I can't shake this song out of my head.

Formula to be highest rated SuperBowl Spot Ever (TM)

1 part monkey (X)
1 part hand-held product (Y) (beer, chip, etc.)
1 mid-twenties to late thirties man (Z) (prefer dumpy looking, clueless stare)

Place all three elements in mundane place (office, food court, gas station parking lot)

Situation: Have X try to get Y from Z.

Key Variables:
crotch brutalization of Z (X or Y)
flatulence (X)

Make it rain, USA TODAY, make it rain.

Nerds be gettin feisty

Masked man sticks up convenience store with a Klingon sword

Posted by Cory Doctorow, February 4, 2009 10:43 AM | permalink

A masked man armed with a Klingon Batleth robbed a 7-11, then tried it again at another convenience store, where the clerks laughed him out of the room.

The first robbery was reported at 1:50 a.m., at 145 N Spruce St. The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black mask, black jacket, and blue jeans, entered the store with a weapon the clerk recognized from the Star Trek TV series.

The robber demanded money and left with an undisclosed amount.

A half hour later, police received a call from a 7-Eleven at 2407 N. Union Blvd., where a man matching the previous description entered the store with a similar weapon. He also demanded money from the store clerk. The clerk refused and the robber "transported" himself out of the store on foot.

Both clerks described the weapon as a Star Trek Klingon-type sword, called a "Batleth."

Masked Man Robs Convenience Stores With Klingon Sword: Clerks Recognize Sword As Batleth

I want to read this

After The City, This (is how we live), gives an important insider view into the real world of real estate development in Southern California. Using the structure of a screenplay to tell the story, architect Tom Marble takes the reader inside the minds of the people on both sides of the development conflict – those seeing land as a commodity for profit, and those who see it as a valued resource for all to enjoy. Having spent time negotiating on both sides of the conference table, Marble goes beyond the usual debates over New Urbanism vs. Sprawl vs. Whatever-The-Next-Thing-Is to share his unique perspective, shedding light on the goals and motivations of all parties embroiled in defining how we live in a post-urban, consumer-driven economy.

thanks acb

my time at the helm is at hand.

Nazi Zombies

Happy Birthday Tom

Merkley Makes Me Miss SF

Iconoclastic- not sponsored by Grey Goose

Best Movie I Saw All Year

From the self-proclaimed-Conquistador of the Useless- Werner Herzog

Best Book I Read All Year

Broken Window

They finally did an experiment to prove out the broken window theory. For those of you who might not know what that is (although one of you explained it to me at some point), the propensity for vandalism increases the more disordered an area is. The example given is a broken window of a building. If one is broken people tend to feel ok about breaking others.

Anyway. It seems true (although I'm not sure how large their sample was, etc.).

It also seems a small leap to think the following:
What we are really thinking about here is perception. Whether this is subjective perception- this place looks untidy- or a subconscious disagreement with objective societal rules- if this space is being misused it's cool if I do it as well.

This seems to make sense. But it also seems to be absolutely bonkers. Think of the small (from a social experiment perspective) amount of people you know well. Now think of the how far on one side or the other some of them fall in the tidiness scale. Some are neat freaks. Some are absolute slobs.
Much of how you judge them on that scale relates not only to their perception of clean and dirty, but your perception as well. Mostly your perception. But that isn't really the point.

The point is, when people perceive something to be in disarray, they have a tendency to value that space in a different manner, one in which they break social conventions/laws.
So, the neater you are- the more likely you are to be a damn deviant, because you perceive spaces to be in disarray more than someone who tends to be a bit of a slob.

This seems crazy. Slobs are the psychos, right?

On a slightly related note this video I've included reminded me of this (for some reason).


Links:
The OG: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198203/broken-windows
The New Hotness: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12630201



I know I know, too much from Kottke.

Selling a new idea.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/11/13hodgman.html

clipped from www.mcsweeneys.net FIRE: THE NEXT SHARP STICK? MAKER: See, the thing about fire is that it's totally interactive. Fire isn't a bear, but if you put fire on a bear, then the bear becomes fire. It's completely responsive to your needs at a given time, reacting specifically to your fuel input and usage paradigm ... HAIRY ONE: OK, stop right there. Here's the thing. I've heard a lot about this fire already. Everyone is saying how shiny it is and how flickery it is. But you have to agree that that's very specialized. I know you folks at the Shallow Pond With a Terrible Odor are making a whole big deal about this, but we here by the River That's Not as Wide as the Really Wide River, well, we're simple folk. We want to know: what can it do for us? And the thing is, until people really figure out how fire can be used, I just can't see it becoming a staple of everyday life.

Ahhh....What the Fuck?

http://registry.weddingchannel.com/coupledir/200811/B/R307842908/ALISON_BONNER_AND_TOM_NAUGHTON.htm

I mean...Crate and Barrel?

do it.

http://www.bombombombomwooooo.com/

The Onion's Reaction

I doubt many of you looked at the Onion headlines immediately after the acceptance speech, but I DID.
They were perfect.
Well done to the Onion.

Happy Halloween.

Cheatin' Perspective

The program I use to clip out stuff only allows me 1,000 characters, so this is rather truncated- but the most interesting thing I found (aside from the explanation of why the elderly are cheating- hip replacements, viagra, and vaginal vitamins, apparently) is that the historic rates of cheating by gender may never have been unequal.
Societal reasons, we know, have had a lot to do with who admits it, but , it takes two to tango.

And yes, I am working on Millionaire Matchmaker 2 planning right now. ugh.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Dr. Fisher notes that infidelity is common across cultures, and that in hunting and gathering societies, there is no evidence that women are any less adulterous than men. The fidelity gap may be explained more by cultural pressures than any real difference in sex drives between men and women. It is not entirely clear if the historical gap between men and women is real or if women have just been more likely to lie about it. “Men want to think women don’t cheat, and women want men to think they don’t cheat, and therefore the sexes have been playing a little psychological game with each other.” One notable shift is that couples appear to be spending slightly more time together. And married men and women also appear to have the most active sex lives, reporting sex with their spouse 58 times a year, a little more than once a week.

I just couldn't pass these up without sharing

http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2008/10/piglet_squid.php


http://cellar.org/iotd.php?threadid=18424