Chris Grinolds

Guns are one of the greatest forces of inequality that I can think of. They give power to those who wield them over those who don’t. The idea that we should all get armed in response to this is about as sensible as suggesting that we should all get infected with HIV so we can stop wearing condoms.

This discussion has moved to the back burner, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Sadly, we’ll probably see another tragedy in the next few months that will make the conversation flare up again, and even more sadly, it’s likely that nothing will be done. The NRA has roughly 5 million members, but they’re so vocal and spend so much money lobbying that their opinion outweighs the 270 million Americans who want to hold gun owners accountable. When will the nonsense stop?

I’m safe. You are safe. 99.999999% of the country is safe. But there never is a completely safe, and there never will be.

Boom. Take a step back and think about the fact that at any time, anywhere something insane like this could happen. Then, go back to living your life. No sense in stressing out about things you can’t control or anticipate.

Grantland gives the Leonard Cooper story like only they can.

Amazon, as best I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers. The shareholders put up the equity, and instead of owning a claim on a steady stream of fat profits, they get a claim on a mighty engine of consumer surplus. Amazon sells things to people at prices that seem impossible because it actually is impossible to make money that way.

It’s really insane, the model they’ve managed to work out. Makes you wonder how long Wall Street will continue to play, and more interestingly, what happens then. Amazon’s far too large, with way too much intrinsic value to simply disappear.

“A.I.G. doesn’t owe loyalty to the government,” a person close to Mr. Greenberg said. “It owes loyalty to its shareholders.”

Fuck you Maurice Greenberg. I hope you get laughed out of court.

Newtown, Conn.A gun lobby that no longer even has the need to hold to its empty credo that guns don’t kill, people do. Now, we are excusing the people as well, eschewing even the personal responsibility that conservatives so often exalt. Now, guns don’t kill and neither do people. Now, shit just happens, with our freshest legalisms simply rationalizing our preference for pride and property over human life.

Ignoring the issue doesn’t make it go away.

nycgov:

“With all the carnage from gun violence in our country, it’s still almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. It has come to that. Not even kindergarteners learning their A,B,Cs are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun…

[T]oday we’re proud to announce that we’re leading an $85 million round in zulily, an event sales site that offers daily deals for moms, babies and kids.

So….. we’re doing….. ok.

Matt Inman, killing it as always.

Change is a motherfucker when you run from it. And right now, the conservative movement in America is fleeing from change that is certain and immutable. A man of color is president for the second time, and this happened despite a struggling economic climate and a national spirit of general discontent. He has been returned to office over the specific objections of the mass of white men. He has instead been re-elected by women, by people of color, by homosexuals, by people of varying religions or no religion whatsoever. Behold the New Jerusalem. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a white man, of course. There’s nothing wrong with being anything. That’s the point.

So, this means that the initial report that Ryan washed clean dishes is inaccurate. Instead, his people actually called ahead and instructed the soup kitchen to leave some dishes unwashed so that he could wash them for a photo.

That’s a great work ethic. Ask other people to put the work off and wait around so you can handle it when you get there. Way to go.

squashed:

Generally, there’s nothing wrong with asking people to take responsibility for their actions to avoid social ills. Stop littering. Spay or neuter your pets. Vaccinate your children. Get up early enough to eat breakfast so you’re not so grouchy at work. If your diet is making you sick, change it….

How many hours do you need to work in a day at minimum wage to be required to pay income tax? The answer may surprise you.

parislemon:

“There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.”

—

Marissa Mayer, in late 2005, when she was still Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. 

Liz Gannes was quick to remember this comment today in light of the new crazy, flashy, graphical doodad flying and popping all over the Google site.

The sad part is this isn’t the first time.

[Superior Court Commissioner Karen Riley]  tells U-T San Diego that she listened to the physics argument but much of it went over her head. Riley says she found Krioukov not guilty because the officer who cited him wasn’t close enough to the intersection to have a good view.

Idiocracy at its finest. The man presents a valid, scientific argument proving his innocence, and the judge doesn’t bother to understand it. Well done.

Fuck yes. This. Needs. To. Happen. The fact that we don’t have a functional transit system in this city is just plain sad. All the people commuting in via car, by themselves, and paying for parking is stupid, expensive and inefficient. Let’s stop this madness and fix the problem.

Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.

Pretty slick, and the “glasses” aren’t obnoxious looking either.

This guy wins at life.

Do you want to live in a world where the primary function of any organization, from schools to prisons, is simply to make profit for the corporate owners? I sure as hell don’t.

We seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from a larger prison population.

Impressive.

parislemon:

iOS and Mac developer David Smith on the latest iOS 5.1 upgrade numbers based on the data from his popular Audiobooks app:

It took iOS just 15 days to get the same percentage of users on the latest OS version as are currently on any single version of Android.

It took just over two weeks to get 61% of users on iOS 5.1. This is the same distribution percentage as the most widely-used Android version, 2.3, Gingerbread — which is a year and a half old. Two major Android versions have been released since then, but combine for under 5% of total usage still. 

And if you narrow it down to only include those who can get iOS OTA updates (iOS 5 users), the adoption rate of iOS 5.1 in two weeks is almost 80%.

[thanks Spencer]

This isn’t religious persecution… There’s no place for anti-science propaganda at NASA.

This explains a lot, actually.

“We must outsmart the liberals,” Cain said. “We must outsmart the people who are trying to ruin this country.” But, he said, it wasn’t just the stupid people who were ruining the country: “Stupid and ignorant people are ruining America,” Cain posited — and running it.

Wait. What?