Wood: Is It What's For Dinner? on Vimeo.

This is a good way to present science ideas to the general public. I can see this specific technique getting old, but the general idea of Kickstarter style video presentation might see more micro funding opportunities.

Via MeFi.

Too Honest Moms: Futility.

Whack-A- Mole | Momastery.

The Winter Olympics Would Be Much So Better With Superheroes.

The Last of Us — Futures Exchange — Medium.

Breaking Madden: The Super Bowl, in which the machine bleeds to death – SBNation.com.

My god this is beautiful and disturbing.

via Ezra Klein

Rage Against the Minivan: All the birth control you've ever needed in six pictures of ponytails.

Man … it’s so true.

The Dark Power of Fraternities – The Atlantic.

One warm spring night in 2011, a young man … was struck by what seemed to him—under the influence of powerful inebriants, not least among them the clear ether of youth itself—to be an excellent idea: he would shove a bottle rocket up his ass and blast it into the sweet night air. And perhaps it was an excellent idea. What was not an excellent idea, however, was to misjudge the relative tightness of a 20-year-old sphincter and the propulsive reliability of a 20-cent bottle rocket. What followed ignition was not the bright report of a successful blastoff, but the muffled thud of fire in the hole.

Though this article starts of with the above humorous anecdote, the main theme is bleakly serious and does not reflect well on the fraternity “industry” and culture or the universities that enable them.

George Packer: Is Amazon Bad for Books? : The New Yorker.

This is a well-reasoned argument for why Amazon may not be good for books. I don’t believe quality books will disappear. You may even say the quality of books may improve since you have so many imprints willing to publish literature of dubious character. No doubt the industry is changing, and authors have a tough road ahead. But with the power of gatekeepers waning more aspiring authors will have the opportunity to publish. I just hope the part of the industry that’s important doesn’t go away, editors and author support. It would be wonderful if Amazon would step up and provide this kin of support, but it’s not really a content company (true even in light of it’s desire to produce/publish content). I feel the best hope for the industry is for it to deconstruct, for author support I move out of the publishing houses. It seems unlikely, nobody wants to be the utility/”dumb pipe” in the production chain.

You almost have to feel bad for publishers. Small ones, anyway.

Between this article and the one on warehouse workers I’m starting to feel guilty for using Amazon for so many purchases.