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December 2003 Archives
December 31
Feeding on Itself: the list of lists
This is a metalist, that is, a list of all the lists produced for each category of the usual year's end roundups. Example for best book there are some 18 different lists (link to) places presenting such lists. check your favorite list topics and list sources and see whether you agree. Or not.
posted by Postroad at 3:26 PM PST - 7 comments
The Retcon Files
Chronicling and attempting to explain discontinuities in movies, TV shows, and comic books. (warning: GeoCities link).
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:35 PM PST - 4 comments
Can't make it to
Times Square to see the
crystal ball drop? Well, in Atlanta, they're
dropping a peach. In Raleigh, an
acorn. In Miami, an
orange. In Mount Olive, NC, a three-foot lighted
pickle. My favorite? In Lebanon, PA, they're dropping a
six-foot-long bologna....and in nearby Cleona, they're dropping a
two-foot-wide pretzel. (The state capital, Harrisburg, is
dropping a cow painted to
look like a strawberry.) But they really pull out the drops in Key West, where there are not one, not two, but
three drops: a pirate "wench", a conch shell, and a drag queen named Sushi,
who will descend in an eight-foot-long red high-heeled shoe.
posted by Vidiot at 2:24 PM PST - 12 comments
The Word(s) Is Out.
One of my favorite things about New Year's Eve/Day is the annual announcement of the Hall of Shame of Linguistic Incorrectness: The
Lake Superior State University List of Banished Words. Metrosexual... bling-bling... embedded journalist... shock and awe... not much to argue with here. Uh, oh, they've banished
Smoking Gun. And "LOL"? WTF?
(The latest list hasn't hit the U's own website yet, but here's their complete listing of
the previously banished, going back to 1976.)
posted by wendell at 1:41 PM PST - 10 comments
Nude Year's Resolution.
SFW. Nude travel makes the pages of USA Weekend (a USA Today magazine). Will it become mainstream? And will the message of "body acceptance" ever have a noticeable impact on industries which prey on our fears of inadequacy?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:45 AM PST - 22 comments
Examining the Roots of Hoarding
- A "mini-collyer" is saved from his junk hoard. As for the
real Collyers,
"The bizarre collection of objects included 14 grand pianos, two organs, and a clavichord; human medical specimens preserved in a glass jars; the chassis of a Model-T Ford; a library of thousands of medical and engineering books; an armory of weapons; the top of a carriage; 6 U.S. flags and one Union Jack; a primitive X-Ray machine" - Langley was crushed to death by his own garbage boobytrap, leaving blind, helpless Hiram to die trapped in their junk packed labyrinth of a mansion. Accused of living like the Collyer Brothers? -
Here's a photo (NYT, reg. req.).
posted by troutfishing at 8:27 AM PST - 19 comments
Christiania, the
spunky Danish
autonomous zone near Copenhagen, may soon be
shut down after 32 years of self governance.
"I built my own house here. I have two young children who are third generation Christianites. I am not going to give all that up without a struggle."
posted by moonbird at 5:57 AM PST - 23 comments
December 30
Build your own
radio. . . Or
anything else, for that matter. Go ahead, release the hidden scientist in you and enjoy discovering and creating.
posted by ashbury at 8:21 PM PST - 5 comments
Army Stops Many Soldiers From Quitting According to their contracts, expectations and desires, all three soldiers should have been civilians by now. But Fontaine and Costas are currently serving in Iraq, and Eagle has just been deployed. On their Army paychecks, the expiration date of their military service is now listed sometime after 2030 -- the payroll computer's way of saying, "Who knows?"
The three are among thousands of soldiers forbidden to leave military service under the Army's "stop-loss" orders, intended to stanch the seepage of troops, through retirement and discharge, from a military stretched thin by its burgeoning overseas missions.
As Helena Cobham
notes,
They don't want to call it a draft but it sure ain't your father's "all-volunteer military" any more... Marine's Girl, Cobham's
cause celebre of some time ago, writes about stop-loss
here and
here. See also
Army reservists choosing to be citizens, not soldiers.
posted by y2karl at 7:58 PM PST - 37 comments
Every year we seem to get a few horror or sci-fi movies featuring aliens. What happened this year? I may be missing some, but the only 2003 major release movies that had some aliens in them were
Dreamcatcher,
Good Boy! and
Scary Movie 3. One horror movie and two comedies. Just a coincidence or are aliens no longer cool?
posted by quirked at 5:36 PM PST - 17 comments
After reading that
beef has been recalled from my local grocery store, I spent some time reading
Mad Cow USA a book written back in 1997 but not widely published because of fears of repercussions under the Texas food disparagement act. AlterNet has an
article written by one of the book's authors summarizing some of the key points of the book. Some claim that only ground beef is infected, while
others claim that's bull.
mad-cow.org has a lot of good information on the topic, and it seems the powers that be are going to
blame Canada.
posted by woil at 2:28 PM PST - 14 comments
State arts programs
have been one of the biggest casualties of the widespread budget crises of 2003. In total, state spending for FY2004 has decreased 23%,
led by Missouri (entire budget - 100% - slashed), California (91%), and Florida (78%.) Meanwhile, Congress, to its credit, has awarded
a modest increase to the NEA. Will private funding take over, as the
Libertarians hope? Or is state funding an
essential propellant of local economies?
posted by PrinceValium at 8:36 AM PST - 47 comments
The Diva Cup.
For the ladies who are tired of tampons and pads, an alternative now exists that's both a little bizarre and a little intriguing. At the very least, it could ease
this woman's supply gathering a little bit.
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:28 AM PST - 55 comments
I love Maddox.
When it comes to
lambasting the opposite sex, slamming into
Christopher Reeves, endorsing the
beating of children and
criticising the email he receives, he's one of the best. Pretty much anybody who's been on the internet will have visited his site, but just in case you haven't, then here's your chance. Warning... Swearing; Extreme Views; Bad cartoons; Large fonted cyan text on a black background.
posted by seanyboy at 7:18 AM PST - 26 comments
December 29
The fish that threatened national security.
Lara Hayhurst, a student at Pace University, needed to take one small thing through the checkpoint at LaGuardia Airport: her pet beta fish MJ. This was, however, an apparent threat to the security of the airport and Lara's flight home to Pittsburgh for winter break. Flush the fish or become a felon? Read about Lara's decision and how the TSA forced her hand.
Remember, when 2" long tropical fish can freely gain access to our airliners, the terrorists have... yada yada.
posted by Dreama at 9:48 PM PST - 53 comments
Who wants to own
an aircraft carrier? Possibly the best geek gift ever, if you're Bill Gates or someone. Note especially the *category*...
posted by baylink at 6:06 PM PST - 20 comments
AP: "FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers"
I know this is kind of a case of the media distorting the facts, but still...isn't it kind of nincompoopish of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (the FBI fer crissakes!) to name almanacs and maps as part of a possible preponderance of evidence? And in other news--because nobody ever said you can't crosspost in your own initial post--in the future, tragically hip film grad students will write thesis papers about this
Stepford Wives trailer.
posted by jengod at 5:19 PM PST - 27 comments
Just Another Twig On The Evolutionary Bush:
Beards and moustaches are out; even goatees are the butt of jokes; eyebrows are being plucked into Rotring-size oblivion; female pubic hair has forever renounced natural - even tropical - splendour, to be replaced by ridiculous geometric designs... Have we perhaps taken this naked ape thing too damn far? [
For the record, I am gratefully in favour of all these trends, except for the pubic hair. As a Lusitanian, I deplore that the good name of Brazil has come to be associated with such a travesty.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:34 PM PST - 33 comments
The Saudi Paradox.
"Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis, but its elite is bitterly divided on how to escape it. Crown Prince Abdullah leads a camp of liberal reformers seeking rapprochement with the West, while Prince Nayef, the interior minister, sides with an anti-American Wahhabi religious establishment that has much in common with al Qaeda. Abdullah cuts a higher profile abroad -- but at home Nayef casts a longer and darker shadow."
posted by homunculus at 11:04 AM PST - 14 comments
Scottish puzzle writer, poet, and soon to be author Roddy Lumsden pens
vitamin q, a weblog devoted to, as he puts it, "trivia lists, curiosities, and fragments which please me as a connoisseur of the sequential and the inconsequential - it's more a cave of wonder than a grotto of geekery". Vitamin q is the place to go if you need to know 75 terms for being drunk, want lists of fruits and vegetables that have been used as derogatory slang, need the names of the My Little Ponies, or have always wondered which singers have been heralded as "The New Bob Dylan". The archives are bursting with more of the same.
posted by iconomy at 8:52 AM PST - 9 comments
December 28
It takes all kinds to make a web. With
these guys, I would have to say we got all kinds. Remember SaveKaryn, the website where the lady collected dollar bills from all and sundry to get out of debt? Well, the idea caught on (unsurprisingly), and PimpingThePoor.com has set out to be the 'Consumer Reports of begging sites".
posted by baylink at 12:10 PM PST - 8 comments
John von Neumann, 1903-1957
. Today may have been the 100 year anniversary of the birth of John von Neumann (some think he may have been born on December 3rd). Along with Alan Turing and others, Von Neumann is one of the contenders for the title "Inventor of the modern computer." Whatever the precise date, it seems worth celebrating with some von Neumannania:
1,
10,
11,
100,
101,
110,
111,
1000,
1001.
posted by carter at 10:14 AM PST - 10 comments
December 27
"A lot of you were jerks."
It's one of those scenes that could've been lifted from a John Hughes teen coming-of-age movie. An unpopular kid gets the joke vote for class valedictorian, and he uses the opportunity provided by the valedictory speech to chastise them. Has this ever happened at your high school? If you had a chance to go back (or perhaps forward) in time and address your high school graduating class, what would you say?
posted by AccordionGuy at 3:41 PM PST - 36 comments
The Whispering Wheel
Ever see a brilliant invention and you wish you had thought of it? Simply genius. Might change the world for the better.
posted by kablam at 7:25 AM PST - 35 comments
The Lady X Project is complete.
26 spy-themed short films from around the world, all involving a mysterious character called "Lady X", who travels to each location to send local agents on various missions. All were done by amateur digital filmmakers with little or no budget. Which one is your favorite?
posted by Poagao at 4:52 AM PST - 14 comments
December 26
Rare Exports, Inc.
They deliver the extremely rare original Finnish product to nearly 150 countries every Christmas, exclusively. It's a big download (the small version is 35.5 MB) but that's nothing compared to the patience these hunters must have to catch their prey. [NSFW, via
MonkeyFilter.]
posted by homunculus at 3:52 PM PST - 9 comments
American Brandstand.
Bling bling is alive and well and living in Billboard lyrics. Of course, this has been going on since at least 1903:
'Come, Come, Come and make eyes with me / Under the Anheuser Bush / Come, Come, drink some Budwise with me / Under the Anheuser Bush
posted by gottabefunky at 10:16 AM PST - 7 comments
Laptop Steering Wheel Mount
- Mount your laptop on your car's steering wheel? - Accident waiting to happen... Sure you are supposed to use it while parked but we all see idiots in traffic doing everything from applying make-up to reading the newspaper. Doesn't anybody just drive their car anymore?
posted by radio_mookie at 8:37 AM PST - 21 comments
Martin Beck's Last Ten Years:
How interesting to be able to look at a painter's
work year by year: patterns and even stories seem to develop, disappear and change before (and after)
our eyes. Are there any other good chronologically-arranged artist's websites out there? Or do painters habitually avoid them to prevent the detection of similarities and obsessions?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:36 AM PST - 5 comments
December 25
Diagnosing Tiny Tim
An interesting parlor game among pediatricians is to determine the ailment that afflicted the character Tiny Tim from a Christmas Carol. The most likely suspects include
renal tubular acidosis or a
vitamin D deficiency due to excessive London industrial smog, both of which result in
rickets. (This would explain why Tiny Tim needed a crutch). Given that Tiny Tim's condition was likely curable if Scrooge paid Cratchit more money, this has inspired one
right-wing contrarian to argue that Scrooge should have worked a little
Malthusian magic by letting Tiny Tim die.
posted by jonp72 at 7:26 PM PST - 9 comments
Have a merry, sex and gadget filled hyper-commercialized Japanese Christmas.
"Well it all started when a Spanish Jesuit missionary named St. Francis Xavier brought Christmas to Japan in 1549...." The
Jesuit bid to
Christianize Japan was a flop though, and now - while Jews in the West, for example, tend to go out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve, the Japanese had little connection to the Christian version - so they invented their own! Syncretistic Japan pulls in random elements of Western "Christmas" and recombines in pleasing new ways! ( shocking only to Christians ). Santa Claus on the Cross and more!
A proper Christmas in Japan - for singles - involves a hot date and visit to a "Love Hotel" where
"you might be directed by scantily-clad female elves to rooms complete with Christmas trees and life-size reindeer watching the proceedings with interest." and
"Grope Free Commutes", for Japanese women tired of having their asses grabbed on the subway by drunk salarymen returning from "Forget the Year" parties.
This fine blog chronicles it all: " the Dolphin-and-fish-surrounded Christmas tree", Ukelele Christmas parties - "I wandered into a score of middle aged Japanese ladies wearing Hawaiian shirts and plastic lays, tuning up their ukuleles" and more. And don't forget to buy some
cool new
gadgets.
"...a tiny robot helicopter weighing less than 9 grams... "
posted by troutfishing at 8:27 AM PST - 19 comments
December 24
Your sky is a virtual planetarium program from Fourmilab.
"You can produce maps in the forms described below for any time and date, viewpoint, and observing location. "
posted by moonbird at 9:15 PM PST - 3 comments
If Mapquest just isn't cutting the mustard, or you feel compelled over the holidays to take your geekery to new and mysterious depths, the
National Map Viewer from the U.S. Geological Survey is your new best friend. The dynamic interface lets you layer roads, topos, and satellite imagery on top of one another at your whim. And if you're really hardcore, make your own app by downloading and mining the Census Bureau's
TIGER database.
Note: Map viewer and interface may not be friendly to all browsers; this is a common limitation of government websites.
posted by PrinceValium at 8:56 PM PST - 7 comments
An unhealthy obsession?
The Internet is full of websites dedicated to a rabid fan's obsession with a celebrity. These websites often reveal their owners' fantasies of sexual encounters with said celebrity. But it's not often the object of such sexual desire ends up being a well known public figure from the Clinton administration.
posted by gregb1007 at 8:39 PM PST - 12 comments
"It's good policy and good business."
NYC's Employees Retirement System (5 funds managing $78.6 billion in holdings) is targeting Fortune 500 companies to adopt policies that specifically bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. One of them, CSX Corp., didn't even wait for their shareholder meeting, but immediately amended their policy in response.
These funds recently had
great success after a decade-long battle with Cracker Barrel Restaurants--infamous for firing gay and lesbian employees because they don't demonstrate normal heterosexual values."
Here's wishing an especially happy holiday to employees of those
companies that have stopped discriminating and hopes for many more to join in. More info on this "shareholder activism" at
The Equality Project.
posted by amberglow at 1:41 PM PST - 4 comments
Some economists debate
why we can and if we should give gifts for Christmas. Because a gift is likely to be valued less by the recipient than for the giver, Christmas has been considered by some to be a "deadweight loss" equivalent to tearing up banknotes. To get around this, other economists propose that the value of the gift for the recipient comes from the process of finding a rare gift. On the other hand, perhaps this is one case where we should
rethink the basic rationality assumption that economic decisions can be explained by models that maximize individual wealth.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:49 AM PST - 24 comments
A quick flash movie,
to help relieve the stress and tension of last minute holiday shopping. In with the good air, out with the bad air, rinse and repeat. After all is said and done, you can get back to enjoying the holidays in the company of your friends and/or family.
posted by jcterminal at 10:33 AM PST - 9 comments
The Father of the Shopping Mall
"His most remarkable innovation--unveiled in
Edina, Minn., in 1956--was the first enclosed shopping mall, a climate-controlled community of retailing under a single vast canopy. But it was intended to be more than just a place to shop. It was to provide a center to otherwise centerless developments, offering community, entertainment and even enlightenment. Gruen lamented that Americans, at the time, were living 'detached lives in detached houses.' With his shopping-center designs, Mr. Hardwick writes, '
Gruen hoped to offer a corrective to this grim and soulless American environment.' "
posted by jamsterdam at 9:09 AM PST - 30 comments
"When Tchaikovsky heard the celesta
during a trip to Paris, he wrote a letter to his publisher saying, "get me one of those before another composer steals it." The Sugar Plum Fairy from
The Nutcracker couldn't dance without it. We have the history of the celesta -- and hear it in a special performance by Lambert Orkis of the National Symphony Orchestra." From NPR's
Morning Edition a look at this relatively obscure instrument that
young wizards music are made of. If you can't play or afford the real thing, try the
chime.
posted by azul at 7:27 AM PST - 6 comments
NetFuture
"NetFuture is an electronic newsletter....It looks beyond the generally recognized "risks" of computer use such as privacy violations, unequal access, censorship, and dangerous computer glitches. It seeks especially to address those deep levels at which we half-consciously shape technology and are shaped by it. What is half-conscious can, after all, be made fully conscious, and we can take responsibility for it.....
Can we take responsibility for technology, or must we sleepwalk in submission to its inevitabilities?"
posted by troutfishing at 12:35 AM PST - 10 comments
December 23
Mars ho!
In about 24 hours, the
Beagle 2 lander will descend to the surface of Mars, courtesy of the European Space Agency. After a few mighty bounces, encased in a giant rubber ball, the lander will open up and allow its instrument payload to start sampling the surface.
This is the first in a
trifecta of landers destined for Mars during the next month.
NASA's landers,
Spirit and Opportunity, land on January 3rd and January 24th.
posted by warhol at 7:25 PM PST - 25 comments
Steve Davis, this was your life.
The most interesting spam I've gotten in a while.
This fellow apparently served on a jury with the woman of his dreams. Having not gotten her number, or apparently her name, he decided that spamming was the way to find her. In this world, at this time, one would think he would know better. I smell a new meme arising! (Text of the email inside.)
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:45 PM PST - 25 comments
Investigating the Renaissance.
'This interactive program demonstrates the ways in which computer technology can be harnessed to add to our knowledge about Renaissance paintings and how they
were made.' Analysis of paintings using x-ray, infrared and ultraviolet technology.
posted by plep at 1:54 PM PST - 3 comments
Christmas Wrapping
is one of the most enduring (and arguably one of the hippest) Christmas songs of the past twenty years. Though a quintessential keyboard-and-sax driven
New Wave tune, the endearing singleton's account of the year in dating on Christmas Eve tops the Christmas charts every year, and has survived reinterpretations by the
Spice Girls and
Save Ferris. This year, the eclectically-talented
Chris Butler reflects on its
inception.
posted by pxe2000 at 7:42 AM PST - 35 comments
Wounded British soldier gets lawsuit for Christmas?!
Thankfully not.
Alan Tudball was supposed to marry his fiance Claire McCombe in April of this year, but unfortunately Iraq -- and
friendly fire from two U.S.
A-10 tankbusters (video) -- spoiled the wedding plans. Tudball would have died if not for brave
Christopher Finney, who rescued the grievously wounded Tudball, even as the U.S. planes circled around for another strafing run.
The
M.O.D. refused to pay the wedding's cancellation fee, and the
Leasowe Castle Hotel -- not knowing of Tudball's circumstances -- initiated a lawsuit, but after media attention and several concerned phone calls (mine included), I am pleased to announce that the management of the Leasowe Castle Hotel has announced that they are not only dropping the lawsuit, but that they will host the wedding of Mr. Alan Tudball and Miss Claire McCombe free of charge. It's worth noting that when our leaders seem to only be capable of serving up plastic turkeys, the action of ordinary people working together can still bring about honest-to-goodness Christmas miracles.
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:05 AM PST - 2 comments
Iceblog!
"Antarctica: the best place in the world to be naked" (and take a bunch of awesomely beautiful pictures, too).
posted by WolfDaddy at 12:24 AM PST - 16 comments
December 22
Take This Honour And Shove It Up Your Arse:
Some, like
JG Ballard and
Benjamin Zephaniah, want the UK Honours System abolished; others want it
reformed;
diehards want it left as it is. The
recent leaking of a distinguished list of refuseniks, coming just after Sir Mick Jagger
got his ya-yas out in Buckingham Palace, reminds us of
Groucho Marx's famous comment that he'd never join a club that would take members like him. It's certainly an archaic and
complicated system but, it seems to me, no more open to abuse than other countries' systems. And, arguably, no less ridiculous or hypocritical either. But is it (symbolically, culturally, whatever) useful enough nowadays, simple political expediency apart, to be worth hanging on to?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:29 PM PST - 17 comments
China engraves capitalism onto its constitution.
This is good development indeed. Although business investment and production has been flourishing in China, doing business there remained very risky because of the fact that private property rights have never been officially legalized. That has changed. The question now is: does economic freedom beget political freedom?
posted by VeGiTo at 8:22 PM PST - 19 comments
France, stung by Libyan WMD deal, admits US policies showing results
Ok. Agreed. You don't like Bush. And the French government does not like Bush. But here is what the French now say about Libya: [...] The media, which have long criticised the US war and invasion of Iraq, grudgingly allowed that that conquest had borne fruit in terms of putting pressure on other countries Washington considers "rogue states" or part of an "axis of evil"[...]
posted by Postroad at 3:37 PM PST - 72 comments
ZIP Code Visualizer
A Java-based map of the continental US that progressively narrows down the area covered by a
ZIP Code as you type in the numbers one by one.
[Doesn't work so good in Mac IE 5. via xBlog]
posted by kirkaracha at 2:50 PM PST - 25 comments
Hunkin's Experiments.
'Cool cartoons that will have you experimenting with food, light, sound, clothes, and a whole lot more! Hundreds of cartoon experiments from cartoonist, broadcaster and engineer Tim Hunkin.'
These 'rudiments of wisdom' first appeared in the Observer newspaper in
the 1970s and 1980s.
posted by plep at 1:46 PM PST - 8 comments
Water birth
is an alternative to standard hospital labor where the woman gives birth in a pool of water. Many hospitals/birth centers now offer the option of a water birth, or the mother-to-be can choose from a
wide variety of
birthing pools for labor at home, usually assisted by a
midwife/nurse with experience in waterbirth. There are
many benefits of a gentle introduction to the world by being born in water, and the
testimonials make it sound like a great option. Note: some links may be NSFW. [more inside]
posted by widdershins at 11:15 AM PST - 17 comments
December 21
"They swept across Iraq and conquered it in 21 days. They stand guard on streets pot-holed with skepticism and rancor. They caught Saddam Hussein. They are the face of America, its might and good will, in a region unused to democracy. The U.S. G.I. is
Time's Person of the Year."
[more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 11:07 AM PST - 67 comments
December 20
Most people have heard of Rotten.com,
the website of sick and twisted news and pictures, but a great and full featured documentary of "all that mankind swore to forget" can be found at the
Rotten Library. Information on just about everything is here, from
LSD Blotters to the
Mountain Meadows Massacre to the
anti-masturbatory history of Kelloggs Corn Flakes, just to name a few.
Of course, you can also find dirty secrets about the
Freemasons,
Fluoridation, Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction,
The Kinderhook Plates,
Lucky Luciano,
Kevin Mitnick, and of course.....
Michael Jackson.
posted by Keyser Soze at 8:11 PM PST - 17 comments
Welcome to Pushington Downs
This amusing fairy tale is brought to us from some of the fine folks from MST3k. Edward the less is an amusing bit of comedy based in a universe almost completely unlike that of JRR Tolkien. It never made it past series 1. Perhaps a bunch of renewed interest would push it along.
posted by MrLint at 7:27 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Santa lays off elves
"Something will definitely be missing this Christmas." said Milja Vilmila, who was told her job as an elf helping Santa no longer existed.
posted by drezdn at 11:44 AM PST - 6 comments
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 by mathowie at 10:09 AM PST - 6 comments
Libya disarms.
Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, said the Iraq war had nothing to do with the timing of Libya's negotiations. "We started the cooperation before even the invasion of Iraq," he told CNN. But he added: "It's a critical deal for Libya, because first of all we will get access to defensive weapons and no sanctions on Libyan arms imports any more. We will get access to the know-how and technology in sectors which were banned."
posted by skallas at 9:35 AM PST - 61 comments
Echoes of Incense: A Pilgrimage in Japan.
'The route of the eighty-eight temples of Shikoku is the classic Japanese Buddhist pilgrimage. Its 1300 kilometers test the body and spirit and open the mind to an experience of its true nature. For over a thousand years, only Japanese followed the path to the remote places of the Japanese island of Shikoku. In the winter and spring of 1993, I walked this path. Afterwards, I wrote Echoes of Incense to record what I experienced in words and pictures. '
Related :-
Experiencing the Shikoku Pilgrimage, from the Asian Wall Street Journal, 1977.
posted by plep at 7:15 AM PST - 8 comments
The Greatest Week in Rock History
(Salon link) - 34 years ago today, Billboard Charts had a outstanding album lineup - perhaps not the best albums ever, but for a single point in time, arguably unmatched for quality, originality, and longevity. Take a look back at the roster:
the Beatles,
Led Zeppelin,
Tom Jones,
Creedence Clearwater Revival,
the Stones,
Santana,
the Temptations,
Blood Sweat & Tears,
Crosby Stills & Nash, and
Easy Rider.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:31 AM PST - 53 comments
December 19
Yes, that Lincoln Center.
So we've
briefly noted the clever hack by way of which game engines, in this case,
Halo's, can be used to make movies. The best-known of these is the bleakly humorous
Red vs. Blue - which, if it isn't exactly this generation's "M*A*S*H" or "Catch-22," rather manages to capture something of the futility of postmodern warfare. Still: is this an opus you'd have pegged to premiere at New York City's vaunted
high-culture mecca?
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:56 PM PST - 12 comments
Operation Red Dawn: A Soldier's Perspective
Those of us who would be playing roles in the mission went into the troop operations center and got ready for the briefing by the commander. He came in and announced that the mission for the night would be a location down Highway 24 outside of Tikrit and one Saddam Hussein.
posted by JJBotter at 1:19 PM PST - 33 comments
The latin lover
Father Reginald Foster, the Pope's own Latinist has a weekly show on Vatican radio, they are always informative and often hilarious (Real player required).
posted by johnny novak at 10:12 AM PST - 6 comments
Paris Beats Bush
More viewers watched The Simple Life than George Bush's interview with Diane Sawyer. What does that say about America?
posted by fenriq at 9:53 AM PST - 41 comments
Nutcrackers!
E.T.A. Hoffman started it, Tchaikovsky made it popular, and now these decorative nut-crunching critters are a mainstream
Christmas tradition. Thing is, their festive popularity has expanded their market, so you can find an appropriate nutcracker for any occasion, whether you're
going to sea,
ordering pizza,
reading Shakespeare,
printing something,
getting a divorce,
having a barbeque,
electing a president,
or
invading a
terrorism-sponsoring country. Hey, might as well pick one up for the next time you
forget to look both ways on your way to the
Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum. They also help relieve frustration, be it caused by
popular culture,
illiteracy, or just
good ol' holiday stress.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:28 AM PST - 1 comments
The DC Appeals court
has overturned the previous decision that allowed the RIAA to subpoena user's names from internet providers. Could this mark the end of the recording industry's lawsuit assault?
posted by BigPicnic at 8:53 AM PST - 18 comments
Coyotus Interruptus?
New Scientists readers were asked to come up with new and necessary scientific words and their (amusing) definitions. These are the results.
posted by biffa at 7:58 AM PST - 8 comments
