March 2012
109 posts
5 tags
3 tags
2 tags
Wait, Ian McDonald has a Twitter?
And his formative book is Carl Sagan’s ‘The Cosmic Connection’?
This man just scored hisself a follower.
11 tags
4 tags
3 tags
WatchIf you don’t know much about Ze Frank’s ‘The Show,’ why it was amazing, and why it’s super awesome that he’s starting it up again,
knowledge says it’s time to learn.
finally I can submit my powermove and join the League of Awesomeness.
February 2012
152 posts
3 tags
3 tags
7 tags
“Some of the workers we spoke to were just horrified when they realized what they...”
– One year later: interviewing the workers who stayed behind at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. (via nprfreshair)
4 tags
1 tag
The walls and ceiling of the room that had appeared around her in the span of a blink pulsed from the inside with the color of lightning and resonated with a low electric hum felt more than heard, and she shut her eyes and tilted her head back to inhale deeply, open-mouthed, tasting the familiar yet faint remnants of hot metal and sparks on the heavy, recycled air.
What I find more frustrating than not being inspired at all is my inspiration’s tendency to hand me one perfect idea, one perfect sentence, and then disappear for months at a time.
9 tags
German teens pick up on Turkish slang →
German youth are now frequently using common Turkish slang words, according to a study conducted by Potsdamm University in Germany, daily Milliyet reported.
[read more]
Words used include ‘valla’ (honestly), ‘lan’ (mate, man), and ‘çok güzel’ (very nice, awesome). I wish I knew enough German to hear this in action and understand what I was listening to.
11 tags
Kids given placebos in attempt to raise test... →
At least one South Florida campus is hoping that feeding students a “special brain snack” will trick them into thinking it will boost their FCAT performance.
[read more]
Oh BCSB, the only way you would ever entice students into doing well on the FCAT would have to be to promise them fake drugs, because explaining that their test scores directly affect their teachers’...
2 tags
11 tags
My problem with the ever-increasing capacity of hard drives stems from my own tendency to hoard literally every digital thing I have ever owned.
Bar the unnamed computer of my early childhood, I have every learning game, every angsty piece of deviantFart poetry, all my schoolwork from 5th grade onwards, everything.
Between Zoey and Bük (my 1TB Time Machine/miscellaneous storage external), I have...
3 tags
12 tags
Turkey's Circassians want protection of language,... →
When the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) set up its first Kurdish language channel, TRT 6, in 2009, the country’s ultranationalists made no secret that they found the idea loathsome, expressing the highly irrational concern that it could open up what to them is a “Pandora’s box” that would eventually lead other ethnic minorities in Turkey to demand native tongue and cultural...
5 tags
4 tags
4 tags
4 tags
4 tags
A post about posts.
If you rebagel something offensive and don’t comment on it, that is a strong implication that you agree with it.
And if you get reactions from people who have assumed, by your silence, that you agree with it, you should have expected them.
Rebageling something does not inherently mean ‘this is not to be taken seriously.’ Unless your intention is to be misunderstood, it is not...
3 tags
6 tags
3 tags
6 tags
Sebastian Alonso: From zero to French in a couple... →
alonsebastian:
For the last few weeks or so I’ve been staying in France, and despite the INSA has managed to keep me busy, I got the chance to have a deep look at the language and culture of the locals. I landed here with absolutely no clue of what the language looked like, figuring I’d be able to find my way…
This is, for the most part, an accurate description of communication in a...
kbkillabyte asked: Ooooo I like the New Blog~ De Walls a'e soo Nice
Every now and then, when I crunch into a slice of cucumber, I am transported out of my house and back to Ataköy, back to a hot İstanbul night, making sigara börek and cucumber slices and watching subtitled Family Guy while the screens on the mall across the street light the living room with their multi-colored commercial glow.
18 tags
WatchEncyclopaedia Britannica’s 1949 Animated Guide to Alcohol
This vintage educational film covers alcohol’s chemical composition and its effects on the human body and mind. Courtesy of the Prelinger Archive, this excerpt from the film includes retro animated diagrams and actors demonstrating human behavior under the influence.
A lot of the men from this era have similar-sounding...
6 tags
11 tags
NASA Will Pay You to Eat Astronaut Food for 4... →
You read that right. NASA wants volunteers for their four-month simulation to Mars. But instead of conducting tests on confinement and psychological stress, NASA just wants to study your tastebuds.
[read more]
SPACE MEAT no I’m just kidding. Spoiler alert: you need a B.S. in some form of maths or computer science to go sit in a closet for four months with a box of moist towelettes and...
10 tags
2 tags
10 tags
Turkey starts nuclear talks with China →
Turkey and China will soon start talks for building the third nuclear power plant in the northwestern region of the country, said Turkey’s vice deputy prime minister in Istanbul yesterday at a meeting with the vice president of China, noting that Turkey’s doors were wide open for Chinese banks. “We will start the talks with Chinese authorities and officials regarding nuclear energy,” said Ali...
13 tags
French Presidential Election: Twitter Justifies A... →
Internet Sans Frontières remains concerned about the suspension of several accounts unfavorable to Nicolas Sarkozy on social network Twitter. The answers provided by the company on account of suspension reasons are unclear and remain unjustified not only in terms of specific terms and conditions of the platform, but also in terms of the company’s practices regarding the acceptance of...
8 tags
I'm not generally a fan of playlists.
I prefer to listen to whatever shuffle hands me.
But I can always be in the mood for Turkish music and Daft Punk.
So I guess I have a couple playlists now.
14 tags
2 tags
16 tags
Turkey's Kurds press for rights to use mother... →
A pro-Kurdish party has reiterated its annual call for more rights to use the native language in public of Turkey’s largest ethnic minority.
The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) released a statement on Tuesday to mark UN’s International Mother Language Day, demanding the authorities to allow use of Kurdish language in public.
The statement stressed that struggle of people of Bangladesh for...
2 tags
3 tags
8 tags
8 tags
5 tags
What makes Turkish mainstream conservatism so... →
With almost every other voter supporting Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in the 2011 general elections, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AK Party enjoy ever-growing support amongst the people of this country.
What is the party’s formula for success? Is it mostly about personal charisma, or is it primarily based on ideology? Or is it perhaps a result of many...