April 2011
25 posts
“What “airport security” really means is stopping terrorists in the...”
– Why airports’ “liquid and gels” rules are absurd - Ask the Pilot
projects
Realized something today:
I don’t start projects. They show up on my to-do list like an extra cat on a farm. One day I’m proud of how many I’ve given away to good homes, and the next day I’m feeding a herd again.
Perhaps I won’t ever get back to just a few core projects. Maybe all I can do is spend time with the ones that demand more attention or need immediate...
The military's secret plan…to shrink →
Washington needs to make sure that the United States does not fall into the imperial trap of every other superpower in history, spending greater and greater time and money and energy stabilizing disorderly parts of the world on the periphery, while at the core its own industrial and economic might is waning.
Huh. Insightful commentary? From CNN and the Joint Chiefs? Do tell.
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us...”
– Ira Glass (via wilwheaton)
kaitlynreed:
I wore my Tumblr shirt to school today. A kid asked me what Tumblr was. I asked him what he thought it was. He thought it was a website of a cat tumbling down a hill. I said he was right.
Reference Mark
codepoint:
The komejirushi (米印) or “rice symbol” is used in notes (chū, 注) as a reference mark, similar to an asterisk. - Wikipedia
I keep wanting to repurpose these. This one would be “this game is best with four players.”
five-year-old boy with pink toenails: loving... →
(I would embed the video, but Comedy Central’s video system is playing silly buggers. Click through for hilarity.)
This is a perfect example of how the startle response drives a media story. “Someone somewhere is doing something that is slightly different! Does it mean invasion?!?”
Greek Acrophonic Attic Fifty Staters
codepoint:
The earliest alphabet-related system of numerals used with the Greek letters was a set of the acrophonic Attic numerals, operating much like Roman numerals. Acrophony is the naming of letters of an alphabetic writing system so that a letter’s name begins with the letter itself. The stater was an ancient coin used in various regions of Greece. - Wikipedia
Took me a while to unpack...
Gurmukhi Letter Ai
codepoint:
Gurmukhi is the most common script used for writing the Punjabi language. For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies would take place and Punjabi is the most spoken language in Pakistan. - Wikipedia
It’s like there’s a party in my alphabet, and everyone is invited!
“Once you understand the great difference between civil marriage and holy...”
– I now support full marriage equality - Louis J. Marinelli
Be sure to read his entire post to see why this is so astonishing.
“No, look, there’s a blue box. It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the...”
– Neil Gaiman: What I would say to someone worried about having to know 47 years of backstory before watching Doctor Who.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in...”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
Shavian Letter Or
codepoint:
The Shavian alphabet (also known as Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonetic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of the conventional spelling. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. - Wikipedia
Nice to see the Shavian alphabet in Unicode. I thought it had been left out, but...
I don't feel safe. I feel violated, humiliated,... →
Wil expresses it well. You don’t need to hear my opinion on this again; just know that it hasn’t changed.
“Life becoming multi-planetary is at least as important as life going from the...”
– Elon Musk at The Stimson Center
