May 15, 2012
Where Did the Taco Come From?
How Cigars are Made
How Cigars are Made at the La Aurora factory in the Dominican Republic.
Read No Evil
Dalal al-Mutairi, the senior book censor for the Kuwaiti government, sits down for a chat about her job and what it entails.
S03E23: Comparative Hoaxology
A woman opens an old steamer trunk and discovers tantalizing clues that a long-dead relative may actually have been a serial killer, stalking the streets of New York in the closing years of the nineteenth century. A beer enthusiast is presented by his neighbor with the original recipe for Brown's Ale, salvaged decades before from the wreckage of the old brewery--the very building where the Star-Spangled Banner was sewn in 1813.
These stories have two things in common. They are tailor-made for viral success on the internet. And they are all lies.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Now I agree that to some people using half a kilo of chocolate to make 12 biscuits may seem excessive. But I can tell you I don't put a price on alleviating human suffering. - Nigella Lawson [more inside]
Upload with this sort of thing!
Small, Far Away - The World of Father Ted: Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews revisit Craggy Island 15 years after the premiere of the classic Irish comedy, Father Ted.
How To Act Human
Inside the Actors Studio's James Lipton offers advice to Mitt Romney.
'Resetting' the biological clock
First Gene Therapy Successful Against Aging-Associated Decline: Mouse Lifespan Extended Up to 24% With a Single Treatment A new study consisting of inducing cells to express telomerase, the enzyme which -- metaphorically -- slows down the biological clock -- was successful. The research provides a "proof-of-principle" that this "feasible and safe" approach can effectively "improve health span." [article]
Carlos Fuentes is dead
"I'm basically asking for jobs."
In a video uploaded by the BBC today, Karen Gillan, who recently wrapped up filming her final episodes of Doctor Who, asked the crew of Community to include her in an Inspector Spacetime episode.
I'd even try to turn the tide
Scott Widak, 47, has Down syndrome and is terminally ill with liver disease. To cope with his uncle's challenging situation, Widak’s nephew, Sean O’Connor, turned to the Reddit community to see if anyone would be interested in sending a letter to his uncle. O’Connor then included a link to a news article about Widak and his art, along with two photos of him and his mother, a P.O. box address and a few things he’s interested in, like Johnny Cash. Following the post, Widak received hundreds of letters from all over the world. From Mashable: a story of random acts of kindness.
75 mpg.
A new world record for fuel efficiency has been set. John and Helen Taylor drove a a 2012 Volkswagen Passat TDI SE for 1,626.1 miles, averaging 84.1 miles per gallon, using hypermiling techniques. The EPA lists the vehicle at 31 mpg city and 43 highway.
Meanwhile, youtube user "Fidallyb" is upset because the BlueMotion TDI Passat he rented while vacationing in Europe got over 78 mpg and yet isn't available in the United States.
Here are five more fuel efficient cars you can't buy in the United States. [more inside]
City on a Marsh
Many visitors to Boston assume that the Back Bay neighborhood is one of the city's oldest. It's actually one of the newest, reclaimed from Charles River marshland at the end of the 19th Century. Before the completion of this project, Beacon Street to Brookline was the top of a tidal dam. Today's Boston Proper is actually mostly fill: in 1630, Boston was 783 acres of land. By 1901, it was 1,904 acres. Filling in Back Bay was an enormous project, but some valuable lessons were learned decades earlier while filling in the South End.
Get off my lawn, programming n00bs!
Please don't learn to code (Coding Horror). Please Don't Become Anything, Especially Not A Programmer. (Learn Code the Hard Way).
Et tu, Yahoo? I suppose I saw it coming.
How Yahoo killed Flickr and Lost the Internet by Mat Honan of Gizmodo.
Too much gold is never enough (also tiles)
“To all unmarried ones who would like to spend their life by my side and within all the beauties of my home. Please look below at all the magic of my home that I have decorated with taste, perhaps just for YOU. Don Milisav Juan Gonzales Brzi, Contact: +33-#########″
The Vibrator gets an Overhaul
Jimmyjane (NSFW) makes luxury, design-oriented vibrators and other sex toys and accessories. ("Design inspired by Apple, not Hustler.") They'd like to change the way Americans think about them: instead of as 'dirty little secrets,' they're hoping for mainstream acceptance and to usher in an "Age of Great American Sex." (Via) [more inside]
In the MMORPG of life, straight white male is the easiest setting
Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is...
As the game progresses, your goal is to gain points, apportion them wisely, and level up. If you start with fewer points and fewer of them in critical stat categories, or choose poorly regarding the skills you decide to level up on, then the game will still be difficult for you. But because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and leveling up will still by default be easier, all other things being equal, than for another player using a higher difficulty setting.
Likewise, it’s certainly possible someone playing at a higher difficulty setting is progressing more quickly than you are, because they had more points initially given to them by the computer and/or their highest stats are wealth, intelligence and constitution and/or simply because they play the game better than you do. It doesn’t change the fact you are still playing on the lowest difficulty setting.
MeFi's own John Scalzi provides an excellent, relatable metaphor for explaining the realities of race and gender without invoking the dreaded word "privilege". [more inside]
As the game progresses, your goal is to gain points, apportion them wisely, and level up. If you start with fewer points and fewer of them in critical stat categories, or choose poorly regarding the skills you decide to level up on, then the game will still be difficult for you. But because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and leveling up will still by default be easier, all other things being equal, than for another player using a higher difficulty setting.
Likewise, it’s certainly possible someone playing at a higher difficulty setting is progressing more quickly than you are, because they had more points initially given to them by the computer and/or their highest stats are wealth, intelligence and constitution and/or simply because they play the game better than you do. It doesn’t change the fact you are still playing on the lowest difficulty setting.
MeFi's own John Scalzi provides an excellent, relatable metaphor for explaining the realities of race and gender without invoking the dreaded word "privilege". [more inside]
Isn't that Byronic?
Computer security consultant Byron Sonne (previously, previously) has been acquitted of charges he plotted to attack the G20 summit in Toronto.
Clayton Christensen
Clayton Christensen is the most influential business thinker on the planet. He's been everywhere lately: On Charlie Rose, in the New Yorker (pay-walled), in the Steve Jobs biography (as the author of the only business book to have influenced Jobs). He has applied his ideas of Disruptive Innovation and Jobs-to-be-Done (pdf) to industries such as healthcare and higher education. Recently he has been trying to apply them to personal and career development. He's also a devout Mormon (and a generous Romney campaign contributor) and a cancer, stroke, and heart attack survivor.
TONGUES ON THINGS THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE TONGUES
Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure, from 1928, is considered to be one of the first pornographic cartoons. It is certainly one of the strangest (NSFW)
Insider tells why Anonymous ‘might well be the most powerful organization on Earth’
Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, is currently on the run from the U.S. government. In this interview with the National Post he talks about his work with Anonymous and what it means for the future of information:
"Right now we have access to every classified database in the U.S. government. It’s a matter of when we leak the contents of those databases, not if. You know how we got access? We didn’t hack them. The access was given to us by the people who run the systems. The five-star general (and) the Secretary of Defence who sit in the cushy plush offices at the top of the Pentagon don’t run anything anymore. It’s the pimply-faced kid in the basement who controls the whole game, and Bradley Manning proved that. The fact he had the 250,000 cables that were released effectively cut the power of the U.S. State Department in half. The Afghan war diaries and the Iran war diaries effectively cut the political clout of the U.S. Department of Defence in half. All because of one guy who had enough balls to slip a CD in an envelope and mail it to somebody.
Now people are leaking to Anonymous and they’re not coming to us with this document or that document or a CD, they’re coming to us with keys to the kingdom, they’re giving us the passwords and usernames to whole secure databases that we now have free reign over. … The world needs to be concerned."(via)
Today there is NO intellectual presumption that markets are efficient.
The Invisible Hand is Invisible Because It Isn't There. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz gives the keynote address at the launch of The Roosevelt Institute's new initiative: Rediscovering Government. Via the Next New Deal.
Smart Wheels, Rat Things, and Reason have yet to be fully developed.
"She lets go of the handle and goes into free fall. At the same time, she jerks the manual release on her cervical collar and goes into full Michelin Man mode as tiny gas cartridges detonate in several strategic locations around her bod. The biggest one goes off like an M-80 at the nape of her neck, unfurling the coverall's collar into a cylindrical gas bag that shoots straight up and encases her entire head. Other airbags go off around her torso and pelvis, paying lots of attention to that spinal column."In his 1992 book Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson described a protective airbag technology for bikers and skateboarders. It's become a reality. [more inside]
Don't just like any old shit because it has spaceships...
It's just that I've been losing so long
We are independent, living our own lives for the first time.
"I’ve felt like my gender doesn’t match me for a very long time.” A Quiverfull mom describes her family's journey after her spouse comes out to her as transgender. (Excuse me, I have something in my eye.) (Via No Longer Quivering.)
Tweeting about bowling together (?)
Yesterday's Diane Rehm Show featured a conversation between Sherry Turkle (previously), Stephen Marche (previously) and Zeynep Tufekci. Tufekci has been critical of Turkle's and Marche's assertions that social media is making us lonely. A lively Twitter conversation and critique ensued.
Sometimes we don't know how important some research could be
Tipped off by an ancient poem, and supported by both historical and paleontological/geological research, Koji Minoura et al. found evidence of historic and prehistoric tsunamis[PDF] devastating north-east Japan just as that of March 2011 did -- and he had been saying for years that it could happen again. (via PRI's The World's science podcast)
British Bus Shelters
Some British bus shelters are, implausibly, powered by the light of the sun, and some can see what you’re up to & tell you to stop doing it. Others smell like baked potatoes, or dispense free pieces of cake. Others still can get you high if you set them on fire. More often though, these are dreary, malodorous locales where one is increasingly less likely to see a bus, let alone three coming along at once. Photographer Steve Ellaway has embarked on a project to photograph the bus shelters of South Wales: an unpromising subject on the surface of it, but one that has yielded surprisingly rich and varied results.
The Emergence of a Citation Cartel
The emergence of a citation cartel. "Cell Transplantation is a medical journal published by the Cognizant Communication Corporation of Putnam Valley, New York. In recent years, its impact factor has been growing rapidly. In 2006, it was 3.482. In 2010, it had almost doubled to 6.204.
When you look at which journals cite Cell Transplantation, two journals stand out noticeably: the Medical Science Monitor, and The Scientific World Journal. According to the JCR, neither of these journals cited Cell Transplantation until 2010.
Then, in 2010, a review article was published in the Medical Science Monitor citing 490 articles, 445 of which were to papers published in Cell Transplantation. All 445 citations pointed to papers published in 2008 or 2009 — the citation window from which the journal’s 2010 impact factor was derived. Of the remaining 45 citations, 44 cited the Medical Science Monitor, again, to papers published in 2008 and 2009.
Three of the four authors of this paper sit on the editorial board of Cell Transplantation. Two are associate editors, one is the founding editor. The fourth is the CEO of a medical communications company."
(from Scholarly Kitchen, via Andrew Gelman.)
Money Unlimited
Little Boxes
"Bias is required to do the work of agonism."
What do Amy and Klara, Exxon Secrets, and MAICgregator have in common? They are all examples of Adversarial Design.
Quickly eats polyurethane. Takes the next 400 years of decomposition time off.
Biodegradation of Polyester Polyurethane by Endophytic Fungi [scientific paper]. Pestalotiopsis microspora lives in dark, damp and anaerobic conditions in the Amazon, is a candidate for introduction to landfills, can survive on only polyurethane, and may solve the plastic 100-400 year decomposition issue [non-technical summary].
Public Finance, Prop 13, TFAs, and CRAs! OH MY!
Out of Cash - The End of the Nation’s Largest Redevelopment Program (and a major source of California’s local funding sources). [more inside]
« Previous day | Next day »