Tuesday various

  • Here’s a question: How many people can Manhattan hold?

    Some perspective: As crowded as the city feels at times, the present-day Manhattan population, 1.6 million, is nowhere near what it once was. In 1910, a staggering 2.3 million people crowded the borough, mostly in tenement buildings. It was a time before zoning, when roughly 90,000 windowless rooms were available for rent, and a recent immigrant might share a few hundred square feet with as many as 10 people. At that time, the Lower East Side was one of the most crowded places on the planet, according to demographers. Even as recently as 1950, the Manhattan of “West Side Story” was denser than today, with a population of two million.

  • Trying To Tame The (Real) Deadliest Fishing Jobs:

    From 2000 to 2009, workers in the Northeast’s multi-species groundfish fishery (which includes fish such as cod and haddock) were 37 times more likely to die on the job as a police officer.

  • Enjoy this Shakespeare Insult Kit, thou impertinent folly-fallen flap-dragon!
  • Klingon remains surprisingly unpopular in the United Arab Emerates. [via]
  • And finally, an LA garage door painted to look like bookshelves:

Monday various

  • Here’s a question: Who inherits your iTunes library? Maybe a follow-up to that: would you want someone to inherit it?

    There’s a significant difference between shelves of books or stacks of records and folders of e-books or mp3s. There’s no re-sell value to the latter, for instance, either because of the difficulties of transferring the files or because of restrictions inherent in the licensing agreements we sign. So the only reason to bequeath your digital media is if you feel the person receiving it in your will actually will want it.

  • Ass-whooping on NPR.
  • In other news, they were still printing Nintendo Power Magazine?
  • Writing credits in documentaries: apparently a bigger issue than you might think.
  • And finally, Space Stallions!

    More information here.

Monday various

Tuesday various

Tuesday various