An old Washington Post article about an experiment involving Joshua Bell playing at L'enfant plaza.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Look at the date!

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/doh-we-almost-spaced-on-lisa-simpsons-wedding-date-2/?hp

Look at the date! In Lisa's future, she was getting married... today!

Jess and I were just watching the Back to the Future marathon on ABC Family yesterday. Ya know that scene in the future with grandpa Biff and the hovercraft? That's the year 2015. It seemed so distant as a kid.

Singularity

I skimmed through the first few pages of this NYT article and thought "What?! Crazy! Cool! Weiiird."

It really makes me wonder what the future (of mankind!) holds.

fancy fast food (a food humor blog)

it is not a particular article, i know, but this blog is an entertaining web log all about transforming fast food into fancy food

it made me laugh but it also made me feel a little queasy. however, it is fun to look at the progression pictures and i think that it is ingenious.

also, from that link you can go to his travel blog. 500+ days going around the world. sounds uh-mazing.

Magnetar

Ok, this is a podcast, not an article, but does a great job explaining banks betting against their investments, here. If you prefer an article, it's here.

Pornography for the Blind

Tactile Porn

my thoughts: in my opinion, people who watch porn crave a type of evocative, sex-driven, visual expression. when working at my dad's video store one summer, i observed many of the members of the neighboring deaf community rent both explosive action movies and the cruder types of porn, which i imagined was due to their lack of auditory sense and, thus, their cravings for something more.

i wonder if the visually-impaired crave tactile nudity the same, sex-driven way that porn-viewers crave visual nudity...

A New Anti-depressant

Medical shrooms? What do you all think about this??

hen + rooster=hooster!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8561814.stm

Dead Sea Scrolls of Physics

Man, I wish I could see this.

Wearing Babies

“At first it was like, ‘Am I trying to be an indigenous tribal woman?’ ”

 Don't usually read the fashion section, but I thought this article on parents carrying their babies on their person was interesting. It never registered in my head before I read the article, but she's absolutely right that wearing babies on your back or stomach has become the trend. Personally I do find it adorable whenever I'm surprised by a tiny head peeking out of a sling on a parent's chest.

But then there was that one time I was on the metro and saw a woman with a set of not-so-small-looking twins strapped to her stomach that made me think there should be a limit of one baby per chest and maybe a lesson or two on proper strapping technique. The poor girls'  heads were lolling backward with eyes glazed and mouths open like fish.

Alice & New Math

A fun article about how Alice in Wonderland is making fun of algebra.

One Century's Beauty is Another Century's Ugly

A brief history of beauty from a veteran of the beauty industry.

Pain & the Brain

This freaks me out for some reason.

Tech scares and CT scans

Two unrelated but interesting articles, both from slate.

First is the history of media scares. Good overview of historical scares that are similar to "is google making us dumber?" - my favorite is when literacy was increasing there was a concern that education would be bad for the mental health of children.

Next is about diagnostic scanning and the cost of health care. The main point is somewhat interesting (although I feel like the point has already been made). But far more interesting is the start of the article which describes how the success of the Beatles funded the invention of the CT scanner (it's a bit of a stretch, but still kinda funny).

Game Theory

applied to passing a Health Care bill... slate, yo!

Writing about math

Wigner essay about the "unreasonable effect of mathematics" referenced in the first of a series of writings about math in the Times).

Hands Down

OK, Anderson Cooper is just way too cool.

Side-bets

Sports and lady-friends... Trashy article, but hits on some interesting sig-other trends... haha.

Google in China

Yay Google!

Wind Chill

I had no idea how made up wind chill is or that it change in the last 10 years.

Border Between Russia and China

Found this slate article about the border between Russia and China interesting.

Linguistic Big Bang

Here is a wonderful, though not current, story about one person's personal discovery of Nicaraguan Sign Language.

http://www.indiana.edu/~langacq/E105/Nicaragua.html

I loved the descriptions of the signs. And the kids' fascination with Babar.