May 15, 2013
The Author of Pro Wrestling's Weekly Bible
Frank Deford, a 50-year veteran of Sports Illustrated, once labeled Meltzer the most accomplished reporter in sports journalism. “You could cover the Vatican or State Department,” Deford said recently, “and not do as good a job as Dave Meltzer does on wrestling.”For nearly 30 years, Dave Meltzer has published the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, featuring weekly behind the locker room door insight into the business of professional wrestling. How far reaching has Meltzer's impact been? In one famous incident, Hulk Hogan, frustrated by what he perceived as consistently negative coverage in the publication, burned a copy of the newsletter during a live Pay-Per-View event.
Like a beer? Find its family members.
Put in your preferred beer style, and Beer Viz will tell you about similar beers using data collected from Beer Advocate.
Basically every classic game and system in your browser
A gigantic list of browser-based emulators and classic game ports covers everything from the Amiga to the ZX-Spectrum. Some things not to miss for either the nostalgic or the lover of classic games: Play Dune 2 (the original RTS) in HTML 5; Command and Conquer; an authorized version of many Sierra adventures (works on iPads too); beautiful versions of the Nintendo Game and Watch games; a nice Apple //e emulator (Bard's Tale! Neuromancer! Karateka!); and, of course, every NES game [a few of these mentioned before]. All in your browser!
Crosswalks are less common in poor neighborhoods.
In 2011, Raquel Nelson was convicted of vehicular homicide in the death of her four-year-old son, A.J., because he was hit by a car and killed while he, his mother, and his siblings crossed the street without using a crosswalk. Nelson and her three children were crossing the street to get from a bus stop to their apartment complex. In order to use a crosswalk, she would have had to walk a third of a mile in each direction. Streets with marked crosswalks are significantly more common in high income areas than in middle income or low income communities. (.pdf) A 2012 New Jersey study found that poor pedestrians are more likely to be struck by cars. [more inside]
Chicago High School Students Open Manufacturing Co-operative
Chicago is bringing the co-operation in all kinds of ways these days. First the opening of New Era Windows Cooperative last week, now this: [more inside]
"A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection." ~ John Cage
“weird” could be anything, really
The Weirdest Band in the World is a blog devoted to singers, musicians, and bands that are crazy, silly, improbable, eccentric, grotesque, idiosyncratic, inexplicable, insane, or otherwise unusual. Bloggers Andy and Jake write about bands both successful and obscure, whether metal, jazz, hip-hop, or whatever other genre, always with an unflagging appreciation for what makes these bands unique, and with none of the snark and jeering that often laces articles elsewhere about people doing weird things. [more inside]
Random Art
Turing Drawings is a simple web app that uses Turing Machines to draw randomly generated compositions on a digital canvas. The results vary from stuff like striking static designs, organic forms that slowly devolve in to chaos, repeating animations, and systems with complex interactions. If you find a combination that you like, you can copy and paste the URL in the lower right hand corner of the site to share it. The creator, Darius Bacon, has some other cool stuff that mixes computer science with the humanities on his blog.
Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform
A picture of you plus name, age, SS# in a National Database ACLU of Northern CA call to action. via [more inside]
"an inadequate title for this ragbag of lectures and classes"
Literature and Form is a series of four lectures by Oxford literature academic Dr. Catherine Brown. The lectures are on the themes of unreliable narrators, chapters, multiple plotting and what comparative literature is. You can listen to it as a podcast or through iTunes U. In this lecture series Brown primarily looks at some central structures of the novel as well as examining what the study of literature entails. Brown weaves in examples from world literature, especially English and Russian literature of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries.
New Wave Super Friends
English and Dravidian
Many languages have "high" and "low" layers of vocabulary. But in most other languages, the two sets are drawn from the same source. By contrast, contact between Old English and French, Dravidian languages and Sanskrit, Japanese and Chinese, Persian and Arabic, and other pairings around the world have created fascinatingly hybrid languages. These mixed lexicons are, for linguistic and social historians, akin to the layers of fossils that teach paleontologists and archaeologists so much about eras gone by.
Some people even think English is descended from Latin, or Kannada from Sanskrit. That’s frustrating not only because it’s wrong, but also because the reality is far more interesting. - The Economist, Unlikely parallels (via)
"the all-time most popular FAQ at The Barn Journal"
Important communication skills
Exoplanet Hunter
"It was one of those things that was a gift to humanity... We’re all going to lose for sure." Kepler's career is over, but not before answering one of mankind's most profound questions.
Imagine the Wings
Science fiction novels for economists
Her?
The longest-delayed reveal in television history has been unveiled: I give to you: the mother from How I Met Your Mother. [more inside]
High above the nation's capital...
Ever wondered what the view at the very top of the Washington Monument is like? Construction workers erecting scaffolding (for repairs needed after the 2011 earthquake) donned helmet cams on the day they reached the tip of the monument, so you need wonder no longer.
"Cosmos", starring Neil DeGrasse Tyson
The Seth McFarlane reboot of "Cosmos" will air on Fox in 2014. The host will be Neil DeGrasse Tyson. [more inside]
Mortal Kombat: Live (1996)
SLYT KTLA 5 News Los Angeles invited the actors of the Mortal Kombat: Live Tour to the station to promote their tour in 1996.
On Why Star Trek is Great
Slate's Matthew Yglesias 'Boldly Went Where Every Star Trek Movie and TV Show Has Gone Before,' by watching every Star Trek movie and television series,* and offers his position on why Star Trek is great. [more inside]
Fart Proudly by Benjamin Franklin (1781)
A confluence of factors has pushed me to post the following missive from one Benjamin Franklin–a noted American humorist who also did some other stuff. If from an overindulgence in rich and fatty foods on Fat Tuesday, you find yourself surfeit with internal pressure, follow the advice of a founding father…
The FBI vs. Marvin Miller
Meet the new boss, same as....?
Dystopia 2.0 "...while spending millions bending the political process to pad their bottom lines, they’ve remained far more popular than past plutocrats, with 72 percent of Americans expressing positive feelings for the industry, compared to 30 percent for banking and 20 percent for oil and gas." by Joel Kotkin (wiki) referred to previously as "America’s leading cheerleader for suburban sprawl" has taken the "creative class" to task before.
Probably more secure than the Drafts folder on a shared Gmail account
Today The New Yorker unveiled Strongbox, a service that allows sources to share information with TNY journalists securely and anonymously. As explained in this infographic, Strongbox relies on the Tor network, a dedicated server, PGP encryption, VPNs, and multiple laptops and thumb drives to prevent files from being intercepted or traced. The codebase, which is open source, was designed by the late Aaron Swartz (Previously). Kevin Poulsen, one of the organizers of the project, chronicles how Swartz developed the code and how the project managed to carry on after his death. TNY hopes that Strongbox will help the magazine continue its long tradition of investigative journalism.
THUD! (only slightly bouncy)
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar
Neither a borrower nor a lender be. 198 movies and shows cut together to reform, Voltron-like, as Hamlet
Pop goes the kitten
Take a slippery, wooded floor, two stoic lizards and a somewhat too energetic for its own good kitten and you have all the makings of a successful cat video.
Yeah, pretty much how I feel about those infernal machines...
It is not on you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist
Joseph Tomaras reflects on the Mauna Loa data and concludes that the main tasks of the moment are neither political nor economic, but ethical or moral. [more inside]
The Hawkeye Initiative
A female data scientist working on HAWKEN (a videogame) takes issue with the poster of a scantily clad comic character her CEO displays on his wall, and while he is away, replaces it with something else... [more inside]
The Customer Isn't Always Right
For the first time in Kitchen Nightmares history, British chef Gordon Ramsay walks off his own show. In the segment that aired this week, the difficult owners of Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, AZ - Samy and Amy Bouzaglo - are shown stealing tips from their waitstaff, admitting to firing more than 100 employees over a one year period, firing a waitress for asking a question, telling a customer who had been waiting over an hour for his food to go fuck himself (yes, the police were called during filming), and passing off frozen, pre-made raviolis and desserts as if they were homemade. The couple was so resistant to criticism that even the typically steadfast Ramsay decided he couldn’t help them and shut the show down before beginning the rehab phase. [more inside]
Jacques Barzun, Grandfather, Advisor, Editor, Scholar
Two lengthy appreciations of Jacques Barzun's influence: Barzun's grandson remembers the letters of his well-known grandfather, and Helen Hazen reminisces about Barzun's unexpected effort to help her write her first book.
Reverse Ramones
The Talkhouse gets musicians to review albums, so you get articles like Hunter Hurt-Hendrix on Death Grips, Laura Jane Grace on Savages and Matthew Friedberger (Fiery Furnaces) on Vampire Weekend.
First they laugh at you, then they send in the Feds
The Department of Homeland Security has apparently seized Mt.Gox's Dwolla account, a key US mobile payments account associated with the largest Bitcoin exchange. Mt.Gox has confirmed that their Dwolla account is disabled, but have not been party to the court order themselves. [more inside]
Dum-de-dum-duh-dum. . .
Not to make you feel old or anything, but The Breeder's Last Splash just turned 20. Time for a deluxe reissue and a tour! [more inside]
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