January 2011
50 posts
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“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your...”
– Maya Angelou (via kari-shma)
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Why secondhand bookstores (and libraries!) smell...
mcnallyjackson:
powells:
Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a...
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I quit following some Tumblrs
I’m sorry, folks. I swear it’s not personal—I just gotta cut back. Some days I’m clicking refresh on Tumblr when I *should* be doing work-related tasks.
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Watching Our Researchers Like a Hawk « Library of... →
A hawk has got into the main reading room of the Library of Congress. Watch out for the egregious puns!
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The terror of knowing what this world is about →
As I always say, if you’re not reading this guy, why the hell not? Here he celebrates Judge John Roll’s heroism during the terrible shooting in Arizona.
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How You Shop When You Are Poor
elfstaranymore:
I had to put this behind a cut because it’s way long for Tumblr, but I really hope you’ll read it because I think it’s a very important post.
I started discussing this a little bit here, but I wanted to expand on the idea of how shopping on a very tight budget works, because obviously some people have no idea. I will add the caveat that this is how shopping was done in my...
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“The law discriminates against rape victims in a manner which would not be...”
– (via blackenedbutterfly)
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"The Time of Angels"
We watched this for the second time last night on a new TV with built-in DVD player, in the comfort of bed. Weeping angels are still the scariest thing ever. The Daleks are important but not scary, not any more; they epitomise everything the Doctor opposes, being humorless, violent, elitist, conformist, exploitative, etc. He wins his battles against them but never quite wins the war. But the...
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More Trekkie thoughts
The problem with “The Naked Now” is that it seems to come too early in the show. We don’t really know the characters at all; we don’t know enough about their public, professional selves to be astonished by a revelation of their deeper inner selves. “The Naked Time” was only the fourth episode of the Original Series, yet the preceding episodes had already...
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“When Lord Buddha spoke about suffering, he wasn’t referring simply to...”
– Lama Yeshe (via ageofreason)
A lot of Westerners are now translating “dukkha” as “dissatisfaction” rather than “suffering”.
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let's pretend we don't exist: haterina: “Political... →
haterina:
“Political Correctness” is a reactionary term against the loss of privilege.
Laurence Berg, Canada Research Chair for Human Rights, Diversity and Identity, disagrees with the idea that PC language and policies are oppressive. Why? Because he doesn’t really believe that PC…
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Oh Gene Roddenberry no
Some of those early Next Gen eps… “seriously embarrassing” does not even begin to cover it.
Riker’s naked face scares me. Troi’s bun scares me even more. And Patrick Stewart seems to have completely forgotten he was an RSC-trained British Ac-Tor for, like, two or three seasons.
I spent a good deal of “The Naked Now” comparing different people’s...
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“The longing for light is the longing for consciousness.”
– C. G. Jung (1875 - 1961) From The Tao of Photography. (via crashinglybeautiful)
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Shakespeare and Arthur →
mhaskell:
One of my favorite Arthur questions has always been: Why didn’t Shakespeare write about King Arthur?
Tim Pratt, Jenn Reese, Heather Shaw, Greg van Eekhout have an answer at Daily Science Fiction in their short story, “A is for Arthur.”
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“Most meditation is thinking about meditation – its not actually meditating....”
– Dr. Reginald A. Ray. From the Rev. Danny Fisher (via crashinglybeautiful)
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