Why Africa is leaving Europe behind: Africans are relishing something of a reversal in roles. The former colonial powers in Europe are wrestling with debt crises, austerity budgets, rising unemployment and social turmoil. By contrast much of sub-Saharan Africa can point to robust growth, better balanced books and rising capital inflows. There is an opportunity in this novel scenario: for Africa to assert itself on the global stage, and for European countries to take advantage of their historic footprint in Africa by stimulating commercial expansion to their south. But it is far from clear either side will grasp it. Recently.
posted by infini
on Aug 21, 2011 -
27 comments
January 1,
1985: Earfuls of earrings out, armful of bangles in.
January 1,
1993: Pellegrino out, Crystal Pepsi in
January 1,
2004: Viagra out, Levitra in
(MetaFilter previously in)
January 1,
2011: Trolling out, Hacktivism in.
The List: a middlebrow, Beltway elite, mildly insufferable, perennially baffling Washington Post tradition since
1978 (Concave chests out, bosoms in)
posted by silby
on Jan 1, 2011 -
52 comments
A web debate on cursing in private, public and online , part of a series of multiple perspective posts on the NYT called
Room for Debate, has several experts, including Georgetown U. Professor and author of
You just don't understand,
Deborah Tanner, yet no one mentions
George Carlin and his take on the seven words you can't say. Some
claim we've always cursed, while others
claim we curse on the web about as much as we do in real life and
there is data people, on average, swear .3% to .7% of the time and frequency per person has more to do with personality than class.
posted by Berkun
on Apr 13, 2010 -
118 comments
Wikirank is an analytical tool that measures the popularity of trending topics on wikipedia. You can compare up to four topics and generate nifty embeddable graphs.
posted by peacay
on Mar 26, 2009 -
9 comments
NewsFilterFilter:
What Kind Of News Do People Really Want? A recent
study by the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press analyzes 165 separate surveys of Americans' news preferences (conducted over a period of 20 years). One of the findings would have been obvious to most Mefites:
"Polarizing social issues involving family, sexuality, patriotism and God engender the highest levels of attention." Crime, health and politics have consistently received mid-level attention. Tabloid and entertainment news (Paris and Britney, this means you), science and technology, and "foreign" news? Meh, not so much.
posted by amyms
on Sep 4, 2007 -
47 comments
Pizza in Three Dimensions "Every few years, a product comes along that
completely changes its category. As the iPod has revolutionized the way people interact with music; as cell phones and wireless internet access has altered the way they communicate, so, too, will the way they approach eating change with the introduction of Pizzacono, the first dramatically new way to consume pizza in recent memory."
posted by sportbucket
on Nov 3, 2006 -
93 comments
Meal Assembly ... a new trend in figuring out what's for dinner. You go to a professional kitchen and assemble any number of meals, then bring them home and freeze them. Like a salad bar, but more diverse. They provide all the ingredients and the basic recipes, and cut out the shopping, the leftover ingredients ... (and maybe the creativity?). The upside is low cost (as low as $3 a portion), and better portion control. Coming soon to a suburb near you.
posted by crunchland
on Sep 6, 2006 -
128 comments
Emory University study describes the Millenial Generation An interesting comparison of Gen Xers and the so-called Millenial Generation, born since 1982, from Emory University. The M.Gen kids apparently want to do good, as long as there is a clear structure and leadership that tells them how and what to do . . . oh, and don't question the leaders. Really. Why would you?
posted by pt68
on Mar 2, 2006 -
67 comments
In the "debate" over the War on Drugs, there's a lack of nice quantitative data presentation in one place.
Brian C Bennett aims to rectify
that. From
trends in alcohol initiation relative to legal age limits, to
investigation of the
deaths classified by CDC as marijuana-induced. There are lots of charts, as for
cocaine purity over the years, or treatment
admissions, or
arrest trends. The site map is your
quick guide to the 2000 charts & articles.
posted by daksya
on Feb 27, 2006 -
18 comments
Greenlighters are an emerging underground movement of sexually promiscuous teenagers, including bisexual, homosexual, and heterosexual members. Members of this movement wear a green polo shirt with the collar up, indicating that they are open to pretty much any sexual adventure. When someone comes up to them and puts the collar down, they are "collared" and will go with that person and do whatever sexual act they ask. Transfer of money is not usually involved. Some parent groups are starting to get involved - urging parents to go through their kids clothes and confiscate green shirts and polos. Supposedly this has been going on since mid-2004 and may be related to the "chavs" in Britain somehow.
posted by Maxor
on Jul 2, 2005 -
116 comments
Sails to harness Vox Populi winds :
"Technology is changing politics" [ not to mention journalism ] intones the
well connected
Personal Democracy Forum, and everybody's leaping into the
"Blogging vs. Journalism" fray.
Dan Gillmor, author of
We the Media, has quit his job after receiving
seed money from Mitch Kapor and from Omidyar Networks, to found the for-profit "Grassroots Media Inc." : Gillmor's got a hand, as well, in the noble and
name studded OurMedia.org :
"We'll host your media forever — for free.....Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads"
Meanwhile, SusanG - in her most recent
recently released investigative piece into the Jeff Gannon/fake journalism scandal notes her research group's effort "now encompasses so much more than Gannon" and announces future stories will post under the organizational name of
ePluribus Media "We're the People ! No you're not, we're the People ! No way ! We're the...."
posted by troutfishing
on Mar 28, 2005 -
110 comments
Trendwatching. "Vast groups of immigrants now
travel back and forth between their old and new homelands", "the fast growing
class of products and services that cater to consumers' need for simplicity",
"no-frills chic", "light
versions of countries or societies, stripped of annoying 'features' like crime, bad weather and excessive taxes", "the
obsession of ordinary citizens wanting to leave ‘something’ behind in print, audio or imagery",
online access everywhere, the
C Generation (where C means 'Content' - and that's not a reference to how they feel).
posted by iffley
on Aug 19, 2004 -
9 comments
Mutual Funds -
Out, Google's IPO -
In. Letting Your Boyfriend Videotape It -
Out, Letting A Major Network Videotape It -
In. Segway -
Out, Honda Ruckus -
In. A sampling from the Washington Post's
List for 2004...
posted by bluedaniel
on Jan 2, 2004 -
21 comments
At least they ask before they track your web usage. We're all familiar with Neilsen ratings and how a few select families get to decide when 20/20 will finally end. I guess it was only a matter of time before they came sniffing around looking to track popular websites. People who sign up get gifts, prizes and free technical support - at least that's the deal for
Canadians.
posted by Salmonberry
on Apr 1, 2002 -
4 comments
Google Zeitgeist charts the popularity of certain search queries on Google
(via Slashdot). Of course, it'd be more interesting to track your own keywords, and
you can. I stumbled across this partially hidden Google feature last night.
(More inside...)
posted by waxpancake
on Jul 6, 2001 -
23 comments
U.S. reports steepest annual violent crime drop Incidents of violent crime plummeted nearly 15 percent in 2000, the steepest one-year drop since the federal government began keeping track in 1973. Last year's data continue a trend that began early in the last decade. From 1993 through 2000, rapes dropped 60 percent, aggravated assaults fell 52.5 percent and motor vehicle theft dropped 52.4 percent.
posted by frednorman
on Jun 13, 2001 -
32 comments
Boingy boingy boingy. Has anyone had any experience with these? The movies on the website look pretty cool.. and it would seem that doctoring those videos up would take some considerable effort, so I'm guessing it's not a hoax?
posted by PWA_BadBoy
on Apr 9, 2001 -
22 comments
Oh Mullet! As if the mullet was restricted to just rednecks from Virginia or something...the mullet is worldwide baby.
posted by j.toronado
on Jan 17, 2001 -
3 comments
