January 2011
41 posts
3 tags
WatchNxNE Take Away Series
I love these “acoustic” performances by The Soft Pack, Avi Buffalo, and Anamanaguchi. Click through for another video with more artists.
Via Mare Odomo
4 tags
The Gervais Principle →
Here’s an oldish (2009) link that figures out human relations using the TV show The Office as grist for its theory that corporations are run by sociopaths, managed by the clueless, and powered by losers. It’s a fun read because the writer knows how to use business-speak in a very relatable way, so do check it out, but I’m also interested in the meta-question, which is why we...
I wish I were the Moon →
I don’t usually have much truck with Flash games, but this one is pretty fine as they go. Casual Girl Gamer calls it a “game that will make you think about life.” Failing that, it’s pleasant enough.
Via Infinite Lives
I wish I were the Moon →
I don’t usually have much truck with Flash games, but this one is pretty fine as they go. Casual Girl Gamer calls it a “game that will make you think about life.” Failing that, it’s pleasant enough.
Via Infinite Lives
“Economic historians refer to a period of “financial repression,” during which...”
– New Yorker - What good is Wall Street?
“Economic historians refer to a period of “financial repression,” during which...”
– New Yorker - What good is Wall Street?
7 tags
John Mearsheimer - Imperial by Design →
From the co-author of The Israel Lobby, here’s an argument that American foreign policy is currently trapped between the designs of the neoconservative imperials and the liberal imperials. Both want global American hegemony, but they disagree about how to get there.
Other interesting bits…
We keep losing wars, and this is tearing up domestic liberties:
The United States has...
John Mearsheimer - Imperial by Design →
From the co-author of The Israel Lobby, here’s an argument that American foreign policy is currently trapped between the designs of the neoconservative imperials and the liberal imperials. Both want global American hegemony, but they disagree about how to get there.
Other interesting bits…
We keep losing wars, and this is tearing up domestic liberties:
The United States has...
Directed Edge - Google Spam Heresy: The AdSense... →
Being something of a search weenie, as my eyelids were feeling heavy today I found myself mulling over the problem, “How would one detect Google spamming?”
The answer turns out to be surprisingly easy. Who has an incentive to spam Google? People living from advertising. Who owns the largest online display ad network? Google.
…
So, here’s the heresy: the spamminess of a web...
Directed Edge - Google Spam Heresy: The AdSense... →
Being something of a search weenie, as my eyelids were feeling heavy today I found myself mulling over the problem, “How would one detect Google spamming?”
The answer turns out to be surprisingly easy. Who has an incentive to spam Google? People living from advertising. Who owns the largest online display ad network? Google.
…
So, here’s the heresy: the spamminess of a web...
Thought Palace - Glitch City →
Finally someone told me about a hack to get into any building. It exploited a bug in the hit detection: you had to run at a corner and jump right at it. If you got the position and angle just right, you’d slip through the join between the two walls and be inside.
…
Finally after an hour I made it: instead of the bounce I got a split second of mangled polygons warping across the...
Thought Palace - Glitch City →
Finally someone told me about a hack to get into any building. It exploited a bug in the hit detection: you had to run at a corner and jump right at it. If you got the position and angle just right, you’d slip through the join between the two walls and be inside.
…
Finally after an hour I made it: instead of the bounce I got a split second of mangled polygons warping across the...
3 tags
John McWhorter - The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The... →
Frequent Bloggingheads.tv contributer and linguist John McWhorter commits heresy:
As we assess our linguistic future as a species, a basic question remains. Would it be inherently evil if there were not 6,000 spoken languages but one? We must consider the question in its pure, logical essence, apart from particular associations with English and its history. Notice, for example, how the...
John McWhorter - The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The... →
Frequent Bloggingheads.tv contributer and linguist John McWhorter commits heresy:
As we assess our linguistic future as a species, a basic question remains. Would it be inherently evil if there were not 6,000 spoken languages but one? We must consider the question in its pure, logical essence, apart from particular associations with English and its history. Notice, for example, how the...
“I still want to tell the regime that deprives me of my freedom, I stand by the...”
– Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo (The commentary before the translation remarks, “It is not, in general, the prisoners who talk about the need to respect Chinese cultural values; it is their jailers (who also claim the right to define them). The prisoners almost invariably speak in the language of...
“I still want to tell the regime that deprives me of my freedom, I stand by the...”
– Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo (The commentary before the translation remarks, “It is not, in general, the prisoners who talk about the need to respect Chinese cultural values; it is their jailers (who also claim the right to define them). The prisoners almost invariably speak in the language of...
A quote on the two things about programming →
Via Plasmasturm:
Nobody really knows how to do it.
If you think you have a reliable system for doing it, you’re probably doing the computer’s job.
This is really true and neatly encapsulates why the dream of creating a programming language easy enough for anyone to use or a system of program checking to eliminate bugs will never work. If it’s easy enough for regular people to do,...
A quote on the two things about programming →
Via Plasmasturm:
Nobody really knows how to do it.
If you think you have a reliable system for doing it, you’re probably doing the computer’s job.
This is really true and neatly encapsulates why the dream of creating a programming language easy enough for anyone to use or a system of program checking to eliminate bugs will never work. If it’s easy enough for regular people to do,...
