October 5, 2015

Hail to the Pencil Pusher

Hail to the Pencil Pusher — American Bureaucracy's Long and Useful History [more inside]
posted by tonycpsu at 8:20 PM PST - 25 comments

🎶 Final fan-ta-sy is an R.P.G. 🎶

A Cockatiel learns to sing the Chocobo Song, sings constantly (SLTwitter)
posted by rebent at 7:48 PM PST - 19 comments

Step Aside, Pops!

How Internet Magic Helped A Quirky Cartoonist Find Success [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:36 PM PST - 61 comments

Block Transfer Computation

The Doctor Who Lego set has been officially revealed
posted by Artw at 4:12 PM PST - 49 comments

Children and Screen Time

Maybe screen time isn't so bad for your kids... Here's a summary from LifeHacker Vitals, the tl/dr version of the paper recently released from the American Academy of Pediatrics- "Growing Up Digital:Media Research Symposium" held earlier this year. The full paper is located here. The Academy seem to be relaxing the rather strict limited time recommendation they've held in the past. Teenagers around the world are breathing a sigh of relief.
posted by HuronBob at 2:36 PM PST - 51 comments

My God, it's full of letters

Fractal font is here to vibrate your brain.
posted by AteYourLembas at 1:22 PM PST - 38 comments

He disliked the machine so much that he won't be keeping it.

Product testers and analysts are scratching their heads over Keurig's latest attempt to revolutionize beverage preparation. Pop a $1.25 pod into the 24-pound, $370 Keurig Kold, wait a minute and a half, and behold: an 8-ounce glass of cold soda that doesn't taste very good. Coca-Cola has signed on as partner to the SodaStream rival, but as Motley Fool points out, this may not be the vote of confidence it appears: "Now we now why Keurig Green Mountain was able to get two soda giants to back the platform. It's not going to cannibalize retail sales." [more inside]
posted by mama casserole at 1:16 PM PST - 186 comments

we just make a little money and we buy a little mercy

"I think there are different kinds of mercy: big Mercy and little mercy. Big Mercy is so big because it is made out of suffering and ultimatums, out of saviors and omnipotence, and out of stories that have only one way of ending, which are brutal and where almost nobody wins... But maybe there's another kind of mercy—mercy so little that it costs almost nothing. So little most of us never notice it." [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 12:23 PM PST - 14 comments

“The only way to survive is by taking care of one another”

Rest in Power, Grace Lee Boggs. [more inside]
posted by migrantology at 11:28 AM PST - 47 comments

Perfect Blue

Keeping up the trend of 2015 not living up to our high expectations, Pepsi-Cola, will be selling Pepsi Perfect starting on October 21st, 2015, but only in a limited edition batch of 6,500 bottles. [more inside]
posted by radwolf76 at 11:15 AM PST - 51 comments

Inside Essex's "wonderhome"

John Trevillian has spent the last 25 years transforming an ex-council house near Stansted into a historic fantasy. “Everyone thinks I’m independently wealthy or that I’ve got a degree in interior design. But all I had was these stories in my head." (dlTheGruaniad)
posted by Kitteh at 11:02 AM PST - 31 comments

The Amazing Inner Lives of Animals

We have long asked whether we are alone in the universe. But clearly we are not alone on earth. The evolution of intelligence, of empathy and complex societies, is surely more likely than we have hitherto considered.
posted by roolya_boolya at 10:57 AM PST - 24 comments

Just call 1-800-SMOOTHE for Magic 102

A Twilight World of Ultimate Smoothness is a limited-run, six-episode, serialized podcast (primarily conceived by David Wilcox and co-written with Johanna Hyman, but with a number of producers actors, and co-writers) chronicling the decline and fall of radio veteran Greg Willis, host of the eleventh most-listened-to, syndicated, smooth jazz/classic light R&B program on radio today. Take a trip to an alternate universe radio station with bizarre ad spots, musical numbers, call-ins, and an overarching narrative of a DJ gone power mad. Remember: when sneaking onto Sade’s estate, beware the Sax Wolves.
🎷 Smooth With A Silent E 🎸 Laser Vandross 🎷 Unexpected Robes 🎸 Camelot 🎷 The Request Hour 🎸 The Comfort Cruise [more inside]
posted by Going To Maine at 10:24 AM PST - 3 comments

"the trade agreement almost certainly will encounter stiff opposition"

Multinational agreement reached on the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty. Representatives of a dozen nations agreed on the TPP, a wide-ranging trade agreement for the Pacific region, excluding China. Years of discussion and months of intensive negotiating led to this consensus. Opposition continues, based on a wide range of issues. [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 9:35 AM PST - 84 comments

Publication bias in studying the efficacy of psychotherapy.

"The efficacy of antidepressant medication has been shown empirically to be overestimated due to publication bias [...] The efficacy of psychological interventions for depression has been overestimated in the published literature, just as it has been for pharmacotherapy. Both are efficacious but not to the extent that the published literature would suggest"
posted by OmieWise at 9:17 AM PST - 43 comments

On what street did you lose your childlike sense of wonder?

Nihilistic password security questions
posted by gwint at 8:13 AM PST - 96 comments

Black & White In Color

One of my biggest pet peeves in art is the lazily-desaturated DSLR video. "Black & White In Color" is my personal response to treating black and white as an editing afterthought.
Visual artist Julianna Thomas reminds us that some things really are black and white. (SLVimeo)
posted by Etrigan at 6:48 AM PST - 31 comments

Kidnapped caprine recovered in Canada

Stubborn goat arrested after refusing to leave a Saskatchewan restaurant: "RCMP said that employees initially 'asked' the goat to leave and tried to walk him outside, but the rebellious animal turned around and sauntered back through the restaurant's automatic doors." It turns out that the seemingly ornery creature had actually been kidnapped from a rodeo: team members are thankful it's back safe and sound, but Katie Dutchak, co-founder of the University of Saskatchewan rodeo team, reminds everyone that tampering with animals is not funny.
posted by fraula at 6:00 AM PST - 22 comments

“People always leave traces. No person is without a shadow.”

Henning Mankell, Dean of Scandinavian Noir Writers, Dies at 67 [The New York Times]
Henning Mankell, the Swedish novelist and playwright best known for police procedurals that were translated into a score of languages and sold by the millions throughout the world, died Monday morning in Goteborg, Sweden. He was 67. Mr. Mankell was considered the dean of the so-called Scandinavian noir writers who gained global prominence for novels that blended edge-of-your-seat suspense with flawed, compelling protagonists and strong social themes. The genre includes Arnaldur Indridason of Iceland, Jo Nesbo of Norway and Stieg Larsson of Sweden, among others.
[more inside]
posted by Fizz at 5:31 AM PST - 34 comments

Just when you were worried about bridge collapse.

Geologists use a novel dating technique to find the cause of a tsunami. Single link New Yorker.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:17 AM PST - 16 comments

"Calm down... I gotta play this cool..."

For 24 hour comics day 2015, Sara Goetter did an absolutely adorable comic about that first time you recognise a fellow geek in middle school.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:25 AM PST - 30 comments

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