Neato

"During an interview with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the Opie and Anthony radio show,..."

Wed, 16 May 2012 22:16:52 -0700

“During an interview with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the Opie and Anthony radio show, Louis C.K. famously asked Rumsfeld whether he is in fact a Mexican baby-eating space lizard who “eats the poor”.[31] Rumsfeld declined to comment.”

- Louis C.K. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"It is interesting … to consider where one would go in Los Angeles to have an effective..."

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:49:27 -0700

““It is interesting … to consider where one would go in Los Angeles to have an effective revolution of the Latin American sort. Presumably, the place would be in the heart of the city. If one took over some public square, some urban open space in Los Angeles, who would know? … The only hope would seem to be to take over the freeways.””

- Reading L.A.: David Brodsly’s ‘L.A. Freeway’ - latimes.com

"In a primer on nonviolent protest, “Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and Struggle,” Gene Sharp, an..."

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:14:19 -0700

“

In a primer on nonviolent protest, “Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and Struggle,” Gene Sharp, an American intellectual, described a “dilemma protest” as a performance of an action so inchoate and unorthodox that police are trapped. If they let it happen, they are encouraging it, but if they arrest people they risk looking either silly or arbitrary and unjust, which is the point.

“This type of activity enables resistance to continue against opponents who are applying extreme repression,” Mr. Sharp wrote. Acts of resistance in small groups, he wrote, are effective when larger “bases for resistance have been neutralized, controlled or destroyed by the opponents.”

The tactic has found wide appeal in Belarus, where activists gather to clap, eat ice cream cones, set their cellphone alarms to ring in chorus or simply stand silently.

”

- Protesters in Moscow Try New Tactics to Avoid Arrests - NYTimes.com

"In another famous case, a 9-year-old boy named Jeffrey Bailey pushed a toddler into the deep end of..."

Sun, 13 May 2012 19:12:58 -0700

“In another famous case, a 9-year-old boy named Jeffrey Bailey pushed a toddler into the deep end of a motel swimming pool in Florida. As the boy struggled and sank to the bottom, Bailey pulled up a chair to watch. Questioned by the police afterward, Bailey explained that he was curious to see someone drown. When he was taken into custody, he seemed untroubled by the prospect of jail but was pleased to be the center of attention.”

- Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath? - NYTimes.com

"A bi-product of the development of bipedalism is that our hips became narrow, this made the birthing..."

Sat, 12 May 2012 23:46:21 -0700

“A bi-product of the development of bipedalism is that our hips became narrow, this made the birthing canal smaller. Then selective pressures caused us to have larger brains, this means babies when born started to have larger and larger heads that made it hard to push the baby out. These two features, in conjunction make birthing very difficult, labour intensive and sometime very dangerous for women.”

- Why are humans so bad at childbirth? : askscience

"A paragraph from Donald Kaufman’s script “The Three” is shown at the very end of..."

Sat, 12 May 2012 23:27:44 -0700

“A paragraph from Donald Kaufman’s script “The Three” is shown at the very end of the credits. It reads: “We’re all one thing, Lieutenant. That’s what I’ve come to realize. Like cells in a body. ‘Cept we can’t see the body. The way fish can’t see the ocean. And so we envy each other. Hurt each other. Hate each other. How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell.” - Cassie from THE THREE”

- Adaptation. (2002) - Trivia - IMDb

"Trier’s initial inspiration for the film came from a depressive episode he suffered and the..."

Thu, 10 May 2012 23:02:18 -0700

“Trier’s initial inspiration for the film came from a depressive episode he suffered and the insight that depressed people remain calm in stressful situations.”

- Melancholia (2011 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Mr. Lugar — who may be best known for his 1990s effort, along with Sam Nunn, a Democratic senator..."

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:30:11 -0700

“

Mr. Lugar — who may be best known for his 1990s effort, along with Sam Nunn, a Democratic senator from Georgia, for a disarmament program in the former Soviet Union — was criticized throughout the campaign for what critics described as his tendency to cooperate with Democrats. He shifted to the right in 2011, after the threat to his re-election became clear.

Mr. Mourdock, meanwhile, has said that bipartisanship has led the nation to the brink of bankruptcy, and that the nation’s current circumstances call for a time of confrontation, not collegiality.

”

- Lugar Loses Primary Challenge in Indiana - NYTimes.com

I fucking hate cooperation and collegiality. Twin sons of Satan.

Thomas Pynchon sounds like The Dude. Love to think about him...

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:58:58 -0700

Thomas Pynchon sounds like The Dude.

Love to think about him getting high with local teenagers in 1967 Manhattan Beach and eating at El Tarasco.

Sesame Street - Jazzy Spies # 9 (by mstatz)

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:52:45 -0700

Sesame Street - Jazzy Spies # 9 (by mstatz)

Surf Punks - My Beach (by morrisonAV) Satire?

Tue, 01 May 2012 16:18:49 -0700

Surf Punks - My Beach (by morrisonAV)

Satire?

Court of Mysteries, Santa Cruz, CA

Tue, 01 May 2012 16:03:29 -0700

Court of Mysteries, Santa Cruz, CA

Photo

Tue, 01 May 2012 15:55:02 -0700

"Researchers have found that drinks made with diet cola are more likely to produce drunken vomiting..."

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:43:21 -0700

“Researchers have found that drinks made with diet cola are more likely to produce drunken vomiting than those made with regular cola.”

- Drinking hand sanitizer: Do different forms of alcohol get you drunk in different ways? - Slate Magazine

The phrase “I’ll show you Kuzka’s Mother!” (or in Russian...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:14:53 -0700

The phrase “I’ll show you Kuzka’s Mother!” (or in Russian “Ya Pokazhy tebye Kuzkinu mat!”) is a Russian idiom that is generally understood as a threat. A phrase that is quite old, it has baffled many translators and students of Russian culture as to its exact meaning. It even gained international notoriety in the 1960’s as a favorite catch-phrase of the then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev who employed it in his United Nations address, enjoying how it would baffle his translators when they attempted the awkward phrase in English. While it can most easily be translated as “I’ll show you what’s what”, legend has it that Khrushchev would smile as his interpreters would sometimes translate the phrase literally into English, watching the furrowing brows of his American counterparts as they desperately tried to understand who Kuzka was, and what his mother had to do with international relations.

Avoska (Russian: авоська) or perhaps-bag is a vernacular for a...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:43:36 -0700

Avoska (Russian: авоська) or perhaps-bag is a vernacular for a particular type of shopping bag widespread in the former Soviet Union, a nettedsack (setka, сетка).^[1] It was a major cultural phenomenon of the everyday Soviet life. It was manufactured of various kind of strings.^[2] With the advent of synthetic materials, some of them were made of stretchable string, so that a very small net could be stretched to a very large sack.

The name “avoska” derives from the Russian adverb авось, an expression of vague expectation of luck, in various contexts translated “perhaps”, “just in case”, etc. The term was introduced in 1930s in the context of shortages of consumer goods in the Soviet Union, when many basic things could have been purchased in a shop only by a strike of luck, and people used to carry an avoska in the pocket all the time.^[1] The origin of the term is uncertain, with several different attributions. ^[3] In particular, in 1970 a popular Soviet comedian Arkady Raikin explained that around 1935 he introduced a character, a simple man with a netted sack in his hands. He used to demonstrate the sack to the spectators and to say “А это авоська. Авось-ка я что-нибудь в ней принесу” (“And this is a what-iffie. What if I bring something in it…”).

The original laugh-track machine: The one-of-a-kind device was...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 22:48:52 -0700

The original laugh-track machine:

The one-of-a-kind device was tightly secured with padlocks, stood more than two feet tall, and operated like an organ. Douglass used a keyboard to select the style, gender and age of the laugh as well as a foot pedal to time the length of the reaction. Inside the machine was an endless array of recorded chuckles, yocks, and belly laughs; exactly 320 laughs on 32 tape loops, 10 to a loop. Each loop contained 10 individual audience laughs spliced end-to-end, whirling around simultaneously waiting to be cued up.^[9] Douglass also had an array of audience clapping, “oohs” and “ahhhs”, as well as people moving in their seats.^[9] There was also a 30-second “titter” track in the loop, which consisted of individual people laughing quietly. This “titter” track was used to quiet down a laugh and was always playing in the background. When Douglass inserted a hearty laugh, he increased the volume of the titter track to smooth out the final mix. This titter track was expanded to 45 seconds in 1967 and would receive overhauls every few years (1964, 1967, 1970); Douglass also kept the recordings fresh, making minor changes every few months. A man’s deep laugh would be switched for a new woman’s laugh, or a high-pitched woman’s giggle would be replaced with a man’s snicker.^[7]

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Sat, 28 Apr 2012 11:12:57 -0700

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Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:48:42 -0700

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Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:52:25 -0700