July 2, 2012
How I learned to stop worrying and love reductionism
Scientists at CERN, using the Large Hadron Collider, may have discovered the Higgs Boson. (previously) and (previously)
The Most Popular Girl In The World Turns 50
The Girl From Ipanema Turns 50. The song, not the woman. (Although she's still around, and still making everyone she passes go "ahhhhhh".) Written in 1962 by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, recorded by Pery Ribeiro (here performing the song in 2005), the song gained English lyrics a couple of years later, and became a phenomenon that continues to this day. [more inside]
A Child's Garden of Grass
Jack S. Margolis's A Child's Garden of Grass (A Pre-Legalization Comedy). This is the 1971 audio companion to the book of the same name. It's a cult-classic sketch-comedy album which reads like the user's manual to marijuana, and features members of the Firesign Theatre.
How does the U.S. electoral system compare to Mexico's?
"Indeed, in this year when the United States is engaged in a ferocious campaign for the presidency, the question that ought to be asked is: How does the U.S. electoral system compare to Mexico's? I undertook a comprehensive study of the electoral systems in North America, and the good news is that the United States came in third. The bad news is that there are only three countries in North America." ___With Mexico in the aftermath of yesterday's federal and state elections, Robert A. Pastor observes 8 things the U.S. election system could learn from Mexico's.
Posting from work
Let it Bleed: Libertarianism and the Workplace from Crooked Timber.
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
"We will make amends ere long; / Else the Puck a liar call; / So, good night unto you all." Brian of Britanick (also the team responsible for Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses) tries to recite the final lines of A Midsummer Night's Dream with a little help from his friends Nick Kocher and Dani Puddi [more inside]
Eating the High Life
"Legalizing pot would, in addition to engendering medical miracles and rendering moot a large sector of illegal-drug-related crimes, allow quantum leaps in the world of cooking. Maybe if we all pray really hard to Jah, pot will one day infiltrate snooty haute cuisine and local artisanal eateries alike, all over America." GQ reports on some incredible edibles. [more inside]
Hey, Internet Girl!
Invade All of The Humans!
The Giant Robot Invasion has begun! You were warned this was coming and given tips to survive. But one tip you didn't get - don't go near the bench!
Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Iconic Portraits Formed by Clusters of Tiny People. Starting his creative career as a street artist, Craig Alan developed his portraiture skills while earning a living to further fund his artistic pursuits. Since that point, the artist has been honing in on his craft and creating something more than your average portrait. He represents people as an amalgam of other people. The artist's portfolio boasts a series of inventive portraits of iconic figures whose visage appears to be composed of tiny pixels. Upon closer inspection, the spectator can see that the pixels are, in fact, people. [more inside]
Native Tongues TV
Art? Knitting? Knitted Art.
Tracy Widdess is an Canadian artist who makes amazing knitted masks of sci-fi characters and other things. There's a short interview with her on punkdaddy. [more inside]
But my debit card is so photogenic!
Please quit posting pictures of your debit cards, people.
Now in remission.
Who could forget young Jonathan Krohn (previously), who dazzled the crowd at CPAC 2009 with his finely wrought rhetoric? Or perhaps you remember his classic tome Defining Conservatism. It will come as no surprise that he's still making waves at the grand old age of 17... by swinging left. "I think it was naive."
Living in Plantation America
Southern Values Revived: How Our Elites Have Become Worse "It’s been said that the rich are different than you and me. What most Americans don’t know is that they’re also quite different from each other, and that which faction is currently running the show ultimately makes a vast difference in the kind of country we are. Right now, a lot of our problems stem directly from the fact that the wrong sort has finally gotten the upper hand; a particularly brutal and anti-democratic strain of American aristocrat that the other elites have mostly managed to keep away from the levers of power since the Revolution. Worse: this bunch has set a very ugly tone that’s corrupted how people with power and money behave in every corner of our culture. Here’s what happened, and how it happened, and what it means for America now." [more inside]
DIY rockets. Made of paper matches and tinfoil
Addicted to people
For many years I have asked myself, Why do you spend time with other people? but I never really attempted to come up with an answer. I always believed I was asking myself a rhetorical question, but recently I’ve wanted to find an answer, because a question you ask yourself a thousand times eventually deserves to be answered.Why go out? -- a Trampoline Hall lecture by Sheila Heti.
The Tribe Has Spoken: Survivor is Reality TV's Finest Achievement
The Holy Grail of Publishing - Metrics!
Your e-book is reading you. How publishers are using e-books to gain valuable information about consumers.
Magnetic Resonance Baby Imaging
German obstetricians carried out a study to
describe the relationship between the fetus and the pelvis as the fetus travels through the birth canal, using an open magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner.(via) [more inside]
'The King's Sex Chair'
"He would sit in this most incredible bath that had a swan-necked mythological figure with a with a lady of his choice, not with water in it, but with champagne in it, and I guess they would both sit there and listen to the sound of his father spinning in his grave.” - on King Edward VII and his voracious appetites, and his favorite mistress, Daisy Warwick. [more inside]
I get older, they stay the same age.
Sixty-nine photos of US politicians in high school with a few others mixed in.
Comics Pride
Photo Finish
At the USA Track & Field Olympic Trials last week in Eugene, OR, Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix tied for third in the Women's 100m. In an 11 second long race, how is a tie determined? Roger Jennings, photo finish evaluator, explains how it's done. [more inside]
La Création du Monde
François Lejeune, better known as Jean Effel (2/12/1908 - 10/16/1982) (photo) was one of the most renowned French cartoonists of his time. His magnum opus may be considered La Création du Monde (Creation of the World), a whimsical and thoroughly modern (and a bit risque) take on Genesis, with God and Co. as designers, cooks, surgeons, engineers, scientists, artists, artisans and parents. You can see some examples of cover art here and selections from a gallery showing of Effel's work (including his anti-fascist work) a third down the page here The only known English translation of his work is an partial and exceedingly rare item. In 1957, an animated French-Czech co-production debuted (CZ: Stvorení sveta). You can watch it in five parts. Roughly divided by chapter: I, II, III, IV, V, VI. [more inside]
Anderson Cooper: "The fact is, I'm gay."
Misconception #247: It's actually called Bidencare.
What's Obamacare? A studious Reddit user has read the mammoth 955-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and outlined the important points of what the new law actually does, with specific citations. While the recently-upheld law itself remains unpopular, most individual components of the bill enjoy widespread popularity among republican politicians and the public, despite the fact that both groups remain largely unaware of the bill's actual provisions. [more inside]
Assertion that all young people think they are special snowflakes.
CHECK ALL THE EMAILS FOREVER
Click Your Way Through the Impossibly Average World of the Workplace! Choose Your Own Adventure: Office Edition [via]
They actually talk - face to face.
Why do the Somali men congregate on the sidewalks downtown? Royal Ross, from the downtown business association for Faribault, Minnesota, a small town just outside Minneapolis, answers the question for you. The very short answer: everything's just fine.
Hooded
Amnesty International’s 'Security with Human Rights' campaign has just released a short film called Hooded. It is a powerful reminder that torture is barbaric and never justifiable. Just two minutes long, this film uses a unique approach by marrying abstract images with intense sound design to convey the auditory and visual experiences associated with torture. It's a disturbing but gripping film that demonstrates the shocking effects of torture techniques such as water boarding and "hooding".
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