December 1, 2014
Nature will make its articles back to 1869 free to share online
Tjipetir mystery
Why are rubber-like blocks washing up on beaches? For the past few years, 100-year-old rubber-like blocks from Indonesia have been mysteriously washing up on beaches in the UK and northern Europe. The Titanic has been suggested as one of the possible sources - but now a beachcomber says she may have solved the puzzle of the Tjipetir blocks.
Beware the Yoko Bono bird, and shun / the frumious Putintin
Venture through the strange masquerade of Buffalo Bill Gates, but be warned: it is impossible to un-see the dreaded Putintin.
3 Quarks Daily Philosophy Prize Finalists 2014
3QD's 2014 finalists for best blog posts on philosophical topics: Should animal products have ethical warning labels? Why is scientific uncertainty a moral responsibility [see last 4 mins.]? Should people choose probabilistically among competing moral theories? What are some bad ways of arguing about free will? Are most of us just not good enough to be utilitarians? Are volunteer soldiers morally responsible for unjust wars? Do P2P networks provide a model for something to do with consciousness, reality, and, yep, quantum mechanics? When are delusions good for us (see also)? What's up with philosophical systems that knock themselves down, e.g. Nāgārjuna's, Nietzsche's, and Rorty's? There's also an archive page for older prizes and other categories (previously).
Boom! "Shriek" Flames *Death metal plays* "Oishi desho?" (SLGV)
If you're only going to watch one three second video on how to cook shrimp, make it this one.
Finally Single!!!
What's On Your Mind? No one is as happy as they present themselves on Facebook (because everyone lies). Counterpoint: That's okay.
It's Genetic
It's Genetic was a short series of one-panels comics by Kyle Baker (more) that ran in Marvel Age. via.
Gentrification and badly dressed white people
Vidal Reyna is a waiter at El Arco Iris, one of Highland Park’s oldest Mexican restaurants, owned by his wife’s family. He grew up here. He says the moment he understood that his neighborhood was becoming a different place happened on a drive with his father. Reyna recalls, 'He turns around and tells me in Spanish, ‘Hay muchos gueros mal vestidos por aqui.’” Loosely translated, that means “around here, there are a lot of badly dressed white people.” In August Marketplace's Wealth & Poverty Desk opened an office in Highland Park, Los Angeles, to get a view of gentrification from their new neighbours.
"Sunday"
On April 9th, 1961, eighteen year old Dan Drasin exited his apartment on MacDougal street and headed to Washington Square Park. He and hundreds of others went to speak out against a recent ban on the performance of music there on Sundays. The NYC Police showed up as well, and the peaceful protest (which the press inexplicably called “The Beatnik Riot”) was captured by Drasin’s camera. He later turned it into the seventeen minute documentary “Sunday”, which can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube. Drasin was recently interviewed and asked to share his thoughts on the protest some fifty years later.
scribble scribble *CLICK* scribble scribble *CLICK* scribble *CLICK*
Do you need to get the lead out? Are you having trouble getting to the point? Maybe this post all about the joys of mechanical pencils will help!
- Dave's Mechanical Pencils is probably the
goldlead standard, with reviews and links about everything related to mechanical pencils, leads, erasers, and pencil-related ephemera.
- Vittorio Villani's Drafting and Mechanical Pencils takes more of an individual collector's approach, with many beauty shots along with the reviews.
- All jammed up: The Old Geezer offers advice on how to clear a lead jam.
- Leadhead's Pencil Blog focusses on antique and vintage mechanical pencils. They are works of art themselves, and blogger Jon Veley has even set up an online museum.
- Leadholder Drafting Pencil Museum hasn't been updated in a while but is an exhaustive collection of lead-related material, including a section on the mechanics of different types of mechanical pencils.
- If you've only seen one mechanical pencil, it was probably a Scripto.
- The Pencil Pages is a treasure trove of pencil information and links.
- Finally, Pencil Revolution (previously) does not limit itself to mechanical pencils but the entire pencil lifestyle. After all, a great pencil needs great paper. (Warning: the links will take you down a time-sucking, pencil, paper, and office-supply rabbit hole.)
"I really would love to own a Hockney"
"No one really wants to admit I exist," says co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, James Watson, who after years of shunning over controversial statements is auctioning his 1962 Nobel Prize medal this Thursday to help pay bills and buy some artwork. Online bidding is an option.
Very very small numbers
Do you have good eyesight and a steady hand? How about a grown-up dot-to-dot picture to pass the time? Thomas Pavitte is the author of not only the 1000 Dot to Dot Portrait book but the 1000 Dot to Dot Cities Book (video), the 1000 Dot to Dot Animals Book (video), and various others including the Mona Lisa. (free download)
Spoiler alert: U2 is number one
Rolling Stone has announced its 50 best albums of 2014.
Conduits Gone Wild
Are you an admirer of pulchritudinous pipes, tubes, ducts, conduits and cables? Then head on over to reddit's Conduit Porn community, and its sister subreddit, Cable Porn (SFW)
The Saddest Thing I Know about the Integers
The integers are a unique factorization domain, so we can’t tune pianos. That is the saddest thing I know about the integers. [more inside]
Artisanal Nut Milks.
"For science, I ordered a raw kale salad with radish, fennel, almonds, and a creamy avocado dressing, which requires the digestive powers of a ruminant to power through; the barely edible analogue to a graffiti blaster to the guts." Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader reviews Owen+Alchemy, a "sleek set piece from Portlandia" that offers cold-pressed juice and "artisanal nut milks on tap" in the heavily gentrified Logan Square neighborhood.
But who is watching the watchers?
Nearly two years after the Numbered Air Force Commander overturned the court-martial conviction of a fighter pilot for sexual assault, the Chief Prosecutor for the Air Force has retired and joined the advocacy group devoted to changing the way the military prosecutes these crimes. His decision to retire was based, in part, on continuing clashes with senior Air Force judge advocates regarding his positions on how the military treats survivors of sexual assault and a downgraded performance review (denied by the Air Force) as a result of his conversations with members of Congress about how the military prosecutes these kinds of crimes. In the meantime, the Commander who overturned the court-martial conviction has retired (minus one of his stars) and the Inspector General who went on social media to express his "bitterness" with the situation and whose own handling of sexual assault cases has come under fire is still in his position overseeing military discipline.
Flat Eric five bucks
Mr. Oizo - 'Ham' directed by Eric Wareheim (SLvimeo) (Possibly NSFWorSanity)
"I knew nothing of love between fathers and sons."
Shin Dong-Hyuk, the only person born in a North Korean political prison camp known to have escaped, discusses the shock and guilt he feels upon learning that his elderly father, also a political prisoner, is still alive and is being used by the North Korean government to spread misinformation about Shin Dong-Hyuk. [more inside]
Mean Boys
A study of Georgia high schools "found that, at every grade level, boys engaged in relationally aggressive behavior more often than girls." Commenting on the study, the lead researcher said,
"We have books, websites and conferences aimed at stopping girls from being aggressive, as well as a lot of qualitative research on why girls are relationally aggressive," Orpinas said. "But oddly enough, we don't have enough research on why boys would be relationally aggressive because people have assumed it's a girl behavior."
Who here likes languages? I do! A lot!
Minna Sundberg, creator of Stand Still, Stay Silent (previously, twice) and A Redtail's Dream (previously), drew up some Nordic language cats to compare Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish as a way to describe how some characters in SS,SS can communicate even though they don't share a common language. Then she went beyond, and created some gorgeous language trees, based on the extensive Ethnologue (previously: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
Migration of Honey Buzzards
Migration of Honey Buzzards "Based on real data (latitude, longitude and height) from the University of Amsterdam the animation initially shows the tracks of 12 birds, but then concentrates on a pair - male and female, as they migrate south in Autumn 2010 from the Veluwe forest in the Netherlands to warmer weather on the African coast "
“Wow. Let’s drive to another town. We should not sleep here.”
Make sure the underlying muscles are intact
The 2nd episode of the new podcast Reply All is about the "unsettling" Instagram for Doctors app "Figure One". [more inside]
"a question of human dignity", said the archbishop
On Friday Finland's parliament narrowly approved a law for marriage equality. The Foreign Policy blog takes a look at why it took so long to do so compared to its neighbours.
Doxxing Defense
Look at the flowers, AMC
This past Sunday night was the mid-season finale of the popular AMC series, The Walking Dead, and there was much speculation that a character would die. Things took a bizarre turn when AMC posted a graphic to Facebook after the eastern time zone airing that confirmed what happened, effectively spoiling the storyline for viewers in other time zones. [more inside]
The Anak Merdeka - Indonesia's radical punk rockers
Indonesia is home to one of the biggest underground punk scenes in the world - a place of chaotic, frenzied moshpits filled with screaming 10-year-old punks and collective punk communities that make art and teach street kids how to busk with their ukuleles.
An hour-long radio documentary written and produced by Karli Munn, from queer feminist punk group Scum System Kill [more inside]
MuppeTED
Kermit the Frog (Steve Whitmire) does a TEDTalk at the TEDx in Jackson, Mississippi. A last-minute add to the program (the video starts with Sir Ken Robinson talking the famous frog out of cancelling), it's 20 minutes on Creativity and how to unleash it, with quotes from Jim Henson (obviously), Sir Ken, Salvador Dali and others, plus a few Muppet-centric jokes.*
Not the first Muppet contribution to TED: Scooter of The Muppet Show (David Rudman) had previously briefly covered the conflict between Tactile and CG characters (he's obviously very pro-tactile). And Sesame Street's Cookie Monster (also Rudman) 'helped' ultramarathon champion Scott Jurek talk about healthy foods and exercise at TEDMED. [more inside]
Not the first Muppet contribution to TED: Scooter of The Muppet Show (David Rudman) had previously briefly covered the conflict between Tactile and CG characters (he's obviously very pro-tactile). And Sesame Street's Cookie Monster (also Rudman) 'helped' ultramarathon champion Scott Jurek talk about healthy foods and exercise at TEDMED. [more inside]
"Managing to serve the perfect drink and stay upright (mostly)"
1920s – 1930s: The ice-skating waiters of Switzerland. Enough said.
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