February 12, 2017
Inconceivable
That is a dam big (spillway) hole
The Oroville Dam is the tallest in the United States, located about 1 hour north of Sacramento, California. With recent rains, the reservoir behind the dam is full. California Department of Water Resources (DWR) opened the spillway, which releases water from the dam, but a crater formed in it so DWR opened the emergency spillway (for the first time ever) in an attempt to take the pressure off the main spillway. But now the emergency spillway is eroding at an alarming rate, and the risk of it failing is high. Evacuations of more than 160,000 people have been ordered. [more inside]
He got his boogie down.
Singer Al Jarreau has died at 76. CNN has this remembrance. Time magazine once called him "the greatest living Jazz singer." [more inside]
It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
The Web Field Manual is a curated list of resources focused on documenting only the best knowledge for designing experiences and interfaces on the web. It is an ever-expanding collection of knowledge and inspiration for web designers, by web designers.
It feels good inside to know that you can make your mouth do that
Bag your face!! Who is 1982's ultimate Valley Girl?! Join us at the Valley Girl contest live at the Galleria in Encino to find out! Ohmygod!!!
The Fire Walk With Me side of the Twin Peaks Universe
TWIN PEAKS Isn’t As Funny As You Remember: "The series is sold as something strange, whether it’s being explained by a friend or summarized in a '90s retrospective. And it is. It’s one of the strangest things you’ll ever watch. But just like Twin Peaks plays with the cliches of soap operas to tell a far more nuanced narrative, it also immerses itself in the bizarre to create a dreamlike world of darkness and light, with both forces warped around the struggle for a lonely teenager’s life." [Content Warning: Some description of sexual violence, and major spoilers for Twin Peaks in the FPP article and below the jump.] [more inside]
Nesting Bald Eagles Return in PA
A pair of bald eagles has returned to the nest established three years ago near Codorus State Park, Hanover, York County. [more inside]
"I don't want your pity"
Asperger's Are Us is a Massachusetts sketch comedy group featured in the eponymous documentary currently on Netflix. All four members are autistic and while the documentary explores how autism affects them creatively and personally, its mainly about funny guys making funny stuff. Their website -- where a mention of The Big Bang Theory links to the Wikipedia article for Minstrel Show -- features the first episode of their ten second podcast with guest Mark Proksch a.k.a. K-Strass (previously), their favorite comedian. Their guest appearance on DJ Douggpound's Poundcast showcases their love of puns, "scripting", victim-less humor, and their intriguing chemistry.
You can also watch some of their older sketch performances on Youtube: I'm Pregnant and Foster Parents.
The origin and linguistics of "shitgibbon"
Ben Zimmer's The Rise of the Shitgibbon, and a followup piece discussing that linguists care about shitgibbons too, by Taylor Jones.
Angry birds. And dogs. And cats. And frogs. And fish. And more cats.
For-Profit Law School Faces Crisis After Losing Federal Loans
Charlotte School of Law Loses ABA Accreditation, Students Lose Access to Federal Student Loans According to A.B.A. data, only 26.3 percent of recent Charlotte Law graduates had full-time jobs that required passage of the state bar and another 10 percent were in jobs where a law degree was preferred. [more inside]
An incalculable pleasure
Calc-Man is a MSDOS-era Pac-Man clone that looks like a spreadsheet, written by Dan Tobias. You can play the DOS version here, or if that's too fancy for you, the older Apple II release.
Problems at a Food Science Laboratory
Brian Wansink has been mentioned previously on the blue. In a post on his own blog, he described the genesis of a series of four articles on pizza consumption in terms that sound very much like p-hacking. This has led to some problems.
Far more than a simple translation
ON DRACULA’S LOST ICELANDIC SISTER TEXT
"Certainly the most surprising and intriguing Dracula-related discovery of this still-young century is the unearthing of the novel’s Icelandic sister. Its title, Makt Myrkranna (Powers of Darkness), has been known to Dracula experts since 1986, when literary researcher Richard Dalby reported on the 1901 Icelandic edition and on its preface, apparently written specifically for it by Stoker himself. "
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