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A haiku
Stuffy cafe
Surmounting the threshold
Dry leaves blow in -
What is hipsterism?
My current plan for Halloween is to dress up as a hipster. This has brought my attention to the term, and to related phenomena.
I think there's naturally a fairly high diversity of clothing styles: it makes sense to wear something personally identifying, like Lady Greensleeves or Old Grog. There's a practical exception, when you're presenting ( Read more... ) -
Write AND Speak
I just now finished reading Paul Graham's essay, "Writing and Speaking". It seemed I had read it before, and it's quite possible that I did, but it also may have been familiar because it's partly made of spolia, including a lot of ideas that Graham had developed in "Persuade XOR Discover".
His basic premise is that effort invested in making a ( Read more... ) -
Since there have to be attack ads...
I don't really like that there are attack ads, but since the niche for them has to be filled by something, here's one I'd like to see: it depicts a kennel being taken off of a car, and the car being dismantled, then re-built to look much more modern, while the voice-over describes the product: "New from American Motors Corporation, the completely ( Read more... ) -
Flying Checkpoint
I went through my first flying checkpoint today ( Read more... ) -
walking up out of the Flats
A few times, recently, I've walked up into the hills. This means leaving the Oakland everyone seems to be afraid of, and entering one that's more subtly harmful (or a different city entirely: Piedmont, CA).
I've encountered two signs up there that read "Drive like your children live here".
Children cost, like, $10k, maybe $15k per capita, per annum. ( Read more... ) -
The First Amendment as a Swiss army knife: at least two edges
It's interesting to see some Republicans try to frame anti-birth-control policies as an issue of religious freedom. Requiring insurance companies to cover birth control seems like a very roundabout way of violating the liberties of churches that might purchase insurance policies. And as interesting as the tortured logic might be, I'm even more ( Read more... ) -
Metastatic Omertà
"Son do you know what I'm stoppin' you for?"
"Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low..?"
"Do you mind if I look 'round the car a little bit?"
"Well my glove compartment is locked; so is the trunk and the back,
And I know my rights, so you gon' need a warrant for that."
I'm a little worried by our collective response to the recent police ( Read more... ) -
Reed Hastings' Dilemma
Something just occurred to me. I can't track down the citations tonight, but feel free to bug me about it if you're interested.
Netflix has been acting strange lately: changing its pricing scheme, half-heartedly attempting to split off its DVD-by-mail business, and other moves have puzzled some people, including me. On the drive home yesterday, it ( Read more... ) -
Obama's press conference
I was listening to the President make a well-reasoned case that legislators should take action to create jobs, with the alternative being political suicide. I have to agree with the general tactic, but I think a more concrete and literal approach would avoid unnecessary delays. That takes some explaining though.
One journalist asked if Mr. Obama was ( Read more... )