July 2008
“It takes a genius to whine appealingly.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could stand up now and say, okay, these are the...”
– Warren Ellis (via). Also:
The weblog has evolved to the point where, today, it’s possibly the most effective way of transmitting material that any of us could have imagined. Look at Tumblr. It’s the easiest thing in the world for writers to use — and also artists, photographers, videographers,...
Vacation
The best and worst thing a blogger (and by extension, anyone) can do is take a break. It’s the best thing because one is almost certain to have more motivation and new ideas upon returning, but it’s the worst thing to do because it leaves readers with a dormant blog in the meantime. Excluding a short pitstop, I’ll be away the next four weeks. Consequently, there will be little...
It appears that Adobe Reader 9 sucks. (News at 11.)
China inspired interrogations at Guantánamo →
Christopher Hitchens, in his essay for the August issue of Vanity Fair, describes how torture used to be “inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape)” — and how it is now used by Americans to torture others. This article presents a stunning example: military...
Amazing New Hyperbolic Chamber Greatest Invention... →
Awesome.
Unthinkable Futures →
This list of unthinkable futures — probabilities we tend to dismiss without thinking — was published 15 years ago in the Summer, 1993 issue of Whole Earth Review. Our intent was less to correctly predict the future (thus the silliness) and more to predict how unpredictable the actual future would be.
Hence we find such unlikely predictions as “a new profession, meme-inspector,...
“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”
– Bertrand Russell (who would probably, along with me, disagree with Squashed that loving Enlightenment ideals does a patriot make.)
Ape rights and the myth of animal equality →
Spain grants now many human rights to non-human Great Apes, recognizing that they “experience an emotional and intellectual conscience similar to that of human children.” Of course, conservatives are none too happy, quipping that “animal rights activists believe a rat, is a pig, is a dog, is a boy.” (via Seed)