jeneralize

Ever notice how the fundamental well-being of a small company is usually directly correlated with the quality of the admin person? They smooth out the bumps, connect the dots, provide assistance small and large and generally act as a cheering, competent, soothing presence that keeps chaos at bay.

Well, if you need somebody like this, I know somebody who will be available soon. And if you ask me very, very nicely (via a comment) and pass a rigorous battery of tests to prove that you are worthy, I might put you in touch.

Edit: Note that I manually approve all comments, so you can add a comment with your contact information and it will not be published on this site.

Probably, if bigotry and sexism are defined as having implicit mental associations between specific behaviours and roles and specific sexes or racial groups.

Find out: http://www.implicit.harvard.edu

The Implicit Association Test measures reactive relationships between human distinctions (male / female, black / white, gay / straight, etc) and characteristics (entrepreneur / homemaker, tragic / happy, humiliate / pleasure, etc). The test measures how quickly you associate distinctions and characteristics: when the word “entrepreneur” flashes on the screen, does it take you longer to associate that word with “female” than with “male”? Do you associate negative words more quickly with pictures of black people than of white people?

Probably yes. Probably yes, even if your negative associations regard your own sex or race.

Malcolm Gladwell says in his book “blink” that fifty percent of black people have stronger positive associations with white people than with people of their own race.

WTF is that all about? It’s about the way our mind - our “subconscious” - does its own thing, sucks in its own information and makes its own judgements, regardless of our sensibilities, our analytical abilities, our choices our freedom our concerted efforts to rise out of ignorance and nastiness.

Frankly, this whole subconscious business just pisses me off.

I used to think that Internet anonymizers were the purview of child porn aficionados. But these days, it seems that thinking and writing can be construed as a criminal activity, or at least indicative of the intent to commit a crime, at least to the degree of making you someone “of interest”, worthy of getting pulled out of the lineup at the Arrivals terminal in Miama while on your way to Disneyworld with your kids.

As seen on Newsforge: Securing your online privacy with Tor

My coworker Andy blogged His Ideal Fight. I think men are at a disadvantage when it comes to fantasy fighting, even if the demographics around slaughter movies and pile-’o-corpses video games suggests otherwise. Women have deeply repressed desires to kick the shit out of someone(s), but they’ve been so effectively de-socialized regarding violence that these desires are left to grumble and stomp around in their alligator brains.

My dream fight, like Andy’s, starts with a real incident: Recently, while walking my dog, I was followed for a couple of blocks (weirdly and scarily deserted in the middle of the day) by a psychotic junkie screaming threats and invective. Most of the Psychotic Junkie’s dialog below is from the real incident, except for his screaming.

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Cue danger-type music (Jaws-ish, but not Jaws)
Camera: pan to show deserted streets, gradually pull in as junkie approaches the soon-to-be victim (me)

Over the soundtrack, we hear a low, ominous growl (Oi the Beagle doesn’t really have a low, ominous growl in her vocal repertoire - she has a kind of chain-saw rrrRRRrrrYIP! sound she saves for the seagulls that land on our skylight - but, hey, it’s my dream.)

Psychotic Junkie: Where ya going, ya ****ing **nt? Why the hurry? (peals of evil Psychotic Junkie laughter)

Jen and Oi walk faster. (This is a theatrical device known as “suspense”.) (more…)

“It is true that Internet Explorer has been increasing market share from 1997 to 1999. But I predict that IE will never reach the same market dominance as that enjoyed by line-mode, Mosaic and Netscape from 1991 to 1996.”

Dr. Neilsen was basing his prediction on the assumption that browser usage would be determined by rationial choice, rather than monopolistic business practices. Too bad it didn’t work out that way.

Added March 4: Oh yeah - monopolistic business practices and the whole Netscape / AOL debacle. Can’t forget that.

The story (below) of the man whose spleen was removed and turned into a multi-billion dollar investment is not funny - it’s scary. But it reminds me of the time when my appendix was removed.

I asked if I could have it. (I had this idea of pickling it in a jar or freezing it or something.) They (the pre-op team) said no. I asked if they could at least hang on to it long enough so that I could see it. They said no. (I also asked “What does that machine do?”, “Is there going to be blood splatters on your scrubs? On the walls?” and “Can I stay awake for the operation? I’d like to watch.” The answer was “Okay, now start counting backwards from 100…”)

Okay, okay, maybe they didn’t take me seriously because of my state of Hospital-Heroin-Highness. But would they, under any circumstances, have given me back my organ?

I suspect not. And I wonder how it is that the ownership rights to our bodies, the most primary and tangible of all our belongings, can be revoked - without consultation, without consent, without even disclosure - by the medical profession.

“When Moore’s spleen was removed to treat a rare form of leukemia, his University of California doctor patented a cell line taken from his organ, without Moore’s knowledge or permission. The longterm market value of the patent has been estimated at roughly $3 billion, and Moore’s doctor received $3 million in stocks from Genetics Institute, the firm that marketed and developed a drug based on the patent.”

Moore sued and lost.

From Freedom of Expression ®, Overzealous Copyright Bozos
and Other Enemies of Creativity (PDF), by Kembrew McLeod.

…the weird turn pro.” Rest in peace, Dr. T.