Archive for 2009
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[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 2, 2009 by admin in Politics
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Why don’t you simpering intellectual liberals get more upset about things like Barack the Barbarian comics? Oh. You’re not dumb enough.
Why aren’t the snobbish, intellectual liberals of America more outraged by the racist overtones of things like the Barack the Barbarian
November Holidays: I’ll Quit Smoking If You Quit Eating Like A Pig
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 1, 2009 by admin in Holidays
Sunday, November 1st, 2009The pope tries to get the heathens back to church after a wild night of partying, more celebrations of death and war, and some health reminders as Thanksgiving approaches.
For all you faithless heathens out there, don’t forget that Halloween was just the evening before All Saints Day. Or so some Pope would like you to believe; it is widely agreed that the church chose the date to coincide with the Celtic festival of Samhain, so that they could point at all the celebrations going on and say “Look, they’re celebrating our holiday!“, or at least get all those rascally pagans back in a church ASAP. Like the rest of the year, a lot of November’s holidays are devoted to somebody killing somebody or at least trying to do so. On the 5th we have Guy Fawkes Night, which celebrates the guy that failed to kill the English aristocracy in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Yet another example of the little guy taking the fall for the intentions of the rich and powerful. Much like Veteran’s Day, which honors all the brave citizens who have done the dirty work when the politicians and generals decided it was time to start killing again. November’s also a big health awareness month. First of all, although the desire to make a joke that their seizures should be a dead giveaway is overwhelming, in the interest of taste I won’t go there. But November is also Epilepsy Awareness Month and the Epilepsy Foundation is running a slightly humorous campaign to do away with some common myths. The Alzheimer’s Foundation also has their rather ironically named Memory Walk campaign. Just make sure granny has her GPS unit if she joins you. Closer to my heart (and lungs) this year is the fact that it’s Lung Cancer Awareness Month, culminating in the Great American Smokeout a week before Thanksgiving. In spite of the fact that last year I was explaining Why Cigarettes Are Yummy, this year, I’m trying to quit. Later in the month, we of course have Thanksgiving, which between Native American slaughter, auto accidents, and gluttony (obesity is second only to smoking as a killer) has probably killed more people than cigarettes. So I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll quit smoking if you quit eating Bacon Turgooduccochiqua. If you happen to be a smoker who’s thinking about quitting, check out the Quit Smoking Counter, which tells me that if I had quit smoking at the beginning of 2009, I’d have $2016.00 more in my pocket, and six more weeks at the end of my life. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s So Great About Google Music Search?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 31, 2009 by admin in Music
Saturday, October 31st, 2009Nothing.
 Don’t look for Amazon or iTunes links in your results with Google’s new music search |
Nothing. Well, there are good things about it, but nothing great. Frankly, Google’s really starting to get on my nerves. They have a little bit too much of that Lord of the Rings “One Ring to rule them all” thing going on. Yes, it’s kind of cool that if you search for a band or a song, you now suddenly have the ability to play it right there in your search results. The other touted features – like the ability to search lyrics and get the same results for instance – are so inconsistent that I’m surprised the best and brightest at Google decided to include them. And the omission of iTunes and Amazon from those clickable previews is a mixed bag; yes it’s great to see less monolithic companies being promoted, but the fact is that this is probably just Google’s way of launching their own monopoly. It will be interesting to see how that plays out; so far their key partners include Lala, Rhapsody, Pandora, Imeem, and MySpace. I personally buy all my digital music at either Amazon*
Did Facebook Pay Miley Cyrus To Quit Twitter? Do We Care?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 30, 2009 by admin in Technology
Friday, October 30th, 2009As Web 2.0 becomes so old it starts actually smelling bad, Social Networking starts a slow and ugly death. Don’t worry. The Real Time Web will save us all.
In spite of the fact that hillbilly superstar Miley Cyrus (c’mon, her dad’s name is Billy Ray, and he’s from Flatwoods, KY, population 7605) thinks that everyone should leave Twitter and it should be banned from this universe, it’s not likely that social networking or the real time web is going away any time soon. As it turns out, Web 2.0 (whatever it really was) was clearly a failure. Otherwise, we’d be talking about “Web 3.0″ or “Web 2.1″, right? And in spite of the fact that “blog” was Merriam Webster’s 2004 word of the year, the average person still barely understands what they are and how much they’ve really impacted the web in general, and search results in particular. So as a buzzword-hungry world of business & finance struggles to settle on its latest vaporware startup terminology, we’re left with the tragic results. Soon there will only be two relevant search engines, largely driven by social web results. And to aid the SEO-spammed utter banality of it all, camera manufacturers are marketing cameras either for obssessively taking your own picture or constantly photographing your life as it occurs. Please. I don’t know about you, but my life is generally boring enough in person that sharing it with others could serve no rational purpose. We originally wrote about the real time web and social networking in August 2008, we had just hoped it might go away by now. Maybe little Miley is right. Maybe the Internet is a “dangerous place“. Let us heed her ironic megastar attention whore warning: “honestly, people…you’re unhealthy…you need to get out and do stuff and be in the world instead of all hunched over your laptop…all I did was lay in bed on my computer and sit there and eat ice cream late at night.” Personally, I think her claim that she quit Twitter to “protect her privacy” is complete twaddle and she’s probably being paid by Facebook. Besides, Twittew pwobabwee has a Pwivacy Powicy at weest as sowid as Googoos.
What Are You, Crazy Or Something?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 29, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Maybe. But if you’re smart enough to figure it out, you may be suffering from Imposter Syndrome and never take credit for it. Just be glad you’re not descended from the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, or that you don’t have Exploding Head Syndrome.
  Feeling crazy? Bet you didn’t know you can buy straitjackets on Amazon! |
If you occasionally find yourself feeling a little crazy and stressed out, maybe it’s time to put things into perspective a bit. When confronted with a bunch of difficult decisions, you may sometimes feel like your head is going to explode. Well, just be thankful at those times that you don’t actually have Exploding Head Syndrome; I’m sure it doesn’t make matters easier. For the record, if you do think you have things figured out, you probably don’t. It’s more likely you’re suffering from the Dunning Kruger Effect, which makes unskilled people feel an illusory superiority, rating their own abilities higher than they should, while the more highly skilled underrate their abilities. Which is similar to the Downing Effect, wherein people with a lower than average IQ tend to overestimate their intelligence, while people with above average intelligence underestimate their intelligence. Thus the variations of the adage “if you think you know everything, you probably don’t“. To add to your skewed perception, the fact that you’re now aware of these effects may put you in the group that suffers from the “Birder-Grace Effect”. This group consists of those relative few who have heard about the Downing Effect. Their perceptions of their own and others’ IQs are skewed because of their knowledge of the effect. These subtler levels of inaccurate self-assesment are pervasive. You may for instance be a bright, motivated person who is unable to internalize their accomplishments. If so, you may suffer from Impostor Syndrome. Which should not be confused with the Capgras Delusion, which is the delusional belief that someone close to you has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. Which is only slightly less creepy than the Fregoli Delusion, which causes you to believe that different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance. Frankly, writing about all this second-guessing as if I know what I’m talking about makes me wonder if maybe I’m some kind of crank; and perhaps the most embarrassing kind, the Internet Crank. At least, given my anglo-teutonic roots, I can rest assured that I’m not descended from the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine.