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This Year’s Phil Campbell Convention Promises to be Best, First
by Josh Clark | February 18, 2011
Old-timey businessmen loved to make outrageous proposals, usually with their thumbs tucked firmly into the lapels of their vests, and one Mel Allen, an Alabama businessman was no exception. In the 1880s, Allen figured that an area of land he controlled would make a fine late-19th-century town, if only he could divert a nearby rail line to it. So he approached the leader of a crew of railroad workers working in the area, an English engineer named Phil Campbell, with the very kind of outrageous proposal Victorian-era businessmen loved to make.
Funny…. How to write a hit song, with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters
by Marshall Brain | February 18, 2011
How do you write a hit song? According to Dave Grohl, “Here’s what you’ve got to do… think about it like it’s a bumper sticker”: After you watch that, you may want to listen to a little Aerosmith: Love in an elevator Janie’s got a gun Livin’ on the edge You may also want to [...]
The last time a computer famously beat humans, the domain was chess. It is pretty easy to understand the basic brute-force technique that a computer chess engine uses to play the game. See How Chess Computers Work for details. The Watson program is more complicated than that. The “rules” of language are far more complex [...]
LG to launch 3D smartphone experience – “3D may finally go mainstream, or so consumer electronics giant LG hopes, when it puts a smartphone in users’ hands this year allowing them to create and view 3D content without glasses. The South Korean company showed off its Optimus 3D at the mobile industry’s annual get-together here [...]
The World’s Teeniest, Tiniest Italian Restaurant
by Amanda Arnold | February 17, 2011
There’s only one table at Solo per Due (translation “just for two”), a 250-euros-per-person restaurant located in Vacone, a small village in Central Italy, about an hour from Rome. So, it’s sort of like eating at home. Only home has servants who give you Italian food and wine when you ring a little bell. And home has a little patio outside with a view of the valley and its rolling olive groves and vineyards. Also, home’s grounds include the remains of a Roman villa that belonged to the poet Horace.
Horace wrote odes. Here’s a quote from one of his odes: “Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.”
Olivia Dunham and Sydney Bristow: Clones or Just Coincidence?
by Chanel Lee | February 17, 2011
This idea has been percolating in my mind for a few weeks now, but I’ve come to realize that Olivia Dunham and Sydney Bristow must be the same person. Granted, the sci-fi milieu of “Fringe” has little to do with the spy world of “Alias,” but it’s clear that these women have a lot more in common than the man who created them.
“Facing Trauma” and Healing the Scars of Domestic Violence
by Molly Edmonds | February 17, 2011
Here’s a staggering statistic for you: one in four women in the United States experiences domestic violence at some point in her life. One in four!
It can be hard to extract yourself from an abusive relationship and begin to live again without fear. That difficulty is compounded if you bear the scars of your past. That’s why the work of people like Dr. Andrew Jacono is so important. Dr. Jacono provides free plastic surgery to women who have endured physical abuse, and his work is profiled on a new show called “Facing Trauma.”
Starting from where we left off yesterday, if you want to learn how to pilot an airplane and you’ve found a flight training center and an instructor that meet your requirements (consider how flexible they are when it comes to scheduling fights, whether they offer classroom coursework online, and similar matters specific to your particular situation), then it’s time to get training. So what all does that involve? Find out …
Yesterday’s warm weather inspired me to roll up my sleeves for some spring cleaning. Before leaving the medicine cabinet and the bathroom behind, I figured now is as good a time as any to attend to our makeup bags. Oh, and our other toiletries — because yes, most of those items have expiration dates, too.
Terror Management Theory: Yes, Virginia, you’re going to die
by Josh Clark | February 17, 2011
It’s not difficult to see that we humans have our hang ups. We have a long history of murdering one another when a religious or political difference arises. Key parties are just gross. Your local sports team is inferior to my local sports team. Yet, as distasteful as other cultures and opinions that counter our own may seem, they’re just as much evidence that other people need to distract themselves from their inevitable deaths as we do. We all have that in common, at least, and we all tend to delude ourselves equally.
Recent Postings by Category
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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
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Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
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