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The Encyclopedia Britannica is going out of print.
comment posted at 12:41 AM on Mar-14-12

McDonalds menu items from around the world. And part 2.
comment posted at 12:54 AM on Mar-14-12

The myth of 1812: How Canadians see the war we want to see. [Globe and Mail]
comment posted at 12:28 AM on Mar-12-12

The Emperor Uncrowned: An in-depth look at the controversial man who may be India's next Prime Minister (previously). Also related.
comment posted at 12:51 AM on Mar-9-12

The best and worst places to be a woman is an Independent on Sunday investigation to mark International Women's Day which unearths some surprising results
Are we EQUALS? Is a series of short films about whether men and women are really equals in 2012.
comment posted at 2:30 AM on Mar-5-12
comment posted at 1:30 AM on Mar-6-12

"The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia" - When historian Timothy Messer-Kruse attempted to edit the Wikipedia article on the Haymarket Affair he ran up against the project's policies and editors. Besides the coverage by Messer-Kruse about his two years trying to edit the article in The Chronicle, linked above, the story has spilled out into other media outlets. An article in The Atlantic, an NPR segment with Messer-Kruse and Andrew Lih, a Reddit thread, Bigthink, and others have chimed in on the situation. Lengthy discussion, and a "good article reassessment", has resulted on Wikipedia.
comment posted at 8:53 PM on Mar-3-12

Has Rush Limbaugh misjudged how far he can push things? Efforts are underway at Twitter and Reddit to hit Limbaugh where it hurts, with some degree of early success. While the President called Sandra Fluke to express solidarity, GOP front runner Mitt Romney seemed to think the main problem with Limbaugh's attack on Fluke was one of vocabulary, and Rick Santorum fell back on the "he's just an entertainer" defense.
comment posted at 3:20 AM on Mar-3-12
comment posted at 10:30 AM on Mar-3-12
comment posted at 11:09 AM on Mar-3-12
comment posted at 8:43 PM on Mar-3-12

I Can Do Anything Better Than You - Sherlock vs. The Doctor (slyt)
comment posted at 1:33 AM on Mar-2-12

In January, 16 scientists and/or engineers wrote an opinion piece in the WSJ. This is the response of one of the academics cited in their piece: William Nordhaus. According to the 16 scientists/engineers, Nordhaus recommended no action on climate change for 50 years. But he didn't. The opinion piece has generated controversy among climate scientists as well.
comment posted at 12:48 AM on Mar-1-12

Curious about windows 8? ISO images for the 'consumer preview' version are available from Microsoft. Typically these previews expire at a certain date, but the previously released developer preview won't expire until January 15th, 2013. You can use the Open Source Virtual Box to run the OS in a virtual machine (instructions for installing windows 8) Previously: 1, 2,
comment posted at 3:44 PM on Feb-29-12

In the Netherlands, bikes abound. And now, they even take kids to school. Behold, the bicycle school bus.
comment posted at 4:48 AM on Feb-29-12

The Face of Gujarat 2002 "And when I saw the military van pass by, I thought, 'This is our last chance'. I began shouting Sahib! Sahib! to the soldiers and folded my hands, and when I did that they looked back and returned. [...] My life went into a tailspin. The picture followed me wherever I went. It haunted me, and drove me out of my job, and my state". Twelve years after the defining image of the Gujarat carnage. _{Previously. (Explanation of the title)}
comment posted at 4:55 AM on Feb-27-12
comment posted at 8:45 AM on Feb-27-12
comment posted at 1:45 AM on Feb-28-12

According to a report by Democracy Corps, the Republican "brand" in US politics is collapsing.
comment posted at 8:47 PM on Feb-26-12

Recently, the World Health Organisation anounced that India has officially broken the chain of Polio transmission, with no new cases reported in the last year. Following independent checks of the reporting laboratories, Indian Health Minister announced that WHO "has taken India's name off the list of polio endemic countries".
comment posted at 8:03 PM on Feb-26-12

Why the super-rich love the UK.
comment posted at 5:36 PM on Feb-25-12

David Pogue weighed in yesterday about the Nightline piece on the terrible working conditions in Apple's subcontractor factories in China. Mike Daisey has been trying to engage with Mr. Pogue, but it hasn't gone well. Here's his final response to Mr. Pogue's story.
comment posted at 4:34 PM on Feb-24-12

An interactive map of the celebrity recolonization of Africa. (via)
comment posted at 6:48 AM on Feb-24-12

Between Roses in Mumbai.
comment posted at 6:38 AM on Feb-24-12

If PHP Were British. (via an Ars comment.)
comment posted at 6:02 AM on Feb-22-12

"A staggering 49 per cent of Pakistanis said that it did not matter to them whether the government was democratic or not. Even more surprisingly, 21 per cent of Indian respondents also said that it did not matter to people such as themselves whether the government was democratic or dictatorial. Added to the fact that a third of respondents offered no response at all, many people in countries with substantial experience of democracy or with significant experience of both democracy and dictatorship appear to share the Libyans’ ambivalence about democracy as the preferred form of governance."
comment posted at 7:39 AM on Feb-21-12

Age, race and gender breakdown of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, although the exact list of members is one of the best guarded secrets in America
comment posted at 3:22 AM on Feb-20-12

Rupert Murdoch to replace the News of the World with the Sun on Sunday, meaning the Sun will publish 7 days a week. (Sun, BBC) In other News International news, Murdoch has reinstated the Sun journalists arrested for paying public officials, will pay their legal expenses, and has written to all of the Sun's journalists with a combative memo pledging support. The Guardian liveblogged the day.
comment posted at 3:10 AM on Feb-20-12
comment posted at 3:10 AM on Feb-20-12

The Love Competition: Can one person experience love more deeply than another? That’s what The Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging and filmmaker Brent Hoff set out to understand when they hosted the 1st Annual Love Competition. Seven contestants, ranging from 10 to 75 years of age, took part. They each spent five minutes in an fMRI machine, thinking deeply about love and allowing the imaging technology to measure activity in their dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin/vasopressin pathways. [via]
comment posted at 9:36 PM on Feb-18-12

Social apps 'harvest smartphone contacts'. While this may not come as a surprise to many, the fact that apps such as Twitter and Instagram will take the addresses from your contacts list and store them, sometimes unencrypted, has become enough of a story that two members of the US congress have sent a letter to Apple about its apps and how they access personal data.
comment posted at 6:49 AM on Feb-16-12

A Brother And Sister Get Married (And Later, Their Son Tweets It)
comment posted at 5:35 PM on Feb-14-12

The trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has been released.
comment posted at 5:04 PM on Feb-14-12

JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit (JIT) - providing tools for creating interactive data visualizations for the web
comment posted at 7:41 PM on Feb-12-12

Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari was arrested in Kuala Lumpur and deported to Saudi Arabia for at the behest of Interpol. Mr. Kashgari faces the death penalty in Saudi Arabia for a series of tweets insulting the prophet Muhammad, including 'I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you I will not pray for you.' (BBC, Al Jazeera)
comment posted at 7:25 PM on Feb-14-12

Five senior journalists and editors at the News International tabloid the Sun were arrested on Saturday along with three public officials as Operation Elveden, the British investigation into bribery of police by News International papers, broadened to include corruption of officials in the armed forces and Ministry of Defence as well. The Guardian reports that the new arrests escalate the stakes of the ongoing US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation of News Corporation, which carries potential penalties of millions of dollars of fines and prison sentences for senior executives.
comment posted at 12:32 AM on Feb-12-12

George Lucas sits down with The Hollywood Reporter: "The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down."
comment posted at 11:08 AM on Feb-10-12

If people thought Apple's voice assistant Siri was conservative, then Iris, a similar feature for Android (which uses the search engine ChaCha), will blow their mind.
comment posted at 2:13 AM on Feb-10-12

Normally, when you buy stolen goods, you don't legally own them. The person they were stolen from still does. Unless: Until 1995, if you bought them in Bermondsey Market, London, between the hours of sunrise and sunset, they would then belong to you, even if clearly stolen.
comment posted at 2:26 AM on Feb-9-12
comment posted at 9:54 AM on Feb-10-12

Rick Santorum predicted winner in Minnesota & Missouri. Mr. Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator best known for his feud (and subsequent google-bombing) with Dan Savage over his comparison of homosexuality with bestiality, is the predicted winner of Republican primaries in Minnesota and Missouri, and is currently leading in the third, Colorado.
comment posted at 7:46 AM on Feb-8-12

Argentina will take Falklands claim to the UN Cristina Kirchner warns of 'grave risks to international security' and states intention to prevent war over natural resources. (Argentina) has mobilised much of South America and the Caribbean in a diplomatic and commercial squeeze. Ships flying the Falklands flag are barred from the region's ports, depriving the islands of bananas and other fresh fruit.
comment posted at 1:45 AM on Feb-8-12

"I say, Philip, let's order a pizza and watch a movie with the corgis!" Queen Elizabeth celebrates 60 years on the throne.
comment posted at 8:54 AM on Feb-7-12

Clint Eastwood: "'This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again, and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.' The [Super Bowl] commercial, 'Halftime in America,' didn’t reveal its sponsor until the final seconds, when Chrysler logos appeared briefly, but it has already become a classic, and perhaps inevitably in this election year, a political football.*
comment posted at 2:02 AM on Feb-7-12

Will Self on the 2012 London Olympics .
comment posted at 11:31 AM on Feb-6-12

Another honor killing that isn't about honor, and even less about Nietzsche. By MeFi's own resident psychiatrist.
comment posted at 2:00 PM on Feb-5-12

India tells Britain: We don't want your aid According to a leaked memo, the foreign minister, Nirupama Rao, proposed “not to avail [of] any further DFID [British] assistance with effect from 1st April 2011,” because of the “negative publicity of Indian poverty promoted by DFID”. But officials at DFID, Britain’s Department for International Development, told the Indians that cancelling the programme would cause “grave political embarrassment” to Britain, according to sources in Delhi. Further embarressment ensues. Emma Boon, campaign director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is incredible that ministers have defended the aid we send to India, insisting it is vital, when now we learn that even the Indian government doesn’t want it.”
comment posted at 9:38 AM on Feb-5-12
comment posted at 1:50 PM on Feb-5-12

Last year it was Amy Chua, Tiger Mother (previously on mefi). This year, Paula Druckerman has written Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, inspired by a trip to a coastal town when her daughter had temper tantrums and French parents didn't. French kids eat the same food as their parents, and aren't constantly snacking. And "when French friends visited [...] the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves." It's about patience -- let the kids cry it out a bit, let them learn how to play alone instead of hovering. And perhaps obsess a little less -- the French don't even obsessively buy books about how to parent. Wall Street Journal article, and video interview by WSJ's Gary Rosen.
comment posted at 6:26 PM on Feb-4-12

"At my then-boyfriend’s house I opened a drawer to borrow a T-shirt. All the T-shirts were perfectly folded, as if ironed. I knew right then and there that I must run for my life." And other tales of romantic dead ends. capturing the exact moment you realize a relationship is doomed, doomed, doomed.
comment posted at 10:23 AM on Feb-3-12