August 21, 2008
Now you see the violence inherent in the system
Working Hard, Drinking Hard is a book about structural violence in Honduras by Adrienne Pine. In it, she "explores the daily relationships and routines of urban Hondurans in light of globalizing forces and extreme social inequalities." [more inside]
Rap is all about the booty
When celebrities and language collide. In Japan!
Puzzled by sugary J-Pop bands and their eccentric (and failed) TV shows? Frustrated and confused by the complexity of Japanese and want to see what your inchoate blustering looks like from the other side? Then join "perennially unpopular" gaijin celebrity Thane Camus (grand-nephew of Albert Camus), as he walks a class of fellow pop star clichés through an endearingly awkward English conversation class.
Transvestite Wives
Fuelly tracks your gas mileage.
Fuelly tracks your gas mileage over time, helping you save fuel and expenses as you drive.
Sienfeld wants you to buy Vista, Shatner wants you to buy a Vic 20
Reporter Catches Bullet
Turkish journalists were caught in a war zone while on the job. The Turkish team was in between the town of Gori and breakaway South Ossetia where Georgian and Russian forces have collided. The video is from the inside of the car being shot at with automatic weapons.
The Catorialist
John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory
Who said structuralism was dead? John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory - an illustrated assortment of sociology's greatest hits, arranged neatly for your viewing pleasure.
The Political Cartoons of Clifford K. Berryman
The political cartoons of Clifford K. Berryman lampooned American politics from the era of Grover Cleveland to the Truman administration. If he's known today it's mostly for having originated the teddy bear. While some of his cartoons have scant relevance today, many remain surprisingly relevant. Of the many historical events he drew there are women's suffrage, the 1948 election and the 1912 Republican primaries between Taft and Roosevelt.
The Peloton
The Peloton. A gallery of professional bike racers taken just moments after they crossed the line after a brutal long stage of 2006's Giro d'Italia. After a hundred miles of racing, the rider dumps their bike on a team soigner and enters a makeshift tent for a quick photo among the finish line chaos. The photos showcase the pain and suffering well, but some photos also capture a bike racer's most damaging feeling: doubt.
Mayan Muons and Unmapped Rooms
MLB blog city
Torre's Stories. As part of their ever-expanding blog empire, Major League Baseball has invited Joe Torre to take up the noble habit of blogging. He joins the likes of Kevin Slowey, Bengie Molina, and Mark DeRosa as guys who apparently have time to blog between games. [more inside]
The home of Elves and Sprites found
Elves in the upper atmosphere. Weird phenomena and not well understood, they are observed in the upper atmosphere. More can be found here and here.
Appliance internals
Kids love Coltrane
A cool tale about second graders at P.S. 178 in Queens falling in love with John Coltrane, and raising funds to help restore the house in nearby Dix Hills [previously on mefi] where the saxophonist (and saint?) composed his spiritual masterpiece A Love Supreme [last four links go to Youtube].
Who Watches the Watchmen?
In February President Bush issued an Executive Order changing the role & reporting structure of the PFIAB, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. At the time the order was criticized & analyzed as a move to consolidate power within an organization that was already full of Bush cronies. But it now looks like all the pundits were wrong. The real reason? There was a spy in the PFIAB.
Sentry Removal Techniques
"Grandmaster" Ashida Kim has always been a controversial figure in the martial arts world, with his claims to Ninjitsu fame. Most who are familiar with him have read his book, Secrets of the Ninja, now freely available from his site. Modern times have made it pretty easy to establish him as a fraud, but even better, you can now view his Ninja Sentry Removal Techniques via youtube. Now you can learn to be a ninja, too!
Where's my image?
TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology. [more inside]
Interestingly, I'm reading Lifehacker while posting this
"Multitasking messes with the brain in several ways. At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that it requires—the constant switching and pivoting—energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we’re supposed to be concentrating on." [more inside]
Ten French soldiers killed in afghanistan
Ten French soldiers killed in afghanistan. A ceremony for the 10 soldiers took place today in Paris.. Caught in an ambush, the soldiers have been fired upon during several hours. Nato strikes are told to have been inaccurate. Survivors' testimonies seem to imply that the situation has been dealt with in an awkward way. The President's decision to send more troops in Afghanistan is discussed.
Olympic logos from 1896 to present
Olympic logos from 1896 to present. Tons of trivia too.
Listen Explore Discover Create
SoundJunction is all about music. You can take music apart and find out how it works, create music yourself, find out how other people make music and how they perform it, you can learn about musical instruments and voices, and look at the backgrounds of different musical styles. Over 40 musicians talk on film about their experiences. [more inside]
Morgues for an era that well knows what to do with them
Atlantic Yards is the largest project Frank Gehry, now seventy-eight, has ever undertaken. And if it proves to be his last large project, it will be a fitting capstone to a career utterly blind to the public function of architecture. For how better to assert your dedication to personal expression over context than to have your distinct visual style serve as the emblem for the death of two Brooklyn neighborhoods?Charles Taylor discusses the anti-humanism of Modern architecture. [Via] [Previously]
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