My Socks Don't Fit

“Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company weacquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.”

frigging. brilliant.

[via @wired]

shortformblog:

From the story: “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications.”

hilker:

Capitalism doesn’t exist.

hipsterlibertarian:

It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of…

the best way to get down from your skyscraper is not to jump, but to go back down the way you came.

this is why i follow jeff miller.

hipsterlibertarian:

It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!

To condemn free-market capitalism because of anything going on today makes no sense. There is no evidence that capitalism exists today. We are deeply involved in an interventionist-planned economy that allows major benefits to accrue to the politically connected of both political spectrums. One may condemn the fraud and the current system, but it must be called by its proper names – Keynesian inflationism, interventionism, and corporatism.

-Ron Paul

( via bulletinmypocket)

and herein lies the irony: “capitalism” is the boogeyman used to gain more cooperation between corporations and government, further vilifying the capitalism brand. it’s a vicious cycle.

hippieflavor:

“You could soon be getting your internet at the speed of light! Well, not literally, but one company is divising a system that uses LED ceiling lights to transmit data (namely the internet) to computers equipped with special sensors. What this means is that light waves could potentially replace radio waves as  a method of transmitting data, since lights can ‘flick’ data faster than the eye can see. The company, LVX Systems, has already implemented the technology at several city offices in St. Cloud, Minnesota.”

 

“The report based on the book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses found that after two years of college, 45% of students learned little to nothing. After four years, 36% of students learned almost nothing.”

Market of Choice is a local grocery store in Eugene, OR. It’s an awesome store for a whole bunch of reasons, the following blog entry being one of them.

“These are full-year numbers from all facets of our in-store compost/recycling/trash programs at our flagship store, located at 29th & Willamette in Eugene.

The first big number is the 2010 compost total. We accounted for a whooping 200 tons of food waste that was composted, rather then sent to the landfill. This was accomplished with the help of our composting partner, Rexius. This composted material eventually finds its way to local gardens.

Add to that 200 tons of compost:
• 96 tons of mixed recyclables
• 250 tons of cardboard
• 186 tons of glass
• 4 tons plastic wrap
• 4 tons plastic
• 10 tons aluminum

That’s a grand total of 750 tons of recycled or composted materials saved from the landfill in 2010!

In comparison, the amount of trash taken to the landfill was a diminutive 186 tons, 564 tons less than what was recycled or composted. Yee ha!

This means that approximately 80 percent of our total store waste was recycled or composted last year – not bad! And I’m optimistic that we can do even better this year.”

jeffmiller:

This story is getting a lot of attention because it’s featured on Drudge right now, but it’s the kind of thing that happens all the time.  When regulations are put into place, there is rarely any real effort to understand their costs.  We make it harder to help people, just like we make it harder to hire people.  This makes hard economic times feel even harder. 

when i was in college, i befriended a guy in colorado springs who was constantly at odds with the city. the guy had a super-clean food cart - exactly like the ones who had permits - and gave out healthy food at a downtown park popular among the homeless and addicted.

armeck:

Hey, Left. You know that moment of freak out hysteria when you ironically become that thing that you seem so much to hate… yeah it’s happening right now.

Chill the f*ck out guys. Loughner was apolitical and I seriously doubt he gave a shit about Palin. So why do you care so much?

no doubt. i honestly haven’t looked beyond a couple googles, but i have yet to find any connection between loughner and palin. let no crisis go to waste indeed…