A one-sided witty repartee.

via 27b/6

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:24:45 -0500

via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:17:17 -0500

"If you can teach a man to make confetti, he’ll have confetti for a lifetime. If you give him all the..."

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:14:31 -0500

““If you can teach a man to make confetti, he’ll have confetti for a lifetime. If you give him all the confetti, he’ll throw that out of the window,” [ticker tape purveyor Steven] Josefsberg said, losing faith in this construction only at the very end.”

- via The New Yorker

"An artist should ruthlessly destroy his manuscripts after publication, lest they mislead academic..."

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:07:48 -0500

“An artist should ruthlessly destroy his manuscripts after publication, lest they mislead academic mediocrities into thinking that it is possible to unravel the mysteries of genius by studying cancelled readings. In art, purpose and plan are nothing; only the results count.”

- Vladimir Nabokov, in the introduction to his translation of Eugene Onegin

Why The Original of Laura Should Never Have Become a Book

"She manipulated the garment in a cogitative mode. ‘Hmm,’ she vocalised. ‘This attire is verifiably..."

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:46:47 -0500

“She manipulated the garment in a cogitative mode.
‘Hmm,’ she vocalised. ‘This attire is verifiably marvellous. What is it constituted from?’
‘From the most meritorious velveteen,’ defined her interlocutor, simpering coincidentally.
‘Is it?’ iterated the party of the first part. ‘That’s felicitous.’
‘Additionally, this specified object has the property of being subdivided in terms of its defining mercantile characteristic, and can be taken possession of for the diminutive quantity of merely a half-dozen currency units,’ the retail employee informed.
‘Exoneration?’ supplicated the protagonist appropriately. The commercial tertiary sector worker eyeballed her perspicaciously.
‘I said it’s five ninety-nine. Do you want it or not?’”

- How to Write Badly Well: Always use a thesaurus.

This New York Moment brought to you by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:11:00 -0500

A posse of papmphlet-profferring apparitions, praying for peace and praising their pastors while pimping pious propaganda to passing pedestrians, staffs a folding table set up inside the 44th St and Lexington Avenue entrance to Grand Central Station. They offer a variety of marketing materials about salvation and donation and abortion to a commuting public that barely breaks stride to avoid colliding with them. The work-a-day public wears blinders of Friday-evening quests for binge-drinking, sex, time with their neglected families, freedom, reclaimed humanity. Now is not the time to be saved, so get lost.

One is rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, eyes shut to a squint, leaflet clutched to her bosom, muttering in tongues under her breath.

And I think to myself: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

"Columbus’s efforts to obtain support for his voyages were not hampered by a European belief in..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:48:00 -0500

“Columbus’s efforts to obtain support for his voyages were not hampered by a European belief in a flat Earth. In fact, sailors and navigators of the time knew that the Earth is spherical, but (correctly) disagreed with Columbus’ estimates of the distance to India. If the Americas did not exist, and had Columbus continued to India (even putting aside the threat of mutiny he was under), he would have run out of supplies before reaching it at the rate he was traveling.”

- List of Common Misconceptions, Wikipedia

hat tip to Chaue

History In Context

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:28:00 -0400

This is one of my favorite stories of all time.

“If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
—Sir Isaac Newton

One of the most famous statements of humility in genius, Newton’s quote sounds like it was from an acceptance speech at some physics awards ceremony, acknowledging the greatness of his accomplishments while deflecting the glory onto his predecessors and colleagues. But it’s not.

In fact, that line comes from a letter he wrote in response to another scientist who had accused Newton of stealing his ideas — no, it wasn’t Leibniz, and the subject of the dispute wasn’t calculus. The other scientist, Robert Hooke, has been largely forgotten by history, but was remarkable for one thing: he was a hunchbacked midget.

So taken in context, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants” has nothing to do with humility: it’s a short joke. Sure, I built upon the work of others, but I didn’t get nothin’ from no fuckin’ midget.

Burn.

British Columbia police seek serial groin-kicker after series of attacks

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:52:41 -0400

British Columbia police seek serial groin-kicker after series of attacks:

A new superhero, a new super-villain, or a new wave of feminism?

related: flame on [your genitals]

Not even close.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:33:39 -0400

Not even close.

related: acrostic via CNN Political Ticker hat tip to Dan

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:06:36 -0400

related: acrostic

via CNN Political Ticker

hat tip to Dan

"Just imagine the horror they’d feel when their first red light skip-stop attempt resulted not..."

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:39:24 -0400

“Just imagine the horror they’d feel when their first red light skip-stop attempt resulted not in the reassuring sound of white tires resisting pavement but instead the horrific clatter of a ratcheting freewheel. Indeed, the last thing they’d hear as they rolled to their deaths would be the sound of pawls—the ultimate hipster indignity.”

- Ah, the old fixed/free flim-flam…

via BikeSnobNYC

"One of the ethics in the movie is that humans are all good in nature. And another is courage. My..."

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:20:00 -0400

“One of the ethics in the movie is that humans are all good in nature. And another is courage. My heart is always on fire. A lot of times when we see something unfair or unrighteous, do you have the guts to stand up for the right thing? I don’t. I’m always timid, so I can only do it in the movies.”

- Kung Fu Hustle

"Russia has a long-standing tradition of training bears to perform tricks such as riding motorcycles,..."

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:27:47 -0400

“Russia has a long-standing tradition of training bears to perform tricks such as riding motorcycles, ice skating, and playing hockey. Fatal attacks are unusual.”

- Ice skating bear kills Russian circus hand, CNN

hat tip to Dan

Artificial Black Hole Created in Chinese Lab

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:13:10 -0400

Artificial Black Hole Created in Chinese Lab:

G’head, try to gloss over this headline and not click. I tried. I couldn’t.

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:45:00 -0400

A complete list of things caused by global warming:

Some of my favorites: Earth slowing down, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, Earth upside down, Garden of Eden wilts, kitten boom, lawyers’ income increased, smaller brains, sour grapes, spiders invade Scotland, teenage drinking, UFO sightings, witchcraft executions.

"One nagging thing that I still don’t understand about myself is why I often succumb to..."

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:43:55 -0400

“One nagging thing that I still don’t understand about myself is why I often succumb to well-documented psychological biases, even though I’m acutely aware of these biases. One example is my failure at affective forecasting, such as believing that I will be happy for a long time after some accomplishment (e.g. publishing a new book), when in fact the happiness dissipates more quickly than anticipated. Another is succumbing to the male sexual overperception bias, misperceiving a woman’s friendliness as sexual interest. A third is undue optimism about how quickly I can complete work projects, despite many years of experience in underestimating the time actually required. One would think that explicit knowledge of these well-documented psychological biases and years of experience with them would allow a person to cognitively override the biases. But they don’t.”

- David Buss

via the New Shelton wet/dry

somewhat related: the New Shelton wet/dry is far and away my favorite blog. As in, were they to issue notice tomorrow that it was subscription only, I would unhesitatingly pony up, even if they quoted a fee that was tantamount to museum membership. They recently lost a server — and with it, all their years of postings, and with that, all my accumulated links to their site are now broken. If they manage to restore it all, I doubt I’ll get around to updating all my links, so I hope you’ll bear with me — us — and take a moment to reflect on the tenuous link(s) to the things we hold dear on the internet.

"Literature prize Awarded to the entire police force of Ireland for issuing more than 50 penalties..."

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:38:43 -0400

“

Literature prize

Awarded to the entire police force of Ireland for issuing more than 50 penalties to a man they supposed to be the most persistent driving offender in the country: a Mr Prawo Jazdy, whose name in Polish means “driver’s licence”. An investigation held earlier this year revealed officers had mistakenly taken down the wrong details from motorists’ documents.

”

- One winner of a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize

via guardian.co.uk

"Bill Erman, a market-timing analyst in Nashville, and the proponent of a system called Ermanometry,..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:27:00 -0400

“Bill Erman, a market-timing analyst in Nashville, and the proponent of a system called Ermanometry, told me, ‘We believe the market is perfect to the second.’ (He concedes that we don’t have the data to prove it.) He noted that termites build their perfect mounds, and bees their perfect hives, and spiders their perfect webs, all around the world, without, presumably, being conscious of why or what they area doing. ‘Mankind is unconsciously constructing a geometrically perfect market,’ Erman said. We can’t help building our beehives in the air. The charts are our termite mounds.”

- via The New Yorker

How data architecture is like the ballet.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:16:00 -0400

Full disclosure: I’ve watched two documentaries tonight — Planet B-Boy, about the “Battle of the Year” break dancing world championships, and Ballerina, about the Kirov Ballet. For the record: Ballerina was better. That’s one dialectic, this is another.

Ballet is an art that is so technical and has had so much time to mature that the limitation — human physical potential for movement and posture — has adapted itself to the needs and whims of composers and choreographers. From a choreographer’s perspective, the perfect ballerina is the one who can listen to your instructions and bring that idea to life. Perfectly. Elegantly. Holding any pose for any amount of time, executing any series of movements so fluidly and so naturally that you would never believe a choreographer had issued instructions.

The art in ballet is making the unnatural seem natural. The magic in ballet is that you can relate to a series of choreographed movements that you yourself could never execute.

Data architecture is creating the means by which “data” becomes “information.” Think about the census: the fact that Sally Jones in Des Moines, Iowa makes $37,000 a year as a sales rep for a paper company, is married, has three children aged 5, 7, and 9, drives a Ford Taurus, subscribes to People magazine and spends $120 annually on toilet paper is a datum. (A “datum” is the singular of “data”). Multiply that by the 301,791,627 people tracked by the census in 2007 and you have data. The fact that the average household income in Des Moines is $67,798.33 and the Ford Taurus is the third most popular car in Iowa and 14% of households subscribe to People magazine is information.

Data is everywhere. Information is scarce. The number of times you brush your teeth in a week is data, the number of times you need to brush your teeth to prevent cavities is information. Your bank statements and credit card statements are data, whether you’ve exceeded your budget this month is information. Data is meaningless. Information is useful. The art of deciding the intermediary structure and processing, at a large scale, is data architecture.

Yes, I said art. The art in data architecture is making the unknowable knowable. The magic in data architecture is creating systems through which this knowledge can flow seamlessly and effortlessly, so anyone can access any piece of information they want at any time.

Ballerinas and data architects both have audiences, and both types of audiences have needs. The ballerina’s audience needs to experience the emotion intended by the composer of the ballet. The data architect’s audience needs actionable insight from the information about the source of the data. Neither the ballerina nor the data architect decide what the message is, but we deliver that message. The methods and means are totally different, but the act of interpreting potential meaning into actual meaning is the same.

Data architects and ballerinas are both technicians tasked with bringing to light that which lies beneath the surface. By learning a craft, we both hope to connect our sources to our audience in a way that is both meaningful and fruitful for them.

I never would have expected that. I really want to go see a ballet.