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The World Naked Bike Ride unfortunately took place yesterday, but is probably something worth doing next year. I imagine it's a lot like Critical Mass, with less driver anger and more rider embarrassment. Sounds like it was fun in Portland. (slightly NSFW photo on the front page of WNBR)
posted on Jun-14-04 at 12:54 PM

A couple months back, there was a cool flash-based front-end to Google News that displayed topics and their relative importance based on size. Now comes another visualization that's a little bit more abstract, but can be used in the same way, to get "a picture" of what the world considered news on any given day (and it has archives). Slick stuff, rollover all the colored boxes to see topics and click to see archived data.
posted on Jun-9-04 at 4:28 PM

Bush has a new running mate: Zombie Reagan. From the FAQ: What are some other advanatages of adding Zombie Reagan to the ticket? He will demonstrate America's resolve to continue the battle against terrorism. Instead of retreating to an undisclosed location, for instance, Zombie Reagan will be on the front lines, eating illegal combatants.
posted on Jun-9-04 at 12:11 PM

Amazon's trying out "blogging" in the form of "plogs" or purchase personalized logs. It appears to be the same content as your old amazon recommendations, but served up in a blog post-style format, signed by the so very intimate sounding Amazon NewReleaseBot. I can't wait until a giant like Coca Cola starts "blogs" (beverage logs) and announces new flavors complete with permalinks and weekly archives right on every can.
posted on Jun-2-04 at 11:59 PM

From the where-are-they-now (-and-I-hope-they-are-doing-ok) file: Jeremy Botter, our medic man in Iraq, has just released all his posts from Iraq as a free downloadable PDF. It contains the story of capturing Saddam, getting bombed at camp as soldiers died, and a whole lot of playstation2.
posted on Jun-1-04 at 9:45 PM

Pictures and movies from Southeast Asia. The gem of the site is "Traffic Ballet" (wmv file) on the movie page. The photo galleries are pretty good too.
posted on May-24-04 at 12:27 PM

I Declare This Thursday, May 20th, National Carb Awareness Day. A food lover lashes back.
posted on May-19-04 at 9:22 AM

It's mid-May and for outdoor adventurer fans that means one thing: thanks to major weather pattern shifts, the tiny window of opportunity for climbing Mt. Everest is upon us. The first to summit this year looks to be a team from Mexico and Canada, planning to hit the top on Sunday morning. Of course, summiting Everest is a dangerous endeavor, and the crowds on the trail can often lead to disaster. In other mt. climbing news, the north face of the Eiger is unclimbable this year.
posted on May-14-04 at 12:52 PM

Salam Pax gets a movie deal. The Baghdad Blogger has previously taken his posts to the book format and a company has just bought the rights to make a movie out of it. I can't say there are many blogs that would ever work as a movie, but this is certainly a new milestone for blogging.
posted on May-13-04 at 1:05 PM

How old do I look? This is a fascinating project -- almost like an intellectual's HotOrNot, that plays with our perception and societal ideals of age and beauty. I was close to right only about half the time, otherwise I was waaaay off.
posted on May-8-04 at 4:56 PM

If you can't get enough Sith-on-Sith sexy slashfiction action, you could check out the entire category of such work, broken down to what types of character interaction takes place and who is involved. It's just a tiny sliver of the work indexed by The Slash Page Database Project. Oh, the creativity of sexless nerds...
posted on May-7-04 at 12:39 PM

I'm not a fan of followup posts, but this is cool enough to mention. Remember the challenging question of how to turn $14 into $1,000? BirdD0g has taken that noodle-scratcher of a problem and turned it into his personal challenge, and he's taking everyone along for the ride at 14bucks.com. He's got until April 15, 2005 to turn it over into a grand, which sounds like plenty of time, but that's a lot of profit to turn over (7000% return on investment). Who wants to take my $14 bet it doesn't happen?
posted on Apr-29-04 at 1:08 PM

Now that the terrorists are all caught, it's time to go back to attacking the real problem in America: Ravers.

"The Ecstasy Awareness Act (H.R. 2962) would throw anyone in jail who "profits monetarily from a rave or similar electronic dance event knowing or having reason to know" some event-goers may use drugs at the event. Similarly, Section 305 of the CLEAN-UP Act (H.R. 834) makes it a federal crime - punishable by up to nine years in prison - to promote "any rave, dance, music, or other entertainment event, that takes place under circumstances where the promoter knows or reasonably ought to know that a controlled substance will be used or distributed."

ProtectLiveMusic.org has been setup to combat these proposed laws. The idea of busting anyone that promotes a concert where drugs might show up in the jackets of attendees sounds like a good safe law that would never be abused, right? On the bright side, we're now one bill away from Phish and the Dead never touring ever again. :) [via furdlog]
posted on Apr-27-04 at 9:35 AM

This is what we do to looters (3Mb windows media video) This clip comes from Frontline, showing a US tank crew confronting some Iraqis taking some wood. I'll give a quick preview: it's probably not the best way for Americans to build US-Iraq relations. [via rc3]
posted on Apr-25-04 at 5:38 PM

There are goofy news items every day, but once in a while you have some story that transcends them all. Teacher accused of ordering student thrown from window is quite possibly the silliest story I've seen this year. It's beyond the Onion. Teacher enters class and takes photo of students, one student objects, teacher makes a disparaging remark about the way the student looks and student hits an emergency button, then the teacher orders two boys to throw her out the window (where she suffered injuries). Best line about the boys "they threw the girl out the window because they did not want to be written up for disobeying a teacher."
posted on Apr-23-04 at 12:09 PM

What's on TV tonight? Nothing! That's right, it's the tenth annual TV turn-off week. I've actually done this in the past three years, though last year I cheated and just watched everything a week later on TiVo.
posted on Apr-19-04 at 4:31 PM

The 2004 Lyttle Lytton winners were announced. The premise is simple: write a terrible opening line (of 25 words or less) of a hypothetical novel. In case you're wondering the winners in 2003 and 2002 were discussed previously. [via kathrynyu]
posted on Apr-19-04 at 12:13 PM

I've run a marathon and it was hard. Then I learned about ultra marathoners doing 50 and 100 mile runs in one day. Then there are the marathons and ultra marathons in rough places, like Death Valley. Then there's the grand daddy of difficulty: The Marathon Des Sables. It's 6 days and 6 marathons long, run in a desert with temps topping 110F, you have to carry your week's gear and food, and you are limited to 9 liters of water a day. Here are some photos and blogger Ben Hammersley's current results are here. The event finishes tomorrow. [via jay allen]
posted on Apr-16-04 at 4:19 PM

9 beet stretch is the act of using digital tools to slow down Beethoven's 9th symphony to the point where the piece takes 24 hours to complete. Next week, a 9 beet stretch will be taking place in San Francisco, at 964 Natoma, from Friday April 23rd to Saturday April 24. Sleepover!
posted on Apr-15-04 at 1:41 PM

Recent images posted to Live Journal (probably NSFW at any given moment) sounds like an uninteresting feed from a community: it's just a constant stream of images uploaded to LJ. But the truth is that it's fascinating to watch, to see the whole community summarized into a dozen images of the moment. [more inside]
posted on Apr-12-04 at 5:13 PM

This Thursday isn't just the dreaded tax day in America, on the upside, it's also National High Five Day. It's got a rich history and you only need to remember a couple key phrases: Yo, up high! and: Don't leave me hangin'! Remember to act like a fratboy this week and high-five everyone you see.
posted on Apr-12-04 at 11:50 AM

Just in time for Easter, peeps in diarama-rama from the Twin Cities newspaper.
posted on Apr-11-04 at 9:49 AM

There's a lot of scammin', griftin', and chicanery going on in the world and Snopes has always been there, but they usually take some time to do their investigations. But for the quick hit, they've just launched a new daily scam page carrying just that day's latest scam news from around the country. It's really amazing how many major scams take place every day, and it helps to know how to spot a scam when you hear about it.
posted on Apr-10-04 at 9:08 AM

If you caught the Daily Show the other night, you might have seen the segment featuring a couple goofballs and "pete the porno puppet" trying to convert folks at an adult film convention. Their site, at xxxchurch.com, boasts "the #1 christian porn site" and like any porn site, they even get their share of hate mail. The guys behind it seem to have a good sense of humor, even though they're sure that porn is "not what God intended for us."
posted on Apr-8-04 at 7:46 PM

If you ever want your home to look like you're a super spy that lives in a 1960s supercomputer center, Lensvelt has the pefect thing for you: monolithic filing cabinets that look like mainframes. How cool would it be to have a living room that looked like this, or an office that was this clean? [via mocolo]
posted on Apr-7-04 at 3:39 PM

Beatallica's sound is pretty simple: all Beatles cover songs, but done in the style of Metallica. Totally illegal, but available on many P2P networks for free download and via bittorrent. Blackened the USSR, indeed.
posted on Apr-6-04 at 4:11 PM

Gmail: Google's newest service. They're claiming 1Gb of free email, killer spam filters, and a great new webmail interface. They'll likely have Google ads attached to your messages, but I can't wait to see it tomorrow (hopefully it's not just an April Fools prank).
posted on Mar-31-04 at 5:41 PM

Which abuse of the patent system are you? Take this test to find out. Now that they got it, they're beating distance learning colleges over the head with it, for money. Another obvious bit of programming turns lucrative for one company.
posted on Mar-30-04 at 4:41 AM

Play Zork directly in IM. Send an instant message to InfoComBot and choose from a list of available text-based games. You can even save games and return to them later. One thing's for sure: I'm not getting any work done this week.
posted on Mar-21-04 at 8:04 PM

You know how some songs are really catchy and you wonder if the hooks could be engineered to make people like the song? A company called Polyphonic HMI has created software they call "Hit Song Science" which is supposed to contain algorithms that determine if a song is likely to be a hit. The company is touting their first attempt at using HSS in the marketplace as a success. [via furdlog]
posted on Mar-10-04 at 4:57 PM

Just when you've rid your neighborhood of Jets and Sharks, a new gang is on the horizon: the Thunderwheels. Yep, it's a biker gang, and not just any biker gang, but the worst possible kind: a unicycle biker gang. This is the kind of havoc they wreak.
posted on Mar-9-04 at 10:17 AM

Yep, it's true, a Simpsons movie is being worked on. Target release date is sometime in 2006, though there's nothing in IMDB about it yet.
posted on Mar-2-04 at 11:37 AM

If you have a gopher problem that rivals caddyshack, and you like to blow shit up, the rodenator is probably the tool you need. Check out the videos to see the cutting edge technology that rivals a 12 year old bully with too many firecrackers. I'd feign PETA-style shock and horror but it's almost comical how this tool does its job.
posted on Mar-1-04 at 9:03 AM

While there are a million blogs about cheese sandwiches and how lame fifth period trig class is, it's always great to hear when blogs actually help give a voice to those that never had one. Iranian women don't have much say in society, but thanks to blogs, they are now finding they have a voice as they're read by thousands around the world. Of course they've still got some net censorship in Iran, but this is a great start.
posted on Feb-26-04 at 5:18 PM

Rumsfeld's fighting technique is unstoppable. [via airbag]
posted on Feb-26-04 at 10:42 AM

There are an amazing bunch of costumes available at this japanese site. Some of the best are the godzilla, clown, and werewolf. The masks and wigs aren't bad either [via misterpants]
posted on Feb-20-04 at 10:52 AM

An elderly enemy combatant of the state has been denied entry into the United States for our safety and the republic is strong thanks to the decision. Who was it you ask? 77 year old Ibrahim Ferrer and five bandmates nominated for Grammies won't be allowed in the US today. Avowed communist Ferrer (lead member of the terrorist group "Buena Vista Social Club") said "I am not a terrorist. I couldn't be one. I am a musician." but don't believe him, he's a communist after all and a damn good one at that. Red Dawn!
posted on Feb-8-04 at 10:20 AM

If you like breasts and freedom, you might want to check out a new movement to Boycott the Grammys. The site links to various essays in support of Janet and opposition to the FCC and corporate reactions to the event. I suppose they want to send a message to advertisers by skipping it but it'll probably be about as effective as the class-action suit at accomplishing anything.
posted on Feb-7-04 at 2:33 PM

Muted Tones is a collaborative music project where a different "curator" picks out ten minutes of their own music once a month, and after seven months they have a full CD-sized collection of content (complete with blog posts by curators as well). The first one is done and they're almost done with the second one. There's a lot of variety and great artists I've never heard of in the mixes. It's sort of a public CD swap that anyone can listen in on and it's probably totally illegal it's really cool.
posted on Feb-6-04 at 2:37 PM

MacBand has just launched and looks like the perfect fit for budding Garageband musicians. The site hosts songs you've created in Garageband and everything's under a Creative Commons license, so music collaboration with loops, samples, and whole songs from people you've never met will be possible on this new community.
posted on Feb-6-04 at 11:26 AM

Oh snap, things for Kazaa and the parent company just took a turn for the worst as an Australian court served the company with a "search and seize" order. I'm guessing that's like a search warrant in the US, where the authorities have free reign to go through your stuff looking for evidence linked to a crime. Surprising that this happened as a result of no apparent court case, but who knows if it will cause any long term damage.
posted on Feb-6-04 at 8:28 AM

Ron Suskind, previously discussed when his Paul O'Neill co-authored tell-all book came out last month, caused quite a stir due to some of the sensitive documents he used in the book and displayed on TV. Well now he's gone a bit farther, releasing all source documents online and in the public domain. He's also asking other government officials to help add to the document database and claims new documents will continue to be added. My favorite so far is the one to O'Neill from a admin official telling him to be "monotonously on message!"
posted on Feb-5-04 at 5:31 PM

This (windows media) movie taken from a French variety show is pretty cool/kooky/amazing. It's a guy wearing a suit covered in small horns, all honking different keys, and he can play the classics by jumping around and hiting the right notes.
posted on Feb-5-04 at 4:39 PM

I love websites and communities that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the internet. Couch Surfing is just about the most useful site in the world for a wandering college student. You can quickly see what countries offer a couch, there are profiles for each participant with past testimonials and friends lists, and you can even map your travels and where you want to go.
posted on Feb-2-04 at 9:42 AM

Former Davenetics publisher and CSPAN fanatic Dave Pell is now blogging at Electablog. After a couple years of earnest "soapbox 'n rants" style of political blogging, it's nice to see political-themed sites with a sense of humor and humility popping up (like wonkette as well, mentioned last week).
posted on Jan-30-04 at 4:46 PM

It has been said that reality is all about perspective -- a camera is a pinhole view of the world that frequently filters out much of the story. With that in mind, check out this video of the familiar "I have a scream" speech by Dean. I'm no Dean supporter, but from down in the trenches it doesn't look nearly as bad as it played on TV. Obviously the video you've seen on the news has the best part and the audience noise turned down, but from this vantage point, the speech almost seems appropriate for the crowd and the moment (but was still a lapse in judgement to forget cameras were rolling). I hope this isn't too subtle of a point -- forget all the politics involved -- this is a fascinating look at a familiar scene that was looped for the past week, but from an entirely different perspective and a different story emerges. [via Vidiot]
posted on Jan-30-04 at 7:08 AM

The popular radio show, This American Life, has an upcoming series devoted to Jerry Springer's previous life in politics. Along with the radio piece, an entire website has been launched to try and convince Springer to re-enter politics and "revitalize the Democratic Party." Is Springer the new Arnold of the left?
posted on Jan-27-04 at 10:56 AM

You got my Slashdot in your MetaFilter! The Fox News York Times! A gun-free NRA! Indy Free Republic Media! Megnuttke!
posted on Jan-16-04 at 2:10 PM

Cities claim taking photos of speeding cars is done for safety, while others have shown it's just for $$$. They say cameras never lie, but when there is money on the line, who knows? Declan McCullagh rounds up a slew of articles about inaccurate speed cameras on roadways around the world.
posted on Jan-12-04 at 9:13 AM

Graffiti Archaeology Pretty cool flash app that lets you view photos of the same walls in San Francisco over time, as the many layers of graffiti accumulate. To anyone that has ever ridden the Caltrain, a lot of these walls should look familiar.
posted on Dec-20-03 at 10:09 AM