December 19, 2010
Deepwater
Two years ago, Deepwater Wind proposed a wind farm off the shore of Block Island, Rhode Island which would have been the country's first offshore wind farm. Ever since, one legal battle after another has brought the project all the way to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. [more inside]
Credo!
A 3 hour podcast interview (part 2 here) with British comics legend Pat Mills, most famous for the anti-war WW1 strip Charley's War, the creation 2000ad and many of the most enduring characters within it, superhero hunter Marshall Law and numerous other comics. His work usually combines combines dark humour, a dash of left wing politics and ludicrous amounts of violence, now as much as ever with puritan zombie hunter Defoe. Subjects discussed in the intreview include the death of artist John Hicklenton, being Irish-English, Sláine and the comparitive lack of celtic heroes in modern popular culture, Oliver Cromwell and the Levellers. Bonus link: 20 pages of Metalzoic, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neills "lost" story.
Love Hurts, Sells Music
"At the time, in the field that we flopped into, the artists wrote and performed all of their own material,” Felice recalled. “Then, after a while, the road got to them. They couldn’t think, they couldn’t doodle around on the front porch with a guitar, they couldn’t stroll through the woods and get inspired. So Boudleaux and I were the first people who came to Nashville who didn’t do anything but write. We were the factory."
What do the songs Love Hurts, Rocky Top, Bye Bye Love, and Wake Up Little Susie have in common? Why, they were all written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, of course! Perhaps best known for the hits they penned for the Everly Brothers, The Bryants were an American husband and wife songwriting duo whose compositions, mostly country music, are estimated to have been on hundreds of millions of records sold. Let's get to know them a bit better, shall we? [more inside]
That's the biggest dirty photo I've ever seen.
The History of Monuments (slight artistic nudity) is a 42 meter long mural by Wang Qingsong. Before clicking "more inside" try to guess what materials he used to make the work... [more inside]
No Hypothesis
MeFi's own Elizabeth Pisani, of The Wisdom of Whores, on Big Data and the End of the Scientific Method (PDF).
Catalogs of Horror
Christmas and Toy Catalogs: 1942-1992 (Warning: heinousness inside). But wait, there's more vintage Christmas advertising.
Mom: GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE!
US Voters Grossly Misinformed
Misinformation and the 2010 Election - A Study of the US Electorate. The key findings of the study are:
1. Perceptions of Misleading and False Information An overwhelming majority of voters said that they encountered misleading or false information in the last election, with a majority saying that this occurred frequently and occurred more frequently than usual.
2. Evidence of Misinformation Among Voters The poll found strong evidence that voters were substantially misinformed on many of the issues prominent in the election campaign, including the stimulus legislation, the healthcare reform law, TARP, the state of the economy, climate change, campaign contributions by the US Chamber of Commerce and President Obama’s birthplace. In particular, voters had perceptions about the expert opinion of economists and other scientists that were quite different from actual expert opinion. [more inside]
1. Perceptions of Misleading and False Information An overwhelming majority of voters said that they encountered misleading or false information in the last election, with a majority saying that this occurred frequently and occurred more frequently than usual.
2. Evidence of Misinformation Among Voters The poll found strong evidence that voters were substantially misinformed on many of the issues prominent in the election campaign, including the stimulus legislation, the healthcare reform law, TARP, the state of the economy, climate change, campaign contributions by the US Chamber of Commerce and President Obama’s birthplace. In particular, voters had perceptions about the expert opinion of economists and other scientists that were quite different from actual expert opinion. [more inside]
The Gifts of Hope
A Humanitarian Gift Guide: Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like a scarf from a brothel survivor. [more inside]
Connecti-cut it out!
Toy Stories
Wang Wenlan's Beautiful Bikes.
The Flowing Great Wall is an ongoing photo series by Wang Wenlan, the Director of the photography department at The China Daily. [more inside]
I wish that you had taken up stamp collecting.
Knitting a sweater is like saying "I love you" 150,000 times in a row. But it's too late for most of us to turn yarn into sweater this year (even those of us who crochet really fast). If you didn't schedule your holiday crafting successfully, here are some excuses for not crafting. Don't knit or crochet? Gift ideas for your favorite crocheter or knitter.
"But we were happy. We had a nice Jewish Christmas. We were content."
Neil Gaiman wants a Christmas tree, just one problem, he's Jewish. And he's not the only one debating this issue. There's a discussion over at slate.com on whether or not Jews should own a Christmas tree.
Sifting Through the Typekit Library
The Great Typekit Table — Finding a good Typekit font for long blocks of text is hard, but Sleepover has done it so you don't have to. They've pared it down according to two simple rules: first, the font has to have lowercase, uppercase, bold, italic, and bold italic; second, the font can't be handwriting, script, or monospace.
A semi-alphabetical listing of Black actors with speaking roles on Friends
We'll Marry Our Fortunes Together
In recession-hit Saginaw, MI, the initial setting of Simon and Garfunkel's "America", mural painter Eric Shantz has begun painting the lyrics to the song on abandoned buildings.
X-rays for naught
No more jumpers for goalposts
But street football doesn't really exist any more, Cooper admits. "Many children have never played outside. And in some cases their parents haven't either." He cites a 2009 survey by the charity Living Streets which found that only half of five- to 10-year-olds had ever played in their street, whereas nine of out 10 of their grandparents had.
How the increasing professionalisation of soccer at all levels in the UK has led to the death of park and street footie for ordinary kids.
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