movies
Movies are uniquely able to transport the viewer into another person’s life – to see the world from an alien point of view. The excellent movie Blame it o...
Category: ideas
epistemology, philosophy, theology, religion
Cultural studies as vocational training for debasing culture
Nancy Franklin: Even more than the reality shows on other networks, the ones on VH1 appear to be saying, “My, aren’t blond bimbos and undereducated ...
why the wii is a necessary progression in virtual interfaces
Ana was just raising the volume on our boombox. She could have held down the button (it’s the chiclet variety) but instead she clicked the button repeated...
The NYT sells aged cheese, not fresh milk
In a now famous exchange, the Daily Show stumped a New York Times editor by pointing out that all the news fit to print is old news: Daily Show: Why is aged new...
are you what you search?
via Andy Baio, a Reddit user claims to have extracted the search history of the murderer in Pennsylvania. If it’s not a hoax, it’s a very selective ...
someone’s memory
we say that we remember our ancestors but in fact we are their memories. we are, each and every one of us, a remembering of another generation. confronting deat...
walled gardens
John Gruber: “Apple requires you to be 17 years or older to purchase a censored dictionary that omits half the words Steve Jobs uses every day.”
we’re doing it wrong
MIchael Pollan: Since 1967, we’ve added 167 hours — the equivalent of a month’s full-time labor — to the total amount of time we spend at work each year, and in...
practical action programs
From the NYT, In Battle, Hunches Prove to Be Valuable The study complements a growing body of work suggesting that the speed with which the brain reads and inte...
intelligence
At the end of Social Climbers, David Attenborough presents us with the skulls of several different primates and arranges them on a boulder by size. The primates...
information
Many of the very serious problems associated with street transportation are related to information – or a lack thereof. For example: “visualize using your...
being there
Discover Magazine: To the Brain, Tools Are Temporary Body Parts. Suggested by a MetaFilter user in a discussion of the Tetris Effect. In other words, fantasies ...
I can’t see you, therefore you don’t exist.
Via TPMDC: “Finally, we’re making progress here.” Witness an effective display of what a reality-based community looks like: professional gadf...
lonely islands or happy archipelagos?
Has America gotten happier over the last generation? According to one academic survey, no. By far the most extensive and detailed time series comes from the U.S...
survival strategies
watching the incredible, wonderful: Mammals: Plant Predators, I see so much intelligence, from the way plants reproduce to the way herds of wildebeests protect ...