June 18, 2012
Diff's of CNN and NYT articles
Online articles often change after publication, except there is no history tab and sometimes those revisions are controversial, for example this Politico story on General Stanley McChrystal. Enter NewsDiff: Tracking Online News Articles Over Time. It allows you to compare evolving versions of online news articles after they are published, starting with The New York Times and CNN. Here are some example diffs - see anything controversial? Last year, Times executive editor Jill Abramson called the idea "unrealistic" in response to an OpEd calling for diffs. (via)
I would have come up with a better title if I could bother to lift my chubby fingers to the keyboard
Rapid Increase of Worldwide Laziness as Global Physical Activity Levels Decline. According to this study, most of the world just sits around getting fat now.
Surface to Air
Borrowing a name from another product, Microsoft today announced it's first ever hardware products running a mainstream version of Windows, and the first designed for Windows 8: The Microsoft Surface, in ARM and Intel flaovours. Hands on. Video highlighting the stand and covers.
A Night At The.. the.. umm.. some sort of 8-bit slash opera pun..
MetaFilter faves/VGM legends/Jim Steinman incarnates The Protomen have taken a sabbatical from their epic concept album trilogy-in-works based on the MegaMan canon to record a tribute to Queen. [more inside]
Read the same three paragraphs of a novel once every two weeks; fall asleep.
Falsehoods Programmers Believe
Falsehoods programmers believe about names and time shows how difficult it can be to represent basic concepts in code.
Skepchick vs Psychology Today
Elyse, one of the bloggers at Skepchick (previously, an incident involving another member of Skepchick), is propositioned at a conference and writes about it. Marty Klein, a writer for Psychology Today (previously: 1 2 3) doesn't like it. Elyse responds. [more inside]
Ones who does not have Triforce can't go in.
My Son’s Zelda Nursery: "This is what has been keeping me busy for the past 3 months. As soon as I found out we were having a boy I knew I wanted his room to inspire adventure, creativity, and exploration. Having a place to like that to grow up in would be amazing!" [via] [more inside]
The Art of the Netsuke Lives On
"[N]early all Japanese people have figurines, anime or cartoon characters hanging from their mobile phones — for the most part without realizing they are in their mass-produced, contemporary way keeping alive the nation's netsuke tradition. In contrast, those netsuke on Kuroiwa's phone are the real deal — small, delicate, uniquely crafted sculptures in ivory and an assortment of woods." Julian Littler searches for traditional ivory netsuke carvers (print view; standard web view), and interviews Akira Kuroiwa, a member of the Japan Ivory Sculptors Association (Google auto-translation). [via MetaChat] [more inside]
"It seems ironic saying that, seeing as I've left now, but I still love our culture."
19-year-old Kelly Hofer grew up in a Hutterite colony in Manitoba, and his photography captures his life as a Hutterite. Recently, Kelly left the community to start a new life in Calgary.
The American Oval Board Track: Murderdrome
Nearly unrecognizable to today's MotoGP contests, with top speeds upwards of 215mph (346kph), early days of modern-day American motorcycle racing still reached speeds of 95mph (152kph) on dangerous wooden 45° banked tracks that earned the nickname Murderdromes by the end of the 1920's. Riders often raced with no brakes and leather helmets. But mostly, just a sweater and a smile. [more inside]
It's a test designed to provoke an emotional response.
Installing concrete type on the grounds of the Blackpool Comedy Carpet
The Comedy Carpet is an enormous public typographic artwork in Blackpool, England, for decades a waystation for every stand-up comedian and comedy troupe in the country. This giant expanse of typography – like a football field of flat concrete you can read and walk on – displays every punchline and catchphrase of 20th-century British comedy, up to and including the entire Monty Python “Parrot Sketch.” Designer Andy Altmann gives a talk (direct Vimeo version) describing the immense design, computation, and construction work that went into fitting all those letters together. [more inside]
Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?
NPR Intern Emily White wrote that out of a library of 11,000 songs, she had only purchased 15 CDs. Camper Van Beethoven/Cracker's David Lowery responds: "Why do you pay real money for this other stuff but not music?"
Thank God, he had his ID.
Silent march by thousands protest NYPD's stop-and-frisk tactics. 'Nearly 300 civil rights groups were represented in the 30-block walk, from elected officials and labor union members to New York residents angry about how they're being treated when they walk the streets. Critics say the NYPD's practice of stopping, questioning and searching people who police consider suspicious is illegal and humiliating to hundreds of thousands of law-abiding blacks and Hispanics. Last year, the NYPD stopped close to 700,000 people, up from more than 90,000 a decade ago.' [more inside]
Trouble in the Old Dominion
Uproar over forced resignation of University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan enters second week. [more inside]
USS - a portfolio of probabilities _02
"Sometimes students are good for a big surprise - as in this case. Having read one of my shorter posts (actually this one: www.hs-augsburg.de/~mstoll/?p=411 ) on a website about retro-futurism, Dennis Bille one day came around with a quite large set of folders and unpacked these wonderfull illustrations. Obviously they once were give-a-ways from "United States Steel International" to show, how the future might look like - from a early 60s perspective."
Nissan build the Batmobile
Nissan's Batmobilelike DeltaWing in collaboration with Dan Gurney's All American Racers and others is car initially made to be the new IndyCar but ultimately made to contest the 24 Hours of Le Mans and possibly American Le Mans using half the amount of tyres and fuel as any car. It managed to run for 6 of the 24 hours before being taken out in the race.
Haboob blows through town/Brown dirt covers everything/Car washed yesterday
To raise awareness of the hazards of Haboobs, the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) ran a “Haboob Haiku” challenge last week, soliciting the 5-7-5 syllable poems from residents via social media. [more inside]
Transparency is a core value at Google.
Government requests to censor content ‘alarming,’ Google says Google has received more than 1,000 requests from authorities to take down content from its search results or YouTube video in the last six months of 2011. In its twice-yearly Transparency Report, the world’s largest web search engine said the requests were aimed at having some 12,000 items overall removed, about a quarter more than during the first half of last year. [previously]
Who's got an Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath number?
Connect yourself to Kevin Bacon through film and you earn a Bacon Number, connect yourself to mathematician Paul Erdos through published papers and you earn an Erdos Number, connect yourself to Black Sabbath through recorded, published music and you earn a Sabbath Number.
Want to know which 3 people have an Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath Number?
Hollywood - Celebration of the American Silent Film
The wonderful, and fairly rare, 13-part documentary series from 1980 - Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film - is narrated by James Mason for Thames Television. Episode One - The Pioneers - [52 mins] [the rest are linked inside] shows:-
"the evolution of film from penny arcade curiosity to art form, from what was considered the first plot driven film, The Great Train Robbery, through to The Birth of a Nation, films showing the power of the medium. Early Technicolor footage, along with other color technologies, are also featured. Interviews include Lillian Gish, Jackie Coogan and King Vidor.*"[more inside]
Harder Better Faster Stronger
Breaking records at 16.32 petaflops, Blue Gene/Q is the world's new fastest supercomputer. [more inside]
Vacation Clips Without Context
One Minute Vacation is a short video of a two month trip to Asia cut together from one-second-per-day segments which creates a fantastic context-free moving snapshot of the locations and people. [slyt] [via]
I Didn't Want To But I Did
[Denis Wood wrote] a crazy dissertation. It’s about maps, mental maps, getting kicked off a bus, psychogeography, single element veridicality analysis, Europe, cartography, Kevin Lynch, passed-out subjects, Peter Gould, psychogeomorphology, the Shirelles, and the invention of “Environmental a” – a language for mapping. Among other things. It is driving the wrong way down the one-way-street of academia.
TorChat
TorChat is an instant messaging protocol based upon Tor hidden services, making it perhaps the only instant messaging protocol with any substantive resistance to traffic analysis. [more inside]
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