Archive for 2010
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Positive Panhandling – Is Information As Valuable As Cash?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on August 29, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, August 29th, 2010Most of us can’t afford to simply give away cash all day, but would still like to help people out. I think I may have a clever idea to change these interactions, and would love some feedback.
 This kind of shtick is getting tiresome |
Before I get to the precious links that I know you really come here for, I’m going to preface things with an interesting experience that I had recently. Early in the morning the other day, I walked out of my house to head to what I knew was going to be a long meeting. I lit a cigarette, and as I rounded the corner was confronted by a woman who asked if I had another. I said “sorry” and kept walking. I live in a town that even in bad economic times has service jobs going wanting, which makes it easy for me to pompously justify to myself my reluctance to give things away to the 5-15 people that ask me for something each day. As I walked on, she muttered something incomprehensible, which I assumed was some Gypsy curse to punish me for being such a selfish bastard. About a half block further along, I remembered how my recently deceased mom ALWAYS gave things to strangers, and thought “Great. That lady was probably Jesus in disguise or something, and now I’m going to hell”. I resolved to try to be just a little bit nicer. Just for that day. So a few hours later, I walked out of the meeting, and headed to a nearby alley to indulge in my shameful nicotine addiction. Guess who was sitting at the entrance to the alley. I was on the phone as I passed her and she asked for a dollar. I ignored her because, well, I was ON THE PHONE dammit, so DON’T BE SO RUDE. When I headed back I wasn’t on the phone, and because she had been SO RUDE while I was on the phone, I ignored her as she asked for “just a few” dollars. I walked about 20 feet further and thought to myself “Damn. I planned to try to be just a little nicer, just for one day.” I walked back and asked her exactly what she needed, and she said “oh please mister, just five dollars would really help out.” I explained that I wasn’t likely to just give her five dollars, but would gladly go with her to the nearby store and buy her a bunch of food or other basics she might need, or even take her to a cafe or something for a bite to eat. To which she replied, almost sobbing, “can’t you please just help out with twenty dollars?” I’m not sure how we got from a cigarette that morning to 20 dollars just now, but I explained that there was no way I was just going to give her a bunch of money. I walked away, actually more angry than anything. I was reminded of this little set of interactions today as I read a fascinating article called Westerners vs. the World: We are the WEIRD ones. It explains how we WEIRD people (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) are in fact quite weird in our perception in many ways. It tells the story of how researchers used something called The Ultimatum Game, in which you are given money and asked to share it with someone else. You can offer that person any amount, and if he accepts the offer, you each get to keep your share. If he rejects your offer, you both walk away empty-handed. The results in various parts of the world were quite telling. Along the same lines, a Toronto Star reporter tried a little experiment recently to see how panhandlers would use free credit cards. The actual results were interesting, but not all that surprising. And frankly raises a small question of the ethics of “charity experiments” to create news content, when this sort of thing occurs naturally and probably gets about as much readership. This kind of experimenting is something that can be taken to incredible extremes, as in the case of doing A-B testing to see if a homeless guy can generate more revenue by refining his sign design. I’m not sure if that’s even a true story, but all of these stories reminded me that I’ve been struggling for a long time with how to deal with the people in my everyday life who ask for money on the streets and how I might do something positive that doesn’t involve simply giving away money. To that end, I already have a project in the works to teach computer skills to the disadvantaged, as I think computer illiteracy is a common obstacle to job-hunting confidence, even for homeless people. But I long for a simpler, practical solution to helping those that are struggling, and I think I’ve hit on a clever idea that may have some sense in it. I’d love input on the idea; I’m not sure if in reality it would be pointless or seem condescending. I explain it a little below. Read the rest of this entry »
I Spy Something Red White & Blue
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 28, 2010 by admin in Technology
Saturday, August 28th, 2010Why spying on your fellow Americans is your duty as a patriot, and how to do it.
For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to me until the other day that because the Bush administration made spying on citizens part of the American Way (an idea that in spite of all his talk of change, Obama wholeheartedly supports ), we’re actually obligated to spy on each other to show our patriotism. As always, if you want to know how to spy, there’s a retarded eHow article on the topic. I hope the author of “How to Use a Webcam to Spy on People” causes the content farm Demand Media to get their pants sued off; before you write a piece like that, you might want to ponder the legality of what you’re suggesting. That issue doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone though (including us); there are hundreds of articles like this. Although we’d hasten to point out that the content farm hack that wrote How to spy on people for Hubpages.com also authored Tips on how to get a girl to go out with you and How to invest in the nigerian stock market. So frankly, you might just improvise. There are plenty of tools available, so the only limits on what you can do these days would be a result of your own lack of moral decrepitude or ingenuity. In light of the legal decision handed down the other day that allows government agents to sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car, and keep track of everywhere you go, why not just do it yourself with an Always Find Mini Realtime Covert Vehicle Tracker
A Listful of Dollars, Infostractions For Graphtards, & More YouTubidity
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 28, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Saturday, August 28th, 2010Our final collection of pointless infographics, lists of stupid lists, and the videos that eat up any time you have left over after Facebook.
 Completely irrelevant photo of Heather Locklear |
I’m always searching for ways to bring you interesting content without actually doing any work. For a long time, I achieved this with our Monday Demotivators, but with the incredible growth in the unemployment sector, no one’s at work on Monday these days to avoid it, so we dropped that weekly feature back in December 2009. More recently, I thought I’d sneak by with a weekly “linkdump” (like this one and this one), but quickly realized that this would be almost as much work as actually writing something, so I hope you enjoy this final collection of useless infographics, pointless lists, and YouTubidity. The infographics and videos are first, because the stupid list of 66 stupid lists would take you almost as long to peruse as the hours of suffering all the involved parties endured in the hope that someone would actually take the time to look it over. Oh. But before we move on, my pick for link of the week is the story of how Coach scrubbed their brand clean of all the filthy Snooki. Read the rest of this entry »
Is The Printed Book Dead?
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on August 27, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Friday, August 27th, 2010The “is it dead” question gets pretty tedious, until it becomes a reality, as with newspapers. Is the death of the book imminent? If you answer that question with a resounding “no”, I’d bet a nickel you’re over forty.
  Not surprisingly, this title is only available for the Kindle |
Is it dead yet? Is the Internet dead? Is Facebook dead? If you spend enough time on the web, this kind of question becomes incredibly tedious. See The Tragic Death of Practically Everything if you don’t know what I mean; it’s a tidy roundup of press about the death of everything from iPods to e-mail, including the death of both print and eBooks. Now that would be a tragedy. If that happened, what would we read, especially now that the iPad is killing the magazine (and 18 other things) as well? As a result of all this kind of linkbait content flooding the web, I actually find it refreshing when one of these deaths is more or less confirmed. Especially when it impacts me directly. It wasn’t too long ago that you could debate whether newspapers are dead, but I think the eulogy is being delivered as you read this. And now, at last, I think the real death of the printed book is imminent. Although as recently as September 2009 I was pondering the pros and cons of eBooks vs their dead tree counterparts, a few pieces of information finally tipped the scales for me recently, which was a relief, because I’m nearly finished with a book myself, and was struggling a bit with how to market it. The fact that there’s an iPad vs Kindle debate going on at all is a powerful statement that those who understand books and making money are committed to the future of the eBook. But what is probably informing my decision even more is the wealth of information about how much money you DON’T make in traditional publishing. My first glimpse into this was this article from last year in which the author of a top 20 NYT bestseller shares that she netted about 27 grand for her troubles. And most recently, influencer and media guru Seth Godin
Palin-Quayle 2012: Everybody’s GOP Dream Ticket
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 25, 2010 by admin in Politics
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010There’s no refudiating that folks on both sides of the aisle feel a Palin-Quayle GOP ticket in 2012 would be a dream come true. Buy a bumper sticker and help us dream up more slogans.
 Get the insanely overpriced bumper sticker while supplies last |
One thing we can all probably agree on is that Washington could use some fresh blood. That’s why we’re so excited about the new GOP superstar Ben Quayle’s recent win in the Arizona congressional primaries. We think the brilliant 33 year old was spot-on with his observation that aging Washington insider Barack Obama is the worst president in history, a fact that so-called “scholars” absurdly try to refudiate. We think Ben’s platform based on “that guy’s the WORST” and “I’m gonna knock the hell out of Washington” is exactly what America needs, and that his recent victory points in only one direction: The White House. In spite of our confidence that when he’s old enough, he’ll be prepared to be the leader of the free world, the sad fact is that in 2012, he won’t be. Old enough, that is. Which is why the obvious choice to head the ticket is the seasoned political hand of Sarah Palin. We think citizens and legislators on both sides of the aisle agree that this is an absolute dream ticket for the GOP in 2012. Frankly, the only problem with the GOP ticket in 2008 was that John was too old, and everyone’s fantasy was for Sarah to be on top. To show our support for the 2012 GOP dream we can all believe in, we’ll be rolling out a line of promotional items, but for now all we have is a bumper sticker . Which at the insane price of six bucks even WE can’t afford. But grab these limited edition Cafe Press items while you can, because we’ll be looking for a service that gives us a wholesale price that isn’t 300% of normal retail, and then these items will be collectibles. Feel free to share any clever slogans of your own; we won’t share the profits of course, but you’ll have the personal satisfaction of helping bring this country the leadership it desperately needs. Read the rest of this entry »