Swiped from Lee Fang's Second Alarm.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
An absolutely superb talk
Here is Lawrence Lessig speaking at Google. The title of his talk is "Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It," but to me, that doesn't begin to encompass everything he talked about.
Somehow, though, the talk is only 45 minutes long. There's also a 15 minute Q&A at the end. Highly recommended, no matter your political leaning, even if that leaning is fully toward apathy.
More: rootstrikers.org and #rootstrikers.
Jennifer Lopez apparently on mission to make Mitt Romney seem authentic [updated]
Oh, J-Lo.
I was bugged by that Fiat commercial from the first time I saw it, and I've always thought the "Jenny from the 'Hood Block" thing was more phony than Milli Vanilli, but if true, this just takes the cake.
Well, I still like "Out of Sight." Although it's starting to seem lately like Steve Zahn was the hot one.
(h/t: Jezebel)
[Update] In Comments, graz recommends another Fiat 500 commercial which why it isn't in heavy rotation instead is beyond me.
Want to find the God-Botherers nearby? Just ask Siri, on your iPhone!
Saw these two items a couple of days ago:
- Is The iPhone’s Siri Misleading Women Who Need Emergency Health Services?
- 10 things the iPhone Siri will help you get instead of an abortion.
And now, we have an update. Apparently, the reason Siri wants to steer you to a bunch of anti-choice nuts when you're asking about abortion clinics or places to get birth control is because, Apple says, "We're kinky."
P.S. I don't remember Apple speaking in the past exonerative quite this much before.
Let's Get Scared
Some fragments …
DNA sequencing is becoming faster and cheaper at a pace far outstripping Moore’s law …
[...]
“Data handling is now the bottleneck …"
[...]
The lower cost, along with increasing speed, has led to a huge increase in how much sequencing data is being produced. World capacity is now 13 quadrillion DNA bases a year, an amount that would fill a stack of DVDs two miles high …
[...]
Researchers are increasingly turning to cloud computing so they do not have to buy so many of their own computers and disk drives.
Google might help as well.
“Google has enough capacity to do all of genomics in a day,” said Dr. Schatz of Cold Spring Harbor, who is trying to apply Google’s techniques to genomics data. Prodded by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, Google is exploring cooperation with Cold Spring Harbor.
In conclusion, the worry about tracking cookies is over.
Read the whole sequence article.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Factoid of the Day
The original name for the Twitter fail whale, according to its designer, Yiying Lu, was "Lifting a Dreamer."
(via)
The Koch Brothers' latest slimy tactic
Like the post label says, voter fraud is a myth. Voter suppression is the reality.
An email just in from the NAACP:
That pop-up ...
... should only appear once per actual visit to this blog. I'll be removing it in a few hours or days. Let me know if it's so annoying that you'd like me to get rid of it sooner.
More info at AmericanCensorship.org and FightForTheFuture.org.
Update 2011-12-02: Now disabled. Thanks to all who participated.
Long lost voice
JWZ has not, in fact, vanished since that post near the end of the penultimate bubble. I've just (*stuffs a history of the 'noughties under the carpet*) been paying attention to other people while he's been doing other stuff besides writing all those great old things.
This new gruntle, though, is timeless:
I did make a bunch of money by winning the Netscape Startup Lottery, it's true. So did most of the early engineers. But the people who made 100x as much as the engineers did? I can tell you for a fact that none of them slept under their desk.
(h/t: David Conrad, RTing)
Deep Thought
I just was outside, enjoying a cigarette.
At a quarter to two in the am.
On the 30th of November.
In NY, USA. In bare feet and shorts.
Enjoying, I say. Enjoying.
So, Sen. Inhofe ... WHERE IS MY TESTIMONIAL IGLOO?
(?)
(pic. source: GOVERNMENT IS NOT GOD)
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Line of the Day: 2011-11-29
Twitter bio line, actually:
When you go from Eisenhower to Nixon to Reagan to W. to Palin to Bachmann to Perry to Cain to Newt, it must be difficult to believe in evolution.
-- Pete Nicely/@LOLGOP
Great avatar, too.
(h/t: Digby, RTing)
Bachmann: "It is loaded with unbelievably outrageous pork ..."
It's not quite Willard in the fudge factory, but just in case we ever get tired of the bat boy picture …
(pic via Scabby The Rat | post title via PolitiFact)
Monday, November 28, 2011
Oh, wait. I forgot. It's a "church." So we'll just leave it alone, amirite?
My question WAS going to be: How many more stories like this have to be told until we have a proper investigation?
(alt. video link | alt. video link and transcript)
An investigation by people with subpoena power, I mean. There are some good journalists doing some digging. Props also to the determined watchdogs and, of course, to the ex-Scientologists who have found the courage to speak up.
Read a long blog post from last year by Valeska Paris Guider here (via). And here is one that I believe is written by her sister.
(Thanks for the hint, Michael Shermer)
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Wouldn't it be great if this was how peace in the Middle East was finally achieved?
A message of solidarity with the Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, from about 40 Israeli women, organized by Or Tepler (or, perhaps, Or Templar):
I feel like the governments don't represent the enlightened, simple people who want peace.
(h/t: Some Guy on Fark | pic. source | photo credit: Anat Cohen)
In further developments, Aliaa Elmahdy is now calling upon Egyptian men to wear the hijab.
And then there's this, which I swiped from Aliaa's site, just because I like it:
Friday, November 25, 2011
Down the drain, finally
I did not know that the which direction the water goes down the drain depends on which side of the equator you're on thing was once a Controversy, much less that it is settled. Thanks, Conor Myhrvold!
Doesn't mean I won't still be amused by the jokes I make in this realm, however. Oceans love that sort of thing.
(h/t: Thomas Levenson)
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
How to talk to your conservative uncle this Thanksgiving
Present company excluded, of course.
From MoveOn.org's "Top 5 FOX Myths To Debunk This Thanksgiving."
An update on Mr. Mullet
Looks like that Amish splinter group is about ready to join up with the Scientologists, perhaps as their Grand Inquisitors.
Federal officials have arrested seven Amish men in Ohio and charged them with violating the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in connection with a string of beard-cutting incidents.
[...]
Mullet, who formed the breakaway Bergholz Clan in 1995, has been accused of running the clan like a cult. Mullet, according to an FBI affidavit, “has forced extreme punishments on and physical injury to those in the community who defy him, including forcing members to sleep for days at a time in a chicken coop on his property and allowing members of the Bergholz clan to beat other members who appear to disobey” him.
The affidavit also alleges that Mullet has been “been ‘counseling’ the married women in the Bergholz clan and taking them into his home so that he may cleanse them of the devil with acts of sexual intimacy.”
(previously | previously)
(h/t: @Mike_Forester, for the RT)
Happy Thanksgiving, from the 1%!
Do not fail to click over to see from where Animal drew inspiration. Just when you thought Fox News couldn't get any more offensively stupid …
(h/t: @Mike_Forester, for the RT)
[Added] Megyn Kelly Essentially.
Insert Snarky Remark Here
Part of an emailed newsletter from SitePoint's DesignFestival.com:
Item three is especially delicious.
Super Fragile Calisthenics
So, following up from yesterday's gripe about product "upgrade" people and their presentation tics, I happened upon an aggravated instance, and to demonstrate how out of hand this decline of the discourse has gotten, I was going to use the indisputable technique of waving around the large number of Google hits returned for super-exciting, but then one of the top hits led me to Hirlpoo West, which led me to Dare Obasanjo, and while I am happy to report that both of these people share my irritation, all I can say is I hope the latter was being intentionally ironic when he said, "The reason I can't stand this phrase is that it is an obvious overexaggeration …"
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Deep Thought
Yesterday, I saw a dead squirrel in the road, squashed absolutely flat, except for its tail, which was still fully fluffed, upright, and waving in the breeze.
Is this a metaphor for surrender or defiance?
Monday, November 21, 2011
Be advised: there IS a difference
The beer tasted fine, if a bit citrusy, but I had a hell of a time getting a good finish on my bookcase.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Cartoon of the Day
Swiped from Joe Romm's "Top Ten Occupy Wall Street Cartoons." He got them from BuzzFeed, which has fifteen.
Wonking out on #Occupy
I thought this diavlog between David Roberts and Julian Sanchez touched on a lot of the thoughts I've had floating around in my mind the past month or two. More precisely, David and Julian, in their disagreements, seem to speak to the contradicting reactions I have been having.
If you're thoroughly fired up by the Occupy movement, this conversation probably won't appeal to you. If you're sympathetic to the emotion but hesitant or skeptical about other aspects, it may. They do not really come to any conclusion, but I think they do a good job of articulating a number of important points.
Line of the Day: 2011-11-20
When police tell people to turn off their video cameras, that’s exactly when they need to turn their video cameras on.
-- Amy Goodman, as quoted by Erich Vieth
(h/t: Several tweeps, on this list somewhere down a few screens)
No "semi" about this one
Speaking of scams, the latest article in Joe Childs and Tom Tobin's new investigative series, "The Money Machine," is now available. This is, of course, another long hard look at the "Chu®ch of" Scientology.
In addition to reading the article, I urge you to watch some of the videos that you'll see at the top of that article and on the series index page. They're pretty compelling, in a weird sort of way. They are interviews of people who have left the cult after spending astounding lengths of time doing mind-boggling things.
Photo credit: Robin Donina Serne for the St. Petersburg Times and tampabay.com (1998)
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