I have some doubts about it as Wikipedia-killer

Agreed, Knoll is more like a traditional system with a couple "wisdom of the crowds" add ons. Wikipedia is more disruptive and different, for better and worse:

Wikipedia is expert un-friendly, amateur friendly.
Knoll is expert friendly and amateur friendly.

Wikipedia is community oriented, group work project
Knoll is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 7:21 PM on July 23, 2008

hifiparasol: "Wikipedia is expert un-friendly

Really?"

Yes, Really (read the top tag - Matt B was a contributor to the "Really?" article you linked to, before he retired from Wikipedia "utterly frustrated").
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 10:47 PM on July 23, 2008

hifiparasol, I was saying amateur/expert from the point of view of the editor, not the reader. For readers, well, I dunno, some topics are just complicated. The job of editors is to have the first section of an article be for "everyman" and then drill down into more complexity further down but that takes skill as a writer, and we are back to the "expert editor unfriendly" argument because Wikipedia is not all that great a place for skilled writers.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:55 PM on July 25, 2008

"Paid for by the US Dept of Energy"
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:39 PM on July 25, 2008

The comrades tapped and tapped. Buried like moles beneath the crushing weight of the earth, and without a breath of fresh air in their burning lungs, they simply went on tapping. New men were starting into life, a black army of vengence slowly germinating in the furrows, growing for the harvest of the centuries to come; and soon this germination would tear the earth apart.

--Emile Zola, Germinal (1885)

posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:46 PM on July 25, 2008

This was a central plot element in Pickwick Papers, it landed Mr. Pickwick in gaol.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 8:29 AM on July 25, 2008

I'm curious if any of you Segway haters have actually ridden one (not just a test run by actually spent some hours out on the streets). Most cities have tours for $100 or less for an afternoon, and if you fill up the group you can set the agenda (non-tourist routes). I've done it and had a blast. I can see why walkers would find it annoying though, but be honest why - your down there slogging away walking at slow speed, I'm gliding by higher up with no effort "on your left". It's the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 7:57 PM on July 23, 2008

hydrophonic, some of your bias against the Segway is clearly because you are a pro biker. As a hiker, I hate bikes who use my trails, but I also recognize the use of bikes.

it's a fun, impractical, expensive toy

Tell that to over 600 law enforcement agencies around the world. And golf courses. And tourist agencies. Why do you think tour groups use Segways and not bikes? You may not know unless you've ridden a Segway, and it's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 10:29 PM on July 23, 2008

Why do you think tour groups use Segways

I'll answer my own question: because anyone can ride them. On the tour I took, it included 3 people who were physically unable to ride bikes or walk the distance.

and shout "Neeeeerrrrrrrrds!"

I'm sure you don't mean anything but there are a lot of people with Segways for physical handicap reasons that are not apparent by looking.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 10:40 PM on July 23, 2008

miss lynnster, I don't know what to say but read some of the Segway boards online, there are a lot of people on there who use them instead of those electric carts - wheelchairs would be for people who are seriously disabled and couldn't use a Segway at all. If your particular relative, or you, would get on one or not, doesn't seem to apply to everyone, no? The point is, Segway is a tool that has application for many people for many reasons. It's also good for people who have short city commutes... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:12 AM on July 24, 2008

Take some stairs.

True, cops can't step off a Segway and chase on foot. It's astounding how irrational folks can be about the Segway, but as I wrote above, it's a mugs game to defend it because no matter what, people will hate it for irrational reasons and need to find some rationale to justify the feelings of alienation it engenders: too exspensive I can't afford it, makes me feel small and slow on the sidewalk next to it, if everyone had one I would... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 11:06 AM on July 24, 2008

orthogonality: "I think we all know the real bad news for Wikia is that it's run by Jimmy Wales and his cronies and sycophants."

Yeah Wales bombed with that Wikipedia thing. Wales is really good at building community. Which is one of the criticisms of Wikia, it's not really a community, it's not what Wales is good at.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 9:04 AM on July 23, 2008

orthogonality: "stbalbach writes "Wales is really good at building community."

You got the first letter right, but you misspelled the rest of "cults"."

Some users go through this multi-step process not unlike a love relationship: initial curiosity, full-blown love, honeymoon, long grind, burn out and betryal and finally hatred, then eventually ambiguous.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 8:09 PM on July 23, 2008

err.. ambiguous apathy
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 8:11 PM on July 23, 2008

Everyman's recently came out with a collection of his short stories which triggered a whole bunch of recent book reviews, here is one from the New York Times:..so many of these tales have endings that depend on cruelty or vengeance. (The title of one of them, “Vengeance Is Mine Inc.,” could stand for many).. At 17 I did not notice the deep vein of misogyny that runs through them; now I can’t miss it.. These stories are never less than enjoyable; most are also utterly heartless. That doesn’t... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 7:52 PM on July 22, 2008

I think the main point of this service is to be able to read magazine articles that are otherwise not online. So, if you read a cool article in Smithsonian that is not online, and want to post a FPP (or mail your friends), you can find it on Mygazines. I hope it works out but seems extremely illegal.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 9:40 AM on July 22, 2008

The US is starting to look like a second world country. Not that it's any worse, just the others are better.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 2:53 PM on July 21, 2008

A lot of these its hard to know why they are without full names. Back in the day that would have been the point, a little challenge and in-crowd knowledge, but further on it seems arcane. Someone should fully index the names.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 10:32 AM on July 21, 2008

(The negro as sex-starved maniac, frex).

Or the negro and homosexual as examples of human degeneration, in a biological sense, a reversion to a previous lesser form.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 10:36 AM on July 21, 2008

You probably got it dyneo - always fun to decipher the origins of ancient prejudices.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 2:48 PM on July 21, 2008

Basically just a pan cake, same idea, very simple way to cook flour without the need for fancy equipment or an oven. Flour, water, oil is the basics. Oregon Trail kinda stuff.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 10:41 AM on July 21, 2008

One of those simple easy ideas someone should have done a long time ago.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 5:45 PM on July 20, 2008

I tried the Wayback Machine cache, but it is down, and so has been Wikipedia for hours, which makes me wonder if CA has fallen off the map.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 2:09 PM on July 20, 2008

Well look at Indonesia. China is good at colonizing. It doesn't supplant the native population but just becomes the power elite. Not sure it will work in Africa though, too big of an ethnic divide, same problems Europeans have/had.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 5:08 AM on July 20, 2008

"Livin in a Van Down by the River" (Saturday Night Live)
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 9:53 AM on July 19, 2008

ladies in his social circle frequently used the tern "rape van" for any cargo van or even a camper with few windows

If you see the van rockin.. fast forward 30 years and it's the Brothel Bus.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 1:30 PM on July 19, 2008

I wanted to click on something new again but dreaded being assaulted by the twirling documents.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 5:13 AM on July 17, 2008

"Chinese Turkistan" is a fascinating place, a rmix of people and cultures and fairly backwards in time, and dramatic geography and weather. It's always been a hotbed of civil war not to mention the tensions of the great powers - Russia, China, India, Middle East (see "The Great Game"). Warlords, tribal chiefs, mongols on horses, yurts, etc.. always a battlefront of some sort or another, it's a rough place but barely populated and not much to be worried about.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 7:06 AM on July 16, 2008

I think it is slightly mis-leading, blowing buildings up is almost surely going to be easier, faster and cheaper - gravity pulls it down and dump trucks haul it away. The problem is, it can't always be done because the building is too close to other buildings and/or people (toxic dust clouds). So they have to wreck it "by hand" from the top down (floor by floor) with wrecking balls and other labor intensive. This bottom-up method does seem safer/easier/cheaper since all the people and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 3:52 PM on July 15, 2008

why don't they build buildings that way?

Good question. My guess is it's cheaper to build the steel framework using cranes and then add the layers (floors, walls, electric). But it opens the possibility of the "pre-fab" skyscraper, sort of like lego-blocks just patch together and push skyward. Pre-fab is generally more efficient (green) for a number of reasons.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 3:58 PM on July 15, 2008

I think in ancient Egypt brother/sister marriage was common and encouraged.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:01 AM on July 15, 2008

Disclaimer: I would not expect anyone (without a masochist streak) to actually use these books as they were intended, as a reading guide, except perhaps for the last few about historical fiction which are still useful. Antique "best of" books are curiosities unto themselves, the format is both familiar yet hauntingly remote in the selections - many of the authors and works are now almost extinct from public awareness, while even among the best known authors, established canonical... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 7:13 PM on July 13, 2008

This will go nowhere.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 10:38 AM on July 12, 2008

The only one I looked at, Monkey Magazine #87, I enjoyed the American intern imitating British accents. Not that I would read it again, but can see its appeal. It does a pretty good job of blending formats: youtube, glossy magazine.

I actually like this way of flipping through pages... somehow it feels a more substantial and higher quality experience than just scrolling and clicking through a webpages, even if the content might be the same.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:00 AM on July 12, 2008

Every country has its own quirky rail system, each different, a reflection of the country and culture. It's where Paul Theroux got the title for his book The Great Railway Bazaar (1975) as he traveled from London to Japan and back along the rails, it was a bazaar of railways. One of the classics of travel literature. Compared to most of the rails he went on (this was the 1970s) the US system is still par excellence.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:03 AM on July 11, 2008

IndigoJones, some of those thoughts crossed my mind but I figured: it's still a good book, worth a post for those who never heard of it (or the Booker); this is only the second such prize (the first on the 25th), but no doubt there will be another on the 50th (and why not every 10 years after - the older a prize gets, the more weight it carries on anniversaries - sort of like people); it was picked by readers so it's really fairly light and shouldn't be taken as seriously as the yearly prize;... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 7:29 PM on July 10, 2008

Evolution not only is happening with each new generation but every minutes of every day. The idea of a static species is an illusion. Well illustrated in the Pulitzer Prize winning The Beak of the Finch. It's still an idea most people can't grasp as it goes against common sense sensory experience.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:52 AM on July 10, 2008

This is so 1998, but apparently has staying power, the power of the boob.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:47 AM on July 10, 2008

1917..1938..1968..

I'd say 2009 is a more important arbitrary marker. Typically generations run at about 20 years and every 2 generations there is a major crisis of sort representing a shift of zeitgeist.

1989 = ? (Cold War ends)
1969 = Peace, love and rock and roll - consciousness revolution
1949 = ? (Cold War starts - USSR first a-bomb, NATO formed)
1929 = Start of great... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:02 AM on July 10, 2008

the seabeds attached to Greenland will rise, too

The ice is on the land, pushing down there, not over the seabed.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 5:36 PM on July 8, 2008

Yeah maybe a couple miles out or something on that scale. Landmass is not like a mattress where pressing down on one spot causes huge swaths to go down. It's more like a foam mattress, where pressing down in a spot mostly effects only that spot.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 7:10 PM on July 8, 2008

I'd give equal odds to both the hot and cold scenarios.

lol - volcanoes are the new sun spot, a "bloggers favorite" contrary position.

water vapor is actually the most powerful greenhouse gas

Luckily it has an extremely short life in the atmosphere, measured in days and weeks instead of years and decades for other GHGs. On the other hand warmer air holds more moisture... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 5:29 AM on July 9, 2008

Pollomacho, yeah all those things, it's a complex science. The mistake is to put too much emphasis on any one thing, they have to be examined individually and then come up with a whole pictures, that is what the IPPC did. The IPCC summary report goes into the different forcings (postitive and negative) of the many variables.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 8:20 AM on July 9, 2008

Don't kill Wilbur.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:12 AM on July 9, 2008

the descendants of very rich people are 'burdened' with maintaining the enormous estates .. that's what happens when you no longer have an economic and social system expressly designed to keep you at the top of it.

Who are your ancestors? You got a lot of explaining to do. Unless they were living in a shoe box as dirt poor peasants at the bottom of the social ladder, they also took part in a social system expressly designed to keep those beneath them down.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 8:07 AM on July 8, 2008

Wikipedia really should be called Notapedia because most arguments boil down to notability. Which is not surprising since the whole reason Wikipedia is popular is because with the Internet suddenly there is nearly unlimited information available at an instant search and we want to know quickly what is important/relevant (notable). The problem is and always will be disagreement over what is notable.

Now, take this to a different level - in 100 years, what we collectively... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 6:04 AM on July 8, 2008

On a related note, research has found that people who should be depressed - quadriplegics for example - actually report being more happy than they were before. I can't remember the reason but I think it has something to do with the brains ability to rationlize adversity - we may "lose" in a competition, but rationalize to ourselves in some way to be perfectly happy with the outcome, in fact prefer the outcome. Even the worst case holocaust survivors often go on to lead happy lives. The... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 12:59 PM on July 7, 2008

Native peoples have been doing it for 100s of thousands of years. The western concept of "wilderness" was a blank check to conquer and tame nature and the people who lived in harmony with it.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 9:47 AM on July 7, 2008

I'm guessing Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump would have been the Drum solo part of this supposed "harmony".

Well, yeah, actually, it was sustainable at the time. Did you know the Great Plains, prior to humans, was mostly forest? It was humans who "encouraged" it to become grassland so they could reliably harvest food from grass (in the form of buffalo). Same thing in Africa and Australia with controlled burns to keep forests from... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 12:46 PM on July 7, 2008

Generation Kill has been sitting in my Amazon wish list for years, since it first came out. As someone who dabbles in "generational theory", it fits perfectly the archetype of Generation X and the Iraq war - sort of the exact opposite of the heroic Greatest Generation and WWII, the non-hero, the anti-social bloody killer that everyone loves to hate and disparage. The show will strike a chord in American zeitgeist.
posted to MetaFilter by stbalbach at 7:07 AM on July 7, 2008