Dissertations on His Dudeness. (SLNYT) Descriptions of a new book of academic essays on The Big Lebowski such as: "“ ‘The Big Lebowski’ and Paul de Man: Historicizing Irony and Ironizing Historicism”
posted by grapefruitmoon on Dec 30, 2009 - 100 comments

Sick leave. In some countries it's taken for granted. In the USA it's controversial. A bill before congress would mandate 5 days of paid sick leave a year for businesses with over 15 employees. Some without sick leave are going to work sick. I'm sure you have never done this.
posted by Xurando on Dec 17, 2009 - 160 comments

The Year in Ideas from the New York Times Magazine.
posted by exogenous on Dec 10, 2009 - 13 comments

"Jesus Day" in Baghdad.
posted by ibmcginty on Dec 8, 2009 - 19 comments

Happy Thanksgiving, MetaFilter! If you have friends from different parts of the U.S., you might have wondered why they consider certain dishes to be an essential part of a Thanksgiving feast, when you've never even thought of them as remotely Thanksgiving-related. Now you can see what dishes were popular searches on allrecipes.com in various states thanks to a series of infographics in the New York Times.
posted by grouse on Nov 26, 2009 - 70 comments

“I think sometimes that being overly type-sensitive is like an allergy,” : The New York Times on the perils of being a font nerd.
posted by The Whelk on Nov 15, 2009 - 99 comments

"100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do": Rules 1-50. Rules 51-100. [more inside]
posted by Jaltcoh on Nov 5, 2009 - 361 comments

Does american football unavoidably lead to brain damage over time? Does a culture favoring perseverance at the expense of well being begin in high school?
posted by phrontist on Oct 13, 2009 - 96 comments

Nina Sankovitch is about to finish reading a book a day for a year. She not only reads them, she reviews them too. "You can’t go from ‘Little Bee,’ by Chris Cleave, which is about this young woman who witnesses torture and herself is a victim of abuse in Nigeria — a really great book, but you’re just crying or your stomach is clenched — to another book like it the next day,” she said. “If I read a book like that every day, I would have collapsed a long time ago.” Other 365 day projects have included this, this, and this.
posted by Xurando on Oct 13, 2009 - 133 comments

25 years ago today, Vicki Dunbar Nelson and Jean Hepner played the longest tournament rally in tennis history, lasting 29 minutes and 642 shots (SLNYT). [more inside]
posted by Lutoslawski on Sep 24, 2009 - 24 comments

An Iwo Jima Relic Binds Generations. (SLNYTTJ - single-link new york times tear-jerker.)
posted by alms on Sep 18, 2009 - 7 comments

The Self-Storage Self (NYT) [more inside]
posted by backseatpilot on Sep 9, 2009 - 61 comments

About three months after her son's birth, Ms. Roscoe asked to see a psychiatrist. She was given a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D. — a mental illness more often associated with surviving war, car accidents and assaults, but now being recognized in parents of premature infants in prolonged intensive care. (nyt)
posted by swift on Aug 25, 2009 - 19 comments

Three female US soldiers talk about their experiences in the military. (sound starts automatically) [more inside]
posted by gman on Aug 17, 2009 - 102 comments

In a new essay entitled Build the Wall, David Simon (who was a Baltimore Sun reporter before he produced The Wire) argues that if the larger newspaper industry is to survive, The New York Times and Washington Post must start charging readers for access to their websites (preferably done as a single action in concert with each other) — John Gruber, Dave Winer, and the folks at Gawker disagree, and Steven Berlin Johnson argues that while the future for newspapers might be quite bleak, the future for journalism and high quality analysis is actually quite bright. Meanwhile, the Times is currently doing market research to see if it's readers would be willing to pay $5 a month for online access, and the Associated Press announced it's intent to build a new news DRM system that will enable users to “consume, mash up and share AP content based on rights”.
posted by dyslexictraveler on Jul 24, 2009 - 128 comments

Why We Must Ration Health Care by Peter Singer.
posted by grouse on Jul 19, 2009 - 93 comments

Do you let your small children run around naked? "The sexual component of nudity — and a fear of pedophiles — is what makes some adults object entirely to letting children be naked. Jenny Louie said her husband is so uncomfortable when their 4-year-old daughter, Rebecca, is naked that, even if she is alone in her bedroom, in Los Angeles, he will immediately close her shutters."
posted by Xurando on Jul 16, 2009 - 190 comments

Tim Kreider muses on being judgmental and angry
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jul 15, 2009 - 41 comments

Yesterday was self government day in Greenland. The last step before complete independence from Denmark. They played the Greenland National Anthem.
posted by Xurando on Jun 21, 2009 - 15 comments

The 50 words that generate the most click-throughs to the dictionary from the New York Times. The Nieman Journalism Lab reveals the words that sent NYT readers running to the Merriam-Webster. Key fact: Maureen Dowd is overly fond of the word "louche." If the post is TL;DR for you, here's the list in Wordle.
posted by escabeche on Jun 15, 2009 - 132 comments

Parents can no longer support their hipster children's lifestyle. Oh, the humanity. I realize that schadenfreude is a particularly ignoble emotional response, but how am I expected to control myself after reading: [more inside]
posted by mojohand on Jun 8, 2009 - 238 comments

Crescendo in the West Bank : NYT video on the rise of classical music programs in The West Bank.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Jun 3, 2009 - 1 comment

[E]ven if you are unemployed you still receive a base amount of [vacation money] from the government, the reasoning being that if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job.
[...]
But does the cartoon image of [the Dutch system] — encapsulated in the dread slur "socialism," which is being lobbed in American political circles like a bomb — match reality? Is there, maybe, a significant upside that is worth exploring? [...] I think it’s worth pondering how the best bits might fit.

Some have questioned Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's neutrality in dealing with the elite of the financial community. Here's his calendar [150MB pdf] for the last two years. You decide.
posted by Xurando on Apr 27, 2009 - 32 comments

The Pulitzer (and Polk)-winning investigation (1,2) that dare not be uttered on TV. (previously)
posted by AceRock on Apr 23, 2009 - 57 comments

Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory : spotless minds might be closer than we think.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Apr 16, 2009 - 20 comments

NYT Guesstimation Quiz. Enrico Fermi estimated the yield of the Trinity A-bomb test by dropping some shredded paper. He also asked his students to estimate unusual quantities like the number of piano tuners in Chicago - to show that just about anything can be estimated without detailed knowledge.
posted by Electric Dragon on Apr 1, 2009 - 54 comments

To Sleep Perchance to Dream : an exhibition of 17th century sleep-related paraphernalia at the Folger Shakespeare Library offers insight into attitudes towards sleep and dreams. Insomnia? Try eating some lettuce.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Mar 29, 2009 - 2 comments

Today marks the launch of the Tata Nano. Some see this car as the next Ipod. Some have grave environmental concerns. (previously)
posted by Xurando on Mar 23, 2009 - 63 comments

It's Spring And It's Mountain Oyster Time Probably NSFW
posted by Xurando on Mar 19, 2009 - 36 comments

Ross Douthat, senior editor of The Atlantic and co-author of Grand New Party [nyt review], has been chosen as a new opinion columnist for the New York Times, replacing William Kristol and joining David Brooks as one of the paper's conservative voices.
posted by billysumday on Mar 11, 2009 - 45 comments

We've very much enjoyed the beautiful work of the NYT graphic and infovisual design staff before, but what about when those glorious graphs and interactive adventures don't turn out as expected? Still pretty neat.
posted by carsonb on Mar 11, 2009 - 17 comments

Snark - A Polemic in Seven Fits
posted by nevercalm on Feb 22, 2009 - 17 comments

Is the police blotter dying? Not so. In other parts of the world, the blotters are a little weird and violent. (nsfw)
posted by Xurando on Feb 19, 2009 - 36 comments

Journalism may be going through a painful period but thanks to the web the once lowly information graphic is finally growing up to be all it never could on paper. Especially the New York Times seems to currently stand out in how frequently and quickly they build amazingly detailed and insightful interactive features. Consider the tracking of US Airways Flight 1549 or the piece on raising its engine from the Hudson. Other recent highlights: 9,955,441 parking tickets issues in NYC mapped by street, The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts 1986 — 2008, Ansel Adams's Yosemite, the view from the 10-meter platform explained, A look at the language of presidential inaugural addresses 1789 to the Present, A Map of the number of medals that countries won in summer Olympic Games, Going to the End of the Line, The 44 Places to go in 2009, an explanation of how the Pentagon responded to criticism of then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, The Soyuz Spacecraft, How the Towers Stood and Fell and many, many, more. [more inside]
posted by krautland on Feb 14, 2009 - 16 comments

Yet another study says the middle class are fleeing New York City. What happened to the previous studies and solutions? Bloomberg to Middle Class, "Get Out."
posted by Xurando on Feb 6, 2009 - 78 comments

Getting married soon? Consider having an iPod wedding. Some things can go wrong. DJ's fight back.
posted by Xurando on Jan 8, 2009 - 118 comments

The Provigil Debate Continues On. Previously
posted by Xurando on Dec 27, 2008 - 53 comments

We should have known it was inevitable. Your local newspaper being written in India. Get ready for the outsourcing of journalism. Maureen Dowd doesn't like it.
posted by Xurando on Nov 30, 2008 - 57 comments

Come And Visit The Garden Of Earthly Delights
posted by Xurando on Nov 20, 2008 - 12 comments

David Fishman, 12-year-old food critic, takes himself out to dinner.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Nov 17, 2008 - 90 comments

Phil Gramm is unrepentent. "Mr. Gramm said the problem of predatory loans was not of the banks’ making. Instead, he faulted “predatory borrowers". "Mr. Gramm, ever the economics professor, disputes his critics’ analysis of the causes of the upheaval. He asserts that swaps, by enabling companies to insure themselves against defaults, have diminished, not increased, the effects of the declining housing markets." “This is part of this myth of deregulation,” he said in the interview. “By and large, credit-default swaps have distributed the risks. They didn’t create it. The only reason people have focused on them is that some politicians don’t know a credit-default swap from a turnip.”
posted by Xurando on Nov 17, 2008 - 69 comments

"...For his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity," the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics has been awarded to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Oct 13, 2008 - 94 comments

The New York Times reports that tens of thousands of voters from swing states have been illegally purged from voter registration lists using social security numbers. Unsure whether your vote will count? Check here.
posted by Xurando on Oct 9, 2008 - 71 comments

Have you tried MUni yet? It's the latest rage in adventure sports.
posted by Xurando on Jul 27, 2008 - 39 comments

The NYT has a new blog on aging and eldercare. Thanks to the marvels of medical science, our parents are living longer than ever before.The Gray Lady has started a blog catering to the sandwich generation, with topics, so far, ranging from when to take the car keys to personal accounts of eldercare crises. The 290 comments on this post in particular are eye opening and heartbreaking.
posted by mygothlaundry on Jul 11, 2008 - 20 comments

Via The Friendly Atheist and the New York Times, this blog post and this article explain two instances of a very, very unsettling new phenomenon. [more inside]
posted by kldickson on Jun 17, 2008 - 93 comments

Gore Vidal on The New York Times Magazine. On McCain: "Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?". On WFB's death: "I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred". [more inside]
posted by falameufilho on Jun 15, 2008 - 118 comments

Ever wonder about the sign language used amongst stock market traders? Wonder no more, with this handy visual guide (NYT link) to the hand signals used by traders on the floor.
posted by zardoz on Apr 7, 2008 - 22 comments

Ever have a job working for a record label on a street crew. And yer puttin up publicity posters on lightpoles for an artist like Rocko and some asshole won't stop takin yer picture. Whadda you do then? Break his friggin camera.
posted by Xurando on Mar 24, 2008 - 79 comments