December 8, 2014
No Gloves, No Rounds, Plenty of Blood
Of all the forms of fighting known to man, one name strikes fear further into the hearts of those who hear it: Bare Knuckle. For hundreds of years, the men of Britain have rammed their unprotected fists into each others bodies to decide who was the hardest of them all.
[more inside]
The Lord of the Rings: A New English Translation.
How I Defeated the Tolkien Estate. [The Toast]
From symbol of black self-sufficiency to symbol of ridicule
Metalfilter
On December 8, a great musical artist’s life tragically ended when he was not yet 40 years old, shot by a murderer who’s euphemistically referred to as "a crazed fan." The world lost one of the giants of heavy metal 10 years ago today. [more inside]
"The contrast between the treatment of produce and of people is stark."
Product of Mexico: Hardship on Mexico's farms, a bounty for U.S. tables — the first in a series of four Los Angeles Times long-form stories about labor conditions discovered during an 18-month investigation of Mexican vegetable farms that supply produce to the United States. [more inside]
Hey! My paper got accepted by the Jour--D'oh!
ABSTRACT: The Ethernet must work. In this paper, we confirm the improvement of e-commerce. WEKAU, our new methodology for forward-error correction, is the solution to all of these challenges.
A scientific paper by Maggie Simpson and Edna Krabappel was accepted by two scientific journals. Of course, none of these fictional characters actually wrote the paper, titled "Fuzzy, Homogeneous Configurations" [PDF], Rather, it's a nonsensical text, submitted by engineer Alex Smolyanitsky in an effort to expose a pair of scientific journals — the Journal of Computational Intelligence and Electronic Systems and the comic sans-loving Aperito Journal of NanoScience Technology.
A scientific paper by Maggie Simpson and Edna Krabappel was accepted by two scientific journals. Of course, none of these fictional characters actually wrote the paper, titled "Fuzzy, Homogeneous Configurations" [PDF], Rather, it's a nonsensical text, submitted by engineer Alex Smolyanitsky in an effort to expose a pair of scientific journals — the Journal of Computational Intelligence and Electronic Systems and the comic sans-loving Aperito Journal of NanoScience Technology.
One flushes and bucks
Rodeo bulls, like the boys who dream of riding them, are unpredictable creatures. They can start out shy and skittish, then suddenly turn ornery. They’ll lie down in the chute one day and try to gore you the next. The most dangerous bull ever ridden, by some accounts, began as a scrawny yellow calf in 1988.The Ride of Their Lives: Children prepare for the world’s most dangerous organized sport.
– A longform article from The New Yorker
Do not send anymore cats, we have enough cats
The popular and venerable Twitter account Tweets Of Old continues its seasonal tradition of posting late 19th century /early 20th century children's letters to Santa.
Kanye the Confident
What is the Boonsburg Egg?
From a series of secret, more secret and even more secret locations, really very secret inventor/eccentric fencing-mask-clad 'eb' presents to the world The Boonsburg Egg. A geometric device that he claims is at the heart of the Universe(yt), the Pyramids, Stonehenge and the Earth's plasma fields(yt), he's built one big enough to move a car. But how do you fund such work while getting the knowledge out? Cue William Shatner, Nancy Reagan, Werner Von Braun, and Charlton Heston... [more inside]
Stand Tall
Last Saturday was St. Nicholas's day. To some of us that means...
It's KRAMPUS time! Krampus's stylization changes from region to region. Some Krampuses have many horns and many have no horns (but these may just not be mature). [more inside]
Eat your vegs
POINT: To drop a novel after a few chapters is, then, to disregard what makes it a formal work of art rather than a heap of papers that reside in a desk drawer. Today, books and authors need all the help they can get; if you care about literature as an artistic endeavor and the people who create it, then you should do so fully. If you consider yourself a literary person, you shouldn't just embrace the intellectual cachet that starting books gives you. Starting, but not finishing, books is one step above saying, "Oh yeah, I've heard of that author."Juliet Lapidos says you should finish every book you start. Peter Damien disagrees.
COUNTERPOINT: So if we are considering whether or not it “hurts literature” for us to finish or not finish books, we can mark this down as a “hurting literature” moment. Because if Nabokov is a super important author that we should read…I am not going to read him. Forcing myself to finish the book cost me that.
Longreads Best of 2014
The Wallkill Mighty Mites
After their first home game, in which they were victorious, the ferocious Mighty Mites celebrate by running through a banner. Well, attempting to run through a banner. The Mighty Mites get a redo.
LOST CAUSE: Dems, It’s Time to Dump Dixie
"With Mary Landrieu’s ignominious exit, the Democrats will have lost their last senator in the Deep South. And that’s a good thing. They should write it off—because they don’t need it." Michael Tomasky's 12.08.2014 column provoked a storm of controversy, outraging many, particularly conservative commentators. Meanwhile, white flight from southern Democrats doomed Landrieu in the Deep South, where the parties are nearly completely divided by race. 'Democrats have been worried about the African-American vote in Louisiana for months. But what really doomed Sen. Mary Landrieu's reelection bid was the near-monolithic white vote against her.' Tomasky is calling for the death of Dean's 50 state strategy. [more inside]
Parable of the Polygons
A playable blog post about triangles, squares, bias, and society from Vi Hart and Nicky Case.
It's too early on a Monday morning for this hot math nonsense, come on
Cooking isn't fun, but you should do it anyway.
" When the stories we tell about cooking say that it is only ever fun and rewarding—instead of copping to the fact that it can also be annoying, time consuming, and risky—we alienate the people who don’t have the luxury of choice, and we unwittingly reinforce the impression that cooking is a specialty hobby instead of a basic life skill." [more inside]
Experience WWI, week-by-week, as it happened exactly 100 years ago.
This podcast, called "The First World War in 261 weeks," began in June and will run for five years, recounting every week's main events.
Links to the podcast:
Podbean
iTunes
Stitcher [more inside]
Links to the podcast:
Podbean
iTunes
Stitcher [more inside]
anxieties about lurid voyeurism, unwholesome interest: In Cold Blood
"Much has been said about the storytelling techniques of 'Serial,' which comes out in weekly installments even as the show’s host, Sarah Koenig, reinvestigates the conviction of a Baltimore-area teenager for the murder of his ex-girlfriend. The serialized approach teases its audience with cliffhangers, prompts its listeners to construct their own theories and invites outsiders to glimpse the tricky winnowing process of reporting. But 'Serial' also testifies to how much the criminal justice system itself is founded on storytelling." (Laura Miller, Salon: The new "In Cold Blood" revisionism: Why it doesn't matter if Capote’s classic wasn't fully true) [more inside]
Decision by Moonlight
'Hilda has never learned not to play with fire,' he said sullenly as he got to his feet, spitting out rubber. 'It must end.' (via Ulli's Roy Orbison In Clingfilm Website)
One and sadly done
What are you doing here? ... Physician, heal thyself.
The best new Strong Female Characters are the weak ones
The freedom to let characters expose themselves without judgment, in ways that feed a story’s drama. It’s important to remember that “Strong Female Character” doesn’t necessarily refer to someone with an impressive bench-press stat—the “strong” refers to the quality of character development and plot importance, whether a given character has an inner life of her own, and a story worth telling. By Tasha Robinson (previously).
Smokescreen
Lead a rich and messy life
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