February 18, 2012

The Top 100 Children's Books

The Top 100 Children's Books. Last week Scholastic's Parent & Child released a list of what they thought were the best children's books. The top three: Charlotte's Web, Goodnight Moon and a Wrinkle in Time. Also listed were special awards for: — Best Read-Aloud: Mo Willems’ Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (#28). Most Beautifully Illustrated: Jerry Pinkney’s The Lion and the Mouse (#61). Most Relatable Character: Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid (#38). Most Side-Splitting Hilarious: Dav Pilkey’s The Adventures of Captain Underpants (#97).... [more inside]
posted by storybored at 9:40 PM PST - 89 comments

and you could always use a pencil to rewind one!

Take a stroll down Memorex Lane and relive those golden days of yore at Project C-90: An Ultimate Audiotape Guide. Peruse their insanely exhaustive galleries of the Compact Cassettes you used to listen to your Hall and Oates or your Led Zeppelin or your hip hop mixes on, the Microcassettes you once played back to catch that all-important message from your mother, your girlfriend, boyfriend or ex, and the Minicassettes, which you probably never used at all.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:05 PM PST - 55 comments

Master of Miniature Guns

"What we are talking about here are models that reproduce real guns in details. These are acting mechanisms and real copies of guns decreased 4-4.5 times. They could fire if real bullets were used."
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:53 PM PST - 12 comments

An Amazing NYT Obit

"At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon jungle. At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate." John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies at 74
posted by donovan at 8:29 PM PST - 53 comments

The French breast implant scandal

In March 2010, a pair of health inspectors responding to multiple tips paid a three-day visit to the factory headquarters of the Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) company, a leading international maker of breast implants. On their second day, the inspectors found something odd: six discarded plastic containers of Silopren, a liquid silicone designed for industrial, not medical use, lined up along the outside wall of the production site. The lead inspector estimated they had contained nearly 9 tons of liquid silicone. It now appears as if between 300,000 and 400,000 women throughout the world may have received potentially toxic, faulty breast implants containing ingredients never clinically tested on humans, manufactured and distributed by a company that knowingly deceived regulators, suppliers, distributors, medical professionals and ultimately, patients. Reuters photographer's Blog: Operating on an implant scandal. (Last link NSFW, graphic images that contain nudity.) [more inside]
posted by zarq at 7:19 PM PST - 72 comments

"In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal. Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception."

Fred Clark, previously in the blue for his excellent deconstruction of the Left Behind series and much more, has written a short history lesson on the Evangelical movement's surprisingly recent about-face on the subject of conception, abortion and the human soul. As he notes, "At some point between 1968 and 2012, the Bible began to say something different. That’s interesting."
posted by mhoye at 6:31 PM PST - 100 comments

early performances of well-known comedians

Early performances of well-known comedians, collected by mikl-em on Laughing Squid: Louis C.K. (also see The Evolution of Louis C.K., a YouTube edit of his tribute to George Carlin - previously - intercut with clips throughout his career); Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, and Steven Wright; Sarah Silverman; David Letterman; Steve Martin; Robin Williams; and "What They Did Before 30 Rock". Also see posts on George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Father Guido Sarducci, and Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.
posted by flex at 4:54 PM PST - 23 comments

In a Mailbox: A Shared Gun, Just for the Asking

With a tough economy and less money to go around, gang members in New York City are resorting to sharing guns hidden in easily accessible places.
posted by reenum at 1:39 PM PST - 53 comments

Is that a keyboard in your pants or just another old joke?

Taking the idea of a 'laptop computer' to its logical-but-absurd extreme, a pair of Dutch designer dorks have come up with a pair of jeans with a built-in wireless computer keyboard. Enjoy.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:21 PM PST - 37 comments

Love is a feeling you have for someone you have feelings about!

The Love Competition: Can one person experience love more deeply than another? That’s what The Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging and filmmaker Brent Hoff set out to understand when they hosted the 1st Annual Love Competition. Seven contestants, ranging from 10 to 75 years of age, took part. They each spent five minutes in an fMRI machine, thinking deeply about love and allowing the imaging technology to measure activity in their dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin/vasopressin pathways. [via]
posted by hincandenza at 12:37 PM PST - 45 comments

Diamanda Galas

Diamanda Galas sings "Gloomy Sunday" [more inside]
posted by Trurl at 11:21 AM PST - 18 comments

John Cleese Carefully Considers Your Futile Comments.

John Cleese Carefully Considers Your Futile Comments.
posted by crunchland at 10:25 AM PST - 69 comments

Economic Development: The Examples of India and China

"This is an intriguing little video summarizing the hypothesis of a new study by Vamsi Vakulabharanam. It looks at the puzzle of why China and India are exceptions to the Kuznets curve, that economic development at first increases income inequality but then starts to produce less disparity. But that did not occur in India and China. Vakulabharanam argues that the difference lies in changes in institutional arrangements, and the inflection point was roughly 1980."
posted by marienbad at 10:20 AM PST - 3 comments

Nobody in a costume picture ever goes to the toilet.

Alfred Hitchcock takes us inside his creative process in this fascinating 1964 program from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “A Talk with Alfred Hitchcock” is part interview, part master class in the craft of telling stories on film. (via Open Culture) [more inside]
posted by nosila at 10:10 AM PST - 6 comments

Dangerous, but impressive.

Freestyle trials riding on a vintage ladies bicycle.
posted by quin at 9:56 AM PST - 29 comments

Things I have learnt from and about IVF

Things I have learnt from and about IVF. [more inside]
posted by escabeche at 9:02 AM PST - 24 comments

They're coming for our jobs.

Arizona's Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, a Republican border-security hawk and a leading candidate for Congress has been accused, along with his attorney, of threatening to deport a Mexican former lover when the man refused to agree to not disclose the relationship. [more inside]
posted by darkstar at 8:48 AM PST - 339 comments

The Breakout Hit Of The Season

Designer and Illustrator - Dr. Monster- shows us how to make a modern movie poster. Maybe you'd like to see one of his posters? Or a happy scooter? Or a motivational poster? Or just a dapper looking Tesla with a Tesla Cannon?
posted by The Whelk at 8:24 AM PST - 7 comments

Ultimate Tazer Ball

"How do you get Americans interested in soccer? ... For one thing, you make the balls much bigger and the teams much smaller. For another, you arm each of the players with a stun gun."
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:21 AM PST - 46 comments

Marriage is a luxury good

Marriage is a luxury good [NYT] After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage. [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 8:16 AM PST - 66 comments

Disproportionate influence

The Oglala Sioux tribe of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation have just filed a lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch, InBev, SABMiller, Molson Coors, MillerCoors and Pabst, along with the four off-licences in Whiteclay, seeking $500m (£310m) in damages for their alleged encouragement of the "illegal sale and trade in alcohol" to members of the tribe. Touched upon briefly in early comments, Whiteclay (pop. 11) has been long known for its disproportionate volume of liquor sales, with over 5 million cans of beer sold each year, while Pine Ridge, who outlawed drink on its property, and has a population of 20,000, suffers from a disproportionate percentage of families with at least one alcohol dependent adult member (no less than 85%).
posted by infini at 7:39 AM PST - 78 comments

I can't make you know me

After he beat out some popular dance music favorites to win a Best New Artist Grammy last week, many asked Who Is Bon Iver? Some, confused further, asked Who Is Bonnie Bear? Parents everywhere answered: Um, THIS is Bonnie Bear. Fortunately, all this confusion has had a charming result. All the while, Bon Iver has blithely been making music. Yesterday Justin Vernon released a live video of him and frequent BI contributor Sean Carey rocking two minimalist pianos on some old favorites and a brand new cover of Bonnie Rait's "I Can't Make You Love Me". [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:31 AM PST - 35 comments

What a picture

World Press Photo Contest Winners (some images NSFW)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:05 AM PST - 11 comments

Maybe you should introduce your lethal takedown.

"The GEP gun? But that would require the Explosive Mission Pre-Order DLC available only at GameStop!"
Deus Ex: Unreal Revolution is a mod for the original Deus Ex that spoofs Deus Ex: Human Revolution while critiquing the video game industry and modern gameplay mechanics.
posted by dunkadunc at 12:30 AM PST - 32 comments

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