The Urban Sherpa - a blog by Christopher DeWan

(lyrical and romantic, beautiful and strange...)

The Urban Sherpa keeps a collection of stories and curios filed under Mythic Proportions.

In Other News...

I can't write everything! Here's a collection of interesting news and tidbits from around the known universe. It has its own RSS feed!

1. “Tubes”: What the Internet is made of

If you think your data lives in the cloud and flies through the air, you're wrong.

2. The Longform Guide to Space

Sex, a celebrity astrophysicist, and the Columbia disaster—great stories about space.

3. Why Dystopian Fiction is Popular with Kids

All of high school is a dystopia.

4. Kulturpark: An Abandoned Amusement Park Becomes a Public Art Space

Hidden in a lush forest along the Spree River in East Berlin sits an abandoned amusement park filled with sun-faded dinosaur models, roller coasters frozen in time, a pirate ship, a Ferris Wheel, and a train that still runs after years of disuse.

5. Why Do Paper Cuts Hurt So Much?

Because you're a wuss.

6. Jorge Luis Borges' 1967-8 Norton Lectures On Poetry (And Everything Else Literary)

MP3s of Borges' complete Norton Lectures, which the writer gave at Harvard University in the fall of 1967 and the spring of 1968.

7. Carl Sagan on Mastering the Vital Balance of Skepticism and Openness

Fine-tuning the machinery of distinguishing the valid from the non-valid.

8. Accused Child Killer Is Mentally Ill

If you are looking for an example of "tautological," this is a pretty good one.

9. Anatomy of Facebook

Why Your Friends Have More Friends than You Do.

10. American Airlines Boots Woman With Pro-Choice T-Shirt From Flight

"When I was leaving the plane the captain stepped off with me and told me I should not have been allowed to board the plane in DC and needed to change before boarding my next flight."

11. Copyright Complaint Kills the Rickroll

"Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley has been removed, per a copyright takedown request by AVG Technologies.

12. MIT's Freaky "Condiment Lubricant" Keeps Ketchup Flowing

Please don't say "condiment lubricant " to me again.

13. Nine-year-old's lunch blog shames school into making changes

For each of her lunches, Martha rated taste, healthiness, and pieces of hair (usually zero but not always).

14. 8 Bits of Wisdom on Being a Creator, from Neil Gaiman

Someone on the internet thinks what you're doing is stupid, or evil, or it's all been done before? Make good art.

15. New Bacteria Could Make You Poop Rainbows

I should emphasize: this is a speculative art project based on some limited real-world science. But who among us does not dream of a poop-rainbow-filled tomorrow?

16. Rich People vs. Wildlife Conservation Trusts

The nation's land trusts are winding up in epic legal battles with property owners who have bought land covered by such easements and proceeded to ignore them.

17. Is all of the attention on Bain helping the GOP achieve its goal of pretending W was never president?

The real bane.

18. Lit Crawl comes to Brooklyn for first time on Saturday: Participants likely to discuss books, drink beer

"Allegedly, Manhattan once had a vibrant literary culture. We, however, could find no confirmation thereof."

19. The changing complexity of congressional speech

Congress now speaks at almost a full grade level lower than it did just seven years ago, with the most conservative members of Congress speaking on average at the lowest grade level.

20. Welcome to the Multiverse

"What really interests me is whether God had any choice in creating the world."

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