entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

My consumption of social media was heading to a bad place and taking my attention span with it, so i've logged out of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ in my browsers and devices.  Instead, i'll use LiveJournal to crosspost stuff to FB/Tw for when i actually have something useful to share, and people can comment on LJ with either account if they want me to see it right away, or on FB/Tw and i'll maybe look at it someday.  Meanwhile, i can work on focusing on stuff i want to get done at work and at home.

In the meantime, this story about chinlone, Burma's de facto national pastime, is a long but richly rewarding read.

From user beadbear:

I worked in food service in the French Quarter for many years, and have waited on most of the teams in the NFL. THE MOST curteous, well-mannered, and may I also say best-dressed team I have ever served were the Oakland Raiders. After the team paid and left, I met Al Davis. He quizzed me able how his players conduced themselves in the restaurant. he was concerned, because he had heard about the scene and utter disaster that the 49's had made, who had food fights in the dining room, broke furniture, and refused to pay their $2,000 bar tab the week before. The dining room the Niners used had to be closed the rest of the evening, due to all the broken dishes, and food everywhere. Not the Raiders, however! In fact, when they ordered it was "please" and "thank you". A couple of the defensive linemen in fact insisted on helping with the trays coming out of the kitchen. They said that they ordered a lot of food and that it wasn't fair to me to try to lift them. Mr. Davis apologised to me for the behavior of the other team. And he insisited on tipping me on behalf of the San Francisco team.Because in addition to arguing about the bar tab and the food cost (they decided not to have what had been pre-ordered, which was a lot lessmoney), I didn't get tipped, and had to spend three hours cleaning up-12 large bags of food and dishes. Al Davis was a great man. He brought energy opportunity and compassion wherever he went. He insisted that American young men of all ethnic backgrounds be afforded the chance to play in the NFL. I hope to see the day when ownership of NFL teams is as diverse as the players.

One man's quest to earn the Most Human Human award at the Turing Test.

The author calls it an essay, but i believe that it's more apposite to label his article a manifesto regarding the ownership of data.

Why has this man been donating well-made art forgeries to museums for the past three decades?

"Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin have something in common: they are both cowgirl politicians.  In this, they are symptomatic of the too-narrow ways in which the United States is willing to accept women as leaders."

There is a 14-year-old girl who lives in poverty in Uganda who said to her chess coach, "Coach, I will be a grandmaster someday."

A woman who has no amygdala and no fear.

If i told you that 80% of the antibiotics sold in the US were sold for farm animals, you might be skeptical of my claim; but would you believe the FDA?

The Best Magazine Articles Ever

If Ken Thompson calls himself a programmer, not a developer, or an engineer, then anyone who shares that profession should follow suit.  I don't care that this article is over 20 years old, damn it.  Now get off my lawn.

Scientists from Tübingen, Germany, show that people really walk in circles when lost.

You might remember that i quite enjoyed I ♥ Huckabees; this long essay about the movie is what i would have written if i were in any way qualified to write about philosophy.

Offsides rule in futbol is like calling a violation if the Lakers don't pass three times before a shot. Artificial and unnecessary.

I'm not sure what qualifies as "artificial" in a game that is, perforce, man-made, but as far as weird rules that feel forced, football's "players with numbers in certain ranges may not be downfield to receive a forward pass unless they report to the referee as eligible" rule is pretty high on my list.  In baseball, there's the classic infield fly rule.  And then there's basketball, with multiple instances of rules created to stop a single player (e.g., George Mikan, Wilt Chamberlain); how's that for "artificial"?

You know what?  I'm officially done with you.  Your insane, stultifying Murray Chass impersonation in your AVClub interview where you babble about how much you hate the stat revolution in basketball was hugely disappointing, but then you followed that up with your craven, spoiled whinge about Belichick's 4th-and-2 decision.  You're transparently trying to become once more a "tortured Boston sports fan".  Your efforts are effectively a karmic counterweight to that wonderful, sublime article about the Dooze you wrote in January; in effect, you shat all over it.

So go cry to your daddy if you want, and do what you have to do to keep the gravy train going, but i am no longer going to tolerate the insipid and inane references to embarrassing crap like pro wrestling, reality TV, and pornography because "in the end, you're entertaining."  You aren't entertaining anymore; you're just another mainstream mediot with a disproportionate sense of self who's desperately opposed to admitting that things often change counterintuitively for the better.  Keep it up, and your kids will be hating your guts in a dozen years.

... as if millions of Patriots fans suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

That exchange in the comments section?  That was mine.  You jerks stole my thunder by attributing my words to the clueless windbag before me.  And now my wit is gone from the original article!  I blame you, oh yes.

On Thursday, many talk_bizarre members converged upon haineux's house due to the visit of justjenine and torkington and their two little Torklets.  Alas, 2wanda couldn't come because she was stuck at work.

On Friday, i took my wife out on a dinner date and enjoyed entirely too much German food, washed down with a liter of beer.

On Saturday, Kimmy and i split our time between two parties: racerxmachina's birthday party, and a gathering of Centavo (my Thursday soccer team) for BBQ at Dino's place.  Both events featured somewhat athletic activities; racerxmachina had piñatas and balloon batting, whereas Dino had a bocce court (Dino mentioned that his dad laid down the oystershell bocce courts at the Campo di Bocce in Los Gatos, which i've been meaning to patronize almost since i first noticed it about a dozen years ago).

On Sunday, after community garden duty, we had lunch with sandollar17, her mom, and her Spanish friend Ana, who's been visiting for the last three weeks.  Then we took Ana shopping at the mall... the goddamn mall.  After that harrowing experience, we had to go to Rock Bottom for some beer (BJ's is too damn full of yuppies and other pretty people).

All these damn friends and relatives making demands on our time... it's ridiculous and exhausting.  Life was easier when we were hermits.

Jason Elam, the kicker for the Denver Broncos, and his pastor have written a novel titled "Monday Night Jihad".  The protagonist is a veteran who plays pro football after his tour of duty, but is pulled back into fighting in the Middle East.

divisadero embedded a preview to possibly the greatest videogame-based movie of all time.

Remember Liquid Television?  sanspoof linked to something that reminds me heavily of the best parts from that show.  As far as LTV goes, one short that always stuck with me was "The Running Man" (part 1/part 2); the haunting music in the final minute remained imperfectly in my memory, so that when i first heard Michael Hedges's "Spare Change", i thought it was the music they used in the cartoon (it isn't).  Although there isn't a performance of "Spare Change" on YouTube, there is a huge amount of Michael Hedges content there, and, well, thank god for YouTube, because now i've seen Michael Hedges play.  Unless you know tronpublic, you've probably never seen anyone play guitar the way Hedges plays "Silent Anticipations".

Theo Jansen is a kinetic sculptor.  He does amazing stuff.

Via warrenelliscom, a levitating, powered lightbulb.  Thank you, Nikola Tesla, wherever you are.

"It took my 8-year-old son just a few seconds to shake loose some hidden history from within the official transcript of the [Coalition Provisional Authority]."  Thank you, Microsoft Word.

"Just think about your options.  You know Coach isn't going to give you back your scholarship just like that.  If she finds out [that you're pregnant] and if you decide to keep it, that's gone."