September 2011
32 posts
“I tell you, though, my problem is the ambient alcohol. Like, it’s one...”
– —Merlin Mann, on Las Vegas
The Talk Show #57: The Banana Window
On parenting →
“You know, fathers who aren’t engineers spend more time with their kids.” “Well, do you want a good parent, or an efficient parent?”
“I think a lot about my senility, ‘cause I know it’s gonna happen, I...”
– —Merlin Mann
I’m enjoying Merlin’s new podcast with John Roderick.
The God Clause and the Reinsurance Industry →
In 1888 the city of Sundsvall in Sweden, built of wood, burned to the ground. A group of reinsurers, Swiss Re among them, let Sweden’s insurers know there was going to be a limit in the future on losses from wooden houses, and it was going to be low. Sweden began building with stone. Reinsurance is a product, but also a carrot in the negotiation between culture and reality; it lets societies...
Total Loss: A Column About Inventorying Other... →
Yoga Mats are Often Found in Close Proximity to a Plant That Needs Watering
When a yoga mat is positively identified, it is almost always within a five-foot radius of a plant that hasn’t been watered in quite some time. This correlation suggests that there is link between one’s spiritual awareness, the consequent ability to put one’s foot over one’s head, and a near total disregard for other...
"Don't Ask Don't Tell": Exclusive Interviews with... →
“Part of what has really allowed me to hide in plain sight is the fact that I don’t meet the stereotype. And you’re good at your job—a gay person wouldn’t be good at his job, so obviously you’re not gay. You’re a Marine, you don’t mind getting dirty, going out into the field and not showering for weeks at a time…and, if you were gay, when you have...
Tim Cook: my first-person impression of Apple's... →
Michael Grothaus:
The room was completely silent. And it remained that way for maybe half a minute as Tim Cook slowly took a few steps back and forth. He shuffled the presentation remote around in his hand. He looked out at us and smiled, but still didn’t speak. Then he clicked a button on the remote and a large image of a padlock appeared on the screen behind him.
“The details of...
Community's "Paradigms of Human Memory:" A salute... →
Bill Wyman:
The first time you see the episode it’s hard to take in; the second time you try to figure out how much work went into it. Each scene, remember, had to be conceived, budgeted, built, staged, costumed, and filmed, just for a few seconds of airtime, in addition to the two or three dozen other brief flashback scenes that were staged in the show’s regular sets but still...
The Brilliance of Dwarf Fortress →
Jonah Weiner:
Many simulation games offer players a bag of building blocks, but few dangle a bag as deep, or blocks as small and intricately interlocking, as Dwarf Fortress. Beneath the game’s rudimentary facade is a dizzying array of moving parts, algorithms that model everything from dwarves’ personalities (some are depressive; many appreciate art) to the climate and economic patterns of the...
Nazi Monetary Policy →
Matt Yglesias:
Centrally planned economies have a lot of problems, but since military supplies are always a case of monopsony purchasing by the government, if military supplies are the only thing you care about, this is what you do. Centrally planned economies have the useful side effect of essentially eliminating unemployment, because you’d have to be an extremely sloppy planner to simply not...
“I want to make that clear to America. This is a new age of androgynous...”
– Andrej Pejic, The Prettiest Boy in the World
“Thor’s a dude that throws a hammer at people. I mean, without the mutual...”
– Jon Hamm in An Oral History of the Rise and Fall (and Rise) of “The Dana Carvey Show”
Inside Pfizer's palace coup →
There was the ex-CEO who couldn’t relinquish his power and quietly maneuvered to undercut two successors he had helped install. Then there was the human resources chief who divided the staff rather than uniting it. Most of all, there was Kindler himself, a bright man with some fresh ideas for reforming Pfizer but a person who agonized over decisions even as he second-guessed everybody...
Bronson Pinchot | DVD | Random Roles | The A.V.... →
I should have said to the producers, “You get that guy in line, or I’m out of here.” Life’s too short. But the next movie I did, the director was getting a lot of crap from his star, and he started to take it out on me one day, and just like a German shepherd—you know when a German shepherd stands up on its hind legs and puts its paws on your shoulders?
I put my hands on his shoulders and I...
Dick Cheney - 9/11 Encyclopedia →
The core of Cheney’s behavior might well be a jagged sense of helplessness and shock at the horror unfolding before him on that day. Staring at the TV in his office, taking in the carnage, he picked up the phone, trying to reach Bush in Florida. A Secret Service detail, alerted that a plane was heading for the White House, ran in, grabbed him by the shoulders, and raced him toward a bunker from...
Selections from lost NHC discussion bulletins →
HURRICANE LILI DISCUSSION NUMBER 49
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FL
11 AM EDT THU OCT 03 2002
HEY GUYS…I WAS JUST WONDERING…IF YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THINGS. LIKE…YOU KNOW…WHETHER IT IS ALL WORTH IT.
$$ FORECASTER FREDERICK
Watchmerlin:
Hm. Really makes you think.
“Neko [Case] just emails me all of her good reviews. She doesn’t even write...”
– Catching Up With Carl Newman | News | Pitchfork
1 tag
