January 2012
23 posts
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Are PINs Killing Off Handwritten Signatures? →
“[T]hese days, Danesi isn’t signing his name the way he used to. The electronic signature capture pad — the ubiquitous device at retail checkout counters — just leaves a pixelated mess. And when he writes letters of recommendation for his students, nobody wants a handwritten signature at all. “My signature is my email,” he says. “That to me is the death...
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“It’s nice to feel wanted, but also I want you all the time so you should...”
– NP
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Study: Women Apparently Pretend To Be Dumb Around... →
“Participants [took] a series of individual IQ tests then grouped together based on their scores. So the smarties went with the smarties, and so on. The researchers then asked the groups to complete a set to “ranked group IQ tasks,” according to a press release from VT. They were not informed that they were placed with others of similar innate intelligence until the end of the group...
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Impersonator!
BBL: Mr. B, is that you? Are you there?
NG: I hate to disappoint but it's Natt on BPL's computer
BBL: Big disappointment. Why are you impersonating BPL?
NG: Haha, need to use Adobe Acrobat and his Yahoo Messenger signed itself in.
BPL: Ok, go right ahead. You are much prettier than BPL anyway.
NG: I hope so!
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Teenage Password Sharing: 21st Century Romance? →
“The digital era has given rise to a more intimate custom. It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts. Boyfriends and girlfriends sometimes even create identical passwords, and let each other read their private e-mails and texts.
“Sharing passwords, she noted, feels forbidden...
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“Without Wikipedia, I’m reduced to Snapple Facts #StopSOPA”
– Kwame Opam, you silly clever boy
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The Amazing Discussion That Led to the Wikipedia... →
“The debate started with a straw poll Jimmy Wales sent out to the community back in December … which led, over the weekend, to a conversation conducted among 1,800 Wikipedians.
“Support. I thought about NPOV, but realized that NPOV won’t matter if Wikipedia becomes too much of a liability to exist anyway. The way the bill is formulated reflects a fundamental...
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Travelers Leave $50K at JFK, TSA Banks $400,000 in... →
“Travelers left behind $409,085.56 in loose change in 2010. Not only did they ditch their pennies, dimes and quarters at the checkpoints, but they also left behind foreign currency … The total numbers have been pretty consistent, although trend slightly upward. In 2008 the total was $364,000 and 2009 was $399,000.
Here are some of the numbers for the U.S.’s biggest...
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My mother
would sometimes say things like, “your brother’s laugh is exactly like your dad’s,” and I wish I knew exactly what she was referring to. I spent a lot of time with my dad before he passed but I don’t understand why I don’t recall what his laughter sounded like without having to use my brother as reference.
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December 2011
22 posts
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Seven US States Are Limiting College Voting... →
“Seven states have already passed strict laws requiring a government-issued ID (like a driver’s license or a passport) to vote, which many students don’t have, and 27 others are considering such measures. Many of those laws have been interpreted as prohibiting out-of-state driver’s licenses from being used for voting.
It’s all part of a widespread Republican effort to restrict the...
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Royalists Work to Stifle Criticism of Thailand's... →
“We have reached a stage where people would want to drive you out of the country or even want to kill you for having different thoughts,” said Anon Numpa, a lawyer who represents a dozen clients accused of insulting the monarchy.
… Kong Rithdee, a columnist for the newspaper The Bangkok Post, compared the campaign to prosecute perceived criticism of the monarchy to the fatwa placed on...
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Insane Clown Posse Still Kickin' It →
“Q: I was really annoyed when people got hung up on the line “Magnets, how the fuck do they work?” from the Bang Pow Boom single “Miracles.” Even with scientifically knowledgeable people, asking how magnets work is the beginning of a paragraph-long explanation. A while back VICE asked a bunch of random people on the street how magnets work and only one person knew.
A: The...
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The Pending Extinction of Pubic Hair in America →
“Once upon a time, all vulvas were coated in a protective layer of coarse, woolly tresses. Hard to believe, right? It’s kind of like the revelation that horses once had toes, or that the Ford Mustang once had tailfins. But like any evolving species, the vulva has morphed into something sleeker, starker, and altogether more modern.”
It never cease to amaze me how you can write...
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An Ode to InDesign
Oh, InDesign. I love you so. You have never let me down with the things I could do with you. Where would I be if not for your love, InDesign? The only time I remember us in a quarrel was when you crashed at work in the middle of an assignment. But I don’t blame you, InDesign, I’m allergic to work too. You’re always there when I need you, and you make me so happy. I love you so,...
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The Future
JS: Your older doppelganger just walked onto this bus.
NG: My older self would never take the bus!
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Chinese Senior Citizens Find Love & Companionship... →
“Retired and divorced chiropractor Qian Weizhong is also on the prowl. On a recent Tuesday at IKEA Mr. Qian was excited to get the number of a woman he referred to as a “nice lady.” He plans to ask her out soon, he said … At the weekly IKEA romance session in Shanghai, the elderly arrive in swarms of 70 to 700 to get the free coffee offered to holders of the IKEA...
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November 2011
24 posts
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How To Create Your Own Font →
Once upon a time in high school, I used to have pretty neat handwriting. Got a sudden, random urge to convert my penmanship into a font and see how that works as a resume font.
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Are you missing a well dressed, bilingual... →
Even if I didn’t … my answer is YES. I am ALWAYS missing a well dressed, bilingual elephant prince.
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“Mmmh, you smell good. You smell like me.”
– NP, after I came out of the showers using his shower gel. Oh, my little narcissist.