Petty Tyrant
While on the topic of podcasts, here’s another. This American Life tells the story of the rise and fall of Steve Raucci, a small town school maintenance man who worked his way up the ranks, building alliances, consolidating power, and mongering fear, until one day it all came down. Hard.
Why Gold?
Great podcast from the folks over at Planet Money. With the help of a chemical engineering professor from Columbia University, they look in to how gold evolved into the currency of choice, instead of say, titanium.
Found Baseballs
Nice project by photographer Don Hamerman: Found Baseballs.
I began collecting these baseballs in the winter of 2004-2005. Discovered in the park near my house where I walk my dog daily, they went unnoticed by others. Abject, rejected and forlorn, their state depended on the season of their discovery. Some hid in the high grass, gutted by lawnmowers, or under leaves, rotting, the leather skins long since decomposed. Covered in ice crystals on a February morning or shrouded in summer moss, they all hinted at mysterious pasts.
Prints are for sale in various sizes at 20x200.
“The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire, a short film and video by Spike Jonze
Can’t put my finger on it, maybe it’s how I remember the sun lighting the day, or the familiar pickup trucks parked in driveways, but I recognized it almost immediately: Austin.
Ki Gompa
The Big Picture is curating entries from National Geographic’s 2010 Photo Contest.
The American List
There are many Made in the USA lists throughout the internet, nearly all of them tacky and in poor taste. These awful websites have led me to compile a list of stylish and cool brands that make their goods in America.
A great list from A Continuous Lean.
Sample-tagging Girl Talk
If you’ve been enjoying Girl Talk’s All Day album, and found yourself wondering what that sample just was, here’s your site.
20 Things I Learned
…About Browsers and the Web. A web book by Google’s Chrome Team and Christoph Niemann. Fantastic work.
Of course I’m biased, but a nicely done tribute to a great neighborhood. (via laughingsquid)
Rethinking Quarterback Stats
Since 1973, the passer-rating system has been the quarterback performance standard of the NFL. Sports economist (really?) David Berri proposes a more modern metric, the QB Score.
But-heads, false fronts, and wishwashers
Erin McKean runs through a list of phrases that announce when someone is lying. She calls these contrary-to-fact phrases “but-heads”:
The point of a but-head is to preemptively deny a charge that has yet to be made, with a kind of “best offense is a good defense” strategy. This technique has a distinguished relative in classical rhetoric: the device of procatalepsis, in which the speaker brings up and immediately refutes the anticipated objections of his or her hearer.
Honestly, I hate to say it, but she’s spot on. (via The Browser)
“Love Is All” by The Tallest Man on Earth, The Wild Hunt (2010)
For some reason it took several months to warm up to this album, but now I find myself reaching for The Tallest Man on Earth all the time. Great music.
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