skip to main content
June 30
Silly use of Eliza
for an A.I. review. I just saw it yesterday and I don't see this as Speilberg doing Kubrick as much as Spielberg taking (stealing?) all of Philip K. Dick's tricks and putting together a movie slightly more audience friendly than Blade Runner. (more)
posted by skallas at 5:52 PM PST - 51 comments
The Frank & Fritzy show
The
latest episode of FBI tapes is on diet:
FRITZY: Nothin'. Nothin'. Once I come out there's nothing you could, I could buy out there other than fruit, an apple or something like that, that I'll have out there.
FRANK: Fruit?
FRITZY: That's all.
FRANK: Yeah.
FRITZY: That's all I'll have.
FRANK: The restaurants kill ya.
posted by john at 12:54 PM PST - 1 comments
The J.W. Westcott II
delivers toilet paper, the occasional pizza, and, most importantly, mail to freighters making their way through the Great Lakes. And now it's the only boat in the U.S. to be assigned it's own zip code.
posted by Oriole Adams at 11:38 AM PST - 6 comments
Oh me oh my:
Video bootleggers have flooded the underground market with thousands of copies of a film labeled Pearl Harbor that contains only five minutes of the actual movie. The rest of the video contains hard porn material featuring Caucasian and Asian actors. All together now: At Least It's More Interesting Than The Actual Movie. (link only good until the morning of July 2nd)
posted by logovisual at 10:47 AM PST - 10 comments
France's 35-hour work week
has boosted the economy and proved a hit with both employees and their bosses. "If the French experiment works then the UK Government may be forced to look at France rather than the U.S. for new ideas about reforming the jobs market." Thanks to
AlterNet for the link.
posted by fleener at 8:39 AM PST - 50 comments
June 29
CBS dials 911 4 BB2...
Arnold Shapiro (who helmed Rescue 911, Scared Straight, & more) has been announced as Executive Producer, in hopes of resusitating what critics pronounced DOA last year despite above satisfactory summer ratings. Some of new developments sound promising.
Some don't. (MORE)
posted by ZachsMind at 10:36 PM PST - 11 comments
Humans Good!
Finally...a report on a major TV network that presents (dare I say it?) the truth about progress, technology, and human nature, and eco-terrorists are portrayed in the scathing light of reality.
posted by davidmsc at 7:33 PM PST - 30 comments
A Man, A Mower and a Mission.
An unknown man mowed a huge '420' sign into two hills in Peoria this week. From the article, an entertaining quote:
"That's strange that somebody would put ("420" in 20-foot-long digits) on our right-of-way," Illinois Department of Transportation engineer George Ryan said said. "I don't think there's any marijuana growing out there."
Maybe he received a
shipment too? [
*]
posted by DragonBoy at 4:08 PM PST - 9 comments
A working internet business model?
Say it ain't so! While checking out my options for hosting companies, i found these guys. They struck me as geeks with a dry sense of humour.
hmmm... Maybe if i trust my websites in the hands of geeks, i won't have to worry about my host disappearing from under me due to some suit blowing capital on a fancy chair. (+2 points for having a site that believes in function over aesthetics. maybe they're on to something here as well...) I dunno, maybe i stumbled on to something grand in the making? A company that actually cares?!? o_O
posted by jcterminal at 3:03 PM PST - 6 comments
Michael Young's critique of the meritocracy
is brilliant, subversive and quite possibly based on faulty assumptions. "It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others."
posted by lbergstr at 2:03 PM PST - 11 comments
Corruption Perceptions Index 2001 highlights worldwide corruption
"There is no end in sight to the misuse of power by those in public office - and corruption levels are perceived to be as high as ever in both the developed and developing worlds.
It does not reflect secret payments to finance political campaigns, the complicity of banks in money laundering or bribery by multinational companies. Corruption in the most prosperous countries in the world has many manifestations."
posted by riley370 at 12:13 PM PST - 3 comments
The Global Privileges of Whiteness.
"The average White American's attitudes about race and racism are a mixture of self-congratulation and defensiveness -- 'Yes, America has had some episodes of racism and racial bias, but that's all clearly in the past.'"
posted by queequeg at 12:09 PM PST - 13 comments
Yesterday,
the Good Morning Silicon Valley webpage at the SJ Merc (which I love since it keeps me from having to see CNET's god awful ads) had an interesting blurb as an offshoot of the whole NY cell-phone safety debacle (scroll to the last item.) Columnist John Paczkowski asked if it was possible to change your pants in a moving car at 65 miles an hour. He got some pretty funny responses. What have YOU done in a moving car that you shouldn't have?
posted by machaus at 11:07 AM PST - 23 comments
Before there was a Yahoo!, There was Yahoo Serious..
It seemed like we were headed for a nice Australian invasion in the lateeighties-earlynineties with Crocodile Dundee and Paul Hogan's subsequent "That's not a knife..that's a knife." commercials. This first Yahoo was to make millions of dollars, and then it, like, didn't. What were the chances of two Yahoo's in one decade? Why does one yahoo succeed while another fails?
posted by brucec at 10:57 AM PST - 11 comments
End of an (albeit brief) era
Caroline Casey, of the
The Age, one of Australia's finest newspapers, proclaims:
----------
Friday, 29 June
5.16pm: THE BLOG IS DEAD!
I was trying to think of the best way to depart an appearance on ghost sites? a web-generated apology note? But I decided a listing of my favorite websites was best. ... Thanks for the hundreds of entertaining submissions I have received over the year. ---------
That's it, no explanation. I guess the weblog is a dead concept, for sure now. (
More)
posted by rschram at 10:26 AM PST - 22 comments
Apparently, these women are made of wood.
Ok, I admit that I'm unable to resist a banner ad that shows nothing but claims, "Don't click this link if your wife is in the room." But seriously, the very idea of three bikini clad women stranded on a desert island with only military radio equipment for company choosing to start a pirate TV station is a bit far fetched even for the most knuckle dragging sports fan. Or is it?
posted by shagoth at 7:55 AM PST - 4 comments
Anyone who knew anything about the Netizen
movement (or idea) i think, should know that, day before yesterday, the "Original Netizen,"
Michael Hauben, is no longer with us. he was a good friend of mine (and many others), and had a lot of things to say about the Net and those of us who love it so dearly, and i thought that everyone should know.
posted by tatochip at 7:28 AM PST - 1 comments
Cha Ching!
I am not a person who really support the lotto but I couldn't be happier that a poor grocery bagger won millions of dollars. What makes me even happier is they plan to give some of it back to the community.
posted by aj100 at 7:14 AM PST - 31 comments
Greeks fill the temple of Zeus
full of amps and concert gear for a NASA tribute. Some people look at ancient sites as things to be preserved, but Greece's minister of culture sees them as profitable venues. Next week they'll be using the Parthenon for ammunition storage.
posted by skallas at 6:58 AM PST - 17 comments
A fight for Cobain's final song
An unreleased gem, thought to be the last song Kurt Cobain recorded before his death. Now the two surviving members of the band and Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, admit in court records that it does exist. But fans may never get to hear it.
posted by matteo at 3:54 AM PST - 69 comments
Neale
is being watched. The local press say the data isn't real-time because the CSIRO fear for his safety.
I hope they're over reacting.
posted by southisup at 2:36 AM PST - 4 comments
June 28
Funny women:
Prompted by the Paula Poundstone thread, I decided to start a new conversation. Perhaps you've not been exposed to some of the amazingly funny women out there. The linked site is run by some friends of mine in New York.
posted by acridrabbit at 8:57 PM PST - 25 comments
Do internal memos reveal oil refineries engaged in price-fixing?
From Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points memo; links to a Paul Krugman NYT op-ed, but far more intriguingly to Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR)
webpage, where on June 14th he released his report on alleged price fixing by varied oil refineries based on internal memos and documents of these companies. These types of allegations have been made before, but there is some rather damning language from those internal memos...
posted by hincandenza at 7:45 PM PST - 4 comments
Are they
grasping at straws here or no? Smartertimes rips on the NYT for making the sweeping generalization that the whole of Europe is opposed to the death penalty. Okay, fine, bad writing is bad writing and maybe someone at the Times should have done their homework, but this guy bases his entire argument on an article written in The New Republic. Not that it's a bad read, but it's hardly going to be an objective take on the topic. No?
posted by Bixby23 at 6:18 PM PST - 11 comments
'
Download Beta 10.3 now' was the message that greeted me as i logged on for old times sake and the urge to verify some speculation i'd heard '
You must upgrade your client at http://www.napster.com.
* Disconnected from server! (Thu Jun 28 17:22:50 2001)
* Unable to reconnect to server! (Thu Jun 28 17:22:50 2001)' shouted my screen in nasty red text. The exclamation marks were the icing on the cake. It seemed my v2.0 BETA 6 just didn't kick it anymore. Left out in the cold! It was like being kicked from an irc channel, except here i had been N-lined!.
[more..]
posted by Kino at 6:10 PM PST - 50 comments
Who IS Kilroy?
Kilroy WAS Real!
James J. Kilroy.....lived in Boston, Massachusetts, served in the Legislature and during World War II worked in a shipyard in Quincy where the famous saying was born.
posted by Wicker at 2:50 PM PST - 16 comments
Guess who's coming to breakfast?
The most rapidly syndicated comic strip since Calvin & Hobbes. Not bad for a
cartoon that has the relatively narrow purpose of "telling jokes about black people to black people." Is it doing so well
because of the politics or
in spite of the politics? Or is it just that it's pretty damn funny and well-drawn? In any case, if it gives people even a glimpse of otherwise absent diversity, I love it.
posted by conquistador at 1:50 PM PST - 22 comments
Good Bye! is an opinionated quarterly magazine which chronicles the dead ?famous, infamous and non-famous.
Stuff like
this just blows my mind.
posted by thirteen at 1:45 PM PST - 4 comments
The World's Largest Music Festival
starts today and runs until next Sunday. With acts ranging from
Wilco to the artist once again known as Prince, there's usually at least one band worth seeing for everyone. Plus it's cheap, if you go at the right time. But the question remains, what events do you look forward too each summer?
posted by drezdn at 12:16 PM PST - 23 comments
"At some point
Yahoo! will shift emphasis towards a billing relationship, that is as good as fact. What they need to decide, however, is whether to lead with a subscription or ISP model."
posted by grambo at 11:29 AM PST - 14 comments
Baseball is a good game. The
nicknames, however, absolutely kill me.
Ridiculous, almost pornographic nicknames like Cannonball Titcomb, Dick Tettleback, Cy Slapnicka, Rusty Kuntz, Pete LaCock and Dizzy Nutter.
Anyone else have any favorite sports nicknames?
posted by norm at 10:45 AM PST - 18 comments
"'I never dreamed of trimming it.
All the time I worked for the airline, my moustache attracted many adoring eyes inside the plane and on the ground,' the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
But Indian Airlines takes a different view."
posted by moss at 10:12 AM PST - 5 comments
Q: What's the best thing you can do for your career, if you're a musician?
A:
Die.(warning, page designer has used really small fonts)
posted by darukaru at 9:17 AM PST - 6 comments
Belgium schoolchildren
give up lunchtime milk, pop, and fruit drinks for low-alcohol beer. Once I got over my "American sensibilities" this seems like a good idea.
posted by skallas at 9:07 AM PST - 29 comments
Let the sun do your cooking for you!
Not just a great way to save electricity, gas, or charcoal... (particularly if you live in California *grin*) it's delicious too! We built the
Solar Funnel Cooker just for the halibut (groan) - cooked it in white wine with shredded zucchini and carrots - and it was the most tender, tasty fish I've ever eaten.
posted by thunder at 8:53 AM PST - 13 comments
Learn about
the Foolish Workshop at the Motley Fool and let the numbers decide which stocks to pick.
posted by MarkO at 7:23 AM PST - 9 comments
This page
(on Sam Brown's great
explodingdog site) lists links to web pages displaying red robots*. I love sites that post artwork and then ask other people to create variations on that artwork. My favorite example used to be the Digital Doodlebox, but that site is, alas,
closed. Anyone know any other sites like this?
*warning:self-link burried somewhere in the red-robot page.
posted by grumblebee at 7:02 AM PST - 12 comments
Microsoft Kills IE6 Smart Tags
"External feedback" was one of the factors that led the company to remove the feature, although he indicated it could be resurrected in later versions. Perhaps the constant barrage of complaints worked on this one? They've got it working, now they are back peddling. I for one am glad, "No Squiggly Lines".
posted by benjh at 4:59 AM PST - 68 comments
Aw, what a cute kitty...
From the "why didn't I think of this?" department: a photographer adopts a cute little gray cat, posts the sob story of how the cat was orphaned, starving, injured, etc. before he found a good home, and then just as women are all gushy, asks if they want to pose nude with him. Genius!
posted by RylandDotNet at 3:31 AM PST - 24 comments
June 27
A Boy And His Dad...
"Bread and butter isn't just a food. It's a metaphor ...Whatever it is that resets you.." I don't want a child of my own, but it's nice to experience
glimpses of this father & son
dynamic duo thang from
Henry's Diary so I know what I'm missing. Thanks for the link,
Dreama. And yeah, this was briefly mentioned
a year ago, but it's overdue for its due. I like to imagine I'm a tough nut to crack, but this just made me
melt.
"I wish I was the person my son made me feel I could be when I'm in his arms." everybody! 1-2-3!
aaawwwww! now that's sweet!
posted by ZachsMind at 9:10 PM PST - 4 comments
Paula Poundstone Arrested.
The details are sketchy and the most that's released is there was "lewd" behavior. What's interesting is the backdoor commentary on the whole affair, and I wonder if people immediately think she's a "dyke" child molester simply because she is who she is. Is she?
These trolls seem to think so.
posted by tiaka at 7:24 PM PST - 32 comments
New Democrats or Old?
On one hand you have the New Democrats (Clinton, Gore), who's agendas are more centrist (some would say right leaning) but have had victories (Clinton being elected twice). On the other hand, the more liberal wings seem to say that it's better to stand on principle and convince the populace to come over to your side.
posted by owillis at 1:10 PM PST - 37 comments
Jim Jeffords: Party of One
I got so sad reading reading this article. The "Singing Senators" have disbanded because Lott and Craig want nothing to do with him. His picture was placed in a urinal at a Republican club. His wife and son are pissed. (His son threatened to name his child Reagan Nixon Jeffords.)
posted by jennak at 12:45 PM PST - 58 comments
Zeldman's
seemingly constant problems with Network Solutions continue. It raises two questions for me. 1. Why wouldn't he change the domain and/or name rather cease publication of one of the best independant publications on the web? and 2. How come they haven't overhauled the domain registration system to have other methods for verification? At the company where I work we have over 50 domains and we're constantly having problems with peoples' names who are long since gone being on the registration and not being able to remove them. Hope it works out for him, I couldn't live without my ALA fix.
posted by abosio at 12:01 PM PST - 37 comments
Do I make you h*rny, baby? [censored]
This is far from new, but I just stumbled on this hilarious review of the Austin Powers sequel written by ChildCare Action Project: Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAP). I don't post this to bash Christians or to inspire a bazillion comments about religion or censorship. I just thought CAP's outrage over an essentially harmless film was fun to read.
posted by Karl at 9:42 AM PST - 18 comments
Your house is set to become a sprawling, and cheap, computer network.
Ninety technology companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. are part of a group that announced a major breakthrough Tuesday in the years-long push to use power lines to transmit data. As early as October, consumers in Canada and the United States will be able to use any plug in their house to connect computers to each other and to the Web. No extra wiring will be required.
posted by tranquileye at 6:42 AM PST - 32 comments
June 26
'
XIAMEN: A senior Beijing researcher on Taiwan affairs yesterday called for immediate measures to resist an ongoing bid by the island to promote its cultural independence..'.
[More]
posted by Kino at 9:32 PM PST - 11 comments
Outsider Art
Woman with Downs Syndrome creates works of art by wrapping random objects in masses of colored fibers. She cannot speak, hear, or communicate whatsoever, and she has been deemed too retarded to possibly understand the meaning of art, but still, she goes on creating with an 'intensity' that belies her condition. Does insanity work to produce works of art or other genious?
posted by SpecialK at 7:17 PM PST - 34 comments
Kid sues over right to wear shirt.
No... nothing interesting like 'Straight Pride' or 'Kip Kingle, Student of the Year'. No, this time a 19 year old fights for his right to wear a "You Might Be a Red Neck Sports Fan If..." shirt. Wish they let him. It's easier to avoid idiots when they are clearly labelled.
posted by jcterminal at 6:49 PM PST - 15 comments
Commander Porn, at your service!
"...one of Canada's top naval commanders has been suspended from duty and humiliated in front-page headlines for accessing ''Penthouse-like sites'' on a portable computer provided to him by the military. "
Commodore Eric Lerhe, the 52-year-old chief of Canada's Pacific fleet, acknowledged to higher brass that he had on occasions downloaded images of naked women while off-duty and alone in officers' quarters during an assignment in the United States.
Isn't this overkill? A reprimand I could see, but does it make sense to punish this to this degree?
posted by revbrian at 6:34 PM PST - 9 comments
US Woman Killed in Malaysia
"Police believe an American woman whose remains were recently unearthed in Malaysia was used as a human sacrifice in a ritual to obtain lottery numbers from the spirits..." The article didn't say if they won. Not that it matters.
posted by mcsweetie at 6:09 PM PST - 8 comments
Cheney refuses GAO request for Information
Look, I think both sides of the aisle are a bunch of wankers, but what do you think the reaction would have been from Republicans if this had come out of the Clinton White House? (Especially if it had been Hillary making the refusal, instead of Cheney.)
posted by edlark at 3:11 PM PST - 7 comments
Who's your daddy?
A pony in Penrith, England, gives birth to a half-zebra foal. The owners of the pony didn't even know she was pregnant. Sounds like a story off Jerry Springer. "No really, I was never with the zebra!" We'll see what the paternity test shows....
posted by 120degrees at 3:02 PM PST - 17 comments
US drops WTO lawsuit
against Brazil for producing generic anti-AIDS drugs while UN nations' contributions to African AIDS relief falls short of Annan's proposed 10 billion war chest.
posted by skallas at 2:11 PM PST - 2 comments
Anyone here a
Zen Tupperware rep?
I mean, what's the sales spiel? The cool place not to keep your food? The food container that's not a food container?
I have to know! Anyone interested in a MeFi Tupperware party?
posted by davehat at 8:59 AM PST - 13 comments
We all have AIDS
Yet another article on global AIDS, but it includes Nazi's and the holocaust.
The writer suggests that the CEO's of pharmaceutical companies that reduced the price of anti-viral medication should receive a Nobel Prize because they "save the lives of more human beings than died in the Holocaust."
posted by nonharmful at 8:34 AM PST - 8 comments
Scripophily
is the misunderstood love of owning stocks and bonds that shouldn't be worth anything anymore. So why not make a
business out of it? I'm just glad to see that
e-toys is doing good once again.
posted by samsara at 6:16 AM PST - 5 comments
Breast exams considered harmful.
Some Canadian researchers claim that teaching women to conduct their own breast exams does no good as they are more likely to encounter benign lumps, suffer undue anxiety and endure unnecessary surgery. (An associated article can be found
here).
"Many breast tumours are found by women themselves, even in highly screened populations. However, in women regularly performing BSE, many self-detected tumours are found incidentally, not during self-examination. In one study, only 7.6% of women with breast tumours who were practising regular BSE actually detected the tumour by means of self-examination. In addition, tumours developing between screens in some age groups (e.g., 5069) may be inherently more aggressive and thus may not be influenced by slightly earlier detection with BSE. "
So BSE works for
only 7.6%? That's a good enough percentage for me, especially as the costs of BSE campaigns is pretty trivial compared to other public health measure.
posted by maudlin at 3:54 AM PST - 4 comments
June 25
Want college aid? Bush insists on total disclosure about prior drug use.
"The thing that struck me was the Bush administration stance that a non-answer means you're guilty is ironic, since he spent the entire campaign not answering the question about cocaine," Hlinko said. "I don't care if he did coke 30 years ago, but this is hypocritical."
I don't dislike Bush to the same degree as some of you, but this pisses me off.
posted by dong_resin at 11:30 PM PST - 25 comments
Cool little site about the
real doings of the mob in America today. I love the affected-but-oh-so-hard-boiled writing style. Updated weekly. My only gripe, a very tiny one, is that there's not enough dope on Asian mobsters. Otherwise, pretty neato.
posted by Bixby23 at 8:51 PM PST - 4 comments
Latest David Horowitz trolling op-ed piece,
this time on gays in the military. With his usual obliviousness to irony, he presumes in this piece that anyone who disagrees with him must be the knee-jerk PC police. Question: does posting a link to a troll constitute trolling in and of itself? Discuss.
posted by hincandenza at 4:56 PM PST - 31 comments
CSS behavior tag
and
HTML Component files are some of the new bits that Microsoft has proposed to the standards boards and which are already implemented in recent versions of IE. Of course, I only discovered them by poking around in microsoft.com's source. What do you think of these tools? It looks like it will make Web apps more powerful and application like.
posted by benbrown at 3:28 PM PST - 20 comments
Are U.S Senator Rick Santorum and his 'intelligent design creationism' friends trying to
sneak one by us in the Education bill?
posted by quirked at 1:51 PM PST - 34 comments
A hero for the 21st century.
Brilliant or just possessed of plain ol' common sense? In today's world, perhaps having the latter qualifies someone for the former adjective. One has to admire a relatively high profile person who doesn't shy away from telling the truth despite the pressures to hedge and equivocate.
posted by rushmc at 12:54 PM PST - 13 comments
"Many individuals have asked me in past months, Why moist towelette collecting? Why not stamp collecting, or numismatics?
To be different, perhaps? Well, I must admit that at first that was part of the appeal, but I have since become aware of the strong movement of Moist Towelette enthusiasts, and accepted that I am not alone in my fascination / hobby."
posted by machaus at 12:51 PM PST - 12 comments
Games!!!
Games!!! Games!!! What do you guys play when you've got some free time? (I'm personally most interested in free games, but you're welcome to share anything.)
posted by gd779 at 11:26 AM PST - 58 comments
The Rise and Fall of the Geeks -
Three years ago, they had the power to change the world, make a more than decent living and bask on highbrow success - perhaps a justified retribution after many years of world disdain and incomprehension to the geek community. It didn't last... and the article sheds some lights on the probable reasons.
posted by betobeto at 10:36 AM PST - 34 comments
Ghost World is made into a movie.
The comic on which it is based is by
Daniel Clowes, an "alternative" comics author of some fame. I think I'm just a bit shocked that, of all comics, a movie would be made about ... well, anything by Daniel Clowes. Starring Steve Buscemi and
Thora Birch from American Beauty. (Thanks to
URB magazine (print) for the tip and
Memepool for the Clowes interview pointer.)
posted by moz at 9:51 AM PST - 9 comments
Tony Blair wants to nix Double Jeopardy protection.
A right that has been considered vital since the days of the Magna Carta is under threat from Labour. Blair wants to make it possible that "
someone acquitted of a killing can be put on trial again if new evidence emerges". Why not just be sure of the case in the first place? This would only cause a rush to trial by unprepared prosecutors.
posted by dwivian at 7:47 AM PST - 11 comments
Our Dumb Cinema
: Miramax Films signed the popular satirical newspaper writers for
The Onion, promising to purchase some undisclosed number of screenplays from
Onion writers. But what will they write?
posted by tallman at 7:01 AM PST - 41 comments
For Sale.
Pre-owned Search Engine $250,000,000 o.n.o
Google is hinting at an end of year IPO for a measley $250 million. Is this the beginning of the end of the dot-com crash?.
Via The Register.
posted by fullerine at 6:45 AM PST - 22 comments
The ACLU has been taken over by psychopathic haters in Hawaii.
The First Amendment Conference subcommittee of the state board had planned to invite Clarence Thomas to a public debate with ACLU national president Nadine Strossen, as part of a regular series of such debates that has included many big-name conservatives, including Antonin Scalia. But when certain members of the main state board found out, they flew into a rage and demanded the invitation be recinded. Just SOME of the reasons why these three ACLU board members members, all black, are refusing to allow Thomas to participate (note that these are all direct quotes, publicly stated by state ACLU board members): He is an an Anti-Christ. He is an Uncle Tom. He is an asshole. He is a Hitler. He is a Goebbels. And worst of all, he
married a white girl. When the ACLU starts to violently attack freedom of speech and freedom of thought, where else can we turn?
posted by aaron at 6:09 AM PST - 27 comments
Gates interview with ZDNet.
Open source advocates and *nix users will enjoy his comments on publishing source code and the GPL. Anyone care to do a line-by-line accuracy check?
posted by goto11 at 6:03 AM PST - 19 comments
June 24
These guys cool and trap anti-electrons (positrons) and at the same time cool and trap anti-protons. Why? Because they want to make cold
anti-hydrogen and compare its properties with ordinary hydrogen. Pretty cool all round, really.
"Any difference between antimatter and matter would be extremely interesting since we do not yet understand why we have a universe made of matter. We would expect that the big bang that originated our universe would create equal amounts of antimatter and matter, which would then annihilate, leaving nothing. The great mystery is why enough matter was left over that we and our matter universe could exist."
posted by lagado at 11:22 PM PST - 11 comments
Current NIDS Data.
I like this page because I can see if my house is going to be fried by a lightning strike or flattened by a tornado without having to put up will all of weather.com or intellicast's popup ad B.S. It's very convenient and timely.
posted by dr. zoidberg at 10:43 PM PST - 9 comments
Some give Jet Li a round of applause:
In a gesture uncommon for any Hollywood player, martial arts master and action hero Jet Li asked fans not to bring their young children to see his upcoming feature "Kiss of the Dragon." The 38-year-old Chinese star wrote on his Web site (JetLi.com) that the R-rated film is "an adult movie and deals with adult themes," with action sequences geared towards an adult audience. "The movie utilizes very realistic, hard-core, action-packed fight sequences. I'm very proud of the final result and hope that my fans enjoy the movie, however, this is a movie that I do not feel is appropriate for children," Li wrote. "
heh, that's enough to justify me forking over my $5.50 over to Jet Li.
posted by adnan at 2:55 PM PST - 28 comments
You can forget all about that "goat sex" photo thing when there's something as horrifying as
this closeup available for public viewing. Good God, he's barely
human at this point! All I could think of once it loaded was: "That's just
not right."
posted by m.polo at 2:39 PM PST - 20 comments
Diablo II Goes Gold!
The official release date is now next week, 6/29/01. Diablo was addictive, Hellfire was even worse. I spent a six months playing Diablo II non stop and now this. I hope my wife doesn't kick me and my Assassin out the door.
posted by me myself and i at 1:51 PM PST - 10 comments
Is Slashdot Toast?
I found this using a link from F**kedcompany, who seems to be rather amused by the fact that /. has been down since friday. The posts at geekizoid seem rather flaky for the most part, so I don't know how seriously to take this. But in any case, it's just not like the Slashdot crew to drop off the net without a word.... What have all of you out in MeFi land heard????
posted by BGM at 1:30 PM PST - 23 comments
Is memepool losing it?
With two "I'm so stupid" (or am I an advertising agency?) web sites (Miguel's and Amy Ritchie's sites) in the last three days, I have to wonder if the fine folks who contribute to memepool are slipping a bit. Or have I been thinking too highly of memepool all this time? Is it the web community in general?
posted by fnirt at 8:38 AM PST - 14 comments
June 23
Update on Bezos' recent clash of interests (shock, horror..)
book review..
[More..]
posted by Kino at 11:42 PM PST - 5 comments
SmarterChild, the
ActiveBuddy bot that can give you the news, tell you how your stocks are doing, play games and tell you to stop using profane language all at the same time, is finally live on AOL's IM system. Add him/her/it to your buddy list and have fun! (Isn't it interesting how moving backwards to good old lightning-fast ASCII is suddenly being considered the wave of the future? Those of us who have been forced into trading
PINE for
Web-based email against our will have known better the whole time.)
posted by aaron at 11:10 PM PST - 19 comments
Groovy, luscious, retro...music to "get hip" by!
Call it lounge, call it bubbly, call it bizarre, but "space age pop" music (as the site terms it) is undeniably groovy. We've all heard it before, but did you realize how popular it is (in some form or another)? You've probably got a favorite tune or two that falls into this category, and you didn't even know that this IS a category!
posted by davidmsc at 9:50 PM PST - 7 comments
We all know your a bit nuts - you suspect it too: Lets get some
proof. (Ignore the part about avoiding
'trying to make yourself look good'; we also know that you need
all the help you can get in that department!).
posted by Kino at 3:17 PM PST - 11 comments
We help lonely pets find each other
My lonely poodle was looking for a little love, I went to pet-match and found him a girl-pooch just like he always wanted! Is this cyber-dating gone terribly wrong? Lonely and horny fish, cats, dogs, reptiles, etc.
posted by zebra_monkey at 11:23 AM PST - 5 comments
Death with Commercials
is how the ever apposite
Frank Rich sums up the media-saturated McVeigh execution, the
ultimate reality show. Rich thinks all the hoopla my have served to turn more people away from punishment by death.
posted by caraig at 10:25 AM PST - 8 comments
Disney's Atlantis ripped from the anime movie Nadia.
Talk about role reversal (you see, a lot of anime creators style comes from trying to emulate Disney style in the early days of the genre) this site presents some interesting evidence that Disney's summer blockbuster is a complete copy of an earlier film released in 1990 in Japan.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 9:54 AM PST - 9 comments
Cheney caught in lie.
"According to oil industry executives and confidential United Nations records, however, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer of the Dallas-based company."
That would be the same Iraq Cheney/Bush blew to smithereens for his oil buddies.
posted by owillis at 9:44 AM PST - 9 comments
PR Watch outs ongoing public relations campaigns in the
Spin of the Day. The June 14th entry offers a search function to find a companys PR firm. (Database and search provided by
O'Dwyer.)
posted by capt.crackpipe at 9:43 AM PST - 2 comments
The Foundation for Internet Begging
or FIB has had a website in operation since August of 2000, and as always, they need your help to keep going. You can
join them in their noble, tried-and-true efforts;
learn more about the people behind the effort and their mission as it stands; and, of course,
give generously.
posted by moz at 9:17 AM PST - 2 comments
June 22
"ooh, what a lovely tea party"...
I know this link will attract a ton of "Kevin Smith is an overrated hack" posts, but I was surprised it wasn't here already. The second Internet Only trailer for "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" is up, and the server load has calmed down to the point where it can actually be downloaded.
As could be expected, this will make Smith fans cheer and bounce up and down in their chairs, and Smith hatas shake their heads and look for the nearest web forum to post comments about their disgust.
Amusingly, the latter part of that paragraph is apparently a major plot point of the movie, and if you read today's "talk-backs" on
AICN you'll appreciate how much fun Smith is having with it. Can't wait to see the flick, and to add to the fun it comes out on my birthday. Nootch.
posted by GriffX at 10:26 PM PST - 4 comments
Black leaders refuse to pledge allegiance to flag
is an example of a story that
The Washington Times blows way out of proportion. The term *black leaders* would imply that there are multitudes of African-American politicians/community leaders who are refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag. However, if you read the whole story, it turns out that only ONE person, an assembly-women from Tennessee is the focus of the whole story!
Of course, the
Times doesn't forget to remind the readers that she, and all who support her, are Democrats...
posted by Rastafari at 8:42 PM PST - 15 comments
This White House will Have a Long Memory.....
"To join the coalition, you must agree to support the Bush energy proposal in its entirety and not to
lobby for changes to the bill... Should the bill change, you must support the changes in the
legislation or drop out of the coalition. If you are caught attempting to lobby behind the back of the
White House, you will be expelled from the coalition. I have been advised that this White House
'will have a long memory.'" -- Fundraising memo for the Alliance for Energy and Economic
Growth, a month-old trade group consisting of representatives from the various energy
industries. The letter puts the admission to the group at "a very low price" of $5,000.
posted by brucec at 6:33 PM PST - 11 comments
Exxon "helped torture in Indonesia."
The Aceh uprising brings up the point--how far do we allow multi-nationals to go to "protect their interests"? Would you sanction torture to keep the price of gas and other petroleum products low?
posted by aflakete at 5:03 PM PST - 10 comments
"My body has learned that it can fly."
Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller fame) describes his experience in zero G, riding the "vomit comet" - a bare-bones 747 that goes up really fast and then comes down really fast, leaving you weightless for about 30 seconds. His letter is at time hilarious, at times pretty gross (they don't call it the vomit comet for nothing), but most of all, I found it kind of... well, inspiring. Now, more than ever, I want to go into space and experience zero G. (via
memepool)
posted by RylandDotNet at 3:34 PM PST - 17 comments
National Orgasm Day is Coming
(Ooohhhh, so sorry for that!). Yes, that special day is
July 31, so everyone please rush out to Hallmark and buy your honey a card in celebration. Or
visit the sex store that's sponsoring the day. In making the declaration, they said "it was time for women to stake their claim to a full and satisfying sex life." Amen!!
posted by yarf at 9:09 AM PST - 16 comments
News Flash! Gates loses billions!
Yet,
he still sits comfortably atop the list of the wealthiest people in the world.
Larry Ellison, meanwhile, lost $21 billion, but fell to only #4.
The
Billionaire Club now includes 538 members in 46 countries, with an average net worth of $3.2 billion. Is it more disturbing that, for a comparison, the GDP of Afghanistan is a paltry $21 billion (bested by the list's top 5)? Or that the GDP per capita of the U.S. is a relatively microscopic $36,144?
posted by padjet1 at 8:08 AM PST - 11 comments
More than half
of all black men report that they have been the victims of racial profiling by police, according to a survey by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University.
Overwhelming majorities of blacks, Latinos and Asians also report they occasionally experience at least one of the following expressions of prejudice: poor service in stores or restaurants, disparaging comments, and encounters with people who clearly are frightened or suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity.
This is 2001?
posted by owillis at 7:06 AM PST - 62 comments
Critics call Abercrombie & Fitch catalog soft porn.
I can't comment on the catalog itself, since I haven't seen it; I just had to laugh out loud though when I read this sentence: "Boycott organizers contend the company... is wooing younger customers and using sex to popularize its image." Oh, the horror! Also striking was A&F's spin on it, calling it " the Norman Rockwell of 2001." Clearly, a divide in perceptions.
Can anyone who has seen the offensive/inoffensive material in question explain why it is/isn't any different from the marketing practices of, oh, say,
everyone else?
posted by topolino at 12:26 AM PST - 23 comments
Some of us work on the plantation.
Some of us own the plantation.
Facts are facts.
This hat is for those who own the plantation.
posted by sudama at 12:07 AM PST - 73 comments
June 21
Amazon's announces "free" shipping
I have been shopping on Amazon for over 3 years. When I buy books, music and DVDs, I buy on average $80 worth of entertainment. Today I received a order of 10 books. I used the "Wait until order is ready" service because I preordered Neil Gaiman's new book. The total for my books was $123.26 with shipping of $13.39 making
the grand total $136.65.
I was shopping Amazon tonight and saw their new free shipping notice. My first though was great! Then when I went to look for some books, I noticed the 20% off prices were no more. Now they are full price or 10%. I searched around and found the total for the books I just purchased using your new pricing. The grand total of my order would now
be $147.91 with free shipping. An increase of $11.26 or 8 percent.
I am a fan of Amazon but not a fan of their thinly veiled attempt to raise prices using the bait-and-switch approach taken from offline stores. Nothing is ever 'free.' I know Amazon wants to be profitable by Q4, but this pricing is too aggressive. The email for feedback is free-shipping@amazon.com. Voice your opinion about this offering. Is it warranted?
posted by lheiskell at 10:02 PM PST - 50 comments
Carroll O'Connor
dead at 76. Once asked what he thought of his character "Archie" he had an interesting response : "I have a great deal of sympathy for him, As James Baldwin wrote, the white man here is trapped by his own history, a history that he himself cannot comprehend and therefore what can I do but love him?"
posted by revbrian at 7:01 PM PST - 14 comments
Bob Kolody vs. Coca-Cola
"Throughout the late 1950s and early 60s the CIA began expanding its operations. In order to effectively fight the Cold War on a global scale, it needed to establish bases in every major country. This meant that agents would need a plausible cover in order to penetrate the borders of international frontiers. They couldnt just show up with CIA stamped on their passport ... As a solution to the problem the CIA was able to convince Coca-Cola, one of the first truly globalized companies with product distribution operations in virtually every corner of the world, to be used as a cover for the U.S. intelligence agency."
posted by bytecode at 4:44 PM PST - 27 comments
OK, so we all know the cliche about men being visual, and woman
being narrative as it applies to the appreciation of web erotica. Is
that true? As a male, I know what turns my crank, (I don't think my
sharing that is important considering it's banality) but have no idea
if the internet has grown as a sensual media by women for women.
Nerve.com seems to have a balanced
approach, but that's all I know. So I ask all the ladies in the MeFi
house what intelligent stuff do you click to scratch that itch, if at
all?
posted by machaus at 3:49 PM PST - 26 comments
Can Christians use Marijuana for recreation?
In 1Cor 6:12 Paul writes:
"Everything is permissible for me--but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me--but I will not be mastered by anything."
So, does that mean that Christians can use marijuana recreationally, as long as they are not mastered by it? This paper looks at the issue from many angles and should provide good fodder for both sides of the pot debate. Personally, I th
