Your bot needs a dope slap, @nytimes

CONTEXT IS KING

For what seems like forever, the NY Times has had the annoying habit of hyperlinking various words in their (online) articles. These hyperlinks point to something like "topics.nytimes.com/[blah blah]." They evidently are added by some sort of automated process, the development of which appears to have been defunded sometime during the previous Clinton Administration. They are useful ... let's be generous and say ... one out of a hundred times.

Sometimes they are worth it for the comedy, though.

Always bee hovering.

Original article here.

Droll is always good

From a summary of yet another gambling operation that, shockingly, has failed to deliver on its sellers' hype, a brilliant bit of just-the-facts from Jesse McKinley and Charles Bagli, and props to whoever did the layout, too:

The reality has been far less rosy. Seven years after opening, the Mount Airy Casino Resort has fewer than half of the hotel rooms envisioned by developers, and a third of the slot machines promised in news releases. It has generated about half of the slot revenue forecast by Pennsylvania officials, and little economic spillover has occurred outside the resort. Expansion plans have long since been shelved. The much-heralded charitable foundation has raised a grand total of $1, federal filings show.

Those funds have not been distributed.

Not to worry, though! The next four casinos are sure to fix all the things!

P.S. Aside to Gov. Cuomo: Your father was once courageous enough to call legalized gambling -- lotteries, in his case -- a cowardly attempt by politicians to balance the budget on the backs of poor people.

Ah, jeez

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Is it me, or is the Overton Window getting as narrow as it was pre-Iraq invasion?

[Added] Next thing (via @edroso) that I saw after clicking publish. Don't know whether to be comforted that I'm not the only one thinking these things, or distraught that I'm not the only one thinking these things.

The only parargaph I don't like in Carl Zimmer's ...

... latest column in the NYT is this:

In our smaller-brained ancestors, the researchers argue, neurons were tightly tethered in a relatively simple pattern of connections. When our ancestors’ brains expanded, those tethers ripped apart, enabling our neurons to form new circuits.

Call me a paranoiac, a fringe member of the reality-based community, or whatever: I worry that this sounds too much like it's happening in individual brains, over the course of individual lifetimes, as opposed to what is actually meant: this is what you'd see if you made a film of snapshots of the the typical brain, over many generations, in an evolving species.

Trying to keep the voice active is commendable, especially when the topic is ... ooooo, Science. BOring. [Or so you worry your editors might think] ... but when writing about evolution, it's also worth keeping in mind how the denialists will seek to parse every frickin phrase; as in the familiar [snickerchortle] "Was your grandfather a monkey on your father or mother's side?" [/snickerchortle], &c.

All of the rest of the article is fascinating. This being Zimmer, that comes as no surprise.

Quarterback blackout?

Click the pic to see the caption more clearly.

__________

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Not shown above: Geno Smith

__________

Oh, wait. There he is!

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Good piece on Dave Chapelle

Here.

Here's an article on GMO foods that definitely bears your attention

At least in this case, the choice seems to come down to accepting a genetically modified orange or eating a whole lot more pesticide.

Or eating oranges that look like the one on the right.

[Added] Or, as numerous meatspace commenters have pointed out to me, not eating oranges at all.

I myself am not totally against GMO foods. I don't have worries about the "Frankenfood" aspect; i.e., I'd have no problem eating a given sample that had gone through the testing described in the article. I do worry about genetically modified organisms -- plant or animal -- escaping into the wild, as it were, before we completely understand what we're doing, in general.

(h/t: Andrew Revkin)

Did you know Carl Zimmer now has a NYT column?

I just discovered this. No author page yet, but you can start here.

May?

And come to that, suggested?

Whoever writes the blurbs for the NYT's front page ought to sack up. How about saying what the article really says; e.g., Good writing need not be constrained by dictionary definitions?

The article would be better with some more examples, but it does offer something rare, to you, a decent person with your head on straight: the opportunity to agree with someone who writes for The Weekly Standard.

Some?

The NYT sure does love that weasel word.

The piece itself is a little more honest, to be fair.

What's that? The new energy drink for senescent hipsters?

Probably just a typo, although I am tempted to run out and trademark the name.

The article is about what you'd expect, but it's worth a look for Alison Brod's answer.

Changing times

I have no opinion on Jennifer Carroll's recent tribulations (the range of my expertise on this matter being encompassed by the three latest Wonkette posts on her), least of all whether she was having an affair with another woman, but this sentence did kinda jump out at me:

Ms. Carroll, who has been married for 30 years, offended lesbians by saying, “Black women who look like me don’t have relationships like that.” She later apologized, but critics said it was a major stumble.

Never mind everything else there (particularly "critics said," about which I could go off on one of my usual rants); it struck me that the New York Times's saying offended lesbians in such a straightforward yet low-key way is different, in ways I have no precise words for, from what I might have read in those same pages, a decade, or two, or three, ago.

Sometimes signs of progress in ongoing struggles aren't brilliantly lit, but I think I like the subtle ones the best. Somehow, they seem the most real.

Anyway ...

You are now free to make fun of the Republican griftin' half-lieutenant-governor. Super Big Gulp jokes are go.

Kill Me Now

The opening of the closing paragraph in what was represented not as transcribing a press release but as an Actual News Story In The Paper Of Record:

Still, the threat is large enough that Barnes & Noble executives are working hard to determine a strategy that focuses on core strengths …

Probably you already know my feeling that we ought to sue for surrender and try to get in return one shred of dignity -- a declaration that the space between the g and the h be declared superfluous -- but apart from just that, how the fuck do you cash a paycheck as a Reporter™, and type a CONCLUSION involving the phrase " … working hard to determine a strategy that focuses on core strengths … ," AND sleep at night?

At last, the headline matches the lede

The Ignorance Caucus

Last week Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, gave what his office told us would be a major policy speech.

Oh, you want more?

P.S. I'm going to give PK irony credit for opening his second paragraph with a To be sure ...

There is a simple answer to this stupid New York Times question

No.

There is no Room for Debate. The prefix a- means not. Atheism is not a religion any more than asymptomatic is symptomatic, atonal is tonal, or amoral is moral.

And it's not a "belief system," either, any more than not seeing any evidence that unicorns exist is a branch of zoology.

As for awe, I marvel at everything from the back of my hand to pictures taken by Hubble. For meaning, I look everywhere, to science and art and my own linty navel. For comfort? Okay, yeah, I do occasionally get a warm fuzzy when realizing that I'm no longer in thrall to a set of superstitions that many in the Taliban GOP would like made mandatory. But far more often, I turn to beer and chocolate.

And kittens.

And nice people.

And books. And music. And ... oh, hell, there's a whole universe of comfort out there, too.

A link, if you absolutely must. But I will tell you this: there are as many charlatans among the faitheists as there are among the fundies.

Currency conversion is hard

From the paper of record:

Iliad reported third-quarter revenue of €819 billion, or about $1.1 billion.

Screenshot:

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Or, who knows. Maybe the euro actually did lose three orders of magnitude in value while I wasn't paying attention.

Oh, ffs

Were I not in a better mood, this would've been another one of those "kill me now" posts. But seriously, New York Times … really?   REALLY??

PHEW

Set that bad news (#obamasfault) aside. Thanksgiving is saved!*

RECIPE
Homemade Twinkies

Already on the NYT's Top 10 Most Emailed list! Thank you, Leite's Culinaria!

HOWEVER. Let this not diffuse the important effort pointed out to me by KK.

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* (Until the copyright trolls come along, of course.)

THANK YOU, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS

That Jeff Zeleny, he has got it covered!

In other news:

Shape of Earth: Views Differ.

This is way cool

Have a look at "Scratching the Surface, Two Picassos Revealed."