Condensing a Wikipedia Article Down into a Single Joke
– February 8, 2010
Two economists are walking down the street. One says: “Hey, there’s a dollar bill on the floor.” The other says: “Impossible. If it were real, someone would have picked it up by now.”
Posted in Religious Nutcakes, The Next Person To Get Slapped.
Quote of the Day: Lao Tzu
– February 7, 2010
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. – Lao Tzu
(probably the weirdest quote/image paring in the history of this blog. It makes sense though, just roll with it.)
Posted in Quote of the Day.
FB Gold
– February 7, 2010
I have invites if anyone needs them. It’s basically about the most fun I’ve ever had with facebook.
Posted in Uncategorized.
In Which I Rant Wildly About Usability (as usuallllllll)
– February 5, 2010
Facebook has gone through it’s semi-annual round of ui changes, some for the better and some surely laden with folly. Uproar will ensue and it will inevitably be followed by the joining of groups demanding change. Eventually the hoopla will subside into comfortable acceptance. It’s the circle of life.
The subject of this blog post is mostly about the removal of the floating events/pictures/applications/etc bar that was previously in the lower left corner. I have been vocally opposed to it and now it has been removed, presumably because it breaks one of the critical rules of ui:
Do Not Distribute Navigation!
The rule is actually more nuanced than that, ie don’t condense navigation so much that it’s muddled. More broadly, people just don’t look in the lower left corner of a screen. ESPECIALLY at tiny little buttons with quizzical meanings. If you’re designing an interface you should just make the buttons 20% bigger. anyway…
Posted in Uncategorized.
Voodoo Knickers PSA:
– February 4, 2010
fyi -> The police do not take kindly to people fencing with kendo swords in parks in the middle of the night. In fact, two whole squad cars of do not take kindly. UPDATE: we were using shinai, the bamboo versions of kendo fencing swords. Not the actual deadly metal swords.
Posted in America.
oops
– January 31, 2010
sorry about that half written blog post, a gang of midgets broke into my house because they thought it was the french revolution and my house was the bastille. One of them knocked my computer a bit while I was having a Saffron Tonic (1 part gin, 3 parts tonic and a quarter of an orange) with coblogger Kimpossible.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, relax, that’s normal. Carry on, carry on.
Posted in Uncategorized.
Word of the Day: Paranomasiac
– January 28, 2010
par⋅o⋅no⋅ma⋅si⋅ac [par-uh-noh-mey-zhee-ak]
–noun Rhetoric.
– one addicted to word play or puns.
Puns are the feeblest species of humor because they are ephemeral: whatever comic force they possess never outlasts the split second it takes to resolve the semantic confusion. Most resemble mathematical formulas: clever, perhaps, but hardly occasion for knee-slapping. The worst smack of tawdriness, even indecency, which is why puns, like off-color jokes, are often followed by apologies.
….
The true punster’s mind cycles through homophones in search of a quip the way small children delight in rhymes or experiment babblingly with language. Accordingly, the least intolerable puns are those that avoid the pun’s essential puerility. Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, was a specialist. He could effortlessly execute the double pun: Noah’s Ark was made of gopher-wood, he would say, but Joan of Arc was maid of Orleans. Some Whately-isms are so complex that they nearly amount to honest jokes: “Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert? Because he can eat the sand which is there. But what brought the sandwiches there? Why, Noah sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred.”Whately shows us that it is the punner himself who gives his art a bad name, by so frequently reaching for the obvious. Nothing vexes so much as a pun on a name, for instance. Yet even these can rise to wit if turned with finesse. Jean Harlow, the platinum-blond star of the 1930s, on being introduced to Lady Margot Asquith, mispronounced her given name to rhyme with “rot.” “My dear, the ‘t’ is silent,” said Asquith, “as in Harlow.” The writer Andrew Lang asked his friend Israel Zangwill if he would take a stand on an issue. Zangwill wrote back: “If you, Lang, will, I. Zangwill.”
Why do puns offend? Charles Lamb, a notorious punster, explained that the pun is “a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.” Surely puns silence conversation before they animate it. Some stricken with pun-lust sink so far into their infirmity that their minds become trained to lie in wait for words on which to work their wickedness. They are the scourge of dinner tables and the despised prolongers of office meetings, some letting fly as instinctively as dogs bark and frogs croak, no longer concerned even with drawing applause; they simply can’t help themselves.
:: via the NYTimes ::
Posted in Word of the Day.
The VooDoo Knickers Guide To Dating: Statistics
– January 25, 2010
Just read a fascinating statistical analysis from the OKCupid blog about the effectiveness of different pictures for online dating. Some weird and unexpected stuff in there. (fyi: OKCupid is a web2.0 dating site that takes user generated content and uses it to match people).
:: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (if you want to get laid) via Danah::
I was on okc for a bit a few years ago when it first came out. It resulted in:
+ a bunch of emails
+ easily the most awkward date I have ever been on (seriously, I left mid-beer)
+ a bunch of emails
+ four or five cool people that ended up becoming friends bc there was no chemistry in person
+ one super hot summer fling
If you’re lovelorn, it will definitely pay off with the right strategies. My current, more successful & less email intensive, strategy is to cultivate interests and meet people via related experiences. I also do it like Gandhi
Posted in My Advice To You.
Quick Thoughts: Smells
– January 24, 2010
It should be illegal to eat french fries on a crowded subway train and not share. Proper etiquette and common decency demands that you offer other commuters any pungent, delicious fried food.
Posted in Uncategorized.
The Vice Guide to Liberia
– January 24, 2010
This is pretty mind blowing. Just start watching the first one. 5-8 will be out later this week.
1
2
3
4
Posted in America, Cops are Still Fucked Up, Incompetence, Mob Mentality, Nubs Down, Pirates, Politricks, Systematic Injustice.
Quick Thoughts: Compelling Narative
– January 24, 2010
I would say that in about 80% of cases where someone says that something was stolen they actually just lost it. I’m pretty sure this is because being a victim is more emotionally gratifying than simply being inattentive.
Posted in Quick Thoughts.
Stay Tuned
– January 22, 2010
Like many people, I’m very angry about today’s supreme court ruling which allows corporations to give an unlimited amount of money to politicians. I’m writing another blog post about it but right now the question is simply: will I express that rage in the form of cunning italics or merely sink to sarcasm? To be honest, I’m kind of having trouble deciding. YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE
Posted in Uncategorized.
Policy
– January 21, 2010
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal.” Rebecca Solnit
Posted in Eye Candy, Incompetence, Politricks.
On an Increasingly Missnamed URL
– January 21, 2010
Washing his sins away, a Hindu holy man takes a dip at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, on the auspicious day of Basant Pachami.
Photo: Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP
:: via the SFGate via email, {thanks Masala}
Posted in Personalized Rambling.
Regarding Teleporters
– January 21, 2010
I haven’t been blogging as much because I’ve been traveling and working on a small consulting job on the east coast. One of my favorite things about getting older is that I have friendships that have blossomed over the course of several years. I was just remarking that I wish I had a teleporter to come and visit friends in NYC, Boston, LA and Europe more frequently. Then I realized that “teleporters” are called “airplanes.” and that I can “teleport” almost anywhere for “money.” Life rules.
Posted in Uncategorized.
Regarding This “Book of Faces”
– January 19, 2010
Dear Parents,
As a matter of course, I will not accept friend requests from your newborn baby.
Best,
//Dustin
Posted in Tricknology, Useful Tips.
All Anyone Really Ever Needs to Know About Rush Limbaugh
– January 19, 2010
“We’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax,’” Limbaugh said earlier this week. Considering the enormity of the Haitian tragedy, which is unfolding in real-time across our television sets and computer screens, that was pure Ebenezer Scrooge. Limbaugh’s suggestion invited reproach from many. Even Republicans like Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan expressed dismay. But making this into a referendum on whether Limbaugh has a heart of lead leads nowhere. He was doing what he gets paid to do as a radio provocateur. Besides, he relishes the attention.
In effect, he’s not a serious political commentator and should be ignored.
:: Full Article which is actually about something else mostly ::
The article is also about how absurd it is that we give massive aid to Israel and Egypt and almost nothing compared to Haiti. Here I shall attempt to make an extremely nuanced point: Israel no longer needs US aid. It’s a fully established, first world nation with a full capacity to defend itself. This point stands not as a criticism of Israeli policy but of economic fact.
Posted in Politricks.
Recent Comments
Dood. http://www.marginalrevolu tion.com/marginalrevoluti on/2010/01/daniel-gross-m e-and-the-efficient-marke t-hypothesis.html
Two squad cars is S.O.P., no? Plus you have *swords* — those are actual weapons, and have been used in the not so recent past to end the...
Those midgets were wily, out of control creatures! Its a good thing that I spoke enough French to diffuse the situation, or you may have been...
http://www.boston.com/big picture/2010/01/fiery_eur opean_festivals.html
i have a friend who has the WEIRDEST eating habits…he’ll only eat Cheerios for a month, and then only Rice Krispies the following...
Thanks for sharing this information. Where can I find the report on this?
In this upcoming blog, could you explain their reasoning for this decision? This is a sincere question – I really don’t understand....
nasty, invasive fuckers, those acacias!! http://www.cal-ipc.org/la ndscaping/dpp/plantpage.p hp?region=socal&type= Shrubs
Trust me Dustin. The distinction between “ball bearings” and “ball barings” is one that’s worth keeping.
I fully disagree with your statement that capitalism cannot afford to be so sentimental. At my work in retail, we SHAMELESSLY played religious...
all is quiet on the western front.
oh, this goes well with that last comment. do you think it’s a form of advertising to intentionally implant “EVERYTHING IS...
one thing that usually works for me is renaming the “americanized” ; version into something new like (”oogeldy boo” or...
The Fun Theory parent website has more examples.
Oh, and I know a pretty solid place for amazing dumplings/pot stickers in oakland Chinatown, all their noodles and starches are homemade there.