December 2007
1 tag
“The threat of liquid explosives does exist, but it cannot be readily brewed from...”
– Patrick Smith, “The Airport Security Follies” (thanks, Merlin, Marco)
“A new type of popular web content will begin to emerge and take some marketshare...”
– Marco’s Predictions for 2007 Fine, you were right. But, come on! This was totally an insider prediction.
“We’ll finally see international action in Darfur.”
– One of my Predictions for 2007 Come on, guys! Six hours left! There’s still hope on this one. Edit: I was wrong. Darfur is not on Eastern Standard Time. I’m pretty sure there isn’t actually hope on this one. Perhaps in 2008?
“Duke Nukem Forever will come out.”
– Marco.org / Predictions: 2008
“No one has exploited the politics of fear as intuitively as Clinton.”
– Andrew Sullivan - Times Online
“That’s not experience, that’s witnessing experience.”
– Chris Dodd on Hillary Clinton’s “eight years of experience” as first lady. Dodd, of course, is the guy with actual experience—but when the country is sick the way things have been going, “experience” isn’t much of a virtue.
“If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content...”
– Edgar Allan Poe, The Philosophy of Composition. In other words, an author should ask himself whether the positives of writing a longer piece suitable only for reading in multiple sittings outweighs the negatives of having the real world intrude on the reading experience in-betwen sittings. daily...
Columbus's Finest, keeping the community safe →
(from scotth) This is another example of an absurd tactic. There’s some question of whether this is, legally speaking, entrapment. That aside, there is a question of whether this is a good idea. The criminal law has moral force only to the extent that we prosecute criminals for doing things that would earn the condemnation of society. Exposing yourself to somebody who has asked you to...
I recently posted a picture of my Corgi-in-law. If your Corgi looks like this, it turns out you have a FAT CORGI. You should put that dog on a diet. (Also, sorry for the plethora of dog-related posts. The recent assasination has given a darker tint to some of the other thoughts.)
Avoidable Mistakes
Be nice to people’s pets. You don’t have to like all pets. You don’t even have to pretend to like them. But you should go to great lengths to avoid insinuating you would casually harm somebody’s pet. There are few character flaws less forgivable than cruelty to animals—particularly animals that can’t or won’t stand up for themselves. It’s not that...
ApplyYourself: in order to send a letter of... →
Could somebody please explain to me why this sort of End User License Agreement is necessary? I’ve been trying to figure it out for some time. I went to lawschool concentrating in intellectual property and still don’t understand why it is necessary.
Robert Novak - GOP's Last Man Standing →
I’d almost written off McCain—but this article makes a pretty strong argument that he’s at least in the game. That’s good. I like McCain.
Benazir Bhutto assassinated →
This is very bad. For those who have not followed what has been happening in Pakistan, Benzazir Bhutto was more or less the biggest pro-Democracy figure in the country. There were a lot of people who wanted her dead who did not care how many people had to die with her—so this was always a possibility, but I had really hoped it would not happen.
I have no dumb friends
Last night I started wondering who my dumbest friend was. Lest this seem like a particularly heartless inquiry, I should clarify that I was falling asleep and often think of stupid things while falling asleep. As useless bedtime ponderings go, this was probably somewhere in the middle. By dumb I don’t mean the friends who do stupid things lack of perspective or emotional maturity. I mean...
Waiting, Preparing
It’s Christmas Eve—which makes it the last day of Advent. I’m less upset about the commercialization of Christmas this season than I have been in past years. Perhaps I have realized that everything is more or less commercialized these days—and if people would prefer a commercial Christmas, who am I to begrudge them? And if I prefer Handel’s Messiah to fast-tempo...
TechCrunch covers "Top 2007 Education Apps" →
Mike Arrington says, Tumblr is, inexplicably, named the top learning aid. It’s not inexplicable. Tumblr is an incredibly easy and powerful publishing tool. Arrington just doesn’t understand it. — jakoblodwickCarolyn used a tumblr to create a class website for one of her classes. It allowed her to post assignments, links, and even relevant videos. A tumble log with embedded videos...
“They even play Christmas music on Christmas Eve in the Chinese restaurants — a...”
– Seth Brown, “Do you hear what I hear?” North Adams Transcript, December 21, 2007.
1 tag
“Did you run upstairs to Tumble that quote from my Mom?
…
Stop that!”
– Carolyn
“She’s never liked pink. She was the only second grader dressed in all...”
– Carolyn’s mother
Apparently Carolyn hates pink. She started going down the strand of Christmas lights and trying to replace all the pink ones.
Details of Apple's Fake Steve Jobs shutdown... →
Apple’s lawyers claim that Fake Steve must have had inside sources and was divulging trade secrets.— marco Trade secret law is relatively specific. It varies from state to state, but you have to be doing something illegal or extremely dodgey to get in trade secret trouble. Reverse-engineering isn’t enough. Compelling somebody to breach a confidentiality agreement is, at least in some...
Tracking Bias or Guilt by Association? →
A gay professor was denied tenure. He sued, claiming discrimination. The University says the decision was made based on poor scholarship. The professor is asking about church memberships and other social issues in an effort to prove bias. This is a bad law suit. The issue is whether the faculty members are able to make a relatively objective assessment of the professor’s academic...
“I’m just annoyed with peoples ignorance’s.”
– Comment on LG Electronics - Marco.org Rule #259: Whenever making a statement about another person’s intellectual failures, make sure to check your spelling, punctuation, and grammar. It’s an embarassing spot to have a typo—but a really embarassing to inadvertantly reveal that you...
“It is tempting any time things seem quieter for a minute on the international...”
– Hillary Clinton in this article. First off, did she just insinuate that a vote for Obama is the functional equivalent of a vote for George W. Bush? I think she did. She really is serious about the attack politics. Secondly, how much actual foreign policy experience does the junior senator from...
“Huckabee portrayed [Mitt Romney] as a heartless politician who only had his own...”
– CNN.com Isn’t calling Romney as a heartless politician who only has his own political future in mind, not the interest of the people, a bit tautological?
WatchRudy Giuliani TV Ad “Holiday Wishes” You know those cheesy videos that are embarassing to everybody involved 20 years later? Here’s one sort of like that—except it’s embarassing now. What was he thinking? This could only be better, err, worse, if it were McCain singing the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
“Poultry byproduct meal”
– An ingredient in Disney’s Old Yeller brand dog food. If you are buying generic (or apparently, Disney) dog food for your dog, you really should look check out what’s in it if you want your dog to remain healthy and well. Science Diet is a bit better—though it’s still mostly...
“We need parents to turn off the television and instill in our children a sense...”
– Barack Obama Amen.
Dog Lovers and Dog Fighting - Marco.org →
Carolyn’s thoughtful piece on why dogfighting might appeal to somebody who proclaims himself an “animal lover” and on less cruel directions to send such dog related machismo.
"Blast"
Dear internet, political, and marketing communities: This letter is to serve as formal notification of the revocation of your right to use the word “blast” in any circumstances. The word is suffering from chronic misuse and abuse. The lexical term is repetative strain injury. It is like carpal tunnel syndrome, but for words. “Blast” needs a break for a while. ...
Gullible
from nostrich: The word gullible isn’t in most dictionaries. Seriously, look for yourself. excerpt from toldorknown (but you should really read the whole thing).This is actually a typesetter’s tradition dating back to less than 100 years after the appearance of the first edition of the Gutenberg Bible. The origin is, at least to me, a fascinating tale…. The tale is fascinating, believable,...
Pinups of bikini-clad women hid jailbreak route,... →
The exact same thing happened in The Shawshank Redemption. Had the guards not seen the movie or did they just assume that nobody would try anything that obvious?
“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans...”
– Ron Paul, reblogged from JakobLodwick I assume Jakob liked the first part of the quote because he seems to be a rugged individualist lately. I am sort of sympathetic toward this sort of individualism. It would be a lofty (if lonely) feeling to believe I made myself who I am today through pep and...
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus →
I’ll reblog this in an effort to add weight to dailymeh’s endorsement. If you have not read this 1897 editorial, stop what you are doing and read it. The editorial is not merely a cute piece to reassure a worried child. It is a message about faith, hope, love and everything that make life more than a tedious mechanical process.
For the Democrats: Barack Obama - The Boston Globe →
“When it comes to waging peace, Obama has the leadership skills to reset the country’s reputation in the world. He notes, for example, that the United States would be in a stronger position with Iran if it took more seriously its own commitment to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.”
“Enlarge your male aggregate: Your woman does not admire to jazz it with you for...”
– The first penis enlargement email to slip through gmail’s spam filter.
“An elderly white man shot two black men who were robbing his neighbor’s...”
– Carolyn regarding this story. I looked through the crowd at the end to see if any Shriners had shown up, but I couldn’t spot their little cars. Perhaps there will be a follow up if they arrive?
“Although we cannot export democracy as if it were Coca-Cola or KFC, we can...”
– Michael D. Huckabee, “America’s Priorities in the War on Terror” Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb 2008). I’m not through reading the article yet. A lot of people have recently quesitoned Huckabee’s foreign policy credentials. After reading the first part of this...
Mom: Angie just walked in, she's wearing her cheer leading costume-
Angie: Uniform!