Linkee-poo has gone to Carolina in my mind

Tobias Buckell shares his early experience with fandom.

A book of creatures. Says what it does, does what it says. (Grokked from the Slactivist)

While nothing is ever truly deleted from the internet, in case you're worried about your tweets, the Tweet Delete service. (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)

You may have heard me state that I believe good design should stand on its own. During presentations I can do the dog and pony show and give all the reasoning, blahbity blah blah. Doesn't mean squat because I won't be there (nor with corporate executives receiving the "briefing" sales pitch) with their customers to "explain" it all in loving detail. Take the new HP Enterprise logo for example. There's a whole story behind every little design decision. Case in point, the two "t"s at the end of "Hewlett". I'm sure they're to represent a "connection… symbolic of the partnership we will forge with our customers, partners, and our employees – what we will do together to help drive your business forward" and not just a friggin ligature, which is good type design. I'm sure their customers will be all "Well, I was going to go with IBMs offering until I saw the commitment behind the two "t"s in their logo and then I decided that HPE was for us." Yea, I'm sure that will happen. The stories we tell ourselves. (Grokked from John)

Contrarily, we humans put a lot of emotion into images, and those images tell stories. In this case, a post debate photo from the English election. This is the fundamental issue in design, we tell stories if we mean to or not. We should mean them, be in direct control. However, just like every other creative endeavor, people will bring their own baggage along with them and tell their own stories. (Grokked from Terri Windling)

A middle-school airbrushes a teenager's t-shirt to remove the word "feminist" from the class photo. "Yes, we live in a society where the word 'feminist' is still, apparently, controversial." Hey, ho, way to go Ohio. (Grokked from John Scalzi)

As Douglas Adams wrote, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." (Grokked from John)

One nation, under cancer. "The research focuses on the most common — and preventable — risk factors for cancer, with some cross tabulations by gender, age and other variables." Fuck cancer.

"So, yeah. The surprise closing of five (Wal-Mart) stores Monday probably isn’t a mystery. And it probably ain’t about plumbing." Strange how all five stores were the sites of organized labor.

Ted Cruz shoots himself in the foot attempting to do wing nut service. "But Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is arguing that the Second Amendment includes a right to revolt against government tyranny, a point of emphasis uncommon for mainstream presidential candidates." So, okay, let's play this game. In the past 200 years in this country, when has this been successful? We've had plenty of revolts (big, small, and in-between). So far, not one has had much success (outside of the Civil War, and we all know how that played out, although one side likes to "keep on believing". Remember when the right pilloried then Sen. Obama for making the "god and guns" argument?

"A new study by the Pew Research Study shows that viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have the highest knowledge of national and international affairs, while Fox News viewers rank nearly dead last…" Next up, water is wet. (Grokked from someone, sorry, lost the link)

It's one thing for constituents who oppose the views of their elected officials to not contact those officials. It's another thing entirely when the elected office refuses to meet with those who oppose their views. This is not a sign of strength, it's a sign that you know your beliefs can't withstand scrutiny. (Grokked from the Slactivist)

So, apparently this is a thing now. "However, it seems the apology (for hanging a sign saying "Celebrate Your White Heritage in March, White History Month" on his deli) was not enough to keep Boggess in business. Boggess closed his deli and has started a GoFundMe page for his deli in hopes of raising money to reopen." So, now we make ignorant, un self-aware statements and then expect the people to give us money because we're being all put upon. Say, isn't this "market forces"? And this is what I was talking about in regard to another political issue that if we allow businesses to discriminate (I'm not saying this deli discriminated, but making a larger point here), the business should be forced to post that. In this case, this business decided to post their joy in unexamined privilege and tagged onto what is a very racist and offensive statement. As my grandma once told me, "everyday is grandkid day". In this case, every day is white privilege day.

"(Warren) Buffett’s 'Clayton Homes' is not a business that sells housing. It’s a pretext for high-interest loans to milk families dry before expelling their penniless husks and moving on to the next victim." A billionaire who makes his money on the bent and broken backs of the poor? Shocked, shocked I am…