The Seattle Times has a slideshow of the new Seattle Central Library. Vibrant colors, lots of glass. Hopefully user friendly too! (via Jason Kottke)…
Category Archives: General news
Library of Alexandria discovered
A Polish-Egyptian team of archaeologists has excavated parts of the Bruchion region of Alexandria and discovered what look like lecture halls of the Library of Alexandria….
Gender benders
Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa in Italy found that new lovers adjust their testosterone to more closely match each other. “[M]en and women in love have considerably higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.” “Men who were in love had lower levels of the male sex hormone testosterone – linked to aggression and sex drive – than the other men. Love-struck women, in contrast, had higher levels of testosterone than their counterparts” “[W]hen people look at their lovers, the neural circuits that are normally associated with critical social assessment of other people are suppressed”…
French Laundry named best restaurant in the world
Restaurant Magazine released its list of the world’s top restaurants and French Laundry of Yountville takes top prize. Chez Panisse is #37. I have not eaten at any of these restaurants….
Slate: Our Hidden WMD program
Fred Kaplan of Slate breaks down the United States budget for nuclear weapons. [T]his year’s spending on nuclear activities is equal to what Ronald Reagan spent at the height of the U.S.-Soviet standoff. It exceeds by over 50 percent the average annual sum ($4.2 billion) that the United States spent—again, in real dollars—throughout the four and a half decades of the Cold War….
Business 2.0 : Creative Commons
Andy Raskin of Business 2.0: “Creative Commons encourages artists to share and distribute their work for free. And that could be the key to a new multibillion-dollar industry.”…
Conflict Archive on the Internet on Northern Ireland.
The CAIN Web Service provides information and source material on politics, society, and the struggle between Catholics and Protestants in the region since 1968. Sponsored by the University of Ulster, Queen’s University of Belfast, and the Linen Hall Library, among others. (via MetaFilter)…
Salon : Warriors for hire in Iraq
P.W. Singer of Salon details the use of private military firms (PMFs) in Iraq and elsewhere. “[T]here are more private military contractors on the ground in Iraq than troops from any one ally, including Britain” “Soldiers within the private military field typically make between two to 10 times what they make with their home-state military. Much as in regular industry, those at the higher end have an elite background, except that in the PMF world, having been in a Green Beret, SEAL or Special Air Service unit supplants being an Harvard or Wharton MBA as a point of distinction.”…
Bay Area Linkup
“Bay Area Linkup is a unique, private place where you can quickly make professional and personal connections with others in the SF Bay Area.”…
Slate: Who’s got the acid? These days, almost nobody
Ryan Grim of Slate writes about the decline in use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). The Drug Enforcement Administration claims it reduced the LSD supply by 95 percent with the arrest and conviction of Clyde Apperson and William Leonard Pickard in rural Kansas in November 2000. The article also mentions the correlation between Grateful Dead and Phish tours and the use of LSD. (via BoingBoing)…