June 2010
17 posts
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May 2010
28 posts
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Google Pac-Man consumed 4,819,352 hours of time →
The question we’ve all been asking ourselves, answered. (via twoyellowsequalred)
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“Life is like a wad of clay. Clay doesn’t have any meaning. It...”
– JT commenting on The Atheist Experience: A response to Ravi Zacharias’ “Six Questions to Ask an Atheist”
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What Would U.S. History Look Like If It Were... →
As the state of Arizona (with its rules banning “Ethnic Studies”) and the state of Texas (reimaging its U.S. history curriculum to conform with the Tea Party and Christian Nationalist perspective) have both embraced a more “conservative” view of history, it only seems fair and reasonable to take their efforts at face value.
The result is hilarious. It would be a disservice to only quote part...
Don’t panic, it’s towel day http://www.towelday.org/
RT @Ali_Davis: Americans, we must get out from under British Petroleum’s thumb! We should dress up and dump a bunch of stuff in the oce…
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in...”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Tim Wise - Rationalizing White Supremacy: Racism,... →
Consider, for instance, the ramifications of libertarian thought in the medical profession (of which both Rand and his daddy Ron are a part). Under Paul’s conception of justice, and that of John Stossel, doctors working in private practice should be able to discriminate against patients based on race, religion, or for any other reason without limit. Meaning that if a person belongs to a...
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First Listen: Ratatat, 'LP4' : NPR →
I quite enjoyed the latest from Ratatat. Overall this album seems more varied and lively than LP3.
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First large-scale formal quantitative test... →
azspot:
Harnessing powerful computational tools and applying Bayesian statistics, Theobald found that the evidence overwhelmingly supports UCA, regardless of horizontal gene transfer or multiple origins of life. Theobald said UCA is millions of times more probable than any theory of multiple independent ancestries.
Does this mean we can stop arguing about the “controversy” yet?...
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The Vocoder: From Speech-Scrambling To Robot Rock... →
Before the Age of Scratching Records with Basketballs, Bambaataa and his Zulu Nation DJs would use more gathered German intelligence (Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express”) for their own version of travel, making people dance, forget, buy synthesizers, steal ideas, make more records, and dress like the Count of Monte Cristo. Countless electro and disco 12-inch singles owe their dance floors to the...
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“It’s not just that attending to individuals rather than environments hampers our...”
– Alfie Kohn, “Why Self-Discipline Is Overrated”
RT @drewtoothpaste: They legalized gay marriage where? Portugal? Well, no wonder I didn’t hear. We have an oil slick bigger than that co …
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“to step back from the immediate events is to see what happens in communities who...”
– Adrienne Maree Brown (via Feministe, “7-Year-Old Girl Killed By Detroit Police While Sleeping in Her Home”)
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The Best Thing I've Read All Year →
Sharon Underwood wrote a letter defending her gay son in April 2000, and instantly won my heart as the best mother ever:
In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just...
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“Kids can keep you up all night but it’s all worth it. Domestic animals give love...”
– Jeffrey Zeldman, “Life is Beautiful”
RT @issaco: Apple responds to Adobe’s ‘We ♥ Apple’ advertisement - http://yfrog.com/83n4fp
If you haven’t played Portal yet, it’s free to download until May 24! Mac or PC: http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/ Totally worth it.
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“If we taught babies to talk as most skills are taught in school, they would...”
– Linda Darling-Hammond (via Alfie Kohn, Beware of School “Reformers”)
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This segment from Studio360 nearly made me cry on...
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“More and more crucial today are specialized markets, and in this sense, I think...”
– Slavoj Žižek interview by The Believer (via antgt)
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Your Office Chair Is Killing You →
The chair you’re sitting in now is likely contributing to the problem. “Short of sitting on a spike, you can’t do much worse than a standard office chair,” says Galen Cranz, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. She explains that the spine wasn’t meant to stay for long periods in a seated position. Generally speaking, the slight S shape of the spine serves us well. “If you...
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Goodbye petabytes, hello zettabytes →
By way of stark contrast between the output of present day humanity and its pre-digital predecessor, experts estimate that all human language used since the dawn of time would take up about 5,000 petabytes if stored in digital form, which is less than 1% of the digital content created since someone first switched on a computer.This year, the planet’s digital content will blast through the...
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Growing old disgracefully | Stuff.co.nz →
Hipster resthomes will operate a strict “no doilies” policy. There will also be a ban on freaky ceramic dolls with big eyes and anything produced by Franklin Mint (exceptions will be allowed where a case can be made that such items are displayed with irony, but approval must first be gained from the Kitsch Panel). Aesthetic values are considered very important at Hipster resthomes,...
RT @jkottke: Easiest way to lock a human in a room: put three doorknobs on the door.
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