Tagged: why are we here? RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • rajbot 2:32 pm on November 7, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , why are we here?   

    Vote then drinkies (not the other way around)! 

    If you like voting by reading the endorsements, here is a rundown of how 20 different groups think you should vote.

    That said, this year False Profit, LLC has released a voter guide. Although I know the LLC has my best interests at heart, I do not feel comfortable voting without knowing who the Space Cowboys are endorsing. Where’s my Unimog Voter Guide??

    And what about the rAnCH v0tER GuiDE?? How can I v0tE without it?

    Is Brass Tax not looking out for my interests? Are they too busy planning the next renegade to tell us which laws we need to vote for?

    How will the hippy house headz vote without Pacific Soundsystem leaving instructions on their voicemail???

    How will I find which Bernal garage to vote in without a mappoint? There is one polling place per block! I need deets!

    Everyone who comes over tonight after voting gets a free tiki drink!

    Better Living Through Voting!

     

    • may 11:45 am on November 8, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      drat, sorry i missed the tiki drinks!

  • may 12:53 am on October 27, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , why are we here?   

    aren’t you glad you’re not a dog? 

    yodog.jpg
    darthBailey.jpg
    lucyStarWars.jpg
    superbuddy.jpg
    backOff.jpg
    teddyMoose.jpg
    getItOff.jpg
    batman.jpg
    hotDog.jpg
     

    • Travis 10:56 am on November 1, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      I would call it abuse but i’m laughing too hard!

  • peliom 7:12 pm on October 2, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , why are we here?   

    peliom is a hi-fi that runs on compressed air and has no moving parts. 

    What Are You?

     

    • may 10:08 pm on October 2, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      I’m not sure which applies most…

      May Woo is an electronic implant that slices vegetables!


      or

      May is a strain of bacteria that wears a waistcoat and tie and clamps to your wrist.

    • rajbot 10:12 pm on October 2, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      rajbot is a headband that sticks to the ceiling like a gecko, quacks like a duck and connects to the Internet.

      truer words…

  • rajbot 2:49 pm on August 11, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , why are we here?   

    6 Flags over Hell 

    Scott Beale has setup photos of the SRL show online. I can’t wait!

    Someone please bring a video camera! I think we’re going to need the video to show our kids, and our kids’ kids.

    “Look children! Back on Earth there was this really boring place called San Jose. Then one day the machines came…… That’s why live here now, forever orbiting the smoldering hunk of our ex-planet :(“

     

  • may 12:35 pm on July 18, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: why are we here?   

    I must be a bot 

    According to this captcha. I don’t know what it says about me that I can never seem to identify the hottest 3 out of 9 guys in this test but I can identify the women. And I’ve never doubted my orientation. hmmm.

    (via O’Reilly Radar)

     

    • rajbot 1:56 pm on July 18, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      Yeah, I was 5/5 on the women, but only 1/10 on the men. It’s pretty difficult to figure out the male version, but for the female version it seems that you can just pick the three skinniest women.

    • may 2:38 pm on July 18, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      I’ve yet to get *any* of the men right but hit 100% on the female version. I’m thinking this only means that my general preference tends to run counter to the prevailing hot or not standard of male hotness.

    • Kevin Marks 3:46 pm on July 18, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      As I said over at Tim’sm the evolutionary psychology angle is (crudely summarized) that men pick mates by looks, and women pick mates by status, due to the asymmetry of investment required for each to have children.
      So, both men and women are better tuned to ‘hotness’ in women, men for mate choosing, women for checking the competition. This likely underlies both the ability to discriminate in the captcha test, and the underlying paucity of rated men on hotornot.

    • may 9:41 pm on July 18, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      hmm…interesting. I also suspect females are more attuned to “hotness” in other females because of exposure – women’s magazines are filled with pages and pages of hot women!

      And while it’s true that women don’t choose mates based on looks alone, it’s odd that there isn’t more consensus on what’s considered physically hot in men, esp if you’re thinking of this from an evolutionary angle (after all, the captcha isn’t asking us to pick a mate, just what we think is physically hot!)

  • may 10:35 am on June 28, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , why are we here?   

    while we’re on the subject of dogs… 

    i always knew they weren't real dogs

    (I unfortunately have no idea who took this photo since it’s been sitting in my computer for a while)

     

    • Suw 7:09 am on June 30, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      Aaah, the secret guilt of forbidden love.

    • may 9:08 am on June 30, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      I think the sentiment that ran through my head was, “ack! they’re doin’ it people-style!” :-)

      I wish I knew who took this photo so I can properly credit them…if any of you guys know…

    • colette 4:21 pm on August 23, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      When I first sw this picture I thought, “Oh! How cute! I wish my dogs and cats got along like that!” Then I read May’s comment and am now thinking, “Get the image out of my head! Out, out, out!”

  • may 12:11 pm on May 17, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , why are we here?   

    Kiva 

    kiva logo

    They launched last fall but I only came across this today. What an awesome awesome idea!!

    Kiva lets you loan as little as $25 to a qualified low income entrepreneur in the developing world….By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

    The story of how Kiva got started and Matt Flannery’s blog are inspiring.

     

    • Richard 12:27 pm on May 17, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      I know Matt Flannery from TiVo. He started Kiva while working in my group. Carl Haynes (now Kiva’s “Chief Scientist”) was also in my group and was hired away by Matt to do IT work in Africa. I’m glad to see them being such a huge success. It’s a wonderful idea.

    • peliom 1:20 pm on May 17, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      How Sweet. This should give the World Bank a kick in the pants. We should all loan out some cash and see what happens to it.

    • may 3:31 pm on May 17, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      These are the two businesses I’m sponsoring right now!

      http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=433

      http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=417

      what’s neat is that I can set up a fund and when the loan is paid off I can just lend it to another business.

    • EJ 5:57 pm on May 25, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      Oh yeah I worked with Matt before he left to do Kiva fulltime.

    • shag 4:00 am on November 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    • may 12:11 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I read this article yesterday and David Roodman’s blog post. It’s unfortunate that Kiva wasn’t entirely transparent about how it works. But one thing I noted was that Roodman wrote “I hasten to temper this criticism. What Kiva does behind the scenes is what it should do…” If it actually worked the way it lead people to believe it worked, it wouldn’t actually work very well at all.

      I kind of wish Roodman had approached Kiva about it’s misleading copy *before* writing his blog post so we’d have a better idea of how they might have reacted to private criticism first (i.e. if they were to make changes in response to private criticism then I’d feel a little more reassured about their intentions since people with the best intentions can sometimes make mistakes…) If they were to ignore his private criticisms then he’d have cause to write a very critical post…

    • may 12:15 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      although, now that I think about it, I’m not entirely sure why it wouldn’t work without microfinance institutions in the middle since Kickstarter.com seems to work…

      http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/10/DD7P1AG0SL.DTL

  • peliom 11:58 am on May 13, 2006 Permalink
    Tags: , why are we here?   

    What is a SuperMax Prison? 

    What is a SuperMax prison exactly? According to the Spunk Library SuperMax prisons are essentially solitary confinement for the duration of the sentence. Prisoners are locked into a small cell for 23 hours a day, (1 hour a day “exercise” in a different concrete room with a pullup bar) communication is restriction or totally denied, etc, etc. This quote from the article is notable:

    The effects of solitary confinement have been known for more than a century. The following is a quotation from an opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1890: “[E]xperience demonstrated that there were serious objections to [solitary confinement]. A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service. . . .”

     

  • peliom 2:42 pm on May 9, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , why are we here?   

    We Love Lev … 


    Linking to Lev because his comics are hilarious and I keep forgetting the URL. Check out the videos! He does this combined comic/DVD thing which I love. Besides breaking into Comedy Central “Jump Cuts” recently he says:

    In addition to that though, “Tales” will also be available on the Comedy Central portal for Video Ipod devices later this year. I will be honored if some of you will watch my stuff on the bus coming home from parties, totally drunk at 3 in the morning.

    Link to Tales of Mere Existence and lots of other cool stuff.

     

  • peliom 7:53 am on May 9, 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , why are we here?   

    Support Walkers! 

    Steve Vaught decided to battle depression and obesity by walking from his home in Oceanside to New York City. Steve weighed 410 at the start of the journey. Today is the last day of his walk! People in the NYC area can join up and walk the last mile. Meet at George Washington Bridge, today, at 5:30pm.

    Link to TheFatManWalking.com

     

Newer posts →

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
shift + esc
cancel