December 2010
Richard Dawkins on Christopher Hitchens -The... →
mappeal:
5 percent.
an eloquent Dawkins:
I devoutly hope (not pray) that we shall see realised the 5% chance of recovery that modern doctors (not ancient gods) can offer. And if it is not to be – if, in his own gallantly insouciant words, he has to leave the party early – he will bequeath us an example worth following for centuries to come.
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“Julian Assange may be all kinds of terrible things but he’s just a...”
– spectator.co.uk
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One man cured of HIV -Kottke →
a Berlin man has been cured of HIV because of a stem cell transplant.
This is important.
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BMD Love Blog: Book Dedication: The Little Prince. →
bmdesign:
TO LEON WERTH
I ask the indulgence of the children who may read this book for dedicating it to a grown-up. I have a serious reason: he is the best friend I have in the world. I have another reason: this grown-up understands everything, even books about children. I have a third reason: he lives in France where he is hungry and cold. He needs cheering up. If all these reasons are...
Cortex →
A nifty Chrome extension for fast sharing, in case your sharing is not fast enough.. Irony aside, it’s a nice use of the tools control in ArtRage but applied to a browser. It crashed their own site, by the way, while I’m typing this.. buggedy bug.
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100 People I Hate on Facebook →
People who use the phrase “note to self” anywhere other than in the silent privacy of their own mind
“According to new research, imagining eating a specific food reduces your...”
– Stop Food Cravings Through Imaginary Eating?
Watchmappeal:
Tony Porter: A call to men Powerful.
I said to myself, God, if it would destroy [this boy] to be called a girl, what are we then teaching him about girls ?
TED.com
Folklore →
…my humble Tumblr theme has been rejected from their theme gallery because “Does not fit accepted Tumblr blog functionality or aesthetics.” I didn’t do anything outlandish as for “aesthetics”…ah, as if Brown Paper was particularly hipster. Whatever. Although it is not listed, you can still install it from here.
Daily Aspirin Helps Reduce Cancer Deaths – TIME... →
Fascinating. The humble Aspirin keeps being a box of surprises.
Image Shrink Lite for Android →
Something useful for a change. I couldn’t find the mother of all image functions in any of the graphic apps I tried so far. This here does that. Resizes before you send images wherever you send them.
“One way of interpreting this disparity was to look at Sweden’s advanced...”
– Sweden: we did not bow to political pressure over Julian Assange | The Guardian
The rest of Europe is surely still in the stone age.
Why Women Don't Want Macho Men -Wall Street... →
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Study raises an inverse correlation between a woman’s preference for masculinity and her country’s national health index.
But what does health have to do with masculinity? The link is testosterone, the hormone behind manly muscles, strong jaws, prominent eyebrow ridges, facial hair and deep voices. Testosterone is immunosuppressive. This means a man must be healthy and in good...
The Smart Set: Leak Soup →
mappeal:
Morgan Meis on WikiLeaks :
Catastrophes are met with coordinated action. Relatively more dangerous countries are kept in check by relatively less dangerous countries. A global civilization manages, if nothing else, to persist. Bravo to the individuals who make this so, some of whom are the very members of the international diplomatic core whose private and sometimes catty emails...
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“We first comply with regulations around the world making sure that we protect...”
– PayPal VP On Blocking WikiLeaks: “State Department Told Us It Was Illegal”
Protecting their brand? Boy, some of those people are so incompetent that one wonders how they run companies. What exactly do they protect — their corporate whore image? They can keep that, alright.
5.30pm: With perfect timing an email arrives from Philip Crowley at the state department:
The United States is pleased to announce that it will host Unesco’s World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from 1-3 May in Washington, DC.
Ironic? Read the next paragraph from the press release:
The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers....
“Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people...”
– Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net. It’s your choice | John Naughton | The Guardian
What Clinton forgot to mention is that animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
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WatchIceland eARTh Project - Red Polar Bear (by 350.org)
Everybody's Talkin' by Crosby, Stills & Nash on... →
I’m compiling something.. thus the music drift today. But. That’s a fine fine cover you should know.
Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand - The Beatles (yes! no...
Try Not to Breathe by R.E.M. on Grooveshark →
This has been in my head since I woke up. Sometimes it feels like songs that I “hear” while I sleep just continue when I wake up, but in reality I usually hear them a few days earlier, so they must be sitting quietly in some corner all this time.
Why are there no Great Women Chefs? -3qd →
mappeal:
Excerpted by 3qd from Gastronomica
No one doubts women’s abilities in the kitchen. They certainly have skill and creativity. So what is the problem? This conundrum reminded me of something I’d read in an undergraduate art history class, Linda Nochlin’s “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Her article was a watershed not just because it posed such a loaded question—a...
