bexns: what do you think of http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/?
its getting a lot of press
me: i wasn’t really impressed
bexns: why is it all over then?
i was telling d about blackpeopleloveus
which i thought was hilariuous
me: yeah that was totally awesome
whitepeopledon’tlikeblackpeopleloveus
me: it’s all over because it’s by white people for white people and it doesn’t challenge them on race
bexns: so white people trying to make fun of themselves?
me: it’s a celebration of whiteness pretending that it’s a critique of whiteness
bexns: interesting
so why so much press?
me: i have seen it linked but haven’t really read what people are saying about it, so i don’t know.
probably because it’s so safe
bexns: http://www.thinkunique.net/stuffasianpeoplelike/
http://www.racialicious.com/
latoya peterson wrote about both sites
me: “white” has become a signifier of a post-racial consciousness, so white people are happy for a chance to use it without actually engaging anything substantive
bexns: totally on point d
like all those hipsters calling themselves white and embracing the fact they’re white, while not doing anything beyond that
me: right, as if to acknowledge one’s whiteness is sufficient
bexns: yes exactly
these are the same poeple who call themselves uber liberal too
me: yeah. dude do you mind if i blog this convo
bexns is typing…
People should think of a computer interface less as a tool and more as a extension of themselves or as extension of their mind. Coming Soon: Nothing Between You and Your Machine - New York Times. I’m delighted by this suggestion that the Wii and the iPhone represent a coming shift in human-computer interface design; apparently the generation driving design demands new paradigms. A welcome development – my patience wears thin!
His very name was a microcosm of the system he invented: the exotic “Gygax,” calling to mind the pantheon of Lovecraftian gods and remote regions of Hyborea; the mundane “Gary,” reminiscent of suburban kids all over the nation who were ignoring their algebra homework in favor of The Dungeon Master’s Guide. Deified and Demagogued by Matthew Baldwin - The Morning News
Which candidate will pledge to be the Gardening President? Who will be the one to take the lead in teaching food self-sufficiency and good nutrition to the American public? What a fine example it would set if the food miles traveled by presidential produce added up to zero. Roots Politics: Planting a Seed - washingtonpost.com
After only a few electrical jolts, the artificial neural circuit began to act just like a real neural circuit. Clusters of connected neurons began to fire in close synchrony: the cells were wiring themselves together. Different cell types obeyed their genetic instructions. The scientists could see the cellular looms flash and then fade as the cells wove themselves into meaningful patterns. After years of hard work, they were finally able to watch their make-believe brain develop, synapse by synapse. The microchips were turning themselves into a mind. Seed: Out of the Blue
Reading Steve Jobs - John Markoff
At Macworld, when I asked Mr. Jobs about the idea of an iTouch in a larger "Safari Pad" format, he snapped at me, "I can’t talk about unannounced products."
Last night I dreamed I met Steve Jobs. We happened to be sitting near each other at a restaurant or something. I wasn't going to talk to him (I was sure I'd have the worst case of celebrity dumbstruck) but, for some reason I can't remember, he was interested in me. We ended up having a nice chat, expressing a lot of mutual respect. After that we hugged for a long time.
My parents homeschooled me so that I could get more experience in the world, not so that I could shelter myself from it. Learning Curve, Bitch Magazine
It’s obvious we are not going to finish with pain in this lifetime. The Buddha said, “Everything dear to us causes pain.”…Those of us who have chosen relational life have made the choice that the pain is worth it. The Daily Dharma, tricycle: Pain is inevitable
As a country singer approached a microphone near home plate to sing the national anthem, our jaws slackened as [Albert] Ayler’s sax purred the plaintive opening notes of “Spirits Rejoice,” which quickly becomes a tight, triumphant military-style march before disintegrating into crushing trumpet bleats by Albert’s brother Don. On the silent screen gigantic flags were unfurled, pyrotechnics exploded, a military flyover happened and Americans rejoiced while Ayler’s band evoked twin towers of war–pageantry and battle–masterfully, if psychotically. An Ayler in My House
You want. You want. You want cookie. You say, ‘Cookie, now. Cookie now.’ Just in time for the baby boom, there’s a new Dr. Spock in town who will have parents 2.0 everywhere speaking Bamm-Bamm to their babies.
Finally, Bud may have topped the farting horse spot that ran during Super Bowl XXVIII… The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, From Servers to Spiders to Suits – to You
Language Log: The Etiology and Elaboration of a Flagrant Mistranslation
People who see signs employing the f-word all over China, even in large stores and fancy restaurants, are not only aghast, they wonder how the dickens such a gross mistranslation could have originated and proliferated. Theories abound, to say the least. Amazing, fascinating, hilarious, and educational – I cannot recommend this link highly enough.
I liken the situation about opportunity in this country to a Monopoly game—for the first 300 years, a certain subset of people were allowed to play. Now we’ve opened up the game and encouraged everyone to go around the board. But this newfound participation doesn’t take away from the fact that a lot of the real estate with its established green houses and red hotels is largely untouchable to the new players. White cartoonist Hilary Price (“Rhymes With Orange”) supports the Feb. 10 comics page action: White Cartoonists Discuss Black Cartoonists' Comics-Page Action. [via torchbearers] See also: Name that Peanuts character!
This collection of Stan Lee Tribute Artwork repeatedly takes my breath away.
The RIAA has conducted about 26,000 lawsuits, and there are more than 15 million music downloaders. Mark Mulligan of Jupiter Research said it best: “If you’re a file sharer, you know that the likelihood of you being caught is very similar to that of being hit by an asteroid.” Bruce Schneier: Steal This Wi-Fi
It’s like a weather forecast of mostly sunny with patches of racism. Black Cartoonists Plan Feb. 10 Comics-Page Action: “At least eight African-American cartoonists plan to take part in a Feb. 10 comics-page action to draw attention to the way their strips are perceived and purchased.” The artists will each draw a version of the same strip, to protest being treated as interchangeable by editors. The irony here is that it’s highly unlikely—if not impossible—that you’ll be able to simply open up to the comics page of your preferred daily to see the action take place. [via Torchbearers]
For a school art contest, I proudly submitted a drawing of Peppermint Patty on a baseball mound. I played little league, I was the only girl on the team and I wanted to prove that girls could and did play baseball. … I had always thought her skin tone was strange, so I “fixed” it with a thin, tan watercolor mix that I had watched my mom use repeatedly on birthday cards for my friends. As far as I knew, all birthday cards needed to be “fixed” when you bought them home from the store. My First Lesson In Being Black
The social networking services that really work are the ones that are built around objects. Flickr, for example, has turned photos into objects of sociality. On del.icio.us the objects are the URLs. EVDB, Upcoming.org, and evnt focus on events as objects. zengestrom.com: Why some social network services work and others don’t Or: the case for object-centered sociality. I hadn’t thought about it this way before, but in my experience it’s certainly true.
Alyssa described her project as an upgrade to traditional journalism. “The upgrade is empathy,” she said, with the severe humility that comes when you suspect you are on to something but are still uncertain you aren’t being ridiculous in some way. “You Don’t Understand Our Audience”: What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC by John Hockenberry. “In the end, perhaps the work that I was most proud of at NBC marginalized me within the organization and was my undoing.” via Graham Leuschke’s bookmarks on del.icio.us
How to Stop Receiving Phone Books and Yellow Pages – thanks Dru!
I may have been the very first black person – certainly the first black person I ever noticed – to appear on TV as an expert on something that had nothing to do with being black. This was 1988. That’s tragic. Heir to Carl Sagan’s role as explainer of the universe, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium. Star Power - washingtonpost.com
When I first saw it in the field: ‘Shiiiit, that’s a really well preserved dinosaur.’ Wired Science: Rare Mummified Dinosaur Unearthed: Contains Skin, and Maybe Organs, Muscle
I think sometimes when you see the writers marching up and down and laughing-–because that’s what we do, those of us who write comedy tend to laugh about horrendous situations-–I think sometimes that can look bad because it may look like people are taking it lightly. But no, it’s a horrible situation. Gothamist: John Oliver, Writer