- Blog
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“Into the Woods”: Thoughts on What’s Been Changed for the Film
As a piece of culture, Into the Woods holds deep, personal significance for me. As a junior in high school, I played the Baker in our school production, and it was an amazing, empowering experience. One snag was that I didn’t really have the pipes at the time to give the pivotal song “No More” the power it…
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Kirk from “Gilmore Girls”: My Goddamn Hero
I am a man riddled with anxieties, hangups, doubts, and regrets, but I aspire to a greater sense of self-worth (or any sense of self-worth, frankly). And this is why I have discovered a new hero in Kirk Gleason. Kirk is a character from the show Gilmore Girls, which my wife started watching on Netflix, and…
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Gloves That Allow You To Look Like an Idiot and Simultaneously Awesome
ThinkGeek is now selling gloves that also serve as a Bluetooth handset for talking on the phone…by actually making that thumb-and-pinky sign with your hands! Where has this been??? Why are we seven years into the smartphone revolution and this only comes about now??? What has the rest of the industry been wasting its time on???…
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The Embassy of Google
I really like Google+ for the most part (as much as I hate the name), and I find the interactions that I have there to be, on the average, much higher in quality than those I have over Facebook or Twitter. Part of that I know is because there just aren’t all that many people…
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Trying to Be a Phablet Guy, with Little Hands
Is it time to jump on board the phablet bandwagon? I’ve never owned one of these large phones before, being cursed with wee mitts, but I’ve always been a little googly-eyed at the idea of a portable large-screen device. I was one of the few who, when the first Samsung Galaxy Note was unveiled, didn’t…
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Oh Shit, Earth Actually is Flat
That is, if you’re a cosmic particle traveling at 99.9999999999991% the speed of light. What a fascinating way to look at the basic shapes of All Things that we take for granted. But no, there’s no need to join the Flat Earth Society, unless, of course, you’re talking about Thomas Dolby’s fan club. The man…
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Reaching the Age of Dennis (Of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune)
Today I reach the age of Dennis, the filth-digging peasant who loathes the self-perpetuating autocracy in spite of which his autonomous collective operates. He’s not old, you see. He’s 37. He’s not old.
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The Superhero America, with its Systemic and Infrastructural Problems, Deserves
Vlad Savov has an interesting essay at The Verge in which he laments that popular superheroes as they are written are rarely called upon to use their extraordinary powers to do more than fight, as opposed to tackling some of the bigger, more systemic problems faced by societies and civilization. He writes, for example: Superman’s reduction to a…
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Kermit the Frog Performs Twitter’s Strategy Statement
Twitter released its strategy statement to investors on November 12, 2014, to (at best) mixed reception. Here, Kermit the Frog performs the statement, word-for-word. See also Kermit performing Mitt Romney’s explanation about releasing his tax returns from 2012.
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Mars One: Interplanetary Travel on Underpants Gnome Principles
There are two new fascinating articles about the Mars One mission, in which a small number of people train for ten years to be sent on a one-way trip to Mars to begin the long process of colonization. Run by a private non-profit corporation, it plans to contract all of its technical needs from private…
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The Martians’ Singularity: Thoughts on “The War of the Worlds”
I’ve just read H.G. Wells’ original The War of the Worlds, and it was nothing like I expected. I have a completely unfounded prejudice about some of this classic sci-fi literature, wherein I presume it to be either vapid pulp or unnecessarily stuffy. (Frankenstein suffered a bit from the latter, I thought. Come on, Victor,…
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Performing Artists, Kill Your Guilty Conscience
My amazing and talented wife Jessica recently did some voice work to help another actress prepare for a film, for which she was paid. She was told today, however, that the film project had been canceled. This, of course, happens sometimes, and it’s not has though Jess was going to be in the thing, so…
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An Unbearable Ache and an Unexpected Alphabet
I have highly mixed feelings about having my kids in daycare. On the one hand, it’s wonderful that they get a full day’s worth of attention, stimulation, exercize, education, social acclamation, and genuine care, every single day. It’s a great daycare, the kids love it, and we’re really lucky to have it available. On the…
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HP Unveils An All-Touch, Projector-Controlled PC
HP has announced something truly new and novel, a desktop PC that is entirely touch-based, but not by reaching out in front of you to touch the screen (which you can also do), but via an overhead projection onto a giant touchpad where a keyboard would normally be. Questions of practicality aside, it looks at…
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