I have a deep, abiding love for Florence Knoll credenzas
the four stages of competence
1. Unconscious Incompetence
The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit.2. Conscious Incompetence
Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit.3. Conscious Competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration.4. Unconscious Competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become “second nature” and can be performed easily. He or she may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.
Plus, a possible fifth.
(thanks, Luke)
My new joke will be
If I see a handsome dark haired woman I will say, Look, it’s Prince.
Photo Out of Context
Holy High Gas Prices!
A Georgia pastor is gathering his congregation and assembling at gas pumps to pray for lower gas prices:
WMAZ-TV reports the Beacon of Light Christian Center is planning the Saturday prayer gathering at gas pumps outside a Kroger grocery store in Dublin.
Pastor Marshall Mabry said he believes that if church members come together and pray as a community, they can make something happen.
Mabry said that with prices reaching almost $4, he says he plans to ask God for help.
He said it’s the third time members of his congregation have met at gas pumps to pray.
Mabry said he wants to start a movement which spreads from the small town of Dublin to the rest of the nation.
I find it ironic that, for folks who believe in prayer, it hasn’t occurred to ask instead for an end to war in the Middle East, as opposed to an arbitrary dip in the price of a barrel of oil.
Pop Tart Cat – Choral Remix
What Cindy said
If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s a deaf racist.
photo out of context
Stamen Shadows
The precepts in this section—many of them written in a digressive, self-serious style that reads as if Ayn Rand and Deepak Chopra had collaborated on a line of fortune cookies—are never about making money, at least not openly
There is nothing to fear from truth.
When a pack of hyenas takes down a young wildebeest, is this good or bad?
Ask yourself whether you have earned the right to have an opinion.
The pursuit of billions of dollars through aphorisms and “radical transparency.”
(via the browser)
the van-sized robot came to scientific fame after autonomously investigating gene function in yeast
The debate over standardizing science will continue as artificial intelligence continues to improve. In the meantime, King’s team is preparing to publish recent work completed by the newer robot Eve, which is studying drugs used to treat malaria, Chagas disease and other neglected tropical scourges.
That publication, however, is being delayed by issues beyond the ken of artificially intelligent scientists.
“We don’t want it to be exploited for profit by others,” King said. “At this point, the intellectual property issues are holding us up.”
A lot more about artificial intelligence and computer models of scientific thought — a good example of how a short report can give glimpses into dozens of possible futures.
coming out of sleep
A little drool.
The T-Mobile Royal Wedding
Obviously a dress rehearsal.
I’ve had to leave the damn country to escape this, but, in reality, there is no escape.
from the spam
What a shit. How can you call it a web site?
Savage Car Talk
So some genius motherfucker decided to do a mashup of Car Talk and Savage Love, and it’s pretty awesome.
NSFW should go without saying.
Commentary on Popular Network Televison
Last night I was sitting on the floor with Levi, folding laundry. A few minutes earlier Alicia had been down the hall in the playroom watching TV and feeding Levi. She had left the TV on. About halfway through the basket of clothes I hear Alicia ask Izzy to go in the playroom to get a book to read.
The bookshelf holds the TV and from where I’m sitting I can only see the side of both the shelf and the TV. I have no idea what might be on the screen but watch as Izabella enters the room and heads straight for the books. She’s distracted by something on the screen and looks up. Her face goes a little slack and I can see confusion and extreme interest set in.
I call her name. Again. Again. The fourth time breaks the spell the TV has over her and she looks at me. “You were getting a book.”
“Oh! Yeah!” She looks instantly at the books and reaches for one but before she grabs it she glances up at the TV again and freezes. Her mouth drops open a little.
I call to her again and get no response. Alicia walks into the room and Izzy looks up at her, “I don’t know what they’re doing.”
Micah P. Hinson – Drift Off To Sleep
When you sleep
What do you see
A million stars to wish upon
Or just me
the evolution of language
For years, linguists have assumed a structure for language seated in different parts of the brain that should, theoretically, cause languages to evolve similarly, in different places and cultures, over time.
In the new study, Dunn and Gray’s team created evolutionary trees for eight word-order features in humanity’s best-described language groups — Austronesian, Indo-European, Bantu and Uto-Aztecan. Together they contain more than one-third of humanity’s 7,000 languages, and span thousands of years. If there are universal trends, say Dunn and Gray, they should be visible, with each language family evolving along similar lines.
“Each language family is evolving according to its own set of rules. Some were similar, but none were the same,” said Dunn. “There is much more diversity, in terms of evolutionary processes, than anybody ever expected.”
I guess this is the equivalent of the nature versus nurture shuffle applied to neurological linguistics.
headline of the day
Chinese man caught driving two bumper cars in city traffic – simultaneously
Searching for meaning is the meaning
tweet of the day
We were talking about writing about sex. It was 1993
From an article by Alexander Chee in Paris Review about sex in James Salter’s fiction:
This was before Viagra—you had to have an honest hard-on to shoot.
I thought about how something had happened in the dark that we couldn’t see, an excitement that couldn’t be in the film. It was probably better than what we would film, more interesting.
It seems to me I am always in pursuit of that.
She begins to strip like a roommate and climb into bed.
They have fallen asleep. Dean wakes first, in the early afternoon. He unfastens her stockings and slowly rolls them off. Her skirt is next and then her underpants. She opens her eyes. The garter belt he leaves on, to confirm her nakedness. He rests his head there.
Her hand touches his chest and begins to fall in excruciating slow designs.
He lies still as a dog beneath it, still as an idiot.
On its own terms, sex is information.
(via the browser)
Wichita Falls
I think this encounter is why I can’t eat fish.
quote out of context
DARPA says a discussion of narrative psychology will lead to a “better understanding of the thoughts and feelings of others.”
from the comments
I was going to have to go into this whole protracted thing about condoms and unprotected sex or salad and I just don’t think I have it in me.
