May 12, 2014
The end appears to be inevitable.
Warm water is eating away at the bases of West Antarctic glaciers in an irreversible runaway process: West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable [the damn paper (paywalled)] [more inside]
Elbridge Thomas Gerry (1744 - 1814)
What would US House electoral districts look like without any gerrymandering?
Critical de(con)struction
"Young Minds in Critical Condition" (SLNYT) "Having strong critical skills shows that you will not be easily fooled. It is a sign of sophistication, especially when coupled with an acknowledgment of one’s own “privilege” … We should be wary of creating a class of self-satisfied debunkers—or, to use a currently fashionable word on campus, people who like to “trouble” ideas," opines Michael Roth, on the status quo of liberal education. Also "The case for a liberal education", 2014/05/09, The Boston Globe; and, "There's Nothing Liberal About Specializing in Philosophy" The Atlantic, 2014/05/09. Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, recently authored “Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters”, and teaches "The Modern and The Postmodern", offered on Coursera.
When Unlimited really meant Unlimited
Way back in 1970, there were some air racing organizers who felt that the answer to the too-short Unlimited air races at Reno might be to have a longer race, so long that it would require pit stops. In Unlimited-class piston airplanes. Thus was born the California 1000. [more inside]
Heard it through the grapevine
Meet someone for a STR
20 Day Stranger For me, the socially awkward type, this is so exciting and frightening all at the same time!
For those who remember Prodigy, CompuServe, AOL
Memories of a Bette Midler Message Board Childhood: Reminiscences from the early days of talking to strangers online.
The eyes of Texas are upon you
The Gold Standard in Executions.
For two years now, Texas has used a single drug, the barbiturate pentobarbital, instead of the three-drug regimen used in neighboring Oklahoma. Prison administrators from other states often travel to Texas to learn how it performs lethal injections and to observe executions. Texas officials have provided guidance and, on at least a few occasions, carried out executions for other states.
For two years now, Texas has used a single drug, the barbiturate pentobarbital, instead of the three-drug regimen used in neighboring Oklahoma. Prison administrators from other states often travel to Texas to learn how it performs lethal injections and to observe executions. Texas officials have provided guidance and, on at least a few occasions, carried out executions for other states.
Dance After Curfew
He somehow straddled the line between Prog and New Wave. He remained hidden since 1979. He helped pioneer the use of drum machines. He founded the innovative trio, FM. As a solo artist, he recorded some memorable covers and original material. He announced his retirement in 2012. Influential Canadian musician Jeff Plewman AKA Nash the Slash, has died at the age of 66.
A Bunny Eating Raspberries!
Squeee now or forever hold your peace. A bunny enjoys some raspberries, it looks like she's wearing lipstick.
Make Way for (Brown's) Ducklings
A belated gift to all of you MeFi moms and moms-to-be. Not an uncommon occurrence in the Spring in North America. No less heart-warming to watch, though.
I do want to swing from a chandelier.
Already being hailed by some as maybe one of the best music videos of the year, Sia's Chandelier, featuring 11-year old Maddie Ziegler, is by turns haunting, beautiful, strange and frisson inducing. [more inside]
Figure N is an isometric view of the middle finger of his right hand.
Google Has (Almost) All The Email
Even if you don't have a Gmail account, many of your contacts do. So Google has a lot of your email, even if you have been trying hard to avoid that.
These APIs© Oracle Corporation
You Think You Get It. YOU DONT YOU DONT YOU DONT!!!!!!!
The baffling tweets of Jaden Smith make a surprising amount of sense when repurposed into Garfield comics.
Everything Looks Pre-Planned With These Hungarians
"On 25 November 1953, an international football match was played between Hungary - then the world's number one ranked team, the Olympic champions and on a run of 24 unbeaten games, and England... The British press referred to it as the "Match of the Century" - the originators of the game, against the finest team in the world at that time." [more inside]
And now they know
So, in writing about Elsa, from Frozen, as having an iconic value in an emerging canon of a new trans creative mythology, of course I’m not saying that’s what Disney intended. What interests me is not the official image, but how the image gets ported into a kind of dynamic sensation of sympathy within a collective group. The number of trans women who told me — “I never liked princesses, but I get Elsa.” What are we all detecting in her at such a shared resonance?Imaging Frozen's Elsa as a trans symbol. (trans 101)
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