"Support for the “replace them all’’ option ran across the political spectrum, drawing 55% of self-identified liberals, 55% of moderates and 58% of conservatives."

Christopher Hitchens, Kim Jong Il, and....

Terence Newman just has zero chance.

"Turkey suspended military ties with Israel, expelled top Israeli diplomats, pledged to support the Palestinians' statehood bid and vowed to send the Turkish navy to escort Gaza-bound aid ships in the future."

This is like a really nasty game of Jenga.

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The problems immigration can create are all short-term. The long term benefits are both obvious and evident.

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A great piece by Michael Clemens on why people should be able to cross borders freely

Wait, what?

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This guy thinks Cleveland is the "most resilient/least vulnerable to climate change" city in the US.

Cluster bombing children.

"On that day, U.S. cruise missiles loaded with cluster bombs struck a remote mountain community in the al-Majalah region, killing 41 people, including 21 children and 14 women. Initially, the Yemeni government claimed responsibility for the killings, but reports that the U.S. had actually executed the strike began leaking out almost immediately. The publication of a January 2010 diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks confirmed these reports as well as an orchestrated U.S.-Yemeni effort to cover up the truth."

Trouble in paradise. Two guys I really look up to intellectually (Sam Harris and Glenn Greenwald) are in conflict. A couple thoughts.

1. Notice that both are willing to debate in public - both have willingly published their private conversation. They are confident and comfortable in their positions. I love this and I think that it needs to happen more often. Public and open discourse is a good thing.
2. As I understand it at the moment - and I could be mistaken because their conflict is nuanced and intricate - I think Glenn might be missing the point. I think Glenn does not understand Sam's total point of view, which is that society is afraid in general to be critical of religion.
3. I think Sam might also be missing Glenn's point, but this is the part I am not fully understanding. I think Glenn would say that Sam's intolerant approach is harmful and tends to stereotype.

It is an interesting debate. I am curious about anyone's thoughts on it.

This is a fairly amazing conversation, illustrating two clearly contrasting point of views (points of view?) on American foreign policy with global implications.

A direct quote from Instagram's updated terms of service:

"To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you."

Paul Allen does not think the so-called technological singularity is as imminent as some other prominent thinkers do.

"As humans grow from infants to adults, they begin by acquiring a general knowledge about the world, and then continuously augment and refine this general knowledge with specific knowledge about different areas and contexts. AI researchers have typically tried to do the opposite: they have built systems with deep knowledge of narrow areas, and tried to create a more general capability by combining these systems."

B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher Oatmeal Imperial Stout is for sure my favorite local beer. I think I drank them out of stock at B-Spot.

Sending troops back to Iraq. But nobody cares because Obama is better than Romney.

"Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence."

Impressionism

Mitt Romney's statements taken apart pretty soundly by "Guns, Germs, and Steel" author Jared Diamond.

Yes, he didn't increase spending by that much. But that's merely relative to the the other years of insanely high, unprecedented deficit spending. He's still spending more with much lower revenues than anyone in recent history.

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And there was much rejoicing.

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In global market share, Chrome has surpassed IE.

Why does Diego insist on urgently helping wild animals cope with their own natural habitat?

Cool social contract, bro.

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Did the 13 year olds come up with this word or was it some lame adult?

This anecdotal evidence about this weather we're having really reinforces my particular global warming belief system.

Is ESPN collapsing? They've completely devolved.

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"When I pin something on Pinterest that pin is another attribute added to my "interest profile" (things I'm interested in), that item can then be repinned by other people (thus making connections to me via the interest itself). Commonalities surface when people very much like me ("me" being my interest profile) all "like" and "repin" things that I've pinned. Pinterest now has influential data, the thing another thriving startup, Klout, is basing their business on (who are key influencers and how do they get that way)."

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http://subprint.com/blog/pinterest-is-not-a-virtual-pinboard

Now that Wikipedia is back I can confidently get into internet arguments once again.

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Pretty good take on a mature view of libertarianism.

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At its core, Libertarianism should be fundamentally an appreciation of competition - the greatest creative force in the universe (the driver of evolution, it made us and propels markets and science). Lively, even and fair competition, transparently shining on each other, is the surest sign of freedom and economic dynamism. However, modern Libertarians are overly obsessed with a simple-minded hatred of government rather than focusing on pragmatic ways to enhance creative competition.Both Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek proclaimed that markets are healthy in direct proportion to the number of skilled and knowing player-participants. Ironically, it is proved that government can be the friend of competitive openness, rather than its enemy.Can be, if watched carefully.

Read this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-the-us-can-no-longer-fight-the-worlds-battles-6285629.html
Then read these:
http://rt.com/usa/news/us-troops-israel-iran-257/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/16/us-usa-australia-idUSTRE7AF0F220111116

Vadernoooooooooooooooooooooo

If you like film, I found this an interesting discussion about blocking and staging in "There Will Be Blood".

Cattle

Whoa.

Heh

"You can offer the ability to citizens to choose from one of the two parties and elect their leaders as much as you want. But “democracy” is an illusion — a sham — if the most significant acts taken by those leaders are kept concealed from the citizenry."

Ron Paul *WINS the Values Voter straw poll by a mile over Romney yet USA Today headlines that those voters would back Romney.

Apparently they changed the headline, but this is fucking ridiculous.
http://i.imgur.com/8frND.jpg

The best exchange in the finale of the greatest trilogy evar.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Perdue Boneless Chicken Breast: $1.99 / pound.
Bell & Evans Boneless Chicken Breast: $6.99 / pound.

Fairly bold prediction:

"More importantly, every Google Fiber home will have a public wifi component. In order to get Google Fiber, you’re going to have to agree to put a router in that lets anyone use a portion of your bandwidth."

‎"The executive claims that residential customers have thus far shown little interest in TWC's top internet tiers. "A very small fraction of our customer base" ultimately choose those options, she said."

Read: "A very small fraction of our customer base can afford those options."

"In other words, the west is once again at war with the very forces that it trained, funded and armed. Nobody is better at creating its own enemies, and thus ensuring a posture of endless war, than the US and its allies. Where the US cannot find enemies to fight against it, it simply empowers them."

#Google  claims it is cracking down on exact match domains now. But you can find examples where it's not working that great.

Take a look at this search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=cleveland+water+damage&pws=0

The top result is nothing more than a completely #SEO  optimized site. It even has a footer link to the SEO agency who churned out this low quality content.

They have all kinds of spammy local properties that offer no unique value :
http://www.waterdamagehonolulu.com/

This is the top result:
https://www.google.com/search?q=water+damage+honolulu&pws=0

#EMD  crackdown? Doesn't seem very successful.

It's the exact same site, sprinkled with keywords. Hopefully this is a phased approach, because the internet can get filled with trash if this is what Google  is returning in their SERPs.

Americans pay four times as much as the French for an Internet triple-play package—phone, cable TV and Internet—at an average of $160 per month versus $38 per month.

The objection is not directly with HFCS but pervasive cheap calories and processed food facilitated by subsidized corn.

The thing about Romney is you can pretty much find him supporting any given position on almost any given topic if you look around long enough. What makes this piece so strange is how right-centrist, pro-business Obama is.

This is pretty cool. A behind the scenes look at a very long steadicam shot from last fall's Scorsese film Hugo.

In my perception, the UK is increasingly treating offensive social media broadcasting as criminal and acting upon it.

I don't think you can "win" a debate like this. They have two totally different philosophies on economics. Krugman believes in planned economies, Paul does not. Neither is "right" or "wrong". The debate should be about whether or not individuals are forced to participate in one system or the other. The problem with Krugman's system is that we're all forced to participate in it. Under a free market, you can choose to form collectives. Under a planned economy, you cannot trade freely.

#cispa is a very open-ended piece of legislation that gives US government the power to monitor Internet usage and violate privacy rights. EFF and ACLU are both strongly against the legislation. I have signed this petition and hope anyone valuing the free Internet will do likewise. #stopcispa

Privacy: something future generations will not understand

Just got certified Website .NET Developer Certification for #Sitecore CMS 6.5! Woot.

"With sobering facts that like, one wonders why any of this story needs to be fictionalized in the first place."

Apart from the confused word position typo, this is a big problem with documentaries and pseudo-journalism. Sensationalism later discredited ruins the entire story and confuses the issues in play.

Tech company hints that iPad3 will have haptic "feel" tech on their screens...

Huxley offers his thoughts to Orwell on 1984.

Pirates are pissed at torrent sites and plan to take their business elsewhere.

Interesting reddit thread on how a deaf person thinks.

"I'm deaf.....So, to answer your question, I think in ASL (American Sign Language). I guess deaf people's thinking process is little different from hearing people. When I think, it's like I'm seeing myself signing from either my point of view or third person view and when I'm imagine a hearing person speaking, I imagine him/her actually signing instead of speaking because I can understand him/her that way."

I actually like G's new privacy policy, it's simplified now across products and it hasn't changed anything. Now instead of several policies all saying they may share data between G products, there's just one policy saying they may share data between products. It's maybe three pages long and accessible (as opposed to, say, Apple's 3 billion page itunes privacy policy).

In the last 15 years the US took 80 BILLION dollars from tax payers and gave it to corn.

In my opinion, starting a global nuclear war over the fact that we're pretending Iran wants to build one nuclear missile is a really smart move.

If it's a just a behavioral choice then why should it matter? His position makes absolutely no sense.

He'd actually be better off acknowledging that it's genetic and saying the behavior can't be regulated. But he can't do that because it ruins his whole biblical house of cards.

Looking at flat screens. This one seems to be pretty good. Anybody have thoughts or advice or experience they want to share with me?

This is the funniest thing I found on the internet today.

Dude. Does this mean maybe we can eventually see who shot Kennedy?

The top 100 products on Amazon by customer rating. These are hand-picked according to the website's own criteria (which they explain in the "more info" link). Pretty good if you are looking for gifts.

Racists aren't smart enough to understand economics.

I know an easy way to create jobs for soldiers....

This is simply pathetic.

I don't think Ron Paul necessarily "wins" this argument. The post 9/11 world is a place where there are a lot of people who are OK with the Patriot Act and proactive security measures. It just comes down to whether you think they will work or not, because they certainly erode our individual liberty. Are you OK with that tradeoff?

For me, if someone is crazy and wants to hijack a plane, there's actually nothing you can do about it. You can carry sharp sticks onto planes that function as knives. And you can get complex bomb devices and other fear capturing devices onto planes relatively easy.

But the flip side is having someone listen to your phone calls and pepper spray you when you protest. One person has the right to use force over or spy on another without due process. Who is the actual terrorist here? And why should anyone trust a bureaucrat to keep them safe?

Wow, coming from the HuffPo.

Consensus can be coerced/influenced through groupthink or a hivemind mentality. This call and response dynamic is similar to church, or being part of the Borg.

Consensus among large groups of people is also not likely. The 99% is composed of many, many kinds of people. Some prefer leadership, some prefer collectives, some prefer the state and some prefer to be individuals.

If we were able to have choice over what kind of social structure we'd be happiest within, you could address these issues. Those that wanted collectivism could choose it. And those who didn't could choose other ways.

There does not have to be one single social contract.

If you do this and I catch you there will be hell to pay.

Because blowing up cars releases liquidity traps.

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Cable definitely needs an alternative. The only thing of value on cable anymore is live sports.

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I'm not sure how secret it is, but this reported YouTube build-up is certainly gaining momentum.

Even if it's impossible to "take your data back", it doesn't really matter. Going forward, you would have to walk around in a mask and gloves all day long. This is a fairly inescapable reality: privacy as we understand it is going away.

Not that this is such a ground breaking article, but when you look at apps like Google Goggles (http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/#text), translators, QR Codes, ad portable capture/scanning devices, the new world has begun.

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It's kind of weird this market problem hasn't been utterly solved and put to bed.

Relevant XKCD:
http://xkcd.com/949/

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Yesterday I was invited to an interesting alternative to dropbox: service called minus.com

The idea of public & private file repository is almost identical to dropbox, but they give 10Gb of space for free.

Same as dropbox, they have desktop app, android/iphone, even for ubuntu. They also have firefox/chrome extensions to make sharing seamless.

I am going to use it for a while, will provide some feedback soon. If you signup using my link below, I'll get 1Gb of space:-) EDIT: you'll get 1 Gb free as well!

For Wikipedia junkies like me this is a pretty amazing tip, I had no idea. I have always been afraid (for several reasons) to jump in to the editing side. Here's a big reason to take a tiny step...

Christopher Hitchtens drunkenly thinks Rick Perry sucks.


In 2006.

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Oh come on.

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Drinking and iPhone prototypes don't mix.

Do you believe so much in the effectiveness of our current centralized delivery of social welfare that it is worth the war making and the abrogation of civil rights supported by both Bush and Obama's administrations?

via +Stephen Weigel

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Insanely thorough deconstruction of the bizarre political landscape surrounding Rand Paul's filibuster last week.

Remember this disagreement is over droning Americans without due process. Everyone involved is pretty much fine with droning foreigners without due process.

The executive office of the US just granted itself "A License To Kill"

"When a user sends a picture or document, it will be encrypted, digitally “shredded” into thousands of pieces, and temporarily stored in a “Secure Cloud Broker” until it is transmitted to the recipient. Silent Circle, which charges $20 a month for its service, has no way of accessing the encrypted files because the “key” to open them is held on the users’ devices and then deleted after it has been used to open the files. Janke has also committed to making the source code of the new technology available publicly “as fast as we can,” which means its security can be independently audited by researchers."

‎"Technology is advancing so fast his bionic hand will soon be obsolete. 

Rex's components include an arm with 26 degrees of movement, one less than a human arm, which teaches itself to work, glasses which send images to a microchip in the retina which then sends electrical impulses to the brain, and a battery powered heart which is currently being used for temporary donors. "

Insulting language will no longer be a criminal offense in the U.K.

Hoppin' Frog is good beer.

Publicly tweet about your company and get investigated by SEC! 

Wow. That sucks.

Ray Kurzweil responds to Paul Allen. And fairly effectively, I think.

"Allen's statement that every structure and neural circuit is unique is simply impossible. That would mean that the design of the brain would require hundreds of trillions of bytes of information. Yet the design of the brain (like the rest of the body) is contained in the genome. And while the translation of the genome into a brain is not straightforward, the brain cannot have more design information than the genome."

Hell Yes

The way the reviews are going most people are basically not going to like Windows 8 on desktops.

"The Fed has moved from engaging in monetary policy in a way that was neutral toward various businesses and industries in the economy to one in which monetary policy is targeted toward specific firms and industries. This current foray, specifically targeted at the housing market, is crony capitalism."

#arithmetic   #dnc2012  

Not sure if troll....

Somehow European austerity and its supposed ill-effects got mapped into this bizarre narrative of "American austerity" despite the fact that we have spent at TARP levels in the last four years. I don't understand how you can just walk around talking about American austerity when we are deficient spending like crazy.

Cubs fans: are you freaking the f out!!! Anthony RIZZOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Why have any private banks at all at this point? Why not just let elected officials run the banks?