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How to teach myself Latin?
I want to teach myself Latin. Where should I start? What are some good resources? Is it feasible?
Deus Ex Now
"Jolts to the brain boosts memory!"
Via deep brain stimulation technique, patients in a UCLA study (Full PDF)were able to significantly improve their ability to remember and find their way through a virtual environment. Although the study was small, it offers tantalizing clues toward potential treatments of disease such as Alzheimer's and raises the specter of artificial neuro-enhancements in the future.
Chess: how can I best review and learn from my PGN notated games?
Chess: how can I best review and learn from my PGN notated games? I've been playing games on my phone, and I've got the option to export the PGN files. Is there a program I can use to import the games, that will give me easy to follow analysis or suggestions, or is there a forum where people give feedback on uploaded games? I'm not the most advanced chess player, so I'd rather something quite user friendly. Thanks in advance.
The Strangest Man
The trend of mathematics and physics towards unification provides the physicist with a powerful new method of research into the foundations of his subject, a method which has not yet been applied successfully, but which I feel confident will prove its value in the future. The method is to begin by choosing that branch of mathematics which one thinks will form the basis of the new theory. One should be influenced very much in this choice by considerations of mathematical beauty. [1939]
Much Ado About Nothing
Physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote a book titled A Universe from Nothing. Philosopher David Albert wrote a rather scathing review. In a later interview with The Atlantic, Krauss suggested that philosophers feel threatened by science "because science progresses and philosophy doesn't." Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci weighed in on Krauss' comments, and Krauss non-apologized to philosophers who may have been offended. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne reflects on the controversy.
"Very few drums or vocals"
musicForProgramming(); a series of mixes intended for listening to while programming to aid concentration and increase productivity (also compatible with other activities).
.....wat?
I'd really love a detailed explanation of the terms and humor in this math / science related XKCD cartoon.
The nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh was built in measureless eons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars.
Have you ever wondered what non-euclidean geometry actually looks like? This video uses a custom ray tracer for the Minecraft engine to give some examples.
A website committed to promoting the use of the scythe
The folks behind the Scythe Connection no longer sell scythes, but the site remains a fantastic resource on an ancient tool still being used by some today.
Maybe start browsing at the Navigation Guide. The site covers the tools, technique and sharpening, while weaving in a sort of mystical appreciation for the scythe. If you read nothing else, read their profile of Danish "creek worker" Niels Johansson, the "Mower of the Decade."
Francis Galton
galton.org
is an exhaustive website devoted to the life and works of the statistical pioneer and "father of eugenics" Francis Galton, inventor of the scatterplot, the correlation coefficient, fingerprint identification, and who knows what else. Almost all of Galton's books and papers are reproduced here, some in scanned form and some in searchable .pdf, from his major books to his letters to Pigeon Fancier's Journal. A short selection after the fold.
Tiny Games
A Super Mario Summary
is Johan Peitz's entry to the 23rd installment of the Ludum Dare competition, in which contestants work by themselves to create a themed game in 48 hours. "I tried to recreate every level in the original Super Mario Brothers game, but on a single screen each. The result is a puzzle platformer where you need to combine reflexes, timing, and clever thinking to succeed."
All 1401 entries can be viewed here.
Why do my hands swell at Costco?
My hands swell to the point that I have to remove my wedding ring every time I go into a Sam's Club or Costco and only when I go into a Sam's Club or Costco. Why?
"A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness"
Why Do Old Books Smell?
[SLYT]
"...I want to make a kind of music that had the Long Now and the Big Here..."
Imaginary Landscapes (1989): a visually hypnotic and impressionistic portrait of musician Brian Eno, directed by Duncan Ward and Gabriella Cardazzo. (40 mins.)
On the Box
Little footage exists of early Wire performing live. Here is a full concert on German TV, from 1979.
Dynamic Range
Former Broadway actress Carrie Manolakos performs a cover of Radiohead's 'Creep', and hits all the notes.
Marcel Proust's "A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu"
"The Threat to Proust" by Roger Shattuck: When Proust’s novel fell into the public domain in 1987, three Paris publishing houses were ready with new editions that had been in preparation for several years. They all carry the same basic 3,000-page text with few variations. The differences lie in packaging and presentation. Laffont-Bouquins chose to publish three fat volumes prefaced by elaborate historical and biographical materials. Garnier-Flammarion produced ten pocket-sized volumes competently edited by Jean Milly. The new Pléiade edition, published by the original copyright holder, Gallimard, made the boldest, most ambitious, and most expensive bid to claim the market. In a combination of editorial, literary, and commercial decisions, Gallimard proposed to influence the way we read Proust and, to some degree, the way we approach all great literary works.
Help with Being a Healthy and Honest Individual, after Trauma
Having grown up in an abusive home where every move of mine was watched and controlled like a hawk, and I had to anticipate reactions in order to survive, I ended up molding many of my desires around those anticipated reactions. So now, as an adult of advancing age, how do I learn to know what I want, and act on those desires with honesty and integrity? What are some steps I can actually take? Books I can read? Simple thoughts to repeat to myself?
Better red than dead
Recently Starbuck's customers were upset to learn that their strawberry frappuchinos were being coloured red with insect extract - cochineal. What they probably don't know is that cochineal was once as valuable as gold and silver and is the colour of Catholic Cardinals' robes and the red in the British redcoats of the Revolutionary War.
Quirky, intelligent, well made comedies
Movie recommendations - I really liked the movies Kung Fu Hustle and Delhi Belly. What other movies are similar to those two?
Let's just lose him at sea
The harrowing tale of Ensign Chuck Hord, lost at sea in 1908.
nonsense economics
"I call it the destruction of shared prosperity hypothesis. ... [A]round 1980 the U.S. adopted a fundamentally flawed economic paradigm ... that abandoned full employment and severed the link between wages and productivity growth. ... Financial deregulation, regulatory forbearance, financial innovation, financial mania, and plain vanilla financial fraud kept the economy going by making ever more credit available, However, as the economy cannibalized itself by undercutting income distribution and accumulating debt, it needed ever larger speculative bubbles to grow. The house price bubble was simply the last and biggest bubble and was effectively the only way around the stagnation that would otherwise have developed in 2001." - an interview with Thomas Palley on the origins and prognosis for the crisis
"Kobe" beef?
Think you've enjoyed the well-marbled splendor of Kobe beef? If you don't live in Japan, think again. And Wagyu doesn't count either. But that's okay. It's what the U.S. government wants you to think. A three part Forbes piece on "Kobe" beef.
Boxster Short
Why is this question about buying a Porsche Boxster anonymous? The only reason I can think of is the shame of being associated with a car that is associated with being driven by douchebags, which seems like a pretty low bar.
Leggete Nanni Balestrini
"An imprecation to read an avant-garde novelist is not something you often see written in spray-paint". And why should we pay attention? Because it "will fill your spine with gunpowder and light a match in your brain". Verso republishes Nanni Balestrini's The Unseen (with a brand new foreword by Antonio Negri), an epic monument to the struggle of the Italian Autonomia movement of the 1970s.
Am I William Woods? Well...who's asking?
Billy Woods is quietly making the best rap music around.
GLLLLLITCH
Computer Jesus Refrigerator are a noise/glitch band who make amazing and nearly uncategorizable music. They also have a YouTube channel with some highly impressive glitch videos.
The U.S. Government’s Top-Secret Town
In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government acquired 70,000 acres of land in Eastern Tennessee and established a secret town called Oak Ridge.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge office recently started to digitize its collection of archival photos and share them.
The Electric Web Matrix
DIY Audio, DIY Electronics, DIY Guitar, DIY Synthesizers, DIY Recording. Fundamentals of audio. Optimize your Mac for audio. Build a music server. How vacuum tubes work. Tour a brass instrument factory. How to maintain your clarinet, trumpet, flute, saxophone, guitar. All this and much, much more at THE ELECTRIC WEB MATRIX.
Telnet Times Ten Thousand
If you've ever worked with the command prompt on a Unix-based computer, you're likely familiar with SSH (Secure SHell), which is a program and a protocol that allows you (yes, you!) to securely access a remote system. While SSH has certainly earned the "Secure" portion of its namesake over the years, it's functionality as a shell has ironically received very little attention, and has begun to show signs of age and obsolescence: SSH doesn't work very well on mobile connections, and its support for Unicode is buggy and incomplete. A group of MIT researchers think they've found solutions to these problems, and have created Mosh as a potential successor to SSH, which fixes many of the old protocol's annoyances and shortcomings, while retaining all of SSH's security features.
BOY - a short film
Prasanna Puwanarajah's moving short about a Velodrome carpenter, BOY was the winner of the British Airways Great Britons 2012 competition.
That's my Cheese Monster talking
Five years after Ze Frank's much-loved if uncategorizable The Show closed down (previously), the vlogger/humorist/online performance artist has returned with A Show. via
What is this geometric figure?
What is this geometric figure?
Is there a name for the figure inscribed in the circle here?
The Barkley Marathons
In June of 1977, James Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Tennessee. 54.5 hours later, he was captured, "driven and exhausted, covered with mud and sand," (Large PDF) just five miles away. In 1986, accomplished ultrarunner Gary Cantrell (AKA Lazarus Lake) decided to hold an ultramarathon in neighboring Frozen Head State Park. The world's toughest 100 miler, the Barkley Marathon and Fun Run, was born. There have been 13 100-mile finishers since that time.
In 2012, three people finished the 100 miler, and a new course record was set. Here are some before and after shots of runners. Here are some shots of the course and the fun.
In 2012, three people finished the 100 miler, and a new course record was set. Here are some before and after shots of runners. Here are some shots of the course and the fun.
Under Pressure
The Pressure Cooker Makes A Comeback.
"Pressure cookers are exploding—in a good way—into home and restaurant kitchens. I discovered the joys of pressure cooking last year while reviewing Modernist Cuisine, the 2,348-page encyclopedia of avant-garde cuisine by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. He argues that pressure cookers are the perfect vessel for making stock, and he's right. Pressure cooking extracts more flavors from the primary materials and keeps them in the pot, where they condense back into a rich, full-bodied liquid. I was blown away by the chicken stock I made the first time I used a pressure cooker. But I didn't stop there. I followed a few of Myhrvold's other suggestions and soon discovered that pressure cookers make superior, stir-free risotto—cooked through, but with a pleasant hint of resistance—after just five-and-a-half minutes at pressure. Braised short ribs are similarly sublime, fork tender without being mushy, and bathed in a broth with an intense, concentrated beef flavor. They went from being a Sunday afternoon project to a supper I could prepare after work on weeknights. Emboldened by success, I even went so far as to pressure cook a surprisingly moist lemon-mascarpone cheesecake."
Fairness question about division of specific household responsibility
I am so wrapped up in a depressive period, being self-absorbed, self-pitying, self-loathing, that I cannot figure out the fair way to handle this situation, and I need input that I can't get anywhere else. I keep seesawing between feeling completely put-upon and exploited, and then feeling that I am being infantile, lazy, self-indulgent, and irresponsible. I can’t get a realistic hold on the situation.
Share the road.
The driver of the LANTA bus, identified as Richard Gubish, Jr., saw the crash in his rear view mirror and also saw the driver attempting to get away. Mr. Gubish took immediate and decisive action... [YT]
A snack of classical mechanics
What is the Dzhanibekov effect? Known as the Tennis Racket theorem in English and documented by Vladimir Dzhanibekov in 1985 space, it is the result of unstable rotation about a principle axis.
"In Calabar they have over two hundred inches of rain a year. This night they proved it. Everybody got soaked. It's a wonder no one got electrocuted."
Seven intense minutes of Fela Kuti and The Africa '70 performing
in a night club in Calabar, a small Nigerian port city, in 1971, filmed by Ginger Baker. Seven years later, in one of their last performances before The Africa '70 disbanded, they performed at the Berlin Jazz Festival: V.I.P. (Vagabonds In Power), Power Show, Pansa Pansa (part 2), Cross Examination of the African Colonial Soldier.
Is that it?
It has been no secret that Hillary Clinton has been a ferociously dedicated Secretary of State, visiting 95 countries and keeping mum about both the 2012 elections and her prospects after 2013. But when a photo of her checking her BlackBerry (still popular in DC!) while wearing Chanel-style sunglasses suddenly went viral, a Tumblr was born.
Taking the random out of racking
After tens of thousands of games of pool, every time I rack the balls I seem to switch about half of them around. I know I'm wasting time. So, I want to know exactly how many balls I should normally expect to swap (the median), and what is the most I should ever have to swap. For those of you who aren't pool nerds like me, I've explained the 8-ball racking process inside.
Any good readings on survivor guilt?
Anyone know of any good readings on survivor guilt? (And maybe even how to deal with it?)
Russian to get back down
Guy climbs star of Kotelnicheskaya Embankment free-handed
Because no good Monday shouldn't begin without a jolting dose of vertigo!