last links of 2007
Here’s the last of what I had in my links collection. It was getting unruly, figured might as well start over at the edge of a new year. Although, as others would point out, the changing of the dates doesn’t really mean anything. Still, symbolic gestures can be useful.
Long ass essay – I forget what the deal with this is, and I’m too tired to re-read it. Something to do with Creationism, genocide, and ethics. And I think Godwin’s Law gets invoked at some point.
Play music at work? Get sued – See, the record labels repeatedly shooting themselves in the groin phenomena isn’t limited to just the US!
Dirk Gently radio show – haven’t had time to listen yet, but the books were good.
The future: jailed for what we read – Again with the scariness in the UK (see all the stuff about them putting cameras everywhere…hello Orwell!). This is to be expected in the current terror-scare world we live in. It is worth noting that myself and most of my friends had copies of this in High School, and one of my friends did get busted and had a fire marshal or someone come talk to him for having it. Mucho stupido.
God in the brain – very interesting article about neurochemical/brain stuff happenings re: religious experiences. I should note that I don’t think any of this devalues actual epiphanies. Just like I don’t think evolution or science in general has to be at odds with religion. But that could just be me, I’m a nice guy. I like getting along. It certainly will be interesting when we can manufacture these things reliably though.
More televangelist style money shenanigans – None of this should be surprising.
Lead poisoning responsible for violent crimes? – Interesting read along the lines of Freakonomics style non-conventional analysis.
Sold soul on ebay – A brief & interesting article about a guy who sold his soul, or access to at least, on ebay for $504.
UK minister (muslim-not that kind of minister) detained – Sad & funny at the same time.
Hemp fabric – Pretty groovy how long it lasts. I don’t know how this stacks up against other cloths though.
House whistles whistleblowers – Ouch! Could our government look any stupider?
Baby robot – and the human babies who adopted it.
Supermice (movie) – This is cool, and yet scary for so many reasons. 1) You know that shit is going to escape, and then breed like crazy in the wild, and kill us all and 2) You know other countries (and maybe even us) and doing this to humans.
Spagetti monster – it’s fun to point out pastafarians.
Canadian p2p study – summary: “…found that music downloads have a positive effect on music purchases among Canadian downloaders but that there is no effect taken over the entire population aged 15 and over.” SHOCKA!
Children & learning/praise – surprise! Effort wins. I’ve been saying this for years…if you tell a child they are overly smart (or not smart, ie. saying they have some kind of disability when they don’t), it can limit their performance.
Pastafarians attack! Good times.
And, last but not least: couple cheats with each other – ahh. Gotta love the internet.
Oh how I love you, you surprisingly pacifist man-child. I’ve been without electricity/internet so now I have hours worth of entertainment to catch up. Spanks!
Oh and let me clarify (I always assume people can read my mind): as something of a historian – as I’m sure most writers are by nature – I don’t think the changing of dates unimportant (I put the date and even the exact time in each of my journal entries)… I only think its pathetic when dealing with people who haven’t the wherewithall to change their behavior and leave it up to the New Year’s Fairy. :D That is all.
Where did the pacifist bit come from?
And how did you survive without internet…horrors!
“But that could just be me, I’m a nice guy. I like getting along.” Quel adorable. :)
Oh and as to your query: I didn’t. I died.
i am a little late in responding but sue me later and hear me out now.
I love that children love robots, but who doesn’t right?
I love that people can think they love someone, get married to them, get unhappy, have an online affair and hate that it’s their spouse, people are insane.
And then I just wanted to mention that mice are scary and don’t need any help being faster or producing in anymore volume, or living longer for that matter.
thanks for freaking me out with the internet! hoo-rah
As to the internet affair thing. As intention is 9/10s of the law (…wait, that’s possession), I was initially amused by the fact that they hadn’t indeed cheated… but they’d attempted to. And the only thing that stopped them was dumb luck and happenstance so… then it wasn’t funny. Just lame, I guess. Ah well.
The powers of the internet to amuse and waste time shall not be disparaged!
Neither would I ever attempt it!