Well, hello, blog - long time no see.
Just thought I'd share this this fun track - this year's United States of Pop, a mash-up of the top 25 billboard hits of the year, created annually by DJ Earworm. I don't think this year's is quite as good as years previous, but it's damn catchy, and the video is great. Enjoy.
Showing posts with label Katie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katie. Show all posts
December 27, 2009
November 05, 2009
September 30, 2009
Mapping Sin
Useless but entertaining "sin map" from Wired:
"We're gluttons for infographics, and a team at Kansas State just served up a feast: maps of sin created by plotting per-capita stats on things like theft (envy) and STDs (lust). Christian clergy, likely noting the Bible Belt's status as Wrath Central, question the "science." Valid point—or maybe it's just the pride talking."
September 01, 2009
Water slide.
This is a video Katie emailed to some people. I just uploaded it to YouTube and am posting the link. Enjoy.
August 26, 2009
"The Next Breadbasket?"
... "How Africa could save the world - and itself," from The Atlantic. The article is really short and interesting, and I like this graph a lot, but I wonder about some of the things not elaborated on - why is Germany so awesome at growing wheat, for example?
August 10, 2009
Astronauts and Jon Stewart
...because they are the best people, two unrelated articles:
Why Neoconservative Pundits Love The Daily Show
Scientist Tackles Ethical Questions of Space Travel
Why Neoconservative Pundits Love The Daily Show
Scientist Tackles Ethical Questions of Space Travel
July 29, 2009
On a lighter note
LOST season 6 promos!!!
Not spoilers, just little teases to keep you guessing...
Oceanic ("30 years" (since 1979, so we know it's current) "with perfect safety record"??)
Hurley ("nothing but good luck"?? and check out how the people behind him look like, but aren't, Locke, Walt, and Michael)
Kate (DIDN'T kill her stepfather??)
And biggest "holy shit" of all: the official ABC teaser
ALSO: a promo poster featuring ALL the characters, dead and alive...probably just an advertising ploy, but what if this means the bomb really did "hit the reset button?!?
Thank you, Comic-Con.
Not spoilers, just little teases to keep you guessing...
Oceanic ("30 years" (since 1979, so we know it's current) "with perfect safety record"??)
Hurley ("nothing but good luck"?? and check out how the people behind him look like, but aren't, Locke, Walt, and Michael)
Kate (DIDN'T kill her stepfather??)
And biggest "holy shit" of all: the official ABC teaser
ALSO: a promo poster featuring ALL the characters, dead and alive...probably just an advertising ploy, but what if this means the bomb really did "hit the reset button?!?
Thank you, Comic-Con.
July 24, 2009
I guess I'm not stupid...
...at least that's what Dr. Jon LaPook, who works for CBS and has an awesome name, tells me: "No, you're not stupid if you're confused about health care reform."
His piece in HuffPo today is about how politicians, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, etc., have intentionally made this issue impossible for most people to get a handle on. And he lays the four main goals of the legislation:
Coverage expansion and subsidies. This is where most of the estimated trillion dollar price tag over ten years would go -- to expanding Medicaid for uninsured and lower income people and to help people who can't afford it pay on a sliding scale for insurance through new health insurance exchanges. Insurance market reforms. This is about fair play in the insurance industry. Advocates want to eliminate practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing conditions and jacking up premiums if they're sick. The most controversial proposal is the
establishment of a "public option" -- a government insurance plan that would compete against private ones. Delivery and payment reforms. This is about delivering more effective care at a lower cost. About 20 percent of the 2.5 trillion dollar annual health care price tag does not contribute to better health. Prevention. This has been long overlooked in America. Spend a few dollars on foot care for a diabetic and you may prevent a foot amputation and thousands of dollars in expenses.
I know embarassingly little about the health care system, so I'm curious as to what you guys think about this. Clearly, the reforms mentioned above are needed, but does the current legislation go about it in the right way? Is it an efficiant use of a trillion dollars? Etc. Thanks!
His piece in HuffPo today is about how politicians, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, etc., have intentionally made this issue impossible for most people to get a handle on. And he lays the four main goals of the legislation:
establishment of a "public option" -- a government insurance plan that would compete against private ones.
I know embarassingly little about the health care system, so I'm curious as to what you guys think about this. Clearly, the reforms mentioned above are needed, but does the current legislation go about it in the right way? Is it an efficiant use of a trillion dollars? Etc. Thanks!
July 16, 2009
TV and space
both make me unreasonably happy.
Thus today was a good one for fucking around on the internet, because I got to dissect the brand-new Emmy nominations (BSG was once again criminally overlooked, although I'm really happy about the recognition Breaking Bad is getting) and check out lots of Apollo 11-related NYTimes content (today being the 40th anniversary of the launch): reader's photos and memories of what they were doing at the time, a cool page of NYTimes' original coverage, and, best of all, really amazing photos taken by the astronauts, many of which I'd never seen before.
Thus today was a good one for fucking around on the internet, because I got to dissect the brand-new Emmy nominations (BSG was once again criminally overlooked, although I'm really happy about the recognition Breaking Bad is getting) and check out lots of Apollo 11-related NYTimes content (today being the 40th anniversary of the launch): reader's photos and memories of what they were doing at the time, a cool page of NYTimes' original coverage, and, best of all, really amazing photos taken by the astronauts, many of which I'd never seen before.
July 07, 2009
Only one?!
In the fall of 2006 the Secular Coalition of America announced that they would award $1,000 to the person who identified the highest-level atheist, humanist, freethinker, or other nontheist currently holding elected public office in the United States. SCA Advisory Board Chairman Woody Kaplan, a civil liberties activist and former member of the ACLU's National Board of Directors, took some of the suggested names and interviewed close to sixty members of the U.S. House and Senate. “At the time, twenty-two of them told me they didn’t believe in a god,” Kaplan recalls. “Twenty-one of them said, ‘You can’t tell anybody.’ One of them said you could: Congressman Pete Stark.”
Here is his acceptance speech. Nothing earth-shattering, but that's just it - how is it possible that his simple, logical thinking is so rare among elected officials?
Here is his acceptance speech. Nothing earth-shattering, but that's just it - how is it possible that his simple, logical thinking is so rare among elected officials?
June 21, 2009
This guy is my great-uncle
June 08, 2009
Nate Silver confounds me again
A pretty fascinating fivethirtyeight post from yesterday: The Palin Paradox: Women More Likely to Elected in Male-Dominated Districts.
His findings are exactly what it sounds like they are. Even when he isolates Democratic-leaning (and thus more likely to elect a woman at all) districts, "the most male-dominated from among these strongly Democratic districts elected women in 10 out of 15 instances. The 15 most female districts elected just 3 women."
So, "all told, after controlling for the district's partisan affiliation, male-dominated districts were more than twice as likely to elect a Congresswoman as were female-dominated districts."
What he doesn't have, of course, is explanation for this seemingly - counter intuitive phenomenon. But he has some interesting thoughts:
"It's possible, and maybe even somewhat likely, that there is some sort of latent variable affecting both the sex ratios and elections to the Congress that I haven't accounted for .... Perhaps in male-dominated areas, women are more likely to violate traditional sex roles including something like running for political office, which has traditionally been a male-dominated occupation -- the Sarah Palin frontierswoman caricature works well here. It would be interesting to know whether there more women actually running for office in male-dominated areas, or rather, whether they are winning more often when they do run. Or perhaps this is a phenomenon that goes beyond politics, and career growth is retarded for the dominant gender when there is an insufficient number of the opposite one. Or perhaps there is even something more Freudian: a lack of female companionship (or vice versa) triggers a yearning for it that is manifested in the way we vote."
His findings are exactly what it sounds like they are. Even when he isolates Democratic-leaning (and thus more likely to elect a woman at all) districts, "the most male-dominated from among these strongly Democratic districts elected women in 10 out of 15 instances. The 15 most female districts elected just 3 women."
So, "all told, after controlling for the district's partisan affiliation, male-dominated districts were more than twice as likely to elect a Congresswoman as were female-dominated districts."
What he doesn't have, of course, is explanation for this seemingly - counter intuitive phenomenon. But he has some interesting thoughts:
"It's possible, and maybe even somewhat likely, that there is some sort of latent variable affecting both the sex ratios and elections to the Congress that I haven't accounted for .... Perhaps in male-dominated areas, women are more likely to violate traditional sex roles including something like running for political office, which has traditionally been a male-dominated occupation -- the Sarah Palin frontierswoman caricature works well here. It would be interesting to know whether there more women actually running for office in male-dominated areas, or rather, whether they are winning more often when they do run. Or perhaps this is a phenomenon that goes beyond politics, and career growth is retarded for the dominant gender when there is an insufficient number of the opposite one. Or perhaps there is even something more Freudian: a lack of female companionship (or vice versa) triggers a yearning for it that is manifested in the way we vote."
June 04, 2009
Hitler in color
Pretty amazing color images of Hitler from LIFE magazine - the craziest thing, to me, is how unreal it seems: I've seen the "Indiana Jones" movies so many times that it's tough to really comprehend that Hitler's uniform isn't a costume, the parades aren't staged, etc.
May 03, 2009
There's no real reason for this post...
...I just wanted to point out that Bernie Madoff's son, Andrew (bottom), looks a lot like Bob Odenkirk.
(If you care about why a photo of Andrew Madoff was in the news (you don't, trust me), read here).
March 30, 2009
"A rags-to-rags story of world domination in information that could only have happened in the Internet age."
Nice piece in the Times on Wikipedia, comparing it to a virtual city:
"Wikipedia can no more be completed than can New York City, which O. Henry predicted would be “a great place if they ever finish it.” In fact, with its millions of visitors and hundreds of thousands of volunteers, its ever-expanding total of articles and languages spoken, Wikipedia may be the closest thing to a metropolis yet seen online."
There's some interesting parallels about things like trust in strangers, safety in numbers, and "professional skeptics," which Wikis and cities have in common.
There are few things that make me happier than a late-night dive into Wikipedia. I unintentionally learned a lot about milk pasteurization standards last night.
"Wikipedia can no more be completed than can New York City, which O. Henry predicted would be “a great place if they ever finish it.” In fact, with its millions of visitors and hundreds of thousands of volunteers, its ever-expanding total of articles and languages spoken, Wikipedia may be the closest thing to a metropolis yet seen online."
There's some interesting parallels about things like trust in strangers, safety in numbers, and "professional skeptics," which Wikis and cities have in common.
There are few things that make me happier than a late-night dive into Wikipedia. I unintentionally learned a lot about milk pasteurization standards last night.
March 29, 2009
March 28, 2009
Turns out it gets worse than a 13-year-old father
A 9-year Brazilian girl aborted twins this month after being raped by her stepfather. Then she, her mother, and the doctor were excommunicated from the Catholic Church, a decision supported by the Vatican.
The worst part of the article? “The law of God is above any human law,” said José Cardoso Sobrinho, the archbishop, who argued that while rape was bad, abortion was even worse.
This kind of thinking makes me unbelievably angry.
The worst part of the article? “The law of God is above any human law,” said José Cardoso Sobrinho, the archbishop, who argued that while rape was bad, abortion was even worse.
This kind of thinking makes me unbelievably angry.
March 27, 2009
cocaine has medicinal uses?
Interesting HuffPo post about the politics and science of Plan B and marijuana laws (explains my subject line, too). The author suggests that pot be moved to a Schedule II drug, and makes a pretty convincing case for it. Not totally sure this will solve the problems (victimless criminals, a money sinkhole, etc.) related to marijuana illegality as well as fully legalizing it would, but maybe it's more realistic. I'd be interested to hear what you guys think.
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