Link Archive 11/8/14 - 12/16/14

Why do people post pics of text, rather than actual text? Is it just to make it impossible to copy/paste, search, find, google, and share easily? Damned kids these days...

Shave without shaving cream. I've been doing this for over a month. Yes, it works, very well. Shaving cream must be a relic carried over from an age before stand-up showers. Nowadays just running a razor over your face at the end of a shower works better than all that shaving cream crap. After 10 minutes of soaking in water, your facial hair is powerless against sharp steel, and your skin will thank you. It even works just fine vs my Monday Morning Mangle, which surprised me.

The UK lawmakers' weird porn obsession keeps growing. Reminds me of Dan Savage's first rule of anti-sex lawmakers "The more virulently anti-gay a lawmaker is, the more recently he's had a cock inside him him." (Paraphrased)

Sooooo good. How Humanity Killed An Ancient Mad God. (A true story of science) "You are a member of the species that did that. Never forget what we are capable of, when we band together and declare battle on what is broken in the world."

The best Christmas Carol. :) Cool thoughts on personhood. "A person (as such) is a social fiction: an abstraction specifying the contract for an idealized interaction partner. Most of our institutions, even whole civilizations, are built to this interface — but fundamentally we are human beings, i.e., mere creatures. Some of us implement the person interface, but many of us (such as infants or the profoundly psychotic) don't. Even the most ironclad person among us will find herself the occasional subject of an outburst or breakdown that reveals what a leaky abstraction her personhood really is."

I'm not an anarchist, I think anarchism is stupid. But here's some interesting thoughts on violent opposition. "Riots are especially useful when passive protest is widely acknowledged in certain circles to be laughably useless and indicative of protesters unwilling to commit. It doesn’t matter if a riot is directly successful on the scale of burning down city hall or permanently evicting the police from a neighborhood, what matters more is the change in perceptions. [...] That’s why politicians and police consistently go apeshit over things like measly storefront windows. Their control is dependent in no small part on being seen as in control. Certain boundaries to what’s considered feasible must be secured at all cost lest they begin to lose the illusion of invulnerability that dissuades the subjugated from rising up."

Vitamins disappear from non-GMO cereal. Anti-GMO people hate nutrition! :)

The "Do The Right Thing" clip.

Typeset In The Future! Alien edition. Intensely informative and entertaining.

Someone's actually doing something about this time-change bullshit that happens twice a year (at least in Colorado)!

Ginny is amazing again, this time covering The Hanging Tree. I love slow, low-toned songs like this.

I think I've found the most concise article to point people to when they ask "What is rationality?" And it's a reply to someone who gets the answer completely wrong, which is exactly how humanity works. "Life is made up of limited, confusing, contradictory, and maliciously doctored facts. Anyone who says otherwise is either sticking to such incredibly easy solved problems that they never encounter anything outside their comfort level, or so closed-minded that they shut out any evidence that challenges their beliefs."

Bible Verses Where The Word “Philistines” Has Been Replaced With “Haters” I like this. 1. It's kinda fun. 2. It makes the bible more sympathetic. (Who *doesn't* want to slay all the Haters? Screw those guys!) 3. It helps us relate to ancient peoples, by pointing out that back then "a different ethnic group" was synonymous with "Haters", and so you realize our ancestors weren't evil monsters, they just despised Haters as much as we all do! and 4. It hammers home that yes, the bible is racist and an awful moral guide, because "a different ethnic group" is synonymous with "Haters" in God's eyes (according to the writers, at least)

For the First Time Ever, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting an Innocent Man. I was about to complain this could put the whole adversarial system in jeopardy but... he hid evidence? Yeah, screw that, throw the book at him. Hope he spends at least as much time in jail the innocent guy he locked up.   Hm. If you want readers (rather than critical acclaim, or money) you're best off writing fanfiction. "fimfiction accounts for 2-3% as much reading as do all of the new books sold in America. That makes ponyfiction more popular than Westerns, and nearly as popular as horror." This is just ponyfic. Add in all the other popular fanfic worlds, you likely have more words of fanfic read per year than all original fic published by a fair margin.   Metallica’s “One” played on medieval instruments. I wish they'd gotten to do the full song rather than an abbreviated version.   Advice on modern life's struggles, delivered by Conan. Good stuff.

Zipper Merging - do it. I long wondered why people start getting over so damn early. Turns out it's because that's considered polite. /sigh "[late merging] reduces backups by a whopping 40 percent on average"

USDA approves a GM potato that reduces a suspected carcinogen. Anti-GMO people love cancer!

If you haven't seen the Amazon Echo yet, this parody is the first thing I actually saw about it. It's funny, but also - now I must have one. IT IS LIKE THE COMPUTER FROM STAR TREK!! (Next Generation)

I just found out The Fecal Transplant Foundation exists. Whoever started it should get a medal for Doing Good.