Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man`s nobler faculties. —Henry David Thoreau Read more →
Category: Linkapalooza
The Deepest Thought I Can Manage
Life is hard: Wear A Helmet. Read more →
Aside
Did you see the page of spirit photography that Jeff Ford linked to the other day? That stuff is pretty cool, especially in the historical context. I admit, though, that it makes me want to see if I could use my meagre Photoshop skills to cook up something similar from some digital photographs.
Aside
Remember when Microsoft had the genius idea of embedding code inside documents–remember how that worked out from a security perspective? Remember when browsers started allowing executable code to be embedded in the pages–there was no security problem with that, right? So clearly the best thing for us to do is to add a new way to embed natively executable code in web pages. There’s no way that could go wrong, right?
Aside
From Canada To Wal*Mart: You’ll Take Your Unions, and You’ll Like It.
Christmas Spirit
I just found this on my hard drive–I think it might have run in Harpers ages ago–and thought it was worth putting up here: A HO-HO-HO HOW-TO From the “Santa Manual” distributed by Western Temporary Services to employees in its “Santa Division” The Walnut Creek, California, firm provides as many as 3,000 Santas to department stores and shopping malls each… Read more →
I must be getting old
…because when I read an article with a throughline that’s essentially “Students lie, cheat, and steal a lot more than they used to, and still think they are good people, but it’s OK because there’s so much more stress on them, and anyway it’s not their fault but rather society’s” my reaction is essentially “Oh, phui!”. Everyone thinks they have… Read more →
Aside
I expect lots of things from webcomics, but I don’t usually expect to be stopped utterly in my tracks by a one-off strip. Damn.
Darwinist Dating
Manipulation and self-interest suffused relations between the sexes even when gentlemen strode the earth; a few pages of Edith Wharton should disabuse any doubters on that score. The lengthy article on modern dating, Love in the Time of Darwinism, at City Journal raised several reaction in me while I was reading it. The only thing I reacted positively to was… Read more →
Completely Unrelated Items
Continuing on the theme of my being impressed by the kind of madness that is constructive (this dates back to at least the first time I found out about Korczak Ziolkowski), let us take a moment to reflect upon the kind of person who could build the Underground Fortress. I am weirdly attracted to the idea. It panders to both… Read more →
Web Crack For Intellectuals
Wikipedia is one of the best things humanity has yet invented for allowing us to use up any extra time we have hanging around. As an added bonus, this time comes with a putative “educational value” benefit, which makes it easy to justify the time and avoid guilt over it. One example of how this might happen: you could go… Read more →
A Tuesday Evening Gallimaufry
You know the drill: lots of links, less commentary than usual. I plead work. Does the idea that Sesame Street might need a warning label fire up some of that good old cognitive dissonance for you? Well, apparently there is one on the recently released early episodes. And some of the parents they showed it to were shocked. The old… Read more →
Aside
You remember when I was making fun of the headline: “Another prisoner mistakenly released in N.S.“? Well, today’s top stories includes this choice headline “Halifax police mistakenly release man before court appearance”. Handsome devil, isn’t he?
Apparently I am living in Keystone.
They way they are supposed to.
Since 2001 I’ve had less use for Christopher Hitchens than I used to. But hey, I’ve got even less use for Pope Inquisitor and his attempts to pull the Roman Catholic Church backwards in time. So if Hitchens wants to get snarky on the practice of indulgences, as he does in the latest Free Inquiry, I’m going to enjoy it… Read more →
A short break from politics
And now, a few observations about things completely unrelated to either North American election: That Wisdom book showed up today. Totally worth the money. It’s been a long time since I bought a “coffee table book”, but if I had a coffee table I’d be proud to leave this out on it. You know where I’m find more interesting reading… Read more →
