conuly

They've gotta go now.

One on the decline of messageboards

( Read more... )

Answer for Invasive Species: Put It on a Plate and Eat It

( Kudzu is edible too, I'm told )

Hasidic Sleuth’s Beat: Mean Streets of Brooklyn

( Read more... )

And lastly, an old article on cousin marriages

The comments are mostly hilarious, and I'll post some after.

( Read more... )

While this article purports to be about the breakdown of a wired society, it's really about one family with a serious problem, interspersed with quotes from various studies on attention and multi-tasking.

And you know, the thing about those studies is I always wonder - how do we know the cause? Sure, multi-taskers do worse on this test or that test, got it... but maybe the correlation goes the other way and they're more likely to multi-task BECAUSE they do badly on those tests.

( Read more... )

1. Jenn - they're praying mantis egg cases!

An article on being the adoptive black parents of a white child, which is not the usual way of multi-racial adoption in the US. (I forgot who gave me this)

A reminder - Geocities is closing this year. Thanks, pne.

Two links from thornleaf, one on posting to Twitter using nothing but your BRAIN and another on a woman who left the house for the first time in 18 years thanks to the internet.

Another parody for that NOM ad, thank you griffen. And look - Giant Gay Repellent Umbrella is a real site! (I've only seen parodies of this ad, not the ad proper. Do I want to change that?)

And this, the most gratuitous mention of same-sex marriage I've seen in the news so far.

The article is about states, due to the economic climate, cutting down on the hours of their workforce, which is interesting enough on its own and very relevant. But the first paragraph, out of nowhere, starts out: "Licenses for same-sex marriages were supposed be issued in Iowa starting this Friday. But because of a crimped state budget, court employees will be on mandatory furlough that day and the courts will be closed. Gay couples cannot start filing for their licenses until Monday." Which, you know, affects people in opposite-sex marriages too. NOBODY is getting married in Iowa until Monday. It just seems tacked on, you know?

( Read more... )

Well, it's their choice to restrict their lives, can't criticize them for that, however odd I find it.

But what's interesting is the segue about the "kosher" web browser.

"If your kid puts 'banana' into Google, some of the first sites he'll get are porn," explains Chairman Moshe Weiss. "Put banana into Google on Rimon, and you get all the same sites without the porn."

You know, I've heard this argument about diapers as well, and, just to check, I went over to google and put in "banana".

Well, I have no filters on my Google, and my default is to show 100 results per page, and on that first page - no porn. None at all. Not any. If I were looking for porn, I'd be sorely disappointed right now.

Of course, I was searching in English. I suppose it's possible that your average Israeli on the street is just a lot more depraved than I am...?

Taken from the_cynic

( Read more... )

One on Lolcat, which I've never really understood.

The article itself is a nice, refreshing change from most articles about language - we're told that it's a good thing for people to be creative with language, something poets do! (Not that Lolcats is poetry, but it has a certain flair at times.)

The comments, though.... I'm not sure if they're mostly people with a particularly unfunny sense of humor, or people who take themselves and their speech a little too seriously.

There's a blog post about bullying.

And here's a fascinating article about rats and how they can avoid becoming addicted to morphine. You should read it.

Every time I bend down, my left temple aches. It's clearly a bit of a sinus headache coming on, I know it. I am not happy about this.

And what, you ask, prompted this revelation?

Why, elementary, my dear friends. It was the realization that every site on Staten Island cultural/historical things has really, really, really shitty design. Gratuitous flash. Words that go over pictures (or under them). Browser-breaking pages. No information on how to volunteer, which, really, would've been appreciated, thank you.

I need to learn some basic code skills so I can go over to those various places and bash them over the head with my l337ness until they let me redesign their really badly designed pages. There's just no excuse for some of this...!

This all started because the other day, when I was at the children's museum (which badly needs some renovations in the best parts - anybody wanting to donate money to anything for my birthday would be reccommended to send it towards Snug Harbor, particularly the SICM), I heard a CD playing. It featured a song about John A. Noble, who apparently, aside from creating Snug Harbor, had quite an interesting life. He's the best-known artist you've never heard of, something like that :)

Anyway, it had a nice melody, and I was trying to find it online, but I couldn't. I'll have to just ask them at the desk next time I'm over there, probably tomorrow. While I was looking online, I found a host of other things which... my eyes will never recover.

Edit: In more prosaic errors, there is simply no excuse for answering a question like "How do I volunteer at Snug Harbor?" with the following:

Volunteer opportunities at Snug Harbor include:

* Gift ShopSales
* Site Tour Guides
* Special Events, Performance Ushers
* Administrative Office Work.
* Help serve your community in a friendly, arts-filled environment.

There's no information on how you get a job volunteering there, which, I think, was the pertinant part of the question. There are no clearly visible links saying "CLICK HERE TO VOLUNTEER!", either. As far as I know, you have to show up at Snug Harbor, wander around until you find a building, and ask at the desk. And since the buildings may not actually be part of Snug Harbor proper, you might end up having to repeat this procedure. Bad answer! Bad! No cookie!