July 2, 2013
A Medical Experiment with Positive Results
Health Quality Partners is an experimental program that uses home visits to Medicare patients to improve health. It also cuts costs. Scheduled to shut down this week, the program has gotten a reprieve. [more inside]
Antidemocratic in spirit, design, and operation
Bill Moyers interviews Sheldon Wolin in two parts.
Moyers: This will strike you as a very simplistic question, but I need to ask it. Do we have a democracy?
Wolin: It isn't a simplistic question, and the answer is I think we don't.
Moyers: *Spock eyebrow raise*
[more inside]
Moyers: This will strike you as a very simplistic question, but I need to ask it. Do we have a democracy?
Wolin: It isn't a simplistic question, and the answer is I think we don't.
Moyers: *Spock eyebrow raise*
[more inside]
BS 2000, the merging of punk rock, hip-hop, and a bunch of keyboards.
BS 2000 was the short-time collaboration between Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz of the Beastie Boys, and Amery "AWOL" Smith, best known as a punk drummer. They released a couple albums on the now-defunct Grand Royal label. They toured live, performing with the keyboards, drums and vocals (YouTube) that was the sound of punk rock and hip-hop combined into something funky and weird (Grooveshark stream). Bestie Mania has more on the band. Oh, and Adam and Amery shared their record collection on WFMU back in the day, so the show is only available in Real Media.
"The Inner Light" at 21
In the article "'The Inner Light' at 21", writer Morgan Gendel reflects on what fan-favorite and Hugo award-winning Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Inner Light" means to him. [more inside]
Let's have a teeny-tiny dinner
Come over my house and we'll cook up a tiny Re-Ment dinner...do you prefer Japanese cuisine? Maybe something European or Chinese? Perhaps fresh from the farm? Save room for Decoration Cake and Gummy Crepes for desert. RRcherrypie's YouTube channel has served up mesmerizing meals to millions. [more inside]
The marshmallows are not innate
An old Stanford study famously found that preschoolers who could leave a marshmallow alone for 15 minutes in order to gain a second one would go on to do better at life. A new study suggests that the important factor here may not be the self control of the child, but the child's level of trust that the second marshmallow would ever appear.
The Weirdest Language in the World
Idibon, a company that specializes in language processing, decided to rank the world's languages to see which had the most unusual features. The winner was Chalcatongo Mixtec, a language spoken by 6000 people in Mexico. The most normal language? Hindi. [more inside]
The Expendables
Many of America's biggest corporations rely on temp workers to make up an ever increasing portion of their work force. This has led to a boom in the temp agency industry and a sharp decline in temp workers' quality of life.
The Granite Mountain Hotshots and the Yarnell Hill Fire
On Friday June 28, 2013 a wildfire broke out in Yarnell, Arizona. Of several hundred firefighters sent to the scene, 20 were from the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew out of nearby Prescott. A thunderstorm on Sunday produced lightning and high winds, causing the wildfire to explode from 200 to 2,000 acres in the matter of hours. By Sunday night, 19 of the Granite Mountain hotshots had died, trapped in the fire by rapidly shifting winds. [more inside]
Reviews that mention hangover in San Francisco
The new Yelp Wordmap uses review keyword density to depict which big city neighborhoods are the most "sketchy", "yuppie", "hipster", "bacon" and much more.
In Saturn's Rings
The first official trailer of In Saturn's Rings (formerly Outside In) has been released to universal acclaim. The movie (to be completed in 2014) is made exclusively from real photos taken by spacecraft, mostly Cassini-Huygens.
Private Varnish Usually Costs At Least $300 A Gallon
Many folks who play Powerball in the U.S. dream of private jets. But that's so passé. All the coolest, richest kids are buying, rebuilding and riding "private varnish" (29 page .pdf file) and those that don't have the scratch for that, charter. [more inside]
Lynch + Reznor
Came Back Haunted: David Lynch directs the video for the first single off the upcoming Nine Inch Nails album, Hesitation Marks, due out in a few more months. [Seizure warning: lots of flashing lights and such.]
40 years, one outfit
PE teacher Dale Irby wore a polyester shirt and coffee-colored sweater for school picture day in 1973. And for every picture day since then until his retirement this year.
Racial Slur or Honorific?
The Other Redskins. 62 US high schools in 22 states currently use the name "Redskins" for one of their sports teams. 28 high schools in 18 states have dropped the mascot over the last 25 years. As public pressure continues to intensify on the Washington Redskins football team to change their name -- one many consider a racial slur that disparages Native Americans -- similar debates are being waged in towns across the country about their local high school teams.
The Rock ’n’ Roll Casualty Who Became a War Hero
Jason Everman has the unique distinction of being the guy who was kicked out of Nirvana and Soundgarden, two rock bands that would sell roughly 100 million records combined. At 26, he wasn’t just Pete Best, the guy the Beatles left behind. He was Pete Best twice.
Then again, he wasn’t remotely. What Everman did afterward put him far outside the category of rock’n’roll footnote. He became an elite member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, one of those bearded guys riding around on horseback in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban.
Of course, James Blish sent it into space
Filling the East River. Filling the HUDSON River. Building a dome over Midtown.
Borderline crazy proposed infrastructure projects for New York City.
11,000 Miles in 11 Days on a Motorcycle
Today marks the beginning of the 2013 Iron Butt Rally, a long distance motorcycle rally in which participants ride 11,000 miles in 11 days. It rained on today's start in Pennsylvania, but the challenges are only beginning for these riders. [more inside]
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Who was that masked man?
The utter failure of the Lone Ranger movie - the 1981 one, that is.
How to Steal a Mountain
Buried Secrets How an Israeli billionaire wrested control of one of Africa’s biggest prizes.
SO OLD AS TO BE MOSTLY NONEXISTENT, CURRENTLY
In response to Senator Mitch McConnell and his assertion that in 2016, Hillary Clinton will be too old to run for POTUS, Jezebel presents 101 Things Older Than Hillary Clinton.
Silly Point
No skin, please.
The doings of the Egyptian post office (SLpicasa, SFW?)
Wine Is Elegance
Drama
James Cameron is being sued by Roger Dean.
Best known as the creator of classic Yes album art, artist Roger Dean has filed a complaint against James Cameron and 20th Century Fox seeking more than $50 million in damages over Avatar.
Full 17 page complaint here.
Practically Incomprehensible
Russian rocket explodes in Kazakhstan
Let your voice be heard
This month, citizens and planning officials in Cape Cod, Mass., will get a chance to do what almost no one else in the U.S. is allowed to do when deciding whether to approve or reject a big-box retail development: weigh the likely impacts on the region’s economy. [more inside]
“She would live now, not read.”
Alice Munro Puts Down Her Pen to Let the World In: Accepting a literary prize in Toronto last month, Alice Munro, the acclaimed short-story writer — “our Chekhov,” as Cynthia Ozick has called her — winner of the Man Booker International Prize and just about every important North American literary award for which she is eligible, told a newspaper interviewer, “I’m probably not going to write anymore.”
22, Female, Kottayam
The Malayali Nurse on the Moon
She is everywhere, so it becomes difficult to see her. At some point you have to squint to see past the chimera that is the Malayali nurse. You have to ask why even Libya — broken, bullet-scarred and currently in possession of 14 psychiatrists for the whole nation — a better choice than any place in India? You have to ask why she chooses nursing at all. And if we don’t see her as a martyr to the family coffers, who is the woman emerging out of the smoke then?
If that sounds like it makes no sense that's because... well, it doesn't
This Simple Math Puzzle Will Melt Your Brain
"Adding and subtracting ones sounds simple, right? Not according to the old Italian mathematician Grandi—who showed that a simple addition of 1s and -1s can give three different answers."
"Adding and subtracting ones sounds simple, right? Not according to the old Italian mathematician Grandi—who showed that a simple addition of 1s and -1s can give three different answers."
Compact(ing) Cars
Immigration services actually acting reasonably shocker
"For the last two years, the agency has kept a list of same-sex couples whose green card petitions were denied, the officials said, anticipating that the Supreme Court would eventually weigh in on DOMA. Those denials will now be reversed without couples having to present new applications, if no other issues have arisen." -- The US Immigration and Citizenship Services agency has issued the first green card to a partner in a gay marriage.
L'escholle des filles (1668)
The School of Venus, or the Ladies Delight, Reduced into Rules of Practice (digitized by Google Books) is a delightfully raunchy sex manual from 1680, captured in wonderfully engaging detail. [more inside]
"We each have our own stories. This is mine, a season with the sheep."
A Tale of Transhumance: Herding Sheep with Livestock Guardian Dogs (print) in the Upper Green River Basin. [more inside]
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