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Facts about life in a small town?
[For a fiction project] Tell me about signifiers of present-day life in a very small U.S. town.
Looking at Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series.
Isaac Asimov's Foundation: The little idea that became science fiction's biggest series [SPOILERS] (io9)
On the planet Terminus, a group of academics struggles to survive as the Galactic Empire crumbles. With no weapons, all they can rely on are the predictions of a dead genius named Hari Seldon. That's right — it's time to discuss Isaac Asimov's Foundation!
Welcome to Foundation Week, a Blogging the Hugos special event. In 1983, Isaac Asimov won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for Foundation's Edge, in which he revisited his groundbreaking Foundation mythos for the first time in over thirty years. Because the Foundation series is such classic, quintessential, and beloved science fiction — the original stories won their own unique Hugo for Best All-Time Series in 1966, and influenced artists from Douglas Adams to George Lucas — Josh Wimmer and Alasdair Wilkins will be discussing each of the seven books between today and Sunday. We begin with Foundation, published in 1951.
Tales of the Unanswerable Retort
In 2010 (previously), Andrew Plotkin launched a Kickstarter to enable him to quit his job and work on an epic-scale text-adventure full-time. He thought it would take him about a year.
Four years later, Hadean Lands is complete and available for iOS, PC, Mac, and Linux.
The Force Is Strong With This Dad
When a seven-year-old girl wants to be Han Solo for Halloween, what's her father to do? Dress as Princess Leia, of course.
What to read when pressed for time.
17 Brilliant Short Novels You Can Read in a Sitting by Lincoln Michel at Electric Literature:
This week author Ian McEwan expressed his love of short novels, saying “very few [long] novels earn their length.” Certainly it seems like a novel has to be a minimum of 500 pages to win a major literary award these days, and many genre novels have ballooned to absurd sizes.
I love a good tome, but like McEwan many of my favorite novels are sharpened little gems. It’s immensely satisfying to finish a book in a single day, so in the spirit of celebrating quick reads here are some of my favorite short novels. I’ve tried to avoid the most obvious titles that are regularly assigned in school (The Stranger, Heart of Darkness, Mrs Dalloway, Of Mice and Men, Frankenstein, The Crying of Lot 49, etc.). Hopefully you’ll find some titles here you haven’t read before.
When you meet a stranger, look at his shoes.
The Rise Of Men’s British-Made Shoes
The most famous Northampton technique is the 'Goodyear welted' shoe. Invented in 1869 by Charles Goodyear, Jr., the Goodyear welted process is the footwear equivalent of the off-side rule: until somebody sits you down and talks you through it, it’s quite hard to understand.
The process involves approximately 75 components and 200 separate operations. On average, the whole process, from start to finish, takes eight weeks to complete. The main benefit of footwear that is made using Goodyear welted construction is that it can be resoled repeatedly, giving the shoe a longer lifespan.
Does anyone still play Kingdom of Loathing?
I've been getting back into Kingdom of Loathing recently, and I wanted to play with MeFites! Adventurers are us!
Most People With Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, addiction is “a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry.” However, that’s not what the epidemiology of the disorder suggests. By age 35, half of all people who qualified for active alcoholism or addiction diagnoses during their teens and 20s no longer do, according to a study of over 42,000 Americans in a sample designed to represent the adult population.
Only a quarter of people who recover have ever sought assistance in doing so (including via 12-step programs). This actually makes addictions the psychiatric disorder with the highest odds of recovery.Metafilter's own maias on myths surrounding the disease(?) of substance addiction, and their impact on medicine and policy.
What should I be when I grow up? (Post-PhD edition)
Now that I've finally figured out that "tenure-track professor in the humanities" isn't actually a real job that exists in 2014, I'd appreciate help figuring out what job possibilities might be a good match for my strengths, weaknesses, and priorities.
Calculus without limits
Hyperreal numbers: infinities and infinitesimals
- "In 1976, Jerome Keisler, a student of the famous logician Tarski, published this elementary textbook that teaches calculus using hyperreal numbers. Now it's free, with a Creative Commons copyright!" (pdf—25mb :)
The point is that I am in here, somewhere: cogito ergo sum.
"Let’s note that I write this while experiencing psychosis, and that much of this has been written during a strain of psychosis known as Cotard’s delusion
, in which the patient believes that she is dead. What the writer’s confused state means to either of us is not beside the point, because it is the point. The point is that I am in here, somewhere: cogito ergo sum." (via)
From Horizon To Innocence
U2's thirteenth studio album Songs Of Innocence was released for free download via iTunes this week (with surprisingly good reviews and some naysayers). And of course, some controversy about how it was distributed... But it's been 5 1/2 years since the release of their last album. What on earth have they been up in the meantime?
Songs about bottoms.
What is the highest number of songs appearing in the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time having butts (or a single butt) as a primary lyrical subject? When was it?
Are there any good critiques of Neil Postman out there?
So I was assigned Amusing Ourselves to Death as a freshman, and strongly disliked it; much of it was over my head, and my takeaway then was that he was merely a reactionary who believed "Print good. Electronic media bad." However, I'm older and hopefully smarter and I'd like to come at it fresh, and see if I can get more out of it.
"Do you... do you like Tina Turner, Ted?"
The Fast Show summary from Wikipedia:
The Fast Show, known as Brilliant in the US, was a BBC comedy sketch show programme that ran from 1994 to 1997, with a special in 2000 and 2014. It was one of the most popular sketch shows of the 1990s in the UK. The show's central performers were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Simon Day, Mark Williams, John Thomson, Arabella Weir and Caroline Aherne. Other significant cast members included Paul Shearer, Rhys Thomas, Jeff Harding, Maria McErlane, Eryl Maynard, Colin McFarlane and Donna Ewin.
It was loosely structured and relied on character sketches, recurring running gags, and many catchphrases. Its fast-paced "blackout" style set it apart from traditional sketch series because of the number and relative brevity of its sketches; a typical half-hour TV sketch comedy of the period might have consisted of nine or ten major items, with contrived situations and extended setups, whereas the premiere episode of The Fast Show featured twenty-seven sketches in thirty minutes, with some items lasting less than ten seconds and none running longer than three minutes. Its innovative style and presentation influenced many later series such as Little Britain and The Catherine Tate Show.
The origins of that stereotypical Chinese nine-note riff
Kat Chow, with NPR's Code Switch, put together a short piece on the history and the prevalence of the well-known nine note "stereotypical Asian theme." As described in a 2005 Straight Dope forum question: You know, the one that goes dee dee dee dee duh duh dee dee duh. Featured heavily in braindead Hollywood flicks made by clueless directors who want to give a scene an "oriental" feel. Also a variation of it can be heard in David Bowie's "China Girl."
“It’s a matter of indifference to you?”
What's better than reading a judge ruthlessly dismantling arguments against marriage equality? Hearing the judge's own voice as he makes lawyers arguing for Indiana's and Wisconsin's bans on same-sex marriage look like fools. Previously.
Escalating Tensions in Ferguson, Missouri
We are now entering day 10 of protests in Ferguson, MO, protesting the murder of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by local law enforcement officer Darren Wilson on August 9th.
The itch nobody can scratch
“It’s just like something from science fiction. It’s something that you’d see in a movie or in a book on aliens from another planet. It’s out of this world.” [closeup images of human skin that may be disturbing] Morgellon's disease [no images] is the topic of this week's Stuff You Should Know podcast. [no transcript] A CDC study could not identify a cause, and the medical community's consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis, but conspiracy theories abound [images]. (previously)
Good and Cheap - Cooking on SNAP
The Salt, NPR's food blog, explains how Leanne Brown was inspired to develop a cookbook for people on SNAP. Leanne published Good and Cheap[PDF] as the capstone project for her MA in
Food Studies at New York University and released it online as a free ebook. She also ran a successful Kickstarter to produce a print version.
Jane Marie and The Secret Life of Marrieds
Jane Feltes was a producer for This American Life. She changed her name, left TAL, and became a coeditor at The Hairpin, where she created the How to Be a Girl series that included Beauty Q&A; the Friday Bargain Bin, in which Jane told us how to spend our weekly allowance; and a collection of beauty tutorial videos, the highlight of which might possibly be The Cat Eye Tutorial for its use of office supplies and magic. Office supplies as magic?
Jane also came up with Women Struggling to Drink Water (previously).
Jane left The Hairpin in 2013 and currently writes a beauty column for Rookie as a well as the occasional longer piece, such as the inspirational and practical (for teens and adults) A Guide to Finding Yourself.
She also has a weekly column with Cosmopolitan in which she talks to married couples and gets them to share insight into their lives together: The Secret Life of Marrieds.
The Miura fold: art and mathematics of origami
The Miura fold, a type of rigid origami that works by folding flat, rigid sheets with hinges, has a number of uses. For instance, It's great for folding a map, because Interdependence of folds means that it is very difficult to reverse them and the amount of stress place on the map, and can be used on solar panels that need to be folded and unfolded by automation, as deployment only requires one motor, and to transport materials for telescope lenses that originally would be too big to fly into space. Here's one schematic for duplicating the Miura fold (PNG), and a simplified version (YouTube). More information and fun with scientific origami at Robert J. Lang's origami website.
Cross-cultural experiences of schizophrenia
A new study by Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann and others found that voice-hearing experiences of people with serious psychotic disorders are shaped by local culture – in the United States, the voices are harsh and threatening; in Africa and India, they are more benign and playful. This may have clinical implications for how to treat people with schizophrenia, she suggests.
Mythos I, II, & III
As a summation of his life's work, mythologist Joseph Campbell went on a speaking tour during the last decade of his life. The filmed three-part series Mythos, over fourteen hours, is available on YouTube. Mythos I Mythos II Mythos III. The series is also available on DVD.
A Trip Through The Looking Glass to Eradicate Phantom Pain
The Mirror Man
Surgery and medication have been found to be only slightly or not at all effective when dealing with phantom pain... In 2008, Stephen ... had a particularly agonising bout of phantom pain. “I was not presentable for 72 hours,” he says. He was aware of mirror therapy from having looked online for treatments, and he decided to give it a try. He got into his truck and drove two-and-a-half hours to the nearest Home Depot to buy a mirror. He tried it right there in the parking lot, and in five minutes the pain was gone.
Democratic Theory and Mass Incaceration
The new issue of the journal The Good Society is about "Democratic Theory and Mass Incaceration." All articles are available online.
From the Introduction: The United States is the “world champion” in incarceration, to borrow Nils Christie's words, and United Kingdom jurisdictions, though some distance behind, are persistently among the European countries with the highest per capita rates of imprisonment [...] This symposium of the Good Society seeks to catalyze an engaged, multi-disciplinary discussion among philosophers, political theorists, and theoretically inclined criminologists on how contemporary democratic theory might help us think beyond mass incarceration. Rather than viewing punishment as a natural reaction to crime, and imprisonment as a sensible outgrowth of this reaction, we will frame these as institutions with deep implications for contemporary civic identity, which present unmet demands for public oversight and reflective democratic influence.
The rest of the issue can be read online here. [via mefi projects]
From the Introduction: The United States is the “world champion” in incarceration, to borrow Nils Christie's words, and United Kingdom jurisdictions, though some distance behind, are persistently among the European countries with the highest per capita rates of imprisonment [...] This symposium of the Good Society seeks to catalyze an engaged, multi-disciplinary discussion among philosophers, political theorists, and theoretically inclined criminologists on how contemporary democratic theory might help us think beyond mass incarceration. Rather than viewing punishment as a natural reaction to crime, and imprisonment as a sensible outgrowth of this reaction, we will frame these as institutions with deep implications for contemporary civic identity, which present unmet demands for public oversight and reflective democratic influence.
The rest of the issue can be read online here. [via mefi projects]
Moon Hooch
NPR's Bob Boilen (host of All Songs Considered): "People ask me all the time to name my favorite Tiny Desk Concert. It's my desk and I've seen almost all of the nearly 400 concerts up close. So you'd think this would be easy. Moon Hooch have made it a lot easier." (video)
musical mathematical journeys
Trio for Three Angles (1968) is one of many beautiful acclaimed visually-oriented short films with music by mathematical filmmakers Bruce and Katharine Cornwell, some animated by hand and some using early digital technology. It inspired three sequels: Similar Triangles (1975), Congruent Triangles (1976), and Journey to the Center of a Triangle (1978) (previously).
Philosophy class in French lycees
It is my understanding that French high school students take a year-long philosophy course in the last year of the lycee. So what's it like in this course, anyway?
The modern American realist novel in a time of r>g
In the LA Review of Books, Stephen Marche reflects upon the Literature of the Second Gilded Age.
In his recently published book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, economist Thomas Piketty argues that when r>g, that is, when an economy's annual rate of return on capital exceeds the economy's annual rate of growth, wealth inequality tends to increase, and that this condition has held both during the 19th century and since around the latter quarter of the 20th century. Unusually for an economics book, Piketty's work makes reference to several pre 20th-century works of fiction.
Stephen Marche discusses role of this literature in Piketty's book. He goes on to critique the modern American social-realist novel. Although these books are not discussed by Piketty, according to Piketty's research they too pertain to a time in which r>g. Marche however accuses the more modern literature of being a "restrained, aspirational product" with "most of its sting removed".
Wes Anderson Analyzed
Seven video essays by Matt Zoller Seitz on Wes Anderson films.
Losing the War
Losing the War
"From the beginning, the actual circumstances of World War II were smothered in countless lies...People all along have preferred the movie version: the tense border crossing where the flint-eyed SS guards check the forged papers; the despondent high-level briefing where the junior staff officer pipes up with the crazy plan that just might work...The truth behind these cliches was never forgotten -- because nobody except the soldiers ever learned it in the first place."
Songs that say "You suck" - cheerfully!
I'm looking for songs that sound cheerful and perky but express disdain, loathing, hatred, etc. (Not necessarily directed at a former romantic partner, although there are a couple of break-up songs that may fit the bill.) Two of the best examples I can think of are Lily Allen's "Fuck You" and the Scissor Sisters "I Can't Decide." Genre is irrelevant, although it will probably be hard to find a death metal song that is appropriately sunny-sounding. Got any recommendations?
Podcasts exploring how a topic interesects other areas
One of my favourite Youtube series is Extra Credits. This series is centered around games, but it explores any number of related topics from games in education, the business of making games, careers in the game industry, religion, psychology, social issues....
Are there any other podcasts or video series where the creator has strong expertise in a particular topic, but relates in to a broad range of other areas?
Doooooorrrrroooooothyyyyy Gaaaaaaaallllllle!
The Sad, Century-Long History of Terrible Wizard of Oz Movies. Would you like an exhaustive list? Sure you would...
What is the smallest prime?
What is the smallest prime?
"It seems that the number two should be the obvious answer, and today it is, but it was not always so. There were times when and mathematicians for whom the numbers one and three were acceptable answers. To find the first prime, we must also know what the first positive integer is. Surprisingly, with the definitions used at various times throughout history, one was often not the first positive integer (some started with two, and a few with three). In this article, we survey the history of the primality of one, from the ancient Greeks to modern times. We will discuss some of the reasons definitions changed, and provide several examples. We will also discuss the last significant mathematicians to list the number one as prime."
The view from the (far) left side of the balcony
What is it that the global pseudo-left in particular objects to about Lincoln and so values in Django Unchained?The intellectually bankrupt defenders of Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty by David Walsh, longtime film critic for the World Socialist Web Site.
This well-heeled social layer, conditioned by decades of academic anti-Marxism, identity politics and self-absorption, rejects the notion of progress, the appeal of reason, the ability to learn anything from history, the impact of ideas on the population, mass mobilizations and centralized force. It responds strongly to irrationality, mythologizing, the “carnivalesque,” petty bourgeois individualism, racialism, gender politics, vulgarity and social backwardness.
To such people, Lincoln is boring, staid and hagiographic, because it treats ideas and historical actors seriously and even admiringly. A film can hardly be degraded or “dark” enough today for these so-called radical commentators. The latter feel disdain for any expression of confidence in the best instincts and democratic sensibility of the American people, whom they view as always on the verge of forming a lynch mob.
FanFare Miniature Pony
Could we have a "My Shows" view on the FanFare front page? I probably only want to keep up with at most 4 or 5 of the whole list there....as we add more shows, that list is just going to grow and grow. Thoughts?
“The link between surveillance and fear"
A Suicide Bomber’s Guide to Online Privacy is the title of a keynote talk that Peter Watts (previously) gave to the International Association Of Privacy Professionals' Canada Symposium.
My immediate reaction was that this had to be some kind of cruel hoax. But they hooked me anyway, with what basically came down to a double-dare: “You’ve got a chance to talk to the regulators who enforce privacy law and the executives as big companies who make decisions about what to do with your data – what do you want to say to them?” Well. Since you ask.
One Scene, One Shot
The Spielberg Oner:
"One overlooked aspect of Spielberg is that he's actually a stealth master of the long take. From Duel to Tintin, for forty years, he has sneakily filmed many scenes in a single continuous shot."
Feel free to go medieval on this question
I am seeking recommendations of fiiction set in medieval times - but, I'm not interested in mysteries, stories focusing on kings/queens/knights/battles etc, or fantasy. Rather, I'm looking for accurate depictions of people living in that era-- their lives, struggles, adventures. I've read the Ken Follett trilogy and enjoyed the first 1.5 books. Really liked Noah Gordon's The Physician. What are you favorites?
"I hate celebrity culture"
Given to the Oxford Union, I submit a lecture on the nature of celebrity by one Jack Gleeson, best known as "Little Boy" in Batman Begins, but also for his role in HBO's "Game of Thrones".
Hear them now, before they feature in Wes Anderson's next movie
Each year for the past seven years, Billboard Magazine's Rich Appel has surveyed a group of classic pop aficianados to create his IRS chart--It Really Should have been a Top 10 hit. This list of more than a thousand records largely from the 60s and 70s runs the gamut from classics that somehow never cracked the Top 10 during their heyday to the unjustly overlooked and obscure. Via the best radio show in America, Crap From the Past.
1. NOTHING BUT A HEARTACHE The Flirtations
2. CAN'T FIND THE TIME (to Tell You) Orpheus
3. WILL YOU BE STAYING AFTER SUNDAY The Peppermint Rainbow
4. SHAME, SHAME The Magic Lanterns
5. MORNING GIRL The Neon Philharmonic
6. MR. DIEINGLY SAD The Critters
7. GOD ONLY KNOWS The Beach Boys
8. THINGS I'D LIKE TO SAY The New Colony Six
9. PRETTY LADY Lighthouse
10. YELLOW RIVER Christie
And so much more!
1. NOTHING BUT A HEARTACHE The Flirtations
2. CAN'T FIND THE TIME (to Tell You) Orpheus
3. WILL YOU BE STAYING AFTER SUNDAY The Peppermint Rainbow
4. SHAME, SHAME The Magic Lanterns
5. MORNING GIRL The Neon Philharmonic
6. MR. DIEINGLY SAD The Critters
7. GOD ONLY KNOWS The Beach Boys
8. THINGS I'D LIKE TO SAY The New Colony Six
9. PRETTY LADY Lighthouse
10. YELLOW RIVER Christie
And so much more!
And then the woman let out a cry. I cannot describe it.
At the Market, Very Late
Last night in a supermarket about 3 AM, I saw a woman have a serious breakdown. [...] "I thought I had more money left," she muttered before bursting into tears. They were not tears of embarrassment. They were tears of desperation and panic and "I don't know what to do anymore."