July 18, 2014

New research: Reduce your carbon footprint by reducing meat consumption

An Oxford University study of over 50,000 participants, published this month in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Climatic Change: Dietary greenhouse gas emissions in meat-eaters are twice as high as those in vegans.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 11:57 PM PST - 148 comments

Mythos I, II, & III

As a summation of his life's work, mythologist Joseph Campbell went on a speaking tour during the last decade of his life. The filmed three-part series Mythos, over fourteen hours, is available on YouTube. Mythos I Mythos II Mythos III. The series is also available on DVD. [more inside]
posted by cwest at 11:26 PM PST - 10 comments

Big Mac

Before the world knew him as Dr. John, Mr. Mac Rebennack was, as a very young man, already cooking up some utterly groovy, rollicking, jazzy and soulful R&B instrumentals that could've only come from New Orleans. One particularly delightful one was The Point, and another was Feedbag. Just let 'em hit ya, man, you're gonna love it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:48 PM PST - 13 comments

And the truth of the matter is Arnold and I are old. I mean, really old.

True Lies is a 1994 action comedy film directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Tom Arnold. The film was a huge hit, and is noteworthy in that it featured visual special effects considered impossible only a few years prior. It's been 20 years since it was released. Time for a revisit, then. [SPOILERS if you haven't seen this movie.] [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:02 PM PST - 95 comments

I, for one, welcome our new...

Meet the electric life forms that live on pure energy
posted by jojomnky at 9:51 PM PST - 24 comments

The many crimes of baseball's Mel Hall

"What was his weapon? Trust. Over and over again, he shook the hand of a parent and said, 'It's OK. I'll take care of them. I'll make her a better person.' Instead what he did was rob them of their innocence and change the scope of their lives."

SB Nation on Mel Hall - "a flamboyant baseball player, a charismatic coach, and a sexual predator."
posted by porn in the woods at 8:59 PM PST - 15 comments

Math, myths, and Vikings: storytelling and social networks

"An unusual article recently appeared in the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society and American Statistical Association. It featured web-like diagrams of lines connecting nodes, a hallmark of research that analyzes networks. But each node, rather than being a plain dot, was the head of a burly, red-bearded Viking sporting a horned hat, his tresses blowing in the wind." [more inside]
posted by gingerbeer at 7:30 PM PST - 11 comments

Ah yes, the old rumpscuttle and clapperdepouch (aka "fadoodling")

31 Adorable Slang Terms for Sexual Intercourse from the Last 600 Years Lexicographer Jonathon Green’s comprehensive historical dictionary of slang, Green’s Dictionary of Slang, covers hundreds of years of jargon, cant, and naughty talk. He has created a series of online timelines (here and here) where the words too impolite, indecent, or risqué for the usual history books are arranged in the order they came into fashion. (If you don’t see any words on the timelines, zoom out using the bar on the right.) We’ve already had fun with the classiest terms for naughty bits. Here are the most adorable terms for sexual intercourse from the last 600 or so years.
posted by mikeand1 at 7:19 PM PST - 30 comments

"it is wise to be appropriately pessimistic here"

How we end up marrying the wrong people [more inside]
posted by flex at 7:10 PM PST - 56 comments

Of course, correlation does not imply causation

Early in 1994, Christie and Schultz published "Why do NASDAQ Market Makers Avoid Odd-Eighth Quotes?" noting that although the minimum price variation was an eighth of a dollar, the vast majority of quotes and executions occurred on quarters of a dollar. Later the same year, Christie, Harris, and Schultz published "Why did NASDAQ Market Makers Stop Avoiding Odd-Eighths Quotes?" with the following abstract: "On May 26 and 27, 1994 several national newspapers reported the findings of Christie and Schultz (1994) who cannot reject the hypothesis that market makers of active NASDAQ stocks implicitly colluded to maintain spreads of at least $0.25 by avoiding odd-eighth quotes. On May 27, dealers in Amgen, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft sharply increased their use of odd-eighth quotes, and mean inside and effective spreads fell nearly 50 percent. This pattern was repeated for Apple Computer the following trading day. Using individual dealer quotes for Apple and Microsoft, we find that virtually all dealers moved in unison to adopt odd-eighth quotes."
posted by d. z. wang at 6:53 PM PST - 10 comments

Where there are no people

Animal Land where there are no people was a children's book released in 1897, written by Sybil Corbet, who was four years old, and illustrated by her mother, Katharine Corbet. "Animal Land where there are no People is quite near, only you can't see it... They live by the North Pole and in the leafy places near. It is always light there, always day, they climb the poles and always play." [more inside]
posted by dng at 5:57 PM PST - 6 comments

Anyone, Anything, Anytime

24/7/365: The Evolution of Emergency Medicine A documentary film made by an emergency medicine resident that describes the history of emergency medicine as a specialty has been made publicly available. This documentary reviews how the landscape of healthcare in the United States has changed over the past 50 years, with a specific focus on emergency medical care, its availability, how and where it is delivered. [more inside]
posted by treehorn+bunny at 5:49 PM PST - 6 comments

Kindle Unlimited

Amazon announced today a service called Kindle Unlimited, giving access to over 600,000 books and audiobooks (on any device) for $.9.99/month. There are other services similar that exist (like Scribd and Oyster), but Amazon may have an advantage with its audio service. Is it worth it? Perhaps if you are in the habit of buying more than the average five books per year. In any case, there's a 30 day free trial "so you can test your binge-reading capabilities before committing to pay for the service."
posted by SpacemanStix at 5:01 PM PST - 68 comments

"This is business, not charity."

"We haven't found a disability we can't employ."
"Let me tell you a story,” says Randy Lewis, former senior vice-president at US retailer Walgreens, in a Texan drawl. And it’s quite a story. It’s the tale of how a man who led logistics at America’s largest drug-store chain, supporting it as it grew from 1,600 to 8,000 outlets with the most advanced logistics network in its sector, did so while giving job opportunities to thousands of disabled people. In Walgreens’ distribution centres today, an average 35% of the workforce comprises people with disabilities, and it has set targets to make sure one in every 10 in-store hires is also disabled.
[more inside]
posted by Lexica at 4:35 PM PST - 33 comments

"I forget to breathe sometimes"

AskReddit asks What's a strange thing your body does that you assume happens to everyone but you've never bothered to ask? In response, Slate's Medical Examiner column invites doctors to explain 13 of them.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:46 PM PST - 156 comments

I'll see you on the pocked side of the moon.

NASA discovers hundreds of pits on the surface of the moon.
While the moon's surface is battered by millions of craters, it also has over 200 holes – steep-walled pits that in some cases might lead to caves that future astronauts could explore and use for shelter, according to new observations from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. (Previously.)
[more inside]
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:18 PM PST - 23 comments

I'd Like To Throttle Verizon

Colin Nederkoorn used the Netflix test video to show Verizon's horrendous throttling versus running his connection through a VPN.
posted by gman at 2:15 PM PST - 49 comments

"Foursquare with Space Noises" comes to iOS

Ingress, the popular GPS-Enabled Android game from Google's internal tech startup, Niantic Labs, winner of Top Game of 2013 at the Google Play Player's Choice Awards, was released for iOS 7.0 devices this week. [Previously on MeFi] [more inside]
posted by radwolf76 at 1:43 PM PST - 50 comments

Tozai Mystery Best 100

In 1985, the Mystery Writers of Japan (plus "508 people who love mystery novels") assembled two separate lists of the 100 best mystery novels: one each for the books of the East and West. A revised list came out in 2012. Both Western lists are remarkable for their comparative lack of overlap with the "100 best" lists produced by the American and British mystery writers associations. The Eastern lists are remarkable for the fact that fewer than a quarter of their entries have been translated into English. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 1:41 PM PST - 14 comments

The Grotesque Apple, the Ridiculous Potato, the Hideous Orange..

Declaring 2014 the European Year against Food Waste, the European Parliament has adopted a non-legislative resolution that called for action to halve food waste by 2025 and improve access to food by the needy. French grocery store Intermarche got on board with a delightful campaign aimed at convincing people that appearances don't matter when it comes to great tasting foods and increasing awareness of food waste. The video is particularly charming.
posted by VioletU at 12:47 PM PST - 41 comments

Greater Access for Down Syndrome Information

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is expected to sign Chloe's Law. Chloe's Law, or the Down Syndrome Prenatal Education Act, requires medical practitioners to provide up-to-date and accurate information about Down syndrome with the accompanying diagnosis. Similar laws were passed in Massachusetts and Kentucky. Why is this necessary? Ask a parent or two and you find out how most doctors aren't up to the task. Fortunately, there are parents who will help them out (if they would listen).
posted by plinth at 12:10 PM PST - 94 comments

Mothers

Long-Lost Photos Show What Hasn't Changed About Motherhood In 50 Years. Is a collection of 50 year old photos from around the world by Ken Heyman. Taken originally for the pulitzer-nominated book Family (co-authored with Margaret Mead), they were left sitting in a storage container for decades.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:27 AM PST - 18 comments

ORBIS TERRARUM

In 1909, American architect and cartographer Bernerd J.S. Cahill published An Account Of A New Land Map Of The World (and at The Internet Archive), in which he described a novel way of projecting a map. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:26 AM PST - 5 comments

All kinds of genius

Today the lyrics and annotation site previously known as Rap Genius officially expanded its scope to allow users to annotate anything, renaming itself Genius.com. [more inside]
posted by bleep at 11:07 AM PST - 29 comments

The Weird, Scary and Ingenious Brain of Maria Bamford

Sara Corbett profiles comedian Maria Bamford for The New York Times Magazine.
posted by Lorin at 10:59 AM PST - 32 comments

1:35 p.m. For the first time, I heave.

Figuring that honesty is the best policy, and that, at some point, it will become extremely difficult to conceal from the waitstaff the fact I have been sitting in the restaurant for 14 hours slowly eating mozzarella sticks, I decide beforehand that I will be up front with the TGI Friday's employees about the nature of my undertaking...
-My 14-Hour Search for the End of TGI Friday's Endless Appetizers
posted by griphus at 10:20 AM PST - 129 comments

Don't listen with your kids. There will be swears.

One Bad Mother is a comedy podcast about motherhood and how unnatural it sometimes is. Hosted by Biz Ellis and Theresa Thorn (MeFi's own Tren), each week OBM covers some aspect of parenthood, like "the ramifications of teaching our kids fart jokes and songs about poop," "babies: still not relaxing," or, more seriously, things like partner resentment, and postpartum depression. Each week, in the "Call A Mom"* segment, Biz and Theresa talk to a guest who's got relevant experience or expertise on the topic at hand. But the best part of the show is the listener call-ins: Genius/Fail Time is "the part of the show where we share our genius moment of the week, as well as our failures, and feel better about ourselves by hearing yours"; and the "mom rant" allows exhausted parents to vent their spleen. The call-ins are so great because they're all about supporting other people in their day to day lives—it's through the lens of parenting, but the overriding philosophy ("this shit is hard and no one cares") is applicable to everyone's daily grind. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 10:04 AM PST - 9 comments

Life inside San Francisco's vanishing Single Room Occupancies (SROs)

There are approximately 530 single resident (or room) occupancy (SRO) hotels in San Francisco. San Francisco has hundreds of SRO hotels that are home to more than 30,000 tenants or approximately 5% of the city, the majority of whom live in low-income neighborhoods such as the Tenderloin and Chinatown. As San Francisco’s cost of living continues to leap upwards and SROs get demolished or converted to condos, many housing activists worry about what will become of the vulnerable SRO population. Life has always been precarious for these residents and far from idyllic in even the best-managed buildings. Here are the stories of six people trying to survive in a city that’s increasingly out of reach. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 9:13 AM PST - 22 comments

Imma let you finish

An informal study of interrupting on LanguageLog finds that men interrupt more than women and that women hardly ever interrupt. Except if you're a senior woman in tech and then you interrupt all the time.
posted by hydrobatidae at 8:57 AM PST - 35 comments

The Modern American Man, Charted

"This summer, All Things Considered is looking at the lives of men in America. By some measures, not much has changed over the past few decades — girls still do better in school, and men still make more money. In other areas, the shifts are profound." They made some charts.
posted by cmchap at 8:52 AM PST - 57 comments

I've got a little list of links

Angry Asian Man sets the scene: "The Bagley Wright Theatre in Seattle is currently staging Gilbert & Sullivan's 'classic' comic opera The Mikado, which has historically required actors to perform roles in yellowface, and a bunch of shitty made up stereotypes for comic effect. This version is no different, with all forty Japanese characters played by white actors.". The Seattle Times weighs in with a negative op-ed. The Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan society had a response to the Times Op Ed: "I get it because as a black woman I am often confronted by issues of racism and sexism, be it blatant, subtle, institutionalized, or perceived. I too have reacted in a knee-jerk fashion. I believe when confronted with these issues I have always dug a little deeper, checked other sources, and did some research on my own before taking action. Given what I, and the Society have been through in the last few days, I hope to God that my actions were indeed merited. The idea that I may have caused the kind of damage that we are experiencing to some other organization, individual or institution because I took a head long rush to judgment based on a headline, or an opinion piece, and regarded those things as fact sickens me to my soul."
posted by josher71 at 8:50 AM PST - 195 comments

Broken English

Jamila Lyiscott: 3 ways to speak English [SLYT] [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 8:45 AM PST - 4 comments

The Terminator at 30: An Oral History

"Doing the full-body life cast of Arnold Schwarzenegger—wow, that took a lot of plaster bandage." Entertainment Weekly brings us a lengthy oral history about James Cameron's The Terminator, featuring many of the films stars, director, production crew, and special effects creators.
posted by hippybear at 6:40 AM PST - 38 comments

Hmm, how does S. Fry sound as England's new captain and opening batsman?

Stephen Fry understands that non-believers don't get it. So here are some videos explaining the various laws of cricket, produced in collaboration with Lord's, the home of cricket. [more inside]
posted by mysticreferee at 6:37 AM PST - 29 comments

What happens when you accidentally legalize prostitution?

Rhode Island legalized prostitution accidentally in 1980, but nobody noticed until 2003.
posted by zeikka at 6:30 AM PST - 16 comments

The Forgotten Internment

"On June 3 and 4, 1942, Japanese military forces conducted air strikes on U.S. Army and Navy facilities at Dutch Harbor, in what is now the city of Unalaska. Several days later, they occupied Kiska and Attu islands, the latter the location of an Unangax village. Within a short time, the 42 Unangax residents of Attu and a non-Native teacher were taken to Japan, where they served as laborers for the Japanese for the duration of the war ... For the Unangax [or Aleut] of most other villages, World War II brought a different fate:" internment camps in the United States [more inside]
posted by ChuraChura at 6:30 AM PST - 7 comments

Did you know that cashews come from a fruit?

Cashews come from a fruit! The cashew fruit is very rarely seen in grocery stores because its skin is very delicate so it's hard to transport. Cashews, however, are ubiquitous and popular because of their tastiness and distinct shape. Here is someone eating a cashew fruit and pondering the cashew underneath. And here is how the cashew nut is processed by the Peace Corps Ghana Cashew Initiative. This fellow will tell you how to grow a cashew tree. Cashew fruits protect their precious nut well so be careful if you start from scratch.
posted by h00py at 6:18 AM PST - 30 comments

The cuteness. It burns.

Yesterday, (and apparently several times in the past) super popular twitterer @darth kicked off the kind of love-in that only the Internet can provide. #hugadog [more inside]
posted by DigDoug at 6:04 AM PST - 27 comments

Ex Africa semper aliquid novi

Kenya's Okwiri Oduor has won the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story, "My Father's Head." Many stories by other winners and nominees are available online. [more inside]
posted by Monsieur Caution at 4:16 AM PST - 6 comments

In The Jungle, The Space Gun Points Its Mouth At The Sky

Project HARP (not to be confused with HAARP, the perennial favorite of conspiracy theorists) was a joint project between the US and Canadian defence departments to develop a non-rocket spacelaunch system, one designed to fire vehicles above the atmosphere in order to study their re-entry. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 3:53 AM PST - 7 comments

Comics has an outrage problem

We use the presence of passion to first diminish and then dismiss arguments. The offended must play by the rules of the unoffended, or even worse, the offenders, in order to be heard. You have to tamp down that pain if you want to get help or fix it. You can see it when people say things like “Thank you for being civil” when arguing something heated with someone they disagree with. Civility is great, sure, but we’re forcing people who feel like they’re under attack to meet us on our own terms. In reality, passion shouldn’t be dismissed. Passion has a purpose.
David Brothers on outrage, passion, civility and being made to feel welcome or unwelcome in the comics community.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:40 AM PST - 46 comments

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