January 25, 2010
Mateusz Skutnik's beautiful games
Misery, meet company...grad school style
Is grad school driving you insane? Bask in the shared misery of more than two years' worth of comments from fellow burnouts at the end of this blog post. [more inside]
Bodyrock the Casbah.
The Ultimate Battle
Ultimate Battle: The Snuggie vs. Slanket vs. Freedom Blanket vs. Blankoat Ever wonder which one you truly need to blow your money on? Such a tough choice but this article will make it easier.
World Government Data
Governments around the globe are opening up their data vaults allowing us to check out the numbers for ourselves. This is the Guardian’s gateway to that information. Search for government data here from the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand — and look out for new countries and places as they are added. Read more about this on the Datablog. [more inside]
The Antlers, a band
Two free EPs from the cerebral, Neutral Milk Hotel inspired band The Antlers: (links go to .zip files, sorry) Cold War and New York Hospitals. For the uninitiated, here is the video of the song Two from the band's break out album Hospice. [more inside]
Health starts here?
On the heels of Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey’s op-ed about health care reform (previously, previously) comes the Team Member Healthy Discount Incentive Program, in which the employee discount will be increased from 20% to 30% for those who meet criteria for body mass index (BMI), nicotine use, blood pressure, and cholesterol. [more inside]
Bankrupt on Selling
Tishman Speyer Properties is defaulting on its $5.4 billion, high profile acquisition of the enormous Stuyvesant Town apartment complex in Manhattan, resulting in million in losses for investors and possibly "signaling the beginning of what is expected to be a wave of commercial-property failures".
The failure is the result of an aggressive business model designed to "push moderate income tenants out and replace them with well-heeled renters willing to pay rents at a much higher price" a practice referred to as Predatory Equity. [more inside]
Take Me Back to Constantinople by Edward Luttwak
Economic crisis, mounting national debt, excessive foreign commitments -- this is no way to run an empire. America needs serious strategic counseling. And fast. It has never been Rome, and to adopt its strategies no -- its ruthless expansion of empire, domination of foreign peoples, and bone-crushing brand of total war -- would only hasten America's decline. Better instead to look to the empire's eastern incarnation: Byzantium, which outlasted its Roman predecessor by eight centuries. It is the lessons of Byzantine grand strategy that America must rediscover today.
There's fascism and then there's fascism
The New York Times magazine in depth look at the rise and fall of Charles Johnson as an icon of the right wing blogosphere. (SLNYT) Previously on Metafilter.
Sleepwalking into Oblivion
A Guide to Using Semicolons Properly; Also, Further Links to Semicolon Related Material on the Inside.
Just the picture of health
This is an unoffical home for public domain photographs from the National Museum of Health & Medicine. View the stream, or visit its well-structuresd category catalog. [possibly NSFW in places] [more inside]
Shhhhh!
Dolphins doing donuts on the front lawn
Dolphins are so smart that they can convince fish to leap out of the water and into their mouths. (slyt)
It's gotta be better than Charlie's Angels
Cracking the PS3
George Hotz started a blog chronicling his journey to a software-only PS3 crack. Despite tackling a platform that has held strong for three years, Hotz claimed to have gained read/write access to all system memory after five weeks. Although the PS3 actually ships with Linux support, these cracks circumvent the hypervisor that place strict restrictions on low-level hardware access. You may know Hotz as the geohot who released first hardware iPhone jailbreak, added a software-only jailbreak for all iPhones and iPod Touches, and won multiple awards (pdf) at ISEF 2007 for building a working holographic display system while a senior in high school.
The Art of the Famewhore
Performance artist goes on VH1 realty show Frank the Entertainer intending to maintain her character (warning: sound plays upon loading), but finds that having cameras in your face 24/7 isn't so easy. [more inside]
Don't drink the (extremely diluted) Kool-Aid!
Next Saturday, more than 300 people will each swallow an entire bottle of homoeopathic pills in protest at the continued marketing of homoeopathic medicines. The group planning the event is specifically targeting health care in the UK.
The tunnel musicians of Chicago
The tunnel musicians of Chicago can be heard amid the roar of trains.... I recently spent three nights walking through the tunnels for a closer listen. These are the sounds, and the people I heard. [more inside]
Business Should Mind Its Own Business
Alan Grayson (D - FL) has introduced a bill to tax corporate political campaign donations at 500% (via). The bill is called the "Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act."
Well, that's all right then
Rejoice, parents of Southern California! Your classrooms are now free of...dictionaries.
"Tastes as good as it sounds"
What did they ever do to you?
No Kicking Penguins - How a 7-year-old autistic boy created an internet meme that found its way to Antarctica.
¡Viva México, Cabrones!
As a recent New York Times article notes: "Mexicans, despite their reputation in Latin America for ultrapoliteness and formality, curse like sailors, a recent survey found. They use profanity when speaking with their friends, with their co-workers, with their spouses and even with their bosses and parents."
This then: Effective Swearing in D.F.: Towards a Manual of Communication for English Speakers visiting Mexico City
Because, remember: Hablar español sin caló es de hueva.
This then: Effective Swearing in D.F.: Towards a Manual of Communication for English Speakers visiting Mexico City
Because, remember: Hablar español sin caló es de hueva.
Amidst the Hall Of that infernal Court
Solium Infernum, the most recent release from indie game designer Vic Davies (and one of Eurogamer's Games of 2009), is a turn-based wargame in which the players, as members of Hell's aristocracy, vie for control of Satan's recently vacated throne employing diplomatic measures and demonic armies. Over the last couple of weeks the boys at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have posted epic turn by turn battle reports of a month-long play-by-email game undertaken by two of their own and four acquaintances, two of whom have written up their own reports. Without fail the accounts are full of twists and turns, blunders and screwups, conniving, back-stabbing and all sorts of bastardry that make them fine examples of game writing as well as gripping page-turners. [more inside]
Contact is the secret, is the moment, when everything happens. Contact....
From 1980 - 1988, a science education series called 3-2-1 Contact ran on PBS. Produced by Children's Television Workshop, the series was geared toward an older audience than other popular CTW offerings Sesame Street and The Electric Company, and focused on teaching kids about science, math and the world around them. [more inside]
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