April 29, 2006

Galbraith memorial thread

John Kenneth Galbraith, an influential and unorthodox economist, has died, at age 97.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:26 PM PST - 47 comments

Cyber-funeral

What's worse than not having enough soldiers to fight your war? Not enough buglers to play "taps" at their funerals. Good thing the military has come up with a solution. It's the thought that counts, I guess.
posted by Balisong at 10:12 PM PST - 41 comments

Lite Brite Graffitti

Night Writer (embedded .mov). "The night writer extends the functionality of LED throwies by allowing a writer to catch a tag in lights. It’s cheap, easy to make and writes 12-inch glowing letters 25-feet in the air on any iron or steel surface." From the Graffitti Research Lab.
posted by zardoz at 10:11 PM PST - 21 comments

a long ride

Paris to Kabul. They won't be the first, or the only to embark on such adventures, but Manu (photographer / technician) and Sophie (journalist) are on a great adventure from Paris to Kabul in a very small car.
posted by pwedza at 9:44 PM PST - 6 comments

APRIL FOOLS!

In the study of mythology, folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, human hero or anthropomorphic animal who plays pranks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and norms of behaviour.

Tricksters come in all forms, from all cultures. Notable examples include Br'er Rabbit, Odysseus, Eshu, Raven, and Loki; most or all of whom you are likely familiar with.
posted by Eideteker at 9:11 PM PST - 31 comments

Exporting green and leafy water

Exporting green and leafy water. Agricultural exports, including fresh fruit and vegetables, are an important source of income for many developing countries, but they also threaten the evironmental future of those same producers. "Irrigated agriculture accounts for 70% of the freshwater used globally", while only a part returns to the environment. It isn't just in Africa; in India and in North America, all over the globe, water supplies are being stretched to the point of near breaking. [more inside]
posted by jb at 5:51 PM PST - 12 comments

What Peak Oil means in the near-term

The Paradigm is the Enemy: A sobering but cogent account of the state of Peak Oil, what it's already led to (reported and ignored), and what is in store for us in the near future. The worst part is the political impossibility of addressing the problem constructively: that would require acknowledging the problem.
posted by LeisureGuy at 5:01 PM PST - 99 comments

Paglia is a Neumann

Camille Paglia How should the humanities be taught, and how should scholars in the humanities be trained? These pivotal questions confront universities today amid signs of spreading agreement that the three-decade era of poststructuralism and postmodernism is over.
posted by vronsky at 4:04 PM PST - 72 comments

pieoverdone, star hustler

So I'm driving to Salina, KS in the middle of the night and I realize that in all that nothing, I can look out my windshield and I can see stars. Like, all the stars. And I think that it's a bummer that I don't know that much about what it is I'm looking at.
posted by pieoverdone at 2:48 PM PST - 41 comments

The Epistemologist of Despair

Drama is impossible today. I don't know of any. Drama used to be the belief in guilt, and in a higher order. This absolutely cruel didactic is impossible, unacceptable for us moderns. But melodrama has kept it. You are caged. In melodrama you have human, earthly prisons rather than godly creations. Every Greek tragedy ends with the chorus — "those are strange happenings. Those are the ways of the gods". And so it always is in melodrama.
His career as a film director lasted more than 40 years, but Douglas Sirk (1900-1987) is remembered for the melodramas he made for Universal in Hollywood between 1954 and 1959, his "divine wallow": Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956), The Tarnished Angels (1958, William Faulkner considered it the best screen adaptation of one of his novels), Imitation of Life (1959) -- all considered for decades little more than a camp oddity. Now audiences are beginning to look deeper at the films of Douglas Sirk, at how, in megafan Todd Haynes' words, they are "almost spookily accurate about the emotional truths". Now, lucky Chicagoans can enjoy "Douglas Sirk at Universal", matinees at the Music Box. More inside.
posted by matteo at 11:56 AM PST - 14 comments

Hooray, hooray, the first of may!

The Morris dance is common to all inhabited worlds in the multiverse. It is danced under blue skies to celebrate the quickening of the soil and under bare stars because it's springtime and with any luck the carbon dioxide will unfreeze again. It is danced innocently by raggedy-bearded young mathematicians to an inexpert accordion rendering of "Mrs Widgery's Lodger" and ruthlessly by such as the Ninja Morris Men of New Ankh, who can do strange and terrible things with a simple handkerchief and a bell.
(from page one of Terry Pratchett's "Reaper Man")
posted by nonane at 11:32 AM PST - 34 comments

Freedom of the Seas

Supertankers are so cool. Click previous sentence for more information.
posted by thirteenkiller at 9:43 AM PST - 43 comments

FBI Investigated 3,501 People Without Warrants

FBI Investigated 3,501 People Without Warrants Pardon my one link post. I had thought this must be taking place once it became public that NSA could spy on us without court approval. If NSA, then why not FBI? And so it came to pass....
posted by Postroad at 7:18 AM PST - 75 comments

Freedom of the Seas

Freedom of the seas World,s largest passenger liner, currently docked in Southampton UK, in prep for voyage to New York. Then a life of cruising the Carib. 15m wider than the QM2 Check out the flash tour.
posted by A189Nut at 3:06 AM PST - 56 comments

Texans Reject Bush

Texans reject Bush

Not since the Portland Trailblazers selected Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan has such a draft day blunder occurred. In today's 2006 NFL Draft, the Houston Texans are set to make NC State defensive end Mario Williams - not USC running back Reggie Bush - the top overall pick. Yes, we're talking about this Reggie Bush (YouTube).

Texans fans, prepare for 10 more seasons like the one you just had.
posted by b_thinky at 12:24 AM PST - 105 comments

CU police offer $50 bounty to identify maybe pot smokers.

CU police offer $50 bounty to identify maybe pot smokers.
"Every year on 4/20, students and residents gather on Farrand Field at CU Boulder to defy the authorities and smoke marijuana publicly. This year, the University of Boulder Police Department fought back by taking pictures of as many participants as possible. They have a website with photos up, offering an $50 reward to anyone who positively identifies someone who was photographed." via BoingBoing
Here are 3 local news stories about it: 1, 2, 3. I guess the police want to identify people even if they were not visalby commiting a crime, just so they can bring them in and apply pressure root out the real criminals.

Colorado is home to James Dobson's hyper right-wing Focus on the Family. But Denver and in the west of that state appear to be one of the largest marijuana usage areas in the country (scroll down a bit)

This area seems radically divided. When my family recently visited Colorado Springs we found it very right-wing but when we engaged a rubber boat trip through the Royal George all of our guides were hippie/eco/stoners.

Can anybody explain this in terms of the obvious factions?
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 12:03 AM PST - 96 comments

« Previous day | Next day »