TMI
- What movie can you recite verbatim?: Embarrassingly, "Mystery Men"
- Zune or Segway
- What song do you want played at your funeral?: All There Is
- What song or movie makes you cry?: Many of them, mostly about war and not love, which is weird
- Vampire or Zombie
balderdash has three and a half stars on Yelp.
3:40 PM yesterday
balderdash commented on The Pope Doesn't Understand the Point of Atheists.
balderdash commented on The Pope Doesn't Understand the Point of Atheists.
He seems like a much nicer guy than most other popes. I'm okay with that, really. I'm especially okay with the message that being a good person is what counts. As one of the atheists under discussion, I have absolutely no argument with that position, even though we of course have wildly different means of arriving at the statement and different conceptions of what it means, and I guess I can now consider myself a little more closely allied to Catholicism than to most American Protestantism.
I hope he's got a little steel in him, though, because nice words and nice hand-waving aren't going to prosecute any child-rapists.
I hope he's got a little steel in him, though, because nice words and nice hand-waving aren't going to prosecute any child-rapists.
1:09 PM yesterday
balderdash commented on Savage Love.
balderdash commented on Savage Love.
That marriage counselor was a complete piece of shit. I wonder if it was it a real marriage counselor who was bad at his job, or a parallel-Christian-universe "marriage counselor"? Not sure which is worse, really.
May 21
balderdash commented on Microsoft Resets Xbox to One.
balderdash commented on Microsoft Resets Xbox to One.
I'm not sure why the end of the console is sad. It just means that it no longer makes sense to have dedicated low-power computers for specific purposes around your house when people already have regular computers, media computers, and computers in their backpacks and briefcases and pockets. This is happening because PC (and HTPC) gaming can now do anything that console gaming can, and that's awesome.
May 21
balderdash commented on I'd Kneecap a Baby for a 3D Pop-Tart Right Now.
balderdash commented on I'd Kneecap a Baby for a 3D Pop-Tart Right Now.
Yes, but is it really edible food on demand or is it "edible" "food" on demand? Because the first few years, or for that matter few decades, of most food technologies are the latter, not the former.
It's a great direction for experimentation and once the technology is mature it's gonna be amazing. For right now, though... I wouldn't rely on one for my breakfast.
It's a great direction for experimentation and once the technology is mature it's gonna be amazing. For right now, though... I wouldn't rely on one for my breakfast.
May 20
balderdash commented on Listen Up, Gays: They're Coming to Recruit You.
balderdash commented on Listen Up, Gays: They're Coming to Recruit You.
I also would just like to put this out there: that false equivalency argument is bad enough, but "We should not base our laws based on personal dislikes" is one of the most pathetically insipid things I've ever read. Whoever's copywriting these things, if you're out there, your verbal skills are bad and you should feel bad.
May 20
balderdash commented on Listen Up, Gays: They're Coming to Recruit You.
balderdash commented on Listen Up, Gays: They're Coming to Recruit You.
It's not that strange when you remember that the "traditionally conservative movement" in question is not in fact an organic movement but an industry lobby group with a lot of deeply emotionally invested fans/customers. These aren't campaign posters; they're advertising.
May 17
balderdash commented on In the UK, Amazon Is a Welfare Queen.
balderdash commented on In the UK, Amazon Is a Welfare Queen.
The difference I didn't articulate well, being, then, that the young mother on welfare needs the aid which she is being given, whilst the megacorporation takes the aid which they do not need because they can get away with it. In a sense, the mother is perverting the intention of the aid system, whereas Amazon.uk is acting entirely in line with a tax break structure which they and others like them have worked to put in place. For whatever reason, we instinctively respect the power to make the world work for you in an orderly fashion, even if it's hideously unfair, but we hold in utmost contempt anything less than perfect orthodoxy in the weak, even if the deviation is entirely humane.
Because we are jerks.
Because we are jerks.
May 17
balderdash commented on Introducing Yahoomblr?.
balderdash commented on Introducing Yahoomblr?.
@6, Yahoo is not exactly open-minded and liberal, historically speaking, and given how much of tumblr's content is "adult" (by which of course I mean nominally adult but we all know it's posted and consumed primarily by teenagers) there is no way this won't be a disaster all 'round.
May 17
balderdash commented on In the UK, Amazon Is a Welfare Queen.
balderdash commented on In the UK, Amazon Is a Welfare Queen.
Why is it? It's because inside of each and every one of us there lurks a shitty, hateful, racist bully who delights in nothing more than picking on the weak, especially when that involves blaming them for their own predicaments; and in a lot of people, and especially on the internet, that bully is not very deep beneath the surface. Not at all.
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http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/61…
The concept is hardly new but it's a great - and compelling - demonstration of it.
Anyway, the short version is that market competition makes people more likely to commit actions they themselves judged to be immoral to get ahead. By all rights anyone claiming to be a moral leader should be a fierce opponent of open markets in any form.
@3, sure, he's fronting a lot of money now - and I mean that with respect; the Foundation does a tremendous amount of good - but do you remember how to had to act to get to the top? His name was a curse not all that long ago.