Welcome, MetaFilter readers… I’m glad that you’re enjoying the renewed speed of everyone’s favorite community weblog. Also, congratulations on getting MetaFilter mentioned in the New York Times; it’s a great feat, accomplished because of the contributions of all 9,000-plus members. Keep it up.

Meanwhile, I’m completely amazed at what we’re capable of in the year 2001. At around 2:00 PM on May 30th, Matt dropped the server off at a FedEx depot in San Francisco; at 11:30 AM on May 31st, the machine was delivered to my door in perfect condition. Over that time, thousands of DNS servers updated their records to reflect that the address of MetaFilter had changed, and yesterday, thousands of people were able to seamlessly connect to the machine despite it being some three thousand miles from where it was the day before. Amazing.

And lastly, Anil spent way too much time refreshing the images from my webcam and came up with QuesoVision, a set of cam grabs turned into a little movie of the server reanimation.

I cannot say enough happy goodness about BMW Films. I know I’m a little late to this bandwagon (or so it seems), but these short films are freakin’ amazing. If you’ve got the bandwidth, download the BMW Film Player and grab the highest-resolution versions — they’re stunning. The Player has some cool DVD-live features, too, like director’s commentary tracks… the whole package is great.

Back on the atomic clock thread, thanks to a particularly nice MeFi reader, I now have another desire: this kickass atomic wall clock from Restoration Hardware. Not only does it receive signals from the national atomic clocks to keep perfect time, it looks smart; it belongs in my living room.

A Redmond, Washington high schooler sliced up a 1985 Mazda, slid it around her school flagpole, and re-welded it back together in what is a damn fine senior prank. The best part of it is that she got a ticket for $10, for parking out of her designated spot.

I gotta take a little time tonight to read these two OJR articles on the legality of linking to another person’s content on the Web.

Uh-oh: the Apache Software Foundation fessed up today that a machine of theirs — one which has all the email addresses of people on ASF’s public mailing lists, as well as the source code for all of the Apache software — was broken into two weeks ago. I wonder why they didn’t report the break-in immediately? Seems like the open-sourcers bitch and moan when others don’t do exactly that.

Quote of the day, from an IM chat with Anil about webcrushes: “Yeah, it’s a shame when the gorgeous can’t be convinced to keep their empty heads silent.”