Prof. Hacker’s Jason Jones and Ayelet Waldman’s Michael Chabon on faking it as a productivity tip.
What Batman, beefcake, birth control, and bootleg liquor have in common. Plus: Spicy Man!
Scratching and needle-dropping, ca. 1917. Plus: Gloria Swanson looking gothy.
Old, Weird Canada: The secret origins of Flin Flon, Manitoba, and my Mom.
The Kinematrix has you: three alternate Victorian internets.
All hail King Ludd.
Prof. Hacker’s Jason Jones and Ayelet Waldman’s Michael Chabon on faking it as a productivity tip.
Speaking of Civilization
An interesting interview with Sid Meier. We may think Civ is about history, but it is really about psychology: a diabolical Skinner box of operant conditioning.
The Unit Upgrade
Mark Rayner’s latest is a funny in-joke for recovering Civilization addicts like myself. Related: uh-oh.
Liberal Arts Education or Sleep Aid, You Decide
I generally mistrust blogs whose every post is a list of stuff from elsewhere, but this is a nice (big) collection of history lectures you can watch online.
Did Alexander the Great Fight the Yeti?
As my man Head 58 says, “I don’t want to live in a world where he didn’t.“
Holden's History of the United States
At Hilobrow, for J. D. Salinger & Howard Zinn.
The Black Pyramids of Georgia
BLDGBLOG on messianic architecture, by way of Tama-Re, the Egyptian city built by an Afro-supremacist UFO cult in rural Georgia.
Sticky Meme
The always worthwhile Zunguzungu is on a Teddy Roosevelt kick of late. Here he goes looking for the origins of Teddy’s big stick.
Everything Was Open-Source, Once
This blog post at Attic #42 hits several of my sweet spots: telephone history, KGB surveillance, a plea for open-source technology, and a gripe about PDFs.
Secede, Suppress, Survive
Not especially funny as Onion articles go, but it actually could be a TV show: New Alternate Reality Series on Island Where South Won Civil War.
The Other KKK
Mystic anti-war boy scouts? Fascist futurist theosophists? What was up with the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift?
© 2001–2009 Rob MacDougall

3 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Oct 20, 2009 at 6:13 am
“Oh god! The stupid: it’s everywhere! It BUUUUURNS!!!”
Cargo cult theory … Magic thinking … Are they happy to have me perform surgery on them? … “And then, a miracle happens.”
It’s so dumb it’s not even worth the bother of fisking it. A prime example of Mumbo-Jumbo Conquering the World (pace Francis Wheen)
2 Interesting Interconnections of Indelible Importance « Goose Commerce // Oct 23, 2009 at 8:40 am
[...] Feign, Feign, Feign Via Prof. Hacker, some thoughtful comments on “imposter syndrome” through the lens of Michael Chabon’s new book on being a dad.. Apparently, as in parenting, so on the tenure track: Fake It ‘Til You Make It. h/t [...]
3 Adam // Dec 14, 2009 at 1:27 pm
“Take a chance and “wing it;” this is not a sign of ineptness, but rather a sign that you are intelligent and able to rise to a challenge.” This is good stuff. What’s interesting is how different people ride these signs depending on how much they’re actually concerned of how others see them and how they see themselves. “Faking it” and paranoia are linked, or something.
Almost unrelatedly: “I strongly advise you againt becoming academic philopophers. The temptation to fake thinking amongst them is very great.” – Wittgenstein’s advice to grad students.
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