Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with articles

Burn after reading

wolfr — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:48:11 -0800

What are some of the best articles or stories you have read about Burning Man? I went to Burning Man this year and am doing a presentation about it soon. I'm worried about not being able to communicate what Burning Man is. The event is engineered to make you feel awesome for a week, so naturally one leaves with a very positive feeling about it. I know I did.

However, I want to know how to explain Burning Man to a group of people without having them miss the point. If you never went there it's too easy to write it off as a cheerful hippie event. The Burning Man "rules" such as radical self-reliance sound incredibly cheesy until you went there and understood.

So I'm looking for articles and stories like this one from the Huffington Post - or Viva Las Xmas by Larry Harvey.

Lookin' for words in all the wrong places

Madamina — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:53:09 -0800

Between my iPhone's Stanza app and the loooooong quiet days ahead of me in the office during the holiday season, I'd like to read some stuff online. Any suggestions? I'm basically looking for good stories: things with a bit of a narrative that will keep me wondering what happens next. They should be easy to get into and not particularly deep (I will likely be interrupted a lot).

Nonfiction: longer articles with a bit of a twist, like New Yorker or Vanity Fair pieces about interesting people or events. Not commentary (unless it has some sort of unique backstory).

Fiction I've already enjoyed on Project Gutenberg: anything by the Brontes and L.M. Montgomery. I've also read pretty much everything that appeals to me (thus far) in the Harlequin online reads library, although I don't generally read paper romance novels.

I've seen this thread and this one too.

Thanks!

Vintage Internet news stories and articles?

starman — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:18:47 -0800

I enjoy vintage articles about the early days of the Web. Suggestions? For example, The Best Cybertech of 1999 isn't exactly from the early early days but it puts into perspective where Google was at the time.

Automated extraction of the gist of an article?

zaebiz — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:49:57 -0800

I often have a whole bunch of 500-3000 word articles to read - all reasonably plain English with headings and sub-headings (and occasionally images). Is there any software out there which will take an article (or articles) and write a reasonable one or two paragraph summary of the article, or produce a list of key points?

Book Recommendations: Mercenaries, Security Contractors & Paramilitary Organizations

2bucksplus — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:17:43 -0800

What are the best books and articles about Security Contractors/Modern Mercenaries/Paramilitary Organizations? I'm looking for books or lengthy articles that cover modern mercenaries, security contractors and paramilitary organizations (for example Blackwater) especially from the prospective of the "soldiers" and their daily tasks, rather than macroscopic policy overview.

Doesn’t have to be about Iraq or the Middle East and I would prefer the books or articles be journalistic rather than sensationalistic.

In search of medical blogs/articles

nursegracer — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:14:55 -0800

Tell me all about your favorite intelligent professional or casual medical blogs/articles somewhat in the vein of Atul Gawande. I am an intensive care nurse with a hankering for "war stories" told by doctors and nurses (and I'm open to other professions like RTs and PTs) dealing with exceptional, emotional, notable etc cases. I love reading all of Atul Gawande's New Yorker articles and books. I just finished reading the entire back-catalog of Vital Signs in Discover Magazine. I love watching House, MD on TV, but I live for the deconstruction done by Polite Dissent's resident doctor.

I prefer longer pieces with details that go beyond a layman's understanding of medicine. Vital Signs and Gawande's writing tends to 'dumb it down' more than I find necessary but I'll accept that if it's a good article. I prefer Emergency and Intensive Care type situations but I'll settle for anything else so long as it is interesting. Any topic within medicine is game (ethics, patient relations, medical staff interactions....). My goal is to learn more about all aspects of medicine from multiple perspectives.

Thanks!

Excellent short reading?

btkuhn — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:48:58 -0800

Excellent short reading? Inspired by this post, which links to an excellent article on the death and homecoming of an Iraq war veteran killed in combat, I am looking for well-written stories, essays, articles that I can download and read on my laptop. I already read lots of books, and also lots of newsy-type articles and blog posts, but not much inbetween, and I know I'm missing some excellent writing. I'm looking for (specific) recommendations for your favorite articles, stories, and short fiction/nonfiction, preferably available free online. Thanks very much.

Organize random online articles

daf81289 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:53:24 -0800

What is the best way to collect and organize random articles found across the Internet to read and reference later? I've started blogging a lot, and like to find articles at one time and read and post about them later.

Help me find notable events from 2008

mmmleaf — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:20:01 -0800

I'm doing a centerfold feature in my high school newspaper, sort of a Year in Review type of article. It's not a terribly high standard obviously, but we like to think we're a quality publication in terms of high school printing. Anyway, its going to be largely news-based, so I'm looking for interesting, significant, arbitrary, odd events and happenings of 2008. The events will be ordered randomly but some of them like a Harper's Index, to eventually make a point.

For example--Nov 4, 2008: Barack Obama is Elected President of the United States, and is the first African-American to achieve this position. CNN News Anchor Jessica Yellin, reporting from Chicago, is the first reporter to be "beamed in" by hologram. Wolf Blitzer: "All right. Big round of applause. We did it. There she is, Jessica Yellin."

Other things I was going to mention, so you can get an idea--Australia apologizes to its aborigines, Sarah Palin catapults Tina Fey to new heights of Awesome via Comedy Central, Fish can count to four, China has an Earthquake (Sharon Stone calls it Karma), etc.

I'm going to be scouring MeFi, but I don't have a long time to complete the article so interesting things may be overlooked. Fellow staffers on the paper are swamped with studying for finals too, so they've proved, uh, relatively unreliable. Therefore I look to you, the people I consider Elite Nomads of the Internet.

Do you have any articles out there for me, please?

Alternative to Papers

Aanidaani — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:16:27 -0800

I recently found a fantastic program for managing research literature on OSX and I'm looking for a similar program for Windows and Linux. The program for OSX is called Papers and is just beautiful. I really love the interface and it connects to all kinds of databases to make importing papers very easy. Is there anything like this for Windows or Linux?

Good examples of exemplary creative nonfiction?

ageispolis — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:28:55 -0800

What are your favourite pieces of creative nonfiction? I want to be exposed to a wide variety of 'CNF' and am interested in the stories you have come across, whether it be a publication like your friendly local independent weekly or the New Yorker. So if you can recall any of your favourite articles/essays/stories that fit within the broad genre of creative nonfiction, I would like to read them.

Design related blogs and articles for ambitious and idealist product designer?

takeyourmedicine — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:39:03 -0800

DESIGN-FILTER: A friend recently finished freshmans year of a Product Design course, coming home raving about how much he enjoyed it, and how design can save the world. He is very honourable in his intentions, but not very internet savvy. For his Birthday I'd like to compile a selection (and summary) of the best blogs and articles that someone involved in product design should read, things that will inspire him, and will give him the sort of superb extra-curricular knowledge that the web contains, and a wider perspective. Swiss Miss, Inspire me Now, and that t-shirt "DESIGN WILL NOT SAVE THE WORLD" spring to mind, but smart articles from the last couple of years and thought-provoking blogs are what I'm really after, though pretty pictures are good.

I'll share the completed list next weekend, your help will make the list ten times better, I'm sure.

E-book reader that will handle fuzzy PDFs

grobstein — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:28:30 -0800

Is there an e-book reader that comfortably displays PDFs made by scanning type (i.e., PDFs that are images and don't have plain text data)? I could see myself getting a ton of use out of one of the modern e-book readers, and may be willing to buy an expensive one. But I haven't been able to figure out whether there's one that will do what I want.

In particular, I want to be able to read PDF scans of print journal articles, gleaned from various online sources. These PDFs often do not have any text data in them. In addition, they can be somewhat fuzzy. Here are a couple examples (first pages): [1][2].

I'm worried this sort of thing won't be comfortably readable on an e-book reader screen, either because of display issues or conversion issues.

Can someone with experience clear this up?

I want to write for interesting online magazines

0bvious — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:16:42 -0800

I am looking for online magazines to submit art/literature/experimental/fun articles to. I think 'The Believer' magazine is a good example of the type I crave. UK based would be best, but not completely necessary. Any ideas?

How do writers find their ideas?

nitsuj — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:31:52 -0800

I'm looking for book recommendations that deal with (fully or partially) methods writers use to find interesting, fresh subjects and ideas for stories. By stories I mean non-fiction magazine or newspaper-style articles. I'm not interested in the actual writing process, but the various methods that writers use to find unique subjects and topics and angles to write about.

Failing that, articles (instead of books) dealing with this subject would work too.

If even that doesn't exist, could you tell me, dear writer, your own method for finding interesting stories to write about?

Thanks!

I want to read stories or articles like those on 'This American Life'

reenum — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:48:34 -0800

I've been reading 'New Kings of Nonfiction' by Ira Glass and love it. I want to read more articles and books in this vein. Ira Glass put together a collection of nonfiction articles that are very TAL-like in their tone and storytelling.

I've tried to find more by the authors in the book, especially Jack Hitt.

Can any of you point me towards books and articles or authors whose work has that distinctive feel that is found on stories featured by 'This American Life'?

Sounds like a job for Monica Gellar...

messylissa — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:55:55 -0800

How can I create an indexing system for the collection of scholarly journal articles that I'm quickly amassing? I'm currently in an MS program and headed for a PhD in Psychology, thus my collection of articles, and my subsequent ability to access those articles is of growing importance. I had been keeping hard copies in file folders by topic, but the more classes I take and the more I explore my interests, the more the topics converge.

I was thinking that there has to be a way to assign each article a number to go in a database along with some tags for quick searching, as well as something to indicate in which formats I own the article, and other articles that I own that cite the article. My research adviser and I were discussing our mutual disorganization and she alluded to some software a friend purchased that did this or something similar, but my hunch is that I could do this with MS Access (which I own, but am completely unfamiliar with) or something else that I already have, or could have for free.

Your thoughts?

How to organize scientific article pdfs?

JustWandering — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:21:16 -0800

Scientists: What's the best and simplest way to organize, annotate, and take notes from scientific journal articles on a PC? I'm starting a new project and ready for a new system that doesn't require four programs or being unable to find something when I can't remember the title or author. How do you organize your references, pdfs, and notes? I used to print articles out, take notes in a physical notebook, and use EndNote for general bibliography and light searching uses. However, I found that I often couldn't find again what I wanted. Connecting required information with reference with notes with actual hard-or-digital copy of the article required multiple programs and notebooks, time, and frustration. Help me find something better?

What I want is a system that will allow me to:
1) use tags rather than folders to organize and search articles by subject matter.
2) allow easy searching/browsing by author, journal, date published, etc. (so, something that will easily extract and store the PubMed details of each item).
3) (ideally) allow me to search, annotate, take notes on, and read articles all in one place or with minimal fussing with multiple programs.

The Papers program for Macs looks awesome and just what I'm looking for, but I'm on a PC. Is there any similar program for PC users? Lacking that, how do you store your articles, keep notes on what you've read, and make it easy to find what you're looking for later?

News for Canadians. Stuff that Matters.

survivorman — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:08:23 -0800

Any popular digg-style websites or blogs on Canadian politics? Ideally, it would be a place where people can read and submit related articles and/or links to articles, add comments, rabble-rouse, etcetera etcetera.

Portal Systems

juiceCake — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:57:23 -0800

Got a request from a client. They want to create a portal that gets information from various news organizations on a specific subject. I'm looking for information on portal software that is compatible with news feeds and news feed information in general. They will want to pull full articles and perhaps other content from organizations (having obviously made arrangements) and categorize the information appropriately. Is it just a CMS with XML feeds basically? I've worked with CMSs before and understand many of the fundamentals of site development but have no experience pulling data in a portal fashion from other organizations.

Long attention span time-wasting

milinar — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:24:12 -0800

Anyone know of a digg/reddit/mefi type of site that tracks entended magazine-type pieces like you might find in the nyt magazine or the new yorker? I really enjoy reading extended length, in-depth kinds of articles through the course of a day as opposed to surfing many smaller links or articles. Some kind of categorizing would be nice, also. Ideas?

Need help finding a specific article on work/computer addiction due to the mind not being challenged

JPigford — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:33:28 -0800

Need help finding a specific article on work/computer addiction due to the mind not being challenged In the past week or so I read an article somewhere that talked about how many people are workaholics or addicted to their computers and spend all their free time either working or doing mindless computer activities all because they aren't doing anything challenging with their free time. So when they think "free time" they just think "boring" and "sitting around doing not much of anything."

But, as luck would have it, I can't find the article anywhere. I've searched The Google far and wide and dug through the past months worth of my RSS feeds...it just seems to have disappeared.

So...I'm looking for someone who might know which article I'm referring to.

Meth stories?

dersins — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:47:52 -0800

Realistic accounts of meth use? I'm interested in reading (or watching) some realistic accounts of the use and effects of meth.

Not glorifying, drugs-are-awesome-dude! crap, or sensationalizing OMG-meth-is-the-devil-incarnate! crap, but real (or at least realistic) accounts of the use and effects of methamphetamine, either on an ongoing basis or an occasional recreational basis.

Books (fiction or non-), movies (fiction or non-), web sites, magazine articles, and so on (even personal stories, I suppose, although this probably isn't the right place for that) would all aid me in my research.

Help find a journal article

Recockulous — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:11:05 -0800

MetaFilter librarians and/or other resourceful people I need your help in finding a journal article in a format that I can view on my computer. I need this: Crane MG, Sample C. Regression of diabetic neuropathy with total vegetarian (vegan) diet. J Nutr Med 1994;4:431-9. I have searched for this to the best of my abilities with no luck. I am not being lazy by asking this, it is a last resort.