Hanging out on the internet

wnycradiolab: transitmaps: Historical Map: Moscow Metro,...

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:17:27 -0400

transitmaps:

Historical Map: Moscow Metro, 1980

Here’s a beautiful map of the Moscow Metro from 1980 that’s unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. I don’t think it’s an official map, as it looks quite different to other Moscow maps of the same vintage. The archive I found the map in also lists it as “Source Unknown”. It appears to have been printed on the flyleaf of a pocket-sized book, bound to the book’s front cover on the left half, with the fold just to the right of the vertical Orange Line of the map.

Have we been there? No.

What we like: One of the most unique-looking transit maps I’ve ever seen. It looks more like a map of the solar system, with Jupiter-sized interchange stations within the orbit of the Ring Line, smaller satellites (outlying stations) trailing along in their wake. Despite the unusual form, and the renowned complexity of the Moscow system, this still has a nice sense of clarity, simplicity and order to it - this map is still very usable.

What we don’t like: Some absolutely terrible registration on the printing (which appears to be all spot colours - nine different colours in total!). Some fairly crude-looking linework, which may be poor draftsmanship or the result of the printing.

Our rating: Totally unique, but still a very usable map. Four stars.

(Source: Lebedev Studio’s historical archives of Moscow Metro maps)

Love this.

Introducing the Pew Research Center's Fact Tank

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:17:07 -0400

Introducing the Pew Research Center's Fact Tank:

pewresearch:

Welcome to Fact Tank, a new, real-time platform from the Pew Research Center, dedicated to finding news in the numbers.

Fact Tank will build on the Pew Research Center’s unique brand of data journalism. For years, our teams of writers and social scientists have combined rigorous research with high-quality storytelling to provide important information on issues and trends shaping the nation and the world. Fact Tank will allow us to provide that sort of information at a faster pace, in an attempt to provide you with the information you need when you need it. We’ll fill the gap between major surveys and reports with shorter pieces using our data to give context to the news of the day. And we’ll scour other data sources, bringing you important insights on politics, religion, technology, media, economics and social trends.

Our new venture — check it out, bookmark the blog homepage and be sure to follow Fact Tank on Twitter.

pewresearch: See Pew Research President Alan Murray’s...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:57:53 -0400

pewresearch:

See Pew Research President Alan Murray’s presentation on “Journalism in the Digital Age” at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs.

PS: You can also follow our president, @alansmurray, on Twitter.

heckyeahpresidents: presidentsrap: President: Lyndon B....

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:42:12 -0400

heckyeahpresidents:

presidentsrap:

President: Lyndon B. Johnson

Song: MC Chris - 006

USER SUBMITTED BY heckyeahpresidents.tumblr.com

… that’s right, I got a car that transforms into a boat! Nobody’s got that!”

LBJ enjoyed taking people out for a drive, then pretending the brakes had gone out as he sped towards the nearest body of water.

Indeed.

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:48:16 -0400

Indeed.

markcoatney: webbys: This past year marked the 25th...

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:07:46 -0400

markcoatney:

webbys:

This past year marked the 25th Anniversary of the Graphics Interchange Format. From its humble beginnings at Netscape, to its current prominence in today’s Tumblr-driven culture, the GIF has come a long way, bb.

All this week, in honor of the Lifetime Achievement Award GIF inventor Steve Wilhite is receiving at this year’s Webbys we will be celebrating GIF WEEK. It’s like shark week but way, way better.

And FYI, it’s pronounced “jiff.” And that’s according to the guy who invented it. If you have any problems with that, take it up with this guy.

I’ll be cold and buried before I recognize the soft G.

I switch back and forth — always apologetically, and sometimes within the same conversation.

pewinternet: analyticisms: It’s a digital world, folks. From...

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:06:59 -0400

pewinternet:

analyticisms:

It’s a digital world, folks.

From us: The rise of e-reading

"If you’re trying to raise a reader, you need your library. It’s too expensive and somewhat wasteful..."

Tue, 07 May 2013 19:36:21 -0400

““If you’re trying to raise a reader, you need your library. It’s too expensive and somewhat wasteful to buy the hundreds of books a young reader goes through in those first years of learning to read.””

- Parents, Children, Libraries, and Reading: Select quotes from parents and library staff (via pewinternet)

wnycradiolab: atlasobscura: Delivering a dinosaur to the...

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:48:21 -0400

wnycradiolab:

atlasobscura:

Delivering a dinosaur to the Boston Museum of Science - Arthur Pollock - 1984

It kills me that I didn’t get to witness this.

The Great Gatsby: The Video Game

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:24:48 -0400

The Great Gatsby: The Video Game

poynterinstitute: futurejournalismproject: Watergate: The...

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:24:39 -0400

poynterinstitute:

futurejournalismproject:

Watergate: The Video Game

mediareporter:

Journalists: It’s the game you’ve always wanted to play. Forget finding Carmen Sandiego. In Watergate: The Video Game, you’re on the hunt to expose Richard Nixon’s corruption. Here, the real sleuthing happens through interviews, document acquisition and hard-hitting reporting. This is the best way to celebrate the Pulitzer Prize that the Washington Post received 40 years ago today for its coverage of the Watergate scandal.

FJP: I like the 8-bit glory of it all. — Michael

If we’re a little bleary-eyed tomorrow, it’s because we’ve spent all night investigating Watergate.

kottke.org: Tender moments caught on Russian dash cams

Fri, 03 May 2013 18:48:24 -0400

kottke.org: Tender moments caught on Russian dash cams:

jkottke:

Many Russian cars are outfitted with dashboard cameras to protect drivers against insurance fraud. These cameras have caught all sorts of crazy happenings — car accidents, low-flying jets, insurance scam attempts, meteors, and plane crashes

— leading many to believe that Russia is a place where crazy shit pretty much happens constantly.

But Russia’s dash cams have also captured many more tender moments — people hopping out of their cars to help old ladies across the street, looking after little kids who wandered into the street, pushing cars out of snowbanks, etc.

Pew Research Center: Attention, journalists, media geeks and anyone interested in the changing landscape of the news media

Fri, 03 May 2013 15:48:12 -0400

Pew Research Center: Attention, journalists, media geeks and anyone interested in the changing landscape of the news media:

pewresearch:

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism sends out a briefing email every morning, highlighting the biggest changes and news in the industry.

For example, in today’s news: Howard Kurtz and The Daily Beast part ways, Al Jazeera announces plans for a Detroit bureau, Facebook releases “best practices” guide for journalists and Michael Bloomberg may be interested in buying The Financial Times.

Sign up to receive it here so you’ll always know what’s going on.

Sign up | Past daily briefings

"To me, a library … is a necessity. They have lots of things to offer. It’s kind of like home room..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 11:02:27 -0400

““To me, a library … is a necessity. They have lots of things to offer. It’s kind of like home room for your community. If you want to find something out then you just ask. And they have a lot of things that they offer that they don’t advertise.””

- Parents, Children, Libraries, and Reading: Select quotes from parents and library staff (via pewinternet)

"Love is the reason why people want to stay healthy. It’s why they want to stay well. It’s why people..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:43:01 -0400

““Love is the reason why people want to stay healthy. It’s why they want to stay well. It’s why people feel compelled to share, to give each other emotional support, to track observations of daily living, to track how a medication treats them as an individual so others can learn from it. Because of love. Because we want to help each other.””

- Susannah Fox, Healthcare Out Loud

wnyc: Take a trip inside the magical world of….The Book of...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:36:33 -0400

wnyc:

Take a trip inside the magical world of….The Book of Clocks. This guide sits in the control rooms at WNYC and has the standard “clocks” for each show. How long the segments are, where the breaks come, when the network hands off to the local affiliate, etc… Without this, we’d be flying blind. Also makes for great bedtime reading.

-Jody, BL Show

"Data is an abstraction of something that happened in the real world. How people move. How they spend..."

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:48:26 -0400

“Data is an abstraction of something that happened in the real world. How people move. How they spend money. How a computer works. The tendency is to approach data and by default, visualization, as rigid facts stripped of joy, humor, conflict, and sadness — because that makes analysis easier. Visualization is easier when you can strip the data down to unwavering fact and then reduce the process to a set of unwavering rules.

The world is complex though. There are exceptions, limitations, and interactions that aren’t expressed explicitly through data. So we make inferences with uncertainty attached. We make an educated guess and then compare to the actual thing or stuff that was measured to see if the data and our findings make sense.”

- Nathan Yau

"Psychologists distinguish between remembering something—which is to recall a piece of information..."

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:50:23 -0400

“Psychologists distinguish between remembering something—which is to recall a piece of information along with contextual details, such as where, when and how one learned it—and knowing something, which is feeling that something is true without remembering how one learned the information. Generally, remembering is a weaker form of memory that is likely to fade unless it is converted into more stable, long-term memory that is “known” from then on. When taking the quiz, volunteers who had read study material on a monitor relied much more on remembering than on knowing, whereas students who read on paper depended equally on remembering and knowing. Garland and her colleagues think that students who read on paper learned the study material more thoroughly more quickly; they did not have to spend a lot of time searching their minds for information from the text, trying to trigger the right memory—they often just knew the answers.”

- from The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens - Scientific American

(This entirely piece is fascinating.)

reuters: From the Reuters Pictures archives: Russia President...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:37:04 -0400

reuters:

From the Reuters Pictures archives: Russia President Vladimir Putin hugs a Bulgarian shepherd puppy, a gift from Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov in 2010. Putin was seen walking the dog, now considerably larger (and fluffier), in March this year.

Photo: REUTERS/Oleg Popov

reuters: Weird Science: scientists have found a better way to...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:32:42 -0400

reuters:

Weird Science: scientists have found a better way to learn about the brain… by seeing through it.

Photo: REUTERS/Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Stanford University