1. One-Minute Pro-Life Apologist: Can you make the pro-life case in one minute?
2. Statetris: Tetris with US states (HT: BoingBoing)
3. Lovingly Opposed to Sin and Evil: A Petition and Organization
Bottom Line: For those concerned that Al Gore’s concert is over, that a long dead atheist may ban religious broadcasting, that the United Nations has passed too few resolutions this year, that Congress has established too few days celebrating important vegetables, or that too few Christians are joining Internet campaigns against bad things, I have found the answer.
Recognizing that as we enter the political season there will soon be a multiplication of academic position papers and petitions “bearing witness” against, well, evil things, I have decided to short circuit the entire process by collecting signatures opposed, utterly and firmly opposed, to all sin and evil.
4. Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. (HT: Lifehacker)
5. Jerry Seinfeld's productivity secret
6. Ross Douthat on The Cocoon
When the next generation of conservatives sits down to analyze where this generation of conservatives went wrong, they would do well to start with efforts like the Victory Caucus page, and the mentality it represents - not the traditional (and justified) right-wing belief that many establishment institutions aren't to be trusted, but the naïve and ridiculous theory that they can be ignored entirely. As those noted pacifists and appeasers Rich Lowry and Max Boot have suggested, this delusion hasn't just cost conservatives their credibility and their majority; it's contributed mightily to America's struggles in Iraq.
Robert Bernocco, an IT professional took advantage of his travel time by writing a 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers), on his Nokia using the phone's T9 typing system.
(HT: Lifehacker)
8. The 3 Laws of Online Personal Branding
It’s not enough to write prolifically, to have a great Facebook or LinkedIn page, to comment everywhere or be everywhere.
Those things are important, of course, but what’s just as important is knowing what works and why it works. To understand that, you need to understand the timeless laws of branding — stuff that has worked from the time of Henry Ford onward. Heck, even Shakespeare and Da Vinci and Socrates seemed to understand branding.
9. Quiz: Could You Solve the Perfect Murder? (HT: Neatorama)
10. Cleanliness as the Key to All Moral Philosophy
Among the other virtues, we may also give Cleanliness a place; since it naturally renders us agreeable to others, and is no inconsiderable source of love and affection. No one will deny, that a negligence in this particular is a fault; and as faults are nothing but smaller vices, and this fault can have no other origin than the uneasy sensation which it excites in others; we may, in this instance, seemingly so trivial, clearly discover the origin of moral distinctions, about which the learned have involved themselves in such mazes of perplexity and error.
(David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Section VIII (215) (HT: Siris)
11. The New York Times has an article on emoticons. I'm with Ross Douthat who says, "Count me as a reluctant member of the pro-emoticon club. I really only use the :), and only when it seems absolutely necessary…" I too only use one emoticon [the wink: ; ) ]. Someday it will be considered standard punctuation for it is even more useful than the exclamation point.
12. There Are 12 Kinds of Ads in the World
13. Smithsonian magazine outlines what we know about the secret history of domesticated cats:
When humans were predominantly hunters, dogs were of great use, and thus were domesticated long before cats. Cats, on the other hand, only became useful to people when we began to settle down, till the earth and—crucially—store surplus crops. With grain stores came mice, and when the first wild cats wandered into town, the stage was set for what the Science study authors call "one of the more successful 'biological experiments' ever undertaken." The cats were delighted by the abundance of prey in the storehouses; people were delighted by the pest control.
(HT: BoingBoing)
14. Some states ban the use of credit scores to price auto insurance in part because African-Americans and Hispanics tend to have bad credit ratings and thus pay higher auto insurance rates. But as Alex Tabarrok points out, there is a good reason for using this metric: "Credit scores effectively predict ... the total cost of [auto insurance] claims."
15. Become an Autodidact: 10 Ways to Become a Self Taught Master
16. The World Database of Happiness is an ongoing register of scientific research on the subjective enjoyment of life. It brings together findings that are scattered throughout many studies and provides a basis for synthetic work. (HT: The Presurfer)
17. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Station
18. 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally
19. The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
(HT: ProfesorBainbridge)
20. The Squirmtrap E-mails (a take-off of C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters")
21. Your mission if you choose to accept it…: Ten free services to send self-destructing emails which expire/disappear automatically after specified time interval (HT: Lifehacker)
22. The Significance of Newt Gingrich (Part I) -- Pressed by The Examiner about whether his political baggage renders him unelectable, Gingrich compared himself to a famous French statesman. "This is like going to De Gaulle when he was at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises during the Fourth Republic and saying, 'Don't you want to rush in and join the pygmies?'" he said.
23. The Significance of Newt Gingrich (Part II) -- Rod Dreher's reaction: "No, actually it's more like asking Cousin Oliver (Robbie Rist) to join the cast of "The Brady Bunch" in hopes of reviving a series that had jumped the shark."
24. 101 Frightening Ice Cream Flavors From Around The World (HT: The Presurfer)
25. The Psychic Hospice Cat (Part I) -- From the AP: Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.
"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
26. The Psychic Hospice Cat (Part II) -- From Phil Bowermaster of The Speculist: " Not to go all Occam's Razor or anything, but has it occurred to anyone to ask whether this cat might be somehow killing these people?
27. Top 50 Frugality Bloggers (HT: Lifehack)
28. Verbal reassurance can dull the effect of pain…but only if it's from someone we identify with. That's a new finding by Michael Platow and colleagues at the Australian National University which demonstrates the significant role of social psychology in pain perception and could have important implications for placebo treatments.
29. The Strangest Sights in Google Earth (HT: The Presurfer)
30. Pew survey lists the reasons why voters would not support a political candidate. (HT: SmartChristian)
31. Obese girls are half as likely to attend college as non-obese girls, according to a new study from The University of Texas at Austin.
The study also shows obese girls are even less likely to enter college if they attend a high school where obesity is relatively uncommon. The findings appear in the July issue of the journal Sociology of Education.
32. Obesity is Socially Contagious? A study of 12,067 people over a period of 32 years has found that social networks have a marked influence on weight gain. For example, if a person's close friend becomes obese, that person's chances of becoming obese increase 57 percent; for siblings, increase is 40 percent; and for spouses, increase is 37 percent.
33. A Glimpse of Web 3.0
From VeryShortList: "Photosynth, a new Microsoft program, brings an extraordinary bit of coherence to it all by enabling us to make sense of and interact with all digital images at a level of detail previously reserved for science-fiction films and video games. make sense of and interact with all digital images at a level of detail previously reserved for science-fiction films and video games.
In a presentation from this year’s TED Conference, the program’s architect shows how Photosynth compiles a zillion anonymously uploaded online photos of one well-known thing — here, the Notre Dame Cathedral — and integrates them into a single 360-degree image that can be manipulated to change the angle and scale of the view. Magnified by Photosynth, even the chipped tooth of a Notre Dame gargoyle becomes visible. Microsoft calls Photosynth the “newest . . . way to view photos on a computer,” but we’re guessing it’s really a peek at how we’ll experience the Web in the near future."
Joe, I think this is the first time I've commented, but I've had you on my feedreader for what seems like forever. This is an excellent 33 Things (love your Yak Shaving Razor, too), particularly the Seadragon/Photosynth video at the end.
Wow, wow, WOW!!!
How cool can it get?! ;-)
-- Kat
www.CatHouseChat.com
The missing element in every human 'solution' is an accurate definition of the creature.
The way we define 'human' determines our view of self, others, relationships, institutions, life, and future. Many problems in human experience are the result of false and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.
Because man, hobbled in an ego-centric predicament, cannot invent criteria greater than himself, the humanist lacks a predictive capability. Without instinct or transcendent criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options with
foresight and vision for progression and survival. Lacking foresight, man is blind to potential consequence and is unwittingly committed to mediocrity, collectivism, averages, and regression - and worse. Humanism is an unworthy worship.
The vision of faith in God and His Word is survival equipment for today and the future. Only the Creator, who made us in His own image, is qualified to define us accurately.
Human is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by
nature and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural foundation of his environments, institutions, and respectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is oriented to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the universe.
That human institution which is structured on the
principle, "...all men are endowed by their Creator with ...Liberty...," is a system with its roots in the natural Order of the universe. The opponents of such a system are necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and nature's God. Biblical principles are still today the foundation under Western Civilization and the American way of life. To the advent of a new season we commend the
present generation and the "multitudes in the valley of decision."
Let us proclaim it. Behold!
The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV
semper fidelis
vincit veritas
"Among the other virtues, we may also give Cleanliness a place; since it naturally renders us agreeable to others, and is no inconsiderable source of love and affection." Perhaps this is why Joe Biden considers it so important that Senator Obama is "clean".
I have just finished reading tony dungys new book "quiet strength" it was a very hard book to put down and it has some very inspirational and courages principles that really show were this great coach gets his inner strenth from and why he is a true role model . this is a great gift idea for a friend or a family member or a solkdier serving over seas.
I followed a number of your links, but wanted to take a moment to tell you how much I liked #8 - Patel was a really interesting guy and I enjoyed reading many of his branding ideas.
So. Where is your personal pic on your about page so we can all bond with you;) ?
These 33 lists are fantastic!
bloussant bloussant bloussant
Mr. Carter: You were kind enough to link to my "Squirmtrap E-mails" above, and I thought I'd let you know about my new blog by that name....In "The Squirmtrap E-mails," Senior Temptor Squirmtrap advises two young temptors-in-training (Bitternell and Sulphino) about the best way to lead their patients astray. Bitternell’s patient is an 18-year-old male, starting his second year of college. Sulphino’s patient is a female, 36, married with two young children.
The blog (which will be updated weekly or so) is here: http://squirmtrap.wordpress.com