December 2011
What is it like to have an understanding of very... →
A two part question to determine if you “think like a mathematician,” from Prof. Eugene Luks, Bucknell University, circa 1979.
Part I: You’re in a room that is empty except for a functioning stove and a tea kettle with tepid water in it sitting on the floor. How do you make hot water for tea?
Answer to Part I: Put tea kettle on stove, turn on burner, heat until water...
“Of the Pixar animators, Bird has always been the one most interested in...”
– Notebook Reviews: Brad Bird’s “Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol”
WatchBradley Manning Had Secrets
by Adam Butcher
The story of Bradley Manning, not as a Wikileaks ‘hacktivist’, but as a young American soldier simultaneously going through a crisis-of-conscious and a crisis-of-gender-identity.
Homeless die 30 years before the average person -... →
“Take the wordless subway ride, early in the movie, that finds Brandon,...”
– “Shame” Review : The New Yorker
“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is...”
– Christopher Hitchens
In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011 |... →
You were a lion.
Christmas traditions and performance rituals: a... →
hey it’s that time again.
The article explores some pre-Christian, Christian and post-Christian celebratory rituals that exist in a Nordic tradition of Christmas feasts, with a particular focus on the Norwegian Yule. A key theme is the presentation and discussion of rituals and performative events in the described celebrations, along with observations on the interesting etymology of...
“for the contingent out there who sneer at heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman...”
– Greg Rucka, on Superman
What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 -... →
We now understand that, indeed, AF447 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had caused. Neither...
The Stories You Missed in 2011 | Foreign Policy →
8. Asia’s New DMZ
While the world was transfixed by events in the Middle East this February, a century-old territorial conflict in Southeast Asia briefly became a shooting war when Cambodia and Thailand came to blows over a long-disputed religious site, a clash that may foreshadow growing instability in an increasingly volatile region.
The two neighbors have long argued over...
