Tag: culture

Renouncing the anarchist cookbook

i remember the idiotic glee i had when i discovered the anarchist cookbook on some bbs in 1993 (typical teenager bs). this is one of the best retractions in a while:

The Cookbook has been found in the possession of alienated and disturbed young people who have launched attacks against classmates and teachers. I suspect that the perpetrators of these attacks did not feel much of a sense of belonging, and the Cookbook may have added to their sense of isolation.The continued publication of the Cookbook serves no purpose other than a commercial one for the publisher. It should quickly and quietly go out of print.

DC oompa loompa

Speaker of the House John Boehner has long denied that his perpetual tan skin color is the result of sunless tanning. He just spends a lot of time outdoors, the Ohio Republican is known to say. But despite his repeated denials of using tanning beds, Boehner has ties to the industry. Not only has he accepted campaign contributions from a group called the Indoor Tanning Association, Boehner actually lives in a D.C. apartment owned by a lobbyist for the American Suntanning Association.

i never understood this. is boehner from the jersey shore? does the orange-american constituency even vote?

Wedding scams

the wedding-industrial complex thrives on a string of mistakes nearly everyone makes. it starts with paying a fortune for a material that isn’t actually rare (diamonds) and continues through overpaying for every little bit that is somehow wedding related.

Because this event is (ideally) once in a lifetime, that also means that vendors can appeal to consumers’ sentimentality, urging them not to cheap out on the “most important” day of their lives. Because of similar concerns about guilt-tripping salespeople, the Federal Trade Commission requires funeral homes to provide its bereaved customers with an itemized price list.

100 years of dog tinkering

Idiocracy is already here, for dogs.

The Basset Hound has gotten lower, has suffered changes to its rear leg structure, has excessive skin, vertebra problems, droopy eyes prone to entropion and ectropion and excessively large ears. No dog breed has ever been improved by the capricious and arbitrary decision that a shorter/longer/flatter/bigger/smaller/curlier “whatever” is better. Condemning a dog to a lifetime of suffering for the sake of looks is not an improvement; it is torture.

2021-11-08: Another look at extinct dog breeds:

After more than 30 ka by the side of their human companions, and the development of 100s of different types, all around the globe – for different climates, hobbies, tastes, and professions – dogs were suddenly at the mercy of shows and sporting events. “There are a number of dogs that the Victorians kind of abandoned. If dogs don’t get a following in a dog show, then they kind of disappear. Nobody breeds them, nobody buys them, nobody shows them.” The era saw a kind of mass extinction of dogs which had been in existence for ka.

Darien Gap

TIL you can’t actually drive from alaska to tierra del fuego, there is a pesky gap in southern panama:

The Darien Gap is one of the last places people really hesitate to venture to. It’s an absolute pristine jungle but it’s got some nasty sections with thorns, wasps, snakes, thieves, criminals, you name it. Everything that’s bad for you is in there.”

Technophobes

Talking to the people who understood the technology became demeaning, something to be avoided. Information was to move from management to workers, not vice-versa

this perfectly explains the dysfunction at banks and governments: both utterly reliant on technology but run by people who are afraid of it and proud of their ignorance. learning how things actually work would be hard, far harder than that intellectual lightweight so popular with that crowd: the MBA, but at least it would create leaders that aren’t just stumbling around in the dark.