Category: Misc

Simple Search: A Minimalist Collection of Search Bars

2025-01-26

Simple Search isn't a complex search engine; it's a website offering a minimalist collection of search bars. Stripping away unnecessary features, it focuses solely on the core function: searching. Users can easily access multiple popular search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo from a single page, eliminating the need to switch between different websites. This makes it an efficient and convenient option for users needing quick access to search results.

Misc

Vinyl's Revival: A Heideggerian Look at Music in the Spotify Age

2025-01-26
Vinyl's Revival: A Heideggerian Look at Music in the Spotify Age

In 2023, vinyl record sales surpassed CDs for the first time since 1987, prompting reflection on the nature of musical experience. Drawing on Heidegger's concept of 'de-severance' from *Being and Time*, the article explores the 'de-presence' inherent in streaming services like Spotify: music consumption becomes fragmented, personalized, and lacks the tactile, visual, and social engagement associated with vinyl. Vinyl's resurgence signifies a yearning for a more experiential and communal approach to music.

Desperate Escape: A South Vietnamese Pilot's Daring Flight

2025-01-26
Desperate Escape: A South Vietnamese Pilot's Daring Flight

As South Vietnam crumbled in 1975, Air Force Major Buang-Ly, his wife, and five children, risked everything by fleeing in a small, overloaded plane. Facing enemy fire and lacking navigation, fuel, and radio, they flew towards the sea, searching for US Navy ships. Miraculously, they landed on the USS Midway, a feat made possible by the courageous decision of the carrier's captain to clear the deck despite enormous risks and potential consequences. The daring landing saved the family's lives, a testament to human resilience in the face of overwhelming odds.

Base-Rate Blindness: When Rare Events Surprise Us (and How AI Might Exploit It)

2025-01-26

This essay uses the astonishing feats of pickpocket Apollo Robbins to illustrate the concept of 'base-rate blindness'. The author argues that we underestimate the probability of rare events because we tend to ignore base rates – the prior probability of an event. Using personal anecdotes, like a surprising moose encounter in Colorado, and the academic world's underestimation of deception, the author shows how ignoring base rates can lead to dangerous consequences. The essay concludes with a provocative question: Are we base-rate blind to the potential risks of AI, distracted by the hype and pleas for regulation?

70-Year Study: Men Lose Half Their Emotional Support Networks Between Ages 30 and 90

2025-01-25
70-Year Study: Men Lose Half Their Emotional Support Networks Between Ages 30 and 90

A 70-year study tracked the emotional support networks of 235 men. Results showed a 50% average decrease in support providers from ages 30 to 90, dropping from two to one. Warm family environments predicted larger adult networks, while childhood socioeconomic status had less impact. Marriage reduced network size, but retirement did not. The study highlights the lasting influence of early family dynamics on socioemotional development, but acknowledges sample limitations.

Analyzing NYC Subway's Potential: A Data-Driven Approach

2025-01-25

The NYC Subwaysheds project leverages data visualization to analyze the development potential of areas surrounding each New York City subway station. By considering factors such as population density, land use, and accessibility, the project provides valuable insights for urban planning and real estate development. It reveals significant potential for commercial and residential growth along subway lines, highlighting specific opportunities and challenges in different areas, offering clearer decision-making information for investors and planners.

The Secret Experiment: Identical Triplets and the Nature vs. Nurture Debate

2025-01-25
The Secret Experiment: Identical Triplets and the Nature vs. Nurture Debate

In 1980, three identical triplets, separated at birth and adopted into different families, unexpectedly reunited. Their story, however, wasn't a heartwarming tale of chance encounters. It revealed a sinister secret: they were unwitting participants in a clandestine psychological experiment designed to unravel the nature versus nurture debate. Researchers, seeking to understand the impact of genetics and environment on behavior, secretly observed the triplets' lives for years. The experiment, however, caused significant emotional distress, with one triplet tragically taking his own life. The ethical implications of this secret study sparked outrage and continue to raise serious questions about the boundaries of scientific research.

Substack Requires JavaScript

2025-01-24
Substack Requires JavaScript

The Substack website displays a message indicating that JavaScript must be enabled for the site to function correctly. This is a common website message reminding users to ensure their browser has JavaScript enabled; otherwise, the website will not load or function properly.

Hidden Morse Code Discovered in Tubular Bells!

2025-01-23

During the 1973 recording of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells at The Manor Studio, a hidden Morse code signal from the Rugby Radio Station, 37 miles away, was inadvertently captured. The station, used for communication within the British Empire, transmitted at a frequency audible to humans. Analysis confirmed the signal, decoding to 'VVV GBR', the callsign of the Rugby station. This discovery unexpectedly connects Tubular Bells, Alan Turing (codebreaker), and a Scottish radio listening station, creating a fascinating historical mystery.

t4t: A Social Network for Trans and Gender-Non-Conforming Individuals

2025-01-23
t4t: A Social Network for Trans and Gender-Non-Conforming Individuals

t4t is a social network specifically designed for transgender and gender-non-conforming individuals. It's a free, minimalist, text-based platform. Recent posts reveal a diverse range of experiences, from daily life updates like cooking and car maintenance to more personal and vulnerable moments expressing financial struggles, loneliness, and desires. The platform provides a space for connection and support within the trans community, showcasing both the everyday joys and challenges faced by its members.

A Medieval Castle Rises: The Guédelon Construction Project

2025-01-23

Guédelon isn't just a replica; it's an ambitious experiment in building a medieval castle using only medieval techniques and materials. Rejecting modern tools, craftsmen use only those available in the era, meticulously following medieval methods from quarrying stone to laying bricks. The project is not only an architectural marvel, but a testament to medieval ingenuity and skill, offering valuable historical insights and practical knowledge.

mixlist: Organize Your Music Chaos

2025-01-23

Tired of a messy music library? mixlist is here to save the day! This app helps you organize your music collection, bringing order to the chaos. With a clean and intuitive interface, easily categorize, tag, and search your favorite songs. Keep your music library tidy and enjoy your favorite tunes anytime, anywhere. Say goodbye to lost tracks!

HiringCafe: A Global Job Search Engine

2025-01-23
HiringCafe: A Global Job Search Engine

HiringCafe is a global job search engine offering remote, hybrid, and onsite job opportunities. Users can filter their search by department, salary, experience, job titles, education, licenses & certifications, security clearance, languages, shifts & schedules, travel requirements, and benefits. The site also allows searching by company industry, stage & funding, size, and founding year, enabling users to find the perfect job match.

Misc

Where is London's Most Central Sheep?

2025-01-23

A blogger embarks on a quest to find the sheep closest to the center of London. The search leads him to Vauxhall City Farm, home to seven of the most centrally located sheep. He then discovers Spitalfields City Farm, which houses the eighth and ninth most central sheep. The article is a fun and engaging account of his visits, complete with anecdotes about the farm animals.

Visualizing Loneliness: A Growing Trend Among Young People

2025-01-23
Visualizing Loneliness: A Growing Trend Among Young People

Data journalist John Burn-Murdoch, writing for the Financial Times, uses data from the American Time Use Survey to create compelling visualizations showing a significant increase in alone time, particularly among young people. Charts track the percentage of free time spent alone from 2004 to 2022, revealing steeper increases for younger age groups. An interesting trend shows the closing gap between men and women's alone time as they age, even reversing after 65. This is potentially linked to women marrying younger and men having shorter lifespans. FlowingData features this analysis alongside other data visualization projects exploring divorce rates and daily routines.

Misc youth

From Voltaire's Garden to Cultivating a Life: A Writer's Journey Through Gardening and Prose

2025-01-23
From Voltaire's Garden to Cultivating a Life: A Writer's Journey Through Gardening and Prose

This essay explores the meaning of "cultivating one's own garden" through the author's personal experiences and literary references. Beginning with her first gardening attempt in England, the author connects Voltaire's Candide and the metaphor of tending a garden to her own journey as a writer. The fictional Mars potato garden in Andy Weir's *The Martian* further illuminates this theme, illustrating the process of finding purpose and meaning amidst life's challenges. Gardening becomes a metaphor for the writer's craft, requiring patience, perseverance, and attention to detail, ultimately yielding both fruitful results and inner fulfillment.

Misc gardening

DIY Web Archiving: Preserving the Web, One Zine at a Time

2025-01-23

This 22-page, full-color zine, "DIY Web Archiving," empowers everyone to participate in preserving online content they value. Created by five authors, it provides a practical guide to web archiving, requiring no special expertise. Based on a November 2024 workshop, the zine explains why web archiving is crucial and how to do it. A full-color PDF and a poster version are available now, with a black-and-white version and printing instructions coming soon.

Conquering the Dark: A Guide to Fluorescent Mineral Photography

2025-01-22
Conquering the Dark: A Guide to Fluorescent Mineral Photography

This comprehensive guide delves into the art of fluorescent mineral photography, offering a step-by-step approach from camera settings to lighting techniques and post-processing. The challenge lies in capturing vibrant fluorescent colors in low-light conditions, requiring meticulous adjustments to exposure time, ISO, aperture, and more. The article emphasizes the importance of background selection, light placement, and post-processing software, providing solutions for photographing complex specimens with multiple fluorescent minerals. The ultimate goal is to achieve sharp, color-accurate images of these glowing wonders.

Calling Strangers 'Uncle' and 'Auntie': A Global Phenomenon

2025-01-22

In many cultures, it's common to address older strangers as 'uncle' or 'aunt,' a practice the author terms 'ommerism.' This form of fictive kinship, the article argues, reflects the strength of a society's collective culture. The blog post explores this cultural practice across various regions, from Asia and Africa to the Americas, detailing the nuances of its application and its social implications.

Is It Time to Quit Your Job? Signs You Should Jump Ship

2025-01-22
Is It Time to Quit Your Job? Signs You Should Jump Ship

Feeling burnt out and surrounded by incompetence? This article explores various signs of career stagnation, including the comfort trap, overly easy work, declining colleague quality (Peter Principle and Dead Sea effect), and inflated titles. The author suggests that if you find yourself in these situations, and your company doesn't genuinely value its employees, it might be time to consider moving on. The article also advises on navigating the departure process smoothly, including avoiding potentially damaging exit interviews.

Conquering Doomscrolling: A Digital Detox Experiment

2025-01-22

The author details their struggle with endless scrolling and their experiment to break free. They deleted numerous apps, installed restrictive ones, and faced unexpected challenges like some apps malfunctioning after removing the browser and Google apps. Ultimately, by deleting entertainment apps, limiting browser access, employing a minimalist launcher, and other strategies, they successfully reduced distractions, improved focus, and gained more time for reading. While procrastination remains, their devices no longer lure them into the rabbit hole, resulting in a calmer and more mindful experience.

The Painful Luxembourg Visa Process: A Race Against Time

2025-01-22
The Painful Luxembourg Visa Process: A Race Against Time

The author, needing a visa to attend the LibreOffice conference in Luxembourg, faced a stressful visa application process due to a conflicting Kenya trip. The Luxembourg embassy's strict application timeline and lengthy processing created a dilemma. After numerous calls and emails, the embassy exceptionally returned the author's passport, allowing for the Kenya trip. The visa was ultimately granted, but only after a frantic race against time, highlighting flaws in the visa application process, particularly concerning communication and timely responses.

White House Reverses Course: Sweeping Rescission of Biden-Era Executive Orders

2025-01-22
White House Reverses Course: Sweeping Rescission of Biden-Era Executive Orders

In a dramatic shift, the new Presidential administration issued an executive order rescinding dozens of executive orders and memoranda enacted by the previous administration. These actions covered a wide range of policies, including racial equity, climate change, immigration, and healthcare. The new administration characterized the rescinded policies as "deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical," claiming they undermined American unity, fairness, safety, and prosperity. This move signals a significant departure from the previous administration's agenda, aiming to restore "common sense" governance and unleash the potential of American citizens.

Is Zero Singular or Plural?

2025-01-22
Is Zero Singular or Plural?

A lively discussion on Stack Exchange explores the grammatical number of 'zero' in English. The question stems from a math textbook example using 'zero 3s', treating zero as plural. This isn't a mathematical rule but a quirk of English grammar. When 'zero' modifies a countable noun, the noun often takes a plural form, mirroring the usage of other words expressing negation. The debate highlights the complexities of English grammar and the sometimes counter-intuitive nature of language.

The Return of Adventure: Ditching the Tourist Trail for Unconventional Experiences

2025-01-21
The Return of Adventure: Ditching the Tourist Trail for Unconventional Experiences

From Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expeditions to the unconventional journeys of modern travelers, this essay explores the evolution of travel. Convenient transportation and mass media have shaped a homogenized tourism model, yet a new trend of seeking unusual adventures is emerging. Examples include attempts at straight-line crossings, continent-spanning games of tag, and spontaneous explorations of city's hidden corners. These adventures aren't about geographical discovery, but about experiencing the journey in novel ways and rediscovering the unexpected joys of travel. The essay ultimately encourages readers to break free from established patterns and embrace personalized, unconventional adventures.

The Cult of Nan Shepherd: A Posthumous Rise

2025-01-21
The Cult of Nan Shepherd: A Posthumous Rise

This article explores the fascinating posthumous rise of Scottish writer Nan Shepherd. Through personal anecdotes, letters, and a backdrop of societal shifts in Aberdeenshire, the author traces Shepherd's journey from relatively unknown author to celebrated nature writer. The piece contrasts Shepherd's unique teaching style with the later, almost cult-like, appreciation of her work, particularly *The Living Mountain*, highlighting the complexities of legacy and the evolving interpretations of her life and writing. The author also reflects on the tension between Shepherd's personal life and the romanticized image now associated with her.

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