For the past few years I've used the "Grimacing Rumsfailed" icon (as seen here) for posts about the politics of fail. And in the last eight years I've gotten a lot of use out of this icon - American politicians and citizens have said and done a lot to make me grimace. But I am a patriotic guy, believe it or not. I like America. I say "my ( Read more... )

I've been using LiveJournal syndication to read RSS feeds. It's worked more or less well, but billzunderman asked me to try Google Reader instead. It's actually pretty nice. Unlike LJ, Reader keeps track of what I've read and what I haven't read which means I know when I'm caught up. It lets me group my feeds by topic so that I can read all the new comics ( Read more... )

One of the things that bothers me about popular culture is that it's an echo chamber. If you want to hear about why liberals are bad you listen to most of AM talk radio and read FreeRepublic and Drudge. If you want to hear about why conservatives are bad you listen to Air America and read indymedia and democraticunderground. If you're freaked ( Read more... )

So I'm sitting on my front step talking to my plumber and killing time while we're waiting for the city plumbing inspector to arrive. He's got an iPhone and so I give him the WPA key to our house wireless. He says "thanks, this will make LiveJournal much faster". Only in San Francisco ( Read more... )

I've got a friend who is a successful internet businessman, widely-read blogger, and perhaps a bit of an internet celebrity who I respect greatly. He totally does not get this LiveJournal thing. Why use give LiveJournal your content when you could keep it in your own WordPress blog? Why be content with LiveJournal's theming when other blogging ( Read more... )

Every so often I'll write a big fact and link filled essay that seems to come out of nowhere and probably makes me look like I think I know everything. Nothing could be further from the truth ( Read more... )

I've noticed a new kind of post that I've been writing. LJ is becoming a place for me to file my notes. If I read or see something interesting I'll make note of it here. Partly it's for matrushkaka's benefit: she can't listen to podcasts and there's a lot of good stuff that I want to share with her. Partly it's for general consumption: these ideas are ( Read more... )

A while ago I read a psychology paper* about why cults are appealing and addictive. (I wish I could find the link again. My google-fu is weak today.) The paper explained that people have an intense need to be social. As Joe Rogan explains "For punishment in prison you get taken away from rapists and child molesters. If being social wasn't such ( Read more... )

Here's something that has never made any sense to me in an argument: complete strangers informing me of facts only knowable by me ( Read more... )

I've been a fan of insomnia, AKA Mark Kraft, for a long time. Sometimes I think he's a little too strident or picks the wrong battles, but the information he brings to the LJ community vastly outweighs the criticisms that I could make of him.

insomnia recently made a post about scienceofsleep, a community created in exchange for payment by that movie's production company. insomnia ( Read more... )