Suicide is no more a heightened reaction to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than depression is just being extra sad. Most of us won’t kill ourselves, no matter how bad things get. The common thread among people who commit suicide is that they are suicidal.

» Remembering Aaron by taking care of each other Clay Shirky

On the one hand, religions express perennial human impulses and aspirations that cannot plausibly be rejected out of hand as foolish or delusional.  The idea that there is simply nothing worthwhile in religion is as unlikely as the idea that there is nothing worthwhile in poetry, art, philosophy or science.  On the other hand, taken at their literal word, many religious claims are at best unjustified and at worst absurd or repugnant.  There may be deep truths in religions, but these may well not be the truths that the religions themselves officially proclaim.  To borrow a term Jürgen Habermas employs in a different context, religions may suffer from a “self-misunderstanding” of their own significance.

Exactly what I think, stated far more eloquently than I could.

The Way of the Agnostic - NYTimes.com

How to contribute to Wikipedia...

Watch 2011-11-5 - PhreakNIC15 - 011 - Elonka Dunin - Wikipedia - Tips from an insider on communicating with the Hive Mind | Phreaknic Episodes | Learning Videos | Blip

Your mac keeps a history of every file you've ever downloaded that is not connected with your browser history or privacy settings: Yeesh...

Hey Mac – I don’t appreciate you spying on me! (Hidden Downloads Log in OS X) | Articulating ideas

And Clinton said that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban “devastated” more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 1994 midterms — and cost then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) his job and his seat in Congress.

“I’ve had many sleepless nights in the many years since,” Clinton said. One reason? “I never had any sessions with the House members who were vulnerable,” he explained — saying that he had assumed they already knew how to explain their vote for the ban to their constituents.

Clinton closed his remarks with a warning to big Democratic donors that ultimately many Democratic lawmakers will be defeated if they choose to stand with the president.

“Do not be self-congratulatory about how brave you for being for this” gun control push, he said. “The only brave people are the people who are going to lose their jobs if they vote with you.”

Bill Clinton to Democrats: Don’t trivialize gun culture - Byron Tau - POLITICO.com

The mystery wrapped inside a riddle that is the Gauss malware’s encryption scheme may be closer to falling.

The encrypted blob in Gauss is really interesting...

Tool Aids in Cracking Mysterious Gauss Malware Encryption | threatpost

It’s not surprising that Ortiz doesn’t see anything wrong with this system. Powerful people rarely see their own power as problematic. But the rest of us should be outraged—not just by Ortiz’s conduct, but by a system that treats thousands of defendants less famous than Swartz the same way.

Aaron Swartz and the Corrupt Practice of Plea Bargaining - Forbes

If you want to end these tactics, don’t just complain about the Swartz case. Don’t just complain when the defendant happens to be a brilliant guy who went to Stanford and hangs out with Larry Lessig. Instead, complain that this is business as usual in federal criminal cases around the country — mostly with defendants who no one has ever heard of and who get locked up for years without anyone else much caring.

The Volokh Conspiracy » The Criminal Charges Against Aaron Swartz (Part 2: Prosecutorial Discretion)

Republican legislators are proposing two alternative changes in how Pennsylvania awards its electoral votes in presidential campaigns. The General Assembly should reject each proposal.

This is a thoughtful analysis of a dangerous pair of proposals that is going to be the subject of the next thoughtless Facebook meme you read, in which those who oppose this change will be accused of supporting the disenfranchisement of voters.

This is a potential road to ruin for the United States - if these proposals are adopted in a hap-hazard fashion that favors a particular political party, framed by the screeching of partisan sheep, the consequence will a general election in which the winning administration got the minority vote - not by a thin margin as in 2000 but by a significant margin.

That is the moment where things are going to fall apart with our winner take all political system - when the reason that the losing party disregards the legitimacy of the winning party isn't some silly conspiracy theory or argument on the margins.

William Lloyd | State Electoral College proposals inappropriate » Editorials » The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, PA

The "graph search" tool, unveiled on Tuesday, lets users trawl their network of friends to find everything from restaurants to movie recommendations and marks Facebook's biggest foray into online search.

Meet another innovation that MemeStreams had in 2002.

Facebook's Graph Search Has Analysts Seeing Revenue Potential