March 23, 2014

Welcome aboard the leaning locomotive line

The old Maumee & Western Railroad, in northwestern Ohio, had, arguably, the worst railroad track in existence. Built in a swamp, the line has, apparently, never had any maintenance since it was completed in 1964. Railfans used to travel there hoping to catch the (seemingly inevitable) derailment. So far as can be found, it never happened.
posted by pjern at 9:53 PM PST - 26 comments

Some shitty titles

The winners of the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year have been announced. "Diagram devotees have spoken, and spoken in no uncertain terms: poo wins prizes."
posted by anothermug at 8:44 PM PST - 17 comments

Students take over Taiwan's Legislature amid China trade pact protests

Students take over Taiwan's Legislature amid massive protests against a trade bill with China. Student protesters stormed Taiwan's Legislative Yuan last week, overwhelming police, and have occupied it since as protests grew outside. Last night, another group of students stormed the Executive Yuan, but were removed, sometimes violently, by riot police. The Presidential Office is surrounded by barricades and police checkpoints. The protests began after the ruling party, the Kuomintang, declared a review of a China trade pact to be concluded after months of wrangling between it and the opposition in the Legislature. The students originally wanted the review to continue, but they're now demanding that it be scrapped altogether.
posted by Poagao at 8:38 PM PST - 22 comments

Dust-Devil + Tumbleweeds

Tumbleweed Firenado
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:29 PM PST - 27 comments

How about a nice game of chess?

Chess has been played in a lot of movies. I mean, a lot. Some of the more notable matches include Ron Weasley kicking ass, HAL stealing from Schlage, a Bond villain stealing from Spassky, and Death just screwing with the audience. Then there is Thomas Crown, who might just have been named for a promising young British player who tragically died at the age of eighteen.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:22 PM PST - 29 comments

Humanity needs bots to save the world's knowledge from humanity.

Wikipedia is edited by bots. That's a good thing.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 5:10 PM PST - 33 comments

How to be more sensitive, more sensible, more proportionate, more alive

The July 23, 1966 issue of Norman Cousins' The Saturday Review used 30 pages to focus on The New Computerized Age (Link to chapter PDFs), digitized and licensed for your enjoyment by Unz.org. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan at 4:43 PM PST - 2 comments

Artist Vs. Troll, Why can't you be both?

Gavin Aung Than's Zen Pencils (previously here & here & here) deviated from its usual "illustrating great quotes" format for a little story, "The Artist-Troll War": part one, part two, part three, part four. You can't argue with that, can you? Well, Kris Straub, whose webcomics include the pychological-horror of Broodhollow (previously here), the satirical sci-fi of Starslip and the "I was Meta before you knew what it meant" Checkerboard Nightmare, used his usually-quick-and-dirty gag comic Chainsawsuit (previously here and kind-of here) to make a response.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:33 PM PST - 59 comments

Something Good Indeed

GQ, otherwise known as the Girls' Quartet, absolutely RIPS IT UP in a barbershop medley of Something Good and Happy Together.
posted by KathrynT at 1:10 PM PST - 36 comments

A basic pleasure model

Jordan Wolfson and Spectral Motion take us another step closer to the singularity with a vision of the exotic dancers of 20 minutes from now. [more inside]
posted by sparklemotion at 11:43 AM PST - 92 comments

Fished Out

The world's fish are in danger—as is everyone who depends on them (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 10:40 AM PST - 52 comments

Gimme $600 or the pomeranian gets it

A Toronto woman returns from the laundry room to find her little one missing. Following a botched ransom call and online appeals for help (with grainy surveillance footage of the abduction), the three-year-old was recovered after being sold into servitude on the black market. [more inside]
posted by pjenks at 10:36 AM PST - 40 comments

The politics of black aspiration

"A number of liberals reacted harshly to Ryan. I'm not sure why. What Ryan said here is not very far from what Bill Cosby, Michael Nutter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama said before him. The idea that poor people living in the inner city, and particularly black men, are "not holding up their end of the deal" as Cosby put it, is not terribly original or even, these days, right-wing. From the president on down there is an accepted belief in America—black and white—that African-American people, and African-American men, in particular, are lacking in the virtues in family, hard work, and citizenship:
If Cousin Pookie would vote, if Uncle Jethro would get off the couch and stop watching SportsCenter and go register some folks and go to the polls, we might have a different kind of politics.
Cousin Pookie and Uncle Jethro voted at higher rates than any other ethnic group in the country. They voted for Barack Obama. Our politics have not changed. Neither has Barack Obama's rhetoric. Facts can only get in the way of a good story. It was sort of stunning to see the president give a speech on the fate of young black boys and not mention the word racism once. It was sort of stunning to see the president salute the father of Trayvon Martin and the father of Jordan Davis and then claim, "Nothing keeps a young man out of trouble like a father who takes an active role in his son’s life." [more inside]
posted by MartinWisse at 10:34 AM PST - 78 comments

"How can I stay silent, how can I be still!"

Lessons From A Demigod
The Epic of Gilgamesh has been read in the modern world for a little longer than a century, and, in that time, this oldest of stories has become a classic college text. In my own courses on ancient literature and mythology, it is the book I always begin with. But why should a tale whose origins stretch back more than four thousand years draw such attention in an age of genetic engineering and text messaging? The answer I have given to hundreds of students is that almost every joy and sorrow they will face in life was revealed in Gilgamesh millennia before they were born. Reading Gilgamesh will not only teach them to face the challenges that lie ahead, but also give them an appreciation for the idea that no matter how much our modern world might seem different from earlier times, the essence of the human experience remains the same.
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:04 AM PST - 36 comments

Thrills, chills, spills and plastic carnage

Extreme Barbie Jeep Racing [more inside]
posted by 445supermag at 9:49 AM PST - 15 comments

Formula One Racing documentaries, from the first days to the present

It's only one race into the 2014 Formula One season, and if you're interested in knowing more about this world of specialized racing cars, there was a roundup of documentaries on Reddit last year. While the links are all dead, it's a handy guide to films you can find online. For your viewing pleasure... [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:44 AM PST - 15 comments

Sinkhole of Bureaucracy

The US Office of Personnel Management's Retirement Operations Center is housed about 230 feet below the surface inside the caverns of an old limestone mine. The trucks full of paperwork come every day, turning off a country road north of Pittsburgh and descending through a gateway into the earth. Underground, they stop at a metal door decorated with an American flag. [more inside]
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 8:45 AM PST - 74 comments

The Vatican archives are being digitized.

The Vatican is digitizing its massive trove of ancient documents to make them available to the world for free online. [more inside]
posted by Jacob Knitig at 7:10 AM PST - 28 comments

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