The Best Product Designs of 2005 | The winners of this year's Industrial Design Excellence Awards represent the best of the best, using design to reinvent old product categories, revive tired brands, and simplify complicated products
The Leftover | If you like the Daily Show or the Onion, check out The Leftover. From their about page:
The Leftover was created by a group of young social activists who are committed to the fight against economic, political, and social oppression (lofty ambition, eh?). Our founding group is made up of people of color, women, immigrant, queer, and working class people. We believe that humor and satire are essential tools in the struggle for justice. More importantly for us, though, is to connect political humor to the concrete changes happening on the streets- this is why we have action alerts at the end of articles, feature interviews with grassroots organizers, and maintain a calendar of progressive events and actions that you can take part in. We are also low in carbs and fat free.
PLEASE, READ IT! Do not make us get normal jobs. Some of us get nosebleeds if we sit in a cubicle for too long.
Oh, by the way, if you didn't already know, most of the stuff on this website is SATIRE and REALLY NOT REAL. So don't cite us in your thesis.
Abstaining Teens Still Get STDs | All I can say is STAY STRAPPED! This is a trippedout study: Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage have the same rates of sexually transmitted diseases as those who don't pledge abstinence, according to a study that examined the sex lives of 12,000 adolescents.
One in Six Silicon Valley Tech Jobs Ripe for Offshoring | I still can't get over the irony off how outsourcing has turned the tables on the white collar workers who used to tell the outsourced blue collar workers to just go get retrained.
February 02, 2004
Wardrobe Malfunction T-Shirts | Now this is capitalism at its finest. Only hours after Justing issued his apology for exposing Janet Jackson't breast, Wardrobe Malfunction T-Shirts are already available.
December 29, 2003
Generation E.A.: Ethnically Ambiguous | Interesting article with some ridiculous terminology -- ethnically ambiguous, racially indeterminate? ethnically neutral, exotic, left-of-center beauty that transcends race or class
November 09, 2003
Rubik's Cube Makes a Comeback | Comments (1)
| I used to be able to solve Rubik's Cube in about a minute back in the day. I can't remember the patterns for solving the bottom corners though. :-(
Mmmm, Cheeseburger Fries | These will go great with the blueberry hamburgers announced back in August.
August 26, 2003
A Free MIT Education | Every lecture, every handout, every quiz. All online. For free. Meet the global geeks getting an MIT education, open source-style.
LifeSavers Changes its Stripes | Seems like a 'New Coke' move to me -- Raspberry-, watermelon- and blackberry-flavored O's will replace the traditional orange, lemon and lime.
How the Net Withstood the Blackout | Redundancy, generators and battery backups... who would've thunk it? I love this line -- 'landline service continued normally, except for hapless customers who only own cordless phones' -- a good reason to keep a wired phone around.
Futures Trading and the Internet | The Pentagon's plan to conduct an online market in "policy futures" for events that could include terrorist attacks was recently shouted down by moral outrage. But even if the plan's subject matter seemed repugnant, or its timing a bar or two off the mainstream political rhythm, it would have been an intriguing test of the Internet's power to weigh the opinions of millions of people who are normally shut out of the geopolitical debate.
Tunnel Escape from Brazil Jail | These Brazilian prisions are wild! -- More than 80 prisoners have tunnelled their way out of one of Brazil's top security jails, with almost all the escapees still on the run
August 08, 2003
Who Is the Real Kobe? | As the Lakers superstar faces assault charges, his friends and teammates wonder how well they ever knew him
They Really Are Rat-Dogs | Comments (1)
| A chihuahua got attacked by one of the hawks that a New York park employs to control the rodent population.
The Real Music Pirates | They used to say 'home taping' was killing music, now it's meant to be internet downloaders. But the real pirates these days are crime bosses - and the rewards are plentiful... The pirate CD market is now so big, $4.6bn, it is 'of greater value than the legitimate music market of every country in the world, except the USA and Japan'.
Black Church Will Pay Whites to Attend | Just when you think you've heard it all, along comes this: Greenwood Acres Full Gospel Baptist Church will pay white people to attend services during August to increase the diversity of its congregation.
July 19, 2003
The RIAA's Jihad | The Recording Industry Association of America's attack on US culture has escalated at an alarming pace this week.
On Friday the lobby group that works on behalf of the large, mostly foreign-owned, music conglomerates that own the music copyrights and distribution channels confirmed that it was serving subpoenas at the rate of 75 a day on US citizens for the crime of sharing the music they love.
July 18, 2003
Learning from SARS | As world health officials struggle to defeat the latest global epidemic, they should be preparing for the next one
Hack Attack | Will hackers attack 6,000 Web sites in 6 hours on July 6? The government and private technology experts warned Wednesday that hackers plan to attack thousands of Web sites Sunday in a loosely coordinated "contest" that could disrupt Internet traffic.
U.S. Develops Urban Surveillance System | The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.
June 20, 2003
Hydrogen to the Rescue | A rising star at Accenture is advising Big Oil and the auto industry that they can revitalize the economy, mint profits, and save the planet -- if they'll just learn to stop worrying and love hydrogen.
June 17, 2003
Indigenous Cultures Photo Library | A collection of photos by Phil Borges, who says: My photographic projects are devoted to the welfare of indigenous and tribal people. My intention is to help bring attention to the value these cultures represent and the challenges they face.
DigitalConsumer.org | An organization aimed at protecting digital media fair-use rights. Check out their proposed Consumer Technology Bill of Rights that will positively assert a consumer's rights to fair use.
June 03, 2003
The FCC, Weblogs, and Inequality | from the point of view of analyzing the FCC ruling, the lesson of weblog popularity is clear: inequality can arise in systems where users are free to make choices among a large set of options, even in the absence of central control or manipulation
June 02, 2003
Face to Face | What does an American look like? In a country built on ethnic diversity, the question can be tough to answer. During times of war and political strife, some minorities become targets of government profiling and prejudicial treatment from fellow citizens simply because of race. This site is a forum for true stories of fear, hatred, and ignorance. It compares the unfair treatment of Japanese-Americans 60 years ago with what Muslim, Arab, South-Asian, and Middle-Eastern Americans currently face in the wake of 9/11. Sixty years after WWII, the similarities abound -- almost all every person interviewed ponders how their loyalty to this country could be questioned.
Home Schooling in Cyberspace | Because of increasing dissatisfaction with conventional schools and increasing acceptance of so-called distance learning at the high school and college levels, the number of virtual elementary and middle schools is expected to grow substantially in the next five years.
Street Kids on the Net | Speaking of that language barrier - Here's a photoblog entry from Brasil which shows some street kids who are learning to use the internet at McDonald's.