May 27, 2010
Biblioracle
What is the Biblioracle? The Biblioracle is a service in the person of The Morning News contributing writer John Warner, said service being a recommendation for what book you should read next. What do I have to do to receive a recommendation from the Biblioracle?
In order to receive a recommendation, simply list the last five books you’ve read. Based on that list, the Biblioracle will tell you what to read next.
The Biblioracle is now closed.
Due to overwhelming response, the Biblioracle can only respond to requests submitted prior to 3:00 p.m. ET. If you missed your recommendation this time around, watch for the Biblioracle’s next appearance this summer!
The time for submission is closed but it's still interesting to see the recommendations that John Warner made.
The soldiers and police were going from house to house in search of Coke
73 dead in Kingston, Jamaica after four days of fighting resulting from the search for alleged drug dealer Christopher 'Dudus' Coke. He remains at large. [more inside]
Journey to the Bottom of the (Cold War) Sea and Back
Submarine causalities are tragedies of war that are not always directly associated with combat. Systems failures at sea are often mysterious, with evidence and remains disappearing to all but the deepest diving vehicles. This was no different in the Cold War, with non-combat losses from the US and the Soviet Fleets. In that era of nuclear secrets, both those of nuclear-powered submarines and nuclear weapons, learning about the enemy's technology was paramount. Such an opportunity came to the US with the sinking of K-129, a Golf Class II Soviet submarine that went down with 98 men on board. The recovery took over six year, involved the possible payback of Howard Hughes, a videotaped formal sea burial that was eventually copied and given to then-President Boris Yeltsin, and decades of CIA secrecy. [more inside]
Russian Lord of the Rings
"If she wants to get together with John at Bard next week, I have his number."
In response to a long and partially unflattering New York Times profile, M.I.A. (previously on MetaFilter) tweeted a phone number with the message "CALL ME IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME ABOUT THE N Y T TRUTH ISSUE". That phone number belonged to the woman who wrote the article, Lynn Hirschberg (waaaaay previously). Hirschberg responds.
"A Pulitzer Prize ain't gonna win us two readers," Pope told Newsweek once. "I don't care if other media respect us or not."
Rosa Lee's Story
In 1994, Leon Dash, while still at the Washington Post, wrote a Pulitzer winning series of articles about a woman named Rosa Lee Cunningham. [more inside]
Don't Worry. I Will Survive. I'm Just Singin' In The Rain.
What do Singing in the Rain, Live Is Life, Don't Worry, Be Happy, I Will Survive and Ça fait rire les oiseaux have in common? In a study, French-speaking Internet users identified these five pop songs out of 100, as the most pernicious earworms. Here are their top 25 picks from BRAMS, including audio clips. [more inside]
Play 'til it helps?
The 'attention economy' is so 2007. Now we have the 'engagement economy'. How to turn attention into engagement so we can enlist average joes to help save the world? How about permeating the game-reality boundary? Futurist, game-designer, and existential cookie roller Jane McGonigal assures us that gamers and gameplay are the answer to real world problems. And, apparently Serious Games are geting better. Killer Flu, Chore Wars, and Evoke are recent advances. The 7th annual Games4Change Festival, ending today, offers a spate of new promises. Hope or hype?
Roll for mutations
"There's a hand stuffed up inside of meee..."
VentriloChoir performs "Yesterday" on Hungarian TV show. And the story of how they got there. [more inside]
They're ours! No, they're not! Yes, they are!
To commemorate Argentina's Bicentenary Celebrations 2 days ago, Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana appeals to the British Government to respect the "spirit of the Argentinian people" and reopen sovereignty discussions concerning the Falkland Islands, a British territory since 1833. Despite a recent increase in tension due to British companies beginning to drill to oil in the Islands, the new British Goverment has already rejected talks resuming. [more inside]
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti
In the late 1950s, psychologist Milton Rokeach was gripped by an eccentric plan. He gathered three psychiatric patients, each with the delusion that they were Jesus Christ, to live together for two years in Ypsilanti State Hospital to see if their beliefs would change. Vaughan Bell tells the story of one of the weirdest experiments in the history of psychology. (via)
Oil Spill roundup.
'Top Kill' seems to have worked, Apparently stopping the flow of oil -- now officially estimated by the government to have been about 12,000-19,000 barrels/day, with 75% most of the volume being gas ABC News Dives below the surface to get a look at plumes of 'dispersed' oil: (spoiler alert: not pretty). And a BP exec takes the 5th, refusing to testify before a federal panel.
Hello Jed
30 objects, 40 audio and videocassettes, and 1,425 photographs, among them a Polaroid snapshot of Terry Fox’s artificial leg - Douglas Coupland submits his personal objects to the University of British Columbia. [more inside]
'I wanted to preserve the farmyard connotations.'
"Bio Force Ape" Meets "Bean Ball Benny"
Sure, you've played Final Fantasy VII, but what about Final Fantasy Extreme? You've played EarthBound, but what about Earth Bound (two words). You know all about Dragon Quest VIII, but are you familiar with Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mystery Dungeon? There's a whole world of forgotten, canceled games out there just waiting to be discovered. Let 1UP's Jeremy Parish and Frank Cifaldi be your guides in an exploration of The Best Games That Never Were. (Previously)
Joshua Glenn's generational periodization scheme
Joshua Glenn and anti-middlebrow blog Hilobrow present their generational periodization scheme: from the Prometheans born in 1844-53 and the technologically transformative Plutonians born in 1854-63, to the hiply earnest Revivalists (those who were teenagers in the 90s) and the Throwbacks (my generation, and an article that horrifyingly includes pictures of tweens and the Mickey Mouse Club). [more inside]
The beauty of the double dovetail
The dovetail joint was once the king of joints. Mechanically simple and reliable, it's fantastically strong, but it's not simple to get right by hand. Nowadays, the joint has largely vanished due to the rise of flat pack furniture's reliance on screws and glues, but it still exists in high end work and in the hands of hobbyists. Most dovetails are now done using a jig and router to reproduce predefined angles, but every now and again you find someone who goes off and creates something truly beautiful. Like this box with hand cut double dovetails.
I've already thought of that joke
Type one-handed on a keyboard virtually "folded up" to be half the size? Pff. With zero training? Double pff. Except it totally works.
you're dancing to the news
You're listening grooving to ABC News in Australia, or 7 News, or Ten. And now, over to the UK for the BBC or Sky News. Don't listen to the others! They are false prophets!
World in Motion
Norway's modern prisons
Norway's penal system has gathered some attention recently, as the new Halden prison just opened. The $217 million facility will house 252 prisoners, some long-term and some short. The new prison is notable for, among other things, use of armoured glass instead of bars on windows, natural lighting and single-inmate cells with private showers, TVs and access to a gym and a sound studio. There was also an art budget, and Norwegian street artist Dolk was commisioned to decorate some of the walls. The Norwegian penal system is similar to the other Scandinavian countries', with no death penalty, and a "life" sentence of 21 years. In Norway there are no privately run incarceration facilities, and the opening of the rather plush-seeming Halden prison spurred some discussion, but garnered no big controversy. [more inside]
Dochira made ikaremasu ka?
Taxi top lights, called andon (行灯) in Japanese after the Edo-era wood & paper lanterns, come in a variety of shapes and colors. Although originally used in the mid-1950s to discourage robberies, andon are now used as company logos or to advertise.
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