Why are baby boomers so divorce-prone?

A recent article in The New York Times noted that the nation's divorce rate -- which plateaued for years at around 50% -- has significantly dropped -- to just above 40%. As almost an aside, the writer mentioned that only one group, the 50-plusers, have seen their rate of divorce surge 50% in the past 20 years.

Oops -- to this boomer, that is "burying the lead." Why would only the boomers have a significant growth in marital dissolution -- one in four divorces after age 50 -- while other ages do not?

After all, it's counterintuitive: Traditionally marriages are most vulnerable to divorce in the first seven to 10 years.

Read more here via CNN

In Meat We Trust: An Unexpected History of Carnivore America

We Got The Meat Industry We Asked For

The meat on your dinner table probably didn't come from a happy little cow that lived a wondrous life out on rolling green hills. It probably also wasn't produced by a robot animal killer hired by an evil cabal of monocle-wearing industrialists.

Truth is, the meat industry is complicated, and it's impossible to understand without a whole lot of context. That's where Maureen Ogle comes in. She's a historian and the author of In Meat We Trust: An Unexpected History of Carnivore America.

Ogle's book examines the pipeline that meat takes today from field to table by trying to understand its roots. She starts all the way back in Colonial America, when settlers found so much available land that they were able to raise livestock they could never have afforded in Europe. Meat, Ogle writes, became a status symbol in early America.

Much has been made of the ugly details of the modern meat industry, from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle to Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma to various exposes and . The industry's roots, though, stretch back more than a century, when Americans left their farms for the big cities, leaving a vast urban population with a cash income and a hankering for meat.

"As more people moved to cities, the gap between the amount of livestock and meat that could be produced constantly lagged the demand on the part of consumers," .

More here Via NPR

Little Boxes

The photograph that accompanies this week’s Fiction, “Coming Soon,” by Steven Millhauser, is from the series “Landscape with Houses,” by the New York artist James Casebere (whom we posted about in 2011). At first, the picture appears to be of a well-groomed, suburban neighborhood, complete a with pastel sunset. But, in fact, it’s of a tiny model town, painstakingly built by hand, using plaster, wood, cardboard and, cheesecloth.

Casebere told me, “The ‘Landscape with Houses’ series was triggered by the mortgage crisis. In 2009, I began exploring the suburbs and exurbs north of New York, and thinking about them as a subject for the first time since my earliest work. It was a return to the ideas about home and the postmodern that inspired me; ideas that were fuelled by “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,” by Robert Venturi, which I was rereading for the first time since I left art school, in the late nineteen-seventies.” Driving on the Taconic Parkway, near Poughkeepsie, Casbebere saw the dramatic change in real estate and the sprawl of urban development of the past thirty years. “I discovered the spread of cookie-cutter McMansion subdivisions, all mixed up with the unplanned ad-hoc triumph of vernacular taste, and a carbon footprint spun out of control.”

Inspired, Casebere returned to his Brooklyn studio. “I began with nine houses on an angled platform, and after shooting Polaroids I expanded the set in all directions to create a sense of sprawl. I would make several copies of each house, using templates rendered by a 3-D imaging software, and paint each one a different color. The landscape evolved in different directions for each shot, with different points of view. The houses, color scheme, lighting, time of day, and season changed for each shot. Until recently, the sky was created in postproduction. This year, I started dropping in skies that I found or shot separately. I would add and subtract detail and shoot digital tests until I was happy with the results. Until 2013, I shot 4 x 5 film. Only this year did I switch to shooting exclusively with a digital camera.”

Above is a slide show of Casebere’s work.

All images courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.
Via The New Yorker

Meet the Artist: Jake Chapman

Wednesday, December 11, 2013
7 pm
Ring Auditorium

The violent and controversial imagery in Jake and Dinos Chapman’s collaborations earned the brothers a place in Young British Artists showcases Brilliant! and SENSATION, as well as a Turner Prize nomination. Throughout their career, the Chapmans have repeatedly engaged with The Disasters of War, Goya’s suite of etchings depicting the atrocities of the Napoleonic Wars, rendering the horrific scenes as hobbyist miniatures, life-size sculptural tableaux, and wallpaper. For Injury to Insult to Injury, 2004, currently on view in Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950, they purchased a full edition of eighty etchings and “rectified” them by replacing victims’ heads with grotesque cartoons of the heads of monsters and insects. Jake Chapman discusses the theme of destruction in the brothers’ paintings, sculptures, and drawings.

More information here

The Secret's Out: Obama Acknowledges Existence Of Area 51

At one time, Area 51 was one of the most famous military installations in the world — a place widely talked about, yet so secret that the U.S. government refused to confirm its existence.

That's why President Obama's reference to the southern Nevada base Sunday raised eyebrows. It marked the first time a U.S. commander-in-chief has publicly acknowledged the facility that fueled countless conspiracy theories.

Obama used the annual Kennedy Center Honors ceremony to crack a joke at the expense of actress Shirley MacLaine, one of the five award recipients, who has claimed to have seen UFOs on several occasions.

"Now, when you first become president, one of the questions that people ask you is 'what's really going on in Area 51?'" Obama said. "When I wanted to know, I'd call Shirley MacLaine. I think I just became the first president to ever publicly mention Area 51. How's that, Shirley?"

Conspiracy theorists have been obsessed with Area 51 for decades, claming — among other things — the government is holding aliens and crashed UFOs there.

The 1996 blockbuster movie "" cemented that notion in popular culture by depicting it as a highly secure repository for extraterrestrial beings and alien spacecraft.

A year earlier, President Bill Clinton had added to the mystery surrounding the facility by issuing declaring the site exempt from environmental disclosure laws following a lawsuit. Yet the document never actually referred to Area 51 — rather, it specified "the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada."

It wasn't until that the Central Intelligence Agency confirmed the existence of Area 51, officially known as the Nevada Test and Training Range and Groom Lake.

The newly released documents said the site served as a testing ground for aerial surveillance programs, such as the U-2 spy plane first used during the Cold War.

No mention of aliens or flying saucers, though.

Story here via NPR

Sex Robots and Love-Score Apps: This Is the Future of Dating

Another day on the Internet, another excuse to wonder if and when technology is going to turn the landscape of interpersonal human relationships into some kind of unrecognizable Garden of Simulated Delights. Another chance to speculate whether the world of the future will be populated by people wantonly having sex with robots and other people whispering smutty things to Siri. A day looms on the horizon, maybe, in which everyone will exist like rhesus monkeys trapped in a sterile lab of loneliness and isolation, clinging to our devices and yet feeling no comfort.

What's the alternative, though? Is there some way that technology can enhance our relationships, making them easier, more exciting and more straightforward? It definitely seems likely: it's fairly inarguable that technology already is changing the way we interact romantically with one another — and the ways in which we process, capture, cherish and recover from those interactions — for better and for worse. So, what does the future hold? Well, according to the trend-spotting shop Sparks & Honey, a lot of things. (One of those things is robot sex.)

In collaboration with the Museum of Sex, Sparks & Honey has released a report on the future of sex and relationships. It examines "three key currents of change that are shaping modern relationship" — technology, increasing public acceptance of nontraditional relationships and sexual practices, and the mainstreaming of kink — and extrapolates the Future of Sex and Love from there. Some of the prognostics are fairly predictable — the report, for instance, predicts that flirting apps and relationship rating apps will proliferate and become commonplace: "Sex and relationships are one of the fertile new frontiers for tracking and measurement," reads the report. "Big [bedroom] data from sensors and apps, such as SpreadSheets, provide insights into your 'performance' and why relationships work or fail."

I was, at first, kind of skeptical — I don't know of anyone who seriously applies data analytics to their sex or dating life. The consensus of my peers and colleagues is that Lulu, the foremost dating ranking app, is creepy, and I've only ever heard of people using SpreadSheets on assignment. I myself once downloaded a dating app with the intent of writing about it, but it was so boring and useless that I had absolutely nothing to say. (Side note: while using the app, I was supposed to be rewarded with a grilled cheese because I had showed affection well. I was never given a grilled cheese.) There's a reason that the age-old adage "It's not you, it's me" exists: because breakups are hard, and people aren't good at telling one another what, exactly, went wrong. Expressing you dissatisfaction openly can be daunting, and I have a hard time believing that some kind of relationship or sex rating app would change that. When I told Sparks & Honey CEO Terry Young about my misgivings, he responded that quantifying experiences is already becoming ubiquitous — we rate our drivers, our masseuses, our dining experiences, etc. — and there's no reason data analytics wouldn't take the leap to the realm of romance.

Story Via jezebel

Is Kanye West losing his cool appeal? And is Kim Kardashian to blame?

Or is his douchiness just catching up to him?

Is it a "Kardashian kurse" or is Kanye West losing his cool all on his own? In any case, popularity problems seem to be plaguing the once untouchable rap sensation.

West’s performance this week brought just 4,500 people to the Sprint Center, a venue built for 19,000, meaning less than 24 percent of seats were occupied. He has had to cancel several other shows throughout his nationwide tour and drew criticism when he stopped a Florida concert after only three songs and demanded the lights be turned off before launching a profanity-laced rant at the tech staff and storming off the stage.

So is West’s egotistical, bizarre behavior finally taking its toll on fans?

“We are often drawn to people who have an ego and confidence that is derived from their talent. But an empty ego, based on a fake self-inflated image and concept, creates an over powering sense of desperation and superficiality,” human behavior expert Patrick Wanis told FOX411.

West has made headlines frequently lately, more due to his outlandish remarks than his trailblazing talent. We’ve heard the rapper compare himself to everyone from Jesus, Michael Jordan and Steve Jobs to Nelson Mandela, Michelangelo and Michael Jackson – and amid all that talk, he has also managed to offend much of the Jewish population.

More here via Fox

Also over the weekend he was over heard Kanye West was at his Kanye Best during Art Basel Miami at a panel discussion with architect Jacques Herzog. Here are some things Kanye said using his outdoor voice while indoors.

“Famous and frustrated is the most irritating f**king thing…like I am frustrated ’cause I made a film and nobody liked it,”
“If I like it, I like it. No one can tell me who I like or what I’m supposed to be.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not in touch with my femininity.”

“Good taste is a gift, bad taste is a privilege.”

“Watches are dated…all you who has a watch is checking the time on your iPhones.”

“I found my own language in the noise, from which we all want to scream out.”

“When I was in art school I would paint music because I could see it.”

“I think the world could be saved by design… Made more ergonomic to our current state.” “That’s one of the things I found out with Yeezus, that I do have a voice.”

- via RadarOnline.

 

DC's Rise in Gourmet Foodstuffs

If you’re on the hunt for a foodstuff that’s habitually hard to find, you won’t look for long in Greater Washington, which now boasts a number of specialty gourmet shops. Righteous Cheese (1309 5th St. NE, 202-716-3320) at Union Market offers cheeses from around the world in a friendly atmosphere. It also features seasonal items, including a British Lincolnshire Poacher that pairs well with apples and cider.  For artisanal olive oils and balsamic vinegars try Ah Love Oil & Vinegar (4017B Campbell Ave., Arlington, 703-820-2210), located in Shirlington and Merrifield, Virginia. Unique and popular offerings include fruit-infused olive oils such as blood orange, herb olive oils such as lavender, and vinegars such as Bordeaux cherry. Owner Cary Kelly is renowned for her signature bacon brownies that are made with decadent bacon olive oil in lieu of butter, making for an outrageous chocolate treat. Holiday partygoers, consider forgoing the ubiquitous bottle of wine and bring your host a sophisticated and delicious mélange of cheese, bread, and olive oil.   Read more here Capitol File Magazine

Peruvian Brothers Food Truck Now Accepting Bitcoin

It's no longer a question of whether food trucks take cash or credit. Peruvian Brothers is now the first D.C.-area food truck to take the digital currency Bitcoin.

What and huh? Well, remember the Winklevoss twins, the Harvard rowers best known for suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for a social networking site? The twins, Tyler and Cameron, are Bitcoin investors and also happen to be good friends with Peruvian Brothers co-founders Giuseppe and Mario Lanzone. Giuseppe competed with the Winklevii on the U.S. rowing team in the 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as other world rowing championships. They raced against each other back in college, too, and have gone on cycling trips in California together. 

"They were like, 'Why don't you try Bitcoin on your food truck?' We've been friends for a very long time, and I trust what they do," Giuseppe says. He figured food trucks already embrace plenty of mobile technology. Why not Bitcoin?

Here's how it works: You have to have a smartphone app called BitPay, which creates a QR code specific to your BitPay account. When you're ready to pay, just say you're paying with Bitcoin and scan the QR code.

The Peruvian Brothers truck isn't out today because of the weather, but you can start using your cryptocurrency on pan con chicharron tomorrow. The price of one bitcoin has been trading at around $800 to $900, meaning the most expensive thing on Peruvian Brothers' menu ($10) would cost around 1/100th of a Bitcoin.

More here via Washington City Paper

Friends convince drunk driver he's just woken from TEN YEAR coma by turning office into hospital ward while he was passed out in bid to stop him re-offending

YouTube pranksters 'MabeInAmerica' (Tom Mabe and Jim Clarke) turned an empty office into a hospital room and convinced their mark (a friend of theirs who who remains nameless) that he had been in a coma for 10 years
Read more here Via  DailyMail

Listen Up: Beatle Love - A Dedication Mix from Nicolas Jaar [Download]

Crafted as a tribute to John Lennon on the 33rd anniversary of his death, Nicolas Jaar's Our World mix isn't exactly what people might expect from an average DJ set, as the widely popular and inventive artist turned in something closer to a free-form audio collage. The hour-long session is riddled with warped versions of the legendary pop star's music, lulls of contemplative ambiance, found sound recordings, and other seemingly random, unnamed tracks curated by the young, New York-based Jaar. Our World can be streamed and downloaded for free in the player below. - XLR8R

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How to Design a Happier City

Charles Montgomery begins his new book, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, on a bicycle ride in Bogota, Colombia, with former mayor Enrique Peñalosa. While in office, Peñalosa implemented a number of policies quite progressive for that time and place. He scrapped plans for highways through the city. He built hundreds of miles of bike lanes. He made room for parks and pedestrian plazas.

More here via The Atlantic

Google, Apple, and Microsoft Agree: NSA Spying Undermines Freedom

A total of eight prominent tech companies are urging President Obama and Congress to rein in the surveillance state.

In an open letter to President Obama and Congress, eight of the most prominent U.S. tech companies have demanded that strict new limits be put on government surveillance, citing revelations made earlier this summer, when stories based Edward Snowden's leaked documents began running in The Guardian. "The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual," they argue, "rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change."

They've staked out an extraordinary position. 

Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and AOL all have an interest in restoring public trust in their products and averting new regulatory challenges in countries disinclined to let a spying hegemon control the Internet. My colleague James Fallows has written eloquently about the damage the NSA's behavior could do to U.S. economic might as other countries react to it. The companies could've made a compelling case for reform on those grounds alone. 

More here via The Atlantic

A photo that surfaced on Reddit on Saturday perfectly sums up the way we sometimes feel this time of year, when all our friends seem to be getting engaged.

A photo that surfaced on Reddit on Saturday perfectly sums up the way we sometimes feel this time of year, when all our friends seem to be getting engaged.

Via Huffington Post

What A Guy And His Girlfriend Did With This Dumpy Old Camper Is Brilliant. And I Want It.

Before, During and After photos here

Home improvement projects can be a fun way to 1.) indulge in a hobby and 2.) add something awesome to your home. Mobile home improvement projects are the very same (if not cooler). An incredible couple found a vintage 1965 Serro Scotty Sportsman camper and decided to do some light tinkering (let me rephrase, they decided to do some heavy-duty tinkering that would make any carpenter weak in the knees). This is officially impressive.

More here via ViralNova

Thrillist 33 Best NEW Reataurant List 2013 (D.C.'s Rose's makes the list)

......we turned our sights to figuring out which of the tens of thousands of new restaurants that have opened across the country in the past year deserve to be called the best. And now that the work is done -- and the weight is gained -- here they are (with a neat checklist), in all their gastronomical glory.

Full List Here via thrillist

The mastermind behind Doritos Locos Tacos has died (Sure it had nothing to do with his food)

It is with heavy hearts and even heavier stomachs that we bid farewell to Todd Mills, the creator of Doritos Locos Tacos. The 41yr-old visionary passed away on Thanksgiving due to cancer, but his legacy is still very much alive in drive-thrus across America. To properly commemorate the man, you should definitely take a few minutes to check out his Facebook page that started it all, Taco Shells made from Doritos Movement.

More here

Hour of Code Starts TODAY

Non-profit Code.org has brought together some of the biggest names in both technology and politics to teach the next generation the basics of programming, and hopefully entice more students to consider computer science-based careers.

Code.org wants to change the general attitude that the United States holds of coding. Only one in ten schools in the U.S. offer Computer Science classes, and many of these are electives rather than credit-based, and so there is little to entice students to pursue the subject as part of a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) career. The non-profit has been campaigning for this to change in order to make sure the next generation are trained in these areas, and the "Hour of Code" promotion is designed to improve awareness around the issue -- as well as provide basic instruction for interested students of any age.

During this week, Code.org is asking teachers to dedicate one hour to educating students on programming as part of the Computer Science Education Week, running from December 9th to the 15th.

The organisation's push offers students the chance to use free tutorials to learn the basics of coding. Tutorials have been contributed by well-known faces including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, puzzles teach basic algorithms featuring games such as Angry Birds suitable for young learners, and Python, JavaScript and mobile applications have not been ignored.

More here Via ZDNet

‘The Flying Man’ Short Delivers A Cool, Creepy Take On The Superhero Genre

A new superhero is coming, only this time it's on his terms. Will he still be considered a hero? Directed, produced, financed, edited and story by Marcus Alqueres (twitter.com/marcusalqueres) m.alqueres@gmail.com Sound and score by: Roger Lima (www.whitenoiselab.com) Manager: Scott Glassgold / IAM Entertainment Website: malqueres.com/The-Flying-Man (for press release) Facebook: facebook.com/TFMshort Credits: Written by: Marcus Alqueres and Henry Grazinoli DOP: Anthony Scott Burns Production Manager: Christopher Yurkovich Visual Effects: João Sita / Marcus Alqueres Cast: Mike: Nick Smyth Rob: Rick Cordeiro Voices:Justin T. Lee Colorist: Marco Polsinelli from Topix Fx A/B Camera: Julian Van Mill / Anthony Scott Burns / Marcus Alqueres Script Revision: Moss Badran Sound Recordist: David Guerra / Randy Resh Production Assistant: Nick Bechard Additional DOP: Marcus Alqueres (opening and hospital scenes) Makeup: Helen Johns / Carly Sellen Special Thanks: Beatriz Costa / Daniel Luna / Richard Penner / Sarah Arruda Fernando Faria / Livia Ramos / Xande Torres / Chris Bahry - Sylvain Taillon / Chris Wallace

Geekleagueofamerica.com reports: If you’ve ever asked yourself the question, “How creepy would it be if a flying, Superman-like being showed up to patrol our skies, but never said a word and had absolutely no moral compass?” The answer is, really friggin’ creepy. Terrifying, actually. And that very unique premise is explored with chilling effectiveness by special effects artist Marcus Alqueres in his short film – The Flying Man.

Combining elements of a horror movie with the superhero genre (why hasn’t anyone thought of this before???), The Flying Man presents a scenario wherein a mysterious silent being appears in the sky, and soon begins to straight up murder criminals in gruesome ways, like dropping them from great heights, or snatching them up and throwing them in front of a speeding train! What the hell?!? It’s pretty damned awesome.

Remember the name Marcus Alqueres – because you’ll probably be hearing it a lot more in the years to come. He’s worked on special effects for Hollywood films like 300 and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and he’s looking to make the transition to directing with a feature-length adaptation of this haunting short. I, for one, can’t wait to see what this could look like with a hefty budget, and the original ideas Alqueres could explore.