March 16, 2013
I can’t see and I have a goiter with a goiter of its own.
Taco Bell is to food what the propeller beanie hat is to transportation: wildly insufficient, but not altogether un-enjoyable if approached with the right attitude: Will Dorito-Sheathed Tacos Be The End Of Us All? (SLGawker)
The longest sentence ever served in an American prison: 64 years.
William Blake has been held in solitary confinement at Elmira Correctional Facility in New York State for nearly 26 years, after he murdered a Sheriff's Deputy and wounded another in a failed escape attempt back in 1987. Sentenced to 77 years to life, he will be eligible for parole in 2064. But Blake has no chance of ever leaving prison alive, and almost no chance of ever leaving solitary — a fate he considers "a sentence worse than death." (Via) [more inside]
Ayn Rand's Private Access Show
25 years is never as far away as it seems.
On April 3, 1988, the Los Angeles Times Magazine published a 25-year look ahead to 2013.
The Internet is a surveillance state
Welcome to a world where Google knows exactly what sort of porn you all like, and more about your interests than your spouse does.
Bunny Sled!
Radagast's racing rhosgobel rabbits: A recreational musher looks at the realities of bunny sledding.
Peter Parker is underpaid
Guilt, gratitude, music photography. Freelance Australian music photographer Leah Robertson writes about being underpaid, and how pervasive it is in the industry. Check out rates from around the world at Who Pays Photographers?
"The tattoo changed my mastectomy scar into my shield."
Moyer and Campbell's "Power of Myth" documentary now online for free
Joseph Campbell was well-known for his exploration of the monomyth, or the hero's journey, which posits that worldwide myths that have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure. Campbell's work inspired George Lucas to create the first Star Wars trilogy.
In the mid-1980s, Bill Moyers spent many hours interviewing Campbell at Skywalker Ranch. The result was a now famous documentary called "The Power of Myth." The series has been available on DVD since 2001, but Moyers has just made the full series available for streaming and download on his site.
"I give my right hand to the Occidentals and my left to the Orientals."
Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914), better known by her nom de plume Sui Sin Far ("lotus blossom" in Cantonese), was a North American journalist, author, essayist and travel writer who has been dubbed the "'mother' of Asian North American literature." Born of an English businessman father and a Chinese mother adopted by British missionaries, Eaton lived and worked in New York, Montreal, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston. Her short stories, known principally through her only published collection, Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912), offer sympathetic depictions of Chinese and Eurasian immigrants while prejudice against Asian peoples in North America was rampant. [more inside]
Canoeing down the Mississippi
Between July 28 and November 10, 2003, Ron Haines canoed down the entire length of the Mississippi. Eight years later, he wrote it up as a series of blog posts with lots of interesting photos and observations: Lake Itasca to Minneapolis-St. Paul. Minneapolis-St. Paul to St. Louis. St. Louis to New Orleans. He also wrote up his logistics and some of the press coverage he got along the way. [more inside]
Computerized Math, Formal Proofs and Alternative Logic
Using computer systems for doing mathematical proofs - "With the proliferation of computer-assisted proofs that are all but impossible to check by hand, Hales thinks computers must become the judge." [more inside]
On Chicago Public Schools Censoring Persepolis's Images of Torture
Suffice it to say, Persepolis is quite a work. It’s a testament to the power of the graphic novel. The art’s simple linework helps the story feel unpretentious and direct. Persepolis was adapted as a 2007 French animated film, written and directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. Among other honors, it was nominated for an Academy Award. Why would someone want to ban such a book?
Czeched Out
Caturday Crackup
Sunshine on my shoulder gets me sunburned.
Did you know that this is the last day of Sunshine Week? What is Sunshine Week? An attempt to get a nationwide discussion going about the importance of access to public information and what it means for you and your community. (from 2005 a Blue note was sung with This little light of mine here on the Blue) [more inside]
Some people just can't let sleeping frogs lie...
Extinction got you down? Try de-extinction! Our species has played a role in the extinction of ... many other species. But now some scientists are proposing a radical turn of the tables: Bringing lost species back from the dead. How to Resurrect Lost Species. [more inside]
"In the world of science, they are rock stars..."
The Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) is a unique research facility in northern Ontario comprised of 58 lakes set aside by the Government of Canada in which entire lakes are used for experimental manipulation.
ELA has effectively solved the problems of nutrient loading and acid rain in freshwater ecosystems. As well, it has produced top research on the effects of estrogen, climate change and methylmercury in freshwater. Current research includes the impacts of nanosilver, climate change, transgenic fish and flame retardants on aquatic ecosystems aquatic ecosystems.
On March 31, 2013, The Harper Government will close the Experimental Lakes Area. [more inside]
The reporter, his foreign-minister father and the war that consumed them
The reporter, his foreign-minister father and the war that consumed them Ten years ago, Canada made a bold decision to stay out of the Iraq War. Many of us may forget how agonizing the process was. Patrick Graham was a reporter in Baghdad in 2003. His father Bill Graham was Canada’s foreign minister. Today, in an intimate conversation, they remember the months that changed the world, the nation and their own lives
The World Has No Room for Cowards
It’s not often that one has the opportunity to be the target of a cyber and kinetic attack at the same time. But that is exactly what’s happened to me and my Web site over the past 24 hours. On Thursday afternoon, my site was the target of a fairly massive denial of service attack. That attack was punctuated by a visit from a heavily armed local police unit that was tricked into responding to a 911 call spoofed to look like it came from my home.
Well, as one gamer enthusiast who follows me on Twitter remarked, I guess I’ve now “unlocked that level.” ~ KrebsonSecurity
De Moivre’s equation
The Most Dangerous Equation If you have never taken the time to read any statistics, then take the time to read this short chapter excerpt. In order to understand the world a bit more accurately and be able to interpret data for public policy, understanding De Moivre’s equation and sample variability is very significant.
The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason'
How science fiction/fantasy blogs cover female writers
"When looking at a sample of bloggers reviewing SF/F, a majority of men will skew toward reviewing more men. A majority of women will skew toward a more equal gender parity, or the opposite in which they review a majority of women. There will be a handful of outliers." -- An analysis of the visibility of women in (online) science fiction and fantasy reviews and whether the gender of the reviewer impacts that visibility.
The Economics of Spam
A paper from Justin M. Rao and David H. Reiley in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (full-text pdf) about spam economics. [more inside]
Clever Carving Gives Viewers Pause
Nice article on the limitations of the new field of Synthetic Biology
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