Apr/100
Voluntary simplicity.
In 1981, Duane Elgin wrote a book titled Voluntary Simplicity: toward a way of life that is outwardly simple, inwardly rich. This concept was, and still is a timely one, and one that incorporates some key values that have been lost over the past decades. Voluntary Simplicity comes as man, particularly in developed countries, pursues the avenues of capitalism, consumerism and the “American Dream.” The question that has to be asked is, why is it that Horatio Alger (the average North American) has impacted such thought, generated such a movement and an anti-consumerist lifestyle as retaliation against capitalism, and a focus inward, towards the family and the individual? The answer is simple and is given by the voluntary simplicity movement itself. The planet’s environment is now endangered, resources need to be conserved for our children’s future and working for a wage is, for the most part, not fulfilling and often requires us all to do things we 
may not think are right, that society is unjust, and that social resources are not equally distributed, therefore this cultural movement seeks to correct these problems. Voluntary simplicity is a virtue, and as year after year the earth becomes more and more polluted, robbed of its non-renewable resources and the majority of its inhabitants become overweight, unhealthy, abused and unjustly treated, this concept comes closer and closer to a universal idea that could trump any other. This article identifies the core values and ideas of Voluntary Simplicity and examines whether or not the concept will solve the environmental problems we face today.
Just what exactly are the tenants of the movement, and how does it seek to solve the problems we all face today? It can be separated into a few ways of thinking.
Dec/093
Goodbye, 2000s, you shitty decade.
9/11, eight years of George W. Bush, two new wars, economic collapse, and you killed George Carlin. Fuck you, 2000s. Seriously.
On the other hand, you elected a black dude, proved the Internet as an incredibly powerful tool for freedom and democracy, birthed the private spaceflight industry, gave us the Large Hadron Collider, the Mars rovers, iPhones, Avatar*, and you killed Robert Novak.
What are the high and low moments for the naughts, in your opinion?
* I mention Avatar only because I expect it will get the credit for moving 3D into the mainstream.
Dec/090
The known Universe.
Another great video showing the incredible time and distance scales of the known Universe:
This one was put together by the American Museum of Natural History. Awesome.
Dec/090
The Google Zeitgeist 2009.
Another year has come and gone, and as always, we're taking a moment to look back at the happenings of 2009—the people, events and memories that made this year unique. Each year, we examine the billions of queries that people around the world have typed into Google search to discover the zeitgeist—the spirit of the times. As we welcome the new year, we hope you enjoy this glimpse at the past.
Lots of great list and chart porn inside.
Dec/090
There’s no speed limit.
The pace was intense, and I loved it. Finally, someone was challenging me - keeping me in over my head - encouraging and expecting me to pull myself up, quickly. I was learning so fast, it had the adrenaline of sports or a video game. A two-way game of catch, he tossed every fact back at me and made me prove I got it.
In our three-hour lesson that morning, he taught me a full semester of Berklee's harmony courses. In our next four lessons, he taught me the next four semesters of harmony and arranging requirements.
[...]
Kimo's high expectations set a new pace for me. He taught me “the standard pace is for chumps” - that the system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you're more driven than “just anyone” - you can do so much more than anyone expects. And this applies to ALL of life - not just school.
(Via Hacker News.)
Nov/091
“The camera really changed the way we be behaved.”
"It still really disturbs me. We lost our humanity. We let one of our classmates just get trampled on. And they weren't even real cameras."
A short clip from the always-excellent and never-not-excellent This American Life. (Via a tangentially related TechCrunch article.)
Oct/095
H1N1 makes me feel like an attention whore.
So last week I had H1N1. It was terrible, and that's pretty much the last word on that I'll say in this post. What's interesting is what happened after.
Oct/095
Stupid people.
This happened last night, October 17th, 2009. Downtown Guelph, Ontario.
I was stopped abruptly by a girl on the street after the bar, I was coming out of an ally after I took a leak behind a dumpster. She asked me why I peed... I told her the obvious reason, to which she replied that I was a "fuck" for doing so and asked where I was from. I told her Dundas, to which she replied "the street?" I said "No, Hamilton." Ugh.
She pointed across the street and said, "Yep, that's why you're a fuck, you're from Hamilton, go over there."
I said "What? Because I'm from Hamilton and I had to pee you're segregating me to the other side of the street?" She said "Yep!". Now, this chick was serious, she was pretty sober and the other thing was, her friend was standing beside her laughing and smoking the whole time...
Sep/090
Oh it’s on. Get ready for the Lindy Hop showdown.
This is easily one of the best things I've seen on YouTube in a long time. (Via Reddit.)
Sep/092
Rich, black, flunking.
Cal Professor John Ogbu thinks he knows why rich black kids are failing in school. Nobody wants to hear it.
The black parents wanted an explanation. Doctors, lawyers, judges, and insurance brokers, many had come to the upscale Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights specifically because of its stellar school district. They expected their children to succeed academically, but most were performing poorly. African-American students were lagging far behind their white classmates in every measure of academic success: grade-point average, standardized test scores, and enrollment in advanced-placement courses. On average, black students earned a 1.9 GPA while their white counterparts held down an average of 3.45. Other indicators were equally dismal. It made no sense.
[...] The professor and his research assistant moved to Shaker Heights for nine months in mid-1997. They reviewed data and test scores. The team observed 110 different classes, from kindergarten all the way through high school. They conducted exhaustive interviews with school personnel, black parents, and students. Their project yielded an unexpected conclusion: It wasn't socioeconomics, school funding, or racism, that accounted for the students' poor academic performance; it was their own attitudes, and those of their parents.
Read and discuss.
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