A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Dec 23 2012
Mark Twain, probably

New York Stock Exchange sold to a rival exchange

New York Stock Exchange sold to a rival exchange

Steve Rothwell for the Associated Press:

In a deal that highlights the dwindling stature of what was once a centerpiece of capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange is being sold to a little-known rival for $8 billion — $3 billion less than it would have fetched in a proposed takeover just last year.

The buyer is IntercontinentalExchange, a 12-year-old exchange headquartered in Atlanta that deals in investing contracts known as futures.

It honestly never occurred to me until reading this story that one could buy or sell a stock exchange. But then, it’s got to be operated by someone, right? In this case, the parent company is NYSE Euronext, which IntercontinentalExchange has acquired in this deal.

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Dec 23 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Data teleportation: The quantum space race

Data teleportation: The quantum space race

Great profile piece from Zeeya Merali published in Nature:

Three years ago, Jian-Wei Pan brought a bit of Star Trek to the Great Wall of China. From a site near the base of the wall in the hills north of Beijing, he and his team of physicists from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei aimed a laser at a detector on a rooftop 16 kilometres away, then used the quantum properties of the laser’s photons to ‘teleport’ information across the intervening space. At the time, it was a world distance record for quantum teleportation, and a major step towards the team’s ultimate aim of teleporting photons to a satellite.

The piece details both Pan and also his relationship with frenemy Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna. Great human story and also the science is fucking mindblowing holy shit.

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Dec 22 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Iowa court: Bosses can fire ‘irresistible’ workers

Iowa court: Bosses can fire ‘irresistible’ workers

From the I Just Fucking Hate Everything Department comes this piece of legal news by Ryan J. Foley for the Associated Press:

A dentist acted legally when he fired an assistant that he found attractive simply because he and his wife viewed the woman as a threat to their marriage, the all-male Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The court ruled 7-0 that bosses can fire employees they see as an “irresistible attraction,” even if the employees have not engaged in flirtatious behavior or otherwise done anything wrong. 

My favorite part of the article, by which I mean the part of the article that finally opened my eyes to the true horror of this empty universe and made me futilely scream into the maw of oblivion, was this one:

[Melissa] Nelson filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination, arguing she would not have been terminated if she was male. She did not allege sexual harassment because Knight’s conduct may not have risen to that level and didn’t particularly offend her, [her attorney Paige] Fiedler said.

This is not at all bad out of context, but the important part is how it relates to two previous sentences:

… in the final months of her employment, [boss James Knight] complained that her tight clothing was distracting, once telling her that if his pants were bulging that was a sign her clothes were too revealing, according to the opinion.

He also once allegedly remarked about her infrequent sex life by saying, “that’s like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it.”

The chain of events set in motion by the Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago has lead to a point where this is not considered sexual harassment.

My soul weeps.

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Dec 21 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Inside Insides is a blog where MRI technologist Andy Ellison uses a research MRI on food.

Here’s corn.

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Dec 21 2012
Mark Twain, probably

The secret life of ciabatta

The secret life of ciabatta

The Guardian in 1999:

July 1982. Israel invades Lebanon, Britain declares an end to hostilities in the Falklands, and, at a mill in Adria, a town near Venice, a small band of dedicated flour experts talk dough. One of their number, Arnaldo Cavallari, a miller in his late forties, is especially excited. For years, Rome could only look on, horrified, as large-scale baguette imports from France threatened to monopolise the lucrative sandwich market in Italy. It was time to hit back with an equally commercially viable product. After weeks spent testing new dough mixes and bake-times, refining and adapting existing regional loaves and using his own mineral- and gluten-rich flour, Cavallari came up with Italy’s very own dedicated snack bread. He called it Ciabatta Polesano. It was hailed as the bread that saved Italy, and rocked the sandwich world.

Really cool piece, lots of great history. I found it through a citation on the Wikipedia article for ciabatta.

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Dec 20 2012
Mark Twain, probably

This is a promo for Ron Paul, “The High Tide,” from 2008 that I only just found now. According to the copy, it was created by a “small group of dedicated grassroots artists,” so it was apparently not an official campaign ad.

It features CG Ron Paul.

Look at that shit. That is some fucking CG Ron Paul.

My favorite part is at 0:41 when doves fly underwater past CG Ron Paul.

I don’t have a punchline or bit of snark to end this post. There is nothing I can do that can top simply repeating that doves fly underwater past CG Ron Paul.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
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Dec 19 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Google’s Authorship Fail: How Truman Capote Was Credited As A NYT Writer 28 Years After His Death

Google’s Authorship Fail: How Truman Capote Was Credited As A NYT Writer 28 Years After His Death

Matt McGee on Search Engine Land:

If you happened to do certain abortion-related searches in the past few days, you might’ve been surprised to see the late Truman Capote getting Google+ Authorship credit for an article from The New York Times.

What makes it odd, of course, is that Capote died in 1984. He wrote numerous classics that showed up on the Times bestseller list but, as far as I know, he never actually wrote for the Times itself — and he certainly didn’t write an article that was first published in 2010.

I know firsthand that processing language is really dang difficult, so I have a ton of sympathy for Google for messing up the attribution of the article. But still, this is a pretty big yikes no matter which way you slice it.

Check the comments for some others who have had articles misattributed.

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Dec 18 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Coming at you today is the utterly delightful “Lalalututa” by sweez & Meine Meinung.

I love the heck out of just about every single harmony in this thing. Every last one of them.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
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Dec 18 2012
Mark Twain, probably

The Embedded Dangers of Untested Stem Cell Cosmetics

The Embedded Dangers of Untested Stem Cell Cosmetics

Ferris Jabr, Scientific American:

When cosmetic surgeon Allan Wu first heard the woman’s complaint, he wondered if she was imagining things or making it up. A resident of Los Angeles in her late sixties, she explained that she could not open her right eye without considerable pain and that every time she forced it open, she heard a strange click—a sharp sound, like a tiny castanet snapping shut. After examining her in person at The Morrow Institute in Rancho Mirage, Calif., Wu could see that something was wrong: Her eyelid drooped stubbornly, and the area around her eye was somewhat swollen. Six and a half hours of surgery later, he and his colleagues had dug out small chunks of bone from the woman’s eyelid and tissue surrounding her eye, which was scratched but largely intact. The clicks she heard were the bone fragments grinding against one another.

Turns out she had an unapproved stem cell treatment. This is some serious William Gibson shit — sounds like something that would happen in the darkened alleyways of Chiba City.

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Dec 17 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Ladies and gentlemen, this is absolute genius.

Converting the walking motion into forward movement? This will totally revolutionize the way we use our legs to go places.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
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