Since then other prominent sites like ESPN and PGA have jumped on the standards bandwagon, as have countless personal sites. Today the SF Examiner launched a new site design which does validate as xhtml. More interesting to me are their category archives and date archives, which mimic a weblog's simple and useful layout. Heck, I even love the story pages which feature large leaded text (space between lines - the amount of "double spaceness") which is also blog-like, and makes for comfortable reading. As far as I know, SF Examiner is the first, but will this start a new wave of bandwidth-saving, well-designed newspaper redesigns? [via veen]
posted on Aug-2-04 at 10:36 AM

I never would have imagined we'd see silent, full-powered, electric motocross bikes, but they actually exist. Looks like they went for gas motor-like performance over range, but they'd probably be a blast if you had a small track near your house.
posted on Aug-2-04 at 9:22 AM

Earlier this month, internal white house rumors were leaked saying that ideally, it'd be great to find an Al Queda suspect during the week of the Democratic National Convention, since the Democrats would likely be grabbing headlines. Sounds like some crass opportunism instead of truly protecting the republic from terrorists, doesn't it?

Well, what do you know, today this message floated at the top of CNN.com, more important than Kerry's keynote. Even though the guy was caught on Sunday, we don't hear about it until today. Foxnews looks the same way (screenshot), with the Al Queda headline above Kerry's one day in the sun at Fox News. But it's all just a coincidence and we're not being played like a fiddle. Sure.
posted on Jul-29-04 at 1:29 PM

Wilmington News Journal features writer Ryan Cormier wrote a review of a Clay Aiken concert today. Word reached "The Clayboard" with a link to Ryan's newspaper-hosted blog which then got slammed with angry comments from Clay Mates. There are other News Blogs from this paper; they even cover scandals and legal transgressions by elected officials. But Ryan? He's done touched a nerve.
posted on Jul-28-04 at 4:18 PM

While much of the blogging world has been ga-ga over getting into the Democratic National Convention, it's tough to find anything interesting going on among the convention bloggers (to their credit, go turn on CSPAN today and see for yourself how boring it is). While our own Jessamyn is there (here are profiles of everyone going), I've found the strange CNN/Technorati partnership to be the most useful thing. Technorati founder David Sifry is basically doing a metafilter of all convention blogs over on CNN as the daily blog roundup, highlighting the posts worth reading among the participants.
posted on Jul-27-04 at 11:20 AM

If you're ever looking for free wireless in the Bay Area, and you've got an iPod with you, a project from Bay Area Wireless called wiPod has you covered. It's a listing of all known free points in the region, sorted by city and location, and can be viewed on any iPod (screenshot, direct download).
posted on Jul-21-04 at 9:54 AM

The UN recently posted a list of the ten stories they wished the world knew more about. One of them is about trying to ensure proper care and equal treatment to persons with disabilities in other countries. Unrelated to the UN, but to the point, this photojournalist's images of preventable blindness in Asia connects the faces of those affected to the issue.
posted on Jul-15-04 at 3:07 PM

Today is the 50th anniversary of the geodesic dome, designed by Buckminster Fuller. The US Postal Service launched a new stamp today, to commemorate the date and honor the creator.
posted on Jul-12-04 at 1:04 PM

Mark Mothersbaugh's Beautiful Mutants, a slideshow of Rorschach-like manipulated images of faces from long ago set to his music, is currently on tour. I'm checking it out to see how his art compares with his music work in DEVO and movie soundtracks -- hopefully it comes close.
posted on Jul-12-04 at 11:11 AM

Sometimes bars give you a free beer on election night after you come in and show proof that you have voted. If you're wondering whether your local watering hole will be awarding your civic duty, check out Election Night Drink Specials. Exercise your rights in this democracy, increase voter turnout, and get drunk for free. It's projects like these that make me proud to be an American.
posted on Jul-5-04 at 11:34 AM

Senator Orrin Hatch introduced the INDUCE bill earlier this week with broad, vague limits on who could be sued for copyright infringement. No longer limited to just companies producing programs or those hosting programs, this bill intends to criminalize anyone that aids in copyright infringement. The EFF have produced a mock complaint against Apple for the iPod, since it can play illegally obtained mp3s just as easily as legally purchased ones. Ernest Miller has broken down Hatch's entire "for the children" speech that introduced the bill, in excruciating detail. Those who own mp3 players, TiVos, and other sorts of disruptive technologies should watch this one closely, it could get really ugly.
posted on Jun-25-04 at 12:21 PM

After 14 years of highly successful nationwide tours that began the trend of the multi-stage, summer super rock fest, Lollapalooza 2004 has been cancelled due to low ticket sales. I went to a 1991 show, and attended half a dozen other similar fests in the past ten years, but as I've gotten older I've become a bigger fan of the intimate club vs. the gigantic rock festival. Still, Lollapalooza being cancelled comes as a shock, especially considering the stellar line-up on both stages.
posted on Jun-22-04 at 9:15 AM