September 2011 Archives
Recipe: Flourless chocolate almond cake.
From the kitchen of Julie R. Neidlinger: "The cake will be very dense, gooey and moist, almost like a brownie. It will neither look nor behave like a 'typical' cake, so you shouldn't overbake it in the expectation of achieving that. It has an entirely different texture altogether, and using the word 'cake' in its description is almost a misnomer.
A searchable database of two centuries' worth of speeches, debates, and reports in the British House of Commons and House of Lords.
NASA's 100 Rules for Project Managers, by Jerry Madden, Associate Flight Projects Director with NASA.
Sage advice for anyone overseeing a large, technologically complex project with many different types of participants. (Via Common Flame.)
State of Ohio: Election Results
Ohio has state election results going back to 1940, plus turnout comparisons for presidential, gubernatorial, primary, and state question elections.
Airline fees: What you'll pay to check a bag, change your ticket, more - USATODAY.com
A handy guide to change fees, luggage fees, price of snacks, drinks, and wifi, etc.
US House Redistricting: Oklahoma
Would it have been possible to draw a congressional district in Oklahoma that Barack Obama would have won in 2008? Two different possibilities are presented, both of them long and narrow -- one stretching from north Tulsa to Lawton, the other a four-tentacled beast centered on Okmulgee, reaching into Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Logan County, the Lake Eufaula area, and Muskogee, Wagoner, and Tahlequah. But even in these districts, the best Obama could do was 51.9%.
McCasland Maps: Works Progress Administration, Nowata County, Oklahoma, sheet 7
In 1936, the WPA published maps of rural property ownership, one for each township in the state. This map shows Nowata and the area to the north. Of interest to railroad, interurban, and streetcar fans -- the map shows the route of the Union Electric Traction Company, an electric interurban line that connected Nowata to Coffeyville, Kansas until 1947.
Economics in One Lesson | Foundation for Economic Education
Henry Hazlitt's simple yet profound discussion of economic reality and common economic fallacies.
Can the Middle Class Be Saved? - Magazine - The Atlantic
"One stubborn stereotype in the United States is that religious roots are deepest in blue-collar communities and small towns, and, more generally, among Americans who do not have college degrees. That was true in the 1970s. Yet since then, attendance at religious services has plummeted among moderately educated Americans, and is now much more common among college grads. So, too, is participation in civic groups. High-school seniors from affluent households are more likely to volunteer, join groups, go to church, and have strong academic ambitions than seniors used to be, and are as trusting of other people as seniors a generation ago; their peers from less affluent households have become less engaged on each of those fronts. A cultural chasm--which did not exist 40 years ago and which was still relatively small 20 years ago--has developed between the traditional middle class and the top 30 percent of society."
(Via Rod Dreher, whose response is also worth reading.)
Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary
Lewis and Short, online
Perseus: Online Latin dictionary
Great resource for Latin translation and composition. If I'd had this in college, it would have deprived me of my weekly trip to the MIT humanities library to use their Lewis and Short (and my weekly opportunity to flirt with the librarian).
Speech Accent Archive at George Mason University
"The speech accent archive uniformly presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed. The archive is used by people who wish to compare and analyze the accents of different English speakers." (Via a comment on the dearauthor.com blog.)
BBC - Voices - The Voices Recordings
A collection of thousands of sound clips from all over the United Kingdom of people speaking their own various accents and dialects. (Via a comment from Courtney Milan on dearauthor.com)
The Perils of Becoming a Blogging Celebrity | BloggingPro
"Even someone, such as myself, who achieves a tiny amount of fame in a very small niche quickly learns that any notoriety comes with a slew of responsibility and, at times, headaches....
"Others, many of whom may want to tear you down so they can build themselves up, will pick apart your words and ideas. Others, possibly wanting to trade on your name and reputation, will criticize you, often pointlessly, and even go as far as to libel you online.
"Depending on the size of your fame and how controversial of a figure you might be, the attacks can get downright vindictive and reach a point where nothing is sacred. Friends, family, employers and anything in between can become targets."
