Rocket Philosophy

"[T]exting might help demolish the weird and unmannerly etiquette of the mobile phone, in which, for..."

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:09:50 -0800

“[T]exting might help demolish the weird and unmannerly etiquette of the mobile phone, in which, for no reason but the technology’s existence, it is the recipient of the call who is somehow required to make an excuse if not free to answer. Texting harks back to an earlier, less demanding model of communication, in which response was at the convenience of the respondent. It was, and is, known as letter writing.”

- The biggest shift in the modern world is that there’s suddenly more information than we can possibly process, and we have to (entirely ex nihilo!) create an internal filtering structure. No direction, no precedent…is it really any surprise that this is where we end up?

Via @mattfraction.

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:10:32 -0800

Via @mattfraction.

On the one hand, it’s a Japanese girl who takes a few...

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:45:16 -0800

On the one hand, it’s a Japanese girl who takes a few dozen photos of herself jumping. On the other, she’s flying. I dare you to scroll through her site without gasping audibly at least once.

Jonathan Hickman's 'The Manhattan Projects'

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:29:21 -0800

Jonathan Hickman's 'The Manhattan Projects':

The Manhattan Projects asks, what if the research and development department created to produce the first atomic bomb was a front for a series of other, more unusual, programs? It’s about smart guys being bad.

"Throughout this entire process, the spectacle of these clowns thrashing each other and continually..."

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:45:00 -0800

“

Throughout this entire process, the spectacle of these clowns thrashing each other and continually seizing and then fumbling frontrunner status has left me with an oddly reassuring feeling, one that I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on. In my younger days I would have just assumed it was regular old Schadenfreude at the sight of people like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich suffering, but this isn’t like that – it’s something different than the pleasure of watching A-Rod strike out in the playoffs.

No, it was while watching the debates last night that it finally hit me: This is justice.

”

- Matt Taibbi on last night’s debates.

Justified Line of the Week

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:54:22 -0800

“The next time you set up any operation in this county or anywhere else it better not have my goddamned family name on the deed. Or so help me God I’ll lose this star, and the dance we’ll do subsequent to that will not end with you finding Jesus in a hospital bed.”

What does an action scientist who is also a robot use as a...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:11:11 -0800

What does an action scientist who is also a robot use as a weapon, you ask? An anti-materiel handgun loaded with bullets that hit the maximum chemical explosive yield of matter.

—from Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X #3. Why aren’t you reading this yet?

Atomic Robo has seven hours to save astronauts trapped in orbit!...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:48:00 -0800

Atomic Robo has seven hours to save astronauts trapped in orbit! This is why Atomic Robo is the best comic: in this issue, the villain is THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.

Gateways. It’s like Portal, but moreso. So, so much...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:54:38 -0800

Gateways. It’s like Portal, but moreso. So, so much moreso.

Your daily dose of robot terror: a swarm of nano quadrotors. It...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:03:00 -0800

Your daily dose of robot terror: a swarm of nano quadrotors. It doesn’t help that it sounds like the largest, angriest swarm of bees ever to have developed a taste for human blood.

“Do you hear…bees?”

“No, it’s winter and we live in—oh my god run its a million tiny robot helicopters!”

Justified on Marital Relations

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:38:53 -0800

Raylan: What do you make of a man who divorces a woman, then gets her pregnant, then wonders if maybe they should move in together?

Boyd: Well, now, Raylan, you’re talkin’ to a man who’s sleeping with his dead brother’s widow and murderess, so if you’re looking for someone to cast stones at you on this matter I think you’ve picked the wrong sinner.

The First Lines of Nine Novels That Do Not Exist

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:33:58 -0800

The wind teased its way westward like fingers through hair.

I died yesterday; it was less permanent than one might expect.

The lightning tore out of the sky and for a moment connected Dewey Kimble to the clouds above his head. As he lay stunned and slightly ionized on the damp sidewalk, Kimble was struck again, this time by a revelation. He knew how to save the world.

Learning how to fly is exactly as awesome as you think it would be—until you swallow a bug at Mach 2.

Lenny Smitts was the greatest thief the world has ever known, as long as he never had to actually steal anything.

True hate is a learned skill. There is an art to it, roughly equivalent to the space between butcher and surgeon.

Karen stepped out of a car, five thousand miles from home. The grass smells different, she thought.

I hang off the drop clamp, watching the world beneath me. Its spin slows as we match orbit, a marble coming to rest on a black velvet cloth.

Once upon a time, we were righteous and strong and possibly even immortal. This, like all fairy tales, was a lie more important than the truth.

"I protect the word “gamification” by placing quotes around it. The quotes stop me from sneaking in..."

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 20:37:00 -0800

“

I protect the word “gamification” by placing quotes around it. The quotes stop me from sneaking in with my knife, flicking the dot off the middle i, cutting the c in half, flensing the g, gutting the f like a fish.

“Gamification” is a word and concept invented by idiocrats who confuse humane with manipulative.

”

How the Internet Gets Inside Us

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:45:12 -0800

How the Internet Gets Inside Us:

That the reality of machines can outpace the imagination of magic, and in so short a time, does tend to lend weight to the claim that the technological shifts in communication we’re living with are unprecedented. It isn’t just that we’ve lived one technological revolution among many; it’s that our technological revolution is the big social revolution that we live with.

"[T]he way I look at it, we’ve only got two options: we can either buckle down and hit the books..."

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:05:49 -0800

“[T]he way I look at it, we’ve only got two options: we can either buckle down and hit the books harder than we ever have in our entire lives, or else can can attempt to bring about the violent downfall of the institution of rule of law in the United States of America.”

- McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Look, We Can Either Study for Our Law School Finals, or We Can Bring About the Violent Dissolution of the American Legal System.

Medical History: Patient BW, DOB 2/16/1971

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:26:49 -0800

Medical History: Patient BW, DOB 2/16/1971:

Patient: Wayne, Bruce

DOB: 2/16/1971

Occupation: Industrialist

Insurance: Self-pay

Ed Yong said it best: “NEEEEEEEYAAAAAWWWWWWWW”

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:13:02 -0800

Ed Yong said it best: “NEEEEEEEYAAAAAWWWWWWWW”

"All-London drivers - also known as Green Badge drivers - need a detailed knowledge of London within..."

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:36:35 -0800

“

All-London drivers - also known as Green Badge drivers - need a detailed knowledge of London within a six mile radius of Charing Cross.

All-London drivers’ Knowledge is based on learning 320 routes (or runs). This will help them learn the 25,000 streets and 20,000 landmarks and places of interest in the six mile radius of Charing Cross.

It takes between two and four years to pass the All-London Knowledge. Once you are licensed you can work anywhere in the Greater London area.

”

- The Knowledge | Transport for London

Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:06:17 -0800

Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses:

Among his many skills, Mark Twain also possessed the ability to critique a work with such poetic savagery that his targets would be rendered illiterate:

A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are — oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.

Zynga, n. The acrid odor that accompanies bald-faced...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:50:30 -0800

Zynga, n. The acrid odor that accompanies bald-faced moneygrubbing.

Have you seen the storefront they added to Words with Friends? I thought I smelled Zynga as it was downloading.

Said storefront allows you to purchase two special abilities, “Pile” and “Word-O-Meter.” Pile shows you how many of each letter is left unplayed, and Word-O-Meter compares a word to the highest-scoring word your rack could possibly create. Playing “Pile” costs 10 of Zynga’s in-game currency, while Word-O-Meter costs 32. The above image is the pricing screen, whose economics have no doubt been massaged for maximum attractiveness.

Congratulations. Zynga’s drive to monetize absolutely everything has descended to the point where they let you pay to cheat. At online Scrabble.

Its shameless audacity is almost lovely.