DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Archive for the 'Is this a great country, or what?' Category

How To Respond To Criticism: EA’s Tiger Woods Walks On Water Ad

1st November 2008

Watch it.

Not only is this terrifically funny, but I’m fully prepared to believe that Tiger Woods can walk on water to hit a golf ball. He’s just that good.

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RealFiction’s Dreamoc 3D / holographic display demoed on video

30th October 2008

Read it.

We have the technology, apparently.

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What a Tax Lawyer Dug Up on ‘Dracula’

29th October 2008

Read it.

And, of course, no treatment of Dracula would be complete without reference to Fred Saberhagen’s re-interpretation (which actually makes more sense than Stoker’s).

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Future plane may be made of ‘buckypaper’

24th October 2008

Read it.

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Solid Alliance’s 2GB USB Skull Ring helps RPG players look tough

21st October 2008

Read it.

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Is This the Most Conflicted Prius Owner in America?

21st October 2008

Read it.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | 1 Comment »

Objet announces the Alaris 30 Desktop 3D Printer

19th October 2008

Read it.

We have the technology.

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Philips Simplicity shows off vision for the future of street lighting

19th October 2008

Read it.

I’d feel better about it if they weren’t so ugly. But that’s me.

Amazing how a simple desire to make money can create a product that, were it the result of a government program, would cost ten times as much, look ten times as ugly, and take ten times as long.

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Shamino in Space

12th October 2008

Read it.

We all have dreams.

(Mine is Ted Kennedy in a pine box, between Barney Frank and Chris Dodd similarly arrayed. But I don’t have Shamino’s money.)

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Angry about economy? Smash some plates and move on

12th October 2008

Read it.

We have the technology.

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Surging Amish Spreading Out

11th October 2008

Read it.

Some good news for a change.

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Man beats attacking bear to death with stick

9th October 2008

Read it.

Sometimes you beat the bear….

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Homo doctus in se semper divitias habet

9th October 2008

Read it.

Some good news on the language front.

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HAL robotic suit rental is ready for Tony Stark wannabes, the elderly

7th October 2008

Read it.

Call me when they install the mind-control lasers.

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Airline Threatens To Sue Betting Site For Taking Bets On When It Would Go Out Of Business

7th October 2008

Read it.

Some people just have no sense of humor.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | 1 Comment »

God and Mac at ACU?

7th October 2008

Read it.

Note that it isn’t a huge publicly-funded university, but a smaller private college, that is leading the charge here.

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Old Manhattan Had a Farm

5th October 2008

Read it.

At first sight, the idea seems plausible. True, vertical farming would be a non-starter if urban rents were higher than rural rents. But we all know that land is just as cheap in downtown Manhattan as it is in rural Nebraska, right? One wonders, though, why farming moved off the island a more than a century ago.

Professor Despommier claims that food grown indoors would be pesticide-free, unlike that dirty outdoor produce. Once again, totally plausible. Big American cities are as free of rats and roaches as Ireland is of snakes. The Museum of Natural History has a glass case containing the last rat found in New York City, way back before World War I. (Just don’t look down at the tracks when you are waiting for a subway).

But then if we admit there are millions of rats and billions of roaches, then the crops growing in vertical farms would have to be protected by enough rat and roach poison to kill Xerxes’ army. Fortunately, in rat- and roach-free urban America, that is not a consideration. And even if it were, we would not need to worry that health inspectors would be bribed to overlook the rodent droppings and roach eggs in our tenth-story grown arugula. The civil servants in New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia are known worldwide for their incorruptibility.

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P. Diddy Scared of Palin

5th October 2008

Read it.

In other words, he’s scared of America.

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The countercyclical asset, a continuing series

4th October 2008

Read it.

That’s a great picture of an alpaca. Wouldn’t mind having some of those myself, since my wife is a knitter.

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Breakthrough in MIT’s RealNose project could mean artificial noses for all – yay

30th September 2008

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

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Aircraft carrier survived wars, years of decay

30th September 2008

Intrepid indeed.

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Kaus on McCain vs The Press

26th September 2008

Read Kaus every day.

he Refs Dream They’re Being Worked: When McCain’s campaign attacks the press, he’s not “working the refs.” That implies McCain’s strategists still care how the “refs” make calls. I think it’s pretty clear they’re doing something else (and they’re perfectly happy if the refs keep making calls against them). … P.S.: Of course the MSM “refs” like to think McCain’s “working the refs,” because that implies they’re worth working–that their refereeing role is still all-important (as opposed to their role as, say, a totemic focus of political, class and cultural resentment!)

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Put your air guitar away — Piano Hands has the stage

25th September 2008

Read it.

We have the technology.

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Traditionalist Men Make More Money

23rd September 2008

Read it.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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The new “white people” are bigoted, but not the way you think—or they’ll admit.

20th September 2008

Read it.

The Atlantic takes a look at Stuff White People Like.

Lander’s White People aren’t always white, and the vast majority of whites aren’t White People (he doesn’t even capitalize the term). … Lander, like many of these writers, traces this group’s values to the 1960s, and there’s clearly a connection between a politics based on “self-cultivation” (to quote the Students for a Democratic Society’s gaseous manifesto, the Port Huron Statement) and what Lander defines as White People’s ethos: “their number-one concern is about the best way to make themselves happy.”

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WowWee’s $300 Rovio robotic sentry ships this month

19th September 2008

Read it.

Give it a taser and I’ll take one.

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The Cuffless Cufflink button hack

17th September 2008

Read it.

This looks like it will crawl down off the dresser at midnight and go after your enemies.

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Dog calls 911, saves owner

15th September 2008

Read it.

Try to find a cat who would do that.

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Ferroelectric polarpolymers will chill your beer, save the planet

13th September 2008

Read it.

I’m glad to see they got the priority right.

I’d like to wrap this around a number of leftoids, starting with AlGore, with an admonishion to Just Chill.

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Sorry Day in Aggieland

13th September 2008

Apparently Steven Brust doesn’t particularly like Aggies.

Well, I suppose they don’t particularly like him, either….

Don’t know who Steven Brust is? The angels will weep for you. Go to the bookstore and buy a copy of Jhereg. You’ll be glad you did.

Just because Brust’s a communist doesn’t mean he isn’t a great writer, sad to say.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | 2 Comments »

Scan Toaster puts the power of ‘miracle toast’ into the hands of mere mortals

12th September 2008

Read it.

This is very silly. But we have the technology.

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | 1 Comment »

Verayo’s “unclonable” RFID uses physical characteristics to thwart hackers

9th September 2008

Read it.

Sort of like a fingerprint for chips.

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Doing my part for Global Warming

9th September 2008

Roy decides to hop aboard the bandwagon.

We have the technology.

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Top 11 Upcoming Smears On Sarah Palin

7th September 2008

Read it.

Get your scorecards out.

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Robotic BigDog is US army’s best friend

5th September 2008

Read it. And watch the video.

This is pretty cool.

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Devotees fix it if it’s broke

5th September 2008

The Maker Movement.

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Sonim’s rugged LM801 phone will probably outlast you

31st August 2008

Read it.

If Black & Decker made a cell phone, this would be it.

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As Food Becomes a Cause, Meeting Puts Issues on the Table

30th August 2008

Read it.

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If You Had The ‘Secret’ To Winning The Lottery, Would You Patent It?

25th August 2008

Read it.

Really, you can’t make this stuff up.

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Libertarian Dream, Liberal Nightmare

24th August 2008

Blackwater shows what the government could do if used modern business methods.

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MST3K crew appears during the Summer Olympics broadcast?

18th August 2008

Read it.

Oddly enough, that makes perfect sense.

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Automobility: The Secrets of Their Success

14th August 2008

Read it.

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Lotus Concept Ice Vehicle promises to aid arctic expeditions, Thunderbirds missions

13th August 2008

Read it.

Needs a machine gun.

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Anti-Obama Books Top Best-Seller Lists

11th August 2008

Read it.

Doin’ his best to stimulate the economy.

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Tenn. Defies Cliches on Race and Politics

10th August 2008

Read it.

For Nikki Tinker, Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District hung as sweetly as a plum in the state’s Democratic primary. It has a black majority, is full of churchgoing African American women like herself, and includes the hallowed ground where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a white man.

But in an election season in which racial appeals may be losing their power, Tinker discovered that looks can be deceiving. On Election Day, she was crushed by her white opponent, Rep. Stephen I. Cohen, whom Tinker labeled as anti-prayer in one campaign ad and tried to link to the Ku Klux Klan in another.

“It was the first time in a state election where race could have been a factor and wasn’t,” said Larry Moore, an associate professor at the University of Memphis. “She fit the demographic perfectly. She was active in the churches. The majority of voters are female. And she got blown out.”

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Happy Birthday

9th August 2008

To James Lileks.

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Political Perceptions: Best Energy Plan Goes to Paris Hilton

9th August 2008

Read it.

PARIS FOR PRESIDENT

DRILL HERE * DRILL NOW

Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | 1 Comment »

The Anti-Wedding Cake

9th August 2008

Read it.

Times have changed.

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Using your browser URL history to estimate gender

7th August 2008

Read it.

And you can believe as much or as little as you care to.

Andrew Sullivan scored 92% probably male, so I take it with a grain of salt….

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Twenty-six cheerleaders rescued from lift

6th August 2008

Read it.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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