Recently, Fmr. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked some pointed torture questions by two Stanford students after an informal reception in a dorm building (transcript). Did she unwittingly confess to a role in a criminal conspiracy? Signs point to yes. [more inside]
posted by Hat Maui on May 4, 2009 - 89 comments

The Dark Knight - On Sir Allen Stanford
posted by Gyan on Apr 29, 2009 - 9 comments

Academic Earth collects lectures on a wide variety of subjects from UC Berkely, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale that the universities have released under Creative Commons. The site is still in beta so it doesn't quite have the thousands of lectures its frontpage promises. It has many full courses, for example Benjamin Polak teaching game theory, Amy Hungerford on the American novel since 1945, Charles Bailyn's introduction to astrophysics, John Merriman on the history of France since 1871, Shelly Kagan on death and Oussama Khatib's introduction to robotics.
posted by Kattullus on Feb 4, 2009 - 10 comments

Medpedia is coming. "In association with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other leading global health organizations, the Medpedia community seeks to create the most comprehensive and collaborative medical resource in the world." Apply to contribute content. [more inside]
posted by cashman on Jul 25, 2008 - 25 comments

Shake Girl, a collaborative project by students in the Stanford Graphic Novel Project. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha on May 9, 2008 - 12 comments

VectorMagic is a new site that uses technology from the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to transform your bitmap images into vector art that can be scaled without becoming blurry of pixelated. Here's the first image I submitted, before and after.
posted by Turtles all the way down on Oct 29, 2007 - 36 comments

Fifty years ago, I suspect that along with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax, most Americans could have named, at the very least, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O'Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Not to mention scientists and thinkers like Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, Margaret Mead, and especially Dr. Alfred Kinsey.

The prepared text of the speech delivered by Dana Gioia at Stanford University Commencement on June 17, 2007.
posted by cgc373 on Jun 26, 2007 - 153 comments

“I wanted to try to capture the intelligence of the design, not just the outcome of the design.” “In 1977, [Donald] Knuth halted research on his books for what he expected to be a one-year hiatus. Instead, it took 10. Accompanied by [his wife] Jill, Knuth took design classes from Stanford art professor Matthew Kahn. Knuth, trying to train his programmer’s brain to think like an artist’s, wanted to create a program [TeX] that would understand why each stroke in a typeface would be pleasing to the eye.”—from a profile of Knuth in the Stanford Magazine (May '06). Salon calls him “computing’s philosopher king” (Sep '99). NPR’s Morning Edition interviews Knuth as “the founding artist of computer science” (Mar '05). Perhaps a MeFite somewhere has one of these? (Previously)
posted by Ethereal Bligh on Apr 23, 2007 - 40 comments

Researchers are exploring the idea of scrapping the Internet and starting over with a Clean Slate. Stanford researchers say the 'Net could be a whole lot better, if it were rebuilt from the ground-up. They say that their research complements that of the National Science Foundation's Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) effort to build a better network research platform, as well as the Future Internet Network Design (FIND) program for developing new Internet architectures.
posted by ericb on Apr 14, 2007 - 68 comments

Retiring psychology professor Philip G. Zimbardo, who ran the Stanford Prison Experiment, gave his final lecture at Stanford this week, criticizing the Bush administration and saying that senior government officials responsible for Abu Ghraib should be "tried for the crimes against humanity." [Via MindHacks.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 9, 2007 - 38 comments

Convicted as an ecoterrorist, a brilliant young scholar nose-dives in prison. An article on Billy Cottrell, a physics genius with Asperger's Syndrome who was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for his role in destroying $5 million worth of SUVs. His case was previously discussed here. [Via BB.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 2, 2007 - 204 comments

The Philosophy Podcast seems to be a podcast where great philosophical works are read aloud. Unfortunately you need to pay for the full works, but the bits are fun. For something a little more contemporary, check out Philosophy Talk, hosted by Ken Taylor and one of the funniest contemporary analytic philosophers: John Perry. In particular, check out Perry's light essays in which the power of procrastination can be harnessed (and apparently now put on t-shirts), an ideal desk is a giant lazy susan, and connections are drawn between golf and suffering.
posted by ontic on Feb 27, 2007 - 8 comments

If you've ever thought that music can be an extremely intuitive and effective way to communicate things, then Stanford Professor Jonathan Berger (samples of his music) is doing some research that might interest you. (via)
posted by wander on Feb 6, 2007 - 8 comments

Blu-ray discs, video games, and a cure for cancer... Too bad PS3 owners are a bunch of "know-not" idiots... More here and here.
posted by disgustipated on Nov 24, 2006 - 21 comments

Studying obedience and conformity: The Stanford Prison Experiment has been discussed many times before (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and has been made into a number of movies. Now you can watch the incredible review film made by the experimenter, with extensive documentary footage, post-experiment interviews and commentary: The Stanford Prison Experiment. [google video, 50 mins]
posted by MetaMonkey on Sep 14, 2006 - 27 comments

Mass. school punishes students with electric shocks "They can be shocked for behaviors including ’failure to maintain a neat appearance’, ‘stopping work for more than 10 seconds’, ‘interrupting others’, ‘nagging’, ‘whispering and/or moving conversation away from staff’, ‘slouch in chair’ ' I have spoke before of American Enantiodromia. Further, Thomas Moore wrote in Dark Eros: The Imagination of Sadism , that in any culture that does not acknowledge it's skeletons, --it's sins, if you will-- will have that imagination played out in real life.

The ways of Sade are not limited to bedroom and scenes of bondage or porno theaters or forbidden books. Any aspect of culture, from the great to the small, insofar as it is engaged in issues of power has therefore Sadean qualities. Furthermore, since life is never perfect, every aspect of culture will know the split of power into torture and suffering, dominance and submission, or sentimentality and cruelty.

I wont editorialize anymore than I have, but I can't help but wonder, When did psychological abuse become entertainment? or has it always been thus? Also see: N.Y. report denounces shock use at school. I look forward to your Parallax View.
posted by Unregistered User on Jun 17, 2006 - 33 comments

The exhaustive and extensively annotated Columbia University Computing History, from Brunsviga calculators to NORC to the IBM 7090 and beyond. Also, take the virtual tour of the Computer History Exhibits at Stanford's Gates Computer Science building, including stops at the Apollo Guidance Computer (DIY) and the mechanical calculators exhibit.
posted by milquetoast on Jan 25, 2006 - 5 comments

Discovering Sherlock Holmes. From January through April 2006, Stanford University will be republishing a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, "just as they were originally printed and illustrated in The Strand Magazine." (These pages have images of some of the original covers.) You can subscribe to receive paper facsimiles of the original magazine by mail or be notified when the PDFs are published online. The project is a followup to their Discovering Dickens project, which republished Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and Hard Times. [via MonkeyFilter]
posted by kirkaracha on Nov 20, 2005 - 19 comments

New milestone in digital photography: The ability to refocus a picture after it has been taken. Gallery and technical data.
posted by iamck on Nov 18, 2005 - 80 comments

Stanford iTunes is a service from Stanford University that allows the public access to free speeches, lectures, forums, and more via iTunes. Want more academic audio content? Check out the University Channel at Princeton or the Havens Center at UW-Madison.
posted by trey on Oct 21, 2005 - 38 comments

Bridging the rift. A joint Israeli/Jordanian biological research centre straddling the border between the two nations is set to become operational in the near future. Scientists from Cornell and Stanford are involved as well. See what it'll look like (big PDF), and learn why studies of biosalinity and other forms of extreme biology are important.
posted by greatgefilte on Mar 4, 2005 - 9 comments

Metahistory. A system of demystification of histories, historians, journalism, and journalists who claim to present things "as they are", while providing some brilliant methods for determining in what ways a given account lacks "complete objectivity" and how it can be seen as ultimately ideological.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 15, 2005 - 57 comments

Hunting the Stanford University Lion Stanford University is now debating whether to send hunters into the hills surrounding campus to kill a mountain lion that may have mauled two horses pastured on university land. ................ ................STATE HUNTING REGULATIONS: Create mourning dove season for Minnesota Thirty-nine states allow hunters to take the most popular game bird in the nation, with Michigan set to become No. 40. .................... ................Cult Land Not for Hunting The polygamist cult that bought 1,300 acres of land near San Angelo will not be using it as hunting retreat after all.
posted by mcgraw on May 4, 2004 - 18 comments

Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls.
posted by hama7 on Dec 6, 2003 - 7 comments

John Elway gets the ball to the 18-yard line. Mark Harmon (not that Mark Harmon...) kicks the field goal to bring his team one point ahead with 4 seconds left on the clock. Kevin Moen catches the ball on the return kick, laterals to Richard Rodgers, who laterals to Dwight Garner. Garner laterals back to Rogers who then shovels the ball to Mariet Ford. Ford then passes back to Moen, who finishes what he started by tackling trombonist Gary Tyrrell in the end zone. So ends the 1982 "Big Game" between UC Berkeley and Stanford. So begins the legend of the weirdest play in the history of college football, complete with audio (wav file).
posted by jonp72 on Nov 20, 2003 - 22 comments

Now class, please turn in your (meta)homework Several classes at Stanford have started relying on multimedia-intensive collaborative websites. A quick browse through the gallery and you will find classes that either rely on blogging or run entirely "wiki style" . While it seems thrilling to see students stimulate and build ideas off one another, will this concept ever filter down to your average high school class? It seems that the whole principle of wiki comes at odds to traditional conventions of authorship. Surprisingly, in this course, students can choose the option of being assessed solely on their experimental participation on the wiki site. When classwork consists of students adding and changing each other's comments, how would you grade each student individually? (By the way, there are a lot of pretty pictures in the gallery.)
posted by alex3005 on Oct 21, 2003 - 12 comments

Albumen photographs: history, science, preservation and gallery.
posted by hama7 on Feb 6, 2003 - 11 comments

Stanford Web Credibility “Our goal is to understand what leads people to believe what they find on the Web. We hope this knowledge will enhance Web site design and promote future research on Web credibility.” A project of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, who offer ten guidelines for a web site’s credibility.
posted by raaka on Nov 18, 2002 - 12 comments

So, I saw an interesting film this weekend. Here's a great site about the experiment on which it was based. Here's another equally disturbing experiment. Or you can just have fun running some psychological test on yourself. But, at the end of the day, who are we? Of what are we capable?
posted by pjgulliver on Oct 14, 2002 - 15 comments

Stanford links genius and manic depression... I feel SO much better now... (via FARK)
posted by Samizdata on May 23, 2002 - 7 comments

the BBC recreates the stanford prison experiment. First episode is being aired now, (slightly late post, sorry 'bout that). The original experiment was discussed on mefi here.
posted by fvw on May 14, 2002 - 10 comments

Squirrels Invade Stanford!!!!! Ahhh Nuts.
Quote: The campus squirrels have apparently taken to bizarre suicidal death leaps into the path of oncoming student bikers. "It's really hard to even ride your bike on campus," said Katie Founds. "They're always leaping in front of you."
"They got into one of the residences, and they started typing on the keyboard," Shen said. "They ran over the person's laptop keyboard. They actually somehow renamed the person's hard drive."
posted by lheiskell on Apr 26, 2002 - 38 comments

Roboflies. Microbugs. Mesicopters. No need for a missile defense shield after all. The future of military defese technology lies with MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, and the US Defense Department. Gives new meaning to the word entomophobia.
posted by Voyageman on Dec 12, 2001 - 6 comments

Your eyes never stop moving. Even though we are rarely aware of them, our eye movements are incredibly complex. They are also very informative. Eye movement data is being used to study painters painting, art lovers loving art, drivers driving, musicians sight reading, and speakers speaking, not to mention the cognitive science staples of reading and scene viewing. One interesting application of eye movement data is the Eyetrack2000 project, which attempts to describe the eye movement behavior of people viewing news websites in order to improve web page design. Some of the findings suggest that the internet and print media are different in important ways: on the web, text is fixated before pictures; in print, pictures are fixated first.
posted by iceberg273 on Oct 24, 2001 - 10 comments

Stanford's distributed client isn't looking for extraterrestrial life. Instead it's trying to find out how proteins fold, which "is a holy grail of modern molecular biophysics," through computer simulations.
posted by hobbes on Nov 6, 2000 - 0 comments

Stanford, MIT, Duke, and UNC refuse to block Napster. Wahoo! Go Stanford!
posted by hobbes on Sep 22, 2000 - 4 comments

Readers prefer text over graphics. In much more scientific news a new study by Stanford University indicates that visitors to your website are significantly more likely to read the text on your website (92%) than look at your photos (64%). What do you think? Will this change the way you design your site?
posted by shmuel on May 8, 2000 - 4 comments

We're not a bunch of internet-loners! We're vindicated - new study shows that people who become reclusives though using the internet are in a minority.
posted by tomcosgrave on Feb 18, 2000 - 1 comment