Spiersblr

2 days ago

ninety9:

spiers:

A Hugh MacLeod original from 2002, gifted to me a couple of weeks ago by [the sadly no longer blogging] Objectionable Content.

Funny thing is, this is exactly the line I used on @girlfriend. Related: if you thought for even as second that I was being serious, you should unfollow both of us.

Please. I’m not that easy. (He said, “I read Dealbreaker.”)

spiers:

A Hugh MacLeod original from 2002, gifted to me a couple of weeks ago by [the sadly no longer blogging] Objectionable Content.

Funny thing is, this is exactly the line I used on @girlfriend. Related: if you thought for even as second that I was being serious, you should unfollow both of us.

Please. I’m not that easy. (He said, “I read Dealbreaker.”)

via ninety9

A Hugh MacLeod original from 2002, gifted to me a couple of weeks ago by [the sadly no longer blogging] Objectionable Content.

4 days ago

reblogt:

spiers:

Sunny San Antonio: the view from my hotel room. (Denny’s!)

i’m basing this all fr that denny’s, so i know this is a stretch, buuuuuut… is this right?

I’m staying here.

via reblogt

Sunny San Antonio: the view from my hotel room. (Denny’s!)

1 week ago

It was only a matter of time: VF's Gladwell parody

Why baby Jesus? Research confirms there were upwards of 157 hotel-cum-stables in Bethlehem that night, with estimated 97 percent occupancy levels. So why did that star shine so brightly over his?

Imagine that I were to ask you to dress up as a baby and lie in a manger. Would you attract a comparable crowd of shepherds plus livestock and anything upwards of three kings from the East?

In a hugely influential 2004 experiment at the University of Colorado at Bollocks Falls, Professor Sanjiv Sanjive and his team asked 323 volunteers to wrap themselves in swaddling clothes and spend the night in a stable, lying in a manger.

From Malcolm Gladwell Explains Christmas to Craig Brown [Vanity Fair]

An eclectic essayist is necessarily a dilettante, which is not in itself a bad thing. But Gladwell frequently holds forth about statistics and psychology, and his lack of technical grounding in these subjects can be jarring. He provides misleading definitions of “homology,” “saggital plane” and “power law” and quotes an expert speaking about an “igon value” (that’s eigenvalue, a basic concept in linear algebra). In the spirit of Gladwell, who likes to give portentous names to his aperçus, I will call this the Igon Value Problem: when a writer’s education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert, he is apt to offer generalizations that are banal, obtuse or flat wrong. »

Book Review - ‘What the Dog Saw - And Other Adventures,’ by Malcolm Gladwell - Review - NYTimes.com (via femmebot)

Yes. What Steven Pinker said.

(via evangotlib)

via evangotlib

1 week ago

But really, the word douche is just like the story the Times did on it, and the generalized sources—the “some people” who “may be offended” by it— they used. It’s empty. It means nothing. It’s a completely subjective assessment of somebody who does something you don’t like. I know people who use the word “douchebag” when referring to other people; I’m willing to bet those same people use the word “douchebag” to refer to the people referring to them. And I’m most disappointed when people I know who use the word could find something more concise, or shocking, or linguistically artful to go with. It’s sold at the Wal-Mart of pejoratives. It’s cheap, it’s made en masse, and there’s nothing but bad preservatives in the ingredients. Let’s all—The New York Times, Bloggers, TV Writers, Those Who Use The Word “Douchebag,” Those Who You Would Call A “Douche,” Bar Patrons, Sports Fans, English Professors, Joe Dolce—become better communicators, and find something better than the word “douche” and its mediocre suffix “bag” to go with. »

Foster, calling on all of us to use words better. (via maura)

(via fek)

Yes. Also: If you have to call someone a “douchebag,” you’re failing as a writer. Good opinion writing isn’t about making pronouncements from a position of authority; it’s about making a persuasive argument. You can’t just call someone a douche; you have to demonstrate that they are and let the audience decide whether you’re right. Show, not tell.

via fek

1 week ago

Still evaluating the Droid

mikehudack:

bijan:

I bought my Droid last Friday.

And I’m still not sure if I’m going to keep it or return it.

There are a bunch of things I really like about the Droid

-Android 2.0 is a huge improvement over the 1.5

-Verizon Network is awesome.

-Maps is much better on Droid than iPhone

-Exchange sync is great.

-gmail integration is better on droid than on iphone (one click archive, etc)

-I like the FourSquare Android app better than the iPhone app

-improved battery life

-GoogleVoice rocks

Things I don’t like:

-maybe I have a lemon but the battery door is way too loose for my taste.

-There isn’t a Tumblr app for Android

-There isn’t a Yelp app for Android

-There isn’t a flickr app for Android

-The camera is fussy (i understand an update is coming dec 11th that should fix this)

-I’ve tried a bunch of Twitter apps for Android. My favorite so far is an app called ‘Swift’. But it doesn’t hold a candle to Tweetie2 on iPhone

-The music player on the Droid isn’t great. It doesn’t sync with iTunes which is a buzzkill. I’m using DoubleTwist to sync my media and that works out okay.

-I’m getting better with the keyboard but its far from ideal

If I keep the Droid it will most likely mean I’ll end up carrying two devices which isn’t ideal. A number of my friends do this but I never thought i would.

Giving this Droid test run another week.

I’m using aTumble for Tumblr and Twidroid for Twitter. They both seem to work fine.

via mikehudack

2 weeks ago

Apparently I bought the “male 24-35” phone: http://bit.ly/2gdq7m Figures.

2 weeks ago

Dialogue, paraphrased

From a play we saw earlier:

Her: So you just don’t want anyone to know you’re really happy here?

Him: Yeah. I don’t want to deal with the resentment.

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It was only a matter of time: VF's Gladwell parody

Still evaluating the Droid

Dialogue, paraphrased