February 2013
1 post
Have left this tumblr sadly neglected for way too long. Going to start posting again soon. Craving the immediacy of tumblr versus my actual blog.
July 2012
1 post
“Thirty years on, the future will still be boring. I see an endless...”
– JG Ballard, 2002, by way of Warren Ellis
May 2012
1 post
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That Alameda County APC/"tank" they rolled to meet... →
April 2012
4 posts
“The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our...”
– William James via @philo_quotes (via lonesomeliz)
“Therefore, the purpose of this written thesis is to interrogate, reveal, and...”
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“a pattern of local, opportunistic manipulation of a non-disposable complex...”
– Venkatesh Rao
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“You — the outside world — will be told that it’s our...”
– Mona Eltahawy
March 2012
3 posts
Stoned With Semen: Christianity's War on Women
It’s Uncle Ian storytime.
The writer Warren Ellis relayed a story about Hypatia of Alexandria. She was a philosopher, an intellectual powerhouse. She also refused suitors with reckless vehemence. Upon one man professing his love for her, Hypatia waved her bloody menstrual rag in his face and shouted “This! This is what you love, young man.”
Hypatia was dragged through the...
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Foreclosure Mathematics
According to the Wall Street Journal, last year Fannie Mae lost 35 cents on every dollar of debt that went through foreclosure. As of a few weeks ago the average underwater mortgage (mortgage where the borrower owes more than the home is worth) on homes worth less than $250K* was underwater by about $70K. If Fannie Mae had helped homeowners by cutting the balance owed by that average underwater...
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February 2012
4 posts
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Geoengineering and Dissent
Thinking today about the prospect of governments and corporations quickly latching onto geoengineering as a way to muffle dissent. Technology’s not quite there yet, but pretty close. I vaguely remember something about China pregaming the Beijing Olympics by seeding clouds ahead of time to try and prevent rain during the actual event. Think about the PRC doing that in the event of a mass...
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Deterrence and Moral Persuasion Effects on...
Previous studies on tax compliance have focused primarily on the tax-reporting behavior of individuals. This study reports results from a randomized field test of the effects of deterrence and moral persuasion on the tax-reporting behavior of 4,395 corporations in Israel. Two experimental groups received tax letters, one conveying a deterrent message and the other a moral persuasion message. Three...
January 2012
13 posts
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Kaishakunin
A kaishakunin (Japanese: 介錯人) is an appointed second whose duty is to behead one who has committed seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide, at the moment of agony.
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“Corrupt the children. Teach them that It Gets Better, because they will make it...”
– http://blog.bl00cyb.org/2012/01/fighting/
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UC Berkeley Sociologists Debate Occupy →
Love the idea that Occupy is about the precariat rather than proletariat.
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“Speculating last week about possible causes of the latest failure, the director...”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/science/space/russias-phobos-grunt-mars-probe-crashes-into-pacific.html
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How To Carry A Concealed Weapon Whilst Wearing A... →
In case you needed to know.
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The Girl Who Played With Fire
Just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson, the second book in the Millennium Trilogy. It”s an excellent follow-up to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, though it’s easy for me to say that the first book was better. TGWPWF will make the better movie. More action and less setup.
Hard to fully review it without dropping a few interesting spoilers but the basic rundown...
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Probable Cause
In many states, possession of a shopping cart off the grounds of the store is probable cause for a felony arrest. Shoplifters can be arrested before leaving a store simply for concealing an item, implying an intent to deprive the store of it. Over a billion dollars in customer funds still missing and MF Global head John Corzine hasn’t seen a single pair of handcuffs yet.
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“NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the...”
– Ron Paul being Ron Paul. Stop pretending this man is at all sane.
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December 2011
5 posts
Bored. Ask me whatever. →
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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Finished the book last Wednesday for the first time. Saw the movie at the theater on Sunday, because I am one of those strange people that sees movies on Christmas. Friend clung to me as her Get-Out-Of-Family-Jail Card, which I was happy to serve as.
It’s nice to be useful sometimes.
Saw the movie a second time with my father, who’s nearing seventy.
Going to avoid any spoilers...
4 tags
OpenCourseWare: Biomaterials - Tissue Interaction →
“This course is an introduction to principles of materials science and cell biology underlying the design of medical implants, artificial organs, and matrices for tissue engineering.”
May 2011
14 posts
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Fuck NatGeo
Just wasted two hours of my life watching their spec what-if show “When Aliens Attack.” Missed a few minutes but fairly sure I saw at least 90% of it. At best it could be described as a bunch of uncreatives conceptualizing a mashup of Independence Day and the newer War of the Worlds movie. And on that basis it could be ignored, if not forgiven. But the program evolves into some macho...
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Three Tips For Dreaming
1. Get a notebook/journal entirely devoted to recording your dreams. Leave it and a pen by your bedside. When you wake up from a dream, write it down. Write everything you can. Do it *at that moment* and don’t wait until morning. Once you’re more practiced you’ll find that you can write down basic elements of the dream and flesh it out in the morning. Doing this helps convince...
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Dynamics and Control of Humanoid Robots: a... →
Cool phrase of the night: "spectral... →
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Fingerprint scanner works from six feet away.... →
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“As Barofsky writes: “Foreclosures continue to mount, with 8 million to 13...”
– Noam Chomsky
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Physics paper on, I shit you not, the foaming... →
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“Exxon-Mobil’s first quarter earnings of $10.7 billion are up 69 percent from...”
– Robert Reich
“The content is not the message, the contact is. The ping itself. It’s the...”
– Douglas Rushkoff
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September 2010
1 post
