Links posted in March 2009
March 31, 2009
I just received this email - is this:
1) real
2) just spam
3) april 1 preparations a la flip
should I "be friend ok" with this person or not. I mean, do I like warmly huggs? [more inside]
March 29, 2009
Optimal running pace discovered! I believe mine involves quick bursts from the sofa to the minifridge.
March 28, 2009
March 23, 2009
A clever subversion of Chinese internet censorship rules is taking China by storm. It's a benign kid's song and yet the double meaning of the words makes it gleefully profane (song in Chinese but some dirty dirty youtube text annotations).
March 22, 2009
Those goddamn Car Warranty robocalls Via natedogg, another investigation by Rob Cockerham. This one is into the telemarketing calls about 'extending your vehicle's warranty'. For a while I was getting one or two of these a week, which is misplaced microtargeting at best.
The real gem, though, is this handy-dandy Telemarketer Counter-script -- an arch and disruptive piece of info design. [more inside]
March 21, 2009
the question is "what is a mahna-mahna." The question is..."who cares!"
art is imitation of Platonic reality.
this movie was mentioned on a podcast called 'stop podcasting yourself' to be the absolute worst ever. What is it with those Canadians and their funny language? [more inside]
March 20, 2009
Sushi Etiquette - How to Eat Sushi. You're telling me you add wasabi to your soy sauce and dip your nigiri rice side down? What kind of a heathen are you?!?!?!?
March 16, 2009
I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to make my annual coin flip NCAA bracket. That's right, it's March Madness time again. Not Thomas has taken the lead and upgraded our experience to the CBS Sports site and has nebulously offered "great" prizes. He has also begun trash-talking habcous right in the group name. SOOO, will Mrflip have Cornell vs. Texas in the final? Will Zieglerfe ride 14 seed Stephen F. Austin all the way to the finals or will they fall to Texas in the semis? Most importantly, does Not Thomas really think Duke will let UNC beat them a third time this season?
I propose we once again crown 2 champions: first and second-to-last place. So get in there (pwd: boogers) and make those picks by 11AM CST on Thursday! I can already identify the failure modes in my bracket so I'm excited to watch that painfully pan out over the next few weeks!
March 13, 2009
No, he's talking about economics. Really. “It’s like taking out a girl -- sometimes you know it isn’t going to happen,” Buffett said “The time pressures, the degree of uncertainty, the depth of the possible hole, the need to get it through a regulatory body,” he said. “It wasn’t going to happen.”
March 05, 2009
One of those things I'm so happy the internet was invented for: a gallery of birds mugging people for ice cream.
Speaking of Aethermucks I had the joy of watching this the other night on American Idol. If Flip were ever held as a POW nothing would make him give in faster than his captors playing this for him on an infinite loop. I have classified this link as "music"but I doubt it deserves it.
March 03, 2009
The Phenomenology of Error Speaking of things that fill people (self included) with irrationally intense and immediate fury, I recommend Joseph Williams' deep and worthwhile exploration of "word rage".
I am often puzzled by what we call errors of grammar and usage, errors such as different than, between you and I, a which for a that, and so on. I am puzzled by what motive could underlie the unusual ferocity which an irregardless or a hopefully or a singular media can elicit, ... words like detestable vulgarity, garbage, atrocity, idiot, and simple illiteracy. The last thing I want to seem is sanctimonious. But what happens in Cambodia and Afghanistan could more reasonably be called horrible atrocities. ... Idiots we have more than enough of in our state institutions. And while simply illiteracy is the condition of billions, it does not characterize those who use disinterested in its original sense.
I am puzzled why some errors should excite this seeming fury while others, not obviously different in kind, seem to excite only moderate disapproval. And I am puzzled why some of us can regard any particular item as a more or less serious error, while others, equally perceptive, and acknowledging that the same item may in some sense be an "error," seem to invest in their observation no emotion at all. (I have condensed the passage)
It's long, and deserves consideration, so print it out and read it on the shitter. The amusing and somewhat unexpected conclusion provides additional payoff. [more inside]
Nabin goes country - Nathan Rabin, in my estimation best among the the Onion AV Club's many estimable writers, is going country. For a year, the ex-Hip Hop reviewer will be easing in from the shallow end (Johnny Cash's American Records) to eventually wind up in the dark water that is Big and Rich, Shania Tawin, and Beckto.
This is reminiscent a bit of Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson, one of the best books I read last year. Wilson attempts to understand why hugely popular artists -- your Celine Dions, Bonnie Raitts, basically every undeserving Grammy winner -- raise such vituperative disdain from music devotees (and so most professional critics).
Highly recommended, though I'm not backing down from any of my AEthermuck inclusions.
Bad Paintings of Barack Obama - Much has been made of how so many talented, young artists came out in support of Barack Obama. But Obama also inspired tons of amateurs and semi-talented hacks as well—he can’t help it. Witness Bad Paintings of Barack Obama.
March 02, 2009
Creedocide - from "Important Things" with Demetri Martin
What if you sued a big corporation and won, but before the appeal they spent millions of dollars to help elect a sympathetic justice to the state Supreme Court? Let's say the verdict is then overturned with that judge's help. Would that be fair? Would it be fair for a judge that was endorsed by a newspaper to sit in judgment of that paper in some case? Looks like the US Supremes might be gearing up to decide what role big money elections should play in the judiciary.