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The fifty most cited books. At the time the list was compiled in the 1980s, the most cited book in the humanities and social sciences was Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, followed by James Joyce's Ulysses. Noam Chomsky makes the top 20 with two works on linguistics. And, for those who prefer natural science, you should know the most cited scientific paper of all time is Protein Determination by Oliver H. Lowry. Alternately, you could just skip academia and go for the top 40 most important books according to World Literature Today, the 100 most loved according to the BBC, or you could just decide which books matter most to you. So what makes a book important, and which books qualify?
posted by blahblahblah at 11:41 PM PST - 35 comments

Talking Heads. Not until I stumbled upon this site did I figure out what it was the the Internet was missing. I've wanted to have Sanjay on my desktop for so long. And now that I have the ability to vote for which "journalist" I think is the hottest, I can finally feel as if I am participating in these news programs. That is Democracy, after all.
posted by panoptican at 10:48 PM PST - 33 comments

Noted in the live stream from this TV station This is the "Local2 News" live tv stream (which has been pointed to in three previous MeFi threads about other news stories. Currently they've from time to time been showing storm track predictive models (which they say are their own development). I'd rather have pointers to more models than the TV station's occasional glimpses, but, this is the most varied set of storm track predictions I've seen. Anyone know where they're getting them?
posted by hank at 6:15 PM PST - 24 comments

Hi-res satellite photos of Earth Four pages worth, desktop wallpaper sized.
posted by jonson at 4:55 PM PST - 31 comments

The Cabinet National Library. A charming piece of dry, conceptual humor. A little banal, perhaps. There is also a hidden agenda.
posted by undule at 3:25 PM PST - 11 comments

A history of modern military rations from canning to MREs. Also, reproductions of American, Russian, Italian, British, and Japanese WWII rations.
posted by milovoo at 2:30 PM PST - 49 comments

4 8 15 16 23 42 - Lost in Theory? Could Genetic Mirror Theory and other Natuarlly Occuring Phenomenon, by Marsille Roussau have something to do with the TV show Lost and those wacky numbers?
posted by Macboy at 12:40 PM PST - 116 comments

Scientific Sleuth Cracks Code to $54,000 Treasure The treasure was the 12th and last set out in Treasure's Trove , a children's book published last fall. People shared information on many forums. The solution to the Beetle puzzle is in this forum. Missed out? All is not lost. Apparently, a new 14th puzzle has been announced. Maybe we can solve it together.
posted by notmtwain at 12:22 PM PST - 12 comments

"If we can get kids to hang a picture of a priest in their room, we've done something huge for vocations." The associate director of youth and young adult ministry for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis is using a Matrix-style poster to drum up enrollment in the priesthood...and exponentially increase bad Photoshop pranks, if I know the internets at all. Oh well. At least it's not as bad as using video games to recruit soldiers! (Hat tip to NSFW-SG!)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 12:20 PM PST - 92 comments

According to the BBC, hobbits may not be real.
posted by 31d1 at 11:54 AM PST - 20 comments

Chinese food around the world. Ethnic Chinese immigrants worldwide took their cuisine with them. New Yorkers are familiar with Cuban-Chinese restaurants, owned by ethnic Chinese from Cuba who served steam tables of ropa vieja and chuletas right next to the pork fried rice and wonton soup. In Jamaica & Trinidad, Chinese immigrants pioneered jerk chicken lo mein and bok choy & callaloo stirfries.

Or how in Peru, Chinese Peruvians developed their country's restaurant industry and created a national dish, lomo saltado along the way.

But then there's the Indian-Chinese food popularized by the descendants of ethnic Hakkas who moved to Mumbai in the 18th century. Personally, I'm partial to some lollipop chicken or gobi manchurian with a nice, cold Kingfisher.
posted by huskerdont at 11:45 AM PST - 57 comments

Moonbase Visions. You've read about and discussed NASA's plan to use new post-shuttle launch vehicles to return to the moon. But what, exactly, is the US planning to do on the moon? What would a semi-permanent moonbase look like? And why return at all? NASA's announced answers to these questions remain vague. But last year eleven sets of responses to these questions were offered to NASA in the development proposals submitted to NASA by eleven Aerospace concerns, each of which suggested different designs, missions, and philosophies for NASA's return to the moon. Some common themes:

Military: "Provide nationally assured access to orbital locations for the placement of observation systems" and "assured access to space for development of force projection systems and movements of logistics." (pdf link, p. 5) Commercial: "Commercialize space products and services" (pdf link, p.6) Public Relations: Keeping the public inspired with "regularly placed program milestones." (pdf link, p.7)

It's interesting to compare the details of these proposals. But taken together, they raise a broader question: does NASA's fear that the public will lose interest in this commercializing, militarizing, moon venture reflect an awareness that that the vision has finally been lost?
posted by washburn at 10:31 AM PST - 62 comments

Despite our predominantly post-modern society in Canada, there are still pockets of ignorance and intolerance. The City of Surrey a very suburban suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, is pretty much the capital of Canada when it comes to this. A high school (ages 13-18) was rehearsing to perform "The Laramie Project" - a play about the murder of an American student Matthew Shephard (who was gay) and tolerance when the Surrey School Board pulled the plug on it. The play had recently been performed in a high school in a smaller, but less rednecky suburb, Mission. This is the same school board that tried to ban two excellent books teaching children tolerance for their friends that may have two dads or two mums. The ban was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada. Perhaps a play of this nature is appropriate for high school students? Whaddya think?
posted by SSinVan at 10:28 AM PST - 66 comments

Reporters Without Borders releases a free handbook for would-be bloggers and cyber-dissidents in censor-happy lands. It features tips on blogging anonymously, ways to get around censorship and to ensure your e-mail privacy, and hosts an Internet-censor World Championship list (which lists China, Vietnam, and Tunisia, among others) as well. Download the guide here. (PDF)
posted by riffraff at 10:11 AM PST - 8 comments

A large pink rabbit will visit Italy for 20 years. Yet another controversial work of art by Gelitin from Vienna. (via Guardian)
posted by myopicman at 10:07 AM PST - 40 comments

National Geographic Migration Study Rouses Indigenous Concern. What do indigenous DNA donors have to gain from their involvement in the Genographic Project? As a First Worlder, I signed up, I swabbed, my genes are being shuttled through the Genographic study as we speak. Can't wait to see the results. And I'm not particularly paranoid, obviously, that the results will be used to harm anyone. But this article did make me curious as to exactly how the study could possibly benefit indigenous peoples. Will it be yet another strike against their origin stories? Will it be like a coke bottle dropping from the sky? Will it, instead, inspire non-indigenous peoples to treat their indigenous cousins with more respect?
posted by CrunchyGods at 9:03 AM PST - 46 comments

Liberal Democracy.
This is the taste of freedom.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:23 AM PST - 82 comments

INSURRECTION Why were American military sent almost instantly when Rita threatens Texas but we were told that they could not be sent to Louisiana till requested? What is the history behind Posse Comitatus? Does the president have the authority just on his say so to send troops into a "sovereign" state? Nice summary of history here.
posted by Postroad at 8:08 AM PST - 51 comments

Hu's Gallery in the Sky :: interesting and amazing cameraphone photos.
posted by anastasiav at 8:00 AM PST - 14 comments

Wasting away in Ritaville
Might as well start the deluge of Rita posts with this one. Rita is the most intense storm to threaten the US since Gilbert in 1988 and it threatens Galveston Bay directly. In direct path of the storm are oil refineries processing over two million barrels of oil a day which is 26 percent of the US refining capacity. In addition the area expected to be hit (pdf) by a potential twenty-two foot storm surge has a higher population than New Orleans.

This storm has caused an unprecedented evacuation of the southern parts of Houston. Interstate 45 has been opened in both directions to north-bound traffic for the first time ever. Tales of twelve to sixteen hour drives to outlying cities are common.

One of the blogs I read daily posted this morning that it is likely he will lose his house in twelve-plus feet of water. I left Houston last night and am staying with friends in Austin now, well out of the way of the storm. Other tales are sure to come.

Will the lessons of Katrina help Houston to recover from the storm? Will the response from FEMA be better because of the heat from Katrina or will the Republican voting area and Tom DeLay's district factor into the relief effort?
posted by DragonBoy at 7:40 AM PST - 136 comments

Interactions between migrating birds and offshore oil and gas platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico (PDF, 5.9MB). A scientific but engrossing look at bird migration over the Gulf of Mexico, describing, in part, death by starvation of migrants who have metabolized all their bodily fat, “overshoots” that inadvertently travel past their intended destinations and find themselves unexpectedly over water at first light, and a suggestion that peregrine falcons not only recovered from near extinction due to the presence of oil platforms in the Gulf, but that they may eventually establish a breeding population on the Gulf platform archipelago. Summary. Full report (PDF, 5.9 MB).
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:13 AM PST - 9 comments

Innocent in London. An account from someone who was stopped, searched and arrested by the Police in a London Tube station. [via del.icio.us/philgyford]
posted by gsb at 2:42 AM PST - 106 comments

The 16mm Shrine writes about movies. "The fact that there’s any talent in Brazil not devoted to kidnapping schemes and making curare poison out of small frogs, let alone the kind it takes to make an epic like Meirelles’ breakout film, City of God, is astounding ... [With The Constant Gardener,] I hoped Meirelles might be able to inject some excitement into material that probably had an initial interest level hovering somewhere between televised Canadian parliamentary proceedings and rough notes for a thesis project on religious atavism in Norway. ... Weisz is an activist, which means she’s easy and doesn’t shave her legs, and gets very upset if you notice. She also becomes immediately attached to the African children surrounding her in that particular stage of starvation and illness that makes their eyes big and their stomachs small enough that they still look small and pitiful, but not yet weird enough that they could pass for shark-toothed baby Grays from The X-Files. She gets involved in a conspiracy and soon ends up dead, leaving Fiennes to pick up the pieces and grow a backbone."
posted by Marquis at 1:43 AM PST - 24 comments

Recent research claims that even smoking a few cigarettes a day is dangerous according to Tobacco Control . This is bad news for millions of smokers who have cut-back their daily consumption of cigarettes. It is also contrary to previous research which claimed that light smoking had little impact on health.
posted by bobbyelliott at 1:29 AM PST - 56 comments

Paul Murdoch Architects were recently announced as winners of the Flight 93 memorial. The design was called "Crescent of Embrace". The jury asked that the design team “Consider the interpretation and impact of words within the context of this event. The 'Crescent' should be referred to as the 'circle' or 'arc' or other words that are not tied to specific religious iconography." Remarks from the families can be found here. [I haven't posted the other links for obvious reasons]. I don't think we've heard the end of this.
posted by tellurian at 1:17 AM PST - 22 comments

What do you get when you mix a fiendishly difficult and addictive puzzle game with the feel of a hack & slash RPG set in a cartoonish, slightly tongue-in-cheek fantasy world? That would be Deadly Rooms of Death (DROD for short). The game is freakin' huge, with 25 levels filled with unique rooms, and it also happens to be free.
posted by speicus at 1:09 AM PST - 7 comments

Drawings by Porous Walker. {NSFW & audio}
posted by dobbs at 12:48 AM PST - 9 comments

Don't blame me, I voted for Chang! Jeb Bush to the Florida legislature: "Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society. "I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down." WTF? But is it really that weird coming from a family with a long history with the Skull and Bones Society
posted by afflatus at 12:31 AM PST - 47 comments