PAYPAL IS THE WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD

What John Cole said. Google bombing run to commence in 3…2…1… Now. Seriously — I’ve got an acct. w. Paypal, and while they have not done to me what they have done to John (memo to self — no debit cards from companies whose offices I can’t walk into), I smell the grasping hand for [...]

More Treats: CERN, Physicists, Hippopotami, Higgs Love, Flanders and Swann edition

Via ThonyC, from Blake Stacy ab origio, this transport of delight*: For those of you too callow, or merely victims of a deprived childhood to get the ur text from which Cern’s songbirds derive their version, here’s the original, by the irreplaceable Flanders and Swann: *And just because I do truly love you, and we [...]

Curse You Carl Zimmer: Vicious Distraction Edition

So, a day or so ago Carl Zimmer tweets the existence of the Netflix iPhone app, boasting of the loss of his productivity. A Trojan horse if there ever was one. What a way to clear out potential writing competition. Downloaded the app today. Found myself watching episode one of the first season of Miami [...]

The Way David Macaulay Works

Something of a Friday brain dump seems to be going on chez Inverse Square. I’m trying to help out a little on what would for me be another David Macaulay-hosted project. (Info on first one in which I participated — the Peabody award winning Building Big — is here.) That led me back to the [...]

Quote of the Day: Cosma Shalizi, or why mathematicians are delightfully different from other people

Presented without comment, from a stray announcement on Cosma’s invaluable, slow-cooked blog, Three Toed Sloth. Every human relationship is a unique and precious snowflake, but do we treat them that way when we model them mathematically? No. Image:  Hiroshige, “Kambara,” number 16 from The Fifty Three Stations of the Tokaido, 1831-4 (Hoeido edition). And yes, [...]

My latest letter to President Obama/Alan Simpson must go edition

I’m back, sort of, though still buried in start of term nonsense, But just to dip my toe back in the water — here’s what I just shot off at Whitehouse.gov on the subject of why those who hate you get so much love.  It amazes me still that the White House just doesn’t seem [...]

Brain Candy — Ex Tagger Art as Performance, Big Al edition.

Visiting friends now, just before I head off to my mountain internet-less fastness. Last night I got to talking with the eighteen year old in the house, who has been doing remarkable work with at-risk kids in his community* and he showed me this video taken at the big inspirational conference his organization put on [...]

Just a Wee Bit of McArdle Snark to Keep My Hand In: She’s Still Always Wrong, but Makes a (Sad) Funny Nonetheless, Krugman, Ryan and Judt edition

I’m off on a two week holiday to a secure undisclosed location that is blessed by no landline phone; no cell phone coverage; no town electricity or cable (and hence no internet). Bliss, in other words. I may be able to launch a minor blog post or two, but if not, I thought I’d wave [...]

McGeorge Bundy Lives! (Or Harvard’s Revenge on Itself and America, Larry Summers edition)

While I’m trying not to start drinking Mezcal at noon, reading stuff like this (h/t Atrios) and this doesn’t help. By now, sitting up here at one end of Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, watching Larry Summers’ heirs pick up the pieces at Harvard (seriously — who puts operating budget into endowment investment?), while standing in [...]

Quick hit link love

This one probably slipped by most people, as it showed up in that bastion of mass media attention, The Boston Phoenix, but Professor, née Colonel Andrew Bacevich gave a sharp and important interview to their reporter, and you should read it. The key take away: wars fought because we’ve been fighting them are (a) futile, [...]