December 2009
59 posts
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How do I replace Roomba's default sounds with the...
squashed:
“I’m alive.”
“My tummy feels funny.”
“When my work is finished, I’m coming back for you.”
No “I would love to?”
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www.mylifeistwilight.com →
Powerfully disturbing.
“And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain...”
– Life After God, Douglas Coupland (via lyriquediscorde) (via northerndownpour) (via buyhercandy) (via cankerbloxxom)
“This year, I have committed more faults than ever before and I have never been a...”
– Victor Hugo, in a letter to Victor Pavie from July 25, 1833 (via non-specific) (via buyhercandy)
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I can't believe there are actually people trying...
(via robot-heart-politics)
It’s obvious that you’re dealing with an appalling bigot here. But don’t get too caught up in “English is easy/English is difficult” arguments. There’s no universal standard for how “difficult” a language is: how quickly you pick it up depends on a big variety of factors, the single biggest one being how closely your...
So I'm on skype now.
- monkeytypist
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"Only two things have made flying safer [since... →
unburyingthelead:
(via claytoncubitt)
I was thinking the latter when I read about this story today.
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Online Xmas
The thing I notice and appreciate the most is all the people who do the little understated silences - the talkative people - leading up to the event. It’s very easy to notice who does it but nobody ever says anything about it, probably partly out of shyness, partly out of appreciation.
By the way, there are too many text posts on this blog.
Faux Friendship →
givemesomethingtoread:
We’re all on a first-name basis, and when we vote for president, we ask ourselves whom we’d rather have a beer with. As the anthropologist Robert Brain has put it, we’re friends with everyone now.
Yet what, in our brave new mediated world, is friendship becoming?
(Thanks, eush!)
This article is partly right, and partly infuriating.
It focuses overly on cultural...
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“A Rockhampton dad is accused of forcing his son to have sex with a prostitute...”
– Brisbane Times. Oh, lord.
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“It’s not where you stand; it’s which direction you’re facing.”
– Terry Pratchett
Climate Change
There’s always another level, you know? There’s always another progression you need to make, another time after you thought it was over to strive and work and work and fail and just push and keep pushing as hard as you can because it’s worth everything. It’s like industrial relations, actually, and all politics. Or love. Or any number of things.
Kids my age basically had two approaches to Doctor Sbaitso -
Swear at him.
Get him to read out absurdly large numbers.
Guess which one I took.
“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”
– Albert Einstein (via ckck) (via wearethedigitalkids) (via lanipauli)
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The Political Rip Snorter That Was 2009 →
The amazing disunity within the Liberal Party reflected an emerging reality of Australian political life: the centrality of climate change as the defining economic and political issue of the coming century. For the first time since the early 1980s, environmental policy has moved to the centre-stage of the political arena. The short-term result has been upheaval in the Liberal Party and the...
“When people think of computer science the image that immediately pops into many...”
– Sapna Cheryan, a University of Washington assistant professor of psychology, and the lead author of a study that shows the environment and trappings of computer science is what turns women away, not the field itself (via Physorg.)
Ambient belonging is so powerful. Immediately I can think of lots of...
Final Meal Requests of executed Texas prisoners →
(via longtweets)
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“Exposing politically controversial topics for public debate is vital for...”
– Google Australia comes out against mandatory ISP filtering
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Agreed.
carolinek:
monkeytypist:
krankmills:
graceinsmallthings:carolinek:
I am sorry for the January haterade. But, seriously… Elizabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks out perform January every. Single. Week. And sometimes, Joan isn’t even on screen.
SERIOUSLY. I thought it was a fact universally agreed upon that January Jones, while very pretty to look at, is no good as an actress. Elizabeth...
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"But we have to do something to protect kids".
This is the biggest line of difficulty I’ve had so far in my conversations with people about the filter. Not many people are ardently committed to mandatory internet censorship. But many people feel disempowered by the internet. They feel that their children have access to something dangerous they don’t understand and can’t control.
And we have to acknowledge - the internet...
Agreed.
krankmills:
graceinsmallthings:carolinek:
I am sorry for the January haterade. But, seriously… Elizabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks out perform January every. Single. Week. And sometimes, Joan isn’t even on screen.
SERIOUSLY. I thought it was a fact universally agreed upon that January Jones, while very pretty to look at, is no good as an actress. Elizabeth Moss was robbed!
I think most...
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Timing
I will get back to my earlier post on the horror that is mandatory Australian internet censorship later, I promise. I’m buzzing with outrage but I’m finding it hard to stay focused :).
For now I would like to take the opportunity to point out the flabbergasting cynicism of the federal government’s timing, or if you prefer, its deliberate manipulation of the public agenda and...
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No clean feed!
Here are a few links and talking points. There are heaps more out there - check nocleanfeed.com/learn.html. Also see my post on the cynical timing of this exercise - if parents really “wanted” the filter and the trial months ago was a success, like Conroy claims, why announced it a week before Christmas when the PM and most of the media’s attention is focused on Copenhagen?
...
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“Everyone in the world should be advised that if they don’t want to be...”
– digby.
“I don’t see it as an either/or proposition. Work is part of life. You need to...”
– Gavin Bell, managing partner and chief executive, Freehills (via BRW Magazine Dec 10, 2009 - Jan 20, 2010). (via lanipauli)
Honest version: “If you don’t, or if you refuse to work unpaid overtime, your massive corporate employer will hire us to help them fire you. PS. We wrote...
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fears
I’m frightened of any number of things. Socialising, trusting people, being overly dependent, making mistakes, saying or doing embarassing things, cooking properly, cleaning properly, driving, meeting deadlines, being too early, making messes, organising clothes, being hit by cars, heights, disappointing people, not being able to find things, talking about my feelings, being criticised,...
spinlighted:
You sure seem to like Jameson. Have you ever tried Tellamore Dew? The guy at my liquor store swore to me tonight that it was better than Jameson, but I decided to go with Eagle Rare, which is great.
It’s my poison of choice. I’ve never had that…I should try it sometime. I havent had whiskey in a while. I miss it…after finals i suppose.
Oh gosh, as an avid Irish Whiskey fan, I...
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“Years ago, I subscribed to a newsletter of timely jokes written by a successful...”
– Understanding Feminists and Their Fantasies
They make fun of you and you don’t laugh, it’s because the jokes aren’t funny. They make fun of feminists and feminists don’t laugh, it’s because feminists don’t have a sense of humor.
(via robot-heart-politics)
I love how feminists presumably...
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“But the Christmas lunch in Brisbane of the Women’s Network Australia...”
– I’m now going to start counting down the days until the Australian’s Michael McKenna writes an article about an all-male business gathering and refers to the attendees as “corporate pimps”, “corporate sugar-daddies”, or some other word that describes them in terms...
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“At its fundamental core, the goal of the public option campaign was to get more...”
– Making the case for the compromise (via southpol)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the fundamental goal of the health care reform advocates, as articulated in their speeches, was to have the richest country in the world resemble every other rich country in the world in that anyone can...
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