October 15, 2010
z^2 + c
Nassim Nicholas Taleb states on his website and Facebook account that his occasional collaborator (and fractal pioneer/popularizer) Benoit Mandelbrot has died.
See, look, we're reading it for the articles - RDJ in Playboy.
Playboy interview Robert Downey Jr. "If you were to write a script about a guy who had it all, lost it all and then redeemed himself in a miraculous fashion, you could do no better than to steal from the bio of Robert Downey Jr."
How To Look at Mondrian
If the Brooklyn Bridge could fit in her shopping cart, she would have sold it
The fish men see her still, their Annie, in the hide-and-seek shadows of South Street. She’s telling her dirty jokes and doing anything for a buck: hustling newspapers, untaxed cigarettes, favors, those pairs of irregular socks she’d buy cheap on Canal. She’s submitting to the elements, calling out “Yoo-hoo” to the snow and the rain and her boys. Annie and Gloria: Death of a Fulton Fish Market Fixture.
bohabb's Channel
Bohabb likes to put films to music. Some favs include Search and Destroy vs Apocalypse Now & Full Metal Jacket, Tron vs Aphex Twin, Coldcut vs Apocalypto, M.S.I vs Akira, Robocop vs Alec Empire and Shizuo vs bad girls of cinema.
Charlie Brooker calls it Quits
"… if I ever have to see this gurning little maggot clicking into faux reverie mode again – rising from his seat to jazz-slap the top of his piano wearing a fake-groove expression on his piggish little face – if I have to witness that one more time I'm going to rise up and kill absolutely everybody in the world, starting with him and ending with me.". Charlie Brooker, the UK Guardian's TV 'critic', calls it quits.
Homemade strength training equipment
Release the pigs!
Angry Birds, the iPhone gaming sensation (and possible movie), is now available on Android for free in ad supported form. Not got a fancy phone? Maybe you can play the home game.
Camera Trap Codger
Chris Wemmer is the Camera Trap Codger, posting wildlife photos from his robotic photographers. [more inside]
Infographic: Tits on a Unicorn
New Dr. Seuss
Do you know where your kids are?
25 most dangerous neighborhoods 2010. Click through the maps for some more specific data.
I've got my pipe because we’re going to speak about schoolish kind of things
In 2007, Beck, then the host of “Glenn Beck,” on CNN’s Headline News, brought to his show a John Birch Society spokesman named Sam Antonio, who warned of a government plot to abolish U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada, “and eventually all throughout the Americas.” Beck told Antonio, “When I was growing up, the John Birch Society—I thought they were a bunch of nuts.” But now, he said, “you guys are starting to make more and more sense to me.”A secret history of Glenn Beck, by way of Robert Welch, Willard Cleon Skousen and the John Birch Society. From the New Yorker.
Wickie Pipe Lighter
Cancer: A "modern, man-made disease"?
Science meets the news cycle, part n: Researchers look at cancer rates in the ancient world and conclude that cancer is "a modern, man-made disease." The story makes headlines in the UK (and pops up on the political fringe). Meanwhile, New Scientist and others debunk the claim. Will that critical perspective get as much coverage as the original story? [more inside]
History of the Color Wheel
The History of the Color Wheel l Using text from Sarah Lowengard's The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe we're taking a look at the progression of color organization systems and how the color wheel came to be. l The Wonderful Color Wheel l All about color.
The Case for Obama
During his campaign, skeptics warned that Barack Obama was nothing but a "beautiful loser," a progressive purist whose uncompromising idealism would derail his program for change. But as president, Obama has proved to be just the opposite — an ugly winner. Over and over, he has shown himself willing to strike unpalatable political bargains to secure progress, even at the cost of alienating his core supporters. This bloodless, if effective, approach to governance has created a perilous disconnect: By any rational measure, Obama is the most accomplished and progressive president in decades, yet the only Americans fired up by the changes he has delivered are Republicans and Tea Partiers hellbent on reversing them. Heading into the November elections, Obama's approval ratings are mired in the mid-40s, and polls reflect a stark enthusiasm gap: Half of all Republicans are "very" excited about voting this fall, compared to just a quarter of Democrats. But if the passions of Obama's base have been deflated by the compromises he made to secure historic gains like the Recovery Act, health care reform and Wall Street regulation, that gloom cannot obscure the essential point: This president has delivered more sweeping, progressive change in 20 months than the previous two Democratic administrations did in 12 years. The Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson argues The Case for Obama. [more inside]
Dyson listened while the Curtain laid it all down: Skynet, Judgment Day, the history of things to come. It's not everyday you find out that you're responsible for 3 billion peeping toms.
Robotic privacy curtain, "My workshop is located in an old storefront with a big window facing towards the street. In an attempt to create more privacy inside, I’ve decided to install a small but smart curtain in that window." (More here)
Time Expired
Great Sports Calls, chosen by Posnanski
Greatest calls in sports is a selection of 32 great calls in broadcast sports, chosen by Joe Posnanski, obviously US-centric but featuring some good choices. Want some elation this Friday? [more inside]
Cigar Guy
"[London investment analyst Rupesh] Shingadia’s journey to fame began when London Daily Mail photographer Mark Pain captured an amazing image of Tiger Woods botching a chip shot on the 18th hole during the Ryder Cup competition. But all anyone talked about was the googly-eyed guy in the gallery behind Woods, wearing a ginger wig, Groucho Marx mustache and chomping on an enormous cigar ... [He] purchased his costume online to dress up as one of his favorite golfers, Spanish pro Miguel Angel Jimenez." * He's become a Photoshop celebrity. [more inside]
RIP Hermann Scheer (1944-2010)
Hermann Scheer - long-serving German parliamentarian, "Europe's Al Gore," father of the feed-in tariff, and perhaps the most important green politician of our time - died yesterday at the age of 66. [more inside]
Michael, Fela. Fela, Michael
Rich Medina, one of New York City's most talented and innovative DJs and procuders, has put together "The King Meets The President In Africa", a ten-track mashup of Fela Kuti and Michael Jackson. Download it for free (if you're willing to trade an email address), or listen to all of the tracks on on the site's homepage. [more inside]
Can't Hide in Hicksville
A message to small-town high school bullies: you now risk being made an example of across the entire nation.
Kinsey, 60 years later
The Center for Sexual Health Promotion, Indiana University, has investigated in 2009 sexual practices in the USA. The results are reported in this month's Special Issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. (The full text is available behind a short anonymous online survey.) [more inside]
The first thing that needs to happen is...
"The first thing that needs to happen, I think, is to get these people out of their homes," a man wearing a bespoke blue-striped shirt, a Hermés tie patterned with elephants and Ferragamo loafers said recently. But, maybe Wall Street doesn't understand why foreclosure fraud is so dangerous to property rights? And, the Obama administration doesn't understand why HAMP has been a portrait in failure for homeowners (in eight parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII.)
Automation Insurance: Robots are taking Middle Class Jobs
Is the rise of automation from computers software and robotics and web-fueled outsourcing leading to a shrinking middle class? MIT Economist David Autor thinks so. Good Magazine speculates on the implications for America's future.
Fedoras in Heaven
Bye bye Big Mal. Malcolm Allison, one of the most flamboyant characters in English football, has gone to the players' lounge in the sky. He certainly knew what sold, with his signature cigar, fedora and sheepskin coat, and also laid on a pretty good bath. But all that stuff aside, he was a well-respected manager, and will be fondly remembered by Manchester City fans (you can read the fans' tributes here, and leave your own if you are so inclined) for leading them to glory in the late 60s and early 70s. The world is a lesser place without him.
...and they rode on in the friscalating dusk light.
The Ballad of Reading Milton: A short story by then-undergrad Wes Anderson.
A dollar here, a dollar there, a dollar there.
For the first time in their freely-traded history, the Australian Dollar, the Canadian Dollar and the US Dollar are all within a penny of parity.
50 Cabbage "kimchi crisis" Warning
The latest crisis in South Korea is not coming from its northern neighbor. The country is reeling from the soaring price of kimchi. China responds with concern. "The politics editor of a major South Korean newspaper called the kimchi situation "a national tragedy,” and an editorial in Dong-a Ilbo termed it “a once in a century crisis.” previously
Daffy's Parachute Jump
An end to your rinderpestiferous activities
The UN's FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) have announced that they believe rinderpest, an frequently fatal viral disease that affects livestock and wild ruminants, to have been eliminated. This is only the second virus, after smallpox, to have been wiped out. The BBC and the Guardian discuss the story in brief, and Science has a slightly more in-depth look at it. The FAO themselves have put up an interesting history of the disease and its treatment.
Well, I'll eat my hat.
I'm Saying Being White is Way Better
Monica Potts on Louis CK and privilege: "For the most part, people of color are the ones who initiate serious discussions about race and privilege in the public sphere -- and in the world of comedy ... Some white comedians, like Sarah Silverman, tend to joke about racism, making fun of white people and their ignorance in ways that shock and offend. ... But Louis' comedy is about being a white man -- and about how others view white men. He doesn't accept ignorance as a point of view. Moreover, this isn't the occasional stand-up bit; a significant number of his jokes are about race, class, and gender." [more inside]
Folder of collaterals from the Windows 1.0 launch event
Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie resurfaced some of Microsoft's history in a recent post on his personal blog. In a sealed packet in his office, he uncovered the original press kit for Windows 1.0 and decided to put the documents online. It's a fascinating look into the beginnings of computing and into a technology that has fundamentally changed our world. from Yahoo News.
Gotthardt rail tunnel breakthrough
Gotthardt rail tunnel breakthrough in pictures (click photo for popup gallery).
The 35 mile/ 57 km long tunnel through the Alps is the longest in the world. The breakthrough is130 years after it's predecessor was finished in 1880. It took 15 years to build and cost 10 billion dollar, largely because of extra security requirements. The breakthrough in the middle happened today.
Description in English.
MMOScrabble
Scrabb.ly: Massively multiplayer online Scrabble.
Bring me the butter
The evidence that eating a lot of butter will make you better at math is incomplete. The Butter Mind study, to be run from October 20 - November 12, will test the hypothesis that butter improves math performance.
"[T]he most important decisions you make are not the things you do – but the things that you decide not to do."
"He’s a minimalist and constantly reducing things to their simplest level. It’s not simplistic. It’s simplified. Steve is a systems designer. He simplifies complexity." John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview [via]
A very Victorian attitude
Andrew Fraser was a successful Victorian barrister until he was jailed for drug trafficking. The investigation against him was led by Detective Sergeant Malcolm Rosenes, but before Fraser entered prison Rosenes was charged with drug trafficking and conspiracy, for which he himself was later imprisoned. In an unlikely twist, Rosenes later approached Fraser to write an account of police corruption in Victoria. The book has been withdrawn from sale in Victoria, allegedly because it identifies informers and a "protected witness", but the publishers say that the material is old news that is publicly available (pdf), while Fraser suggests that the government wishes to avoid any embarrassment immediately before a State election.
« Previous day | Next day »