September 23, 2011
Doctor Fox's Lecture
Video footage of the legendary Doctor Fox lecture. "The lecture that Myron L. Fox delivered to the assembled experts had an impressive enough title: 'Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education'. Those responsible for running the University of Southern California School of Medicine's psychiatry department's continuing education programme had taken themselves off to Lake Tahoe in northern California for their annual conference and a continuing education program. There, Fox - who was billed as an 'authority on the application of mathematics to human behaviour' - presented the first paper. His polished performance so impressed the audience of psychiatrists, family doctors and general internists that nobody noticed that the man standing at the lectern wasn't really Myron L. Fox from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine but Michael Fox a movie actor who though having considerable experience in playing doctors in TV shows didn't know the first thing about game theory." [Via]
Light in the Darkness
Not in Our Town [autoplay 1hr PBS video]: the story of how the community of Patchogue, NY responded to the murder of Marcelo Lucero [more inside]
Temperature and Rainfall Around the World
Climate Wizard enables you to access leading climate change information and visualize the impacts anywhere on Earth. This web-based program allows you to choose a state or country and both assess how climate has changed over time and project what future changes are predicted to occur in a given area.
Report of The Truth Commission for El Salvador
On March 15, 1993, The Truth Commission for El Salvador published its report From Madness to Hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador. The Commission attributed the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero to the death squads, as well as the deaths of the victims of the El Mozote Massacre. ... Five days after the commission issued its report, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador approved an amnesty law covering all the violent events of the war.
It’s a neighborly day in this beautywood, a neighborly day for a beauty...
Won't You Be My Neighbor? Mr. Rogers singing his immortal theme song "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" at different stages of the program's life from 1967 to 2000. So take your coat off, put on your sweater, and sing along.
"While a body might travel as baggage, the head was rarely out of reach..."
"There is nothing quite like the gasp that escapes your mouth as you walk through three small buildings on a residential street here and find yourself mutely stared at by 1,400 eyes and grinned at by hundreds of painted lips over leathery chins." The Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky is a place where ventriloquist dummies go to retire. [more inside]
Third Time's the Charm?
61-year-old Diana Nyad is back in the water. Again.
(previously)
American endurance swimmer Diana Nyad is making her third attempt (and second in as many months) to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, a distance of 103 miles. Her previous attempt failed after a crippling asthma attack. At the time, she swore she wouldn't try again, but a week later she was already having second thoughts. You can track her progress here.
Coming Soon: 1 Billion People In Front Of Their Computers Acting Out "Mah-na Mah-na"
Google's at it again! Less than one month after saluting Freddie Mercury with an interactive doodle on his 65 Birthday (Previously), today's Doodle is another interactive salute, to Jim Henson, who would have been 75 on Saturday the 24th.
Google kicked things off a bit early on Friday night, and will leave the Doodle up through the 24th. An art director at Henson's company reports that it's especially apt as Henson was prone to doodling in idle moments.
"Ronald Reagan was an actor," "He was a pretty good president. OK?"
Meg Whitman: Excerpts from new HP CEO's first talk with investors. Hewlett-Packard stock hits 6-year low on Whitman's first full day. 'The dip, which hit the lowest price since May 2005, reflected investors' continued doubts about Whitman's fitness to run the global computing giant.' [more inside]
Claim Denied: class 4 zombie attacks are considered an act of god
Worried about paying for shotgun shells and chainsaw lubricant when the zombies eventually come? Zombie Apocolypse Insurance Company, LLC (ZAICO) has you covered. [more inside]
Irvine 11 Guilty Verdict
In February of 2011, eleven students that attended UC Irvine and UC Riverside went to a fundraising speech featuring Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, at the UC Irvine campus. During Oren's speech, students would stand up, shout an objection to Oren's speech, and then would allow themselves to be escorted by security, essentially causing a "heckler's veto." They were arrested, charged, and today found guilty of disrupting Oren's speech. [more inside]
That’s your belief, sir.
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong. "In 1959, Dr Milton Rokeach, a social psychologist, received a research grant to bring together three psychotic, institutionalised patients at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan." All three believed that they were Jesus, and the doctor believed he should play god.
Pole Dancing Dance Off
Pole Dancing Dance Off. (via coed magazine) [probably NSFW] Also on the blue before (Chinese) (Indian Gymnastics - Pole) (US Pole Dancing Federation 2009) More USPDF links (2011 West Highlights) (2010 East Highlights) (2011 Promo Vid)
Why use 2.5d when 2 will do?
The Doom Roguelike is really much better than it has any right to be, and has come a long way over the last four years of development. Its spacey sister is the Aliens Roguelike (previously). Here are some tutorial videos to get you started, and mefi's own JHarris' review of DoomRL from 2007.
A quick overview of the French turntable quartet, Birdy Nam Nam
Birdy Nam Nam is four f*cking guys, named for a reference from the 1968 movie The Party. They are a quartet of French turntablists, consisting of Crazy B, DJ Pone, DJ Need, and Little Mike. They've spun solo and together at the 2002 DMC competitions, where they took the team championship title. In 2005, they released an album made from turntable-manipulated samples, but they weren't studio-only tracks. They were also performed live, though some tracks featured additional live musicians. A 2007 live album followed, keeping the same over-all turntablism sound as their first album. Their second album was largely produced by French produceder/DJ Yunksek, and the sound changed accordingly into an album of delightful French dance music, but they kept (generally) to the turntables to create their songs. The band has released their third album, now working with Para One, another French producer/DJ. Their sound has gone on a slightly new path, with another bizzare music video to accompany their sound. [more inside]
Lost: Wired's Guide to Pop Culture's Buried Treasure
Wired takes a look at some pop culture legends that elude fans and collectors.
Watch Your Head!
Some time late tonight or early tomorrow morning, NASA's UARS (a satellite deployed in 1991 to study the ozone layer) will fall to the Earth. The odds of it hitting you are about 1 in 20 trillion, but the odds of it hitting somebody somewhere is about 1 in 3,200. The Planetary Society Blog has a nice writeup as well. Follow along yourself with NASA or the Center for Orbital Reentry Debris Studies. [more inside]
Public Access Poetry
In 1977-1978, a public access TV show called Public Access Poetry featured leading poets from across the country (Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Eileen Myles, John Yau, Brad Gooch, just to name a few). [more inside]
Watch the bubbles grow
Every drop counts!
"You hold your breath, it's absolutely perfect."
Like a "modern-day pirate," 75-year-old Ray Ives has been diving for sunken treasure for decades. Wearing an ancient, bronze-helmeted diving suit, he searches the ocean floor and keeps a huge collection of marine salvage (including antique cannon balls, 'bottles, bells, swords, portholes and diving gear') in a shipping container "museum" at a British marina.
Ray: A Life Underwater: Vimeo / YouTube. (A short film documentary.) [more inside]
Ray: A Life Underwater: Vimeo / YouTube. (A short film documentary.) [more inside]
I’m lucky, but…
Metafilter Favorite Stephen Fry announces that he is now the president of mental health charity MIND, in part because of his 2006 documentary: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. [more inside]
I Will Make Certain You Never Buy Knives Again
Mr. Destructo (previously) discusses the inscrutable twitter bot named horse_ebooks, a Russian spam account that communicates entirely through snippets of ebooks and is more hilarious (1, 2, 3, 4), confusing (1, 2, 3, 4) and philosophically poetic (1, 2, 3, 4) than any non-spambot on the internet.
Still icier than all of Brick Squad
The Guardian recently reported that, according to the 2011 edition of the Times Atlas, a new island called Uunartoq Qeqertaq has emerged off the coast of Greenland due to a 15% loss in glacial cover since 1999. However, glaciologists were quick to point out that this was deeply improbable. Ejo Schrama, a professor at TU Delft whose research interests include satellite mapping of Greenland, has posted a copy of a letter subscribed by several scientists at the Scott Polar Research Insititute expressing displeasure/disgruntlement with the publishers of the atlas (the linked post has been continually updated as events have warranted, so keep an eye out). The publishers have issued a semi-apologetic statement, but why was the mistake made in the first place? ScienceInsider thinks they might have worked out the answer (see the update in the second half of the article).
Too soon?
Behold! The trailer of ZOMBINLADEN -The Axis of Evil Dead for your viewing pleasure [SLDM] [more inside]
Drink My Words
My machine converts words into cocktails. And, yes, it does work. Now I can literally taste the flavor of my words. [more inside]
If your kid is scared by Santa Claus and clowns, don't take them to a haunted house.
H'ween parent filter Halloween is for little kids, but it's also for scares. I found this to be helpful in determining when it's appropriate for the twixt to meet.
"Believe it or not, Twinkies have an expiration date. Some day very soon, Life's little Twinkie gauge is gonna go... empty."
Taxpayers in the San Francisco area spend $2,762,295 each year in junk food subsidies, but only $41,950 each year on apple subsidies. [LATIMES] A new report released this week has found that, among the billions of dollars spent each year in federal subsidies for commodity crops, a steady flow of these taxpayer dollars are going to support high fructose corn syrup and three other common food additives used in junk food. The report, “Apples to Twinkies: Comparing Federal Subsidies of Fresh Produce and Junk Food” by CALPIRG and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, studies the interesting question of whether the nation's problem with obesity is fueled by farm subsidies.
Spontaneous Human Combustion
Mukimono
Mukimono [wiki] is the artistic carving of mangoes, pumpkins but mostly watermelons, watermelons, watermelons and more watermelons
into beautiful and maybe even fractal patterns. Not to be confused with Lynchian [previously] carving of foul-mouthed potatoes. [MLYT]
The cost of healthy food
Food Fight: Does Healthy Food Have to Be More Expensive? In which the blog Get Rich Slowly chronicles an argument about nutrition vs cost and then invites readers to chime in.
Simon's Cat
Your Friday morning smile, Simon's Cat.
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