Making a Dress from Labels

By
4 January 2004
1 min read
Leave a comment
In Art
594 views

Caterina Fake is sewing a dress entirely out of labels from other clothes, and she’s soliciting raw materials for the project.

If you have any clothing you are throwing out or giving away (or even if you’re not) would you do me a favor and cut the labels out of them and send them to me? I am trying to make a dress that is contructed entirely of labels for a show at the Helen Pitt this coming spring. I’ve cut all the labels out of my own clothes, and they aren’t nearly enough. I can only make a little doll-sized dress.

AOL Blocks 1/2 Trillion Spam Messages

By
4 January 2004
34 second read
In Technology
589 views

AOL blocked more than 500 billion spam messages for its users in 2003. That comes to 40 messages a day per user. The company regularly blocks 75-80% of all incoming mail as spam. The top 10 spam phrases for the year include such come-ons as: Viagra online, Online pharmacy, Get out of debt and Get bigger

Happy Fucking Whatever

By
3 January 2004
1 min read
1 Comment
In Design
837 views

One roll of wrapping paper lovingly designed to be suitable for all occasions, from the collective consciousness of Plastic Hassle.

I want some, and lots of it. Not only does it cover all occasions, but it’s guaranteed to offend a wide range of recipients. How can you not be happy with that?

Designer Jim from Plastic Hassle has pointed out that was the happy customer rather than the designer of the wrapping paper. You can get it from the T-Shirt Hell, along with a huge selection of offensive t-shirts.

Tourism to Suffer in Face of Security Stunt

By
3 January 2004
1 min read
In World
555 views

Australians travelling to the US are being told to be honest about any past crimes or misdemeanours, no matter how trivial or how long ago, or face deportation, and even fraud charges, on their arrival. In tandem with the anti-terrorism crackdown in the US, existing visa conditions are being more strictly enforced. Anyone with a record of offences such as drink-driving or shoplifting, even as long as decades ago, is compelled to reveal his or her personal history in a visa application. From Monday, in further measures, visitors to the US who have a visa to enter the country will be digitally fingerprinted and photographed. In a backlash against US government xenophobia, Brazilian police have begun fingerprinting and photographing US visitors on orders of a judge who compared planned US security controls on travellers from Brazil and other nations to Nazi horrors

Diametrically Opposed Fic Recs

By
2 January 2004
2 min read
Leave a comment
In Entertainment
614 views

Just got a fiction recommendation from Moonbeam for The Galactic Miscellany by Rheanna. Moonbeam swears that the author is channelling Douglas Adams, as the story reads like an excerpt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Footnotes included.

Sitting at Arthur’s kitchen table, one hand wrapped around Arthur’s novelty serial killer mug, Ford looked suddenly older than Arthur remembered him. Which was odd, Arthur thought, because he was certain he remembered a drunken conversation in a bar on Gargalto Two during which Ford had insisted that Beteguesans lived for many hundreds of years longer than humans. Of course, Ford had drunk several pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters by that point in the evening, which meant that he had been insisting all kinds of things, including that the colour taupe was the root cause of all universal conflict and that the American daytime soap opera General Hospital was written by the CIA. [4] But something had given Arthur the idea he’d been telling the truth about his lifespan…

[4] He was actually right about one of these.

A couple of weeks back I stumbled over this rather sweet story that was the 2001 winner of the University of Canberra National Short Story Competition — The Knitter and Miss Newtown by Claire Stevenson.

Hand Knits for Young Moderns

By
1 January 2004
34 second read
Leave a comment
In Craft
569 views

Houseplant Picture Studio purchased a job lot of mid-60s knitting patterns and have scanned some of the groovy, retro photos as part of an ongoing project.
They aren’t the first to do it, there’s a line a greeting cards using 50s knit and kitchen photographs with witty comments added

Global Dimming

By
1 January 2004
23 second read
In Science
579 views

Each year less light reaches the surface of the Earth. No one is sure what’s causing global dimming — or what it means for the future. In fact most scientists have never heard of it

How to Spot a Terrorist

By
31 December 2003
1 min read
Leave a comment
In Rights
704 views

It seems that farmers have gone to the top of the hit list of potential terrorist suspects because they carry almanacs and buy lots of fertiliser. Which pretty much includes that nice little old lady next door — via Making Light

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists may use almanacs to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning.

It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways.

International Spam MoU Mooted

By
31 December 2003
26 second read
In Technology
722 views

Australia has proposed that all national communications regulators develop a multi-lateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) on spam to boost the fight against unwanted bulk email. MoUs are already used to underpin several international internet structures, such as IP address space

Disney Changes Privacy Policy to Auto Opt-In

By
30 December 2003
49 second read
In Rights, Technology
607 views

Disney has revised its online privacy policy to allow the sharing of user information to third parties, the company confirmed on Tuesday. New registrants who accept Disney’s privacy policy during registration also accept all marketing options by default. They have to manually turn them off later if they want to opt out. A Disney representative said the changes were made to help customer service operate more effectively between its offline and online businesses

Family Files Lawsuit After Man’s Head Found in Tool Shed

By
30 December 2003
38 second read
In Weird
697 views

The children of a cancer patient who donated his body for research are suing after their father’s embalmed head was found in a tool shed. It had been there for nearly eleven years. The head was among 150 pounds of human cadaver parts allegedly removed from the University of California-Davis medical centre by a former autopsy assistant

Funeral Interrupted by Corpse’s Phone

By
30 December 2003
32 second read
In Technology, Weird
631 views

The night before the funeral, the family gathered at the undertakers for a final private farewell, when they heard the sound of his mobile ringing from within the sealed coffin. Several distressed members of the family had to leave the funeral home whilst staff rushed to remove the phone

Previous 990 991 992993 994 Next