- Starting off with an oldie but goodie: the Archipelago of Weird. Essay on subculture as geography. (Someone on my friends list linked to it a week or two ago; I no longer remember who.)
- Why do some people stay on the train past the end of the line? Fantastic magical-realism take on the legend of Boston Charlie. (Again, I forget who on my friends list I stole this from. I need to take better notes.)
- Strange heresies dept.: The Passion Of The Liefeld. Scroll 3/4 of the way down the page to the big picture of Jesus. In brief, the Greek pantheon shows up at Gethsemane to taunt Christ, and he leaps down off the cross to kick their asses.** Dude. Just, dude. (*brain*)
- Moving on to heresies of a different sort: It's cooking. Plus SCIENCE! The article tackles conventional wisdom about food prep and makes a good case against some of it.
- Scary statistics about the economics of credit cards.
- How could we save over half the money we spend on the chronically homeless? Give them housing.
- One of the major consequences of the War on Drugs' rabid marijuana hatred: the loss of one of nature's most durable fabrics. Incidentally, did you know the United States is the only developed nation in which industrial hemp is not an established crop?
- Haven't decided what to think about this one: Jared Diamond argues that shifting from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies was humanity's worst mistake. (Perhaps so, perhaps not -- but one thing it's hard to deny is that it was inevitable. Ultimately, societies that made the switch could outcompete those that refused, so someone would eventually have done it and won, even if our civilization's ancestors hadn't.)
- Have decided what to think about this one: "Why I Don't Hire Brilliant Men." STUPID, STUPID, STUPID! *headdesk* The article doesn't say anything about the perils of intelligent, creative workers; what it bemoans is the perils of smooth talkers. And yet it twists the latter into a morality play on the former. That article should come with a pamphlet on PTFoTCP implementation and a giant clue-by-four engraved with the words "MORAL: Keep fast-talking, ambitious people away from management."
- On to the multimedia. Here's a catchy music video with furries on bikes. Also, if this regularly happened at football games, I'd have no choice but to become a sports fan. (Second link via inaki.)
- QOTD: "Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code." (Paul Graham here. via.)
- Last but not least, if this all gets to be too much for you, remember that we still live in a world in which a guy can tape bacon to his cat in the privacy of his own home.
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** All that's left is for someone to submit a chibi version to Chibi Jesus, and we can all pack the Internet up and go home.