Notes

This week, Science published a noise map of the U.S., showing where the loudest and quietest places are. It reminded me of a tree map of the U.S. published a couple of years ago. If I were a maps geek, I’d try to combine these two maps so I could see at a glance the […]

In October, Facebook issued a very clear statement saying that it’s never been the company’s policy to require legal names — but rather, to require people to use the names they go by in real life. “For Sister Rosa, that’s Sister Rosa. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that’s Lil Miss Hot Mess,” a company spoke

Reflected light can also illuminate from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1AbFoDL

Dawn from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1AbFmfd

“It’s extremely dangerous to follow the advice of successful people. Those successful people often don’t even know why they are successful. Luck may have been part of it. And even if they did know, how do you know their recipe for success is applicable to you?” — Wise words from the founder of Finni

Hundreds of people, including NYC’s former mayor, plan to protest the Met’s production of “Klinghoffer.” Protests! Against an opera — an art form that, for most Americans, is completely dead. I enjoy opera quite a bit, but I’m used to it trafficking in stories that — while offensively bloody (Lucia

I was chatting via IM with science writer and Wired contributor Quinn Norton recently when a light bulb went on. We were talking about math and physics, a conversation spurred by Quinn’s reading of the remarkable Garrett Lisi‘s paper proposing a new unified theory of physics. 2:52:52 PM Dylan Tweney

If your product isn’t selling, who do you turn to? Those who help make your product? Or those who buy it? For newspaper publishers it’s a trick question, because they’re accustomed to thinking of their customers as their readers. That’s not true: Their readers are the product, and advertisers are th

“Few men have souls so dead that they will not bother to look up when they hear the barking of wild Geese.” –Roger Tory Peterson

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning,” said Mark Twain. An editor’s job, at its best, is about turning lightning bugs into lightning.

Something seems to be amiss with our budget forecast.

Twitter says, starting today, you’ll see “related headlines” appearing underneath tweets that have been embedded on websites. There’s some confusion about whether these headlines will appear on websites or not. Some people, like Jay Rosen, hate the idea of embedding links to other people’s websites.