Posts from — February 2005

soc-sec-card:

this is where the money goes…..

Yahoo! News – AP: Iraqi Died While Hanging by His Wrists
:
in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture — suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

———–

i am against any officer of the united states of america, military or civilian, treating a human being this way.

it is wrong, a democracy should not condone it.

MountMap Pop-up Topographic Ski Map:
Combining the thrill of pop-up books with the danger of handling tricky paper folds while perched on the edge of a snow-covered mountain, MountMaps offers topographical maps of ski resorts printed on waterproof, recyclable plastic. Well, two resorts, at least, but you get the idea. The maps fold out of a small case to show elevation, ski paths, buildings, and cave dwellings of the fierce but proud Snowboardin’ Yeti. Each case also includes a 16-28 page key for using your MountMap, which doesn’t sound awkward at all.
Mountmaps were originally conceived by Stephen Brittan and Fletcher Morgan on a chairlift in Chamonix, France, and executed with “two thousand year old oragami techniques and lots of mathmatics and science.” You’re putting your life in the hands of two Englishmen at high altitudes that like making paper cranes. (Thanks, Andy!)
MountMaps: The World’s First Pop-up Topographical Ski Map [MountMaps]

———

yep, that is cool

Rules for papers (it’s always simpler than students think):
——-snip——-
It’s not so much a rule as it is a peeve, but one thing I’d add to that list is “I HATE MICROSOFT WORD.” It’s a bulky, clumsy, ugly program that lards files with so much crap and distracts writers with so many useless geegaws that I think it actively conspires to diminish people’s writing ability. When I ask for papers to be submitted electronically, I do not mean that I want a Word file as an attachment: I want plain text. Don’t fuss over fonts or paragraph formats or borders or margins, just type the words, then copy and paste into an e-mail document. When I write, I always just use a simple text editor (SubEthaEdit is currently the editor of choice), and then if I need to (for instance, because I’ve got to add superscripts or a complicated table), I’ll copy it to Word for final touch-up…but I spend as little time in that wretched mess of a program as I can.

——–snip——–

—————
that’s the ticket… it really is. clean, pure text, that’s the stuff. works much better than anything else i’ve seen.

All right, it’s the “knock the bitch up” contest:

WordPress › Download:
Download WordPress 1.5 “Strayhorn”

CFP: DAC 2005:
CFP: Digital Arts and Cultures (DAC) 2005: Digital Experience: Design, Aesthetics, Practice, 1st – 3rd December, 2005, IT University, Copenhagen, Denmark. Hmmmmm….Copenhagen!

——-
yup, it might be cold, but it will be fun. i hope i get something in.

Adam, Dog, and Cat:
And the cat didn’t care one way or the other.

———

nice punchline.

Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit”:
Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial — notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.

The New York Times > Books > Between Truth and Lies, An Unprintable Ubiquity:
“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much [bull]. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize [bull] and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.”

———-

what is and what isn’t bull— is clear when you actually have time to think, the problem is…. that people don’t make that tim