!furious!furious

"The OED told the BBC that it was beyond the software engineer’s control to determine how the..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:35:43 -0400

“The OED told the BBC that it was beyond the software engineer’s control to determine how the word should be said.”

- BBC News - Gif’s inventor says ignore dictionaries and say ‘Jif’

The OED HAS SPOKEN. SHUT IT DOWN.

One of the only times the NYT editorial board will be on Fox News' side.

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:48:33 -0400

One of the only times the NYT editorial board will be on Fox News' side.:

And rightfully so.

"How much do you think about being adopted now, as an adult? Oh, I don’t know. I sometimes think it’s..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:16:54 -0400

“How much do you think about being adopted now, as an adult? Oh, I don’t know. I sometimes think it’s funny that my parents paid $10,000 for me. I asked some of my economist friends to estimate whether I had appreciated or depreciated in value. Some of them said depreciated!”

- Interview With an International Adoptee | The Hairpin

Adam made charts for Layne’s birthday. I was there.

"You’d think a guy like President Obama would prefer a world in which revelations of that sort..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:58:09 -0400

“You’d think a guy like President Obama would prefer a world in which revelations of that sort — the sort that formed the basis for his critique of his predecessor and made his very presidency possible — were filtered through the New York Times rather than anonymous Web denizens of unknown values. By targeting journalists like James Rosen and media organizations like the Associated Press, Team Obama makes it more likely that future leaks will be filtered through people who aren’t moved by government appeals, the judgment of professional peers, public opinion or U.S. ethical norms.”

- What ‘Stop the Leaks’ Hardliners Don’t Realize: They Can’t and Won’t Ever Win - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

fishingboatproceeds: bbc-bestbromancecompany: Nerdfighter...

Tue, 21 May 2013 23:09:30 -0400

fishingboatproceeds:

bbc-bestbromancecompany:

Nerdfighter Benedict? Or just failed Vulcan?

As far as I can tell, there are eight possibilities here. (I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about this.)

1. Benedict Cumberbatch is a hardcore nerdfighter and when Martin Freeman threw up a gang sign, Cumberbatch was like, “I have one of those.”

2. Cumberbatch, who obviously has a relationship with Star Trek, just naturally changed the Vulcan sign (pulling in the thumbs, turning the palms inward, crossing the arms) in precisely the same way that I happened to change the Vulcan sign when I first made the nerdfighter sign in the halcyon days of 2007.

3. One of the interns on set who has gained the trust of Benedict Cumberbatch was like, “If you do your hands like this, the Internet will get really excited.” And so he did.

4. BBC, in their infinite wisdom, staged the entire photo and Cumberbatch was taught the nerdfighter sign (I MEAN LOOK AT THE PERFECTION OF HIS NERDFIGHTER SIGN! He seems so comfortable and confident in it, almost as if it is muscle memory, almost as if he has flashed it to his laptop screen on hundreds of occasions in the past, but I digress) and this photograph was staged to get people psyched for Sherlock, although what tiny segment of nerdfighteria is not already psyched for Sherlock? Also, if this is the case, who is Martin Freeman trying to advertise to? Residents of the West Side?

5. Benedict Cumberbatch has a relative or a friend who is a nerdfighter and so he is passingly familiar with nerdfighteria and liked what he has seen and wanted to make us all very happy.

6. The nerdfighter sign also happens to be the hand sign of some obscure English gang with which I am unfamiliar called like The East London Wanderers or The Slightly Intimidating Liverpudlians or whatever.

7. Nerdfighteria actually figures in the plot of the new season of Sherlock. Perhaps a nerdfighter has been (wrongly no doubt!) accused of a murder.

8. Benedict Cumberbatch was playing some kind of British version of Rock Paper Scissors against two invisible opponents, and he went double scissors (as any smart person would).

I swear I had NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. I am but one of thousands of employees.

"A lesson that took me a long time to learn: I am never going to wake up and be a person who doesn’t..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:16:07 -0400

“A lesson that took me a long time to learn: I am never going to wake up and be a person who doesn’t want to spend the money in her pocket if there is money in her pocket. That’s the kind of change I was trying to believe in but that kind of change doesn’t exist. Barring traumatic brain injury, humans don’t go to sleep and wake up completely different people. Change is active. For me it’s meant paying all my bills as soon as I get paid. It’s meant taking out cash so that I know exactly how much I have until I don’t have anymore. It’s mean learning to pause before I say yes to going to meet people out in the world and thinking, is this what I want to do with that last $20? It’s meant getting another job.”

- I Always Spend All My Money And I’m Never Going to Change, Am I | The Billfold

I am somewhat always irked by Logan’s voice on the Billfold (because I’m a total Mike Dang when it comes to money, so I understand that irked feeling is defensive/brain just not working the same way as her) but this is some real talk on money and life in general.

Photo

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:39:23 -0400

"You know stuff,” she said. “And knowing is so much better than not knowing. You have a much better..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:55:49 -0400

““You know stuff,” she said. “And knowing is so much better than not knowing. You have a much better sense of real threats, of what’s possible, of who’s threatening you. It’s calmed me down immensely, and I’ve tried to use that to calm down other people.””

- Vexed by Terrorism, Trials and Guantánamo, and Bearing Witness - NYTimes.com

Fascinating lady.

nprmusic: With so many distractions and different ways to hear...

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:21:21 -0400

nprmusic:

With so many distractions and different ways to hear songs, it’s getting to be pretty impossible to give full albums the attention they deserve. When was the last time you actually listened to one all the way through, without any interruptions?

Photo: Corbis

DJ Sheds-a-lot

"And so the big lesson in the $1.1 billion Yahoo-Tumblr deal is that the Internet’s largest..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:10:33 -0400

“And so the big lesson in the $1.1 billion Yahoo-Tumblr deal is that the Internet’s largest companies remain astonishingly good at sustaining themselves but frightfully bad at disrupting the market, even in an industry that prizes and even idolizes such activity. Year after year, they continue to pay the steep price for not fostering their own disruptive innovation, even as those innovations are born from their own ex-employees. (Google alone counts Instagram’s Kevin Systrom, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley, Pinterest’s Ben Silbermann and Twitter’s Evan Williams among its alumni. Recent valuations of those companies: $1 billion, $700 million, $2.5 billion, $10 billion.)”

- The big lesson in the $1.1b Yahoo-Tumblr deal | ZDNet

motherjones: theamericanprospect: fastcompany: The sitting...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:28:22 -0400

motherjones:

theamericanprospect:

fastcompany:

The sitting Congress has the most women of any in history. Artist Emily Nemens is capturing each of them in paint, and using their likenesses in graphics to show how far we still have to go to bring gender equality to Washington.

The women of Congress, in fabulous watercolor infographics

This is awesome. Ladies in the HOUSE. No, really. Record number of ladies in the House!

O hai Tammy Duckworth

Joe is srs business.(by The White House)

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:13:11 -0400

Joe is srs business.(by The White House)

dronestagram: May 18th 2013: at least four and up to seven...

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:44:22 -0400

dronestagram:

May 18th 2013: at least four and up to seven people killed in a dawn strike, and more wounded, on a road north of Ja’ar in Abyan Province. #drone #drones #yemen (at Jaar, Yemen)

Photo

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:23:28 -0400

Planning boss' provocative views insult Calgarians and undermine city council | Columnists | Opinion | Calgary Sun

Fri, 17 May 2013 20:37:40 -0400

Planning boss' provocative views insult Calgarians and undermine city council | Columnists | Opinion | Calgary Sun:

Back in my local news days, I could always count on the MoCo planning director to piss somebody off. Glad to see he’s still stirring up shit in his new job north of the border.

"Matt Latimer, who served as a speechwriter during the Bush administration, recalls a tense meeting..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:25:50 -0400

“

Matt Latimer, who served as a speechwriter during the Bush administration, recalls a tense meeting with the president and his advisers during the US financial crisis.

“There were a lot of terms that nobody understood and for no reason he put this Mickey Mouse hat on his head,” Latimer says, describing the president.

“He was either saying, ‘We’re running a Mickey Mouse operation or we’re in fantasy land,” Latimer says. “I wasn’t sure which one was right.”

”

- BBC News - Managing the Benghazi crisis is a tricky business

"What triggers your jealousy? I get jealous of people who don’t have outward doubt. I get hamstrung..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:56:15 -0400

“What triggers your jealousy? I get jealous of people who don’t have outward doubt. I get hamstrung asking myself, “Shouldn’t I be helping save the world instead of advancing myself? Why am I writing a meandering piece about a novel when I should be exposing corruption? And of course what does it matter, death is coming for us all so I should go lie in the grass.” (I like lying in the grass). And then I see people out there steadily doing their thing and I want to say, “Can I lend you these existential saddlebags for a bit?””

- Talking About Jealousy of the Professional Variety | The Billfold

I love this conversation.

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warrens Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warrenly

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:18:59 -0400

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warrens Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warrenly:

motherjones:

upworthy:

motherjones:

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren

Full story here.

Is everything okay over there, MoJo?

Elizabeth Warren, guys.

"Newtown, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, was inundated with so much charity that it became a..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:18:11 -0400

“

Newtown, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, was inundated with so much charity that it became a burden. More than eight hundred volunteers were recruited to deal with the gifts that were sent to the city—all of which kept arriving despite earnest pleas from Newtown officials that charity be directed elsewhere. A vast warehouse was crammed with plush toys the townspeople had no use for; millions of dollars rolled in to this relatively affluent community. We felt their pain; we wanted to help. Meanwhile—just to begin a very long list—almost twenty million American children go to bed hungry each night, and the federal food-stamp program is facing budget cuts of almost twenty per cent. Many of the same kindly strangers who paid for Baby Jessica’s medical needs support cuts to state Medicaid programs—cuts that will affect millions. Perhaps fifty million Americans will be stricken next year by food-borne illness, yet budget reductions mean that the F.D.A. will be conducting two thousand fewer safety inspections. Even more invisibly, next year the average American will release about twenty metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and many in Congress seek to loosen restrictions on greenhouse gases even further.

Such are the paradoxes of empathy. The power of this faculty has something to do with its ability to bring our moral concern into a laser pointer of focussed attention. If a planet of billions is to survive, however, we’ll need to take into consideration the welfare of people not yet harmed—and, even more, of people not yet born.

”

- Paul Bloom: The Case Against Empathy : The New Yorker

I think this piece is incorrectly titled but v important

"One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:24:00 -0400

““One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don’t actually know where it is. 10% think it’s in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.””

- Where Is Benghazi Poll - Greatest. Poll. Ever. - Esquire

I mean Egypt is not the worst guess, but CUBA?