The Sly Oyster

Seeing Theory is a project from Brown University students using interactive visualizations to teach fundamental concepts of statistics, such as probability, linear regression, etc. Statistics is quickly becoming the most important and multi-disciplinary field of mathematics. According to the American Statistical Association, “statistician” is one of the top ten fastest-growing occupations and…

The Italian Cheese Bank

Credito Emiliano is an Italian bank founded in 1910 with approximately 37 Billion EUR under asset. Some of those assets happen to be wheels of cheese from local farmers. From The New York Times, who first reported about this bank in 2009: The bank considered taking prosciutto, another of the region’s specialties, and olive oil as collateral but such products were harder to store and brand, Mr.…

Football is Football is Football is Tradition

Charles Pierce writing for Grantland:

Because of these obscure common origins, as far as I know, there is no other game that is played so many different ways that is nonetheless called the same thing. “Football” means Ronaldo in Lisbon, Peyton Manning in Denver, and James O’Donoghue in Killarney. All of them have different skills, and they play different games with the same name.

What each flavor…

A Maze Inside a Museum

Neat project, but cooler architect to keep an eye on: “It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Bjarke Ingels would respond to an invitation from the National Building Museum with a design for a maze. The architect is known for his whimsy. When Copenhagen decided on building a waste incinerator in the city, the city turned to Ingels to create a design that would make the facility more palatable to…

Or, why you (and me) just realized you are one of the olds.

Led Zeppelin is classic rock. So are Mötley Crüe and Ozzy Osbourne. But what about U2 or Nirvana? As a child of the 1990s, I never doubted that any of these bands were classic rock, even though it may be shocking for many to hear. And then I heard Green Day’s “American Idiot” on a classic rock station a few weeks ago, and I was shocked.

“Even after 35 ft. and four years later, my wife and I still hear them”

Aaron Gouveia recounts the time he and his wife needed a pregnancy termination procedure and how the buffer zones — even at 35ft. — didn’t do much to protect them on the worst day of their collective life.

For Justice Kagan, 35 ft. on a tape measure might seem like a lot. But I have a slightly different perspective, one that is far more personal and relevant to this particular issue.

In 2010, my…

Brazil’s Secret History of Southern Hospitality

Fascinating:

“Well, yaw cum raht in,” he chirped excitedly. “I’ll git mah whife, and we’ll set us down and have us a rail nahce vis-i-ta-shun.”

Say what?

Six months earlier, I had moved to Brazil to work as a fledgling editor for an English-language newspaper in São Paulo, a sort of International Herald Tribune for Latin America. One Saturday morning with nothing much to do, more out of…

Bill and Melinda Gates delivered the Commencement speech to the 2014 class of Standford graduates on the theme of optimism:

This was hell with a waiting list.

But seeing hell didn’t reduce my optimism; it channeled it. I got in the car and told the doctor who was working with us: “Yeah, I know. MDR-TB is hard to cure. But we should be able to do something for these people.” This year, we’re…

Let’s Just Bring Back The Freezer-to-Table Movement

“Perhaps the problem with the farm-to-table movement is implicit in its name. Imagining the food chain as a field on one end and a plate of food at the other is not only reductive, it also puts us in the position of end users. It’s a passive system — a grocery-aisle mentality — when really, as cooks and eaters, we need to engage in the nuts and bolts of true agricultural sustainability. Flavor…

Ira Glass and ‘This American Life’ Goes Indie

Ira Glass, along with his radio program ‘This American Life’, is forgoing public radio and choosing to distribute his show on his own.

But the big impact is financial. Gone are a distributor’s financial guarantees, which in the case of “This American Life,” reached seven figures. Instead, Mr. Glass will now be responsible for the show’s marketing and distribution, as well as for finding corporate…

‘Community’ Moves to Yahoo for Season Six

Great news! Now that we’re getting six seasons, hopefully, Dan Harmon will treat us to a movie.