"You will learn who your daddy is, that's for sure, but mostly, Ann, you will just shut the fuck up."
-Henry Rollins
TED | Talks | Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen (video)
Topic: Miscellaneous
2:01 pm EDT, Apr 17, 2007
You’ve never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called “developing world” using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation. The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop. Asian countries, as colorful bubbles, float across the grid -- toward better national health and wealth. Animated bell curves representing national income distribution squish and flatten. In Rosling’s hands, global trends — life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates — become clear, intuitive and even playful.
It’s a story that’s too familiar. Someone disturbed through emotional or physical trauma loses control and acts out a violent fantasy. It’s not because they play video games or listen to aggressive music or watch violent movies or don’t go to church. Oppressive security measures and an obsessive push to rid our culture of unpleasant imagery won’t make us safer. Despite what those desperate to finding an easy fix to a complicated (and probably unsolvable) problem would have you believe, sometimes people just snap.
Borders - Feature - Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Topic: Literature
5:03 pm EDT, Apr 16, 2007
Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."
I think Mr. Iacocca is a mite perturbed, at George.
The entire quote is: "I think that nobody wants to play chicken with our troops on the ground." Why would FOX leave out the first four words? Or why not at least include "nobody"? There's plenty of room. I'd love to say that this was a mere oversight, no malicious intent. Their track record, however, doesn't assuage my suspicion.
I don't normally link to a full object at Crooks & Liars, I do read them pretty much every day, but I don't grab the whole damn thing. This one is another story. Take a look at the graphic and try to tell me FOX News, and I only use that term because that's what they've registered themselves as, isn't more useless than crap.
Sorry, "more useless than crap," isn't adequate. Actively destructive to the country. Cancerous to the public discourse. Thrown feces in the national well to cause cholera in public at large. And someone wonders why the Democrats have said go screw to a debate hosted by them.
[ Yeah, that's pretty outrageous. Fucking cancer indeed. -k]
Google scoops up DoubleClick for $3.1 billion - Apr. 13, 2007
Topic: Business
11:46 pm EDT, Apr 13, 2007
Search engine leader Google is buying privately held DoubleClick, a top digital marketing services firm, for $3.1 billion in cash, the companies said Friday afternoon.
Google (Charts) is buying DoubleClick from private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, which bought DoubleClick in 2005 for $1.1 billion in a deal that took the company private.
All your ad are belong to Google.
[ Um, someone made a good investment... that's damn near a 300% gain in 2 years. Fucking a. -k]
And so, the quest to avenge the death of his tribe begins, which mostly features Ghost jumping out of the water (think Predator) and sticking his very large knife into Vikings or riding his horse and sticking his very large knife into Vikings or running through snow and sticking his very large knife into Vikings. Sometimes, he runs away from the Vikings, so they won’t stick their very large knives into him. Other times, it’s hard to tell who is sticking whose knife into whom because the camera won’t fucking stay still — it’s as though Nispel believes that if the camera shakes violently enough and the edits are quick enough, we might be tricked into giving a shit.
...
There’s not much else going on in Pathfinder besides the knife-sticking and the occasional snippet of dialogue — there are only about 20 lines of it in the entire film, but even that felt gratuitous.
