May 27, 2015
RMS says Windows, OS X, iOS and Android are all malware
Should you trust an internet of proprietary software things? - "Richard Stallman, known for his instrumental role in the creation of Linux, has written an opinion piece arguing that nearly any operating system you might use today can be considered malware, and that goes for popular mobile platforms as well as desktop operating systems." (via; rms previously)
A world of handmade sound
If you like unusual musical instruments along the lines of those designed and built by microtonalist Harry Partch, or sound sculpture artist Jean Tinguely, for example, you might want to check out the Anarchestra.
Swords Into Plowshares: Military veterans turn to farming
What happens when veterans trade in their combat boots for muck boots? Sara Creech, a surgery nurse during the Iraq War, is part of a growing movement to help vets transition back into civilian life—and find a measure of peace—by going back to the land (NYT, mentions suicide). [more inside]
Fake Science Journalism
“Slim by Chocolate!” the headlines blared. I got a call in December last year from a German television reporter named Peter Onneken. He and his collaborator Diana Löbl were working on a documentary film about the junk-science diet industry. They wanted me to help demonstrate just how easy it is to turn bad science into the big headlines behind diet fads. And Onneken wanted to do it gonzo style: Reveal the corruption of the diet research-media complex by taking part.
Additional props are potato chips, pickles and olives
The New York Times has been around long enough to report on more or less everything, and its First Glimpses feature occasionally dives into the archives to see when some notable thing was mentioned for the very first time. This week, it's cheeseburgers. [more inside]
I'm 9 years old. And I'm an illegal alien.
♫ "Is he strong? Listen bud, he’s got radioactive blood." ♪
Good evening. Please watch the following very, very carefully...
Every Alfred Hitchcock cameo ever in his own films.
Nebraska makes 19
"But you did a great job of making me feel safe."
hey girl: you can use my shoulder as a rifle stand, as you’re the better shot of the two of us. (feminist mad max tumblr)
You won't regret that tattoo.
You won't regret that tattoo. Single link Vimeo. A short, sweet first documentary by Angie Bird, via the Tattoo Historian at Tattoo History Daily.
(Somewhat previously on the Tattoo Historian, Dr. Anna Felicity Friedman.)
And nobody used this for a fantasy novel yet?
So it turns out rather than religious fanatics unused to the freedom found in Holland, New England was actually founded by a bunch of Anglo-Saxon sell swords who had fled the British Isles after the Norman invasion on land given by a grateful byzantine emperor on the north-east coast of the Black Sea. Confused? Intrigued? Let Dr. Caitlin R. Green explain and set out the evidence for the existence of a 11th century New England/Nova Anglia.
"Facebook Messenger defaults to sending a location with all messages."
...the first thing I noticed when I started to write my code was that the latitude and longitude coordinates of the message locations have more than 5 decimal places of precision, making it possible to pinpoint the sender’s location to less than a meter.Stalking Your Friends with Facebook Messenger
"It’s embarrassing to be such a cliché"
I Was a Proud Non-Breeder. Then I Changed My Mind, by Michelle Goldberg, author of To Breed Or Not To Breed [more inside]
A Game of Clones: Video Game Litigation Illustrated
Eric Adler of the Adler Vermillion law firm and the Legal Hackers group dives into the odd nuances of copyright laws as applied to video games.
A Goode Soop
Cooking In The Archives: recreating recipes from the Early Modern Peroid (1600s-1800s) in a modern kitchen. Not old enough? Then try some authentically medieval recipes.
“Although of course you end up becoming yourself.”
The End of the Tour [YouTube] [Trailer]
The End of the Tour is based on the true story of David Lipsky, a Rolling Stone reporter who interviewed legendary author David Foster Wallace for five days in 1996. Lipsky catches up with the author as he’s about to hit the final stop on the book tour for the release of Infinite Jest, then and now considered one of the great novels written in our lifetimes. Over the course of the next few days, the reporter develops a complicated relationship with the icon.
The Theology of Consensus
The prime appeal of consensus process for forty years has been its promise to be more profoundly democratic than other methods. But let’s face it: the real-world evidence is shaky at best. [more inside]
A non-guide to avoid awkwardness when greeting human beings
"I've always been fascinated by how human beings move through crowds.
How many millions of minute calculations must our brains be making in order for us to navigate from one end of a packed space to the other?
But despite being the owner of all this incredible processing power, there's still one thing my brain will never be able to figure out...
...one code it will never crack...
HOW DO I GREET PEOPLE IN MY LIFE?"
How many millions of minute calculations must our brains be making in order for us to navigate from one end of a packed space to the other?
But despite being the owner of all this incredible processing power, there's still one thing my brain will never be able to figure out...
...one code it will never crack...
HOW DO I GREET PEOPLE IN MY LIFE?"
Home space ball is blue, and there’s nothing I can do
Space Weird Thing Space Oddity redone, Up Goer Five style
On your mark
Hayao Miyazaki's - On Your Mark "In 1994, Hayao Miyazaki took a break from writing the script for Princess Mononoke to work on this music video from Japnese pop duo Chage & Aska" [via]
The Departed Queen
When amateur chess player Dana Mackenzie sat down against International Master David Pruess in the last round of the 2006 Western States Open, he was outrated by 345 points, making the game a huge mismatch on paper. The game took a strange turn when as early as his sixth move Mackenzie gave up his queen for only a bishop and knight, a preposterous speculative sacrifice that seemed incredibly unlikely to work, especially against a player much more skilled than him. But what his opponent didn't know was that Mackenzie had already practiced this position against his computer a hundred times. [more inside]
R.I.P. Anne Meara
Anne Meara passed away this past weekend at the age of 85. Meara was a remarkable actress and commedian who is known to modern audiences for her work on "King of Queens", "Sex and the City" and, of course, her slightly famous son Ben Stiller. But Meara also laid claim to one of the longest comedy partnerships in the entertainment industry with her husband Jerry Stiller, whom she first met in 1953 and started working with in the early 1960's. Here are some choice clips from five decades back: Highlights from Stiller and Meara on the Ed Sullivan show. Stiller and Meara illustrate how to break up with someone. Audio of their "Last Two People in the World" and "Moments of Truth behind TV Commecials" sketches.
Doctoring, Without the Doctor
Nebraska became the 20th state to adopt a law that makes it possible for nurses in a variety of medical fields with most advanced degrees to practice without a doctor’s oversight. Maryland’s governor signed a similar bill into law this month, and eight more states are considering such legislation, according to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Now nurses in Nebraska with a master’s degree or better, known as nurse practitioners, no longer have to get a signed agreement from a doctor to be able to do what their state license allows — order and interpret diagnostic tests, prescribe medications and administer treatments.
Let Me Heal: The Opportunity to Preserve Excellence in American Medicine
When I started my first year of residency in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1998, there were 20 percent more patient admissions per intern in my residency program than there had been just three years earlier. The sheer number and complexity of my patients was nearly overwhelming—and I was worried that at best, they were not getting the care they had a right to expect, and at worst, that they were not safe.
Go Tell It on the Mountain
“The last time he hiked to the top of Stone Mountain before embarking on a new life in South America, longtime Atlanta writer and novelist Charles McNair saw a ghost, had a dream and found a new, pure heart in the old mountain.”
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