June 12, 2012
He was born this way
Fiona Russell Powell
You're gonna like this guy. He's all right. He's a good fella. He's one of us.
Informant, former wiseguy and goodfella Henry Hill (website, Wikipedia) has been made dead by illness. He was not a schnook.
repatriation of a petroglyph
"For the last 20 years, the huge rock has lain in the museum's interior courtyard, its many petroglyphs slowly disappearing under a layer of moss and lichen. Next week, it will be repatriated to Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nations and taken back home to the Fraser River at Churn Creek Protected Area, about two hours east of Clinton." [more inside]
Welcome to America!
"Of the many pieces of advice proffered, four of the most common are: eat with your fingers (sometimes), arrive on time (always), don't drink and drive (they take it seriously here!), and be careful about talking politics (unless you've got some time to spare)." Advice from the tourism guidebooks for foreign visitors to the United States.
Stagnation in the Meritocracy
Why Elites Fail. Christopher Hayes writes in The Nation about how meritocracy and democracy become compromised by Robert Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy.
They weren't attending a straight university
From 1968 to 1975, Rochdale College existed as co-op housing and as an experimental college, affiliated with the University of Toronto. Before it closed, it was the largest free university in North America. [more inside]
a tribe called red & electric pow wow
Native Appropriations: A Tribe Called Red: Powwow Step and social commentary for the masses - Based in Ottawa, Ontario, "DJs NDN (Nipissing First Nation), Bear Witness (Cayuga), and Shub (Cayuga) are A Tribe Called Red. ATCR creates an eclectic sound made up of a wide variety of musical styles ranging from hip-hop, dancehall, electronic, and their own mash-up of club and pow wow music, known as pow wow step." music videos: Red Skin Girl - Electric Pow Wow Drum - Native Puppy Love - NDNs From All Directions - Pow Wow Riddim streaming audio @ CBC: Pow Wow Step & Powwowzers [more inside]
If you’ve ever heard someone complain about the 4 chord pop song, this is what they are talking about.
"I analyzed the chords of 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found."
"A sigma meant there was samba dancing."
"Robert Browning Sosman, a physical chemist who died in 1967 at the age of 86, packed many careers into one lifetime. He wrote the definitive book on the chemical compound silica; was the seventh person to hike the entire Appalachian Trail; and, at home in New Jersey, kept a 3,500-strong map collection. He also made a 'significant contribution to the New York dining scene:" his Gustavademecum [more inside]
Is innumeracy harming the quality of medical care?
Since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against screening for prostate cancer, the debate has been furious. In fact, screening rates are likely to remain high, because most urologists disagree with the recommendations. One argued, "If you don’t do it, it’s negligent." (The debate is not new. Previously on Metafilter.) [more inside]
He saved her life.
When her boyfriend tried to kill the woman with a hammer, her fearless Great Dane jumped in the way, laying over her body and taking most of the blows until the man threw both of them out of a second story window. The dog suffered multiple broken bones in the attack, sparing his owner’s life in the process. [more inside]
Southwest's Success Secrets
Can I get cable out here?
While not as famous as its photogenic neighbor, Boon Island six miles off the town of York, Maine has quite the history of cannibalism, ghosts and shipwrecks. Would you like to own the tallest lighthouse in New England?
The World, Back Then
How the World Was Imagined: Early Maps and Atlases — Depictions of the world from the Iron Age to the Age of Discovery and the emergence of modern geography. From Socks Studio, who have been producing great feature after feature.
Shall we have the other half?
Gin and Tonic, A Love Story It's summertime, and the sipping is easy. Time for an ode to the magical, malarial-fighting mixture of mother's ruin and tonic. "The final product looked like a box of Crayolas: thin curls of lemon and lime peel, floating pebbles of pink peppercorns, a wedge of star anise, and a few fresh mint leaves, lightly crushed between Andrés’ fingers at the last second. It was everything a gin and tonic hadn’t been before: complex, bracing, a world of sweets and sours and bitters to be discovered in every sip." Bonus: Recipes for making your own tonic water.
The key to beginning a long journey toward understanding which, as we have learned, is something for which each human being cries out, cupping his hands over the mouth.
Strange and Unproductive Thinking, off David Lynch's fantastically weird album Crazy Clown Time, is a humorous, rambling, insightful essay disguised as a song in which the legendary director gives his thoughts on the purpose of evolution, the process that leads us to knowledge, and "the remarkable idea of a world free of tooth-decay".
Blue to orange and back again
With a little bit of help from Aperture Laboratories, these guys created a real Portal gun.
Albino Backwoods
With "limp and waxy" needles giving the tree the appearance of a "a glow-in-the-dark star you might find in a kid's bedroom", Albino Redwoods lack chlorophyll and grow as a parasite grafted onto another tree. These rarities still manage to grow up to 80 feet tall, and are of interest to those studying the redwood genome.
Why Smart People Are Stupid
Why Smart People Are Stupid (The New Yorker.) A new study suggests that the smarter people are, the more susceptible they are to cognitive bias.
"Niggas" in Practice
Elinor Ostrom, scholar of the commons, RIP
The Outlaw Josey Carter
Salon writer, Erik Nelson, compares The Outlaw Josey Wales and John Carter, as well the forces behind them. [more inside]
yes, pretty much everybody can be wrong
Where the Heat and Thunder hit their shots
With the 2012 NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder starting tonight, it's a great time to see where the Heat and Thunder hit their shots
My Life in the Bush Of Ghosts - Pre-release Version
[This] "is a pre release version of david byrnes first solo album, which was given me by david, when i stayed at his place in alfabet city, in 1981 [...] anyway, the final release differed a lot from this tape, because he used quotes from the quoran in this version, which he had to replace later. i dont know if this version was ever released in any way, shape or form." My Life in the Bush Of Ghosts, David Byrne and Brian Eno
The Dream Team of Dream Teams
When we got to the gym, there was this balcony [overlooking] the gym, so we didn't walk right in. It was almost, like, suspenseful. We look down and we see Barkley dunking. We see Michael stealing from somebody and doing one of his things where he takes off from outside the lane and double-pumps under the rim. We're like, "Wow, they do this in practice, too?"
Some great insights to the original Dream Team in '92. [more inside]
A Brief Introduction On Dubstep Production
National Geographic, The Doomsday Machine
"This beautiful, educational, erudite, and thoroughly appreciated publication is the heretofore unrecognized instrument of doom..." MetaFilter loves National Geographic magazine; the beloved publication is mentioned in
over 100 front-page posts. You may not know that in 1974, science humor magazine The Journal of Irreproducible Results printed an article warning of the threat posed by National Geographic magazine; because no one throws the magazine away, the combined weight of millions of back issues would eventually trigger earthquakes and other disasters. Readers of the magazine gleefully joined the "controversy" and submitted tongue-in-cheek rebuttals and letters to the editor. JIR's website has the collection of articles related to the joke.
The 1700 year war
I've been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result. (reddit link)
...my penis (or vagina)
How a song at the Norwegian Developers Conference came to joke with the phrase "The words ‘micro’ and ‘soft’ don’t refer to my penis (or vagina)".
It's not an illusion
Wil Wheaton celebrates the LA Kings first ever Stanley Cup victory (SLYT). There is kazoo.
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