August 5, 2010
129,864,880 books
How many books are there? 129,864,880.
And So It Goes...
Mitch Jayne was an author, musician and humorist. After a stint at the University of Missouri, he began teaching in one-room schools in Dent County. His radio show in Salem, MO garnered national attention for it's snake and tick market report, but then he joined the Dillards and brought Ozark bluegrass to Los Angeles. Two weeks in LA and the Dillards had a record deal and a stint on the Andy Griffith Show as "The Darlings." Mitch Jayne passed away Monday at the age of 80. [more inside]
Do it yourself forecasting
Blogging The War, Seventy Years Later
Hey white boy, what you doin' uptown
schadenfreude
A book store is in trouble. But you'll never guess which one. Barnes and Noble, under increased competition, especially in the ebook market, is thinking about putting itself on the market.
Fly Leg Eyelashes
Fly leg eyelashes. Just what it says. Good luck sleeping after seeing this.
Mary Adams, with the nine and a half fingers.
Amy Sedaris has appeared as a frequent guest on Letterman (David Letterman's late night talk show in the US), usually delivering rapid-fire improvisation to a bemused Dave and Paul under the guise of an interview. With the magic of the internet, some of these videos are now on YouTube. [more inside]
How Not to Congratulate Your Ex on Her Wedding Day
Hopeless romantic or selfish creep? Andrew Cohen writes an ode to the one who got away on the day she's to be married, and Lizzie Skurnick explains why that's not cool.
Massive Right-Wing Censorship Of Digg Uncovered
Massive Right-Wing Censorship Of Digg Uncovered. "A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year."
Super Face-io Brothers
Tired of that NES controller digging into your palms? How about playing with your face? (SLYT) [more inside]
What my political views or my constitutional views are just doesn't matter.
Conference Video Organizer
Sitting O is a site aggregating and organizing conferences and videos from the events. You can cross reference any of the videos by subject matter (here is all science-related conference videos), by speaker (here is every Clay Shirky talk), and by conference organizer (here are all TED conferences and associated videos). Pretty fun way to waste an afternoon learnin'.
Your Beautiful Eyes
Making and sharing deliciousness!
Ice Cream Club is a group in Brooklyn which meets twice a month to exchange homemade ice cream. Today's seen some media coverage, and their website provides tips and troubleshooting.
Heat Waves in a Swamp
Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield. "Burchfield’s primary subject was landscape, often focusing on his immediate surroundings: his garden, the views from his windows, snow turning to slush, the sounds of insects and bells and vibrating telephone lines, deep ravines, sudden atmospheric changes, the experience of entering a forest at dusk, to name but a few. He often imbued these subjects with highly expressionistic light, creating at times a clear-eyed depiction of the world and, at other times, a unique mystical and visionary experience of nature." I recommend the slide show in the first link as the best introduction. More audio slide shows from Peter Schjeldahl here.
The Real Historical Roots of the Tea Party?
The Rise of the Pseudo-Conservative. Out of context, one could be forgiven for reading the following words as a critique of the political philosophy embraced by the modern-day Republican party and the various Tea Party groups organized around it: "It can most accurately be called pseudo-conservative. . . because its exponents, although they believe themselves to be conservatives and usually employ the rhetoric of conservatism, show signs of a serious and restless dissatisfaction with American life, traditions and institutions. . . Their political reactions express rather a profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways — a hatred which one would hesitate to impute to them if one did not have suggestive clinical evidence." [more inside]
The Director, the Actress, the Dictator, and the Monster who was Hungry for Iron
Shin Sang-ok (1926 - 2006) was a Korean movie writer, director and producer, who studied film in Japan and returned to South Korea, where he gained fame and became the uncontested leader of the film industry in the 1960s, in a time when regulations on the industry limited other studios. In the 1970s under the Fourth Republic of South Korea, the film industry was even further limited, which lead to Shin's studio being closed. Things went from bad to worse, when "the Orson Welles of South Korea" was kidnapped by request of Kim Jong Il, the son of North Korea's dictator, Kim Il Sung. The reason? Kim Jong Il wanted the nation's film industry to promote the virtues of the Korea Workers' Party to a world-wide audience. After being imprisoned for four years, Shin was reunited with his ex-wife (who was also a captive of North Korea) and the given relative freedom, producing seven films in North Korea. While setting up a distribution deal to share Kim Jong Il's vision with a broader audience for a Godzilla-like monster movie, Shin and his wife escaped and sought political asylum in the United States. Their freedom was possible because of that last film for Kim, entitled Pulgasari. But Shin's life in movies was not over yet. [more inside]
Internet as Social Movement: A Brief History of Webism
Internet as Social Movement: A Brief History of Webism. An editorial from N+1 magazine.
These tunnels go down forever
One of the better online random dungeon generators out there. Scroll down a bit to see it. You can change the size and learn more about it from the home page. [more inside]
Love, Lies, and Online Dating
"At its worst, online dating becomes compulsive, a kind of mania, and feeds our appetite for endless choice, and the idea that there’s always a better choice. Maybe there’s something to be said for less choice, or at least a sense of geographical limits. That said, I’ve heard from a lot of people, more all the time, who have found the “perfect” person this way. And the stigma of it is rapidly fading ... The worst online dating story I ever HEARD involved a female friend, here is the gist: This really good-looking guy contacts her about her profile and says something to the extent of: “You look beautiful, but are you 100 pounds? I only date women who are 100 pounds or less. If I think you are lying, I will bring a scale.”
"Halo 2600: It Only Looks Old"
What would Microsoft's Halo have looked like if it had been written years ago for the Atari 2600? "Ed Fries, former vice president of Microsoft’s Game Publishing Division, programmed an old-school version of the beloved game that features blocky graphics, deliberately basic sound effects, and simplified movements. And yet it's still recognizable as 'Halo.'" You can play it online here. [more inside]
Screeching brakes... but too late... Tommy is crippled for life.
"It's great to be alive!" - Parents! Traumatise your children into safe behavior with this Official Safety Booklet. You'll never hide in a pile of leaves again.
Desperation
99 Weeks Later, Jobless Have Only Desperation. 'In June, with long-term unemployment at record levels, about 1.4 million people were out of work for 99 weeks or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.' While the Senate ponders a debate on tax cuts for the rich, jobless claims hit highest level since April. With such unemployment, frustration and despair grow as job searches drag on. 'In her well-thumbed, leather-bound Bible, Terri Sadler recently highlighted in bright pink a passage in the Gospel of Matthew. In it, Jesus urges his followers not to “worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” But Ms. Sadler’s tightening throat and halting breath when she tries to read the words aloud make it clear that she is having trouble mustering enough faith to follow them.' [more inside]
The Franchise
ESPN takes a look at how Madden NFL became a franchise video game.
Freeware Platformer! Frogatto!
Frogatto and Friends! A retro styled platformer made of happiness and frogs! Download free for Windows, Mac and Linux! Pay for it on the iPhone! Yay!
How Social Science Treats Inner-City Poverty
Anyone who wishes to understand American society must be aware that explanations focusing on the cultural traits of inner-city residents are likely to draw far more attention from policy makers and the general public than structural explanations will. It is an unavoidable fact that Americans tend to de-emphasize the structural origins and social significance of poverty and welfare ... If, in America, you can grow up to be anything you want to be, then any destiny—even poverty—can be viewed through the lens of personal achievement or failure. William Julius Wilson on the political and academic failure to recognize structural causes of inner-city poverty. Wilson interviewed in conjunction with the article. [more inside]
Gamers Are Credit To Team!
Today's issue of Nature contains a paper with a rather unusual author list. Read past the standard collection of academics, and the final author credited is... the FoldIt multiplayer online gaming community. Even though most of them had no biochemistry experience, the human players of FoldIt turned out to be better at identifying three-dimensional protein structure patterns than the algorithms of Rosetta@Home. (Previously on MeFi)
Designed to Annoy
How to design cigarette cartons to be less convenient in order to discourage smoking? Designed to Annoy: a theoretical look at designing inefficient packaging.
毛新宇
The Clown Egg Register
The Clown Egg Register: “The eggs are not just a record of the clown's facial makeup, but an actual portraiture in miniature.” Also, Happy Clown Week!
Law, economics, and Facebook
"The meteoric rise of Facebook raises four general questions . . . How is it possible for a teenager, however brilliant, to create a multibillion-dollar online business in such a short time? How likely is such a business to flame out? What, if any, legal protection from competition should be given to the ideas that power these businesses? And how far will social networking erode privacy or have other social consequences, good or bad?" Richard Posner (the federal judge and University of Chicago law professor best known as one of the pioneers of the "law and economics" movement [Wikipedia]) answers these questions in his brief history and critique of Facebook. (This is a printer-friendly version that may cause a print dialogue box to pop up, but it's the only link that will work unless you subscribe to The New Republic. The article is nominally a book review but spends barely any time talking about the book that's supposed to be reviewed.)
minor chords and towering fifths
Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle has been writing free-verse poetry on metal albums and other phenomena on his blog for a few months now. [more inside]
What Lies Beneath
No, REALLY get the lead out
Pencil sculptures: miniature masterpieces carved into graphite by Dalton Ghetti. previous pencil art
The Numbers
The amazingly detailed origin myth of The Numbers, the largest South African prison gangs. Jonny Steinberg details the three largest gangs' (tenuously) shared myth, which accounts for their strangely symbiotic relationships by dictating who may steal, who may rape, and who may judge. [more inside]
Life Begins at 200 (mph)
"...Connie set a land speed record on her 1350cc Suzuki going more than 209 mph and Nick, though not a record for the type of bike he was on, managed to top 220. She said setting the mark provided the biggest high of her life. He said he'd like to get up to 300 mph one day. She's 70 years old. He's 80." [more inside]
Et Tu Google
The Rap Guide To Human Nature
The Rap Guide To Human Nature is an album exploring the theories and controversies of evolutionary psychology through the medium of contemporary rap, by a guy named Baba Brinkman. (Previously.)
Digging for dinos. Live.
From August 2 to 18 there are fourteen Norwegian reptile hunters doing field work at the foot of the Janus Mountain in Svalbard, digging for remains of prehistoric sea monsters from the Jurassic period.And it's all being streamed live, via four webcams. [more inside]
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