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Why are stereos measured in negative decibels?
Why is the volume of my stereo receiver measured in negative decibals? That is, 0 decibals is loudest (absolutely speaker-blowing deafening), -50 is a good loud setting, and -70 is good for quiet late-night music. My previous stereo was similar, as are most of the others I've seen in stores and friends' homes. WHY!?!?!
What are the Muppets?
By which I mean, in the Jim Henson Universe, are there any hints/explanations about how Muppets occur?
What's the shape of a falling raindrop?
"When you run molten lead through a sieve and let it fall into a water tank far below, surface tension forms the lead drops into almost perfect spheres." The first purpose-built shot tower was built by William Watts of Bristol, UK, in 1782. America built its first shot tower in Philadelphia in 1808. The tallest shot tower ever built (but not the first in Australia) still stands in the center of Melbourne though now underneath a glass roof. As less costly methods of making shot were discovered these towers closed up shop, some not until the late sixties. Many of these towers have found new purposes as historical sites, art galleries or simply mysterious links to the past.
Where Techy Meets Pretty
Who knew structural engineering could be so sweet? Justina Yang is the "paper engineer" behind Fiber Lab, a design studio located in her sunroom. She creates paper art, décor, bracelets, bowties, and lamp shades. In her short videos, she demonstrates how to make your very own dodecahedron; a whimsical carousel that produces beautiful waves and teaches you about wave interference; a mesmerizing interactive kinetic wave sculpture; a string art geometric love story; and a delicious-looking paper croissant.
You must be this tall to Ride or Die
There's a lot of tragedy in the world lately. Please enjoy a video of DMX on an amusement park ride.
"the how of politics is as important as the what of politics"
Evgeny Morozov, for The Guardian: The rise of data and the death of politics
This "smartification" of everyday life follows a familiar pattern: there's primary data – a list of what's in your smart fridge and your bin – and metadata – a log of how often you open either of these things or when they communicate with one another. Both produce interesting insights: cue smart mattresses – one recent model promises to track respiration and heart rates and how much you move during the night – and smart utensils that provide nutritional advice. In addition to making our lives more efficient, this smart world also presents us with an exciting political choice. If so much of our everyday behaviour is already captured, analysed and nudged, why stick with unempirical approaches to regulation? Why rely on laws when one has sensors and feedback mechanisms? If policy interventions are to be – to use the buzzwords of the day – "evidence-based" and "results-oriented," technology is here to help.
A hundred years ago Europe was in the midst of the July Crisis.
The BBC will be covering World War One
in great detail over the next four years. They've already started, with podcasts, interactive guides, online courses, programs new and old plus much, much more. Perhaps it's best to start at the beginning, with Professor Margaret MacMillan's Countdown to World War One (podcast link) or the account of her fellow historian Christopher Clark, Month of Madness. Of course, how the war started is still contested by historians, as recounted in The Great War of Words. The latter two are also part of the main WWI podcast. Or you can dive into the Music and Culture section, go through an A-Z guide or look at comics drawn by modern cartoonists.
"It made me proud of my town to see everybody come out for her"
Small South Carolina town rallies for fired lesbian police chief
LATTA, S.C. (AP) -- When openly gay police chief Crystal Moore was fired by a mayor who condemned her lifestyle as "questionable," she feared her two decade career in law enforcement in this town was over. Then, this conservative, small town rebelled.
The people of Latta, who voted overwhelmingly for a state amendment banning gay marriage eight years ago, turned against the mayor, stripped him of his powers and the town council rehired Moore. They said her dedication to the town mattered more than her sexual orientation.
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.
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.
The Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery
The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery is an annual weekend conference discussing food, its history, and culture. Since 1981 the papers presented at the Symposium have been collected into a conference volume called the Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, most of which have been made available for free in their entirety via Google Books. Each volume consists of about 25-40 papers surrounding the theme of that year's Symposium (e.g. Eggs, Authenticity, or The Meal).
"the conflation of money and heroism"
The rise and fall of Lance Armstrong is not simply a story of one man’s moral failures. To understand Armstrong you have to understand the people who use their money and power to shape the culture of competitive sports. And if you follow the trail of money and power in this particular case, it will lead you to Thomas Weisel, which is where the real story begins.
"This is what it looks like to be a professional athlete as a woman"
Very pregnant Alysia Montano runs at U.S. Championships
Montano said she knew she wouldn’t advance out of the first round. Rather, she viewed her participation as a celebration. Video of the race and her finish.
The real angle grinder man
Pistola Derringer hecha en casa. The same builder also documents his build of a "Colt Derringer modelo 3"
"The Clash would have KILLED to have come from Derry"
Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland, was a dangerous place to be in the late 1970s. With bombs, shootings, British Army Patrols, riots on the streets, and The Ramones and New York Dolls on the turntable, the most punk thing 5 Catholic lads could do was to sing upbeat songs about adolescent lust, girls, getting nowhere with said girls, and the general struggles of being young. In the bleeding heart of The Troubles, The Undertones escaped by dreaming of a life more ordinary.
Bay Area cat rescue question.
A friend in the Bay Area (Daly City) rescued an abused cat and is looking for a home for him. The cat is chipped to the abusive owner.
Help me move a concrete birdbath 1800 miles
I have a tall, concrete bird bath that I need to get moved or shipped. It probably weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-300 pounds. It will need to get from Duluth, MN to Portland, OR. What is the best option here? Do we call a moving company there and try and get it to hitch a ride? Hire a college student on a road trip?
Joy Division - Pitch Corrected Songs
The purpose of this compilation was to take all the JD tracks known to be set at the incorrect pitches and correct. (SLYT)
Going back to Antikythera
The Antikythera mechanism (wiki), the world's oldest computing device, has fascinated mankind since it was discovered by sponge divers in 1900. Modern technology has revealed much of how the mechanism works, but there is still plenty of mystery surrounding the artefact. One example is "Fragment D", which doesn't fit in with the rest of the recovered pieces. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is setting up an expedition to explore the wreck, this time using a nifty hi-tech exosuit, eliminating many of the disadvantages of using regular diving equipment or remotely operated submersibles. The hope is to recover a hypothetical second mechanism, in addition to the other valuable archaeological finds still waiting at the shipwreck site.
Open defecation solves the child mortality puzzle among Indian Muslims
“Hindus are, on average, richer and more educated than Muslims. But oddly, the child mortality rate for Hindus is much higher. All observable factors say Hindus should fare better, but they don't. Economists refer to this as the Muslim mortality puzzle. In a new study, researchers believe that they may have found a solution to the puzzle. And, surprisingly, the solution lies in a single factor – open defecation.”
Conversely, android judges more likely to only have sons.
Does Having Daughters Cause Judges to Rule for Women's Issues? [PDF]
New research on judicial empathy finds that when judges, specifically Republican judges, have daughters, they are more likely to rule in favor of women's issues.
Something about how seeing is not believing
Every year, the Neural Correlates Association announces the world's three best optical illusions. Out of a number of finalists, the 2014 winners have been announced: 1) The Dynamic Ebbinghaus, 2) Flexible Colors, and 3) a Turn in the Road [animated gif version]. There are also a list of best illusions from all years, as well as winners from 2013, 2012, and previous posts. Of course, if there was a lifetime achievement award, it would need to go to Akiyoshi Kitaoka, inventor of some of the most amazing recent illusions: rotating snakes (seriously, this is amazing), possibly the best color illusion ever (with instructions on making them), and also Lady Gaga covers. Also, for no good reason, here are 20 more good ones.
![[animated gif version]](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--yBaXdiuY--/e9i6i8uvqjzhnbxknn4a.gif){kind=link}
No Relation
It's easy to explain why you love a conventionally excellent player, but way, way more fun to try and explain the appeal of a top-flight athlete whose every step and twitch appeared to be bringing him dangerously close to death itself. You had this guy, St. Louis, and he was awesome and everything, but every time he hit a triple he'd pop up and have the saddest look on his face like everything he loved had died, and left him with the soul of an ancient, sad, and immortal Golem. It was like watching Buster Keaton play centerfield, and he was like that every time he played.SB Nation Reviews: Willie McGee
Who Gets to Graduate?
Who Gets to Graduate?
"If you compare college students with the same standardized-test scores who come from different family backgrounds, you find that their educational outcomes reflect their parents’ income, not their test scores."
Should I move to Afghanistan?
Should I pursue an amazing professional opportunity in Kabul, or is this the stupidest idea you've ever heard?
Forty-three Werner Herzog films that can be streamed
Inside, please find a list of forty-three movies, TV episodes, and short subjects by Werner Herzog, all of which can be streamed, along with some short descriptions of their content. One or two of the films are in German without subtitles; this is noted in the description.
On Being One's Own Fairy Godmother
Amy Schumer's tale of courage, sex and self-worth as told at the Ms. Foundation Gala.
"I am a woman with thoughts and questions and shit to say. I say if I'm beautiful. I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story — I will. I will speak and share and fuck and love and I will never apologize to the frightened millions who resent that they never had it in them to do it."
What Michael did
“He did what he did out of fear,” Michael’s father says now. “He was mentally ill. Not criminally responsible means you’re not morally responsible.”How does a family cope when one of them kills his mother in the midst of a psychotic episode?
“It wasn’t his fault,” says Rebecca, who rested her hand on her brother’s shoulder as they walked out of court that day.
The early film archive of Josef-Alexis Joye, Swiss Jesuit Abbot
Over a hundred years ago, a most impressive collection of early motion pictures was collected by the Swiss Jesuit abbot, Josef-Alexis Joye, who collected a trove of films as a way of educating children and adults. In total, he collected around 2,500 titles between 1902 or 1904 and 1915. The abbot's collection was not forgotten or lost after his death in 1919 -- it was stored and cataloged, though in danger of deteriorating by the 1940s. A few decades later, Italian film historian Davide Turconi, fearing that the films would be entirely through deterioration, decided to clip a few frames from each print and save something of the collection. Luckily, his fears were unfounded, and many the films were preserved in the 1970s by David Francis of the National Film and Television Archive of the British Film Institute, where approximately 1,200 of the nitrate prints still exist.
Is that a synth filling your apartment, or are you just glad to see me?
Moogfest is in full swing in Asheville, NC, and Moog Music just unveiled a faithful reproduction of Keith Emerson's original Moog Modular system. Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Lucky Man (SLYT) was one of the first professional recordings to feature a Moog synth. Apparently playing both the original and the facsimile simultaneously is a pretty orgasmic experience.
Cycling with a saddle sore
I'm training for my first cycling tour, a 7-day trip between Pittsburgh and DC on the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal paths. The tour is in a month, and I've been working up to longer rides in the past several months, hitting about 50 miles the last two weekends. I think I'm getting a saddle sore on my inner thigh and want to know what I can do to prevent it from becoming a problem.
Everything old is new again
Why We’re in a New Gilded Age
Paul Krugman reviews Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, and discusses the renewal of the importance of capital in preserving inequality across generations.
A savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson, published in Rolling Stone, November 11, 1971.
It was almost noon, and we still had more than 100 miles to go. They would be tough miles. Very soon, I knew, we would both be completely twisted. But there was no going back, and no time to rest. We would have to ride it out. Press registration for the fabulous Mint 400 was already underway, and we had to get there by four to claim our soundproof suite. A fashionable sporting magazine in New York had taken care of the reservations, along with this huge red Chevy convertible we'd just rented off a lot on the Sunset Strip ... and I was, after all, a professional journalist; so I had an obligation to cover the story, for good or ill. The sporting editors had also given me $300 in cash, most of which was already spent on extremely dangerous drugs. The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. All this had been rounded up the night before, in a frenzy of high-speed driving all over Los Angeles County – from Topanga to Watts, we picked up everything we could get our hands on. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.
Oxford University Press Celebrates National Library Week
In honor of National Library Week, Oxford University Press is making all of its non-journal products available online for free for the week of April 13th-19th, 2014. This includes the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Handbook series.
The Platinum Club
As part of the ongoing Periodic Video series (previously and more previously), Martyn Poliakoff takes us inside Johnson Matthey, where he shows us some "Super Expensive Metals" — a few of the rare platinum group metals — as they are refined and processed from raw ore into finished products.
Where do middle aged men shop for clothes?
I've reached middle age, lost a ton of weight, and need to re-do my wardrobe. Where does a middle aged man shop for clothing in America?
Side Sleepers of MeFi: Where do you put your hands while asleep?
I've been a lifelong sidesleeper. My preferred hand position is with my hands curled up under my chin. For a while now, I'm being woken up by the pins and needles sensation in my hand (the shoulder side down hand) as it's asleep. I'm trying to figure out where else to put my hands while I sleep.
Info wanted on Yoshiaki Hanayagi.
Yoshiaki Hanayagi was one of the stars of a famous movie, Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, and yet there does not appear to be any further information about him online. I have found his name in Japanese, 花柳喜章, but googling that gets even fewer hits (I don't know Japanese, but if I saw what looked like a substantial webpage on him I was prepared to try Google Translate). Does anybody know anything about him, even birth/death dates?
Meditation Center/ (Buddhist) in Chicago and Buddhist therapist
I used to practice at a Buddhist Center in Columbus, Ohio (KTC, on Grubb St). I am trying to find a center in Chicago. I really love the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. I also enjoy podcast teacher Gil Fronsdal from the Insight Meditation Center in Cali, which is in the Vipassana tradition. I also enjoy Deer Park Dharma cast which is associated with Thich Nhat Hanh. I would like to find a center in Chicago to help me build a mediation practice, and obviously, mediate with others. To be able to listen to great dharma talks in person, not just on my ipod. And, to be a part of a community. It just doesn't feel the same listening on my ipod, you know? I do not have a car. I have gone to weird a$$ places in Asheville, NC, where random people start there own sangas and ask you for $, and I and not up for that. So, I thought it to be better to ask here than to do the google search. Please let me know if you have thoughts on where I can find a practice center. Also, I know that there is a school of Buddhist Psychology. Where might I find a Buddhist Therapist in Chicago?
AMBUSH!
Cat Assassin [slyt | cute]