Real-time and historical data about every reported United States drone strike
via Dronestream.
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
In a word, Epic.
…instead of a means for strengthening a human community, “race, party, and state” become the end. “Nyet, nyet, nyet! The sole, true, and eternal objective of the struggle for life is a human being, his humble particularity, his right to this particularity.”
via The Russian Masterpiece Youve Never Heard of – By Leon Aron | Foreign Policy.
To get plausibly inside the past, we need to allow it to have been, as well as tragic, also hopeful, funny, preoccupied and ordinary.
via Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman | Books | The Guardian.
The zealots, bigots and creeps on both sides come across with equal clarity.
via “Life and Fate”: War, peace and love | The Economist.
When you were a child, you used to run to me for protection. Now, in moments of weakness, I want to hide my head on your knees; I want you to be strong and wise; I want you to protect and defend me.
via The Year in Listening: Vasily Grossman’s “Life and Fate” : The New Yorker.
“Yes, as well as this terrible Good…there is everyday human kindness”
via Life and Fate – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Related articles
- Vasily Grossman, Everything Flows (wordwabbit.wordpress.com)
- An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman (danitorres.typepad.com)
- Bestselling writers bear witness to the devastation, and glory, of WW II (rbth.ru)
Take ice, add lime juice, cover the ice with Campari, fill with soda.
Quote
No, you can’t control the rate of dilution with big cubes any more than you can with small cubes. Thermodynamics is in the driver’s seat in both cases—you’re just in a sidecar, along for the ride.
Related articles
- These ice cubes? They’re rechargeable (lostateminor.com)
- Designer Creates Steel Ice Cubes (uniquedaily.com)
Some economists are drunks.
Quote
Youre looking at a dysfunctional political economy dominated by rent-seeking in which “in the know” customers hope that other customers dont find out about high-quality options.
via Bar supply elasticity: a tragedy..
You think your job stinks? Scottish scientists study cows to see which ones fart more.
Quote
“The RuminOmics team is finding means to identify animals which are producing less methane and are more efficient across a range of diets. “Our work suggests there is considerable variability between individuals, with some producing more than others.
via Selective breeding and diet changes could produce low methane cows | The University of Aberdeen.
Related articles
- Study seeks cows that belch less (independent.ie)
John McCain knows who the good guys are because they will tell him they’re the good guys.
Quote
“We can identify who these people are. We can help the right people,” he said. He downplayed the fears of extremists among rebel fighters in the country, saying, “Theyre flowing in all the time, these extremists. But they still do not make up a sizeable portion.”
…he posed in a photo with rebels who kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shi’ite pilgrims.
via McCain Didnt Realize He Was Posing With Rebel Kidnapper, Spokesman Says.
Related articles
- John McCain slips into Syria to meet rebels (telegraph.co.uk)
Here’s to the day I won’t kill half an hour waiting to see if someone on ‘Life Below Zero’ gets eaten by a bear.
Quote
But cable companies would almost certainly respond to an a la carte requirement by jacking up the price of individual channels. The result could be that consumers pay about the same amount of money for dramatically fewer channels — a losing proposition for everyone.
via Why a la carte cable won’t save you as much as you think.
That is ridiculous. Sure, it could be. If a consumer likes watching TV, a lot, it probably will be. But for most people, it won’t be. Let me shave some money off my ridiculously high cable bill, and watch what channels end up in the pile on the floor of my TV room.
Will smaller channels find it hard to survive? Probably. Is less diversity on cable television a bad thing? Let’s find out.
Related articles
- Why consumer advocates think a la carte cable programming could benefit you (news.consumerreports.org)
- McCain bill would create ‘a la carte’ cable pricing (usatoday.com)
Today I realized it would be terrifying to be a teenager.
Quote
“She wasnt in the group chat, so we stopped being friends with her,” Casey says. “Not because we didnt like her, but we just werent in contact with her.”
via Wanting to be liked.
First-world problems: Climbing Mt. Everest is dangerous.
Quote
“Only half the people here have the experience to climb this mountain,” Panuru told me. “The half without experience are the most likely to die.”
via Everest Maxed Out.
Related articles
- Mountaineer Kenton Cool beats Everest for 11th time (nty2010.wordpress.com)
- 80-year-old Everest climber seeks next challenge (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
- Nepal marks 60th anniversary of Everest conquest (metronews.ca)
Hair-splitting.
Quote
There’s an especially bitter irony in Sade’s image as a cheap pornographer: he was not in any recognizable sense creating pornography at all
via The United Sades of America | Hussein Ibish | The Baffler.
