May 17
Mooseheart Orphanage, 1948 A haunting image of children's faces from the
Mooseheart Orphanage, 1948. The photo was taken by Stanley Kubrick for the June 8th, 1948 edition of Look.
posted by HuronBob at 9:43 PM - 7 comments
A New Theory of PTSD and Veterans: Moral Injury But as clergy and good clinicians have listened to more stories like these, they have heard a new narrative, one that signals changes to the brain along with what in less spiritually challenged times might be called a shadow on the soul. It is the tale of disintegrating vets, but also of seemingly squared-away former soldiers and spit-shined generals shuttling between two worlds: ours, where thou shalt not kill is chiseled into everyday life, and another, where thou better kill, be killed, or suffer the shame of not trying. There is no more hellish commute.
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:43 PM - 3 comments
Nicholas J. Johnson is a no good dirty rotten cheat. So when he invites you to play an incredible new game that he’s invented, you probably shouldn’t come…
posted by filthy light thief at 7:18 PM - 15 comments
The sweetest chopper on the planet is the "
Red Baron", a custom-built motorcycle powered by
a 9-cylinder radial aircraft engine.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:07 PM - 25 comments
Nicolas Guéguen is a
researcher in human behaviour who runs curious and somehow whimsical experiments. With the help of a small army of "confederates", he studies the effects of various stimuli, including
dogs,
smiles,
fireman uniforms,
bust size (inflatable),
hair color,
music,
flowers,
figurines,
touching,
mirrors,
names etc. on the courtship, sexual, helping, chivalrous, tipping, buying, hiring, compliance or eating behaviour of unsuspecting victims. Because not all experiments are successful, he has also published one
failure in the
Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis.
Selected papers are listed below the fold.
[more inside]
posted by elgilito at 4:42 PM - 4 comments
ADA is a kinetic sculpture by
Karina Smigla-Bobinski.
Video of ADA in action. [
via]
posted by shakespeherian at 3:06 PM - 6 comments
What was the hottest New York Fashion Week party?
Why the first annual NYC Doggies & Tiaras Pageant of course. (NYmag.com/Slideshow)
posted by The Whelk at 2:29 PM - 20 comments
A Burlingame, California restaurant,
Monkutanya, that serves grilled exotic meats has announced on its
facebook page that it has added lion to the menu, stirring up some
controversy and
publicity.
posted by agatha_magatha at 2:16 PM - 75 comments
"
This is What Winning Looks Like is a disturbing new documentary about the ineptitude, drug abuse, sexual misconduct, and corruption of the Afghan security forces as well as the reduced role of US Marines due to the troop withdrawal." [via
vice]
[more inside]
posted by Drexen at 1:13 PM - 31 comments
Street Fighter II: Hula Hoop Style International hula hoop star Marawa the Amazing always wanted to be in Street Fighter II and now she's gotten her wish.
posted by philohagen at 12:54 PM - 18 comments
Photographer
Arne Svenson has
sparked a bit of
controversy with his recent show "
The Neighbors," about which he says, "I turned to the residents of a glass-walled apartment building across the street from my NYC studio. The Neighbors don’t know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs. I am not unlike the birder, quietly waiting for hours, watching for the flutter of a hand or the movement of a curtain as an indication that there is life within."
[more inside]
posted by taz at 10:42 AM - 287 comments
Why Australia hates thinkers, an essay on anti-intellectualism in today's Australia and the populist hostility to “intellectual elites”, by Alecia Simmonds.
posted by acb at 10:05 AM - 48 comments
"Oh, the indignities of pregnancy! They told me it would be beautiful and glowing. They did not tell me about farting loudly at bus stops." --
Sophia Collins writes about the horrible truth of being pregnant and why consent matters.
Rachel Coleman Finch concurs and explains why it made her more pro-choice:
One of my mantras for getting through the hideousness that was my last pregnancy was "I consented to this".
posted by MartinWisse at 8:48 AM - 60 comments
Kitten Eats Ice Cream.
[slyt | cute]
posted by quin at 7:35 AM - 72 comments
Clinical psychologist Meg Jay has a
bold message for twentysomethings: Contrary to popular belief, your 20s are not a throwaway decade. In this provocative talk, Jay says that just because marriage, work and kids are happening later in life, doesn’t mean you can’t start planning now. She gives 3 pieces of advice for how twentysomethings can re-claim adulthood in the defining decade of their lives.
(copied from
description on TED website).
[more inside]
posted by myriad gantry at 7:32 AM - 118 comments
Milada Horáková, a member of a Czech resistance movement, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1940 and imprisoned until the U.S. Army liberated her in May of 1945. Elected as a member of the Czechoslovak postwar parliament, she resigned after the communist coup in 1948. She remained politically active with groups opposed to the communist regime and was arrested again, this time by the communists, on September 27, 1949. After a televised show trial (she was tried with 12 others), she was executed on June 27, 1950.
Translations of Horáková's poignant final letters to her mother-in-law, husband, and daughter are available
here. A brief excerpt from her show trial, with english subtitles that can be turned on, is available
here. The prosecutor's closing argument is
here. Pages from an english-language comic book released in 1950 in the United States about Horáková can be seen
here.
In addition to being an opponent of both the Nazi and Communist regimes, Horáková was a feminist involved in the Czechoslovakian and International womens' movement. Biographical information is available
here and
here.
posted by Area Man at 7:21 AM - 9 comments
I turned around to face an approaching figure. It was Larry Page, naked, save for a pair of eyeglasses. “Welcome to Google Island. I hope my nudity doesn’t bother you. We’re completely committed to openness here. Search history. Health data. Your genetic blueprint. One way to express this is by removing clothes to foster experimentation. It’s something I learned at Burning Man,” he said.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:49 AM - 28 comments
Two days ago
M15 the original Spanish "occupy" movement celebrated its second birthday.
Earlier this year it publicised a campaign of
civil disobediance.
Now Catalunya has Teresa Forcades,
a nun on a mission who opposes the
excesses of capitalism.
Here is a
recent interview.
posted by adamvasco at 6:06 AM - 33 comments
What won the war? The weather helped. For while the Allies had access to all the Atlantic meteorology, the Axis couldn't easily predict what systems were rolling in from the West - and with the Battle of the Atlantic the
one thing that Churchill said kept him awake at night, knowing which way the wind blew certainly needed a weatherman. Or Britain would never be starved into submission.
The Weather War was complex and engaging,
[more inside]
posted by Devonian at 5:46 AM - 16 comments
A couple of discussions of recent Google design trends,
one in The New Yorker (
via Bruce Sterling), and one from
Fast Company (
via waxy).
posted by cgc373 at 1:50 AM - 32 comments
May 16
116 years ago, bicycle superhighways were the future of California transit. The notion that anyone could profit from charging tolls on such a system seems insane now, but a wealthy businessman and an ex-governor conceived of elevated wooden platforms for bikers that would connect LA to the surrounding suburbs, and they even cleared and built the first section.
[more inside]
posted by blankdawn at 11:44 PM - 34 comments
Behavioral Economics for Kids [pdf] is a free ebook from the Ivey School of Business that illustrates (to adults, really) the basic principles of behavioral economics, including the
Endowment Effect (we value what we have more than what it is worth),
Hyperbolic Discounting (the time we wait for rewards influences value in non-linear ways),
the dishonesty of honest people, and
Base Rate Neglect (why we make bad assumptions based on inherent biases). Though the findings are well-established, the labeling is subject to change, as many social psychologists argue,
this is not behavioral economics, it is well-established psychology.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:13 PM - 28 comments
Electronic band Pigeon perform a
medley of DAFT PUNK tunes live in the studio using a microKORG, NORD lead 2x, KORG microsampler, Roland SPD-SX, T.C HELICON Voice Live Touch, Rocktron Banshee Talkbox, Bass, Gibson SG Guitar, Tambourine and a 3 piece horn section.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:38 PM - 23 comments
Long out of print,
"A Doonesbury Special." That is all.
posted by timsteil at 8:23 PM - 37 comments
"
Old Polymaths Never Die ...they just keep on publishing. Adrian Wooldridge explores the unstoppable legacies of
Isaiah Berlin and
Hugh Trevor-
Roper."
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:32 PM - 7 comments
Obscure Videogames presents obscure Japanese videogames as gorgeous animated gifs.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 6:53 PM - 5 comments
As you may know,
large areas are measured in Rhode Islands.
For example. Now a handy web site will tell you
how big countries are using this vital geographic method. Plus, you will learn some fun facts about Rhode Island.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:14 PM - 54 comments
"Rob Ford, Toronto's conservative mayor, is a wild lunatic given to making bizarre racist pronouncements and randomly slapping refrigerator magnets on cars.
One reason for this is that he smokes crack cocaine. I know this because I watched him do it, on a videotape. He was fucking hiiiiigh. It's for sale if you've got six figures." [single link Gawker]
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:39 PM - 336 comments
What's the point of teaching a man to fish, if someone else owns the river? Berkeley professor Ananya Roy narrates a hand-drawn video about who is profiting from poverty.
posted by spamandkimchi at 4:32 PM - 38 comments
19 people were shot at a New Orleans parade on Mother's Day, including 2 children. 3 are still in critical condition.
David Dennis asks: "So why am I allowed to go outside? Where's the city quarantine or FBI and Homeland Security presence for this act of 'terrorism'?"
[more inside]
posted by Starmie at 2:24 PM - 94 comments
The Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project is an amazing Tumblr with photos, quotations, film excerpts, and ephemera that accompanies a feature-length documentary, now in production, that "will highlight interviews with black lesbian elders in their 60s, 70s and 80s from across the United States and situate them in a range of black historical movements, spanning the decades between the 1930s and 1980s."
posted by liketitanic at 1:50 PM - 8 comments
We visited Weirdo Video back in 07 for propaganda films,
but the YouTube channel has been steadily updating with yesterday's ephemera. Why not enjoy some vintage newsreels about
STRIKES! SULTANS! SUEZ! SAN FRANSISCO! or some
FITNESS FADS!
posted by The Whelk at 1:50 PM - 2 comments
Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier It's macho to be a "dad" and do childcare, and cooking is for tough guys, but cleaning? That's still
women's work.
posted by DMelanogaster at 1:31 PM - 179 comments
Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts: From 1958-1973, composer and conductor
Leonard Bernstein (Previously on MeFi) played live, educational concerts with the New York Philharmonic that were televised nationwide on CBS. Tapes of the broadcasts were eventually syndicated to 40 countries, introducing an entire generation of children to a wide range musical concepts, styles and composers. The first concert to air was "
What Does Music Mean."
[more inside]
posted by zarq at 1:11 PM - 5 comments
The New Elitism of Internships "Now we have fresh evidence, straight from the highest halls of power, that the world of internships is a morally bankrupt free-for-all, a new glass ceiling in the making: the Tories have been auctioning them off at a recent fundraiser, as reported in the Mail on Sunday and called out by Jackie Ashley on Comment is Free. The Mail reported that prestigious internship positions in a range of industries (finance, hedge-fund work, fashion, media and so on) recently raised more than £20,000 for the Conservatives at the exclusive Black and White party."
[more inside]
posted by marienbad at 10:31 AM - 38 comments
The goal of
Red Letter Christians is simple: To take Jesus seriously by endeavoring to live out His radical, counter-cultural teachings as set forth in Scripture, and especially embracing the lifestyle prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount.
[more inside]
posted by No Robots at 9:27 AM - 221 comments
Spag's, started by Anthony "
Spag" Borgatti in
1934, and run by him until his death in 1996, was a pioneer in discount retail, and an
icon in Central Massachusetts. It will close its doors,
again, for good,
this Friday.
[more inside]
posted by dirtdirt at 8:22 AM - 72 comments
You're at a Broadway or off-Broadway show. Suddenly, a cell phone goes off, or the person next to you starts texting. If you're on stage, you could do what
Patti LuPone did at Gypsy. You could write an
open letter to the offender. Or,
you could do what Kevin Williamson did last night.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:56 AM - 429 comments
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