- I am strangely fascinated by NASA’s book for the visually impaired, Getting a Feel for Lunar Craters. It’s sold out right now; they do have the text and an audio version freely available, but that seems like it misses the whole point of a tactile book. [via]
- Have we all been playing Monopoly wrong all these years? I like Waxy.org’s post about it, in which Andy Baio writes, “It’s interesting to see a commercial game see the same sort of cultural variation as other children’s folk games.”
- TV’s ‘Cash Cab’ kills pedestrian in Vancouver. Reality television is dangerous, people! [via]
- Can you survive Baltimore’s 5k run? Sounds like The Wire meets The Walking Dead. [via]
- And finally, the Empathic Civilisation [via]
science
Tuesday various
- While there’s a new strain of E.coli in Germany recently, high levels of Prozac are apparently killing off the bacteria in the Great Lakes.
- Noel Murray on ‘A My Name Is Alex’, a “very special episode” of Family Ties. It’s an interesting look at a show that hasn’t aged well, nor as badly as one might necessarily think.
- Crap Is Not the Same as Stuff You Don’t Like [via]:
If you don’t like something that’s fine. I’m never going to tell you your taste is wrong just because it doesn’t match mine. But if you don’t like something, Jesus fuck, tell me why.
- Doctor Who to give it a rest with all the Daleks. I can’t say this is exactly a bad thing.
- And finally, how can you resist a headline like this: What’s Flinging Comets Out of the Oort Cloud? [via]
Thursday various
- I ate in an In n Out Burger when I was in Las Vegas a couple of years ago and I really liked it. Then again, I was maybe just really hungry. I certainly didn’t love it this much. That’s some crazy line.
- Cellphones Cause Bees to Swarm to Their Death, Says a New Study. Oh just great. [via]
- “A large proportion of iPad owners in the US have not used the device to read an e-book, a survey from media and publishing forecast firm Simba Information reveals.” That’s kind of sad.
- Well I guess I just stopped using Twitpic. [via]
- If summer movie posters told the truth. [via]
- And finally [via]:
Tuesday various
- Zadie Smith’s rules for writers:
When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would. [via]
- “All these worlds are yours except Europa…and possibly Titan.” [via]
- The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything:
It’s sad, but it’s also … great, really. Imagine if you’d seen everything good, or if you knew about everything good. Imagine if you really got to all the recordings and books and movies you’re “supposed to see.” Imagine you got through everybody’s list, until everything you hadn’t read didn’t really need reading. That would imply that all the cultural value the world has managed to produce since a glob of primordial ooze first picked up a violin is so tiny and insignificant that a single human being can gobble all of it in one lifetime. That would make us failures, I think. [via]
- So long and thanks for all the fish: Underwater Translator May Finally Let Us Talk to Dolphins. [via]
- And finally, My Little 11th Doctor [via]:
Tuesday various
- NASA proves Einstein was smart. Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that — namely, finding that there’s “a space-time vortex around Earth, and its shape precisely matches the predictions of Einstein’s theory of gravity” — but yeah, basically: Einstein? No dummy. [via]
- Gelatin cubes dropped onto solid surface High Speed Video. Strangely fascinating. [via]
- Time Magazine talks to the kids who were there with George W. Bush on 9/11. I’m not sure I agree with them. Maybe Bush did just want to protect the kids he was reading to from finding out, from panicking, but his focus probably should have been on the nation as a whole. Still, there’s no denying they have a unique an interesting perspective on that day. [via]
- Oh, thanks a lot, monarchy! Book slump to eight-year low in Royal Wedding week.
- And finally, what American accent do you have? It guessed me correctly, although your mileage — especially if it’s, y’know, outside the US, and…what’s the word for “mileage” in metric anyway? Kilometrage? [via]