March 15, 2009
"...a large sea creature, like an alligator."
Welcome to Dog Time. My name is Yorick. •
Episode 1 •
Dog Under a Blanket •
Cool Dogs Only •
Christman Special •
Gamer Dogz •
Snowy Fun Time Edition •
My Dog is Scared of the Floor •
“Walk” the “Dog” •
Cosplay Dog
When Atheists Attack
The days when America’s leading intellectuals contained a strong cadre of serious Christians are over. There is no Thomas Merton in our day; no Reinhold Niebuhr, Walker Percy or Flannery O’Connor. In the arguments spawned by the new atheist wave, the Christian respondents have been underwhelming.
American Religious Identification Survey, 2008
American Religious Identification Survey, 2008
Miru Kim at TED
Miru Kim: Making art of New York's urban ruins. "At the 2008 EG Conference, artist Miru Kim talks about her work. Kim explores industrial ruins underneath New York and then photographs herself in them, nude -- to bring these massive, dangerous, hidden spaces into sharp focus." [Via]
They paid what to who?
On the heels of news about $165 million to be paid as bonuses to AIG employees, the company has released
a list of
"the counterparties involved in credit default swaps and other transactions in which bailout funds were used to meet A.I.G. obligations."
In other words, where your bailout money went.
More background here.
What language is music?
Western musical intervals are derived from speech tendencies, according to Duke scientists. Specifically, "most of the 12 chromatic scale intervals correspond to peaks of relative power in the normalized spectrum of human vocalizations." A somewhat more layperson-friendly summary of the study is here. [more inside]
Gar's revenge
Meet batting stance guy. The NY Times has a neat profile on Gar Ryness, who has the most marketable least-marketable skill in America.
He does your favorite old-school players, as well as most of the current MLB team lineups, including the (non-Dutch) stars of the WBC. He's made video appearances for several teams (and MLB TV), and has quickly become a fan and player favorite for his uncanny depictions of players' idiosyncratic moves in the batter's box.
In terms of virtual baseball, batting stance guy is slightly more awesome than this.
Is the Science Settled Enough for Policy?
A great lecture on global warming given by Professor Stephen Schneider at Stanford University
Professor Schneider discusses the pitfalls of presenting scientific ideas on global warming to the public.
Lester Young (1909-1959)
The Sound of Broken Promises
The Seattle P-I is known for its in depth, epic, investigative reports. As the print edition closes down this week here is a look at one report that made the PI great: The Health of the Puget Sound. [more inside]
Fancy a cricket club for $34 million (USD)?
The Great Divide
British academics Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett believe they've discovered the underlying cause of all modern society's ills: inequality. In their book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, they explain how health and social problems follow a strikingly similar pattern, being closely correlated with income distribution (pdf). To spread the word, they've founded The Equality Trust
Soul Pancake
Actor Rainn Wilson has launched a community-driven discussion blog focused on life's big questions, such as do we get what we pray for?, why do we spend so much time talking about other people?, and do the imaginations of adults need a serious kick in the balls?
Of man's first disobedience.
Butt nuts. Muffin fruits. Cashew apples. Jaboitcabas. Kinbaran. Miracle fruit (whose extract, miraculin, has been banned as a food additive by the FDA.) Bignays, gourkas, sapotes, mombins, langsats, and jaboticabas. The semi-ferocious rat-tailed papaya (parody.) [more inside]
Daewoo to Buy Madagascar
Korea blog the Marmot's Hole reports on the crisis in Madagascar: Madagascar’s defense minister has resigned after security forces opened fire on anti-government protesters Saturday (in late January), killing 28. More than 100 have been killed since anti-government protests began two weeks ago. And what may have been the impetus for the protests? The final straw for many was the mooted plan to lease one million acres in the south of the country to the Korean firm Daewoo for intensive farming. Malagasy people have deep ties with their land and this was seen by many as a betrayal by their president. [more inside]
It does what it says on the tin
meow...
cluck cluck cluck BAWK! ROAR!!
When and if the dinochicken is created, Horner looks forward to bringing it out on a leash during lectures. (book)
Baby, it's cold outside
"R, and G, and B", a well-curated (and seemingly undiscovered) film blog
"R, and G, and B" is a very well-curated — and, seemingly as yet undiscovered — film review blog by the video artist Blake Williams covering pictures by filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Chris Marker, Chantal Akerman, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Carl Dreyer, Michael Haneke, Stanley Kubrick and, best of all, Abbas Kiarostami.
It just goes to show, you can't be too careful!
"A friend of mine has come up with an idea to stem the tide of bile. He wants people to post, as a comment, on as many opinion-garnering web pages as possible, as often as they can be bothered, the phrase: 'It just goes to show you can't be too careful!'" [more inside]
Book Burning: For Your Health!
Book Burning: For Your Health! "...under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federal government has now advised that children’s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute." (via Neil Gaiman's twitter stream)
The African-American Migration Experience
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience is organized around thirteen defining migrations that have formed and transformed African America and the nation. From The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture [prev], more than 16,500 pages of text, 8,300 illustrations, and 60+ maps. [more inside]
great generation or greatest generation?
Now is the time for a less selfish capitalism - "we should stop the worship of money and create a more humane society where the quality of human experience is the criterion... accelerated economic growth is not a goal for which we should make large sacrifices." Lord Layard challenges the orthodoxy; perhaps it's time to rein in the banks and try trickle-up bailouts? btw Richard Layard's 2003 LSE happiness lectures I think were pretty influential in reorienting economics back towards a more 'utility-based' approach in recent years, cf. Giddens on 'third way' politics re: Blair, New Labour and now Brown, viz. "to build tomorrow today..." [more inside]
Verminology
Verminology is a specimen garden of monsters and beasts of the most pestiferous and meddlesome sort, drawn by fingertip on iPhone, using Brushes app. New additions daily. Also be sure to check out Toadbriar for dolls, paintings, sculpture, and Faerie fun! From MeFi's own Lou Stuells. [via mefi projects].
He really did know your name
Eddie Doyle, 69, has been laid off from his job in Boston. Who is Eddie Doyle? Nobody special, just a bartender at a bar in Boston (that used to be) called The Bull & Finch. If that doesn't sound familiar, you might have seen the outside of it in the credits of a little television show in the 80s. The show brought thousands to the bar each day but the current recession has taken its toll and the owner, who has been friends with Eddie for 40 years, had to make some tough choices. [more inside]
Construction of Radio Equipment in a Japanese POW Camp
Construction of Radio Equipment in a Japanese POW Camp: A tale of human ingenuity.
The Plot Sickens
South Korea has one of the world's highest suicide rates (previously). The phenomenon has been acute in the entertainment world. In the past two years, over ten Korean celebrities (mostly actors, actresses, and singers) have taken their own lives. Most of them were under 30. The latest death was that of 26 year-old actress Jang Ja-yeon, star of the popular comedy-drama "Boys Over Flowers."
Initial reports stated that Jang's death was yet another in a tragic line of Korean celebrities succumbing to depression due to the pressures of stardom and (according to one foreign commenter) the inability to "admit that there is a lot of intense depression and mental illness in Korea."
But there's also an emerging twist in Jang's death. Her suicide note has been found, and it turns out that her death wasn't due to relative intangibles of depression and mental illness. In fact, she was allegedly being beaten and raped by various higher-ups in the Korean entertainment business, and the names of the guilty are beginning to come out (one of whom has apparently fled to Japan).
Nummer acht
Anyone Who Ever Asks
The Musical Mystery of Connie Converse
"To survive at all, I expect I must drift back down through the other half of the twentieth twentieth, which I already know pretty well, the hundredth hundredth, which I have only read and heard about. I might survive there quite a few years - who knows?"
This was the cryptic note Connie Converse left her family in 1974, and no one heard from her again. She had spent the 1950's in New York City, trying to promote her music- haunting, melancholy folk tunes, but never made a go of it. Her songs very nearly disappeared into the ether, but thanks to Lau derrete Records, her first album is now available to the public, fifty years after the songs were recorded. (via Spinning On Air)
"To survive at all, I expect I must drift back down through the other half of the twentieth twentieth, which I already know pretty well, the hundredth hundredth, which I have only read and heard about. I might survive there quite a few years - who knows?"
This was the cryptic note Connie Converse left her family in 1974, and no one heard from her again. She had spent the 1950's in New York City, trying to promote her music- haunting, melancholy folk tunes, but never made a go of it. Her songs very nearly disappeared into the ether, but thanks to Lau derrete Records, her first album is now available to the public, fifty years after the songs were recorded. (via Spinning On Air)
Ig Nobel
Professor Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel Prize Laureate for Medicine, is no stranger to controversy. Recently, he has been touting his approval for the ignominiously debunked "water memory" theories of the late French immunologist Dr. Jacques Benveniste. This is not altogether surprising, given that Montagnier has filed a patent application for a method for characterising "biologically active biochemical elements" based on Benveniste's more outlandish theories. But there's more... [more inside]
The sap is flowing
Up in Maple country The season is right for making maple syrup. Grades a,b,d; colors are factors. The international market is a factor. Visit lovely Cape Breton. [more inside]
"this chattering-class version of Heat magazine"
The novlist Julie Myerson has written a book, The Lost Child, about her son's addiction to cannabis, the violent behaviour she says this caused and her tough love policy. Extract. Her son is angry that she's published it, and says his parents over-reacted: "I wasn't doing anything that most other teenagers do, but such was their naive terror of drugs they were acting like six-year-olds". It comes out through MumsNet that Julie Myerson was the anonymous author of a Guardian column, "Living with Teenagers," which described her children's behaviour candidly without their knowledge. Extract. Myerson first denied this. The Guardian discusses whether it was right to publish the columns. Myerson is interviewed about whether she was right to publish The Lost Child. Her partner, and son's father, Jonathan Myerson supports her: This is an emergency. Her son says she's addicted to writing. [more inside]
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