August 7
Dude, You Stole My Article They say everyone's a critic, but in this case, the critic is everyone. Today in Slate, Jody Rosen uncovers what just might be "in purely statistical terms ... the greatest plagiarism scandal in the annals of American journalism".
Via Stolen from
Zoilus.
posted by Paid In Full at 12:19 PM -
40 comments
China: Humiliation and the Olympics. Orville Schell discusses China's
angry reaction to foreign criticism, the film
Dark Matter (based on the 1991
Lu Gang shooting in Iowa), and the Beijing Olympics.
... what gives Dark Matter
wider significance is the filmmakers' use of the Iowa incident to explore—indirectly—some important psychological dynamics between China and the West: China's deeply felt sense of historic injury by foreign nations, and the ways its often thwarted efforts to gain acceptance among leading world powers have exacerbated such sentiments. In the past, feelings of injury have arisen from such events as the Opium Wars and the Japanese occupation; and most recently after the Tibetan demonstrations this spring and during the run-up to this summer's Beijing Olympic Games. From the New York Review of Books.
posted by russilwvong at 11:11 AM -
16 comments
Mike the headless chicken was a
rooster who lived for 18 months after he was beheaded. In that time he grew from 2 1/2 to almost 8 pounds. When the veracity of this was questioned, the owner brought it to the University of Utah to have it's authenticity
confirmed.
posted by quin at 11:06 AM -
18 comments
Jerry Clower (
Wikipedia article) started telling his funny stories to boost sales when he was a seed and fertilizer salesman. He went on to become a successful comedian and Grand Ole Opry star.
[more inside]
posted by Daddy-O at 9:33 AM -
9 comments
In a single 1931
document, electrical engineer
Alan Blumlein patented stereo records, stereo movie sountracks and surround sound. His equipment was used to make some of the
first stereo recordings at EMI's Abbey Road studios - several decades before the technology came into popular use. Blumlein went on to pioneer
405 line TV (the first wholly electronic format which won out over John Logie Baird's rival system) and to produce the equipment that made the
first outside TV broadcast possible. At the outbreak of World War 2 he was a key architect of the secret
H2S radar project. Unfortunately he was killed in a plane crash while testing the technology and the whole incident was kept secret. Hence he remains an obscure figure despite his achievements. A
recent BBC Radio 4 program contains a lot of the archive stereo footage and tells his story.
posted by rongorongo at 9:10 AM -
3 comments
In the First Person "is a free, high quality, professionally published, in-depth index of close to 4,000 collections of personal narratives in English from around the world. It lets you keyword search more than 700,000 pages of full-text by more than 18,000 individuals from all walks of life. It also contains pointers to some 4,300 audio and video files and 30,000 bibliographic records."
(Description from website.) You can also browse by
repository,
collection,
subject and several other ways.
posted by cog_nate at 9:01 AM -
7 comments
Science Hack is a unique search engine for science videos focusing on Physics, Chemistry, and Space. For example,
things to do with
sulfur hexafluoride. Still growing, the editors are presently indexing other scientific fields of study including Geology, Psychology, Robotics and Computers. Ever wonder
why things go bang?
posted by netbros at 8:11 AM -
6 comments
Men in Women-in-Prison [Films]
"This dynamic — of eroticized male exclusion from, and investment in, female relationships — was the defining feature of a handful of women-in-prison films from the 1970s. In these movies, female sisterhood, generally in the face of oppression, is itself fetishized — feminism is turned into a kind of masochistic male wet dream. How this unlikely cathexis occurred, and how it functioned, is the subject of this essay."
[more inside]
posted by carsonb at 12:08 AM -
17 comments
August 6
India is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. Fortunately, somebody has rendered the whole sub-continent down to a series of maps. Want to know
who speaks what, where, or maybe the
AIDS prevalence by state? Or how about the
history of India (Flash). Or (if you're on vacation) a map of the
average rainfall and
some travel maps might help. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Indian political, climate, historical, and cultural maps to check out.
posted by Panjandrum at 8:52 PM -
13 comments
OneGeology is an international initiative of the geological surveys of the world which is taking the data from the individual surveys and combining their data into a consistent format to produce the first digital geological map of the world.
[more inside]
posted by shothotbot at 8:35 PM -
5 comments
He wrote the childrens book
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a travel guide called
Thrilling Cities, a study of
Diamond Smugglers... and created
James Bond.
Ian Fleming, who died of a heart attack at 56, was born
a century ago this past May. He led a fascinating life. Born the
son of an MP, educated at
Eton and
Sandhurst, he served in the
Black Watch, and then in
Naval Intelligence. His time in naval intelligence
led to his most famous creation, and the writing of
Casino Royale.
An immediate best seller in the US when President Kennedy listed 1957's
From Russia With Love as one of his favorite books, Fleming
eventually wrote twelve novels and nine short stories
featuring 007, leading to
one of the most successful movies empires of all time. Fleming returned the favor, suggesting to Kennedy over a dinner ways in which
the CIA could work to discredit Fidel Castro. Not only a prolific writer, Fleming was also a talented bibliophile and collector,
amassing a collection of books
now held by the
Lilly Library at
Indiana University, Bloomington.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 7:49 AM -
35 comments
How Plastic Surgery Can Give An Older Woman The Face Of A Baby:
She looked a little like … Madonna? Strange, I know, since Madonna and my friend have little in common, at least physically. But when I saw the Big Ciccone on the cover of Vanity Fair a couple of months later, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities: the Mount Rushmore cheekbones, the angular jawline, the smoothed forehead, the plumped skin, the heartlike shape of the face. Their faces didn’t seem pulled tight in that typical face-lift way; they seemed pushed out. Looking at Madonna, I kept thinking of the British expression for reconditioning a saddle: having it "restuffed." Perhaps that’s where she got the idea to have some work done. After the hunt, Madge dismounted her trusty steed and thought, My saddle needs restuffing. And, by George, so does my face!
[more inside]
posted by beaucoupkevin at 7:03 AM -
47 comments
Paris Responds John thought he would be clever and use Paris in his campaign ad... Paris one-ups him with an even BETTER ad..(slyt) maybe NSFW if females in bathing suits are frowned upon..
posted by HuronBob at 6:42 AM -
173 comments
« Older posts
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
