Content tagged culture
Blog Entries
The Earth’s Facebook feed: “Georgia is no longer friends with Russia,” etc. gulfstream/2492
“Let’s straighten things out, shall we? What you see in the photo above, taken in Copenhagen, is something we call a ‘cyclist’. Not a ‘bicycle … gulfstream/2514
Vice interview with an ex heroin dealer: “There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you’ve got 100 kilos of heroin in the trunk of your car.” … gulfstream/2535
Malcolm Gladwell, curiously covering much the same ground that another New Yorker writer (Brendan Gill) did in his book Late Bloomers. gulfstream/2536
How to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest: “Excepting first names, only nine proper nouns have ever appeared in a winning caption: Batmobile, … gulfstream/2450
High-resolution images of that (previously-uncontacted?) Amazonia tribe shot who shot at a plane flying overhead with arrows. gulfstream/2448
Screenshots of TV. gulfstream/2439
Marketing, branding, and memory, told around a company called River West that acquires the intellectual property around “dead” brands: “In most cases … gulfstream/2438
Great series of articles on life and religion in the Middle East. (The two most recent articles on love and marriage in Saudi Arabia are especially good.) gulfstream/2436
Clay Shirky’s tantalising suggestion that perhaps TV is a temporary spare-time-filling measure, and that sometime soon we’re going to come up with … gulfstream/2431
Aryan Outfitters: photo essay (+ some audio snippets) on the maker of high quality KKK outfits. I both like and don’t like the extremely detached way … gulfstream/2426
Six Masai warriors, in London to run the London Marathon for charity, give a difficult-to-believe interview with the Guardian: “I miss meat and blood … gulfstream/2424
Weirdly long, eloquent, and informative Craiglist post about friends and the Australian concept of “mateship” that I somewhat endorse. gulfstream/2312
Have I posted this before? Small story on Sao Paolo’s near-complete eradication of outdoor advertising. gulfstream/2320
TV show invites five Pacific tribesman to the UK. What they find strange: homelessness, artificial insemination of pigs, the time spent cleaning and washing … gulfstream/2326
Steven Pinker: Linguistic, historial and sociological aspects of swearing. Many good points in here, e.g. “To hear nigger is to try on, however briefly, … gulfstream/2339
Nice series by Tim Wu on some categories of laws that are not actively enforced (including copyright laws, immigration laws), and why. gulfstream/2342
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Includes sections on The Bible (the handwriting on the wall), proverbs (he who laughs last, laughs best), idioms … gulfstream/2349
How the Japanese refuel and plane, and how the Chinese refuel a plane. “At the moment, I am feeling positive toward both approaches. The emphasis on … gulfstream/2356
Very NYC: young Guyanese and Trinidadian who kit their bicycles out with thousand-dollar stereos. The slide show is also nice. gulfstream/2357
Random stupid comment, from a corpus of comments collected by the StupidFilter project, who are attempting (good luck!) to write some software that will … gulfstream/2360
The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. I’m a bit trouble that I find it very much impossible to read these the way the signwriters intended, … gulfstream/2363
Improv Everywhere’s “Frozen Grand Central.” (report) gulfstream/2389
Differences in consumption per person are much less dramatic than differences in income (in the US): “If we look at consumption per person, the difference … gulfstream/2395
Story on a well-placed semi-colon on some MTA signage is currently the most frequently emailed story at the Times! gulfstream/2397
Stuff white people like: recycling, expensive sandwiches, knowing what’s best for poor people. gulfstream/2398
“The Charms of Wikipedia,” by Nicholson Baker. The first section neatly captures the charms of Wikipedia, and the last is a nice account of Baker’s … gulfstream/2407
“Rather startled, I watched this scene from close quarters behind the window until 19.10 hours during which time (75 minutes) I made some photographs … gulfstream/1704
“Today, more than 40 percent of the black girls born in California in a given year receive a name that not one of the roughly 100,000 baby white … gulfstream/1721
On Tony Wheeler, the founder of Lonely Planet. gulfstream/1722
The All-New Sesame Street. gulfstream/1787
“How vanilla became shorthand for bland.” I hate hate hate it when I get a milkshake with no flavour when I ask for a vanilla milkshake. … gulfstream/1813
List of current international border disputes—given that just about every country has one or more, it’s a puzzle that anything gets done. gulfstream/1827
“Nobody dumbs down the finance pages. Imagine the fuss if I tried to stick the word ‘biophoton’ on a science page without explaining what … gulfstream/1833
What the “@” sign is called in different countries. gulfstream/1839
The best places to live, according some calculation. (Only three countries in the top ten: Canada, Australia and Switzerland.) The problem with … gulfstream/1845
Malcolm Gladwell on the college admissions process. gulfstream/1846
Apparently, “literally” has been used for emphasis for ages. gulfstream/1871
Surreal ad for German hardware store. More: 1, 2, 3. gulfstream/1902
Typography humour. I would laugh at anyone who actually wore this, but it is cute. gulfstream/1903
Piece on Oscar-winning actresses who subsequently go on to make dreck. gulfstream/1908
The traditional year-on-year German NYE TV show is a 1963 B&W recording of an obscure British skit involving a nonagenarian birthday celebrant, … gulfstream/1918
Lone Star Statements: One star Amazon reviews of notable books. gulfstream/1919
The restaurants in Ikea’s German stores are apparently very popular: there’s only 37 stores, but they have the 11th highest revenue.“Flocks … gulfstream/1921
Check out the Ron Jeremy version! (In the kinder, gentler, pre-Internet times, people took photos of passers-by being startled by a backfiring … gulfstream/1932
Julian Dibbell makes $11,000 selling items on Ultima Online, asks the IRS if this is taxable income, or what. They don’t know, and suggest that … gulfstream/1937
Some young Japanese are shutting themselves into their rooms, and effectively never coming out. gulfstream/1941
Good piece on how reality TV shows choose contestants, how the shows are run, and how contestants and failed contestants are affected by the experience. … gulfstream/1946
Mostly thoughtful and sincere criticism of Sarah Silverman’s comedy: “Silverman’s inconsistencies also extend to the convenient shield of … gulfstream/1951
Great profile of a very successful and very good children’s entertainer called the Great Zucchini … who also, as it turns out, has a gambling … gulfstream/1959
Amongst journalists, Tab is an improbably popular drink. gulfstream/1961
What’s the deal with these pictures and characterisations of scientists, supposed produced by 7th graders before and after visiting Fermilab? They’re … gulfstream/1981
It’s seemingly very difficult to get hold of police complaint forms in South Florida. (Great transcripts.) gulfstream/1995
How to write about Africa: “Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh, or struggle to educate their kids, or … gulfstream/2000
“It is a sign of the times that there has been no storm of protest over the increasingly manipulative and moralistic character of anti-smoking propaganda.” … gulfstream/2004
Audio of Malcolm Gladwell’s Feb 21st talk on a possible prodigies/late bloomers dichotomy. (This reminds me: in A Mathematician’s Apology, G.H. Hardy … gulfstream/2007
“Africa and teamwork inspire me.” Street fashion from Helsinki. (I do genuinely like this, but there is also some quality amusement to be had. Another: … gulfstream/2012
Dick Cheney’s “Downtime Suite” requirements. All televisions are to be tuned to Fox News! Can’t the Secret Service leave the lights on after … gulfstream/2033
Measuring poverty: in the US, the poverty line for the last 40 years has been set at three times a (very minimal) food budget. This approach has many … gulfstream/2045
On Muzak, the company who make mix tapes for retailers. Former Muzak executive Alvin Collis: “I walked into a store and understood: this is just like … gulfstream/2052
Why is there such a big market for skin lightening creams in Asia? (“4 out of 10 women in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan … gulfstream/2073
What’s known about yawning. (Seems like not so very much.) gulfstream/2079
“How Brazilian soccer players get their names.” The one-word names are mostly nicknames; defenders are much more likely to be known by their full … gulfstream/2088
Stealing a bike in NYC: guy steals a bike (his own) four times, and only once (apparently) does he get accosted by a member of the public—by a guy who … gulfstream/2113
Are cities the new countries? “The most important place to London is New York and to New York is London and Tokyo … London belongs to a country composed … gulfstream/2114
Things I didn’t know: there is still Shaker community, though there are only four of them left. Their website explains why they share all their goods: … gulfstream/2129
Account of growing up in Scotland with two blind parents. gulfstream/2135
Remarkably honest and straightforward (feelingless?) autobiographical account of Robert Hughes’s first marriage. “We met at a drinks party in Notting … gulfstream/2142
Journalists from The New Yorker, thoughtful individuals that they are, attempt to arrange a meeting with the famously reclusive mathematician Grigory Perelman: … gulfstream/2150
25,000 Jews live in Iran, and they seem largely happy there. (Or at least the ones who will speak to journalists.) Could there be something to Mahmoud … gulfstream/2158
The Suspicious Looking Device: “The only function of the Suspicious Looking device is to appear as suspicious as possible, whether carried in hand or … gulfstream/2166
One day I’ll write this up properly, but in the meantime here’s another datapoint in the manipulative and misleading charity category: Heifer International’s … gulfstream/2205
What Japanese tourists to NYC want. (“Masafumi Tomoshige, from Saga, was disappointed that he hadn’t seen a car chase.”) Eccentricities aside, … gulfstream/2217
Sort of meadering piece on nutrition, the food we eat, and the food we should eat. (Long; though there’s nine point-form tips at the end.) “Avoid … gulfstream/2221
“Get a First Life.” gulfstream/2223
Former Gizmodo editor Joel Johnson returns temporarily to dole out insults to manufacturers, consumers, and current Gizmodo editors. gulfstream/2231
The New Yorker has redesigned! Some notes: overall, much cleaner, nicer and more modern (though it does feel a lot like New York Magazine) cartoons … gulfstream/2255
Glowing account of Apple’s retail stores. “The interiors, too, have been distilled to a minimum of elements. ‘We’ve gotten it down so there’s … gulfstream/2256
Managua, in Nicaragua, a city of 2 million people, has functioned without formal street addresses since an earthquake over 30 years ago. (Old story, but … gulfstream/2276
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Moserware: Does Your Code Pass The Turkey Test?
lots of examples of what you need to do to get your code to work in different regions via the example of Turkey
Angleterre, je t’aime - Review - Times Online
Wired 14.11: The Perfect Thing
