May 2011
52 posts
Vow Of Poverty
Sometimes we like to talk about how we need to get the money out of politics. Which leads me to wonder what would happen if our elected officials had to take a vow of poverty. Not just for the time they were in office, but for ten years after they leave.
Never gonna happen, but it’s a neat little thought.
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“The only meat I’m eating is from animals I’ve killed myself”
–
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an interview with Fortune’s Patricia Sellers. Zuckerberg not kidding by the way, as explained in Sellers’ article. (via abcworldnews)
This is what playing too much Farmville will do to you.
INTERNET CRUSHES BEWARE: I am inebriated. HIGH ON KARAOKE. And ONLINE.
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D.O.R.K.
Half the planet thinks I have the gift of gab and the other half thinks I’m a dumb mute.
Gotta work on my social paralysis.
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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on HBO, Cord-Cutting and... →
atencio:
spytap:
Speaking of expired season, I’ve heard some networks talk about extending the life of shows they were going to cancel if you’re going to pay them to keep going. Does that make sense?
Yes. For example, “Friday Night Lights” wasn’t going to get continued two seasons ago on NBC, and DirecTV did a deal to extend that show. So we can see ourselves doing something like...
“The only way out is through.”
TribecaFilm.com | Future of Film | Reawakening the... →
Let me be clear. This is not about imposing our own narrative on others. I am not advocating the deployment of propaganda or counter-narratives against enemies. This is about reconnecting local storytellers, entertainers, filmmakers and content producers with positive elements derived from the foundational mythologies of their people.
Sometimes I have to be reminded of why I wanted to be a...
One Per Cent: Amusement park rides that know when... →
They used biofeedback to transform the experience a common piece of playground equipment - a swing - into a sinister out-of-control ride. The motions of the swing were driven by a motor that was controlled by the breathing of a person standing nearby. To make the experience unnerving, the person’s breathing was monitored by a sensor in an adapted NATO gas mask that they were wearing. The mask...
The Galactic Empire is falling... →
Haven’t had a chance to read @Moffs’ Foundation piece yet- but I wanted to note that one of my favorite summers ever was when I got to read the whole of Asimov’s Robots-Empire-Foundation series as my summer school homework.
Just thinking about that brings a smile to my face.
Pay For Now, Free For Later →
parislemon:
From a media perspective, this idea has always interested me. Eventually, you put everything on the web, but you give paying customers first crack at it.
Of course, it works for huge stories like an exclusive look at Apple — which I paid $4.99 for just like everyone else. But it’s a much harder sell for most things.
Still, if you prove time and time again that you have great...
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The Cognitive Cost of Doing Things →
I identified these seven as the mental/cognitive costs to trying to do something -
Activation Energy
Opportunity cost
Inertia
Ego/willpower depletion
Neurosis/fear/etc
Altering of hormonal balance
Maintenance costs from the idea re-emerging in your thoughts
I think we can reduce some of these costs by planning our tasks, work lives, social lives, and environment...
HMrump
I think Instapaper may be republishing the posts I sent to Tumblr. Hmmm…
SpaceX Claim Intent Of Sending Crewed Mission To... →
The heavy-launcher field is not what it was. The Falcon Heavy is intended to loft payloads of 117000 pounds to Low Earth Orbit. The Saturn V could lob 262000 pounds into LEO, and chuck 100000 pounds directly into TLI. The Falcon Heavy is perhaps the world’s most powerful rocket right now. No-one’s going out of town on a Falcon Heavy without a lot of staging and reassembly in orbit. At...
Neuroscience of Shakespeare →
(Functional shift) happens when one part of speech is suddenly transformed into another with a different function but hardly any change of form. It sounds dull but in performance is almost electrically exciting in its sudden simple reach for a word. For example: an adjective is made a verb when in The Winter’s Tale heavy thoughts are said to ‘thick my blood’. A pronoun is made into a noun when...
The Corporate State Will Continue its Inexorable... →
The game is over. We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass. Most Americans will struggle to make a living while the Blankfeins and our political elites wallow in the decadence and greed of the Forbidden City and Versailles. These elites do not have a vision. They know only one word—more.
...
Good Tumblry is an art form.
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The Corporate State Will Continue its Inexorable... →
The game is over. We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass. Most Americans will struggle to make a living while the Blankfeins and our political elites wallow in the decadence and greed of the Forbidden City and Versailles. These elites do not have a vision. They know only one word—more.
...
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Review of The "Five Guys Burgers & Fries" in...
Sometimes the siren call of a burger overcomes good sense and diet discipline. Occasionally the break down of moral virtue is worth the price paid when Anubis weighs your heart and find you chose delicious cholesterol laden foods over an eternity in paradise.
I wish that was the case right now.
AMBIANCE: This “Five Guys” has a kind of anti-charm. Signs proclaiming how good the...
