I didn't think this was possible at all. Over 20,000 messages and counting.
Given the volatility of online debate, the existence, then, of the Evolutionary Psychology mailing list seems like a miracle. All these unspeakable things and more are debated there, yet it is actually possible to learn new things -- and the arguments, however ruthless, are always polite. The list has nearly 2,000 subscribers, among them some of the most distinguished names in the field. Richard Dawkins was on for a while; Dan Dennett lurks there; and so does anthropologist Dan Sperber.
What's the secret? A great, hard-working moderator. Ian Pitchford
is a 41-year-old doctoral student from Sheffield, in the United Kingdom. [...] He posts nearly half the messages on the list, and approves all the others.
It's hard to find jokes that appeal to many cultures because they are frequently loaded with specific social context. This one (follow the link, mid-article) rides on an undeniably universal theme. Check out the laughlab's site for more. Second place is pretty good. Top jokes by country here - I really like the German one.
If you're interested in a deeper perspective on the nature of jokes, I linked to a relevant paper by Marvin Minsky on that topic a few weeks ago.
The K5 Top Ten Stories nominations. I recently referred yet another friend to this site, and again wished that there was a list of the best stories that K5 has to offer to send him to. Thus, this story. [kuro5hin.org]
Most of the stories mentioned in the comments are well worth reading. Not too many old stories, though. kuro5hin doesn't have a very long-term memory. However, on K4 there is (among other things) a rather detailed topical directory that lists many stories that are fondly remembered despite having long since rolled off the front page.
"The entertainment business has problems. You have to say it's an extremely corrupt, essentially criminal business sector. I mean that in a literal sense. Everyone knows and acknowledges that payola, which is supposed to be illegal, is universally practiced by the music industry for promotion now. So we have an industry in which criminal behavior is openly accepted and standard.
There has to be fundamental reform of the media industry to bring it into some sort of non-criminal mode of action. Otherwise we're going to wind up with a sort of totalitarian media regime where you just have a very small number of people who control the means of communication, and that will lead to catastrophe. You can't have democracy under that kind of system, you can't have art." [PopTech!]
