Display:
Sorted by Most Recent
-
19 NOV 09
Official Google Blog: Finding the laws that govern us SAVE
PEOPLE
Starting today, we're enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases (like Planned Parenthood v. Casey), or by topics (like desegregation) or other queries that you are interested in. For example, go to Google Scholar, click on the "Legal opinions and journals" radio button, and try the query separate but equal. Your search results will include links to cases familiar to many of us in the U.S. such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, which explore the acceptablity of "separate but equal" facilities for citizens at two different points in the history of the U.S. But your results will also include opinions from cases that you might be less familiar with, but which have played an important role.TAGS
-
The History of the Internet in a Nutshell SAVE
PEOPLE
If you’re reading this article, it’s likely that you spend a fair amount of time online. However, considering how much of an influence the Internet has in our daily lives, how many of us actually know the story of how it got its start? Here’s a brief history of the Internet, including important dates, people, projects, sites, and other information that should give you at least a partial picture of what this thing we call the Internet really is, and where it came from.TAGS
-
It's true: all the taken men are best SAVE
PEOPLE
Women: do you have a man? If you do, better beware. Chances are that some lone female has her eye on him. A new study provides evidence for what many have long suspected: that single women are much keener on pursuing a man who's already taken than a singleton. "The single women really, really liked the guy when he was taken," says Melissa Burkley of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, who conducted the "mate-poaching" study with her colleague Jessica Parker.TAGS
-
13 NOV 09
Meep! Nonsense Word Gets Students in Hot Water SAVE
PEOPLE
"Bob Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University, said he first heard students meep about a year ago during a class screening of a television show. 'Something happened and one of them said 'Meep,'' he said. 'And then they all started doing it.' The meeps, he said, came from all of the students in the class in rapid-fire succession. When he asked them what that meant, they said it didn't really mean anything. 'It's almost like they look at you like it's a silly question,' he said. But meeping doesn't seem to be funny to Danvers High School Principal Thomas Murray, who threatened to suspend students caught meeping in school." Wow, dumb (the principal, not the kids). Also, lots of fun silliness and stories of teenage silliness in the [Metafilter post](http://www.metafilter.com/86628/Meep) about this article.TAGS
-
12 NOV 09
Mandelbulb: The Unravelling of the Real 3D Mandelbrot Fractal SAVE
PEOPLE
"The original Mandelbrot is an amazing object that has captured the public's imagination for 30 years with its cascading patterns and hypnotically colourful detail. It's known as a 'fractal' - a type of shape that yields (sometimes elaborate) detail forever, no matter how far you 'zoom' into it (think of the trunk of a tree sprouting branches, which in turn split off into smaller branches, which themselves yield twigs etc.). It's found by following a relatively simple math formula. But in the end, it's still only 2D and flat - there's no depth, shadows, perspective, or light sourcing. What we have featured in this article is a potential 3D version of the same fractal." I don't get the math in all of this, but there are some _gorgeous_ pictures. A lot of them look to me like perfect sets for the home planet of Giger's Alien.TAGS
-
Cyoa SAVE
PEOPLE
"Outside of the realm of task-oriented books, this sort of hopscotch across the contents is a rarity. And the CYOA books are actually not exceptions in this respect, for they too are books that perform a task. But rather than being a definition retrieval system or associative datastore, their interactive function is to create a gameworld for the reader. This is part of the wonder of these books -- they took a pre-existing set of interface conventions designed for utilitarian search tasks and mapped a new activity onto it. They were effectively a new kind of software application for the oldest information-display platform we have."TAGS
-
Djay » Spin - the All-in-One Controller for Djay SAVE
PEOPLE
"Spin is the perfect all-in-one hardware solution to control djay, allowing anyone to mix, scratch, and play music as a DJ would right at your fingertips. Whether you are a beginner or a professional artist, Spin offers everything you need to be a DJ with your Mac. Start DJing today with Spin and experience what it's like to create your own mix for podcasts, slide shows, house parties and even bigger venues."TAGS
-
09 NOV 09
The Jobless Rate for People Like You - Interactive Graphic SAVE
PEOPLE
Fascinating, if not entirely surprising, breakdown of how the unemployment rate varies within particular demographics.TAGS
-
05 NOV 09
In Which a Fairly Major Secret Is Made Secret No More SAVE
PEOPLE
"Back in the old days, before Twitter exploded into the phenomenon that it is now, I got a message from Greg Grunberg. Greg plays Matt Parkman on Heroes (this information, which most of you don't need, is provided as a public service to the seven of you who do), and has been in every JJ Abrams project since JJ started making movies in the pre-old days. Greg and I traded several messages about a bunch of different things, and then he sent me a private message that said something like, 'JJ needs voice actors for Star Trek. Would you be interested in doing that?'"TAGS