Archive Posts (Page 37)

We’ve known about Pluto since 1930 but it’s so small and far away that we don’t know much. Space probes have studied every planet in the solar system but we’ve never had a probe to Pluto. The New Horizons mission has its closest Pluto encounter on July 14. It will dramatically expand our understanding. Here’s how our view of Pluto has evolved. Read more…

What she lacks in skill she makes up for in vision. I guess. Read more…

Thanks @mianguyen for the suggestion. Of course it is harder to be constructive than to complain so this list took a lot more thought than THINGS THAT ARE OVERRATED. But that’s good because it made me happier in the end. Read more…

• The Pedant in Taming of the Shrew when Biondello hatches his plan.

  Biondello approaches a stranger and asks where he’s from. “Padua,” he says. “Ack! Don’t you know the duke has declared that anyone from…uh…Padua is to be executed? But don’t worry, I’ll disguise you and keep you at my house so you’ll be safe. You even look a lot like my dad.” “Oh thank you,” says the old man. And then Biondello says, “Hey by the way, my girlfriends dad is going to ask you to approve my marriage and gaurantee my dower. Pretend to be my dad and say ok.” [WAIT A MINUTE]

• Juliet in Romeo and Juliet when Fryer Lawrence hatches his plan.

  “Here’s an idea. You drink this potion and it’ll basically make you die and then you can wake up in the tomb in the middle of the night and go be with Romeo.” [WAIT A MINUTE]

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Time to make some enemies on List App. Read more…

• The singular Vi Hart’s beautiful three part exposition of the Fibonacci sequence, culminating in a clear explanation of why it shows up in plants. (Hint: It’s not magic.)

  Part 1: Link Part 2: Link Part 3: Link

• This bygone film from Chevrolet explaining with incredible clarity the mechanics of the differential in your car.

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Hat tip to @ChrisK for the list idea. Read more…

1. Letter from Stephen Fry to a fan suffering from depression.

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2. Letter from Carl Sandburg to his 10 year old daughter at the start of a long battle with disease.

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3. Read more…

• @ChrisK ’s three guests at a literary dinner party

  Virgil, Dante, and Dan Brown because it would be interesting to watch Virgil get all embarrassed about being in Dante’s Inferno and watch Dante get all embarrassed about being in Dan Brown’s Inferno and watch Dan Brown get embarrassed about what an awful writer he is. And then Virgil would write an epic poem about Dan Brown and the cycle would be complete.

• Chris Pratt’s advice to a guy who wants to be an actor

  Advice for being an actor is this: figure out whether or not you believe in yourself, and if you don’t, find a way to. Because even more than you want it, you must believe it.

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• What’s up with list title input when it puts things you did not type all around your insertion point?

• Who agrees that we should have a “reverse numerical” list type?

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If you are… Read more…

If you are: Read more…

Hey I thought mentions in list titles would work. Hmm. Here? @ChrisK Read more…

1. Letter from Tom Hanks to the producers of the “Nerdist” podcast cursing their ingenuity in securing him as a guest.

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2. Letter from Raymond Chandler parodying the Science Fiction genre and inadvertently inventing the word “Google”.

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3. Read more…

Any others? Read more…

• “Bikini”

• “Hipster”

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1. A letter to the family of a Lockerbie bombing victim from the family on whose property his body landed, four years on.

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2. A letter from a 16th century Korean widow to her recently deceased husband.

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3. Read more…

• When you think that you’ve lost everything you find out you can always lose a little more.

  Bob Dylan in “Trying to get to Heaven”. — A simpler version of Edgar’s harrowing “O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst’? I am worse than e’er I was. And worse I may be yet. The worst is not So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’” from King Lear.

• No. And yes. It’s always sudden.

  Tara from Buffy on whether or not her mother’s death was sudden.

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Well Sophie’s list was popular so now I feel like a jerk for favoring my wild spunky kid over her quiet delightful sibling. At the risk of sounding like one of those insufferable parents, here’s what my other child is like. They’re their sister’s polar opposite, but equally awesome. Read more…

She’s one of a kind and couldn’t be more awesome. Read more…

• Be smarter than you are.

• Work harder than you will.

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• Bridge Over Troubled Water / Johnny Cash

  I never liked this song until I heard Cash’s version. Now it moves me deeply. Link

• Every Grain of Sand / Emmy Lou Harris

  I loved the original but Emmy’s is more haunting. Link

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1. Contingency speech written for Richard Nixon in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the moon during their historic moon landing.

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2. Letter from the widow of Aldous Huxley to his brother describing in detail his recent death.

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3. Read more…

• My barber has always trimmed my eyebrows and nostrils. This last time she did something with the trimmers in my ears.

• I’ve begun to think there might be foods that “tear me up inside”.

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• Chocodiles

  I hate twinkles but Chocodiles are kind of yummy.

• Salsa Verde Doritos

  The first one tastes so gross. The second one is like eh, not so bad. And then they become delicious. This effect lasts for about an hour.

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If you think Shakespeare is a little hard to understand you’re not alone! These are passages nobody understands. I love that given all that’s been written about Shakespeare, and his continuous popularity since he was alive, there can still be a little mystery. Read more…

I’m a sucker for a story-song. They don’t even have to be singing. Read more…

Antony and Cleopatra may be my favorite play by Shakespeare, and not just because of all the funny innuendo. But here’s a list of the more obvious ones. For the middle school crowd + me. Read more…

• A

• E

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Some people say Cormac McCarthy is a pretensions poseur. I’m not sure this list will help but I love that he writes unapologetically in language relevant to the time, place, and circumstance of the story. Harold Bloom calls Blood Meridian one of the great American novels, equal to Moby Dick. It is well worth the time. Just bring a dictionary. Read more…

• Me

• This other guy

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I love them all but here’s my attempt at a ranking. Read more…

It took me way too many years to figure this out. Read more…

I’m sentimentally challenged which made reading to my girls difficult. Read more…

Just kidding I kind of love our backwards little city. Read more…

Tom Waits loves the moon (don’t we all?) By my count he has mentioned the moon in a song more than 80 times. Here’s all the things he says the moon is like. Read more…

I just wanted to see if Facebook would let me share a share of my own post. Here goes.

Anybody else lose power? I have work to do. Time to head to the library I guess.

Ok, so I watched the full star wars series with my daughter using the recommended “Machete Order.” But honestly I think there’s an even better order to perfectly enjoy Star Wars: 4, then 5, then 6, then pretend the prequels never happened.

There’s something terribly lovable about this great little comic.

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I was a little worried after the first trailer for Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out, with its over-played lazy parenting gender stereotypes, but this new preview looks great. This movie is going to make people cry…

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It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a metropolis to raise a Sophia.