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Karl Rove Resigns. The man known as “Bush's Brain” and whom Frontline called “The Architect” will leave office at the end of August.
posted on Aug-13-07 at 4:31 AM

“I wanted to try to capture the intelligence of the design, not just the outcome of the design.” “In 1977, [Donald] Knuth halted research on his books for what he expected to be a one-year hiatus. Instead, it took 10. Accompanied by [his wife] Jill, Knuth took design classes from Stanford art professor Matthew Kahn. Knuth, trying to train his programmer’s brain to think like an artist’s, wanted to create a program [TeX] that would understand why each stroke in a typeface would be pleasing to the eye.”—from a profile of Knuth in the Stanford Magazine (May '06). Salon calls him “computing’s philosopher king” (Sep '99). NPR’s Morning Edition interviews Knuth as “the founding artist of computer science” (Mar '05). Perhaps a MeFite somewhere has one of these? (Previously)
posted on Apr-23-07 at 4:34 AM

You'll go by the phone kiosk and you'll hear young men having these very strange, almost surreal arguments or discussions with their wives over something like, "Hey the garage is leaking, how do we fix that?" And what she maybe doesn't understand is, maybe that guy just got ambushed, like half an hour ago, and he's shaking from the adrenaline, and he's just calling her just to hear a familiar voice, and she's like, "We gotta get the sprinklers fixed." And he's like, "Oh, OK ... . I love you." He just wants to get back to the ground. And that's what makes me angry, is what all of this is doing to these very young families. It just makes me mad. It makes anybody mad.

—Henry Rollins, interviewed in TNR (reg required, free) on his frequent USO visits to Afghanistan and Iraq.
posted on Apr-13-07 at 8:38 AM

Personality

“Research in individual differences addresses three broad questions: 1) developing an adequate descriptive taxonomy of how people differ; 2) applying differences in one situation to predict differences in other situations; and 3) testing theoretical explanations of the structure and dynamics of individual differences.”

Visit the Personality Project. While you're there, participate in the Internet Personality Inventory Survey.
posted on Dec-12-05 at 1:16 AM

Dept. of Homeland Security: Emergencies and Disasters

Preparing America In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.

Clearly, we are in good hands.
posted on Sep-3-05 at 6:01 PM

The Infinite Teen Slang Dictionary
For example, “screef”   ☛ from MonkeyFilter
posted on Feb-27-05 at 1:03 PM

Sunday Night's Election Debate  —  National security issues loom large, voters are admonished not to decide to “cut and run”. Medicare and the economy were also points of contention. The greens are being attacked as “commies”. John Quiggin has some observations.
posted on Sep-13-04 at 11:31 PM

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?  Walgreens, a nationwide drugstore chain, has been unsuccessful in obtaining city approval for a new store in a south Austin neighborhood. Now, they're trying a new approach:

“Along with plan revisions and numerous neighborhood meetings, they made public in February their intention to build a permanent home for a nearby icon, Maria Corbalan's Taco Xpress.”
      —Austin American Statesman, 6-13-04

...and they've hired a political consultant, reportedly with green leanings and a history lobbying the city of Austin, to drum up support for this cause (specifically the Maria's Tacos portion of their strategy). Insidious? Benign? Is this a new trend?
posted on Jun-13-04 at 9:27 PM

“Tool Use In Animals”, a tidy little informative set of pages from Dr. Robert Cook's much larger “Animal Cognition & Learning Website” at Tufts University. See also (worth repeating because it’s the coolest thing ever) the previously featured “Betty the Crow”.   ◊via milovoo in Ask MetaFilter◊
posted on May-3-04 at 4:12 AM

Red vs. Blue and Political Self-Segregation:

“Republicans and Democrats joke these days that they can’t understand each other, that they feel as though they live on different planets. It’s no joke. They do. One of the reasons American politics is so bitter is that Republicans and Democrats are less likely today to live in the same community than at any time in the last 55 years.”

The Austin-American Statesman’s Bill Bishop begins a series of articles on the increasing political segregation across the US—a variety of segregation that has surprisingly increased while others (for example, racial) have declined. Timothy Noah of Slate has some thoughts. For background, it’s been discussed elsewhere that the traditional 2000 election red vs. blue state map is misleading and that a gradated county map might be more enlightening. Here’s one. Here’s an analysis with a different take on the data. And here are some other interesting cartograms of that election’s results. [Alternative Links Inside]
posted on Apr-22-04 at 3:53 AM