Apparently it’s going to China. Blake Houshnell calls a chart of China’s cement use “staggering,” while Joshua Keating points out the recent uptake in theft of India’s manhole covers is being blamed on China’s ravenous demand for iron.
I’m ready to name this the craziest thing I’ve heard all day:
The remains of a woman have been found sitting in front of her TV - 42 years after she was reported missing.
(via Gizmodo)
Austin Kleon is rather excited that Hulu — a synonym for legal, free, ad-supported streaming — now has some Three Stooges episodes. Personally I’ve never much watched the classic, but now I think I mights have to.
Teddy Roosevelt’s famous model for diplomacy was “Talk softly but carry a big stick.” Barack Obama’s model for diplomacy is… Winnie the Pooh?
Mr Danzig [an Obama advisor] spelt out the need to change by reading a paragraph from chapter one of the children’s classic, which says: “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.”
(via Passport)
Tyler Cowen points to some interesting research:
Immediately after one person performs a favor for another, the recipient of the favor places more value on the favor than does the favor-doer. However, as time passes, the value of the favor decreases in the recipient’s eyes, whereas for the favor-doer, it actually increases. Although there are several potential reasons for this discrepancy, one possibility is that, as time goes by, the memory of the favor-doing event gets distorted, and since people have the desire to see themselves in the best possible light, receivers may think they didn’t need all that much help at the time, while givers may think they really went out of their way for the receiver.
Matt Kirkland has stripped away the fluffy cuteness behind Elmo and other plush toys to reveal the creepy-looking robots underneath.
(via kottke)
Actually, says the Green Lantern, if you’re really green you use your pants. If you’re not open to that, the often-ineffective solution is the greener one:
The bottom line is that hand dryers will be the greener choice in about 95 percent of circumstances. If the choice is between using a tiny corner of recycled towel versus a 2,400-watt dryer, then the Lantern can see how the towel will win. But dryers get the nod in most other scenarios, particularly if the dryer is rated at less than 1,600 watts. (Check the specs plate on the side if you’re really curious.)
Worst title ever? In any case, Strange Maps has a striking maps of where federally-owned land in located around the United States. You may be surprised to know that Nevada has the most (84.5%), while Connecticut has the least (0.4%). And no, neither number is a typo.
For The Atlantic, Gregg Easterbrook will try to scare you about how astroids will kill us. The title links to the video (because I have “reader’s block”), but the text of the story is also online.
This recent Metafilter post was a great collection of eagle awesomeness (YT are YouTube videos):
Bald Eagle Attacks Swan | Eagle vs Goat [YT] | Eagle vs Fox | Eagle vs Sandhill Crane | Golden Eagle vs Deer [YT] | Eagle vs. Eagle [YT] | Hawk vs Pet Mouse [YT] | Eagles vs Human Children | Eagles vs Our Primitive Ancestors
A few months ago, a team from Rensselaer and Rice Universities made a surface the blackest black that was ever called black.
(via kottke)
I have no idea how this picture was made, but it looks really really awesome. That is all.
(via Matt Yglesias, who actually links to this story about rapidly chilling beverages)
Fascinating:
Using MRI scans of gay and straight men and women, the researchers found that people who liked women — heterosexual men and homosexual women — had larger right brain hemispheres, while people who liked men — heterosexual women and homosexual men — had symmetrical brains. As seen in the image, MRI and PET scans showed a similar pattern in two specific regions of the brain, the right and left amygdalas, which are thought to control fight-or-flight reactions.
I feel like I’ve come across this more than a few times before. In any case, it’s a good way to satiate your inner voyeur.
(via Coudal)
A sad fact I’d not heard before:
So it is across much of south and east Ethiopia. In the highlands the rain was erratic; in the lowlands it fell not at all. The result is that an extra 4.5m of Ethiopia’s 80m people need emergency food, on top of the 5m or so who already get it, according to the UN’s World Food Programme.
The government says a recovery is possible if the rains expected later in the year are good. Foreign aid specialists say that the food shortages are “going in the direction of high mortality”. The government is supposed to have 450,000 tonnes in a grain stockpile, with 100,000 tonnes in reserve to keep prices from rising too much. But it has only 65,000 tonnes left.
Speaking of newspapers, Felix Salmon defends Alfonso Serrono interesting idea for ownership of the New York Times (or any paper):
Personally, I think this is a really good idea: give every print subscriber one Class B voting share of NYT stock, and then give them one more share every three months thereafter, assuming their subscription is still in good standing. The securities would automatically convert to Class A shares if they were sold or transferred, or if the subscriber let his subscription lapse.
(via Snarkmarket)
Jack Shafer dares thinking the unthinkable: Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal may actually be getting better.
Charles Blow’s chart yesterday was rather interesting. It profiles along race, gender, and age — the rate at which people enter treatment for given drugs.
Ronald Hutton’s summary of some recent book on the monument is rather good. I was rather struck by his beginning:
Why is Stonehenge the most famous prehistoric monument in the world? A large part of the answer lies in the domination of modernity by Western nations, and the supremacy of Britain among them, both in military and economic terms, as that modernity was being developed. In that sense Stonehenge was simply the top antiquity of the top nation at a critical moment in history.
In this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, Rob Walker highlights this interesting business:
Sometimes, it takes a minute for visitors to the Destee Nation Shirt Company in Seattle to understand the common theme linking the wide array of T-shirts on sale. Many have a vintage look and seem to advertise businesses from a bygone era, or to offer made-up riffs on such advertisements — a faux faded logo for Blue Moon Burgers, the dubious-sounding Tractor Tavern and so on. But each has a tag attached, giving the story of each business, as well as its address. “Then it hits them,” says Matt Morgan, the founder of Destee Nation. “These places are all real.”