Link of the Day [9.15.08]
Pressed for time. I don’t know what to link. I think you’re on your own today. How about you link in something good today? Put them in the comments.
O, by the way, here’s an article about Apple’s exlcusionary policies that may begin to annoy the development community.
“We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”
Brian Rogers, McCain spokesman
(ht talkingpointsmemo.com)
How do we think? What are emotions? What makes my personality different from yours? How is it that I am an individual with particular tastes, particular beliefs, and particular obsessions? Why are mine different than yours when you, like me, are flesh and blood, skin and bones, mind, body and heart?
The other day, my co-worker brought up the topic of OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. She related a story of a friend who she thought had it. I thought it strange. She thought it strange, too. All I could come up with is the physical imbalance of chemicals in her friend’s cranium causing a short circuit in the way this person thinks. This imbalance causes the friend to think obsessively on one thing even though they know it too be a curious way to behave. I found my self saying that it is inexplicable to understand what makes this imbalance of chemicals manifest itself as a thought to keep obsessing about a particular thing.
Pointing out the chemical imbalance is something my mom, a psychiatrist, would say. I don’t think that is all there is too it.
Our body takes in nutrients: protein, electrolytes, amino acids, and uses it to make our bodies function properly. Not only our muscles, but our mind and nervous system of which the brain is the primary organ. We all get them. Our brains and body convert them in a similar fashion. Yet, we turn up as individual personalities. How does this happen? And is it a matter of the difference amongst us at the quantum level?
I’m sure scientists have been searching for the answer. I’m also sure that this is a philosophical question too.
We are all human, but we are all different.
Link of the Day [9.14.08]
Is liking anime sexy girl figurines a strange sexual fetish? Or does this article not get the otaku culture from which the figure collecting hobby arises from?
I get the feeling that the author is attempting to assume a provocative stance on the strangeness of a foreign culture being brought to our shores by the manga and anime industry in order to criticize it. He wants to point out how ugly it can be or how very strange the fetishism found in the otaku culture is. While he does make a point on how slack the censorship is in the Japanese culture, he makes it sound very prurient which I don’t think it is.
I don’t know. At times, it is strange, and at times, it is rather sexy. Yet, pornographic it is not. Unless you look at all the hentai manga and anime.
I bet you wondered how I knew
About your plans to make me blue
With some other guy that you knew before
Between the two of us guys
You know I love you more.
Marvin Gaye, “Heard It Through the Grapevine”
Link of the Day [9.13.08]
I’ve got nothing so far today, and it’s early morning. Or late at night, for those night owls.
So here’s a junk link for you to read. I haven’t read it, but the article title, “The Problem with Biking in America,” pretty much says it all.
There are many problems, the first being that we don’t take the bicycle serious as a form of transportation. We don’t think about using to commute to work or school, or to go shopping or out for the evening. It’s seen as a fitness equipment, and when was the last time we loved our fitness equipment. Hopefully, we can change our perceptions and make the bicycle a good, reliable transportation mechanism.
http://bygonebureau.com/2008/08/25/the-problem-with-biking/
(ht kottke.org)
This is just plain awesome! Or not. Or, depending upon your views, just plain stupid. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s just dumb to get excited about this. Forget that I ever mentioned it…
Which one of you did it? Which one of you killed my dog?
You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘neighbor.’ Neighbors like each other, speak to each other, care if anybody lives or dies, but none of you do. But I couldn’t imagine any of you bein’ so low that you’d kill a little helpless, friendly dog – the only thing in this whole neighborhood who liked anybody.
Did ya kill him because he liked ya?
Just because he liked ya?
Wife living above Thorwalds, “Rear Window”
Link of the Day [9.12.08]
The name of the URL says it all.
“The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”
George W. Bush @ Ground Zero (9-14-01)
