aatombomb

Somewhere between Wilmington and Baltimore. It’s a...

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:07:26 -0500

Somewhere between Wilmington and Baltimore. It’s a depressingly beautiful Stockholm kind of day.

Thank you, baby, for making it so far this year and surviving...

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:30:00 -0500

Thank you, baby, for making it so far this year and surviving the impossible.

"The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell...."

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:28:29 -0500

“The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows, not by clarity and substance but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything,”

- Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain. [via Sullivan, the stubborn Catholic]

From an atheist’s perspective, this is a sublimely ironic statement.

Not quite as filled with holiday cheer, this one. But true,...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:03:00 -0500

Not quite as filled with holiday cheer, this one. But true, nonetheless!

A message of goodwill and cheer for the holidays!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:59:55 -0500

A message of goodwill and cheer for the holidays!

Wall-E World.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:45:25 -0500

Wall-E World.

ohhleary: This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for dumb local news...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:03:04 -0500

ohhleary:

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for dumb local news producers.

I seriously cannot stop laughing at this. No wonder Republicans think they are still relevant - they represent 193% of the country!

"Until about the middle of the last century, most of the turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving would have..."

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:55:42 -0500

“

Until about the middle of the last century, most of the turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving would have been what we now call “heritage breeds,” including the Standard Bronze, Bourbon Red, White Holland, Naragansett, and Jersey Buff varieties. These turkeys are gorgeous, hardy creatures, developed in Europe and America over hundreds of years and rich in flavor. Though they are the ancestors to the Broad-Breasted White, a sort of made-up breed that arose in the 1960s with the advent of industrial turkey farms (the Broad-Breasted Bronze was mostly abandoned because its dark pinfeathers put off consumers), they bear little resemblance to that now ubiquitous bird in taste or texture.

Today more than 99 percent of turkeys sold in America come from the roughly 270 million raised on factory farms each year. These birds are bred to be so literally broad-breasted that by the time they are 8 weeks old, they are too fat to walk, much less procreate—every Broad-Breasted White on the market is the product of artificial insemination. They are kept in giant barns, given antibiotics to prevent disease, and fed constantly so that they reach maturity in almost half the time it takes a heritage turkey. The result is bland, mushy meat that we have come to equate with tenderness, but in reality processors inject the dressed birds with saline solutions and vegetable oils to improve “mouth feel” and keep the oversize breasts from drying out.

”

- Julia Reed’s history of the Thanksgiving turkey is like a fine meal. (via newsweek)

Gobble Gobble!

You will be unable to use your device or make emergency calls for up to 2 hours.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:10:17 -0500

ohhleary:

Because of a firmware update, Blackberry? Seriously? This update damn well better be worth it.

I have no idea what firmware is (bad nerd!), but I couldn’t help but notice that our huge law firm has been very busy fighting malware recently, deploying new computers to desks with a speed and frequency that is unheard of usually. Are the computers finally making their move? Is this the part where we realize that we don’t really have control anymore?

I, for one, welcome our new virtual overlords.

Support for legalizing marijuana grows rapidly around U.S. - WaPo

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:54:31 -0500

Support for legalizing marijuana grows rapidly around U.S. - WaPo:

That’s what I said!

I don't want to be a donor when I die;

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:53:34 -0500

thepoliticalpartygirl:

nerdgasms:

spontaneouslove:

thoseareturkeys:

ninaninaninanina:

foreverunfulfilled:

hurstyyy:

littlejames:

the idea of my body getting cut up after I’m dead. I don’t like the idea. I just want to be buried under a nice grave.

i hate the idea of being cut open, but the thought of possibly saving someones life just seems better to me.

i just don’t want them to take my heart.
i know that sounds selfish. but it’s my heart, i don’t want anyone to have it.

y’see i don’t care what happens to me after i die. i’m dead i’m not going to know am i? and like anna said, the thought of saving someone would be so much better than me going to waste.

My family has said that they will fight every attempt to donate my body when I die. I would just like to donate them while they’re alive.

but if you do, then you give someone like me a second chance.

When I die I hope they take every usable part of me, burn the rest, and toss it in the ocean. I think organ donation is amazing, and if my organs are diseased and un-transplantable I want medical students to be able to study them or do whatever with them.

(Important text bolded for emphasis.)

I’m not going to pretend that having that cute little heart on my driver’s license wasn’t a motivating factor in my decision to be an organ donor, but really. When I’m dead, I won’t need my body, nor will I have the ability to be grossed out by anything. So harvest away!

This kind of corporeal sentimentality is so medieval. Even if you’re a religious sort, there’s no reason to cling to a fetishistic attachment to the physical form. If “you” is your soul, then what reason do you have to worry about this mortal coil when you go to purgatory, or the great big Wal-Mart in the sky, or whatever it is you believe?

And if, like me, you don’t cling to fairy tales about what happens to “you” when you die (here’s a hint, energy always returns to the universe as energy! That’s all we are, folks! Isn’t it amazing?) then it’s obviously a no-brainer to help those, like Spontaneous Love, who need your physical bits a lot more than you do once you’re gone.

In short, people who make the conscious decision to not help those in need after they die because it feels “icky” need to grow up. Be an organ donor!

smartercities: There isn’t any reason why we couldn’t have a...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:37:55 -0500

smartercities:

There isn’t any reason why we couldn’t have a lot more of these around. Let’s do it.

“The structure generates 130 kilowatts of solar power, enough to offset 145,000 lbs of greenhouse gas emissions annually.”

Gizmodo - Dell’s New Solar Parking Lot

This is genius. Where these panels make many buildings look funny, they actually make a parking lot look better.

More, please.

The hospital followed me to the local sushi joint tonight.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:23:00 -0500

An 88 year old man passed out tonight after my visit with Jeff during a family meal after getting some tests here at Sloan Kettering, and now this place is swarming with EMS and police. The amazing thing is that this doesn’t faze me at all. It feels normal. Eating raw fish and watching triage should not feel normal. I can’t wait until this doesn’t feel normal again.

ohrohin: I like bloggers who write something knowing full well that they may be wrong, but the...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:51:51 -0500

ohrohin:

I like bloggers who write something knowing full well that they may be wrong, but the thrill is in that risk of being outlandish and later being proved wrong. I mean all writing regardless of genre should be steeped in some risk. It’s also why I want to like EW.com’s bloggers, but they’re just so sterile.

Blogging used to be dangerous. Gawker used to be dangerous. Hip Hop used to be dangerous! (That memory is dimming with every Black Eyed Peas release.) Tumblr is (for how long?) still a bit dangerous. Asking EW to take risks, at this point, may be a fool’s errand. Even Jarvis seems like an old newmedia fogie at this point.

Writing, however, will always be dangerous. It’s not a risk/no risk situation, but merely a “how much risk?” one. Someone will always find a way to channel that kind of risk.

Word.

Justine Bateman will save the Internet.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:15:08 -0500

Justine Bateman will save the Internet.

Meet the new business model. Same as the old business model.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:06:00 -0500

misterhippity:

You’ll have to forgive me for being somewhat skeptical when I hear about “old, pre-internet business models.” I lived through the dot-com bubble 10 years ago when people talked like that. Then we all found out that those “old business models” never really changed after all. The web was just a new medium for the old models. That’s how I view the current situation.”

I believe this as much now as I did when I posted this comment last Spring.

It’s somewhat ironic, because I work for a company that traffics in business-advising and pushes this “new business model” “paradigm shift” “[something] 2.0” (etc. etc.) stuff .. and profits nicely from it. So I know which side my bread is buttered on.

The trouble is, I believe the butter-free side.

Exactly.

Step 1: Find the advertisers with money.

Step 2: Find an efficient way to channel their message via the medium.

Step 3: You thought this one would be “????” didn’t you? No, this is the one where you make money and save media. Steps 1 and 2 are the ????. It’s that simple/impossible.

I was hiding under your chair because I love you.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:03:32 -0500

I was hiding under your chair because I love you.

How to lose an argument online

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:35:20 -0500

How to lose an argument online:

marseeah:

(via azspot)

I refuse to have arguments on the internet. Which is why the first point in this list made me laugh. How to lose an argument online: 1. Have an argument.

Heh. Truth.

Silver Sterling.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:55:13 -0500

Silver Sterling.

Satan: Getting shit done.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:48:47 -0500

Satan: Getting shit done.