• lineara:

    Unfortunately, the NASA press release today admits the search for the missing tapes was a failure. The video being released is best of the already scan-converted material.

    The archivist in me weeps deeply for the reels of data lost.

    When I heard the story on NPR this morning I listened, waiting for the “But then, in a box in the basement, we found them!” moment that never came.

  • What did it mean? Because the squirrels lived under very similar conditions (e.g., identical diets), it was almost surely a genetic difference. Let’s assume it was. In nature, sunlight is plenty strong. The lab light was weaker. In nature, the genetic difference wouldn’t make an observable difference. Only under artificial conditions did it become visible. It only became visible when the artificial conditions didn’t supply enough of something important (sunlight). In other words, the newly-visible genetic difference implied there was something lacking in the artificial conditions. The genetic difference implied the environment mattered. The opposite of the usual interpretation.

    —Seth’s blog » Blog Archive » Genes Or Environment … Or Environment?

  • I would pay good money to hear Sonia Sotomayor say, “Senator Sessions, I think it’s ironic to be facing these questions from a man whose judicial nomination was rejected by this very committee on the grounds that he’s a huge racist.”

    —Matthew Yglesias » Thought of the Day

  • Am I seriously suggesting that Michael Jackson was a homosexual autohebephile whose erotic goals included resembling Peter Pan and having sex with pubescent boys? I sure am. If I am right, then somewhere there are images of Peter Pan that Michael Jackson brought to a plastic surgeon. There are also computer-generated images of the surgeon’s plans for Jackson’s face. But I am less certain that Peter Pan is the inspiration of Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon than about the general idea that Jackson was trying to be a pubescent male.

    —

    The most amazingly interesting thing I’ve read about Michael Jackson in the last week. READ IT!

    Michael Bailey on Michael Jackson’s Sexuality

    (via Seth Roberts)