July 2010
6 posts
living with no past
I’ve been thinking a bit about all the accreted crap we all end up carting about as constant reminders that we did indeed have a life before this particular instant.
This came up as I did a vanity search recently for my name. We all do it, to see how far we have to scroll before we go hey! that’s me!. Most people want that distance to be small, I kinda want it to be large. Back...
my ever mercurial views on social networking
Ok, ok, ok. So I abandoned the FB, and then decided that it would be gauche to be completely socially isolated — on the internets at least. So then I went and plugged LinkedIn back in and re-added people (for what, the third time?).
One reason why I did this was the “networking!” argument getting lobbed at me from the career councilor folks at school. Apparently its teh...
Great Lake Swimmers - River’s Edge (by Nir Ben Jacob)
why I quit facebook -- again
so the ol’ fb and I have had a rocky relationship in the past. I have gone from over-share to complete hermitude, suspended my account and re-activated it. I finally got around to deleting it after I don’t-even-know how many years.
By delete of course I mean I registered it for deletion and just have to not use it for 10 more days before it is gone.
So why exactly have I...
June 2010
5 posts
In order for it to promote the values and skills Nussbaum describes, education...
– New Statesman - Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities
Something Left, Something Taken (by Tiny Inventions)
May 2010
5 posts
I really have no idea what I'm talking about.
Not long ago I ended up in a discussion on the biological origin of teh gays, in which I was expected to express a belief. Or to put it less stiffly, everyone seemed to hold a strong opinion while simultaneously knowing nearly nothing about, you know, biology. Me, I have no idea. I’ve heard a lot of arguments here and there, I hazily recall reading an issue of SEED magazine mostly on gay...
Alain de Botton - On Pessimism (by The School of Life)
Why Is Coffee Addictive?
fakescience:
Knife-Wielding Robot Performs Stabbing Tests →
Researchers create a system to prevent robots from accidentally stabbing people.
This is how it starts people. First we teach the robots how to stab…
April 2010
3 posts
flash, iPhones, the "bad old days" and other...
So I really don’t know anything about developing on the iPhone, or about programming in flash, but I am an opinionated nerd so:
¶ I don’t have an iPhone as I am cheap, and still on a contract (swapping phones -> cancelling contract -> $$$). What I do have is an old nokia. One of those first generation “smart phones”. There are a bunch of games and things on it...
technological cynicism
Sitting back and watching the hysteria around the new iPad, I find I really don’t care that deeply. Here is a run down of my own feelings:
¶ It is a tablet, woo-hoo. This is neither new nor revolutionary in and of itself. Maybe Apple has some secret sauce that will make it unicorn jism, but I’m dubious. It is just a new shiny thing.
¶ Pinning the hopes of dead-tree media to it...
March 2010
5 posts
So YOU WANT TO HAVE A Love Affair (Oct, 1965) →
Coffee inhaler →
The Mystery of Sudden Acceleration →
Natural Harvest →
Airplanes May Replace Cannon in Laying Telegraph... →
Sex Dice →
February 2010
6 posts
Along these lines, “wisdom” may be defined as the ability to not be dangerous....
– No One Knows What the F*** They’re Doing (or “The 3 Types of Knowledge”)
This relates to something I learned a while a go: be skeptical of people who are absolutely certain about things. They tend to be unaware of the whole “shit they don’t know they don’t...
Man who dresses up in strange costumes to worship... →
Found Functions →
What the hell is wrong with you? Are you really going to wear that? Why...
– Why are you so terribly disappointing?
This really struck a chord with me. As my mother says about my family “we’re never happy until we’re unhappy,” and that seems to be spreading like cholera.
January 2010
25 posts
myjumpsuit.com — Casual Jumpsuits for Work and... →
Electric Chair Powerless to Harm Wizard (Jan,... →
Cocktail blueprints for engineers →
Disney-logoed DDT-impregnated wallpaper for the... →
How cooking made us human →
[…] public confidence in Newfoundland’s own government had been...
– The Newfoundland lesson: during the 1930s, long before the IMF, the British Empire coped with a debt crisis in a small country. - Entrepreneur.com
That’s a “Heritage Moment” I want to see.
Drake Equation explains lack of aliens,... →
Acid attacks continue in Hong Kong →
Bad Liquor Causes Liver Disease (Jul, 1932) →
E.T.A. by JUNK on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
The Cold War Was Very Weird →