May 21, 2009
Jeff Macke explains all
Jeff Macke Jeff Macke clears up any confusion you may have had about the markets.
No more guessing when to run and pee
Every movie has a few scenes in there somewhere that aren't crucial to the plot. Every movie has a few minutes you can miss and not be lost when you sit back down. Now you can go see a movie and get that extra large soda without worrying about missing anything important. No more guessing when to run and pee!
Data.gov - a new toy for data geeks, librarians, and transparency advocates everywhere
"This is an imaginary land"
Border Stories is a series of short documentaries about life on the US-Mexican border, none longer than 6 minutes. The subjects are: drug addicts on the border (warning: graphic images), electronic music group Nortec Collective, hospital costs of fence jumpers, lonesome Minuteman, Mexican emigrant safety patrolman, ranchowners whose land is an immigration throughway, US-raised 18 year-old sent back to Mexico, virtual vigilantes, two old men provide water in the desert, dangers of journalism in Ciudad Juarez, graveyard of US tires in Mexico, drug ballads, hardened border policy hurts cross-border community, another cross-border community fears closing of footbridge, working illegally in Laredo, mayors of the two Laredos, migrants' safe house, hand-pulled ferry, dentistry in Nuevo Progreso, Brownsville high school teacher protests border fence, golf course with the border on three sides & fishermen on the mouth of the Rio Bravo. Border Stories also has a blog about immigration issues.
Report of Child Abuse in Irish Industrial School Published
The Irish Comission to Inquire into Child Abuse published their full report documenting systematic abuses by Catholic-run industrial schools and schools for the disabled. Collecting data from over 1,500 witnesses, including survivors, government officials, and school staff, the report includes more than 70 years of incidents. It also documents the history of the laws that supported the schools. The executive summary damns both Church organizations and government for the abuse, but gives no names and falls short of recommending criminal proceedings. [more inside]
An American Art Form
NEA Jazz in the Schools takes a step-by-step journey through the history of jazz, integrating that story with the sweep of American social, economic, and political developments. This multi-media curriculum is designed to be as useful to high school history and social studies teachers as it is to music teachers. Start with the introductory video to get a feel for the place. The education outline contains five lessons. If you just want to listen, all the music samples are on one page. Perhaps you're more interested in individual artist biographies, or a jazz history timeline. [more inside]
Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong
Prelude to Federation - Like a neocolonial SEZ (or TAZ) Paul Romer, not to be confused with David, posits "less developed countries contract with capitalist nations to set up Hong Kong's for them... that we rethink sovereignty (respect borders, but maybe import administrative control); rethink citizenship (support residency, but maybe import voice in political affairs); and rethink scale (instead of focusing on nations, focus on cities—on city states like Hong Kong and Singapore)." cf. neocameralism [1, 2, 3] [more inside]
The Sinister End-of-the-World Homerun
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved" .... and mad enough to play fantasy baseball. In the new book Kerouac at Bat: Fantasy Sports and the King of the Beats, a NY Public Library archivist considers documents revealing the author's detailed obsession with the imaginary exploits of players like Pictorial Review Jackson and teams like the "Pontiacs, Nashes, and cellar-dwelling LaSalles" in his finely grained, fictional Summer League.
we have complex, messy models, yet reality is startlingly neat and simple
"Zipf's Law (pdf) states that if you tabulate the biggest cities in a given country and rank them according to their populations, the largest city is always about twice as big as the second largest, and three times as big as the third largest, and so on. In other words, the population of a city is, to a good approximation, inversely proportional to its rank." [more inside]
Mr. Potato Head
Infinite Summer
Ellen DeGeneres brings the funny to Tulane University
Ellen DeGeneres' damn funny Commencement Speech at Tulane University.
Thin ICE
"ICE does not keep records on cases in which detainees claim to be US citizens. If larger trends are consistent with the pattern in Hartzler's caseload, since 2004 ICE has held between 3,500 and 10,000 US citizens in detention facilities and deported about half. US citizens are a small percentage of ICE detentions for this period, which totaled around 1 million, but in absolute terms the figure is staggering. "
Andy Warhol's Frankenstein and Dracula: almost begs the gorge to rise
Though film is not generally Andy Warhol's field of greatest fame, some see his long and storied history in film as "where Warhol's supreme achievement lies". And then there are the two horror films from 1973: Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (or Flesh for Frankenstein) and Andy Warhol's Dracula (or Blood for Dracula). The two films were filmed quickly and inexpensively in the Spring of 1973, using the Roger Corman method of filming two movies at one location using the same actors to decrease costs. Frankenstein was filmed first, using Space-Vision 3-D. But filming 3D footage was too expensive and time-consuming, so Dracula was shot in standard 35mm film. [more inside]
The Woman Who Will Inherit Nothing
The Woman Who Fought Back: "[Stieg] Larsson’s novels - the bestselling Millennium trilogy, which starts with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — have sold 12 million copies worldwide... [Eva] Gabrielsson [link to Swedish video], now 54, lived with Stieg Larsson from 1974 until his death in 2004. Yet, due to Swedish inheritance laws, she was not entitled to a single krona...'It’s like the plot of a Larsson novel,' said [Jan] Moburg. 'He wrote about how women are abused by men and about how they sometimes fight back. That was one of the messages of the books - to fight back. That’s what we’re trying to help her do.'"
Technomadics
Inspiration to do something with your holiday weekend: Steven K. Roberts is an interesting guy with a bit of a hobby problem. In 1983 his recumbent bike sported "only" a security system, lights, a CB radio and a state-of-the-art TRS80/100 laptop. Winnebikeo would eventually evolve into BEHEMOTH, the "Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine... Only Too Heavy". BEHEMOTH incorporated (amongst other things) HUD, cooling system, small Sun SPARCstation, HAM Radio, credit card verifier, bubblejet printer, hydraulic disk brakes... [more inside]
Nine Inch Nails raises $260,000 in less than one day to help heart patient
Eric de la Cruz needs a heart transplant. He has a pre-existing medical condition (over and above that), which prevents him from having medical insurance. His sister, former CNN.com reporter Veronica de la Cruz wrote to Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, asking for his help. Last night, Trent posted a plea for donations and an offer to fans to attend a show, hang out with the band, backstage, etc.
As of a few minutes ago, over $260,000 in donations have been accepted by NIN on Eric's behalf since last night.
Empathy = ovary?
When President Obama says he's looking for a judge with the "quality of empathy" to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, is it code for a female judge? In the two decades since Bertha Wilson famously asked Will Women Judges Really Make A Difference? (mms), the answer has come back as a resounding yes (studies: 1 (pdf), 2) -- and no (studies: 1 (pdf), 2). But either way, is choosing judges based on supposed gender qualities ever a good idea?
Or what you keep in your fridge?
Are you what you eat? Mark Menjivar's pictures of people's refrigerators. Keep an eye out for...unconventional...food items. From Good magazine.
test your your brain
Test My Brain was set up by Harvard's Vision Lab and Social Neuroscience and Psychopathology Lab. There are five tests online at the time of this post; take one and maybe you'll learn something about yourself that you may not have known (other than your special ability to slack off on MetaFilter when you should be working). At the same time, you'll be helping researchers collect data from a wide range of subjects. One of the collaborators, Professor Ken Nakayama, is also responsible for creating these online tests for faceblindness. [previously] [more inside]
1001 Rules for My Unborn Son
FCC claims authority to conduct warrantless searches
The FCC investigated a pirate radio station in Boulder, Colorado earlier this month and left a copy of their official inspection policy asserting that they have the authority to perform warrantless searches of private property if there is any FCC-licensed equipment on the property, including cordless phones, cell phones, wireless routers, intercom systems, and baby monitors. [more inside]
Cotton Kills
NASA recently released a series of photographs documenting the loss of the Aral Sea over the past ten years. The Aral Sea could be the poster child for human damage to the ecosystem. In a mere four decades, it has gone from a surface area of 68000 km^2 to less that a quarter of that, with a 10x drop in water volume. As its Wikipedia article points out, this is the equivalent of completely draining two of the five Great Lakes. [more inside]
You Break It, You Bought It, America
In his latest national security speech, President Obama unequivocally reaffirms his commitment to closing GITMO. President Obama's strong statements reaffirming his administration's commitment to cleaning up the legal and ethical mess the Bush administration left behind comes just after congressional Democrats recently saw fit to capitulate to the Republican minority by defunding President Obama's efforts to close GITMO, ostensibly to ensure that President Obama proceeds prudently and avoids setting the terrorists loose on America's strip malls. But others interpret these latest maneuvers from the "weak-kneed" congressional Dems as reflecting a sudden acute case of the political jitters, pointing out that, despite all the fearful talk of the imminent dangers of possible terrorists being held and tried on American soil, it's not as though we haven't done it before. [more inside]
Emily the Strange goes to Court the Federal
We previously discussed the similarities, or lack thereof, between Emily the Strange and Rosamond from Nate the Great. Apparently, Nate the Great's writer (Marjorie Sharmat) and illustrator (Marc Simont) started making noise about the situation, though they have yet to file suit. Now Cosmic Debris, creator of the Emily empire, have beaten them to the punch by going to the U.S. District Court in California seeking a declaratory judgment (.pdf) that Emily does not infringe. (via) [more inside]
Live Wedding Set from Dubfx and Flower Fairy
Dubfx and Flower Fairy play an amazing 40 minute set ( Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4), at the Wedding of Mathew* and Jes Bevans. [more inside]
Because you needed another reason to hate Twitter
Dennis Skillicorn was sentenced to die in 1996 for the murder of businessman/good Samaritan Richard Drummond and two other deaths in connection with a 1994 crime spree. Yesterday morning, local news outlet Missourinet, with a slight time delay, tweeted his execution. Elyria, Ohio's Chronicle Telegram is discussing plans to tweet an upcoming execution, but they are not sure if they should.
You're paralyzed by adrenochrome. Lose a turn.
Badabing
Draw to the music. I have no idea what this is about, but it's kind of pretty. (Music starts instantly once main page loads.)
The city that sits alone, with a wall in its heart
Mountain air, clear as wineShortly before the Six Day War of 1967 an amateur singer performed [YT] an elegy for the then-divided city of Jerusalem "locked in a dream ... with a wall in its heart". [more inside]
And the scent of pines
Brought by the twilight breeze
With the sound of bells
Bill Peet
Bill Peet (born Bill Peed) 1915-2002, was a Disney animator and children's book author. His work defined the Disney style, served as an inspiration for the movie Cars, and has amazed readers with the depth and expression of its characters. An exhibit of his work is running at the Art Institute of Chicago through May 24, 2009 (this Sunday). [more inside]
Accidental movement of large sums of money to the wrong people.
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