December 2009
Should Managers Be Expected To Program? - Stack... →
The Neuroscience of Screwing Up →
givemesomethingtoread:
The reason we’re so resistant to anomalous information — the real reason researchers automatically assume that every unexpected result is a stupid mistake — is rooted in the way the human brain works. Over the past few decades, psychologists have dismantled the myth of objectivity. The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we...
Salespeople and Programmers « The Baseline... →
Anatomy of a bad search result [cdixon.org] →
Poor Little Nell! Poor Little Paul! [The... →
Classic Willie: reviews a chapter of “Dombey and Son” and convinces me to pick up Dickens again. At what point in Victorian immersion am I issued my bonnet?
Faux Friendship →
If we have 768 “friends,” in what sense do we have any? Facebook isn’t the whole of contemporary friendship, but it sure looks a lot like its future. Yet Facebook—and MySpace, and Twitter, and whatever we’re stampeding for next—are just the latest stages of a long attenuation. They’ve accelerated the fragmentation of consciousness, but they didn’t initiate it....
“If Apple signs up enough networks to launch a viable service—still a very big...”
– The WSJ reporting on a proposal by Apple to offer subscription packages to watch network TV over the internet. Not only would it destabilize the cable and satellite business, but depending on the model, would throw local affiliates a curve ball, too. (via lostremote)
Nialler9’s albums of 2009 →
Nialler9’s been a consistent source for great music this year. Their top-of-2009 list is worth harvesting for new .mp3s you’ll probably like.
WatchMy friend @jaime_d (aka, ascendingcoherence) asked friends to trade best-of-decade mixes. This is my contribution, on which I spent far too much time.
DJ Shadow - This Time (I’m Gonna Try It My Way) [2006]
System Of A Down - Chop Suey [2001]
Snow Patrol - Wow [2003]
Battles - Atlas [2007]
Spank Rock - Rick Rubin [2006]
Talib Kweli - Get By [2002]
The Distillers -...
Tiger Woods, Person of the Year - [Rich's op-ed,... →
If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods....
The Harry Potter economy →
dotsara:
Harry Potter was in the vanguard of a new approach to big-budget film-making. Most modern blockbuster franchises have two things in common: they are based on known properties such as books and comics, and they are steered by respected but little-known directors. …
It is as though the auteur tradition has been fused with the industrial approach to film-making that was common practice...
“The reason that the monstrous crime of pedophilia matters is simple: In an...”
– How Pedophilia Lost Its Cool | First Things
McSweeney's Lists: Jazz Substandards.
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“Take the ‘A’ Train and Then Transfer to the Shuttle and Then Take the ‘4’ Train”
Modellers claim wars are predictable [Nature News] →
[Physicist] Johnson and his colleagues argue that the pattern arises because insurgent wars lack a coherent command network and operate more as a “soup of groups”, in which cells form and disband when they sense danger, then reform in different sizes and composition. The timing of attacks, the authors say, is driven by competition between insurgent groups for media attention.
...
WatchAdamFehr.com: Ski Day #7 Ocassionally an effort at irony spills over into nostalgia. …My brother (orange jacket) and I share a weakness for Rob Base’s sound. Also early Photoshop effects. Solarize!
My current contentedness with this UI: +15%
Fixed some of the eye-bleeding but I have some work to do around the background image at some point. Probably by 2011.
Sumerians Look On In Confusion As Christian God... →
Via @kpriore on Reader.
WatchBBC News - Octopus snatches coconut and runs
Hamstrung by Delays, Fitbit Explains and Tries to... →
My current contentedness with this UI: -5%
Playing with TypeKit last night I nuked some of my styles. Will fix. Apologies for any eye-bleeding.
WatchDecember Mixtape | fatbearfehr | 8tracks
My brother’s recent mixtape, which is pretty damn good. Of course, my favorable opinion is practically guaranteed by the fact we’re related, more than a bit alike and have always shared music.
I’ll have to queue up my own sometime soon: my collection of “Pon De Floor” remixes.
The Ruricolist: Quotation →
Meant to cite a chunk of the 4th paragraph but that conflicts with the very lines I would quote. Nice.
“equicoincident (?)”
– Radiolab: Numbers
McSweeney's: How the Apocalypse Would Happen if... →
Via somebody. Lost the reference.
