This currency converter produces present-worth values for money through history, using a wealth of different systems. It applies to the UK and US, and depending on the method used, you… Read the rest of the article: Calculate present value of money from 1257-present day

Cross-dressing FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover apparently wrote a drooling fan letter to Lucille Ball in 1955 to tell her how much he enjoyed the previous Monday's episode of "I… Read the rest of the article: J Edgar Hoover loved Lucy

On the Worth1000 photoshopping contest today: round things made square. This square pregancy bump is really well done (love the square navel!); but there's lots more great work there, real… Read the rest of the article: Round things made square photoshopping contest

A woman lost her camera on holidays; the family who found it decided not to return it because their child liked it so much. Now, that's parenting. "Well," she said,… Read the rest of the article: Bad Samaritan family won't return found expensive camera

This inspired NES to alarm clock conversion was inspired by a trip to a thrift store; the maker notes, "The finished product's time, alarm time and other parameters have to… Read the rest of the article: Converting an NES to an alarm-clock

Regina sez, "I filled out a web form for a contest from Miller using a throwaway junk email address and then, months after I dumped the throwaway account, I got… Read the rest of the article: Miller hunts down people who use throwaway emails on their contests

Math teachers who wave their hands while talking in a way that illustrates a point differently from their words impart more information to their students. The UChicago researchers determined that… Read the rest of the article: Students learn more from teachers who hand-wave

A Best Buy customer relates the stirring 1999 tale of his refusal to let security guards at the store engage in their indiscriminate warrantless searches of his bags after he's… Read the rest of the article: HOWTO resist warrantless searches at Best Buy

This gorgeous, homemade tiki fireplace complete with smoking nostrils is lavishly documented in this build log. Link (via Neatorama)

The recording industry has escalated its attacks on a soccer mom whose PC may have been used to share music files by attacking her children. Westchester County's Patti Santangelo bought… Read the rest of the article: RIAA using kids' private info to attack their mother

David sez, "F2C:Freedom to Connect, the Internet Freedom Conference, is coming back to AFI Silver, in Silver Spring (close-in suburb of Washington DC) on April 3 and 4, 2006. "This… Read the rest of the article: Internet Freedom Conference open for discount reg

Episode 5 of Graham "Father Ted" Linehan's convulsively funny nerd comedy series "The IT Crowd" is available for download from the Channel Four site. C4 has wised up and taken… Read the rest of the article: New episode of The IT Crowd, awesome sysadmin sitcom

Apple has invoked the DMCA, which allows anyone to censor web-pages by claiming they infringe on copyright, to shut down message boards on a hobbyist site where Mac OS X… Read the rest of the article: Apple censors OSX-on-Intel message boards with DMCA

Sony BMG music has demoted its CEO, Andrew Lack. One of the reasons he got the sack was that he oversaw the release of eight million music CDs that were… Read the rest of the article: Sony BMG demotes CEO for deploying DRM

Spirit Fingers sez, "Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts in Texas recreated the Sistine Chapel by cross-stitch. It includes 628,296 stitches in 1,809 different color combinations and took 10 years to complete (she started… Read the rest of the article: Sistine Chapel recreated through 10-year cross-stitch project

Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, put the screws to Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Cisco for their active role in profiteering from human rights abuses in totalitarian… Read the rest of the article: Tech companies defend profiteering to Holocaust survivor Congressman

Chocolate Russian Roulette: elevent chocolates contain creamy sweet centers; the remaining one has a very hot chili: Seated in individual compartments, twelve chocolate bullets lay waiting to be bitten into.… Read the rest of the article: Chocolate roulette: box of chocolates, one has a hot chili inside

This Flash-based minigame based on the stellar game We Love Katamari Damacy (a worthy sequel to Katamari Damacy) manages to really captures some of the spirit of fun in the… Read the rest of the article: We Love Katamari Damacy minigame

I've just started a new story on my podcast, I, Robot, which was originally published in The Infinite Matrix, is slated for reprint in several of the Year's Best anthologies,… Read the rest of the article: Cory's new podcast: I, Robot

My pal Siva Vaidhyanathan, a copyfightin' media studies prof, had the good fortune to appear on The Daily Show on a segment about trendspotting and social networks! Link (Thanks, Siva!)