Rebecca's Pocket

Russell Davies on pretending in games

2009-11-19T12:15:00Z

Russell Davies on barely-games and the value (and ubiquity) of pretending. His piece make a nice counterpart, somehow, to the Aimee Mullins piece I linked Tuesday. (via waxy)

Pepin cooks 5-course dinner for $4 a person

2009-11-18T12:15:00Z

Jacques Pepin cooks a 5-course dinner for 6 - spending $24. No plan, he just buys what looks good and then improvises when he gets home to the kitchen.

Aimee Mullins on the power of imagination

2009-11-17T12:15:00Z

Athlete Aimee Mullins on, among other things, reality, self-image, and imagination. Don't let the title put you off. This piece is mind-blowing, thought-provoking, and very, very interesting. (thanks, vinylrake!)

Post-melt NYC and Tokyo = Gorgeous

2009-11-16T12:15:00Z

Can you imagine New York City and Tokyo after the ice caps have melted? Studio Lindfors has, and the images are among the most beautiful you will ever see.

Are women writers underrated?

2009-11-13T12:15:00Z

Harriet Evans on the critics' reception and perception of male vs female writers. In short:

[B]ooks about young women are seen as frivolous and silly, while books about young men's lives that cover the same topics, are reviewed and debated, seen as valid and interesting contributions to the current social and media scene.

(via mamr)

Wisdom for hand crafters

2009-11-12T12:15:00Z

Wisdom: the "work-to-glory ratio" and "product-plus-process" aspect of knitting. This applies equally to any of the hand crafts, including cooking.

What's for dinner? Recipe search and aggregator recommendations

2009-11-11T19:33:19Z

Wow! Research Librarian Camille Cloutier has created a custom Google search for recipes, using her favorite recipe sources and aggregators. I've done a few searches, and the results are very promising. (via her recipe aggregators recommendations for Cool Tools)

Empire State Building goes green with low-tech

2009-11-10T20:48:10Z

The Empire State Building green initiative includes no solar panels and no green roof. Instead, building managers plan to reduce annual energy use by nearly 40 percent using low-tech methods such as improved insulation, and adding a coated film between the glass in window panes.

Amino acid spaghetti

2009-11-06T12:15:00Z

How does jello work? (via se)

December 2008 flooding in Venice

2009-11-05T12:15:00Z

If you haven't already seen them, don't miss this amazing series of pictures of the flooding in Venice last December. (via @ebertchigago)

November reading recommendations

2009-11-05T00:33:53Z

From the American Bookseller's Association, 10 years of indie recommendations for November reading. (via ra)

Twitter - Time to increase post size?

2009-11-04T21:25:09Z

So when is Twitter going to remove the 140 character limit from posts? At this point it's just vestigial, isn't it?

Health care cost in the US - why they cost so much

2009-11-03T12:15:00Z

Jaw dropping.

As [Kaiser Permanente CEO George ] Halvorson explained, and academics and consultancies have repeatedly confirmed, if you leave everything else the same -- the volume of procedures, the days we spend in the hospital, the number of surgeries we need -- but plug in the prices Canadians pay, our health-care spending falls by about 50 percent.

Click through if only to see all the charts. (via rc3)

Study: Junk food is as addictive as heroin

2009-11-02T17:50:19Z

Rats fed unlimited amounts of junk food exhibit the same behaviors as herion addicts, a new study shows. After just five days on the junk food diet, rats ate twice as many calories as rats in the control group, showed a reduction in their pleasure centers, and were willing to undergo electric shocks while they ate. Returned to a healthy diet, the rats refused to eat for two weeks.

Jish sez "Awesome flowchart"

2009-10-30T20:39:36Z

Jish is correct.