Fake Steve Jobs on the gPhone:

Look. We've seen one of these phones. Eric brought one over the other day. It's fine. Nice looking enough. Works. Makes calls. The apps run. But it's nothing overwhelming. You couldn't put it in a plexiglass case and make nerds drool looking at it.

It burns! Teh Stupid!

I find it interesting that it is NOT OBVIOUS that evolution is still occurring. Think about it. Look at the world around you. Things appear basically complete. It seems to me the theory of macro evolution would predict that we would see MASSIVE evidence of macro evolution still taking place. It seems we would see many species of plants, animals and humans in transition from one thing to another, creating entirely new species. Instead we see nothing at all. That seems rather odd to me. It does not seem to be what Macro Evolution would predict. In fact, we almost daily are reminded the number of species is actually declining. Why is it totally OBVIOUS that species are disappearing during our lifetime and yet no new species are appearing at the same time?

Why would macro evolution somehow take primordial soup and create thru random means this amazingly diverse world we observe and then STOP? I suppose it can be argued it is because of the massive amount of time and the last 5,000 years is just a nit in time. But that seems irrelevant to me. Regardless of where we are on the spectrum of time, there ought to be massive numbers of obvious, incomplete transitional forms for us to observe. e,g, cows with 3 legs and a partial 4th still in the process of evolving. Multiply that across tens of millions of species. The amount of macro evolution we should be observing ought to be massive. And yet there essentially is nothing.

This is like the inverse of understanding of what evolution is.

John Cole is fed up:

I have had a couple drinks, so let’s be blunt (pardon the pun)- and this goes out to anyone, of any political persuasion, anywhere, who had a problem with this woman using marijuana to alleviate her pain (especially the alleged “conservative” federalists who can’t handle the thought of states making their own drug laws):

Go fuck yourself. To death.

I am tired of being patient with you nannies and your stupid self-serving rules and your slippery slopes and your bullshit and your need to be tough on crime and your earnest concerns about society. Mind your own business, get your own house in order, stop fucking interns and little boys and cheating on your wives and on your taxes and being found dead wearing two wetsuits with a dildo shoved up your ass. Just mind your own damned business, and let people do what they must to deal with their own screwed up lives, and let people handle their pain the best way they can.

I am sick of the bullshit. Life is hard for most people out there, and damned near impossible for people in chronic pain. Quit making it worse, you allegedly compassionate sons-of-bitches.

It's Over

Watch as any remaining nostalgic respect you might have had for Ben Stein ("yeah, but those Visine ads are funny! How can he not be an okay guy?") is wiped away. I knew it was bad, but this is ridiculous.

Yeah, "Darwinism" is a "relic of the Age of Imperialism."

John Cole: "Maybe we can all get together and kick Glenn Beck’s ass?"

Between Thinking and a Final Draft

Merlin Mann, on paper:

When we rely on a paper document as the final, unique destination for information, we create physical and cognitive limitations that seem crazy once you’ve spent a chunk of your life living on Google. No one disputes that.

But as an intermediary medium between thinking and a final draft, I still just love what you can do with a stack of index cards and a little spare time.

No content types. No taxonomy. No typefaces. Just you and your ideas — in a bunch of little piles that make sense to you.

Cory Doctorow, on the court decision against Major League Baseball - that baseball stats aren't property:

Facts aren't property -- even when they're facts about you.

Rainy Weekend Means Sloth-Time!

Sloths are honorary members of chelicerata for me, at least in terms of the respect I show them.



A brilliant work from ICanHasCheezburger.

photo: Craig
capped and submitted by: K Smith

Creating Place

I'm in love with this homemade 747 cockpit flight simulator environment. Brilliant.

Fair Enough

Sharp comic today from an artist I found via PZ:



See the whole thing.

Good Grief

Rep. Steve King, Republican from Iowa, brought in a little poster to the US House of Representatives today that explained that S-CHIP really stands for “socialized Clinton-style Hillarycare for Illegals and their Parents.”

What About Gifts?

Today's Dinosaur Comics wisdom: "Brains in Jars Don't Get Birthdays!"

Bring it:

A research team led by professor Jun’ichi Ushiba of the Keio University Biomedical Engineering Laboratory has developed a BCI system that lets the user walk an avatar through the streets of Second Life while relying solely on the power of thought. To control the avatar on screen, the user simply thinks about moving various body parts — the avatar walks forward when the user thinks about moving his/her own feet, and it turns right and left when the user imagines moving his/her right and left arms.

50 years. This development is encouraging, but freeze me for just 50 years, please. That should be enough.

Anthony Bourdain, on Rachel Ray's Dunkin' Donuts endorsements:

"She's got a magazine, a TV empire, all these best-selling books - I'm guessing she's not hurting for money. She's hugely influential, particularly with children. And she's endorsing Dunkin' Donuts. It's like endorsing crack for kids." Bourdain adds: "I'm not a very ethical guy. I don't have a lot of principles. But somehow that seems to me over the line. Juvenile diabetes has exploded. Half of Americans don't have necks. And she's up there saying, 'Eat some [bleeping] Dunkin' Donuts. You look great in that swimsuit - eat another doughnut!' That's evil."

super tuber

The universe is a marvelous and mysterious place. From a non-satire site on favorite foods of members of Congress ("Congress Cooks!"), we have the top choice of The Honorable Larry E. Craig: the super tuber.

Wash and dry potato. Rub with shortening or butter. With an apple corer or small knife, core out the potato center (end to end). Push hot dog through the center. Bake until potato is cooked through.

XKCD is without a doubt Back in the Saddle Again.

Have I told you how much I love Fake Steve Jobs?

Do you have any idea how maddening it is to be this smart and to create perfect products and then have frigtards tell me I'm arrogant because I won't let them mess with perfection? Did Leonardo da Vinci finish his big statue of David and then say, Hey, any frigtards who want to add an extra leg or a third eye right in the forehead or whatever, well, go ahead, have at it? No. He did not. He said, Get the fuck away from my statue, jackass. You can look at it. That's it. And oh yeah. Pay me.

Colbert, 10/3/07:

When my car runs out of gas, I buy a new one. I don't want to ride around in a quitter.

Yup, we sure are making our children proud with the level of political discourse in this country.

The Poor Man Institute notes a growing paradoxical feeling.

I’ve developed this weird new emotion over the last five years or so, where I can be absolutely flabbergasted while simultaneously thinking ‘oh, not this same old crap again’. I would have thought these were mutually exclusive, that you would have to choose to be either A) totally shocked and horrified or B) the absolute negation of A). And yet, here we go again.

Guilty!

Okay, the silly use of "squirt" in relation to the Zune (meaning "sending a file wirelessly") might be Cory Doctorow's fault.

From this morning's DailyLit segment of Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003):

"That's not really my area," Tim said. "I'm a programmer. But I could have one of the designers squirt some plans at you, if you want."

Ick.

I loved the Libertines. Great band, even though they had only two records, and were always about to implode.

Ooops, my bad. They have a third coming. It's a Best Of.

WTF?

Misuse of Position

Clarence, don't be a shit:

The new term has begun for a bitterly divided court in a dangerously divided nation, and the most visible event was a Supreme Court justice using the court’s return as a book promotion to remind the world of his enemies, demons, biases and vendettas.

This is extraordinary and unprecedented.

Justice Clarence Thomas should now recuse himself from any cases involving any litigants who opposed his confirmation, because his attacks on them destroy any pretense of judicial impartiality. This is a man with a chip on his shoulder, axes to grind and scores to settle.

There is no need to re-litigate the issues surrounding his confirmation, our opinions of his tenure on the court or his various commentaries on divisive political and social issues. Perhaps Justice Thomas would feel more comfortable leaving the Supreme Court and running for public office — or hosting a conservative radio talk show.

The bottom line is this: The essence of the highest court in the land is the appearance and reality of judicial impartiality, with justices who stand for judicial temperament, fairness and respect for the law without using the forum of the court to settle scores with enemies or demonize those with whom they disagree.

There will be litigants with cases before the court who opposed Thomas’s confirmation, and because Justice Thomas cannot control his urge to attack them while he sits in judgment of them, he should recuse himself from cases involving any of them.

Mowgli bipedal jumping robot

It's Tuesday. Why NOT a frog-jumping robot?

(via TV In Japan)

I have to admit this to myself: I just don't care for Asobi Seksu.

Duncan provides a bit more insight on this issue than my last post:

Meanwhile, showing that as usual they understand this game much better, the Republicans have introduced a measure in the House to *commend* Rush Limbaugh.

This is absolutely, positively, totally and completely fucking apeshit nuts.