March 15, 2010
You're like the wind. In my NIMBY.
The future of Cape Wind will be loudly contested for another few weeks. The latest wrinkle seems to be conflicting claims about the project's impact on sacred Wampanoag rituals and cultural heritage. There might even be a movie about it all. Previously. [more inside]
Martin, it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, "Huh? What?" You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands
Swimming with Great White sharks Mike Rutzen is an expert on the great white shark and an outspoken champion of shark conservation. His fame spread due to the images of his free diving exploits swimming with the animals without a cage. Mike has spent more time swimming cage-less with great whites than anyone else. He has since travelled the world lecturing on sharks and filming documentaries on them... [More video] [more inside]
Your Erdos-Bacon Number?
Everyone knows about the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, right? Pursuant to this authoritative source I learned of Erdos numbers, which are fascinating in their own right, but not nearly as much as Erdos-Bacon numbers. Sir Alec Guiness does surprisingly well with a 3. Bacon does not. [more inside]
aka 3 pages
750words.com is a simple, free site which challenges you to write 750 words (~3 pages) every day and tracks your results. The notes from happy patrons are inspiring. [more inside]
The "Still-Face" Experiment
The "Still Face" Paradigm (YT video) designed by Dr. Edward Tronick of Harvard and Childrens Hospital’s Child Development Unit, is an experiment which shows us how a 1-year old child will react to a suddenly unresponsive parent. It allows us to understand how a caregiver's interactions and emotional state can influence many aspects of an infant's social and emotional development. [more inside]
Ray St. Ray, the Singing Cab Driver
A cosmically selective process: you enter a white cab in Chicago. After the usual pleasantries, the driver asks you if you'd like to hear a song...
"I'm a huntin' that man who first thought up Daylight Savings Time"
Still reeling from losing that hour of sleep Saturday night? Check out this catchy old country tune from old-time banjo-playing sensation Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones in which Grandpa rants about Daylight Savings Time. [more inside]
Zero Zero Zero
You Might As Well Jump
Keep it gay, keep it gay, keepy it gay!
Top 50 Gay TV Characters. (Full list.)
Some stats and commentary about that list.
Top 50 Lesbian and Bisexual Characters.
Some stats and commentary about that list.
Top 50 Lesbian and Bisexual Characters.
Paint comes alive
Many people who paint portraits try to make the painting look like a living person. Alexa Meade tries to make the person look like a painting. [more inside]
Backup your shit!
"Every hard drive in the world will eventually fail. Assume that yours are all on the cusp of failure at all times." An Ode to DiskWarrior, SuperDuper, and Dropbox: John Gruber talks about his Mac's hard drive failing and how he was able to recover all of his data using DiskWarrior, a file recovery utility, SuperDuper!, a backup utility that creates a fully bootable backup, and the file syncing system DropBox. While his advice is Mac specific, you can get a similar system going on Windows with Acronis for backups and one of many free file recovery programs such as TestDisk (which also has a Mac version). [more inside]
The Adventure of the the Sweet Cross-Hatching
An excellent set of illustrations from a French Sherlock Holmes collection. Let us attempt to sleuth out the stories to which these great little pieces of art belong.
A person...loses a reasonable expectation of privacy in emails...after the email is sent to and received by a third party.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rules that once emails have been received by a third party, no Fourth Amendment protection applies to any copies. In Rehburg v. Paulik, among other claims, Charles Rehburg alleged a violation of his constitutional rights by the improper subpoena of his emails from his ISP. Last week, the Eleventh Circuit ruled against him: [more inside]
Drinkin' beer from a bottle, on a Friday night.
A new low.
Last November 23rd, upwards of 64 people (including at least 34 journalists) were killed in the Philippines. It has become known as the Maguindanao Massacre. [more inside]
Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.
Fun fact: Cannibals didn't necessarily boil people alive, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been used as a form of execution. [Via AskMe.]
So you want to write a pop-sci book
Brian Switek, David Williams and Michael Welland have started a series of blog posts about writing popular science books. (Switek's overview.) [more inside]
Salt & Fat
It Wasn't Obvious to Me
A lot of people figure things out, but it takes a special talent or maybe personality to figure it our and do something about it. Previously, we heard about the man who wrote the software that blew up the economy. Now we find out whom that software was written. [more inside]
That's Science!
People have been upset about Pluto's demotion for some time now. (While classical music fans have just had a love/hate relationship with this whole process.) But astronomical hate mail has never been as cute as the missives Neil deGrasse Tyson has received over the years from tots upset at poor Pluto's ouster.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you
From a 2008 document titled "Wikileaks.org—An Online Reference to Foreign Intelligence Services, Insurgents, or Terrorist Groups?" (PDF) produced by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch of the Army Counterintelligence Center:
(S//NF) Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the Web site that they will remain anonymous. The identification, exposure, or termination of employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make such information public.
Stand Up For Your Health!
Irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you. 'Your chair is your enemy. It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death.' 'Several strands of evidence suggest that there’s a “physiology of inactivity”: that when you spend long periods sitting, your body actually does things that are bad for you.' [more inside]
Oh yes she did
The concealed artist behind the quirky videos posted on the iamamiwhoami account on YouTube has uploaded another video, and in the process helped to reveal her identity. [more inside]
Hammerstone from Kenya, Handaxe from India
View, rotate, and interact with fascinating 3D scans of some of humanity's oldest artifacts. [more inside]
Drat the luck!
A man, a balloon and bad luck. (SLYT) A man records himself trying to get into an enormous balloon. His running commentary is Frink like.
Gearing Up for the World Expo 2010
The 2010 World Expo starts on May 1st, and The Big Picture has documented the Shanghai's preparations for the event. Highlights include the Seed Cathedral, covered in 60,000 thin acrylic rods that will sway in the breeze; the Sunny Valley, a structure that will harness sunlight for power and rain to water nearby green areas, Joy Street, a Dr. Seussian part of the Dutch Pavillion, and an assortment of other engineering marvels. More information about the Expo available at the World Expo Blog. [more inside]
In The Bedroom
The Vincent Van Gogh Museum (previously) is undertaking a complete restoration of The Bedroom (or Bedroom in Arles), one of Van Gogh's best-known paintings. The staff members working on the restoration have started a blog to document the entire process.
Arthur takes on the autism spectrum
Marc Brown's Arthur series about a curious aardvark started with the bedtime stories he made up for his own children. Each one of the Arthur books contains Easter Eggs in the form of the author's children's names.
Hugely popular, the series of books spawned an animated show on PBS. In the 13th season of the show (beginning April 5th), Arthur and his pals will make a new friend, Carl. Carl has Asperger's. Still not sure what that is? That's okay, let Brain explain it for you.
Hugely popular, the series of books spawned an animated show on PBS. In the 13th season of the show (beginning April 5th), Arthur and his pals will make a new friend, Carl. Carl has Asperger's. Still not sure what that is? That's okay, let Brain explain it for you.
Chris Kraus will make you Jump, Jump
I Love Dick is composed of the billet doux written by [Chris] Kraus and husband, Columbia philosopher Sylvere Lotringer, to their special friend, Dick. As a kind of art-world roman a clef, the novel fuses gossip and "theory." The profanely and lustfully personal coalesces with intellectual ambition and conceit.
Japanese pro team football teams versus 100 schoolboys.
We previously debated How many five year olds could you take in a fight? - mefi discussion.
Now in a related event professional J. League football team Cerezo Osaka take on a team of 100 Japanese primary school children.
Part 1 (including pre-match analysis in Japanese - kick off at 5 min 50) Part 2 Part 3.
There was a winner - but who?! Direct links to the goals 1 2 3 4 5
Part 1 (including pre-match analysis in Japanese - kick off at 5 min 50) Part 2 Part 3.
There was a winner - but who?! Direct links to the goals 1 2 3 4 5
Cinemetrics database of Average Shot Length
Curious about the Average Shot Length of a movie? Wondering how the ASL has changed over time? The Cinemetrics database comes to the rescue with statistical data on shot length!
Happy 25th Birthday .com!
Chinese and doughnuts: A California tradition
Combination Chinese restaurants-doughnut shops are common sights in California strip malls... But how did they get to be that way? The Atlantic investigates. Strangely enough, most are owned by Cambodians.
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