"Bishop contends that as Americans have moved over the past three decades, they have clustered in communities of sameness, among people with similar ways of life, beliefs, and in the end, politics. There are endless variations of this clustering—what Bishop dubs the Big Sort—as like-minded Americans self-segregate in states, cities—even neighborhoods. Consequences of the Big Sort are dire: balkanized communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible; a growing intolerance for political differences that has made national consensus impossible; and politics so polarized that Congress is stymied and elections are no longer just contests over policies, but bitter choices between ways of life. " Article about the book from the Economist. Book's Website. A review.
posted on Jun 22, 2008 - View this thread

A founding father of DIY indie rock, Will Rigby recounts the pilgrimages to locate underground rock legends Alex Chilton, (during his wry Americana deconstructo anarchy phase), and the 'McCartney' to Chilton's Big Star 'Lennon', the Brydsian Chris Bell. Blogs on bands may not seem to rate but cats with these sensibilities, unlike today, seemed incredibly uncommon then . Also mentioned, the Dbs, Little Diesel, and Mitch Easter. Free Mp3s of the rare 45s included.
posted on May 2, 2008 - View this thread

NEC plans to market a system later this year that can derive someone's gender and age from images captured with a camera "The system compares the photo against a database of several thousand faces to figure gender and age based on such factors as facial shape and wrinkles. " According to Nikkei Weekly 01/28/2008 Edition. Link goes to Ubergizmo. "It's called FieldAnalyst and it's from NEC. The system homes in on faces of people who pass by the video camera. It then rapidly compares the image against samples in a database. It then spits out what it believes is your approximate age is and your gender." .."NEC scientists may next try to add clothing as a characteristic and classify people by whether they wear a suit or a T-shirt." more here
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - View this thread

4 Artists Paint 1 Tree, a segment from Disneyland included on the recent DVD release of Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty, features the artistic process of one of my favorite painters and cartoon modernists, Eyvind Earle. If you've seen Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, Paul Bunyan or Peter Pan, you're familiar with the fantastical and brilliant landscapes he produces. His paintings show a particular fondness for Big Sur and Central California.
posted on Dec 10, 2007 - View this thread

World's Largest Things including the world's largest collection of the world's smallest versions of the world's largest things, in a mobile museum. Seen previously, but much expanded -- now on Flickr, blogspot, lomohome, and friendable on MySpace. I found it while trying to look up this ball of postage stamps.
posted on Oct 16, 2007 - View this thread

Comically Large Things is a blog about things that are so dang big you could fit everything at Smallist [previously] in any given entry. For example: nose! [via Projects and our own jbickers]
posted on Aug 10, 2007 - View this thread

B I G C O U N T R Y
posted on Jul 30, 2007 - View this thread

When it came to Boss Radio, no station was more in charge than The Big 8 - CKLW. Thanks to a 50,000 watt transmitter, the Windsor, Ontario, station could be heard in four Canadian provinces and 28 U.S. states. CKLW had one of the first female program directors in the business. And even though Cancon requirements were blamed for the station's demise, it was that law that introduced many Americans to Canadian musicians that might otherwise not have gotten such U.S. exposure.
posted on May 10, 2007 - View this thread

Why we should not make mean log of wealth big though years to act are long (.pdf) by Paul Samuelson. (via)
posted on Mar 13, 2007 - View this thread

China is taking steps to curb Internet addiction. This isn't the first time they have moved to regulate use. Are you addicted?
posted on Mar 12, 2007 - View this thread

What is Web 2.0? [PDF] The best description of Web 2.0 that I have read. The six big ideas... 1 Individual production and User Generated Content 2 Harness the power of the crowd 3 Data on an epic scale 4 Architecture of Participation 5 Network Effects 6 Openness
posted on Mar 8, 2007 - View this thread

According to this site

• More than 700 Trillion BEEDIES or BIRI are smoked annually
• Indians smoke more than one trillion bidis every year.
• An experienced worker can roll 2,000 a day.

Step inside and learn more about these unrealistic stats!
posted on Nov 24, 2006 - View this thread

Little Superstar. YouTube, but also Bollywood. So it's got an international appeal. Via: First Rule.
posted on Sep 27, 2006 - View this thread

Lots of people are not happy with Bechtel Engineering, the giant-sized general contractor and designer of The Big Dig, who are also in trouble for problems with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal plant. How many nuclear generating stations did Bechtel build?
posted on Jul 19, 2006 - View this thread

Imagining the Tenth Dimension (Flash). 10th dimensional physics and string theory don't get any easier than this.
posted on Jul 4, 2006 - View this thread

This page is 9 quadrillion pixels wide by 9 quadrillion pixels tall.
posted on Jun 22, 2006 - View this thread

Supertankers are so cool. Click previous sentence for more information.
posted on Apr 29, 2006 - View this thread

Remember that Shining trailer from a few weeks back? Now they've done it with Big. (embedded WMV)
posted on Dec 1, 2005 - View this thread

ASmallWorld is a very exclusive world, where participants seek advice on where to charter a private jet for a single person and use 'summer' as a verb. This invite-only website for the well-connected, famous, or just stinking rich has an alternate however. When an aSmallWorld member is no longer welcome, they are unceremoniously dumped to a less restricted set of forums called aBigWorld. I don't expect to get an invite anytime soon, so I can't tell you of their Illuminati-like plans to keep their lofty power. (via1, via2)
posted on Aug 12, 2005 - View this thread

Cleveland bloggers are organizing against a giant suburban-style shopping plaza called Steelyard Commons (to be built on the site of the city's historic steel factories), which will include an immense Wal-Mart at its core. After City Council passed legislation in February to prevent Wal-Mart from adding a grocery store (causing the Bensonville bullies to "pull out" and scuttle the project), the developer was aided and abetted behind closed doors by Cleveland's mayor, Queen Jane. Despite the mayor's proclamation of "no public money" or tax abatements for the project, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary.
posted on May 20, 2005 - View this thread

Remember small scissors? Big scissors! Remember small chocolate? Big chocolate! Small clipboards? Pfaff... Big clipboards! ... such is life at Great Big Stuff (thanks John)
posted on Jun 25, 2004 - View this thread

Where can one find the world's largest loon? The world's largest smoking pipe (fully smokeable, no less?) The world's largest pierogi? These and much more oversized fiberglass statuary can be found at the World's Largest Roadside Attractions site and the related site Big Things: The Monuments of Canada. Inspired by this thread.
posted on Jun 15, 2003 - View this thread

Giant lava lamp to save town. Theme structures built for cities throughout the world are constructed to draw attention and tourists. As someone said, “never underestimate the power of awe.” Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Seattle has the Space Needle and Soap Lake has the worlds largest Lava Lamp! Give them credit for dreaming...
posted on Jan 14, 2003 - View this thread

Who Killed Tupac Shakur? More importantly, does the L.A. Times run the risk of re-igniting an east-coast/west-coast rap "war" by implicating a certain notorious indivdual in a feud that was virtually nonexistent until the media hyped it up the first time around?
posted on Sep 6, 2002 - View this thread

"Interests - Own navel." (aka "When Web Templates Go Live"> Looks like one of the original participants for Big Brother 2 pulled out at short notice.... (oops, slapped hands, web designers.)
posted on May 29, 2001 - View this thread

LA Cop shot Notorious B.I.G.?! While I hope justice will be served, I can only pray that this does not come to be the case. LA is already spooked about the police force. This could start another riot.

Just another day in Southern California. Sigh.
posted on Oct 16, 2000 - View this thread