dear clusterflock
Best coffee.
that’s a spicy hand grenade
The Indian Army is weaponizing the bhut jolokia, recognized as the world’s hottest chili.
After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized “bhut jolokia,” or “ghost chili,” to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said Tuesday.
The bhut jolokia was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world’s spiciest chili. It is grown and eaten in India’s northeast for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat.
It has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili’s spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000.
I’m Just a Bill
Found on Flickr
My fifteen year old sister has begun modeling, it would seem.
No matter how many pictures I see, I am stunned by how beautiful she and my other sisters are. This can only mean trouble, but how could I possibly warn them?
1/10,000
Also, an annual excuse to link to this. (cf. this as well.)
The Future of Publishing
It is essential that you watch it all the way through (via Chip Kidd).
V
Anyone else seen this?
From “every garment hand stitched” to “you look a little too tan,” it hit all my right spots.
there’s no word for «heaven» in Spanish—only «sky» [cielo]
conservative entertainment industry
Frum, also my favorite conservative writer, comments on yesterday’s little incident:
I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
hypothesis
Claude Lévi-Strauss on writing:
My hypothesis, if correct, would oblige us to recognize the fact that the primary function of written communication is to facilitate slavery. The use of writing for disinterested purposes, and as a source of intellectual and aesthetic pleasure, is a secondary result, and more often than not it may even be turned into a means of strengthening, justifying or concealing the other.
quote out of context
In Barnsley I call my house my house, but if I went to visit my cousins Ronald and Harry in north Derbyshire, they would meet me at the gate and invite me into their freshly wallpapered arse.
via The Browser
tufte, powerpoint, and kittens
This has been floating around.
I’m having a hard time with this (you know, on a micro scale)
As has been reported off and on for the past few years, Ferrari — in as vivid a sign of the times as when Kodak stopped selling film cameras — is phasing out the use of manual transmissions.
cephalopod television
Biologists have used HDTV to trick octopuses into responses to various stimuli otherwise unobservable in a natural environment.
“This is the first time such a strong, appropriate response has been shown from a cephalopod to video,” said Pronk. “The octopuses’ reactions were the same as the way they react to these objects out in the ocean. For instance, when an octopus sees a crab out in the ocean, they generally try to sneak up or jet over to it and envelope it under their arms. This is how the octopuses reacted to the video crab.”
Pronk.
the omega male
If only being an omega male meant one could later become The Omega Man:
While the alpha male wants to dominate and the beta male just wants to get by, the omega male has either opted out or, if he used to try, given up. Greenberg says of his somewhat stunted best friend, “We call each other ‘man,’ but it’s a joke. It’s like imitating other people.” The omega male is not experiencing the tired trope of the midlife crisis. A midlife crisis implies agency, a man who has the job and the family and chooses to reject it. The omega male doesn’t have the power to reject anything—he’s the one who has been brushed off. He’s generally unemployed, and his romantic relationships are in shambles—he’s either single or, if he’s married, not happy about it. “I’m doing nothing and I’m tied to no one,” Greenberg boasts.
The comments to the Slate article are fantastic in that post-Foucault, we’re-not-comfortable-with-totalizing-claims, train wreck sort of way. (thanks, Brian)
quote out of context
Each $18.50 tube comes with a color chart so men can figure out how aroused their partner is feeling.
radical socialism
Obama’s legislation comes from an alternative idea, begun under the Eisenhower administration and developed under Nixon, of a market for health care based on private insurers and employers. Eisenhower locked in the tax break for employee health benefits; Nixon pushed prepaid, competing health plans, and urged a requirement that employers cover their employees. Obama applies Nixon’s idea and takes it a step further by requiring all Americans to carry health insurance, and giving subsidies to those who need it.
immortal jellyfish
The turritopsis nutricula jellyfish may be able to cycle through its developmental stages repeatedly resulting in hypothetical immortality.
The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, on the other hand, can regenerate its entire body over and over again. Researchers are studying the jellyfish to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.
The one simple rule you need to know to have perfect texting etiquette
If you’re in a situation where you’d excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, you should also excuse yourself before reaching for your phone. Otherwise, go ahead without asking. Either way, don’t play with your phone longer than you’d stay in the bathroom.
It seems to cover all the bases.
(via marginal revolution)
One Angry Dwarf
As Joe pointed out, that was totally not Ben Folds. This is Ben Folds, and 2000 people in Charlotte, NC:
from the spam
Your comments are pretty informed and helpful. Have you considered writing professionally? Like a periodical or something?
Deron
establishes his bona fides at the entrance to the dump. Dallas, Texas. March 2010.
from the comments
Labels and notes from the dead to the living were at the heart of the clearing-out-the-house experience.
Motorcycle Cage of Death: Juju vs. Mojo
It doesn’t get any better than things that have not yet happened.
Do I phrase my statements as questions and then answer them? Of course I don’t.
Clusterflockstock advance team: dinner with Josh
Josh and Grace, serial Denver residents, joined Ronya and me (not “I”) for a lovely dinner last night. Topics discussed:
- Dream jobs
- Couch surfing
- Arrogant homeless people
- Artisanal cheese
- Haircuts
- Critical theory in communications
- Jamaica Plain
- The Brendan Behan pub
- Frank Patrick
- Path to Clusterflocking
- Conspiracy theories about the sinister inner group of ‘flockers
- Pescatarianism
- Fashion
- Breast augmentation
- Cheeseburgers
- Career ennui
We have threatened to repeat such a gathering. I rather enjoyed it. As a bonus, Grace asked (snidely, if you ask me) if we would be geeky enough to blog about it.
How ya like me now?
