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The Washington Post has a puzzle to see how well you understand social networks. The day’s political issue: whether baseball caps are fashionable. More explanation and the solution below the jump.
comment posted at 4:07 PM on Oct-10-15

...as someone who is invisibly sick, I often feel pressure around the clear boundaries I have in my head of what my disease really means, and how to convey that to others
comment posted at 4:21 PM on Oct-10-15

Mary Maley records her recent encounter with a bear in Berg Bay, Alaska. Despite her cajoling and her persistent attempts to reason with it, the bear insists on destroying Mary's kayak, even after she has pointed out that the kayak is made of plastic, does not taste good, and offers no nutritional value. The bear ignores Mary's repeated requests to explain its actions and throughout the incident Mary fails to connect the bear's actions to the stimulus that immediately preceded it. Bears everywhere know exactly why this bear is destroying Mary's kayak.
comment posted at 1:48 PM on Oct-1-15

Recently, It Gets Better teamed up with Doritos to support the LGBT community with rainbow colored chips, which could be purchased from It Gets Better's website, until they ran out. There was the usual outcry and backlash, but this time it looked like Doritos took time to respond to individual criticisms on Facebook. Except it was the return of the beneficial troll, Mike Melgaard, who previously posed as a Target representative in support of its move towards more gender-neutral of children's products in its stores.
comment posted at 6:45 PM on Sep-21-15

"He advocated not just for African-Americans, but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination because he recognized the common humanity in us all." Goodbye to Horace Julian Bond, freedom fighter and lifetime champion of civil rights.
comment posted at 5:49 AM on Aug-16-15

19 Slides that explain solar power generation for homes.
comment posted at 1:17 PM on Jul-23-15

Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips

"The...map is the result of a painstaking and admittedly quixotic effort to catalog the country as it has been described in the American road-tripping literature. It includes every place-name reference in 12 books about cross-country travel...and maps the authors' routes on top of one another. You can track an individual writer's descriptions of the landscape as they traveled across it, or you can zoom in to see how different authors have written about the same place at different times."

comment posted at 1:20 PM on Jul-23-15

TOP QUALITY PROFESSIONAL SEEKS ALL POSITIONS. By Kate Nacy at McSweeny's Internet Tendency. Previously.
comment posted at 1:25 PM on Jul-23-15

It will be Barack Obama’s first visit to the land of his father as American president and a far cry from a 1988 trip when his luggage got lost. Obama will be visiting only Kenya and Ethiopia. Yet each is the base for two Africa-wide trends. In Ethiopia, he will give a speech at the headquarters of the 54-nation African Union, the main body trying to lift the standards of governance among its members. But the White House appears more focused on Kenya, which is Africa’s center of innovation and host to a global “summit” of entrepreneurs.
comment posted at 1:29 PM on Jul-23-15

In 2012 the genetics company 23andme gave web app developers the ability to create app mashups with DNA information. Most apps help users add genetics to their electronic health record, or connect with relatives, or explore risk factors for diseases. Two days ago a new webapp did something different: it showed how to only let white people in.
comment posted at 6:10 AM on Jul-23-15

You don't get any of those things by staying quiet. On the contrary, the best way to get politicians to listen, and to force them to deal with an agenda, is to frighten them. So BlackLivesMatter came to Netroots Nation, and it showed that its activists have a lot of energy, a lot of passion, and a lot of support. They forced Sanders and O'Malley to address their issues.

Noah Berlatsky: Why I'm Glad Bernie Got Interrupted.
comment posted at 2:10 PM on Jul-20-15

Hitchhiking robot begins journey across U.S. "This trip will be unlike any other," said co-creator Dr. David Harris of hitchBOT, which has already explored Canada, Germany and the Netherlands thanks to helpful humans. "HitchBOT's goal is not only to hitchhike across the U.S., but also to visit a number of historic sites and monuments."
comment posted at 7:22 PM on Jul-18-15

Why having the facts sometimes isn't enough, and what that means for politics and society.
comment posted at 10:12 AM on Jul-12-10

“What we try to do is build an unholy alliance between big guys and little guys." Tom Donohue, leader of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, goes on the record for an unbelievably revealing interview.
comment posted at 10:06 AM on Jul-12-10

Hooked! Trapped! Teenage Booby Trap! Users Are Losers! Vintage anti-drug comics scanned and posted by Ethan Persoff. Plus dozens of other "Comics with Problems"-- like "Rex Morgan, MD Talks About Your Unborn Child" and "Capt Veedee-O and Ms. Wanda Lust in VD Claptrap."
comment posted at 12:51 PM on Dec-6-07

Public sound sculptures can be beautiful ways of drawing passersby into creating music. Whether they're melodic chimes in subway stations, theremins in public parks, or the sounds of rivers and clocks in a art museum, all of them can add a little bit of magic to the everyday world. Paul Matisse is an artist who has created multiple public sound sculptures across the Boston Area. He built three sound sculptures in the Kendall Square subway station in Boston, and another in Charlestown, called the Charlestown Bells.
comment posted at 12:54 PM on Dec-6-07

The 30-Second Senate Session: In order to prevent President Bush from making recess appointments, the U.S. Senate will technically stay open over the Thanksgiving holiday. The result? A U.S. Senate session that lasts, gavel-to-gavel, exactly 30 seconds.
comment posted at 12:58 PM on Nov-21-07

Dickipedia. No doubt it will grow.
comment posted at 5:11 AM on Nov-20-07

Asheville likes to play: Pin the Bush on the Flag and Pass the Impeach Cheney (and Bush).
comment posted at 6:31 AM on Aug-22-07

The military has used video games for sometime to help with training and recruitment. Recently the Pentagon put it's stamp of approval on a new game that will be distributed to the troops for recreational purposes. It is called Left Behind: Eternal Forces, in which the goal is to "kill people for their lack of faith in Jesus".
comment posted at 10:45 AM on Aug-8-07

The downside of diversity. A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?
comment posted at 7:49 AM on Aug-7-07

Manuel Noriega will be getting out of jail soon.
comment posted at 12:40 PM on Jul-20-07

Bill O'Reilly got word that Jet Blue was sponsoring the YearlyKos convention. He sent a camera crew to confront the CEO of JetBlue, asking why they were supporting radicals. He has spent the week comparing DailyKos to the KKK and Nazi websites. He spent the majority of his radio and TV shows discussing this "hate" site. He said the right-wing equivalent of Kos was Fred Phelps. Jetblue caved and apologized. Has someone ever misunderstood a website this bad?
comment posted at 12:22 PM on Jul-20-07
comment posted at 12:32 PM on Jul-20-07

Have More Sex! I'll get less AIDS! University of Rochester professor, Slate columnist and pop-economist du jour Steven Landsburg argues in his newest book, More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics, that those among us who take few sexual partners would better serve the greater good by being more promiscuous. So, who's chaste, condom-equipped and free tonight?
comment posted at 12:17 PM on Jul-9-07

"Give your children a program that Jesus could join. Why not step beyond a politically correct scouting program in which a Christian might not feel completely comfortable at activities, or with the materials furnished by a central committee? Are you tired of pretending to be neutral?" Keepers at Home and Contenders for the Faith are Bible-based alterntives to traditional youth scouting groups. Keepers at Home features lessons to prepare girls for their future roles as help meets, mothers, and keepers at home," while Contenders for the Faith learn "everything a Christian boy needs to learn to prepare him to be a man." Just like traditional scouting, Keepers offers uniforms, badges, and handbooks. girls. Keepers is just one of many Christian approaches to scouting; others include American Heritage Girls, Awana, and Mpact.
comment posted at 1:05 PM on Jul-9-07
comment posted at 9:11 AM on Jul-10-07

Newsfilter: Murdoch Buys The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones After some protests from editors about what sort of control News Corp. would have over the paper, a deal has been reached with the Bancroft family that runs the paper to sell for $5 billion. Murdoch gave up some demands for editorial control but still has the ability to hire and fire editors at will, making this the same sort of fig leaf agreement he made with the Times of London.
comment posted at 10:08 AM on Jul-6-07

Defend your server from viruses with, for some reason, flamethrowers and machine guns. Happy Friday!
comment posted at 7:15 AM on Jul-6-07

Is the next President of the United States running Linux? The Democrats love open source and the Republicans love Microsoft.
comment posted at 7:28 AM on Jul-6-07

Applicant who failed the MA bar exam sues not only the exam board, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and four justices. Why? Because a question on the exam involved a Lesbian Couple, and therefore "the Massachusetts state government...are purposely-advancing Secular Humanism's homosexual agenda." (link goes to pdf of the complaint full of hilarious claims like this one)
comment posted at 12:43 PM on Jul-3-07

The Best Laid Plans: The Story of How the Government Ignored Its Own Gulf Coast Hurricane Plans. A new report from CREW describes FEMA's plan to respond to a hurricane of Katrina’s magnitude and its subsequent failure to implement that plan. [Via C&L.]
comment posted at 7:01 AM on Jun-28-07

15 year old Indian boy performs a Caesarean Section on pregnant woman in presence of his Doctor parents. Father stands by his son—and says he did nothing wrong.
comment posted at 8:08 AM on Jun-22-07

Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand, the newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles. Meetings are held in a tumble-down shack on Azusa Street, near San Pedro Street, and devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal. [mi]
comment posted at 9:06 AM on Jun-14-07

Philosophy (digested). Julian Baggini reads philosophy classics, so you don't have to. Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Ayer (“Sex is empirically verifiable, it’s only love that ain’t”). OK, its a rip-off of John Crace (prev) but at least these are books you should have read.
comment posted at 11:52 AM on Jun-8-07

It's national internet safety month. Hey, let's be careful out there.
comment posted at 12:03 PM on Jun-8-07

A senator places a secret hold on a bill designed to counter secrecy in government. The Society of Professional Journalists, which supports the bill, smoked out Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) as the source of the hold, one of the more obscure parliamentary tactics possible in the Senate. The bill in question is the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which is an overhaul of the Freedom of Information Act. (See also.) Kyl claims the bill would force the release of "sensitive information." Kyl is also behind a measure that would criminalize the leaking of classified information.
comment posted at 12:28 PM on Jun-1-07

In 2005 Howard Fineman of Newsweek proclaimed the coming conservative crackup to be at hand. In response, Phyllis Schlafly gazed into her crystal ball and saw the Harriet Miers nomination as the springboard to a revitalized conservative movement. Quoting Mark Twain she assured the conservative movement that "the report of its death is greatly exaggerated." Here in the Spring of 2007 the conservative crystal balls are proving Fineman was right. The New Yorker quotes Newt Gingrich as saying President Bush has presided over a Republican Party in “collapse”. Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan's speechwriter, opines in the Wall Street Journal that ""President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder." R. Emmett Tyrell, who predicted in 1992 that conservatives would be "laid low by too little imagination" in the face of "infantile liberal folly" never envisaged the crack-up would come instead from a volley of self-inflicted wounds.
comment posted at 7:40 AM on Jun-1-07
comment posted at 12:58 PM on Jun-1-07

The Bush administration has vowed that it will fight to keep meatpackers from voluntarily testing all of their cows for mad cow disease. Currently, the Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of their cows, but larger meat companies have objected, fearing that they might need to test their own cows to stay competitive. The Agriculture Department has also argued that potential false positives could harm the meat industry. Meanwhile, the president, under pressure from the cattle industry, is serving more beef to various visiting foreign statesemen and lamenting that mad cow fears are preventing the Chinese from enjoying American beef: “They need to be eating US beef. It's good for them. They'll like it.” When China rejects our food, shouldn’t we be worried?
comment posted at 8:25 AM on May-31-07
comment posted at 8:26 AM on May-31-07

The War against the libr'l media ? The Governmnt of Venezuela (read Hugh Chavez and his supporters) decided not to renew the broadcasting licence of RCTV station. RCTV issued this statement and consequently stopped transmissions. Some welcome the move, others observe the many facets of this event, many sustain it's outright government censorship and protest. [Previous] post and documentary on distortions by and in media.
comment posted at 11:19 AM on May-29-07

Surprising findings in Pew study of US Muslims. The interweb is all atwitter over some of the findings of a Pew Research Center study of the attitudes of Muslim-Americans (the most comprehensive one done yet). While most of the findings should be welcomed (US Muslims are well off, appreciate being here, have non-Muslim friends, shun extremism, etc.), there is one troubling statistic: 6% of US Muslims - and 15% of US Muslims under 30 - believe that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "often or sometimes justified". Sounds bad, but what happens when you ask the same question of non-Muslim Americans? Turns out that 24% of all Americans agreed - four times the 6% of US Muslims who share that view. So are US Muslims more peaceful than their non-Muslim neighbors?
comment posted at 8:25 AM on May-24-07

Sex And Your Daughter / Sex And Your Son. For those who are too afraid to talk their children about sex. (mp3's)
comment posted at 10:59 AM on May-23-07

Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program. That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist messages, ... from their About US page: Alhurra is operated by non-profit corporation “The Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc.” (MBN). MBN is financed by the American people through the U.S Congress. US Govt. Accountability Office abstract about other MBN problems here.
comment posted at 7:22 AM on May-23-07

Andy Fraser, the man who wrote and played on 'All Right Now,' one of the great swaggering rock songs, talks about his music, sexuality and living with AIDS in this exhaustive interview
comment posted at 7:26 AM on May-23-07

On May 22, 1969, the Babies of Biafra launched their first attack against Nigeria. The Babies were a fleet of 5 civilian single-engine SAAB aircraft outfitted with unguided rocket launchers. They were going up against an air force composed of MIGs and Ilyushin bombers, flown by English, South African and Egyptian mercenaries. Their leader was Carl Gustaf von Rosen, a Swede who was Herman Goering’s nephew-in-law. (More inside)
comment posted at 7:32 AM on May-23-07

A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn't Its Copyright? (NYT) In this op-ed, novelist Mark Helprin argues that copyrights should be extended indefinitely. On his blog, Lawrence Lessig suggests using a wiki page to craft a collective rebuttal. More discussion here and here.
comment posted at 10:03 AM on May-21-07

Do Women and Men Earn Equal Pay in 2007? Are women truly earning 77 cents for every dollar that men earn in the same jobs, as some activists, including restaurant owners in Oregon, claim? Or are women earning 23 cents less on the dollar based on total income because men traditionally spend more time on the workplace during their lives, relocate more often for jobs and accept dangerous jobs that pay more? That's one man's take on it.
comment posted at 8:39 AM on May-19-07

How Could He? After the (who else but) Murdoch owned Sydney telegraph splashed the headline “How Could She” in response to the mother’s abandonment of her new born baby outside a hospital in depressed outer Melbourne suburb of Dandenong, Australia’s Prime Minister Howard leaped to the paper's defence saying that’s how most Australian’s would feel- Is it really how most of us would feel? Or is it just “dog whistle politics” from this past master, or a bad idea to criticise the ‘Tele’ in an election year?
comment posted at 6:30 AM on May-18-07