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There's an asymmetry in how republicans and democrats seek and engage with news that confirm their pre-existing opinions. Like, I know I've been guilty of a little bit of cherry picking - not often but now and then - but apparently its quantifiably worse on the other side. Like Cobert says "Reality has a well known liberal bias"

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When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, it penetrates it. It's immovable, not impenetrable.

My fav bits from Patricia Lockwood's "No One Is Talking About This.": Warning if you get the book, which I'd recommend, it does deal with immense family tragedy.

Capitalism! It was important to hate it, even though it was how you got money. Slowly, slowly, she found herself moving toward a position so philosophical even Jesus couldn't have held it: that she must hate capitalism while at the same time loving film montages set in department stores.

It was a mistake to believe that other people were not living as deeply as you were.
Besides, you were not even living that deeply.

When she asked him once what his last meal would be, he replied, instantly and thoughtfully, "Banana. Because I wouldn't want to be full when I die."

White people, who had the political educations of potatoes--lumpy, unseasoned, and biased toward the Irish--were suddenly feeling compelled to speak out about injustice.

"Your attention is holy," she told the class, as her phone buzzed uncontrollably in her back pocket [...] "It is the soul spending itself."

why should I care what the founding fathers intended when none of them ever heard a saxophone

Why did rich people believe they worked harder? Her theory was that it was because they identified with the pile of money itself. And gathering interest, multiplying hotly, climbing its own slopes like a fever, heightening its silver, its gold, its green--what was that but work? When you thought about it that way, they never slept, but stayed wide-eyed as numerals 365 days a year, every last digit of them busy, awake in the clinking, the shuffle, the rustle, while eagles with pure platinum feathers swooped above them to create a wind. When you thought about it that way, of course they deserved it all, and looked with rightful contempt at the coppery disgraces all around them: those two cents that refused to even rub themselves together.

Despite everything, the world had not ended yet. What was the reflex that made it catch itself? What was the balance it regained?
You'll be nostalgic for this too, if you make it.

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smbc rocks

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If Fox News were around in 1955, we'd still have polio.

Turning to reading and thinking abstract stuff about the mathematics of infinity as a break from thinking about the condition of the world and a summer that has the potential to be even stupider and more destructive than the Spring...

Cantor's theory constitutes "direct evidence that actually-infinite sets can be understood and manipulated, truly *handled* by the human intellect," Wallace wrote in Everything and More. What makes this achievement so heroic, he observed, is the awful abstractness of infinity: "It's sort of the ultimate in drawing away from actual experience," a negation of "the single most ubiquitous and oppressive feature of the concrete world--namely that everything ends, is limited, passes away."

The idea of deeply understanding the properties of infinity - an abstract idea that isn't a part of our actual manifest universe, yet whose principles we can ascertain - it's a mind stretcher for sure.

It brings to mind Anselm's Ontological Proof for the Existence of God, the idea that since God is defined as that which nothing greater can be conceived, and the something with the property of existing is greater than something without that property, God must exist.

But. What if not getting the Divine hands dirty via contact with a messed up, finite lot like us is a greater property too?

...

That's one of my problems with abstract Theology - it seems to so often to have an agenda of proving a specific brand of Religion plausible - and from there True.

I think I'm overdue for reading Karen Armstrong's "A Short History of Myth", or maybe one of her other books. It was absolutely eye-opening to understand that even staying within the context of Christianity there's been diversity in thinking about God.

I think any thoughtful read of the Bible would see this multifaceted nature (the Trinity being the most well-known aspect of that) - an old Testament God who walks the Earth, who can be bargained with, who is helpless to give his favored people victory because the other side has chariots with steel wheels, and then the transition to the New Testament, the different kind of story Jesus was preaching... not to mention the reckless "oh it's going to be bad but good in the end" nature of Revelation. But, one of the tenets of American Folk Christianity is that God is Eternal and Unchanging, and there's a dissonance there that I think most practitioners don't grapple with. (But, I shouldn't go so far as to say I know they haven't grappled with it, that's a bit presumptuous.)

I think back to Mr. Johnson - I worked in his independent pharmacy during middle school and high school. He was a huge hearted man (with maybe some feet of clay from my lefty perspective - but a giant of generosity despite any of that.) Of all the men who offered to sort of step-in after the death of my dad, it was his offer I accepted the most, and we'd have dinners at restaurants with wide-ranging, man-to-young-man talks.

At one of the later dinners, I confessed my new-found skepticism/agnosticism. I was struck by his confidence that I'd grow out of it. But even now I don't know. I'm not like a strident atheist or anything, but if basic Christianity was as fundamentally true- as overarchingly true, as universally true, as explains-everything-true, as would-be-true-even-if-no-one-believed-it-true, I still can't get over the basic dilemma that caused my turn towards skepticism as a teen at Church Band camp - there were too many other religions in the world, and logic and empathy implied I should assume they take their faith as deeply as the people around me were taking theirs. And all those religions couldn't be That Kind of True.

So I guess I might able to accept a smaller form of Christianity; part of a many-paths interpretation, not taking John 14:6 ("No one comes to the Father except through me") quite so literally. And also looking to its strength as a deep cultural tradition, the wisdom embedded, and regardless of the fudamentalist claims of unchanging truth, the way it has evolved. And what people have drawn from it - sometimes for the worse but often for the better.

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(followup thought on FB) I'd say, sometimes it's easier for me to appreciate what other religions bring to the table, vs the one I've been soaking in all my life. Like Islam, it's kind of cool that there's more consistency to the writing, and in some sense the Koran doesn't suffer the vagaries of translation - (though there are some interpretations of it I don't think pass humanitarian muster). Or a lot of positive things about the community and continuity of Judaism. (With some family roots there, albeit ones then filtered through activist Evangelical christianity.) Or the philosophical underpinnings of Buddhism. Or maybe most strikingly, the "many faces of God" approach of Hinduism, along with the time scale of its cosmology -- some how or other their estimates at the lifespan of the universe seem more in tune with science's best observations than any literal interpretation of Christianity...

But my understanding of all those faiths is rather sophomoric. Republicans are brazen about gerrymandering to screw Hispanic voters and Democrats in general.

Nothing I know matters more
Than what never happened.

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I follow a few retro-nostalgia tumblrs and was surprised to see this beauty, my mom and I had this in the '80s

Love the look of the case art! And the whole LCD aesthetic was pretty cool. This game had solid play, epecially given the limitations... (via Twentieth Century Kid)

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

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This... really happened? Ivanka Trump suggesting "Make Champagne Popsicles for Memorial Day"?

Ah, the Trumps. The dumb guy's version of what rich guy life should be.

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anyone know what this tool is for, it came in a little useful when hanging pictures but I'm not quite sure what it's intended purpose is
Red Sox are doing pretty well so far this season... here are some Infrared Photos from Spring Training, including this one:

If there is a god, I don't like him.

But this talk of secret courts and wiretaps is a little bit misleading. It leaves us worrying about James Bond scenarios in a Mr. Bean world.

Though in weird ways I'm less uptight about privacy and more uptight about the possible "house of cards" aspect of a lot of companies I like to use or might want to work for someday... http://twitter.bug.quietbabylon.com/ excellent short-short sci-fi story in the form of a bug report to Twitter....

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After 3 or 4 months of almost exclusive OSX use, I think I'm finally adapted to option- and cmd-arrow keys to hop around. Windows keyboards had less to think about in that regard, but then again there was little consistency where "Home" and "End" would be on any given laptop...

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One is never confronted with a single isolated situation but is always in the midst of a vast multitude of situations, and there is never just one single valid point of view to take but always a variety of reasonable points of view.

from Diane's Google+:

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Enjoying a Davis Square Libre: whiskey somebody forgot at your house with pepsi max from a promoter in the square. Garnish with a lime. (Yay Somerville!)

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The Bible is the best fan fiction ever written.

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"Girls" is not without its flaws, but it has good comic timing and taught me you can txt your GPS location to people if you want.

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The gods have no mercy, that's why they're gods.

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Decent if light "Design for Dummies" (well, Developers)

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I dig this cover of Paul Simon's "Graceland" by "The Tallest Man on Earth

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Can't get over how fucking stupid unskippable piracy warnings are. Hey Kids! Pirate this stuff to not see stupid warnings! Such a fundamental misthink of how to get a message through to people.
-I saw this at the Centre Pompidou-- dig the color shifting.

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Good literature is about Love and War. Trash fiction is about Sex and Violence.

--Polish Sex and the City movie poster, via Cracked.com's 15 Grossly Misleading Movie Posters. I love that Eastern Europe tradition of making their own covers for Western books and posters for movies.

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Now this is a street that knows how to get the beerpong mojo working for its block party....

....and now we're in the future they're talking about. Sort of. The sardonic, skeptical tone of this video is terrific. Along with the goofy technology. And the Benny Hill-esque closing music.

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Like all compromises, the CA supreme court's decision to allow marriages made in the pre-Prop 8 interval likely annoys people on both sides of the issue. I like to think of it as a ugly, harsh, modern California respecting the "Full Faith and Credit" clause in regard to its former, friendlier self. (But I really would like to see Prop 8 get smashed away by the voters... 52% seems like an awfully small number for Constitutional "amendments")

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This chart makes me sad: http://www.ajaxjsf.com/ -- too many java ajax jsf toolkits, too little time.

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The man we know as Ernest Hemingway was actually a collective of highly-literate elephant seals operating an elaborate bearded puppet.

His 'suicide' was the result of increased orca activity.

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"Ice Road Truckers", "Most Dangerous Catch"... I'm waiting for "Tough but Dumb Camera Crews" Whoops, another hectic day.

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Quote of the Moment

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's because those dogmas or goals are in doubt.

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Link of the Moment
The World's Spookiest Weapons. It reminds me of my thought, as I was in Hiroshima, that the atomic bomb really was a sci-fi-ish "superweapon", even if you could get the same job done with more conventional killing devices.

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sigh. I just made all June more annoying by printing a pass ticket instead of adding it to my tap and go card.

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'succinct' is way too hard to spell and firefox's spellcheck ain't much help I took a personal day yesterday and used some of the time to reorganize my books, since I was moving 3 bookcases from a common room into my bedroom to make more space for my bike.

I'm not too obsessive about sorting my books, but I do liked them lumped by large category. I thought it would be interesting to take an inventory. (Each shelf provides about 24-26 inches of book space.)

So, going from the front of the house into my bedroom I have:

1 shelf - poetry and eastern religion
1 shelf - self-improvement, home maintenance / interior design, and fitness
1 1/2 shelves - graphic novels, especially superhero and star wars
1 1/2 shelf - indy comics and cartoons, with a lot of Alison Bechdel, Jeffrey Brown
1 shelf - video game history and cheat guides
1 1/2 shelves - technical computer references and tutorials
1/2 shelf - star wars, with a lot of those oversized photo-books
1 shelf - stacked vertically and two deep with sci-fi paperbacks
1 shelf - larger format sci-fi
2 shelves - american humor (including 1 just of James Thurber, Garrison Keillor, and a hint of Woody Allen) which drifts into...
3 shelves - modern literature, a lot of Douglas Coupland and Tom Robbins
2 1/2 shelves - science and philosophy
1 shelf - history and culture
1 1/2 shelves - of mostly oversized art, design, and music
1 1/2 shelves - "school literature" including a stack of paperbacks and books from my childhood
1 shelf - boudoir reading
2 shelves - "to read", which shold be assimilated into the appropriate shelves as I get through them.

26 1/2 shelves in all. 56 feet (or so) of reading! And I've conducted a few purges in the past, so most of what remains is pretty good stuff.

Well, that was probably more fun and informative for me than all of you, but still. Anyone else ever try this?

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Video of the Moment

--From the Muppet Show: A Drum Battle, Animal vs Buddy Rich.

Less visceral, but interesting and a bit topical with today's entry: a video art piece on cerebral organization by Jim Henson, introduced by Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.

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Quote of the Moment

In this limitless world, breath is like a swinging door. If you think 'I breathe,' the 'I' is extra . . . what we call 'I' is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and exhale. It just moves; that is all. When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no 'I,' no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door.

Its been dawning on me that 55-odd feet of books, or rather my attachment to them, is not really in harmony with principles of Zen. Or decluttering for that matter. I see Amazon now has a way of categorizing past purchases as gifts, and for whom. Great! Now maybe it'll stop sending me completely inappropriate reading recommendations.

The UI for it, though, as so much of Amazon, is extremely poor. Even stuff like... I know it has a concept of me being logged in, and I want to login to take advantage of some of that, but I cannot find a simple "login" link. I have to try to figure out what activity will most require a login, and start that, and wait for it to realize that I have yet given it my credentials.

Plus, and this may always be a thorn in my side... if you're going to let people assign "priority" to their wishlist items, make that the damn default sort, at least when other people are viewing it!

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Photos of the Moment
Always surprising to see a parade outside the front door:

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News of the Moment
Is it just me or does the real life "fight club" sound really really retarded? And odd that it's "techies" in particular.

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Science of the Moment
Personally, I hope we do start growing meat in vats. I've been interested ever since reading about "Chicken Little" in "The Space Merchants", a giant chick heart slab they'd skim meat off of for people to eat. It seems a lot more humane. I wonder if they can put some effort into faking an environment so that it has some of the finer qualities that good grass-fed freerange cows have.

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Geekness of the Moment
Note to future self, when you're on windows and trying to see what ports are being listened to, "netstat -a" is the command for you.

Game Review of the Moment

This Earth game amuses me. I enjoy flying the little space ship, although it could not possibly work without a Quantum Juxipostulator. Much like any typical human, I had a highly enjoyable time figuring out the most efficient route through this basic simulator. I completed the challenge in but 36.92 nano-krumlacs. After playing the game, I ate a typical Earth meal consisting of steak with chocolate syrup, and a refreshing glass of Windex. Then I returned to my place of employment, where a man asked me, "Why are you here?" To which I replied, "I am a human from Earth, this is where I live." Then he said, "No, why are you here in the building? It is midnight, and I am the night janitor." I am glad he did not ask me about space, because I know nothing of that. I have no home among the stars! I know nothing of the planet Quuallic 9, home of the Parliament of Universal Harmony. I have certainly never been there, for I am from Smalltown, Canada. I will not speak of such things any longer. Instead, I will speak of this game. It pleases me. I score it 12 quannularcs.

I enjoy that whole "Alien badly pretending to be human" schtick...for a while I was playing the videogame "NHL Hitz" with my cousins, and my character was "Klaatu"...a 7 foot tall "human" who was breaking through Hockey's gender barrier, fondly recollecting her girlhood in PhiladelPHIa...good times.

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Quote of the Moment

You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.

...a half-remembered version of this line has been in my head for a few weeks now. Life Imitate Arts of the Moment

So the combination is one, two, three, four, five? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! The kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

SAC remained far less concerned about unauthorized launches than about the potential of these safeguards to interfere with the implementation of wartime launch orders. And so the 'secret unlock code' during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War remained constant at OOOOOOOO.

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Photoshopping of the Moment

--Worth 1000 had a photoshopping (image modification) contest John Ashcroft would love, taking paintings and art involving nudes and putting some dang clothes on 'em!

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Article of the Moment
Nice Slate piece on the design of flags (like the enormously unpopular one we kind of comissioned for Iraq) with plenty of examples. Travel Photo of the Moment

Me and the Old Frankfurt Opera House, as reflected in a Volkswagen, 2003.05.26

• A man needs to know his limitations

  I have this recorded with the note "SUV"--I think the concept being the freezenfreude of SUV owners who ignored that admonition and ended up deep in a snowbank.
• A while back on Christian Rightwing Radio I heard Focus on the Family talking about "Bill Kennedy", who was in jail unjustly, according to them, but they were very coy about the crime. I couldn't find anything online then, but now he and his case have their own website. Not as interesting or scandalous as I had hoped.
• Math Geekery: I should really look into recreating this, but in highschool I looked at the equation for a circle, x² + y² = a constant, and realized that there was an infinite set of generally untapped values that satisfied this equation if you used unreal numbers, i.e. the square root of negative one. I graphed and got some parabolas, if memory serves. I was proud of myself for thinking outside that particular box.
• The buyers' broker we used for our house mentioned her husband like the dice.com index of hightech jobs but I never really followed up on that.

• Because history is a tragedy and not a melodrama.

Ranjit got a big sentence in this NY Times piece on the ArtBot competition. (You can also check out the previous link.)

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Link of the Moment
Slate had a cautiously optimistic piece on the chances of Pakistan and India not going nuclear, that had a link to a more unsettling 20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War. (Most were during or near to the Cuban Missile Crisis.) I didn't realize that he had U.S. interceptor aircraft armed with nuclear missiles...

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Quote of the Moment

I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowin' that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I went back to pondering my mortality.

I revamped the kisrael.com blog archive. It now shows you a month's worth of entries at a gulp. This makes a better reading experience I think. A lot of places either over- or under-do it when it comes to their archive: either everything at once, or one thing at a time (and generally requiring a lot of clicking...I often write scripts that will, say, take all the image references for a comic site and put them on a single web page, so I can scroll rather than click.)

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Quote of the Moment

"Everything," I am told, "tastes better when it's sitting on a Ritz." No exception is made for other Ritzes, so from this statement we can infer that any given stack of Ritz crackers tastes better than any smaller stack of Ritz crackers, and thus the tastiest stack of Ritz crackers is the tallest one that you can fit in your mouth.

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Art of the Moment
I was trying to figure out why I had saved this one little special insert from The New Yorker on their covers and I realized it was probably because of this one Eric Drooker painting (local mirror) they used as a cover and had reprinted in it. You can see more of his work at drooker.com, unfortunately the link for Prints seems to be inactive.