Archive for the 'Linkapalooza' Category

Completely Unrelated Items

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Continuing on the theme of my being impressed by the kind of madness that is constructive (this dates back to at least the first time I found out about Korczak Ziolkowski), let us take a moment to reflect upon the kind of person who could build the Underground Fortress.
I am weirdly attracted to the idea. [...]

Web Crack For Intellectuals

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Wikipedia is one of the best things humanity has yet invented for allowing us to use up any extra time we have hanging around. As an added bonus, this time comes with a putative “educational value” benefit, which makes it easy to justify the time and avoid guilt over it.
One example of how this might [...]

A Tuesday Evening Gallimaufry

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

You know the drill: lots of links, less commentary than usual. I plead work.

Does the idea that Sesame Street might need a warning label fire up some of that good old cognitive dissonance for you? Well, apparently there is one on the recently released early episodes. And some of the parents they showed it to [...]

Aside: I live in Keystone

Monday, October 27th, 2008

You remember when I was making fun of the headline: “Another prisoner mistakenly released in N.S.“? Well, today’s top stories includes this choice headline “Halifax police mistakenly release man before court appearance”. Handsome devil, isn’t he?
Apparently I am living in Keystone.

They way they are supposed to.

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

Since 2001 I’ve had less use for Christopher Hitchens than I used to. But hey, I’ve got even less use for Pope Inquisitor and his attempts to pull the Roman Catholic Church backwards in time.
So if Hitchens wants to get snarky on the practice of indulgences, as he does in the latest Free Inquiry, I’m [...]

A short break from politics

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

And now, a few observations about things completely unrelated to either North American election:

That Wisdom book showed up today. Totally worth the money. It’s been a long time since I bought a “coffee table book”, but if I had a coffee table I’d be proud to leave this out on it.
You know where I’m find [...]

Help With Trish’s Research

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

And now, you have a chance to help out with Trish’s research.
I’ll use her words to explain:

As most of us know and have experienced, sometimes painfully, sometimes to our benefit, the vast majority of software developers, and indeed these days the majority of professionals in general, work for a manager. Bad managers can frustrate us, [...]

Shhh! You’re giving away the secrets.

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Closet Land

Monday, September 29th, 2008

While thinking about the use of torture by governments today, I found myself wishing I could just make everyone watch Closet Land1. Of course, I’ve lamented before about the fact that there is no DVD edition–at least no english one, although I did get my hands on a spanish one that at least lets me [...]

Sunday Night Gallimaufry

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

You know the drill, this is the miscellaneous tab closing ceremony. Since I’m tired of politics today, there will be none in this list.

I have had several discussions about this recent article on a particular form of elective surgery. All that I can conclude from these discussions is that I have different aesthetic than many [...]

The Bricklayer’s Lament

Friday, September 19th, 2008

The first time I encountered the Bricklayer’s Lament was in the 400 Bar in Minneapolis. Todd Menton had just played a set with a backing band consisting of a digeridoo and two tubas1.
At some point after the set–possibly as part of the encore, although the years and the Guinness that night have conspired to make [...]

Casa El Profundo

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

It’s been a while since I did a “this recent discovery suggests Lovecraftian spookiness” post, so let’s do one of those.
According to National Geographic, a series of partially underwater temples—”A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves”— have been found off the Yucatan.

The article talks about how these temples map onto legends [...]

Two Americas

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

David Simon, the man behind The Wire, had an interesting piece in the Guardian earlier this week, where he helps the British look at the way the idea of “the American experience” is essentially a non-sensical term, as there are now (at least) two distinct Americas. As usual, Baltimore is his lens, and he has [...]

Aside: R-Rated Bible

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Man, there’s some stuff in the Bible that’s really not for kids. I’m not even talking about the rules in Leviticus, or the LSD trip in Revelations. Do the fundamentalists know about this?

A Linkpost Before Sleeping

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

I think I’m going to soon look at setting up the site with “asides”, so that instead of gathering up large buckets of links that I have only a few comments on, I can just drop them in as “asides” between my longer and more content-y posts.
In the meantime, another (possibly final) agglomeration of miscellaneous [...]