August 2008
95 posts
Obvious, I know. Still...
Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month — three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban — compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May. (Post)
July 2008
112 posts
DEL.ICIO.US REDESIGN GOES LIVE FINALLY →
“To some extent the appearance of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears — people...”
– Lieberman
WSJ: Is John McCain Stupid? →
If Sen. Obama’s “inexperience” is Mr. McCain’s ace in the hole, why not trump that by asking, “Does Sen. McCain know his own mind?”
(((“World Trade Organization” soon to be replaced by the new “Haplessly Shovel All World Money Into the Hands of Authoritarian Petrocrats Organization.” Try protesting against *that*, street-fighting fans.)))
GENEVA: World trade talks collapsed here on Tuesday after seven years of on-again, off-again negotiations, (((amazing that the thing somehow almost survived the...
“The name of the new record is Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.”
– David Byrne
I like that title, because it’s true.
keyholez:
The forest takes back the heartland. The coasts prevail. Then the floods come. But by then, we’re already on Mars.
But what does this imply for the outquisition? Not to mention “the built environment.”
Judgement Day?
Rise of the machines? Hence forth, SkyNet is a collective mind. Unclear what this will look like, but it will have been better.
Tim Kaine has stated he has a “faith-based opposition to abortion”. He also supports promoting abstinence and opposes partial-birth abortion. Tim Kaine is a member of Democrats For Life of America. (Wikipedia)
So why does everyone think he’s going to be VP?
(538)
I haven’t examined this in detail—maybe there are mitigating factors from his policy record; maybe...
I'm sorry to have to do this, but...
keithgessen:
And I have to say the Atlantic article caused me to experience what I can only define as blogger rage. This guy gets to put together a flimsy tissue of intellectual *associations* in a national magazine while I sit here in the basement, blogging, just because his half-conclusions flatter the prejudices of that magazine’s readers?
But then I ate some cookies and I thought: It’s ok....
It's pretty clear that reading these archives is...
The map of reality contained in a human brain, unlike a paper map of California, can expand dynamically when we write down more detailed descriptions. But what this feels like from inside is not so much zooming in on a map, as fissioning an indivisible atom - taking one thing (it felt like one thing) and splitting it into two or more things. […] So the skill of prying apart the map is...
Regarding the popular film
leoncrawl:
…the whole Two-Face plot upset the symmetry of the movie…
Wait, how come?
Green Imperialism?
The EU is planning a new supergrid initiative that would harness the massive amount of sun pounding down on the Sahara dessert. The $71 billion plan would take a mere couple of decades to complete, but would supply a significant amount (some report ALL) of the EU’s energy needs. UK’s PM Gordon Brown already supports the idea, which is no surprise considering the new green face he is putting...
me:
In summary, nature is stupid and modernity is awesome.
seedz:
I’m not sure I get why everyone’s so big into this nature vs. modernity thing. I’m even less sure I understand the impulse to so emphatically embrace modernity over nature.
…I have an empirically unsubstantiated idea that the world (nature, even) would be better if humans lived in hyperdense clusters that provided us...
Not that privacy is a thing, but...
It was hard to not get caught up in the enthusiasm for Facebook Connect, the new authentication methodology which will allow you to login to third-party web sites using your Facebook ID and port your friend graph from Facebook with you. On the one hand, you have to admit this is revolutionary. The web will be transformed from the still (somewhat) closed system it is today, to a massively social...
“Now the world will watch and remember what we do here - what we do with this...”
– Obama, Berlin speech. I guess we know where he stands on the blogging question.
A European research project has brought the dream... →
Standardization
Researchers have endowed subjects with seemingly telekinetic powers by extracting the patterns of brain activity that occur when we move parts of our bodies. However those patterns are tapped electronically, algorithms are needed to interpret them and discern their salient features so that the appropriate signals ...
If by deactivate, you mean...make it so people...
Note: Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups. If you opt out, you will NOT receive these email invitations and notifications from your friends. You can reactivate your account at any time by logging in with your email and password.
sam1vp:
The shift from “what are you like” to “what are you doing” has been a long time in the making (remember the newsfeed hubbub?), and is deeply rooted in Facebook’s business plan—both in terms of increasing browsing times and competing with the likes of twitter.
There can only be one, it’s time for a culling. The world doesn’t need multiple micro-messaging services. The...
You have to include a link to the thing you are...
darkwingdach:
I’m with Daniel until the last three paragraphs, but am certain that—in part precisely because of the sort of FDR’s wheelchair bullshit perpetuated by CBS in the editing room—the Obama campaign needs to better drive its opponent’s errors home. The purple, fly-over Americans Hopi has staked a good measure of this election on are too caught up making sacks of actual hay (and holding...
"I just can't trust anyone who spent that much... →
"...would rather lose the war in order to win a...
This is how McCain is now attacking Obama. Joe Klein: “This is the ninth presidential campaign I’ve covered. I can’t remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.”
This is indicative of the fact that Obama and his campaign have...
An aide to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown fell prey to a likely “honeytrap” scheme in January when his BlackBerry phone was stolen after he brought a woman he met at a disco in China back to his hotel room. The aide was accompanying the PM on the trip; he reported the device missing the next morning. Officials suspect the incident was orchestrated by Chinese intelligence. It was not...
To Starbucks, a Closing; To Newark, a Trauma →
I mean, there will be riots
WASHINGTON — Poorly designed ballots continue to plague U.S. elections, even after Congress set aside $3 billion to overhaul voting systems to prevent a recurrence of the flawed Florida ballots that deadlocked the 2000 presidential race, a study out today concludes.
Problems with confusing paper ballots in 2002, absentee ballots in 2004 and touch-screen ballots in 2006 led thousands of voters to...
God damn it
EchoDitto labs’ full text RSS tool seems to have vanished. This sort of majorly unfortunate: it’s what I’ve been using to transform dreaded partial RSS feeds into the genuine article(s). Now I’m going to have to deal with snippets and, worse, actually visitng webstites to read posts. It’s…barbaric.
“To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you must fight the...”
– (Black Belt Bayesian, regarding arguments)
For video games and...thought policing
There’s a lot of talk about sophisticated thought-analysis based on various brain scanning technology, though there is reason for skepticism of the more extreme claims. Controlling a video game with a basic EEG monitor, however, is already possible and pretty innocuous.
On the other hand, monitoring neural responses to determine whether a suspect was present at a crime seems a little...
“I think it’s serious… . It’s a serious situation, but...”
– John McCain (On ABC, via Huffpo)
Looks like this is becoming on of those curator blogs…
Here’s a list of issues that Obama has a page on and McCain doesn’t: Civil Rights, Disabilities, Faith, Family, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Poverty, Service, Seniors and Social Security, Technology, Urban Policy, Women. That’s a pretty striking list. Moreover, he has a page called ‘Additional...
“I need your help,” Mr. Gore said, a plea that bloggers heard repeatedly throughout their conference, which began Thursday and ends Sunday, as speaker after speaker for various causes took note of their increasing influence within society. Mr. Gore promised them that the alliance would not turn partisan or take up some other agenda and that he was in it “for the long haul.” Ms. Pelosi was asked...
The British government is in talks with supermarkets about emergency food reserves “in case the infrastructure of the country breaks down”. The exercise is being spun as a response to possible strikes by fuel tanker drivers, but the more likely explanation is that the precarious state of food systems as a whole has finally registered in mud-free Whitehall. (Doors of Perception)
HA HA HA: White House Accidentally E-Mails to... →
It’s unlikely not be quite true, but it seems like this might be just the sort of amazing failure to understand the political situation that should be expected of the Bush-McCain space at this point. What if some less than brilliant communication operative thought this should be treated like the “Hamas supports Obama” business.
But regardless, pretty funny.