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mefi
Enemy of the State.
Wolves in Alaska are gunned down from the air for cash bounties, their orphaned pups often discovered by agency biologists in the field and
killed. Alaskans soon vote on
proposition 2 to stop the controversial slaughter that serves the interests of large game hunters.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 7:34 PM on August 29, 2008
(28 comments)
State by state electoral college
analysis and
predictions for the main 2008 presidential candidates, based on polling data and updated daily.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 7:37 PM on May 29, 2008
(106 comments)
Orphan trains.
From 1853 to 1929 an ambitious relocation adoption program run by the Children's Aid Society, founded by
Charles Loring Brace, sent kids from urban slums and orphanages out to live on Midwestern farms,
with mixed results. Some became state governors, others
suffered abuse or servitude.
Even though we use the name Orphan Train, few of these children were true orphans. Some were half-orphans, having lost one parent to disease or accident. Some had both parents but had run away do to abuse or neglect. By 1910, CAS had "placed out" over 106,000 children and the program ran for another 19 years. Also, similar programs were run by the New York Foundling Home (called Baby Trains), New York Juvenile Asylum, and the Boston Home for Little Wanderers. In all, at least, 200,000 children found themselves moved from the city to small towns and farms across the Nation.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 7:23 PM on March 16, 2007
(9 comments)
Hybrid solar lighting is here.
Happier employees and spendier mall shoppers are on the horizon.
HSL basics. Direct savings comes from reduced electrical demand during peak hours, reduced cooling costs of conventional lighting, and eliminating the heat and maintenance costs of skylights.
Call for the price.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 8:56 PM on March 9, 2007
(34 comments)
Increased violence linked to scriptures.
University of Michigan psychologist Brad Bushman and his colleagues suggest that scriptural violence sanctioned by God can increase aggression, especially in believers.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 12:49 PM on March 3, 2007
(93 comments)
Is blood plasma salinity the same as seawater?
No, but that proves evolution.
"The answer is most definitely NOT that oceans were 1/3 as salty back then. It most definitely IS that the earliest vertebrates did evolve in salt water and then moved into fresh water....They have devised an extremely clever trick in kidney structure to allow salt transport pumps which really take salt back INTO the body from the urine but still manage to use them to produce urine much more concentrated that their body fluids and so excrete salt FROM the body."
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 11:06 AM on February 10, 2007
(67 comments)
W. Edwards Deming:
Noted
consultant, and proponent of total quality
management.
The prevailing forces of destruction start early in life-grades in school from toddler on up through the university, gold stars for school athletics, merit system or annual appraisal on the job, incentive pay, work standards, MBO (rather, MBIR: Management by Imposition of Results), MBR (Management by Results). These forces of destruction must be replaced by leadership.... The transformation will restore the individual; will abolish grades in school on up through the university; will abolish the annual appraisal of people on the job, MBO, quotas for production, specified requirements that people work 57 minutes out of every hour, incentive pay, monthly or quarterly reports on business targets, competition between people, competition between divisions, and other forms of suboptimisation. Leadership will replace these bad practices, and will restore the individual.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 9:53 PM on January 27, 2007
(51 comments)
Atlas Shrugged
is again in the pipeline
to be made into a movie. BACK in the 1970s Albert S. Ruddy, the producer of “The Godfather,” first approached Ayn Rand to make a movie of her novel “Atlas Shrugged.” But Rand, who had fled the Soviet Union and gone on to inspire capitalists and egoists everywhere, worried aloud, apparently in all seriousness, that the Soviets might try to take over Paramount to block the project.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 1:46 PM on January 20, 2007
(142 comments)
The Chevy Volt, GM's new plug-in hybrid electric car.
For a customer driving about 40 miles a day or about 15,000 miles a year, compared to a 30 mpg car, the Volt would save about 500 gallons of gasoline per year. If the car is charged every night, the driver should be able to achieve that mileage using virtually no gasoline. That same example would also save 4.4 metric tonnes of CO2 every year from each car. All it needs for mass production is a supplier for its untested lithium ion battery concept.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 7:37 PM on January 7, 2007
(68 comments)
Wikiasari search engine.
Wikipedia founder plans to offer a new search engine using "the same network of followers" for the process.
“Essentially, if you consider one of the basic tasks of a search engine, it is to make a decision: ‘this page is good, this page sucks’,” Mr Wales said. “Computers are notoriously bad at making such judgments, so algorithmic search has to go about it in a roundabout way. But we have a really great method for doing that ourselves,” he added. “We just look at the page. It usually only takes a second to figure out if the page is good, so the key here is building a community of trust that can do that.”
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 3:44 PM on December 24, 2006
(29 comments)
Old textbooks proposed as protective shields.
One political candidate's idea is to reissue outdated textbooks and place them under desks so that students can use them defensively when a shooter opens fire. They actually stop most handgun bullets, although raise the specter of a passive bystander society.
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 11:13 AM on October 21, 2006
(67 comments)
"Himself an agnostic,
Rove has masterminded a strategy that has helped to broaden the Republican base beyond its pro-business, anti-government heritage to appeal to devout evangelicals. In a calculated effort to weaken the Democratic base, Rove has engineered plans to use the antiabortion stance to attract Catholics, the anti-gay stance to attract black churchgoers, and the pro-Israel stance to attract Jews." Karl Rove's agnosticism also mentioned
here and
here (audio).
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B.
at 6:18 PM on September 7, 2006
(50 comments)
