The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart — then of MTV’s The Jon Stewart Show — interviews an excited up-and-coming auteur named Quentin Tarantino about his new movie, Pulp Fiction.
c. 1994.
[reddit.]
![Encyclopaedia Britannica, the mother of all alphabetized knowledge, will be putting its 244-year-old print business out to pasture effective immediately.
This makes the august encyclopedia publisher’s 32-volume 2010 edition the last of its kind.
“Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now,” said Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. president Jorge Cauz. “The Web site is continuously updated, it’s much more expansive and it has multimedia.”
Indeed, over the last decade, Encyclopaedia Britannica has seen online rival Wikipedia slowly eat away at its market share, with its high-minded notions of free information for all by all.
By comparison, a complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica books will set you back a cool $1,395. Additionally, dead-tree tomes lack the self-correction and expansion features that come standard with Wikipedia, and are increasingly necessary in today’s fast-paced world of the 24-hour news cycle.
Curriculum products for schools have been Encyclopaedia Britannica primary source of revenue since encyclopedia sales peaked at 120,000 in 1990. According to the company, nearly all the other money it makes comes from subscriptions to its website. Print encyclopedias make up less than 1 percent its profits.
[mediadecoder.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0ugwjfdui1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
Encyclopaedia Britannica, the mother of all alphabetized knowledge, will be putting its 244-year-old print business out to pasture effective immediately.
This makes the august encyclopedia publisher’s 32-volume 2010 edition the last of its kind.
“Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now,” said Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. president Jorge Cauz. “The Web site is continuously updated, it’s much more expansive and it has multimedia.”
Indeed, over the last decade, Encyclopaedia Britannica has seen online rival Wikipedia slowly eat away at its market share, with its high-minded notions of free information for all by all.
By comparison, a complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica books will set you back a cool $1,395. Additionally, dead-tree tomes lack the self-correction and expansion features that come standard with Wikipedia, and are increasingly necessary in today’s fast-paced world of the 24-hour news cycle.
Curriculum products for schools have been Encyclopaedia Britannica primary source of revenue since encyclopedia sales peaked at 120,000 in 1990. According to the company, nearly all the other money it makes comes from subscriptions to its website. Print encyclopedias make up less than 1 percent its profits.
[mediadecoder.]
- Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.
- A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you’re in deep water.
- There are worse things than getting a call from a wrong number at 4 a.m. - like, it could be the right number.
- Always be yourself because the people that matter don’t mind…and the ones that mind don’t matter.
- Life isn’t tied with a bow…but it’s still a gift.
Five out-of-sync metronomes end up clicking in unison.
There’s a fairly straightforward reason for why this happens.
[reddit.]
Ass Playing: A very bootiful (and very not safe for work) homarse to legendary composterior Ludwig van Butthoven.
[wtc.]
Photo: James Duncan Davidson
Possibly the most meta speaker on the TED stage is Lior Zoref. He had a dream: to speak at TED. He shows a video of himself saying to his friend that he wanted to do that, and his best friend telling him it was impossible. But his Facebook and twitter friends encouraged him. He wanted to give a talk on the wisdom of crowds. So, he’s giving the first ever crowd sourced TEDTalk, and he asked his online friends for help.
One suggestion came from a 16 year old, named Or Sagy: have the audience recreate a classic experiment in the widsom of crowds. Have people estimate the weight of an ox. Each guess will be wildly off, but the average will be remarkably close. To do this, he brings a live ox on stage.
No, really. There is a live ox on stage.
(echos of “Oh my god” and “No fricking way” around the room.)
Zoref asks the audience to guess the weight (using, of course a nifty website). Results to come later in the talk.
Now, if using crowd wisdom worked for companies, why couldn’t it work for his life? In that spirit, he posted the talk on wikipedia and solicited advice from his friends on Facebook and Twitter and elsewhere. And he met several people doing similar things.
Kai Busman is a pastor who uses crowd wisdom to create his Sunday sermons. Every week he asks what he should talk about and writes his sermon from that. Durring the service, people use phones to share understanding in real time. Church is full every Sunday.
Francine is raising her son using crowd wisdom on a daily basis, and said that she feels as if “super-nanny” is helping her.
“Is this the best crowd wisdom has to offer?” One of Zoref, and everyone’s, deepest fear is a child being sick. Deborah‘s child had a fever and rash, so she took photo and posted on Facebook. After one hour, three people said he might have Kawasaki disease. Crowd wisdom saved his life.
These people are, “Thinking with their friends. They all say they feel as if their brains have been upgraded.”
“Do you want to upgrade your brain?” asks Zoref. Here’s how you do it: You need a big crowd. You need a healthy digital relationship with your crowd. You can’t just ask questions, you need to give value, listen, respond — tell people they matter.
One of his friends though this means there’s something new. At TED we get inspired by the best speakers, but each is created by one, shared to many. It’s possible now to give a talk created by many, presented by one to many. We are entering the phase of mind-sharing. “The entire human race connected through social networks, and creating a master-mind.”
How good does the the mind of that crowd do? There were 500 estimates, and the results were:
-The lowest guess was 308 lbs.
-The highest was more than 8000 pounds.
-The average was 1792 pounds.
And the real weight? The ox weighs 1795 pounds. Three pounds off. Zoref hopes we’ll use crowd wisdom, not just for thinking, but to make our dreams come true, and he ends his talk with a line read by his online friends:
“Great minds think alike, clever minds think together.”
The dentist pulls out a numbing needle to give Pauly a shot of Novocain (tm). “No way! No needles. I hate needles” the patient said.
The dentist starts to hook up the nitrous oxide and Pauly objects. “I can’t do the gas thing. The thought of having the gas mask on, suffocates me!”
The dentist then asks the patient if he has any objection to taking a pill. “No objection,” Pauly says. “‘I’m fine with pills.”
The dentist then returns and says, “Here’s a Viagra.”
Pauly says, “Wow! I didn’t know Viagra worked as a pain killer!”
“It doesn’t” said the dentist, “but it’s going to give you something to hold on to when I pull your tooth.”
There is no way to know for sure if the stats below are legit. Be that as it may, the test is still fun to take.
Below is a link to a 30-question test to see how well you know US Law. Not exactly grade-school level. Give it a shot and see how well you do!
Supposedly 96% of all High School Seniors FAILED this test .. AND if that’s not bad enough, 50+% of all individuals over 50 did too!! Take the test and be surprised at what we don’t know.
Putin Is Going After the Virgin (Vote): With the Russian presidential election less than a week away, and with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin practically assured a third term, the former head of the FSB is free to have a little fun with his campaign ads.
And by “have a little fun,” I mean produce a creepy campaign ad suggesting he’s the perfect candidate for lovelorn virgins.
Putin: Safe as houses. (turn on CC if you don’t speak Russian)
[animalny.]
