April 19, 2009
The Cartography of Recession
The Cartography of Recession. Act I, The Collapse: Slate's interactive map of vanishing jobs by county, The Fed's maps of subprime mortgages, USA Today's housing bubble maps, Gini coefficients by state, budget deficits and foreclosures from CNN. Act II, Intervention: The data of Stimuluswatch, mapped, and expected job gains by state, while newspapers and the auto industry die. Act III, the Future: A terrific interactive map from the Atlantic (and accompanying article) hints at the future, showing the evolving patterns of population flows (also see the amazing New York Times immigration map), innovation, and income by city over time.
Dear 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Letters to the President- and his responses. The story of the President's mailman. A peek inside the White House mail room.
Making Something New Everyday
Making Something New Everyday ; a blog where old-time MeFite Alison tries to make something new everyday. With over 100 projects posted so far, there's plenty for you to gawk at, such as a Robot Tea Cup and Saucer, a Color Perfect Pitch Tester, a Hidden Chamber Hamburger, Capacitor Bugs, Accidentally Gay Cardinals, a Fibonacci Petticoat, Marzipan Birds and Laptop and, erm... poop (possibly NSFW). Something for everyone, then! [via mefi projects]
What you see is what you hear
Sex for Great Justice!
Sex 102 with Kara Sutra: The things you wish you'd learned in Sex Ed - a series of funny videos on everything from vibrators to the 2-minute man. She'll amuse and even reassure you that your tingly bits are happy.
One Flat Thing, reproduced
Synchronous Objects - Exploring choreographic structures using objects and data, creating stunning visualisations. [flash]
Would you like to meet me between holidays?
An Oregon School for Troubled Teens Is Under Scrutiny (TIME) - Allegations at of abuse at the facility have been made for decades, and now it is being investigated by the state for the second time. Of course, abuse at private residential facilities for troubled teenagers is nothing new, but some female students at this school claim there was an additional, cruel twist: [more inside]
J. G. Ballard, 1930-2009
World Digital Library
The World Digital Library is set to open on the 21st of April, but appears to be operating as of now. Coral Cache
"My wife and I were terrorized by a baseless prosecution"
Ting-Yi Oei is an assistant principal in Virginia who was indicted for possession of child pornography. Today, he describes his year-long fight against the charges, which ended in dismissal.
Nature Cause by Human Culture
Next Nature is the nature caused by human culture. The technological world has become so intricate and uncontrollable that it has become a nature of its own. Scientific research into nanotechnology, genetic manipulation, ambient intelligence, tissue engineering... all of these young research fields radically interfere with our sense of what is ‘natural’. Here's a visual introduction into next nature. [more inside]
Sunday morning tire inflation video
Off road vehicle gets a tire inflated without a pump (SLYT) 23 seconds of "huh?".
Who's up for launch?
Steve's Story: Since 1994 Steve Eves has been dreaming of something big. He is about to have his day.
On April 25th at Higgs Farm in Maryland. Steve Eves will launch the largest model rocket ever, a 1/10 scale model of the Saturn V that sent men to the moon. The launch will be open to the public.
Think you've read Madame Bovary?
4,500 additional pages omitted from Flaubert's 500-page Madame Bovary have been released online (in French). "The site – www.bovary.fr – contains not only the published text and images of the barely legible manuscripts but interactive controls which allow the reader to re-instate passages corrected or cut by Flaubert or his publishers." It took "between three and 10 hours to decipher a single page of Flaubert's writing," done mostly by volunteers from around the world.
Why Minds are Not Like Computers
Why Minds are Not Like Computers: an in-depth analysis.
Mindfulness for Stress Reduction
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness presentation at Google. JON KABAT-ZINN, PH.D., is founding Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is also the founding director of its renowned Stress Reduction Clinic and Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He teaches mindfulness and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in various venues around the world.
The Copper Standard
The new monetary standard: Copper.
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