Sapere Aude
Tag: culture
this cracks me up to no end.
Today’s spring breakers have been tamed, not by parents or colleges or the fed-up cities they invade, but by the hand-held gizmos they hold dearest and the fear of being betrayed by an unsavory, unsanctioned photo or video popping up on Facebook or YouTube.
overheard: you are moving to the east village? one day you’ll get shot.
wat
Mooney describes in detail how bad it is – that millions of our neighbors deem facts to be malleably ignorable. Though soundly refuted by scientific studies, angry parents continue to believe their children acquired autism through vaccinations: “Where do they get their ‘science’ from? From the Internet, celebrities, other frantic-angry parents, and a few non-mainstream researchers and doctors who continue to challenge the scientific consensus, all of which forms a self-reinforcing echo chamber of misinformation,” writes Mooney, noting that for every 5 hours of cable news, just 1 minute is devoted to science. In 2009, 15 year old US students ranked 17th out of 34 developed countries in science. A firm foundation in science is fundamental to modern citizenship as well as our ability to innovate and succeed in a global economy.
scientific illiteracy is a far bigger problem than the ups and downs of politics, or caring about which marginally different party is in power.
oh look it is the soup nazi coop in park slope! (where else?)
Last night Park Slope Food Coop held its monthly members meeting. It’s difficult to pick a favorite here but “In europe I have been using the biodegradable, and they degrade so fast by the time you’re at checkout you don’t know where the bag is,” “‘but my collards won’t fit!’ — one of the actresses in the silent film PSA,” and “”My name is Robert Dow. No relation to Dow Chemical.” have to be contenders.
i have been looking for a great video game to play for some time. there were several problems:
i won’t buy a dedicated gaming rig, be it a PC or a console
i don’t have the patience to learn the controls enough to stop running into walls
i don’t have the time to set aside for a really serious effort like WoW
i am very quickly bored by running around and shoot at things games
i am interested in games because i understand that they are one of the greatest cultural artifacts of our time, and have profound impacts.
turns out there is a solution for me: playthroughs! enjoy all the cinematic suspense and the story arc of a game without any of the work. i found myself skipping some slow moving parts. still, the whole thing is an epic 30h long.
went to see the screening of this amazing exhibit. as they repeatedly and tiresomely stress, this is the exhibit to end all exhibits, will never happen again or be surpassed in our lifetime. etc.
wherein we learn whether you can wish culture into existence. my prediction: no.
Qatar Purchases Cézanne’s The Card Players for More Than $250M, Highest Price Ever for a Work of Art. With this landmark score, the tiny, oil-rich nation joins a massively exclusive club: only 5 Card Players exist, and the other 4 are in world-class collections such as the Musée d’Orsay and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The purchase is just the latest bid in Qatar’s effort to become an international intellectual hub.
Finally, a scientific explanation for the feeling of depression I get from suburban environments dominated by Applebee’s, OfficeMax and 8-lane thoroughfares. Urban design can have a measurable effect on how people feel. Researchers examined levels of self-reported happiness in 10 major cities. Quality urban environments do indeed contribute to happiness among residents.
“People are often connected to quality places that are cultural and distinctive. Not all neighborhoods are the same. Some are designed and built to foster or enable connections. Other are built to discourage them (e.g., a gated model) or devolve to become places that are antisocial because of crime or other negative behaviors.”
Death to suburbia. I have nothing against truly rural communities, it is the sea of despair and mediocrity in between that is the problem.
2012-07-13: I have said as much for 10 years
Nearly everything that these families had striven for — material possessions, good jobs, extracurricular enrichment for their kids — made them wholly miserable.
why do bathroom stalls in the US rarely have real doors going all the way to the floor? some mullah decree against hanky-panky?
Your toilets are too low down and the stalls have massive gaps around the door so that people can see in. You can put a man on the moon but can’t design a setup whereby I can have a shit in comfortable privacy. Sort it out America.
+1
We ask citizens to bear with us as we modernize every toilet stall in the country by doubling the width of the gap between each door and its surrounding frame.
this is a national priority in the us.
i am glad someone is correcting the misconception that home improvement happens when it is nice out. say hello to the 24/7 hardware store: improvements when you need it, and crucially, when you actually have time for it.
nuthouse hardware
202 e 29th st
nyc
Gregor J. Rothfuss 