Fiddler in the Subway
Jun 30, 2010 links, philosophy, reading
Michael Mechanic has an interesting interview up today on Mother Jones with Gene Weingarten: “Secrets of a Two-Time Pulitzer Winner.” Weingarten has a book coming out entitled Fiddler in the Subway, a collection of essays he wrote for The Washington Post and the WaPo magazine. After you read Mechanic’s piece, come back here to read [...]
Tags: anosognosia, black swan, Dunning-Kruger, epistemology, Errol Morris, Hardy Boys, irony, Joshua Bell, Mother Jones, paralysis, pulitzer, Taleb, Tokyo, uncertainty, violin, Washington Post, Weingarten
Anti-Statism, Relativism, Prosperity Gospel, etc.
Nov 20, 2009 Cedarville, links, music, philosophy, television
So I took a trip to Myanmar this week. I’ll blog about it later. In the meantime I have a bunch of tabs of stuff I’ve been meaning to share and I’ll have to just dump them w/o much comment because they’re slowing down Firefox. The Atlantic: “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” by Hanna Rosin. [...]
Tags: Arcade Fire, Arrested Development, Christianity, homosexuality, Judd Apatow, postmodernism, Prosperity Gospel, Ray Lamontagne, recession, relativism, statism
Best of ‘Best of Wikipedia’
Nov 11, 2009 links
These are all Wikipedia entries culled from the fascinating blog Best of Wikipedia. I’m blatantly ripping this idea off of Andrew Sullivan, but I thought it was interesting enough to re-do and compile my own list of most intriguing Wikipedia pages. Semantic Satiation Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a cognitive neuroscience phenomenon in which [...]
A Smattering of Readings
A few paragraphs that I found interesting, but didn’t merit a full post and were too long to quote on Twitter… Firstly, a particularly insightful bit from the always provocative Slavoj Žižek: “I’ve noticed how many of the people who consider themselves to be more radical than the liberal standard do not work in political [...]
Tags: AJ Jacobs, beard, capitalism, Communion, Eucharist, fundamentalists, leftists, moralism, Shirzadian, socialism, Zizek
Ocean of Noise
May 23, 2009 images, links, reading
J. Motta’s got me hooked on Swaptree and I’ve made a few trades already. One of my favorite swaps has to be getting rid of a neurotic alcoholic’s memoir in exchange for a tome on deconstructive religion & the meaning of forgiveness. No disrespect intended to Mr. Burrough’s, but he’s no Derrida. Question: if you had [...]
Tags: College Democrats, deconstruction, Derrida, Liberty University, poverty, Remy, Sean Hannity, Swaptree, torture, waterboarding
Torture Follow-up
I forgot to link to these yesterday in my post on torture & Christianity: “We Could Have Done This the Right Way”: How Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture “Fort Hunt’s Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII”: Interrogators used “battle of wits,” not torture, against the Nazis Three men [...]
Tags: Iraq, torture, war, waterboarding
Make Your Predictions
Time to call it: I’m predicting 292 electoral votes for Mr. Barack. Leave your predictions in the comments. Whomever guesses closest is a communist gets some sort of prize. The prize may or may not be a personal dinner with Pres. Obama, or an Obama Candy Bar, or just bragging rights. Also, this is amazing: [...]
The Fall of America, Inc
What I’m reading: The Fall of America, Inc – “Along with some of Wall Street’s most storied firms, a certain vision of capitalism has collapsed. How we restore faith in our brand.” Written by, of all people, the infamous Francis Fukuyama. The End of Arrogance: America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role Make-Believe Maverick by Tim [...]
Tags: Bill Ayers, Fukuyama, Keating, McCain, Obama
Year of the Youth Vote
Barack Obama has 22k+ more supporters on Facebook than Clinton, Gravel, McCain, Huckabee, Romney and Paul have combined altogether. TIME says it’s The Year of the Youth Vote.
Electoral Compass USA
-> Electoral Compass USA: analyzes your position on “the issues” compared to the presidential candidates. Issue : Candidate I’m closet to Gun control: Obama Environment: Edwards Iraq: Paul Economy: Richardson Income: tie Obama/Clinton National Security: Richardson Family: Giuliani Immigration: Richardson Healthcare: Clinton Law and order: tie Obama/Paul Education: Edwards Terrorism: Obama All issues: 1. Barack [...]
Tags: Clinton, Edwards, Huckabee, Iraq, McCain, Obama, Paul, Richardson, Romney, Thompson
Quirk & idiosyncracy
Oct 3, 2007 links, movies, personal, philosophy
Referring to Wes Anderson’s new movie The Darjeeling Limited, the NYT refers to this NY Mag piece as a defense of Anderson, and this Atlantic Monthly essay as the prosecution. They’re both worth reading, particularly the latter since its review of Darjeeling Limited is part of a large piece on “quirk,” a notion that really [...]
Tags: quirk, Rorty, Wes Anderson
Link dump
Double post for your asses because I’m generous and because now I’m all worked up about Babel again. And now I’m pissed at Blogger for including ñ’s everywhere. High-res photos of squished bugs, on a window screen I think. Where the Coffee Shop Meets the Cubicle – man I’d love for one of these around [...]
The Wrong Surge
I highly recommend reading The Wrong Surge by Lawrence Kaplan; published in The New Republic originally, I’m linking to this off-site reproduction because TNR has pesky registration. TNR also did an interview with Kaplan that’s worth reading. “The Wrong Surge” also provides good background for this Newsweek article: “In For the Long Haul” by Michael [...]
Link dump
Feb 22, 2007 links
Pirates of the Multiplex – VF article on The Pirate Bay and BitTorrent Yeondoo Jung stages photos based off children’s drawings Hamad Darwish was one of the lucky few Microsoft commissioned to takes photos for the Vista desktop set VF again: Autumn and the Plot Against Me: The mysterious origins of a Windows desktop image [...]
Jessica Rose FTW
Dec 11, 2006 links, television
I think Lonelygirl15 highlighted the fact that internet television is still largely unexplored territory (though more and more traditional tv networks are now streaming shows). I came across tVadio today, a beta site aimed at creating channels exclusively for the web. I’m particularly interested in their Sumo.tv, a channel designed to share viral videos (like [...]
Tags: lonelygirl15
GG Solitaire
Oh noes!!1! Solitaire’s no fun when the Jh randomly changes into a second Ah. To the right is me mid-drag: note that it let me play the 2h on either Ah. DIASASTER. My gaming days are over. Scary Mary Poppins Trailer, ie Mary Poppins re-cut as a horror flick. Similiarly: Toy Story Requiem The World’s [...]
Tags: solitaire
Breece D’J Pancake + Kevin Keck
Breece D’J Pancake (pictured right ->) was an up-and-coming young writer 30 years ago who killed himself with a shotgun at age 26. What he left behind was The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake, published posthumously in 1983. Today I stumbled upon The Honored Dead, a short story from Pancake that I’d recommend for your [...]
Tags: Kevin Keck, sex, suicide, virginity
Post-Adderall Binge
Nov 19, 2006 links, personal, writing
An Adderall binge has opened my eyes to the impracticalities of my previous two life options. I’ve scratched both in favor of the plan I’ve asininely named Life Option C. The new goal is to build a hot air balloon from scratch and stock it full of jellybeans and Calvin and Hobbes comics in preparation [...]
Asian Sensation FTL
Nov 12, 2006 links, music, television
Anybody else see Chris Lytle get robbed of the UFC title (and $200k)? I mean a 4th round seemed the obvious decision, but a Lytle victory was certainly understandable. Matt Serra FTW? Not a chance. In other must-see TV, this week’s Survivor was awesome. Will go down as one of the most memorable episodes. There’s [...]
Kleine-Levin Syndrome etc
Nov 9, 2006 links, personal, politics
Wow so much good news already this week: both Kevin Federline and Donald Rumsfeld are out. They ought to team up and go on tour. Howard Dean on Election ’06: “BOOYA!” Funny, but he’s still a donk. You know I’m not particularly happy about the Democrat pwnage, but not because I actually support the RNC. [...]
Tags: Howard Dean, Last.fm, sleep