From time to time I run across something that just shocks me, not because of the thing itself, but because the thing is so completely something I should have known about and yet have somehow missed. How does a philosophy argument about things that interest me greatly go on for years without my hearing about it? Today’s example of this… Read more →
Month: March 2008
Lab Upgrade
No normal blogging today, since I was mostly busy with family stuff. For cynical Good Friday stuff, hit the search bar and look for “Good Friday” or “Eostre”, and you can read last year’s stuff. The other thing keeping me busy was an upgrade to “the lab”, also known as “my office”, or “the library” depending on how I feel.… Read more →
Attach Us! We Are Hot Japanese Men!
I am not making this up. Things I don’t understand: Japanese popular culture The very idea of “cell phone charms” Things I do understand: Drunkenness Drunkenness coming in stages These things come together in the “drunken salaryman” charms, which I recently read about at Inventorspot. The stages of being dunk [sic] according to these little plastic dudes are: The Lecturing… Read more →
If I Were Him, I’d Just Be Saying “Told You So” All Day Long
Just for fun, let’s look at what Paul Krugman wrote five years ago. Snippet one, concerning the U.S. finances: Meanwhile, consider this: we need $400 billion a year of foreign investment to cover our trade deficit, or the dollar will plunge and our surging budget deficit will become much harder to finance — and there are already signs that the… Read more →
Understanding How Greed Hosed The Economy Again
If you had trouble following the last presentation I linked to that explained the subprime crisis and how it’s affecting the broader investment community, then you don’t have a chance with the NYT piece that attempts to take on the same task. If you could handle the stick figures though, you might want to give the piece a try. It… Read more →
Well, that confounds expectations
You are about 20 years old The teen repellent will no longer foil you, but you can still hear some pretty high tones. The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 16.7kHz Find out which ultrasonic ringtones you can hear! It’s not superhuman, but not bad for a 35-year old. I guess getting those ear plugs at… Read more →
QOTD
“The threat to men of great dignity, privilege and pretense is not from the radicals they revile; it is from accepting their own myth. Exposure to reality remains the nemesis of the great — a little understood thing.” —John Kenneth Galbraith Read more →
Damn
Now that was a speech. Honest, reasonable, nuanced, and almost completely unable to be reduced to a soundbite. I kind of wish I could vote for the guy. Read more →
I used to enjoy Christopher Hitchens
…but over the last few years this has become less and less true. I’m a pretty rabid atheist, but when someone makes Dawkins look like a moderate on religion, they might have gone a bit too far, you know? And ever since he went pro-war on Iraq, his writings on foreign policy have taken on a continually more defensive and… Read more →
A Guide To Grown-up Thinking
I read a lot of magazines–oddly more offline than on. I think this is because my online reading tends to be wide-ranging, shallow, and driven by references from other sources–there are few “online magazines” that I find myself reading “cover to cover”, as it were. Interesting magazines tend to be composed of pieces that are longer, more indepth, and thus… Read more →
New Danny Michel: Preorders Open Tomorrow
Here’s the press release: PRESS RELEASE – MARCH 05/08 DANNY MICHEL GOES BACK TO HIS ROOTS WITH HIS 1st INDEPENDENT RELEASE SINCE 2001 Taking the reigns firmly into his own hands, a new reenergized Danny Michel is proud to announce “Feather, Fur & Fin”, his first 100% independent release since 2001. Sprinkled with tubas, full horn-sections, glockenspiel, harmonicas, synthesizers &… Read more →
I am a child
So we’ve pretty much established that I’m 35, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m basically still a child. When I see something like the page of “revenge” items at Spymall, I just laugh like an evil ten-year old, and spend time coming up with ill-advised scenarios in which I could use that stuff. (And I do mean ill-advised–I should… Read more →
An inscription in the sand
In any event, the point is that unforeseeable circumstances that call into question an existing understanding of life, function to progress and move humanity forward. They prevent the rigidity of custom and tradition by forcing outdated modes of thought to be discarded in favour of those that more accurately represent the times. In this way, those moments of critical insight… Read more →
The correct answer is 7 (or “God did it”).
The ass hamsters are at it again, this time in Oklahoma, where House Bill 2211 has just passed the state House of Representatives. If you don’t want to read the Bill, here’s the summary from the Edmond Sun: The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in… Read more →
This stuff is deadly and it is spreading
You are about to hear Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (sallykern@okhouse.gov) speaking when she thought that only 50 highly-targeted people were listening. Every time I start feeling good about humanity, something like this comes along to remind me that we’re basically ten minutes away from hitting each other with sticks. How can people this hateful still manage to exist in… Read more →
