Saturday 21 January 2012

10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird

The Secret to Marital Happiness: Don't Have Kids or Have Lots of Them via Big Think by Peter Lawler
That’s the conclusion of this study. The discovery that being married without children is one path to happiness vindicated the feminists, the liberationists, the authentic followers of Simone de Beauvoir. Authentic people live for themselves; they refuse to be breeders; their lives are fulfilled without giving into some biological inclination shared with the other animals.
Read More

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
To enliven a well-trodden globe, what's a travel writer to do? Some try gimmicks, like hitchhiking with a fridge. Evelyn Waugh opted for wit... more

War Tubas via Retronaut by Chris


“The war tuba is a colloquial name sometimes applied to Imperial Japanese Army acoustic locators due to the visual resemblance to the musical tuba.” – Wikipedia
There’s another photo here.

Why Americans Don’t Care via Big Think by Robert de Neufville
Compare the covers of the different editions of the latest [as at 30 November] issue of Time. In most of the world, the cover of the magazine features a striking image of an Egyptian rioter in a gas mask. But the U.S. edition reduces the unrest to Egypt to small print and leads instead with a general series on “Why Anxiety is Good for You”.
Read More

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
If you've been at death’s door or your wits’ end, about to bite the dust or cast the first stone, you’ve inhabited the King James Bible... more

What Can Plato Teach Me That I Can't Find on Wikipedia? via Big Think by Daniel Honan
Do we really need to read the classics in the age of Wikipedia? Aren't these books just historical artifacts or a bunch of pretentious fodder for cocktail party conversation? According to Jeffrey Brenzel, Philosopher and Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University, the classics will not only enhance your education, but help you live better.
Read More

Magazine First Covers via How to be a Retronaut by Chris
includes:
  • Harper's Bazaar - 1867
  • National Geographic - 1888
  • Vogue - 1892
  • Time - 1923
  • New Yorker - 1925
  • Esquire - 1933
  • Newsweek - 1933
  • Seventeen - 1941
  • TV Guide - 1953
  • Sports Illustrated - 1954
  • Rolling Stone - 1967
  • People - 1974
  • Vanity Fair - 1983
  • Wired - 1993
View them all here
This capsule was curated by Isaac Scribner

Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
A life in letters. When the day was done, P.G. Wodehouse returned to his chief pleasure: "writing stinkers to people who attack me"... more

The Pedascope via HOW TO BE A RETRONAUT by Chris


“Shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, also known as Pedoscopes, were X-ray fluoroscope machines installed in shoe stores from the 1920s until about the 1960s in the United States (by which time they were prohibited), and into the mid-1970s in the United Kingdom. In the UK, they were known as Pedoscopes, after the company based in St. Albans that manufactured them.” Wikipedia
More images here
Thank you to the Science Museum

The Marching Eagle: Africa’s Secretary Bird via Britannica Blog by Kara Rogers

Credit: © Stephen J. Krasemann/Peter Arnold, Inc.
On the open lands of sub-Saharan Africa, the world's only terrestrial bird of prey, the long-legged secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius), stalks across the ground, sometimes walking as many as 20 miles in a single day in search of quarry. And when it finally happens upon a soon-to-be meal, we find that the civilized nature implied by the secretary bird's name is far from a true reflection of its actual behavior. Indeed, when it encounters prey, it stomps, kicks, and crushes the victim into submission and then swallows it whole.
This post was originally published in NaturePhiles on TalkingScience.org

No comments: