I’m sick today so here are some links.

Click That Hood, a game which asks you to identify neighborhoods. I was lousy at San Diego, but pretty decent at Chicago, even though I’ve lived here for half the time. Go figure.

For those who care about beer, there’s been some news about the blocked merger of Inbev and Modelo. I recommend Erik’s podcast post on the structure of the beer industry (the three-tier system) for those who care about craft beer, and (with reservations) Planet Money’s show on the antitrust regulatory framework that is at work here.

Remember step functions from your signals and systems course? We called them Heaviside step functions after Oliver Heaviside — you can read more about him in this Physics Today article.

Did you know that Pad Thai’s “birth and popularity came out of the nationalist campaign of Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsongkram, one of the revolutionary figures who in 1932 pushed Thailand out of an absolute monarchy?” Neither did I!

I need this album, since I love me some Kurt Weill. I can also live vicariously through NPR’s list of SXSW recommendations.

Sometimes music is a good break from the day to day. This is a mix of old stuff I’ve overused and some newer things that are in my ear.

  1. This Song Is Called Ragged (Jonathan Boulet)
  2. Lycra Mistral (El Guincho)
  3. Dance For You (Dirty Projectors)
  4. Clouds (Deep Time)
  5. Yèné Felagoté (Tlahoun Gèssèssè)
  6. On the Sunny Side of the Street (Dizzy Gillespie / Sonny Rollins)
  7. Croon Spoon (EV and SS, from The Cradle Will Rock)
  8. Pink Wine (St. Paul De Vence)
  9. Teach My Heart (Charles Leo Gebhardt IV)
  10. Curse This City (Hockey)
  11. Rebels of the Sacred Heart (Flogging Molly)
  12. Groundhog Day (Corin Tucker Band)
  13. Faithful Man (Lee Fields & The Experience)
  14. Coquette (Brandi Shearer & The Robert Nolan Trio)
  15. Laughing At Life (Billie Holiday & Lester Young)
  16. Kithkin (Ampersand)

This is an amazing video that makes me miss the Bay Area. (via Bobak Nazer)

Also via Bobak, we’re number 8 and 10!

Since it’s holiday season, I figured it’s time to link to some profanity-laden humor about the holidays. For the new, The Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog, and the classic It’s Decorative Gourd Season….

A Game of Food Trucks. (via MetaFilter)

Larry Wasserman takes on the Bayesian/Frequentist debate.

LCD Soundsystem + Miles Davis youtube mashup.

My friend Erik, who started the Mystery Brewing Company, has a blog called Top Fermented. He is now starting a podcast, which also has an RSS feed.

New(ish) policies at the NSF — read up if you are planning on writing some grants! h/t to Helena, who sent this in aaaaages ago.

I’m not sure I agree that these are the 10 must-listen, but it’s something at least.

This article on Jonah Lehrer is quite interesting. I think there are some things to be learned here for academic writers as well…

I forgot to add a link to Suhas Mathur has a blog, sorry!

bibimbap is a tool to import BibTeX entries from various sources. It runs in the console and is designed to be simple and fast. bibimbap is simply the easiest way to manage your BibTeX bibliographies. Be advised that it still won’t read the papers for you, though.” — looks like it could be awesome. h/t to Manu.

  1. A Little Lost — Nat Baldwin
  2. Lemonade — Braids
  3. It All Began With A Burst — Kishi Bashi
  4. Plasticities — Andrew Bird
  5. Tenere Taqqim Tossam — Tinariwen
  6. Chapter 8 -Seashore and Horizon- — Cornelius
  7. Cavaleiro Monge — Antônio Carlos Jobim
  8. No Balanço da Canoa — Maga Bo
  9. Moonday School (Intergalactic Church) — THEESatisfaction
  10. triangle walks — Fever Ray
  11. Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Gams — of Montreal
  12. Awkward — Lightning Love
  13. Ignore the Bell — The Ladybug Transistor
  14. 1904 — The Tallest Man On Earth
  15. Don’t Try to Fool Me — Miss Li
  16. Forks and Knives (La Fete) — Beirut
  17. That Old Feeling — Miss Erika
  18. Kiss Me — Tom Waits

I’m a big fan of 99% Invisible, a podcast about design and architecture and… stuff. They rebroadcast a longer piece about U.N. Plaza in San Francisco, and it’s fascinating. I was living in Berkeley at the time much of this went down, and I was semi-unaware of it.

A post from the new desi blog, Brown Town, about Freddie Mercury.

My cousin Supriya has e-books in Hindi, Marathi, and Gujarati available. You know, for kids!

My very dear (but not so near) friend Charlotte has a new blog : Mary Magdalene Girl in which she will discuss gender and her un-diasporaing (not a word) by moving to Ireland.

Photos of yakuza. Unrelatedly, construction worker fashion in Japan.

This is an awesome approach to getting consensus on neighborhood boundaries in Boston. They should do that for Chicago!

A history of currywurst.

Classical Movies in Miniature Style. I like the horses in the Terminator II picture.

I have a rather long-ish commute on public transit, and sometimes it’s hard to get a seat on the train/bus, so I’ve been listening to a lot more podcasts. Here are a few which I’ve been enjoying recently:

  • 99% Invisible, which is a design podcast. I’ve been catching up from the beginning, but this little bit on flags may appeal to Chicagoans and San Franciscans.
  • Backstory is a podcast about American History. They usually take a theme (e.g. “national monuments,” “birth,”, “booze”) and do a number of segments running through different centuries.
  • Story Collider : story telling about science(-ish).

Music with giant Tesla coils.

Dogs and cats and babies can get along.

I’m being lazy about more ISIT blogging because my brain is full. So here are some links as a distraction.

Via John, George Boolos’s talk entitled Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem Explained in Words of One Syllable.

D’Angelo is back!

This short video about a subway stair in New York is great, especially the music.

Crooked Timber is on a tear about workplace coercion and its proponents.

Luca’s thoughts on the Turing Centennial are touching.

Somehow, I had never heard of the Arnold cat map. Meow.

I am definitely guilty of reading and walking at the same time.

Serious Eats Chicago ate all the things at Hot Doug’s, to which I have still not gone.

The Bombay Royale is an Australian band that covers 60s era Bollywood tunes. They have a new album and a video for the title track. You can also get the mp3.

PZ Myers takes Kevin Drum to task for lazy utilitarian arguments.

The NIPS deadline is coming up, so I’ve been a bit harried. However, there are many cool things out there on the internet…

IIT Kanpur wants to open an office in the US to recruit faculty.

Via my father, don’t you wonder where the center of mass of a pizza slice is? This is more of an issue for those New York-style fans — in Chicago the deep dish is a little more stable.

A fascinating post from the NY Times about ephemeral islands which appear and disappear as sea levels shift.

Via BK, a musical film about coffee. It’s part of the Jazz Dance Film Fest, which promises to be my undoing, productivity-wise.

An interesting article on the Dalit movement in Maharashtra.

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