pretension comes to those who wait

I read this with growing incredulity. Really, art criticism is just a made-up, hyperbolized world of idiocy. I mean, look at this shit:

“Those of us with a passion for either geometric art or Latin American Modernist painting now realize what a pivotal role” Ms. Herrera has played in “the development of geometric abstraction in the Americas,” Mr. Sullivan said.

You fucking moron, a reclusive artist who doesn't display her work cannot, by definition, influence other artists. Without influence, you cannot "play a pivotal role" in the development of anything! What a crock of shit. And to call her paintings "iconic" - you have to display your work for it to become iconic! The Unabomber wasn't an icon of the loner, Luddite crowd until he started blowing things up (i.e., impacting on larger society).

No offense whatsoever to the artist, but shame on you art critic community! First for trying to make up for overlooking her art all this time, and second the vacuous manner in which you're going about it!

"Those who can't create, teach. Those who have not even the skill to teach, criticize."

Danger! Danger! Sidekick 'dogfooding' at MS!

Nothing is ever 100% reliable. Nothing. That is why back-ups and redundancies are an integral part in good, robust design. And that is why Microsoft is becoming a victim of its own making:

"On the iPhone, you sync your data with your PC/Mac via iTunes, and MobileMe in parallel syncs both the iPhone and the PC/Mac with 'the cloud" [at MobileMe]. If the cloud were to go down and everything lost (like I said, an almost completely inconceivable occurrence except by deliberate sabotage), your data would still be preserved on both your iPhone and your PC/Mac," a source explained.

"Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way on the Sidekick. The Sidekick was designed under the assumption that the cloud would always be available, and that your data would be safe there, so the device doesn't try very hard to preserve your data if you were to yank the battery or in the rare event of a phone OS crash/reboot. Instead, under these circumstances the device starts from an empty database and then reloads all of your data from the service when it comes back up.

"That's why T-Mobile has been telling everyone not to pull the batteries on their Sidekicks or let them run down. It is safe to turn the device off and on with the power button, and it should also shut down cleanly if the battery runs down, but once again, if it fails to shut down cleanly, it starts over from an empty database on the next reboot.

Shouting: the new spanking?

At what point does the inverse become true: instead of coddling these future adults who "suffered trauma" because "mommy yelled at me when I dropped a plate once. I was 8 and never got over it." and making them feel their neuroses are justified (by a BS psycho-therapy industry that cares more about self-propagation than mental health), we start telling these thin-skinned nit-wits that THEY, not their yelling parents, are the problem. In fact, why not yell? Those sound waves might even get through their thick skulls!

say it ain't so, Bill!

Oh how I love the sound of that fat, wet, c0ck slap on Microsoft. Such a huge c0ck it was that it slapped right across Gates's and Balls-mer's faces in one fell swoop. And the peasants rejoiced!

one of capitalism's hallmarks

Did Texas execute an innocent man? Not knowing for certain, I will say that there is no such thing as a human system which is without error, and that includes systems (mechanical, electrical) devised by humans. So they most likely did. I found the following statement interesting: "Each official had a separate role in the process, so that no one person felt responsible for taking a life."

Yup, that's a hallmark of the capitalist system, especially with respect to industrialization. Sounds like something out of 1984, and it illustrates how dehumanizing the parceling out of personal responsibility can be. It can make people so desensitized as to partake in murder. Remember that in Ye Olden Dayz, the accomplices also used to hang (now they just get life). And yet we ascribe to such a system that can so dehumanize us most of the plaudits for creating enormous wealth and well-being for so many. Interesting, is it not, to consider that such divisions of labor also lead corporations unable to name individuals responsible for things like "rogue" trading (no mention of the system that exists behind the trader, or the conspiracy required to hide the misdeeds) and the recent (fawesome) legal debacle over the Merrill Lynch / Citigroup merger and bonus scheme.

My favorite quotations have to be:

• “The S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger,” he wrote, and “the Bank’s management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators.”

• “It is quite something else for the very management that is accused of having lied to its shareholders to determine how much of those victims’ money should be used to make the case against the management go away,” Judge Rakoff wrote.

• “You filed a rather uninformative, bare-bones complaint,” Mr. Rakoff told SEC lead lawyer David Rosenfeld, who reportedly replied meekly that the commission hadn't made any allegations against specific individuals.

The response didn't satisfy Mr. Rakoff.

“I would be less than candid if I didn't express my continued misgivings about this settlement at this stage,” he told the lawyers for both sides. “When this settlement first came to me, it seemed to be lacking, for lack of a better word, transparency.”

People already have enough of a hard time taking proper responsibility for their actions without Adam Smith getting in the way! lol

ADHD queue-jumpers create debate

But only amongst those already mentally retarded.

This article includes a fucking moronic argument in favor of special treatment for ADHD brats:

"'These are children with a disability who cannot wait. You cannot teach someone who is crippled to walk, someone who is deaf to hear,'" says Andrea Bilbow. 'They have a 30% maturity lag, and are emotionally younger than their peers.'"

Bilbow, your analogy is bullshit. They have a 'maturity lag' of 30%? That's not being crippled, it's a mild limp or partial deafness in one ear. You can teach someone with a limp to walk better or a person with less-than-perfect hearing how to compensate. Exacerbating the initial conditions with further learned behavior (no waiting) only makes such children even more susceptible to any waiting in the future. It's a fucking retarded approach.

They're emotionally younger than their peers? As if children all develop at the same rate. Show me the statistical deviation that illustrates how you came to determine they were more than 1 std dev less mature than their peers. If ADHD is just about maturity, then let's teach them maturity. You think children develop in a vacuum? These kids are not *that* disabled that they can't learn! We shouldn't be striving to make them more impatient. Do we try and make someone with a limp cripple or someone with partial hearing loss fully deaf?

on this day

which already lives in infamy, I decree that the BBC shall be Blitzed by the grammar Nazi for this gaffe regarding changes to the Oscar voting system for Best Picture:

"However, this is the first time it has been introduced for best picture voting since 1945." ....

USED, you twats! The word is "used" or "re-introduced." You can only "introduce" something once. After a thing's introduction, further instances of its use are no longer introductions!

murderous english rednecks

O rly? I never relaized rednecks like this existed outside the American South!

sci-fi fans everywhere rejoice (quietly)

Geo-engineering deemed feasible, but flawed, approach to climate change management.

eye haz internets

butt eye still date the Hutch

swearing may mitigate pain

but it does nothing to cover up the stupid! lmfao:

"Some experimental evidence to suggest that swearing makes pain less traumatic, though the mechanism by which is does this shit is unclear."

lmRFIDao!

This has to be one of the funniest things I've read in a long while. "Passports: now with added security!" Shutup. The best security in a high-tech world is often the low-tech solution. Don't want your home alarm system infiltrated by hackers, or your Internet-enabled house? Buy a bigger/better lock! Don't Internet-enable your kitchen! I don't give a shit if my oven timer can check the local weather forecasts live - such 'features' are fucking useless!

Motion to Object:

The prosecutor is absolutely correct that the fact that the defendant was drunk and under-aged is 'irrelevant given the other issues at stake'.

Rightly put, the first and foremost such issue being why/how the fuck does one get drunk to Dave Matthews? I mean, really! That much sappy semi-depression, combined with alcohol - I bet he was trying to kill himself with carbon monoxide!

i'm lovin' it!

Sarko is just a barrel of laughs. Look at Obama having to restrain the poor guy ... and his wife is smoking hot! What is his problem? G'damn Hungarian blood - it just increases his natural French womanizing traits!

a respectable waste of time

for any male, hetero or otherwise!

MS design fail

Bing! You have fail! MS is so inept at decent aesthetic design, that the absence of a few lines of code to remove some unnecessary white space is pretty much enough to make people prefer Google to Bing, even though the results might be better! lmfao

That's not a side-effect!

It's a remedy so you no longer have to smell the Bushshit! Prolonged exposure to Bushshit has been known to destroy human logic, so what's worse? We destroy (your sense of smell). You decide.

luv ya, but ...

... even you, Barack the Magick Negro, even your superhuman powers are no match for the collective stupidity of Ameri-duh. Really, just give it up.


Barack The Magic Negro - Watch more funny videos here

God kills mother

Or maybe it was Twitter? The world may never know!

Twitter pwns God

Twitter giveth life and Twitter can taketh away.

Do not anger the Twitter with videos of your silly ... KITTIES!!! But do use Twitter like a TV channel - for taking vicarious pleasure in abject human idiocy ...

... and porn! (SFW)

dayveed cah-muh-run speeks wiff jurmuhn akscent, uhfends peepuhl

Doesn't such a hard-line stance work wonders for Schwarzenegger? lol "Come into my tent, let's neh-gow-shee-ate."

how are we rich, exactly?

We still haven't repaired the damage from Katrina. Why?

"Patriots" will bristle if you suggest the Europeans would've rebuilt faster. If not, why haven't we, if we're so rich? I bet a lot of ppl would say "oh, it's b/c N'awlinz is a hell-hole that no one would invest in." OK, but if it's so crappy it couldn't be expensive, and being so wealthy, surely we could afford to write off the costs!

Oh yeah, and the only thing holding back under-privileged Detroiters from having white picket fences of their own are those dang strip clubs! I'm going to start a fully-nude, alcohol-serving club called "White Picket Fences", complete with a wholesome, "Golden Era" theme (well, focused on the 50's/60's post-WWII boom time). Maybe a future club can feature "Grannies Who are Trannies" and have a "Golden Gurlz" theme.

Being ignorant and close-minded about sex, while doing nothing to prevent half-deranged people from buying firearms, has a lot more to do with economic inequality than strip clubs - just ask the Dutch!

London 2012 Olympics Logo is Homo

Seriously, does it have to be spelled out to people for them to see it? The "0" and the "2" on the right-hand side is a man, inserting its penis into the left-hand side "2"/"1" figure (looks something like a goat). Srsly, it's a man copulating with a goat.

The London 2012 logo has to be one of the worst designs I've ever seen.

The Summer Obama Stole TV

"And, after your dad lost his bonus and the mortgage for his lake house, Obama 'blacked out' the liberal media so people wouldn't be able to watch his coup d'etat on PBS. That was the worst summer ever."

"Oh, and then we had to stop paying for your loft in the Village. Yeah. It was a truly terrifying time."

raw deal

So, let me get this straight - after about a decade of real wage stagnation, now the mantra is "oh, well, they may be cutting your pay, but at least you still have work!" BULLSHIT. People just accept this? PHUQUE!

jataopiue

it is what it is - there is no random

another surprising fact about Tom Hanks

He's at least 7 orders of fagnitude above a singing Pierce Brosnan.

Humanity strikes back!

Take that, ewe dirty pig-porkers!

"Snark Attack"

How long have I been waiting to see the word "snark" grace the headline art of the Gray Lady? Longer than it'd take me to accumulate enough savings to get any apartment in NYC, especially with such added perks as a Chinese bordello in the bathroom.

That is a perk, right?

only the smart leave young

lol, I don't care what the percentages are because I still firmly believe that most people are fucking MORONS. No amount of psycho-anal-wusses are going to uproot that deep-seated belief! :o)

your answer in less than 140 characters

Short retort to the headline: no!
Longer answer: we're spastic enough culturally without it, thank you!

bandwidth wars: redux

What's amusing is that a few years ago, it was all about how much bandwidth you could get for your buck. recent (bullshit) trend, however, "innovative" cable-internet companies will start moving to bandwith-cap wars, like the mobile phone industry did with minutes and free e-mail programs with storage. "Hey, choose us, we'll up your bandwidth allowance to 1TB/month!"

All this, as if DPI weren't bad enough. Now they'll limit your bandwidth as policy AND to support the extra intrusions of DPI. Brilliant.

On top of all this: if the RIAA doesn't get you, your carrier's roaming charges for streaming data will! lol

ROTFLMFAO

This article is pure brilliance.

funny how little has changed

A retrospective on nearly three decades of GUI design.

Yeah, so icon sizes/colors have been increased/refined, and the functionality of windows (not the OS) has changed a bit, but nothing revolutionary, imho. We're still clicking and dragging-dropping our wonderfully, weirdly wired way through the WWW.

Don't Drink the Wa-ater!

no, srsly

To those who say "dilution is the solution to pollution" - what's the saturation point of the environment, exactly? Because once that's reached, trying to rectify the situation becomes as pointless as trying to boil the ocean, lol.

Playboy names U-Miami top party school

Well, duh! Like, where else can you get stabbed by a tailback during a kegstand? NOT WISCONSIN! (last I heard, they ran out of tailbacks ... ) hahaha

unsurprising

Men trained to be ultra-macho, killing machines, and people are what, surprised that things like this are commonplace?

and now for something completely diffident

Monty would be proud!

what the dilly yo?

Old enough to hold a c0ck? Old enough to marry! I don't see the problem here ... maybe the proposed husband should try a new tack, like "dude, she totally attacked me first, so the marriage is just retribution!" lol

I propose that President Hussein (not the dead Iraqi, the real-live Majick Negro) should institute child marriage in order to breach the culture gap between the US and the Muslim world. We can't have young male minds corrupted with ideas of a warped, Satanic social decorum! Chris Brown should lead the efforts, with Bobby Brown as back-up. We want to make sure the message gets through to the ladies.

one can always hope!

A full third of Americans admit they are spiritually retarded? Stunning.

It pays to be a Trekkie in Austin

new fad prediction: studios will increase viral buzz for a movie by duping people as to it's "real" premiere locale. It'll work very well in the US, less so in places like Europe, where film premieres aren't as big a deal. Kudos to the marketing gurus who thought of that neat twist to an old formula.

It can't go too far though before people tire of the hassle and just watch the movie a month in advance. Oh, and Hugh Jackman - what are you doing? lol

liberal media conspiracies

1) the 2008 election was rigged in favor of ... dark whores candidate, Mour Yom!

The problem with believing #1 above is the same as "believing" #2 (below) has a bigger impact on Mac sales than the product itself. The media didn't "anoint" Mac any more than it "anointed" Barack Obama. The media can influence public opinion, of course (that's what it does), but it's generally a follower, not itself a newsmaker (this is the same conservative-propagated myth as the idea of "activist" judges).

Correlation is not causation. What #1 doesn't examine is the baselessness of the coverage. Why was the coverage of Obama better? Well, perhaps he had a better platform. Also, McCain had a much longer record of legislation that, naturally, will have pissed some groups off over time (see: Fox News's highly negative coverage of McCain, relatively speaking, especially compared to their fawning over Sarah Palin).

2) the media love macintosh ... this final line is one heck of a zinger! "And Microsoft’s point is still moot. What if Lauren has to take the laptop back in six months because it goes too slow and has a virus?" LOL

The first comment = you don't know what you are doing, and/or you are trying to run something stupid, like SAP, on your Mac.

Well, it wouldn’t have a virus if she had taken a few of the leftover $300 and bought a top-level anti-virus program. I work on a Mac 8 hours a day and have to relaunch crashed programs, oh, 5 times a day. I haven’t had to launch a crashed program on my PC at home in about 2 years (probably longer, but it’s too long ago to remember!)

Also, of course you couldn't 'launch' a crashed program - it crashed! Also, note that he's relaunching crashed programs, not the actual OS. Perhaps the programs crash less times on Windows, but tell me - how many times are you forced to reboot Windows due to a program failing? More than you'd like to mention here I bet.

Colbert trumps Sci-Fi nerds

In their own backyard, the International Space Station! Eat your heart out, Firefly fans! lol

All the re-touched photos out of the world and Commie-dominated Mars simulations can't replenish your geek factor, NASA. Give in! Give in to the Colbacalypse!

On another national security note - NASA doesn't talk about Star Wars much any more ... and that ended in epic fail. So then ... Oh Noos! Does this meme wii lost? Can I haz ur Afganistan?

He's halving the distance;

He's going for dweeb!
Benoit's not alone (not alone) not alone
In his time of need.*

If you halve the distance between Einstein and Bohr an infinite number of times, their respective camps would still be worlds apart! lol


*[Have your Cake and l33t it 2!]

yes, please

Leave it to the Brits to call a good, hard fucking "gourmet sex." I guess some people just don't loosen up without a stiff cock up their freshly-bleached anus, lol.

least-searched for terms win

"unemployment+vacation" OR "recent+termination+holiday" OR "redundancy+travel"

LOL - you've just lost your job ... time for that offbeat vacation you've never wanted!

global reserve currency of choice fail

UN panel recommends ditching the dollar

"Today the Americans complain that when the world wants to save, it means a deficit. A shared (reserve) would reduce the possibility of global imbalances."

No, many Americans, and most of the rest of the world, complain that when a chimpanzee is elected President for two terms, it can rack up serious, multi-trillion-dollar deficits itself - no international intervention required!

Why Do CEOs (still) like Ayn Rand?

/raises hand/

I know this one - it's because they're single-dimensional shallow fuckwads incapable of reasoning even at a Neanderthal level!

This answer is incorrect.

what the f*ck is wrong with Greece?

Are you serious? LMFAO - the criminals have better transportation than the cops!

I was all /sadface/

Until these gems lifted my spirits!



You better watch out, you'd better not cry, your computer sucks, and he's the reason why. Watch Bill Gates get his face ... pwnd!



Mmmm ... now that's American Psycho!

Nuck Fostradamus!

Yet again, George Carlin proves prescient. I hate the anti-bacterial craze, but not quite as much as I hate these new "anti-viral" bullshit advertisements I'm seeing.

In the immortal rant of good saint George (the video of which has been yanked off YouTube):

Let me tell you a true story about immunization ok. When I was a little boy in New York city in the nineteen-forties, we swam in the Hudson river. And it was filled with raw sewage! OK? We swam in raw sewage, you know, to cool off. And at that time the big fear was polio. Thousands of kids died from polio every year. But you know something? In my neighborhood no one ever got polio. No one! EVER! You know why? Cause WE SWAM IN RAW SEWAGE! It strengthened our immune system, the polio never had a prayer. We were tempered in raw shit!

So personally I never take any precautions against germs. I don't shy away from people who sneeze and cough. I don't wipe off the telephone, I don't cover the toilet seat, and if I drop food on the floor I pick it up and eat it!Even if I'm at side walk cafe! IN CALCUTTA! THE POOR SECTION! ON NEW YEARS MORNING DURING A SOCCER RIOT! And you know something? In spite of all the so called "risky behavior ".... I never get infections. I don't get em. I don't get colds, I don't get flu, I don't get headaches, I don't get upset stomach, And you know why? Cause I got a good strong immune system! And it gets a lot of practice!

... and a Hungarian shall save them -

lost tax revenues!

I've been talking about a simpler tax plan for years - where's my soapbox?! I envision one in which you could just let the government know that "nothing's changed" from previous years (I mean in terms of things like housing, dependents, etc. - you'd just have to fill in a few fields, like income). This is basically how things like TurboTax and the rest of the tax software works, except you're paying for something the government should be providing. Yes, I still have 2.5 children. No, they don't live at home. Yes, our house is paid off.

Oh, and the revenue-enhancing Hungarian is John Szilagyi, who thought it'd be a good idea to force people to list the SSNs of their dependents. I agree: it's a simple and effective deterrent to tax fraud.

Customer Disservice: now on Twitter

Oooh, Bank of America has found a new medium through which it can irritate its customers. At least you can fight back with spam, hate followers, etc.

Speaking of customer service, it seems cell phone technology may be reaching a saturation point. According to this guy, the industry's "salad days" aren't over:

Craig Moffett, an industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, is one of the skeptics. “I don’t think anyone would argue that the salad days of the wireless industry are over,” he said. He added that in terms of subscriber growth in North America, “we’re awfully close to saturation.”

I both agree and disagree. I think the market is very close to saturation, especially in the developed world, where you have individuals with multiple phones. However, I don't think the industry, especially on the service side, will ever stop tossing salad, especially its customers'! BOO-YAH.

Irrationally Predictable: froin laven!

I like Fast Company for short-but-informative articles, this time about a book called "Predictably Irrational." Sounds like a good read.

Here's the funny part (to me) though - if you go to the book's website, you'll notice that there are different covers for different countries. Ok, fair enough, people associate different things with different principles in other cultures, that's all well and good.

Take a look at the Dutch cover. WTF. I couldn't have made that up if I'd tried. I wish I could make shit like that up - my life would be a daily laugh riot.

So the Dutch apparently translated "predictably irrational" with a sexual twist, punning "shortcomings." Yes, because breeding is a predictably irrational Dutch pastime. I mean, does the world really need more Dutchmen?

Holy Carp!

Google Ocean! I'm totally gonna mod Mars to show its glaciers melting and its space colonies relocating to the blue marble; "Not for us, but for our children's sake!"

Patriotism and Efficiency!

I don't understand why this process makes Joe Moser feel proud. Let's review the events:

1) He was shot down on a routine bombing run and subjected to the physical horrors of Buchenwald and the mental horror that 2 Frenchmen had been shot on his account.

2) Despite the "Fog of War", he was able to discover those Frenchmen weren't killed after all, long before the US government even found his lost paperwork.

And this is France we're talking about, where when bureaucrats are given the motivational book "Who Moved My Cheese" (oh my god, there's a video ... with music ... shoot me like a Collaborateur!) immediately take off the next month trying to get to the bottom of the unsolved mystery. Not exactly the model of efficient civil bureaucracy, those French.

3) He wasn't awarded the medal that was rightfully his, one he'd earned by risking his life, until he co-wrote a book and gained some small amount of fame.

So the lesson is that you can make all but the ultimate sacrifice for your country in her time of greatest need, but if you're not even mildly newsworthy, the hell if the government will bother with you. I feel prouder already. Hell yeah, let freedom ring!

UPDATE: It's not just him either, apparently 50 years is something of a standard timeframe for the military to deal with such recognition. So does this mean that we'll find out who orchestrated the JFK assassination in 2013? I sure hope so!

sympathy meter reaches new low!

I didn't see this one coming, but damn is it impressively retarded. I hope she starves to death trying to figure out how to cook at home (or gives up and roasts her head in the oven) - sorry Ben, I have no sympathy for that debt devil.

Q: politician's most-feared WMD ...

A: a logic bomb!

A (part 2): not if you're Sarah Palin!

PediPaws!

SUPERFUN! You know who else should enjoy this product? Circus animals!

fire docs who don't wash their hands

Have them "log" in and out of each procedure by touching a petri dish. That will definitely get the hand-washing numbers up.

your right to privacy exists only at our convenience

How did I miss this? Fuck.

today is a good day

I hate children and love porn, so that makes this a good day to be online.

smells like bi-partisanshit

If the media were actually liberal, they would've just called Limbaugh a "traitor" (like the Right does every time the Left decries the imposition of government on their civil rights):

anything you geezers can do

we can do younger! Oh yes we can! :o)

On a serious note, I am happy for the new meritocracy that the Obama administration represents. A 26-year-old fashion designer and a speechwriter is 26 (or 27, depending on which source you believe). Obama himself is young, especially for a President, and companies around the world are increasingly comfortable with handing over the reigns to ever-younger CEOs.

I'm firmly convinced that a person's decision-making process can be just as sophisticated at 25 as it is at 52 (rare, but possible). Nowadays people in their 30s-40s are savvier than ever, and oftentimes the only thing holding a candidate back is access to information. With the ever-widening scope of databases and technologies to make that raw information useful, the underlying intellectual processes of the decision-maker take front and center - not just "experience." Of course, data is not a substitute for *all* experience, not by a long shot, but much of what used to take corporate drones eons to learn can now be experienced in a small fraction of the time. This trend of younger CEOs is a marker of a larger shift towards trend towards true meritocracies, a change I fully embrace.

business being 'obviously' stupid?

say it ain't so!

"SuperCrunching" at its finest - yes, let's trust regression analysis when the core data and conditions are still input by the business geniuses from above. I always trust statistics - they never lie! (but people do!)

D-town in the hizz-ouse!!

Let's hear it for Detroit homeboy, thugged-out native, Dean James Lipton! He's freakin' 82 years old, but he slammed that bong like a 28-year-old! Kickass. Just goes to show: "real thugs never die!"

james lipton reads k-fed lyrics

a navy of one

Well, now that my weekends will be devoid of deviant activities, I guess it's time to pull an L. Ron and set sail for waters uncharted (and countries that don't extradite). :oP

piracy fail

Johnny Depp is disheartened. I hope they have piracy insurance. lol