December 2011
30 posts
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The mourning of the death of Kim Jong Il is not a...
After Kim Jong Il died, many North Koreans mourned publicly and histrionically. From The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker,
This aspect of group psychology explains something that otherwise staggers our imagination: have we been astonished by fantastic displays of grief on the part of whole peoples when one of their leaders dies? The uncontrolled emotional outpouring, the dazed masses standing...
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Mitt Romney spars with Vietnam vet over gay... →
The scene: Mitt Romney visits a diner in Manchester, New Hampshire:
Noticing [Bob] Garon’s black Vietnam veteran cap, Romney sat down beside him and tried to strike up a conversation about his military service as reporters and cameramen crowded around the booth.
“I’ve have a question for you,” Garon said, cutting off the former Massachusetts governor’s attempt at chitchat. “New Hampshire...
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Fox and Sarah Palin Freak Over White House... →
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin told Fox News & Commentary that she found the card to be a bit unusual. “It’s odd,” she said, wondering why the president’s Christmas card highlights his dog instead of traditions like “family, faith and freedom.”
Compare and contrast the White House card and the Fox News Card in the linked story.
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“What is most interesting about Ron Paul is the extent to which his domestic...”
– Rachel Maddow
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If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash in on... →
Because of rising copper prices, people are hoarding pre-1982 pennies. They can’t legally melt them down for their copper, yet, but are saving them now in case they are later allowed to melt the pennies.
Inside a shed next to his house, Henry has orange tubs filled with 200,000 pennies, and he spends hours sorting through roll after roll of the coins. But it’s not just any and all...
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Pobot time: Allow me to recommend latex-diff and... →
In which I describe ways to track changes to text written in LaTeX, especially if you’re using git. I recommend latex-diff and latexbatchdiff.
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Schneier on Security: The Curse of the Secret... →
Bruce Schneier on “secret questions”, like what your mother’s maiden name is.
The point of all these questions is the same: a backup password. If you forget your password, the secret question can verify your identity so you can choose another password or have the site e-mail your current password to you. It’s a great idea from a customer service perspective — a...
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“His — history will tell. We missed the Persian spring. The president...”
– Jon Huntsman on foreign policy in the Middle East, making me give up on my mystical belief that he might be a crypto-Democrat, or at least crypto-pal-to-the-not-right-wing, in the same way that Obama was a crypto-not-socialist. In response to the question,
So many people view the Arab spring as...
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Literary Genre Translations|McSweeney's →
Cirocco Dunlap reveals everything bad and good about genres.
Original Text
“I ate a sandwich and looked out the window.”
Sci-Fi
“I placed the allotted nutrition capsules on my tongue bed and looked to the Nahin VI-8373 space podhole.”
Fantasy
“My dragon, Ralfarus, and I, Genflowfla’ii, choked down the hardened cheese curd and two-part-moons-old bread as we peered out...
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A Christmas mystery - All this →
Dr Drang on the abomination, “Wonderful Christmastime”, by Paul McCartney, the song which does not have my permission to enter my ears.
The problem with a lot of Paul’s post-Beatles work is the awe others have for his great musical talent. If his own inner editor fails him, there’s no one around to tell him he needs to work harder on a piece.
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Be a Jerk: The Worst Business Lesson from the... →
The ease with which people can possess astonishingly contradictory qualities is one of the mysteries of human nature; indeed, it’s one of the things that separates humans from, say, an Apple computer. Every one of the components that makes up an iPad is essential to the work it produces. Remove one part and the machine no longer performs its job, and not even the Genius Bar can fix it....
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Day of the Dead or Halloween? : The New Yorker →
Hi, everyone!
The Mountain Room is gearing up for its Day of the Dead celebration on Friday. Please send in photos of loved ones for our altar. All parents are welcome to come by on Wednesday afternoon to help us make candles and decorate skulls.
Thanks!
Emily
Hi again.
Because I’ve gotten some questions about my last e-mail, there is nothing “wrong” with Halloween. The...
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Land of Souls and Olives, a Conclusion: Pasta La...
In which, Andrew Hussie, of MSPAINT ADVENTURES, goes to Olive Garden. He brings Ryan North, of Dinosaur Comics with him.
More than a year ago, some people on the internet wanted to buy me a soul portrait, and gave me $150 to commission a mentally ill person to photoshop god lasers and dumb tigers on to my high school yearbook photo, or my driver’s license mugshot, or something. I of course...
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Steven Levy Interviews Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO →
Worth reading if you are interested in technology or buy anything from Amazon. At one point in the interview, software patents are mentioned. Software patents affect you, even if you’re not a nerd; the state that the patent system is in, now, is like nuclear weapon mutually assured destruction, except instead of nukes, it’s lawsuits, and instead of sovereign nations, it’s...
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The Hustle to Defuse 60 Minutes' Congressional... →
The Steve Kroft exposé showed that everyone from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to current House Speaker John Boehner to Congressman Spencer Bachus made investments that stood to benefit by legislation being considered at the time the investments were made…
Ordinary insider trading occurs when an owner of stock has knowledge about the corporation that is not publicly known, and...
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Why is Congress a millionaires club? - CBS News →
National unemployment has lingered above 8 percent for longer than 28 straight months. Congress, meanwhile, is a club that consists of 245 millionaires. Based on 2009 data, there are currently 66 in the Senate and 179 in the House (among current voting members). So while just 1 percent of Americans are millionaires, 66 percent of senators are millionaires, as are 41 percent of House members.
...
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GOP Clown College →
WMxdesign photoshopped clown makeup onto 73 prominent Republicans, and tagged them as “Obstructionist Republican Clown”. Some of the photoshop jobs are good, and some look fake. At least go look at John Boehner.
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