July 31, 2015
Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
Desire. Metaphor. The problem of many (“As anyone who has flown out of a cloud knows, the boundaries of a cloud are a lot less sharp up close than they can appear on the ground”). Implicature ("the act of meaning or implying one thing by saying something else"). Implicit bias. Feminism and globalization. Justice and bad luck. The Human Genome Project. The pineal gland (“a tiny organ in the center of the brain that played an important role in Descartes' philosophy”). Humor (“As he approached the gallows, Thomas More asked the executioner, ‘Could you help me up? I'll be able to get down by myself’”). The “Great Cosmological Debate” of the 1930s and 40s. Voting methods. Zombies.
…Read about all this and more in the remarkable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has just celebrated its 20th birthday. [more inside]
…Read about all this and more in the remarkable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has just celebrated its 20th birthday. [more inside]
The Frontier of Biotech
And the winner is...
Beijing has been voted as the host of the 2022 Winter Olympics, beating Almaty, Kazakhstan. It is the first city to host both the Summer and Winter games. [more inside]
Spot the Drowning Child
A series of visual tests: can you see which kid is in trouble?
Hot Rod Comes to a Halt - Rowdy Roddy Piper, 1954-2015
Wrestling legend Rowdy Roddy Piper has died of a heart attack at the age of 61. Piper was one of the great "heels" (villains) of the 1980s wrestling boom, teaming with Paul Orndorff at the first WrestleMania in 1985 to take on Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. [more inside]
A “highly curated community of like-minded individuals.”
Finally, something everyone is sure to agree on
All 74 Led Zeppelin Songs, Ranked, A definitive, uncontroversial list from the fine folks at Vulture.
“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”
A History of Art in Three Colours (BBC) [Part 1] [Gold] [Part 2] [Blue] [Part 3] [White] Dr James Fox explores how, in the hands of artists, the colours gold, blue and white have stirred our emotions, changed the way we behave and even altered the course of history.
There's enough Grace for everybody
Today's Penny Arcade comic is the last in a 1 2 3 4 5 6 part story that starts here. Set in the world of Nightlight where children's fears come alive and must be dealt with, Grace has to grow up and take her mother's place as protector of the family. Mike Kahulick (aka Gabe), the artist of PA, wrote a nice piece about his father seeing behind the curtain for the first time that discusses some of where this story comes from. [more inside]
Build a Boat Out of a (Single) 2x4
"It's a liter of adventure!"
The Timmy Brothers: Water Makers (SLVimeo)
Sexism in Game of Thrones
Depiction vs. Endorsement and Sexism in GoT: How Game of Thrones presents a sexist narrative when A Song of Ice and Fire doesn’t (spoilers through GoT 5x03 and the books). "The world in which Martin set his A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) is a terribly sexist one. But George R.R. Martin is not sexist. The books are not sexist. The show…is. And here’s why: where Martin actively forces the reader to address the problematic treatment of women in his series head-on as an overarching theme, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss (D&D) actively incorporate sexist tropes and demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the source material." [more inside]
Sexism: The Board Game
You are first a wife and a mother. Go to the Doll House. Sexism was conceived in 1971 by Carolyn Houger, (interview at link) a resident of Seattle, Washington. With the creation of Sexism, Houger hoped to “bring out the humor in the Women’s Liberation movement.” The idea for the game came to Houger after her four-year-old daughter returned home after playing the card game “Old Maid” with her friends and made the statement, “wouldn’t it be terrible to be an old maid?” [more inside]
It was like "Wow, we're getting away with this!"
An oral history of Wet Hot American Summer. (And, hey, First Day of Camp premieres on Netflix today.)
Windows 10 enjoys your sweet, delicious data
Do you own one of the 14 million computers already running Windows 10? If so, it might be a good time to review your privacy settings. [more inside]
It has more people than 26 states, contains one out of every 65 people
It is still possible in Park Slope, for example, to rent a duplex with a garden for $200 a month, a half-block from the subway [...] Hundreds of people are discovering that Brooklyn has become the Sane Alternative: a part of New York where you can live a decent urban life without going broke, where you can educate your children without having the income of an Onassis, a place where it is still possible to see the sky, and all of it only 15 minutes from Wall Street."Brooklyn: The Sane Alternative", Pete Hamill, 1969
A Thousand Thundering Thrills Await You!
Radioactive Trailers! Metafilter's own MST3K Club on Fanfare collects trailers for the zero budget, obscure, cult and bonkers movies you love, from Manos The Hands Of Fate to the Prince Of Space. [via mefi projects]
A late summer dive into the self
Personality, and a whole lot more. August always stirs up memories of going back to school for me. This year, I've been scratching the academic itch with some fine online classwork by the University of Toronto's Jordan B. Peterson.
If you like Jung, Freud, Personality you might find his youtube channel a profitable place to hang out. [more inside]
"4. Thou shalt not refrigerate fresh mozzarella"
10 Common Crimes Against Cheese You Don't Have to Commit - Serious Eats piece by Niki Achitoff-Gray. Previously: 7 Secrets To a Beautiful Cheese Board [more inside]
Spoiler alert: it’s not much.
"When someone like Chris Pratt lands back-to-back roles in some of the biggest movies of the year, that’s headline news. But when a charismatic, quirky actress like Judy Greer does the same, well, blink and you might miss her. The comedic actress—best known for her scene-stealing work in shows like Arrested Development and movies like The Descendants—showed up in four major 2015 films: Tomorrowland, Entourage, Jurassic World, and Ant-Man."
Here’s Every Single Line Judy Greer Had in a Movie This Summer.
Camel Racing with a Robot Jockey
Game changer
New Ebola vaccine shows 100% success rate in clinical trial. Today the World Health Organization has announced that the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine had a 100% success rate in preventing onset of the disease if administered within 10 days of exposure (n=4,000). In response to the current outbreak in West Africa that has afflicted over 27,000 and killed over 11,000, this collaborative effort led by the WHO pushed the vaccine through a process that usually takes more than a decade in just 12 months. Official paper from The Lancet here (pdf).
Why are people booing Adam Goodes?
Adnyamathanha and Narungga man Adam Goodes is an Australian Rules football (AFL) player, two times winner of the highest individual award for the fairest and best player, as well as playing in two premiership winning games over his eighteen year career with the Sydney Swans. He works with indigenous youth in detention and co-chairs a foundation (with Michael O'Loughlin) working to empower the next generation of indigenous mentors. Goodes is a former Australian of the Year (2014) who recently said that "If people only remember me for my football, I've failed in life."
So why are people booing Adam Goodes? [more inside]
Sometimes we CAN have nice things (for a bit)
"I do like to believe that people will be inherently good if you offer friendship in the game. ... I communicate entirely through Jazz Hands." A player describes an attempt at a non-violent gameplay in Grand Theft Auto Online (via @TheQuinnspiracy).
Death of a Prosecutor
Alberto Nisman accused Iran and Argentina of colluding to bury a terrorist attack. Did it get him killed? [more inside]
Warren Buffet wants to give you an IUD
Warren Buffett’s Family Secretly Funded a Birth Control Revolution
Quietly, steadily, the Buffett family is funding the biggest shift in birth control in a generation. “For Warren, it’s economic. He thinks that unless women can control their fertility—and that it’s basically their right to control their fertility—that you are sort of wasting more than half of the brainpower in the United States,” DeSarno said about Buffett’s funding of reproductive health in the 2008 interview. “Well, not just the United States. Worldwide.”
Pair of tits? Check.
Nudinits: Tickled Pink, an all-knit stop-motion animation. While the link itself is adorably SFW, the videos YouTube suggests in the sidebar are basically porn, so be forewarned.
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