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Walruses: apparently NSFW

This blog is mostly written by guys, and I bet you guys don't read the New York Times Styles section, and hey, I can understand that, because you're guys, but -- this is the lede of the Times' current "Critical Shopper" column: The first time I ever came across the term "penis bone" — in JT Leroy's novel "Sarah," the main character wears such a bone on a necklace — I thought it was made up, a novelist's surreal fictional version of perma-Viagra. Later it turned out that JT Leroy was... READ ON

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La NextBus

This morning I was Googlemapping some coordinates when I happened upon my new favorite website (of the day): NextBus. Using GPS technology, the site enables you to follow real buses in real cities, as they inch toward their destinations. For example, check out the Muni #22 line in San Francisco, now, in real time, as at least a dozen commuters wonder "what's taking the darn thing so long?!" I highly recommend clicking around the radio buttons, too, and trying "Hybrid" mode for even more... READ ON

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Why I don't wish I were in Dixie

Ah, the South in the summertime -- land of creeping kudzu, stifling humidity, and the fire ant: In the 70 years since the imported red fire ant sneaked into Mobile aboard a ship from Brazil, no insect has been more vilified or subjected to such a relentless chemical assault from Southern homeowners, gardeners and farmers. Even the government joined the quest to kill the pest, but through it all, the fire ant has not merely endured, but prospered, expanding from its original beachhead in Alabama to... READ ON

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Viral meme all your friends already know about, #2

A couple of weeks ago, a writer named Jason Feifer formulated a hypothesis that all of us have probably also come up with: (a) YouTube videos are almost uniformly terrible, therefore (b) an awesomely terrible video posted to YouTube could conceivably hit it big and make the filmmaker famous. Unlike the rest of us, Feifer decided to actually test the hypothesis: One week ago, at almost exactly midnight, I uploaded this stupid video and officially launched Operation Shockless and Awful, an experiment... READ ON
  1. FIND THESE T-SHIRTS AND MORE IN THE STORE!

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These Rats Were Made for Walking

According to CNN, the folks at Johns Hopkins University, led by neurologist Douglas Kerr, now have proof that stem cells can help paralyzed rats walk again. I'm almost certain I'm going to get the science wrong here, but from what I gather the team cultivated embryonic rat stem cells in the lab until they developed neural precursors and then injected them into spinal columns of rats that had been paralyzed. Further, Science Magazine is reporting that about 11-15 rats regained motor skills from the... READ ON

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Malcolm Gladwell Slams the NY Times

Gladwell really ripped on The New York Times for their story on pharmaceutical prices, with the headline "Drug Prices Up Sharply." The Times story covered the 3.9% increase in prescription drug prices over the first three months of the year. But, as Gladwell points out: It isn't until you read a little closer that you realize that the price increase just refers to brand-name pharmaceutical prices.  And what the article never mentions at all is that the AARP released a second study... READ ON

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Pittsburghese

The 77th Major League Baseball All-Star Game is quickly approaching. This year's July 11th battle of the bats is taking place in Pittsburgh, PA -- home of the recently crowned Super Bowl champion Steelers. And while the game might be overshadowed this year by the World Cup, some of us hard-core baseball fans are excited to make the trip out to Pittsburgh, if only to see the 446 bridges the city boasts (more than Venice, Italy), the most of any city in the world. But that's not all Pittsburgh has. They've... READ ON

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It ain't exactly Pollack, but...

Over at Collision Detection, Clive Thompson has stumbled on another interesting internet art project: MillionArtists is fundraising project with an interesting way of gathering donations: Everyone who gives money can choose the color and placement of single pixel on a massive online canvas. In theory, as thousands or millions of people donate, it'll take shape as a picture. But a picture of what? Heh -- interesting question. A story in the Globe and Mail points out that at the moment, there are only 88... READ ON

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The CrackBerry

I'm not sure how many of you have a BlackBerry or any one of a number of new PDAs that have hit the market recently, but take it from me, an avid Treo user, getting your email fix anywhere, anytime, is about as close to an adiction as anything I've ever known. (Hold, perhaps, chocolate... especially, lately, DARK CHOCOLATE!) Stuck at a red light for more than 5 seconds? Well that's plenty of time to check the 'ol email. In line at the Stop'N'Shop (the express lane!)? Heck, why not return your mother's... READ ON

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Speech! Speech!

I've always liked reading other people's college-graduation addresses, maybe because I didn't get to hear the one directed at me -- the geniuses at Duke set up the stadium's acoustics so the parents in the stands could hear the speech but the kids sitting on the field might as well as been deaf. (Or maybe it was just my corner of the field. Mangesh, you must have been there; can you confirm?) So I was delighted to see that the New Yorker this week printed David Sedaris' amusing, if slightly... READ ON

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