Penmanship Slanted
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I have the handwriting of a ten-year old dyslexic left-handed boy. I know because it's identical to my brother's schoolwork from ten years ago. What a relief that CMS proclaims cursive is a dying art. Save it for wedding invitations
Monday, June 9, 2003 04:02 p.m.
American Evil Institute
Here's more on Shirt's Off's extensive anti-AEI campaign (link via Zoe.)
Monday, June 9, 2003 02:32 p.m.
Way Too Cool
My love/hate relationship with the Hipster Handbook continues ... Here's a profoundly instructive bit from its sequal the Hipster's Guide to Dating
Never say, 'Do you want to come inside for a nightcap?' unless it's clear you're being ironic.
Also, forget everything I've ever said about "power couples." For I have seen the light
Friday, June 6, 2003 05:12 p.m.
Our Savior
I encourage intellectual-masochists to take a look at Goody Lopez's new National Review column on Rick Santorum's award from "Sisters of Life," just for the last line which is at her most vomit-inducing
Friday, June 6, 2003 01:19 p.m.
File Eat File World It's like rain on your wedding day... CNet reports file-sharing communities may turn against one another. Altnet, father of Kazaa, may go after other peer-to-peer applications that "violate" its copyright
Friday, June 6, 2003 11:35 a.m.
SQL TKO
SQL "The Worm" Slammer's January defeat will live on in code infamy when Wired's July issue hits stores. Experts worry Slammer copycats might pick up on his upercuts and left-hook-jabs from the code that Wired included in the article. Better experts know real slamming doesn't require a textbook
Thursday, June 5, 2003 01:13 p.m.
Just Another High
''Hug me till you drug me, honey; Kiss me
till I'm in a coma; Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny; Love's as good as soma -- Aldous Huxley
Roxy Music was right; love is a drug. Flak mag explains how love affects four parts of your brain:
There's phenylethylamine (think cocaine) which kicks in with dopamine (think more cocaine) and reduced levels of seratonin (think obsessive, compulsive, disordered, horny bastard on cocaine). Throw in a little anxiety, fear and paranoia (Norepinephrine, also known as adrenaline) and you begin to understand why Glenn Close boiled that rabbit in Fatal Attraction — love is your brain on drugs.
I've never been in love, but I've tried hard drugs. Maybe that's the same thing, but without the longevity. Then again, James Hughes noted on Better Humans the feeling wears off in under a year for most couples. Perhaps there should be anti-depressent love-drugs for married couples, or maybe they should resolve to take ecstacy together once a week
Update: Zoe wonders whether I've "come out" as a non-habitual drug user because I'm currently reading Jacob Sullum's Saying Yes, a sober analysis of drug policy that makes what is -- and shouldn't be -- an earth-shattering claim that most drug use is non-habitual and even harmless. I've never hid it from anyone except my parents and employers. Drugs are catnip to creative types -- what adventurous mind can resist the temptation to think differently?-- but that doesn't mean usage is a passive thing.
Thursday, June 5, 2003 11:53 a.m. The 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference Hahha
On Monday Gallo told the New York Post's Page Six that Screen International "made up" his quotes. He added, "I'm sorry I'm not gay or Jewish, so I don't have a special interest group of journalists who support me." Such comments might seem politically incorrect, but not to Gallo, who says he is a conservative Republican, although since his film ends with a hard-core oral sex scene, he is not likely to be fielding many group bookings from the Moral Majority.
Thursday, June 5, 2003 11:33 p.m.
Age/Sex Check? The plain english to txt lingo translator is something for your bookmarks. It always cracked me up when the girls (at least I thought they were girls) on the Seventeen magazine message board I lurked in high school would type "NEway" for "Anyway." It takes more time hitting the shift button on and off, than it does to type one more letter. L4m3rs!
Wednesday, June 4, 2003 05:46 p.m.
Smart = Average
We're all "smart", right? Everyone I know is "smart." Some are obviously more than others, but its almost impossible to make a fair comparison. In manifests as steel-trap memory, wit, independence, spirit, depth, creativity, and plenty of other ways. Because types of intellegence are so varied, it isn't enough common ground to reach understanding wuth another person. I can sit in an entire room with "smart" people and have nothing to say to any of them. The English language, despite its breadth, lacks specific enough terms to describe all the ways we can be "smart." There's one one kind of "smart" person I can relate to: the deep, solitary thinkers with complex emotions, contradictory personalities, and not-so-secret disdain for the status quo.
Wednesday, June 4, 2003 03:41 p.m.
She Used to Be So Sweet
Hilary Clinton has written memoirs of her life inside the White House. She admits the Lewinisky affair was a humiliating experience
“I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, ‘What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?’ I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea.’
Hillary Clinton’s 562-page book has been highly anticipated. Simon & Schuster, expecting large sales, ordered an extraordinary first printing of 1 million copies.
I'm not surprised, and actually have some sympathy for her. By most acounts she was a sweet, shy yet idealistic girl when they first met. "Power couples" rarely work. The passion at the onset is usually corroded by suspicion, jealousy, and ego. If you are ambitious, your partner needs to be a crutch, not the competition.
Wednesday, June 4, 2003 09:32 a.m.
The Dismal Not-Science
WSJ wonders "What would happen if a substantial number of Congressmen were killed?." Also todaym the CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, John McTeer has an op-ed about a meeting with brainiac Marilyn vos Savant who's campaigning with the National Council on Economic Education.
I told her I think economics is a good major for smart students, but if they are really, really smart, I'd rather they become doctors so they could do somebody some good. She said, "Yes, but doctors help people one at a time, while an Alan Greenspan can help millions of people at a time." She has a point. Mr. Greenspan is an excellent example of someone making a big difference by applying good economics.
It comes from a commencement address to economics graduates at the University of Texas that you can read here
Tuesday, June 3, 2003 03:56 p.m.
Work It Girl
Not having a job (also not having a
partner) feels a lot like being homeless.
Our work defines us. We may not love our
jobs, nevertheless, whatever occupation
one has, he made a choice to persue that
path. Until about the age of sixteen it
never occured to me I was capable of
anything substantive. Then Ayn Rand stole
my virginity.
Economics, at least at George Mason, is a
great major because you can learn abstract
concepts and still get a day job when you
graduate.
Two years ago I got high off the K Street scene and had my mind made up that law school was the natural career-wise progression.
The inevitable crash and burn when I realized that law was exactly what I did not want to do with my life, let alone three torterous years, resulted in an almost entirely hermit-like existance from January until the summer resulting in a seies of Dostoyevsky-in-Puma Suedes impressions that made up the bulk of Protocol magazine (something I'm thinking about revitalizing.)
Then I straighted myself up. I made some great new friends. I discovered a hidden talent and found an ambition more appropriate for a severe INTP. A favorite quote of mine comes from Gertrude Stein's "Everybody's Autiobiography," "It takes a lot of time to be a genius,
you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing"
This new job seems to be a step in the right direction. I research my favorite issues all day: economics, transportantion, and technology. I do some number-crunching too, but it pays the bills... (very nicely, I should add.)
The environment, which I feared would bore me, is the best part. I no longer have to be worried about getting typecast as the office aloof bitch. My bosses are ten times more interesting than several of your every day recent grad peers could every be. Plus, it's probably as good an excuse as any to get my introverted ass out of the house when dusk falls. It's right by the river so I can sit on a bench (or pace around) at lunch break. And there is a lot of ... "downtime." Yes, this is the happiest thing to come my way in a very long while.
Tuesday, June 3, 2003 09:40 a.m.
"Bronze John" and the War of Northern Aggression
Here's something interesting from The Post on Civil War-era biological weapons
Tuesday, June 3, 2003 09:23 a.m.
Designer Babies
Steven Pinker for The Boston Globe says "genetic enhancement is too unlikely to worry about." Genes are far to delicate and complex to be easily manipulated.
I can't understand the uproar over "designer babies" that is coming even from the progressive-minded. So you want your kid to be brilliant/have perfect skin/no ailments -- who doesn't? The onus is still on the parent to give it the right amount of affection so that he can grow up to be a confident, happy person. All the intellect in the world can't replace good parenting. If there is one caveat with genetic engineeering (regardless of its feasiblity) it is that parents may see it as an excuse to shirk on their responsiblity
Weapons of Mass Distraction
Here's something on Wolfowitz's admission to Vanity Fair that it was a "bureaucratic decision" that led the staff to focus war justification on the WMD search. Still, let's not rule out the possiblitity they were misplaced in the chaos of war. At the UFPJ Teach-In Zoe's recapped on her blog, Jerry pointed out that most of the speakers (and especially Cynthia McKinney) seem pretty convinced WMD never existed. Maybe they know something we don't know. I knew I should have picked up the new ... Z Mag, heh heh
Unrelated nevertheless, I'm sure "He gassed his own people!" is going to be the "Where's the beef?" catch phrase of the 21st century.
