Wednesday Highlights

Hmm. Interesting?

• What Is Sex For? February 15, 2012
  What is the purpose of sex? Who should be able to have it, and at what cost?  Apparently, that was on many minds on Valentine's Day. That's when the Prospect's indefatigable Abby Rapoport told us that the Virginia House just voted to go full steam ahead on a personhood bill, which will define life as beginning from the very second that a sperm […]
  (author unknown)
• The Most Improbable Thing About Jeremy Lin February 15, 2012
  The New York Knicks were in free fall losing game after game. They were quickly becoming a cautionary tale about the danger of hiring big egos who can't play with each other. Their coach Mike D'Antoni was on the hot seat. But then after a rash of injuries, a desperate D'Antoni pointed to the Chinese-American player on the end of the bench who […]
  matthew archbold
• The Duties of Downton Abbey February 15, 2012
  [Over at Blinded Trials, my co-blogger Rose wrote the following post about Downton Abbey, with further reflection on the duties of art.  Several commenters indicated it deserved a bit more attention, and would be a good addition to recent main-page conversations along similar lines.  As Rose does not yet enjoy front-page posting privileges, I am posting this […]
  Russell Saunders
• Oliver Stone's Son February 15, 2012
  Has converted to Islam, in Iran. […]
  Daniel Foster
• Aereo puts TV antennas in the cloud, streams OTA broadcasts on the internet February 14, 2012
  We've all heard about SlingBox, that nifty bit of kit that lets you stream your cable or satellite television to the mobile device of your choice, and now a new company called Aereo aims to provide a similar service for OTA broadcast television. The service costs $12 dollars a month and will launch March 14th, but is only available to folks in New York […]
  Michael Gorman
• Homeland Security takes on The Carrington Event February 14, 2012
  While we worry about future threats like global warming, and present threats like Iran’s escalating nuclear program, the sun’s propensity for belching out monstrous solar flares (like the Carrington event of 1859) could almost instantly create a world without modern … Continue reading → […]
  Anthony Watts
• THE DAWN OF RECORDED SOUND IN AMERICA. February 13, 2012
  The Smithsonian has hundreds of the earliest audio recordings ever made, but they have been considered unplayable and nobody knew what was on them. Recently, the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory collaborated to make optical scanners capable of recording the patterns, and some of the results are becoming available. You can get a b […]
  languagehat
• Save Money and Get a Better Drink with the Secret Short Cappuccino at Starbucks [Coffee] February 11, 2012
  According to news weblog Slate, Starbucks can serve you a better, stronger cappuccino that costs less money; the baristas all know about it, but it's not on any menu. We're talking about the Starbucks short cappuccino, and if you're going to visit the Seattle-based coffee megacorporation you may want to give it a try. More » […]
  David Galloway
• Jason Mraz, Al Gore's new friend February 11, 2012
  Jason Mraz is an American singer and songwriter. The music isn't quite my cup of tea but I think it's good. This YouTube video with his song (which I've heard before) has attracted 120 million viewers: that's quite something. I don't remember seeing a number over 100 million for quite some time if ever. The musician who grew up in Qu […]
  Luboš Motl
• Cottingham, Wittgenstein, and the Religious Impulse February 10, 2012
  John Cottingham, On the Meaning of Life (Routledge 2003), p. 52:     . . . the whole of the religious impulse arises from the profound     sense we have of a gap between how we are and how we would wish to     be . . . .This is not quite right, as it seems to me, even if '"would wish to be" is read as "ought to be."   The sense of th […]
  Bill Vallicella
• Skin Cancer Drug Reverses Alzheimer's Symptoms In Mice February 10, 2012
  An anonymous reader writes "A skin cancer drug may rapidly reverse pathological, cognitive and memory deterioration associated with Alzheimer's disease, according to new research published on Thursday. Bexarotene, a drug that is currently used to combat T cell lymphoma, appeared to reverse plaque buildup and improve memory in the brains of mice wit […]
  timothy
• What would the end of football look like? February 10, 2012
  Kevin Grier and I have a new piece up on Grantland, on that topic.  It is perhaps hard to excerpt, but here is the close of the piece: Another winner would be track and field. Future Rob Gronkowskis in the decathalon? Future Jerome Simpsons in the high jump? World records would fall at a rapid pace. This outcome may sound ridiculous, but the collapse of foot […]
  Tyler Cowen
• Teaching Calculus with O-Notation February 10, 2012
  I was musing the other day on whether it would be easier to teach calculus using O notation. Coincidentally, today I just came across a posted by Alexandre Borovik quoting a letter that Donald Knuth wrote to the Notices of the AMS in 1988 advocating exactly that. […]
  Walt
• Miracles of Authority February 10, 2012
  When abused, authority damages bodies. A husband punches his wife and breaks her nose. Abusive day care workers crush the bones, dislocate the limbs, and scar the souls of small children. Tyrants torture bodies into a quivering mess. Even when the results are not so extreme, abusive authority disables bodies. A husband who never lays an aggressive finger on […]
  ft@firsthings.com (Peter J. Leithart )
• US Approves Two New Nuclear Reactors February 9, 2012
  JoeRobe writes "For the first time in 30 years, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved licenses to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. These are the first licenses to be issued since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. The pair of facilities will cost $14 billion and produce 2.2 GW of power (able to power ~1 million homes). They wi […]
  timothy