Links Dump
drorzel | September 22, 2009
blarg? » Can I Get A Witness
"Look, if you want to save journalism, if you want to be a journalist, you need to actually perform the act of journalism. The kind of writing that we desperately need, that we may be well-informed and responsible citizens, not these bullshit celebrity-noise puff pieces. Leave that crap to transient rags like Gawker; it's their métier, says so right there on the label, and shouldn't be yours. Go find something out, something important, and tell us. It might be complicated, it might need to be explained at length, contextualized and clarified, sure. It might be…
drorzel | September 21, 2009
Thorium-fuelled exports coming from India
"The original design is fuelled by a mix of uranium-233 and plutonium bred from thorium using fast neutron power reactors earlier in a thorium fuel cycle. The LEU variant is suitable for export because it does away with the plutonium, replacing it with uranium enriched to 19.75% uranium-235.
Producing 300 MWe, the unit is less than one third the capacity of a typical large reactor. It is designed to operate for up to 100 years and has a "next generation" level of safety that grants operators three days' grace in the event of a serious incident and…
drorzel | September 20, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009 « Medium Large
Canadian Province and Territory Mottoes: Ontario: So Clean; So Quiet; So Polite, You Just Know That We're a Serial Killer.
(tags: comics silly world Canada)
Is String Theory an Unphysical Pile of Garbage? : Starts With A Bang
Ethan's not what you would call "subtle"...
(tags: physics science astronomy theory particles blogs starts-with-bang)
drorzel | September 19, 2009
Views: In Loco Parentis, Post-Juicy Campus - Inside Higher Ed
"With the digital age in full swing, colleges must reconceptualize what it means to act in loco parentis, and how, to the extent they can do anything, they can best serve their students. The answer is not to read into OCR investigations a new era of control and responsibility. Disaggregated problems require disaggregated solutions. Colleges cannot wrap their students in bubble wrap whenever they venture outside of their comfortable residence halls, and even bubble wrap does not protect against digital slander. Rather than…
drorzel | September 18, 2009
slacktivist: Our trespasses
"But then there's this other phrase which, when we listen to ourselves saying it, is the scariest part of any given Sunday. "Forgive us our trespasses," we pray, "as we forgive those who trespass against us."**
That's disturbingly conditional. It's almost contractual. The conditions laid out there are crystal clear and explicit, but we tend to recoil from them. We pray this one prayer more than any other, but every other prayer omits this quid pro quo. "Forgive us according to thy infinite mercy," we pray, or "according to your boundless grace," or "for Jesus'…
drorzel | September 17, 2009
KFC's Double Down Sandwich | Update | A.V. Club
"God clearly did not mean for humans to eat chicken, bacon, and low-quality, gelatinous cheese at the same time. I was suddenly struck with a strange urge to keep kosher. Each bite became a grueling endurance test, as the cheese and grease began to override the chicken breasts, and the sandwich grew more revolting-looking with each bite."
(tags: food avclub silly)
Dresden Codak » Archive » 42 Essential 3rd Act Twists
"Schedenfreude proves unruly."
(tags: comics writing literature theater fantasy mystery sf silly)
AAUP: Creating LGBTQ-…
drorzel | September 16, 2009
Infinite Summer » Blog Archive » Sincerely Yours, David Foster Wallace
"[F]rom where I now stand-9/10ths of the way through and surveying the path I have trod thus far-it now seems obvious to me what the book is "about". Infinite Jest is a novel about sincerity.107
The question now becomes: why does it take so long to realize this? Surely this does not reflect well on Wallace, that he so thoroughly buried the lede that someone could abandon the tome 800 pages in and still not know the point. In fact, it seems as though those with only a superficial knowledge of the book-having read only…
drorzel | September 15, 2009
Fafblog! the whole world's only source for Fafblog.
""Giblets is detached," says Giblets. "Where is the warmth of the heart of the fiery fires of the human experience? Giblets demands more feeling!"
"And though their love was deep and fierce and right and true it was doomed from the start," says me, "for she was only a lowly scullery maid, and he had been trampled to death by elephants.""
(tags: fafblog silly stories blogs)
Pricing the Priceless Class « Easily Distracted
"I think every academic I know agrees that in the last instance, how much it costs to teach in a particular way or to…
drorzel | September 14, 2009
They Should Have Called It "Darwin: The Revengination" « Whatever
"Maybe if Charles Darwin were played by Will Smith, was a gun-toting robot sent back from the future to learn how to love, and to kill the crap out of the alien baby eaters cleverly disguised as Galapagos tortoises, and then some way were contrived for Jennifer Connelly to expose her breasts to RoboDarwin two-thirds of the way through the film, and there were explosions and lasers and stunt men flying 150 feet into the air, then we might be talking wide-release from a modern major studio. Otherwise, you know, not so much.…
drorzel | September 13, 2009
A Smoove Evening | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
"The plan to seduce Michelle Obama in both body and soul has also not moved forward during the last few months. She and her people have stopped returning Smoove's phone calls, and his letters, and the elaborately arranged fruit sculptures he has assembled from the earth's most exotic produce.
Also, I think I am on some kind of FBI watch list now. "
(tags: onion silly sex)
YouTube - I Am a Paleontologist - They Might Be Giants with Danny Weinkauf
Because dinosaurs are awesome.
(tags: dinosaurs music video youtube kid-stuff)…
drorzel | September 12, 2009
Sorority Row | Film | A.V. Club
"Late in the dire college slasher flick Sorority Row, the killer takes some time away from impaling hateful victims to explain why the world will be a better place without all the awful people who didn't survive the movie. And you know what? The psychopath has a point. Nobody in Sorority Row has a shred of decency--it's like the school from The Rules Of Attraction with a lobotomy and a botched boob job--so the maniac in the black robe can't help but emerge as the sole sympathetic character by bumping off soulless sorority sisters one by one, mercifully…
drorzel | September 11, 2009
slacktivist: Vampires & crosses
"Most vampires don't believe in the cross, but that hardly matters. It's the idea of the thing that gives them fits. The cross confronts vampires with their opposite -- with the rejection of power and its single-minded pursuit. It suggests that no one is to be treated as prey -- not even an enemy. The idea of the cross, in other words, suggests that vampires have it wrong, that they have it backwards, in fact, and that those others they regard as prey are actually, somehow, winning.
This notion is incomprehensible for vampires. The one thing they're…
drorzel | September 10, 2009
NASA Unveils Images From Repaired Hubble Telescope - NYTimes.com
"Dr. Weiler noted that the telescope was now in the best shape of its 19-year life in orbit, far surpassing the ambitions of its founders, and that it could last for at least another five years.
"Hubble gets better and better and better," he said."
(tags: science astronomy space news overbye)
Clip-Clopping Across the Bridge « Easily Distracted
"A lot of folks back then disagreed with my point, saying that there was no surer way to check the influence of the fringes than to expose and mock their craziness. Can I just ask:…
drorzel | September 9, 2009
slacktivist: Same to you, buddy
"A $100 account with no fees costs the bank more in paperwork and tellers' time than it's worth. In the long-run, such accounts can help depositors develop savings habits and savings balances, developing into the sort of customers banks can and do make money from. But neither the executives nor the shareholders of the bank are interested in that kind of long-run -- particularly not when, in the short run, they're losing money on these tiny accounts.
So seeing no incentive to provide such low-balance, no-fee accounts that would allow our young couple to cash…
drorzel | September 8, 2009
Sunday Function : Built on Facts
One of the most useful functions in math isn't really a function in the usual sense.
(tags: math physics blogs built-on-facts science)
Hitler finds out about another Downfall parody from dawsonbros - Video
"Maybe we should just make one of these ourselves. Do our own clip."
(tags: video silly internet)
Pitching an idea for a new show in the Star Trek franchise. : Adventures in Ethics and Science
"The show would focus on a set of characters who are the Star Fleet equivalent of an internal affairs bureau on a cop show. These characters would investigate…
drorzel | September 5, 2009
slacktivist: TF: No heroes
"Here is the scene LaHaye and Jenkins are stumbling toward: Nicolae sits in his office, meditating on his evil scheme and the worldwide suffering it will cause. In walks the hero.
If that hero is anyone other than Buck Williams, then we're in for some fireworks. Pick a hero, any hero. In walks Buffy Summers, armed with wisecracks and a nasty scythe-looking thing, matter-of-factly informing Nicolae that his scheme stops, now. In walks the Doctor, unarmed except for a sonic screwdriver and a boundless, inexplicable confidence, cheerfully explaining to Carpathia that…
drorzel | September 4, 2009
Pfizer Launches 'Zoloft For Everything' Ad Campaign | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
""At first, Zoloft was only used to treat depression," Pugh said. "But what is depression, really? Who died and gave doctors the authority to dictate who is and isn't depressed? One man's hangnail could be another man's darkest depths of despair. Isn't medication a tool to help people lead better, happier lives? Access to drugs should not be restricted to those the medical community officially deems 'sick.'" "
(tags: silly medicine drugs onion)
Physics and Physicists: Selling Physics As Is To…
drorzel | September 3, 2009
Physics Buzz: The Surprising Physics of Pipe Organs
"In 1877, English physicist Lord Rayleigh observed that when two almost identical organ pipes are played side by side, something strange happens. Rather than each blaring their own tone, the two pipes will barely make a whisper. But put a barrier between them, and they sing loud and clear.
Markus Abel and his team of physicists at Potsdam University in Germany found themselves uniquely poised to investigate the long-standing mystery. "
(tags: physics science music blogs physics-buzz)
News: Unexpected Philosophers - Inside Higher Ed
"That…
drorzel | September 2, 2009
Pimp My Novel: Self-Publishing: Great Idea... or Worst Idea Ever?
"Very occasionally, a self-published novel will be something that was somehow overlooked by the publishing industry as a whole and is actually quite good and/or salable. 99%+ of the time, however, these books are either written by the functionally illiterate, are tangled messes of inane plot and one-dimensional characters, do not appeal to the vast majority of readers, are way too long or way too short, or some combination of all of these. In short, most self-published novels are crap."
(tags: books publishing writing…
drorzel | September 1, 2009
Infinite Summer » Blog Archive » Join the Tunnel Club
"It's decision time now, though (it takes at least a month to line up Guides, guests, and so forth). And while I continue to have no solid plan, I am slowly tumbling to the realization that I am going to continue the site, at least for a while.
Right now I'm trying to figure out what direction to go after IJ. I am well aware that Infinite Jest is a unique artifact, and that Infinite Summer may implode without it at the core. That said, it seems to me there are a few distinct paths the site could take from here::
(tags: books literature…