burden of goof
If one is to enjoy the privilege of making fun of something, one must also bear the responsibility of having empathy for the thing that is being made fun of.
April 01, 2012
August 05, 2011
senior superlatives
Something about the way the internet amplifies a signal even as it degrades it has a way of driving people to express even their most casual preferences and interests in the fervent, breathless argot of fetishism.
October 10, 2008
brother, you can spare a million lives
Perhaps ironically, or perversely, the global economy's present manic panic is precisely the sort of instability I assumed would set the tone for this emerging century back in 2000. It's disorder and uncertainty, yes, but it's also numbers and politics. It's business as usual, albeit less usual.
A day in September of the following year seemed to set us on a different, regressive course—an itinerary hatched by anarchists bent on reducing everyone and everything to sticks and stones, underscored by the drumbeat of subsequent wars.
I'd rather see customers run on banks than children running from tanks. I'd rather see golden-parachuted CEOs receive their walking papers than ill-equipped ill-prepared soldiers receive their marching orders. Financial losses don't hold a candle in a hurricane to the ineluctable loss of human lives.
Paper beats rock any day, in any age.
A day in September of the following year seemed to set us on a different, regressive course—an itinerary hatched by anarchists bent on reducing everyone and everything to sticks and stones, underscored by the drumbeat of subsequent wars.
I'd rather see customers run on banks than children running from tanks. I'd rather see golden-parachuted CEOs receive their walking papers than ill-equipped ill-prepared soldiers receive their marching orders. Financial losses don't hold a candle in a hurricane to the ineluctable loss of human lives.
Paper beats rock any day, in any age.
August 09, 2008
brave new world
These shots of the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony are (s)lavish and amazing.
August 04, 2008
a face only a mother could have
"When I joke that Botox has created a market for a children's book that ought to be titled Why Does Mommy Look Weird?, she laughs. 'Babies learn facial expressions from their mothers, and if all these women are Botoxed, I wonder if we're going to see a generation of very flat-affect toddlers. You really do need to have expression.'"
May 13, 2008
somewhere, william gibson's ears are burning
"Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment."
Man, I'd certainly like to think so. In any case, "neural Buddhism" has a nice ring to it.
Man, I'd certainly like to think so. In any case, "neural Buddhism" has a nice ring to it.
April 22, 2008
the geek shall inherit the earth
It's an interesting suggestion. I don't know that much about actual autism, aside from mild kidding over the years concerning various friends or myself being "autistic" about certain things, or the occasional Aspergerian aroma wafting off the behavior of an acquaintance, but I could certainly foresee a corporate/industrial environment where such spectrum conditions, wherein some skills are lacking but others are markedly enhanced, find specialized applications. It could be argued that those opportunities and applications already exist, albeit not explicitly so labeled—for now.
April 20, 2008
ain't that the truth and a kick in the head
"When a social norm collides with a market norm, the social norm goes away for a long time. In other words, social relationships are not easy to reestablish. Once the bloom is off the rose—once a social norm is trumped by a market norm—it will rarely return."