Casiello Family Weblog

(via The Shifted Librarian)

A collection of freely distributable, legally downloadable music in BitTorrent format.

(via s-t)

and since we’re on a LotR theme theme, you know the tune!

(via boingboing)

A fan-generated trailer for The Hobbit. Maybe it’ll convince Peter Jackson to actually do the film!

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
(from A Christmas Carol, of course!)

Here’s a way to check up on your favorite charities, from the Better Business Bureau.

(via Dan Gillmor)

Diebold is apparently producing some seriously flawed voting machines. Swarthmore students posted some internal memos about these machines, and Diebold is serving them with cease-and-desist orders. Now several other sites are mirroring those memos.

Electronic Gaming Monthly shows the video games I used to play to some 10-13 year olds to get their reaction. They were not, um, overwhelmed.

Andrew: This is a lot like that game. Um, whatchamacallit?air hockey.

Sheldon: Except worse.

…

Becky: It looks like a Mario that got run over by a car.

Andrew: Really. I mean the man is almost flat.

…

Kirk: He’s only an inch tall. He’s a little short fat guy who eats way too much pizza.

…

EGM: Football. It’s one of the first great portable games.

Brian: I thought it was Run Away From the Dots.

…

Kirk: I’m sure everyone who made this game is dead by now.

Stooge Curly Howard was born 100 years ago today.

(via devnull)

A group of French chefs and others are petitioning the Pope to have Gluttony from the list of the Seven Deadly Sins

I wonder if they have any suggestions for a replacement? Maybe serving red wine with fish, or (gasp) saying ’email’ instead of ‘courriel’!

Oh, wait! No, I meant congratulations Yankees!

Oh, wait, no, I did mean aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

(via Nature)

The universe may be smaller than previously though…and and shaped like a soccer ball.

This is pretty cool. Just remember: Measure twice, eat once.

Can’t afford a Segway? Build one yourself. It’s ‘only’ $2000!

(via MetaFilter)

The best journal article title I’ve seen in a while: Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans

Dave Barry takes on the telemarketers again. Yeah!

“But the ATA [American Teleservices Association]surely doesn’t WANT you to call again. It’s inconvenient! And to insist on calling somebody who doesnt want to be called, even if you have the legal right to call, well, that’s just plain rude.”

philly.com has an interesting story about the various news sources people use, and the misperceptions about the Iraq war they have.
The full study is here. Essentially, people who relied on Fox news had the highest levels of misperception, followed by the Big Three networks and CNN, finally print media and PBS/NPR had the fewest misperceptions.

The Internet as a news source was not examined. I’d like to see those numbers. Also, the right answers to the questions polled were all in line with a Democratic viewpoint. It would be interesting to see a study where the right answers corresponded to a typical Republican stance, I wonder if the same news sources would be as reliable an indicator of misperceptions in the opposite direction.