Taylor Mali Poetry Slams (”What Do Teachers Really Make?” and ”The Impotence of Proofreading”)

Wow. I needed that. The summer’s more than half over, and I’ve got to start focusing on getting things off of my summer “to-do” list. Similar:When is Donald Trump kidding? When is he being sarcastic? When is he being serious? Who ge…Earlier today a reporter, following her …Current_EventsThe Whole Internet Hates MeAmusingObama vs. Romney D&D…

Galaxy Zoo

Your job is very simple! All you need to do is look out for the features that mark out sprial and elliptical galaxies. In fact, as you’re a human and not a computer, most galaxies should be easy to classify since they’re obviously spirals or obviously ellipticals. On this page, you will practice classifying galaxies.…

Hydrogen Atom Scale Model

I used to think that things like rocks and buildings and my own skeleton were fairly solid. But they’re made up of atoms, and atoms, as you can see here, contain so little actual material that they can barely be said to exist. We are all phantoms. —Hydrogen Atom Scale Model (Phrenopolis) Similar:No Money, No Time…

The New Victorians

On a balmy morning in June, Rebecca Miller, a petite 26-year-old actress and Brown University graduate, was perched on a wooden bench in the East Village, just a block from the apartment she shares with her fiancé, a theater director, and two cats. By the looks of her outfit, she was firmly grounded in the…

Sidewalk stencil choose-your-own-adventure

The mission stencil story is an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure story that takes place on the sidewalks of the Mission district in San Francisco. It is told in a new medium of storytelling that uses spraypainted stencils connected to each other by arrows. The streetscape is used as sort of an illustration to accompany each piece of…

What People are Doing [US Social Networking Sites]

—What People are Doing [US Social Networking Sites] (Businessweek) An interesting, but not very well-sourced graphic, that shows 70% of youth (ages 18-21) are members of social networks, but only 37% create content on those sites. (I’m not sure what the researchers count as “creating content” — there’s a separate column for “Critics” who comment on…

Lego White and Nerdy

—Lego White and Nerdy (YouTube) Weird Al’s awesome “White and Nerdy” has spawned not just one but several different Lego versions (of various quality levels). Similar:Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and Museum Another visit to Pittsburgh with my his…CultureSpace:1999 design aesthetic merged detailed miniatures with curvy Euro-futurist interior d…Clearly influenced by Kubrick’s 1969 fil…AestheticsVintage Freebies for…

What planet has antlers?

Q: What do you come across when you get a planet with antlers? A: Uran-moose! My five-year-old daughter made up that joke in the car this afternoon. I helped her a bit with the set-up. Her first version was, “What do you come across when you get Uranus with antlers?” Similar:Sparklecleaver the PonyswordCorrections – December…

Authoritative Online Editions

Sites like the Blake archive mark an important point of departure from expensive clothbound volumes available in university libraries — and unique items in private collections — to high-resolution facsimiles freely available to anyone with Internet access. Even the nonspecialist (like me) can easily spend hours appreciating Blake’s aesthetic achievement beyond reading the unadorned transcriptions…

The planet's burning. Let's party!

‘One approach to seeing the future is through scenarios — carefully crafted “what if?” stories that let us imagine several different outcomes’, the book says. It suggests holding a ‘scenario party’ (seriously) where you can ‘pool the imaginations and experiences of your friends’. In short: we have no idea what the future will look like,…

Not likely sent: The Remington-Hearst ''telegrams''

W. R. Hearst, New York Journal, N.Y.: “Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return. “Remington.” “Remington, Havana: “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war. “W. R. Hearst.” —Not likely sent: The Remington-Hearst ”telegrams” (W. Joseph Campbell, PhD | Journalism and Mass Communication…